163. alexipharmic

teeth_beachMy dislike of horror films goes back to an aversion to lack of control. I can still recall having the bejeezus scared out of me in that scene in The Princess Bride where Fezzik throws a rock at Westley’s head. The Fire Swamp and the ROUS were no problem, but for the first couple dozen times, though I knew what was coming and when, I’d still look away or leave the room until it was over.

Even today I watch scary movies by focusing on the lower left-hand corner. I found this advice a long time ago, that nothing ever happens there. It’s the combination of the visuals and the sound that cause my primitive lizard-primate amygdala to kick into high gear.

Friends of mine who love horror films, and even commentaries I’ve read on this, all talk about how the allure of the genre is that it makes you feel alive. In witnessing the (albeit simulated) gruesome ends of other human beings that, with the adrenaline rush and flood of other hormones, the viewer appreciates the fact that they’re not being devoured by zombies or vivisected by a crazy man with a chainsaw. It’s the relief of knowing the other monkey got eaten by the tiger and that you’ve lived to peel another banana. And, on some level, it speaks to the Marquis de Sade lurking in all of us.

It’s not that I’m squeamish. One of my favorite shows is Showtime’s Dexter, where a serial killer conscientiously (and creatively) dispatches other killers who slip through the cracks in the criminal justice system. It’s a show that has brought “kill room” into the cultural lexicon. It’s more that horror films have a way of haunting and lingering in my already overactive imagination.

This past weekend I discovered a new way of staying clear of horror movie dread. My boyfriend and his family enjoy scary movies, and the other day we were watching a 2007 German film called Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story, a 2003 movie inspired by the Armin Meiwes cannibal murder. If you can’t recall this story, it’s the one in which a German man (Meiwes) wrote an advert seeking a male volunteer who wanted to be killed and eaten. His lamb (or pig, I suppose, since human flesh allegedly tastes like pork) came in the person of Bernd Jürgen Brandes. In the film the names are changed, but the events mirror reality, as summarized by the Wikipedia page on Meiwes:

As is known from a videotape the two made when they met on 9 March 2001 in Meiwes’s home in the small town of Rotenburg, Meiwes amputated Brandes’ penis and the two men attempted to eat the penis together before Brandes was killed. Brandes had insisted that Meiwes attempt to bite his penis off. This did not work and ultimately, Meiwes used a knife to remove Brandes’ penis. Brandes apparently tried to eat some of his own penis raw, but could not because it was too tough and, as he put it, “chewy”. Meiwes then fried the penis in a pan with salt, pepper, wine and garlic; he then fried it with some of Brandes’ fat but by then it was too burned to be consumed. He then chopped it up into chunks and fed it to his dog.

In a post-Saw and –Hostel movie market, it’s perversely refreshing to find a film based on actual events instead of merely the sick and twisted things that people dream up. Hostel, according to the filmmakers, is supposedly based on “actual events” – in this case, rumors of $10,000 Thai “murder vacations.” This is not entirely far-fetched, for as writer David Sedaris writes in his book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames:

Tell someone the police picked you up in Bangkok, and they reasonably assume that, after having sex with the eight-year-old, you turned her inside out and roasted her over hot coals, this last part, the cooking without a permit, being illegal under Thai law.

Jason and I were watching Butterfly in his bedroom one evening a few hours before bed – you know, to unwind. He recently inherited an armchair from his grandmother, and it now rests adjacent to the television. It’s positioned so that it’s possible to lean comfortably (and safely) over to see what’s happening on screen. So while he was on the bed watching the movie, I was in the armchair with my trusty 760-page Jon Meacham biography of Thomas Jefferson (which is an absolute marvel of nonfiction and highly recommended, in my opinion).

Occasionally something would happen or Jason would make a comment about the movie, and I’d look up from my biography to peer over. My take on the movie is that it tries to put a desperate sympathetic spin on some very sick and twisted people. In the film, Meiwes becomes Oliver Hartwin, a gay man whose crazy, possessive mother drowned, leaving him riddled with guilt over her death. Brandes becomes Simon Grombeck. Keri Russell plays a criminal psychology student who’s obsessed with the case.

Throughout the movie I kept waiting for the Sassy Gay Friend to swoosh in to scold everyone, yelling, “What are you doing? What, what, what are you doing?” It’s a story of people making extremely poor life decisions; of looking a gift lion in the mouth and doing a triple salchow into its gaping maw.

No, that’s not a half-digested gazelle carcass in the lion’s stomach. It’s your own butchered and mangled corpse sizzling in a frying pan!

It wouldn’t have been so horrific had this not been a true story: that a grown man let another man try to bite his penis off. Most people watch this and wonder what could happen to bring two people to the edge of that cliff: a cannibal writes an ad, an equally crazy victim answers it, and then both of them jump off into the unthinkable.

I watch it knowing how close we probably are to becoming our own horror stories.

162. amygdaliform

This post is a mirror of one I just published over at www.GayWithoutGod.com. I’m publishing it here too because it’s worth reading, and so that I can get back to my new Jon Meacham biography of Thomas Jefferson!

A recent article in the LA Times reports that the Associated Press is distancing itself from use of the term “homophobia” in its hallowed Style Book. (For those outside of journalism, this is the Bible for press editors and writers.)

The wire service’s online style book recently recommended against the use of “phobia” in “political and social contexts.” That means terms like “homophobia” and “Islamophobia” will become rarer in the many publications that operate under AP style.

Watch Your Language…

To be fair, there are potentially valid reasons driving this move. Over the past year and a half it seems usage of “homophobia” has increased dramatically. It’s become the new “racism” – the proverbial gauntlet to the face, with anything perceived as anti-gay quickly labeled “homophobic.” Chick-fil-A. Tracy Morgan. Fox News anchor Tricia Macke. Even socialite Paris Hilton was recently accused of hatin’ on the gays.

As AP Deputy Standards Editor Dave Minthorn told Politico:

. . . “homophobia” is often “off the mark” as a descriptor. . . . “It seems inaccurate. Instead, we would use something more neutral: anti-gay, or some such, if we had reason to believe that was the case.”

Crying Wolf?

The website nohomophobes.com tracks usage of anti-gay language on Twitter: words like “faggot,” “dyke,” “no homo” and “so gay.” (Apparently no homo is “a term used by straight guys who are insecure with their masculinity” to clear up confusion over something a guy says or does that may be perceived by others as gay, according to tagdef.com. You learn something new every day.)

tweets about homophobiaThe above image is just a snapshot of the home page. By the time I’d finished editing the picture (which took about a minute), mentions of “faggot” had risen to 22,935. The reality of chronic homophobia in American culture is still very real, and not something to ignore.

However, is everything labeled “homophobic” actually homophobic? Are all of the above tweets indicative of gay bashing just waiting to explode? Is Dave Minthorn correct that it’s inaccurate? Or is the meaning of the term cheapened by its quick-trigger usage?

Name Calling v. Calling a Spade

The definition of homophobia is “irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals” (Merriam-Webster).

During this past election season here in Minnesota, I had to limit myself from using “homophobia” or “bigot” too often. Even when it was really tempting, and even when the shoe clearly fit, as it did on many occasions. It was almost too easy to resort to it, like a fallback. And it does tend to shut down conversations and put everyone on the defense.

At the same time, I worried about caving to pressure to be conciliatory, to be too courteous to those who were trying to take away my rights. The LA Times article later quoted John McIntyre of the Baltimore Sun: “Homophobia gets used because it is useful in describing an identifiable phenomenon.” There’s a difference between name calling and calling out people for hurtful behavior.

There’s a big difference between “You’re a homophobe” and “That’s homophobic.” Nouns name. Adjectives describe. My conservative Christian parents may not necessarily hate gays or be disgusted by us, but their behavior certainly doesn’t indicate that they love us. They may not tell me outright that they believe I’m going to hell, or that I’m an abomination and a pervert. But they have told me I need therapy, that I don’t deserve to be legally married just as my younger sister was four years ago, and that they won’t acknowledge any relationship I’m ever in, no matter how committed.

Whether or not their behavior is fueled by fear or disgust is another matter. But their behavior is clearly homophobic. Does that make them homophobes? Possibly, but the issue is more nuanced than that. And that may be what the AP is trying to get at.

It’s Not Time to Back Down

Whether or not the decision is a right one is a topic for for discussion. And there will be. This may be an olive branch to Evangelicals and conservatives after the recent marriage equality victories in the U.S. and across the world. If so, it’s a potentially wrong-headed approach. They may have been defeated, but they’re just regrouping, so now is not the time to back down when we can actually make progress towards equality.

Of course, if this is a call to be more responsible and purposeful about language and how we conduct conversations, it could be quite useful. We shouldn’t be stooping to label our opponents into boxes for the purpose of dismissing them. As Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “never underestimate your opponent.”

But one thing we can’t do is stop talking about homophobia and its effect on adults and children alike. We need to stop being polite when politicians say hateful things about the LGBT community. What we can do is adapt our methods and change how we talk about these issues. Instead of letting them control the conversation, we can be getting to know friends and neighbors and dissolving the lies and slander by simply being decent human beings.

Our opponents know they’re fighting a losing war, and that it’s only a matter of time before people stop listening to them. After all, if evolution teaches us anything it’s that those who fail to adapt ultimately fail to survive.

160. pidgeonhole

A few days ago in the New York Times there was a 5,700-word piece about Ashlyn Blocker, a.k.a. “the girl who feels no pain.” She was born with a rare condition called congenital analgesia, better known as “congenital insensitivity to pain.” It never occurred to me how important pain really is to social animals like ourselves, who are in almost constant danger from even the moment we are conceived.

These kids walk barefoot over broken glass, touch hot stoves, break bones, chew off parts of their tongues, all without feeling pain. When Ashlyn was very young, her parents brought her to bed with them, with her mother holding her hands “so [Ashlyn] wouldn’t chew on her skin or rub her eyes during the night.” The article begins with a story of her reaching into boiling water to retrieve a spoon. These children can lose limbs but only experience the fear of seeing that part of their body gone — but not feel a thing.

Last night I had a heated argument with my boyfriend, Jason. As most fights go, it was over something relatively minor. While cleaning his room he’d found a necklace that his grandmother had given him. This necklace has a cross dangling from it. When I saw that he had hung it up in his bedroom, I asked him if he had to have it there. He said that he did, as it carries importance to him as an artifact of his grandmother’s, who is still alive and very close to him. He’s had close calls with death, having survived a brain tumor and related medical complications, so I understand its significance to him.

However, I objected to the cross since for me it’s a symbol of oppression and torture, both in the historical and personal sense. Virtually since it was adopted by the Church as its emblem about 600 years after Jesus was supposedly nailed to it, it has gone before Crusader armies and presided over Inquisitions, both Catholic and Protestant. Ignoring the fact that the common form of the crux romanus was in the shape of a letter T, with a cross-piece attached to a stake, countless saviors have been crucified in myths throughout history: Krishna, Wittoba, the Celtic god Hesus, the Mexican god Quetzalcoatl, and the Persian god Mithras — to name a few.

Moreover, it’s a hideous torture and execution device. For those who say that it represents the love of God (John 3:16), it’s curious to me that it was so necessary for God to have himself murdered by the imperfect people he created as a sacrifice to himself to make up for how imperfect the people he made were — and are. Why not just forgive sins instead of literally making a martyr of yourself?

Of course, that presumes a major assumption that there are any sins to forgive. The so-called “original sin” committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden never took place because the Garden of Eden is fictional, just as Adam and Eve are mythical. According to Christian teachings, that first sin was imputed to the entire human race, therefore precipitating the need for Jesus’ supposed sacrifice. However, if there was no original sin to forgive, what was the need, exactly?

The real reason I find the cross so offensive though is that it represents for me 25 years of agonizing over my sexuality, and 28 years of desperately trying to believe what I believed the Bible, my church and my family told me I needed to believe. There were so many nights I was kept awake by the anguish I felt over my doubts and my perceived lack of belief, and as I got older the abhorrent sexual feelings for other men that were stirring within me. For Jason that cross represents his loved ones and his connection to his family. For me, it represents everything I’ve lost, and all of the time that I wasted trying to be a good Christian — time I’ll never get back.

I had a long talk last night at home with my friend Emily about the fight, and what it was really over. She asked a question that both Jason and my therapist Sarah have asked: do you blame yourself for not leaving sooner? Yes, I do blame myself for lacking the courage to come out earlier. But this is how Richard Dawkins opens The God Delusion, with a story about his wife:

As a child, my wife hated her school and wished she could leave. Years later, when she was in her twenties, she disclosed this unhappy fact to her parents, and her mother was aghast: ‘But darling, why didn’t you come to us and tell us?’ Lalla’s reply is my text for today: ‘But I didn’t know I could.’

Here’s the crux: I didn’t know that I could have left Christianity, or come out as a gay man. Yes, I had doubts and there were numerous red flags raised over the years that I learned to think my way around or ignore; but it was either follow the Bible, or go to Hell. More than eternal damnation, I was terrified of my parents’ rejection and the reprisal of my church community. It wasn’t until I’d drifted away from those relationships and the fear of losing them and God had faded sufficiently that I was able to speak my mind and admit that I didn’t believe in God.

Yes, religion is a tool that can be used for good or evil. Trouble is, there’s no one to be angry at. My parents were brainwashed, just as were the other adults in my life growing up were. Their only concern is for my soul, not my feelings.

Just as Ashlyn Blocker has no idea what pain feels like, those who haven’t suffered abuse at the hands of religious people can’t understand what the cross looks like to those who have. It’s beautiful to them, but a putrid symbol of hatred to me.

159. disbosom

First of all, the eight-year-old in me finds the word “disbosom” so snortingly hilarious, but it’s precisely the reason why I love the Dictionary.com Word of the Day. It’s an eighteenth century word meaning to reveal, to confess, as in “baring your soul” or “the naked truth.” Words are a window into the sensibilities of another age, when they actually meant something to the people who used them. Today words seem little more than candy bar wrapping paper — disposable, cheap, trivial. I find particular awe in the opening words of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word.” While I no longer believe in the literal factualness of this idea, that God created everything, it’s still a beautiful image of creating through speech. It’s the dream of every writer to give his or her words life so that they may convey everything that can’t be expressed on paper.

Today I received a response to a comment I left on a blog several weeks ago during the national gay marriage debate that sprang up over the recent (and it turns out, successful) marriage equality initiatives. It was clear that this woman meant well and wanted me to know that God loves me, even though I don’t believe in him and am living a lifestyle that this God apparently thinks is an abomination.

She also pointed me to a blog entry written by a young man named Matt Moore who has been sharing his story of apparently finding Jesus on the floor of a gay club. (Or so she says. I’m skeptical about that claim.) One of his recent blog entries is entitled HIV/AIDS & The Hope Of The Gospel, in which he recounts a close call he had with contracting the virus. This apparently led him to conclude that being gay is a sin, and he claims to have “left the homosexual lifestyle,” which as we all know is code for going “ex-gay.” Whether that means attempting to change his orientation through therapy or “praying away” the gay, or turning to a celibate lifestyle is uncertain.

What I am certain of is that my heart is absolutely breaking for this young (and, if I may say so, very attractive) man. He’s had a hell of a time, and his story is rife with abuse and sadness. And this is precisely the kind of person that the Church preys on, exploiting the feelings of self-loathing programmed into them by society and promising deliverance, if not here then in the hereafter.

As an atheist, I don’t believe that there is anybody minding the store with a broom and dustpan at the ready to sweep up the mess and set everything right at the end of the day. I believe that, if we’re lucky, we have 70-80 years of existence on this planet, and then that’s it. There is no great reckoning. No big reward. No eternal punishment. We have one go at this life, so why waste it strapping yourself into a straight jacket to please the jackals who preach their toxic hatred from the pulpit?

I can understand how someone who fell into a lifestyle of promiscuous sex and drugs for a while would want to run from all of that. Many alcoholics pick up their entire lives to start over, leaving behind the environment and the people who enabled their addiction. But homosexuality is not an addiction. It’s an orientation, something deep in the wiring of the brain that leads some of us to seek out members of the same sex as mates. Unlike most animals, we’re capable of much more than just breeding. As primates, we’re highly complex social animals. We can form pair bonds, and build emotional and romantic connections with our partners. What conservatives like to describe as “homosexual behavior” is behavior we find among heterosexuals as well. But just because many homosexuals have engaged in that kind of party lifestyle doesn’t mean that all homosexuals do.

Most of the gay men I know are in committed relationships of some kind. The single gays I know are looking for committed relationships. With the introduction of more LGBT characters in movies and television, our community is moving from the fringes of an underground lifestyle to the mainstream. We don’t want a sling in the bedroom, or a dungeon in the basement. We want the house in the suburbs with the dog, the neighbors, the couch and the mortgage. That is to say, everything we associate with heterosexual marriage. Is this the gays trying to emulate the “straights”? I don’t think so.

Those things don’t just symbolize heterosexual marriage. They symbolize adult commitment, setting down roots with the person you love and care deeply for. Of course, those symbols are going to be different for each person. For example, I could never see myself as a suburban couple, with the Subaru jeep, picket fence and 2.8 kids. Maybe a dog. Jason and I don’t really see ourselves as a “planted” couple. We want to travel, live in foreign countries, study abroad, and see and learn as much as we can. But we want to do it together.

A few weeks ago I attended a wedding of a friend of mine. I know for a fact her now-husband has struggled with same-sex attraction. Another friend of mine there confirmed that many of the other guys there also struggle. It breaks my heart because I know what they believe their God is demanding of them, and I also know they have been conditioned to not see it as a burden. The author of the first epistle of Peter writes:

“But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:13)

They honestly believe overcoming their homosexual feelings is suffering for Christ. This is the evil humans do with religion.

As the character of Auntie Mame says in the stage play, “Life’s a banquet, and most poor bastards are starving to death.”

158. climacteric

Most people will make a few bad decisions in their lives. Drink too much, get arrested, shave your head, get a tongue piercing or a dumb tattoo. I like to think that my poor decision was voting for George W. Bush in 2004. To be fair, the alternative was John Kerry. Now, if I’d been voting in the 2000 election, which I missed participating in by just a few months (why couldn’t my parents have had sex a few months earlier?), I’d’ve voted for Al Gore hands down. Or at least I like to think that I would’ve. Vote for the nerd over the nincompoop? Is that even a choice?

My political affiliations have changed radically in the last ten years or so. Most of it has reflected my steady shift towards atheism and abandoning the fundamentalist beliefs of my childhood. My parents, who will be voting for Romney (because at least he believes in God) and “Yes” on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment, are staunch Republicans, and believe that how elections go will determine how God will judge America. They also believe that Jesus is coming back to swoop all the Christians up into heaven one of these days. Personally, I hope they’re right about that part.

But my other poor decision was to attend Northwestern College in Saint Paul, MN. It’s a small conservative Christian liberal arts college. It had a good music composition program, which was my focus then. (Another poor decision — not majoring in something practical).

The past few weeks I’ve had some interactions with students there via my writing on several online journals and newspapers about the marriage amendment. The Huffington Post ran a story today about Northwestern students “proudly” voicing their support for “traditional” marriage. Here are a few of the students’ reasons:

I’m voting Yes because…

This is actually a great cross-section of why Christians support this amendment. Moreover, these responses highlight the intellectual poverty of these young people, and of the pro-amendment folks, and of the community that celebrates willful ignorance.

This also highlights how much the Minnesota for Marriage people have distorted the reality that this amendment isn’t about voting to legalize same-sex marriage, as they’re doing in Washington, Maryland and Maine. This is about voting whether or not to permanently ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota — or at least put it off for another two years.

To the “Our future depends on it” girl: You think your petty, misogynistic God is going to destroy America because gays decide to, oh, make life-long commitments to each other? — which a lot fucking more than most Christians can claim these days. (Especially Christians from Northwestern. Hm.) Or perhaps you think that, as Chris Kluwe suggested, once gays are allowed to marry that your super-duper Christian youth pastor boyfriend will decide to leave the closet he’s been hiding in and become a “lustful cockmonster.” If that’s the case, then he was never yours to begin with.

To the “arrow pointing to girlfriend” guy: You’re going to vote to deny gay people their constitutional rights because you have a girlfriend?

To the “Marriage is a spiritual covenant, not a secular issue” guy: You have drunk the Kool-Aid, buddy. You’re taking a bloody bath in it. Religious marriage may be a spiritual three-way covenant between your dear wifey and your imaginary sky friend, but marriage is a legal, secular institution. The officiant doesn’t say “By the power invested in me by God” or “by the Church.” Marriage is regulated by the state you live in.

To the “I believe Jesus died for me, now it’s my turn to live for Him” guy: That’s so great that you have a boner for Jesus. But your silly religious beliefs have nothing to do with why we should ignore both the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment to discriminate against gay people because you don’t like them.

To the “Christ calls us to take a stand on marriage” girl: Where exactly does Christ say “Marriage is between one man and one woman [and not two fucking queers]”? (Emphasis mine.) That’s right. HE DIDN’T. Christ did say something about judging your neighbor and treating people the way you want to be treated. Would you like someone voting on whether you should have the right to marry the person you love?

To the “It’s the way GOD designed life to be, and a child needs a mom and a father” girl: You want to talk about the way your God apparently designed life to be? Read the Bible like a guidebook. You should be a sex slave to your husband, your daughters sold into slavery if he desires it. You should be forced to have an abortion (trial by ordeal) if your master merely suspects you of infidelity. Sound good?

To the “I believe the WORD of GOD” girl: Which has what, exactly, to do with public policy? If you’d care to go live in a theocracy, be my guest. But America is not a fucking Christian nation. We are a nation founded on secular values. The people who fled here did so to escape ignorant, hateful people like you, and you want to make this country into a religiofascist dictatorship.

I don’t begrudge you your religious beliefs. Just don’t hide behind them to mask your being a prejudiced bigot.

157. canonize

I started this as an email to my friend Christy, but figured I’d share it as an open letter instead.

Basically, here’s my pitch for voting NO on the constitutional marriage amendment in Minnesota — even for Christians.

Contrary to how it’s framed, this amendment isn’t about voting to legalize same-sex marriage. If it doesn’t pass on Tuesday, it still won’t be legal on November 7. There will still be a law in place. It’s about limiting the rights of citizens in order to enshrine a religious doctrine: i.e., God’s design for marriage is 1 man + 1 woman. It’s forcing the Minnesota constitution to take sides in a religious debate. This is a violation of the First Amendment, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

If there were secular reasons for banning same-sex couples from marriage, it would be one thing. But there aren’t any.

I’ve been through the “evidence” from Minnesota for Marriage, and it’s highly suspect.

  • Churches won’t be forced to marry same-sex couples. (Actually, in every state where same-sex marriage is legal there is specific language in the laws prohibiting religious institutions and clergy from being forced to perform same-sex ceremonies.)
  • Christians won’t be fired from jobs for speaking out against same-sex marriage or gay people.
  • Children won’t be taught about same-sex marriage in school any more than they’re already being taught about heterosexual marriage.

It’s all scare tactics.

The CDC released a study in 2010 on the results of a 6-year study that found that the only factor researchers could identify for raising healthy children is a two-parent home. The gender of the parents was not a factor for success. Children of same-sex parents were just as happy and healthy as those raised by opposite-sex parents.

If this were about protecting marriage, we’d be banning divorce. If it were about protecting family, we’d be incentivizing marriage by limiting it to couples who are able to or choose to produce children. But infertile couples are free to marry, just as couples who don’t get pregnant are also free to. And they’re free to marry and divorce as many times as they like. Yet same-sex couples can’t even get married once.

So for me this is about returning sanctity to marriage. When I want to make that kind of commitment, it’s not because I can. It’s because I will want to share my life with someone in a very meaningful way. After all, what is it that has kept same-sex couples together for decades when there was no incentive to do so? Most had to keep their relationships a secret, or had to live in insular communities where they could be safe. If anti-gay conservatives are right and relationships are just about sex for gays, why shackle yourself to one person when you could be out enjoying the smörgåsbord?

When a heterosexual person gets married, they are unwittingly bestowed with over 1,138 federal rights and benefits from the government. (There are 515 laws in MN that discriminate against same-sex couples.) It’s like the government sneaks a huge binder in amongst all the wedding present.

  • You can’t be compelled to testify against your spouse in court. I would be compelled to testify against Jay since the law would consider us “roommates.”
  • You’re entitled to the disposal of your spouse’s body and property in the event of death. If Jay and I bought a house together and his parents didn’t approve of our relationship, they are legally entitled to swoop in and take everything if he were to die, and I would have no legal rights over how to bury him. There are awful, heartbreaking stories about this. Heterosexual couples don’t have to have lawyers to ensure this doesn’t happen.

There’s more. Believe me. (Check out www.project515.org.) So how is all of this not discrimination against committed, same-sex couples? Why is the relationship between a man and a woman so different that gay people need to be excluded from marriage?

Marriage will NOT be redefined when same-sex couples are permitted to marry. (Yes, I said when.) Predictions made when Loving v. Virginia hit the Supreme Court in 1967 are being made today — and society is still standing. Bottom line: we’re not asking the government to redefine anything. We merely want to be included, the same as everyone else. The Supreme Court even called marriage a civil right:

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival.

Last night during the Minnesota Public Radio marriage amendment debate, Kerri Miller asked Brian Brown what the consequences would be if same-sex marriage were legalized. He kept changing the subject and speaking in generalities, but he couldn’t name specifics. Instead, he kept kept bringing up the Bible — but this isn’t about religion. It’s about law.

Constitutions should expand the rights of citizens, not limit them. This amendment not only expands the role of government in permanently banning same-sex couples from marrying, it also enshrines a religious belief and the prejudices of those who hold it, enabling them to discriminate with impunity.

This is about the Golden Rule: do to others as you would be done by. Would you want someone voting on who you can’t marry? I don’t think so.

Resources:

American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota:

Marriage Matters

Minnesotans United for All Families

Project 515

RationalWiki

Southern Poverty Law Center

156. draggle

There are accounts of a group of Christian extremists in the 4th century called the Circumcellions who were so committed to martyrdom that they took to attacking random travelers on the road with blunt clubs. The goal was to goad their victims into killing them and thus making them martyrs for their faith. Whether the travelers were supposed to know that they were dispatching these spiritual guerrillas to their blessed reward is unknown, and probably immaterial. They were just implements in God’s clever toolbox of earthly horrors. Likely they left their broken and bleeding attackers behind them on the road, saying to each other, “What the fucking fuck was that?” This was how they spoke in the ancient Roman Empire when confronted with bizarre situations.

This obsession with death and martyrdom has been a cornerstone of the Church since its inception. The image of Christ as the willing sacrifice has driven millions to go eagerly, even joyfully, to their deaths. I guess when you truly believe that this world is only preparation for the next, you’ll do anything to make sure that your place in the ‘world to come’ is secure. Even if it means being used as a human torch. Or torn apart by wild beasts. Or stabbed to death by confused travelers who are wondering why you’re attacking them yelling strange phrases in Latin.

“The battle over the marriage amendment continues to rage here in Minnesota. Last Thursday the third commercial from the anti-gay hate group Minnesota for Marriage went out on the airwaves, sparking some interesting conversation. Several media sources critiqued the truthfulness of these ads. Minnesota Public Radio summarized the ad, saying “most of [the examples cited] don’t have anything to do with whether same-sex marriage is legal or not. Local station WCCO aired an exposé, calling the ad “questionable.”

This past weekend a billboard in the Uptown area of Minneapolis, an area known for its liberal political slant and high concentration of gays, was vandalized. While vandalism of private property is never acceptable, one has to wonder what they were thinking in putting it up there in the first place. Were they expecting to change minds? Did they think that gay couples would see the sign and say to each other, “You know, maybe they’re right”?

Obsession with persecution seems to be a common theme among evangelical Christians these days. When I was growing up we were taught to expect to be reviled for our beliefs, and for speaking the truth. Jesus said to his disciples: “And everyone will hate you because you are my followers. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Mark 13:13) It’s hard not to see this now as a self-fulfilling prophesy of sorts. When you tell total strangers that they’re bad people who are going to burn eternally in the fires of hell, one can’t help but take offense. But the Christians of the early church accepted their martyrdom with joy, instead of modern Christians’ whining refrain of persecution.

It’s almost as if they’re taking to politics to force the government into action against them. Of course, they see this as a spiritual battle against the encroaching powers of darkness, as apparently evidenced by increasing acceptance of LGBT individuals and our disgusting behavior. The more fundamentalist groups even see persecution as necessary to bring about the end of the world and the reign of Christ.

What it really comes down to is what the Fifth Doctor said of the Daleks: “However you respond to them is seen as an act of aggression.”

Next time you see an anti-gay marriage ad, or really any anti-gay rhetoric, try hearing it in the staccato, hysterical tones of a Dalek having a hissy fit. The sooner the public can see these people as the childish puritans they are, the quicker we’ll be able to move on from this nonsense.

“Exterminate! Exterminate!”

155. tardigrade

I am tired.

It’s been over a month since my last update here, and not for a lack of anything to write about or say. On the contrary. There’s almost too much to say. So many thoughts charging about like metaphorical bulls in the proverbial china shoppe, but so little time and energy to actually sit down and give them air.

This marriage amendment campaign is exhausting me. I’m so tired of this fight, of viewing every interaction as a potential battle with some fundamentalist Christian who is either trying to save my soul or convince me that I’m a disgusting faggot. The divisiveness is killing me emotionally, and the fact that it’s put me at odds with basically my entire old social network is wearing on me psychologically. There are so many old friends who don’t talk to me anymore, either because I’m gay or an atheist. There aren’t even really words to express how sad I am over this reality, and angry that many of the people I once counted close (or as close as I let anyone in college get) don’t think that I’m deserving of equal recognition, either legally or socially.

Then there’s the social apocalypse still resulting from the fallout from my birthday almost two years ago. There was the social network from my youth group at church that fell apart when I went to college, and the social network at my church that fell apart when I left that church in 2007 after basically growing up there. There was the close social network that formed in college that lasted for a few years after graduation, and that continued and grew during my time working in the theater department there. There was the little commune that was the apartment and then townhouse I shared with some of my best friends, but they’ve all moved on, marriages and life and such.

There was the community that grew up amongst some friends over several years that seemed like it might blossom into something, later coupled with the hope of a romantic attachment that went devastatingly wrong. For me, that community fell apart when the chasm between he and I drove me into self-imposed exile. I hear through various channels that people miss me, but it’s too painful to go back and try to navigate that labyrinth. So old friendships have splintered and dissolved as necessary boundaries were forged and lines drawn in the sand. In my absence they’ve all only grown closer. In the process I lost one of my best friends earlier this year, but there’s nothing to be done about that or any of the other relationships that have become casualties of this hurricane of change. So now I find myself in the midst of the ashes of a massive forest fire, having lost basically my entire community and feeling incredibly alone.

I have a terrific, caring and supportive boyfriend, and his family has more or less adopted me. But it doesn’t quite make up for the loss of my home, of my family, of close friends. I am finally seeing a therapist to deal with the past, and understanding that this is all part of the grief process—a process I’ve been avoiding for some time.

So I’m just exhausted. And there are many miles to go before I sleep.

154. cacology

The past couple of days I’ve been getting caught up on the British fantasy-adventure show Merlin. One of my ex-boyfriends and I used to watch it, and it’s kind of cheesy and rompy in the sort of Stargate SG-1 sense, but it’s still a lot of fun. And I have a huge crush on Colin Morgan, which is a valid excuse for liking anything. (A half-naked Cam Gigandet was all the excuse I needed to watch Pandorum.)

Because I’m a history nerd, I’m painfully aware of all the anachronisms that nobody else seems to notice, such as the fact that medieval physicians had no concept of infection or bacteria, or that knights did not use the same hand signals that Marines use to signal attack maneuvers.

I get it. It’s a show for modern audiences that aren’t worried about those things. And, frankly, medieval Europe in its raw form isn’t very entertaining. There wasn’t much swashbuckling, unless “swashbuckling” is a term used to describe what happens when a plançon does when it collided with someone’s head.

So this is why I tend not to enjoy historical romps such as A Knight’s Tale. Even the famous Monty Python scene above sends a little bit of a shiver through me as I’m reminded of the Trial by Ordeal. In the case of the witch scene, the medieval thinking was that if an accused person was thrown in water, because God has a vested interest in human affairs, if they’re innocent God would intervene on their behalf and they would float to the surface.

There was also a much nastier version of this involving boiling water, where the accused would be compelled (or forced) to put their hand in boiling water. The hand would be bound up and after several days it would be inspected by a priest who would determine whether God had intervened in the healing process on their behalf. The term “trial by fire” has its origins in this practice, where the accused would be branded and later examined for signs of a miracle (or no miracle, in which case you were summarily fucked), or forced to walk over coals or fire.

Oh, I could go on and on. This is what happens when you are homeschooled as a child possessed of morbid curiosity and access to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

The frightening thing is that we’re not so far removed from that kind of medieval thinking. Yesterday I was talking with a pastor who believes that natural law proves homosexuality is wrong. “Just look at how men and women fit together like puzzle pieces!” was the thrust of his argument. (Of course, he conveniently sidestepped the issue of what to do about infertile couples and the elderly.) Thomas Aquinas’ Quinque viae follows similar lines: “The universe exists, therefore: [poof] God.” ([Poof] added for emphasis.)

Most notoriously, Christian apologist Ray Comfort claimed bananas are proof the world is designed by God because they fit perfectly in our hands, and are pointed toward our mouths. (I’m really not making that up. Watch the video.) Julia Sweeney parodies this “cosmological” thinking in her show Letting Go of God when she sums up Intelligent Design:

It’s like saying that our hands are miraculous because they fit so perfectly into our gloves. “Look, at that! Four fingers and a thumb! That can’t have been an accident!’

In 1913, the American atheist Emma Goldman wrote: “The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven.”

This is what prompted inquisitors to torture and murder their victims, whose only crime was not agreeing with them; it’s what prompts Muslim fathers to behead their daughters rather than allow them to become corrupt and worldly (i.e., not wear the hijab); and what motivates fundamentalists to persecute homosexuals and teach them to loathe themselves. At the core of their teaching is the belief that whatever happens to the body doesn’t matter. What matters is getting the soul to heaven, where it can continue its subjugation to the bloody celestial dictator, God.

This is inhuman, it’s anti-human, and it’s deplorable that in the twenty-first century, when we’ve largely put the evils of slavery and torture behind us, that we’re still putting up with medieval thinking of this sort.

One reason why we haven’t seen much forward motion in the gay rights movement is that fundamentalists of the Rick Santorum/Tony Perkins/Maggie Gallagher/Linda Harvey variety are sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming, “No! No!”, and getting their followers to do the same. It’s a bit like being on a tandem bicycle with someone who keeps dragging their feet, and even trying to drag the bicycle back to the shed.

As I’ve said before, you can’t fully understand these people until you understand that they truly believe that God actually gives a fuck where I put my dick, or where my boyfriend puts his. Theirs is a severe God, looking down from heaven scowling at all the people having fun on the earth—because theirs is a God made in their puritanical image. They are murderous men and women who think they have been given special dispensation from God to make this Earth into a heaven for Christians—even though they also supposedly believe “this world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through.”

They think the reason I can’t see this is because I’m spiritually deaf, blind and dumb to Truth.

You can’t understand their fervor until you understand that they truly believe that this is a war between Good and Evil, between God and the Devil, and that my being able to marry the man I love is somehow Satanic and will bring about the end of the world. Or locusts. Or hurricanes. Or a light sprinkling of rain with a little thunder.

153. velleity

“Immediately after the [9/11] attack, seeing the [American] flag all over the place was moving, endearing. So when the newspaper I subscribe to published a full-page, full-color flag to clip out and hang in the window, how come I couldn’t? It took me a while to figure out why I guiltily slid the flag into the recycling bin instead of taping it up. The meaning had changed; or let’s say it changed back. In the first day or two the flags were plastered everywhere, seeing them was heartening because they indicated that we’re all in this sorrow together. The flags were purely emotional. Once we went to war, once the president announced that we were going to retaliate against the “evildoers,” then the flag again represented what it usually represents, the government. I think  that’s when the flags started making me nervous.”
— Sarah Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, p.158

A few days ago I finished listening to Sarah Vowell’s Unfamiliar Fishes, an account of the American annexation of Hawaii in 1898. As a public radio listening, I’ve had the biggest crush on her voice since being introduced to This American Life and hearing her work on that show.

In case you’re not familiar with the story, the annexation of Hawaii came about through the deliberate intervention of the grandsons of American Christian missionaries. The Kingdom of Hawaii occurred five years previously in 1893, led mainly by anti-imperialist American citizens. Basically, it’s another chapter in the all-too-real horror story of imperialist manifest destiny and American exceptionalism; this notion that America has been called by God to “Christianize” other countries and bring their peoples under the authority of Christ—i.e., rich white men armed with the certainty that their theology is the right one, and that their cause is the only just one.

In other words, “Might makes right” (i.e., the Bush doctrine).

The same belief that led the United States to invade and occupy Iraq for 8 years, 8 months and 3 weeks, and Afghanistan since 7 October 2001, is the same one that led nineteenth century American columnist John L. O’Sullivan to remark of Oregon: “That claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.”

Stand there with a straight face and tell me that the current American foreign wars (i.e., occupations) aren’t experiments in American democracy.

A nineteenth century cartoon of a schoolhouse overseen by a glowering Uncle Sam scowling at childlike representations of rebellious Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Cuba has this written on the chalkboard:

The consent of the governed is a good thing in theory, but very rare in fact.

England has governed her colonies whether they consented or not. By not waiting for their consent she has greatly advanced the world’s civilization.

The U.S. must govern its new territories with or without their consent until they can govern themselves.

And when I hear Mitt Romney saying things like, “God did not create this country to be a nation of followers. America is not destined to be one of several equally balanced global powers,” I hear the boats being readied again, as they were in  1820 when the first Protestant Christian missionaries arrived in Hawaii, to dispatch his manifest destiny theology like a virus to foreign shores.

I am becoming increasingly ashamed to be an American. Not only are our students some of the least educated in the Western world, but we’re also the most strongly religious Western country. Every time a Republican opens their mouth to say that women can’t get pregnant from rape, or that homosexuals are the cause of hurricanes, I feel as though the country I was born and raised in is being pulled from my hands just a little bit more.

In 2006, Grace Church Roseville, the church I grew up in got a new pastor. He was young, with fresh, new ideas about how to engage the community and “grow the flock.” At first things were okay. Like any new relationship, we knew it would take time to get to know him and adjust to the change in leadership. But then things started to change in a not-so-exciting direction. Sermons were watered down to appeal to a wider demographic. (The senior pastor now apparently delivers talks from an iPad.) Thousands of dollars were spent refurbishing the sanctuary, with special attention paid to lights in order to “enhance the worship experience” (i.e., put on a flashier show). The point at which I checked out was when they wanted to buy a professional barista machine. I remember sitting in church one Sunday, and as though I’d just woken up, I thought: “This isn’t my home anymore.” The physical room was the same, but it had changed to the point where it was unrecognizable as the place I’d known.

So now conservative Christians are trying to force their anti-gay agenda on this country, attempting to overturn the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and derail efforts to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. They claim to not hate gays, and perhaps they truly don’t—which makes their work all the more hideous for throwing LGBT Americans under the bus in order to further their political agenda and pander to an ultra-conservative voter base. Because the truth is that there’s a lot of money to be had from evangelical Christians—money that isn’t going to feed the hungry, help the poor and sick, or relieve global suffering.

Apparently stopping those godless faggots from not hurting anyone is more important than being like their Christ.

Regardless 0f what happens in this election, this country is less of a home to me now thanks to conservative bastards like Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Tony Perkins and Maggie Gallagher. The fact that they’re still being taken seriously makes me wonder if there’s anything left to fight for here.

Sic transit gloria mundi.