.
Earlier this year, I made a sort of early New Year’s Resolution to drive no faster than the speed limit. I have a lead foot, you see, and all too often look down to find I’m going way too many miles over the limit. It’s the major reason I use cruise control almost obsessively, including in the city. Before, I set it at the speed limit plus 10%, but now I set it at exactly the speed limit.
One of the nicest parts of this policy is that I rarely have to overtake someone going my way on the highway. To the contrary, on my way back from Nevada on Sunday, I often found myself being overtaken.
Because I consider overtaking to be the moment when I am in most danger of having an accident, I always try to pull to the right to give the driver of the car behind me as good a look at oncoming cars as possible. Then, when they pull out to pass, I tap the brake and slow down until they pull back in front of me before I re-engage the cruise control.
Now, this doesn’t seem like a very big deal to me. It’s just one of those things I do as a matter of course. But the other drivers often seem flummoxed by it. Even though I pull over, they still ride the center of the road to peer around me. If I touch the brakes too soon and they can see the brake lights go on, they slow down, too, which defeats the whole purpose. Afterwards, however, many of them give me a big wave of thanks.
What I find interesting is that I’ve almost never seen any other driver do either part of it.
When I was a child, I often read stories with a “do unto others” theme. None of the stories involved large acts. I remember one in which a boy and his uncle were traveling on a train and the uncle showed the boy that he should wipe down the sink in the toilet so it would be clean for the next traveler’s use. All these stories could also be said to fall under the heading of good citizenship.
In high school, I took courses in both the United States and Missouri constitutions. In both of them, we learned about voting and free speech, the right to assemble and freedom of religion. We learned how each branch of the government operated and what departments did what.
But none of that is nearly as important as the little things we all can do to make life easier for one another.
.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Waiting in Line
.
I went to the recycling center today. I had packaged everything up one day last week and forgot to go. I thought it would be a good idea to get it all out of the house before the New Year begins.
Evidently, so did everyone else in Wichita. There were cars lined up in the driveway, down the block, and around the corner.
After I had been sitting for more than half an hour, another car approached from the other direction and sat there with its blinker going. The driver actually thought that one of the cars in line would make way for him. Eventually, he gave up and got in the back of the line.
Now, here was a person doing the right thing – recycling instead of dumpstering – who thought he could get away with doing a wrong thing – cutting in line instead of waiting his turn. One wonders if he was conniving or merely oblivious.
People who think they should get special treatment always amuse me. Sometimes they get downright huffy when they can’t get their way – like I am the one in the wrong. It’s amazing how often they get away with it, too.
Getting away with it is the problem, of course. They’ve gotten away with it for so long that they think it’s their due. They forget that, in America, they are merely equal, not better.
That kind of thinking is what’s behind the people who insist that affirmative action discriminates against young, white men. They’re so busy being upset that someone might be getting something they’re not getting that they don’t open their eyes to see that maybe they’ve been getting something for nothing all their lives.
This is the worst kind of entitlement thinking, the outlook that the world owes us something. Americans were once known for NOT thinking that way. We were known as the self-reliant, independent sort. We’re still independent, but it too often takes the shape of being bull-headed and unwilling to listen to anyone else’s views, let alone do what we’re told.
We insist that things should be done OUR way, but we can’t all be leaders in our personal army. If we don’t back up the leaders we have, we pretty soon won’t have any army at all. I’m hoping that we can remember all that this coming year as the leaders we have chosen try to dig us out of this hole.
I’m not suggesting we should go back to the day when we duck our heads and tug our forelocks, but maybe we need to re-learn a little humility.
And stop cutting in line.
.
I went to the recycling center today. I had packaged everything up one day last week and forgot to go. I thought it would be a good idea to get it all out of the house before the New Year begins.
Evidently, so did everyone else in Wichita. There were cars lined up in the driveway, down the block, and around the corner.
After I had been sitting for more than half an hour, another car approached from the other direction and sat there with its blinker going. The driver actually thought that one of the cars in line would make way for him. Eventually, he gave up and got in the back of the line.
Now, here was a person doing the right thing – recycling instead of dumpstering – who thought he could get away with doing a wrong thing – cutting in line instead of waiting his turn. One wonders if he was conniving or merely oblivious.
People who think they should get special treatment always amuse me. Sometimes they get downright huffy when they can’t get their way – like I am the one in the wrong. It’s amazing how often they get away with it, too.
Getting away with it is the problem, of course. They’ve gotten away with it for so long that they think it’s their due. They forget that, in America, they are merely equal, not better.
That kind of thinking is what’s behind the people who insist that affirmative action discriminates against young, white men. They’re so busy being upset that someone might be getting something they’re not getting that they don’t open their eyes to see that maybe they’ve been getting something for nothing all their lives.
This is the worst kind of entitlement thinking, the outlook that the world owes us something. Americans were once known for NOT thinking that way. We were known as the self-reliant, independent sort. We’re still independent, but it too often takes the shape of being bull-headed and unwilling to listen to anyone else’s views, let alone do what we’re told.
We insist that things should be done OUR way, but we can’t all be leaders in our personal army. If we don’t back up the leaders we have, we pretty soon won’t have any army at all. I’m hoping that we can remember all that this coming year as the leaders we have chosen try to dig us out of this hole.
I’m not suggesting we should go back to the day when we duck our heads and tug our forelocks, but maybe we need to re-learn a little humility.
And stop cutting in line.
.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Warm or Cold?
.
Most experts tell us that the human body is most comfortable in an environment of about 72 degrees Fahrenheit. That temperature allows the body to cool neither too quickly nor too slowly.
I would agree, but . . . 72 degrees is too cool in the winter and too warm in the summer.
Huh?
I know, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. In the summer, I am happy only when the air conditioner is cranked up high enough to keep the temperature down to 70 degrees. In the winter, I want 75 degrees to feel warm. I know neither temperature is really needed, that this is a trick my mind is playing on me, but I can’t help it. I change the thermostat.
Pondering this earlier today, I began to see it as a metaphor for other experiences, especially political philosophy. To the conservative, the world is too hot and we need to bring the temperature (whether domestic or foreign) down. To the liberal, the world is too cold and an injection of heat is required.
Right now, we’re trying to find the right temperature for the economic situation, and it’s proving fairly difficult.
Nearly every economic “expert” is advocating a massive government stimulus package to get money moving from one set of hands to another.
If the banks are too afraid to lend money to developers to build houses and shopping malls, the federal government will give the construction industries work building roads and schoolhouses. If consumers can’t find financing for a new car, the feds will let GMAC turn itself into a traditional bank so it can get some of the $700 billion bailout package and make those loans and keep the assembly lines running. If people are losing their health insurance, the feds will expand Medicare and Medicaid to cover more families and keep the nurses and technicians and ambulance drivers on the job.
All of these sound like good ideas to me. The economy is in danger of freezing solid, so the feds should light a few bonfires to raise the temperature a little – for a while. The only question in my mind is how to define “a little” and “a while.” A great deal of the American public seems to agree.
The traditional conservative response to such a stimulus would be to worry that we would be overheating the economy, leading to “runaway” inflation. We’re not hearing much of that lately, although there have been some rumblings of opposition from the Republican leadership of the Congress. With any luck, those rumblings will stay just that, but if they don’t, the Democrats need to find some way to include the rumblers in the process without giving in to political tricks.
It’s very important that we find our way back to an economic 72 degrees, but we have to do it without mind games.
.
Most experts tell us that the human body is most comfortable in an environment of about 72 degrees Fahrenheit. That temperature allows the body to cool neither too quickly nor too slowly.
I would agree, but . . . 72 degrees is too cool in the winter and too warm in the summer.
Huh?
I know, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. In the summer, I am happy only when the air conditioner is cranked up high enough to keep the temperature down to 70 degrees. In the winter, I want 75 degrees to feel warm. I know neither temperature is really needed, that this is a trick my mind is playing on me, but I can’t help it. I change the thermostat.
Pondering this earlier today, I began to see it as a metaphor for other experiences, especially political philosophy. To the conservative, the world is too hot and we need to bring the temperature (whether domestic or foreign) down. To the liberal, the world is too cold and an injection of heat is required.
Right now, we’re trying to find the right temperature for the economic situation, and it’s proving fairly difficult.
Nearly every economic “expert” is advocating a massive government stimulus package to get money moving from one set of hands to another.
If the banks are too afraid to lend money to developers to build houses and shopping malls, the federal government will give the construction industries work building roads and schoolhouses. If consumers can’t find financing for a new car, the feds will let GMAC turn itself into a traditional bank so it can get some of the $700 billion bailout package and make those loans and keep the assembly lines running. If people are losing their health insurance, the feds will expand Medicare and Medicaid to cover more families and keep the nurses and technicians and ambulance drivers on the job.
All of these sound like good ideas to me. The economy is in danger of freezing solid, so the feds should light a few bonfires to raise the temperature a little – for a while. The only question in my mind is how to define “a little” and “a while.” A great deal of the American public seems to agree.
The traditional conservative response to such a stimulus would be to worry that we would be overheating the economy, leading to “runaway” inflation. We’re not hearing much of that lately, although there have been some rumblings of opposition from the Republican leadership of the Congress. With any luck, those rumblings will stay just that, but if they don’t, the Democrats need to find some way to include the rumblers in the process without giving in to political tricks.
It’s very important that we find our way back to an economic 72 degrees, but we have to do it without mind games.
.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Home for the Holidays
.
I’m going home for the holidays.
Home being a relative term, of course. While it’s in the same town, my mother’s house is the third she has lived in since I left home 38 years ago. I’ve never lived in it for more than a few days at a time.
But it’s the people who make it home, right? In the past seven years, however, the people have gone, one by one. First my grandmother, then my brother Nick, then my father. That leaves my sister Sharon, my brother Jack, and my mother. But my sister and brother and I have grown apart to the extent that I often visit Mother and never speak to them, even though my sister lives in the same town and my brother in the same house. There’s no animosity, just indifference.
So that leaves Mother. Mother is 80 years old. She’s in pretty good health, but she is increasingly frail in both body and mind, and I know the end is coming, not soon, but eventually.
And when she dies, I will no longer have a family home to return to.
My husband is already an orphan, having lost both his mother and father more than ten years ago. We talk about how strange it is to be on our own, to be approaching the time when our home is the home our son and, hopefully, his family will visit at Thanksgiving or Christmas.
But for this year, I can still go home for the holidays.
-------------------------------
Because I won’t have access to an Internet connection for the next five days, I won’t be able to blog. I’ll be back on line next Monday evening. I hope your holidays are merry and festive.
.
I’m going home for the holidays.
Home being a relative term, of course. While it’s in the same town, my mother’s house is the third she has lived in since I left home 38 years ago. I’ve never lived in it for more than a few days at a time.
But it’s the people who make it home, right? In the past seven years, however, the people have gone, one by one. First my grandmother, then my brother Nick, then my father. That leaves my sister Sharon, my brother Jack, and my mother. But my sister and brother and I have grown apart to the extent that I often visit Mother and never speak to them, even though my sister lives in the same town and my brother in the same house. There’s no animosity, just indifference.
So that leaves Mother. Mother is 80 years old. She’s in pretty good health, but she is increasingly frail in both body and mind, and I know the end is coming, not soon, but eventually.
And when she dies, I will no longer have a family home to return to.
My husband is already an orphan, having lost both his mother and father more than ten years ago. We talk about how strange it is to be on our own, to be approaching the time when our home is the home our son and, hopefully, his family will visit at Thanksgiving or Christmas.
But for this year, I can still go home for the holidays.
-------------------------------
Because I won’t have access to an Internet connection for the next five days, I won’t be able to blog. I’ll be back on line next Monday evening. I hope your holidays are merry and festive.
.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wanna Join?
.
I’m thinking about starting a church.
This may sound like a wacky idea coming from a basically a-religious person like me, but a church is the only way I can think of to accomplish my goal.
I’d like to create an institution that brings people together on a regular basis, perhaps weekly, in a building set aside for the purpose. There they will hear a short speech laying out a facet of a philosophy on how people can better live together, as well as take part in a meeting that lays out courses of action to improve the institution and the lives of the people it touches. I want this institution to be a living, breathing thing because the people who are part of it really believe in the importance of its existence and the work that is done in its name. That work should include charity, education, and support, not only of the people who belong, but also of other people in the community nearby.
That is a fair description of the best of the churches run by the religious right. The weekly service brings people together, where the sermon and the music give them a thought for the week. The Sunday school classes provide education about that thought and often are also committees that band together to take action, whether that be volunteering for a shift at the local food bank or getting a group together to picket a funeral. The offering provides funds to run the church, reach out to prospective members, buy the supplies they need, pay the preacher, and even give a few dollars to a family facing hard times.
And in and among the music and the light shows that seduce people into paying attention to the religious message, they drip, drip, drip into their ears the political philosophy of the Republican Party.
There are, of course, many churches that take no stand on politics and even some where parishioners are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican, but I know of none that unabashedly supports Democratic candidates and referenda in the way that the churches of the religious right do. And I don’t see how we build the kind of support the Republicans have without a similar institution that does.
So I’m thinking about starting a church. Wanna join?
.
I’m thinking about starting a church.
This may sound like a wacky idea coming from a basically a-religious person like me, but a church is the only way I can think of to accomplish my goal.
I’d like to create an institution that brings people together on a regular basis, perhaps weekly, in a building set aside for the purpose. There they will hear a short speech laying out a facet of a philosophy on how people can better live together, as well as take part in a meeting that lays out courses of action to improve the institution and the lives of the people it touches. I want this institution to be a living, breathing thing because the people who are part of it really believe in the importance of its existence and the work that is done in its name. That work should include charity, education, and support, not only of the people who belong, but also of other people in the community nearby.
That is a fair description of the best of the churches run by the religious right. The weekly service brings people together, where the sermon and the music give them a thought for the week. The Sunday school classes provide education about that thought and often are also committees that band together to take action, whether that be volunteering for a shift at the local food bank or getting a group together to picket a funeral. The offering provides funds to run the church, reach out to prospective members, buy the supplies they need, pay the preacher, and even give a few dollars to a family facing hard times.
And in and among the music and the light shows that seduce people into paying attention to the religious message, they drip, drip, drip into their ears the political philosophy of the Republican Party.
There are, of course, many churches that take no stand on politics and even some where parishioners are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican, but I know of none that unabashedly supports Democratic candidates and referenda in the way that the churches of the religious right do. And I don’t see how we build the kind of support the Republicans have without a similar institution that does.
So I’m thinking about starting a church. Wanna join?
.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Gifts
.
I wrapped the last two Christmas presents this afternoon. For some years now, I’ve found it hard to muster up any Christmas spirit, but this year I did manage to buy something for the five great-nephews and great-nieces at least. They’re all under 10, which is still young enough to be excited about opening presents.
I know people who give presents at the drop of a hat. My sister, Sharon, is like that. She loves buying things for other people, especially other people’s children. If you go shopping with her (an activity I avoid like the plague), you have to stop every time she sees something she thinks would be “perfect” for someone she knows. Of course, given that I live 180 miles away, the someones she knows are hardly ever someone I know, so all I can do is nod and smile when she says “Don’t you think . . . would just love that?”
The truth is, most of what she picks up to admire is something I wouldn’t be caught dead buying for myself, let alone for someone else. I have ‘way too much stuff and don’t want any more.
I’ve thought for a long time that Americans in general have too many things. Too many of us have too many clothes we never wear, too many specialty appliances we never use, too many things that do nothing but sit on tables and counters and shelves.
That’s what keeps our economy going, however, and the experts all say this is no time to be cutting back. They say we should keep shopping, not only to save the jobs of the clerks who sell things to us or the truck drivers who transport them or the people who make them, but also to keep our jobs as those people buy our goods and services.
There’s something wrong with that picture. Oh, not that we are dependent on one another. Of course, we are. No, the part that’s wrong is that we’re dependent on so much that is so meaningless.
My father took a great deal of pride in being a letter carrier. He made sure that he knew the names of all the people who lived in every house on his block. He could recognize most of them when he saw them on the street, and they all could recognize him. When he talked about his work, he talked about delivering paychecks and family letters and important documents. As the years went by and he delivered more and more junk mail, he grew disillusioned.
How much pride, I wonder, is taken by the people who make chotchkis we don’t need? I know that little pride is taken by the people who stand behind the counter at fast food restaurants selling us burgers that makes us obese. When I think of the dumbing down of America, the first image that comes to mind is the icons instead of numbers on the cash registers at McDonald’s.
If we are heading into another Great Depression, I’m hopeful it will have a silver lining. As we learn to adjust to having less money to spend, we’ll also have to take stock of what we think is important.
And that could be the greatest gift of all.
.
I wrapped the last two Christmas presents this afternoon. For some years now, I’ve found it hard to muster up any Christmas spirit, but this year I did manage to buy something for the five great-nephews and great-nieces at least. They’re all under 10, which is still young enough to be excited about opening presents.
I know people who give presents at the drop of a hat. My sister, Sharon, is like that. She loves buying things for other people, especially other people’s children. If you go shopping with her (an activity I avoid like the plague), you have to stop every time she sees something she thinks would be “perfect” for someone she knows. Of course, given that I live 180 miles away, the someones she knows are hardly ever someone I know, so all I can do is nod and smile when she says “Don’t you think . . . would just love that?”
The truth is, most of what she picks up to admire is something I wouldn’t be caught dead buying for myself, let alone for someone else. I have ‘way too much stuff and don’t want any more.
I’ve thought for a long time that Americans in general have too many things. Too many of us have too many clothes we never wear, too many specialty appliances we never use, too many things that do nothing but sit on tables and counters and shelves.
That’s what keeps our economy going, however, and the experts all say this is no time to be cutting back. They say we should keep shopping, not only to save the jobs of the clerks who sell things to us or the truck drivers who transport them or the people who make them, but also to keep our jobs as those people buy our goods and services.
There’s something wrong with that picture. Oh, not that we are dependent on one another. Of course, we are. No, the part that’s wrong is that we’re dependent on so much that is so meaningless.
My father took a great deal of pride in being a letter carrier. He made sure that he knew the names of all the people who lived in every house on his block. He could recognize most of them when he saw them on the street, and they all could recognize him. When he talked about his work, he talked about delivering paychecks and family letters and important documents. As the years went by and he delivered more and more junk mail, he grew disillusioned.
How much pride, I wonder, is taken by the people who make chotchkis we don’t need? I know that little pride is taken by the people who stand behind the counter at fast food restaurants selling us burgers that makes us obese. When I think of the dumbing down of America, the first image that comes to mind is the icons instead of numbers on the cash registers at McDonald’s.
If we are heading into another Great Depression, I’m hopeful it will have a silver lining. As we learn to adjust to having less money to spend, we’ll also have to take stock of what we think is important.
And that could be the greatest gift of all.
.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
More Tolerance
.
I love hearing that people like what I write, but I really like it when people disagree with me. That’s when I know I’ve made them think deeply, at least deeply enough to write me back. I wasn’t getting much of that, and I wondered what I would have to write about to get that kind of reaction.
Now I know.
Most of you know that I grew up in Nevada, Missouri, a small town where the closest thing we had to an ethnic minority was Catholics. Because my parents didn’t deal in hate, I grew up believing in equality as the philosophy that made America great. I often find that, having witnessed so little of it when I was a child, I really don’t know what inequality means in a visceral way.
There were no black people in Nevada. There surely were gay people, but I wasn’t aware of any. There were occasionally rumors, but I didn’t know any of the people the rumors were about, and I thought the people who spread them were just the kind of people who try to make their own lives more exciting by imagining and spreading scandal. Gays were people who lived in big cities, I thought.
So the first time I met somebody I knew was gay was in college, and my foremost emotion was curiosity -- curiosity tempered by the good manners I had been taught that you don’t pry into other people’s private lives. If they want you to know something, they will tell you. You don’t ask.
So, as one commenter said, I don’t really know how Obama’s invitation to Rick Warren hurts gay people. I can understand that it does, but I can’t feel it, any more than I can really feel what it is like to be discriminated against because of the color of my skin. I’ve experienced some sexism, but no one has ever threatened to beat me up just because I am a woman.
When I said that I wasn’t sure that Obama was wrong to stand his ground and not un-invite Warren, I was not trying to say that the gay community should not be upset, nor that they should be quiet about that upset. I was trying to say that I believe Obama’s choice of Rick Warren is not necessarily a rejection of them or a deviation from the message he has been spreading for the past four years.
His intent, I believe, is not, as papabear67218 said, to “throw the gay community under the bus” but rather to remind us all that getting to tolerance is a journey and that we’ve come a long way on that journey, even though we haven’t reached our final destination.
This afternoon, my husband and I went to see Milk, a movie I had been looking forward to for a long time. Like Artemis, I was strengthened in my quest for equality for the LGBT community. The movie reminded me of what it means to be a member of a despised minority. But it also reminded me how much has changed since the days of Harvey Milk.
How did we get from a time when the San Francisco police felt free to literally beat up on gays, just for the hell of it, to the day when the Mayor of San Francisco decided to unilaterally begin issuing marriage certificates to same-sex couples?
We got there step by step, feeling our way, working on one freedom at a time, reminding the Anita Bryants and, yes, the Rick Warrens that gays are people, too, that they are citizens and that they have the rights of all citizens.
Each of my three respondents focused only on Rick Warren’s opinions about gays and abortion. I suspect that Obama remembers that Rick Warren has been vocal in his desire to see evangelicals set aside these struggles – as important as he thinks they are – for the fight against poverty and hunger, both here and abroad. Obama remembers that Warren is concerned about people having access to health care and education. He remembers that Warren urges his flock to support mission work in Africa to prevent the spread of AIDS.
Warren believes that Christianity must be about more than who goes to bed with whom. He is on record as saying that gays should be allowed to live in peace, free of coercion. He may disagree with them, he may think they are sinful, but he has no desire to visit violence on them. Compare that to the stands of James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Fred Phelps. Surely Warren’s attitudes are ones we should be encouraging.
Does any of that make his opinions on gay marriage and abortion any less objectionable? Of course not. And the LGBT community should continue to argue against those opinions. But you can’t change someone’s mind if they think you’re rejecting them out of hand. Liberals, at least, know that there is no one so deaf as someone who thinks you’re out to get them. We’ve been on the wrong end of that paradigm too many times to forget the lesson.
The inauguration of a President is a solemn occasion. It is a time when the whole world is watching. It is a time that should include as many Americans as can be included, to remind everyone that our system protects all of us, no matter how venal or vile others find us. It is not a time to gloat.
The Republicans shut me out at the past two Inaugurals They made it clear that they didn’t want to hear what I had to say. They built a wall of religion against my kind. That was a mistake, a mistake for which, in my opinion. they have not yet been required to pay a sufficiently high price.
But our shutting them out now would be just as grave a mistake. If they think we have built a wall of anti-religion against them, they will retreat behind their own walls and create an echo chamber that reinforces all the worst in their natures until it breaks out in violence.
I want them voicing their opinions in the open so those opinions can be debated and they can hear not only that we disagree but why we disagree and how that disagreement does not mean that they must live “our” way, but only that they must not try to force us to live “their” way.
As I said in the original post, these disagreements are not going to go away entirely. There will always be homophobic evangelicals in this country, just as there are still racists of all religious stripes. We can’t kill all these germs, but we can drag them out into the light of day and let the sunshine be a natural disinfectant.
Don't you agree that would be a step forward?
.
I love hearing that people like what I write, but I really like it when people disagree with me. That’s when I know I’ve made them think deeply, at least deeply enough to write me back. I wasn’t getting much of that, and I wondered what I would have to write about to get that kind of reaction.
Now I know.
Most of you know that I grew up in Nevada, Missouri, a small town where the closest thing we had to an ethnic minority was Catholics. Because my parents didn’t deal in hate, I grew up believing in equality as the philosophy that made America great. I often find that, having witnessed so little of it when I was a child, I really don’t know what inequality means in a visceral way.
There were no black people in Nevada. There surely were gay people, but I wasn’t aware of any. There were occasionally rumors, but I didn’t know any of the people the rumors were about, and I thought the people who spread them were just the kind of people who try to make their own lives more exciting by imagining and spreading scandal. Gays were people who lived in big cities, I thought.
So the first time I met somebody I knew was gay was in college, and my foremost emotion was curiosity -- curiosity tempered by the good manners I had been taught that you don’t pry into other people’s private lives. If they want you to know something, they will tell you. You don’t ask.
So, as one commenter said, I don’t really know how Obama’s invitation to Rick Warren hurts gay people. I can understand that it does, but I can’t feel it, any more than I can really feel what it is like to be discriminated against because of the color of my skin. I’ve experienced some sexism, but no one has ever threatened to beat me up just because I am a woman.
When I said that I wasn’t sure that Obama was wrong to stand his ground and not un-invite Warren, I was not trying to say that the gay community should not be upset, nor that they should be quiet about that upset. I was trying to say that I believe Obama’s choice of Rick Warren is not necessarily a rejection of them or a deviation from the message he has been spreading for the past four years.
His intent, I believe, is not, as papabear67218 said, to “throw the gay community under the bus” but rather to remind us all that getting to tolerance is a journey and that we’ve come a long way on that journey, even though we haven’t reached our final destination.
This afternoon, my husband and I went to see Milk, a movie I had been looking forward to for a long time. Like Artemis, I was strengthened in my quest for equality for the LGBT community. The movie reminded me of what it means to be a member of a despised minority. But it also reminded me how much has changed since the days of Harvey Milk.
How did we get from a time when the San Francisco police felt free to literally beat up on gays, just for the hell of it, to the day when the Mayor of San Francisco decided to unilaterally begin issuing marriage certificates to same-sex couples?
We got there step by step, feeling our way, working on one freedom at a time, reminding the Anita Bryants and, yes, the Rick Warrens that gays are people, too, that they are citizens and that they have the rights of all citizens.
Each of my three respondents focused only on Rick Warren’s opinions about gays and abortion. I suspect that Obama remembers that Rick Warren has been vocal in his desire to see evangelicals set aside these struggles – as important as he thinks they are – for the fight against poverty and hunger, both here and abroad. Obama remembers that Warren is concerned about people having access to health care and education. He remembers that Warren urges his flock to support mission work in Africa to prevent the spread of AIDS.
Warren believes that Christianity must be about more than who goes to bed with whom. He is on record as saying that gays should be allowed to live in peace, free of coercion. He may disagree with them, he may think they are sinful, but he has no desire to visit violence on them. Compare that to the stands of James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Fred Phelps. Surely Warren’s attitudes are ones we should be encouraging.
Does any of that make his opinions on gay marriage and abortion any less objectionable? Of course not. And the LGBT community should continue to argue against those opinions. But you can’t change someone’s mind if they think you’re rejecting them out of hand. Liberals, at least, know that there is no one so deaf as someone who thinks you’re out to get them. We’ve been on the wrong end of that paradigm too many times to forget the lesson.
The inauguration of a President is a solemn occasion. It is a time when the whole world is watching. It is a time that should include as many Americans as can be included, to remind everyone that our system protects all of us, no matter how venal or vile others find us. It is not a time to gloat.
The Republicans shut me out at the past two Inaugurals They made it clear that they didn’t want to hear what I had to say. They built a wall of religion against my kind. That was a mistake, a mistake for which, in my opinion. they have not yet been required to pay a sufficiently high price.
But our shutting them out now would be just as grave a mistake. If they think we have built a wall of anti-religion against them, they will retreat behind their own walls and create an echo chamber that reinforces all the worst in their natures until it breaks out in violence.
I want them voicing their opinions in the open so those opinions can be debated and they can hear not only that we disagree but why we disagree and how that disagreement does not mean that they must live “our” way, but only that they must not try to force us to live “their” way.
As I said in the original post, these disagreements are not going to go away entirely. There will always be homophobic evangelicals in this country, just as there are still racists of all religious stripes. We can’t kill all these germs, but we can drag them out into the light of day and let the sunshine be a natural disinfectant.
Don't you agree that would be a step forward?
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