Thank you, Senator Franken! (DOMA repeal hearings)

We hear a lot of nonsense from the right about the 'science' supporting their homophobic position.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a single scientific study to date that supports their position that heterosexuality is more natural or innate than homosexuality, or bisexuality.  In fact every single piece of scientific research that has been presented to support the view of sexuality and sexual orientation by the right has been either misrepresented, debunked as bad science, or is woefully out of date and has been superseded by more recent data which is consistently based on better and more rigorous use of the scientific methodology.
I had no idea what kind of senator you would make, Mr. Franken, when you were elected.  In 2008 I just knew that I liked you a whole lot better than that other guy.  You have exceeded my greatest expectations sir; and this is only one example of that.  Keep up the good work!

UPDATED - GaGa and T-Paw: Politifact.com Busts Another Right Wing Minnesota Presidential Candidate Talking Point!

From Politifact.com, re Pawlenty, but it applies as much or even more to the Bachmanns, and the right wing position on sexual orientation - being gay or straight - as a 'choice'.  The video clip of the TPaw interview follows.

This has additional context in that the right has spent time and energy promoting anti-gay homophobic culture war legislation, that was based on a totally, ludicrously inaccurate ideology-based notion rather than fact-based thinking, INSTEAD of addressing jobs and economic recovery.  The position of the right, as expounded by Bachmann, Pawlenty, and the rightwing fraud (in my opinion) Bradlee Dean is untenable, unsupportable.  It is no longer the wedge issue that it has been used as in the past by the right (thank you Grover Norquist and Karl Rove).

What underlines the antiquated intolerance is that at the same time, we have more new same-sex relationship households in Minnesota than ever before, per those Census questions that Bachmann didn't want you answering. This gives greater emphasis than ever before to how out of touch the right wing theocrats and culture warriors are with the citizens of Minnesota, and the entire country. From the recent STrib article, "Minnesota sees 50% rise in number of gay couples":

Minnesota has seen a quiet surge in the number of same-sex households over the past decade, and the trend has moved beyond the core of the Twin Cities into many suburbs.

The U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday released its second-ever count of same-sex partners in Minnesota, and the numbers detailed a dramatic picture of change:

• A 50 percent jump in same-sex households, a rate of growth five times faster than households overall. The census counted 13,718 same-sex couples in 2010, accounting for about 1 percent of all couples statewide.

•A pronounced spreading-out of traditional "gayborhoods." Minneapolis accounts for nearly one in four same-sex couples, towering over the rest of the state in sheer numbers, but its dominance is fading. Neighboring Golden Valley now claims the highest concentration among cities of ample size. A lesbian Realtor who lives there greeted the news in two words: "Not surprised."

•Although other states are also seeing big jumps, the Twin Cities could well retain its 2000 position as the gay mecca between the coasts. Only a sprinkling of state numbers have yet been reported, but it's known that Hennepin County by 2010 was roughly equal in concentration to Sonoma County north of San Francisco, the second-highest-ranking county in California.

At the same time, in an article posted in the same edition of the STrib, "Pawlenty likes GaGa, but disputes that Gays are born this way", another STrib writer perpetuates trying to deny the science that sexual orientation is something we are born with, even if it is not specifically genetic in origin, that is addressed by Politifact.com., and way down near the bottom of the article:

"Pressed, Pawlenty wavered on whether being gay is a choice, but clarified that "there's no scientific conclusion that it's genetic."

Celebrate World AIDS Day Today, December 1, 2010 - Part I

Obviously we do not exactly celebrate the existence of this terrible viral disease.  What we celebrate is an awareness of this pandemic, a pandemic that is our closest modern equivalent to the black death, the bubonic plague of the 14th century in Europe.  Following the premise that when we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it, I would like to share with you a brief overview of other pandemics, (as distinct from epidemics) before focusing on ours. The purpose of the historic overview is to establish common patterns in the past as a foundation, a frame, a focus for looking at our approach to AIDS, in the hope of finding greater insight and understanding for our response to it.

Coming Out, Out, Out, Wherever They Are

UPDATE: GOP Candidate for Governor of New York, Carl Paladino, who's homophobic statements are linked below, and who did multiple television appearances after making them, took an intransigent position to criticism.  Now, he has flip-flopped, appearing to change his previous adamant position against the LGBT community.

In the Age of Dinosaur Policies (and Persecuting Gays in the Military)

I turned 46 last week. It's not a momentous birthday for most people, for me it was a little wistful, I'm closer to 50 than 40 now. Closer to old than young.

I thought back this morning on the things I've seen, which honestly have been extraordinary in this age of change. I watched (as a four year old) Niel Armstrong step onto the surface of the moon. I watched race riots in Detroit, the Age of Aquarius, flower-power, an Arab Oil Embargo, our Embassy in Iran violated, the toppling of the Soviet empire symbolized by the tearing down of the Berlin wall, the advent of computers, cell phones, and microwaves, the opening up of China, and the age of the Internet (which may ultimately surpass all the others as being our "Gutenberg Printing Press" accomplishment). Frankly, it's a remarkable set of events and changes in such a comparatively short time. I sit here writing out my thoughts which someone on the other side of the world may read later this morning. When I was 25 years old, that concept was, well.. inconceivable.

When I was 25 years old I had been in the military just short of 5 years. At that time (1989), gays weren't allowed in the military, no matter what. You were asked as you enlisted if you were gay, if you answered "yes", that was it, you were done - no enlistment. We were still in the Cold War, but our military apparently felt it would be better off by preventing participation of gays. At that time (at least) the pretext for such a policy wasn't about perversion or mental illness, but rather that it might well be dangerous and disruptive to have gays in the military because the "red neck" nature of many in the military might cause them to be upset about, and maybe even violent toward, gays. The term of the day was that it was not "conducive to good order and discipline of the service."

This attitude was a stark change from when I was 5 (or when I was born). The attitude then was that gays were deviants, perverts, sick in the head, and any found in the military were normally summarily discharged as mentally unfit, but even worse there was a chance they'd be prosecuted for criminal conduct for violating sodomy laws the military still had when I joined it in the middle 80's. That attitude of revulsion and fear (and through fear, hatred) which created such laws and such views about gays still exists today in some parts of America. In America, in this age of remarkable change, some things haven't moved very far at all. Ask a social conservative privately about his or her view of gays, and many still comment that they are perverts and deviants, after all, "doesn't the bible say so?"

Since then, thankfully, our social conscience has moved forward. Somewhere between "Philadelphia" and "Brokeback Mountain" we began to see gays as human beings, rather than portraying them as "cowards" or deviants (well most of us anyway - see below). Somewhere between Rock Hudson, Gore Vidal (a WWII veteran) and Matthew Shepard, we began to see both that gays were admirable, even heroic, and that our "red neck" ways were not just something we needed to "quit" to quote the song, but were morally repugnant and ethically repellent.

A Parade of Pride

Yesterday, a US District Court judge ruled that an evangelist could hand out bibles at a gay pride festival to be held in Minneapolis' Loring Park (from the StarTribune):
"U.S. District Court Judge John Tunheim ruled that the First Amendment gives Brian Johnson the right to evangelize there as long as he's not disruptive."

When I was a young man, including when I was a boy, my parents told me of their opinion of homosexuality, which was always focused on the conduct of men, never women. Their opinion of homosexuality ranged from considering it mental deviance to perversion. The US society around them reflected these opinions. When I joined the US Army, the attitude at the time was that homosexuality was a mental disorder. For a time (iirc), the medical community even agreed, though this position changed in the early 70's, yet the Army's position persisted for years afterward.

When I was a younger man, I was contemptuous toward gays (privately). It is not something which I am glad I did. It was wrong, and I am sorry.

Everything Old Is New Again

"January 13, 1949: Fahy Committee holds its first hearings. Representatives of the Army defend segregation of African-Americans. The Marine Corps also defends its segregation policy and admits that only one of its 8,200 officers is African-American. The Navy and Air Force both indicate they will integrate their units. The Navy admits that only five of its 45,000 officers are African-American."

"March 28, 1949: The three service secretaries testify before the Fahy Committee. Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington and Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan both testify that they are opposed to segregation and are pursuing policies to integrate their services. Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall argues in favor of maintaining segregation, saying that the Army "was not an instrument for social evolution."
- The Truman Library Timeline of Military Desegregation
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/desegregation/large/index.php?action=chronology

"We're saying, 'We're shoving this down your throat,'" said Rep. Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican. "The military is not a social experiment. We are sending them out there with a mission to protect this country."
- Anne Flaherty, Associated Press "Congress to Vote on Military Gay Ban" http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/27/congress-vote-military-gay-ban/

My father served in the armed forces in World War II as a naval aviator in the Pacific. One of the places I remember quite vividly that I was taken as a child, decades later during a family vacation was the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, one of the Presidential Libraries. My father spoke admiringly of Truman, "even if he was a Democrat". The parental admiration was earned for his conduct as Commander in Chief during the war, not for his desegregation of the armed forces.

I happen to believe Truman was a remarkable president for both reasons.

But when I read some of the statements, such as that of Congressman Gohmert quoted above, something about the phrase "social experiment" in his comment rang a bell. The place I went to look for the earlier similar wording was the Truman Library (online this time) that I remembered from my childhood.

In hindsight, from the vantage of the early days of the 21st century, it would be a rare person who sees the desegregation of our military as a radical exercise in "social evolution". Now we would simply see it as fair, as reasonable, so logical that the earlier status quo seems a bit ridiculous, foolish.

Word for word, argument for argument, I am struck by the similarity of the objections against allowing people to serve, to risk their lives and limbs, to protect this country and its citizens, without regard to their sexuality.

It is not new, gays serving in armed forces. This is not really an 'experiment'; it has been done successfully elsewhere, repeatedly. It is the norm in the armed forces of our allies.

When I was a small child, travelling on winter vacations with my parents, I saw the last holdouts of the "whites only" and "coloreds only" water fountains in small southern towns - mostly poor rural places. On one occasion, the "whites only" fountain was out of order, so as a stubbornly independent kid, I simply drank out of the other water fountain, to my parents' dismay. They didn't actually care which fountain I drank out of, they were simply concerned that I would offend the local populace.

Instead of being meekly rebuked, I crossed my arms (always a harbinger of my stubbornness rising) and declared the segregated system "just dumb". I further quite adamantly expressed my opinion that the local population would be better served by getting one good working drinking fountain, instead of having one crummy one and one that didn't work at all.

My parents tried to hush me, but I was not a hushable child, any more than I tend to be a 'hushable' adult. ( I fear my co-admins may have just choked on their beverage of choice at their respective computers.)

I proceeded to pose what seemed to me to be a logical question, didn't we all drink out of just one fountain without any problems? My mother agreed that was probably true. I pointed out that unless we actually saw who drank out of a fountain before we did, we wouldn't even know if it was another white person or not. My mother agreed this was true. So, I pointed out that it didn't really matter who drank out of a fountain, because it didn't make any practical difference, so it was just DUMB. "Just dumb" was my chronic and persistent protest of all adult illogic.

My parents gave up the hushing battle and simply picked me up bodily, threw me into the back of the family car, and hurriedly drove away to avoid an incident. My parents tried to explain how people felt, that it wasn't about logic.

I held to my conclusion that segregation was just dumb; not, I regret to say, for the inequality of it - I didn't really understand that part of it until later. I objected to the redundancy, the impracticality of it, in the face of poverty.

I find that as an adult looking at the current policy of our government towards gays in the military, I feel similarly that the policy of prohibiting people from serving because of their sexuality is "just dumb". We have always had men - and women - serving in our armed forces who were not heterosexual. Eisenhower had a notable experience in World War II in the European theater with having to relent to allow lesbians in the military, for example.

We have veterans of our current wars who have served with distinction, including people who have been honored for their courage in combat. We have graduated officers from the various service academies who have gone on to lead our armed forces in combat, without any more consequence resulting than that from shared desegregated drinking fountains.

Which does not alter the feelings of those who object. Minnesota has experienced the homophobic murder and beatings of gays in our history. We have right now so-called ministries and politicians, and their respective supporters, who contribute to that homophobia by claiming that muslims have the right idea in executing gays, who claim that the muslim and 'judeo-christian' faiths correctly label homosexuality an abomination. Perhaps the most egregious claim is that all homosexuals are child molesters, that homosexuals "molest 117 individuals" before being "found out". This is a factually inaccurate claim that is calculated to create fear and hatred. You can see a video of it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOYF2Og1nMI

I have read comments from a devout catholic commenter who sincerely believes that the crisis in the Roman Catholic church is clear evidence that homosexuals are child molesters, because the priests who abused children "buggered little boys" more often than they abused girls, according to the statistics of the church.

Never mind the illogic of the reasoning, it is not about reason.

They claim to be upholding moral values; it is not about moral values. Values are the excuse, the justification, the attempt to defend the indefensible.

They don't want to hear facts or reason any more than those southern whites who believed in the necessity, the importance, the sacred tradition of segregation.

In every case fear will be the weapon of bigotry, whether it be the fear that blacks are criminals and that black men are just dying to rape white women, or the fear that homosexuals are all sexual predators and child molesters who want "to bugger little boys".

Predictably, religion will be dragged out to justify the bigotry that is too weak to prevail, to persuade, by fear alone. Dire predictions of divine retribution are the hallmarks of the worst of the religious zealots who try to preserve and extend the bigotry.

Predictably patriotism and fears for our security will be dragged out, claims that our military will fall apart if we do this. Similar arguments were made against desegregating the armed forces. It is an old, tattered, predictable fear tactic, not a valid argument.

In every case where fear fails to stop, the bigots will resist by trying to slow the progress, wailing that those who would act justly are forcing this evil thing on them. Just as predictably, those who come later will look back with the 20/20 vision of history and with clear hindsight, view the discrimination against gays as equally incomprehensible.

I have learned the adult lessons of diplomacy, that it is not useful to one's position to insult those who think differently by helpfully pointing out their position is 'just DUMB" even if the intent is only to be logical, to reason, not to be demeaning.

There is no more point in expecting logic to prevail in this instance. Some change will come through persuasion, but the majority of real change will come because, like Truman, those who can make the change find the strength to act. It is unrealistic to expect that we will have complete consensus so long as we have elected officials like the gormless Republican Rep. Gohmert of Texas, or Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a supporter of the man who is in the video ranting against gays and who shares his view.

It is unrealistic to expect that logic or persuasion will prevail over bigotry. The opposition of those who are so very wrong hurts our fellow citizens through this kind of discrimination, denies them dignity and honor, denies them careers, and denies us the valuable service of their courage, and skills. It is foolish for us to indulge the bigots any longer or to let this decision be dictated by the lowest denominator instead of the highest.

History shows us there will always be opposition. There are and will continue to be segments of the armed forces that are virulently homophobic. That opposition will exist between now and the conclusion date for the study; it will exist during the 60 days after the study is completed (presuming the study affirms the position of the majority of the military leadership as currently expressed).

History teaches us that like the changing attitudes towards desegregation and race, the only thing which will succeed is to steel ourselves to take the plunge. George Santayana said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Peter Allen came up with the song and lyrics "everything old is new again". An anonymous author perhaps was the wisest when he - or she - came up with the saying "''Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up."

It is time to learn the lessons of history. Again. And to pay that price, whatever it will be.