Still not heard

There has been a lot of talk lately. There has been so much talk that it looks like not even a hail of bullets heard across the nation, if not the world, has made us hear the message that needs to be heard.

Immediately after the January 8 shooting in Tucson - Happy New Year! - people started talking, saying who should be blamed or not blamed for it happening. And yes, it was so easy, so tempting, to join in on the talking and blaming. I was all ready to say that the shooting happened because of Sara Palin and Glenn Beck and the Tea Partiers and their threats (see my last post), their cross-hairs, their gun-toting.

But that was like my dad always looking for someone to blame when something broke. The washer couldn’t just be worn out.

So, Palin, for example, with the cross-hairs on her website (one of which focused on Gabrielle Giffords, the Democratic Arizona congresswoman said to be the primary target in the shooting), is an obvious target (pun very much intended!) for blame. But its not like MoveOn.org of "General Betray-Us" fame and others on the left haven’t indulged in plenty of nasty, tough, provocative talk.

Politics is usually a tough business. Look at how the country burned - literally - in the 1960's. If that’s not enough, go back another 100 years and check out the Civil War.

I think "provocative" is the key word, and I, as much as I am loathed to, have to agree with the right-wingers when they say it is not fair that they be lumped together with an insane man. Yes, Jared Loughner, the alleged shooter, did target a congress member (who, by the way, graduated from Scripps College here in Claremont), but all reports have made it crystal clear that he has a very serious mental illness and is not rational. He may have been ticked off with the congresswoman after a brief, non-sensical exchange with her, as he was clearly ticked off with the college he was attending, but it is evident that he is seriously troubled and not in charge of his thoughts. To put it very roughly, he heard all the talking, all the voices, and these voices took over.

This may be an over-simplification, but I don’t think it’s an over-simplification to say that, with all this talk going on, there are two questions we are not hearing - or not hearing enough.

The first is, how come a man, who was known to many, including police, as mentally unstable, was able to buy a gun, much less a semi-automatic one? (I’d like to know why anyone can buy a semi- automatic - or even any - gun, but that’s for another posting!)

The second question has to do with people like Jared Loughner, who are so lost and alienated in our world and are desperate - sometimes violently so - for help. Can there be a place, a way, for them to be safe, contributing members of society?

A week after the shooting, I read an article about a petting zoo in the greater Los Angeles area where a number of autistic and mentally disabled adults worked having to close down. The zoo was owned and operated by the parents of an autistic man and was called Danny’s Farm. It was shut down, because neighbors said there was too much traffic and that the animals made too much noise.

Tea Party express-way

Over the holidays, I went up north to the San Francisco Bay Area. As usual, driving up and down the state proved to be an interesting political lesson. Even more so this time.

When I drove up Highway 5, which goes through the Central Valley, the agricultural hub often called "the salad bowl of America," I got an eyeful (as opposed to an earful) of anti-government anger. In recent years, there have been a few signs claiming that the U.S Congress has created a "dust bowl" in the Valley. This time, there were dozens, if not hundreds, seemingly at least one every few miles. In addition to the dust bowl signs, there were signs condemning Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer, the U.S Senator from California, as well as signs saying things like "No water + no jobs = higher prices."

Who put up all these signs? I wondered. The Valley looked pretty green to me, and I was reminded of all the outcry against federal power from Tea Party types that lead to the many Republican victories in the recent elections. Except that California is still solidly Democratic.

I also noticed that I wasn’t seeing any anti-abortion signs. I have usually seen these when traveling on Highway 99, another freeway running up and down the Central Valley. Whenever I saw these, I felt like I was suddenly in some Bible belt and that it would perhaps be better if I was invisible - or at least not so loud and rainbow tie-dyed.

While I was up north, I told my dad that I would probably not see such signs when I returned home down Highway 101, which runs closer to and sometimes on the California coast. I was right - I didn’t. As my dad suggested, it looks like it’s all about geography and demographics.

Something to learn, indeed.

That's the spirit(s)

"[I]t was a Christmas party, one could assume there was [drinking]"

Of course! That explains it.

Why didn’t I think of that?

I’m so glad that a Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s spokesman, quoted a week or two ago in the Los Angeles Times, offered this explanation as to why there was a brawl at a Christmas party for Men’s Central Jail employees, resulting in seven deputies being relieved of duty. It certainly cleared things up.

Never mind that the Christmas party, attended by about 100, including family and friends, was for jail staff. That’s already something to get one’s head around.

And never mind that, as the spokesman helpfully pointed out, "Deputies are supposed to be peacemakers, not law violators."

What’s more, "they’re not supposed to be assaulting their fellow co-workers."

Just in case you’re wondering.

But - excuse me - I’m sorry.... I don’t get it. I’m still confused.

It’s bad enough that New Year’s Eve is devoted to drinking, if not to getting drunk. (Much for this reason, I don’t like New Year’s Eve and spent many holed up at a Quaker retreat deep in the dark, dank California redwoods.) But at least it’s done just to mark time, to celebrate a significant passage. At least it’s not done for Jesus.

I don’t get why Christmas is an excuse, an obvious, natural excuse, for drinking. I don’t get how getting drunk and even out of control celebrates the birth of Jesus, who was all about peace and love.

I’ve never forgotten about the attendant I had years ago who told me she had to stay home on Christmas Eve to make sure things were safe, what with her parents and others drinking.

So much for all being calm and bright.

Sitting here in limbo

On one front, things look good, but on the other front, they don’t look so hot.

Or maybe not.

Put it another way, are we taking one step forward and another step back?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

It could be that we’ll end up taking two steps forward or two steps backwards.

Who’s to say when it comes to Proposition 8 here in California and the don’t-ask-don’t-tell rule in the U.S military?

Earlier this month, there was a hearing on Proposition 8 in an appeals court after a judge had ruled the same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional. It was reported that the appellate judges - two of the three of them were known as liberal - appeared to want to rule in such a way so that the case won’t go to the U.S Supreme Court. A big fear is that the U.S Supreme Court, which would close the case for at least a while, is increasingly conservative and could well set this cause back decades if it got its hands on it.

However, this reporting was really just tea-leaf reading, and the ruling is likely not to be out for months.

Meanwhile, the congressional repeal of D.A.D.T is, after lots of fanfare, all but dead in the water. There is a bit of talk about bringing it up again, probably on a separate vote, in this lame-duck session, but that looks like a tall order after the brutal fight over the tax-cut extension and when an usually popular nuclear arms reduction treaty is an iffy proposition. Prospects for the repeal look even dimmer come January, when the Republicans will take over the House of Representatives and gain seats in the Senate.

Then again, the courts will likely repeal D.A.D.T anyway. Good - but this path will be more abrupt and a rougher ride for the military.

Good grief! Enough already! Can someone please make a decision? The problem is that everything rides on who makes the decision. Sure, we can have a say on who makes the decision, but, again, that takes time.

Marriage and military service may be abstract and far-fetched for me - unlike, say, attendant-care funding - but, as a gay man with gay friends, I am sick of being a political football, a pawn in a social game, dependent on what time it is and who’s in charge, making the decisions, at the time.

Rainbow radiance

This past weekend, I was at a gathering which I attend several times a year and about which I have written about before. Near the end of the weekend, a man told the group about being an openly gay teacher at a big-city junior high school in a poor, rough neighborhood consisting of mostly immigrants.

Although he was already "out" at the school, after the recent spate of highly publicized gay teenage suicides, the teacher decided that he had to speak out more. With the other teachers’ blessing, he went to all the seventh grade health classes, beginning the conversation by asking, "Who here is gay?" After some denials and giggling, he would say, "I am." This would produce considerable shock, but then there would be lots of good, constructive questions from the students, which the teacher answered as honestly as possible. When the teacher asked if any of the students know anyone who is gay, most did - a cousin or such - and said that "they are alright."

The man explained that the school shares the campus with a much larger high school and said that, one day after these conversations, he decided to sit outside during recess, knowing that he was taking some risk. He noticed some seventh-grade boys looking and pointing at him and went over to ask what was up. The boys asked him more provocative questions ("Who gives the sperm?"). The teacher was beginning to answer when he was hit by an open carton of milk thrown from afar.

The seventh-graders were nearly as shocked as the teacher and asked him why this happened. The teacher asked the boys if they saw who threw the carton. One or two pointed out a high school student. The teacher, still dripping with milk, went over and confronted the boy, who told him, "Don’t talk about gay stuff!"

After finding out that the high school student is the older brother of a seventh-grader, the teacher was told by school administrators that he had to get a number of witnesses in order for anything to be done about the incident. The teacher found that many students refused to get involved, but he did get enough of them to point out the high school boy, who was then sent to a juvenile rehabilitation facility.

We can admire this man and say that he is brave. We can say that he has balls to teach at a junior high school - not to mention one in a tough inner-city neighborhood and being known to be gay. But that would be too easy.

This man is doing what we in the GLBT community all should be doing, the hard work every one of us needs to do. He is getting out there day after day, standing up for all to see and being honest about who he is. Not only that - and more importantly - he is not letting those who want to deny his existence, shame him and destroy him succeed. In being his true self, he shines and is the one who, in the end, is stronger, survives and thrive.

The failure to do this is clearly evident in the success of Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage, in California. The gay community couldn’t even say "gay," and the opposition ran with it and made it all the more shameful and frightening.

Another closet heard from

Last week, I attended a forum at Pomona College sponsored by the Pomona Student Union on "The Future of American Atheism." I had not heard of the three speakers - Hemant Mehta, David Silverman and Chris Mooney - but while they are not big names like Sam Harris, Christopher Hutchins and Bill Maher (who they often referred to), they are apparently respected commentators, bloggers and leaders in the "atheist movement." The basic question of the evening was "Now that not believing in God isn’t a big deal, now what?"

Who knew there was "atheist movement?" I didn’t. Well, there is - not unlike there is a "gay movement." In fact, what struck me is that, throughout the 90 minutes, I kept thinking that I could well have been listening to three gay men. Indeed, they repeatedly mentioned the gay community.

In answering the initial question about how they discovered atheism, all three men talked about thinking that they were the only person who didn’t believe in God until they went to the library or went on-line and stumbled upon writings by other people who didn’t believe in God. Near the end of the forum, someone asked the panelists how they realized that they were atheists, and all three answers sounded like when gay people talk about realizing that they weren’t attracted to or aroused by people of the opposite sex (as opposed to people of the same sex). Classic coming-out stories.

Things really got going and the gay analogy just kept showing up when the panelists were ask to talk about their goals as atheists, what they want to accomplish in the greater society. While all insisted that they are not out to recruit or convert people - a hoary gay stereotype, right? - but there was some disagreement about how active and "militant" - how "out," it occurred me - one should be.

Mr. Silverman, who is the vice-president of American Atheists, was continually ribbed by the other two about being "angry," but he kept saying that he is just "honest and blunt." He pointed out that he doesn’t like the term "militant," but he did sound a bit like a member of ActUP or Queer Nation and was the one who is most concerned about the U.S Supreme Court is one vote away from tearing down the wall between church and state. Despite or because of this, he was quick to agree with the others that America shouldn’t be an atheist country.

No, these atheists - at least - don’t want to push their non-belief onto others or live in a country where religion is banned. What they want is to be accepted and able to live openly and comfortably in the society at large. Sound familiar?

A prayer for Johnny

It riles me up enough when I hear about parents who kick out a child when they learn that the child is gay. As a friend once said, how can a parent love a child one day and then not love the child the next day? I don’t get it.

I also don’t get parents who are so into drugs that they neglect their children. I have seen this up close and personal more than I care to admit, unfortunately with people I have hired as attendants in the past, and it is disturbing and ugly to see. While I understand about addiction and its power, I still, perhaps naively, don’t understand how anything can be more important than one’s children.

Then I read the article in the Los Angeles Times last week about Johnny. Johnny is a 6-year-old boy rescued last year from his drug-addicted mother and her gang-leader boyfriend, "Bullet," and their "associates" who continued to abuse and torture him after the L.A County Department of Children and Family Services declared that he was "not at risk."

From the article: "According to Bessinger and the Los Angeles County documents, Johnny was forced to eat food scraps and lap water from a bowl like a dog; he was denied access to the bathroom; he was made to eat his own feces, urine and vomit and drink soda mixed with soap. Johnny’s tormenters made him sit in a corner, unable to lie down or move for extended stretches, sometimes taunting him with a plate of food they forbade him to eat... His tongue was torn, and one of [the] associates forced him to perform oral sex, leaving extensive sores in his mouth." The article also states that the boy was beaten repeatedly and burned with a glue gun and hot spoons.

How can a child be treated this way? Yes, it is a scandal that the L.A County DCFS is riddled with lax oversight - this was only the latest revelation - and I am horrified that the mother and boyfriend could be such monsters. But my heart is with Johnny, who is, after all, a child, a child of God.

Reading the article makes me want to scream and cry into the night which now is all the darker and colder. I can only hope that Johnny, who is reportedly doing well in intensive therapy and a class for gifted students, will be like one of those kids who thrive despite tremendous odds and grow up to shine into the night, making it just a bit less dark and cold.