tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5879026098269260702024-03-13T04:53:43.411-07:00Gay Family ValuesGFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.comBlogger446125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-55880874892555162492014-10-13T09:42:00.002-07:002014-10-13T09:43:17.809-07:00Essay Post...Why Be Moral?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hello dear readers...<br />
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Following up on the topic of the last post about identity, this week we were asked to discuss why we live life the way we do....in essence, why be moral? Is morality something that is subjective to each person, or is there an objective morality that holds true for all? We were asked to talk about our own sense of morals and specifically, why we think they are important(or not important).<br />
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For inspiration, we were asked to read several works. One of which was Plato's "The Ring of Gyges", in which an everyday man finds a ring that can turn him invisible. The purpose of the work was to show that even good people can be tempted to do bad things when they think no one is watching. It further went on to give a lengthy philosophical discourse on how to know the difference between a just man and an unjust one by their reactions to being accused of injustice.<br />
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To me, all of this seemed like mental gymnastics for their own sake. Will people do shady things if they think no one is watching?....probably. But to focus on that fact and stop there seems to miss a big point. All of us make awful mistakes at some point in life, you simply can not be a human being and escape that fact. Life is full of making mistakes, yet it's what we learn from them that matters. Also, it seemed to me that there was a danger in focusing on the philosophical and ignoring the fact that morals are simply choices we make in the small moments of every day.<br />
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This post was a much harder one for me to write than the last because who sits around thinking about why they hold the morals they do? We all have them in one form or other, but how often do we need to reflect on them really?<br />
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But before I start rewriting the essay here, perhaps I should just let you read it for yourself...<br />
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<u><b>Why Be Moral?</b></u></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Being moral is not a question we think about on a typical day. In fact, in thinking about how to write this essay I found myself struggling to get in touch with my own feelings on the topic. It is easy to get lost in philosophy, theories, and abstractions such that we lose all touch with the most important element of morality…the human heart. It is for this reason that I do not want to get lost in the abstract, but to talk about my own experiences on the subject of morality as I have learned them from life.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For myself, the notion of being moral can not be untied from religion and my parents outlook on life. As a child, I was raised on the ten commandments, the golden rule, and a very strong sense that God was watching me at all times and grading my behavior…indeed my every thought. Much of the reason why I would do or not do something came from the fear of God’s anger and the fear of hell. If I told the truth, I could imagine God was happy with me and all was right with the universe. If I told a lie and blamed it on my brother, then God saw that too and punished it. If you persisted in your wrong doing, then hell waited for you and nothing could save you from an eternity of torture. During my teenage years the list of things I was supposed to do and the things I must not ever do grew until it was a monster that took over my mind. To even be angry with someone, or to think a passing unkind thought became a reason to fear God would turn his back on me, and to fear I did not belong to him. I was told to read more Bible, think pure thoughts, and evangelize to friends. If I could not, I was told that perhaps I did not love God enough or truly belong to him. The havoc this wreaked on my mind and spirit is a part of what taught me that morals are something more than the rules men add to religion.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Another example of this was in confronting my sexuality. Ask the average person what the Bible says about being gay and the answer you get will be negative. When I came out to myself, it was after a lifetime of hearing how wrong it was. I fought it, and I fought hard. It was when I had no fight left that I finally turned to face this thing that I had been told all my life was a great evil and ask…why? I had never asked why before. I just accepted what I was told. To this day I still can not find one palpable reason why the condemnation exists other than the cultural reasons of the day in which the Bible was written. We forget that the Bible also had is audience in mind, and each writer his own intention. There is a why to the morals that matter to us the most, but without understanding it you are just parroting other peoples words….not practicing morals.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now, I do not mean to give the impression that I only held to morals because of the rewards or punishments of an afterlife. As I grew up, I did understand that the reason we don’t lie, cheat, steal, or hurt others is because we would not want those things done to us. Empathy for the pains and joys of others was, and will always be, the core of a real set of moral values that can only come from inside your own heart. But sometimes it takes a long time to learn those lessons and the making of many mistakes.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My family also conveyed to me a set of values that still effect me very deeply. My dad would tell stories of life in the Navy or of his work as a house painter and I always saw him as so tough. My grandmother, raised in a Spanish-Italian family would tell stories of having to work in her teenage years to help support her family. They picked fruit from the fields around Sonoma County for pennies per pound and walked everywhere they wanted to go. My family had many lessons to teach about what it meant to be a good worker. They were a part of a set of morals that came with what it meant to be in our family. You were a good worker, you didn't put on airs with people, and the family was the core of our life. Even when divorce and its consequences made family life more like negotiating a minefield than a loving support network, the values they taught me have carried on in me. I hope I am giving to my kids the best parts of those morals, minus the minefield.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As a parent, I understand morals differently then I did when younger. I am acutely aware that one day my kids are going to have to go out into the world and get along with the people within it. One of the many things I hope for is their success and learning how to be a good person goes a long way in that department. However, I also hope that they are kind and loving people. I want them to be the kind of people that would stop to help a man bleeding on the side of the road when no one else will stop. I want to impart in them a sense of love and concern for others that is one of the highest morals I think we can have as people. We know beautiful people by their actions, and I hope my kids grow up that kind of beautiful.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>None of us are perfect people and all of us make mistakes. It is hard not to write on the subject of morals and not feel like the worlds biggest hypocrite because none of us are a master of them. Indeed, To be aware of a standard is to also be aware of how far you fall below it. It does not matter if it’s the grade of this assignment or the grade we would get on life. Morals are not about grades. They are about learning to live with each other. They are not simply a list of rules meant to make sure that society does not fall apart, they are what keeps us connected in the first place. I treat you with kindness and respect not only because I want those same things in return. I do so also because something in me can see something special in you…a spark of something precious. It is the appreciation that everyone around me has value and that my actions effect others like ripples from a pebble dropped in a pond. Some, may call that awareness a kind of love. Still others will claim that love is the only thing with any real value to constrain the heart. Aren't morals just that?…a constraint of the heart for something beyond ourselves?<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Why I live the way I do is a combination of the lessons taught to me while young, as well as those I questioned, and the awareness that my actions have consequences beyond myself. I learned these lessons mostly through failing them, but each fail helped me to understand why the lesson was given. In turn, learning to empathize with the feelings of others brought each lesson home. Over time, I leaned to see that life was not a graded lesson. Nor was God watching me with anything other than love. Everyday I learn to see more of the ripples as they spread out and returned to me, distorting what lies beneath their waves. This in turn teaches me to look deeper…and to throw less rocks.<br />
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So what about you readers? We don't often have to think about what makes for good or ill in our choices and how we live our lives. Furthermore, can we recognize that even our mistakes may have taught us lessons or brought us to a particular point in life that we can now recognize as positive?<br />
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But now it's your turn. What makes you moral? Is it something handed down to you through the generations?...or something you have learned through hard knocks? Was it the first time you have ever had to really sit down and think about <i><u>why</u></i> you are moral? let us know...<br />
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Until next time dear readers...<br />
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GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com48tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-14306509084490516282014-09-29T16:14:00.002-07:002014-09-29T16:18:25.814-07:00Essay Post...Who Am I?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello dear readers...no, the title does not mean we are playing a guessing game so you can stop panicking now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have not been around very much and I have to apologize for that. As many of you may already know, I have returned to college to polish my writing skills and to finish the degree I abandoned cold turkey in my twenties. Funny thing...turns out college is a lot of hard work! Who knew right? All kidding aside, even though I have not been writing here, I have been doing a ton of writing for class...some of which my husband thinks is suitable for mass consumption here. So, to make sure I stay out of the dog house with both you and my husband...here you go...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My professor has been giving us writing assignments meant to draw out our worldview. He is beginning with topics personal to us and is working outward to topics in which we may have less of a personal stake in, but in which we will have to form an opinion and craft an argument. This first essay was us, describing who we were in 800-1200 words(Doesn't this guy know I can't say anything in less than 10,000?!!). How do you boil down who you believe you are into such a small space?...Read on to find out...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Who Am I?…That is a question that many of us can spend a lifetime in answering. Indeed, what may have been true of me at 12, 20, or even 30 years old may be very different about me today. I tend to think of it as a puzzle that gets upended onto the table the day you are born. The first pieces we always go for are the corners, the edge pieces, the parts of things easily recognizable. Those pieces are easy to assemble and can give us a basic idea of the picture we are building, even though the rest of the image will take a lifetime to piece together…and sometimes the pieces won’t seem to fit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My first piece was the understanding that I have always been a very shy person. I remember being five and hiding behind my mothers legs as she tried in vain to get me to say a polite hello to a stranger we had met and I just could not. That hardwired need to retreat continues today. I would rather be home reading a book or playing a video game over spending time being with people. This fearful part of me made it very hard growing up. School in particular was a kind of hell. It seemed that other kids could sense my predisposition like a shark can smell blood in the water. I was bullied and harassed every day from fourth grade to high school. Those days broke down my sense of self to its bare bedrock. While I have learned to see those experiences as making me stronger, they still left their stamp on me. I fight with the legacy of looking at the world as an innately unsafe place because it was not for me for a very long time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Among the pieces of puzzle I have connected are that I am a parent and Husband. It may seem odd to most to claim those as identity. After all, most people don’t run around making a big deal about those things. But turning over the scattered pieces of my puzzle yielded some that I didn’t expect to find. When I was about twelve, I remember having a very vivid dream of holding my newborn son. It’s a strange dream for someone as young as I was, but the feelings it invoked in me were so strong that they have stuck with me to this very day. Since that time I have always known that I wanted to be a father. But life had other plans for me first…</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In my early twenties I learned to accept that I am gay. While this was a freeing discovery on the one hand, it also meant that I had to face a lot of loss. I had been taught all my life that gay relationships were all about sex and could never last. I struggled with the notion that I may be alone for most of my life…no marriage, no family…just a string of relationships that lasted only as long as the interest did. After fighting the awareness of being gay for so long, I had come to accept that part of myself as a given fact but I was not ready to let my dreams die so easily. If I had been lied to about who gay people were then perhaps everything else I imagined would be my fate was wrong as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That is why it is with wonder and gratitude that I look at my life today like a time traveler that has gone to some amazing and fantastical future. I did find a good man who I love and who loves me in return. We have lived 18 years together. We adopted two children who are the apple of my eye and whom I have been a stay at home parent to for most of these last years. An additional surprise gift was the ability to be legally married…even if it was a long fight to settle the issue in the courts. So here I am, married with kids when I thought I would have to let both of those dreams slide into darkness. They are both a precious gift and why I make them a part of who I am.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My husband has also been the catalyst for change in me. He is a type A go-getter who has suffered some terrible events in his own life that he has never let bring him down. Simply traveling to other countries is an example of how he has helped me grow. When planning to go somewhere, my parents were warning me about how dangerous it was to travel as an American. He would simply frown and shake his head at that. We were going to go and that was that. So I held my breath, white knuckled a few plane rides…and ended up having the time of my life. That is typical of so many experiences I have had with him. He has helped me face the world dead on instead of shrinking from it. I am a stronger and more courageous person today for having that push. When anxiety or depression would have me retreat into myself, he simply does not let me get away with it. I have gone from I can’t, to let’s try…and sometimes, to let’s do this! I would never have found those pieces of the puzzle on my own.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Another piece of who I am may sound silly to some. I am a HUGE Star Wars fan. I surround every moment of my life with it, even if only by having the music in my mind or amusing myself by quoting lines from the movie. I understand that Star Wars itself is just a movie. If it had never existed, perhaps something else would have filled the space it occupies. However, I have come to see it as a way to stay a child at heart. A way to find humor, adventure, and a sense of wonder even in life’s smaller moments. My Grandmother would always say that you are only as old as you feel…so I intend to be a Toys R US kid for life and being a Star Wars geek is how I make that happen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Who I am is a work in progress and this paper is way too short to speak of everything I consider a part of myself. Most days I still feel as if all I have assembled are the edge pieces of my puzzle and some of the bigger bits. Sometimes I catch myself trying to hammer together two pieces that just don’t fit. At other times I suspect my kids may have stolen a few of the pieces and hidden them in the couch cushions just to drive me crazy…but I love a good puzzle, and so I keep turning over the pieces and looking for the small details that match up, filling in the parts that continue to reveal an even bigger picture. </span><br />
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But enough about me, let's talk about you. How much of your personal puzzle do you have assembled? Do your kids hide the pieces just to drive you crazy? How the hell does anyone describe themselves in 800-1200 words?! Now it's your turn to tell me...</div>
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P.S....this got an "A"</div>
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Until next time dear readers...</div>
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GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-75444614775494668362014-08-04T15:31:00.002-07:002014-08-04T15:31:32.409-07:00Guest Post...Cats By Selena<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today we have the honor of hosting a post by a major up and coming blogger...my 9 year old daughter Selena...who unceremoniously announced this morning(while I was cleaning the bathroom) that she was writing a blog. I asked her if it was ok if I share it with all of you and she said yes...as long as I give equal credit to Domino, her cat as co-author. Done and Done...so without further ado..<br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Cats</span></u></b></div>
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By Selena Leffew and Domino the Cat</div>
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The word "cat" means than a pet. It means friend, because cats are fun. They sleep with you and they are not loud. Most cats don't do that, but mine does. If you want your cat to like you, act like a cat...be a friend.</blockquote>
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Short but sweet and sage advice...Until next time dear readers...<br />
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GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-33177961951041890432014-08-03T14:32:00.003-07:002014-08-03T14:32:58.045-07:00Adoption, Compassion, and The Pitfalls of "Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As many of the readers to this blog are also subscribers to our YouTube channel...you may already know that we are a same-sex family that built our family via adoption...and that adoption was done through a third party agency working with the state to match couples like my husband and me, with children that need a forever family. It is the best thing we have ever done in our lives and it is because of this that this weeks blog post hits all my angry buttons. Some people just seem to want to ensure that kids remain unadopted forever.<br />
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What do I mean?...<br />
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recent legislation written and introduced by Senator Mike Enzi(R) of Wyoming and Congressman Mike Kelly(R) of Pennsylvania have introduced a bill titled "<a href="http://www.enzi.senate.gov/uploads/CWPIA.pdf">The Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2014</a>". This rather tongue-in-cheek title should rather be called the "child welfare <i><u>exclusion</u></i> act" because what it does is ensure that third party agencies that provide child welfare services can no longer be forced to provide those services in the instance that doing so would cause them to violate their "sincerely held religious beliefs". You know, like believing gay people are an abomination?...yeah, those kind.<br />
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To get an idea of what is happening here, take the recent Hobby Lobby Supreme Court Ruling, Throw in all the compassion that the GOP has shown to children in the recent border crisis, put it in a cocktail shaker with a dose of complete ignorance...shake it up and Viola!...you have a chilled concoction of such toxic stupidity I wouldn't even give it to my dog.<br />
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In another example of religious zeal leading to shooting themselves square in the face, they have done it again...only this time, they are trying to drag families like mine down with them. And it's time to set the record straight.<br />
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I do understand that, as gay rights advance and we become less and less an object of legitimate discrimination, religious people are freaking out. I think everyone gets that clearly. What I do not understand is their inability to see the damage they are doing to the very religious freedom they are trying so hard enshrine in law so as to not to have to acknowledge gay people...or anyone outside of their particular religion. Without going into to much excruciating detail, some of the findings within the proposed bill are as follows(emphasis mine):<br />
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(a2) The right to free exercise of religion for child welfare service providers includes the <b><i>freedom to refrain from conduct that conflicts with their sincerely held religious beliefs</i></b>.</blockquote>
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(a5) Religious organizations have long been and <b><i>should continue contracting with and receiving grants from governmental entities to provide child welfare services</i></b>.</blockquote>
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(a9) Governmental entities and officials administering federally funded child welfare services in some States, including Massachusetts, California, Illinois, and the District of Columbia, have refused to contract with religious organizations that are unable, due to sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions, to provide a child welfare service that conflicts, or under circumstances that conflict, with those beliefs or convictions; and that refusal has forced many religious organizations to end their long and distinguished history of excellence in the provision of child welfare services. </blockquote>
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Ok, I call bullshit on item #9. The cases that the bill uses as examples of religious conflict involved instances in which organizations like Catholic Charities in Washington DC were being forced to offer adoptive services to ALL families(including LGBT families), in order to continue receiving money from the state. However, Catholic Charities found it more morally compelling to NOT offer adoptive services to gay people than to continue to offer services to children AT ALL. So...they threw a tantrum, packed up their services and left those self same children without any welfare services at all....just to avoid having to violate their consciences with regard to working with gay families.<br />
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I wonder, which evil was greater to them?....possibly placing a child in a a loving forever home with two dads?....or leaving him to languish in foster care permanently without Catholic Charities adoptive services...as well as all other services they may have offered that were terminated when they closed doors.<br />
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This bill aims to make sure agencies like Catholic Charities can continue to say no to gay families....<br />
AND still receive government money and this is an utter farce...<br />
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However....One thing I wish to address is this utter B.S. notion that people with "sincerely held religious beliefs" need protecting in ways that go above those already outlined in the U.S. Constitution; which, in the <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html">first amendment</a> clearly states...<br />
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"Congress shall make no respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;". </blockquote>
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Can someone please explain to me how this bill is not respecting the establishment of religion...as it seeks to give certain entities(There intention being Christian organizations) the right to deny services to certain types of people(while still taking government funding)...and justifying it all under the banner of their "sincerely held religious beliefs"<br />
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These are modern day Pharisees...nothing more. They have all the external appearance of goodness and none of the love that is actual evidence of it...and that evidence would be loving others, such that you would want them to find a good home over your "sincerely held beliefs".<br />
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And so for the sake of argument...say this bill passes, and they all go home to pat themselves on the back that they "defended the faith" and "Defended children" against the terrible fate of having to be adopted into a home with two dads. I imagine they will be so pleased with themselves...<i>until</i>...a Christian couple tries to adopt....and that couple finds a wonderful match with a child in a home that just happens to have a Muslim social worker. That worker finds the Christian couple to be unacceptable because of their "sincerely held religious belief". And so, the finely crafted protections they intended for Christians blows up right in their faces. And how does anyone holding to this notion with any seriousness not understand that the different denominations within Christianity can be just as rancorous with each other as with any completely separate religion? Would Catholic Charities place a child in a Mormon home?Are these various shades of Christianity to now work their grievances out in the Supreme Court as well? What astounds me is that they can't see that coming....or simply don't care. Take your pick.<br />
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And on the subject of things they don't care about, are children. They would rather a child wait forever in foster care homes and group homes....to find the only home that will ever be legitimate in their eyes...one with a mom and a dad, preferably also of the same religion as them. However, I have a news flash for them...that wasn't happening. Those people are not stepping up to adopt. This is the very reason why county social services has moved to placing kids in homes with two dads, two moms, and single parents. There simply aren't enough adoptive families for the number of kids that need...good, loving homes. Would Senator Enzi or Congressman Kelly adopt them?....<u><i>would they ever even consider that notion?</i></u><br />
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And what happens in the hallowed halls of these fine religious children's service agencies when a child in their charge is gay or transgender? Is it ok for them to deny that child their help because of those self same, sincerely held beliefs?...or do would they find some way to erase that child's sexuality such that their conscience is absolved for having to do something for them?<br />
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But just like the thousands of kids streaming across our southern border, these men care not one ounce for the kids, only how they can use them for their own political gain.<br />
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I think it's time we stop accepting the phrase "sincerely held beliefs" as anything more than the baldfaced attempt to justify discrimination that it is. It's a phrase that raises ire the <u><i>instant</i></u> I hear it and it's time to call it for the utter lie that it is when ever we hear it used.<br />
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I am supremely grateful for the family I have...and that I was afforded the opportunity to be a dad. These men and their B.S. bill seek to take that experience away from another family and I am not having it. No more discrimination justified by "it's my belief".<br />
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No one...has taken anyones right to practice their religion away. Despite their fearful wailing and histrionics they have only been kept from taking that religion into the public sphere...wear these people daily attempt to hijack Christianity as a means for power over others. As legislators, these two men already violate the intent of the constitution that they invoke in the body of their bill. As Christians...they are not representing Christ, in that they see themselves above others and seek to make them into outcasts. And for this they expect the government to still fund them?<br />
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"Sincerely held beliefs" is one meme that I am tired of seeing find traction in lawmaking and public discourse. We are a country in which freedom <i><u>to</u></i> and <u><i>from</i></u> religion is guaranteed. We are all free to hold to "sincerely held beliefs". But, no matter how sincere they are, we also hold ourselves to the standard that the ability to practice those beliefs does not trump the right to freedom and happiness of others...especially the kids who will be denied forever families because Mr. Enzi and Mr. Kelly find gays parenting objectionable.<br />
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If it were up to them...my family would never be. If given the chance, they will make sure that another family just like mine will never get the chance to exist. Therefore...it is my "sincerely held belief" that their bill can go straight to hell. Can we place that into law also?<br />
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Until next time dear readers....<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-60280803841556047022014-07-27T18:28:00.000-07:002014-07-27T18:28:35.473-07:00Balance of Power<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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No this will not be a post about politics or any current world events that would make any sane thinking person to the conclusion that the world has lost it's collective mind. No...the loss of sanity I would like to talk about today is much closer to home. Finding the balance of power within your relationship....be that married, dating, domestically partnered, or any combination there of.....dividing up responsibilities such as who stays home, who pays the bills, who cleans what, who gets the kids to school can be more than a little crazy making....and a constant source of relationship negotiation.<br />
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Being both Gay and a stay at home dad, I think a lot of people may get a skewed idea that gay couples struggle both <i><u>more</u></i> and <u><i>less</i></u> than others do in this area. There are those who are still so hidebound in their notion of gender roles that anyone who stays home gets labeled as "the mom", with the working parent as "the dad"...and then, on the other end of the spectrum are the people who's only exposure to gay couples is on TV. To them we are all independently wealthy enough to afford nannies, have immaculate homes, and dress our whole family like an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog, all the while maintaining our perfect gym bodies. Yeah, right....as if...my tummy begs to differ.<br />
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Nope, we struggle the same as the next couple does with all the same issues as any other couple and being two men or two women does not alter the dynamics of coupledom much. Which is probably why one of the fights I am most likely to have with my husband is about "who" did "what" all day(or did <i><u>not</u></i> get done)....and what we think we are entitled to as a result. This can spark the flames of argument like nothing else.<br />
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Sound like a recipe for disaster? Is it a sign of relationship problems?....pour yourself a cup'o joe and lets discuss...<br />
<a name='more'></a>There are many places in which couples work out power in a relationship...though we may not always call it a power struggle, or recognize it as that. For instance, is the person who cleans the bathroom the one who always makes the mess, or the person who stays as home? What about who pays the bills?...is it always the person who makes the money who is the person who writes the checks or the person who understands the budget?....I know that it was a struggle for me to have to ask, to spend money from our account rather than see us overdrawn. It was hard to get used to not having the freedom and sense of independence to just do that. But when its all of us living off one income, I have to bury my ego issues and just check in first.<br />
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Issues like these are hashed out daily by couples in all stages of a relationship. Yet sometimes, you matter how clearly we negotiate our rules, we still come to conflict over simple, small acts, that when done(or not done) often enough, send us into arguments that expose the push/pull of negotiating power in a relationship.<br />
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Now, I am not a psychologist, nor a relationship councilor....I am not offering advice. Through this blog I am trying to work out issues that I don't have answers for yet myself...but I hope that we can talk about it...and maybe even laugh about it. At least I hope so...or I'm sleeping in the dog house tonight.<br />
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Being the stay-at-home parent, I have some abilities to organize my day that my husband, who works, does not have. I have no boss, sitting over my shoulder, telling me what to do and when to do it. That means that I have to be responsible for maintaining the house, monitoring my children's health and school progress, take care of pet issues, and somewhere in there maintain myself. If I want to, I <u><i>can</i></u> play video games all day...but having that ability comes with the responsibility of not abusing it. The laundry still needs to be done, the kids need homework help, the dog now needs an emergency vet, there are meals to cook....the needs of an average home are always ongoing and there is no clocking off or end of shift.<br />
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On the other hand...My husband has a job that is both mentally and physically stressful, as well as being dangerous. Being in law enforcement means that you have to have a heightened sense of danger for most of your day. He also has to deal with bosses and personalities that can sometimes test a saint. also, having to drive to and from work in some of the worst traffic on the planet one hour both ways adds to the frustrations of the day. This means that he can come home tired and cranky and just want to sit down and stare at something until his body relaxes and his brain unwinds...the last thing he want to deal with the issues of the home.<br />
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Both of our days can be very different, and we approach each other at the end of day from the point of view of two very different experiences. He can see something that didn't get cleaned or an appointment that didn't get made and feel like he now has to do it...sending him into cranky mode. I see that not only has my husband come home...but that I am not the only parent in the house anymore and I am welcoming the helping hand he represents. If something isn't done that should be, perhaps I needed the reminder...maybe even a bunch...but that doesn't mean I wanted it to be your job. And off we go to the power struggle Olympics...<br />
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Not all power struggles are about control...and I think many of us would readily say that we have no desire to control our significant others. More often than not, in our own arguments, what I notice in myself are issues of identity. For example..<br />
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Sometimes the fight may be about a surface issue...but what we may really be arguing is how we are navigating living a life as a couple and making decisions together that we used be make on our own. We want to keep some control so we do not feel like "I" is dissolving into "we"...so we resist on that surface issue not understanding whats really freaking us out. Who am I within this team?...you never know till you trust enough to find out....<br />
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The second and biggest part of power struggles in our house has to do with not feeling seen and appreciated. The person who works feels like they are sacrificing their time to provide for the family....the other person feels like their contributions to the home as a stay-at-home parent are not seen, nor appreciated because the other person sees only the things that <i><u>aren't</u></i> done and not the many things that <i><u>are</u></i>. Like the clean bathroom that is dirtied up five minutes later...or the nearly invisible contribution raising smart, well rounded, and compassionate kids. Both sides end up feeling not seen, under appreciated...and wondering how the other person would do with a week in their shoes. It's a perfect recipe for resentment to breed...and breed it does until it sparks an argument and both sides are too entrenched in their viewpoints to see it from the outside.<br />
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Sound familiar?....it plays out in homes throughout the nation, straight or gay.<br />
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When it happens to us, it can be hard sometimes to deal with that initial flash of anger. Even more difficult still to do the one thing that is most needed, which is to talk about it...and even more important to listen with an open mind. Getting past all my, "he can't talk to me that ways!"....and the, "he's gone all day, how does he understand what my day is like!" thoughts that are weapons in the battle for power in the relationship. You don't want to be the one who's always wrong....the one who loses the fight...because it feels like losing who you are to someone else's will. Those are all the angry thoughts that pass through our minds before we are clear headed enough to look at it all from the outside and admit our part in what ever occurred.<br />
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It can be supremely challenging to lay down my verbal arms and just see a man who is tired from his drive home....or resentful of my day because he would want so bad to be at home too. It's harder still to say when I messed up, and not let that admission fuel judgement...even from myself. Anger at others can just as easily be turned back on ourselves and it's just as destructive.<br />
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And so we learn to work it out one step at a time. Yet you can't help but ask yourself, is this balance of power thing just a phase all couples go through and eventually leave?....or is it something that you revisit again and again as new balance is needed? Is this just what it takes for two people to negotiate our way through raising kids and forging a life together?<br />
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I don't have an answer for that yet. All that I do know is that the push/pull between us has taught me a lot about myself, a lot about him, and a great deal about relationship itself. This dynamic of striking sparks off each other has helped us to grow in ways that we didn't expect and weren't always comfortable at the time....arguments seldom are.<br />
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I know now, that I can't just walk away from an argument, that resolves nothing and makes it last longer. I know that I have certain strengths and weaknesses as a parent that I was not aware of before. I know that I absolutely suck at multitasking. I know that hard feelings come and go in a relationship but don't define that relationship. I know my husband on a deeper level because(not in spite of) the fights we have had. I also know that fights don't mean by themselves mean danger to the relationship. To some degree, they are normal and my marriage has been tested by them enough to know that they come and go. These examples, among many others too numerous to list, are how the small struggles for power have helped me to grow....so even though I may have been mad as hell at the time, I couldn't always see how I was getting a necessary lesson either....;Not that I would have cared at the time either.<br />
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It needs to be said that this post is meant to talk about an issue that is only one small facet of our lives. It is a reality of coupled life...you just have to work these issues out again and again. I am not meaning to say that we fight all the time or that either of us is unhappy. My husband is my best friend and I trust that we are safe enough with each other to be able to express those feelings....let alone to share them in this way.<br />
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So I open up the conversation to all of you. We all experience it at one time or another. It may be over big issues or small, but we all fall prey to power struggles with the people we have chosen to walk through life with. One...how do you resolve them? And two.....what have you learned over time?<br />
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I know that I am still growing. I also know, that no matter how much we may have struggled over these issues over the course of our relationship, he is still my best friend and there is no one I would rather struggle with. Perhaps that is the next stage of love?...letting it mature enough that none of those struggles matter anymore? Now it's your turn....you tell me how you work it out...<br />
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Until next time dear readers...<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-84506627204579867192014-06-23T15:09:00.002-07:002014-06-23T15:09:41.843-07:00Toward A More Perfect Union<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">LGBTQI....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is a term many of us struggle to pronounce let alone wrap our minds around what it means. Indeed, when I came out in the 90's the term was already in flux from various forms of GLB to LGB. Not long after, I learned we had added the "T" and a whole bunch of people freaked out about that. However, in spite of all their histrionics about the addition of Transgendered to the label our community wears...it stuck, and has been the (mostly) accepted lingo we have used for most of my adult gay life. Most recently, we have added Intersex and Queer/Questioning to include a spectrum of experience that </span>transcends<span style="font-family: inherit;"> both sexual orientation and sexual identity. It may be hard to say, but until we invent a single word to describe the experience...it is the best we have.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />While it may be an awkward term to explain to those outside our community. We have to explain what each letter means and why it is used. More often than not, their expression reads as if I had tried to explain life on another planet. However, they are not the only ones...Some who fall under it's </span>broadly<span style="font-family: inherit;"> inclusive banner also struggle to understand what links us all together. For example...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In a totally bewildering exchange that took place on Americablog. John Aravosis, a writer I have respected over the years has written an article titled <a href="http://americablog.com/2014/06/end-of-gay-history.html">The End Of Gay History</a> . A piece initially meant to speculate on the future of gay activism and orgs in the face of the victories they have achieved. The actual question asked being, "Are we at the end of gay history?" However, what actually developed by the end of the story was less about the relevancy of gay activism in the gay community...and more a wild veering off into the perceived fractures between the letters of our movement. And I used the word "perceived" for a reason. The whole thing was one massive /facepalm moment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That this post devolved into a fight between "gay white men" and the Transgendered community, left me bewildered and scratching my head at just what the hell <u><i>any</i></u> of these people were thinking. But I'm getting ahead of myself...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Among the issues that surfaced were...Who are we as a community? What binds us together? And as we see progress on one front, how do we treat the others who aren't advancing as fast?...at least, that's the nice way of phrasing what they posed much less nicely. Pull up a chair and your favorite cup'o something and lets tackle this messy business head on...</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">First some background,...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Aravosis' post began with attempting to make the point that advancement in certain areas of gay rights can mean that gay rights organizations can then become </span>irrelevant<span style="font-family: inherit;"> and die off. This affect applies to individuals as well as orgs. What happens to our ability to organize and fight back as a community if we have lost those already established organizations and individuals willing to fight? For an example he used the recent struggles of gay military advocacy group Outserve-SLDN, which has been undergoing financial troubles post-DADT, as an example of the loss of one of these important institutions(a statement later revealed to be premature...Outserve still functions). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 24px;">I’ve been watching the </span><a href="http://americablog.com/2014/05/univ-chicago-students-upset-slur-used-discussion-slurs.html" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #000033; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="U of C students incensed that word “tranny” was used in discussion about word “tranny”">latest unjustified assault on gay activist and writer Dan Savage</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 24px;">, and it’s gotten me thinking more and more about a troubling theory I came up with last year, watching the “gays in the military” group OutServe-SLDN implode. I worry that we’re witnessing the beginning of the end of gay history. And I’m not entirely convinced that it’s something to celebrate....</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 24px;">...</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 24px;">I think the fact that we won (at least the </span><em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">gay part</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 24px;">of the battle over the military ban), played a huge role in OutServe-SLDN’s demise. The organization was the canary in the coalmine of what gay life will be in America after we’re free and equal. And that America will (one hopes) have far less need for civil rights group than it does today, even if OutServe-SLDN’s end came before its time.</span></span></blockquote>
But here's were things started to veer off in a strange direction...instead of building on the point made above, Aravosis instead chose to draw on the recent controversies between certain Trans activists, Dan Savage, and RuPaul as an example of how certain members of the LGBTQI community are causing schisms.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Dan is part of a larger years-long campaign by some, but not all, in the trans community to destroy him. The animosity towards Dan is part of a (often younger) group of vocal activists on the left who subscribe to “critical theory.” They believe, among other things, that fighting for marriage equality is wrong (that’s one of the reasons an </span><a href="http://americablog.com/2012/01/trans-activists-glitterbomb-dan-savage-again-this-time-because-he-supports-marriage-equality.html" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #000033; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Trans activists glitterbomb Dan Savage again, this time because he supports marriage equality">LGBT activist glitterbombed Dan a few years back</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">, because he’s been a lead advocate of gay marriage), and that men, white men, and especially gay white men have done little to nothing to advance civil rights and equality — and in fact, those men have been the major force holding back other minority communities. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Given his original point, that he took it here was odd in my opinion. The community as a whole has never been free of these types of internal conflicts, and to point to them as a symptom of the "death of gay history" was just.....</span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">weird and uncharacteristic of the writer been familiar with</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">. That Aravosis feels passionately about the contributions of men like Dan Savage(who is a friend of his) or Andrew Sullivan who he credits with helping him gain a measure of acceptance of his own sexuality, makes a certain kind of sense within that isolated context. To be passionately angry at those who you view as not having a solid perspective on gay rights, to defend your friends, to be concerned about the health of the overall LGBTQI community makes perfect sense. But...to link all of this together into one giant "death of gay history" thing doesn't make sense. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">But would that it stopped there. Aravosis went on to pose a very loaded question...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 24px;">Indeed, having an open discussion about what connects us all as a common community would be constructive...enlightening to many...possibly even healing. However, the implication in this post is that of a romantic break up and the tone was not lost on one commenter who decided to raise the ante...</span><br />
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John,<br />I agree with very little of what you wrote I have been open under the<br />alphabet rainbow umbrella for a very short time compared to many<br />here. But I do agree whit the main point of this sob fest. We need to<br />break up. This relationship is not working. The whole abbreviation<br />thing was never a good idea. Because one particular letter wants to<br />be in charge. One particular letter has the privilege to control<br />everyone and take what they want.<br />The money comes from mostly gay white men, and there tends to be where it<br />stays. Part of the implosion of SLDN Outserve was the fact that once<br />DADT was repealed the trans community was left on its own after<br />firing the only transgender leadership. I watched it John. I watched<br />it from inside. I watched the donors walk away when they flatly<br />rejected us.</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Whoa...whoa...whoa...hold on there people....everyone take a breath...</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">To be honest, I struggled on how to paraphrase all this because it had veered so wildly from its original point to a giant internet cat fight. Also it seemed the thought process of the writer seemed so drawn from different threads that it seems like Mr. Aravosis himself had not drawn a </span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">conclusion</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> but was still working it out</span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">...and the countering side was so adamant in their belief that the gay community is an enemy that I struggle to do either side justice and make any sense myself...and somewhere in there present my own take on the issue without making it all even more convoluted.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> Indeed, in reading the </span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">initial</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> article I wondered how one could tie the theoretical end of activist orgs due to changing times with a very controversial conversation we are having over grievances with parts of the Transgendered community two things which seem to have </span></span><i style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">nothing</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> connecting them. Then toss in throwing around terms like "break up" and "privilege" and I felt more like an uncomfortable observer at a marriage </span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">counseling</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> session.</span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;"> To any other sane reader it was an example of failed communication and an epic /facepalm moment.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Were this is not the first time we have had to come up against a topic like this one. Yet, as Aravosis article intimated, the </span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">conversation</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> covers a whole lot more than just sexual identity versus gender identity...it is race, culture, and gender as well. Just a couple of short years ago, a </span></span><a href="http://gayfamilyvalues.blogspot.com/2009/10/house-divided.html" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">similar controversy</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> erupted regarding the visibility of minorities within the gay community. Leadership of gay orgs and representations on television most often depicted us as gay, white, and male. That particular conversation also got heated, never resolved, and faded over time as we all focused on other goals.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And so here I sit...typing away and wondering why everyone has gone insane. Are we splitting up LGB from everyone else as if we have nothing in common?...no. Heated words aside, we all know thats not going to happen. The thoughts attitudes and opinions of a few people do not echo the sentiments of the whole....but I do think that having an open conversation about what links us all into one community is a worthwhile one...and one I am not afraid to have....nor should anyone else be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As I have said many times before...we are a community drawn from so many different walks of life that it is INEVITABLE that you will have people within your community that will be so different from you in worldview that one wonders how we consider ourselves a cohesive community </span><u style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b>AT ALL</b></i></u><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Hell, If you put a bunch of (mostly) homogenous people in a room(pick your type) and let them get to know each other...they will find ways to stratify into subgroups. Whether we divide on male and female, religion, Affluence, education, sexuality, or gender identity reasons...the fact remains that no matter how fine the distinction may be, we will divide ourselves up along it....just ask all those nearly </span>identical<span style="font-family: inherit;"> religious denominations who give each other the side eye every Sunday.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Additionally...It blows my mind that you can find gay men and women who are racist. And I don't mean having a preference for one type of romantic partner over another....straight out, white sheet wearing, racist. It just blows my mind that anyone could live under discrimination themselves and still find some way to justify their own. It seems like an utter failure to learn the lesson your own life has taught you. <b><i><u>Whenever</u></i></b> you know what it's like to be treated as lesser...and you turn around and deal that injustice out to another group, you show that you failed to understand the lesson in all you have fought to overcome for yourself. </span><br />
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Hell...just ask the average bisexual person how welcome they feel in the community and hear some of the responses they have to endure from gay people...who somehow...don't seem to apply the lessons of acceptance they so yearn for to another who's feelings and motivations differ from theirs. "There is no such thing as bisexuality" is a common argument...or..."Bisexuals are just gay people afraid to completely come out." To find acceptance as a bisexual is to find judgement from both sides of the sexuality spectrum.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My point?...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We consistently see ourselves as separate from each other and draw hard lines between the L/G/B/T/Q/I as if we are separate tribes temporarily aligned instead of peoples who have both been shunned and fight to be treated as equal human beings. Because that is one of the many link that join all the letters in common. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But here we are focusing on our difference and throwing stones. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To put a finer point on it, even if you just looked within the "G" of the "LGBTQI" would be to see people from far flung countries, college graduates, midwest bible-belters, rich, poor, Black, White, Native peoples....you name any human distinction and you will find it within that single letter. I simply can not believe the difference that we embrace in who we include under that banner of "what is gay?" How much greater is the diversity that we call community across the wider spectrum?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Moving beyond the "G", next we embrace the "L"...though we struggled with that for a time as well. It then seems like a natural extension to include the "B" as those who share kindred feelings and experiences. And then we realize what we have done. Our vision has </span>expanded<span style="font-family: inherit;"> enough to realize the many who have been </span>ostracized<span style="font-family: inherit;">, judged, outcast, and suffered in ways we(hopefully) can come to recognize in ourselves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">..And yet....there are those who have the gumption to consider the struggles the Trans community goes through as somehow separate from ours?! I'm sorry...but both of us can still be beat to death just walking down Main Street USA. As much progress as the gay community makes...it is not a safe world for anyone in the LGBTQI spectrum. Our fight..is and always will be the same fight until the world is a safe place for all of us to exist...period..full stop. The facets of that fight may differ(housing, employment, etc.) but the intent is the same...we all have the right to exist and be treated fairly and we all know what it is like to <i><u>not</u></i> be treated that way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That their are difficulties, </span>disagreements<span style="font-family: inherit;">, and controversies to be hashed out, does not mean our paths are so different as to break off from each other...that is the path to insanity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which brings me to the whole issue with the word "Tranny"...So many have made this an issue about their personal freedom that they miss the point. RuPaul thinks he owns it because of the pain he has gone through to make it a word without sting. I can not fault him for that point of view. However...I hate the word faggot. I hate it with a burning passion because it was used against me so often as a teen. I knew when it was whispered behind me in class and accompanied by giggles that I was the butt of the joke. The world was not safe for me and I dam well better watch my back. I know how a word can encapsulate a lifetime of hatred and fear. That the term "Tranny" makes someone feel the way that "faggot" makes me feel is enough for me to put that one in the dustbin of history right alongside "retarded". It's really that simple in my opinion.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I see the Trans community taking some very important steps to finding it's voice. As society learns to accept(or merely tolerate, in some places) the notion that gay people exist and that you cant treat us as pariahs anymore, so the Trans community is asking for the same thing and finding their anger to achieve it. They are doing no different than we have done in our own near history and in my opinion, it needs to happen. Trans people need to find their voice and be heard in order for the wider world to realize who they are..<u><i>and more importantly, who they are not</i></u>. Not monsters...not pedophiles...not "its"..and not anything other than human. Can we not relate to that as well? That they will misdirect that voice..or even sometimes rightly direct it at members of the greater community does not make them any different than us(the "G") in that regard.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I can not count the number of times a gay man has said that we don't need marriage because it is simply copying a failed heterosexist norm or even called my husband and I terrible names and threat to the community because we <i>do</i> support marriage and family. My response to that is....whatever.... "You live your counter culture dream and I will take my legal protections, thank you very much."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the end...we are not only people with same sex attractions. Nor are we only a people who feel they were born in the wrong body. In so many ways, every letter in LGBTQI interweaves within the others to find more commonalities than differences. Our very own symbol of the gay flag are differently colored strips of cloth sown together into one symbol. If you imagine that those colors can also represent the many types of people who make up our community, you can see what happens when the seems that join the colors unravel and fall away. No flag...no wholeness...and who are we then? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We often ask ourselves as gay rights progresses...whats next? Or better yet...as gay issues slowly(sooo slowly) become non-issues, were will that next civil rights battle be? I believe it is in the "T", the "Q", and the "I" and every one of them is going to need someone to have their back....that someone needs to be us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Not saying they are gonna be right all the time. Every family has it's crazy uncles. But I hope we can take a breath from throwing stones marked "Tranny" and "privilege" to acknowledge that we do walk the same path...<u>and do</u>....belong to the same community.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Until next time dear readers....</span><br />
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GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-80551091119814010472014-06-09T15:05:00.004-07:002014-06-09T15:19:39.042-07:00The Great Truvada Debate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When we talk about gay rights...and how far we have come as a community, I think many people would think first of the tide of marriage equality that has been steadily advancing across the nation. This is what makes the news and has become a defining movement for the community. And indeed, we <i><u>have</u></i> come very far in the legal recognition of our lives and loves, thus beginning to stem a tide of injustice that was just an accepted and given part of gay life as I knew it when I came out. It is amazing to be writing this to you as an out, gay, and married man with a family as those things were so far beyond my dreams not too long ago.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But there are other issues and conversations that move us along as a community with equal momentum. Some of those conversations are quite heated and so emotionally laden that they are hard to approach. Today's blog is one of those for me. Living the life that I have, and coming to terms with my sexuality when I did....I understand the debate over Truvada affects me, as it does all of us....but another part of me feels so ill prepared to tackle it with the breadth and understanding I think this topic deserves. However, there are few topics today that can cause such heated division as Truvada...and PreP therapies in general. For something sold as an "advancement in HIV prevention, it has engendered such a divided response, with both sides digging in their heels in their positions...that it leaves anyone looking in from the outside confused as to why this drug that can save lives should get this much controversy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Is there actually a meta-conversation going on underneath the outward discussion of facts and transmission rates? Are we still grappling with old fears and ingrained self prejudices that is keeping us from see this drug as anything other than another tool in the fight against HIV? As the debate swings from one heated comment to another...what are we saying to ourselves, about ourselves?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For those of you who do not know(and at the risk of exposing what I don't) Truvada is a drug that falls into a class of drugs known as <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/prep.html">PreP</a> (Pre-exposure Prophylaxis). Truvada, if taken correctly and under a doctors supervision, can drastically reduce HIV transmission rates. The Center For Disease Control <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/Features/stop-hiv-prep/">estimates that reduction as much as 90%</a>. That is a game changer for a community that has been, for decades, been told that the only way to prevent new infections has been through a combination of condom use and regular testing...or, at worst....abstinence. And to be clear....Truvada does not offer any protection from other STD's such as Syphilis, Gonorrhea, or Herpes. Those are the facts as I understand them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But here is where I start to delve into murkier waters..Everyone has big opinions about this. From those who laud it as a new form of sexual empowerment....to still others who view it as an open door to risky sexual behaviors and resulting in a new wave of HIV infections.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">We are not so far away from the worst days of the AIDS crisis that many of us don't have some instinctual fear about the notion of gay men having unprotected sex. Even long time HIV activists are split in their opinions over how this drug changes the landscape of how we fight HIV. For example, founding member of Gay Men's Health Crisis, Larry Kramer, in a recent </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/arts/television/larry-kramer-lives-to-see-his-normal-heart-filmed-for-tv.html" style="font-family: inherit;">NY Times</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> piece called the act of taking Truvada "cowardly"....</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 23px;">“Anybody who voluntarily takes an antiviral every day has got to have rocks in their heads,” Mr. Kramer said, describing the side effects of drugs he has taken. “There’s something to me cowardly about taking Truvada instead of using a condom. You’re taking a drug that is poison to you, and it has lessened your energy to fight, to get involved, to do anything.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And on the Other end of the spectrum is Act Up founder Peter Staley, who in a recent <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/05/22/peter_staley_talks_about_truvada_hiv_and_stigma.html">Slate</a> interview, addressed Kramers remarks and offered his own sobering counter opinion...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"...Because we don’t have the death and dying that forced a drastic change in sexual behavior among gay men in the mid-’80s, which was largely sustained until the early ’90s, the safe-sex condom code that we created then has collapsed. And that’s the reality we live in today. Just talking about it, telling people that they’re cowards for not wearing condoms—I don’t think that’s going to create a mass movement of putting condoms on..."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The very people who fought the hardest through the darkest days of AIDS deaths can not even agree on whether or not Truvada is a beneficial development. While it is not uncommon for Larry Kramer to be at odds with...well, the world...the fact that these two men are coming at this from such different perspectives highlights what is going on in a larger sense within the community itself. This rather civil disagreement echoes a much larger and<i> less civil</i> disagreement taking place on the internet, between friends, and in the boardrooms of gay orgs. The landscape has changed, and we are learning to grapple with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">Yet, one of the first things that stands out when I read articles or see discussions about Truvada is that fear is one of the loudest voices.The legacy of HIV is the awareness of how sex was tied to HIV and the loss of so many.</span></span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> Indeed, anyone who came of age in the late 80's to 90's had, "put a condom on it", drummed into our heads from junior high into adulthood. We learned the facts that HIV does not care what race, gender, or orientation you are, it can get all of us. Sex became dangerous for my generation and that has been such a part of our understanding of the sexual landscape for so long that it doesn't go away easily...not even by magic pill. Regardless of how many facts about reduced transmission rates you put out there, there will always be that specter of doubt within some of us that fears that we could be leaving ourselves open and vulnerable to danger should HIV mutate to overwhelm a drug like Truvada. </span></span><span style="color: #281b21; line-height: 1.8;">Is that rational?...no. But there is also nothing to be gained from judging and shaming a person that holds that opinion because it was taught to us as how you survived in the modern world gay or straight. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 28.799999237060547px;">Linked with the notion of survival is what we think about sex. No matter what you opinion to sex might be, we all have opinions about it and sometimes standards that we apply to others that we don't apply to ourselves. Some see sex as a liberating act...others an act so private that even talking about it is too much. So throw in a drug like Truvada that offers the chance to leave behind a portion of the caution around sex that we have learned to live with...and it blows the lid off everyone's secret judgments. Will gay men(notice no one else mentioned) start having tons of unprotected sex is the question at hand. But is that question focused on HIV...or merely the sex?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">Whether it comes from the homophobia of our upbringing...or perhaps some inborn belief that too much sex is a character flaw....we have a new word to shame sexually active gay men who chose to go on Truvada...."Truvada whore". Hell, even the head of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Michael Weinstein, </span><span style="line-height: 28.799999237060547px;"><a href="http://www.frontiersla.com/frontiers-blog/2014/04/18/michael-weinstein-ahf-president-stands-by-truvada-party-drug-comment">referred</a></span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> to Truvada as a "party drug" instead of a preventative tool. The thought process here being that anyone who has the intent of using this drug also has the intent to have lots of indiscriminate and unprotected sex. A leap in logic if you ask me. Just the use of the word "whore" tells you all you need to know about the attitudes of the person using it. Not that the gay community is any stranger to throwing shade at ourselves, but you would think that after having gone through so much in our collective history we could get past B.S. like this...but no...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">Indeed, the entire conversation is </span></span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 28.799999237060547px;">reminiscent</span></span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> of when people like Kramer and Staley were trying to get people to use condoms in the first place. Activists were accused of being homophobic and self-hating for insisting that condom use could save lives. For a gay community coming into it's own in the 70's, sex equalled the freedom to be who we were without judgement. Sexuality was a symbol of that freedom. We had chosen to throw off that judgment...and with it went our inhibitions about sex, so being asked to put on a condom was tantamount to being asked to go back into the closet....and act unthinkable to many. It took many years to get people to see that condom advocates were only trying to save lives and galvanize the community to fight for it's own lives. T</span></span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">hough it was </span></span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 28.799999237060547px;">literally</span></span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> about life and death then....d</span></span><span style="color: #281b21; line-height: 1.8;">oes anyone not see some similarities of that fight in the conversation over Truvada? A</span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> bit of that same intertwining of sex and identity is at work in both and we are still just as conflicted as a community.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I do not even know if it is fair or appropriate to look at this issue with such a large frame of reference as "community". Though this does affect us all in the same way that condom use and testing also does, the fact of the matter is that our "community" is made up of individuals from so many different walks of life, each coming to their own acceptance of their sexuality and living that out where ever in the world we find ourselves. That's a pretty broad spectrum of viewpoints and levels of self-acceptance to try and integrate into a community opinion over Truvada and where we are <i><u>now</u></i> with HIV. We are not just the population of a few cities or even a neighborhood...we are all over the nation, and the world...and all of us have skin in the game....literally.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">If asked, we all affirm the rote response that sex is positive and beautiful, but then where to do we take it from there? Do we add conditions to that? Do we add conditions to ourselves that we don't hold to others? What about the guy who lives in a long-term monogamous relationship vs. the single guy dating and </span>sexually<span style="line-height: 1.8;"> active? Are we making silent </span></span><span style="color: #281b21;">judgments</span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> about both of them? If those two men both decided to take Truvada and posted that status to </span>Facebook<span style="line-height: 1.8;">, what do you suppose would be the response to each? My guess is the one in relationship would get asked "why?" and the assumption would be that one of them wants to play around. The response to the single man could range from relief to judgement about his choice to </span></span><i style="line-height: 1.8;"><u>be</u></i><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> sexually active outside a relationship. We look at both men differently but each through the lens of Promiscuity instead of taking charge of their own sexual health...or that they may be using multiple strategies to accomplish this.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">But in closing...as Peter Staley expressed, isn't it our goal to reduce new cases of HIV transmission such that we eventually beat it into non-existence? And if we still hold to the camp that believes that condoms are the only way to be sure...how has that worked out so far? The prevalence of bareback porn shows us that people are more than willing the take the risk of sex without condoms as things are. Can we at least admit that unsafe sex is happening already in both gay and straight bedrooms all over the country and give people a way to prevent HIV that they might actually </span></span><i style="color: #281b21; line-height: 1.8;">use</i><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">? Could this prevent new infections from HIV coming from people </span></span><i style="color: #281b21; line-height: 1.8;">who don't even know they have it</i><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">?..or don't think it could happen to them? Our </span></span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 28.799999237060547px;">judgments</span></span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> about sexuality seem to take a backseat to the stark reality that this pill could save a lot of lives even if it doesn't permanently rid the world of HIV.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">Conversely, Is it accepting the easy way out to just take a pill like Larry Kramer intimated? Having we given up our will to fight HIV to the extent that we will accept taking a pill everyday...forever? And don't we already do that for other sexually transmitted diseases? That I have no answer for...so many promising treatments pop up in the news never to be heard of again after...and here we are offered a solution that requires us to take a pill everyday. Is and endless supply of money for </span></span><span style="color: #281b21;"><span style="line-height: 28.799999237060547px;">pharmaceutical companies behind this new "advance"? There are still no easy answers there either.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">In the end...I support the use of Truvada because I know dam well that there are already tons of people out there who don't use condoms and this could not only save their life but also the lives of those they sleep with. It could save the lives of people who think HIV will never happen to them. I support it because I have friends in mixed positive/negative relationships for whom a treatment like this one will be incredibly healing to their relationship. I support it because it can help stop the spread of HIV in countries that don't even acknowledge it's </span><span style="line-height: 28.799999237060547px;">existence</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">. I support it because it may help HIV positive moms keep from passing the disease onto their infants. But mostly, I support it because I want HIV gone forever, and this is one more way to make that happen. If this means I have to confront my own demons over sexuality and how I was taught to deal with it, then so be it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281b21; line-height: 1.8;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As medical providers are taking a serious look at Truvada and other PreP drugs being developed as a way to curtail new infections, we also need to take a long hard look(no pun intended) at how the controversy over Truvada is revealing how we feel about sex and the judgments we are putting on each other. We have fought to be "out" and every year we go to "pride"....Our very language points to building our self esteem as human beings and yet, what the conversation about Truvada has revealed is that, not only is our sexuality tied to our feelings about ourselves....we still have a lot of baggage around that. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.8;">I am not a part of the "sexual revolution" generation...but even I can see that the sex=death messages I grew up with are no healthier. The real truth was that <i><u>silence</u></i>=death. As we have all fought to obtain our piece of self acceptance...possibly even "pride"...we need to remember that, it is still a work in progress for us as it is for others. To that end, we recognize what we are <i><u>really</u></i> talking about when we are having a conversation as heated as one over Truvada has been. If our beef is with the fact that we are afraid HIV will return worse than ever....name it. If our beef is with people who don't have the same inhibitions or values that we do...then be honest enough to own it. We have all come too far to let the same old wounds keep sidelining us. Instead of turning that animus on ourselves. Let's put that anger where it belongs...on fear, shame, and HIV. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.8;">Wouldn't that be progress?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Until next time dear readers...</span></div>
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GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-75530201590354635682014-06-01T12:28:00.000-07:002014-06-01T15:16:06.371-07:00Milestones...Daniel Graduates Junior High<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For some, graduating Junior High may not seem like a big deal. Heck, even the school itself doesn't call the act "Graduation" anymore. They call it "promotion"....a weird term at best, and begs the question of what they are promoting to, and does it come with a raise? But there I sat, in the rows of identical, red folding chairs, set up on the lawn in the warm spring sun, looking at a ring of chairs set up for the graduates and realized.....<i>this is happening</i>. Next year my son will be in high school. The little boy that I once knew, was being replaced by a young man. Another world was passing away and all of us, as a family are standing on the doorstep of a new one. It feels like just yesterday that Daniel was a third grader and a new student to our little charter school. As proud as I am to be here to celebrate this moment with Daniel, the time just seemed to have gone by too fast and I could not help but look back to remember all that had brought us here...<br />
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Years ago, when Jay and I were first shown Daniels profile in the <i>gigantic</i> binders full of children waiting for adoption, the prognosis wasn't rosy. His social worker had reached out to us as a potential match for both him and Selena. Their foster home was splitting up and they needed a home for both of them fast or Daniel and Selena would have to be split up into different homes...and this would mean the <i>second</i> time that Daniel would lose a sibling...having already lost a brother who was adopted way earlier. It also meant that we were the best hope for Daniel and Selena staying together. In the little five sentence blurb that serves to describe each child to prospective parents, Daniel was described as having Golden Har, a genetic disorder that had required several surgeries to correct a host of problems from skin tags to a cleft palate from the time he was an infant, onward. Because of the cleft palate, he had been fed by a tube, straight into his stomach as a baby. There was uncertainty about his long term health going forward..and also, uncertainty about his language ability. Additionally, the foster parent in the home he was in were painting a picture of a child with multiple behavioral problems. All of this put together made me pretty nervous. I wasn't sure if I was up to this. However, Jay was not worried and convinced me that the best thing to do was to meet Daniel and Selena...a choice I am so glad he encouraged because I can't imagine what would have happened had I listened to the voice of fear and hesitation that is the way I make big decisions.<br />
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We walked in to Social Services in Sacramento and my heart was beating out of my chest. I was in that anxious state of mind that gives you tunnel vision and makes everything around you a little fuzzy and distant. <i>This was really happening</i>...I could be a dad..this could be it. And then I turned a corner and there they were coming up a stairwell. Daniel was <i><u>so small</u></i>. He had this bowl haircut and his tiny hands held on to his foster mother and in that moment....I knew. All the worries that had been circling my head about that the things that could go wrong just faded away and my heart broke wide open. Which is not to say all my fears vanished, but more that they were replaced with the feeling that whatever came up in Daniels life, I was willing to tackle them as they happened. No matter what they were...and that turned out to be quite a list.<br />
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While his mom had lost all parental rights to Daniel and Selena, his father had been deported to Mexico because of criminal activity and before Daniel could ever be free to be adopted they had to track down his father. Also, as anyone familiar with Golden Har knows, there is very little known about the condition and that lack of knowledge has meant that the doctors and specialists that have always been a part of Daniels life, painted the worst case scenarios for us to prepare us for the worst that might happen. For example, due to the underdevelopment of the left side of Daniels body, doctors told us that he could have organ trouble all his life and that it could pop up at any time in his life in unexpected ways. They were uncertain about how that underdevelopment could affect his brain, intelligence, and ability to function as he got older. The problems with his skeletal structure would prevent him from playing sports and bar him from many jobs that required vigorous physical activity. Daniels life was one big list of uncertainties.<br />
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But in spite of all the warnings we had been given from doctors and social workers. The little boy we saw in front of us was smart...inquisitive....funny...really, really active...and a survivor. He was a strong person and a really good kid.<br />
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Over the years, as I have watched Daniel grow, I have seen him walk into a room full of strangers and walk out again from a room full of friends...a skill I am in constant awe of. I have seen him try over and over to master skills that made him cry with frustration....until one day his weaknesses became his strength. He has never been hindered by the difference in him body and that boy can <i>run</i>. Everyday he gets a little closer to lifting the same weights in the gym as his dads...and he loves it. He has hiked the Grand Canyon, traveled the world, given amazing speeches to packed crowds, and charmed his way into the hearts of many. Whatever circumstances his life has thrown at him, and whatever limitations his body imposed, Daniels spirit shined brighter and pushed him beyond those limits. That is the young man we have come to know and that no five sentence blurb in an adoption binder could ever have prepared us for.<br />
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Not that Daniel hasn't tested us. There have been days when grounding and restriction was all we had left(we don't corporally punish) to use to get through to Daniel and he lived more days on restriction than off. Day's when he has put more gray hairs on my head that normal aging could ever hope to accomplish. Days when I walked away afraid that I was not doing this parenting thing right. Days I know are still yet to come....we are in the teen years after all, and that is a truly frightening thought. There goes more gray hairs....<br />
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But today, as I sit here in this uncomfortable red chair and let it all sink in, I know that I am a proud Dad. Of all the things I have ever done in my life, staying home to raise my kids has been the best job ever. Even when I had to send Daniel back to the table to rewrite his English assignment for the fifth time. Even when cleaning up after dinner made me wonder why Daniel's place at the table looked more like a crime scene than a dining spot. And everyday he settled for less from himself because he didn't believe in what he could accomplish if he really wanted to. This day was the result of Daniel learning to believe in himself.<br />
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Yes indeed...this <i>is</i> really happening....<br />
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What will High School bring? There is no way to know...for some, it is the best time of their lives. For others of us...it was a struggle to survive. Knowing the person that Daniel is...and what High School can be...I know Daniel still has big challenges ahead. But I also know that boy that can walk into a room full of strangers and leave a friend to all of them. Daniels strength...so different from my own...will help him get through it and his dad's will be there for the rest.<br />
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Congratulation to my son. Both of your dads are very proud of you on this day and I look forward to rewriting this post in four more years.<br />
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Until next time dear readers....<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-77677970983517771592014-05-27T13:29:00.003-07:002014-05-27T14:06:31.351-07:00Gay Rights..Where Are We Now?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hello everyone....<br />
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It has been sometime since I last spoke to all of you. For reasons I will detail further on, writing had become a chore that I didn't understand why I was still doing. But I am happy to be back and I hope that this will mark a new beginning....not only for this blog...but in my life. In fact, the title of todays post offers a clue of what I want to share with you all. So without further ado...<br />
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This evening I watched the HBO adaptation of "The Normal Heart", written by HIV and gay rights activist Larry Kramer. For those unfamiliar...the subject of the drama was a retelling of the early years in which AIDS began killing young men in the new York gay community and the struggle to get an uncaring government to respond and a terrified gay community to galvanize in it's own defense. With no medical information on what was happening and why we were getting sick, half the battle was in combating fear and marching on in the face of uncertainty and the loss of friends and lovers that went on unabated. The film shows the foundation of one of the first gay organizations to respond to the AIDS crisis, Gay Mens Health Crisis, and is told from the perspective of one of it's founders Larry Kramer(renamed Ned Weeks in the film), who is often criticized for being too loud, too confrontational, too critical in his roll as an activist fighting against the tide of death all around him.<br />
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I watched this movie in tears for the most part(while developing a crush on Mark Ruffalo).....and then I lied awake most of the night thinking about it. Something in me had shifted. You see, I had stopped blogging after DOMA had been struck down because I did not see any need for what I was doing anymore. Prop 8 had launched us into the fight for gay rights, not limited to marriage equality, but when that goal seemed realized...I didn't know what I was doing anymore.<br />
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Until someone asked me an innocent question....<br />
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As happens for us from time to time, we get asked to participate in interviews by students taking classes on parenting or social justice and we take take the time to participate in those in the hopes that the next generation of educators won't shy away from those issues. At it happens, I was answering a series of questions for someone taking class to become a Preschool teacher when I came to the final one...<br />
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<u style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">19 states now allow gay marriage. Do you think society as a whole is becoming more accepting of gay marriage or do you believe there is still a lot of progress that needs to be made? If so, what are some of the important steps you feel still need to occur?</u></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I took some time to think about it because what has been so rapidly </span>occurring<span style="font-family: inherit;"> with the number of states adopting marriage equality is as surprising and unprecedented to me as the very first day that I heard I could get married here in California. Everyone that changes is like opening a gift. It's unexpected and wonderful and sometimes all you can feel is wonder and gratitude tempered with the realization that you are <u>not</u> at the end of the road.....so far from the end.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Later that night, as I watched The Normal Heart and Ned Weeks begged for help against a disease that was killing gay men left and right and it that plea fell on deaf ears, I cried my eyes out. They begged for help from governments that didn't care if a bunch of gay people died, from politicians and officials that didn't want to come out of the closet to confront AIDs for fear of losing their own positions of power(they too, died anyway), and finally from a gay community that had embraced their sexuality to an extent that a doctor asking them to "cool it for awhile" was taken as tantamount to shoving them back into the closet....no one would listen and the only constant was fear. Without medical facts to prove why we were getting sick....the work of Kramer and those at Gay Mens Health Crisis was all uphill. All the pleas for help fell on the deaf ears of discrimination, fear, and ignorance.....and everyday this continued, more friends died...more lovers died. Not just "people" implying some guy down the street...but people you knew. And yet <i>still</i> no one would listen. But as history and memory remind us, those who fought for an answer to the disease kept shouting until they were heard. And yes...it took being angry and confrontational to make that happen. What would <i>you</i> do if everyone you loved was dying and no one was doing anything about it?</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And yet, here we are today....Against all odds, here we stand to talk about things like marriage equality and Truvada...it seems impossible. </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">The issues we are fighting for today are made possible only because we survived. And that because some fought, sometimes angrily to make themselves heard. Now, we are talking about marriage equality, work place protections, adoption, family building, bullying.....so many issues that are not even possible to consider if you're fighting for your life. Isn't that in and of itself an amazing thing?</span><br />
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The Larry Kramer character, Ned Weeks talks often about the necessity to fight, even if it means being angry and confrontational. It's a trait he is often criticized for and it leads to his ultimate expulsion from Gay Mens health Crisis, a group which he helped found in his own dam living room. He called out our closeted politicians and he called on others to "out" and stand up to be counted. Shying away was to accept what the world wanted us to do, which was shut up and die. Silence equalled death. I can't disagree with him. Even if I am not a person who is especially good at confrontation I KNOW to my bones that standing up to be counted is essential in creating a world in which we do not have to fear anymore for being just what we are. When we come out, and when we share who we are with the world it leaves little room for others to paint us as something we are not....and it forces them to acknowledge our humanity and the inhumane way in which we have been treated. Being out, telling our stories, <i><u>letting the world know us </u></i>is the single greatest tool we have to erasing the hatred that still exists against us today...a hatred that still exists even as we plan our weddings.<br />
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As the movie ended, it felt like a great big hole was left in my heart. Partially because I was just old enough to watch many of these events unfold, I came out in the passing shadow of these events...but also because HIV/AIDS is still here! That seems such a tremendous injustice in spite of all the wonderful steps the gay community has made since the days of just fighting simply to survive.<br />
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Among the many advances and conversations we are able to have now is the back and forth over whether Truvada and PreP drugs that cut down HIV transmission to near 0% are a good thing or an open door to see those days of death return. Long time HIV/AIDS activists have opinions on both ends of that spectrum and I believe this points to our attitudes to not just the disease itself, but also our opinions about sex, and our fear of returning to a place of vulnerability to that kind of death and loss. We not so far away from this crisis as we want to believe. It was not so long ago to forget, even if we are so tired of living under the shadow of this thing. It appears we have unfinished business.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So indeed....Where are we now? </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As that preschool teachers question put me in mind ...things have changed <i>so much</i> and those changes are to be celebrated....and celebrated with abandon as only we can do. But then we need to realize that we are not done.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As long as two boys or two girls can not walk down the street holding hands without fear of violence, we are not done. As long as a simple kiss of joy on national television between two men who love each other is a "controversy", we are not done. As long as we export hate and discrimination to nations that have no defense against it, we are not done. The world in many ways is still divided on how to see us and while legal protection is the <i><u>minimum</u></i> standard by which we can begin to measure progress, it's not the end of the road. We have so much more work to do to get to the place where fear and discrimination for being gay, bisexual, or trangendered is a non-issue. To that end, we have to keep screaming it in the </span>streets<span style="font-family: inherit;">, keep coming out, keep showing the world who we are. Whether it's out loud and screaming or in quiet dignity. We have to keep talking.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The weight I had felt lifted off of myself at the defeat of DOMA, I now understand not to be the end of my road. I had wondered then, just what the hell I would talk about now that marriage equality seemed like a sure thing and so I had ceased blogging. But now I understand that its about </span><u style="font-family: inherit;"><i>so much more</i></u><span style="font-family: inherit;">. "The Normal Heart" has brought that home with crystal clarity. I no longer blog for a single issue, it is about life, and how we are a vital, functioning, and equal part of it as LGBT people. We continue to fight to show the world what we should already know in ourselves...and if we don't....we fight to light the flame of dignity, self respect, and equality in each other. This is true whether we are talking about HIV/AIDS, marriage equality, work place protections, discrimination...or even just some ass hat in public office that still thinks we should all just shut and </span>disappear<span style="font-family: inherit;">. We have so much further to go and so much more to shout out to the world. And I intend to talk about it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I hope you'll be there with me</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Until next time dear readers....keep talking...</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">P.S....I guess you can guess my </span>recommendation<span style="font-family: inherit;"> to go see "The Normal Heart"....but take tissues, it's a weeper.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-29967588569937115102013-06-26T10:02:00.000-07:002013-06-26T10:03:20.500-07:00VICTORY!...... DOMA and Prop 8 are Gone!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In a double ruling, the United States Supreme Court today struck down the Defense of Marriage Act by a 5-4 margin....AND.... dealt the final blow to Prop 8. Both are now gone.<br />
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Our family has been fighting Prop 8 since the day it was announced in 2008. Nearly as soon as we could get married did the news come someone would fight it...as we knew they would. We all had to move so fast to get married before the window closed that My husband and I had to marry a week before when we would have, which would have been my birthday and the anniversary of our domestic partnership. That day would also have been the day Prop 8 passed at the ballot box. A day we will always remember as being a very sad one. And yet here we are nearly five years and many court battles later....still standing and still married. Prop 8 has been such a big part of our lives for the last five years that it's stamp can never be undone. It launched us into activism...onto YouTube and this blog...and brought so many amazing people and experiences into our lives that I am almost grateful for it even as I celebrate its passing.<br />
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And DOMA too. I almost don't even know what to say because a part of me always feared that the Supremes would find a way to wiggle out of striking it down. I really can't believe it's gone as well. This, more than anything is the reason for the picture I have put at the top of this blog. Just like the destruction of the Death Star, DOMA has always been a similar instrument of tyranny...and its demise no less dramatic and far reaching. I know that for my whole life, I have believed and accepted that no government would accept or sanction and gay relationship.....that was just the world I came out in. Hell...DOMA was signed into law at about the same time that I came out, further underscoring the collective statement that gay people would be forever unprotected by the laws that would always treat us like strangers to those we love and spend our lives with. We were on our own and that was just the way it was. How amazing to be writing this day celebrating the end, not only of DOMA and Prop 8, but that way of thinking.<br />
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Between the Deaths of Prop 8 and DOMA I feel like I am standing in a completely different world. In fact...I am. And just as the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars was seen as an impossible task...so to was this. There were cries of joy....and great exhales of relief. That's how I feel today.<br />
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I know that tommorow will bring new battles and more insane comments by people who simply will not let gay people get on with our lives. We know we have more work to do.....But today is a day to celebrate.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="263" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xRvAAYjmqkE" width="350"></iframe>GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-90732912267746470582013-06-22T16:34:00.001-07:002013-06-22T16:34:08.112-07:00Reclaiming Dignity For Discharged LGBT Soldiers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When we think of the legacy of witch hunts against LGBT people by the military we tend to think about Don't Ask Don't Tell. However, the sad legacy of dishonorable discharges over sexuality that ruined the lives of many fine LGBT men and women goes back generations...The first dedicated efforts being undertaken by the armed forces during World War II with the military recruited soldiers to participate in undercover entrapment schemes in order to snare gay soldiers that they feared were a security risk because enemy agents could threaten them with exposure if they did not hand over military intelligence. This view of LGBT soldiers as an easily exploitable security risk coupled with bias and homophobic beliefs about gay people continued unabated in the minds of military brass and Politicians until the Don't Ask Don't Tell process ripped the lid off of it. But after so many decades and thousands of discharges, the damage done to LGBT service people is almost incalculable. How could you ever begin to make up for so many ruined lives?<br />
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Well someone has proposed the first step. Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York are proposing the "<a href="http://pocan.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/pocan-rangel-announce-legislation-to-correct-records-of-114000-gay">Restore Honor To Servicemans Act</a>" which would amend the records of some 114,000 servicemen and women to reflect their honorable service.<br />
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This is great. However, considering how far back the damage goes...and so many lives not only altered by their discharge, but sometimes destroyed simply by being outed...I am left wondering what this will really accomplish? Lets take a deeper look...<br />
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From the official press release on Representatives Pocan's website:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">“As we celebrate the considerable progress we’ve made toward full equality in our military, we cannot forget about those who continue to suffer because of the discriminatory policies of our past,” said Pocan, co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus. “Our legislation ensures that gay veterans who selflessly served our country no longer live with tarnished records that prohibit them from receiving the recognition, benefits and honors they deserve. By enshrining the implementation of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” repeal into law, our country can finally close this dark chapter of our history and move forward.”<br />"As an American, a Congressman, and a Korean War Veteran, I was proud to join my colleagues in ending the discriminatory law that previously barred open gay and lesbian soldiers from serving their country,” said Rangel. “Now is the time to finish the job and ensure that all those who served honorably are recognized for their Honorable service regardless of their sexual orientation."<br />“The repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was a tremendous first step in achieving equality in our nation’s Armed Forces. It is important that we continue to address the discrimination that LGBT veterans face by updating their service records to reflect the reality of their service” said HRC Legislative Director Allison Herwitt. “We are thankful that Reps. Pocan (D-WI) and Rangel (D-NY) have addressed this issue with the “Restore Honor to Service Members Act.’”<br />The “Restore Honor to Service Members Act” is about more than upgrading a piece of paper. Every form of discharge previously given out prior to the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” carries with it consequences that can follow a service member for his or her entire life. While the character of discharge varied, many members received discharges that were classified as other than honorable or dishonorable, particularly prior to the implementation of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy in 1993. In many states, a dishonorable discharge is treated as a felony, and service members receiving a general discharge, a lesser offense, can encounter grave difficulties acquiring civilian employment. All were barred from reenlisting in the military. Depending on the discharge received, service members may also be blocked from voting, unemployment benefits, participating in the GI Bill or receiving veteran benefits such as health care, VA disability, and ceremonial burial rights at military cemeteries. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">I want to say first and foremost that I think this is a </span></span><span style="line-height: 19px;">wonderful</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> idea that is long overdue. This is the beginning of justice for many who answered their countries call only to find it didn't want them....or worse, viewed them as suspicious because they were gay. While no "I'm sorry" will ever be big enough to cover the enormity of damage that his been done over many decades, an acknowledgement of their honorable service can perhaps change 'I'm sorry" into a long overdue "thank you". However....</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">As </span></span><span style="line-height: 19px;">necessary</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> as this legislation is to those who were unjustly discharged, it can only be the beginning of addressing the harms that have been done. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;">In many ways it may not be able to bring true justice to those who may have lost their families when they found out they were gay, their job prospects and any hopes they had for the future all because of the double hit of a dishonorable discharge </span><u style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;">and</u><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> being outed. while the after effects for a person discharged in 1990 may be much less severe than for someone discharged in 1940, it can never take away the gut blow that comes with no other reason than rejection because of your sexuality.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;">Every year that I go to a pride parade I see vets from all generations march. To me, it was always a reminder that for every important event we have been through as a country, we were there alongside everyone else. Gay men and women fought, bled, and sacrificed just like everyone else did.....but if it was discovered you were gay was for none of that sacrifice to matter. They marched to remind the world that LGBT people serve with dignity then and now, even though that dignity may have been denied them by the same country they served. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">The stamp of what they endured has become forever written in our history as gay people and shaped the direction of at least one major piece of it...San Francisco's Castro District. Without the recently discharged gay soldiers who settled there during the war years we may not have seen the Castro ever develop into a concrete, recognizable, gay community. Often, those soldiers couldn't go home, both because of the rejection they may have faced....but also because they now had a place in which they were no longer alone. So many remained and settled in the Noe Valley area and began it's transition from working class Irish neighborhood to center of one of the worlds most famous and influential gay neighborhoods. this may seem like a really weird tangent to some, but something as simple and cold blooded as a piece of paper that marked the status of discharged vets in WWII can have such a profound effect that can echo down through history and effect us all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">While, on the one hand, we can't change all that they have struggled through already, we can finally acknowledge what should have been acknowledged all along....that they served with honor for however long they were allowed to. They derserve that thank you along with the knowledge that it will not happen to anyone else as it happened to them.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">But here is where I would like to see us go one step better....</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Rep.'s Pocan and Rangel are correct in that any discharge other than </span></span><span style="line-height: 19px;">honorable</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> can have a host of concrete negative effects far beyond their loss of dignity, stigma, or the sheer insult that they were not good soldiers simply because they happened to be gay. As a </span></span><a href="http://www.towleroad.com/2013/06/legislation-proposed-to-restore-honor-to-veterans-discharged-from-military-for-being-gay.html" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;">Towleroad</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> commenter put it:</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">They should also re-issue DD-214s to all the discharged members who have the GAY CODE NUMBER and reason for separation, even on honorable discharges. It informs all of your potential employers that your gay and causes a great amount of job discrimination.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There are also the issues of back pay, pensions, access to medical coverage, VA loans, and many more services that could have been denied to a person dishonorably discharged. Will changing their service records to reflect honorable service then make these men and women entitled to these </span>benefits?<span style="font-family: inherit;"> As many of these soldiers and service men and women are in their retirement years, benefits like these could mean all the difference to them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I applaud Representatives Pocan and Rangel for having the courage and thoughtfulness to bring some long overdue recognition to LGBT service people separated long before Don't Ask Don't Tell was even a glimmer in Bill Clinton's eye. I do hope however, that we can do more than amend the words on a document and instead confer the full status and benefits due to those who would have otherwise have served their full term and then been honorably discharged. They have suffered enough abuse for no good reason and it's time they find restitution. If, in the repeal of DADT, we can finally acknowledge that gay people are just as fit to serve as their straight counterparts...then it stands to reason that we always have been and that very many people need a lot more than an "I'm sorry" and a slap on the back. It's not about simply rewriting history. it's about taking care of our own.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Until next time dear readers....</span></div>
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GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-78757211505361604672013-06-08T15:31:00.001-07:002013-06-08T15:31:07.632-07:00The Tale of The Nightingale Empress<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As many of you readers may already know. This year our family was invited to be Grand Marshals at the this years Pride celebration and awarded the José Julio Sarria History Maker award for our families work for marriage equality and LGBT families. We were honored and excited to receive this award but the very next thing we discovered was that we had no idea who José Julio Sarria was. In fact, I would bet that most people don't. That's the unfortunate thing about the often interrupted timeline of gay history, the lives and stories of important LGBT people are still left to be unearthed and brought into the light. Many now know of Harvey Milk because of the movie about his life, but there are many more characters to discover and tales to be told and just waiting to be rediscovered. And since we were receiving and award for "history making" in Sarria's name, we figured there must be quite a story to be told. In fact there is....</span><br />
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<b><u><span style="font-family: inherit;">Early life and military service:</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Born in 1920's San Francisco, Sarria grew up the son of a <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">Maria Dolores Maldonado and Julio Sarria. His mother, Maria, came from a "politically active" family in Gran Columbia and his Father was from Spain. His father came from a wealthy family in Spain, and he worked as the Maitré D at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The two never married and Maria raised José on her own until it became too difficult to raise a child AND work as a maid for a wealthy family. José was then raised by Jesserina and Charles Millen, who had recently lost </span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">their</span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"> own child to </span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">Diphtheria</span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"> As a young child, José studied ballet, tap dancing, and singing...skills that would come in handy later in life. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">However,</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> one detail I found most remarkable about Sarria's early life was the support and acceptance of the family who raised him when Sarria began acting outside of how everyone expected little boys to act in those days...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">Sarria began dressing in female clothes at an early age and his family indulged him,</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13.328125px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">allowing him occasionally to go on family outings dressed as a girl.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the one hand....yes, this is San Francisco...but on the other, this is the 1920's and 30's. San Fran was not a gay mecca and for this family to let Sarria go out like this likely raised more than a few eyebrows.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Furthermore, in his high school years Sarria became a tutor to an Austrian Baron Paul Kolish, who had fled to America with his son when the Nazi's invaded Austria in 1938. Kolish and Sarria then fell in love and began what is described as José's first serious relationship. And what is even more remarkable is that It is reported that José's family welcomed Kolish and his son. For them to be reported to be in a "serious" relationship means that his family must have been aware of it. So, José not only had a serious relationship with a Baron when he was still in high school...his family likely accepted it. I gotta say...I'm kinda jealous.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">As World War II continued and it came to pass that Pearl Harbor was bombed, many young men felt the need to enlist, Sarria was no exception. However, he was under the Height </span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">requirement</span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"> to be in the armed forces. Sarria...being the character that he is, seduced a major in the recruiting office and as a result got into the Army reserves. He served in the Army in a variety of jobs until his discharge in 1945.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A short time later, in 1947 his long time partner, Paul Kolish and his son were struck by a drunk driver and both were killed. The brother and only surviving relative of Kolish ignored his long time relationship with Sarria and his request that he be taken care of and instead he ignored his brothers wishes as Sarria remembers...</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> "...he only gave me a little money and one ring. He claimed that was all Paul wanted me to have. He was so evil. He said afterwards, 'If you expect anything else, you're not going to get it.' "</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Later, Sarria returned to San Francisco with the intention of enrolling in college to become a teacher but an arrest on a "morality charge" for solicitation squashed those dreams. And then fate stepped in....</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Black Cat, and The Nightingale:</span></u></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sarria and his sister had begun hanging out at a local bar in the Castro district called "The Black Cat". The Castro in those days was still a predominately straight, working class neighborhood but the Black Cat was becoming known as a center for Beat and Bohemian scene...and meeting place for gay's and lesbians. It was here that both Sarria and his sister became smitten with a waiter by the name of Jimmy Moore. Sarria and his sister Teresa then made a bet to see who could get him into bed first, a bet that José won. He and Jimmy Moore then became lovers and José describes Jimmy as the "love of his life". It is through Jimmy that Sarria comes to work at The Black Cat waiting tables. It was here that his early childhood in music and dance comes to pay off. As Sarria is waiting tables the piano player begins to play a piece from Bizet's "Carmen" and as the bio from the Empress Court <a href="http://www.impcourt.org/icis/who/founder.html">website</a> reads...</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One day while José served drinks and the pianist was playing Bizet's Carmen, he began singing arias from the opera. Soon his arias were a big hit at the Black Cat, and José's reputation for entertainment and performance was born.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That sounds amazing and all....but where is the cheekiness...the sheer chutzpah that we have come to know and love from our José? Ah wait....here it is on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Sarria#cite_note-18">Wiki</a>...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">One night at the Black Cat, Sarria recognized the piano player's rendition of </span>Bizet's<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> opera </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">Carmen</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> and began singing </span>arias<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> from the opera while he delivered drinks.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> This quickly led to a schedule of three to four shows a night, along with a regular Sunday afternoon show. Sarria was billed as "The Nightingale of Montgomery Street".</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13.328125px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">Initially he focused on singing </span>parodies<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> of popular </span>torch songs<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">. Soon, however, Sarria was performing full-blown parodic </span>operas<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> in his natural high tenor. His specialty was a re-working of </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">Carmen</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> set in modern-day San Francisco. Sarria as Carmen would prowl through the popular </span>cruising<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> area </span>Union Square<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">. The audience cheered "Carmen" on as she dodged the </span>vice squad<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> and made her escape.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">And so began the spark of what would be José Julio Sarria's activism. As gay men and women had to hide from the constant </span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">harassment</span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"> of the police and the scrutiny of society...so to were we hiding from our families and loved ones. The closet was accepted part of life for many many gay people. However, given the acceptance of José Sarria's family and his acceptance of himself, the closet was hard for him accept:</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">Sarria encouraged patrons to be as open and honest as possible. "People were living double lives and I didn't understand it. It was persecution. Why be ashamed of who you are?"</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13.328125px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">He exhorted the clientele, "There's nothing wrong with being gay–the crime is getting caught", and "United we stand, divided they catch us one by one".</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> At closing time he would call upon patrons to join hands and sing "God Save Us Nelly Queens" to the tune of "</span>God Save the Queen<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">". Sometimes he would bring the crowd outside to sing the final verse to the men across the street in jail, who had been arrested in raids earlier in the night.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.1875px;">The constant raids by police and the sense of injustice that was being done toward gay people would lead Sarria to encourage those who were arrested to plead "not guilty" when arrested and to demand a trial by jury...a thing that many were loath to do because of the attention it would bring. However, little by little...more men began to take Sarria's advice until city court dockets began to overflow with cases so much that judges began to demand actual evidence be presented to prove any allegations of immoral conduct </span><i style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.1875px;"><u>before</u></i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.1875px;"> going to trail. He also helped counter harassment of drag queens by police who used a city ordinance that made it illegal for men to dress as women "with and intent to deceive", by distributing a label they could produce when confronted that simply said, "I am a boy". These tactics may not have ended police </span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">harassment</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/" style="font-family: inherit;"></a>,<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.1875px;"> which would continue to many more years, but it gave the gay community the sense that we had to rely on each other...and we could fight back.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of Politics, Activism, and Empresses:</span></u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a period in Sarria's life in which there are an astounding number of parallels to Harvey Milk. but you be the judge...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1961, During an intense period of police harassment after city government was being criticized as being to lenient to homosexuals, Sarria announced his candidacy for one of the five open City Board of Supervisors seats. No one expected him to have a serious shot....However, no one else had registered to run for those seats and no one figured it out until the last day a candidate could file. With city politicians in panic mode, phone calls went out and by the end of the day 34 new candidates had filed. Even so, Sarria still managed to come in 9th in the race...a fact that shocked city politicians and put the gay vote on the map in city politics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">José Sarria also helped found a variety of gay rights organisations. In 1962 he helped found the <u>Tavern Guild</u>, the countries first gay business association and after closure of The Black Cat, help found <u>The Society for Individual Rights,</u> an organisation that mobilized the gay community in social events, street level demonstrations, and voter education events.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sarria was Crowned Queen of the Beaux Art Ball by the Tavern Guild in 1964, prompting him to retort that he was already a Queen and then to dub himself "<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">Her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, José I, The Widow Norton". After assuming the title of empress (and all the high drag that entails) this led to the creation of the <u>Imperial Court</u>, a non-profit charitable organisation who's function is to raise money for various causes.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1964 José's long time love Jimmy Moore was discovered to have commited suicide and so ended their love affair....though not their love as José still refers to him as "the love of his life".</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today José has passed on the crown and title of empress to Nicole Murray-Ramirez and lives in New Mexico.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now we have all been on the remarkable journey that is the life of José Julio Sarria, a man I knew nothing about prior to this month and now can't believe how that can be the case. If you know Harvey Milk, you need to know José Saria, their lives are too much alike and their individual accomplishments too great to be known by only a few. I am very proud to be recieving the award that is bearing his name with the knowledge of the legacy that he left. He is one of the many on who's shoulders we all stand....I hope her majesty is wearing shoulder pads.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Until next time dear readers....</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sources:</span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.impcourt.org/icis/who/founder.html">International Court System(USA, Canada,Mexico)</a></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Sarria#cite_note-54">Wikipedia</a></span></span><br />
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GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-80110552860156997322013-06-01T20:09:00.001-07:002013-06-01T20:09:26.637-07:00Is This The Year Of The Dads?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hello readers! Welcome back! Since Father's Day is fast approaching and it just happens to be Pride month here in Califronia, I thought it might be a good day to talk a little bit about a subject near and dear to my heart.....gay dads! This week my partner pointed out the picture above from this years NYC Pride Guide, and ignoring the rather snarky question about marriage spelling the end of gay culture, I had to admit that I was surprised to find the cover graced by what appeared to be a family even if the "dads" still looked like they fell of out of an underwear ad. While it is not abnormal to find absurdly hot guys on the cover of a Pride magazine, it is a little unusual for them to portray them as parents. And yes, this shot looks staged as hell. That baby looks like he's just as much an accessory as the sunglasses he's about to whip off and throw on the ground. But its still something to see these men as father's and a family instead of just two hot guys that may or may not be a couple. We are used to seeing sex in images like this....it is something else to see the message of a family.<br />
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Paired with all the T.V. shows that have portrayed gay dads this year, like the recently canceled "The New Normal", Cam and Mitchell from "Modern Family", and the briefly aired "Two Dads, Ten Kids" on the Oprah Network....it has led my partner to marvel at how we have come from near invisibility to being all over the place. Was this magazine pointing to an explosion of acceptance of gay dads.....or just a tacit nod that we now exist in numbers significant enough to warrant recognition?<br />
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To be honest, I hadn't really given it much thought. I had just welcomed each new change as it happened, But, since he brought it up I had to ask if he was right? Since when did we become so big?! Are we living in the year of the gay dads?<br />
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Even that question itself is perhaps misleading. Same-sex families have been around for decades, we are not a new phenomena. In fact, one of the big eye openers for me when I first came out was the simply massive stroller brigades that marched in the pride parade every year. Family was something I thought I had to give up on when I came out..and yet...here were hundreds of men and women marching down Market street with with rainbow clad children in tow. Seeing them all was a part of what changed my view of what the gay community was as well as changed what I thought my future could be. But see that on T.V.?....no way.<br />
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In fact, when it came to portrayals of same-sex parents on television....on the rare occasion that this happened, it seemed that two mom's were easier for people to digest than two dad's. Now, I am glad for any example of same-sex families in the media. No one of us can possibly the example for all and so the more we have, the better.<br />
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One of the reasons that our family went to YouTube was because there were so little representations of gay families anywhere. Prop 8 was being passed and everyone was talking about how allowing gay people to marry was going to have all sorts of harmful consequences to society...one of which was the accusation that we would indoctrinate children in schools. And to counter this, the campaign against Prop 8 would use the parents of a gay person or a celebrity to counter these arguments....but not an actual gay person...and never once did they show a gay family. It was maddening and infuriating to us. <i>Nowhere</i> could we find examples of gay families...not even somewhere as user driven as YouTube...and we were the ones who were most effected by laws that would not only effect us but out children as well. This is what led us to begin making out videos. And now, several years later we have celebs coming out and starting families, t.v. shows with gay families as central characters, and ad campaigns specifically designed to be inclusive to same-sex families. It is a <i>huge</i> shift from where we were in 2008.<br />
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But here is where I have a little axe to grind....<br />
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In my opinion there has always been a bias against men as parents for many possible reasons that I can name just off the top of my head. One....people regard women as nurturing and so, natural fits for parenting. Men....not so much. In fact, when it comes to the way society portrays men as single parents, it's often as bumbling men-children without a shred of responsibility. Whether it's the classic "Two Men and a Baby" to any of Adam Sandlers movies...it's a long running movie gag to drop a child in a mans life and watch him stare at that child like an alien from mars before feeding him twinkies for breakfast while both of them learn to bond while eating silly string and jumping on the couch. And the scene were the guy has to change his first daiper?.....comedy gold. This is how a lot of people think dads parent.<br />
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But the not so funny part is that there are a lot of people in the world secretly believe this about men as parents. I see most often in adoption and foster care as babies are readily placed in homes with opposite sex parents but don't readily offer those same children to gay men, instead placing slightly older children with them...or children who might be harder to place. Not that it always happens this way....just that I have seen it happen and it makes me wonder if comes from this cultural notion that women are naturally wired to parent and men are not. There is an assumption in our culture that Moms can change the diaper, put a hot meal on the table, keep up on school and the home while also teaching kids how to be in relationship with others in a way that dad's aren't seen as being naturally capable of. We are seen as having to catch up to those skills.<br />
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So when we see cool characters on T.V. that rock the stereotypes or give the world a more realistic view of what it means to be dads with kids it makes us want to stand up and cheer. Not only are they opening the door for acceptance of gay people, they are also helping to teach the world that dad's are responsible, nurturing adults that know how to put a good dinner on the table once in a while. It used to be such a big deal just to see a gay character in a T.V. show and often that character was single...and most of the time just a side character. It took a while before those side characters where allowed to date. And sadly, it is still a big deal when they show affection. Little by little we have been baby stepping to our way to accepting a gay person as a full human being with a full range of desires, values, and emotions. It only seems logical that having a family would be the next step in that evolution. but just like every other step along the way there has been struggle and controversy. but we are there....and I guess that is a part of what makes it so gratifying to see.<br />
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Does it signal acceptance...perhaps by a degree. But no matter how imperfect these representations of fatherhood we may see, or of gay life and gay families, it is an awesome thing they are there at all...because they sure weren't when I was coming out. And if it wasn't for what the stroller brigade opened my eyes to, what might my life have become?<br />
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This year my family was chosen to be one of San Francisco's pride marshals because of our work on YouTube showing our family to the world, hoping to accomplish all that I wrote about above. It will be a completely thrilling and surreal experience. However, I will never be able to go to a pride without remembering the stroller brigade, and the thousands of families that will be marching alongside us on that day. As much as any character we see on T.V....or muscly dads on magazine covers...I think it's still these real faces that remind us of who we can be if we want to. I hope my family has helped and become a part of that tradition. See you on the parade grounds everyone!<br />
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Until next time dear readers.....<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-25811728140996277032013-05-18T09:41:00.000-07:002013-05-18T09:41:23.457-07:00Family...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For many of us it's a thorny subject. For myself, having built my family by adoption, we know that family is something more than blood or the people that may have been born to. Family are the people who actually raise you and stand by you no matter what. Yet, when it comes to political discourse over in this country, we talk a big game about family being the bedrock of our culture and society...and then forget to mention all the gay people that get left out of that definition of family. There have whole organisations who claim to want to protect and preserve families even though the bulk of them don't give a dam about families and just want to stop gays from being full participants in society (FRC anyone?). We expend an enormous amounts of energy and words talking about families and what they mean to us as a culture.....but what we experience as individuals is often something totally different.<br />
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Recently my son had the honor to read the letter he wrote to Supreme Court Justice John Roberts at <a href="http://www.bayareayouthsummit.org/">BAYS</a>....an LGBT youth leadership summit held here in the bay area. Bays is a completely youth run non profit organisation that helps LGBT young people and allies learn how to be leaders involved in their own schools and local communities as leaders and safe schools advocates. It's quite a mouthful to say but what they have put together was something absolutely amazing and we were all honored that Daniel was chosen as one of their keynote speakers.<br />
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The event was MC'd by Rupauls Drag Race Winner Raja (who did an awesome job. At one point in the evening she made the observation that about how incredible it was to have such an event in which so many young people were not only "out" but were training others to be LGBT leaders and advocates in their own schools. In the days when Raja (and myself) were in high school you couldn't even wear an ear ring in the wrong ear or you suffered the consequences. But what she said next struck home....in those days she said, we identified each other by saying "oh...they are family" and as she scanned an audience of mostly teens she wondered out loud if that term was passing away.......<i>Was it</i>?<br />
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Now, anyone over the age of thirty still knows that term, but I had to wonder...in a generation that can be out and accepted by friends and family in a way that many of us of previous generations never could, is that definition of family being lost because we no longer have to lean on each other as we once did? And it took me back in time to when I first learned who my gay family was and why we needed each other.<br />
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Yes, I went<i> there</i>.....Call me campy if you want, but<i><u> no one</u></i> can deliver this tune like Sister Sledge....<br />
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Compared to many others my coming out seems to absurdly low key. Even so, I was scared out of my mind to do it. I feared that if said the words "I'm gay" out loud, that every one of my family and friends would turn their back on me...possibly worse. I could barely handle my own feelings about coming to terms with all of this...telling my family was too much because it felt like maybe losing it all. If it wasn't for the patience and long suffering of some very good gay friends of friends I never would have had the window into gay life I needed to dispel my own myths and worries about what I would become.<br />
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Here I speak specifically about a man named Jim. He was good friends with a female friend of mine. At the time, I was still just emerging from my hyper religious phase and had a head full of fear and worry. My friend Rose was a good friend who I had been close with since high school and we had been through the ups and downs of of my hyper religiosity together. She began telling me about her good friend Jim and how they went to the local gay bar together, danced and had a good time and to my still very much stuck in the closet mind, I was scandalized... judgmental....and intrigued. It wasn't too many months later that I cautiously agreed to meet Jim and Rose for a drink at The Inn...which it what it was called.<br />
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Even though I couldn't admit to myself that I was gay and would have denied it if you asked me, Jim must have seen the baby gay inside and knew it was just a matter of time before I finally came out. And even though I only ever met or saw Jim in the presence of Rose and going out to the Inn....he never the less became my first gay family member by being kind and accepting me for my closeted homophobic self. In fact, it was from him that I first heard the term "oh their family" in reference to another possibly gay person.<br />
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Since that Day The Inn has long ago closed and the music died. Jim moved away and possibly got married to his husband but I still keep in touch with Rose who is like a sister. We are all grown up and moved on but for a time it was just what I needed to take that first step in letting go of my own fear and prejudice. Since then, there have been many more members of my family where we have helped each other through really rocky times, My first gay friend Jeff, My first boyfriend and long term relationship Jamie....several people I have worked with over the years who I may never have shared any other connection with other than the common experience of life as an LGBT person. And top of the list, my husband who has been with me through the most, tought me the most, loved me the most, and who is <i>the</i> definition of family to me.<br />
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When I was afraid to lose my parents, my brother and my friends I felt alone. It was then that I found another family that stepped in and said, "we have you. You will be ok. We got through it and you will too." And that's what we do for each other...we help each other to remember that we are not alone, we pass down to each other a history and lingo that you will never read about in school books. and help each other navigate a life that has no signposts but plenty of pitfalls They will tell you to your face that the boy you just fell in love with is, in fact, a total douche-bag with a still active Grindr profile....and....<i>still</i> hug it out a couple of weeks later after you have disowned them for calling your boyfriend a douche-bag when discovering they were right.<br />
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And just like any real family has it's dysfunction and it's crazies aunties with the houseful of cats, I discovered that having an extended gay family was no different. We argue at times, love each other, hate each other and love each other again. We remind each other that we are a part of something bigger than our selves and our own needs and wants....and there are some members that we may not want to claim in public. But hey...their family, you take the crazy with the good.<br />
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This is because the lesson we learned from being afraid to come out to our families and from sometimes being disowned....is that true family doesn't walk away when the going gets rough. Everybody needs a home and safe place to be and many times through out our history, we have had to be that for each other because no one else would.<br />
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So as the world has changed and grown...acceptance of LGBT people has grown with it to the point that LGBT teens(at least in some parts of the country) can not only be quietly out, but leaders and prom king/queens. It's amazing to see because my experience was so different. But as those who come out today meet more acceptance than we did 20 years ago....does that mean they are losing that sense of connection and dependence to a community that would be there to be that support network?<br />
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To me it seems a bittersweet thing. I don't want to see out sense of being family as a community disappear. I think we still very much need it. But at the same time, there is no arguing that being accepted by friends and family is a wonderful thing that we wish had been happening all along?<br />
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Will a LGBT teen ever look at a stranger on a bus and recognize that person as "family"? Will it matter, if the fact that they are both LGBT isn't a big deal to anyone else on that same bus?<br />
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I think family is family. Sometimes we don't call each other for months and them come together again when one of us is in a crisis. I don't think that will change just because that arc of history is bending toward justice. We are still family....we just make our idea of family bigger again and celebrate the fact that so many of us don't have to know that pain of being disowned or having to hide from friends or lose it all. We make our family bigger again...and we keep that phone close by, because we don't forget the lessons that our history has taught us. We may not always treat each other like it. but in the end we are still family...and we don't walk away when the going gets rough.<br />
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That will always be remembered.<br />
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Until next time dear readers......<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-24340073599387736642013-05-04T16:12:00.002-07:002013-05-04T16:12:54.525-07:00Happy Star Wars Day...May 4th 2013!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Todays title says it all really. May the 4th is a day set aside to completely wallow in Star Wars geekery...hence the phrase, "May the 4th be with you." Not that I need a special day to wallow in geekery mind you, it's sort of a 24/7 thing with me and it will <i><u>always</u></i> revolve around Star Wars in some way. Yes....it's Star Wars day <i><u>every day</u></i> for me.<br />
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Given what our family does on YouTube I have been very lucky to find many kindred spirits but...there are also just as many that don't get it at all. You can always tell when someone visits my house, see's our Star Wars collection...and then politely smiles as they back out there door with a look on their face like they just stepped into the something more like Silence of the Lambs. yeah...not everybody gets it.<br />
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So I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about how I became a fan and what Star Wars has meant to me over the years. This isn't apologetics...I'm not attempting to make myself look any less fanatical. but hopefully, those of my readers who don't have any connection with a "galaxy far far away" might begin to understand why I feel the way I do...and perhaps why all superfans(Dr. who, Star Trek, Harry Potter etc.) are really just big kids at heart.<br />
<a name='more'></a>Like most boys my age, our first Star Wars memories are of seeing the film for the very first time in the theater. I was about 6 years old when my mom and dad decided to go to a movie with my aunt and uncle to see this new movie that had been all over the news. I was so small that I remember the screen towering over me and I had to crane my head up to see the picture. I don't even remember seeing the movie itself....just the excitement that I had just seen the best thing EVER! And even after seeing it only once, I knew all the characters and the theme song, which had now become the soundtrack for my life. My six year old brain lit up like a Christmas tree and every dream I had was about being in a galaxy far far away and flying through space on an adventure with Luke and the rest of the heroes.<br />
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That was most boys my age. every boy at my school wanted to play Star Wars at recess and even though everybody loves the bad guy today, then we fought over who got to be Luke, Han, and Chewie....any kid that got stuck being Darth Vader was <i><u>pissed</u></i>. But we chased each other around making blaster noises and arguing over who pretend killed who first. At home we would put cards in the spokes of our bikes and instead of pretending they were engines, it was X-wing fighters flying off to do battle in space.<br />
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And then there were the toys. My first figure ever was of Greedo...a very obscure background character from the cantina scene. I remember begging, bargaining, and desparately reasoning with my Grandma that the price tag of about $2 was actually very reasonable. Eventually she relented and I sat on the front step of my home staring at how Awesome it was before I would even let myself open it. It was the beginning of an addiction that would last my whole life...<br />
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Every Christmas I would steal the sears catalog just because the back of it was cram packed with new star wars toys. I would lay in front of the T.V. and stare at it for hours...putting the "wish" in "wish book". My parents never had to guess what I wanted for Christmas because I had circled each item and then pushed that catalog in front of their face anytime I could just to make sure no mistakes would be made. Some of my best birthday memories were of unwrapping the millenium falcon and just about passing out from the sheer excitement of it all.<br />
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When the Empire Strikes Back came out I remember an explosion of pure joy that there was another movie. I thought the first one was all there was ever going to be and the fact that there was another just blew my little mind. Then came the Return of the Jedi and the close of the saga. Each new movie had been a surprise that I looked forward to with as much excitement as Christmas itself. Many years later...long after I thought all of the story had been told...George announced that he was making three more movies and I instantly reverted to being seven years old all over again. That same flush of pure excitement washed over me. To this day it remains the same...when Disney announced it would be extending the sage by another five movies, I again turned seven years old and let out a squee of excitement (well almost a squee...I don't actually squee...really...stop looking at me like that.) Star Wars can bring out that wide eyed, joyful kid in me every time.<br />
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Star Wars meant fun...it meant adventure...it meant that there was something wonderful to life that all you had to do was look to the stars to see. It made my childhood a blast. It was forever cemented in my heart as much as it was woven into memories of happier times. From 1977 to 1983 it had been the stuff of my dreams and my constant companion....but eventually all good things had to come to an end. With Return of the Jedi, the saga was proclaimed finished and Star Wars became a relic of my childhood. My parents divorced...I grew up...became a teen and then a young man. I moved out on my own...came out of the closet and met my first boyfriend. By 1995 I was an adult. You would think that would have killed my obsession with Star Wars right?......well....<br />
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1995 also saw the re-release of new Star Wars action figures from Kenner. At the time they were only available at my local comic shop and when I first laid eyes on them I went from 22 years old to seven again in no time flat. It was like an excitement I had thought lost to time had suddenly come back and I think I just stood there in utter shock before I could believe what I was seeing. It turned out that my boyfriend at the time ended up giving them to me as a birthday present and I felt like a kid all over again. I have been collecting non-stop ever since.<br />
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In fact it was running around looking for new Star Wars figures that was one of the very first things that my husband Jay and I did together. As George announced the prequels, it was both of us that gave a manly squee and then waited together in insanely long lines to see the movies at midnight the night before their release. We have gone to midnight Star Wars sales at Toys R' Us and gone to conventions together.....it is amazing just how much Star Wars has helped to bond us together.I don't think my seven year old self would have ever imagined that would be the outcome of riding around my neighborhood pretending to blow up tie fighters. I would marry another Star Wars geek...he would be a boy...and we would spend our lives dreaming of Star Wars together.....Who knew?<br />
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Star Wars has woven in and out of all the important parts of my life. That it is something that I enjoy and keeps me feeling like a kid inside is only a part of the story. You can not tell the story of my life without also including it (preferably with the soundtrack). So this is how the monster got made. When people ask me if I am a Star Wars fan I always tell them no....I am a <i><u>FANATIC</u></i>! And because I know what it feels like, I understand what drives fans of other franchises like Star Trek, Disney, Dr. Who.....And yes, even my daughters favorite.....*sigh*....<i>Justin Beiber</i>.<br />
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Being a geek over something you love does not make something wrong with you. It can add color to a world that needs all the joy it can get. Embrace your geeky side, it is a part of what is <i><u>good</u></i> about you. And never grow up...it's very over rated.<br />
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Happy Star Wars day dear readers...<i>and</i>...until next time....<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-90346411635932049972013-04-27T14:11:00.002-07:002013-04-27T14:15:10.739-07:00Adoption Stories...First Contact<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A while back (wow, it was June of last year!) I a post titled "<a href="http://gayfamilyvalues.blogspot.com/2012/06/cold-case.html">Cold Case</a>" I talked about our Daughter, Selena, beginning to ask some rather pointed questions about her biological mother and how difficult it was going to be to find anything now that state adoptions felt the case was forever closed. that launched us into becoming amateur detectives in order to track down our children's biological family. We have always been really open with the kids about where they came from and how they came to be with us, but now that they were actually wanting to know more about their family, it had caught us off guard and wondering how the heck we were going to find anything when all we had was a hand written family tree in Daniels adoption binder that only had the first names of his older siblings and their ages at the time of Daniels removal....not a lot to go on. Well, thanks to the help of a good friend and some major facebook and google sleuthing, we found a list of names of likely candidates. And so I had sent them all facebook messages, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.<br />
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And then nothing....<br />
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We has absolutely no response at all and quietly, inside my heart I was heartbroken for the kids. We wondered if we got the wrong people, or perhaps their older siblings had been so scarred by their experience with their family that they simply wanted nothing to do with them anymore...even if they were long lost siblings. People rarely react the way we think they are going to and everyone has their own reasons for saying no to a contact that most of us would jump at the chance to realize. But we let it go, resigned to try it again later, and got on with our lives. All of us forgot about it and got caught up in the daily grind of homework, karate, fencing, foster child visits, and Youtube. And then,out of the blue...something amazing happened...<br />
<a name='more'></a>Ten months after first sending those messages I am sitting my my van outside the CPS building waiting for our foster children while they visit their mother. This is a rare down time when I can just sit and play on my phone, answer a few emails, and generally enjoy a rare moment of quiet. Now messages tend to pour in all day to us which means my phone is always chiming away at me at all hours of the day. It was just as I was sending off one reply when I saw a familiar name come in but I couldn't place why it was familiar...until I read the first line of the message..... GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY! ...IT's ONE OF THE KIDS OLDER SISTERS!!!!....I practically had a heart attack on the spot!<br />
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It seems that people don't check their facebook as obsessively as Jay and I do and my message to her had sat for nearly ten months until she saw it...or worked up the courage to answer it. At any rate Older Sister(as she will be knows from here on out) is actually the youngest of the four siblings above Daniel and Selena. She was with them when they were babies and toddlers...and as often happens, ended up being more mother to them than sister. She told us that she was heartbroken that they had been removed and adopted away and had never stopped looking for them...and so she was very very happy to see the message I sent on facebook.<br />
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I was floored and got on the phone to Jay to see if he wanted to handle the first phone call with her as I knew he would be more cautious than I would be. And then I just had to wait to find out more until my current task was over and I could get home and find out what came of that first phone call.<br />
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It turned out that Jay thought she was very sweet and let the kids talk to her for a few minutes...something that turned out to be a tearful and emotional experience both for older sister as well as for Daniel. They shared some memories of when they were little and ended the call with a promise to meet for dinner and a million-bajillion questions answered sometime soon.<br />
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So now here we stand....the finally with a response we had resigned ourselves to never recieve...excited, happy, and not a little uncertain what meeting them in person might bring. Selena seemed to just absorb the news as something cool that happened in her day. Daniel however, seemed happy to talk to his sister, but memories of his past always seem to leave him unsettled. Those were times he wanted to get away from andI can see in his eyes a mixture of emotions that he seems to have a hard time putting into words. Just like the last time when he saw a picture of his mom for the first time since he was removed from her custody, he cried because he was starting to forget her face. He was happy to remember what she looked like but not happy to remember the time he spent with her. Meeting his brothers and sisters in person is going to take that dynamic and magnify it I think. Helping Daniel assemble the disjointed pieces of his life is going to be a complicated task that will require patience and making sure we are only going at a pace that is comfortable for him.<br />
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And for Dads? That's a thornier question. We resolved a long time ago to do what was best for the kids and we would never...EVER...keep them from knowing their family if that is what they want and it is safe. However, that doesn't mean that it doesn't come without some insecurity on my part at least. I know my kids are my son and daughter and I am know they love us the same...but meeting their biological family has always been a "someday" thing and now here it is up close and personal. This is happening and I don't know what's going to shake out from it. It's going to create feelings for us all to deal with and I have to put mine in second place to theirs. Daniel and Selena are going to meeting people that are going to expand their definition of who their family is and I can't lie...that's scary for me. but we are going to walk that road with them anyway.<br />
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As I told Daniel last night, this doesn't change who we are, just like all the people we have met through YouTube have made our family circle wider over the years...this is the same. It will not change our family, it will only make it bigger and we will go together.<br />
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There will be lots of getting to know each other and keeping a close eye out to make sure that meeting their brothers and sisters is going to be emotionally safe for them. From those parents we have spoken to, you ALWAYS have to move with slowness and caution in these circumstances. After all, there were reasons why the kids were removed in the first place and you have to balance that against their need to know where they come from. Whether the kids chose to embrace or reject that will then be up to them. It is all an uncertain process that you hold each others hands and tread cautiously through together. With luck, puzzle pieces that represent their pasts and their presents will fit together and a bigger picture of their lives with be revealed. If not...we step back and collect a few more pieces...fill in the corners and the edges, and try to make it all fit together again at a later date.<br />
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But we took the first step onto thin air with those first messages long ago. We sent a digital bottle out onto and electronic see and incredibly, someone found it and wrote back. What happens next is anybodies guess. That is both exciting and scary all at once. This is adoption...this is being a parent....and sometimes here there be dragons.<br />
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Until next time dear readers....<br />
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(P.S...the picture at the top of this post is there just because I love it)<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-2736093884634238302013-04-20T15:59:00.001-07:002013-04-20T15:59:22.513-07:00Seeing Our Best In Our Darkest Moments<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hello dear readers...it is nice to be back after missing last week. Over that time however, it seems as if some crazy things have been happening in the world. The Boston bombings and fertilizer plant explosion in Texas has been on mind all week as it seems as if the wounds of the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings haven't even healed yet...but....it's not those tragedies themselves that are in my thoughts these day so much as our response to them. Terrible events tend to bring us together as a people in ways I wish we would find when we aren't grieving some terrible loss.<br />
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I spend my days swimming through a see of opinion about people attitudes and opinions to LGBT people and our rights and if you can say one thing about it, it is that it is contentious. The loudest voices are often the most hateful ones and those people need to be met and countered. The path to seeing an LGBT person as a normal human being and not a national threat has been a long and loud one and we are far from seeing the end of it. Even the repeal of Doma and the passage of LGBT inclusive immigration and work place reforms will not end the culturally entrenched homophobia that still needs to be met daily with courage and truth.<br />
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But as I watch the T.V. in the wake of the Boston Bombings and hear such amazing stories of compassion...like people running toward the blast sights to help the injured instead of running away in self protection...it makes me think. Why can not this be who we are all the time? And given that LGBT people are there in these same events, suffering in the carnage and helping to heal it...when will the world learn that we have bigger problems to face in the world than two people of the same-sex getting married?<br />
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As you can tell...this blog is more stream of consciousness then asking a question for which I have a good answer. some problems are simply more complex in their answer then the simplicity of asking the question. Terrible events have a way of bringing out the best in some people and we see that when police and firefighters raced to rescue people from the burning and collapsing twin towers on 9/11. Or in Sandy hook teacher Vicki Soto hid her children in cabinets and tried to mislead Adam Lanza away from them, ultimately being killed herself...and now in Boston were an entire city was galvanized into action by the bombings. Boston, Texas, Oklahoma City...when the worst happens, we often see the <i>best</i> in each other.<br />
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Now, I live on the other side of the country, and <i>my</i> heart has been with Boston all week. I find myself wondering if all the divisions that normally plague us on regular days have been put on hold while Bostononians worked to recover from the explosions and then find the men responsible. Whether you are gay, straight, black, white, or whatever.....is there just one Boston right now?...Showing their strength and courage in an event that effected everyone equally. because from my vantage point, that is how it looks.<br />
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Whether it is the explosion of a bomb left by a terrorist or the accidental loss of life from the plant explosion in Texas, people are rushing to help each other. We are treating wounded, standing with those grieving the deaths of loved ones and pouring out love and support for each other. And woven into these stories are individual LGBT people who are victims as well as first responders who's lives are as wound up in these events as anyone else. For example Officer Javier Pagan, who is the officer on the right in the picture at the top of this post was present at the epicenter of the first bombing and among the first officers to respond. Pagan, is the Boston Police Departments liaison to the LGBT community and married to his husband Pedro, a retired NYPD officer:<br />
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As I have watched events unfold with a mixture of both utter horror at the tragedies that have occurred this week and then with inspiration as I have seen people pull together in support of each other, I can't help but wonder what happens to us all once the dust clears and the public consciousness once again has space to hear the wingnuts come unhinged about gay people marrying, bi-national couples wanting to not be deported, and gay people seeking protections from being fired on the basis of their sexuality alone. Gradually we will return from this tragedy to another conflict, this one internal...."culture war"....and it seems like a lesson in compassion lost.<br />
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And just as tragedy can uncover the best in us, so to can it unveil the worst as we give vent to fear and anger. Two seconds ago we may have been helping a stranger we may have never talked to on any other given day because we were all being effected by the same event....and then we shift gears into finding the people who did it and immediately we start looking at groups instead of individuals...like <a href="http://sandrarose.com/2013/04/obama-orders-first-boston-bombing-suspect-deported-back-to-saudi-arabia/">the Saudi man who had been tackled after the blast just because he was middle eastern</a> and wearing a backpack. I don't think anyone expected the bombings to come from two young men from Chechnya...Islamic or not. It seemed so far out of left field. yet, in an instant, the unity that took place in grieving gave way to anger and opened the door to prejudice before we knew what hit us.<br />
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All I am asking of the world is, when the dust clears and the pain subsides, to remember the moments when we all rushed to take care of each other and nothing mattered but one human being coming to the aid of of a fellow. Can we take that memory with us when the Family Research Council and the National Organisation for Marriage do their damnedest to make us afraid that America will fail and the world will fall apart if we allow gay people to love and marry equally. Could we short circuit culture war if we remembered there is no "us vs. them"...there is only an "us". Can we treat every day like one in which someone desperately needs our help?<br />
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I already know what the answer to that is.....<i>no</i>. Once things settle and people return to their everyday routines, then we forget how little difference meant when the chips were down. Even though many gay people suffered and died as well...and many rushed to help bandage wounds and search for survivors, we will have to return to our homes and our lives and to people talking about us as if we are different...set apart...dangerous..and to be feared. No longer the policeman who pulled you from the wreckage of someone else's hatred and cruelty. The hysteria machine <i>will</i> begin again...but this time when it does I hope we can see that its fearfulness is so much garbage that disappears when the world really <i>does</i> fall down around us.<br />
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But one thing we can learn is that we are capable of better. When most days we shrug our shoulders and say, "that's just the way the world is."....we know that's not totally true because we have seen these glimpses of ourselves as so much more. We know who we can be....we know that there are times when our colors, gender, sexuality, and race don't matter as much as drawing together in survival....how can we make that who we are in good times?<br />
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What do you think readers...am I being too naive yet again? Sometimes I think I expect too much from the world. but just as we have seen great darkness in humanity...we have also seen amazing moments of courage and compassion. We will never be perfect of our own accord...but we can be better. These are my thoughts and what I took away from this weeks events...its still a lesson in progress, and there are no easy answers. But now I open it up to you the reader....What do you think?<br />
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until next time dear readers....<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-12647038237362949242013-04-06T15:51:00.000-07:002013-04-06T15:55:25.555-07:00Why Is It Still OK To Demean Gay People?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Todays blog can be thought of as an extension of last weeks in which I talk about how many in religion have made LGBT people into their chief enemy....abandoning all pretense at love or the message of Jesus to espouse a political viewpoint in "the culture wars". This week picks up the topic again with Pastor David James Manning of the YouTube channel <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/ATLAHWorldwide?feature=watch">ATLAHworldwide</a>.<br />
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Earlier this month Pastor Manning produced a video called "Age Matters All The Time" in which Pastor Manning attempted to make the point that anyone below the age of thirty was not mature enough to vote. For an example of this Pastor Manning used my son Daniels video letter to Chief Justice John Roberts, using his image and his full name to accuse my husband Jay and myself of being child molesters and child rapists for allowing our son to not only understand the issue of same-sex marriage...but to allow him to voice his opinion about a topic that directly effects his family.<br />
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Now, that video was up for several days before ultimately being flagged and pulled from YouTube to be reviewed for inappropriate content. It was at this point that Pastor Manning made a video in which he attempted to reframe his video as not attacking our family and calling us child molestors...but simply one in which he was trying to talk about how age matters in political discourse...a complete falsehood.<br />
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However, due to complaints from Mannings viewers, Youtube put his video <u>back up</u>....disgusting accusations and all. We were completely flummoxed that a human being at YouTube actually watched that video and then re-approved it. Yet as angry as we were, we had resigned ourselves that there was nothing much we could do about it....until the popular political blog <a href="http://americablog.com/2013/04/youtube-pepsi-procter-gamble-anti-gay.html">AmericaBlog</a> picked up the story and highlighted the advertisers who were having their products linked to Pastor Mannings message.....prompting YouTube to immediately yank the video again and finally acknowledge that it violates its own posted community guidelines for hate speech.<br />
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The entire Journey we have been through with Manning has highlighted for me that not only do certain religious people see the gay community as the ultimate evil...but also that it still seems to be ok to express such insulting comments as Pastor Manning made as long as the target of those comments are gay people. Read on after the jump to watch the videos and to find an answer to why it's till ok to debate and talk about gay lives in a way that it would be considered unacceptable if the subject was another race, religion, or women...<br />
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Since the original video was taken down(finally) by YouTube The only piece of his original speech that we have is within our video response to Pastor Manning. In order to get an idea of just how much Pastor Mannings "opinions" crossed the line from mere editorial commentary to something deeply dangerous begin watching at 1:25 and keep a barf bag close at hand:<br />
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Now we were understandably angry as hornets over this and who wouldn't be to see their family talked about this way. But....there didn't seem to be a lot we could do about it because YouTube doesn't tend to want to get involved in issues it regards as a difference of opinion, religion, and free speech issues. About all we could do was make this video to refute Pastor Manning's claims. Our viewers reported Manning and the video was taken down for review, and a warning email was sent to Manning about a possible strike on his account. Not closure....just a strike. This was his response:<br />
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Following this video, Pastor Mannings viewers went to YouTube and complained that the video be put back up...to which YouTube agreed. It was then that AmericaBlog got involved and ran a story on it's widely read site. In that story they listed the major advertisers who's ad's were being ran within Pastor Mannings videos. Advertisers like Pepsi, Taco Bell, and Procter and Gamble. Within a couple of short hours YouTube was on the phone to AmericaBlog(not us) to let them know they removed the video siting accordance with their own posted User Guidelines.<br />
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So my question is....<u>What changed?</u><br />
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When it was just us and our viewers asking YouTube to take down the video...it was taken down...then Mannings viewers asked them to put it back up on religious/free speech grounds...and right away it was back up. It was not until a national publication took up the issue and addressed their advertisers that the issue was finally acknowledged as a violation and taken down for good. Had AmericaBlog <i><u>not</u></i> taken on the story, would that video <i><u>still</u></i> be up even now?<br />
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Of the points that Pastor Made in response...this one stood out for me the most, (emphasis mine):<br />
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"...At some point they are going to walk into church and tell me that we are going to have to stop preaching about homosexuality as a sin. It's coming! I give it about 17...18 months...maybe less than that. You're going to see legislation coming down and churches being intimidated that you can not say that same-sex marriage is....<b>it's racial it's bigoted, it's discrimination, ....uh, it's like preaching against black people or any other race</b>...and so they gonna restrict church's. It'll happen.</blockquote>
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Paranoia and his attempt to flip the script and make himself the victim being put aside for one moment...I find it odd that Pastor Manning can not see the truth of that point. I wonder how he would feel if the very same video he made about same-sex marriage were taken and all reference to gay people replaced with references to Black and African American people? Would he be outraged if some white pastor were speaking about his family with those same words? Surely it has been done and Manning is old enough to remember the day...so I find it surprising that he is able to turn around and return that discrimination using the Bible as an excuse.<br />
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the whole issue with YouTube reviewing the video and putting it back up...even after seeing the dangerous and and inflamatory accusations that Manning makes...highlighted for me that it is still acceptable for a whole lot of Americans to talk about gay people in ways that would cause cries of outrage if those same comments where directed at any other group of people.<br />
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And even <i><u>if</u></i> Pastor Manning said "it" aught to be considered child rape...pointing with his words to an issue and not a person(using images instead to point to us as persons)....would the video and Mannings words be acceptable on the basis of religious difference and freedom of speech if Manning had featured the child of a Muslim family calling on tolerance? IF he had made a video featuring that child and then referred to that video as child rape? What would happen? ....The internet would explode, that's what would happen. But when the subject is the lives and loves of LGBT people, society thinks it's totally ok to say insane, insulting, and outright dangerous things and it's supposed to be all ok...<br />
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During DADT we had to put up with people with serious faces talking about how gay soldiers should not be allowed to serve because they would rape their fellow heterosexual soldiers. During all of Prop 8's long path to the Supreme Court we have had to listen to people talk about gays as if we our selfish adults trying to steal the word marriage, who's relationships are only about sex, and who don't have families of our own needing legal protection....and we just have to sit there and listen to it as if it's sane dialogue.<br />
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That Pastor Manning does not agree with same-sex marriage is fine. That <i><u>anyone</u></i> disagrees with same-sex marriage or gay people is their right to do so. That Manning preaches on YouTube and in his church that homosexuality is a sin is totally his business. But....when you post the image of my family...or any family...online and call us child molesters and child rapists that takes the argument out of the realm of protected religious opinion as I don't think anyone would tolerate it if those same comments were directed at a person of another faith. There is language that expresses dislike and disagreement...and there is language that demeans people, treats them as if they are children who's lives are fit for their judgement and furthermore ...language that causes harm as Pastor Manning has done.<br />
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If we no longer accept this type of language when talking about gender, racial, or religious equality....when are we going to get to the point when we acknowledge that for gay and trans people as well. When will it no longer be acceptable to make veiled and not-so-veiled references of pedophilia and rape? Through out history LGBT people have lost homes, jobs, and families to these same falsehoods. We have born that shame undeserved for long enough. It's unacceptable even by the standard of religious disapproval...and it's time to stop.<br />
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Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered people are you're neighbors...your sons and daughters ...your parents...people who work beside you...people who sometimes protect you in an emergency. We have families we love as much as yours and we are entitled to the same common respect and human dignity we have learned to demand for others who once stood on the outside.<br />
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Until next time dear readers...<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-74309345818805264732013-03-30T16:44:00.001-07:002013-03-30T16:44:44.533-07:00Like David and Goliath<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This blog will be kind of a difficult one to write for me. I was raised...and still consider myself...Christian regardless of the path my life has taken. I will be discussing faith and religion...so if you are offended by those topics than perhaps this is not the post for you. I know that these are deeply personal topics, but I encourage anyone who reads on to be respectful and to remember that this is written from the point of view of one human being...me. It will be flawed, it may make you facepalm, but that's just the nature of discussing religion or politics, which is why people caution never to do it. Yeah...we never listen to those people. That said...<br />
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How did gay people end up being the single most important issue to religion? As I have lived my life as an out gay man, and been involved in advocating for marriage equality, I have seen this issue grow from being one of many issues the church frowned upon to somehow transforming into an apocalyptic battle for the survival of the world. It makes little sense to me. I mean, to be against it because of your interpretation of the Bible...sure, I'm used to that opinion...but to hear the way religious voices talk about the gay community is to have them paint the image of them as David facing down the us as the big mean Philistine, Goliath. There is no one else and no other issue as galvanizing to the religious community than stopping gay people....not poverty, not economical inequality, not hunger, not spiritual well being....just holding off the end times by holding back the tide of gay rights. Further more any other religious group or tradition that decides to support and affirm LGBT people gets branded as traitors and heretics.<br />
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For many this will seem like a no-brainer relationship between traditional attitudes to homosexuality being threatened by the advancements that have been made by LGBT people of late. However, rather than just accept that as a given fact...I'd like to take a minute to look deeper at why we have become the arch nemesis of organized religion and how I believe that is a mistaken view<br />
<a name='more'></a><u><b>A huge aside:</b></u><br />
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First off I would like to say that I draw a sharp distinction between "religion" and "spirituality". I tend to think of religion as a set of actions and beliefs that men do and coming wholly from the human heart. As such it can be subject to human flaws like greed, control, and fear. We are told in one momet that God loves us and then in the next moment we are given the huge list of things we can never do or else we are out of his grace...and given a whole list of things we must do to show our faith in him. In my opinion...it is religion that keeps people in a state of fear that they are not good enough in Gods eyes....not loved...not accepted...and just one thin thread from dropping into hellfire. We are told: God loves you and Jesus died for you...but don't Ever have sex or think about having sex unless you are married and even then it is suspect and a part of your lower being. Don't have doubts or too many questions as these are all signs of unfaithfullness. Pray, read the Bible, and share the gospel with everyone you can. If you don't do these things you are a lukewarm christrian and maybe your faith isn't good enough. And if you come to the realization that you are born gay...forget it, you're toast. Either way, their message of unconditional love is completely invalidated and they close a door to God and make people earn it open again. This is what I call religion and in every tradition that you find that kind of thinking, people are scared to death and willing to do anything to prove their faith.<br />
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I mark this kind of practice as different that simply acknowledges the already open door and encourages people to walk through it without any stipulations. This has become my understanding of the Gospel. That Jesus sacrificed his life for sin meant <b><i><u>all</u></i></b> of them. "It is finished" meant exactly that....not, "it is finished unless you...(fill in the blank)". After all, Jesus didn't travel around Israel looking for the gay people(for surely they were there in some capacity). He spent his days feeding people, healing the sick, and showing the people that the religious establishment of the day regarded as pariahs, that God loved them too. He ate with tax collectors and prostitutes and others that were looked down on because they were exactly the people who needed to hear that message of love the most. He spoke with them because they were everyday told how rejected by God and their own people they were. I know people will take issue with me over that and I think its a huge discussion in it's own right....Suffice it to say that modern day religion has treated LGBT people like those prostitutes and tax collectors....Judged and shunned, with no hope. What messages of "love" we hear from Christianity are always predicated on no longer being gay first...something we know we can not do anymore than we change the color of our eyes.<br />
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<b><u>Back on Track:</u></b><br />
But as time has marched on and we as LGBT people are making great gains in being acknowledged as regular everyday people....that old meme of gay people as "the enemy" dies a slow death. But, there are those who march in the name of religion(see above) who would still have everyone believe that gay people are somehow the penultimate enemy to be faced by those of faith. Reading the words of many religious leaders across denominational lines is to come away with the notion that there is no more important issue for a Christian person than to face than the battle to prevent the gay community from obtaining any kind of acceptance....not hunger, not poverty, not the millions of kids in foster care who need a good home....just stopping gays. Just read the last Popes Easter address for a great example of this. All of this, happening under the name of "faith".<br />
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As LGBT people have advanced in public opinion and legal protections, so to have those who oppose that advancement escalate their efforts to not just one of many moral battles....but <i><u>the</u></i> moral battle that defines them as a persons of God. And even though throughout history the religious view of gay people has been the overwhelmingly predominate one such that gay people were actually burned at the stake, lobotomized, and publicly shamed and persecuted....now that gay rights are advancing, that is exactly what they are hysterically doom-casting will happen to them. That gay people will silence their viewpoints, close down their churches, take away the Bible, and throw all Christians in prison. All of it complete nonsense that they wrap up with a neat little bow and sell as "the culture wars".<br />
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They have very conveniently put God on their side and gay people on the other, as if we hold no connection to God or any spirituality of our own. And so they cast themselves as the biblical David....small in stature but resolute in faith, ready to take down the gay Goliath who has come to destroy their kingdom. Except for a couple very inconvenient points....The first would be weren't they just the majority a few minutes ago, making them the Goliath? And second...<br />
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The very people that most Christians are demonizing as wanting to destroy marriage and lock them up for their faith have...for many of us...come from your churches. Their is this notion that gay people don't hold any kind of spiritual values and if they do, they are automatically invalidated because they are held by a gay person. A person who, in all probability was expelled from their own churches for no other reason than being gay.<br />
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For my own part, out to myself 20+ years ago meant a huge internal struggle with how God thought of me. I had labeled by gayness "temptation" and fought it tooth and nail for years until it got to the point when I could fight no longer and I was forced by that inner battle to consider that my feelings were not something intruding on me, but something innate to me. In my mind was the balance of accepting my sexuality on one side, and God on the other. Now, I did not hate God. I was very anxious to please him. To have to look inside myself and realise that a trait I now knew was as "me" as my eye color made me unacceptable in his eyes was terrifying and heart breaking. There felt like no resolution to my inner conflict and so I did what many gay people do...I walked away from it all. But just because I did that did not mean that I stopped talking to God. Nor in all that time that has passed since, do feel like he hasn't watched over me. For someone told that being gay meant that they were an abomination to God and that our blood was on our own hands....the connection I felt was a revelation in it's own right and signaled the beginning of a move away from religion for me and hopefully to a more spiritual outlook.<br />
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There are many LGBT people out there in the world carrying their own spirituality and values. Each one working out their own relationship with a God that many would tell them wants nothing to do with them. Some sit in church pews in congregations that accept LGBT people....some just keep the line to God open understanding it's a two way conversation. Some of us are carrying around the wounds of rejection from the church's we were raised in....and others have made their peace....and still more have rejected it as vociferously as they themselves were first rejected. That there are so many gay men and women who utterly reject all forms of organized religion should come as no surprise to anyone....however, have been showed little love by it.<br />
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And so we come back to David and Goliath. The mighty versus the small. In the story, one had God on his side while the other did not. Hopefully we can see that the analogy does not fit so well anymore. Many LGBT people carry the same values these people claim we want to destroy...No one has taken anything from them except their ability shame people and hold them as non-people...excluding them from society and legal protection. Gay people are not the ultimate enemy of the church or faith and it's time that we remind them of that. If there is an antithesis to faith and spirituality, it is not gay people. Fear, greed, lack of charity and love are far more the enemies of faith than any gay person wanting to marry someone they love and raise children. I strongly believe we need to get past the notion that gays and the religious are somehow opposite poles...because that totally ignores the many ways in which we connect and overlap. Just as the opposites of faith is all forms of unlovingness...so too is the the opposite of equality, just plain bigotry. These are the real players in our account of the battle between David and Goliath and we know how <i>that</i> story ends. I wonder what they would make of the Story of David and Jonathan?...<br />
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Until next time dear readers...<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-58902709364092191062013-03-23T15:45:00.000-07:002013-03-23T15:45:09.145-07:00Kids of LGBT Families In The Spotlight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's the eve of the beginning of oral arguments for the Supreme Court on the issues of Prop 8 and DOMA and here I am on a Saturday already holding my breath. It's been a whirlwind week in which the pending cases have been front and center for us all week long. As most of you know...since our Facebook wall is practically wallpapered with links....my son Daniel's letter to Chief Justice John Roberts has gone viral and gotten a lot of attention. Thankfully, the lions share of that attention has been positive and we have been very happy to pass that along to him. I was/am very proud of him and I feel he earned every bit of the praise he has received from this.<br />
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However, when it comes to kids and the public eye, there are many who ask if showing our children in such a public way is good for them. This question was brought to me just this last week in a brief spot that Daniel and I were in for <a href="http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2013/03/21/exp-point-leffew-gay-marriage.cnn">CNN's Starting Point</a>. The one and <i><u>only</u></i> question I received from the anchors was nothing to with DOMA or Prop 8 but everything to do with why we as parents would chose to put our kids in the spotlight:<br />
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...Tell me a little bit about putting your family out there for the world to see. There can be down sides to that too. People can say, "Look, you're showing what it's like to be your family"....There are others who say, "Maybe kids shouldn't be in the spotlight."</blockquote>
It's a fair question...and one that I had a specific answer for but as a parent first and marriage equality advocate second I think the topic is one that bears further discussion. So grab your favorite beverage and follow me after the jump....<br />
<a name='more'></a>The answer I gave to CNN needed to be short and too the point and so....distilled it is this: that laws like Prop 8 and DOMA harm us directly. There does exist a potential for our marriage to be completely invalidated by the Scotus and that's a really big deal for all of us as a family...not just the adults. Similarly, Prop 8 and DOMA's effects don't just harm us as adults, but trickles down to effect our kids as well. This is what's at stake for us. It is not simply an issue or moral abstract...it is the where the rubber meets the road of our lives.<br />
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But many would argue that, while that is true, it does not mean that children need to be front and center to the debate. Many feel that they are too young to really understand the issues they are addressing and many look at a child's point of view as being too influenced by pressure from parents. And still more look at media attention on children as being inherently damaging all by itself. All understandable...especially because, as parents we want to shield children from harm when ever we can. After all, our news is filled with stories of child stars who have crashed and burned later in life that we have developed this view that media exposure is always bad......but is it?<br />
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The reason we began YouTube was to give the world a window into the daily lives of a same-sex family. Many people may not know a gay person...they may not have good notions about two men raising children..and still more just may not get how it all works. We understand that, hell....when Jay and I were young men coming out society was only just beginning to talk about same-sex couples raising kids and the discourse was not always a good one. Society still to this day sends the message that kids raised in same-sex households will be a several disadvantages....being teased and bullied, missing the input of a opposite sex parent...and the result of this would be a damaged individual with emotional problems. In short....a list of Complete and utter bullsh*t fed by a lack of real experience with same-sex parents raising kids.<br />
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Both Jay and I have had the benefit of knowing kids around our age who had two moms or two dads. When I was a teen, and not out even to myself, there was a young man across the street from me who was being raised by two moms. The good friend of my first boyfriend was a girl with two moms. These examples were out there even if you didn't see examples of them in the news or on television. These people being raised by gay parents were neither gay themselves...nor prone to anymore problems than any one else. And both of them loved their parents very much. Being able to have those examples in my life helped me to understand that family wasn't out of the question for a gay person....even if It seemed hard to make happen. If I wanted to be a dad, my kids would turn out OK.<br />
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But the rest of the nation doesn't have the benefit of having someone to look to in order to realize that they fearful stories we are told about gays parenting children are just shadows that vanish in the light of actual experience. And so....as Prop 8 commercials aired in 2008 and not a gay family was shown everywhere we began to be a little vexed. After all, Prop 8 effected us directly. And as NOM kept on with their shrill, "marriage is about the children campaign.".....no one was saying, "Hey, we have kids too. What about them?" And so we decided it was time that the world learned a thing or two about gay families. And so we started small, never expecting it to take on the life that it has. But over the years we have hoped that it has done good work in the world and helped all people regardless of what walk of life they come from to see what a family with same-sex parents looks like and functions. Our hope is that some day, when the kids are adults, they will look back and be proud of what they were a part of.....and not resentful. I know that is somewhat of a leap of faith on our parts.<br />
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But one additional piece of this puzzle still has yet to be discussed...and that's giving kids credit for finding their own voices. There is growing collection of voices from the children of same-sex families and what they have to say speaks volumes:<br />
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(I could not find clips of Madison Galluccio's or Zach Wahl's original speach's that had intact audio....thank's a lot YouTube.)<br />
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I am proud that my son stands among faces like these. These are kids who are just standing up to tell the world in their own words to show the world just how awesome they are and thereby shatter all the misconceptions people hold about how the children of gay families grow up. Their words carry more weight than any of mine ever could. So it matters...<br />
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It matters to the 16 year old kid coming out to himself who now knows he doesn't have to give up his hopes for his life. It matters to the people who may vote on same-sex marriage in voting booths or legislative halls. It matters to the kids themselves that people see them for who they really are. but it's <i><u>their</u></i> words this time and <i><u>their</u></i> choice to stand up for their families. I, for one, am proud of all of them for it.<br />
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So in closing...yes, there is always a risk when you put your family in the public eye but what is at stake for us as same-sex families who have to fight for the same rights and protections that other families are automatically afforded makes it important that we do. But for every video that gets made and every comment that gets logged...or any attention that is garnered by the news...we are parents stand by them, shield them from the worst of internet discourse, and help them navigate through the attention they are receiving just for standing up to defend their families.<br />
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Someday I hope there comes a day when having two dads or two moms...or a transgendered parent...wont make a difference. When what matters is that you have parents that love and provide the very best care for their children. I hope that coming out, doesn't mean giving up on having a family....A day when we don't have to fight through legislatures and ballot initiatives just to have the relationships of loving and committed couples recognized as such....and not regarded as strangers in the eyes of the law with all the damage that does. But we don't live in that day yet.<br />
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Until we do, we have to keep telling our stories with dignity and respect. We need to protect our children and families....but the world also needs to know that our kids grow into the same happy, healthy adults that kids from straight families do. It seems like that fact should be such a no brainer....but sadly, to many people it is not.<br />
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I can't say what my son and daughter will say to me about all of this when they grow up. I know there are days when its fun and days when they would rather be coloring or playing video games....but that's all normal kid stuff. One day it will be there story to tell....just as Daniel has begun to do with this video. As time goes on their individual voices will become more distinct and their viewpoints wholly their own. Hopefully they will have learned from our YouTube experience the power of using your own voice to make change....but what ever hey decide I hope more than anything that they knew they had two dads that love them. But someday, I look forward to the story they have to tell....<br />
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until next time dear readers....<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-91845920289630254452013-03-16T15:12:00.003-07:002013-03-16T15:56:57.228-07:00No Second Best<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The National Organisation for Marriage must be wishing that Maggie Gallagher would come out of retirement because the guys speaking for them today have a terminal case of hoof-in-mouth disease. At least in the web of lies and misconceptions Maggie spun for the public, she never insulted a Supreme Court Justice , nor a vast swath of Americans who she hoped to reach with her "gays are taking over marriage" tear tactics.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> And yet, the people who have taken over her job of talking to the media simply do not seem to run their comments through any kind of internal editing process before letting them out in the sunshine to run around and terrorize the public. Case in Point: this week I read, via </span><a href="http://www.towleroad.com/2013/03/adoption.html" style="font-family: inherit;">Towleroad</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, and story from the </span><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPREME_COURT_MODERN_FAMILIES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" style="font-family: inherit;">AP</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> that made my blood boil. Apparently John Eastman, of the National Organisation for Marriage was waxing </span>philosophic<span style="font-family: inherit;"> about the likely hood that the personal lives of the Justices could effect their decisions in the upcoming Prop 8 and DOMA trials...and let slip that he considers adoption a "second best" option. Check out his comments and my take on them after the jump...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(<i>emphasis mine</i>)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: blue;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">You're looking at what is the best course societywide to get you the optimal result in the widest variety of cases. That often is not open to people in individual cases. </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Certainly adoption in families headed, like Chief Roberts' family is, by a heterosexual couple, is by far the second-best option," </b><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">said John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage. Eastman also teaches law at Chapman University law school in Orange, Calif.</span></blockquote>
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Now I'm not exactly sure in what sense Mr. Eastman regards adoption to be second best, and given the choppy and unclear nature in which it was made, I'm not sure even Mr. Eastman knew what the hell he was saying. Is he saying that adoption is second best to having your own biological children?...or second best to the kids being with their biological parents. In both cases, he would be wrong.<br />
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His words seems like just the kind of uncensored, off-the-cuff moment that probably made him kick himself afterward. However, it probably isn't a good idea to refer to adoption as "second best" when your organisation is one of a hand full who have in interest in defending Prop 8 and DOMA before Justices that <i>have </i>adopted...like Justice John Roberts who adopted his two children in 2000 and Justice Thomas who adopted his grandnephew. Nor is it a good idea when you are trying to reach out to mainstream America that gay marriage and adoption in bad by insulting huge numbers of adoptive families. I'm not sure, but I think that would be considered bad strategy....for them....But hopefully their candid comments could translate into a boon for us.<br />
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To be fair to Mr. Eastman, he is claiming that his <a href="https://www.nomblog.com/33883/">comments were being misrepresented</a>:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">"An article by the Associated Press has been mischaracterized by The Huffington Post to grossly misrepresent my views on adoption. I believe that couples who adopt children are heroes and do a great service to society, and to the children they adopt. I strongly believe, based on thousands of years of experience and countless social science studies, that children do best when raised by a mother and a father within the bounds of marriage. I commend all those couples who selflessly give of themselves to raise a child who, through no fault of her own, has been deprived of a mother and father. There is nothing 'second best' about adoption."</span></blockquote>
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Perhaps Mr. Eastmans clarification is authentic, perhaps not. Many who will regard his original comment as being purely motivated by his bigotry and indicative of a viewpoint that their are some people and some families that are better than others. But regardless of his actual motivations, there does seem to be more than a hint of damage control at play. To me that is most evident by how often he uses the word "hero" in regards to adoption and adoptive parents. Whenever I hear of adoption spoken of in that way it signals to me that the speaker really has no understanding of what adoption means to the kids <i><b><u>and</u></b></i> parents they bring together. Nor is Mr. Eastman...regardless all his anti-gay animus...unique in holding this distorted view of adoption as a less desirable way of building a family. Or alternately, as something too frightening and difficult for most people to manage. Sadly, I get versions of these opinions all over the place.<br />
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Both my husband and I are still involved with an adoption support group run through our agency. It's a great place for the kids to be around other kids with backgrounds like theirs and a great place for us parents to vent our worries, fears, and frustrations among others who have been there. One common complaint I hear from other parents is the person who finds out that a person is an adoptive family and then says of their children, "Oh, they are so lucky to have you!"...usually backed up with ,"You are so brave!" In both cases the person giving these remarks thinks you saved a troubled child from a world of hell and that you must be an incredible individual for being able to take care of a child who has to have obvious behavioral and emotional baggage. It sounds very unflattering when put that way...and I know that the person who says it doesn't mean it that way...but the fact they often miss is how much adoptive parents had a child shaped hole in their hearts that only these kids could ever have filled. Nor do they understand that adoptive parents understand that even the <i>best</i> of families come with some baggage that we learn to love each other through it....our kids and families are no different. In short, our kids make us feel like the lucky ones and I try not to take offense when I hear this because I know the person means well...they just don't get it.<br />
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What can be more frustrating is the notion that it's better to have your own biological children than to adopt someone else's. As an example, a few years ago our family went on a Rosie O'Donnell, "R Family" cruise. There among other gay families like ourselves, we had hoped that we could just enjoy our vacations without having to focus on who might be looking at us as different. It makes it kind of hard to relax. In engaging other couples about their kids(as parents always do)it began to be clear...especially in male couples....that surrogacy was looked at as a more socially desirable option because it meant that...A) you were biologically related...and B) you could afford it. After hearing all about their process and having the chance to share our own we would often get "...oh..." as a response...and that's all. It was kind of a head scratcher for me and sometime just pissed me the hell off. Our kids were not less wanted or loved for having been brought into our home via adoption and it irritated the hell out of me that anyone felt that way...especially a gay person. If they had said to be, "I think your so brave!"...I think I would have gone off on them. But, I have to ask how many straight families there are out there in the world that think the same way? How many people feel the need for a biological connection with a child in order to look at them as really their own? That seems so sad to me and a loss to both kids and parents alike.<br />
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Also...I think sometimes the status issue involves a fear that somehow children in need of adoption must have behavioral issues too frightening to deal with...or that a child they adopt will reject them as a parent because they fear the day they may hear, "<i>your not me real dad!</i>". This is a piece that I think stops a lot of people from considering adoption and also something that most people don't want to own up to. Just like parenting any child with special needs...considering the prospect feels scary at first. Will they be too much to deal with? Will they accept me or I them? Both are really a question of if they will be able to completely bond and feel secure in their role as a parent. I kinda went through this a bit. especially with my son Daniel, who's medical issues gave me pause at first. It's not something I am proud of, because I don't want to think that here I was presented with my son and I hesitated, but his medical issues scared me. I didn't know if I could adequately take care of him, I feared for his experience at school(which brought up my own bullying issues), and I wondered whether a five year old boy would miss his biological dad too much to ever accept me as his father. Those were my very first reactions to seeing his profile. And yet....<br />
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The first day I met Daniel and Selena was at an arranged visit at Social Services in Sacramento. I walked into the building to see this little boy holding his foster mothers hand with his big eyes and terrible bowl haircut....and he looked so small. My heart broke wide open then and all the fears I had seemed to be so much less important that loving this little boy who looked so small and so lost. During our fostering period with him and even after final adoption, he would ask <i>lots</i> of questions about his dad and finding his dad(his father had been deported due to criminal activity and could not be contacted). Those questions were hard to deal with, but I understood <i>why</i> Daniel was asking them and I would have asked all the same questions in his place...so we did our best to give him the truth in as much as he could process at his age. Sometimes Daniel would be overly compliant and behave super good because he was afraid we would send him back...and sometimes he would express his anger in the night, when we couldn't see or hear it, in the form of ripping all the pages out of his story books and hiding them under the bed. We had our issues to contend with and it wasn't all smooth sailing. But, all the things I was scared I might have to face turned out to be so much less scary because the love I felt for my kids made it seem so much less important. And they were my kids...even when Daniel asked about his dad...even when Selena asks about her mom. I know that deep down, even they get older and maybe will someday meet their biological parents again...that the people that tucked them in every night, cooked them bad dinners, and forced them to do their homework are who they are going to remember as dad. I know it when Daniel says "I love you" and gives lots of hugs... and I know it when Selena draws me cute pictures of all of us together. We are a family the same as if we had been there for their birth.<br />
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And so, when someone says how lucky an adopted child is for having been adopted by us, we will always respond with, "No...we are the lucky ones." We are the ones get to be the beneficiaries of all those hugs and we are the characters that will wind in and out of their memories of growing up...and on into the future of their lives. That makes me feel pretty special actually.<br />
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So again we come back to Mr. Eastman and what could have been in his mind when he uttered the words "second best option". Did he mean that my kids would be better off still with their biological parent's being abused and neglected? or simply that they should have been adopted by a man and a woman. Which, if that is the case, makes me wonder how many kids Mr. Eastman has adopted with his wife. But, regardless of if Mr. Eastman spoke his words out of bigotry or not, any adoptive parent who gets called a "hero" will have their red flags go up. our children are not some herculean task we put up with....and they have rescued us as much as we have them. I can't speak for Justice Roberts, but I bet he's had similar experiences enough to see comments like Eastmans for what they are...the words of a man who does not understand how awesome it is to be a part of adoption and how no parent that's ever been through it could <b>EVER</b> view it as the second best choice....because even on our worst days, everyday I wake up to my family, I feel like I won first prize.<br />
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Until next time dear readers....<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-39172047516143790342013-03-09T16:06:00.003-08:002013-03-13T09:36:54.829-07:00Politicians and After The Fact Apologies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"The quality of mercy is not strained, </div>
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It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven </div>
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Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;</div>
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It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:"</div>
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~William Shakespeare....<i>The Merchant of Venice</i></div>
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At least so saith the poet...<br />
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Forgiveness is an incredible force for healing as well as human progress that many often write off as a weakness. Yet, without mercy and its close cousin, forgiveness, we would fight blood feuds without end...and in my opinion the world is filled with enough examples of that. So it is with some internal conflict that I read this week that Bill Clinton is <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-clinton-its-time-to-overturn-doma/2013/03/07/fc184408-8747-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html">kinda-sorta non-apologizing for signing DOMA into law</a> and urging the Supreme Court to strike it down. I mean, the man <i>signed it into law</i>, so I should be jumping up and down in celebration that he is going public condemning it....<i>right</i>?. Well, given the spate of politicians that have recently come out to support abolishing DOMA and prop 8 who previously <i>supported</i> enacting those laws when they were in power...my feelings about Clinton's actions are mixed and anything but poetic.<br />
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I was only barely coming to terms with myself as a gay man when then President Clinton signed DOMA into law. At the time, it passed over me with as little interest as the daily rise and fall of the stock exchange, something that really did not pop up on my radar, nor would have caused a raised eyebrow. It was just another jab at the gay community that I had come to expect as the rule rather than the exception. Little did I know then how momumentally damaging that act would end up being, snor how it would impact my life and the lives of thousands of other LGBT people across the nation. It is only in hindsight now, that I can understand this law that passed right over my head at a time when I was more concerned about making the rent.<br />
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It is that same quality of hindsight with which Bill Clinton writes of his reasons for signing DOMA and of his regret:<br />
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<em style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">I</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">n 1996, I signed the Defense of Marriage Act. Although that was only 17 years ago, it was a very different time. In no state in the union was same-sex marriage recognized, much less available as a legal right, but some were moving in that direction. Washington, as a result, was swirling with all manner of possible responses, some quite draconian. As a bipartisan group of former senators stated in their March 1 amicus brief to the Supreme Court, many supporters of the bill known as DOMA believed that its passage “would defuse a movement to enact a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which would have ended the debate for a generation or more.” It was under these circumstances that DOMA came to my desk, opposed by only 81 of the 535 members of Congress....</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">...</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">When I signed the bill, I included a </span><a data-xslt="_http" href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/scotts/ftp/wpaf2mc/clinton.html" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">statement</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;"> with the admonition that “enactment of this legislation should not, despite the fierce and at times divisive rhetoric surrounding it, be understood to provide an excuse for discrimination.” Reading those words today, I know now that, even worse than providing an excuse for discrimination, the law is itself discriminatory. It should be overturned.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.5px;">There are many people who are still very angry at President Clinton for signing DOMA into law in the first place. Moreover because he was also the man to bring us DADT. Both of these discriminatory laws were billed as stop-gap compromises to ward off the fears that gay people were gaining rights that many felt we were not entitled to. As Clinton himself admits, just the whisper that Hawaii might pass marriage equality was enough to drive conservatives...and democrats alike, into overdrive to find some way to halt such action permanently. The essence of the Presidents stated rational seems to be that he was saving us from a worse fate and that is probably true. But for all the anger that has been directed his way at being the author of DOMA....is this an apology? I don't think so. Regret in hindsight maybe, but not apology. And yet, an apology... an admission that he made a mistake, is exactly how this is being presented to us even though it is no where stated within the body of his article. "Clinton admits DOMA was discriminatory" is the take away message you will find on most news sources carrying the story.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.5px;">However, a few burning questions keeps bothering me. I understand the <i>timing</i> of this article as we are fast approaching the beginning of oral arguments in the Supreme Court over the constitutionality of both DOMA and Prop 8. However, why an op-ed piece in place of an amicus brief were-in his place as the author of the law, and opposing it, would possibly do more good? And still others have pointed out that Clinton actually</span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-birch/president-clinton-says-do_b_2840112.html" style="line-height: 22.5px;"> campaigned on the fact that he signed DOMA in ads running on Christian radio</a><span style="line-height: 22.5px;">.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.5px;">The fact that he couldn't be bother to file a brief, and that he possibly campaigned on the fact that he enacted DOMA when it was politically advantageous to him is making this non-apology look even more non-apologetic. A fact not lost on veteran activist <a href="http://www.davidmixner.com/2013/03/bill-clinton-doma-and-history.html">David Mixner:</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no question that President Clinton saying to the Supreme Court that DOMA should be declared unconstitutional is a major victory in the battle for LGBT full equality. He joins over 300 corporations, 130 major Republicans, over 200 members of Congress and so many more in the long list of Americans, organizations and associations who find DOMA abhorrent. Those who love justice should celebrate this latest addition to our cause.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, as with DADT, it is important not to rewrite history in order to make him feel better about signing it in the first place. Clinton took the wrong action in 1996 and he did it for purely political reasons. That is the truth of the matter...</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">...Like DADT, the President's embracing of DOMA was a political move. While he talked about his pain in signing the legislation, his team campaign team immediately created radio ads and started running them throughout the South. In those ads, they proclaimed and celebrated Clinton signing the legislation.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5em;">Political motivation being the reason for enacting DOMA to begin with, some are saying that this his recent article was also politically motivated in that it could help take some of the tarnish off the Clinton name should Hillary chose to run in the future(something I support mind you). It seems to me that old Bill is walking the well worn path of people like Ken Mehlman, Meg Whitman, or any other politician that has opposed gay rights when it suited them to do so and now...when it is becoming clear that a majority of Americans <i>support</i> marriage equality...spontaneously see the light. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5em;">My husband Jay, in a recent video about those who have submitted amicus briefs to the Scotus, went on somewhat of a tirade about politicians who support us long after they could have used their power to help, all in order to not look like bigots in the harsh gaze of the history:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5em;">In the video, Jay is expressing some rightly held anger over the sudden reversals of some of these people who now support gay marriage since it cost's them little to do so, at which point I ask, "Well can't we just take that and run with it?" </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Regardless of the fair-weather-friend nature of these sudden statements of support, it does still help us. Even David Mixner, for all his criticism of </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">Clinton's</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> motivations also stated, "Clintons support should be regarded as a "major victory in the battle for LGBT full equality".</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5em;">And so this brings me to a question I would like to pose to all of you:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5em;"><i>Given that an individual has done palpable damage to the gay community(for whatever reason), and now that they are out of direct power decide to issue statements of support(or come out of the closet for some)....how do we as a community respond to this?</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It seems to me to be a balancing act of accepting these events for the boon that they are while also keeping a clear eye on the real reasons for their support. Ken Mehlman help craft George Bush Jr's campaign that focused on scaring the public with the </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">specter</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of gay marriage...then he came out of the closet and asked to be forgiven for his past deeds under Bush. Meg Whitman came out against marriage equality during her run for Governor of California when public opinion was more evenly divided and opposing it bought her conservative clout...now she doesn't want to be remembered for those actions and has signed onto the amicus brief with the other 100+ names (that are also out of power) urging Scotus to strike down Prop 8.</span></div>
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It is deeply conflicting to know that when they had power, they chose to use it to hurt us...and now they are standing there, hat in hand, and asking for acceptance. At least in Ken Mehlmans case he has since used what politcal connections he has to lobby conservatives to support marriage equality. I don't think anyone can forget what they did....nor why the did it. It is hard to stand up and say, "Yay! Now you support marriage equality and now its all good!" because should the wind of public opinion change again, on which side will they be standing?</div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And so I am split. I believe in giving people second chances..and sometimes thirds and fourths...if I feel that they are genuine in their change of heart. Lord knows I have made enough mistakes in my life and been so grateful for the people who forgave me. I know how </span>necessary<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it is. But that's the thing....you get the feeling that many of the people now asking for acceptance from us only want to erase the way that history will remember them...not because anything in them really changed or that they now agree with what they are supporting. Hence my ambivalence over Clinton's op-ed non-apology.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Why now?...after so long of staying silent on the matter? Is it great to have the author of a discriminatory law </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">publicly</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> oppose it?.....sure. Will it help us?....maybe. Will it have any practical effect on the Justices of the Supreme Court?...also, only a maybe. Can I stand up and cheer that he's had a change of heart?....sadly, no.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But now I open it up to you. Where is the line in which we view someone who has hurt us legally and politically as having changed...in which we can then view them as that changed person? Do you even think that Clinton is asking for a pass on his past actions and attempting to change the way history will percieve him..... or simply looking to right a very old wrong? At what point to we <i>ever</i> say...it's all in the past?</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;">Until next time dear readers...</span></div>
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GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-8959084521488018532013-03-02T15:37:00.003-08:002013-03-02T15:37:55.289-08:00In Brief...The 8 State Solution Isn't One At All<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The news this week has been nearly dominated by accounts of the many individuals and organisations submitting amicus(friend of the court) briefs to the Supreme Court, asking them to strike down The Defense of Marriage Act and/or California's Prop 8. Among those who have file include 212 Congressional Democrats, some 100+ republicans, Several corporations from major tech firms to investment banks, Footballers Kris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo, and yes...even Ellen Degeneres got in on the act. Finally, and among the most anticipated, as well as most analysed briefs, is that from President Obama.<br />
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Now, an amicus brief is little more than an opinion, and like all opinions it's primary purpose is to exert influence...but that's all. And as the saying goes..."opinions are like *rseholes, everyone's got one." Being that they are attempts to sway opinion, the Justices of the Supreme Court don't have to pay any attention to them what so ever. Yet, it seemed as if anyone who had a stake in the issue was lodging their opinion for formal review. As the week progressed and more politicians and celebrities jumped on the bandwagon, I began to wonder how many of these filings would get simply get ignored...except for one. A great deal of attention has been granted to President Obama's recent filing. Being that he is an equal branch of government and the head of the nation, one would hope that Scotus would consider his opinion with the due weight of the office he holds.<br />
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Given that the President has "evolved' on the issue of marriage equality...and that he has been willing to be vocal about that support to the public...it was with some surprise and consternation that I read what is being called the "8 state solution", or as it is heralded in headlines "limited gay marriage". <i>What the hell does that even mean?! </i>Well, it goes something like this...<br />
<a name='more'></a>From <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/02/u-s-endorses-limited-gay-marriage-right/">Scotusblog</a>:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">...Here was the government’s key argument why the Golden State’s ban on same-sex marriage fails the constitutional test the administration suggested: ”California’s extension of all of the substantive rights and responsibilities of marriage to gay and lesbian domestic partners particularly undermines the justifications for Proposition 8.”...</span></span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke;">...</span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke;">What the brief endorsed is what has been called the “eight-state solution” — that is, if a state already recognizes for same-sex couples all the privileges and benefits that married couples have (as in the eight states that do so through “civil unions”) those states must go the final step and allow those couples to get married. The argument is that it violates the Constitution’s guarantee of legal equality when both same-sex and opposite-sex couples are entitled to the same marital benefits, but only the opposite-sex couples can get married.... </span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;"> ...<span style="background-color: whitesmoke;">“Proposition 8′s withholding of the designation of marriage is not based on an interest in promoting responsible procreation and child-rearing — [the defenders'] central claimed justification for the initiative — but instead on impermissible prejudice. . . . Prejudice may not, however, be the basis for differential treatment under the law.”... </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">O.K...so lets get this straight....Right now in California there are a handful of gay couples who acted within the window of opportunity in which marriage was legal in the state and thus enjoy those legal protections associated with legal marriage...<i>and then</i>...there are also thousands <i>more</i> gay couples in California who, for many reasons did not. This has created two legally unequal classes of people...some who's relationships are legally protected, and some who's are not. If I understand what the President is proposing here then, the 8 states that currently offer something </span><i>equivalent</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> to marriage(civil unions or domestic partnerships), would be required to offer full marriage to same-sex couples in their state. Those states, along with the states that have already granted full marriage rights to same-sex couples would have those marriages honored by the federal government....but only those states as I currently understand this. The remaining states without any recognition or legal protection for the relationships of their LGBT citizens(and those who have outright bans) would be left to pursue their own paths to marriage equality, thus preserving that states right to self governance.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>....What...the...freakin...hell?! How is this a solution?! </i>Can someone explain to me how granting marriage equality to only eight states does not also count as "differential treatment under the law"? <i><u>This</u> </i></span></span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: inherit;">is the President's and DOJ's carefully crafted response that he was supposedly personally involved in crafting?! What was going through their minds?! I will tell you what...covering their butts. From the Scotusblog:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">In essence, the position of the federal government would simultaneously give some support to marriage equality while showing some respect for the rights of states to regulate that institution.</span></span></blockquote>
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I'm sorry...but, no. This is another half measure that claims to give support for marriage equality but doesn't go the full distance. If we can agree that California's ban on same-sex marriage "fails the constitutional test" then how does that not extend to the other states in the union? As I understand it, the constitution does not change or alter at the borders of each individual state. So, California and a handful of other states would find ourselves with full marriage rights while gay couples in neighboring states will still have no rights and sometimes complete marriage bans. How is <i><u>that</u></i> constitutional?! All this does is create another "have" and "have not" scenario such as we currently have in California, and opens the door for years of more litigation.<br />
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I know that everywhere you go on the internet, this brief is being hailed as "historic". I can't agree. I am not a legal scholar...and I know absolutely nothing about the strategy that may yet be at play here...but on the surface this whole notion strikes me as taking the easy way out <i><u>again</u></i> and leaving it for us to continue to fight in the courts and ballot boxes one state at a time, for who knows how long. I am extremely disappointed that this is the "well considered" opinion that the president and the DOJ offer us. It boggles the mind because the flaws with this "solution" seem to blatently obvious that I can't believe more than one set of eyes reviewed this thing and still gave it the green light.<br />
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But could that be the point? To make a reader respond..."But hey wait a minute, What about...." The reader in this scenario being any of the nine Supreme Court Justices. Or....could this be his concession to more conservative justices who he admitted that he was afraid to antagonize by submitting any brief at all? Either way it looks like a way for him to have an easy out with those who are still nervous about the whole idea of marriage equality. Then at least he has the ability to say that he left it up to being up to a states right to chose.<br />
Utter garbage....and when the president himself acknowledges that this is a civil rights issue, why are we even talking about a states rights to chose whether or not to play along?<br />
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Funny...I don't think this is how the legalization of interracial marriage went down. The Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia invalidating laws banning interracial marriage probably pissed off a whole lot of people...people who probably used all the same "states rights" excuses to justify their bigotry. I fail to see the fundamental difference between the rights that were acknowledged in Loving v.Virginia and what we are fighting for today. In fact, if you took all the modern verbiage surrounding same-sex marriage and replaced mention of "same-sex couples" with the term "interracial couples"...you would be appalled.<br />
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So why another half measure? Haven't we grown beyond this? Wasn't the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell enough to teach us about the dangers of foot dragging and half measures? Isn't DOMA itself becoming more and more of a shame, embarrassment, and overall pain in the ass everyday it continues to exist? Didn't the passage of Prop 8 itself teach us that a "have" and "have not" is not equal protection under the law?<br />
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Also advocated within the brief is the application of Heightened Scrutiny as a standard of review for which the Scotus may apply to the case and much ado has been made of that. Speaking only for myself, <i><u>hooray</u></i> for heightened scrutiny but the rest of this brief is unworthy of being considered any kind of solution. The Supreme Court may well find that California...and only California is affected by striking down Proposition 8....it was our law and our election that created it after all....but what the President and the DOJ offer is no solution that is any better than that. Furthermore, the Supreme Court may find that there is no constitutional right to marriage at all, a finding that many of us would <i>vehemently</i> disagree with. But...this is what it comes down to....is it, or is it not a matter of equal protection <b><i><u>for all</u></i></b>? If I had to pick, I think I'd take Ellen's <a href="http://www.ellentv.com/2013/02/28/ellens-brief-to-the-supreme-court">opinion</a> over the presidents any day of the week:<br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “We’re here, we’re queer, get over it.” And there’s another famous quote that says “A society is judged by how it treats its weakest members.” I couldn’t agree with that more. No one’s really sure who said it first, so if anyone asks, tell them I said it.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">I hope the Supreme Court will do the right thing, and let everyone enjoy the same rights. It’s going to help keep families together. It’s going to make kids feel better about who they are. And it is time</span></blockquote>
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Until next time dear readers....<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-71148959561832509032013-02-23T20:36:00.001-08:002013-02-23T20:36:53.573-08:00Bullying and Healing Old Wounds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For most of my posts I like to have a news item or event on which to base my writing from...heaven knows there are plenty of things in the news to be grist for the mill. The developments within the Catholic Church alone could keep us talking for days. But...for some reason my mind keeps coming back around to bullying. No...it's not some special anti-bullying holiday, nor has some terrible example of peer abuse popped up in the news today. It's just on my mind lately because, like many of us, I went through it. Bullying dominated my life and made me hate and fear school from elementary into high school. School was the hell were I was tortured and telling adults did nothing to fix it....then. Since there was no help for what was happening to me there was little to do about it but find ways to survive and that's what I did....<br />
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There is the assumption that time heals all wounds and that after awhile past trauma's should not hurt us anymore. I guess it's true given <i>enough</i> time passes. But as I am sitting here sipping my coffee as a 40 year old adult far removed from the days I was bullied, I am wondering what the long term effect of those years was on who I am today. Bullying...especially intense and sustained bullying...leaves it's mark on a person. It's like scar tissue, it may not be as crippling as when it was new, but it never really goes away completely. If I want to, I can remember the faces and events of what happened with more clarity than I can remember some birthdays or Christmas's. because of those days of constant fear, I have an instictive need to avoid conflict...even watching it on t.v. can trigger anxiety feelings in me. And worst of all is the damage that is done to our self-esteem. It has taken me years to begin to believe that I have a right to consider myself as good as the person next to me...or to speak up for myself at all. I literally lost all sense of a healthy ego. Now, even 30 years later I still struggle with this.<br />
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I know that some of what I write here may be embarrassing for me to admit in such a public forum....but it happened. It may be uncomfortable for some to read but this post is my place to work it out and hopefully find wisdom....either in just telling the tale, or in hearing from others. So my question today is....how does being bullied affect us as grown ups? If we can get through those days, does that which does not kill us really make us <i>stronger</i>...or just <i>stranger</i>?<br />
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<b><u>The Bad Times</u>...</b><br />
Bullying for me began when my parents divorced. I was eight years old and in fourth grade. About halfway through the school year my parents announced that they were going to split up and that my brother and I would be going with my mom to live with her parents in a town four hours north of my home town of Santa Rosa. I am not naming the town because I don't have great memories of it, suffice it to say that it had a Shell gas station at the edge of town that someone had shot the "S" out of so that it only read "hell"...which was appropriate. The people there were not very welcoming to anyone they considered an outsider...and that's just what I became.<br />
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I don't know why I got singled out. Perhaps because I was the quintessential nerd. All I needed was a pocket protector and a snorty laugh. I was skinny, did well in school, and kind of obsessive about following rules. Maybe it was because I was a new kid in a school system that almost never saw new kids, or perhaps it was because it was just the age when kids start changing and begin to form social hierarchies and I just had the dumb luck of having to start over from zero at the worst possible time. However it happened, being the new kid in a new town where everyone knew each other put me on the out and it was the first time I had ever felt rejected by almost everyone. There were kids who were bigger, stronger, more athletic, dressed better, more socially connected, already beginning to be interested in dating... and each and every one of them let me know how inferior I was.<br />
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These were the years when the kid sitting behind me would call me a name only him and his friends could here and the whole table would laugh just loud enough so a teacher couldn't hear. Telling a teacher never helped and only ensured that the rest of the class became in on the joke and the joke was me. This is when you learn words like faggot and fudge packer. Even if you have no clue what they really mean you know that they are bad...really really bad and you don't want to be one of them. But with your face burning with shame you know you only have so many choices...call them a name back and get called out to a fight at the bike racks after school...ignore it and get called out to a fight at the bike racks after school...or tell a teacher and get called a snitch and called out to a fight at the bike racks after school.<br />
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Now a few kids would have eventually reached their limit with being intimidated and either snapped and popped that kid in the face...or shown up at the bike racks as a show that they couldn't be made afraid anymore. I was never that kid. Being bullied by some kid that made me the laughing stock of the class was never half as bad as how ashamed oh myself I was for never finding the courage to fight back. I dreamed about so many ways of getting revenge..or changing myself in nearly every way possible to make myself into a cool kid. But the cycle of intimidation and self hate became my life. Teachers never stepped in to stop any of it and telling them what was going on didn't yield any more response than, "just ignore them"....which is just what my teachers did...ignore it.<br />
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The bullies were in my class and at home they lived down the street from me. One boy, "Robbie", was a class mate that I tried every way I knew how to be friends with but he had a mean streak in him. This was the kid who chained me up to a tree and had his sic'd his doberman on me while he laughed his head off. Him and his friends used to have a great time promising to kick my ass and laughing while they chased me off. This was the way my life was...not every day...but most. I knew that the world was not a safe place...school was<i> never</i> a safe place...and just going out to play came with having to be aware of who else was on the street that was out to get me. It makes me sound like I was living like a hunted rabbit...and it some ways it felt that way. I always had to be on the look out.<br />
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These were times when I learned how to hate. I hated the people who threatened and harrased me with a fiery passion but most of all I learned to hate myself. I hated my skinny body, the color of my eyes and hair...I hated that I was too much of a goodie-two-shoes to be as bad as all the other kids <i>said</i> they were. I had crushes on girls that would curl up their lips at me as if they had just smelled something horrible. Throw in being monumentally bad at sports, which made the rest of the class angry at me if they had to have me on their team...and they let me know what a f*ck up they thought I was. There really was no place to go to escape it except in a book or in my head, which only made things worse.<br />
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I got a little older and I learned to deal with my pariah status by being as invisible as possible. I knew where the bullies hung out and I made sure to be were they weren't. The library became a refuge not really because I wanted to be there during recesses...but more because there was always an adult there and none of the bullies had courage enough to follow me in. I became really good at being unseen and out of the eyes of people who would do me harm to increase their own social standing with their crony friends.<br />
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it is my regret that even though I knew what it felt like be the gum on the shoes of the bottom of the bottom of the social ladder...that when it came time for others to be picked on....I laughed to. I was so glad that for once it wasn't me. Some where girls who were really nice but also really poor and people called them all sorts of names and you didn't want to be paired with them. I remember those moments with shame that I knew what it felt like to be treated that way and I still was a part of making their life hell too. I know somewhere they are out there still dealing with the aftermath of their own mistreatment and I wish I could just tell them that I was sorry and that they didn't deserve any of it. None of us did.<br />
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Telling my parents what was going on didn't change anything much. They were from that generation where men had to be men and little boys were in training to be men so all of this was just training from the school of hard knocks. Neither my mom or dad understood why I was so scared to fight back or why it frightened me so much to potentially get beaten up. In there mind, being beaten up was a small price to pay for your dignity...to me it was all the same shame. I think my mom had the hardest time with it because she was a single mom and dealing with two boys on her own. In the beginning she would go to the principle over some incident, but over time she got less and less patient with me to where she eventually just stopped doing anything about it at all. It all came to a head in seventh grade when I was riding the bus home and some kids behind me had taken all my stuff out of my pack and thrown it around the bus laughing. I couldn't get any of it back and I felt helpless and humiliated...nor did the bus driver do anything to stop it. I got off the bus at the next stop with white hot anger and shame making my ears and face burn. I walked the remainder of the way home ashamed of myself and wishing I would not exist anymore. I got home to find my mom sunbathing in the back yard and I told her everything that happened through tears. This time though, she did not even raise her head to look at me. she just continued to lay in the sun until it became clear that I wasn't going away. At which point she said, "what do you want me to do about it?" meaning....this is your problem and you have to deal with it. She made it clear that I was on my own from their on out. I had no idea what to do. I just felt abandoned. The kids at school didn't like me and now I had just lost the respect of my own mother....and deep down, I blamed myself. All the things those kids said about me must be true.<br />
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Living with my father didn't improve my situation any. I thought moving far away from "hell" would let me get a fresh start. But, I was still me, and in short order I had all the same problems in a whole new school. One day I did get jumped by some kids from my class while walking home. It was the first time I had ever been in a real fight and I had not one clue how to handle myself. It was over so fast I had no recollection of what happened...nor of picking myself up off the side of the road covered in dirt and blood to walk to rest of the way home. No one on the busy road stopped to help me. But, when I made it home I had to tell my dad what happened. My dad made it clear to me that if I ever got into a fight and did not defend myself, he would kick my ass himself. The "I hate myself" meter went off the scale then and if I had the courage to take my leather belt and hang myself in my closet I would have done it then. I promise you that I thought about it. I'm not really sure whether I was too afraid to not live anymore...or if I was my fear of going to hell that kept me from doing it, but I didn't.<br />
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<b><u>How It Turned Around</u>...</b><br />
Time went on and I got kicked out of high school because I cut more school than I attended. The last chance for me was continuation school. I tease that it was the school for bad kids but in actuality it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Even though the kids I was going to school with were there for fighting, drugs, cutting all of us were now in the position that we had to decide our own fate. We were all kids who had bottomed out...or almost bottomed out, and so there were no judgments between each other. We all had to work our asses off if we wanted to graduate or give up and drop out for good. I worked my butt off to earn enough credit to graduate...we all did....and all of the sudden it was o.k. to be smart again. A strength I had buried to not stand out finally became a positive in my life instead of making me a target and I needed it to succeed. It was a first time I allowed myself to be me in years.<br />
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Once out of school I started to see what happens to us when we are no longer in the fish bowl of public education. A-list girls got pregnent and became everyday no-makeup, sweat pant wearing house-moms and the jocks that tripped you in the halls and called you a fag, got fat and got menial jobs...all of us were on the same playing field all of the sudden. It was illuminating to me to see them as so less than perfect. Changing how I saw the people who had been at the top of the social heap changed how I saw myself a little bit. I began to get the glimmer that maybe I was just...normal.<br />
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Later I finally managed to come out to myself and began dealing with myself as a gay man and so many things about my past began to make more sense. Especially why I was such a late bloomer with girls. Slowly and steadily as my body finally filled out...I also grew into myself. I dated...found love and lost it...learned that who I was as a gay person was another strength I didn't have to disown. As a result now I am here as a 40 year old, happily married adult with two kids looking over the past and asking himself what it all meant in the end. All the times I thought it would never end or that things would never be different...and yet they are.<br />
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The legacy of those days still lives on in many ways and I struggle sometimes to understand <i>why</i> they had to be. Was their a lesson to be learned?....to be strong,to stand up for myself, to have compassion for others. And if there was a lesson, did I learn it? I can't say for sure. I know that I <i>did</i> learn to survive and keep moving when someone intentionally wants to grind your spirit into dust. I learned to have compassion for others who go through the same things...and oddly...I learned to have compassion for those who think they sit on the top of the world only to be humbled by life in the real world. And...I learned never ever to treat anyone else the way I was treated.<br />
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But with the lessons learned are still some things that are a work in progress. The parts of me that believed I was worthless have taken a long time to change. For too many years I had believed I was nothing and unlearning that is difficult. Speaking up for myself can be a challenge for me and when I do I often worry about if I offended them or if I was right to be that assertive. My husband helps me with this. Sometimes I let people attack me all they want because I have learned to bear so much more than any internet troll could ever dish out. Often I accept treatment to myself that I would go ape sh*t about if it was directed to my family. These are the scars of being bullied and they stay with us for a very long time. Growing up and growing older soften their sharp edges a bit but you still know they are in there, like broken bones never healed.<br />
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So when we tell kids that "It gets better" I know that it does, but I also understand why they can't quite believe it. Our lives don't stay the same forever but you can't see that when your mind and heart are full of so much pain. But another thing that we don't see when in pain is that even if our circumstances never change...we do. We eventually gain the power to change those circumstances only to find that those same circumstances had changed us in ways we couldn't see...some bad...some good. Yes we learn to be strong, but we also have a lot of baggage to unlearn.<br />
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when my son gets called a name at school(which is rare) it is hard for me not to revert back to feeling like I did then and then going crazy at school because I <i><b>never</b></i> want him to have to go through what I did. No one ever should have to feel unsafe at school because of their physical differences, their sexuality, their race, you name it. It boils my blood and hits me in a very personal place. But Daniel does eventually find his limit and fights back. It is part of the reason that I admire him...he has an inner strength I only wish I could have had at his age.<br />
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But here I am putting some of my most embarrassing details on the internet. Things that to this day still make me angry at myself that I allowed other people to do that to me. Why could I not find the courage to just pop somebody in the nose then? It makes me ashamed to remember it.....but because I do, I am driven that much harder to not let it happen to me or anyone else ever again. For me and for anyone else who made it into adulthood after intense bullying, our pasts may shape who we have become...but it does not place limits on our future. I am already different than I was 1980. I wanted my parents and teachers to make all my problems go away and I know now that you can't depend on people to fix everything. Sometimes they cant and sometimes they just won't...even when they should. More lessons I guess.<br />
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In closing, I know that just as there are thousands of kids who are going through bullying for a range of reasons....and there are countless more grown ups who got through it and carry memories they wish they didn't have that can echo into who they are today. All of us may handle bullying differently, some people learn faster than others to fight for themselves...others never do. There is the perception that we are asking for attention for something that happened so long ago. Many think that once you are out of the bullying situation that you should "just get over it." To be clear, we don't need a giant group hug and a good cry...our scars are our scars and we have learned to bear them. But if we are going to have any kind of conversation about bullying and how to stop it, we need to acknowledge that it is real and that it does have lasting effects.<br />
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This is my history with bullying. It is not comprehensive but I don't think either of us has the time for that. Needless to say I have written things here I don't like to remember and like to talk about even less. But in doing so maybe someone else will realize that they are not alone in their own experiences. The process of writing it all out also has shown me how much I have changed from the kid who ran away from everything and everyone. I meant what I said in my "<a href="http://gayfamilyvalues.blogspot.com/2010/10/it-gets-bettermy-love-letter-to-anyone.html">love letter to anyone coming out</a>" of so long ago, for all the crap I went through then, I would not trade my family and the love I know to not have gone through that. The significance of why I had to go through it all is still playing itself out and I don't yet know where it's all taking me. All I can be is grateful for my family and for right now.<br />
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but now I stand here with my secrets out for all to read, feeling just as exposed as I did in fourth grade. For those who have found a measure of healing of their own wounds....don't leave me standing here alone. Tell your own story if you can....but be kind to yourself if you find you can't. I have been there many times.<br />
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Until next time dear readers<br />
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<br />GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587902609826926070.post-68641277618514888382013-02-16T16:43:00.000-08:002013-02-16T16:44:51.383-08:00Attack of The Teenage years...One Year Too Soon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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They are Here! There are ravenous, and they will make you want to scream in terror! They are....the teenage years!<br />
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Seriously...When I was a newbie parent and talking to veteran parents about raising children, they ALL had one warning to give...."Just wait till they're teenagers!" Each of them echoed the same warning...all of them, to a one...a fact which is creepy enough by itself. However, I shrugged off their warnings as so much cynical ramblings and after all, my son was only five and all that teenage stuff seemed so far away that I didn't have to worry about it. So, like the ill-fated kids of Camp Crystal Lake I blithely set off to a date with the monster. But like a beast stalking us from the shadows...it lay in wait for seven years until it was time to strike.</div>
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For those of you doing the math...yes, that means my son is now Twelve and not exactly a teenager. I feel like I am cheating myself out of being able to write this post next year but...just like movie monsters leap out at you when you expect them the least, neither did my sons teenage traits wait till his chronological aged ticked over from twelve to thirteen. It's here and it's demanding to be dealt with....(cue B-movie scream)<br />
<a name='more'></a>Most of us can remember what we were like as teenagers and hopefully the passage of time has given us the ability to be honest about how difficult we were to deal with. At least I can. Even though my parents didn't understand me...to be quite frank, I didn't understand myself . Consequentially, I was kind of a jerkwad. I just wanted the freedom that came with adulthood and to not be acountable to my parents for anything. While I was never a kid that smoked, drank, or dressed in ways my parents found wierd, I never the less found was to drive them nuts.</div>
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And now it's begining to happen to my son and I can see the change happening to him day by day. The first sign that something was amiss was when he stated caring about what kind of clothes he wore and wanting to be more stylish. Then came questions about girls...now the most Daniel had ever coming to an interest in romance was to declare his love to a cookiee right before eating it. Also, the kids in his class are pairing off and beginning to have relationship drama's of their own. It was beginning to become clear that big changes were afoot. The issues that Daniel was having to confront were much more complex....and as he would talk to me about his friends latest relationship blow-up I could see that Daniel wasn't just asking about something happening to someone else that didn't really resonate with him personally....he was involved. Even though we were talking about his friends at school, in a way, we were really talking about Daniel.<br />
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and just as the issues that Daniel was facing at school were become more complex, so were the issues that we have begun to face at home:<br />
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This isn't how I was at twelve...hell, all I wanted in the whole world was a shopping spree at Toys-R-Us and a few packs of garbage pail kids from the local convenience store....but then again, I was a late bloomer. I need to remember that all of us develop differently. Daniel has had "the talk" at home and the puberty talk at school...but little did I know just how much those topics were on his mind. We have always told him that with sexuality comes responsibility, just like in any other part of life...but dealing with issues like these just further drives home that Daniel is growing up and the issues we are dealing with are teen ones....<i>oh joy</i>...<br />
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Another sign of teenage angst is moodiness and we've got that in spades. I always thought it was a stereotype but..no...it's true. The bright and cheerful boy that always used to follow me around the house talking my ear off is being replaced by a much more sullen version that rolls his eyes a lot. It may sound weird to some, but Daniel has always been the kind of kid to just roll with whatever was happening. He was never easily annoyed or quick to anger. Even when he did get angry of upset about things it passed very quickly....not so anymore. Now there are excuses and self defense for anything and protestations that holding him accountable for undone homework and chores is somehow "not fair". The even keeled kid with the easy smile now has his emotions right on the surface.<br />
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but by far, the hardest part of seeing Daniel into his teenage years is the feeling of pulling away. My son who used to tell me everything regardless of how small is now developing his own identity and a complex emotional world and sometimes he just wants his dad to butt out of it. With all the questions and issues that revolve around love, sex, and relationships, I know that he is having thoughts and opinions about it that he doesn't want to tell me about and this is a trend that I know is only going to get deeper as he becomes more of his own person. He will want his friends more and his Dad a whole lot less. It sucks..and I kinda feel like I'm temporarily losing a friend.<br />
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As a parent, seeing your kids become more emotionally independent is scary. Your used to holding their hands when they cross roads, not standing on the corner and watching them cross alone. It's kind of a powerless feeling. They are beginning to have a social life now that you are not included in and that makes it harder to protect them from harm the way you used to. You can't hold their hand anymore and you have to learn to let go a little bit and let them learn to be their own person....while at the same time you watch them like a hawk (lol).<br />
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I have to say that I never expected to run into these issues at twelve. It feels too soon, but the transformation from boy to teen has already begun. As much as I want all this to wait a couple of years I know that this is what's happening and we need to deal with it. Daniel is becoming a teenager and we have begun that emotional roller-coaster ride that hopefully ends with a well rounded human being at the end. Along the way I know will be a lot of arguments and a few slammed doors, more mega-restrictions and hair-graying behaviors, first dates and broken hearts...maybe some feelings of feeling different for being adopted and/or having two dads. I don't know what's coming, I just know that it is and mentally I am beginning to brace myself.<br />
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I hope that one day I wont be warning some other hopeful parent about the horrors of raising teens. With every passing year I grow to like who my son is more and more and I continue to be proud of who he is becoming. Even if we have rough moments ahead I want to believe that we are going to walk out of this with some stories to tease him about to his children...and just as close as we have always been. He may be becoming as teen, and I may need to let him have that distance he needs to grow, but he will still be my boy and that will never change.<br />
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But if we can survive this first harrowing encounter with teendom, I can't imagine the basket case I'm going to be when Selena becomes a teen...(cue B-movie scream).<br />
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Until next time dear readers....<br />
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GFVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950236433262366445noreply@blogger.com17