| Amy Hunt -- 05/13/2004 11:11 |
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Barbara is 70-something years old. She never expected to be an equal person in her lifetime. "I have to keep pinching myself and saying this is real, this is real, this is real, " she said to me last night. "I remember when the best you could hope for, the very best, was if you could keep things under the radar and not get arrested for being in a bar. Just for being there." Many gay bars used to have little lights on the ceiling that would flicker on as the vice squad arrived, a secret signal to the men and women dancing that they should switch off partners quickly, create opposite-sex pairings -- because same-sex dancing was reason enough to throw people in the paddy wagon. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the federal government's national security and "loyalty" apparatus that was built to find, expose and destroy communist sympathizers in America was increasingly turned on homosexuals, thought to be just as disturbed, dangerous, and un-American. (My friend Claire served in the military during the Korean conflict. She says with a smile that, were it not for lesbians, there would have been few women in the service, at least where she was stationed.) A few years later, in the 1960s, as heterosexual America began to assert its personal freedoms, including the right to sexual and reproductive choices without government interference, the number of gay soldiers discharged from the military didn't fall -- in fact, it skyrocketed. And the raids on bars, the arrests, the family estrangements, the firings continued. Over the decades, we've had to explain why we shouldn't be dismissed from a job solely for being gay. Why a landlord shouldn't be able to refuse us an apartment, why a hotel clerk shouldn't be able to refuse us a room. Why a virus shouldn't be able to go on a rampage, killing thousands of Americans, while the government shrugs it off for years because it's only killing the Americans most people don't like anyway. We've had to explain, patiently, politely, the difference between homosexuals and traitors, homosexuals and criminals, homosexuals and pedophiles, homosexuals and the mentally ill. We have had to explain that we're human beings with hearts that love and break just like everyone else. If I wasn't so determined to stick to my own awe and happiness today, I'd get into an explanation of the difference between me and say, Nero, which my fellow blogger needs help with. But I may also need to cover the difference between me and Caligula, me and Jeffrey Dahmer, me and Uday "Woodchipper" Hussein, and probably me and The Joker, The Penguin, and Mr. Freeze too, which means I could be here all day and then -- bang! --- there goes my personal ball of sunshine. And honestly, most of you don't need that explanation. If you do, speak up, I'm here to dish out what the people need. Sometimes I think the stunner is not so much that marriage is here, that discrimination against our families is ending -- but that we didn't give up a long time ago. Barbara has to pinch herself harder than I do, she's had to keep her chin up a lot longer than I have, but I know how she feels. |
| Amy Hunt -- 05/12/2004 00:43 |
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SAM IS 73 YEARS OLD and I get to go to his wedding. He was born and raised in Manhattan and knew from a young age that he was gay. His mother sent him to a psychiatrist to treat his problem, to change him, which was what good families did in those days. But someone, somewhere, was looking out for Sam: The psychiatrist had a view of homosexuality that most of his colleagues wouldn't arrive at until many decades later, in 1972, when homosexuality was finally removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. As Sam tells it, he went dutifully to his appointments and, after a time, his family received the following recommendation: "Why don't you leave the boy alone?" the doctor suggested. "He's a happy, well-adjusted homosexual person, and he'll be fine." Sam was lucky in other ways too. Unlike most of his gay and lesbian contemporaries, forced to scratch away at who they were and why, what it meant, how they would live -- and do it alone, covertly, cobbling together bits of information and maybe some self-respect in a society that either called them "perverts" or dared not speak of them at all -- Sam had help. His uncle was gay and in a committed, enduring relationship. Sam says the most important thing his uncle taught him was that being a gay man was not just about sex: It could be, it should be, about love. In a time when this nation pushed its gay citizens into furtive, emotionally corrosive encounters, and then accused them of wanting nothing more, someone reached down and told Sam to tend to his dignity and his heart. Like most young men back then, he was called up for the draft. He was sent home because of his honest answer to the standard Draft Board question "Are you homosexual?" But not before they put him through a lengthy interrogation to make sure he was actually gay and not cowardly, unpatriotic, deceitful, or insane (though at the time the military didn't distinguish much among those things, so it's hard to know what their point might have been). Sam grew up to be a psychologist and still practices to this day. I've never asked him if his career choice was a funny little Thank You to the doctor who saved him years of pointless self-loathing by saying "leave this boy alone." Sam had a lot of help in his life. He's given it back and continues to, in his practice and volunteer work. While he was spared much of the pain that marked his generation of gay Americans, in 1990 he confronted the void we all, gay and straight, fear the most: He buried his partner of 15 years. A few years later, when Sam was 60-something, life offered him a new chance. His name was Steven. They have been together for seven years now and, on May 17th, they'll be in line for a marriage license, making each other legit. And if there's such a thing as heaven and its residents can peer down from it, Sam's uncle who taught him to expect love in his life will watch and weep and make it rain in Massachusetts. |
| Amy Hunt -- 05/11/2004 08:43 |
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MORE THAN A LITTLE IRRITATED. Just when you're enjoying a moment of awe, of gratitude, remembering that people always choose good, choose redemption, and that in the grand scheme you are blessedly small, someone comes along who's really, really small. Puny. Spiteful. An astringent. When televangelist Pat Robertson and his law firm failed with their silly claim that the Supreme Judicial Court had no business deciding the Goodridge case (and that, instead, court cases such as this should be brought to the Governor), his friend Jerry Falwell picked up pretty much the same argument and threw it at a federal court via his law firm, Liberty Counsel. This time, instead of naming the Catholic Action League's president C.J. Doyle as the plaintiff (who claimed harm in yet another rejected request for an emergency stay based on the notion that his gay neighbors will be marrying without his permission) these lawyers named the League's vice president Robert Largess. Crafty. And because these little people are like little ants -- there's never just one or two -- Lou Sheldon from the Traditional Values Coalition is here, as well. The last-ditch anti-gay radio ads hitting Massachusetts are paid for by something called the "Alliance Defense Fund" and one James Lafferty is serving as press spokesman. He's Sheldon's son-in-law, married to Andrea Sheldon, who likes to describe sexual acts in great detail just like daddy. I'm not sure if she talks mean and dirty to James at home on a Saturday night, but she does on TV. I don't know why this irritates me so much, I should know better. My friend Jim changed my life a few years ago when he said "You can't be surprised when cows moo. That's what they do." Robertson, Falwell, and Sheldon are mooing. They're a little like ants, but I'll remember that they're more like Jim's cows, and maybe that will work. SCROOGE OF THE DAY. Russell Sheehan, administrator of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103 of Boston, who said it's "okay" that the union has gay members (gee, thanks) but that if they get married, the union will deny their families health coverage and pension benefits, because legally it can. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac HAPPY NOTE. The only thing that brightened my morning is this: The zany "impeach the SJC" Article 8 Alliance is publishing the home phone numbers of Massachusetts lawmakers and urging anti-gay activists to behave badly. For a good time, visit http://www.article8.org and click on the "How to Lobby" pdf. They recommend walking into meetings remembering who pays whose G!#*&m salary, being dismissive to legislative aides, and taking "lots of other angry constituents" with you. Hey, you folks go ahead and do that. In fact, I may even help you recruit people for your side to act like that with important elected officials (and you know how good homosexuals are at recruiting). |
| Amy Hunt -- 05/10/2004 08:51 |
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Late last week, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected an appeal of the Goodridge decision by the ACLJ (the law firm founded by televangelist Pat Robertson) and the 13 anti-gay Massachusetts state lawmakers it recruited as clients. Information about the late, erroneous, repetitive appeal is available on Professor Duncan's blog. The SJC's decision was unanimous. It's almost impossible to think or write today. I have a two smartmouth lines I kept tossing into the paragraph above, then taking out. (Late, erroneous, and repetitive is how the SJC described the argument, not my line.) I don't know, it's an odd day, one week out from the 17th. Maybe it's such a big moment that I feel small. I used to be one of those people who said "I don't need a piece of paper from the state." Then I was one of those people who said "I don't care what they call it, just give me the rights and protections." I used to call the Freedom to Marry folks a fringe group. (Sorry guys. Hey, are there more than three or four of you out there who thought differently?) It was, on my part, fear of hope. It's good to be wrong. I surfed the papers this weekend, this morning, and read about all the preparations for next week: City Halls that once sent the Goodridge plaintiffs away are getting ready to welcome them; the Unitarians are bringing ministers out of retirement and authorizing some parishioners to perform marriages so that no one is unnecessarily delayed or disappointed. There's also a great New York Times Magazine story about Mary Bonauto and the path to May 17th, the day we wake up in a better world. People will always be free to scorn us, but the law in Massachusetts will not. The beacon of hope will be lit. I started doing my little part as an advocate about four years ago, you'd think I'd be ready for all this, but I am wholly unprepared. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articl http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/magaz This weekend, the Tennessee county that tried to ban gay people a few months ago (not gay marriage, but actual people) held a "Gay Day" celebration that drew 400 participants. The General Conference of the Methodist Church voted overwhelmingly to reject a conservative proposal to dissolve the church and split over disagreements about homosexuality rather than stay together, keep talking. Also this weekend, 74-year-old, anti-gay California state Senator Pete Knight died after a long illness. We are as a society doing the very hard work of reconciling gay and straight, and pulling shunned, sometimes discarded sons and daughters back into the American family. I hope Knight and his gay son got their chance. I hope we all do. |
| Amy Hunt -- 05/07/2004 18:14 |
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PRIVATIZE ME, PLEASE. American businesses are adding domestic partner benefits at the rate of three new firms a day. Respecting family relationships, letting people take care of one another -- and privatizing our most personal decisions -- seems to be very good for business. But there goes the Republican Party, running in the opposite direction from its key, pro-business constituency, with very little push back from the moderates. You have to wonder if the anti-gay evangelical vote will be worth it. http://www.hrc.org MEAN PEOPLE. I confess to reading "People" magazine at the hairdresser and also at the nail salon while the pedicure is drying. It's good for the soul to be a ditz sometimes. (As of the March 22nd issue -- you don't get new People mags at these places, only old ones -- Demi and Ashton were okay. I don't know, I worry about them.) Found the following in the Letters section from one L. Kearns of Granby Connecticut, in response to a story about Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon who married in San Francisco after 50 years together: "If you can't find a heterosexual mate, then stay single or keep your mouth closed." I'm sure with L. as a parent, the Kearns' have a very nice, warm, well-adjusted son I could meet and that would solve everything. POST-GOODRIDGE CULTURAL COLLAPSE. We never really thought it would happen -- I don't know, sort of a gut feeling. But according to Roger N. Lancaster, professor of anthropology at George Mason University and spokesman for the American Anthropological Association, the future of marriage and family on planet Earth hardly depends on making the gays pretend to be single people. His words (and I won't cut-and-paste the whole statement): "In the big sweep of human history and broad cross-cultural comparison, monogamous, heterosexual marriage, voluntarily entered into, is a pretty rare form of marriage. The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution." The idea that marriage should have anything at all to do with the free choice of one's heart is a relatively new idea that rocked the social order. Have a little faith, folks. ABU GHRAIB AND TRUTH. Information and, ultimately, truth moves at lightening speed these days and thank God for that. Soldiers have digital cameras and email. We'll see atrocities and we'll see heroism, unfiltered: When someone defies the Pentagon and takes photographs of flag-draped coffins, http://www.memoryhole.com will post them. We've all got picture phones, fire wires, broadband, blogs, 24-hour news, and grassroots networks. The truth can't be contained. So I'm constantly surprised by people who don't seem to know that the command-and-control manipulation game is up. You can't suppress. You can't lie. Even that ubiquitous act -- spinning -- only gets you so far. You also can't run an anti-gay campaign based on junk "science" and paid-for "facts" and the assumption that people won't think for themselves, know for themselves, debunk you on their own because they can, get at the truth -- in seconds, if they're so inclined. The world is morphing into a small town. It's so easy for us to meet one another. Go ahead and tell America that I'm a threat to them. |
| Amy Hunt -- 05/06/2004 08:10 |
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YOU DON'T BRING ME FLOWERS ANYMORE. I'd like to know what's going on between Ed Pawlick and the Massachusetts Family Institute, the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, who all used to be very close colleagues not so long ago. When Ed lost the lid on his pot, when he stopped using germ-free Talking Points, did they just find it impossible to acknowledge him as their own? Did they try to get him help? Xanax? Who moved whose cheese in that relationship? Now, on MassNews, Ed has put up a copy of a huge anti-gay postcard he's sent out to tens of thousands of households around Massachusetts and into State House offices. (Lucky me, I have a copy of the real thing.) It's not exactly Hate Mail, but it is Mighty Peculiar Mail and certainly Very Dirty Mail. Those of you with reading-age kids who like to check the mailbox, be warned: There are words you do not want to be asked about. At the end of the NC-17 text, Ed does announce that he won't send Hillary and Julie Goodridge to jail. (Thanks, Ed. And I won't send you to jail either.) Hey, Chaplain Ron Crews: Before you ditch the Massachusetts Family Institute and go running off for Congress, shouldn't you try to help your old friend? Isn't that your line of business? http://www.massnews.com ANTI-GAY PHONE SPAM. There's yet another taped message being left on answering machines in Massachusetts. The group paying for it doesn't identify itself. "If Dr. King was alive today, would he permit this? We must be the voice. We must stand up for what millions have died and suffered for, the dream of equality. Same sex marriages will hurt OUR dream, most importantly it will hurt OUR children. Call your state representatives now. Tell them to pass the bill to stop same sex marriages. Tell them to remember Dr. Martin Luther King's dream. God bless you, your family and our state." (For more information about Martin Luther King's dream, check in with Coretta Scott King, who supports same-sex marriage.) THOU SHALT NOT LIE. Handsome Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (the parent company of the Massachusetts Family Institute) is mad at President Bush for not fixating on the anti-gay Constitutional Amendment -- and instead, I guess, focusing more on what we're doing in the Abu Ghraib prison (which seems little better than what Saddam Hussein did there), and counting the number of new Islamists we've just motivated to fly airplanes down our throats. Handsome Tony has his priorities. I guess that's okay. He implies that Bush needs to get on the marriage issue because "60 percent of voters polled in Democratic primaries oppose uniting same-sex couples in holy matrimony." If a craven conflation of two different, wholly separate things -- civil marriage licenses and the religious sacrament -- is the only way these folks can get America upset, that's another good sign. Ever wonder if they want to post the 10 Commandments everywhere because they keep forgetting them? http://www.frc.org |
| Amy Hunt -- 05/05/2004 15:15 |
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DEAR DWIGHT. Since April 27, you've done little more than a cut-and-paste of other people's press releases and briefs relative to Pat Robertson's last-ditch legal potshot at Goodridge. (Okay, his law firm's potshot, but what's the difference.) Dude: Write something. Feed me. Feed the people. If anyone out there wants to see how GLAD responded to Pat ("I predict tornados will come") Robertson, see http://www.glad.org/marriage/ACLJ_GLAD_ |
| Amy Hunt -- 05/05/2004 07:35 |
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HE'S GETTING IT! Amid warnings about legal "repercussions" for clerks who issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples visiting Massachusetts, the Romney Administration said a couple's oath about their residency -- rather than a selection of bills from their mailbox -- would do. Which means the process for issuing a marriage license to gay couples and straight couples is pretty much the same. Fill out the forms. Don't hassle people. Take their money. Wish them every happiness. Note to Mitt: the proper Technical Process For Handing A Marriage License To An Avowed Homosexual has a lot in common with the reason we asked for them the first place and, if you'd been listening even a little bit over the last couple of years, the answer would have dawned on you well before yesterday. "Treat us the same." Treat. Us. The. Same. Why on earth is that so hard? TAX DOLLARS AT WORK. I wonder what it's costing to do the clerk trainings which, after all the bluster and threats, seems to be delivering the message "treat everyone the same." I wonder what Governor Romney's 49 letters around the nation, informing other states of a change in his state's law, cost us. (This is a guy who was hired as Governor for his cost-cutting business savvy?) There's a new emissions regulation pending at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. Will he pass the word about this, too? Pollution. Married gay people. Hey, we're all in this together depending on who's upwind from whom. |
| Amy Hunt -- 05/04/2004 13:54 |
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BAH HUMBUG. Today, and as last-minute as you can get, the Romney Administration is beginning its training for city and town clerks -- in theory, about how to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but let's be honest, it's about how to not do it. Among other things, clerks are being threatened with unspecified legal "repercussions" if they issue marriage licenses to non-residents. This, as other Romney spokespeople say clerks will have "discretion" about how to use the embarrassing, nearly century-old law blocking interracial marriage against the gays on May 17th. (I guess he doesn't care how clerks get to "no," as long as they get there.) Don't you think this guy has a bit of an unhealthy fixation, trying to stop marriages one by one? I can't figure out if it's a petty act or extraordinary aggression. Whatever happened to "Congratulations, I wish you every happiness?" We said that to Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, didn't we? I half expect the Governor to release instructions about how to gum things up when the minister asks "Is there anyone here who knows of a reason this couple should not be joined in marriage?" Should people run down the aisle screaming? Or just raise their hands and wait to be called on? What's the procedure for calling on the objectors if there's more than one? First hands first? By row? Alphabetical? How do you know for sure that they're not just saying their name starts with an A? THANK YOU, MAYOR MENINO. Now there's a class act. "Welcome" buttons for City Hall staff, a brochure with a letter of congratulations from the Mayor, information about how to get the three-day waiting period waived, and how to get to other city or town halls if Boston is backed up. That's how a gentleman acts when someone is getting married. Forget "gentleman," that's how a human being acts. This flinty New England chick read about the Welcome buttons and cried. GOSH, MAYBE YOU'RE RIGHT. SJC Justice Roderick Ireland denied the Catholic Action League's request for a stay of the Goodridge decision, which they wanted so they'd have an easier time trying to gut the decision in 2006. I'm not trained in the law, but I do know a dumb-as-a-bag-of-hammers idea when I see it. After all this, does anyone really expect the SJC to say "oh, never mind?" MORE MARRIAGE NEWS, NOT MY FAULT. Roanoke, the All-American town in Virginia -- the state that just passed a draconian bill denying any of the privileges of marriage to gay couples in a civil union, partnership contract or any other arrangement -- is in a traditional marriage meltdown. One divorce lawyer said "if it weren't for sex, I wouldn't be in business." Clients, he said, "come here and say they `want space.' Well, they want space for a reason." A judge said "My perception, both from uncontested divorces and contested divorces, is that we are at an all-time high in people not willing to devote the effort to work together to get through difficult times." http://nytimes.com/2004/05/02/natio |
