As April 15th looms, my wife and I presented our accountant with a challenge. 

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In yesterday's CA Supreme court case, advocating to uphold Prop8, Kenneth Starr argued that there are no inalienable rights for Californians. Under his argument, he admitted that free speech, racial discrimination, (presumably even voting rights themselves!)  under the California constitution are subject to a simple majority vote, without any legislative process at all. 

The US Department of State publishes a booklet called "Principles of Democracy" to explain to the world what our shining city on a hill, our vaunted constitutional democracy, really stands for. I find it interesting, as the Pro-PropH8 side prepares its argument worshiping the popular vote, to see what our government says in this booklet about minority rights. What are we telling the world about our foundational beliefs? The booklet begins,

On the surface, the principles of majority rule and the protection of individual and minority rights would seem contradictory. In fact, however, these principles are twin pillars holding up the very foundation of what we mean by democratic government.

Our constitutional democracy protects the rights of the minority. The government says so. And the ruling principles are over the jump.

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Reported in the LA Times

A federal judge Thursday denied a request by Proposition 8 supporters to withhold disclosing any more names and addresses of donors who supported the campaign for the state's ban on same-sex marriage. Yes on 8 campaign officials had challenged the constitutionality of the state's Political Reform Act, saying that people who gave money were being harassed and that some received death threats. ....

A judge disagreed, clearing the way for the donors who made contributions in the last two weeks before the election to be made public Monday, the next filing date

Part of their fear is that they'll end up on the Prop 8 donor map. As my mother would say, if you don't want people to know you did something, that's a clue that maybe you shouldn't have done it.

 Of course, the lists for donations AGAINST prop 8 are just as public. But the opponents of Prop8 aren't clamoring to hide them. We aren't ashamed of supporting equality. Indeed, the Pro-Prop8 folks led the way on threats against political opponents.

As reported in the SF Chronicle back in October,

Leaders of the campaign to outlaw same-sex marriage in California are warning businesses that have given money to the state's largest gay rights group they will be publicly identified as opponents of traditional unions unless they contribute to the gay marriage ban, too. ...

"Make a donation of a like amount to ProtectMarriage.com which will help us correct this error," reads the letter. "Were you to elect not to donate comparably, it would be a clear indication that you are in opposition to traditional marriage. ...

The names of any companies and organizations that choose not to donate in like manner to ProtectMarriage.com but have given to Equality California will be published."

The letters were signed by the campaign chairman, the executive director of the California Catholic Conference, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and the lawyer for the Yes-on-8 campaign.

The recipients of those letters didn't yield. Instead, they published them. They weren't ashamed of supporting equality, so the attempt to blackmail them fizzled.

So, as the Pro-8 folks complain that we know who they are, they should reflect on that other old saying of Mom's... "Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you".

We went to see the film MILK last night.  As has been noted by many others, how we wish this film had been released last summer, or the fall before the election.  Even so it gives us important lessons and ruminations about Milk the man, our community, and our ongoing struggle. The GLBT community has a memory problem;  how many GLBT outside of those of us in California knew who Harvey Milk was, before this film?  Every civil rights struggle has a leader who is remembered:  Susan B Anthony and the women's suffrage movement;  Caesar Chavez and the migrant farmworkers;  and of course the great Dr King and the epic struggle for black equality.    Yet we have forgotten Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to major public office in the US.  And, as they say, those who forget history are destined to repeat it. In 1978, the Briggs Initiative (proposition 6) was all too familiar:  an unholy alliance of out-of-state interests (Anita Bryant), Christian conservatives, and opposition to gay rights.  The Briggs Initiative would have banned gay teachers and those who spoke to support them from teaching in California's public schools.  This Draconian measure was leading in the polls, horrifying though it was. The liberal establishment, though opposed to Briggs, wanted to play a safe campaign based on "privacy" and "equality,"  with no actual gay people.  (Sound familiar?)  Harvey Milk saw this as a disaster, and insisted that the gay folks be front and center and OUT in the campaign.  Against the odds, the Briggs Initiative went down, as described in the film.  Oh, if only it had released sooner!  The parallels are so striking. But thirty years later, all those lessons were forgotten with Proposition 8.  The establishment "No on 8" campaign played it safe;  "tolerance" and "equality" but no actual gay people.  And we lost, despite our initial lead.   We all know that the campaign made bad decisions, stupid in hindsight.  But we have to also acknowledge OUR role in this.  WE failed too.  We fell into the comfortable zone where we simply wrote the checks and let others do the work.  I know my wife and I did not walk our neighborhood, despite knowing that many people were friendly.  But there were some "Yes on 8" stickers.  Middle class lesbians who "pass," we were afraid that we, our kids, or our house would become targets of hate There was no Harvey Milk exhorting us, insisting that we had to fling open the door, that we had to demand our rights and not let others do the work for us, that it would be so much harder for them to vote against us if they knew just one of us.  We have no Harvey Milk.  No leader has stepped forward to fill his shoes in the last thirty years, and as a result, the movement is sporadic, divided. So we must each BE Harvey Milk ourselves, and consciously think,  "what would Harvey do?"  to keep our momentum in the post-Prop8 world.  All of us own this responsibility.  If we don't do it for ourselves, each GLBT person, we can't expect our straight friends and allies to join us.  We must participate in the marches and the elections and the outreach and the grassroots.  It's what he would have insisted we do.   "My name is Harvey Milk, and I'm here to recruit you!" Cross posted at DailyKos and at Friends of Jake

One of the biggest challenges to GLBT rights is organized religion.  Prop8 in California, denying marriage rights to a minority,  was passed in large part by the unholy alliance of conservative Catholics and Mormons (especially Mormon money).   Many gay people see their lives in opposition to religion, thanks to the  ascendance of fundigelical Christianism under successive Republican administrations. There has been a defacto establishment of conservative evangelicalism as a state religion.  And yet, along with other changes, perhaps that is changing too.

Progressive Christians are finding their voice on a national stage and offering a radical welcome to all. Will their voices finally be heard in Washington and in the wider culture?

 Item 1 :Just this week, Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA, went on Oprah Winfrey's show and announced "being gay is a gift from God".  

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With full page ads in the NY Times, the Pro-8 forces are trying to suppress free speech by trying to redefine legitimate, peaceful public protests as "mob rule". The Human Rights campaign takes it on at Demand the Truth.

The FACT is that there have been a few isolated incidents of violence against churches. But to say this is part of the movement is a blatant lie. So what else is new from these people?

On the KPFA morning show, they did an interview with Seamus Hassan for the Pro-8 side, and Episcopal priest and HRC representative Susan Russell for the No-on-8 side. Susan reports that pro-8 forces are now comparing gay rights activists to Al Qaeda.

Excerpts here, please check Susan's blog for more:

Susan Russell: violence against anyone should always be deplored. I'm horrified, though, when asked have there been violent attacks against supporters of Prop 8 "I'm sure there have been," is the best they can come up with. That just doesn't rise to the level of placing full page ads in the L.A. and New York Times stating so as a fact!

What we see here are exactly the same tactics used to pass Prop 8: people who are so convinced they have sole possession of the absolute truth that they're willing to tell lies to achieve their ends. The protests in the streets have been by and large--when you look at the numbers of people who have been in the streets demonstrating against this heinous effort to write discrimination into the California constitution -- actually exemplary in the demeanor and the tone and the timbre and the respect with which they've been held......Our leadership has condemned those acts; we are working very hard at the leadership level to build bridges of understanding with both the Mormon Church and Roman Catholic Church to find a way forward through this. .....

Seamus Hassan:....Let me be clear, neither in the ad or today here, have I said this is the work of the gay community. We say in the ad, this is opponents of Prop 8, 46% of the California electorate voted against Prop 8. My understanding is that 5% of the California population, approximately, is gay. At least 41% of the opponents of Prop 8 maybe radical secularists, opposed to the church's position....

.....whether it's an organized movement like Al Qaeda or whether it's the Al Qaeda-like, um, inspired acts of terrorism elsewhere, people are right to be concerned about, um, radical Islamist violence--

Susan Russell That is going to be the headline and it should be! I couldn't do a better job of making my case then your other caller is making. These are people who are determined to paint American citizens, living out democracy in the streets, as similar to terrorists and Al Qaeda. ....

What we're working to do is to lower the rhetoric, to end the polarization, to stop the violence. The title of their ad is "No to Mob Veto." What they're trying to do is frame the debate, already, as the Supreme Court begins to reconsider Prop 8. I'm confident we're going to see the Supreme Court to come down on the right side of history on this in May. You can see what they're doing right now, they're framing the debate so that when that happens, they can say it was mob rule against democracy, they're going to continue to compare us to Al Qaeda and I think the American people have got to stand up and say stop.

We're a nation of freedom of religion; we've got to be a nation of freedom from religion. And allowing these religious bigots to write their discrimination into our constitution is something we should be in the streets about.

Emphasis mine. Way to go, Susan, who should be decorated as a hero of our movement. Remember, she's an Episcopal priest in Los Angeles...and all the California Episcopal Bishops came out strongly AGAINST Prop 8.  Seamus Hassan doesn't even speak for Christians.

I am outraged--OUTRAGED--at this. I hope you are too!

(Cross posted at DailyKos )

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What is the proper role of religious faith in the public sphere?

Our nation is not a theocracy, it is a secular representative democracy. There is no religious litmus test for office. On the other hand, the US is the most religious country in the industrialized West. Thus, it is inevitable that religion and politics intersect at multiple levels.

Each of us (whether atheist, deist, or something in between) uses our internal value system to make decisions. But a distinction needs to be made in using those values to make our own decisions vs. imposing them on others and right now, we aren't doing so well at that.

I wrote recently,

I believe that the knee-jerk response against religion in the political sphere is largely driven as a response to the conservative religionists who are attempting to force their view of morality on all others by "majority rules". (Just think: if "majority rules" ruled, then "activist judges" would never have de-segregated the South). This is because it is the conservatives who are most active in limiting the fundamental rights of others. How do we establish meaningful discourse and protect ALL our rights, when we have such profound disagreements?

Let's consider some examples of this. In the aftermath of Prop 8 in California, we can look at how different churches addressed the issue. The Episcopalians came out against the measure. They put banners in front of their churches and individual priests such as the estimable Susan Russell of All Saints Pasadena were vocal on the airwaves. But while the institution's view was clear, they did not insist that their parishioners donate or vote in any particular way and they did not make institutional donations.

Let's contrast this to the Catholics, who vigorously advocated a "Yes" vote--indeed, my wife on our wedding Sunday was the victim of a spittle-flecked hate sermon at a Catholic church near our wedding hotel which reduced her to tears. And then, of course, there are the Mormons, who bankrolled the pro-prop 8 campaign, and used their considerable social clout on their members to ensure donations and votes. Now, they are all complaining that they are being unfairly targeted for expressing their religious freedom of speech; several high profile pro-8 donors in the entertainment industry have found themselves unable to continue working because the gay people who work with them refuse to do further business.

I have mixed feelings about this, because I believe religious beliefs and votes are private and personal matters. Where does advocacy cross the line from a private act to a public one? Because it does.

John Aravosis writes,

When you use the power of the state to rip away my civil rights, and force me to live by your 'values,' you are no longer practicing your religion. You're practicing politics.

and Dan Savage convincingly agrees,

A donation to a political campaign is a public matter; and civil marriage rights for same-sex couples did not infringe upon the religious freedom of Mormons, devout or otherwise....If Raddon wanted to go to church and pray his little heart out against same-sex marriage, or proselytize on street corners against gay marriage, or counsel gay men to leave their husbands and marry nice Mormon girls instead, that could be viewed as an expression of his "privately held religious beliefs." Instead he helped fund a political campaign to strip a vulnerable minority group of its civil rights.

I myself find it gob-smackingly remarkable that a big argument of the Pro-8 campaigners is their religious freedom: if I marry, that impinges on their freedom to discriminate. I , the atheist, certainly have no objection to Catholics or Mormons opposing my marriage; my wife never would expect the Catholic church to perform our wedding. They are free to practice their faith as they see fit. But it crosses the line when they reach their religious values into the civil sphere and force ME to live them. I am not Catholic. I am not Mormon. I do not believe in God. It is wrong for them to insist that I live by "God's rules".

Let's turn away from Prop 8 to a related subject. The Bush administration want to give physicians, pharmacists and others expanded rights of "medical refusal".

The LA Times :

The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.......The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients.

This isn't just about abortion. This is also about pharmacists providing birth control pills (BCP), for example. And let's remember that there are medical non-pregnancy related reasons for BCP; I had to use them myself for a while, and as a lesbian, I can assure you that pregnancy is not a concern! No matter, these protesting pharmacists would make the MEDICAL decision whether I as a woman should have them.

Or in vitro fertilization. There was a case in California where the physician refused to provide treatment to a lesbian couple. It's not that the doctor had a moral problem with the treatment, and therefore refused to perform it on anyone. No, the doctor had a problem with the patient. Let's take this to its logical conclusion and we could see a physician allowed to deny treatment to a Hispanic man, a black woman, or a child of two gay fathers because of "personal convictions".

Physicans, pharmacists and others are licensed by the state to provide care. They should not be allowed to insert their religious beliefs into who gets treated. If they refuse to provide a treatment (e.g., abortion) they must refuse it to all, and provide information on where the patient can go. If they are not able to do that, they do not deserve a medical license from the state.

The Republican party started all this by making their coalition with the Christian Right. Now the Catholics and the Mormons are in on it. We now are in the awkward position of holding the tiger by the tail and we need to put it back in the cage.

Cross posted at TPMCafe, Dailykos, and Friends of Jake.

I know you all are sick of Prop8, but this isn't about Prop8, except as a symptom.

I want us to think about what provokes people into fear.  Because I put it to you that the separatist instinct that we are seeing playing out across the country, dividing "us" and "them", is about fear and insecurity, about division, rather than common ground.

Item:

The election of America's first black president has triggered more than 200 hate-related incidents, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center,  a record in modern presidential elections. Moreover, the white nationalist movement, bemoaning an election that confirmed voters' comfort with a multiracial demography, expects Mr. Obama's election to be a potent recruiting tool; one that watchdog groups warn could give new impetus to a mostly defanged fringe element. 

The article goes on to discuss that a sense of disenfranchisement in some Southern and other whites leads to a potential for violent response against Obama and people of color.  We can't forget that the  Oklahoma City bombings were done by our own citizens, and not scary foreigners.  (Note that I am not talking about legitimate political disagreements, but the hysterical reactions and threats driven by the worst of identity politics.)

 Item

The theologically conservative Diocese of Fort Worth voted Saturday to split from the liberal-leaning Episcopal Church, the fourth traditional diocese to do so in a long-running debate over the Bible, gay relationships and other issues. About 80 percent of clergy and parishioners in the Texas diocese supported the break in a series of votes at a diocesan convention. 

It's amazing to me how much press it gets that a small fraction of the Episcopalians are splitting off. Although the leaving party may claim it's about more than just the "gay issue", in fact the doctrine of the Episcopal church hasn't changed--you know, God, Jesus, Trinity, all that.    They simply can't stand that women and gays are now ordained, so they elevate sexuality to a core doctrine.   It looks like desperately trying to hold on to the past, where women and gays both knew their places and father figures (always white men) channeled authority. 

Item:

  In a recent email urging supporters to attack the Governor for his comments, Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council had this to say: "Since Election Day, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has made statements supporting demonstrations against Proposition 8, and urging California 's Supreme Court to block the amendment's enforcement.  Condoning street protests and supporting judicial activist scams to overturn a popularly approved state constitutional amendment approaches advocacy of anarchy. Gov. Schwarzenegger is playing a dangerous game, and it needs to stop. Now."

Attempts to suppress peaceful dissent is a major symptom of fear, wouldn't you say?  Tens of thousands of gays and their allies have marched peacefully, and perfectly legally, to express an opinion.  There were no riots in the streets.   What are they afraid of? 

So, what is it that is so ingrained in the human instinct that some of us need to feel "above" someone else?  That people feel threatened by change, or inclusion, sufficient to use acts of violence and words of hate to support their views?  Is it that if someone else is special, we aren't?  This sounds like the jealousy of a small child when a new sibling comes home from the hospital--only with the weapons of adulthood.

Some time ago, I wrote about ambiguity  and argued that fundamentalists respond the way they do because of their discomfort with things ambiguous.  Here, I will add that I think fear  is also a component.

In these undeniably frightening economic and social times, it is a natural instinct to barricade the doors against what we see as the marauding hoardes, whatever "side" we are on.  Yet it is precisely now that we need to take the risk to open the door and realize that the "hoardes" are just starving neighbors, and people just like us.  

With gun sales on the upswing, and  right wing  groups advocating the elimination of free speech, these are indeed perilous times.   There are also demagogues cynically fanning the flames of fear and hatred , to gain or consolidate power. 

But now is the true challenge, of living our humane values in the face of fear and violence--not by excluding the fearful, but by trying to reach them.  All of us must try build bridges, whether liberal or conservative, religious or atheist, gay or straight.  It's when we view each other as "The Other", with labels instead of common humanity, that the danger exists.

(Cross posted with some editing from Friends of Jake and Daily Kos)
 

It's quite offensive that you assume that there is anything less than permanent in my marriage than in yours, simply because of the gender of my beloved. The bigotry of this view may arise from fear, ignorance, or hatred, or some combination thereof.

But denying my faithful, long term relationship the benefits and responsibilities of civil marriage is simple bigotry.  it has nothing to do with religion, yours or mine.

Either way, whether you deprive us of the piece of paper or not, we're married in reality. You can't stop that. You can't eliminate us, or drive us into hiding.  Nothing has changed about our presence in our  common life--yours and mine.  Nothing has changed about what your children will be taught or your exposure to us.  We are still here and still the same.

We are your neighbors. We teach your children. We work in your office. We are your doctor, your lawyer, your grocery clerk, your taxi driver. My wife's picture is on my desk, and mine on hers. You and your children see it there when you come in my office.

We are in the PTA. We go to the supermarket and kids' soccer games together. We hold hands. Our children are friends with yours. Your daughter may date my son. We may sit near you at graduation. We may be near you at a restaurant. And some of us even go to church, and stand next to you in the pew.

In the face of all your bigotry and attempt to marginalize us, to make us smaller, we are here, bearing the witness of what marriage is, through better or worse, in sickness or in health, as long as we both shall live.

Oh my, can you imagine the degree of commitment to marriage that endures despite the ignorance and bile of people like you? Despite every effort you make to tear us apart, to disenfranchise and abuse us, to desecrate what we hold sacred, we endure, and still we rise.

It makes you rather small, doesn't it? Bigotry generally does have that effect.

(Edited from a cross post at Friends of Jake)

The California Supreme Court decided today that it will hear the issue of constitutionality of Prop8, probably in March. So many lawyers think this is a reach, that I am not hopeful. Six months of joy and euphoria, now we enter six months limbo, waiting for a crash.

Unexpectedly, the justices have also requested arguments on the legitimacy of the approximately 18,000 existing marriages, which had not been directly brought up in these suits.

I find myself in unexpected tears at my desk. I feel completely violated and dehumanized. Lawyers in court will argue whether or not our marriage is "real" or "valid", over our protests. People who do not know us, or care about us, will presume on the "validity" of our marriage.

Are we slaves? Are we comatose? It's degrading, as though we have no say about this. Are we people, human beings? Apparently not. We are mere objects that bigots will revile, and our fundamental humanity denied. The clinical distance and detachment of the judicial process makes us things, not real loving people.

It feels like that Youtube ad I posted before, where the two men force their way in the home to tear up the marriage license of two women. It feels violating. It really does.

This isn't getting any easier.

(cross posted at Friends-of-Jake)
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