From NYT:
A federal judge issued a worldwide injunction Tuesday stopping enforcement of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, ending the military's 17-year-old ban on openly gay troops.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips' landmark ruling was widely cheered by gay rights organizations that credited her with getting accomplished what President Obama and Washington politics could not.
The "fierce advocate's" Justice Department will appeal. Count on it. I found this bit instructive:
Legal experts say government attorneys are not likely to let the ruling stand since Obama has made it clear he wants Congress to repeal the policy.
"The president has taken a very consistent position here, and that is: 'Look, I will not use my discretion in any way that will step on Congress' ability to be the sole decider about this policy here,' " said Diane H. Mazur, legal co-director of the Palm Center, a think tank at the University of California at Santa Barbara that supports a repeal.
If you're sitting there thinking "WTF?" you're not alone. Obama's on safe ground here -- he wants Congress to do it, because legislative action is best (snort), but he knows Congress is not going to do it. Congress was never going to do it, and the "compromise" language that Winnie Stachelberg agreed to (and no one has ever managed to explain why she was in the mix) was designed to make sure that repeal never happens.
I'm going to make a prediction: the "survey" from the Pentagon is going to show that repeal of DADT will cause major disruption and angst (unlike any other country that has changed its policy -- I guess because we're special), and both Mullen and Gates will refuse to sign off. (That's if the bill manages to pass in the lame duck session, which is a long shot.) And the moral vacuum that is the Obama White House will meekly go along.
Make no mistake on this: the Pentagon has never acted in good faith on DADT, and I don't see it starting now.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
It Gets Better: Update
Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project has filled its slot at YouTube -- 650 videos, which is the limit.
So now there's a dedicated website at It Gets Better Project.
Support it.
An Update to the Update: Just ran across this statement, titled "It Gets Better," from Brian Bond, which is largely Valerie Jarrett's speech for HRC. This is choice:
Building a more perfect union means standing against anyone trying to write inequality into our laws and our Constitution – and repealing divisive and discriminatory laws like DOMA. And it means ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell once and for all. This is a promise the President has made in no uncertain terms. For the first time in history, the Secretary of Defense has testified in favor of ending this policy. For the first time in history, we have a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who has argued forcefully for allowing gay men and women to serve their country without having to subvert their integrity. And for the first time in history, the House of Representatives has passed repeal. Now we’ve got to keep pushing the Senate to do the right thing and get this done.
I can't quite fathom the degree of cynicism involved in anyone standing up in front of an audience and coming out with crap like this with a straight face.
That little release got this response from Dan Savage:
Fuck you, you pack of co-opting cowards.
Seriously. You can do a more than offer hope. You have the power to make it better. Right now. Suspend enforcement of DADT. Don't appeal the decision by a federal judge that declared DADT unconstitutional. Stop defending DOMA in court. Keep your promises. Make it better. And if you're not going to keep your promises or do what you can to make it better, White House, then you could at least have the simple human decency to shut the fuck up.
State-sanctioned discrimination against LGBT people legitimizes the kind of anti-gay attitudes and beliefs that lead directly to anti-gay bullying at the ballot box and anti-gay bullying in schools. You can do more. Enough with the speeches. Enough with the pretty words—particularly lifted ones.
Fuck you.
My sentiments exactly.
And for those Obamabots who still think there's something to defend on gay issues, this: all Obama's done is give us crumbs. Jarrett notes that the president "marked the passage of the Matthew Shepared Hate Crimes Act." Nice of him to notice, since he did nothing to ensure its passage. And that's the point: no, he's not living up to our expectations, but he created the damned expectations to begin with. He's doing jack shit to deliver. He played us.
Good for Savage.
So now there's a dedicated website at It Gets Better Project.
Support it.
An Update to the Update: Just ran across this statement, titled "It Gets Better," from Brian Bond, which is largely Valerie Jarrett's speech for HRC. This is choice:
Building a more perfect union means standing against anyone trying to write inequality into our laws and our Constitution – and repealing divisive and discriminatory laws like DOMA. And it means ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell once and for all. This is a promise the President has made in no uncertain terms. For the first time in history, the Secretary of Defense has testified in favor of ending this policy. For the first time in history, we have a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who has argued forcefully for allowing gay men and women to serve their country without having to subvert their integrity. And for the first time in history, the House of Representatives has passed repeal. Now we’ve got to keep pushing the Senate to do the right thing and get this done.
I can't quite fathom the degree of cynicism involved in anyone standing up in front of an audience and coming out with crap like this with a straight face.
That little release got this response from Dan Savage:
Fuck you, you pack of co-opting cowards.
Seriously. You can do a more than offer hope. You have the power to make it better. Right now. Suspend enforcement of DADT. Don't appeal the decision by a federal judge that declared DADT unconstitutional. Stop defending DOMA in court. Keep your promises. Make it better. And if you're not going to keep your promises or do what you can to make it better, White House, then you could at least have the simple human decency to shut the fuck up.
State-sanctioned discrimination against LGBT people legitimizes the kind of anti-gay attitudes and beliefs that lead directly to anti-gay bullying at the ballot box and anti-gay bullying in schools. You can do more. Enough with the speeches. Enough with the pretty words—particularly lifted ones.
Fuck you.
My sentiments exactly.
And for those Obamabots who still think there's something to defend on gay issues, this: all Obama's done is give us crumbs. Jarrett notes that the president "marked the passage of the Matthew Shepared Hate Crimes Act." Nice of him to notice, since he did nothing to ensure its passage. And that's the point: no, he's not living up to our expectations, but he created the damned expectations to begin with. He's doing jack shit to deliver. He played us.
Good for Savage.
The Best Health-Care In the World
Well, no. At least, not if your going to look at actual facts.
In 1950, the United States was fifth among the leading industrialized nations with respect to female life expectancy at birth, surpassed only by Sweden, Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands.1 The last available measure of female life expectancy had the United States ranked at forty-sixth in the world.2 As of September 23, 2010, the United States ranked forty-ninth for both male and female life expectancy combined.3,4 The United States does little better in international comparisons of mortality. Americans live 5.7 fewer years of "perfect health"—a measure adjusted for time spent ill—than the Japanese.5 Meanwhile, per capita health spending in the United States increased at nearly twice the rate in other wealthy nations between 1970 and 2002.6 As a result, the United States now spends well over twice the median expenditure of industrialized nations on health care, and far more than any other country as a percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP).7
We have the most expensive health-care in the world, though. That should be good for something, right?
Via AmericanBlog.
In 1950, the United States was fifth among the leading industrialized nations with respect to female life expectancy at birth, surpassed only by Sweden, Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands.1 The last available measure of female life expectancy had the United States ranked at forty-sixth in the world.2 As of September 23, 2010, the United States ranked forty-ninth for both male and female life expectancy combined.3,4 The United States does little better in international comparisons of mortality. Americans live 5.7 fewer years of "perfect health"—a measure adjusted for time spent ill—than the Japanese.5 Meanwhile, per capita health spending in the United States increased at nearly twice the rate in other wealthy nations between 1970 and 2002.6 As a result, the United States now spends well over twice the median expenditure of industrialized nations on health care, and far more than any other country as a percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP).7
We have the most expensive health-care in the world, though. That should be good for something, right?
Via AmericanBlog.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Backpedaling
It's interesting to note how many people have put their foot in it recently in regard to condemning gays.
First was the Mormon Apostle Boyd K. Packer, who had some pretty awful things to say about gays in a world-wide broadcast. His remarks were the usual combination of ignorance and religiosity (as quoted by Timothy Kincaid at BTB):
Some suppose that they were pre-set and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, he is our Father.
Paul promised that “God . . . will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” You can, if you will, break the habits and conquer an addiction and come away from that which is not worthy of any member of the Church.
Now, it seems, the LDS Church is trying to rewrite history:
Now the word “temptations” has replaced “tendencies” and the question about God’s motives has been removed entirely.
Packer, next in line for the LDS Church presidency, changed his wording as part of a routine practice after every General Conference, according to spokesman Scott Trotter, when speakers are given the opportunity to make “any edits necessary.”
“President Packer has simply clarified his intent,” Trotter said Friday in a statement.
While minor edits may be common, such substantive changes are rare.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the massive protests in Salt Lake City.
The other, of course, is nutjob NY gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who managed to trash GLBTs while speaking before a group of Orthodox rabbis:
We must stop pandering to the pornographers and the perverts who seek to target our children and destroy their lives. I didn’t march in the gay parade this year, the Gay Pride parade this year. My opponent did. And that’s not the example we should be showing our children, and certainly not in our schools.
And don’t misquote me as wanting to hurt homosexual people in any way. That would be a dastardly lie. My approach is live and let live. I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful in getting married and raising a family. And I don’t want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option. It isn’t.
Now he's trying to defend and disown his remarks (at the same time), complete with the "I'm not a bigot" mantra:
“My feelings on homosexuality are unequivocal,” Mr. Paladino said on “Today.” “I have absolutely no problem with it whatsoever. My only reservation is marriage.”
He added, “I have a lot of homosexuals working in my organization,” referring to his real estate business.
He's even hit the talk show circuit, although it doesn't seem to be helping. However, there's this:
Paladino again pinned the remarks on the rabbi who wrote his remarks, and apparently takes great pride in the fact that he wouldn't say one of the speech's lines, that gays are "dysfunctional." What a mensch.
Supposedly the speech was written for Paladino by Yehuda Levin, a violently anti-gay Orthodox rabbi. I'd just like to point out that if you have any moral fiber at all and you really are not a raving homophobe, you'd not have your speech written by someone whom you know is. But I suppose leaving out one line is progress, of a sort.
At least now the loons understand that they've got to backpedal on remarks like these, and that when they make these remarks in the aftermath of a rash of suicides by gay teens and hate crimes against gay men, there's going to be a reaction.
And there are those who would tell us that we should be grateful for this sort of progress. Umm, yeah, well. . . .
Keep pushing.
First was the Mormon Apostle Boyd K. Packer, who had some pretty awful things to say about gays in a world-wide broadcast. His remarks were the usual combination of ignorance and religiosity (as quoted by Timothy Kincaid at BTB):
Some suppose that they were pre-set and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, he is our Father.
Paul promised that “God . . . will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” You can, if you will, break the habits and conquer an addiction and come away from that which is not worthy of any member of the Church.
Now, it seems, the LDS Church is trying to rewrite history:
Now the word “temptations” has replaced “tendencies” and the question about God’s motives has been removed entirely.
Packer, next in line for the LDS Church presidency, changed his wording as part of a routine practice after every General Conference, according to spokesman Scott Trotter, when speakers are given the opportunity to make “any edits necessary.”
“President Packer has simply clarified his intent,” Trotter said Friday in a statement.
While minor edits may be common, such substantive changes are rare.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the massive protests in Salt Lake City.
The other, of course, is nutjob NY gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who managed to trash GLBTs while speaking before a group of Orthodox rabbis:
We must stop pandering to the pornographers and the perverts who seek to target our children and destroy their lives. I didn’t march in the gay parade this year, the Gay Pride parade this year. My opponent did. And that’s not the example we should be showing our children, and certainly not in our schools.
And don’t misquote me as wanting to hurt homosexual people in any way. That would be a dastardly lie. My approach is live and let live. I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful in getting married and raising a family. And I don’t want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option. It isn’t.
Now he's trying to defend and disown his remarks (at the same time), complete with the "I'm not a bigot" mantra:
“My feelings on homosexuality are unequivocal,” Mr. Paladino said on “Today.” “I have absolutely no problem with it whatsoever. My only reservation is marriage.”
He added, “I have a lot of homosexuals working in my organization,” referring to his real estate business.
He's even hit the talk show circuit, although it doesn't seem to be helping. However, there's this:
Paladino again pinned the remarks on the rabbi who wrote his remarks, and apparently takes great pride in the fact that he wouldn't say one of the speech's lines, that gays are "dysfunctional." What a mensch.
Supposedly the speech was written for Paladino by Yehuda Levin, a violently anti-gay Orthodox rabbi. I'd just like to point out that if you have any moral fiber at all and you really are not a raving homophobe, you'd not have your speech written by someone whom you know is. But I suppose leaving out one line is progress, of a sort.
At least now the loons understand that they've got to backpedal on remarks like these, and that when they make these remarks in the aftermath of a rash of suicides by gay teens and hate crimes against gay men, there's going to be a reaction.
And there are those who would tell us that we should be grateful for this sort of progress. Umm, yeah, well. . . .
Keep pushing.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Reviews in Brief: Hinako Takanaga -- A Survey
This isn't really a review, and it's not really very brief, but I figure it's my blog, so I can do what I want.
Hinako Takanaga is one of my favorite mangaka doing boys' love manga, largely on the strength of a couple of more recent series. It's interesting to be able to put her work in some sort of developmental context -- I've now read two of her early comedies, The Tyrant Falls In Love and Love Round, her two major series, Little Butterfly and You Will Fall. . ., as well as a slightly more recent work, Devil's Secret.
I just got one that's new in English, although it turns out it was published five years ago in Japan -- The Tyrant Falls In Love. It's pretty much of a piece with Love Round: characters are somewhat quirky but not really developed all that fully, the drawing is appealing but not remarkable, and the stories are a little contrived. They're both "school-boy romances" after a fashion, Tyrant involving a professor and his student assistant, Love Round two high-school boys and a boxing club.
Little Butterfly, a three-volume series, appeared in 2006 and turned out to be an engaging story with good psychological depth. Character is key to this one, and Takanaga does it up proud:
we really understand these boys (yes, it's another school-boy romance). The drawing is also up a notch or two, much cleaner and more polished. Takanaga takes a visual character type she has been using and moves it into a new realm: I call it her "brooding, dark-haired boy," and it's a type she handles superlatively well. The "brooding boy" in this series is Nakahara, who has reason to be somewhat somber: his home life is really crappy, his mother is pretty much nuts, and his father is more than unsympathetic -- he's uncaring and sometimes abusive. His friendship and romance with the bright, sunny Kojima causes a real turn-around, and Takanaga handles it clearly, although it's not very obvious.
I had actually avoided the first volume of Little Butterfly -- the title and the somewhat fluffy-romantic style of the cover art didn't attract me -- but then I read You Will Fall in Love, the first book that deals with the brothers Shudo and their amours. Volume one follows the somewhat rocky romance between the younger brother, Tsukasa, and Haru Mochizuki, once Tsukasa's older brother Reiichiro's best friend, and now a teacher at Tsukasa's school. It's a rather more serious story than Takanaga's previous efforts -- a romantic drama much more than romantic comedy -- and it's a level or two above what came before.
Takanaga returns to comedy in the first volume of You Will Drown in Love, which is Reiichiro's story. This volume is a pendant to You Will Fall. . ., sort of surrounding that story with the tale of Reiichiro's courtship by Jinnai, the assistant manager at the fabric store where Reiichiro, unqualified as he is, becomes manager. It is a very offbeat and quietly funny romance, completely character-driven, and a real tour-de-force for Takanaga.
Something seems to have happened with Takanaga's work in 2006, which is when these two series first began appearing in Japan. Not only are the stories meatier, but the drawing and layouts are superb. Takanaga uses not only drawing and framing, but dialogue balloons, narration boxes, shading and pattern to set up an amazingly coherent and beautiful visual flow. Some spreads in these volumes are stunning, extraordinarily sophisticated and beautifully rendered.
I've reviewed a number of these at Epinions -- you can find links in the sidebar. While the earlier works are capable but fairly average, Little Butterfly and the You Will Fall/Drown series are excellent. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does next.
Hinako Takanaga is one of my favorite mangaka doing boys' love manga, largely on the strength of a couple of more recent series. It's interesting to be able to put her work in some sort of developmental context -- I've now read two of her early comedies, The Tyrant Falls In Love and Love Round, her two major series, Little Butterfly and You Will Fall. . ., as well as a slightly more recent work, Devil's Secret.
Little Butterfly, a three-volume series, appeared in 2006 and turned out to be an engaging story with good psychological depth. Character is key to this one, and Takanaga does it up proud:
Something seems to have happened with Takanaga's work in 2006, which is when these two series first began appearing in Japan. Not only are the stories meatier, but the drawing and layouts are superb. Takanaga uses not only drawing and framing, but dialogue balloons, narration boxes, shading and pattern to set up an amazingly coherent and beautiful visual flow. Some spreads in these volumes are stunning, extraordinarily sophisticated and beautifully rendered.
I've reviewed a number of these at Epinions -- you can find links in the sidebar. While the earlier works are capable but fairly average, Little Butterfly and the You Will Fall/Drown series are excellent. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does next.
It's Not About You: Ideology, Identity Politics, and Suicide
I've been putting this one off for a while, partly because I've been trying to figure out an approach -- a hook, as it were -- to hang my own reactions on, and partly because my reactions boil down to "really pissed off." Unfortunately for me, every day brings a new article, a new post, a new comment, that just makes the whole thing broader. There's also the fact that, the more I read and think about the posts that sparked this whole essay, the more pissed off I get.
I want to start off by providing some context -- or actually, allowing Dan Savage to provide his own context, as well as a reality check for what comes later in this post:
Keep his comments in mind.
My own reaction started with this post by Jason Teng at Bilerico. In my own humble opinion, Teng takes a wrong turn right at the beginning:
What I question is this seeming meta-narrative that many in the gay mainstream are pushing: Get out of high school; flee your biggoted [sic] small town and move to an urban gay enclave; join the gay community as a card carrying member of the League of Fashionable Culture Generators; Enlightened, Accepting Queers versus Ignorant, Biggoted Straights; Urban versus Rural; Us versus Them.
Frankly, I've watched a number of the videos, and read a lot of the commentaries on our recent wave of teen suicides, and I haven't seen this. What I do see is an attitude that I reflected in my comments on the post: It's a valuable project because these kids need something to hold on to now. No one's promising the world with sprinkles on top. They're just saying "Hold on -- this is not forever."
I think what horrified me the most about Teng's post is the way commenters fell right in with the identity politics, without ever stopping to think what Savage's project is actually about.
I found this comment by Teng particularly instructive, in its conflation of "white=privilege."
Brian, thank you thank you thank you for your comment. Thank you for checking and owning your privilege. This is a perfect example of how white/cis/privileged folk can and should engage in these conversations in a meaningful way without being dismissive of people's experiences. way to be.
Think for a moment about the assumption here: white gay men are the "Other." Yeah, way to be, Jason.
My final comment on that post was:
Lets try a little empathy here -- not for us, but for these kids. Try looking at it from their viewpoint, and leave out the identity politics.
Which was the nicest way I could think of to say "It's not all about you."
I found a strange resonance between Teng's post and this one by Daniel W. K. Lee at MetroWeekly. Lee lost me right at the beginning:
Perhaps it was inevitable that the gay community's commitment to New Left principles would splinter as gays became more mainstream.
Excuse me? Frankly, I remember the '60s and early '70s, when the New Left didn't want to have anything to do with the nascent gay movement -- they were a bunch of freaking homophobes. When they did move in, it was to hijack us for their own agenda, converting what had been a fairly focused civil rights movement into an anti-everything movement, so that suddenly I'm supposed to be out working for the benefit of people who spit on me every chance they get.
I guess what got me was the inherent and thinly disguised racism in both these posts: the enemy is not homophobes of any color, but "rich, privileged white gays." (As an interesting sidebar to the second piece, has Mr. Lee considered that most of us aren't attracted to racial stereotypes, but rather to individual people? Another flaw in PC leftist thinking.)
Teng's criticism is, believe it or not, relatively mild, if somewhat childish. I happened on another via Evan Hurst at Truth Wins Out that really takes the cake. The commentary he's referring to, at Femmephane, is a case study in everything that's wrong with the gay left. Hurst does a good take-down, as does Matthew at Boy Culture.
Sady Doyle, another critic, managed to find a soapbox at The Atlantic, with more of the same. Note the reliance on the word "privilege":
"There is actually no path to change in this vision," alleges blogger Zoe Melisa, in a post from her personal blog which was re-published at Queerwatch. "Promoting the illusion that things just 'get better,' enables privileged folks to do nothing and just rely on the imaginary mechanics of the American Dream to fix the world."
Melisa's post presents a long list of criticisms, and you probably won't agree with every single one. But others have noted that privilege does play a large and unspoken role in many of the project's narratives; especially for GLBT folks who are also facing other forms of oppression, leaving their home towns and entering an accepting GLBT community may be much harder and more complicated than it looks.
One thing I noted about the "critical" posts: they all use the initial video, done by Dan Savage and his husband Terry. Well, yes, they're two white guys who've managed some success. (Be sure to hate them for it. I mean, one of them is even -- gasp! -- blond!) I've actually surveyed these videos, and watched a number of them, and you know what? They're coming from all sorts of people, white, black, brown, femme, butch, male, female, gays and allies. (Full disclosure: I'm male and, for the most part, white. This to some people automatically translates as "privileged." These are people who, I suspect, really don't have a clear idea of how the world works, or how many ways the haves can find to dismiss the have-nots. I've never been rich, although sometimes I've been financially secure, and I've never been fully accepted by those who should be my peers until just recently, partly because I've finally grown into myself, and partly because the world has grown up a little. My self-esteem has, for most of my life, been fairly fragile. I got over it.)
What's missing from most of these commentaries is empathy. That's also what's missing from a lot of the bullies, most glaringly in death of Tyler Clementi: Ravi and Wei never seem to have thought about Clementi at all, as other than an object for their amusement. This post by Toby Wollin at Firedoglake puts that aspect under a microscope:
According to experts, the current crop of students are least likely to agree with statements such as “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me,” or, “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective."
These sentiments are widely acknowledged as markers of empathy but sadly are found lacking in youngsters today….
Surprisingly enough, I find more empathy from Dr. Warren Throckmorton, an evangelical Christian who, apparently, is better able to think about these things clearly, and more humanely, than many in our community. As quoted in Box Turtle Bulletin:
As a traditional evangelical, I may have some differences of opinion with my gay friends. However, such ideological differences don’t matter to a middle school child who is afraid to go to school.
There are many such children who need adults to care more about their well being than about religious differences. Adults need to focus on common values of respect and civility and take the culture war off the school campus.
The point here, as I noted in my comments at Teng's post and as I've stressed above, is that Savage is trying to reach out to kids in crisis. When you're thinking of killing yourself, do you really need to hear from someone who's walking around with the kind of baggage that's only going to convince you to go ahead and do it?
There's another area of criticism toward this project -- call it "shame on you for jumping on the bandwagon." This seems to be directed mainly at high-profile allies -- celebrities -- who are trying to help. I guess if you're famous, you should just shut up and sit in the corner.
Let's start with this one from Bil Browning at Bilerico:
I really struggled with the title with this post. First I considered, "Celebrities jump on the bandwagon stuffed with our dead kids' bodies," or "Celebrities get warm fuzzy publicity on our bullied youths' backs." Those seemed a little harsh, but I still wonder how many of these videos come backed by a publicist shouting, "Get out there and prove you love dead gay kids!"
Does that seem just the least little bit cynical to you? (I'm happy to report that Browning got some flak in the comments to that post.) It's particularly egregious since a number of the videos he posted were done by celebities who are gay themselves -- Ellen DeGeneres, Lance Bass -- or long-time allies such as Cyndi Lauper.
What disturbs me the most about Browning's post and others I've seen along the same lines is the closeness of fit, so to speak, with some commentaries from outside the community -- from our enemies, in fact.
I don't know if I'd call the Daily Targum, Rutgers's student paper, an outright enemy, but take a look at this:
The death of University student Tyler Clementi might have been properly mourned if it were not for the massive rallies and aggressive news coverage that altered the nature of the situation. The truth is that an 18-year-old boy killed himself - he was a student just like the rest of us, someone just trying to receive an education. Yet people's relentless agendas took his death and turned it into a cause based on false pretenses.
Or how about this one from Matt Barber, via Joe.My.God.:
As Rahm Emanuel famously said: 'You never let a serious crisis go to waste. It's an opportunity to do things you could not do before.' It makes me physically ill to watch as the HRC and other ‘gay' militants lick their chops and rub their hands together over the tragic suicides of these troubled, sexually confused young men. Before they were even laid to rest, the radical homosexual lobby pounced leveraging these suicides to demand that government codify each of their extremist, social engineering demands. This is political exploitation at its slimiest and it pours salt on the wounds of loved ones.
Sadly, there's too much resonance there to make me comfortable.
Savage, no shrinking violet, has come back at his critics:
I admit that IGBP doesn't do the impossible. It doesn't solve the problem of anti-gay bullying, everywhere, all at once, forever. The point of the videos is to give despairing kids in impossible situations a little thing called hope. The point is to let them know that things do get better. For some people things get better once they get out of high school, for others things get better while they're still in high school. And some kids, like the kid above, are helping to make things better for other kids who are in still high school. But things do get better and kids who are thinking about suicide need to hear that.
And to those who insist that all the videos are just oldies speaking from a place of adult privilege: have you watched the videos? There are tons from teenagers, many still in high school, many who are already out of the closet. And there are tons of videos from people who came out while they were still in middle or high school talking about their experiences good and bad and unimaginable.
Be sure to read the comments on this post.
And in case you haven't checked it out yourself, here's the It Gets Better Project at YouTube. (I've heard that the submissions have reached the 650 video limit. Perhaps Savage will start a Part 2.)
Perhaps the best summation comes from Joe Jervis, commenting on Femmephane's atrocious screed:
And the far left continues to eat its progressive own in the cause of some mythical gaytopia.
And for myself, just remember one thing: it's not about you, it's about the kids.
I want to start off by providing some context -- or actually, allowing Dan Savage to provide his own context, as well as a reality check for what comes later in this post:
Keep his comments in mind.
My own reaction started with this post by Jason Teng at Bilerico. In my own humble opinion, Teng takes a wrong turn right at the beginning:
What I question is this seeming meta-narrative that many in the gay mainstream are pushing: Get out of high school; flee your biggoted [sic] small town and move to an urban gay enclave; join the gay community as a card carrying member of the League of Fashionable Culture Generators; Enlightened, Accepting Queers versus Ignorant, Biggoted Straights; Urban versus Rural; Us versus Them.
Frankly, I've watched a number of the videos, and read a lot of the commentaries on our recent wave of teen suicides, and I haven't seen this. What I do see is an attitude that I reflected in my comments on the post: It's a valuable project because these kids need something to hold on to now. No one's promising the world with sprinkles on top. They're just saying "Hold on -- this is not forever."
I think what horrified me the most about Teng's post is the way commenters fell right in with the identity politics, without ever stopping to think what Savage's project is actually about.
I found this comment by Teng particularly instructive, in its conflation of "white=privilege."
Brian, thank you thank you thank you for your comment. Thank you for checking and owning your privilege. This is a perfect example of how white/cis/privileged folk can and should engage in these conversations in a meaningful way without being dismissive of people's experiences. way to be.
Think for a moment about the assumption here: white gay men are the "Other." Yeah, way to be, Jason.
My final comment on that post was:
Lets try a little empathy here -- not for us, but for these kids. Try looking at it from their viewpoint, and leave out the identity politics.
Which was the nicest way I could think of to say "It's not all about you."
I found a strange resonance between Teng's post and this one by Daniel W. K. Lee at MetroWeekly. Lee lost me right at the beginning:
Perhaps it was inevitable that the gay community's commitment to New Left principles would splinter as gays became more mainstream.
Excuse me? Frankly, I remember the '60s and early '70s, when the New Left didn't want to have anything to do with the nascent gay movement -- they were a bunch of freaking homophobes. When they did move in, it was to hijack us for their own agenda, converting what had been a fairly focused civil rights movement into an anti-everything movement, so that suddenly I'm supposed to be out working for the benefit of people who spit on me every chance they get.
I guess what got me was the inherent and thinly disguised racism in both these posts: the enemy is not homophobes of any color, but "rich, privileged white gays." (As an interesting sidebar to the second piece, has Mr. Lee considered that most of us aren't attracted to racial stereotypes, but rather to individual people? Another flaw in PC leftist thinking.)
Teng's criticism is, believe it or not, relatively mild, if somewhat childish. I happened on another via Evan Hurst at Truth Wins Out that really takes the cake. The commentary he's referring to, at Femmephane, is a case study in everything that's wrong with the gay left. Hurst does a good take-down, as does Matthew at Boy Culture.
Sady Doyle, another critic, managed to find a soapbox at The Atlantic, with more of the same. Note the reliance on the word "privilege":
"There is actually no path to change in this vision," alleges blogger Zoe Melisa, in a post from her personal blog which was re-published at Queerwatch. "Promoting the illusion that things just 'get better,' enables privileged folks to do nothing and just rely on the imaginary mechanics of the American Dream to fix the world."
Melisa's post presents a long list of criticisms, and you probably won't agree with every single one. But others have noted that privilege does play a large and unspoken role in many of the project's narratives; especially for GLBT folks who are also facing other forms of oppression, leaving their home towns and entering an accepting GLBT community may be much harder and more complicated than it looks.
One thing I noted about the "critical" posts: they all use the initial video, done by Dan Savage and his husband Terry. Well, yes, they're two white guys who've managed some success. (Be sure to hate them for it. I mean, one of them is even -- gasp! -- blond!) I've actually surveyed these videos, and watched a number of them, and you know what? They're coming from all sorts of people, white, black, brown, femme, butch, male, female, gays and allies. (Full disclosure: I'm male and, for the most part, white. This to some people automatically translates as "privileged." These are people who, I suspect, really don't have a clear idea of how the world works, or how many ways the haves can find to dismiss the have-nots. I've never been rich, although sometimes I've been financially secure, and I've never been fully accepted by those who should be my peers until just recently, partly because I've finally grown into myself, and partly because the world has grown up a little. My self-esteem has, for most of my life, been fairly fragile. I got over it.)
What's missing from most of these commentaries is empathy. That's also what's missing from a lot of the bullies, most glaringly in death of Tyler Clementi: Ravi and Wei never seem to have thought about Clementi at all, as other than an object for their amusement. This post by Toby Wollin at Firedoglake puts that aspect under a microscope:
According to experts, the current crop of students are least likely to agree with statements such as “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me,” or, “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective."
These sentiments are widely acknowledged as markers of empathy but sadly are found lacking in youngsters today….
Surprisingly enough, I find more empathy from Dr. Warren Throckmorton, an evangelical Christian who, apparently, is better able to think about these things clearly, and more humanely, than many in our community. As quoted in Box Turtle Bulletin:
As a traditional evangelical, I may have some differences of opinion with my gay friends. However, such ideological differences don’t matter to a middle school child who is afraid to go to school.
There are many such children who need adults to care more about their well being than about religious differences. Adults need to focus on common values of respect and civility and take the culture war off the school campus.
The point here, as I noted in my comments at Teng's post and as I've stressed above, is that Savage is trying to reach out to kids in crisis. When you're thinking of killing yourself, do you really need to hear from someone who's walking around with the kind of baggage that's only going to convince you to go ahead and do it?
There's another area of criticism toward this project -- call it "shame on you for jumping on the bandwagon." This seems to be directed mainly at high-profile allies -- celebrities -- who are trying to help. I guess if you're famous, you should just shut up and sit in the corner.
Let's start with this one from Bil Browning at Bilerico:
I really struggled with the title with this post. First I considered, "Celebrities jump on the bandwagon stuffed with our dead kids' bodies," or "Celebrities get warm fuzzy publicity on our bullied youths' backs." Those seemed a little harsh, but I still wonder how many of these videos come backed by a publicist shouting, "Get out there and prove you love dead gay kids!"
Does that seem just the least little bit cynical to you? (I'm happy to report that Browning got some flak in the comments to that post.) It's particularly egregious since a number of the videos he posted were done by celebities who are gay themselves -- Ellen DeGeneres, Lance Bass -- or long-time allies such as Cyndi Lauper.
What disturbs me the most about Browning's post and others I've seen along the same lines is the closeness of fit, so to speak, with some commentaries from outside the community -- from our enemies, in fact.
I don't know if I'd call the Daily Targum, Rutgers's student paper, an outright enemy, but take a look at this:
The death of University student Tyler Clementi might have been properly mourned if it were not for the massive rallies and aggressive news coverage that altered the nature of the situation. The truth is that an 18-year-old boy killed himself - he was a student just like the rest of us, someone just trying to receive an education. Yet people's relentless agendas took his death and turned it into a cause based on false pretenses.
Or how about this one from Matt Barber, via Joe.My.God.:
As Rahm Emanuel famously said: 'You never let a serious crisis go to waste. It's an opportunity to do things you could not do before.' It makes me physically ill to watch as the HRC and other ‘gay' militants lick their chops and rub their hands together over the tragic suicides of these troubled, sexually confused young men. Before they were even laid to rest, the radical homosexual lobby pounced leveraging these suicides to demand that government codify each of their extremist, social engineering demands. This is political exploitation at its slimiest and it pours salt on the wounds of loved ones.
Sadly, there's too much resonance there to make me comfortable.
Savage, no shrinking violet, has come back at his critics:
I admit that IGBP doesn't do the impossible. It doesn't solve the problem of anti-gay bullying, everywhere, all at once, forever. The point of the videos is to give despairing kids in impossible situations a little thing called hope. The point is to let them know that things do get better. For some people things get better once they get out of high school, for others things get better while they're still in high school. And some kids, like the kid above, are helping to make things better for other kids who are in still high school. But things do get better and kids who are thinking about suicide need to hear that.
And to those who insist that all the videos are just oldies speaking from a place of adult privilege: have you watched the videos? There are tons from teenagers, many still in high school, many who are already out of the closet. And there are tons of videos from people who came out while they were still in middle or high school talking about their experiences good and bad and unimaginable.
Be sure to read the comments on this post.
And in case you haven't checked it out yourself, here's the It Gets Better Project at YouTube. (I've heard that the submissions have reached the 650 video limit. Perhaps Savage will start a Part 2.)
Perhaps the best summation comes from Joe Jervis, commenting on Femmephane's atrocious screed:
And the far left continues to eat its progressive own in the cause of some mythical gaytopia.
And for myself, just remember one thing: it's not about you, it's about the kids.
Saturday, October 09, 2010
NOM's Secret War
They're still fighting. An excellent post by Jon Davidson at LGBT POV on NOM's effort to keep its petition signers secret.
I can't add to it, except to note that no one ever promised that exercise of First Amendment rights was without consequences. That's the way the "free marketplace of ideas" works -- you express your opinions and you get shot down if people object to them. It's that simple.
I can't add to it, except to note that no one ever promised that exercise of First Amendment rights was without consequences. That's the way the "free marketplace of ideas" works -- you express your opinions and you get shot down if people object to them. It's that simple.
Friday, October 08, 2010
Stop Gap
I'm working on a couple of things right now that seem to have turned lengthy and major. One is on bullying. The other is a new entry for Reviews in Brief, and I'm happy to announce that that department will be reinstated. Lots of stuff in the bin right now.
So stay tuned.
So stay tuned.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
The Pentagon Enters the 1970s
Finally. From NYT:
Even as Congress has struggled unsuccessfully to pass an energy bill and many states have put renewable energy on hold because of the recession, the military this year has pushed rapidly forward. After a decade of waging wars in remote corners of the globe where fuel is not readily available, senior commanders have come to see overdependence on fossil fuel as a big liability, and renewable technologies — which have become more reliable and less expensive over the past few years — as providing a potential answer. These new types of renewable energy now account for only a small percentage of the power used by the armed forces, but military leaders plan to rapidly expand their use over the next decade.
It's nice that someone in Washington gets it -- although if you read the article, you realize it was a field commander, not someone in Washington, who first called attention to the situation.
Do you suppose they polled the troops and their families to see how they felt about it?
Even as Congress has struggled unsuccessfully to pass an energy bill and many states have put renewable energy on hold because of the recession, the military this year has pushed rapidly forward. After a decade of waging wars in remote corners of the globe where fuel is not readily available, senior commanders have come to see overdependence on fossil fuel as a big liability, and renewable technologies — which have become more reliable and less expensive over the past few years — as providing a potential answer. These new types of renewable energy now account for only a small percentage of the power used by the armed forces, but military leaders plan to rapidly expand their use over the next decade.
It's nice that someone in Washington gets it -- although if you read the article, you realize it was a field commander, not someone in Washington, who first called attention to the situation.
Do you suppose they polled the troops and their families to see how they felt about it?
Monday, October 04, 2010
For Our Kids
This is from the Glowstick Vigil last night in Washington Square in New York, led by Cheyenne Jackson.
From Joe.My.God. Here's Joe's follow-up post.
From Joe.My.God. Here's Joe's follow-up post.
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Bullying, Suicide, and Murder -- Update, Update II, Update III
As is so often the case, this post started out as a response to a post by Andrew Sullivan. He's worried about an anti-gay backlash, which is not unreasonable -- history is a series of reactions.
I do not believe we will ever live in a world without homophobia, nor do I believe it will ever be as easy to be a gay kid as a straight kid, even in the most liberal of societies and cultures, if only because the desire to be like everyone else, to belong, is strong in everyone, but especially among the young. And few adults are as cruel as children. One of the core anti-liberal arguments in Virtually Normal is that politics can and should establish certain basic formal rights, that laws can and do have an effect on social attitudes, but in the end,
He comes close in this passage. I don't agree that politics is a necessary evil. For those at all familiar with studies of our closest relatives, it seems that politics is a basic social mechanism, that, as the band gets larger and turns into a country becomes an institutionalized mechanism that, at its best, works to keep the society functioning. What Sullivan's really talking about here is the legal structures that are the end result of politics, and in one regard he's perfectly correct: the law can't make things perfect. But it provides in clear form the boundaries of what is acceptable. We have laws against discrimination on the basis of race, and there are still racists -- they're just very quiet about it because it is now socially unacceptable to express it openly (or was until January, 2009). Being non-Christian, I can, unlike Sullivan, believe that people are basically good. They just need to be taught the limits. It's called "growing up."
In the case of gay kids and bullying, which is, after all, what this post is about, I find a concept from my last post on banned books relevant: one of the ideas that those on the so-called "Christian," anti-gay right try to ban is that same-sex attraction is perfectly normal. That strand started with this post on the attempt to scrub the book Revolutionary Voices, created by gay teens for gay teens, from the Burlington Country, NJ, library system. That's just one of too many examples of how the anti-gay right tries to brush us under the carpet. Take Sullivan's reference to the pope:
I think of this Pope's phrase "intrinsically disordered" toward "an objective moral evil" to describe his fellow humans, something one simply cannot imagine Jesus of Nazareth ever saying of anyone.
That's official Church doctrine, at the root of the hierarchy's blatant attempts to influence voters against equal rights for gays which again are too numerous to mention. It's reflected in episodes such as the video of Candy Cushman of Focus on the Family I posted here, in which Cushman maintains that specific causes of bullying need not be addressed, under the camouflage that "all children need to be protected." Yes, they do, but if you don't address specific motivations, you might as well just not say anything. (Update II: On this point, see also this post by Michael Hamar at Bilerico on the privileged place of (certain forms of) religion and how religious bigotry contributes to the whole problem.)
And when we have a rash of suicides such as have been reported recently, the first response of the right is to blame the kids. The one that seems to be getting the most attention is Tyler Clementi, and eighteen-year-old student at Rutgers whose roommate live-streamed him having sex with another man.
Joe Jervis quoted Theodore Beale, also known as "Vox Day" (nudge, nudge -- get it? A little bit of an ego problem there?) from this disgusting little screed:
The body count of the gay rights movement grows by one. Despite literal decades of preaching about the morality of homosexuality, despite the pansexual propaganda of the public and private schools, the knowledge that what he was doing was shameful and wrong still managed to penetrate Mr. [Tyler] Clementi's mind. A normal man being forced to confront his immorality in such a public way might have reacted with anger, irritation, embarrassment, or amusement, but only one who is both psychologically disturbed and appalled by his own actions will destroy himself over it. [Snip]
"So it was not a juvenile prank that killed the unfortunate Mr. Clementi even though it served as the proximate trigger for his lethal actions. If anyone other than Mr. Clementi should be blamed for his suicide, it is those who repeatedly encouraged him to behave in a way that would fill him with such guilt, remorse, and shame.
See, it's all the fault of gay people demanding to be treated as human beings. (Sorry, but Beale ranks in my book as human garbage, no ifs, ands or buts.)
And FoF jumps into the fray by blaming GSLEN.
Truth Wins Out I think hits the nail on the head:
Through their annual “Day of Truth” campaign and TrueTolerance.org web site, Focus on the Family and the “ex-gay” group Exodus International actively and continuously obstruct anti-bullying programs in schools across the country. Instead of opposing violence, both organizations remain dedicated to pretending the problem of anti-gay bullying does not exist, or downplaying the deadly results.
Some on the right are backing off -- or dodging, I guess, would be more accurate. As Jeremy Hooper reports, Maggie Gallagher has expressed her grief over Clementi's suicide, while trying to cover her ass as a major anti-gay player. I don't doubt that her sympathy is sincere, just as I don't doubt that she's suffering a major disconnect between her anti-gay campaign and its consequences. As Hooper notes:
But here's the thing: It doesn't matter what Maggie personally thinks about what will or will not resolve tragedies like the ones we've seen this week. It doesn't matter how heartfelt her personal condolences may be. What matters is the body of her professional work with NOM and elsewhere, and the fallout that we gay folk all-too-well know can stem from these "culture war" activities! Because it is this bias cultivation that changes the molecules in the air. It's this anti-civil rights work that puts heterosexism into everyone's psyches. It's this fear-fostering that foments a world where LGBT people are viewed as different, wrong, or in some extreme cases -- unworthy of life.
(Interestingly enough, Tony Perkins has been strangely silent on this issue -- he hasn't even attacked the victims. He must be in the hospital.)
Evan Hurst at Truth Wins Out notes that this issue does cross partisan lines. This quote from Dan Blatt pins it down:
The students who posted the video did not mean to push this young man to take his own life. They probably didn’t even consider the consequences. They were entirely indifferent to his feelings.
"Entirely indifferent" -- because it's OK to be indifferent to gay people's feelings. (Like Hurst, I've had my differences with Blatt, but this is something we can agree on.)
And Jim Burroway brings it full circle, in this post:
But of course, we know the problem exists precisely because the specific problem isn’t being addressed in schools. The problem exists because school administrators turn a blind eye to gay kids being bullied. It exists because very public people give a green light to bullying. And it exists because people create an atmosphere — administrators, teachers, parents, preachers, and ex-gay program vice-presidents — only speak of gay people as problems to be dealt with, struggles to be cured, “choices” to be condemned, and any notion of positive futures to be denied.
I think it is time to turn the question to a declarative: Opposition to anti-bullying programs and suicide prevention equals murder.
And finally, some pushback. First, Ellen DeGeneres:
Some resources:
Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project -- videos from survivors.
The Trevor Project has a hot line and live chat.
GLSEN Resource Page -- provides access to local chapters.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Hotline, English and Spanish.
If you know of other resources, local or national, please leave links or phone numbers in the comments. I'm going to try to set up a page in the sidebar for this, so by all means, contribute.
Update: just ran across this at LiveJournal, where I've reposted it to my own page
Originally posted by![[info]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_u0UMbcl6cCEbTyMtEnRNVCuw5uek4QG9-ufhFFjdWYSqB3OM-eQ3rlfm2Nh4BWsEz6gElMitnrgpROy4q0GDjOnkD-vZbgcw9VWu3i7yQ03A=s0-d)
neo_prodigy at Spirit Day 
It’s been decided. On October 20th, 2010, we will wear purple in honor of the 6 gay boys who committed suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse in their homes at at their schools. Purple represents Spirit on the LGBTQ flag and that’s exactly what we’d like all of you to have with you: spirit. Please know that times will get better and that you will meet people who will love you and respect you for who you are, no matter your sexuality. Please wear purple on October 20th. Tell your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors and schools.
RIP Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh (top)
RIP Justin Aaberg, Raymond Chase (middle)
RIP Asher Brown and Billy Lucas. (bottom)
REBLOG to spread a message of love, unity and peace.
Update III: From Towleroad, a round-up of coverage and commentary.
I do not believe we will ever live in a world without homophobia, nor do I believe it will ever be as easy to be a gay kid as a straight kid, even in the most liberal of societies and cultures, if only because the desire to be like everyone else, to belong, is strong in everyone, but especially among the young. And few adults are as cruel as children. One of the core anti-liberal arguments in Virtually Normal is that politics can and should establish certain basic formal rights, that laws can and do have an effect on social attitudes, but in the end,
politics cannot do the work of life. Even culture cannot do the work of life. Only life can do the work of life.Politics solves none of the deepest issues of the human condition, which is why I continue to see myself as a classical conservative (with intermittent bursts, in the tradition of Burke, of moral passion about manifest injustice). Politics, in my view, is a necessary evil. As gay people in this time and place, we have to deal with it because we are denied basic rights most others take for granted, and have always taken for granted (like the right to marry).
He comes close in this passage. I don't agree that politics is a necessary evil. For those at all familiar with studies of our closest relatives, it seems that politics is a basic social mechanism, that, as the band gets larger and turns into a country becomes an institutionalized mechanism that, at its best, works to keep the society functioning. What Sullivan's really talking about here is the legal structures that are the end result of politics, and in one regard he's perfectly correct: the law can't make things perfect. But it provides in clear form the boundaries of what is acceptable. We have laws against discrimination on the basis of race, and there are still racists -- they're just very quiet about it because it is now socially unacceptable to express it openly (or was until January, 2009). Being non-Christian, I can, unlike Sullivan, believe that people are basically good. They just need to be taught the limits. It's called "growing up."
In the case of gay kids and bullying, which is, after all, what this post is about, I find a concept from my last post on banned books relevant: one of the ideas that those on the so-called "Christian," anti-gay right try to ban is that same-sex attraction is perfectly normal. That strand started with this post on the attempt to scrub the book Revolutionary Voices, created by gay teens for gay teens, from the Burlington Country, NJ, library system. That's just one of too many examples of how the anti-gay right tries to brush us under the carpet. Take Sullivan's reference to the pope:
I think of this Pope's phrase "intrinsically disordered" toward "an objective moral evil" to describe his fellow humans, something one simply cannot imagine Jesus of Nazareth ever saying of anyone.
That's official Church doctrine, at the root of the hierarchy's blatant attempts to influence voters against equal rights for gays which again are too numerous to mention. It's reflected in episodes such as the video of Candy Cushman of Focus on the Family I posted here, in which Cushman maintains that specific causes of bullying need not be addressed, under the camouflage that "all children need to be protected." Yes, they do, but if you don't address specific motivations, you might as well just not say anything. (Update II: On this point, see also this post by Michael Hamar at Bilerico on the privileged place of (certain forms of) religion and how religious bigotry contributes to the whole problem.)
And when we have a rash of suicides such as have been reported recently, the first response of the right is to blame the kids. The one that seems to be getting the most attention is Tyler Clementi, and eighteen-year-old student at Rutgers whose roommate live-streamed him having sex with another man.
Joe Jervis quoted Theodore Beale, also known as "Vox Day" (nudge, nudge -- get it? A little bit of an ego problem there?) from this disgusting little screed:
The body count of the gay rights movement grows by one. Despite literal decades of preaching about the morality of homosexuality, despite the pansexual propaganda of the public and private schools, the knowledge that what he was doing was shameful and wrong still managed to penetrate Mr. [Tyler] Clementi's mind. A normal man being forced to confront his immorality in such a public way might have reacted with anger, irritation, embarrassment, or amusement, but only one who is both psychologically disturbed and appalled by his own actions will destroy himself over it. [Snip]
"So it was not a juvenile prank that killed the unfortunate Mr. Clementi even though it served as the proximate trigger for his lethal actions. If anyone other than Mr. Clementi should be blamed for his suicide, it is those who repeatedly encouraged him to behave in a way that would fill him with such guilt, remorse, and shame.
See, it's all the fault of gay people demanding to be treated as human beings. (Sorry, but Beale ranks in my book as human garbage, no ifs, ands or buts.)
And FoF jumps into the fray by blaming GSLEN.
Truth Wins Out I think hits the nail on the head:
Through their annual “Day of Truth” campaign and TrueTolerance.org web site, Focus on the Family and the “ex-gay” group Exodus International actively and continuously obstruct anti-bullying programs in schools across the country. Instead of opposing violence, both organizations remain dedicated to pretending the problem of anti-gay bullying does not exist, or downplaying the deadly results.
“The goal of Exodus International and Focus on the Family is to purge LGBT people from society, although they disingenuously frame the issue as eliminating homosexuality, which is not possible,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “When you target homosexuality, the result is persecution and punishment of LGBT people, and in many cases it leads to gay bashing or suicides. The anti-gay industry should dismantle these despicable programs and work towards creating solutions instead of suicides.”
Some on the right are backing off -- or dodging, I guess, would be more accurate. As Jeremy Hooper reports, Maggie Gallagher has expressed her grief over Clementi's suicide, while trying to cover her ass as a major anti-gay player. I don't doubt that her sympathy is sincere, just as I don't doubt that she's suffering a major disconnect between her anti-gay campaign and its consequences. As Hooper notes:
But here's the thing: It doesn't matter what Maggie personally thinks about what will or will not resolve tragedies like the ones we've seen this week. It doesn't matter how heartfelt her personal condolences may be. What matters is the body of her professional work with NOM and elsewhere, and the fallout that we gay folk all-too-well know can stem from these "culture war" activities! Because it is this bias cultivation that changes the molecules in the air. It's this anti-civil rights work that puts heterosexism into everyone's psyches. It's this fear-fostering that foments a world where LGBT people are viewed as different, wrong, or in some extreme cases -- unworthy of life.
(Interestingly enough, Tony Perkins has been strangely silent on this issue -- he hasn't even attacked the victims. He must be in the hospital.)
Evan Hurst at Truth Wins Out notes that this issue does cross partisan lines. This quote from Dan Blatt pins it down:
The students who posted the video did not mean to push this young man to take his own life. They probably didn’t even consider the consequences. They were entirely indifferent to his feelings.
"Entirely indifferent" -- because it's OK to be indifferent to gay people's feelings. (Like Hurst, I've had my differences with Blatt, but this is something we can agree on.)
And Jim Burroway brings it full circle, in this post:
But of course, we know the problem exists precisely because the specific problem isn’t being addressed in schools. The problem exists because school administrators turn a blind eye to gay kids being bullied. It exists because very public people give a green light to bullying. And it exists because people create an atmosphere — administrators, teachers, parents, preachers, and ex-gay program vice-presidents — only speak of gay people as problems to be dealt with, struggles to be cured, “choices” to be condemned, and any notion of positive futures to be denied.
I think it is time to turn the question to a declarative: Opposition to anti-bullying programs and suicide prevention equals murder.
And finally, some pushback. First, Ellen DeGeneres:
Some resources:
Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project -- videos from survivors.
The Trevor Project has a hot line and live chat.
GLSEN Resource Page -- provides access to local chapters.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Hotline, English and Spanish.
If you know of other resources, local or national, please leave links or phone numbers in the comments. I'm going to try to set up a page in the sidebar for this, so by all means, contribute.
Update: just ran across this at LiveJournal, where I've reposted it to my own page
Originally posted by
neo_prodigy at Spirit Day It’s been decided. On October 20th, 2010, we will wear purple in honor of the 6 gay boys who committed suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse in their homes at at their schools. Purple represents Spirit on the LGBTQ flag and that’s exactly what we’d like all of you to have with you: spirit. Please know that times will get better and that you will meet people who will love you and respect you for who you are, no matter your sexuality. Please wear purple on October 20th. Tell your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors and schools.
RIP Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh (top)
RIP Justin Aaberg, Raymond Chase (middle)
RIP Asher Brown and Billy Lucas. (bottom)
REBLOG to spread a message of love, unity and peace.
Update III: From Towleroad, a round-up of coverage and commentary.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
It's Banned Books Week
And I, of all people, should have something to say.
Let me start off by pointing you to this piece by Steven D at Daily Kos.
Usually when I think about freedom, perhaps the one I cherish the most is the opportunity to read what I want regardless of whether someone else approves or disapproves of my choices. The public library was as much a sacred place for me growing up as church. Yet for a "free country" the United States has a well known history of banning or restricting access to books, even in recent times. . . .
It seems everyday someone makes a complaint about why certain books should not be available because they find something about it that doesn't agree with their most cherished beliefs or prejudices. But isn't the entire point of freedom that we get to make those decisions for ourselves? That we don't turn away from books with ideas that we don't hold, but engage them and their ideas and make up our own minds?
This leads more or less automatically to a series of posts from last month about censorship, libraries, and the role of partisan interests, here, here, and here. That led to quite a debate with someone calling him/herself "SafeLibraries" who apparently wants libraries to be safe for everything except books. What is most interesting about S/L's comments is not their content, which was minimal, but the style of argument, which seems composed of equal parts of deflection and the sense that any resistance to the proponent's agenda is necessarily ideological, when, in fact, it's the proponent (in this case, "SafeLibraries") who is operating from ideology. (The giveaway in these exchanges is S/L's insistence that objections to "ex-gay" literature, or other things advocated by "conservative Christians" are passed over because of ideology, although I pointed out a couple of times that the "ex-gay" movement is founded on pseudo-science and quackery and has been demonstrated repeatedly to be harmful.)
Banning books is simply banning ideas, as Steven D points out. To me, that's a direct attack on the First Amendment, which I consider the cornerstone of everything that comes after (the lock-and-load contingent notwithstanding).
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Think about the sense of that sentence: it's all about access to ideas and the liberty to express them freely, which is exactly what the Gail Sweets and SafeLibraries of the world are trying to take away from us, under the guise of "preserving community values," the community being those they can stampede into agreeing with them by application of that old scare mantra, "Save the Children!"
(A note: Yes, I'm fully aware that children need to be guided and that they can't be thrown headfirst into a bunch of ideas that they're not yet equipped to deal with. There is an answer: it's called "teaching" and it makes use of books, many of which the Guardians of Morality (TM) would like to see banned.)
I'm not confining my condemnation to the right, by any means. I remember not so long ago that there was a movement to "clean up" The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of the great classics of American literature, because of its portrayal of race, including prominent use of the "n" word. The same mechanism is at work: blinkered vision, intolerance of other viewpoints, and an amazing inability to see other possible approaches. (And for those who might be inclined to quibble that Huck Finn was only being brought into line with modern sensibilities, or some such bullshit, a one-word response: No. Censorship is censorship, whether it be banning or "editing.")
My immediate response to someone who objects to a book is simply "Don't read it." Unfortunately, it's a somewhat more pernicious phenomenon than that: ignorance and lack of critical thinking skills are how we wind up with phenomena such as the teabaggers, who are so easily manipulated by the likes of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Newt Gingrich. And don't expect any politicians to buck the trend, at least not on the national level: their corporate pals don't want a populace able to think for itself.
I think the next censorship battle is not going to be over books. It's already taking shape in net neutrality, and it's going to be interesting to see which politicians will be falling over themselves to sell us out. I figure it will be the so-called "moderates" on both sides of the aisle lining up behind the corporate tools on the right.
We're going to have to come up with a way to implement a "Banned Websites Week."
In the meantime, read something that's been banned. And share it with your kids.
Let me start off by pointing you to this piece by Steven D at Daily Kos.
Usually when I think about freedom, perhaps the one I cherish the most is the opportunity to read what I want regardless of whether someone else approves or disapproves of my choices. The public library was as much a sacred place for me growing up as church. Yet for a "free country" the United States has a well known history of banning or restricting access to books, even in recent times. . . .
It seems everyday someone makes a complaint about why certain books should not be available because they find something about it that doesn't agree with their most cherished beliefs or prejudices. But isn't the entire point of freedom that we get to make those decisions for ourselves? That we don't turn away from books with ideas that we don't hold, but engage them and their ideas and make up our own minds?
This leads more or less automatically to a series of posts from last month about censorship, libraries, and the role of partisan interests, here, here, and here. That led to quite a debate with someone calling him/herself "SafeLibraries" who apparently wants libraries to be safe for everything except books. What is most interesting about S/L's comments is not their content, which was minimal, but the style of argument, which seems composed of equal parts of deflection and the sense that any resistance to the proponent's agenda is necessarily ideological, when, in fact, it's the proponent (in this case, "SafeLibraries") who is operating from ideology. (The giveaway in these exchanges is S/L's insistence that objections to "ex-gay" literature, or other things advocated by "conservative Christians" are passed over because of ideology, although I pointed out a couple of times that the "ex-gay" movement is founded on pseudo-science and quackery and has been demonstrated repeatedly to be harmful.)
Banning books is simply banning ideas, as Steven D points out. To me, that's a direct attack on the First Amendment, which I consider the cornerstone of everything that comes after (the lock-and-load contingent notwithstanding).
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Think about the sense of that sentence: it's all about access to ideas and the liberty to express them freely, which is exactly what the Gail Sweets and SafeLibraries of the world are trying to take away from us, under the guise of "preserving community values," the community being those they can stampede into agreeing with them by application of that old scare mantra, "Save the Children!"
(A note: Yes, I'm fully aware that children need to be guided and that they can't be thrown headfirst into a bunch of ideas that they're not yet equipped to deal with. There is an answer: it's called "teaching" and it makes use of books, many of which the Guardians of Morality (TM) would like to see banned.)
I'm not confining my condemnation to the right, by any means. I remember not so long ago that there was a movement to "clean up" The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of the great classics of American literature, because of its portrayal of race, including prominent use of the "n" word. The same mechanism is at work: blinkered vision, intolerance of other viewpoints, and an amazing inability to see other possible approaches. (And for those who might be inclined to quibble that Huck Finn was only being brought into line with modern sensibilities, or some such bullshit, a one-word response: No. Censorship is censorship, whether it be banning or "editing.")
My immediate response to someone who objects to a book is simply "Don't read it." Unfortunately, it's a somewhat more pernicious phenomenon than that: ignorance and lack of critical thinking skills are how we wind up with phenomena such as the teabaggers, who are so easily manipulated by the likes of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Newt Gingrich. And don't expect any politicians to buck the trend, at least not on the national level: their corporate pals don't want a populace able to think for itself.
I think the next censorship battle is not going to be over books. It's already taking shape in net neutrality, and it's going to be interesting to see which politicians will be falling over themselves to sell us out. I figure it will be the so-called "moderates" on both sides of the aisle lining up behind the corporate tools on the right.
We're going to have to come up with a way to implement a "Banned Websites Week."
In the meantime, read something that's been banned. And share it with your kids.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Stick It To 'Em
Stuff like this makes me very happy. It's the sort of thing I'd like to shove down the throats of those stuffed shirts on Capitol Hill. Do you suppose they get it?
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Truthiness to Power | ||||
| ||||
Monday, September 27, 2010
"Hero of Truth?" Puh-leeze!
Ran across an interesting video at Crooks & Liars about the controversy over the "Ground Zero mosque," which is not at ground zero and is not a mosque.
Pay attention to Pam Geller, the lunatic who bears the most responsibility for the mess.
(I can't embed the video -- for some reason, Blogger won't accept the embed code and I can't figure out how to fix it. Follow the link above to see the clip.)
I can't do better than Nicole Bell's comment about Geller: "You should shut up simply because you wouldn't know the truth if it sat shiva for your integrity in your apartment."
What struck me is the expression on Geller's face: I've seen it on middle-class Jewish girls, WASPs from Long Island, Polish girls from Chicago's southwest side. I think it must be something the pick up in Princess school: they're being bitches, they know they're being bitches, and they know they're going to get away with it because they're Princesses.
Overall, I think this must be the most intelligent and fair bit of coverage I've seen in any medium of this whole thing. It's worth the twelve minutes.
Pay attention to Pam Geller, the lunatic who bears the most responsibility for the mess.
(I can't embed the video -- for some reason, Blogger won't accept the embed code and I can't figure out how to fix it. Follow the link above to see the clip.)
I can't do better than Nicole Bell's comment about Geller: "You should shut up simply because you wouldn't know the truth if it sat shiva for your integrity in your apartment."
What struck me is the expression on Geller's face: I've seen it on middle-class Jewish girls, WASPs from Long Island, Polish girls from Chicago's southwest side. I think it must be something the pick up in Princess school: they're being bitches, they know they're being bitches, and they know they're going to get away with it because they're Princesses.
Overall, I think this must be the most intelligent and fair bit of coverage I've seen in any medium of this whole thing. It's worth the twelve minutes.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Recovery
is sometimes worse than being sick. It's more annoying, at any rate.
I'm still dealing with residual congestion and the consequent lack of energy and focus. Bear with me.
I mean, it's not like the news is any different. The Republicans are still against everything and the Democrats still haven't grown spines. What's to say?
I'm still dealing with residual congestion and the consequent lack of energy and focus. Bear with me.
I mean, it's not like the news is any different. The Republicans are still against everything and the Democrats still haven't grown spines. What's to say?
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Bullying: It Gets Better
I've been meaning to link to this for a couple of days, but the cold has been short-circuiting my brain. From Dan Savage:
I’ve launched a channel on YouTube— www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject —to host these videos. My normally camera-shy husband and I already posted one. We both went to Christian schools and we were both bullied—he had it a lot worse than I did—and we are living proof that it gets better. We don’t dwell too much on the past. Instead, we talk mostly about all the meaningful things in our lives now—our families, our friends (gay and straight), the places we’ve gone and things we’ve experienced—that we would’ve missed out on if we’d killed ourselves then.
And here's the first video, from Dan and his husband Terry:
It does get better. I had my share of hassles in school, and haven't been back since I graduated. But I'm really happy with who I am (although I do wish I could find a way to cram an extra day into the week). And thinking back, I've had a lot of support and friendship from people who are much cooler than the people I went to high school with.
At any rate, check out the YouTube channel.
I’ve launched a channel on YouTube— www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject —to host these videos. My normally camera-shy husband and I already posted one. We both went to Christian schools and we were both bullied—he had it a lot worse than I did—and we are living proof that it gets better. We don’t dwell too much on the past. Instead, we talk mostly about all the meaningful things in our lives now—our families, our friends (gay and straight), the places we’ve gone and things we’ve experienced—that we would’ve missed out on if we’d killed ourselves then.
And here's the first video, from Dan and his husband Terry:
It does get better. I had my share of hassles in school, and haven't been back since I graduated. But I'm really happy with who I am (although I do wish I could find a way to cram an extra day into the week). And thinking back, I've had a lot of support and friendship from people who are much cooler than the people I went to high school with.
At any rate, check out the YouTube channel.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Where Do They Find These People?
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
This has to be a spoof. It has to be. Doesn't it?
Mmpff
I was working on a rather substantial post about the Muslim community center proposed for a couple blocks away from the WTC site -- the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" -- based on a post by Elizabeth Moon (yes, that Elizabeth Mooon) brought to my attention by Will Shetterly (yes, that Will Shetterly) and Doctor Science.
I have to say that I admire Shetterly for his patience and forbearance -- he's much more forgiving of logical lapses than I.
However, I am now fighting a cold and my focus is kind of blown -- have a horrible sore throat and have been gulping vitamin C and echinacea for the past day. (And I want you to know that this is entirely against the rules -- I have one cold a year, and that's it, and I've already had this year's cold, so this is not even a legitimate cold.)
Maybe I can get to it. And then again, maybe not.
I have to say that I admire Shetterly for his patience and forbearance -- he's much more forgiving of logical lapses than I.
However, I am now fighting a cold and my focus is kind of blown -- have a horrible sore throat and have been gulping vitamin C and echinacea for the past day. (And I want you to know that this is entirely against the rules -- I have one cold a year, and that's it, and I've already had this year's cold, so this is not even a legitimate cold.)
Maybe I can get to it. And then again, maybe not.
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