Monday, November 15, 2004
Sunday, November 14, 2004
washingtonpost.com: Coming Out for One of Their Own
washingtonpost.com
Coming Out for One of Their Own
An Oklahoma Teen Finds Love Where He Least Expected It
By Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 14, 2004; Page D01
SAND SPRINGS, Okla. -- The fliers arrived three weeks ago. Some came over the fax machines of local churches, and others appeared mysteriously around town. Printed in bold was the heading "Westboro Baptist Church." No seeming cause for alarm. Sand Springs, population 18,500, is a Christian stronghold in the gently rolling hills of eastern Oklahoma.
But the message that followed was a rant against a 17-year-old Sand Springs resident named Michael Shackelford and his mother, Janice, the subjects of a recent Washington Post series examining Michael's struggles as a young gay man in the Bible Belt. The fliers posted a photo of Michael, called him a "doomed teenage fag" and announced that followers of Westboro Baptist in Topeka were on their way from Kansas to stage antigay protests in Sand Springs.
Public theater is the specialty of Westboro Baptist and its minister, Fred Phelps, whose place on the extreme fringe of the antigay movement is symbolized by his Web site, www.godhatesfags.com. But this time, Phelps picked a formidable target.
Oklahoma could never be mistaken for a liberal blue state. President Bush grabbed the seven electoral votes here like a sack of candy, winning 60 percent of the popular vote. A state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage passed by a 3-to-1 margin.
Sand Springs is the essence of pious Oklahoma. Downtown, a veterinary clinic with loudspeakers on its roof plays a taped carillon of hymns and patriotic songs. Michael and Janice Shackelford attend a large evangelical church where lots of worshipers bring their own Bibles.
In the eyes of Phelps, any church that allows an openly gay person to attend Sunday worship is weak. "Was there no Gospel preacher in Sand Springs or Broken Arrow to tell Michael . . . that sodomy is a monstrous sin against God that will destroy the life and damn the soul?" the fliers asked.
When Phelps announced that his group was coming to picket at several churches and the high school, fresh battle lines were drawn. To many here, homosexuality was a sin, but Michael Shackelford was their sinner. Just as the November election was reducing moral issues to red or blue, Sand Springs confronted subtler shades of truth. Janice Shackelford was terrified by the persecution of her son, then surprised by what happened next.
"This Westboro outfit thought they could come to this town and break it apart," Janice said. "But it has brought the town together. It has opened some doors to talk."
An Invitation
After Michael's story was published, competing forces wrestled for his soul. The Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest gay advocacy group, invited Michael to attend its national dinner in Washington last month.
"Oh, great," Janice remembers thinking. A year and a half after discovering her son was gay, Janice still held hope that he would renounce his homosexuality. She worried for his safety, especially after renting a video at Blockbuster about Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who died after being beaten and lashed to a fence in Wyoming. Mostly Janice worried about Michael's salvation. Attending the dinner in Washington might reinforce his belief that he is gay. "I felt like allowing him to go was condoning the lifestyle," she said, "and it would propel him to that even more."
Yet something inside told her to let him go. One factor tipped it: Michael would get to meet Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew, who would be attending the event. Part of Janice wished that she could go, too, to see what her son wanted so desperately to see. But she worked two jobs and could find no one to take her shift at the barbecue restaurant where she is a waitress. It was decided that Michael would be accompanied by his 23-year-old sister, Shelly.
In Washington, a tux was waiting for Michael in his hotel room.
He brought his disposable camera to the dinner and asked a male model if it was okay to take his picture.
The next day there was a luncheon and sightseeing of the monuments. A lesbian couple with a 3-year-old daughter took Michael and Shelly to dinner in Dupont Circle. Walking around the gay neighborhood, Michael was in awe. "It was like being around family," he said. "Seeing all those successful people, that could be me."
Shelly, who shared Janice's views against homosexuality, was also in shock. "Men were holding hands with men, women were holding hands with women, and no one was yelling at them," Shelly said.
What Michael wanted most was to buy his mother a book on being a Christian parent of a gay child. He found them at Lambda Rising, a gay and lesbian bookstore.
When they got back home, Janice listened to their stories. "There's a life out there," Michael said, before racing off to the drugstore to have his film developed. Janice wept when Shelly relayed a story that Judy Shepard told about going to identify her son's body. He was covered in blood except for the clean streaks on his face where tears had washed down.
Janice took the books Michael brought home -- "Always My Child" and "The Gay Face of God," among others -- but was not ready to read them. She piled them on a table in the living room, which is where they were still sitting when she received a call from her pastor.
"Janice," he said, "We got a fax."
Janice tried remembering where she had heard of Westboro Baptist -- and then it clicked. While visiting her oldest daughter in Las Vegas, she remembered seeing the group picketing a high school that was staging "The Laramie Project," a play about Matthew Shepard's murder in the town of Laramie.
Janice listened with growing anxiety as her pastor, Bill Eubanks of Cornerstone Church, explained that Westboro Baptist was coming to protest Cornerstone for allowing Michael to worship there. When Eubanks called Westboro, a woman who identified herself as Fred Phelps's daughter told him that he had not been strong enough in "prescribing the truth about homosexuals."
Eubanks, 53, has a deep-well Oklahoma accent and a 6-foot-2 frame that makes him a commanding preacher. He pastors a flock of 500, where bluejeans are welcome and men are not embarrassed to brush away tears when praying. The church held a voter registration drive in the run-up to the presidential election. A huge banner, hung from the rafters, said, "Family Under Construction." There was no doubt that "family" referred to a man and woman. Homosexuality is viewed as a sin.
Eubanks had known Michael was struggling with his sexuality. But to the pastor, seeing Michael in church meant there was still a chance that he would turn away from homosexuality.
Eubanks was disturbed by the fliers' hateful message, but he saw an opportunity.
"I get to speak about the grace of God," he said. "No matter what the sin, God loves you. He is saying, 'Come on, come back to the family.' I was an alcoholic and a drug addict. I can see the possibility of change."
A transformation, from gay to straight.
"These are the hopes, that Michael will change," Eubanks said.
The week before the protest, the pastor announced from the pulpit that they were in the midst of a spiritual battle. He read parts of the flier aloud. "We are family," Eubanks said. "We are going to stand united as a family."
The response surprised Michael, who thought he would be cast out. People were being nice to him. Only a few weeks earlier he'd been called a "queer" at Arby's. Now there was a new menace in Sand Springs, and it was Fred Phelps.
As more fliers circulated around Sand Springs, Janice knew it was time to talk to her 88-year-old mother, a fervent Baptist with a weak heart. All this time Janice had never told her mother that Michael was gay. "This would put her in the grave," she had warned Michael.
After Wednesday night church, Janice drove to her mother's house. The words simply would not come out. Finally, Janice got up and turned the volume down on the TV and sat beside her mother. "I've been keeping a secret from you," Janice said. She stopped again.
Just tell me, her mother said.
"Michael seems to think he's gay."
"Janice," she recalls her mother saying, "I'm a tough old lady. You should have told me sooner."
And that was that.
Us and Them
The Sunday of the protest arrived. Birds hung in the brittle branches of blackjack oaks lining the driveway of Cornerstone Church. The Phelps entourage had left Topeka at 3 that morning and unloaded in front of Cornerstone in time for the 9 o'clock service. There were nine in all. Fred Phelps had sent his 51-year-old son, Fred Phelps Jr., and his daughter, Shirley Phelps Roper, 47. Under the watchful eye of several Sand Springs police officers, they spread out along the public patch of grass in front of the church.
They raised their signs. Fags Are Worthy of Death. Fags Doom Nation. Fag Church. Your Pastor Is Lying. Others involved obscene drawings and references to excrement. One of the protesters dragged an American flag on the ground.
A truck roared by from the main road and the driver shouted, LET HE WHO CAST THE FIRST STONE!
Phelps gestured toward the church marquee that scrolled the message I hate the sin but love the sinner -- God! "It's a play on words, the sin and the sinner," he said. "You can't separate the two. There are some people in this world who are made to be destroyed."
Shirley Phelps Roper chimed in. "With the right hand they are saying that homosexuality is a sin and they will fix you," she said. "And with the left hand they say that God loves you. They don't own salvation. They don't have the prerogative to fix the heart of man."
Worshipers drove through the bottleneck, refusing to engage. Michael Shackelford rumbled past in his truck without notice. Janice arrived minutes later in her Oldsmobile, nervously gripping the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead.
Inside the church, the congregation was standing and the six-piece guitar band was rocking.
The Lord reigns
Great is the Almighty
The music and energy built until Pastor Eubanks bounded onstage. "Welcome to the reign of life," he said. "Amen?"
"Amen!" the crowd shouted, whistling and clapping.
"There is darkness and there is light and we are in the middle of the light," Eubanks said, to more thunderous applause. "Say it: God loves us all. All of us!"
After the service, several people came up to hug Janice. One woman held her in an embrace that lasted two minutes, whispering to Janice the whole time.
A burly man with a crew cut gave Michael a thumbs-up. "Man, you be who you are," Shannon Watie said, holding his Bible. "We got your back."
Watie later said that he respected Michael for having the courage to come out. "I have the sin of pride, the sin of lying sometimes," said the 37-year-old father of two. "The reason why Jesus was on the cross was because we all do."
Watie voted for Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage. Civil unions? He might have considered those. Homosexuality? "That's between the person and God," Watie said.
Out in the foyer, Eubanks saw Michael and seized the chance. He invited Michael to lunch. There was work to do.
'A Gathering of the Saints'
After church, Michael drove the interstate with the windows of his truck rolled down and the stereo blasting Merle Haggard's "Kentucky Gambler," Michael singing every word.
I wanted more from life, than four kids and a wife
And a job in a dark Kentucky mine.
In nearby Tulsa that Sunday night, a vigil was held in response to the Phelps demonstrations. It was organized by Tulsa Oklahomans For Human Rights and held at a gay and lesbian community center. Organizers set out 24 chairs. More than 220 people showed up; the overflow strained to hear from the sidewalk.
Janice had been nervous to attend the vigil with Michael but there she was, standing in back. Several Tulsa ministers spoke out against Phelps. Most were from churches that Janice was unfamiliar with; Unitarian, Congregational and Diversity Christian.
The Rev. Russell L. Bennett, president of the Tulsa Interfaith Alliance, took the podium. "You are a gathering of the saints," he said, smiling at the crowd. "Now, in some parts of town, that might be disputed."
Bennett recited a Bible verse in which Jesus scolds the leaders of his time for worrying more about narrow morality than the bigger picture. "Woe to you, hypocrites," the reverend said. "For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy."
Janice was quiet, listening to phrases such as "radical inclusivity" and quotes by Robert F. Kennedy about the long arm that bends toward justice. Only once did she feel at home, when a man came up afterward and reached for her hand. "You know, we have been praying for you all week," he said.
His name was Toby Jenkins and he was a Free Will Baptist pastor for 17 years before accepting that he was gay. Now he preaches at a gay evangelical church in Tulsa. He told Janice that the Bible is not the black-and-white doctrine that many say it is. He asked Janice if they could pray together, and he took her face in his hands and they stood motionless in the crowd, forehead to forehead, eyes closed.
"I am going to have to think about all this," she said later.
The next morning, the Phelps protesters were back in Sand Springs, this time picketing in front of Charles Page High, the school that grudgingly started a Gay Straight Alliance last year after an openly gay senior forced the issue.
Shirley Phelps Roper stood on the sidewalk, holding her God Hates Fags sign and singing "America the Beautiful." Police were standing by, but all was peaceful. Several cars drove by with their own messages painted on the windows: Go Back to Kansas and God Loves Everybody.
As school let out that afternoon, dozens of people from Tulsa Oklahomans For Human Rights arrived with brooms. In silence, they swept the sidewalk where the Phelps protesters had been. Michael was there, sweeping.
A group of students walked by. One of them, a girl with long, silky hair and a backpack, was obviously fed up with all the protests and counter-protests. "Leave our homos alone," she said, to no one in particular.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
washingtonpost.com
Coming Out for One of Their Own
An Oklahoma Teen Finds Love Where He Least Expected It
By Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 14, 2004; Page D01
SAND SPRINGS, Okla. -- The fliers arrived three weeks ago. Some came over the fax machines of local churches, and others appeared mysteriously around town. Printed in bold was the heading "Westboro Baptist Church." No seeming cause for alarm. Sand Springs, population 18,500, is a Christian stronghold in the gently rolling hills of eastern Oklahoma.
But the message that followed was a rant against a 17-year-old Sand Springs resident named Michael Shackelford and his mother, Janice, the subjects of a recent Washington Post series examining Michael's struggles as a young gay man in the Bible Belt. The fliers posted a photo of Michael, called him a "doomed teenage fag" and announced that followers of Westboro Baptist in Topeka were on their way from Kansas to stage antigay protests in Sand Springs.
Public theater is the specialty of Westboro Baptist and its minister, Fred Phelps, whose place on the extreme fringe of the antigay movement is symbolized by his Web site, www.godhatesfags.com. But this time, Phelps picked a formidable target.
Oklahoma could never be mistaken for a liberal blue state. President Bush grabbed the seven electoral votes here like a sack of candy, winning 60 percent of the popular vote. A state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage passed by a 3-to-1 margin.
Sand Springs is the essence of pious Oklahoma. Downtown, a veterinary clinic with loudspeakers on its roof plays a taped carillon of hymns and patriotic songs. Michael and Janice Shackelford attend a large evangelical church where lots of worshipers bring their own Bibles.
In the eyes of Phelps, any church that allows an openly gay person to attend Sunday worship is weak. "Was there no Gospel preacher in Sand Springs or Broken Arrow to tell Michael . . . that sodomy is a monstrous sin against God that will destroy the life and damn the soul?" the fliers asked.
When Phelps announced that his group was coming to picket at several churches and the high school, fresh battle lines were drawn. To many here, homosexuality was a sin, but Michael Shackelford was their sinner. Just as the November election was reducing moral issues to red or blue, Sand Springs confronted subtler shades of truth. Janice Shackelford was terrified by the persecution of her son, then surprised by what happened next.
"This Westboro outfit thought they could come to this town and break it apart," Janice said. "But it has brought the town together. It has opened some doors to talk."
An Invitation
After Michael's story was published, competing forces wrestled for his soul. The Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest gay advocacy group, invited Michael to attend its national dinner in Washington last month.
"Oh, great," Janice remembers thinking. A year and a half after discovering her son was gay, Janice still held hope that he would renounce his homosexuality. She worried for his safety, especially after renting a video at Blockbuster about Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who died after being beaten and lashed to a fence in Wyoming. Mostly Janice worried about Michael's salvation. Attending the dinner in Washington might reinforce his belief that he is gay. "I felt like allowing him to go was condoning the lifestyle," she said, "and it would propel him to that even more."
Yet something inside told her to let him go. One factor tipped it: Michael would get to meet Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew, who would be attending the event. Part of Janice wished that she could go, too, to see what her son wanted so desperately to see. But she worked two jobs and could find no one to take her shift at the barbecue restaurant where she is a waitress. It was decided that Michael would be accompanied by his 23-year-old sister, Shelly.
In Washington, a tux was waiting for Michael in his hotel room.
He brought his disposable camera to the dinner and asked a male model if it was okay to take his picture.
The next day there was a luncheon and sightseeing of the monuments. A lesbian couple with a 3-year-old daughter took Michael and Shelly to dinner in Dupont Circle. Walking around the gay neighborhood, Michael was in awe. "It was like being around family," he said. "Seeing all those successful people, that could be me."
Shelly, who shared Janice's views against homosexuality, was also in shock. "Men were holding hands with men, women were holding hands with women, and no one was yelling at them," Shelly said.
What Michael wanted most was to buy his mother a book on being a Christian parent of a gay child. He found them at Lambda Rising, a gay and lesbian bookstore.
When they got back home, Janice listened to their stories. "There's a life out there," Michael said, before racing off to the drugstore to have his film developed. Janice wept when Shelly relayed a story that Judy Shepard told about going to identify her son's body. He was covered in blood except for the clean streaks on his face where tears had washed down.
Janice took the books Michael brought home -- "Always My Child" and "The Gay Face of God," among others -- but was not ready to read them. She piled them on a table in the living room, which is where they were still sitting when she received a call from her pastor.
"Janice," he said, "We got a fax."
Janice tried remembering where she had heard of Westboro Baptist -- and then it clicked. While visiting her oldest daughter in Las Vegas, she remembered seeing the group picketing a high school that was staging "The Laramie Project," a play about Matthew Shepard's murder in the town of Laramie.
Janice listened with growing anxiety as her pastor, Bill Eubanks of Cornerstone Church, explained that Westboro Baptist was coming to protest Cornerstone for allowing Michael to worship there. When Eubanks called Westboro, a woman who identified herself as Fred Phelps's daughter told him that he had not been strong enough in "prescribing the truth about homosexuals."
Eubanks, 53, has a deep-well Oklahoma accent and a 6-foot-2 frame that makes him a commanding preacher. He pastors a flock of 500, where bluejeans are welcome and men are not embarrassed to brush away tears when praying. The church held a voter registration drive in the run-up to the presidential election. A huge banner, hung from the rafters, said, "Family Under Construction." There was no doubt that "family" referred to a man and woman. Homosexuality is viewed as a sin.
Eubanks had known Michael was struggling with his sexuality. But to the pastor, seeing Michael in church meant there was still a chance that he would turn away from homosexuality.
Eubanks was disturbed by the fliers' hateful message, but he saw an opportunity.
"I get to speak about the grace of God," he said. "No matter what the sin, God loves you. He is saying, 'Come on, come back to the family.' I was an alcoholic and a drug addict. I can see the possibility of change."
A transformation, from gay to straight.
"These are the hopes, that Michael will change," Eubanks said.
The week before the protest, the pastor announced from the pulpit that they were in the midst of a spiritual battle. He read parts of the flier aloud. "We are family," Eubanks said. "We are going to stand united as a family."
The response surprised Michael, who thought he would be cast out. People were being nice to him. Only a few weeks earlier he'd been called a "queer" at Arby's. Now there was a new menace in Sand Springs, and it was Fred Phelps.
As more fliers circulated around Sand Springs, Janice knew it was time to talk to her 88-year-old mother, a fervent Baptist with a weak heart. All this time Janice had never told her mother that Michael was gay. "This would put her in the grave," she had warned Michael.
After Wednesday night church, Janice drove to her mother's house. The words simply would not come out. Finally, Janice got up and turned the volume down on the TV and sat beside her mother. "I've been keeping a secret from you," Janice said. She stopped again.
Just tell me, her mother said.
"Michael seems to think he's gay."
"Janice," she recalls her mother saying, "I'm a tough old lady. You should have told me sooner."
And that was that.
Us and Them
The Sunday of the protest arrived. Birds hung in the brittle branches of blackjack oaks lining the driveway of Cornerstone Church. The Phelps entourage had left Topeka at 3 that morning and unloaded in front of Cornerstone in time for the 9 o'clock service. There were nine in all. Fred Phelps had sent his 51-year-old son, Fred Phelps Jr., and his daughter, Shirley Phelps Roper, 47. Under the watchful eye of several Sand Springs police officers, they spread out along the public patch of grass in front of the church.
They raised their signs. Fags Are Worthy of Death. Fags Doom Nation. Fag Church. Your Pastor Is Lying. Others involved obscene drawings and references to excrement. One of the protesters dragged an American flag on the ground.
A truck roared by from the main road and the driver shouted, LET HE WHO CAST THE FIRST STONE!
Phelps gestured toward the church marquee that scrolled the message I hate the sin but love the sinner -- God! "It's a play on words, the sin and the sinner," he said. "You can't separate the two. There are some people in this world who are made to be destroyed."
Shirley Phelps Roper chimed in. "With the right hand they are saying that homosexuality is a sin and they will fix you," she said. "And with the left hand they say that God loves you. They don't own salvation. They don't have the prerogative to fix the heart of man."
Worshipers drove through the bottleneck, refusing to engage. Michael Shackelford rumbled past in his truck without notice. Janice arrived minutes later in her Oldsmobile, nervously gripping the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead.
Inside the church, the congregation was standing and the six-piece guitar band was rocking.
The Lord reigns
Great is the Almighty
The music and energy built until Pastor Eubanks bounded onstage. "Welcome to the reign of life," he said. "Amen?"
"Amen!" the crowd shouted, whistling and clapping.
"There is darkness and there is light and we are in the middle of the light," Eubanks said, to more thunderous applause. "Say it: God loves us all. All of us!"
After the service, several people came up to hug Janice. One woman held her in an embrace that lasted two minutes, whispering to Janice the whole time.
A burly man with a crew cut gave Michael a thumbs-up. "Man, you be who you are," Shannon Watie said, holding his Bible. "We got your back."
Watie later said that he respected Michael for having the courage to come out. "I have the sin of pride, the sin of lying sometimes," said the 37-year-old father of two. "The reason why Jesus was on the cross was because we all do."
Watie voted for Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage. Civil unions? He might have considered those. Homosexuality? "That's between the person and God," Watie said.
Out in the foyer, Eubanks saw Michael and seized the chance. He invited Michael to lunch. There was work to do.
'A Gathering of the Saints'
After church, Michael drove the interstate with the windows of his truck rolled down and the stereo blasting Merle Haggard's "Kentucky Gambler," Michael singing every word.
I wanted more from life, than four kids and a wife
And a job in a dark Kentucky mine.
In nearby Tulsa that Sunday night, a vigil was held in response to the Phelps demonstrations. It was organized by Tulsa Oklahomans For Human Rights and held at a gay and lesbian community center. Organizers set out 24 chairs. More than 220 people showed up; the overflow strained to hear from the sidewalk.
Janice had been nervous to attend the vigil with Michael but there she was, standing in back. Several Tulsa ministers spoke out against Phelps. Most were from churches that Janice was unfamiliar with; Unitarian, Congregational and Diversity Christian.
The Rev. Russell L. Bennett, president of the Tulsa Interfaith Alliance, took the podium. "You are a gathering of the saints," he said, smiling at the crowd. "Now, in some parts of town, that might be disputed."
Bennett recited a Bible verse in which Jesus scolds the leaders of his time for worrying more about narrow morality than the bigger picture. "Woe to you, hypocrites," the reverend said. "For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy."
Janice was quiet, listening to phrases such as "radical inclusivity" and quotes by Robert F. Kennedy about the long arm that bends toward justice. Only once did she feel at home, when a man came up afterward and reached for her hand. "You know, we have been praying for you all week," he said.
His name was Toby Jenkins and he was a Free Will Baptist pastor for 17 years before accepting that he was gay. Now he preaches at a gay evangelical church in Tulsa. He told Janice that the Bible is not the black-and-white doctrine that many say it is. He asked Janice if they could pray together, and he took her face in his hands and they stood motionless in the crowd, forehead to forehead, eyes closed.
"I am going to have to think about all this," she said later.
The next morning, the Phelps protesters were back in Sand Springs, this time picketing in front of Charles Page High, the school that grudgingly started a Gay Straight Alliance last year after an openly gay senior forced the issue.
Shirley Phelps Roper stood on the sidewalk, holding her God Hates Fags sign and singing "America the Beautiful." Police were standing by, but all was peaceful. Several cars drove by with their own messages painted on the windows: Go Back to Kansas and God Loves Everybody.
As school let out that afternoon, dozens of people from Tulsa Oklahomans For Human Rights arrived with brooms. In silence, they swept the sidewalk where the Phelps protesters had been. Michael was there, sweeping.
A group of students walked by. One of them, a girl with long, silky hair and a backpack, was obviously fed up with all the protests and counter-protests. "Leave our homos alone," she said, to no one in particular.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Howard Dean Disputes Media View that 'Values' Swung Election
By Charles Geraci
Editor & Publisher
Friday 12 November 2004
Evanston, Ill. - Former presidential candidate Howard Dean wants the media to stuff its new conventional wisdom that "values" or "morals" drove the result of this month's election.
Speaking Thursday night to 500 Northwestern University students, many of them journalism majors, Dean noted there was little "statistical difference" between the percentage of voters who deemed moral values the top issue (22 %) and those who ranked as their top concern Iraq or the economy/jobs, according to exit poll data.
"How can you get to the conclusion morality was the most important issue in this campaign?" Dean asked. "It's beyond me, but that was what the media was riding. They're entitled to their opinion. It doesn't happen to be the opinion of thoughtful people who are looking."
Though Dean, a Democrat, complimented President Bush, saying he "ran a great campaign" and was "very disciplined," he compared the president to former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, at least in one regard.
"The truth is the president of the United States used the same device that Slobodan Milosevic used in Serbia. When you appeal to homophobia, when you appeal to sexism, when you appeal to racism, that is extraordinarily damaging to the country," Dean charged. "I know George Bush. I served with him for six years [as a fellow governor]. He's not a homophobe. He's not a racist. He's not a sexist. In some ways, what he did was worse ... because he knew better."
Dean also criticized Bush for the ballot initiatives in 11 states calling for gay marriage to be outlawed, saying this "had only one effect, which is to appeal to homophobia and fear and gay-baiting in order to win a presidential election."
And he took a shot at Rev. Jerry Falwell.: "Most Americans are decent people - not all. I mean, there are those hate-mongers. I wouldn't call Jerry Falwell a decent person."
Scolding Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for, in Dean's opinion, humiliating people from the bench, he said, "Justice Scalia ought not to be on the bench. Never pick anyone who's sarcastic and mean-spirited."
But Dean's lighter side also was apparent throughout the evening. When a student asked what, if anything, Democrats could do regarding Bush's Supreme Court nominations, Dean joked: "We can do a lot. But senators have to have some chutzpah, as they say in Yiddish, or cajones, as they say in Spanish."
The former Vermont governor also responded to an ad by the conservative Club for Growth in which two ordinary Americans said Dean should take his "tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left wing freak show back to Vermont where it belongs."
He explained, "I don't drink coffee. I have three cars - all of which are American. No part of me is pierced that I'm willing to discuss publicly. And if you want to see a freak show, go look at the people who wrote that ad - you won't believe it."
Dean talked about his vision for the Democratic Party, saying, "We need to stand up for what we believe in ... so that the people who vote against their economic interests will now consider voting for Democrats."
Complimenting students for "voting in significantly higher numbers," Dean appealed for them to "run for office" quite a few times. Echoing the now infamous "Dean scream," he shouted, "You need to run for office - not just in Illinois and Ohio and South Carolina! ... You need to run for office in Mississippi, and Alabama, and Idaho, and Texas, and...."
When i was a southern baptist christian, the worse sin i could do was to "be" a homosexual, and i was outed at my church the summer of 1976 by my best friend, john w.
today the united states of america has taken homophobia to the extreme by out lawing gay marriage
the president of the united states successfully used this issue to get re elected
for i am , dave hell
today the united states of america has taken homophobia to the extreme by out lawing gay marriage
the president of the united states successfully used this issue to get re elected
for i am , dave hell
why are we hated so much, as homosexuals, by the christians, they tell me they hate the sin but love the sinner, but i see no evidence of that what so ever in the current situation here in the united states, where in eleven states to get married as a gay man to a gay man is now illegal, where a christian president wants to actuallly change the united states of america consititution to ban gay marriage, they are so full of hatred, so much hatred, and i ask why, where does this hatred come from.
they are supposed to be christ like, but george bush, cheney, ms rice, rumsfield, are some of the most hateful people in power i have ever seen
bobby welch, the minister at my church in daytona beach, is so full of hate, i just want to understand what is wrong with their christianity, what is wrong with their self images, their fear of homosexuals, for the current form of all forms of christianity is disgusting to me, its not a religion of love, but its a religion of hatefullness and division.
for i am dave hell
they are supposed to be christ like, but george bush, cheney, ms rice, rumsfield, are some of the most hateful people in power i have ever seen
bobby welch, the minister at my church in daytona beach, is so full of hate, i just want to understand what is wrong with their christianity, what is wrong with their self images, their fear of homosexuals, for the current form of all forms of christianity is disgusting to me, its not a religion of love, but its a religion of hatefullness and division.
for i am dave hell
yo
I’m revolting, and I’m sorry
Apparently, I love America more than America loves me. Last week millions of my fellow citizens, motivated by their revulsion at my sexuality, voted to reelect their antigay cheerleader, George Bush. It seems John Kerry lost because of me.
By Spencer Windes
An Advocate.com exclusive, posted November 8, 2004
I cost John Kerry the election.
It’s all right there in the numbers. John Kerry lost the election in Ohio. Ohio, where 25% of the electorate was white evangelicals. The most important issue to Ohio voters in the exit polls was “moral values.” It was the motivation cited by 23% of the electorate.
More important than Ohio’s terrible job prospects.
More than the violent threat of Islamic fundamentalism.
No, those voters turned out on “moral values” above all. And we all know that “moral values” in this election was just code for what to do about those uppity faggots. I mean, with their gay marriage and civil rights and whatnot, they needed to be put in their place. So they were.
Karl Rove was right.
In narrowly fought state after narrowly fought state, heterosexuals walked into the voting booth with me in mind. They carried in the pit of their stomachs the disgust they feel at the thought of two men in intimate embrace; this deep, reptilian aversion drove them off of their couches and into their polling stations. They carried with them the knowledge that no matter how desperate their lives got, no matter the lost jobs or declining wages or lack of health care, no matter the open-ended wars and rigged intelligence and corporate scandal, no matter how bad things got at home, at least they weren’t queer.
At least they had that to hang on to.
I feel like I’m back in high school, when I’d fall for the straight guy, the jock with the good looks, fast car, and cheerleader girlfriend. In other words, a nonreciprocal relationship
Apparently, I love America more than America loves me. Hell, America just seems to want to kick my ass.
Oh, I’m not saying it was every voter who felt this way; maybe it wasn’t even a great number. But it was enough. They thought of me, they felt the vomit in their gorge, and they voted for George W. Bush.
And not just Bush. In South Carolina they elected a man who said that people openly like me shouldn’t be allowed to teach in public schools. They elected him to our most deliberative and thoughtful legislative body, the United States Senate. In my grandmother’s home state of Oklahoma they listened to a man who believes that lesbians are running rampant in the school systems of not only Atoka but the state’s entire southeast, lurking in bathrooms to molest children. Then they put him into the U.S. Senate as well.
But worst of all, in 11 states, they actually were able to put their revulsion into the starkest, most straightforward of electoral terms. Referendums across America were held against faggots like me; inevitably, they all won big, and you better bet they had coattails. The idea of two men or two women committing themselves to each other was so horrific, so stomach-churning, so motivating, that they passed antigay marriage amendments on votes whose lopsided tallies recalled nothing so much as the preinvasion “elections” of Saddam Hussein.
Yes, the people have spoken in one voice. In one voice they have raised the mob cry against me, and against every person in this country like me.
Because I supported John Kerry, and because John Kerry never shared their revulsion, the taint was passed. The stink of queerness lingered too strong about him. John Kerry would not wash his hands of me; it never occurred to him to be embarrassed of my support. Because he was a man of character, he would not, like Peter, thrice deny me. I was the millstone around his neck.
I cost John Kerry the election.
Sorry.
I’m revolting, and I’m sorry
Apparently, I love America more than America loves me. Last week millions of my fellow citizens, motivated by their revulsion at my sexuality, voted to reelect their antigay cheerleader, George Bush. It seems John Kerry lost because of me.
By Spencer Windes
An Advocate.com exclusive, posted November 8, 2004
I cost John Kerry the election.
It’s all right there in the numbers. John Kerry lost the election in Ohio. Ohio, where 25% of the electorate was white evangelicals. The most important issue to Ohio voters in the exit polls was “moral values.” It was the motivation cited by 23% of the electorate.
More important than Ohio’s terrible job prospects.
More than the violent threat of Islamic fundamentalism.
No, those voters turned out on “moral values” above all. And we all know that “moral values” in this election was just code for what to do about those uppity faggots. I mean, with their gay marriage and civil rights and whatnot, they needed to be put in their place. So they were.
Karl Rove was right.
In narrowly fought state after narrowly fought state, heterosexuals walked into the voting booth with me in mind. They carried in the pit of their stomachs the disgust they feel at the thought of two men in intimate embrace; this deep, reptilian aversion drove them off of their couches and into their polling stations. They carried with them the knowledge that no matter how desperate their lives got, no matter the lost jobs or declining wages or lack of health care, no matter the open-ended wars and rigged intelligence and corporate scandal, no matter how bad things got at home, at least they weren’t queer.
At least they had that to hang on to.
I feel like I’m back in high school, when I’d fall for the straight guy, the jock with the good looks, fast car, and cheerleader girlfriend. In other words, a nonreciprocal relationship
Apparently, I love America more than America loves me. Hell, America just seems to want to kick my ass.
Oh, I’m not saying it was every voter who felt this way; maybe it wasn’t even a great number. But it was enough. They thought of me, they felt the vomit in their gorge, and they voted for George W. Bush.
And not just Bush. In South Carolina they elected a man who said that people openly like me shouldn’t be allowed to teach in public schools. They elected him to our most deliberative and thoughtful legislative body, the United States Senate. In my grandmother’s home state of Oklahoma they listened to a man who believes that lesbians are running rampant in the school systems of not only Atoka but the state’s entire southeast, lurking in bathrooms to molest children. Then they put him into the U.S. Senate as well.
But worst of all, in 11 states, they actually were able to put their revulsion into the starkest, most straightforward of electoral terms. Referendums across America were held against faggots like me; inevitably, they all won big, and you better bet they had coattails. The idea of two men or two women committing themselves to each other was so horrific, so stomach-churning, so motivating, that they passed antigay marriage amendments on votes whose lopsided tallies recalled nothing so much as the preinvasion “elections” of Saddam Hussein.
Yes, the people have spoken in one voice. In one voice they have raised the mob cry against me, and against every person in this country like me.
Because I supported John Kerry, and because John Kerry never shared their revulsion, the taint was passed. The stink of queerness lingered too strong about him. John Kerry would not wash his hands of me; it never occurred to him to be embarrassed of my support. Because he was a man of character, he would not, like Peter, thrice deny me. I was the millstone around his neck.
I cost John Kerry the election.
Sorry.
Premature emancipation ... an Advocate.com exclusive
Premature emancipation
Giddy with successes like Lawrence v. Texas, advocates for gay equality overreached by demanding marriage before making the case with the average American. The result was seen in full on Election Night 2004.
By Gary R. Cohan, MD
An Advocate.com exclusive posted on November 12, 2004
Babies cry, toddlers whine, adolescents sulk and withdraw; human development goes through predictable stages. This is true for individuals and, to some extent, for societies. For individuals, emotional development leads to progressively more complex behaviors. Underdeveloped humans express themselves on impulse and call attention to their needs without being in control. Mature adults generally strike a balance between acting out and adapting to the observable constraints of their environment.
That is, evidently, unless the adult is a gay American and the environment is the social climate of the United States during the election campaign of 2004, when the gay rights movement forced Red and Blue America to hold a referendum on the meaning of “marriage.”
I’m not typically one of those people who second-guess other people’s decisions when things aren’t going well. If one of my patients fails to take his medicine and predictably falls ill from an avoidable malady, I offer gentle understanding, not a counterproductive scolding. But after a week spent digesting the enormity of what just happened to us as gay Americans at the polls, I am temporarily suspending my usual policy. We in the gay rights movement just shot ourselves in both feet with an overreaching and self-defeating politically correct agenda---a misstep that was both avoidable and hurtful.
Indulge my medical background for a moment for a clinical analogy. Premature ejaculation is defined as a condition in which the male is overly sensitive, overstimulated, and comes to climax too soon, leaving his partner without a satisfactory experience. If this happens often enough, the person with this condition is often rejected in the relationship. A therapist might advise him to slow down, to expend more effort connecting emotionally with the partner, and to physically squeeze the base of the penis to delay the orgasm. These efforts often lead to a more mutually acceptable relationship.
In Election 2004, we shot our political wad too soon, and nobody’s satisfied.
Face it, my brothers and sisters, we screwed up. At the very gay rights organizations that so many of us entrusted with our earnest volunteerism and hard-earned money, heads must roll. These ambitious, well-intentioned, but dangerously naive baby boomer leaders grew up in a fast-food culture of instant gratification. They acted on impulse---“Let’s go for the gold!”---and in the process have torpedoed 20 years of forward movement in a single election. We need to express our disappointment with some serious introspection, more judicious philanthropy, and a major reorganization of our civil rights strategy.
Let’s be clear about what happened. Civil rights are an American tradition, and most Americans support fairness in principle, but “marriage,” however, is a term so suffused with religious and cultural overtones that it crosses the line between church and state, between the parochial and the secular---a boundary that we accuse evangelical Republicans of repeatedly violating in their efforts to inject their values into public policy. We rushed across that boundary ourselves this time, without heeding just how much we were challenging deeply held traditional beliefs. And we got pushed back.
Civil rights are not won in the war zone of a national election but, rather, in a series of small but important evolutionary steps. Fresh off the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court victory that decriminalized our long-outlawed private behavior, gay community advocates got cocky and reckless, to put it bluntly. With dopamine awash in their brains, our appointed spokespeople decided that we’d go for it, immediately demanding our piece of the marriage pie.
Dumb move. The rest of the country wasn’t ready yet, and we knew it. Countless polls---including those in my own liberal bellwether, California---showed that most Americans favored gay civil rights, but the honorific of “marriage” made them quiver.
Failing to heed these polls and the timetables of the civil rights history they were quoting to us, our leaders skated over the fact that major advances took decades to materialize. African-Americans finally got the right to vote without restriction 100 years after being freed from slavery. It took 72 years, from the first Women’s Suffrage Convention in 1848 to the 19th Amendment ratification in the Constitution in 1920, before women won the right to vote. From the earliest days of 1950s secret gay Mattachine Society to our post-ACT UP world of openly gay everything, we have followed a similar path to equal rights that other oppressed minorities have taken---small steps, taken over many years, to incrementally acclimate our neighbors to peaceful coexistence with us. Until this election cycle.
Why did our fearless leaders goad us into thinking that we’d be better served by pursuing an aggressively different strategy? Because we were, morally, right? Being right doesn’t mean you win. Because we were tired of waiting in line outside the members-only club of American minorities with full civil rights? Other minorities have struggled longer. Because we’d won a few basic skirmishes and now were ready to conquer America? Only in Spielberg movies.
We did it because we were pissed off and we got impatient. We did it because the tabloids put it in our faces that Britney Spears was bestowed with more rights in her 48 hours of an impulse Vegas marriage than committed gay couples are granted in 30 years of committed cohabitation. We did it because we wanted it now, regardless of strategy.
We were mad. We were energized by Lawrence v. Texas and the Massachusetts supreme court and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom’s civil disobedience. We even heard what was once unthinkable: right-wing politicians and radio pundits pondering marriagelike civil rights for us---of course, without the word “marriage” attached. My first thought was Grab it while they’re offering; I felt we could establish a stronger beachhead from which to advance our cause. But we balked and claimed that anything less than “marriage” would be demeaning and socially irresponsible. Did anyone take a deep breath and really think this one through?
In March 2004, Human Rights Campaign executive director Cheryl Jacques, a captivatingly articulate woman, upstaged Barbra Streisand and mesmerized the celebrity-laden crowd at HRC’s annual Los Angeles dinner gala. Jacques exhorted the “power gays” to “give till it hurts” so that we could strategize and defeat the well-organized forces of hate and intolerance.
Marriage was supposed to be the next stop on our freedom march to full equality. After all, we’re special. Because of our brains, our wealth, our good looks, and our petulance, we presumed we could skip the usual prerequisites of winning the “hearts and minds” of the American public.
So swept-up in the moment were we that we ignored an important fact: Even decent-minded straight people were having difficulty grasping the concept of “gay marriage.” An unscientific poll of my incredibly supportive heterosexual parents and siblings, as well as my straight physician coworkers, was enlightening. These straight folk were asking legitimate questions:
“Well, I’m all for fairness and civil rights, but what does ‘marriage’ mean if it’s not between a man and a woman?”
“If gay people can marry, does this redefine the nature of the commitment between my spouse and me?”
“Doesn’t changing the definition of marriage threaten me in some way?”
Those are concerns that needed to be addressed before we asked for a societywide referendum. There was more campaigning to be done. But we acted on impulse.
We owe it to our community to spend our political capital wisely, to set a better example as responsible adults and to secure for our youth a brighter future. Campaigning for gay civil rights is a marathon to the finish line, not a sprint. We should work to secure our civil and legal rights well before we choose the ultimate battle of naming our unions “marriage.” Unpopular as this all may sound, look where we are now, with several states not only banning same-sex unions but domestic-partnership benefits as well. We have taken a big step backward for all of gay-kind.
Yet there is hope on the horizon. From the ashes of this defeat will emerge a wiser approach that will first get us what we need before we pick out the caterer for the wedding.
One last observation from channel-surfing last Wednesday night in order to avoid the pain of postelection political analyses and settling on a nature program: Ostriches are interesting creatures, best known for their curious habit of sticking their heads in the sand to avoid detection by predators, despite that their heads are tiny and their bodies huge (200 to 300 pounds). Ostriches are powerful animals, they travel in flocks, they can run very fast, they love to bathe---and they have been hunted nearly to extinction in the past century.
With the exception of their pretty feathers and the laying of large eggs, the gay community shares many of the same characteristics. We do, however, have bigger brains. I sincerely hope that after Election 2004 we pull our heads out of the sand so that our dreams don’t meet the same fate.
Readers can reach Dr. Cohan through his Web site, http://www.DoctorCohan.com
Premature emancipation
Giddy with successes like Lawrence v. Texas, advocates for gay equality overreached by demanding marriage before making the case with the average American. The result was seen in full on Election Night 2004.
By Gary R. Cohan, MD
An Advocate.com exclusive posted on November 12, 2004
Babies cry, toddlers whine, adolescents sulk and withdraw; human development goes through predictable stages. This is true for individuals and, to some extent, for societies. For individuals, emotional development leads to progressively more complex behaviors. Underdeveloped humans express themselves on impulse and call attention to their needs without being in control. Mature adults generally strike a balance between acting out and adapting to the observable constraints of their environment.
That is, evidently, unless the adult is a gay American and the environment is the social climate of the United States during the election campaign of 2004, when the gay rights movement forced Red and Blue America to hold a referendum on the meaning of “marriage.”
I’m not typically one of those people who second-guess other people’s decisions when things aren’t going well. If one of my patients fails to take his medicine and predictably falls ill from an avoidable malady, I offer gentle understanding, not a counterproductive scolding. But after a week spent digesting the enormity of what just happened to us as gay Americans at the polls, I am temporarily suspending my usual policy. We in the gay rights movement just shot ourselves in both feet with an overreaching and self-defeating politically correct agenda---a misstep that was both avoidable and hurtful.
Indulge my medical background for a moment for a clinical analogy. Premature ejaculation is defined as a condition in which the male is overly sensitive, overstimulated, and comes to climax too soon, leaving his partner without a satisfactory experience. If this happens often enough, the person with this condition is often rejected in the relationship. A therapist might advise him to slow down, to expend more effort connecting emotionally with the partner, and to physically squeeze the base of the penis to delay the orgasm. These efforts often lead to a more mutually acceptable relationship.
In Election 2004, we shot our political wad too soon, and nobody’s satisfied.
Face it, my brothers and sisters, we screwed up. At the very gay rights organizations that so many of us entrusted with our earnest volunteerism and hard-earned money, heads must roll. These ambitious, well-intentioned, but dangerously naive baby boomer leaders grew up in a fast-food culture of instant gratification. They acted on impulse---“Let’s go for the gold!”---and in the process have torpedoed 20 years of forward movement in a single election. We need to express our disappointment with some serious introspection, more judicious philanthropy, and a major reorganization of our civil rights strategy.
Let’s be clear about what happened. Civil rights are an American tradition, and most Americans support fairness in principle, but “marriage,” however, is a term so suffused with religious and cultural overtones that it crosses the line between church and state, between the parochial and the secular---a boundary that we accuse evangelical Republicans of repeatedly violating in their efforts to inject their values into public policy. We rushed across that boundary ourselves this time, without heeding just how much we were challenging deeply held traditional beliefs. And we got pushed back.
Civil rights are not won in the war zone of a national election but, rather, in a series of small but important evolutionary steps. Fresh off the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court victory that decriminalized our long-outlawed private behavior, gay community advocates got cocky and reckless, to put it bluntly. With dopamine awash in their brains, our appointed spokespeople decided that we’d go for it, immediately demanding our piece of the marriage pie.
Dumb move. The rest of the country wasn’t ready yet, and we knew it. Countless polls---including those in my own liberal bellwether, California---showed that most Americans favored gay civil rights, but the honorific of “marriage” made them quiver.
Failing to heed these polls and the timetables of the civil rights history they were quoting to us, our leaders skated over the fact that major advances took decades to materialize. African-Americans finally got the right to vote without restriction 100 years after being freed from slavery. It took 72 years, from the first Women’s Suffrage Convention in 1848 to the 19th Amendment ratification in the Constitution in 1920, before women won the right to vote. From the earliest days of 1950s secret gay Mattachine Society to our post-ACT UP world of openly gay everything, we have followed a similar path to equal rights that other oppressed minorities have taken---small steps, taken over many years, to incrementally acclimate our neighbors to peaceful coexistence with us. Until this election cycle.
Why did our fearless leaders goad us into thinking that we’d be better served by pursuing an aggressively different strategy? Because we were, morally, right? Being right doesn’t mean you win. Because we were tired of waiting in line outside the members-only club of American minorities with full civil rights? Other minorities have struggled longer. Because we’d won a few basic skirmishes and now were ready to conquer America? Only in Spielberg movies.
We did it because we were pissed off and we got impatient. We did it because the tabloids put it in our faces that Britney Spears was bestowed with more rights in her 48 hours of an impulse Vegas marriage than committed gay couples are granted in 30 years of committed cohabitation. We did it because we wanted it now, regardless of strategy.
We were mad. We were energized by Lawrence v. Texas and the Massachusetts supreme court and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom’s civil disobedience. We even heard what was once unthinkable: right-wing politicians and radio pundits pondering marriagelike civil rights for us---of course, without the word “marriage” attached. My first thought was Grab it while they’re offering; I felt we could establish a stronger beachhead from which to advance our cause. But we balked and claimed that anything less than “marriage” would be demeaning and socially irresponsible. Did anyone take a deep breath and really think this one through?
In March 2004, Human Rights Campaign executive director Cheryl Jacques, a captivatingly articulate woman, upstaged Barbra Streisand and mesmerized the celebrity-laden crowd at HRC’s annual Los Angeles dinner gala. Jacques exhorted the “power gays” to “give till it hurts” so that we could strategize and defeat the well-organized forces of hate and intolerance.
Marriage was supposed to be the next stop on our freedom march to full equality. After all, we’re special. Because of our brains, our wealth, our good looks, and our petulance, we presumed we could skip the usual prerequisites of winning the “hearts and minds” of the American public.
So swept-up in the moment were we that we ignored an important fact: Even decent-minded straight people were having difficulty grasping the concept of “gay marriage.” An unscientific poll of my incredibly supportive heterosexual parents and siblings, as well as my straight physician coworkers, was enlightening. These straight folk were asking legitimate questions:
“Well, I’m all for fairness and civil rights, but what does ‘marriage’ mean if it’s not between a man and a woman?”
“If gay people can marry, does this redefine the nature of the commitment between my spouse and me?”
“Doesn’t changing the definition of marriage threaten me in some way?”
Those are concerns that needed to be addressed before we asked for a societywide referendum. There was more campaigning to be done. But we acted on impulse.
We owe it to our community to spend our political capital wisely, to set a better example as responsible adults and to secure for our youth a brighter future. Campaigning for gay civil rights is a marathon to the finish line, not a sprint. We should work to secure our civil and legal rights well before we choose the ultimate battle of naming our unions “marriage.” Unpopular as this all may sound, look where we are now, with several states not only banning same-sex unions but domestic-partnership benefits as well. We have taken a big step backward for all of gay-kind.
Yet there is hope on the horizon. From the ashes of this defeat will emerge a wiser approach that will first get us what we need before we pick out the caterer for the wedding.
One last observation from channel-surfing last Wednesday night in order to avoid the pain of postelection political analyses and settling on a nature program: Ostriches are interesting creatures, best known for their curious habit of sticking their heads in the sand to avoid detection by predators, despite that their heads are tiny and their bodies huge (200 to 300 pounds). Ostriches are powerful animals, they travel in flocks, they can run very fast, they love to bathe---and they have been hunted nearly to extinction in the past century.
With the exception of their pretty feathers and the laying of large eggs, the gay community shares many of the same characteristics. We do, however, have bigger brains. I sincerely hope that after Election 2004 we pull our heads out of the sand so that our dreams don’t meet the same fate.
Readers can reach Dr. Cohan through his Web site, http://www.DoctorCohan.com
We are the counterbalance ... an Advocate.com exclusive
We are the counterbalance
The reelection of George W. Bush is no historical anomaly—the Republicans win more often than not. But this was no Reagan-like landslide: Almost half the country rejected his right-wing agenda. The country is changing
By Michael Nava
An Advocate.com exclusive, posted November 12, 2004
In the 144 years since Lincoln was elected as the first Republican to the White House, Democrats have only held the office 60 years, while Republicans have held it 84 years. Even this is deceptive, because there have been long periods when Democrats have been virtually shut out. From 1860 to 1932, a period of 72 years, only two Democrats were elected (Cleveland and Wilson) for a total of 16 years. The anomaly is the period between 1932 and 1968, when Democrats actually were in the White House for 28 years. Since 1968 we have reverted to our earlier pattern: Between 1968 and 2004, Democrats have only been in the White House for 12 years (Carter’s one term, Clinton’s two.)
The message from this pattern is, this was not the “Armageddon” election; it was business as usual. While the Democratic Party is strong in many states at the state and local level, it’s always been a hard road to elect a Democrat president.
What this reminds me of is that this country is, and has been for a long time, culturally conservative. Nor is the Christian right a new phenomenon. Christian fundamentalism—reading the Bible literally—is an American invention, and right-wing Christians have always attempted to impose their views politically. The high point of that activism was actually in the 1920s when they managed to get a constitutional amendment passed banning alcohol and when states passed laws outlawing the teaching of evolution (remember the Scopes trial?).
So, again, I think it’s a mistake to view the election as some kind of turning point.
What is different is not the strength of cultural conservatives and Christians, but that there is now a cultural counterweight to those groups. That counterweight, if we just go by the popular vote for president, includes almost half the country. We are the counterweight—not just some embattled minority.
Depending on the issue (abortion, for example) we are in the majority. The pace of change in the consciousness of the culture has been breathtaking; when I was in college in the early ’70s, gays and lesbians couldn’t get a license to practice law in California because homosexuality made them morally unfit per se. Until 1974, California had a sodomy law.
Now we’re talking about gay marriage.
The right is not made up of superhumans. It’s made up of a lot of frightened people who want to turn back the clock. But history is inexorable, and the real history of the past few decades, on a social and cultural level, at least, is not the history of right-wing primacy, but of the increase in diversity and sensitivity to and tolerance for difference. That is reflected in, among other things, the incredible gains made by the lesbian and gay rights movement.
Progressive people need to own their power. The more vicious and vocal people on the right may claim that we are not Americans, but that’s only true if we agree with them. Let’s not.
Langston Hughes wrote in a race context something that’s relevant beyond race:
You are white—yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
The election was not the end of anything and not the beginning of anything. It’s another day in the struggle to create a different consciousness in a very hidebound culture. What I plan to do is sit down and write a list of 10 things I can personally do to keep the struggle going.
Nava is an attorney and a novelist.
We are the counterbalance
The reelection of George W. Bush is no historical anomaly—the Republicans win more often than not. But this was no Reagan-like landslide: Almost half the country rejected his right-wing agenda. The country is changing
By Michael Nava
An Advocate.com exclusive, posted November 12, 2004
In the 144 years since Lincoln was elected as the first Republican to the White House, Democrats have only held the office 60 years, while Republicans have held it 84 years. Even this is deceptive, because there have been long periods when Democrats have been virtually shut out. From 1860 to 1932, a period of 72 years, only two Democrats were elected (Cleveland and Wilson) for a total of 16 years. The anomaly is the period between 1932 and 1968, when Democrats actually were in the White House for 28 years. Since 1968 we have reverted to our earlier pattern: Between 1968 and 2004, Democrats have only been in the White House for 12 years (Carter’s one term, Clinton’s two.)
The message from this pattern is, this was not the “Armageddon” election; it was business as usual. While the Democratic Party is strong in many states at the state and local level, it’s always been a hard road to elect a Democrat president.
What this reminds me of is that this country is, and has been for a long time, culturally conservative. Nor is the Christian right a new phenomenon. Christian fundamentalism—reading the Bible literally—is an American invention, and right-wing Christians have always attempted to impose their views politically. The high point of that activism was actually in the 1920s when they managed to get a constitutional amendment passed banning alcohol and when states passed laws outlawing the teaching of evolution (remember the Scopes trial?).
So, again, I think it’s a mistake to view the election as some kind of turning point.
What is different is not the strength of cultural conservatives and Christians, but that there is now a cultural counterweight to those groups. That counterweight, if we just go by the popular vote for president, includes almost half the country. We are the counterweight—not just some embattled minority.
Depending on the issue (abortion, for example) we are in the majority. The pace of change in the consciousness of the culture has been breathtaking; when I was in college in the early ’70s, gays and lesbians couldn’t get a license to practice law in California because homosexuality made them morally unfit per se. Until 1974, California had a sodomy law.
Now we’re talking about gay marriage.
The right is not made up of superhumans. It’s made up of a lot of frightened people who want to turn back the clock. But history is inexorable, and the real history of the past few decades, on a social and cultural level, at least, is not the history of right-wing primacy, but of the increase in diversity and sensitivity to and tolerance for difference. That is reflected in, among other things, the incredible gains made by the lesbian and gay rights movement.
Progressive people need to own their power. The more vicious and vocal people on the right may claim that we are not Americans, but that’s only true if we agree with them. Let’s not.
Langston Hughes wrote in a race context something that’s relevant beyond race:
You are white—yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
The election was not the end of anything and not the beginning of anything. It’s another day in the struggle to create a different consciousness in a very hidebound culture. What I plan to do is sit down and write a list of 10 things I can personally do to keep the struggle going.
Nava is an attorney and a novelist.
Saturday, November 13, 2004
me: age 1 to 20, a southern baptist christian living in daytona beach, florida
me: age 1 to now, a homosexual, first experience was in boy scouts, i loved love
now: the southern baptist have elected their own christian president, mr bush
now: society is in pain again, as christians push their views and values onto the rest of us
for i am, dave hell
me: age 1 to now, a homosexual, first experience was in boy scouts, i loved love
now: the southern baptist have elected their own christian president, mr bush
now: society is in pain again, as christians push their views and values onto the rest of us
for i am, dave hell