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Chris Crain: "A year of living dangerously"

"A year of living dangerously" by Chris Crain in Southern Voice

After almost a decade of editing gay newspapers, this was the year that our struggle against ignorance and intolerance for me became personal — really personal.

For most of my thirties, covering our fight for equality and fairness, from government and from society, was more a matter of principle. If you believe in American and Judeo-Christian values, and I do, then you believe that informing people about the injustices of the world is the first and most important step toward correcting them.

I have never approached this task with rose-colored glasses. I have lived almost all my life in the Deep South, and I know a thing or two about how misguided even good people can be about our lives and our "agenda."
But each and every week, as we reported about hate crimes and unjust laws, I felt mostly empathy. Not anymore.

On April 30, 2005, the same month I turned 40, my boyfriend and I were beaten by seven young Moroccan men on the streets of Amsterdam, of all places, because we were holding each other's hand. And because we had the temerity to stop and ask why one of them had spat in my face for doing so.

I wrote about that experience on this page, and since then my boyfriend and I have both been gratified by the overwhelming support we received from gay and straight alike, over in Holland and back here in the States.

My broken nose and black eyes have long ago healed, and the city of Amsterdam invited us back for a truly wonderful Gay Pride celebration in August, but the emotional scars remain. Like any victim of a violent crime will tell you, there is a certain amount of involuntary recall, where time and again, when I least expect it, I relive every moment of what happened, and its aftermath.

I also learned the hard way how the impact of hate crimes is felt different, and more broadly, than other violent crimes. Not only do I use extra caution on the streets, but I often flashback to that night in Leidseplein when a male friend gives me a public peck on the lips hello, or when my boyfriend reaches for my hand on the sidewalk.

We weren't just beaten up for being gay. We were beaten up because we were gay and so nonchalantly open about it, with the expectation that we could live our lives under the same rules of social conduct as any straight couple would.

The message from the men who cowardly attacked us was to go back in the closet where we belong, or face the consequences, even in the "gay capital of the world," in the first country to open up civil marriage.

But a beating on the streets of Amsterdam wasn't the only lesson my boyfriend and I received this year about homophobia. Our very relationship is challenged by homophobia and intolerance.

We are citizens of different countries, and he cannot move to the United States because this country does not recognize our relationship. In 1996, a Republican Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, and "gay-friendly" Bill Clinton signed it, and as a result, our relationship works against his ability to come to America, even as a tourist.

He lives in a developing country, and any proof of ties to the U.S., especially a romantic relationship, would be viewed as evidence he will overstay his visa, and it would be denied.

But the irony is even more twisted than that. He lives in a country where in some places hostility toward gays is so great, and the fear of violence is so real, that even the Bush administration regularly approves asylum applications for gays from his country already in the United States. At the same time, the government in his country is enlightened enough to be one of 17 worldwide that would recognize our relationship for immigration purposes.

So I could move to his country, an involuntary exile like countless other gay Americans in binational relationships, and risk reliving Amsterdam in all too vivid detail. Or I could remain here in the U.S., and live the daily struggle of an intercontinental long distance relationship.

It's not just my relationship to my boyfriend that was dealt a personal blow by intolerance and prejudice this year. My relationships with my faith and my family were impacted as well.

This was the year when I officially renounced my membership in the United Methodist Church, the faith that was so central to my childhood and my upbringing. I had not been a regular churchgoer for years, but I maintained my membership at my last "church home," the Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta.

I had long been bothered by the hypocrisy at Peachtree Road and other mainline Protestant churches, welcoming gay couples to fill their pews and offering plates, and enjoying the church leadership of gay members, all while maintaining an official policy that treats them as unrepentant sinners, and their relationships as fundamentally wrong. But I also saw other Methodist churches that more warmly embraced their gay parishioners, and so I had hope.

Not after 2005. The denomination that markets itself in slick television ads as the church with "Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors," is none of the above for gays.

On Halloween appropriately enough, the Judicial Council of the Methodist church played a double trick, no treat: defrocking one, and restoring the credentials of another.

The defrocked pastor was Beth Stroud, who had been welcomed by her Germantown, Pa., congregation after she went public about being a lesbian in a long-term relationship. The reinstated pastor was Ed Johnson, who had refused church membership to a gay man unwilling to repent the "sin" of his homosexuality.

Those were the Methodists' "Open Doors" we heard slamming shut in 2005, and frankly I'm OK about being on the outside. I want no part of a faith that embraces hypocrisy and exclusion while shunning honesty and compassion, and I can't imagine Christ would either.

But the most painful blow of 2005 for me was within my own family, which has long struggled with my homosexuality and, for the last decade, gay-focused journalism. Writing about those struggles on this page has already cost me dearly in those relationships, so I don't feel at liberty to offer much by way of detail.

This year, someone very close was taken from us, perhaps forever, and the pain that loss caused me was amplified by the fact it happened without any reconciliation on the issues between us, which all revolved around my being gay.

I am sure we both believed we had years ahead of us to work through our differences and find common ground, but none of us knows just how much time we have, and now I will live with that never-resolved wound.

Still, even as I happily wave goodbye to this year of living dangerously, I welcome 2006 with the hope that with time will come progress. I for one will redouble my efforts to be a part of changing the future for the better.

Establishing gay marriage is true conservatism

In light of the recent coverage of the gay marriage ban again being attempted in Iowa, and the KKK's rally in support of the ban, please consider this:

Self-proclaimed conservatives standing against same-sex civil unions or “gay marriage” aren't supported by conservative philosophy.

Same-sex civil unions create households, foster stability, and promote longevity (just as marriage does for heterosexuals), all which make for a more productive society. (That's why more Fortune 500 companies than ever offer same-sex domestic partner benefits.)

It is not conservative to foster individualism by providing state-backed disincentives for mutual, lifelong, committed relationships between two people (i.e., legally forcing people to be single!); or to want any law-abiding citizen to remain alone and isolated, instead of in partnership; or to codify exclusions from helpful rights and protections for an entire class of productive (and potentially more productive) citizens—especially in a functioning, capitalist republic.

No, such things aren't conservative; they are just meddlesome and just mean-spirited: two things that aren't conservative and, I hope, aren't Iowan.

Please consider writing something like the above in your own words to editors of local papers in states where ban votes (legislative or popular) or ban-related petition drives or lawsuits are occuring 2006: California, Alabama, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Virginia, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, and (lawsuits in the following) California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Washington state.

I think Iowa and California, where there are both vote or petition actions and lawsuits, will be particularly key. In Iowa, some moderate GOP state senators (and, I suspect, some GOP state representatives) have come out against the ban. They need to be encouraged.

Go to jail

"If you want to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens, you go to court. If you don't, you go to jail. If you want to change the law, you go to Congress."      -- Journalist James Bamford (author of The Puzzle Palace, which introduced the National Security Agency to the public in '82) on the illegality of Bush's warrant-less wiretapping of U.S. citizens.

From Salon.com:

Bamford believes the president clearly broke the law, and he has called for a special prosecutor to investigate. "What you have here is the administration going around the only protection the public has from the NSA, and doing it on their own," Bamford told [the media]. "That's how Richard Nixon got in trouble, and one of the reasons he left office."
.....
Twenty-three years after publishing "Puzzle Palace," Bamford still likes to quote Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, who warned in 1975 of the vast powers of NSA's signal intelligence operation. "That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversation, telegrams, it doesn't matter," Church declared then.

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Pentagon spied on college civil rights groups

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ --

According to recent press reports, Pentagon officials have been spying on what they call "suspicious" meetings by civilian groups, including student groups opposed to the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual military personnel. The story, first reported by Lisa Myers and NBC News last week, noted that Pentagon investigators had records pertaining to April protests at the State University of New York at Albany and William Patterson College in New Jersey. A February protest at NYU was also listed, along with the law school's LGBT advocacy group OUTlaw, which was classified as "possibly violent" by the Pentagon.

More here.

Peter Dau's dour report . . . reflects reality

Dau Report (from Salon.com) -
"The Dynamic of a Bush Scandal: How the Spying Story Will Unfold (and Fade)"
by Peter Daou

The third button on the Daou Report's navigation bar links to the U.S. Constitution, a Constitution many Americans believe is on life support - if not already dead. The cause of its demise is the corrosive interplay between the Bush administration, a bevy of blind apologists, a politically apathetic public, a well-oiled rightwing message machine, lapdog reporters, and a disorganized opposition. The domestic spying case perfectly illuminates the workings of that system. And the unfolding of this story augurs poorly for those who expect it to yield different results from other administration scandals.

Here's why: the dynamic of a typical Bush scandal follows familiar contours...

1. POTUS circumvents the law - an impeachable offense.

2. The story breaks (in this case after having been concealed by a news organization until well after Election 2004).

3. The Bush crew floats a number of pushback strategies, settling on one that becomes the mantra of virtually every Republican surrogate. These Republicans face down poorly prepped Dem surrogates and shred them on cable news shows.

4. Rightwing attack dogs on talk radio, blogs, cable nets, and conservative editorial pages maul Bush's critics as traitors for questioning the CIC.

5. The Republican leadership plays defense for Bush, no matter how flagrant the Bush over-reach, no matter how damaging the administration's actions to America's reputation and to the Constitution. A few 'mavericks' like Hagel or Specter risk the inevitable rightwing backlash and meekly suggest that the president should obey the law. John McCain, always the Bush apologist when it really comes down to it, minimizes the scandal.

6. Left-leaning bloggers and online activists go ballistic, expressing their all-too-familiar combination of outrage at Bush and frustration that nothing ever seems to happen with these scandals. Several newspaper editorials echo these sentiments but quickly move on to other issues.

7. A few reliable Dems, Conyers, Boxer, et al, take a stand on principle, giving momentary hope to the progressive grassroots/netroots community. The rest of the Dem leadership is temporarily outraged (adding to that hope), but is chronically incapable of maintaining the sense of high indignation and focus required to reach critical mass and create a wholesale shift in public opinion. For example, just as this mother of all scandals hits Washington, Democrats are still putting out press releases on Iraq, ANWR and a range of other topics, diluting the story and signaling that they have little intention of following through. This allows Bush to use his three favorite weapons: time, America's political apathy, and make-believe 'journalists' who yuck it up with him and ask fluff questions at his frat-boy pressers.

8. Reporters and media outlets obfuscate and equivocate, pretending to ask tough questions but essentially pushing the same narratives they've developed and perfected over the past five years, namely, some variation of "Bush firm, Dems soft." A range of Bush-protecting tactics are put into play, one being to ask ridiculously misleading questions such as "Should Bush have the right to protect Americans or should he cave in to Democratic political pressure?" All the while, the right assaults the "liberal" media for daring to tell anything resembling the truth.

9. Polls will emerge with 'proof' that half the public agrees that Bush should have the right to "protect Americans against terrorists." Again, the issue will be framed to mask the true nature of the malfeasance. The media will use these polls to create a self-fulfilling loop and convince the public that it isn't that bad after all. The president breaks the law. Life goes on.

10. The story starts blending into a long string of administration scandals, and through skillful use of scandal fatigue, Bush weathers the storm and moves on, further demoralizing his opponents and cementing the press narrative about his 'resolve' and toughness. Congressional hearings might revive the issue momentarily, and bloggers will hammer away at it, but the initial hype is all the Democrat leadership and the media can muster, and anyway, it's never as juicy the second time around...

Rinse and repeat.

It's a battle of attrition that Bush and his team have mastered. Short of a major Dem initiative to alter the cycle, to throw a wrench into the system, to go after the media institutionally, this cycle will continue for the foreseeable future.

###

"Last Best Chance"

9/11 is often referred to as having been "a wake-up call." If it was, the Bush Administration is still asleep. This year the 9/11 commission gave the federal government a failing grade on terrorism prevention; but, commission members are also joining the likes of Sen. Richard Lugar, former Senator Sam Nunn, Pete Peterson (Council on Foreign Relations), Ted Turner, Warren Buffet, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the MacArthur Foundation in helping promote Last Best Chance to get their message out.

Perhaps you saw Last Best Chance on HBO in October. It's a docu-drama about our nation's gross vulnerability to nuclear terrorism.

The New Yorker covered a screening of the documentary this autumn, and noted that among the attendees was Graham Allison, founder of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and Pentagon official under Reagan and Clinton. In Allison's book, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, he writes that "Americans are no safer from a nuclear terrorist attack today than we were on September 10, 2001. A central reason for that can be summed up in one word: Iraq." Allison goes on to write that the Bush administration's bogus claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) “discredited the larger case for a serious campaign to prevent nuclear terrorism.”

Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker summarizes:

"The invasion and occupation [of Iraq] have diverted essential resources from the fight against Al Qaeda; allowed the Taliban to regroup in Afghanistan; fostered neglect of the Iranian nuclear threat; undermined alliances critical to preventing terrorism; devastated America’s standing with the public in every country in Europe and destroyed it in the Muslim world; [and] monopolized the time and attention of the President and his security team."

And Hertzberg offers this in conclusion:

"After the September 11th attacks, Condoleezza Rice said that no one had imagined planes being smashed into buildings. After Hurricane Katrina, President Bush said that no one had imagined the breach of the levees. These statements were untrue, of course, but Rice and Bush probably believed them at the time. What no one can say, or can have said in good faith for many years, is that no one has imagined nuclear terrorism, and not just onscreen."

Now, let me put this in another context: the fact that Wyoming, the least populous state, gets $27.80 in federal homeland security money per person, while New York, the nation's No. 1 terror target, gets $15.54 per resident.

As The Journal News explained:

It is common sense that the bulk of homeland security money should go to states at the highest risk of attack. Yet Congress refuses to change the formula that distributes money for police, firefighters and other emergency personnel on a per capita basis. . . . .

[New York] Reps. Nita Lowey . . . and John Sweeney . . . devised a formula under which high-risk states and those with international borders would get 0.45 percent, while low-risk states would get 0.25 percent. The House approved the Lowey-Sweeney proposal as an amendment to its version of the Patriot Act. The Senate did not, and Senate-House negotiators consolidating their respective versions dropped the revised formula. . . .

As Bob Kerrey, former Governor and U.S. Senator (and now president of The New School), reminded viewers of NY1 recently, New York City is the only place in America to be hit twice by terrorists. (In fact, NYPD "commish" Ray Kelly told Congress in 2004 that the city has been the target of six plots by Islamic terrorists in the past 10 years. Place that fact next to the facts that the starting salary for NYPD officers has been lowered and that Kelly's had to pull 1,000 officers off regular duty to switch them to terrorism prevension.)

Kerrey aptly put it this way: "New York City's security is national security." NYC, the heart of the nation's economy, needs help; but, the federal government and the Bush Administration seem unaware of the urgency.

Of course, there was a remedy offered to this governmental sluggishness: John Kerry. Kerry was backed by the nation's principal firefighters union and most major law enforcement unions because he backed the idea of more federal funds for first-responders. But that's not all. Kerry again and again stressed the need to take steps against nuclear terrorism (he even brought it up in the debates)--the very topic covered by Last Best Chance. But the same America that put the befuddled Republican Congressional majority in place gave another term of a shockingly disconnected Republican President.

Gore Vidal in upcoming Simpsons episode

Gore Vidal and numerous other literary figures are lending their voices to an upcoming episode of The Simpsons, according to The Miami Herald. (The article is very entertaining. Vidal gets the last word.) There's been at least one Gore Vidal reference in The Simpson's before: Lisa complains once that even Gore Vidal has kissed more boys than she has.

Visit The Gore Vidal Pages on IseFire to learn more about Gore Vidal.

"The Christmas Invasion"

A Christmas Day special of the hugely popular British sci-fi series Doctor Who contains an anti-war message.

Snippet from the article:

Actress Penelope Wilton plays the Prime Minister in the hour-long show. In one scene she says of the US president: "He is not my boss and he is certainly not turning this into a war."

The principal Doctor Who fansite (U.S.-based; 20K daily readers) is Outpost Gallifrey.  

(If you live in the greater NYC metro area, check out DWNY.

Brokeback reviews are mixed...

Brokeback Mountain admirably avoids most of the gross stereotypes about gay men common in cinema and on TV: the offensive, two-dimensional, "effeminate fag"--the stereotype I call Sissy Sambo (The Birdcage, Will & Grace, etc.); the psycho gay character (Crusin', etc.); and the sexed-obsessed hedonist (Queer As Folk, Suddenly Last Summer, etc.). Admittedly, it dishes up another problematic Hollywood stereotype: the tragic queer--the stereotype I call Sodomite Shylock (Gods & Monsters, Rebel Without A Cause, The Detective, Boys In The Band, etc., and there are numerous lesbian equivalents like The Children's Hour.)

But, in the end, I cannot see how Brokeback can possibly do more harm than good for the cause of human and civil rights for gay Americans. (Though I can understand activists' anger at the asinine interview Jake Gyllenhaal gave in which--ever the rocket scientist; or perhaps just ever-obedient to his publicist--he stated that the lead characters aren't really gay.)

Even the oppressively tragic nature of the film's gay characters can be contextualized by remembering that the film happens in the 1960's and 70's. (Theoretically, things are a bit better for gay Americans now; though the Bush Administration, judges like Alito and Scalia, and the Religious Right are genuinely determined to make things worse for gay Americans anyway they can.) Also, it's important that the movie shows gay men married with children, for that is far, far more common than many Americans realize.

Some published observations demonstrating the diversity of opinions:

[After people see the film] they’ll tell me, ‘You know, I never really thought about gay men and their lives. I always tried to avoid it, but I really felt bad for those guys. I didn’t know they felt the way that we do.’ - Annie Proulx, whose short story inspired the movie

["Brokeback" is] hawking sentiment carefully divorced from gay identity.
. . . . .
[Isn't there] something inherently masochistic in gays obediently lining up to throw [money] at a movie whose stars assiduously deny their own gayness, as well as their characters’?
. . . . .
“Brokeback” is perfectly of its moment . . . . The perceived center, of both our politics and our popular culture, has drifted so far right over the past five years that people might actually mistake this anachronistic folly for some kind of progress. - Gay City News

[Brokeback Mountain] is nothing if not a full-on weepie, and a conservative one at that. (It literally ends in a closet.) Such may be the essence of its appeal, paradoxically, to mall crawlers soon confronted with matinee man-love. - Time Out New York

Any heartfelt love story is about not being able to be with the one you’re supposed to be with. . . . [E]ven in the gay community, people are trapped in labeling. . . . [E]pecially for Heath Ledger’s character, I feel he just happened to fall in love with a man. What he’s battling is society’s labeling of him suddenly. - Ellen Huang of Queer Lounge

Peggy Noonan and Iraq War's goodness

Kudos to No More Mr. Nice Blog on his great catch:

Peggy Noonan today, on Bush's recent Iraq speeches:

One of the things I think the president communicated most effectively, if mostly between the lines, was the sense that some decisions a president faces don't promise good outcomes no matter which way he comes down....

And one such was: To move on Saddam or not?

Peggy Noonan, March 24, 2003:

This is what the American victory in Iraq is going to mean:

It is going to mean, first, that something good happened.... The coming victory is going to be the biggest good thing that has happened in the world, the West and the United States since the twin towers fell.