Isebrand.com

Crain's New York Business pro-marriage equality commentary

From Crain's New York Businesses' Columnist Alair Townsend's commentary, "Defy the haters; pass gay marriage" (subscription)

.....
A family functioning at its best provides financial support, planning for the future, care for its sick members, and a nourishing and sustaining envelope of love.

These are basic things we all seek. Yet we [in New York] and most of the country deny a sizable minority of our neighbors these basics because some find the idea of same-sex partnerships abhorrent and fear that recognizing them legally will somehow affect their own relationships.

I understand that some religions consider gay relationships unnatural and that adherents of those faiths object strenuously to formalizing the unions. But as [New York] Gov. [David] Paterson pointedly reminded us, this is a civil government. Government cannot and should not compel any church to perform rites it deems immoral. Government can, however, provide the legal framework for the unions.

What I cannot understand is the fear that legalizing same-sex partnerships will cheapen or degrade heterosexual unions, undermine parents' ability to impart their values to their children, or open the door for the abuse of children of same-sex couples. The national television advertising campaign by the National Organization for Marriage plays directly on such concerns, and it is disheartening and disquieting to watch.

.....

Slowly—but, I believe, surely—gay marriage will find acceptance across the country.

A number of states have legalized civil unions, offering the protections of marriage to varying degrees, but all denying the dignity and solemnity of marriage bonds. One day, Congress will overturn the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which withholds at least 1,138 rights and protections offered by the federal government to married heterosexuals. But today, our [i.e., New York's] state Legislature should cast off unreasoning fear, and act to protect the rights of an important minority group.

Daily Mammal

Check out the new Daily Mammal site.

Coney Island and corporatization

There's growing concern about the distinctive character of Coney Island being obliterated by over-development or badly planned development. Consider signing the petition at SaveConeyIsland.net. From the petition....

The city's current rezoning plan for the neighborhood would destroy Coney Island's unique character and undermine its historic amusement function: It allows high-rise towers up to 30 stories tall in the heart of Coney Island's amusement district. It limits the area reserved for the outdoor rides to only a narrow strip of land. It clears the way for chain retail and other generic commercial uses within the amusement district. It endangers Coney Island's historic buildings.

This particular petition calls for the area to be developed into a world-class amusement area. That may or may not be the best solution, but the Coney Island neighborhood has a distinctive character and many unique small businesses, including antique stores, and I'm most concerned about keeping some aspect of that preserved, even renewed.

I am by no means opposed to development in general or Coney Island development in particular. Parts of Coney Island are in real need of rehabilitation. But, any development there needs to be done in a way that's respectful of neighborhood distinctiveness and small businesses.

New York City is becoming less dynamic all the time because corporations benefiting from tax breaks and tax incentives (and bailout money in the case of so many banks) and landlords enjoying tax incentives to leave commercial property vacant until big corporate clients come along who can pay sky-high rents, are creating a commercial real estate climate that utterly clobbers small businesses and entrepreneurs. In New York City this trend--more like a tsunami--is generally associated with Manhattan, but none of the five boroughs are untouched by it, and now even Coney Island could fall prey unless the development plan is very careful considered.

(Photo by...me.)

Promoting the General Welfare in Iowa

The ruling of the Iowa Supreme Court that rejects, as Politico.com summarized, that "any claim that objections to same-sex marriage can be seen as 'rational,'" is a positive development in light of not only the Constitutional Principle of the Separation of Church & State, but for pragmatic governance that the extremists of right-wing and left-wing always find either unsatisfying or even alarming. I agree that the argument for same-sex marriage based upon pragmatism may not be the most compelling to most people. Yet, I think it is too seldom heard.

It's scientific fact that same-sex sexual attraction isn't a choice. Whether or not to act on it is. It's really hard not to act on sexual attraction. So, why not expand the benefits and responsibilities of civil marriage contracts to two consenting adults, especially when the societal benefits of these contracts are clear? (footnote) Marriage settles down, domesticates, a couple; domestication leads to shared financial responsibility and opportunities; this furthers everything from the tax base to the gentrification of neighborhoods; married couples are proven to be more likely to live longer, be happier at work--and thus more productive to our economy--and behave more responsibly sexually.

The benefits of marriage are clear; therefore, to not expand their availability is likely to be a pernicious exclusion.

The US Constitution calls on the purpose of this republic to be, among other things, to "promote the general welfare." Our nation's founders cared so much about this principle that they stated it twice in the Constitution. Same-sex marriage harms no one in any demonstrable way, but has clear benefits for the minority of American citizens whose lives it will improve without diminishing the lives of any person of the majority at all.

When any group of Americans despises such a “I-am-helped-and-you-are-not-hurt” situation only by citing tired, disproved stereotypes, misinformation, or religious texts, it is a clear indication that in some regard at least, liberty is less of a treasure to them than constriction. Our forefathers fought a revolution against just such an attitude, and the American Civil War and later the Civil Rights movement progressed the revolution into uplands of even greater abundance.

There is more to America than its history of big building projects, powerful economies, and wars won. There is a human element that is too often forgotten by citizens who also are inclined to forget that a representative democracy requires tolerance and mechanisms for adaptation.

Same-sex marriage helps some; it harms none; it promotes the general welfare. Let it flourish, so that together we can as a nation continue to move forward against great challenges and to seize opportunities that will demand that we work as a whole greater than the sum of our fragmented parts of this sect, that race, this economic group, that party, and so on.

In light of what this nation has been through--the blood and suffering of revolution, wars, depression, recessions, and social upheavals--and in light of what this nation must strive to be for the sake of its continued strength, same-sex marriage is essentially trivial and belies the excitement of religious extremists. Twenty years from now, same-sex marriages will be looked upon as inter-racial marriages are now: unusual, not harmful, still noteworthy, and with special challenges for those involved—but  many of those challenges standing largely as a result of careless and wasteful prejudice alone.

UPDATE: There is some interesting and very readable legal commentary about the ruling on the blog Law Dork, 2.0.

(Footnote: The scientific fact of determinative genetic components behind same-sex sexual attraction is supported by reams of data and studies, as well as by common sense of the most no-nonsense and observation- and anecdotal-based kind. To believe that homosexuality is a choice is like believing that race is a choice; it's to toke the miasma of mental myopia and wallow in the quagmire of cognitive dissonance, it's to provide testimony to the power of wishful [non-]thinking usually associated with phrenology, Creationism, and alien abductions. Same-sex sexual attraction exists in all higher primates, and is present throughout human civilization's historical record. And percisely because it is difficult for the vast majority of humans to never act on sexual attraction is at least in part exactly why marriage ended up developing as a cultural reality in every society--even though sometimes marriage looks a little or very different in different cultures (e.g., multiple spouses in some but not all cultures). But in every culture, marriage means layers of benefits and responsibilities for the individuals involved. And in advanced civil societies, there are also often civil, legal, realities of marriage that may or may not intersect with religion.

Gay marriage as it is now being proposed in America, is ultimately a recognition that to the extent that the law and the state wish to be involved with matters of marriage, then marriage should include gay marriage, too, because it benefits some individuals directly, benefits society as a whole at least indirectly, and clearly harms no person or no thing.)

Beija-Flor

Beija-Flor
(Hummingbird)

IV

When you kiss me, moths flutter in my mouth;
when you kiss me,  leaf-cutter ants lift up
their small burdens and carry them along
corridors of scent; when you kiss me,
caymans slither down wet banks in moonlight,
jaws yawning open, eyes bright red lasers;
when you kiss me,  my fist conceals
the bleached skull of a sloth; when you kiss me,
the waters wed in my ribs,  dark and pale
rivers exchange their potions-- she gives him
love's power,  he gives her love's lure;
when you kiss me, my heart, surfacing, steals
a small breath like a pink river dolphin;
when you kiss me, the rain falls thick as rubber,
sunset pours molasses down my spine
and,  in my hips, the green wings of the jungle flutter;
when you kiss me, blooms explode like land mines
in trees loud with monkey muttering
and the kazoo-istry of birds; when you kiss me,
my flesh sambas like an iguana; when you kiss me,
the river-mirror reflects an unknown land,
eyes glitter in the foliage, ships pass
like traveling miracle plays, and coca sets
brush fires in my veins; when you kiss me,
the river tilts its wet thighs around a bend;
when you kiss me, my tongue unfolds its wings
and flies through shadows as a leaf-nosed bat,
a ventriloquist of the twilight shore
which hurls its voice against the tender world
and aches to hear its echo rushing back;
when you kiss me, anthuria send up
small telescopes,  the vine-clad trees wear
pantaloons, a reasonably evitable moon
rises among a signature of clouds,
the sky fills with the pandemonium
of swamp monkeys, the aerial slither
and looping confetti of butterflies;
when you kiss me,  time's caravan pauses
to sip from the rich tropic of the heart,
find shade in the oasis of a touch,
bathe in Nature carnal,  mute and radiant;
you find me there trembling and overawed;
for,  when you kiss me, I become the all
you love:  a peddler on your luminous river, 
whose salted-fish are words,  daughter
of a dolphin;  when you kiss me,  I smell
of night-blooming orchids;  when you kiss me,
my mouth softens into scarlet feathers--
an ibis with curved bill and small dark smile;
when you kiss me,  jaguars lope through my knees;
when you kiss me,  my lips quiver like bronze
violets;  oh, when you kiss me . . .

-Diane Ackerman, Jaguar of Sweet Laughter, Random House, 1991
(Photo by Leonardo F. Freitas)