The Republic of T.

It’s funny. I spend the last couple of days writing about marriage and money-related issues, and even though I hadn’t planned on writing about it today, it creeps back into my life. I was just taking care of some mundane tasks. In this case tracking down the forms to roll over a retirement account from an old job into my current one. And, inevitably, I have to answer — and figure out how to answer— the same old question and confronts me on almost every form I’ve encountered since I said “yes” and the hubby put that gold band on my finger, and I put one on his.

Are you married?

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There are a few abiding truths about my life. One is that I’ve always been and always will be a writer. I’m not sure I ever actually owned that one until I started blogging. But a quick glance back through my personal history suggests that it’s always been the case. I remember my sister and some our friends created an extended story, a “movie” that we built our play around; complete with characters and plot. At some point, I pulled myself up in front of a typewriters and banged out a “script” of about 30 pages. (Which, at the time, I thought was rather long.)

Then there was the point, somewhere around with 6th grade, that I tried to write a Civil War novel. I managed to get through the war in seven chapters, before I quit upon realizing that I’d totally ripped off Margaret Mitchell. After that, I might have attempted another novel or two, but never finished one.

Until November 2005. That was when discovered National Novel Writing Month and decided to take the plunge. Four weeks and 50,000+ words later, I finished a first draft of my novel.

Of course, it’s not finished yet.

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Well, yesterday’s post about marriage, money, and Suze Orman’s coming out generated a lot of attention. I hadn’t intended to post about it again, except that somethings come up that I should have expected, but didn’t address in my initial post (which was running long anyway). It came up briefly in the comments when I crossposted to my DailyKos diary. But Jim, over at Box Turtle Bulletin points to a more overt reference from Exodus International president Randy Thomas.

From another angle, this also does not help some in the gay activist community with their attempts to make this battle, over redefining marriage, a “civil rights” issue. Suze and her partner worrying over their “millions” doesn’t have the same ring or impact as watching young black people being knocked down by fully opened fire hoses and mauled by tax payer funded police dogs. I don’t think Suze or Tammy would ever make that comparison but some in the activist community do equate the marriage battle with the civil rights battle of the African American community and that is tragic.

Well, where to begin? For starters, who compared Suze Orman’s story to the particular moments from the civil rights movement that Thomas mentions? In all the coverage I’ve seen on the story, I haven’t come across that yet. Jim, in his post, does good job of taking apart Thomas’ pseudo argument by drawing a parallel to the story of Madam C.J. Walker (whose daughter and heir A’Lelia hosted salons attended by the queer literati of Harlem Renaissance, and was most likely a lesbian herself).

Still, if we’re going to get into the economics of inequality as they relate to marriage, we need to be clear about something: it also effects people who are neither wealthy nor white.

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No, I didn’t find him. Despite some suggestions that I should. But apparently some folks think they have found Jesus. What remains of him, that is. And there’s a documentary film about it. [Via Preemptive Karma.]

If it proves true, the discovery, which will be revealed at a press conference in New York Monday, could shake up the Christian world as one of the most significant archeological finds in history.

The coffins which, according to the filmmakers held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene will be displayed for the first timeon Monday in New York.

Jointly produced by Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and Oscar winning director James Cameron, the film tells the exciting and tortuous story of the archeological discovery.

The story starts in 1980 in Jerusalem’s Talpiyot neighborhood, with the discovery of a 2,000 year old cave containing ten coffins. Six of the ten coffins were carved with inscriptions reading the names: Jesua son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Matthew, Jofa (Joseph, identified as Jesus’ brother), Judah son of Jesua (Jesus’ son – the filmmakers claim).

In light of my earlier post, I almost wonder if this is the kind of thing we’re even supposed to talk about. Is there a respectful way to open question whether the gospel account of Jesus is fact or fiction? Or to say that the resurrection didn’t happen? Or that maybe he didn’t exist at all? I don’t know much more about this particular find than the article says, but it raises some interesting questions.

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I’ve never readSuze Orman’s books, and I’ve only seen part of one of her television appearances. I got as far as writing down my “money fears,” as she called them, but no further. Talking finances alternately confuses me, frustrates me, and — on occasion — depresses me. But I listened to Orman and watched her enough to get a “vibe” from her; one that made me wonder if she had secrets that weren’t just financial.

Turns out, my “gaydar” doesn’t just work with men. Albeit somewhat reluctantly, Orman came out recently about her seven year relationship with another woman, and some “money fears” of her own.

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Via Ex-Gay Watch, and just in time to follow the previous post, comes this clip of ex-”ex-gays” on the Montel Williams show.

It wasn’t until I was watching intro of the clip that I remembered I knew someone who went through “ex-gay therapy.” It was when the headline in the article that flashed briefly during the intro that I recognized my fraternity brother, Larry, in the “Campaign is ‘a Big Lie’” article. (I’ve tried to find the article online, and thus far haven’t had any luck.)

Peter’s story is pretty amazing. I posted an excerpt of it a while back.

At a cost of $950 a month, Toscano, now 40, stayed in LIA’s residential program for more than two years.

The rules dictated he shave every day, and stay out of the forbidden zones: Midtown, Downtown and anywhere west of Highland. In group therapy, clients were instructed to share their sexual thoughts and homosexual experiences in clinical terms. (Smid says the group sharing of sexual experiences is no longer a part of the therapy.)

Toscano says he was in a “biblically induced coma, with a toxic mixture of fear and shame.”

“We had a mock funeral for a 19-year-old” also in the program, he says. “We actually laid him out on the table, so we could talk about what a shame he didn’t live his life right.”

While he was at LIA, a fellow client tried to kill himself.

It took Toscano, now a Quaker, 17 years of submitting to the ex-gay movement to realize that “there’s nothing that can be done … and nothing need be done” about his sexual identity.

All told, he spend $30,000 and 17 years trying to “change.” Fortunately, he survived, to turn his experience into a one-man show and write a fantastic blog.

Lance Caroll’s story sounds hauntingly like Zach’s story. After he came out to his parents, they put in the same facility Zach’s parents sent him to, to the tune of $10,000.

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Jim, over at Box Turtle News attended the “Love Won Out” conference in Phoenix, Arizona earlier this month. I can only imagine what it was like, but I’m sure I’d be loathe to subject myself to it. And that’s a shame, because I don’t know first hand what’s said and done at these conferences. Fortunately, after taking what was probably some very necessary time to digest the experience, Jim has begun posting a series of essays about what he saw and heard at the conference. He begins with an explanation about why he chose to attend.

I often say that you should never take anyone’s word for anything if you can observe things directly for yourself. So if I’m such a show-me kind of guy, if I believe so strongly in going directly to the source, why should I let my perceptions about Love Won Out be shaped by what others are saying? Why am I not practicing what I’m preaching in this case? The more I thought about it, the more obligated I felt to go directly to the source itself — just like I always try to do with everything else.

There are one or two things that surprised me in the first couple of essays, including some that I disagree with — like Jim’s suggestion that gay activists no longer use “hate” to describe what goes on at “Love Won Out” or similar gatherings, which I’ll get to a bit later. But what stood out to me initially was Jim’s assessment of the smallest and largest groups at the conference, and his picture of one couple representing the largest group of conferees.

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I’ve written before about my experiences growing up gay and dealing with being bullied. More than 20 years later, in our own school district, we’re fighting a right wing attempt to derail sex-education curriculum that includes a unit on “Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality.” Other school districts are opposed to suicide prevention for gay youth, on grounds that it offends their “values.”

So, it’s encouraging to hear about a New Jersey court ruling that schools must protect LGBT students against harassment.

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Last week, in a meandering wrap-up post on the Edwards blogger debacle, I posted this.

In fact, one of the things I’ve been thinking about in light of this weeks events is that the religious left and the non-religious left (or “the left” and “the other left,” and you can decide yourself which is which) have got to find some way of working together, and coming to an understanding on how to fight stuff like what I mentioned above from both a religious and non-religious perspective. Is there’s a way to do that while respecting both religious belief and non-belief? I don’t know, but we’re close enough to being in the same boat to make it worth considering.

Well, it looks like this week that conversation is starting to happen. Of course, it’s a bit bumpy, but it’s been interesting to see the discussion going back and forth.

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Apparently in — what, at least in his tiny little mind, must be — the worst possible way.

See what happens when you take a day off from blogging? You miss some pretty major news. Like this bit via Alternet. Bush wants some man-on-man action with Bin Ladin.

Speaking of George Bush, with whom Sharon developed a very close relationship, Uri Dan recalls that Sharon’s delicacy made him reluctant to repeat what the president had told him when they discussed Osama bin Laden. Finally he relented. And here is what the leader of the Western world, valiant warrior in the battle of cultures, promised to do to bin Laden if he caught him: “I will screw him in the ass!”

Given the context, I’m assuming the proposed screwing would be administered with so much as a a drop of lubrication, or even the courtesy of a reach-around.

Of course, it’s worth pointing out (as the late great Molly Ivins did a while back) that Bush tends to be “all hat and no cattle,” with a penchant for writing checks he only wishes that his ass or any other part of his anatomy could cash. That, of course, is only when he’s writing checks with his mouth that he has no intention of his ass cashing, because he’s got American troops to do that.

The bit above, though, reminds me of another episode of Bush talking tough, as recounted by Molly Ivins.

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No posts today,folks. I'm to busy turning 38 today. I'm taking the day off, and I've got a 1.5 hour massage scheduled, followed by a lunch, and a movie matinée. Oh yeah, and a nap before the rest of family gets home! 

The short answer is: your nose and your brain.

I have a confession to make. I love how men, some of them anyway, smell. Not a big surprise, I guess. After all, I’m gay. It’s not unusual for me to take a deep breath, when a good looking guy happens to pass by me, stand in my general vicinity, or sit next to me on the train. In fact, it’s almost instinctive, and — depending on the guy — could make me a little lightheaded and more than a little interested. The last time it happened on the train, an attractive young (20-something) got on the train — hot and sweaty, fresh from an evening jog — and ended up standing right next to me. If it hadn’t been for the pole I was holding on to, I would have swooned. When I hold my husband, I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

It’s something that goes back at least as far as middle school, around the time puberty hit. (Which, incidentally, was around the time I came out.) It was also around the my male classmates got an extra ingredient added to their sweat. Something that drove the girls wild. And me too, of course, though I had to be a quieter about it then.

What brought all this to mind was the news I heard earlier this week about the pheromone in men’s sweat that drives women wild. Apparently, it still works on me too.

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Have you ever been in love? Are you in love? What did it? What made you fall in love?

The short answer is: your brain.

I’ve asked questions like this before, like “When did you know you were heterosexual?” and “Why did you get married?”, and usually they’re inspired by something I’m reading. The latter question came to mind while I was reading. What Is Marriage For? and Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage, both of which, by the way, do an excellent job of tracing the history of marriage, how it developed and how it has changed during the course of human history. (And, lest anyone point out that “it’s always been a heterosexual institution,” I point to William Naphy’s Born to Be Gay: A History of Homosexuality as one historical resource which suggests that hasn’t always been the case in all human societies and cultures, but that many recognized some form of same-sex or same-gender union).

This time it’s inspired by a book I just finished, Why We Love: The Nature And Chemistry Of Romantic Love by Helen Fisher. Besides reminding me another favorite book, A Natural History Of Love, I was impressed that Fisher included gays & lesbians in her survey of how we experience romantic love; especially in light of some recent studies and reports on the subject.

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I've been on the road yesterday, for a business trip, so I didn't have time to post much. But after thinking about my last few posts, something came to mind that I realized I wanted to say but hadn't yet.

Now, admittedly, my previous take on anger is not exactly Buddhist of me, since Buddhism describes anger as a “destructive emotion.” I still think that it may be informative and even helpful at some points. But in larger sense, it’s also part of a process that’s necessary for some of us in this culture. It’s a stop along the way, but one we’re urged to move through quickly. Particularly if you’re a minority, and your anger is against the dominant culture or group, you’ll probably be told to simply “get over it.” (Which I think means or at least implies an acceptance of present conditions.)

But there’s no way to “get over it.” The only way is through it, as I saw described in an interesting post about women, religion, and anger.

Women are taught that they cannot perform as well as men outside the home and that, indeed, they are not allowed to try. Osiek calls this “the myth of male superiority” (10). There comes a point, however, at which women recognize their repression and realize the emptiness of the myth. Upon this realization, the woman reinterprets the events of her life, big and small, which reveal her oppression by male superiority. The natural response to this new-found awareness is anger. The anger is not inappropriate and it must not be repressed, for repressed anger leads to depression. Anger, however, is not the final resting place. In order to deal with this anger, the woman must go into the depths of her being and come to an impasse. This impasse is where she wrestles with the meaning of her “‘dual membership’ in the world of church and that of feminism” (23). “The way out [of this impasse] is the way through” (24), but Osiek’s description of that breakthrough awaits a later chapter.

I’m still waiting for that chapter as well, because I don’t know what “through” looks like in that sense. But I think the above could be said for just about anyone cast in the role of "other" in our culture.

Reading that reminded me of something I saw via Pharyngula, about how not to navigate that impasse (or, actually, one like it).

How do we get beyond this impasse? Not by shouting at people about "the God delusion". Religion is immensely important to people, and, although it's easy to point to the ways in which religious belief has caused serious harm, it's also necessary to appreciate its social and personal functions. Religious beliefs play an important role in people's sense of their own lives, explaining why those lives matter. Religion also offers genuine community with others, providing spaces for joint ethical commitment and joint action. You don't end this heated debate by simply telling folk to brace up — or to take their scientific medicine so that they'll feel better in the morning. They won't.

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Not much posting going on here. Due to the snow, everything’s pretty much closed here. So I’m at home with Parker, splitting my time between keeping him entertained and trying to get some work done. But last night I came across this post on Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union conference, over at Mirror On America, and one part in particular resonated with me in light of the events of the past week and previous events.

I do think that the effort by Tavis Smiley and others (called ‘the Covenant’) leaves out one major thing. It spends a lot of time begging the two political Parties to listen to the concerns listed in the Covenant Statement, but there is no effort (not even the idea) to create new alternative Political Parties…Independent Progressive Political Parties to challenge the Republicans and the Democrats. As long as Black voters…(or ANY group) continue to operate in the small-minded world of the existing 2 Party system, not much will change for Black Americans.

In the past year, and particularly this week it’s occurred to me that we do not have a progressive political party in America; and as the two parties we currently have become more like one another, we desperately need one

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What, exactly? Pandagon is down. Melissa has resigned. I grabbed a screenshot of the holder page, in which Amanda shares some of the email she’s received from people who identify themselves as Christians.

These are the folks who must be appeased, apparently. Or, at least, they loudest among them. They must not be offended. They must not be insulted. They must not be maligned. Their beliefs must not be questioned. They must be respected and deferred to.

Paula Zahn won’t do a story on them. The New York Times and the Washington Post won’t quote these emails on their pages tomorrow. If anyone in the media comes anywhere close to condemning these attacks, they’re unlikely to do more than cluck their tongues, shake their heads, and make some closing remark about how these people were “provoked.”

Why? Because there are things you can’t say and things you can say.

What Amanda and Melissa said, you can’t say and get away with it.

What’s in these emails you can say, and suffer little to no consequences.

What’s amazing is that despite their feelings about religion, both Amanda and Melissa were willing to support a devoutly religious candidate. And, at least it appeared so for a time, that candidate was happy to work with them. Both despite their differences on religion. In a way, the situation had the potential to be a bridge between the “religious left” and the “non-religious left.” A bridge that has now been effectively blown up, from what I can tell, while one side was standing on it after the other had retreated.

After writing what I hoped were several thoughtful posts on the subject, I now understand that was a waste of time. These are the voices that carry the day.

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This is disappointing. More than that, it’s a clear message.

Days after Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards decided against firing two liberal bloggers with a history of inflammatory writing, one resigned last night with a blast at “right wing shills” for driving her out of the campaign.

Amanda Marcotte, whose writings were assailed as anti-Catholic, wrote yesterday on her blog that the Edwards camp had accepted her resignation. She blamed her most vocal critic, Bill Donohoe, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, writing that he “and his calvacade of right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills, and pretended that John Edwards had to be held accountable for some of my personal, non-mainstream views on religious influence on politics,” which Marcotte described as being “anti-theocracy.”

The message is that the discourse belongs to the Michelle Malkins and Bill Donohues of the world. After all, they got their trophy head. One, anyway. And with that success, I can’t imagine they’ll give up on make life any easier for Melissa either, or Edwards while he has her on board.

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This, I think, is my last post related to the Edwards blogger drama and it’s aftermath. In my previous post I mentioned two other stories that played out in the media parallel to the Edwards story, but that didn’t get the same degree of attention, probably because of the role the media itself played in both. One was the Anderson Cooper segment on “ex-gay” ministries.

It stood out to me as related to the Edwards story because of how it related to what you can’t seem to say regarding religion, without paying a price for it, and because it illustrated just how much of a “conversation stopper” the subject is, when it stops us from asking some important questions. And not asking those questions leads to ceding ground that shouldn’t be so easily surrendered.

The other story that came to mind was one that I wanted to include in the previous post, but feared that it would be even longer. Once Again, it involves CNN. But this time it features a Paula Zahn segment on atheists that didn’t actually include any atheists.

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Against the backdrop of the Edwards blogger saga and its aftermath, a couple of interesting and — to my mind, anyway — related events also played out, but got significantly less play. That’s probably due in part to the involvement of the same media that, Chris and Matt have pointed out, flogged the Edwards blogger story in to a froth that was only just wiped off the some pages by Anna Nicole Smith.

But it’s probably also due to the reality that there are some groups you can malign and get away with it, or at least rest assured that in doing so you won’t hear much noise about it.

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Well, when it comes to the Edwards blogger flap, quite a lot. It’s been interesting to read through the aftermath of responses from all sides. Edwards’ statement on his blog has assured some religious groups of his intolerance of religious intolerance, but not everyone on what I guess could be called the “non-religious left” is completely happy with it. And the most interesting reaction probably comes from folks on the religious left. More interesting, even than the initial reaction from the right.

It’s even more interesting when compared with other statements made in the media, more recently, but without raising nearly as much controversy. Taking it all in has left me with more questions than answers rattling around in my brain.

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