The Republic of T.

It’s been a long time coming…

In my work-related news reading this morning, I came across an interesting take on Obama’s exchange with “Joe the Plumber.”

The truth is that Obama in Ohio spoke the language of American democracy, which has always included a perception that wealth is a form of power, and that stupendous inequalities of wealth produce an undemocratic inequality of power. His questioner, angry in anticipation that he could not hold onto all of the $300,000 he might hypothetically earn in a year, spoke the language of righteous self-interest; and he cited as his irrefutable authority “the American dream.” If I follow that dream, said the Joe of today, hoarding the wealth of the Joe of tomorrow, why should I ever pay a higher tax?

Obama’s answer was simple and Christian. Once you have been helped by a tax break to prosper and to grow relatively rich, it seems fair to give others lower down the ladder the same chance that once helped you.

You’d think so. But once again, depending on how you you believe faith and finance relate to one another.

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Before I launch into this post, let me just be clear about one thing. I’m not sure of much anymore. But I am fairly certain that I shouldn’t be writing this, or much of anything having to do with politics these days. For starters, I’m not that relevant as a voter. Based on everything I’ve read, seen, and heard, as black gay male, a member of the upper middle class, a college-educated white collar worker, and a non-Christian and non-theist, who doesn’t reside in a southern state, a rust-belt state, a battle-ground state, a small town or a rural area, and someone far enough to the left to be out of the mainstream much of the time, I am one of the most irrelevant, least important voters in this election.

I am also not a “real American” living in the “real America.” At best, I am an “ersatz American.” (The use of the word “ersatz” automatically disqualifies me as a “real American.)”

But this is something I — and the rest of the country — already know and have known for a while.

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Want to blame someone for the financial mess we’re in? Well, join the club and get in line. Folks on the right are hell bent on blaming blacks. And if that doesn’t work, they can always blame gays for our economic downturn. (Okay, okay! I confess already. it’s all my fault. I’m not sure how I did it, and I don’t know what I did with the $1 trillion that’s likely to be the total we’re in the hole.)

Christian fundamentalists are suggesting gays and lesbians are to blame for Wall Street’s woes, a frequently made charge in the wake of national calamities.

In a September 25th blog post titled ‘The Nation Will Right Itself If It Fixes Sex’, Christian Civil League of Maine Executive Director Michael Heath writes that the financial crisis facing Wall Street is a symptom of America’s sinful sexual culture, including the acceptance of gay unions.

“Our crisis is a symptom, not the cause,” writes Michael Heath. “I am not saying I know whether this financial crisis is God’s judgment or not. It is not for me to know that definitively.”

Heath goes on to list policy changes that would make God “crack a smile,” including: End abortion rights and defund non-profit groups supporting it, amend state constitutions to ban gay marriage and eliminate domestic partnerships and civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, and end discrimination against private religious schools and homeschools.

A related post by Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian at the National Review’s website pushes a similar theme, this time focusing on Friday’s failure of WaMu.

Krikorian suggests the big bank failed because it was too accommodating to minorities, including gays, African-Americans and Hispanics.

In his September 26th post titled ‘Cause and Effect?’, Krikorian writes, “I really thought this was a joke, but it’s not. WaMu’s final press release, before it sank beneath the waves.”

I’ve heard some people suggest — in response to the above — that if Jesus did have something to say about this mess, he’d probably take a swipe at the “moneychangers” again, and repeat the parable about the rich man, the camel, and the eye of the needle. Jesus would run the moneychangers out of the temple, and denounce the worship of wealth, right?

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If I could figure out how to loop this, I would.

In lieu of that, here’s my best copying and pasting for today, because my automated digest posting isn’t working at the moment.

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This is a post about two headlines and one scary story.

Headline one:

Bailout is financial equivalent of the Patriot Act

The passage is stunning:

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency,” the original draft of the proposed bill says.

And with those words, the Treasury secretary - whoever that may be in a few months - would be vested with perhaps the most incredible powers ever bestowed on one person over the economic and financial life of the United States. It is the financial equivalent of the Patriot Act, after 9/11.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr.’s $700 billion proposal to bail out Wall Street is both the biggest rescue and the most amazing power grab in the history of the American economy.

Headline two:

McCain Campaign Can’t…Won’t…Rule Out Gramm As Treasury Secretary

For those of you who have developed a fondness for Tucker Bounds-themed bondage and domination videos, here’s another YouTube where David Shuster chortles his way through a segment in which Bounds cannot or will not bring himself to assure the American people that Phil Gramm - who recently called America a “nation of whiners” but who led the effort for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that paved the way for the economic collapses of today - will not, under any circumstances, become Secretary of the Treasury in the McCain administration. If Bounds keeps at these sorts of “explanations,” the world’s supply of false equivalencies may run out by the first week of October.

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I was catching up on email when I came across this article about a Christian music performer who just came out as gay (and proceeded to open a can of worms). It wafted into my inbox via the LGBTPOC listserve.

Famed Christian music singer Ray Boltz has publicly announced he’s living a homosexual lifestyle according to Gospel News Wire. He also believes that God made him that way.

“If this is the way God made me, then this is the way I’m going to live … I really feel closer to God because I no longer hate myself,” Boltz said in an interview with the Washington Blade about his decision to engage in homosexuality.

Boltz, a father of four who was married for 33 years before officially divorcing his wife this year, is well-known for his widely acclaimed songs “Thank You” and “I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb.”

Of course, you know someone had to sound off on that. And ignorantly, at that.

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Ed. Note: I don’t have the obligatory 9/11 recollection post in me today, in part because of it’s dual significance to my family, since a one year ago today we began what turned out to be a painful period of loss.  I’ve posted my recollections previously, and you can read them the post about gay 9/11 victims. Today, I’m going to dedicate to pointing out significant news items and blog posts from others.

Seven year’s later, Al Qaeda is gaining ground in Pakistan, and shows no signs of weakening.

Seven years after 9/11, al Qaida and its allies are gaining ground across the region where the plot was hatched, staging their most lethal attacks yet against NATO forces and posing a growing threat to the U.S.-backed governments in Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan.

While there have been no new strikes on the U.S. homeland, the Islamic insurrection inspired by Osama bin Laden has claimed thousands of casualties and displaced tens of thousands of people and shows no sign of slackening in the face of history’s most powerful military alliance.

The insurgency now stretches from Afghanistan’s border with Iran through the southern half of the country. The Taliban now are able to interdict three of the four major highways that connect Kabul, the capital, to the rest of the country.

“I am not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan,” Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded before a congressional committee on Tuesday.

Experts inside and outside the U.S. government agreed that a key reason for the resurgence is a growing popular sympathy for the militants because an over-reliance on the use of force, especially airpower, by NATO has killed hundreds of civilians.

[Photo via Jamespon @ Flickr]

I can’t wait to hear how LCR explains this away. Via Queerty comes more specifics on the story about Sarah Palin inquiring about banning books from the public library while mayor of Wasillia.

In her first public statement since Palin was named the GOP vice-presidential candidate, Mary Ellen Baker said today, “I simply do not recall a conversation with specific titles,” Baker told ABCNews.com.

Palin has acknowledged she twice raised the issue in 1996 of how books could be removed from the shelves, but said it was only a “rhetorical question” and that she did not ask for any books to be banned.

Palin’s church at the time, the Assembly of God, had been pushing for the removal a book called “Pastor, I Am Gay” from local bookstores, according to the book’s author Pastor Howard Bess, of the Church of the Covenant in nearby Palmer, Alaska.

“And she was one of them,” said Bess, “this whole thing of controlling information, censorship, that’s part of the scene,” said Bess.

Here’s where I’m confused. How does This add up to being “inclusive”? OK, she has “gay friends” but doesn’t want “gay books” in the library? And did she have “gay friends” when she was mayor? Did they say anything to her about this? Do Republicans’ “gay friends” ever say anything to them about stuff like this?

If so, it apparently doesn’t do any good. (That the books weren’t banned says more about the character librarian and the integrity of the process than about how much of either quality Palin possesses.) And if not, why not?

It’s not something I haven’t to do, in the past few years, as much as I used to. And with two kids I have even less time for it. But, always the enthusiast, I keep up with news, and I know pretty early when the next big new thing is coming out. I start counting the days up to a year in advance, buy it as soon as its available, take it home and spend hours playing around with it, figuring it out, and just immersing myself in it.

That was the case with The Sims, and that’s been the case with Spore. Well sort of.

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I thought of two things when I saw this poll.

The first was one of my favorite songs, from which I borrowed the title of this post. The second was a book I read a few years ago that actually makes it hard for me to answer “yes” to the question in the poll.

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Well, for starters, it can result in a lawsuit against a judge where there was not one before.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the Judicial Inquiry Commission against Covington County Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan of Andalusia, said Olivia Turner, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama. The complaint said McKathan violated ethics rules and the U.S. Constitution by ordering the group to pray.

Four years ago, McKathan donned the Ten Commandments robe, he said, to publicly acknowledge his belief that the law is based on more than just words written in law books.

The ACLU complaint said McKathan dropped to his knees and prayed aloud during a court hearing in February. He told the 100 people in the courtroom that he was not afraid to call on the name of Jesus Christ, witnesses said, and ordered all to join hands and pray, according to the complaint filed soon after the hearing.

The hearing was for a case in which the pastor and several deacons of Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in Monroeville, Alabama, sued the church’s former secretary to gain possession of financial records.

Ordered to pray? Ordered to pray?

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I wrote this yesterday:

Sometimes I’ll come across an article focusing on family and friends remembering the victim, and may be able to glean a little more information. But just as often, those friends and family may not have known — may have guessed or inferred, or may have assumed since they were not told — that their loved-one or their friend was gay. Co-workers who have worked beside the victim for years, friends and family who have known the victim even longer, may simply not have known who their friend and love-one really was. That is, until they become the victim of a hate crime.

That was the case with the murder of Victor Manious. When I filed away an article on Manious’ murder a couple of months ago, I intended to get back to it, and I did. But I didn’t expect to find so much information on the case, or to spend much time with it. But the more time I spent looking in to it, the more I was reminded of a few other stories, which raised some questions for me.

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