The Republic of T.

I don’t remember where I heard it, but it’s something a core belief of mine: Freedom and liberty are meaningless concepts without two things—knowledge of them and the ability to act on them. To my mind, the former is basically education, and the latter means health care. I’ve come to believe that a country that can’t provide those two basic things to its citizens can’t have more than a tenuous grasp on the two concepts above.

I’ve wanted to write about health care for some time, but until recently hadn’t taken the opportunity. I ventured down that road with an earlier post. Now I have a post up on the blog at the day-job, about a health care plan the organization is promoting, that would—if everything adds up as it’s supposed to—guarantee coverage to almost every American.

Given what I said about that core belief of mine, the idea of universal or near-universal health care is something I’m passionate about for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that believe it’s criminal that—in a country as wealthy as ours—there are millions of children without health insurance. But lately I’ve become passionate about for another reason, and one raises a question for me.

Is health care a gay issue? I don’t know that it’s a priority for any of our political organizations, but I’m starting to believe that it should be.

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First of all, this post is not what you think it’s about. (Though I could write style-crampin’ aspects of having an infant who doesn’t sleep through the night yet. Suffice it to say that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.) No, it’s about the French.

Or rather, it’s about what they French have done now. It’s something that would never be done here. At least not without a whole lot of whooping and hollering. Forget Maplethorpe for a minute. Can you imagine the public reaction if an American museum featured a new exhibit that’s basically a children’s guide to sex?
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This Friday, I had something anyone who’s ever lived through the first few months of parenting a newborn will understand is something to be treasured: a day off. The rest of the family left the house in the morning, and I went back to bed. But, of course, we never take a day off from being parents. Not that I want to, mind you, but those few extra hours of sleep Friday morning (I went back to bed. Surprised?) were sweet.

I’d taken the day off, because Parker’s pre-school was having a special performance, and of course we were going to be there to see it. Parker had been talking about it for the past month. At first he decided he was going to dance, and after he picked a song I burned it to CD so that he could take it to school with him and practice. But I know my son. He’s very stage shy. At home, with us as an audience, he sings, dances and puts on quite a show. But he generally prefers not to be in the spotlight and not to be the center a big audience’s attention.

So I wasn’t surprised when he announced that he’d volunteered (with one other child) for the job of handing out tickets. (Pieces of construction paper colored by Parkers class served as “tickets.”) I told him, “That’s a very important job. If nobody handed out tickets, there’d be no audience to see the show,” and that Daddy and Papa would be there so he could give us our tickets. And he did, as well as handing tickets to other parents as they arrived. He even helped with some of the props for the other students performances.

We were very proud and we told him so.
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(With apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)

It began with Veggie Booty. Or rather, I should say, it ended with Veggie Booty. As was my habit, I’d tossed it into the cart during our family’s weekend grocery shopping trip. I didn’t read the label, in part because I’d read it before, to make sure there were no animal products among the ingredients, and didn’t think I needed to read it again. Then I learned about the recall.

Also, shopping with a healthy, active five-year-old doesn’t lend itself to taking the time to read labels. So I didn’t. Until I read that Veggie Booty was recalled because it was tainted with salmonella, which was traced back to a spray-on seasoning, which was eventually traced back to China. Fifty two people became sick, complete with bloody diarrhea, including an 18-month-old.

My spouse and I each take about 30 seconds or less to read a food label. Even though we’re shopping with our five-year-old son and our two-month-old son, we have all the time in the world. In fact, because of them, we have all the time in the world to read food labels. We have 1,900 years, to be exact, because it will take the Food and Drug Administration 1,900 years to catch up on food import inspections.

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I’m at home with Dylan today and working from home. (Dylan’s doing very well, by the way. He’s nearing 2 months old and has gotten so much bigger! He was just under six pounds when he was born, and he’s just over 11 now; and he’s got a few extra chins, chubbier cheeks, and chubbier legs. He likes watching Parker play, and likes to be held upright and walked around the house.)

So between taking care of him and getting some work done, there may not be much posting here today, except for this post—which I stayed up last night to complete after getting Dylan to sleep—and possibly one more that I’ve been working on for a bit. (That’s if I can finish it.)

I haven’t been able to do as much writing as I’d like to lately, but I’ve been doing a lot of reading. (It’s relatively easy to read news & blogs online while rocking Dylan in my office chair. And there’s a lot out there I’d blog about if I could manage to find the time and the energy, and get them to synch up. In lieu of that, today seems like a good day for a roundup.
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It’s inevitable that, since the poisonous parenting series started, someone who drops into the the middle of it without reading the previous posts (or perhaps without reading any of it) completely misunderstands the point of it. That’s what seems to have happened with one commenter on the previous post.

I am a black hetrosexual woman who reads your blog often. It is really bothersome that you choose to highlight the worst of the worst of hetrosexual parenting. How can we have meaningful dialogue about our differing views when all you do is degrade and mock hetrosexual parents?????

Of course, the point is not to “degrade and mock heterosexual parents.”
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In many ways, when it comes to the presidential primaries, I feel like I “don’t have a dog in this fight.” But it’s interesting to me that some people are already declaring the Democratic primaries a two person race. And, apparently, to some gay voters the candidate’s differences on DOMA are “minor.”

As Georgia voters prepare to head to the polls on Feb. 5 to take part in what’s been dubbed Super Duper Tuesday, when more than 20 states hold their presidential primaries, many local gay leaders are speaking out with public endorsements.

With Hillary Clinton fresh off a crucial win in New Hampshire and Barack Obama still riding on his win in Iowa, local gay voters acknowledge they are torn between the two.

Both Democratic presidential candidates claim nearly the same stance on gay issues such as repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as well as providing legal protections for gay couples. But John Edwards, also a strong gay rights supporter, seems to have lost his footing in the race, according to University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock.

In a race where none of the “leading” candidates support marriage equality, and the candidates who do support marriage equality get almost no support in terms of contributions or votes, the matter of repealing DOMA becomes—or should become—more important.

current events, elections, family, gay rights, politics

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Or else. That’s what I thought when I read about John and Cynthia Burke, after someone linked to the article in a comment on my post at Pam’s.

After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young, scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of Children’s Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that asked for the couple’s religious affiliation.

John Burke, an atheist, and his wife, a pantheist, had left the line blank. As a result, the bureau denied the Burkes’ application. After the couple began court action, however, the bureau changed its regulations, and the couple was able to adopt a baby boy from the Children’s Aid and Adoption Society in East Orange.

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One video is worth another.

This is a voice you won’t hear during the upcoming presidential debate on ABC.
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Tags: 2008 election, current events, dennis kucinich, elections, family, gay rights, politics

Michael in Norfolk points out an article about Obama’s latest statement on DOMA.

In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter Monday, December 17, Tobias Wolff, a gay man who’s chair of the national LGBT policy committee for the Obama campaign, called the Illinois senator a “fighter” who will stand by his principles.

…Wolff, 37, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, also noted that while he disagrees with Obama on the issue of same-sex marriage, he nonetheless believes that Obama is the better candidate. Obama, as well as the other leading Democratic candidates, support civil unions. Wolff supports marriage equality. But Wolff drew a distinction with Obama’s and Clinton’s position on the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Obama supports repeal of all DOMA, while Clinton is on record supporting repeal of only part of the legislation. President Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law, as well as the anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy that prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces.

At the Logo presidential forum in August, Clinton said that she would repeal Section 3 of DOMA, which states that, for federal purposes, “marriage” can mean only marriage between a man and a woman, thus it essentially denies same-sex couples more than 1,100 federal benefits enjoyed by married heterosexual couples. Section 2, however, says that states do not have to recognize same-sex relationships, and Clinton has not gone so far as to support repeal of that provision.

What that part of DOMA means, Wolff said, is that gay couples could have problems should they move to a state that doesn’t recognize their relationship. That section of DOMA could also come into play regarding custody or wrongful death issues.

“States can disregard judgments,” Wolff said, referring to the problems that could arise. “Senator Obama from the start said this is wrong and we shouldn’t be making excuses.”

I’ve already made it clear who I’m supporting during the primaries. I’m voting my hopes until I have to settle for what I can get. And while I’ve been critical of all the rest of the Democratic field, Obama’s statement on DOMA does underscore a distinction that should become more important as the field narrows.
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