Un-Civil Rights

Watching an episode of Ken Burns' "The Civil War" reminds me about how important the fight for a cause can be. The South insisted on states' rights superceding the federal governments'. The North didn’t have a consensus in the state vs. federal power issue (and still don't), but they wanted to keep the Union intact.

Slaves were freed along the way, but that had little to do with the war.

A conflict of ideas fueled the bloodiest war ever fought in the western hemisphere. Also, the most deadly in American history.

Our worst war was spent fighting among ourselves.

It also reminds me that nothing's much changed. We don't use guns as often; we are divided still, but along other lines. "North and South" has become "Republican and Democrat". And there are no easy geographic boundaries to separate the two.

The Mason-Dickson is no longer relevant.

We are as divided as we have ever been, but now on social issues, not political ones. Social issues masquerade as political ones, but they're not. They often boil down to nothing more than rabble-rousing.

The Stonewall riots of 1969 illustrate this well. The NYPD decided to raid a gay bar on Christopher St. in Greenwich Village. What they didn't take into account was that Judy Garland had died that day. They were met with a bunch of angry queens whose icon was dead and were sick and tired of being harassed.

They fought back. It was the birth of the gay rights movement. One that continues today. You can only push someone so much before they get pissed off.

The movement has become the focus of political groups on both the right and the left. It’s either demonized or lauded. They don’t seem to realize that real people are involved.

They argue about ideas while real people are affected by their actions. And none of them seem to realize that.

Civil rights are not a political issue and never have been. They're a matter of social justice.

But civil rights are still a political issue, practically speaking, years after Stonewall and over a century after Mr. Lincoln unilaterally proclaimed social justice to be the law of the land.

I sometimes wonder if we'll ever learn anything as a nation from the past. I'm not sure that we'll ever, as a body, separate political concerns from social justice. We've had any number of chances, but have done little to nothing to address the issue, except listen to politicians using the issue as a political hot-button.

We've come far, but not far enough. Not yet.

And I’m not giving up.

On the Wings of Angels

We were at the Temple, TX, VA hospital the day of the Ft. Hood shootings. I had been outside to have a cigarette and check in at work. They don't like to call me when I'm off, so I check in with them, instead. Plus, I needed an excuse for a smoke, and I hate talking on a cell phone in a crowded public place like a hospital waiting room.

Things were fine at the office, but when I got back upstairs to waiting room, all eyes were on the TV. They were covering a breaking story, and it was breaking not too far away. There was a mass shooting one town away at Ft. Hood, which abuts Killeen.

Everyone in the room had some connection to the military. Many were veterans; others were there with spouses or parents who were veterans.

It was kind of a surreal moment. As I struggled to wrap my mind around it, I realized I didn't know what to wrap my around yet. The information changed every few minutes or even seconds. All I could comprehend was that something very bad had happened, and not very far away.

I went back outside to make a couple of other calls. One to a friend who retired from the Army a few years ago and still lived in Killeen. I needed to know that none of his family had business on base that day. Early reports included civilian fatalities.

Another to my mother to tell her that she was going to hear about something very soon, but that we were not near it. Or at least not close enough to be in danger. She knew we were going to be at the VA that day, and she would have heard "military", "central Texas" and "Ft. Hood", then gotten worried. I told her that there was a noticable increase in police outside the hospital.

At the time, reports stated that there were multiple shooters and that some were still on the loose. While those reports eventually turned out to be inaccurate, I didn't want her worrying too much.

While I was out, I noticed a helicopter that seemed to be circling the city. I thought it might be looking for the people that might still be on the loose. The local schools were on lock-down, so I thought maybe someone might have been spotted in the area

I went back out a little later for a cigarette. My nerves were raw, I needed to pace. That outweighed the possibility of meeting a shooter in the lobby.

That helicopter was still circling.

Then I saw it stop and hover near Scott & White. It's a major hospital that sits on a hill above the VA hospital. It stayed there for a good 10 minutes before I went back in.

I could see it from the window of the waiting room. I got distracted, looked away for a minute and it wasn't there, any more. But then it was back a few minutes later. I could hear it before I could see it.

The doctor we were there to see was held up in a surgery that ran long, so I went back out again to pace and smoke and watch the helicopter circling. When I’m upset, I can’t sit still.

The doctor we were there for cut the appointment short once she finally got done in surgery because she'd been told to prep for overflow. And that she and other medical staff could not leave for the time being.

Turns out, it wasn't a helicopter circling. It was one after another coming in to land at Scott & White. It's where most of the shooting victims went. It has a very good trauma unit that can handle mass casualties.

The helicopter kept coming in for as long as we were there. And I'm guessing the one that was hovering was waiting for a place to land.

When we leaving, I looked up and saw several helicopters in the air, not one just circling. They were coming in one after another in a strict arc formation that allowed one to land and take off before the next one got there. The first ones had come in farther apart.

From the VA hospital, Scott & White looks like the proverbial "shining city on a hill". It doesn't shine physically. It's built of mostly brown masonry. But knowing what it is and what it does, then seeing its massiveness on high from afar, it shines spiritually. It's a city of hope. A city of last and best hope for some.

As it was that day. One helicopter at a time.

"Other" Wise

In case you missed it, the world shifted Sunday night. It’s not the same one I woke up in. In a moment that rose almost to the level of Stonewall Inn pushing the cause of equal treatment, regardless of sexual orientation, a young man impetuously kissed a male keyboard player on live national TV.

And not just a peck on the lips. It was a tongue-meets-tongue and then have fun kiss.

It was a sexually-charged component of a sexually-charged performance.

While some might think it was planned, I’m not sure it was. It reminded me of New Year’s Eve 2000.

I had gone downtown to see Lyle Lovett with my sister, and when he had finished, we made our way to where the light show was going to be. She got a little out in front of me, and as the clock rang in a new millennium, someone walked up from behind, grabbed my ass, said “I’d like some of that”, and kissed me like I was coming home from a war. Then he disappeared into the night.

I have no clue to this day who he was or why he groped me. He was cute enough that I didn’t mind being groped. I may have even returned the favor. I probably did, but I can’t be sure. It happened too fast to remember details.

Adam Lambert is taking a huge risk. He’s betting that enough people won’t care with whom he sleeps. Some will, though, without a doubt. But he refuses to live unauthentically.

But I’m not sure how much that will hurt record sales. The people that won’t buy them because of his open sexual orientation probably wouldn’t have bought them, anyway. Those of us who are fans of glam rock from the 70’s don’t really care.

He can scream a lyric in a melodic way that must make Mick Jagger jealous. As well as Rod Stewart.

I wish him well. I pray that God protects him, because he’s probably already a target of bigoted cuckoos.

Living an authentic life is not always easy. Regardless of the progress our culture has made, it still overwhelmingly treats “gay” as “other”. An otherness that is acceptable as long there is no overt evidence of it.

I always end up back at “Animal Farm”: “Some animals are more equal than others.”

That seems to be the dominant cultural argument, and I applaud young Mr. Lambert for pushing the envelope, yet again. Until it gets pushed far enough, we will never have a fair and equitable society. Until then, I will not enjoy the full range of civil rights that most people I know take for granted.

I’m tired of being less equal, and if a guy kissing another one on live TV, tongue and all, helps advance the cause, I say go for it.

From all the hoo-hah, you’d think he had a “wardrobe malfunction” and shown everyone the finer details of his package. I’m sure the details are fine, but we didn’t get the chance to find out. He’s a big boy with big feet, so I’ll just let my imagination run wild.

It was no more a provocative one than many Madonna performances I’ve seen on live TV. But making “other” overt seems to have raised some hackles. It harkens back to “separate but equal”.

The fact that it was a male-male lip lock and tongue exchange didn’t help. The taboo on men doing that is infinitely greater than the one on women doing the exact same thing. They’ve been doing it for years on stage.

It’s accepted for a woman to grab her crotch suggestively, stroke it and then shove it into a dancer’s face. If a man does that, it’s considered almost pornographic. All the more so if the person who gets a face full of crotch is also a man.

An obvious double standard is in play. It’s okay to be a woman and do provocative performances. It’s even okay to do provocative performances with another woman. But throw a gay man in the mix, and all hell breaks loose.

That standard is patently unfair and utterly impossible to defend on any logical basis. Impossible, that is, unless you believe that some animals are more equal than others.

"A rose is a rose is a rose," said Gertrude Stein.

"Other is other is other," I say. But not because I want to. I say so because that is reality. I have no choice but to be "other".

I dream of a day when "other" has gone away. When that entire concept has been subsumed by a larger understanding and acceptance of people, then I will be as equal as anyone else.

I await that day with bated breath. I don't know if it will occur in my lifetime, but it might. Many people don't care about who you sleep with as long as you don't ask them about with whom they do the same. I can't deny progress on that front.

Still, inequities exist and are so common that most people don't even see them. And if they do, they don't understand why eliminating them is important.

I live in a world where people pay lip service to the principle of universal equality but who also dismiss the validity of a ten-year relationship. Since it's not sanctioned by the government, it just as well not exist.

And whether or not the powers that be realize, their decisions and policies perpetuate a culture that looks highly intolerant from the inside out.

Only because it is to a degree higher than they would want to admit.

They sweep "other" under the rug.

We are "other". And I am not happy.

I want equality across the board. In every way, shape and form. And now, not down the road.

I want simple things, like the ability to make medical decisions should one of us not be able to make them for himself.

Perhaps I shouldn't care so much, but I want think we deserve recognition of our status as a family. If that happens in this life time, I'd be surprised. Maybe my next incarnation will fare better.

I'll leave this challenge open: surprise me.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Over the decades, the U.S. Congress has come to see itself as the arbiter of all issues, whether congressional hearings are a proper forum or not. For instance, what business exactly did Congress have investigating professional baseball? So far as I know, it’s not a federally-regulated industry. What public good was served, and if there was any, was it worth what the hearings cost?

One could argue that, because many steroids are considered controlled substances, there is a need for congressional oversight. But one could also point out that they are controlled substances because Congress gave them that distinction after another series of such hearings in the 80’s. In doing so, it acted against the advice of the AMA, the FDA and the DEA, among others.

The congress has a nasty habit of sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong. I’m not sure if this began with McCarthy and HUAC, but at least since then, the legislative branch has become little more than a hearing mill. Instead of debating and enacting or defeating legislation, it holds endless hearings that often amount to little more than an opportunity to publicly humiliate someone.

While I sometimes enjoy seeing powerful people being taken to task in a public forum, that seems to be the only purpose they serve. Our senators and representatives generally have all the information they need before the hearing, so the hearings do little to nothing to provide new information. They simply provide a platform for pompous politicians to appear relevant.

And some almost scream usurpation of power over other government entities.

Right now, it’s the Ft. Hood shootings. Some are clamoring for immediate hearings, even before the FBI and Defense Department can complete their investigations of the facts or review of policies that might prevent a similar future attack. They want to put the cart of the larger issue of possible systemic problems before the horse of professional investigators conducting a professional investigation and determining the facts of the case.

The congress, collectively, seems to have read too many Hardy Boys and/or Nancy Drew books. Or maybe they’ve seen too many episodes of “Murder She Wrote”. These shootings don’t need amateur sleuths poking their noses where they don’t belong. They need a thorough investigation, analysis and review by professionals. Professionals who are not running for re-election.

In Iran, North Korea and China, show-trials are par for the course. Sentences are determined before the trials begin. Congressional hearings aren’t far from that, often. Legislators, armed with all the information that they’ll be asking about, seek to either excoriate and humiliate or praise the witness. The outcome is predetermined.

At this point, the legislature is not a proper venue for investigating the Ft. Hood shootings. One cannot legislate sanity, and that seems to be a pivotal question in this case. As to how it happened, we should give the pro’s a chance to address the issue before we let the congress stick its big nose in.

I could probably answer all their questions based on my own experiences.

• Is it possible to distinguish mental illness from political, religious or ethnic zealotry? Not always. Mental illness often takes one of those forms. It provides a footing, a kind of self-validation, that isn’t otherwise available.
• Can someone be outspoken and not have the likely potential to go “postal”? Yes. I’m mouthy, opinionated and passionate about what I believe, but I’ve never had the urge to pick up a gun and shoot people.
• Could or should someone have seen this coming? Not really. The shooter had never been violent before. Whether we want to believe it or not, we base expectations of future behavior on past behavior. His past behavior suggests, if anything, apathy. He was not a rigorous student, nor was he dedicated to his work.
• Should he have been removed from duty? Probably. Everything points to a recognition that he was an obvious liability. Although the Army needs doctors, it doesn’t need every particular one.
• Was this attack premeditated? Most likely. One does not wake up, go to prayer, get a cup of coffee and then start shooting without thinking about it before.
• Was he sane? I don’t know. Probably. But I suspect his defense will hinge on that issue. It’s possible he was having a psychotic bi-polar episode, which would qualify as insane. On the other hand, he could have been having a bad day and decided to take it out on other people. Not insane, just pissed off. His career wasn’t going well, and like many under-performing individuals, he probably blamed other people for his own lack of achievement.

In the end, the legislature needs to let the investigative bodies that it over-sees at least complete an investigation before it drags the whole matter into what would amount to a show-trial. I’m not sure what public good congressional hearings would hold at this point.

They would most likely be an exercise in futility that undermines the justice system. Instead of being tried in a court of law, he would be effectively tried in Congress. Futile, at best. A dog and pony show that presumes guilt and does not take into account the simple constitutional principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

I suspect that he will the first person executed by the military since 1969, but I’d rather leave that in military hands. For now, so should Congress.