Stir crazy

I know, I know. Like I have a right to bitch about not knowing what to do with all my time off work. This weekend we'll probably hang the re-framed Lichtenstein (Yellow and Green Brushstrokes). The old frame was falling apart, and we just got it back yesterday.

We had a pretty good Christmas, except for my parent's tree falling over and breaking a ton of my mom's collectible ornaments. At least no one was under it at the time, though John said he wished he had been because then he probably could have stopped it. It was awful because I was sitting in the front room and I thought I saw it leaning a little, but decided it must be in my head. An hour later, sitting in the same spot, I saw it just start falling over. No one knows why it fell - the base it was on was huge. It must have just shifted weight or something. It's really too bad. I was upset for mom who had to watch all her ornaments be swept up from the floor.

We got a mini ecosphere from SecretRudy. I had never heard of these before. Developed by NASA as a way to transport life into space, it's a completely self-sustaining ecology system inside an air-tight sphere (or in our case, egg). It contains just the right balance of algae, tiny brine shrimp (3 of them), bacteria, water, air, and plant life. If you keep the light levels and temperature in the range they require, it can sustain itself indefinitely. The shrimp will, of course, eventually die but the plants will go on forever.

Tuesday we went to go see Children of Men. It's a post-apocalyptic story about the world gone to shit and humans being sterile - for whatever reason - pollution, radiation, wrath of god, it's left up to you to decide. It starts out with the death of the youngest person on the planet - an 18 year old boy. Clive Owen is excellent in this - and I haven't really been his biggest fan. He was good in Sin City, but that's about it, in my opinion. Basically, in a nutshell, it's a world sort of like that in V for Vendetta, where the government has made England into a police state. Add to that, the fact that humanity is facing it's own extinction, and it's a pretty grim world. The government is hunting down and deportation of all illegal immigrants by "Homeland Security". There's an illegal woman who turns out to be pregnant, and they need to get her safely out of the country and to the "Human Project," an organization trying to re-breed the human race. She and her unborn baby become unwilling political tools in the resistance movement. All in all, I thought it was pretty cool, though I did start to get antsy toward the end. I was pleased with the scene that takes place at Battersea Power Station... Pink Floyd fans will know exactly what I'm talking about.

Last night we went out with a friend of mine I haven't seen in 10 years or so. It's an odd experience really - like the first few minutes of trying to figure out if you still know the person or not - you know, cuz sometimes people change dramatically over time. Thankfully it wasn't awkward at all. We had a couple drinks and caught up. We met John for dinner at this cute little Cuban/Mexican place near our place. Then met a few people at neo for New Wave night. It was interesting - it took a while for it to get going, and The Queen of the Universe turned into a pumpkin at midnight. TuTu man was there - he used to be at Club 950 back when Planet Earth was there every Thursday - Picture a large 6 foot bald man, a lot on the heavy side, in black t-shirt and pants, wearing a pink tutu. That's what I love about neo - John jokes that he'll go once we find him a powder-blue leisure suit - funny thing is, people wouldn't bat an eye. I definitely want to go back one of these days - it's just tough because it's Thursday and I'm too old to be going out on a "school night." It was OK when I was 22 (9am class the next day or not) but damn.

I have two classes left in my program. Finally finished my last Women's and Gender Studies classes. I have to say, I like feminist theory and it's very interesting and all, but man I'm glad to be done with it. On to Political Science - that's the final two classes I'm taking. I could take more Women's studies if I wanted to, but eh. The whole point of the program is to keep a balance between the discipline areas you're in - I've taken a few Sociology and Women's Studies. The last two classes will be Political Science just because of who's teaching them and the topics. Comparative politics with the coolest professor on the planet is coming up in January. Then hopefully next fall Political Violence and Terrorism with her partner - these are the pair that were going to do the two week intensive study abroad in London last Summer that fell through. I've never had a class with him, but I hear he's interesting. Then my thesis, which is pretty much writing itself over each class. I should be finished by next Spring. Now, the $64,000 question - what am I to do with the degree? I dunno. Teach a class or two maybe? I don't plan on quitting my job, I actually like what I do, and without a PhD (which I really just don't want) there's no way I could get a full time teaching gig unless I did a Secondary Ed certification. I've always said I'd love to be a high school teacher, but seriously... I gotta eat and unfortunately we pay our teachers shit.

We still have no plans for New Years Eve, though I'm not a big fan of being out with the mass of drunken humanity. I hate people enough already. Add liquor and the overblown frenzy of New Years Eve (and now the fuckin' Bears Game on top of that) and I want no part. Who knows where we'll end up. Next year, we're thinking New Year's in Paris. Yeah, I think I could live with that.

Happy New Year everyone

The Spirit of Christmas

View what started the phenomenon that has become South Park over ten years ago: The Spirit of Christmas (May not be suitable for work - contains some... colorful language).

Also in the spirit of brotherly love and all that crap... a salute to Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia! This idiot is all up in arms because Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, wants to be sworn in on the Qur'an.

"If American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding use of the Koran" (to take their oaths)."

Say it ain't so Virg! It's a threat to our Christian way of life here in our country of gross excess to swear in a PUBLIC official on a book other than the Bible! What are we to do!? Next thing you know, the negroes and the dames are going to want equal pay for equal work! What's with that!?

First off, he's equating an American-born citizen who converted to Islam at age 19 to a wave of Muslim immigrants who will destroy American values. Um... how stupid is that first off. Not that I agree at all with his isolationist stance on immigration, but you can't compare the two at all. Should anyone who is a Muslim in this country, including those who converted from (gasp) Christianity be barred from public office? He's using this poor guy as a lightning-rod for xenophobic immigration laws that go against the very fiber of the American dream.

Can you believe this guy?

Might I remind him:

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
--Article VI, United States Constitution.

Merry Fuckin Christmas Congresssman.

Addicted to (War)Crack

Last week Laura and I went to IHOP before we got our haircuts and styles with Jerry the Hair Fairy and his crew of Agador Spartacus (Spartaci?). I wasn't expecting much from our meal, and i hadn't been to an IHOP for years. Laura was already there, and the place had 8 people total, 6 of which were waitstaff. Not looking good.

Until our waitress noticed my t-shirt (http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/generic/6a20/). After explaining that it wasn't what it appeared to be, she said in a small subdued voice filled with shame, "That's ok I am more geeky than that. I play an online game."

Knowing exactly what she was going to say, I smiled and asked, "What game?"
"It's called World of Warcraft."

Laura starts laughing, taking the girl by suprise. "He used to play that all the time, and we know people who are totally addicted to it."

Realising her secret stigma was safe, the girl started to gush about the game. She told us how much she loved the game, and that she broke down and bought a new lap-top so she could play at the same time as her boyfriend. Hard-core.

At this point it's worth noting that Laura is now in a mode that resembles Jane Goodal studying two very intelligent, amusing apes.

She asks, "What server do you play on?"

"Uther"

"Heh, I'm on Maelstrom.", she sneered, (uber hard core - its role playing player vs. player) "What kind of character do you have?"

"I have a level 60 Druid?"

"Tauren or Night-Elf?"

"Night Elf"

She looks as if I've just asked if her grandma's pussy is on the menu. Laura looks very amused. Obviously this girl is Horde only. To the uninitiated, Horde are the badass characters of dark and evil, and the Alliance are humans, dwarves, and elves. She thinks I am a pansy, even tho I outweigh her by 200 lbs. I must have been wearing my extra frilly tu-tu that night.

"I've got an undead level 52 hunter and a level 35 shammy. You elves are too pretty and the female characters dance like hoochy mammas."

Laura almost looses it as we both do the night elf female hoochy mamma dance.

"I also have a few more characters. Some Horde.", I lie.

"You should totally switch servers and join my guild.", she gleefully demands, now that she knows I have Horde characters. "We have instances every night."

"Sure thing", I lie again.

So we continue with our meals, being interupted by the queen of the undead a few more times to gush some more. My favorite bit of the night comes here, because she obviously put alot of thought into this:
"I have a poem about Pallies" (Pally is slang in the game for a Pallidin)

"Oh really, do tell"

She goes on with this, to "I'm a little teapot" with muy gusto;

"I'm a little pally,
Short and stout,
Here is my mallet,
Here's my pretty mount.
When I go to battle
I'll cast you out,
and if I can't beat you,
I'll run the fuck out"

I clapped, and a tear rolled down my cheek. Laura's jaw was on the table.

At the end of the meal, and after we've paid, she comes over and gives me her character name list. It's the equivalent of nerd phone number swap. "You guys are so cool, and not just because you tipped me $5! I just couldn't let you go without giving you my characters. Look me up!"

Laura luckily went to the bathroom before she said this, otherwise she would have peed herself.

I forgot about this wonderful experience until I found her name list in my wallet.

Call for Help...

Hey all you bloggin buddies, I have a request. John and I are trying to eat better, and we've decided part of that is making a couple of vegetarian meals each week. Now I know not all vegetarian meals are healthy (deep fried twinkies anyone?), but if anyone has a recipe they really like, can you send it along? I'd go buy a book, except that they always have a couple good ones and the rest suck.

Anyone who's got any, you can leave them in the comments or email me.

Thanks!!

Finally!

I saw a story in the Tribune this morning that made me very, very happy:

"Arrogant drivers best look both ways: Officers, cameras will be on lookout to protect pedestrians"

Finally! Not that I think anything will substantially change, but at least it's being acknowledged as a problem that drivers here simply do not understand the meaning of pedestrian right-of-way. I almost got run down this morning by a minivan who decided that since he got to the intersection before I was halfway across the street, that the stop sign was 'optional'. I tried kicking his car but missed. Now I wished I had dragged out my keys and just scraped them across his shitbox as he drove by. One of these days I'm going to let one of these fuckers hit me and then use our legal system to my benefit.

Our good friend The Queen of the Universe has had similar dealings with a car turning and not looking to see if anyone was crossing.

Blame cell phones if you want - but I've been nearly run down as many times by douchebags on cell phones as off. I blame the fact that drivers simply do not understand (or care) that a person crossing, legally, in the crosswalk, with the light or other traffic signal, has the right of way. Period.

I am particularly sensitive to this issue because I pretty much walk everywhere. It's just about the only exercise I get these days, and something needs to be done.

The city is starting to take measures, and is considering having plainclothes police and/or traffic aides at high-accident corners around the city to issue citations to drivers who do not properly yield.

I also, personally think that they should put reminder signs at the corners of high-traffic intersections that cars MUST yield to pedestrians. At least then drivers can't claim ignorance.


In other news, we got the best christmas card from my parents. I'm sure dad picked it out because mom doesn't get that type of humor. It's a picture of a traditional christmas, a little boy in pajamas in front of a christmas tree holding a brand new puppy. On the inside it says:

"Just then Jesus appeared and said, 'Hey kid it's MY birthday and that's MY puppy.'"

Christmas at our house

For those of you who think sexism is dead...

The leader of the feminist group on campus ordered a cake for an end of semester party with the group logo - which is the woman symbol with a fist in it (woman power kind of thing). Since student organizations are contracted to order all of our items through Aramark - a crappy food service company - if they want their food paid for with student organization funds, the order was put in via the proper process.

Apparently the crusty old bakers took it upon themselves to change the design because they found it "offensive." So the feminist group got purple flowers instead. They're obviously more appropriate for us girls.

I would have marched over to the bakery that covers the contract items and slapped the shit out of those old farts. Seriously, what the fuck?

I'm soo ready for the holidays

Yes, it's me. I know, I'm usually all bah humbug, but I'm just ready for a break. Between my class, which I love but that I'm ready to be done with, work - which is a pain in the ass right now, and all the crap I have to do over the next two weeks, I'm ready for a break. Work is closed on the 26th and on January 2nd, so I am taking three vacation days (26-28) and getting 11 days away from work (including weekends) - fair trade, eh?

Among the coming festive unwinding plans:

1) A meeting of our lovely women's circle for our end-of-year yule celebration on the 15th. Or as John and all the other boyfriends/husbands like to call it - the Lesbian pillow fight meeting. Why is it that when a group of women get together for a private meeting, men automatically assume it's some kind of lesbian thing? Wishful thinking?

2) A small party on the 16th at SecretRudy's where I will be making pulled pork and a pecan pie - in my lovely new Pi dish, an early present from SecretRudy.

Who's white n' nerdy now? Side note - Whenever I make a pie with this, I am going to carry little "Nerd" stickers and am going to slap one on anyone who laughs at it. That reminds me of a really bad joke my old high school math teacher used to tell.

What's the circumference of a circle?
Pi r squared
No, Pie are round.
*polite chuckles and awkward silence*.

3) "South Loop" Lunch with some colleagues at nearby universities on the 19th.

4) Dinner again with SecretRudy and M on the 20th for final giftage exchange. We will actually be able to use our new table! yay!

5) Drinks with a friend I used to work with on the 22nd, to catch up and celebrate the end of a semester.

6) Brunch at Wishbone with CilliC, Heathen, and the posse on the 23rd - since this will likely be our only opportunity to see them during the holiday.

7) Off to John's dad's place for a small Christmas eve get together (24th of course)

8) Off to my parents house for an immediate family gift exchange on the 25th, followed by my dad's side of the family coming over for Christmas dinner.

9) 27th, a "Ladies lunch" with Heathen, ~R, and a few others in the loop following Heathen's suit shopping for her interviews.

10) 28th Drinks and dinner with a friend in from out of town who I haven't seen in 10 years. Then off to neo for New Wave night.

I'd say that's a busy couple weeks.

As of yet, we have no New Years plans, but given that I hate large crowds of drunken idiots, we will likely just have a nice dinner and watch some movies.

Adolescent humor

As many of you know, I sometimes have an adolescent sense of humor. Sometimes? I know... always. I just know when to stifle it for my own good sometimes. John and I found this extremely funny. This is the little marketing paragraph on the package of a new product we bought. Method (I love this brand btw) biodegradable wood polishing wipes. They work very well and smell like almond oil.

Anyway, the little package blurb was just funny - if you read it with my (our) sense of humor and innuendo:

Here's a clever little formula: wood for good. It even rhymes, so it's easy to remember. Frankly, your wood does quite a lot for you, all while looking naturally great. So maybe you could give something back. With method's no-wax formula, you can clean and buff your wood back to its natural beauty --- without leaving residue or buildup. Our premium formula is a gentle, cleansing conditioner that removes smudges, fingerprints, and dirt. And, like all method products, it leaves a fresh scent in its wake. And that's good for wood!

Thank God it removes fingerprints without leaving waxy residue (eeeeew)! What about lipstick I wonder??? ;D

White and Nerdy

My friend Joe sent this to me. He said he found it oddly nostalgic. I said it's because he's white and nerdy. "Takes one to know one," he said. Touche, my friend.

Enjoy.

I love Weird Al - that in itself makes me white and nerdy. But you have to admit, he's brilliant in his own demented way...

The gay rights debate

Ok, so this is another class related post. We just finished reading "Getting Specific: Postmodern Lesbian Politics" by Shane Phalen in my Identity Politics class. Now, I realize that this is not a book for the masses - this is probably a book only graduate students would ever hear about. That said, she makes some great points that are expandable beyond lesbian politics. She just happens to be a lesbian feminist and so is writing from that point of view - but her whole point - that lesbians (or Blacks, or Jews, or whoever) should only fight for the rights of their "own" group is pointless and counter productive - means that her ideas are relevant to many different struggles against oppression.

Her whole point is that there is really no need for some grand, over-arching, all-encompassing theory or plan to enact change. We do not need to be able to definitively define women as a social group, for example, to find issues that different women from different places, cultures, and political persuasions can work together on. There is no such thing as just a "women's" issue or a "gay" issue for example - because those groups include a diversity of people with various points of view and histories. Sure there are issues that effect some groups more than others, but you can't define "gay" or "women" as a group without making some universal assumptions about membership that ultimately end up excluding some people. For instance, black lesbians are on the margins of the feminist movement (because of their race and sexuality), the civil rights movement (because of their gender and sexuality) and the gay rights movement (because of their gender and race) and so the words "gay" or "black" or "woman" never seem to inherently include them. The only way to enact real coalitions, Phalen argues, is to abandon the desire for some over-arching definition and realize that identities and groups change over time and are fluid. Reaching over the boundaries that separate us is the only path to true change.

Anyway...

One section in particular, her second "interlude" struck me as not only more accessible to the masses than the rest of the book, but also as a wonderful critique of the pros and cons to various gay rights issues. She specifically addresses civil rights for gays and lesbians, the ban on military service, and also critiques the comparison of gay rights to those of ethnic and religious minorities.

It's about 3,300 words long, so I will post it below, but I also wanted to provide some synopsis of some of the great points she made for those of you who simply don't want to read the whole thing (there's no shame in that). Basically she said everything that the current gay rights proponents say, but she argues it is such a complete manner as to smash the various arguments of opponents in a way I have never heard.

She poses every question in terms of citizenship. If all citizens of this country are bound by the same rules and afforded the same civil and political rights under the laws and constitution, then the only way some people, by virtue of some shared characteristic, can be denied those same rights are if they are not considered to be citizens. When you strip all the homophobia away from the issue, what you're left with is a question of equal citizenship. Should a person who is legally a citizen of this country be denied the rights of citizenship? In this vein, Phalen dismantles the cases brought against gays in the military, gay rights as "special treatment," and succeeds in comparing anti-gay sentiments with racism and anti-Semitism.

All emphasis in the text below is mine.

========
“Lost in the Land of Enchantment”
From Getting Specific: Postmodern Lesbian Politics
University of Minnesota Press, 1994
By Shane Phalen

The early months of 1993 were exhausting for many lesbians and gays, and certainly for me. Between Clinton’s blunted attack on military exclusion and the fight for civil rights in New Mexico, a fight lost, it was an exhilarating, terrifying, hopeful, and anguish-filled winter. An article about the defeat of Senate Bill 91, the New Mexico “gay rights” bill, quoted a local legislator expressing his relief that the fight was over and hoping to get back to normal and “enjoy life in the Land of Enchantment.” I share his exhaustion and a certain relief that the legislative session is over, but I cannot share his desire to return to “normal.” In his normal life, everyone is happy. In my normal life, friends are physically attacked by bigots, in and out of a number of uniforms. For years the district attorney’s office has known of police assaults on gay men, but until recently no one could be found who would risk being out of the closet and so these cases were never brought to trial. In my “normal” life, my ten-year relationship cannot be safely manifested by publicly holding hands. In my “normal” life, I worry about whether my students will hate me for being lesbian, and whether their hate could cost me my job. No, I do not want to get back to normal. I am comforted, however, by the knowledge that the fight is not nearly over, that it has indeed barely begun.

I want to look here at these recent and continuing struggles, to examine the arguments used against rights for lesbians and gays, and to think about citizenship. For these barriers to equality are fundamentally barriers, not just to a decent private life, but to equal citizenship for gays and lesbians in the United States. A clearer recognition of this fact may help heterosexuals to understand why our fight is their fight, why it should be the fight of every American.

Many have heard the argument that “gay rights” bills are about “special privileges” for lesbians and gays. This was and is simply false. These bills state that no one shall be denied employment, housing, public accommodations, or credit on the basis of sexual orientation, perceived or actual. “Sexual orientation” in these bills refers to homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality. Clearly this does not say that employers must have quotas for queers. It does not make us “special.” It recognizes that the current state of affairs allows employers, landlords, hotel operators, and financial institutions to discriminate on this basis. Although it could be the case that this discrimination was aimed against heterosexuals, it has not been the case. The reality of the world is that the discrimination has been against gays and lesbians, and against bisexuals when they are in same-sex relationships. Heterosexuals have not needed special rights, any more than whites in the South needed legislation guaranteeing these rights. The legislation would not disadvantage heterosexuals, any more than earlier civil rights legislation disadvantaged whites, unless by that we mean the loss of privilege and power. Heterosexuals would be protected as well, by law as well as custom.

Now, what arguments could people use to reject this principle of fairness? We have seen many. The first and most direct are the overt statements of rejection. These say simply, “Our traditions tell us this behavior is abominable. These people engage in this behavior; therefore, they are abominable. They threaten the moral fiber of our communities, and the best we can do is to eliminate them; next best is to force them to live their lives in secrecy and shame.” It’s easy to see in this argument the exclusion of lesbians and gays from their communities. The myth of “the community” and it’s “standards” persists only if we willfully ignore the fact that communities throughout the United States include lesbians and gays. The Right would like us to believe that homosexuals live only in big cities, but the work of writers such as Neil Miller shows us that we live everywhere. In his recent book In Search of Gay America, Miller introduces us to the openly gay mayor of Bunceton, Missouri, to the church council president in Fargo, North Dakota, and to activists all over the country. Not everyone approves of their lives, but they are respected and integrated members of these communities. There are indeed huge concentrations of lesbians and gays in cities such as San Francisco; this condition is a testament to the rejection so many of us face and the relative freedom and anonymity that urban environments allow.

The overt bigots have the virtue of being honest in their beliefs, and with them we can wage an honest war over membership in the political community of the United States. Other arguments are more insidious. What they share is a power play that Marilyn Frye has called the “politics of reality.” In the politics of reality, battles are fought not only over particular policies, but over whose vision, whose perspective, is valued. We can see that all of the arguments against equal rights for lesbians and gays, like those against our overt presence in the military, come back to the systematic refusal to include the perspective of gay and lesbian people as equal participants in our common life.

My personal favorite from the SB 91 hearings was the “business realities” argument. This goes as follows: “If we pass this law, either businesses won’t come to New Mexico, or existing ones will leave. They cannot afford the costs of suits against us, so they’ll relocate.” This one requires a certain awareness to see though, and that awareness has been sorely lacking in press accounts of the issue. Translated, this argument says, “We don’t care about the rights of queers. We don’t have any intention of hiring them or of keeping them if they come out, so we would have to leave. We are obviously more real than they are, so they have to yield.” This translation emerges when we ask: Why would a company choose not to come? Not because of the fear of being sued, unless they had no intentions of complying with the law. If they comply, there will be no costs.

The full impact of the politics of reality becomes clear when we ask what sort of nation would put the discomfort of a few bigots over the equal rights of a portion of its citizenry. The answer can only be, a nation that does not consider those citizens to be full citizens. The business argument asks heterosexuals to privilege themselves so thoroughly that they write us out of existence.

This is also the argument at work in the debate over “gays” in the military (note that in this debate lesbians are virtually never mentioned). Here the privileged group is heterosexual male soldiers and potential soldiers. Advocates for the ban argue that “soldiers” will be uncomfortable with “homosexuals.” Now let’s look at this one. First, we have the assumption that all currently serving soldiers are heterosexual – an assumption we know to be false. This assumption is not a factual one, but is ideological: it works to erase gays and lesbians, to exclude the possibility in people’s minds that we might be both soldiers and homosexuals. We know that the ban has never excluded lesbians and gays – it has simply made their lives miserable.

The second stage in the argument suggests that heterosexual males will be so uncomfortable with gay men that they will refuse to serve, that we will need a draft to provide for our defense needs. This is like the business argument, in that it suggests that the citizenship of lesbians and gays should take a back seat to “practicality.” Would anyone today say publicly that white soldiers’ discomfort should exclude people of color from the armed forces? That would be quickly seen as racist, and condemned. But when Harry Truman ordered the racial integration of the armed forces, we saw exactly that argument used. In 1941, when enlistment of Blacks for general service was contemplated, the Special Committee to the Secretary of the Navy stated that “the enlistment of Negroes (other than for mess attendants) leads to disruptive and undermining conditions.” Today, even the words are the same: during the hearings, an analyst for the Congressional Research Service testified that exclusion and forced closeting “prevents empirical research from discovering whether or not open homosexuality would, in fact, prove to be disruptive.” This is a sympathetic researcher, but he persists in the belief that the relevant question is whether our presence would be “disruptive,” as though a positive answer is prima facie evidence against inclusion. But any lesbian or gay man can give the answer: Of course it would be disruptive! Of course adjustment and change would be required! But that is not the issue. Only those who are content with the existing order, who are not bothered by questions of justice and equality, can argue that exclusion of whole classes of persons from national defense is acceptable, justified by a fear of “disruption.”

The moral of the struggle over racial integration is, they got over it. They learned how to work it out when they were forced to. It is ironic that Leonard Matlovich, the first to legally challenge the military’s exclusion of homosexuals, was a conservative Republican who was trained by the air force to lead antiracism workshops. It was precisely his positive experience with this work that led him to challenge the military ban. But that process of change cannot occur unless there is a commitment from the top that justice is more important that discomfort. We have read that soldiers have been refusing to serve with Keith Meinhold, and these reports are used as evidence that ending the ban is unfeasible. But if we abandon the heterosexual lens, we can see that these soldiers are disobeying orders, and should therefore be subject to disciplinary measures! They should be told to shut up and to do their jobs! And they would be, if their commanders knew they had to But these stories are presented to us as beyond the control of commanders, as inevitable. This is the politics of reality.

Here’s another argument that was popular in Santa Fe in the spring of 1993: “The research that said gays and lesbians constitute 10 percent of the population was false. In fact they are no more than 3 percent of the population.” This assertion was never followed by a direct statement, but the implication was clear: there aren’t many of them, so who cares? They don’t have many votes, so don’t worry. Now first off, we should note how upsetting this argument should be to Jews, Native Americans, and many others. For homosexuals are not the only ones to be written off by this argument, and other groups have seen the horrific consequences of arguments like it. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, and many other small groups have been told in our history that they had to fit in, and they have successfully challenged those claims. The idea that rights should be proportionate to numbers is repugnant, but it recurs whenever minorities get in the way of powerful majorities. We need to say that rights are rights and justice is justice, and not one individual should be deprived of either.

I want to follow up this analogy to religious groups, and especially to Jews. Many lesbians and gays are making the analogy between heterosexism and racism, and I think there’s some value there, but the arguments against lesbian and gay rights also bear a strong odor of anti-Semitism. Most noticeable among these is the argument that “gays” make more money than heterosexuals, that we have power beyond our numbers. First, to the facts: the statistics about gay income are badly biased. They do not account for lesbians as a group, who as women earn much less than men, and they do not accurately represent people of color. There are wealthy gay men and lesbian women, and there are hardworking poor and middle-class lesbians and gays. There is as much diversity among us as among any large group. There is as much diversity among us as among Jews. Jews have been represented by anti-Semites as uniformly wealthy, good at business, smarter that Christians. This representation serves to divert resentment away from powerful Christians and toward a powerless minority group. Jews have also been portrayed as predators, stealing Christian babies for sacrifice. This accusation bears an uncanny resemblance to the mythology about lesbian and gay “recruitment.” Both anti-Semitism and homophobia reveal deep anxieties within individuals and cultures, and neither is sufficient justification for the denial of rights.

Let’s imagine for a minute that the statistics were valid. Let’s imagine that gays and lesbians were better off economically than heterosexuals. Would that justify depriving us of equal rights? How many heterosexuals would trade money for freedom and citizenship? Should we argue that because men as a group make more money, or whites as a group make more money, that the rest of us can deprive them of equal rights? While money does translate into a certain power in this society, it is not the same thing as equality.

Let’s remember, too, that the true agenda of homophobes is not simply to leave us where we are. Their agenda, once our rights are thoroughly stripped, is to see us fired from our jobs, and denied credit and housing. It is not to “live and let live,” allowing tolerant employers to tolerate us. It is to forcibly convert us, under the name of a cure. Their agenda is to eliminate us, as many Jews were eliminated through forced conversion to Christianity and as many Native Americans were eliminated through forced removal from their families and homelands.

Many of those fighting for rights have compared our struggle and our status to that of Blacks, Chicanos, and other historically oppressed groups. At its extreme, this has taken the form of an argument that there is and always has been a “gay culture,” often invisible to dominant cultures but with stable mores and patterns of relating. Others have not seen such continuity of culture, but they have argued that lesbians and gays currently face oppression as a group on the basis of a fixed feature, and that therefore our struggle is like that of other stigmatized groups. Opponents have sought to argue that sexual orientation is not fixed, that in fact, homosexuality is a choice, a bad one, or an illness that should be treated. Both sides seem to agree that the fixity or stability of the attribute is determinative of something about rights, and in this they are mistaken. The question of rights has nothing to do with the question of etiology of sexual orientation.

Whatever the experience of men may be, I know that a great number – in some samples approaching 50 percent – of lesbians have had extensive histories with men, including marriage. Though many lesbians report the lifelong feeling of desire for women, many others had no such experience until well into adulthood. Whatever scientists try to tell us about the origins of homosexuality, we know that it would be a distortion of our lives to tell one story about our sexual histories and choices. There is not one true homosexuality.

Our opponents use this fact to argue that our sexuality is a choice, and therefore we do not deserve protection from violence and oppression on the basis of this difference. They argue that we are not an oppressed group, that our difference is not inescapable and publicly visible, and that therefore it’s our own fault if a bigot decides to hunt us down and kill us. We have argued that we can’t change our sexual orientation at will, that this is a fixed feature of our identities, and that therefore we should not be stigmatized for what we cannot change. But this response is a mistake. We need not make this claim to argue for equal rights, and our rights should not depend on it.

During debates over our rights we have heard that all other protected categories are of this unchangeable and visible nature, but that is not the case. Though national origin, race, gender, and physical disabilities are largely fixed, religion is also protected. Religion is unlike these other categories, and a comparison of homosexuality is useful.

First, although many of us are born into a religion and remain in it throughout our lives, many others change religious affiliation during their lives. The law does not protect only those who remain in their religion of birth; it protects against discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation, current or past. There is no requirement that one show that a given religion is a person’s “true” religion, except in the case of conscientious objectors. Thus, the analogy to religion tells us that the issue of whether we are “really” gay, lesbian, or bisexual is irrelevant to our right to protection against discrimination on that basis.

Second, even if the religion holds as sacred practices that are illegal, such as peyote use or polygamy, the law forbids discriminating against people simply because they are Mormons or members of the Native American Church. In this regard, their protection resembles that that should be afforded to gays. Opponents of both gay rights and the end to the military ban have argued that it is incoherent to have sodomy laws on the books and simultaneously protect people who practice sodomy. Sodomy laws are an anachronism and morally wrong, but there is no inconsistency in arguing that those who desire to do something forbidden deserve protection. Mormons desired polygamy; some still do. Polygamy was forbidden, yet Mormons are still afforded religious toleration. Peyote use is banned, but membership in the Native American Church does not make one a criminal. Sodomy laws are addressed to particular behaviors, as are rape laws and antifraternization codes. But holding hands is not sodomy. Loving another person is not sodomy. Wanting another person so bad your knees get weak is not sodomy. The argument from sodomy laws is right on par with banning Jews from citizenship because they don’t believe Jesus was the Messiah. Stories about extraordinary power or viciousness are simply the ideology avoiding the true heinous crime: thinking and desiring differently than the majority.

This persuasion, not any innate features of lesbians and gays, makes the ethnic analogy work. We are like ethnic groups not in having a distinctive culture that exists over time and place. We are like them in being the targets of oppression, in being defined by others as a group, solely on the basis of one feature – and a pretty widely differing one at that. We have been defined by heterosexists and homophobes as outside, not just as different, and this exclusion is now the basis for a shared politics. We do not need to claim that we’re born that way. We do not need to claim that we can’t help it. We need to claim simply that a free society cannot obsessively contain the sexuality of its citizens, and that ours need not. We are uncommon citizens, both in our sharp critiques of the institutions of this country and in our fierce desire to get into so many places that heterosexuals perhaps value less than we do. We have a potential power of pride and gratitude that could energize this country for the many other tasks facing it, if we were allowed to become citizens. I am proud to be a lesbian, because I know how hard it is to live this way, and I’m excited to be alive at a time when I may live to be a citizen of a thoroughly disrupted and newly just nation.

Dibs - the age-old Chicago tradition (re-edited)

I added pictures and a link to another website with great examples of Dibs...


Here's something uniquely Chicago for all you lovely readers. At least, I've never heard of this happening in any other place in the U.S.

Here's the scenario - it's snowing in Chicago - where most neighborhood residents with cars have to park on the street because there are no driveways, garages, etc. You get up in the morning to dig out your car, and you spend a good amount of time and energy shoveling the heavy, wet, slop out from around your car. You go to work (or wherever) and when you come back, someone has stolen the nicely shoveled spot you had and left you only snowdrifts to park in. Now you have to shovel another space.

A long time ago, since I can remember, people devised a unique way to deal with this problem. You put an old kitchen table, or beat up dining room chairs or other such expendable furniture at either end of your parking space, and that is the customary way of calling "dibs." You save your space when you are away, and when you return, you place the furniture on the curb so it is there and ready next time you leave. It is considered extremely rude and poor taste to remove someone else's furniture for your own parking convenience. Mayor Daley even decreed several years ago that, although the practice is technically illegal, the Streets and Sanitation workers will not enforce it during heavy snow. He sided with the people on that one - if you dig the hole - that hole is yours. The practice seems to have died out in recent years, and exists now mainly in working class neighborhoods. I'm not sure why to be honest. I do still occasionally see chairs and such up by where we live.

Anyone else experience this in other cities? Just curious.