Two minds

Heard the expression, “of two minds”? That’s me: My reaction to today’s committee vote on “comprehensive” immigration reform is split. Neither is particularly positive.

When I wrote about this bill last month, it was to note that it seemed likely that LGBT married couples would be dropped from the proposed immigration reform bill in the US Senate because Republicans demanded it. I said back then…

“When the infamous Defense [sic] of Marriage Act is repealed or struck down, then legally married LGBT couples will be treated the same as any other married couple for immigration purposes. We don’t need immigration reform for this, we just need a wise Supreme Court or a—what’s the word?—sensible Congress to make this happen. It can be done, and it must be done.”

What I should have added is that the first is a BIG “if” and the second an impossibility for the foreseeable future—at least a decade, maybe more. So, if the Supreme Court is not wise and upholds DOMA, then legally married binational LGBT couples could continue to endure blatant and deliberate discrimination for a generation.

Today Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) withdrew his amendment to the immigration reform bill. The amendment would have included legally married same gender couples. Republicans said that if the amendment was added, they’d kill the entire bill.

So the four other Democrats on the committee, brave, principled lot that they are, utterly surrendered to the Republican bullying, abandoning principle along with LGBT voters. They did it, they said, to win immigration reform, vowing to fight for LGBT people some other day in an undefined future time.

If they were right, and their capitulation would save immigration reform, I could almost forgive Democrats for their utter surrender. After all, there’s still the chance that the Supreme Court will rule correctly on DOMA, making all this moot. And, undocumented single LGBT people will be silent participants in any programme for undocumented people generally (though I have no doubt that Republicans would absolutely seek to specifically exclude LGBT people if they could).

Nevertheless, I cannot forgive the four Democrats who betrayed their party and LGBT voters; they were: Send Dick Durbin (IL), Sen. Diane Feinstein (CA), Sen. Al Franken (MN) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY). My contempt for those Democrats isn’t simply because, yet again, they caved and surrendered utterly to the Republicans for nothing in return, bad as their typical cowardice and lack of principle is. The simple reason their pathetic behaviour is so galling this time is that the bill will never pass Congress, with protections for LGBT married couples or without them.

Republicans don’t want immigration reform. They dislike Hispanics, particularly undocumented ones, almost as much as they despise LGBT people. They have no interest in doing the right thing for either group. The US House is controlled by the far right extremists elected in 2010, and they will defeat the immigration reform bill. Republicans in the US Senate are little better. So, the bill will fail in the House and if I were to bet, I’d say it will probably even fail in the Senate (where Republicans define a simple majority as being 60 of the 100 votes).

Of course, for Republicans, theirs was a no-lose position: They forced Democrats to choose between different parts of their base, namely, Hispanic voters and LGBT voters. Either way, Republicans calculated, they couldn’t possibly lose.

Republicans knew that if Democrats surrendered their principles yet again, and threw LGBT couples under the bus, it would infuriate parts of the Democratic base. On the other hand, if Democrats had stood firm on principle for a change, then Republicans would kill the bill and make Hispanic voters angry at Democrats for not getting the bill through in order to please LGBT voters.

Dividing the Democratic base only helps Republicans, of course, by driving down the voter turnout for Democrats. And contributions. Because Republicans are a minority, they need to suppress Democratic votes, and diving the base is one way to do that.

But it’s not a very smart way. Hispanic voters are not anti-gay, as Republicans assume. If they had killed the bill, even conservative Hispanics would have been unlikely to thank Republicans for standing firm against the homosexual hordes; more likely, they’d have been angry at Republicans for blocking immigration reform over that one issue.

And what of our “friends” in the Democratic Party? With friends like these, eh? They betray us so often because they believe that LGBT voters have nowhere else to go: The Republican opponent is almost without exception far worse than our cowardly “friend”. They don’t even try to take a stand on principle because they’re so sure of our automatic loyalty.

Times are changing.

Progressives—real progressives—are starting to mount primary challenges to supposedly “liberal” Democrats. Our side is also beginning to make contributions dependent on results, not rhetoric. In other words, real Democrats are starting to demand that Democratic politicians start behaving as Democrats, not as kinder, gentler Republicans.

For everyone’s sake—including the Republican bullies, actually—I hope the Supreme Court does strike down DOMA to put this matter to an end. Right now, it’s the only remaining hope that tens of thousands of LGBT Americans have, thanks to four cowardly Democrats.

So, I’m of two minds. First, the Democrats were foolish and cowardly, and I won’t make any excuses for them. However, IF the Supreme Court does the right thing, then all this will be moot. And, IF the Republicans also suddenly embrace some sort of immigration reform and pass the NON-comprehensive immigration reform bill, then the end result will be a good one. But those are a lot of ifs!

Will we see any good come of this mess? I don’t know. I’m of two minds about it.

A postscript: I went to the Facebook page for Sen. Dick Durbin. As one of his constituents, I thought I might possibly leave a respectful expression of my disappointment in him. What I saw were comments from unhinged homophobic bigots, racists, far right crackpots of every description and more displays of mental illness and social psychosis than I’ve ever seen in one place (apart from far right websites’ comments, of course). The fact that those people expressed their hatred(s) so publicly kind of worries me; fortunately, many didn’t seem to actually be from Illinois. That’s one good thing, I guess. I didn't leave a comment—I felt soiled enough already.

Interruptions continue

Our Internet connection continues to be disrupted and interrupted. When I do have a connection, I often don’t feel like blogging. Unlike my friend Roger Green, I seldom write posts in advance, so if I don’t feel like blogging on the day, nothing gets posted. I really must be more proactive.

I’ve also realised that the weird feelings I described last week turned out to be caused, at least in part, by feeling a bit sick. Nothing specific, just kind of icky. Probably change of seasons and all that. Whatever the cause, it, too, makes me feel like blogging is too hard some of the time.

And all that means that my posts will continue to be a bit sporadic for some time yet.

More evidence

A few days ago, I wrote about how the radical right is losing their war against LGBT people. A couple days before that, I noted how marriage equality is an idea whose time has come. Today I saw further evidence of both.

Last week, ThinkProgress took a look at an anti-gay group called the Alliance Defending [sic] Freedom [sic] (ADF), which used to be called the Alliance Defense Fund. ThinkProgress noted how they presented testimony to several state legislatures in an attempt to stop the legislatures enacting marriage equality. They failed every time.

They were undone by the typical dishonesty used by the radical right as it tries to restrict freedom for LGBT people: They constantly argued that marriage equality would lead to “Christians” having to choose between their religious convictions and obeying the law. As the radical right always does, they didn’t say that laws preventing discrimination exist NOW, even in places without marriage equality. The reality is that these states’ experience with anti-discrimination laws shows why a lie this argument actually is.

The radical right’s argument is far more serious—and dangerous—than merely being anti-gay: If someone’s “sincerely held religious beliefs” gives them the right to discriminate against LGBT people, then it also gives them the right to discriminate because of race, colour, religious belief, national origin, marital status, whatever.

While many, perhaps even most, on the far right think that they actually should be able to discriminate, the vast majority of people support anti-discrimination laws. So, the radical right loses, in part, because it argues that their “religious beliefs” should allow them to discriminate against everyone they don’t like.

The same day as they suggested that the ADF’s dishonesty was actually helping to enact marriage equality, ThinkProgress also noted that every living Democratic president and presidential nominee supports marriage equality. They also noted that before his death, George McGovern also expressed support for marriage equality.

By contrast, among Republicans, only Gerald Ford supported marriage equality—back in 2001, around a decade before ANY of the Democrats (which is also evidence for why I respected him, and why I think he was the only decent Republican to serve as president in my lifetime, apart from Eisenhower, who was president when I was born).

Taken together, these show how support for marriage equality is gaining momentum, and how appeals to bigotry or that demand a right to discriminate just don’t work. They also show that the far right, clinging to its bigotry, and the Republican Party, which takes its marching orders from the radical right, are falling farther into irrelevance.

The bigots on the far right will eventually fade into the obscurity they so richly deserve. The question remains, will the Republican Party follow them, or are they capable of growing and changing—evolving, to use a word the radical right hates—so that they move closer to the mainstream?

I don’t know that the Republican Party is capable of change. The evidence shows that if they don’t, they, too, will fail. It’s their choice.

We Must Go

I saw this video, “Support Exploration: We Must Go”, posted to the “I Fucking Love Science” Facebook page, and I thought it was interesting. The Facebook post said about it:

NASA is a government agency and thus not allowed to advertise, so others decided to do it for them. The Aerospace Industries Association partnered with the Challenger Center for Space Science Education to rekindle public support for space exploration. Over 1,700 people donated to make it possible to run the ad in 50 cities across the United States before the latest installment of Star Trek.

However, the commercial isn’t completely selfless, done to promote space exploration for its own sake; the Aerospace Industries Association is a trade group for companies that make the equipment used in the aerospace industry. So, it’s obviously in the AIA’s self interest for there to be more space exploration. Even so, it’s also true that they’re the only ones who can fund such a commercial. It seems to me that this is one of those times when industry and science have a common goal.

The video is narrated by actor Peter Cullen, who is the voice of Optimus Prime in the Transformers movies. I’m not sure if that helps or not, but it’s interesting.

Space exploration is one area of science that needs help selling itself to the public. This ad is a start toward doing that.

Wait management

As we get older, we find we have to take better care of ourselves. Maybe a doctor says something, maybe we don’t recognise the person staring back at us in the mirror, but whatever the motivation, we decide to make changes—real changes, not mere promises to change.

Six months ago today, I started working on losing weight. It wasn’t a “diet” in a conventional sense: I’m eating more sensibly, yes, and definitely less of whatever I eat, but I don’t deny myself anything. I increased exercise, but only just. My goal has been slow, gradual change that’s sustainable, not some quick weight loss that I’d gain right back (plus some).

Since I began this effort, I’ve lost 11.3kg (just under 25 US pounds). That works out to an average of 434 grams per week—just under one US pound (15.33 ounces) per week. I’m very okay with that.

In fact, I’ve lost some 15kg (33 US pounds) since I hit my all-time heaviest weight some months back. I’m proud of that achievement. I think I should be.

The hardest thing for me has been to be patient. I thought I was doing well until the week I realised that the weight I’d just hit was where I’d started in my big weight loss of 2005-06. Truth is, proud as I am of losing those 11.3kg, I’m still some 13kg heavier than I was when I hit my lowest point back then. By that measure, I’m not even half way. Reality check.

Among the 26 weeks I’ve been doing this, there have been seven weeks in which I’ve lost nothing at all. There have also been three weeks in which I (temporarily) gained back some weight. Patience is a virtue.

I don’t yet know what my new target weight will be, but I think I’m finally getting myself to relax and wait for it, whatever it is. The point, as I said before, is sustainable (and maintainable) weight loss.

Still, even now, there have been benefits: I can wear “thin clothes” that I haven’t fit in, um, awhile. I have better stamina, and my knees don’t seem as strained. I haven’t been to my doctor since I started this, but I’d expect all my numbers to be better. How could they not be?

I’m doing all this because I want to be healthier and live longer, yes, but I also simply want to feel better. That part has already started to happen. That means it’s all a success already.

I’m not following any diet, but because some people will want to know, my diet is basically high protein/low carbohydrate, and I have a lot of lettuce salads to fill me up. I also avoid white sugar. Generally, I only eat when I’m hungry. Like I said, no special diet.

This is a journey, not a destination—or diet. I’m trying to make changes for the long term. Making myself wait for the changes has been the hardest part. But it IS worth it.

Disconnect

We’ve had interruptions to our Internet connections for the past week or so, as I mentioned before. Today, I had no connection at all and it was—weird.

I think that I check Internet “stuff” (email, websites, social media) far too much, so, if I’m right, not having access to any of that should make me more productive, right? No. Not at all. More like the opposite.

I found myself feeling disconnected, not just in the literal sense, but also like I was standing outside my normal life. In fact, I suppose I was. Part of it was that I was disconnected without my consent, while on a normal day I can choose to walk away. Today, I had no choice.

I got things done today, some things beyond what I would normally get done on a Friday, and yet overall it was less than I would have done if I’d had access to the Internet. I think this is a really strange thing.

We humans come to rely on all the technology we create; what starts out as novel, and possibly irrelevant, eventually becomes so intertwined with our lives that we can’t imagine life without it. In fact, we sometimes don’t know what to do when the technology is gone. Today was that sort of day for me.

The closest thing I can compare it to is a power failure: The power goes out very rarely, but when it does, I always end up having to stop myself from time to time because what I was about to do requires electricity. That’s kind of what it was like for me today.

Our Internet will get back to normal, and so will life. But I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t choose to disconnect from time to time—my choice, of course. Maybe I’m too comfortable with modern technology and ought to step back a bit, maybe harken back to a time before the Internet was ubiquitous.

That won’t happen. Once everything is back to normal, I’ll almost certainly forget the weird disconnect between what life was and what I felt it should be. We humans are good at compartmentalising, too.

Right now, I’m mainly just thinking about having Internet access to post this…

The right’s defeat

Reality is catching up with the radical right: Their lies are failing as more people know and accept the truth about LGBT people. This helps explain why we are winning so often now.

As I’ve pointed out far too many times to list, the radical right uses lies, deception, distortion and defamation to attack LGBT people and our struggle for our civil and human rights. The problem the radicals now face is that mainstream people now know the extent to which the radicals have lied about reality, and polls reflect this.

A couple days ago, I mentioned a Gallup poll, and that their polls show “support for marriage equality now consistently polls above 50%”. This shows the extent to which the radical right has pretty much lost the war.

A new Gallup poll shows why they’re losing:

Currently, 47% of Americans view being gay or lesbian as a sexual orientation individuals are born with, while 33% instead believe it is due to external factors such as upbringing or environment. That 14-percentage-point gap in favor of "nature" over "nurture" is the largest Gallup has measured to date. As recently as two years ago, the public was evenly divided.

People don’t think someone should be discriminated against because of something they’re born with, even if some religions endorse discrimination. The acknowledgement that sexual orientation has a genetic component leads naturally to people supporting marriage equality.

No wonder the radical right is getting so desperate, and using ever more vile and hate-filled rhetoric: They’ve lost, they know it, and they see their power—and ability to make money—slipping through their fingers.

I found Gallup’s analysis equally as interesting as the raw results:

Compared with 2011, when Americans were equally divided on the origins of same-sex orientation, most major U.S. subgroups have shown at least a slight increase in the percentage believing same-sex preference is something a person is born with. Now, a plurality of most subgroups hold that view, except for Republicans, conservatives, and weekly church attenders.

There we have it in a nutshell: “Republicans, conservatives, and weekly church attenders” (and the first two are almost always also the third, but people who are the third are not necessarily the first two); they alone don’t accept that homosexuality is something that some people are born with. That grouping also calls the shots in the Republican Party, which explains the party’s intransigence on marriage equality, an issue where they’ve already lost, and that continues to cost the party votes, especially among the young.

So, what we have are a majority of Americans supporting marriage equality and a clear plurality accepting that homosexuals are born, not made. Why does the radical right keep fighting a war they’ve already lost?

Money and power.

By demonising LGBT people, they can raise a LOT of money. This is particularly important for those people who’d struggle to find well-paying jobs outside the anti-gay industry, but none of them want to give up a source of easy money. Power in this case mainly means controlling the Republican Party, since neither Democrats nor mainstream voters pay any attention to the radial right.

The core threat that the radical right is facing is that their entire ideology—and thus, money-making machine—is built on arguing that homosexuality is entirely a “choice”, one made by very, very naughty people who must be punished for “choosing” it. If mainstream Americans understand that gay people are born, not made, then ALL of the radicals’ arguments collapse: Since NO child can be “recruited” into homosexuality, then there’s no problem with anti-bullying campaigns in schools, gay teachers, gay scout leaders or gay parents. Their absurd, “won’t someone please think of the children” bullshit is seen as exactly that. And donations dry up.

All of this means that the radical right has a strong incentive to keep up with their lies, deception, distortion and defamation of LGBT people: Their livelihoods depend on it.

Mainstream America has already started moving on. In a few short years, these poll results will seem positively conservative as mainstream people continue to move past the radical right. The question then becomes, having failed at oppressing GLBT people, who will they next turn their fires of bigotry on?

Missing husband

Watch this video, and you'll see why the USA's treatment of bi-national gay couples is, as US Rep. Jerrold Nadler called it, gratuitous cruelty. IF the US Supreme Court strikes down the infamous and blatantly unconstitutional Defense [sic] of Marriage Act, then legally married same-gender couples like David and Jason in this video will be treated equally by US immigration law. It will be an important FIRST step, but only that. The USA needs comprehensive immigration reform that includes LGBT people.

But if the Court doesn't strike down DOMA, then we are left waiting for Congress to repeal it, and since supporting DOMA (and being against marriage equality in general, too) is still a requirement for all Republican congressional and presidential candidates, this means it won't happen any time soon. That's why so much is riding on the Court's decision, and why it matters so much.

As long-time readers of this blog of course know, the USA's anti-gay immigration stance is why I moved to New Zealand in 1995, the year before DOMA (although marriage wasn't legal for same gender couples anywhere in the world at the time). Leaving the USA was the only way Nigel and I could be together because New Zealand recognised same-gender couples for immigration even back then—ten years before civil unions came to NZ, and some 18 years before marriage equality in NZ. Nearly 18 years later, US immigration policy is still the same—no, actually, it’s even worse because of DOMA.

So, when DOMA is finally struck down or repealed, life will get much better for legally married bi-national gay couples. But without comprehensive immigration reform, unmarried gay couples (like Nigel and I were in 1995) will face the same separation or exile that all gay couples do now. And it will still be legal to discriminate against LGBT single people.

I am NOT an absolutist: I want DOMA gone so married same-gender couples can have the same immigration rights—along with the other 1100-odd rights from marriage—as married opposite-gender couples. It’s just that getting rid of DOMA is not enough.

But, it’s a start.

For more information from the people behind the video, check out The DOMA Project.

An idea’s time has come

Today Minnesota became the 12th US state to enact the freedom to marry, and the state’s governor will sign it into law tomorrow (the graphic comes from the governor’s office). That makes three states in two weeks! In fact, there have been so many countries and US states enacting marriage equality in such a very short time that I've actually lost count (no joke).

Marriage equality is an idea whose time has come, and the increasing ferocity of the rhetoric of our adversaries underscores the point: They’ve lost the war and they know it. It’s made them frantic, desperate to try and find some way to stop the inevitable, but, as Victor Hugo put it, "Armies cannot stop an idea whose time has come."

Not at all long ago, victory seemed impossibly far off. For years, our opponents’ tactics of lying, scaremongering and sowing division among the coalition on our side of the war worked exactly as they intended, and they kept winning all the battles. But in May of last year, President Obama announced he supported the freedom to marry and Democratic politicians—and a couple Republicans—started tripping over themselves to declare that they, too, supported it.

November happened: Five out of five ballot victories for our side, including the first time we’d won the freedom to marry at the ballot box—in three states! More politicians jumped on board. Since then, the freedom to marry has passed numerous times, though not all of them are yet law. Some Republican leaders now openly talk about moving beyond social issues, especially dropping their fight against the freedom to marry, since their party is so clearly on the losing side.

Mother Jones reported that the Mormons have pulled back in the battle for marriage equality, after being the chief funder and organiser for California’s Propostion 8 (and before that, in Hawaii and also California). They left the field mainly to rightwing Catholics who can’t match the Mormons’ ability to mobilise a grassroots effort or raise money.

So, our adversaries find themselves unable to raise money or organise volunteers, and with a viewpoint clearly in the minority. Gallup reported today that support for marriage equality now consistently polls above 50%: It’s currently at 53% support, which, they note, “is essentially double the 27% in Gallup's initial measurement on gay marriage, in 1996.” It’s also ten points higher than it was just three years ago.

The fact that a clear majority of people in the USA support marriage equality is probably the single most important factor in the recent string of victories. Growing support leads to more support, which leads to victories, and that, in turn, leads to even more victories.

Of course, it’s not over yet. The Supreme Court is unlikely to issue a Loving v. Virginia sort of ruling on marriage equality (at least, not yet…), so eventually we’ll run out of states where the freedom to marry can be enacted: Some 2/3 of the US states have specific bans on same-gender couples marrying, usually enshrined in their state constitutions, and those will need to be removed first (as Oregon is getting ready to do).

Still, the momentum is clearly on our side, and marriage equality is inevitable in all 50 US states—though some will probably wait a VERY long time for it.

"Armies cannot stop an idea whose time has come." Freedom to marry is an idea whose time—clearly—has come.

So, congratulations Minnesota! Now, it’s time for Illinois to join the other two Midwest states with the freedom to marry. It’s time has come.