All the news that sits

A new Gallup poll reports that 55% of Americans say television is their main source for news, leading the Internet at 21%. A mere 9% of Americans turn to newspapers, and 6% to radio.

I don’t think that this is particularly surprising, and it’s important to note, as Gallup does, that this poll has found what Americans consider to be their main source of news, not necessarily their only source. So, TV watchers may also read newspapers, for example.

Nevertheless, we know that newspapers have been slowly dying for years, and there’s nothing in this poll to suggest that there may be a rebirth. Media companies are moving their content behind paywalls, with little evidence that people will actually pay for what they’re used to getting for free—particularly when there will always be free alternatives.

The problem is that real journalism is expensive, and news organisations have to pay for it somehow. Pay TV has a specific model for gaining revenue, but newspapers haven’t found anything similar that works.

This could mean that as newspapers’ online content disappears behind paywalls, more people may get their news from television, and that could be a real problem. Many studies have shown how ill-informed viewers of the ideologically-driven Fox “News” are, for example. Imagine if that went from being some people’s main source of news to being their only source.

The Gallup report also highlights demographic differences between viewers of Fox and CNN, and there are no surprises there. But with Fox viewers tending to be older than CNN viewers, maybe reliance on Fox won’t be a problem long term, as the network’s viewers die off.

I think that this possibility is reinforced by the news sources chosen by those 18-29 and those 30-49: They’re remarkably similar (see the chart, above). They’re significantly more likely to select the Internet as their main news source than those over 50. To me, this suggests that they’re accustomed to ferreting out news while older Americans—especially those over 65—tend to be far more passive.

For me, a significant component of this more active approach to news consumption is social media. I know that I’ve certainly seen a lot of major stories breaking first on Twitter (like Michael Jackson’s death), and have seen Twitter driving news (like launching public support for marriage equality in New Zealand). I’ve also seen news and commentary that I’d otherwise never have run across because someone posted a link on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. So, for me, the Internet is probably my main source of news, too—but that includes the websites of newspapers and television and radio news organisations (and podcasts of their broadcasts).

The Gallup study documents the fracturing of news sources. That’s unlikely to change, but we can’t yet know whether this will turn out to be a good thing or not. I choose to be optimistic because of the more active ways younger people source their news. Trouble is, we won’t know if I’m right for many years yet. I wonder if it’ll be in the news…

Ask Arthur

This blogging thing is incestuous. Well, for lack of a better word. In response to a recent post, Roger Green asked a question that will become a future blog post. And now I’m carrying on from that.

See, it reminded me that last year I did an “Ask Arthur” post where I solicited questions. Of course I ultimately answered them—it would have been rude not to. Now, I’m back again.

It’s your chance to ask whatever pops into that pretty little head of yours. It could be about something I’ve said, something I haven’t said, or something you wish I’d said something about. Maybe you want to know something about me (aw, you’re sweet!). Whatever, I’ll answer as honestly as I’m able.

Because I’m smart and all (meaning, I can look at stats for the blog…) I know that there are far more readers than commenters. So, maybe you’re shy about expressing yourself publicly. No worries! Just click the email link in the right sidebar, tell me you want to remain anonymous, and your question will just be between us. The point is, everyone’s welcome.

So, leave a comment to this post, send me an email or whatever, and I’ll do my best to answer your question. Depending on whether I get any questions or not, I’ll either answer in one post as Roger does, or I’ll make them special posts.

So, don’t be shy—ask away!

And, by the way, you can check our Roger’s latest “Ask Roger Anything” post, from which I shamelessly stole the idea.

All-American Boy

I really like this video and song, “All-American Boy”, by openly-gay country artist Steve Grand. He released it on July 4, which is especially appropriate since the holiday features in the lyrics.

As he got ready to release his video, without a manager or record label, Steve wrote on his Facebook page:

“I fought with who I was for most of my life. In every way a young person can fight with himself. But starting today… I'm laying it out there. I'm done playing it safe.”

Going it alone is always a challenge, even if it’s easier now than ever. Steve said:

“I went all in. There is no Plan B. I'm nervous/excited/horrified/anxious about the implications all of the choices I am making (and have made throughout my journey of discovering myself as a man and as an artist) will have on my future. But then I remind myself I never really had a choice. This is the story I've been aching to tell my most of my life… it is what I hold dearest to me.”

Any artist who chooses to be honest about who he is—as opposed to coming out later—faces huge obstacles. Industry moguls, contrary to popular belief, aren’t very supportive of openly gay artists of any kind, and country artists? Is there a less than zero for supportiveness?

The song speaks to pretty much every gay man, because in our youth we probably all had crushes on unobtainable boys. This may not seem any different from heterosexual boys, who also have unrequited love, except that for us it’s totally different: When we’re still trying to work out who we are, we also have to carefully navigate that dangerous territory in which we don’t know if the boy we’re infatuated with is even capable of being interested in us. A straight boy’s infatuation with a girl may be unrequited, but it’s unlikely to get him beaten up. Gay boys face that risk.

I wonder, though, if things have changed as society has moved forward. Certainly young people today are much more open and accepting than they were in my day, so maybe they deal with unrequited infatuation more positively. The video depicts what’s ultimately a positive outcome for a painful reality. Maybe things really are better.

I think that I first saw this video on Joe.My.God., who described it as “Gay pop rock, Abercrombie-style.” Yeah, I can see why he said that, but the country music roots are pretty obvious. Maybe we can compromise and call it “country rock” or “pop country” or something. Personally, I’d opt for just calling it good.

Steve performs the video well, too, which is important in selling it. He’s very attractive and knows how to use that to sell the song. All of this bodes well for his career, of course. BuzzFeed called him “The First Openly Gay Male Country Star”, which is putting a big weight on his shoulders. NashvilleGab.com also sang his praises. A lot of Internet buzz about him, in other words.

I bought his single on Bandcamp because I like it that much and because I wanted to support his career. We need more openly gay artists, and maybe even especially in country music. I wish him well.

Meantime, I think I’ll listen to the song again.

Are you proud?

My fellow Americans, regardless of what country you live in, do you feel proud of your homeland? This can be a vexed question for expats, but it’s always seemed to me it’s one that people within the USA ought to think about.

I’ve long thought that the idea of being proud of the country of one’s birth is a little peculiar, a bit like being proud of having a certain eye colour. None of us chooses the country of our birth, and we had nothing to do with its history before we were born. We also can’t be assigned any responsibility for anything that happens when we’re quite young. So, if we had nothing to do with choosing our homeland or making the country what it is up until we reach a certain age, do we have any right to feel pride about it?

Maybe most of us actually feel gratitude. In the West, we watch democracy sputter and fail in places like Egypt, and are glad we live in countries that value democracy, even if it’s sometimes imperfectly practiced. We may also be glad for the opportunities that open societies present to us, even if the ability to reach one’s potential isn’t equally distributed.

And yet, there really is something to the whole pride thing—a visceral feeling of connection, belonging and, yes, even love. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, as long as it doesn’t lead to chauvinism or xenophobia. A healthy dose of humility keeps those more negative feelings in check.

What of expats? By definition, they live outside their native land, so can they be proud of a country they don’t live in? If home is where the heart is, then there’s no reason an expat can’t feel the same passion for “home” as does a person who’s never left. I’d argue that sometimes an expat may be more passionate, having something to compare their homeland to. And yet, many of us are part of the country we now live in—can we love two countries? Yes, I think we can, actually.

Gallup just released the latest in their annual polls on this topic and found that 85% of Americans classify themselves as “extremely or very proud” to be American. That number has changed very little since they began asking the question 12 years ago.

At the same time, 71% of Americans think the country’s founding fathers would be “disappointed” in the way America turned out, and only 27% think they’d be “pleased”. As Gallup notes, “This is most likely an outgrowth of Americans' current level of negativity toward their government.” Maybe this split—pride in country but lack of pride in government—is what makes the idea of being proud of America seem kind of odd.

As for me, I tend to look at the Fourth of July a bit like Thanksgiving—an opportunity to celebrate my American heritage and ancestry in a new country. Like Americans who live in the USA, I’m not proud of Congress, but unlike them, I’m not so sure that the founding fathers would be disappointed. The flawed system of federal government IS their design, after all, even if political parties have corrupted it. But the over-the-top flag waving, rockets red glare style of American patriotism? That was never me, even when I lived there.

To be anything other than an unquestioning cheerleader of America is seen by some—too many—as indicative of disloyalty. Of course, those same people have already written me off because I live in another country now, so it’s not like it really matters to them what I think or how I react.

Regardless, I celebrate the symbol that is America, the promise of democracy and liberty—but I can’t let go of its shortcomings and failures. For ANY other topic, this would be considered tempering emotion with realism, but when it comes to feelings about the US, well, it’s just never that simple, is it? And that’s the pity of it.

Still, it’s a holiday in the US, and a lot of people have a four-day weekend, apparently. I wonder how many of them have national pride as their paramount thought.

Happy Fourth of July to those who care about it, and maybe especially to those who don’t.

‘Nice’ Republicans? Um, no.

If “experts” are to be believed, Republicans are about to be less anti-gay when talking about marriage equality. Wanna buy a bridge? “Experts” are selling them:

"But despite the social conservative dominance in two of the three early presidential nominating states, experts say [Republican] politicians… are not likely to jeopardize their presidential ambitions by choosing not to employ fire and brimstone condemnations following the ruling [on DOMA]."

That article excerpt is absurd. Of COURSE Republican presidential candidates are gonna get all bigotty about marriage equality—they HAVE to in order to win the Republican nomination! The "social conservative" radicals control the entire Republican Party nomination process, from top to bottom, and no serious contender can dare to stray from the party—literally—line. If these supposed "experts" seriously think Republican contenders aren't going to be strongly, even virulently, anti-gay, they haven't been paying attention to Republican rhetoric nor that of the party's frothing base.

The reality is that Republican candidates will have to prove that they're anti-gay to the extremists who are their party's base, and that will mean bigoted language. It's inevitable.

We know this from recent history: The Republican Party rejected all efforts at moderating it’s positions on “social issues” and instead doubled-down on its hard right ideology. That’s because the party is controlled by hard right ideologues, and no candidate can cross them and get away with it.

The Republican Party’s religious activists have declared that the DOMA ruling is a sort of “call to arms” for them. One prominent activist religious activist associated with a Vatican-backed anti-gay group declared, “The Supreme Court has not ended the debate. It has started a movement.” The leader of a leading—and powerful—“Christian” anti-gay hate group declared, “conservative leaders across our country aren't about to” give up. Another far right “Christian” group thundered that the DOMA ruling was as bad as Pearl Harbour, a “day of infamy”, and that far right “Christians” must “defy man’s law”. Another prominent anti-gay “Christian” activist declared, “This is the thing revolutions are made of”. That’s along the same lines as another anti-gay “Christian” extremist group that declared, “we have only one option and that is to secede from the union” in order to form a “Christian” theocracy.

This cavalcade of crazy may sound too silly to be taken seriously, but these people are active parts of the Republican Party base. Many of them have been instrumental in writing the party platform or campaigning for Republican candidates. They’ve all been forceful in pushing their version of conservatism (and Christianity) as the only acceptable, true and correct one. In short, these people may be nuts, but they’re powerful nuts.

As if the expressly religious activists weren’t enough, the “tea party” faction also turns on Republicans who support immigration reform, among other issues (which is why the leading Republican presidential contenders are so negative, in whole or in part, on immigration reform).

So, there are a whole bunch of rightwing fringe positions on issues that Republican candidates will have to waddle through somehow in order to win the nomination, and the easiest way for them to do that is to move to the far right themselves, and that will include hard right rhetoric, especially against gay people.

All of which is why, ultimately, Republican politicians will once again “employ fire and brimstone condemnations” of gay people and marriage equality. Their party’s base will accept nothing less. You don’t have to be an “expert” on anything to know this is inevitable.

“Nice” Republicans? Um, no.

Sunny is five

Today is Sunny’s fifth birthday, which means that she’s lived with us for more than two and half years. The time has flown by.

She’s still as I’ve described her in the past—friendly, loving and sunny. She spends most of her day somewhere near me, lying down and going to sleep in whatever room I’m in. Her brother Jake, on the other hand, sleeps wherever he wants, usually one of the beds (but sometimes also in the room I’m in, too). I guess she likes to be close to me.

She’s also still different from Jake in the ways I’ve mentioned before, but also in one bigger way: She leaps. A lot. When someone comes to the house, they’re both friendly and eager to great them, but while Jake may stand up and put his front paws on them, Sunny will keep leaping at them. The two then feed off each other’s exuberance and it becomes quite, um, energetic. Still haven’t worked out the best approach to handling that, but it’s impossible to be angry at her.

The bottom line is that Sunny continues to bring joy to our lives—and, it seems to me, to Jake and her cat sister, Bella. They all seem to love being around each other, which is wonderful.

The photo above is actually sideways (she’s lying on the floor). The birthday girl didn’t feel much like posing today—or maybe she was just sick of the flash. Either way, this was the best of the lot.

Happy Fifth Birthday, Sunny!

Related posts:
Sunny is four – last year’s birthday post
Sunny is three – her first birthday with us
Sunny has arrived – When Sunny came to live with us

Liberty and safety

Much of the developed world is debating government spying, and the reactions vary widely. People who value freedom and liberty ought to be paying more attention—and they should care.

While the negative reactions have been sparked by revelations of spying by the US government, the truth is that it’s widespread and common, and singling out the US for special condemnation is both naïve and hypocritical. The fact is, not just the USA and all of its allies, but most of the powerful nations in the world spy on law-abiding citizens: EU nations, Russia, Iran, China, etc., all spy on innocent people for reasons ranging from suppression of dissent, through to stealing commercial secrets, through to some supposed effort at keeping their society “safer”.

The issue isn’t that the US is particularly bad, it’s that citizens of the world aren’t paying attention to what governments are doing in their names. We citizens must debate the underlying issues and take the decisions away from shadowy secretive government agencies.

We need to ask, first, what price liberty? Is there an acceptable trade-off between liberty and safety? And, if so, at what point?

The truth is, every day we willingly give up some of our freedom and we consent to being monitored. Have a cellphone? The cellphone company knows where you (or the phone) are. Use a loyalty card? The store/service provider knows what you buy, when, how often you shop and where, etc. Use a credit card or debit card? The bank knows about everything you spend money on. Are you on a social network? Most people freely reveal far more information about themselves than governments typically gather, and when you allow that network to monitor your location, you make it possible for it to keep track of your movements, too—just like the world’s spy agencies do.

The thing is, it’s clearly not merely about us being tracked or monitored, it’s about governments doing it. Here in New Zealand, Parliament is considering a bill to give the government spy agency greater permission to spy on law-abiding citizens, but without any external oversight to ensure the spies’ activities are lawful. As a result, we can have zero confidence that the spy agency isn’t acting out of bounds.

Tech Liberty, a New Zealand group dedicated to defending civil liberties in the digital age, summed up this conundrum in their submission to Parliament today:

“Bringing this back to civil liberties and the NZ Bill of Rights – can the powers being granted by this Bill and the consequent impact on our rights and freedoms be demonstrably justified as necessary in a free and democratic society?”

Free societies are built on the assumption and expectation that law-abiding people should be free from unwarranted—literally and figuratively—government observation of their day-to-day lives. We expect privacy as an integral part of our freedom and liberty—except when we ourselves choose to allow surveillance, or when a court agrees that it’s necessary.

Nearly all of us would support the monitoring of those who pose a clear threat of terrorism, etc. Most of us would support the monitoring of those who seem likely to possibly pose such a threat—but most of us would also expect that such spying be done within the bounds of the law, that people are presumed innocent and that there has to be some sort of probable cause proven to a court—not just wholesale trawling for information in the hope that something, somewhere might possibly be useful some day.

Tech Liberty also summed up the threat to liberty of government spying they justify on supposed “security” concerns:

“We believe that concentrating this sort of power in the hands of a government agency is a far greater threat to our personal security than any paranoid dreams of overseas terrorists and Nigerian Internet scammers.”

Only a free society regulates the police power, and that includes the power of governments to spy on law-abiding citizens. Will New Zealand pull back from curtailing individual liberty? Or will they use real or imaginary “threats” as their justification for forcing us to sacrifice liberty?

This whole thing reminds me of the famous quote from Benjamin Franklin: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” To avoid that choice, we must first agree on the limits we want governments to operate under. If we can’t agree on that, then we shouldn’t be surprised when our elected governments go too far in our name.

In a democracy, the people are supposed to control their governments, not the other way around. It’s good to see the people starting to assert their democratic power. I just hope there’s still time to restore the proper balance.

Happy this way

H.P. Mendoza does an update of Tom Robinson’s classic “Glad To Be Gay”. Originally performed in 1976, Robinson frequently updated the lyrics to keep it contemporary, and H.P. Mendoza has done the same with the version.

I like the video. Although I think some images don’t work well, I also think that others are absolutely perfect. In any case, it’s nice to see some new life breathed into the song.

Tip o’ the Hat to Joe.My.God.

Equal justice under law – finally

One of the great things about the end of Section 3 of DOMA is the end of gratuitous cruelty against legally married same-gender bi-national couples. For the first time, a US citizen who is married to a non-American of the same gender will be able to sponsor his or her spouse for immigration in exactly the same way that legally married opposite-gender couples can.

In fact, it’s already happened.

Just two days after the US Supreme Court ruling striking down Section 3 of DOMA, a gay bi-national couple living in Florida, Julian Marsh and Traian Popov, received word that Julian’s green card petition for his Bulgarian husband was approved by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Previously, all such applications would have been automatically rejected because of DOMA. The couple were married in New York in 2012.

Lavi Soloway, an attorney and Co-Founder of the DOMA Project, noted why this particular case is so important: “It is symbolically important that the first gay couple to receive approval of their green card petition live in Florida, a state that has a constitutional ban preventing same-sex couples from marrying.”

Unlike some other US agencies, USCIS will be using the “place of celebration” standard to determine if a marriage is recognised for immigration purposes. Other agencies use a different standard, “place of domicile” (where a couple lives), and if immigration used that, then Julian’s application would have been rejected since Florida voters banned marriage equality by amending their state constitution.

Lavi Soloway said, “The approval of this petition demonstrates that the Obama administration’s commitment to recognizing the marriages of same-sex couples nationwide is now a reality on the ground.” It may also indicate that this administration is applying the fairest standard, the one most likely to achieve legal equality. I expect that President Obama will make sure other federal agencies use the “place of celebration” standard, unless a specific law requires them to use the other one.

And that’s it: The gratuitous cruelty of the USA’s treatment of same-gender bi-national couples is gone. From now on, no gay American will have to make a choice between the country they love and the love of their life. Just like every American citizen, gay Americans will, for the first time, be able to sponsor the immigration of the person to whom they’re legally married: Straight and gay citizens are equal under the law.

Equal justice under law is at the heart of democratic traditions and values, the thing that’s necessary for liberty itself to exist. It’s hard to believe, but equal justice under law has finally arrived for another segment of LGBT Americans.

Equality feels pretty damn good, too.

Related post on the DOMA Project: Missing husband

History in California

Proposition 8 plaintiffs Kris Perry and Sandy Stier were the first same-sex couple to get married in California after the Ninth Circuit Court lifted it’s stay and ordered that marriages for same-gender couples resume immediately. California Attorney General Kamela Harris personally performed the ceremony. The video above is from San Francisco’s ABC (US) station.

The male plaintiffs, Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami, are getting married as I post this. If there’s video available, I’ll post that, too, because something this joyous must be shared.

It’s been a long road to get to this point, and it’s important to remember that there are 37 US states where such a joyous event is impossible. The good news is that this will change, and far sooner than any of us realise. It’s up to us to make that day come sooner, by organising, by donating to the groups fighting for the freedom to marry, and by voting out anti-gay politicians. We all have a role to play.

But for today, let’s just bask in the happiness of this loving couple who have done so much for others.

We shouldn’t have to march

The Stonewall Inn, taken September 1969.

Today, June 28, is the 44th anniversary of the start of the Stonewall Riots, the flashpoint for the modern LGBT rights movement. Stonewall, as it’s called, is the event that sparked it all, so today is THE LGBT Pride Day.

So much has been written and said about that 1969 day (including by me), that sometimes I don’t know that there’s anything new to add. There always is, of course, and today it’s more of a personal reflection. You’ve been warned.

If I could wave my fairy wand and make only one thing universally understood about Stonewall, it would be this: It was NOT the creation of white, middle class, “respectable” political activists—not even close. Instead, it was a rebellion sparked by a routine police raid on a bar that welcomed, as the Wikipedia article linked to above says so well, “the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, representatives of a newly self-aware transgender community, effeminate young men, male prostitutes, and homeless youth.”

What happened next was unexpected by everyone: People fought back. Patrons at first and then, increasingly, those white, middle class, “respectable” political activists (although, some tried to dampen down tensions and “make nice”). In spite of themselves, and despite their huge differences, a more or less cohesive liberation movement was created, one that led, ultimately, to the successes we see today.

But the drag queens, trannies, rent boys and the rest started it all.

The other thing that always strikes me about Stonewall is that more than four decades later, we should NOT still have to be marching to demand our civil and human rights. All Gay Pride parades in the USA (and many around the world) are held to commemorate the Stonewall riots, and to demand social and legal equality for LGBT people. We march because we still haven’t achieved that.

Take marriage equality for example: LGBT people are in perpetual organisation mode, trying to persuade cowardly politicians to do the right thing, and we organise and spend millions of dollars to secure rights that heterosexuals get the minute they’re born. And that’s IF we win those rights: 37 US states don’t have the freedom to marry, and it took 17 years to remove the stain of DOMA. Worse, some countries put gay people to death—or like Uganda, want to.

And we have adversaries who smear and defame us with reckless abandon, people who spread outright lies (which they well know are lies) and, in so doing, incite ever more violence against us. In my view, this is deliberate: They think that if we’re beaten enough, if enough of us are killed for being LGBT, the rest of us will be frightened into suddenly pretending we’re straight. They don’t organise against us and lie about us because they merely disagree with us—they do it because they hate us. Don’t agree? Think that’s too harsh? Tough. The evidence is on my side.

So I look back at Stonewall and the courage of those pioneers of gay liberation. And I look at the countless activists who followed, including those white, middle class, “respectable” political activists like me, and I thank them, too, for the role they played. And then I look at the very long road to freedom and equality we have before us, and the power and wealth of those trying to stop us. There is so much to be done.

So, we keep marching—with our straight allies—because we’re still fighting for the basic civil and human rights that ought to be ours from birth. We keep marching because there are too many young people who, upon realising they’re LGBT, decide that suicide is the only way to escape the rejection of family, church and community who despise them for who they are. We keep marching because there are too many of us who are beaten or killed because of who we are or who we love. We keep marching because too many politicians and public officials think it’s okay to treat us as second class—or worse—citizens, that we’re not as good as other citizens.

We’ll keep marching until every last anti-gay bigot is pushed out of the way of freedom and relegated to the sidelines of history, shunted, finally, into the ignominy they so richly deserve. Because we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re marching.

Happy LGBT Pride Day. Make it count.

Photo above is by Diana Davies, copyright owned by New York Public Library. [Creative Commons License: CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Proud To Love

This video—which I think is really nice—is from YouTube itself, promoting a new LGBT-affirming project, #ProudToLove. They say of it:

“At YouTube, we believe that everyone has the right to love and be loved. We strive to make YouTube a place where all communities can feel proud to express themselves and connect through video. That's why we're proud to stand with the LGBT community and support equal rights and marriage equality for all.”

“JOIN IN: Who, what, or why are you #ProudToLove? Upload a video or share a post with #ProudToLove in the title so others can find it.”

Yes, I’m helping YouTube promote something that will help the get more videos and viewers, and that, in turn, will probably make them more money. I think companies deserve to be applauded and encouraged for being positive about LGBT people, and if they make some money along the way, so much the better.

I also think it’s important for young people (and all people who are distant from welcoming and accepting communities) to be able to see happy, loving LGBT people, because our adversaries constantly lie that we don’t exist. Well, YouTube provides one way to show the real truth, the one our adversaries pretend doesn’t exist.

I always get a little teary when I see positive videos of ordinary LGBT people just being happy with each other. When I was growing up, such examples simply didn’t exist, not accessibly, at least. Without the Internet, they still wouldn’t for far too many people.

So, I say good on YouTube for doing this. I hope it makes them bucketloads of money, because that will mean it’s popular, and THAT will mean a lot of people will see LGBT-affirming messages—and the truth.

Celebration in California

Here are a few video reactions about the US Supreme Court ruling on of California's gay marriage ban, Proposition 8. The court ruled that the defenders of California's gay marriage ban did not have the right to appeal lower rulings that had struck down Prop 8.

In the video above, David Boies of AFER and plaintiffs Kris Perry, Sandy Stier, Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami spoke outside the court. AFER worked long and hard to get Prop 8 overturned, and this ruling accomplished that by letting the lower court ruling against it stand. The California Public Health Department issued a letter to that state’s country clerks and registrars telling them that once the Ninth Circuit Court lifts its stay, they can again issue marriage licenses to same-gender couples. They anticipate this could take about a month (the letter is available online as a PDF).

In the video below, Chad Griffin, President of HRC (and former head of AFER), interrupts an interview with Kris Perry to let them speak with President Obama, who’d rung from Air Force One with his congratulations. It was a nice touch.



And finally, here’s the first celebratory video I’ve seen (I’m sure there will be countless more). This one is by Sean Chapin, whose videos I’ve posted before. I do wonder one thing, though: This looks to have been made in advance, so did Sean make another one in case the ruling went the wrong way? Oh, who cares—let’s just celebrate!

A video of celebration

I ran across the video above on Slate. It shows jubilant reactions to the rulings on DOMA and Proposition 8. Slate said of the video:

“After interns ran the Supreme Court’s decision to the networks, crowds in Washington, D.C., erupted, activists across the country celebrated, and two [Prop 8] plaintiffs got a call from the president on live TV. Luckily, cameras were never far away.”

Celebration, indeed—it’s been a great day.

A hero’s reaction

It’s always good to see history being made, as well as reading about it, so here's a video of DOMA plaintiff Edie Windsor speaks at the New York’s LGBT centre after today’s Supreme US Court ruling striking down Section 3 of the Defense [sic] of Marriage Act.

Edie stood up for what was right, despite being a private person and a part of a generation in which people didn’t talk about being gay. By finding the courage to challenge an unjust law, she has helped bring liberty and equality to thousands of people she will never meet. She is a true hero.

Justice wins

Victory is a great-sounding word when one is on the winning side. When that victory is for justice, freedom and fairness, it’s particularly sweet.

This morning I woke to the news that the US Supreme Court had rejected the appeal on California’s Proposition 8, which took away the freedom to marry for same-gender couples in California, as well as Section 3 of the federal Defense [sic] of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prevented the federal government from recognising the legal marriages of same-gender couples for ANY federal purpose.

It was a great way to start the day.

Writing for the majority on the DOMA case, Justice Kennedy noted that DOMA stomped on the sovereign authority of States by frustrating their attempts to bring equality to all their citizens. This was, of course, what Congress intended to do: “The history of DOMA’s enactment and its own text demonstrate that interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, a dignity conferred by the States in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than an incidental effect of the federal statute. It was its essence.”

This is the heart of the matter: Congress, motivated by anti-gay animus, passed DOMA specifically to prevent same-gender couples from being treated equally. By enshrining that discrimination in federal law, Congress hoped to discourage states from enacting marriage equality.

The rightwing justices who dissented attacked this idea. They argued that the name of the law—cited by the majority as evidence of animus—was irrelevant because it merely meant that they were merely trying to uphold a “traditional” view of marriage. This is extremely disingenuous. The name was meant to be confrontational, to indicate that conservatives in Congress thought that marriage was under “attack” by gays from which they demanded it be “defended”. If their intent had not been adversarial, they would have called it something milder, like “Definition of Marriage Act”. They didn’t, and that matters.

A lot of this is about semantics, though, when the real issue was that Congress deliberately excluded a whole class of people—legally married same-gender couples—from the rights and responsibilities of opposite-gender married couples. Justice Kennedy highlighted some of those.

In his puerile, condescending dissent, Antonin Scalia—true to form—went on the attack. He rejected everything in the majority opinion, essentially arguing that legally married same-gender couples should wait decades and decades until state legislatures and Congress eventually evened-out what marriage means. Scalia, who has a long history of anti-gay remarks—some quite vile—bristled at the notion that anyone might think they were monsters (his word) because of their anti-gay prejudice and bigotry. Well, as I always say, if someone is upset at being called a bigot, perhaps they should stop acting like one.

Scalia also engaged in a finger-wagging “I told you so!” over Lawrence v. Texas, decided ten years ago today, that struck down the USA’s remaining anti-sodomy laws. Back then, he thundered that in recognising that gay people had the same right to privacy as heterosexuals, the Court would one day find a right to marriage itself for same-gender couples. Despite his puffed-out chest back then, and his over-inflated claims today, the Court today did no such thing.

This ruling dealt with the fact that Congress cannot choose to treat an entire class of people differently solely because of its personal anti-gay animus. Marriage itself is left up to the States, as it always has been. In that sense, nothing’s changed. But if the Constitution doesn’t ensure the equal protection under law of all US citizens, then what good is it?

Still, Scalia thundered anyway that this ruling would one day lead the Court to overturn all bans on same-gender couples marrying. I hope he’s right about that, but his predictive abilities aren’t very acute. Still, I suspect that one day in the future, probably long after Scalia is dead and buried, there will be a Loving v. Virginia-type ruling that will strike down the remaining bans on marriage equality in the few backward states that still retain them then. But that could be decades from now, by which time other rulings will have paved the way as much as this one.

For LGBT people, the ruling on DOMA marks a significant point in the long road toward freedom and equality—but the journey is far from over, even with Section 3 of DOMA gone. There are still 37 states in which same-gender couples cannot marry, and this must be fixed. It will be a long and expensive struggle, but we will ultimately triumph, of course; the work on all that starts now.

There are also many uncertainties about the ways that the federal government will treat married same-gender couples due to differing standards: Some agencies use “place of domicile” (where a couple lives) to determine if their marriage is recognised by the federal government or not (is the couple’s marriage recognised where they live?). Other federal agencies use the “place of celebration” standard (that is, where the marriage was performed—if it’s legal there, the federal government recognises it even if the “place of domicile” state doesn’t). Opposite-gender couples don’t have to worry about this because their marriages are legal in all 50 states, even if there are some minor technical variations. There’s an excellent Fact Sheet on all this available from Lambda Legal’s website.

This ruling is more important nationally than the Prop 8 ruling, though that ruling is still important. As soon as the Courts there lift the stay on marriages, the freedom to marry will return to the USA’s most populous state. That’s a very big deal, indeed.

The frothing rightwing in the US issued their spittle-flecked condemnations of the rulings, of course, still spouting the irrational, absolute nonsense for which they are famous. That was to be expected—and laughed at, of course, because our adversaries are a constant source of amusement. For now.

In the days ahead, I’ll say much more about what happens next, as well as about the Prop 8 ruling. For today, however, I just want to bask in that one word: Victory.

Sweet.

---

The image of the US Supreme Court building at the top of this post a Creative Commons licensed photo by Wikiwopbop, published by Wikimedia Commons. I first used it in a related post early last year.

Hidden history

The worst mass murder of gays in US history happened in New Orleans 40 years ago, on June 24, 1973 (June 24 is today in the USA). Until today, I’d never heard of it.

The video above is the trailer for a documentary about the tragedy, “The UpStairs Lounge Fire”. To this day, it’s uncertain who did it or why, though the most likely suspect has long been thought to be a mentally ill man who was kicked out of the bar earlier that day.

What’s beyond dispute is the horror of that arson attack, which ultimately killed 32 people and injured 15:

“…some attempted to squeeze through barred windows in order to escape. One man managed to squeeze through the 14-inch gap, only to fall to his death while burning. Reverend Bill Larson of the MCC clung to the bars of one window until he died, and his charred remains were visible to onlookers for hours afterwards. MCC assistant pastor George ‘Mitch’ Mitchell managed to escape, but then returned to attempt to rescue his boyfriend, Louis Broussard; both died in the fire, their remains showing them clinging to each other.”

The photo of Reverend Bill Larson’s body fused to the window frame is included in the film and can be viewed on the Friendly Atheist blog post about the tragedy. That post also provides details of the aftermath:

“Homophobia being what it was, several families declined to claim the bodies and one church after another refused to bury or memorialize the dead. Three victims were never identified or claimed, and were interred at the local potters field.”

An Episcopal priest, the Rev. William Richardson, agreed to hold a small memorial service, but he was rebuked for doing so by the Episcopal bishop of New Orleans. Rev. Richardson received piles of hate mail, including a hundred complaints from his own parishioners. Clearly the only person showing any Christianity whatsoever was Rev. Richardson. Two memorial services were eventually held on July 1, one in a Unitarian church (of course), and the other at a United Methodist church.

There was also a lot of secular anti-gay prejudice surrounding the tragedy, too, and also because most if the victims were gay. One radio DJ suggested that since churches wouldn’t hold funerals for victims, they could be “buried in fruit jars.” Police were accused of a lacklustre investigation (partly because no one was ever charged), something they denied. No elected state or local official of the day ever said anything about the tragedy, even though officials frequently comment on much smaller tragedies. This is especially noticeable because this fire claimed more lives than any other fire in New Orleans history.

Pride Month isn’t just about partying for its own sake: It’s also about celebrating the fact that we’ve survived all that we have—we’ve endured despite the hatred and bigotry of some people, and the indifference of far more. What we’ve endured has made us stronger and more determined to win our civil and human rights. So, we’ve succeeded, in part, not just despite our oppression, but sometimes because of it. Survival in the face of oppression ought to be celebrated, and that’s part of what Gay Pride is all about. To me, that’s ample justification for a lot of partying, too. We paid our dues.

Oppressed groups typically have hidden histories. History, it’s often said, is written by the victors, so it’s only when oppression starts to ease that some of that hidden history begins to emerge. I think that those of us who care about freedom and justice and who value our common humanity, have an obligation to help spread awareness of hidden history, especially when it relates to us personally.

The UpStairs Lounge massacre is part of the history of every American gay person. This post is one small way in which I can help bear witness. It’s my duty to do so, and to try and help ensure that history doesn’t remain hidden.

Weekend Diversion: Higa TV

I can’t remember how I found this video, but when I did, I shared it on social media. It turns out, it was one of several clever videos done by 23-year-old film student, Ryan Higa. Because I liked what I saw, I decided to make him a Weekend Diversion—a blog series I’ve neglected—by sharing two of his videos that are among my favourites.

Above is “Candy Crush The Movie (Official Trailer)”, which is a spoof movie trailer centred on the popular Facebook game. When I posted the video, I said, “it's funny because it's so true.” As an addict player of the game, there was plenty about it that rang true. It makes light-hearted fun of Candy Crush and other “social games”, as well as the people who play them—all without being mean or harsh. They also posted a “behind the scenes” video.

The video below, “Bromance (Official Music Video)” is a comedic music video about male bonding. It makes fun mostly of uptight guys, and also guys who are perceived as taking “bromance” a little too seriously.

There’s a discernible gay vibe that runs through many of their videos (and Ryan makes fun of himself being perceived as being gay in some of his videos). This unconcerned air seems to me to be fairly typical of the way a lot of young guys relate to one another nowadays. They’re not worried about being perceived as gay because they don’t think it’s a bad thing, and because they have close friends who are gay. It’s a different world.

Whatever. I just think they’re funny videos. Check out Ryan’s YouTube Channel for more videos, and his website for more information about him and his other work. I bet we’ll be seeing a lot from him in the years ahead.

Facebook anniversary

Six years ago today, June 22, 2007, I joined Facebook. It was the third social network I joined and, like the other two, it was originally to promote my podcast. Times have changed.

Because of that connection to my podcast, it’s appropriate that the first message I got on my “wall” (now called the “timeline”) was from a guy who was a fellow podcaster at the time, the host of the Nik-in-Paris Podcast, which was also the first page I “Liked”. In the early days, all of my Facebook Friends were connected to podcasting—fellow podcasters, listeners of my podcast or people who listened to the same podcasts I did.

When my time available for podcasting dwindled, a change started with my Facebook use, too: An increasing percentage of my Facebook friends were people I knew from real life, such as classmates, as well as friends and family on both sides of the Pacific. The podcasting connection remained (I’ve never “unfriended” anyone), but the connections became more solid ones—they were people I interacted with more.

So, over time Facebook became useful to me personally: It allowed me to stay connected with people I’d never be able to stay in touch with otherwise. This is a good thing.

Back when I joined Facebook, the status updates said, in my example, “Arthur is” and people completed the sentence. So, my very first post to Facebook was properly read as “Arthur is Ecstatic the weekend is here.” But that was on July 6, 2007. Before then, I didn’t use Facebook very much.

The truth is, I probably wouldn’t have noticed this anniversary if I hadn’t been curious about my Twitterversary. When I looked that up, I also looked up when I signed up for Facebook (but I cared so little about MySpace that I never bothered to check my information about that, and now it’s impossible due to the changes to that site; check out how empty my page is there).

I’ve joined other social networks along the way, some of which I’m still part of (others, including two from Google, are gone). I joined Google+ when it was still in beta, and I quite like it (their mobile app is FAR better than Facebook’s). I set up a page of G+ for my blog and one for my podcast, and posts to this blog auto-post to that G+ page (click the G+ logo in the right sidebar to get there).

Like Twitter, I don’t now use Facebook as a way for me to promote my podcast. In fact, I seldom even mention it. It turns out, they’re both useful to me in ways I didn’t imagine at first. Actually, I don’t think I’m alone in that.

And that pretty much sums up my short history on social networks. The story, however, is not over. Yet.

News and not

I have zero respect for Fox “News” because I don’t think there’s anything about them that deserves respect. Even so, sometimes they surprise me with how bad they really are.

The video above is from Media Matters for America (considered an enemy, apparently, by many Fox “News” performers). The video’s subject: “All three cable news networks covered the beginning of Obama's historic speech in Berlin, but only one network cut away early.”

What struck me about this video is that it’s the first time I’ve seen the antics of Fox shown like this—side-by-side with real news organisations. The sped-up portion made it really easy to see what Fox did without the video getting too boring. I think it works really well. I don’t know whether this has been done before, but I think it’s an effective way of clearly showing what Fox does.

Fox is the way it is because it delivers eyes to advertisers and makes them money. As long as that continues at an amount sufficient to please shareholders, they won’t change. And as long as that’s the case, there will be watchdogs calling them out on it. Good to see another effective way to do that.

The things you find

When I got up today, I certainly wasn’t thinking about the Internet, nor wishing somebody was showing something really cool about washing machines. But that’s what happened.

Someone I know (what's the term? Cousin-in-law?) posted the above video to Facebook, and I watched. Personally, I think this lies somewhere between “WTF?!” and “Whoa!”, but your results many vary.

The woman is demonstrating this on an Elba washing machine, which is a version of the Fisher & Paykel machines. We don’t have such a machine, so I can’t test it.

A YouTube user called ReefusNZ provided longer, detailed instructions (which I can’t link to):

Once you enter the mode by pressing "Power" and "Advance" simultaneously, you can also change between the NZ, Australia and US anthem by pressing and holding the "Water Level Up" button until you hear a beep. The beep signals that the anthem has cycled to the next. (It will also stop the current anthem playing) So, when you then press and hold "Wash Temp Up" it will play the anthem it cycled too. Repeat as often until you cycle through them all. It resets when powered off at the wall.

Part of me thinks this is an unexpectedly cool thing for a washing machine to do, especially because it makes no difference to anything. I suppose I could wonder what other capabilities this machine is hiding—and do other washing machines have hidden abilities? I could wonder about all that, but, quite frankly, I just don’t think about washing machines that much.

I did think one other YouTube comment was quite funny: “Looks like I've reached the end of the internet. Time to turn around and go home.”

Indeed.

Oh! One more thing: Yesterday I saw a mainstream media journalist Tweet something that I think is good advice. Paraphrasing, he said that if you take video on your smart phone, turn the phone sideways! Thank you.

Now, I think it’s time to put another load of washing on.

Wintry weather

I hate winter. I think I’ve made that pretty clear already, but the fact that I still have to endure it in Auckland annoys me. Mind you, winter annoys me.

The video above from The New Zealand Herald talks about what’s coming. What it means for us in Auckland is cold weather: Daytime highs at the end of this week will be lower than the nighttime lows are now. Great.

When we last had a weather system like this, we had snow flurries in Queen Street (but none where I was that day). That could happen again, or just hail. Nice. If snow flurries do happen in the Auckland CBD, it’ll be only the second time in the years I’ve lived in New Zealand.

I'd already planned on going out tomorrow to do some grocery shopping, but I’ll get a bit extra so I don’t have to go out the rest of the week. Yeah, I really do hate winter weather that much.

Actually, to be specific, it’s cold I hate. And in Auckland we get cold without the pay-off of a winter wonderland of snow. That’s just cruel.

But, yeah: I hate winter.

Really, Marco?

US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was a guest on ABC (USA)’s This Week programme, in part to talk about the immigration reform bill he co-sponsors and helped to draft. Nothing unusual in that—nor with his hypocrisy.

Rubio said that the bill needs “improvement”. He discussed conservative demands for some unspecified “fixes” to the bill to somehow deal more sternly with border security. Somehow.

Guest Host Jonathan Karl asked Rubio, “If the bill stays as it is regarding border security, do you vote for it?” Rubio replied, “Listen, I really don’t want to get involved in these hypotheticals and ultimatums about what I want…” Karl interrupted Rubio, pointing out it wasn’t a “hypothetical” at all: “That’s a very real possibility, Senator…” Rubio then again ducked the question.

So, Rubio said he didn’t want to get involved in “ultimatums about what I want”—oh, really? Just this past week he DID issue an ultimatum: “If this bill has in it something that gives gay couples immigration rights and so forth, it kills the bill. I'm done. I'm off it.”

Rubio wants us all to know he’s not giving ultimatums, and he’s negotiable on pretty much everything—except, of course, on equal opportunity for LGBT immigrants, in which case he does have an ultimatum: Keep the LGBT partners of US citizens out or he walks away from the bill.

This is just more evidence of why Marco Rubio is an anti-gay bigot and a hypocrite.

Everything changed

Everything changed June 16, 1999 when I became a New Zealand permanent resident. I later became a citizen, which changed things again, but this was a very big deal.

Before that point, I depended on employment to be able to stay in New Zealand, which could be—and turned out to be—a problem. When the company that brought me to this country ceased trading, ending my job, there was a real possibility I might have to return to the United States—without Nigel. We faced being separated because I couldn’t sponsor Nigel to move to the USA, and at the time he couldn’t sponsor me for New Zealand.

At that time, same-gender couples had to be together for four years before the New Zealand partner could sponsor the foreign partner (it was two years for unmarried opposite-gender couples, 6 months for married couples, which could only be opposite gender). I wouldn’t be eligible until late 1999.

Then, with the stroke of a pen, things changed: The Immigration Minister changed immigration policy, making all unmarried couples—same-gender and opposite-gender alike—treated the same. I got permanent residence around half a year earlier than I would have been eligible for under the old policy (and about seven months after I’d first lodged my application).

On June 16, 1999, Nigel and went to Immigration for our interviews. We’d already had to supply huge piles of information to prove we were in a genuine and stable relationship, including bank statements (showing money moving back and forth between our accounts to prove mutual dependence), photos of us together, even a letter from Nigel’s Mum attesting that our relationship was real and she supported us and our application.

The interviews weren’t intrusively personal. They asked questions like how we met, and some details about the other person (to show that we were really a couple). Nigel told me that he was afraid I’d screw up his birthday when they asked because I often did; I still do, actually (memory is a tricky thing). Still, the day it really mattered, I was focused—and correct.

They granted my Residence Permit and gave me both it and my first Returning Resident’s Visa, which was good for two years. Details from both, placed on facing pages of my US passport, are in the photo above. We were going to the US on holiday just a short time later, so I used the Returning Resident’s Visa once. I became a citizen, and obtained a New Zealand passport, before I ever needed one again.

The evening after our visit to Immigration, I wrote:

“I was a bit numb after it was all over, and I'm sure it'll take awhile to sink in. Mostly, I was just so relieved that it was over, and I also felt a calm I don't think I've felt in years, a kind of relaxed good feeling … More than three years and eight months of waiting and living in limbo have ended.”

With permanent residence, my life stabilised and, especially, I could stop worrying that we might be separated. Permanent residence was not as good as citizenship, but it was far better than the series of temporary permits and visas that made it possible for me to stay in New Zealand up until that June day fourteen years ago.

Nothing’s changed in the USA in all time I’ve been in New Zealand: The USA still doesn’t allow its citizens to sponsor their unmarried partner, whether of the same or the opposite gender. This won’t change regardless of how the US Supreme Court rules on the infamous Defense [sic] of Marriage Act (DOMA). However, if DOMA’s struck down, the Obama Administration could order that legally married LGBT couples be treated the same as legally married opposite-gender couples, and that would definitely be an improvement.

Things are even better in New Zealand now: Civil Unions arrived in 2005, and we’ll get the freedom to marry when marriage equality arrives in August. This will eventually have implications for Kiwi/American LGBT couples in the future; legally, things are very much better now than they were for me, or us, back in 1999. This is a very, very good thing.

Everything’s changed since this date in 1999, and for me, and other LGBT Kiwi-US couples in New Zealand, it’s all been for the better.

AFER's Journey to the Day of Decision

This video from the American Foundation for Equal Rights is striking. It reminds us of the history of the fight to strike down California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative in which California voters took away the right of same-gender couples to marry.

So much has changed since the fight began, and much of that is depicted in the video. Public opinion polls show increasing majority support for marriage equality, backed up more and more states enacting the freedom to marry, including at the ballot box. Even California wouldn’t enact Prop 8 if it was on the ballot now.

No one knows how the US Supreme Court will rule on the case, but AFER has produced a handy visual chart to show the possible outcomes. We’ll all know the outcome sometime in the next couple weeks.

No matter how the Supreme Court rules on the Prop 8 case, or on the equally important challenge to the federal Defense [sic] of Marriage Act, one fact remains as clear as ever: None of us are free until all of us are free. That won’t change, and the work remaining won’t go away, even if we get a sweeping ruling in our favour.

But as we wait, anxiously, to find out what the next chapter will be, it’s good to remember how far we’ve come. It helps to plan where we go next.

Reception at the White House

I love it when President Obama does something that pisses-off the radical right—which, of course, is pretty much everything he does every day, starting by waking up in the morning.

But among the things that make wingnut heads explode is President Obama’s annual LGBT Pride Month Reception at the White House (official White House video above), and his proclamation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. While I’m not 100% happy with the president overall (and, of course, I never will be with any president), he has finally become the “fierce advocate” for LGBT Americans that he promised to be.

Some activists urge (others demand…) that the president issue an Executive Order banning discrimination against LGBT workers by federal contractors. The problem with this is that a future president could easily rescind it, and it would become a lightening rod for anti-gay agitators and activists heading into the 2014 Congressional elections, potentially making things much worse than they are now if wingnuts gain control of the entire US Congress in 2014 (and the White House in 2016).

What we need is passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which will ban anti-gay workplace discrimination nationwide. This can't happen in this Congress, and indeed won't happen until Democrats have overwhelming majorities in both houses of the US Congress. Because it can’t pass in this Congress, ENDA won’t galvanise the frothing far right base of the Republican Party.

Apart from a handful of Republican politicians, who are despised by that frothing far right activist base, the party’s elected officials are lock-step in their opposition to LGBT Americans and their human rights. We shouldn’t give up on Republicans, though, because some of them will be waiting and hoping their party one day returns to a more rational and mainstream ideology.

In the meantime, things are changing for the better, and while we’ve made a lot of progress lately, there’s still a long way to go. The White House reception is important mostly for its symbolism, sure, but in politics, symbolism IS important.

I just want to see more progress, too.

Related (from The White House):

“Remarks by the President at a Reception for LGBT Pride Month”
“Presidential Proclamation – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, 2013”

Rubio’s true nature

Marco Rubio was the darling of the “tea party” extremists of the Republican Party, their hero—but then he advocated for immigration reform, something they ardently oppose. It turns out, however, he’s just like them.

Yesterday, the junior US Senator from Florida said that if LGBT people are included in the immigration reform bill, he’ll withdraw as a co-sponsor: "If this bill has in it something that gives gay couples immigration rights and so forth, it kills the bill. I'm done. I'm off it, and I've said that repeatedly. I don't think that's going to happen and it shouldn't happen. This is already a difficult enough issue as it is."

Nice guy, eh? It takes a special kind of bigotry to walk away from a bill he cosponsors and wants passed just because he hates LGBT people.

Rubio then turned up the heat on his bigotry and stirred in a healthy dollop of hypocrisy.

ThinkProgress caught up with Rubio at a far-right religious political conference and asked him if he supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would ban workplace discrimination against LGBT people. Rubio replied: “I haven’t read the legislation. By and large I think all Americans should be protected but I’m not for any special protections based on orientation.” [emphasis by ThinkProgress]. The complete video is below.

ThinkProgress followed up: “What about on race or gender?” and Rubio responded, “Well that’s established law.” To be overly charitable to Rubio, perhaps he just wasn’t thinking at the time. Race and gender once were NOT “settled law”, just as protection for LGBT people is not now. Politicians braver than Rubio MADE race and gender “settled law”—it didn’t happen by magic! And at one time politicians just like Rubio made equally bigoted remarks against equal opportunity for those covered by the “settled law”.

The graphic at the top of this post, found on Facebook, sums up Rubio’s hypocrisy in one visual. Many Hispanic commentators are pointing out the irony of the child of Cuban immigrants advocating anti-gay positions on employment similar to those that Castro held. Others noted the hypocrisy of Rubio, a child of immigrants, wanting to slam the door shut on immigrants he doesn’t like. However, the graphic is slightly misleading, because Rubio lied about why his parents left Cuba: He claimed they left because of Castro when, in fact, they left three years before he came to power for purely economic reasons. “Oppression” may have kept them in the USA, but it’s not the reason moved there.

So what we have in Marco Rubio is a hypocritical bigot (or bigoted hypocrite) who also has some trouble with facts. Nevertheless, he’s one of the Republicans Americans view most favourably—which isn’t actually saying much, actually, since he has a 37% favourable rating overall (the top-rated Republican, NJ Governor Chris Christie has only a 52% favourable rating). Only 21% of Democrats view him favourably, but 58% of Republicans do.

Based on the latest poll, it would seem that the radical base of the Republican Party hasn’t soured on Rubio as much as has been claimed in the newsmedia—and why would they? His weak advocacy of immigration reform aside, Rubio’s record proves he’s really just like them: Radical, bigoted and hypocritical.

Cereal bigotry

A couple weeks ago, controversy erupted over cereal. Well, not cereal, but a commercial for one: The makers of Cheerios posted on YouTube a commercial called “Just Checking”. It was a cute commercial, but not a particularly big deal. Except, it was.

The ad featured a child and her bi-racial parents and the racist comments became so extreme that comments on the video were shut down. To be honest, extreme and/or offensive comments on YouTube are nothing new; in fact, they’re more common than not. But these were apparently particularly vile, even by normal YouTube standards.

The video above is one response. Called a parody, it’s more accurately a re-imagining, and designed to take on the haters. I think it works really well.

As I’ve often said, I like the use of clever humour and sarcasm to confront bigotry and hatred; getting mad at bigots only feeds their egos, but mocking them—as long as it’s clever, not childish—belittles them and their hatred. This would make them even madder, if they understood irony, but haters generally aren’t bright enough for that, so this instead reinforces for normal people that bigotry is not okay.

This video is a lighthearted response, but my initial reaction was not at all lighthearted. In fact, In this case it was a good thing that I was too busy to blog about it at the time; my words would not have been kind.

Others had more reasoned responses. For example, Roger Green posted “TV: controversy over a Cheerios ad?”. Roger made excellent points, such as “Of course, you KNOW what the real problem is for some people with that ad? It suggests that black people and white people were – hold onto your hats – having SEX!” Too true.

Another perspective is from Meagan Hatcher-Mays who wrote on Jezebel that the ad “also validates the existence of biracial and multiracial people.” And so it does.

I reacted so viscerally to the disgusting racism in the comments because I’m half of a biracial couple: I take it rather personally when people attack the very idea. And, the fact that the response video above features a same-sex couple made it resonate with me.

What also struck me about this is the importance of all sorts of people being reflected in popular culture, including commercials. GLBT couples and families portrayed in ads or TV shows or whatever draw every bit as much hatred—but the mainstream newsmedia almost never notices, let alone turns it into something that good people can feel even better about themselves when tut-tutting the bigotry on display.

Hatred and bigotry are around us every day. Mostly we don’t notice, or we choose not to notice, but it’s there nonetheless. It’s good when people do notice and react with disgust, like they did against the racism directed at the Cheerios commercial. I just wish this was the common reaction to all bigotry, and not just at what the mainstream newsmedia tells us is shocking.

Is the Republican Party fascist?

A friend posed an interesting question on Facebook, wondering whether the Republican Party is fascist:

“Since fascism is defined by ultranationalism, ethocentrism, and militarism, is the current Republican party fascist?”

It’s a question that’s often asked by progressives and even true libertarians (about which, more later). Here’s how I answered the question:

No, I don't think that the current Republican Party is fascist, though it's proto-fascist in many ways. Fascist regimes, historically, have all involved the usurpation of legitimate government in favour of a military dictatorship. Republicans don't need to do that when they can use the current system to achieve their goal, namely, a corporatocracy (the system in which corporations control the government and its policies).

Republicans, through their control of state legislatures (changes to state electoral law) and the US Supreme Court (Citizens United, Bush v. Gore), have stacked the electoral deck against mainstream Americans (and minorities in particular). This means that they can continue to win elections they'd lose in a fairer, more democratic system. That allows them to set policy even when they're technically not in power—like, for example, they don't control the US Senate or presidency, but they still call the shots.

So, they don't need to usurp the US Constitution to establish a dictatorship as true fascists would; instead, they just game the current system to enable them to do the bidding of the plutocrats and oligarchs. As long as the elites are satisfied enough, the Republicans don't need to go full fascist—but that could change, and they ARE a long way down that road already.

As I see it, many Republican Party priorities, and its socially conservative ideology, are certainly consistent with traditional fascism, but overall they are more proto-fascist, that is, have much in common with true fascism, and they could yet morph into true fascists, but they’re not there yet. As I said in my reply, I don’t think they need to be fascist to achieve their goal of a corporatocracy, which is a subject in itself.

Republicans venerate the US Constitution and the men who wrote it with what would be called religious zeal if they didn’t display actual religious zeal (whether that overt religiosity is real or cynical acting is beside the point). While Republicans do sometimes advocate usurping the Constitution, most of the time they don’t.

Libertarians are an interesting bunch. True libertarians—none of whom are currently elected to national office—deplore fascism, socialism and modern liberal social democracy with pretty much equal fervour. However, the faux libertarian “tea party” is, more often than not, an actual fascist movement. For example, they preach authoritarian actions to suppress dissent by liberals, gays, “activist judges”, gun control activists, “the media”—basically, everyone they don’t like. Two years ago, I talked about some of the fascist and proto-fascist actions by “tea party” politicians at that time. Not much has changed.

The bigger problem is that a party that flirts with fascist ideology is one that’s already started down the road. The “tea party” folks are well on the way, and they call the shots in the Republican Party—can full fascist ideology be far away? Or, can saner heads prevail and pull the party back from that moral and intellectual darkness? I honestly don’t know.

What do you think? Is the Republican Party fascist? Or, do you, like me, say it isn’t but it’s at least sympathetic with some fascist ideology? And, if the answer to either question is yes, can the party be saved? Or do you thing the very idea is absurd? I welcome your comments, either here or in a post on your own site (if you do that latter, come back and leave a comment with a link).

The more we discuss these sorts of questions, the less likely we are to have to worry about the answers.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

The chart above accompanied a story on The Daily Kos about the amount of annual leave US workers DON’T get: It’s really bad in the US.

The chart compares the amount of time off that governments require employers to give to workers, and in the US, that would be nothing. Japan, the next-worst developed country for time off, has no mandated public holidays, but ten days of annual leave.

The chart has a significant error for New Zealand: Too few public holidays. There are actually 9½ national public holidays, plus an additional day for each region (called “Anniversary Day”)*. However, one and a half days—Waitangi Day and Anzac Day—didn't used to be “Mondayised”, so for workers who were normally off on a weekend, they missed out on that paid time off. This changes next year when both holidays will be Mondayised.

So, New Zealand workers have a total of 30½ paid days off a year, made up of 20 days of annual leave and 10½ public holidays (I should note that everyone I’ve ever known has had all of Anzac Day off, not just a half day).

There have been three significant changes to this since I moved to New Zealand. First, the former Labour Government extended the annual leave requirement from 15 to 20 days. Then, the current National/Act Government changed the law to allow workers and employers to transfer the paid time off from a public holiday to another mutually-agreeable day. The other change allows workers to “sell” up to a week (five days) of their annual leave back to their employer. I’m dubious about both moves, particularly because of how they may impact low-skilled and low-wage workers. Still, maybe they’ll work.

Another problem with the chart is that just because US workers don’t have any paid days off mandated by federal law, that doesn't mean states can't impose requirements. Most American workers still get at least some paid leave. According to the Daily Kos article, the average US worker gets nine days off per year and six paid holidays. It’s not enough, and because it’s not enshrined in law, some workers get no paid time off at all.

I think it’s interesting that there’s such wide discrepancy in how workers are treated in developed countries. It’s also interesting that the economic performance of the countries on the chart varies widely, so clearly paid time off alone doesn’t seem to help or a hinder (not that this stops partisans from either end of the spectrum arguing otherwise).

In any case, time off is good.

*New Zealand’s public holidays are: New Year’s Day and Day After, Waitangi Day (February 6), Good Friday and Easter Monday (dates vary), Anzac Day morning (April 25 – that’s the half day), Queen’s Birthday (first Monday in June), Labour Day (fourth Monday in October, Christmas Day and Boxing Day (December 25-26). An additional Provincial Anniversary Day holiday varies by region.

The title of this post is taken from a lyric in the Go-Go’s song, “Vacation”.

The Gayest Of All Time

June is Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, and it’s time to celebrate. Right on cue, Jonny McGovern has released his latest video and song. Fun as the song is, I had to post the video mostly because my fellow podcaster, the fabulous Donna Suggarz, is featured.

When I watched the video for the second time, I realised that there are more than a few references that non-LGBT people won’t get. Oh, well. I’m used to having to find my truth in overtly heterosexual songs, so a little turnabout is fair play.

And, a little fun never hurt anyone.