I seethe NOT because my son is gay. I seethe because he lives in a country in which some elected officials find it politically advantageous to deny him dignity, basic rights, and protections. I seethe because there are people who preach hatred and discrimination towards gays yet claim to be "good" and "loving" Christians. I seethe because there are groups who claim to be "advocates" for the family but who work to do great harm to any family that doesn’t fit their narrow template for “normal”.
The reason I think this spot is so powerful is because I believe there are quite a few people out there who don’t actually stop and think about the fact that these draconian laws don’t just affect gays and lesbians, but also the straight people who love them. And why does this matter? Well because, as was proven in Arizona in 2006, when people realize that they may be affecting straight people just like themselves, they are not so quick to pull the lever for laws that deny or take away rights.
Here’s hoping that the good people of California tell these Religious Haters backing this putrid Amendment where they can put it and the faux Family Values they so love to shove down our throats. Sadly, I am not so hopeful about my own state of Arizona’s chances of defeating the marriage amendment that will be on our ballots this November, but who knows, maybe the good people of Arizona have had it with these bottomfeeders from hell too.
So I am over at my mom’s house this evening and I am waiting for her to try on a pair of dress pants that she needs me to hem. And in the middle of it all the phone rings. And of course, she can’t answer it because she is trying on these pants so she asks me to answer it. And I do. And I am completely unprepared.
On the other end of the line is this completely monotone voice who starts out talking faster than a semi-automatic machine gun. And all I can catch are bits and pieces: Proposition 102 … One-Man, One-Woman … Will you vote yes … Protect marriage … bla bla bla.
So when she stops to gasp for breath, I calmly state that I have a gay son. And she says, but will you vote yes to protect marriage? And I say, I don’t think you heard me, I have a gay son. And she says yes I heard you, will you vote to protect marriage?
And it is at this point I know I am going to blow it. My face is so hot and I am so angry that my mind goes completely blank. So what do I do?
I raise my voice really loud and I say: NO I WON’T VOTE FOR YOUR STUPID HATEFUL AMENDMENT. I HAVE A GAY SON!
And you know what? I still don’t think she made the connection.
So McCain energized his “base” and gave the rest of us a big fat middle finger right to our faces. Our country is in dire straits and he presents a Hockey Mom as the best possible person he could offer. Wow. Truth really is stranger than fiction.
So what do we really know about this hockey mom with extremely conservative religious beliefs and a love for guns and dead caribou? Not much.
I’m an Alaskan. I grew up in Wasilla. Sarah Palin was my mayor. She wanted to ban books at the library where my parents taught me how to read. There have been many interesting pieces of journalism introducing my gun toting, mooseburger-eating former neighbors (I now live in Manhattan) to the rest of the country, and most have focused on how proud Alaskans are of their governor making the surprise leap to the big leagues.
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My fellow Alaskans have vouched for Palin as a charming, interesting person. I can add to that that she is perfectly friendly. But now she is running for the highest office and so it must be noted that Sarah Palin the Friendly Neighbor is different from Sarah Palin the Executive. The latter is a woman with intense agendas guided by a narrow set of culturally conservative and extreme religious values. She believes that abstinence should be the only form of sex education taught to teenagers; she believes that creationism should be taught alongside science in our schools; she is against a woman’s right to choose even in the cases of incest and rape; and her church believes gay and lesbian Americans can and, one assumes, should be corrected by prayer (“pray away the gay” is their cheery slogan).
When she was mayor of my hometown, these extreme views came off as petty and irrelevant to people like me who did not share them. There seemed little cause for alarm. Most Alaskans are happy to live and let live; we don’t think of ourselves as Republican or Democrat. Besides, as mayor, it’s not like she had the power to wiretap our phones, amend our constitution, or send us to war.
But she did try to use her power to ban books. Wasilla’s popular public librarian rightly objected, and the community rightly backed the librarian. The books were never banned, though Mrs. Palin did fire the librarian for not agreeing with her political views, then rescinded the firing after it was clear she’d made an unpopular decision. Sarah Palin’s behavior is revealing: in a state as isolated as Alaska, in a town as small as Wasilla, books are vital to the culture and to the education of its residents. The small town values I learned growing up included attending story hour at the public library. Those values most certainly did not include trying to ban books that the mayor’s church friends didn’t think other people should read.
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In recent days, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin have directed accusations of elitism at the Democratic ticket as well as at the media, suggesting that there is something undesirable about a presidential candidate with extensive knowledge of foreign policy, inner city community struggles, constitutional law, and the complexities of the major domestic crises. This is baffling. Don’t we want an elite leader? Don’t we want a White House made transparent by an elite press? We are a large and complex nation with large and complex problems. Common sense suggests, and the last eight years have shown, that perhaps the president should be something of an elite leader.
Barack Obama studied international relations at Columbia (he also has a law degree and has taught constitutional law) before returning to Chicago to be a community organizer. Meanwhile, Mrs. Palin ran for Miss Alaska (she placed second) and then received a Bachelor’s degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho. She returned to Alaska and became a reporter at a television station’s sports desk.
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John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin shows that he is moving farther and farther to the right of mainstream America. If he’s doing it for political reasons, he’s no maverick. If he’s doing this for reasons of principle, he is merely out of touch with most Americans. Ninety percent of the delegates to the Republican National Convention were white. That might resemble the America that the Republican party sees, and it certainly resembles the demographics that shaped Gov. Palin over the many years she’s lived in Alaska. But it’s not the America most Americans live in. Not only is Sarah Palin’s executive experience inadequate, her worldview is not possibly diverse or nuanced enough to appreciate either the domestic challenges or international complexities that a VP must grasp at the most basic level. A McCain/Palin administration would be risky at best, and potentially disastrous.
I’m sick of Republicans suggesting I’m unpatriotic while they ruin my reputation around the world. I’m sick of people casting votes of fear because of threats that are mischaracterized and exploited by their own political leaders. I’m sick of distorted television commercials being my country’s primary method of public discourse. And I’m sick of being told that straight, white, Evangelical family values are better for my country than my family’s values. Anyone who has paid lip service to the idea that America’s strength relies upon its diversity, be warned: it’s actually true, and it will be even truer in the future. I think my generation will be known as the diversity generation. We get America. We are ready to be leaders for the world community. We are motivated. We think. We are patriotic.
