North Carolina vs. Mississippi

My take on what is happening among the silent majority in the latest issue of Q Notes (goqnotes.com).

After the vote on Amendment One was held and passed by the citizens of North Carolina, Governor Beverly Perdue spoke out about what we, as a state, looked like to the rest of the nation: “People around the country are watching the state and are confused…North Carolina was a progressive and a forward thinking state that stood up for civil rights…we look like Mississippi” (May 11, 2012).
The comment raised a reaction from both those who voted for and against the Amendment. Those who voted for the Amendment, along with Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, took great umbrage at the comment. Those who voted against the Amendment wondered where Gov. Perdue was while some of us were working on phone banks, going door to door and distributing material against Amendment One. To this day Gov. Perdue has not come out in support of marriage equality, having voted for the state Defense of Marriage Act when she was a state legislator.
In light of the passage of Amendment One — now part of North Carolina’s Constitution — it is interesting to note one thing about the population of Mississippi that surpasses that of North Carolina’s citizenry. Although Mississippi ranks 42nd in the nation for the number of same-sex couples per household, it leads the nation in the percentage of same-sex couples raising children, a study by the Williams Institute (a gender orientation and identity public-policy organization based at the University of California, Los Angeles) reported. Nationally, 22 percent of same-sex couples are raising children, but in Mississippi 33 percent are raising children. Mississippi has a total of 6,286 same-sex couples” (Jackson (MS) Free Press, Aug. 26, 2011). Mississippi!? That means there are more same-sex couples with children who feel safe, if not comfortable, living in Mississippi than the once-progressive-but-always-conservative state of North Carolina. Maybe it has to do with the cost of living, the “live and let live” or regardless of your politics, or who you live with, “blood is thicker than water” attitude of some Southerners. Perhaps it is the quieter rural, backwater life some people have chosen to live, being honest and smart about who knows about one’s relationship with a partner and child or children.
This fact about Mississippi reminds me of something I do not want to forget in light of North Carolina’s Amendment One’s passage. While, for some same-sex couples and their children, there are many advantages to living in the thriving metropolitan parts of North Carolina, we live in a state of 100 counties, where there are many same-sex couples and children who live in one of the 6900 small cities, towns, villages and rural hamlets in N.C. Same-sex couples in Robbinsville, Lincolnton and Warrenton, as well as those who live in rural parts on a farm or in the mountains of this state also felt the impact of the Amendment’s passage, but chose to be quiet about expressing resentment, if not downright anger, about how the vote went down.
A story: When I was interim senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church, Henderson (an hour’s ride north of Raleigh in rural Vance County), I was delighted to meet lesbian and gay couples raising children side by side straight couples with children. They worked in the surrounding county, paid taxes, joined swim-golf clubs and contributed to the community life. Discovering that I was a Presbyterian pastor who is gay, they even started to come to worship to check both the congregation and me out. Granted, there was an unspoken, but firmly held “don’t ask, don’t tell” etiquette that guides all conversations. But, they were there, queer and happy.
Our sisters and brothers who are lesbian and gay are in each and every county of Mississippi and North Carolina, no matter how big or small, liberal or conservative, the county may be. We who are LGBTQ are everywhere and our numbers are growing. We are part of the rich, vibrant life of not only the large cities, but the small farms, county public schools and the small independent coffee shop with the only espresso machine in the county. Along with our children, being smart and honest, we will continue to educate, share our lives, our relationships and slowly, but decisively, change the very fabric of the places where we live. : :

Link is here:

goqnotes.com/15214/north-carolina-vs-mississippi/

Pace!

B

Q Notes Article: Teaching Our Children to Vote

was riding in the back seat of my parents’ white Buick Le Sabre, as my mom pulled into the large fairgrounds in New Jersey, leaving my dad at a rally for Lyndon B. Johnson for president. In 1964 I was nine years old and to this day I remember the tension in the car between my parents riding in the front seat of the car. My mom was and is a “cloth coat Republican” just like Pat Nixon; a regular “Rockefeller Republican,” even though I hasten to share the information that that branch of the modern GOP is, well, a relic of its collective past. She was going to vote for Sen. Goldwater for president and she was furious with my dad because he was going to vote for Johnson. If memory serves me correctly, that was the last time my mom and dad voted against each other. Since then, my brother and I canceled out my parents’ vote, voting solidly the Democratic Party line.
Politics was and is part of my family discussion topics at dinnertime when I was growing up, as was religion and other current events of the day. “The McLoughlin Group” and later “Washington Week” were part of our television viewing habit. While my parents usually lean to the Republican right on talking points — with my mom fixed to Fox newscasts — it nonetheless gave my brother and I something to hone our skills as debaters and intellectuals. If we weren’t going to follow their political thinking, then we (like generations of children before us) would have to think logically about where we either agreed or diverged from what our parents thought. Separately, but around the same time, my brother and I came “out” to my parents and told them that we were Democrats. Frankly, this may have upset my mom more than telling her I was gay.
Habits and interests in our adult lives are formed early in our childhood. Knowing this, I watched carefully and with tenderness as I worked at an early voting election site in early May. I observed a mom pushing an infant in a stroller with one hand, while holding the hand of a slightly older child with the other hand, and a dad precariously balancing a child on their shoulders into the voting booth. What soon turned out to be the hot ticket item at our table was a round blue teal sticker that said “I Voted Against Amendment 1!”
All morning long, children and adults alike began to wear stickers against Amendment One. For anyone reading this outside of N.C., Amendment One will amend our Constitution declaring that the only legally recognized union is only marriage between one man and one woman. One child put the sticker in the middle of the “S” of his Superman T-shirt, while a little girl simply placed the sticker on her arm, complementing the sticker on the other arm that she got from Trader Joe’s. Moms and dads also wore the stickers on their clothes as they walked into the voting area, showing others that they were going to vote against Amendment One. In this classroom of life, parents were teaching their children that politics matter, can be fun and is important enough that a mom or dad would interrupt one’s daily schedule of fun activities to practice a civil right: the right to vote. Parents are teaching children that voting matters in our collective life and is important for the greater good of the diverse community in which we live.
Later in the day, my 19-year-old son texted me, telling me that he voted. My daughter had already voted too. Regardless of the outcome of this election, a lesson has been learned: vote. And, where did they learn to vote? From their parents, who learned in from their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents before us. : :

Voting Gone to the Dogs

My latest in Chapel Hill News:
“Can you bring your dogs up on campus to help bring out the vote?” asked our friend Chris.
My partner and I were confused at first, muttering to ourselves, “Our dogs? The vote?” What would Lil (our queen-like, 12-year old yellow Lab) and Toby (our overly rambunctious, 11 year-old chocolate Lab) do in order to help bring out the vote against Amendment One on the UNC campus? Simply wag a tail, convince students they’d love to be their best friend as they are gently nuzzled, told, “Aren’t you a pretty pup?!” and someone directs them to the voting booth a few yards away.
As so many dog owners know, dogs have a way of making us feel like we are “Number One” in a world regardless of what others say. There’s simply nothing like coming home at the end of the day and being greeted by dogs that seem to say, “Where have you been? We’ve missed you! Now come and play with us, OK?” as their tail wags their bodies in an overly exuberant sign of welcome. There is a certain attraction that is undeniable between humans and these furry bundles of love and drool.
The dogs and I found Chris and her crew of volunteers working against Amendment One, planting signs to “VOTE!” with red, white, and blue balloons tied onto the signs on a lovely Friday in April. They greeted the dogs with warmth and joy, placed a kiss on the wet nose of each dog, a bowl of cold water (ice included!), and a treat or two for each pup (the dogs were in their idea of heaven).
Without needing to say a thing, or advertise with a sign, “Dogs here to pet,” the magic took place: students simply started coming up to the dogs, like iron filings to a magnet. They pet their head with the accompanying, “Ah, aren’t you cute?! What’s your name?” Within minutes, Chris placed a thin scarf of an American flag around each dogs neck with a teal blue button pinned on simply stating: “Vote Against Amendment One!” The dogs didn’t mind the scarves one bit. After all, their attention was on marking out the new surroundings, their respective noses in the air catching aromatic whiffs of food near by.
More students, and then a faculty or staff member, slowed down from their brisk walk between the dining hall and the next appointment or rush to study. There it was again: without a cue they petted a dog, scratched under their chin, rubbed the area behind their ears, and spoke baby talk to them, “Hi sweetie!” Chris and her merry band of volunteers dove in and invited students, faculty, and staff alike to vote against Amendment One inside UNC’s Chase Hall, only a few feet away from dog-petting central.
For six hours the dogs did their best impersonation of being, well, dogs, and the voter numbers grew throughout the day. Needless to say, the dogs were exhausted by the end of the day, heavy panting out of both of them, and from their deep snores I knew they slept well that night.
In hindsight, I get it: voting is stressful work. The right to vote comes with a sense of gravitas. Years ago I was in the Dominican Republic during a tense election day, with police posted outside of voting areas for fear of violence as people put their lives on the line simply to vote. Sadly, many adults here do not take the opportunity to vote. They find it easier to grouse about the poor economy or get angry with a new law passed rather than taking a few minutes to stop, vote, and make a difference.
Elections matter. Who we elect changes the course of our collective history.
With all the seriousness of doing our duty as citizens of this country, it is great to have a dog outside of the voting booth to simply cut down the stress all sides feel during an election. Dogs are a welcoming presence, great stress relievers, reminding us that we did the right thing.
If the person we voted for and our fight against the Amendment wins, we will celebrate with our dogs (extra treats!)
And if we lose? With a dog to accompany us, we move forward, working anew to make a better change for our future.

Crunch time

I signed up today to work the polls for early voting tomorrow, Friday, May 4th, in Hillsborough.  I will work at a phone bank on May 6.  I may work the polls on May 8th.

This is crunch time.

I'm amazed at how swept up I am in the work, but this work is personal and familial.

Friends from the West have written about the "cracker" state of North Carolina. The youtube clip of the wife of one of the co-sponsors that put this Amendment on the ballot, promoting the idea that passage of this Amendment will help Caucasians pro-create did not help those for the Amendment.  Nor did the ravings of the Rev. Sean Harris of Fayettevill, NC (Berean Baptist Church), promoting beating our children into heterosexuality.

The simple question, as I would ask in my Ethics class re: the right moral choice, is based on consequentialism: will passage of this Amendment bring the greatest good for the greater number of people? 

Simply: no.

Pace, Brett

Brett

In Q Notes, my article, Project Hate

Here's the latest:

• 

In an article posted on the “Independent Gay Forum,” Walter Olson — a gay dad — dug through the latest “dump” of information gathered by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). What was discovered in this dump was one of the strategies that NOM used in stirring up hate toward LGBTQ people. One strategy was fanning the flame of division between those of us in the LGBTQ community and straight allies with people of other ethnicities, nationalities, and races. This strategy was successful in the passage of Proposition 8 in California, where many in the African-American, largely Church-based community voted against marriage equality.

NOM had also set aside $120,000 on a project of finding straight children in households headed by LGBTQ parents. The idea was to take straight children and have them talk against their LGBTQ parents on camera. This idea is to attack our families in the most intimate and vulnerable parts of our lives: a child-parent relationship. Olson writes, “Whenever I hear NOM described as ‘pro-family’ from now on, I will think of that fact.”

In reading Olson’s article, and in light of Amendment One election in the state of North Carolina, I realize that what is being organized around us is what I call their “pro-family” tactic: “Project Hate.” Here’s what NOM did not anticipate in their version of “Project Hate”: our children are smarter and more well-adjusted than probably many of their peers.

In large part, this is due to those of us who are LGBTQ parents living openly and honestly with our children in a world that is largely populated by straight parents. Our continuous conversations about being LGBTQ in this world, as the “other,” the “gay” or “lesbian” parent(s) in schools, faith communities, public events and daily interchanges with others and our children, provides ample opportunities for our children to see and hear how society perceives us.

As my mother would say during frank and open discussions we would have around my children regarding being a gay parent, “little pitchers have big ears.” My children heard and observed the reaction of others in learning that I was gay, both in my family and in my former wife’s parents, and watched carefully the way my partner and I interacted with each other. An attitude of welcome openness, an ambivalence or wary acceptance or apathetic close-mindedness is not only recognized by those of us who are LGBTQ parents, but by our children as well.

Through it all, many of our young children who are now grown adults are speaking out and making us proud. Nationally, in Iowa Zach Wahls, the son of two moms who are lesbian, made YouTube history as he lectured anti-LGBTQ legislators who were debating civil unions and equal marriage in Iowa. In response to a Tea Partier who is against marriage equality, especially upon the effected upon children, Wahls said, “No, I don’t feel damaged or that my childhood was somehow scarred.”

Closer to home, my daughter recently posted “I protect ALL NC families…Vote Against One” on her Facebook webpage without any promptings from her Dads. And, my son focused on my biography of being a gay dad in a recent paper for his sociology paper in his online course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

NOM is not “pro-family.” Try as hard as they might, what NOM is running up against in their self-destructive Project Hate is the very thing that makes a family “a family”: the conservative and long-lasting virtues of love; perseverance; honesty; and a spirit of grace. These attributes, embodied in the way we embrace and live our lives as couples and families, will always un-do NOM’s vice-tinged tendrils of envy, anger and a confused sense of “pride.”

NOM will come to an end. As for our families? We will continue to grow and add our voices and be a presence in the growing diversity of this American life. :

Click here for the article:http://goqnotes.com/14811/project-hate/

Pace!

B

Feeling like the child with a disability

I am watching a child--Asperger's syndrome, perhaps autistic spectrum--with his parents. He is in his own little world as his parents keep one eye on what they want to do, and one eye on the child.

Sometimes, as a gay man, I feel society does the same with me: keeps one eye on the task at hand, and one eye on me. Society won't let me be free to be. Instead, it treats me as a young child with a disability, tethered, wary of my antics, sure I will embarrass them at one point or other.

Just want to say to society: let go of my hand. I'm not going to behave per se, but I will no longer be treated as your child with a disability.

Pace,

B

T Shirt Power/Q Notes

Best to admit it up front: I collect T-shirts. I don’t mean shirts by local retailers that have the name of a store emblazoned on them, in which the buyer actually pays to be a billboard advertisement for the company they just bought the shirt from. The T-shirts that I collect are ones that are emotionally charged with a memory and message. The habit of collecting T-shirts began when I was first running in many 10K, half marathons and full marathons. It finally spread over to colleges and universities I attended. Finally, I gave in to some of the places where I’ve visited or been on pilgrimage, gathering at least one T-shirt as a remembrance of the place where I’d just been. Every time I wear one of the T-shirts, I am instantly transported back to where I was before I got the shirt, remembered who gave or bought the shirt and even some times remembered putting the shirt on for the first time and how it made me feel…or made others feel, think or react.

I write “react” because in this day and age, there is often a reaction to a shirt being worn that has a powerful message that may delight some or bring out anger to others, with no middle ground. I’ve witnessed how some shirt’s message actually causes another person to do a rubberneck motion, taking a second look to be sure that they understood what the T-shirt actually said.

For example, I was on the board of COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), a group committed to making it safe for all children and young adults related to those who are LGBTQ and parents, guardians or close relatives. One of our board meetings happened to be in Orlando and so we spent one night enjoying ourselves at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Several of the board members — who were children of LGBTQ parents or relatives — wore T-shirts during our evening among the great rides of Disney’s theme park that simply said “Queer Spawn.” Hanging back at times from the group wearing the shirts, I was amazed at how many people no longer were looking at larger-than-life costumed figures of Mickey, Minnie, Pluto and Goofy and were, instead, doing a double-take, if not staring, at the chest of the people wearing the shirt that said “Queer Spawn.” Some observers laughed or giggled, while many suddenly wore a sneer across their lips. Needless to say, the T-shirt probably started quite a conversation among many family and friends that night, running into the next day.

And, the reaction of the youth who wore the T-shirts? They knew exactly what they were doing and loved it. As we piled into another ride, they were smiling, chatting, laughing, not noticing any of the commotion they left in their wake. They were claiming who they were and were neither ashamed nor ready to be pushed into any closet because of the sexual orientation of a parent, guardian or relative.

I witnessed the same power of a T-shirt’s message when wearing a T-shirt at a recent rally against the NC marriage amendment held in the student union at NC Central University (NCCU) in Durham, N.C. In order to show our solidarity as LGBTQ and straight ally students, staff, administrators and faculty members of NCCU who were opposed against the vote, we wore Kelly green T-shirts that stated the following: on the back were the list of the groups that were opposed to the NC marriage amendment and supportive of LGBTQ and straight allies on NCCU’s campus. On the front was a simple symbol: three frames across the top and in each frame was a different stick figure. One frame had a stick figure of man and woman holding hands. Another frame had two men holding hands. The last frame had two women holding hands. Underneath these three frames are these words “Love=Love.” The shirt is bold, simple and clear in its message — there are all kinds of ways for a person to love another person and love is exemplified in all three scenarios.

While at the rally, I received no attention from the shirt message. I did not notice the power of the shirt until I left the rally. It was while shopping in a mall, buying groceries at the supermarket or working out at the gym in the shirt that I noticed people looking at the shirt. As with the youth who wore the “Queer Spawn” shirts, some people smiled, some stared, some even looked and then looked down at the floor. And, like the young people who wore their shirts proudly at Disney World, I wear my shirt proudly, in public, making it clear that love=love. Such is the power of a simple T-shirt with an audacious message for the entire world to consider: love = love. : :

Here's the link:
http://goqnotes.com/14607/t-shirt-power/

Pace!

B