Rich Mintz  

Chuck Colson died this weekend. For those who are too young to know who he is (i.e., pretty much everyone younger than me): he was a political hack who worked for Richard Nixon, was convicted of obstruction of justice, and spent seven months in prison. (Think of him as a low-rent Karl Rove.)

In later life, he became an “evangelical Christian,” which in latter days, unfortunately, has become code for “nasty right-wing bigot.” Colson said things about gay people that I can say without hesitation would have disgusted Jesus, and said them often.

No one “deserves” to die, but I certainly won’t miss this bitter old man who used his social power to spit on people like me, on our families and on our honest, earnest lives. (The question of why a disgraced felon, who used his position to attack and defame others for political gain and was rightfully sentenced to prison for it, regained social power says more about America’s hypocrisy than it does about Colson, but that’s a subject for another post.)

The fact that Colson cloaked his words in the disguise of reason and the confidence of social power doesn’t make him less of a fomenter of hate. What it makes him is a thug.

And today I have to sit through nonsense online from the whole of the Christian right, hailing Colson as a hero. Excuse me, but this hypocritical old felon claimed the mantle of Jesus Christ while preaching the vilest hatred against people like me and my family.

Plenty hasn’t changed in the 35 or so years I’ve been alive and politically aware, but one thing that has changed is that hundreds, thousands, on a good day millions of people in America are willing to call hate speech what it is. Good for us, and keep it up, everyone.

When someone says gay people are worthless or immoral, or our lives are without meaning, or our families are illegitimate, speak up! Say, “um, hello, I am here and listening, and you can take that nonsense and [forcibly place it in an appropriate location, outside the public discourse].”

Or, if the someone is Chuck Colson, “shove it.” I owe no justification or explanation to someone who says my life is “morally problematic” and I am not a full person, entitled to the rights of a full person. That someone deserves to be shunned, as Jesus would have shunned him. Rest in peace, but leave the rest of us alone.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter have probably noticed that I take the National Organization for Marriage, the anti-gay hate group masquerading as a pro-family organization, very seriously. I push back in earnest at @nomtweets on Twitter, call out lies and distortions, and generally act as though I care what they say.

I might well do otherwise. Even in America, slow as change is to come here, marriage for gay people will be routine in a generation. The shaving cream is out of the can, and it isn’t going back inside. NOM is on the wrong side of demographics, and of history. An organization that calls itself “pro-family” while it spends donors’ money trying to find children who will denounce their parents on camera shouldn’t be surprised to be treated as a bunch of laughable hypocrites. Besides, I have twice as many Twitter followers as they do, so what does it matter?

It matters.

In 1980, I was fourteen years old. I was already a gay person then (for that matter, I was already one a decade earlier, but that’s a subject for another post). But the overall tone of press and the public discourse about gay people, even after a decade of sexual revolution and social liberation, was one of pity and scorn. Gay people, even in big cities like Los Angeles (where I grew up) and New York (where I live now), were not real people or full people in the eyes of the mainstream media.

Gay people did, of course, exist, even in the media. They had jobs, mostly in fashion or hairdressing or flight-attending; they had boyfriends, or even “lovers.” The really edgy ones had “domestic partners.” And, as everyone knew, all of them had sex, and quite a lot of it, too.

But despite surface similarities, gay people weren’t Like Us. They lived in the city and didn’t even mind! (suspicious behavior, in those days). They stayed up late! They were stunted, big children with no responsibilities; they spent their money on fun and frolic; but at bottom, their lives were empty and sad.

You may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. The American Psychiatric Association didn’t remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders until 1973, and the rest of the culture took 20 years to catch up.

Like every gay person who lived in those times, I absorbed the trivialization of gay people, of our lives and our loves. As recently as 10 or 15 years ago — when I was 30, 35! — the idea of gay marriage startled me, because I had been conditioned to think of my love as somehow not real love, my family as somehow not a real family. The inevitable consequence of that is that one comes to think of himself as less than fully human.

Now, I’m a relatively healthy person with loving family and friends and a sound sense of self-respect, so I survived. And I had come across examples in my own life of gay people who were fully realized human beings and paid no mind to anyone who said or thought otherwise, so I grew into a more or less comfortable gay adult.

But not everyone has my advantages.

Who I marry will make absolutely no difference to the life of anyone in, say, Missouri. But every time the odious Maggie Gallagher goes on TV to sneer at gay families, every time a NOM “social scientist” “publishes” a “study” “proving” that the children of gay parents are stunted and lead empty lives (sound familiar?), every time the name of Jesus Christ is invoked in order to mock the holy and human experiences of people like me — every time these things happen, a few thousand fragile kids in Missouri learn false lessons that they will spend the rest of their lives trying to unlearn.

They learn that their feelings are bad, that their experiences aren’t real, that their choices are indecent, that there may never be anyone to love or understand them. They learn to conceal themselves from those who most love them, and to live lives that aren’t true in order to protect themselves from pain and sadness.

I emphasize again that I grew up very fortunate: intelligent and well educated, in a financially stable family, loved and encouraged by parents who were not afraid to let me roam the world, taught to question and think for myself.

And it still took me twenty years of adulthood to come to understand that the way God made me was good and right.

The voice of the anti-gay American right wing (because, at this point, in the Western world, this sort of frenzied, spluttering denial of the humanity of gay people is largely confined to the Christianist American right wing) is mistaken. Its message is false. It’s simply wrong. Gay people are real people, fully human; our experiences are authentic and true and good; as a community, our lives and our loves can survive provincialism and fear and negativity.

But as the fragile individuals we are when we are alone in the dark with our thoughts, we are hurt by all that vile nonsense, discrimination masquerading as science, angry clannishness masquerading as the word of Jesus Christ (who would be startled and shamed to hear the things said in his name).

The relationship between NOM mouthpiece Brian Brown and his God is a matter for them to work out between themselves. But the God who (as Brian believes) sent his son to clear away the old covenant to make way for a new one, and to die for the sins of lepers and prostitutes and swindlers, is not a God who would countenance, for instance, pitting black people against gay people, or encouraging children to denounce their parents. Or, for that matter, as is currently happening in Minnesota, sending hate squads into Catholic high schools to teach young people that gay people are a cancer on society. (Again, a matter for another post.)

So speak out against hatemongering; speak out against fear. Speak out for happiness, yours and those of others. Speak out and say that you are fully human, fully American, fully Christian (if that’s what you are). Say that your experience of life is real and legitimate; describe it; help others to understand it, that they may protect you from those who (through fear, or malice, or whatever — it’s not your concern) undertake to hurt you.

Speak out.

Severe Australian hair salon interventionist Tabatha Coffey is back for another season on Bravo, and this year Tabatha Takes Over isn’t just turning around hair salons, she’s taking on a range of retail businesses. And in episode two, she took on the turnaround of a business that meant a lot to me twenty years ago: Club Ripples, the gay club on the shore in Long Beach, California.

In 1993, I probably spent eight or ten Sunday afternoons at Ripples, driving down from LA with my boyfriend and meeting up with my Orange County friends. It was a convenient halfway point between us — in those days, I was living in West Hollywood and working in Costa Mesa, driving 50 miles each way in the carpool lane, passing Long Beach about midway — and it was nice to get out of the gay ghetto I lived in and experience another gay-friendly but not-quite-ghettoized community. And there were new people to look at and talk to, and Long Beach (population “only” 400,000) had a friendlier vibe than LA, and it was sunny and quiet and you could hear the seagulls. For a short time, we even considered buying a house in Belmont Shore, a gay-friendly neighborhood even then and much more affordable than LA, and moving.

Back then, Ripples on a Sunday was packed — it was a local hangout for gay people from Long Beach, a fun day trip from LA, and a magnet for gay people from Orange County. I was never really a bar person, and whenever I went to a gay club I felt like everyone else was prettier and more vivacious than me, not to mention in on something that nobody had bothered to let me in on. But Ripples felt incrementally warmer and more welcoming. People talked to you, and being by the beach made people a little less uptight. From LA it was a schlep, but I enjoyed it anyway.

Now it’s 20 years later, and Ripples has been suffering. It’s obvious from Tabatha’s show that some of its wounds were self-inflicted, and she did what she could to help with that (and through the happily-ever-after lens of a reality show, she appears to have succeeded). But it’s also true that the club scene has changed. One of the Ripples owners said this to Tabatha and she waved it away, but I think it’s true.

Even in 1993, which isn’t that long ago, there were many fewer ways to meet people than there are today. The modern coffeehouse scene was very new (no Starbucks, or almost none). There was no Internet as we know it now; nobody had a cellphone, let alone a smartphone; AOL charged by the minute. If you wanted to have a social experience with other gay people, you pretty much had to go to a bar and stand around until you saw someone you wanted to talk to. And so that’s what we did, even those of us who didn’t really like to drink and didn’t feel comfortable in those surroundings.

“Kids today” still go out and stand around, of course they do. The difference is that they don’t have to in order to be sociable; they have other choices. And so businesses have to be competitive, which is where I think Tabatha is right on. I hope her changes to Ripples stick, because the place meant a lot to me once — and it was open and serving gay people with a smile when I was six years old, which is a long history indeed.

America’s retrograde fringe (led by Maggie Gallagher and her vocal hate group National Organization for Marriage) likes to characterize the movement toward marriage equality as a hijacking of America by left-wing extremists who don’t represent the majority of Americans. But nothing could be further from the truth, as recent polling has shown — and as you’ll learn by talking to almost any actual gay person you can find, of any political alignment in any city, town, or rural hamlet in America.

It’s nice to see this common-sense truth reinforced by Freedom to Marry’s new Mayors for the Freedom to Marry initiative, representing dozens of mayors of all political alignments who, on behalf of their diverse cities and communities, are calling on America to stop treating a big wedge of its citizens as second class.

Chaired by the mayors of New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Diego, and Houston — and including the mayors of Chicago, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Providence, and dozens more places large and small — this campaign makes clear that people from all across America are getting behind this basic issue of civil rights and fundamental fairness.

If your mayor isn’t on the list, please call him or her and ask why. I’m sure Jo Deutsch at Freedom to Marry would be delighted to add your city to the list — there’s a signup form for your mayor’s chief of staff right on the page.

In particular, if you live in the city of Atlanta, please call Mayor Kasim Reed. His absence from the list is troubling, given that gay people are disproportionate contributors to the economic health and vibrancy of Atlanta’s intown neighborhoods, and have helped elect him to every office he’s ever held. If I still lived in Atlanta, I’d be sitting outside his office in City Hall waiting to see him personally right now.

For those of you whom I’ve been yelling at for a decade that Atlanta (yes, landlocked, freeway-choked, soulless Atlanta) is the gayest place I’ve ever been, here now is the latest Official Pronouncement by Someone Allegedly Important about which American cities are The Gayest, and lookie here (it’s worth clicking through to see the details, although the write-ups are a little brief):

15. Denver
14. Long Beach
13. Austin
12. Portland
11. Little Rock
10. Grand Rapids
9. Atlanta
8. Knoxville
7. St. Paul and Minneapolis
6. Ann Arbor
5. Seattle
4. Fort Lauderdale
3. Cambridge
2. Orlando
1. Salt Lake City

I don’t see New York or Los Angeles (or even Chicago or DC) on there, do you? I didn’t think so.

Having lived in 11, 9, and 3, spent significant time in 14 and 5, and visited 15, 12, 8, 6, 4, 2, and 1, all I have to say is: What took you so long? (Or, maybe, “What about Topeka or Nashville or [insert your favorite underrated mid-sized city full of homosexuals here]?”)

Smaller cities give gay people a better quality of life, on average, because they give everyone a better quality of life. In Atlanta, I had a 5-minute commute, I lived on the edge of 10 acres of woods, I knew my city councilperson, and I paid a mortgage of $700 a month. I didn’t live down the street from Radio City Music Hall, but (news flash, New Yorkers!) I survived. In every one of the places on that list there’s plenty of artisanal bruschetta and locally-brewed beer to go around. Little Rock has three Starbucks!

There are things about New York I love — I live here on purpose — but I’m under no illusion that a prosperous and emotionally fulfilling life can’t be lived elsewhere. I loved my time in cities 11, 9, and 3, and in all of them I was more closely connected to my friends and neighbors than I am here in the big city.

It is a moral stain on the United States of America that there is a law on the books at the federal level that treats families like mine as though we are less worthy than others. We are taxed disproportionately and unjustly; we are excluded from basic rights of family and inheritance; we risk losing our children. Over a thousand protections, rights, and benefits are denied to us, with no public policy justification, no justification at all other than tribal panic on the part of a mostly elderly minority of Americans; and in an increasing number of states, they are denied to us over the objections of the people in our own communities.

And, in this Republican primary season, the candidates are competing to out-pander each other by saying things about families like mine that most of them (excepting Rick Santorum) probably don’t even believe.

DOMA will not be law in ten years; demographics will see to that. But in the meantime, it is a disgusting shame, the worst kind of political pandering codified into statute.

For more information about the damage done by DOMA and the families who are hurt, visit Why Marriage Matters, a project of Freedom to Marry. The Legal Stranger Project is attempting to document the ways in which DOMA damages families and betrays the so-called ideals of its supporters. Please learn, then fight back: tell your legislators that you support DOMA repeal, follow the campaign, speak up in your own community, put your money where your mouth is. Your voice matters.

I came across Triptych by JM Frey as part of a “people who liked X also liked Y” trip through Amazon, starting with a post-apocalyptic novel. Or maybe they sent it to me in a “hard SF” promo email. Whatever. In any case, they know what I like, and in this case “what I like” is apparently “a time-travel science fiction story bookending a polyamorous human-alien love affair told from the alien’s point of view.” Be warned, there is actual sexuality in this book, and not all of it is human, and not all of it is heterosexual (!); but once you get used to the fact that Kalp (that’s his name) keeps his genitals tucked into his chest, his sensibility turns out to be more like a human sensibility than you might expect, which I guess is part of the point.

I’m not sure how realistic it is that a different species from another planet has thought patterns that are so almost-human — hell, that he is able to be sexually aroused by humans (nevermind the fact that the fruits and vegetables from Kalp’s home planet grow so well on Earth that a vendor in a farmer’s market in suburban London carries a full range of them). And I got confused a bit in the time-travel subplot — maybe I wasn’t paying attention. But nevermind any of that, it’s a great story, and if you’re curious about how someone would write a scene in which an alien pleasures himself while he listens to two humans get it on, well, this book is for you.

I was referred by a friend (OK, it was her) to Wade Rouse’s At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life, which I read this weekend. It’s light, a loose collection of essays tied together. And Rouse takes the stereotypical gay thing a little further than I can usually stomach (and, hello, I’M GAY) but, you know, in the service of art. In the service of art.

And I have to admit I really enjoyed the book, and that Rouse’s spiritual journey has enhanced my spiritual journey.

The thrust of the book is “urban gay couple move to the great outdoors in search of a Walden experience,” “urban” meaning St. Louis (well, okay), and their “outdoors” being the middle of nowhere several miles outside of Saugatuck, Michigan. Not literally off the grid; but no Starbucks within an hour or more (!), no cable TV (at least initially), no NPR.

Can they survive? Can they thrive? Can they live without the things they have to live without, and learn to live with the things they have to live with?

You’ll have to read the book to find out, but I came to the end appreciating Rouse’s willingness to try to follow his passion (and make serious life changes in order to do it) and discuss it honestly, including the aspects of it that drove him crazy. If you want to be a writer, you have to write! And if you want to live a simpler life, you have to, well, simplify! And — if someone like Rouse can do it, someone much more deeply embedded in consumer culture than you probably are, then so can you! Etc.

Also: Dude doesn’t have to be Shakespeare to be worth reading.

Also: Why should I make fun of Wade Rouse, in my urban-cynical way, for being gayer than me? He is who he is. Not to mention that he isn’t gayer than me, he just wears more product and goes to the gym more often. Not to mention that he’s had four books published, and gets to live in the woods!

Michael and I went down to the City Clerk’s office today, the first day of marriage equality in New York, to see what we could see. And boy, could we see plenty! Hundreds of couples in a block-long line to get in the building; hundreds of people outside on the sidewalks around the Lefkowitz Building. Except for a handful of protesters (I only saw about a dozen in an hour and a half, mostly preachers, mostly with glitter and confetti in their hair), a really festive atmosphere. And that extended to the city officials (who worked overtime issuing marriage licenses, performing marriages, and handling crowd logistics) and the police — I saw more than one NYPD officer calling out cheerful “Congratulations!” to newly married couples.

It was fun being part of something so big, and terrific that the city took it so seriously (Sunday hours, crowd control infrastructure, policing to keep everyone safe). The best part was the crowd of onlookers across Worth Street from the Lefkowitz Building exit, who cheered each newly married couple coming out of the doors.

Photos below:

It was a nail-biter for sure; 50,000 New Yorkers gathered around their streaming video players late into the night on Friday watching the proceedings in the Senate live, and hundreds of thousands more compulsively reloaded their browsers, and another million or two watched NY1 and CNN. But at the end of the evening, something amazing had occurred: a Republican-led State Senate, in a close vote that turned on the decisions of a handful of Republicans, voted to extend the social sanction of marriage to New York’s gay and lesbian citizens, bringing us a little closer to equal treatment under the law.

“Activist judges” didn’t have anything to do with it, and this wasn’t a matter of Democratic political horse-trading, either. Most of the money in this fight came from Republicans, as did a good portion of the back-room lobbying (notably from Mike Bloomberg, who had no problem at all putting himself on the line for equality, and has proven himself yet again to be a mensch).

It’s clear from Michael Barbaro’s post-mortem in the Times that even back in 2009, there were Republican legislators who had no problem with gay marriage, but who voted against it out of political expediency. This isn’t news, but it’s nice to see it stated so unequivocally. It’s also clear that among the many people who helped make this happen, three people played an outsized role.

One was Governor Andrew Cuomo, who threw his considerable political weight behind the issue and was willing to invest himself personally in legislative advocacy of both the institutional and personal varieties. In contrast to 2009, he insisted on a tight coalition, and a tight coalition was what he got, and that made much of the difference. (We learn yet again: old-fashioned political organizing matters.) Far from hurting Andrew Cuomo, strong advocacy on this issue will only prove to have helped him politically, and not just with gay people; he’s demonstrated a willingness to cross the aisle, to insist on the issues that matter, and to use his political power to ensure they get considered.

The second was Mike Bloomberg, in this context quite a bit more than nominally a Republican (he’s the single biggest donor to Republican State Senators), who was blunt and eloquent by turns, spending more time in Albany this year than we had any right to expect him to, despite having nothing personally or politically to gain here, at least in the short term. The definition of a mensch.

And the third was Brian Ellner, head of HRC’s New York marriage task force. Ellner ran what by all accounts was an extremely professional two-pronged campaign. On the one hand, he did a better job in six months of mobilizing public figures (from all over the political and cultural spectrum) to voice their support for marriage equality than any other group had managed to do in ten years. And on the other, he was responsive and effective in the field. Barbaro credits Ellner personally, and the field campaign he ran, with turning Joseph Addabbo from a “nay” into a “yea”; it’s not inconceivable that without that piece, the whole puzzle might have fallen apart. So thanks, Brian, for what you’ve done for New Yorkers.

The true heroes here, though, are the Republican Senators who cast off the demands of politics and voted their consciences. A special thanks to Senators Kruger, McDonald, Alesi, Addabbo, Grisanti, and Saland, who might easily have come down on the other side, but weighed the issues against their personal vanity and voted the right way. Senators Grisanti and Saland, each in his own way, did New York proud with their speeches on the floor Friday night, and they in particular should be remembered.