Rites of Passage

Martin and I are in Corpus Christi during the big Spring Break. We are not here for that reason, however. We are here to visit Martin’s Dad. Actually his dad doesn’t live in Corpus Christi. He lives in a little town called Orange Grove. It is a town that lives for Friday Night Football. Go Bulldogs. The team colors are orange and white. There is no gay bar. We choose to stay in Corpus or San Antonio when we visit. It just feels safer.


Witnessing this Spring Break has me thinking about Rites of Passage.


Back in college days I never did a spring break trip. I was working my way through school. The symphony did not take a spring break, plus I could always pick up extra shifts at my other job at the old Ann Arbor Inn.


In other words, all I know about spring break is what I have learned from the movies. And that is that Spring Break is the chance for slightly post-pubescent boys to try and get laid, but will probably just get drunk and arrested.


My research of the last few days seems to confirm that for once Hollywood got it right. I watched an amazing interaction:

• (drunk) boy meets (drunk) girl
• The parties seem very interested in each other
• Drunken friend of boy pulls him aside for more shots. He goes willingly
• By the time shots are consumed girl has disappeared into the crowd.

In spite of all protests to the contrary, the drinking seems more important than getting laid.


Martin did take Spring Break trips…with fifteen of his closest friends. He reported the other day after some hot vacation sex that it was the first time he had gotten laid on Spring Break. Apparently way-back-when he would stay in one hotel room with all of those fifteen friends, so there was never the requisite privacy. Besides, what he really wanted to do was find a MAN…but those fifteen close friends were not yet aware of Martin’s proclivity for same-sex activity.


In fact, there would be occasional warnings about going down to the beach late at night, since that was where men were cruising. Martin was trying to figure out how he could lose those fifteen friends and get down to the beach late at night.


I do not recall anyone I know going on gay spring breaks in the late 70s. There was very little organized gay activity at the college level. And where would a bunch of gay boys go. Instead, most gay boys were doing what Martin did…pretended to be straight and went with all of his straight buddies on a mission to get (heterosexually) laid and sloppy drunk.


Gay men and women of my generation did not generally have socially recognized way of learning about sex and relationships. We did not go to school dances with our boyfriends, and have a nervous first kiss. Our boyfriend’s dad did not take us aside and tell us that if we did anything to harm his son he would have our neck.

Our fathers’ did not tell us about the birds and the birds…or would it be the bees and the bees. In fact, most of us did not have boyfriends. At most we had buddies that we would tentatively “fool around with”…with the understanding that what we were doing was completely wrong.


We did not have our first loves at 14, 15 or 16. We may have had crushes but they were unrequited either emotionally or sexually. We did not give them out class rings or letter jackets. We did not agonize over what boy might ask us to the senior prom.


When we did get laid for the first time it was probably NOT something we bragged about or excitedly shared with our brother or best friend. We did not go on Spring Break to get laid.


And, of course most of us still have not had the straight rite of passage called marriage.


There were good and bad things about that state of affairs. When you had no rules you got to make up your own. And given the poor track record of heterosexual relationships, re-invention is not necessarily a bad thing. I know there are folks that believe the only difference between gay people and straight people is the gender of our sexual partners. I subscribe to the belief that we are different than straight people (regardless of the nature vs. nurture debate).


However, I can’t help but think that some of us (and I include myself here) would be much less fucked up if we had had some societal guideposts.


I am amazed by the socialization of many gay youth today. I’m not a Pollyanna. Gay kids still have at best a hard time and at worst a dangerous time growing up. However, in more and more places they have gay dances and proms. There are social clubs and networks for them. I am still floored every time I hear a high school kid refer to his boyfriend or her girlfriend.


Rites of Passage for gay people of my generation (I am 51) differed somewhat from person to person, largely because we did not have society giving us any direction. Many people passages might look like this:

• Realization that we are attracted to the same sex. This often occurred astonishingly early. I remember starting to understand this about myself as early as five years of age.
• Our first sex. It was nearly always exciting, and then shameful. And in spite of the shame, the yearning to do it again. Our first kiss often was at some point after our first sex.
• Our first gay bar. Amazing how important this is. Straight people just don’t have the same attachment to their first bar. They might remember (fondly or otherwise) the first time they got drunk…but stepping into a room ful of people like yourself is an astonishing moment for gay folks.
• Our first date. Yup…so often our first real date is long after sexual experience.
• Coming Out. Because of all of those negative messages from our families, friends, and peers we did not come out until we REALLY knew we had to do this, after our first sex, first gay bar, first date, and maybe even our first lover.
• Deaths of friends and lovers. Yes, my generation was the plague generation. And it was a rite of passage that both scarred us and created a generation of activists.

Notice that marriage is not a part of this list. None of us really expected to get married in our lifetime.


I’m sure the youngest queer generation has a very different set of rites of passage. I know many kids who figure out they are gay, come out to their parents, get boyfriends and go on dates, engage in heavy petting, but abstain from sex until later.


I know others who do not have the parental and societal support to come out so early, whose rites look a bit more like mine.


I am curious about the current state of gay rites of passage. And I am even more curious about the future. Are our rites becoming more aligned with straight America? Will gay marriage, if it ever arrives on a national level, create a parallel track for young gays and straights.


And most important, are gay kids going to somewhere in Florida thinking they will get laid, only to get shitfaced drunk and arrested? Or unlike their straight counterparts are they actually getting laid?


Postscript: I use the terms gay and queer to refer to all men and women of the gay community in this article. I do not address transgender and bisexual people. I firmly believe that their struggle is our struggle. However, their Rites of Passage are very different from ours. I invite others to make that examination.

The Closing of Oscar Wilde Bookshop

When Martin and I travel we love to check out the local LGBT bookstores. One of our favorites has always been the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York City. Oscar Wilde is an amazing store filled with history, and has been influential to several generations of LGBT people. This last summer longtime manager and current owner Kim Brinster stopped in our bookstore, Common Language in Ann Arbor. She was very impressed. I was weak-kneed to hear her praise.

Here's a newsflash: Oscar Wilde Bookshop is closing.

This is alarming news for at least two reasons:

Gay Businesses Support Gay Causes

A separate African-American economy began in the late 18th and early 19th century and flourished in the early 20th century. Though invisible to white America, it was a thriving retail and service economy. However, all that economic activity was slowly absorbed into the greater economy from the 1950s to the present. On the one hand, that is a victory. Economic activity, like schools and marriage, should not suffer from a "separate but equal" status. On the other hand, it was that alternate economy that helped to fund traditionally black colleges, the NAACP, Freedom Rides, and more. Unless you believe we are in a post-racial world the loss of those businesses is the loss of funding for change.

An LGBT economy is a much more recent phenomenon. Public admission of homosexuality meant certain ruin for businesses as well as individuals. It was only as the LGBT movement made it possible for people to venture out of the closet that such a thing as "Gay-Owned Gay-Operated” was created. But it has become integral to our social change movement.

Check out sponsors of national LGBT events and organizations and you'll see names like PlanetOut, Inc., the Advocate, Arcus Foundation, and the Gill Foundation. Even when you see the Ford Foundation as a sponsor (for example) that funding has been the result of lobbying by LGBT workplace organizations and other funders and activists. Without that support, those "non-gay" funders would melt into the woodwork.

Check out local organizations and you will see a similar pattern. WRAP, Affirmations, Triangle, HARC and more are funded by Pride Source (publishers of Between the Lines), Pronto, the \aut\ BAR, and more. And again, what about those Ford or Paramount Bank sponsorships? That funding exists because of strong LGBT advocacy within the organization.

Unless you believe we live in a post-gay world, the loss of LGBT businesses will mean the loss of funding for OUR change.

LGBT Bookstores Provide Information and Culture to our Community

LGBT and independent bookstores are the primary advocates for LGBT fiction and non-fiction literature. Think how often you hear about a Library Board banning books like “Heather Has Two Mommies”, “The Sissy Duckling”, and most recently the incredible “10,000 Dresses”. The big chains focus on Best Sellers, not LGBT literature. The last bastion of diverse free speech is the independent bookstore.

This weekend I was talking with author Sal Sapienza who described how important Oscar Wilde had been to him when he was a college student in New York and struggling with his identity.

When the last independent bookstore disappears the only voice you will be able to read will be the voice that corporate America wants you to hear. It may not be the voice that you want to hear.

As Christopher Rice pointed out a couple of years ago, if you liked “Brokeback Mountain” and want more like it, head to your LGBT bookstore, because it is the health of those bookstores that will allow the next story to be presented to the public.

What can you do?

I have already heard many people meet the news of Oscar Wilde’s closing with sadness and nostalgia. It is not a time for sadness. It is a time for resolution.

Resolve to buy your books at LGBT bookstores. Even if you do not buy books, you can support them with your purchase of lube, magazines, and DVDs.

Resolve to do as much business as you can with LGBT businesses. When you use an LGBT lawyer, realtor, doctor, therapist, auto dealer, or any other business you are “Buying Gay” in a profound way.

The LGBT community was recently reminded that it is within the power of the larger community to limit and take away our rights. The Change WE believe in must be supported within our communities.

McCain's Concession Speech

John McCain has spent last Saturday complaining that Barack Obama commissioned a draft of an inaugural address. It turns out that it is yet another tempest in a teapot...a kerfuffle without substance. The speech in question was a draft published six months ago in a book titled "The Power of Progress" by John Podesta. It was written before Obama had become the nominee, and was intended as a study rather than as an actual draft for an Obama Inaugural.

Be that as it may, it seems to me that if Obama has a draft of an inaugural address, then McCain should have a draft of a concession speech. I humbly submit the following for his consideration:


My Friends...

The people have spoken. It is the strength of the great democratic experiment that is America that the people vote, and power is handed over in a peaceful transition. I have asked Dick Cheney to come out from his undisclosed location and prepare to hand over the keys of power to President-Elect Obama.

No, my friends...I know you are disappointed. But this is the American way, and we shall respect the decision of the electorate. I am afraid that when you lose by a landslide the Supreme Court cannot save you.

We can only ask ourselves where we went wrong. I could look back as far as eight years ago. When I lost the Republican nomination to George W. Bush in 2000 I decided that my fate was in the hands of the most radical right wing parts of the party. I kowtowed to them and to President Bush shamelessly. Apparently obsequious subservience does not look very presidential.

Perhaps we went awry more recently when we selected Sarah Palin as our running mate. My friends, I really have no idea what I was thinking. I had wanted my friend Joe Lieberman to run on the ticket with me. I knew that Joe-mentum was what my campaign needed. But the party advisers made it clear that the choice of Lieberman would lose the right-wing base of the Republican Party. I agreed with them, and we threw a dart at a map of the United States. Improbably, that dart landed on Alaska.

I guess it was inevitable that my campaign would falter. I was no longer true to my ideals, but rather had become a machine that would do anything for the role that had been denied me in 2000. My friends, I had become a caricature of my former self. I would preach Bush Doctrine one day, and bash Bush the next. I would claim environmental credentials in one speech, and cry drill, baby, drill the next. I claimed the mantel of champion of the middle class, yet backed policies that destroyed unions, pension plans, health care benefits, and equal pay for equal work.

And my friends, its true, I became a rabid campaigner on whatever issue of the moment came along that I thought would knock down my opponent rather than put forward my qualifications. I used Reverend Wright, William Ayers, and most regrettably Joe the Plumber. I thought Joe was an icon for my campaign. Like all of my erratic political decisions of the last year the process was not pursued with intellectual vigor. Joe was not who we thought he was. We put forward an icon with one hand to represent us, while on the other hand our Vice Presidential pick was becoming an icon that destroyed us.

We thought she would represent us and carry the working women of America. She would bolster our standing with the right wing of the party.

Instead, she represented the worst of personal political power. It came out that she had abused the powers of her office as Governor of Alaska. Far from representing Hockey Moms and Joe Six-Packs, she represented spending sprees at Saks Fifth Avenue. Her stylist became a higher-paid, and more important employee of the campaign than my foreign policy adviser.

She became a loose cannon. Every interview and speech bolstered the suspicion that she did not have the background, experience or gravitas to take over as President should that be required. She was better fodder for Saturday Night Live than potential commander-in-chief.

Her inexperience destroyed my assertion that Barack Obama was not experienced enough for the job of President. More importantly, her obvious lack of qualifications called into question my qualifications for the presidency. After all, her selection was my first presidential decision.

And finally, at its heart, my campaign's problem was that I did not address the hopes and dreams of the American people, but rather played on their fears. Ultimately my campaign tried to be about Barack Obama's past instead of America's future.

For that, the American people have spoken, and though their words hurt me and us this morning, we cannot be true to ourselves if we do not acknowledge that their message is clear, "The dreams of the American People are more important than the political aspirations of one old soldier".

I have had a lifetime of service to America. I do not regret the service, I only regret that in the end, my ambition became more important than the duty that had been my lifetime commitment. This old soldier thanks you for all you have done, and may God Bless America, and God Bless Barack Obama.

The Fight for Marriage Equality

In 2004 Michigan passed the hateful and discriminatory Proposition 2. This proposal enacted a constitutional amendment to outlaw marriage equality (among other things)

Martin and I have been together 22 years. The fact that our home state would build discrimination against us into our constitution was hurtful. We know people who moved away from the state because of Prop 2.

Over the last several years many states have enacted similar amendments. However, we have had a few victories in the courts, most notably Massachusetts, California, and now Connecticut. We have only had one victory at the ballot box. In 2006 Arizona (of all places) became the first state to explicitly turn down an anti-marriage amendment.

And now California is being put to the test.

This one is different than the others. If this passes it would take away rights already earned. A loss in California on their proposition 8 would be devastating to this civil rights movement.

California (and especially San Francisco) has always been something of an 'Atlantis' for the gay community. It is our lost homeland. Their fight is our fight. We must do what we can to support our queer brothers and sisters in the city-by-the-bay.

Martin and I will be dedicating the week of October 20 - October 27 to helping them. And what they need now is money. The religious right is flooding California with money to run the campaign to take away marriage rights (Yes on 8). Money is coming in on our side (No on 8) as well, but the stakes are high, and I want the folks playing for us at the table to have the bank to not have to fold when the heat is on in the last week.

Here's how you can help:

Donate online at our Equality California webpage. We will match the first $100 in donations!

Donate at the \aut\ BAR or Common Language Bookstore. We have donation forms available.

Buy Wedding/Marriage books and cards at Common Language. 10% of sales will be donated to Equality California

Show up on Monday, October 27th for our Marriage Equality Night. This will be the culmination of our week-long pledge drive. We will have laptops available for you to make online donations that evening, so that the funds will be immediately available for Equality California for the final week of the campaign.

Have your picture taken with your spouse / significant other / boyfriend / girlfriend / date / friend / bartender / or just by yourself. Proceeds benefit Equality California

Send this link to as many people as you can that you think will want to help prevent California from sliding backwards into discrimination.

My Dog and Immigration

I am worried that my dog and I have different views on immigration.

I believe that America's strength has always been in our immigrants. They come to America to fulfill the American dream. They have brought a strong work ethic which has been the backbone of the miraculous productivity of America. With each wave of immigration they have also revitalized our culture.

My dog, on the other hand, believes in protecting the perimeter.

I was sitting in our backyard the other morning having coffee. We have a relatively new neighbor behind us. There is a privacy fence between us, so until some other neighbor introduces us I am not sure when or how we will meet. This neighbor has a dog, and the dog came to the other side of that privacy fence, and the two dogs started barking up a storm.

This is a regular event. I call Teddy, our border collie, and he obediently stops barking and comes to my side. But it is obvious that he is serious about protecting our border. I have started referring to him as our furry minuteman.

Teddy's views are based on pure instinct. A xenophobic instinct has served pack animals well in their effort to survive. Its hard to hold his views against him.

Humans are the ultimate social animals. So why do the minutemen's instincts not serve us well in our fight for survival?

A society's strength depends on renewal from the outside...renewal of ideas, culture, and even gene pool. Isolationism has never served America, or any empire, well. Successful empires find unique ways of exporting the empire's vision to the outer reaches of the empire, while embracing the best that those cultures have to offer. The "Pax Romana" or Roman Peace was a 200 year period of relative peace in the Roman Empire. During that time Rome built roads and cities that helped the provinces flourish. Military might alone could not have successfully held such large holdings for so long with such relative peace. It was the mutually beneficial arrangement of local rule, military protection, economic expansion, and cultural exchange that made it work.

America is an empire. We established the empire through an incredible industrial growth, which led to an economic imperialism. The current administration has led America to unilateralism in foreign policy. American corporations, with blessings from the government have changed the underpinning of our economy from production-based to finance-based. Both can have disastrous consequences, and we are seeing the beginnings of those consequences now.

In the past, much of the rest of the world wanted to be like America. Now many people around the world hate us. If we wish to retain our standing in the world we have to regain our position of respect. We will only get there by opening our arms to the world, not shutting them out. Much of America is aghast at how prevalent the spanish language has become in our country. I embrace it. This is exactly the type of cultural infusion that will make our country stronger. In the pack analogy, this is akin to the need to breed outside of the pack to ensure genetic diversity.

I should point out that my dog is an incredibly friendly animal. Three-year-old children can pull his tail or stick their fingers in his mouth without fear. And though he barks at the approach of anyone to our front door, he is incredibly friendly once they have been admitted.

Perhaps our views are not so disparate. He just wants an easy path to legal entry. I can live with that.

But I still wish he wouldn't bark every time the neighbor's dog was on the other side of the fence. And I don't think building a taller fence is the answer.

How are Hillary and Howard Alike?

I've got several blog posts in the works, but recent news stories inspire me to get this one out quickly...

How ARE Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean alike?

• They are both Democrats.
• They both ran for President of the United States of America.
• They both lost in the primaries.

How are Hillary and Howard's supporters alike?

• Ya got me.

I was a Howard Dean supporter. More than supporter, I had invested hopes, dreams, and money into his campaign. I had visions of the first same-sex sleepover in the Lincoln bedroom after he moved into the White House. I was elected a Howard Dean delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2004. It was incredibly exciting. In spite of the popular story that it was "the scream" that destroyed his candidacy it remains my belief that the old guard of the democratic party had more to do with his downfall.

And I was not a particularly happy camper about a John Kerry presidency. John Kerry did not just beat Howard Dean. He had undermined the candidacy. Oh, the Dean campaign made some mistakes (that the Obama camp learned from), but the "politics-as-usual" group worked behind the scenes to ensure Howard's defeat.

By the time I got to the convention I had come around to John Kerry. It is part of the party process that folks win and folks lose. And it is imperative that losers get on board with the winners. I could write paragraphs about how much better John Kerry would be as President than George Bush. He was not just the lesser of two evils. John Kerry would have been a multilateralist in international relations. He would have stood for regulation of the financial industry. Those are positive things that would make America a different country today. And I could take solace in the fact that he had courageously voted against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

And now Hillary's supporters are lukewarm about Barack. I have some harsh words for any Hillary supporters who are equivocating about supporting Obama:

Get over it.

And get over it quickly.

And if you are believe that it is adding insult to injury that Hillary was not seriously considered for the vice-presidential spot, I can only say that winning the White House is more important than hurt feelings. I cannot read Barack's mind, but I am sure there are many reasons she was not seriously considered. But I bet at the top of the list is this:

One of the most important rules in selecting a VP is "Do not pick someone who will take the spotlight away from you".

And if Hillary would not take the limelight, her husband would. Though I was a fan of Bill's presidency, he proved during his wife's campaign that he cannot stay out of the limelight, and he was, for whatever reason, not effective.

If I can get over what the party brokers did to Howard, then Hillary's supporters can get over the fact that Barack ran a better campaign. Please folks, get a grip and realize that Obama would be a brilliant leader. John McCain would be a disaster for all of the things that Hillary stands for. He would continue America's militaristic adventures around the world. He would be beholden to a plethora of special interests. His campaign staff is littered with lobbyists. Not to mention he is horrible on LGBT rights.

I understand the disappointment after investing hopes and dreams in Hillary. Its not easy. Let me share what helped me get over my crushed dreams...Howard got over it. He had said from the beginning that the campaign was not about him. He was running because he thought he was the best candidate to get George Bush out of the White House. As soon as his campaign was over he proved that he meant his words. The campaign was not about him. He started fighting for Kerry immediately. I figured if he could get over it, then dammit, so could I.

For my sake, for America's sake, for Hillary's sake, and especially for your sake, I say to every Hillary supporter that it is time to move on. I don't want to hear any more whining. Whining will lose us votes, and we are going to need every one of them on November 4th.

VOTE VOTE VOTE

In May of 1978 I turned 21. This was not as auspicious a birthday as it would be today. At the time the Michigan drinking age was 18. I did NOT drink multiple shots of tequila and countless beers. I had already done that on my 18th birthday. There is probably a blog entry that could be written about that occasion.

The interesting part is that the voters of Michigan approved a constitutional amendment just a few months later that raised the drinking age to 21. Having recently been an 18-21 year-old, and feeling my peers deserved the constitutional right to party, I voted against that amendment. Nevertheless, it passed and the 18-21 age group was forced to resort to subterfuge to imbibe in spirits.

Even more interesting, if the 18-21 year-old population had turned out to vote in the same proportion as the rest of the population, and had voted against the amendment in the same proportion as the 18-21 year-olds that DID bother to vote, the amendment would have been rejected, and they would have still been able to drink.

Moral of the story: People do not always using the voting booth to protect their own self-interest, even when there is nothing BUT their self-interest at stake.

This Tuesday, August 5th is the Ann Arbor Primary election for City Council, Mayor, Sheriff, 15th District Judge and more. While the general election will be very important this year, the primary is going to decide who wins in November. And there are many local issues that will affect us more directly than the national election.

Historically, very few people show up for the August Primary. Your vote WILL make a difference. Anyone who knows me knows I have plenty of political opinions. As a result we have endorsed Sandi Smith in Ward One, Carsten Hohnke in Ward Five, and John Hieftje for Mayor, among others. But more important than voting for who I want you to vote for, I encourage all readers to go to the polls on Tuesday and vote for the candidate of your choice.

If you are not registered to vote, it is too late for the primary. But it is NOT too late to register for the general election. We will be hosting voter registration drives on Saturday, August 9th and Saturday, August 23rd at the \aut\ BAR. You can also check with your City Clerk’s office to find out how to register, how to get absentee ballots, and much more.



Eighteen years earlier, in November of 1960, my mother stepped into the voting booth and pulled the lever for Richard Nixon. She vividly described the experience to me many years later. She did not particularly like Nixon, but she bought into the fear that JFK, a catholic, might owe his first allegiance to Rome, and not to the United States. Within moments of leaving the booth she regretted what she had done. She has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1960.

Moral of the Story: People often make different decisions once they are in the voting booth, even decisions that they did not know they were considering.

The two biggest enemies of a healthy democracy are apathy and fear.

The danger in November is fear. The republican noise machine has already started the subliminal campaign to remind voters that Obama is black, and black people want to steal from you, rape your daughter, and take your job.

And many good people will buy into this subliminal fear. Pollsters have not figured out how to get past what people say and figure out what they are actually going to do when they get in the voting booth. So all of the polls showing Obama in the lead could be meaningless. I would not be surprised if up to 5% of voters will vote their irrational fear over their enlightened self-interest.

If you are gay, a woman, African-American, or anything other than a rich white guy a McCain presidency is going to represent another four years of the same policies we've been experiencing for the last eight years. We MUST move beyond our fears, and vote for hopes, dreams, and aspirations.