As I was dressing this morning, waiting on Mark to finish his 'toilette' to venture forth for coffee, I realized I needed to remove a sizable amount of Bo Bo's and Athenais' fur from my sweater. They enjoy, indeed insist upon, leaving ample amounts of themselves about, in order to be better remembered when Mark and I are away from home! Knowing that I would not be able to fully de-shed myself I nevertheless found the lint brush, a silly devise of masking tape on a peal-away roller, and proceeded to roll it about myself. (The disconcerting part of this process is to feel the way the roller follows the rolls of my chest and abdomen. The 'hard body' which I worked so hard to get for almost two years, is in a general recession!) It is discouraging. Just as I was about finished, and was looking myself over for the stray bit of fur, I noticed in the mirror that I had an accumulation of fur and lint on my head. Now, as I have little hair, I debated for a moment as to whether the additional material 'suited' me or not. Yikes! How desperate am I becoming - with a quick flick of the wrist and the ol' masking tape roll, I rolled it over my head and removed the offending additions. Now, tell me, have I found a new market for the tool? Should I promote it, or rather develop an offshoot device, especially for balding men? If they can sell spray on hair, I say, why not?!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
The Truthes of Women Versus Men
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, first line
I adore Jane Austen's work, and I acknowledge that the social constraints of early nineteenth century England and those of the West today will allow for a broad discrepancy of opinion regarding her beliefs as put to paper. Yet, even in the early eighteen hundred's Austen surely new that her opening line (above) to Pride & Prejudice would be met with raucous laughter by most men and the enthusiastic, if inaccurate, affirmation of her primary audience: women.
I have many fine friends who are women. (and Black and Gay and et-cetera - yes that's the deliberate barb I'm making) I hold nothing against them, they are after all more than one half the world's populace. Yet, the woman who believes that the first thing a man needs, even one of highly moral attributes, is a wife, is a laughable creature. I would in particular point out that a man of fortune, whether two hundred years ago or yesterday, is highly unlikely to "want" (in either definition of the word) marriage. Not before some expenditures which have little to do with hearth and home!
It is, therefore, humorous to find so many women opposed to same sex marriage. The promotion of marriage between any two persons supports marriage as a viable social contract which, with it's financial and emotional benefits particularly advantageous (especially and traditionally) for women, is seemingly a rather important endorsement for the struggling institution.
I have pondered then, longer than it is surely worth, why so many women are so extremely hostile to same sex marriage, especially between men. (The omnipotent hatred directed at me when the subject has arisen is frightening!) My conclusions are hardly scientific, and are also less than kind, be warned; yet, being formed more or less directly from Austen's own statement they do bear a certain weight of authenticity. Money. It is MONEY. Women loathe that any man, let alone two, should possess a fortune which could certainly be comprehensively allocated to women through marriage. Austen's very premise suggests that it is the money, not the man, which is foremost of importance. Further, by suggesting it is the men who need the marriage, women, who may not be overly enamored of the bearer of the wealth, eliminate their plight of seeming to be, uh-mm, grasping!
There are women in my acquaintance whom have never fallen into this less than attractive portrait of the 'fairer' sex. They will know whom they are! Yet, the majority of women I have met and known still speak of finding a man to marry for the sake of security primarily; even joking that their second marriage may then be for love. (And more money...)
Seemingly, it is not only women of wifely intent whom are prone to the belief that a man needs relieving of his fortunes. I've found that women with alternate relationships to these men also believe that his money should not leave them unattended! I suppose, as financial security is a worthwhile goal, that much may be forgiven seeking it out wherever it may be found. It is the commonly indiscreet acknowledgment by these creatures that the gentleman in question has no importance to them other than for their profit which is painful. Additionally, it is most horrifically brutal when the woman is by birth or court papers related to the poor fellow!
As an anecdote let me present to you 'YC'. The crowning achievement of this woman was her dogged determination to follow for years her former spouse, 'N', and his male partner, 'W'. Hugely resenting his leaving her for another, (and a man at that!), and using guilt over the child of their former union as her primary weapon of extortion, 'YC' soaked 'N' for thousands. It began in a flourish when, arriving for a 'visit', she appeared in the morning in a flowing pink negligee assuming that her ponderous mammary glands, sprouting forth from the flourecsecent nylon would titillate and entice. The desired impact not effectively achieved, ('N' really preferred a rather different set of globes belonging to the new spouse, 'W'.) she eventually flung herself to the floor, writhing in a magnificent display of emotional torment, pleading and begging that he come home to her. I don't know for certain, but I believe the first large sum was then paid simply to have the woman clothed, packed and on her way again! Only years later, when the custody of the child was removed as a viable threat, was 'YC' successfully, for the most part, shut out of the checkbook of 'N' and 'W'. Even then, however, using the child to gain empathy and sympathy, 'YC' managed to wring a few thousand dollars more, here and there.
Austen knew the lie of her character's remark, and was as surely amused by the number of her female readers who would assert the 'truth' of her character's supposition. Deliberate and astute in her humor Austen was not the sort of woman of whom here she wrote!
P.S. I note that this behavior is not solely the territory of women. Men, too, gay and straight have been known. I do assert, however, that women hold the gold, shall we say, for this sport!
I have many fine friends who are women. (and Black and Gay and et-cetera - yes that's the deliberate barb I'm making) I hold nothing against them, they are after all more than one half the world's populace. Yet, the woman who believes that the first thing a man needs, even one of highly moral attributes, is a wife, is a laughable creature. I would in particular point out that a man of fortune, whether two hundred years ago or yesterday, is highly unlikely to "want" (in either definition of the word) marriage. Not before some expenditures which have little to do with hearth and home!
It is, therefore, humorous to find so many women opposed to same sex marriage. The promotion of marriage between any two persons supports marriage as a viable social contract which, with it's financial and emotional benefits particularly advantageous (especially and traditionally) for women, is seemingly a rather important endorsement for the struggling institution.
I have pondered then, longer than it is surely worth, why so many women are so extremely hostile to same sex marriage, especially between men. (The omnipotent hatred directed at me when the subject has arisen is frightening!) My conclusions are hardly scientific, and are also less than kind, be warned; yet, being formed more or less directly from Austen's own statement they do bear a certain weight of authenticity. Money. It is MONEY. Women loathe that any man, let alone two, should possess a fortune which could certainly be comprehensively allocated to women through marriage. Austen's very premise suggests that it is the money, not the man, which is foremost of importance. Further, by suggesting it is the men who need the marriage, women, who may not be overly enamored of the bearer of the wealth, eliminate their plight of seeming to be, uh-mm, grasping!
There are women in my acquaintance whom have never fallen into this less than attractive portrait of the 'fairer' sex. They will know whom they are! Yet, the majority of women I have met and known still speak of finding a man to marry for the sake of security primarily; even joking that their second marriage may then be for love. (And more money...)
Seemingly, it is not only women of wifely intent whom are prone to the belief that a man needs relieving of his fortunes. I've found that women with alternate relationships to these men also believe that his money should not leave them unattended! I suppose, as financial security is a worthwhile goal, that much may be forgiven seeking it out wherever it may be found. It is the commonly indiscreet acknowledgment by these creatures that the gentleman in question has no importance to them other than for their profit which is painful. Additionally, it is most horrifically brutal when the woman is by birth or court papers related to the poor fellow!
As an anecdote let me present to you 'YC'. The crowning achievement of this woman was her dogged determination to follow for years her former spouse, 'N', and his male partner, 'W'. Hugely resenting his leaving her for another, (and a man at that!), and using guilt over the child of their former union as her primary weapon of extortion, 'YC' soaked 'N' for thousands. It began in a flourish when, arriving for a 'visit', she appeared in the morning in a flowing pink negligee assuming that her ponderous mammary glands, sprouting forth from the flourecsecent nylon would titillate and entice. The desired impact not effectively achieved, ('N' really preferred a rather different set of globes belonging to the new spouse, 'W'.) she eventually flung herself to the floor, writhing in a magnificent display of emotional torment, pleading and begging that he come home to her. I don't know for certain, but I believe the first large sum was then paid simply to have the woman clothed, packed and on her way again! Only years later, when the custody of the child was removed as a viable threat, was 'YC' successfully, for the most part, shut out of the checkbook of 'N' and 'W'. Even then, however, using the child to gain empathy and sympathy, 'YC' managed to wring a few thousand dollars more, here and there.
Austen knew the lie of her character's remark, and was as surely amused by the number of her female readers who would assert the 'truth' of her character's supposition. Deliberate and astute in her humor Austen was not the sort of woman of whom here she wrote!
P.S. I note that this behavior is not solely the territory of women. Men, too, gay and straight have been known. I do assert, however, that women hold the gold, shall we say, for this sport!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
FIN
I haven't one shred of talent; if I were to even in the farthest reaches of imagination dare to think of drawing a comparison with someone the caliber of a Maria Callas it can only be in the manner of some minutia, a way only of clarifying for the reader some small depth of ones own feeling for the self-importance one granted ones own work. It is to express that whatever talent one has been given, great or small, to lose it, TO LOSE IT, is a genuine 'little death' - and not as the French mean that phrase!
I am watching Fanny Ardant's performance of the great opera diva, Maria Callas, and in a candid scene the Callas character attempts to sing along with her own recording of one of her great arias. Her voice is lost, and she can no longer match herself on the recording. Quite literally all is lost, for nothing which remains has any meaning at that moment to her.
I have no such talent to lose, but I do understand what it is to lose what one does have, however humble it may be; in my instance it is the absence of caring for my family and home. All that I have ever done well has been done for the privilege, the honor and the sheer joy of creating an environment in which my family members might be dazzled or our guests as easily made to feel to be family. A place in which memories and ideals are ever so carefully arranged to be casually found and remembered, for a moment or an hour or a day. Where the sound of birds in the garden is transmuted by the weight of the silk at the windows or the time of day is orchestrated by the scent of oak burning in the fireplace and apples, oranges and cinnamon issuing fragrances reassuringly from the kitchen... You may find, after several hours of hunting, the photo album with your lovers picture or the novel with a special passage. And whilst you search you will be distracted by the forgotten ornament which rolls out of a packing box and which the cat bats across the hardwood floor. Will it shatter and create it's last memory now, for you alone? The drawer stuffed with old tickets to movies and plays and receipts from forgotten bolts of fabric, or the very scrap of material pinned to the tea dyed lace which made your daughter's Christmas dress, and her doll's matching Christmas dress, at age four. And when these things have slipped away, when your fingers can no longer grasp even a broken saucer from your set of china, and the last silver fork has lost its pattern name and is but a phantom in your mind; when nothing of value remains to share because it is gone, even the hearth and home: and when those last memories bind in utter isolation within your decrepit aged body, shuttered in your stench bloated heart and lost in the recesses of what once was likely your very soul, than you can no longer pretend. And when one cannot pretend than, well than, if you are lucky, you weep. And when those tears are gone you, too, will be at last finished.
If the gods have found favor in you than you will take that last breath with some of what you brought forth somewhere near you: someone will remember what you can no longer recall for yourself, and in a measure of love restore your worth.
And if you have earned their wrath, these gods wrath, well...
I am watching Fanny Ardant's performance of the great opera diva, Maria Callas, and in a candid scene the Callas character attempts to sing along with her own recording of one of her great arias. Her voice is lost, and she can no longer match herself on the recording. Quite literally all is lost, for nothing which remains has any meaning at that moment to her.
I have no such talent to lose, but I do understand what it is to lose what one does have, however humble it may be; in my instance it is the absence of caring for my family and home. All that I have ever done well has been done for the privilege, the honor and the sheer joy of creating an environment in which my family members might be dazzled or our guests as easily made to feel to be family. A place in which memories and ideals are ever so carefully arranged to be casually found and remembered, for a moment or an hour or a day. Where the sound of birds in the garden is transmuted by the weight of the silk at the windows or the time of day is orchestrated by the scent of oak burning in the fireplace and apples, oranges and cinnamon issuing fragrances reassuringly from the kitchen... You may find, after several hours of hunting, the photo album with your lovers picture or the novel with a special passage. And whilst you search you will be distracted by the forgotten ornament which rolls out of a packing box and which the cat bats across the hardwood floor. Will it shatter and create it's last memory now, for you alone? The drawer stuffed with old tickets to movies and plays and receipts from forgotten bolts of fabric, or the very scrap of material pinned to the tea dyed lace which made your daughter's Christmas dress, and her doll's matching Christmas dress, at age four. And when these things have slipped away, when your fingers can no longer grasp even a broken saucer from your set of china, and the last silver fork has lost its pattern name and is but a phantom in your mind; when nothing of value remains to share because it is gone, even the hearth and home: and when those last memories bind in utter isolation within your decrepit aged body, shuttered in your stench bloated heart and lost in the recesses of what once was likely your very soul, than you can no longer pretend. And when one cannot pretend than, well than, if you are lucky, you weep. And when those tears are gone you, too, will be at last finished.
If the gods have found favor in you than you will take that last breath with some of what you brought forth somewhere near you: someone will remember what you can no longer recall for yourself, and in a measure of love restore your worth.
And if you have earned their wrath, these gods wrath, well...
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Camera Stills
I sit here in the rented room, smoking, wondering, how do I come to be here? Next to me, he snores in fitful dreams, stretched upon the ragged couch of some designer's torment, swathed in the heavy folds of my old spa robe. His delicate pale hand clutches thinnly at the cloth, gathering it into some sort of Roman swag with effortless nobility, and together, his white hand and the dark fabric, rise and fall upon his breast in motion with his awkward breaths. He has been out all day while I have been here, at home in the clutches of my nightmare hours, my mind swinging from thought to thought, fighting and raging my eternal battle of truth and self-doubt, with God's angels, some fallen, some Not. I wonder how can I be; be here? A milk bottle half-filled with change. The mop resting in its bucket of dirty water. The cardboard box of Christmas trims still open, the strings of many colored lights spilling out above the cat, as she eats dry food from a beige glass plate. The laundry, washed, lies folded on the table and the chair is piled with coats un-hung. He sleeps on, Endymion? I wonder if that place his consciousness has found is better than this, our spot of dismal colors? Black actors perform a drama on the television, a story of black and gay and white. "Who can we trust!" an actor blurts. What can we trust, I wonder? I lift another Camel from the paper packet, roll it in my fingers, lift it to my lips, then stop; stop and take my sterling case, its sapphire cabochon heavy with an inner glow, and fill it with the pearly rolled tobacco. Now, taking the cigarette again, I tap the case; lighting with this smoke the world in which, wide and awake, I am to be. A soft and hazy gilded place of shimmering black crepe suits and starched white collars and patent shoes; of chiseled faces, black flint eyes and locks of ebony. Masculine and sensual, he is here and brilliant, tete a tete with so and so; he deftly holds his smoke, his wrist enrobed with crisp white cuffs and white gold knots. Exquisitely, his watch sheathes him, as unique to him it's drape as is the time now rendering the room alive with his sophisticated ghosts. His phantoms, whom I never meet but wander with us in these rooms, upon his arm. A television ad blairs out and wrenches at my specter suite, screaming of some credit card a "time to redefine"; but I here do choose this time, defining. I grip tightly and that fine ol' lady jazz artist blooms again into her song and still, I'm on his arm, still. And the floor rushes up and whirls and the clinking of leaded crystal and old silver sparkles as a soothing background, glowing platinum and sheer. We shimmer in his public, my perfect partner and I, dancing, Dancing 'til his pale hand unclasps the dressing gown, and in wrenching breath unevenly, he asks, "Have you got drugs out, honey," while he struggles up, half sitting, expecting his medications and I fade in again, to this unreality, this space in all it ugly color, smiling, "You'll need the pain pills first, darling?" and I close my eyes never shutting them and for a moment, stop. Stop and take another smoke from my fine old case of silver gilt, and lifting the cigarette to my lips, to light it with my Cartier, I see him, smiling. I see him, flushed of youth, his tousled golden hair above his delicious wicked blues, his luscious gleaming lips lean in across the cabaret to me, to me saying, "Darling, allow Me"; and as he cups his great warm hands 'round mine, and steadies the flame, I am off, not to some medicine chest, its drab color grasping, but slipping, like mercury quick silver to the proffered light, and into his arms I fall, still, yet always dancing; into his luster, still, of jet black silk and white gold studs, still, and dazzling. Still.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
I Exist As I Am, That Is Enough
"Chromed Multiples",Self Portrait, Enhanced Digital Photograph, D. Larson, 2007
This post's Title is a quote by Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892, from his "Leaves of Grass".
Click the post's title to see other Walt Whitman qoutes.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Athenais Sophie
Her blue is the blue of dusk through rain flecked glass,
sheeting unwashed space, flowing.
Her blue is the blue of the river east, spied as evening's wickextinguished, trembles dying.
Her blue is the blue of the squall ripped vault, gauze dressedand charg'ed wet, steel mesa muffling.
Her blue is the blue of velvet, tattered and dusty, hungover shuttered casements rotting;
So Eos wakes, tho' not, not yet, almost; only peeping
and disturbing atoms, floating.
from her firmament indigo: endless novas, two, burst glittering gold, glinting.
D. Larson, for Athenais, February 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
The Prick of Darts and Flowers! or How Rosebuds May be Forced in Time for the Sake of Hearts' Pangs to Bloom Full Wide!
Mark and I were wed in the Great Rotunda of San Francisco City Hall, on the 16th of February, 2004, after two days and some 19 hours of standing in line, with thousands of our Gay brothers and Lesbian sisters, on City Hall's square and it's sidewalks, all about the building. Although the photographs don't show the weather as anything but a little overcast, the actuality was that for the majority of our time in line the winter storms that year were icy cold, extremely wet and wild with wicked Zephyr blustering through every layer of clothing we had on - and neither I or Mark shall ever forget, or I dare say, regret, one moment of those glorious hours. It will be difficult for any but our dear Queer friends to understand what it meant to be allowed to marry each other that day. Mayor Newsom's politically savvy move was, at the time, just as likely to become his political death nell. I admire him to this day for the great risk he took upon behalf of all of us. Months later, when the California Supreme Court annulled all of our weddings we were deeply hurt. Our American government's inability to grant us the equality of our heterosexual peers continues to be the great debate of our time. I believe at races end we will duly win our freedom to marry, and God willing, Mark and I will return to the City by the Bay, where we've indeed left our hearts' and their desires, and stand together once again, beneath the great Corinthian pillars of our Beaux Arts masterpiece, and hear, once and for all, "I now pronounce you Man and Husband!"
Until that day, we look back at these photographs and dwell upon the sweet memories of our 'official' wedding, realizing that it commemorates a marriage already made by God (and we two small foolish souls) from the thousand days before and since...
...some full of Strife and Sorrow's Pangs and others Brimming Full with Eros' Bliss and Unparrelled Joy (Belin, of course)!
I Hold No Diary of Fortune. Nor Know I What Lies Ahead. I Know Not what the Morrow or Year Next Shall Convey Us, but This I Know: A Fine and Rainy Day Three Years Ago in February is the Greatest Treasure I Do Own in this World. Yet should this World Pull Apart all Which We Do Bind Together in this Time, the Love and Faith Rejoined in Us that Hour Shall Ne'er Be Put Asunder.
So, Dear Friends and Family, Wish Us Both All that is Lovely and Gay, Sequined and Shiny, Frilly and Pink as a Rosebud: for Though Indeed Butch and Hyper-Male We Doth Appear (Ha! Well, Very Good, Only at Times and Only if We Art Found Stock-Still in Dimly Lit Expance)
We Have Been Linked by Cupid's Dart as Sure as Apollo Swooned and Felled His Hyacinthus and Zeus did Soar Off to the Distance with His Own Sweet Ganymede; or as We Surely Well May Say in Kindlier Vernacular:
Big Tab 'A' Must be Inserted Soundly into Tight Slot 'B' to keep the Whole Damn Thing from Falling the Fuck Apart!.
Mark, My Sweet, Here's to the Next Twenty Off!
My Mark of Honor
Spoon and Swoon with Me, My Badge Divine!
To Fork My Swollen Moons Thy Herculean Tine
Is Boon To Me as Pan's Hot, Sweet Red Wine's
Unruly Rush at Noon. Sated Do You Keep Mine
Tumescent, And Soon, Split Wide Our Skines
Together! Splendid Ruin! Do We Not Superbly Dine!
To Fork My Swollen Moons Thy Herculean Tine
Is Boon To Me as Pan's Hot, Sweet Red Wine's
Unruly Rush at Noon. Sated Do You Keep Mine
Tumescent, And Soon, Split Wide Our Skines
Together! Splendid Ruin! Do We Not Superbly Dine!
(for Mark from Donnie upon our Twentieth Anniversary, February 16, 2007)
Thursday, February 08, 2007
That Line in the Sand Again
IN the Roman Catholic Church's currently unprecedented interference in the United States (and European Unions) Legal, Judicial, Constitutional and most importantly of late, Electoral Processes, we, the opposition, finally saw a small ray of sunshine that our Judicial System will stop ignoring the intolerable disruption of properly implementated legal practices (in this case the right to assemble and demonstrate within the laws of the State of Massachusetts) by misguided and highly over-zealous right-wing Catholics, and other so called Christian groups. These people must be brought to understand that however visceral or gut wrenching their personal reactions are to what they perceive as moral and/or spiritual injustices, (i.e. same sex marriage, abortion, same-sex adoption), NO ONE is permitted under any circumstance whatsoever to engage in violent criminal and felonious actions towards another person whom is engaged in expressing their legal American Right of Assembly and their Rights to Protest and of Free Speech.
Today, Mr. Larry Cirignano, the former prominent anti-gay leader of a Catholic Church affiliated Massachusetts group, Catholic Citizenship, was notified that he will be arraigned before a Magistrate of Massachusetts on February 20, 2007, for his unprovoked physical attack upon a pro-gay demonstrator, not only for physical assault but for civil rights violations. The young woman was participating in a legal rally, supporting the currently intact same sex marriage law of the State of Massachusetts, which Cirigano's group, Catholic Citizenship, is attempting to have overturned by voter referendum in the State. The Massachusetts same sex marriage law can only be voided by a Massachutsetts Constitutional Amendment supported by this State's voters.* (Ciriganon, who is no longer a member of this particular anti-gay group, has high-tailed it to Washington DC, where he now leads a similar band of
anti-gay men and women.)
As Cirigano was leading his anti-gay same sex marriage rally in Worcester, at the City Hall, on December 16, 2007, he is alleged to have leapt from the dais to assault a woman holding a pro-gay marriage placard. Ms. Sarah Loy, who was standing in a designated area as part of a group of protesters, held the placard which read: "No Discrimination in the Constitution". As Cirigano finished leading the anti-gay group in the Pledge of Allegiance, Cirigano is said to have run from the stage and attacked Loy, physically forcing her to the ground, and shouting: "You need to get out. You need to get out of here right now!".
As Loy lay on the ground, bleeding, and with bruises appearing from where she was struck, Cirigano apparently left Loy on the street and without assisting her in any way, or apologizing for his violent behavior, simply proceeded back to the lectern as if nothing at all had occurred.
Loy, who incidentally is heterosexual, was helped to stand-up after the attack by her husband, and others, whom had come in to Wocester City Hall to support the rally against anti-gay discriminatory language being added to the Massachusetts State Constitution.
The announcement of a Civil Right's Violation charge being levied against Cirigano, in addition to the already standing assault charge, is a very welcome finding for those of us who have looked with astonishment at Cirigano's statements that he did not attack Loy. The number of witnesses present who can cohoberate that the attack took place has helped to bring about the additional charge.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
These attacks, which have become ever more prevalent as the GLBT community makes legal strides towards equality in a number of arenas, are very frightening. The unfathomable hatred upon display within groups like Cirigano's 'Catholic Citizens' and Fred Phelp's so called 'Church' remind us of a number of prior horrific attacks. Following the Supreme Court's legalization of abortion in Roe vs. Wade, 1972, attacks upon members of the legal and medical communities who were involved in a woman's right to choose abortion led to deaths and injuries by clinic bombings, gunshots and the intimidation of doctors and patients at abortion facilities. Also brought strongly to mind is the terrible backlash against African Americans, as well as their Northern White supporters, who sought racial equality in the civil rights arena of the 1960's. The gunshot murders of both Black and White social activists, lynchings in swamps and the bombing of Black Churches, resulting in the horrific murder of innocent children, still prey upon our collective conscience. We can only hope and pray that such violence against the Gay community will be stopped now, before it grows beyond the horrendous proportions of those many other sad incidents - some still coming to light and trial today.
Additionally, as I have said here before, it has been the traditional position of the Catholic Church to be a Voice of Conscience in the matters of Faith and Morals, but to strictly prohibit political intervention. I note again the strongly worded Vatican reprimands to clergy - priests and brothers, nuns and laity - who intervened for the poor and underprivileged against the systematically cruel class-based legal systems of South America in the 1970's, which supported only wealthy land owners and their corrupt politicians. The Vatican took a very dim view of all such assistance by it's clergy in what has been coined as 'Liberation Theology'. Liberation Theology mandated that it was the duty of those who served the spiritual needs of the Catholic Laity had also a duty to serve their physical needs - in particular in the face of such brutal and wholly unethical acts as kidnapping, torture, intimidation, unlawful imprisonment and political executions and murders. Many priests and nuns who felt it was their duty to assist the poor opposed the direct orders of the Vatican. Their intervention on behalf of the many disenfranchised citizens of these totalitarian regimes saved lives, but soon many of them suffered the same vicious fates at the hands of these South American dictatorships.
Here we are some thirty years on or better and we now find that the Vatican, formerly in opposition to politically assisting the lowliest of Christ's flock through any means other than prayer and the Sacraments, is actively purporting that American and European Catholics especially use every political means available, including smear tactics (i.e. John Kerry being refused communion in particular by US Bishops because he supports Gay Civil Equality, though other candidates supporting agendas which included abortion and stem cell research, also equally abhorrent to Catholics, were left unscathed of any personal attacks) to oppose the legal recognition of Gay marriage,
Here is what the Vatican and many US Catholic Bishops and American Catholic Laity, newly in conjunction with right-wing fundamentalists, are supporting: unethical signature campaigns, often deceiving people about what they're actually signing; additionally, obtaining signatures from Catholics whom are attending Mass for the sole purpose of worship; clergy encouraged to support these signature drives before or after Mass which, if they do not actually break United States IRS laws (regarding direct political persuasion of parishioners by specific verbal support of certain candidates and/or of particular pending bills from the pulpit) by tax-free religious organizations**, are certainly treading a thin line. While many Bishops will deny involvement in such activities there is little doubt that the Church's hierarchy have had little, if any, compunction to be forthcoming in regards to what are likely illegal and illicit activities. Certainly immoral. It must be noted here that the child abuse scandal of the Cathoilic Church clearly indicates that the welfare of of others can easily become lost to the need of political expediency.***
These repeated attempts to blur the lines between Church and State by the Catholic Church, now in conjunction with the Protestant far right fundamentalists, represented by such groups as Focus on the Family, is in direct opposition, I believe, to Jesus' own statement of: "give unto Ceasar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's". Let me explain what I believe that statement means. Jesus is telling us that what is important to Him is the example we give to others, not in our outward visible promotion of what is politically beneficial to our appearance as exemplary Christians, but in how we live, love and help those in need, whether physical, emotional or spiritual - quietly, with understanding and love unexpectant of reward. I believe this applies in the context of my arguments above in a very straight forward way. It is not our place as followers of Jesus to, in false fits of pious outrage, publicly attack and politically viscerate those persons whose sexuality we do not understand or with whose sexual orientation we may deeply disagree, or with those persons who may support the civil rights of Gays and Lesbians.
Jesus gives us a specific example of this with His own behavior. He stopped the stoning of a prostitute by asking those in the process of committing her execution, "whom amongst you is without sin?" I imagine He received some nasty outward looks and some odious under the breath castigation for his defense of this common woman, whom in their eyes was a monstorus and corrupt public sinner. Yet, when he wrote in the dirt at His feet, and those stalwart leaders of society about Him read His words, well, they dropped their stones and with heads hung in shame, wandered away one by one.
My point is this. I am a Gay man in a long term relationship, some twenty years, and I and my family need the leagl protections of our civil government. Despite my failures in my marriage, it is genuine as a marriage of minds, hearts and bodies. I give my love, loyalty and commitment to this marriage wholly. Growing up Roman Catholic, as a man who loves God and believed for many years in all the Church taught about homosexuality, I finally could only make this one choice: to integrate my homosexuality, a loving gift from God to me, as being a normal and primary part of my state of being. I cannot separate my sexuality from the remainder of my personage without physical, emotional and spiritual illness. My decision was made over years with long, quiet deliberation, seeking both counsel in prayer and in words with clergy and therapists; and in fighting many years of my own unhealthy self-hatred for not being the celibate the Church said I must be to live within God's Grace. Therefore, to choose in personal conscience, to stand against all I was taught to believe about my sexuality, can be said to be my personal experience of wrestling Jacob's Angel. Never has a struggle been more profound for me until now: to choose to debate in open my sexuality has caused me great personal cost, ever I wonder whose love and respect I may lose and always, I wonder, just how many Angels am I to wrestle?
Why do I now fight publicly for civil equality and to live openly as a sexually active gay man, when I am asked as a Catholic to be silent when I am in disagreement with Church teachings? The Church itself is now, using modern media and political expedience, attempting to win upon the battlefield of public opinion its own civil laws - perverting its own responsibility to our souls simply to hold sway in the temporal world; and because I see the harm this is doing to my own gay family, and the many gay men and women whom are my friends and their families, I choose (as those liberation theologists perhaps did) to fight for the wholeness and well being of not just our souls but of our minds and our bodies. If you have not lived in mortal fear of your safety trying to find a home or to keep a job, if you cannot relate to being bashed and spat upon either figuratively or in reality, if you have no basis for comparison for being denied access to your spouse by a hospital employee or your partner's family when he is ill, or to be loathed by an unknown person openly on the street, well, you can still understand what it feels like and what it means to be hated completely for whom you are as made by God.
Here's how. You can step back from your prejudices for just a moment and you can imagine that you are one of those men or women who now holds a stone above me or my partner, or our daughter or one of our friends; and you can, as a Christian, remember the New Testament and Christ's actions and words when, with great love and compassion, He intervened on behalf of the prostitute. You can remember, as I do when I wrongly choose to be someone else's judge, that whatever Jesus scratched in the dirt of Judaea some two millennia ago, that our sins, mine and yours, were very likely among them.
And, if for one moment you wonder whether denying civil rights to me and my family warrants a pause and reconsideration, despite some tough propoganda from the Vatican and civil governments worldwide, than I will have done what I believe may, just may, have rightly saved one precious life and soul from the so called justice of men so that it may be left to Jesus and His Father in Heaven to decide what judgement to give upon his life.
Matthew Shephard, Gwen Araujo, Pfc. Barry Winchell, Amancio Corrales, Tyra Hunter, David Curnick, Michael Sandy, Scott Amadeur, Aaron Webster, Kevin Hale, Jody Dobrowski, Danny Overstreet, David Morley, Brandon Teena, Bill Clayton and many, many others have paid or are still paying for your intolerance in America and Europe. In the Middle East Gays are hung with mock trials. In Russia and Eastern Europe Gays are murdered and violently attacked without any legal recourse whatsoever - they cannot even assemble. In Africa, Gays are routinely slaughtered when it is discovered where they assemble - and while AIDS runs rampant among all sexual populations there, but especially amongst heterosexual women and children, many African governments and the Vatican refuse AIDS drugs, condoms and/or health workers in their countries. India and Pakistan also arrest and imprison without representation - as without question does China. Human rights abuses against Gays are so rampant worldwide it boggles the mind and yet, chief amongst those whom block ANY humanitarian relief and/or legal recognition of their plight at the United Nations are two States foremost: America and the Vatican. These two States, which have prided themselves upon a rigorous human rights agenda of compassion and love, fall short first, by using their significant veto powers, to deny legal recognition of gays, much less equality. Amongst all those countries whom could save Gay lives anywhere, it is the Vatican State and the United States of America which stand alone among all Western nations**** to oppose our legal recognition. It gives me pause as to what exactly being Catholic and American actually mean anymore? When it becomes so terribly all important to make a spiritual and moral compass our only view, let me remind you once again of Scripture - Christ said, instructing the Pharisees, that saving a man's livelihood by removing his sheep from a well, was more important than keeping the Laws of the Sabbath. Can any of us, then, actually believe that God will reward us when we do far, far less for the life, much less the livelihood, of a Gay brother or Lesbian sister?
______________________________________________________________________
*The debate over the voters having the right to amend the Constitution, at State or Federal level, to restrict instead of enhance, the legal standing of a minority group is a suprising first and definitely not in the spirit of what the US Constitution has traditionally stood to protect. The American Courts, being accused of overstepping their authority by providing equal marriage to gays and lesbians, are, in fact, doing exactly the opposite: by insuring that the Constitution is intrepretted in its broadest sense to protect ALL Americans, and in particular those Gay men and women in
this instance, for whom otherwise the prejudice of the many against the few leaves the few in great legal jeopardy on many essential levels. The idea of separate but equal, now being proposed in the form of Civil Unions as an alternative to full Marriage Equality has essentially already been dismissed by the United States Supreme Court when it focused upon the civil rights of Black Americans. In other words, a "separate but equal" seat on a bus, or a "separate but equal" drinking fountain are inherently and utterly devoid of equality.
**Currently there are non-denominational watch-dog groups randomly attending services at all Churches and Temples to monitor whether or not US laws regarding specific political reccomendations are being followed and upheld .
***The Catholic Church is waging a publicity battle against Gays regarding the child abuse scandal. The facts of child abuse clearly show that the majority, in the high nineties statistically, are heterosexual men. This is true within the priesthood as well as out. Child abusers are very often non-selective in the gender of their victims. The current campaign by the Catholic Church to once agian mislead the Faithful, and the world, by declaring that eliminating Gay clergy and seminarians will eliminate the sexual abuse of chidren is the proverbial 'ostrich with its head in the sand.' It will, in essence, only leave the priesthood without many fine spiritual leaders whom seek to serve Christ by serving others.
****Only the United States, Australia and the Vatican State still stand among Westsern countries represented at the United Nations in opposition to listing Gays and Lesbians among persecuted minorities and allowing legal and charitable organizations supporting Gays and Lesbians U.N. political representation.
Today, Mr. Larry Cirignano, the former prominent anti-gay leader of a Catholic Church affiliated Massachusetts group, Catholic Citizenship, was notified that he will be arraigned before a Magistrate of Massachusetts on February 20, 2007, for his unprovoked physical attack upon a pro-gay demonstrator, not only for physical assault but for civil rights violations. The young woman was participating in a legal rally, supporting the currently intact same sex marriage law of the State of Massachusetts, which Cirigano's group, Catholic Citizenship, is attempting to have overturned by voter referendum in the State. The Massachusetts same sex marriage law can only be voided by a Massachutsetts Constitutional Amendment supported by this State's voters.* (Ciriganon, who is no longer a member of this particular anti-gay group, has high-tailed it to Washington DC, where he now leads a similar band of
anti-gay men and women.)
As Cirigano was leading his anti-gay same sex marriage rally in Worcester, at the City Hall, on December 16, 2007, he is alleged to have leapt from the dais to assault a woman holding a pro-gay marriage placard. Ms. Sarah Loy, who was standing in a designated area as part of a group of protesters, held the placard which read: "No Discrimination in the Constitution". As Cirigano finished leading the anti-gay group in the Pledge of Allegiance, Cirigano is said to have run from the stage and attacked Loy, physically forcing her to the ground, and shouting: "You need to get out. You need to get out of here right now!".
As Loy lay on the ground, bleeding, and with bruises appearing from where she was struck, Cirigano apparently left Loy on the street and without assisting her in any way, or apologizing for his violent behavior, simply proceeded back to the lectern as if nothing at all had occurred.
Loy, who incidentally is heterosexual, was helped to stand-up after the attack by her husband, and others, whom had come in to Wocester City Hall to support the rally against anti-gay discriminatory language being added to the Massachusetts State Constitution.
The announcement of a Civil Right's Violation charge being levied against Cirigano, in addition to the already standing assault charge, is a very welcome finding for those of us who have looked with astonishment at Cirigano's statements that he did not attack Loy. The number of witnesses present who can cohoberate that the attack took place has helped to bring about the additional charge.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
These attacks, which have become ever more prevalent as the GLBT community makes legal strides towards equality in a number of arenas, are very frightening. The unfathomable hatred upon display within groups like Cirigano's 'Catholic Citizens' and Fred Phelp's so called 'Church' remind us of a number of prior horrific attacks. Following the Supreme Court's legalization of abortion in Roe vs. Wade, 1972, attacks upon members of the legal and medical communities who were involved in a woman's right to choose abortion led to deaths and injuries by clinic bombings, gunshots and the intimidation of doctors and patients at abortion facilities. Also brought strongly to mind is the terrible backlash against African Americans, as well as their Northern White supporters, who sought racial equality in the civil rights arena of the 1960's. The gunshot murders of both Black and White social activists, lynchings in swamps and the bombing of Black Churches, resulting in the horrific murder of innocent children, still prey upon our collective conscience. We can only hope and pray that such violence against the Gay community will be stopped now, before it grows beyond the horrendous proportions of those many other sad incidents - some still coming to light and trial today.
Additionally, as I have said here before, it has been the traditional position of the Catholic Church to be a Voice of Conscience in the matters of Faith and Morals, but to strictly prohibit political intervention. I note again the strongly worded Vatican reprimands to clergy - priests and brothers, nuns and laity - who intervened for the poor and underprivileged against the systematically cruel class-based legal systems of South America in the 1970's, which supported only wealthy land owners and their corrupt politicians. The Vatican took a very dim view of all such assistance by it's clergy in what has been coined as 'Liberation Theology'. Liberation Theology mandated that it was the duty of those who served the spiritual needs of the Catholic Laity had also a duty to serve their physical needs - in particular in the face of such brutal and wholly unethical acts as kidnapping, torture, intimidation, unlawful imprisonment and political executions and murders. Many priests and nuns who felt it was their duty to assist the poor opposed the direct orders of the Vatican. Their intervention on behalf of the many disenfranchised citizens of these totalitarian regimes saved lives, but soon many of them suffered the same vicious fates at the hands of these South American dictatorships. Here we are some thirty years on or better and we now find that the Vatican, formerly in opposition to politically assisting the lowliest of Christ's flock through any means other than prayer and the Sacraments, is actively purporting that American and European Catholics especially use every political means available, including smear tactics (i.e. John Kerry being refused communion in particular by US Bishops because he supports Gay Civil Equality, though other candidates supporting agendas which included abortion and stem cell research, also equally abhorrent to Catholics, were left unscathed of any personal attacks) to oppose the legal recognition of Gay marriage,
Here is what the Vatican and many US Catholic Bishops and American Catholic Laity, newly in conjunction with right-wing fundamentalists, are supporting: unethical signature campaigns, often deceiving people about what they're actually signing; additionally, obtaining signatures from Catholics whom are attending Mass for the sole purpose of worship; clergy encouraged to support these signature drives before or after Mass which, if they do not actually break United States IRS laws (regarding direct political persuasion of parishioners by specific verbal support of certain candidates and/or of particular pending bills from the pulpit) by tax-free religious organizations**, are certainly treading a thin line. While many Bishops will deny involvement in such activities there is little doubt that the Church's hierarchy have had little, if any, compunction to be forthcoming in regards to what are likely illegal and illicit activities. Certainly immoral. It must be noted here that the child abuse scandal of the Cathoilic Church clearly indicates that the welfare of of others can easily become lost to the need of political expediency.***
These repeated attempts to blur the lines between Church and State by the Catholic Church, now in conjunction with the Protestant far right fundamentalists, represented by such groups as Focus on the Family, is in direct opposition, I believe, to Jesus' own statement of: "give unto Ceasar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's". Let me explain what I believe that statement means. Jesus is telling us that what is important to Him is the example we give to others, not in our outward visible promotion of what is politically beneficial to our appearance as exemplary Christians, but in how we live, love and help those in need, whether physical, emotional or spiritual - quietly, with understanding and love unexpectant of reward. I believe this applies in the context of my arguments above in a very straight forward way. It is not our place as followers of Jesus to, in false fits of pious outrage, publicly attack and politically viscerate those persons whose sexuality we do not understand or with whose sexual orientation we may deeply disagree, or with those persons who may support the civil rights of Gays and Lesbians.
Jesus gives us a specific example of this with His own behavior. He stopped the stoning of a prostitute by asking those in the process of committing her execution, "whom amongst you is without sin?" I imagine He received some nasty outward looks and some odious under the breath castigation for his defense of this common woman, whom in their eyes was a monstorus and corrupt public sinner. Yet, when he wrote in the dirt at His feet, and those stalwart leaders of society about Him read His words, well, they dropped their stones and with heads hung in shame, wandered away one by one.
My point is this. I am a Gay man in a long term relationship, some twenty years, and I and my family need the leagl protections of our civil government. Despite my failures in my marriage, it is genuine as a marriage of minds, hearts and bodies. I give my love, loyalty and commitment to this marriage wholly. Growing up Roman Catholic, as a man who loves God and believed for many years in all the Church taught about homosexuality, I finally could only make this one choice: to integrate my homosexuality, a loving gift from God to me, as being a normal and primary part of my state of being. I cannot separate my sexuality from the remainder of my personage without physical, emotional and spiritual illness. My decision was made over years with long, quiet deliberation, seeking both counsel in prayer and in words with clergy and therapists; and in fighting many years of my own unhealthy self-hatred for not being the celibate the Church said I must be to live within God's Grace. Therefore, to choose in personal conscience, to stand against all I was taught to believe about my sexuality, can be said to be my personal experience of wrestling Jacob's Angel. Never has a struggle been more profound for me until now: to choose to debate in open my sexuality has caused me great personal cost, ever I wonder whose love and respect I may lose and always, I wonder, just how many Angels am I to wrestle? Why do I now fight publicly for civil equality and to live openly as a sexually active gay man, when I am asked as a Catholic to be silent when I am in disagreement with Church teachings? The Church itself is now, using modern media and political expedience, attempting to win upon the battlefield of public opinion its own civil laws - perverting its own responsibility to our souls simply to hold sway in the temporal world; and because I see the harm this is doing to my own gay family, and the many gay men and women whom are my friends and their families, I choose (as those liberation theologists perhaps did) to fight for the wholeness and well being of not just our souls but of our minds and our bodies. If you have not lived in mortal fear of your safety trying to find a home or to keep a job, if you cannot relate to being bashed and spat upon either figuratively or in reality, if you have no basis for comparison for being denied access to your spouse by a hospital employee or your partner's family when he is ill, or to be loathed by an unknown person openly on the street, well, you can still understand what it feels like and what it means to be hated completely for whom you are as made by God.
Here's how. You can step back from your prejudices for just a moment and you can imagine that you are one of those men or women who now holds a stone above me or my partner, or our daughter or one of our friends; and you can, as a Christian, remember the New Testament and Christ's actions and words when, with great love and compassion, He intervened on behalf of the prostitute. You can remember, as I do when I wrongly choose to be someone else's judge, that whatever Jesus scratched in the dirt of Judaea some two millennia ago, that our sins, mine and yours, were very likely among them.And, if for one moment you wonder whether denying civil rights to me and my family warrants a pause and reconsideration, despite some tough propoganda from the Vatican and civil governments worldwide, than I will have done what I believe may, just may, have rightly saved one precious life and soul from the so called justice of men so that it may be left to Jesus and His Father in Heaven to decide what judgement to give upon his life.
Matthew Shephard, Gwen Araujo, Pfc. Barry Winchell, Amancio Corrales, Tyra Hunter, David Curnick, Michael Sandy, Scott Amadeur, Aaron Webster, Kevin Hale, Jody Dobrowski, Danny Overstreet, David Morley, Brandon Teena, Bill Clayton and many, many others have paid or are still paying for your intolerance in America and Europe. In the Middle East Gays are hung with mock trials. In Russia and Eastern Europe Gays are murdered and violently attacked without any legal recourse whatsoever - they cannot even assemble. In Africa, Gays are routinely slaughtered when it is discovered where they assemble - and while AIDS runs rampant among all sexual populations there, but especially amongst heterosexual women and children, many African governments and the Vatican refuse AIDS drugs, condoms and/or health workers in their countries. India and Pakistan also arrest and imprison without representation - as without question does China. Human rights abuses against Gays are so rampant worldwide it boggles the mind and yet, chief amongst those whom block ANY humanitarian relief and/or legal recognition of their plight at the United Nations are two States foremost: America and the Vatican. These two States, which have prided themselves upon a rigorous human rights agenda of compassion and love, fall short first, by using their significant veto powers, to deny legal recognition of gays, much less equality. Amongst all those countries whom could save Gay lives anywhere, it is the Vatican State and the United States of America which stand alone among all Western nations**** to oppose our legal recognition. It gives me pause as to what exactly being Catholic and American actually mean anymore? When it becomes so terribly all important to make a spiritual and moral compass our only view, let me remind you once again of Scripture - Christ said, instructing the Pharisees, that saving a man's livelihood by removing his sheep from a well, was more important than keeping the Laws of the Sabbath. Can any of us, then, actually believe that God will reward us when we do far, far less for the life, much less the livelihood, of a Gay brother or Lesbian sister?
______________________________________________________________________
*The debate over the voters having the right to amend the Constitution, at State or Federal level, to restrict instead of enhance, the legal standing of a minority group is a suprising first and definitely not in the spirit of what the US Constitution has traditionally stood to protect. The American Courts, being accused of overstepping their authority by providing equal marriage to gays and lesbians, are, in fact, doing exactly the opposite: by insuring that the Constitution is intrepretted in its broadest sense to protect ALL Americans, and in particular those Gay men and women in
this instance, for whom otherwise the prejudice of the many against the few leaves the few in great legal jeopardy on many essential levels. The idea of separate but equal, now being proposed in the form of Civil Unions as an alternative to full Marriage Equality has essentially already been dismissed by the United States Supreme Court when it focused upon the civil rights of Black Americans. In other words, a "separate but equal" seat on a bus, or a "separate but equal" drinking fountain are inherently and utterly devoid of equality.**Currently there are non-denominational watch-dog groups randomly attending services at all Churches and Temples to monitor whether or not US laws regarding specific political reccomendations are being followed and upheld .
***The Catholic Church is waging a publicity battle against Gays regarding the child abuse scandal. The facts of child abuse clearly show that the majority, in the high nineties statistically, are heterosexual men. This is true within the priesthood as well as out. Child abusers are very often non-selective in the gender of their victims. The current campaign by the Catholic Church to once agian mislead the Faithful, and the world, by declaring that eliminating Gay clergy and seminarians will eliminate the sexual abuse of chidren is the proverbial 'ostrich with its head in the sand.' It will, in essence, only leave the priesthood without many fine spiritual leaders whom seek to serve Christ by serving others.
****Only the United States, Australia and the Vatican State still stand among Westsern countries represented at the United Nations in opposition to listing Gays and Lesbians among persecuted minorities and allowing legal and charitable organizations supporting Gays and Lesbians U.N. political representation.
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