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A Thank-You Note to Kim Kardashian
Rev. Susan RussellSenior Associate for Communication and Inclusion, All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, Calif.
Dear Kim,
My mother brought me up to write my thank you notes on Crane's Informal Notes with good penmanship -- but in this case I'm hoping a blog post will suffice to extend to you my deep appreciation, profound thanks and tremendous gratitude.
I am not sure you can appreciate just what a gift it is to have the extraordinarily well-publicized news of the end of your hysterically hyped marriage come the very week our congressional leaders are set to begin debating the Respect for Marriage Act on Capitol Hill.
Seriously. As a marriage equality activist, I cannot thank you enough for your gift of the stunning example of how the gender of the couple saying "I do" clearly has absolutely nothing to do with respect for the institution of marriage. It is a gift -- I promise you -- that will keep on giving.
As we continue to work for family values that value all families and a protect-marriage movement that protects all marriages, we will have your example to add to Britney Spears' 55-hour marriage, Larry King's eight marriages and Newt Gingrich's three (just to name a few) as proof positive that marriage needs protection, all right -- but not from gay and lesbian couples who want to pledge to live together until death do them part.
We will have another great example to contrast to those couples building lives, families and a future without the 1,138 federally protected rights that you and Kris Humphries enjoyed for the 72 days you were married to each other, rights like social security, inheritance, taxation, hospital visitation and immigration status, just to name a few.
We will have another opportunity to talk about the values that make up a marriage; values that transcend the gender and sexual orientation of the couple; values like fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and love; the values that we in the Episcopal Church have held up as the standards we hold for relationships blessed by our church.
And it will give me the chance to talk about the marriages I know about that actually embody all those traditional values that were so utterly lacking in your $10-million nuptial debacle, like Alec and Jamie, gay men who have been together for 10 years, married since 2008, new parents to a 5-year-old son adopted out of the foster care system, a son they are raising in a stable, loving home, bringing him to Sunday School every Sunday, and teaching him to write thank-you notes on Crane's Informal Notes with good penmanship.
So thank you again, Kim. As we work without ceasing to secure for Alec and Jamie and their family the rights you and Kris threw away after 72 days of marriage, I hope you will know how deeply grateful we are for the "on a silver platter" gift you gave us this week as we head into Senate judiciary hearings on the Respect for Marriage Act and look ahead to the repeal of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act). Honestly, we just can't thank you enough.
Sincerely,
The Reverend Canon Susan Russell
All Saints Church, Pasadena
Courtesy Huffington Post
How does it get better? The answer isn’t so simple
How should we deal with bullies? Dan Savage has started the “It Gets Better” campaign, which tells gay kids in school to endure until graduation. Waiting passively for things to get better might not be the best answer, since gays are a unique minority. The picked-on Asian or Black or Catholic child usually has Asian or black or Catholic parents – and very likely has an Asian or black or Catholic community outside of school – but gay kids almost always have straight parents, and relatively few gay kids have any kind of gay community to draw on. We in the gay community should try to protect the next generation, and we need to grasp the complicated dynamics.
The greatest blessing that gay kids can have is the love and support of their parents. Yet parents frequently don’t understand the problem until their gay children come out. And gay kids are right to be cautious about doing so; parents throw too many out of their homes. It’s worth asking what parents hope to accomplish when they do this, since homelessness seems unlikely to make gay kids turn straight. Unthinking parental fury implies that the problem is less the child’s homosexuality than the parents’ feeling that the child reflects badly on them.
Former Czech president Vaclav Havel, a revolutionary who always ‘lived within the truth’
Havel, who presided over a free Czechoslovakia, was tireless fighter against totalitarianism and oppression
In 1985, then dissident and future Czech president Vaclav Havel, who died Sunday at the age of 75, wrote an essay entitled “Anatomy of Reticence.”
It was read at a convention of European anti-nuclear weapons activists in Amsterdam to which Havel was invited but, being under the strict observation of the Czechoslovak communist secret police, was unable to attend.
At the time, the nuclear “freeze” movement, which called upon the Western democracies to unilaterally disarm and opposed the deployment of American missiles on the continent, was at its height.
In words that surely must have pricked those who sent him an invitation, Havel sought to correct the “wholly erroneous impression that the only dangerous weapons are those surrounded by encampments of demonstrators.”
The point could not have been lost on the anti-nuclear campaigners, who were of course free to protest the policies of their governments and those of the United States. They could denounce “Ronnie Raygun” to their hearts’ content.
They could march outside meetings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and call for its dissolution. Yet Havel and his friends on the other side of the Iron Curtain were prohibited from doing so; there were no Czech or Polish or Romanian “peace camps” outside Soviet military installations.
Gray and Gay: Closeted Psychiatrist Comes Out After 40 Years
Growing up in the Iowa farm belt, Dr. Loren Olson always thought of himself as "heterosexual, with a little quirk."
He wondered why he had to work so hard at masculinity and attributed his feelings of being a "man-imposter" to the death of his father in a tractor accident when he was 3.
Olson went on to have a satisfying 18-year marriage and two daughters but, inside, he always knew something wasn't quite right. He describes "always editing my behavior and thoughts." But long after many men acknowledge their sexual orientation, he came out after the age of 40.
In his new book, "Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight," Olson, now 68 and semi-retired psychiatrist, examines the lives of closeted gay men, many of whom have sex with other men but deny they are homosexual.
Mormon 'Gay Cure' Study Used Electric Shocks Against Homosexual Feelings
John Cameron said he was a naive and devout Mormon who felt "out of sync" with the world, when he volunteered to be part of a study of "electric aversion therapy" in 1976 at Utah's Brigham Young University.
Twice a week for six months, he jolted himself with painful shocks to the penis to rid himself of his attraction to men.
"I kept trying to fight it, praying and fasting and abstaining and being the best person I could," said Cameron, now a 59-year-old playwright and head of the acting program at the University of Iowa.
"I was never actively gay, never had any encounters with men -- never had moments when I failed and actually had sex with other men," he said.
But his undercurrent of feelings put him in direct conflict with the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints (LDS) and its principles.
"As teens we were taught that homosexuality was second only to murder in the eyes of God," he said.
"I was very, very religious and the Mormon church was the center of my life," said Cameron, who had done missionary work in Guatemala and El Salvador.
The 1976 study at Brigham Young, "Effect of Visual Stimuli in Electric Aversion Therapy," was written by Max Ford McBride, then a graduate student in the psychology department.
Open Letter to Parents:
Your Kid Might Be Gay
Your child might be gay.
I'm not talking about your neighbor's kid or your cousin's kid, and I'm not even talking about my kid (although they are certainly included). I'm talking about your kid. Your kid might be gay.
You may want to protest:
"My son doesn't like show tunes. He likes football and Legos."
"My daughter doesn't play softball. She loves princess dresses and pink."
"My son has a girlfriend."
"My daughter has a boyfriend."
"My child is too young to think about those things."
Well, I am here to tell you that none of those things matter.
Sure, some gay people might fit into certain stereotypes, but not all... and probably not even the majority. Lots of gay boys like playing in the mud with sticks and listening to rock 'n' roll. Lots of lesbian girls like ballet dancing and painting their fingernails. None of those things define anyone's sexuality.
Even if your child is a toddler, his or her sexual orientation may already be firmly in place... not that they are thinking about it yet.
Carville to GOP: You have a disaster on your hands
By James Carville, CNN Contributor
Editor's note: James Carville is a Democratic strategist who serves as a political contributor for CNN, appearing frequently on CNN's "The Situation Room" as well as other programs on all CNN networks. Carville remains active in Democratic politics and is a party fundraiser.
(CNN) -- Memo to Republican Establishment:
I would send this memo to each of you individually, but I'm not sure exactly who you are. I've been told that you exist and that people like my colleagues Bill Bennett, Karl Rove, and Bill Kristol are charter members of it.
I am assuming you are out there and I assume there are more than three of you. At any rate, I thought I'd take a moment to catch up with you and make some observations on how things are going for your party.
Let me break it to you gently -- you've got a first-class disaster on your hands. I know you boys thought this thing would work out and you would be able to whip the Republicans in line to fall in behind Mitt (I assume you are all males but if there is a female in the establishment, I apologize.) Not going too good, is it fellows?
Gay Republicans: A Defense
By Taylor GarrettGay Republican strategist; cast member, 'The A-List: Dallas'
I was recently annoyed when I read a letter to gay Republicans on the Gay Voices section of The Huffington Post. The letter depicted all Republicans as having the same beliefs as Senator Rick Santorum.
The letter was as offensive to me as Rick Santorum is to "progressive activists." Obviously this activist's piece and little Ricky's statements on gays share one common characteristic: they both come off as close-minded.
Rick Santorum is blinded by his religious values. He can't see the gay cause as a civil rights issue because he is too entrenched in his religion. However, I believe that gay activists are often blinded as well by hate and intolerance of gay men and women who's opinions on political issues are different from the norm in our community.
To characterize the entire Republican Party as a mirror image of Rick Santorum is very ignorant. Like little Ricky, these liberal gay activists use inaccurate, hateful language to incite the fanatical liberal base of their party. Do you honestly think that demonizing an entire political party will help our cause? Your words only serve to scare the religious base of the Republican Party while the liberals dig their heels even deeper into the dirt.
What’s a Republican Feminist To Do?
By JAMIE STIEHM
In the winter line-up of Republican presidential candidates, a moderate pro-choice Republican woman has no choice. She might feel as if she were so, well, last century.
It is not news that the Republican Party has moved further right on social issues over the past few decades, but the 2012 campaign is a clear marker showing that the party has left legal abortion behind. All the contenders, past and present, adamantly oppose legal abortion, even the libertarian obstetrician-gynecologist, Ron Paul. Overturning legal abortion may in fact be the one thing they all agree on — so it doesn’t come up much in debates, speeches or interviews. But it is on their agenda.
The one woman in the race, Michele Bachmann, made her anti-abortion views known more strongly than most before dropping out after the Iowa caucuses. At a debate in December, she chastised Gingrich for missing a chance to “defund” Planned Parenthood when he was speaker of the House. Then Bachmann pressed Gingrich harder still for supporting House candidates who favor keeping late-term abortions legal: “He said he would support and campaign for Republicans that support the barbaric practice of ‘partial birth’ abortion,” Bachmann said. “I would never do that.”
Barbra Streisand:
Where Is the Fourth Estate When You Need Them?
It seems these days that the Republican debates have become a forum in which candidates can assert just about anything. With the right amount of aggression, they are able to avoid answering tough questions by bullying the moderator into submission (i.e. not asking strong follow up questions in order to correct the record). We know there is a certain level of theatrics in politics. The electorate assumes that candidates will embellish, evade, and even sidestep at times when asked tough questions. But the line should be drawn when candidates rewrite history in order to protect or enhance their own self-image, which isn't based on the truth.
Americans are busy, working hard to support and provide for their families. They don't have time to parcel out fact from fiction. They depend on the Fourth Estate to guide them and to hold individuals running for office, especially the highest office in our country, accountable.
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Marlo Thomas
Women of the World: Power and Leadership
For many of us, Presidents Day means an extra day off work and the chance to hit up the holiday sales. But, as we recall from our school days, it's actually more than that. What originally began as a day to honor the birth of George Washington has evolved into a grand celebration of the office itself -- an office that has, so far, only been occupied by men.
Not that American women haven't taken a shot at it. A handful have made memorable runs for the Presidency -- from Victoria Woodhull and Belva Ann Lockwood in the nineteenth century, to Shirley Chisholm and Hillary Clinton in our lifetime. (Gracie Allen even did a brief run in 1940, under the banner of the Surprise Party!)
But America has never leapt over that final gender barrier by electing a woman to our highest office -- and the interesting thing is, so many countries around the world have achieved that equality.
Ellen DeGeneres
Independent Woman
I love watching movies. It involves some of my favorite activities -- laughing, sitting and braiding the hair of the person in front of me. I try to see as many movies as I can during the year, but somehow, every time the Oscar nominations come out, there are still some nominated movies I haven't seen.
Raise your hand if you looked at the Oscar nominations and there was a movie you never heard of. Never mind, I'm sorry. You can put your hand down. I forgot I was typing.
One of my favorite movies of the year was Beginners, starring Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer. The truth is I almost didn't see it. By the time someone recommended it, it was already on DVD. Thankfully, I'm a huge celebrity, so I was able to have them perform it live in my living room.
If you haven't seen it, I hope you will. Ewan McGregor gives a beautiful and heartfelt performance you don't want to miss, even if he did knock over one of my floor lamps.
