Archives: General

I met Al Gore when he was VP and liked him, but learning in the tabloids about his “latest squeeze” somehow made me feel sad and old.  I remember when he — and it seems to me, the country — was a bit different.   

It’s been an interesting few days.  On the one hand, President Obama and the national Democratic Party continue to inch closer and closer to a formal embrace of gay marriage.  You can believe that Biden’s comments and Arne’s comments were off-the-cuff and unscripted, ala the New York Times’ take; or you can believe (as I do) that they are part of some very careful political choreography; but in either case, one of our two national parties, at least at the elite level,  has now all but made it official in favor of gay marriage.

Meanwhile, in the swing state of North Carolina, apparently most people didn’t get the memo.  On Amendement One, which would constitutionally ban not only gay marriage (which is already illegal  in NC) but also civil unions and domestic partnerships, the antis were working with a major fundraising advantage (apparently a 2 to 1 advantage, ht to out-of-state liberals) and the support of great numbers of  oh-so-impressive-at-least-so-they-think elites and other commentators, both in the state and outside of it (including yours truly and Elizabeth Marquardt), but today the people of North Carolina actually got to vote, and the yeses have won, apparently decisively.

I’m not sure, but my sense is that elites in most places in both parties are now essentially pro-ssm, either because they believe in it, or because they don’t want to fight it anymore.  But most grass roots voters, including super-strong majorities in many parts of the Sunbelt, clearly aren’t buying, at least yet, notwithstanding the larger trends in national pubic opinion toward greater support for recognition of gay and lesbian families and for gay rights in general, especially among the young.  Are we now headed for a long end-game, blue/red-state culture war that also sharply pits the two parties against one another?  (Sigh.)  What do you all think?

On Ric Grenell’s resignation as an aid to Romney, in today’s NYTs:

“It’s not that the campaign cared whether Ric Grenell was gay,” one Republican adviser said. “They believed this was a nonissue. But they didn’t want to confront the religious right” … As the critiques from conservatives intensified, Mr. Grenell pressed senior aides to allow him to speak about national security issues, arguing that the best way to soothe the ire over his appointment would be to let him do his job …  He [Christopher Barron] added, “It doesn’t bode well for the Romney campaign going forward if they couldn’t stand up to the most outrageous attacks about him being gay.”

If Grinell was hounded out of his job for being gay, it’s an outrage, and one about which all Americans of good will, and particuarly conservative Americans, and most particularly the leaders of what is often called “the religious right,” should be troubled and ashamed. 

I have only one question about this, and it’s purely factual.  We are a very large nation of more than 300 million souls, many of whom are deeply interested in politics, and almost of whom, it often seems to me, blog, tweet, speak, write, and comment about contemporary politics more or less constantly.   And yet, in two lengthy articles on this story in the NYTs (including today’s on p. 1), the reporters were able to identify by name exactly one American — an individual named Bryan Fischer, who works for the American Family Association — who attacked Grinnell for being gay. 

In fact, it might be some kind of record:  One one-sentence tweet by one mid-to-low level guy constitutes the entire on-the-record basis of evidence for not one, but two, major stories in the paper of record.   And from this seemingly paper-thin foundation of evidence  comes the forbidding phrases from the reporters:  ”confront the religious right” … “As the critiques from conservatives intensified” … “the most outrageous attacks about him being gay.”

The story does refers to a column in the online “Daily Caller,” but there is no direct quote (or even summary) by which to make a judgement, and no disclosure of who even wrote the article.  And the story also cites a comment at NRO by Mathew J. Franck, but in this case we see the actual quote, and Franck’s comment seems clearly to be about the politics of gay marriage, not an attack on Grinell for being gay, or an attack on Romney for hiring a gay aid. 

Again, if this happened in this way, it’s terrible.  And in general, I thought the NYTs stories were balanced and fair-minded.  But I find myself very much wanting to know the actual names and actions of those leaders of the “religious right” who “intensified” pressure on Romney last week to fire Grinell and who in the process perpetrated “outrageous attacks about him being gay.”  If and when we learn their names,  I’ll be fully satisfied about the accuracy of this story, and I’ll be troubled and ashamed, as I think most people will be.

P.S.  Some of this controversy seems to have stemmed from Grinell auditioning, via Twitter, for a job as a comedian (and I do agree his tweets are funny) combined with Bryan Fischer (whose tweets are not funny) deciding regularly to opine on the world’s condition via Twitter.  Good grief.  If you were a visting anthropologist from Mars, trying to decide if America in 2012 was essentially serious or essentially frivolous, what would you make of the fact that we now regularly tie ourselves into knots over something called tweeting?  I think it was before the advent of tweeting that Fran Leibowitz wisely observed that “a fleeting thought should rarely be detained,” but I offer it here as a nugget of wisdom for our post-conversation Age of Tweet.

Ever read one of those comments and you’re agreeing with it, agreeing with it, and then the writer yanks the rug out from under you?

So I was reading this comment from Jessica, on a NOMblog entry about Dan Savage’s speech that some Christian teenagers walked out of (more on that in a moment). A teacher implied that Savage’s comments were bullying, and Jessica wrote:

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FamilyScholars is based at the Center for Marriage and Families. We have a new website that went live today.

Text-speak for “defining the relationship.”

A lengthy college newspaper article on the problem, which cites our 2001 Hooking Up report.

For fans of MTV’s hit show “Awkward,” the acronym DTR may not be a new thing, but for those not in the loop, DTR, or “defining the relationship,” is making an appearance in relationships across college campuses. From hooking up, to dating, to forming serious relationships, how does one know when to push toward the next step?

LA JONQUERA, Spain — She had expected a job in a hotel. But when Valentina arrived here two months ago from Romania, the man who helped her get here — a man she had considered her boyfriend — made it clear that the job was on the side of the road.

He threatened to beat her and to kill her children if she did not comply. And so she stood near a roundabout recently, her hair in a greasy ponytail, charging $40 for intercourse, $27 for oral sex.

“For me, life is finished,” she said later that evening, tears running down her face. “I will never forget that I have done this.”

La Jonquera used to be a quiet border town where truckers rested and the French came looking for a deal on hand-painted pottery and leather goods. But these days, prostitution is big business here, as it is elsewhere in Spain, where it is essentially legal…

“The young used to go to discos,” said Francina Vila i Valls, Barcelona’s councilor for women and civil rights. “But now they go to brothels. It’s just another form of entertainment to them.”

From Pronoia Agape on her blog Strange Conceptions:

Post title: “Would you rather not exist?”

There are questions and statements I’m angry about and feel the need to answer in advance. Because I’ve been made my whole life to feel guilty for not feeling perfect gratitude for having such perfect parents I keep attacking myself and then needing to defend myself from myself. But these attacks are out there as well, I didn’t invent them. So I’ll start with my personal favorite: “Would you rather not exist?”

Because, apparently, not feeling just wonderful about one’s conception and parentage means you’d rather not exist.

It doesn’t make sense. I could be the product of rape, a drunken one-night-stand, incest, a silly teenage relationship that ended before I was born, you name it – and still not wish my existence away. And not be expected to love the circumstances of my conception.

But this question does reveal something else to me – I do feel and always, it seems to me, have felt, an ambivalence towards my very existence. I have felt worthless and depressed and unworthy of love and life and at times suicidal. A failure. Never good enough. Incapable of pleasing.

I am now convinced this has something to do with my parents’ ambivalence towards my existence.

I was proof of my father’s fertility in public, a source of his shame in secret.

I was my mother’s dream come true, and a source of her guilt in front of her husband for getting her genetic child when he didn’t get his, which is why she probably allowed him to appropriate me and sabotage my relationship with her from the very start, when he persuaded her she couldn’t nurse me, although she wanted to.

I was someone who constantly had to be lied to and about.

A part of who I was was unacceptable to them. And I just didn’t know which part, as I had tried so very hard to completely please them. And still there was this sadness and anger and hatred in my “father”‘s eyes. And this guilt and fear and retreat in my mother’s.

Through an Anonymous Us private email, I received a request from a woman named Katrina to help her get what she needs to find her biological father. She found out at 15 that she was donor-conceived. Today she is in her 20′s and desperately wants to find her biological father, but because she is a struggling single mom, she is having a really difficult time affording the two recommended DNA tests to begin the search process.

I had help in affording mine and am now on my way to finding my biological father. I’m forever grateful. Perhaps this is a cause one of you would like to participate in in a small way.

This is her fundraising website: http://gofundme.com/katatrinakay

She has $150 pledged and only needs $350 more.

A new story titled “donor” has been submitted from a former sperm donor on my AnonymousUs.org site. He pleads for his genetic children, and subsequently all offspring via gamete donation, to not locate their fathers.

To all donor concieved children Im sorry. I needed the money and I thought I was making your parents happy… Please dont hunt me down and break my real family, for they dont know. My real children would not forgive me. My wife, who is my life, would leave me.

Another reader, a donor-conceived person- wrote in to respond:

I am so sorry for the position you now find yourself in. But you are all of your offspring’s father no matter how they were conceived… It would be better to be honest with your family now before one of your children, who you did not agree to raise, find you through dna testing. It’s too late.

I would additionally say to all former donors… Ready or not, here we come.