As Time Goes By

News for the Week Ended July 26, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW


As Time Goes By

Here’s some sad news. Chinese physicists are telling us that time travel is impossible. I know, I know. Scientists used to think the sun revolved around the earth and leeches could cure cancer so this may not be the final word on the subject. That said, I’d prefer that modern experts leave the door open, wouldn’t you?

Of course we can’t time travel in the 21st century, but we could still receive visitors from the 31st century and maybe they could wrap us up in their time traveling cloaks and take us on a little tour. You know where I’d go? First I’d zip over to Wednesday, November 7, 2012, just to satisfy my curiosity. Then, I’d jump ahead by about a decade and spend a day watching CNBC. After that, I’d check out what the world is like in three hundred years, just to see. And finally, I’d spend a few years traveling around Europe just before the start of the first world war.

If I’m not mistaken, the 24th century Vulcan High Command also thought that time travel was impossible. And they were wrong!
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Questioning Paul Clement

On Tuesday (as I write) New York Attorney general Eric Schneiderman filed a brief in one of the high profile federal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act. This is the New York-based case of widow Edie Windsor, who lost her wife in 2009 and was promptly ordered to pay upwards of $300,000 in federal taxes on her own property. Obviously, Schneiderman’s brief took the position that DOMA is unconstitutional.

As you know, when a heterosexual spouse dies, his or her survivor does not pay taxes on the resulting “inheritance.” You’re not inheriting something out of the blue here. You’re inheriting your own house and assets. (Please don’t send me a list of all the exceptions to this rule, Mr. and Ms. Tax Knowitall. I’m just making a general statement.)

Edie Windsor married Thea Spyer in Canada in 2007, more than four decades since they met and fell in love. After Thea’s death and the unholy tax bill that followed, Windsor filed suit against the U.S. government in November of last year with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union.

This lawsuit, one of several challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act filed in federal court, was one of two cases that convinced the Obama administration to switch sides in terms of its gay rights legal policies. Had Obama decided to defend DOMA in Windsor, he would have been obliged to make a series of anti-gay arguments above and beyond the tepid rationales he had been able to use in other cases. This, the President thankfully decided, was too much to swallow.

Subsequently, the Republicans in the House of Representatives resolved to go to bat for the Defense of Marriage Act in this, and all similar cases. Speaker Boehner appointed a “bipartisan” legal advisory group, now known as BLAG. (Since BLAG includes two Democrats and three Republicans who all vote along party lines, it hardly lives up to its adjective.) BLAG, in turn, hired famed appellate attorney Paul Clement to plead their cause.

The Windsor case is now in the discovery phase where both sides are required to answer various questions and confirm undisputed facts. But while our side lived up to its obligations, Clement and company simply refused to answer our questions, dismissing all but a few of them as overly vague or suggesting that they call for a legal opinion.

Our questions include queries as simple as asking whether or not an estate tax would have been levied on Windsor had she been married to a man. We also asked a series of questions which go to the heart of whether or not gay civil rights should be subjected to heightened legal scrutiny. Questions like whether or not gays have experienced a history of discrimination or whether sexual orientation undermines one’s ability to contribute to society. We also asked the other side to explain the basis of their confidence in the Defense of Marriage Act. And we asked whether, in their view, gay parents were as competent as straight parents.

Look, I understand that it’s tough to pour unstrained homophobic prose into the black-and-white vessel of a deposition. But they’re the ones who took this case and who presumably believe that yes, being gay undermines your ability to contribute to society, and no, gay parents aren’t as good as their straight counterparts. So just say it!

On July 18, the ACLU asked the court to compel Clement to reply to the questions as required by rules of federal procedure. We’ll be watching for the next moves.
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New York State of Mind

Moving on, let’s talk about marriage in New York. We’ve seen the happy couples and felt the excitement of new same-sex marriages several times. In Massachusetts, in Connecticut, in Vermont, Iowa, California, DC, and in New Hampshire. But there was something special about last weekend’s euphoria in the Empire State.

Maybe it had something to do with the size and influence of the state of New York. Or maybe these marriages stood out against the iconic backdrop of Manhattan. Whatever the cause, this time, the stakes seemed larger, the love seemed deeper, the ground seemed, um, more broken.

Here’s something else. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen any negative media coverage of the New York marriages. True, I haven’t been watching Fox News, but still. The reporting I’ve seen has been overwhelmingly positive. None of this irritating media habit of “balancing both sides of the debate” by trotting out some rightwing fanatics to represent the people who hate gays. Indeed I’ve seen less of that phenomenon in general over the last several years.

In case you were wondering, New York has a very difficult process for putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot. In order for the state to pull a Prop 8 on their gay newlyweds, the legislature would have to vote for an amendment in two successive sessions and the electorate would have to agree. Most unlikely.

You may also be reading about a lawsuit that purports to challenge the legislative process that led to New York’s marriage equality law. Rest assured that this absurd litigation is going nowhere. We’re safe.
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Onward Christian Soldiers?

I felt a grim satisfaction when I first heard that the Norway maniac was a fundamentalist Christian. (You did too, I know.) But I just can’t go there. These mass murderers--- McVeigh, the Unabomber, the Fort Hood killer, the Columbine kids, the guy who shot Congresswoman Giffords--- they are insane, period. They might be Christian, Muslim, gay, straight, liberal or conservative. It doesn’t matter. They lack the mental and emotional clarity to form rational political views or genuinely practice a religious faith.

Put them into a straightjacket, lock them into a padded room and throw away the key. Oh, and while you’re at it, take away their pens and notebooks.

I do think that the term “terrorist” should be expanded to include these crazy individuals. Likewise, the term “lunatic nutcases” should be expanded to include 911-type terrorists, who are not simply nefarious enemies of the state but unbalanced psychopaths.

By the way, I read on Pink Paper that a heroic lesbian couple helped save as many as 40 kids stranded on Utoya Island during the shooting. Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen were camping across from the island when they heard shooting and screams. They jumped into their boat and made four trips to the embattled coast to pick up terrified victims. Sexual orientation may be irrelevant when it comes to terrorists and madmen, but I think this proves that lesbians are inherently more courageous than anyone else.

Oh, I’m just kidding. (Sort of.)
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Potpourris

Now, where shall we go? The National Center for Lesbian Rights and others have filed a lawsuit against a Minnesota school district where a “neutral” policy on gay bashing has contributed to an epidemic of gay and gay-related suicides. “Neutral” in this context, means giving a green light to any and all bullying and name-calling on campus under the theory that parents are better equipped to teach their children how to behave. Oh, and for the record, guess who represents this district in Congress? Michelle Bachmann.

We’re still not clear on whether or not the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will allow the legal challenge to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to continue. On the one hand, the law will officially leave the books on September 20. On the other hand, if the entire case is declared moot, we will lose the power of a strong federal precedent. Losing that precedent means that the servicemembers who have been discharged under Don’t Ask may lose their ability to sue the government for damages.

I also read about a court ruling in New York that dissolved a Vermont civil union. But seriously, is that the most interesting GLBT news story to come out of New York in the last few weeks? I think not.

And how would you like to be the first lesbian couple to marry in India? Sounds like a nice footnote in the history books, except for the fact that all your male relatives are now trying to kill you to save the family honor. According to the Daily Telegraph, 25-year-old Savita and her 20-year-old wife Veena are under police protection and have been moved to a safe house in the days since their July 22 wedding.
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Tea-ed Off

It’s not a gay story, but another Democratic Congressman just threw himself off Sex Pervert Falls, this time Portland, Oregon veteran David Wu who resigned after (allegedly) putting the moves on the 18-year-old daughter of a campaign contributor.

Thankfully, Congressman Wu is sticking around until the debt ceiling is raised, an elusive, albeit inevitable, prospect. I don’t know about you, but I am disgusted by the arrogant Tea Party buffoons, with their clueless self-aggrandizing pronouncements on economic matters that lie well beyond their ken.

I was just watching one woman, a freshman House member with no background in finance, who told her interviewer that her common sense feeling was that the global markets cared more about deficit reduction than whether or not we raise the debt ceiling. Hello imbecile. You. Are. Wrong. Not to mention the fact that you can raise the debt ceiling in a clean vote and tackle the deficit in future legislation. And let’s not even talk about the difference between “lowering the deficit” and “dismantling Medicare.”
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Stereotype Busted

Enough of this subject. I have my newshound stepson Nathan to thank for news of a Discovery TV show called “One Man Army,” which pits macho Marine-types against each other in manly contests of shooting things, smashing through cement walls, and other testosterone-laced feats of derring do. In the words of the Discovery website, the show, hosted by a Special Forces veteran, is a “competition series where the toughest of the tough go head to head in events that would sideline regular contestants in an instant."

When the winner of a recent episode was asked why he never joined the military, he told the host that he believed in following the rules, and the rules don’t allow gay men to serve. Woah Nelly!

In an interview with After Elton, Jeff Bloovman told the site that producers had no idea he was gay when he signed up for the show.

“Being gay is not a tactic that I used to get on the program, nor had I planned on coming out all along,” Bloovman said. “The subject was broached after I won the competition. Mykel Hawke asked me why I hadn't served, and I responded truthfully. I told him that when I wanted to join, the military didn't want gay people. Suffice to say that he was rather surprised to hear this, which was actually a very funny moment in and of itself.

“Naturally, I won't go into details about the conversation we had, as it was private. Anyway, as it turns out, my microphone hadn't been muted, and so the network heard our discussion in its entirety. A producer subsequently approached me, asking if I'd be willing to speak about my orientation on camera. I believe, if my memory serves me correctly, my response was, -‘Yeah... fuck it.’ And the rest is history.”
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