John Corvino

Tag: everyday life

  • The New York Ruling, Take 2: …So Make Lemonade

    First published in Between the Lines on Thursday July 13, 2006.

    By now you’ve probably heard about the New York Court of Appeals’ deciding that their state constitution does not require equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. Problem is, much of what you’ve heard is misleading.

    Yes, the Court declared that “The New York Constitution does not compel recognition of marriages between members of the same sex.” But no, they did not declare such marriages unconstitutional, nor did they “vote to prohibit” such marriages. Rather, they decided that “Whether such marriages should be recognized is a question to be addressed by the Legislature.” Indeed, they explicitly encouraged the legislature to take up the issue.

    Courts are not supposed to decide whether policies are good; they’re supposed to decide whether policies pass constitutional muster. What the Court did here was to ask whether the current policy of limiting marriage to heterosexuals violates the Due Process or Equal Protection clauses of the New York State Constitution.

    To answer this question, the Court considered whether New York could have a “rational basis” for restricting marriage to heterosexuals. The Court concluded that it could, and it thus ruled that the restriction is constitutional–which again, is not the same as ruling that it’s smart or sensible.

    The rational-basis test is easily misunderstood. It does not ask whether a law is rational in the sense of being wise or compelling. It simply asks whether some non-arbitrary reason can be offered to justify it, which is a pretty easy hurdle to clear. And the Court suggests an interesting one on the Legislature’s behalf:

    [T]he Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. Heterosexual intercourse has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not. Despite the advances of science, it remains true that the vast majority of children are born as a result of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman, and the Legislature could find that this willcontinue to be true. The Legislature could also find that such relationships are all too often casual or hitemporary. It could find that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. It thus could choose to offer an inducement–in the form of marriage and its attendant benefits–to opposite-sex couples who make a solemn, long-term commitment to each other.

    Generally speaking, heterosexuals but not homosexuals say “Whoops, we’re pregnant.” Essentially, the Court is saying that that fact is a potential justification for restricting marriage to heterosexual couples.

    As I said, a justification doesn’t have to be a good one to pass the rational-basis test. Nonetheless, as arguments against same-sex marriage go, this one is better than most. Indeed, if I were back on my high school debate team and forced to argue the “con” side in a same-sex marriage debate, I’m not sure I could do much better.

    Which is sad, because the argument is pretty poor. It falsely presupposes that the primary function of marriage is to protect children accidentally produced by heterosexual sex. What an impoverished view of that great institution.

    Moreover, the argument ignores the difference between having a reason to endorse heterosexual marriage and having a reason to prohibit gay marriage. One can support marriage for heterosexuals (I do) without thinking that it should be restricted to them. One might just as well argue that because there’s a reason for giving a bus discount to the elderly, there must be a reason for denying one to minors, or vice-versa.

    But it’s important to keep in mind that the Court is not endorsing the argument quoted above. Notice its frequent use of the subjunctive (“the legislature could decide,” “the legislature could find”). Not “did decide.” Not “should decide.” Essentially, the Court is throwing this hot potato back in the legislature’s court.

    And therein lies the silver lining. In an election year, when right-wingers eagerly point to “activist judges” trying to “redefine marriage” and then use that threat to rally voters to pass reactionary amendments, the New York Court has declined to become their next poster child. Whether this was the correct decision legally is a subject for another day. But politically, it makes a point: when judges in “liberal New York” refuse to mandate same-sex marriage, right-wingers in places like Virginia and South Dakota are deprived of a key scare tactic.

    Meanwhile, New Yorkers who advocate marriage equality can urge their legislature to do the job the court has ceded to it. Note that when the California legislature tried to enact marriage equality, the governor vetoed it, stating that it was a matter for the courts. Here the governor can’t do that (at least not with a straight face). While George Pataki, New York’s outgoing Republican governor, has promised to veto any such legislation, Democratic candidate Eliot Spitzer supports marriage equality.

    All of which is to say: in the spirit of summer, when the Court hands you lemons, make some lemonade.

  • Grandma Rose’s Family Values

    First published in Between the Lines, May 4, 2006

    My Grandma Rose stood at just under 5 feet–in recent years, even less than that, as osteoporosis took its toll on her small frame. But she will always be a towering figure in my mind.

    She was born on May 8, 1921, in the town of Licodia Eubea, in the Sicilian province of Catania. A few years later her father immigrated to the United States, and he would not see her again until she was twelve, when he finally sent for her and the rest of the family. I often wonder what it must have been like for her, to meet this virtual stranger who was her father. He was a harsh man, even violent, but she loved him nevertheless.

    Her family embodied the “American dream,” coming to the new world, trying to take advantage of a land of opportunity. When she was nineteen her parents introduced her to my grandfather, Joseph, in what today would be called an arranged marriage. Joseph was born in the same town as Rose, and like her he immigrated as a child. Eventually he became a successful carpenter. Their marriage lasted for sixty-five years, “till death do us part” indeed.

    Together Rose and Joseph had two children, my Uncle Tom and my mother Annette. (Their real names: Gaitano and Antoinette. Don’t ask me how “Gaitano” became “Tom”: somehow it makes sense to our Italian-American ears.) But they also presided over a large extended family. While the terms “matriarch” and “patriarch” seem old-fashioned, my grandparents epitomized the best aspects of those roles: commitment, dependability, generosity, dignity.

    To them, family was paramount. It shaped their identity, it guided their choices, it gave them their purpose. The result was that those of us who were part of their family had a strong sense of place: we belonged and we mattered. “Nobody’s better than you,” my grandmother would tell us grandchildren, and when she said it, she meant it, and we felt it. She didn’t mean that other people were bad–indeed, despite her provincial background, she had a deep respect for other cultures–she meant that we were good. And in that way she taught us not only to respect, but also to be respected, and to carry ourselves with dignity.

    That strong sense of family could be comforting–indeed, invaluably so–but it could also be intimidating. To screw up was not merely to disgrace yourself, it was to disgrace the Family. Capital F. Whenever my grandmother would talk about her family, she would punctuate her sentences with “Right or wrong?” You knew that it wasn’t really a multiple-choice question.

    It was against that background that, when I was about 25 years old, I decided to come out to my grandparents. I had been building a wall between us for years, trying to hide an important aspect of myself, and that felt wrong. (I can hear my grandmother now saying, “If you don’t trust your family, who can you trust? You gotta trust your family. Right or wrong?”)

    So I went to their house and…I couldn’t do it. I hemmed and hawed and skated around the issue and finally went home. Discouraged but not deterred, I went back the next day. Finally I looked at my grandmother (my conversations were always primarily with her; my grandfather taking a largely silent but crucial background role) and I said, trembling, “Grandma, I’m gay.”

    “Yes, we know,” she replied, with a loving look that I’ll never forget. “You’re our grandson, and we love you, and we’re proud of you.” Then she hit my taciturn grandfather in the arm and said, “Joe, say something,” and he repeated the same sentiment. And that was that.

    When people ask me how my family took my coming out, I often quip that they handled it the way Italian-Americans handle anything perceived to be a crisis: we yell, we scream, we cry–and then we all sit down and eat. At the end of the day, we’re family. In the case of my grandparents, there was no yelling, screaming and crying. There was just the powerful sense that I was family, and that was all that mattered. That sense eventually extended to my partner, whom they immediately embraced as one of their own.

    Grandma Rose died peacefully on April 23, 2006. I was at her side, along with my parents, my uncle, my grandfather, and some cousins.

    In a world of so-called “culture wars,” there are those who talk about family values and there are those who live them. Grandma Rose lived them, and for that, I will forever be grateful. Rest in peace, Grandma.

  • The Brokeback Buzz

    First published in Between the Lines on December 22, 2005.

    It was the kind of film that changes lives. And it changed mine—seeing a true gay love story, playing in major theaters, with a passionate performance by a talented young actor in a role quite different from anything he had tackled before.

    I’m talking, of course, about Torch Song Trilogy, which remains my favorite gay film despite my having seen Brokeback Mountain this past weekend. Don’t get me wrong: Brokeback was a fine film, well deserving of the accolades piling up around it. You should see it; you should tell your friends to see it; you should hope that most of America sees it. It’s a great film in terms of both its artistic quality and its political value (although both can be overstated).

    But I’ve grown tired of people talking about Brokeback as if it’s the first film ever to broach the subject of men loving men, or as if such love is a recent discovery. The 1988 film Torch Song Trilogy may be less palatable to the masses (the lead character, played by Harvey Fierstein, is a drag queen), but the love between Arnold (Fierstein) and Alan (Matthew Broderick) is palpable and moving. And unlike Brokeback, Torch Song’s lead character insists on being true to himself, despite the consequences. Rent it if you haven’t seen it.

    The buzz surrounding Brokeback has reminded me frequently of Torch Song, not because Torch Song generated a similar buzz (it didn’t) but because it did for me what Brokeback is allegedly doing for audiences: send a powerful message that same-sex love is real and worthy of respect. The scenes in Torch Song where Arnold defends himself before his mother (Anne Bancroft) made my heart race.

    I recall one of those scenes being replayed on a Donohue show (remember him?) in the late 80’s. The topic of the show was “coming out,” and the studio audience was largely negative. Then Donohue played the clip where Arnold forcefully tells his mother,

    There’s one more thing you better understand. I have taught myself to sew, cook, fix plumbing. I can even pat myself on the back when necessary. So I don’t have to ask anyone for anything. There’s nothing I need from anyone except for love and respect. Anyone who can’t give me those two things has no place in my life.

    The tone of the audience suddenly changed. It was difficult for them to remain hostile in the face of such sentiment. Art can move people: Torch Song did, and Brokeback will. Indeed, it already has. I was particularly struck by a review of the film by Harry Forbes in the Catholic News Service. While Forbes mentions the Catholic Church’s condemnation of homosexual sex, the mention seems ambivalent, and it is overshadowed by Forbes’s sympathetic reaction to the love story:

    Looked at from the point of view of the need for love which everyone feels but few people can articulate, the plight of these guys is easy to understand while their way of dealing with it is likely to surprise and shock an audience.

    While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true.

    This is coming from the director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops—the same church that recently banned gays from the seminary. A review in the protestant Christianity Today was similarly sympathetic.

    There’s no getting around it: romantic love is powerful, and beautiful, and some people experience it with persons of the same sex.

    So can we expect a wave of pro-gay-marriage initiatives to sweep the country? Not a chance, for several reasons.

    First, because the people who most need to watch this film won’t. The ranch hands in Wyoming that it portrays are far different from the NPR listeners who are likely to go see it.

    Second, because people can read different messages into this film. Some will think that the Jack and Ennis’s love should be supported; others, that they should be pitied.

    Third, and perhaps most important, because people are lazy, and they have short memories. I bet plenty of the people who voted for anti-gay initiatives in the last year saw Philadelphia in 1993 and wept when Antonio Banderas challenged the hospital officials who wanted him to leave Tom Hanks’s bedside: “Are you telling me I am not family?” Where are these audience members now?

    The lesson is that we must keep telling our stories, not just in the occasional movie but in our day-to-day lives.

  • In Defense of Pleasure

    First published September 15, 2005, in Between the Lines.

    One of the delights of being a philosophy professor is that I occasionally come across charming texts in the history of ethics. Here’s Mary Warnock in her 1960 classic Ethics Since 1900:

    Many people…feel strongly that some kinds of behavior, though utterly harmless to other people, should nevertheless be avoided for their own sakes, and that this is a moral matter. They may feel, for instance, that to indulge in some kinds of pleasurable activities, such as reading novels in the mornings, is wrong…because they feel that to indulge in them would be to start some kind of downward trend, some degeneration which is their duty to avoid.

    Reading novels in the morning?

    Perhaps reading novels in the morning is the 1960 equivalent of watching reruns of “The Surreal Life.” But I’m sure that even Mrs. Warnock (as the dust-jacket blurb quaintly calls her) could think of better examples of pleasurable activities that, though harmless to others, supposedly lead to degeneration.

    I came across Warnock’s text shortly after returning from Last Splash, an annual gay party in Austin, Texas. Last Splash, which takes place on Lake Travis at Hippie Hollow, Texas’s only clothing-optional public park, has recently evolved into a long weekend of circuit-party events in addition to the activities at the lake. There’s nudity. There’s alcohol and other drugs. There’s flirting and kissing and groping and all kinds of so-called “naughty” behavior. In short, it’s the kind of event that makes Pat Robertson’s skin crawl.

    And I love it.

    Let me backpedal for just a second before proceeding full speed ahead (with a column that’s bound to be quoted out of context anyway). There are aspects of Splash weekend that I find deeply troubling—for example, the growing use of crystal meth and other hard drugs—and I strongly oppose them. You should too. But these activities need not be—and for the majority of us, are not—what the weekend is all about.

    What the weekend IS about varies from person to person, but the common thread is pleasure—and in particular, physical pleasure. Why read novels in the morning when you can swim naked in the refreshing waters of Hippie Hollow, or sunbathe on the rocky shoreline, or kiss a beautiful stranger on a crowded dance floor? (Or take him back to your room, where you can do more than just kiss?)

    Some readers will be surprised to find me—“the Gay Moralist”—seeming to advocate hedonism. Isn’t that precisely the sort of self-indulgent posture that our critics love falsely to charge us with?

    Yes, it is. Which is why I aim frequently to prove that gays are as responsible, altruistic, and moral as anyone else. But let’s not make the mistake of thinking that, because we are not interested only in pleasure (as hedonists are), it follows that we aren’t interested in pleasure at all.

    That fallacy—call it the “prude’s fallacy”—is by no means new. Hedonists and their opponents have been around at least since Plato. I for one think the hedonists are wrong: there are goods besides pleasure. But from the fact that pleasure isn’t the only good, it does not follow that pleasure isn’t good at all, as the prude falsely believes.

    To deny pleasure’s value is just silly. And to deny that sex is sometimes mostly about pleasure—and nonetheless valuable for that fact—is even sillier. Straight people know this, and are generally quite comfortable with it, the right-wing’s protestations notwithstanding.

    It is easy to understand why gay-rights advocates feel defensive on this point. Responding to myths about our being obsessed with sex, we sometimes appear to disclaim any interest in it at all. Eager to show that we understand its deep, serious, transformational aspects, we downplay its raw, playful, recreational side. Fighting for marriage rights, we sweep “casual sex” under the carpet. And these defense mechanisms are a shame, for they obscure the simple joy of physical intimacy.

    This is not to say that the pleasures of sex are purely physical (far from it) or that sex is the only or the most important kind of physical pleasure. Gourmet food, fine wine, a vigorous massage, lavender-scented candles, a beautiful sunset…pick your favorite(s). They all have a place in a well-rounded life.

    Nor do I deny that pleasure can be taken too far, can get in the way of other goods, can be dangerous when out of balance. That’s true of most good things, although pleasure is especially tempting in this regard. Still, part of encouraging people to “play safe” is encouraging them to “play.” All of us need to do that sometimes.

    And so when I see thousands of people descend upon Austin to celebrate themselves and their bodies and their affection (even lust) for one another, I haven’t the least inclination to wag my finger. Perhaps I would if I thought that there was nothing more to their lives than this—but that too would be a fallacy. It’s possible to read novels on vacation and still hit the philosophy books with full force later on.

  • Luther Vandross’s Glass Closet

    First published July 7, 2005, in Between the Lines.

    Luther Vandross was the avatar of romance. Other people’s.

    The famed R&B singer, who died last week at 54, zealously declined to discuss his personal life, telling reporters that it was “none of your damn business.” Indeed, when his biographer Craig Seymour tried repeatedly to broach the subject of his sexuality, the singer told him, “You’re trying to zero in on something that you are never ever gonna get….Look at you, just circling the airport. You ain’t never gonna land.”

    Well, I’m just going to come out and say it. Vandross was gay.

    Not that I’ve ever slept with him, or even know him personally. But his gayness was as much an open secret as Liberace’s or Peter Allen’s. And like those two similarly flamboyant and energetic performers, he was a master of hiding in plain sight, neither confirming nor denying what anyone with even moderately well-tuned gaydar knew anyway.

    So Seymour’s biography, Luther: The Life and Longing of Luther Vandross, dances around the question it can’t quite ignore. As reviewer J.S. Hall described the book:

    Any motions of love and/or romance are followed by the observation that Vandross has never revealed any of his beloveds’ names or gender. And while they are not traits exclusive to gay men, Vandross’s near-total immersion into his work, his fluctuating weight, his penchant for perfectionism (and his bitchiness when things don’t live up to his expectations), his love of flashy stage clothes and the color pink, his flare for interior design and his ownership and display of a homoerotic David Hockney painting, all strongly suggest someone who’s focused far too much time, energy and effort into submerging an aspect of himself that he doesn’t wish to deal with.

    Or at least, that he didn’t wish to deal with publicly and directly. Instead, Vandross dropped hints, as when he retained the masculine pronouns in his 1994 recording of Roberta Flack’s hit “Killing Me Softly”: “I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd. I felt he’d found my letters and read each one out loud.”

    Such subtlety — some would say “evasiveness” — was consistent with Vandross’s general approach: “I’m more into poetry and metaphor, and I would much rather imply something rather than to blatantly state it,” he once told a reporter. “You blatantly state stuff sometimes when you can’t think of a poetic way to say it.”

    True enough. But you also use poetry and metaphor sometimes when you’re afraid or embarrassed to state things plainly. One can now only wonder at the full explanation for Vandross’s legendary non-answers.

    Perhaps one cannot blame the obituary-writers for being as elusive as Vandross on the subject of his sexuality. Most do not mention it at all, and the few that mention it do so only obliquely. The following, from the AP story, is typical: “The lifelong bachelor never had any children, but doted on his nieces and nephews. The entertainer said his busy lifestyle made marriage difficult; besides, it wasn’t what he wanted.”

    Well, duh — unless “marriage” is read to include same-sex marriage. But most readers won’t make that connection, and Vandross would presumably be just fine with that.

    Some readers will no doubt think I’m being inappropriate. Perhaps you agree with Vandross that it’s none of our damn business, and perhaps it isn’t. But you can’t fault me for pointing out that a celebrity who made a career out of singing about romance adopted a rigorous “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding his own. Even if his sexuality is none of our damn business, the irony of his public posture certainly is.

    Or perhaps you’ll insist that coming out is a personal choice. Of course it is. But it doesn’t follow that we shouldn’t encourage people to make that choice, or that if they don’t we must be complicit in whatever public posture they assume, including those that treat gayness as a dirty little secret.

    And this, ultimately, is what bothers me about hide-in-plain-sight gays: their implication that same-sex love is something unmentionable. As the philosopher Richard Mohr puts it:

    People need to let the gayness of individuals come up where it is relevant, rather than going along with the shaming social convention of the closet, the demand that every gay person is bound to keep every other gay person’s secret secret. For the closet is the site where anti-gay loathing and gay self-loathing mutually reinforce each other. Even people who are out of the closet demean themselves when they maintain other people’s closets. For the closet’s secret is a dirty little secret that degrades all people.

    Luther Vandross was often rightly praised for the honesty of his music. If only he had taken that honesty one step further.

  • Civil Discourse on Civil Unions

    First published January 20, 2005, in Between the Lines

    Some of the nastiest mail I receive is not from right-wing homophobes, or even bitter ex-boyfriends, but from members of our own community who think I’m not progressive enough. For example, shortly after I argued in Second Thoughts on Civil Unions that we ought to fight for civil unions now and marriage later, I received an e-mail message with the following subject-line:

    “Why are you such an Uncle Tom faggot?”

    There was no text to the message, and no signature — just the subject-line. With some ambivalence, I wrote back:

    “I received a message from you with the subject-line ‘Why are you such an Uncle Tom faggot?’ but no text. Was there supposed to be text, or did the question in the subject-line exhaust what you have to say on the issue?”

    I didn’t expect a response: I just wanted to remind the writer that there was a person receiving his e-mail on the other end of cyberspace. Not that it did much good: a few weeks later I received a message with a similar subject-line and a long tirade accusing me, in the most obnoxious terms possible, of selling out our rights.

    That kind of attack is unfortunate for a number of reasons, not least of which that it distracts us from the productive dialogue we should be having instead. I’m the first to admit that I could be wrong in the strategy I proposed for securing equal marriage rights. But if you’re going to attack that strategy, please try first to understand it. In brief, I argued that:

    1. Properly crafted civil-unions legislation could grant all of the legal incidents of marriage (albeit under a different name). I am not talking about “watered-down” civil unions here; I’m talking about the full legal enchilada.

    2. The difference between such unions and marriage, since it is not a difference in legal incidents, appears to be a difference in level of social endorsement carried by the “m-word.”

    3. Our best strategy (in most states) for securing the tremendously important legal incidents is to fight for them under the name “civil unions.”

    4. Our best strategy for securing the social endorsement (i.e., marriage under the name “marriage”) is first to secure the legal incidents. Then people will look at our civil unions, realize that they are virtually indistinguishable from marriages, start calling them marriages, and gradually forget why they objected to doing so before. That’s what happened in Scandinavia, and it’s happening elsewhere in Europe.

    5. Attempts to force the social endorsement too quickly (by demanding the name “marriage” above and beyond the legal incidents) may backfire, resulting in state constitutional bans not only on gay marriage but also on civil unions. The upshot would be to delay both the legal incidents and the social endorsement.

    Any of the above points could be debated by reasonable people, but (4) and (5), especially, merit further discussion, including careful analysis of countries where similar strategies have been attempted. But rather than providing such analysis, my critics accuse me of endorsing a “separate but equal” line akin to that espoused by racial segregationists. Why should we settle for the back of the bus?

    The segregationist analogy is a poor one. First, while it is certainly objectionable that we should ride on the back of the bus, we are barely even at the bus stop yet, much less on the bus. Let us not forget that in most places in this country, our relationships have no legal recognition whatsoever.

    Second, and more important, I have argued that we should fight for identical legal incidents to those of marriage. This is not the back of the bus or a different bus: it’s the same bus with a different name.

    Is that name difference silly? Yes, it’s silly — maybe even insulting. But when health benefits are denied to committed same-sex couples, when a person can’t get bereavement leave upon the death of her same-sex partner; when loving couples are split apart because one partner is a foreigner and can’t get citizenship, that’s far worse than silly or insulting — it’s downright cruel. I contend that we have a fighting chance at ending such cruelty, and that once we do so we’ll have an even better chance at ending the silly name-difference (again, see Scandinavia).

    I could be wrong, but calling me nasty names doesn’t show why I’m wrong. More to the point, it doesn’t get us any closer to the front of the bus.

  • It Was a Good Bad Year

    First published January 6, 2005, in Between the Lines.

    New Year’s is a time for looking at where we’ve been and where we’re going. It’s a time for resolutions, such as “I resolve not to eat so much and spend so much during next year’s holiday season.” (Yeah, sure.)

    As a college professor, I tend to organize my life in terms of the academic calendar, not the regular calendar. Years begin in September and end in May, and June through August is “free time,” sort of. Actually, it bugs me when people tell me I have summers “off”: just because I’m not teaching doesn’t mean I’m not working, okay? Or do you think my articles and columns write themselves?

    (Memo to self: resolve to be less defensive in 2005.)

    So when New Year’s rolls around, the “year” I look back on has really been only four months long. And how has the last four months been?

    Pretty lousy, actually.

    Before reacting, do me a favor. Please do not tell me “Yes, I understand. That horrible election…”

    I agree that the election was upsetting. But to give you some perspective, let me tell you about my life over the last few months:

    Early September: I am harassed by a large, armed Texas state trooper who after seeing me kiss another guy tells me that “homosexual conduct is against the law.” Although I cite Lawrence v. Texas and point out that Texas state law never banned mere kissing, he maintains his position. I relent, he lets me go, and the following week I file a formal complaint. (More on that later.)

    Late September: A close friend commits suicide. 32 years old, bright, attractive, talented. Now dead. Turns out that, among various other problems, he had become involved with crystal meth.

    Early October: My grandmother dies. Certainly more expected than my friend’s death, but still a terrible blow. She was one of the first people I came out to, and she’s always been one of my great supporters. Grandma Tess, rest in peace.

    Late October: One week after burying his mother, my father is fired from his job. He and my mother decide to leave New York and retire to Texas, close to my sister, where the cost of living is better. (Be sure to say hi to my favorite trooper!). I am briefly reminded that Dad, my hero, is not invincible.

    Early November: the election. Yes, it’s bad. But by comparison with other things happening in my life, it seems like a minor blip.

    Late November: my sister undergoes surgery. She’s fine, but Mom and Dad — who have had their share of challenges in the past month — are further drained emotionally.

    Early December: I discover that I need a new roof on my house — soon. A very costly new roof. (Better not ask Dad for help.)

    So, how am I doing?

    Just fine, thank you.

    Abraham Lincoln once said that most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. He was right.

    This is not to say that we don’t face challenges that threaten our well being. But if we constantly dwell on the challenges, and never look at the “bright side,” we’re guaranteed to be miserable.

    Admittedly, there is no “bright side” to a friend’s suicide. But I am thankful for my own health and well being. I’m thankful, too, that my sister is recovering well.

    I’m thankful for 35 years of knowing a wonderful grandmother. Some people never know their grandparents. I knew all four (two still living) as well as five of my eight great-grandparents.

    I’m thankful that my parents, who worked hard for many years, are able to retire comfortably. I’m thankful that, although I’ll have to tighten my belt in 2005, somehow I’m managing to pay for my new roof.

    I’m thankful that I live in a country that holds regular elections. I’m thankful that my partner and I have a wonderful life together, even without recognition from the shortsighted Michigan voters who supported Proposal 2. I’m thankful we have the freedoms that we do.

    And I’m thankful that the ignorant trooper who harassed me is being put on six months probation, was given a formal written reprimand, and will be required to take additional classes on Texas state law. Sometimes the system does work.
    2004 wasn’t so bad after all. Resolve to be happy in 2005.

  • Similar Unions

    First published in “Between the lines” in December of 2004.

    On December 17 my current state of residence (Michigan) will amend its constitution to declare that “the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.”

    Same-sex marriage is already against the law in Michigan, so that prohibition is nothing new. What is new is the prohibition of any “similar union for any purpose.”

    But what, exactly, does that mean? Our opponents have long argued that our unions aren’t really “similar” to heterosexual marriage at all. Frankly, I’m tempted to agree with them: ours are much better, thank you very much.

    Still, when I take an unbiased view, I have to acknowledge SOME similarities.

    In themselves, such similarities cannot be “unconstitutional”: the constitution shapes laws and policies, not personal behaviors. Nevertheless, in a spirit of constitutional deference, I have decided to reduce the ways in which my relationship with my partner Mark constitutes a “similar union” to marriage. One can’t be too careful these days, after all.

    So Mark will no longer be getting a card on our anniversary, since anniversary cards treat our relationship as a similar union for some purpose. No more anniversary cakes, either — although those are pretty high in carbs, so we’re probably better off.

    Mark and I live together. Sharing a household is similar to marriage for some purpose — indeed, for many purposes.

    Mark does most of the gardening at our household. When I help him rake leaves, we look a lot like our heterosexual married neighbors (only cuter and better dressed). Similar for some purpose. (I hate raking leaves anyway, so this is probably good.)

    I do most of the cooking in our relationship, and when Mark tries to help, I usually shoo him away from the kitchen. Again, similar to marriage. I’d still like him to clean the dishes, though. Maybe there’s a constitutional loophole.

    Mark does most of the driving when we’re together. (Now you know why my nickname is “Miss Daisy.” It has nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with those ill-advised cutoff shorts I used to wear as a teenager.) I suppose now we’ll take separate cars. Screw the environment — we’ve got to respect the constitution!

    We have health insurance through our respective employers, so that’s not an issue. If one of us were to die, bereavement leave might be a problem, but at thirtysomething I prefer not to think about such things.

    But Mark is the first person I call when something bad happens, like when my grandmother died last month. Mark actually flew home to New York with me and put up with my loud Italian family for four days. By talking Mark’s ear off, feeding him constantly, and embracing him as one of their own, my family was treating our union as similar to marriage. In New York we can get away with it, but in Michigan? No more.

    No more code-phrases at parties. From now on, when I say to Mark, “My, these cocktail franks are DELICIOUS,” it’s going to mean that the cocktail franks are delicious, not “These people bore me to tears; can we please leave — now!”

    (Note to my friends: when we used that phrase at YOUR house, it’s because the cocktail franks were delicious. Really.)

    Those cute address labels with both our names on them? Gone. “For any purpose” means for ANY purpose, postal convenience included. So too with those tacky “His & His” hand towels someone gave us for our first anniversary.

    No more shared expenses, shared chores, shared party-hosting, shared party-attending. No more inviting my parents to visit us for Thanksgiving. No more sending them — or anyone — a card signed “Love, John & Mark.” I repeat: “similar union for any purpose” means what it says. I take the constitution seriously.

    No more renting movies together — or for that matter, renting movies myself, since I can’t work the darn DVD player without Mark. Our “similar union” used to compensate for my technophobia, but no more.

    No more blaming Mark for not being able to read my mind. “Yes, I know I didn’t SAY I wanted to stop for lunch, but you KNOW I get cranky when I get hungry.”

    No more bickering, followed by the silent treatment, then an apology — then silly, delightful affection. That’s all similar to marriage. No more quiet moments when words are unnecessary because, sometimes, it really does seem like we can read each other’s minds.

    No more morning breath, farting under the covers, or asking Mark to help me shave my back hair. WAY too similar to marriage.

    However, I’m guessing we’re going to get to have LOTS more sex. There have got to be some perks to this amendment.

  • The Death of the Advocate

    First published in “Between the Lines” in March of 2003

    Once upon a time there was a great magazine called the Advocate. Founded in 1967, the Advocate was for many years a groundbreaking gay and lesbian newsmagazine. At a time when The New York Times would not even print the word “gay,” the Advocate kept our community — and many straight people as well-informed about significant events affecting gay and lesbian lives.

    No, the Advocate has not gone out of business. But some days I wish it would.

    Take the cover of the March 4 issue, which features a veiled figure in a judicial robe over the provocative question, “Is There A Gay Man on the U.S. Supreme Court?”

    Are you ready for the answer? Are you sure? Okay, here it is:

    Probably not.

    The teaser on the cover refers to Justice Souter, the Court’s only bachelor. When Souter was appointed, there were rumors that he might be gay. But the rumors were never substantiated (indeed, they were pretty well refuted), and the story died.

    Why resurrect the issue now? Well, the Supreme Court will soon decide a case that could reverse Bowers v. Hardwick and declare sodomy laws unconstitutional. (Fingers crossed.) Having a gay justice on the court would certainly make things interesting.

    But we don’t have a gay justice on the court — at least, not one for whom there’s any convincing evidence of his gayness.

    The Advocate concedes this point. But they decided a provocative cover was more important than a non-misleading one. (Kind of like “The Death of the Advocate” as the title for a story about a magazine that isn’t folding.)

    This cover choice would not have annoyed me so much were it not for two things:

    First, we need Souter’s vote. Which means that this is probably not the best time to suggest, on the cover of a national magazine, that he’s a homo — even if you decide to clear things up in the article.

    Fortunately, despite being dogged by silly rumors, Souter has been a reliable friend of the gay community since his appointment by Bush the Elder. Even his majority opinion in Hurley, where he wrote for a unanimous Court upholding the right of Boston St. Patrick Day parade organizers to exclude a gay group, was groundbreaking in the respect it showed to gay and lesbian concerns.

    (Are you surprised, by the way, that a gay-friendly justice is a Bush Sr. appointee? Strange things do happen. Consider the fact that the author of the magnificent dissent in Bowers, the late Justice Blackmun, was appointed by Nixon, and that Justice Stevens, arguably the most liberal current member of the Court, was appointed by Ford. By contrast, the author of the extremely homophobic majority opinion in Bowers, the late Justice White, was a Kennedy appointee. Rest assured, however, that Bush the Younger won’t repeat his father’s “mistake” by appointing another relatively liberal justice, should he have the chance.)

    But the Advocate cover is annoying for a second, more enduring reason. The March 4 cover is just another installment in the Advocate’s unmistakable decline into tabloid journalism. The Advocate was once a great, groundbreaking magazine. Now, it reads more like a gay version of People — with occasional innuendo reminiscent of the Enquirer.

    And this decline is not merely embarrassing, it’s boring. It seems that every other cover misleadingly suggests that someone is gay. Ben Affleck’s Gay Secret! (The secret? He has gay fans.) Matt Damon’s Relationship with Ben! (They’re friends and they co-wrote a screenplay.) Romeo (the male lead in the ballet) is gay!

    Actually, that last one’s true. A gay ballet dancer. Shocking, groundbreaking news!

    Let me be clear about something: I understand that the Advocate needs readership in order to make money. I also understand that sex sells. And I’m not generally prudish about such things. I think people who heavily protest Queer As Folk because it’s bad for our community’s reputation are just being silly.

    But there’s a key difference: Queer As Folk explicitly (and, in my view, needlessly) disclaims any intention to represent the entire gay community. By contrast, the Advocate claims on its cover to be, and is widely regarded as, our “national gay and lesbian newsmagazine.” Which makes its descent into fluff all the more embarrassing and painful.

    There is one consolation to all of this. A major reason behind the Advocate’s decline is the corresponding improvement of mainstream news sources on gay and lesbian issues. We don’t need the biweekly Advocate to break gay news when we can find it daily on CNN or in the New York Times.

    But there’s still enough serious, interesting stuff in gay and lesbian news to merit a good bi-weekly newsmagazine. Which is what the Advocate once was and could be again.

  • European Gaydar

    First published in “Between the Lines” in September of 2002

    I have just returned from two weeks in Finland, with brief excursions to Estonia, Russia, and Norway. It was my first trip to Europe, and I came away from it having learned a profound and valuable lesson:

    My gaydar is useless in Europe.

    Nobody warned me of this ahead of time. My guidebooks were chock-full of information about pay toilets, local tipping customs, and electric-appliance adapters. But none of them suggested a gaydar converter: some special European filter that should be installed before transatlantic flights. This is a serious omission.

    Gaydar, as readers of this publication are doubtless aware, is the ability to spot other gay people through various verbal and non-verbal cues. It is a subtle faculty, difficult to explain but undeniably real. Like most human tools, it isn’t foolproof, but it can be very handy.

    Except in Europe. If my gaydar were to be trusted, all the men in Finland are gay. This seems unlikely.

    Some of the false cues are pretty easy to explain. Young Finnish men dress well. They tend to have great bodies and to wear tight t-shirts. I thought I had landed in the middle of “The Blond Party”, some circuit event not advertised in the States.

    Which brings me to another point: they have great hair with flawless highlights. I suppose this is Mother Nature’s way of compensating them for the fact that they see little daylight for nine months out of the year. (Not a bad trade-off, really.)

    But the most powerful cues are, ironically, the more subtle ones. It’s the way they carry themselves, the way they interact with one another (and with women), the way they walk and speak and smile and make eye contact. Finnish men (and, I suspect, many other European men) lack the macho veneer characteristic of American straight guys. And so, to my American eyes, they seemed gay.

    I did go to a few gay bars while there, mainly for comparison’s sake. (Okay, there were other reasons too.) The gay guys looked pretty much like the straight guys, only slightly more butch. Seriously.

    All of this belied the myth that straight men are “naturally” aggressive, boorish, or coarse. The trip thus underscored for me the powerful influence of culture on gender roles.

    That said, I also came away from it thankful for certain aspects of American culture. Ubiquitous air-conditioning. Seedless grapes. Over-the-counter decongestants.

    Yes, decongestants. While in Finland, I had the misfortune of catching a cold, and I discovered that decongestants there are available only by prescription. What good is universal health care if you can’t have Sudafed on demand?

    Which made me realize how I take for granted the fact that I can walk into any American drugstore (or supermarket or convenience store, for that matter) and purchase decongestants, with or without antihistamines, with or without pain relievers, in 6- or 12-hour formulas, in tablets or gelcaps.

    Plus various generic versions of all of the above. God bless America.

    (This has nothing to do with the main thread of the column, but I’m back in the States and my decongestants are making me a bit loopy.)

    Returning to European gaydar: I did manage one afternoon to stumble across some gay guys on the Esplanade, a park in Helsinki that draws large crowds of locals and tourists. Four good-looking guys were standing around watching an exhibition of trained cats (which sounds like an oxymoron, and in fact is, judging from the cats’ performance). I spotted them and my gaydar went full tilt. I thought, “Finally, my European gaydar is working!”

    As it turns out I was half right. They were indeed gay. But they were from Boston and Toronto.

    We spent much of the afternoon together, touring the city and taking countless photos of one another. Our common gayness facilitated a kind of instant rapport: we were fellow “members of the tribe,” and so we could behave as old friends after knowing each other for less than an hour.

    I wondered if this gay bonding was an American phenomenon, but then it happened again in St. Petersburg, this time with a gay French couple. My European gaydar had finally begun to work.

    Thanks to Scott, Gary, and John from Boston, Gerry from Toronto, and Stephane and Olivier from Nice, France, for a lot of fun. Hope to see you in the States sometime. We may not have an Esplanade, but we know how to fight the common cold.