Over 35 years ago when I started court reporting school in Houston, a professor from the University of Houston Law Center came over and taught us a rudimentary course on law so that we would not take our Perry Mason belief system into the courtroom with us upon graduation.  It embarrasses me to admit that due to my advanced age (LOL) I have forgotten his name and have been unable to find him through the Internet in order to give him proper credit for his sharpie and mullet analogy.  But if you’re out there Professor, thank you for this knowledge.  When we moved from the study of criminal law, where only official reporters work, into civil law, where both official and freelance reporters work, he told us that the world was divided into two groups: sharpies and mullets.  He went on to explain that in spite of our egos telling us otherwise, the vast majority of us are mullets.  While I hate to think of myself as being a mullet, all too often in life since then I have awakened to find that, indeed, I have been feasted upon by a sharpie.

There are two kinds of people: sharpies and mullets. Adapted from DorkofSporks' illustration.

The analogy goes like this.  There are the sharpies of the world who prey upon the mullets by unfair business practices and outright fraud, and the only real recourse that the mullets have is to go out and hire their own sharpie—this would be a plaintiff’s attorney—in order to get back that which was stolen.  This is the basis of “tort law.”  You injure me in some way, physically, financially, socially or mentally, and I sue you to get compensation for my “damages.”  The old model for business practices that I always heard in my growing up years was, “Let the buyer beware.”  That was it.  If you got taken by someone, it was your fault for letting it happen.  But despite the desires of “strict constructionists,” societies evolve and their legal needs evolve with them.  After the financial carnage caused by the robber barons of the late 19th century, the courts and slowly the government responded to the robbing of everyday citizens by beginning to hold the rich and powerful more accountable for their actions.  Then came the Wall Street crash of 1929, which plunged the nation and the world into a financial hole that we seem to be mirroring today.  Greed and unreasonable expectations of the bankers and the investor class have now led us to the same precipice.  And like 1929 the response of the guilty parties is, “We can handle this ourselves, so get out of our business,” ignoring the fact that their “business” is all over our business.

What’s the game?  It’s the sharpies, dear mullets, doing what they do to manipulate everyone to give them what they want: a limit to their liabilities on all claims.  That’s right.  ALL CLAIMS! A few years ago when the insurance companies successfully campaigned for and won a “tort reform” constitutional amendment in an off-off-year election here in Texas, they ran countess ads on TV about how difficult it was for pregnant Texas women to get an OB-GYN because they were all leaving the field due to high malpractice insurance premiums.  Well, this was big winner here in “family values” Texas.  There was hardly a breath of opposition as their rescue of OB-GYNs also rescued the insurance carriers from all sorts of punitive damages assessed by Texas juries.

What are “punitive damages,” many of you will ask.  They are an assessment of monetary punishment for bad faith performance by a person or company who knowingly causes damages and doesn’t seem to care.  Many years ago in Corpus Christi, TX, I worked on a case that I think of as the poster child of the need for punitive damages.  One evening a couple of beautiful 19-year-old girls were returning from Corpus Christi to their homes in the suburb of Calallen, Texas, in their late-model American-made sub-compact car.  One of them spilled her soft drink, and they pulled over to the improved shoulder of the two-lane street they were on to clean up the mess.  Unfortunately, while tending to their clean-up, a drunk driver in a luxury sedan, mistaking their taillights for those of a moving vehicle plowed into the rear end of the smaller car, curling the rear-end of the car up over the passenger compartment, exploding the gas tank, and raining the flaming gasoline down on the girls, burning one to death on the spot and burning the other one so severely that she lay in a local hospital for a week before succumbing to her own injuries.

Now, this may seem like a simple drunk-driver-hits-and-kills-someone scenario to many, and he got sent to prison for a long time for his actions.  But there was another actor in this case, the auto manufacturer.  Without naming names, there was widespread knowledge among the people and many news reports about the propensity of a certain model of car made by a certain American automobile manufacturer to blow up when hit from behind.  What came out in the investigation of this case by attorneys hired by the girls’ families was startling.  First, all models of that manufacturer’s cars had the same design flaw and were in danger of blowing up as a result of a rear impact.  Second, in the course of getting records from the files of the auto maker, a damning set of memoranda were found.  The memoranda were between the board of directors, the engineering department, and the legal department.  In the end they showed that the engineering department estimated that it would cost $125 million to perform a recall and fix the defect, and the legal department assured the board of directors that they could defend any lawsuits against them for less than $125 million.  The board of directors, acting on this advice, refused to recall the defective vehicles.  In other words, they decided to weigh their monetary loss against the loss of life that might result from their negligent design, and like most big business, they chose the bottom line.

Courtesy of jordan darkchild/PhotoBucket.

When the jury of 12 ordinary people in a Corpus Christi courtroom came back with their verdict, they sent a strong message to the auto maker: Not to our children in our community.  They assessed punitive damages in the amount of $126 million dollars against the auto maker.  The verdict was breathtaking in its size, but it told the corporation’s board of directors that life is more important than money and expressed what I consider to be the legitimate outrage of everyday people that a big American corporation that we trust with our lives and safety everyday could act so cavalierly.  During the resulting appeal process, the auto maker settled for about half of that punitive damage assessment, but still never ordered a recall on the faulty vehicles.  In case you’re wondering what the defect was, it was very simple.  The mounting bolts for the rear bumper, which were long and unprotected on the back, were pushed into the gas tank upon impact causing a metal-on-metal spark and igniting the gasoline inside.  KABOOM!

Of course the insurance industry has been in a state of outrage ever since this happened and fought long and hard to get laws changed to protect them from similar outcomes, regardless of the actions of their clients.  And of course, with the other hand they have raised the premiums in response to jury verdicts, keeping their bottom line virtually unchanged.  That brings me to another case that is not about punitive damages, but just everyday people being denied compensation from their insurance company after faithfully paying their premiums for years.

Magnolia blossoms courtesy of teamarbeit/Dreamstime.

This case was reported by me in Federal Court in Oxford, Mississippi.  During the recession of the late 1970’s Mississippi residents were hit hard.  A working family from Oxford lost their jobs and decided the only way to hang onto everything they owned was to come down to Baytown, Texas, and work in an oil refinery until things turned around back home.  The husband and wife as well as their son worked at the refinery in Texas to make ends meet, trying to maintain their mortgage and insurance payments on their home in Mississippi, while paying rent down here.  One week night, their Oxford home burned to the ground.  They made a claim on their home-owners policy and were denied by their insurance company, a big national company which will remain nameless.  In order to collect on the insurance policy they had paid all along, they had to sue in Federal Court because the insurance company’s headquarters were out of state.

I met these folks and the attorneys for both sides when I was employed on a freelance basis to go report the trial in Oxford.  It seemed pretty cut and dried to me, but this is the week I learned how important a good lawyer can be.  The attorney for the insurance company was from a big Atlanta, Georgia firm, and he was impressive in every possible way.  He dressed in the most expensive suits, had an impressive movie-star quality smile, and was, no doubt about it, a very expensive, very excellent attorney.  The poor blue-collar family from Oxford were represented by an older gentleman from the community who was in no way up to the task against the powerful and slick—yes, I said slick—opponent that he faced.  As the evidence was presented, nothing came out that sent up any red flags about the family’s reputation.  They were salt of the earth types, never had any brushes with the law, what we used to call “poor but proud” in my childhood days.  They were also what is called “good Christians” by their friends and neighbors.  They bought insurance, paid the premiums, their house burned down, case closed.

Then Mr. Atlanta took the reins of the courtroom, and while never producing a single witness to corroborate his “theory” of the case, he began weaving in his questions a scenario where the family came from Baytown, Texas in the night and burned their house down.  Despite the fact that time cards were produced showing them clocking out the evening of the fire and clocking back in on the morning after, Mr. Atlanta kept planting the seeds of arson in the jury’s minds.  Since I lived in Mississippi at the time and had family in the Houston area that I visited, I knew that such a thing would be impossible, and expected the lawyer for the family to point this out, but he didn’t.  After Mr. Atlanta argued in his closing that he believed the family had clandestinely returned in the night and burned their house down for the insurance money—which is perfectly legal for him to say in closing arguments, which are not considered “evidence”—the jury quickly returned a verdict in favor of the insurance company, leaving the family totally uncompensated for their loss.

I was outraged.  As a court reporter, it would be unethical for me to tell the lawyer for the family what I knew about the driving time between Oxford and Baytown, or betray my feelings in the courtroom, so I kept my head down until I got back to the privacy of the staff offices.  Once there, thinking I was out of public view, I ranted to the court clerk about my outrage at the miscarriage of justice I had just witnessed.  Much to my embarrassment, she looked over my shoulder when I was finishing my rant, and I turned to realize that Mr. Atlanta was standing right behind me the whole time.  He simply smiled at my naive, young face, and said, “It’s my job to make ‘em work for it.”   He then turned and left.  I realized that he was right, but the situation was in no way right.  In an interesting after note to the incident, there was a clause in the insurance policy that protected the bank/mortgage holder against loss under any circumstances, so they were compensated for their loss, but the nice, hard-working family had lost their home and their possessions to a fire and then been cheated by their insurance company.

Photo courtesy of Jgroup/Dreamstime.

In one last example, I go back to Corpus Christi, Texas, where I reported a trial of a medical malpractice case.  A young Hispanic father of four was taken to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy.  A local general surgeon performed the surgery, and after a few days in the hospital, and despite complaints of pain, the man was released to go home on a Friday.  During the weekend his pain worsened, and his young wife called the doctor on several occasions to see what could be done.  The surgeon initially told her to give him some aspirin, which she did.  However, over the weekend, the pain became more and more severe.  The wife called the doctor’s service several more times, and he returned the first of her calls and dismissed the patient’s pain.  As the man’s pain became more and more excruciating , she continued to call the doctor’s office, getting his service where he had left a message for her to “just give it some time.”  Exercising amazing patience, the wife waited until Monday afternoon to call the doctor’s office to report that her husband was literally doubled over with pain in his abdominal region.  The doctor, by his own admission from the witness stand, had lost all patience with the woman and told her to take her husband to the emergency room and quit calling him.

That evening, upon returning to the ER at the hospital where the initial surgery had been performed, the man was observed to be doubled over in extreme unmanageable pain and upon examination was diagnosed to be suffering from necrotizing fasciitis at the surgical incision.  Most folks, myself included before this case, have never heard of this little “bug” (typically Group A streptococcus) that lives in hospital operating rooms, but it is literally a killer.  It eats away at  the fascia level of skin (that’s underneath what’s visible to the eye), and at least back then was incurable.  The young father of four died within 24 hours of his re-admission to the hospital.

Before the case came to trial, the hospital had already settled with the family for an undisclosed amount.  For his part, the surgeon claimed no responsibility for the infection, and on the witness stand testifying for himself he was one of the coldest witnesses I have ever encountered.  It was quickly apparent that he possessed no bedside manner whatsoever, and expressed not one whit of sympathy for the patient or his wife and children.  Expert medical testimony presented by his attorney asserted that it was the hospital’s fault for not having a clean enough operating room, and that nothing the surgeon could have done would have saved the man’s life.  While I agreed with the expert’s assessment of the case, I felt that the surgeon would be harshly dealt with by the jury.  I, myself, thought the surgeon was a cold, unsympathetic, arrogant bastard.  But the jury came to the right decision and found in his favor.  In exit interviews, they expressed their disdain for the doctor, but agreed that it was not his fault.

This verdict does not mean that the suit filed by the family was frivolous.  They had every right to question the surgeon’s culpability in the loss of their loved one, as does every other citizen in this country.  The only way that the family could access the doctor’s records was to file a lawsuit, and had the surgeon’s insurance carrier settled the claim, the surgeon could have been spared being exposed as the heartless person that he was.  I know that the next time I visited my family doctor, a man I trusted with my life, and a man with an excellent bedside manner, I instructed him to NOT under any circumstances allow the said surgeon to operate on me if the need should arise.  My doctor assured me that he was both a competent and reliable surgeon, but to me his lack of any semblance of bedside manner ruled him out forever.  I expect that most of the jurors and others who witnessed his testimony expressed similar opinions to their families and doctors.  And as for the surgeon’s feelings about being hauled into court to answer for his actions, I have no sympathy for him whatsoever.  He was cold and condescending to a poor woman who was trying to take care of her husband and the father of her children.  So, to me, despite his lack of “malpractice,” he deserved what he got, a public exposure of his true character.

These cases are the most illustrative of those I saw from the court reporter’s chair over the years.  There were many more.  As a freelance reporter most of my career, I worked for attorneys on both sides of the docket.  A good lawyer is worth his weight in gold, and a bad one should be run out of the profession, and sometimes they are.  Local and state bar associations have the ability to suspend or revoke the license of attorneys who commit malpractice or unethically take advantage of their clients.  I also have been the court reporter for such proceedings.  These proceedings are held behind closed doors, but as the only outsider in the room, I can assure those who do not know, attorneys are very hard on each other in these meetings.  They enforce their ethics to the greatest extent allowable.

So, why do we need tort reform?  My view is that we don’t.  A very nice doctor visited my site recently, and we have exchanged comments back and forth and I have visited his blog site.  He asserts that much money is being wasted on “preventative medicine” to combat possible malpractice lawsuits.  I agree.  But I remember that every time I got out my Stenograph machine and went to work, I realized that the rights and liberties of others were literally in my hands.  It was a great deal of pressure, and I felt it every day.  But, as I told my students in the 14 years I taught court reporting, “That’s why we make the big bucks.”  All professionals feel the pressures of their jobs, because they are doing important things that affect the lives of others.  That’s why the educational requirements are so high and so many fail to make it through the educational process into the field.  None of us would want to think that our doctor had graduated with a C-minus grade point average.  The same is true for all professionals.  Their training is rigorous and demanding so that they can learn to cope with the pressures they will face.  But in the end, they, like the rest of us, are mere mortal human beings, and they are going to make mistakes.  When in the jury box, we should remember that and be fair to them.  I have seen this to be the case a great deal more often than not.

But the last thing any professional needs is some megalithic insurance company looking over his shoulder telling him how to do his job.  The insurance companies of America should be ashamed of themselves for offering a product designed to relieve the stress of life, and then turning it into a weapon to scare up support for their refusal to do what they advertise they will do.  It’s time for everybody to recognize that insurance companies are sharpies, and they are treating the rest of us like a bunch of mullets.  For those of you who live in fear of malpractice lawsuits despite your best efforts, do your best, pay your premiums, turn off the noise and be happy.  Pretend you’re in a convertible driving down a country road with the top down, oblivious to the fact that an expensive prize bull may be waiting around the next curve.  If he’s there and you hit him, if he don’t kill you, you will kill him, and the rancher will expect your car insurance company to pay for his damages.  But that’s only a maybe.  Don’t let it ruin your drive.

Don’t let Big Insurance use you like a mullet to advance their agenda to deny health care insurance to those they want to exclude due to the bottom line.  Don’t worry; be happy!

Thanks for hanging in there with me so long today.

I’m Jack, I am who I am, and I’m Hitting Back!

With Liberty and Justice for ALL!

A week ago today, yet another blue state enacted a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage forever! At least that’s the intent of such amendments to constitutions.  So on a day that I really wanted to address the issue of tort reform that has been dragged by Republicans into the health care debate, I find once again that my attention is pulled by another attack on me and those like me.  Whatever you may think of gay people, we are CITIZENS of the United States of America and our respective states.  Most of us, like myself, were born here into families that go back to the days of The Colonies.  Yet, there is a hateful group of people who has taken it upon themselves to marginalize us because we do not agree with their religious beliefs.  Isn’t that why The Pilgrims came here to begin with?  Of course, that knowledge could only be obtained by actually reading American History instead of listening to some meathead like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly.  I guess that’s just too much to ask.

In the GLBT community, angst grows and threats are made to mount more demonstrations across the land to protest our ill treatment.  However, judging from the media response to 200,000 GLBT citizens on The Mall in Washington, D.C. recently, I honestly don’t know how that’s going to help us much.  And there are those in the movement who suggest that we should go and visit our elected officials in their offices and protest our treatment.  While as late as two weeks ago I might have gotten excited about such a plan, I have noted in my recent contact with those who claim to be my representatives in Washington, that they are not in the least interested in anything that I have to say.  Of course, they are a trio of Republicans, and I expected as much.  But what about the Democrats?  Where were they when people in Maine were abolishing our citizenship last Tuesday?  As usual, they were AWOL!  For those of you who are unfamiliar with that acronym, it is military-speak for “absent without leave.”

You know, it is bad enough that Republicans are cozying up to their extreme right-wing base in bashing us, but for me the feckless Democrats are far more offensive.  Every two years they come before the gay community with their hats in their hands asking us to come out and vote for them, knowing full well that we don’t have much in the way of an alternative.  And every two years we haul ourselves up, write blogs, become delegates to local, state and national Democratic conventions, work on campaigns and pour out our support and go vote for Democrats running for office only to be dismissed after the election.  Now, this dismissal is not only coming from leadership within the Democratic Party; it is coming in dead silence and lack of support among the rank and file who enjoy the fruits of our labors when their candidates are elected, but fail to show up in support of their fellows when under attack.  What are we doing?

For years the GLBT community has mocked and belittled The Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay Republicans.  These folks just keep slogging away at the Republican Party by showing up at conventions and rallies only to be denied admission or participation.  We shake our heads at their naiveté and accuse them of stupidity for banging their heads against a brick wall.  The Log Cabin Republicans still cling to the idea that they can only change the Republican Party from the inside, so they persist in their efforts.  To be fair to them, they really believe in the more moderate message of the Old Republican Party that deals with fiscal issues and the joys of capitalism.  Believe it or not, there are many, many gay small business owners, and I do not fault them for taking care of their own economic interests.

But what about the rest of us in the GLBT community?  If we are political—and not everyone is—we tend to think of ourselves as Democrats because of the social oppression that we have experienced in our lifetimes.  We are attracted to the Democratic Party because it tends to address social injustice.  Recently, we have watched in horror while George W. Bush promised not to do anything against gay Texans while Governor and then gay Americans while president, then turned into a supporter of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to permanently take away our rights.  In fact, when running for Texas governor as a moderate Republican, Bush commented the old, “Some of mine and Laura’s best friends are gay.”  While not naming names, I have always suspected that this is the “secret reason” that so many right-wing crazies came out swinging when Harriet Myers was nominated for Supreme Court Justice.  Now, that’s just based on rumors I heard around Dallas in my court reporting days there.  So, I’m not stating that as a fact.  Like Rush and Glenn, I’m just putting it out there as a thought.

Anyway, we all know how fervent “W” became in his support of the right-wing anti-gay agenda, particularly during his re-election campaign.  In fact, he and Karl Rove used it very effectively to get the “right” voters out in Ohio and swing the election in his direction.  And it has been downhill for us ever since that chilly November day in 2004.  With a steady push by the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party, state after state has adopted anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendments, more often than not putting them out there in off-off-year elections to get those who are gung-ho out there with little pushback from everyday citizens.  This was the successful tactic in Maine last week, but let us not forget California.  One year ago, Democrat Barack Obama handily carried The Golden State, reputedly the most liberal state west of Massachusetts, while leaving the gay community behind in the dust of defeat.  In electing their first president, the black community of California came out and voted against equal rights for gay Californians.  How shameful!  After being called on to help elect Barack Obama, gay voters in California were stabbed in the back by many of Obama’s supporters.  OUTRAGEOUS!

So what should we do?  I’ve given this much thought since the news from Maine.  I was by no means stunned by yet another defeat.  I was hurt that it came in a so-called blue state instead of a state like mine that is more RED than Mao’s China in its group-think.  But what it really tells me is that those folks that turned out to support and vote for Barack Obama last November were unwilling to give up their plans last Tuesday night to help a friend in need.  After basking in the warm glow of last year’s victory, liberals who are not gay are not particularly interested in returning our support.  Instead, they stay home and let those who oppress us manipulate democracy to deny freedom of religion to American Citizens who happen to be gay.  Is this more their fault or more our fault?

One of the maxims of psychiatry is that “insanity” is defined by doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  Isn’t that what the GLBT community is doing politically?  Aren’t we blindly giving support to Democrats who then turn around and ignore our oppression once they are comfortably installed in office?  Of course, we are.  How do we stop?  We just STOP!

I know it’s radical, but here’s my plan.  Bear with me while I explain, and don’t give up on me until the end, okay?  I thought about just dropping out and refusing to vote for a few years.  We all know that the Democrats, who are wrangling among themselves to the point of total inability to get anything done in Washington, are going to really, really need our votes next year as the Republicans mount their comeback offensive.  It’s time to say no and mean no.  I know that sounds dangerous because that puts more Republican power back into Congress, but to me that’s a risk we have to take.  Then, after that, come 2012, with the country still in a funk and the prospects of a Sarah Palin or Tim Pawlenty or even Mitt Romney on the presidential horizon, President Obama is going to come calling yet again, hat in hand, begging for support, dragging Oprah behind him.  We can pretty well bet that those same old swing states will be swinging and every vote will count.  What if we say no one more time?  It could cost Barack Obama his re-election.   I know that for many in the GLBT movement this is a frightening thought, but stick with me.

The greatest problem with this plan, other than the election of some nut job like Palin, is that the “gay vote” is dismissed or discounted as being unimportant in the outcome.  That’s because there is no way for us to be counted if we stay home in protest.  So, let’s do something really radical! Let’s form our own third party.  I would call it The Pink Party so there could be no doubt about where it’s coming from.  It would work like this.  We would run as many candidates as we could for every federal office, including President of the United States.  Crazy, you say!  Of course, it’s crazy.  That’s why it will work.  Let’s not fool ourselves that we will win seats in Congress or actually mount any kind of a serious run for the presidency, but our votes will show up as a protest.  And just like the myth that Ralph Nader and the Green Party cost Al Gore Florida in 2000, if in fact a swing state is carried by the Republican Presidential Candidate by less than the Pink Party vote, the Dems will realize that they need us after all.  Then we will have a seat at the bargaining table, something we do not have now.

To put the icing on this cake,  I was “treated” to the sight of the whining Carrie Prejean on Today this morning.  Oh, poor dear, she’s under attack from everyone for daring to exercise her right to free speech.  BOO HOO! In a few years she will marry a young guy she really loves, or an older man whose bank account she loves, maybe even somebody else’s husband, and she’ll go on to live a happy life with kids and all the rights and benefits that inure to a married lady in America and California.  And you, my dear, sweet, gay person, will still be prohibited from seeing your ailing “partner” in the hospital unless his/her fundamentalist family grants you permission.  So, Miss Prejean, spare me your troubles.  They are fleeting, and in the end they will be unimportant to your life, once you get one.  And my dear, sweet, gay person, your problems are not fleeting.  This is your life!  Isn’t it time you got off your pink, but lovely ass, and did something about it?  VOTE PINK!

I’m Jack, I am who I am, and I’M HITTING BACK!

With Liberty and Justice for ALL!

Let’s start at with the “best” of the bunch, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R- TX).  At least Senator Hutchison sent me an e-mail reply to my initial comment on the issue of health care.  At the end of her lengthy reply, she said that she valued my comment, but there was nothing in the text up to that point that convinced me that she “valued” my comment.  In fact, since Mrs. Jack also sent her own individual comment to the Senator’s website and got back the exact same word-for-word reply, I am doubtful that anybody other than a computer program in her office “read” Mrs. Jack’s or  my comments.  Later, I will go into her reply in more detail so that we can all understand exactly what the Republicans have in mind for us.  But for now, I will recount my experiences with my other two “representatives” in Washington.

Senator John Cornyn thanked me “warmly” for my comment in an e-mail acknowledgement entitled: DO NOT REPLY! It promised that the good Senator would send an answer to my comment in the future.  Having yet to hear from him in all these many days, I’m not sure which future year I should be expecting that reply.  Maybe 2014 when he is up for reelection.  I guess it doesn’t matter all that much because from what I heard this morning on State of the Union with John King, Senator Cornyn and the Republicans in Congress are pretty entrenched in their position and won’t be waffling between now and 2014 anyway.

That brings me to my U.S. Representative, Kevin Brady (R-TX).  His website thanked me for my comment and offered a check box to sign up for his e-mail newsletter.  I checked the box and received a “do-you-really-want-the-newsletter” e-mail telling me to type only the word “ok” in reply to the confirmation request and I would be added to the list.  What came back was frightening.  I got an e-mail from the Congressman’s office with what looked to be Chinese characters on it interspaced with “unknown command” and  “help” in English.  In subsequent e-mails I was informed that my request had gone unanswered for over 24, then 48 hours and I should try again.  The same weird thing happened again.  I hate to assume anything from this strange experience, but I do suspect that, due to my unwillingness to agree 100 percent with Representative Brady’s views on health care, perhaps, just perhaps, he put me on his don’t-waste-your-time-on-this-guy list.  Just a thought.  Anyway, now, I seem to be caught up in an e-mail Twilight Zone where I receive a daily message from Mr. Brady’s office telling me that my request didn’t go through and to try again.  I guess he’s “hitting back.”

That brings me full circle back to Senator Hutchison, who wants to leave Washington behind and become Governor of our State.  In her “lengthy” canned reply to my comment requesting a government option for healthcare, she went on and on with what she believes in.  It went something like this:  I’m a Republican, blah, blah, blah.  I’m afraid of big government, blah, blah, blah.  You should be afraid of big government, too, blah, blah, blah.  Socialism, blah, blah, blah.  It may LEAD to government-run health care in the future, blah, blah, blah.  We need tort reform, blah, blah, blah.  It may drive our good friends the insurance companies out of business, blah, blah, blah.  Free enterprise, blah, blah, blah.  Be afraid!  BE AFRAID!  BE VERRRRRRRRY AFRAID! Finally, near the bottom of the text was her generous solution to the entire problem: vouchers for you to buy your own health insurance.  It was just wonderful.  The government will give you a voucher of $2,000 per person or $5,000 per family to offset those nasty insurance premiums.  And due to the huge level of competition in the health insurance market, rates will go down, and everybody will be able to afford to go to the doctor.  It will be wonderful and, without the pesky interference of Big Government, the insurance companies will do the right thing and take care of us all, making us all, healthy, happy and free! (Wave flag here.)

The only thing soaring higher than Senator Hutchison’s rhetoric is her oversized Texas high hair wig!  So I decided to offer a rebuttal.  I wondered if she or an aide would respond to my rebuttal with a different canned message, or actually answer it.  Nothing! Not a word has come back from Senator Hutchison’s office since I dared to “question” her plan.  I merely pointed out that for Mrs. Jack and myself, since we are past 60 but not yet 65—that is, Medicare eligible—and we both have “pre-existing” conditions, the best quote we got on health insurance for both of us was $1400 per month.  Now, let’s see.  If we “qualified” as a family, which I’m not sure we do—but we’ll say so for sake of argument—that means our $16,800 per year insurance premium would be offset by $5,000, leaving us a mere $11,800 out of pocket.  That would leave us about $4,000 a year to live on.  How very generous! Perhaps the delay in Senator Hutchison’s reply to my reply is to allow her time to come up with a ladylike way of saying, “That’s too bad; f**k off!”  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen her on TV, but there’s an old Southern expression for women like her: Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.  Anyway, on with the saga.

Then this morning on State of the Union with John King, I saw the always scary House Minority Leader John Boehner, (R-Ohio).  He clearly outlined the Republican plan for health care reform when he said, “We want to ‘fix’ the CURRENT health care system.”  Then he added some blah, blah, blah of his own, but in short, he stated that “most Americans” just want the current health care system fixed, not some sort of major overhaul.  When pressed about the 47 million Americans without health care insurance, he brushed the question aside and went on with his Republican, “Big Government, blah, blah, blah” argument.

So let’s take a good look at what the Republicans are really offering the American people.  They want to give you $2,000 a year to offset your insurance premiums and allow the “current system” to stay in place allowing Big Insurance to do what it pleases, and allowing the costs of health care to continue spiraling into the stratosphere.  That is the CURRENT system!  That is what the Republicans are offering.  What it amounts to is a $2,000 annual tax break to those who can afford to buy their own insurance and nothing for everybody else.  Now, that’s reform we can believe in.  Oh, that’s right, they aren’t interested in REFORM! The Republicans are only looking out for the interests of Big Insurance and their own political party to keep the hated Obama from doing what he promised the American people he would do: REFORM THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN AMERICA.

Mommie, there's a Republican under my bed.

Instead of doing anything to help people, the Republicans, as always, are dispersing scare scenarios and citing the burden on “our children and grandchildren.”  Of course, those would be the children and grandchildren who survive because they have access to health care.  And that would be the really important children of that upper crust portion of the Republican Party who can afford their own Cadillac-quality health care insurance.

I’ve got a better plan for the Republicans, if they don’t want the government involved with health care.  Why don’t they demand their overlords, the Health Insurance Companies, do on their own what the Republicans say they will do if we leave them alone?  If the Health Insurance Companies are so willing to get rid of those pre-existing condition clauses and let everybody buy their product, and if they’re willing to lift all the bans they have lobbied into place in the States to protect themselves from competition and even losses, why don’t they start TODAY. It would make the need for health care reform moot.  But they are not doing that, are they?  Just like the banks, they are grabbing while the grabbing is good, threatening to raise premiums in the years prior to the reform measures kicking in, and clamping down even harder on their customers’ rights to access medical care.  Yeah, these are nice guys indeed.  I trust them.  Don’t you?  Oh, come on, the Republicans say we can trust their friends, the Insurance Companies.  Where’s your faith?

After all we’ve been through during the Republican Revolution, where Big Banks and Big Insurance have taken the best that our country has to offer and have returned nothing, I’ll put my trust in government.  At least I can vote against it if I don’t like it.

I’m Jack.  I am who I am, and I’m HITTING BACK!

With Liberty and Justice for All!

Spielberg's "Jaws"

The image of the lone young woman swimming offshore and then being pulled to her death by a killer shark in Jaws is burned into our collective brains.  It is downright horrifying because it is unexpected yet possible.  Saturday Night Live parodied the event brilliantly in their Land Shark skits and gave us all a good laugh at our fears.  But there is a new shark, a loan shark, in the waters of America, or perhaps just an old shark that has grown a new set of even sharper teeth to replace the ones that were recently removed by Congress.  That loan shark goes by very respectable names: Bank of America, CitiBank and others whose headquarters occupy lavish, shiny skyscrapers in the cities of our country.

In response to the financial sector meltdown of last year and the resulting credit crisis, Congress enacted new laws restricting the banks’ abilities to rip off the American consumers by uncalled for interest-rate increases and ridiculous and unfair fees.  But the bank lobby—that’s right, they exist and are very real—swimming under the surface of Capitol Hill  managed to put a delay into those laws “to help the poor innocent banks adjust to the new rules.”  What they have done instead is take advantage of the delay to jack up interest rates to a baseline that they can move up from after the new rules go into effect and replace the old unfair fees with some NEW UNFAIR fees.

And where, oh where, and when did the American people find out about this chicanery?   The first I heard of it was in a report on the Today show on the day the new fees went into effect.  Thanks, big network news organizations, for the heads up before the fact.  That’s what I call “great journalism.”  The other way that folks found out that they were waking up in a new world this week was the insertion of those little flier-like pages that flutter out of the envelope when you get your credit card bill.  You know, the ones with the teeny, tiny print that you must read over, perhaps several times, to make any sense of.

My experience was jolting.  On Monday afternoon one of those nondescript envelopes showed up in my mailbox bearing a return address from somewhere I didn’t know anybody and containing a letter without any letterhead whatsoever along with one of those little fliers.  A reading of the letter indicated that CitiBank was raising the interest rate on my account with them to 29.99%.  I panicked because I don’t have a credit card or account of any kind that I know of with CitiBank.  Due to the snappy songs of those CreditReport.Com guys, my first thought was that someone had stolen my identity and opened up an account with CitiBank in my name.  OMG!  WTF?  How could this happen?  Mrs. Jack and I have been living a credit-free existence for some time now, and we like it like that.  It is our way of surviving these tough times on a fixed income.  We pay cash for everything, and if we don’t have the cash, we don’t put the merchandise in the cart.  I’m sure this drives them crazy at Wal-Mart.

But I had forgotten something.  Back at the time when we went credit free, I kept some gasoline credit cards for emergencies.  You know, like a hurricane at the end of the month when the budget is in its shutdown mode.  We hadn’t used them for some time, so I had forgotten about them.  Mrs. Jack found the offending card and talked me down, but I was not appeased and still resented two things about the incident.  Number one, I had no idea CitiBank was “managing” my account with the oil company; and, number two, I was still in disbelief about the news account I had heard that morning.

It seems that CitiBank’s new unfair fee is on those who do not keep a balance of at least $2400 on their cards.  Now, the reporter was quite specific about the fact that this did not mean that your credit card account had to reach $2400 per month; instead, you must rollover a balance of at least $2400 each month to avoid this fee, which was a whopping $150 per month.  Ouch!  If you pay off your card or pay down your card or fail to charge enough to reach that level, you will be charged $150.  Is it just me, or is this outrageous?  And CitiBank was not alone in announcing new “inactivity fees.”  Bank of America had one, too, charging you a fee every month that you choose not to use your credit card with them.  In other words, the big boys in the banking world are saying to the American People, “F**k you very much for bailing us out.  Now, you pay yourselves back so we don’t have to.”

Last evening and this morning, there were reports from two credit card holders—one a bank CEO from a smaller bank—who received word that their credit card interest rates were going up into the 30- to 40-percent range.  Both men were solid citizens who paid their bills on time and had done nothing “bad” to deserve this treatment from their credit card issuers.  I’m sorry, 30- to 40-percent interest, to me, is pure usury, and these lenders qualify as loan sharks in my book.

So, what do we do to kill these loan sharks in the muddy water where they swim and prey on us?  First, get on the web or phone and contact your congressional delegation and express your outrage and your desire that they stop this in its tracks.  Second, and this is what I did, pick that fluttering flier up off the floor and call the offending bank at the telephone number given and cancel that card right now!  The nice person on the other end of the phone is just an employee of the loan shark, so do not yell at her/him.  Just matter of factly state that you will not accept the new unfair “terms and conditions” that they are offering you.  The young lady that I talked to reminded me that if I cancelled my card, it would be “permanent.”  I told her that was all right; I tell you I should hope so!  They can stuff it along with my mythical “permanent record,” wherever that is.

In fairness to the great big oil company that has turned me over to the loan sharks at CitiBank, if I paid off my balance every month as I always have, I would not be affected by the NEW UNFAIR interest rate.  But, you know, to me it is all part and parcel of my new “Hitting Back Campaign.”  And I don’t want to be surprised some day when I open a statement from my long unused oil company credit card to find that I, indeed, do have an emergency on my hands because I didn’t use it and have now incurred an unexpected inactivity fee.  I know they are required to send me notice, but I know that things get lost in the mail.  I once had a credit card where the statements mysteriously showed up in the mail after the due date.  I cancelled that card the second time it happened and later saw a TV news report about credit card companies doing this deliberately to get late fees and more interest from consumers.  Go figure!

As I watched the spectacle last summer of the right-wing crazies pouring crocodile tears down their faces, wanting their country back, I didn’t realize that by now, I, too, would want my country back.  That country is the one that I thought existed before the Republicans dismantled the safeguards on the banking and finance industries to protect us from them.  The country I would like back is the one I was raised in, where we considered banks a trusted place to keep our money and get fair and honest loans when necessary.  That world is long gone, and the very politicians that those crybaby conservatives put in charge were the ones that banished it to history.

It is time to hit back!  My act of hitting back was canceling the offending credit-card account and then gleefully taking a pair of scissors to the offending plastic and carefully distributing it to the various waste baskets around the house, because they get emptied at different times.

Over the past decades we have all come to feel a very real need for credit cards.  You have to have them to rent a car, check into a nice hotel, and lots of other things.  They are convenient but deadly accessories to modern American life.  In the swipe of a card, we can overextend our finances and invite a world of hurt down upon ourselves.  We can use them unwisely on the internet and expose ourselves to theft.   And as the holidays approach, we can use them to give us a mammoth headache next January when the broken toys are strewn upon the floor and the memories of warm pumpkin pie and turkey are long gone.

I know that for many, credit cards are a necessity, and for those I say, get on that phone or on the internet and shop around until you find a better deal for your credit needs.  Credit unions are a good place to start.  You may not get the same credit line that you had before, but maybe it is time to rethink that anyway.  That’s your decision to make.  But it is way past time for us as consumers to stand up to those who take advantage of us, because our politicians seem to be too entangled with the “money lenders” to put up much resistance.

So, to paraphrase an old joke: How do you kill a charging loan shark?  Take away its plastic!

GOT SCISSORS?

I am Jack.  I am who I am, and I’m HITTING BACK!

With Liberty and Justice for All!

WOW! I have just arrived safely, I think, back in Ithaca after a long and perilous odyssey.

© Eric1513 | Dreamstime.com

Deciding to put my computer where my blog was, I began my message assault on my Congressional Delegation as per the instructions of Michael Moore. My representatives in Washington really do not want to be bothered by their constituents: that would be me. What were listed as e-mail addresses at the site I got from Michael Moore, were, in fact, Congressional websites. And despite my appearance several times a week in the blogosphere, if it were not for the expertise of Mrs. Jack, nothing “computerish” would be possible. I am working very diligently to learn to be more than a guy who writes in Word and then hands the copied disc off to my publisher, Mrs. Jack. But I often wonder how many people just give up early on in their bouts with the worldwide web.

Believe it or not, I took several seminar courses on the use of computers—you know, how to send and retrieve e-mails, post grades at the end of the semester and, when department head, how to submit the incredible number of reports that were demanded of me every week. But my experiences were so laborious that I came to hate the computer and consider it work! ARGHHHHHH! So the last thing I wanted to do in my free time was “get on the computer.” And I allowed no amount of prodding from Mrs. Jack and the world at large to move me off my position of extreme resistance. So when I retired, I felt like, YEA!  Now, I won’t ever have to be hunched over the computer keyboard again.

Then came my passion for the election of Barack Obama last year, and I couldn’t resist the urgings of Mrs. Jack to write a blog. Like all drug dealers, she made it very easy in the beginning. All I had to do was open Word and type. Not bad! I actually liked doing that. Over the years I have developed a meaningful relationship with the QWERTY keyboard and the Stenograph keyboard. Alas, even in this, I have had a hard time deciding between loves.

At any rate, as the blog gained speed, and I started hearing from those with similar views and not, I became more and more interested in going to their sites and reading their blogs. It was the nose of my camel entering the tent of the Internet. As I gained ability and confidence, I found it easier and easier to find my way around a search engine to the things I was interested in. But those things did not include any desire to delve into the propaganda sites of the Republican politicians of my state. After what seemed like eight interminable years of Bush/Cheney and their Republican cronies on Capitol Hill, I was convinced that they—that is, Republicans—do not listen to anyone except those who agree wholeheartedly with them.

So, despite my grumblings and threats to contact my elected officials, alas all Republican, I have heretofore fallen on the excuse of “what’s the use?” But being inspired by Michael Moore’s 15 things we can do list, I decided to leap out there and express myself whether they listened or not. Yea! I’m hitting back! I told myself. Let the games begin!

Almost always the patient teacher, Mrs. Jack came to my computer and looked everything over. She then disappeared into her office and called out to me that our representatives in Washington no longer take e-mails. Instead, they all have websites with “contact forms.” She found those web addresses at http.//www.conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm, a conservative website. I’m telling you, they are just more organized than we are. Anyway, once there, she found the contact sites I needed.

Now, that sounds like it should be the end of the story, but, unfortunately, that was just the end of step one. Upon “pulling up” the sites, I was hit with a requirement for all my “personal” information—you know, name, address, telephone number. No anonymity there! So if Mrs. Jack and I should suddenly disappear, please, somebody, report on the fact that the Republicans know where to find us now. LOL! Anyway, I hope it’s just a joke, but with the party of Dick Cheney, who knows?

After Senator Hutchison, I moved on to Senator Cornyn and Rep. Kevin Brady, and after filling in the blanks I was able to leave my messages in support of a public option for all Americans regardless of which state they live in. I will write more about Harry Reid’s “compromise” leaving millions of red-state Democrats at the mercy of Republican state governments on a later date. I know that Rick Perry will be sure to keep Texans from enjoying the choice of a public option.

The reason I am writing about this today is to let those like me who want to follow suit know that it is going to take a little longer than the five minutes that the Michael Moore site contemplated. Okay, not a little longer.  A lot longer! It took me almost an hour all told. But, by golly, it was worth it, and it feels good to let my Republican representatives know that I’m not with them in their mad rush to bring down the Obama Administration at my expense.

"Join me and be a squeaky wheel." Courtesy of pinkpink33 and Pepper at Photobucket.com

So, I urge all those out there who read this to go to the website above, find the name of your representatives, regardless of party affiliation, and start sending them a comment every day. Oh, one more thing. Once you find those comment sites, bookmark them so you can find them again. That will save time. I’m going back “in” tomorrow and the next day and the next day. I’m banking on the idea that, by this time next week, it will only take me five minutes to leave a comment. My message to all of you is: Hang in there and git ‘er done!

I am Jack. I am who I am, and I’m HITTING BACK!

With Liberty and Justice for All!

© Lou Oates | Dreamstime.com

Now that I have recovered from my media-induced malaise and returned to blogging, I realize that many of my fellow liberal bloggers were also stranded in their own world of depressed disbelief over what was going on in America.  We won, we sobbed into our beer.  Why did an electoral win look worse than an election-night loss?  So, in disgust many of us on the Left retreated from the field and decided that our efforts had not been worthwhile.  Why did this happen to us?  What colored our new-found jaundiced view of our leaders?  And, more importantly, why were we so quickly discouraged?  These questions have played over and over in my head, and I think I may have discovered the reason for our reaction.

I remember when I was a child of around four or five and the kid next door realized that he could take my tricycle or wagon away from me at will.  Was he bigger than me?  No.  Was he meaner than me?  Yes.  He was a bully.  And he had an unexpected ally, my mother.  She was from an extended family of men and boys who were rogues, ruffians, womanizers and brawlers.  I remember going to visit my great-grandparents’ home in my early childhood, and it was just part of the experience to witness a front yard fist fight between my great uncles or my mother’s male cousins or the next generation of boys who were my age.  The punches would fly in the dirt yard in front of their hovel of a home, and cat calling would come from all the other members of the family who were not physically involved in this round.  It looked like a family version of what I have come to call “rasslin’.”  My mom, finding this behavior unacceptable and not wanting to expose her little boys to it, would yank us by our skinny arms and drag us to the car vowing to never return.  For a few years, we did return; but in time my mom abandoned this wing of her father’s family except for funerals.

All of this family background led my mother to adopt a no-tolerance attitude toward any kind of physical violence, especially by her boys.  So when Stevie, the kid next door would come over and scuff me up and take my trike or little red wagon, my dear, well-meaning mom would admonish me to not hit back, but instead allow him to “borrow” my things.  “He’ll bring it back,” she would say.  And, in truth, somehow, he would get around to bringing the stolen items back.  This went on for quite some time, and Stevie’s assaults on me became more and more violent until one day his punches drew blood several places on my face.  My mom was still adamant in her admonition against violence on my part, and believe me when I say that my mom was a lot scarier than Stevie.

But when my dad came home from work that day and questioned me as to why my face was all beat up, the rules took a dramatic change for the better.  He asked me if I hit Stevie back.  I said no.  He asked why, and I told on my mother.  It was scary.  But he summoned her into the living room–and in those days husbands were allowed to summon wives–and told my mom to let me hit Stevie back next time.  She protested mightily, citing her rough-house family and swearing her boys weren’t going to be like that.  But my dad held firm.

Make my day! © Jordano | Dreamstime.com

I remember the fear I felt the next day as Stevie came over to “play.”  I knew he would try to beat me up and take one of my toys, and I knew that my dad expected me to give as good as I got.  I was totally unprepared for such a thing.  After all, I had not been raised to be a fighter/brawler.  As always, the cocksure Stevie asserted his right to take my trike next door to his house, and I said no.  All I remember of the next few moments is his raised fist coming at me, and my blocking his punch and landing one of my own.  Stunned, he fell to the ground, and overcome by weeks of frustration, I mounted him and began pummeling him with my fists.  He quickly squirmed to safety and ran away.  It was exhilarating, and for the first time in my life I felt that I could stand up for myself.

© Wolfgang Amri | Dreamstime.com

Stevie came back the next day, but he didn’t try to take anything, and we became peaceful playmates, if not friends.  Unfortunately, this one incident from my childhood was not repeated, and I soon forgot the lesson it taught.  And by the time I reached adulthood, I too was a big believer in peace, love, and all that my generation were encouraged to embrace by our cultural icons.  It fit in with the way my mom had raised me and seemed right.  It still does.

© Niagaragirl | Dreamstime.com

Back to the present. After giving much thought to what I have witnessed since the election of Barack Obama, I realize that a new political bully has been sicced on the American people by the true powers of the Republican Party.  They have reached out and riled up their mean-spirited base and called upon it to come out and bully the Democrats out of doing what they promised to do when we elected them.  And we let them! They stole the show at every town hall on the healthcare debate.  They showed up with plenty of press coverage at every appearance by the President, and launched those ill-attended Tea Parties, which the media covered as though they were a massive movement of American sentiment.  BULLSHIT! But what did we do to express our anger and resentment?  NOT MUCH!

Just like the playground of our childhood, we have retreated from the field and allowed the bullies to set the rules.  We—that is, the Left—have demanded of our duly elected leader to stand up to them and not be swayed.  But we have done it by quietly grumbling under our breath and not going out and shouting the bullies down.  Where were we at those town hall meetings?  Where were we at those “tea parties”?  Where are we when President Obama comes to our hometowns?  Unfortunately, we are where we have been most of our lives: inside, close to our mothers, figuratively speaking, hoping the bully won’t find us and blow our houses down.

President Barack Obama speaks during a town hall meeting at University of New Orleans on October 15, 2009. UPI/A.J. Sisco. Photo via Newscom

I have been very disappointed with President Obama’s performance on the issues that I care most about, but I must say that he gently told us what we needed to do in order to help him help us.  He said we needed to step up and be heard.  He is right! We’ve got to get out there and MAKE the media notice us.  I know it is foreign to our natures, and I know it is not natural for us peace-loving liberals to get out there and shout down the kooks on the Right who pretend to represent a majority view that doesn’t show up in any polling data.  Like it or not, the election and inauguration of Barack Obama were just the first salvos in the trench warfare it is going to take to bring our nation into the 21st century with those who resist progress of any kind, kicking and screaming all the way.  We must accept the fact that they are always going to be there, kicking and screaming.  So we must also be there always, shouting them down and presenting logical solutions to the problems that everyday Americans are facing.

For too many years now, we who think progressively have ceded turf that should be ours to the right-wing fringe of the Republican Party.  It is time for us to come forward and start hitting back with the facts.  It is time for us to take our message to every working man and woman of this country, informing them that the Republican Party is in the business of protecting Big Business—not small business and certainly not people.  Small business owners are being duped into believing that Democrats are against them.  Does Halliburton look like a small business to you?  Me neither, too.  Do Exxon, Mobil, Aetna, Prudential, Bank of America or CitiBank look like small businesses to you?  Me neither, too.  Yet, Republicans in Congress are blocking every effort to make them play fair and stop ripping off the citizens and small businesses of this country.

Sep 28 2009 Filmmaker Michael Moore speaks about his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story prior to a screening of the movie at the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland on September 28, 2009. UPI/Kevin Dietsch Photo via Newscom

I know that Michael Moore is anathema to many in this country, but he is really onto something in his new documentary: Capitalism, A Love Story.  He shows how the supporters of Capitalism At Any Cost are draining away the tenets of our democracy.  With the power of lobbyists and campaign contributions, Big Business has bought and paid for our representatives in Washington while our attention has been diverted by religious and racial differences.  While we, the American people, have bickered over things that don’t even touch us in our daily lives, the bankers and investors have stolen the money out of our “free-market” economy and then looted our national treasury.  And they’re at it again!

Republicans and some Democrats are standing in the way of any efforts by the Federal Government to get in the way.  They warn of socialism, scaring people with a word that most don’t even know the true meaning of.  They say, “We don’t want to be like Europe.”  This is used in bank regulation debates and the healthcare debate by the Conservatives who block every effort to stop the onslaught against us by “capitalism.”  The fact is, Europe is already in a “strong recovery” from the financial collapse of last year. America is lagging far behind their “socialistic” success in putting a bell on the cat—that is, the banking sector of the world economy.

Bloggers Unite! © Jonathan Ross | Dreamstime.com

Who is going to tell these truths to the American people?  Certainly not a media that is dependent on advertising dollars for their own profit margins,  And certainly not Big Business who likes things in exactly the chaotic condition they have brought out their bullies to create.  So it falls to US.  It is time for us to stand up and be heard above the din of insanity that passes for political dialogue in this country.  Get back to your blogs, everybody, and start showing up with a sign of support at local political gatherings.  And when the crazies from the Far Right stand up and start shouting, SHOUT BACK, only LOUDER! That is the adult version of hitting back, and it is time to HIT BACK!

I am Jack, and I am who I am.  “With Liberty and Justice for All!”

PS.  Thanks to WillPen, I pass on this Michael Moore blog site where you can join him in doing 15 things to turn America around.  Go there and join in.  http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/Michael-moores-action-plan-15-things-every-american-can-do-right-now

LET’S GET BUSY!

I know it is very “unliberal” of me, but I’m sick unto death with political correctness.  If we do not find our sense of humor in this nation soon, we will descend into an even deeper pit of acrimony.

Courtesy of Murfaroo/Photobucket

I am aware from my own miserable experiences as a child who was called a queer—when I didn’t even know what that was—that it is not fun to be taunted on the school playground.  But I also remember what we were told time and time again by the adults of our world:  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.  I know from those experiences that words did, indeed, hurt me, but that was as a child.  Now, I’m all grown up and have grown some thicker skin.  The real truth of the matter is that name calling is a reflection, not on the person being taunted, but on the idiot who is delivering the taunt.  It tells us that the person is a hateful bigot, but it doesn’t really tell us if what they are shouting is true or not.

My point today is that we really, really need to get over it.  There is something different about every one of us, and folks are bound to notice.  I’m not only gay; I’m also old, skinny, long-haired, and a liberal Democrat.  I have a face that is too small for my nose, my neck is long and I hang around the house and yard dressed like a slob.  A couple of weeks ago, after our telephone and internet service had been down for four days due to some wiring problem, my mother-in-law dispatched the law out to find out if we were okay.  When the deputy from the Montgomery County Sheriff’s office knocked on the door, I was in all my finery: rumpled tee-shirt, old-style gym shorts, flip-flops, unshaven and without my biker’s ponytail—leaving my hair in its natural frizzed-out wizard-look glory.  He looked me up and down with great disdain.

I’m sure he thought I was some sort of dope-smoking hippy or crack-cooking miscreant.  His lingering stare from my hair to my feet was most uncomfortable, and led me to a small bout of anger directed at my mother-in-law for sending him here in the first place.  But later in the day I had to laugh at the scene as I played it over in my head.  “I’ll bet that never happened to June Cleaver,” I thought.  Of course not, she was the vision of perfection 24 hours a day, starched, coifed and bejeweled.  Like it or not, the days of old June are gone forever, and we need to realize that.  We also need to realize that we are all in line for some criticism, deserved or not, from our fellow men.  Like it or not, we’re all different.  Thank God for that.

But today, in a media-driven society where obsession is the flavor of every day, every disparaging word uttered by anyone considered newsworthy is grounds for a two- to four-day run of criticism and “expert” analysis.  Everyone is outraged!  Everyone is sanctimonious in their criticism of the culprit and acrimoniously demanding apologies and contrition.  Come on, now.  Who among us can truly step forward and cast that stone.  Be honest, now.  Don’t you at least notice the “difference” of that person that cuts you off in traffic, or grabs the last seat on the bus or train by hurrying in front of you?  If you can say that neither of these things apply to you, please go straight to the Vatican and pick up your sainthood.

The Goode Family...and dog

During the summer months there was an animated comedy show on ABC called The Goode Family.  I loved it; Mrs. Jack, on the other hand, squirmed in her chair and chafed at the humor it poked at liberalism.  If you missed it, I hope you can somehow find a way to see it, because to me it really captured a glimpse into the world we have come to.  The family, the Goodes, were dedicated to living the standards of environmental, organic, vegetarian and all-around thoughtfulness that we on the Left hold dear.

But the difficulties they encountered were as hilarious as they were real.  There was the boss’s wife, who was one of those pseudo-liberals we all know who shop at Whole Foods Market and continuously talk, talk, talk about their dedication to the greenness of the environment, but do absolutely nothing to help except buy expensive groceries as a status symbol.

But there was another character in this little tome that made me laugh until my sides were splitting: the family dog.  Mrs. Goode was determined to keep her dog, a big mutt, politically correct by feeding it only vegetarian dog food.  The poor thing was reduced to chasing down the neighborhood squirrels and other unsuspecting prey to fulfill its protein cravings.  But all in all it showed the difficulty encountered by everyday people trying to live up to the lofty standards being set for us.  But it was funny, and we on the Left need to be able to have a sense of humor about ourselves.

Carlos Mencia (PicApp)

One of my favorite stand-up comedians is Carlos Mencia.  He is the most politically incorrect performer I have ever seen in my life.  But he pokes fun at everyone equally.  Nobody is excluded from his sharp wit—gays, blacks, arabs, mentally challenged and, yes, even his own ethnic group, which he refers to as “beaners.”  In every show, Carlos, points out in the most hilarious way how funny everybody in America is to everybody else, and to themselves.  His audience is always a cross-section of the American melting pot, and everybody is laughing, even the butts of his jokes.

He tells a story about a mentally challenged fan one day coming up to him after his show and asking, “Why do you leave us out?  Don’t you like us?”  As Mencia tells the story, the young man went on to say, “We do funny things, too, and we laugh at ourselves like everybody else.  If you don’t make fun of us like everybody else, you’re being prejudiced against us.”  What a thought!

Isn’t it just as dishonest to hide what you think about others in front of them as it is to say what’s on your mind?  When we do this, that difference simmers underneath, disallowed its rightful expression, until it can boil over into a torrent of hate and resentment that can lead to violence.  Then words have literally been replaced by sticks and stones.

politically correct

adj. Abbr. PC

1. Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.

2. Being or perceived as being overconcerned with such change, often to the exclusion of other matters.

So the walls of the two social fortresses in America grow higher and thicker by the day and even run through the family gatherings we are all about to “enjoy” in the next few months.  Each family has its own.  Maybe there are openly gay members of a family, or mixed-racial marriages and children.  My family has both, and the tightrope is tight indeed.

I’m not advocating hateful verbal behavior against one another, but I think we have reached a point where our ability to be civil with those who disagree with us is being hampered by our guilt around political incorrectness.  And those who would stir the pot of hatefulness in our nation, like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Bill O’Reilly, are making a load of money by fanning those smoldering embers.  And, of course, they are trying to turn the whole thing around to where any criticism of conservatives is being labeled as bigoted, racial prejudice.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  We can all grow up and start acting like grownups.  If you want to call me a “faggot” or “queer” or whatever, just shout it.  I’m a big man now and can take it.  I would much rather you do that than to have you express your frustration by taking out your rifle and shooting into the front of a gay bar as you pass by, killing or hurting me or one of my friends who are just trying to have a nice evening out.  And if you choose to shout “faggot” or “queer” out your car window as you drive by on the street, I will smile to myself and realize that you have the problem, not me.  I will also choose to realize that your labeling me as something that I am, maybe not in those words, is nothing for me to feel shame about.  I am gay.  So what, “breeder”!  Oh, yes, we have names for you, too.  Doesn’t that make you want to run home and tell your mommy on me?  Probably not so much.  Me, neither.

Now there is one place I will say this kind of behavior should be discouraged: the schoolyard.  But good luck with that.  We all know the notoriously mean nature of kids.  Like it or not, they are just little copies of us.  They repeat and act out everything they see and hear adults do, so we have nobody but ourselves to blame for their behavior.  So I would hate to see this issue become one of those “no tolerance policy” things for children.  It only serves to send them back home to their parents who will teach them more of the same because now they are really mad at whatever group is “offended.”  Instead, these incidents would best be used as teaching moments by our educators.  And if parents don’t like teachers telling their children to be nice to each other, they can always establish a “private hate academy” to teach their “values.”  But I’m against vouchers for those schools.

“]But since the likelihood of kids stopping the time-honored tradition of taunting their classmates about every little thing that makes them different is remote, it is probably best to return to the old teaching on the issue: sticks and stones.  And as for the rest of us—you know, the “grown-ups”—it’s  time for us to start acting like grown-ups and be thoughtful about what we say about others, realize who the person with the problem is, and to “grow some skin.”  If you don’t ever think you are funny, find a therapist.  Everybody is funny!  Gay people are funny, and beauty queens are funny.  Even I am funny.

I am Jack, and I AM WHO I AM.

With Liberty and Justice for All!

Dr. Nancy Snyderman

That’s the word Dr. Nancy Snyderman used this morning on the Today Show in summing up their report on yet another child being denied healthcare insurance for dubious reasons.  “This is ridiculous,” she said.  Last week we had denial of coverage to an infant, less than one year old, because he was deemed to be obese by a healthcare insurance provider in Colorado.  Today’s report was yet a different healthcare insurance “provider” in Colorado that outrageously co-opts the golden rule in their name, Golden Rule Healthcare.  They claimed that a two-year-old girl was too thin and called it a pre-existing condition.  Too fat, too thin, it seems that the insurance companies that would have us believe that a government-run healthcare program would put grandma to death, are not blinking an eye as they exclude helpless children from coverage.

It is time for the madness to stop!  It is time for our politicians to stand up and do the right thing for the people of the United States of America and stop enabling the corruption that passes for healthcare insurance in this country.  It is time for the Republican Party to put away its insane get-Obama-at-any-cost strategy and to start being Americans, not Republicans first.  And it is time for us as American Citizens to bombard our Congressmen with e-mails, faxes and letters, letting them know that enough is enough and also letting them know that we will no longer stand idly by and allow the insurance lobby to buy off our representatives in Washington.  Remember the old “America First” cry of the 1980s?  It’s time for a new battle cry: Americans First!  Not insurance companies first, and not political parties first.

David Gregory, NBC

It is also time to tell our news providers that we are sick and tired of them promoting sensationalism over education.  Every major network has a website where you can send them messages about their broadcasting practices, and we should use them to demand that they provide us with facts and not fear-induced sensationalism.  It is time for us to follow through on what we intended to do last November and take our country back from the politicians and include the airwaves as well.  The Ridiculous Right has had their way with the media since inauguration day.  They have managed to organize, with the help of FOX News, those idiotic tea parties and steal the spotlight from the real issues of the healthcare debate by disrupting every town hall meeting that was held, shouting down anybody who had a real problem with the current healthcare system.  And it wasn’t just FOX News that helped their cause.  Every major news organization gave the shouting few center stage in the debate and failed miserably to go to the trouble of finding those who might have a legitimate concern with healthcare in this nation.

It has been particularly frustrating to those of us who live in states like mine, Texas.  My representative, Republican-first Kevin Brady, held several town hall meetings and what seemed to me to be pre-recorded “live” telephone town hall meetings for the sole purpose of getting the people in my area “stirred up” against Barack Obama and any sort of meaningful healthcare reform.  He did not offer one single idea about what to do, but instead encouraged the local “nuts” to cry and carry on about how Obama has “changed my country.”  He also allowed a woman in the “live” telephone town hall meeting that I listened to, to invoke the “death panel” argument without one word of correction on his part.  So, for those of us who do not agree with the Republicans and live here, it seems to be useless to contact him.  However, I have decided that I will contact him nonetheless to express my disapproval of his putting the Republican Party and big insurance companies ahead of his constituency in a state that ranks at the very top of the uninsured-Americans-by-state list.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison

I have made the decision to take the same tack with Senators Cornyn and Hutchison.  They both are dancing around the real needs of their constituents while waxing poetical about capitalism and free enterprise.  Kay Bailey Hutchison has announced her campaign for Governor of Texas next year, and promised to resign her U.S. Senate seat “soon” so that Texans can be represented in Washington.  But when pressed for a date of her resignation, she invoked the healthcare debate, claiming that she needed to remain in Washington until it is complete.  It’s a smokescreen of black proportions perpetrated on a bunch of Republican lackeys in our state who don’t seem to realize that she will be replaced by another Republican, thus making her “need to stay” bogus at best.  I have another idea for Senator Hutchison.  Instead of being a Republican in Washington, why doesn’t she become a Texan back home and take care of her “people” by getting them the much-needed healthcare they are lacking?  After all, her gubernatorial opponent, incumbent Rick Perry, will appoint a true conservative for her seat that will surely stop healthcare dead in its tracks, on threat of secession from the U.S.  So, Senator Hutchison, what do you say?  Are you fer us or agin’ us?  Just how much did big insurance contribute to your last campaign, and are they a major contributor to your bid for Governor of Texas?  I think we deserve an answer to those questions.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)

That brings me to John Cornyn, the silver-haired devil that just got re-elected last fall.  I’m sure that he will stand on his “mandate” in defending his defense of big insurance in Washington at the expense of the folks back home.  Knowing that there would be an Obama effect last fall, however, Cornyn campaigned on “changing Washington” if re-elected.  From what I’ve seen so far, all he’s changed is getting out of his cowboy duds worn during the campaign and back into the navy banker’s suit that he regularly wears.  John Cornyn doesn’t face re-election for five long years, and that would put him in the perfect position of being able to “do the right thing” and get some health insurance for his constituents back home and mend his Republican fences in time to run for re-election in, gulp, 2014, if he’s not raptured away in the meantime.  My bets are against any politician of either party getting raptured.  Just a thought.

What is clear to me is the fact that the Republicans are making everything into politics at the expense of those they claim to represent, and are helping just one group in America: Big Business.  All those who support the GOP because they somehow believe them to be more holy than the Dems are not looking at the facts.  Republicans use them to win elections and then abandon their causes when they take office.  I observe that abortion is still legal in America after 28 years of Republican rule over the past 41 years, during much of which the GOP held the White House and Congress, not to mention that strip clubs and adult bookstores remain open for business in the big cities of our country and some even along the interstate in rural areas.  YOU are being used!  Now, they want to convince you that any attempt to get YOU healthcare insurance at a reasonable rate so that you can have access to healthcare is some sort of socialist or communist plot against your church.  If you believe that, YOU are being used!

And the far right is not alone in being manipulated.  Those of us who regularly vote for Dems are also being used without any return on our investment.  But that is true for all Americans, no matter what your stripe.  It is time for us to put a stop to it and demand that the government we pay for in salaries and benefits packages work for us and not campaign contributors and lobbyists paid by those same interests to “protect” them from the PEOPLE.  In case you didn’t know, this is what Tort Reform is all about, protecting big business from THE PEOPLE.  They use medical malpractice lawsuits, which are few and far between, to hide their real agenda.

We, The People

It is long past time that We, The People, in order to form a more perfect union, stand up to the madness that has taken over our government and demand that our servants work for us and not the vested interests that hold them captive.  And it is also time for We, The People, to demand that news media stop manipulating us to please their sponsors—the same folks that donate all that money to our elected officials—and give us the FACTS about the issues that affect us every day.

In short: the royalists are still feasting at Versailles while THE PEOPLE are out of bread.  ENOUGH!

I’m Jack, and I AM WHO I AM.

FREEDOM AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

(Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

If you are gay and want to get “married,” what’s holding you back?  Go get married!  This idea may come as a surprise to many heterosexuals out there who do not know that gays can get “married” in every state in the union.  How can this be?  Hasn’t the Religious Right won every electoral battle on this front and thwarted any efforts on the part of gay Americans to get married?  The answer to the last question is an unequivocal “YES!”  Let the confetti fly!

"All Are Welcome." Courtesy of Icholakov at Dreamstime.

Did they, that is the Religious Right, overlook some loopholes in their draconian laws of prohibition?  Not even ONE!  So, Jack, you say, how can gay couples get “married” in every state of the union?  It’s a very simple matter.  Go to the nearest Gay Christian Church—that will most likely be in your nearest big city—and get married.  There are even some “accepted” Christian sects that will marry you.  Surprise, everybody!  Okay, okay, perhaps I overstated the simplicity of the process.

Most people would be surprised to learn that most gay Christian churches place restrictions on access to marriage.  One of those restrictions in most of them is a requirement that the couple live together for at least a year before the ceremony.  Now, that is not exactly comforting to Christian fundamentalists who would never allow their members to “live together” before marriage, if they knew about it.  Well, not exactly.  But they certainly wouldn’t encourage such a thing.

Christmas wedding. Photo courtesy of Mrs. Jack.

Many gay couples have been married in these ceremonies, and many, many more have had private ceremonies with ring exchanges and begun considering themselves “married.”  This is much the same as a common-law marriage in many states, Texas being one of them.  In Texas, heterosexuals are considered common-law married if they so much as refer to one another as husband or wife to their friends.  Interesting, huh?  As regular readers of my blog know, I had a relationship some years back with a man I loved.  It lasted five years until his death some 12 years ago.  But what I haven’t written about in the past is the fact that we had a small private ring-exchange ceremony on New Year’s Eve 1992.  It was caught on film by my beloved Mrs. Jack who has always been there for me.  For those who would cry “bigamist,” since it wasn’t “legal,” it didn’t count.  But from that day forward we considered ourselves married and wore our wedding rings everywhere except at work.

Two for the road.

During the five years of our “marriage,” we made an annual trip to Europe.  We always went on escorted tours where we were the only gay people in the group.  We also proudly wore our wedding rings.  It was always interesting watching the other members of the group as they figured out our status along the way.  Some seemed to recognize us as a couple almost immediately, but others would slowly come to the realization that we weren’t just friends or cousins or anything other than what we were.  The heartening aspect of these wonderful experiences was the fact that nobody ever treated us disrespectfully once they figured out the truth.  And we never revealed our relationship to anyone by word or action from beginning to end.  We just allowed our fellow travelers to know us as people and then know us as the gay couple we were.

Yes, we should take “Gay Agenda” away from our opponents and use it to our own advantage.  There is nothing wrong with having an agenda, but it is important that we set our own agenda and not let others define it for us.

At the restaurant

In our travels we sought out gay bars and restaurants in the cities we visited to mingle with other gays.  On one of our trips, the men of the group approached us near the end and asked if they could join us on one of our evenings out.  We told them that we weren’t sure they would really enjoy the places we went, and they graciously let the subject drop.  But what I really took away from these experiences was that people from all over America, from Arkansas to Chicago, were not offended by our presence in their midst.  But we were always respectful of them and did not push ourselves and our “lifestyle”—I hate that word—onto anyone.  I think that is important.

Mar 11 2004 BOSTON - MARCH 11: Anti-gay marriage protestors hold signs quoting the Bible outside the Massachusetts State House March 11, 2004 in Boston, Massachusetts. Inside, the state legislature was considering a possible constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage but allowing civil unions. (Photo by Michael Springer/Getty Images) Content © 2009 Getty Images All rights reserved.

What I am observing all these years later is a different atmosphere in the US than the one of my past.  It seems that a vocal minority has taken up the cause of not only resisting any moral acceptance of homosexuality, but is actively engaged in passing or renewing laws that make our very existence illegal.  They have seized the airwaves and the blogosphere to promote their agenda of hate against us.  It is regrettable, but not unexpected.  I still feel, however, as I wrote last week, that engaging in a debate with the far right is a useless waste of our energies.  So, my friends ask, what should we do?

After much thought on the matter, I have concluded that we should embrace the tag our opponents have given to our movement and say, “Hell, yes! We do have an agenda.  And our agenda is equal protection under the law.”  Yes, we should take “Gay Agenda” away from our opponents and use it to our own advantage.  There is nothing wrong with having an agenda, but it is important that we set our own agenda and not let others define it for us.  The American public is constantly being bombarded with the silly argument that the Gay Agenda is to end heterosexual marriage in America.  Is that what we are trying to do?  Not by a long shot.

What we are trying to do is to get the benefits that inure to one’s legal partner (spouse) with regard to civil law.  It’s interesting to me that the party of “no taxes”—that is, the GOP—is  particularly against any sort of tax break that may come to gay couples who are married.  It would appear that the party of “get the government of our backs” is more than willing to put its full pressure onto the backs of gay Americans.

The GOP continues to use us as a political football to court the Religious Right and to persuade them to support the GOP in their promotion of their real constituency—a very greedy capitalistic upper class who is draining the lifeblood out of our nation’s economy.  We are simply a diversionary tactic in their push for power.

But I digress.  Where are we going wrong in our push for equal rights under law?  What can we do to turn the tide of public opinion in our favor?  I see a couple of things that we would be better off doing.  One is to drop our fixation on the word “marriage.”  As I have pointed out, if that’s what you want, go get married.  What we really need is equal protection under law.

Photo courtesy of svilen001/stock.xchng

If you are a gay person in a committed relationship and have a job with benefits, your spouse should be eligible for those benefits just like any other spouse.  It is easy to see how the insurance industry might have a stake in denying us our civil rights.  Just a thought.  When my beloved passed away, I was prohibited by law from converting his 401k into one for me, although I was the rightful beneficiary.  DOMA forced me to cash it out at considerable penalty and negative tax consequences.  If I had been his “wife,” I could have rolled it over to myself tax free and secured a better retirement for myself.  This shouldn’t happen to us just because we are gay.

There is much made of the right of a gay partner to visit their loved one in the hospital and have a say in their medical care.  As I went through this, it was a different world.  We had been able, by will and living will, to cover our rights to take care of each other and secure inheritance from a family that would have swooped in like scavengers had I not been protected.

When the Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment was passed in Texas some five years ago, it nullified any such agreements entered into by consenting adults.  If a family wants to take the possessions of a gay couple away from the surviving “spouse” upon death, all they have to do is go to the courts of Texas and “get ‘er done!”  It’s a huge violation of the civil rights of gay persons to prohibit us from making our own decisions about our lives and estates.

So I present these few examples of legalized prejudice by the majority against a minority population in our so-called free Nation to illustrate that our oppression is real! And once again, we are left with plotting a course to reverse this discrimination against us.  In my opinion it all begins with us.  We must realize what we need as opposed to what we want.  I know many of my fellows want to say to their families that they are married.  But I assure you whoever in your family doesn’t agree with it, may never accept it.  What we need is for the various governmental entities of our nation to recognize our couplings, or dare I say unions?

5/26/09 LOS ANGELES: Supporters of same-sex marriage rally outside the East Los Angeles Recorder Office following the California Supreme Court ruling to uphold Proposition 8 May 26, 2009 in Los Angeles, California.

I know that many in the Prop 8 battle in California took exception to the idea of civil unions and pushed hard for “marriage.”  They failed.  And honestly they may have failed even if they had asked for “civil unions.”  We don’t know.  But the word “marriage” has become politically charged in our society, so much so that the Christian Right can unleash opposition that resembles a stirred up ant hill.  With the help of Christian Broadcasting Network and FOX News, they have an advantage that we cannot match up against.

We are like a high school football team taking on a professional football team.  We have not developed the muscle to overcome them.  This will take time.  But first we must commit to the cause no matter how long it takes.  Nothing comes easy for minorities, but the ballot box has proven time and time again to be the last victory.  It takes a well-organized PR campaign coupled with legislative and judicial action to succeed.  So we must develop both.  We must accept setbacks along the way and answer them with renewed vigorous actions.  That’s the only course to victory for us.

We saw in last week’s news that a white JP in Louisiana refused to marry a mixed-race couple.  In response to a complaint, the Republican Attorney General of Louisiana defended the JP by pointing out that while a mixed-race couple could be married now in Louisiana, there was no requirement that a JP perform the ceremony.  So even laws can be loop-holed through by those in power who disagree with them.

This should send a message to all Americans that your civil rights hang by a thread in many parts of our nation, and we must all fight for them before they are taken away.  Once again, I call upon all minorities to band together to assure that none of us is marginalized by democracy run amok in the form of a constitutional amendment denying civil rights to any particular group.  If unchecked, these “amendments” can crop up anywhere against anybody.

Photo courtesy of Barbara Din

And one last word to my gay brothers and sisters out there.  When we prevail in our efforts, PLEASE, DO NOT rush out in front of the cameras planting sloppy kisses upon one another after your ceremony at the courthouse.  Those pictures from San Francisco set our movement back 10 years.  Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it.  I advise those who would disagree with this advice to go spend the day out in front of your local courthouse and observe how many heterosexual couples come out onto the steps and plant sloppy kisses upon one another after getting married.

There is a time and place for everything.  The time is when the conductor of the ceremony says, “You may kiss the [fill in the blank.]”  Be happy in that moment and be grateful for those who are in attendance to celebrate your happiness.  But, PLEASE, PLEASE do not force some religiously conservative mother to frantically rush from the kitchen to the den to keep her children from being “exposed” to your happiness on TV.  She will rise up with her friends and smite you down if you do—and the rest of us in the process.  All I’m saying is BE THOUGHTFUL and respect her right to believe what she believes as we ask her to respect our beliefs.

I’m Jack, and I am what I am.

“With Liberty and Justice for ALL”

The “coming out” experience for me and I would guess most of my fellow GLBT community members was the beginning of a quest for acceptance from our families and friends.  For me, it was a mixed bag which led to both comfort and heartbreak.  While most of my friends in Dallas, where I lived at the time, were accepting and understanding of my confession of gayness, my family – in the throes of a new-found fundamentalist conversion – warned of the dire consequences of my “decision.”  My mother cried and carried on, doing as she always does, blaming my wife for not being a better woman.

I overcame my anger at her for attacking my dear wife and informed her that it had NOTHING to do with that.  I reminded her that I had come out to her many years earlier, between wives.  My mom was not religious in those days, but still mounted a strong objection on the grounds of what her family would think if they found out.  And when I married a few years later, she was sure that my wife would change me and told me so.  I didn’t believe her, but years of brainwashing made me hope that she was right.  Of course, she was wrong.

All of that aside, after 14 years passed I could not deny the facts of who and “what” I was any longer and embarked on living a life of truth.  In time my mother at least said that she accepted me as I was, but my dear brother with whom I had been so close in my early 20s became the greatest obstacle of all.  In response to repeated bouts of drug-related failures in his life, he “found” Jesus, and now, a repentant sinner, was determined to “straighten me out.”

The assault began and has lasted for over 20 years, destroying any sort of meaningful relationship that we might have had.  Under the idea of quest, he and I have waged a holy war of sorts to get each other to understand the error of our respective ways.  He constantly reminds me of the angry and vengeful god he worships, hoping to scare me into compliance with his belief system.  I stubbornly refuse to believe that God is either angry or vengeful.  I believe God to be kind and loving.  It is an impasse that has led to dead ends and a period of “cease talk” between us.

I hear similar stories from my friends in the GLBT community all the time.  My tale of family discord is by no means rare.  In fact, it is common.  We all have a parent or sibling or aunt or uncle or grandparent who is absolutely adamant that God is going to send us straight to hell, and who wants to “punish” us into compliance with their religious views on the issue.

Sarah Palin

While my brother never misses a chance to vote Republican and is a big fan of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck, at least he is not an activist.  That role falls to one of my Okie aunts who is a Republican activist.  You will see her out with her friends carrying signs in front of the State Capitol in Oklahoma City decrying gays, abortionists, welfare mothers and sundry and other liberal sinners.  It is her belief that everything that doesn’t conform to her narrow view of morality should have a law of prohibition placed upon it.

This brings me to a movement within the GLBT community I have both observed and at times participated in.  That movement is to get the various Christian denominations to recognize gays as acceptable.  Oh, yes, I’ve walked both sides of this one over the past 20 years.  Sometimes I have tried to belong to Gay Christian Churches and Organizations in hopes that my family would see that I could be a good Christian and still be gay.  Nobody would buy it.  In the eyes of everyone, including my mother, these were not acceptable churches and were “misleading me” with their interpretations of the Bible.

Now, before I run off anyone who is a Gay Christian, I admire those who are able to balance their faith with being gay.  That has proven impossible for me on many, many occasions.  God knows I’ve tried and tried and tried.  But invariably where I end up in these attempts is being swayed by some religious-but-not-spiritual leader to believe that the problem isn’t that their church doesn’t accept me as I am, but instead that I need to change in order to be acceptable to God.  So, I try that.  That is the unkindest cut of all and leads me to a very dark place where, honestly speaking, I feel the only solution is suicide.  God doesn’t love me, so I should die.  Okay, I admit that’s ridiculous.  But feelings are feelings.

What I have finally come to believe is that what I wanted all along was for “the church” – that would be The Pope of Rome or some other religious leader — to come to embrace me as acceptable and tell my family to get off my back.  You know, the kind of spiritual leader who would admonish the faithful to stop judging and leave it to God.  That’s what I was hoping for.  Instead, all I have found is a bunch of mean-spirited religious leaders who want to stone me to death.

Now, there have been some recent exceptions, notably the Episcopal Church.  But we all know the firestorm that ignited.  And what I have come to realize is that, if God Himself descended from the heavens and appeared miraculously to every man, woman and child in the world, most if not all right-wing religious fundamentalists would claim it was a trick of the devil.  So guess what?  There’s no relief from this mindset.  These folks have got their hearts frozen in place.

I do find it interesting that so many who consider themselves to be Christians fail to mind the cautionary tale that is contained in the crucifixion of Jesus.  It was the simplest thing in the world for the religious leaders, that is, the Priests of the Temple, to persuade the masses in Jerusalem that Jesus of Nazareth was evil and meant them great harm.  The story recounts how the crowd actually called for his execution in a most cruel manner.

Yet we see an entire group of people in our society who blindly follow their religious leaders without the slightest hesitation or question of what their religious leaders’ “agenda” might be.  If you’re looking for signs in the Bible, this story of religious leaders’ complicity with a corrupt King Herod and The Roman Empire should be carefully studied.  Bet you won’t hear a sermon about that next Sunday.

But I digress.  After all these years, I have finally learned the thing I was overlooking in my quest for acceptance.  Like Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers, it has been there all along.  It is something that Barrack Obama might want to take a look at.  In our desire to please everybody, we often fail to please ourselves and those who are worthy of our efforts to please.  In our mad rush to gain the acceptance of those who will never under any circumstances accept us, we take for granted those who do.

It is time for us to take a look around ourselves and find those who accept us and are willing to join us in our cause and let go those who refuse under any circumstances to accept us.  I know it is a hard thing to do because it means a change of vantage point.  But everything begins at the vantage point, and that is within ourselves.

The hardest person I had to win over and convince that it was “okay to be gay” was ME!  After years of religious and spiritual searches and psychoanalysis, I have finally come to realize that I make the decision about who I am and say whether or not it is okay.  Until I can accept myself as a gay man, nobody else will.  It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks about it.

I have lived all these years and have amassed all of this experience and knowledge about myself, and I know I’m gay.  I know that I was created this way and no amount of tinkering by myself or others is going to change it.  So as I go forward, I focus my efforts on the things that are important: my physical safety and personal freedom to be who I am.  As far as what people who don’t even know me have to say, that is their opinion.  And this is mine!

I am Jack, and I AM WHAT I AM.

With Liberty and Justice for all!