NC Senator Forrester Dead at 74

Breaking news- Staunch conservative North Carolina senator Jim Forrester has passed away at the age of 74.

While it would be unkind to speak ill of the dead, it bears noting that Forrester's handiwork seems poised to do some very real damage to domestic partnerships of both heterosexual and same sex couples due to (vague wording  of the amendment) well after his passing. A legacy tarnished by the looming prospect of enshrining hate legislation into the North Carolina constitution. I don't think Forrester is a bigot of the same caliber as Jesse Helms...but there are grave discriminatory implications to the bill he rammed through the house that make it harder to look favorably upon his body of work as a whole.

The damage he's done to the state's image and its credibility as a progressive place to live will likely outlive him by quite a bit. Especially so as the vote for the state constitutional amendment goes forward in May. Stay tuned.

Speaking of loss, Six Feet Under's series finale still manages to trump any other as one of the most memorable and sweetly satisfying in television history. It makes death and dying seem somehow less crushing.

Old Habits Die Hard- Alabama and Institutionalized Discrimination

"Hispanic Alabama Schoolchildren Face Bullying In The Wake Of Anti-Immigrant Law"

This should come as little surprise. When a society creates law and policy that reinforce underlying prejudices we often very quickly see this reflected in more open hostility towards people perceived as part of the group.

Of course its a shame that anti-imigrant sentiment has driven politicians of the state of Alabama to do, perhaps, what seems normal in their circles, and create laws that make treating other people like equals impossible or criminal. What generally follows, when one institutionalizes cruelty, is that people become cruel and discriminating towards anything aproximate to the blighted group in question. We're certainly seeing this here.Human decency and fairness take a backseat to policing the overt cultural biases.



UPDATE: Excellent op-ed in the NY Times on the subject here.

And now for some daytripping music. Killer track from Chromatics, "In the City".

And Yet We Never Learn. (On the Tyranny of the Majority)

It bares noting that our little state of North Carolina is, as of the recent vote in the State House, due to have a very public, very likely messy Proposition 8 debacle to call our very own. The House passed the initiative within a comfortable margin, and seems likely to make the state a "culture war" battle ground when it comes to pass. Nothing's quite as fun as having one's friends and neighbors weigh in on whether or not they should have the luxury of being in a economically and legally approved relationship. What those unaware of the tyranny of the majority argument and all the sign waiving "Let the People Vote!" individuals don't seem to get it is that if we allowed the majority of white male landowners to vote on desegregation, interracial marriage, womens sufferage and the like? We'd still be in the cultural stone ages. I'd still be staring at the world through "coloreds only" windows and we'd all be shooing women back to their private spheres. One of the reasons I believe that we've gotten as far in the business of equality as we have is because...on many of the other minority politics issues, federally, we haven't allowed small town thinking and poorly rationalized biases get in the way of fairness and decency.

Democracy is a fascinating, often complicated thing. I find here that people seem absolutely oblivious to how biases towards other groups who share (or ought to) their status as Americans could allow their "vote" on the ability for the state to recognize their relationship as valid might be an integrity issue. In a just world, I don't want to have to vote on the relationships, or rights of others I may harbor biases against, as it is far easier a thing to act against their civil liberties and do harm to the quality of life of others. It should never be my place to dictate my terms and expectations onto other citizens, and I find it a throwback to the days of Jesse Helms to watch this ominous possibility present itself. To watch others line up to restrict the rights of their fellow citizens so willfully, so gleefully is a miserable thing to have to stomach. I expect we'll be discussing the issue a great deal more in the future. As much as its beneath the dignity of any civilized person to have to make a case for their equality (rights they should have by proxy of being a citizen or a human being), it does seem to be the way our woefully flawed society works when it regards minority issues, and yet we never learn.

UPDATE: I've been combing through NC politics blog "the Progressive Pulse" and found this bit from Democrats in against the amendment. Its not rosy, but there was/is some impassioned speaking on the behalf of the maligned at the very least.

Here. Mood music.

Teen Suicide Factory

The Teen Suicide Epidemic in Michele Bachmann's District | Mother Jones:

At this point it is safe to say Anoka-Hennepin school district is developing something of an image problem. The district has had a high teen suicide rate the past two years, and amid the spat of homophobia fueled suicides in 2010, began to come up as part of the dialog on volatile issue.

Its interesting to note that the school has, within the past two school years, had 6 suicides that have been linked to sexual orientation and subsequent bullying. Additionally, the school's policy on bullying when it pertains to real or imagined glbt issues is decidedly lackluster:

The Ankoa-Hennepin school district “neutrality” policy has been in place since 1995 and restricts teachers from speaking about lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) persons in the classroom. Local teachers have also come forward to speak out against the “neutrality” policy because they say it restricts discussions and enforcement of bullying and harassment polices and does not create a safe school environment often leaving them unable to to help.

The school's policy on neutrality essentially ties the hands of teachers and health professionals in the district and dissuades intervention or any affirmation of those perceived as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender while...not addressing the causal factors of said bullying whatsoever. One of the results? A suicide rate that is quickly becoming one of the highest in the nation, and an apparent apathy about modifying policy enough to counteract it. The policy itself hangs frozen in a strange sort of ideological limbo in which it must attempt impartiality while not actively affirming what could be seen as an endorsement of the "homosexual agenda"(tm). The area's educational professionals expressed some justifiable confusion as to how to proceed, leaving the socio-environmental conditions perpetuating the toxicity of bullying unchecked.

The Justice Department, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, The Southern Poverty Law Center and National Center for Lesbian Rights have all been investigating Anoka-Hennepin since 2010, with the SPLC and NCLR both recently filing suit against the district over the detrimental policy and the hostile social climate of the school district.

The Mother Jones' article by Stephanie Mencimer notes a tactic put to use by area churches looking to counter what they feared were "pro-gay" messages, in which they passed out "Day of Truth" tees and encouraged christian teens to "preach to" those they perceived as gay.

Another volley in the so-called culture wars, but ones with very real, very awful implications for those with the misfortune of being labeled as "other". If we entitle children and justify those that want to enforce school sanctioned repression through bullying, we further perpetuate the meme that some viewpoints and lives are more important than others, which by extension is nowhere near neutrality in my mind.

Above, is a clip from series 5 of the ever trendsetting series Skins. Franky's a troubled, ostracized androgynous teen who has yet to find her place. She makes for some compelling storytelling.

On the "Will of the People" (tm)

Boehner says no House vote on DOMA repeal | Washington Blade - America's Leading Gay News Source

Here's an interesting lesson in political jargon. When DADT, Proposition 8 and the recent votes to legalize gay marriage in NY state were major political issues, we'd hear quite consistently how we needed to "Let the people vote!!!". The reason for this is a sheer matter of numbers and social conservative pragmatism, as NOM and the likes assume (narrowly in the case of Proposition 8) that people will invariably vote to suppress the rights of their neighbors should they "disagree with some aspect of their lifestyle choice". They assume- marginally correctly- that (older, more religious) people will find the gays vile enough, and have no network connections to actual gay people and therefore will be more apt to enshrine glbt discrimination into policy (or at least vote in favor of it).

But there's some indication that this assumption can be made less safely now, as the above article makes an interesting distinction:

“A number of House Republicans have told me privately that they feel the same way,” Nadler said. “This, coupled with the fact that there is now a majority of Americans who support equality and with the recent polling data showing that a majority of Republican voters want GOP leadership to give up their position on this matter, means that it is only a matter of time before we act in a bipartisan manner and repeal DOMA. And, believe me, we will keep pushing to get it done until we have succeeded.”

Interestingly, the data from Proposition 8 even showed a gradual sea change on the attitudes of younger Americans towards same sex marriage. Glenn Beck, the afore-reviled Ken Mehlman and other staunch conservative figures have since noted that the vehement traction on the wedge issue is much less there. (With the likes of Mehlman this is of course too little, too late as he's one of the architects of DOMA in the first place.) During the elections that hammered through anti-gay marriage legislation on both the state and federal levels during the Dubya years, the anti-gay rhetoric was turned up to 11, and the "Will of the People" was done; At least according to the staunch conservative policy groups like NOM who make a very handsome living being professional homophobes. Look at the rhetoric being used here: Allowing people to vote on gay rights issues = the will of the people. Not allowing people to vote on DOMA = prudent officiating. Its artifice at its most transparent to suggest that NOM and the American Family Association are interested in the will of people who do not side with them on this issue. For groups like this, their tactics and ploys to perpetuate political inequality are good and noble...but only when they do them. Some of their press on gay rights issues shatters the misconception they push about "just being about preserving marriage" and "not being explicitly anti-gay". NOM's activity, tweets and talking points have long since gone beyond opposite sex marriage and ballooned into full blown completely transparent anti-gay rhetoric. If anyone ever bought the idea that they "merely disagreed over allowing gay people to call it marriage" we can dispense with that naivete now.

The consolation prize is that these issues are nominal in the grand scheme, and ultimately love will win over inequality. I'm confident of that much. The world can be a beautiful, inclusive place, "the kids are allright" and I for one am pleased to see the changes on the horizon for what they are.

Here's some Earworm for you, courtesy of Empire of the Sun- "Walking on a Dream" (Seriously, I'm trying not to adore this song) The original is lovely too.

On Pledges, Preambles and Other Putridness.

Conservative group backtracks on marriage pledge slavery language - Maggie Haberman - POLITICO.com

Ahhh, the day to day fascination that is following American politics. There's grandstanding. There's posturing. There's vast distortion...and there's this...

"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA?s first African-American President,"

Some of the most vile, infuriatingly pat justifications I ever heard of Antebellum slavery in American History was that "at least it wasn't as brutal as slavery in other parts of the world"1 , or "Black people were happier or better off under slavery". A social institution that bred, bought and sold persons as though they were baseball cards (or Pokemon) , separated "families" as it was profitable, and generally denied the ability to have meaningful longterm relationships with their spouses and families should it have interfered with their prime directives was somehow the halmark of hearth and home. Or whatever other lies one will tell oneself in order to avoid the real, horrid human costs of southern history.

A quick internet query refutes the dizzy notion of two-parent household bliss in the Antebellum slavery system fairly succinctly, saying:

Marriage was not a locked-in-condition. Strings were attached which had an effect on slaves who tried to marry and live in the cities. Moreover, "a house was not a home." Slaves families cold hardly exist in bondage. A marriage contract was not recognized as law, the circumstances being a negative response. Children of this marriage were to become the property of the master and not the parents. This situation was the general condition of slavery.

the Slate.com does considerably better, directly countering the absolute lunacy of the above "preamble", and fully debunks the falacy of the stable slave family with the appropriate vigor:

Because of the high premium placed on male labor, throughout every period of American slavery, black men were the most likely to be parted from their families. For slave owners, who considered the basic family unit to be comprised of mother and child, husbands and fathers could be, and were, easily replaced. Many a slave woman was assigned a new husband by her master. Male children were also frequently taken from slave mothers. The bond between an enslaved mother and daughter was the least likely to be disturbed through sale. Yet this tie was also fragile. Owners could reap large returns by selling pretty girls, especially light-skinned ones, into prostitution or concubinage.

Does that sound like a stable, loving familial environment to you? What I find curious about the Family Leader's eagerness to get a dig in at the standing President and bemoan the less than idyllic black single parent household that it would omit historical reality in order to do so. Its beyond contemptible, and its fairly damning that Bachman and Santorium signed this "lofty" pledge that disparages and ignores the complex social realities foisted upon American slaves so readily. Perhaps not as telling when we stop to consider Rick Santorium and Michelle Bachman have no lost love for other cultural minorities.

• Bachmann on a very passionate tirade about gay people being "of Satan" and lamenting for the days when gay people were mocked on television (courtesy of Goodasyou.org ).
  
• Santorium, what can I say about Mr. Santorium that isn't more fun to Google for yourselves?
• Anderson Cooper 360's "Keeping Them Honest" coverage on "reparative therapy" and the Bachmann PR problem.

In the meantime, I'll just be rolling my eyes and wondering what other sorts of outlandish misconceptions the two of them could step in before the election cycle begins in earnest. Its going to be a very fun trainwreck.

And now a bit from the ultra-lovely new Bon Iver album (Its been on repeat for days and days on my ipod). I think a calming influence may be needed after trying to comprehend troll logic. Later days.