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(Yes, Virgina. There is a sexblog.)
About
July 04,
My mother once asked me...
added: 2003-07-04 13:01:07 | link | discuss this entry
what she did right to make all of her children be accepting of GLBT folk and gay rights. It was, in a way, a ludicrous question because she asked it over a family gathering that included a gay couple my age that she, my dad, and my aunt had adopted into our family. The obvious answer was right before us: Because our elders set a good example for us.
That example actually started decades before, when we were children. I never knew my parents to question the necessity of the civil rights movement. I grew up knowing it was the right thing for America and my parents actually had to work harder at explaining the nature of prejudice and hatred to us kids than they did the matters of color and inclusion. Same with religion; my parents passed their respect for the outsider history of the American Jew onto us kids. And, yes, we had friends of color and of varying religious backgrounds throughout my life.
I think the prejudice they faced growing up in large, proverty-stricken families, my paternal grandfather's excommunication for marrying a Protestant woman and being declared dead to his Catholic family over that choice, and my mom's early teen years as a polio victim were the formative experiences that determined their outlook. They had lived as outsiders. They understood the pain that came with it.
They identified as outsiders, even though nobody used identity language in the 1950s and 1960s. Then, as young adults, they also bore witness to the government's first move towards civil rights justice: They were an USAF family during its decade of integration and the experience validated their growing sense of social justice.
My first exposure to the gay rights movement came when watching the evening news one night in the early 1970s. I don't remember Stonewall specifically, but I do know I remember that the faces marching the streets were no different to me than those who marched for other causes. That their signs spoke of gay rights wasn't at all different to me than those that called for women's liberation or equal rights for all. From day one, it was a matter of civil equality and social acceptance. When Anita Bryant came along several years later, it only reinforced my views.
With that in mind, I'm going to spend the next days running links that respond to Lawrence v Texas. Oh, I'll include a few of the more usual sexblog links, but I've had a lot of time over the last couple of days to look at the media response specifically. (What, with being a touch under the weather yet again.)
For starters, pause today, the 4th, and remember that it wasn't always this free for GLBT Americans. How was then? Consider what John Rechy, largely considered to be the father of modern gay novel, and Village Voice executive editor Richard Goldstein have to say about it. Take a look at the Village Voice's other articles associated with the ruling, too, while you're at it.
Think about the way it was.
June 30,
It's big news here in Connecticut...
added: 2003-06-30 11:52:56 | link | discuss this entry
The passing of Katherine Hepburn, that is. It's not just a shoreline story either because Hepburn grew up in Hartford. Her parents were unconventional figures in their day:
Her father, for many years the chief urologist at Hartford Hospital, attracted notice as an early advocate of public education about venereal disease.
Hepburn's mother had an even more controversial public career. She was an active, and highly visible, supporter of women's suffrage and legalized birth control.
Despite Hepburn's mother's early 20th-century advocacy, birth control would become legal in Connecticut in the 1960s and only after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Griswold v. Connecticut. (Visit Planned Parenthood's timeline to see Connecticut's role in American birth control history.)
According to the article I've linked to, her motherwas virtually shunned on the streets of Hartford for her outspoken views, and today is considered a co-founder of Planned Parenthood.
In the early on-air announcements of Hepburn's death, I heard an "in lieu of flowers" claiming that donations can be made to her favorite charities and Planned Parenthood was named among them, but damned if I can't find that in print anywhere.
Hepburn's relationship with Spencer Tracy was, in fact, a pivotal revelation for me. When Tracy died, I was eleven and his passing was big news locally, of course, because of Hepburn's Connecticut ties. I must've picked up on the nature of their relationship and asked some pointed questions because I remember my mother very patiently explaining the details to me. It was the first time I'd heard of extramarital affairs and yet the look on my mother's face told me that this particular example was complicated and anything but tawdry and ruinous. I realized even then that it had an element of honor that comes when life hands you less than ideal circumstances.
I don't think I truly appreciated Hepburn's unconventionalism until some of those same kinds of choices and unconventionisms would come into my own life. Before then, she was an interesting film figure from a generation that was older than my parents. Who knew common threads, well above generational differences, would emerge.
Incidentally, I find it amusing that she compared herself to the Flatiron Building, located in a NYC area that I wandered earlier this year. Like I said, common threads. Common -- not exceptional -- but they resonate with me.
June 27,
Yes, it's a fine week...
added: 2003-06-27 11:47:39 | link | discuss this entry
in America. I'm very pleased that family, friends, and acquaintances will no longer be viewed a practicing criminals, thanks to the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas. Consider the language of the ruling:
The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. "It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter." Casey, supra, at 847. The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual. Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Texas Fourteenth District is reversed,and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And so close to the anniversary of Stonewall, too.
Of course, Scalia is sounding more and more misanthropic in purely contemporary terms, which is fine by me. While dissent like his must be welcomed within the sphere of discourse, it should not be recognized for anything other than living prejudice. And reactionary, too:
State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today's decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding.
May Scalia's worst fears come true. Frankly, the sooner America becomes like Canada and Western Europe, the sooner it can truly tout that it prizes freedom for all. Right now, we still look like a bunch of moral neanderthals.
Well, a little less so, thanks to the ruling, but still. Cruise the fundie right sites on your own and you'll see what I mean.
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