How can I help?

In the days after September 11th, many companies were hit very hard by the attacks. After the attacks, people made a vow, a vow that they believed enough in the American economy that instead of selling, they vowed to buy stock in a company hit directly by the attacks.

In the days after Hurricane Katrina, many people have been hit very hard. Their homes damaged, flooded or destroyed, separated from their love ones, and we can only pray that they are rejoined safe and sound.

So what can I do? One answer might surprise you.

In addition to contributing and volunteering where you can:

Use less gas.

20% of all oil used in the United States comes in through the Gulf states affected by the Hurricane. The very same people who have been devastated by this Hurricane are responsible for getting these facilities back online. The same people have homes that have been devastated or destroyed. They have to get their lives back online first.

By the sheer volume of oil going through this region, these people will be under extreme pressure to get oil production facilities back online, at the same time as they try to get their own lives back in order. That's assuming demand for oil remains the same.

You can help out by giving them some relief. You can do this by saving on trips, car pooling, using public transit. By reducing your own demand for oil, you are telling the citizens of Louisiana, Mississippi, and all the Gulf states affected by the Hurricane: "I can wait to fill up my tank. Go home, make sure your loved ones are safe, and do what you need to do, because I can wait."

The people of the Gulf Coast need you now more than ever.

Please pass this on! Every person who saves a gallon of gas is more time someone in the Gulf Coast can work on getting their own lives in order!

Thank you.

Those who never knew history happened are doomed to repeat it

Let me start off by saying I'm just as guilty as anyone else. Before I saw this, I never had any idea this conflict happened. I never heard a story, nothing. I think I had hear at one point Algeria was a French colony, and French was one of their official languages and that was it.

That being said, let me introduce you to probably one of the most important film of our times, and it was made 40 years ago. In French.

The film is called "The Battle of Algiers." I knew of it only because it showed up as one of the top foreign films on my Netflix recommendations. I put it in my queue, and watched it last weekend.

To give you a brief history lesson, the French occupied Algeria in about 1830. Apparently after a brief period, there was a relative calm for many years. Mind you, Algeria is a Islamic country. (Is this starting to sound familiar?) Then in 1954, the Arabic people of Algeria started to fight back against the French, upset about what they saw as a desecration of their Islamic state, allowing alcoholism, prostitution, and a whole slew of excesses to continue against their beliefs. (That's where the movie starts.)

One of the most profound lines in the movie was the Colonel discussing the current situation. "The problem is that the Algerians want the French out. The French don't want to leave. Should we remain in Algeria? If you answer 'yes,' then you must accept all the necessary consequences." In involves a bloody conflict, police states, torture.

The French were able to eliminate the resistance. One-by-one, they infiltrated the terrorist structure, but only after they killed or tortured many Algerians, many of whom were only bystanders or neighbors to those in resistance, and many of them got killed in the process as well.

And then two years later, the entire country rose up against the French. Two years after that, the French finally pulled out, and Algeria got it's independence.

And why is it so relevant to today? We're a western country occupying an Islamic state. In the minds of many of the citizens of Iraq, we're just as bad as the French were in Algeria. However, the problem is somewhat same, somewhat different: The Iraqi people want us out. We don't want to leave, at least until a stable democracy is in place.

Let me say, I'm not taking either side. Both sides engaged in acts that were reprehensible. Terrorism is horrid, and war is never pretty.

But perhaps the greatest thing I got out of this film was a greater understanding of the Islamic people, why they hated the French, and why they would hate us. And what we can learn from their mistakes, and keep from another American dying. Perhaps the Iraqi people need that assurance that no, we don't want to be in Iraq forever, and exactly what our goal in Iraq is.

Mind you, my chief complaint with the war in Iraq is not that we should leave now. It's that the war has been mishandled so incredibly badly, and that everytime they screw up, people die.

And for people who had no idea history happened before are doomed to repeat it.

What did Republicans say about the war?

I love quoting Republicans.

"You can support the troops but not the president."
--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years."
--Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"
--Sean Hannity, Fox News

"[The] President ... is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."
--Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."
--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."
--Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning ... I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."
--Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"
--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
--George W. Bush (R-TX)

The last quote was by Governor George W. Bush, and all of the quotes are referring to President Clinton's decision to commit troops to Bosnia, which we won that war without a single soldier killed in action.

Einigheit und Recht und Freiheit

You know it's stuff like this that just makes me want to move.

I got a report that there's a referendum up for vote in Maine that, unlike so many of the referendums before, would grant discrimination protections to gay people. It's been attempted before, but now polls show it actually might pass this time.

Let me not dance around this issue: In Maine, gay people have no protection against discrimination, and same sex couples have none of the equal rights as their heterosexual counterparts. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. This referendum would at least be an olive branch by progressive people who think that gay people should be treated like their fellow human beings.

So is the right just sitting down? Their response? They're scaring people into believing "this is just one step towards gay marriage." As if giving people the same rights is the absolute worst thing in the world you can do. It has absolutely nothing to do with marriage, not even granting any equal rights to same sex couples, and yet they want the smokescreen to make you think it is. They will even lie to get their way.

Mind you, right now in Maine, gay people have NO protections, NO equal rights. Try and give them anything? The right attempts to scare the holy hell out of the people, even willing to lie in order to do it.

Here in California, there's an enormous threat looming as well. A few different groups have different versions of a proposed constitutions that would essentially all do the exact same thing. 1) They want to define in the constitution of the state of California that marriage is one man and one woman. And 2) it will rescind all protections for domestic partners.

Now part of me wants it to go to the people, because it is so far reaching, it very well could fail, but only after an awful terrible fight, of Californian against Californian, and they brought on the hate. If it were to fail, it would be a resounding defeat, not only against such a horrible attack on gay people, but the Right constantly quotes the results of Proposition 22, a referendum in 2000 that defined in law (but not in the constitution) that marriage should be defined as only between a man and a woman. Mind you a lot has happened in those five years, and if this new, much further-reaching referendum would fail, it would give us a chance to say that the people rejected that argument, and lead the path to full equality for all committed couples.

But I ask you, what does that say about our country when I want to be treated with respect, given the same rights, privileges and responsibilies as anyone else, that I have to move to Germany. Germany. Not exactly a country with a history of tolerance, and yet they are infinitely more progressive than the U. S. of A. in terms of equality.

One has said that while the fight for marriage equality has pushed back the fight in other states in the US, it has actually helped in other countries, where fair-minded leaders across the world have seen for themselves that same sex couples actually need to be protected from the ravenous hatred of the far right. Countries like the Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and Spain get the headlines for same sex marriage, but many other countries have granted many, if not all, of the protections, including France, Austria, England, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Greenland, Hungary, Croatia, Luxemborg, New Zealand, Israel, South Africa (another country not known for tolerance), some states in the Pope's backyard of Italy, with law passed but not yet in effect in Switzerland, and of course, "meine Lieblings", Germany.

But not a single right in the United States.

Mind you, the title of this post is the first words of the German National Anthem, and it means "Unity, Justice and Freedom".

When it comes to justice and freedom, it certainly sounds more convincing auf Deutsch.

Oui! Oui!

Stuff like this only happens in San Francisco.

Last Sunday, I made it to see the A's play the Twins over in Oakland. Once a year, I try to make it to see the Twins when they play in Oakland. I was conflicted though. Who do I root for, the Twins or Oakland? And if I root for Twins, should I watch out for knives? After all, this is Oakland. I'm kidding! Either way, it's a good game for me, although it was incredibly short, almost exactly two hours. But a few beers and an escape from the fog makes it worth it.

Anyways, so one of the more interesting parts was that there were two French guys sitting directly behind us. As in like from France, French. They apparently had never been to a baseball game, because the one kept having to explain the rules to each other. In French of course. (The friend I went with is French Canadian.) Part of me thought it was cute that two French guys would take time and money out of their vacation to see what this whole American game was all about. Not exactly foie gras.*

So it was tied up 1-1 until the 9th inning. The Twins got another one in on the 9th, and so when Oakland came up to bat, the entire stadium was on the edge of their seat to see if Oakland could take it back. The hitter knocks the ball deep into center field. The entire crowd steps up to their feet, and one of the guys behind me started cheering the entire time the ball was in the air: "Oui! Oui! Oui! Oui! Oui! Oui!" The Twins outfielder runs, catches the ball, and that was the end of the game. I wasn't upset, as the Twins won, and I got a good laugh at two French guys yelling "Yes" in their native tongue. At a baseball game. In Oakland.

I love this city. :-)

----------------

* Literally, "fat liver", defined as the fatted liver of an animal and especially of a goose usually served as a pâté. It's incredibly cruel to the animal, as their liver gets so fat it nearly bursts their abdomens. It was nearly banned in San Francisco, but after pressure and after the public realized its cruelty, it was pulled from most SF restaurants. However, it's still commonly served in France.

How does the church deal with homosexuality?

I recently saw an episode of "30 Days". If you haven't seen or heard of it, it's Morgan Spurlock (of "Super Size Me" fame)'s show about taking someone and putting them in a totally different situation for 30 days. Think of "Super Size Me" in different scenarios. For example, the premier episode was Morgan and his girlfriend trying to live on minimum wage for 30 days. Another one had two people living "off the grid", i.e., without electricity. Another interesting one was a conservative Christian who went to go live in a Muslim community in Michigan for 30 days. He got a wakeup call the first time he got pulled out of airport security. Some are simply interesting, others are quite the eye opener. And unlike most other reality shows, there's no "reality twist", and the people they pick are really quite ordinary, put in extraordinary sitautions.

So the show that really really moved me was a conservative, young, ex-military, midwestern, religious Christian who goes to live with a gay man in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood for 30 days. I was very surprised. He went into it with an open mind, but very very very deep in his convictions.

Over the course of 30 days, he met a lot of gay people. Well then again, he was living in the Castro, so you can't but help it. He mentioned several times about constantly feeling like he was suddenly the minority. His roommate was just a very ordinary gay man, nothing flaming (although he couldn't catch a ball worth crap; then again, eye-hand coordination wasn't my forte either). He met softball players, ex-military people, he even got a job at A.G. Ferrarri, a gay, Italian deli right on Castro street. The most touching moment was at the end when he met with members of P-FLAG, when one father said "How could I possibly treat my own daughter any less than a first-class citizen?" He agreed.

The part I'm getting to is he met several times with one of the pastors at the MCC church. As a deeply religious man, he wanted to know how could there be a gay church? Doesn't the bible say that homosexuality is a sin? Even after several sessions, he basically said unless there's somewhere in the bible that says homosexuality isn't a sin, he wasn't going to believe otherwise.

And he brings up a good point. I was raised in a quite religious family. Before I came out, I had to work it out for myself. At first, I didn't think I was a homosexual. I just liked guys. I couldn't be a homosexual. Everything the media (this was the early 80s), the church, the community (this was a small town in northern Minnesota) told me it was wrong, bad, evil, whathaveyou. Well, that's not me, I'm not a bad person. When I finally realized it did apply to me, I was pretty devastated. It wasn't until my senior year in high school when I started meeting other gay people (thank god it was at least a college town) and realized a) there was any other gay people besides just me (I honestly thought I was the only one) and b) these people aren't so bad, in fact, they're pretty cool (whew, what a relief!), that was when I came out.

A couple weeks after the show aired, I happened to run into the pastor from MCC at a restaurant in the Castro. Her point in the show is that people pick and choose what out of the bible to believe. For example, the guy in the show was in the military. The bible says "Thou shalt not kill." It's even a commandment. And yet, he would kill if necessary to defend our country. So how can he ignore a commandment, and yet believe that homosexuality is a sin?

To put it on more equal footing, my classic point is that, have you ever eaten lobster? Shrimp? Clams? Oysters? Well, in the eyes of God, eating Alaskan King Crab is exactly the same as getting f'd in the A. They're both an "abomination". (Note the quotes.) Look it up in Leviticus. And yet there's no constitutional amendments against it.

But that's not how I rationalized it at first. I just believed, I'm not a bad person. I'm not bad. As people go, I think I'm pretty darned nice. In fact, as far as I can discern, I was born this way. God made me this way. How could God make me to be bad?

To which others have said, well some people are alcoholics or kleptomaniacs or pedophiles. They're still a sin. I rejected that argument that I'm not ruining others lives being gay.

It wasn't until a few months ago that I finally came to terms with myself. I was taking a Philosophy/Ethics class for my degree program. It asks yourself, how do you know something is ethical? At that point, there said there are basically two kinds of ethics.

One kind of ethics is a rules-based ethics. This is exactly what religion is. There's nothing wrong with it by itself. And many rules are universal, such as you should honor your parents, do unto others as you would have done until you, don't murder, and so on. These are good rules, and I highly advise living your life by those rules.

However, there's a flaw in it. One, what do you do when you get to a situation where there is no rule? Secondly, should you follow the rules 100% of the time? Are there cases where it would be unethical even to follow the rules? The latter answer is actually, Yes. For example, honor your mother and father, but what if they tell you to kill? Or a killer is on the loose. He comes up to you and asks you where the person is he's trying to kill. You know where. Do you lie? All of would say, of course you do. But the rules say you shouldn't lie. Aren't you breaking the rules? Committing a sin?

And that's where the second kind of ethics comes in. It's called "utilitarian ethics." It's where you sum up all the good and all the bad out of the possible scenarios, and the one that does the most good is the one that's most ethical.

Of course, it is not without it's flaws. One flaw is that living entirely by that method, you would have to analyze every scenario. The other is that your analysis may be wrong, or may be skewed one way or another, perhaps towards your own betterment over that of someone else, or based on bad information.

But it would help you out of the "should I lie to save a man's life" problem.

And that's how I resolve the fact I'm gay. Many people can say being gay is bad. And I will admit, it's not without it's flaws. However, almost all of problems with being gay are that of how society treats gay people, not intrinsic to being gay itself. It's the old problem of keep telling a perfectly healthy person they're sick and eventually they're going to believe it.

And everything else in the bible is supported by that argument. Thou shalt not kill, because murder is just plain bad. Honor your father and mother, because they will raise you right.

But I can't do that with being gay. With that fact, it's "just cuz" the bible says so, and I've really come to reject the "just cuz" argument that being gay is bad. And in fact, if you remove the "just cuz" argument, the argument holds little ground. Some would argue that gay men have a difficult time forming relationships. It's partly true. Men have a difficult time forming relationships, straight or gay. Women on the other hand, the joke is that what does a lesbian bring to a second date? A U-Haul.

But on the contrary, I couldn't disagree more with the idea that heterosexuality is better, it's just more popular. I was in Macy's one day helping a friend pick out some furniture and saw a straight couple shopping. The poor husband looked miserable. It was a beautiful out and he was helping this chick pick out furniture. Men and women are so diametrically opposite, it's a sheer amazement to me as many straight relationships last at all.

On the other hand, with same-sex couples, it's much easier to find someone with similiar interests. How hard is it to for a guy find a girl that like sports, or a girl to find a guy that likes shopping or talking on the phone. It's a stereotype I know, but certainly there's more men interested in sports than women. I've often joked that the best thing about being a gay man is when you get done with sex, both of you just want to roll over and fall asleep.

In fact, most of the arguments are simply optimism/pessimism. All people have problems, and it's just projection that "those gays" have problems because they're gay, and straight people don't have them at all, because they just brush them under the table.

And thus, in the "utilitarian" ethics, being gay is no better, or worse, than being straight.

So my huge problem is this: I'm gay. I'm not bad. Should I just throw religion out entirely?

Unfortunately, that's all too often what gay people do. And I can't blame them. Their religion abandoned them. Pastors shake a bible at them because of what some guy said a few millenium ago. There's a line in the Davinci code that remarks that the Bible wasn't faxed down from heaven. And Jesus? Never condemned it once.

But he did say, Beloved. For love is of God, and everyone that loveth shall knoweth God.

Let us love one another.

People once used the bible to support slavery too. This argument has been universally rejected on the teachings of so many other grounds, including do unto others as you would have done unto you.

In the end, that's where the guy on the show left it. How can we not treat each other with respect and dignity? What if it were your brother or sister, or son or daughter? What if it were just another fellow human being?

I believe in God. It is my hope that one day all of us can get over this, and realize, We are all God's children. Love one another, and allow us to love.

Is that too much to ask?