Imaginary Conversation with President George W. Bush and Me About Gay Marriage

One Afternoon in the Oval Office

Me: Thank you, Mr. President, for meeting with me.

Bush: You’re welcome, quite welcome.

Me: Now, we can probably agree, Mr. President, that we are fighting in Iraq to bring more freedom abroad, right?

Bush: You said we wouldn’t discuss Iraq – I’ve been reading your Blog. He-he.

Me: Well, I thought that was something we could both agree on.

Bush: Right. Well, yes, we removed a terrible dictator, Saddam Hussein, who used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. Horrible dictator. But we got him. And there’s a safer world because of it. And the Iraqis are more free. Or will be once they stand up so we can sit down.

Me: But if we’re sending our soldiers over there to fight and sometimes die in the name of freedom, why are we holding back the cause of freedom here at home?

Bush: Excuse me?

Me: I’m talking about your support of a federal amendment against same sex marriage. Currently gay couples are denied the freedom to marry – and all the rights and responsibilities that go with that freedom. And you want to enshrine that prohibition into the U.S. Constitution. That’s anti-freedom.

Bush: No, it’s pro-family. The union of a man and a woman is one of our most important institutions. Honored in all cultures and religious faiths. Marriage promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society.

Me: I agree. So why lock me and my partner out of such an important institution?

Bush: I believe marriage is between one man and one woman.

Me: Why?

Bush: That’s the way it’s always been.

Me: You’ve read the Bible, haven’t you, Mr. President?

Bush: I read the Bible and pray to the Lord every day. I’m the guy who said that Jesus was my favorite philosopher.

Me: I heard that. Anyway, have you read Genesis 32:22?

Bush: Not lately.

Me: It says Jacob – you know, Abraham’s grandson to whom God told that the descendents of Abraham would inherit Canaan. Anyway, it says there that Jacob had two wives. So’d his brother Esau. Now God must have thought that was okay, ‘cause He talks a lot about how much He likes Abraham’s descendents. God even changed Jacob’s name to Israel so he’s the namesake for the country and his countrymen. But Jacob’s marriage was not between one man and one woman. And God didn’t seem to care.

Bush: Well, things were different back then…

Me: Exactly! The institution of marriage isn’t immutable…I’m sorry, un-changeable. It changes with society. In fact, Esau’s wives were given to him in exchange for labor he provided for their father. Marriage used to be all about property. It’s changed, now, Mr. President. It’s about love. It’s about providing for children when children are present. And it’s about society supporting the union of two people that will make them more stable and more productive.

Bush: uh…the problem is these activist judges

Me: Excuse me, Mr. President, but – the irony of you using that term aside – these so-called activist judges are making decisions based on litigation brought to them by Americans questioning their denial of rights. It’s the judges’ job to make these decisions – a job given them by our Constitution.

Bush: These activist judges are making decisions the people should make.

Me: I’ll go along with that. I’ve made a decision to marry a man. He wants to marry me. We’re people. We made a decision. But the law won’t let us.

Bush: Legally recognizing your, um, your, relationship with another man would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

Me: Oh, please, Mr. President…straight people don’t need any help from gays in undermining the “sanctity” of marriage. Need I say “Bill Clinton?” “Britney Spears?” And shows like, “who wants to marry a millionaire?”

Bush: Allowing same sex marriage would make it worse.

Me: How and why? Where is your proof?

Bush: It’s a well known fact – and I don’t mean any disrespect to you – that gay people are promiscuous and unstable.

Me: Well, -- oh, hey, Mr. President, that little room right there, off the Oval Office, that’s the private study where Clinton and um, well…?

Bush: Ah, yes. (clears throat) You were saying?

Me: When you married Laura, did the county clerk do a background check on you?

Bush: No, of course not.

Me: Well, assuming for a second that you are right in your sweeping generalization about gay men, which I will address in a minute, why subject us to a higher standard than straights have when getting a marriage license. We allow any straight couple to get married, regardless of their likelihood of fidelity, their ability to be productive members of society and to actually care for their kids. If you’re straight you get a blank check, regardless of your behavior. Yet, here you’re saying gays can’t marry because you assume we behave in a way you don’t approve of. If a philandering gay man cheating on his partner undermines marriage, doesn’t a straight man cheating on his wife? What are you doing about that?

Bush: Well, we…

Me: And, so you’re saying, Bill Clinton’s affairs, excuse me, “problems” in his marriage made you love Laura less.

Bush: Of course not!

Me: And it made you more likely to seduce interns?

Bush: This is getting a little personal, here. No, I would never do anything like that. I brought dignity back to the White House. I love my wife. Nothing is going to change that until the day I go to the Lord.

Me: Amen, brother. Your relationship is none of my business, and forgive me for bringing it up…but I’m glad you’ve affirmed my assumption that the love that led you to make a lifelong commitment to someone isn’t undermined by the actions of someone else. You’re not shallow in that.

Bush: Thank you.

Me: Now, let’s talk about your homophobia.

Bush: Hey, now, I was hoping we could have a good discussion without bitterness or anger.

Me: Oh, so sorry, Mr. President. Um, let’s see; let’s talk about your pre-disposed negative image of an entire class of people that leads you to make decisions that hurts them. Better?

Bush: Yes, thanks. I think.

Me: Mr. President, do you know any gay people?

Bush: Well, I suppose over the years I’ve known a few.

Me: Like that crazy slut, the vice president’s daughter?

Bush: Hey, now, Mary Cheney is a fine person. Laura and I are very fond of her.

Me: So she doesn’t fit the description you used earlier about gay people?

Bush: No, she doesn’t.

Me: Do any of the gay people you’ve known over the years fit that description?

Bush: Now that you mention it…I guess not.

Me: Mr. President, gay people are no different than straight people. We have our champs and chumps. We deserve to be treated the same, no better or worse than anyone else. That’s what this is all about.

Bush: Wait a minute! Children! Marriage is about the children! And gay people don’t have children.

Me: My partner and I have a two-year-old son.

Bush: But that’s artificial.

Me: My turn to say, ‘excuse me?’

Bush: I don’t know how you had a child, but two men can’t have a baby. You had to uh, go get one.

Me: So, what you’re saying is that couples who have kids by means other than giving birth themselves don’t deserve the stability and support of legal marriage, to help that child?

Bush: I don’t think I said that.

Me: But if marriage is only about children – and you defined it as children acquired through the traditional biogenetic birth process, within the marriage – then all the straight couples who adopted or who don’t have kids shouldn’t be married?

Bush: No, I’m just saying marriage assumes there will be kids and it’s for the kids.

Me: Right. And my son deserves no less than to see his parents supported in legal matrimony.

Bush: He could have it; you just need to find the right woman.

Me: There is no “right woman” for me Mr. President. Is there a “right man” for you?

Bush: Well, I think pretty highly of Dick, but I don’t think of him in that way…

Me: Well, there’s something else we agree on, Mr. President! Oh, you meant Cheney. Sorry. But my point was, our society doesn’t expect you to condemn yourself to a lifetime of misery by marrying someone who can’t meet your physical and emotional needs – who can’t help you be happy. That’s what so many gay men have tried --- to hide their gayness inside a sham marriage. If we legalized same sex marriage, you be helping to end those sham arrangements and bring MORE sanctity and honesty to marriage, and help these poor men and women who spend their lives in quiet despair find stability and happiness.

Bush: Can we talk about Iraq?

Best Friend II

While we're indulging in a bit of melancholy in song over Eli not being here, I of course always think of this one.

In fact, when I first got wind of the mom's move to Hawaii by happenstance, that song immediately popped into my head. Story's different. Result is the same.

Best Friend

People let me tell you 'bout my best friend,
He's a warm hearted person who'll love me till the end.
People let me tell you bout my best friend,
He's a one boy cuddly toy, my up, my down, my pride and joy.

People let me tell you 'bout him he's so much fun
Whether we're talkin' man to man or whether we're talking son to son.
Cause he's my best friend.
Yes he's my best friend.


My son lives in Hawaii with his mothers. He was here in July. I miss him.

Summoned!

For Jury service in the DC Superior Court. Didn't I just do this?

I've been on two trials in DC, both criminal, one a murder trial and the other an assaulting an officer case. Both trials lasted two weeks. Both resulted in hung juries.

I'm not anxious to serve again. I was frustrated by our inability in both cases to reach a verdict. In the murder trial it was 8-4 guilty. The 4 who voted not guilty failed to offer any rationale other than "the government didn't make a case." Okay, so the physical evidence and eyewitness testimony corroborate each other, how didn't the government make a case? They refused to explain their position. I begged them to, explained why I beleived the guy was guilty, please tell me why you think he's innocent. "The government didn't make a case." It was like watching a White House press briefing. So much for "well and truly trying the facts of the case" as the judge instructed us.

I know I'll get picked. This time, though, I'm going to be the foreman.

How Much for Safety's Sake?

We have lost a lot in our pursuit of safety. In the name of safety, we invaded a country. For safety's sake, we tortured. We imprisoned without cause. And we threw away the key.

The problem with safety as a goal – especially when it’s the only goal – is how safe is safe enough? What other values do you have to sacrifice to be safer?

For safety’s sake we can’t bring liquids on airplanes. Is that enough? Will the xray machines catch smuggled liquids or does every carry on bag need to be searched? Should we be allowing carry on bags at all? How far do we go?

To protect the Capitol building, streets have been closed, Jersey barriers erected and access to many parts of the building restricted. Is that safe enough? Maybe the whole Capitol complex should be closed just to be sure.

Our government is secretly wiretapping Americans to keep us safe. Maybe random searches and seizures would be better. It takes too much time to get a search warrant, better do away with the Fourth Amendment – it’s an impediment to safety.

As a father, I want my son to be safe. I take reasonable precautions – but I can’t absolutely 100 percent guarantee his safety unless I put him in a padded bubble. No freedom. But he’d be safe.

At what point do we cross the same line in the pursuit of national safety? When the stakes are a mushroom cloud or a smallpox outbreak, is any measure of preventive safety too outrageous?

Or, as a freedom loving people, do we accept that even in an age of WMDs we’re not willing to give up our basic freedoms solely in the name of safety? And can we refuse to give in to fears over our safety that lead us to torture and degrade other human beings, even our enemies? Yes, the prohibitions at airports are really just a minor inconvenience and maybe even justified (though I’m skeptical). But torture?

How far are we willing to go in the name of safety? There’s a line somewhere between no liquids on airplanes and waterboarding…and we need to find it. Or we won’t be a society worthy of safekeeping.

9/11 and Clinton -- Who Cares?

Gay Patriot is all excited that a new documentary details the Clinton Administration's failure to act against Bin Laden. At one point the CIA surrounded the house where Bin Ladin was but could not get the Clinton White House to give the go-ahead.

Good to get it on the record for history but as a practical matter, who cares? Bill Clinton is no longer in a position to do harm or good, unlike the two more years we have of Bush.

I supported the President's strategy of pre-emptive strikes against gathering threats. But for that strategy to work you need good intelligence and competent civillian military leadership. We've had neither. The missing WMD that were supposed to be "slam dunk" was a fiction and Katrina gives the lie to Bush Administration competence. Although I think Katrina exposed the failure of all levels of government, including Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco, it definately blew away my willingness to give the administration the benefit of the doubt.

And whither the Democrats? Other than Joe Biden, what democratic leader is doing more than criticizing the administration without offering alternatives other than a pull out of Iraq?

The bottom line is: the world is a dangerous place and we don't know what we're doing. Our leaders have failed and the American people have -- thus far -- failed to demand something better.

The LTR and Me

From Saturday's party for the poster boys for adorable gay couples.

Courtesy MD

Jefferson on Jesus

I haven’t made a “serious” post in a few days.

Florida Senate candidate Republican Kathleen Harris had a few interesting things to say recently, including:

“That lie we have been told, the separation of church and state,”

She gives voice to the Radical Right’s view that America is a “Christian Nation” and not intended by our founders to be a secular nation.

These assertions are made by a dubious view of history that ignores the complexity of our Founder’s political and religious beliefs.

Take, for example, Thomas Jefferson.

Here’s what Jefferson wrote about Jesus in a 1803 letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush:

“Jesus…His parentage was obscure; his condition poor; his education null; his natural endowments great; his life correct and innocent…

“…the doctrines which he really delivered were defective as a whole, and fragments only of what he did deliver have come to us mutilated, misstated, and often unintelligible.

“They have been still more disfigured by the corruptions of schismatizing followers, who have found an interest in sophisticating and perverting the simple doctrines he taught, by engrafting on them the mysticicms of a Grecian sophist, frittering them into subtleties and obscuring them with jargon…

“The question of his being a member of the Godhead, or in direct communication with it, claimed for him by some of his followers, and denied by others, is foreign to the present view.”

In short, Jefferson viewed Jesus as a great human being who offered a moral philosophy that was perverted by his followers, including the disciples and the church. He clearly did not believe in the infallibility of the Bible and did not believe Jesus was a deity.

As to the claim about the founders did not intend America to be a secular nation, here’s Jefferson in a letter to Elbridge Gerry in 1799:

“I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”

Poster Boys for Adorable Gay Couple

The Reason They Have Three Day Weekends...

They can't cram all that bad weather in two days.

The LTR and I have a cabin reserved in the mountains and looks like Ernesto is making a bee line to it.

The LTR's Hair Follies

I shouldn't tell tales out of school, but...

When the LTR hit puberty he didn't get hair where he wanted it (chest) and started losing it where it existed (head). The problem never corrected iteslf and male pattern baldness and a smooth chest was pretty well set in when I met him in our early 20s.

Sometime later, not content with nature, the LTR decided to take matters into his own hands. He applied Rogain to his scalp. Now, the other thing you should know about the LTR's physique is that his skin is extremely sensitive -- a virtual dermatological Alan Alda, or a Al Gore post-Naomi Watts. It wasn't long before his scalp resembled a burnt pepperoni pizza. Because of the skin irritation he had to discontinue the Rogain. Painful scalp -- and no hair growth.

Fast forward several years later...the LTR, flying in the face of experience -- decides to try and do something about the dearth of chest hair. He applies Rogain with a vengence to his barren pecs.

And again, pepperoni city. Only this time, when his pectoral Chernobyl subsided, there was -- viola! -- hair growth!

One problem. Instead of the manly thatch of black hair he hoped for, he got a scraggly swatch of grey.

I told him I thought it was "cute."

Now, when the goal was "manly" achieving only "cute" is akin to aiming for outer space and ending up in Pensacola. Or thinking you're about to kiss Antonio Banderas and then open your eyes to Jose Feliciano.

The LTR was not amused.

So, he's lived for a number of years with the swath of scraggly grey chest hair...until...

Last May (2005) we were scheduled for a trip to Costa Rica. The LTR decided he would enjoy Costa Rica more if his chest boasted a proud manly black thatch of hair. So he bought some hair coloring product at the local drug store, and, ignoring the warning on the package that it was not to be used anywhere on the body OTHER than the head, he applied it liberally to the hair in the center of his chest.

Or course, his skin erupted like Mt. St. Helens. It itched so badly he had to go to the doctor to get an anti-histimine injection. The swelling and redness persisted during our trip. But his chest hair did turn black. Of course, in the center of the crimson skin it looked like someone had painted a bullseye on his chest. Thankfully the Costa Ricans weren't hostile to the hapless Yanquis...And, of course, the black eventually returned to its natural grey hue.

Fast forward to today. I'm in the home office working. He's upstairs in the bedroom "cleaning." A long time passes and he is too quiet. I see him later and I notice that his chest in once again boasting the manly black thatch.

"Did you dye your hair again?" I ask. He looks away and says no in a small voice. "On your mother's life swear you didn't dye your chest hair again." He walked away.

Later in the day his chest gave him away as it turned an all-too-familiar bright crimson. "I tried a different product," he said sheepisly.

As the day and the swelling redness progressed, he said, that, although he would go to the doctor tomorrow to get a shot, he was trying prayer and "the power of thought" to help him heal.

I heard a voice say, "Well, if you'd used the 'power of thought' from the begining you wouldn't be in this mess in the first place." I realized too late the voice belonged to me.

After I finished eating my cold leftovers alone, instead of the planned grilled steak dinner, I sat down to update my blog.

Bumper Sticker of the Day

Jihad Responsibly

The Cruel Shoes

It was finally time to retire these babies:












The bottom sole was wearing off and there were new "air vents" above my big toe. These babies have trod all over DC, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Illinois, Key West and the Shenandoahs. I think I'll burn them and scatter their ashes at sea.

So, I went to Fleet Feet and bought a brand new pair:




Yes, they're bright orange. I figured they'd help keep me safer in deer season. Besides, if I'm having a mid-life crisis I should be making bolder fashion statements, no?

Hopefully MD won't pull me aside and say, "Honey, why didn't you call me?"

Hot Dog Roll

There has got to be a name for that slinky, teasing back and forth movement one can see in a man's, um, bulge when he's walking or running and wearing loose running shorts without the ah, "proper" support...Suggestions, dear readers?

Have to Re-Tire

Blew another spoke on the bike. Going to see the boys of City Bikes to have the wheel rebuilt. Brian said he would put higher quality titanium spokes in it for me. I'm going when they open at 10 so hopefully I can get the bike back before the end of the day.

Fenty on Education

He wants to create a new deputy mayor for education. Okay, good -- a new layer of bureaucracy. That should work.

International Dilemma of the Day

From the LTR:

The United Nations has announced that it is sending French troops to the Middle East to separate the Israeli Army from the Lebanese Army. This will undoubtedly leave the French with a huge dilemma: Who do they surrender to?

More on Hillary and Ryan White

Gay patriot blogs on the Hil chill on Ryan White re-authorization.

Racist? Nah. Cold political calculus? You bet. Same tired roll over and play dead by certain gay groups too afraid to stand up to their democratic masters? Business as usual...

Problems

Blogger has some serious issues with log-ins and I've been locked out all day. It's been very frustrating and Blogger Help Bites the Big One.

About Teachers (Beth was a Teacher...)

In honor of Beth's birthday, and since Beth was a teacher, we're going to blog about teachers!

In addition to writing about teachers in context of Beth the former teacher, we're also writing about teaching in the context that public education in the Nation's Capitol sucks!

It -- and crime -- should be the deciding factors in the Mayoral election next month.

I went to a lousy high school (it was kind of like this one, but in the 80s), but I had a spattering of great teachers and that made all the difference.

One, Mr. Clover, my English and Brit Lit teacher, loved his topic and was engaging in every class. He taught me to write (to the extent I can) and to that I owe him my livlihood.

Mrs. Dean was my algebra and geometry teacher and she got me focused on a topic I hated with a white hot passion. Yet she seemed to beleive in me and would kick me in the butt when I didn't do well (which in math...)

Both skills are related somehow...Mr. Clover expected his students to contribute to the conversation. Mrs. Dean had standards. You hated letting either one of them down. They were light years ahead of the teachers (like this one) who stood in front of the class and droned on and on until we all turned into zombies as a defense mechanism.

In college I had a share of profs who had the same skills as my good high school teachers, especially my Constitutional Law Prof. Ira Carmen. I would leave a one hour class of his thinking about what he had said for hours or days.

What are the common denominators here?

• All three were passionate about their subject matter on its own merits
• All three engaged their students
• All three had standards

How do you teach these skills? Can you? Will paying people more to teach make them more like my list of great teachers? How can the system support teachers like this and weed out the ones who are the drones?

I don't know the answers to these questions. Sad thing is, I don't think the mayoral candidates do either.