Gay Marriage In Ireland. Where Next?

Over the past few days, I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about the gay-marriage votein Ireland.  Several commentators mentioned that homosexual relations were illegal there as recently as 1993; abortion still is.  This state of affairs has generated discussion of how there has been a sea-change in the Emerald Isle within a generation—often from the very same people who talk about the “grip” Roman Catholic bishops still have on the politics of that country.

I think both of those notions are true.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, young Irish people—many of whom have gone abroad to go to school and work—have developed very different attitudes from their parents and grandparents about many issues.  At the same time, nearly all of those who still adhere to any sort of religious practice are still Roman Catholics. (There is a small but visible community of Muslims, most of whom have emigrated to Ireland recently.)  However, from what I’m hearing from people who have relatives or other connections to Ireland, those who adhere to their faith are doing so with a more independent mindset, as Catholics have done in other European countries in much of the Americas.  (They are the sort of people one Cardinal decried as “cafeteria Catholics".) So, while they might go to church and otherwise profess their faith in God and allegiance to the church, they do not think in lockstep with the Church hierarchy.

It’s hard not to believe that such people are feeling encouraged by the current Pope.  While he hasn’t endorsed same-sex marriage (and I don’t think it’s realistic to expect him or any Pope in the next couple of centuries to do so), he hasn’t spent any time denouncing it, or the Irish vote.  He has said that his priorities are—and the Church’s should be—helping the poor and otherwise disenfranchised.  I’d say he’s putting his money where his mouth is.

What all of this means, I believe, is that we might see same-sex marriage or civil unions legalized in places where we might not expect.  I’m not thinking now about countries like Germany and Italy:  I think they’ll eventually allow gay marriage if for no other reason than most of the other European Union countries, including France and England, have it.  I’m thinking about other countries with young, educated people whose attitudes are changing as a result of their exposure to the rest of the world, whether in person or online.  I won’t “name names”, so to speak.  But, as I say, they will come as much as a surprise to many people as Ireland did with its vote.

The Irish Vote For Gay Marriage

Having grown up Catholic enough to be an altar boy (and having gotten some of my education in a Catholic school), I am as fascinated as I am gratified by what’shappened in Ireland.

As you probably know by now, the Irish Republic made history the other day when it legalized same-sex marriage—by popular vote.  Yes, the Irish people themselves chose to legalize unions between two people of the same gender.  In every other nation or other jurisdiction in which it’s been legalized, the feat was accomplished by the vote of a legislative body, an executive decree or—as in the case of most US states in which same-sex marriage is legal—a judge’s order.  

What’s so fascinating to me is that, not so long ago, Ireland was regarded as one of the most resolutely Roman Catholic societies in the world.  The Irish were considered to be as devout as the Poles, Spanish and Quebecois.  Now, of course, gay marriage is legal in Spain and Quebec (as it is in the rest of Canada).  Some of the nuns in my Catholic school came from Ireland; the same was true of many other Catholic schools in the US at that time (the 1960’s and early 1970’s).  Also, as I recall, two of the priests in my parish were Irish.

Now, in Ireland as in much of the west, the young are not pursuing vocations as priests and nuns.  Many explanations have been offered for this phenomenon, one of the most plausible being increased prosperity.  Many priests in the US (and, as I’ve discovered, elsewhere) are coming from India, Nigeria, the Philippines and other impoverished countries where Catholic missionaries have been active.  Piety seems to pair much better with poverty than with prosperity.  As someone smarter than I am remarked, “Give them MTV and they’ll never go to seminary!”

That point is certainly valid.  However, one way in which Ireland was different from those countries (and others when they were turning out lots of priests and nuns) was that it was—and is—one of the world’s best-educated countries.  Probably the closest parallel we have today to pre-1990s Ireland is Cuba:  Nearly everybody is literate but also poor.

One difference, though, between Ireland past and Cuba present is that in Eire, education was controlled, directly or indirectly, by the Church.  Early in its history, about the only way an Irish person could get an education was to become a priest or nun.  They, in turn, would open most of the schools—and control the curriculum—in their country.

In the 1990s, young Irish people finally found opportunities to use their educations.   They seized upon advances in technology and the business world to turn their country into a center for research and financial services.  That, of course, furthered young people’s opportunity for education, both in their own country and abroad.  

Given what I’ve described, however sketchily, it seems less surprising that Irish attitudes about gender and sexuality have changed as quickly as they have.  On the other hand, it’s more surprising that abortion is still illegal there.  Perhaps that will be the next change in the Emerald Isle. 

Why Did The Boy Scouts Decide To Admit Gay Youth?

As you may have heard by now, the Boy Scouts of America will allow openly gay boys to join as the new year begins.

What I find interesting is that a number of news reports have likened this policy to the abolition of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the military.  Such a comparison is, on one hand, nearly fatuous, but on the other, relevant.

The repeal of DADT meant that openly homosexual people could serve, as enlisted members or officers, in any branch of the Armed Forces.  On the other hand, the new Scout policy does not allow openly gay adults to serve as Scoutmasters:  It only allows gay youngsters to become Scouts.  Moreover, it does not prevent churches and other organizations from withdrawing their sponsorship of troops.  More than one report indicates that the main ecumenical organizations, such as the Mormon Church (which is the largest sponsor) or the Catholic Church, are unlikely to do so although individual parishes or churches may.  And, most parents who don't like the idea of gay kids becoming scouts have already enrolled their own sons in conservative alternatives like Trail Life.

But the comparison with the repeal of DADT is interesting and relevant because Lord Baden-Powell started Scouting over a century ago for the purpose of preparing boys for the military.  Some would argue that it has always been a sort of paramilitary organization.  I would agree, at least in the sense that it is organized and in the titles it uses.  Also, some of the skills taught are among those required of soldiers, sailors and the like.  Then again, I would guess that the vast majority of Scouts do not join the Armed Forces when they come of age.

Another interesting parallel with the repeal of DADT is this:  Just as transgender people still can't serve in the military, they can't become Scoutmasters or Scouts.

The most interesting question, I think, is:  What motivated the BSA to change their policy?  Some might say it's the increased acceptance of LGBT people:  After all, Utah--of all states--just struck down its ban on gay marriage.  I wouldn't doubt that's a factor, but the cynic in me thinks that something else is at work.

An in-law of mine spent a number of years in the administrative offices of the Boy Scouts.  This in-law's job and the jobs of others in those office were rendered obsolete by the rapidly-declining numbers of boys (and girls) who were becoming (and remaining) Scouts. A number of factors conspired to shrink the rolls:  declining birth rates, the increased number of activities available to young people and, perhaps, the image of scouting.  As to the latter:  Among the many colleagues, acquaintances and friends I count in the worlds of academia and the arts, not one has a child who is or was a Scout.  In those circles, even the kids who like camping, hiking and such don't join.  It seems that in the worlds I inhabit--and in large coastal cities like the one in which I live--nearly all kids who are interested in scouting come from low- or lower middle-income backgrounds and from families and communities that include few people with advanced educations.  But those young people don't join because the cost, while low compared to other activities, is still prohibitive.

The part of me that asks "Cui bono?" believes that the Boy Scouts of America finally decided to accept gay boys because, frankly, they're trying to enroll any new members they can find.  My in-law said that some in the organization have even questioned whether or not the BSA would survive, at least in its current form, unless it could find new members.

Whatever its motivations, I'm glad the BSA decided to enter the 21st Century.  There will be some issues to iron out, such as that of shared facilities.  There will also be some reports of harassment, but I have little doubt that such things go on now unless things have changed drastically since I was a Scout more years ago than I care to admit.  But I think those issues will be resolved.  Still, I have to wonder--as I did when DADT was repealed--whether the new policy would actually leave gay members more vulnerable to harassment because they were "out" and no one could pretend otherwise.  After all, we all know how cruel young people, particularly adolescents, can be to each other, especially if one doesn't fit the sometimes-unarticulated expectations about gender and sexuality.  I don't think boys have stopped picking on "sissies" or simply those who are quiet and sensitive since I received such treatment about four decades ago. 

Then again, the new policy could present a new learning opportunity for such boys, especially if they have a scoutmaster who is a strong leader and doesn't tolerate bullying--or, perhaps, might have been one of those boys who might have been bullied.

Nos Marriages Sont Legaux. J'espere Qui Nous Rend Egaux!

It seems that attacks against members of any group of people become the most violent, and most virulent, when that group is gaining (however slowly) the same status and rights afforded members of the "majority" culture and race.

That is exactly what happened during the Reconstruction after the Civil War, and during the Civil Rights movement of the late 1950's and 1960's.  The Ku Klux Klan got its start during the Reconstruction and had a major resurgence during the Civil Rights era.  But the KKK was hardly alone in intimidating, harassing and even killing African-Americans who had the audacity to pursue their educations, enter the professions, worship their maker, shop, eat and simply live in the ways and places they saw fit.  And, of course, the KKK would use those same tactics, and legislators would pass laws, to prevent African-Americans from exercising their right to vote and do any number of other things white people took for granted.

So it is, unfortunately, no surprise that there has been a wave of anti-gay protests (in which demonstrators brandished signs with slogans like: 1 Pere + 1 Mere, C'est Hereditaire) and, worse, violence over recent days in France.  The other day, the self-proclaimed Country of Human Rights became the fourteenth country to legalize same-sex marriage.  The first gay matrimonial ceremonies are expected to take place in June and, not surprisingly, some members of la droite and various organizations with "famille" in their name (Does that sound familiar?) are doing what they can to have the law repealed.

(To be fair, French philosophes were probably the first intellectuals in the Western world to declare that human beings have inalienable rights because they are human beings.  The Founding Fathers of the United States took much of their inspiration from Voltaire, Rousseau and other French theorists on human liberty.  And, while French colonial rulers did some terrible things, France has probably taken in more political refugees than any country except the US.)

Of course, the fact that such violent homophobic attacks as the one Wilfrid de Bruijn and his partner suffered are taking place means that an inevitable part of human history is moving forward.  As with the lynchings during Reconstruction and the Civil Rights era, hateful reactionaries fight hardest when their cause has just been lost.  Although the vast majority of French are Catholic (at least nominally) and there is a large Muslim population (as well as the fourth-largest Jewish population in the world), France is,  in many respects, more secular than the US and countries like Spain that have legalized same-sex unions.  Having lived in France and known a number of French people, I think they have an easier time of separating religion from government and may be more ready to embrace the concept of marriage that is not defined by religious institutions.  I have said that the only way we will have true marriage equality is when religious institutions no longer have the power to join people in unions that are recognized as marriages (or even partnerships) by secular governments.  France may be more able and willing than the US to do this.

On the other hand, I also know from experience that while French people more readily acknowledge that certain fashion designers and other celebrities are gay, the subject of homosexuality (let alone transgenderism) is not nearly as openly discussed as it is in America.  So, while French officials may be better able to make same-sex marriages more routine (or, at least, seem more routine) than they are in the States, I have to wonder whether same-sex unions will have the same level of respect that they do in some parts of the US, or in some European countries like the Netherlands.

One reason, I believe, that legalizing same-sex marriage may not have the same social impact in France as it's had in those US states that have it is, ironically, that marriage is (arguably) not as important to the French as it is to Americans.  An even higher percentage of French than American couples are cohabitants, and in France, as in most Western European countries, a higher percentage of first children are born to unmarried women.  

One similarity between the French tax system and its American counterpart is that it provides strong incentives for a "traditional" family in which the father works and the mother stays home to look after kids.  However, the French system seems to be much kinder than its American counterpart to cohabitees.  One result is that cohabiting couples stay together longer in France than they do in the US or the UK.

Also, even though France has allowed civil unions since 1998, people living under those pacts are not allowed to adopt children.  And, although support for same-sex marriage has grown significantly in France, public support for allowing same-sex couples to adopt has not grown with it. Now, I'm not saying that the purpose of marriage is rearing children, but I have to wonder whether some couples would feel less incentive to get married if they couldn't adopt children.

Given what I've just described, I have to wonder whether France's new law--laudable as it is, given its circumstances--will actually result in a wave of same-sex marriages as has happened in the American states that have allowed them.  After all, Spain--whose tax policies regarding marriage bear some similarity to those in France--has not had nearly as many same-sex weddings as some people anticipated.   Now, one could argue that Spain is a more conservatively Catholic country than its neighbor on the other side of the Pyrenees.  However, there, as in other countries, there is a vast difference in attitudes between younger and older people regarding homosexuality and related issues.  So, while younger Spaniards accept gays and marriages between them nearly as much as their peers in Europe and some parts of the US, it still doesn't--and may not, for the foreseeable future--translate into more same-sex marriages.

Still, I want to offer words of congratulations to the government of Francois Hollande for supporting the law, and words of support to gay French people who are bearing the backlash of change.

Why Is The Catholic Church Fighting Gay Marriage?

I'm sure you've read--or heard-- Queen Gertrude's observation in Hamlet: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." 

It's often misquited:  People often move "methinks" from the end to the beginning of that line.  But more important, most people misuse the quote. "Protest", in Shakespeare's time, meant "avow" or "affirm" rather than "object" or "deny".  

Whether it's used as intended or misused, the quote is apt for at least one current situation. Once again, the Catholic Church is spending lots of money and other resources to oppose same-sex marriage.   In fact, earlier this month, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago launched a last-ditch effort to convince the lame-duck Illinois legislature not to legalize unions between people of the same gender. Whether or not his efforts were a factor, the vote in the Land of Lincoln has been delayed and the bill will be re-introduced after the new legislature is seated.

Why do you think the Church is so adamant in its opposition to gay marriage? Well, some will say that it's a matter of Church doctrine.  As it's hardly an area of my expertise--and because I'm sure that my reading of the Bible is very different from that of any member of the College of Cardinals--I'm not going to discuss that.  Those anti-gay priests may well be motivated by what they believe to be divinely-inspired tenets of the faith.

Being a, shall we say, very lapsed Catholic, my view is a bit different.  You might say it's more cynical.  Here goes:  Much of the Church's opposition to same-sex unions is, I believe, a smokescreen.  They have far, far more serious problems to consider right now, including the elephant in the Vatican chambers:  pedophile priests.  

The damage they've done is incalculable.  You begin to realize that when you hear people talking--for the first time--about they experienced two and three decades earlier. When you're a small child, you simply don't have the language or frame of reference to tell anybody about such an ordeal.  I know this from my own life:  I was well into my thirties before I talked about the sexual molestation I experienced as a child.  

For most children--especially altar boys--being sexually abused by a priest  has to be even more devastating than molestation by anyone else because many kids are taught to trust men of the collar even more than they trust any other adult, save perhaps for their own parents.  Even if nobody tells them they should hold priests in such esteem, a lot of kids learn to do so through implication and osmosis.  That is to be expected when you realize that young children are capable of believing and trusting more completely in God or anyone who is supposed to represent Him.

I don't know how many children have been so damaged by priests, but I'm sure that for every one we hear about, there are many, many more.  I don't think the Church will ever die out completely, but I wouldn't be surprised to see dioceses in the United States (and, possibly other countries) go bankrupt and parishes close because of lawsuits on behalf of the victims.  Plus, the church is in trouble in other ways:  It's in decline in much of Europe because the populations of such predominantly-Catholic countries as Spain, France and Italy aren't growing--or, if there is growth, it's in non-Catholic populations.  Plus, people in those countries and the US aren't attending church, or sending their kids to Catholic schools, nearly as much as they have even in the recent past.

And the Church is spending its spending its money to fight gay marriage?

You know what they say about gay marriage:  If you don't believe in it, don't marry a gay person.  Likewise, all the Church has to do is what it's done for 2000 years. More precisely, it doesn't have to start doing what it hasn't done in that time:  perform gay marriages.  Let Illinois and Rhode Island and other states join New York, Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont and the other states that have legalized gay marriage.  As those states are still part of the United States, they still have (at least in law) a separation between Church and State.  So, no matter what laws are passed in those or any other states, no Catholic priest is going to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies--not in the confines of a consecrated church building, anyway.

Why I Won't Marry A Gay Person

Someone--I forget who--said, "If you're against gay marriage, don't marry a gay person."


I couldn't have said it any better.  If you don't marry a gay person, exactly what effect does gay marriage have on you? 


Still, some people insist that "the institution of marriage"--which is a recent innovation in human history--will be "threatened" or "destroyed" as same-sex couples flock to chapels to be united in matrimony.  


So, let's see...Gay marriage accounts for the fact that Larry King has been divorced 8 times. Or Tiger Woods and Jesse James cheating on their now-ex-wives?  Or that Kim Kardashian's marriage lasted only 72 days?  


And I'll bet that Elton saying "I do" to David, or Ellen saying the same thing to Portia, is what caused Newt Gingrich to have affairs while his first and second wives were deathly ill.  


I'm so glad that somebody set me straight about the hazards of gay marriage. I'll be sure not to marry a gay person, ever.

If They're Committed To It, Don't Let Them Do It

"I don't have anything against gay people.  I just don't think they should be allowed to get married."


I'm sure you've heard someone say something like that.  A student of mine wrote it in her paper.


That in itself wouldn't raise my hackles:  I've heard and read all sorts of things.  


However, the student's rationale for her belief is one of the strangest I've ever heard.  Like many who oppose equality, she tries to empower her beliefs with her religious faith and her concern for the daughter she is raising by herself.  


She says that she doesn't want her daughter to grow up believing that a union between two men or two women is "normal" or "moral."  That argument is also nothing new.  But here's where things get weird:  She says the fact that the divorce rate is so high is reason enough not to allow marriage between two men or two women.i


I asked her to explain that.  This is what she said:  "Well, you know, a lot of these gay couples stay together for  a long time.  Actually, I have some friends who are gay and have been 'married' to other gay people for ten, fifteen or even twenty years."


"All right.  How does that relate to the topic of gay marriage and why it shouldn't be allowed?"


"If my daughter sees straight couples getting divorced while gay couples are staying together, it might give kids like my daughter the wrong message."


"Which is...?"

"That gay couples are more commited to each other and stay together longer than straght couples."


"And the problem with that is...?"


She told me that she is "sheltering" her child from all sorts of "evil" influences.  


I never knew that staying married was "evil"--or that it's something kids shouldn't know about.


I must say: It's the first time I ever heard someone's commitment to something as a reason for not allowing him or her to do the very thing to which he or she is committed.  


At the very least, it's the strangest argument Iv'e heard against gay marriage.

Yes, We're Guilty. Aren't We Always?

I was "surfing" the radio when I heard the tail end of what seemed to be one of those talk shows geared toward white men who want to turn the clock back to 1945 or thereabouts.  Some right-wing blowhard (Yes, there are left-wing blowhards, too.) said something to the effect that this country is "arguing about gay marriage and gays in the military when we're losing the country."


By "losing the country", I'm sure that he meant that more foreigners are "taking over."  He probably wouldn't care, except that he feels the "changes" are threatening his position, or at least what he fancies it to be, in this country.


How can anyone claim to love this country and say that liberty--at least for, ahem, certain groups of people--sometimes has to take a "back seat" in times of crisis?   I mean, I really don't understand how a debate over gays in the military could have caused, among other things, the stock market crash of 2008 or the subprime mortgage mess. 


Oh, what do I know? 

On Same-Sex Marriage And New Jersey

While I was enjoying my time with Dwayne the other day, something that disturbed him, me and many other people we know was happening on the other side of the Hudson River.

As many of you know by now, the so-called gay marriage bill was defeated in New Jersey. In many ways, that's a disappointment, but in still other ways, it's not a surprise.

Let me clarify something: I don't necessarily think that a law that gives a person the right to marry someone of his or her gender is itself a solution to the problem of inequality, simply because I don't think governments should be in the business of defining or sanctifying marriages. I don't understand how, in a country whose constitution specifies a separation of church and state, clergypeople have, in essence, the power to decide who is and isn't married. I mean, if two people are married by their priest or rabbi or whomever, those two newly-married people have over a thousand legal rights that non-married people don't have--all because of a clergy member's say-so.

In that sense, clergypeople not only decide who is married; in doing so, they decide on which people are first- and second-class citizens. That is to say, they're helping, wittingly or not, to administer a form of apartheid.

On the other hand, given the legal, political, social and economic systems we have, so-called "gay marriage laws" may be the best we can hope for.

One of the reasons why voters in several states and state legislatures in others have voted against laws to give someone the right to marry someone of his or her own gender is that the laws are written, and presented to the public, as gay marriage laws. Thus, some people think that gays are getting "special treatment" with a law that defines their right to marry. The reality is that gays who want to marry are simply looking for the same rights as those enjoyed by married heterosexual people.

So, even though laws defining the right to same-sex marriage may be the better alternative in this society, the drafting, voting on and passing or defeating such legislation is premised on a major flaw in the current marriage laws, and the way people think about them.

As I said earlier, current laws give undue power to clergy people. That, in turn, amplifies the power government has over a segment of people's lives: marriage. I, for one, happen to think that governments should have no power to decide who is and isn't married. Furthermore, I don't think any government should give people special privileges simply for being married.

The very same people who think that gays are asking for "privilege" are the ones who themselves enjoy over a thousand privileges the government bestows upon them for being married. A good number of those privileges are financial, courtesy of tax laws and such.

If governments are going to have any power at all over unions between people, it should be limited to the equivalent of civil unions. If two people want to hook up, that should be their right. But they shouldn't get any tax breaks or preferences for tying the knot or for having kids. After all, that is a choice. (Funny, how some of the people who take those privileges for granted claim that homosexuality--or transgenderism--is a "lifestyle choice.")

Of course, in order to realize the vision I have just described, an entire legal and economic order will have to be dramatically re-structured. And, until that re-structuring takes place, LGBT people will still be second-class citizens. So, perhaps, having laws that allow gays to marry is the best we can do until that change comes about.

Now, I want to offer some of my own thoughts as to why the bill was defeated in New Jersey.

My family moved to New Jersey from Brooklyn in 1971. I spent my high-school years in Middletown and went to Rutgers University in New Brunswick. My parents lived in 'Jersey for more than two decades before moving to Florida; one of my brothers lives in the so-called Garden State now. So I can say that I don't have the condescending, snobbish view that many New Yorkers have of the place.

People who aren't familiar with the state think that it's all part of the New York Metropolitan Area and therefore shares the Big Apple's social diversity and the social tolerance they attribute to the city. New Jersey does indeed have quite a few gay people. But most of them live in a few neighborhoods of Hoboken, Jersey City and Plainfield, and some spend weekends or holidays in Asbury Park. Even in those enclaves, gay people don't live as openly as they do in Chelsea or even in Jackson Heights. Part of that has to do with the fact that most of the gay residents of New Jersey are male and living in couples: People tend to live quieter lives under such circumstances. But there is also a largely unspoken and almost entirely unwritten expectation that they will live that way.

This expectation stems, in part, from the fact that New Jersey is, for the most part, a suburban state. People move there to get a little more space than they would have in the city and, very often, to stake out a part of the American Dream for themselves. The price of admission consists of their down payments and mortagages on their homes.

A large part of homeowners' time and energies--not to mention their incomes--is directed to their stake in the dream. For most, that is the sum total of their net worth. Such circumstances make people fearfully protective of not only their properties and investments themselves, but also of anything they fear will devalue that investment or encroach upon the status they have attained by building a middle-class family and home life.

Such a way of thinking can very easily, and often does, turn into a siege mentality: I worked for this. Nobody gave me any special consideration. Why should anyone else get it (I can't begin to tell you how many times I've heard that, almost verbatim.) In New Jersey, such fears and resentments are exacerbated by the fact that New Jersey homeowners pay the highest property taxes in the nation. Plus, there is the relatively high cost of living and, for many, the high cost of commuting to their jobs (and paying an additional tax if that job happens to be in New York). And, finally, if they have kids--which nearly all of them do--there is that cost.

People in that situation feel that they're working harder and paying more than anyone else, and are not getting any special consideration for it. So they look at gay people, most of whom don't have kids, and feel resentment. That homeowner who's raising kids somehow feels that his or her taxes are subsidizing the life of libertine privilege they imagine that gays live, just as those same suburban homeowners feel (rightly so, I might say) that they are financing the incompetence and corruption for which New Jersey's largest cities are famous.

In brief, they feel--with at least some justification--that they're paying for people who don't pay their share. To see anyone else share the privilege they enjoy is, to their minds, an affront to their hard-working, law-abiding ways.

In addition to the large swaths of suburbia, there's a part of rural southern New Jersey that actually falls below the Mason-Dixon line. The Ku Klux Klan had active chapters there and in other parts of the state before World War II, and New Jersey was believed to have the largest Klan membership of any state north of the Potomac. The Klan has had a resurgence there in recent years, and in recent elections has supported various candidates, mainly those who oppose immigration.

This isn't to say that New Jersey is Alabama North. But it isn't Massachusetts South, either. So, at least to me, it's not such a surprise that the state allows civil unions for same-sex couples, but not same-sex marriages. So, as is typical of governments, the New Jersey State Legislature applied the right idea (civil unions) for the wrong reasons to one group of people and, as a result, merely elevated them from third- to second-class citizens rather than to equality. And they voted against the solution that, in a corrupt and cumbersome system, was the best chance at achieving equality.

Why I'm Not Celebrating The "Hate Crimes Bill"

It seems that nearly everyone--at least everyone I know--in the LGBT community has been celebrating the inclusion of language that includes transgenders in the so-called "Hate Crimes Bill" and that it looks like the President will sign it this week. If there's any reason to feel good, it's that, if nothing else, public officials as well as other citizens are indeed acknowledging that we are indeed subject to violence simply because we are who we are. In fact, one study says that transgender people are sixteen times as likely to be murdered as anyone else.

I hate to be the one who dumps cold water on anybody, but I must say this: Passage of the bill is not quite the cause for celebration that some believe it to be, any more than gay men and lesbians gaining the right to marry will be. I mention the push for gay marriage, even though that's another discussion unto itself, because it, like the "Hate Crimes Bill," shows how both mainstream politicians as well as LGBT activists too often work for "victories" that have only symbolic value (and sometimes not even that) while missing the underlying issues. Also, I happen to think that more legislation is almost never a good thing, and neither the "Hate Crimes Bill" nor gay marriage changes my mind about that.

However, my chief objection to the "Hate Crimes Bill" what I call its "exceptionalism." In other words, it essentially says that a crime against gay or transgendered people is inherently worse than others because it was committed against a gay or transgendered person. Now, I will say that because I am transsexual, a murder of, or other crime against, an LGBT person affects me in ways that other crimes do not. That, I like to think, is natural: One feels the most for one's own people, whomever they happen to be. Also, I understand the particular dangers we face, having brushed up against them myself, so the poignancy of a person being murdered because she is transgendered or beaten because he is gay is magnified for me. Still, I don't think such a bias--for that is what it is--should be reflected in any law, any more than any other bias should be so encoded.

In other words, I think that if a person is to be punished for killing or beating someone, he or she should incur whatever punishment is meted out because he or she killed or beat someone, not because the victim happened to belong to one group or another.

Some people--again, I am thinking in particular of LGBT activists--argue "hate crimes are different from other crimes," or something to that effect. Indeed they are: When you come right down to it, every crime is different, at least in circumstances, from every other. However, the effect is the same: Someone's life, person or property has been taken away, or at least violated.

Now, I'm no lawyer or scholar of the Constitution, and probably never will be either one. But I know enough to know that under the criminal justice system, a perpetrator's motives are considered in deciding upon his or her guilt or innocence and the type of punishment he or she should receive. One person may harm me because I'm a trans woman; another might want to do the same because I'm ugly or--ahem--because I write posts like this one. Still someone else might hurt me to get the $15.23 in my purse; another, because her husband left her for me. Whatever the motive, the outcome is still the same: that I have been harmed.

In that sense, whatever a person's motive, isn't his or her harming me, by definition, a hate crime? To violate or take a person's life, liberty or property without his or her consent is, at best, enormously disrespectful and, more likely, hateful.

So why, exactly, does it take my being transgendered in order to make the crime worthy of the prosecution that it deserves? Or, even more to the point, why does it take someone's status, whether it's high, low or somewhere in between, to make legislators and the criminal justice system recognize his or her right to live as who he or she is and to be secure in his or her person or property?

In short, why does the fact that I'm transgendered trump the fact that I'm a human being (who happens to be a transgendered female) in some lawmaker's decision that I should have the same rights as anyone else, or that someone should be punished for violating those rights?

To me, prosecuting and sentencing a crime against me or any other LGBT person because of who we are is no different than mourning the death of anyone else who is in any other way "exceptional" over that of someone who is considered "normal" or "ordinary."

And that is exactly what happened after Matthew Shepard's murder. The media trumpeted his fluency in several languages and his leadership skills. Indeed, it's terrible to lose those things, but what would the media have made of him had he been of average IQ or was studying to be an accountant--or, for that matter, had he been a sex worker in Denver? By the same token, I can't help but to wonder whether the media would have paid any attention at all to the disappearance of Laci Peterson had she not been a pretty white woman from a tony Bay Area suburb who'd been a cheerleader at her college. What if she had a been a single mother and a Salvadorian immigrant living in Crocker-Amazon and taking English classes in the Mission district of San Francisco ?

While I don't expect much better from the media (I'm so happy not to have TV reception!), I do want to see respect for life as the fundamental underlying value of the society and culture in which I live. The "Hate Crimes Bill" is no more about that than the sensationalism surrounding Anna Nicole's death was. Instead, it tells judges and juries to evaluate a crime by the status of the victim rather than the life that was taken from him or her.

Doing that isn't going to cause anyone to respect the rights we have because they're the same as theirs. That, in turn, will do nothing to change the "status" we have: a status that leaves us, not only with a one in twelve chance of being murdered, but with a seventy percent chance of being unemployed or working in the underground economy. (And that's in San Francisco, mind you!)

The cynic in me says that the passage of the Hate Crimes Bill is not so different from John Mc Cain's request that Jack Johnson be pardoned. I doubt that he, at his age, will run for President again. However, I suspect that he's thinking about his legacy, especially because he represents one of the two states that does not observe Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday. And, he also knows that his party, the Republican, has about as much support among African Americans than Martin Luther had in the Vatican. Likewise, politicians of all parts of the spectrum realize that LGBT people vote, and that we're anywhere from one in thirty to one in five of the population, depending on which researchers you believe. Whatever the number, it's enough to swing an election.

And, as long as the public is swayed by gestures such as the passage of a "Hate Crimes Bill," it will.