Transgender Day of Remembrance
Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Queenemily has written about witnessing and remembering:
So what I want to acknowledge is that there’s a paradox, that no trans person can truly witness for the murdered–especially those we’ve never met. And yet, with due caution, I think we should. Not to further our own goals, not to get legislation passed that protects only the already-privileged or to wallow in self-pity, but to honour the memories of every single trans person murdered this year, and to acknowledge the violence that our community lives with as a whole. To acknowledge that even in death, transphobia and cissexism mean that the murdered are not properly remembered, not even by the correct names and pronouns–and those people should be remembered as the right sex. That is our task for today (surviving ourselves, as well as prevention of more of the same is our task for the rest of the year). The example of Levi suggests that the task of witnessing may well be impossible, but we should attempt it nevertheless.
Gudbuytjane writes:
In the face of a cisdominant culture that enforces false narratives to keep trans women marginalized, it is imperative we make our voices heard. I’ve written about this before, and I believe it is an essential process for dismantling cissupremacy. The most important voices to be heard are our dead, and the responsibility for those voices lies with those of us who are still alive. Not for cis culture to consume, not even for ourselves, but for these women who are no longer with us; By giving them dignity we give ourselves dignity, and demand it from a culture which withholds it from us. Even if it is only knowing their name or a tiny bit of their story, it gives back to them some of the humanity their killers took.
Although cisdominant media inevitably focuses on the murders of these women, pieces of the stories of their lives nonetheless get through. This is how she died is supplanted for brief moments by This is how she lived. Amplify that. Know the stories of their lives, and tell the stories of your own. Not just on November 20th, but every day.
Remember. Remember throughout the whole year, and bear witness for the dead.
Food For Thought
Yesterday, I read Keori’s post on being in a same-sex relationship with an active, closeted servicemember, The other victims of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: the “Silent Partners”. Excerpt:
I’m not only a gay veteran. I’m the partner of an active duty servicemember. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” isn’t just a closet for people like me. It’s a prison cell. It sucks everyone in and slams the bars behind them, shackles us all in manacles attached to the floor. Then an American flag is hung on the wall to cover up the door and muffle the cries coming from inside so the people serving openly won’t be disturbed by us. …
DADT is to me what a lack of UAFA [Uniting American Families Act] is to a binational couple. It means that officially, I do not exist to my Beloved. It means little things, seemingly trivial parts of the closet we are all familiar with. When her fellow troops chat about what they did over the weekend with their spouses and children, she “hung out with friends.” When her command has picnics or other “family days,” she goes alone or not at all. When she receives an award or is promoted, I am not there to smile, take pictures, or pin on her new rank, like other wives are. …
Soon my Beloved will be sent away overseas, to a place I cannot follow her. We will be ripped apart for at least two years. Unlike opposite-sex spouses, I cannot receive command sponsorship to live with her on base. The military will not allow her to keep her family with her when posted overseas. She will not receive separation allowance as compensation for being taken away from her mate. If something happens to her, I will not know unless her family calls me. If something happens to me, she will not be told, or be allowed to come home to be with me, as a spouse would. She will not even be allowed to acknowledge her pain lest it give her away to her chain of command. …
This is our life. It is a unique, bittersweet hell of contradiction.
Today, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) sent out an email asking her constituents to express support for her three amendments to the defense authorization bill:
Dear [PD],
As Americans, we are so lucky to live in a free country, defended by the brave men and women of our armed forces. We owe them our gratitude, respect, and support for sacrificing so much for us.
That’s why I’ve just introduced new legislation in the Senate that will ease the burden on our military families. My three amendments are being considered, right now, during this week’s debate on the defense authorization bill — and I need your help. …
- Give families with two parents on active duty the option to stagger their overseas combat deployments — so one parent can stay home as the primary caregiver for their children. In addition, after one parent returns, provide a 90-day re-integration period before the other parent is deployed. This amendment is supported by the National Military Family Association.
- Reimburse military families who have to travel more than 50 miles from home in order to receive medical care — down from the current 100-mile requirement. This amendment is supported by the Military Coalition.
- Provide flexible spending accounts for all uniformed service personnel — so military families receive tax breaks for spending on medical expenses and child care. This amendment is supported by the VFW, National Military Family Association, Military Officers Association of America, and other organizations.
These amendments are the right thing to do for our servicemembers and their families. They do so much to protect us — now it’s time for us to stand up for them.
Military servicemembers and their families make sacrifices in service to the country, there’s no doubt about that. What’s striking is that Keori’s post aligns nearly point for point with Boxer’s amendments in the details of the sacrifices that she and all the other silent partners must make for a military that shuns their open service. The sacrifices are the same but her suffering for them is greater, because they are unacknowledged and she receives no accommodation from her country, no public support from her senators.
Contact your senators and representatives and ask them to support the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (H.R. 1283), the bill to repeal DADT. H.R. 1283 is currently referred to the Subcommittee on Military Personnel. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has links for finding your elected officials, and Thomas has a list of H.R. 1283’s current cosponsors. If your representative is a cosponsor, thank her or him for supporting the repeal of DADT. If your representative is not, please urge her or him to support all of our troops and their family members–not just the straight ones.
Prop. 8 Case
[I wrote most of this on Wednesday and hadn't finished it by the time the Court announced that it would be ruling on Prop. 8 on Tuesday, May 26 (PDF).]
So, head down in cooking, dance class, going out, and figuring out things with the +1, I’ve mostly put thoughts of Prop. 8 out of my head. The CA Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments back in March and had 90 days from that date to issue their ruling. Since all the protests last fall and winter, I’ve dropped out of the local activist scene entirely. When the oral hearings began, I marked down the 90th day out in my planner and then avoided thinking about it.
June 4: dinner for three at Maverick. June 5: Court ruling? Schubert's Great at the SF Symphony
June was tucked safely away behind many, many pages in my planner, but now, it’s nearly here. The Court normally publishes opinions on Mondays and Thursdays, with announcements of forthcoming opinion filings going up the Friday or Wednesday before. Next Monday is Memorial Day and so any opinion that would have been published on Monday will be published on Tuesday, with an announcement going up on the website on Friday. According to Day of Decision, the Court will rule by June 3, which leaves three possible dates for the ruling: Tuesday (5/26), Thursday (5/28), and Tuesday (6/2). God, we’re so close.
This decision will be a ruling once more on our humanity, on our dignity and our worth as equal human beings. Yes, the ruling is about marriage rights, but it’s apparent from looking at the ads and rhetoric of the anti-marriage equality side that the issue at hand is much broader. Are GLBTQI people indeed people, or are we monsters? By virtue of our nature, do we deserve to be shoved into the closet and hidden away so that we don’t corrupt the minds of (assumed to be straight) little children with our existence? Are our lives political footballs to be punted around for points until the election’s over and we’re told to just wait a little longer, our expectations are unreasonable and our demands unimportant?
I’m not married and never plan to be unless it’s fully legal everywhere in the country. At the moment, I’m going out with a straight man. And still, this ruling matters to me, because it’s a judgment on my very worth and dignity as a human being. I know that eventually, Prop. 8 will be repealed, if not in the next two weeks then in the next decade or so. That is cold comfort, though, and the legal justifications for upholding Prop. 8 are equally cold comfort. No matter how much I cherish rationality, logic, and the rule of law over emotions, there comes a time when the law is wrong and people of principle must not acquiesce to it.
I love this city and I love this state, but if the government decides once again that I do not have the rights to equality that are inherent to me by virtue of my humanity, if it decides once again to codify my second-class status into law, not content to leave it unspoken, assumed, and societally enforced, what place will there be for me here?
Yesterday was the thirtieth anniversary of the White Night Riots (h/t Faith). This summer will see the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Activism and change are not always peaceful, are not always conducted within the stately halls of the legislature by calm, soft-spoken people who are expected to sigh, shrug philosophically, and accept it when their humanity is decried and they are accused of being perverts, child molesters, unnatural, disgusting, sick, sinners, and abominations that will destroy society. Homophobes unleash hatred and vitriol and attack GLBTQI people and batter and kill them. And yet, it is we who are admonished not to raise a fuss, not to defend ourselves, not to overreact, not to say a word about our lived experience of homophobia.
But how can you overreact to the persistent harassment and persecution? The admonishments to behave lest there be a backlash and the demands to go quietly into the good night, those are demands to keep heterosexism in place. Those are demands to not disturb the status quo and not disturb the illusion that things are OK and that queers will get our rights some day, if we only wait long enough and quietly enough, closeted enough. Those are demands to not make people uncomfortable with the fact that homophobia is a constant, active presence for most people who aren’t straight. Those are demands to hide our dead and our wounded.
Every time I go home to my parents’ house and see their old church friends, I get asked if I have a boyfriend. They assume I’m straight. They all voted yes on Prop. 8. I want to tell them that no, I don’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and thus challenge their default assumption of straightness by making it clear that loving a girlfriend is an option for me. I have to weigh that against my parents’ reaction, though, because if I so much as mention Prop. 8, homophobia, queer rights, or anything queer-related, let alone suggest that I’m not straight, my mother will pitch a screaming fit. She’ll ask me why I have to be so “outspoken,” why I have to talk about “those people,” why I can’t just “get along,” why I have to make everything “political,” why I can’t just be “quiet.” She’ll sulk the rest of the weekend and potentially for weeks afterward. She’ll never acknowledge that by demanding that I not disturb the social peace, she’s demanding that I lie about myself and hide. She’ll never acknowledge that she’s flaunting her heterosexuality every time she goes somewhere with her husband, calls him “honey,” and invites people over to the home that they’ve made together, where there are pictures of our smiling family all around the house: female parent, male parent, and two kids. She’ll say that her old friends have “the right to have their own opinions,” not realizing or not caring that those opinions are hatred for her daughter. Sure, our family friends think queers are sick and perverted sinners, but in my mom’s mind, saving face and preserving the gay atmosphere of a dinner party is more important than how I feel about breaking bread and quietly sitting at a table with people that say that people like me are subhuman, enjoined to say nothing in my own defense. The church friends don’t know they’re talking about me when they say that gay couples will destroy marriage, but I’m not allowed to tell them they are talking about me. I’m out of the closet everywhere but at my parents’ house, even though I’ve come out to my immediate family. For the sake of the fragile peace with my mother, I’m a hypocrite.
I believe in the importance of being out and used to speak about it as the most important component of changing the hearts and minds of Prop. 8 supporters. They assumed they didn’t know anyone who was queer and so they voted for Prop. 8. If they knew that their daughters, parents, children, friends, colleagues, and neighbors were queer, that would do more to change their minds about GLBTQI equality than anything else. That is what I said. For the sake of family, though, I’m not living what I believe: I’m out to my friends, out to my family, and have no problem talking with homophobes, but the stress of parental relationships makes me a hypocrite at heart. I’d rather keep the peace with my mother than live according to my principles and correct their friends when they assume I’m straight or go on about Prop. 8. I dread going to my parents’ house if I know that their church friends will be around. And it’s all my fault, of course, for having the temerity to think that I deserve equal rights and for thinking that I should be unashamed of who I am, rather than hiding in the closet.
I think P#1 knows I’m queer, given that I’ve mentioned working with Marriage Equality and local activists on Prop. 8 protests. There are also pictures of me wearing an “IN love with my girlfriend” t-shirt floating around on Facebook. If I were in his shoes, I would assume queerness, but I tend not to assume that someone’s straight unless ze explicitly says as much. Whatever way the ruling goes, it’ll open up a chance for conversation–either way, I’ll call him up for drinks, whether it’s, “CELEBRATORY DRINKS W00T!!” or, “I need to cry on someone’s shoulder.” I hope he understands.
The mess that is my mother’s uncomfortable relationship with my non-straight sexual orientation is a major part of why I haven’t told them about P#1 and don’t plan to either, in the foreseeable future. My mother would be relieved that I’m seeing a straight man and would assume that it’d mean that GLBTQI rights don’t matter to me anymore and would assume that it makes me not-queer enough to not care about GLBTQI equality. As much as she yells at me now for so much as mentioning Prop. 8 in casual conversation with family friends, it would be even worse if I told her about P#1, because she’d think that, since I’m seeing a man, Prop. 8 and homophobia have no relevance to my life.
I can’t deal with this. The Court is ruling on Tuesday.
I’m still bitter that when I organized a protest against Prop. 8, not only did my mother try to convince me that I shouldn’t and couldn’t do it, neither of my parents bothered to show up or even wish me good luck. I think that that action, right there, said everything I needed to know about how they feel about me, despite all my mother’s pretty words about how it’s okay that I’m queer. When I came out to her and my father, she said that, and then she yelled at me because she thought I was having a hard time with the conversation–”Is it so hard to talk to us about this? Are you so scared?” Yes, mother, I was scared, because your words say one thing and your actions say something completely different. You lie.
If I can’t feel safe and comfortable in my own skin with my parents, what else is left? We’ve never been close, but I guess I just need to get used to having this icy patch between us: we’ll skirt around it but never broach the topic directly, because it just won’t be productive.
Hate Crimes, Not Hoaxes
Via Liss, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), lied about Matthew Shepard’s death on the floor of Congress today:
Transcript from Liss:
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina): The, uh, hate crimes bill that’s called the Matthew Shepard Bill is named after, uhn, uh, a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know, uh, that that young man was killed in the, uh, in the commitment [sic] of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay. This—the bill was named for him, the hate crimes bill was named for him, but it, it’s, it’s really a hoax! [emphasis mine]
Text: FALSE. Fact: “According to local police and prosecutors, the two men lured Mr. Shepard out of a bar by saying they were gay. Then, the Laramie police say, the pair kidnapped Mr. Shepard, pistol-whipped him with a .357 Magnum, and left him tied to a ranch fence for 18 hours until a passing bicyclist spotted Mr. Shepard, who was unconscious.”—The New York Times, 10/12/98
The representative’s sentence is ambiguous in that it could suggest that Matthew Shepard was killed as the victim of a robbery or that he was killed while committing a robbery. Now, his murderers robbed his body after killing him for being gay, so it’s possible that she meant the former (which would still be factually incorrect), but I’m not inclined to give Rep. Foxx the benefit of the doubt.
A hoax. In 2007, the Department of Justice found that 16.6% of bias-related incidents (i.e. hate crimes) were based on sexual orientation. The 16.6% rate was an increase from 2004’s 15.6%. There are multiple factors involved, but one is surely that people think it’s acceptable to assault people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. Why else would they boldly admit to bias-related murder, saying, “Gay things must die”? (Allen Andrade, convicted of murdering Angie Zapata in a hate crime, quoted in CO Independent) When Rep. Foxx lied about Matthew Shepard’s death, she sent the message that targeting and killing queer people was acceptable. She sent the message that our lives and our deaths don’t count. She sent the message that even though bigots target queer individuals specifically to make us live in fear and to wipe us out of existence, politicians and people in power will whitewash our suffering as a robbery gone wrong and accuse our family and friends of perpetuating hoaxes when they seek justice. She sent the message that bigotry is acceptable, even when it takes on the form of violence and broken bodies punished for the sin of being lesbian, gay, or trans.
Fight back and reject these messages any time you hear them, starting with Rep. Foxx and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Show them that there are consequences to homophobia and transphobia and to denying the existence of hate crimes based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.
Foxx’s D.C. office: 202-225-2071
North Carolina office: 1-866-677-8968
National Republican Congressional Committee: 202-479-7000
Here, have a sample message:
“Hi, this is [PD], calling about Representative Foxx’s statements in Congress today on the Matthew Shepard Bill. The representative dishonestly claimed that Matthew Shepard was killed during a robbery, when in fact his murderers have confessed to targeting Matthew Shepard specifically because he was gay. They beat him and left him to die, tied to a fence on a freezing Wyoming night. This was a hate crime, and I ask that the representative publicly retract her statement and apologize. Her statement is an insult not only to queer Americans, but to all Americans who support justice and equality.”
The bill passed in the House, 249-175 (10 no votes) and is moving onto the Senate. Please look up your legislators and let them know you support the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act.
Sexual Assault
SEXUAL ASSAULT TRIGGER WARNING FOR THIS POST AND FOR THE SHAKESVILLE POST AND ITS COMMENT THREAD.
Liss has a post up today, The Survivor Thread:
As I’ve said before, this points to an interesting, ahem, blindspot in the oft-cited statistic about 1 in 6 women being victims of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault sometime in their lives: Many of those women will have been victimized multiple times.
And many of us who are survivors of repeat assaults will not speak of it; many of us will pick the “worst” one and talk about that in threads on assault, as if it’s the only one. We do this for many reasons: We might feel embarrassed by being repeatedly victimized, as if it’s indicative of a character flaw within ourselves; we might have trouble discussing multiple assaults without undermining what tenuous feeling of safety we have; we might have faced reactions of incredulity from people with whom we shared this information and thought we could trust; we might have been called liars or hysterics—accusations born of the silence about sexual assault.
Disbelief is the inevitable result of swimming in a culture which renders invisible the reality that enormous numbers of women—and men—have been sexually assaulted, many of them more than once.
And so, this will be a thread of clattering teaspoons breaking that silence. Share your stories here.
This is a safe space and this is the survivor thread.
As I type these words, the comment thread is at 181 comments and counting. The thread will be longer by the time this post goes live, and I have no doubt that tomorrow morning, after people have gotten off work, come home from school, found a free moment to relax after taking care of their families, and woken up in other time zones, the thread will be much longer.
Coincidentally, April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It’s almost a year to the day that I wrote about being a sexual assault survivor for last year’s Blog Against Sexual Violence Day.
There are 181 comments, almost all of which are personal stories of sexual assault. Supporting Liss’ point that the one out of six statistic says nothing about how that one will likely be raped multiple times, almost all of the comments have multiple stories. Mine does.
In my post last year, I wrote,
I can’t talk about the assault yet. I’ve thought over the words, strung them together inside my head, and I still can’t do it. One day, I hope I’ll be able to. But for now, I will own these words. I have a face, I have a name, I am a person you know, online or in real life, and I am a sexual assault victim. I am a sexual assault survivor.
One year later, here is my story:
The 8th grade science teacher who looked down girls’ shirts. His students were 13-14 years old.
A man fondled my butt on the bus.
Going clubbing and random men grinding and kissing me without so much as a “May I?” I realize that’s accepted clubbing behavior, because they didn’t pursue it when I pulled back, but this is why I won’t go clubbing alone. It shouldn’t be acceptable.
Going clubbing with a friend. A man tried to dance with her and she pushed him away, saying, “It’s a girl thing.” He said, “Prove it, I want to see you kiss,” and knocked our heads together.
Walking back to my hostel late at night and being followed by a man who grabbed my hand, dragged me into a dark and isolated area, and kissed me, despite the fact that I was yanking to get my hand back. He stopped and ran away when I shouted at the top of my lungs, and I consider myself lucky for that. What was he thinking? That I wanted to be assaulted? The yanking should have been a clue even before the screaming.
I was hooking up with a man who wanted to have anal sex. I’d tried it once and it hurt, so I said no. He kept insisting and so I said ok, thinking that maybe it would be better this time. He shoved his dick in without any preparation–I was crying at how much it hurt and blood dripped out every time I went to the bathroom for the next few days. I told him to stop, it hurt, and he said to relax and it would feel better, and kept thrusting until I crawled away. We were having sex without a condom (I know, it was stupid) and later on, he came inside me although we’d agreed that that was off limits. I think it was his revenge for not letting him fuck my ass.
Last year, I wrote
I believe that the mainstream silence around sexual violence is part of what allows it to flourish, because most people are good, and I think that if they had any idea how rampant sexual violence is, they would be up in arms. Not only feminists, not only victims, not only allies, but everyone. We would recognize all forms of sexual assault as such and not dismiss “lovers’ quarrels,” slaps, bruises, intimidation, gropes, “unwilling” or “nonconsensual” sex, or anything else. We wouldn’t make excuses for them. We wouldn’t contest the idea that individuals should never have their boundaries violated or their bodies touched against their will, and that putting up with some groping, some shouting, some hitting, some raping is not simply the price of living.
I’m not sure that I believe any longer that most people are good. I do believe that the silence around assault and the silencing of victims allows and perpetuates sexual assault and further harms sexual assault victims. I read the entire thread and I am sick with rage for all of us, victims and survivors that we are.
Go read the thread. The entire thread. Don’t feel sorry for me, don’t try to shield yourself from the horror of those stories and distance yourself by offering pity. You want to do something? Support sexual assault prevention and take a stand, even when it’s unpopular and even when it rocks the boat. Read the stories and allow them to rip you to the bone as you think about them. Ask yourself if any of those stories sound familiar–if they sound like things you’ve done to someone and justified to yourself as consensual or deserved or okay. Ask yourself what you would do if someone told you their story, and be honest: it’s easy to say that you’d be sympathetic and believe them, but as so many of the comments prove, most people try to rationalize the assault, blame the victim, silence the victim, save the assailant (“Do you really want to destroy his future over something like this?”), and pretend that it never happened. Acknowledging assault breaks apart the status quo, where we can pretend that everything is okay. It’s a fragile, thin silence we skate around that lets rapists and assailants and non-victims off scot free and forces victims to pretend that everything is okay, so long as we don’t think about it too much and ignore the pain behind the empty, forced smiles.
I want to shatter the silence one word at a time and burn down the world until that facade of complacency, and the social equilibrium that prioritizes social relationships and the delicate sensibilities of everyone but the victim, are utterly destroyed. I’ve accepted that those men assaulted and raped me and I will work to keep it from happening to anyone else–and to provide a safe space when that fails, as it already has and inevitably will.
Oh, god. It was rape.
Tax Time
I just did my taxes today. Usually, when I think of taxes, I think of schools, public transit, Medicare/Medicaid, and all the other happy benefits that serve the common good. I also think of wars, nuclear stockpiles, torture, surveillance, and tax cuts that favor the wealthiest in this country. This year, I thought of Stuart and John (PDF) and John’s speech at the anti-DOMA rally in January, where he held up a 1040 (the primary federal income tax filing document in the U.S.) and talked about how the federal government forces him and every other married same-sex couple to commit perjury when they file as Single.
John Lewis, holding a 1040 form, and his husband, Stuart Gaffney, at the January 10, 2009, anti-DOMA protest in San Francisco.
Due to the Defense of Marriage Act, married same-sex couples in MA and CT need to do an extra set of tax forms. State tax forms rely on the federal 1040, and although same-sex couples can file state taxes as Married Filing Jointly, they have to file their federal taxes as Single, because the federal government does not recognize their marriages. Therefore, they have to fill out federal 1040s as Single, redo a dummy 1040 as Married Filing Jointly, and use the second 1040 to fill out their state taxes. The humiliating reminder that same-sex marriages are considered fake, invalid outside of MA, CT and NY, and inferior to opposite-sex marriages is further aggravated by the fact that this routine is required by government institutions. Being discriminated against by private individuals is bad enough; tax season brings constant reminders of marriage inequality and government-perpetuated discrimination in the form of every casual conversation and complaint that people make about taxes. Having to pay higher federal taxes than you would if you could file jointly, and having your nose rubbed in that fact by the dummy 1040s that you have to fill out, are just the cherry on top of the insult-ridden sundae.
As for couples in California…I don’t even know what to say. They have to go through the same extra 1040 routine that couples in MA and CT do, but looming over it all is the fear that the state Supreme Court might invalidate their marriages. Originally, I wasn’t sure if couples that were married between June 15, 2008, and November 5, 2008, could even file as Married Filing Jointly in California, since same-sex couples are no longer allowed to marry in this state, but I think they can, since the court hasn’t yet ruled on the validity of same-sex marriages (obviously, if you’re in this boat, talk to an accountant and ignore my speculations!).
Tax time is just another reminder that queers are not equal in the eyes of the law, one in a string of constant reminders.
Note: If any idiotic tax protest spammers comment, I’m deleting and banning them.
In Defense of Life
Womens’ lives, that is. Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, two landmark cases that recognized that women are thinking, intelligent human beings capable of making decisions; autonomous human beings that have the right to bodily integrity, beings that own the flesh they inhabit. Women are human beings, not property, and it is their right to decide whether they’ll abort, prevent, or carry a pregnancy. No one else, not her pastor, her family, her politicians, or anti-choicers who’ve never met her, has the right to make or limit that decision.
Every year, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) introduces the Sanctity of Life Act:
H.R. 227: 1/7/2009–Introduced.
Sanctity of Human Life Act – Declares that: (1) the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human and is the person’s paramount and most fundamental right; (2) each human life begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, at which time every human has all legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood; and (3) Congress, each state, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories have the authority to protect all human lives.
I’m not linking to it,* but Broun posted this statement on Redstate:
As we ring in the New Year and begin the 111th Congress, the need to protect the unborn remains front and center in the national political debate. Each year, in keeping with my promise to my constituents, the first bill I introduce provides Constitutional protections to unborn children.
His first bill, his trademark, his symbolic opening every year, is a bill that proclaims that women have fewer rights to their bodily integrity than corpses; that women cannot and should not make decisions for themselves; that women are worthless and unintelligent. He stakes his commitment not to human rights, or fighting poverty, or helping children get a good education, or ending war, or making healthcare affordable, but to degrading and infantilizing women. Broun is a symbol of the stubbornly misogynistic anti-choice movement and their determination to destroy our rights wholesale, if we do not remain wary and committed to fighting for reproductive justice.
The 2009 Blog for Choice topic is “What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?”
My answer: Repeal the global gag rule immediately. I was hoping that Obama would do that via executive order today, as Clinton did on the 20th anniversary of Roe in 1993, or explicitly repeal the HHS rule change, but he’s failed to do so thus far.
You have to be pro-choice every day, or the anti-choicers will win. This Saturday, 1/24, the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR) is staging a pro-choice, pro-GLBTQI, pro-immigrant rights rally at Market & Embarcadero, to protest the Walk for “Life” WC.* The Walk for “Life” brings tens of thousands of anti-choice misogynists to San Francisco’s Embarcadero to demonstrate against the humanity of women. The anti-choicers have historically outnumbered the pro-choicers, so please come out! There will also be a pro-GLBTQI “Pieces of 8″ performing arts street fair along Embarcadero, celebrating creativity, love, and civil rights.
* As part of general SEO strategies and not driving traffic/revenue to offensive sites, I’m not going to link to sites I find offensive. In the interests of citing and being accountable, though, I will provide enough information that anyone interested in doing so will be able to find the original post or image herself.
FSM, Let It Be!
I love the Guardian:
The image is a screencap of guardian.co.uk, and it says, “Obama shuts network of CIA ‘ghost prisons,’” and the subheader is “New US president embarks on wholesale deconstruction of George Bush’s war on terror.”
I’m so happy about this news–positively elated! I haven’t felt this way about anything coming out of the White House in a long time. Shutting down secret prisons and closing Guantanamo is merely taking the country back where it should’ve been, but these days I have a newfound appreciation of how much work it is “just” to do what’s right (hint: a whole fucking lot). I’m waiting to see how these orders will be implemented, whether or not they’ll be carried out in fact and in spirit, but in the meantime, at least this step is in the right direction.
I love the tone of Suzanne Goldberg’s article – here, I’ll just copy it wholesale rather than try to snip my favorite bits. Read the rest of this entry »
Frivolity
I’ve been busy ever since … since sometime before the election. Actually, it became more intense after the election, because I’ve been volunteering with some of the GLBTQI rights efforts that have been going on since Prop. 8 passed. So, since off- and on- line stuff is eating up my life and upping my stress levels and blood pressure, I’m going to mostly be posting amusing and lighthearted stuff here. For nuanced, informed social commentary, I suggest you look elsewhere.
This is what my schedule looks like:
week one: volunteer volunteer volunteer
week two: collapse into burned out state, retreat from online world, and read food books as escapist pseudo-vacation
week three: volunteer volunteer volunteer
week four: contemplate giving up the volunteer thing in state of burnout and wonder, “I put grad school off for this?”
etc. Also add “neglect friends, family, letters, cooking, laundry, regular showering, blogosphere, flist, and renewing library books” to weeks where I volunteer rather than hide in my flat with the French Laundry cookbooks and Ruhlman’s entire oeuvre.
Of the good: I’m going to see Lang Lang with the symphony tomorrow night, and the Adler Fellow Gala Concert on Saturday.
Of the bad: No one is coming to the Adler concert with me. Someone was supposed to come and bailed for Tahoe. >:O
Of the worse: Having increasingly difficult time not telling some other volunteers to boil their heads with root vegetables and fuck off with their “I think someone should do XYZ” comments, which are inevitably followed up with someone else saying, “That’s a great idea, can you organize that?” and the original speaker staring at their shoes, being silent, and then saying, “Well, it’s very difficult and so I think someone [else] should do XYZ.”
So, just in case y’all have been wondering where I’ve been, I’ve been buried in either activist work or in reading The French Laundry Cookbook concurrently with The French Laundry At Home.
Protesting
One of the things I like about SF is its active activist (ha!) culture…in other words, don’t forget about the marriage equality rally this Saturday at SF City Hall. Looks like stuff is going on all over the Bay Area, nationwide, and INTERNATIONALLY O_o, actually!
I’ll be at the rally this Saturday, hope to see you there, although I doubt we’ll be able to find each other in the crowd. :/
Protest8SF: Prop. 8 Protest 11/15, 10:30 A.M. City Hall
JoinTheImpact (their servers have been overloaded, so the site might be down) is organizing a national day of GLBTQI rights protests: Saturday, Nov. 15, 10:30 A.M. Pacific / 1:30 P.M. Eastern at your city hall. There’s quite a long list of protests at the site and lots of people are stepping up to organize protests in various cities and states across the nation. Check it out – there might already be a protest in your city and if there’s not, you can start one! I think this could be really powerful. The anger and energy coming out of the GLBTQI + allies community is astounding and although it’s in immediate reaction to the anti-marriage equality bans, we can make it much bigger than that: marriage equality, a fully inclusive ENDA, a GLBTQI hate crimes act (that absolutely must include transpeople, since they are so often the victims of vicious violence that is ignored or turned into joke fodder), the repeal of DADT, insert your hopes and dreams here. This movement is our movement: yours and mine and everyone else’s. This is a big grassroots movement and grassroots movements are led by ordinary citizens-turned-activists that grab megaphones and take a step forward, leading everyone else with them.
As Redstar points out, one of the side effects of the Obama campaign and, indeed, the many political campaigns that just concluded is that there are now thousands, if not millions of people that are trained in grassroots organizing. There are people that know what a campaign needs, people that know how to organize people, people that know how to organize events, people that know how to organize publicity, people that know how to phonebank and distribute fliers and spread publicity online and go door to door and fundraise. All of these people can take their skills and turn them to social justice and civil rights causes. I got my training from recruiting volunteers in person and phonebanking for the No on 4 and No on 8 campaigns and seeing how they organized their statewide and local strategy. The Yes on K campaign did an amazing job of building coalitions with local political parties, clubs, social justice causes, reaching out to minority communities, and getting their message out in local, national, and alternative media. Years ago, I managed online and offline publicity for a nonprofit cause. I can use these tools and experiences and so can the many people that got their first tastes of activism in this election cycle. The question is how to harness their energy, knowledge, and experience for social justice causes? Personally, I’d like to get more involved in the immigrant rights movement and I’ll have to look into that. But I digress.
In my own fabulous city of SF, on Friday night there was a great, spontaneous, grassroots & netroots march from Hallidie Plaza through the Castro to Dolores Park and then back to the steps of City Hall, where drag queen Pollo Del Mar spoke and charged everyone present to go back into their communities and spread the word. I have lots of great pictures from the march and I’ll put them up sooner or later. Probably later and probably on Picasa or flickr – uploading a lot of photos to WordPress is both timeconsuming and annoying.
Upcoming protests: I mentioned JoinTheImpact at the beginning of this post, and I’ll end with them. There is a JTI protest scheduled for 11/15, 10:30 A.M. at San Francisco City Hall (google map address). The folks at Protest8SF.wordpress.com are working on organizing it: they have a preliminary to do list, fliers for publicity, and a googlegroups list serv that anyone can join to help with the organizing. If you’re in SF, check out the website to see if you can help and definitely come to the rally! If you’re not in SF, please pass the links along and spread the word.
Web organizing techniques + community organizing techniques + campaign techniques = much easier to organize social justice movements? Y/N? I’ll have to think about this.
ETA: thatonegaykid says that there is a JoinTheImpact protest 11/15 in Orange County, 1 P.M. at Irvine City Hall. Please get in touch with her (thatonegaykid.wordpress.com)to find out more!
Prop. 8 Protests
The Equality California calendar has protest events listed:
Today, Friday:
Costa Mesa
9 p.m. | South Coast Plaza
Bristol Street & Town Center DriveLong Beach
6:45 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Broadway and RedondoMerced
6 p.m. | Veterans Park, M Street
Contact: Leslie or Eileen, PLFLAG Merced 209.725.1140Mission Viejo
4 to 7 p.m. | 200 Civic CenterPalm Springs
5 p.m. | Palm Springs City HallSanta Barbara
5 p.m. to 6 p.m. | De La Guerra Plaza Street
700-756 De La Guerra PlazaSan Diego.
9 p.m. | Laurel and Sixth Avenue
March to City Hall (202 C)San Francisco
5:30 p.m. | Civic Center
Market and 7th to Dolores Park
Saturday
Beverly Hills
6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. | LDS Temple
10777 Santa Monica BoulevardHuntington Beach
2 p.m. Huntington Beach PierLaguna Beach – Faith has more information
5:30 p.m. | City Hall
505 Forest Avenue
Marching to Main BeachLos Angeles
6 p.m. | Sunset Junction
Silver LakeRancho Cucamonga
11 a.m. | Heritage Park
5546 Beryl Street
Please bring a chair with you! You may also bring a dish or desserts, drinks, cups, paper plates, etc. if you want.
RSVP: patrickmilliner@yahoo.comSacramento
7 p.m. | Capitol Building (west steps)
Bring Signs, Wear Protest Shirts. People from SF will be showing up at the West Steps to show support with us.San Diego
12 Noon | Hillcrest
1st & University
Marching to 30th in North Park.
Sunday
Rancho Santa Margarita
5 p.m. to 8 p.m. | Lake Santa Margarita
Santa Margarita Pkwy
Please bring candles.
Contact: teenageanthem@gmail.comVilsalia
5 p.m. | College of the Sequoias
915 S. Mooney Boulevard
March down Mooney Boulevard to Caldwell Avenue and back.
Park in Lot 3 off Meadow Lane.
Leave signs at home and bring a candle instead.
This is history in the making. This is civil rights. This is standing up and publicly showing support for GLBTQI people, marriage rights, fairness, and equality for all. Come and be present.
Yes on Prop. 8: The Aftermath
Yes on Prop. 8: the Aftermath
Yes: 5,387,939 / 52.5%
No: 4,883,460 / 47.5%
Difference: 504,479
Total: 10,271,399
I’ll put up county-specific data later.
Via Spectrum Blue, Protest 8, a blog organizing protests in SF. There’s one tonight at 5:30 at Market and 7th. Be there and bring your old window signs.
BBC Video of LAPD beating an anti-Prop. 8 protestor – via someone, I lost the link.
Faith is pulling together a list of Yes on Prop. 8 donor-run businesses to boycott. Before anyone gets all het up about freedom of speech, let me say this: I absolutely support peoples’ rights to vote yes on Prop. 8 and for any other Godforsaken, appalling initiative or campaign. I absolutely support their right to donate as much money as they like in accordance with their bigoted, disgusting beliefs. The corollary to that is that I have every right to boycott their establishments and remove my support from their businesses. This is not censorship. This is freedom of speech x 2 – their freedom of speech and my freedom of speech. There is nothing that requires me to give my money to people that turn around and give that money to causes I find reprehensible. A boycott is an act of free expression counteracting another act of free expression, and banning, censoring, or repressing boycotts is the true instance of repression and censorship.
Besides, a lot of you Yes on 8 voters are probably free market types. Boycotts in response to the political donations of businesspeople are a classic example of consumers freely exercising their abilities to choose where to take their business, after a particular establishment proves unsatisfactory. It’s the invisible hand at work! Wrap your head around that.
Pam on the Religious Right’s probable next steps. From the President of the Christian Coalition of America:
“It will be the goal of Christian Coalition to ensure that the other 20 states adopt similar amendments banning homosexual “marriages” including the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut which also had two judicial decisions, by one vote margins, legalizing these abominations.”
Robert @ Calitics: Pledge to Repeal Prop 8: Restore Marriage Equality
Via aaa, a press release from CAMPAIGN for Children and Families: they intend to make sure the initiative applies retroactively.
“Today, marriage licenses can only go to whom they were originally intended — a man and a woman, a bride and a groom. The people of California have successfully overruled the judges and politicians and restored marriage licenses to a man and a woman. Now the false marriages done this summer must be declared null and void. California law now says the only valid or recognized marriage ‘is’ between a man and a woman. The ballot arguments specify that the only marriages are between a man and a woman, ‘regardless of when or where performed.’ It is time for all Californians to respect the new marriage law, which has restored an age-old institution, whether they voted for or against Prop. 8.”
They are also pissed off about losing on Prop. 4. I will post my thoughts about Prop. 4 later.
Via Elena Perez, the CA NOW blog has two posts up on Prop. 8: Prop 8 Postmortem, Part 1: Dissecting History covers the legal arguments behind the SF, LA, Santa Clara County, Lambda Legal, and National Center for Lesbian Rights lawsuits.
“But, Meredith,” I hear you say, “this is a constitutional amendment — aren’t the Supreme Court’s hands tied?” Actually, due to the approach the plaintiffs are taking, the CA Supreme Court does have the ability to consider this. The legal reasoning behind the lawsuits is interesting, and if you live in California, it’s worth your time to understand it.
Prop 8 Postmortem, Part 2: Dissecting the Present: looking at the impact of Prop. 8 on married couples.
ACLU Press release on the lawsuits. Includes a link to request for a stay on Prop. 8.
ACLU Press Release: argues that Prop. 8 does not apply retroactively. Fortunately, State Attorney General Jerry Brown is on our side.
SFChron: Same-sex marriage issue back to state top court. More on the lawsuit. I hope to God that this doesn’t come up before the SCOTUS anytime soon and stays in the state courts. I do not trust Kennedy on this and it’s going to be a 5-4 vote at the best, with three strict constructionists and one follows-Scalia-ist on the court. Korematsu has been much on my mind of late – another civil rights case originating from California – and it stands as a stark reminder that the court is not infallible, it is not all-knowing, it is not always just, and it most certainly is not always liberal or non-partisan. If anything, Bush v. Gore should remind us all of that.
SFChron: 2,000 gather in SF for same-sex marriage vigil – article about the Wednesday protest.
Julia @ Calitics: Prop 8: Questions about what went wrong, so we can fix it for next time. I do have to say that during the campaign season, I thought the No on Prop. 4 campaign was much more organized than the No on Prop. 8 campaign, although it had much less money and much fewer volunteers (the biggest day of phonebanking for No on 4: 150 volunteers statewide. A regular No on 8 phonebanking night in October: 110 volunteers in the SF office alone.).
Blaming the Victims
SFChron: two articles blaming the victims, yet again. Two articles that attempt to lay the blame at the feet of “Newsom and his supporters.” Look, this is classic victim-blaming. Blaming the victims, the oppressed minority, for their attempts to get their rights recognized, is sheer assholery and if anyone is to blame, it is the people that voted yes, the people that supported Prop. 8, and the people that did nothing. I have problems with Mayor Gavin Newsom, but for his steadfast courage in advocating for GLBTQI people, he has my vote forever. It takes real integrity to stick to your principles even after an entire nation trashes you as a scapegoat for it, and to continue to do so for years afterward. I only wish Senator Feinstein had a modicum of his integrity and courage. And Senator Boxer–where the hell were you on Prop. 8? You’re the more progressive senator and the one that receives fewer irate calls from me, and you did virtually <em>nothing</em> from your position of authority.
Just for once, for once, I would like to see an article that recognizes how difficult it is to stand up for politically unpopular principles and that leaders that do so are passing rare and should be commended for showing leadership. How short is the historical memory? Do these people not realize that by positioning GLBTQI rights as a losing issue they’re perpetuating the “common wisdom” that GLBTQI rights are untouchable disasters that will sink politicians and impeding the progress of the civil rights movement? Do they not realize that every civil rights leader was thought of as an annoying loser at the time of the movement and they are playing the part of the reactionary status quo?
New rule around these parts: BLAME THE OPPRESSORS. NOT THE VICTIMS. This rule extends to marriage equality advocates, rape victims, social justice activists, and, hell, Nader voters and any other group.
Newsom was the primary target for the statewide campaign to ban same-sex marriages, featured prominently in radio and TV advertisements. He’s the one public figure most attached to the proposition, and he’s the politician most likely to lose face now that voters have approved it.
That could be bad news for his possible run for governor in 2010, political analysts said. It may be impossible for him to overcome his association with a losing cause. And perhaps more important, this election may have shown Newsom just how far away he is from winning support from key California voting blocs.
“The Latino and black voters really turned out in this election. They helped get Proposition 8 voted in, and that portends badly for Gavin Newsom if he’s intending to run for governor,” Boushey said. “He’s going to have to appeal to those voters. They’re socially moderate, and they don’t recognize Gavin Newsom as being socially moderate.”
Paradoxically, the mayor is seen as too liberal for much of the state and too conservative compared to the city’s legislators.
Newsom said he hasn’t given any thought to what impact Tuesday’s losses will have on his long-term career.
“It’s trivial and irrelevant,” he said at a news conference Wednesday. “It was never about me, it’s not about politicians. This is about people. This is about real human beings.” [emphasis mine]
Hell, I don’t care if he means it or not when he says, “It’s trivial and irrelevant.” The fact that he stood up and said that it’s not about short-term politics and his own career goals, it’s about equality and about “real human beings” means so much to me.
As for the rest–excuse me, “With a losing cause”? How about the right cause, how about justice and equality? As for repeating the assertion that Latin@ and black voters are responsible for the success of Proposition 8: stop with the goddamned racism. There are far more white voters than Latin@ and black voters combined, and yet, no one is blaming them for the success of Prop. 8. That sort of reprehensible racist analysis is easy but flawed. For one thing, it erases the existence of Latin@ and black GLBTQI people and for another, it reads as yet another instance of implying that white people are morally superior to those backward black and brown people. FUCK YOU. The biggest push behind Prop. 8 was THE MORMON CHURCH AND MANY “CHRISTIAN” CHURCHES, IN CASE YOU’VE FORGOTTEN, YOU INCREDIBLE FUCKHEADS. I am incredibly disgusted that people are forgetting that when the Mormon factor (no, not all Mormons supported Prop. 8, but the institution of the church threw immense volunteer power and money behind it and that’s what I’m referring to) was all over the news prior to the election.
Sacramento Bee, 08/10/13, “Mormons lead the way in financing Yes on Prop. 8 efforts”
NYT, 08/10/27, A Line in the Sand for Same-Sex Marriage Foes
“This vote on whether we stop the gay-marriage juggernaut in California is Armageddon,” said Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and an eminent evangelical voice, speaking to pastors in a video promoting Proposition 8. “We lose this, we are going to lose in a lot of other ways, including freedom of religion.”
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby based in Washington, said in an interview, “It’s more important than the presidential election.” …
“He is a symbol of what is ahead,” said the Rev. Jim Garlow, the senior pastor of Skyline Church in the San Diego area, a leading organizer of the “Yes” ranks.
“When you have laws that make homosexual marriage a protected class, then the government has a compelling interest to normalize that and must declare anything in opposition to that hate speech,” said Mr. Garlow, who hosted both the recent simulcast and regular conference calls with as many as 2,000 pastors, to motivate the ranks. …
National religious organizations including the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic fraternal group; Focus on the Family, a ministry based in Colorado Springs that is led by James C. Dobson; and the American Family Association, based in Mississippi and led by the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon, have been major contributors to the “Yes on 8” campaign.
And in June, the top three leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a letter strongly urging members to donate time and money, and Mormons have responded with many millions.
Preachers from other parts of the country have dropped everything and moved to California in recent months. Lou Engle, who leads TheCall, a charismatic prayer ministry in Washington and Kansas City, Mo., with a large following among youth, moved with his seven children to California in September. He is holding large prayer rallies up and down the state, urging people to pray and fast for the 40 days leading up to the election. Some people are giving up solid foods; others are giving up clothes shopping or their favorite television shows.
“We believe there is a spiritual battle in an unseen realm, and that’s why I’ve called for united prayer for divine intervention,” Mr. Engle said. “It’s a defining moment for the definition of marriage in American history.”
LAT, 08/08/20, “Knights of Columbus tip the balance with big anti-gay marriage donation * UPDATED”
LAT, 08/10/26, “Proposition 8 supporters plead for more advertising funds”
“Through the grace of God, one of our most fervent supporters has agreed to make a sacrificial gift to match, dollar for dollar, whatever you and others can donate, up to a total of $1 million. That means that every dollar you give will buy two dollars in advertising time.
“Please help us buy more advertising time now. And if you can make a sacrificial gift yourself, we ask you to prayerfully consider doing so immediately. The institution of marriage which we so dearly love depends on what we do together over the next few days.”
LAT, 08/10/26, “Clergy on both sides of Proposition 8 speak out”
This last article makes it clear that not all religious people of any faith supported Prop. 8. However, many did, and many churches threw their institutional support behind the proposition of hatred, bigotry, and homophobia. The problem, as ever, is not with all religious people but with the homophobic religious people.
Pictorial History
I saw both these pages today:
(Click through for legible images but beware, they’re full size screenshots. And no, that FB post is not mine, although I agree with its sentiments.)
The Facebook page has a No on Prop. 4 ad and a No on Prop. 8 ad in the sidebar. The YouTube page has a Yes on Prop. 8 ad, even though the Yes on 8 ads violate Google’s own advertising content policy.
Tomorrow night, one of those images will be obsolete.
Marriage Equality: CA, AZ, FL…
Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry and define marriage as being between a woman and a man, is the anti-marriage equality proposition that’s received the most press and the most donations in this election. Unfortunately, the race is still close and the outcome is uncertain (LA Times).
However, there are also anti-marriage equality initiatives on the ballots in other states. Arizona’s Proposition 102 would amend the AZ state constitution to state, “Marriage – Only a union between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.” A state law already defines marriage as being between one woman and one man, but that’s not enough for the anti-marriage equality people. Arizona voters defeated an anti-marriage equality amendment in 2006, but the zombie of homophobia reared its head again. Equality Arizona is fundraising, running phonebanks, and canvassing neighborhoods against Prop. 102. If you can donate some money or time, please do. A group of bloggers at No on 102 are fighting back against the plethora of Yes on 102 signs by gathering No on 102 pictures. Take a picture and post it to their flickr or email it to noon102 at gmail.
In Florida, Amendment 2 reads,
Inasmuch as a marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.
Amendment 2 will ban recognition and benefits for all unmarried couples, blocking civil unions and domestic partnerships. The VoteNoon2.org website says,
The amendment would have an especially harsh impact on Florida’’s large senior population, many of whom form domestic partnerships rather than remarry after they are widowed in order not to risk losing essential benefits. Same-sex couples, who are already denied the right to marry by law, would now be denied the right to any kind of meaningful legal protection. The vague language in the amendment, “the substantial equivalent thereof”, will plunge Florida into lawsuits, much as has happened in other states. In every instance around the country, those behind these amendments immediately seek to have it interpreted in the most restrictive way possible for all unmarried people.
Florida law already defines marriage as being between a woman and a man, prohibits same-sex marriages, and has a Defense of Marriage Law (DOMA) on the books. Amendment 2 shows that anti-marriage equality people aren’t content with anything less than enshrining anti-GLBTQI discrimination in their state constitution.
For more information on what you can do to help defeat Amendment 2, visit VoteNoOn2.com. Floridian Brian has been blogging about Amendment 2 over at Incertus.
If there are other anti-marriage equality propositions up for the vote in this election, please let me know.
Socialized Health Care Can’t Be Worse
From today’s NYT: Some Cut Back On Prescription Drugs in Sour Economy (Stephanie Saul, 2008/10/21)
Your health or your food: that’s the choice forced by the rising cost of gas, food, and just about everything else. If you’re ill, medications are necessary for your health (I’m particularly aware of this at the moment, as I’m taking antibiotics for an infection), but the people that are the most in need of it are being forced to weigh the cost of medicine and the cost of food: long-term health versus survival.
“People are having to choose between gas, meals and medication,” said Dr. James King, the chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians, a national professional group. He also runs his own family practice in rural Selmer, Tenn.
“I’ve seen patients today who said they stopped taking their Lipitor, their cholesterol-lowering medicine, because they can’t afford it,” Dr. King said one recent morning.
“I have patients who have stopped taking their osteoporosis medication.”
Sometimes, it’s not long-term health that’s put at risk. Stopping medication escalates into worse health, which requires more care at more expense.
But for other patients, he said, “the prescription drug is a lifesaver, and they really can’t afford to stop it.”
Dr. Thomas J. Weida, a family physician in Hershey, Pa., said one of his patients ended up in the hospital because he was unable to afford insulin.
Not everyone simply stops taking their drugs.
“They’ll split pills, take their pills every other day, do a lot of things without conferring with their doctors,” said Jack Hoadley, a health policy analyst at Georgetown University.
“We’ve had focus groups with various populations,” Mr. Hoadley said. “They’ll look at four or five prescriptions and say, ‘This is the one I can do without.’ They’re not going to stop their pain medication because they’ll feel bad if they don’t take that. They’ll stop their statin for cholesterol because they don’t feel any different whether they take that or not.”
Whether or not you have health insurance, the rising cost of medication is a problem. As usual, the problem most harshly hits the poor and the elderly.
The average co-payment for drugs on insurers’ “preferred” lists rose to $25 in 2007, from $15 in 2000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health care research organization. And, of course, lots of people have no drug insurance at all. That includes the estimated 47 million people in the United States with no form of health coverage, but it is also true for some people who have medical insurance that does not include drug coverage — a number for which no good data may exist.
For older Americans, the addition of Medicare drug coverage in 2006 through the Part D program has meant that 90 percent of Medicare-age people now have drug insurance. And in the early going, Part D had helped stimulate growth in the nation’s overall number of prescriptions, as patients who previously had no coverage flocked to Part D.
But a potential coverage gap in each recipient’s benefit each year — the so-called Part D doughnut hole — means that many Medicare patients are without coverage for part of the year. …
Gloria Wofford, 76, of Pittsburgh, said she recently stopped taking Provigil, prescribed for her problem of falling asleep during the day, because she could no longer afford it after she entered the Medicare doughnut hole.
Her Provigil had been costing $1,695 every three months. “I have no idea who could do it,” she said. “There’s no way I could handle that.”
Without the medication, Ms. Wofford said, she falls asleep while sitting at her computer during the day but then cannot sleep during the night. Because she feels she has no choice, Ms. Wofford is paying out of pocket to continue taking an expensive diabetes medication that costs more than $500 every three months.
This situation is completely fucked up. People that are poor (disproportionately ethnic minorities), people that are uninsured, people that are elderly, people that have chronic illnesses, and people that are disabled simultaneously are the people most likely to need medications for their continued well-being and the people least able to bear increases in the cost of that medication. A profit-driven health care system that views health as a privilege rather than a right leaves all of those people in the dust.
I got sick last week. I woke up on Friday morning with a staph infection that oozed pus and throbbed with pain, so I called my doctor and got an appointment for the same day. While I was at her office, she checked with me to see if I was following up on my last test results and if I needed a referral to another specialist. We chatted about Prop. 4 as she took a look at the infection, and then she wrote a prescription and I picked up the antibiotics a few hours later. Why do I get such good care? Because my employer offers a good health insurance plan; because I pay hundreds of dollars every month for that insurance; because I pay an additional $100/year membership fee to the medical practice; because I make enough money that I don’t have to weigh the cost of the visit co-pay ($15) and the prescription co-pay ($10) and wonder if it would be better to skip the doctor’s office and see if the infection will go away on its own.
This situation is wrong. Access to quality health care shouldn’t be dependent on your ability to find an employer that offers health insurance, let alone a good plan, and it shouldn’t be dependent on your ability to pay out of pocket, either. Given that there will always be economic strata in society, tying health insurance to economic and employment status builds inequality into the system. It guarantees that there will be people without health insurance and people unable to afford health insurance and health care. Ultimately, this raises costs for everyone, since the cost of caring for uninsured people ends up being offset by higher fees for insured patients. I would much rather take the money that I’m currently using to pay for insurance premiums and pay it to the government in the form of higher taxes if it went to a nationalized health care system that covered everyone. Make preventative care accessible for everyone, lower overall costs, and give everyone access to health care.
Contact your elected officials about the shambles that is our health care system.
Schedule: T-19 Days
Week of Oct. 12
Monday: precinct dropping with Yes on Prop. K (dropping fliers at all the residential buildings in a precinct)
Tuesday: phonebanking with No on Prop. 8
Wednesday: Idomeneo at SF Opera!
Thursday: phonebanking with No on Prop. 4
Friday: precinct dropping
Saturday: pick up fliers for precinct dropping, pick up MUNI greeter stuff for No on Prop. 8
Weekdays mornings, M-F, 7-9: MUNI greeter for Prop. 8
Week of Oct. 19
Sunday: precinct dropping, Whores Against Wars: March 4 Sweeping Change
March 4 Sweeping Change
Sunday, October 19th
Gather at SF Ferry Building at 12:45pm
Community stroll will end by 3:00pm @ SF City HallBreak out your comfortable walking shoes and join sister maeJoy B. withU, Whores against Wars, sex workers for Prop. K, and other allies at the SF Ferry Building this Sunday, October 19th for a community stroll/penny drive in support of San Francisco’s Proposition K. The informal walk will begin at 1pm, travel down market street, and conclude by 3pm at SF City Hall. Bring drinking water and friends.
Monday: Phonebanking for Prop. 4
Tuesday: Phonebanking for Prop. 8
Wednesday: Boris Godunov at SF Opera
Thursday: Phonebanking for Prop. 8
Friday: Night off?!?!
Saturday: pick up fliers for precinct dropping
Weekdays mornings, M-F, 7-9: MUNI greeter for Prop. 8
Week of Oct. 26
Sunday: precinct dropping for Prop. K
Monday: Phonebanking for Prop. 4
Tuesday: Phonebanking for Prop. 8
Wednesday: L’Elisir d’Amore at SF Opera
Thursday: Phonebanking for Prop. 8
Friday: Night off?!?!
Saturday: pick up fliers for precinct dropping, Joshua Bell at SF Symphony
Weekdays mornings, M-F, 7-9: MUNI greeter for Prop. 8
Week of Nov. 2
Sunday: precinct dropping for Prop. K
Monday: Phonebanking for Prop. 4
Tuesday: ELECTION / visibility for Prop. 4
M-T, 7-9: MUNI greeter for Prop. 8
Among all that, there’s work, blogging, and apps. -headdesk-
Why do I care so much? Phonebanking is actually fun, but precinct dropping is exhausting and it’s easily two solid hours of walking and climbing stairs while lugging pounds of fliers. The idea of waking up in time to get to a MUNI station for rush hour at 7 A.M. so that I can stand and hold signs for two hours before going in to a full day at work, followed by more volunteer work, makes me cringe.
I care because I can’t not. No on Prop. 8 – this is my life. No on Prop. 4, Yes on Prop. K – they’re the right thing to do. This election matters; I won’t repeat the tripe that it’s the most important election of our lifetime because every single election is hyped as “the most important election of our lifetime.” That begs the question, anyway; the election is important because it matters, so why does it matter to me?
Equality. Justice. I learned when I was little that no one would recognize my rights if it was to their advantage not to. I learned the outlines of sexism and I didn’t see how much progress feminists had made; I saw how the same things that Laura Ingalls Wilder fought against were still present in the thoughts and actions of the society around me. I learned to be stubborn and to work; I learned that I could seethe and cry against injustice or I could fight back against it and change things for me and for every person to come after me.
The only reasons that I can even think about legalizing same-sex marriage and post No on 8 signs in my windows and announce that I’m queer on Facebook for everyone to see and talk about opposing Prop. 8 over coffee at work are the tireless work, the dedication, and the courage of the GLBTQI activists and allies that came before me. Their work, their resistance, their persistence are why I can stand in a MUNI station holding a No on Prop. 8 sign without even considering that I might be harassed when only four years ago, I most certainly would have been.
The only reason that I can argue for protecting a girl’s right to choose and argue that she has the right not to be considered the property of her parents, and that she especially deserves to protect herself from abusive parents, is the determination of the feminists, pro-choice activists, supporters, and doctors that refused to back down in the face of violent opposition. Their work, their resistance, their persistence are why I can call Republican voters for No on Prop. 4 and speak with women that say, “What’s Planned Parenthood saying? No? Planned Parenthood tells me to vote no on Prop. 4, that’s good enough for me.”
I honor my radical ancestors and the legacy they left to every person, which was to carry on their work and shape a fair, equal world. I volunteer for them, to change the world for myself, and to build up the foundations of justice and equality so that the people that come after me will start from a better place than I did.
There is injustice everywhere and it’s tiring to look at it day after day and run into obstacles, such as the man that told me, “I don’t think my wife needs to speak to anyone from Planned Parenthood! -click-” and the ex-friends that earnestly believe that Prop. 8 doesn’t take any rights away, it’s about protecting the children of heterosexual marriages! I get that. It’s tiring as fuck and you’d better believe I know it and that sometimes I see the allure of stepping back and not caring. I’m single. I’m over 18. I’m able-bodied, I’m not a sex worker, and I have a high-paying job. I’m a Korean-American, queer woman, but I have money and that gives me enough privilege that I could afford not to give a shit about anything if I didn’t want to. I don’t have to care about Prop. 4, Prop. 8, Prop. K, or anything else on the goddamned ballot if I don’t want to.
But I can’t not care. I can’t sit by and do nothing. The sacrifices of my predecessors, the hard work of my parents, and my work and class privilege put me in the comfortable position that I’m in now, and I have to use that to shape a world where everyone can have the option of that comfortable safety and freedom.
I know that the majority will never recognize the rights of a minority of their own volition, whether that minority is GLBTQI people, teenage girls, women, sex workers, or the people that exist at the intersections of those identities. The march of time is not inherently politically progressive and it only looks so in retrospect because of the people that pushed for progress every step of the way. The suffragettes thought that equality was around the corner any day now and that after the 19th amendment, the ERA would of course pass and shortly there would be no need for feminism. Yet earlier this year, the Senate blocked the Ledbetter Act, which would have required equal pay for equal work.
Time is not inherently progressive. The majority is not inherently progressive. And so I work.
Some Welcome Humor
Yesterday, I thought that this blog snarkifying comments made by Prop. 8 supporters was the funniest thing I’d seen in ages.
I was wrong. This picture is the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages. McCain looks immature, undignified, and cretinous.
LizardOC’s snarky reframing of the “fundamental repugnance of the confidently bigoted” makes me laugh and provides some much-needed cheering up. I’m working hard and so are many other people, but sometimes, I’m so tired. I’m tired of constantly having to fight for rights and social justice, and I’m tired of encountering bigotry and hatred. It can be wearying. But it’s necessary and I will never stop. And so endurance and laughter are key to staying in for the long haul.
To quote the inimitable Molly Ivins,
As a life-long Texas liberal, I have spent the whole of my existence in a political climate well to the right of that being created by Ronald Reagan and his merry zealots. Brethren and sistren, this can not only be endured, it can be laughed at. Actually, you have two other choices. You could cry or you could throw up. But crying and throwing up are bad for you, so you might as well laugh. All you need in order to laugh about Reagan is a strong stomach. A tungsten tummy. – The Progressive, March 1986. p. 84 in Molly Ivins…Can She?
