The 2011 Gay Picture of the Year

Congratulations to Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta, serving on the USS Oak Hill, and her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell. The ship has just returned to Virginia following an 80-day deployment, and Gaeta won the raffle to give the first homecoming kiss. Snell is stationed on the USS Bainbridge. They met shortly after boot camp, and they've been together for two years. This is the first time a same-sex couple has had the honor of the first kiss.

Bilerico has named this image its 2011 Gay Picture of the Year.

I love, love, love this picture! 

In search of "Reel Injun"

So anyway, I was looking for something to pass some time, and while I was nosing around Netflix I happened upon "Reel Injun," a documentary exploring the depiction of Native Americans in film. The movie is the work of Neil Diamond (no, not that Neil Diamond), a Canadian member of the Cree Nation.

Right off the bat, Diamond won me over when he said he would need a "rez car" for his cross-country quest in search of Indians on film. I couldn't help but remember my time working on the Navajo Nation where many houses, cars, fences, and pretty much everything else were held together with baling wire and duct tape. You make do with what you've got.

(The mother in me does say, though, that it's damn crazy to trust a rez car to take you thousands of miles. We had a rez car for short time, and ours couldn't even get us from Window Rock to Gallup. Just saying.)

Filmmaker Neil Diamond and his rez car

At any rate, Reel Injun is a study of Native Americans on film, beginning at the turn of the 20th century when movie technology was brand new.  Diamond weaves a rich tapestry through liberal use of movie clips and interviews with prominent actors, writers, and activists.

Although the film is thick with dialogue, Diamond does occasionally use silence (or, more accurately, the strategic lack of narration) to make a point. For instance, one scene involves a boys' summer camp that claims to be based on Native American culture. Once the context is explained, Diamond turns the camera on the boys for several minutes but provides no commentary, so we're left to reach our own conclusions. Here's mine: the boys and the staff did an excellent job mimicking obnoxious, unruly football fans, and I felt like I should be doing something about it.

Diamond's strategic silence, however, almost lost me in one particularly disturbing scene. He visits a rez classroom of second or third graders and has the teacher show them a massacre scene from either Dances with Wolves. or Little Big Man (sorry, I don't remember which). His point: many Indian kids nowadays have never been exposed to these brutal images. As we hear the audio from the scene in the background, Diamond focuses, without commentary, on close-ups of the children's faces as they watch. While none of the kids seemed visibly shocked, all looked troubled and transfixed. I understand what Diamond was after, but the idea of purposely traumatizing small children is nearly as horrifying as the footage they were watching. I sure hope those kids got some help processing what they saw.

Other than that, the film's flaws are minor. For example, he could have made clearer the route he took on his cross-country journey. In addition, I would have liked to hear more about his story, rather than the heavy emphasis on the interviewees. That, of course, is simply a matter of personal taste, but a greater blending of his quest with the subject matter might have provided more depth and color.

Since I love a happy ending, I was gratified that Diamond showcased films made by indigenous people for indigenous people. Diamond focused on two films: Smoke Signals and Fast Runner.  I've seen the former and enjoyed it; I look forward to seeing the latter.

Oh, but above all, there was that golden moment when I just about melted: For a couple seconds, a little house appeared onscreen accompanied by the caption, "Navajo, New Mexico." Navajo is a town of less than 3,000 people, close to where we lived. My kid attend daycare in Navajo for about three years, beginning when she was just a year old. We still treasure the Pendleton blankets the staff gave us when we moved away -- one for me, one for her dad, and one kid-sized blanket for my daughter. Fond memories, indeed.

Anyway, I recommend Reel Injun, which you can view via Netflix's instant queue. In the meantime, I will contemplate the exquisite landscape of the Navajo Nation, which tugs at me still.

Lazy Ass Librarian Friday

See the cool banner in the corner? You can have it, too!

Go to the Occupy Movement Banner Project for instructions and code.

Hat tip to Tennessee Guerilla Women.

Sweet dreams, Harry Morgan.

The venerable Harry Morgan, 96, passed away at his home yesterday morning. If you watched television any time between 1960 and 1983 ever, you saw his work. He was best known for his parts in Dragnet and M*A*S*H, but he was pretty much everywhere. This clip from The Jack Benny Show demonstrates his ability to make any line funny.

Lucky us, that he was in our midst for nearly a century.

I want Hillary Clinton for Chanukah.

If you haven't heard Hillary Clinton's historic United Nations speech on LGBT rights, I hope you'll take the time to listen. I felt moved and empowered as I watched Clinton speak out for equal rights in her official capacity as Secretary of State. Thirty minutes, very well spent.

It's

Oh, yes. Time marches forward.

I'm very pleased to report that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled unanimously in favor of Vandy Beth Glenn, the woman who was fired from the Georgia legislature after she announced her intention to transition from male to female. Here's the opinion.

Ms. Glenn worked as an attorney/editor for the Georgia General Assembly's Office of Legal Counsel ("OLC").When she was hired in 2005, she still lived as a man, but that year she began transitioning; and she began living as a woman outside of work. In 2006, she informed her supervisor of her intention to transition fully, and in 2007, she informed her supervisor that she would now be living full time as a woman.

Sewell Brumby, head of the OLC, was not pleased by this news, and he fired Ms. Glenn, stating that

her "intended gender transition was inappropriate, that it would be disruptive, that some people would view it as a moral issue, and that it would make Glenn’s coworkers uncomfortable." (slip op. at 4).

Ms. Glenn sued in federal court, alleging that Brumby discriminated against her because of her sex (specifically, for her failure to conform to male stereotypes concerning clothing) in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The district (trial) court granted Ms. Glenn summary judgment on the sex-discrimination cause of action (Ms. Glenn had also alleged she was denied equal protection because of her medical diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder, but the court ruled against her with regard to that issue).

On appeal, the circuit court found that "discrimination against a transgender individual because of her gender non-conformity is sex discrimination," noting a split among circuits. (id. at 9). The court went on:

discrimination on this basis is a form of sex-based discrimination that is subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. Ever since the Supreme Court began to apply heightened scrutiny to sex-based classifications, its consistent purpose has been to eliminate discrimination on the basis of gender stereotypes.

And then, just in case there is still any doubt:  "We conclude that a government agent violates the Equal Protection Clause’s prohibition of sex-based discrimination when he or she fires a transgender or transsexual employee because of his or her gender non-conformity." (slip op. at 16).

Applying the "heightened scrutiny" standard for determining liability for such discrimination,  the court then concluded that Brumby's termination of Ms. Glenn was not substantially related to any sufficiently important governmental interest. On the contrary, her termination was based on Brumby's assertion that transitioning was "unnatural" and "unsettling." In the end, then, the court found that Ms. Glenn was entitled to "all the relief that she seeks."

So kudos to Ms. Glenn, and the other folks on the front lines. It's because of her courageous actions, and the actions of others like her, that the LGBTQ community is making steady legal headway, one small step -- and one precedent -- at a time

Confession time: My Favorite Deadly Sin

So when my kid was around four or five, one of our favorite games was "Zoo." Each of us would pretend to be a different animal, providing appropriate actions and habits and sound effects. As I recall, plastic food was often involved. Or maybe I'm thinking of a different game.

Anyway, my kid often chose to be either a wolf or an owl, since those were her two favorite animals. I started out being an otter, because I love otters. But being an otter was a lot of work because, you know, they're pretty much always moving. Swim, play, swim, play. And I was pretty much always tired.

So somewhere along the line I took the low road. It's a road I'm not very proud of taking.

I became the sloth.

Because, you see, pretending to be a sloth (complete with appropriate actions and habits and sound effects) meant, well, it meant lying on the couch. On my back, doing nothing except maybe curling my fingers like sloth toes. And I think plastic food may have been involved. Or maybe that was a different game.

So that's my favorite deadly sin: sloth. And should you doubt the absolute coolfulness of the sloth, then I dare you to watch this, forwarded to me today by my fabulous, talented, and incredibly forgiving daughter.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the sloth:


Meet the sloths from Lucy Cooke on Vimeo.

This is not a test.

Excuse me for a little bit while I try to manage the unmanageable. I'll be back momentarily.

Wow. What a feeling.

Oh. My. God.

 

Ohmygod!  I just made the last tuition payment on my kid's fall semester! My share: a little over five grand, which I rustled up over a period of four months. A year ago I wasn't sure I could even keep the lights on. 

Okay, so I'm still digging change out of the bottom of my purse. But talk about progress!

Yeah. This feels good. Damn good.

Lazy-Ass Librarian Saturday: Herman Cain on Foreign Policy. Epic Fail.

I've got a lot going on today, but I did want to pass on this must-read article about Herman Cain's "seven biggest foreign policy blunders," compliments of PBS's Need to Know.

This guy makes W. and Palin sound like foreign policy brainiacs. Even if you give him a pass on the sexual harrassment thing (which I most definitely do not), the idea of Cain being our head honcho is, well, a really bad one.

Here is the list itself, but be sure to read the details, too.

1. Cain worries that China is developing nuclear weapons – 40 years after China’s first nuclear test

2. Cain says he would negotiate with terrorists (then immediately takes it back)

3. Cain says a missile defense system would have stopped Iranian assassination plot

4. Cain questions the existence of the Palestinian people

5. Cain doesn’t know what the Palestinian “right of return” is

6. Cain doesn’t know that the government targeted a U.S. citizen for assassination (then flip flops on whether it’s okay)

7. Cain doesn’t care who the president of Uzbekistan is.

And this guy wants to be our president.

UPDATED: Occupy Wall Street Library. Wow!

Oops! I totally screwed up the last post about Occupy Wall Street Library. So, let's try this again.

Just in case you were wondering why we should care about public libraries, visit Occupy Wall Street Library here. And watch YouTube clip from the library at Occupy Portland, below.

Gosh, it makes me proud to be a subversive librarian. Librarians really are seriously cool, if I do say so myself..

Today happens to be day two of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. The basic idea is this: a whole bunch of crazy masochists create an online community and spend the whole month of November slaving over individual manuscripts with the goal of writing 50,000 words by the end of the month. It's all about quantity, not quality, which can be pretty liberating.

I actually gave this a shot a few years ago. It probably wasn't the best timing, considering I had a full-time job that required a four-hour daily commute, and I came home each night to a pack of five dogs, five cats, six horses, and a shitload of chaos. Still, I did whip out 11,500 words, which gave me a respectable start on a young-adult novel. Several years later, my little manuscript is now at... uhh... about 11,525 words. Which goes to show you the advantage of doing the whole frantic NaNoWriMo thing.

Anyway, the nonprofit parent company of NaNoWriMo also does some other cool projects.  Most notably for my purposes, they have a Script Frenzy event every April. The goal there: write 100 pages of script in 30 days.

I mention all of this because I get to write a show -- a script -- for our local 2012 LGBT recovery roundup. Since I can't affrord to wait until April to pound out a first draft, I'm cheating. For me, November will be Script Frenzy.  My goal is to write a draft script of 45-60 pages, plus three original songs.

In any event, my posts in November might be a little spotty. Which is to say, it'll be just like always, but with a few more Lazy-Ass Librarian posts to keep things moving along. Meanwhile,I'll do my best to keep watching your blogs, though, and interact with some of my readers there.

Let the frenzy begin!

Lazy-Ass Librarian Saturday: Beware the homosexual agenda!

Wow! God is so pissed off at us over the marriage thing that He smote this nice couple's wedding. Very impressive! I can't wait until the annual World Homosexual Agendakeepers Awards to see who will receive the prestigious Platinum Toasteroven for this epic feat.

I went through a couple of storms like this when I was growing up in Phoenix. Watching the coming dust storm approach is an awesome sight indeed. Now, alas, these storms come way more often.

Equal marriage rights? Special rights? How about NO rights?

A few days ago over at Bilerico, Alex Blaze reported on three Marines who received bad-conduct discharges for committing fraud against the United States.

Here are the facts according to the LA Times, which first reported this development: Corporal Ashley Vice, Cpl. Jeremiah Griffin and Cpl. Joseph Garner served at Camp Pendleton, California in the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. Corporal Vice is a lesbian; her partner, Jaime Murphy, is a civilian.

Unmarried couples, whether gay or straight, are not allowed to live together on base. Married couples can live on or off the base. If they elect to live off the base, they are eligible for a $1,200 housing allowance.

Naturally, Vice and Murphy wanted to live together, and they needed the married-housing allowance to make it happen. But the federal Defense of Marriage Act limits marriage -- and its accompanying benefits -- to heterosexual couples only. Therefore, even after the demise of don't ask/don't tell, Vice and Murphy could not claim the housing allowance.

Knowing this, Vice and Murphy found two male Marines -- Corporals Griffin and Garner -- who were willing to marry them. The women would then both be in opposite-sex marriages and could receive the married-housing allowance.

The military determined that the three Marines had committed fraud by representing themselves as married to get the housing benefit, and all three were discharged for bad conduct. In addition, the men were fined $5,000 apiece and got three to six months in the slammer. Murphy, a civilian, was not subject to military authority and was not sanctioned.

Now, here's a bit of a twist: The Associated Press version of the story, which is being used by just about everybody, contains a critical ambiguity: 

Three San Diego Marine corporals have been discharged for bad conduct after admitting they faked their marriages to receive housing allowances. . . . Vice has previously said in media coverage that she and her partner were forced to enter sham marriages because they couldn't afford to live off base without the extra money. (emphasis provided)

So which is it? Did the Marines actually get married, or did they just say they did?  Did they forge documents and lie under oath in order to get the allowance? Or did they enter into legal marriages for reasons of convenience? The distinction matters. People who lie about whether they're married should get penalized, even if the law they are trying to circumvent is unjust.

(By the way, I also have a problem with AP's headline, duplicated over and over again by news outlets::  "Three California Marines discharged after faking marriages." Assuming that the Marines did legally marry, they didn't fake anything.  Indeed, the marriages are probably still valid, even if they were a sham.* Saying the marriages were "faked" strikes me as unfairly biased. And unfortunately, even HuffPo repeated the language.)

Assuming the couples actually married -- and that seems to be true here -- the case has intriguing implications for gay-marriage jurisprudence if a similar fact pattern lands in an appellate court.

Think, for a minute, about the oft-heard, right-wing sound bite: "Gays can already marry. They just have to marry a person of the opposite sex. Gays shouldn't ask for special rights."  (I know, I know, I don't buy it either.)

But do we have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex? For those of us in the military, maybe not. An "out" lesbian or gay man who weds someone of the opposite sex would be in a sham marriage, almost by definition. Such a marriage subjects the participants to bad-conduct discharge, fines, and even jail.

So if you're gay and you're in the military, here is your full panoply of marriage options:
(a) Don't get married, or
(b) Marry someone of the opposite sex and land in the pokey.

Some choice, huh?

----------------------------------
*Wikipedia says so. Wikipedia is not worthy of citation if you're writing a brief. But it's okie dokey on this blog.

It's not always about the politics.

Okay, so I was reading a discussion thread on Townhall.com about the "war on Christianity." (yes, it's just about that time of year again). But that's not the subject of my post today. Within the thread I was delighted to find this little bit of dialog. By the way, I am not questioning the sincerity of any of the participants, or their good intentions. 

 ROBERT:  What non-evangelical Christians disapprove of is the appalling ignorance,narrow-mindedness,intolerance and self-righteousness of so many Christians. Their terrible hostility to gay people and blindly irrational fear of the entirely imaginary "sinister gay agenda" to "recruit" children in schools and "corrupt their morality and morality in general.
And the appalling hypocrisy of the anti-choice movement ,which is determined to force poor women to give birth to children they would never be able to support or give birth even if a pregnancy would kill them or ruin their health, or a pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. And the movement's total lack of concern for children who HAVE been born.

ANN: I feel sorry for you with the fullness of my Christian heart. You live in the narrow confines of your groins and see me through the filth, stench and darkness of your groins.
Believe me I could never hate you but pray for you to come out of the hell you insist to dwell in, breathe in some fresh air; see the glory of God's light He created for you too to enjoy. Give yourself the chance to be healthy and joyous as God intended you to be.

DEAN: I'm pretty sure Robert only has one groin.

I've been debating whether to post this -- I try not to make fun of anyone except myself, but this is so sweetly funny in its own twisted way that I couldn't resist. If you think I'm over the line, I hope you'll tell me.

Lazy-Ass Librarian Thursday: William Shatner does Bohemian Rhapsody

Holy shit. My brain is burning.

Time to get your purple on!

Tomorrow is Spirit Day --  a spin-off of the It Gets Better Project in support of LGBT youth who are being bullied because of their sexual orientation or identity. The Project, as I'm sure readers know, started in response to a tragic series of suicides by LGBT kids after being tormented at school.


Naive as I am, I hoped the bullying and the suicides would stop once the Project gained legs and took off. Alas, I was wrong. It's still happening.

Someday, maybe Spirit Day will just be a fun, gay day to wear purple. For now, though, I pray that when our kids leave the house for school tomorrow, they look around and see support wherever they turn.

Wear purple. Please.

Death, Relapse and Triggers.

I paced slowly behind my students, all focused on the computer screens in front of them, intent on the legal research problems I had assigned. One of my students -- I wasn't sure of her name -- was unusually quiet. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm just not feeling well," she said quietly. I told her to take care of herself and I think I touched her shoulder before I moved on to the next student.

That night, Melissa -- it turns out her name was Melissa -- committed suicide. I went to the funeral, partly out of duty and partly out of grief because I should have at least known her name. As I settled into the pew, I heard the first notes of the song her family had chosen -- "Angel," by Sarah McLachlan -- and I lost it. 

Several family members and close friends spoke; every word was steeped in grief and anger and frustration. It was clear that Melissa was surrounded by good people who loved her, and that she had reached out many times before. This time around, though, she had reached out to no one, to ensure her success. I cried through the entire service, so sorry that I hadn't known her better and so moved by her community. Yet in the following days, I discovered that I wanted to join Melissa, and that feeling lasted for months.

Sometime after that -- I really don't know how long -- I left my partner, and we moved into a place of our own. My sponsor, a brilliant physician, soon joined me in the condo; he had very little money after suffering through some tough medical issues. He was great with my kid and my dog, and it felt good to have recovery in the house. I was glad he was there, because at the time I was crippled by depression and dark thoughts.

One night I heard a crash in the living room. I found my dear sponsor naked, on the floor and unable to speak or walk. It looked like a stroke and I called 911.

Only, it wasn't a stroke. It was a hydrocodone overdose.

Of course, I had to ask him to leave.  For months afterwards, just like with Melissa, I wanted to climb into the abyss with him, to follow him to this liberating place of no accountability. And I was angry. Why the hell should he get to take this irresponsible, selfish path while I was stuck, sober, with the misery of the present?

A few weeks later, he texted me a suicide note. I did what I could, which wasn't much, and fortunately he didn't act on it. As far as I know, he's still out there somewhere, using, and there's nothing I can do now except await the final phone call.

I do miss my sponsor something fierce. I still rely heavily on the last suggestion he gave me when he saw how I interacted with my partner: He said, "Lynne, save yourself."

In the years since then, I've seen other deaths and other relapses. They've brought me sadness and gratitude and a myriad of other emotions, but none has affected me viscerally like Melissa's death, or my sponsor's relapse.

None, that is, until yesterday when I heard about Gary. Gary chose Melissa's path. It's the fourth pointless death in as many weeks in my little recovery community. I knew Gary, although we weren't close. I had watched him grow in sobriety over the years. I was angry and sad and confused, and again, part of me wanted to join him. Not like before, thank goodness. But it was there.

Ironic, isn't it? Just yesterday I blogged about the jagged beauty of watching someone move through hard times in sobriety, and how I add their experience to my store of faith for when I'm in trouble. But I was in trouble now, and I never gave that store of faith a single thought. To tell you the truth, not much crossed my mind at all. I was just pissed off, and terribly sad.

But I took action by rote. I went to a meeting and shared. I answered my phone when it rang. And I made a phone call of my own. although it probably wasn't the one I really needed to make.

I did the next right thing, and now I have another day.

Gary, you had a smile that could light up Yankee Stadium. I love you, my friend, and I'm going to miss you.

I know only one way to do your life justice. So in your memory, and Melissa's and Kevin's and Tom's and Dowman's, I'm going to save myself.

The Subversive Librarian, Whining.

Now, leaving a comment is easier than ever!

Here's the thing: I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing. I know you're reading my modest little blog and I adore you for it!

But gosh, it would be nice to get more comments. Without them, I get all insecure, and it's not pretty. Not pretty at all.

So, I tried to leave myself a comment the other day and guess what I discovered: it was a big pain in the ass. Maybe that's why, I thought to myself. So I've changed the settings to make things easier. Hopefully that was problem, and hopefully I've fixed it.

Of course, it could also be because I don't leave many comments for other bloggers, either. Like, you know, karma, man.

If that's not it, well, I'll just cry. Just cry, and cry, and cry.

So please, think about just leaving a little comment now and then, so I don't cry myself to sleep every night and end up with gooey snot all over my pillow and stuck in my hair.

Oh. And God bless us, everyone.

Faith that works in every situation.

It's a bittersweet truth of sobriety: When the worst happens, and I can no longer turn to my drug of choice, I must find some other way to survive the relentless pain. At those times when the darkness has threatened to consume me, I have relied, clung to, the experience of others who have gone through similar situations and somehow stayed clean.

The thing is, there is divine artistry in a person's ability to endure with gratitude and grace. It teaches me how to survive, yes; but it's more than that. To watch someone transcend tragedy and disappointment is to see god at work.

Once again, my good friend Mark King:


Playing the Last Scene of a Marriage