Category Archives: Commentary

Cure the Cure

I am on a few listservs related to various topics. I just recently received an email via one of them regarding a story that I had not previously heard about. The basic gist is this: A young gay kid in Memphis, TN, came out to his family and was subsequently shipped off to a Christian fundamentalist re-education center. Now I imagine that this thing has happened before, but this specific case has generated quite a buzz within certain internet circles. One reason in particular is that he was able to do a few updates on his blog while this was going on. The sad thing is that his last update talks about suicide and there has not been a new one since the 3rd of June. Some people are questioning whether this entire blog is a hoax, and though of course I can’t be sure, I imagine it is for real.

First, check out the website for the place where he was sent:
“Love In Action – International Inc.”

The gist of the program he is in is to help people with addictions. Being homosexual is considered by these people as one such addiction. I can’t imagine what the day to day of the program is, but I can’t imagine it is pretty.

Here is the link to his blog:
Zach’s Blog

These Love In Action people seem to be cozy with the group “Focus on the Family.” The people in this organization are basically super-right wing Jesus freak nuts. Idiots such as these people are pushing for the Federal Marriage Amendment. Read their dossier on homosexuality by clicking here.

These people may seem stupid, but they are politically savvy. For instance, they have basically cloned Focus and created “Focus on the Family ACTION.” The crucial difference is that this 2nd organization is not a non-profit and is thus able to more fully engage in political lobbying.

Check out their website: Focus on the Family ACTION

Notice that the News section of this website links directly to the Focus website.

And if this stuff is interesting to you, be sure to check out: Exodus International a flat out anti-gay super Chrustian crusading organization. Check out their FAQ section for some really enlightening reading.

Man, it sucks to read about my country this way. But this is an important time for the USA. We must not allow ourselves to be scared into submission by constant threats of terrorism and we can not continue to pursue a policy of perpetual war. We must focus on extremely pressing domestic issues, which means renewing the fight for civil liberties across the board. I don’t want to go down in history as the generation that allowed the gains of the 1960’s to be lost to crooked neocons and religious fundamentalists. I know America is great, but we’ve got to fight dirty – our future depends on it.

One Last Shot

Well, early Sunday I’ll be boarding an Amtrak train to Philadelphia where I’ll spend two days filling out forms and getting tons of information thrown at me. Then me and the 60 others in my group will file onto a bus which will take us to JFK airport in New York City. We’ll make our way onto a Delta airliner and take off for Istanbul, Turkey. Once we arrive, we’ll hang out at the airport for a few hours, then get on a Turkish Airways redeye to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Once we get there, at this point, I have no idea what will happen.

As you can imagine, this is a nervous time for me. I’m wondering who the others in my group will be, where exactaly in Uzbekistan I’ll be placed, what my host family will be like, and tons of other more minor worries. But I’m not worried that I am worried. My high school swimming coach, for whom I have great respect, said, “It’s normal to have butterflies in your stomach, but you’ve got to make them fly in formation.” So I’m gonna go on that advice and be nervous, but be in control.

Tonight I went to see Foreign Aids at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. It was a truly great one man show. The guy is a South African performer who does costumes and personas (many of which are female.) He would morph from one to the other brilliantly. The common theme was the AIDS epidemic that is ravaging his country and the fact that the government is not addressing the issue. He told us (between the fanciful stories of his sophisticate alter egos) of how he goes to school across the country teaching about AIDS by talking about sex. It was funny, and he obviously made his presentations to the kids funny, but you could tell there was a great urgency to his message… safe sex or death. Using the themes of ignorance, timidity and fear, he cleverly connects his country’s reluctance to deal with Apartheid as similar to this current crisis. I’ve always thought it takes a very talented person to do a one man show well, so this was quite a treat.

I’ll be packing like a madman tomorrow – currently I have my stuff all over the place. But I think I have everything I need. BTW, I have a new photo gallery, and you may soon see some posts by a guest author. Plenty of surprises in the pipe although WD will be halfway around the world. I hope to keep everyone informed of both the humorous and maddening aspects of my journey, and provide plenty of photos providing I can get a decent internet connection every now and then.

So off off to Uzbekistan – off to a new challenge – and hopefully a great new chapter in my life.

Tsunami

WD is making a challenge to all his readers. I’ve just donated $50 to the Red Cross through Amazon.com – My challenge to you is, as a reader of this blog, to match or exceed that contribution. Yeah, shit happens all the time, but this is particularly bad. Just think that if something terrible were to happen here, how much you’d be counting on the aid of strangers. As Americans it is our duty to help, and perhaps a forgone night out at the movies isn’t so great a price to pay.

Amazon Disaster Relief Link

When an Insult becomes a Crime

France has recently passed a new law making homophobic remarks hate crimes with hefty fines and jail sentences. The country already has a law banning hate speech against minorities, but with this recent addition, both anti-gay and anti-female remarks are covered. Anti-gay or sexist remarks can now net up to $60,000 in fines or a year in jail. The motivation for this legislation is that during the past year, anti-gay acts committed against persons doubled within the country. Thus the idea is that with such penalties, thugs would think twice about knocking someone up because he or she was gay.

This has, of course, provoked a lot of reactions. Those who are for it, notably the gay rights groups, say that it is about time that homophobia was placed on the same level as racism. They argue that it ensured equal treatment under the law for a minority group which heretofore was not covered.

On the other hand, many are speaking out against this law, claiming that it will stifle freedom of speech. One of the major dissatisfied parties is the Catholic Church, which worries that it will no longer be able to speak honestly on homosexuality in general and the gay marriage debate.

Perhaps more interesting, though, is the nature which different gay groups are going to work with this new law. Inter-LGBT, which appears to be a GLBT umbrella group, says that it will act only upon flagrant violations of the law. However, SOS Homophobie, a more radical group, is claiming that by simply stating that homosexuality is abnormal, the law is being violated.

This latter position worries me, and is probably a good way to understand why hate crimes legislation, abroad and in the US, is such a controversial topic. In the instance of the Matthew Shepard case, the cruel and unusual punishment he received was surely motivated by anti-gay bias. Unless statements are made that such behavior is unacceptable in civilized societies, one can only assume such incidents will continue. Thus, just as lynchings no longer (or very rarely) occur, the law ought to say that gays can not be singled out and subject to violence without severe penalties.

However, if somebody believes that homosexuality is abnormal, but commits no violence against gays, I am hard pressed to believe a crime has been committed. I may believe that women are not as smart as men, and although that may be deemed a stupid or narrow-minded view, it is not illegal. I am free to say this to women (though I would have to be prepared for a punch or slap in return,) or write about on my website. Similarly, those who believe that homosexuality is abnormal should be afforded the right to their beliefs. Again, if such an individual seeks to cure abnormal homosexuals by bashing them in the skull with a baseball bat, he should be punished.

There is a big difference between words and actions. Though words can lead to actions, this is not by any means the rule. The scary part of this law is the chilling effect it will cast upon day to day life. Are comedians no longer allowed to do routines that poke fun at homosexual behavior? What about TV evangelists who offer salvation from the sickness? Though we may disagree with the message, banning the message will not change the messenger.

The real problem here is that there are people who hate gays just because of their sexuality and seek to hurt them. Will this law mean anything to those who feel this way? Probably not. Will this law anger those who are sympathetic to gays by imposing yet another level of curtailment on their freedom of expression? Surely. It seems that in the shortsighted strategy of ridding the world of yucky people who are hateful, this law might just be putting gays in a more difficult position. The chilling effect will reach those who want to honestly debate and discuss issues such as homosexuality and gay marriage; moderate voices will fall silent while the radical ones on both sides will become ever louder.

What do you think about this ban?

Sources:

Guardian article

Reporters without Borders critique

If it’s not fresh…

When is pretention justified?

Here is my paradox. Tonight I dined with my father and some of his friends at the Legal Sea Foods in the Prudential Center. For those who don’t live around Boston, the Prudential Center is an upscale mall at the base of one of Boston’s 2 skyscrapers. It houses stores like Lacoste, Sacks Fifth and a Krisy Kreme outlet. As far as malls go, it’s rather upscale. But eating at Legal within the mall was a great dissapointment. The restaurant was too small, our table was too out in the open, the service was lousy and the food merely average. As I looked around, I realized that this Legal in particular was a postcard version of itself. That is, Legal can go either way in terms of fanciness. The one in Park Plaza is beautiful. The one out on Route 9 in a strip mall is less so. But this Legal, in the fancy mall, was probably the worst I’ve been to in the entire chain. Then I got to thinking about why this was the case, and that lead me back to my musings on malled life. This legal sea foods was in a giant mall, that is connected to another mall and various hotels by above and underground walkways. Here, one could come to Boston and sample some of what Boston had to offer all without leaving the mall. I admit, I brought Johannes here (but I also dragged him to Bunker Hill and took him to the top of the Customs House.)

What solidified my thinking about the problem with this restaurant was the store which occupied the space accross the aisle in the mall. It was a luggage store. Hardly extraordinary. But, the interior of the store was designed to look like an airport terminal. The way the celeing was designed and the particular style of lighting used all screamed, “You’re at the Airport!” And what better a place to think about getting that perfect piece of luggage than in the airport itself. But this was not the airport, rather is was a storefront that could be constructed and destructed within a matter of days. It was the image of the original, but far from it.

So when one buys a Ralph Lauren polo shirt, does that mean that they will be yachting off of the coast of Nantucket, or riding through the Hamptons? Hardly. Every schmuck seems to have a Ralph Lauren polo shirt these days. Yet, despite the fact that there are identical alternatives available (come on folks, a polo shirt is a polo shirt,) it is curious that Ralph gets away with selling his for 5 – 10 times the price. Polo is a good example of people paying a price premium for the image, rather than the original. Having the Polo logo signifies something – what exactaly that is differes from person to person. Now walk into the Ralph Lauren section of your local Macys and you will see that instead of the white walls which host other brands, Polo’s walls are of wood, and there are plaids thrown in for good measure. Now, Polo has been up to this for a while, but now the idea of selling the lifestyle (i.e. schmuck at mall as jet setter) has pervaded into almost every facet of American life.

So how does this relate to Legal Sea Foods? Well, you go to Legal Sea Foods so that you can say you’ve been to Legal Sea Foods. It has cachet with those who have visited Boston. So, the restaurant need not be so much about the best food ever (i.e. a fine Etruscian silk polo shirt vs. a cotton one from Uzbekistan,) as the fact that it is indeed Legal Sea Foods. Therefore quality goes down, but the cachet remains, and an ordinary meal can be explained in conversation down the road as, “yes, I’ve been to Legal in Boston.” This statement, though rather banal, is a form of the Ralph Lauren polo shirt. It attempts to say, “yes, I have taste, and I know what’s the classy thing to do.” It attempts to ask, “have you been as well?” Much as the small but conspicuous polo pony asks where yours is. Thus the pretention value is disproportionately higher than the actual value of the experience. Now, I own a few Ralph Lauren polo shirts, and I fully realize the irony of the fact that they are status item available at the local mall. I could say the same about legal, but though I may buy another Polo shirt, I don’t forsee me chosing to go to Legal again.

So what’s the difference between the two? Well, frankly, maybe it’s just that I’m a Bostonian and therefore Legal is less important to me (I mean, we’ve all been there at least once.) But maybe its something else. Though I’m willing to accept the irony of buying the $80 shirt with horse versus the $14.99 shirt with no horse (both made in the same country a la day) I fail to be amused by the faux ambiance of the Mall Legal Sea Foods. Whereas the Polo shirt indulges my small pretention and does a darn good job keeping me warm, the Legal Sea Foods in the Mall caters to no whim and does not satisfy as a product.

Thus I think we have to ask ourselves:

1. What are the things for which we will give into for pretention’s sake?

followed by

2. Do such indulgences contradict our desire to extract the most comfortable or enjoyable experience from such things?”

If we answer nothing to the first question, we are liars. If we answer yes to the second question, then perhaps the pretention is not justified. If we answer no to the second question, and can answer no to the third question:

3. Does this indulgance harm others?

then, perhaps the indulgance is harmless and not worthy of criticism. So for me the shirt is a legitamate indulgance, just as would be an expensive dinner at one of the best restaurants in town – and best not just in the fact that the name is used to justify outrageous prices for mediocre fare – rather best as in great service and an equally impressive product. Wearing a Polo shirt to such a place? Now that may be venturing towards selfish hedonism, but I’ll leave such decisions to the Republicans.

8^)