Republicans, WTF is wrong with you?

I have struggled with what to say about this. The last time I felt like this, was after Donald Trump defended Nazis in the wake of the incidents in Charlottesville, VA. I honestly thought that was the bottom of the very deep, dark, dank hole that we, as a nation had fallen into. It seems, I was wrong.

The United States of America is now a nation that takes innocent children away from their parents, because their parents have come to this country illegally.

We, meaning all of us, are ripping children from their families and imprisoning them. In cages. I say We, because in the United States of America, We, the people, ARE the government.

Donald Trump and those who support him claim we HAVE to do this, because it is the law, “a democrat law” as Donald Trump likes to tweet. This is a lie. There is no law that requires immigrant families to be separated. When parents are charged with a crime, the law provides for the government, if need be, to take custody of their children. The decision to charge everyone crossing the border with illegal entry — and the decision to charge asylum seekers in criminal court rather than waiting to see if they qualify for asylum — are decisions the Trump administration has made.
 

Others have sought to defend this Trump policy by pointing to the laws that give extra protections to families, unaccompanied children, and asylum seekers. Saying these legal protections are “loopholes” and a “Democratic law”. This too, is a lie. The immigration law addressing unaccompanied children was passed overwhelmingly in 2008 and signed by George W. Bush.   When Donald Trump or any Republican says there is a law that requires us to take children from their parents and put them in dog kennels in an abandoned Walmart in Texas, they are lying. 

There is no law, there never was a law. No member of congress, Democrat, Republican, or Independent has ever introduced, sponsored, co-sponsored or voted on any bill that said, that the children of illegal immigrants must be taken away from their parents. No such law exists.

Donald Trump didn’t decide to do this to secure the border, or to stop some phantom threat from “MS-13” (the vast majority of whom are Americans already here, and not immigrants trying to get in). Donald Trump decided to do this, because it hurts people. Specifically, people who are not white, and hurting those people makes his base happy.

A very clear segment of Donald Trump’s supporters, love the idea of punishing brown people for trying to come to America, They cheered as Attorney General Jeff Sessions gleefully described it as “a powerful deterrent.“ Somewhere in the bowels of the Trump Administration somebody actually thought. Hey! I know! Let’s take their kids! That will show ‘em!

Not only did someone in the Trump White House think up such a thing, but they turned those thoughts into words, and actually then proposed such a thing, and it is Donald Trump who decided to do it.

Our immigration system in this country is a mess. Some of you have asked us, doesn’t it bother me or my husband to see people coming here illegally, while we are stuck in the very expensive limbo of his green card process. A process which prevents us at present, from even being together? Aren’t we outraged, as people who are obeying the law, to know others have just jumped the queue and are sneaking in?

No, and here is why...

I have always believed, as a descendant of immigrants who came to this country 111 years ago, that the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty was not just an invitation, but was an exhortation. A call to all who want a better life, a freer life. A life where your opportunities, your rights to live, worship, speak and pursue your own happiness, are greater than in any other nation on earth. It was and is, a call to come here.

I have never believed that we are a nation that kidnaps and cages children. I have never believed that we are a nation that sees our rights and opportunities as solely the prerogative of just a few. I have never believed that we are a nation that terrorizes children, for no other reason than it polls well with one party’s political base.

I have never, ever imagined this is who we are. But apparently there are people who can, and have.

Yes, we need a secure border. Yes, illegal immigration is a violation of the law. But this... the taking of children, this isn’t law enforcement. This is a grotesque, unforgivable and unimaginable violation of human rights. The likes of which we have not seen since the days when we rounded up whole families of innocent Americans and put them in camps, for the crime of... being Asian. 

This is not being done to enforce the law. You can enforce immigration laws without breaking up families. This is being done by Donald Trump, in our name,  not to protect you and me, but simply to be cruel to people his base likes to hate.

I don’t care anymore to what extent the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. We will likely never know how that collusion impacted the 2016 election. But frankly, it doesn’t matter at this point. Donald John Trump is a rancid stain on the fabric of America that must be removed either by impeachment or by his own forced resignation. Treason, money laundering, Russian hookers, adultery, fraud, corruption, even open love for, and active support of, brutal dictators; doesn’t matter anymore. It all pales by comparison next to this. There is nothing positive Donald Trump could ever do as President, that can negate the horror of this.

If you support Donald Trump. If feel this is who we should be, then you are completely un-American. If you, like many in the Trump base, feel good about what our country is doing, then you are a sick, twisted and heartless creature, who is simply revelling in the pain of people you dislike.

If you honestly think taking someone’s child away, is a really great way to punish them, just for trying come to this country. Then there is something seriously wrong with you.

Your bigotry and malice towards others has corrupted your basic humanity.

The Annual Pride Debate...

Well it's finally June... so we all know what that means...

As the rainbow flags go up on Market Street in San Francisco , the annual debate over the merits of LGBT Pride celebrations re-surfaces like a perennial weed that just won't stay down. It's a debate that rages both inside and outside the broader LGBTQ community. While inside the community,  the question always gets asked ; does some of the imagery of Pride celebrations hurt the cause of equal rights? In addition, in the wake of significant legal victories for LGBT rights, especially around Marriage Equality; Some are asking do we even need pride celebrations anymore?   

While critics and opponents of  equality love to point to that same imagery as evidence of Gay folks wanting "special rights", and then pull out their favorite chestnut, of asking why are Gay Pride Celebrations acceptable but Straight Pride celebrations are not?

Sigh.... Really? It's like asking why isn't there a "White History Month". I get tired of trying to explain to people who really do know better,  just how stupid they sound whey they try to make these types of arguments. But fine, since clearly there is some "genuine" confusion out there as to the reason for LGBT Pride celebrations , allow me to clarify.

• The number of states in the USA where you can be fired  for  being  Straight = 0
• The number of states in the USA where you can be fired for being Gay = 29
• Number of countries that will execute you for being Straight = 0
• Number of countries that will execute you for being Gay = 10

Growing up, how many books, songs, television programs, and movies did you see that featured straight couples meeting, falling in love and living happily ever after?

Pretty much all of them. Ask someone who is Gay how many positive images in popular culture they had growing up that affirmed who they are? The answer is, none, or at best few, if any at all.

Gay characters in movies and television were either creepy villains or camp comic relief. If you doubt that, you really should check out the groundbreaking HBO documentary, "The Celluloid Closet". It shows clearly the disparity in popular culture where messages about sexual orientation were concerned.

Then there is the area of religion. The number of straight kids who have been told they are going to hell simply for being heterosexual = 0. The number of LGBT kids who have been told that they are going hell simply for being homosexual = too many to even try to count.

In the light of LGBT rights victories in the U.S. over the past few years, it is easy to laugh at the various American Talabangelicals who shrieked hysterically how the US Supreme Court ruling on Same Sex marriage back in 2015, would result in nothing less than some sort of Gay, Nazi... apocalypse. But for a young person struggling with issues of identity and self acceptance,  these toxic messages of hatred and bigotry could cut right through you .

To my Straight friends, I have to ask, how many times have "respected" public figures, politicians, pundits and clergy gone on national television demanding that everyone be given the chance to VOTE on your civil rights?  How often has someone told you that not being able to discriminate against you was somehow an attack on them?  When was the last time you heard a member of the Supreme Court saying that simply by being allowed to exist, you were "an attack" on the moral fiber of America?

Anyone?? Yeah...I didn't think so... I have a flash of the obvious for you, every month is "Straight Pride Month."  There is a word for someone who truly feels that equal rights for people they don't like is somehow an attack on them. That word is "Bigot".

Saying LGBT people are human too, isn't an attack on straight people. Those people who really think it is, are, quite simply, bigots. People who say LGBT Pride celebrations need to be stopped, are in fact, the exact reason they all started in the first place.

Are pride celebrations good or bad for the cause of equality? The answer is both. With visibility comes closer examination. Anti-gay bigots love to show images of drag queens, leather daddies and nearly naked porn stars dancing on parade floats, and scream "See! it's not about equal rights! They just want to recruit your kids into THIS!!"

They never show the families, advocacy groups, welcoming and inclusive religious denominations, and workplace affinity groups who participate in Pride parades. After all, that wouldn't fit their desired narrative.

Media outlets are complicit in this, by the way.  CNN loves to show the drag queens  and semi-naked boys in their coverage, but when straight allies like the CEO of  the largest health care company in the United States rides  on a float  in the San Francisco Pride  parade every year, along with hundreds of his LGBT employees,  you'd think the guy was invisible.

Likewise, critics of  the concept of LGBT Pride , never talk about the rates of divorce, unplanned pregnancy, child abuse and neglect and domestic violence in Straight relationships.  You never see  folks like Tony Perkins, head of the certified Hate-Group, the "Family Research Council" on Fox News talking about Mardi Gras, or "Girls Gone Wild" on Spring Break.

That would be admitting something of an inconvenient truth.  It's much easier to just point at a group of shirtless men on a flatbed truck or women on motorcycles and say that they are the real threat to families.

I have always said that Pride celebrations are not really for the people who attend them. Instead they are for the people who cannot attend them. Growing up as a Gay kid in a small town in South Central Wisconsin, there were times when I was convinced I was the only gay person on Earth. The constant message from popular culture, religion, family and peer groups was "boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married (or not) and have kids and live happily ever after". There was no happily ever after for someone who felt what I was feeling.

Then, for one weekend in June, I would turn on the TV News and see thousands of people just like me, in places like New York, San Francisco and Chicago saying "No, that's not true, you are not alone, and there is a big wide world out here beyond Sun Prairie Wisconsin. So hang in there .... we're here and we're waiting for you!"

Now more than thirty years later, I watch coverage like this,  and it seems so endearingly cheesy. Yet at the time, it was a lifeline to people like me, living with the fear and isolation of being "in the closet".

Pride Celebrations are the original  "It Gets Better Project". 

My straight friends never needed to be told that being straight was okay, and that they were okay because nobody ever told them they weren't. Pride isn't about celebrating being Gay, it's about publicly showing that being LGBT is just as much a part of the the human experience as being straight is. I for one would love to see the day when Pride is obsolete. When that scared closeted gay kid, in some small town doesn't need to be told that he or she is fine just the way they are.

But until that day comes, I will be adding my voice to that joyous mob in places like Market Street in San Francisco, Oxford Street in London,  Halsted Street in Chicago, and Fifth Avenue in New York City, Hillcrest in San Diego, Montrose in Houston, and so many more.  If for no other reason to let that one scared  kid know, it really does get better. There is a world where  "boy meets boy" and "girl meets girl", where they fall in love and (f they want to) get married, and yes, even live happily ever after...

Happy Pride Everyone.