Fairness - The Commentary

The Republican Speaker of the House and failed vice-presidential candidate met ceremoniously in early May with a volatile, narcissistic reality TV star who is the presumptive Republican presidential candidate. The forty-five minute meeting produced hype, not information, and exhibited the gamesmanship central to many political campaigns. It evoked another round of the questions that people pose during political posturing. But the key to understanding it is that it involved two very different politicians who both must maintain their image of power within the same political party. There are political season questions that are regularly asked about both major parties, with the expectation of rational answers. How could someone support that guy? Why would someone support one candidate or another? In another conversation, the questions might be: why isn’t someone condemning discriminatory laws? Don’t they understand that those laws won’t hold up in court? Or: do you think someon...

There are now over 100 anti-LGBT bills under consideration around the country,  according to a recent Huffington Post compilation . They represent a national radical right-wing industry creating laws that give conservative politicians symbolic causes to convince their bases that they’re still leading the fight against the evil of LGBT equality. Many of these bills are unnecessary, even repeating what’s already in the law. Mississippi’s recent notorious contribution  adds nothing to its already existing law . But their purpose isn’t legal or rational; it’s political. Constantly championing new  “God, Guns, and Gays” measures  is the way to maintain elected office by demonstrating to politicians’ right-wing and Evangelical bases that they’re Davids fighting heroically against the big bad Supreme Court Goliath. While younger generations find little interest in this fight, older right-wingers are most likely to vote and engage in political activities. And portray...

By the second week of March, the discourse (using that word very loosely) of the Republican presidential candidates had sunk so low that to call it “juvenile” would be an insult to our children. Just when we thought that the personal attacks had lowered to a senior high level, they descended further to something like the tauntings of junior high kids. Whether it was about one candidate or another being accused of  peeing in his pants ,  eating boogers ,  over-sweating , or having to run to the bathroom for one reason or another, it was actually the fully-on-display latest in the circus that GOP bosses are racking their brains to ring-master. Those Party leaders who created each of the caricatures on the Republican platform and encouraged their rabid fans, now seemed flailing about to know what to do with the performers except either just to embrace them as if any of the candidates were presidential material or to enlist a previous presidential loser to attack the bigg...

If the goal is to get the votes and political grassroots activism of the far right-wing, the Fundamentalists, and assorted fear-based people who turn out to vote Republican even against their financial interests, it’s still effective to look as anti-LGBT as possible. We might argue that it’s against the arc of history, that most in younger generations don’t care, or that a Supreme Court decision has settled things, but we’re probably not the people being targeted by the not-yet-worn-out “God, guns, and gays” politics. Politicians who rely on this are speaking to those faithful, consistent voters who are guaranteed to turn out still today to keep right-wingers in office so they can solidify their agenda in place now - making hay while the sun shines. They’re looking to the voters who’ll turn out in droves for the Republican primaries. They’re the voters who’ll vote in off-year elections while so many centrist and liberal voters stay home thinking elections aren’t important or the ...

On January 14th,  the worldwide Anglican Communion announced  that it would suspend its U.S. branch, the Episcopal Church, from key voting positions in the Communion for three years. Meeting in Canterbury, England, its leaders representing the Communion’s 44 national churches around the world, considered this a punishment for the affirmative response the Episcopal Church has taken toward LGBT clergy and marriage equality. “The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union,” the leaders of the Anglican Communion said in a statement during the meeting. “The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.” Their action stipulates that the Episcopal Church can no longer represent the Anglican Communion on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee, or take part in decision making “on any issues pertaining to doctrine or poli...

There must be something emotionally satisfying for many people in arguments about religion whether they’re for “it” or against “it.” Beyond the strategies of politicians who prey on religious prejudices, people argue passionately, existentially, and obsessively about whether religion or Christianity, Islam or another ism, does, causes, or even “is” one thing or another. These arguments seem to have sharpened and become more mainstream with the 24-hour cable news cycle that exploits terrorist attacks committed by people hiding behind religion and the fear-based politics of the Republican primary election gang. Talk radio and religious bigotry have also found renewed energy. Trying to insert rationality into this argument can be an exercise in futility for either side. There’s something deeper being defended within the arguers that’s psychologically crucial to them, not just the need to win an argument. The historical reality is that religion or any of the isms  never  d...

Fred Phelps and his tiny, no-account, insignificant Westboro Baptist Church perfected it in the field of religious bigotry. But attracting attention when you’re a nobody to the rest of the world is now an established strategy. It’s fueled and enabled by the mainstream media since they changed to make everything they follow provide moneymaking entertainment. There are no more money-losing news bureaus maintained for the public good. Instead, 24-hour cable news channels compete for public attention so they can deliver eyeballs to their advertisers. They’ve made a perfect publicity manipulating enemy of ISIS and the perfect politician of a talentless businessman/entertainer named Trump. The Donald’s TV ego and its outrageousness, which he’s displaying in his joyride of a presidential race reality show, are branded in the entertainment catchphrase: “You’re fired.” And media have created a presidential race ideal for Newt Gingrich’s advice: “If you want to sell books, run for presid...

Before we settle down with families to eat this Thanksgiving Day, let’s take the time on November 20 th  to remember those who’ve been killed as a result of what we’ve come to call  transphobia --  the fear and resulting violence about gender nonconformity that is directed at transgender and gender non-conforming people. The Transgender Day of Remembrance was founded in 1998 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a transgender woman, graphic designer, columnist, and activist, to memorialize the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts because Rita didn’t conform to culturally-conditioned gender expectations. Now we remember all those human beings harassed, abused and killed because of gender nonconformity. This year’s reported murders have hit an all time high: 24 deaths in the U.S. alone as of October 15. Something is very wrong above and beyond the tragic suffering that people who identify as transgender or otherwise gender non-conforming experience. And, as in most such fe...

In October we observe, among other things, Gay and Lesbian History Month. And in the past weeks a new movie about an iconic event in that history hit the theaters. Director Roland Emmerich’s film  Stonewall , a fictional story based upon real events of the Stonewall uprising in 1969, drew criticism as soon as its trailer appeared as “whitewashing” because it portrays white men led by Jeremy Irvine’s character, Danny, as central characters in inciting the fight against police brutality in those early morning hours of June 28, 1969. On-line petitions multiplied, one saying: “Do not support a film that erases out history. Do not watch Stonewall.” Though the events of those early morning hours in June 1969 outside a Greenwich Village gay bar called the Stonewall Inn are often called the “beginnings of the Gay Rights Movement,” we know that’s historically inaccurate. Organizations such as the Daughters of Bilitis, ONE, Inc., and the Mattachine Society were founded back in the 1950...