The Menace of HIV/AIDS

I'm sick of correcting people about Mr. Boy dying.  Oh, so he died of cancer?  Well, no, but cancer killed him.  He died of AIDS.  The kind of cancer he had is rarely fatal for those with "normal" immune systems, but the 2-year survival rate for HIV+ folks who get it (because of HIV) is 50%.  But we still don't like to say people died of AIDS.  A long illness, or the secondary cause of death does better, because then we can live in the illusion that AIDS isn't scary anymore.  We can live in the illusion that health care is good enough that as long as HIV+ people have access to it they will be healthy for an indefinite period, and it won't be AIDS that they die of, but something else, and we can protect ourselves from infection.  And we can live in the illusion that there's no longer a stigma about being HIV+.

Maybe it's that I've had a positive partner, or more than "my fair share" of people in my social circle who are positive, that makes me so sensitive to this.  In the US, 1.1 million people are HIV+.  There are more than 315 million people in the US.  1.1 million people represents about one third of one percent of the population.  About 20% of my social circle is positive, and this was also true before I knew Mr. Boy.  In 2010, more than 15,000 Americans died of AIDS.  In 2013, three people in my social circle (including Mr. Boy) died of AIDS.

But the stigma of AIDS is still prevalent in our society.  When I was read as a gay man walking down the street with Mr. Boy, the assumptions of AIDS on people's faces was easily readable.  And in news stories, the assumptions between the lines make me crazy.  There was recently an article in the New York Times shaming gay men for not taking Truvada as a preventative measure.  And the small piece about  Walter Reed blood samples getting mixed up and what Walter Reed is doing to try to find a positive patient is full of stigma.  In the article, the person is assumed to be infecting others through unprotected sex or sharing needles, because the author assumed the risk of having someone who has HIV and does not know it must be elucidated for the reader.  The biggest segment of new infections of the disease is actually the monogamous partners of males who are not monogamous, contracted through heterosexual sex.  Maybe the author knows more about the patient details than I do, but if so, the details should be put to help finding the patient, not toward creating a scare of one HIV+ person who does not know she is.  The CDC estimates almost 1 in 6 positive folks don't know.they are positive, totalling to almost two hundred thousand people.  If that's your story, make it your story, but otherwise, make the story about the inability of military hospitals and their private contractors to maintain accurate patient data.

How the URJ Biennial exacerbated my pet peeves with the Reform Movement

I did not attend the URJ Biennial in San Diego.  My parents did, and I watched videos, though not live broadcasts, as I was busy during the days it occurred.  I was impressed with several of the pieces that are now available on the URJ's YouTube channel including R' Rick Jacobs' keynote, the women clergy (many of whom I learned from at camp and in NFTY) talking about how important NFTY was to their own experience, and R' David Ellenson's d'var torah and blessing of R' Aaron Panken.  I enjoyed learning about the work of the Ruderman Foundation, and fun facts about the progressive nature of the Women of Reform Judaism.  Neshama Carlebach explained how she was made to feel at home in the Reform Movement and is now choosing it for herself.  The cast of musicians was tremendous.  I experienced both naches and horror as current NFTYites cheered (naches because it's NFTY and horror because the cheer has changed in minor ways in the ten and a half years since I was a NFTYite).  I felt proud of the Movement in which I was raised.

Watching the videos from the Biennial also made me aware of the ideological distance between myself and the Reform Movement, even as there are more and more Reform Jews whose personal observance is traditionally radical rather than rebellious.  I felt alienated from the spectacle of pride in a Movement in various ways.

Ideologically, the movement is democratic and capitalist.  The Reform Movement is the movement most focused on inclusion of interfaith families, most talkative on issues of social justice, and claims it is the queer-friendliest (although it does not use that term).  These attributes were trotted out over and over to justify the Reform Movement's market share in America, propped up with unsurprising data from the Pew Research study on American Jewry.  As a socialist raised in the context of multiculturalism who has had the privilege of being a part of genuinely pluralistic Jewish spaces as well as post-denominational Jewish spaces, the competitive nature and liberal democratic values espoused to back it up were a turn-off.  I'm not interested in beating other groups of Jews (or anyone).  And, as my high school English teacher would say, show, don't tell me, that I should want to be a part of your organization.

The Reform Movement has what Rick Jacobs described as respectful differences with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.  Support for Israel as a political entity as the democratic and Jewish state was talked of the entire time, ignoring the socialist history of political Zionism, and almost entirely ignoring the injustice of occupation in favor of struggles within "Israeli" society for women's equality and religious (read Jewish religious) freedom (on which R' Rick Jacobs said the Movement and Bibi have respectful differences).  Furthermore, both Bibi and Vice President Joe Biden talked about the importance of keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.  Cue Tom Lehrer's "Who's Next?".  My thoughts on Israel, and on the relationship between Israel and American Jewry are quite complex.  Suffice it to say for this that I think the focus of American Jewish engagement with Israel should not be parroting support for injustice by buying into excuses.  The Reform Movement has a vested interest in Israeli politics, having programs and institutions there, and not having its rabbis recognized by the theocratic machine.  Therefore it should be outspoken on every issue that it cares about relating to Israel, and it should not describe any differences regarding subjugation of human beings as "respectful".  It should not stand by when Israel blames the failure of the Peace Process entirely on Palestinians.  As a well-organized body of progressive American Jews, the URJ should exercise its critical perspective on the ways in which Israel does not live up to Reform Jewish values, just as the Religious Action Center does the US government.

Lastly for the major issues, the Campaign for Youth Engagement grates my nerves.  Don't get me wrong; I support the involvement of young Jews in Jewish life.  I benefited tremendously from URJ camping (9 summers at OSRUI and one at Kutz), and my involvement in NFTY led me to feel like a part of the Jewish community rather than a token or an outsider.  The messaging of the Campaign for Youth Engagement is patronizing at best and selfish at worst.  Selfishly, it reads: the reason we should engage youth is that we need somebody to take over for us in 25 years.  The patronizing read is the message: youth are the future of our movement.  As a teenager, being called "the future" was one of the worst things you could say to me.  What I learned from being engaged as a kid and as a teen was that I did not have to wait to express my Judaism.  I was a Jew then, and I could live Jewishly.  My thoughts, insights, learning, and actions as a Jew mattered, even my first summer at camp when I was nine.  As I grew up in the realm of informal Refom Jewish education, I found support for my deepening religious observance in the youth movement and in the professionals who served it.  I found a camp counselor who was extremely traditionally observant.  I found the first person I called my rabbi (who is not ordained as such) in my teacher and mentor Danny Maseng, who implanted within me not only a love for Jewish music but the seeds of the spirituality I am currently building for myself.  I found the first rabbi I would call my rabbi in NFTY in the form of R' Arnold Jacob Wolf, z"l, who knew how to criticize my point of view and point me in the right direction while taking my angry rebellious teenage self absolutely seriously.

A URJ cynic would look at my life and say I am not a success story of Reform Jewish youth engagement. My primary Jewish involvement is not through a Reform congregation, but rather an independent Jewish community called Mishkan run by Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann (ordained at the Ziegler School at American Jewish University, which is affiliated with the Conservative movement) who was also taught by Rabbi Wolf. Since June, for the first time in my life, I do not belong to a URJ congregation.  (Two of the congregations I'm looking at joining happen to be URJ congregations, and one is more traditionally observant than most URJ congregations.)  I married a non-Jew, who, if he survived, would have made the most fabulous rebbetzin [sic].  I am looking toward becoming a rabbi and HUC-JIR is not even on the list of schools I'm considering.  After my first year as a camp counselor, I did not stay involved with OSRUI.  I am far to the left of the Reform Movement politically.  While I consider social justice to be of paramount concern for any Jew, my personal Jewish focus has turned more and more to tikkun middot (which I first learned about at sija in the Bayit at camp).  My theological views include a God that still actively performs miracles.  I can read resurrection of the dead and praying for the coming of the Messiah in metaphorical ways, although I generally prefer to talk of geulah rather than goel whenever possible.  I don't pray for a return of the beit hamikdash, but I do mourn its loss. I believe that we do not have to discard halaja to come up with ethical Judaism.  My political Zionism and my religious Zionism are separate. I don't feel there are any areas of Judaism that are not deserving of questioning.  I feel that there need to be ritual boundaries between what Jews are able to do and what non-Jews are able to do.  This perspective is particularly informed by my growing up with one Jewish and one non-Jewish parent and that non-Jewish parent later converting.  I don't believe that saying we are welcoming makes us so.  And I believe that talking about gender equality as women being equal to men enforces a binary that we should not be enforcing.  So, I'm in no way, the married-to-someone-I-met-in-Tzofim-become-Rosh-Eidah-go-to-HUC-JIR-or-law-school-or-med-school-join-a-Reform-Temple-20s-and-30s-group-future-URJ-board-member success story that the Campaign for Youth Engagement means to create.

However, without Reform Jewish informal education, I would have maxed out the Jewish knowledge of my congregation at an early age.  Without Danny's presence, Judaism would seem entirely intellectual to me.  Without Rabbi Wolf, Judaism would have become a boring set of rules that I didn't even follow.  I would not have developed a daily prayer practice and a reverence for Shabbat.  My parents would not attend synagogue on a weekly basis, and my dad has told me it was my passion for Judaism developed at camp that brought him into the Jewish community as a Jew and not just as related to us.  My partner would not have been enthralled by the rhythms and ethos of Jewish life. We would not have lived in the rhythm of the Jewish week.  And the thought of becoming a rabbi most certainly would not have occurred to me if I had not decided it was the best way to keep coming back to camp every summer for the rest of my life at age nine.  My Judaism might look like my brother's.  My brother had sporadic engagement with Judaism as a youth including a trip to Israel for the Eisendrath International Exchange, had a minor in Jewish studies at San Francisco State mostly because of the rampant anti-Semitism on that campus, and now his Jewish observance is mostly driven by his devout Catholic wife saying "don't you guys do this" and "shouldn't we...".  Judaism for him is at worst something he's stuck with and at best a peripheral connection to the rest of his family.  But then again, he and his wife belong to a Reform synagogue.  There's another possibility for what my Judaism might look like.  I might have gone what R' Benay Lappe calls "Option 2" and thrown out the baby with the bathwater, becoming an atheist who was raised as a Jew or identifying as "spiritual, but not religious".  I might have considered myself too good, too evolved, and too enlightened to practice ancient tribal customs.  My only engagement with Judaism might be seder at my parents' house.  Surely, if somebody had dismissed a teenage me as merely "the future" of Judaism instead of recognized me as a part of its present, I would have been dismissive in return.  Instead, camp and NFTY created places where I could be taken seriously where I was, where I developed the passion which led Judaism to be a central aspect of my life, and where my critiques of current Jewish practice started.  I don't need to feel a part of the Reform Movement, but I do need to feel a part of the Jewish people.  And I didn't feel an emphasis on that from the Biennial.

If Tisha b'Av falls on Rosh Jodesh, do you fast?

The title of the above refers to a trivia question I once answered.  It's a trick question, because Tisha b'Av means the ninth day of the month of av, so it can never fall on Rosh Jodesh, which is the first day of the month.  That said, if Tisha b'Av falls on Shabbat, you commemorate it the next day instead.

Last night, I attended Mishkan's Tisha b'Av observance, which included Ma'ariv, Reading of Eicha (the Book of Lamentations), and a conversation about our sadness and love when it comes to Israel.  As a Tisha b'Av observance, it was the closest I have come to my Tisha b'Av experiences at OSRUI - meaningful, hot, and at some points frustrating.  The pain in the room was real and the mood somber, but somehow, in leaving with the brokenness of the day, I came out more whole.

I did not grow up with a Tisha b'Av observance in my family.  As someone with staunch Reform upbringing, Tisha b'Av was (for those who knew about it) considered an inappropriate holiday to commemorate because the Reform Movement does not believe the destruction of the Temple to be a bad thing, and therefore does not mourn the event.  However, Tisha b'Av was commemorated at my summer camp, in a beautiful fashion that bestowed the day with contemporary meaning for this mourning.  We talked about sinat jinam, the senseless hatred that Jews see as our part in the destruction of the Temple.  But more than that, the ritual was well-crafted to imbue the day with sorrow and with connection to the history of the Jewish people: tragedies and persecution included.  Living in a time of relative peace and privilege for Jews, this connection was new for me.  I am here because my ancestors responded to persecution by making themselves stronger, because the response to the question eicha has been that part is under our control.  We find things we could have done better even when we recognize that others are responsible for inflicting violence, persecution, and genocide on us.  We could sit in our hatred of them or of God, but instead we reflect on what it is about us and the way we live that exacerbates the damage done to us by others.

I remember that unit heads carried the Torah from our units to Port Hall as the rest of us joined hands and walked singing Don McLean's "By the Waters of Babylon."  We entered Port Hall where we snaked around and joined hands with other units as well until everyone had entered and we sat on the ground.  Passages of Eicha were chanted in Hebrew and read in English, and the list of tragedies that ostensibly occurred on Tisha b'Av was read: destruction of the first Temple, destruction of the second Temple, the start of the first crusade, expulsion of the Jews from England, expulsion of the Jews from France, expulsion of the Jews from Spain, declaration of the Final solution, and the beginning of the deportations from the Warsaw ghetto (not to mention the Toraitic events that the rabbis associated with the day).  The history of how each Torah came to be at camp was recounted, with background information of situations of persecution and how Torahs were rescued if that was the case.  Esa einai was often sung, and we walked back after in silence, which was not a common sensory experience at camp.  The next day (Jewish days start at sundown and go to sundown) we would bury religious texts that were no longer usable in the camp genizah.  I don't know how the custom of adding to a genizah became associated with Tisha b'Av, but my conjecture is that Jews find the loss of text to be of similar importance to the crash of an entire way of life.  I carry nostalgia for that Tisha b'Av experience: the sense of connection to my people when all seems lost, and of being able to take concrete action to mourn the past but also of being able to take concrete action to build a better future.

The observance last night included "By the Waters of Babylon" and traditional kinot.  It included chanting of Eicha and reading it in English.  We sat on a hard floor in the summer heat, and although candles burned, we started before sundown and the effect was not one of darkness.  And we had a "conversation" about Israel, which is a topic that many in the Jewish world see as so divisive that we only talk with like-minded folks.  I put conversation in quotes because it wasn't a conversation in the usual sense. We were first asked to consider where our love comes from when it comes to Israel and where our sadness comes from when it comes from Israel.  We were given paper and pens to write our thoughts and some time (although not enough) to consider.  Then we were asked to listen to those who volunteered to share.  This was an exercise in "vulnerable listening," we were told, which apparently means being attentive and nonjudgmental toward the speaker, but also not to display any emotional reaction you may be having.  Sharers were to take no more than three minutes each and were instructed to give their names at the beginning of what they said, speak in "I language," and say "Thank you for listening" at the end, to which the response from the community was "Thank you." These stipulations led one person to comment that it felt like a "Jews Anonymous" meeting.  I think these regulations were necessary for people to feel safe sharing about a sensitive subject, but by no means did they engender conversation.  Sharers could only focus their comments on their own experiences and feelings, which prevented anything I would call conversation (questions asked an answered, deeper thoughts provoked, progression of ideas possible) from taking place.  It was uncomfortable to listen to people vent their frustrations about Israel.  It was hard to maintain a non-emotional face listening as things I disagreed with or agreed with whole-heartedly were said, and especially as others bared their souls, it was hard to resist impulses to comfort.  The discomfort and pain were fitting for the day.  After the discussion and the reading, we had more space for singing and meditating on loss.  Then we had Ma'ariv (no, not traditional, but again, we started before sundown).  We spoke Ma'ariv, which gives an eerie quality to prayer, and is traditional, as music might increase the enjoyment of the experience, and the idea is that one is praying out of spite because one is in too much pain to do otherwise, and we left, only speaking what was necessary to clean up the space after use.  I walked to the Red Line in silence and rode home, also in silence.  To allow ourselves time to process pain and grow from it is extremely powerful.

Would You Risk Arrest to Get Married?

Indiana law defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.  Indiana law also imposes strict penalties for perjury in marriage applications or for applying for marriage when ineligible and penalties for clergy that officiate at marriages which are done under false pretenses.  These laws have been on the books for years.

However, a new law restructuring Indiana penal code makes it easier to prosecute and convict folks for such crimes starting July 2014.  The practical implication of these changes, given the realities on the ground in my home state, is that the combination of these laws will be used to brand as criminals same-sex couples and the clergy who marry them.  It is a felony in Indiana for people to ask the government to look at a piece of paper.

I wish I could say that since I moved out of Indiana, the shenanigans of the state don't bother me as much as they did when I lived there.  However, they bother me more, I suppose, because I have no say in the matter anymore.

There are obvious objections to the ways the laws work together, and it remains to be seen whether any enforcement measures will be taken based on them.  I wonder if I would risk eighteen months in jail to apply for a marriage license.  Would you?

Tzom Qasheh

The Seventeenth of Tammuz is a minor fast day in Jewish tradition which commemorates the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in 70 CE.  Being a post-biblical minor fast, I did not observe it from the age of thirteen.  The day starts a three-week mourning period between it and Tisha B'av, the day the Second Temple was destroyed.  Tisha B'av is the saddest day of the Jewish year, and many other national tragedies are also commemorated on that day.  I started observing it at Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute, which was one of the first observances that made me more frum than my parents.  However, previous to this year, I had never observed Tzom Tammuz or the three-week period called bein hameitzarim (between the narrow places).

Last year, one of the women I am blessed to call "my rabbi" framed bein hameitzarim as the beginning of the trajectory to the High Holy Days.  We hit a communal rock bottom which allows us to do the spiritual work of t'shuvah and reconcile with God during yamim noraim.  So this year, I decided to try fasting for Tzom Tammuz.  Minor fasts are observed from sunup to sundown, and the timing of Tzom Tammuz made it a fast between about 5:15 AM and 9:15 PM.  But due to poor planning, I ended up accidentally fasting for about 28 hours.  Jewish law permits self-care exemptions to fasting, so I did take my medicine.

I wasn't feeling well the day of Tzom Tammuz and stayed home from work.  I spent a large part of the day, lying down, wishing the pain I was feeling would go away, and not really being able to eat even if I had wanted to.  It felt like the world was breaking, which, I suppose is the point.  When the day was over, a neighbor who is a good friend offered to feed me, which was good, because I wasn't sure if I could stand up for long enough to cook something.

As far as how the three weeks are going, I haven't felt too much in a mournful mood.  Although certain things in my life are not desirable (my significant other is very ill), I feel like the events of the week are those of celebration for the most part.  I don't mean to slight to the damage that repealing part of the Voting Rights Act or the limiting of what constitutes a supervisor for harassment cases does to society.  These are unfortunate losses in the fight for equal dignity.  But the Supreme Court asserted that people in same-sex relationships are human.  I didn't need a court to tell me this, but it sure helps that they did.  I feel grateful and victorious, not mournful and sad.  And the coincidence with Pride celebrations just added to my internalization of the collective effervescence.  Additionally, this year, Canada Day, American Independence Day, and Bastille Day all fall during the Three Weeks.  My love's yahrzeit will fall in the Three Weeks this year, but even that does not make me feel spiritually low.  I feel b'midbar, in the wilderness on the slow and steady march to Freedom Land.  We may not be there yet, but we can see it from the mountain top.  That makes me feel spiritually elevated.  I know that I am on the right path, and my community is too.  But then again, perhaps that was my rabbi's point anyway.

Secular Jews and Religious Jews - Critique of Rabbi Eric Yoffie's Huffington Post Article

I was going to excoriate Rabbi Eric Yoffie for his comments about secular Jews in the attached article, but I won't.  Inspired by my friend Chana, who writes at The Merely Real, I am making an effort not to participate in a call-out culture that is fundamentally counterproductive to the projects of humanity and understanding.  Instead, in an effort to steel-man R' Yoffie's argument, I have tried to understand him to be calling for solidarity among progressive Jews.  R' Yoffie is the former head of the Union for Reform Judaism, and is invested in securing the Jewish future, and securing the voice of progressive Jews as a part of Jewish continuity.

NB: I do not subscribe to the binary of secular vs. religious.  Nor do I subscribe to the binary of atheist vs. religious.  In order to simplify my take on R' Yoffie's position and cultivate a charitable attitude toward his arguments, I am borrowing the binary of secular vs. religious for the sake of the below alone.  There are plenty of people who consider themselves secular who have deep religious sensibilities and vice versa.  Please also note that R' Yoffie equates atheism with secularism in his article.  Although I find that a much more problematic standpoint, I use the term secular below to denote secular atheist when not obvious from the context.

On the face of it, R' Yoffie argues that community involvement and cultural identification are tantamount to believing in God.  Perhaps he just didn't have the benefit of a great class on Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life like I did, because he confuses what is holy with what is sacred.  Read the book for the background; I promise it's worth it.  Religious folks can learn much from the way secular folks and atheists revere religious spaces as sacred in the Durkheimian sense.  Secular folks view religious practices as set apart, or sacred.  They view cultural and national identities as important, like most people.  And they know that part of identity is not determined by them, but by the society around them.  Rather than fight against a Jewish identity, secular Jews claim the term Jew, almost better than their religious counterparts, because they choose to maintain a problematic, persecuted identity without believing that Mr. Deity will have their back.  Many secular Jews not only participate in Judaism through national, ethnic, and cultural identity but also through the system of ethics that comes out of what religious Jews see as religious Judaisms.  Of course, there are secular Jews who are assholes, but there are also religious Jews who are assholes.  R' Yoffie sees identification with the Jewish people as a form of belief in God because it takes strength and a belief that maintaining that identification, especially in the face of persecution, is important and more beneficial in the future.  But that belief is not equivalent to believing in a supreme being.  It is rather akin to the belief that the high probability that the earth will keep revolving around the sun and not spin off its orbit can be translated effectively to an always.  However, I digress.  And to get distracted by R' Yoffie's conflation of the two ideas is to miss the good point he could have made if he weren't so distracted by theology.

Judaism and Jewish culture are meant to be progressive.  If you don't believe me, ask my teacher, Rabbi Benay Lappe, who will gladly explain how radical the early rabbinic tradition was.  The ultra-orthodox voice in Judaism has a voice much bigger than its market share in America and Israel, the biggest centers of Jewish life.  Progressive religious Jews and progressive secular Jews should not see themselves as opposed but rather as a joint force against the coopting of a radically interpretive tradition by those who would like to see it stay static and oppressive.  R' Yoffie is right that secular Jews and progressive religious Jews aren't so different, but it isn't because secular Jews actually believe in God like religious Jews do.  It's because secular Jews act similarly and care about similar things as do progressive Jews.  The common view of mentschlichkeit and of viewing Judaism as valuable and meaningful beyond an all-or-nothing list of rules including not mixing wool and linen is something that progressive Jews, religious or secular, should unite in promoting.  Then will we be able to put our actions where our mouths are in terms of pluralism.

So, Rabbi Yoffie, if you were intending to deride the practice of secular Jews as inconsistent, recognize that inconsistency is part of the human condition.  But if your aim was to say that we need to talk about Judaism in all the ways it manifests, then I join you in saying:

יש יותר מדרך אחד להיות יהודי

We Must Stop Blaming Queer Folk for Our Own Homophobia: A Considered Response to Jay Michaelson's Critique of Dan Savage

There's nothing like a controversy with Dan Savage at the center to get me back to blogging.  I toyed with the idea of writing this as an open letter to Jay Michaelson, but this conversation is really broader than his critique or the responses to it or his responses to them.

I have at times been overwhelmingly supportive of both Mr. Savage and Mr. Michaelson and at other times highly critical of both of their discourses on LGBT life in America, its intersection with institutional powers, and what to do about the problem of homophobic rhetoric from outspoken haters of my queer siblings in American society and American religion.

In an article for The Daily Beast entitled "Is Dan Savage the Gay Santorum?", Mr. Michaelson attacks Mr. Savage for his rhetoric about the Bible in conversation with queerness.  Mr. Michaelson argues that Mr. Savage buys into the organized religious conversation of homophobia and that he is pushing a false understanding of religion as in opposition to queerness.  Mr. Michaelson argues that the social construction of sexuality and homosexuality, which dates from the 19th century, was not original to the Bible and has merely been read into it.  While he is correct in recognizing that it need not be so, the Bible has been interpreted to reinforce the understanding of homosexuality as perversion and sin in society.  Furthermore, Mr. Michaelson argues that we should understand the verses in the Bible which are commonly understood to prohibit anal sex among males narrowly and that religious communities which take or can take such a narrow view of these verses are welcoming places for queer folk.  He argues that the communities that take these verses as only prohibitive of anal sex can be fully affirming of LGBT lives.  I find the assumption that religious values that entail restricting sexual acts and pleasure "support inclusion and affirmation of LGBT lives" a pipe dream rather than a current reality.  Luckily, that pipe dream is Mr. Michaelson's life's work.

I do not wish to enter an argument on what the original intent or current usage of specific Biblical verses means for religiously and secularly identified members of the LGBT community.  That conversation is already robust, and I don't think that's where the problem with Mr. Savage's statements lies or the problem with Mr. Michaelson's response.

Mr. Savage used inflammatory language, as he is wont to do in many circumstances, and shaming tactics to portray the Bible and anti-gay interpretations of it as worthless to the queer community.  He also used anti-gay inflammatory language to attack students who left his presentation because of that vulgarity.  He later apologized for attacking those students.

In Mr. Michaelson's response, he reacts to Dan Savage "feeding into homophobic rhetoric about gays and religion" and presents a moral equivalency between Dan Savage's understanding of organized religion (or at least organized Christianity) as homophobic with Rick Santorum's moral equivalency between homosexuality and bestiality that set off Dan Savage's "Google Santorum" campaign.

My first issue with this reaction is his use of a moral equivalency between Mr. Savage's suspicion of the motives of organized religious groups and Senator Rick Santorum's comparison of homosexuality to bestiality.  In Sen. Santorum's hateful comments, he implies that engaging in sexual relations with people of the same sex is akin to having sexual relations with animals that do not share our language or agency or have the ability to consent.  By calling all homosexual sex rape, Sen. Santorum criminalizes all those who have same-sex relationships, even Mr. Michaelson's description of loving, monogamous, same-sex relationships that some religions support.

Mr. Savage's comments about the Bible are based on the lived experience of discrimination and pain inflicted by various organized religious groups on LGBT persons based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.  Mr. Michaelson does extremely valuable work within religious communities to make them safe and affirming for LGBT persons, but that work would not be necessary if the organized religious world were already a welcoming place for us.  And many organized religious communities are far behind Jewish groups on efforts of reconciliation with queer folk.  The possibility of friendlier interpretations of Biblical verses exists, but that does not mean it is practiced by most organized religions.  I even find my supposedly rabidly liberal welcoming Reform Movement of Judaism alienating at some points.  Mr. Michaelson seems to assume that because narrow literal interpretations of Biblical verses concerning sexual activities are possible, they are universally adopted by organized religion.  This is false, and as much as I wish all organized religions were queer-inclusive, they are not.

My second and main issue with Mr. Michaelson's critique of Mr. Savage's comments stems from his assumption that because Mr. Savage is a gay icon, he should have to alienate himself from his personal history as a gay man in order to be inclusive of groups that hate him.  Systematic homophobia exists in American society, and even the most outspoken, sexually liberated queers have suffered because of it and have internalized it.  Homophobia hurts everyone, and queerness does not offer us immunity to it.  Dan Savage is not "part of the problem;" he is a product of it.

In the queer activist community, we hold to a myth that we have no shame about being queer and we have moved beyond any homophobia in society.  This myth is false and dangerous, and if we restrict speech about queerness to those who are not influenced by homophobic discourse, we must all be silent.  That is not a solution I can deal with.  When queers are homophobic, we must recognize it as a product of the systematic homophobia in society.  And when we are insensitive with our language, we should apologize as Mr. Savage has for the vulgarities he spouted at those who left his speech when he criticized the Bible.  Let us stop blaming queer folk for homophobia.  That is behavior that the true haters engage in, and Mr. Michaelson has engaged in it by his victim blaming as it relates to Mr. Savage. Blaming Mr. Savage for homophobic remarks that he internalized because of his upbringing in the homophobic atmosphere of the Catholic Church is unproductive.  We must call homophobia for what it is whenever people engage in it, especially when we do it through the ways we shape our discourse or through the ways we blame ourselves and the siblings in our struggle against it.  Instead of arguing over which queer should have a membership card revoked and be the newly-elected homophobe-in-chief, we should be calling attention to the destructive nature of homophobia everywhere it dwells, including within the queer community.  We must acknowledge we have internalized homophobia, even Dan Savage and even Jay Michaelson.  And we should work so that we may become the last fossils of that prejudice in society.

And Jay Michaelson, rather than blaming Dan Savage for being a homophobe, should continue working to establish more queer-friendly religious spaces.  Then young members of the queer community can determine for themselves that on the issue of the Bible, Dan Savage might not have the whole story.

Even When It's Not News

Zachary Quinto made headlines last week when he came out casually during the course of an interview.  I have long been wondering why celebrities have coming out press conferences still.  Quinto, like most people his age, neither feels the need to talk about his sexuality when it is not relevant, nor feels the need to treat his identity as abnormal.  But the media felt like Quinto had duped them into believing he was straight and he pulled a fast one on America.  Quinto talked about his experience as a gay man.  When will the media learn not to be more heteronormative than the rest of the country?

Sukkot

Sukkot and Simchat Torah are now over, at least for me.  The holidays are not widely observed, at least not in more than a token fashion, by Reform Jews in America.  Somehow the time of Sukkot, the Season of Our Joy, makes me feel at home in ways I haven't yet been able to describe.

It's odd: Sukkot is a time where Jews set up a transitory space in which to live.  And it is in this temporary shelter that I find not only the Jewish community but myself alive with purpose.  I don't know whether it is the commandment to be happy or the sense of community that the holiday cultivates, but something makes me appreciate life in a new way during Sukkot, and it's not because of an increased appreciation of inside space.

Republicans and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a failed Democratic policy.  Enacted during the Clinton Administration, its purpose was to allow lesbians and gay men to serve in the military.  At all.  In addition to fears of homophobia from higher-ups in the military, it was thought in 1993 that divulging the sexual orientation of a queer service member would leave that service member vulnerable to torture.  There is no evidence that the second is true.  The most prominent group pushing for the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was a Republican group, the Log Cabin Republicans, who were arguing in the courts that the policy was unconstitutional.  The Obama administration pushed for a legislative repeal to avoid embarrassment in the courts.  And they got a legislative repeal.

And now the Republican candidates are all pushing each other out of the way to be the first, loudest, and best proclaimers that if elected president they would reinstate the policy.  This has recently been magnified by the audience at a debate booing a gay soldier serving in Iraq asking a question while all the candidates stood idly by.  Rick Santorum, to whom the question was addressed, did not even thank the soldier for his service until a political pressure steam roller forced him to two days later.

Either the candidates all lack a basic understanding of the separation of powers or they want to abuse executive powers and/or the bully pulpit to enact unconstitutional policies.  Unconstitutional policies military won't last even under Republican authority.  Just look at segregation.  And if Republicans choose to be public faces of homophobia over public faces of supporting soldiers, they're going to lose the support of their base.

Three cases, three responses

I want to talk about cases of three different prisoners.  Sorry, in the time since I first conceived of this post, the opening has to be amended.  I want to talk about two prisoners and one man who was executed.  The three people are Jonathan Pollard, Alan Gross, and Troy Davis, may he rest in peace.

First, I'll review of the cases.  Troy Davis was executed at 11:08 local time in Georgia last night.  Troy Davis was accused and convicted of killing Mark MacPhail, a police officer from Savannah, on the basis of eyewitness testimony from 9 people.  No physical evidence was produced at the time of his trial or since.  No DNA evidence has been produced to support his conviction.  Since his trial in 1991, seven of the nine witnesses have recanted their testimony, several citing police pressure to testify originally.  Davis's lawyers pursued his case to higher courts asking for stays and a chance to prove his innocence.  Many pushed for him to be granted clemency due to the doubt surrounding his guilt.  But, the judicial branch of the government sentenced him to death and the US government murdered him.

Alan Gross has been convicted of subversion in Cuba for smuggling phone equipment to Jewish groups in the country.  Cuba has sentenced him to fifteen years in prison.  The United States has requested release and sent dignitaries to negotiate it.  Gross has lost approximately 100 lbs in prison in Cuba in the last year and a half.  There is currently a push to release him from prison on humanitarian grounds.  Only the severity of the punishment is at issue in this case, not Gross's guilt according to Cuban law.

Jonathan Pollard was convicted of espionage for an allied country without intent to harm the United States.  He passed intelligence information to Israel while serving as a US intelligence officer.  He pled guilty to the crime and is serving (contrary to his plea agreement) a life sentence without parole for his crime.  It is the longest sentence anyone has served for espionage for a US ally.  His health been failing, and none of his requests for parole have been granted despite his long sentence, his good behavior as an inmate, and assurances that he can never pass such secrets again.

I do not think any of these sentences are deserved for the crimes in question, but I must say it is rather hypocritical for the US to call other justice systems oppressive and unjust given its current state.

Jew Cool, Politics, and Eric Cantor

I don't know when it started to be cool to be Jewish.  But somehow, the stereotype of the Jewish comedian has morphed from the nebbish Woody Allen to the cool Jon Stewart and Sarah Silverman.  Jews have gone mainstream.  This is progress.  No longer sidelined as much, maligned by the mainstream, or ridiculed, Jews have the opportunity in modern America to be cool. (Just ask Drake if you don't believe me.)

Growing up as this transition was happening, I was taught to appreciate the successes of fellow members of the tribe.  Most notably, this appreciation is codified in Adam Sandler's Chanukah Song, but it extends to other industries as well.  When a Jew gets a promotion or gets elected, I am supposed to be proud, simply because I am also a Jew.

However, this acceptance of Jews into the mainstream allows Jews to feel a part of that mainstream.  Which means?  Jewish Republicans.  And I am supposed to be proud that a Jew is House Majority Leader.  I am supposed to say "look at our progress" when a Jew is on the frontline of the fight to deny Americans basic rights?  I'm sorry, but I can't feel proud of that.  It's a shonde.

Indepence Day

I narrowly avoided an argument with my roommate yesterday. The ginkgo girl moved out in the middle of June and one of my other friends moved in with me. There are very few arguments I do not wish to have. There are very few arguments I do not wish to have, but there are three or four that I cannot have and be civil at the same time. One of those is about the founding moments of the United States of America. When my roommate suggested that celebrating Independence Day was irrelevant to modern American life, it took all my strength not to go ballistic. I wanted to throw it back in her face and say that her being able to say that without fear of repercussions is reason enough to appreciate our freedom and form of government. I wanted to say some choice words too, but I simply suggested that I didn't want to have the argument and moved on.

We take our freedom and the struggle for our independence for granted now, perhaps because we feel historically removed from the situation. None of us were there for the continental congress when the Declaration of Independence was signed. We are so far removed from these struggles that when a survey was conducted in the 1960s asking people to identify the source of the first line of the Declaration of Independence, most thought it was from the charter for the radical organization Students for a Democratic Society. The line reads: "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a descent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Usually, this confusion is used to point to the failures of American e ducation, which it certainly points to. However, the sentiments of revolution so eloquently captured in Thomas Jefferson's words are relevant not only to the American revolution, but to many subsequent ones.

I don't think the USA is the best country in the world, or that we always live up to the ideals that we have as a nation. But I do know that we are always expanding those ideals: voting is no longer restricted to rich white men, and we abolished slavery. And after the civil war which split our nation in two, President Lincoln assured "malice toward none" who had been in the confederacy. We are in struggles to expand equality further in this country. So, today, I will try not to take the freedom I enjoy for granted, and renew my commitment to helping expand the rights of those who live around me.