Written: 8/3/2012

A few more thoughts about Chick-Fil-A, which honestly I’m sick of reading about on my Facebook and Twitter feeds (although I am quite happy with some of my friends responses to the whole thing).

Let’s say this really is about Freedom of Speech, which I have always said I take a little different position than the Supreme Court has.  Speech is protected, unless it is specifically created to cause harm.  That harm is defined as those trying to insight riots, or encourage others to take specific bodily harm against someone else.

I also think that speech designed to cause emotional harm should not be protected, which is where I differ from the Supreme Court.  I can understand though that it is hard to draw a legal line to define what is intentionally causing emotional harm.  While I agree with the laws to prohibit protests at military funerals (specifically written to counteract the Westboro Baptist Church), I can understand that we should not actually pass those laws.  But anyway, I digress.

Here’s the problem with thinking that the Chick-Fil-A mess is really about Freedom of Speech.  Because if it is, those supporting the hateful chicken need to realize that everyone else is just as entitled to their own freedom of speech.  Just as you can go crazy and buy their chicken to support their bigoted stance, the other side is going to be just as vocal in supporting equality.

Just like the BSA: Chick-Fil-A can choose to support whatever they want, but it doesn’t mean they should: I choose to believe that people are better than that, and that we deserve better.

And secondly, for those thinking this is just about marriage equality, that is not the whole truth.  It is about so much more.  Check it out:

So you’ll have to excuse me while I don’t give my money to a company that wants to make it illegal to be myself.

A company that thinks I should be thrown in jail and am the work of the devil.  How I can possibly have any kind of adult conversation with someone like that seems impossible.

The blog, We Carry The Fire sums it up perfectly:

You are less than.  My God doesn’t believe you are worthy of the word Marriage despite him making you the way you are. 

Unacceptable.  

But I conceded.  Further discussion was not warranted.  No views would be changed and only further awkwardness would arise.

All I kept thinking in my head is, They don’t get it.  And I really don’t think they do.  Unless you have lived a life in a gay persons shoes I wouldn’t expect them to.  They dont see the hundreds of organizations out there whose sole purpose it is to make sure gay people dont have the same rights as others.  They dont see or know of the hate crimes against gay people every single day.   They cant understand that separate is not equal.  Granting rights without the word is not good enough.  It still says I am less than deserving of the word marriage.

People scream about it being a religious institution and therefore cannot simply have gays marrying.  Its in the Bible they say:

An abomination.

Me. 

An abomination.  Brings back memories of being called a filthy faggot by a man standing on a street corner when I told him I didn’t agree with his sign saying gays were sinners.  Or when another person called my friends and I “nasty queers” and to “get out of their neighborhood”.  Or when my own father would call me a gross faggot after every argument growing up.  Or when I was told by family members that God wants me to live a life of solitude by myself and to not act on the desires which I have.  Because the love I have to share is not worth sharing with another human being and that this was my cross to carry.

God made me this way so that  I could live a life alone. A lonely abomination

The continued bullying and degrading of the LGBT community is insidious.  It works its way into your brain and makes you believe what you’re told.  Makes you believe that you’re less than.  And that’s something that others aren’t going to understand.  We have to celebrate our differences and surround ourselves with those that love and accept us, just to come out even and in a safe place inside our own heads.

It’s a tough life, one that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  I constantly wish and hope that I’m making a difference, to make the world a better place for those coming after me.  I’t sthe only way to end the cycle.

This blog post is phenomenal, please take a few minutes to read it, it’s a great follow up to the post above:

This isn’t about mutual tolerance because there’s nothing mutual about it. If we agree to disagree on this issue, you walk away a full member of this society and I don’t. There is no “live and let live” on this issue because Dan Cathy is spending millions to very specifically NOT let me live. I’m not trying to do that to him.

Asking for “mutual tolerance” on this like running up to a bully beating a kid to death on the playground and scolding them both for not getting along. I’m not trying to dissolve Mr. Cathy’s marriage or make his sex illegal. I’m not trying to make him a second-class citizen, or get him killed. He’s doing that to me, folks; I’m just fighting back.

All your life, you’re told to stand up to bullies, but when WE do it, we’re told WE are the ones being intolerant? Well, okay. Yes. I refuse to tolerate getting my ass kicked. “Guilty as charged.”

And lastly, I’ve use the phrase “the company,” and that’s not entirely accurate.  Those people owning the franchises, managing the stores and working the front counters and the restaurants have been thrown into this, against their will.  I hope people will please remember that and not take it out on them, I can’t imagine how difficult it’s been for those working there lately.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 8/3/2012

I’ve never heard of road tattoos before, I think it’s just another name for public art on a road surface, and that’s okay.  But in Chicago, there is a really awesome road tattoo commemorating LGBT troops.

The design is based on galloons, the decorative gold braiding found on dress uniforms.  Not only do galloons add pomp and ceremony, they are a public indication of the wearer’s rank and years of specific service. In the road tattoo, the galloon braiding coalesce then unravel when viewed from a vehicle driving over it alluding to the ever present interaction of the personal and the public self.  Yellow in color as a nod to the gold of galloons, it is also a reminder of the caution these earlier service members faced when presenting their personal information.

Check it out here, pretty awesome.  I especially like the unraveling and coalescing, I like the imagery of public and private lives and having to keep the two working in tandem.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 8/3/2012

I’m Lebanese, and proud of that heritage.  I love the food (or at least most of it), and I like to be able to add my heritage into conversations about racial intolerance and catch people off guard.  And even though I have the physical look of my German grandfather, I sear I am a quarter Lebanese.

Anyway, the country is a weird contradiction.  Beirut has become a sort of attraction spot for the LGBT community offering a lot of gay clubs.  But sadly, like many other countries, it is still not entirely safe for the LGBT community.

Three dozen men were arrested from a gay cinema, and then forcibly probed and then made to pay for the invasion.

It’s sad to see, even though we’ve made a lot of progress in so many areas (oftentimes in the form of two steps forward, one step back), it is still a shame to see these kind of actions anywhere in the world.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 7/27/2012

Out in California, a camp staff member was fired for “appearing too gay.”  Out of protest, 10 other staff members (of the 30-person staff) walked off the job with two weeks of program left.  Walking off the job were also the Program Director and the number three staff member (out here it would be the Commissioner Director, but I’m not sure how their staff is set up).

I’ve written about it many times, camp staff was so important to me, he sums it up very well:

And although the official policy was that he was not welcome, Griffin said, counselors at summer camp had a different message.

“The thing that really kept me going was Camp Winton,” he said. “It was full of enthusiastic role models … the staff taught me it was OK to be who I was.“

The same is true here, which I think speaks volumes to the quality of the staff members at our camps.  It was very rarely an issue, instead we were judged on the quality (and occasionally quantity) of our work.

Some of the best staff members in the history of our camp are gay, and I look forward to the time when we all feel welcome back at an alumni event, or coming up to volunteer for a weekend with their partners.

It is one of those truths that the younger generations hold without any reservation, but having to wait for the older generations clinging to fear will take too long, and cost too many lives, that is why we fight.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 7/27/2012

A lot more has happened, and as I said before, keeping the BSA in the public eye and keeping the conversation going is what is going to force change.

A few years ago, there was a rash of schools not allowing LGBT youth from bringing same-sex dates to proms and other dances.  They kept stating they didn’t want to cause a distraction.  Well, the distraction they kept getting from public outcry was huge, and finally most caved to that pressure (along with the help from the ACLU).

The Post-Gazette published an editorial, although it was fairly tame, actually.  The same with Rob Rogers, while it was appreciated, I’ve seen him swing for the fences before and this seemed not as impassioned.

Major League Soccer has dissolved the partnership with the BSA, which lasted only a year, and one that came under scrutiny before, because of the BSA’s discrimination.

Joe My God links to this graphic from GLAAD:

And Boing Boing has an amazing roundup of returned Eagle Awards and letters send to the national board.  The post keeps getting updated with more and more returned awards.

The returned awards really has an impact, maybe not as much as we hope, but it has a lot of people talking, which is a good thing.  Camp staff members and other employees are talking about the issue more than I’ve ever heard before.  And while it seems that some people who I thought would be allies, have turned out to be more bigoted than I imagined they could be, the opposite is also true.

I like to think that when I eventually leave and come out, or the the policy changes and I can come out, I can change some of their minds when they look back and realize that nothing is different.  It makes me sad, it really does, thinking that I might lose some of my friends, but then maybe I wouldn’t really want them around anyway if they didn’t accept me.

I have to take a break from writing about it every now and then (hence the post about Chick-Fil-A), just to keep my sanity, but I’ll be back at it again.

I’ll be back with my next issue with some writing about camp, which is always tough for me, but it’s needed.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 7/27/2012

Consumerism and capitalism is a funny thing.  I don’t have any delusions and think that my decisions about where to shop have a huge impact, but I certainly choose to shop at LGBT friendly places whenever I can.  Also, on a side note, I’ve stopped going to Panera since the Covelli-managed ones in the area had that whole class-action lawsuit about racism, so it’s not just LGBT equality that I look out for.

Anyway, it’s fun to see those against the LGBT community get tied up in knots when they try to boycott companies that support equality.

And like i said, I know I don’t make that much of a difference, but I vote with my feet and my wallet, so I’m going to go with it.

I know I’m missing some, but that includes General Mills, JCPenny, Google (yeah, like that will happen) and now, Amazon.

Good luck with that, haters!

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 7/27/2012

I find it strange that it’s taken this long for the mainstream to realize how anti-equality Chick-Fil-A is, especially when I feel as though we already had this massive protest just a few months ago.

Maybe it just takes that long to get from the LGBT community to the rest of society.

While I appreciate so many mayors and members of city councils asking the company to stay out of their cities, I think it’s a bit of a reach, and not a good precedent to set, splitting society like that.  Besides, let them move in and see if they can make a profit, at least it will create some jobs for a little bit.

But I do have to say how awesome it is that The Muppets have pulled their support.

I haven’t eaten there in years, due to the Mormon’s influence on Prop 8, and I don’t think that will change anytime soon, although it’s been fun seeing friends on Facebook come to the same conclusion.  Besides, it’s much more fun to eat local instead of at a national chain (unless it’s a shamrock shake).

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 7/21/2012

A lot has happened lately, I was going to try to split it up between a bunch of various posts, but I think it will make more sense together.  So here we go.

So, Zach Wahls was working with the BSA, and he was told that the national board would be looking at the policy and would be releasing a statement at next year’s annual meeting.  Many people thought this was just a smoke screen, hoping that the public would forget about it in a year.  I feel as though it was genuine, and from the national spokesman, it seemed true.

Now, it comes out that there was a “two-year study” that concluded that the ban should stay in place.

So first, let’s look at the three possible situations about the formation of the committee:

• The national spokesman knew about the committee and its study and chose to lie about it when discussing Zach Wahls and his petition.
• The committee was formed and was meeting, but the spokesman had no knowledge of it
• The committee did not exist, at least not in the way presented

Honestly, the second issue is the most plausible.  And this is me being a communicator talking.  Companies are notorious for keeping the communication departments “away from the table” and in the dark, and the BSA is not the greatest when it comes to communication (granted, we’re getting better internally, but it’s still a mess, I cry each time I have to try to find something on our intranet).  So I think this is what happened, although I think there is some truth in the third possibility as well.

There are rumors that the committee that is referenced is nothing current and in fact is a recycled news story.  Which of course, begs the question, why would they release that news?

All it did was continue to keep the spotlight on the BSA and their discriminatory policies, as well as kick off a slew of protests and continuing coverage.

AmericaBlog brings up the point that from this statement from Mazucca, Cheif Scout Executive:

The vast majority of the parents of youth we servevalue their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers and at the appropriate time and in the right setting,” Mazzuca said. “We fully understand that no single policy will accommodate the many diverse views among our membership or society.

The feeling apparently is that if we don’t talk about something, it will go away.  We’ve seen that that is wrong, and secondly, we’re talking about people.  You can’t bury your head in the sand and wish the LGBT community away.  We’re real people who deserve he basic respect of being recognized.

Also, the 11-person committee, is said to have come from diverse backgrounds, a mix of Scout Executives and volunteers, yet still came to a unanimous decision.  I find it hard to believe that a “diverse” group found this in a unanimous decision.

Let’s also make sure that we ignore the normal ass-hatery that comes out of the woodwork (currently the LGBT community, as well as feminists, pro-choices, liberals and probably all kinds of others are being blamed for the Batman shooting in Colorado), so when the head of the “American Family Association,” Bryan Fisher says that the BSA contacted him, I guess I just can’t believe it.

And in protest, at least two straight Eagle Scouts have sent back their medals, with accompanying letter, and have been floating around the internet, one of which has blown up on Facebook.  The LA Times wrote an editorial scolding the BSA, and the writers at HuffPo came to the attack, stating that the BSA feels gay kids don’t measure up, pointedly looking at the affect this policy has on LGBT youth.   And one of my favorite sites, The Good Men project, makes sure that we know the leaders of the BSA are not good men.

Even BuzzFeed was getting in on the action, posting this amazing tweet:

Also at the same time, being filmed as part of a documentary, a camp counselor comes out to his camp director (presumable a professional Scouter) and is fired.

That is hitting close to home, I always make sure that the LGBT members of the camp staff feel as welcome as they can be.  And I”m sure there are more that I’m unaware of, I strive to make sure it’s as welcoming as it possibly can be, and I think that that has paid off and helped to create an environment of tolerance.  It’s one thing that I can do, but it’s a real difference that I can make.

I think holding the BSA in the spotlight is going to help change this policy, especially since the incoming president of the national board, the president of AT&T is publicly opposed to the ban (which, by the way, when was that announced, I missed it).  It worked for DADT, I hope that we can keep the public’s attention long enough for it to work for the BSA.

Update: Here’s a video blog I just stumbled upon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cVVKv6qqPA

A little over the top and viscous at some points, but he’s very well spoken.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 7/14/2012

A local blog just restarted, the author is a regular guest host on a podcast I listen to, so it’s nice to see him writing again.

This post was very needed, touching and heart-wrenching at the same time:

No matter how much I inform her and try to educate her about my sexuality, it does no good. She knows what the Catholic Church says about people like me and that’s all she needs to know. In her words, “It’s my cross to carry”. When the time is right though, I will let her know. I’ll probably hear a *tisk tisk* as she lower her head in shame and disappointment. I’m preparing myself for that moment cause I know it will be like a knife in the heart. Definitely not the response anyone wants to hear when sharing the amazing news of being engaged.

But this is her and I accept that. I didnt choose this way of life for myself. But she is choosing to go through her life feeling the way she does

Make sure to go check it out and read along.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 6/23/2012

Two stories from the opening of camp.

First, during director’s week, a friend of mine, who is working as an Aquatics Director at one of the camps, proclaimed that he is just waiting for a leader to say something homophobic about his assistant director, so he can tear him down and put him in his place (not to say that women aren’t at camp, or won’t be homophobic, it’s just easier to write out that way).

One of his assistants comes off as gay.  Not sure if he is, but the important fact is that he’s a great worker.  He always volunteers when work needs done, is always engaged, and has a great rapport with the other staff members and the instructors he’s leading.  That’s what made my friend defensive of him, the quality of his work.

The second story, is sadly one that is all too common for me.  My one boss, I’m fairly certain knows that I’m gay, and I think he holds it over my head.  It’s bullying and harassment, but none that I can report without losing my job, so I’m stuck.

He and another long-term summer camp staff member “planted” two magazines in my desk as a joke, no biggie.  One, a gun catalog (which I did find a bit funny, since I’m a pacifist) and the other a Maxim.  However, when I moved to throw them out (since I was actually trying to get some work done), they instead opened to the inside cover, which features a mostly naked man in a cologne ad.

Now, to be fair, they did ask the question which I also through inside my head, why run an ad like that in Maxim?  But anyway, they then reveled in asking me how much I liked that ad, as opposed to the other images in the magazine.

The long-time staff member however, the next day, made sure to reprimand young staff members when he was calling a policy “gay.”  He didn’t realize I overheard him, but his rationale was that I was nearby and would hear, and be offended.  It was actually a touching moment.

So I am conflicted, I like to think that the long-time staff member and I are friends.  I have a real hard time trusting the camp staff, even my friends, and I hate that.  These people are my friends and my family, but I can’t trust them or be close to them.

I am, if nothing else, professional.

Update: That first story, has so much more meaning now than before, I’ll be writing about it later for sure.

Sorry, more ramblings.

All my best,

The King of Spades