Contemplating the Orlando Mayhem

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"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Thomas Jefferson 1776

Here – in the majestic phrases of the Declaration of Independence – Jefferson presumes to speak for the “creator” – but unfortunately the white men to whom he was pandering had other ideas – which have taken quite a while to play out – or as James Madison put it: to form a more perfect union.

Today – four-days after the numbing news that 49 gay Americans had been brutally mowed-down – in the to-date largest mass-murder in American history – the horrific Orlando Pulse gay nightclub shooting – I pulled up this rather guileless query from my Facebook newsfeed:

“ …. Why is everything lit up in rainbows – looks like a spilt bag of skittles everywhere! The 49 that were brutally murdered were AMERICANS, who happened to be GAY. Why is everyone making it such a fucking gay thing?”

I reflected on those words for long moments – before I composed the following rejoinder.

Fascinatin’ observation indeed. My snarky answer would be: “Why was the terrorist killing of nine black people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston – by a Rebel Flag waving white supremacist – such a fucking black thing?”

But seriously – let’s talk. For more than a century gay people have been alternately – criminalized – medicalized – and stigmatized – not for their lack of birthright – but for who they are.

Our Constitution was ratified in 1788. As a white, European-descended, heterosexual male – you are a member of the lucky-sperm club. Our founding fathers elevated you to first class citizenship from the get-go. Everybody else – quite literally – has had to get in line. And gays are still in line (read on).

Women

It took women 132 years (19^th Amendment) to get the right to vote. (And by the way – if it were up to Georgia – they still might not have the right – as Georgia legislators voted against it!) It took another 45 years (1965 Griswold v. Connecticut) for the right to decide – all by themselves – without their husband’s permission – whether-or-not they could get pregnant. 

And it took another 8 years (1973 Roe v Wade) for women to be granted the constitutional protection to control their own reproductive rights – without the permission of politicians.

African Americans

It took African Americans 77 years (1865 ratification of the 13^th Amendment) to be recognized as human beings who could not be bought and sold like livestock – and another 3 years (1868 ratification of the 14^th Amendment) to be guaranteed equal protection under public law.

It took another 80 years for the right to serve in the military (1948 Truman Executive Order 9981) – and another 6 years (1954 Brown v Board of Education) for the right to attend public schools. 

Segregation today. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever.  Alabama governor George Wallace, in a symbolic attempt to keep his inaugural promise to stop the desegregation of schools, stood at University of Alabama to block the entry of two black students, 

The famous "Little Rock Nine" (1957) were the first African American students to integrate a public high school.

And yet another 10 years (1964 Civil Rights Act) to be recognized under public law as first class citizens – and still another year (1965 Voting Rights Act) for the right to vote in all states.  

Storied Birmingham Alabama police chief – Bull Connor – sicks attack dogs on civil rights protesters

And still another 2 years (1967 Loving v Virginia) to be granted the constitutional right to marry whomever they chose.

Mildred Loving and Richard Loving were sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other. Their marriage violated the state's anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored".

Gay Americans

It took gay Americans 181 years (1969 Stonewall Inn riots) to actually stake a claim in society. 

Subjected to violent police raids – and ignominious arrests for then-illegal association – patrons of New York's Stonewall Inn erupted in a week-long protest for their civil rights. New York police backed-down.

Still it would take another 4 years (1973 removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - DSM) – to be recognized as clinically normal – as opposed to suffering from a mental illness which rendered them congenitally perverted – calling for them to be cured.

Early 'cures' prescribed for homosexuality often included electro-shock treatment

It took another 30 years (2003 Lawrence v Texas) for the constitutionally protected right to have consensual sex with each other – without the risk being convicted for a felony and jailed in many states.

Lawrence v Texas reversed the previous ruling of Bowers v Hardwick (5-4 1986) – which upheld  Georgia's anti-sodomy law, criminalizing oral and anal sex between consenting adults. When an Atlanta police officer entered Michael Hardwick's home to serve him a warrant for littering – the officer inadvertently encountered Hardwick and a friend engaged in oral sex. The officer issued a warrant for both men's arrest under Georgia's anti-sodomy law. Hardwick sued in state court and lost. He appealed, and right-wing Republican Georgia Attorney General Michael Bowers seized on the case – dogging Hardwick all the way to the Supreme Court.  In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Warren Burger cited homosexual sex as an “infamous crime against nature”, worse than rape, and “a crime not fit to be named”. Bowers went on to run for governor in 1998, but lost when it came out during the campaign that he was actively engaged in an extra-marital affair with his secretary and former Playboy Bunny Anne Davis.    

And another 8 years (2011 repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell) for the right to serve in the military without the risk of being booted-out with a ‘dishonorable discharge.’ 

The memorable 2011 homecoming smooch of Sgt. Brandon Morgan and boyfriend Dalan Wells sustained over 10 million Twitter 'shares'

And another 2 years (2013 United States v Windsor [repeal of DOMA]) to receive spousal federal benefits of Social Security and IRS inheritance.

U.S. Residents Thea Spyer and Eddie Windsor had been a couple for more than 40 years. They were legally married in Canada in 2007. When Thea died in 2009 – she left Eddie an inheritance – for which the IRS billed Eddie $363,000 in estate taxes.  (If they had been man and wife – the bill would have been zero.) Eddie sued the IRS – which resulted in the Repeal of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act)

And still another 2 year (2016 Obergefell v Hodges) for the right to marry in all 50 states.

In 2013, Ohio resident James Obergefell chartered an air ambulance to fly his terminally ill partner John Arthur to Baltimore, Maryland where same-sex marriage was then legal. They were married on the tarmac. John died three months later. When James requested that Ohio show John was 'married' on the death certificate – it was denied on the grounds that same-sex marriage was illegal in Ohio. James sued and eventually took it all the way to the Supreme Court – resulting in the landmark 5-4 nationwide marriage equality ruling.   

And – oh did I mention – that at the onset of the AIDS crisis in the 1981 – Ronald Reagan refused to utter the word AIDS until a press conference in 1985 – and forbade his Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, from speaking about AIDS – or referencing it in any government health publications.

It was not until 1987 – spurred by the storied civil disobedience of ACT Up and other LGBT activist groups – that the Reagan administration formally acknowledged the existence of the plague. Meanwhile, AIDS, whose sexually-transmitted epidemiological vectors – quite by accident – first got a foot-hold among urban gay men –proceeded to infect more than 36,000 – and systematically kill some 21,000 – at that time a 100 percent death sentence.

Gay activist Larry Kramer fomented the nationwide Act Up civil disobedience group – which eventually lead to the Reagan administration's acknowledging and funding AIDS research

Indeed – it did not go unnoticed that much of Reagan's political base came from the newly-minted religious right and the self-identified Moral Majority, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, Sr. Accordingly, under Reagan, AIDS became the tool, and gay men the target, for the politics of fear, hate and discrimination.

Falwell famously allowed: "[sic] AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals."  And Reagan's communications director, Pat Buchanan (yep the same Pat Buchanan), proclaimed that AIDS was "[sic] nature's revenge on gay men."

But my Facebook friend – you say – well at least that’s over with. Gays can finally wave the American flag as first class citizens. Wrong again – if you really think that.

Today, in 28 states, gays can still be legally denied employment, fired from their jobs, prevented from renting an apartment, and denied loans from a state-licensed credit union – all on the basis of their sexual orientation.

The late Topeka, Kansas Westboro Baprtist Church majordomo – Rev. Fred Phelps – turned a personality disorder into a lucrative career – by picketing the funerals of deceased gay Americans – with shockingly obscene messages.  His mission later morphed into picketing the funerals of soldiers – declaring them Hell-bound for fighting for a country that condoned homosexuality.

Since last year’s landmark ‘marriage equality’ ruling – 20 states (all Republican legislative majorities) have introduced 254 bills to restrict the rights of gay citizens under cover of religious bigotry – 20 of which have become public law.

And Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Roy Moore – is currently under federal court injunction for his attempt to nullify the Obergefell ruling – by ordering all of the state’s Clerks of Courts to deny marriage licenses to gay couples. And seven states have enacted laws denying equal access to goddamn bathrooms based on gender identity.

Alabama federal Judge Roy Moore – piously mugs for cameras next to a washing-machine sized monument to the Ten Commandments – which we had placed in the state capitol in Montgomery. When federal courts ordered its removal under grounds of '1st Amendment separation of church and state' – Roy balked – and was kicked off the bench. He subsequently ran for the elected office of Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court – and was resoundingly elected. After the 2015 Obergefell marriage equality ruling – Roy balked again – and ordered Alabama clerks to deny same-sex marriage licenses. The Feds intervened again and removed him from office. Roy vows to run for Alabama governor in 2018. 

We hear a lot about radicalized Muslims in the Middle East executing gays and throwing them off rooftops. In fact, erstwhile Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz – when asked what he would do to protect gays – offered up the comforting notion (and I am not making this up) – that at least in the United States we don’t throw you off rooftops.

Virulently homophobic 2016 GOP presidential hopeful Ted Cruz doubled-down on the partisan anti-gay bigotry – soliciting the endorsement of shockingly anti-gay fundamentalist Christian clerics. 

Meanwhile – fundamentalist so-called Christian preachers regularly rail from the pulpit –calling alternately for the criminalization, jailing, internment, and/or execution of gay Americans – whipping up anti-gay bigotry as an article of faith. Why don’t you Google it – just shits and giggles.

Now about the Pulse gay nightclub terrorist attack. I’m sure you couldn’t help but notice that Omar Mateen didn’t pick out an equally-attended straight sports bar – or a large sporting event – to wreak his atrocious murderous mayhem.

By all accounts – Mateen cased the Orlando Pulse LGBT club for months on end. Why do you reckon that was? Do you suppose it might have been to target gay people – as a hate crime? While the American-born, American-raised, and American-acculturated Mateen may have indeed been inspired by ISIS – there is incontrovertibly zero evidence that he had any organized assistance or funding from the organization.

It seems evident that his primary objective was to kill gay people. Any other peripheral reason – seems a distant after thought and perhaps desperate ulterior motive to somehow legitimize his actions – couched in any values – however depraved – other than his own deep-seated homophobic psychosis.

And oh yes – there is abundant evidence that Mateen may have been gay, or bisexual, himself – perhaps suffering from the crippling mental anguish of internalized self-hatred or denial. All the more tragic – that – if so – but for the societal and religious stigma (he was raised a Muslim) he might have been happily acculturated into his own identity – and 49 young and vital gay Americans would still be alive.

And his young son would not be fatherless, facing the uthinkable knowledge that his father died in a hail of police gunfire, after single-handedly perpetrating the country’s biggest – to-date – mass-murder. Could there ever be enough therapy to overcome that?

Indeed, that selfsame reason is why a shocking thirty percent of American gay teens attempt suicide by the age of 15 – and gay adults are six times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight counterparts.

So my Facebook friend – just maybe this is why you see the solidarity of the gay community united in its own rainbow flag. Maybe in another place – and another time – when all anti-gay religious bigotry and systemic homophobia are put to rest – and 49 gay bodies are not stacked three-deep in a bloody massacre – and we are all truly united in one country – under equal liberty and justice – just maybe they’ll fly the American flag above the rainbow flag. 

Comprende?

RIP – in memoriam – 49 Victims of the Orlando Pulse gay Nightclub Massacre

Calhoun Georgia 06/16/16