My marriage was taken away from me too.
In my case, the means by which I was deprived of that lifelong dream -- robbed of the companionship and trust and comfort of a long-term committed relationship -- was much more conventional, even cliched: after 25 years together, my middle-aged husband left me, riding off into the sunset with a younger woman.
I do not pretend that my pain is the same as your pain. But I do understand pain, and I hurt for all those whose marriages of the heart were finally recognized by the state as legitimate, only to be later denied, as well as (and maybe even more for) those who have never experienced even that temporary recognition.
I also do not pretend that I have any idea what it feels like to have my very legitimacy as a human being -- my right to draw breath -- a core part of my identity -- denied.
From my earliest memories, I've always been sickened, saddened, angered, and baffled by the many ways those deemed "different" and those who are powerless have been tortured, persecuted, beaten, killed, marginalized, enslaved, and humiliated, both in ancient times and in our supposedly more enlightened age. Whether the victim is Kunta Kinte, or James Byrd (dragged to death in Jasper, TX in 1998) or the more recent dragging victim this year in another Texas town, or Matthew Shephard, or BoiseBlue, or a prisoner in Gitmo, or Dachau, or a child molested by a priest or burned by a parent's cigarette or by napalm in the morning, or a gay teenager made to feel so perverted that he takes his own life because it seems pereferable to the alternative, when I read their stories I cower in pain, and shake with rage, and wonder how the hell one human being can do that to another.
Which I guess is why I'm here.
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But I am also here because I truly believe that the only way this history of horror will ever end is if people -- all of us, on every side of every question large or small that governs our interactions with each other as co-residents of this planet -- learn how to talk with, and listen ("listen for understanding," as I tell my math students) to each and every other one of us, no matter how odious that other one may be.
Whether in the sphere of diplomacy, or family conflicts, or race relations, or the influence of religious traditions in our secular society, or nuclear disarmament, this will only happen if one side starts first.
Just as McCain and Clinton and Bush reviled Obama for his willingness to talk with our enemies, and just as the Pharisees reviled Jesus for associating with tax collectors and harlots, and just as family members revile others in the family for suggesting that they should enter into conversation with the parent who abused them or the sibling who disrespected their spouse, and just as hawks reviled doves for proposing even baby steps in unilateral disarmament, Obama is now being reviled by some progressives for consorting with bigots, and Warren is being reviled by some evangelicals for consorting with the devil.
The fact is, somebody always has to take the first step. And the context in which that step is most meaningful is when both sides see the issue as so black and white, and see the person or people on the other side of the issue as so far beyond redemption, that conventional wisdom would say dialogue is useless.
One of the reasons I have passionately supported Barack Obama is that he is the first politician on the national stage in my lifetime who has articulated this philosophy. More to the point, he has shown time after time that this is a talk he habitually walks; he has even demonstrated that he understands at a general level the pitfalls and traps inherent in this approach.
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Did Obama's handling of the Warren pick cause devastating pain to some of his supporters? Yes. And I strongly regret that, even if he has not yet demonstrated that he does.
Did his actions demonstrate tone-deafness? Yes. I suspect (hope?) his musical ear has been brought more in tune now, and he will be more careful in the future.
In short, after reading the anguished and enraged diaries and comments on this site for the past week, I get it that the O-man blew it big time on this decision. And I can't help but think he must be realizing it as well.
That being said, I believe his mistake was not in choosing Warren, but in his failure to recognize the pain that choice would engender, and his failure to take proactive steps to mitigate or alleviate that pain. For example, by affirmatively denouncing Warren's most offensive statements at the time they were made, and formally explaining at the time he chose Warren what that choice did and did not represent in terms of his own agenda. I don't know if that would have been enough, but by consulting with a wide spectrum of representatives of the LGBT community ahead of time, he could have found a way to make his choice less offensive, or maybe even inoffensive, maybe a way to highlight the LGBT struggle for civil rights while still accomplishing his goal of inviting the enemy to join us in the big tent.
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So, at least on some level, to the best of my ability as someone not directly affected, I understand the anger and the pain. And I understand why it is so much more intense, more visceral, and more raw at this particular moment in our history, when our victory in taking the White House back from the monsters was shadowed -- in many cases overshadowed -- by the snatching back of a more personal, hard-won dream.
At the same time, I continue to believe in what I think Obama is trying to do with the Warren pick. I don't believe it represents what some, in their anguish or their rage, have described it as representing. Instead, I think it is merely the opening gambit -- the advance of the first white pawn, so to speak -- in the multi-dimensional chess game that I believe his administration will ultimately prove to be. No, I don't think he is an alien from a planet whose inhabitants' intellects dwarf those of mere earthlings. But I wish those who are so angry would see this one move in the big-picture context in which I see it.
Yet I keep hearing the echo of a phrase often repeated by a therapist I used to date, about the impact of one's words and actions, as opposed to their intent. And I know how insulting and condescending it is to suggest to someone how they "should" experience particular words and actions, because impact and intent are two different things.
As I try to reconcile my human empathy with my political philosophy in a way that neither insults or dismisses others, nor betrays what I deeply believe, what I really want to do is just repeat that (elegantly simple? or foolishly simplistic?) request made in the midst of a distant political conflagration, by Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?" Or, as Melissa Etheridge sang as she tore at my heartstrings during the Democratic Convention, "Give peace a chance."
But I know it's not that simple.