From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Good morning. I'm gay. But you can call me Billeh
Until I was 25, I was the only man I knew who had no story at all. I'd long since accepted that fact that nothing had ever happened to me and nothing ever would. That's how the closet feels, once you've made your nest in it and learned how to call it home. Self-pity becomes your oxygen.
---From Becoming A Man: Half A Life Story (1992 National Book Award Winner), by Paul Monette.
Today is the 24th annual
National Coming Out Day. I officially swung my closet door open on Saturday, December 14th, 1991, 17 years after I became aware of physical attraction to another person via a crush on a fifth-grade classmate at East Elementary School in Mount Vernon, Ohio who was, whaddyaknow, a dude. Like every other human being I know, straight or gay, those feelings (aka that orientation) just happened---thank you, hormones and brain wiring. If you ever want to flummox a right-winger in a "nature vs. nurture" debate, just ask them when they chose to be straight---watching the gears grind away in their heads as they contemplate that is always good fun.
Being in the closet sucked. The biographical and behavioral self-editing you have to do in the presence of other people---family and co-workers especially---becomes a depressing grind. "When are you gonna find the right gal to settle down with?" "Any hot dates this weekend?" "Got a girlfriend?" "Hey, look at that hot chick over there! Bet you'd like to bang her, amiright? Amiright???" (Actually, no, but the guy she's with is pretty cute.) Add an unhealthy dollop of fear, inferiority and paranoia, and you end up living Paul Monette's proverbial "half a life."
So, fearing the worst but hoping for the best, I came out when I was living in homophobic Saginaw, Michigan. A few people cried because they were happy for me. One person cried because I was going to hell. Some asked a bunch of questions and others didn’t know what to say except, "Okay." And that was that. Hello, world. Or, as Monette wrote:
I can't conceive of the hidden life anymore, don't think of it as life. When you finally come out, there's a pain that stops, and you know it will never hurt like that again, no matter how much you lose or how bad you die. ... I still shiver with a kind of astonished delight when a gay brother or sister tells of that narrow escape from the coffin world of the closet. Yes, Yes, Yes, goes a voice in my head, it was JUST like that for me. When we laugh together in the giddy circle of freedom, we are children for real at last, because we have finally grown up.
Watching the advancement of the LGBT movement has been nothing short of astonishing to me, and it's mainly because of some simple math: the more we come out, the more society at large---including the Daily Kos community, ya big lugs---recognizes us, supports us, and advocates on our behalf towards the less-elusive-than-ever goal of full equality. (And we appreciate it more than you'll ever know.) Nobody said it better than good old
Harvey Milk:
"Gay brothers and sisters, you must come out. Come out to your parents ... Come out to your relatives. Come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors, to your fellow workers, to the people who work where you eat and shop. Come out only to the people you know, and who know you. Not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake."
...and for your free toaster oven.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, October 11, 2012
Note: It's 10/11/12. I forget…are we supposed to drive around shooting our guns in the air or hide under the bed?
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Halloween: 20
Days 'til the Arizona Taco Festival in Scottsdale: 9
Annual abortion rate in the St. Louis area generally: 13-17%
Annual abortion rate during a study in St. Louis in which teen girls were given access to free birth control: 4.4-7.5%
(Source: Obstetrics & Gynecology)
Number of teachers who were hired between July and September, the fastest growth since 2006: 79,000
(Source: CNN)
Number of cars Toyota is recalling worldwide because the glove compartments are infested with pythons: 7 million
(Source: MSNBC and my fevered imagination)
Percent chance that fat-bottomed girls make the rocking world go 'round: 100%
(Source: Queen)
-
Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
As all the Miss Witherspoons of our lives used to call in those clear, fluty tones, "Attention, girls!" Heads up, women, we've got problems.
The latest in a long line of anti-woman decisions by the Bush administration is, for once, getting some attention, in part because of the sheer cheapness of the move. President Bush has decided not to send the $34 million approved by both houses of Congress for the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA). The fund provides contraception, family planning and safe births, and works against the spread of HIV and against female genital mutilation in the poorest countries of the world. Thirty-four million dollars goes a long way in the parts of the world where over 600,000 women die every year from pregnancy and childbirth, many of them children themselves.
Of course, our poor government is so broke it can't afford to waste $34 million on women in poor countries. It has more important things to do, like spending $100 million on "promoting marriage." (I'm in favor of recycling old Nike ads for this one: "Marriage. Just do it.")
---October, 2002
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Hulk Smash!!! Adorable!!!
-
Sneak preview: Jan. 20, 2013
to schooling the numbers guy. Tonight's the night Joe Biden adds to his high percent of debate victories by multiplying his powers of persuasion to divide fake budget hawk Paul Ryan's word problems like so many slices of pi. Biden's calculated arguments and zingers will cause an instant subtraction of prime numbers from the (romney)-RYAN campaign's plus-column, leaving them with a fraction of their recent gains and providing proof that a new Obama campaign theorem has kicked in: "We're back, yo." That's my angle on it, anyway.
CHEERS to the sanctity of marriage. Happy 37th Anniversary to President Bill and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton! According to the Texas School Board-approved
Big Pop-up Book of American History, they got hitched on October 11, 1975 while running from the Feds during a string of bank robberies, after which they bribed and murdered their way to the Arkansas governor's mansion, where they participated in masked spouse-swapping parties while dipping their enemies in slopgrease and feeding them to the hogs out in the back yard next to their bribe cash vault. And here's the cutest little nugget
from their early courtship in Berkeley circa 1971:
Bill & Hill on the way to their wedding
"I was astonished," Mrs. Clinton wrote in her 2003 memoir, Living History. "He had decided, he told me, that we were destined for each other, and he didn't want to let me go just after he'd found me," she wrote. "I was thrilled."
The new couple quickly became quite domestic. Bowing to her future husband's Arkansas roots, Mrs. Clinton baked him a peach pie. The pair also "produced a palatable chicken curry for any and all occasions we hosted,"
Mrs. Clinton recalled.
That's amore!
JEERS to the world according to that former G.E. CEO who's one bucket of KFC away from the ICU. For those of you just tuning in, here's how it works in Welch World: When employment falls during a Republican administration it's a blip. When employment falls during a Democratic administration it's incompetence. When employment rises during a Republican administration it's AWESOME! When employment rises during a Democratic administration it's FRAUD! And from now on whenever the king of Welch World opens his mouth, only rats will follow him.
CHEERS to fabulous first ladies. Happy Birthday to Eleanor Roosevelt on her 128th orbit around the sun. Like Hillary Clinton, she didn't confine herself to picking out White House china patterns; she served as the U.S. Delegate to the United Nations, and was a staunch civil rights advocate, syndicated columnist and lecturer. George Washington University's impressive Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project sums up her legacy by saying she "inspired citizens and nations 'to hazard all they have' to build a world governed by diplomacy, citizen engagement, and democratic policy. Her example of peace building and human rights advocacy throughout her life is a model to be studied and applied not only here in the United States but around the world." Some vintage Eleanor:
Great First Lady?
...or Greatest First Lady Ever?
The function of democratic living is not to lower standards but to raise those that have been too low.
-
Our trouble is that we do not demand enough of the people who represent us. We are responsible for their activities. . . . we must spur them to more imagination and enterprise in making a push into the unknown; we must make clear that we intend to have responsible and courageous leadership.
-
A democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals. It cannot be better than they are.
Ugh. We're in trouble, then, ma'am. Pay your respects
to the ol' gal here. And bask in the knowledge that she could hogtie Ann Romney in a vat of Jell-O and make her squeal in 5 seconds flat.
P.S. Lovely chalkmanship!
-
Five years ago in C&J: October 11, 2007
JEERS to the Jerry Lewis Telethon's worst nightmare. This tells you all you need to know about "compassionate conservatism." Watch how Mitt "I Just Escaped From The Mormon Wax Museum" Romney deals with a question by an adult MD sufferer who weighs 80 pounds and says that five doctors call him "living proof" that medical marijuana works. Romney later defended his behavior, saying, "I would've stuck around but I was late for my appointment to push an old lady down the stairs."
-
And just one more…
Money clip from the "Atlas Shrugged II" store
to more Rand reels. When
Atlas Shrugged, Part I was released last year to brutal reviews and, shall we say, modest box office traffic, the producers weren't sure they could finance the sequel. Tea Party Republicans might be denied their chance to find out…
Who IS John Galt?!! (Spoiler Alert:
he's a DREAMBOAT!) So it came as quite a relief when I found out last night that
Atlas Shrugged II will be in theatres
this Friday! More TRAINS! More TAGGERT and STADLER! More GUNS! More SMELTING, yes I said SMELTING! And, of course, more MOUNTAIN FORTRESSES! Here,
check it out for yourself. Advance word is positive, with conservative millionaires giving it their highest rating: four hissy fits.
Have a nice Thursday. Happy Birthday, Senator Patty Murray of Washington! (And many blessings on your camels.) Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Cutting Cheers and Jeers is no way to balance the budget."
---Michelle Obama
10/9/12
-
