It must be OK to be who we really are

Violence against transgender individuals must stop now. Do you have any idea what it's like to be told you must be one way even though you know you are another? Of course you do. Society tells each of us every day that we must be this or that, even though we know we are something else entirely. 

We are told we "must" be "housewives" or "breadwinners" or "good Christians" or "patriots," whatever those things mean. (Like so many other sweeping generalizations, their meanings are open to an endless number of interpretations). Yet we are unique individuals, not cookie-cutter caricatures, and dignity demands that we be acknowledged for who we are, whether that involves gender identity, as it does for some of my friends, or artistic identity, as it does for some others.

I often hear people say, "Put yourself in another person's shoes." But we're already there. We wear those shoes today, at this very moment. Perhaps our lives aren't being threatened because of it. But we're there nonetheless: just a heartbeat away from disapproval or marginalization by those who may decide, at the drop of a hat, we don't fit their status quo. Our lives and livelihoods might not be threatened now, but there but for the grace of God - or the luck of the draw - go we.

Who among us can say that no one ever demanded that we be something or someone we're not - that we MUST "get with the program" or be alienated and demeaned? If we're honest, none of us can say that. That's why I stand with LGBT individuals, and that's why I will continue to stand with them. They pose no threat to me. The true threats are spoken by those who say, "You're not allowed to be 'that way.' That “you must conform to our preconceived notions.”

How many times have I been told this? Too often. Yet not as often as many others.

It's easy to make fun of people who aren't like us. It seems to make us feel superior. But that feeling is a mirage bought at great cost: the cost of our own honesty, self-respect and, worse still, at the cost of innocent lives not fully lived. Should we not invest instead in something real: the right of self-expression and the freedom to be who we truly are? That's not too much to ask. Indeed, it's the most fundamental thing most of us ever ask for. And we, each and every one of us, deserve nothing less.

The Force Would Not Be With the Empire in a War With the Federation

Ever wonder how a battle between the United Federation of Planets and the Galactic Empire might play out? Wonder no more. Here's why the Federation (Star Trek) would defeat the Empire (Star Wars) without even breaking a sweat.

1. Cloaking technology - advantage Federation. Yes, Kirk and Spock stole this from the Romulans, but that only goes to show they're better spies, too.
2. Transporter technology - advantage Federation.
3. Logic - advantage Federation (no Vulcans in the empire).
4. Artificial intelligence - advantage Federation. Sorry, R2D2, but you're no Data.
5. Time travel capability - advantage Federation.
6. Navigational prowess - advantage Federation. Yes, Han Solo is a decent improvisational pilot, but he doesn't stack up against Data, Dax or Sulu; besides, when did he ever engineer a trip to the past by attempting a slingshot maneuver around a star?
7. Weapons capabilities - advantage Federation. Comparing a light saber to a phaser is like comparing a broadsword to a machine gun. That's not to mention photon torpedoes, quantum torpedoes and the potential doomsday use of the Genesis device. Two words that would be enough to make Vader soil that plastic-plated "armor" of his: Locking phasers. 
8. Tractor-beam technology - advantage Federation. Just lock onto that Death Star and haul it into the nearest black hole.
9. Empaths - advantage Federation (no Betazoids in the empire).
10. Diversity - advantage Federation (more than 150 member worlds vs. lookalike storm troopers).
11. Bad-ass warriors - advantage Federation. Can you name a single member of the empire who could stand up to a Klingon warrior with a bat'leth? Or without one, for that matter? Jar-Jar Binks, maybe? Jabba the Hutt? I think not. The Federation could also call on Mr. Spock, Kira Nerys, Jadzia Dax, Hikaru Sulu and others who are quite skilled at physical combat.
12. Shield (force field) technology - advantage Federation. Two words that should strike terror into the heart of anyone aboard the Death Star.
13. Medicine - advantage Federation. Let's see: McCoy, Crusher, Phlox, Bashir, Pulaski, EMH (The Doctor). Do they even have physicians in the empire, let alone tricorders? How about dermal, bone and cellular regenerators? Thought not.
14. Financing - advantage Federation. The presence of a Ferengi (Nog) in Starfleet and another (Quark) on a Federation space station gives the Federation a definite edge in terms of raising enough gold-pressed latinum to finance the very short war that would be needed to force the empire's surrender.
15. Engineering expertise - advantage Federation. Does the empire have anyone approaching the skill levels of Montgomery Scott, Geordi LaForge, Miles O'Brien, B'Elanna Torres or Trip Tucker? Does it even have engineers at all, or is everything held together with duct tape and the Force?
16. Holodecks/suites - advantage Federation. Great venues for everything for combat training to R and R. Nothing like that in the empire.
17. Quality of opposition - advantage Federation. Starfleet has faced off against the Borg, Klingons, Romulans, Andoreans, Jem'Hadar, Changelings, Cardassians, rogue Vulcans, genetically engineered humans, crystalline entities, Xindi, time-traveling Suliban, Mirror Universe alter egos. ... I'll stop there. Talk about opportunities to hone your skills. The empire lost its shirt at the hands of the Rebel Alliance, which would be like the Maquis conquering the Federation. Um, no. Not gonna happen.
18. Leadership - advantage Federation. I'll take Sisko, Kirk, Picard, Archer, Janeway, Spock, Data, Sulu, Scotty, Dax, etc. over Vader's posturing and Palpatine's bloated arrogance any day. I'll also take Spock's logic over any Jedi's nebulous talk about the Force without hesitation.
19. Space travel - advantage Federation. Starfleet has multiple classes of starship featuring creative designs, not to mention space stations, runabouts, shuttles and so forth. Most Star Wars ships, by contrast, look like glorified USAF fighter jets or battleships floating out in space. Starfleet ships also come equipped with warp drive, and Deep Space Nine offers immediate access to a wormhole. We're looking at a fleet of Ferraris and Porsches standing next to a bunch of rickshaws and Model-T's.
20. Natural abilities - advantage Federation. Yes, Jedis can wield the force, but that's no match for Q, who, despite his mercurial nature and propensity for creating obstacles, always seems to have the Federation's back when it's most needed. And if Starfleet managed to locate and enlist the help of Kevin Uxbridge ... well, do you really mean to suggest that Palpatine or Vader would be any match for a Douwd? 

The fate of the Galactic Empire would be decided the moment Picard said, "Make it so," and the war would be over faster than a replicator could deliver a steaming cup of Earl Grey to his eagerly waiting hands.

Independence Day: The Perfect Time for Independent Thought

As a child, Independence Day was my favorite holiday – because of the fireworks, of course, and because it meant that, the following day, I’d get to blow out candles, eat cake and open presents for my birthday.

Now that I’m an adult, it’s still one of my favorites. I don’t get as many presents these days, fireworks won’t light up the sky in many places because of the fire danger caused by the drought, and I shouldn’t eat cake because of my diabetes. (Shhhhh. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m going to do that anyway. I’ve given myself permission to indulge once in a blue moon.)

These days, the reason I like the holiday is what it stands for: not just the birth of my nation but even more than that, as the name indicates, independence.

It marks the date of publication for the Declaration of Independence, a document that begins memorably by naming three “unalienable” rights: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Independence meant, according to those who penned this document and the 56 men who signed it, the ability to exercise these “self-evident” rights.

Almost half the Declaration is a laundry list of grievances against the British Empire, the authors’ justification for declaring their freedom from what they described as “an absolute Tyranny over these states.” Each of those grievances, these men felt, denied them one or more of those three basic rights they spelled out in their introduction.

They made their case to the world in this document, published on July 4, 1776.

This happened before the adoption of the Constitution, which wouldn’t even be drafted until more than a decade later. It happened long before two major parties came to dominate the nation’s politics. It was before the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, before greenbacks and the Red Scare, before the “liberal media” and “conservative talk radio.”

The Declaration’s authors were writing on a clean slate, and the first three principles they highlighted were Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Philosophically, everything else the nation, and we as citizens of that nation, stand for rests on that – even the Constitution. Whereas the list of grievances in the Declaration set forth the founders’ ideas of what freedom wasn’t, the Bill of Rights laid out what they thought it was: specific rights to such things as a public trial, free assembly and expression, freedom from the establishment of religion by law, and so on. But again, all were based on those three self-evident, founding principles set forth in the Declaration.

If we interpret the Constitution in such a way that infringes upon Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, we may not be breaking the letter of the law, but we’re violating its spirit. Its inspiration.

As an author, I can tell you that, without inspiration, there would be no story, let alone a happy ending.

Independence was meant to be not only the beginning for these United States, but the mechanism by which we endured from one happy ending to the next. Not just independence as a nation, but independence as people.

The grievances in the Declaration might be summed up in the simple, defiant statement, “No one’s going to tell us (or U.S.) what to do.”

That’s why the Fourth of July is more than a celebration of our nation’s independence. It’s an affirmation of our independence as individuals, of our freedom to assert those three unalienable rights.

We can’t do that without independence of thought, without the willingness to stay off the bandwagon. The willingness to question the dogmatism of our politicians, religious leaders, buzzwords, sound bites and ad campaigns – those professed “truths” that seek to pass themselves off as self-evident when they may not even be true at all.

We can argue until we’re red, white and blue in the face - wrapping ourselves in the language of patriotism as much as we want - over how to interpret the Constitution.

But unless our interpretation upholds those three unalienable rights that undergird the Declaration, we do ourselves and our country a grave disservice.

That may not be a matter of law, but it’s essential to spirit.

The spirit of 1776.  

Memo to Businesses: When You Provide a Service, It's Not About You

Why should a baker be forced to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple if he's against same-sex marriage? 

The answer is simple: If you offer a service to the public at large, you shouldn't be able to make a distinction because of your religion, your preferences or your ethics. Why? Because it's not about you.

Of course, you should be able to exercise your religious rights when it's just about you. No one is forcing you to marry someone of the same sex, but what business of yours is it what someone else decides to do? You won't be eating dinner with that same-sex couple when they come home from work. You won't be sharing their bed. You won't be cleaning their cat's litter box, taking their kids to school, washing their dishes or paying their hospital bills. You won't be reaping the benefits of that marriage - the love, the retirement plan, the vacations spent together - and it's not your responsibility. Which is to say, you don't get a say.

Because it's not about you.

Those actions only become "about you" when you engage in them yourself, when they become an integral part of your own life. That's the distinction.

If you're serving the general public as a businessperson, the service you provide is not about you, either. That service is provided for your customers. It's about them. Hence the old saying (too often ignored these days) that the customer is always right. That saying doesn't come with a qualifier like "as long as he's a straight, white, Protestant, Bible-believing male who roots for the Dallas Cowboys." It stands on its own, just as the money exchanged in any such transaction stands on its own. It's legal tender for all debts public and private. Says so right there on the currency. If the money doesn't discriminate, why should the service? It's a two-way street.

Here's the good news: If the service is about the customer, the money is about you, the merchant. You get to use it to buy school supplies for your kids, take a vacation with your spouse, buy cat litter for your feline friend, and so forth. Is that really so bad? You worry that someone else's same-sex wedding is damaging your marriage in some nebulous, undefined way, but isn't that money actually affecting your marriage far more tangibly and directly? And in a good way!

And you shouldn't worry about churches being forced to perform weddings for same-sex couples, either. That's a different slice of cake altogether. The distinction is simple: Unlike businesses, churches aren't offering their services to the general public. They're offering them to people of their own faith because, by definition, a church is built on moral and doctrinal agreements among members of the same faith. 

Religious institutions such as churches, mosques and temples wouldn't exist without the faith to which they're attached. It's their fundamental raison d'etre. The same cannot be said for businesses owned by Christian, Muslim, Wiccan or Buddhist owners. They aren't in business to spread or facilitate their faith; they're in business to make a living by serving the general public. If their religion conflicts with their ability to provide the service they're offering, they should find another line of business - or, if they prefer, another religion. The choice is theirs.

This is, in fact, exactly what an Alabama judge decided to do: To avoid issuing licenses to same-sex couples, he decided to stop issuing licenses altogether. According to the judge, the law states that counties "may" (as opposed to "must") issue marriage licenses. So he's taking his county out of the marriage business.

Clearly, the government isn't a private business, and the judge's action amounts to using the law as an excuse to enshrine a form of institutional bias. But I have to give the judge credit for one thing: He understands the principle that it's all or nothing. If you offer a service to the general public, you must serve everyone in the general public equally. Your only alternative is to pack up your tent and go home - where you can eat that cake you refused to bake for that same-sex couple (if it isn't stale by the time you get there and doesn't aggravate your diabetes).

If you're in business to serve the general public, that includes people of both genders, of all races, creeds and sexual orientations. If you don't feel comfortable providing a service, stop providing that service ... to everyone. But don't pretend you have a problem with the service itself when your real issue is with the person on the other end - someone who has every right to live her own life independently without being told by some business she isn't good enough. If you think you can or should play a role in her life by limiting her options, that's your ego, not your ethics, talking.

And as I said, it's not about you.

Same-sex marriage: Traditional values are no longer an exclusive club

Justice Antonin Scalia is right.

"One would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie," Scalia wrote in his dissent to Friday's announced 5-4 decision overturning same-sex marriage bans nationwide.

What Scalia did was identify marriage as a conservative value. A family value. And he acknowledged that Friday's ruling gave same-sex couples the right to participate in that conservative institution. What self-described conservatives against same-sex marriage won't like about the court's latest ruling is that people they perceive as "the other" have been given the freedom Friday to become part of "their" tribe - as if marriage were somehow exclusively theirs. That's not conservatism, it's elitism.

Opponents of same-sex marriage don't tend to like the "hippies" Scalia ironically quoted as authoritative in this matter, viewing them as promiscuous, irresponsible, pot-smoking layabouts. That is, of course, a grossly unfair stereotype, but it's one that has persisted in right-wing circles for decades. And that's the point: Some self-described hippies don't smoke pot, some are extremely responsible and socially active, and some are just as committed to the idea of monogamy as those who are likely to vote for Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum or Mike Huckabee.

For decades, gays and lesbians were forced to undergo the indignity of whispered exchanges and secret rendezvous in bathhouses or highway rest stops. Like anyone else, they had a strong drive to experience sexual intimacy, but they were forced to pursue that intimacy in settings that encouraged "one-night stands" or what society would label "promiscuous behavior." Society at large came to view promiscuity as a natural part of the gay experience, when in fact it was just the opposite: Gay and lesbian individuals had to settle for such behavior because they couldn't speak openly, court openly, develop long-term intimate partnerships openly. Sure, some enjoyed having multiple partners - just as some "straight" individuals do.

The point is that promiscuity wasn't some kind of "side effect" of being gay, it was a situation enforced upon the gay and lesbian community by a then-majority view of people who "didn't want to see that put in their face." Then, because same-sex partners went underground with their relationships - out of necessity - the members of that same majority mocked them: "See, we told you so! They're a bunch of promiscuous bed-hoppers." Talk about a no-win situation.

What the Supreme Court did Friday ended that. It validated that everyone in the United States has the right to embrace a conservative tradition, regardless of what the self-described conservative "elite" would prefer. Folks with similar views tried to keep African-Americans from eating at certain establishments - and thereby participating in another conservative institution: capitalism.

The opposition to gay marriage, like the opposition to racial equality, isn't about defending conservative principles, it's about keeping others from exercising those principles themselves. Justice Scalia's words Friday ripped the pretense off that motivation and exposed it for the world to see. He also exposed it as the constitutional affront such opposition embodies: a brazen reassertion of the long-discredited "separate but equal" doctrine. 

Most courts across the country had already recognized this. Now, it's writ large for the nation to see in Scalia's own dissent.

Thank you, Mr. Scalia, for showing your true colors. And thank you, Justice Kennedy, for allowing the rest of us to show ours.

Sincerely, a monogamous, straight, white male ally 

It's not even really the Confederate flag

There's a lot of heated debate about the so-called "Confederate flag" online, with each side accusing the other of historical ignorance. One side insists it signifies racism, while the other says it's a symbol of Southern pride.

The result is one big verbal brouhaha. A fight. And that's oddly appropriate when you think about it. Flags in general started out as tools of warfare. They were used to identify members of a military group, to rally the troops and to coordinate attacks. To defend the flag was to defend what it stood for: your comrades in arms and the kingdom, nation-state or tribe for which they were fighting.

These days, flags fly over embassies and state capitol buildings, ballparks and cemeteries: places far afield from any battle. Some battle flags evolved to become national flags. But the flag we call the "Confederate flag" (also known as the "rebel flag") was never among them. The rectangular flag with white stars on a blue "X" set against a red background was actually rejected as the Confederacy's national symbol at its founding in 1861. A flag featuring a blue field with a circle of stars against three broad stripes or bars - two red and one white - was adopted instead. They called it the "stars and bars," a name often incorrectly applied to the "rebel flag."

It was only in 1863 that a similar square insignia was adopted for use as part of the Confederacy's national flag: but even then only as a blue field in the banner's upper left-hand corner. Never in the history of the Confederacy was the rectangular "rebel flag" used as the national banner. It was always a battle flag - a banner designed for and used in military combat. It was employed as the battle flag of a single state within the Confederacy, Tennessee, and for a period of time as the Confederacy's navy jack. 

Given its origins, maybe it should come as no surprise that it continues to generate conflict. Indeed, conflict is precisely the purpose for which it was used. Some people see it as a symbol of racism; others as an emblem of Southern pride. Even if we were to accept, for the sake of argument, that it's only the latter, it wouldn't change the fact that it seems to resonate strongly with those who see it as a call to arms, a reason to fight. And this raises a pair of questions: Whom are you fighting? And why are you fighting?

For some who use it, there's can be no argument that racism is a motivation. The flag has been widely used by white supremacist organizations such as the KKK for decades. But for those who aren't racists, who don't hold such despicable attitudes, the same two questions remain? Where, indeed, is the battle if not 150 years in the past?

That's when the war ended, and the combatants from both sides lie peacefully in their graves. The cause for which it flew, Southern independence, has long since been decided, and no one's seriously talking about resurrecting it. Indeed, would anyone truly wish to revisit a conflict that left more than 620,000 people dead, a million others wounded and countless families displaced and torn asunder?

When it comes to pride, wouldn't it be better to adopt symbols of peace, rather than shouting angrily back and forth as we wave battle flags against one another? We have enough conflict in the modern world without reaching back a century and a half to dredge up more from the graveyards of history.