Leonard Link

Roughing It in Colorado in 1916-17 - Great Reading in The New Yorker

Every now and then, I read something in The New Yorker that just strikes a chord and I want to share it with people.

In the new issue (cover date, April 20, 2009), there is a marvelous article titled "Roughing It" by Dorothy Wickenden.  Wickenden tells the story of her grandmother and her grandmother's best friend and college chum, two "society girls" from Auburn, NY, who signed up to go out to Colorado to teach in a newly-constructed frontier schoolhouse in 1916.  There is nothing particularly special or noteworthy about these two women or the story of their year in Colorado -- except for the fact that it is a very well-told story, colorfully written based on surviving correspondence and later interviews -- and that the two women seem to have been high-spirited folk, eager to experience challenges in life and resourceful in coping with difficulty situations. 

The result is a wonderful little picture of a slice of life on one segment of the American frontier of almost a century ago.  I found it truly engrossing, and just wanted to share that.  The article is worth seeking out.  Family history buffs will love it, as will all who enjoy reading accounts of what life was like long ago.

Pope Desperate to Preserve the Catholic Church

What is one to make of this news report?

"Pope Benedict XVI spoke out Monday against homosexual behavior, calling it a violation of the natural order. In an address to the Vatican hierarchy, the pope called for an ''ecology of man'' to protect man from ''the destruction of himself.'' He added, ''The rain forests deserve our protection, but man as a creature indeed deserves no less.'' The Vatican opposes same-sex marriage and considers homosexual acts sinful." - NY Times, Dec. 23, 2008.

It is perfectly understandable, from an institutional point of view, that the Roman Catholic Church is alarmed at the spread of gay rights in the world.  As more and more countries decriminalize homosexual conduct, extend legal recognition to same-sex partners, and ban sexual orientation discrimination, the Roman Catholic Church loses one of its main devices for recruiting new priests.  In an intensely homophobic society, the priesthood, with its purported ideal of the celibate life lived in a unisex environment, has served for centuries as a sheltering environment for self-hating homosexual Catholic men, fleeing societal and family pressures to marry and have children.  Speculation that a high percentage of the Catholic priesthood consists of repressed homosexuals seems confirmed by anecdotal evidence whenever gay men get together and talk about sexual experiences with priests. The sharp decline in new enlistees for the priesthood in societies that have become tolerant of homosexuality is entirely logical.  If a young gay Catholic man sees a way to live openly as gay in society, to have a partner, to have a career, what need is there to flee to the sheltering arms of the allegedly celibate priesthood?  I think the Pope's position is entirely pragmatic.  Rainforests can die and the Church is not really affected (or so this benighted anti-environmentalist seems to believe), but as gay rights advance, the business model of the Church collapses.  As CEO of the organization, he must continuously speak out against social trends that undermine the Church's business model.

I am not contending that the Pope is not speaking out of religious conviction.  But I am suggesting that leaders of the church in recent decades since the modern gay rights movement has taken root in the Western Democracies have made this a high visibility item on their agenda at a time when so much else in the world calls out to be addressed.  Where is the passionate objection to capital punishment?  Where is the passionate objection to despoiling the earth?  Where is the passionate championing of the needs of the poor for health care, nutrition, sanitation, etc.?  Why is the Church obsessed with fetuses and homosexuals?  Of course, there are religious doctrinal reasons backing up the Pope's statements, but as an entirely pragmatic matter, if Catholic women can restrict their reproductive activity without need to restrict their sex lives and Catholic men can live a happy life as gays, the Church's business model collapses.

 

International LGBT Rights

On Thursday, December 18, the United Nations General Assembly is schedule to hear a proposed resolution, co-sponsored by more than sixty countries, calling for sexual orientation and gender identity to be absorbed into international human rights law principles as our understanding of fundamental human rights expands to encompass human sexuality as well as gender.  The concrete goals of the resolution are to encourage countries -- more than 80 of which still maintain criminal penalties for same-sex expression -- to decriminalize consensual homosexual sex and to amend their constitutions and civil rights laws to ban discrimination based on sexuality. 

To the eternal shame of the United States, the Bush Administration has refrained from co-sponsoring this resolution.   Perhaps that is consistent, in some ways, with the officially backwards position of the U.S. government on LGBT issues.  The U.S. is one of the few remaining Western democracies to maintain an official policy of discriminating against gay and trans people regarding military service, and also one of the few that has not adopted national laws banning sexual orientation discrimination.  Unlike many of our major political and military allies, the U.S. has a formal statutory policy of denying any recognition for same-sex couples (the so-called Defense of Marriage Act), and also unlike many of our major political and military allies, the U.S. excludes same-sex couples from any recognition in the immigration process, thus breaking up international couples who wish to live together in the U.S.  Perhaps it is not so surprising, after all, that the Bush Administration would refrain from co-sponsoring a resolution that would require the U.S. to admit that it is violating fundamental human rights principles....

This evening at the LGBT Community Center in New York, a group of international human rights organizations co-sponsored a panel discussion on the LGBT human rights.  The participants were representatives of national LGBT rights movements from Africa, Central Asia, and South America, who explained the goals and strategies of their movements and responded to questions.  They made clear that the LGBT rights movement in the U.S. has been all too stand-offish when it comes to international engagement, and this is sadly true.  Most U.S. gay political organizations seem quite insular and unconcerned with activities in the broader world, and there is little coverage of world LGBT events in our gay or mainstream press.  I hope the U.N. vote, however it goes, will lead to more discussion in the U.S., but that would require our mainstream media to pay attention to it.  Here's hoping....