The Alligator

The city of San Francisco, like the state of California and our nation as a whole, is facing a health-care crisis of unprecedented proportions.

Spiraling costs and the erosion of employer-sponsored coverage have left more than 80,000 San Franciscans uninsured and thousands more underinsured.

These uninsured and underinsured San Franciscans live sicker, die younger, incur crushing medical debt and pass on the costs of unnecessary emergency care to the rest of us in the form of increased health premiums and higher taxes.

The human faces of our health-care crisis are those of San Franciscans like Raul Torres and Patty Senecal.

Raul Torres has worked at a restaurant in the Mission for nine years, but does not have health coverage. Two years ago, he suffered an accident and was treated at San Francisco General Hospital. He now faces $7,000 in bills that he cannot afford to pay.

Patty Senecal worked at a large chain restaurant and was uninsured. For two years, Patty was chronically ill because she could not afford the simple procedure necessary to diagnose her thyroid problem. Patty’s condition worsened until she required surgery, which put her $10,000 in debt.

The failure of leadership in Washington and Sacramento has left California’s local governments struggling to achieve two equally necessary goals: creating a comprehensive health-care option for employers and individuals — like Raul and Patty — who cannot afford health insurance, and financing such a plan in a manner that fairly allocates costs among businesses, individuals and government.

The San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance represents a groundbreaking effort to do just that.

Guided by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Universal Healthcare Council, the ordinance would create a Health Access Program that offers comprehensive health-care services to uninsured San Franciscans and their employers at a reasonable cost, with subsidies for small and medium-sized businesses and low and moderate-income individuals.

The Health Access Program would assign individuals to a primary-care doctor, nurse or medical assistant at one of the city’s public or nonprofit clinics, deliver acute care and specialty services through a network, including San Francisco General Hospital and the city’s nonprofit hospitals, and cover prescription drugs and home health-care services.

The program would emphasize preventive care that keeps people out of emergency rooms by providing regular checkups, performing screenings and managing chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure.

To ensure that the vast majority of San Francisco businesses that provide health insurance for their employees do not dump them into the Health Access Program once it comes on line, and that all large- and medium-sized businesses pay their share toward the cost of universal access to care, the ordinance also encompasses Supervisor Tom Ammiano’s proposal to establish a minimum health-care spending requirement.

Large businesses employing 100 or more workers would be required to spend at least 75 percent of the cost of individual coverage for a full-time employee, while medium-sized businesses employing 20 to 99 workers would be required to spend at least 50 percent of this cost. The requirement would be pro-rated for part-time workers, and small businesses with fewer than 20 employees would be exempt.

Given that more than 80 percent of the workers employed by San Francisco’s large and medium-sized businesses receive health insurance as part of their pay package from their jobs, and that the Health Access Program will cost far less than market-rate insurance, a minimum health-care spending requirement is absolutely necessary to slow the erosion of employer-sponsored coverage, protect the public health-care system from being flooded, and level the playing field for employers who are doing the right thing.

The San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance is sound public policy that will ultimately provide universal health care for San Franciscans and create a model for the nation.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, Supervisor Tom Ammiano and San Francisco’s other elected officials should be applauded for their visionary leadership to make affordable, quality health care for all a reality, here and now.

I have always been proud of being a liberal.  But over the last few decades the word “liberal” has become a pejorative in American politics.  It is a word for Democrats to run from and a word that the Republican use menacingly in describing their enemies.  It seems that to be a Liberal is worse than being a murderer or a child molester.  Why?  How did this happen?

I needed to do some thinking on this.  When I was younger, liberal was a good thing.  It meant that you were open to new ways to deal with social ills and that you cared about your fellow man.  Now it is used to say that you want high taxes and don’t care about the middle class.  How did that happen?  What is the root of the word anyway?

So- I decided I would go to the trusty Oxford English Dictionary for the definitive etymology on the word “liberal”.  I won’t quote the entire page and a half entry for the word that the OED has, but here are some salient points.  The Latin root comes from liberalis the word for “free” and was used in old French to describe a free man (one who is not a slave, serf or indentured servant).  In English it was originally used to describe the arts and sciences that were worthy of study by a free man and was first used in 1397 as a descriptor meaning “free in bestowing, bountiful, generous, open-hearted”.  In 1490 it was used to mean “free of restraint, free in speech or action.”  In 1781 it was used to describe someone “free of narrow prejudice and open minded.”  As a political description it was used in the 1800’s for the first time to describe a political viewpoint that is “favourable to constitutional changes and or legal and or administrative reform tending in the direction of freedoms and democracy.”  The American Heritage Dictionary’s entry states:  “Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry; favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.”

So how did this word- which describes the very basic tenets on which this country was founded become such a sinister descriptor- one which evokes fear and trembling as well as all things “anti-American”.

In my opinion, the height of liberal glory n this country was achieved by two United States Presidents.  Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs expanded the government to be generous, open-hearted, free of prejudice, and favored changes favorable to freedoms and democracy.  The poor of this country, African-Americans, the disabled and the elderly were afforded opportunities and offered a helping hand unlike anytime in our country’s history.  Both Roosevelt and Johnson were forward thinkers and believed, like I do, that it is government’s duty to care for its neediest and to lift them up so they can have the opportunity to thrive.  After all a society is judged on how it cares for its neediest.

But a mistake was made.  Over the decades, these programs became dysfunctional.  They were not regularly re-tooled and massaged to grow and mature.  In essence- they became conservative institutions that were unbending to change and monoliths of power and self-perpetuating bureaucracies that forgot about providing opportunity to thrive and only remembered one part of their mission that the neediest needed care and that they, in a fairly paternalistic way,  were the institutions to do it.  Like many conservative institutions- they no longer became forward thinking and looked at change as something to be avoided at all costs.  Ironically these liberal programs became conservative institutions. 

If these liberal programs had remained liberal they would have grown and would not have become stagnant and would not have become the whipping boys for Presidents like Ronald Reagan.  Liberals by definition should be avoiding the status quo and should be thinking of innovation while being generous, free of bigotry and broad minded.  The very programs that were the icons of liberal political development in this country became conservative in administration and implementation.  This is what killed them.  It was conservative administration of liberal programs that caused the problem. 

Decades of neglect- due to conservative entrenched administration- ensured that these liberal-based programs did not re-tool over time and were no longer in step with Americans.  Ronald Reagan was the first President to pick up on this and run with it- and blamed liberals for bloated bureaucracies that did not resonate for middle class Americans – a group that was being told that the poor were getting more money through social welfare than they were making by working and it was their taxes that were paying for the poor’s “largess”.  While the rhetoric was overblown and used the most heinous and atypical abuses of the system as examples, the strategy worked and overtime the Democrats ran from the word and Republicans used it to demonize their opponents.  But none of this would have stuck if the liberal programs had been administered in true liberal fashion.  Remember part of the definition of liberal: “favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.” 

Former President Bill Clinton is a true liberal in the defined sense of the word.  He re-tooled welfare for one thing.  During his administration – which was liberal in philosophy- he had the temerity to mess with the conservative monoliths that had developed from the liberal programs but had also become the programs by which liberals defined themselves.  Liberals became so attached to these programs- seeing them as the pinnacles of liberal power- that they became conservative about their liberal programs.  By being non-traditional, reformist and open to new ideas (refer back to the definition of liberal)- more children were lifted out of poverty and the income of single mothers rose substantially.  Aren’t these the goals of the original liberal-based programs and didn’t Mr. Clinton achieve it by being a reformer- a true liberal? 

Many of the far left blame Mr. Clinton for the demise of the Liberal by going to the center,  I disagree. He is a true liberal using new ways to tackle issues that plague our society- not using the status quo.  By definition there should be no sacred cows among liberal programs.  These programs are not what are important to preserve- it is the outcomes that are important   Outcomes based in the principle of lifting people up to thrive.  How that is achieved comes from forward thinking and about innovation- true liberal tenets.  It does not come from protecting programs that have become self-perpetuating and have lost sight of their original goals. 

As liberals, we must not be constrained by conservative protectionism and administration.  Liberals must always look at our basic philosophy- being generous and reformist with the goal of creating a true democracy and free society where even the least among us has an opportunity to thrive unconstrained by prejudice.   

Today was a day that will be held high in the annals of the religious right.  President Bush used his veto power for the first time since taking office 5 1/2 years ago, saying that a embryonic stem-cell research bill “crossed a moral boundary.”   This was a blow for the hard advocacy done by Christopher and Dana Reeve, Michael J. Fox and Nancy Reagan.

The bill, which the Senate passed Tuesday in a 63-37 vote, would have loosened the restrictions on federal funding for stem-cell research. House Republican leaders have said they would try for an override vote on the measure, but it’s unlikely to pass, lacking the two-thirds majority needed in each chamber.“This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others,” Bush said. “It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect. So I vetoed it.” 

The measure, which the House of Representatives passed in May 2005, allows couples who have had embryos frozen for fertility treatments to donate them to researchers rather than let them be destroyed.   Bush said, “If this bill were to become law, American taxpayers would, for the first time in our history, be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos, and I’m not going to allow it.”

This was an obvious bow to the religious right and their overzealous “Right to Life” platform.  This writer is pro-choice, but anti-abortion.  I fully believe that abortion should be avoided at all costs, but that women should have the option to end a pregnancy.  Besides, I am a male and I do not feel as if I have any moral authority to speak about issues of a woman’s right to choose.  So I leave it to them to choose; it shouldn’t be the purvue of men.  Of course, having inadequate information on birth control available to women and having an abstinence-only policy on the books certainly does little to avoiding abortions and most likely increases the abortion rate. 

But the use of embryonic stem cells that have been donated to researchers by couples is a far cry from any abortion or choice issue and in my opinion the arguments in that debate do not apply to this one.  This veto is an affront to science and the millions of Americans who can be helped by stem cell research and technologies.  In essence it ratifies that the rights of these discarded embryos have more weight than breathing and living people.

While it is true that non-federally funded research can use embryonic stem cells, much of the scientific breakthroughs in medicine over the past century have come through research either partially or fully funded by the federal government.  In the name of politics and pandering to the right, the Bush administration is abandoning the United States’ important role in medical technology and ensuring that millions of Americans that could be helped by this technology will likely have to wait longer to end their sufferings and could die waiting.

The American response to evacuate Americans from the war torn
Middle East has lagged behind the efforts of the Europeans.  Why have the Germans, the French and the rest of the members of the European Union been able to mobilize an effective evacuation quicker than the powerful United States?

Many are equating this response to the response of the federal government in the wake of Katrina.  There are some similarities.  It seems that this administration needs to be kicked in the head before it acts on behalf of its own citizens. We certainly wasted no time in our invasion of Iraq but we took our time in responding to the devastation of Katrina and again in evacuating scared Americans from Lebanon and other countries in the crosshairs of the Mid-East war. 

“We at the embassy don’t have the experience to move a lot of people,” said U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey D. Feltman. “Luckily, the U.S. government does,” he said. “Security and safe travel were what’s on our minds.”  An estimated 8,000 of the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon want to leave.

European countries began moving hundreds of their citizens to Cyprus on Monday. Nearly 1,000 were on a Swedish-chartered ship that left Beirut on Tuesday, and a British warship and Greek frigate transported nearly 600 of those countries’ nationals away from Lebanon. 

Many Americans in Lebanon were angry.  One American said, “The embassy is providing us with sketchy information and they are being rude to us here at the gate,” he said. “We have other options, like leaving through Syria, but they keep stringing us along day after day.” 

Is this the way to run an evacuation?   Finally on Wednesday a larger scale evacuation commenced- with the capacity of 1,000 or so Americans to leave daily.  Fortunately too- the government is waiving the requirement to reimburse the expenses related to the evacuation.  It is beyond this writer’s comprehension why that was ever even a question. 

While now the evacuation is happening- is it enough?  Are those that will remain in Lebanon over the next few days waiting for their evacuation be safe?  Why is it that our government’s response to aid its citizens – either here or abroad- takes so long?   I cannot answer these questions.  I hope that the answer is not that the administration doesn’t give a damn until it is called on its inaction- that would be terribly cynical.  But I seem to be getting more and more cynical the longer this administration is in power.

Yes, Israel had the right-if not the duty- to retaliate for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah.  But did those kidnappings deserve the level of a response that has come from Israel.  The answer is an emphatic NO. 

It is absolutely crystal clear that Israel used the kidnappings as an excuse to mount a full fledged assault on Hezbollah.  It is not a response – it is house cleaning.  Hezbollah is a dangerous group with ties to a very dangerous Iranian regime, but this full scale assault is affecting the fledgling Lebanese democracy and Lebanese citizens that have absolutely no ties to Hezbollah. 

The Israeli government deserves the condemnation of the entire international community for its overblown response.  Israel does have the right to protect its borders but it does it have the right to use this situation to wage what amounts to a preemptive strike against Lebanon?

Israel would not act so boldly if not for the support of the United States- specifically the Bush administration.  But the Bush administration will not condemn Israel and refuses to ask for a cease fire.  The Lebanese government, which has nothing to do with Hezbollah, has pleaded for a cease fire, but the
United States refuses to get on that bandwagon. 

It is clear that Israel’s response is just a ruse to destroy Hezbollah- saying that it will take a couple of weeks to achieve their goal of eliminating the Hezbollah threat - makes their allegation that this is a response to the kidnappings bogus at best.  The United States is refusing to use diplomatic clout to end this powder keg- but maybe it is because it has no diplomatic clout to use.  As far as the Arab world is concerned, the United States has no credibility.  That sentiment is understandable.  Our Iraqi debacle, our inability to get terrorism under control, our ignoring of the Iranian threat due to Iraq and our genuine disregard for Islamic culture have certainly lessened any credibility that this administration has with the Arab world.  We have also supported Israel blindly.  While I support Israel in many actions, I do not think that they should have carte blanche to do whatever they wish. They need to be a sensitive neighbor or else they lose credibility and in this writer’s opinion- they have lost credibilty here.

But it is President Bush who has squandered his position as the “leader of the free world”.  Almost every previous President has made the Israeli-Arab issue a huge portion of their foreign policy portfolios.  But this President has gotten sidetracked by an untenable situation in Iraq- a quagmire that worsens by the minute.  Additionally this President has poor diplomatic skills at best.

If this administration had done its due diligence with the issues facing
Israel – both Palestinian and from Hezbollah, the current incendiary situation in the Middle East may not have happened.  It is sure that if the United States asked for a cease fire- it would happen.

Kudos to Former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband Ambassador Joseph Wilson for having the courage to sue  Vice President Dick Cheney, top White House aide Karl Rove and “Scooter” Libby for their role in the disclosure of her classified CIA status.

This comes just one day after conservative columnist Robert Novak said Rove — Bush’s top political advisor — and former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow had confirmed what one other unnamed administration official told him about Plame.

The lawsuit alleged “a conspiracy among current and former high-level officials in the White House” to “discredit, punish and seek revenge” against Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for publicly disputing statements made by Bush justifying the war in Iraq.   Plame and Wilson’s suit said the couple suffered violations of their constitutional and legal rights, including an invasion of their privacy, and that the disclosure of her name destroyed her CIA career.

Well hoorah for some parties telling the truth here.  It is about time that Novak came clean and it is the right time that the Wilsons take the opportunity to shout from the roof tops that they were maligned, that their rights were violated and that Ms. Plame’s career as a covert CIA operative was destroyed.

There are so many violations of Constitutional rights that the Bush administration has breached it makes your head spin.  But no violation was a personal and insidious as what the administration did to Ms. Plame.  It was ugly, personal, and vindictive.  Since when did it become acceptable for the Executive Branch of our gonverment to use its clout to go after one individual or, for that matter, any person or group of people who disagree with the Administration?  This is Nixonian politics at its worst. 

When the President of the United States or those acting on his behalf begin wielding a stick of this magnitude to beat their detractors down our democracy is at risk.  There is no greater danger than when those in power decide to use that power to curtail open dialogue and political dissent. 

Thank you to the Wilsons for standing up for our right to disagree with those in power.  As Winston Churchill said “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” we need to ensure that absolute power does not take a foothold in our government. 

I was informed today that a friend and colleague had a massive heart attack and is on life support.  He is a man of 44 years of age and is in good shape.  He has dedicated his life to helping those who are indigent, homeless and otherwise disenfranchised by our society.

When one hears about a relatively young man having such a massive heart attack- it slaps you in the face.  When this person is a shining star in the constellation of social services for the poor it is profoundly disturbing. 

Our lives are precious commodities and all life should be valued.  Many of our conservative friends are more interested in life in the womb and forget about the lives of those poor people who struggle day in and day out.  My friend dedicates his life to these people- those that are poor and breathing this world’s air.

During this Bush era the poor in general and  the disabled poor and elderly poor in particular are not a factor in public policy development.   Why should they be?  Afterall they don’t usually vote or have money to donate.  That seems a cynical comment- but I believe it is VERY true. 

Many segments of our society have become conveniently invisible and are considered nuisances, flotsom and throw away people.  No one should be considered that way.  Every human being has inate dignity.  Some were born in a horrible situation, others have been dealt a horrible hand and our society has never been good about offering positive alternatives.  The end result- people find dysfunctional ways to deal with the world of poverty and alienation; often turning to drugs and crime.

 We must honor the inate humanity in all of us.  We must not let our fellow man down.  A society is judged on how well it takes care of its most vulnerable.

So- here’s the question “How are we doing”?  I think you know the answer.

George W. Bush is a bad President.  George W. Bush’s administration finessed the pre-War intelligence to make a case for the Iraqi war.  George W. Bush focused on Iraq while the Taliban began to make a comeback in Afghanistan and Iran and North Korea began showing off their muscles.  George W. Bush has repeatedly taken actions to compromise privacy, compromise a free press and bloat Executive Power.  These actions are at the very least cynical and possibly illegal. Democrats have pounced on these items, rightfully so, but I ask the question: Well yes that’s all true- but what is your game plan?  What is your platform- other than that “Bush is Bad”?

“Bush is Bad” doesn’t seem like a winning strategy -it doesn’t seem terribly proactive or strategic.  And it has the additional problem of sounding like a whiny school girl. 

Where is the meat of a Democratic platform for 2006?  All I hear is “Bush is Bad”.  Granted I don’t like the guy either and I think that my mailman would make a better President.  But that isn’t a message.  I want to hear some substance from my friends in the Democratic Party.  Where’s the beef?  True- the nine women democrats in the Senate came up with their “checklist for change”.  But it doesn’t seem to have gotten much traction and as for the House- all I hear is whining about George W. Bush. 

Let me be clear- I am the first to blast President Bush for the mistakes he has made, the lies he has told, the disregard he seems to have the Constitution and the two other branches of Government- Congress and the Judiciary and a host of other issues, but I want leadership from the Leaders of the Democratic Party.  The Democrats seem to be a full partner in the beltway practice of partisan bickering.  I guess it takes two to tango. 

I hear some of the Dems chanting the healthcare mantra.  But I haven’t heard word one of what they would do to fix the problem.  I hear a lot of loud wind about Iraq but I haven’t heard a thoughtful, strategic and common sense way to extricate us from Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld inflicted Hell in Iraq.

I have heard blaming President Bush for giving North Korea and Iraq the moxy to flex muscle.  True- the Iraq debacle has given them a sense of security.  But how would the Dems fix this problem? 

Face it, Bush is leaving a boat load of troubles when he leaves office- most of his own making and the Dems should resent his poor stewardship.  Heck- we should all be appalled by his lack of stewardship.  But the Democrats need to do more than resent the current problem and continuously whine about the President.  They need to develop alternative strategies.  They need to let the American people know what they would do differently. 

The Democratic Party has been cowering under the power of the schoolyard bully- Karl Rove and has become a party of reaction and not of pro-action.  It is time to take control.  The Democrats need to be the owners of their own destinies and not allow themselves to be defined by the other side. 

Listen up Democrats!  Your constituency is starving and we want to know- “Where’s the beef”?

After breathing a sigh of relief in being “cleared” from wrongdoing in the Valerie Plame case Rove and Company began breathing fire again when they trotted out the hits from their “oldies but goodies” collection- gay marriage (see post about the NY Supreme Court decision) and flag burning to name just a few.  Leni Riefenstahl and other propagandists were the masters of taking iconography and elevating symbols to deified levels. If you mess with those symbols- you are a traitor and labeled as those who are not with us and therefore against us!

The anti flag burning rhetoric is up there with Ms. Riefenstahl’s genius.  Is flag burning repugnant? Yes.  Is it an affront to the United States? Yes.  Should it be banned?  Hell no!  I tell people that I think what makes the flag a symbol evoking pride is the sheer fact that we have the freedom to burn it.  Doesn’t that make the flag the most elegant symbol of freedom in the world?  When a symbol becomes more important than the reasons that it is a symbol we are on the verge of turning into a country steeped in Joseph Goebbels inspired propaganda and über jingoism.   

I find it fascinating that many of the very people who are on the anti flag burning bandwagon are the yahoos that sport the stars and stripes in the fabric of their clothing, who wrap it around their hats, wear it as a scarf - turning the flag into clothing and fly the flag from their homes 24/7.   Now I was a cub scout and then a boy scout as a kid and I remember learning all the etiquette around the flag.  I learned it was disrespectful- an affront and inappropriate- to wear the flag.  I learned that the flag should be raised at sunrise and should be brought down before dusk- it is not supposed to fly at night unless properly lit.  The flag should not touch the ground and there is a very specific way in which it should be folded.  Do most of those yelling the most about the obscenity of flag burning know anything about flag etiquette?  While I haven’t seen a poll about it – I somehow doubt that they do.  Do I respect the flag? Yes.  Even with that respect do I think that there should be a ban on burning the flag? No. 

Most often flag burning is used as a protest when those protesting feel that the government has trod on their freedoms, rights or liberties.  Why is it such a powerful statement that evokes such a visceral reaction of shock?  Because the protester is taking that essential symbol of our nation’s freedoms and saying that, in their view, it is meaningless because the government has threatened those very freedoms.  Ironically by being allowed to burn the flag- these protesters are in fact countering their own argument- their freedom to do so is protected!  Yes the flag is burned by those who hate the United States.  But don’t they have the right to hate the government and express their views when they are on our soil?  Most of those who hate the United Stated would be arrested for similar actions against their countries in their homelands.  Shouldn’t everyone experience the beauty of freedom- even the freedom to speak against the government?  That is precisely why our government and our society work!  

Our nation is one that ensures that someone who disagrees with us has the ability to express that disagreement and that we defend the right of that person to express their opinion even when we are most offended by that opinion.  Freedom of speech and expression is one of our most sacred rights.  Without it, without the ability to decry the actions of our government, we are on the road to tyranny, despotism and totalitarianism.  Hearken back to the founding fathers- they were molded by the tyranny of English Kings and they assured a society that would not tolerate tyranny and that would not stifle criticism of the government or the individual right of self expression.   

The flag is a powerful symbol precisely because we have the right to burn it in protest.   

So I guess that gays and lesbians haven’t been discriminated against long enough to count?  That’s my reading of  the New York Supreme Court’s majority opinion.  In his opinion, Judge Smith said that because same-sex marriage was not deeply rooted in history and tradition and that barring it did not violate fundamental rights and liberties. The majority decision argued that any comparison with anti-miscegenation laws — overturned by the United States Supreme Court in 1967 — was flawed. “Racism has been recognized for centuries — at first by a few people, and later by many more — as a revolting moral evil,” the opinion said. In contrast, the opinion said, “The idea that same-sex marriage is even possible is a relatively new one.” I didn’t realize that there was an acceptable timetable for discrimination. 

Is this a set back for gay and lesbian rights- maybe, maybe not.  From a purely ideological point of view- sure it is.  The idea that gay couples should not be offered the same rights as heterosexual couples is inherently repugnant and antithetical to the foundations of our country.  The fact that the New York Supreme Court saw fit to uphold that social inequity is a set back to the moral argument.

From a political point of view maybe this is not such a bad thing.  Over the past two decades issues of importance to gay people have slowly moved from no acceptance to toleration to broader acceptance.  Many, possibly a majority of Americans, agree about that the idea of civil unions is acceptable.  That’s a long way away from seeing gays being social pariahs.   But when the word marriage is used- there is a reaction that is visceral and one on which cultural conservatives have pounced.  But when I heard conservative pundit George Will say that he felt that some states should try it out and see what happens- I thought, “You’ve come a long way baby.” 

Maybe it isn’t a good idea for gay marriage to be shoved down the throats by the courts.  After all the Bushies and their ilk have done a great job of maligning jurists who interpret the Constitution based on current morays and realities and see it as a living and breathing document as  –dare I say it – activist judges.  Boy has that one really worked for Rove and Company.  As distasteful as it is for me to hear bloviating about activist judges who are, in my opinion acting in the way the founders intended, it is a sad fact that much of the country now sees the Judicial Branch as the evil doers and in the business of  placing their imprimatur on social issues.  Of course- I guess there are no activist judges on the right, only the left- hmmm Messrs. Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas comes to mind!

But given the fact that the Rove Rhetoric Machine has succeeded in this depiction of the Judical system- maybe it is better to see the change happen through some states’ legislatures.  In California, Assembly Member Mark Leno’s marriage bill has an excellent chance of passing the State House and landing on the Governor’s desk.  A Governor Angelides would sign it but would a 2^nd term Governor Schwarzenegger sign it? 

Maybe George Will is right.  Maybe if other states see that states like Massachusetts, (maybe) California, (maybe) New Jersey and (maybe) Washington do not implode from allowing gay marriage- they will eventually turn around.  Social change that sticks happens gradually not through a revolution. 

But what is the issue about the word marriage?  This one baffles me. Marriage is defined in law as a civil union and we have a separation of church and state – so legally marriage has no religious meaning.  Why is Civil Union acceptable but Marriage isn’t?  There is no legal justification for this.  It is a semantic issue based in religion not in law.  But the Religious Right has staked their political fortunes on this issue and as any good propagandist knows- when you mix a little religion into your political rhetoric it makes really good theatre and manipulates people at their gut.  When this happens people don’t think about the issue- they REACT to it with their gut – a gut that is often hard wired to centuries of dogma.  I don’t know why anyone hasn’t raised the issue that Marriage IS Civil Union- so why not call it ALL marriage or call it ALL civil union?

While I want the ability to marry my partner of 18 years it isn’t because I think that heterosexual marriage has been such a resounding success.  It is because it is a right and it is afforded to others.  But even more importantly- young gay people will know that they are not second class and who they are is not a fact to be hidden because who they love is as important as who ANYONE loves.  Imagine gay youth who don’t all think about suicide?

So let’s give the “George Will Experiment” a whirl.  I doubt we will see the walls of gay marriage states coming down with lightening strikes from above.  After all many churches were having gay commitment ceremnoies years before gay marriage was a twinkle in the gay activist’s eye and God only knows that these churches are still alive, flourishing and have not felt His wrath.