The Alligator

Let’s be clear, President Bush’s planned veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is nothing less than immoral.

The current SCHIP reauthorization bill provides an additional $35 billion in funding over the next five years and brings total spending on the program to $60 billion. The additional funding would be paid for by a 61-cent-per-pack increase in the tobacco tax, as proposed in the Senate version. President Bush as usual has been disingenuous about how this additional funding will be raised- raising the specter of higher taxes, which makes it sound like every American will see an increase in their income tax.

I have no problem with paying for children’s health by taxing tobacco and quite frankly I think it makes total sense. I would posit that President Bush is compromising health care for the children of poor working families in order to protect the tobacco industry- an industry that has cost more money for health care than ANY other business in this country.

The original House version of the bill actually had some provisions to fix some of the inherent problems with the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 but these provision were removed in the compromise with the Senate. It is too bad that these fixes fell off the table during bicameral negotiations but I do understand that compromise is part of the legislative process and I am willing to see support the bill without the Medicare provisions if it means that it is passed with a broad bipartisan and veto proof majority. However I think that it will be nearly impossible to achieve the veto proof majority even with support from many Congressional Republicans.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Monday said, “I’m concentrating on getting this passed, and hopefully the president wakes up and realizes it does everything he said he wanted to do” (Johnson/Bourge, CongressDaily, 9/25). Grassley said that if he were a Democrat, he would send a reauthorization bill to the president every three months, along with campaign advertisements to Republicans that accuse them of abandoning children.

Pressure will grow for Bush to either sign the bill or for Republicans to override his veto (Washington Post, 9/25). Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) in a statement said, “For this president who helped rack up $3 trillion in new debt, it is not about the spending, it is about priorities, and the president has made his clear” (Russell Chaddock, Christian Science Monitor, 9/25).

“House Republicans created a ‘spectacle’ on Tuesday by aligning themselves with the White House against the SCHIP bill”, columnist David Broder writes in a Washington Post opinion piece, adding, “Rarely do you see so many politicians putting their careers in jeopardy.” He calls the program “one of the most successful health care measures created in the past decade” and adds, “Saying no to immigration reform and measures to shorten the war in Iraq may be politically defensible,” but the Bush administration’s “arguments against SCHIP … sound hollow at a time when billions more are being spent in Iraq with no end in sight”

The leading Republican presidential contenders have stood stubbornly behind President Bush on issue after issue and now they also appear to be standing behind his threat to veto health care for low-income children (SCHIP). America’s voters deserve to know: Would Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson veto the children’s health care bill that Congress will likely pass today?

The bill came up for discussion during an August debate in Iowa, “with the entire field siding with President Bush and against the proposed expansion of the federally funded children’s health insurance program that passed the Senate last week.” (Washington Times, 8/6/07) Rudy Giuliani called the plan “socialized medicine.” Just last month, John McCain voted against extending the bipartisan effort which has sent more than six million kids from low income families to the doctor, cutting the number of uninsured children by one-third. When asked if he supported the SCHIP bill, Mitt Romney used a page from President Bush’s failed playbook, saying that we need to rely on the private market, and while in the Senate, Fred Thompson consistently voted against providing insurance to low income children.

So Bush and the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination choose to protect big tobacco over providing the children of the working poor with health care. I don’t think it is appropriate to play politics where children’s health care is concerned but I don’t think that the Democrats are playing politics they are taking the moral high ground on this issue. The Democrats don’t want to see a veto from the President they want this bill to pass. It is the veto that will give the Democrats a political edge in the 2008 election not because of their action but because of the President’s reprehensible position and the lock step of his party’s Presidential candidates. The Democrats are rightfully pointing out the immorality of the President’s position.

Is it playing politics when you point out immorality? The answer is a resounding NO!

My favorite line in all of English literature is the last line from James Joyce’s story in “The Dubliners”, “The Dead”.

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end upon all the living and the dead.” It is this use of language that made me fall in love with Joyce. But it is the phrase, “His soul swooned slowly” that speaks to me in a very profound way.

19 years ago today, my soul swooned slowly- it is my 19th anniversary with my partner Lee. And believe it or not my soul still swoons when I look into his eyes.

I guess as a gay couple we shatter the stereotype that many of the Christian right hold about gay men. We are deeply in love and committed to one another in ways that rival any marriage between a man and a woman. Oddly enough many heterosexuals feel that marriage needs to be protected. That’s odd because I feel that my relationship with my partner needs absolutely no protections – it is strong, loving and quite frankly 19 years later I feel that sense that we are each part of a larger whole. Isn’t that what marriage is supposed to do? Someone needs to tell me why the religious right feels that their marriages need protection?

Since we are not afforded the legal rite of marriage it made finding a date for us to celebrate our anniversary an interesting exercise. Should it have been the day we met? No- that was a memorable day- but didn’t quite seem right. How about the first day we “did it”? No- that had a few things going against it- first is it just passionate exchanges or full fledged sex? We actually dated a while and were “making out” a lot when we would take long hikes together before we actually ended up in bed together. But choosing a date that had to do with sex—- seemed somewhat missing the mark. Sure it was an expression of passion and it was great, but quite frankly I had had sex with many men and it was important that this be different. We didn’t register as domestic partners until some years after we were already a committed couple. We waited until the state of California enacted laws to make Domestic Partnership really mean something and that wasn’t until about 4 years ago.

So we chose September 26, 1988 as the date to commemorate- a little over 2 months after we met. Oddly enough, we were a continent apart on that day. Lee had gone back east for vacation and I was here in San Francisco. I had only moved here in February of that year so vacations were not part of my new job yet. It was clear to me just how much I missed Lee while he was away and I guess it was mutual. On a phone call we had on that day September 26, 1988 we told each other that we were in love with the other.

What better way to celebrate our love each year than by celebrating it on the day where we said those simple yet profound words to one another – “I love you”.

We’ve had a number of challenges over the years- some we weathered better than others but it was our love that saw us through any challenge we faced. HIV is a constant companion for me- I’ve been living with it for over 20 years and I have been battling a more determined battle with it since I was diagnosed with AIDS in 1999. I’ve made HIV/AIDS my avocation, my work, and I have delved into HIV as an issue- partly so that is doesn’t intrude its ugly face into my personal life anymore than it has to.

Lee has always remained HIV negative and in my mind there was no option but to always remain safe. Did I yearn for that closeness without something between us?- yes. Did I feel that HIV loomed in our bedroom? Yes. Did I feel responsible for all of that?- yes. But even with HIV in our lives and in my body we found a rhythm – a way to give it less power than it had at first. I am thankful for that.

Over the years we have found remarkable ways to celebrate our anniversary- usually dinners at some of the best restaurants in the world. But it was 9 years ago on our 10th anniversary that stands out as the highlight.

Darwin our beagle came into our home that day. He was our 10th anniversary present to each other and little did we know that day that the love that we have for him would mesh with the love that we have for one another. Yes – its two men and a dog, but we are family. We are the definition of family values in the best possible way.

Each day I have on this planet with Lee is a gift. Darwin gives that gift, which is like a diamond,  added brilliance and beauty. We are blessed.

Not long after I met Lee I wrote a poem. I think it sums up how I feel today:

Light shatters the Black of night.
Breaking forth, it grabs a glint of skyline.
It moves from the Gray beginnings in the East
Continuing its westward trek towards
The Final Peace.
Dissolution, preceded by the light- momentarily
Tearing the spectrum into a blaze of colors.

The light warms the contoured terrain
Nob Hill, Bernal Heights, Twin Peaks
And
Corona Heights.
Crisscrossed – Light and Shadow.
Light and shadow perform a pas de deux.
The Movement- Graceful, gradual and
Constantly changing with intricate patterns.

Other players involve themselves in the ballet.
The Adagio develops.
The Light and the Wall have interplay.
The Creation of an ever-changing Shadow.

Longer… Shorter…
Vanished.
Shorter…. Longer….

The wall shields.
Everything in its shadow remains
Safely in the Wall’s cool, calm protection.

Obliterate the wall.
Disassemble it- brick by brick.
The light floods all in its wake.

We are part of the light.
From Morning’s grayness to Evening’s
Final Spectral Chorus.
The Brightness, The Warmth
The Love

Happy 19th Anniversary to the sweetest man in the universe! Happy 9th Anniversary to the best dog on the planet! I am truly blessed and my soul swoons as slowly and as profoundly as it did 19 years ago.

Wine- the sound of the word can make me swoon. I love good food and I adore fine wine. To my mind wine and food are inextricably linked. What is better with seared foie gras than a fine crisp chilled Rosé? It’s hard to imagine having a nice rare aged beef without an amazing Romanée-Conti. Motrachet, Chambertin, Margaux, Latour, Lafite, Brunello, Barolo- my mouth is watering.

The thought of a dinner at the French Laundry, Gary Danko, Chez Panisse without wine- it seems like an obscenity. The neurons in my brain light up with activity when I remember the meals at those amazing restaurants as well as Paris’s Taillevent and Gourmard, Florence’s Enoteca Pinchiorri, and New York’s Lutèce; wine being a vital part of the gourmet experience in each of these restaurants.

Our vacations have revolved around wine and food. Here’s the definition of the perfect vacation for me: Morning spent over croissant and café au lait plotting what Southern French village or cave we will visit and eat a multi-course wine accompanied lunch, afternoons spent exploring these wonderful places and then returning home to nap and consider where to have another remarkable dinner. Ahhh- c’est la vie!

Hosting dinner parties in our home where we painstakingly pair a wine with each course is a labor of love for the food and for our guests. There is nothing more satisfying to me than to see the look that comes over one of my guest’s face when he or she experiences our food accompanied by a great wine choice.

Tasting a wine is like visiting the vineyard where it was born. The wine tastes of the earth- the minerals in the soil, the particular weather of the region. Wine, like good food is that combination of art and science. The artisan meets the chemist in the personage of a vintner.

But alas I must say “À bientôt” to wine. I’ll be going on interferon to treat Hepatitis C- a condition that I have apparently had as long as I have had HIV (more than 2 decades). While wine is DEFINITELY a quality of life issue for me, I’ll have to adapt.

I’ve been preparing my body for the onslaught of interferon- taking Chinese herbal supplements, doing acupuncture, going to the gym, switching around some of my HIV medications and beginning Wellbutrin- trying to stave off the side effects of interferon which include among other things- depression.

My hepatologist told me to stop drinking – no debate. Not even a glass of wine with dinner. I tried to explain the difference between an oenophile and an alcoholic. But he wasn’t buying it. When we talked about it- I didn’t even mention my love for excellent single malt scotches because I feared that his head would explode. As I whined about no wine, he told me that he would rather me smoke crack than drink anything with alcoholic content. I retorted that I didn’t know of a good crack that went well with seared foie gras.

So- it is farewell to a good dining companion. We won’t be seeing each other during my interferon therapy and, if all goes well, we will never have the same intense relationship we used to have. I guess all relationships change over the years and every once in a while you need to take a break from one another. I’ll grieve the lost of my dinning buddy for a while- but it will fade and I’ll learn the joys of different brands of sparkling waters.

Wednesday the 26th of September is my 19th anniversary with my partner Lee. It will also be my last drink of wine for quite sometime. I’ll begin interferon a month later.

À bientôt mon ami- mon vin! I have some fond memories and you have been my most enjoyable dinner companion. You have given me an experience of increased dimension to food and you have given me joy that will linger in my memory like the earthy, fruity smell of a newly opened bottle.
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Considering the brazen politicizing of everything it touches, it wasn’t surprising in 2004 when the Republican National Convention was moved from August to early September and was held in New York. Tacky, offensive, manipulative are adjectives that didn’t even begin to cover the blatant politicizing of 9/11 by the Republican Party.

Of course this wasn’t shocking to anyone. The Republicans use 9/11 to hide behind every bad decision and power grab. Their propaganda convinced a majority of Americans that Iraq was involved with the terrorist attacks that occurred that day. Even now- after reports and more reports definitively stating that Iraq was not involved with 9/11 period, end of sentence, end of debate- there are some of my fellow citizens that seem too dense to absorb that fact. These are the same folks that are not concerned about the free and fancy way that President Bush plays with the Constitution but who were in the lynch mob demanding the head of President Clinton for lying about extramarital sexual acts. Now- let’s see are their any Republicans that lie about sex? Calling Senators Craig and Vitter- your number is up!

But I digress- 9/11 has been the central part of a propaganda machine that the Bush administration developed to turn Executive Power to monarchical power and to summarily attempt to dismantle the Constitution. I can just hear W. at night pining away for those good old days that the Romanovs had before that pesky revolution in Russia. W. and Nicholas II have about the same grasps on the world’s realities. If only the White House was the Winter Palace and the President’s Administration was the Imperial Court, W. would be one happy camper. Of course he wouldn’t want caviar and champagne in his Winter Palace, he would be servin’ up “dogs”, “burgers” and “messes o’ ribs”; call him the Crawford Czar.

All of this shouldn’t have surprised anybody who is senescent – after all Bush’ brain was Karl Rove and his tactics and his ability to spin and create propaganda based on the politics of fear were well known. So 9/11 being used to scare the pants off the nation to keep a strong hold on power was no surprise and became part of the Bush administration’s fabric.

It shouldn’t be so surprising that the Republicans are so willing and eager to use the grief and tragedy of 9/11 for their own gain. It is tasteless, tacky and it seems like the Republicans will stoop pretty low. Just look at my fellow Cornell alum Ann Coulter- an embarrassment to that campus high above Cayuga’s waters- when she attacked 9/11 widows. “These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzies. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands’ death so much.”  How thoughtful and respectful!  NOT!  But that about sums it up- Republicans have no souls, they only have political calculus in their hearts.

But now we have a more shameless 9/11 whore than the Bushies ever dared to be- Rudy. The former mayor of New York has completely defined his presidential campaign by 9/11. In the Giuliani campaign it is 9 11 24 7. Is there a speech or a debate where Rudy doesn’t evoke that day’s tragedy? He even had the effrontery to state that he was down at Ground Zero longer than many of the rescue workers and others who worked on “the pile” and were breathing in toxic air.

Never mind the fact that many firefighters are furious with Rudy. Never mind the fact that Rudy was advised to move the disaster control center from the World Trade Center to a Brooklyn location after the first WTC bombing. Ironically after the towers collapsed it was moved that the exact location that had been suggested years earlier.

But Mr. Giuliani “appeared” to be taking charge in the days after 9/11. Of course the nation rallied around New York which helped. If only Mayor Ray Nagin had the same support for his city after Katrina. I won’t go on a diatribe about the difference in race and class that is inherent between stock brokers and impoverished residents of New Orleans.

It was those photo ops that are the central part of Giuliani’s campaign. Face it- Rudy wasn’t that popular as a mayor until after 9/11. Did he rally the city after the attacks?  No doubt; not moving the disaster control center, his poor choice in his partnership with Bernard Karik- a man who was revealed to be quite shady with just a modicum of investigation, and his abrogation of responsibility to the fire fighters, rescue workers and others who have fallen ill due, in part, to his policies notwithstanding.

But anything good he did in the 9/11 aftermath to help the city has been overshadowed by his shameless use of that day and the memory of those who died that day for his own personal gain- both through his consulting firm (Giuliani Partners) and now through his presidential campaign.

The most brazen and tacky use of 9/11 was in Giuliani’s recent New York Times ad where he attacks Senator Hillary Clinton.  Now don’t get my wrong- I thought that MoveOn.Org’s “General Betray Us” ad was in poor taste and didn’t help the argument that antiwar folks aren’t a bunch of knee jerk reactionary nut bags. We aren’t all like that- not even the majority is like that. It was a bad ad. But Giuliani’s ad was more offensive and I guess someone thought it was subtle- but it wasn’t.

At the top of the ad was a quote from Senator Clinton’s statement (that means “question” in Senate-speak) to General Petraeus during the Senate hearing this past Tuesday. Senator Clinton stated that the General’s description of the Iraqi situation required “the willing suspension of disbelief”. A great quote I must admit. But the Giuliani ad used this quote, along with an insert of the MoveOn.org ad to suggest that Senator Clinton was not patriotic because she didn’t swallow the General’s assessment hook, line and sinker. In the attribution of the quote, the ad read “Hillary Clinton, 9/11/2007”.

Don’t get me wrong- I don’t think that there was anything wrong with that quote, it was intelligent and wasn’t the usual second grader language that many Republicans seem to use to pander to their yahoo base. But I wonder if Mr. Giuliani would have used the date of that quote in the ad if it hadn’t been 9/11? Actually- I don’t wonder- I know. He used that date shamelessly as he has throughout his campaign.

If Giuliani wants to honor the memory of those killed on that sad day, he should be looking for a way to get us out of Iraq and to alter our strategy on terrorism from a military action to a law enforcement action- like the Israelis do. Well- maybe Giuliani shouldn’t be trusted to make it a law enforcement issue; he might bring back his sleazy pal Bernard Karik.

I can only hope that Rudy’s wrapping himself in the mantle of 9/11 backfires- after all his leadership was more veneer than substance.  And haven’t we had enough of veneer over substance?

Let’s face it; many of us thought the idea of going into Iraq was disastrous. We knew that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and many of us thought that the arguments about WMDs were specious at best.

The goal, the objective, the end result- whatever they are calling it these days- of what President Bush has publicly stated he wanted to accomplish in Iraq has changed so many times one’s head continues to spin.

Barbara Bodine- a career member of the Senior Foreign Service who served as Ambassador to Yemen was a senior envoy to Iraq in 2003 has the most chilling and accurate assessment of the situation in Iraq and what led the Bush administration into this disastrous predicament:

“They [the Bush administration] didn’t understand the kind of forces that they were unleashing. And they had this arrogant idea that the Iraqis would be passive to all of this; that we could go in with our ideas and our plans and our way of doing things, and that the Iraqis would just simply sit there and wait for us to come forward with our plans. And it was going to be this Petri dish of every single one of their political philosophy ideas - you know, flat taxes, complete privatization - that didn’t work anywhere.”

We created a colossal mess – and that’s an understatement- just to give the neo-conservatives an opportunity to do some grotesque social experiment that is the sociological equivalent to the medicine practiced by Dr. Josef Mengele in Nazi Germany.

There are really no words to describe the level of hubris, arrogance and the lack of humanity that are part of the mix in such a calculus.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell had a policy that he called the Pottery Barn Rule regarding Iraq- “You break it, you own it.” He wasn’t promoting “owning” Iraq as much as he was saying that once you break something you are responsible for it. President Bush broke Iraq and now he is punting the responsibility for fixing it to the next occupant of the Oval Office; he said as much in his speech last night. For all his bluster and swagger it is clear that President Bush is a coward and is ducking out of his responsibility to the United States, Iraq and the world.

Now President Bush is revamping his spin and is telling the world that his surge has worked and that is allowing the Pentagon to begin a strategy that would draw down the number of troops by 25,000 by the end of July 2008. Wow what a feat! He is promising to cut the number of troops by 5,000 less than have been sent to Iraq as part of the surge that was only authorized through July of 2008 anyway. Now that is spin! Not to mention the fact that there really is not alternative because the army is deployed beyond its capacity at the moment. Quite frankly if the President even considered extending tours of duty he would be guilty of such a gross abrogation of his duty of Commander in Chief he would be, in my estimation, guilty of a crime so grave that it could be considered treasonous. Thankfully he didn’t extend tours of duty but I think he would have done it in a heartbeat if he thought military leaders wouldn’t have strategized a military coup.

So here we are in the final months of 2007 and my synopsis of the state of affairs is: there is no good reason why we invaded the Iraq; we have destabilized a region that is ironically also the cradle of civilization; we have no real objective for this mission that was declared accomplished more than 4 years ago; we have re-defined success so many times that it is now defined as nothing more than any state of affairs that is not complete anarchic genocidal violence and we are commiting ourselves to this debacle for decades to come.

So- yes I am angry. We shouldn’t be in Iraq and we are responsible for the horror that it has become. We cannot just leave- we broke it. So there’s the conundrum. How do we responsibly extricate ourselves from the mess that the Bush administration so callously and carelessly created? I don’t know the answer and I don’t like the politicization that created this and is sustaining it.

It is astonishing to me that we, the American people, allowed this to happen. And yes- Congress allowed it too. Many of us with consciences never approved of this war and we are at our wits end trying to figure out how to end the debacle.  It seems that most of the nation- those that didn’t stand up to the immorality of the war at the very beginning- are now tired and bored by the situation and just want the horrific news that is reported every night to go away. You don’t get off the hook that easy folks.

This is not about “leaving with honor”- the Nixonian rhetoric of Vietnam. Our country dishonored itself when we invaded Iraq. It is not clear if the United States is even capable of helping Iraq out of the turmoil that we created for them- after all, those experts that give dire prediction if we pull out have been wrong about everything else.

So how do we leave and how do we do it in a way that doesn’t destroy the region or the world for that matter? I have no idea and it doesn’t seem that anyone does. So- that is why I am so angry I could spit- we currently have no good options because the President created a situation where we have to choose one horrible option over the more horrible options.

Less than a month after I was born on September 9th, 1957 there was an event that was heralded as world changing- the launch of Sputnik on October 4th, 1957. It was the beginning of the “Space Age”.  As an interesting juxtaposition- Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” was published just 4 days before I was born- so not only was it the “Space Age” but it was the age of the Beat Generation too.

During the last fifty years there have been a number of events that have forever changed the world: the first man to go into space- Yuri Gagarin; the first man to orbit the earth- John Glenn; the assassination of President Kennedy; the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy; the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.; Kent State; the Summer of Love; the Viet Nam War; the first man on the Moon; the first heart transplant; Watergate; the resignations of Vice President Agnew and President Nixon; the Iranian hostage crisis; the AIDS pandemic; the eradication of small pox, the invention of the personal computer, the development of the internet; the rise of the radical Christian right in American politics, the mapping of the human genome, the rise of radical Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism; Glasnost and the resulting fall of the Soviet Union and Communism in Eastern Europe; the ongoing struggle for rights by African-Americans, women and gays and lesbians; the recognition of the dangers to the planet by human induced global warming; the domestic terrorist attack in Oklahoma City, the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the waging of the first American preemptive war in history- the Invasion of Iraq are just a few of the history changing events that have occurred in my lifetime.

It’s really been an amazing half century. Fifty years ago would anyone have imagined that there would be a woman Speaker of the House or that an African-American, a woman and a Hispanic were all serious candidates for the US Presidency? Would it have been thinkable for the country to be having a debate about gay marriage and have many of the candidates for President supporting gay unions? Could we have imagined that many of us would have computers at home on our desks that are thousands of times more powerful than computers that took up an entire floor of an office building fifty years ago? Would we have imagined a world where we could identify the genetic markers for certain diseases? Would we have imagined that we would have access to an amount of information at our fingertips with the click of a “mouse” that would rival all the information in all the libraries that ever existed in the world?

Conversely could we have imagined that a debate about Darwin and evolution would have erupted 80 years after the Scopes trial in Dayton Tennessee? Could we have imagined a country where our Constitutional freedoms are under attack, its system of checks and balances out of kilter, and the separation of church and state becoming blurred? Could we have imagined in the era of Camelot – that this country would no longer judge itself by how it cares for its most vulnerable but by how it protects it’s most privileged? Could we have imagined that we would be, for all intents and purposes, in a global holy war between Muslims, Christians and Jews not the likes which has been seen since the middle ages? It seems for every leap forward there has also been a leap backwards.

It has been an interesting fifty years indeed. Obviously I don’t have any memory of Sputnik since I was less than 1 month old, but my mother wrote about it in my baby book (which I now have in my possession). I have a vague recollection of John Glenn’s orbit around the Earth- but I can’t be sure if it is my memory or a memory that has been informed by video replay. Probably the first vivid memory I have of world events is the assassination of President Kennedy. I remember being told about the President’s death at school- I was in first grade and we were sent home early. But what I remember the most is the funeral. I was glued to the television and to my child’s mind it seemed that the funeral lasted for a week. When I have seen replays from the funeral it evokes memories of being at a neighbor’s house watching the funeral on TV.

In 1967 at the age of 10 my family went to California for a vacation and we visited the Haight Ashbury during the “Summer of Love” to see the hippies and in 1969, like the rest of the world, I was rivited as I watched grainy images of Neil Armstrong taking man’s first steps on the moon. I remember- I was in summer camp and they set up a television in the mess hall and allowed us to watch this historic event. It was indeed a special moment that I will forever remember.

There are many personal events that have informed the man that I have become at 50 years of age- the divorce of my parents, my mother’s suicide, my family’s reaction to my coming out as a gay man, my internal battles and coming to terms with being gay, being diagnosed with HIV then AIDS then HCV, meeting Lee my partner of 19 years and through our lives together learning what it means to truly love someone are among many profound aspects of my personal journey.

But like all of us there has been an intersection along the way between the events occurring in the world and my own personal journey to become the person that I am today- September 9, 2007. If you had asked me on September 9, 1978- when I turned 21 where I would be at age 50 I am sure that my answer would not have been an accurate predicator of the future. But I know that at age 50, I am happy with the man I have become, what I have accomplished in my life and I truly cherish the life that I have. A great deal of my life’s direction is a result of that intersection of world events and my personal experiences.

I guess I developed a political nature as a child. I remember as a kid being glued to the TV- not to watch “I Dream of Jeannie” but to watch the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. I was fascinated with the political process and my parents allowed me to stay up to the wee hours to watch the nominating conventions.

I was a Republican until a year and a half into Ronald Reagan’s presidency. There are a number of reasons that I left the Republican Party and became an ardent Democrat that will become clear during this article.

During my high school years I paid attention to world events and read the New York Times regularly but the summer in 1974 was a turning point. A number of things intersected for me. I had come out to myself as a gay man earlier in the year, I was exploring religion and the nation was transfixed by Watergate.

Spring break of 1974 I was 16 years old and I took a 10 day trip to France with students and teachers from my school. It was an amazing trip and probably was the seed planted for my lifetime love of France and becoming an ardent Francophile. Many years later Lee and I would spend our 15th anniversary in the South of France on what we think of as our best vacation ever- mornings spent over croissant and planning that day which usually meant exploring a nearby ancient town, visiting amazing wineries and having fabulous and leisurely lunches- returning back to the house we were renting only to take a nap and then find some extraordinary place for a gourmet dinner! Yes that trip in 1974 started a love affair with France but it is also when I recognized that I was in fact gay. I won’t detail the private thoughts I had at the time- but they are detailed in my travel diary and dated March 18, 1974.

During that same period I was exploring various philosophies and religion. I was fascinated with philosophy and was reading Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard but after many years being involved in church activities  I also looked at Christianity in a new light. Quite frankly I was alone – knowing I was gay, afraid of what others would think, feeling that if my true self was revealed- everyone including my family would revile me. I felt alone and unloved. The philosophies I was reading really did nothing but validate isolation and at that particular juncture, I needed to feel accepted.

Oddly enough I found that acceptance at a coffee house that was run by some other teenagers – kids who were commonly referred to as “Jesus Freaks”. I was drawn in. I was lonely and was afraid- and I thought maybe God would accept me while being afraid that no one else would. At this time- there was no conservative Christian movement that taught hate and intolerance. “Jesus Freaks” were an offshoot of the Hippie culture and it was all about love and acceptance and I was drawn in. While I never divulged that I was gay (after all it was 1974) I never thought that being gay was inconsistent with having God’s love. It seemed ok. It was during this period though that I began to develop a sense of social justice and recognized the pitfalls inherent in a society that is obsessed with material gain rather than caring for others and being stewards of our society and our planet. It was my belief that Christ cared about the poor and warned about liars, false prophets and those obsessed with amassing personal gain and I think that my immersion in Christianity at the time informed my sense of values.

The third event in 1974 was Watergate. I was horrified by what was happening. I had lost my innocence in one way when I came out earlier that year, but I lost my innocence again when I realized that my nation’s leaders were not necessarily noble leaders that followed in the hallowed footsteps of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln and Roosevelt. While I had lived through Viet Nam, I hadn’t really thought about government corruption until Watergate. I was shocked, disappointed and angry. I had assumed a level of integrity, noble purpose and compassion from government and that fantasy was suddenly ripped out from under me.

I remember distinctly the day that President Nixon left office and President Ford was sworn in. I was working in New York City that summer for my father’s Wall Street firm and during lunch I went to Trinity Church to pray for the nation. Of course that prayer didn’t seem to help since 33 years later we are still wrestling with many of the same problems.

That intersection of being gay, being immersed in a form of Christianity that focused on love, respect and charity and being disappointed by my government were significant influences on another important milestone in life- high school graduation. 

In June 1975, about 10 months after Nixon resigned I graduated top of my class and thus I had the honor of giving the Valedictory address. I still have a copy of that address and recently re-read it. While the language is stilted and obviously written by a high school student, I found that my values and my passions really haven’t changed since that time. Here are some excerpts from the address:

“… The joyous occasion of commencement hardly seems the time to concern ourselves with the harsh realities of our society. However, it is now our time to take the step into the tumultuous world from which we have so long been protected by our families and our school. It is a world filled with crime, disrespect, immorality and hatred. A world in which leaving one’s own home is becoming an increasingly dangerous act. Our “protectors” have tried to shield us so that at times we lose true insight into this society. Nevertheless at the same time that society has deluded itself, hiding under the pretenses of freedom and democracy and the mistaken connotation that our country is a land of opportunity, have we recently been exposed to the truth.”

“… The public scandals of Watergate are only the surface of corruption which seems to exist in all areas of our government, right down to the local law enforcement agencies. Aristotle said “It is better for a city to be governed by good men than by good laws.” Too long have we been a nation under the yoke of good laws but the good men have been lacking. [N.B. Today I think I would celebrate good laws as well as the need for good leadership].”

“… We (society), in our apathy, living in our private microcosms are the ultimate reason for the spirit of corruption…. We have centered our lives selfishly around ourselves. Our words, our thoughts and our deeds can usually find their origins in our selfishness. Many times our relationships have become so demoralized that all we comprehend is our own satisfaction. Our amassing of material wealth has become an obsession. We have sanctioned and even encouraged this material gain for an individual so strongly that we measure personal success by such standards. In our obsession for material wealth and personal gain, our vision along with our identity has been narrowed to the task of climbing the rungs of the social ladder.”

While my thinking and my personal philosophy have matured and been informed by 32 additional years on the planet- I find it striking that many of the seeds of my social and political activism were there in 1975; much of it informed by being gay at a time when being gay was just beginning to be talking about, my need to understand my place in the world and find acceptance, and the sense of betrayal by those entrusted with our welfare thanks to Watergate.  In September of that year I entered Cornell University.  As a side note- I found my acceptance package from Cornell recently among my papers and the tuition for academic year 1975-76 was $3,775; for academic year 2007-08 the tuition is $34,600 (an increase of 912%).

When I was old enough to vote- I registered as a Republican. It seemed that in the 1970s the Republican party still had a soul and actually cared about people and about fairness. There was a history of “liberal Republicans” like Jacob Javits and Nelson Rockefeller. Being a Republican did not seem inconsistent with my sense of social justice.

In 1980 I was a registered Republican and to the chagrin of many of my friends today, I actually campaigned for George H.W. Bush during the Republican primaries. To my credit though I was campaigning against Ronald Reagan. And while I voted for Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election, it was a little less than 2 years later that I changed my party because I was horrified by Reagan’s presidency. There were three reasons I disliked Reagan. First was his economics. In those days it was called “the trickle down theory” which is now called supply side economics. George H.W. Bush rightfully called that economic theory “voodoo econmics”- it doesn’t help the economy- just the wealthy and corporations. Reagan’s administration chalked up astronomical debt- not unlike the current Bush administration. The second was that Ronald Reagan became cozy with an avowed homobphobe and a man that used Christianity as a sword for power and hate rather than a plow to sow charity and love- Jerry Falwell.

But it was what Mr. Reagan didn’t say that infuriated me. In June of 1981 I was just 23 years old and the CDC reported a disease that a year later would be known as AIDS. It was not until September 1985 that President Reagan mentioned AIDS in public. More than 10,000 Americans died within that period. He could have used the bully pulpit of his office to bring the epidemic to light- but he didn’t. I had friends dying and Reagan’s government took no notice and as his party became more beholden to the so called moral majority, my friends and I were villified and my community was dying. Ignorance, intolerance and hatred became the bywords of the Republican party and I could not sit by and watch my friends die.

As it turned out- I was probably infected with HIV during those years where Mr. Reagan remained silent. The HIV/AIDS epidemic became a central part of my life. Before I even knew I was HIV positive, the seeds of my activism were sown. The first fundraising event I ever attended was a performance of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1983 (2 years before Reagan publicly acknowledged the epidemic) with Leontyne Price singing the national anthem and Leonard Bernstein conducting the orchestra. That event, the first AIDS fundraising gala in the nation, is now legendary.

When I moved from New York City to San Francisco in February of 1988 at the age of 31, I went from one community being devestated by AIDS to another. I decided to get involved directly. I became a volunteer for an organization named Shanti – now 19 years ago- and it literally changed my life. I met Lee, my partner at my volunteer training, I immersed myself in HIV/AIDS work as a volunteer and it eventually became the center of my career and the work I continue to this day. I could not sit still and watch while my community was dying and testing positive made it personal- very personal.

Another event was decisive in sealing my fate as an advocate for my community. It was the candidacy of William Jefferson Clinton for President in 1992. I had abondoned the Republican party a decade earlier and the experience of the Republicans apalling lack of attention to HIV/AIDS and their villifcation of gays and lesbians had already made me an ardent Democrat. But while I was active in community work, I wasn’t politically active yet. That changed thanks to Bill Clinton.

Behind the scenes Clinton was already courting the gay and lesbian community through his gay FOB (Friend of Bill) David Mixner. David Mixner and a handful of others – all of whom I would eventually get to know and work with- put on the first fundraiser within the gay community for a Presidential candidate.

I was hooked and after the Democratic Convention, Lee and I volunteered tirelessly for Clinton. I will never forget election night 1992- we were giddy with the news of a Clinton victory and apparently the entire gay community in San Francsico was giddy too. We decided to walk down from our house to Castro Street where a spontaneous street party had erupted. It was magical. Because of Clinton I got political and I would later go on to serve on the Board of Governors of the Human Rights Campaign (the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy organization with more than 700,000 members) and to be one of the founders of the California Alliance for Pride and Equality- which is now Equality California- California’s LGBT adocacy organization.

In 1997 I was again present for a moment in history. As a member of the HRC Board of Governors, I attended its national dinner where President Clinton was the first sitting President in history to address an LGBT audience. It was an electric evening- I will never forget.

But it was in 1995 at the age of 38 that my career reflected the intersection of political activism and HIV/AIDS community work- it is when I entered the world of HIV/AIDS public policy working for the Public Policy Department of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and found my niche.  I’ve since lobbied at San Francisco City Hall, the California State Capitol and Capitol Hill for HIV/AIDS issues and GLBT civil rights issues and I have dedicated my life to bettering the world for people living with HIV/AIDS through policy work at every level of government. 

In 1997 I was honored to be one of advocates that were the primary architects of developing a statewide coalition that vigorously advocated for increased state funding for California’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), one of the nation’s most comprehensive ADAPs -an effort that led to the first significant increase in state funding for ADAP and paved the road for further substanial funding increases during subsequent years. After my retirement I took out my policy and advocacy skills once again when I became eligible for Medicare. I realized that there was no one in the HIV/AIDS community paying attention to Medicare and became one of the first HIV/AIDS advocates in the nation to work on Medicare issues- more than a year before the debate began on the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 which was one of the biggest changes in the history of the nation’s entitlement programs.

Ironically- it was the passions that I have for the work that forced me to leave the work as a career. Through the stress and strain of the intensity of HIV/AIDS and LGBT policy issues and the battles fought daily, my own HIV got the better of me and I had to retire in the spring of 2000 at age 42 - just as a presidential campaign was about to get going.

In those early months of 2000 who would have guessed that George W. Bush had an iota of a chance to be President?   But thanks to connections and money  this man - who  didn’t seem particularly bright and possessed a minimal amount of public service experience other than 6 years as a Governor of Texas which was not a particularly memorable but did seem to come about due to an array of family connections- lost the national popular vote but won the Electoral College count and became President.

It hadn’t dawned on me that Al Gore would not win the 2000 election. Of course- as far as the popular vote goes, I was right. Due to my health, Lee and I didn’t get involved with the Gore camapign. Actually Lee had made me promise that I would not get involved with any community work for at least 6 months after I retired- and I agreed.

Being one who does my best to keep promises, but one who can’t stand still- even when I am not feeling well,  I joined the Board of Directos of PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support) in the autumn of 2000 - mostly due to the inspiration of my beloved beagle Darwin- and in December I was elected its President a position I would hold for 4 years. Lee and I took a wonderful trip to London and Paris in December 2000- I got the word of the PAWS Board election while we were in Paris and we got word of Gore’s consession to Bush while we were having breakfast at our hotel in London. We and a few of the other guests half jokingly talked about not returning to the United States because of the news.

Lee and I both assumed that George W. Bush would not be a good President, but we never could have guessed during breakfast at our hotel in the Bloomsbury section of London that morning what a disaster this presidency would mean for both the country and the world.

Just days 2 after my 44th birthday on September 9, 2001 was of course a date that has become indelidbly etched in every Americans mind- September 11, 2001. It was a day of horror and sadness but somehow the country became united in its grief and its determination. Lee and I had long standing plans for a two week trip to Italy and we left the country on September 20, 2001 for that holiday. Flying to Rome just 9 days after 9/11 seemed crazy to some folks, but we felt two things: 1) Determination not to have 9/11 change our plans and our lives because we felt it would have meant that the terrorists would have succeeded.  2) It was probably safer to fly at that moment in time than perhaps any other time.

During the days following 9/11 there was a sense of unity in the country – it was palpable and one thought that, if harnessed, this unity could be a powerful force for good in the nation. While we were in Italy- we felt compassion and friendship from all those we met because of what our nation had just endured. There was great affection for the United States at that time. Little did we know than that President Bush and his administration would fritter away the unity of our nation and the good will of the world by ignoring the threat of terrorism by turning his attention away from the conflict in Afghanistan in order to pursue his partisan unilateral agenda that had nothing to do with 9/11 and everything to do with neo-conservative idealogy. Through his cynicism Bush would evoke the memory of 9/11 at every opportunity in order to manipulate the American people to support an ill-conceived and immoral war in Iraq.

Lee and I both opposed the Iraq War from the outset. We didn’t have a problem with our country going into Afghanistan after 9/11, but we along with millions of others viewed the war in Iraq as a horrible decision. On the eve of the invasion of Iraq we took part in the February 15, 2003 antiwar protest in San Francisco that was part of a world wide action that day that included 800 cities across the globe.

A year later- as the war entered its second year the country embarked on a presidential campaign. Lee and I, like many others, felt that for the good of our country and of the entire world- it was imperative to get Mr. Bush out of office. But what could we do? We live in San Francsico where campaigning against George W. Bush was truly preaching to the choir.

Lee is active in SEIU and we discussed at length his taking a leave from his job and taking a month to work with the union in its American Coming Together campaign in a swing state. We agreed that he would take a month and go to Wisconsin. It was my job to keep the home fires burning and continue my community work in San Francisco and that allowed Lee to have the freedom to become deeply involved with the effort to defeat Bush. We know thousands and thousands of people worked hard but we like to think that this helped in a small way to put Wisconsin on the blue state map. Ever since Lee and I met in 1988 the support we have given to one another in our community work and activism has tuly made it a family affair.

As it turned out the election ended up hinging on Ohio and that ended up in the red column.

It’s three years later now and it seems that the world is a colossal mess. But I keep plugging along with my policy, planning and advocacy work and while I get frustrated by some of it- I do love it. I have often drawn an anology between my love for this work and a scene in the movie “Patton”. There is a scene where Patton is looking out over the smouldering field where a battle had been raging only hours before. The scene was quiet but it was clear that there was carnage. He whispers to a colleague “I love it, God help me I love it.” That sums up my relationship with policy and advocacy.  What I pray for most is a day where neither I nor anyone else needs to do this work because HIV/AIDS will be a bad memory.

Who knows where the next chapter of my life will lead me or where the world will be a year from now (Heck- I haven’t even made a decision about who I want to support for President).   Technology is changing at light speed and I think that over the coming decade or two we will see remarkable things and we will be provided with incredidble opportunity and potential.  But we run the risk of losing a lot too.  Technology is changing the way we communicate and share information, the information available to us, how we interact in the political sphere, how we treat illnesses and diseases and how we clean up the enviornmental mess that we have created on our planet.  We can use these for good- but we also run the risk of thinking in nothing but sound bites- and that is highly dangerous.  We need to ensure that we listen slowly and that we act with thoughtful diliberation as we take advantage of technology’s enormous gifts. 

It seems that my fifty years have provided me more prospective on life but the essential motivation- compassion, respect and caring for others was there decades ago. At 40 I would not have assumed I would be alive at 50.  I’ve made plenty of mistakes and I know that I can be demanding and short when I am passionate about something. It seems I tolerate fools less as I have gotten older and I also seem to tolerate self congratulatory egos even less.   I hope that I am a good person with a good heart and fair minded. I think I have made some small difference to others through my work and the intersection my life has had with world events, at least I hope I have. I know that I have felt honored and privledged to have touched a number of historic events and am blessed to have good people in my life that I cherish dearly. 

But what I truly hope that I have accomplished in my 50 years on the planet, more than anything else, is to be a good partner, a good friend, a good brother, a good son and to be, at my core, a good person.

Even though there have been some tough challenges and bumps in the road, I’ll be a little cliché and a lot Capraesque and end this by saying “It’s A Wonderful Life”.

Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) is being drummed from office by his party. As I wrote in my last post- there is no doubt in my mind that Craig is a closet case, but I still feel that being arrested for making gestures that are associated with soliciting sex in a rest room but are not necessarily soliciting sex is absurd. Have we suddenly become a society where the thought police can arrest us- because they know what we are thinking? I thought that only the federal government with powers granted to it through the Patriot Act was the only entity that could arrest you for what you are assumed to be thinking. 

I’ve said before that I want the hypocrite to squirm and I am not unhappy to see him go from the Senate although who knows what nut bag yahoo Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter (R-ID) will name as the new Senator. You can bet we won’t be seeing a re-make of “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”! Otter’s voting record when he was a member of Congress is pretty much what you would expect from an gun totin’ red neck – a loyalist to President Bush. Progressive is not an adjective one would associate with Otter. So- the chances of a decent replacement are pretty slim.

But I don’t think that Craig should have been drummed out of office by his GOP pals. I reiterate- he didn’t do anything that rose to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Although Craig’s behavior was suspicious- do we arrest people for suspicious behavior? Apparently we do!  But if this had gone to court I don’t think it would have passed the laugh test. In these circumstances the police tend to bully people into pleading- playing on their fears and insecurities. I find this sort of police work reprehensible. I would hope that the police have better things to do with their time than men’s room sting operations unless they assume that a pedophilia ring is operating out of that particular location.

Yet- one after another GOP members of the House and Senate and the party’s presidential candidates called for Craig to resign. Mitt Romney had to come out (no pun intended) and say something, no matter how ill thought out or how inane because he has to position himself as a social conservative. Quite frankly I don’t think Romney has any particular compass to lead him on social issues other than the wind. He’ll say anything he things people want to hear in order to get elected. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) was quick to say that his call for Craig to resign had nothing to do with Craig being gay rather- if a member of a senate pleads guilty to a crime- than he should resign.

Sorry Senator McCain, I just don’t buy that. I could be wrong- but I think that visiting a prostitute is considered a crime. Senator Vitter (R-LA) admitted to that act- but he wasn’t drummed out of the Senate.  He wasn’t even reprimanded- as was Congressman Barney Frank in 1990 when he admitted to receiving the services of a male prostitute. Although his actions were creepy, technically Representative Tom Foley did nothing illegal- but he too was forced out of office when it was divulged that he had written suggestive messages to Congressional pages and former pages all of whom were older than the age of consent.

If the GOP is drumming out elected officials because they are hypocrites and their personal life is inconsistent with their policy positions – there would be few members of the GOP – but there would certainly have been pressure for Senator Vitter to resign.  If they sought resignation from elected officials for being guilty of a crime- then Vitter should have been terminated as well.  Although he didn’t technically plead guilty to a crime in a court of law or to a police officer, he did admit his guilt to the world  Is there really a difference?

So why is it that Craig must go and Vitter can remain? Two reasons come to mind.

First is that that Republican Party is the party of homophobia. It is okay to have sexual peccadilloes if you are not gay or if you aren’t named Bill Clinton. Just look at the homophobic positions of the GOP presidential candidates. They hate gay people- pure and simple. There is no debate- the GOP does not welcome gay people. I give credit to the Log Cabin Republicans for trying and trying and trying to get an invitation to a club that clearly doesn’t want them (thank you Groucho Marx).

Second is pure politics- cynical ugly politics. Vitter is from a state that has a Governor who is a Democrat. He would likely appoint a Democrat and giving a wider margin of majority to the Dems. Craig is from Idaho where there is no chance in hell that Governor “Butch” will appoint anything but some Republican from the Neanderthal wing of the party.   So there is nothing to lose by asking Craig to go, while there might have been a lot to lose by booting Vitter.

Is any of this surprising? Sadly it isn’t.