So the Vermont legislature today overrode Governor Douglas’s veto of the marriage equality act.

I received an e-mail from the other side of this issue pointing out the testimony of Mia Morrison, an 18-year-old African-American woman who, in her testimony to Vermont’s House Judiciary Committee, discussed gay people and their quest for marriage equality:

It seem to me like they would like to include themselves as members of a protected group, as in race, gender, religion, or handicap.

I would like to ask upon what basis do homosexuals claim this special status. In Supreme Court cases San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodrigue, Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, and Plyler v. Doe. The courts ruled that three basic criteria must be determined for a group to deserve protection. First, the group must have a history of discrimination with a lack of ability to achieve economic mean income, adequate education, or cultural opportunity.

If you apply this standard to the homosexual community, you will find that they do not measure up. The average annual income of a homosexual is $55,430 compared to $32,144 in the general population and $12,166 in the African American community. (Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1990)

As for educational opportunity, three times as many homosexuals are college graduates as the general population. The second criteria used is that the group must exhibit obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics as in race or gender. Homosexuals show no distinguishing characteristics other than behavior.

The third criterion is that the group is politically powerless. Homosexuals have wielded great political power. They have been elected to numerous political offices including U.S. Congress and have successfully passed much legislation to advance their agenda. In spite of these obvious differences to other protected groups, homosexuals have been granted special privileges in five states and ninety cities.

On March 18, 2009 [the night of the Joint Judiciary Hearing at the VT Statehouse] my race was used against me in a decidedly offensive manner. Gay rights activists attempted to use me and the Civil Rights struggles of the past as a poster child for Gay Marriage.

How can supporters of Gay Marriage compare their present circumstances to those of Blacks? Gay’s were never considered 3/5ths human. They have never been denied the right to vote, use a public drinking fountain or had to sit on the back of a bus.

Expressions of Love and Sexuality are a private matter and as such would be unnoticeable. It is only as you make it public and attempt to force it on others do you open yourself up to ridicule and reprisal.

I cannot change the color of my skin. It must accompany me everywhere I go. I cannot turn it on or turn it off.

Homosexuals on the other hand can pass through life virtually undetected, because on the outside they look like everyone else. Their struggle (so called) is not a Civil Rights issue, as they can choose to keep their sexuality private, and choose not to be homosexual!

I on the other hand cannot choose to not be black.

What!?

I have no doubt that Ms. Morrison was genuinely offended, but — and I say this without prejudice to race, gender, or sexual orientation — this testimony to the House Judiciary Committee was patently, offensively, jaw-droppingly stupid.

For those of us who are straight, acceptance of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters boils down to accepting the normalcy of their life experience, of understanding that this is not a choice. Sexuality is something as deep seated and primal as my cat’s desire to kill mice. The idea that gay people can switch their gender attraction on or off like a light is no less ridiculous than, say, forcing all people to be right-handed and creating different legal standing for lefties.

You think I’m joking? Check out this excerpt from Wikipedia:

Left handed people live in a world dominated by right-handed people, and many tools and procedures are designed to facilitate use by right-handed people, often without even realising difficulties placed on the left-handed.”For centuries, left-handers have suffered unfair discrimination in a world designed for right-handers.”^[5] However, as well as inconvenience, left-handed people have been considered unlucky or even malicious for their difference by the right-handed majority. In many European languages, including English, the word for the direction “right” also means “correct” or “proper”. Throughout history, being left-handed was considered as negative. The Latin word sinistra meant “left” as well as “unlucky” and this double meaning survives in European derivatives of Latin, including the English word “sinister.’ There are many negative connotations associated with the phrase “left-handed”: clumsy, awkward, unlucky, insincere, sinister, malicious, and so on. In French, gauche means both “left” and “awkward” or “clumsy”, while droit(e) (cognate to English direct) means both “right” and “straight”, as well as “law” and the legal sense of “right”. The name “Dexter” derives from the Latin for “right”, as does the word “dexterity” meaning manual skill. As these are all very old words, they would tend to support theories indicating that the predominance of right-handedness is an extremely old phenomenon.

So back to the topic at hand. I submit that Ms. Morrison’s testimony and the underlying bigoted, small-minded, circular logic makes more of an argument for the other side of this issue. I am very happy to look at today’s vote as a watershed moment — not just for the gay community, but for everyone.

Corrected

With so much in the air about the Vermont legislature approving full marriage status regardless of sexual orientation — and, in the thick of the debate, the Illinois Iowa Supreme Court striking down a ban in that state — I’m thinking back to a few years ago, in my home state of Massachusetts.

Redefining “marriage” takes time. I remember my first encounter with the concept, when I heard economist Robert Reich, then a candidate for governor of Massachusetts, say that he supported not only civil unions — then a groundbreaking concept here in Vermont — but full marriage rights for all during his candidacy. Reich entered the race late and from outside the state political process; otherwise, I’m sure his comments would have guaranteed that he’d be labelled an extremist or a nutjob at the time.

I was disturbed by my own visceral reaction of, “Whoa, this is weird.”

I gave the concept some thought. A lot of thought. By the time the Massachusetts Supreme Court struck down the impediments to full marriage benefits for same-sex couples and gay and lesbian people were able to marry their partners in 2004, I had no problem with the concept.

The point is: we all have our own preconceptions of what it means to be “married,” and many of us conceptualize the term as the traditional man-woman structure. It requires some imagination and some common sense to redefine and expand the term.

Heck, some of us still have trouble redefining Pluto as not-a-planet. Add the emotional connotations and the prejudices toward homosexuality that society has condoned and even encouraged for generations, and you get a concept that is not easy for a number of good people to embrace.

* * *

But time can chip away at definitions if they are allowed to change. Eventually what seems exotic or alien will become completely normal. And that’s what this debate is all about — normalization and equality of people who want nothing more than domestic parity. That happened in Massachusetts, and it happened in Vermont as civil unions did not cause the state to turn into anything other than a place where relationships took on additional legal protections and significance.

Our society has evolved to the point where, however much one’s gut tells you otherwise and however closed your heart is to the possibility, your head can’t refute that this is the right side of history and the humane, decent direction for the state of Vermont. Governor Jim Douglas has threatened to veto this legislation based on his own gut beliefs. That type of argument has no place in the legislative process, and the governor should be ashamed. Maybe someday — like George Wallace, who came to regret his repugnant segregationist past — Douglas will come to see his position on this issue as shamefully, pointlessly cruel and irresponsible.

* * *

In 2004, I was sitting in a restaurant in Massachusetts, and a couple of big, loud, construction workers came and sat down at the bar. After a few minutes of shoothing the breeze, one of them said casually, “We just got married last week.”

This is the first time I had come across two gay people who had actually married. It was the first time I had to think of what to say.

After a short pause, I simply said, “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Some people just don’t know what to say when I tell them.”

I think that’s exactly what to say, and I hope we all have the opportunity to do just that after the Vermont legislature overrides Governor Jim Douglas’s threatened veto.

With great sadness, we wish a fond farewell to Mary Ellen Copeland, our advice columnist whose work has graced the pages of The Commons since its very first issue.

“I have decided that I need to, at least for now, step down from doing the column,” she writes. ” I am deeply involved in working on a child sexual abuse case and that takes all my work time.   I might like to do a story on the status of child protection law sometime in the late summer or early fall.  I am certainly learning a lot about it.  And what I am seeing is appalling.  The community needs to know.

“My commitment to The Commons remains strong but I have to figure out how I can best use my time.”

We look forward to her continued contributions to The Commons in that vein and to her continued friendship.

I’m working on some new features for the Life & Work section. Stay tuned.

It’s somewhat of a drag that the only comments on this blog to date have been spam.

I’m most impressed with the open-source Wordpress software, which lets you configure the blog very nicely and also mark pending comments as spam. Presumably that helps the software identify distinguishing characteristics of such messages, though historically the spammers have always been one step ahead of us.

Many of these comments are written in foreign languages and alphabets, clearly by people hired to log on to any old blog and create a link. My favorite — and you’ll just have to believe me, because, alas, I deleted this post a month ago — was the one the comment that read something along the lines of: “Hey, anyone here speak Egyptian? I was told to visit this site but can’t understand English very well and don’t know what to write.”

I don’t hold spammers in high esteem, but you’ve got to admire the guy’s candor.

Edited to add: We fixed the form below so it actually works.

A lot is going on with this site behind the scenes. We’ve slowed down with some of our plans to update daily only to refine what geeks refer to as “workflow” — the practicalities and disciplined procedures of moving news from raw material and reporting to final product online. Barbara Evans, one of our Vermont Independent Media board members, is stepping forward to help me edit the flow of news coming through the door to get onto the site with minimum turnaround, and I’ve interviewed a few eager apprentices to help with same. We have a lot coming your way, and we hope on a more steady, reliable, and, yes, daily schedule.

Working on a site like this is much like trying to service your car when it’s running. Such is the case with our e-mail updates, which I broke even worse as I tried to fix something. My goal: to send links to stories that have been a) posted anew or b) significantly modified within the previous 24 hours. I hope to have that fixed in the next couple of days and resume the daily e-mail update to the growing number of people who have signed up for the service. In the meantime, you can do so here and get on our list.

I’m chewing on a bunch of potential editorials for the April issue of The Commons. Yesterday’s conference at the Latchis in Brattleboro, hosted by Governor Jim Douglas and Senator Pat Leahy, offers a smorgasbord of food for thought, including the arrest of four citizens for disorderly conduct during the meeting. What does and should such civil disobedience accomplish, and did they accomplish it?

I recorded the opening remarks to transcribe for the Voices section of the paper on my iPhone, but I’m grateful for the ever-present Tim Johnson of WTSA, who has posted real professional audio of the remarks at the station’s Web site (mp3, 27.5 megs).

Well, I’ve found a couple of things working on this blog:

1. It’s never been easier to start a blog.

2. It’s easy to get addicted to blogging.

3. It’s just as easy to fall out of the habit.

I love the idea of the editor’s blog as a creative and interactive medium of communicating with readers, and I’m hoping to re-establish (2) and avoid (3).

My wife Susi and I just returned from a lovely evening at Love Letters, a benefit play for the Rockingham Free Public Library. The play featured Kali Quinn and Jonathan Maloney of GUTWorks and was directed by Samantha Maskell of RFPL, the coolest youth librarian ever.

Superbly done, a wonderful night out, and a fine way to raise some money for the library.

We also had two of the best hamburgers we’ve ever had at Fat Frank’s. Who says the arts don’t stimulate the local economy?

In a time where more and more of us are contemplating backyard gardens and getting back to the basics, it seems a fitting reflection that I’m now getting spam for products that purport to let you … grow bigger tomatoes.