The Christmas Letter I Meant to Send

Every year, it seems like the holidays almost sneak up on me.  That doesn't make any logical sense, since I know full well that December 25th is Christmas and it's not a moveable feast.  Still - this year, there were a few too many irons in the fire and I never got cards sent out.  That's a shame, since I like Christmas cards (or "holiday greetings," if you prefer; whatever hangs your holly) a lot.  I actually like sitting down with a stack of cards, an address book, and festive stamps.  Alas, this year, it simply was not to be.  At first, I told myself that I'd get them out as New Year's cards, or maybe Epiphany - nope, that's not going to happen either.

And since one of my pseudo-resolutions is to decreased the amount of beating myself up for not being a constantly efficient juggler of the fiery swords of home/work/writing/personal lives, I'm letting it go.  I'm sorry for that, but I'm also accepting of it.

But if I had written a Christmas letter, it might have gone something like this:

Dear Family and Friends:

It's been an eventful year here in the Nest.  FryDaddy and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary and he's now a semester away from being a bachelor - at least on paper!  (And while there may certainly be a graduation party in May, it will in no way be a "bachelor party."  I've made my voice heard on this one!)  So let's look back on 2011:

January - A freak snow and ice storms caused the semester to get off to a late start.  I resolved to ask myself often during this year, "How can I enjoy this more?"  Not bad as resolutions go, and it's one I'm going to continue to work on in the coming year.  I started teaching an introduction to film course that focused on science fiction and enjoyed it quite a bit.   FryDaddy and I celebrated our joint birthday (weird, I know) and kept slogging through the long-distance marriage trial as he continued with his studies at UNC-Greensboro.
March - FryDaddy and I spent spring break in the exotic locale of the hospital.  All is well, and he's now an improved cyborg.  No mutant powers seem to have manifested.
April - We both traveled to San Antonio, Texas to present original work at the national Popular Culture/American Culture Association conference.  We always enjoy the PCA conferences and this one involved Tex-Mex food and the Alamo.  A beautiful, hospitable city that we hope to visit again.
May - For our first anniversary, we took a sightseeing trip up to Washington, DC.  While we certainly didn't see everything, we had a blast and it was fun to get reacquainted after a semester of (mostly) being separated.  We continued the separation with summer school sessions, though.  Eyes on the prize, people!
June - I hosted what I hope becomes an annual event - a "girls only" party involving big hats and the Belmont horse race.  We also added a small grey kitten to our household in June.  We were a little concerned about what Spooky (60 plus pound shepherd mix) would think, but no worries.  The two are best friends and often curl up together to sleep.  That's cute - seeing Spooky attempting to groom a kitten, though - that's priceless!
July - With FryDaddy home for the last part of the summer, we spent a few days finally re-arranging the kitchen to suit a 6'4" cook.  It's amazing how much room a pot rack can buy you!
August - It was my turn to be in the hospital bed as I had sinus and throat surgery.  Minor in the big scheme of things, but uncomfortable and I'm glad it's in the rear view mirror of the year.  Much improvement, though, so yes, it was worth it!
October - With the fall semester in full swing, we took off to spend fall break (where else?) at a conference.  The regional PCA was held in New Orleans and we had  bon temps galore, mon amis!  I'd go back again in a heartbeat!  Fantastic people, warm reception for the work we'd been doing and did I mention the food?  In October, Dad was also inducted into the Davidson County Sports Hall of Fame - his college baseball team [he played catcher] won the college World Series in 1955.

Throughout the year, we were involved in the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011, which was run by a Canadian we met through (where else?) conferences.  Both of us had individual work published as part of this, as well as working together on a few pieces.

In no way does this cover everything that happened this year, but it's a good sampling.  2011 was actually pretty good to us and we're hoping the Mayans were wrong about 2012!

Love to all in the coming year!

Mockingbird and FryDaddy

Holly-Trimmed Musings

Let the holidays commence!  The final papers are commented upon and graded.  Final projects have been graded and returned.  The last communication journals have been (you guessed it) graded and all numbers have been crunched.  For good or ill, the semester is done.

The Christmas holiday, however, is not.

Here at the Nest, holiday preparations are somewhat incomplete.  We have a tree, which has been strung with lights.  We held off on ornaments to give the kitten (it's her first Christmas, you see) a chance to get used to the outside being inside.  It seems that she's not much of a climber (quite interested in the wrapping paper under the tree, though), so we hope to hang at least some ornaments.

Other decorations - well, I hope to at least get the mantel decked.  The halls very well may be on their own this year.  There are a few lights strung around the porch roof, a Christmas flag flutters in the yard, and most windows are adorned with an electric candle, thanks to an elaborate system of drop cords.  It's not Martha Stewart, but it surely is not John Prine, either.

I was getting in quite a snit about this - I felt like a slacker.  I mean, it's the evening of the 20th and my house is decorated in a style which can kindly be called "Early Box."  I have family who begins baking for Christmas a month early and I have friends who go all out (and I mean "all out" in the Southern use of the term, which basically means that everything that doesn't move is spray-painted gold and tastefully gathered and grouped) and have their houses "holidayed" by Dec. 1.

You know what?

I finally figured out that it doesn't matter.  My house will never cause an editor of House Beautiful to say, "By George, I must share this sight with the general public!"    Doesn't matter.  The bank account is a bit thin and the credit card balances seem higher than they should.  Doesn't matter.  The Nest is warm and cozy, populated by a friendly-to-the-point-of-goofy white mutt and a not-so-little-anymore grey kitten who can wipe out a day of grumpiness by curling up on my lap for ten minutes.  FryDaddy and I are together, with clean bills of health.  Our problems are the relatively small problems of people living in a stable, industrialized society - too much food, too many friends who haven't been sent cards, too many choices of what to watch and where to go.

Think about it - what lovely problems to have.

The angels will come to proclaim the Good News.  It's up to me to stop whirling long enough to listen.

Come on in, friends.

Amendment One, Part Four

I know this has become a lengthy series and I promise I'll write about other things.  However, to me, this is an important issue which deserves some concentrated attention.  (Also, it's my blog, so I get to decide what I'll write about.)

This post - the last in the series - will focus on the elephant in the argument; namely, the religious angle.  Many people have a knee-jerk reaction to this amendment because of a particular religious point of view.  It's a point of view that focuses only on the sexual aspect of a relationship and depends heavily on some flawed arguments.  Let me deal with this briefly and then show how a particular court case comes into play.

1.  God made Adam and Steve and a whole bunch of other people.  Or maybe just Adam and Eve - Genesis will make your head spin.  Chapter 1 says humans were created after the animals and that male and female came about simultaneously (1:24 - 27), while chapter 2 says that man came first, then the critters, then the female of the human species (2:7 - 22).  Which account is correct?  And if that's confusing, hang on.  It's a wacky book.

2.  Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed by tolerance shown to gays.  Go back and really read the story - chapter 19 in Genesis.  (By the way, don't you ever get curious as to what "gomorrahy" might be?  No?  Maybe it's just me.)  Don't have a copy handy?  Well then - angels came to town and stayed with Lot, a "righteous man."  Wicked men of Sodom came to the house and demanded that Lot turn the strangers over to them for (there's not delicate way of putting this) a gang rape.  Lot refused (good guy) and offered his virgin daughters to the crowd instead (what??).  If you're going to be honest about what got Sodom smote/smited/smitten by the angelic host, you have to admit that it wasn't consensual homosexual sex.

3.  Gay relationships are an Biblical abomination in the same way that sowing a field with both beans and corn is.  The laws in Leviticus (where the term "abomination" is used to describe any number of actions; some of which are awful (child sacrifice to Moloch) and some of which are far less serious to us today (don't eat at Red Lobster) are hard to figure out.  And it's especially hard to suss out exactly which of these outdated laws I'm really ought to obey and which I can shrug and ignore.  I'm from the heart of barbecue country in North Carolina - the swine is hardly an unclean animal to me.  Especially when you add in the New Testament.

4.  Paul isn't to be totally trusted, either.  In his letter to the Romans,  Paul makes quite a big deal out of men who have chosen to go against God's "natural plan" (wording varies on translations).  The problem here is that  Paul often contradicts himself - look at Corinthians.  In the very same chapter (14), he first says that all who have the gift of prophecy shall speak so all can hear and learn.  Three verses later he orders that women are to stay silent in church.  Hope none of them have the gift of prophecy, or things could get dicey.

5.  Christ says nothing on the subject.  Nothing.  Zip.  Zilch.  I've always thought that if homosexuality was so all-fired important, somewhere in the four Gospels, His thoughts on the matter would be clearly recorded.  Don't take my word for it - get yourself a copy of the New Testament and read the Gospels.  If you limit yourself to reading Christ's words (the so-called "words in red" because they're often printed in red ink), you'll see what I mean.  Instead of condemnation and contempt, we have accounts of Christ preaching through his actions a ministry of acceptance that doesn't just border on radical; it upends the status quo entirely.  (My favorite is the bit of telling his disciples to  get the room for the Last Supper from a man they'll meet who is carrying a jar of water, which was totally woman's work.  May as well as told them to look for a drag queen.)

So the court case.  Legal Lesson 4 - Any law must pass the "Lemon test," named for the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman.  Here's the case, by the way.  Governmental action must meet three tests to pass muster.  If the action fails any of the three tests, it's unconstitutional as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (which way trumps Amendment One of North Carolina, remember.)  First, the action must have a secular legislative purpose.  Second, the action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion.  Third, the action must not result in an 'excessive government entanglement" with religion.  Lemon makes it hard to say with a straight face that Amendment One is all about secular concerns.

I've heard patently ridiculous arguments on this issue.  Such as . . . gays can't have kids (well, not "naturally," whatever that means in this day and age of in-vitro and surrogacy, not to mention adoption), so we can't let this happen.  Or married gay couples will come into North Carolina and have legal issues (property division, child support, etc.) that our courts just aren't set up to handle. (That's from Rep. Kelly Hastings.)  Really?  Our courts can't determine and protect the rights of our citizens?  Then we have bigger problems to concentrate on.  Or that if we let this happen, soon we'll have 40-year-old men marrying 8-year old girls. (That one's also from Rep. Hastings, who apparently never met a slippery slope he didn't like.)  Really?  Even now, a bride has to be old enough to pay full price at the movies and I don't see that moving backwards.  We're talking about consenting, loving adults.  C'mon.  Are we so scared that we're really willing to use the Constitution of North Carolina to codify discrimination and fear and intolerance?  Shame on us if we are.

Watch this, if you will.  There's nothing to be afraid of.  This is a young man to be proud of.




And then watch this.  The one thing both sides seem to have right is that it's all about family.  I just believe in a bigger definition of that than some others do.




And then vote against inequality.  I know I will.

Amendment One, Part Three

The third in a series.  This installment is also known as "it doesn't count if you move."

Remember playing Hide ‘n’ Seek when you were a kid?  The whole idea was to hide from “It” then make a run for home base when the coast was clear.  Once "home," you were safe.  Well, some folks take the same approach to marriage with reasoning that goes something like this – if I can’t get married in my home state, but can somewhere else, I’ll cross state lines to have the shindig and get the certificate, then high-tail it back home.

It’s a good strategy and it worked for years.  Across the Great Pond, Gretna Green was just a sleepy village in Scotland until England passed a law stating that those under 21 couldn’t marry without parental consent.  Scotland let lovebirds as young as 16 get hitched, so Gretna Green (which was conveniently located just over the English border) became the “go to” wedding locale for teen sweethearts.  Read the history here – it wasn’t easy, but the weddings were recognized as valid, since they were valid where they were performed.

In the United States, it’s different.  While your driver’s license is recognized as giving you the right to operate a motor vehicle when you cross state lines, your marriage may not be as portable.  We’ll use the example of first cousins getting married.  (In all states, second cousins can marry, so let’s just ride right past that.)  North Carolina allows those marriages, although NC prohibits double first cousins from marrying.  (The statutory language is a bit confusing, so just think of it this way – two sisters marry two brothers.  Those couples have children.  Those children cannot marry in NC which, genetically speaking, just may be for the best.  Then again, we also have a law on the books validating marriage between former slaves, so any number of wacky things are considered to be possible in North Carolina.)  

Anyway, back to cousin marriage.  A number of states say, “No way, no how.”  Such states include Ohio and Nevada (with Las Vegas in its borders, I’ll admit to a certain level of surprise).  A number of states say, “Don’t do it here, but if you come back here married to your cousin, well, that’s okay by us.”  Such states include West Virginia and Louisiana.  Look here for an entertaining comparison of state laws.

 

Interestingly, divorces are viewed entirely differently.  So – Legal Lesson Three:  If you get a legal divorce wherever, it’s going to be recognized in another state either under something called the Full Faith & Credit Clause or through a legal principle known as“comity” (which is a legal way of saying “courtesy.”  We want them to respect our public acts and records, so we respect theirs).  Interesting to note that this applies to the dissolution of a marriage, but not the establishment of a marriage, since both involve state action – let’s be clear here, you’re not married when the preacher says so; you’re married when that state-issued piece of paper is signed and filed at the Clerk of Court.  The rest is lovely, but not legally required, nor legally binding.  The paper is non-negotiable.  

Back to the topic at hand.  Full Faith & Credit (and comity, for that matter) doesn’t apply if the marriage “offends the public policies” of another state, which is why a marriage between two committed gay folks done legally in Massachusetts or wherever has no legal effect here in North Carolina under the current law.  Amendment One, with its ham-hocked language about marriage being the ONLY valid domestic union, makes it worse.  You’ve done everything right and move here to enjoy our mountains and beaches, invest millions in our hard-working manufacturing force, and pay the second-lowest business taxes in the country – well, your marriage has no legal protection here.  And with that missing sentence that won’t be on the ballot, the validity of any contracts you may have drawn up (such as a pre-nuptial agreement) are in question. 

I dislike second-class citizenship and ultimately, that’s what Amendment One is about.  I get that gay marriage makes many people uncomfortable, which is why the next post will deal with Leviticus, Romans, and - believe it or not - Lemon.

Amendment One, Part Two

In this post, I look at the title of the amendment - the "Defense of Marriage Act" - and ask just what exactly I'm supposed to be afraid of.

In Part One, I discussed the fact that the language that will appear on the ballot is not the same language that was passed by the legislature and the problems that may cause.  Click here for the link to that post and this link goes into more depth about the problems with the current language.

Here, I'm going to look at the language that will be on the ballot next May.  It's deceptively simple.  "Marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state."  With this single sentence, North Carolina seeks to not only outlaw gay marriage (which is already prohibited by law in this state), but also invalidate the concept of domestic unions and civil partnerships - domestic unions that permit unmarried couples (gay or straight) to receive the benefits of married couples without using the word "marriage."  There is evidence that there is support in North Carolina for these sorts of domestic arrangements - but it all hinges on just how the question is asked.

This is where things begin to boil down to the basic.  In my case, no one blinked when I politely requested that I be allowed to stay overnight in my husband's hospital room - I've got the ring and the last name.  For many gay couples, that's not a given, despite changes in the law.  See here for the law (which affects all hospitals receiving Medicaid and Medicare funds, so it covers pretty much everybody) and here for Wisconsin's approach.  Keep this in mind when you hear the argument, "Oh, it won't affect that.  A patient can see anyone they want to."  If you're in a committed relationship, there are certain things you are expected to do - visit your sick spouse in the hospital.  Pick your kids up from soccer practice.  File a joint tax return.  Maintain life insurance to benefit the other in case of some terrible accident.  Empty the dishwasher when it's clean.  Only the last one isn't up for debate under this bone-headed law.

Also -"Defense of Marriage Act"?  What's with the name?  I most certainly don't need the National Guard called out to defend my marriage.  That's the job of me and my husband - to protect this marriage and defend it from all enemies, foreign and domestic.  No one else's marriage - be it Paul Newman and Joane Woodward's 50 year marriage or Kim Kardashian's 72-day marriage (my, she hasn't finished writing the thank-you notes yet!) - attacks my own.

In North Carolina, we're very pro-marriage.  So much so, that we'll let a 14-year-old walk down the aisle, provided she's pregnant or has already had a child and is marrying the child's father.  (A 14-year-old boy can also take advantage of this provision to marry his pregnant girlfriend, provided the pregnant girlfriend is at least 14.)  Seriously.  Click here - and remember that not too long ago, the age for a pregnant girl to marry the "putative father" (to get all legal-like on you) was TWELVE.  I'll let that serve as Legal Lesson Two - marriage is such a bedrock institution of our society that children who can't test for a driver's license can enter into it, yet it's too fragile to permit a committed gay couple to get within two furlongs of it.

The other argument seems to be, "Well, we're the only state in the Southeast that hasn't amended the constitution in this way."  To me, this is the "if everybody jumped off a bridge" argument.  Not to mention, following South Carolina's lead on social issues turned out so very well for us back around 1860, didn't it?

Next Post:  Why saying "but it was legal where we got married!" probably won't cut it when you move.
 

Amendment One, Part One

Please note that this is in no way to be confused with the FIRST AMENDMENT, of which I am a strong supporter.  Nope, Amendment One is a measure due to be voted on in May in my home state of North Carolina.  It was passed during this last legislative session and is one of the most ham-handed, badly worded, and downright wrong pieces of legislation I've seen.  And I've written legislation before,* so I know a little something about this.  Here's the text of the amendment as it will appear on the May ballot.

"Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State."

Sigh.  It's bad when lawyers write legislation, but it's so very much worse when others do.  I'm going to look at this very closely over the next few posts, as I think it's terrible for the state on a number of levels.

First, some background.  The amendment is the brainchild of one particular state senator, James Forrester, who had (until his death on Halloween; write your own snarky comment about the timing) a remarkable gift for saying truly bone-headed things.  There are also some allegations that he padded his resume, but as in the South we don't speak ill of the dead (mostly), that controversy, much like the senator, has been laid to rest.

The amendment, however, has not.  Mind you, North Carolina already has a law on the books prohibiting the marriage of anyone other than one man/one woman, so a constitutional amendment seems to be a bit of overkill.  That's my first issue with it; but don't worry - it's not the only one.

Originally, the amendment contained a second sentence - one that will NOT appear on the ballot due to somebody's error.**  Only the sentence I included at the top of the post will be voted on.  The other, which read "This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts," is that language that was intended to guarantee that private business could extend benefits to same-sex couples (or, for that matter, unmarried hetero couples).  Without that language, those protections become much murkier.  This single sentence amendment also puts domestic violence protections, child custody agreements, and a host of other legal matters into muddy water for both same-sex and unmarried couples.  Don't be fooled by anyone who says, "Well, that's not what it's about and it won't come up."  Yes, it will and there's no clear path of which way a court will interpret the language.  Let's go to Legal Lesson One.

Legal Lesson One:  When it comes to interpreting language in contracts and legislation, courts look to something called the "Four Corners Rule."  No, this has nothing to do with the basketball offense made famous by Dean Smith.  You want a court to rule on a provision in a written document - the court is going to look at the language IN THE DOCUMENT, not the stuff that you tell the court should have been there, but gee, somehow got left out.  If it's not in the "four corners" of the document, it doesn't exist and won't be brought into existence just because someone really, really wishes it was there.

So before you ask the fine folks of North Carolina to vote on an amendment, let's make sure it's the one you really mean us to vote on.  There are no "backsies" in the law.

Next Post:  There ought to be a law - Oh, wait, there is one!  (or "Why my marriage is supposed to be threatened more by a committed gay couple than by the fact that 14-year-olds can marry in North Carolina")

*'Struth.  Back in my old life working in the State and Local Tax division of a major accounting firm, I drafted legislation to be considered by another Southeastern state that was intended to grant incentives to film and TV productions doing business in the state.  It's an interesting life I've led.

**For more on the winding path of the amendment, please access this link.

Come Ye Thankful People Come

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us.  A holiday I greatly enjoy, although I'm thinking that I ought to give Evacuation Day a try.  Sounds like quite a fun time (pole climbing?  Really?) and I hate that it has been pushed off the national stage in place of Black Friday melees as we are encouraged to go into debt to save money on things we don't really need, but the retailers are trying mightily to convince us that out lives will be but hollow shells without having.

Then again, melees are getting to be quite common with us.  Let's see . . .

In Berkeley, where you'd think they have some experience with student protesters, an English professor was grabbed by her hair and hurled to the ground.  Look at the clip - she's the first one who gets so hurled (but not the last) - and tell me what she's doing that warrants such treatment.  Her specialty is British Romanticism - obviously a clear and present danger to the cops decked out in full riot gear.  At the same protest, English professor Geoffrey O'Brien was beaten while on the ground and suffered broken ribs.  Robert Hass, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet who once held the rank of United States Poet Laureate, was repeatedly jabbed with a police baton.  He's 70 years old.  Guess the cops were fearful of blank verse.  Don't take my word for it - check out the link and watch the video.  Cameras are everywhere these days.

In solidarity with their Berkeley brethren, students at UC-Davis sat down with linked arms on the quadrangle, refusing to move.  That's okay, said the cops, we know how to deal with such uppity, meddling kids!  Open wide!  The chancellor, Linda Katehi, had called in the UC-Davis police to clear the quad and had since minimized the actions of the police.  (That's her, at the top of the post.)  Again, cameras are everywhere.  In a reaction that I find nearly poetic, her students watched her leave the administration building after an hours-long impasse during which she refused to address the students.

That's all.  Just watched.  And it's not with the cries of rabid wolves, or even the baleful eyes of the defeated upon seeing their conquerors.  No, this is much, much worse - it's the cold contempt of those who find the coward in their midst not even worth the trouble it takes to call the coward names.

Oddly enough, I find this heartening.  Look, even if you think the student protesters and the Occupy Wall Street ilk are malcontents, the undeniable truth is this - they have the same Constitutional rights as you do.  And to borrow from George Orwell, "When I see a policeman with a club beating a man on the ground, I don't have to ask whose side I'm on."

Our country is in trouble.  The super-committee is about to admit they can't agree on how to cut the deficit, so they're just going to go home.  The trigger that was to punish such milquetoast behavior may be "untriggered," in which case why are we even bothering to pretend that our representatives are grown-ups, as they all seem to merrily dance as the ground crumbles.  Newt Gingrich (very close to "Grinch," I'd like to point out) thinks that we need to put 10-year-olds to work with caustic chemicals to teach them the value of a dollar (wouldn't it be better to find opportunities for their PARENTS to find work?  Just askin') - an idea so loony, so out-and-out crazypants that I went to FoxNews for the link.

Maybe we should all line the sidewalks, watch these architects of disaster leave their workplace and not talk to them.  I'm not sure what is left to say.

And yet I'm grateful.  I'm grateful for a country in which excessive force used on students takes the form of pepper spray, not bullets.  I'm grateful for youthful enthusiasm and idealism that says that dammit, this time, things CAN change.  I'm grateful for the presence of cameras to document what happens so the spin stops.  And I'm grateful for students who understand the power of shame.