How can these people look in the mirror?

A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti yesterday. I've only been in one earthquake and it was tiny. Really tiny. The papers on my bulletin board swung back and forth for about 12 seconds - quite possibly the longest 12 seconds of my life. Well, not really, because I didn't realize what was going on for about 5 seconds. But it was scary. The planet is supposed to be stable, after all; that's why we refer to it as terra firma, solid ground. We know, of course, that it's not as solid as was once thought, but we depend on it for the foundations of our homes and businesses, and the roots of our plants. When it moves under our feet, it's scary and disconcerting.

The other major natural catastrophe I've experienced was Hurricane Andrew in Miami in 1992. That was far more devastating than my tiny earthquake. We lost most of our roof and a goodly portion of the interior of our home, along with many thousands of dollars of earthly possessions. Some people lost more than that. It, too, was disconcerting to see what had been considered stable - houses, trees, fences, a US Air Force base - reduced to rubble. Disconcerting is really too mild a word; it was life-changing. It causes a re-evaluation of what's important. That often comes later, though, after the shock of seeing the incredible damage that nature can inflict, and after exhausting and terrifying hours trying to hold your child and yourself in safety, and after more exhausting hours of clearing lumber and timber and shingles and carpet and drywall from your yard and your home. Then you give thanks for your life and the lives of those who love.

Neither of these personal experiences, as profound as they were to me at the time, can hold a candle to what we are hearing about Haiti. Huge buildings - the Presidential Palace, at least one hospital, and God only knows what else - are gone. As are perhaps tens- or hundreds-of-thousands lives. There's no way to prepare for an earthquake, since there's no warning, and precious little you could do about it even if you knew it was going to happen. And Haiti is said to be the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. So here are people who already have nothing and now they have less. They are frightened with horrible aftershocks, many of them earthquake caliber themselves. They are injured, dying, grieving, holding the bodies of those they love, trying to mitigate serious injury in the midst of serious uncertainty and the ever-present fear. They are without power, without running water, without sewers. They will run the risk of infection, of dying from injuries that shouldn't be fatal, and of those who would take advantage of their tragedy.

From across this nation, help is arriving: Doctors Without Borders, Habitat for Humanity, Oxfam, The American Red Cross, and my own Episcopal Church through the Episcopal Relief and Development Fund, are just a few among the many who are sending money, people, supplies, and whatever else is needed in response to this devastation. The goodness of people around the world is being tapped in response to human need and in a spirit of our common humanity.

Into this outpouring of generosity and concern step two men who call themselves "patriots" and/or "Christian."

The first, Pat Robertson, is a man who has spent the past 40 years or so predicting the end of the world and pronouncing that "God did it because..." in the event of both natural and man-made disasters. He linked Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 attacks to the United States' "ungodliness," blaming abortion rights and homosexuals along the way. Now he proclaims that God is punishing Haiti for entering into a "pact with the Devil" sometime in the 19th Century. Well, I'm sorry, Pat, but the God I know doesn't work that way. If he did, why do you suppose he hasn't just wiped North Korea, China, and a host of other countries engaged in human suffering right off the planet? Is your God only interested in the US? Oh, perhaps he just realized this whole "pact with the devil" thing; I guess that explains it. God's been so busy punishing the USA that Haiti somehow fell through the cracks until now. Or maybe Robertson's just a sick man who takes delight in the suffering of others if it helps to advance his agenda and increase his donations. Unfortunately, there are too many in this nation who actually believe him and will echo his pronouncements.

Next into the fray steps Rush Limbaugh, the advance man for the Republican Party, telling his listeners that "...we've already donated to Haiti. It's called the US Income Tax." Of course, you can't really expect anything else from a man who has no kindness in his heart for the citizens of his own country. A man whose most common response to those who live in poverty, are losing their homes, can't afford health insurance is "get a job." Rush has his, so the rest of the world can just kiss his ass. And a lot of people do. Far too many of them are in the very boat that he's shooting at; but somehow just listening to Rush makes them feel that they, too, can someday have a big house in Florida and take winter vacations in Hawaii. In the meantime, they will subscribe to his narrow-minded and bigoted view of the world.

And, so, here we are: the wealthiest nation in the world. Even our very poor have more than most of those who live in Haiti. We have no real concept of the abject poverty that already exists there, nor can we fully understand what they are now experiencing. Even those in this nation who have experienced major earthquakes could rely on the largesse of our government, on the outpouring of aid from our citizens. Perhaps only those who were manhandled in the aftermath of Katrina could have a glimmer of understanding, but even they were shored up by the outrage of their fellow citizens. Haitians have nothing. And now they have even less.

We have Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh.

When both feet are in your mouth - and you don't notice it

It's been a eventful few weeks in politics.

First, we had the news that Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital while on Christmas holiday in Hawaii with chest pains. As one radio talk show host put it, he apparently wasn't yet "shovel ready," so he made several pronouncements on health care as soon as he got to a microphone.

After directing anyone who has chest pain, "Don't mess with it. Any time you have heart pain or chest pain and you have no idea what it is, and it's something you've never experienced before, turn it over to professionals right off the bat. Don't tough it out. Don't try to make it go away on your own, because it's not worth the risk." Of course, Mr. Limbaugh has excellent health insurance and doesn't have to worry about unpaid hospital bills, or if he'll be able to feed his kids if he misses a few days from work, but, hey, Rush says, just do it! After all, if you don't have health insurance, it's probably your fault anyway.

Next, he was lavish with his praise for the care he received: "Again, the treatment I received here was the best that the world has to offer. Based on what happened to me here, I don't think there's one thing wrong with the American health care system. It's working just fine, just dandy. And I got nothing special. I got no special treatment other than what anybody else that would have called 911 would have gotten had they been brought in with the same kinds of symptoms. The care was extensive, it was personal, and it was complete, and it was very confidence-inspiring. And I never once -- once I got here -- had any fears, because of the manner in which I was treated." He failed to acknowledge the embarassing fact that Hawaii's health care is excruciatingly similar to the "socialized" system he's been excoriating the Democrats for trying to bring about for the entire nation. As noted by Paul Abrams on the Huffington Post (and many others), Hawaii has among the lowest costs for health care in the nation, even though almost every other consumer item costs more. Why? Because it's socialized. And it doesn't affect the quality of care - at least according to Rush's experience.

Why, then, does he rail so loudly and annoyingly against the same high-quality, low-cost care for those who don't have his monetary and societal privilege? Why does he encourage people by lying about what a universal system of care for the nation would mean to all of us - not just the fortunate few? And - this is the important piece - why in hell do so many people believe him?

Of course, Rush's brush with socialized medicine wasn't the only big news over the holidays. We also had the Christmas Day "underpants bomber" who not only failed to blow up a plane (thanks to the passengers), but also failed to become a martyr - although he may well have consigned himself to a particular kind of hell in the afterlife: 72 virgins and he won't have the stuff to enjoy them with.

It didn't take long for Dick Cheney and other Republicans to criticize Pres. Obama for not rushing immediately to the microphones to make a statement. Yes, he waited three days; that's still three days less than it took Pres. Bush to comment on the shoe bomber, but since Rudy Giuliani thinks the shoe bomber and 9/11happened before Bush became President, they apparently don't count.

Nor does Liz Cheney seem to ascribe any terrorism attacks to the Bush Administration. Instead, channeling her father, she chastises Pres. Obama for not going on television sooner to address the attempted Christmas Day bombing attempt. I think both former Vice Pres. Cheney and his daughter are causing more harm to our national security by their continual attempts to characterize Obama as soft on terror. As the junior Senator from Minnesota stated recently, “We are entitled to our own opinions; we are not entitled to our own facts."

Although Sen. Franken was referring to the health care bill currently before Congress, his words certainly ring true in the case of the recent mischaracterizations regarding Obama's policies on terrorism.

The truly unfortunate aspect of all these incidents, however, is that so many on the far Right are accepting the lies and distortions by Limbaugh, Cheney, and Cheney, et al, as the unvarnished truth. In all my years following political arguments, I've never seen so many who are so willing to ignore the truth just to further their own agendas.

This doesn't bode well for the future of our nation, as we move more and more toward grandstanding and historical revision by people who hold the populace in such low regard.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The Good

On Christmas Eve, the US Senate finally passed its version of health care reform. Although it falls far short of what was promised during the 2008 Presidential campaign, and took way too long to hammer out, it is at least a start toward breaking the stranglehold the insurance companies have on the people of this nation.

I know that many people don't like the idea of the government being in the business of health care; to some, it raises the specter of "socialized medicine," and that makes them uncomfortable. My own feelings are that there are some things that the government should be in charge of - those things that affect the health, welfare, safety, and general well-being of the citizens of this nation. As I've said in earlier posts, we have no problem with the "socialization" of our schools, fire and police departments, federal highways, and a host of other services upon which we rely on a daily basis, so I'm not sure why something as important as health should be treated differently. In many ways, this creates a nation of "haves" and "have-nots" - an undesirable situation in a so-called "classless" society.

Be that as it may, and it is a discussion I'll save for another time, we have a start toward providing health care for everyone.

The Bad

The House and Senate health care bills must now be reconciled. Unfortunately, there are a number of issues that could be deal-breakers, and which could end up causing the whole bill to be scrapped.

First, the lack of a public option is a real loss of credibility for the Democratic majority, as well as a financial boon for the insurance industry. There will be no real incentive for them to keep costs down, and many will find ways to increase premiums between now and whenever the controls go into effect. (If you doubt this, just look at what the credit card companies have done over the past several months.)

Next, the issue of US citizens being prevented from buying drugs outside the country provides little incentive for Big Pharma to control prices. I'm always bemused by those who scream about the "unsafe" drugs we might get from Canada or Mexico. Until I hear about our neighbors to the North and South dropping like flies from unsafe drugs, it's going to take more than an hysterical lobbyist to convince me! And the argument that it will cripple R&D and provide little incentive for new investigative drugs is also unconvincing. People will always want to research and invent; it's in our blood. And the recognition that comes from the development of wonder drugs - penicillin, aspirin, etc. - will always translate into more research money from the government and other entities. Besides, if the pharmaceutical companies would cut out the stupid and unnecessary advertising, they'd have plenty left for Research and Development!

Finally, the abortion question looms large over reconciliation. I've discussed on several occasions my feelings about abortion, and what it all boils down to is that I don't have the right to choose for someone else - and neither does anyone else! If government assistance with health insurance precludes any kind of abortion coverage, then government is effectively denying coverage for a legal procedure. I think if we linked this ban to a ban on coverage for erectile dysfunction we'd see a swift reversal among many of our Members of Congress!

The Ugly

Ah, there is so much from which to choose! Should we start with Joe Lieberman, the man who held the Democrats in the Senate hostage because he got his feelings hurt? Or should we begin with Mitch McConnell, who vowed to fight until Hell froze over - which apparently happened earlier on Christmas Eve than he expected. Or perhaps he was afraid he wouldn't make it home for Christmas due to the bad weather if he held out till late night on the 24th.

Uglier yet is the Republican attempt to stir up the people against the bill because - according to them - it's such a bad bill, putting more money in the pockets of the insurance companies and taking from Medicare. Let's see, those would be the insurance company pockets that you're in, right Senator McConnell? Oh, and would that be the same Medicare that Republicans have tried to gut since they first tried to prevent its passage in 1965? How odd that you care so much now. And just why is this bill not doing all that it should do? Is it because you and your cohorts - including Lieberman - worked so hard to gut it, without offering anything worthwhile in its place?

Ugliest of all, however, is your disdain for the will of the people. Poll after poll shows that the people of this country want real and meaningful health care reform. Reform that includes a public option. Reform that includes expanded Medicare. Reform that doesn't increase the wealth of the few on the sickbeds of the many. And yet 41 Senators worked hard to prevent that kind of meaningful reform, despite what the people have said time after time. Forty-one Senators felt perfectly free to ignore the desires of the electorate because only these Senators know what really matters.

Money matters. Big Pharma matters. Big Insurance matters. We, the people, do not.

A cautionary tale

Forty-six years ago today, an assassin's bullet ended the life and Presidency of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And thus was launched one of the most contentious periods in US history.

It's easy to forget from the distance of years that Kennedy was not universally loved, that there were those who disliked his father, and carried that dislike over to the son. There were many who were distrustful of his Roman Catholic faith, asserting that the Pope would be the de facto president. The radical right was emerging in parts of this nation, distributing right-wing literature in schools (specifically in Dallas, TX), where there was also a billboard accusing the President of selling out to the "communist United Nations." It was reported that, upon hearing that Kennedy had been murdered, a classroom of fourth-graders in a Dallas suburb burst into spontaneous applause. The John Birch Society and Patrick Henry Society, along with the Minutemen - right-wing radical organizations all - were finding new life in Texas.

The Monday before the assassination, I had the singular honor of shaking the President's hand at a rally in Tampa. I was thrilled to see him up close, and stood in the midst of many from the local Democratic Party, so the excitement was palpable. That afternoon when I clocked in at my after-school job, I asked my boss if I could take a few minutes to stand in front of the store when the presidential motorcade passed by later that day. I'll never forget what he said: "Yes, you can. Personally, I hate him and wouldn't walk across the street to shake his hand."

I was appalled, and never felt quite the same about a boss I had liked quite well up until then. Oh, I knew there were people who didn't like him, didn't like his politics - but he was the President of the United States and - to my way of thinking - deserved at least the respect accorded by his office.

Did right-wing rhetoric kill John Kennedy? We can't prove it, but we do know that hatred, an unwillingness to accept the process of government and the voice of the people certainly played a role. Whether it was the Mafia, Castro, the CIA, or whatever your favorite conspiracy might be, the climate of distrust was palpable and was encouraged and promoted by some parts of our society.

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And now, once again, we find an upsurge in intolerance, in right-wing rhetoric. We have Facebook polls asking if Obama should be killed. We have posters depicting the president as a modern-day Hitler (showing not only insensitivity to those among us who survived Hitler's monstrous practices, but a woeful ignorance of what the Third Reich really was). He has been accused of being a "secret" Muslim (and so what if he were? Is the US not a place where all should be free to practice or not practice the religion of each person's choice?); of not being a US citizen; of not allowing religious ornaments on the White House Christmas tree; of not allowing it to even be called a Christmas tree; of approving a postage stamp honoring Islam; of any number of transgressions designed to stir up anger and hatred against the President of the United States.

And now, the latest we find is the proliferation of bumper stickers, t-shirts, teddy bears, and other paraphernalia sporting the message: Pray for Obama, Psalm 109:8.

For those who don't know, this verse says, "Let his days be few; Let another take his office." (New American Standard Bible) In a different translation of the Bible (Bible in Basic English), the quote is more sinister: "Let his life be short; let another take his position of authority." The next verse goes on to say, "Let his children be fatherless, And his wife a widow."

Although this has been defended as free speech (and, of course, it is), and as not really meant as a threat, just as a prayer that Obama will only serve one term, to my eyes it is a thinly-disguised call to action. And even recognizing that I am not unbiased, surely anyone with even a modicum of intelligence can recognize that there are in our society those who would see this as a call, as an excuse to take matters into their own hands, perhaps hoping for national recognition, or - in the style of extremists everywhere - as martyrs to their cause.

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So, what happens when a President is assassinated? Our Constitution provides for an orderly transfer of power, and we have seen this transfer happen every time a newly elected president takes office. We also saw it happen in 1973, when Richard Nixon resigned. And, tragically, in November, 1963, when Lyndon Johnson was sworn into office on the plane that bore the body of our dead president.

But beyond the purely functional and mechanical, there is an emotional toll that cannot be over-emphasized. It is a toll on the order of the 9/11 attacks. Even though there may be only one death, it is a tear in the fabric of our national lives. On that Friday in 1963, lives were put on hold - students were dismissed, employees were sent home; football games were cancelled; and - at a time and place that television went off the air every night at 1:00 a.m. - there was round-the-clock television coverage. There was a sense of disbelief and shame. We were appalled as a nation that hatred and fear-mongering could take such a monstrous toll on our lives, and on the world in which we lived.

The anti-Obama rhetoric is not only not funny, it's dangerous. I can accept that people don't like him and don't like his political position. God knows, I wasn't a fan of our last President! But when we give ear and credence to those who would stir up the fears and prejudices of our fellow citizens, when we allow the fuse to be lighted and nurture it along its path, not knowing exactly when or where it will be detonated, then we must be willing to acknowledge that we, too, share responsibility for the damage it will cause.

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So, protest, please! It is the great strength of this nation, our freedom of speech, our freedom to gather. But with that freedom comes responsibility: You cannot shout "fire" in a theater. You cannot stir others - those who are perhaps of unsound mind or with unfounded prejudices - to act on your behalf. If we treasure our freedoms then it is incumbent on us to use them wisely and well.

This is the Republican Party

I've spent the past several days cruising the internet and visiting a number of conservative websites and blogs to try to get a handle on just why some of our fellow citizens have clung to the Republican Party despite recent events. What I've most often found is that there is still a belief - misplaced, in my opinion - that the Republican Party is the party of fiscal conservatism and of less government involvement in our lives. Except for some who cling to far right relgious beliefs, few are as socially conservative as Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin would have you believe - although there are some.

In 1981, when Reagan took office, the federal debt was about $700 billion. in 1988, it was over $2 trillion. After Bush, it was over $4 trillion. Bill Clinton not only managed to pay down some of the Reagan debt, he actually balanced the budget. So when the Republican Party and its adherents claim to be "fiscally conservative," there's a disconnect between what they say and what they do.

Sure, the debt has increased even more during the 10 months Obama has been in office, but remember, much of what is costing us money is a hangover from the Bush II Administration. Something had to be done, and that "something" actually started late last year, during the waning days of the Bush Administration, with the bailouts of banks and automakers.

After 10 months in office, the most memorable thing George W. Bush had done was ignore a memo that Al Quaeda was planning an air strike against the US, and start a war in Afghanistan, ostensibly to capture Osama bin Laden. Instead, four months later, he invaded Iraq.

How much do you think that cost?

So, the Republican fiscal conservatism claim is a bit shaky, I think.

Let's reflect on the Republican claim to smaller government, and keeping government out of our lives.

If Republicans really want smaller government, let's start by keeping government out of our bedrooms and off of our bodies. Up until four years ago, 27 states had laws prohibiting sodomy. (That includes oral sex, folks.) Today, we still fight the battle for the rights of LGBT men and women to be full participants in the American Dream. We forbid them to marry, we penalize them in the tax code (because they can't marry), some places deny them the right to adopt children, and cases abound where child custody was awarded to a "straight" parent because the other parent was gay or Lesbian.

Now we have a passed a health care "reform" bill in the House that invades women's bodies even further. Not only does the Stupak-Pitts Amendment forbid government money being used for an abortion, it also forbids anyone who receives any kind of Federal subsidy from purchasing insurance with their own money to cover abortion - this, despite the fact that access to abortion has been guaranteed by the Supreme Court! So a legal medical procedure is now unavailable to all but the wealthy. How much more intimately involved in our lives can government get? And what woman would want to buy an "abortion rider"? Those who plan to get pregnant just so they can abort, I guess. Forget those who are victims of rape, incest, whose lives are in danger, or whose fetuses are hopelessly deformed!

If that weren't insult enough, Republican Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) has compared being a woman to being a smoker, thus justifying higher health care premiums for women. Frankly, I think his mother should charge him retroactive rent, plus interest, for the time he took up in her uterus, with added charges for stretch marks, incontinence, and for growing up to be an idiot.

And today, Dick Army came out from under his rock to say Americans who eat like a pig and get diabetes "don't deserve" insurance coverage.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who last week proclaimed loudly and for all to hear that she was organizing the "Tea Party" march on the House last week, the next day insisted she really hadn't organized it, that it was a "grass roots" event. This, despite the fact that she told people to be sure to attend while appearing on Fox "News."

This is the Republican Party today. It's a party that in recent years has had no compunction about trying to move the US further to the right, claiming "family values," and that we are a Christian nation. Now that their tactics have cost them both Congress and the White House, they're crying foul.

The voters have rejected Republican fiscal and social mores, for the most part. If the Party continues to allow itself to led around by the nose by the likes of Limbaugh, Palin, Bachmann, Boehner, and company, it will either cease to exist or become a third party. If that happens, it will be a sad day for a party that attracted the likes of Dwight Eisenhower, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and even Susan B. Anthony.

I daresay none of them would even recognize it as their party in 2009.

Death and Politics

Over the past several years, we've seen what I consider an odd phenomenon in this country when tragedy visits private citizens. I'm sure you've seen it in your community: a sudden outpouring of grief, usually in the form of teddy bears, flowers from the local Safeway, and poster-sized messages of condolence from people who are complete strangers to the victim(s) and the families. This is often accompanied by candlelight vigils and live interviews of teary-eyed women (usually; sometimes men) with their small children in tow.

In early 2002, two young teen-aged girls went missing just a few miles from where I live. Their bodies were eventually found, buried in the backyard of a man who had long been a suspect, and who had been accused previously by one of the girls of attempted rape. For nearly a year, our daily newspaper and local news stations covered the case almost nonstop, frequently relegating the war in Afghanistan to a lower status. Yes, it was local news, and yes, we do have provincial media in this part of the country, but we were also sending hometown soldiers off to war, and many of them weren't much older than these girls.

The abduction and murder of these two children was tragic, but had people cared about them in life, perhaps they wouldn't have been living in circumstances that led to the joint tragedy. At the risk of sounding callous and uncaring (neither of which I am) we were witnesses to what I think of as cheap grief. People were openly crying and wailing, getting their air time (one local television reporter became so personally involved with the families that she spoke at one of the funerals), and then going home to resume their daily routines.

Overlapping this local tragedy and the media and community involvement and exploitation of it, was the Florida case of Terri Schaivo. For 15 years, Mrs. Schaivo was on life support in what was characterized as a "persistent vegetative state," meaning there was no hope of recovery. When her husband petitioned to have her removed from life support, the largely Republican Florida State Legislature and then-Governor Jeb Bush intervened to prevent it. Once all legal avenues had been pursued in the State, the US Congress got involved, led by then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and joined by others in the Republican Party, along with pro-life and right-to-life groups. President George W. Bush returned from vacation to sign a bill into law in an attempt to prevent Mrs. Schaivo's husband from removing her life support. Eventually all options were exhausted and Mrs. Schaivo's life support was removed and she was allowed to die.

(In the interest of full disclosure, one of the senators who voted for the bill that Bush signed was Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL. During two presidential primary debates, he admitted that it was his biggest professional mistake and "...allowed Congress to intrude where it shouldn't have.")

Today, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) led a group of "teabaggers" to protest the Democratic health care plan now before Congress. Those who grieved so publicly and left signs, flowers, teddy bears and expressions of love for two girls they didn't know, live in prime "teabagger" territory, and are vocal in their opposition to health care reform.

Yesterday, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) released the Republican Party's health care plan. The proposed plan has been  reviewed by the Congressional Budget Office and the CBO found that not only would it cut the deficit by about $36 billion less than the Democratic plan, but that it would also leave more people (52 million) uninsured in 2019 than are uninsured today (46 million); this contrasts with CBO's estimate of 19 million uninsured in 2019 under the Democratic plan. Where is the outpouring of interference that was accorded Terri Schaivo? Why are Congressional Republicans now so determined to "keep government out of our lives"?

I invite you, Dear Readers, to visit YouTube and watch and listen to all eight segments of Rep. Alan Grayson's (D-FL) reading of the numbers of people who have died in Republican Congressional Districts.  Listen to the individual stories that he recounts. Listen to hear Republican Congressmen try to cut him off.

Then ask yourself what relationship these seemingly disparate events I've related here have to each other. And ask yourself as well why there are those in this country who are so willing to indulge in "cheap grief" and so unwilling to make a difference.

Marriage and equality

Maine's rejection of gay marriage is more than just a disappointment to me; it's a travesty. From the hands of the voters, yet another minority has had its rights rescinded. Although the group that supported so-called "gay marriage" had better funding and should have prevailed, there persists in this nation a segment of society gullible enough, willing enough, careless enough, to buy into the scare tactics that emanate from the political right wing.

"They'll teach our children about homosexual marriage in schools," was one particularly pervasive and disgusting argument. First of all, I don't recall being taught much about marriage at all in school, except in biology as a 9th grader and "marriage and family" in my home ec classes. What I do recall is that every family in the books was different from mine. No, my parents weren't gay, but they were divorced, and in the 50s that was only spoken of - if at all - as an aberrant paradigm. So what about the kids in today's school who do have two moms or two dads? Will ignoring their non-traditional families make them feel as alone and "different" as I felt?

"Homosexuals will recruit your children to their 'lifestyle'." Oh, really? When a person makes that statement to me, I love it because it gives me the opportunity to ask them if they're so insecure in their own sexuality that they could have been "recruited" as a child?

"It will undermine the institution of marriage." No; Britney Spears, Elizabeth Taylor, and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina undermine the "institution of marriage," and they're heterosexuals, every one. Even I, a practicing heterosexual, have two divorces under my belt. So I, too, am guilty of undermining.

"It's against God's/Allah's/Yahweh's (insert your favorite deity here) word." Well, I'm really sorry, but none of them is a registered voter here in the U.S., and there are a whole lot of people who subscribe to no religion, or to less restrictive ideologies than are assumed by that statement. I am, however, a Christian (but an Episcopalian, so maybe my ideas count for less!) and the God I know is accepting of us all. The God I worship is not a god of hate and marginalization, but of love and acceptance. I don't know who those other guys are talking about. Besides, the last time I looked, we aren't a theocracy, and our founding documents don't include the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran.

What I propose - and have espoused (if you'll pardon the terminology) for some time - is to get the government at all levels out of the business of marriage. Since some among us are so devoted to the word, marriage, let's call for the Federal, State, and Local governments to abandon it and issue Domestic Partnership licenses. Let all tax laws and other regulations apply equally to people who enter into DPs, and anyone who wants Marriage can have it blessed in their local church or other religious institution.

I'm old enough to remember that when Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco, their civil union was a separate funcion from their religious union. Performed at different places, on different days, thereby fulfilling both their State and religious regulations.

Would that be so hard?