Gaak, Well, There Goes California

            Once again, the forces of  destruction are about to rain down on poor California.  People are going to run riot in the streets.  Whole towns will be swallowed whole.  Small children will weep and run amok.

            Yes, once again, judges have ruled that Prop 8 is unconstitutional.  This time it was the Ninth Circuit court.  So, the state Supreme Court and now one clump of judicial feds have basically found that “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California.”

            Let’s repeat that:  “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California.”

            So what is it about that brief, honest observation is so impossible for so many people to accept?

            Besides the inability to be honest about one’s true feelings and motives, may I suggest another reason this battle has been so fierce and long and irrational?  Words.  Wrong words that describe the wrong issue and hence create a wrong reality.

            Take the acronym, “DOMA.” Defense of Marriage.  Defense.  Did anybody recall gay people saying they wanted to eliminate marriage?  Destroy it? Get rid of it?  Change the laws so the states wouldn’t be allowed to marry anybody any more? Kaput, no more marriage anywhere?

            I didn’t either.  All I saw was a bunch of people who wanted to join the ranks of the married, have marriage ceremonies of their own, so the net result was MORE marriage, not less.  How do you “defend” against people who want to join you as fellow participants?  You don’t “defend” a castle against friends who show up and say, “Hey, we want to join you.”  You “defend” against enemies who are trying to destroy you.

            So, there was the false reality – gay people as “the enemy” that needed “defending” against because, somehow, their getting married would “destroy” marriage. Yet, not once during this whole battle, did I hear from any straight couple explaining just how, exactly, their marriage would be “destroyed” if a gay couple next door got married.  Not a single explanation that made any sense. Not one.

            If a whole gaggle of people had been honest from day one (We don’t like gay people and anyway, full civil rights and privileges go only to the people the dominant majority says should receive them; nobody else.), they wouldn’t have deceived and trapped themselves and others in the false language of their own making.

            Luckily, the courts have seen through those lies.  Unfortunately, gay people will still have to wait for their full rights for several more years and pray that the Supreme court will also concur that, “Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that proposition 8 could have been enacted.  All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same-sex couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation ‘marriage.’  Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California.”

            Meanwhile, the hate and fear continues. Comedian Ellen Degeneres is now the subject of a boycott by a so-called “Million Moms,” who want her removed as the spokesperson for J.C. Penny.  Ellen noted dryly on her TV show, the Million Moms’ Facebook page shows a membership of 45,000 so she guessed they just rounded up to get their fake number.

Meanwhile, Never Miss An Opportunity To Gin Up The Culture Wars 

            The Republican culture wars heated up over the issue of the “Obama Care” program requiring that insurance companies offer full, comprehensive coverage for all women’s health issues, including birth control, to all businesses that offer insurance to their employees, including Catholic institutions that primarily “serve the public interest,” with exemptions made for institutions that are primarily religious and not serving “the public.”  These provisions are already in place at Catholic institutions in 28 states and these institutions have made different kinds of “wink-nudge” accommodations.  Like Hawaii, “where the rule is in effect, but where employees at religious institutions that do not offer free contraception can get birth control through side benefits, which the employees nominally pay for but which often end up being free.”

            Considering that polls show that the vast majority of even Catholic women use birth control of some kind, and a good number of people working at Catholic institutions such as hospitals are not Catholic, all this “wink-nudge” has been going on under the Bishop’s noses for years. 

            But, it’s an election year, so you can be sure that a Church under real scrutiny for years of child molesting that went unexamined at best, and covered up at worst, won’t lose an opportunity to flip the frame and come out playing the role of victim here – Christianity under assault! And Republicans sure aren’t going to miss a chance to portray our Muslim Kenyan Christian-Hating President as a man out to “Destroy Religious Freedom!”  

            The issue is simple:  Equal insurance coverage requirements for all employees whose employers offer insurance, with exceptions for primarily religious institutions, and all kinds of wink-nudge accommodations to allow Catholics to pretend that the wink-nudge accommodations aren’t there.  Win-Win. 

            But in the culture wars, the political wars, women’s bodies, women’s reproductive health, will once again be used as a fake battlefield. While Catholics suit up in fake hair-shirts to play the fake victim card, and Republicans gin up the fake outrage.

            The real question is this:  Are women stupid enough to fall for this?  Stay tuned. 

Congress/Prez for Sale.  Cheap, Considering.

           

            Stephen Colbert gave formal thanks for the 22 rich guys who, to date, have financed the Republican Primary via the Super PACS.  Then wittily declared that he sure those 22 will pick a president he likes.

            Twenty-two.

            At the same time, President Obama, who originally decried Super PACS, has succumbed to unleashing the Democratic PACS and so turned into Omar Sharif in “Lawrence of Arabia.”  Remember the scene, the Turkish retreat from Deraa, the demoralized army fleeing while behind them massed Lawrence’s band of fierce Bedouin and Lawrence declared, “No quarter! No quarter,” and at first Omar objected, then, caught up in the moment, brandished his sword and galloped into battle.  No quarter!  And the slaughter commenced.

            We will now see what will be unleashed by the Roberts’ Supreme Court and their Citizens United disaster.  Battle of the Super PACS.  Government by Twenty-Two?  Forty-Four?  Which returns us to the pre-Jacksonian America: Rule by Rich Aristocrats. 

            Who needs One man, one vote, anyway? 

How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?

The Saga of Annie continues on the front page of the Tribune. Proof positive that it’s August, a slow news month when stories about ice cream appear on the cover of Time, and we get heavy news coverage of minor “human interest” news.

Poor Annie, an Aussie who jumped out of her owner’s truck in Nipomo and ran away back in June. Owner Chuck Hogue searched for her for weeks. Apparently she turned up at the Animal Shelter about a week later, unbeknownst to Hogue. It’s not clear from the story how Hogue came to discover Annie had been at the shelter, but she had been at the shelter for some time, and her description had been put on the call-in dog line three times. Still, no Hogue. And by the time he did realize she was there and showed up to get her back, she had been adopted by a family from Arroyo Grande.

The wrinkle in this story is that the adopting family refused to give her back to her original owner, so the “human interest” part of this story kicked into high gear, with daily updates and then outraged letters to the editor. Of which, Jeff Hamm, director of the county Health Agency, which oversees the Department of Animal Services (DAS), likely made worse when he “called the subsequent complaints to the county seeking to have Annie returned to Hogue a ‘feeding frenzy.’”

An unfortunate phrase that likely will cause more dismay and anger from “the public” which has been active and vocal in calling out Hogue (didn’t tether his dog safely in the back of his pickup truck, didn’t microchip Annie, had no i.d. tags on her, no evidence he came to the shelter or files a lost dog report & etc.), DAS (screwed up policies, past problems on similar adoption problems, mixups resulting in dead dogs, etc.) and the new adoptive family (selfish, heartless pond scum who would keep a dog from reuniting with his “real” owner.

And this morning, he saga has now ramped up to include talk-show host, Dave Congalton, Supervisor Adam Hill, who offered to “pay any expenses incurred by the new owners for adopting Annie, including the cost of a microchip and to buy them a new puppy” (buy them a puppy? Not adopt another pup from DAS?). And now there’s a planned meeting “with Jim Grant, county administrative officer, Jeff Hamm, director of the county health agency, and County Counsel Warren Jensen, in case the county decides to explore legal options for returning Annie to Hogue.”

So the big guns are threatening to bring on The Law, and/or offering money and a new puppy to the horrible, terrible, evil pond-scum AG adoptive family, while a group of Annie fans were going to hold a rally at SLO’s Farmer’s Market. And, to date, the horrible, terrible, evil pond-scum AG adoptive family has remained off the radar, likely hiding under the bed and ruing the day they ever went to DAS to get a dog for the kids.

But this story did have some great elements that helped turn it into a sad, cautionary tale. First, there’s no evidence that Hogue was a terrible, abusive, evil, terrible abusive dog owner. If he had been, the new owners would be ethically justified in keeping Annie from such a terrible person. Yes, Annie should have been collared and I.D. tagged and tethered safely, but accidents can happen and dogs can get loose from even the most secure situations, run off and remain lost for weeks from even the most loving and caring of homes. And, unfortunately, too many people who find stray dogs don’t turn them in to DAS, or notify DAS that they have the dog, fearing the dogs will be taken away and killed, and instead, keep them for weeks, often months, while the owners are checking with DAS daily. Then, after futile weeks of checking, the owners give up the search and when the dog finally does turn up at DAS, it’s too late.

And, yes, DAS is too often beset with problems due to understaffing, being underfunded, and overwhelmed at times with too many animals being dumped by too many irresponsible owners. They also have to rely on hard-working volunteers and in the past lack of time and training for the volunteers has resulted in problems. Add in the difficulty of properly describing/identifying dogs for the hot line and the problems are only magnified. As a DAS certified “Basenji Rescue” contact, I’ve gotten several calls or emails over the years claiming that there’s a basenji in the shelter. Only once has that been correct. The other dogs weren’t even close. True, very few people have ever actually seen a basenji, and basenji-mixes can be tricky, at best, so it’s easy to see how any small tan and white dog with a curled tail might be worth calling me about. But that information on the phone call-in line would flummox an owner looking for their tan terrier/retriever mix. Even the photos that were taken and sent me didn’t much match the dog when I came to the shelter for a look. So, proper identification even by photo can be hard.

Add in the fact that, believe it or not, a lot of people have no clue where DAS is or how to access it. In this case, Annie was lost in Nipomo and I’m betting her owner likely never thought to drive daily up to a shelter as far away as San Luis Obispo. And, for all we know, Annie may have been kept in somebody’s home while they tried on their own to post flyers around the neighborhood until finally turning her over, thereby confounding Mr. Hogue’s search. In short, an awful lot of people simply don’t know where to begin to look for a lost dog.

And, finally, in this story, we have to add in the adoptive family, whose story we know nothing about, except they refuse to return Annie to her “real” owner, and so-far have refused to say why they refuse. Which makes them look like evil, horrible, terrible pond-scum. And raises an interesting ethical issue: Who “owns” dogs and when?

Legally, (at this point, unless Warren Jensen can find some new wrinkle) Annie is legally “owned” by the adoptive A.G. family. They filled out the forms, paid the fees, followed the DAS rules.

But who really “owns” Annie? The A.G. family who has had her for a few weeks, or Hogue, who has “owned” Annie for 8 years? One letter-to-the-editor writer suggested we all let Annie decide. Invite Mr. Hogue over to the A.G. family home, open the door and let’s see.

And, ethically, is it right to keep someone’s dog when there’s no evidence that the owner is abusive, indifferent, cruel, etc? When the only problem may have been a lack of knowledge of how to search for and find a lost dog? When the owner has known and loved his dog for 8 years and the adopter has only known the dog for a few weeks?

When does me-first trump doing the right thing? Has Finders keepers, losers weepers become the ethical norm? Well, until we hear from the family in question, we’ll be left with a lot of questions and likely this saga will continue. After all, it’s August – Dog Days – and this is one of those slow-news-day stories. Stay tuned.

Also Stay Tuned

The Republic is safe for another week. Instead of allowing gay marriages to commence, Federal Judge Vaughn R. Walker has allowed the Prop 8 supporters to delay and appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which should rule next week. The question before the 9th Circuit has now turned into an interesting one: In federal court, in order to have standing to sue, a person/group has to show that they have suffered an actual injury, and in the trial over which Judge Walker presided, the Prop 8 folks couldn’t muster any rational, credible, factual evidence that people had been injured by gay people getting married.

And since Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown, as the losing parties who do have standing have refused to appeal Walker’s decision, it’ll be up to the Prop 8 folks to find and present all those injured straight people to the 9th Circuit Court. If they can’t, that’ll apparently be the end of it in California, at least, and we’ll see a lot of gay weddings happening all over the state.

Meanwhile, DOMA (federal Defense of Marriage Act) still stands and still discriminates against gay folks who are legally married in states where that’s allowed, so that case has yet to proceed on that issue. And, of course, the military – which has apparently forgotten that it’s fighting two wars – is still kicking out fully trained gay soldiers, including combat veterans. And they’ll apparently continue to do so until either President Obama signs an executive stop-order and/or the year-long “study” is completed and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is rescinded.

Such bigotry and stupidity never ceases to amaze me. But, hey, it’s sooooo American.