... caring, compassionate, tolerant ones, and Californians.

THE VERY concept of Proposition 8 amazes me: its aim, stated bluntly, was to strip the rights and privileges away from a targeted group of Americans. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to have a majority of my peers agree to do this to me, but I imagine I would be very hurt and angry. In my eyes, this is akin to deciding one day that women shouldn't be allowed to vote anymore or that Blacks can no longer drink from the White man’s water fountain. The next most similar example is probably our policies towards illegal immigrants (many of which I also perceive to be civil rights violations) but regardless of one’s position on those, it is inarguable that Prop 8 was aimed at people who are as American as we are.

Some proponents of 8 argue that allowing gay couples to wed makes “a mockery of marriage” or in some way cheapens it for the rest of us. This claim seems ridiculous to me; Elizabeth Taylor has made more a mockery of marriage than any homosexual I know. Indeed, it might not be an unreasonable suggestion to simply remove the right to marry from anyone who has done so multiple times. If you’ve already failed at being married - say, twice - and want to do it again, you’ve made a mockery of the institution in my eyes and shouldn’t be allowed the privilege. No, really - I honestly believe this. I just know better than to try and legislate it.

The 14th Amendment, section 1, promises that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. I don’t feel it’s a terrible stretch to imagine that these definitions of “liberty,” “due process,” and “equal protection” are meant to apply to gay Americans the same as anyone else.

In fact, Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) concluded that liberty “denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” (see http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=262&page=399 ).

It has nevertheless been argued that Proposition 8 was merely a “correction,” since Proposition 22 (defining the union of man and woman as the only valid form of marriage) was passed by a majority vote in 2000. It was a four-to-three decision by Supreme Court Judges in May of this year that overturned that, stating that all laws directed specifically against gays and lesbians were “subject to strict judicial scrutiny” and that marriage was a fundamental right under the California Constitution (see re Marriage Cases, http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S147999.PDF). Proponents of 8 say, “see? The people spoke, but then a very biased set of judges decided it was okay for them to change things.” Well, you know what? That’s exactly what I hope my Supreme Court judges do. When they see a civil rights violation, they move to correct it.

Take the following example: In 1958, a White man and a Black Woman were married; shortly afterwards, a grand jury issued an indictment charging them with violating Virginia’s ban on interracial marriages. They plead guilty and were sentenced to one year in prison, but the trial judge offered that they might forgo this punishment if they simply left Virginia and not return. He said,

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.”

This sounds suspiciously familiar: simply replace the races with the genders, and voila! We have the familiar argument that God meant for men to marry women, and but for the interference with His arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriages. Furthermore, had someone taken a popular vote at the time, they would have had no difficulty passing a Proposition in Virginia stating that the only recognizable form of marriage ought to be between Whites. This, however, did not sit well with a couple of Supreme Court judges, who in 1967, ruled that this decision – and indeed, Virginia’s statutory scheme to “prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications” was “held to violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.” I’m sure this upset a number of people at the time, and went against the popular sentiment, but it was clearly the right thing to do (see Loving v. Virginia, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=388&invol=1http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=388&invol=1http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=388&invol=1). This decision was – amazingly – only 50 years ago now, but the people then were wrongheaded, uptight, and biased, and it required the unwanted interference of the law to contravene the people’s desires and set things right. I think you're smart enough to get the parallel.

Massachusetts, of course, has already legalized gay marriage. In 2003, their Supreme Judicial court ruled that their state Constitution "affirms the dignity and equality of all individuals" and "forbids the creation of second-class citizens." They felt that the state had no "constitutionally adequate reason" for denying marriage to same-sex couples on the ground of due process and equal protection (see Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/conlaw/goodridge111803opn.pdf). This month, Connecticut will follow suit, having ruled in October that denying gays the right to marry was against the equality and liberty rules in the Connecticut state constitution, as well. I want no "second-class citizens" in California, either.

Since a number of Yes on 8! Proponents argue that there might be far-reaching repercussions should same-sex marriages be allowed in California, it would be interesting to look at the statistics regarding heterosexual marriage rates in Massachusetts since 2003; at this writing, the census information is available by written request (but not online). However, it is ethnocentric of us to forget that there are other countries than the U.S. in which same-sex marriage or partnership rights have existed for up to fifteen years. Studies regarding the impact of gay marriage in Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, for example, have been conducted; one University of Massachusetts economics professor reports that previously existing trends in marriage, divorce, cohabitation, and out-of-wedlock childbearing did not change as a result. In fact, heterosexual marriage rates in Denmark increased after the adoption of same-sex marriage and are now the highest they have been since the early 1970s. Divorce rates remained the same in the countries studied. Further, the majority of families with children were headed by married couples (see http://www.contemporaryfamilies.org/subtemplate.php?t=briefingPapers&ext=SameSexMarriageEvidencefr, http://www.aclu.org/getequal/ffm/section1/1c13slate.pdf and http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/magazine/19ANTIGAY.html?pagewanted=all). Belgium, Canada, Norway, South Africa, and Spain have all legalized gay marriage; I suppose the eventual long-range impact of this decision remains to be seen, but we have no evidence thus far that these countries are suffering as a result of it.

In my eyes, the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter what the repercussions might be. At one point in our history, the marriage of one black slave to another was not recognized - because they were lesser than us, we felt, and we had a right to decide whether or not their love for one another was sufficiently acceptable in the eyes of God (and Us). And I’m pretty sure that that’s wrong. We will not, I promise you, find ourselves in a world where everyone wants to be homosexual so desperately that human beings will cease getting married to members of the opposite sex and having children, thus threatening our very existence as a species. And short of that… I can think of no outcome that isn’t an acceptable consequence for providing equal treatment under the law. America isn’t nearly as overrun with destructive, lecherous, married Black folk as you might think.

It seems clear to me that what this eventually amounts to, when distilled to its most basic level, is an attempt to force one’s religious beliefs on the rest of society. I know that it is naïve to imagine that we live in a country where Church and State are actually separate, but such a separation is nevertheless a stated goal of our Constitution. Yet if we surveyed proponents of Prop 8, it seems clear that the main reasons for its support would be based in conceptions of God’s will. Indeed, the LA Times recently reported that some 43% of the funding for Prop 8 came from Mormon donators, at the strong urging of the Mormon Church (see http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/10/now-the-mormon.html). So we have people making civil rights decisions and impeding upon the freedoms of others based upon their religious convictions. I understand that to some degree, it becomes impossible to separate one’s belief system from one’s decision-making process, but this instance is neither subtle nor unconscious in nature. The interesting thing to me about all of this is that people don’t have as firm a stance, as detailed a plan, or as vested an interest in how society ought to deal with the poor, the sick, or the hungry… yet there are hundreds of verses in the New Testament alone that explicitly talk about this. In contrast, there are only a handful of Bible verses that might conceivably be interpreted as relating in any way to homosexuality. So why is this issue at the forefront? And while people have ever pointed to the Bible as support for their discrimination against all sorts of groups of people, this is always the wrong decision. I am not particularly religious, but I believe an appropriate verse might be Matthew 7:4, “how wilt though say to thy brother, ‘let me pull the splinter out of thine eye’ when a plank is in thine own?”

... your girlfriend, and my girlfriend. And mine is cooler.

HOW COOL is my new girlfriend? I could make one bloody long list, starting with the fact that she once purposely wrote an essay about Superman and ending with the fact that she can probably kick your ass in Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon... plus, she's the self-proclaimed Susie Derkins to my Calvin (minus all of the violent snowball slinging)(give us a chance, we haven't been around the snow yet). Knowing that I'm a bit smitten right now, I'll spare you the romantic drivel - but contemplate if you will the following actual conversation:

ME: Hi, baby! How's your day going?
GF: Well, apparently my space battles aren't explosive enough.
ME: Um... huh?
GF: ... I'm doing something for Babylon-5 and I've got all these spaceships flying around and I'm trying to make it look really exciting, but... my boss says he wants it to be more "explosive." What does that even mean?
ME: You are the coolest girlfriend ever. Seriously.
GF: I need a margarita.

This was a natural segway into convincing her that we need to watch Star Wars for research purposes, which she was of course amenable to because of, you know, the whole "coolest girlfriend ever" thing. I feel badly that I've got the only model in production, but not badly enough to ever let her go. So neener, neener.

... Good liars and bad liars.

I'VE BEEN asked to do a column for the school paper. I've decided to call it, "How to Talk to Your Professor." This was the first column, printed in this week's edition.

So it turns out one of my students’ aunts has the power of resurrection, which you have to admit is kind of impressive. At least I have to assume this is the case, since she died twice in one semester.

That’s right: she passed away for the first time just three weeks into class, right before our first exam. I remember because he said she had died of liver failure, which I thought was a sort of random thing for an aunt to die from. But I wasn’t about to question him: I have a solid no-question policy with dead relatives. If you’re the kind of person who wants to risk the righteous smiting of God or karma or whatever just to avoid your chemistry midterm, that’s on your head.

I was a little perplexed before the Final when she did it again. “Wow,” I said, genuinely shocked. “Both your aunts died of liver failure.” It wasn’t a question; I believed him (see my rule on death, above). It just seemed poetically unjust and rather unlikely.

I watched his eyes widen as he realized what he’d done. He stammered; his face flushed, and I feared he would spontaneously combust (I like to imagine he sort of wanted to). I guess he had forgotten he had already pulled this particular excuse with me and couldn’t save the whole mess well enough to explain why all of his aunts kept on blowing out their livers (I’m don’t know why his aunt always had to kick it, and I’m not sure why he was obsessed with liver failure - maybe he drank a lot?). Let’s just say the story didn’t end well for him. I should have been tipped off by the fact that she kept dying right before exams: another professor once theorized that they (the relatives) must literally worry themselves to death over their students’ test performance, since so many aunts, uncles and grandparents die around exam time.

The thing is, I don’t want to ask you for a doctor’s note proving that you were really having bad diarrhea. It’s insulting. But so is looking me in the eye and telling me you were mauled by a bear in Yosemite and that’s why you had to miss the exam. Gimme a break. I have a PhD and stuff.

I don’t want to lose my faith in humanity, either. We’re supposed to know that when something crappy happens to us, people – professors among them – will exhibit a little old-fashioned compassion and understanding without asking for a photo of us posing with the deceased. Likewise, I want to know that when someone elicits said compassion from me, I’m not being duped. I know that some of my colleagues insist on death certificates, and it’s not (usually) because they’re cruel and heartless; it’s because it’s become nigh impossible to separate truth from fiction. As our current president says, “fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.” Or something to that effect.

So how do you talk to your professor when you’re behind or really missed the exam for an honest reason? Well, I can’t speak for all of us. Some professors don’t have an understanding bone in their body (or maybe only one of those really little ones in the ear. The “stapes,” or whatever). But I recommend – and I know this is a crazy idea, but hear me out – just talking to us honestly. If something bad HAS happened, we want to help you. But even if you just messed up, honesty will still probably get you the best outcome: the most honest excuse I ever got was, “I was up too late the night before, and I chucked my alarm clock across the room this morning when it went off. I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but I honestly slept straight through the exam. It’s totally my fault – trust me; I woke up panicking. This class is important to me and I was hoping you would give me a chance to make it up somehow.”

Now, I do not advise this method for everyone: the best method is to actually set three, maybe four alarm clocks, and be in your seat to take the exam. But I had a lot more respect for this student than for the auntie-killer. I was a lot easier on him when it came to grading at the end of the semester and gave him the benefit of the doubt - he put his money where his mouth was and had done decently well on the other exams. I was really impressed that he was willing to be honest and take responsibility for his own actions and I thought it should be rewarded.

So please don’t kill any unsuspecting relatives on my behalf. Really, now - how would you like it if your aunt told her boss that you had died of liver failure so she wouldn’t have to go into work on Monday? Treat me with honesty and respect and I’ll give you the same. Because I’m a person, too.

So that's how to talk to your professor.

[Sonnet #1]

With my head bowed, I set to paper, pen
And set, as well, my thoughts to organize
I find my writing turns to you again
Though subtle misdirection my hand tries.
In written word, I canonize your beauty
When I try to write of seasons fair
Silk and spice I ponder with grim duty
My hand betrays me, writing of your silken hair
I conjure orchids and cerulean skies
Such thoughts take wing like birds that wheel above
Helplessly, my verse extols your sweet cerulean eyes
And the warmth and purity of your love.
---When I write words that from my heart are true,
---The only thing worth writing of is you.

[Haiku #1]

Cautious, I approach.
Wary, you retreat. A shame:
Past hurts slay romance.

... Jedi Knights, and all the rest of y'all.

MY ROOMMATE Jon and I were talking tonight about the possibility of an earthquake and how prepared we weren't.

"I don't think we even have flashlights!" I told him.

He looked at me as though I were insane. "Flashlights? We don't have flashlights?! We have lightsabers for God's sake." He's referring, of course, to the absurdly expensive pair of LED lightsabers he had purchased a few Christmases ago for both of us.

The image of us emerging from the rubble of our respective rooms with our ignited lightsabers backlighting our faces in red and blue was enough to send us into paroxysms of laughter. Better yet, we imagined other tenants' reactions as we wandered around the complex waving our humming blades in front of us to light our way:

-

"See, Billy? I told you the Jedis would come to save us."

"Jedis! I knew we'd picked the right building, Doris!"

"Oh, everthing's under control. The Jedis are here."

-

So, yeah... I think we'll probably get some emergency water and rations and make sure we have shoes under or next to our bed... but I don't think we'll be buying flashlights.

... the kind who are subtle, and this girl.

I'M TALKING about Freudian slips in class this week, when one of my female students decides to raise her hand and share the following story with the class:

"I was getting my hair done a while ago, and a friend called me and asked, 'what are you doing right now?' At the time, the hairdresser was blowdrying my hair, but what came out was, 'I'm getting a blowjob!"

[wait for it]

"... so what do you think that could mean?"

I was tempted to answer, since her slip was such a terribly opaque example - but I (probably wisely) decided not to touch it with a 10-foot... um, never mind.