Proposition 8--A Call for Compromise

The homosexual community desires the institution of "marriage" to regulate their unions. Contrarily, the conservative elements of our society, including the religious right, oppose extending to homosexuals this governmental formality. They argue that "marriage" should be reserved for monogamous, heterosexual couples; and fearing they are losing ground, they have sought legal reforms like the passage of Proposition 8 in California to stem the tide of the gay rights movement. This has set off a firestorm.

Before I wade into it, in the interest of full disclosure, let me acknowledge that I am decidedly a screaming heterosexual--somewhat partial to this word's latter part especially when paired with a joyous bit of conjugal crooning. Moreover, I am embarrassed to say (yes, frankly my natural orientation, my instincts and religious upbringing made it very psychologically distressing) that when not dreaming about heavenly messengers and Nirvana, I have had in my long life a rare homo erotic dream, as well as a few other non traditional ones, all from which I was relieved to wake up; I have also had several homosexual acquaintances, relatives and friends; a few more rabid homophobic cohorts, and I was once gay but that was about 157 lives ago when I just happened to be reincarnated as a Chichlid into a watery community that did not frown upon changing sexuality (and thereby orientation) but in fact encouraged it as a matter of survival (Google it). In short, I feel I am almost as qualified as anyone else to address this topic.

Now, before you suggest that I am making light of this very serious polemic, let me also state that I understand that traditionally marriage was a hallowed religious institution that governed the union of a woman and a man so that they could be bound together by love and mutual respect for the purpose (as suggested by some) of raising up children to pay taxes (and tithes), supply soldiers and heirs, and to render up the occasional wench or two for the Kings' sons and his royal knights. On the other hand, I am likewise fully aware that homophobia was also (and in some places still is) an insidious sentiment that has been encouraged by religious institutions that have tried to ensure the disunion of the human body from its frame. For these very reasons, while I am exceedingly partial to the former, (given that it worked for me when I grew up and my aunt swears I am a descendant of royal French lineage), I am decidedly against the latter--as I am all hatred and bigotry--and I therefore opine that perhaps, as we did with affirmative action, we need to go as far as practicable in the opposite direction. Similarly, let me also not hesitate to add that I am just as decidedly against vandalizing LDS churches or other similar forms of violent expression because of this faith's zealous support for Proposition 8.

As a compromise in the battle to expand the concept of marriage to include homosexual unions, some suggest that they should be granted the right to "civil unions." This concept is not wholly foreign to the law. Currently government allows groups of people, gay, straight or otherwise, to join together for common purposes to form corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, etc (from Exxon to Playboy to RJ Reynolds, from Enron to Dr. Johns, and from McDonald's to Nevada's brothels). Even though they don't bring children into the world (at least not by definition), these business entities engage in all kinds of questionable and reprehensible acts (some that cause sufficient harm to be sanctioned by law and some that do not) and they are yet allowed great privileges and protections under the law which govern their formation, organizational structure, existence, and their dissolution.

The legal formalities establishing these business entities were created to bring order and civility to the many relationships that were being formed in the business world. For much the same reasons, "civil marriage" and "civil divorce" have been promulgated to establish order and consistency in the mechanisms that join men and women together to form a common household. Outside of "civil marriage," heterosexual couples may also marry in religious ceremonies that sometimes have additional moral restrictions and regulatory components not provided by law. For instance, some religions proscribe divorce. Hence, to comply with their sectarian vows, adherents to those religions are free, as their own consciences dictate, to eschew divorce and endure their difficult marriages. As we know, some religions allow homosexual unions and some vehemently do not. As citizens of the United States, we may embrace these different religious groups or shun them. It's a choice that should be celebrated by both sides of this issue. Of course, these religious "marriages" are not endowed with the legal benefits of a "civil marriage." And herein lies the controversy.

Under our Constitution, our law should, to the degree practicable, be blind to race, religion, color, disability, sex and even sexual orientation. Consequently, the differences between religious marital practices should not be propagated in our legal formulations. So what is the best remedy to harmonize the law so that it is both even handed and palatable to these disparate groups? Rather then getting bogged down in endless and irreconcilable discussions on nurture versus nature, the divine or traditional origins of marriage versus more humanistic or evolutionary beliefs, there are some constants at play in this controversy and some basic principles upon which question should be answered.

First, no amount of religious indoctrination nor legislation will change the reality that for reasons beyond some of our complete understanding (I will never claim to completely understand what it is to be a women or a homosexual, etc.), a small percentage of humanity will have homosexual unions. Second, before an activity or lifestyle is deemed to be sufficiently harmful to be proscribed by law, the harm it causes must amount to something more than just a religious based fear or an offense to religious beliefs and values. For instance, it is a specious argument that homosexuality will become so popular it will lead to our extinction as a species. (In fact, I suspect that this insipid argument was really born of the wishful thinking of house mice, gray whales, green peace advocates and Satyrs). Third, since Homosexual unions do not cause harm, they should not be proscribed nor limited by civil law.

Given these realities, the question becomes, if homosexual behavior should not be sanctioned by civil law, should it be allowed the same conventions as heterosexual couples in "marriage"? Again, the conservative and religious right argue that if homosexuals are granted civil marriages, it will decimate the traditional institution of marriage and weaken its strength, endurance and prevalence and lead to the deterioration of the basic, traditional family. Whether or not this argument has any merit, why does the homosexual community insist on appropriating for itself an institution that has been created and perpetuated by its historical oppressors? Why not allow the religious right the benefit of reserving the nomenclature of "marriage" for monogamous heterosexual couples?

On the other hand, as indicated above, instead of the laxity of free-wheeling, unregulated consensual unions, homosexual couples desire the order, institutionalized commitment and normalcy of "marriage," to regulate their unions. Furthermore, many gay rights advocates argue that they don't want something separate from "marriage." They suggest that accepting a compromise like "civil unions" would equate to segregation and would therefore, just like racial segregation, never really be "separate but equal." This argument is not wholly without merit. Under such a scheme, just as racial bias was institutionalized under the Jim Crow laws, homosexuals may simply find the historical prejudice against them being codified in the same manner. Nevertheless, for both sides of this issue, wouldn't some semblance of the institution of marriage be better than the status quo?

The needs of both parties could be satisfied as follows. First, the government shouldn't be in the "marriage" business at all. The institution of "marriage," that originated in religion should be relinquished back to religion. Let religious institutions do with it what ever they will. Instead, just as government has created regulations to establish different types of business entities to create order and normalcy in the business community, government should not license "marriages" but should only grant civil unions. These "civil unions" should be governed by current marital and divorce laws, or the government could create several different types of civil unions. This would thereby allow consenting adults, whether homosexual, heterosexual or asexual unions of convenience--just as people do for their businesses--the same right to choose the order and structure of the particular "civil union" they desire for their relationships. This would put gay unions on equal governmental footing with heterosexual "marriages." It would further allow the religious right to define "marriage" as each religious group sees fit.

This could possibly have a civilizing effect upon the unregulated unions of the gay culture that the religious right so drastically detests and fears. Maybe, heterosexual couples should take pride and find solace in the fact that due to the positive examples they have set displaying the benefits of "marriage," they have caused the homosexual community to desire those same benefits of community-acknowledged love, commitment and belonging. Isn't this a good thing? So why not open those benefits to all consenting adults and stem the round of "Propositions" that will surely befall us in the future with the waste of millions of dollars and tons of love-sapping emotional energy? Couldn't that money and emotional energy be better spent concentrating on devoting ourselves to those we have voluntarily chosen as our partners? Instead of disenfranchising a small minority from an institution it longs for, wouldn't the religious right be better off concentrating on setting such a stellar example of its position that it will become a clarion call for others to voluntarily embrace?

Loren Lambert

Copyright November 26, 2008

A Chicken In Every Pot, A [Volkswagon] In Every Garage

With his falling poll numbers, Senator McCain pulled out the stops and promised the American people that if he was elected he would ensure a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. Or was it?

Wait, hold it. Now I remember correctly. No, it wasn't Senator McCain. He's not that small minded, he is a maverick. He's much more ambitious then that. What Senator McCain said at his second Presidential debate was, "I promise every American that the Federal Government will buy him or her a house to cook a chicken in and a garage to park their car in." Yeah, that was it.

It was President Herbert Hoover who in 1929 promised each American household the chicken and the car and it was Adolf Hitler who in the early 1930s promised all of Germany a KdF-Wagen [Volkswagen] for every family. And it worked. Hoover was elected President and thereby had the honor of escorting the American people into the great depression and Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor and promptly lead his country into the hell of the holocaust and into total war.

So, yes, Senator McCain continues to pull out all stops in his bid to gain the Presidency. Will he or will he not escort the American people into its second great economic crisis and into endless war in Iraq? It certainly does seem a possibility when he says it, for who better to promise to buy your vote and make it sound oh so patriotic and palatable? This is so because although a rose may smell as sweet when called any other name, a sick ploy to buy votes having come from a democrat would be smelled out for what it was -- a crock of s_ _ _ gilded with instant-gratification gold.

Open that up for cheap smelling salts when you feint as the billion dollar bailout fails, because that is all it will be good for, I promise.

Loren M. Lambert
Copyright October 18, 2008

The 700 Billion Dollar Balloon

Some want to call it a 700 billion dollar bailout, some a rescue and others a "stimulus package." But here's what it really is, a 700 billion dollar balloon for our billionaire barons. This huge house of cards we have all unwittingly helped amass into all of its lofty, termite ridden glory, was created on our backs by the elite who benefited most from its teetering heights. To keep it that way so that high property values, exorbitant interest rates, and easy credit could float them all above the dross, they need this gargantuan balloon to tether it up with millions of strings and gallons of helium.

Without the helium lift, land prices will fall and with it the house of cards that our entire economic mirage has been built upon. In the short run, except for those who have been completely responsible and have not bought into this mess, there will be pain, maybe lots of it. But in the long run, if the lower and middle class survive the crush, with lower land values, the American dream will be more within their grasp. Perhaps that is what we need to finally discipline our selves as a nation because that pain is going to come sooner or later, why not take it now?

However, with the billion dollar balloon, the elite will be able to continue earning obscene salaries while enslaving the American public with mortgages it can't afford and credit that it cannot resist.

Therefore, if the status quo is going to be floated so we can enjoy our house of cards a while longer until the helium slowly leaks away, at the very least demand that our politicians secure limits on usury and consumer credit and force the wealthy, before they sail away on their golden parachutes, to disgorge their plunder.

Loren M. Lambert
September 29, 2008

The Hasty Hand of the Law and Brian Wood

After an argument with his wife, Brian Wood was sitting in his car, an obvious shell of a man, a gun held to his head.

All about him the ever impatient law enforcement officers were huddled behind barriers and shields. Acting brave and trying to provoke Brian into standing down, the officers, all decked out in their SWAT team outfits, volleyed back and forth at him using tear gas, stun grenades and intimidation.

However, they didn't look all that heroic. It was all there to watch on the 10 o'clock news. They looked like a bunch of grade schoolers poking their sticks at a wounded, wild and trapped animal. The outcome was apparent without any additional watching or ever reading the morning news the following day. Someone was going to die and of course someone did.

So, for the last time, please explain to me why oh why oh why can't law enforcement ever simply show a little Gandhian restraint and calmly, patiently and simply wait things out? It never ceases to amaze me the countless lives, including the innocent, law enforcement and the not-so-innocent that are lost--from Ruby Ridge to the Swapp Compound to Wacco--because law enforcement had to force things instead of waiting out the stand off.

Let's face it, Brian Wood had isolated himself in his car. The car was hemmed in. He wasn't going anywhere. He was surrounded. Instead of using their expensive toys, all law enforcement had to do was secure the area, rig up lights for the coming night, post a few officers in four hour shifts and wait it out. Although not nearly as sexy and cool, even if it would have taken a day or two before Mr. Wood succumbed to fatigue, hunger and thirst--that would have been a far better outcome and probably less expensive than the bravado that law enforcement is always so eager to display--often with unnecessarily deadly outcomes.

Loren M. Lambert
September 25, 2008 Copyright

What's The Test for Success In Iraq?

Senator John McCain and his adorable side kick Sarah declare that the surge has been a success and we are winning the war in Iraq. Really? How is that determined? By the absence of violence? Wasn't there a greater absence of violence when Saddam was alive and in control?

Using that as a litmus test for success, I guess we should install a dictatorship (dang, the best guy for the job was hung) or better yet we can surge the hell out of them and make sure our investment gets paid in oil--maybe Dick Cheney could stay on to see it through.

No, success is when the Iraqi people make a collective choice to do what is right. That will not be known until the American presence is no longer restoring security by brute force. Only then will we know that their hearts and minds have grasped the ideology of tolerance and democracy.

So what has the surge shown of their hearts and minds?

The other day an Iraqi high ranking officer was being recorded by western media as he berated a junior officer. His diatribe was that the junior officer was soft and had to work harder. The senior Officer screamed that if this junior Officer found a "terrorist," in a home--he was to destroy that home and its occupants, if in a community--he was to rip apart the entire neighborhood, and if in a village--he was to obliterate the entire village until not even a fly knew what had once been there.

Is this progress? Is this what we are proud that our surge has done in Iraq? I don't think so. Perhaps it has worked in other areas of Iraqi society. But that is something that neither Senator McCain nor Senator Obama can know as armed outsiders looking in. To say otherwise is like proclaiming your undying love when some woman is demanding you love her at the point of a gun. With the muzzle held to your temple, it's just a little difficult to be genuine about your sentiments for her. Iraq has that muzzle held to its temple and who knows what it is collectively thinking despite whatever platitudes are coming from its mouth. Only time will tell when we are long gone. So in the interest of discovery, let's give them the best shot we can and get the heck out of Dodge.

Loren M. Lambert
September 14, 2008 Copyright

George Bush With Lipstick and a Bigger Vocabulary

Sarah Palin is a scary thing. She does not represent the new Republican party. She's still more of the same, but she's pretty and has a bigger vocabulary than G.W. Nevertheless, if you listened closely to her acceptance speech, she made it clear that she has the same disdain for the law (". . . [Obama's] worried that someone won't read them their rights) and basic human rights, the same disregard for the environment (drill, drill, drill, drill until the sun don't shine--not a quote but a paraphrase--not that we shouldn't but that we should act with prudence), the same adherence to old school diplomacy (“Obama wants to meet them without preconditions) and the same lust for everything that unfettered corporate greed can give her and the American elite (yes, she did support the billion-dollar-boondoggle-bridge to a small island where it would have been less expensive buying a Lear Jet for each inhabitant).

[But on the other hand she is the governor of the biggest state in the union (population 685,000 about a fourth of Utah's population) just like Dick Cheney was the something or another from the State with the most jackrabbits per capitat (about six for every citizen of Alaska--I know I counted them).]

That's why she was selected--she is the stealth Bush in effeminate slick skin. And it is not Obama's alleged silver tongue that the American people need to be wary of, it is the wolf in the fashion model's clothing.

Bush talks like a babbling idiot because of the old adage, garbage in, garbage out. Obama is well spoken because his superior talent as a public speaker is backed up by a brilliant mind and a wise intellect. Palin, on the other hand, is well thought of because, as John Cougar Mellencamp has sung, "when those crazy nights come callin', she can dance on the table like all of the rest." And that's after having five kids, tramping the Alaskan outback, shooting a heavy caliber rifle, overhauling a snow mobile engine and mixing it up with all the high rolling oil barons of Prudhoe Bay. What G.W. loving old Republican can resist that? Not a one--especially with all that viagra Bod Dole has hocked.

Let's just hope that the American people can, because as my mother always warned me, while you can take her to bed with you after the big dance, will she be there for you when the hurricane hits and the gray hairs set in?

Well, just like G.W. wasn't, neither will she. No, you'll see their swiftly retreating behinds taking refuge in an Exxon hunting resort away from the prying eyes of the American public.

Loren M. Lamber (Copywrite September 12, 2008)

We Are All Olympians

I love the Olympics. I relish the opportunity they give for the whole world to unite and celebrate the excellence of human athletic achievement and prowess. Despite there somewhat militaristic feel, I loved the Beijing Olympics. They chose as their theme "One World, One Dream." To emphasize this theme, Beijing made the symbol of the circle a prominent aspect in its ceremonies.

It was fitting. I related to it because all things come full circle. We start off first helpless, drooling and dependent. We then grow into maturity watching the nations great athletes strut out onto the world stage and we all dream and believe that we too can some day join them. While young we practice, toil and sacrifice with no experiences suggesting to our youthful exuberance that an Olympic berth is beyond our reach. When life then passes us by with no realization of this dream, it fades as we confront our mortality, and then once again we become helpless, drooling and dependent. Luckily though, just before abject senescence takes hold, in some mysterious trick of the aging mind, this dream springs back to life.

Similarly, as a boy and then a young man, when I watched the Olympics, I saw myself as one of them, worthy to compete at an international level both physically and mentally. I trained rigorously in my chosen sport of kayaking. I reached a level of expertise that was commendable, but my Olympic dream was never realized. Much later as time passed I came to acknowledge that I never really had what it took to be an Olympian--which was true, most of us don't--but don't tell me that, not now.

Because as more time has passed, I also have finally come full circle. I have devolved back to that more innocent state when as a youth I saw myself as an Olympian. I have forgotten how hard it was and how superior others were who had been blessed with more perfect physical abilities. Now, with my halcyon rose-colored middle-aged mindset and with the help of Olympic athletes like 41 year old Dara Torres, I can watch the Olympics and not just think I could have been an Olympian--I know I could have. Forget the fact that my athleticism was never all that stellar when I was even at my peek. No. I now surmise if only I had just been given the right opportunities, I too would have been an Olympian. I too could have been there on the world stage toiling against all the odds and triumphing in the end.

And that's the other reason I love the Olympics. I love them because I can even more indulgently imagine, if just for a moment, without the need to act upon that dream, that I too am an Olympian.

Loren M. Lambert
September 25, 2008 Copyright