That's why Mike Pence isn't on the stage

My Sunday movie was Coming To You, a 2021 documentary of two Korean mothers, one who learns her child is transgender, the other learns son son is gay. Hankyeol is the transgender child who presents as male though is nonbinary. Their mother is Nabi, who is in the leadership at a fire station. Puberty was hard on Hankyeol as breasts grew and they eventually asked mom for a double mastectomy. Mom took a long time to agree as the child became more depressed. Hankyeol takes hormones both for the bodily changes and as a preventative to depression. A year later Hankyeol can’t get full time work because their ID shows them as female and they are clearly not that. So child and Mom start the process of applying for an Identity change. There is a lot of paperwork, including approval from Mom, even though the person applying is a legal adult. Approval should also come Dad, but he hasn’t been around for years. The court denied the request, saying Hankyeol didn’t have male genitalia. But they weren’t interested in that surgery, couldn’t afford it, and wouldn’t have gotten Dad’s permission. Child and mother tried again in Mom’s home city. This time they judge was favorable. A year later the requirements for identity change were loosened. Yejoon came out to his mother, Vivian, as gay in a letter, afraid of what his parents would think. They took time to come around. As soon as Yejoon could he moved from Korea to Toronto. He faced a choice between living out of the closet in a strange Western culture that didn’t really accept him because he was Asian or living closeted near friends and family. In one trip back in Korea he fell in love and soon moved home. Then there was the hazard of meeting his boyfriend’s parents. Both mothers realized they did not know their children. Both joined PFLAG, the organization of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Through the support they got through those meetings they were able to come to terms with who their child is. Soon, they were also involved in activism. Vivian visited her son and took part in Toronto Pride. But at a queer culture festival in Korea she experienced a lot of ugly protesting. She saw what her son had to go through. Yejoon and his boyfriend said they didn’t need to get married. Soon Vivian was involved in marriage rights efforts. As of 2021 marriage equality hadn’t come to Korea. I finished the book The Folded Leaf by William Maxwell. It was published in 1945 and the story is set in the 1920s. The title refers to a leaf, as it emerges from a bud, is folded. That story begins in 1923 when Lymon “Lymie” Peters Jr. meets Charles “Spud” Latham when both are high school sophomores in Chicago. Spud and his family had just moved from what sounds like small town Wisconsin. He is described as the perfect specimen of an adolescent male and great at sports. Lymie is definitely not that. He’s scrawny and no good at sports. Lymie lives with his father and is instructed that if dad isn’t home by 7:30 he’s to go to the restaurant and start his supper alone. So when Spud invites Lymie over for a home cooked meal with a real family Lymie is overwhelmed by what he experiences there. The two boys become nearly constant companions. Shift to 1927 and Spud and Lymie are in their sophomore year at university (somewhere in Indiana and never named). They are roommates at a rooming house just off campus. I was a bit surprised that the room they share is where they study and where they keep their clothes. But that’s not where they sleep. All dozen boys in the house have beds in the dormitory in the top floor of the house. Here Spud and Lymie sleep in the same bed (emphasis on sleep). At the start of that sophomore year Lymie becomes friends with Sally and Hope. They invite Lymie and Spud to a sorority dance, where Sally and Spud fall in love. And the friendship between Lymie and Spud begins to fray. Now to the important question: What got me interested in this book? I discovered it while perusing a Barnes & Noble list of historical LGBTQ fiction. This list wasn’t modern authors using a historical setting, but authors of the past writing about their time or shortly before their time. The description got me thinking it would portray two lads with an intense friendship that used a lot of coded language to hide what was really going on. But that’s not this story. Spud is definitely straight. Lymie might be gay – he does spend time admiring Spud’s body, especially when Spud is in the gym training in boxing, and Lymie is good friends with Sally and Hope without showing a lot of romantic interest in them. But Lymie never acts on his attraction to Spud beyond being a constant friend. So did I or someone else mischaracterize this as an LGBTQ novel? Even so, it was a good read. There was a debate last night between Walz and the guy wanting to be the vice nasty. I didn’t watch or listen. This morning on Daily Kos there were several short articles,, most with video, highlighting a good point one or the other said. I’ll only highlight a few of them. Oliver Willis included a clip of Vance being asked about his previous comments that he would have helped try to subvert the election results. Of course, he lied. He seemed to have done a lot of that during the debate. Walter Einenkel reported Walz had a good line about the nasty guy’s frequent dismissal of experts:

Economists can't be trusted. Scientists can't be trusted. National security folks can't be trusted. Look, if you're going to be president, you don't have all the answers—Donald Trump believes he does. My pro tip of the day is this: If you need heart surgery, listen to the people at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, not Donald Trump.

Einenkel reported on Walz’ one comment that got a lot of pundits talking and cartoonists drawing came at the end. Walz, talking about the Capitol attack, then directly asking Vance:

This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen, and it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say. He is still saying he didn't lose the election. Did he lose the 2020 election?

Vance:

Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation—

Walz:

That is a damning, that is a damning non-answer.

Kos of Kos summarized the debate with a list of observations. In general:

It was a debate that changed zero minds, no home runs were hit, and no flubs were made. ... If this debate has any impact on the race, it won’t be because of those watching it to the end (political junkies), or an increasingly ridiculous punditry. It will be because of the meme war. And as such, I’m guessing the Zoomers will have a lot more material to mock Vance than Walz.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Kyle Griffin that appears to follow that last quote from Walz:

Gov. Walz: "He lost the election. This is not a debate. It's not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump's world. Because look, when Mike Pence made that decision to certify that election, that's why Mike Pence isn't on the stage."

William Kristol and Andrew Eggars of The Bulwark discussed why we should pay close and serious attention to Vance as the VP candidate. Given the age, health, and mental decline of the nasty guy there is a strong chance Vance could take the Oval Office, where he could be exceptionally powerful. At the top of the comments is a cartoon by Dave Whamond that must have been drawn and posted immediately after the debate. Is shows teacher Mr. Walz giving a final exam to a sweating student. He says:

This question is for 100 percent of your final mark... “Who won the 2020 election?” J.D.? Hello?

She loved her son and wouldn’t put up with this kind of nonsense

The suit brought by Dominion Voting against Fox News has concluded. This is the suit the Dominion voting machine company brought against the media giant asking for $1.6 billion for lying about the 2020 election and accusing Dominion of programming its machines to flip votes. That, of course, hurt Dominion’s reputation and business. Thus the suit. On March 31, three weeks ago, after the parties had been going at this for a while and after Dominion released lots of emails showing Fox management knew what was going on-air was a lie, Judge Eric Davis gave a ruling. KeithDB of the Daily Kos community reported the ruling said Fox News had lied and that Dominion had been defamed by those lies. Going into the trial Fox cannot dispute those lies and cannot dispute the defamation. Fox cannot claim it is just reporting news about a famous person. That means the court comes down to one thing: was that defamation actual malice. There is a standard definition of malice that must be met. And meeting that definition looked likely. And on Wednesday, April 19, Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Dominion and Fox News settled, avoiding the trial. That came after the start of the trial was delayed, so all the jury heard was a thank you from the judge. The settlement is that Fox News will pay $787 million, just under half of what Dominion wanted. And Fox’s lawyers issued a statement saying “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” That is definitely a non-apology. But Fox on-air hosts don’t (and won’t) have to say anything other than the lawsuit is over. They will hear continued claims about fraud in the 2020 election, even if Dominion isn’t named. That means Fox – and Tucker Carlson – can claim they won the suit. And go back to their usual lies. As for that $787 million – that’s all of 5% of Fox News revenue for 2022. This trial of Dominion against Fox News was the best shot of reining them in that will come in a long while. We – those who treasure democracy – lost a chance. Perhaps Smartmatic’s similar case will go better. And it gets worse. Sumner reported that Fox is looking to us to pay its bill. Many TV stations are bundled together and a viewer gets access to all the channels in the bundle. That means people who don’t watch, perhaps are even disgusted by, Fox News pay for Fox News. And Fox need only go to the cable services and when the contract is up for renewal demand a higher fee. This subscription bundling is why Fox News can be quite profitable without airing commercials. Fox News can also declare the settlement is a legal expense ordinary and necessary for doing business – and get a hefty tax break. Wrote Sumner:

No apology. No admission of guilt. Bills covered by people who don’t watch Fox. Massive tax break. Yeah. That’ll teach ‘em. Fox News will never do that again.

Yeah, I’m disgusted by it all. I had written that Fox News has been trying to make a story of a Bud Lite commercial featuring a transgender person. Walter Einenkel of Kos explains another part of their coverage – Fox News is not covering the recent scandal around Justice Clarence Thomas. Hunter of Kos reported that Thomas was also given money by billionaire Harlan Crow in the form of Crow buying property from Thomas. Wrote Hunter:

If you're familiar with any of Thomas' work on actual Supreme Court cases, that's not terribly surprising. When it comes to omitting inconvenient details and regularly inventing new theories to explain why most of the other details never mattered to begin with, Thomas' opinions are masterpieces. Of course Thomas doesn't think "a billionaire Republican activist-donor who sponsors my vacation lifestyle purchased my mom's house so that he can build a museum honoring my greatness" would rise to the level of reportable income. It falls in the narrow disclosure gap outlined by subsection I Don't Have To, paragraph Bite Me. CNN now has some news updates on the land-deal story, and none of it is any better for Thomas than it was before. Thomas now says he intends to amend his financial disclosures, yet again, to disclose the 2014 sale of his mother's house to Crow. According to a "source close to Thomas," Thomas believed the sale wasn't required to be disclosed because he allegedly "lost money" in the transaction. This is absolute hokum, and Thomas is always a real hard-ass when deciding cases in which a defendant was confused about the rules and got wrecked by our legal systems because of it. He despises the idea that you're allowed a second chance if your lawyer accidentally flubs your case due to an egregious oversight. He despises the idea that you should get a chance to correct the record. When it comes to himself, he's still regularly re-re-updating disclosure forms filed during the Obama administration. To repeat: All of this is ridiculous. Absurd.

The Daily Show was hosted by its own correspondent Jordan Klepper. He had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a guest and she put it simply: Supreme Court justice should not be receiving money from anyone. That’s why we pay salaries to public servants. Want to live lavishly? Resign. Biden has had a pretty good run getting his nominees for federal courts approved. He’s kept up the pace, nominating a diverse pool of progressive people. His approvals are ahead of what the nasty guy did at the corresponding point in his term. Then Dianne Feinstein, who is 89, possibly suffering from dementia, and has already announced her retirement, had a bad case of shingles. She left Capitol Hill to recuperate and that plus complications has kept her away for about six weeks. Without her the Democrats don’t have a majority on the Judiciary Committee. Judicial confirmations have stopped. Feinstein recognized the problem and asked Schumer to replace her, at least temporarily. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Republicans said nope. Several have made statements saying Republicans should not assist in packing the courts with “activist” judges. Never mind that Senate committee assignments have never been subject to partisan fights. There are ways, cumbersome ways, to get around the deadlocked Judiciary Committee. One of those ways is to bust the filibuster – and we know which Democrats blocked that from happening last time. McCarter also posted that this stunt has Moscow Mitch’s fingerprints – and words – all over it. Mitch is newly back to the Senate after recovering from a concussion resulting from a fall. McCarter wrote:

This, again, from the man who engineered a court packed with Trump nominees the American Bar Association deemed unqualified, with right-wing extremist nutjobs like District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who most recently declared himself more of an expert on drug safety than the Food and Drug Administration. ... Setting aside Feinstein’s wishes represents a new low from McConnell. This exact situation is unprecedented, at least in modern Senate history, but this is the first time one conference has absolutely denied the opposing party a committee seat. This is just basic stuff about how the body works, determined by the organizing resolution at the beginning of the Senate. Leadership of both parties divides up how many seats on each committee the majority and minority get, and the composition of those memberships is decided by each party conference. Period. Until now. McConnell has now destroyed all of the most basic norms and traditions of the Senate, leaving Democrats completely flat-footed, again.

I heard Mitch’s words while in my car. I slammed the off switch, muttering that man is vile. Because of the Thomas scandal Chief Justice has been invited to testify before the Judiciary Committee to talk about ethics in general and Thomas specifically. And this is another way in which Mitch is strangling the committee – without Feinstien and the majority she adds, the committee isn’t able to issue subpoenas – such as for Thomas’ financial records. The biggest scandal to hit the court in decades and Mitch has hobbled the committee that should investigate it. John Darkow of the Columbia Missourian tweeted a cartoon of two janitors cleaning the Supreme Court hearing chamber. One of the nine chairs has been replaced by a throne. One janitor says, “That’s Justice Thomas’ chair – Harlan Crow bought it for him.” Sister sent me a link to a story by Kathryn Schulz in the New Yorker. It is a history of Jeanne Manford and her son Morty. I had heard parts of the story and glad I could learn the rest of it. Jeanne caught attention when she walked in the 1972 Christopher Street Liberation Day March in NYC (the predecessor of the Pride Parade). She held a sign “I’m proud of my gay son” and Morty walked beside her. That was a phenomenal statement for the time. The crowd reaction included gay men coming up to her asking, “Could you talk to my parents?” By the end of the march she and Morty had come up with a plan to create what became PFLAG – Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Its purpose was and still is for people to come together to talk about their LGBTQ children and friends and learn how to be supportive both in the family and in the political scene. It grew into a national organization with international chapters. Morty died of AIDS. Jeanne died in 2013 at age 92...

The next month, Barack Obama posthumously awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal for her work on behalf of L.G.B.T.Q. people and their families. In his remarks, he summarized, in the plainest possible terms, the reason she stood up against bigotry on behalf of her son: “She loved him and wouldn’t put up with this kind of nonsense.”

She was a hero and founding mother in the LGBTQ rights movement. Her national organization has shifted towards trans issues and is doing all it can to counter the growing tide of anti-trans bills. PFLAG’s current president sums up their purpose:

We love all of our children, and we’re not going to leave any of them behind.

Thank you Morty, Thank you Jeanne.

What we've accomplished … and what still needs to be done

I didn't write yesterday because I attended part of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Beethoven Festival. This week was symphonies 2 and 7. Last week I heard symphonies 3 and 8 (which is my favorite, Beethoven at his most witty). Next weekend is the mighty 9th. I'm wondering how the chorus and soloists are going to survive singing that monster four days in a row. Good to see they're responding to audience demand, but I'm glad I'll be listening to the second performance.

So, on to stuff that's been sitting in my browser's tabs for the last week.

Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend decries the prevalence of women who are fired from their jobs because they become pregnant. An example of the reason given is, "The guys don't want to look at a pregnant waitress." This is one reason why women don't have pay equity with men. Alas, the "family values" crowd is silent.



Obama recently handed out the Presidential Citizens Medal. It is the nation's second-highest civilian honor and is given for a commitment to public service, who have helped their community through extraordinary acts, who have made efforts to combat a persistent problem, or whose service has a sustained impact on the community and provided inspiration to others. I mention the awards because it included Jeanne Manford, the founder of PFLAG, who died last month.



With marriage equality in nine states and a mention of our progress and lives in Obama's Inaugural Address, NPR's All Things Considered asks the question, is the gay right's movement nearing its end? Yeah, depends on who you ask. Look at the progress we've made and full gay rights are in sight. Look at what still needs to be done and we have a long way to go.

A mom to gays everywhere

We had a January thaw around here yesterday and today. These are common enough so I can't tell how much out of the ordinary this one was, if at all. Today it was warm and dry enough (55 degrees) that I was on my bicycle for 80 minutes this afternoon. Rain tonight, perhaps snow tomorrow with a high of 35.

On to today's story.

Jeanne Manford died last Tuesday at the age of 92. I heard a bit about it then, but it is only now that I'm able to share a couple tributes to her.

Who is Jeanne Manford? I confess that until this week I didn't know anything about her. Turns out she is a key part of our movement towards acceptance.

Back in 1972 her gay son Morty had already been involved in several protests and had been arrested. When that year's Pride Parade (which had only started a couple years before) Jeanne marched with her son, just the two of them. She carried a sign she made, "Parents of gays unite in support for our children." It's what mothers do. The reaction astonished her. Her phone was soon constantly ringing with requests she talk to other parents of gay kids. In 1973 she founded PFLAG: Parents, Family, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. It now has 350 chapters nationwide and 200K members.

Dan Savage put it this way:

What Jeanne Manford did was she put it in people's heads that gay and lesbian people had parents, that we were somebody's children, and that was the first real big step in the movement toward full acceptance of lesbian, gay, bi and trans people.

NPR's All Things Considered had a remembrance on today's show, 5 1/2 minutes long. Rachel Maddow did a wonderful 9 minutes, which featured lots of parents of gays at Pride Parades, an interview of Jeanne from 1978, and Prez. Obama talking about her at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in 2009.

Thank you, sweet lady.

A safe space for the misfits

Yeah, it has been more than a week. Part of why I didn't write is because there wasn't anything to write about -- why waste my time on yet another vile thing the Fundies, the anti-gay crowd, or the GOP has been doing. Especially since the latest isn't all that different from what they did last week or yesterday.

And when I did have something to write about other things crowded my schedule. One of those things yesterday was Motor City Pride. Since I've been going to this event (which hasn't been all that long or all that frequently) this is the first time it has been held at Hart Plaza, on the riverfront in Detroit. There was a lot more space compared to the previous venue of 9 Mile Rd. in Ferndale, but no shops to duck into. There were lots of booths of various kinds -- gay clubs, gay service providers (including Ruth Ellis Center), gay businesses, gay friendly churches, supposedly gay friendly political organizations (including an Obama Campaign booth), and those companies that don't want to miss a chance to sell to anyone (gay home insulation?). There were also a couple performance stages. While I was there the main one held a mass commitment ceremony, then a drag queen program. I stayed only 90 minutes.

I'm very aware a big reason for Pride is to provide a safe space for the misfits to be who they are. And there were a lot of people in unusual clothing. At that Pride succeeded. No pictures -- I left my camera at home. I wore a polo shirt and felt overdressed.

Perhaps a week ago my dad asked me about PFLAG, the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. So while at Pride I stopped by their booth. They give great hugs. The Detroit chapter meets in Troy, which is about an hour drive from my place, so I've never attended. There is also a chapter in Ann Arbor, which would be closer. I also checked about a chapter that meets near where my dad lives. Yes one exists.

In the issue just before Pride, the gay newspaper Between the Lines had a series of articles on gay leaders. One of them was on PFLAG. Another was a fine article on the director of Ruth Ellis Center. In the picture with this article just over our director's left shoulder you can the pass-through into the kitchen where I spend most Wednesday evenings. Sorry, the picture was taken at a time when the center was closed -- no glimpse of me.