The Path of the Tornado

Ever think? That is, compose yourself for some good, old-time introspection?

Golf lends itself to introspection. Business, and the task of keeping your business open lends itself to introspection. Raising children should lend itself to the same task, where you wonder how much your own experience as a child will determine the efforts that you're willing to put into parenthood comes to mind. Raising a child used to be a more private affair. The values of the parents were directly imprinted onto the child. Nowadays, thanks to public schools, those values are being supplanted by the publicly accepted values, known as Liberal Belief.

In the past few weeks have been some clearly defined examples of chiaroscuro in American values. The easy one is the Wiener thing. The next? Gay marriage in New York. What is it that allows for certain gays to dominate the public debate over what is acceptable, or what isn't?

Gays have events that are unlike any mainstream event. Gay Pride is an example. My aunt lives in San Francisco, and so my mom and my aunt found themselves caught up in the latest Gay Pride parade in the City. These are old women. Together, their average age is within thirteen years of 100 years old. Imagine their pain, as they ask themselves, where is our culture leading us?

The "path of the tornado" is a line from a movie. Shawshank Redemption. Things blown up, out of all proportion. Not expected. Destructive.

I have a friend that does marvelous paintshop. Or whatever the program is that allows you to manipulate photos to come up with pictorial sarcasm. For some weeks now, I've wanted to ask him to produce a photo of a man taking a crap, on a porcelain throne, in the middle of a living room. With children, aunts and uncles surrounding this visual treasure. This is what the Gay Pride Movement represents to me. Just as I wouldn't want to exhibit to my children pictures of my going at it with their mother, so to would I wish that the sexuality of the homosexual limit itself to places where admiring adorers could savour the grace of their acts, without my having to pay homage to their particular choices.

Let me be clear: I believe that every person has a right to crap. In fact, as evidence of this, I believe that every home built in the United States today is required to build a special room--the bathroom--where a toilet is provided, capable of administering to the needs of each and every crapper, mandated by law.

The thing is, I don't think they normally build a crapper in the Family Room.

Homosexuality isn't necessarily deviant. There are Christians and Muslims who will tell you that homosexuality is deviant, and for some of these, the object of death by stoning. How can preference be considered deviant? Gentlemen prefer blondes. I like Ike. I'd rather be right. My preferences are my preferences. The preferences of Christians tend to be the preferences of fellow Christians. The preferences of Muslims tend to be the preferences of Muslims. The preferences of homosexuals?

I just don't believe that the preferences of homosexuals are represented by the advocates presented by such events as Gay Pride. See, I'm an old guy. I grew up around gay men and women, but never under the shadow cast by the GLBTWVXYZ  agenda. The first gay guy I knew was my Uncle Bill. Not really an uncle, but the son of one of my uncles. My Uncle Varner was the oldest of all my uncles at the time. And his oldest son, my cousin, was gay. Queer. Whatever pejorative you could wish to provide.

But Uncle Bill, an outcast, found a home in my grandmother's house. My grandmother, a devout Baptist. Uncle Bill wasn't really my cousin. And not, directly, my grandmother's kin. He was the son of my oldest aunt's husband, his second wife. And yet my grandmother, a holy terror when it came to the Baptist view of the world, was the only woman who would take him in. And when I was nine years old, Uncle Bill took me to the Centennial celebration of Idaho's entry as a United States' territory. It was an amazing event, with real, wild west events, like chuck wagon races and wild broncs. I like to think that Uncle Bill gained by my trust, as I know I enjoyed being the object of his care.

Being queer doesn't mean being a deviant.

Throughout my life I've come into contact with homosexuals. One of the greatest guys I know was gay, and the foster parent for several kids who had lost contact with their families. This guy reminded me of Johny Mathis. A great singer, an attractive man. A gentle poet. Being queer doesn't mean you're necessarily a predator. I would guess that years ago, being queer meant being more circumspect. In small towns, or in large cities, being gay meant having a certain shame, since being different in ones preferences meant that when confronted, one could be exposed as being a pervert, different, sinful--I'm sure a long list could be created.

I've no problem with teh ghey. Gay men or women don't shock me.

Since my Uncle Bill, I've had to deal with my fair share of the gay. But until I aged to my teen years, my contact with gays had always been of the sort of any child, a far away experience that didn't really relate to me and my life. My dad was a successful musician. My mom was a noted soloist. We, as a family, hosted singers and musicians into our home that were nationally and internationally noted musicians. One couple, a beautiful black man and woman, came into our house in the '60's, and when I noted their lack of shared last name was told, that "that didn't matter." They weren't going to have sex. They were the principles of a visiting opera company and were used to sharing rooms together. Portland, in the 1960's, weren't racially tolerant. They shared my mother and father's bedroom, as all our family shifted downward in our rooms. I ended up on the family-room sofa. The gentleman in question wasn't going to violate the idea of sex outside the vows of marriage. But, he did have a beautiful voice. (So did she.)

That homosexuality existed when I was a kid didn't have the effect that many seem to be labouring under currently; that we have a new, protected class of behaviour. That gayness needs to have new, previously undiscovered protections and rights that have never before existed. I don't think that is true. What I think is, that somehow Gay Rights has transformed into a campaign where taking a crap in the living room is equated with taking a crap in the bathroom.

Recently, the United States military has been directed to allow for gays in the military.

I am an old guy, sure, but I have two sons, 23 and 21 years old.

These guys know gays. They have gay friends. They look, as I hope I do, on gays as just being another choice. My youngest was recently in Hollywood as a tenant of a gay guy. Gay, by itself, doesn't denote nor connote anything worse than a preference in how one gets off. Baptists get off. Catholics get off. Atheists get off. We, most of us, get off. When asked, "what leading man's role in a movie would you liked to have had," answered, Some Like It Hot. I can't see a downside in playing Tony Curtis' role opposite Marilyn Monroe. And her dress in that pic was one of my first, and enduring, sexual preludes.

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I am a victim of type.Sure. I'm not gay. How can I criticize gays for being gay, when I'm not gay?

That type of argument doesn't hold up. How can I convict the murderer, when I've never killed? Comparing a non-gay guy to whatever name is provided by the gay advocacy guys is ridiculous. I never "did" Marilyn. That doesn't mean I'm anti-Marilyn. And that, is the path of the tornado.

An attempt at beginning a conversation about differences has our nation at a point where we simply can't speak about ourselves and our held values, without ridicule. Which gets me to this point, "après moi le déluge." We end up worrying about gays, when the country is going around the bend.

"Après moi" may end up being the motto of our current President. "We are the change you've been hoping for," I believe is one of our President's lines. After me. And we're worried about the way we treat gays. Or, Muslims. Or , illegal aliens. None of these "issues" are important. Sure, there are weak kids being treated poorly by bullies. That isn't abnormal. Weak kids have always, and always will be, treated by kids differently. Which brings me back to golf.

Who wouldn't want to be a great golfer? For those of us who have swung a club, swinging a club well is its own reward. Playing golf poorly, too, is its own reward. But blaming someone else for one's own poor play is simply stupid. Either you play the game well, or not.

Same with life.

It's okay to talk about equity. In golf, we have the handicap system. Which players refer to, often disparagingly, referring to players as sandbaggers. A "sandbagger" is one who attempts to influence outcomes based upon an unfair recording of a player's record.

Sandbagging is an untoward behaviour. It is to be disparaged. Being gay isn't an untoward behaviour, in and of itself. It is when it comes in the form of crapping in the Family Room. There are a great many behaviours that have no place under public scrutiny. That idea was encapsulated in Griswold v. Connecticut, one of the worst decisions ever made by our Supreme Court. The intent was understandable. To make crapping in one's living room the law of the land. That Griswold was essential in Roe v. Wade is inarguable.

Law, too, has a handicap system. It's called stare decisis. And just as in golf, there is considerable sandbagging occurring in decisions by the Supreme Court. Griswold is one example. There are others. (Don't refer to Lochner!).

I don't care about gays. I don't care about your ethnic heritage. But I do care about gays who attempt to tell me that taking a crap in my living room is their right. Or, that folks who illegally cross our borders have the rights of citizenship.

If I'm a normal, being described as within a single standard deviation under the Bell Curve, human being, I think that my perceptions and my values are as worthy of consideration as those of those whose values, beliefs and experiences extend into the second or third deviations. If fourteen percent of a population believes that I should watch them express themselves as social deviants as their right to free speech, let them talk. When they extend that minority opinion as having the value of the eighty-six percent of us who believe that tortuous behaviours are simply tortuous, then,  that behaviour is simply uncivil. "Griswold" cannot be held outside of process. Private behaviours are not public behaviours.

It is a human right to take a crap. It is not a human right to crap where others are eating.

Accepting this algorithm is akin to accepting the path of the tornado. The tornado is destructive, and when able, to be avoided. Accepting the path of the tornado is simply dumb. Any politician, teacher or public apologist who offers less should be viewed sceptically. Another way to view it is, if it doesn't make sense, why listen?