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Starting Over

So Christmas is over and we’ve got a few more days before we can party again to ring in 2008.

Even though it started with such promise, we’re certainly in a rush to get 2007 over with. In New York, Day One pledged a new beginning. In DC, Democratic majorities in the House and Senate gave us hope. Despite the best intentions, entrenched power had its way—it was not to be interfered with.

In New York, Day One turned into Day Two, Day Three, Day Four . . . this Monday will be Day 365. Luckily, we get to start counting again on January 1--Day One, 2008.

Down in D.C., our hopes for real change were dashed. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Matthew Shepard Act were taken off the Democrats’ legislative docket. Although, they insist positive legislative change for the LGBT community is still on their agenda.

What has happened in both the Empire State and the nation’s Capitol are clear indications that getting elected doesn’t mean you get the power everyone says comes with the office. You still need to do the heavy lifting of continuing to build your base, forging bipartisan working relationships and refining the art of the political.

With any luck and some real strategy, 2008 could be the year that changes business as usual to taking care of business.

Starting January 1, we’ll have 11 months and a few days to make sure the Republican stranglehold on the White House and all things DC is broken.

Change in the White House isn’t a gay issue. It’s a survival issue. If we want our country, our constitution, our conscience as a nation of people who believe in democracy to survive, then we must make sure democracy is restored.

For the past eight years, we’ve watched as the marionette president has had his strings pulled by Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Like stealing candy from a baby, their cynical pronouncement of “Mission Accomplished” on the deck of an aircraft carrier later proved to steal the hope of millions of Americans who want to see their sons,  daughters, nieces, nephews and neighbors come home from the “War on Terror” alive and in one piece, physically and emotionally.

The lies this administration told in order to go to war are much worse than those of Richard Nixon. No one was killed because of Watergate yet Tricky Dick had to resign—otherwise impeachment was his future. Yet, the cynicism that invaded Washington, DC politics since 1972 has changed the national tolerance for deceit. Now, the president can get away with lying and the subsequent dying without having to be held accountable for his actions.

It is up to us, the electorate, to just say no to that deceit. We can no longer ignore it, make excuses for it or have a “that’s just the way things are” attitude about it.

It is up to us to bring our government, our nation back to practical politics. It is time to change the realpolitik of our government from one that favors the few to one that cares for many. After all, it’s much more practical to govern with the economic interests of taxpayers in mind rather than Halliburton’s stock price.

It’s much more practical to govern a nation where healthcare is a right rather than having the health care insurance industry profiteer at the deathbeds of our loved ones. And yes, it is even much more practical to protect everyone—regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity—from discrimination than to let the talents of millions of Americans wither on the vine.

When the century turned eight years ago, we rushed over the bridge to the 21st century with enthusiasm and hope. But seven years of Republican domination robbed us of the promise of a better life. Instead, we have a war without end, an economic downturn built on the backs of middle class Americans, and a health care system that rewards cost-cutting rather than compassionate care.

2008 gives us the opportunity to redefine the promise and reclaim the hope. This New Year gives us the opportunity to change the direction of our country. Our democracy is not dead. It is just crying for fresh air, for clean water, for an educated electorate who puts practicality over platitudes.

January 1, 2008 really is Day One. We’re starting over! After all, do overs are so 20th century.

Homos for the Holidays

Well, it’s that time of year again.

The weather outside is just about to be frightful. And, as far as I’m concerned, the shopping is never delightful.

But that doesn’t mean I’m the new Grinch or that my family bloodline includes Ebeneezer Scrooge. It’s just that when I do shop, I tend to do it from the comfort of my den with my trusty laptop at the ready and my overburdened credit card nearby.

Whether or not you’re consumed with consumerism at this time of year, the one thing we can all agree on is that it’s all about giving.

With our son turning 22 next week and only one toddler in our immediate family configuration, the challenge of what to give the adults in my family is never easily answered. We’re all folks, who by and large, don’t really need anything—we’ve all got good jobs, roofs over our heads, not really wanting for anything that is within our purchasing capacity. Buying a 54” flat screen or putting a big red bow on a new car is really on the outside of our giving range.

So instead of buying a few more CDs or another piece of Fiestaware to round out a collection, the adults in our family have decided to make charitable gifts in honor of one another. It’s a much better investment of our holiday cheer than say a crystal bowl that ends up at the back of the closet.

Overall, charitable giving has always been high on our list, and not just at the holiday season—although we do get all those direct mails asks at this time of year because it works. People are in a giving mood; so, we also give money.

The organization that gets our money at this time of year is the Rainbow World Fund (www.rainbowfund.org). The brainchild of San Francisco-based psychiatric social worker Jeff Cotter, Rainbow World Fund is a relief organization that bundles LGBT philanthropic giving for humanitarian projects throughout the world.

When I spoke with Cotter, he told me that after being a social worker for about 15 years he wasn’t fulfilled professionally. "I wanted to do something I had never done before. I wanted to have a positive impact on the planet and help people," he told me in a phone interview. "I put those ideas out to the universe and let them go." A few months later, Cotter said, his own inner voice told him to start a world relief agency based in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

That Cotter listened to that inner voice has been a gift that has kept on giving to those in need throughout the world since 2000. RWF has raised millions, not hundreds of millions, just millions—but that money has had a profound impact because Cotter uses it to leverage in-kind contributions that have even greater economic and humanitarian value.

Making its mark on humanitarian relief, RWF has partnered with America’s Second Harvest to get food to the folks who lost everything in the devastations of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. This past July, RWF made its third humanitarian trip to Guatemala where 15 volunteers delivered 1,650 pounds of medical and school supplies valued at a quarter of a million dollars. RWF also partners with AfriCare to fund HIV/AIDS education in rural South Africa and Adopt-a-Minefield to fund minefield clearance in Cambodia.

What’s great about Rainbow World Fund is that unlike most international relief agencies, RWF has no real administrative overhead. Everyone—and I mean everyone—volunteer their time. 92.3 percent of the money raised goes directly to humanitarian aid, 2.3 percent goes to education and only 5.4 percent goes to administrative and fund raising costs. 5.4 percent is astounding when the non-profit industry standard for admin costs usually hovers at 15.

Through its work, RWF is also presenting the LGBT community to the world. "Our first priority is to help those who need it, but a by-product is changing how people see the LGBT community," said Cotter. "The Fund is a way of putting our highest values - love, kindness, and compassion - to work, and of providing a platform for our concern and caring to be seen and heard around the world."

So, if you’re looking to be a good Homo for the Holidays or a great friend of one, start by going to www.rainbowfund.org. It could very well be the most fulfilling online experience of the holiday season!

Childhood Dreams

When I was in high school, one of my dreams was to live on the banks of the Hudson River right where the Tappan Zee Bridge begins its span from Rockland to Westchester County and zip my way into Manhattan to work at the United Nations.

I was really involved in Model UN all throughout high school. I loved being assigned a country, as long as it wasn’t ours, researching the nation’s policies and then being a delegate in one of the UN’s myriad deliberative bodies. It was fun. I learned a lot. And, my parents paid for it every step of the way because it was a “learning experience.”

Well, like many high school dreams, my desire to work at the UN faded over time as I realized that no matter how I cut it, I’d end up having to represent the United States in some way. While I love my country, I don’t love its policies--especially those of the foreign ilk.

I knew that when I came out in my freshman year of college, being open about my sexuality and being a member of the Foreign Service wouldn’t necessarily jive—the “in my hand I have a list” witch hunt of Senator Joseph McCarthy whose goal it was to root out all homosexuals and communists from the State Department was part of my consciousness growing up. I may have not put all the pieces of my life together at 18 but I certainly knew which mountains were harder to climb.

Michael Guest, our country’s former Ambassador to Romania, didn’t get the same memo about mountain climbing as I did. I don’t know how long Guest was out as a gay man during his 26 years in the Department of State’s Foreign Service but he made headlines this week when he resigned in protest.

He wasn’t protesting our government’s foreign policy. No, he resigned from a career he loved in order to protest the rules and regulations regarding same-sex partners of Foreign Service officers.

At his retirement ceremony on November 20th, standing just a few steps from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s office, he told the 75 senior officials who gathered to wish him well, “I’ve felt compelled to choose between obligations to my partner, who is my family, and service to my country. That anyone should have to make that choice is a stain on the secretary’s leadership, and a shame for this institution and our country.”

While things have changed for gays and lesbians in the State Department since McCarthy’s 1950’s witch hunts, the official reception their partners receive is anything but welcoming.

If you’re one of the 350 partners of a gay or lesbian Foreign Service official and you’d like to keep your family together when your diplomat has been assigned to a foreign country, you have to pay your own way to get there. You’re not entitled to any medical care, you don’t get trained on how to spot terrorists or speak the language of the country you’re going to, you don’t get a diplomatic passport and you have to pay to be evacuated when the Foreign Service decides that is the prudent course of action to take in a country where unrest is the rule rather than the exception.

If you’re the heterosexual husband or wife of a Foreign Service official you can take all that for granted. If you’re a child of a Foreign Service official, you can take all that for granted. If you’re the pet of a Foreign Service official, the State Department will pay your way to and from your Master’s destination!

Guest, who for the past several years has helmed the management and leadership school at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, lobbied his colleagues and higher ups for equal treatment. In 2006, he even won the annual “Constructive Dissent” award from the American Foreign Service Association for his steadfast commitment to changing the married couples-only regulations.

Knowing that he would, once again, soon be posted overseas, he wrote directly to the Secretary of State. It seems one stroke of her pen could clean up this whole mess. Not surprisingly, Rice never wrote back, never took action, never even said good bye.

Michael Guest’s childhood dreams of exploring the world and making it a better place brought him to the State Department. Equal treatment for lesbians and gays and their partners in the Foreign Service, however, is still just something to dream about.