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Jersey Scores

We’ll be in New Jersey next week for a mix of business and pleasure and I couldn’t be happier.

At the Jersey shore to speak at the state’s Library Association’s annual convention, Lynn and I will also spend a few days relaxing—long overdue after an incredibly intense first four months of the year.

I’m looking forward to just looking at the ocean and possibly sticking my toes in if the water isn’t freezing. I’m also looking forward to spending a few days in what could be considered the most LGBT-friendly state in the nation. Yes my friends, Jersey has attained that lavender-tinted gold star.

In addition to already having a statewide non-discrimination bill, a hate crimes bill and a civil union bill, this year the New Jersey legislature passed three more pieces of significant legislation.

One is an anti-bullying bill which requires schools to be more active in addressing harassment, including the kind of bullying LGBT students might face. This kind of legislation is absolutely necessary if we are to provide our kids with an educational environment that is conducive to learning and intolerant of intolerance.

The nation saw in sharp detail how not addressing anti-LGBT sentiment in schools can lead to tragedy when 15-year old Larry King was killed by Brandon McInerney, a 14-year old classmate, because of King’s sexual orientation and gender expression. Gay and flamboyant at 15, King told McInerney that he liked him. The next day, McInereney brought a gun to school and shot King in the head.

King was the victim of hate and homophobia. But, so is McInerney. If our schools taught openly and affirmingly about LGBT people and culture and had a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, LGBT students throughout the country who are harassed or worse because of their sexual orientation and gender expression would have a very different experience in school. If Brandon McInerney was taught about respecting differences instead of fearing them, he might not be looking at a life in jail.

With this new legislation, hopefully LGBT and straight students in New Jersey will have an educational climate that values diversity. Imagine growing up in a school setting where bullying is the exception rather than the rule, where kids actually understand what respecting each other means and where differences are praised instead of pilloried.

The second piece of legislation that passed in New Jersey this year was an amendment to the state’s hate crimes law to include transgender people. With violence against the trans community on the rise and the recent publicity surrounding Thomas Beattie, a transman who is still biologically a woman and is carrying a baby for him and his legally wed wife, protecting the transgender community against hate crime is an absolute necessity.

Beattie’s pregnancy brings the transgender community into a spotlight it hasn’t been in since Richard Raskin became Renee Richards in 1975. A headline story in People Magazine, a segment on Oprah and media attention across the country has led to a firestorm of trans-bashing by pundits and shock jocks alike. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and his compatriots Mika Brzezinski and Wilie Geist profiled the story during a “News You Can’t Use” segment of Scarborough’s “Morning Joe” show. Between the “ewws” and “that’s disgusting,” they sounded like a bunch of adolescents who could benefit from Jersey’s anti-bullying law. What’s worse is that Scarborough showed his innate homophobia by saying that one of former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey’s aides probably supplied the sperm needed for Beattie to become pregnant.

When supposed reputable journalists like Scarborough who have a national audience make these kind of comments, it gives license to those who are totally ignorant about transgender people to act on their fear. I’m sure we’ll see an increase in hate crimes against the trans community—thankfully in New Jersey they’ll be prosecuted more vigilantly because of that state’s new law.

The Garden State is also on the precipice of passing same-sex marriage legislation. But before it does that, Governor Corzine is about to sign a bill that will provide paid family leave for gay employees who have to take care of their partners. The only other state in the nation to provide that kind of protection is California. You’d think Massachusetts would since we can get married there but that’s not the case.

So when I curl my toes in the sand on the Jersey shore next week, my feet will be firmly planted in the one state that leads the nation in advancing LGBT rights. I won’t be shaking that sand out of my shoes anytime soon.

Movie Magic

Here’s a little known fact about me—I don’t go to see scary movies. Life is scary enough why should I pay for it.

So that means I mostly watch silly romantic comedies, movie musicals, Star Wars and Indiana Jones type films, historical dramas and documentaries. Of late, I’ve been glued to HBO’s John Adams. It’s been great watching Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney play John and Abigail as a couple who though separated a great deal share a passion for life and for each other.

Out of town as much as I have been the last few months, I haven’t made it to many movie theatres—thank god for Movies on Demand. I will, however, make it my business to get over to Proctor’s in Schenectady next Wednesday, April 16th for a screening of For the Bible Tells Me So. (For those of you not familiar with New York’s Capital District, Schenectady is about 15 minutes west of Albany—our state’s capitol—and Proctor’s is a wonderful, newly restored former vaudeville theatre that brings Broadway road tours, films and other sorts of culture to our community here in upstate NY.)

A documentary that’s won numerous awards, For the Bible Tells Me So opens the doors to five very American, very Christian families—including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson—to discover how people of faith deal with having a gay or lesbian child.

For those of you who may not know, Dick Gephardt’s daughter Chrissy is a lesbian born to a Baptist dad and a Catholic mom. Gene Robinson is the openly gay, non-celibate Episcopal Bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese.

His consecration has been a lightening rod for homophobia within the Episcopal Church giving those on the right-wing side of that denomination freedom to spew their hatred. To his credit, Robinson, who I had the pleasure of spending some time with in Montreal during Outgames in 2006, has stood his ground. His church community elected him. His family supports him. His blended spirituality and politics inform him to tell the LGBT community to take back their houses of worship and to not let them be defined by Biblical literalists who use hate instead of love to preach their version of the gospel.

The film also features a Minnesota family named the Reitans—Randy, Phil and their son Jake. Jake has been part of Soulforce’s Equality Rides since 2006. Fashioned on the 1960’s Freedom Rides of the civil rights movement, Equality Rides bring LGBT youth activists to colleges and universities across the country that silence or exclude LGBT students in the hopes of educating and breaking down barriers.

When the Rides started, Jake’s mom Randy contacted me. I eventually interviewed her and Phil. It was fascinating. Here were two loving parents, firm in their Christian faith, sending their son off to educate others about what it really means to be Christian and love your neighbor. But more than that, they stood side by side with their son and got arrested with him, when Soulforce tried to deliver their message of understanding to James Dobson and Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs.

For the Bible Tells Me So promises to be an uplifting film giving hope to those who have been caught in the Radical Christian Right’s contradiction of ‘you can’t be gay and be a Christian.” The Right is constantly beating on us saying that the Bible tells them that being gay is an abomination and a sin.

As the clergy who are interviewed for the documentary point out, the Bible says a lot of things are an abomination—wearing wool and linen together, commingling crops, eating pork or shrimp. The Reverend Dr. Laurence Keene, of the Disciples of Christ points out that those abominations are always used to address a ritual wrong but are never used to refer to something innately immoral. As he explains, eating pork for Jews violates a ritual but it is not immoral. If it were, a lot of my faith would be in trouble—so many of us just can’t seem to stay away from pork fried rice when we eat Chinese after our ritual movie-going on Christmas.

When you look at it analytically, the Bible doesn’t tell us anything. It’s how we read the Bible, how we interpret it and how we use that interpretation that tells us something. It tells us we can use the Bible for hate or we can use it for love.

We’ve all seen what happens when the Bible is used for hate. It’s time to get down with the love and begin valuing everyone as human beings—regardless of who we wake up with in the morning.