From Walmart with Love

I never would have guessed Walmart would give me hope. I never really expected it from one of the saddest shopping places I know. A designer boutique, perhaps, or one of those specialty shops with a focus. Yeah. They could give a guy hope. But Walmart? That place we go because it’s cheap, not stylish, with the smelly bathrooms and scuffed-up floors?

Well. I guess it happens sometimes.

701 Words to Remember

“More Than a Moment”

It’s not that I don’t want to get married
it’s simply the fact that I can’t
but what would it matter even if I did
when I know how they all end anyways
Well I guess they don’t all end
but you know what I mean when I say
that most of them do go anyways.

Family Values are Under Attack

That’s right, folks, you’ve heard it first from me: Family values are under attack. People across the nation are fighting for the right for same-sex couples to wed, to adopt children, to raise families with love and compassion–and our family values are under attack.

You might think I’m on the wrong side of the fence here, but I assure you, you’d be mistaken.

An Open Letter to the People of North Carolina

To My Fellow North Carolinians;

I am writing to you in concern of the upcoming Special Session on Monday, September 12, 2011, to vote on Senate Bill 106 and House Bill 777, both entitled Defense of Marriage, which seek to amend our state constitution so that marriages between one man and one woman are the only legally recognized domestic relationship in North Carolina.

It is my belief, however, that these bills should not be passed.

Despicable Meandering

This evening I was given some terrible news: The vote on NC SB 106 and NC HB 777 has been moved up from September to tomorrow. These sequences of letters and numbers sound innocent on their own, but they sound ominous when you know what they refer to: A pair of bills introduced to the North Carolina General Assembly trying to write discrimination into our State Constitution. If passed, the public will decide whether or not to amend the Constitution to explicitly prohibit any and all legal recognition of same-sex couples in North Carolina.

Not only is this news disheartening, it also makes me somewhat thankful.

I am not, nor will I ever be, thankful for the hateful hearts that fill our world. Same-sex marriages are currently illegal in North Carolina and writing this into our constitution is merely an act of intolerance. It speaks volumes of the hatred and bias that runs through the veins of every man and woman who has supported these bills. I need not give names; their hate will return to them someday, and I can only pray that they may change their ways before it’s too late. No one–not even them–deserves to be treated with such malice. I pray their hearts may open to the harm they’re hands are causing even as we speak, as I write these words, as you read them.

What, then, do I have to be thankful for at a time like this?

I Heart New York

Growing up I was like most little Jewish boys, I suppose: I dreamed of someday having my own family, a good wife, a few children, going to services on all the major holidays, going through the melodies like rote, work in the mornings, love in the mid-morning hours of the night. I had crushes on girls in my class, because they seemed to be images of the perfect future girlfriend and wife that my typical Jewish upbringing had instilled in me.

I forget when my fantasies became unhinged, when my own personal and still unconscious desires began to take over the cultural ones that had attached to my blood and filled my veins. I recall, walking in the EUC while my sister was at college, thinking I’d have a son someday, my wife having left (in retrospect, I don’t think I ever gave a reason why she would leave; in fact, I don’t know if the leaving part was even her doing, I just recall us having a son, and then the relationship being no more; I was never her husband in my mind, only my son’s father).

My other imaginings were only even more complex. So strange, in retrospect, that I really don’t know how or why it took me so many years to identify what they truly represented. A good example: If I played through this image in my mind, my so-called son would somehow transform into a man my own age, and together we’d raise a family of two or three other children. It took the mask of family units I understood to show me unconsciously what I’d always desired: A family headed with two men, two husbands, a union that was completely foreign in my childhood.

Now that I’m older, some things have changed, yet others stayed the same.

Kung Fu Rabbi

It’s been nearly a year to the day since I wrote my very first post about the Pirkei Avot, and I refer anyone new to the series to that post. It’s a good start, and I promise you, it’s the only one I think you should read to get introduced to the whole thing (although my last one is also well worth the word court).

So hear I am again. I was in services this morning for our teacher’s appreciation Shabbat and since I was there a few minutes early, I decided I’d read ahead. Obviously you can see it’s now past midnight, so I’ve had plenty of time to let this story steep. And the truth is, I’ve needed every minute of it. And probably then some, too.

So without any further ado… Press the button below to follow me on this next (and I assure you, rather exciting) step on my journey through the so-called Ethics of the Fathers.

You Don’t Really Want To Know

Or, more specifically,

Why You Shouldn’t Really Ask (Why We Shouldn’t Really Tell)

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a great idea. We know this. We all know this. Why those men in politics are trying to change this fact baffles me. Of course we can all understand the reasoning for the whole thing: Straight men cannot control themselves, and since most men in the armed forces are naturally unable to think on a higher level, to put narrow-minded men around homosexuals without providing sufficient protection for the latter from the former is a ridiculous thing to do. So we made Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, to help protect these harmless homosexuals from the men who mean them harm.

Some may argue that DADT was put in place because gay men are innately and unnaturally promiscuous, that all they want in the armed forces is a good hookup and some dropped soap in the showers, but these lies are only spewed by straight men who know the truth: That this law is merely for the protection of innocent homosexuals.

Everyone knows homosexuals are no more sexual than heterosexuals, and just the same, everybody knows that straight men are much more violent and uncontrollable than gay men will ever be.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been such a tremendous success (even despite those poor homosexuals who could not be sufficiently protected from these barbarian heteros and were subjected to cruel and unusual punishments on account of it, sometimes even death), that many bright-minded men and women believe we should apply this policy to other areas of our lives. Since obviously something as amazing as this will in time become a part of everything we do, I’ve decided to write about a few tentative examples of the various applications that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has for us.

Fight the World

Maybe I’m a writer and it’s just how we think. Maybe I’m a minority and it’s how we survive. Or maybe it’s the weather and just how we stay alive. But whatever the reason, whatever the cause, I feel like fighting.

It might seem an odd expression for me to say, so normally fond of peace as I am, but sometimes it takes a fighting soul to shove others into action. Sometimes we call this violence or aggression. But sometimes we call it passion and–

18. Ambition

B Thankful

Today celebrates a day I’m sure most people don’t recognize, and that’s why today I’m thankful for–

14. Bisexuality

Crazy, huh? You don’t get it, do you? September 23 was National Bisexuality Awareness Day–and for people who are the B in GLBT, it can be a hard road to travel. There’s a lot of misconceptions about bisexuality, and I can’t say I’ve been immune to them in my life…I can’t even say I don’t even have some of them now…but that’s why we celebrate today. To remember that diversity goes beyond “gay” and “straight,” that “bi” is alright, too.