A light at the end of the (job) tunnel?  I posted this message to my Facebook friends this past Thursday:

"I sent my resume online to the Cancer Institute of NJ Foundation, responding to a job posting, about a week or so ago. Yesterday, I got an e-mail from CINJF asking if I would be willing to do a phone interview, either Monday or Tuesday, for the position. My response was that I was available both days, and which day/time would be best for them?

Crossed fingers, prayers, good wishes, etc. will be gratefully accepted..."

And followed it up with this wall post the next day:

"The phone interview is 11:00 Monday morning. The job title, which I forgot to mention before, is Development Services Associate ("development" equating to "fund-raising")."


I am amazed at the number of people who are just pouring good things at me -- wishes, crossed body parts, light, love, prayer, and magic.  I've heard of people being doubly-blessed, but I think my multiple of blessedness is more than that right now.  My heart is grateful, and humble, and oh, so full.

So I'm taking a little time this morning to list - in no particular order - the names of those friends and family who have to date written to let me know they're rooting for me.

The very first person to respond was my sister, Penny Yanacheck.  I can't ever tell which title suits her more, "sister" or "truest friend".  I've loved her ever since my parents brought her back from the hospital.

Then there are my classmates from South River High School's class of 1969:  Nancy Whitehouse Sickles; Denise Bennett; Joy Delnecky; Tony Alexander; Gary Corbett; Tom Schuler; Chris Sturm; and David Petruska.

My friends from Mensa:  Sylvia Herbert; Paul Mailman and Lynn MacDonald; Naomi Rose; Russ Bakke; Mel Dahl; Keith Proud; Guy and Kate MacEwen Conti; Barb Holstein; Gregg Wiggins; Edward Gordon; Nancy Vogel; Anthony Jackowski; Joyce Lundeen; Donna Jadis and Gerry Riley; Bob Hibbert; and Julie Baxter.

The very talented friends made thru Outmusic:  Toshio Alan Mana; Jay Spears; Roger Anthony Tony Mapes; and Ron Morris.

My friends from GAAMC:  Dick Reid and Jim Hohman; Ward Saxton; Douglas Oxenhorn; Sherri Rase; Bob Thayer; Jen Dugan; Kerry Dinkin; and Anson Boory.

And those dear to me that fit into no category but "caring friends":  Richard Harrison; Karen Carroll; Anthony Agabatt; David Birdsong; Steven Crespo; and J. Levi Knapp.

Finally, the one who almost goes without saying, since he's a part of everything I do, whose love surrounds and supports me -- my honeybear, Bill Realman Stella.

Anyway...the next moment of truth will be late Monday morning.  I'll be rehearsing with Bill over the weekend so, hopefully, I won't sound like a babbling idiot over the phone.

Wish me luck.

And these are the people who want to run the government?  I read a post yesterday about Newt Gingrich - former Speaker of the House of Representatives, prospective 2012 GOP presidential candidate - calling for Congress to force President Obama to continue defending Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  Section 3 is the one that says, essentially, that even if a same-sex couple is legally married in the state where they reside, they are not considered as married for purposes of federal law.  (And forget about civil unions and domestic partnerships - everyone knows they're not really marriages.)

As you may have heard, the President, with the concurrence of Attorney General Eric Holder, issued a statement saying:  (1) that discrimination based on sexual orientation should be examined using heightened scrutiny; (2) that under such scrutiny, Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional based on the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment; and therefore (3) the Department of Justice will no longer defend Section 3 of DOMA in court.  

(The President also tossed a little bomb in the laps of the House of Representatives, saying in effect, "If you want to defend Section 3 in court, go right ahead.  We won't stop you."  How many Representatives do you think want to take an active role in defending Section 3?  As one online commentator put it, "Just wait until the first surviving same-sex spouse of a serviceperson killed in the line of duty files for survivor benefits, after 'don't ask, don't tell' is repealed.")

So Mr. Gingrich opened his yap yesterday and said the following:  "I believe the House Republicans next week should pass a resolution instructing the president to enforce the law and to obey his own constitutional oath, and they should say if he fails to do so that they will zero out [defund] the office of attorney general and take other steps as necessary until the president agrees to do his job.  His job is to enforce the rule of law and for us to start replacing the rule of law with the rule of Obama is a very dangerous precedent."

According to the Constitution, the Presidential oath of office reads: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Only two tasks mentioned there: faithfully execute the office of President; and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.

The Constitution also states that the President "take care that the laws be faithfully executed". Well, since section 3 of DOMA has not been repealed by Congress nor declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, same-sex couples are still not considered married for purposes of Federal law. That has not changed, and it is still being "faithfully executed". But NOTHING says the President has to spend money and manpower to defend a law, or part of a law, in court.

So one can argue that the President, considering section 3 of DOMA to be unconstitutional, is fulfilling his oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution by declaring his opinion that a section of a law is unconstitutional, and by not taking part in defending that which he deems to be unconstitutional.

And any Senator or Representative, current or former, who says that this is an impeachable offense has no understanding of what the Constitution says, much less what it means.

There are times when I want to knock people's heads together.  I saw a post on Facebook this morning from a friend of mine who is politically active and involved with both GLBT rights and the Democratic party.  She had posted a video of a "rant" aired on MSNBC, in which the ranter's message to GLBT people was "What don't you understand?  The GOP just isn't that into you!"  Her comment on the video was, "A 'straight' man tells it like it is...Can anyone make it clearer?  Why do so many just 'fail' to get it?"


The following was my comment on her post:

Perhaps because some appreciate the Log Cabin Republicans for bringing - and winning, in the first round - a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of DADT?

Perhaps because some are wondering why the Democrats, when in power, seem to be unable to achieve their policy goals and/or unwilling to fight the tough battles -- and, if that's not the truth, why the Democrats haven't been able to change public perception?

Perhaps because some prefer to work for change from within the GOP?  Perhaps because some are tired of hearing GLBT leaders tar all Republicans with the same brush?

Perhaps because some know people like the 64% of Republicans surveyed who favor DADT repeal, or the Republican Secretary of Defense (held over from the prior administration) who favors DADT repeal, or the 60% of Marines surveyed or 70% of all military personnel surveyed (including Republicans) who say DADT repeal will not cause damage to the military?

Perhaps because some dislike being solicited for money and time, only to see their concerns and needs relegated to the back of the legislative priority bus, even when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House?  And find that the leaders of many GLBT organizations are abject failures when it comes to getting pro-equality legislation passed?

Perhaps because not everyone, and certainly not every GLBT person, agrees with the Democratic party's policies outside of GLBT civil rights?

Can anyone make *that* clearer?  Why do so many just "fail" to get *that*?

November 2, 2010.  I know I shouldn't need to say this. But if I don't
say it, who will?

Today is Election Day.

The entire House of Representatives is up for grabs. So are 1/3 of the Senate seats.

Pollsters (those highly-accurate people who can predict election results weeks and months in advance) are saying that control of the House will likely return to the Republican party. They're also saying there's a chance that the Senate
might do the same.

My point?

If you want to prove them right, vote.  If you want to prove them wrong, vote.  But vote, dammit.

Get your butt out the door. Go to the polling place. Make a choice -- informed or otherwise -- but *do it*. It's the simplest yet most powerful bit of political activism you could do.

Really want to get active? Call your friends. Call your family members. Tell them to vote, too. Actually, bug the hell out of them until they vote just to get you to shut up.

All the rallies, all the ads, all the talking and campaigning -- it all comes down to today, and millions of people saying, "This one. Not that one."  Including you.

This is it. Showtime. Center stage, spotlight.

You're on.

Thoughts on alternate histories and "don't ask, don't tell":  In 1948, President Harry Truman issued executive order 9981, calling for an end to racial discrimination in the armed services.  It took nearly four years for integration to become a reality.  Of the three major branches of the armed forces at that time (Air Force, Navy, and Army), the Air Force complied most quickly; the Navy took only slightly longer to comply; and the Army dragged its feet, creating "integration" plans that would maintain segregated units and keep in place a 10% quota on African-American enlistments, arguing for "tests" of integrated units with gradual implementation elsewhere, and even stating (through the Secretary of the Army, Kenneth Royall) that the Army was not "an instrument for social evolution."  By the time the Korean War was in full swing, most Army units were desegregated, more out of necessity for combat troops than for enlightened thinking on racial issues.

Truman chose, instead of seeking legislation from Congress, to issue an executive order in his role as Commander-in-Chief.  Either way would have been constitutionally permissible; but Truman, a son of Missouri, knew full well that Congress would never prove amenable to eliminating racial discrimination in the armed services via legislation.  Truman, a man of considerable determination and a certain amount of pugnacity when it came to presidential powers, chose the boldest and most direct path to achieving what he wanted.

President Bill Clinton faced a similar issue in 1993 with regard to gay and lesbian service members.  The outcome of that was legislation enshrining the policy known as "don't ask, don't tell".  The goal was to reduce the number of service members being discharged based on their sexuality.  The reality is that more service members were discharged once the policy began than were discharged before the policy was begun.

President Barack Obama has inherited both the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and the campaign promises made to end the policy from President Clinton.  To date, repeal legislation has stalled in the Senate, and while it may be reconsidered after the November elections, the likelihood is that repeal will not seriously be taken up until 2011 or later.

It's fun to play "what if?" with history, to spin out scenarios based on what might have happened if only so-and-so had done thus-and-such.  Let's look at a couple...

1.  Clinton issues an executive order.  Bill Clinton could have issued his own executive order, similar to Truman's in 1948, mandating an end to sexual orientation discrimination in the services.  As with racial desegregation, the heads of the various service branches probably would have grumbled but ultimately have complied with the order.  For Congress to interfere by passing legislation countering that order could be seen as an infringement on the President's constitutionally-mandated powers as Commander-in-Chief -- and as usual in such cases, absolutely no one could predict what decision the Supreme Court would have reached when the case inevitably arrived at its doorstep.

2.  Clinton issues a stop-loss order.  Federal law states, in part:  the President may suspend any provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to any member of the armed forces who the President determines is essential to the national security of the United States. Practically speaking, no matter what Congress might say about who can and can't serve, the President can override it by finding some reason - individual or blanket - to say they can serve.  In fact, the old phrase "don't you know there's a war on?" is probably the best blanket reason of all; it served for Vietnam, Korea, and World War II, after all.  And Congress would have to risk looking foolish enough to turn its attention away from other pressing issues to take on the President who is, after all, just doing his duty under existing law.

So what can our current President do to end a policy on whose repeal he campaigned?  Plenty.

He can refuse to appeal cases striking down "don't ask, don't tell".  As Commander-in-Chief, the President can order the Pentagon not to have its lawyers appeal.  As head of the Executive Branch, the President can set priorities on which cases the Justice Department should pursue aggressively - and which to leave alone.  It costs money and time to prosecute a case, much less to appeal it.  In a recession, is this really the best place to spend scarce resources?

He can issue a stop-loss order.  And for all the same reasons as #2 above.

Or he can grow a pair.  In a case decided by the Supreme Court, President Andrew Jackson was reported to have said, "The Court has issued their opinion.  Let them enforce it."  The Senate is refusing to let a defense appropriation bill come to the floor because it contains language that would end "don't ask, don't tell" conditioned on a report to be issued by the Pentagon in December.  Screw 'em, especially that great friend of the serviceman John "did you know I was a POW in Hanoi?" McCain.  Issue the stop-loss order, let the decisions declaring "don't ask, don't tell" unconstitutional stand without appealing them, strip the amendment from the appropriation bill, and dare the Senate not to pass it this time.  Give at least one of your constituent groups a good reason to come out and vote for the Democrats next month.

Hell, give me a good reason to come out and vote for the Democrats next month.

You've all heard about it by now.  An 18-year-old Rutgers freshman jumped off the George Washington Bridge yesterday.  A gifted violinist, loved by his friends and family, decided it was better to take his own life than live with the humiliation of having a video of his gay sexual encounter - in his own dorm room - plastered all over the Internet.  And to have another encounter broadcast live.

His dorm roommate hid cameras all over their rooms, secretly.  His dorm roommate went to a female friend's dorm room, activated the cameras, and recorded and broadcast what the cameras showed.  His dorm roommate boasted of what he had done on a social network.

And isn't it fun?  Isn't it fun to decide that privacy is something your dorm roommate doesn't deserve?  Isn't is fun to dare people to come, come see your roommate have sex with another dude, live?  All good clean fun, isn't it?  It's just a joke, right?  No harm, no foul, right?  Right?

Wrong.  Wrong because someone else's privacy isn't yours to take away at your whim.  Wrong because it's not a joke, it's not good clean fun; it's death, and indescribable sorrow for the survivors.  Wrong because a life full of promise has ended because of you.

Yes, you.  Nobody else can be blamed.  You set up the cameras.  You didn't tell your roommate they were there.  You broadcast the camera feed on the Internet.  You bragged about it.  You took the "credit", if one can even call it that.

And what kind of punishment even comes close to being appropriate?  This isn't murder, technically.  You didn't plan on having your roommate kill himself -- at least, society would like to think so; but maybe, just maybe, you did.

And now he's dead.  Because of you and your accomplice.

God help me, I would like nothing better than to have you and your female accomplice tossed off the George Washington Bridge.  To feel the rush of air as you fall hundreds of feet toward the Hudson River.  To know the feelings of panic and helplessness and hopelessness your victim felt.  To feel the hard, hard water destroying your body, ending your life, taking away all the promise that was within you.

But it won't bring back the man you both killed.

I remember Matthew Shepard's parents in court, saying they didn't want their son's killers put to death.  They wanted them to live and to be reminded every single day of the person whose life they took.

And so should both of you.

It should be made that both of your social networks are demolished.  That when you log on and try to tweet or use Facebook or Myspace or any of the others, all you see is the face of the man you forced to kill himself.  His face, smiling, looking out at you.

And when you both go to jail as you both so richly deserve, I'd like you to know on the most primal levels just what it feels like when you have no privacy.  At all.  From anyone.  At any time.  Ever.

Talking back to my Representative.  The following is an e-mail I sent to Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-11th District, NJ) in response to his "e-news" sent to his constituents.  For those of you who are not in New Jersey, or not in the 11th District, you might find yourself in agreement with some of the things I say to him.
=======
Dear Congressman Frelinghuysen:

I have read your recent e-News and feel I must tell you, as a Republican and as a constituent, where I think you're wrong.

In the matter of tax hikes:  President G.W. Bush managed to take a surplus left to him by President Clinton and, through what I can only think of as gross incompetence, turn it into a massive deficit that will need to be paid off by our children and grandchildren.  An incompetently-run war in Afghanistan, a completely unnecessary war in Iraq, tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans, the Medicaid prescription program, and the massive financial collapse of this country's largest institutions because of the relaxing of  fiscal regulations -- all contributed to the state in which we find ourselves today.  For you to say the Obama Administration is "addicted to spending", when there was not so much as a murmur from you about the disastrous spending policies of the Bush Administration, is frankly ludicrous.

We have a debt to pay.  In the real world -- not the insulated dream world of Congress -- if you have a debt to pay, you have two options:  make more money, or spend less.  The United States has been acting as though this basic rule does not apply to itself.

I am no fan of higher taxes.  However, since Congress, and especially Congressional Republicans in their "Pledge to America", fail to give specifics on where spending will be cut, the only other option is making more money.  You and I both know that will include raising taxes.

The American people may grumble.  But they won't retaliate if you and your fellow Representatives and Senators of both parties take the time to educate them on both the "why" and the "what" of what your actions.  Without that education, then yes, if you start belt-tightening then you'll lose your job -- and you'll deserve it.

Every President, every Congress, has faced hard decisions and made some unpopular ones.  Those who made the effort to convince the citizenry of the rightness of their cause -- and did so without recourse solely to fantasies of what might happen if the "other side" got its way -- found their efforts rewarded come election time.  (Consider FDR and his Fireside Chats, especially the ones explaining bank holidays and Lend-Lease.)

Regarding so-called "ObamaCare":  I have been unemployed for over two years now.  I do not have a chance in hell of getting private health insurance.  With ObamaCare, there is the opportunity to end my worries of having something catastrophically expensive happen to me.  The day you vote to repeal "ObamaCare" is the day I start working for your Democratic opponent.

Finally, comparing pensions for union members, negotiated with auto makers over the years at contract time, with general benefits of salaried non-union employees (or as they're otherwise known, "management") is the most colossal red herring I have seen in ages.  Non-union employees' benefits are not guaranteed by contract (except at the very highest levels) and are subject to the whim of top executives and the board of directors.  From where I stand, in order to make up for this "inequality", salaried non-union employees should be encouraged to, and allowed to, unionize to give them the right to bargain collectively for contractually-guaranteed benefits.

I leave you with this final request:  If you or one of your aides is going to send me the standard "thank you for writing" letters, save the paper (or the e-mail).  If, however, you want to discuss what I've written, then by all means contact me.

Yours, 

Allen Neuner

The ends justify the means...  I've been over at Facebook reading various friends' comments on the failure of the so-called Democratically-controlled Senate to gather 60 votes to allow the defense policy bill -- containing a conditional repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy -- to proceed to a vote on the floor of the Senate.  Every Republican Senator except one voted against the vote.  (The one was Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who didn't vote at all.)  And three Democratic Senators voted against the vote:  both Senators from Arkansas, including Blanche Lincoln, who faced a stiff challenge in the primaries and looks set to be in a brutal fight against her Republican opponent.  And Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, who brought the bill to the floor expecting a vote to proceed.

Reid can be excused for his vote.  He wants to bring the bill back during the lame duck session of Congress post-elections, and can do so only if he voted with the majority when the bill was defeated.  It's a political maneuver only, based on the Senate's own rules, to keep the bill alive until the new Congress can be sworn in.

The Democrats -- the original gang that couldn't shoot straight -- went down by four votes.  Three were from their own party, which shows that party discipline is a joke among this particular party.  But they needed just one Republican to go along with all the Democrats, and they couldn't convince any of them.  This in a country where a majority of its citizens, from all parts of the political spectrum, support repeal of this policy.  The Democrats just couldn't get their act together.

Well, you may ask, what about all those nasty, vote-in-lock-step Republicans?  Quite a few of them have supported repeal in the past; why didn't they vote to allow this bill to go to the floor?  Judging from the reported comments, there were two big complaint.  One is that this bill -- which hasn't been prevented from going to a vote in over 40 years -- contained too many non-financial provisions.  Like the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell".  And the REACH program, designed to get fast-track citizenship for certain illegal aliens who meet specific criteria.

And the other big complaint?  That the bill was being rammed through, with the Republicans not being given sufficient chance to add amendments of their own before any vote would be taken.

I don't know how true or accurate either of these complaints are.  But the fact is that Republican supporters of repeal, who are not ones to give much heed to the more reactionary members of their party on this issue, voted against letting the bill come to a floor vote.  And they are the ones using these complaints as reasons.

So:  bad enough the Democrats have, once again where GLBT rights are concerned, shown weakness and cowardice in place of strength and boldness.  Bad enough the Republicans have felt, rightly or wrongly, that they're being railroaded into voting for something of which they do not approve, and about which they feel they've had no hand in crafting.

But I've got to point my finger, also, at all those who believed two things.

First, that the best way to get social legislation passed is to tack it onto a bill, any bill, used to fund any major part of government -- whether the legislation is related to the bill's main purpose or not.  This time, it was a bill giving (among other things) long-needed pay raises to servicemen and servicewomen.  And at least it was a military policy change tacked onto a military funding bill.  This is, boiled down to its essence, the old policy that "the end justifies the means".  Doesn't matter how you get something done, as long as that something is "for the greater good".  But really, people -- didn't your mothers teach you better?

Second, that you could get away with number one above by tacking it to a bill involved with funding a vital governmental function.  Because no one in their right mind would vote against a funding bill, would they?  No one would vote against pay raised for enlisted men and women, right?  Against funding the continuing operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan?  Against keeping the search for Osama Bin Laden alive and active, right?

Well, the bluff has been called.   And now there is no Plan B; and the sounds of  the weeping and the gnashing of teeth are heard throughout the land.

Forgive me if I don't join in.