LOSE THE LABELS

There is a Vonage commercial that has a tag line "walls separate people".  As I've gotten older I can't help but see that the primary thing separating us are the labels we paste on one another, or have pasted on us.  We are "black" or "Jewish", or "lesbian", or what have you.  All of these labels are reasons to exclude people because they are "different", somehow "other" than we.

Black and White

Of all the stupid things we call one another, these have to be at the top of the list.  I have a ream of paper nearby, and can unequivocally state that my skin is not at all white.  I am, at best, sort of beige.  I have never met a person with white skin.  Not even albinos are white - their skin is translucent and the underlying blood vessels make them a faint pink.  I have also never, ever, seen a human with black skin.  I have seen chocolate, walnut, even 'burnt umber', but never actually black.  Very dark, perhaps, but never black.  I can't pretend to have met everyone on the planet, but if there's an exception somewhere it wouldn't change the fact that humans are basically all brown.  We come in different shades, it's true, and there are some other highlights mixed in from time to time, but we're really all the same color.

A little history might be in order.  The traders who roamed Africa gathering slaves to feed the southern cotton industry, often with the connivance of greedy tribal elders, felt that the men and women they captured were little more than animals.  They were bolstered by erudite writings by religious leaders and scientists that 'proved' that Negroes were different, lesser beings.  All hogwash, of course, but it provided the background of legitimacy for the enslavement of one human by another.  Slavery had existed before, of course, but normally in the context of one nation defeating another.  But this time the pretext wasn't punishment for a defeated people but simply the greedy need to unpaid labor.  In the '50s and '60s, Dr. King and those inspired by him wanted to be integrated.  His most famous plea was to be judged "not by the color of their skins but by the content of their characters."  But others wanted a different outcome, and spurred by King's assassination, raised the cry of "black power".  These activists pushed (stupidly, I believe) to be treated separately, thereby giving credence to all the bigot's claims that Negroes were not like the rest of us.  So today we speak of the 'races', referring to the 'black race', and the 'white' race.  Folks, let me assure you: there is only one race of people walking around on this planet - the 'human race' - only the human species.

Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.

We categorize ourselves and others we meet by the extremely picky differences in the way we have chosen to worship the multitude of deities humanity imagines guide our lives. Now, I have written elsewhere that I believe that all of man's religions are bunkum, but that does not change the fact that some people believe passionately in every one of them. The issue is that they do believe so passionately that they are willing to fight, even kill one another, over the most minute differences in liturgical protocol. Worship an effigy; forbid effigies, ordain women; forbid women from participation; baptize and infant or an adult, and so on and so on, ad infinitum! Each denomination preaches tolerance and practices intolerance, claiming that each is the only path to salvation. Logically, either they are all true, and practitioners get rewarded in the next world in accordance with their particular belief system, or they are all false, and there is no afterlife. No other outcomes are possible in logic, and I vote for the second. That being said, if we remove the labels, we are left once again with just people. Hopefully people trying to act in a loving and tolerant manner, but just people none the less. Instead of saying, thou art a Jew (or Muslim, or Lutheran, or whatever) and I must strive with thee because we are different, should we not say instead that thou art a person, and I must give you respect and stand ready to offer you aid if needed? Again, remove the label and remove another reason to see differences where none really exist. And if you say to me, "I do not like how he worships his god", I would say to you that it is none of your business how he worships. And if he attempts to press his ways on you, say to him that his ways are his, and yours are yours, and you each have an equal right to think as you wish. Then offer him a drink of his choice, because it is harder to be angry with someone when sharing some hospitality (even if it's just coffee).

LGBT

This class of labels is the most insidious, and at the same time the most ridiculous things we can say about one another. How, and with who, we chose to live our lives, is the most personal decision we can make. In fact, there is a larger issue here that transcends sexual preferences. The real issue is how we define roles for one another on the basis of gender. As I noted in another post, technology has removed the requirement to have opposite genders in order to create children. Now I know that most human society is not ready for the complete erasure of gender-based roles, but it is high time we made some moves in the right direction. At the very least, we can stop treating men and women as if they were different mentally and (in most cases) physically. There are some minor differences in our physiology created by millions of years of heterosexual activities and women are slightly smaller, on average, but there are absolutely no other limitations on performance. Women can, and do, hod bricks and fire AK47s and many other tasks thought physical in nature. In some endevours women still face resistance from insecure males, in others the integration has gone more smoothly, but until gender ceases to be defining attribute of ANY job we are not done.

Now what has gender equality to do with acceptance of persons whose sexual identification differs from what we call "normal"? Just this: if you approach someone without any preconceptions you'll find it easier to view that person's qualifications as an employee rather than their gender if you are hiring. And of course, if you are leaving gender out of the equation, you cannot be concerned with sexual preference, which is based on gender. Of course in social settings, when someone introduces you to his or her partner, and that person is the same gender, you will know that he or she is a homosexual. What I say to you is that homosexuality makes no difference to their other human attributes. I say again, whomever a person chooses to be committed to is none of your business. Any difficulty you feel in meeting a same-sex couple is coming entirely from your own insecurities and prejiduces. Celebrate the committment of a couple, and keep your difficulties to yourself, recognizing that they are entirely your problem.

One personal point. I want the term 'gay' back. As in " . . don we now our gay apparel . . ." I'm not sure how or why male homosexuals coopted this term; maybe they were jealous of the ladies getting the term lesbian (from the Greek legend of the isle of Lesbos), but no matter. If we strip away all the labels and stop worrying about who someone is screwing, we'll all be better off and healthier as a society. Finally, 'bisexual' refers to someone who enjoys sex with both genders and 'transgender' refers to someone who more or less temporarily takes on the attributes of the opposite gender in sexual situations. In my opinion, nobody needs to know these things except current and prospective sexual partners.

If asked to participate in a sexual situation you are uncomfortable with, simply decline. Do not denigrate or denounce.

Society operates so much more smoothly if we treat one another with respect and compassion. Looking past labels allows us to see one another as fellow humans, each deserving of the best of which we are capable. Labels define and limit us. Lose them and we will be much more free.

LBGT

There are many layers to my feelings regarding how humanity does and should address this complex issue.

First, I actually agree with Governor Bobby Jindal when he says that A&E is violating the first amendment rights of Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson by suspending him for making a public statement of what he believes. I don't think Mr. Robertson's opinions were correct, or even well thought-out, but he must be guaranteed the right to have them. In a free society, everyone has to have the right to be wrong.

So here is what I believe. Some things I say will anger some readers, but will hopefully provoke thought and discussion. That is the main reason for this blog, after all.

Homosexuality is first of all a sort of mutation biologically. Our species is part of the larger animal kingdom, and heterosexuality has survived the crucible of evolution because it produces offspring. From the point of view of our biology, homosexuality cannot produce children. We refer to the mechanism by which mates are chosen in the animal kingdom as 'survival of the fittest'. Note that survival of the fittest does not actually refer to whether an individual survives, but which individual demonstrates to fitness to procreate.

As the human society, however, we are no longer subject to the traditional limiters that drive natural selection in the animal kingdom. The intelligence we have developed over the millenia have allowed us to completely re-write our survival mechanisms. Probably the best example of this is Stephan Hawking, a remarkably intelligent individual whose physical disability is so severe that he would never have survived to astound us with his ideas were it not for the modern technology that keeps him alive and allows him to communicate. Our abilities in the sciences also permit homosexual couples to procreate. Surrogate parenting, artificial insemination, and adoption are all methods available to all couples, regardless of gender mix. Accordingly, heterosexuality is no longer required for the human species to survive.

Currently, of course, the human species is now wrestling with the different future worlds such a truth may create. Over a relatively short amount of evolutionary time spanning perhaps only a few hundreds of thousand of years, we have changed from animals operating as a pack, scratching out an existence on a very hostile planet, to a society that runs the planet and is structured around individual family units. There are those who believe this current state of affairs is somehow ordained by the Almighty, but then the Almighty is as recent an invention as our hetero-based families. Future generations will become more tolerant, hopefully, as more children grow up to know that love can operate in all gender modes, just as the past couple of generations have discovered that love is not limited by skin color.

Still, I am an old man and the product of a fairly conventional education, so I am constantly having to do my own mental wrestling. For example, I do not really like the use of the word 'gay'. I have always sort of agreed with historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. when he objected to this synonym for homosexual by saying, "Gay used to be one of the most agreeable words in the language. Its appropriation by a notably morose group is an act of piracy."—"The State of the Language 1977," Time, January 2, 1978, p. 36. I do believe that labels are hurtful and divisive anyway. Don't tell me you're gay, lesbian, homosexual or anything of the sort. Just introduce me to your partner, if we're in that sort of social setting, and leave it to me to make my own peace with your relationship. If I can actually learn to be well adjusted, I'll judge you on whether you're good people and on no other basis. You, on the other hand, need to not notice if I take a beat to answer the introduction. My old brain sometimes takes a minute to catch up.

Personally, I have not thought of myself as anything other than hetero. I had several friends when I lived in California who were homo, and never felt any attraction to any of them, so I've never given any real thought to such a relationship, plus I had a long and very loving relationship with Cynthia. On the other hand, I was startled the other night when someone asked me if I was Bi, and I actually took a second before I answered 'no'. Thinking about this later, I expect that I had hit on a distinction between love and sex. So although I said I'm hetero, that was in connection to relationships. Personally, when it comes to just sex I think I'd apply my main dictum, that I will try anything once.

But I'm getting off the topic. And the main point of the topic is this: do not label and do not judge. It's just as wrong for GLAAD to label Robertson as bigoted as it was for him to label homosexuals as sinful.

Another layer to this puzzle is the concept of same-sex marriage. I do not think that government should be allowed to either permit or deny same-sex marriages. Amendment 1 to the U.S. Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ." When arguing this concept, most people conveniently forget that marriage, as such, is a sacrament of the various churches. Only people who have been married in a church are actually 'married'. I feel the First Amendment actually prohibits our government from giving civil officials the right to perform marriages. On the other hand, whether you call them marriages or civil unions, there should be no gender distinction in the laws of estate, health care, or any other legal right or responsibility.

LOCAL GODS

I have explained elsewhere why I view all of mankind's religions as unconscious holdovers of the belief that we are the center of the Universe, and accordingly, why I believe that every single one of them is bunkum.

In fairness to billions of my fellow humans, however, I need to point out that the writer Robert Heinlein has given a possible solution to the plethora of deities inhabiting our small part of the Universe.  In his book Job, a Comedy of Justice, all of mankind's deities exist, and all heavens propounded by all religions are true.  Thus if you believe in the Christian heaven, that's where you end up, and if you are a Norse follower of Odin, the Valkyries place you in a frozen sleep until Ragnarok.

Earth's local deities are depicted a being part of a hierarchy, and report to a sort of regional manager who can resolve past-life conflicts arising when two people in a relationship have different gods, which is one of the plots in this book.  The book is largely a criticism of evangelical Christianity, and owes some of its imagery to Mark Twain's story Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven.  I strongly urge everyone to read both books.

I couple this notion with the one in Douglas Adam's The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, that we have created all these gods out of own heads.  They are immortal, because we have invented them so, and they tend to have more or less human characteristics because we haven't got enough imagination so see them any other way.

I must admit that I can understand how these sorts of deities might be of use to humanity.  They give us someone of whom we ask favors, and the law of averages will mean that some will seem to have been granted.   They also give us someone to blame when things go wrong.

That doesn't mean I am personally drinking any of this religious kool-aid, and I would like to recommend another Mark Twain story, The War Prayer, which is the most scathing indictment of religious fervor I have ever read.  I have never read a more complete indictment of the mad mindlessness of our belief systems.

Now, if you know me, you realize that the titles listed above are but a few of those I have read over the years, some of which have informed my belief system.  In fact, I will give you one more.  I have only read one description of an afterlife which makes even the slightest sense to me, and that was in the Arthur Clarke story Childhood's End.  In this story, there is no individual afterlife.  When a species has evolved to a certain point, they change form and become part of the guiding intelligence of the Universe, called the Overmind.  It's not that I really believe this concept, but it is the only point of view that ever seemed conceivable.

Regardless, I think that everyone should read as much as possible, and not only things which propose answers with which you believe.  The people that bother me the most are those who hold beliefs which violate facts.  The ones that insist that evolution didn't happen, or the ones that ignore scientific measurement of world temperatures. 

Read.  Learn.  Question.  Inquire.