The Dooryard

Talking about gay marriage and our culture of division with Michael Irvin

Over the last few years I've been blessed by a friendship with an incredible man named Michael Irvin. I met Michael through his former radio partner, Kevin Kiley, whom I'd done radio with for years. One of the various reasons I call this man "incredible" is his willingness to listen and discuss issues of the day. Homophobia, sexism, racism, religion...you name it, Michael's ready to talk about it with you, not at you.

Today he and I, along with his radio partner Curtis Stevenson, had a 15-minute discussion on air about Barack Obama and gay marriage. You can listen to the interview, dated May 18, here. The Bible, Manny Pacquiao and TD Jakes all factored into the conversation. And for 15 minutes on sports radio in Miami, we talked about how the lack of same-sex marriage affects our culture and the lives of people.

I've learned a lot from Michael about listening to others. Not long ago I would say I hated religion and resented religious people. Like Obama did with same-sex marriage, I've come full circle back to where I was 15 years ago and can listen to and respect religion. My mind and ears have opened to others almost exclusively because of my long conversations on and off the air with Michael. 

Barack Obama supports gay marriage. Log Cabin Republicans release sad attack.

I've been thinking about diving back into my blogging for a couple months now. With today's announcement from President Obama of his support for my marriage, I figured it's the right time.

My lack of fondness for the President is no secret. I feel like he's been the Campaigner in Chief for most of his presidency. And I feel many of the promises he made in 2008 have been thrown out the window for new campaign promises this year. On key policy initiatives -- the Keyston pipeline, Obamacare -- I disagree with him. This isn't to say I'm a Romney fan; We'll simply get to him in another post. 

But today I'm proud of the president. He didn't have to vocalize his support for gay marriage, but he did. It made me very, very happy and somehow more fulfilled. 

The best speech yet for marriage equality

Not surprising to me, it comes from an 86-year-old World War II vet in Maine. Every voter in Maine should see this. Please give to equality in Maine! Just 11 days left until the election. And your donation can help!!

Boies' great arguments for gay marriage

Attorney David Boies penned a fantastic piece in today's Wall Street Journal outlining why he and Ted Olson are taking the gay-marriage fight to the Supreme Court. It's one of the most compelling, well-written pieces on the subject I've seen from anyone!

For the liberal "conspiracy theorists" claiming that Olson is only on board to try to derail gay marriage, the piece certainly contradicts that as Boies embraces Olson (besides, Boies is no idiot who can be duped into taking a bad case to the Supreme court). Boies talks directly about why he and Olson, two old rivals, teamed up for this one:

We acted together because of our mutual commitment to the importance of this cause, and to emphasize that this is not a Republican or Democratic issue, not a liberal or conservative issue, but an issue of enforcing our Constitution's guarantee of equal protection and due process to all citizens.

Brilliant.

It's pretty sad how some gay rights groups are attacking them and then trying to intercede in the case. They realize that they have been sitting on the sidelines, trying to simply shepherd gay marriage with little result...and that this case has the potential to make them sideshows and show just how irrelevant many of them have become.

I hope Boies and Olson are completely successful. To have two men from opposing views come to the same legal conclusion about the importance of my rights would be probably the most breathtaking moment in gay-rights history.

Miss California deserves the criticism

I'm kind of surprised by how many people are talking about Miss California's answer about gay marriage at Sunday's pageant. In case you haven't heard what happened, you can read here and watch it below.

A few people have told me that "she should be able to say whatever she wants without being attacked for it." I couldn't disagree more. She absolutely has the right to say whatever she wants. Every American has the right to say what they want; That's what makes our country so great. But NO ONE has the right to say something publicly and expect to be free from criticism.

She could have easily talked about state's rights and living in a country that values difference in opinion, and that would have been a fantastic answer. Instead, she decided to take her own political position (and deliver it really badly); And with that she opened herself to criticism. She didn't have to offer her political opinion but she did, and she says she's glad she did. Many people who are against gay marriage are attacking those who are criticizing her. But why does she get the right to speak her mind and others don't?

I'm glad Perez Hilton asked her the question. I wish he hadn't called her a bitch afterward, but that's Perez.

Another bad pro-gay-marriage commercial

After Prop 8 passed in California, there was an outpouring of thought about what to do next. The terrible TV commercials that the pro-gay-rights side aired were targeted and the people who led to their creation were blamed. There were marches, letters, conferences, symposiums, meetings, phone calls. After taking all of that in, Equality California has come out with another TV ad - and it's as though they weren't listening.

Actually, listening to the wrong people. There was a chorus after the election saying the mistake was not putting more gay people in the ads: Harvey Milk would have put gay people in the ads, so that was the mistake that was made. So what does EqCa do? They put Harvey Milk and gay people in the commercial. That's not enough; They need to change their message!

But the commercial misses the mark completely because it harps on the same old tired theme of "we're right and you're wrong." Telling people they have to give you something is no way to get them to give it to you; In fact, it often makes them want to keep it from you that much more. This commercial says "we deserve this" and "you can't keep us from it anymore." It mentions Jerry Falwell by name and identifies him as an enemy; Why would you want to alienate his friends and allies? How is that changing people's hearts and minds? It's more stomping feet and throwing a tantrum. That this is what they came up with after four months of listening is very, very sad.

The negativity of same-sex protests is only hurting us

I went to the same-sex marriage protest in Manhattan on Wednesday night where (in my humble estimate) about 5,000 people demonstrated. While it was nice to see so many people standing up for marriage rights, I left very quickly quite disappointed and with a reinforced notion that protests just don't do much good.

My biggest problem with them in general (and this one reinforced it) is the tone. I heard over and over and over about the "protest." The word protest is inherently negative. It means you're going to demonstrate AGAINST something, not FOR it. To me, the word "rally" is much better, as it is proactive and reflects positive movement forward, that you're going to gather and RALLY FOR something, not PROTEST AGAINST something. It may sound trivial, but I think it's an important distinction that sets the tone for these events.

I was also quite disappointed to see how much hate the protestors brought to the event. Signs that castigated the Mormon church the same way they have castigated us. Someone writing things on the sidewalk in chalk, equating Catholics and Mormons with Nazis. This is not the way we affect change. This is mean-spirited preaching to the converted. And what it's done is give social-conservative pundits like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity footage with which to turn their viewers against gay people.

My hope is that more and more of the demonstrators will start talking about the positive aspects of these events, start carrying positive signs and sending a positive message, and use these events to speak to people whose minds we need to shift. Doing what ultra-Leftist Manhattanites want us to do simply won't get us what we seek.