Box Turtle Bulletin

Some Thoughts on the Inauguration

What follows is not a structured commentary but rather some random thoughts on the inauguration.

Rick Warren: Warren’s performance continued to highlight what an unfortunate choice it was to select him for the inaugural invocation. His inflection and style lacked gravitas and humility and at times he seemed false and fawning. I watched the ceremonies in a local coffee shop and the crowd laughed when he verbally caressed the names of the President’s daughters.

The Presidential Inauguration Committee should have closely observed his praying style before announcing Warren. Had they done so, they might have made another selection. Or perhaps they did and wanted what they got.

Vice-Presidential Oath: I wonder why the Veep has an oath that is so much longer than the President’s. It seems that this oath is not stipulated by the Constitution and so they use the same one used by Senators.

Swearing In: Did Roberts not make clear to the President that he would be offering whole sentences rather than small word coupling? And then Roberts screwed up where “faithfully” was placed in the oath.

I would never accuse the man of intentional sabotage, but it does remind us that when President Obama was a Senator he voted against confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts.

Presidential Address: This was a good speech. It began with the usual platitudes and was full of generic rhetoric, but it also gave indications where this administration will view the world with different eyes than the last. Specific references to restoring “science to its rightful place”, and “we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals” suggest direct policy changes while more general references hint at priorities that will change.

What saddened me was the continuation of excluding gay persons from any reference in the grand fabric of the nation. Of course some will dismiss this as an overreaching demand for such a small community, but Jews and Muslims – both much smaller populations in America – received specific reference. As much as I hope and wish for meaningful change for our community, I now fear that gay Americans are seen as a less insignificant part of Barack Obama’s America.

Benediction: Bless Rev. Lowery, but if anyone less prestigious had given that prayer they could not have carried it off. “The Red Man can get ahead, man”? Yikes!!

But I am particularly pleased that the reverend said:

And now, O Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance. And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family.

Considering the press surrounding Warren and his selection, it seemed to me that Lowery was speaking directly of the rights of gay Americans and the recognition of their relationships.

CNN: I found it of questionable taste that throughout the President’s speech they kept finding and focusing on an elderly black person. They stayed too long and the audience members’ shock of recognition of themselves on screen was distracting from the speech. And after a while it ceased seeming a confirmation of the fulfillment of a promise and began to take on a feeling of pandering and condescension. I hope that in the future media outlets can recall that this is the President of all Americans, not just old black Americans, and that we all should join together to provide our support for his leadership.

Finally, this was a joyous occasion. We should, as a nation, together hope and support and celebrate this new chapter in the history of our country. Because be we Democrats or Republicans, young or old, gay or straight, black or white or brown or chartreuse, we are Americans and Barack Obama is our President.

Rev. Joseph Lowery’s Benediction

(NBC’s feed, via Good As You)

“And now, O Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance. And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family.”

The full text of Rev. Joseph Lowery’s Benediction is after the jump.

“The Journey We Continue Today…”

“We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”

The full text of President Obama’s Inaugural Address is after the jump.

Yes We Can

Today is the big day so many of us have been waiting for. I decided to stay home from work and watch the inauguraiton with my partner because we both know that today is History with a capital “H”. This is the transformation of Lincoln, the hope of FDR in hard times, and the promise of a new era of Kennedy — all wrapped into one.

Two million people, give or take, have filled the Mall from one end to the other. I don’t recall any other event — no celebration, no protest comes to mind — which propted the dense crowd I’m seeing on television this morning. The crowd stretches form the Capital to the Reflection Pool, all of them screaming and cheering.

Two million people, with many billions more around the world there in spirit. Television, radio and the internet have formed a virtual mall stretching from Washington to Chicago; from Selma to Sacramento; from Hawaii to Kenya; from the Gaza to Somalia to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Billions are here also.

And all because of one man who has changed our perception of what a president can be — and of what our nation can be. And not least, of what we can be as citizens.

On a day like today, it’s hard not to feel proud. Proud to be an American again. Proud to be a part of one of the greatest nations on earth. Proud enough to even indulge in the conceit of being the greatest nation on earth.

Where else but America? What a beautiful day.

Inauguration Committee May Try To Fix Robinson Snub

We reported earlier on a statement released to AmericaBlog from the Presidential Inauguration Committee communications director Josh Earnest. In it, Earnest described Bishop Robinson’s omission from the live broadcast of the Inaugural concert as an “error in executing this plan.” According to the statement, “We had always intended and planned for Rt. Rev. Robinson’s invocation to be included in the televised portion of yesterday’s program.”

Now AfterElton is reporting that insiders are saying that Rev. Robinson’s invocation might be broadcast tomorrow on the Jumbotron screens placed around the mall for the inauguration ceremony. Even if true, it is not certain that broadcast outlets would necessarily pick it up, as they almost certainly will Warren’s invocation.

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was remarkable for its sterling attention to message. An “error in execution” like this would have been simply unthinkable. It’s astonishing to see such an impressive media savvy operation make such an colossal mess of things, and this dissonance will make just about any explanation of what happened difficult to swallow. After all, if Rev. Robinson’s late inclusion meant that people inside Obama’s clique heard and responded to the outrage over Rick Warren, then it’s difficult to understand how the ball could have been fumbled so badly in the simple act of adding Robinson to the bill.

But people really do screw up, sometimes royally. Barack Obama is only human — and a politician at that. I always knew he would disappoint us. I just didn’t think it would happen before he even took the oath of office.

Rep. John Lewis: “You Cannot Separate The Issue Of Civil Rights”

In observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday today, Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) appeared on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” to talk about his experiences during the civil rights struggles of the 1960’s. From 1963 to 1966, he chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, during which he became a close associate of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. As he talked about the struggles to achieve basic voting rights for African-Americans, he also reflected on the importance of fighting for civil rights for everyone, including LGBT people:

Terry Gross: (At the 22:00 mark) I want to quote something that you wrote in an op-ed piece in October of 003, and this was about gay rights and the right for gay people to marry. You wrote, “I have fought too hard and for too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I’ve heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry.” …I’ve heard some African-American leaders say that it’s wrong to make a connection between the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement because discrimination against African-Americans and discrimination against gays are completely different things. And being gay and being black are completely different things. What’s your take on that?

Rep. Lewis: Well, I do not buy that argument. I do not buy that argument. And today I think more than ever before, we have to speak up and speak out to end discrimination based on sexual orientation. Dr. King used to say when people talked about blacks and whites falling in love and getting married — you know one time in the state of Virginia, in my native state of Alabama, in Georgia and other parts of the South, blacks and whites could not fall in love and get married. And Dr. King took a simple argument and said races don’t fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married. It’s not the business of the federal government, it’s not the business of the state government to tell two individuals that they cannot fall in love and get married. And so I go back to what I said and wrote those lines a few years ago, that I fought too long and too hard against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up and fight and speak out against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

And you hear people “defending marriage.” Gay marriage is not a threat to heterosexual marriage. It is time for us to put that argument behind us.

You cannot separate the issue of civil rights. It is one of those absolute, immutable principles. You’ve got to have not just civil rights for some, but civil rights for all of us.

Terry Gross: And when you say not civil rights for some, you even mean civil rights for African-Americans and for gay people too?

Rep. Lewis: Not just civil rights for African-Americans or other minorities, but civil rights also for gay people.

Gene Robinson, Obama Inaugural Committee Address Snub

Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson appeared on today’s National Public Radio program “Talk of the Nation” to discuss the omission of his invocation from HBO’s nationwide broadcast of the Inaugural concert. (Audio will be available online at approximately 6:00 p.m. EST.) NPR News also clarified that the reason they didn’t carry the Bishop’s invocation was because they were relying on HBO’s feed.

In remarks to NPR, Bishop Robinson said that he learned that he would be excluded from the broadcast when he saw a copy of the final schedule, which had him speaking at 2:25 and the broadcast starting at 2:30. He didn’t see the schedule until sometime shortly before he went on.

The live broadcast began with the President-elect and vice-President elect ascending the dais, which means they weren’t publicly present when Bishop Robinson delivered his invocation. This gives rise to suspicions that they didn’t want to be seen photographed with Bishop Robinson on the same stage.

Meanwhile, the Presidential Inauguration Committee communications director Josh Earnest sent a statement to Americablog explaining that they “regret the error”:

“We had always intended and planned for Rt. Rev. Robinson’s invocation to be included in the televised portion of yesterday’s program. We regret the error in executing this plan – but are gratified that hundreds of thousands of people who gathered on the mall heard his eloquent prayer for our nation that was a fitting start to our event.”

It seems to me that so many people fully expected to see Bishop Robinson’s very public presence as an acknowledgement that LGBT concerns were being taken seriously by the incoming administration — especially after the seething anger over Rick Warren’s pick to deliver the invocation at the Inauguration just days after he compared gay relationships to incest, child rape and polygamy.

Seeing Bishop onstage with the Obama and Biden would have been a tremendously healing, uniting experience. Instead, the episode did nothing but open old wounds and widen the gulf of mistrust which has emerged between the LGBT community and the incoming administration. Simply saying “we regret the error” doesn’t cut it. Not without a better explanation of how such a terrible tin-ear blunder could have occurred in the first place.

HBO Says They’re Not To Blame For Robinson’s Omission In Inaugural Concert Special

Sunday afternoon, HBO broadcast the “We Are One” Inaugural Celebration live from the Lincoln Memorial. Openly gay bishop Gene Robinson delivered the invocation before the concert, but his prayer was omitted from HBO’s free nationwide broadcast. AfterElton contacted HBO Sunday night to ask about Rev. Robinson’s exclusion:

HBO said via email, “The producer of the concert has said that the Presidential Inaugural Committee made the decision to keep the invocation as part of the pre-show.”

Uncertain as to whether or not that meant that HBO was contractually prevented from airing the pre-show, we followed up, but none of the spokespeople available Sunday night could answer that question with absolute certainty. However, it does seem that the network’s position is that they had nothing to do with the decision. We have also contacted a spokesperson from the Presidential Inauguration Committee (PIC) for their explanation and will post what we learn either from PIC or HBO.

Rev. Robinson’s exclusion was deeply disappointing to millions of LGBT Americans. When Obama’s Inauguration Committee announced that Rev. Robinson would give the invocation for the Inaugural Concert, it was seen as an olive branch to the LGBT community which had been angered over Rick Warren’s selection to lead the invocation during the inauguration itself. The announcement concerning Rick Warren came just days after he compared gay relationships to incest, child rape and polygamy.

Obama’s team needs to come clean on this one. They need to admit either that they didn’t intend for Rev. Robinson to be seen on nationwide television, or that someone severely screwed up. This olive branch came with too many thorns to be ignored and swept under the rug.

The official announcement concerning the concert lineup which included mention of Rev. Robinson’s invocation made no distinction between “pre-show” and the lineup which would be broadcast nationwide. In fact, the announcement instead brags that the event would be “kicking off the most open and accessible Inauguration in history” — right after the HBO programming announcement. LGBT Americans who tuned in to watch the historic moment didn’t learn that Rev. Robinson had already given his invicocation until long after the broadcast had begin. Rev. Robinson’s invocation came at about ten minutes before the start of the broadcast.

Even many of those in attendance missed Robinson’s prayer. As he began to speak, sound was cut off to many of the speakers, making him inaudible to most of the estimated 500,000 people who gathered at Mall.

A video of Rev. Robinson’s invocation has made it onto YouTube. While we’re grateful that someone in the crowd with a videocam did an excellent job in capturing this moment, we suspect that Warren’s YouTube will come with somewhat better production values.

Gene Robinson’s Invocation Shoved Into HBO’s Closet

When the Obama Inaugural committee announced that the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal Bishop, would deliver the invocation at the “We Are The One” concert at the Lincoln Memorial, it was seen as an olive branch to the gay community, still seething over the selection of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation for the Inauguration itself.

The announcement that Rick Warren was selected came just days after Warren compared gay relationships to incest, child rape and polygamy. But by pointing out that Rev. Robinson’s invocation would come at the start of the HBO-aired live concert in front of one of America’s best-loved memorials, this high-profile announcement was portrayed as a separate-but-almost-equal bookend to Warren’s invocation at the Capital steps.

Well, except it turned out not to be nearly so equal. In yet another deep insult to injury, HBO did not air Rev. Robinson’s invocation. The salve to the gay community meant to calm the outrage over Warren’s selection was for naught. Hundreds of millions around the world will hear Warren’s invocation on Tuesday. But today, the only ones to hear Rev. Robinson’s prayer were those thousands who were present at the mall. Robinson’s prayer wasn’t aired live, nor was it aired during the 7:00 p.m. rebroadcast.

And guess what else was shoved into the closet?  The D.C. Gay Men’s Chorus singing with Josh Groban. Unlike every other performer, they came and went without being identified.

These snubs are inexcusable. Did HBO cave in the face of conservative outcries over Rev. Robinson’s selection for this event? Did the Inaugural committee rush Rev. Robinson onstage and off before the broadcast was slated to begin? Whatever the case may be, this is a cold slap. HBO has some serious explaining to do, as does the Inaugural committee.

Harvey Milk is screaming in his metaphorical grave right now.

Update: HBO says they’re not to blame for Rev. Robinson’s omission.

Click here to read Rev. Robinson’s invocation.

Irene Monroe on Prop 8 and Black Homophobia

Rev. Irene Monroe, Ford Fellow and doctoral candidate at Harvard Divinity School, has a short guest opinion in the January-February 2009 issue of The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide about  Prop 8 and Black homophobia. This op-ed reworks and consolidates some of the themes she expressed on  November 11 when many in the LGBT community were scapegoating African-Americans for Prop 8’s passage.

Rev. Monroe’s G&LRW opinion piece isn’t available online, but I thought these few short paragraphs were good food for thought. She dismisses religion as a justification for the Black vote, pointing out that “as African Americans we have always been willing to disregard damning passages from scriptures about us, such as those that cursed all people of African ancestry (‘the curse of Ham,’ Genesis 9:18-27) or advocated slavery (Ephesians 6:5-8).” She also acknowledges the issues of racism in the broader LGBT community, but she doesn’t see that as an excuse for Black homophobia either:

While it is true that the whole GLBT community needs to work on its racism, white privilege, and single-issue platforms that thwarts efforts for coalition building with both straight and queer communities of color, the African-American community needs to work on its homophobia. No more excuses.

But there’s something else about Prop 8 she finds troubling:

In the end, much of the blame for the passage of Prop 8 rightly belongs not to the voters themselves, whether black or otherwise, or even to religion, but instead to the government apparatus that allowed a basic civil right to be put to a popular referendum. If my enslaved ancestors had waited for their slaveholders to free them predicated on a ballot vote, we wouldn’t be living in the America we know today. And Barack Obama would not be our new president.

Rev. Irene Monroe is the author of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible Prayers for Not-So-Everyday Moments.

LaBarbera Award: Gregory D. Lee

Never heard of him? Me neither. Gregory D. Lee is one of those “nationally syndicated columnists” that nobody has ever heard of, writing for a syndicate that nobody has ever heard of. I hesitated to give this unknown any attention, but since he’s already been featured on the Huffington Post, I figure this humble blog won’t raise his profile to any dangerous heights. So here goes.

The reason Lee is our latest LaBarbera Award winner is very simple. It all comes down to his very simple reason why gays want to see an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:

[Y]ou need to understand that homosexuals predominantly want to serve in the military in order to have access to people their own age with whom to engage in sex. It’s just that simple. It’s all about sex, and not about serving the nation. It is not unheard of to have a lesbian officer coerce a lower enlisted woman into engaging in lesbian sexual activity. “I’m an officer and you’re a private, who are they going to believe if you tell them I forced you to have sex with me?” Or two male soldiers go out on the town. One has too much to drink, and when they return to the barracks, he passes out in his buddy’s room. When he wakes up, his “buddy” is performing fellatio on him. These are two actual cases, and many more like them have occurred, which prompted the ban to begin with.

Now you see, I never would have thought of that. In fact, the whole reason I didn’t join the military was because I thought basic training, bad haircuts and having to wear drab olive clothing was just way too much trouble to go through just to get laid.

Open Letters to Rick Warren from Faith In America

Spurred on by the Warren controversy, Faith In America has launched a new project, “Can You Understand the Harm?”, which includes videos of founder Mitchell Gold of Hickory, N.C., and Tracey Zoeller of Chicago, IL. The videos and open letters are directed to Rev. Rick Warren and other faith leaders, and they were written to explain the “harm caused to gay Americans by religion-based bigotry, prejudice and discrimination.”

Mitchell Gold is the author of Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America. He is also the founder of Faith In America. Here he is reading his open letter to Rick Warren:

Tracey Zoeller is the author of the young adult novel, The Pastor’s Daughter.

In addition, Faith In America collected more than twenty letters (PDF: 420 KB/19 pages) to send to Warren.

CDC Reports Significant Declines In HIV Infection Rates

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of people living with HIV and AIDS continues to rise as antiretroviral medication continues to prolong lives. In fact, we reported on a study last summer which showed that life-expectancy for those infected with HIV is now approaching normal. While nobody likes to see the number of people living with HIV/AIDS continue to increase, we also noted another CDC study which showed that the number of new HIV infections has remained relatively flat over the past ten years, a finding that is consistent with the fact that new AIDS cases has actually been declining slightly over the same period.

Now the CDC reports some more good news which sheds some light into how the number of HIV infections have remained so flat: The infection rate has been steadily declining since the 1980’s:

Researchers found that the HIV transmission rate has declined dramatically since the early days of the epidemic. In 1980, for example, when the disease was still undetected, the transmission rate was 92 percent, meaning there were 92 transmissions per 100 persons living with HIV at the time. After the identification of AIDS, and later HIV, and the implementation of HIV testing and other prevention efforts, transmission rates began to decline.

Since the peak level of new infections in the mid-1980s, just prior to the introduction of HIV testing, the transmission rate has declined by approximately 89 percent (from 44 transmissions per 100 persons living with HIV in 1984 to five transmissions per 100 persons living with HIV in 2006). Over the last decade, as prevention efforts have been expanded and improved treatments for HIV became available, the transmission rate has declined by 33 percent (from an estimated eight transmissions per 100 persons living with HIV in 1997 to five in 2006). Five transmissions per 100 persons living with HIV in 2006 means more than 95 percent of persons living with HIV did not transmit the infection that year.

The large fluctuations in the graph prior to 1980 are due to the relatively small numbers of persons living with HIV at that time and the limited surveillance structures that were in place.

The analysis, conducted by Drs. David R Holtgrave, H. Irene Hall, Philip H. Rhodes, and Richard J. Wolitski, will be published in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

[Hat tip: Michael Petrelis]

Civil Rights Leader To Rick Warren: I Must Assume You Do Not Care About Religion-Based Bigotry

As a medical student in Nashville from 1957 to 1961, Rodney Powell became a student protest leader in the African-American civil rights movement. Since then, Dr. Powell has continued his activism in support of African-Americans and LGBT Americans.

In this video, Dr. Powell find it “astounding” that Rev. Rick Warren was invited to deliver the keynote address on Sunday at a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration service at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta: “Mr. Warren, I do not believe that Dr. King would find your spiritual leadership unifying, and I’m certain he would not find it part of his vision for America as a beloved community. … Your pastoral leadership would not please Dr. King, and it certainly does not honor him.”

Rodney Powell serves on the board of directors of Faith In America.

LaBarbera Award: Gary Cass

We’ve talked about Gary Cass before. He’s the Christian Reconstructionist who has a computer keyboard he calls the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. He’s put out another doozy of a press release, warning parents that — gasp! — President-elect Barack Obama’s Inauguration will be among the “most perverted in history”:

Barack Obama’s inauguration will have the dubious distinction of being the most perverted in our nation’s history. Obama is not being subtle about either. One of America’s most radical and destructive homosexual activists, “Bishop” Vickie Eugene Robinson of New Hampshire, in official inaugural activities will be offering the invocation at the Lincoln Memorial.

Oh dear, and the “perversion” doesn’t end there. There’s the parade:

To ensure no one misses the perversion, the Inaugural parade will include a homosexual marching band with their rainbow flags flying proud with millions of our nation’s children watching. This is the same band that proudly advertises that it will march in the homosexual Southern Decadence parade, known for its vulgarity and lewd acts in public.

This is where His Pornstachiness lets his fantasies get the better of him:

“In order to be consistent in using this kind of reasoning, Obama ought to have a stripper lead off the inaugural parade followed by the Hell’s Angel’s Motorcycle Drill Team followed by the Crips Precision Handgun Corp. and the Transvestite Fashion Police. Just because something exists in society does not mean it is good and is to be paraded in front of everyone, especially children,” said Dr. Cass.