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This is my reply to the following comment posted in an article in the New Haven Independent about federal stimulus money going to help the homeless in New Haven.
Posted by: lance | April 30, 2009 4:27 PM
most people that are homeless brought it upon themselves, I wouldn’t give ‘em anything, let alone 1.5 million dollrs worth of food. And how much of the 1.5 is going to be embezzled in one way or another?
Lance, how do you know that most homeless people brought it upon themselves? Have you been out there on the streets and asked them how they ended up there?
Or did you just see someone in the street, someone probably stuck in one of the worst periods in their life, and write them off as irresponsible and unfit for your compassion, let alone your tax dollars.
I wonder who showed you compassion in your lowest moment and what would have happened if they hadn’t.
And from a purely practical point of view: you and your tax dollars are going to deal with the homeless in one way or another, whether through paying police to handle their petty crimes in your neighborhood, through reimbursing hospitals for their unnecessary stays in the emergency room, or through paying for their jail time.
$13,500 = The average annual cost to provide shelter, meals, and case management for one person in New Haven (per Columbus House in New Haven).
$44,000 = The average annual cost to incarcerate one inmate in Connecticut. (http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0099.htm).
Why not provide the resources to get the homeless stable, housed and independent when it’s so much more cost effective (not to mention compassionate) than the alternatives?
(The Independent’s site would not, for technical reasons, let me post my reply there.)
Lots of pics on Lauren’s blog (Part 1 and Part 2) or on Facebook (gotta login), and lots of information and photos from protests around the nation at Join the Impact.
Local coverage at the New Haven Independent (along with some stirring commentary), the Yale Daily News, the New Haven Register (with even more, uh, interesting commentary), more awesome comments at WTNH, and video coverage at WFSB.
We have a lot of work to do.
CONNECTICUT PROTESTS
When:
Saturday, November 15
1:30 p.m.
Where:
New Haven
City Hall
165 Church St.
Hartford
City Hall
550 Main St.
Facebook (must login)
Join the Impact
POSTERS!
Poster Painting Party!
At Our House
Friday, November 14
8 p.m.
RSVP by commenting
Brian Kinney infamously said, “there are only two kinds of straight people in the world: the ones who hate you to your face and the ones who hate you behind your back.”
(bear with me here–i’ll soon be turning a corner.)
it’s the quote that keeps popping up in my head the more same-sex marriage remains an out issue. the more i hear about the Proposition 8 protests. the more Lauren and i talk about what kind of wedding we want (a big to-do where uncomfortable family members there by obligation spend the entire ceremony squirming, or eloping so that no one–including us–has to deal with awkward feelings). and the more we think about some of our family members’ reactions to our engagement.
it’ll sound dramatic, but sometimes it just feels like the whole world is against us, even if they’re pretending not to be. to be fair, there have been some hold-the-phone-away-from-the-ear squeals (thanks, Mere) and a few tears (love you, Kari). but usually when there is support, it is a pause and then a muster, and finally a cautious “congratulations.” and often there’s just tolerance, a measured “if that’s what makes you happy” or “are you allowed to do that?” and sometimes there’s a lot less than that.
no one knows what to do with us. not even our gay friends who sort of just nod their heads, wondering what exactly “engaged” means.
i feel like an outcast. it’s not the first time, of course. when i came out, many of my high school friends stopped calling, and much of my family kept a safe distance away until they figured out how to deal with it. but in retrospect, i’m fine with all that. these days, i keep saying over and over again that everyone in my life has had to do their own coming-out. they’ve had to sort out their feelings and rewrite parts of their rule books. many of them are still tiptoeing through minefields of Bible verses and cultural stereotypes and fears around appropriate manliness or femininity. just like i’m still dealing with my fear of going to hell or confusion around the word “choice.”
our engagement has sped up and amplified this process for all of us. it has forced us out of the comfortable static of mere tolerance that had grown up like weeds all over our lives. and i’m finally realizing that those weeds are keeping a lot of beautiful things from growing.
and as i write this, i’m starting to realize that all of this is a good thing.
i’m finally seeing that all the protests happening around the country are calls for pulling the weeds to see what else can grow. it’s not about two kinds of straight people, it’s about all of us together, part of the same process. it’s about being myself completely and without fear. it’s about discussion and listening and confronting not with hate but with compassion.
as i pull myself away from the cynicism of Brian Kinney, i come back to the same place i find myself with every issue of inequality in all forms: hate is the simple answer, the quickest, most thoughtless way to get from one place to another. the real explanation is based in a simple lack of knowledge, a misunderstanding. that misunderstanding is sometimes manifest in a hateful way (or a ballot measure), but its real base is in ignorance, willful or not.
before i came out and, later, before i announced my engagement, my friends and family were operating on the knowledge and experiences they had at hand. but then i served up a new set of facts and they served me up a new set of reactions, and it has taken all of us awhile to incorporate those facts and experiences into our lives and beliefs. but we’re slowly doing it.
i forgot to mention before that when i told my mom about my engagement, she asked how she could help with the planning. when i told my grandma, she said that she saw that Lauren and I were right from the start. ten years ago when i came out, i couldn’t have dreamed of such reactions.
that’s why we have to keep coming out. that’s why we have to protest, peacefully but forcefully. that’s why we have to hold hands on the street and keep announcing our engagement regardless of the reaction, because the process slows and eventually stops when we go into hiding. but we have to be careful to study the reactions from a loving perspective, to encourage questions and give honest answers.
we must summon the courage to be ourselves completely and honestly and let everyone around us do the same, until we are all looking each other in the eye and having the same discussion.
only then will we start to see real change.
We live in a world of pressure to conform: to believe what others tell us is true, to toe the line, to accept the values of those in positions of power and to follow conventional, approved paths. That’s the way to get on in life and business, we are told. You need to ‘fit in’, ‘play the game’, and ‘avoid rocking any boats’.
That may produce a quiet life, but it won’t help anyone speak out when it becomes clear that things are going badly wrong. Heresy—questioning beliefs that are approved today—seems to me to be essential to human progress. Nearly every advance in human thought is loudly denounced as a heresy at the start—only later does it become the new orthodoxy. That is true of politics, religion, and matters of social justice.
from the Slow Leadership blog. the post is more about rocking the boat in the workplace, but it struck a chord for me on a lot of different levels.
If you are a Connecticut resident, please vote NO on the Constitutional Convention on November 4. Please take a minute or two to read this entire message. It’s important for all of us!
A Constitutional Convention will enable a slew of issues to go to public referendum–a majority vote by the public.
Why is that a bad thing, you ask?
Because the majority should not be deciding what any minority group should and should not be entitled to. Our Constitution entrusts elected officials to represent all of us, not just the majority. We make our voices heard by electing those who represent us. To vote on individual referendums is to bypass the entire representative government set up by our Founding Fathers.
Can you imagine what would have happened if the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves free, had gone to a public ballot vote back in 1862? Even if African Americans had the right to vote then (they didn’t until the 15th Amendment passed in 1870), I’m fairly sure the majority of the nation’s voters would have shot that one right down.
In order to grant African Americans their basic (dare I say inherent?) human rights, some “activist” president named Abe declared an executive order.
An “activist” Congress passed the 15th Amendment prohibiting the prevention of a citizen from voting based on that citizen’s race, color, or previous condition of servitude (i.e., slavery). And some states, like Kentucky and Maryland–yes, Maryland–rejected ratifying the amendment and did not do so until 1976 and 1973, respectively.
If interracial marriage were put to a ballot vote state by state today, I guarantee that at least two states would go back to their “racially purifying” standards.
Why do I care?
Because last Friday, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that marriage should be allowed for all loving couples, including gays and lesbians. It declared that anything less than equal marriage rights for all people is unconstitutional.
Conservatives in the Connecticut Legislature would use the Constitutional Convention to put gay marriage to a public referendum in hopes that a majority vote would overturn it.
I’m not sure if Connecticut would overturn the decision; I’d like to believe that our state has become progressive enough to see love as pure in all forms. In any case, though, the majority should not vote on the rights of the minority.
So please, VOTE NO on the Constitutional Convention.
Click here to endorse the VOTE NO initiative.
If you want to do something more or you’re not from Connecticut but want to help, donate now to the effort.
And please, spread the word!
Thanks so much for helping protect everyone’s rights.
[edit 10/20/08: go to Tonia's blog for an incredibly thorough and thoughtful discussion of everything that is at stake in Connecticut for LGBTQI folks and what we can all do to help.]
WOO HOO! Come to the rally in Hartford at 5:30!
and check out the sweet, wonderful post Lauren posted on her blog.
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High Court Grants Gay Marriage Rights
|Courant Staff Writer
Same-sex couples won the right to marry in Connecticut in an historic ruling by the Supreme Court today.
Citing the equal protection clause of the state constitution, the justices ruled that civil unions were discriminatory.
In a 4-3 decision released at 11:30 a.m., the majority wrote that the state’s “understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection.”
“Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice,” the majority wrote. “To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others.”
Unsatisfied with the civil unions approved by the legislature in 2005, eight same-sex couples had brought the case, Kerrigan v. the state Commissioner of Public Health, after they were denied marriage licenses in 2004 by the Madison town clerk, who was following instructions issued by the state attorney general’s office.
The state, arguing that civil unions already provide all the rights and protections of marriage, prevailed in a Superior Court ruling in July 2006. The couples appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which heard three hours of arguments on the case in May 2007.
Attorney Bennett Klein, arguing on behalf of the couples, told the court that civil unions were a “less prestigious, less advantageous institution.”
The Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders law firm representing the couples pursued numerous legal arguments, contending that same-sex marriage was both a fundamental right and guaranteed under the ban on sexual anti-sexual discrimination in the constitution.
Klein also argued that the couples are being discriminated against based on sexual orientation.
But the argument the justices seemed most intrigued by is whether sexual orientation entitles the couples to status as a “suspect class” of people, entitled to greater protection due to a history of long-term discrimination and political powerlessness.
If the justices determined that gay and lesbian couples fall into this status, they would more intensely scrutinize the state’s motives in distinguishing between civil unions and marriage, and whether they were rational, and narrowly tailored.
It was this type of analysis, also presented by GLAD lawyers, that formed the underpinnings of the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that afforded same-sex couples the right to marry.
Assistant State’s Attorney General Jane R. Rosenberg again argued that same-sex couples were being treated fairly by the state.
“No rights have been taken away from this group,” she argued. “They have been granted a license with all the rights and benefits of marriage. What’s different is their license happens to say civil union and not marriage.
“Is the legislature constitutionally required to use the word `marriage’ when referring to the packaging of benefits the legislature has given to same-sex couples? ” she asked. “There is nothing in the words `civil union’ that implies anything inferior.”
Rosenberg urged the high court to steer clear of what should be a public policy debate in the legislature, and not “enshrine one policy choice as a matter of constitutional law,” quoting a 1995 ruling of the court that welfare is not a fundamental right under the Connecticut Constitution.
The court’s ruling today will likely be the final judicial judgment in the case because it it based on the state constitution, rather then the U.S. constitution.
But the often emotional, contentious debate over gay marriage is far from over.
If the court rules against the couples, the legislature can still grant the right to marry. The judiciary committee voted in favor of a gay marriage bill in 2007, but supporters decided the time was not right to push the controversial measure. No bill came out of committee this year, as legislators waited to see what the court would do.
If the court grants same-sex couples the right to marry, opponents could seek a constitutional amendment to ban it. California voters will decide in November if their constitution should ban gay marriage, after that state’s Supreme court recent ruling to allow it.
In Connecticut, a question is on the November ballot on whether to hold a constitutional convention. Supporters want to change the constitution to allow “direct initiatives,” which would potentially open the door for anti-gay rights groups to seek a ban on same-sex marriage.
A rally sponsored by the conservative Family Institute to urge to court to reject the lawsuit and voters to approve the constitutional convention drew about 2,800 people to the state Capitol Sept. 28.
GLAAD and Love Makes A Family have scheduled a rally at the Capitol at 5:30 p.m. today.
i try to do what i can for causes i believe in. the WE Campaign represents the biggest, most organized effort in curbing global warming through advocacy of renewable energy and education about our current forms of polluting energies. please click on the link below and take action.
–
Did you notice the ads after last night’s presidential debate?
ABC had Chevron. CBS had Exxon. CNN had the coal lobby. But you know what happened last week? ABC refused to run our Repower America ad — the ad that takes on this same oil and coal lobby.
[The WE Campaign] sent a letter asking ABC to reconsider their decision and put our ad on the air, but still they haven’t heard back more than a week later. I think they need to hear from all of us. Can you help? Please send a message to ABC and tell them to air the Repower America ad this Friday on 20/20. Just click here:
http://www.wecansolveit.org/ABC
We’re working to get 100,000 public comments to ABC before 20/20’s next airing.
Lauren updated her Malawi post with some words to go with the images.
[My original post is here. Or you can just scroll down.]
most of you know that Lauren recently spent some time in Malawi on a trip with Save the Children. she hasn’t been able to talk much about it beyond the whos, whats and wheres, and i haven’t pushed her to. but everyone who knows her can tell the trip is heavy in her head. she doesn’t have to say anything.
like when her mom picked her up at the airport last week. she plopped down in the car seat and just started to cry.
and last night, when we were driving home from Winsted, i glanced over at her and she had a distant, sad gleam in her eyes. we hadn’t been talking about it at all, but i knew that the people of Malawi were on her mind. so i asked what she was thinking about.
“i’m just thinking about everything i saw,” was all she said.
when we got home, she started going through all the photos she took there for the first time since she came back (she posted some of them on her blog). i’m glad she did, because there were a lot of smiles inside all the desolation and lack. it made her smile again, though the smile was slow, deep and in check.
click here for more shots. she’s still working on the words.
