Rachel Patrick of Denver, CO. Our newest hero!

Now, Dr. Bob. APOLOGIZE!

I am not your enemy.

Because of the school your grandfather founded I have a community of friends that I could favorably compare to any family in the world. But you see the world as either “for you”, or ”against you”. And for that, I feel sorry for you. I wish you could see the world as I do, as a place filled with God’s creatures finding their own way in this world. Perhaps someday you will.

This is the second open letter I’ve written to you. The last was published in numerous alternative papers in May 2005 when you retired as president of Bob Jones University and passed the mantle to your son Stephen. The gist of that letter was that even though you called for my death as a 12-year old in 1980, when I was a 7th-grader at Bob Jones Junior High School, the only emotion I felt was gratitude that I had gotten over the self-hatred I learned from you.

Today, however, I’m going a step further.

I’m asking for an apology.

From you.

Here is the petition. We already have hundreds of signatures, much to my surprise.

Here’s what you told a reporter for the associated press:

“I’m sure this will be greatly misquoted but it would not be a bad idea to bring the swift justice today that was brought in Israel’s day against murder and rape and homosexuality. I guarantee it would solve the problem post-haste if homosexuals were stoned, if murderers were immediately killed as the Bible commands.”

Bob Jones University has stated that it does not now nor has it ever advocated the stoning of homosexuals. Any statement in 1980 was your own opinion. But we all know that YOU, sir, ARE Bob Jones University. Rather than recant what you said 31 years ago you’ve repeated it and instilled it as a philosophy of your institution. We know. We were there.

Just this week BJU has stated it will seek regional accreditation. If that’s the case, you will need to recognize that we homosexuals exist, even at your own university. Perhaps it’s time you began recognizing us.

You can begin.

With an apology.

Although my birthday is in September, Jonathan said my birthday “gift” would be on the evening of October 22 and that it was a surprise. I could have googled “October 22, 2011 NYC” or checked Time Out or Playbill but for over a month I resisted the urge, violating my Wildeian principle that:

 ”The only way to resist temptation is to yield to it.”

 I was rather proud of myself for this Herculean effort. I’d succeeded at it a few years ago, making it all the way into the Metropolitan Opera with my eyes closed, to be fabulously surprised by none other than Kristen Chenoweth appearing on stage in a Mets uniform (she was being silly, confusing the “Met” for “the Mets”).

Having succeeded once I had the confidence and determination I could do it again. I could make it all the way into whatever venue my true love had planned for me without knowing in advance what that might be. All went well; my self-discipline, while it exists, is not always predictable (whether “unpredictable self-discipline” is a contradiction is a topic for another blog post, for now assume it is real) but I made it all the way through Saturday afternoon without searching to discern my imminent surprise.

But then, like a fool, I decided to sign on to Facebook.

For we residents of the modern world it is no secret that the rulers of the internet – Facebook, Google…Yahoo sort of I suppose, etc. – use information that we freely give them – our “likes” and pageviews and status updates and probably even secret key words and phrases buried in our emails, instant messages, texts, and whatever else – as fodder for their complex algorithms that are designed to spit information back to us that they have calculated we want to know. And the magical thing about it is that it usually works! (not always, I’ll get into that below…)

When you open Facebook, a column to the right says “Sponsored.” You can create your own ad if you’d like and the beauty of it is that Facebook knows the best target for your ad so you don’t waste your money sending your Monster Truck Jam ads to, say, lifetime subscription members of the Museum of Modern Art. Perhaps there is a narrow slice of a venn diagram where those two groups intersect but the probability is negligible I’m sure. Unless I’m wrong but that’s not my point.

When I opened Facebook yesterday afternoon a lovely ad caught my eye! There was a beautiful picture of the multi-talented singer and actor Audra McDonald, Tony winner (x 4 according to Wikipedia but I thought it was 6…anyway…) Under Ms. McDonald’s image was a listing for “Carnegie Hall – October 22!” My first thought was “OMG! [yes, like many of us web-slaves I now think in emoticons and text abbreviations] I wonder if Jonathan knows about this?” then I thought, “Of course he knows, stupid, but I wonder when this is, what date is today..October…OMG that’s today!”

Then the realization sank in. “omg that’s today.” My surprise had been revealed to me. I knew then that Jonathan was taking me to Carnegie Hall to see Audra McDonald. I was then overcome with a sense of elation – I’M GOING TO SEE AUDRA McDONALD AT CARNEGIE HALL! mixed with the deflation from having the “surprise” element of my surprise stolen from me.

In the range of world problems, this is minuscule, barely recognizable next to starvation, disease, violence, corporate fraud, the theft of the American dream, Republican debates…but it still annoyed me and if you think about it, it raises some questions. Taking me to that concert was indeed the best birthday present ever, and Jonathan, an excellent gift-giver, knew that. But so did Facebook’s ad recommendation algorithm. For a terrible gift-selector like me, it presents some tempting questions:

- Can I ask Facebook to recommend gifts for my loved ones? At this point I honestly believe Facebook would do a better job of choosing gifts for the people in my life than I would.

- What does that say about me as a partner, brother, son, friend?

- But…is this invading their privacy?

- Facebook’s algorithm can search for keywords in someone’s messages so naturally it has an unfair advantage but should I be using that information to help me choose gifts, or restaurants, or other choices that used to be the sole purview of actual carbon-based life forms? I assume Google does the same thing, so substitute Google if you avoid Facebook.

And there’s another problem, where all these computer algorithms get it wrong. As a writer and as someone who is naturally curious, I read about a lot of things that are NOT in my set of personal interests. (Monster Truck Jams, for example.) What is the Tea Party really all about? Who are the Koch brothers? How much do Afghan farmers get paid for raising opium? Can an individual really buy a small Caribbean Island all for themselves? (that last one actually IS something I’m interested in.) I presume that all of these searches of mine are stored in some permanent digital record as part of my interests. In fact, underneath the ad for Audra McDonald there was another asking me, “Are you a single Christian man? Meet single Christian women!”

No, Facebook, I’m not. And you, Mark Zuckerberg, are not as smart as you think you are.  AND YOU RUINED MY SURPRISE! (If you put $100,000 in my PayPal account by tonight I’ll quit thinking about suing your smug billionaire ass). FYI – I’m NOT interested in that luxury vacation to tour poppy fields in Kandahar.

PS – you can find me on Facebook

Captain Harding’s Six-Day War

Thanks for your service and for your work, Elliott!

From PROJECT Q:

“Today, Mackle (second photo) has turned to gay fiction after longtime stints as food critic at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a columnist for Creative Loafing. He was a Lambda Literary Award winner for his first novel “It Takes Two,” and his “Hot off the Presses” put the gay into Olympics-era Atlanta last year. …

A fast-paced, romantic adventure, the novel’s handsome title character is assigned to baby-sit a loose-cannon colonel at a remote Libyan air base. Off duty, Joe’s busy bedding an enlisted medic and a muscular major, then begins a nurturing friendship with the American ambassador’s teenage son.”

I had the privilege to read an advanced copy of this book.  It is excellent!  I look forward to reading it again but here’s what I said about it the first time.

Terrifying and exhilarating with enemies, allies and lovers at every turn, clear your schedule because once you pick up this book, you won’t put it down until you have read every page!

Elliott Mackle’s website.

Two things to take away from this article:

1.  Nothing happened.  The republic didn’t fall.  No one turned gay.  No showtunes were performed (to our knowledge). Also, no protests…no fanfare.  The problem was that NOTHING happened.  Virtually no one showed up.

2.  Marines follow orders.  And then some.

I said as much to a board in 1993 when I was asked, “What problems do you see arising from President Clinton’s plan to allows gays and lesbians to serve in the Marine Corps and how would you propose solving those problems?’  I said, “There will be virtually no problems arising and I have faith in the Marine Corps – both the leadership and the Marines – to effectively deal with the few problems that do arise.”

I was promoted and selected for the regular officer Corps. And 18 years later, it looks like that answer was correct.  So far.  So good.

For those of us living years or decades ahead of our time, we’re used to feeling edgy or avant garde, misunderstood and ridiculed.  But once in a rare, brief while time catches up to us and for a moment, we experience what it must feel like to be…mainstream?  Not quite, but close.  Yesterday was one of those days. Don’t ask don’t tell disappeared.

There were many ridiculous aspects to the policy. In 1993 the debate was whether the USA should allow gay men and lesbians to serve, completely ignoring the truth that we were already serving.  Then the argument switched to whether we should be allowed to serve “openly.”  The truth is that gay men, one in particular, served in the military…not just as a semi-closeted Marine like many of my friends and me, but as an out-and-proud homosexual.

Meet my friend, Justin Elzie.  His story is remarkable. In the nineties, Justin came out…on national news…and remained in the Corps through a fluke of timing.  Justin’s written a book that you should read about his experiences.  Playing By The Rules.

I recall Justin’s interview and he was an inspiration to me and thousands of others serving in silence.  When people complain that there are no gay heroes, I say … Meet Justin Crockett Elzie.

What?  There isn’t one, you say?

Well, it’s not as if we gays haven’t had a parade or two over the years.  Perhaps the absence of any festivity today over the repeal of arguably the most anti-American discriminatory policy enacted in recent history is for the best.  After all, the thousands of livelihoods destroyed and hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money wasted retraining replacements for those kicked out under Don’t ask, don’t tell … that was self-inflicted damage.

Now that we’ve stopped hurting ourselves as a nation by ruining lives, perhaps its time for somber reflection.  Let’s stop doing this.

In 1997 Judge William A. Norris of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals received a Lambda Legal Defense award.  This award was the catalyst for my Navy Times Article that year urging the repeal of DADT.  In his acceptance speech Judge Norris predicted that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would eventually be buried in the “national cemetery of shame” along with earlier supreme court decisions that permitted slavery and segregated public facilities.  Today, Judge Norris, your prediction comes true.  Rather than a parade, we should have a funeral. It’s time to let go and move on.  There are going to be many more battles ahead as homophobia doesn’t end today; in fact, there’s always a backlash.  But at least now the law is on our side and we still purport to be a nation governed by the rule of law.

Grant grows up in deep Southern places with recognizable names like Selma, Mobile and Panama City.  His memoir would be a fascinating Southern Gothic tale if it were fiction.  Unfortunately…terrifyingly…it’s an all-too-real story.

Without any hint of victimhood, Grant takes you through the boyhood horrors he survived of being repeatedly and brutally sexually abused by his maternal grandfather, a man entrenched in the local “good ol’ boy” network who uses his connections to escape any accountability for the crimes he has perpetrated, not only against Grant but seemingly against every member of his mother’s family.  The criminal has turned his beaten-down family into his tacit and complicit co-conspirators when they try to compel Grant into perpetrating their awful secret.  Fortunately Grant does not give in to their dastardly persuasion.

This memoir is well-written and moves rapidly along taking you for a harrowing ride but one that ultimately proves the strength that is within us.  It’s within Grant at least; along the way he is also helped by angels, usually African-American women, who do what they can over the long term or for a brief moment and it is to Grant’s generosity of spirit that he credits all of these people.  It would be easy for someone who has suffered what he has to wallow in a lifetime of bitterness but he doesn’t.  Grant works hard to break this cycle of abuse, including founding an organization to help parents recognize and take action to prevent this nightmare from occurring.  See a A Village To Raise and read this unforgettably gripping memoir.

A Virginia Woolf story, transcendent switches across time, gender and geography, great acting…and a portrayal of Queen Elizabeth by David Greenspan that rivals Cait Blanchett and Dame Judy Dench… I’m not sure which element of this production I liked the most, but I loved them all. 

[tee-hee!]

The Classic Stage Company is my favorite venue for an intense and intimate theater setting.  Richard II and Richard III, as well as Venus in Fur and New Jerusalem, both by David Ives have been fantastic and now Orlando, adapted from Virginia Woolf’s  novel by Sarah Ruhl (directed by Rebecca Taichman) continues that perfect record.  Go see it! (136 E. 13th St.)

[ha-ha!]

So, on this celebratory day, God (and Allah, and Yaweh, and Darwin and Christopher Hitchens) BLESS AMERICA! (and the world).

(The original email is in blue and italics.  My comments are in black and contain links to the facts backing my assertions, something the original email was noticeably lacking.)

DIVORCE  AGREEMENT Dear American  liberals, leftists, social progressives,
socialists, Marxists and  Obama supporters, et al:

I’m an American liberal, leftist, a social progressive and an Obama supporter.  Those terms are largely redundant, by the way.  You’re a law student and you write like this?

Socialists and Marxists are distinct groupings from what I am and from what most of my peers consider themselves to be.  If you’re going to a halfway decent law school, you’ve learned that one of the first things two or more parties to any agreement must agree upon is the definition to the terms used in the agreement.  So, one sentence into it, and you need to retain a real lawyer who is not a party to it to draft it.  But good use of “et al.” I’m … impressed.

We have stuck together since the late 1950′s for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce….

“…the whole of this latest election process?”  You mean when YOU LOST?

And I’m still not sure who YOU are and who WE are.  For example, I lived in Georgia in 2004, which went overwhelmingly for Bush, but I lived in Fulton County, which went overwhelmingly for Kerry.  But, for purposes of this agreement, how about we define YOU as states that voted for McCain and WE will be states that voted for Obama.

I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let’s just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation  agreement: Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes. We don’t like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.

The fact is that liberal sections of the country pay more in federal taxes than our respective regions receive from the federal government.  (See link for proof, or do I need to define “proof” as well?)  So, we are happy to keep our money for our sections of the country instead of sending them to yours.

Here’s a website that you might want to look at it. I must warn you, the facts are not pretty for your side when you begin comparing regions of the country.

You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.

We gladly accept the liberal judges.  They ended segregation, which we think was a good thing to end, guaranteed women the right to choose and kept the government out of our bedrooms in Lawrence v. Texas, inter alia, which I’m sure you’ve learned means “among other things.”

And since you’re in law school, when you read those cases in Constitutional Law, look at how many conservatives turn to the ACLU when their free speech rights are infringed upon.  For example, the upcoming Supreme Court case of Snyder v. Phelps, the notoriously conservative Phelps family, founder of “God Hates Fags” fame of Topeka, Kansas (YOUR state), guess who is on their side?  You’re right, the ACLU.

Since you hate guns and  war, we’ll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military

Yes, we hate war.  Arrest us.  And yes, it’s time to repeal the Second Amendment because today’s Supreme Court doesn’t know what it means.  So it needs to go.

The military and cops, however, are a different story.  We don’t hate them.  In fact, many many of us served in and are serving in the military and the police force.  Also, see my point above – we liberals pay the bulk of the cost of the military (our states are the wealthiest and pay the most in taxes) so if you want it, you’re going to have to pick up the tab, which means your taxes will double. Besides, “cops” – I assume you mean the more respectable “law enforcement” – reside locally.  So you get yours, we get ours.  You pay for yours, we pay for ours.  See?  This isn’t hard.

We’ll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel.

So funny, obviously you wrote this before the BP-caused oil catastrophe.  Enough said.

You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O’Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).

And you can keep Chuck Norris, Angelina Jolie’s daddy and the untalented Baldwin brother.  Fair deal. And Oprah, Moore and O’Donnell can each afford their own fleets of whatever they want.  Doubt Stephen Baldwin can say the same.

We’ll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.

Unfortunately, many of the greedy corporations, the pharmaceuticals and Wall Street are all in Manhattan.  Sorry.  You don’t get Manhattan.  That’s ours.  But maybe you can get the people who work in these places to move to your corporate capital, Bentonville, Arkansas.

You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless, homeboys, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens.

Many of the recipients of welfare live in YOUR part of the country.  And speaking on behalf of my Native American ancestors, you’re ALL illegal aliens.

We’ll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms,

YES, YES, YES!!!!!

greedy CEO’s

They will have to give up their houses in the Hamptons.  But the Ozarks are nice.  I saw “Winter’s Bone” last night.  (Great movie!) I’m sure they’ll love parking their trailers next to the meth labs.

and rednecks.

If you insist.

We’ll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood.

Amen. (except I’ll keep the Bibles my late grandparents and father gave me, copies I’ve read cover-to-cover many times).

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we’ll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters.

If you are going to outlaw war protests in your section of the country then you’re obviously letting us keep the Bill of Rights.  And again, you can’t invade countries without a military.  Without us, you can’t afford the military.

When our allies

Seriously?  What allies?  Those are OUR friends.  They only tolerated you because you were with us.  When we divorce, they are going to say some nasty things about you.  In fact, THEY ALREADY DO!

(the Brits actually called you “dumb”)

or our way of life are under assault, we’ll help provide them security.

England, France, Spain, Australia, India, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Japan, et al, don’t like you.  They find you uncultured, vulgar, adolescent and they complain that you fart on their sofa and don’t pick up the tab at restaurants.  We have defended you to them but when we are divorced, you’re on your own.

We’ll keep our Judeo-Christian values.

Most American Jews live in New York, South Florida and LA.  They’ll keep their values, thank you very much.  And what “values” do YOU mean?  Your parts of the country have the highest rates of infant mortality, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, divorce, obesity, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, high school students carrying weapons to school and lynchings.  For deaths by firearms, you have to go all the way down to number 22 before you find a state that voted for Obama (not counting DC).  Those are values you can keep.  We’ll keep our advanced degrees, Chicago’s Tribune Tower, longer lifespans, the Empire State Building, libraries, better fitness, the Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, Kennedy Center and the Golden Gate Bridge. And Texas will have to return NASA, since you won’t be able to afford it.

You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N, but we will no longer be paying the bill.

Your parts of the country are so poor you’re not paying much of the UN’s bill as it is.  And are you going to expel all Muslims and Scientologists from your part of the country?  Again, you’re obviously giving us the Constitution. Thank you.

We’ll keep the SUV’s, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

Are you really proud of wasting the earth’s limited supply of fossil fuels?  (which the facts prove you expend at much higher rates than we do).  If so, you’re even more adolescent than we thought.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We’ll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.

Seriously?  Healthcare a luxury? Is that what Jesus taught?  Did He only heal those who could afford His services? Like CEOs, many doctors have houses in the Hamptons and the Berkshires and La Costa and Palm Beach.  Doubt they’ll choose Appalachia over that.  And Minnesota and Maryland are ours so the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins are off-limits to you. For that matter, so are the Bethesda and Baloba Naval Medical Centers.

We’ll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I’m sure you’ll be happy to substitute Imagine, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.

You obviously haven’t studied copyright law yet.  Most of these songs are intellectual property and will go wherever the owner wants them to go, which is seldom to your side.  (Most musicians are liberal).  And the songs in the public domain are not yours to claim.

We’ll practice trickle down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.

Poverty is an epidemic in large swaths of your sections of the country. Good luck fixing that with your greatly-reduced tax base.   And trickle-down economics has been proven to be ineffective.

Since it often so offends you, we’ll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Again, many of us liberals have defended the flag and the USA with our lives.  And YOUR history?  What’s that, The Confederacy?  Slavery?  Southern heritage?  You can have it.  “History” isn’t something to be kept or rejected.  History is what happened, what has been recorded.  We prefer truth and reality over the selective memory you seem to advocate.

Would you agree to this?  If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I’ll bet you Answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Listen, you are the one who married up, my dear.  We are California, the Pacific Northwest, Hawai’i, most of the Midwest, Florida, the Mid-Atlantic and New England.  Without us you are Mexico’s ugly step-sister to the north.  Most of what we’ve done over the course of our 234-year marriage has been with your best interests in mind even when you literally rebelled.  You tried to divorce us once before but we fought you and won.  Why?  Because despite all your many flaws, we still love you and want you to be better than you are.  Had you won that war, England and France stood ready to eat you up for lunch and shit you out by dinner.  This time around, I doubt they’ll even want you. Maybe Mexico will take you.  But more likely Mexico will build a fence to stop the massive illegal immigration that’s certain to flow from your poor pathetic nation into theirs.

Sincerely,

John J. Wall

Law Student and an  American

I TOLD you not to sign your real name to this, but you never listen to me.

P. S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen, Barbara Streisand, & Jane Fonda with you.

Okay. Doubt they’ll mind since Malibu is also ours except good luck getting Turner out of Georgia.

P. S. S.  And you won’t have to press 1 for English when you call OUR country.

Let us know when you have a telephone system.  I still doubt we’ll call, but occasionally we’ve been known to drunk dial.

AND PS to you  – we’ve been having an affair with Canada and we haven’t had to fake it once!