“If You See a Good Fight Get in It”—Gay Civil Unions

I'm about to offend a whole bunch of people.

(This essay is mainly for religious people. I might be inclined to use different language if I were addressing a different audience with different sensibilities.)

There is simply no such thing as "gay marriage".

(Whether I have offended or excited you, I encourage you to read on—you may find yourself swapping positions.)

"Gay marriage" is an etymological non-entity. There is simply no such thing. Marriage by definition is a sacred, life-long, exclusive union between a man and a woman that has often been acknowledged as significant by the state. It has never been anything else. Various civil governments have acknowledged its significance differently throughout history, but the manner in which they have acknowledged it has never brought into question what marriage is. Thus, by definition, there could never be such a thing as "gay marriage". Such articulation is a misnomer, an oxymoron, a figure of speech, at best.

As a society, I believe, we need to be careful how we use such figures of speech in public discourse. The language we use to discuss and debate issues today will inevitably become the lenses through which our children will understand themselves, their world and their history tomorrow--no matter how inaccurate our language may have been. I don't imagine that homosexuals could do any worse to marriage than heterosexuals have already done, but how do we restore a sense of the sanctity of marriage for our children, if we are afraid to be honest about what it is and what it's not?

However... As strongly as I feel about this issue and as deeply rooted as those feelings are in my faith, in the political debate over legally recognizing same-sex civil unions, none of these opinions matter. (Notice I used the term "civil unions," which is what they are, not marriage.)

In a democracy, if we are going to recognize one life-long love commitment between consenting adult human beings as being worthy of special considerations, there must be a means by which we recognize all. As fellow citizens, we must acknowledge homosexuals' equal rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"--and it doesn't have to be at the expense of our own intellectual, cultural, historical and moral honesty. Civil Rights for homosexuals and what many people of faith believe to be Moral Truth can co-exist.

The refreshingly insightful attorney and social critic, Connie Rice of the Advancement Project, points out, "21st century civil marriage . . . is a legal construct through which we distribute property, create economic communities, determine hierarchies of rights to inheritance, legal proxies and other intimate social goods."

While I disagree with Ms. Rice's use of the term "marriage," her point should not be missed. In the body politick, civilly recognized unions serve more than just a sacramental purpose. Thus, by denying homosexual couples the right to be recognized as a civil union, we deny them a whole range of rights that are fundamental to the workings of community.

As fellow citizens, we owe it to gay and lesbian citizens to redress these inequities--now! Not 4 or 8 years from now, in another election cycle, but right now. (I almost feel strange writing the words "we . . . owe," as if these rights were ever ours to take, let alone give.)

Here's what really upsets me about this whole debate. My mother taught me that you "always leave a place better than you found it." With that kind of home-training it is difficult for me to understand how as a community we can do all this talking about this issue and not be compelled to move toward correcting the glaring injustices. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," is what Dr. King taught us. How can Blacks and Browns and the disabled and victims of sexism and ageism and every other type of -ism stand by and watch anyone fall prey to discrimination? Is it because we believe that our cause is more righteous than theirs?

Some might say, "Yes."

That's where we come to the heart of the matter for most moral conservatives. The orthodoxy of our various faith traditions generally teach us that homosexuality is wrong, sinful, unnatural, an abomination: ergo "homosexual marriage" must be morally wrong. I'm inclined to agree. And if the issue at hand were, "Should our moral code as a nation concede that homosexuality is an equally valid, healthy and honorable lifestyle?" I would say, "Fight on!"

But--you must understand this--that's not the issue! That's only the rhetoric, and I blame both Republicans and Democrats for allowing their rhetoric to disregard totally the critical issue that is negatively impacting the lives of so many.

The issue is simply discrimination. Instead of addressing the discrimination, Republicans have launched a two-prong propaganda assault to obscure the real concern. The first, a stop-gap measure, is to suggest that this is a states' rights issue. This encourages states with more conservative constituencies to take steps not to acknowledge same-sex unions sanctioned by another state. The truth is Republicans know that such inequitable treatment can not indefinitely hold up to the scrutiny of legal review.

Their greatest coup so far has got to be what has happened here in Georgia. Republicans have succeeded in getting a referendum on the ballet that reads, "Shall the [GA] Constitution be amended so as to provide that this state shall recognize as marriage only the union of man and woman?," yes or no. Republican state Senator Mike Crotts, who authored the resolution calling for the referendum, specifically requests in his resolution that only this language be used on the ballet knowing full well that the full text of his resolution goes much, much further. If passed, his referendum will outlaw not only the notion of "gay marriage," but what is conspicuously omitted from the ballet is the language of the resolution that makes it illegal for homosexuals to receive any rights (i.e. hospital visitation, property distribution, etc.) by virtue of being in a committed relationship and the inability for GA courts "to consider or rule on any of the parties´ respective rights arising as a result of or in connection with such relationship." What?! (If Mr. Crotts intentions are so virtuous, why must they be brought about through such deception?)

At the same time, Republicans have also put forth legislation to amend the US Constitution, supposedly again in "defense of marriage." The reason for this is clear. As it stands now, the 14th Amendment to US Constitution reads, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Georgia's Gay Marriage Amendment would undoubtedly be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Ultimately, this is not a states' rights issue, and Republicans fear this. I'm no historian, but I was taught that the whole Constitutional Convention compromise regarding states' right was supposed to be in the furtherance and protection of individual rights, not in opposition to individuals--unless we are to assume that in preserving states' rights the framers of the US Constitution were seeking to preserve for themselves their own little fiefdoms where they could make and apply laws the way they wanted with no oversight. Furthermore, I'm no legal scholar, but it seems to me that the very existence of the 14th Amendment establishes the federal judiciary as the final arbiter in issues of discrimination. If states could be trusted to sort out matters of discrimination in the best interest of its people, there would never have been a need for a 14th Amendment because the states would have granted full citizenship rights to people of color voluntarily. Knowing all this, the Republican rhetorical strategy has been to use language to inflame people's moral passions while working behind the scenes to create a more favorable legal climate for their cause.

To be fair, Democrats have done little better. Their answer to the all out Republican assault on civil liberties has been to label the matter of same-sex civil unions as a "wedge" issue. Would someone please tell me what exactly that means? Aren't all political issues "wedge" issues for someone or another? And while Democrats are running around pronouncing, "Republicans are just trying to use that as a wedge issue," the Republican agenda is moving forward.

Both parties should be ashamed of themselves. And we, ordinary citizens, should be ashamed for not demanding better from our politicians. As civil servants, our politicians should be bending over backwards trying to make sure that even in defending marriage--which I'm all for--gays and lesbians are better off tomorrow in terms of their civil rights than they are today. We owe it to our fellow citizens. We owe it to ourselves. We owe to our children who, as moralists, we say we want to protect. Homophobia as constitutional law is a dramatically more dangerous legacy to leave to our children than homosexuals as full citizens.

Again, Connie Rice outlines the crux of our responsibility as fellow citizens so instructively:

"Anytime you have a group that is singled out for the stigma of unequal treatment and for the bias and irrational reactions of folks who are just "uncomfortable" but are willing to let their level of comfort determine someone else's rights, that's when [we] . . . have to step up and say, 'This makes no sense!'"

"The Global Test"

I thought we were in the clear. After all, it’s been 2 weeks. But then I received this from one of my conservative friends:



Only a conservative! (They’re effective, I must admit.)

This stems, of course, from the assertion made by Sen. John Kerry during the first of only three 2004 Presidential Debates:

“No President, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test . . . that passes . . . the global test . . . where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you‘re doing what you‘re doing, and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.”

In agony, you could hear him reaching . . . reaching . . . for a simple descriptor like “sniff”. The sniff test—“yeah, that’s the ticket!” Everyone would have understood, and no one could have accused him of setting new public policy. But true to form, Sen. Kerry couldn’t find the simplest way to describe the concept known to psychologists and statisticians as “face validity”. He had to make up a whole new way to discuss the matter! In the third and final debate with Pres. Bush, Sen. Kerry almost compounded his difficulties by explaining his global test comments with the statement, “We ought to pass a sort of truth standard.” Not that I disagree with him, but such suggested legislation simply begs for even further explanation.

So John Kerry stuck his foot in his mouth—what’s new? We all know that when he leaves his script he’s likely to stumble and fumble all over himself. It’s not because he’s not an intelligent person, for we know he is. He puts most politicians to shame, I’m sure, when you have the time to sit down and listen to him. There is no doubt Sen. Kerry is extremely bright and well informed, but he is not the cleverest politician on the block. He’s just not that quick-witted fellow—like, let’s say, John McCain.

John McCain is the master of the quick quip, while at the same time coming off as if he’s given some requisite thought to the subject matter at hand. John Kerry is just not that guy. (I can’t think of an instance during his campaign thus far that “quick” would have been aptly used to describe him.) Mind you, there is no shame in being contemplative and deliberate in one’s conversation as opposed to mentally nimble and verbally quick (“Jack be nimble, Jack be quick; Jack [should have] jumped over” the hot button issue that may cause him to lose the election!). In some respects I’m the same way.

I too try to be thoughtful. Often in my thoughtfulness I see so many shades and layers to an issue, and I want to communicate them all. I want to walk people through the same mental process I went through . . . over the course of several days or several weeks of thinking about a thing. Trying to condense that process down into one powerful, moving declaration is, quite frankly, difficult. My wife got all the wit in our family. So I think I understand where John Kerry is coming from, but I digress (as Sen. Kerry is also prone to do).

In the mist of the first 2004 Presidential Debate, out of nowhere John Kerry introduces to American politics the concept of “a global test”. (Now what did he go and do that for! As if we don’t have enough meaningless catch phrases flying around in American politics already!) Sen. Kerry suggests that before the US chooses to act in a preemptive manner—somehow trying to beat the bad guys to the punch without making us the bad guys—that we should weigh the prudence of our actions by whether or not they past “the global test”.

In all fairness I think Sen. Kerry did a decent job of explaining what he meant by providing a context of his “global test” faux pas. Nonetheless, he better be glad he was debating the President that night and not the President’s political strategists, Karen Hughes or Karl Rove or even Vice Pres. Dick Cheney. Either of them would have wiped the floor with him, explanation notwithstanding. All Pres. Bush could muster at the time was a schoolyard mocking which didn’t pack much of a punch.

In the partisan politics of the moment the significance of Sen. Kerry’s suggestion of “a global test” might very easily be overlooked. But not by this political observer, oh no. The moment I heard it my interest was peaked. True to my own pensive nature I immediately began to imagine all the ideas that must have been floating around Sen. Kerry’s mind at that very moment.

For instance, Sen. Kerry may have been thinking about how cleverly the Bush Administration had manipulated its language in making its case for invading Iraq so that their rationale had more to do with how they made their listeners feel as they discussed the war and less to do with evidence of wrong-doing on the part of Saddam Hussein. Listen to the language they used. Saddam Hussein was again and again characterized as a gathering or eminent “threat.” We heard these same descriptors repeated verbatim week after week by every spokesperson of the Bush Administration. The adjective that accompanied the term “threat” seemed to grow more ominous as the weeks passed, but the use of the word “threat” was consistent. As far as I can remember, only persons outside of the Administration would use what they thought to be synonymous terminology, but I don’t recall hearing Powell or Rice or Rumsfeld or Cheney or Bush make more than inadvertent use of another term like—oh, let’s say, “danger”. “Threat” was their descriptor for Saddam Hussein, and they were sticking to it. There was a reason for that, and I’m sure Sen. Kerry (being the thinker that he is) knew it.

Whereas in ordinary conversation the terms “threat” and “danger” mean basically the same thing, in politics the precedent has generally been that “threat” is used to describe an adversary who if given the right circumstances and resources might do us harm, and “danger” is used to describe an enemy who is pursuing the opportunity and resources to do us harm. (We all remember the movie Clear and Present Danger, don’t we?) Thus, by continually reiterating the message, “Saddam Hussein is a threat,” the Administration was able to inflame our emotions without really being factually dishonest. Even now, instead of apologizing for emotionally manipulating the American people, the Bush Administration continues to take the approach that if we can say it enough times we came make it true—no matter what “it” is. I imagine something like this was on Sen. Kerry’s mind when he proposed the need for a “global test”.

Or he may have been considering the monstrous ramifications of our actions in light of the comments of Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at MIT, who declares, “There’s nothing about ‘preemptive war’ in their [the Bush Administration’s] strategy. ‘Preemptive war’ means something. It has a meaning in international law and is on the boarders of legality. ‘Preemptive war’ means the use of military force to counter an eminent, ongoing attack when there is no time for deliberation and no choice of means. That’s ‘preemptive war’. So if planes are flying across the Atlantic to bomb the United States and the US shoots them down that’s ‘preemptive war,’ generally considered legitimate under international law and the UN charter. There’s nothing like that in what they’re talking about. When they say ‘Preemptive War,’ they mean the supreme crime of Nuremberg—namely aggression. And to disguise outright aggression—unprovoked, without pretext, without authority—to disguise that as ‘preemptive war’ is simply grotesque.” But somehow we expected to be supported in our arrogance by the league of nations. Maybe Sen. Kerry couldn’t help but be appalled by this realization when he acknowledged the need for a “global test”.

Or he may have been thinking of the frightening racial and religious implications of the US going after the leader of a sovereign nation whose only commonality with Osama bin Laden was that he was also Arab and Muslim. In one fell swoop, no matter how unintentionally, the Bush Administration had made the War on Terror look like a war on Arabs and/or Orthodox Muslims. Masquerading US aggression toward Iraq as a part of the War on Terror only lends credence to the false claims of bin Laden in the minds of frustrated and frightened followers of Islam. Not to mention the fight back instincts that kick in when anyone of God’s children feels singled out and oppressed. Perhaps Sen. Kerry empathized with the need to reassure Arab and Muslim peoples that our anger for 9/11 was not directed at them but exclusively at the terrorists who perpetrated the acts.

Whatever he may have been pondering at the moment of his “global test” gaffe, though he often takes the extended route getting to it as I have in this essay, Sen. Kerry reminds us of what it means to be a good neighbor in the global community. Not simply because we are the last super power left and don’t want to be perceived as bullies, but also because in many respects we are the creators that global community. The Roosevelts championed the formation of a United Nations. It was our persistence in opening international markets to our country’s businesses that galvanized the cause of economic globalization. Like it or not the US founded the Global Community as we know it today. And the Jewish, Christian or Islamic traditions that inform our sense of right and wrong unequivocally promote that he/she who creates something ought to take responsibility for it. That’s just good home-training.

As I reflect on my own home-training, I am reminded of The Golden Rule. My mother taught me that you should “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Author Stephen Covey taught me what this actually means: one should treat as important that which is important to other people, which will incline them to do the same in return. That’s what it means to be a good neighbor; that’s what having a global test, a standard of truth is all about. If as US citizens we want the privilege of raising our families in peace, if we want to be respected abroad for the freedoms (of religion, of sovereignty, of democracy, of due process, etc.) we cherish, if we desire for the rule of law to become a universally acceptable principle . . . we must forever extend that same empathy to others.

The only difference between a terrorist and a tyrant is that the tyrant has the power that the terrorists wish they had. Maybe “the global test” is the last safeguard to keep us from becoming the very persons we fear.

Living Out Loud… Quietly

I’ve had my share of recognition in life yet have never really understood or valued it.

For a few years I had the weekly privilege of appearing on local public TV. In fact, I was awarded an Emmy® for the work I did in my first year (it was all downhill from there).

As a result of my time on television (the show was MindBusters, a homework-help program) I was once given the greatly undeserved honor of being stopped in the middle of the street by a van of school children in order to sign autographs. Go figure.

I have received praise as a teacher and a principal in my brief career.

I have even made it into the local paper at least 3 times, and I am proud as a black man that not once was it for something negative.

All of this has happened before the age of 30.

Still I have never been motivated by the opportunity to gain recognition. My motivation has always been to have as meaningful an impact as I possibly could on the lives of those I work with. Thus, I had no trepidation when I was inspired to leave my job as a principal of a small private school and launch a home-school tutoring initiative to make home-school a more viable option for thoughtful parents—particularly parents of color.

I cannot say that my father has shared my lack of anxiety regarding this most recent endeavor. In fact, he has been more than a little concerned about my non-profit endeavors over the years. From early on he made it known that he preferred me to be a doctor or a lawyer or a businessman—something where the pay were good, my position were secure and I were duly recognized for my efforts. I think he saw in me the potential to be great at something, and he didn’t want me to miss out on it.

Me, on the other hand, I have always wanted to be a pastor, a teacher or some other type of social service worker. Even for the brief time that I did consider becoming a doctor or a lawyer, it was only to serve the people who could least afford it. And it’s entirely my mother’s fault.

My mother has always been a care-giver (at least for as long as I have known her). Kids often bring home animals, to which their parents sigh and shrug. As a kid, I would come home to find that my mom had invited the such-and-such family to stay with us for a while. When it wasn’t that, it was watching her go shopping for seniors (when we sometimes didn’t have much food ourselves) or riding with her to take so-and-so to the hospital (when often we were low on gas) or sharing money with another single-mom (when we seldom had enough for ourselves). For all of this and much, much more she has seldom, if ever, received any recognition, but that has never mattered to her. She has always been content just to serve: as if the opportunity to do so held within it its own reward.

So there I’ve been all my life—torn between my parents’ dreams for my life. On the one hand there’s my father who loves to see me shine. On the other there’s my mother who wants me to make a difference. Coincidentally, I now find myself tutoring two young men who represent both ends of this spectrum. One has lived his short life thus far chasing the dreams of stardom that have become the aspirations of so many. The other’s compulsion to be of assistance runs so deep that it has at times gotten him into trouble.

My own home-training has given me the divergent perspective to understand both of them. However, in order to have the depth of impact I hope to have on both of them, I could no longer teeter-totter between my parents’ seemingly opposing philosophies about life. The Good Book says one must honor both his father and his mother. What was I to do?

What I have found is that I don’t need balance; what I need is range—the ability to function out of the mix of the two philosophies that is most appropriate for the situation at hand. That will be the only way I can reach and teach both my students how to develop the range in life they’ll need. Now I see that the sometimes divergent views my parents have aren’t as mutually exclusive as they once seemed to be.

How does this small epiphany regarding my own home-training translate into practical living thus far? Well, I’m still working that out. One practical manifestation of my newly discovered range is this series of essays. I’ve decided that it would be selfish of me to put all this work into growing kids into healthy, wholesome, balanced, intelligent and mature adults, committed to making positive contributions to the world; to watch it pay off time and time again; and to not share what I’ve witnessed with others. The trifling and worthless gets plenty of press.

Even though the impact I’m seeking to have is a quiet, long-term investment, I want to live out loud with it. It’s a simple life—guided by principle, driven by purpose and filled with virtue—but from what I’ve seen it’s the only type of life worth living. It’s the only play at “greatness” I plan to make. So like the old gospel song says, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine… Let it shine... Let it shine… Let it shine!” Who knows? It just might catch on.

Because I Said So

“I decided the right action was in Iraq. My opponent calls it a mistake. It wasn‘t a mistake!” —President George W. Bush

Like many of you, I was sitting there glued to my television set last Thursday evening engrossed in the first Presidential “non-debate” of the 2004 election season. I had long awaited a square-off between the Republican incumbent and his Democrat challenger. I was more than a little perturbed at the reports that actual debating had somehow been negotiated out of the 2004 Presidential Debates, but I was interested in what would become of the evening nonetheless.

Throughout the evening I remained somewhat amazed at how quickly each candidate was able to maneuver the answer to any question right back to his best stump speech catch phrases. I must admit I was also a bit annoyed at Pres. Bush’s lack of eloquence in doing so. It’s tough enough to listen to two people say the same things over and over again for an hour and a half. The least they could do is vary it up, use different words, finesse it a little.

Upon hearing for about the seventh time Pres. Bush’s derision of John Kerry’s criticism that Iraq was “the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time,” I couldn’t help but ask myself, “What’s the big deal? Why is he bringing that up yet again? So what Kerry criticized the war? Isn’t that what opponents do? Why does it bother Bush so much?” And it did bother Pres. Bush a great deal. He spoke with increasing, audible and visible disdain regarding Sen. Kerry’s opposition to the war.

Then all at once it hit me. I began to reconstruct in my mind the statements Pres. Bush had made thus far about Sen. Kerry’s disparagement of the war:

My opponent says . . . the cornerstone of his plan to succeed in Iraq is to call upon nations to serve. So what‘s the message going to be: “Please join us in Iraq. We‘re in a grand diversion. Join us for a war that is the ‘wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time?’” . . . I know how these people think . . . They‘re not going to follow somebody who says, “This is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time.” . . . You cannot lead the world if you do not honor the contributions of those who are with us. He called them coerced and the bribed. That‘s not how you bring people together . . . Now, my opponent says he‘s going to try to change the dynamics on the ground. Well, Prime Minister Allawi was here. He is the leader of that country. He‘s a brave, brave man. When he came, after giving a speech to the Congress, my opponent questioned his credibility. You can‘t change the dynamics on the ground if you‘ve criticized the brave leader of Iraq.

Everything suddenly seemed so clear. At different times I have believed Pres. Bush to be a tyrant, a dictator, a fascist, but in this moment of quite unexpected commonality I realized that Pres. Bush like myself is simply a daddy! I could hear in his statement about Prime Min. Allawi, how he truly feels about himself. He takes no real issue with the merits of John Kerry’s criticism—he never once in the debate offered evidence in rebuttal of Sen. Kerry’s characterization of the war—what Pres. Bush takes issue with is the criticism itself. How dare Sen. Kerry ever question Daddy’s decision to go to war?!

Now, of course, Pres. Bush’s aversion to being challenged is nothing new. It’s a matter of public record. It’s partly the reason his people worked so hard to ensure that the debate didn’t involve a third party candidate or any real debating. It’s the reason that protestor’s aren’t allowed within visual distance of any place the President appears. It’s the reason he is so adamant about preserving the unchecked powers that the Patriot Act has granted to our Executive Branch of government. Pres. Bush truly believes that he is on the side of right and as such should not have to justify himself. He has even said as much. In an interview with Bob Woodward he declared, “I’m the Commander. See, I don’t have to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

None of that was new. What was new for me was that—for the first time—Pres. Bush actually made some sense to me. In that brief moment I understood where he was coming from. He’s a daddy. As a daddy myself, I understand the daddy mentality when I see it (“Great minds…” and all that).

In my home, I like to think that my word is law. I love that line from the movie Crimson Tide, “We are here to preserve democracy, not to practice it.” To a daddy’s mind that’s exactly how a home should run. On days I’m feeling especially good about myself I strut around my home issuing orders, fully expecting that all who hear will fall in line because “Daddy” has spoken. Now, mind you, we call that attitude “entitlement” which is just another word for pride, and the Good Book reminds us that “pride comes before a fall.” Besides, my daughter is not quite 2 yet so she can barely understand me (but looks at me with the deepest pity in her eyes). The young folks I work with, who are often in my home, are teenagers so half of what I say barely rates for them. And my wife… well, she’s my wife. Thus, even in my home, the one place I want to believe that “because I said so” is generous as far as explanations go, even as Daddy I find myself explaining certain things, if for no other reason, to ensure that things around the house are done on the strength of relationship and not simply out of fear.

As surprising as it is for me, I can understand Pres. Bush's “Daddy mindset”. But George W. Bush is President of the American people; he’s not our daddy. This means Pres. Bush has no right to resent Sen. Kerry’s criticism of his decision to invade Iraq. That’s what members of a democracy are supposed to do—challenge each other to be better today than we were yesterday. Even as John Kerry did his fellow soldiers fighting in Vietnam no disservice by opposing that war and telling the truth about its atrocities, he does his fellow citizens (even those presently fighting) no disservice by speaking out against this current war in Iraq. If anything, speaking out renews our hope that democracy in America is alive, even if not quite as well as we would like it to be.

For me, it’s just basic home-training. Momma always said, “The world doesn’t owe you anything.” Who would ever step out of his home expecting that he were going to be treated with the same deference that his family gives him? When kids do this, we tell them they need to get over themselves. What should we tell parents—who double as world leaders—who do it as well?

Stuff We May Find We Need

Back in the day (as my generation is apt to say), when a young person used to cut-up in public, the old folks would shake their heads in disgust and question the child’s home-training. Well, I’m not sure enough of that still goes on.

Over the years what’s considered appropriate behavior from children as well as adults has taken an extreme turn for the worse. People seem to act in the most outlandish manner, and then, without a hint of irony, defend their right to do so. Take for example the behavior of Omarosa on The Apprentice last year. It was deplorable. Or consider Paris Hilton. She’s famous (not infamous, mind you) for behaving like a tramp. Not that there haven’t always been people who have conducted themselves in a less than admirable fashion, but there was a time when you knew for sure their behavior wasn’t admirable. Back then if as a young lady you were attracted to the bad boys, at least you recognized they were “bad”. Nowadays there is no clear denunciation of things that are way off the mark.

We live in a society where even our leaders try to justify indefensibly reprehensible behavior. Thus, we have a US Senator who resists taking a definitive stand on any subject for fear of the repercussions running for the Presidency against an incumbent who is so arrogant that he can’t relent even when his choices cost others their lives.

There may be a lot of reasons that we find ourselves in such a pitiful state. We may be still suffering from the backlash against an American culture that for 400 years built its morality on prejudices and fears and out-right self-interested lies. We may be experiencing the natural consequences of our parents’ generation’s attempt to pretend that everything was relative. The society in which we now live may even be the result of us selling out our collective soul to the Almighty Dollar to the extent that some might credibly argue that America no longer has a culture, only an economy. At this point it’s probably a confluence of things.

There was a time when the only time you saw kids come out the house looking or acting any-ol’-kinda-way was when they didn’t have a mom or dad to show them better. Today you see little boys running around looking like little girls with pigtails in their hair! And neither they nor their parents have any shame. I know I sound like an old fogy. I would probably make my grandfather proud. Old fogy or not, there was some definite merit to how my grandfather thought and lived. There’s merit to recognizing that there is a decent way to treat people. There’s merit to knowing that there is a respectful way to talk. There’s merit to acknowledging that there is a certain way that in polite society we should deport ourselves. One of our greatest challenges is that folks have lost sight that there actually is a “certain way”. Every civilization—with the possible exception of our current one—has recognized the importance of passing on their culture—their “certain way”—to the next generation. I think we need to get back to that. I believe what we’re missing is some good, old-fashioned “home-training,” for home-training is the vehicle through which culture is best passed on.

Thus, I have begun a series of social commentaries which I will call (what else?) Home-Training. These are just my humble thoughts and feelings on things I see happening in this world in which we are seeking to successfully raise our children. It is specifically because I have children and am profoundly concerned with the type of people they will grow up to be and the world in which they will have to live that I believe I have a great enough stake to voice my concerns, comments, questions and/or criticisms.

These are simply my best surmisings. May they offer more light than heat. I do not offer them as the final words on anything, but rather may they promote the intelligent discourse surrounding the issues that affect our daily lives, instead of adding to the nonsense that currently runs rampant and, at times, seems to hold sway over our communities and our nation.

In the words of Dr. Cornel West, may together we find that “love that allows us to criticize as well as embrace, to empower as well as to correct, to listen as well as to speak, and in the end, to ennoble as well as be ennobled” by each other.