God and love and us

I'm really confused tonight. I watched the Obama inaugural event today, and though there was lots of pomp and boring stuff, there were also a couple amazing moments...a Bob Marley (yeah, the dread wearing, spliff smoking, revolutionary Bob Marley) song was sung on the steps of the Lincoln memorial (during which will.i.am said "niggas get irate"...another first, I'm sure), Pete Seeger, the 89-year-old former communist folk singer who was indicted for not naming names by HUAC, was there to sing "This Land is Your Land", and the our city's own Gay Men's Choir backed up Josh Groban and Heather Headley.

But as it was nearing an end, after Obama was done speaking, I reached for the remote and Cati stopped me, reminding me that Gene Robinson, the openly gay and controversial Episcopalian bishop was supposed to speak. So overwhelmed by seeing the old labor-loving, rabble-rousing Pete Seeger there, I had forgotten one of the main reasons we had turned the damn thing on. But there was no Robinson. We figured invocations are on at the beginning, that we must have started it late, so I rewound. No Robinson. WTF?

A real bad feeling started to come over me. So I started poking around on the web. Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed. Not only that, but the Gay Men's Choir apparently was the only choir or performer or speaker for the whole night who were not identified in the credits. And then, someone else reported that there had been a technical malfunction, and actually many of the people who were there couldn't hear Gene Robinson. So, the great olive branch, the thing that was supposed to show Obama was a uniter, and was willing to include all sides, had fallen with a depressing thud.

Both Cati and I were quite upset. We have personal reasons to be mad about the LGBT element, gay friends who are married, etc. But here's another thing...Gene Robinson is a bishop of one of the dominant and established churches in the United States, and in fact the one Cati grew up in. Pretend for a minute you don't know if he's gay...how many churches would be ok with a snub like that? Would they dare risk this with Rick Warren? What the hell were they thinking?

Trying to soft pedal this as well as we could for ole Obama, we figured HBO was being cheap and/or bigoted, and probably made a last minute goof. But then it comes out that HBO is actually denying it was their decision at all, that the Inauguration Committee decided to make the invocation be part of the "pre-show". This could get quite ugly. I imagine Obama will have to work fast, not just on behalf of offending the LBGT community, but also 2 million plus Episcopalians.

I have this feeling more often than I'd like with Barack. Lulled in by soft and indefinite words, like him including "gay and straight" in his speeches, and then finding out that he once supported gay marriage, before running for national office. Or him saying he would restore our standing in the world, and then giving out hints he might reserve "special interrogation methods" for "special circumstances".

I have been trying with all my might to just wait until he's actually president to criticize. This, after all, is just a bunch of fooferall that normally I would pay no attention to. In fact, maybe that's what this moment was about, just a reminder that we don't really belong watching shit like this, anthems and flag waving and all that. For a moment I thought this was really going to be for everyone...Pete Seeger, Bob Marley, etc...

I think we in the left, or liberal center or whatever the fuck it is I belong too are going to have a real morality check here. Are we willing to throw gay people under the bus because finally some other minorities are getting their due? Are we willing to amend "We Are One" to exclude some people?

When I saw "Milk" I started crying uncontrollably for a few minutes afterwards. The feeling that washed over me was about Prop 8...I felt so ashamed. As I said to Cati "I had my moment. All my life I've been waiting for a struggle like this, prepared to throw my body into the cause. And I didn't. I think I was....embarrassed." And that was all I could actually get out.

Since I was a kid, I've been saturated in the mythology of the activism of the '30s and '60s, and wondered if I'd be up to standing for the downtrodden when that moment came. And, other than a few donations and a day of volunteering, I had watched it all happen. After watching this happen today, and seeing Pete Seeger up there on stage, and hearing Bob Marley's words, and seeing those wonderful diverse choirs, I could see a real clear choice in my head. On one side--be happy, be satisfied. This is an amazing event, and look how far we have come. On the other--Obama himself is asking us to ask for more. How can I say the words with him "We Are One" and know that some people I love are not included? How can a moral person possibly be still? In some ways, this is a challenge I have not experienced in my adult life--reconciling words that echo through my own mythology, MLK, Roosevelt, etc, being spoken by the president of the united states, and my own radar that those word are not being fully realized. It's a potent confusion, and I imagine I am not the only person thinking it. When you run a POLITICAL campaign on inspiration and unity and inclusiveness, you are playing with fire. Those are not equivocal clarion calls. One doesn't say "We Are One" and make people cry about coming together, and then walk away from an oppressed people without consenquences.

Since they were so liberally quoting Martin Luther King today on the eve of his birthday, I'll sign off with one Obama and all of us would do well to really hear:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."