Asterisk

December 22, 2010 is a good day.

I had a thousand or so words here, but in their place, here is a picture from the ceremony by White House photographer Pete Souza. The woman is veteran Miriam Ben-Shalom, and this is how I felt this morning.

Tomorrow we can get back to fighting amongst ourselves about completing DADT repeal and which fight comes next. Tomorrow we can talk about who gets the credit for this monumental win and who should have (or shouldn’t have) been at the signing. Tomorrow we can fight the hate groups that call for our persecution and the ignorance that helps them fester.

I have opinions on all of those things (shocking, I know!), but for today, I’m content to know that this time bigotry lost and American ideals won.

Three days before Christmas 2010, America delivered a gift to future generations. And for that, I am glad.

Sometimes I don’t think I could make it without Stuart Smalley. NBC has done a fantastic job of getting all the good SNL/Stuart Smalley video clips off the internet, but you know who I’m talking about, right?

I'm shoulding all over myself.

Of course, Stuart was created and played by Al Franken, the comedian turned author turned talk show host turned Senator.

I don’t know how to transition from that sentence to the next paragraph, and that’s okay. My transitions don’t have to be perfect. Whatever I write will be good enough!

Although, having a good transition shows that I care about what I’m writing, and if I leave it just good enough people will think I don’t care. Well I don’t care! … I mean, I don’t care what they think, because I do care about what I’m writing even though it might look like I don’t care.

In 1992, Franken recorded what I consider to be his best comedic work ever (not to be grandiose), a book on tape called “You’re Good Enough, You’re Smart Enough, And Doggone It People Like You: A Healing Journey Through The Dysfunctional Forest And Other Guided Visualizations.” (It’s a long title, but that’s…okay. It’s appropriate.)

This is what I like to call stamina comedy. There’s a point about 35 minutes into the hour-long recording where you just don’t think you can take any more, but if you push through the pain, the reward is amazing.

Here’s a fifteen minute sample courtesy of audible.com that I totally didn’t rip from their website. (This clip begins at about the ten minute mark.)

It will be perfect in its imperfection. Okay.

Seriously, buy the audiobook. You won’t regret it, and it’s cheap as free anyway, so what do you have to lose? Also check out the companion book “I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me,” which was released at the same time.

P.S. We do not speak of the movie. EVER.

Okay, I haven’t watched all of this week’s GLEE yet, but this video? This is exactly the world I envision, a world where a gay teenager can dream of The Big Man On Campus singing a love song to him.

In the words of Tom and Lorenzo (You do read their blog, right?):

To the straight people reading us: remember high school? Remember your favorite songs and movies, TV shows and music videos from that period? Imagine if all of that media bombardment telling you what to like, what to wear, and how to be attractive, popular, and cool, imagine that all of that aimed for and addressed everyone else but you. Imagine what it’s like when every sappy love song (or angry breakup song), every rom com, every trendy TV show and blockbuster movie, even every video game, imagine if they all depicted a form of romantic love that simply isn’t available to you. Imagine going through high school without even so much as a hint of yourself reflected in any of the things you watch and listen to, any of the things that literally every other kid is talking about. Imagine the one thing you want more than anything in the world: to be kissed, please god, just to be kissed, imagine you have never seen that depicted anywhere or referred to in any way but as something to be mocked and shunned.

We grew unexpectedly teary-eyed watching this number. Not because sappy teenage pop songs get us worked up, but because the sight of a sappy teenage pop song being sung by one cute teenage boy to another cute teenage boy is still, sad to say, an extreme rarity. All we could think while watching this number was, “My god. What would it have been like to see this at 14?” To have the media offer up a romantic fantasy that actually reflected what we secretly yearned for.

And Blaine is definitely a romantic fantasy, the kind every single teenage girl has seen over and over and over again: the devastatingly cute guy who is talented and sensitive and understands our heroine and her quirky ways. The kind that we all roll our eyes at now that we’re adults. There’s a reason he’s singing a song called “Teenage Dream.” It’s because he is one. Sure, teenage romantic fantasies are inherently silly to adults because they come from a place of such inexperience and naivete, but they serve an important function in the sexual development of kids. They train them to dream about the best possible outcome. Just as they’ve been trained their whole lives as to how to make that outcome happen.

Read more from T Lo at the link.

Vroom Vroom.

Ricky has a new autobiography out, by the way. It’s available in both Spanish and English.

Aye, es muy caliente!

And then there’s the sweet Ricky; I’d almost call him “Daddy Ricky.”

Be still my heart. (And…lower places.)

I told you two weeks ago about Seth Stambaugh, the Oregon student teacher who was removed from his fourth grade classroom. A student had asked why he wasn’t married and he acknowledged that it was illegal for him to get married in Oregon. That ended the conversation with the student, but Stambaugh was quickly and summarily fired.

The conversation.

For the first time in a looooong string of incidents like this, the good guys won. Six weeks after his removal and following a sizable backlash from parents, Stambaugh has been returned to his classroom, effective this morning. What’s more, the Beaverton, Oregon School Board has unanimously approved a nondiscrimination resolution.

The one-page resolution reaffirms the district’s nondiscrimination and diversity policies, resolves that everyone is entitled to the same rights and privileges, and calls upon everyone in the district and community to “call out discrimination if and when it occurs, and to ensure that all persons in our schools are and feel welcome, valued, respected and safe.”

“I like what we’ve written,” said Lisa Shultz, board member. “But it’s not enough. It will never be enough.”

A couple of board members choked up as they talked about their concerns and the need for change. Over the past month, they have received letters and e-mails with stories of bullying, harassment and discrimination involving sexual minorities in the district.

The resolution “is the minimum,” said Mary VanderWeele, board member. “From here, we need to move to a place where no one has to be in the closet.”

Most people who spoke at the meeting thanked the board for reinstating Stambaugh but reminded the board of past wrongs and the long road ahead.

Troy Lakey, a gay father, said he has two students in the district.

“I want my son to feel safe,” Lakey said, his voice choked. “I don’t want him to be bullied … based on my sexual orientation.”

I’ll close this post with a statement Stambaugh made last Friday after he was reinstated.

At Sexton Mountain I was in a vulnerable position: it was my first week of teaching, I was not a formal employee, I was not a part of the Teacher’s Union. I was never informed nor had any indication that discussions of marital status were “inappropriate” or “unprofessional.” These words are nonsensical and provide no guidance when not supported by dialogue, which never came. To this day, no one has yet explained how these words apply to a discussion about marital status.

The decision to reinstate me is a great first step, but does not address the larger issue at hand, which, quite frankly, is killing our students: that somehow queer is not okay. My hasty disappearance from Sexton Mountain is an express example that sends this message to children, many of whom are perceived to be different, may live in LGBT families, or may be queer themselves. All parents have a valid right to voice any question or concern they may have regarding their child’s public school education. But public schools have a responsibility to ensure that they are not favoring an educational model that discriminates against queer people, or any other minority.

This is precisely what happened when Beaverton School District removed me from that classroom.

Seth Stambaugh, back in the classroom

Discrimination comes in many forms and does not necessitate intent; often, in fact, unconscious discrimination can be the most dangerous kind. When there is institutional discrimination, conscious intent is impossible to gauge, but the fact is, individual people make institutional decisions. There is still no clarity about how, why, and by whom this decision for my removal was made. Neither the Beaverton School District nor any administrator has issued any apology to me. Neither the Beaverton School District nor any administrator has acknowledged the harm, the stigma, and the damage to me personally as a result of what they, and everyone, now recognizes as a discriminatory action. Though the decision for my reinstatement is, as I said earlier, a great first step, it is only that: a first step.

It is clear that all communities can learn from this instance, and do the work that still needs to be done to protect our children–ALL of our children.

I am extraordinarily happy about my return to Sexton Mountain and look forward so much to doing what I came here to do: to teach.