Sunday, Beautiful as Usual

Outrageous. It's just outrageous. Clear, slanting autumn sunshine, just a hint of a breeze plucking the occasional leaf off the maple tree, the neighbors are out walking, nodding and smiling at their neighbors.

There are a couple of things this week that I want to get on the record.

You know that Al Gore just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Some nameless person at the White House told the Washington Post, "We're happy for him, but suspect he'd trade places before we would."

I'm thinking not.

Even in the 2000 campaign, George Bush talked about history. He doesn't know what it is, but he's sure hoping to have a nice chapter in it. The problem is that in pursuing his dream to be enshrined in some distant history that is written after we'll all dead, he has sadly forgotten to pay attention to the things that have been happening while we're still here, alive. And guess what -- Bush's chapter in the history book will be titled "Worst President Ever." While Gore's legacy will span from A to Z, Bush's will go from Brutality to Brutish, nothing either side of that.

Interesting that several of the big newspapers took time this weekend to consider Gore's Nobel Prize in contrast to the Bush legacy. Let me just link to some of the better ones:

• Washington Post Feats Divide Pair Linked by Election: A Tale of War (Bush) and Peace (Gore)
  
• The LA Times Al Gore: the anti-Bush: No wonder conservatives are apoplectic - Gore's fortunes rise as the president's plummets.
  
• New York Times The Trivial Pursuit

I remember the 2000 elections, thinking it was a choice between an unlikeable guy and an idiot. Gore's attempts to work the media were obvious, his changes of personality through the debates were especially unsettling, but did people really want the class clown in the White House? Enough of them did to send it to the Supreme Court, which had become political enough to know how to swing it, and here we are. The candidates were not able to demonstrate enough of a difference on the issues, so people voted on the basis of personality, I guess, though ... never mind.

I'm not going to rehash everything in those articles, but here's what does it for me. I recall George Bush flying out to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. People were drowning all around, bodies floating in the attic, thousands of homes were destroyed, people were missing, and the federal government was ... you can't even say the government was ineffective, it was worse than that, it was the opposite of helpful, the federal government made the situation much worse than it was. That was an occasion that justifies having a good, strong government, an emergency that transcends anything that any private company can deal with, but our government had been stacked up with people who had been given political favors, and nobody knew how to do anything. And there was George Bush, on the ground in New Orleans, joking about how he used to party there when he was in college while people's real lives were being ruined in the background.

At the same time, Al Gore was figuring out how to actually rescue people. No, there weren't TV cameras there, but he arranged to get hundreds of people, including the sick and injured, out of the flooded areas and out to where they could be taken care of.

That says it all, for me. One guy gets a Nobel Peace Prize, one guy faces the prospect of international trial for war crimes. I don't think the Nobel guy wants to trade, really.

A second thing going on, relevant to our controversy in the schools, is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that's being considered by Congress. I haven't said much about this, but there is a legitimate controversy going on, one that it is worth thinking about. I am not up on the latest details, which are changing by the day, but here's the dilemma. The federal government is about to pass a law prohibiting discrimination against gay people when it comes to employment. They have figured out, though, that if they include transgender people along with gays and lesbians, they won't have enough votes to pass it.

The question is, should the gay community hold out for inclusion of gender identity in the bill, or should they take what they can get now, and then lobby to stretch it further later? This would give protection to millions of people as it is, while a small number of Americans could still be discriminated against. The practical voices say, pass the bill while the votes are there, let's get protection for people. Principled people are saying, don't accept it without full coverage for everybody. I consider this a legitimate debate, with two valid points of view, and am curious to see how it plays out.

Here's my two cents (watch me offend everybody in the world with this one).

What's that guy's name on late-night TV? The Scottish guy? Ah, yes, Craig Ferguson. I love that guy. Once I saw him interview some beautiful model or actress, whatever, who flipped her hair royally and mentioned that she does a lot of international travel. And he said something like, "Yeah, so do I, and I love International House of Pancakes, don't you?" And he totally changed the subject on her, to IHOP and what's on their menu. It was conversational virtuosity at its best. And he's like that a lot, a real wit, a good guy.

But one thing he does, and Conan O'Brian does this too, I think, is to joke like he's gay. He makes jokes about being trapped in elevators with handsome men and so on. People laugh, and I've never even heard anybody ask, is Craig Ferguson gay? It doesn't matter, because you know what? He doesn't act gay. Neither does Conan. Those guys don't flounce around and roll their eyes, or whatever stereotypical thing sets off our gay-dar.

I don't think it's being gay that upsets people, it's acting gay. And what that means, really, is behavior that is inappropriate for your gender. Let's call it "stereotype nonconformity," the failure to behave according to the stereotype. That's what gets gay people in trouble, women in workshirts and short hair, guys who wiggle when they walk, that's what bigots see that sets them off -- nobody knows who you're attracted to, unless you tell them, and unless you advertise your orientation with some stereotype nonconformity. And it looks to me like the current ENDA won't cover that.

One view of the ENDA situation is that the gays are throwing the transgender folks under the bus, pushing them out of the way so they can get what they want for themselves. But they might end up getting close to nothing. Imagine this: a guy goes in to apply for a job and they don't hire him, and he sues them for discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, and the employer says, I didn't know he goes to bed with, I thought he was trying to act like a woman. Seems to me the employer is off the hook. Who talks about their love life in a job interview? Q: How else would they know? A: Stereotype nonconformity.

ENDA as it is being considered, as it will probably go forward, gives protection to gay men who are not effeminate at all (or exaggeratedly macho), and lesbians who are not butch. And face it, straight-looking gays and lesbians aren't the ones with the biggest problems. They might want to think about that, not that it's any of my business.

Now it is time to get out there, this is a day to throw a football with a kid. Oh, and rake those leaves off the deck before they get rained on. Mmm, and put stuff back onto the shelves from when we got flooded. Uh, and pay off that stack of bills... I hope I get a chance to get outside while it's like this.