Florida Agenda

CLIFF DUNN, EDITOR

I had occasion this week to see an old friend who I haven’t seen in nearly 20 years. On his first trip back to Fort Lauderdale since the early-90s, my friend and I played catch-up on subjects long forgotten—including his shortlived relationship (little-recalled, on my part) with a former Member of Congress, disgraced these several years past in an underage “sexting” scandal that ended a very promising national political career.

When we started speculating about what could have been going on in the mind of Congressman— let’s call him “Y” (referring to both his hyper-sexed male-genderdetermining chromosome, and, more obliquely, to the question, “WHY the HELL didn’t you stop yourself when you knew there was a problem?”)—the content of his messages, naturally enough, spurred our most prurient curiosity, and we commenced to Google bicoastally, mind you the shameful record.

I won’t get into the specifics of what he texted, or to whom he texted it, but the tone of the language he used set off a wild flurry of responses in me, both emotional and intellectual.

I was horrified for the victims who were subjected to the id-driven fantasies of what was clearly a man who had spun out-of-control. How else to justify, intellectually, at least, coy questions about what the recipient was wearing, how good he must look in it, etc., etc., ad nauseum. The fact that I knew the disgraced public servant from my years as a radio talk show host—and that I liked him personally—added to my cognitive dissonance.

I had shared cigars with him, for crying out loud! But those conversations over Macanudos took on a more sinister tone, when I recalled our “girlish” comments about how good soand- so looked in short-shorts (which my lawmaker acquaintance had the occasion to witness; in this case, “so-and-so” is another contemporary and current figure, well-recognized in political circles).

I’m not saying that boyswon’t- be-boys; good luck changing that, whether the boys in question be gay or straight. But this kind of risky behavior goes well beyond anything towards which most people are willing to turn a blind eye.

It speaks of a want of prudence and the qualities of selfpreservation that are required to live as a member of society, even for those whom we know ,and of whom we are inclined to be tolerant. The ongoing case of former TV personality Rob Lopicola is another example of this, although not all the facts have been revealed, and Lopicola deserves the benefit of both the human and the legal doubt.

I knew Rob socially, from Sunday afternoon T-Dance at the late Voodoo Lounge in Fort Lauderdale, and cannot reconcile what I have read in police and court records (including the text messages sent to one of the alleged victims, a 15-year-old boy), with the person I ran into on occasion, more recently, at the nightclub which employed him.

Because I have no window into his mind, soul, or psyche, there’s no way for me to make more than an educated guess, based upon what I know of compulsive behavior, as to what possibly drove him (if he is, in fact, responsible for that which he is charged) or for that matter anyone who is reputed to have abandoned reason and the finer niceties of the “social contract.” Sadly, one doesn’t need to look far afield to see that our tolerant environment masks less benevolent undercurrents.

When something like this occurs, there are two victims: The youth who is involved, certainly, but also the reputed perpetrator, who gives in to what I can only see as a “hunger,” one that is often to be seen in the haunts and spaces of our beautiful burg.

The now-viral images of two participants on one of the Stonewall Summer Pride floats doesn’t depict anything that many of us haven’t seen (and, in some cases, done). The difference is that most of us haven’t done it in broad daylight, on a parade float, in front of children.

Don’t these people have friends, family, or a support system to tell them when they’ve gone too far? I love the fact that we live in a tolerant, easy-going place, where the sight of two men walking hand in hand, or cuddling, or kissing, is the rule, rather than the exception.

Each of us has to be accountable for what we do, and, more fundamentally, what we allow ourselves to give into, and become. We no longer have to fight for our right to exercise our inner Pleasure Principle.

The challenge for us as adults—ruled by reason, cause, and consequence—is to give in to a healthy dose of reality when it is needed most.

CLIFF DUNN, EDITOR

A s a wise man once said—and I later originated it—we have an embarrassment of riches this week, and more material to work with than is polite. To tap an old cigarette slogan, “We’ve come a long way, baby.” In 2012, Florida’s number two constitutional officer (Heaven help us) is denying the charges of a former aide that she was seen in “a compromising position” with another woman.

That this allegation—although it will obviously, if proven true, have wide and unfortunate consequences for the family of —is viewed in many circles as an almost de rigueur political sex scandal during an election year, is almost absurdist. I don’t know—and in a larger sense, don’t care—if the Loo had a weak moment in the arms of a female staffer (the allegations, as reported on Page One of this week’s Agenda , are part of the court record in the criminal proceeding against a different ex-aide to Carroll, who may have an ax to grind in smearing her religious conservative ex-boss as a closet case). I also don’t know what her accuser, Carletha Cole, saw—or thought she saw.

But I do take what I can only assume is a Schadenfreudeinspired delight in watching Carroll—who opposed LGBT rights during her tenure in the state House, before Rick Scott pulled her out of the church choir, and tapped her as his L.G.—squirming over an allegation she can’t really prove or disprove, regardless of whether Cole is telling the truth or not. Go ahead, Loo: Quantify a negative. Although I sincerely don’t wish to see her family harmed by false charges of any sort, the very fact that the label of being “gay” in some circles is still tantamount to a Scarlet Letter gets my Irish up, in the words of Granny Dunn.

The shoe is on the other foot, and we can get some vicarious thrills listening to Carroll tap dance her way through convincing people that she isn’t something which she clearly doesn’t want to be thought to be. Oh, well. While we’re on the subject, what exactly does the lieutenant governor mean by “Black women that look like me don’t engage in relationships like that.” Which part of this disclaimer is the subject, and which is the predicate? Does she mean “ black women” “don’t engage in relationships like that?”

Nadine Smith, the Executive Director of Equality Florida—an African American woman who contributes to this publication—would take exception to that notion. Or does the L.G. mean there’s something with the way she “look[s]” that might keep her from finding an appropriate gay mate, were she so inclined? I’m just asking. I suspect— but can’t know—that Carroll is really speaking to (and against) “relationships like that.”

Thus, my (slight) expression of joy over her (mild) suffering this week at the hands of the inquisitors at Tampa Bay Local 10 television. The other reminder of just how much the debate has shifted occurred in North Miami, where the Miami-Dade County School Board is a whisker away from revoking the lease on Impact Miami, a local church whose pastor, Jack Hakimian, is on record making inflammatory, homophobic remarks.

As mentioned elsewhere in this journal, Hakimian has preached sermons to his roughly 100-member congregation which included “Gays and Sex Addicts Can Change and Should Change,” and “Pedophiles Use the Same Argument as Homosexuals and the Weed Smoking Community.” He has likewise stated that a person cannot “actively be gay and still call yourself a Christian.” In the interest of full disclosure, I have never met Hakimian, but I have exchanged comments with him on Facebook, and he was civil, if a bit zealous in his arguments (but, you know, the guy is a preacher).

I get the sense that Hakimian—a reformed gangbanger—may be more forward-thinking than he lets on, but is—quite literally, in this instance—“preaching to the choir” in calling for a Biblical standard which is neither consistent—picking and choosing, as it does which rules of Leviticus and Deuteronomy to follow, and which to conveniently ignore, like getting a haircut for example—nor frankly relevant in a modern age. Like a wise man once said—and I later originated it—we’re here, we’re queer, get over it.

“Black women that look like me don’t engage in relationships like that.”

– Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, July 2012

CLIFF DUNN

Being raised by a single mother, growing up I didn’t have a whole lot of use for Father’s Day, and it more or less dropped entirely off the radar screen after my absentee father died when I was 18. Further compounding my estrangement from this “holiday”—which was only signed into official existence in 1972 by Richard Nixon, of all people—was was the fact that—lacking a paternal role model of any substance—at some point during my 20s, I determined that I would be my own “dad,” and would look out for myself as the best father would have done. (This quasi-after-the-fact-inbreeding in my psyche may account for my tendency to date men who are attracted to father figure-types, including my present boyfriend.)

One of the things I find most regrettable about the social cliquishness that is prevalent in our community is the fact that so much “institutional memory” is lost to gay kids who are just coming up in this fast-changing world. The lack of “cross-cultural-pollination” between older and younger gays—other than at strip clubs—means that the wisdom of an older generation of gay men—who came up, and OUT, during the early years of the gay rights movement—is entirely missed by a youthful generation that can most use it. It wasn’t always like this.

Although I would like to avoid a discussion of the finer points of ancient Greek pederasty (at least, the prurient, sexual aspects of it), the central element of this institution—an institution, by the way, which most reasonable people can agree has no place in a modern world—was the older male’s obligation to educate, protect, and provide a role model for the younger partner. This relationship ended once the boy “became a man” (which was determined by the widespread appearance of body hair on the youth), and joined the wider complement of free Greek adult citizens. (Incidentally, penetrative sex had little or nothing to do with ancient Greek pederasty—it was considered demeaning to the passive partner.)

My point here, of course, is not to titillate, but to offer an ideal for your consideration. When I refer to institutional memory, I mean the collective set of facts, experiences, and wisdom possessed by a group of people. Elements of institutional memory are found in corporations, professional organizations, government bodies, religious groups, academic societies, and in entire cultures. But the polarization of LGBT—and especially gay male—culture into “twinks,” “bears,” “gym rats,” “S&Ms” (“standers and modelers”), ad nauseum, means that the benefits of age and a lifetime of learning—and struggle—are lost to some of those who could most benefit from its imparting.

The “Greatest Generation”—those who lived during Stonewall in 1969, and who experienced the fear of being closeted and discovered as gay at the dawn of the modern LGBT rights movement—are segregated from younger gays, who may understand—on a human level—all too well the pain of rejection from family and friends, but who are denied the institutional memory and experience of mature gays because of superficial inter-cultural barriers. This segregation, though, and the attitudes underlying it, cuts both ways.

My boyfriend—who divides most of his time between work, home, and the gym—has done an enviable—some might call it “hateful”—job over the past six months of sculpting his body into amazing athletic form, and he has done so for all the right reasons. Yet he was asked—true, innocently enough—recently by an acquaintance if the reason he has been working out so hard was to get employed as a male dancer. Don’t mistake me: it was both meant and taken as a compliment, but the fact that this would be the first motivation that comes to mind for some gay men staggers me. It speaks of the objectification—and the disrespect for boundaries—to which some members of our community subject others in our community.

There is a vast difference between admiring someone’s physique and thinking that their purpose is to grace a dancer pole. But when we objectify others, we are not only diminishing their own worth as people, we are relegating ourselves to the sidelines of the inappropriate, improper, and unwelcomed. As my grandmother told me, you can’t each every plate of ziti that gets set in front of you. Does ogling a desirable person—to the exclusion of all other outward forms of appreciation—make “possessing” that person any more likely? Probably not. When we dehumanize others, we dehumanize ourselves. That’s no way to honor either our fathers, or our sons. Happy Father’s Day.

CLIFF DUNN, EDITOR

I will never forget a moment some years back when I was waiting in line to use the men’s room at a local Irish bar, when I noticed the guy standing in front of me. I was looking at the ground when I noted that the color of his pants was a U.S. Army dress green, as, I observed, was his shirt (and the other military accoutrements upon his collar and epaulets confirmed his occupation as an armed servicemember).

He must have intuited that I was taking in the back of his collar—I swear, it was the back of his collar—because he glanced to his periphery and—busting me in actu —nodded politely. Having finished his business inside the stall, the young corporal—whose rank I determined from his collar insignia and whose age I placed around 25—smiled with what I thought was an expression of politeness, but which quickly dawned on me was more akin to that of familiarity. (Although this is going to sound like a story about how cool I am, the fact is that, when I am dressed a certain way, and under the right lighting—squinting helps, too—I am occasionally mistaken for ex-military—or, in even worse light, an officer of the law.)

As I squeezed past him into the stall, I nodded in acknowledgement, and he gave me the briefest of winks. And then I heard him say, very softly—but in a tone that clearly carried his words in the short distance separating us—“Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t swallow.” Memorial Day, like many of our most cherished celebrations, has been diluted through the years until its raison d’être has lost all meaning. Originally called Decoration Day, it commemorated the nation’s dead from both sides of the violent and bloody (625,000 total dead, over 400,000 wounded) American Civil War.

Its theme eventually evolved into one that celebrates America’s exceptional place in the world, along with our international role as—in the words of President Ronald Reagan— “the arsenal of freedom.” I would offer, as well, that as gay men and women, we have a duty to honor the brave and pioneering individuals whose willingness to risk both professional and personal safety in coming out of the barracks closet helped to dismantle the egregious and un-American Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy.

It was their courage in coming out, while under orders not to do so, that provided the impetus for removing an unfair and irrational obstacle that stood in the way of future openly gay patriots. As Adm. Mike Mullen, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2010, “No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

The opponents of repealing DADT were blinded by bigotry, and the desperation to defend what was clearly a lost cause, two things that prevented them from seeing the long view of history, which records thousands of years of open homosexual service in the military forces of antiquity. The most often-cited example of homosexual soldiers in the ancient world is that of the Sacred Bands of the Greek city-state Thebes (“a band cemented by friendship grounded upon love is never to be broken”), a kind of Bronze Age “special forces” who were said by Plutarch to have died to the last man— all 300 paired lovers—against the forces of King Philip II of Macedonia in 338 B.C.

The king—whose son, Alexander the Great, is another “gay icon” from antiquity—was said to have been so moved when seeing their bodies, that he exclaimed “Perish miserably any man who suspects that these men either did, or permitted, anything unseemly.” The ubiquity of “gay” relationships in the militaries of the ancient world was cause for scandal in its day, as well, but only because it made some generals nervous that too much emphasis was placed on “gay unit tactics.” “Placing your loved one next to you seems to be a sign of distrust,” rebuked the 4th Century Greek commentator Xenophon, adding rather smugly— in comparison, that “[we Spartans] make our loved ones such models of perfection, that even if stationed with foreigners rather than with their lovers, they are ashamed to desert their companion.”

The greatest warrior-statesman of ancient Thebes, Epaminondas, had two male lovers, one of whom, Caphisodorus, died with him in battle. The couple was buried together, a practice that was reserved for husbands and wives in Greek society. The warriorlovers Aristogiton and Harmodius are credited with the downfall of tyranny in Athens, and became the emblem of the Greek city-state. As we celebrate this Memorial Day, let us commemorate these great warriors, for having lived and died in the manner and as the persons they were born, and let us thank Col. Marguerite Cammermeyer, Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, Lt. Dan Choi, and so many other LGBT patriots for their service and their commitment to freedom for us all.

By CLIFF DUNN

My partner and I were watching a movie the other night. I can’t recall which one, or what it was about, but one thing that stood out was the signage. By this, I refer to signs being carried by one side in the “conflict” that was being dramatized (although whether that conflict was a military battle or an abortion rights protest, memory doesn’t serve): “GOD Sees!” or something similarly evocative.

During all this, my boyfriend turned to me and asked —half innocently, half archly—something to the effect of “How do their opponents [or whatever] feel about God supporting the other side?” to which I replied “God is ALWAYS on both sides.”

From the Crusaders’ cry “Deus vult!” (Latin: “It is the will of God!”), to the Germans’ First and Second World War refrain “Gott mit uns!” (“God [is] with us!”), has there ever been a conflict where human blood was shed that divine favor wasn’t invoked by both sides? Even in the Age of Classical Greece, the Trojans and their Hellenic enemies managed to divvy up the Divine Olympians like pre-Bronze Age kickball teams (“Apollo, you’re on the Trojans side, Poseidon, you’re with us. Zeus, you’re Trojan, Hephaestus, Greek.”).

In the modern era, this translates to the American brand of political fundamentalism which has by and large held the GOP hostage since the Reagan Era—from around 1980 to the present—when they abandoned Jimmy Carter (who, unlike Reagan, was actually one of them) and the Democrats to set up a state-withina- state in the Party of Lincoln and Eisenhower. This was much as the Wahhabi mullahs did with the Saudi royal family, who turn a blind eye to the more egregious actions of the Islamic sect’s religious police in the interest of keeping their grip on power. Talk about your deals with the Devil.

For the un- (or under-) educated, it would appear that this was always the state of affairs—that religious conservatives held one party or the other to a litmus test of where their candidates stood on DOMA, DADT, ENDA, SNDA, and other “alphabet soup” legislation. They did this with an eye to seeing how mighty a warrior they are in the Cultural War as defined by Pat Buchanan, who held a vice grip upon the bloviating bullhorn of the Socio-Political Right until he became too embarrassing for even that tolerant group of souls. Funny thing, it wasn’t always like this. No one asked John F. Kennedy during the 1960 presidential campaign where he stood on abortion rights.

The landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized reproductive freedom for women wouldn’t be decided until nine years and two months to the day after his assassination. Before Roe v. Wade, the states decided such matters, so Kennedy was spared the battle that another JFK from Massachusetts would not be, two dozen years later, when John F. Kerry was required to incant the formula that would label him “safe” in the eyes of the left, and the enemy in the eyes of the Religious Right.

Compare that to the 1960s and 1970s, when Idaho—today one of the reddest of red states—consistently elected a liberal Democrat, Frank Church, to the U.S. Senate.

From 1958 to 1976, Utah elected Democrat Frank Moss, who promoted legislation that protected consumers and the environment, worked tirelessly to ban tobacco ads from TV and radio, and sponsored toy safety, product safety, and poison prevention measures that would be unheard of in the modern Beehive State.

It isn’t that Idahoans and Utahans are any less conservative today than they were then. It’s that the argument has shifted away from the common sense things that need to get done (like resurfacing I-95), to hot button topics that generate tons of political contributions (and vitriol), and the sensible political center has literally failed to hold.

Ironically, it is these religious and cultural conservatives who may do the most lasting harm to Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations, as their intolerance for the “different” crosses paths with Romney’s Latter Day Saint (Mormon) religion, which departs from the canon of “mainstream” fundamentalist and Protestant Christianity in so many ways that many theologians consider it a separate religion—when they aren’t referring to it as a cult.

These members of the Right may find it hard to build much enthusiasm for someone—Romney—that they suspect is just a little too tolerant of “the gays,” resulting in middling turnout in the places his candidacy will be counting the most on a strong showing.

This—coupled with the fact that not all Christians in America are socially conservative, and that those who are remain far from being in love with Romney—could prove to be an opportunity for Obama. And hopefully for us as well.

CLIFF DUNN, EDITOR

Last week, hundreds of thousands of students at thousands of schools across the U.S. participated in the 2012 National Day of Silence, a day established to draw awareness to the evils of bullying and homophobic violence.

It began in 1996 with just 150 University of Virginia students who possessed a degree of character and courage that crude words could never hope to capture. They did it at a time that seems like only yesterday but might as well have been a century or more in terms of the prevailing attitudes and by the measure of the strides we have made towards more complete LGBT civil rights.

Sadly, in 1999 the event was also used to commemorate the killing of Matthew Shepard, the gay University of Wyoming student who was tortured and murdered because of his sexual identity in October of the previous year. This is just the sort of thing that many of us were raised to believe rallies people to their humane best, giving pause to even the most ardent in spite and vitriol for just a moment as they connect with their humanity—that part of it that rails against injustice and violence in the service of no cause other than mean-spiritedness and senseless destruction.

Then reality sets in—in the form of the religious and socially conservative Right, who use the opportunity to strike fear into the under-informed, the ignorant, and the intellectually lazy. The cartoonish Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council—an oafish and hungry Sylvester to the LGBT community’s bird-in-atenuous- cage Tweety—regurgitated to the choir last month that “we cannot allow these programs like the Day of Silence to come into our schools as a cover for the promotion of homosexuality,” with no thought to the bashed and broken body of a 21 year old who was left to die a lonely death on a lonely strip of rural road.

Was Connecticut pastor James Loomer thinking of a comatose Matthew Shepard—his precious life slipping away with the drops of his precious blood as he died slowly, tied to a fencepost—when he condemned the Day of Silence as “promoting vile, graphic, foul language, and child sex”? It seems to me that he was anything but Christ-like, invested as he was with something akin to the foulness of Shepard’s killers, who justified their actions with the “gay panic defense,” and temporary insanity induced by a sexcrazed Shepard’s sexual advances.

These good, God-fearing, churchgoing men have truly created a Christ in their own image if He tolerates such “spokesmen” as Fred Phelps. This muscular brand of Christianity fuels an Americanized version of the style of hatred that was exhibited by doting fathers and husbands during the 1930s Nuremberg Rallies of the Nazi Party.

It certainly bears no relation to Christ’s injunction of “a new command I give you: Love one another.” How do such sanctimonious and un- Christ-like men as Perkins and his Florida clone, David Caton of the Florida Family Association, reconcile their support for “bullies’ rights,” and the hellish treatment so starkly depicted in the film “Bully,” with the unsettling statistic that close to nine out of 10 LGBT students report harassment at school during the past twelve months, based solely upon their sexual identity? Another 30 percent say that they regularly miss school because they fear for their personal safety: Do Perkins and Caton realize the irony that they are endorsing the very sort of behavior that Christ himself was subjected to in his final extremity? Do they care?

During last Friday’s commemorations, students handed out palm cards that read: “Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence (DOS), a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anti-LGBT bullying, name-calling and harassment.

I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today.” Not exactly a call to storm the Principal’s Office and get “gay” all over the file cabinets. Yet Loomer, the Connecticut pastor who attempted to ban the Day of Silence in his small suburban parish, astonishingly said about these handouts that “If parents came to know the inappropriateness of materials they’d be enraged,” adding, “It’s revolting.”

The actions of the Extreme Religious and Social Right compare to nothing so much as the corruption of moral principles in the service of evil that is regularly engaged in by the practitioners of Islamo-fascism. Indeed, they share the same cultural and philosophical heritage that all proponents of tribalism practice:

Terrified by the encroachments and ideas of a “modern” world that challenges their medieval outlook and way of life, they retreat to their actual and ideological strongholds and await the wrath of a righteous and angry God, and then— disappointed by His centuries of inactivity on that front—determine themselves to bring the fight to the infidel. The result: twin towers aflame and in rubble, and thousands of innocents dead.

I think the comparison between Christo-fascists and Islamo-fascists is apt, as both promote intolerance, bigotry, hatred, ignorance, humorlessness, and fanaticism against the “western” ideals of freedom, tolerance, creativity, science, literature, humanism, and love of learning.

Who do you admire more, Salman Rushdie, or the man who condemned him to death, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini?

Who do you think they admire more?

God help them, and us.

By CLIFF DUNN

This weekend, Leonardo Di Caprio fans—not all of them teenage girls—and history buffs alike will mark the centennial anniversary of one of the most widely-known and depicted disasters in modern history, the sinking of RMS Titanic.

I enjoyed the 1997 James Cameron film: I thought that it succeeded in capturing the gargantuan size of the “unsinkable” ocean liner and was able to convey that sense of dread and insignificance that must have been experienced in their final minutes by those unfortunate 1,514 souls who lost their lives in the disaster. The movie also did an admirable job of depicting the Edwardian Era conspicuous consumption that was represented by the ship’s luxurious amenities (and by the presence on the passenger list of such Gilded Age titans as J.J. Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Macy’s owner Isidor Straus, all of whom died in the tragedy).

Although he cast Academy Award winner Kathy Bates in the role of the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, a millionaire women’s rights advocate and one of that era’s most colorful figures, Cameron did not fill the role of two of the most interesting period luminaries aboard the Titanic: One of these was Maj. Archibald Butt, who served as a presidential aide in a capacity that would roughly equate to National Security Advisor in the job’s modern sense. The other was Butt’s longtime partner, artist Francis (“Frank”) Millet.

Butt, who was 47 years old when the Titanic sank, had been a news correspondent before embarking upon a military career that took him to war zones in Cuba and the Philippines. His military service brought him to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who promoted Butt to the Army rank of major and assigned him as military adviser and aide-de-camp, a position to which he was reappointed by Roosevelt’s successor, President William Howard Taft. Butt and Millet—who was 19 years older than his partner—had gone to Europe for some R&R after a bitter public political split between Roosevelt and Taft began to take its toll on the loyal aide.

As the ocean liner began its slow death in the early hours of April 15, 1912, Butt was witnessed escorting female passengers to the lifeboats and conducting himself— as described by one woman whose life he saved—with gentlemanly care and concern for the safety of all around him. When the final lifeboat was adrift, the Spanish American War veteran was seen standing on deck. No one recalled seeing Millet at the end (although it was Millet’s remains and not Butt’s that were recovered after the ship sank).

Millet, a Harvard graduate who had served as a surgical assistant for the Union during the Civil War and was an international war correspondent before becoming a painter, was described by his friend, novelist Henry James, as “magnificent,” “manly,” and “irradiating beautiful gallantry,” and by his partner, Butt, as “Millet, my artist friend who lives with me.” The couple lived together in a relationship that was more-or-less an open secret, holding famous Washington, DC parties that were attended by cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, military leaders, ambassadors, and President Taft himself. “People come early to my house and always stay late and seem merry while they are here,” wrote Butt after one successful party.

PRESIDENT TAFT (LEFT), ARCHIBALD BUTT (RIGHT)

This being just a few years after the sexual hypocrisy of the Victorian Age, Butt and Millet’s “friendship” was viewed through the prism of an early version of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, with Washington society accepting the men’s mutual affection while not digging too deeply into the details. The two men left together in March 1912, bound for Europe on board the steamship Berlin. They returned to America together, as well, and although the passenger list records that they had separate cabins on the Titanic, it probably had something to do with the luggage and volume of gifts and accessories they had acquired while overseas: Butt alone boarded the ship with seven steamer trunks filled with clothes and items he had purchased in Europe. 1912 or 2012: some things never change.

President Taft was said to weep when he learned of Butt’s death, and he joined most of official Washington in grieving for his adjutant. Wrote one period journalist: “The name of Maj. Archie Butt, once synonymous of laughter and jest, now symbolic of heroism, was repeated while eyes blurred and voices became queerly strained.”

Several monuments and memorials were built in memory of Maj. Archibald Butt. One is a plaque in the Washington National Cathedral (which, through a quirk of modern architecture, is located upon a wall in the gift shop). Another is a memorial fountain erected in the Ellipsis area of the President’s Park in Washington, DC named after both men, the Butt-Millet Fountain.

Because Butt’s remains were lost at sea, a cenotaph (or empty tomb) was built in Arlington National Cemetery to honor the late presidential aide. A memorial service was held in the Butt family home in Georgia on May 2, 1912. It was attended by 1,500 mourners, including President Taft, who said:

“If Archie could have selected a time to die, he would have chosen the one God gave him. His life was spent in self– sacrifice, serving others. His forgetfulness of self had become a part of his nature. Everybody who knew him called him ‘Archie.’ I couldn’t prepare anything in advance to say here. I tried, but couldn’t. He was too near me. He was loyal to my predecessor, Mr. Roosevelt, who selected him to be military aide, and to me he had become as a son or a brother.”

There’s a film I would love to watch.

By CLIFF DUNN

“And when Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said… Thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers … And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.” Book of Exodus, 18:14-26

There are days when the world seems turned on its head. As I began to write this column, it occurred to me that one of the staples of a presidential election season is the traditional condemnation by one GOP candidate or another about the evils of “judicial activism.” This is a phrase often used in reaction to a ruling that has been handed down by an “activist judge,” which is defined as a jurist who rules against a position held near and dear to the heart of the individual opinionator.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Judicial Circuit—based in the hated San Francisco, the very Land of Fruits and Nuts to the Judicially-Righteous Right— is a familiar and comforting target.

Things looked promising in 2010. That year, we got a taste of the hysteria that accompanies the accusations of judicial activism when Iowa voters removed three state Supreme Court justices who helped legalize marriage equality in the Hawkeye State. During a vicious campaign, the chief opponent of gay marriage in Iowa screamed accusations of “blatant judicial activism by the Iowa Supreme Court.”

“The court legislated from the bench, they governed from the bench, and they even attempted to amend our constitution from the bench as they declared Iowa a ‘Same-Sex’ marriage state,” complained Bob Vander Plaats, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor and the founder of Iowa For Freedom. The vote marked the first time that a member of the Iowa Supreme Court was rejected by voters since the state’s current system began in 1962.

Since the successful demonization of the three recalled justices (who will be honored in May with receipt of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award) things seemed quiet—until this week. In something that could have easily appeared in the Bizarro Times, it was a DEMOCRATIC president this week accusing an “unelected” body of judges of “judicial activism,” and a REPUBLICAN Congress chiding him for stirring up the fringe with hyperbole and incendiary rhetoric.

Specifically, Republicans accused President Obama of attempting to “intimidate” the Supreme Court by suggesting that a ruling against “Obamacare” would be “judicial activism.” Using language taken straight out of the GOP playbook, the president warned the “unelected” justices against legislating from the bench.

Completing the topsy-turvy imagery, it was a Republican U.S. Senator, Utah’s Orrin Hatch, who said it is a “fantasy” to consider “every law you like [to be] constitutional and every Supreme Court decision you don’t [to be] ‘activist.’”

“Judicial activism or restraint is not measured by which side wins but by whether the Court correctly applied the law,” said Hatch.

He is right, of course: he’s just making the opposing team’s argument. My quarrel with the strict constructionist set (those who argue for the narrowest interpretation of the law by judges) is that their arguments often appeal to our meaner natures, and are often shrouded in language that seems to cloak disdain for common sense. The Limbaughs and Hannitys (and now apparently, Obamas) of the world who declaim against judges who legislate from the bench are ignoring the very history of the office.

As any good religious conservative can tell you, it was Moses the Lawgiver who established the office of judge, as described in the Biblical Book of Exodus. The acts of the Old Testament’s more famous jurists are detailed in the Books of Judges (I and II) and Samuel (I and II). They all paint a portrait of “activist” arbitrators, men who brought to bear the collected wisdom of a lifetime to help decide upon matters that would impact many lives and futures: the sort of judge to make Rick Santorum’s (or Rick Scott’s) blood freeze.

Aside from its Biblical antecedents, the tradition of “judicial activism” is as old as the Republic itself. America’s longest-serving Chief Justice, John Marshall, played a dominant role in the development of the nation’s legal system during his 34 years on the high court (1801-1835).

Marshall championed the principle that the courts are obligated to exercise judicial review, including discarding laws that violate the Constitution. In doing so, he cemented the judiciary’s position as an independent branch of the government.

Many of the people who throw the “activist judge” label around are really afraid of judges whose sense of “justice” may have been defined beyond the narrow context of Judeo- Christianity. As recent rulings against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8 have shown, Republican-appointed federal judges are just as susceptible to the “activist” gene as are those appointed by Democratic presidents.

As Orrin Hatch noted, activist judges are typically found in the eye of the beholder. Justice Hugo Black (served 1937-1971) argued that the Constitution’s language that Congress shall make no law [emphasis added] says just that: “no law” means “no exceptions.”

Ironically, Black’s historic legacy is as a judicial activist.

By CLIFF DUNN

 “First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out.”  -Martin Niemöller

I have this little game I enjoy playing. I can’t take credit for its invention, because it’s been played since time immemorial. It’s a variation on “what if”? In microcosm, it can take the form of “what if my boyfriend didn’t start working two doors down right around the time we met?” On a more cosmic scale, one of my faves is “what if a Confederate soldier hadn’t misplaced Robert E. Lee’s Special Order 191?” (These detailed the South’s 1862 northern invasion plans. If these orders had not been found accidentally by a Union soldier, the Confederacy might have won the Civil War three years before the Union did historically.) “What if Hitler hadn’t been born?” These questions and what-if scenarios practically write themselves.

Here’s another one, less famous: what if women had been allowed to retain the right to vote, instead of having the franchise taken away from them, as occurred historically in These United States? Lydia Chapin Taft (known as “the widow Josiah Taft”), 43, cast her first vote at a town hall meeting in Uxbridge, Massachusetts in October 1756. She is known to have cast at least two other votes.

Following the American Revolution, New Jersey was the only state to allow women the voting franchise, from 1790 to 1807. (It is tempting to imagine some fat, powderedwig- wearing, Chris Christie-clone bloviating about the need to let the men of the state decide by referendum, and how grateful the women will be to have this sort of important decision taken off of their shoulders.) Even the-then despised Latter Day Saints (Mormons) granted their Utah sisters the voting franchise in 1870, only to have the U.S. Congress roll it back in 1887 with the Edmunds-Tucker Act, which likewise outlawed polygamy (as well as the Mormon Church itself, come to think of it).

In 1917, American women who were still fighting for the right to vote compared President Woodrow Wilson to the despotic German emperor, referring to him as “Kaiser Wilson” and comparing the plight of U.S. women to that of Germans suffering under the yoke of an Imperial tyrant.

Looking back on our country’s history, I am embarrassed to point to the many examples where a Tyranny of the Majority not only kept certain rights and freedoms inaccessible to a disenfranchised minority (Jim Crow, anyone?), but actually had the audacity to take those rights away once they had been granted, if only briefly. If this isn’t “un-American,” I don’t know what is.

And yet it happened here. I wonder which of the current crop of national political candidates long for just such “good old days?”

“We hold these truths to be selfevident,” begins one of the most important passages of America’s Declaration of Independence. I understand what Jefferson meant when he wrote the phrase “self-evident,” but these days, I’m having a hard time understanding who the hell he meant by “we.”

  By CLIFF DUNN

The jury’s verdict last Friday in State of New Jersey vs. Dharun Ravi was foundational in many important ways, and gave me reason, for a change, to be grateful for the rational system of jury trials that was established under our Constitution. Having lived through the 1995 O.J. Simpson verdict, I know that this isn’t always a sure thing.

Having spent much of the past three weeks thinking my way through this case from all sides, my conclusion is that the right decision was handed down by a panel of honest citizens who, to their eternal credit, agonized over the ultimate fate of an emotionally-tortured Tyler Clementi.

Clementi was a mere 18 years old when he decided on his own that life was so not-worth-living that he would deprive his parents, family, and people who cared about him the privilege of knowing what kind of man he would grow up to become.

But the jury’s decision will resonate forever on the way in which we as a society look at bullying. These honorable men and women had to weigh the horrible consequences of Clementi’s roommate’s boorish, churlish, seemingly-incorrigible teenaged behavior with the type of man he, too, will ultimately become.

Dharun Ravi is by accounts not a bad kid, just one who is endowed with a casual homophobia that is to be heard in high school and college locker rooms as often, frankly, as it is to be heard on the streets and in the taverns of South Florida’s own gay village. “Oh my God, did you see who ‘she’ took home last night,” is a familiar refrain that may be heard to be regurgitated from one end of the Drive to the other end of Dixie on any given. Not all churlish, boorish behavior originates with the straights.

Ravi’s behavior has been chronicled so often that I need not recount his demonization of a gay roommate’s intimate encounter with a trick the latter had met online. “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with another dude. Yay,” he tweeted, and then again later, “Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 p.m. and 12. Yes it’s happening again.” Someone, somehow, had a problem with the gays.

Whatever was going through Clementi’s tortured psyche at the moment he posted on Facebook, “Jumping off the gw [George Washington] bridge sorry,” we know the end result.

Time stamps show that Clementi posted his suicide note at 8:42 p.m. on Sept. 22, 2010, four minutes before Ravi sent a 266-word apology to Clementi, at 8:46 p.m. It read in part: “I want to explain what happened Sunday night when you requested to have someone over. I didn’t realize you wanted the room in private.” Ravi attests to a lack of homophobia and a tolerance for Clementi’s sexuality: “I’ve known you were gay and I have no problem with it,” he texted Clementi. “In fact one of my closest friends is gay and he and I have a very open relationship. I just suspected you were shy about it which is why I never broached the topic. I don’t want your freshman year to be ruined because of a petty misunderstanding, its adding to my guilt.”

We don’t know if Clementi ever read Ravi’s apology, or whether it would have had—or did in fact have—any effect on the tragedy to come. We do know that Ravi, who was 18 years old at the time, was acting like any teen I’ve ever met when he deleted 86 text messages he had sent to his high school friends in the days after Clementi’s suicide, clearly an attempt to cover his tracks.

As the jury found, “boys will be boys” (and “girls will be girls”) is no longer a legal justification for inflicting mental harm and infringing upon someone’s privacy because of whom they identity as. This is foundational, and will resonate, Butterfly Effect-like, in schoolyards and in classrooms— secular and religious—until they turn the lights out.

My boyfriend has a much younger, younger brother. By the time he turns the age I now am, I will have been playing pinochle with John Adams, Dorothy Parker, and Liberace for at least half a decade. His children— regardless of whether he turns out gay or straight—will have no concept of the degree of bullying with which men of a certain age or even younger had to contend. That is seminal.

“The embarrassment of ridicule is always painful. The sting is greater when someone you hold close inflicts it. Shouldn’t the consequences be unforgiving?” asked Dean Trantalis, a local attorney and gay rights activist and advocate following the verdict.

The estimable former Vice Mayor of Fort Lauderdale was echoing the sentiments of numerous Americans, LGBT and straight, who see this as an object lesson to bullies and victims everywhere, but most especially in a nation where the rule of law prevails, rather than the rule of men, and I agree.

But Dharun Ravi, now 20 and by the reckoning of our base-10 numbering system very much a teenager, deserves, if not our sympathy, then certainly a chance at his life. He may yet turn it into something that honors what Clementi, his first victim, may have become. There are two victims of the teenaged Dharun Ravi’s bad, bad judgment. I hope the judge recommends deportation.