Anchorage as an Abusive Family

Jay left a comment on one of my LA posts. I've been relatively quiet in the last two weeks on the debate over gay rights in Anchorage mainly because I've been out of town and had other things on my mind. And other bloggers were covering the issue in depth.

But Jay's comment was like the shaft of sunlight that just broke through the clouds onto my computer screen.

As I watch Anchorage's shame this third time, over 33 years, from thousands of miles away, I just shake my head and wonder how I could have ever loved such a place. But I understand now. My love for my former home was like that of the abused child to an abusive parent. [emphasis added]

I had to leave. As to others, I think I understand. It doesn't hurt.

While other states are starting to allow gay marriage, we in Anchorage are still allowing our bully evangelical Prevo to foment hate towards those of our family whose sexual orientation is not heterosexual.

We can argue forever about the role of religion in human life. There are a number of indisputable facts about religion:

1. Different religions, different factions of the same religions even, believe they know the absolute 'truth.' And they all have different truths. And somehow they are privy to the only true truth. (And they all just 'know' they are right. Faith, not proof, is their standard.)

2. Sunni and Shia Muslims, Orthodox and Reform Jews, Mormons, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, Seventh Day Adventists, Baptists, all have adherents who find comfort in their religious beliefs.

3. Many of the first colonists to the New World from Europe came because another religious group, with power connected to the government, was persecuting them. Once they got to the new world, many of them began persecuting people of other religions.

4. Many of the world's religions including Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, Protestantism, Judaism, and Buddhism have traditionally given more value and power to men than to women. Men could vote, but women couldn't. Men were the head of the household and had the right to make important decisions. Men could be priests or rabbis or monks, but women weren't good enough.

5. Slave owners justified slavery using the Bible. They argued as fervently about how the Bible supported slavery as Prevo says the Bible supports his abuse of gays.

6. Religious leaders also were advocates AGAINST slavery and FOR civil rights and women's liberation.

7. The unscrupulous have taken advantage of the protected place of religion in American life (and in all other countries as well) to gain the power to fulfill their own twisted needs in the guise of religion. (Such people have used whatever legitimate front was most convenient to gain power on all sides of the political and religious and corporate spectrums.)

8. Many of the restrictions on Blacks and Women that once were biblically justified, have been legally overthrown in the United States and elsewhere.

9. Today that tradition of using the Bible to harass and dominate a particular class of people continues in the US as religion is used to justify the demonization of gays and lesbians. While religious leaders say, "This is different from race. This is different from gender" it is NOT different. It is people perverting religion to promote their own prejudices.

Jay's comment puts this into perspective. He was the target of this sort of hate all his life. Jay's a strong willed person who fought all his adult life against this tolerated, and, in some circles, exalted, form of hate. He and his partner Gene set up Out North Theater and made it into a vibrant and rich cultural oasis in Anchorage that dared to present ideas that were taboo in much of Anchorage. They did this in the face of hate and abuse. They did this in the face of people who denied they had the simple right to be themselves, who said that they were an abomination.

But his exile from Anchorage and his comments the other day on this blog remind us of his daily fight for his dignity, even his basic right to be himself. We have all, at some time, had someone humiliate us. Tell us we were no good, we didn't belong, we were less than others. Even if it was simply that we did poorly on an exam. We know that such shaming stings, burns, destroys part of our humanity.

Jay's comment about abuse reminds me that he lived with that humiliation every day of his life in Anchorage. Every day he lived among people who denied that he had the right to exist and be himself. And he stood up to that and convinced himself that he really was ok, good even. I know that Jay didn't always manage to control the anger that must have churned in him all the time. I know that this internalized hate broke loose at times and stunned the people around him. But for the most part he was able to channel it in constructive ways, ways that brought examples of his personal reality to Anchorage. Using Out North as their medium, he and Gene, with the help of others in the community, brought actors, performers, musicians, artists, and movies that expressed in often painful, often funny, sometimes shocking, and always enlightening ways, a reality that he knew - that he was ok, that being gay wasn't evil.

I take the last part of his comment to mean that he understands that many people don't feel the hate as he did here because they weren't the direct target of the hate. And so it is more an intellectual problem than a searing nightmare to most of us.

I understand that well right now, because of my son's recent accident. I think humans have a built-in protective device that deflects others' pain, because we couldn't survive if we didn't. I know that I normally don't react viscerally to stories of people hurt in accidents. But when I read the stories of the two bicycle accidents in the local paper this week, my body twinged and I even thought about writing a note to the families. One victim died, the other is in serious condition. And I wonder why I was so relatively lucky that my son's injuries were not life threatening and appear that they will have little lasting damage. And I hurt for the families that weren't so lucky, because that could have been us.

And all of us not the targets of Prevo's hate, need to wonder why we are so lucky and reach out to those who aren't so lucky. We must get Anchorage to recognize Prevo for what he is. A bully. A predator who is abusing members of the Anchorage family. Who is heaping hate and abuse by insisting they are abominations so evil that he must feed this garbage to his congregation and must indoctrinate young children that homosexuals are evil and that it is ok to abuse them. He may not be directly physically abusing homosexuals as some of his other religious brethren, but he most assuredly is abusing them mentally as Jay's short comment documents. And he's giving potential bullies the justification to physically abuse their gay school mates.

My understanding is that his tactics of delaying the vote on the ordinance by stuffing the assembly public testimony with people bussed in from outside of Anchorage may have worked. It seems that the Ordinance will not pass in time for Acting Mayor Matt Claman to sign it and it appears that incoming Mayor Dan Sullivan will be an accomplice to Prevo's abuse by vetoing any ordinance that is passed. I understand that the ordinance may even be withdrawn and that a different approach to protecting gays and lesbians and transgendered folk will be attempted.

My hope is that if things go in such a direction, more people can come to understand that this is simply one more attempt - in a history of such cases in the US and elsewhere - to use religion to justify the denigration of one group of people to meet some sort of perverted need by others to dominate and humiliate other human beings. I hope that while the rest of the world is moving toward allowing gay marriage, that Anchorage can, at the very least, say that discriminating based on sexual orientation will no longer be acceptable. Just as we already say it is no longer acceptable to discriminate based on race or gender.

Basically, the main goal is to say it is not acceptable to discriminate based on personal prejudice, whether it be against overweight people, people with pimples, people with tattoos or piercings. If a landlord wants to evict someone it should be because the tenant hasn't paid the rent, or has made too much noise, or has damaged the apartment. People should lose jobs because they do not perform the job at the standards specified, not for non-job related reasons.

Anchorage, let's show our better side on this issue now. Let's make Anchorage a place that will welcome Jay and Gene home warmly when they come to visit.