TIME published a great article that hits at one of the solutions I talked about in my blog post last week regarding abortion. The article promotes a style of sex-education that is balanced, sympathetic to the lived experiences of teenagers, realistic, yet still affirms the essential value of abstinence.

If a solution is ever to be found to the abortion debate, it will be found in part by programs like the one described here.

Map Update

Here's the latest update of the map I've been working on...it's of the Honbaar/Iamhamuhr region, which you can read more about here. I'm almost done with it. It's taken about five weeks to do, an hour here and there at a time. Click for a larger version.

Abortion

Note: This is from a letter I wrote to a very dear family member who asked me what I thought on the matter. I thank her for giving me the opportunity to clear my thoughts on abortion a bit.

Every abortion that occurs is a tragedy. I want to live in a society where abortion isn’t even considered an option. But sadly, we’re not there yet, and sadder still – our current public debate on abortion is a farce. Both sides of this debate have found themselves bogged down by ideological differences, distracted by high profile but irrelevant legal disputes, and manipulated by political parties and candidates more interested in perpetuating a culture war than they are in making women whole and affirming the dignity of human life.

The “partial birth” abortion controversy is but one element of the sad condition of our current debate. Partial birth abortion – itself a political term invented by a Congressman to frame the debate – is a rarely-used clinical procedure that accounts for a tiny fraction of abortions that occur. Sure it’s gruesome, but so are most other abortion procedures (as if anaesthetizing the fetus and dismembering it in the womb is any better), so you must ask yourself, if you believe that abortion is the legally-sanctioned killing of human life, why is the public debate so focused on peripheral issues, such as clinical procedures and whether or not the Department of Defense should allow abortions to take place in military hospitals?



Imagine if your house was overrun with vermin. Setting mousetraps alone is ineffective. What the house needs is a serious cleaning and perhaps some foundation repair. Our debate has become focused on the mousetraps at the expense of housecleaning. In other words, abortions (even the so-called “elective” abortions) usually don’t happen for no reason. Abortions occur because of a crisis. Even if two of the reasons listed in the chart in that link (“unready” and “can’t afford baby”) sound anodyne, they actually indicate something deeply troubling. Collectively, abortions are an indicator of a much broader social breakdown. What is happening to our women and girls in this country? And why aren’t we talking about this? Instead we are debating parental notification, litmus tests, and activist judges. Abortion is a double tragedy: an enormous amount of human potential is being sacrificed and a social breakdown affecting women in crisis is being ignored. We are fiddling while Rome burns.



I blame our political parties. I don’t think the Republicans in elected office have any desire of overturning Roe v. Wade anytime soon, because as long as abortion is legal, they can nibble away at the edges and rack up enough symbolic victories, so that they will continue to rake in the cash, having duped a lot of well-meaning if naïve people that they represent the “party of Life.” Meanwhile, abortions in America still occur in the millions. Sadly, some religious leaders in our country have bought this line, among others regarding evolution, privacy, and domestic arrangements. The result is not that a political party has become holier; on the contrary: religion has become politicized. The mundane treads upon the sacred, and there’s a word for that: blasphemy.


On the other side, Democrats have accepted the argument that abortion is intrinsic to freedom and equality, particularly as it pertains to women. Just as Republican elected officials are retained by those who believe abortion should be outlawed now, Democrats are in the thrall of those who hold true the false choice that restricting abortion (or even working to reduce its incidence within the existing legal framework) would undue all the progress we’ve made in promoting freedom and equality. Although Roe may have set a bad legal precedent (at best, abortion law should be dealt with at the state level, which was the case before Roe), it is premised on important legal assumptions – including the revolutionary idea that what consenting adults do in their bedrooms is no business of the government. It’s that privacy thing. I don’t want the government snooping around my house, and I don’t want them snooping around yours, either.

The right to privacy is an important and meaningful right, especially in the modern age. I don’t want to see it go away, and efforts to repeal Roe cause me worry that we would be back to the bad old days before Griswold v. Connecticut, which essentially affirmed the right of a person to buy birth control without government interference. But although abortion rights are related to privacy through judicial precedent, the right to an abortion is not essential to the right to privacy. Nor is it a legal standard that should be hailed as a benchmark of equality. Abortion is a tragedy, an action for which there is no turning back, and a horrible thing for a woman to go through. Instead of celebrating the "right" she has, we should be concerned about the reasons that brought her to that decision in the first place.

So, as I see it, these are the rough contours of the abortion debate. It is a debate over competing values, life and equality, that frame every public conversation we have on this issue. These values are deeply held by virtually every American -- they're the stuff our political life is made of. But debating which takes precedence is little more than a philosophical game of rock-paper-scissors. Who wins? Who doesn't support equality? Who doesn't support life? How can we build a consensus from two values that are shared but are posed in perfect opposition to one another for the sake a of a constrained and ineffective political debate?

I’m avoiding the philosophical question of whether a fetus is a living human being. While important, it’s a question subject to considerable disagreement, and that ultimately biology or religion is unable to answer to everyone's satisfaction. It is a question for scientists and theologians, not politicians.

The life/equality conflict that frames the abortion debate prevents us from solving the abortion problem. Bringing us full circle to the situation of women in crisis, even if a pro-choice person does not believe that a fetus is alive, he or she surely recognizes that a woman in crisis is indeed a terrible thing. Because of this, reducing abortions will require a grand bargain wherein all parties must agree to change the terms of debate. Conservatives will have to embrace some social reforms and maybe even government intervention to support women in crisis. Liberals will have to accept that the majority of Americans oppose elective abortions, particularly late-term abortions, where sometimes that “partial birth” approach is used. They will also have to accept and embrace certain shared values, such as strong families, responsible fatherhood, and the role of faith in shaping a communal destiny.

On the theological and philosophical question of life, everyone will have to set that aside for the sake of achieving the goal of reduced abortions. I know that sounds ugly, but, prayer and protest aside, what we are seeking is ultimately a political and social solution that will require the establishment of common ground.


So why not just hope for an outright ban, either in the form of an overturn of Roe and subsequent bans on the State level, or in the form of a Right to Life amendment in the Constitution? Setting aside the problems of using the Constitution to codify a moral statement that is subject to considerable controversy, what would a ban accomplish? It would shove the situation underground, to shady doctors, to witches' brews and wire hangers, to pro-choice states, or to foreign countries. Abortions will still occur, and women will still suffer. I suppose the Right to Life crowd would celebrate this as an enormous victory, but I see it as Pontius Pilate saw himself when Jesus Christ was sentenced to death: “When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it’” (Matthew 27:24).

In order to reduce abortions, to preserve and protect human life and the dignity and well-being of mothers, we must be willing to look at this as a question of politics, social justice, and policy. We need to be willing to support mothers, perhaps even to the extent of encouraging mothers to stay out of the workforce until their children are ready for Kindergarten. We need to be able to provide a better infrastructure to encourage adoption, which could include facilitating in-family adoptions through reduced costs or tax breaks. A mother should not have to worry about financing health care for herself or for her child. Her job and career should be protected while she is pregnant and nursing, if she chooses to go back to work. Day care should be affordable and worthy of the name. To every extent possible, teenage mothers should be protected from shame, ridicule, and abuse, whether from their peers or from their parents. Sex education should place a value on abstinence, long-term planning, and the building of a family. But educators should be realistic enough to acknowledge that kids will have sex, and some of them will get pregnant. And yes – contraception should be available to them through their school counselors. And of course: fathers should be held to account.



These proposals may run counter to the small-government conservatism that is popular among right-to-lifers, but it is nonetheless the path to reducing abortion in this country. I’m going to end with an interesting parallel: Austria, a country where abortion is legal within certain parameters, just as it is here. Our abortion rate is around 20%. Theirs is 3%. What accounts for the difference? I’m guessing it has to do with a strong pro-family culture that encourages women to stay at home with their kids, and supports them in their goal; a Catholic Church that remains a vibrant moral force in the country, support for marriage and other domestic arrangements for those who choose not to marry, and healthy social institutions that provide a safety net for women and children in crisis.

More Information Than You Ever Wanted to Know on Honoleo

The below is a quick summary I wrote on Honoleo. For more information on my imaginary land, go here, here, or here.

The Modern history of Honoleo begins in 1836, when a prince deposed his father from the Sharkhan Throne and promoted a vision of a democracy across Honoleo. His vision was too soon to be practicable, as the British were busy pursuing control of India and Honoleo at the time, and the country was riven by religious strife and various smaller kingdoms, each vying for control.

Gradually the Free State of Honoleo gained traction, first through the Treaty of Salden and later through the establishment of a constitution that blended aspects of British and American government, ratified in 1840.

At two times in the nation's history (1889-1903 and 1928-1938), the ostensibly democratic governments were overthrown by the elites in the country who were concerned about stability and order, and afraid that the Free State was ill-equipped to deal with a fractious and slow-moving democratic system.

In 1925, Nishar Adimur sent a delegation to the World Congress of the Communist International, an act that enraged many of the traditional elites in Honoleo. The Taesianh followed up by electing one of the members of the delegation, Ason Tanhuri, to succeed Adimur as the nation's Amushara (magistrate) in 1926. While Tanhuri never called himself a Bolshevik, his relationship with communists in Honoleo was too close for the comfort of the military and the nation's political elite. A cabal of (predominantly Christian) businessmen, general officers of the military, leading nationalist academics and politicians deposed Tanhuri. For the remaining ten years, Honoleo was ruled formally by an "emergency committee" called the State Restoration and Development Council, headed by Darius Chaldan. The SRDC reined in inflation, increased employment, and fed a hungry Honolean war machine as the nation withstood an attempted Japanese invasion and later joined the Allies in World War II. The SRDC also attracted all sorts of nationalist, fascist insticts in Honoleo, and embedded state corporatism into Honolean governance for decades. Although the SRDC promulgated a new constitution for a reformulated republic in 1938 (The Federated Commonwealths of Honoleo), the emergency committee remained in force as a shadow government until mounting civil unrest and political pressure led to its dissolution on 10 December 1949. Thus, many liberals celebrate this date as the true birth of Honoleo's democracy.

Honolean politics from 1950 through 1977 was defined by three themes: expansion of the welfare state, strident anticommunism, and Honolean nationalism. What is now known as Northern Honoleo was up until the mid-1930's a series of states, kingdoms, and tribal domains that was united in a Bolshevik-inspired revolution in 1936, giving rise to the Lean People's Republic. The LPR was a radical communist regime that was a persistent threat to the FCH, as both nations shared the nationalist ambition to unite the entire subcontinent under one flag - a dream that had been pursued by Honolean emperors for centuries. Dealing with the LPR was the dominant political issue of this era. It drove the FCH to seek ever closer ties with the United States although it pursued a social-democratic ideology akin to Europe. The FCH became a player in the cold war with the development of a secret nuclear arsenal. A bloody war launched in 1972 and a coup d'etat in the LPR resulted in the LPR's disollution in 1978. Honoleo was formally united on 4 October 1980.

Although communism was defeated in Honoleo in 1978, various chancellors found themselves mired in continuing conflicts throughout the 1980's, especially in Burma, where Honoleo engaged in a dirty war against drugrunners, guerillas, and terrorists in the northwest provinces of their neighbor. To this day, the FCH and Burma struggle to maintain normalcy in their bilateral relations.
The Honoleans were war-weary and threw out a conservative Chancellor, replacing him with the man responsible for bringing the LPR and the FCH together, Dahn Pishen.
Aside from two years in the early 1980's, the leftist Solidarity Union dominated the Honolean Chancery from 1958 to 1992. The more strident democratic socialism of the 1950-1972 era gave way to a more market-oriented, populist politics shared by the left and right in Honoleo. The economy grew significantly in this time, and Honoleo joined the club of the worlds richest nations in 1984. Due to years of political stability and a massive investment in health, education, and infrastructure, the FCH came to enjoy the same economic miracle that played out in Japan and Korea and, later, China.

The Restoration Coalition, the conservative umbrella organization that emerged out of the SRDC ended Solidarity's dominance beginning in the mid 1980's. By 1994, Restoration regained the Chancery. Honoleo's economy soared through the first half of the decade, and was even able to withstand the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Despite that, the 1990's also brought a rise in Islamist terror and a labour crisis that erupted into prolongued episodes of street violence. The late 1990's brought some labour reforms to the FCH, which had some harsh anti-labour laws on the books (a holdover from anticommunist politics that dominated the country for over 60 years). A full suite of labour reforms were not passed until 2003.

Restoration barely won the 2000 Chancery election, and Solidarity was making inroads into the Darsianh (parliament) and Taesianh (Senate) at the time. In 2002, the government committed troops to support the United States in its military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, a move that proved highly unpopular.

In 2004, Honoleans gave the Chancery back to the Solidarity coalition. A bruising primary exposed a deep ideological rift within the Solidarity movement, pitting a strident liberal against a centrist supported by the nation's political elite. The liberal won the primary, and eventually won the national election in an unprecedented first-round ballot. Solidarity's campaign for quality education, inter-religious dialogue, security from terrorism, environmental reforms, and a sovereign foreign policy spoke to the deep-seated concerns of much of the Honolean electorate.

In the next decade, Honoleans will confront the challenges of remaining competitive in a dramatically weakened world economy through education, economic development, and innovation; paying for a growing pensioner population; regional instability and terrorism; integrating a fast-growing and predominantly Muslim immigrant community; and environmental protection.

A note on culture and religion: Culture, religion, and politics go hand in hand in Honoleo. One racial group, the Chaganese, have historically dominated Honoleo's politics, economy, and intelligentsia. The Chaganese descend from the Mughals and Talmids (and ultimately the Persians). The Chaganese are monotheists, generally, and a large minority are Christian. Thus, they benefited the most from British, French, and Portuguese occupations. The Chaganese dominated the other two principle cultures in Honoleo: the eponymous Hon and Lean peoples. The Hon have share an ancestry with Malays and Thais; the Lean are an Indo-Iranian offshoot, as are the Chaganese. There are also major Hindi, Punjabi, and Chinese populations native to Honoleo.

Myriad religions are present in Honoleo. The Chaganese have a native sect, Jahanism, a syncretic, monotheistic faith that is centuries old. Jahanis and Christians dominate much of Honoleo's cultural elite. Hololeo has significant Buddhist and Hindu populations. Honoleo also has the world's largest population of Baha'is.

There are significant numbers of Muslims in Honoleo, and Muslims have emerged as the critical constituency in national elections. Indeed, Muslims have formed the core of Honoleo's small business economy for centuries -- they are the merchant class. Muslims tend to have a disproportionate burden of the nation's low-paying jobs. In the early 20th century, Muslims in the merchant-class tended to segregate themselves from the poorer Muslim congregations. Eventually, an organization called the Society of Reformed Scholars came to dominate the Islam practiced by Honoleo's middle class. The SRS was the first major Islamic group to name women as imams, and came to be a staunch defender of democracy and multiculturalism. This put them at odds with the rest of Honolean Islam, which was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood movements throughout central Asia. Iranian and Saudi clerics went so far as to declare the SRS a heresy. Radical Islam has found a voice in Honoleo, especially in poor and distressed areas, as it has elsewhere in Asia.

Imagination, Part III

Last September, I posted a small piece on this blog about a lifelong hobby of mine: the detailed study of a country called Honoleo (see the map by following the link).

So this last weekend, I finally did something I've wanted to do for a long time...but I have lacked the skills and time to do so: I drew a regional map in Adobe Illustrator, based on sketches and notes I've taken over the years.

Here it is (click for larger version):



This map is of the Honbaar/Iamhamuhr region. Honbaar (population 18 million) is Honoleo's most populous city, and Iamhamuhr is the nation's capital. This roughly 6,000 square mile region is home to over 30 million people, making it one of the world's most populous urban regions. Originally an Amnaean fishing village, Honbaar was seized by the British East India Company in 1737, and the town was redeveloped into a port city -- Lancaster. Renamed Honbaar in 1912 upon its return to the Honolean Republic, it grew and industrialized rapidly. In the last 50 years, Honbaar has become a center of trade, industry and finance in South Asia. It is a prosperous, diverse, and extraordinarily vibrant city. Like many Asian cities, the divide between rich and poor is extreme.

Iamhamuhr (population 5 million) is the second largest city in the region. Unlike Honbaar, which sits on marshy flatlands and an estuary, Iamahmuhr is in the foothills of the Pashan Tazhid Mountains. Traditionally used as a summer retreat by the Honolean emperors, Iamhamuhr was designated Honoleo's political capital (the Imperial capital remains at Saebaan) in 1912, the same year that Honbaar was returned to Honoleo. Iamhamuhr, at least initially, was a master-planned capital city. But it too grew rapidly, spilling over into the surrounding valleys.

Shahansarkhindi and Toru Inkateran are the population centers of the Inkaterani Raj region, in the Commonwealth of Northern Honoleo. Connected to Honbaar by regional trains, they function as suburbs of Honbaar. Due to Northern Honoleo's favorable tax climate, these cities have become centers of Honoleo's manufacturing industry in the last fifteen years, and are home to the largest concentration of automobile manufacturing jobs in the nation. Together, these cities are home to 5 million people.

This is still, of course, a work in progress. I'm still working on the map. I've been surprised at how long it's taken me to do. Rather than creating a fantasy or science fiction world, which has its own constraints but is unbound by our reality, I've found myself trying to create something as plausible as I possibly can. It's been an interesting process. The map is an effort to produce something as realistic as possible. The above image is my first real crack at it after years of thinking about it. I'm happy to share it with you.

Do the Right Thing

In the wake of Proposition 8's passage in California, lesbian and gay people have certainly had an impact in the public arena. You've seen on the news protests, rallies, and marches staged across the country by those of us who seek to achieve equal rights so that we may enjoy the financial and emotional stability in our relationships that can only come with some form of legal recognition. Some of these protests have been directed at churches and people of faith, while others have focused on our courthouses, city halls, statehouses, and capitols. On Saturday, my partner, my sister, my nephew, and I attended a rally for equality at Salt Lake City Hall. I was proud to see so many people of our generation stand up in solidarity with us as we continue the process of seeking legal recognition for our relationships. For those of you who attended or who have supported us through all this, thank you so much, and we love you and are so grateful for your solidarity.

Our words and actions were peaceful -- sure there was anger, and we are right to be angry, but I think I speak for many of us when I say the mood was hopeful and optimistic, because I feel that justice will prevail in the end. But it will take the work of all of us to make it happen.

Some of the protests have been aimed at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While I understand and sympathize with the anger that has been directed at them for their strident support of the proposition, and the near insistence that their members donate time and money to the cause, I do not feel the directing wrath at a religious institution is effective or appropriate. Certainly any violence aimed at a religious group undermines our message of freedom and equality. But there is something we can do -- we can undertake a constructive effort to change the law in this great State, by working in dialogue with the LDS Church. Below is a quote from a recent Equality Utah email:

"Throughout the recent election cycle, the LDS Church has demonstrated its willingness to participate in political issues by asking its members to do all they can do, including donating their means and their time, to support California's Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution and eliminated gay couples right to marry by defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

The LDS Church has articulated it is not "anti-gay" but rather pro-marriage and it "does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights." On November 5th, Elder L. Whitney Clayton stated the LDS Church does not oppose "civil unions or domestic partnerships." In response to these statements, Equality Utah is drafting legislation for the 2009 General Session of the Utah Legislature to address each of the issues mentioned by the LDS Church."

To me, this is the essence of the issue. Robert and I have been together for more than 9 years. In that time, we have bought a home, shared in the expense of a car, dealt with medical emergencies, invested, and experienced all the joys and agonies that any couple, gay or straight, who lives together is bound to experience over time. Yet we have none of the rights that can be obtained with a simple $50 marriage license. We can work with estate attorneys to assemble a series of legal structures that provide a thin approximation of the legal protections afforded by a marriage license, but at great expense -- in some cases $3,000 or more.

I think we need to take the LDS Church and others at their word, and pursue the recognition of equal rights in the State of Utah. Five bills will be presented in the Utah State Legislature this winter that will address the injustices we face, economic and moral. One of these bills will establish a system of civil unions in the State, so that Rob and I and others like us could gain the legal protections we deserve as a couple -- since we face all the health, financial, and legal risks currently.

The LDS Church has indicated that they will not stand in the way of civil unions, and I think the time has come to achieve this in the State of Utah. Even those of you who may be reluctant to allow same-sex marriages can appreciate the fundamental economic and social justice issues we face because we have NO legal recourse. I need your help to make this change in Utah. For those of you who live in our great State, I suggest two things:

1. Sign this on-line petition from Equality Utah:

2. Write your State Representative and Senator. I can help you find them if you don't know. Also write the incoming Speaker of the House, David Clark, the incoming Senate President Mike Waddoups, and Governor Huntsman. Tell them it's time to recognize that equal rights and equal protection under the law do not challenge anyone's values.

Here are their addresses:

Rep. David Clark: 1831 RED MOUNTAIN, SANTA CLARA, UT 84765
Sen. Mike Waddoups: 2868 West. Matterhorn Dr. West Jordan UT 84084
Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.: PO Box 142220 Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-2220

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter.

Love,

Frank

Thanks, Your Excellency

Today, Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn had this to say about people who vote for Obama:

"Give consideration to your eternal salvation, because to vote for a person who has expressed a fanatical determination to not only support abortion as it exists now but to remove all limitations on it through the Freedom of Choice Act and to extend it without any recourse, throwing out all the efforts of the citizens over the last thirty five years to place reasonable limits on abortion -- that you, by voting for a person who has expressed his determination to do this to Planned Parenthood, to NARAL, that we are -- you make yourself a participant in the act of abortion. That's gravely wrong, and you mustn't do it because your eternal salvation is tied up with that important choice."

I abhor abortion, and I want desperately to inhabit a society where abortion is seen as unnecessary. I consider myself pro-life, although I distance myself from the abortion debate in this country, because is geared more toward cynically driving elections than actually reducing abortions and improving the lives of women in difficult circumstances.

But what Bishop Finn is saying is beyond the pale: I am a concerned voter in America, who is too young to vote on a single issue. The issues at play in this election effect the health, economic well-being, and security of millions of Americans...myself, my friends and family, my nieces and nephews.

In the past seven years, America has been beset by one catastrophe after another. In this time, our President has fought a war in Iraq, killing and displacing millions and engendering a deep hatred in a new generation of Muslims, while the real fight needed to be fought in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Worse, the war was planned and prosecuted in the shadows of the executive branch, without appropriate oversight from Congress. We allowed the executive branch to torture, to incarcerate indefinitely without charge, and to wiretap on citizens. We've condoned the politicization of U.S. Attorneys and the Department of Justice. We made a mockery of FEMA, and the Gulf Coast was permanently scarred in the process. While we were careening toward economic collapse, our President sent us checks in the mail and encouraged us to shop more. That, Your Excellency, is sin.

I want a change, a profound and dramatic change for the better. From the outset, I believe Barack Obama has made a sounder case for better change than has McCain. I totally respect those who believe differently, and I even respect and sympathize with those who vote on the single issue of abortion. They are making a choice based upon the deepest of convictions, although they have been cynically manipulated by their party to turnout in elections because of it. Nevertheless, after what we've gone through in the last several years, to suggest I am teetering on the edge of damnation because I'm voting for a party and a president that supports Roe v. Wade is galling and unconscionable. A Catholic of a bygone era might call Bishop Finn's statement a "reductio ad absurdum."

For a Catholic prelate to instruct his flock to ignore the massive and categorical errors that have taken place in our public life in the past seven years in order to attain salvation is irresponsible, and it tethers the Church too closely to cynical, partisan politics. Shame on him.

I am a Catholic. I am also an American. I am asked to step into a voting booth and make a decision. These decisions never come easily to me, because I take this process seriously and reverently. My decision is made, on balance, because I think it's what's best for the country (not just for me, or for Joe the Plumber, or unborn babies). I will not have my faith and my salvation challenged on those grounds by a bishop in a battleground state.

I love my Church, and I've been in a lovers' quarrel with my Church. I feel marginalized. I can do or say little, publicly, in my Church community for fear that I will be perpetrating "public scandal." I have abided for a decade in hopes that the Church could move to a place where I could have a reasonable conversation about grace, faith, love, sin and redemption. Instead of moving forward, my Church is regressing. A Catholic priest in California, presumably celibate, was relieved of his ministries for speaking out against Proposition 8 and sharing with his congregation that he is gay. How am I, a devout gay Christian, supposed to react? I've asked this question hundreds of times, and I've gotten hundreds of different answers, none of which are sufficient.

A common thread in many of those answers is "sit down, shut up, and pray." Yet I also know the unique blessings and burdens that God has endowed me with, and I know that I need to use them to bring light and peace into the world. That's my job. And while I do pray, I will not sit down and I will not shut up. That is not what God wants of me.

OK so that was quite a tangent, but the point is this: I've spent over a decade trying to understand my unique role in the Body of Christ as a gay Christian. I've also tried to discern my place in the Roman Catholic Church. As if that wasn't enough, some Bishop decides that if I vote for Obama, I'm going to Hell.

Your Excellency, you're NOT helping.

The Vox Civitatis Election Projection - Update

My prediction: voter turnout will exceed 130 million, with Barack Obama getting 52 percent (at least 67 million votes), and McCain getting 47 percent. It will be somewhere between a blowout and a nail-biter. Virginia will turn, North Carolina won't. Obama will get in the neighborhood of 311 electoral votes



One thing we have to remember is that voters turned out in extraordinary numbers to vote in the contested primary. There's absolutely no evidence to suggest that McCain will sluice off signifgant numbers of disgruntled democrats, except in idiosyncratic West Virginia. On the contrary, Obama (and Wall Street and Palin) brought the Hillary democrats home. Given the enthusiasm in the primaries, Obama's extant ground game (*because* of those primaries, in many cases), and the general partisan ID/voter registration advantages the democrats have, I'm assured of an Obama victory. It would have been a total rout, but one thing Sarah Palin did was ensure at least the standard GOP turnout.


credit: Pollster.com

A friend shared this graph with me earlier today, that essentially explains why Obama is in a better position than either Kerry in 2004 or Gore in 2000. Is a McCain win still possible? Sure, but only barely. McCain will have to count on Obama's turnout machine to fail...and, having been tested more than 50 times during the primaries, I'm sure it will not fail.

The Vox Civitatis Election Projection - Update

Here's my updated electoral college projection:



Again -- just based on a hunch. I see Obama expanding his map, and of the two "red" states I listed in my original map (not the best case scenario), I think Ohio and Nevada are the most likely to switch over. Why? Well, Ohio's polling shows strength for Obama, and reports about an outrageously good ground game and initial successes with early voting suggest he is more likely to win the state than McCain. Nevada may tip because of Obama's emerging strength with Hispanic voters. They have in essence left the GOP, although they supported Bush in significant numbers.

It's looking great for for the gentleman from Illinois. It's becoming increasingly difficult for McCain to change the game, but he sure is trying. I think McCain's redistribution/socialism canard and lingering doubts about preparedness, exacerbated by Biden's comment about Obama being "tested" within six months of assuming office, are having some effect in national polling. Still, I feel it's too little, too late. I'll update again on Friday afternoon.

An Update on That Map

I've always felt that this election could go one of three ways, ranked from high probability to low: Obama wins the election narrowly, Obama wins huge, or McCain wins the election narrowly.

All evidence suggests that voter turnout will be huge this year. I think something is happening, the question is...what? Could it be an Obama surge? Could it be an anti-Obama countersurge? My hunch is it's both.

The Washington Post gives us a clue. The polls are clearly suggesting an Obama blowout. I'm not sure I believe it, just yet. But, digging into the polls reveals the signs that make me wonder if my second scenario - Obama winning huge - may bear out in time. The numbers behind the numbers suggest that Palin has (rightly) become a massive liability to McCain's prospects. Obama has become the more trusted person to lead in a time of crisis, is more trusted on the economy, and is almost at parity with McCain on the question of who would be the best in terms of foreign policy.

But increasingly, regardless of what the polls say, the game now becomes one of strategy. The Republicans have a vaunted voter-identification and turnout effort. It is largely grass-roots and religious folks play a big part in generating turnout in critical areas of the country. It's what puts Ohio and Florida, and even Pennsylvania, in play for the GOP. In the past, the Democrats have had a difficult time competing with this infrastructure. Now, Obama's campaign believes they can. Some people say it's untested, but I disagree. In the course of the primaries, Obama had some 50 trial runs at inspiring turnout...he was quite successful overall. Some anecdotal evidence suggests the GOP ground game isn't there this year, but I can't say for sure that it is.

If the GOP ground game has collapsed, then the electoral college map will look like this. You can call it my best scenario:



This doesn't depend on Obama's performance. This is all about the GOP's turnout at this point. I think there is so much enthusiasm for Obama that it does threaten to overwhelm the GOP in most states where Obama is remotely competitive. On the other hand, I think the GOP is still a sleeping giant. We are still a center-right nation, and the infrastructure that has served Republicans so well in the last two elections is still in place. The question is can they mobilize this time around? It's a fair question given the state of affairs in our country...but I'm not willing to count the GOP out just yet. So my map below stands as my best guess for the outcome of this race, with the following caveat: if the GOP really falls flat, which is definitely possible, we'll see an outcome like the one above.

The Vox Civitatis Electoral College Scenario

In brief, I see a much narrower Obama victory than most pollsters are projecting at the moment. Despite the seeming groundswell of support for Barack Obama, we are still a 50/50 country, with a decided center-right lean. Nonetheless, Virginia and Colorado may go Obama's way owing to his successful get-out-the-vote efforts in urban and suburban areas. This is Obama's hidden strength, and will be manifest by his overwhelming advertising and this is also where McCain's organizational weaknesses will show up. But for all the talk of Ohio and Florida turning, I'm not so sure at this point. Ohio has proven resistant to Obama's surge in other battleground states, and Central Florida's conservative core along with senior citizens will probably break for McCain come election day.

What do you think? I'll update this scenario as we move closer to the election. Let the games begin!

Something Ugly

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

-- Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, 1861.

When Abraham Lincoln assumed the Presidency, the nation was staring headlong into civil war. The urgency of the occasion compelled the newly inaugurated president to use the occasion of his first address to appeal to the better angels of our nature to strive for unity and peace in the land. This idea, that we Americans have "better angels", defines our sense of patriotism and cultivates the notion that we are an exceptional nation, gifted with great attributes, and burdened with great obligations. Our founders crafted a nation on a series of ideals, the first of it's kind in the world and perhaps still the world's best manifestation of a state premised on a set of values, rather than a tribe or religion. But it was Lincoln who, by pen and by sword, reified our national values into a set of guiding principles for a modern nation state.

If you're wondering why I'm so troubled by the direction this nation has taken since 2000, it is simply because our leaders have so systematically ignored or even dismantled the values and guiding principles that previous generations have spilled so much blood and treasure for. Between selling a war premised on lies, condoning and abetting torture, profligate spending and incompetent fiscal management, cronyism, arrogating illegal powers to the executive branch, and blithely disregarding good government, the Bush Administration has failed this country, eroded the public trust, undermined the Constitution, and cheapened the public debate.

As a student of government, and as a public servant, I am appalled at what has happened. Rather than calling forth the better angels of our nature, our leaders have summoned forth some pretty dark demons. We are now reaping what they have sown. Our economy is in a tailspin. Our efforts in Afghanistan are on the verge of being lost, and in Iraq we've lowered expectations to the point that victory as defined today would have been unrecognizable three years ago. With an unstable Pakistan, and an Iran and North Korea recommitted to weapons of mass destruction, I am hard pressed to say how the world is a safer and more secure place now than it was on the 10th of September, 2001.

Say what you will about Barack Obama, at least he has consistently acknowledged these truths about the state of our union. We stand in a moment in history that demands sobriety and seriousness in our leaders and an honest and strong commitment to improve our state of affairs. I am supporting Obama because he has shown a seriousness in his commitment to leading the executive branch. For me, it's not so much about ideology, and I certainly don't believe he is the Messiah, contra Rush Limbaugh and the right wing noise machine. I respect and admire his earnestness, his understanding of the proper role of the executive branch, his temperament, and his knack at surrounding himself with good advisers, something that even David Brooks pointed out.

I think most Americans are with me on this, and this is why the polling is moving in his direction presently:



Amazingly, as their presidential campaign has progressed, the GOP has doubled down on Bush's disregard for real statecraft. Most noteworthy is the choice of Sarah Palin as Vice President, a politician patently unqualified for the office she seeks. Instead of attempting to right this perception, Palin uses her egregious incuriosity and her insouciance about our glorious and diverse world to bolster her Hockey Mom/Joe Six Pack bona fides. Incredibly, she turned her inability to properly answer a follow-up question into a critique on the alleged filter of the "media elite." Also amazing is her refusal to submit to a press conference.

But in other ways, too, the McCain campaign has shown a shocking disregard for the urgent issues of the day. His campaign manager claimed that issues are irrelevant in this campaign, and that it would be based on character. Subsequently, the campaign has launched a fusillade of attacks on Obama's character, challenging him for associating with William Ayers, a radical who led a terror campaign against the federal government in the '60s and '70s, destroying property and killing a police officer in the process. Despite the fact that he has been rehabilitated into the very society he sought to damage, he is at worst unrepentant or at best equivocal about the things he did. Fine; but rather than attempting to tie this association to Obama's policies or to any aspect of his record (which is incredibly deep), the McCain campaign seems to be satisfied by mentioning the association and letting the crowd at rallies shout out things like "terrorist!", "kill him!" or "off with his head!" This has become a major feature of his campaign in the last few days, despite a deteriorating economy and a host of problems festering around the world.

When McCain denounces the use of Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, with the motive force of an epithet, yet tolerates that use by his warm-up speakers, again to get a crowd riled up, I have a hard time taking the McCain campaign seriously. It's a joke. Unfortunately, it's a dangerous joke. Watch the video below to see what some at McCain's rallies take away from all this:



I know that people at rallies tend to be partisan and get worked up, but this stuff is quite dangerous, especially considering the likely outcome of this election will put the GOP into the position of the loyal opposition. How can Obama and the democrats build an effective coalition through possibly years of crisis when the meme of "terrorist" and "evil Muslim" take root among the opposition? McCain's silence on this issue, and willingness to blow a dog whistle to rile up the racists and bigots in the land, is truly revolting. McCain and Palin are not racists, but their cynicism is nurturing racism, religious bigotry, and fear of the other. In the absence of strong and well thought policies, which is something the GOP has not been overly concerned with in the last decade, this is all they have, and this is why I can't support them.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote of the ugliness that is becoming more prevalent at McCain/Palin rallies. It's worth a read.

For the first time in my life, I see my country in a very precarious spot. Now is not the time to amplify divisions in this country based on hatred and mistrust. Now is not the time to reward a sophomoric approach to government. Now is not the time to sustain an ever-growing and unconstitutional executive branch. This is why I can't vote for McCain and Palin. Their campaign is a dangerous, reckless joke that has spawned something ugly in the public arena. I'm voting for Obama, not with the highest of expectations, but with conviction that he will take seriously the task he is given, and work to rebuild a responsive and effective national government. I also intend to vote for him in the hope that we can move beyond the last eight years and again be touched by the better angels of our nature.

Imagination, Part II

Earlier this summer, I put out a post called Imagination, describing the idea behind geofiction. Having grown up, I created my own example of geofiction: a place called Honoleo. It's stayed with me all these years and I've just had a chance to finish a revised map of the place, using Adobe Illustrator.

Here it is...just a start. Hopefully as I learn how to use the software I'll make successive maps more detailed and interesting. Rather than explain it all, I think I'll leave it hear for you to imagine, or to ask me any questions. Have fun!

Making Sense of Sarah, Part V: Vice President?

In the course of the last few weeks, I've spoken my peace about Sarah Palin here on Vox Civitatis. To conclude, while she clearly has some impressive qualities -- including a latent ability to inspire and mobilize constituents central to McCain's chances at success in this election, a demonstrated ability to move rapidly from City Councilwoman to Mayor to State Oil Commissioner to Governor, a compelling story (she, like Obama, derived political power without the benefit of a pedigree) and, most importantly, her admirable (at least by the face of it) motherhood and family life.

So at some level I'm proud of her for making it as far as she has, and I admire her ability to at once break barriers while still respecting some of the deepest-held social values in our Country. It's that kind ability to find balance in the seeming complexity in life that I find admirable in people, and it bodes well for good political leaders.

Unfortunately, she is unfit for the office she seeks. Her career as Mayor and Governor is a case study in authoritarianism, cronyism, an inability to keep her private grievances private, profligate spending, lies (at least twelve odd lies, according to Andrew Sullivan), profligate spending, and, as evidenced by her responses to the rape test kits and the book censorship question, a blithe indifference about the finer points of governance and an attenuated sense of the constitutional and moral obligations of public office. McCain asked us to look at her record. I did, and I don't like what I see. What I don't like doesn't have much to do about ideology; it has to do with process, with the day-to-day act of governing, and with the set of principles that guides and nurtures quality leadership. These issues are not partisan, and no party can claim a monopoly on them. Good leadership is a self-evident characteristic, and I just don't see it in Sarah Palin.

These happen to be the things that matter to me, since I was a student of government and I have since dedicated my life to public service. My complaints are arcane and academic, but they matter to me because it's the world I live in, day-to-day. And, you know, it's not like this world doesn't matter. The next President and Vice President will inherit a vast bureaucracy, and recent history shows that Vice Presidents have significant influence over how that bureaucracy functions.

Based on Palin's leadership style as evidenced by her career, I shudder to think of her a heartbeat away. She may be a fantastic mother, and that plays a major part in her success in the national arena. But being a good mother and being a good statesman require different skill sets. It's a mistake to conflate the two.

In the last few weeks, it has emerged, also, that Sarah Palin is frankly, ill equipped for the task she is asking us to give her. She's held three sit-down interviews and has had no other press availability other than answering the odd question shouted from a reporters' pool. Her interviews (the only chance the nation has gotten so far to see her respond to substantive issues) have been train-wrecks. Rather than detail them out to you, I offer a few clips below. Suffice to say she relies heavily on the anodyne talking points of her party, goes to great and painful lengths to avoid specifics, and is skilled at saying so much


Watch CBS Videos Online


(the last 30 seconds is very revealing)



her interviews are breathtakingly bad, and reminds me of the times when I was a high school debater, being asked in a round a question that I was woefully unprepared to answer. This is the sense I get from Sarah Palin on the national stage. While I don't think she's a slouch, I think her range of experience (and, frankly, interest) is so limited that it renders her substantively unqualified for the the office she seeks.

Politically, I see the appeal of having Palin on McCain's ticket. It may yet rescue his campaign. But I am astounded at how ill-conceived this pick is, from the standpoint of actually running a country. Either McCain didn't know about Sarah Palin's shortcomings, which we are just now learning about, or he didn't care. Either way, it does not instill confidence in me that he will make a good President. In fact, quite the opposite. Looking at the choice of Sarah Palin in the broader context of the other rash, impulsive choices McCain has made to shake up his campaign time and time again calls into question whether or not McCain himself is temperamentally suited for the job. If he isn't, he and Palin will make quite a pair if they take office.

Andrew Seconds That

Andrew Sullivan posted an email I sent to him earlier today, making the point I made in the post immediately below. Cool huh?

Leadership in a Crisis.

A few years ago, my house got broken into in the middle of my term in grad school. I was still expected to turn in my homework on time. McCain should debate.

If McCain were a rational candidate wanting to demonstrate leadership in a time of crisis, he would simply suggest refocusing Friday's debate on economic issues, and holding it in Washington, D.C., so that he and Senator Obama could be present on the hill for a vote if one were to be called. Alas, he's yet again demonstraited a callow, vainglorious attitude in his campaign for the Presidency by dramatically suspending his candidacy and calling for a postponement of the debate while Congress debates the bailout package. It's part of a pattern that does not instill confidence in his ability to steadily guide a nation through crisis.

By one account, a deal is almost sealed anyway, and there's a legitimate question as to whether two senators whose presence would inevitably politicize the process more than it's been politicized already, would even help.

All this shows me is that he's demonstrably unfit for the job. I'm voting for the candidate who acts like an adult.

Don't Cry for Me, Alaska

Image credit: Reuters

Today, from the Associated Press...

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Less than a week after balking at the Alaska Legislature's investigation into her alleged abuse of power, Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday indicated she will cooperate with a separate probe run by people she can fire."

This lede is clearly dripping with contempt, but understandably so. I still have yet to write my concluding thoughts on Sarah Palin, but the AP's sentence captures the central thrust: that far from being a maverick or a reformer, Sarah Palin is mercurial, cavalier, opaque in the management of her public affairs, and frankly just not attuned to the unique burdens and obligations that come with elected office in our Republic. If the lede were written about a dusty former Soviet Republic or a benighted African kleptocracy, we'd either laugh, roll our eyes, or shake our heads, knowing such behavior is to be expected. Alas, this is the United States of America.

We The People

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

-- Section 8 of the draft legislation on the financial bailout working its way around Congress as I write this.

Almost $1 trillion of our national wealth may get wiped away without the slightest bit of oversight, review, transparency, or accountability. Whose country is this?

One of the saddest, most distressing legacies of the Bush years is the unprecedented and reckless expansion of the executive branch in ways that preclude judicial review, congressional oversight, transparency, or respect to our nation's founding principles.

The Bullwinkle Election

“Sarah knows how to field-dress a moose. I know how to castrate a calf. Neither of those things has anything at all to do with this election. But since we know so much about Sarah’s special skills, I wanted to make sure you knew about mine too,”

-- Iowa's Liutenant Governor, Patty Judge, on Sarah Palin.

Making Sense of Sarah, Part IV: Governor

Photo note: Palin in Kuwait. Big lies and small lies...Palin's people initially reported that she had been to four foreign countries: Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq. All were visited on an official visit as Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard. Turns out that Ireland was a refueling stop, and she never left the plane. Today the campaign admitted that she made it to a border crossing in Kuwait but was not given the permissions to cross into Iraq. After a big lie, repeated over and over again, the small lies begin to matter.

Palin’s trajectory from mayor to governor was quick and auspicious. In 2002, she mounted a bold outsider bid for Lieutenant Governor, but lost out to a better-funded and better-connected politician. According to Politico, her loss was quite auspicious, as her would-be running mate, Frank Murkowski, would later appoint his own daughter to the United States Senate seat when he moved to Juneau, and would later be embroiled in his own corruption scandal.

Term-limited out of a job, Palin took a position with the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and shortly after her appointment, she blew the whistle on one of the commissioners. This action enhanced her credibility with the State Republican Party worried about its long-term electoral prospects and fixed her reputation from her time as Wasilla mayor as a reformer and a change agent. In 2006, she defeated Murkowski easily in the GOP primary soon thereafter became Alaska’s youngest and first female Governor.

Her time as governor is now well documented, and the investigative pieces by the Washington Post and the New York Times are worth a read. They paint a picture of a Governor who is willing to break some china in the pursuit of her causes (which, by the way, can be a good thing in a leader), but the articles bring to light some darker issues. The Times piece indicates that Palin hired extensively from her network of high school friends, including Franci Havemeister, appointed to head Alaska’s Agriculture Department. Havemeister was a realtor in her previous life, and cited her “love of cows” as a qualification for running the department.

The accusations of cronyism are certainly not unique to her. Our current President has raised cronyism and hackery to new heights in the modern era. But examples like Palin’s cow-loving Agriculture director raises a question that you will see raised over and over again in the remaining weeks of this campaign: isn’t this at odds with her carefully cultivated image as a maverick and a reformer?

During her time as Governor, Palin worked closely with Alaska’s congressional delegation in pursuing federal earmarks for state projects. On a per capita basis, Alaska’s earmark haul was well in excess of any other state in the Union, at over $500 a person. The video below explains it – and yes, it includes pigs.



Going into deeper detail, the AP does a handy fact check on Palin’s earmark record. Granted, earmarks have reduced significantly under her watch, but $200 million in a fiscal year is still a great many earmarks. Furthermore, the McCain-Palin campaign has consistently promoted her as a determined earmark reformer, but her record as Governor undercuts this claim. Again, politicians play this game all the time, but Palin is selling herself as something entirely different, and has asked us to judge her on the criteria that she herself set. So be it. Now let’s talk about that bridge!



Palin’s repeated claim that that she said “thanks, but no thanks, to that Bridge to Nowhere” has turned out to be a lie. Not just a typical politician white misstatement, but a really massive lie – that, astonishingly she has repeated several times since almost every major media outlet called her on it. This rises to the level of a major issue because of her insistence on making that claim in her stump speeches, as recently as yesterday.

What makes this lie all the more remarkable was that Congress effectively killed the Bridge to Nowhere before Sarah Palin even became governor, and she pressed hard to get a less grandiose version of the project resurrected. When her efforts failed, she still managed to keep the funds initially allocated for the project, redistributing them to other projects across the state. Again, an understandable political decision that probably countless governors and mayors have made. But it’s not exactly “thanks, but no thanks,” is it? This wouldn’t be such a big deal to me if she hadn’t made this issue a central element of her campaign. It shows her to be a liar. And the campaign’s continued insistence on propagating this lie is an insult to voters.

Another important issue that may emerge is the alleged heavy hand she placed upon Alaska’s top cop in firing a state trooper who happened to be the ex-husband of her sister. This issue has been reported extensively, but the real meat of it – if there is any – will be revealed in the course of a pending investigation by the State of Alaska. Suffice it to say, what I find shocking is that McCain chose Palin with this investigation underway. There is ample evidence to suggest that McCain’s choice was rushed (they met only once before and shared a few phone calls before the offer was made) and that she was, at least in the conventional sense, unvetted. With her political career littered with wedge issue politics in a small town, rhetorical questions on banning books, profligate spending and high municipal debt service, rape test kits, a massive and sustained commitment to earmarks, and a fight to the death to save a bridge that she would later lie about, it is hard to see how, if Sarah Palin went through a normal vetting process, she would be the Vice Presidential nominee today.