Homophobe say what?

Few things can get my Hugo Boss tighty-whities in a bunch, but when I read about some of the incredible things some religious leaders, let alone their minions, let flow out of their mouths or their pens,  I swear it makes me want to wear boxers and then run out and make a donation to the Churchof the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Admittedly, this is a problem of mine because I remain in the grips of greed, hatred, and delusion. But when compared with some of the lunacy that has appeared recently in the media (and let us not forget this is nothing new), I come off as absolutely brilliant when I say you should make a Manhattan with rye whiskey and not bourbon.

Well, that is absolutely brilliant. But I digress.

First event occurred last week while I was traveling in Texas. A small time Panhandle minister purchased some space in a rural weekly to enumerate his litany of reasons why folks should not vote for Obama, among them being the president's alleged support for the dreaded "gay agenda."

Seriously, if you have a copy of this, would you mind sending it to me? Because the bitches in the Gay HQ have been ignoring my missives as if I were Phyllis Schlafly.

A few weeks after this atavistic nonsense is published, a gay couple's home in that town was spray painted with the delightful words, "leave or die fags."

In and of itself, such an incident would not normally send me off, even when reading about politicians that espouse the death penalty for rebellious children and evolution deniers who sit on the congressional science advisory committee. But then I read something about an archbishop up in Minnesota that hit just a little too close to home.

Catholic Archbishop for the Twin Cities John Nienstedt has been on a tirade amping up the anti-gay rhetoric with his efforts to promote a state constitutional amendment in Minnesota to ban same-sex marriage, but it was his advice to a young mother with a gay son that stabbed me in the heart. The archbishop told this woman her "eternal salvation" was at stake if she did not toe the line on the church's anti-gay position and do something about her wicked child.

I've worked really hard to remove a particular memory from my mind, to disallow its ability to shape me, and for the most part I've been successful. But when I read about this archbishop, it recalled for me a day when I was in first grade at a Catholic school and the nun teaching the class called me up to her desk. I couldn't look at her as she spoke her vile words, and instead stared at her finger as she pounded it into the top of her desk enunciating her words: "Richard Harrold, you are an evil and wicked little boy, and God has forsaken you."

OK, so I was a victim of a hate crime at 6 years old. Whatever. It was 1964. Nonetheless, the experience left me an angry little boy who grew up to be an angry teenager who chased whatever mind altering substance he could find, and for many years, left me an angry and bitter man. And let me tell you, this was one set of Samsonite I wanted to drop the fuck off on some corner and set on fire. But would I let go of it? No, I had years of being an ox dragging my cart of woes before I finally did. And when I did, I took lots of Polaroids that I keep in my pocket to remind me of my bitterness whenever I feel really happy.

Unsurprisingly, it is at times like these that I retreat into the Buddha's teachings on anger to remind me of the need to develop a compassionate mind. There's no shortage of examples within the Tipitika that extol the virtues of letting anger go. But letting go is only part of the deal. We must also develop compassion, because without compassion, that seed of anger remains within us to be sparked to life at a moment's notice.

The story that puts it all in perspective for me is Kucchivikara-vatthu: The Monk with Dysentery. In this tale, the Buddha finds a monk suffering with dysentery who is being neglected by the other monks. When the Buddha asks why, the reply he gets from the other monks is this monk "doesn't do anything for the monks."

Now, an unskilled reader might view the Buddha's reaction to this information, as he flies into a flurry of activity cleaning and caring for the sick monk, as the Buddha becoming royally pissed at the other monks for being lazy and selfish sumbitches. But remember, the Buddha was an enlightened being; he wasn't angry, he was just throwing some shade. He nursed the sick monk back to health, then admonished the others for their failure to tend to the sick among them. But to be useful to others, one must know what to do, just as a skilled nurse knows how to tend to others.

As good as it might feel in the moment, getting angry is useless. It serves no purpose. And it certainly does nothing to remove the hatred that may prompt it. Anger and hatred are diseases, not just emotions. And there are people dying from these illnesses all over the place.

So when you're angry, may I suggest that you first nurse yourself into good health before you attempt to assist others? You cannot treat anger with more anger. You must first develop compassion. And even if you take a long-ass time developing that compassion and never get around to ministering to others, at least feel comfortable knowing by doing so you're creating one less angry person in this world filled with greed, hatred, and delusion.

Does success lead to indifference?

About a week ago a horrific incident in China spread across the interwebs with videos popping up showing the world the unbelievable – a hit-and-run crash in which a truck runs over a toddler in a Chinese market. But it wasn’t just the hit-and-run itself that was so shocking. It was the nearly two-dozen people who walked by the toddler as she lay injured and bleeding in the alley. Of all people, it was an immigrant woman collecting trash who saw the child and came to her aid.

There was plenty of U.S. media coverage of the incident; this particular video is stunning, although there are more graphic videos out there that show the actual collision between the truck and the child. An article in the Chinese newspaper Xinhua revealed how quickly Chinese and the world shared the story across the Internet. But perhaps much more revealing was this statement in the Xinhua article:

“The incident has left many people to wonder if China's rapid economic development has had an effect on ethics and morality in the general public.”

This particular incident in China may recall to some a similar event that occurred in the U.S. in 1964, the Catherine “Kitty” Genovese murder. The lead in the New York Times article about the murder, published two weeks after the killing, present an ugly and horrifying picture of fear and apathy:

“For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.


“Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.”

This literally became a textbook example in many schools – I know we talked about it in a high school class of mine – of how people become numbed by fear and no longer show any interest in their fellow human beings.

How do people become so insensitive to others? It’s a natural question to ask, but it’s not really the right question to ask, the skillful question to ask. We can examine why people become insensitive, why they lack compassion or are unwilling to show compassion toward others, until we have what we might consider a definitive answer. But finding that answer won’t ensure we become compassionate ourselves, it does not lead one to being more compassionate.

When I was 10 or 11 years old, I was with a buddy of mine and his mom as we walked through downtown Midland, Mich., for the annual carnival days and sidewalk sales. It was such a gay time, but as we walked along I saw how people were making way for something. As we got near we saw a man lying on the sidewalk, blood streaming from his nose. Apparently he had been in a fight right there and was knocked down, his assailant nowhere to be seen. I’d never seen that much blood come out of a person’s nose before. He was conscious, but just lying there. My friend’s mom without hesitation, with not a shred of shock or dismay on her face, took her handkerchief out of her handbag and offered it to the man. I can still picture her in her slim dress, probably a Jackie O kind of thing that all the women were wearing at the time, it had to be about 1968, just as prim as can be offering her clean white lace-trimmed hanky to this brute on the ground with blood forming a pool just below his face. He at first declined her offer. She insisted, said it wasn’t doing her any good and it would likely do him some good. He acquiesced. Could she get some medical help? No, he wanted to be left alone. So be it, and we moved on. All during that episode, dozens of other people just walked by, taking only furtive glances before hurrying on. As we walked on, a couple medics were apparently on their way to help.

There were a lot of other children around that day. For most of them, the lesson was don’t pay attention, don’t get involved, pretend it doesn’t exist.

We don’t need to understand why people lack compassion. We simply must instill it within ourselves and express it to others. Unsurprisingly, the Buddha had plenty to say about this because even monks are not immune to indifference.

In the Kucchivikara-vatthu, the Buddha encounters a sangha where there is a monk seriously ill with dysentery, fouled with his own urine and excrement. But none of the other monks are attending to the sick monk. The Buddha asks the sick monk why.

"I don't do anything for the monks, lord, which is why they don't attend to me."

Now, the Buddha is a level headed guy, not given to extreme fits of emotion. Nonetheless, I have to think that when the Buddha heard this, he was freaking fucking mad. But the first thing the Buddha did was to immediately start attending to the monk, bathed him and put him to bed. After that, the Buddha went to the rest of the monks and asked them why they hadn’t been attending to the ailing monk. Their answer?

"He doesn't do anything for the monks, lord, which is why (we) don't attend to him."

Being the level-headed guy that he was – I mean really, getting all angry and bent out of shape accomplishes nothing – the Buddha firmly reminded the monks that they have abandoned their homes, which means they have no mothers or fathers or siblings or anyone else to attend to them. That means they must attend to each other.

It’s part of the Four Right Efforts when you think about it: Remove negative behavior and thinking from ourselves that already exists; prevent new negative behavior and thinking from arising in us that doesn’t already exist; further develop positive thinking and behavior that is already developed in us; and nurture and encourage new positive thinking and behavior in us that doesn’t already exist. We don’t need to understand why; we just need to do it because the benefits of such self-directed action will be readily apparent.

That’s not to say that there aren’t many obstacles out there that actively discourage being compassionate. As the title of this post suggests, new-found prosperity can lead to callousness, even without us being aware of it. We live in such a litigious society that we may fear aiding others because we might get sued. And particularly with children, men – especially gay men – need to be extra careful. If I see an obviously lost or distressed child, I don’t help the child. Instead, I seek out a woman and ask her to help the child, because if I do it, someone will carelessly accuse me of being a child molester.

But I think the most dangerous and destructive mental attitude we must be alert for is this line of thinking: This doesn’t pertain to me, it’s none of my business.

That Chinese toddler died from her injuries. Had she received help promptly, it might have been a different outcome. Then again, she might have died anyway. But all those people who ignored her? Oh, the kamma they have made.

The image with this post is not mine, but was given to me with permission to use. However, I can't recall whose image it is, so let me know so I can give you proper credit.

The sick monk and Obama

When President Barack Obama on Friday signed a memorandum that, in part, granted visitation rights and the power to make medical decisions to the same-sex partners of hospitalized homosexuals, the reactions were unsurprising. There were those who lauded the decision, and those who decried it. Those on both sides by and large view this issue with a political perspective. But when you pause for a moment and view this decision as a simple act of empowering the compassionate, it becomes clear that politics or homosexuality or a gay agenda have nothing to do with this. Sort of.

The Mahavagga has a beautiful lesson by the Buddha regarding tending to the sick. In the Kucchivikara-vatthu, the Buddha admonishes a group of monks who failed to tend to a monk stricken with dysentery. The indifference by the others shown toward this ill monk is shocking. When the Buddha asks the monk why no one attends to his needs, the monk replies, “I don’t do anything for the monks, lord, which is why they don’t attend to me.”

Just 20 years ago, hundreds of thousands of gay men were dying from AIDS, many in obscurity. What I mean by obscurity is when an obituary appeared in a local paper, the cause of death was frequently coded: he died from a long illness, was the most common. Sometimes, a specific cause of death was given, such as toxoplasmosis or PCP – pneumocystis pneumonia – but these illnesses among humans are so rare and unknown that only other gays would understand what had happened. And because these obituaries were written by family members, usually parents, there was seldom any mention of a boyfriend or partner. If he were mentioned, it was again obliquely: survived by a long-time friend.

The final insult was often the burial. It was not uncommon for committed partners to purchase cemetery plots together, but there was no guarantee that this would be honored by any surviving family. I remember one story in particular in which the family completely cut off their son’s partner following the son’s death. They wanted to bury their son in a family plot that would eventually exclude the surviving partner. The surviving partner took the matter to court to show that they had purchased plots together, but the judge ruled in favor of the family: the surviving partner had no claim to assert, no legal standing to challenge the wishes of “the family.”

That was then, and as the cliché goes, this is now. In the mid-1990s, protease inhibitors hit the market, dramatically extending the lives of HIV positive individuals, even if they were already diagnosed with AIDS. A savior had come forward for us and his name was David Ho. A good friend of mine was such a case. His T-cell count had dropped to near zero, in part because he refused to take AZT, the treatment widely used at the time. As my friend said to me, “All my friends took AZT, and now they’re all dead.” It turned out to be a good decision, because when protease inhibitors became available, my friend got started on the regimen, and now roughly 30 years after being infected, he remains alive.

Nothing, however, occurs in a vacuum. As HIV-infected gay men started to live longer and healthier, the death rates dropped, and so did interest in keeping AIDS on the front page. The drugs also gave families with gay sons more time to accept this thing called homosexuality. Visiting gymnasiums at colleges and high schools to see the Names Project quilt suddenly seemed quaint rather than important. Now the horror is far away in a place called Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

But we still die, just like everyone else. And while it may not have come for the hundreds of thousands that died alone before, or who died separated from the one they really loved, it has finally come, the awareness that no matter who you are, when you are sick and about to die, there shouldn’t be anyone other than you deciding who gets to be by your side.

It’s not a gay thing. It’s not a political thing. It is simple decency. It is compassion. And it’s about time.