Category: Social Justice

Is it okay to take down our Pride flags?

by philg

June is nearly over and, with it, Pride Month.

On June 1, a church in nearby Concord, Massachusetts added a Pride flag of equal size to their permanent Black Lives Matter flag (parishioners are so interested in black lives that they elected to live in one of the whitest towns in the U.S.!).

Can they take the flag down this evening? If so, why? Is the LGBTQIA lifestyle something to be proud of only 1/12th of the time? If the point of Pride Month is to demand additional rights and privileges for Americans who identify as LGBTQIA, why is it okay to shelve those demands until June 2020? “The Struggle for Gay Rights Is Over” (Atlantic):

Identifying as gay, bisexual, trans, or “queer”—anything but straight—is, in some milieus, a new marker of cool. In one recent survey, less than 50 percent of 13-to-20-year-olds (all part of Generation Z) identified as “exclusively heterosexual.”

But if the goal is to drive this number down to 0 percent, why is it okay to put the campaign on hold for 11 months?

More importantly, is it okay to go to Chick-fil-A tomorrow? (Maybe they should have said that they were closing on Sundays during June in observation of Pride Month?)

[Finally, why is it okay to have equal size flags for Pride and Black Lives Matter? Have the legal wrongs suffered by LGBTQIA Americans been equal to the wrongs suffered by African Americans? If so, shouldn’t there be reparations for Americans who identify as LGBTQIA or descendants of deceased Americans who identified as LGBTQIA (NYT, below, says “maybe”)? If not, shouldn’t the Black Lives Matter flag be larger or flown in a higher position?]

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Does a Pride flag mean EVERYONE is welcome?

by philg

A Facebook friend shared the following post from a Conservative Rabbi:

(i.e., a prime spot for a Black Lives Matter sign (in a nearly-all-white town, of course, with restrictive zoning to keep it that way) was taken up with a different victim group’s banner)

He added “We stand for radical hospitality. EVERYONE is welcome!”

Of course, I had to ask “Would someone who advocated for strict adherence to Leviticus 18 and 20 be welcome?” (see Wikipedia for “Orthodox Judaism generally prohibits homosexual conduct”)

There was a bit of back and forth, leading me to suggest an update: “everyone who agrees with us is welcome”

A righteous congregation member replied “Do you mean to suggest that the hypothetical conservative people you reference would be unable to respect that others have different moral perspectives from them, and would make a scene harassing others, causing them to be asked to leave?”

I refined the question: Okay, so the hypothetical person comes to the “EVERYONE is welcome” temple wearing a T-shirt reading “Follow Leviticus 18/20” on the front. On the back is “Outlaw abortion after a heartbeat can be heard”. On the head of this person is a red MAGA hat. The person is carrying (not on Shabbat, I hope!) Tefillin in a Trump Hotel laundry bag in one hand and a Reelect Trump 2020 tote bag in the other hand. Will this person be just as welcome as a person wearing a rainbow T-shirt?

A sincere congregation member: I imagine such a shirt might prompt conversation, and as long as all parties engaged in conversation in good faith, I have trouble believing Mr. T-Shirt Man (as I’m now thinking of him/you) would be asked to leave.

I asked how this would be different from a Catholic Church putting out a “Stop abortions now” (an issue on which Americans disagree) and saying “EVERYONE is welcome,”

The righteous response: a key difference is that the Catholic Church promotes a moral code that is anti-abortion, and presumably could even excommunicate members who have abortions. Therefore, such signage would be hypocritical. It seems that perhaps you are perceiving there are “two sides” that are mirrors of one another, but there are crucial differences between a Catholic or Evangelical church that says “abortion is immoral” and are working to criminalize abortion—but still say “all are welcome” — and a Jewish Temple or, say, a UU church that sees abortion as a medical procedure between a women and her doctor (but not going around and foisting the procedure on others) and welcomes all comers. The former groups are trying to control / legislate others’ behavior, but the latter groups are not.

I pointed out that the LGBTQ banner was sometimes unfurled in order to control and coerce others, e.g., preventing Chick-fil-A from opening restaurants, forcing the Colorado baker to make a same-sex wedding cake, or boycotting Israel (maybe they’d rather visit one of the anti-Israel countries in which homosexual acts are punishable by death?).

Me: Circling back to the original post, would your temple be equally welcoming to the Colorado baker who was the subject of the Supreme Court case as you would be to someone wearing a Provincetown Pride T-shirt? If not, it is inaccurate to say that EVERYONE is welcome!

Congregation Member 1: exerting pressure on corporations to change their practices is not the same as legislating the elimination of human rights for certain groups of people. Apples and oranges.

Congregation Member 2: you seem to say above that a flag representing “[Jewish] gays are welcome,” is a point of view?

Readers: What do you think? Does hanging a pride flag signal adherence to a political point of view and therefore tend to exclude people who don’t agree with that point of view (e.g., Orthodox Jews, observant Muslims, Catholics, etc.)? Or is it legitimately characterized as an “EVERYONE is welcome” sign?

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Zillow welcomes me to the gayborhood

by philg

A recent email from Zillow:

We’re marching at Pride 2019 to show our support for the LGBTQ+ community. Because home is more than just an address — it’s the place you belong.

Live where you love

Gayborhoods are often in high demand — but they don’t always carry a high price tag.

We believe all people should live in a world where they feel valued, supported and like they belong.

[Do they want Trump-loving anti-abortion anti-immigration gun-loving Americans to feel “valued, supported, and like they belong”?]

The featured Gayborhoods have a percentage of same-sex couples ranging from 2.3 percent to 7.6 percent:

Zillow explains how they found these: “Census tracts and groupings with the highest percentages of same-sex couple households were matched to the neighborhood that best contained them.”

We are informed by our best minds that between 10 and 20 percent of Americans are gay (Smithsonian reporting on research by National Bureau of Economic Research).

Admittedly not every household contains a couple, but if the 10-20 percent figure is correct, shouldn’t a neighborhood with only 2.3 percent same-sex couples be considered a Straightborhood?

Finally, what percentage of American homes these days are “the place [the occupants] belong”? Does someone who has moved from the other side of the U.S. for school or work “belong”? A person who votes contrary to the prevailing political doctrine in the neighborhood? An undocumented immigrant who can be deported at any time by the not-yet-abolished ICE?

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Why don’t all government contractors identify as women?

by philg

From “Should You Get Certified As A Woman-Owned Small Business?”:

Generally-speaking, if you’re thinking about working with the government in any way, then getting it’s worth at least looking into getting certified as a women-owned small business (WOSB). You can do this through the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce or another approved third-party certifier. The benefits of getting certified as a WOSB include being able to pursue public sector work and any “set-asides” the government has. Every year, the U.S. government aims to award at least five percent of its contract funds to women-owned small business.

A question for Pride Month: If a person currently identifying as a “man” owns and operates a small company (“small” for the Defense Department is fewer than 500 employees) that does business with the government, why not switch to identifying as a “woman” so that the company qualifies for favorable treatment as a Women-Owned Small Business?

The Federal set-asides for “women” were set up under a different conception of the term. With $17+ billion at stake, why not a trip to the DMV to ask for a change from male to female?

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Evil corporations put profits before human life

by philg

One of my virtuous neighbors was talking about evil corporations that prioritize profit over human life, not making products as safe as possible.

Of course I had to agree that this was, shall we say, Deplorable.

I asked “What about our own town?” We don’t have Danish-style bike infrastructure, in which a curb separates an automobile road from a bike lane and a second curb separates the bike lane from the pedestrian sidewalk. A cyclist was killed in our town recently, an accident that wouldn’t have happened with a Danish-style system.

I then pointed out that we have several busy roads through town that aren’t divided, thus inviting a deadly head-on collision. Since we do not want to put a price tag on human life, wouldn’t it make sense to raise property taxes sufficiently to widen these roads and insert a concrete divider in the middle?

Had he stood up at town meeting (at which recently the good townsfolk voted to spend $110 million on a new school for about 440 town-resident K-8 students) to demand these initiatives for safer roads?

The corporate critic was horrified at these ideas: “That would cost a fortune,” he said, “to acquire the strips of land and build the barriers. It would never make sense.”

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Why are abortion laws that are anathema in Georgia okay in Europe?

by philg

Virtuous American corporations are boycotting Georgia due to some more restrictive abortion laws (list from The Wrap; article on an Amazon Studios production being pulled).

Yet the same companies that refuse to make movies in Georgia (a welcome respite for Georgia taxpayers? How much cash must they shovel out to the world’s wealthiest corporations?) happily operate in European countries that restrict abortion. For example, Netflix has a big office in Spain in which abortion is restricted beyond the first trimester (Wikipedia). Amazon has a big operation in Ireland, whose abortion laws are condemned by Amnesty International (see below; Amazon also operates in Northern Ireland where abortion is even more restricted).

If abortion is the litmus test for movie studios, why do they continue to operate in California? This chart shows that California bans abortion after “viability” (about 21 weeks with modern technology) whereas Massachusetts allows abortion up to 24 weeks. Why not pull up stakes and move to Massachusetts? (save a ton of money on personal income tax; similar winner-take-all divorce/custody/child support system) Or drive just a few hours east to Nevada, which also allows abortion to 24 weeks, and skip out entirely on state income tax? (family law plaintiffs should sue before leaving California, though; Nevada caps child support at $13,000 per year for a single child and starts from a presumption of 50/50 shared parenting)

All around the world there are countries with restrictive abortion laws (map). Why is it only U.S. state laws that get these virtuous corporations to speak up and vote with their checkbooks?

(Separately, if the idea is to help adult women in Georgia who are seeking abortions, how does it help to reduce their employment opportunities? Wouldn’t a woman in Georgia who wants an abortion at 23 weeks be better off with a movie production job with a paycheck that will enable her to hop a flight to New York or Massachusetts or fill up a car with gasoline for the drive to Florida? (see above chart))

Related:

  • “Amazon relocates operations to new Belfast Titanic Quarter site” (abortion is generally illegal in Northern Ireland (BBC), yet Amazon chooses to operate there despite the fact that it would be practical to do everything from the less restrictive Republic of Ireland and drive across the soft border as necessary)
  • Georgia family law: with child support revenue capped at less than $30,000 per year for one child, it is bad state in which to profit from a casual sexual encounter with a movie star
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Noah’s Ark story needs to be updated with additional genders?

by philg

We have a three-year-old who likes the Noah’s Ark story…

Every time I read this I realize that I’m committing the (modern) sin of Gender Binarism.

How would an updated Noah’s Ark story work? How many genders would there be per animal species? Or would the number vary on a per-species basis?

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Americans with elite educations advocate for socialism because they are shocked at not being rich?

by philg

“If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” was a common expression in New York City during my father’s youth (Great Depression and World War II).

I’m wondering if this way of thinking explains why so many Americans who’ve obtained degrees from elite institutions and earn above-median wages are advocates of socialism. On the face of it, it doesn’t seem rational for people who earn 4-5X the median wage to say that income inequality is a national emergency and to be more enthusiastic about socialism than are people who earn below-median wages.

Pre-2016, my neighbors here in Eastern Massachusetts were upset when politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. would make decisions without consulting them. Since they knew themselves to be the smartest folks on the planet, why wouldn’t President Obama, the Wise One, call them up to ask for advice? Upset turned to rage following the country’s choice of Donald Trump.

What’s even more upsetting than not having one’s desired level of political influence? Not having one’s fair level of financial reward.

In a fair market, someone with a Ph.D. in humanities would get paid more than someone with a high school degree, at least if the Ph.D. in humanities is allowed to define “fair.” Yet an American bond trader with a high school degree can easily earn 10X what a liberal arts professor may earn (100X if we compare to an adjunct!). Thus we come to slightly newer adage: “When the market gives you an answer you don’t like, declare market failure.”

Readers: What do you think? What accounts for people with incomes that are well above the median advocating for “socialism”, which would tend to narrow the income distribution? Could it be rational? As the U.S. population expands and there is a brutal competition for scraps of desirable real estate, for example, will it help the Ph.D. academic to afford a beach house if central planners won’t give the bond trader enough to buy 10 beach houses?

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Friends weigh in on Dorco versus Gillette

by philg

An MD neighbor had the temerity to put a Trump sign on his lawn back in 2016 (error swiftly corrected by righteous neighbors) so I thought it was safe to bring him a Dorco Pace 7 as a gift to free him from supporting Gillette’s campaign for gender justice. Recent text message, appended to a geriatric tennis invitation:

By the way, I like the Dorko [sic] razor very much. It gives a much closer shave than my Gillette. Thank you for introducing it to me.

I had purchased four Pace 7s to give away. From another recipient:

Dorco gives best shave I’ve ever had.

Whether spelled “Dorco” or “Dorko”, I hope that we can all agree this company has suffered in the marketplace due to its name!

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