Category Archives: Ranting

It Just Doesn't Pay to be Homophobic Anymore

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You can probably guess my bias from the title of this blog, but I’ve been following 2 current issues with great interest: Proposition 8 and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (the current policy on gays serving in the US military).” It appears to me that equal rights for the gay population is only a matter of time.

Proposition 8 was a ballot measure here in California to amend the state constitution to prohibit same sex marriage. There is some background to this: in March of 2000 California voted to prohibit same sex marriage by state law with Propsition 22. This law was overturned on May 15, 2008 by the California Supreme Court who ruled 4-3 that Prop 22 is unconstitutional.

People who oppose gay marriage then decided that the best way to combat this was to pass another proposition that amends the state constitution. After all, the constitution can’t be unconstitutional. Backed by big bucks from the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) and the Knights of Columbus, Proposition 8 passed with 52.3% of the vote. Supporters thought they were done.

They weren’t. On May 26, 2009 the California Supreme Court determined that Proposition 8 was constitutional, but opponents of Prop 8 then went to federal court on January 11, 2009, arguing that Prop 8 is unconstitutional of the Federal Constitution. The plaintiffs, Kristen Kelly and Sandra Steir, filed because they were denied a marriage license. The defendant was Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger by virtue of being governor. In a funny twist, neither Governor Schwartzenegger nor Attorney General Jerry Brown chose to actively defend Prop 8. Instead, the defense of Prop 8 fell to a group called Protect Marriage.

The case came before Judge John Walker. This appeared to be good news for the defendants as he ruled in a previous case that “Gay Olympics” was a copyright violation against the U.S. Olympic Committee and they had to change their name to the Gay Games. He had also been appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush. On August 4, 2010 Judge Walker surprised most of us by finding for the plaintiffs, deciding that Proposition 8 is a violation of the 14th Amendment. It’s now on appeal but it’s funny to see that all the people who liked John Walker before his decision have now decided that he’s gay (since he’s never been married) and the decision has no merit. Sounds like sour grapes to me.

Meanwhile, in the military, they are still trying to decide what to do with men and women who are willing to fight and die for our freedom who happen to be gay. When President Clinton was running in 1992 there was pressure from the gay community to remove the ban on gays serving in the military. During the campaign he essentially promised to repeal the ban. Alas, once in office he faced more opposition than he expected and he bowed to that pressure. In 1993 Congress passed a bill called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and President Clinton signed it. Simply put, it legislated that nobody is allowed to ask if a service member is gay, and a gay servicemember is required to keep his/her orientation a secret. If (s)he says or does anything to indicate his/her gay orientation, (s)he can be immediately discharged from the service. Since passage 14,000 servicemembers have been discharged for being gay. In the gay community, DADT (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell) has been seen as open season on the gay population.

With the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the debate began again. As I write this the bill to repeal DADT is moving through Congress. The House has already voted to repeal it, and it’s stuck in the Senate. It’s interesting to see what’s being said. My most interesting person is Senator John McCain. At first blush you’d think he’d be the “go to” guy on this issue given his background. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and was a pilot during Vietnam. He was shot down and spent 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam. If ever there was a case where a group needed unit cohesion, it would be here. He has opposed DADT and it was easy to do this when the the leaders of the military opposed it. In fact, in 1986 he said this: “The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.”

He probably never expected this to happen, but it has. On December 2, 2010 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen said this:

My personal views on this issue remain unchanged. I am convinced that repeal of the law governing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is the right thing to do. Back in February, when I testified to this sentiment, I also said that I believed the men and women of the Armed Forces could accommodate such a change. But I did not know it for a fact. Now, I do.
And so what was my personal opinion is now my professional opinion. Repeal of the law will not prove an unacceptable risk to military readiness. Unit cohesion will not suffer if our units are well-led. And families will not encourage their loved ones to leave the service in droves.

He made this statement against the backdrop of a study released by the Pentagon on November 30, 2010. The survey reviewed the beliefs of 115,000 active duty members of the military and 44,200 military spouses. About 70% of them indicated they had no problem with the idea of allowing gays to serve. Those in uniform lead those out of uniform: only 58% of all Americans favor this. Interestingly, the majority of both groups favor repealing DADT. And the 115,000? Well, 69% report that they have already worked with a gay servicemember and 92% of them said it had a positive impact or no impact on their working relationship.

So here we are: the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all support the repeal of DADT. And Senator McCain? He has abandoned his previous statement and now says: “This was a political promise made by an inexperienced president or candidate for presidency.” At no point does he admit he abandoned his earlier promise. Then again, he’s the guy who ran with Sarah Palin.

Of the people who still oppose DADT, they all pretty much respect Barry Goldwater who said this in 1993:

After more than 50 years in the military and politics, I am still amazed to see how upset people can get over nothing. Lifting the ban on gays in the military isn’t exactly nothing – but it’s pretty damned close

Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar. They’ll still be serving long after we’re all dead and buried. That should not surprise anyone.

But most Americans should be shocked to know that while the country’s economy is going down the tubes, the military has wasted half a billion dollars over the past decade chasing down gays and running them out of the armed services.

It’s no great secret that military studies have proved again and again that there’s no valid reason for keeping the ban on gays. Some thought gays were crazy, but then found that wasn’t true. Then they decided that gays were a security risk, but again the Department of Defense decided that wasn’t so. In fact, one study by the Navy in 1956 that was never made public found gays to be good security risks. Even Larry Korb, President Reagan’s man in charge of implementing the Pentagon ban on gays, now admits that it was a dumb idea. No wonder my friend Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense under President Bush, called it “a bit of an old chestnut”

When the facts lead to one conclusion, I say it’s time to act – not to hide. The country and the military know that eventually the ban will be lifted. The only remaining questions are how much muck we will all be dragged through, and how many brave Americans like Tom Paniccia and Margarethe Cammermeyer will have their lives and careers destroyed in a senseless attempt to stall the inevitable.

Some in congress think I’m wrong. They say we absolutely must continue to discriminate, or all hell will break loose. Who knows? (they say) perhaps our soldiers may even take up arms against each other.

Well, that’s just stupid.

Years ago I was a lieutenant in charge of an all-black unit. Military leaders at the time believed that blacks lacked leadership potential, period. That seems ridiculous now – as it should. Now each and every man and woman who serves this nation takes orders from a black man, our own Gen. Colin Powell.

Nobody thought that blacks or women could ever be integrated into the military. Many thought that an all-volunteer force could never protect our national interest. Well, it has and despite those who feared the worst – I among them – we are still the best and will continue to be.

The point is that decisions are always a lot easier to make in hindsight, but we seldom have that luxury. That’s why the future of our country depends on leadership, and that’s what we need now.

I served in the armed forces. I have flown more than 150 of the best fighter planes and bombers this country manufactured. I founded the Arizona National Guard. I chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee. And I think it’s high time to pull the curtains on this charade of policy.

What should undermine our readiness would be a compromise policy, like “don’t ask, don’t tell.” That compromise doesn’t deal with the issue, it tries to hide it.

We have wasted enough precious time, money and talent trying to persecute and pretend. It’s time to stop burying our heads in the sand and denying reality for the sake of politics. It’s time to deal with this straight on and be done with it. It’s time to get on with more important business.

The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people’s private lives. Government governs best when it governs least, and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone’s version of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against gays.

When you get down to it no American able to serve should be allowed – much less given an excuse – to not serve his or her country. We need all our talent.

If I were in the Senate today I would rise on the Senate floor in support of our commander in chief. He may be a Democrat, but he happens to be right on this question.

Thank you Senator Goldwater (or, as your license plate said, AuH20).

Oh, and by the say, my favorite quotation from the report is this:

As one special operations force warfighter told us, ‘We have a gay guy (in the unit). He’s big, he’s mean, and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay,’

Nowhere have I found a quotation that said: “I served with a homosexual and it hurt us as a unit.” Let me know if you have.

The Justice Chronicles, Volume 4: Are We Ready To Go Backwards In Our Compassion?

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This image may be a strange way to start a blog on justice, but bear with me. This is the death certificate of Joseph Arthur Calixte Lizotte in Greenfield, New Hampshire. For the record he’s my 7th cousin twice removed, though I doubt I would have ever met or heard of him had he lived. The death certificate is hard to read, but he died in 1915 at 16 months of cholera (that he had for 3 days) and malnutrition (that he had for his entire life).

I came across this death certificate about 10 years ago when I was doing genealogy research and was struck and saddened by the fact that someone could die (at least partly) from malnutrition here in the United States. Simply put, the programs that would have saved him wouldn’t exist until 20 years later when the country was in the middle of a depression.

As I look over the political landscape today I worry that we may be headed back to those days. The Great Depression lasted only a decade but framed much of the 20th Century. Talk to nearly anyone who lived through those years and he will tell you that it was when people came together to help each other. It was also a time when our nation began to reflect on common values. Led by President Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) we developed programs to support the elderly (Social Security), the poor (Welfare, later known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children), and the unemployed (Works Progress Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, and others). In later years help was expanded to include the hungry (Food Stamps). By the 1960s we began to provide health care to the elderly and the poor (Medicare and Medicaid).

Though far from complete, these programs ensured that most of the basic needs of most of us are provided. If my distant cousin had been born in 1934 instead of 1914 he likely would not have spent his entire life suffering from malnutrition. Because of progress made in plumbing and cleanliness he probably wouldn’t have even developed cholera, but if he did he would have had an 80% chance of surviving it (see the CDC for more information). All these programs were funded through the taxes we paid, and we paid them because they reflected our values.

Fast forward to today. I’m not sure we still share those values; as I read the political landscape, the only real value I see is that I should not be inconvenienced or charged for anything that will benefit anyone other than me. If you’re running for office, the fastest road to defeat lies in not promising to cut taxes. It’s become fashionable to claim that government does too much and is too costly. Meanwhile, on ground level, our schools, fire departments, libraries and infrastructure are crumbling. We are laying off teachers while school attendance continues to rise.

We’re also making it harder to access services. In 2008 here in San Diego, only 29% of those eligible for food stamps actually received them. Why not? These answers are always complicated but I don’t think anyone can deny that the process of applying is difficult and humiliating. Fortunately there has been some publicity around this and more hungry people are accessing food stamps, but the number is still too low.

This will ensure I can never run for office on any level, but I think we need to be willing to pay for what we value and be frank that we are all invested in good schools and full stomachs. We, as a whole, need to be compassionate not just with our minds but also with our wallets. We need to live in a society where nobody dies (even in part) of malnutrition.

How Do Christians Not Recognize Each Other?

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Years ago I directed a religious education (aka CCD, Sunday School) program at All Saints Catholic Church. Each summer we ran a Vacation Bible School and the song I remember most from that time was They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love. That seems a long time ago.

Beginning in the 1980s groups like the Moral Majority and the 700 Club formed as a way of gathering Christians and affecting national politics. Unfortunately it backfired and did little more than politicize religion. Amazingly in 1980, when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, the Moral Majority announced that a “real” Christian would now occupy the White House, ignoring the fact that Jimmy Carter was a deeply spiritual man while Ronald Reagan thought little about religion.

This segment of the population who have clearly announced they own Christianity, Jesus Christ, the Bible, and decide who is saved, have found new life in the election of Barack Obama. They have been incredibly successful in convincing a segment of the American population that he isn’t really a Christian, but is secretly a Muslim. In a previous post I connected this with the “Nat Turner” strategy that “those people” (ie, African Americans) don’t love America and are looking for opportunities to harm us.

Glenn Beck is the latest opportunist. He has a show on Fox News and this past weekend he held a rally in Washington D.C. Surprisingly he admitted that President Obama is a Christian, but then announced he doesn’t recognize President Obama’s Christianity. There’s some symmetry to that as I don’t recognize Glenn Beck’s Christianity.

Mr. Beck insists that President Obama’s Christianity is rooted in liberation theology and that is not what God intended (cue surprised look from Moses). Apparently Mr. Beck finds God on Pharaoh’s side. Because, as we all know, if the slaves are freed, it will increase unemployment and kill jobs.

As for me and my house, I agree with President Obama that Jesus stood for certain things: Am I my brother’s keeper? (Genesis 4:9), whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me (Matthew 25:40), and the last shall be first (Matthew 20:16).

I’ll be interested in Glenn’s list.

The Justice Chronicles, Volume 3: Is Justice Devolving into Just Us?

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In February of this year I started the Justice Chronicles, and talked about it in a religious context. Now I wish to talk about it in terms of how we govern ourselves. Hard to imagine an issue that is more polarizing than religion, but this may be it.

When someone in the government talks about justice it’s virtually always in the context of law enforcement: Protect me from the bad people and get rid of them if you can’t protect me. But it seems to me that justice ought to be much more. When we talk about justice in the public forum, why can’t we see it in the context of what we value as a society?

When I did marriage preparation I used to say this to the couple: Show me your checkbook and the last several months of your credit card statements and I’ll tell you what you really value. In other words, if I know where your money goes, I know what you think is important. We can use the same thing when we look at the budgets of the nation, state, and locality. You can look on a page at Wikipedia to see a pie chart of the 2010 US Federal Budget. The top categories are Social Security (19.63%), Department of Defense (18.74%), Unemployment/Welfare/Other Mandatory Spending (16.13%), and Medicare (12.79%).

So how are we doing? At first blush, not bad. Nearly 3/4 of the federal budget (73.24%) are these four categories, and three of them (Social Security, Unemployment, and Medicare) provide direct services to people in need: the elderly, the poor, and the sick. The other category protects us from outside forces that wish us ill.

But on the other hand, you can see how these four categories are weighted toward those who can advocate for themselves. I’m headed toward the Social Security/Medicare population at what seems like light speed, but it’s also true that the elderly vote in large numbers. They are essentially the exclusive recipients of Social Security and Medicare.

In 1961, in his farewell address, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the emergence of the Military Industrial Complex. He was, in this case, a prophet. No one, myself included, begrudges the brave men and women in uniform whatever they need to stay safe and come home. But the past 50 years we have been littered with stories of the military denouncing a weapons system, a jet, or a missile as unnecessary only to be overruled by a member of Congress who doesn’t want to lose the federal funds to pay for a factory in his/her district. We are owed efficiency from the Department of Defense every bit as much as the Department of Health and Human Services.

Finally, and this is my most salient point, is the status of our children in the federal budget. Where do we find them? Well, 8.19% of the budget is devoted to Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Medicaid was designed in the 1960s as health insurance for the poorest among us. It is certainly that, but it is not necessarily weighted toward children. The fastest growing segment are elderly folk who need someone to pay for their stay in a skilled nursing facility (also known as a SNF or a nursing home).

Children, alas, are often looked at as an expense for the rest of us. That’s wrong. We need to look at our children (and I’m speaking globally as I have no children myself) not as an expense, but as the ultimate investment in our future. Study after study has shown that the more resources we give our children, the better off our society will be. But year after year we find that our schools are grossly underfunded, the people who care for our children the worst paid, and we don’t want to invest anything in children we don’t like (e.g. those who were born in other countries and came to the U.S. to contribute to an economy that will provide a sustainable standard of living). One of the charities I support, that you can find on the left side of this page, is Donor’s Choice. It’s a site where you can contribute directly to schools and classrooms who have needs that aren’t covered by their local school districts. I’m grateful for the opportunity to help, but I’m angry that these teachers need to go begging. Take a look and don’t be shocked by what you see.

Finally, the worst way we fail our children lies in the way we care for their health. Seniors, virtually all of them, have universal health care. If you are 62 or over and are here legally you are virtually guaranteed that you will be taken care of. Until then you’re pretty much on your own. If you’re a child and your parents are either wealthy, middle class, or destitute, you’re in good shape (either because your parents can afford health insurance or because you’re eligible for Medicaid). If your parents are working poor, or if they are employed by a company that does not provide health insurance, you’re pretty much counting on not getting sick. Your primary health provider is the emergency room where your parents are presented with a bill they can’t pay. If that happens everyone loses: the hospital doesn’t get their money and your parents file for bankruptcy because they can’t hope to pay the bill.

And there’s more. Here in San Diego we don’t have enough money to staff all of our fire stations and that has led to a policy of not staffing certain stations at certain times (called a “brown out”). Last Tuesday Station 44 in nearby Mira Mesa was out of service. When there was a call in that neighborhood, Station 38 responded. That was fine, until the family of 2 year old Bentley Do called 911 because Bentley was chocking on a gumball. The Do family lives a block away from Station 38. Because Station 38 was responding to a call that Station 44 should have taken care of, there was no station available to care for Bentley. When a station from farther away finally responded, it was too late. Two year old Bentley Do died.

There is a ballot measure in November that will raise the sales tax in San Diego by 0.5% (if you spend $100 on taxable items, your tax will increase by 50 cents). Fire and police protection will directly benefit from this. Yesterday the San Diego Union Tribune carried this letter to the editor from J.R. Bolger of Tierrasanta:

The death of young Bentley Do is cause for every San Diegan to grieve for and with his family. But my grief turns to outrage when your paper and its ilk use this tragic accident as a campaign issue in a drive to pass a sales tax increase! Your front-page headline (“Tragedy renews sales-tax debate” July 23) is yellow journalism at its finest and William Randolf Hearst must be smiling down on you.

It’s hard to live in San Diego and care about children. I pray that the family of Bentley Do is heartened by the fact that if this tax increase fails, Mr. Bolger of Tierrasanta won’t have to pay an extra 50 cents on a $100 purchase.

This just in: As I was writing this post the San Diego City Council decided not to pass the sales tax resolution. It’s a good day if you don’t want to spend the 50 cents, and a bad day if you need emergency services.

The Loud Pedophilia Scandal and the Deaf Vatican

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The appears to be the scandal that won’t go away, mostly because the Catholic Church can’t seem to get it right. Recent revelations appear to implicate Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) in a scandal to cover up allegations of a pedophile priest, Rev. Peter Hullermann in 1980. You can read the New York Times article for background.

You would expect the Vatican to investigate these allegations, and at the very least issues a “no comment” and hope it blows over. You’d be wrong. On Good Friday, the Pope’s preacher (Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Conv) likened criticism of the Pope to antisemitism, angering both Jews and survivors of sexual abuse. Not to be outdone, on Easter Sunday Cardinal Angelo Sodano compared the publicity on this to gossip. Hard to believe these guys are in charge of anything let alone the Catholic Church.

In the last few days a story has come out about the Diocese of Oakland, Bishop Cummins, and and Fr. Stephen Kiesle. In the early 1980s Fr. Kiesle was convicted of abusing two boys and was removed from ministry. Bishop Cummins wrote to Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) and asked that Fr. Kiesle be laicized, or removed from the priesthood. In fairness there was no attempt by anyone to have Fr. Kiesle returned to ministry. When Cardinal Ratzinger did write, he cautioned against laicizing Fr. Kiesle as it might be a source of scandal to the people of Oakland. Amazingly having a priest abuse boys isn’t scandalous in the Pope’s eyes. The letter goes to to ask Bishop Cummins to provide “as much paternal care as possible.” Did anyone else notice that the Pope never asked about the victims?

This is an issue that is somewhat personal for me. While I was never abused by anyone, I know at least two friends who were sexually abused by priests. I have to believe there were more and I just don’t know about it. I spent most of my early 20s in Boston as a seminarian of the Stigmatine Fathers and Brothers; that was in the early 1980s.

I would later find out that I was in the middle of a great deal of abuse, most of which I was to find out about 20 years later. When the Boston Globe started publishing articles in early 2002 I was astounded at how much was happening literally under my nose.

Much of the information I’m discussing now comes from a web page called Bishop Accountability. It’s an amazing page and I’m grateful for all the work it’s taken to keep track of all this.

The one priest I knew about was Fr. Richard Ahern CSS. I was a seminarian when I learned that at Sacred Heart Parish in Feeding Hills he abused several boys. He was pulled out of the parish and sent for treatment at the House of Affirmation in Whitinsville, MA. While there he confessed to the abuse and was arrested. He died on February 1, 2001. I never really liked him and was actually a little surprised when his crimes came to light. Most abusers are charming people who lure their victims; he always struck me as a lazy guy who made a nice living without having to work too hard. I don’t think anyone is happy with how his case was treated (and it still mystifies me why a 20 year old seminarian wasn’t warned about him). Before 1984 the Stigmatines knew about it but didn’t remove him. That year, according to my memory, his abuse was so egregious that he was sent to the House of Affirmation. It was only when he was there and told his story to the therapist he was arrested and the Stigmatines could no longer hide him. I don’t remember the details but they knew they couldn’t send him back to a parish so they gave him an internal job in the community where he wouldn’t have any contact with children. I also remember talk of how to support him; there was also talk of money being paid out to the victims but that always sounded like “hush money” to me. I don’t think they ever recognized how damage he did nor did they see the long term effects of abuse on the victims.

Probably one of the most infamous cases was Fr. Paul Shanley. He wasn’t a Stigmatine, but when I lived in the Stigmatine House of Studies in the early 1980s, Paul was the associate priest at the church next door, St. John the Evangelist in Newton. It was a French parish, and in French it was called St. Jean L’Evangelist. We called it St. Jean and used the American pronunciation. When I first met Paul I couldn’t figure out why an Irishman like Paul was assigned to a French parish, and why he wasn’t a pastor. He explained to me that he had a fight with Cardinal Humberto Medeiros and was told he’d never be pastor. That was true, as far as it goes, but Paul didn’t tell me that the fight was over Paul’s abuse of teenage boys. When Cardinal Meideros died in 1983 and the pastor of St. Jean’s died shortly after, Cardinal Bernard Law appointed Paul as pastor of St. Jean’s. By that time I was gone and that was where most of the abuse occurred. I taught CCD (Sunday School) at St. Jean’s and leaned that Paul did most of his damage to students of the school who were sent to him for disciplinary reasons. It was generally my policy to take care of disciplinary stuff in the classroom and I don’t remember sending anyone to Paul but I was grateful to see that none of my students were Paul’s victims. I’m still angry that Paul and Cardinal Meideros conspired to lie to me (and the parish) over why he was assigned to St. Jean’s. Paul was convicted in 2005 and is still in prison.

At some point the Catholic Church needs to find a way to deal with this and it will be a hard road. But we won’t start of this journey as long as we’re still more concerned with protecting the clergy than protecting our children.

Snyder vs. Phelps, and the Outrage Continues

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In a previous post I talked about a case that is incredibly polarizing. The news since that post is equally polarizing. The latest court ruling favors Fred Phelps and his church. It’s on hold until the Supreme Court hears the case next term, but Matt’s father Albert has been handed a bill for $16,510 to pay to the defendant, Fred Phelps.

From what I’ve been able to read, this was the order of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. They argue that if you bring a civil suit against someone and lose, you’re responsible for their legal costs. In the abstract that makes sense; it should cut down on frivolous lawsuits and protect defendants from being bankrupted. It should deter someone with financial means to destroy someone who lacks financial means. But I find it puzzling that the 4th Circuit is demanding payment while the case is still on appeal.

Mr. Snyder makes a good case that he cannot afford the legal bill, but it’s unlikely that he’ll actually have to pay it.

  • If he ultimately wins the case he’ll receive damages from Fred Phelps much in excess of this amount.
  • You can click on Matt’s memorial web page and send a donation
  • Bill O’Reilly, who is somebody I’m normally contemptuous of, has promised to pay the bill. It’s rare that I applaud Bill, but I do this time.

I’ll keep you posted.

Snyder vs. Phelps: the Limits of Free Speech?

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The Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear the case of Snyder v. Phelps next year. It’s going to be a lightning rod case when it’s heard next fall, and for me it’s a fascinating examination of free speech, hate speech and the limits of protest. Here are the facts of the case:

Matthew Snyder was a 20 year old marine who died in combat in Iraq in 2006. His body was returned and his funeral was held at St. John’s Catholic Church in Westminster, Maryland. Outside his church Fred Phelps and other members of his Westboro Baptist Church picketed outside the church with signs that claimed Matt’s death was the result of God’s punishment against the United States for permitting (among other things) homosexuality.

Matt’s father, Albert, filed suit in June of 2006 against Fred Phelps (and others). In 2007 a jury awarded Mr. Snyder $10.9 million. Mr. Phelps appealed and in 2008 the verdict was overturned claiming that while Phelps is offensive, his speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. Last week the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case next year.

This raises several interesting issues, though perhaps not the ones you may think. It goes without saying that Fred Phelps and the other protesters are offensive to an incredible degree. He believes that homosexuals, the Catholic Church, Jews, and others are depraved and condemned by God. Because the United States tolerates this, God is expressing his wrath through natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina), terrorist events (9/11), and battle casualties (Iraq and Afghanistan).

And while Phelp’s behavior is offensive, that is not cause for a lawsuit. Simply put, nobody has the right to not be offended; the first amendment protects your right to be offensive. But as we all know, there are limits on free speech. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater unless it really is on fire. Hate speech is not protected (e.g. leaving a noose on a tree branch).

Neither is defamation. Albert Snyder claimed he was defamed because Phelp’s signs said (among other things) Albert “taught him how to support the largest pedophile machine in the history of the entire world, the Roman Catholic monstrosity.” He also claimed invasion of privacy (that Phelps and the other protesters “intruded on seclusion”). The defamation charge was dropped and it went to trial on the charges of intrusion on seclusion and intentional affliction of emotional distress. As I said, the jury found for the plaintiff and awarded damages of almost $11 million.

On appeal it was decided that Phelp’s right to free speech outweighs Snyder’s intrusion on seclusion and intentional affliction of emotional abuse. That is the issue the Supreme Court will take up next year.

It’s a tough case. I’m normally a fundamentalist when it comes to freedom of speech. I don’t think we are protected from hearing things we don’t want to hear and we’re not protected from getting our feelings hurt. What happened to the Snyder family, though, goes way beyond hurt feelings. Having to bury a child (no matter how old) is one of the most painful experiences anyone can imagine. Seeing Fred Phelps and others using Matt’s funeral as a platform to push his agenda of hate is beyond painful.

But does it rise to level of limiting free speech? It’s certainly sinful and horrible, and I suspect that when Fred Phelps dies he’s not going to like the all loving God any more than he likes the rest of us. But I have to admit that part of me thinks we would do better by ignoring Fred and the other hate mongers; in a sense telling him that he has the right to say what he wants, but we have the right not to listen to it.

In any case, one nice thing that came out of this is that President Bush signed into law that prohibits this kind of protest. The Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act makes it a crime to protest within 300 feet of the entrance of a national cemetery.

We’ll see how this turns out.

The Money Chronicles: Volume I

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I recently read a book about everyday finances called Stop Getting Ripped Off: Why Consumers Get Screwed, and How You Can Always Get a Fair Deal by Bob Sullivan that has me thinking. The premise of the book is that many of us don’t know much about simple arithmetic and we get ripped off by people who take advantage of that. I’m calling this series “The Money Chronicles” in the hopes that this will (like the Justice Chronicles) will become a recurring theme.

Virtually everyone I know borrows money in some form, be it a mortgage, a car loan, or a credit card. Very few people are going to let you use their money for free, and it makes sense to charge interest. If you borrow $100.00 at 10% interest and pay it back in a year, you’ll pay $110. Easy, right?

Well… It is, but like most debt it isn’t that clear cut. Because we’ve gotten used to phrases like “annual percentage rate” (APR), “revolving credit,” and “compounding interest,” we tend to sign up for a loan, pay the bill each month, and let somebody else do the math. In a world where everyone is virtuous that would be fine. I’m blogging about this because we don’t live in such a world and there are armies of people out there who are happy to advantage of us, and take our money.

I’m going to start with the place that most people first run into trouble: credit cards. I can’t tell you how many offers I get over the course of a year that promise me all sorts of stuff if I sign up for their card. They do everything they can to tell you that by signing this line you can enter a world of free money. Let’s see what happens with this card.

I’m going to use my current American Express bill as an example. My current balance is $1319.19, the interest rate (annual percentage rate or APR) is 15.24% and the minimum amount due is $28.00. If I pay off the entire balance (as I intend to), I pay no interest. As long as I do this, I’ll never pay a penny of interest.

But if I pay only the $28.00 and continue to pay only the minimum, and never use the card for new purchases it will take 12 years to pay it off and I’ll have ended up paying $2677.00. Better than that, if I make the payment even one day late I’ll be charged an additional $39.00 late fee.

If I spend the next 12 years paying off the card, I’ll be 61 years old when I’m done. In fairness I’ll have gotten the benefit of whatever I bought for the $1319.19, but the rest? The rest of the money ($1357.81) does nothing but make the credit card companies wealthier. And frankly, the 15.24% isn’t too bad. If my interest rate were 20%, I would need 23 years to pay it off and the total payoff amount would be $3722.00. In 23 years I’ll be 72 and will probably have no memory of what I bought in 2010.

There’s lots more, but there’s one thing I encourage you to do: buy Bob Sullivan’s book. One eye opener for me was how the credit cards use average daily balance and how you can save money by making large purchases toward the end of the month. If you do nothing else, read pages 84 to 89.

A La Jolla Couple Had a Close Call Yesterday as an Asteroid Passed Within 50,000,000 Miles Of Earth

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OK, I’ve been thinking about this post for several weeks, and recent events have pushed me to write this:

It’s time to stop listening to fearmongerers and get better at assessing risk.

As much as I can, I avoid watching local news as it seems to be the worst offender, but yesterday I couldn’t. I was at a nursing home writing up my note on one of my patients and the local news was on in the background. It seems that the night before, somebody (or somebodies) set fire to the teacher’s lounge at an elementary school in Carlsbad. You can read about it here.

It’s a fairly simple story, and as it plays out it will probably be some neighborhood kids who wanted a day off from school (which didn’t happen, by the way). But the local news played it like it was 9/11 all over again. They sent a camera crew who set up base on a hill near the school (higher ground is always a good visual) to report this case of terrorist arson. They talked about how it could have been worse (the fire alarm alerted the authorities who extinguished it in 10 minutes): Imagine if there was no fire alarm? Imagine if the fire spread to somewhere where there was flammable liquids? Imagine if it happened when there were students in the school. Imagine if … You get the picture.

This story goes against the backdrop of the whole Toyota scare. I have a 2006 Prius so I have some interest in this. A few months ago we heard there was a possibility that the floor mats could slide under the gas pedal and cause it to stick and make the car hard to stop. It was the cause of a fatal accident here in San Diego. On my next tune up I asked and they put something under the mat to make sure it didn’t slide. That may or may not have solved the problem for some Toyotas (though not mine). Toyota is trying figure out what’s causing the problem; that makes sense. Yesterday Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said that anyone driving one of these cars should immediately stop driving them until they get them fixed.

The reality is that the risk of a bad outcome is pretty remote. Nevertheless all sorts of news organizations are sending out crews to stake out minivans, asking suburban moms if they are afraid for their children. Nobody wants to sound like they don’t care about their kids so there are miles of film of suburban moms talking about how scared they are. The reality is that there are much greater risks than this.

We are not good at understanding risk.

We are also very susceptible to voices that tell us to be afraid of something we can’t control. A large percentage of us are afraid to fly when in reality the drive to the airport is much riskier. We worry about being robbed when identity theft is much greater (and we are fairly cavalier about giving out personal information).

We obsess over the Dow Jones stock average when most of us don’t contribute enough to our 401(k).

There are many other examples, but the point is clear: news organizations make money by telling us about things we can’t control but can harm us. We are more than willing to hear these stories and make bad decisions based on them. Catastrophic events can do great harm to us, but the chances of them actually happening are remote.

Let’s all understand that there is risk in most of what we do, but ignore those people and organizations who profit from making us afraid.

Here’s a Health Care Idea: Stop Trying to Live to Be 100

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Working for hospice for the past 12 years I’ve had the opportunity to see how we age in this country, and I keep coming back to a disturbing thought: in many ways our health care system is intended to keep people alive forever and in many cases we sacrifice quality of life for quantity of life.

Now, before you start making unkind comparisons between me and Jack Kevorkian let me assure you that I’m not talking about death panels and assisted suicide. I’m also willing to concede that long life sometimes goes hand in hand with good quality of life (my 91 year old father in law who still drives, sits on several boards, and plays bridge every Thursday is a case in point).

I’m also aware that average life expectancy in this country has grown from 46 years in 1900 to 76 years now. Vaccines, clean water, antibiotics and many other avenues of health care have given us this gift.

But we also see improved health care can cause us to live longer, but live sicker and we accept this because we are obsessed with living as long as we can. Look how much we cheer the centenarians that Willard Scott brings us on the Today Show. I love Willard but he shows these people looking good and talks about how everybody loves them. Just once I’d like to see him celebrate someone who has advanced dementia or has been bedridden for the past 5 years. Those centenarians never seem to get on the show.

I’m guessing that this obsession for living to be 100 is rooted in our fear of death. On one level that makes sense and we are often guided by fear more than anything else. But on another level, we need to stop fooling ourselves. The oldest documented person in the world was Jeanne Calment (1875-1997) who lived to be 122. And the death rate for all of us is the same: one per person.

The harsh truth is that no matter what we do, if we eat healthy, eschew alcohol and tobacco, exercise, moderate fat intake, whatever, we’re going to die. We can’t control that. We can, however, control how we live given the finite nature of our lives.

I think we need to rethink our goal. Instead of trying to live forever, or at least as long as we can, we should think about living well for the time we have. That sounds easy, but it’s not what we do. It means we have to acknowledge the point where it’s not working. For my part, here’s what I’ve decided:

  • I’m currently 49. On May 11th I turn 50. I acknowledge that I probably have more yesterdays than tomorrows.
  • If I make it to 80 I will have outlived half of my grandparents. At that point I will have ice cream for breakfast and stop caring what I eat.
  • I hope to retire at an age where we can enjoy our retirement. I don’t know if this is possible but if it is, I will accept the fact that I will have to live on a fixed budget for the rest of my life
  • I hope to travel but will accept that this may not be possible. If I never see Paris or Mongolia before I die, I will live with that fact.
  • I don’t want to spend my last years in a nursing home, but if it happens, I will make the best of it.
  • If the last years of my life are centered on caring for someone at the expense of my fulfillment, I accept that fact with grace and gratitude
  • None of us chooses the disease that takes our life. I pray that it is not ALS (Lou Geherig’s disease) or Alzheimer’s, but I accept that it may be a disease I wouldn’t choose.
  • I accept that at the end of my life I may need someone to do personal care for me. That means when I can no longer bathe or toilet myself, someone else will help me. I pray for the ability to accept this help without shame or embarrassment
  • I don’t want to live to be 100 unless I am reasonably healthy. If I am diagnosed with advanced cancer at age 90 I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in the hospital. If I choose not to undergo chemotherapy or radiation I hope my family can accept this.
  • Finally, I pray for the opportunity to die well: I hope my death will cause those who survive me to to find my death peaceful enough to not fear their own death. I hope my funeral is a joyful one where people can laugh and celebrate my life.

I can only imagine how strange this posts looks for most people, but accept it for what it is.