Start Acting Like It
Despite the 72 degrees here in Manhattan, there’s a crispness in the air. It’s fall, the season that is supposed to represent the beginning of dormancy, a shortening of summer’s long days and fun times, a letting-go of play and a return to the seriousness of work.
And yet, I don’t think America had a fun summer.
We had the attack of the birthers and deathers. We had play-cowboys with real guns attend presidential speeches and congressional town halls. For all our focus on health care this summer, few have realized the tremendous irony shooting us in the face: America is a country in the midst of a nervous breakdown.
Bob Herbert reminded me of this, in his New York Times column this week when he wrote,
“Looking back at the past few months, it’s fair to wonder if the country isn’t going through a nervous breakdown… We need therapy… The first step, of course, is to recognize that we have a problem.”
A Problem, Indeed
I often write about the “gay community.” Truth be told, there isn’t one. Like the “straight community,” there are many. Both have many different ideas, ideals, morals, goals, and behaviors. And yet, across very different camps, many within the “gay community” spent a good part of the spring trying to get what the “straight community” already has: civil marriage.
Legal recognition of our equality is what a great many of us are trying to obtain. But there are a few things, perhaps more important, that we need to achieve first: an across-the-board recognition within the gay community that we actually want and deserve full equality, with all its rights and responsibilities, and that we are willing to fight for it. And the one pre-requisite that has to happen before any of this: we have to start acting like it.
Herbert wonders if America is going through a nervous breakdown. I wonder if the gay community is. I do know that our fractured, disinterested, distracted collective is neither doing enough to get better nor to make things better.
And yes, it’s been a constant game of win-lose-win-lose.
Taking a Toll
Despite our marriage equality wins this spring, despite our communal temper-tantrum that led to the Hate Crimes Bill making its way through Congress and the talk of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the gay community is too silent on matters that affect us just as much, if not more deeply, than those the rest of the country is confronting.
Take California. Less than one year after Prop 8 passed, less than four months after it was upheld by California’s Supreme Court, we can’t even get enough people to call Governor Schwarzenegger’s office to voice support for the proposed Harvey Milk Day bill. 100,000 people called – the majority reportedly in opposition to the bill.
Yes, there are bright spots. Grass-roots organizations and individuals are making a difference every day. My fellow gay writers and bloggers work long days, often with little or no compensation, to help move the ball forward. And we’re having some success.
But those in straight community, in the form of conservatives, gay marriage opponents, and the religious right, have enslaved us for far too long. And it’s taken its toll.
Because most of us can’t get married, we’ve approached relationships differently. Our opponents like to say we have all the rights we need – and deserve. What they don’t talk about is the security they have that comes in the form of societal recognition. We know that the bond of marriage is not only a goal, but an aid to maintaining a relationship through troubled times. It’s a lot easier to walk away when there are no legal issues, common property, children, or even the reaction of family, friends, and neighbors to stop you.
Acting Like We Want It
And because we don’t have this responsibility, some of us often don’t act with the same level of responsibility that straights purport to have. Much to our detriment, and, dare I say, much to the secret delight of our foes, many in our community are still acting as teenagers, more interested in having fun and sex today than taking a healthy interest in achieving equality tomorrow.
David Phillips wrote me about this, saying,
“DADT is perhaps the best word to describe most male couples I’ve known.”
I refuse to believe that’s true across the board.
While there are a great many long-term same-sex relationships, many gay relationships aren’t necessarily long-lasting – not because we’re not capable or desirous of long-term relationships, but – in part -because society has not put the same focus on same-sex marriage that it has on “traditional” marriage. Remember, the Bush administration spent $300 million a year to promote “traditional” marriage.
And no, I’m not blaming our shortcomings on society.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
So, as we move into the fall season, as we look to fight new battles for marriage equality, perhaps in New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and as we move back to fight again for Maine and California, maybe we should pause for a moment and ask ourselves, does the majority of the gay community really want marriage equality? And if we do, are we going to start acting like it?
Note: This post was originally published at The Bilerico Project.
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U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) is accusing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of pepper-spraying her in her face while she was at a local Tucson, Arizona restaurant.
Rep. Grijalva in a video on social media said she saw about 40 mostly-masked ICE agents at a restaurant she frequents weekly.
The agents were “in several vehicles that the community had stopped right here, right in the middle of the street, because they were afraid that they were taking people without due process, without any kind of notice.”
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She said that the community was “protecting their people” when she was “sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent,” and “pushed around by others when I literally was not being aggressive.”
“I was asking for clarification, which is my right as a member of Congress,” she continued. “So, once I introduced myself, once I did, I assumed that it would be a little calmer, but there was literally only one person that was trying to speak to me in any kind of civil tone, and everyone else was being rude and disrespectful, and I just can only imagine if they’re going to treat me like that, how they’re treating everybody else.”
Congresswoman Grijalva said she saw “people directly sprayed,” including “members of our press” and staff members.
She blasted President Donald Trump, saying that he “has no regard for any due process, the rule of law, the Constitution — they’re literally disappearing people from the streets.”
Critics slammed the agents’ action.
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U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) wrote that Rep. Grijalva “was doing her job, standing up for her community.”
“Pepper-spraying a sitting member of Congress is disgraceful, unacceptable, and absolutely not what we voted for. Period,” he added.
“This is unacceptable and outrageous,” observed Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. “Enforcing the rule [of] law does not mean pepper spraying a member of Congress for simply asking questions. Effective law enforcement requires restraint and accountability, not unchecked aggression.”
The Bulwark’s Sam Stein noted, “quite the beginning for Grijalva, who wasn’t seated for weeks, [cast] the decisive vote to get the Epstein files, and now has apparently been pepper sprayed in the face by immigration agents.”
Also calling the action “outrageous,” U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote: “We are Members of Congress with oversight authority of ICE. Rep Grijalva was completely within her rights to stand up for her constituents. ICE is completely lawless.”
“First they tackle a sitting Senator,” noted U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY). “Now they’re pepper spraying a Representative. It’s clear ICE is spinning out of control. We will hold the agency accountable.”
ICE just conducted a raid by Taco Giro in Tucson – a small mom-and-pop restaurant that has served our community for years.
When I presented myself as a Member of Congress asking for more information, I was pushed-aside and pepper sprayed. pic.twitter.com/gPx0p3IXP2
— Rep. Adelita Grijalva (@Rep_Grijalva) December 5, 2025
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Image via Reuters
A well-known conservative commentator has a warning for the Republican Party: take action now or face a repeat of the 2018 midterms when the GOP lost 41 House seats in a landslide. And this time, he says, the Senate could go to the Democrats as well.
Award-winning writer and journalist Bernard Goldberg reminded readers at The Hill that in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term, “Republicans got walloped … and a good chunk of that had President Trump’s name written all over it.”
Trump’s “approval ratings were in the low 40s, and independents — the folks who usually decide elections — had seen enough. They broke hard for the Democrats,” Goldberg noted. “Now here we are, staring down 2026, and you can almost hear history clearing its throat, getting ready to repeat itself.”
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Goldberg noted that Trump’s approval rating is currently the lowest it’s been this term.
“Among Republicans, his support dropped from 91 percent right after the 2024 election to 84 percent last month. Among independents, it cratered — from 42 percent to just 25 percent.”
“If the trend continues,” he warned, “Republicans could be headed for another blue wave — and this time, it could wash away not just the House majority, but control of the Senate too.”
Why?
“It’s the economy — still,” he wrote.
“Trump is out there saying the economy is humming. Biden said the same thing before him. But voters didn’t buy it then, and they’re not buying it now. Why? Because it’s not GDP numbers that matter. It’s affordability,” Goldberg noted.
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That’s a word that President Trump continues to call a “con job,” while his own administration tries to claim he is focused on.
He pointed to a Karl Rove Wall Street Journal column and wrote: “The Republicans may have ‘avoided disaster’ in Tennessee, but the result should be a wake-up call for Republicans. He’s right.”
Goldberg asked: “will anyone in the Republican Party actually pick up the phone?”
“Because if Republicans don’t wake up — and fast — they’re going to find out the hard way what happens when you keep rerunning the same movie and expecting a different ending. To lose in 2026, all they have to do is nothing. And right now, that’s pretty much what they’re doing.”
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President Donald Trump is claiming that the top priority of Democrats is the “total obliteration” of the U.S. Supreme Court. His remarks came just hours after SCOTUS gave Republicans a 6-3 win along partisan lines, in the form of approving Texas’s redrawn mid-decade congressional maps that could help add five GOP-held seats to the U.S. House of Representatives. A lower court had ruled the redrawn Texas maps were likely racially biased.
Although there are different ways to measure, one study by Court Accountability this fall found that the Supreme Court has ruled in Trump’s favor 90% of the time.
“Most of these wins for the president came from the court’s ‘shadow docket’ slate of opinions — where the court has typically, in the past, only ruled on administrative measures,” according to Truthout. “However, in recent years, the Supreme Court has been making announcements on cases, issuing injunctions or allowances of actions to remain in place, that have the same effect, essentially, as a final decision.”
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On Friday, the president declared that the “Democrats number one policy push is the complete and total OBLITERATION of our great United States Supreme Court.”
“They will do this on their very first day in office, through the simple Termination of the Filibuster, SHOULD THEY WIN THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS,” he wrote.
Trump has strongly advocated for Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster.
“The Radical Left Democrats are looking at 21 Justices, with immediate ascension,” he wrote, claiming that Democrats would more than double the current size of the court.
“This would be terrible for our Country. Fear not, however, Republicans will not let it, or any of their other catastrophic policies, happen. Our Country is now in very good hands. MAGA!!!”
Some court reform advocates have suggested the Supreme Court be expanded to 13 justices, one for each of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals.
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Image via Reuters
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