Marriage equality comes to New York

New York just became the sixth (and most populous) state to grant marriage rights to gay couples. Now it seems that the only people who remain politically and economically disadvantaged are single renters, who contribute comparatively little to the wedding, childbearing/rearing, and mortgage industries. (In a nation of "consumers"—the preferred American descriptor for what other democracies call "citizens"—it is the size of one's economic footprint that matters, not one's ecological footprint.)[1]

It's a bit ironic that gay couples have fought so hard to enjoy the social legitimacy of a contractual relationship that has so often spelled hierarchy and inequality for the participants. (A recent New Yorker cartoon shows two men in a domestic scene, with the apron-wearing partner saying he wants equality in marriage.) Perhaps this is what really frightens religious homophobes: the possibility that gay marriage will undermine the structural inequality that the religious right believes proper for heterosexual relations. Heterosexuals should be so lucky!  I have gay friends who have been more happily married, and for more years, than many straight couples; I also have gay friends who feel ambivalent about the institution of marriage while still applauding New York's decision, given the socioeconomic realities of contemporary life. One gay friend wrote wistfully of the days when to be gay was to be an outsider, anti-bourgeois; I know several who view the desire of so many gay couples to have children as a mere ploy for social acceptance or, at best, a result of straight culture's brain-washing.

Although I do not have children myself and believe that dominant narratives should always be scrutinized, I think this particular view condemns with too broad a stroke. There are certainly wrong-headed motives for having children—to seek cultural legitimacy, personal validation, or unconditional love (any of which is sure to backfire when said children are born) — but there are generous motives, too.  Any sensitive, thoughtful person, gay or straight, could conceivably want to provide love and guidance to a vulnerable young human, and the world contains far too many unwanted children who desperately need to be adopted into loving homes. Rescuing such children from a life of feeling unwanted and alienated is a noble endeavor, and perhaps no one is better suited to the task than someone who has experienced such wounds and managed to learn, from examining their own suffering, how to strengthen others.

In a similar vein, there's a difference between those who yearn to spend their lives freely and openly with the person they love and those who seek to marry simply because it is expected, all their friends are doing it, or their parents are pressuring them. A case could be made that people who have long been deprived of a right are that much more appreciative of it—there is, in fact, evidence that granting marriage rights to gay couples, who divorce less than heterosexual couples, actually reduces the divorce rate among heterosexuals as well. (Not that we should make too much of statistics, for they tell only a small part of any story.) And it surprises many people to learn that there is a long history of gay marriage in other cultures and historical periods, dating from the ancient Greeks and continuing into the 18th century among Native American tribes [2]. To ignore this history, not to mention the equally long history of long-term heterosexual love, is to disdain those relationships that do endure, among humans as well as many other species.

Human motives are complex, however, and, often as not, confused and opaque even to the most introspective among us.  All I can say is that it is best to carefully consider why we want to marry or not marry, to have children or not, and to make sure that when we undertake actions that necessarily and profoundly affect another sentient being we consider the consequences with a rigor as robust as the passion we feel [3].  Here we can find inspiration in two poets, one 19th century German (Heinrich Heine) and one 20th century American (Dorothy Parker), who achieved crystalline clarity about what they wanted from marriage:

Die Heimkehr [4]
LXXII

Und bist du erst mein ehlich Weib,

Dann bist du zu beneiden,

Dann lebst du in lauter Zeitvertreib,

In lauter Pläsier und Freuden.

Und wenn du schiltst und wenn du tobst,

Ich werd es geduldig leiden;

Doch wenn du meine Verse nicht lobst,

Laß ich mich von dir scheiden.

*

If you shall be my faithful wife

Then fortune on you shines.

You'll live a gay and carefree life

Of leisurely pastimes.

And if you scold and if you rave

I'll abide it all with pleasure.

But if my poems you will not praise

Then let us split forever.

Fighting Words

Say my love is easy had,

Say I'm bitten raw with pride,

Say I am too often sad—

Still behold me at your side.

Say I'm neither brave nor young,

Say I woo and coddle care,

Say the devil touched my tongue—

Still you have my heart to wear.

But say my verses do not scan,

And I get me another man!

May we all find an appreciative audience, whether straight, gay, or ameobic.

_____________


Footnotes


[1] The economic impact of this decision was not lost on anyone: marriage (or, rather, weddings) are projected to add $142 million to the NYC economy and $184 million to NY state as a whole. Another angle that should not be overlooked: this is the first time gay marriage has passed in a state where one of the houses was controlled by Republicans. Back in 2009, when Democrats controlled the state house and senate, the gay marriage bill was roundly defeated (by 14 votes).  On Friday, the bill won by a four-vote margin (33 to 29). 

[2] That is, before Protestant Europeans dedicated themselves to imposing gender dimorphism on the "savages" who were otherwise living happily with each other and the rest of the natural world. So much for progress.  See, for example, Michael Bronski, A Queer History of the United States (2011), and Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, John d'Emilio and Estelle Freedman (1988, 1997). The latter book is a classic and was cited by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy when he struck down a Texas law criminalizing sodomy.

[3] This includes the decision to acquire a pet. Today I was walking down a Manhattan street and saw a young couple, probably in their twenties, stepping out of a souped-up black car to deposit a tiny, and I mean tiny, pit bull puppy on the sidewalk. I had the impression they wanted it to "do business" but the poor thing looked lost and very fragile. I asked how old it was as I stooped down to give it some affection and protect it from the stark sun, if not the heated pavement; the young man, thick arms crossed in front of his capacious chest, said "almost 4 weeks." I tried to suppress my horror and said that was awfully young. The man, this boy, really, mumbled, "it's ok, we have a book... we give it milk." I dared not ask what kind; images of chocolate and strawberry milk cartons popped into my head.

I pointed out that puppies need more than milk from their mother, and continued supporting this tender little fellow whose cerebellar development was so incomplete he could barely stand without wavering. Or maybe he was dehydrated: he tried to suckle my finger, and the boy gruffed, "no biting," to which I replied that he might be hot and thirsty. Hefty boy was unimpressed.

Puppies should not be taken from the mother before 8 weeks; 10 weeks is even better, and frankly, we don't know how much better it would be if we didn't make a habit of breaking up canine families at all.  (A famous wag once wrote that the only reason dogs hadn't yet acquired language is because we take them away from their families so young.) I really didn't know what to do; I tried gently admonishing this young guy and his girlfriend, but walked away wondering if I should have told them to report the person who sold or gave them such a young dog. This was a set-up for disaster, and these kids had absolutely no idea what they were doing. Sadly, I am certain their ignorance was learned: had they been wisely parented themselves, they could not have been so obtuse.


[4] It's exceedingly difficult to translate poetry well—to capture both the sense and the sensibility of it. I was delighted to find that Justin Erik Halldór Smith has met the challenge beautifully with his translation of this Heinrich Heine poem.

Since I first posted this, I have altered the essay in several ways. Most importantly, I had quoted a friend anonymously but without asking her permission, and I have removed the quote. I usually would not have been so careless, but two friends had expressed virtually the same thought, except that one wrote and the other spoke. I therefore quoted the written lines, which the other person could just as well have thought were his, but on principle I should have asked. I am normally punctilious about such issues, and I regret the error. I amended the passage, which in the end led me to reconsider and clarify what I was really trying to say anyway.

Poetic perspective on economic orthodoxy

Poetry to the rescue! Early 20th century Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote the following poem in 1926, which I post here as both a follow-up to Friday's post about the dominance of economics in our "value" system and in honor of the upcoming April 15 tax filing deadline here in the U.S.  Enjoy.

Conversation with a tax collector about poetry

translation by George Reave

Citizen tax collector!

                Forgive my bothering you ...

Thank you ...

        don't worry ...

                          I'll stand ...

My business is of a delicate nature:

about the place of the poet in the workers' ranks.

Along with owners of stores and property

I'm made subject to taxes and penalties.

You demand I pay five hundered for the half year

and twenty-five for failing to send in my returns.

Now my work is like any other work.

Look here -- how much I've lost,

what expenses I have in my production

and how much I spend on materials.

You know, of course, about "rhyme."

Suppose a line ends with the word "day,"

and then, repeating the syllables in the third line

we insert something like "tarara-boom-de-day."

In your idiom rhyme is a bill of exchange

to be honoured in the third line! ---that's the rule.

And so you hunt for the small change of suffixes and flections

in the depleted cashbox of conjugations and declensions.

You start shoving a word into the line,

but it's a tight fit --

                                you press it and it breaks.

Citizen tax collector, honestly,

the poet spends a fortune on words

In our idiom rhyme is a keg.

                                 A keg of dynamite.

The line is a fuse. 

The line burns to the end

                  and explodes

                        and the town is blown sky-high in a strophe.

Where can you find,

            and at what price,

                        rhymes that take aim and kill on the spot?

Suppose only half a dozen unheard-of rhymes

were left, in, say, Venezuela.

And so I'm drawn to North and South.

I rush around entangled in advances and loans.

Citizen! Consider my traveling expenses.

-- Poetry -- all of it! --  is a journey to the unknown.

Poetry is like mining radium.

For every gram you work a year.

For the sake of a single word

            you waste a thousand tons of verbal ore.

But now

            incendiary

                        the burning of these words

compared with the smoldering

                        of the raw material.

These words will move

            millions of hearts for thousands of years.

Of course, there are many kinds of poets.

So many of them use legerdemain!

And, like conjurers, pull lines from their mouths --

their own -- and other people's.

Not to speak of the lyrical castrates

They're only too glad to shove in a borrowed line.

This is just one more case of robbery and embezzlement

among the frauds rampant in the country.

These verses and odes bawled out today amidst applause,

will go down in history as the overhead expenses

of what two or three of us have achieved.

As the saying goes, you eat forty pounds of table salt,

and smoke a hundred cigarettes

in order to dredge up one precious word

from artesian human depths.

So at once my tax shrinks.

Strike out one wheeling zero from the balance due!

For a hundred cigaretts -- a ruble ninety;

for table salt -- a ruble sixty.

Your form has a mass of questions:

"Have you traveled on business or not?"

But suppose I have ridden to death

a hundred Pegasi in the last 15 years?

And here you have -- imagine my feelings! --

something about servants and assets.

But what if I am simultaneously a leader

and a servant of the people?

The working class speaks through my mouth,

and we, proletarians, are drivers of the pen.

As the years go by, you wear out the machine of the soul.

And people say:

            "A back number, he's written out, he's through!"

There's less and less love,

            and less and less daring,

and time is a battering ram against my head.

Then there's amortization, the deadliest of all;

amortization of the heart and soul.

And when the sun like a fattened hog

rises on a future without beggars and cripples,

I shall already be a putrefied corpse under a fence,

together with a dozen of my colleagues.

Draw up my posthumous balance!

I hereby declare -- and I'm telling no lies:

Among today's swindlers and dealers,

I alone shall be sunk in hopeless debt.

Our duty is to blare like brass-throated horns

in the fogs of bourgeois vulgarity and seething storms.

A poet is always indebted to the universe,

paying, alas, interest and fines.

I am indebted to the lights of the Broadway,

to you, to the skies of Bagdadi,           

to the Red Army, to the cherry trees of Japan --

to everything about which

                        I have not yet written.

But, after all,

            who needs

                        all this stuff?

Is its aim to rhyme

            and rage in rhythm?

No, a poet's word

            is your resurrection

and your immortality,

            citizen and official.

Centuries hence,

            take a line of verse

from its paper frame

            and bring back time!

And this day with its tax collectors,

its aura of miracles and its stench of ink,

will dawn again.

Convinced dweller in the present day,

go to the N.K.P.S., take a ticket to immortality

and, reckoning the effect of my verse,

stagger my earnings over three hundred years!

But the poet is strong not only because,

remembering you, the people of the future will hiccup.

No! Nowadays too the poet's rhyme

is a caress

            and a slogan,

                        a bayonet

                                    and a knout! 

Citizen tax collector,

            I'll cross out all the zeros

            after the five and pay the rest.

I demand

            as my right

                        an inch of ground

among the poorest workers and peasants.

And if

            you think

                        that all I have to do

is to profit

            by other people's words,

then,

            comrades,

                        here's my pen.

Take

            a crack at it

                        yourselves!

Plus ça change....

First, my apologies to those of you who have checked back to this blog for the past ten days, drumming your fingers on your laptops, impatiently waiting for a new post. (Yes, I can hear all two of you.)  I'd like to say it was all intentional—I'm a proponent of slow blogging— but a combination of work deadlines, a sprained sacro-iliac joint and arm problems from too much mousing slowed me down for a while. Nevertheless, I've been gestating a number of ideas and I am looking forward to posting about them this coming week.


In the meantime, I want to share a poem, "The Fat of the Land," by the Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi (772-846 AD) as translated by Frederick Turner:

A cavalcade of arrogance rides through,

Harness and horse so bright the mere dust shines;

And may I ask what do these people do?

They're the imperial eunuch chamberlains.

If he's in red robes, he's a bureaucrat,

If in a purple sash, a general;

Off to the army banquet, proud of that,

They gallop past, like clouds before a squall.

Nine vintages the flagons overspill,

Dainties from lake and land are spread to please;

They split the juicy Dong Ting oranges,

Spear morsels of sweet perch from heaven's seas.

They've drunk and eaten to their heart's content:

Puffed up still more with airs, they're merry then.

This year there's drought in the south continent;

In Qu Zhou men now eat the flesh of men.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose....