The week spanning Tisha B’Av and Tu B’Av, aside from the respite of Shabbat Nachamu, brought a lot of mourning, especially for children. First came the cuts to California’s budget.
The shanda is that these cuts were made without a serious effort at creating new revenues streams for the state. No oil severance tax; no closing of corporate tax loopholes. Because of the cuts, and because funds for cities and counties are being taken by the state (thereby reducing available money for fire protection, healthcare and other basic services), children and, for that matter, adults will die. (Who by fire; who by water; who before their time?).
So, Tisha B’Av. Many PJA-niks attended services hosted by the Shtible Minyan and Ikar, led by Rabbis Sharon Brous and Abraham Havivi. The Rabbis talked about how, whether we want a sacrificial Temple back or not (this writer does not), we are drawn into Tisha B'Av. It breaks open a pit that most of us usually pave over. It allows us to face the calamities of an unredeemed world – civilians mangled in wars, children dying of poverty. “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.” (Ez: 16:49) Tisha B’Av lets us sit with these horrors knowing that Yom Kippur’s promise of redemption awaits us.
On the day of Tisha B'Av, I attended a town hall at The California Endowment called by State Senator Gil Cedillo to discuss “California's Future.” One of the speakers, Dr. Robert Ross of the Endowment (a reasonable, deliberate man, whom I have never heard to be so weary, angry or disheartened), also talked about the death of children. He said that, in California today, all the elements of that opportunity which the USA, at its best, distinguishes itself by offering -- healthcare: public education, affordable housing, transportation and economic development – are either flat-out dysfunctional or in disarray. He said that these cuts evidence a complete breakdown of the social contract; the link between people, government and civil society. They also do not make any fiscal sense. As Dr. Ross pointed out, some of the most heartless cuts—those to childhood immunization, and HIV/AIDS prevention, for example-- will cost far more in the long run than they save in the short run.
Many people writing and speaking about the budget cuts talk about the impact it will have on the “most vulnerable.” It is imprecise as well as impolitic to focus this discussion only on the “most vulnerable.” Actually, any of us could be the one whose ambulance or firefighter doesn't come in time or whose loved one becomes ill --or is killed on the street by someone who didn't get the care or supervision they needed. All of us will pay more, as taxpayers and as members of communities, for this shortsighted budget.
Finally, after a very long week, it was Shabbat Nachamu, a time of consolation. I enjoyed a healing dinner to celebrate the birthday of a loved friend; only to learn afterward that two teenagers had been shot to death while attending a social gathering at a Gay and Lesbian Youth Center in Tel Aviv.
So there we were, on Tu B’Av, brought together again to cry for murdered children. PJA Executive Director Elissa Barrett stood with Rabbi Denise Eger (Kol Ami, www.kolami.org), an open lesbian and President of the Southern California Board of Rabbis, Rabbi Lisa Edwards (Beth Chayim Chadashim, www.bcc-la.org), Rabbi Brous (IKAR, www.ikar.org), and many others speaking to a standing-room-only mixed multitude of denominations, sexual orientations and, genders. We came together to mourn on a day dedicated by tradition to love and promise. And love and promise there was, in our mutual support; the bracing agony of hope cutting through the temptation to despair.
We live in an unfinished world. Prior to any final redemption, no improvement is secure, none of our rights go unchallenged. We will never be “safe.” But there’s no getting away from the knowledge that, while we never control all the results of our choices, those choices do have results, in other people’s lives as well as our own. Hope or despair? Social solidarity or callousness? As Elissa Barrett reminded us, the gate of life is still open.
Over 100 members and friends of the Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA) packed a private home to hear Wendy Greuel, newly elected Controller of the City of Los Angeles; Nancy Berlin, Director of California Partnership; Peter Dreier, political science professor at Occidental College and Executive Board Chair of the Horizon Institute, an LA-based think tank; and Elissa Barrett, Executive Director of PJA discuss ways “Out of California’s Quagmire”.
The event was shadowed by the budget deal that California’s Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders have sent to the legislature for a vote. In California, a budget has to be passed, not by a simple majority, but by a 2/3 vote of the legislature. This means that a minority of rightwing ideologues with reflexive allergies to any tax, and to the government in which they were elected to participate, have disproportionate power. Schwarzenegger has used ads to frame California’s recent election, in which various budget-shaping initiatives were defeated, as proof that California’s voters want to close a $26 billion deficit with no new taxes at all. (This is not true. A majority of voters favor a combination of tax increase and spending cuts.)
By starting negotiations with threats to eliminate California’s welfare-to-work, public parks and child healthcare programs, the Governor was able to force extreme cuts to those programs, and to education, in the final deal. The State also plans to take funds from cities and counties, putting more pressure on basic services, such as fire protection and healthcare and reducing funds for the redevelopment agencies that provide jobs. The proposed budget would re-introduce offshore oil drilling to California—but would not impose a severance tax on the oil, even though every other oil-producing state, including Alaska and Texas, benefits from such a tax.
The proposed budget will slam the poor right away—and in this economy, that includes people who were income earners until some time last year—but all of us will face overcrowded ER’s; delayed, overworked firefighters and paramedics; and shrinking educational opportunities. Schwarzenegger appears to be following the footsteps of another acting governor: at once insisting that government can’t do anything right and underfunding government to make that slander come true.
Since this was a Jewish event, the night began with the fruitful cacophony peculiar to Jewish text study. In chevruta, we studied texts from Megillah and Zeraim about tithing and budgeting. Traditional Jewish communities (and immigrant societies here in the USA) thrived, because everyone with income contributed a set percentage—in addition to the tzedakah that individuals give where they please—to community institutions. Applying the principle, we reminded ourselves that anyone who uses public roads, electricity, water, hospitals, public safety protection or schools—or who benefits from their existence--has a stake in paying for them.
Peter Dreier told us that when FDR first met with labor leaders who backed what are now normal, if besieged, ideas, such as minimum wages and Social Security, he said their vision was great-- “now make me do it.” Progressive taxation actually began as a democratizing reform, making such things as public education possible.
Wendy Greuel urged us to aim our future efforts at the 2/3 voting rule. She warned that, in the short term, Sacramento’s ‘borrowing’ from municipalities will mean fewer jobs, more homelessness and a greater strain on a smaller fire department.
Nancy Berlin observed that we are in a “public relations war.” She said that taxpayers need to rise up as such and say that we don’t mind paying for a healthier, more educated workforce or for the water, roads and other amenities we depend on for our own prosperity and quality of life.
Elissa Barrett urged everyone to contact their legislators and call for an oil severance tax, a rollback of the tax breaks that benefit 9 corporations (which would save the Healthy Families and Home Health Aid programs from being cut); fair property tax rates on corporations and cost-saving prison reform. She reminded us that the book of life is not yet closed.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention, while lamenting that this ad didn't come out before Prop 8 passed, you can donate now and help get it on the air in California, if your pocket book is so inclined. Now, on with the original blog post...
Alex Koppelman at Salon.com's War Room blog has a perfectly devastating post on a new ad in support of gay marriage in California. His point, in short, where was this ad before Proposition 8 passed?
California's Supreme Court, by a vote of 6-1 has upheld the gay marriage ban, otherwise known as Proposition 8, that passed in a referendum last year. More strictly speaking, they held that the ban did restrict the designation of marriage "while not otherwise affecting the fundamental constitutional rights of same-sex couples." Thus it is constitutional, which is an eloquent sort of yak caca, but it was a predicted ruling.
The silver lining, if there is one, is that the court ruled not to invalidate the approximately 18,000 marriages performed in the state prior to Proposition 8's passage. This from the same court that did invalidate the marriages performed by San Francisco in 2004. Progress marches onward, or more accurately, it stumbles in an ignorant stupor towards the light of tomorrow's sobriety.
I bring all of this up, because while it is in so many ways a travesty against the civil liberties of the gay community, it does not sway me from my more hopeful post of last week. Therein, I argued that I was wrong to blast the gay community for overreaching in 2004 when it pushed gay marriage in the Bay Area and Massachusetts.
I think, despite this setback, that my general optimism remains correct. So much progress has been made, and while vast swaths of the population still vehemently oppose gay marriage, most of them aren't willing to openly oppose basic equal rights for gays. The time seems nearer than it ever has when gays and lesbians will be able to afford the same legal rights and protections of married heterosexual couples.
As for California, well... at least they're trying.
Joanna Blotner is a former Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center. She currently works as Religion & Faith Program Coordinator for the Human Rights Campaign. All views expressed are her own.
Emotionally processing the results of this year's election has been a very confusing, exhausting and heart-wrenching process for me. On the one hand, I am overjoyed that our nation sent a stronger majority of LGBT-friendly legislators back to Congress. On the other hand, I am nothing short of disgusted that two more state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage passed in Arizona and Florida; that voters in Arkansas have barred single parents and gay couples from adopting children in need of loving homes; and that California voters decided to revoke equal marriage rights granted constitutional by the state Supreme Court. As MSNBC's Keith Olbermann said in his special comment on Proposition 8, it is one thing to further deny civil rights that have never been granted, but it is another thing entirely to "take away the legal right which [someone] already had" - Olbermann's comments are by far the most powerful and beautiful I've heard yet.
The LA Times reported last week that the California Senate has approved May 22 as 'Harvey Milk Day'
Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) said the bill by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) was appropriate to honor a man who, in 1977, became the first openly gay elected official of any large city in the United States and later made the cover of Time Magazine.
"His legacy as a civil rights leader is still felt today," she said.
Not one Republican voted for the bill, which also says the day shall have special significance in public school and other educational institutions and "encourages those entities to conduct suitable commemorative exercises on that date."
Which begs the question, is Milk a role model of Jewish leadership? This question came up last May when I was at a retreat where Milk was held up as one of the many unusual and often unheralded role models of American Jewish leadership in the 20th century.
were the words of Rabbi Denise Eger, of Congregation Kol Ami (translation "Voice of My People"), under a chuppah, to Diane and Robin, making them the first couple married after the California Supreme Court's decision to uphold marriage equality. Mazel tov on a beautiful and groundbreaking simcha!
Rambles on chutzpah, Jewish/LGBTQ activism, the meaning of marriage in queer activism, the correlating historical trajectories of this moment and glee, after the jump.
The event was shadowed by the budget deal that California’s Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders have sent to the legislature for a vote. In California, a budget has to be passed, not by a simple majority, but by a 2/3 vote of the legislature. This means that a minority of rightwing ideologues with reflexive allergies to any tax, and to the government in which they were elected to participate, have disproportionate power. Schwarzenegger has used ads to frame California’s recent election, in which various budget-shaping initiatives were defeated, as proof that California’s voters want to close a $26 billion deficit with no new taxes at all. (This is not true. A majority of voters favor a combination of tax increase and spending cuts.)
Peter Dreier told us that when FDR first met with labor leaders who backed what are now normal, if besieged, ideas, such as minimum wages and Social Security, he said their vision was great-- “now make me do it.” Progressive taxation actually began as a democratizing reform, making such things as public education possible.
