Uncle Sam Pays Well!

What Economists Think...

The American Economic Association released a new survey of attitudes of its members toward varying economic issues. The results show high agreement on some questions, and disagreement on others. The first question asks whether the US should eliminate all tariffs and barriers to trade. 83% of economists agree, while 10% disagree. Well...just a couple of weeks ago Obama approved legislation to increase punitive tariffs on Chinese exports. Looks like someone has selective listening when it comes to his economists' expert advice....

I wish, too, that that the survey would have solicited economists their views on gay marriage, i.e. does gay marriage generates more benefits than costs to society? It would be beneficial to see what the members of the AEA think about this highly relevant topic today. I mean, come on, the survey prompts the economists with a question about Wal-Mart and claims that this is an issue of topical relevance today. Seriously? Wal-Mart controversy is so dated.

Gay Marriage in Vermont

Gay marriages start.....today, September 1st, 2009! It adds to the growing list of New England states that have taken the intrepid step of legalizing gay marriage....plus incontiguous pastoral Iowa. I'm curious to see how the institution of gay marriage in Vermont will affect the state socially, politically, and most interestingly, economically. Anticipate a report from the Williams Institute in about six months or so!

Another Essay...

Here is an Analysis of an Argument essay.
Prompt: "A movie producer sent the following memo to the head of the movie studio. “We need to increase the funding for the movie Working Title by 10% in order to ensure a quality product. As you know, we are working with a first-time director, whose only previous experience has been shooting commercials for a shampoo company. Since the advertising business is notoriously wasteful, it stands to reason that our director will expect to be able to shoot take after take, without concern for how much time is being spent on any one scene. In addition, while we have saved money by hiring relatively inexperienced assistant producers and directors, this savings in salary will undoubtedly translate to greater expenditures in paying the actors and unionized crew overtime for the extra hours they will spend on the set waiting for the assistant directors and producers to arrange things. If we don’t get this extra money, the movie is virtually assured to be a failure.”"

My Response:

The argument that the movie will be a failure without increased funding is not entirely convincing. The memo suffers from numerous fallacious assumptions that render its argument illogical and not persuasive. This essay will expose these gaps in the argument and suggest ways that the movie producer could send a more effective memo to the head of the movie studio.

The first assumption that renders the memo not complete is that the movie producer assumes a causal relationship between the funding and the movie's success. He states that without increased funding, then the movie will undoubtedly fail. In other words, he claims that there is not other cause that can make the movie fail. It is dangerous to assume a causal relationship without quantifying it and without the movie producer considering further factors that, in addition to funding, could make the movie a horrible flop. For instance there are many successful documentaries like Trembling Before God and many of Michael More's movies that are produced on a tight budget. In addition, there exists successful non-documentaries, like the Blair Witch Project, produced by film students that have gone on to win movie awards.

Simply put, a lack of funding is not the only cause of a failed movie. Other components like the quality of the acting, and the timing of the realease can have more of an impact on the film's success than it's funding. Additionally, although the movie procuder claims that funding must be increased by 10%, where does he get that number from and why must it be 10%? If he arbitrary picked a percentage, why not randomly pick a 20%, or even higher, like 50% increase in funding? None of these estimates are cited in the memo and it leaves many questions unanswered.

An additional, and striking assumption that the movie producer makes is that the new director will assuredly be wasteful. His view of the new director, is one, disparaging, and two, rather extreme. To assume that that director will no doubt spend resources wastefully and extravaangtly just because the advertising business is wasteful is spurious and makes no sense. Who is to say that the director will pay any attention to what the advertising business will do with its finances? And is it not important that the movie director not belittle his director simply because the only experience the director has had with film is shooting commercials?

Furthermore, it is left unanswered whether those commercials were successful or not, so it is unfair to judge the director based on his previous experiences without providing the head of the studio with more biographical information of the director. And while the relative scope of a commercial is clearly smaller than the scope of a movie, a director's ability to manage successfully and devotion to a shooting is usually steadfast no matter what project he undertakes.

To conclude, the memo the movie producer sent to the head of the movie studio is not convincing and not persuasive. In order to strengthen his argument that the movie needs increased funding to be successful, the producer could provide the head of the movie studio with studies that show funding is directly proportional to a film's success and that 10% is the necessary increase in funding. In addition, he could provide evidence that perhaps the movie director has in the past been prodigal, which is why he believes he will similarly act recklessly with his film. Overall, without these improvements, the memo is not cogent.

GRE Essays

Since the only, and I mean only, issue that the news talks about these days is Obamacare, this dearth of news leave little for me to comment on since, in all sincerity, I am not interested in the health care debate. I just look forward to the end of these irascible town hall meetings and polemical essays for and against healthcare given that it's presence has diluted the news. In light of there being little in the news worth talking about, and since I have been assiduous in my study for the GRE since early July I am going to share with you the practice essays that I have written.

The GRE includes two writing sections: an Analysis of an Issue essay and an Analysis of an Argument essay. The former requires you to give your opion on an issue and the latter requires you to critique the logic of an argument. So here's a sample issue essay I wrote, and please feel free to constructively critique my writing. But keep in mind that this is GRE writing, so it's a "first draft" and overly trite. The issue topic was "Science is meaningless without religion".

The issue of how religion affects science is a controversial one. One the one hand, it can be argued that science is meaningless without religion. On the other hand, however, others argue that the presence of religion renders science meaningless. Although our modern era is marked heavily by atheism and a healthy dose of skepticism towards religion, I believe that science needs religion in order to be meaningful. This essay will explore my reasons that support my final analysis.

First, science can only have meaning with religion when religion does not stifle scientific investigation. In the early Middle Ages in Europe, the Catholic Church stifled scientific inquiry because it believed that its theology was all the masses needed to know in order to understand the world and the universe, and God. On the opposite side of the globe, the new flourishing religion of Islam enthusiastically encouraged scientific investigation. For example, there exists in Islam the principle of itsjihad, which means to devote oneself to philosophic, artistic, and scientific improvement. Clearly, the Muslims believed that the best way to understand God was to unearth the principles of the universe, which is done through scientific investigation and study. As a result, the Muslim world in that age produced great works of science and philosophy, from illustrious names like Averroes and Maimonides while Christendom in Europe stagnated scientifically.

Moreover, scientific discoveries can make religion appear more pertinent, realistic, and less mythological. While many view the texts of Christianity, such as the story of Creation found in Genesis as a fairytale that imitates other Near Easter creation stories, scientific discoveries can, in fact, give these stories more credibility. For example, before the discovery of the Big Bang, many scientists believed that the universe had no real beginning, meaning that the Universe was ageless. However, when two scientists discovered the Big Bang, this proved that the Universe had a definite start. In fact, this theory, although still contentious is many scientific circles, illustrates the story of Creation and gives the story more credibility. Also, in the New Testament, the apostles talk about the end of the universe and now that he universe has a beginning, many scientists believe that is must have an end, and many have postulated theories that the universe will extinguish in the far future. So, it is evident that science can give meaning to religion as well.

To conclude, while many fervent atheists aver that science is meaningless with religion, the arguments above illustrate that science can, alternatively, have meaning with religion. Religion can encourage scientific inquiry and, in turn, that scientific inquiry can give more credibility to religion. So, the two are not entirely irreconcilable, but share a common purpose and that is to better understand the world in which we live.

Tel Aviv Update

Tel Aviv's astoundingly tragic massacre at one of it's gay youth centers still leaves me distressed and morose. Last Sunday I was at dinner with Jewish friends of mine, one is Israeli, and he asked me why I have been silent about Israel. I told him how I felt candidly. For one thing, I could not contemplate that a Jew would kill another Jew because of sexual orientation. For another, I was angry that the Orthodox incite hatred and malice towards gay Israelis. I could barely hold back my tears as I reticently told my feelings. I don't hold any bitterment towards the Orthodox community: I know Orthodox Jews who are accepting LGBT allies, but just a few hateful words from clergy can have dire, and as we saw, murderous consequences. In short, I'm still recovering.

Here is an article from The Advocate on the paradox of gay life in Tel Aviv. The author argues that this murder could only happen in Tel Aviv because it's the only locale where gay people can meet openly, thus the paradox. He doesn't forget that homosexuals are pursued also in Iran and homosexuality is illegal in almost every contiguous state next to Israel. For instance, gays in Iran are subject to corporal punishment if found engaging in homosexual behavior. But, truly, a poignant reason this massacre is shocking to the world, and myself, is because homosexuality is decriminalized in Israel and gays have rights. Consequently, we expect gays to live freely without fear of intimidation and murder. Let's hope that in the future this is true for all gays, just not in Israel, but everywhere.

Attack in Tel Aviv

2 dead and 15 wounded in attack on Tel Aviv gay center. I am in complete shock about this. This horrific news has taken my breath away and I can't begin to express the deep sadness that I am feeling. I hope that the US and the world take note of this and that Israel works harder to counter homophobia. As a Jew, I know that we (and I mean all of us from secular to ultra-religious) are better than this inhumanity. This criminal attack just seems so out of place given that it was in Israel, let alone Tel Aviv: the heart of gay life in the Middle East. As a gay, I can't really begin to express how deeply distressed, sad and hurt I am; these teenagers were murdered in cold blood and I can barely think properly. But I seriously hope, demand, that Israel severely condemns this hate crime and its perpetrator.

Health Care Benefits Revisited

My latest post on providing health care concluded that the cost of providing them would exceed the benefits. I still reason the government will not approve this important legislation because of the costs it will incur (and because of prejudice towards gays). Of course, my prediction could be wrong.

But, however grim my analysis may be, I still believe that health care benefits should be granted to all same-sex partners of federal employees because it is an entitlement that we should enjoy just as much as heterosexual partners. Cost and benefits cannot overshadow civil rights.

In this case, civil rights trumps economics. So, to answer that post's concluding question "Are health care benefits worth the cost?", the answer is yes.

Social Networking Venn Diagram

Now that CNN is on Twitter, the venn diagram helps explain why their news coverage sucks. It all makes perfect sense to me now. Thanks Despair Inc!

On Being Gay and Jewish

Phil, at Ameriqueer, is going to be posting a dozen or so original guest posts dealing with Queer Spirituality this week, with contributors representing each of the world's major religions. He asked me to contribute to the conversation as the token Jew. I am glad to write about my experiences with being gay and Jewish, and I want to share my narrative with you.

When asked to write about what it means to be spiritual and gay, I was given the premise that we gays all know how difficult it is to be both. I want to make it clear at the outset that this premise is mistaken. This assumption does not fit my experience as a gay Jew. I cannot remember a time in my childhood or young adulthood where there was conflict between my sexual identity and spirituality. The closest difficulty I have faced is not being able to find that nice Jewish boy that my mom wants me to meet.

I come from a liberal, Chicago suburban Jewish family. My father's family has been here since the mid-1800s but my mom's father escaped the Holocaust, fled to Israel, and finally settled in Chicago. I grew up knowing distinctly that I was a Jew. My mother emphasized that we were unique, and that our situation, despite the tolerance we Jews have in America, was always precarious and that Israel was our only protection from persecution. So, I grew up with this sense of "otherness". At times, I rebelled, but most times, I was very proud to be a Jew. Today, I have a secure and evolving sense of my Jewish self.

Around that same time, I began to have feelings for boys as well. When I was in fourth grade, I stared at attractive boys in my class a lot and loved to be around them during recess. I knew intuitively I was gay at this time but I didn't know what to think about it in Jewish terms. Homosexuality was not discussed in my Sunday school classes. No one told me it was bad, but no teacher had told me it was good either. I never heard my rabbi preach about the sin of homosexuality ever. I did not grow up even with the sense that there was a conflict between being gay and being Jewish. There simply was not any condemnation, let alone any mention, of it in my religious upbringing.

I now know why this is now. There are two types of Judaism, loosely. There is the liberal branch, consisting of the Reform and Conservative movements in which I grew up, that is tolerant of homosexuality and then there is the Orthodox community. Unlike the liberal branch, the Orthodox has a much more austere and critical perspective of homosexuality.

When I did bring up the issue of homosexuality with my mom one time, she had said that we Jews understand it as a product of its place and time. The Torah actually does says that homosexuality is an abomination. In ancient times, however, the world population was very scarce; people and infants died all the time. It was imperative that the Jews survive and only through a sexual relationship between a man and a woman could that be done. Same sex love between men or between women did not help to ensure the survival of mankind and the Torah accordingly condemns and discourages homosexual practices. However, Reform Jews don't believe the ancient rabbis believed that same sex love was immoral. Reform Judaism rejects any suggestion that being gay is any kind of sin when we look at the Torah in its ancient context.

Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, understand homosexuality as grave a sin as Catholics, evangelical Christians, and many young Orthodox gay Jews are not as fortuitous as I to grow up in such an open-minded and liberal household. Many succumb to family pressures to marry, and some unfortunately commit suicide. I heard of one religious Jew who, in order to purge himself of his homosexuality, survived on a diet of cigarettes and water. My heart goes out to him because I do not know Judaism as a faith whose precepts would make a man go to such gruesome depth to suppress his identity.

On the contrary, my parents support me and remind me of their unconditional love all the time. They cherish me as their son, and my sexual identity does not compromise that. Despite this, though, there are times when I get so depressed because the feeling of being different overwhelms me. Knowing that I am both gay and Jewish, and knowing the hardships that both groups face within and outside each community, exhausts my soul sometimes. I become inarticulate, despondent, and withdrawn from friends and family. I can speak, but only tersely; I can think, but my thoughts are convoluted; I can live, but I barely survive.

As soup for my soul, I turn to the Torah, Judaism’s holiest book to uplift my spirits. I remember that the Torah forbids the suppression of identity and I remind myself that I wasn’t created in error. For instance, we Jews emphasize heavily that each person is made in the image of God. Since I was made in His image, God did not make me as a pile of junk. I must believe that I am valuable because I was created for a purpose and to have purpose in life. This Jewish philosophy gives life to my gay identity more than any gay bar or pride parade every can.

Torah also teaches me that self-love is self-acceptance. Because I want to better synthesize my identities, I have being helping revise the LGBT Jewish student group at the Hillel at the University of Illinois. The group is called Naches, which is the Yiddish word for Pride. The mission of Naches is to create a vibrant, welcoming Jewish LGBT community where students can explore and celebrate all aspects of their identities. I want to help gay Jewish students feel empowered to embrace and fuse both of their identities through social and educational programming. This past year we held queer-themed Shabbats, which were very popular.

The premise that we gays all know how difficult it is to be both gay and spiritual is far from the truth. I know many gays who, yes, do feel uncomfortable with religion, are agnostic or atheist, and for them that is entirely ok. But, my experience shows that spirituality and being gay are reconcilable and that having a spirituality can help make being gay more holy and more meaningful. I am grateful that I have been ‘twice blessed’ to be both gay and Jewish. It is such a blessing in my life.

Health Care Benefits to Gays...Is It Worth The Cost?

Here is the transcript that Professor MV Lee Badgett, a preeminent scholar in the economic lives of LGBT men and women, presented to Congress this month. She addresses HR2517, also known as “Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009” which is pending legislation in Congress. The bill is about extending health care benefits to government employees. If you don't get a chance to peruse her testimony, here are the main bullet-points verbatim with my own commentary in parenthesis.

1. This important legislation would put the federal government in the mainstream of modern compensation practices with respect to the equal treatment of the same-sex partners of federal employees. (As the agent of equal rights, its time the government cath up to the private and state sectors)
   
2. A study that [she] recently co-authored found that 20% of people in same-sex couples are uninsured, a rate that is significantly higher than average in the United States and is as least partly the result of employers’ failure to offer domestic partner benefits.
3. [They] estimated that providing these vital benefits for non-postal employees would cost approximately $41.0 million in the first year and $675 million over ten years. The majority of these costs are concentrated in the areas of employee health benefits and retiree health benefits.
   
4. Health benefits for the same-sex partners of federal employees (including postal service employees) and their dependent children would cost $60.4 million in the first year – that is a 0.41% increase in health care spending for employees in 2008. (0.41% increase is minimal, at least when you consider it next to the cost of the stimulus package and the impending health care takeover)
   
5. Over ten years the additional tax revenue associated with granting domestic partner benefits to federal employees would be approximately $118 million. Also, the retirement savings program would actually see a reduction in annuity payments over the short-term as federal employees opt for survivor benefits for their same-sex partners. This reduction amounts to $108 million over ten years (Not a huge chunk of change, in fact fairly paltry, but at least the government is earning tax revenue)

So, I said that she is a preeminent scholar in the economic lives of LGBT men and women, but I didn't say that she is the most erudite. Her testimony is passionate, but not persuasive. I agree with her very much that "HR2517 will also greatly enhance the financial security of the 34,000 federal employees with same-sex partners, and that sense of security will also generate benefits for their employer." However, the cost of extending the health care as she states over ten years is $675 million while the sum of the benefits is $226 million from increased tax revenue and retirement savings. Because costs exceed benefits, it's not lucrative for the government to invest in a program such as this. Thus, although I'm torn, economics concludes that Congress should not pass this legislation. Prof. Badgett overlooks this in her testimony. Economics is unfortunately not on her side at this juncture.

Here are some more numbers that further illustrate the economics. Doing some arithmetic shows that the benefits of extending health care cover approximately 33% of the costs. Also, the net benefit (i.e., benefits minus costs) of extending health care is -$449 million. Again, the negative sign says the government does not gain from passing HR2517.

Although disheartening, from these numbers I doubt Congress will approve this legislation, definitely not with the cost of the stimulus package lingering in their conscience and with Obama pushing for the nationalization of health care adding to the deficit. MV Lee Badgett needs to adjust her accounting in order to better persuade Congress that beyond the scope of economics the amorphous psychological benefits of providing health care benefits is very real to gays. While economics says no to extending health care benefits, my moral conscience says yes.

So, are health-care benefits to gays worth the cost?

URL Change Notice...

UPDATE! As the address bar above reads, the URL for this blog is now http://matthewkrugmiller.blogspot.com. I tried to search my blog earlier and this URL change seems to cause some search complications on blogsearch.google.com. So if you found my blog by route of an arduous and painstaking search, then welcome! This change is, for me, a bit more idiosyncratic, however I have left the title as is: iGay (cause I'm gay and I live in the i-generation).

A Right To Marry? I Say Duh...

I'm on a bit of a hiatus right now studying for the GRE for further tertiary pursuits (namely grad school). But, in the meantime, peruse this article in Dissent Magazine while I'm on recess. I admit I have only browsed the article so let me know what you think. It is about the right to marriage with allusions to classical homoeroticism, I believe. I will get to it once I master the geography of the GRE math, and hopefully verbal, section.

Ciao for now!

Why Do Gays Smoke?

Why do gay men and women smoke so much? Here are some of my observations and hypotheses.

What I have noticed:

1. Gay men and women smoke much more than upper-middle class straight people.
2. To be candid, self-image is very vital to gay self-esteem, and yet smoking can tarnish physical appearance with the effects of wrinkles, rancid breath, and fatal cancer.
3. With costs of health-care rising, and with gay partners excluded from healthcare in many job sectors, the financial risk of smoking to gays is higher than it is for heterosexuals.

Why might this trend exist?

1. Gay men and women have been the "target audience" of cigarette companies more than straight communities. Companies focus more heavily on them because their demand for cigarettes is higher and they are an under-tapped market that can provide high profits.
2. With the prevalence of AIDS in the LGBT community, anything less fatal than AIDS is shrugged off as trivial such as smoking. This makes them less risk-averse or risk-neutral, so they behave with a higher propensity to smoke.
3. Gay men and women tend to have lower incomes, which places them in lower social classes. I don't have the statistics to back this up, but I have noticed that lower-income individuals smoke disproportionately more than upper income folk.

What do you think?

On Paul Krugman's Conscience

Economics is one of my primary interests (it is my major anyway) so I like to stick my toes into econblogging intermittently too. With that said, let's talk about the stimulus package again. Paul Krugman loves to hear himself talk in his op-eds about this and that on the economy. If you ever read his NY Times column its as if you can hear his yelps of outrage and his bangs of frustration upon the keyboard as he types and types away his polemics. But it his his liberal conscience, not the nasty things he writes, that I question.

By his account, he claims that the stimulus package Obama signed into law was too small and thus ineffective. To fix this problem, he proposes the government pass yet another stimulus package. Do not forget that he is calling for a third stimulus package; we already have the monolithic waste Obama signed this year and the relatively smaller junk Bush executed in 2008. His liberal conscience seems to tell him that $787 billion does not cut it as a government rescue. Maybe he thinks that the third time is a charm.

He has forgotten that not only are individuals budget constrained, but the government is as well. And with "health-care reform" also on the table, who will finance this new stimulus sequel? Oh yeah...the taxpayers....maybe China too...

Contrary to Krugman's proposal, we do not need another stimulus package to add to the government deficit. Just look at where the national accounts are now. For example, the average deficit amount from 2005-2007 before the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (aka the stimulus package) was roughly $800 billion already. As of today, BBC News reports that the US deficit has moved above $1 Trillion. Robert Barro is right in saying that the government's current macro policy is a version of Keynes's 1936 "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money." He emphasizes strongly that this current financial crisis does not " invalidate everything we have learned about macroeconomics since 1936." And from the things we have learned in economics, he proposes that the optimal fiscal policy is to provide incentives for people to save, invest, and produce more instead of throwing money around superfluously.

I mean how does the government solve a financial crisis that was caused by too much leverage by issuing more and more debt? I don't mean to say debt is always bad. A college education is good debt, so is investing in a house within your means with a down payment and a fixed APR, but more spending on highway construction and bridges to no where like splurging on a new wardrobe from the GAP is not. The government needs to see the difference between good and bad debt. And surely more stimulus is just bad, as well as Krugman's conscience.

Economy Not Obama's Katrina

I woke up this morning to this article. James Pinkerton's thesis is that the ailing and anemic economy is Obama's Katrina. Thinking about the states of both the economy and Katrina, I do not agree with his interpretation of Obama's response to the economy because his argument suffers from a plethora of fallacies. First, his point of view is tainted by his republican ideology and it is obvious that he is writing for a mostly anti-intellectual audience who will believe anything anyone from Fox News says. Second, the purpose of his analysis is to not actually critique the efficacy of the stimulus package, but to personally attack Obama.

With that said, I too am skeptical of Obama. Also, I am anti-stimulus package, but it is not explicit whether Pinkerton is as well because his analysis is just a smorgasbord of bad analogy and ad hominem at the stimulus and Obama respectively. Pinkerton claims that Obama has not done much to help stimulate the economy (similar to Bush's glacial response to Katrina). This is wrong. First, Obama took immediate action to try to stimulate the economy, while Bush was hesitant to respond to Katrina. Second, $787 billion is a lot of stimulus money and that counts as something, not nothing, even though unemployment continues to rise and I don't agree with his macro policy. I would have argued alternatively that while the empirical reality is that excessive government spending correlates negatively with GDP growth, I think Obama pushed for the stimulus package to strengthen public confidence in the economy more so than to foster real output.

Pinkerton also argues that the New Deal was successful in bringing America out of the Great Depression. Again, this claim is just not true; statistics from that time and economic theory conclude this. In fact, the New Deal stopped the economy from achieving a speedy recovery and elongated the depression until 1939. Everyone keeps asking when the recovery will start. The answer is the stimulus package has hampered it and on top of a lengthy recovery the economy is going to get even worse than it is now. For more information, peruse this scholarly paper.

Let's not judge Obama on the economy. Yes, he could have focused on incentives to save, work, and produce more, but doing nothing "big" would have destroyed his popularity almost instantly. And Pinkerton could have realized too that Obama, with probably little more than an introductory economics education, surrounds himself accordingly with a team of populist, Keynesian economists who favor deficit government spending. Let's blame them for their disregard for sound macroeconomic policy and for whispering sweet nothings into Obama's ear. Instead let's judge him on his inertia to advance gay rights, his lackluster responses to the Iran uprising and getting it wrong again with the latest Honduras coup.

This is NOT Obama's Katrina. You heard it here first.

Queer Liturgy

As my 'About Me' states I am Jewish. I'm also gay. This past year I have tried to synthesize my two identities. To accomplish this I have helped bring more queer Jewish programming to my campus. I've started a group called Naches, which in Yiddish means Pride, and events that we have had include LGBT Shabbats and a gay Tel Aviv beach party. For this upcoming school year, I have ambitions to incorporate the group more into the Jewish community here with social and educational events, like late-night challah baking, bring in gay Jewish speakers among many more.

Naturally I like to stay abreast of Jewish news. So intermittently I browse Jewcy.com, a hip 21st century website for the 20 something Jew. Someone posted an article called "Queer Liturgy" about a new LGBT Siddur (siddur is a Jewish prayer book). I am excited to get a taste of this siddur. Here is the article.

Do you know of any other religions that have "Queer Liturgies"?

When is the right time to "Come Out"?

I have to admit that I am fierce advocate of coming out. I view the 'coming out' process as a powerful instrument for social and political change. However, 'coming out' cannot be done irrationally or with haste. To have an ideal coming out process a gay agent must act in his own self-interest and have a rational basis for coming out. This means that the benefits of coming out must equal the costs of coming out.

Parenthetically, if the benefits exceed the costs, you can only benefit not lose from coming out. then by all means be as flamboyant as you can and maybe wear some drag to work. Have fun!

However, if the costs exceed the benefits of coming out, then it would be irrational to come out. MV Lee Badgett, professor of economics at UMASS, posits the costs of coming out are income losses resulting from workplace discrimination and subsequently termination. Additional costs that she does not consider are alienation from the family, which can have adverse financial implications. For example, parents that do not accept their son's homosexuality might divest from or refuse him his endowment (ie. 'trust fund', college allowances, etc). This can lead to lower aggregate consumption and less leisure time to enjoy over the gay son's lifetime.

And think of the 'benefits' of coming out, although amorphous, as better self-confidence and its psychological ilk.

So, while I encourage you to come out, you can not let any other person decide for you when it is the proper time to do so. Only you can do it when it fits bests with your self-interest and you think rationally about the consequences of doing it.

Insurance Premium...A Question.

I wonder how much household income gays and lesbians would be willing to give up today to obtain full civil rights tomorrow?

i.e., What's the insurance premium on gay rights?

Just a thought....I'll need to find an answer.

Here, Queer, and 40 years Later

June 28th marked the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riot in Greenwich Village and incidentally the Chicago Gay Pride Parade too. These two events lead me to wonder a few questions about the state of the gay civil rights movement: Where have we come from in the last 40 years? On the other hand, what have we lost during our struggles? And where might we be in 40 years?

The Chicago Pride Parade this year was an outward symbol of the movement that started at the Stonewall Inn, but also for me of the inertia that our movement has suffered in the past forty years. Underneath the floats of minibar's speedo-wearing gogo boys, of the motorcycle-riding bears club, and of gay-loving politicians lies the second-class status that we gay Americans still experience today.

Since Stonewall, we have made some considerable gains. Despite Illinois' eclectic mix of boring flat terrain, Midwestern mentality and impeached governors, it somehow managed to be the first state in the union to decriminalize gay sex. Way to go Illinois! Since then all sodomy laws have been repealed since 2003. As for gay marriage rights, currently Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa (snaps for the Midwest again!) permit gay marriage, with same-sex marriage beginning later in 2009 in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. We have gained Rep. Barney Frank, songwriter Stephen Sondheim, fashion designer Marc Jacobs amid other high-profile power gays. Gays also enjoy gay-themed cruises like the ones advertised in Out magazine, two gay television networks here! and Logo and fabulous pride parades in almost every major city across the county (well not in Champaign-Urbana yet, but maybe someday!).

Despite triumphs in the past forty years, we have been hit with disappointments as well. While the human cost of the AIDS epidemic can't be calculated easily, many have lost friends, partners, and family to the disease. We have lost gay marriage in California. First in San Francisco, then a deep blow across the state this past May. Pending legislation to legalize same-sex unions in Illinois is now on hold thanks to the anemic economy, although the House still finds time to vote on campaign-finance reform and health-insurance reform. Also, 2008 saw an increase in LGBT hate crimes, including a raid on a Texas gay bar on the anniversary of the Stonewall riots. It is Texas, their PD can get a bit rowdy.

And gays are miffed with Obama's glacial pace on moving gay rights forward. An offensive brief from his Justice Department, followed by a cop-out memorandum and then throwing a LGBT cocktail party in the While house does not live up to his campaign promises.

It is difficult to say where we will be in forty years from now. Unlike the civil rights movement, the gay community is not just a single racial group, but a mix of all types of people. Diversity in our community is a benefit, but it also can divide us and slow us down. For instance, the African-American Civil Rights Movement took 18 years to accomplish its goals, while it has taken us 40 to achieve about half. We as a gay community need to push our movement forward from the grassroots, and not always depend on the work of the HRC. I mean where are our sit-ins? Where are our freedom rides? Where is and who will be our Martin Luther King Jr.?

We still have 44 states to go to legalize gay marriage, DOMA needs to be repealed, workplaces need to include anti-LGBT discrimination in their policies, and adoptions rights need to be defined and secure. Pride is a fun event, but a lack of civil rights isn't a laughing matter if our emancipation should take another 40 years.

So, don't let the pride parade fool you because it can. The throngs of people and show of support from the community does not disguise the fact that gays are still a vulnerable minority 40 years later.