Busted. Is it really that noticeable? Do I radiate a certain straightness? At the moment, perhaps, in my way butch blue Lauren blazer with gold buttons. But he should see me fussing over my little dog; I'm like Nathan Lane in "The Birdcage." And I do love Judy Garland, live at Carnegie Hall.
Still, I admitted he had me dead to rights.
"Guilty as charged," I said, or words to that effect.
"You're the only person at the table who isn't gay ..." he continued. I had been invited by a gay lawyer's association, which, apparently, you have to be a gay lawyer to join. Funny. I've been to the local Council on American Islamic Relations office — not everyone there is Muslim.
Still, I admitted he had me dead to rights.
"Guilty as charged," I said, or words to that effect.
"You're the only person at the table who isn't gay ..." he continued. I had been invited by a gay lawyer's association, which, apparently, you have to be a gay lawyer to join. Funny. I've been to the local Council on American Islamic Relations office — not everyone there is Muslim.
"...how does it feel to be in a minority?" he asked.
"I'm Jewish," I replied, immediately and perhaps with more asperity than I intended. The I'm in a minority everywhere I go that isn't a synagogue or Israel was unvoiced. He let this comment pass unanswered — perhaps I had just admitted something disreputable. Jews had their minority status card revoked long ago. We're white, though all the privileges pursuant to whiteness — the right to run a country, for instance, or worship without people showing up suddenly to kill us — doesn't seem to go with it. Honorary whites, for the purpose of criticism only.
Jews don't bask in the highest esteem in a good year, and this isn't a good year for Judaism. Lately we've been suffering a bad time, between Israel deciding to push the brute force approach to its limits, prompting college sophomores to embrace what strikes them as simple truth: The Jews don't belong wherever they happen to be! An insight the Germans hit upon long ago, to their eventual sorrow. Five hundred years didn't plant us in Nuremberg, why should 2,500, 0r 25,000 for that matter, give us claim to Jerusalem? Not when people who have never set foot there have their heart set on it.
Had I been thinking, I'd have leaned forward, made intense eye contact, smiled my toothiest, and confided in a Peter Lorre voice, "It's the killing of children and drinking their blood part that I like best..."
"Well," he continued, circling back to his original conversational gambit. "Nobody can really say they aren't gay, just that they aren't gay yet."
Ah. I chewed on this a moment. It's almost as if he were ... nah, that doesn't happen. To me. Anymore.
"Well, I'm 65," I said, arranging my thoughts into audible order. "I'm certainly taking my sweet time about it."
He said that he himself had had a few kids before he saw the light, and ... well, I should probably not be too specific. Don't want to embarrass anyone. And in truth, I wasn't embarrassed, or offended, or even miffed. Just ... sort of ... puzzled. That's it. Puzzled. It was an odd conversation to take a train ride for 45 minutes, then walk for half an hour, in order to hold. But I had been invited, an invitation turned down the past few years, but this year thought, heck, let's get out there in the public. But now I was, in public, enjoying the company of people other than myself, well, let's say it was an endorsement of solitude if ever there were.
The program began and we fell silent. The speaker, NYU Law's Melissa Murray, was very good, and I'll try to type up her remarks and run them when the Supreme Court lurches back into the news, which happens every other day, it seems.
Fun had, chicken consumed, remarks recorded, I was the first person at the table to stand up and leave, even while the program was still going on, thanking my seat mate for his conversation and my host for inviting me, pumping his hand, the first words we'd exchanged. I threaded my way around the tables, walked briskly out of the Hilton, up Michigan Avenue, and to Union Station making the 1:33 Metra Milwaukee North with five minutes to spare.
I'm not hetero yet. But I'm 61, so I while I suppose I shouldn't rule out, I'd be willing to bet that it's unlikely to happen. Sorry you had to sit with the tedious gay idiot.
ReplyDeleteNow that's a strange story. I knew there was a reason I always avoided (as much as possible) sitting at a table with strangers--"networking opportunities" be damned!
ReplyDeleteThis article is beneath you. What are you trying to say, other than exact, what, embarrassment? upon the gay lawyers association, or the member who invited you, because you disliked your table mate? Could it be that he saw that you came alone, might feel out of place, and tried to make a joke that came off awkwardly? There are, in fact, many gay people who come out after marriage and children, maybe people at that very table, who might themselves have felt put off by the suggestion that their age or past marital status makes them ineligible to be authentically gay. Suggesting that this person was anti-Semitic seems a stretch. I was also thrown off by the swipe at college students. The war in Gaza is replete with war crimes—do you view anyone who protests that war or supports Palestine as anti-Semitic? I presume you support their right to protest, or you would not attend an ACLU fundraiser. I feel badly for the person who invited you, who you note did not speak to you at this function. A social mishap that is now preserved in print. How awkward future meetings will be after this article! What are we supposed to take away from this article?
ReplyDeleteI didn't suggest the person was anti-Semitic, merely riffed on his silence. As for what throws you off, well, I'm only responsible for what I write, not for how you react to it. Although I would point out that this is not "print" — it's a blog, a daily catalogue of moments I find interesting, diverting or amusing — all three of which describe this exchange. If you're sincerely asking what you're supposed to take away from this article, I'd suggest it is an indication that perhaps you take yourself a tad more seriously than you should.
DeleteI enjoyed reading this. Are you gay, bi, or tri-sexual ?
DeleteThere's a theory that sexualality is spectrum and that there are no absolutes. That sounds right.
ReplyDeleteThis guy you met uses the same kind of narrow minded arrogance to force his opinions that born-agains use when they're pretending to raise you up from the depths of your depravity.
I don't know if I would call it that. I considered it ham-handed.
Delete"Jews had their minority status card revoked long ago. We're white, though all the privileges pursuant to whiteness — the right to run a country, for instance, or worship without people showing up suddenly to kill us — doesn't seem to go with it. Honorary whites, for the purpose of criticism only." Perfect -- couldn't have said it better. I guess that's why you make the big journalism bucks!
ReplyDeleteThanks. Though today's I write for free, or as kind of a stretching exercise to keep limber in between innings. I actually wrote it a month ago, but it sat — the aspect that anonymous fell on with both feet did trouble me (one of the many things I hate about such commentators is their assumption they've pointing out shit that never occurred to me). But one point of this is to get people to think and talk, and I decided it would do that. Plus I might not get invited to the ACLU luncheon anymore, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
DeleteWhy did you finally feel you had to go at all, Mister S? because you had turned down previous invites, and if you had to deal with the ACLU later on, jobwise, not going might have affected your sources? Looks like you paid a price for finally showing up. Sitting at a table full of lawyers, and gay lawyers to boot, must have been about as enjoyable as a root canal procedure.
DeleteDon't get me wrong...I have nothing against the ACLU. We send them checks a regular basis, and support them wholeheartedly. It's the lawyer part, and the gay part.
Both lawyers and gay men can be pretty arrogant. patronizing, and obnoxious. Sounds like you drew the asshole card for a dinner companion. At least you were able to leave early, and avoid prolonging the agony.
Good question. Not as practical as you suggest. I guess I thought that you can't both feel housebound and isolated and then bat away any invitations that come your way. I'd just gone two years ago — I thought it was longer — and once chatted with JB Pritzker at one of these. I thought I might bump into Kwame Raoul and tell him how much his office bites, media-wise. The pre-lunch chat was actually fun — I made a point of waylaying people and introducing myself.
DeleteI am a heterosexual female senior citizen. So far I have had no interest in being anything other that heterosexual. I do attend the only church in my small rural town that openly & freely invites LGBQT+ folks to attend & participate fully. We have had a gay pastor & several other gay church leaders. It is an atmosphere where such topics are discussed openly at times. However it is not an every Sunday topic by no means. Our LGBQT+ members live rather ordinary lives where gender preference is irrelevant to what we do. I have friends both male and female who are not heterosexual & I have participated in conversations where the topic was when and how they realized they were not heterosexual. I will share a little bit of what I heard from them. One gay gentleman who came "out" when he was in his early 50's had been married to a woman for many years & they had 7 children. He said he had always known he was gay & tried to overcome it. When his youngest child reached adulthood, he revealed to his wife that he was gay & that he wanted a divorce so he could pursue gay partners. A gay lady who is in her 70's said after 2 marriages & 2 divorces to heterosexual men & 2 children with each (i.e. she is the mother of 4), she realized that she just was not compatible with men. So she became involved with a female lover & found it was probably what she needed all along. A younger man (approx. age 30) said he had always known that he was gay even before puberty. Another man who is the father of 3 children (2 sons, 1 daughter) divorced their mother because he said he too knew deep down that he was really sexually attracted to men not women. He comes to church each Sunday with his 3 children (high school age) & his husband. The point is being LGBT+ is not something someone chooses to be. Sometimes it takes a long time for a person to figure it out for themselves. But my experience is that the LBGT+ people aren't really much different from us heterosexuals. They still have all of the challenges of trying to pay bills & make ends meet just like the rest of us. They still laugh, love, hurt, cry, feel pain & happiness just like all the rest of God's creatures.
DeleteWe are both straight "allies."
DeleteHave a quite a few gay friends and relatives.
Love is love. Thanks for sharing.
man grizz. you do realize mr. S is married to a lawyer and his sons are lawyers?
DeleteRead it again...it says "CAN BE" pretty arrogant. patronizing, and obnoxious. " It did not say ARE. Otherwise, Mister S would have already ripped me a new posterior orifice. Don't be stirring up the pot by reading things that aren't there.
DeleteNo worries, Grizz. Honestly, I didn't notice, never mind take offense. I guess because I think of my wife and children as people, not lawyers — not to say that lawyers aren't people, often.
Deleteok I read it again. and this is what you said. : Sitting at a table full of lawyers, and gay lawyers to boot, must have been about as enjoyable as a root canal procedure.
Deleteneil is your guy. he likes you. if franco would have cast aspirations on the gay lawyers he'd be banned
Black folk must be seated in the back of the room?
ReplyDeleteif you look in the lower right area of the photo the person in the grey plaid jacket might be a black person . but yes not a lot of black people pictured in that photo
DeleteThis pic is a slim piece of the enormous crowd that attended.
DeleteI look forward to reading what Melissa Murray had to say.
ReplyDeleteThe ACLU put on a decent program apparently, but FWIW, it doesn't really do free speech very well anymore. I give my free speech money now to FIRE--the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. I highly recommend to anybody who wants to help support an organization that absolutely defends in court anybody, regardless of perspective, whose speech is being attacked. They also maintain a terrific website with information on various free speech issues in the news. Great resource! https://www.fire.org
ReplyDeleteAs Jimi Hendrix sang: "Let me stand next to your FIRE!"
DeleteAnd maybe then...when necessary...FIRE will stand next to YOU.
Thanks for the heads-up!
Yes, FIRE is a much better use of your free speech support resources. I first heard of them from the inner flap of a book that Greg Lukianoff had co-authored, and they really fill the breach that has been left since the ACLU decided to abandon principle in favor of ideology.
DeleteThe most important thing I've learned about myself in the last half decade is that Israel and Jewish are not equal. They are not the same. One is not the other. You can be one and not the other.
ReplyDeleteThe same goes for being a Zionist and being against the current Israeli regime.
It is very hard to talk to a lot of Jews about this.
It is almost impossible to talk to non Jews about this.
To me it seems fairly simple. Just as you can be a patriotic American and despise Donald Trump and wish him gone yesterday — in fact, I'd say it's a requirement of patriotism — so you can back Israel 100 percent and decry their current policy in Gaza. The problem is that many Palestinians make the leap from that into the desire that Israel never existed — impossible, given the lack of time travel technology — and the notion that they'll defeat the Israelis militarily, which they won't.
DeleteI don't disagree with you, Neil. But as your post today points out, the problem tends to arise when the people you are having the discussion with either refuse to acknowledge facts, the truth, or even rational thinking.
DeleteI've also had some disheartening conversations with Jewish friends who go straight to the "you're a self hating Jew if you're against anything Israel does." Or non Jewish people who say that the mere fact that Israel is killing innocent palistinians means that all jews must be held accountable.
I often wonder if these discussions occurred around the Nazis and the Church.
And then I remember how the New York Times is reporting about Trumps children in comparison to how they did about Biden's.
Well, there's a lot of stupid in the world, and Jews, alas, are not immune. Again, the "you're a self hating BLANK" doesn't work for Americans, does it? Be highly suspect of any logic that is narrowly applied. People against Israel tend not to be against the 45 Muslim majority countries.
DeleteYou are right, Neil. Though I suppose its partially my fault for expecting more from people.
DeleteI appreciate your insight.
Hello, Neil.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say, “Thank you”, for once again opening the door to further knowledge and elucidation.
I know that you cherish the language and don’t offer up lightly key phrases within your writing, so I generally parse your writings with an eye towards finding direction towards additional content.
So, the phrase, “Five hundred years didn't plant us in Nuremberg”, seemed to have an importance attached to it and was something I should research further.
This led me to the website and page of The United Stares Holocaust Memorial Museum’s ‘500 Years of Nuremberg’ collection…
https://www.ushmm.org/collections/the-museums-collections/collections-highlights/500-years-of-antisemitic-propaganda
…as well as further reading on the following webpage from the same site:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism-in-history-from-the-early-church-to-1400
Prior to this I wasn’t aware that the Jewish faith was blamed in large part for the Black Death Plague of the 14th Century, hence, I presume the reference to “500 years”.
I might be reading into the phrase a bit, but, regardless, I am now aware that antisemitism and resulting brutal and savage pogroms were long present in Germany (and Europe) well before the Nazi’s, which may explain to some extent why the German people accepted it.
Our current situation in this country and efforts to divide along lines of various demographics, e.g. far-right Christian Evangelicals, far-left Progressive Socialists, etc, and to promote distrust and hatred toward one group that another may deem as less desirable seems quite a parallel.
It seems that the rich cultural diversity that makes are country great and strong is also used to divide and conquer, recalling your metaphor of a hammer capable as being used as a tool to build or a weapon of destruction.
Indeed, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and, well, here we are.
Jim
Thanks for sharing that, though you give me too much credit. I picked the 500 years figure out of the air.
DeleteYour writing adds so much to my life that I’m more than pleased to extend credit, whether fully-warranted or not!
DeleteI posted the above while on my phone and neglected to include this key page of information from The Jewish Virtual Library that fully explained the Nuremberg connection. Had no idea it once had a large Jewish presence, as well as having no knowledge of the hatred and pogroms towards those of the Jewish faith that emanated from it.
https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nuremberg
Thanks, again, for the inspiration to seek this out!
Jim
The Palastinians did get a great deal when Israel was made a state. Iw have no idea what the number is but there were plenty of Jews who didn't consider themselves Zionists and were not in favor of a Jewish state. From what I read Jewish leaders were not that interested in sharing land with the Palastinians. I suppose if the Holocaust didn not happen there might not hav been an Israel. Then as Biden said when he was a Senator they would have had to invent Israel.
ReplyDeleteSanford! Please examine your remarks and see if what jumps out to me jumps out at you.
DeleteAs someone who also attended the lunch, I think you missed out by leaving early. The presentations were informative and motivating. The ACLU does incredibly important work, which you can learn by staying to the end, no matter who you sit next to.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong. I stayed for the majority of Melissa Murray's presentation (slipping out only during the meandering question period). Remember, my son and daughter-in-law went to NYU Law, and spoke highly of her. Are you really lecturing me about the important work the ACLU does, and the need to stay for the bitter end, give-us-money-now cup rattling? That's the exact kind of pompous groupthink that affects such organizations, and their most zealous members, and is the main reason I generally avoid them, beyond of course financial support. I'm assuming you are not a regular reader, and found your way here at someone else's instigation and have disgorged a comment because you felt your ox was gored. Mission accomplished. You are free to go now.
DeleteGeez! That's a lot of energy devoted to being completely wrong about me. I was merely noting that the program continued to be interesting, and included information more specifically about what's happening in Illinois and I'm sorry you missed those details. I am a lawyer myself, and a regular reader -- and have been for years, enough to know that there are indeed folks who regularly offer extended lectures in your comment section. I thought I was succint and not insulting, whatever you read.
DeleteFair enough. Apologies. I sometimes go both barrels when a nod will do. I guess I felt myself chastised, and now that you put it that way, rightly so. Thanks for reading.
DeleteNeil, I love your blog, you make me think. I have no opinion on religion and rather think of it as a pox on humanity. My question is would the Palestinian people be as pissed off if the U. N. gave their property to black settlers or the settlers they gave it to? The question being are they mad at losing their property or who they lost it to?
ReplyDeleteOf course. My family lost their property to the Poles — I'm not pissed off, because I know the direction of time's arrow, and the world doesn't encourage me to attack Poles in the futile hope of getting it back. The key about all the "From the river to the sea" bullshit is it hurts Palestinians, not Israelis. A shame people are generally too dense to see that.
Deleteif I may? imo they are mad at losing their property , extra mad because of who they lost it to.
DeleteI'm not sure if it's their anger, or the world granting them permission to vent it. I bet the Tibetans are pissed off at losing their nation. Yet they don't show up on college campuses and harangue Chinese students. They can't.
DeleteAlso the Chinese don't suffer near the animosity many people feel towards Jewish people.
DeleteAntisemitism seems to bubble beneath the surface waiting for any excuse to rear its head
"Well, I'm 65," I said, arranging my thoughts into audible order. "I'm certainly taking my sweet time about it." I thought this was hilarious! Thanks for my first laff of the day.
ReplyDelete