Family Values (JUST IN: Bush as Caligula—coming soon to a theater near you?)

FAMILY
Saturday night I attended my nephew’s bar mitzvah. My ex-husband’s kin has always been all-embracing, a living example of extended family. We are a motley grouping of many sub-tribes— Asian, Jew, Afro, Latin, Euro-Anglo, Middle Eastern, West-East-Mid Coast, WASP, Catholic, Mormon, recent immigrant to 5th generation American, and everything in between. We are, married, living-together, long-ago divorced, mostly straight but also one or two openly gay. Friends have attended so many family events that they, too, have become family; aunties and uncles often indistinguishable of how they are connected. And there are caravans of kids. My 22-year-old son is the eldest grandchild of the central clan, and I held one of his thirty younger cousins, a pre-two toddler, for a delectably cuddly 15- minutes. There’s nothing like the feel of an (albeit) happy baby or toddler, wide-eyed trusting in your care, to remind you of what this life is all about. The point is we are a definition of American familia—no matter our many differences of age, politics, religion, income or (usually) undisclosed sexual proclivities.

MARRIAGE RESOLUTION: tax-saving initiative
Yesterday Bush had again announced his (pre-mid-term- election- timed) attempt to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage: (Sidebar: please see below for the new Bush sexual scandal allegations. )

"Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society," said Mr. Bush. "Marriage cannot be cut off from its cultural, religious and natural roots, without weakening this good influence on society."

Agreed. Marriage does promote the welfare of children and stability of society. That’s the very reason why there should NOT be an amendment restricting it. What Bush and the religious right miss is that “marriage” runs much deeper than the committed union of two people of opposite genders. The nuclear family (illustrating Bush’s favorite much war-mangled pronunciation of that word, with a tad different meaning this time) is for most of us reassuring, intimate, but delicate, and is oft-cited to be endangered by society’s dysfunctions. This traditional notion of a mom and dad with their offspring, has without question expanded in real life, never was universal and many sociologists claim is a modern phenomena away from the truly traditional extended family.

The change away from the nuclear family is not the dysfunction, as the conservative right fears. It is the inflexible adaptation, the desire to control with hate-fear-goaded restriction against embracing each person’s, and each family’s, rights to take its equal place in society; and with it, our society’s refusal to honor all our children, and those who raise them, with equal dignity and care. That is the “family values” dysfunction.

Above the alluring symbolic romance of courtship and wedding, marriage is a legal and economic construct, in which the spouses willingly obligate each other in a “family unit” with bound intentions to care-give and share financial cooperation for their mutual benefit. There are some archaic male-female polarities, which in transitional societies like ours will sort itself out in time. But its very legal standing is supposed to give pause to a couple’s breaking of that bond when times are difficult. For Government this is a financial protective. Like child support, marriage laws guide provisions for children and spouses when divorce does happen, so they are less prone to be dependent on the state. On an economic self-interest level alone, a tax-saving conservative government should be pro-marriage for anyone and everyone, be it polyamorists, gays, or traditional units. (Yes, you naysayers, under our current systems business will have increased health insurance costs and there’d be a dip in tax revenue with married folk filing together, but no fear, laws change to favor business and taxes, inevitably.)

A PRO-CHILD AMMENDMENT
In a democracy, each individual and family should be sacrosanct, the building blocks, and very reason for nation. Hillary Clinton, who has not of recent date shown belief-consistency with many issues, was right-on with the knowing experience of mother and First Lady, as much as lawyer-politician. It DOES take a village to raise a child. But it is the village that needs to reassess its priorities, first. Rather than restricting families’ attempts to create meaningful contracts of marriage and obligation to each other, Americans should be putting our energies into being a true pro-child society. Not by indoctrinating our children as patriotic consumers, a crime that can be levied at both republicans and democrats, media and business, but with an emphasis of real education for our children, enabling them to choose individual thought and be informed and involved citizens. Instead of endless back-and-forth about the morality of abortion, we should be working at ways to help families in need to belong in our economy so they can better guide their children. If we need an amendment, America, it should be a profession of family— its dignity for each American’s right to create his/her definition of family in support of our children, above all. (Childless by Choice singles and families, chill. You were kids once, too.)

SIDEBAR:
The Condi- George W. Bush Sex Scandal AND Bush as a Bi-Sexual American?

As family is about love, acceptance and support, this week’s very edgy news gossip-items might give us clue to an ulterior motive for Bush’s lip service to his re-use of the “compassionate conservatism” theme.

"As this debate (Marriage ) goes forward, we must remember that every American deserves to be treated with tolerance, respect and dignity," President Bush declared."

Perhaps Mr Bush has been asking for coded forgiveness all along to save his own (somehow unimaginable) sex -craving ass. According to a few emerging sources we might be seeing headlines that would make Clinton’s overtures tame—

The Wayne Madsen Report

“June 3, 2006 -- WMR can report that a Mayflower Hotel staffer has confirmed that First Lady Laura Bush spent at least one night this past week at the hotel, which is four blocks north of the White House”

Citing Leola McConnell, Democratic candidate for Governor of Nevada and former Professional Dominatrix (hey, it's Vegas, and the Republicans have a former porn star running)

“June 4, 2006-- In 1984, I watched him perform (with the enthusiasm of homosexual male who had done this many times before) a homosexual act on another man, namely Victor Ashe. Victor Ashe is the current Ambassador to the nation of Poland who should also come out like former Governor McGreevey of New Jersey and admit to being a gay American.”

AND, there's this from April of 2004:
Condoleeza’s publice declaration of Bush as almost-husb(and) during a media-attended party.

Are these bits:
a) malicious rumor b) none- of- our- business anyway or c) further proof of Bush’s Moral Self-Hypocrisies’ of Everything (aka Bush as Caligula, coming soon to a theater near you)

The Political Spinning of Time will tell.