GLBT DIGEST December 9, 2007

**IF YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE, CONTACT US AT rays.list@comcast.net and we'll be happy to send the full article.


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Due to an overload in our "To Do List," we will not send National/World andFlorida Digests today. Hopefully, we'll get back on schedule soon....


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Sun-Sentinel.com

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flcbord1209sbdec09,0,110741,print.story

Today - Sunday

South Florida Family Pride Holiday Party,for gay and lesbian parents andtheir families, 2-6 p.m. at Gay and Lesbian Community Center, 1717 N.Andrews Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Call 954-463-9005.



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NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/realestate/09habi.html?pagewanted=print

Habitats
A Crisis Sent Him Away; Another Drew Him Home

By DAN SHAW
December 9, 2007

THERE is nothing froufrou or la-di-da about Kevin Sessums's studio apartmentin Chelsea. Impeccably and sparely furnished, it does not look like the homeof a self-described "Mississippi Sissy," which is the title of his memoirabout becoming an orphan at 8 and growing up gay in the segregationist Southduring the Civil Rights era.

Indeed, Mr. Sessums's decorating style might be called manly minimalism. Theapartment is unmistakably the bachelor pad of an aesthete. It has honeyedwoodwork, a few pieces of midcentury furniture, neat piles of books on thefloor and walls covered with prints, drawings and photographs bycontemporary artists.

"Remember when they used to have AIDS auctions all the time?" he said,noting pieces by David Hockney, Julian Schnabel and Ellsworth Kelly. "I gota lot of this art at AIDS auctions."

Mr. Sessums, 51, moved to New York when he was 19. He was befriended byinfluential men like Howard Moss, the poetry editor of The New Yorker, andHenry Geldzahler, the city's commissioner of cultural affairs from 1977 to1982, who helped him become a well-connected man about town.

As the millennium approached, Mr. Sessums had a midlife crisis. "I wasn'thappy in New York anymore," he recalled. "I thought, 'You're not supposed tobe feeling lonely in the place where you have lived for nearly 30 years,' soI thought it was time to get out."

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WashingtonPost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/04/AR2007120401575_pf.html

The Trials and Tribulations of Hashmel Turner
An unassuming small-town preacher and his unconventional Christian lawyerare trying to win the right to pray to Jesus at city council meetings

By Michelle Boorstein
Sunday, December 9, 2007; W10

LORD JESUS, THIS IS ALL FOR YOU, THE REV. HASHMEL TURNER THOUGHT as hewalked through the swinging glass doors into Fredericksburg's City Hall.Waiting there was a small gaggle of Washington television reporters whorushed over to Turner the moment he walked in. Turner froze.

Councilman Turner, demanded one with a microphone, are you going to praytonight? What kind of prayer will you give?

Typically, the reserved Baptist minister speaks slowly, in a rich, low tone.This time, his words came faster. "I'm standing firm in my faith," he toldthem. There would be no compromise. Jesus was being systematically erasedfrom America's public places, and what was Turner worth if he didn't fightit, no matter the cost?

When he entered the City Council chambers, Turner saw about 15 peopleattending the meeting for routine issues: a woman opposing a planneddowntown hotel, a man seeking a special-use permit for a remodeled deck.They'd all read the newspaper articles about the controversy brewing overTurner's invocation, and their whispered guesses about what he'd do thatnight flew around the room.

For two years, Turner had been struggling with how to pray before councilmeetings. He wanted to be true to his faith but wasn't sure what to do aftera woman lodged a complaint about his references to Jesus. He'd taken himselfout of the council's prayer rotation, then reinserted himself, haunted bythe thought that he was abandoning Jesus to avoid a confrontation.

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WashingtonPost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801358_pf.html

A Transgender TV Debut
Host of Southern India's 'Yours, Rose' Seeks to Challenge Stereotypes,Social Taboos

By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, December 9, 2007; A25

CHENNAI, India -- In a congested neighborhood full of trash heaps, cows andauto-rickshaws lives a budding star named Rose.

Her photographs are splashed across newspaper pages and magazinecenterfolds. She speaks at upscale women's clubs and poses for fashionshoots in her diva-like designer chiffon sari. She gets free makeovers atthe mall from admiring cosmetics saleswomen.

In a few weeks, Rose will become India's first transgender host of alate-night TV chat show, to be broadcast to millions of homes in thesouthern state of Tamil Nadu.

But her neighbors know none of this. They know Rose as Ramesh Venkatesan,just another young man living with his parents and trying to eke out aliving.

Rose, who is 28 and uses only her first name, said that she has kept heridentity secret from her neighbors for three years. She fears they wouldjeer at her parents if they knew.

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WashingtonPost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801412_pf.html

Obscure Regulation Is the Next Act in Same-Sex Marriage Drama

By Annapolis Notebook
Sunday, December 9, 2007; C11

A little-noticed regulation defining domestic partnerships in state lawlooks like it could be the opening act for the General Assembly's upcomingdebate over same-sex marriage.

The regulation was released by the Maryland Insurance Administration lastweek in time for a new law on health insurance coverage to take effect Jan.1. The law, passed in the final hours of the legislature's winter session,requires health insurers to offer coverage to domestic partners if employersask for it.

The measure handily passed the House of Delegates. But to overcomeresistance in the more conservative state Senate, its sponsors stripped outthe definition of domestic partners and left it to the insuranceadministration, whose commissioner is a close ally of Gov. Martin O'Malley(D), to come up with language in a regulation.

The definition has incensed some Republicans. Domestic partners can bestraight or gay and must be living together and in a "committed relationshipof mutual interdependence" for at least six consecutive months, says theproposed regulation. The couple can verify their union with three documents,choosing from among other items a will, a joint bank account and a driver'slicense listing a common address.

Del. Michael D. Smigiel Sr. (R-Cecil County) called the regulation'sissuance "a purely political move" by Democrats in Annapolis to lay thegroundwork to legalize same-sex marriage when the legislature convenes forits 90-day session next month.

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Forwarded from Bill Stirling
wh_sterling@yahoo.com

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/12/08/MNA0TQTDC.DTL

Episcopal fold loses 1st diocese - in valley

Ellen Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, December 8, 2007 (SF Chronicle)

The Diocese of San Joaquin, a conservative fold that serves California'sCentral Valley and has long chafed under what it considers the increasingliberalism of its fellow Episcopals, on Saturday became the first in thenation to separate from the U.S. Episcopal Church, voting overwhelminglyto take a strong and definitive stance against how the church deals withhomosexuality and other controversial issues.

The diocese, which serves nearly 9,000 parishioners in an area stretchingfrom Lodi to Bakersfield, has effectively seceded from the American wingof the worldwide Anglican Communion, and has placed itself in the hands ofthe Anglican Province of the Southern Cone of America, which oversees thedioceses in six South American nations.

From now on, its officials say, the diocese, which operates out ofofficesin Fresno, will report to the Most Rev. Gregory James Venables, presidingbishop of the Southern Cone and of Argentina, in his office in BuenosAires.

In response to the vote, the bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Churchsuggestedthe Diocese of San Joaquin will soon have new leadership, but did notelaborate on how that might take place.

It may seem like an odd situation for the seceding diocese's members -reporting to a higher authority in an office more than 7,000 miles awayfrom Fresno - but it could not have come soon enough, according to the topofficial of the breakaway diocese.

"For 20 years and more we have watched the Episcopal Church lose itsway,"
the Bishop of San Joaquin, John-David Schofield, told a convention of hisdiocese's delegates - clergy and lay representatives. "In the end, it isall about freedom. It is about freedom to remain who we are in Christ. "It is freedom to hold and practice the faith that the Episcopal Churchreceived as a precious gift," he said.

Delegates approved the decision 173 to 22 at their annual convention inFresno on Friday and Saturday.

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Forwarded by Susan Frishkorn
frishkorn@bellsouth.net

New York Times

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/helene_cooper/index.html?inline=nyt-per

Winners and Losers of the Week in Foreign Policy

By HELENE COOPER
December 8, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 - For the Democratic presidential hopefuls on thecampaign trail, this week has been like Christmas in, well, December, allgift-wrapped and delivered straight from Washington in the form of threeforeign policy bombshells.

First, on Monday, came the National Intelligence Estimate, disclosing thatIran, contrary to the estimate released by the same group of governmentspies two years ago, is not making a nuclear weapon.

Second, on Thursday, was the disclosure that President Bush had written acordial letter to the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, a founding member ofMr. Bush's Axis of Evil and the same man who Mr. Bush has dismissed as a"pygmy" who maintained "concentration camps" inside his country.

The dust was barely clearing from that when the CIA acknowledged, afterbeing informed that Mark Mazzetti of The Times was preparing a story, thatthe agency in 2005 destroyed videotapes documenting the interrogation of twooperatives Al Qaeda, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legalscrutiny about its secret detention program.

Whew.

So, who among the presidential hopefuls was helped and who was hurt by theBush administration's foreign policy holiday presents?

Over all, political observers and foreign policy experts say the threedevelopments hurt Republicans and helped Democrats.

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Wilton Manors

Congregation Etz Chaim hosts Israeli writer Evan Fallenberg (January 11)

Israeli writer Evan Fallenberg will be speaking at Congregation Etz Chaim onJanuary 11 during the Synagogue's 8:30 p.m., Friday night service. Mr.Fallenberg's first novel, "Light Fell" (Soho Press) is due out on January 1.The story of an Orthodox Jewish father of five who falls in love with aRabbi, "Light Fell" is already attracting a lot of positive pre-publicationattention. Congregation Etz Chaim is located at 1881 N.E. 26 Street, inWilton Manors.



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To Form a More Perfect Union: Marriage Equality News

Information, news, and discussion about the legal recognition of same-sexcouples and their families, including marriages, domestic partnerships,civil unions, adoptions, foster children and similar issues.

http://samesexmarriage.typepad.com/weblog/

Go to the website, above, for the following articles:

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Wisconsin: State Rep. Joan Ballweg, R-Markesan, considers herself to be atrue "traditionalist" when it comes to issues of marriage and family.
Ballweg, the vice chairman of the state Assembly Colleges and Universities
Committee, said she understands domestic partner benefits has become aconcern with retaining and recruiting some faculty, but added legal benefitscome through when a couple is committed in a traditional way. Ballweg saidshe hates to lose valuable faculty members and admits the current policy tohelp retain them is not as effective as it could be. However, she does notfavor adding domestic partner benefits as a way to reconcile this problem.
"I do not favor domestic partner benefits on any level," Ballweg said.
"People move up in stature by changing jobs. . It happens in everything inprofessional sports and every type of industry."

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The LGBT movement of today is not the civil rights campaign of the 1960s oreven the 1890s, before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. Butit represents a historical and linear push by the American people to retainfull civil equality regardless of their individual characteristics; whethergender, race or sexual orientation. First we had suffrage, thendesegregation, and now. marriage? If the issue was solely about marriage, noone would really care - especially homosexuals. After all, who wants toinherit a tarnished institution that's continuously mocked by adultery,divorce, Las Vegas and Britney Spears (or, dare I say, Rudy Giuliani)? Ifonly it were that simple. If only gay marriage bans did not effectivelystrip gays and lesbians of more than 1,000 benefits and rights. If onlypolicies were simply policies, and not veneers that render certain peoplepolitically inferior and culturally subordinate. If only homosexuality werea "choice" and we could just blame gay people for making foolish decisionsthat condemn them to second-class citizenship.Throw out all the distortionsof religion, petty politics and warped views of "morality" that surroundthese debates and it becomes brazenly clear that the LGBT community isfighting for a lifestyle, not an institution. No, it's not about preservinga sacred establishment. No, it's not about polygamy and people wanting tomarry their lawn mowers. No, it's not about gender confusion or providing"stability" for children. What these issues boil down to is plain,unadulterated homophobia.That's not to say that every opponent of gaymarriage or gay adoption is a Falwell or a Robertson, or a radical bigotwho, as the saying goes, is "insecure with his sexuality." But evenseemingly logical arguments are unraveled to reveal one core assumption:being gay is wrong.

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THE ACT [Australian Capital Territory] Government says it will delay theintroduction of laws allowing same-sex unions. The decision follows talkstoday between ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell and federalAttorney-General Robert McClelland, who voiced concerns about theTerritory's proposal. The ACT Government had planned to introduce thelegislation in February. Mr Corbell described the meeting as veryconstructive but said the two parties had agreed to further talks at adepartmental level about the issue. "This means the ACT won't be able topresent its legislation in February,'' he said. "The Commonwealth ministerindicated he does have concerns with the proposed arrangements.'' Themeeting came after former Attorney-General Philip Ruddock used his power toblock ACT laws, saying they contradicted the federal Marriage Act. MrMcClelland today said he was looking to the Tasmanian civil union registeras a model that could be used in the ACT, as well, possibly, as other statesand the Northern Territory.

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Four gay Irishmen have married in Dublin this year, despite the lack oflegislation permitting such unions here. The Minister for Justice, BrianLenihan, said last week that the heads of the Civil Partnership Bill wouldbe published by the end of March, but the government had no plans tolegislate for civil marriage for same sex couples."The advice of successiveAttorneys General is that same-sex marriage would not be constitutional,"said Lenihan."In my view, a referendum on this issue at this time would bedivisive and unsuccessful."The four gay men who married this year did so incivil ceremonies at the British Embassy in Ballsbridge. The embassy, whichis regarded as British territory, has been hosting civil partnershipceremonies since August 2006. At least one of those seeking a civilpartnership must be a British citizen.In order to comply with British law,the ceremony is conducted in a public area of the embassy, so that anyonewho wishes to object to the union would be able to do so.The four Irishcitizens who married their British partners at the embassy will berecognised as married couples under British law, but not here [in Ireland].

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Eleven months have passed since America's first Muslim congressman -- KeithEllison, from Minnesota's fifth district -- was elected to office. In thattime he has exposed bigotry in the media and Congress, and served as abridge for American relations with the Muslim world. However, in hisactivism Ellison is coming into confrontation with some American Muslimisolationism. Before his lecture, a distinguished Arab-American businessmandressed in slacks and a starched shirt, grasped Ellison as he passed by andpulled him close. "Let me ask you directly," said the man. "You are aMuslim, but how can you support gay marriage?" Without the slightesthesitation, Ellison imparted the basic lesson of representative government.
"I am a politician, not an imam," he said with a smile. He explained that itwas a legislator's duty to represent the views of his constituents, not toimpose the mandates of his religion upon others.

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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has shown remarkable moral courage and leadershipin not allowing his religious views to interfere with the ACT Government'swish to legislate for same-sex civil unions. On Thursday, he gave the greenlight to the ACT to enact its Civil Partnerships Bill, with some undefinedmodifications. This is, of course, something his predecessor would not havedone; indeed, did not do. The previous federal government used itsconstitutional veto over territory laws to block the legislation twice sinceMay 2006.The crux of its objection being that the proposed Bill fashioned aunion that too closely mimicked marriage and was in danger of underminingthis institution. It is this distinction that is expected to be themodification required by the new Federal Government. That is, to allowregistration without celebration.

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[Yale Herald]: You were the head author of the historians' amicus curiaebrief filed in Lawrence v. Texas, which was a major victory for gayconstitutional rights in the Unites States. What in your mind is the nextstep for gay rights, and how do we accomplish that next step without makingit part of a culture war? [George Chauncey]: There are many issues facingthe LGBT movement, from anti-gay violence to transgender issues to thecontinuing power of Christian Right antigay movements in many parts of thecountry. Obviously, marriage, and in general gay people's insistence thattheir relationships be accorded the same protections, rights andresponsibilities that heterosexuals are accustomed to, has become a hugebattleground in the last decade. My sense is that there are still some yearsof bitter debate ahead of us, although I think the tide is turning. Theright wing moved very quickly to pass state constitutional amendments thatprohibit recognition of same-sex marriages, and these are going to be anobstacle for years to come. They've argued these amendments are necessary tostop the courts from undermining the democratic process, but I think theamendments themselves try to undermine the democratic process by shuttingdown a debate that has just begun, and that the right wing saw it wasrapidly losing ground.

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A new study says more gay and lesbian couples are coming out of the closetin the Granite State, where a law offering civil unions for same-sexpartners is about to go into effect. From 2000-2005, the number of same-sexcouples in the Granite State more than doubled, from 2,703 to 5,578,according to a recent study conducted by the Williams Institute on SexualOrientation at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law. Theincrease likely reflects the willingness of people in same-sex relationshipsto reveal their partnerships on government surveys, not a case of more gayand lesbian couples moving to the state, the UCLA research said.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Governor Carcieri shifts his stance on whether twowomen married in Massachusetts should be able to get divorced in RhodeIsland. It happened after the state Supreme Court decided yesterday thatlawmakers have not given the Family Court the authority to end gay marriagesperformed in Massachusetts. Carcieri opposes same-sex marriage. But inearlier court filings, he had argued that the court should grant thedivorce. He said that under Rhode Island law, the Family Court didn't haveto address whether the marriage was valid at all or delve into the largerdebate over same-sex unions. Even so, he hailed yesterday's court decision.In a written statement, Carcieri says he's always believed that state lawrestricts both marriage and divorce to heterosexual couples.

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I've often criticized the Christian Right's policies on marriage. Mycomplaints are:

1) They ignore the true threat to marriage and parents' rights--the familylaw system.
2) They do nothing to defend fathers' rights, which are particularlyvulnerable under the current system.
3) They bash gays, who haven't done anything to anybody and deserve to beleft in peace.
4) They waste an appalling amount of time and effort on non-issues like gaymarriage while millions of children have been needlessly separated from thefathers they love and need.



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365Gay.Com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/12/120907clinton.htm

Clinton Calls In Mom

by The Associated Press
Posted: December 9, 2007 - 8:00 am ET

(Winterset, Iowa) Hillary Rodham Clinton was joined by her mother anddaughter Saturday as she vowed "change across the generations" and steppedup her pitch to the women voters who could hold the key to Iowa's caucuses.

"We're getting close to the caucuses," said Clinton. "I always think it'sbetter to go to the caucuses with a buddy. Today, I've got some buddies withme."

Those "buddies" included 88-year-old mother Dorothy Rodham and 27-year-olddaughter Chelsea Clinton, making her first appearance with her mother on thetrail in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Opening the swing, Clinton noted that her family is able to care for hermother as she ages.

"I'm fortunate, my mother lives with Bill and me," said Clinton. "Lots oftimes she has more energy than we do."

Clinton noted that her mother fits the description of women who were bornbefore women got the right to vote, and are now pushing to elect the firstwoman president.


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365Gay.Com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/12/120807oprah.htm

Oprah Power Shines For Obama

by The Associated Press
Posted: December 8, 2007 - 6:00 pm ET

(Des Moines, Iowa) Oprah Winfrey said worry about the direction of hercountry and a personal belief in Barack Obama's ability to lead it pushedher to make her first endorsement in a presidential campaign, support withincalculable value in a tight race for the Democratic nomination.

Winfrey said she felt nervous and "out of my pew" as she addressed agathering hall packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the largest gathering ofIowans in the campaign this year. But she did not hide her politicalconvictions, making an argument for change from the Bush administrationother than another Clinton in the White House.

The talk show queen did not mention the current president or Obama rivalHillary Rodham Clinton by name, but was not subtle about her feelings forClinton's argument that Obama doesn't have the experience to be presidentwhen she voted to authorize the war in Iraq.

"The amount of time you spend in Washington means nothing unless you areaccountable for the judgment you made," Winfrey said. She said from thebeginning Obama "stood with clarity and conviction against this war inIraq."

"There are times that I even worry about what happens to our country,"Winfrey said, standing on a small stage before a sea of people in the100,000-square-foot hall. "That is why for the very first time in my life Ifeel compelled to stand up and speak out for the man who I believe has a newvision for America."

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365Gay.Com

http://www.365gay.com/opinion//besen/besen.htm

The New Warriors

by Wayne Besen

Last week, I wrote about the ManKind Project, a weekend retreat that triesto jolt men into dealing with deep personal issues. In the column, Idiscussed the troubling ties ManKind's New Warriors program has with ex-gayministries, which aggressively tout the retreat in their efforts tosupposedly instill masculinity in their clients.

It turns out, however, that the love affair may be one sided. The ManKindProject does not support ex-gay therapy and does not believe that theirprogram helps gay men go straight. Indeed, New Warriors has a large gayfollowing and many who attended consider it helpful to their coming outexperience. I received more than 25 letters from gay men who said that theprogram helped them accept their sexual orientation.

"The ManKind Project gave me the confidence and wherewithal to finally say,'I am a gay man,'" said one participant from Wisconsin.

"The program helped me become a better husband," wrote another gay man fromthe Washington, DC area. "As I knocked down the walls, I became morecomfortable with myself and able to give 100 percent to my partner. Theprogram literally saved my relationship."

These letters are incongruous with the cheerleading ManKind receives fromhomophobic ex-gay groups, such as Jews Offering New Alternatives toHomosexuality (JONAH) and the website People Can Change. In fact, People CanChange director Ben Newman, who served as a trainee and co-staffer in theNew Warrior program, started the ex-gay retreat, "Journey Into Manhood" withseveral other New Warriors.

So, is the ManKind Project's New Warriors program gay affirming or does itcater to ex-gay fringe groups?


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Colombia Spectator

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/?q=node/28536

Transgender Students Search for Campus Niche

By Betsy Morais and Laura Schreiber
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 7, 2007

Moments into Barnard orientation, Raemond Grosz, GS, knew he didn't belong.

"The second I got to Barnard I was like, 'This is not going to be okaybecause it's just so girly,'" Grosz said, a transgender student whoidentifies as a man. He quickly transferred to the School of General Studiesat the beginning of the semester. "I guess I was expecting more of a queercommunity."

Grosz is one of a small number of students who are challenging gender normsat a younger age than ever before and finding that colleges are not quiteready for them, neither structurally nor socially.

While Grosz felt restricted by Barnard's female environment, the all-female environment felt equally uneasy with him. Orientation had not finishedbefore Grosz was informed by residential life that his roommate was nolonger comfortable with the living situation. He said he was offered twooptions: either work things out with his current roommate or find a newperson to room with.

"These girls [his suitemates] were all straight edge, typical Barnardstudents who don't really like to party and don't like to stay up late, whowatch Grey's Anatomy," Grosz said. "I had nothing in common with them. I'dbe better off dating them than trying to pretend we were the same gender."

Grosz asked if a single room was a possibility, but was told that it wasagainst policy to grant first-years single rooms.

Unable to find a new roommate, and unwilling to remain with his current one,Grosz lived off campus. "I was going to just not do college and say 'fuckthis,' and live with my friend in her apartment because they weren't givingme any options," he said.

Then, during a meeting with women's studies chair Laura Kay, the possibilityof transferring to GS came up. Grosz applied and was accepted.

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Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/story/336341.html

We must all learn to live together

By LEONARD PITTS JR.
Posted on Sun, Dec. 09, 2007

Afew words before I go.

First off: happy holidays. Merry Christmas, happy Kwanzaa, happy Hanukkah.Barring something unforeseen, we won't talk again until the new year. Yourhumble correspondent is taking a few mental health days.

It probably isn't your idea of an ideal holiday spot, but I plan to spendone of those days at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.It's something I do most years around this time, though I find it difficultto explain why.

I guess if trees strung with light, malls crowded with shoppers andChristmas music filling the air impart a sense of festivity and rightnesswith the world, the shadowed halls of this monument to human hatred, humanhubris and human resilience impart something I find equally valuable thistime of year.

Call it a centeredness. Call it a somberness. Call it a sacredness.

If the holidays are about deliverance, those hours spent among the shoes ofdead Jews and manifestoes of mass murder are a stark reminder of what weneed deliverance from. Our own meanness. Our own smallness. The pettycruelties whispered into us by the worst angels of our nature.

Some of you will know that I had a very interesting spring and early summer.I wrote a column some people disliked, and it led to harassment and deaththreats from self-styled neo-Nazis under the tired delusion that paleness ofskin equals mental, moral or physical superiority. It was a striking,stinking reminder of the seemingly bottomless potential for sheer stupiditythat lives within each of us. And by that I mean, each of us.

As Sly and the Family Stone once memorably sang, ''There is a yellow onethat won't accept the black one that won't accept the red one that won'taccept the white one.'' That's as succinct an encapsulation of the humancondition as you'll ever hear.

To walk in the Holocaust Museum is to be reminded of the logical, inevitableresult of that refusal to accept, that insistence upon declaring that someracial, sexual, religious or cultural fraction of us must live outside thecircle of human compassion. After all, there was nothing terribly new aboutwhat the Nazis did. Their sole innovation was to institutionalize hatred andmechanize murder so that 11 million people -- six million of them Jews --could be most efficiently put to death.

But this idea that some of us are less than the rest of us, that some of usare roaches, vermin, viruses, parasites, infestations, beasts or subhumansto whom one owes no duty of human decency or commiseration, didn't startwith the Nazis. It is as old as Cain. As widespread as the common cold.

Yet we don't learn, never learn. Dead Jews become dead Rwandans become deadSerbs become dead Darfurians, yet still some of us mouth pious hatreds witha smug certitude and offhand arrogance accessible only to the deeply,profoundly and utterly wrong.

I'm reminded of an older white lady who called me once to thank me for acolumn decrying some racial insult. She had a grandmother voice, a voicethat sounded like cookies in the oven smell and she wanted me to know sheadmired black people, supported black people. Then she added in aconspiratorial whisper, ''It's the Jewboys I can't stand.'' Becauseeverybody is sure their own hatreds are just.

We've got to live together.

Sly Stone sang that, too, in his song. If that seems, almost 40 years later,a faded hope, it is, nevertheless, a hope, and one you clutch instinctivelyas shrunken Jews stare out from photos on a wall, across a gulf of 60 years.A reminder. A warning. A testimony.

And meantime, somewhere far away, the trees are filled with light, the airis laced with hymns of joy.


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