Rob Howard has, from a political standpoint, been a conservative (supported Goldwater in ’64); a liberal (supported Humphrey in ’68); an independent (supported neither party in 72); a Democrat, a moderate Republican, and most recently (since 1982), back to being a very liberal Democrat. He has been an LGBT activist since coming out in 1984, and a senior activist since 2004. Organizations he has been a board member or officer for include Prime Timers Worldwide and it’s Central Oklahoma chapter, Cimarron Alliance Foundation, DBA Metro Business Association, and the Respect Diversity Foundation.

Last week it was my pleasure to visit Hoover Dam outside of Las Vegas, and to tour this engineering marvel. To get there, I drove nearly 1700 miles on Interstate Highways, over the Great Plains, and through the Rocky Mountains. The dam, and the highway system, were the largest public works projects of their time, and were paid for by the US Government. When the far-right wing nuts in control of the Republican Party talk about less government, they should pause and think of these two gigantic public works. They are together a Temple to what government can do.

Hoover Dam was approved by a Republican Congress and signed into law by a Republican President. It ended generations of floods and drought across the Southwest and irrigates over a million acres of farmland; it provides the drinking water needs of 20 million people in Nevada, California, and Arizona; it generates over 4 Billion kilowatt-hours of low cost electricity a year. Taking the tour makes you wonder at the magnitude of the effort – 16,000 men over several years; construction around the clock 24/7; engineering innovations that made the project possible, and built a dam that is estimated to have a 2,000 year lifespan.

The Interstate highway system was passed by a Democratic Congress, under a Republican President. Today, it has 46,876 miles of high speed limited access road; about one-third of all miles driven in the US are on these highways; its estimated cost of $425 Billion makes it the most expensive public works project in history. In addition to supporting the economy by movement of goods, the system provides hundreds of thousands of jobs each year, and ensures mobility of our military when needed.

These are just two of the things our government provides us as citizens. Neither could have happened without the Federal Government. If you feel safe from foreign attack, it’s because we have a military. If you grew up in a rural area and had electricity for lighting and pumping water, it’s because of the Federal Rural Electrification Administration. If a teacher inspired your life, it’s because we have had a generations long dedication to government funded public schools. If you get mail six days a week, it’s because we have a national postal service, required by the constitution, and funded from its start by the government. When your grandmother gets her health care through Medicare, it’s because we have a national system of healthcare for seniors, funded by the Federal Government. And don’t forget clean water, healthy food, and safe medications. I could go on and on.

Where do the Federal, State and Local governments get their money? Taxes. The Tea-Party wants to do away with taxes. The Republicans in Congress, and running for President, want to reduce taxes. To do it, they want to cut government spending. Think about that for a few minutes. Which of the very few government activities listed above are you willing to live without?

In the past, our political parties have worked together to provide things too big to be provided any other way – dams, highways, schools, defense. Today, there is almost none of that – and we should all demand that our Senators and Representatives work together to change the toxic partisanship that is crushing our government.

Back to highways for a moment. On March 14, the Senate passed a Highway bill – the first since 2006 – authored by our own Senator Inhofe (one of the most conservative Senators), and Senator Barbara Boxer of California, one of the most liberal – to break the logjam in Congress and get our highway systems back up to standards; at the same time it will provide hundreds of thousands of jobs, 45,000 here in Oklahoma alone, according to Sen. Inhofe. I salute Sen. Inhofe for his efforts on this. Those who know me will be astounded.

In late January, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a new rule that required all employers – even of church related organizations like hospitals and universities – to provide health insurance that fully covered contraception services without co-pay. Churches themselves were excluded from the rule.

Well, all hell broke loose. The Catholic Bishops Conference (USCCB) attacked the rule as an unconstitutional restriction on their free exercise of religion, because contraception is against Catholic teaching.

The rule is an important step in helping people plan their families, preventing poverty and other health problems among other ills. There is a compelling governmental interest in providing these services. In response, President Obama modified the rule so that it did not require health insurance policies of church affiliated organizations to include the coverage. The insurance companies providing the policy must provide such services to the employees free of charge.

Under the Constitution, churches would be clearly excluded from the rule. And businesses that aren’t formed for a religious purpose would be required to follow it. But in the middle, you have religiously affiliated organizations, like Notre Dame University, Mercy Health Services, and Catholic Charities, that act like businesses.  They were formed for a religious purpose – to respond to the call to serve others.  Catholics and other religions set up such organizations because their faith compels them to do so.

The President’s modification of the rule gives church organization cover in that they aren’t publically providing services which they consider immoral based on the tenets of their faith.

But really, who is paying for the insurance that will provide contraception services to women for free? It is either the religious-affiliate that pays the premium, or all people who pay premiums to that company, or all of us, from the government. Insurance companies are not charitable organizations, and they don’t like paying for legitimate medical needs, let alone being mandated to provide some of them for free.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 allows the government to make rules that include church-affiliated organizations, when there is 1) a compelling governmental interest, and 2) the method required is the least restrictive means of fulfilling that interest. Protecting women’s health is clearly a compelling government interest, and providing it at no cost is probably the least restrictive means of doing that, since it makes it available, but doesn’t require anyone to violate their religious belief by using it (even though about 99 percent of all women use some form of contraception at some point in their child-bearing years).

Well, of course, the right-wing candidates running for the GOP nomination for President, and the right-wing members of Congress that lead the GOP have taken up the cause. Newt Gingrich has been accusing the President of waging a “War on Religion.” Rick Santorum has been quoted as opposing all contraception – period. Mitt Romney appears to be in the “war on religion” camp.  The GOP leadership in the House and Senate has announced that they want to allow any employer the right to not provide things that violate their religious beliefs. The Bishops appear to agree with that approach. Republican Missouri Senator Roy Blunt is proposing a bill that would allow any employer or insurer to deny [medical] services that are, “contrary to the provider’s religious beliefs or moral convictions.” By logical extension, that might mean that if a business owner doesn’t like providing medical services to gay men, they could exclude coverage for them.

Hopefully, such approaches won’t become law. And just for the record, this whole argument is the foundation of the reason that the government should provide all health-care as a single payer – Medicare for everyone – which makes this whole discussion moot.

There is no “War On Religion” but you can make a pretty good case that there is certainly a “War to Impose Right-Wing Christianity” on all of us. Any of us gay and lesbian people can figure out pretty quickly what that would mean for our rights.

At the New Hampshire Republican debate on January 7, any hope that LGBT people would have any rights left if a Republican is elected President in 2012 were blown away. They spent nearly one-quarter of the debate talking about the “Right to Privacy,” affirmed by the Supreme Court in the 1965 Griswold decision, Roe v. Wade, and same-sex marriage.

The “Right to Privacy” decisions of the Supreme Court, first in Griswold and then in Roe v. Wade in 1973, provided the foundation for the Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003 that ruled sodomy laws unconstitutional. Removing the barrier of our sexual behavior being criminal in many states is considered a foundation for other LGBT rights now and in the future.

Mitt Romney, the front-runner and presumed future nominee, believes that Roe was incorrectly decided and wants to overturn it. He wants a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.  Rick Santorum, who tied Romney in Iowa but placed a dismal fifth in New Hampshire, goes even further.  He believes the Supremes were wrong on the right to privacy, thinks states should ban contraception, and wants to overturn Roe.  Worse, he believes in a federal ban on same-sex marriage, and the couples who are already married in the five states that allow it are just out of luck. “They wouldn’t be married,” he said.

Jon Huntsman, who isn’t going anywhere in this race, supports civil unions; somewhat enlightened, he said he doesn’t believe that his marriage is threatened by gay people having civil unions. Newt Gingrich believes same sex couples should have some rights, like hospital visitation and inheritance, but apparently doesn’t support even civil unions. Rick Perry, also a non-starter, wants a constitutional amendment. Ron Paul doesn’t want a constitutional amendment, but believes the issue should be left to the states – an easy position, because something like 45 states ban same sex marriage by law or by constitutional amendment.

If we look at the whole spectrum of these extreme views regarding the rights of LGBT folks, we can easily conclude that if marriage is banned federally, we remain second class citizens forever. And if they appoint more Robert’s, Alito’s and Scalia’s to the Supreme Court, the stage would be set for an overturn of the foundation of our rights – the Right to Privacy. I can see a return to same-sex intimate sexual behavior bans in many states, and even a ban on business and governments extending domestic partner benefits to same sex couples.

Every one of these candidates has a view of the LGBT community that ranges from the simply conservative to the irrationally extreme. When the most critical issue facing us is the economy, the best these guys can do is spend one-quarter of a two hour debate talking about our rights.

I don’t much care for President Obama’s stance for civil unions against same-sex marriage, but his record in other LGBT areas is stellar:  the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the enforcement of rights of partners to visit their partners in the hospital, the appointment of many LGBT people to positions of responsibility; and the inclusion of sexual orientation in the hate crimes law, all are great accomplishments given the right-wing Republican opposition to our rights for the last two decades.

We must all pay very close attention to what this collection of nuts is saying, fight them over their extreme positions, and encourage to President to support even more of our rights with the passage of ENDA, and the repeal of DOMA.  In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m voting for Obama this fall.

In 1729, Jonathan Swift (you know, the Gulliver’s Travel guy) wrote an intensely satirical essay titled “A Modest Proposal,” in which he suggested that poor people in Ireland eat their children to prevent the effects of poverty.  As you might imagine, it wasn’t well received.

But today, right-wing politicians think nothing of destroying our economy so the wealthy one-percenters can make huge profits. It amounts to nothing less than eating our children, as well as the middle class, the poor, homeowners, and children.

Banks, first by making mortgage loans to a lot of people who couldn’t pay for them, and second by refusing to respond to the mortgage crisis in any way other than foreclosure, have wiped out trillions of dollars in home value, and evicted millions from their homes.

Our politicians, by eliminating much regulation of the financial industry, made this even worse by allowing the packaging of “derivatives” which magically transform high-risk loans into triple A investments – at least until they are sold. The result is the worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s, the destruction of our construction industry, and levels of unemployment not seen in a generation. And then they asked us, the people who are suffering from the effects of their greed, to bail them out.

People aren’t taking this lying down. First on the right, with the Tea Partiers, and now on the left, with the Occupy Movement, people are mad as hell about the economy, the lack of jobs, and the stagnation of middle class incomes while the incomes of the top one-percent have increased 250 percent.

To compound the problem, the one-percenters who control the Republican members of Congress, won’t let any jobs bill pass, because it might make President Obama look good, and help his re-election. Most of the Republicans in Congress have taken a no-tax-increase pledge pushed by a lobbyist named Grover Norquist. You may have never heard of him. Norquist gets federal and state office holders to sign pledges that they will never, ever, raise taxes, no matter what the consequences. The representatives and senators who sign this pledge ignore the fact that by doing so, they are probably violating their Constitutional Oath of office, in which they swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

And the result? Only nine percent of the public approves of congress.

So here’s my “Modest Proposal.” Banks can alter the terms of mortgages, lower the interest rate, extend the payments, and in some cases cut the amount owed. This would of course cause them some pain, so instead they have asked for and gotten government bail-outs. But the result would be fewer empty and devalued houses on the market dragging down the values of everyone’s’ home. They are taking a loss on the homes anyway because of low market values – why not seek a humane solution to the problem.

Congress can tell Grover Norquist to go to hell, and get to work doing what we are paying them to do – solve the problems our country faces. They could also decide to get along, work together, compromise, and work for the common good, no matter what the consequences. Don’t like the affordable health care act of 2010?  Work together to solve the nation’s health crisis instead of just stonewalling the President.

But of course my modest proposal won’t be accepted, even though it isn’t offered with the satirical intent of Swift in 1729. One of the reasons is the atmosphere of incivility in Washington, DC.  Apparently, we’d rather just eat our children, the poor, and the middle class. One of the architects of this toxic atmosphere is Newt Gingrich, the front-runner for the Republican nomination.  But that’s a topic for another column.

[box]Rob Howard has, from a political standpoint, been a conservative (supported Goldwater in ’64); a liberal (supported Humphrey in ’68); an independent (supported neither party in ’72); a Democrat, a moderate Republican, and most recently (since 1982), back to being a very liberal Democrat.  He has been an LGBT activist since coming out in 1984, and a senior activist since 2004. Organizations he has been a board member or officer for include Prime Timers Worldwide and its Central Oklahoma chapter, Cimarron Alliance Foundation, DBA Metro Business Association, and the Respect Diversity Foundation.[/box]

I’m sorry to say I have never seen such a collection of mixed nuts in either party in the time I’ve been paying attention to Presidential politics. So here’s my take on each of the major GOP candidates. I’m not going to comment on those no one has ever heard of, or those who aren’t yet running.

Michele Bachman
Bachman was a fruitcake when I still lived in Minnesota and she was working her way up through the legislature. She hasn’t improved with age. She was always anti-gay, but over the years has also become anti-science and anti-common sense. She thinks she’s a Tea Party leader; apparently even they don’t want her.

Herman Cain
Cain is a charter member of the “Not-Ready-For-Primetime Players.” He doesn’t know what he believes on abortion, doesn’t know anything about foreign affairs, and has a tax proposal that would bankrupt the government while doubling or tripling the tax paid by the middle class and the poor. And then there are the sexual harassment charges – not minimizing them folks, but he already wasn’t qualified when the charges surfaced.

Newt Gingrich
Gingrich revealed his true colors when he gleefully shut down the government rather than compromise with a Dem. president. Now he wants to run it. Really? A smart guy, but with three wives I’d ask “How’s that pro-family thing working for yah, Newt?”

Ron Paul
I’m not sure Dr. Paul believes government has a role in our country. His Libertarian ideas set him off even to the right of the usual ultra-right views of this crop of candidates. At least he understands that water boarding is torture.

Rick Perry
Poor Rick, he thinks Texas is the universe. It’s not. After his debate performances, and what most people thought was a drunken speech in New Hampshire, most people count him out. Would you elect someone who wants to eliminate three federal departments, but can’t name the three? Along with Cain, a member of the “Not-Ready-For-Primetime” crowd.

Mitt Romney
He was a good, moderate Republican governor of Massachusetts. Assuming he really believed in being a moderate or it was just to get elected. Romney can’t hold a solid position on anything for 24 hours – he’ll say anything to get elected. Do you really want a President who has no solid political beliefs?

Rick Santorum
Come-on. Rick was so extreme that he got defeated last time he ran for Senator. A one trick pony who wants to beat women into submission through anti-abortion laws.

Jon Huntsman
I saved Huntsman for last. He is the only one of the pack that I think would make a good President. Looks and talks Presidential. Wants to end our wars. Won’t take the extreme views of the Tea-Party or his fellow candidates, at least for the most part. A great world view, with a sound understanding of China, which is going to be important in the next decade. And there he sits, at the bottom of the polls. Which says a heck of a lot about the Republican Party these days, and the base that they have to appeal to when they try to get the nomination. I wouldn’t vote for him, but I wouldn’t be packing my bags and applying for a Canadian visa if he won.

By Rob Howard
Gayly Political Columnist

Register to vote. Get excited about the election. Support Democratic candidates that support you. Vote for Democrats! And get your friends and families to do the same. The freedoms you save, the jobs you help create, the education you support, will be yours!

By Rob Howard
Gayly Columnist