I couldn't believe the side comment made during the trivia game played at church on Sunday night. The host mocked us by complaining that the game was taking far too long because people were relying on "those sissy lifelines." Sissy? Sissy?!? I couldn't believe my ears!
Some of us wear the term "sissy" as a badge of honor. Personally I can choose "sissy" for myself to undo the years of bully-terror as a child when such name calling was accompanied by the threat of physical harm. I don't remember being physically beaten as a child--the authentic fag-bashing would come much later--but I do remember one day after school being in tears at threats by a neighbor and ending in my mother's closet crying my heart out. Now THAT'S a sissy boy!
I was astonished to hear the term used, and I expect the host will never live it down. (Her partner sat at the "experts" table with her mouth agape. "Gender bashing! Gender bashing!" some of the lesbians cried out.)
But of the content of the game itself, I was amused at some of the answers (can't figure how the establishment of the American Unitarian Association, which happened in 1825, was cited as beginning in the 1740s) and became quiet and thoughtful about others. In particular, the game needed to cite the Unitarian Presidents of the United States, and I wrestle with that badge of honor.
John Adams, of course, had modernist ideas about religion. So did Thomas Jefferson. Neither was a member of a Unitarian church because there weren't any, although the arguments between orthodox and liberal ministers in Massachusetts were leading toward the formal adoption of unitarian theology in the next generation. In John Quincy Adams's day, the parish to which his family belonged did, indeed, become a Unitarian congregation. Millard Fillmore was a charter member of the Unitarian Church in Buffalo, and William Howard Taft was a member of the First Unitarian Church in Cincinnati.
I remember hope being expressed at an anti-oppression workshop once, "If only we can grow to the place where we have a Unitarian Universalist President of the country, we'll finally be able to end oppression." Huh? We've already had a few chances at that, and what did we get? The man who signed the Fugitive Slave Law into effect.
I'm no Millard Fillmore expert, but I understand that he understood he was to serve as president for the entire nation. He was against the extension of slavery as our country grew, but felt that refusing to enforce the laws of our constituent states would lead to division. To reject the Fugitive Slave Act--passed by Congress--would be an abrogation of his essential role as President of all the states. For Fillmore, signing a law he did not agree with was an act of political compromise. (For more information on Millard Fillmore go to the Famous UUs pages.)
As Barack Obama seeks to lead us, now, I wonder what he will need to do as an act of compromise which will disturb some of us who know ourselves as liberals and progressives. The venom out there, calling every act of "common weal" a step toward socialism, is quite deadly. The legislation making its way through Congress is replete with compromise, and none of us is certain that the expensive investments that are being made will do the trick at averting economic catastrophe. Still, I can imagine "perfect" legislation that will never be passed competing with the "good" that is possible.
Well! Time to get to the treadmill of the gym before the delightful treadmill of my work and my vocation. Good morning!
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