Court documents in the divorce of Allen Prevo, son of Anchorage Baptist Temple pastor Jerry Prevo, and Holly Jo Prevo raise questions about ABT religious exemption housing. Or, in the judge’s words, “if there was a tax appraiser or a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News, things would not look good… it’s pretty loosey-goosey to me.”

Citing Alaska Statute § 25.20.120, which provides the option of sealing court records in proceedings involving child custody, attorney Wayne Anthony Ross on August 3 filed a motion to seal the records in the case of Allen Prevo v. Holly Jo Prevo (3AN-10-08113CI). The motion was filed on the same day that Anchorage Superior Court Judge Frank A. Pfiffner granted a decree of divorce. Arguing to seal the records, Ross wrote,

The plaintiff’s father (the children’s grandfather) is a high profile individual in the State of Alaska and is a well known, national figure. There are several journalists who would delight in airing any “dirty laundry” attached to the Prevo family. Access to these court records would provide little material that would be of any benefit to the public, and the negative publicity which would result could have a strong negative effect on the children.

Phyllis Shepherd, the defendant’s lawyer, countered on August 16:

It appears that plaintiff’s primary concern is, not so much the protection of his children, but to protect his father “a high profile individual in the state of Alaska and a well known national figure.”

The “high profile individual” is, of course, Jerry Prevo, pastor of the Anchorage Baptist Temple, who has long been a powerful figure in Anchorage and the state. He’s well-known to Anchorage’s LGBT community as a prominent leader in opposition to equal rights under the law for LGBT people, leading the fight against three ordinances which granted those rights in 1975, 1992, and 2009 — all of which passed the Anchorage Assembly, only to be reversed (twice through mayoral veto, once through vote of a successor Assembly). He had close ties with Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, and founded Alaska’s chapter of the Moral Majority in 2000. In 1985, Prevo accompanied Falwell on a widely publicized “Freedom Mission” to South Africa, returning to Anchorage to speak the praises of then-president and apartheid advocate P.W. Botha. Since at least 2003, Prevo has been chair of the board of trustees of Liberty University in Lynchburg, which Falwell founded as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971.

Prevo also has ties with other national Christian figures, including Franklin Graham, and is on the board of directors of Graham’s charity Samaritan Purse.  He accompanied former Alaska governor Sarah Palin on a Samaritan Purse mission to western Alaska. Prevo has several times been a member of Alaska’s delegation to the national Republican convention, at least twice serving as the delegation’s chair.  At the 2009 convention, according the the Washington Post political blog The Trail, he handed Palin his cell phone for her to accept congratulations from Franklin Graham for her nomination as vice presidential candidate. His power is such that many political candidates feel compelled to take what Amanda Coyne of Alaska Dispatch once termed “the perp walk at Anchorage Baptist Temple” to introduce themselves to his congregation.  The funeral of Sen. Ted Stevens was held in his church.

Allen Prevo’s attorney, Wayne Anthony Ross, is also widely known. In Anchorage he’s famous for driving a bright red Hummer bearing vanity plates with his initials, WAR. In 2009 he was Gov. Sarah Palin’s nominee for Alaska attorney general, and distinguished himself by becoming the only cabinet nominee in Alaska state history to fail to be confirmed by the Alaska Legislature. His candidacy had been widely opposed by Alaska Natives, women, and the LGBT community — who weren’t favorably impressed by a 1993 letter he wrote to the Alaska Bar Rag (of the Alaska Bar Association) calling gays and lesbians “degenerates” who practiced “sexual perversion” and were “”immoral in the eyes of anyone with intelligence.” Asked in a confirmation hearing if he could fairly represent LGBT Alaskans, Ross replied,

Let me give you an analogy. I hate lima beans. I’ve never liked lima beans. But if I was hired to represent the United Vegetable Growers, would you ask me if I liked lima beans. No. If I disliked lima beans. No. Because my job is to represent the United Vegetable Growers.

Wayne Anthony Ross is perhaps not correct when he writes — as his motion to seal the court records goes on to say —

The plaintiff respectfully submits to the court that it is in the best interests of the children to have these records shielded from public scrutiny.

In fact, there may in fact be “benefit to the public” — a benefit having nothing to do with the Prevo kids — in leaving the court records open to scrutiny. That’s getting down to the bottom of what’s going on with Jerry Prevo’s son’s housing.

Background

Allen and Holly Jo Prevo married on May 1, 1992 and had three children.

Allen Prevo, 43, is the only child of Jerry and Carol Prevo. He began working for his father’s church, Anchorage Baptist Temple, in 1983 as a lighting director and TV consultant, and currently is ABT’s audiovisual and computer technician in charge of virtually everything having to do with ABT’s television ministry — Sunday broadcasts, commercials, advertising, and lighting for plays. He also is an ordained pastor, though court records mention only a high school education, no college or seminary work. In 1997 while working at ceiling level at ABT, he fell 24 feet from a catwalk, landing on a railing and suffering severe injuries to his ribs and thoracic spine. As a result, he has a chronic pain condition which is managed with the pain medication Oxycontin (oxycodone). Prevo was the plaintiff in the case, with Ross stating on his behalf in the Complaint for Divorce of May 17, 2010,

There exists an incompatibility of temperament between the parties which renders a life together burdensome and intolerable. However, plaintiff does not wish a divorce and believes that if the defendant will involved herself in counseling with him, take the necessary time, and make the necessary effort, then this marriage could be saved. If the defendant refuses, however, to involve herself with plaintiff in counseling, take the necessary time, and make the necessary effort to try and save this marriage, then a divorce may be necessary.

The Plaintiff’s Trial Brief of March 18, 2011 elaborates:

In April 2010 Holly announced to Allen that she wanted a divorce. Allen filed for divorce on 10 June 2010 because he feared Holly was planning to take the children out of the state. Rather than wanting a divorce, Allen hoped to get Holly to agree to involve herself, with him, in marriage counseling. Holly, however, has refused to work toward saving the marriage. Instead, she has advised Allen that she plans to move to California after the divorce.

Holly Jo Prevo nee Jaggers, 39, currently works as a customer service representative for AT&T, though during most of her marriage to Allen Prevo she was out of the workforce, staying in the home as a homemaker and primary caregiver of the couple’s three kids. Previously she had been involved in volunteer activities centered around Anchorage Baptist Temple and the Anchorage Christian School, including directing the children’s choir and coaching cheerleading.

At issue in the divorce was the custody of the three minor children, possible child and spousal support, attorney’s fees, and the equitable division of marital property. The Amended Decree of Divorce of August 3 ultimately granting them joint legal custody of the two younger children, with Allen having primary physical custody of them; and Holly being granted sole legal and primary physical custody of their oldest child. Despite Allen’s initial claim in his Complaint for Divorce that “Defendant is financially capable of paying spousal support to plaintiff,” Judge Pfiffner found Holly’s claim to be the financially disadvantaged party — with an annual income in the area of $60,000 less than Allen’s — to be correct, writing in the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law,

Because of her limited income and assets and smaller earning capability, Holly needs a disproportionate share of the marital estate. Accordingly, the court has divided the estate on a 55/45 basis in favor of Holly.

Holly’s name was also restored to Holly Jo Jaggers.

Some details of the settlement, as well as some of the Finding of Fact incorporated in the decree, are still being argued about between the parties, resulting in further motions in countermotions.

The marital home

But one item in particular remains of public interest: the marital home at 2330 Banbury Drive. A search on the property at the Municipality of Anchorage Real Property Information site confirms that the property is, as discussed in court records, owned by the Anchorage Baptist Temple. Furthermore, it’s got a religious exemption from taxes. From there, the questions begin.

Anchorage news junkies may remember that in April 2004, municipal tax assessors revoked the exemption for four ABT-owned houses that were determined not to qualify for a religious exemption because none of the people living in them was “a bishop, pastor, priest, rabbi, minister or religious order of a recognized religious organization” as specified in state law about property tax exemptions.  Three were teachers at the ABT-affliated Anchorage Christian Schools. The fourth was a janitor.  Then, a couple of years later, the Municipality discovered that an additional six ABT-owned houses were occupied by teachers.

Anxious to retain its tax exemption on those houses, ABT enlisted the help of assistant pastor Glenn Clary, who also happened to be the treasurer of the Alaska Republican Party, to go down to Juneau and lobby legislators to fix things. The Republican-dominated legislature was quick to respond: in March 2006, Senate President Ben Stevens drafted language which added “an educator in a private religious or parochial school” to the list of people whose residence in a house made the house exempt from property taxes. Furthermore, the new language defined a “minister” to be someone who is considered one and is “employed to carry out a ministry” of a religious organization. Stevens then asked Sen. Bert Stedman, chairman of the Senate Community and Regional Affairs Committee, to introduce the new language into a redraft of an obscure property tax bill that Sen. Con Bunde had introduce the previous year. Public testimony on the bill a few days later was aligned squarely against the bill, but legislators advance it anyway, and it ultimately passed and was signed into law by Gov. Frank Murkowski. The ACLU of Alaska sued, but ultimately a Superior Court judge found the new law constitutional.

It’s not completely clear from the court paperwork, but it’s possible that the religious exemption for the house the Allen and Holly Jo Prevo family lived in came out of this law — the portion of it which permits a religious organization to define for itself what a “minister” who is “employed to carry out a ministry” is. Allen Prevo is, again, an ordained minister — despite no record in the court documents to indicate his education went past high school to college, much less grad school or a seminary. And, Allen Prevo is employed to carry out ABT’s television ministry. Thus: the ABT house he lives in is tax-exempt.

But there’s still plenty of unclarity to be found in the court documents. For example, in paragraph 4 of the Counterclaim contained in the defendant’s (Holly’s) Answer to Complaint for Divorce (filed June 30, 2010), Phyllis Shepherd on Holly’s behalf asserts,

Defendant asserts that she is a disadvantaged spouse and is in need of spousal support to be paid by the Defendant.

Wayne Anthony Ross on behalf of Allen Prevo denied this, writing in the January 26, 2011 Answer to Counterclaim,

The defendant is gainfully employed and is continuing to live in the marital home while the plaintiff continues to pay the mortgage.

But how could Allen have been paying the mortgage when he didn’t own the home? (At this point, also, Ross and Prevo were continuing to insist that Holly, with an annual income perhaps one quarter of Allen’s, should pay him spousal support.)

The details begin to come clear in a significantly unclear way in on the first day of the divorce trial, which took place on April 5, 2011. A summary of the trail is included in the court file. These notes, prepared by court clerks during testimony, generally include the statements made by witnesses, but not (except in rare instances) the questions asked by attorneys — so it’s rather like hearing only one side of a telephone conversation. Occasionally Judge Pfiffner — identified in the record as COURT — also steps in with a few questions, as in this passage, in which Allen Prevo is being examined by Wayne Anthony Ross. Typos and errors here are as in the original; comments or explanation from me are in square brackets.

Direct Exam continues by Mr. Ross

Plaintiff ex. 6 – reference [Plaintiff identifies exhibit 6]

(spreadsheet of property, to be split 50/50)
(fair thing to do, not written agreement between us the church)
(been working for ABT fro 15 years and they will have rent go to equity in the home. If you stay in this home an its paid off its our home, verbal agreements and nothing in writing)

plaintiff ex. 3 – ID [Plaintiff identifies exhibit 3]

(verbal agreement we wrote up to be fair on this issue, written up…., not sure of date)
(written up for this litigation, since she decided on this divorce)
(if I were to quit ABT they would get the home, its in their name)
(took what we put toward the home, rent to own, transfer equity from other home to his home and they appliances and new boiler etc.,)
($322,888.50 valued at, yes)
(we picked out refrigerator and the washer and dryer, church put up the money and added to what we owed the church)
(correct)
(the previous house was also owned by ABT)
(got credit for the first ABT home toward the 2nd ABT home)
(yes, made repairs but paid for by ABT, increased what we owed on the home)
(They also paid fire insurance…,)

Clerk change back to Holly Fuentes

Exhibit(s) Offered

Court inquires of Allen Prevo

Allen Prevo
(No, the church paid the house off so I don’t know, I guess because we’re paying the church there’s no mortgage
(It’s listed as Anchorage Baptist Temple…if I had my paystub I could show you exactly
(We were paying a bi-weekly payment…toward the equity of the home
(That was…yes sir…$770 monthly, on the second page
(Yes…not sure if it’s fifteen years, started in 2005…started ABT in 1983
(It was a good deal sir
(I’ve stated to Holly, if I keep the kids for the school year I’d purchase the house and get money from the church to pay her half and then I’d owe my dad an arm and a leg
(If I don’t have the kids for the school year I don’t need that big of a house
(We’d default on the mortgage and we’d see…we’d divide it up
(They’d end up paying us fair market value…no sir
[…]
(Holly did all the financing when we were married
(This came from the church, what we have paid since 2005, how much we paid for the house
(Yes {paid by the Baptist Temple}…and added to…yes…correct

COURT:
-Anchorage Baptist Temple, your father, whoever is going to agree to all of this…that’s a stretch

Ross
-If he decided to become a Presbyterian…nothing requiring him to pay them

COURT:
-I’m willing to have you explain a lot more but if there was a tax appraiser or a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News, things would not look good
-I’m seeing and hearing all this stuff…I have to deal with it only in the context of this case
-Who owns this, is there equity, how it will be paid out, it’s pretty loosey-goosey to me

On the second day of the trial, April 7, 2011, Ronald Thomas Slepecki, a college professor at Wayland Baptist, was examined as a witness for the defense by Holly’s attorney Phyllis Shepherd. Before going to Wayland, Slepecki had been a staff member at ABT.

(I retired from the Air Force…in 1991-1995…I was over a lot of the children so I had interactions with…mostly those four years I knew of Allen and Holly
(That all changed in…we were family, they’d help sit our kids…both were great
(This is very difficult for me because I love them both, I’m here testifying to the truth, not here to be on one side or the other
(Well, yes…whenever you go up against your old bosses son is the way it could be seen
(I’ve worked for his dad for quite a long time…yes, Pastor Prevo…can be very tough to deal with
(He does wield a lot of power as it relates to that church…our government and the way it’s structured
(A Pastor is a Pastor…he does all the hiring and firing so it’s difficult to be put in a situation
[…]
(Yes, how it works…

Ross
-Objection, relevance

COURT:
-Overruled

Ronald Thomas Slepecki
(Any church atmosphere…that means the property is owned by the church and an ordained minister lives in that property
(So I met that, I was an ordained minister…therefore, the church does not have to pay taxes on that home because I meet those requirements
(Two would be later on if I move out of the church house…and purchased my own home, the church can designate a certain part of your salary as a housing allowance
(The rental value…then you have to justify that…all the things have to add up to that
(There’s one more than occurs at Anchorage Baptist Temple, there’s a third setup that relates to Allen and Holly’s home, that has been given to folks that are higher up
(I never got that, I asked and was denied

Ross
-Objection, speculation

Ronald Thomas Slepecki
(The church carries the note so they give you a better interest rate and you work off that and pay the church

Based on Allen’s first-day testimony, apparently the rent which Allen paid went towards equity in the home in some kind of unwritten, purely verbal agreement between him and ABT, or between him and his father. But after it became clear that there would be a divorce, the agreement was finally put down on paper. Which may possibly be what’s being referred to here, from Day 3 of the trial, held July 12, 2011 (though to verify someone would have to listen to the recording and/or examine the exhibit):

Holly Prevo
(His dad gave us that…his fingerprints would be all over that document, he’s fully aware of document…original document has been signed
(Allen signed it and Jerry Prevo…no doubt whatsoever

Rebuttal: Cross Examination by Mr. Ross

Holly Prevo
(I heard Jerry Prevo say…unless he’s a liar…yes, I did see it signed

Meanwhile, the rent that Allen paid, which went towards this supposed equity in the home, actually appears to have come out of one of the components of Allen’s compensation as an ABT employee — his housing allowance of $10,029.24. In other words, he was given a housing allowance, which he used to pay rent which went towards his equity.

(His total compensation, per Holly’s Answer to Complaint for Divorce as well as the final Findings of Fact, includes: Salary$58,844; housing allowance $10,029; cell phone $420; utility allowance $3,000; 403(b) contribution $9,500; vacation 4 weeks; for a total of $81,793. Additionally, there was free private school tuition for each child enrolled at Anchorage Christian School, up to about $11,750/year; medical reimbursement for 1/2 family medical expenses not otherwise covered by health insurance; ABT-provided truck insurance; and retirement held in Vanguard mutual funds valued at about $100,000. Holly in the meantime had an annual income in 2010 of $24,931.)

Judge Pfiffner, as he said on Day 1 of the divorce trial, could only do the best he could within the context of the case. As summarized in the Findings of Fact:

ABT has legal title to the residence at 2330 Banbury Drive in Anchorage. (Ex. G). There is no deed of trust on the residence. However, ABT and Allen Prevo had an unrecorded agreement in place whereby Allen owns the equity in the residence. (Ex. 3) The agreement provides Allen Prevo is vested with the equity from prior ABT housing. (Id.) The difference between the prior equity and the purchase prices was the initial paper mortgage amount on the Banbury residence. (Id.) Each pay period, a percentage of Allen Prevo’s annual housing allowance was subtracted from Allen’s paycheck and is applied to reduce the paper mortgage balance on the Banbury residence. (Id.) Essentially, Allen Prevo’s housing allowance is an interest free reduction in Allen Prevo’s paper mortgage. (Id.) The paper equity on the Banbury residence is a marital asset. [emphasis added]

Maybe we need what Judge Pfiffner mentioned in the first day of the trial —

-I’m willing to have you explain a lot more but if there was a tax appraiser or a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News, things would not look good
-I’m seeing and hearing all this stuff…I have to deal with it only in the context of this case
-Who owns this, is there equity, how it will be paid out, it’s pretty loosey-goosey to me

Yep, looks pretty loosey-goosey to me, too, an unschooled renter-for-life like me, who has never owned a house in my life.

Tax assessors, Anchorage Daily News, or any other journalists who just want to get down to the truth — whether or not you “delight in airing any “dirty laundry” attached to the Prevo family” — please have a look at this, will you?

The court file is not yet sealed.

Update 1: I’ve been informed that the court file was sealed at about 1:00 PM on August 29, several hours after this post went live on Bent Alaska.

Update 2: The file was not actually “sealed”: the order reads “Order Granting Motion in Part ~ Motion for Documents to be Filed Under Protective Seal ~ Before the court is plaintiff’s motion for the files in the above captioned case to be maintained under seal or kept confidential. Plaintiff’s motion is granted in part and denied in part. The court finds that the public interest in disclosure is presently outweighed by a legitimate interest in confidentiality. See Alaska R. Admin. 37.6(b). Specifically, the court finds that confidentiality should be maintained in order to protect the best interests of the minor children. See AS 25.20.120. Accordingly, all transcripts and documents filed in the above captioned case shall be kept confidential within the meaning of Alaska Rule of Administration 37.5(c)(4). Plaintiff’s motion to maintain the file under seal is denied. This order is without prejudice to a motion filed by any member of the public seeking access to the case file in whole or in part.”

Please note that there are other and much more personal aspects of this divorce, which I chose not to discuss in this story, which have bearing on the the judge’s decision on this matter.

Update 3: “Confidential” and “sealed”:  under Alaska Rule of Administration 37.5(c)(4) and (c)(5):

(4) “Confidential” means access to the record is restricted to:
(A) the parties to the case;
(B) counsel of record;
(C) individuals with a written order from the court authorizing access; and
(D) court personnel for case processing purposes only.
(5) “Sealed” means access to the record is restricted to the judge and persons authorized by written order of the court.

The judge ordered the records to be kept confidential, but denied the plaintiff’s motion to seal them.

References

Besides the court documents cited within the text, or references which were linked, these references were also used:

• “Co-sponsors flummoxed by hijacking of tax bill – BAPTIST TEMPLE: Exemption from taxes for church’s housing for teachers shoehorned into measure” by Richard Richtmyer (Anchorage Daily News, March 10, 2006).
• “Committee gets earful about property-tax bill – EXEMPTION: No one spoke in its favor, but it advanced anyway” by Matt Volz, Associated Press (Anchorage Daily News, March 12, 2006).
• “Temple’s homes for its teachers are tax exempt – COURT RULING: Alaska ACLU had sued to stop the practice” by Sheila Toomey and Megan Holland (Anchorage Daily News, July 4, 2008).

Related posts:

1. Those Phelpists aren't too clever, are they?
2. Publicity, publicity, publicity
3. Prevo's red herrings

… or so she would have me believe.

Her ship looks suspiciously unlike an early-1960s British blue police box. Maybe the Eleventh Doctor (or who knows, Dr. River Song, who seems to know how to operate a TARDIS better than the Doctor himself) finally was able to fix the control that was broken in the First Doctor‘s time, which makes it possible for a TARDIS to adopt the most appropriate disguise so as to be inconspicuous in its surroundings. Surely an old Alaska beatermobile of indeterminate color is more inconspicuous at my apartment complex than a 1960s-era British blue police box.

But wait! — look closer! Look at the plate! It doesn’t say TARDIS — it says TARD1S! That’s the numeral 1, not the letter I!

And look: here’s the back plate. Same problem here! “Time And Relative Dimension In Space” has become “Time And Relative Dimension —” what? — “One Space”? That doesn’t even make sense!

I think my neighbor’s messing with me. An imposter. Not a Time Lord at all.

And here it is, Rapture Eve, with a Rapture Van driving all over Anchorage warning about a “Judgment Day,” like some bizarre new form of Dalek aiming its harsh, Bible-Purple cry of exterminate, exterminate! against any who are not Dalek. From all over the world we’re hearing reports of people claiming that they will be somehow caught up into the sky, mystically teleported — apparently beginning tonight at 10:00 PM Alaska Time* — to some indefinable place called Heaven: the name, one must suppose, of an alien spaceship belonging to the powerful and xenophobic race to whom these people owe their allegiance.

And then, over a period of five months, the spaceship will rain its destruction down upon us.

And the Doctor, who could save us, is nowhere to be found.

Unless…

Do I have the wrong mythology? Yes. Yes. It’s obvious.  Like Sunnydale, California, and Cleveland, Ohio, Anchorage obviously sits on a Hellmouth, in our case centered somewhere in the vicinity of Baxter Road and Northern Lights Boulevard.

Surely Buffy will avert this apocalypse, as she has averted so many others.

But please, Buffy, please. Do not avert the Rapture. Let them go. Let all the xenophobes go.

* Note about Rapture timing: Per The Atlantic, The Rapture will begin 6 PM on March 21 in the first time zone at which that time occurs, then will proceed around the globe time zone by time zone. “So, according to these calculations, the Rapture will actually begin like a rolling brown out across the globe at 11 p.m. PST on Friday, May 20th” — i.e., 10 PM AST. But we’re in daylight savings time now, so I’m still a tad confused. In any case, those Alaskans whose loyalty to the xenophobic aliens is expected to be rewarded with Rapture will be among the last on the planet, at 6:00 PM tomorrow, to be rolling brown-outed to the alien mothership.

h/t John Aronno, Alaska Commons; Julia O’Malley, Anchorage Daily News

Related posts:

1. The Daily Tweets 2011-05-26: The sun’s gone wibbly
2. Q & A: What happens when you click "Volunteer" at the Alaskans for Parental Rights website?
3. There is more to life than Real Life

Andy & BethAnne Clary, from campaign literature mailed to my home.

I’ve already voted — Tuesday before last, in fact, when I headed over to the Loussac Library to attend that evening’s Anchorage Assembly meeting & discovered absentee balloting already in progress.  I voted  for Dick Traini for seat F in the Anchorage Assembly.

A number of other progressive Anchorage bloggers have already weighed in on why other Midtown voters ought to vote for Dick Traini & against Andy Clary in the April 6 municipal elections.  Now it’s my turn.

Yesterday my friend John Aronno of Alaska Commons wrote, “I like Andy. He’s a nice guy. He also comes off as a highly intelligent person” [Ref #1].  I have no reason to doubt John, whose judgment has proven itself time & again since I first met him last year in the trenches of the summer-long battle of the Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64 — a battle which is, of course, highly relevant to this election, not only because Andy Clary was on the “no” side of it [Ref #2].

Dick Traini. Courtesy Alaska Commons.

Later in his post, John reiterated Clary’s likability:

Andy Clary is a likable guy, and someone with crossover values, given his opponent, Dick Traini, who is about as likable as spring’s “break up,” or Michael Steele, or Paul Kendall. It honestly reminds me a bit of the Scott Brown election: elect the opposite of your values because you’re more pissed off at the person that claims to represent you. Traini hasn’t worked hard for this, and even I am in the camp where, either way, I won’t be happy. No one ends up represented well. Kudos, Midtown. [Ref #1]

Uh… well, thanks John.  That’s kinda how I feel about it too.  As a Midtown voter, I can at least take consolation that I’ll no longer be “represented” by this guy –

– but it’d be even better if I had a chance of being “represented” by someone who really did represent me. But that’s the nature of representative democracy — some people are “represented,” & the rest of us are screwed. Of course, the “other side” — whatever that side might be — has to deal with that same stinky win/lose fact.

But let me cut to the chase. Here’s some reasons to vote for Dick Traini rather than Andy Clary.

Reason #1: Dan Sullivan

This comes out of one of Andy Clary’s mailers that arrived in my mailbox:

In my book: not a great recommendation. In fact, it’s enough reason all by itself to pick Traini over Clary — especially coupled with the other side of the “support” equation: Clary’s support of Sullivan. Check out this video (courtesy Alaska Commons) of the candidate forum where Clary was asked to name one positive & one negative thing that former Mayor (now U.S. Senator) Mark Begich did as mayor, and one positive & one negative thing that Mayor Sullivan has done.

Clary couldn’t think of even one negative thing Sullivan had done. Well, I suppose it’s possible that Clary sees Sullivan as perfect — but that’s pretty troubling, if so.  In his campaign literature, Clary claims to have “an independent conservative viewpoint”: is his viewpoint independent enough to disagree with or oppose Sullivan on anything, or will he be just a junior version of Sullivan’s departing pal Dan Coffey?  The Anchorage Daily News reports,

On an Assembly that’s been fractious over Sullivan’s leadership, Clary makes it clear he is allied with Sullivan, who became mayor last July. He served on Sullivan’s transition team, held a fundraiser at McGinley’s, the pub Sullivan co-owns, and says of Sullivan, “Generally, I like what I’ve seen.” [Ref #3]

What about Traini?  The story goes on:

Traini said he donated $100 to Sullivan’s campaign for mayor, but the mayor didn’t reciprocate. “I have a good relationship, I think, maybe not the best.”

“I work with both sides,” said Traini. [Ref #3]

Reason #2: Opposition to equality under the law for LGBTQ citizens

Here’s a photo I took in the Assembly chambers on August 11, 2009, right after the Assembly by a vote of 7 to 4 passed the Anchorage equal rights ordinance, AO-64, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, & education. [Ref #4] That is, until the ordinance was vetoed 6 days later by Mayor Dan Sullivan. [Ref #5]

At the center in the grey jacket with red shirt is the Anchorage Baptist Temple’s Rev. Jerry Prevo, and beside him is ABT associate pastor, Rev. Glenn Clary — Andy Clary’s father. Prevo and ABT were, of course, prominent opponents of AO-64, going so far in their opposition as to bus Mat-Su Borough residents in to testify against it (a move permitted by then-Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander, who is standing for re-election on April 6).

Despite his father’s affiliation with ABT, Andy Clary is not a member of Prevo’s church.  He’s a member of ChangePoint [Ref #3] — a fact which at least some of Clary’s supporters seem to believe means he is absolutely independent of ABT influence.  For instance, check out this comment on Dan Fagan’s Alaska Standard piece criticizing ADN reporter Rosemary Shinohara’s story about the Midtown race.  The commenter, Bryan, was responding to a previous comment by Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore:

There’s no connection!

What a bunch of BULL! Prevo is not Andy’s pastor. ABT is not Andy’s church.

SO WHAT CONNECTION ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Andy Doesn’t go to ABT… Prevo isn’t Andy’s pastor…

This faux connection is complete BULL and you should be ashamed. [Ref #6, reader comment]

A similar comment was made anonymously to a story about Andy Clary’s candidacy at the LGBTQ blog Bent Alaska. [Ref #7] But please — of course there’s a connection between Andy Clary and ABT, because of his father; and it’s not as if evangelical megachurch ChangePoint is at odds with the politics espoused by the pastor or members of evangelical megachurch ABT.  Aside from that, Andy Clary, as a staff writer for Dan Fagan’s conservative blog the Alaska Standard, made it clear that he opposed the ordinance, albeit in less strident tones than many of red-shirted “Christians” who testified last summer:

As I sat in the assembly chambers Tuesday night and listened to hours of testimony from both sides of the issue, I was concerned how much religion kept coming up in the discussion. Time and time again, those who stood up to oppose the ordinance would quote the Bible or call homosexuality sin. The whole setting became an us vs. them mentality and even I, reporting live from the event, kept a tally of how many testified on each side of the issue. I cringed at the tone of some of the testimony.

Now, before I go any further, let me say that I am opposed to the ordinance myself, but for very different reasons. You see, I am a committed follower of Christ, and although I believe homosexuality is not a lifestyle that Christ approves of, I see it no differently than other sins such as alcoholism or adultery. Why do we Christians lash out against one sin so differently than we do any other? We need to be reaching these people not tearing them down. [Ref #2]

Never mind that persisting in calling homosexuality a “lifestyle” or a “sin” akin to alcoholism or adultery is not a very good way of reaching “these people” — speaking as one of “these people” myself.  In his campaign literature, Andy Clary claims that “I know how to listen”; but like most of the redshirts who populated the Assembly Chambers last summer, his mind is already made up about LGBTQ people: he’s not listening to us at all.

And don’t forget: Clary couldn’t think of one thing wrong that Mayor Sullivan did.  This sign — carried by a demonstrator on August 17, 2009, after Sullivan’s veto of AO-64 –

– could just as well say “Assembly candidate Andy Clary supports discrimination.”

Well, what about Dick Traini?  Discussion of this race in the LGBTQ community has focused almost as much on Traini’s Mormonism as on Cary’s relationship to the church his father is a pastor of.  LGBTQ Alaskans remember all too well how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) financed the 1998 campaign against marriage equality in Alaska, as well as the Prop 8 battle in California.

But the LDS Church is taking a different stance on employment and  housing protections — and so, apparently, is Dick Traini.  Yesterday, E. Ross at Bent Alaska wrote,

Dick Traini is a conservative with an independent streak. He has also said that he could support a non-discrimination ordinance similar to the one passed in Salt Lake City with the approval of the Mormon Church. That ordinance added sexual orientation but not gender identity, and involved only housing and job protections. [Ref #7]

But just now I learned that in fact two ordinances were passed in Salt Lake Lake City last year — both of them endorsed by the LDS Church — and the second one extends the same protections on the basis of gender identity, that the first extended on the basis of sexual orientation. [Ref #8] In fact, both ordinances took effect just yesterday. [Ref #9] Congratulations, Salt Lake City!

Might that meant that Traini could possibly support a nondiscrimination ordinance that includes both sexual orientation and gender identity?  Maybe someone should ask.  In any case, better him than Clary, who like Mayor Sullivan supports discrimination.

Reason #3: Experience, or the lack thereof

As a Midtown voter whose also got another voter living at my address, I’ve gotten peppered with Andy Clary campaign mailer with their photoshopped attacks on Traini.  Ryan Knight at the Back Porch comments:

Throwing mud at your opponent, mocking them in pedestrian cartoons, and attempting to aggrandize yourself at their expense indicates immaturity and poor character integrity. You don’t win by bullying, and the actions Andy has engaged in towards Traini are not Christian. God is not going to give him a high-five for mockery, manipulation, and Machiavellian plots. If he thinks so, he needs to read the bible again, and spend some serious time getting up close and personal to God. [Ref #10]

The Mudflats described one of the mailers thusly:

His latest mailer puts Mr. Traini’s photoshopped head on the bodies of King George, Napoleon on a horse, the bust of Julius Caesar and some sort of leotard-clad union superhero.

Underneath these bizarre iconic images are the words…and I quote (including quotation marks and all caps):

“PLEASE BEWARE OF SPECIAL INTEREST POLITICIANS WHO MAY HAVE A LITTLE TOO HIGH OPINION OF THEMSELVES…” [Ref #11]

Yep, I got that one too.  Here’s what it looks like:

Here’s one I got earlier:

What strikes me about these cartoonish attacks is this:

They are red herrings intended to distract voters from Clary’s own lack of public service experience by deriding Dick Traini for his record of public service. Clary’s made a theme of referring to “career politicians” — clearly intimating that Traini is one. But is he? As Traini told KTUU Channel 2 News:

“That’s interesting,” Traini said. “Let’s see: I spent 20 years in the military, I worked civil service for 18 years, and I’ve taught college for 13 years — that’s my career.” [Ref #12]

Traini’s record of public service includes 10-1/2 prior years on the Assembly, in the 1990s and from 2001-2008.  Per the Anchorage Daily News:

On the Assembly, Traini was chairman for six years.

He was the driving force behind creation of Anchorage’s popular off-leash dog parks. He sponsored tougher laws for uninsured and unlicensed drivers.

He backed more serious penalties for DUI offenders, a tobacco tax to discourage young people from smoking, and an anti-stalking law.

Traini also tried to get rid of emissions testing for vehicles, arguing that Anchorage no longer needs such testing because our air meets federal quality standards.

But the Assembly ended up reinstating the testing. [Ref #3]

(Clary also apposes I/M testing.)

Compare the record of public service of Andy Clary, who owns an IT consulting service:

When asked at a candidate luncheon how he has served the community, he cited church work. He taught Sunday school, led men’s studies and cooked food for different events, for example. [Ref #3]

Right.  Nothing outside the church.  Nothing involving members of the community outside his own evangelical megachurch community of belief.

His ideas for what to do on the Assembly are just as limited in their scope, made up chiefly of standard conservative talking points (low taxes, free enterprise, etc.) and tech as the answer to just about everything.  Sometimes those ideas make sense –

One idea to save money is to rent to the state space that’s not needed for the city’s data center, said Clary. He’s also heard a city human resources and financial software system is performing poorly, and is costing the city time and money. He’d like to get that fixed. [Ref #3]

– and sometimes he’s clearly out of his depth. John Aronno reports:

Next, he wants to “allow police and fire to be more effective through improved technology in the field.”

Great. But if you approve of Sullivan’s approach to reducing emergency services, I don’t understand how fancying up the computers in a vacant office helps anyone in an emergency. [Ref #1]

Exactly.  Not to mention — just what does Clary even know about police and fire technology?  According to the ADN, he owns Think IT Alaska and develops Internet software for GeoNorth. [Ref #3] But I don’t see anything at either company’s website to indicate he has any knowledge much less expertise in the technologies routinely used by law enforcement officers or firefighters in the field. Does he even know what NLECT stands for, or what it does?  What’s his experience or knowledge of crime mapping, its benefits, its limitations?  Just as a couple of for instances.  These are specialized areas; a degree in Management Information Systems and ownership of an IT consulting company do not make him even remotely qualified as the go-to guy for looking to the technology needs of Anchorage Police Department or Anchorage Fire Department.  He’s talking out of some other part of his anatomy there than his mouth, sorry.

Clary’s inexperience and narrowness of knowledge really shows here, too — from the KTUU story on the Midtown race:

Traini says if he’s voted in to the Assembly, the U-Med district containing the University of Alaska Anchorage campus and several city hospitals will get extra attention.

“The University-hospital area there is a big economic engine for Midtown,” Traini said. “We’ve got to figure out how to get transit coming in there, the housing around it, and the demands of the people who go to college there.”

Clary says he’s got a hands-off approach to government involvement in private lives.

“I think some of the business owners are concerned that the city doesn’t need to be proscribing so much how land use is developed in that area,” Clary said. “I’m of the opinion that the private sector needs to lead that effort.” [Ref #12]

Has Clary never heard of government working with the private sector, for the benefit of both?  Hello?  Particularly when we’re talking about — hello? — an economic engine for the area that Clary is aspiring to represent.  Hello?

Andy Clary’s “fresh perspective”: Not really that new, not really that different, and — sorry — not really that bright

Just typical conservative talking points with a little IT added in.

It’s even clearer to me than it was before I started this post how much better a choice Dick Traini is than Andy Clary, whose chief qualification for running seems to be an ideological narrowness that matches that of Dan Sullivan, Dan Fagan, and the evangelical megachurch community.

Traini, for his part, is recognized for his ability to work with conservatives as well as progressives:

“I think I can get both sides to work together,” Traini said. “I have worked before with a liberal Assembly, I’ve worked with a conservative Assembly. I’ve worked with four or five mayors, depends on how you want to count. And we can all work together, because everybody down there wants what’s best for Anchorage.” [Ref #12]

Per the ADN,

former Assemblyman Traini, competing with Clary for the Midtown seat, regularly served as a swing vote between one camp and another on his prior years’ service. [Ref #13]

And we need that more than someone who seems poorly equipped to do anything other than be Mayor Sullivan’s yes-man.

I’m really glad I voted as I did. I hope other Midtown residents will vote for Traini too.

And do vote!  It’s important! Especially if you think Sullivan’s mayoralty sucks as much as I do: because this election, if it goes wrong, could serve to make his administration even suckier.

References

1. 4/1/10. “Andy Clary” by John Aronno (Alaska Commons).
2. 6/10/09. “Can you legislate morality?” by Andy Clary (Alaska Standard).
3. 3/31/10. “Political rookie faces veteran in Midtown Assembly race — Experienced Traini faces challenge from newcomer Clary for seat being vacated by Coffey” by Rosemary Shinohara (Anchorage Daily News).
4. 8/13/09. “Third time in 35 years: Anchorage’s equal rights ordinance” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
5. 8/17/09. “Protesting the veto: Photos” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
6. 3/31/10. “Daily News Reporter disgraces her profession” by Dan Fagan (Alaska Standard).
7. 4/1/10. “Bent Alaska: ABT pastor’s son runs for Anchorage assembly” by E. Ross (Bent Alaska).
8. 11/12/09. “LDS apostle: SLC gay-rights measures could work for state” by Rosemary Winters And Peggy Fletcher Stack (The Salt Lake Tribune).
9. 4/2/10. “New laws protect gay and lesbian rights in Salt Lake City” by Lisa Von App (Examiner.com: Salt Lake City Page One Examiner).
10. 4/2/10. “Midtown Anchorage Assembly Race Heats Up” by Jeanne Devon (The Mudflats).
11. 4/2/10. “The Gospel of Mudslinging” by Ryan Knight (The Back Porch).
12. 3/31/10. “Assembly election: Traini, Clary, Whittaker vie for Midtown seat” by Jason Lamb (KTUU Channel 2 News).
13. 4/2/10. “Assembly races could shift mayor’s clout — TUESDAY ELECTION: With 5 seats up for grabs, Sullivan could suffer or benefit depending on who wins” by Rosemary Shinohara (Anchorage Daily News).

Related posts:

1. My letter to the Anchorage Assembly
2. Sullygate: My letter to the Anchorage Assembly in support of Assembly Resolution AR 2010-92
3. Assembly report 1

Mars mosaic from a compilation of images captured by Viking Orbiter 1. At center is the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 3,000 km long and up to 8 km deep. To the left are a volcanoes of the Tharsis bulge — Ascraeus Mons to the north, Pavonis Mons in the middle, & Arsia Mons in the shadow. Photo credit: NASA/USGS (via JPL Photojournal)

Worldbuilding, Wikipedia helpfully tells us, is

the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with a fictional universe.

The Wikipedia article focuses on the creation of worlds & the cultures that live in them by writers of science fiction & fantasy — for instance, Tolkien’s Middle-Earth in The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings trilogy, or the planet Cyteen in C.J. Cherryh’s novels Cyteen and Regenesis, to name but a couple of my favorite imaginary worlds.

But to my mind, worldbuilding isn’t restricted only to completely imagined worlds & people — really, any writer of fiction engages in worldbuilding, even when writing the most mainstream fiction that takes place in a world looking “just like” the world you & I live in, because any fiction involves presenting the particular world(s) & worldview(s) of the characters that inhabit it.

As if you & I actually lived in the same world.  Because isn’t your worldview, no matter who you are,  so much different than mine?  Yet there are some things we can agree on, at least most of us can — if only that rocks are hard to the touch, & water is wet.  Consensual reality, it’s called.  And that’s the point, at least in these coupla paragraphs of this blog post: there are some things a writer can generally assume her audience is familiar with, so that she doesn’t have to explain them; but other things that exist outside your normal frame of reference — that she has invented — yeah, of course she’ll need to explain.  (Or show. As that familiar writer’s proverb goes, show don’t tell — though, as with all rules, there are exceptions.)  Mainstream fiction, so-called, differs from science fiction & fantasy mainly in how closely it adheres to consensual reality, how much worldbuilding it has to do.

I could go on a lot longer about my thoughts about the different types of worldbuilding in different types of fiction (or, arguably, nonfiction), but then I’d never get to the point of this post — which is my worldbuilding, & how the recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC — along with everything else in U.S. & international law & custom that grants undue influence in how our governments & economies & lives are run to the fake persons known as corporations —  is really really really good for my worldbuilding.

But really really really sucko for the world I actually live in.

Good for my worldbuilding

Artist's conception of Mars in process of terraformation from Wikimedia Commons. Used in accordance with GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.

In early 2007 I decided that to jumpstart my writing after “life,” as usual, had decided to interfere with it, I was going to do National Novel Writing Month that November.  The good people of NaNoWriMo itself suggest that it’s best not to do NaNoWriMo with a project one already has underway — which in my case would have been Mistress of Woodland — so I pulled an idea off the backburner of my mind & decided to work on a new project,  Cold, which would be about two young women on a planet in the late stages of terraformation.

I told my friend Chris about it, & he told me I should read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy — Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars.  My brother Dave had previously recommended those books to me too.  So, over the late winter & spring of 2007, I read them.

Good call, guys.

If I were to summarize the story of Robinson’s trilogy in one sentence, I’d say, It’s a science fiction story about terraforming Mars.  Hence Red Mars — what the colonizers of the planet find when they get there; Green Mars — how it becomes green with growing plants; Blue Mars — how it becomes a second blue marble in the sky, like our own Earth, rich with liquid water on its surface & in its atmosphere.

But really, that’s only one theme of the trilogy.  There’s also an ecological theme: is it right & ethical for us, humans from planet Earth, to remake another planet — even a presumably “dead” planet like Mars — into a second Earth?  And meanwhile, what’s happening environmentally on the real Earth? — climate change, global warming, melting of Antarctica, rising seas, continuing overpopulation & pollution… in short, planetwrecking, at least in terms of keeping it habitable for human beings & numerous of our fellow species.

There’s also a third dominant theme: the long & arduous struggle of Robinson’s Martian colonists for freedom from the political & economic domination of Earth. Freedom not only from Earth’s numerous governments — but especially from Earth’s corporations, which have become so powerful that they are in many ways more powerful than governments themselves, both on Earth & on Mars.

Sound familiar?

Robinson isn’t, of course, the first SF writer to extrapolate from the scary situation we’re already in today vis-à-vis corporate power into some even scarier futures, with megacorporations having for all intents & purposes replaced any semblance of government of, by, & for the people.  (Unless, of course, you persist in perversely insisting that corporations are people, like the U.S. Supreme Court does.)  The science fiction subgenre called cyberpunk comes particularly to mind.

My imagined science fiction future is already extrapolated from the present, & the power corporations have is part of that.  During NaNoWriMo 2007, for Cold, I started inventing a government called, simply, Consensus, which really is a government of, by, & for the people, but it was during NaNoWriMo 2009, for Long Dark, that I discovered how Consensus came into existence.  I was writing stuff in the same story universe as Cold, but about three centuries earlier in the timeline; there, it became more apparent that the Consensus government came out of particular (invented) historical circumstances: namely, a rebellion by people living & working in the Asteroid Belt & outer solar system against the tyranny & exploitation of corporations, which, as usual, cared more about the corporate bottom line than about the welfare of their workers & their workers’ families.

So you see, that’s what’s so great about the Citizens United decision, & other corporate-power related phenomena. Here’s another word for you: verisimilitude:  the appearance of being true or real. The more our public officials hand over the reins of government to corporations, the more plausible the story world I’ve built becomes.  Wow, thank you Supreme Court!

Except, uh… like I said.  This shit is —

Bad for my world

No, corporations aren’t the only things — er, I mean “people” — whose greed, thoughtlessness, short-sightedness, stupidity, self-aggrandizement, etc. etc., are bad for the world.  They’re just on the current cutting edge of it.  And the more we, or public officials supposedly acting in our name, hand political power to them, the more deeply cutting their edge is.  The Citizens United ruling is just another step in that direction.

And nice as verisimilitude in fiction is, what would be even nicer would be to live in a world in which, for instance, we could trust that our elected officials were really responsible to us, instead of to corporations whose paid propaganda (so called “free speech”) put them in office.

In May 2007, when I was an active Wikipedia editor, I spent lots of time researching the career of Tom Anderson — in fact, I wrote most of  the article about him in Wikipedia. Alaskans will recognize Tom Anderson as the first of our former legislators to be tried and convicted in the federal probe into political corruption in Alaska.  I wrote the article in my typically geeky, super-detail-oriented style, with lots & lots of cites… & it took a lot of energy & effort.  It’s certainly a lot more detailed article than you’re typically going to find in Wikipedia on a two-term state legislator, corrupt or not.

But for me it was well worth it, because compiling that biography, based solely on the written record (mostly articles from the Anchorage Daily News and the Juneau Empire) really brought home the lesson: whenever you bring corporate money into contact with public elections & officials, there are inherent conflicts of interest for those public officials which will erode their ability to serve the people who elect them. Sometimes, a public official will be so bollixed up by the conflict that they won’t even recognize it.  Tom Anderson’s case is particularly illustrative.

For example, consider this instance from Anderson’s career, involving his relationship to Northeast Community Council, the council for the same part of Anchorage that Anderson himself was elected to represent in the Alaska House of Representatives.  (Note that I’ve removed the citations contained in the article for ease of reading; see the article for citations.) —

Anderson played a significant role over two years from 2002 to 2004 in changing the composition of Anchorage’s Northeast Community Council to reflect more conservative political and economic views. Anderson encouraged friends and allies, including pastors and members of the locally influential Anchorage Baptist Temple, to pack the town meeting-style community council elections. By May 2004, six of the nine community council board members, including its president, were friends and political allies of Anderson. While Anchorage’s community councils have no real authority, they are influential with the Anchorage Assembly because, according to Dick Traini, then chair of the Anchorage Assembly, “they are the active people in the community that choose to be involved.” Community council involvement has been a first step in the political careers of several Alaska politicians.

In July 2004, Anderson was criticized in an Anchorage Daily News editorial for signing a $10,000 contract in 2003 with the Alaska oilfield services company VECO Corporation to consult “on local government and community council affairs.” Anderson had earlier told the Anchorage Daily News that he’d been approached by VECO after the end of the 2003 legislative session because it was aware he’d done similar consulting work before he became a legislator. He told the newspaper that most of his work for VECO was in seeking out civic and charitable events for the company to get involved in, and that he also monitored Anchorage’s community councils to see if there were zoning cases or other issues under discussion that might affect VECO. The newspaper noted that Anderson had received about $4,000 in campaign contributions from VECO employees or their spouses in the 2002 election that won him his first term in the Alaska House. By July 2004 he had received at least $3,500 in VECO-related contributions for his 2004 reelection bid.

Members of the community council later recalled Anderson attending all their meetings during 2003, and assumed he was attending as their representative in the state legislature. They did not learn he was there as a consultant for VECO until 2004, when his state financial disclosure form was filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, as required by law.

By the April 2006 election for Northeast Community Council, the effects of the 2004 takeover had been partially reversed, leaving the council nearly half and half liberal and conservative.

Indeed, who was Anderson representing when he attended community council meetings — his constituents in the Muldoon area of Anchorage (including my brother’s family)? or VECO, which was not only lining his pockets as a supposed “political consultant,” but also helped fund his election in the first place?  (Some folks might also have interest in the connection between Anderson & Jerry Prevo’s megachurch the Anchorage Baptist Temple.)

Here’s another instance, from a couple years later —

In July [2006] Anderson was hired by the Anchorage Home Builders Association for $2,500 per month. The following month he testified before the Anchorage Assembly in favor of two stores that Wal-Mart wanted to build in his legislative district. The Northeast Community Council opposed the stores. At the Assembly meeting, Assembly chair Dan Sullivan introduced Anderson as “Representative Anderson,” but Anderson corrected him, stating that he was at the meeting in representation of the home builders association, which favored the Wal-Mart stores.

Again, who was Anderson representing?  His legislative constituency?  Or the home builders association & Wal-Mart?  Obviously, he believed all that was necessary to keep himself in the clear, ethically, was to take off his “Representative” hat & put on his “paid consultant” hat, & magically the two roles would be kept completely separate.  Right.  Based upon the law as written, Anderson was not acting illegally.  But the presence of conflict of interest is obvious — however oblivious he himself was to it.

Anderson was ultimately convicted of seven counts involving extortion, bribery, conspiracy, and money laundering after taking $26,000 worth of bribes funneled by Anchorage lobbyist Bill Bobrick through a sham corporation that Anderson was supposedly “consulting” for.  The scheme was supposed to be for the benefit of a private prison company, Cornell, which was reportedly unaware of any of this; one of its employees, Frank Prewitt, was funneling the money as a confidential informant for the FBI.

I ran out of steam to write more detailed coverage on Anderson’s trial & its aftermath, but I remember quite well that his obliviousness to his ethical lapses extended into his public statements about his conviction.  He still (or so he claimed) believed he’d done nothing wrong.  Other former lawmakers convicted out of the same federal corruption investigation seemed similarly oblivious.  Vic Kohring, Ted Stevens (who in my opinion is guilty even if his conviction was set aside because of prosecutorial misconduct) — all of them claim I did nothing wrong — even Pete Kott still claims this in spite of being caught on camera taking a bribe.  I did nothing wrong.  They take it as a given that it’s okay to take money, gifts, not to mention campaign donations, which will now be supplemented by unlimited campaign advertising from corporations so long as the corporations like them.

A lot of members of the public take all this as a given too.  A lot of the public is going right along with the Citizens United decision, stating it as a great victory for “free speech.”  Uh, s’cuse me — don’t you mean paid-for-with-megabucks speech?

Why do they take it as a given?  Name your own theory, but here’s mine:

Most of us have become desensitized.  We’ve grown so accustomed to the power of corporate money in every aspect of our lives that we take it for granted.  It’s the famous “boiling frog” thing all over again.  Over the span of many years — more than a century, now — as our lawmakers & law interpreters (the courts) progressively hand more & more power over to corporations —

• corporate “personhood”
• privatization of government functions — e.g., prison privatization, use of  corporate private armies (mercenaries) like Xe (formerly Blackwater), etc.
• deregulation
• granting corporations “ownership” over segments of nature, like water, genes, microorganisms, etc.
• unlimited corporate “free speech”
• etc.

— we’re gradually, just like that frog, having the heat on us slowly turned up higher & higher & higher.

Okay, so the Citizens United case was a bit more widely noticed.  See how many people are looking around and asking, Whoa… how’d we get here? This is fucked up.

Most of us do know that something is wrong, but we can’t seem to agree what the problems are, & therefore their solutions.  And thanks to the power our government has handed over to corporations, they are free to use their “free speech” (that is, their money) to influence & distort our perceptions about what the problem is.  So we continue to point our fingers at the wrong causes,  propose the wrong solutions, fight about it all — & the heat keeps turning up, & corporations continue to enrich themselves at our expense, & accountable honest government slips ever further out of our hands.

Big Government (the kind the Tea Party folks don’t like) & Big Corporations are just two different faces of the same phenomenon: the fading away of democracy.  The replacement of government of, by, and for the people with government of, by, and for the powerful few in order to control & exploit all the rest of us.

You know what I’m saying — that psychopathy thing I talked about a couple of weeks ago with reference to corporations.   But y’know, psychopathic Big Government like, say Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin, or a theocracy like those which Christianists are aiming for — in which anyone who doesn’t agree to toe the line of whatever arbitrary set of rules established by whatever arbitrary set of preachers or priests who claim to hold the blueprints of the heavens of some arbitrary bully-god — none of that crap is exactly desirable either.

What is desirable?  Real democracy, of course.  Real government of, by, and for the people. Government in which every stakeholder has a say and every stakeholder’s rights are protected and honored. Every stakeholder means every single person (real persons, that is, not fake “corporate persons”) who has any stake at all in how we operate our society. Which is to say: every. single. one. of. us.

That’s not how the U.S. government was set to operate, unfortunately. Our Founding Fathers did their best according to their own lights, I suppose, but they left a lot of stakeholders out of the loop. Women. Slaves. Children. Etc. Some of these oversights have been partially corrected through constitutional amendments, but the fact remains that real franchise — real ability to have a say in how society operates, & to have one’s own rights to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness — is still heavily restricted according to various kinds of status. Most of us still live under other people’s thumbs in one way or another. Some people win. Some people lose: their jobs, their homes, their families, their lives.

It’s just the way of the world, you say.  But why?  Is there another choice?

So here we are, back to worldbuilding

How can a society that is based on “some people win, and so does everybody else” be built?

That’s in essence what I’m trying to do in inventing the government of which my characters are part in Long Dark & Cold, which I named, simply, Consensus.

Notice that I said the government of which my characters are part.  Not, by which my characters are governed.  Because in this government, being a part of the government & being governed by it are one & the same thing.  Nobody is not a member of the government.  It truly is of, by, for the people.

Whoa, now, but wait a minute.  Isn’t that pretty damn unrealistic?  What about, y’know, that big word I used earlier?  Verisimilitude.

Well, that’s the thing.  I think it is realistic.  Not only that, but just as the corporate exploitation against which my characters’ ancestors rebel can be easily extrapolated from the stuff we’re already living with in the world we live in here & now, so can I extrapolate my society’s Consensus government from forms of governance that already exist & are used successfully in the world we live in here & now.  There are places, there are people, who are doing it now.

So nowadays I’m reading a lot about consensus, sociocracy, collective intelligence, & related ideas, on top of all the thinking & writing about this stuff I did on the fly during NaNoWriMo 2007 & 2009.  I’ll be writing more about this in other blog posts.

Meanwhile, may these ideas be the foundation of more worldbuilding in the here & now of 2010 planet Earth. I see little hope for the old tried & untrue methods of adversarial & often antagonistic systems of governance that we’re more accustomed to.  Health care reform debate, anyone?

How very pretty & hopeful our world looks out of the hostility & namecalling between political rivals these days.  Not.

Related posts:

1. Building Consensus
2. Toward a 28th Amendment: Corporations are not human persons
3. Terraforming notes

Max Blumenthal in Anchorage: click on picture for full-size poster with details on where & when you can hear him during his visit.

Crossposted at Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis

Thanks to some problems with a print job I was needed to help solve, my lunch yesterday was late, & to compound frustration it was interrupted by a fire drill, which meant having to shut down my computer, do a quick pack-up, & join everyone else in the office — faculty, staff, students — in a walk in the rain.

But the worst of it was that it interrupted me in my reading: having learned at Phil Munger’s blog Progressive Alaska about the upcoming visit to Anchorage of Max Blumenthal, & further detail about the same at some of the other Alaska progressive blogs like Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, What Do I Know, Immoral Minority, and the Mudflats, I decided to check further into his recently published book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. [Ref #1-6]

Palin's in here too, in case you were wondering.

Well, lunchtime wasn’t enough to get the full skinny out of what is something of a fat book (416 pages in hardback)  I ended up buying the book for my Kindle.  Didn’t have my Kindle with me, actually — but I did have my iPod Touch, with the Kindle for iPhone app, so after work found me reading at the bus stop at Prov Hospital, then on the bus, & then some more over dinner.  Per my Kindle, I’m now 14 percent of my way through the book at locations 1110-1119. That tells you a lot, doesn’t it? Sorry, Kindles don’t come with page numbers (I sure wish they did).  Okay, so another way of saying it: I’m at the beginning of chapter 8, “The Killer and the Saint,” which is about to describe to me how serial killer Ted Bundy got some last-minute attention prior to his execution in January 1989 by blaming his sociopathic ways on an addiction to pornography, & by seeking absolution from the father-confessor he’d chosen, Focus on the Family leader James Dobson.

That chapter should be interesting.  Back in the ’80s I’d read at least two or three books about Bundy, & I remember the date of his execution well — I was in Seattle at the time, where a lot of people were discussing him that day, especially women who lived in King County when Bundy was raping & murdering women there. Having read those books about Bundy, having read 7 chapters of this book already, I know even without having yet read chapter 8 that Bundy’s confession to Dobson was nothing more than self-aggrandizing publicity on both their parts. Bundy might claim to have been “born again” as a Christian on Florida’s death row, but best I can figure in all I’ve read about sociopaths of his ilk he had no soul to save: it had been, for whatever reasons, lost long ago — perhaps as a result of the abuse he himself had experienced as a child.  Dobson might be claiming to be witnessing Bundy’s salvation, but best I can see is he was either (1) a chump; or (2) delighted to have Bundy’s assistance in promoting his distorted idea of Christianity, which itself is marked by a promotion of child abuse (what Dobson called “discipline”).  Maybe both.  Y’think?

I hadn’t actually known before starting this book that James Dobson got his start as a child psychologist & was even a professor of pediatrics at USC School of Medicine in the late ’60s/early ’70s.  Then in 1970 he published his child-rearing manual, Dare to Discipline — his answer to the “permissive” child-rearing advice of Dr. Benjamin Spock.  Blumenthal quotes from Dobson’s book:

A little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child…. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely.  After the emotional ventilation, the child will often want to crumple to the breast of his parent, and he should be welcomed with open, warm, loving arms. [Ref #6]

Wow.  If my partner & I had followed that advice in disciplining the already-abused boy who came to live with us at age 9, guess what would have happened to us?  We’d've been charged with child abuse. And rightly so.

Blumenthal makes a case that Dobson’s beliefs about corporal punishment extends into his views about — & indeed the overall Christianist view about — the Christianist believer’s relationship to (their version of) God. Blumenthal quotes from Philip Greven’s book Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse:

The persistent ‘conservatism’ of American politics and society is rooted in large part in the physical violence done to children…. The roots of this persistent tilt towards hierarchy, enforced order, and absolute authority — so evident in Germany earlier in this century and in the radical right in American today — are always traceable to aggression against children’s wills and bodies, to the pain and the suffering they experience long before they, as adults, confront the complex issues of the polity, the society, and the world. [Ref #6]

Blumenthal points out that many Christianist leaders — including Dobson — were themselves subjected to corporal punishment and/or outright physical abuse as children.

Now, this doesn’t surprise me.  I’ve felt for a long time that the God worshiped by Christianists was your basic big bully.  And that the fear of God’s bullying punishments & the threat of eternal damnation were the only things that many Christianists felt could keep them in line — if indeed they did keep them in line.  When you’re taught from babyhood that “responsibility” is no more than blind obedience under the threat of a slapping hand or a belt or a “board of education” (which I remember seeing in use two or three times in junior high: yes, teacher-administered corporal punishment with a wooden paddle was allowed in public schools when I was a kid), what kind of responsibility do kids really learn?  Do they learn the internal strength needed to make truly moral decisions? Or are they merely running scared from Mom’s or Dad’s or the (so-called) Lord God Almighty’s whiphand?

People in Anchorage probably won’t be too surprised, either, to learn that at least as of 1985, even preschool children in the Anchorage Baptist Temple-affiliated Anchorage Christian Schools were subject to corporal punishment. From an October 1985 story in the Anchorage Daily News:

The Rev. Jerry Prevo announced Thursday that pre-school children will no longer be paddled at the Anchorage Christian School following Wednesday’s sentencing of a school employee for child abuse.

Prevo, whose Anchorage Baptist Temple runs the school, said corporal punishment will no longer be used on the pre-schoolers, “based on the fact it’s hard to spank and not take a chance of accidentally bruising.”

“When that happens, it puts our employees in an awkward position, and it’s not worth the hassle,” Prevo said.

Mary Lou Love, 52, a secretary with the school, was given a six-month suspended sentence for bruising a 2-year-old child’s bottom. Love swatted the child, Jennifer Wheeler, three times with a wooden paddle last May when she refused to eat.

… During her sentencing hearing, Love testified that she had been deeply disturbed over the incident and said that she never meant to bruise the child. She said she spanked her only because her job required her to do so.

“I would not have swatted her if I’d knew it would have bruised,” she said, adding that she will never paddle another child even if it means losing her job.

In 1983, Love’s supervisor, Robert Moreland, was charged with bruising the bottom of a 2-year-old child who also refused to eat….

Prevo said the bruising incidents were isolated cases.

“The parents sign a permission slip knowing that corporal punishment will be used.

“We’ve had as many as 800 kids a day and in the 13 years (the school has been open) and we’ve had two incidents. We would think that’s pretty good.”

He said corporal punishment will continue to be used at the grade school, junior and senior high school levels. [Ref #7]

That was, of course, 24 years ago, in 1985 — I have no idea if Anchorage Christian Schools still hits older-than-preschool kids with wooden paddles for serious crimes against the Lord Bully Almighty like refusing to eat. It is, after all, possible that ACS has learned over the years using wooden paddles on older kids is just as much of a “hassle” as hitting two-year-olds with them. But then again… maybe not.

(Did I say I remembered seeing wooden paddles in use in my junior high days? Much more do I remember hearing them: the hard loud thwack of wood against a kid’s behind, & the kid crying out with each swat. None of the cases involved a kid having been violent. No, only the teacher was violent. This was in 1971–72. It’s a practice I hope the Columbia Falls, Montana school system has dropped long since.)

People in Anchorage will possibly also not be surprised that ABT’s pastor Jerry Prevo, like James Dobson, grew up in a household where incidents of abuse occurred:

Born Jan. 12, 1945 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Jerry Prevo grew up as the eldest of two sons to a pious mother and an alcoholic father who worked at a nuclearfuel processing plant.

One of his earliest childhood memories is rooted in a latenight argument between his mother and father when he was 3. Prevo’s father was in a drunken rage and threatened to kill the boy to get back at the mother.

She retreated, dragging young Jerry across the family bed to safety. He stills bears a scar on his chin from hitting the bedstead in the frantic escape effort.

His father, Prevo says, was abusive only when drunk. When sober, he taught Jerry how to hunt and fish and other fatherson things. During Prevo’s high school years, his father tempered his drinking somewhat and life was a little easier at home.

But when Prevo went away to college, the drinking began again and his father eventually deserted the family for a barmaid.

In 1976, the day he received a letter from his son in Alaska that spoke of how he still loved him despite the drinking, Prevo’s father hung himself in a shower stall.

Prevo speaks openly about the alcoholism, the abuse, the desertion and the suicide. But the arrival at his decision to reveal the final chapter of his father’s life, which he did to his congregation upon returning from his father’s funeral, was not easy.

“The biggest problem I had,” he says, “was the pride factor. I asked myself, “Are you going to share that with others? . . . Well, no one is perfect and sometimes people expect perfection in a pastor and get hurt . . . But it was an example that everything doesn’t always go my way, that people don’t always speak highly of me, that I have personal problems that everyone else has.”

His childhood experiences hardened many of his current beliefs, including total abstention from alcohol. [Ref #8]

What really strikes me here is the apparent assumption on Prevo’s part that his father’s alcoholism, abuse, desertion, suicide — somehow had something to do with Prevo‘s lack of perfection: as if the young Jerry Prevo was somehow at fault for his father‘s imperfections.  For imperfections that, in fact, harmed Prevo’s mother & Prevo himself.

This isn’t just irony — although it is that, too.  But mainly: his is a common reaction in people who have been abused as children: they take the responsibility for the parents’ abuse of them upon themselves. They blame themselves: something must be wrong with them for their parent to hurt them so.

And then, all too often, unless someone helps them to learn differently, they grow up to pass that belief on, in word & in deed: the cycle of violence.  Some of them even teach that it’s what God wants.

What a horrible teaching.  What a horrible God. But this is the God Jerry Prevo, as much as James Dobson, calls upon us to believe in.

Sorry, but a Big Bully Child Abuser in the Sky is not anyone I want to worship.

I have more to say about what I’m learning from Max Blumenthal’s book, but it’s way past midnight & time for sleep — so it’ll have to wait.

But before I shut my laptop & shut my eyes, I want to reiterate what the other folks have been saying: Max Blumenthal is coming to Anchorage this weekend, & you have a chance to see & hear him. Phil Munger has the full lowdown on where he’ll be. [Ref #9] And if you’ve got a spare dime, please consider donating using the PayPal link on Phil’s site to help cover costs of Mr. Blumenthal’s plane ticket up here!

References

1. 9/21/09. “Max Blumenthal Returns to the Land of Queen Esther” by Phil Munger (Progressive Alaska).
2. 9/18/09. “Now THAT’S what I call some down-home ‘indoctrination’!” by Linda Kellen Biegel (Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis).
3. 9/21/09. “Frank Schaeffer on Evangelicals – Max Blumenthal in Anchorage Next Weekend to Tell us Personally” by Steve Aufrecht (What Do I Know?).
4. 9/21/09. “Help Max Blumenthal receive the Alaska Bloggers bump” by Gryphen (Immoral Minority).
5. 9/21/09. “Max Blumenthal is Comin’ to Town!” by AK Muckraker (The Mudflats).
6. Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party by Max Blumenthal (Nation Books, 2009).
7. 10/18/1985. “Children won’t be paddled” by Kim Rich (Anchorage Daily News, p. C1).
8. 10/30/1986. “No middle ground” by Andrew Perala (Anchorage Daily News, Lifestyles section p. 1).
9. 9/18/09. “Max Blumenthal in Anchorage Next Week” by Phil Munger (Progressive Alaska).

Related posts:

1. No Questions, Questions (poem)
2. Illimitable god, & related thoughts about why I’m not a Christian
3. I’m not a mother, but I am. And then there’s Anya James.

Jerry Prevo on my TV. June 21 Father's Day sermon at the Anchorage Baptist Temple: lots of damning things to say about homosexuals. As usual.

I’m not sure this is it in final, but as I just told a friend, poetry is nothing if not full of variants.  (As I’m sure all the poets of the Bible full well knew.) So, call this version 1 if you like; I’ll see if there are any others.

No Questions, Questions

The man, smug in his pulpit,
has no questions.
He never has questions
except the rhetorical
question always followed
by his ready knowing answer read
from the book at his right hand:
the book at the right hand of God,
the book — the right hand of the judge
who judges the quick and the dead
to damn whoever fits
the words of his ready
answers read from that book.

I have questions…
What makes one so certain?
How does one live inside a closed book
behind closed doors in a windowless room
surrounded by a great great wall
blocking off all the horizons,
everything known, counted, familiar?
How does one live on a flat, flat Earth,
a horizonless planet where nothing new
ever walks, is seen, is encountered?
How does one breathe there?
How does one breathe where there are only
two kinds of people, the damned and the damning? —
and the smug man in his pulpit smiles,
knowing himself as the latter,
casting the former to flames,
smiling to serve such a God
who made things this way.

Somewhere beyond a horizon
on a round Earth set among stars
crafted by illimitable god,
I catch my breath.

Melissa S. Green
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Anchorage, AK

My first brand-spanking new poem in awhile. Inspired by — hard to guess, innit? Same place, same circumstances, same ideologues — just a different year — as what drew “Sermon” out of me in 1992. Most of this was written yesterday on People Mover bus #36 during the long construction-interfered-with journey from UAA to the Loussac Library. Tip o’ the nib to James P. Carse whose The Religious Case Against Belief has been a necessary friend these past months.

Related posts:

1. Sermon (a poem)
2. Does Anyone Beat Your Heart for You (poem)
3. The Daily Tweets, 2009-10-31: "Cold" published at Crossed Genres, & other writing projects

Christianist is a term I first heard from Atlantic Monthly blogger Andrew Sullivan — a useful term that to me conveys not Christiantity as religion, but rather Christianity as political ideology.  Sullivan, who is gay, Catholic, & conservative — but not a “war of values” social conservative — does not feel any more represented by the religious right than my friend Dianne O’Connell of Immanuel Presbyterian Church does; in an essay written for Time magazine, Sullivan writes, “let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism.”

Hence, a handy term to distinguish the politics of Jerry Prevo & his followers & allies — the ideological contemporaries & descendants of the Moral Majority — from other forms of Christianity found in Alaska, the U.S., & the world.

Related posts:

1. An indictment of the Christian heresy followed by Palin & friends
2. Illimitable god, & related thoughts about why I’m not a Christian
3. The new Carrie Prejean?

Into my email inbox about an hour ago came the following Anchorage Daily News breaking news item:

Breaking News

Gay-rights ordinance appears doomed

The prospect of a gay rights ordinance passing look dim as Anchorage Assembly Chairwoman Debbie Ossiander says she will continue to allow testimony from anyone who wants to speak on the issue, effectively preventing passage of the ordinance under the watch of a supportive city administration.

If you click through to the story now, you’ll find that it’s been retitled “Prospects dimming for gay-rights ordinance” — a renaming which occurred about 11:54 AM between me posting my first comment on the article (at 11:53:39 AM)  & my second (at 11:55:03 AM).

The story is by ADN reported Megan Holland — the same person whose earlier story, entitled “Residents demand to air views on gay-rights amendment”, prompted me earlier today to cancel my electronic subscription to the ADN.  Why? Because the story failed to make any mention whatsoever of the long-brewing issue of nonresidents from Mat-Su being permitted to testify — just more evidence that the ADN is falling down on the job when it comes to actually investigating news stories instead of acting as mere stenographers for whatever they’re being told by the people they talk with.

You might recall that I wrote a post about the Outside influence issue last week.  Fascinatingly, finally now in this doomsaying article, Megan Holland finally mentions the problem — the first time I’ve seen it mentioned in the ADN (unless I missed something — & I am willing to be corrected).  Holland writes:

Opponents of the measure have been organized, showing up by the hundreds, bringing in Christian youth groups, and busing in churchgoers from Mat-Su, some of whom work in Anchorage.

Wow, finally some acknowledgment from the city’s newspaper-of-record!

A few days ago a friend of mine wrote to the Assembly objecting to permitting the testimony of non-Anchorage residents.  He received a reply back from Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander, which he shared with me.  The pertinent parts (emphasis added):

The decisions on how best to conduct the hearings are made by the chair. I have taken into consideration the requests to limit testimony to residents of the municipality and have decided against that for several reasons. Many, many of the people who work and play in our town live in the Valley. Anchorage is a true regional city in the sense that its impact extends beyond its physical boundaries in many ways.

And so therefore those people who work & play in Anchorage but do not pay Anchorage taxes or vote in Anchorage elections should have the right to influence our elected representatives to permit discrimination against Anchorage citizens?

Try it this way:

Many, many of the people who work and play in our country live in Canada or Mexico, or hold green cards from other nations. The United States is a true regional power — in fact a world power — in the sense that its impact extends beyond its physical boundaries in many ways.

So let’s let Canadian, Mexican, & other foreign citizens come testify before Congress to influence U.S. lawmakers’ decisions about how to govern U.S. citizens!

I think not.

Then there’s the other issue the article mentions:

Some backers of the proposed law have accused opponents of filibustering — packing the hearing with opposition voices to stall the proposal until it falls in Sullivan’s term. Ossiander said she has suspected that at times but she has also heard very impassioned testimony that convinces her the issue is deeply important to people.

Jerry Prevo at Wednesday evening's Anchorage Baptist Temple picnic on the Loussac Library lawn. Prevo canceled ABT services that night in order that ABT members could attend the Assembly hearing.

Sure: the same impassioned testimony heard over & over from the same small subset of the Anchorage (& let’s not forget the Mat-Su) population, repeating the same talking points over & over again ad nauseum from the filibustering Christianists.  As John Aronno of Alaska Commons wrote in his account of Wednesday night’s testimony before the Assembly — the same night, you might recall, that Anchorage Baptist Temple pastor Jerry Prevo canceled evening services so that his congregation could head over to the Loussac to overwhelm the Assembly —

I was there from the beginning of the meeting at 4pm, and left shortly after nine-thirty. The “voices of the people” are not sending any new messages that need to be put on record. The “voices of the people” are now a loop.

And later,

I don’t know where we go from here. If there is an upside, it is in the clarity that the Assembly has offered us. They have made up their minds. They’re not telling us how they’ve made up their minds, but it is clear that the time for changing their minds has solidly run out. The first attempts to filibuster the discussion and subsequent vote on this ordinance continue. But, even more prevalent is the new tactic to literally strong arm the law. The anger. The bully mentality.

One should add that most of the people who testified Wednesday night were the last of the people who originally signed up to testify on the night of Tuesday, June 9 — & thus probably included at least some of those persons originally bused in or carpooled over from the Mat-Su.  Noncitizens that Debbie Ossiander persists in giving ear to.  Because the repetitive testimony, principally from congregants brought to the Assembly en masse from Anchorage Baptist Temple & other fundamentalist or evangelical churches, and some of whom are noncitizens of Anchorage, is — y’know — impassioned.  Well, filibusters usually do have something with group’s passion — including a passionate desire to run out the clock.

Debbie Ossiander is only cooperating in that, whether knowingly or unknowingly.  One rather suspects the former.  As a Facebook contact of mine wrote after the ADN doomsayer story came out,

I hate to say it, but I call it like I see it. It seems to me Ossiander is prolonging it so we can’t get it passed.

Yep, looks like it to me, too.  Assembly  Chair Ossiander has been uncertain in her own support or nonsupport of the ordinance, and by doing this “everybody should get heard even if they don’t live in Anchorage and even if they’re all repeating the same talking points over & over again,” she’s effectively also making it so that she perhaps won’t have to vote, and can escape unscathed from making a choice that will get her in trouble with either her conscience, or the conservative portions of her constituency.  It’s questionable, to say the least, if this is a responsibly neutral way to handle the chair’s responsibilities.

As Celtic Diva (Linda Kellen Biegel) wrote, the first of the reader comments on the Megan Holland’s doomsayer story:

If this doesn’t pass, I hope Alaskans will remember that Debbie Ossiander is the reason why:

1) She allowed all of the bussed in Valley people to sign up and testify. Gee, I wonder what would happen if I wanted to testify on and Ordinance in Wasilla or Palmer?

2) She continued to allow people to sign up for testimony every day they’ve had it. Since I was one of the last people to sign up on the first day and I testified Thursday, they’d be done by now and voting on Tuesday.

Darn betcha I’ll remember — and I’ll be doing my best to ensure other people remember as well.

(P.S. You must’ve been in a hurry, Linda: I think you mean Wednesday.  Though it was probably so late on Wednesday that it felt like Thursday!)

Related posts:

1. Outside influence
2. Assembly report 1
3. No, Debbie, Title VII does NOT prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in employment. Hello?

See you tonight! Please wear blue, & your Equality Works button.

I’ve still been too wiped out to do much of any productive thinking or blogging today.  But I was able to say a bit about the first two public hearings about Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64, & so have other people.  And other people have also talked about last night’s (the third) public hearing too.  So I’m just gonna collect up some of the relevant stuff here, for your reading pleasure.

These are organized by which hearing (& the doings outside the library that they discuss, not necessarily the date they were posted or published.  As usual, however, I do give the date of publication or posting at the beginning of the item, & identify the source at the end.  Note that I’m not giving any precedence to stories by professional news media: I’m with Phil Munger on this, they’re so overextended & under-resourced that it’s clear full reporting is never going to get done without us bloggers.

I doubt this is comprehensive, but I’ll do my best, & add more to this list as I find it.  (Or write it, since I’ll be adding a few more posts to the coverage too.)

[Updated 6/19 to add more links.]

Anchorage won't discriminate (June 17 along 36th Avenue)

Prequel

• 6/4/09. “In Support of a Transgender-Inclusive Ordinance” by E. Ross (Bent Alaska). Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore suggests that gender identity be taken out of the ordinance: no way.
• 6/4/09. “We are all, or none” by Mel Green (Henkimaa). Another response to Ivan Moore; the Anchorage LGBT community & our allies say “We are all, or none.”
• 6/6/09. “City revises gay-rights proposal: Gays and lesbians lose some protections” by Don Hunter (Anchorage Daily News).Discusses the first S (substitution) version of the ordinance.
• 6/7/09. “Keeping the T in LGBT” by Mel Green (Henkimaa). Problems with the “bathroom language” in the subsitution version of the ordinance.
• 6/7/09. “PA Arts Sunday – June 7, 2009 – A Play for Eddie Burke” by Philip Munger (Progressive Alaska). A short play in one scene entitled “The Spirit of Elizabeth Peratrovich Confronts Rev. Jerry Prevo.”
• 6/8/09. “Sex is between the legs, Gender is between the ears” by April Rains (Bent Alaska).  A “modest proposal” essay in response to Ivan Moore’s suggestion that we take protections for transgender people out of the ordinance.
• 6/8/09. “Revised Ordinance Weakens the law and Endangers Transgender people” by Equality Works (Bent Alaska). Critique of the first substitution version of the ordinance.
• 6/8/09. “Attend the Public Hearing: Tuesday, June 9 at Loussac Library” by Equality Works (Bent Alaska). Info for ordinance supporters.
• 6/8/09. “Anchorage ex-Marine faces Work Discrimination for being Transgender” by Laura O’Lacy (Bent Alaska). Laura O’Lacy’s letter to the Anchorage Assembly describing the harassment and discrimination she has faced as a transgender woman trying to get a job in her field of training.
• 6/8/09. “Revised Ordinance Exempts Small Businesses, Religious Groups, and Bathrooms. Prevo still opposes it” by E. Ross (Bent Alaska). On the first substitute ordinance.
• 6/8/09. “Public Testimony on Sexual Orientation Discrimination Ordinance” by Erick Cordero Giorgana (Think Alaska). A brief rundown of events leading up to testimony.
• 6/8/09. “It’s only natural…help protect our LGBT friends from discrimination in Anchorage” by Linda Kellen Biegel (Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis). Gay penguin parents, & more.
• 6/9/09. “Speaking out against sexual descrimination in Anchorage and the story of my daughter” by Gryphen (Immoral Minority). Gryphen tells the story of his daughter’s coming out and the harm she suffered from antigay prejudice at her mother’s conservative church in Georgia. Luckily she has much more acceptance up here with her dad.
• 6/9/09. “LEGISLATING HATE: The Real Anti-Christ” by Shannyn Moore (Just a Girl from Homer). On Jerry Prevo of Anchorage Baptist Temple, Ron Hamman of the Independent Baptist Church of Wasilla, and other “not-so-Christ-like” voices of hate.
• 6/9/09. “My pastors are mightier than Prevo” by Amanda Coyne (Alaska Dispatch). On Rev. John Carey & Rev. Dianne O’Connell of Immanuel Presbyterian Church.
• 6/9/09. “Kelly’s Story: A Transgender Christian woman explains Gender Identity Disorder” by Kelly (Bent Alaska). Guest post by a Christian transwoman who lives part of the year in Anchorage.
• 6/9/09. “See you tonight” by Mel Green (Henkimaa). My prequel compilation of some of the other posts from our allies in support and solidarity as we headed into the first evening of testimony.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

• 

  Ordinance supporters Arliss Sturgulewski, Vic Fischer, Jane Angvik, and Chuck O'Connell (in foreground) on the first night of ordinance testimony

  6/9/09. “Mat Su residents testifying in Anchorage?” by Erick Cordero Giorgana (Think Alaska). The first blog report I’m aware of that people had been bused in from the Mat-Su Borough to advocate that a government not their own testify against against its own citizens.

• 6/9/09. “Live from the City Assembly…” by Heather James (SOSAnchorage.net). Liveblog of the Assembly hearing from the person sitting right next to me.  I helped her spell the names right (except that I helped her spell Loren Leman’s name wrong).
• 6/9/09. “News from Assembly Meeting” by AKMuckraker & many many mudpuppies (The Mudflats). This post turned spontaneously into a liveblog by members of the Mudflats community watching the livestream of the hearing — a practice they also followed in the next two Assembly hearings.
• 6/9/09. “A long night (one of many?)” by Patrick Flynn (Patrick Flynn’s Blog). Assemblyman’s post from four hours into the five-hour meeting.
• 6/9/09. “June 9 public testimony at Anchorage Assembly” (photos) by Mel Green (Flickr photostream). 49 photos taken mostly inside the Loussac and Assembly chambers, with some supplementary photos courtesy Phil Munger of Progressive Alaska and AKMuckracker of the Mudflats.
• 6/9/09. “Emotional testimony on both sides gay rights amendment” by Jason Lamb (KTUU Channel 2 News).
• 

  Jeffrey Mittman of the AkCLU and Tiffany McClain and Mia Oxley of Equality Works

  6/9/09. “Hundreds air views on gay-rights ordinance — ONLINE: Followers max out streaming feed from meeting” by Don Hunter (Anchorage Daily News).

• 6/9/09. “A sea of red and then purple” by Amanda Coyne (Alaska Dispatch). Brief story on the night’s events.
• 6/9/09. “At the Anchorage Assembly Meeting on Civil Rights” by Philip Munger (Progressive Alaska). What was going on outside during testimony; the large number of kids bused in by fundamentalist churches, of which Phil took photos, influenced my decision to write my later “Billboards” post.
• 6/10/09. “Equal Rights in Anchorage. A Small Step on a Long Road” by AKMuckraker (The Mudflats). Like Phil Munger, AKMuckraker spent some time photographing the activism outside the Loussac; her observations about kids also informed my “Billboards” post.
• 6/10/09. “Photos from the Ordinance Hearing” by E. Ross (Bent Alaska).
• 

  How many of these ordinance opponents are Anchorage residents, and how many are not?

  6/10/09. “Last night’s anti-descrimination testimony in front of Anchorage Assembly full of emotional testimony and tears” by Gryphen (Immoral Minority). An overview of the night’s testimony.  Here’s also where you can read about the altercation between a blue-shirted ordinance supporter and drunken red-shirted opponent which led to the red-shirt striking the blue-shirt and being arrested.

• 6/10/09. “Eleven Hours in a Library; the City Assembly Meeting on Equal Rights Ordinance” by John Aronno (Alaska Commons). I think John wrote this in the middle of the night after getting home. His discussion of the “outsider” influence (Mat-Su people bused in) at the Assembly meeting influenced my decision to write a post about it later. Reposted at SOSAnchorage.net (the Prevo debunking site).
• 6/10/09. “Assembly report 1″ by Mel Green (Henkimaa). A brief complilation of some of the other blog posts that have already reported on the hearing.
• 

  Crowded Assembly chambers on June 9

  6/10/09. “Social Justice in Anchorage” by Mags (Winston’s Mom). Account of a heterosexual married woman who felt compelled to testify that the “GLBT community get that same protection under the law that all the rest of us enjoy.”

• 6/10/09. “Writing like a fiend…” by Linda Kellen Biegel (Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis). Recovering from testimony night, with a photo of Prevo.
• 6/10/09. “Coverage of Tuesday’s MOA Civil Rights Ordinance Hearing in Local Media” by Philip Munger (Progressive Alaska). Compilation of links to the best coverage.
• 6/10/09. “Outside influence” by Mel Green (Henkimaa). A reaction to non-Anchorageites being permitted to testify before the Assembly to influence our municipal government that they are not citizens of.
• 6/11/09. “City Assembly Meeting Transcripts: Volume 1″ by John Aronno (Alaska Commons). John’s transcription of the testimony from the first ten witnesses. Reposted at SOSAnchorage.net.
• 6/11/09. “Assembly report 2: June 9 public testimony” by Mel Green (Henkimaa). My full account of Tuesday night’s Assembly meeting.
• 6/11/09. “Balancing rights” by Patrick Flynn (Patrick Flynn’s Blog). Assemblyman Flynn addresses balancing of rights between discrimination rights for LGBT people & Christianist claims about infringements on their right to practice their faith. (Note: he doesn’t use the term Christianist — that’s me).
• 6/12/09. “Billboards” by Mel Green (Henkimaa). On Prevo & co.’s use of children as billboards for their parents’ prejudices and hatreds.
• 6/13/09. “City Assembly Meeting Transcripts: Volume 2″ by John Aronno (Alaska Commons). John’s transcription of the testimony from the second ten witnesses. Reposted at SOSAnchorage.net.
• 

  Mrs. Alaska United States protesting against proposed Anchorage equal rights ordinance. Photo courtesy Philip Munger ( Progressive Alaska)

  6/13/09. “Saturday Alaska Progressive Blog Roundup – June 13, 2009″ by Philip Munger (Progressive Alaska). Highlights some of the best commentary on the ordinance hearing.

• 6/14/09. “PA Arts Sunday – June 14, 2009 – Peter Dunlap-Shohl Pegs Prevo’s Phoniness” by Philip Munger (Progressive Alaska). Cartoon by Peter Dunlap-Shohl.
• 6/15/09. “The new Carrie Prejean?” by Mel Green (Henkimaa). Prevo & co.’s cynical ploy to use the newly-crowned Mrs. Alaska United States to bait the LGBT community.
• 6/15/09. “Palin Snubs PrideFest, Wasilla Fundies Protest Gays” by E. Ross (Bent Alaska). Mat-Su residents brought in to testify against equal rights for Anchorage LGBT people, Wasilla native Gov. Sarah Palin ignoring Pride, & President Barack Obama declaring June as LGBT Pride Month: these reminders of the state of affairs as we prepared for the second hearing.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

• 

  What I testified about: At Kinko's with a couple of the copies of the "Prima Facie" component of Identity Reports, which I later gave to members of the Assembly

  6/12/09. “Ordinance Hearing, Week 2″ by Equality Works (Bent Alaska). Info for ordinance supporters for the second hearing.

• 6/15/09. “Gearing up for Round Two” by Heather James (SOSAnchorage.net). A compilation of links of commentary from the June 9 hearing & prequels to the June 16 hearing. Reposted (with some preferatory comments) on 6/16/09 by John Aronno at Alaska Commons.
• 6/16/09. “Gay rights ordinance gets 2nd Assembly hearing tonight” by Megan Holland (Anchorage Daily News).
• 6/16/09. “Hearings on Tues. & Wed., Buckley Brigade formed to Welcome and Protect” by Equality Works (Bent Alaska). Pre-hearing info for ordinance supporters.
• 6/16/09.  “2nd Hearing Today: Who Should Determine the Laws of Anchorage?” by E. Ross (Bent Alaska). E. Ross asks who should make Anchorage laws: the mayor & Assembly, with input from a variety of Anchorage residents; Wasilla residents who are being permitted to testify; or Jerry Prevo?
• 6/16/09. “ABT is a Political Action Committee…NOT a Church” by Shannyn Moore (Just a Girl from Homer). Prevo’s mobilization letter to his congregation at Anchorage Baptist Temple.
• 6/16/09. “Equal Rights Just Became Less Equal” by John Aronno (Alaska Commons). John comments on the new substitution ordinance drafted by Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander, which removes all protections from discrimination for gender identity/expression & removes private employment protections for sexual orientation.


Three livebloggers all in a row: John Aronno (Alaska Commons), Heather James (SOSAnchorage.net), and Mel Green (Henkimaa)6/16/09. "Live Blog from the Assembly" by John Aronno (Alaska Commons). John & Heather & I were all sitting next to each other liveblogging awa

• 6/16/09. “A new day, a new version” by Patrick Flynn (Patrick Flynn’s Blog). A quickie rundown on the provisions of Debbie Ossiander’s substitution version of the ordinance. See comments for some discussion of the Mat-Su “let’s go make sure those Anchorage LGBTs continue to be discriminated against” outsider influence issue.
• 6/16/09. “Live Blogging Round Two…” by Heather James (SOSAnchorage.net). All the liveblogs are worth looking at for the different observations offered.
• 6/16/09. “Liveblogging Assembly meeting, June 16″ by Mel Green (Henkimaa). My liveblog & live-Twitter of the hearing.
• 6/16/09. “Anchorage Assembly Meeting – Non-Discrimination Ordinance Testimony” by AKMuckraker & many many mudpuppies (The Mudflats). Liveblogging by members of the Mudflats community watching the livestream of the hearing. Thanks AKMuckraker for the link to my Twitter feed!
• 6/16/09. “June 16 public testimony, Anchorage Assembly” (photos) by Mel Green (Flickr photostream). Large set of 103 photos, both inside the Loussac and Assembly chambers, and outside.
• 6/17/09. “Anti-discrimination debate raises passions” by Megan Holland (Anchorage Daily News).
• 6/17/09. “The Second Anchorage Assembly Hearing” by John Aronno (Alaska Commons). After reading accounts like this, I’ve gotta say that John is fast-emerging as one of the most incisive local bloggers I know.
• 

  EQUALITY NOW: Outside on the Loussac lawn while testimony goes on in the Assembly chambers

  6/17/09. “Ordinance Hearing #2: Religious Rule has it’s Day in Court” by E. Ross (Bent Alaska). E. Ross observed (& photographed) the activist crowds outside & the overflow crowd watching testimony from the Wilda Marston Theatre.

• 6/17/09. “Anchorage Non-Discrimination Ordinance. (Photos)” by AKMuckraker (The Mudflats). Photos of events outside Tuesday night’s hearing.
• 6/17/09. “Last night at the Assembly meeting was emotionally draining and yet quite uplifting. Is that even possible?” by Gryphen (Immoral Minority). Includes text from Rev. Jerry Prevo’s mobilization email sent to ABT members. Gryphen reports he also interviewed Prevo, video forthcoming.
• 6/17/09. “Whining in the Assembly” (Fairview View). Reposted on SOSAnchorage.net.  Author thinks ordinance opponents are experiencing one of the first challenges to their calcified ways of thinking, & should get over it.
• 6/17/09. “Sex in the City” by Brendan Joel Kelley (Anchorage Press).  Observing activists on both sides of the issue, including the blue-sponsored lawn party going out outside Tuesday’s Assembly hearing.
• 6/17/09. “On gays and God” by Krestia DeGeorge (Anchorage Press). “The whole point of this exercise,” the author writes of Prevo’s mobilization letter to his congregation, “was reinforcing lines that keep some people in and others out, the lines that divide those who belong from those who don’t.” She goes on to desdribe how her own conservative religion upbringing kept her shielded from knowing people different from her — until an important friend came out to her, & her own beliefs about sexual orientation began to change.  An important piece.
• 6/18/09. “My daughter makes videos!” by Gryphen (Immoral Minority). Gryphen’s daughter made a YouTube video focusing particularly on the red-shirted Christianists waving preprinted signs outside the Loussac Tuesday night: definitely worth watching!  Gryphen also asks, as so many of us do, why Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander is permitting testimony from people who have been imported from outside the boundaries of the Municipality of Anchorage.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

• 

  Day Three: Red Sea Rising inside the Assembly chambers

  6/17/09. “Wednesday Meeting Information” by Heather James (SOSAnchorage.net). Pre-meeting info.

• 6/17/09. “Gay rights measure’s changes criticized by both sides” by Megan Holland (Anchorage Daily News).
• 6/17/09. “Gay Rights – A Fathers Testimony” by Emperor Bob (Emperor’s Rants and Observations). Straight talk from the father of a lesbian daughter (& some straight kids as well).
• 6/17/09.  “Personal is Political. And vice versa” by Daniella Marie (Mouthy Maries Speak Up). Straight talk from the straight sister of a lesbian (& another of Emperor Bob’s kids).
• 6/17/09. “Assembly Hearings, Day Three” by John Aronno (Alaska Commons). Liveblog of the hearing up through about 8:29 PM.
• 6/17/09. “Anchorage Public Testimony on Non-Discrimination Ordinance – Chapter III” by AKMuckraker & many many mudpuppies (The Mudflats). Liveblogging by members of the Mudflats community watching the livestream of the hearing.
• 6/17/09. “The Daily Tweets, 2009-06-17″ by Mel Green (Henkimaa). Automatically-generated list of my tweets, several of which refer to events at the Loussac.
• 

  Jerry Prevo at the ABT picnic on the Loussac lawn

  6/17/09. “June 17 public testimony at the Anchorage Assembly” (photos) by Mel Green (Flickr photostream). Large set of 142 photos taken at the Loussac Library both outside and inside the Assembly chambers.

• 6/18/09. “Day Three, Red Sea Rising” by John Aronno (Alaska Commons). Must-read analysis of Day 3 of testimony.  This was the day that Jerry Prevo canceled Anchorage Baptist Temple’s church service so that ABT members could “overwhelm” the Assembly.  Most (though not all) testimony was from Assembly opponents who are part of  Prevo & co.’s fillibuster effort. John writes:  “I was there from the beginning of the meeting at 4pm, and left shortly after nine-thirty. The “voices of the people” are not sending any new messages that need to be put on record. The “voices of the people” are now a loop. These talking points were repeated all night long, often sprinkling old wounds with the salt of homosexuality being an abomination, perverse, a lifestyle choice, a deviant behaviorism.” Reposted at SOSAnchorage.net.
• 

  But there was plenty of Pride along 36th Avenue too

  6/18/09. “Anchorage Anti-Discrimination Ordinance Rally: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four“ by Janson Jones (Floridana Alaskiana 2.5).  A series of four posts of photos chronicling activists on both sides of the issue outside the Loussac Library on Wednesday night as testimony was heard inside.  I love the comment on part one in reaction to a sign that said “I was born Asian. You choose to be gay” — commenter Poietes (a name that I as a poet love!) replies, “Well, I was born Asian, and I choose not to be stupid, uninformed, closed-minded, and bigoted.”  Meanwhile, I’ve added this blog to my Google Reader for all the fine photos from Alaska, Florida, Oklahoma, & elsewhere.  Well-met, Janson!

• 6/18/09. “More reflections on Day Three” by Heather James (SOSAnchorage.net). Brief compilation of other posts on Day 3 testimony.
• 6/18/09. “Photos from Ordinance Hearing #3″ by E. Ross (Bent Alaska).
• 6/18/09. “Our view: No exemptions —City’s equal rights law should not leave any group out” (editorial) (Anchorage Daily News).  ADN comes down strongly in favor of Matt Claman’s substitution version of the ordinance, but likes Debbie Ossiander’s provision for the Equal Rights Commission to track & report on LGBT discrimination cases now.
• 6/19/09. “Honk if You’re Straight” Civil Rights Ordinance Video” by Shannyn Moore (Just a Girl from Homer). “There are many loving Christians in Anchorage who support the ordinance to give equal rights to our GLBT brothers and sisters,” Shannyn writes,  “yet the Xians are the ones marching. If you have any doubts our community suffers from discrimination against our GLBT community, just watch this.” Images of the Christianists from all three public hearings & associated protest, to the music of Amy Ray.

Yes on 64 along 36th Ave.

Related posts:

1. Assembly report 1
2. The noise begins
3. The Daily Tweets, 2009-06-16 (Assembly public hearing #2)

Does Anyone Beat Your Heart for You

does anyone beat your heart for you —
oh yes I know there are some who
will quicken it
or slow it at their leaving —
but when you are alone at night
and sleeping, dreamless . . .
it is there . . . beating —
it will be there . . . beating —
till you die

does anyone beat your heart for you
does anyone live your life for you
do you cast a vote — plea for
intercession
do you hasten your death by forgetting

do you close your eyes and believe
what others say you see

[January 9, 1982]

About this poem

I wrote this poem many many years ago, mostly in my head, one day walking across my home town of Columbia Falls, Montana, & thinking about people who seem to need to have other people tell them what to think & believe. Much of last night’s testimony against the Anchorage equal rights ordinance reminded me of this, as did the sight of the numerous teenagers bused in from Anchorage Christian Schools (affiliated with Anchorage Baptist Temple) to picket against the proposed ordinance along 36th Avenue — another use of kids as billboards to advertise the prejudices of adults.

I wonder if their classes in school gave these kids extra credit for waving their preprinted signs for Prevo? I wonder how many of them might actually be gay or lesbian or trans, but can’t tell anyone, & fight earnestly inside themselves against it because the adults in their lives teach them to distrust their own self-understandings?

Update: At first I thought the kids in the wine-colored shirts were from Anchorage Baptist Temple — but they’re not. from the Mississippi Avenue Baptist Church (MABC) of Aurora, Colorado, which visited Anchorage from June 14–22, 2009 for their Youth Mission 2009. On two of the days of their visit, June 16 and 17, the Anchorage Assembly was hearing public testimony on the Anchorage equal rights ordinance. So what did the adult leadership from their church have these kids from another state do during their youth mission? – Wave signs urging permitting continued discrimination against citizens of a different city in another state than they even live in.

The MABC youth mission was was hosted by the Anchorage Baptist Temple, whose pastor, Jerry Prevo, is a principal leader in opposition to the Anchorage equal rights ordinance. They were bused to the Loussac Library by ABT, and the signs they carried were printed by Alaska Family Council.

Related posts:

1. Does Anyone Beat Your Heart for You
2. Happy wedding! (for John & Heather)
3. The noise begins