Photo courtesy of Pete Buttigieg for President
This year’s holidays have turned ever more old-fashioned. Due to sensible stay-at-home restrictions, home-for-the holidays is a thing and means digging out the ornaments and grandma’s Kugel recipe for an intimate celebration chez nous. As a result, traditional live trees are so popular, the treasured firs now fetch record prices, up to $1800 (or triple the amount our Sen. Ron “the Grinch” Johnson is willing to allow working-class Americans to receive as COVID-19 relief) according to some reports. Apparently, so many parcels packed with gifts are in the mail that their delayed delivery will probably extend through the 12 days of Christmas, which, by default, also allows us an inadvertent temps-perdu nostalgia, if you will. At the very least, the thought of it should condemn us to an earworm of that most irritating of carols.
Speaking of gifts, delivered on the 6th day of Chanukah, one will keep on giving, at least for the LGBTQ community. For unto us a gay is given, and the government (Department of Transportation) shall be upon his shoulder,and his name shall be called dignified, intelligent, Secretary, the cabinet’s new appointment, Pete Buttigieg. President-elect Joe Biden delivered the good tidings making history for the country in nominating the first LGBTQ person to such a high administrative post. When confirmed, Buttigieg again make LGBTQ history, a narrative that began with his presidential bid earlier this year.
Buttigieg nomination is one of several that portends the tone of the incoming presidency. The Biden-Harris commitment to equality, diversity and inclusivity should evoke a sigh of relief and a return to the hope of the Obama years.
The significance of the Buttigieg appointment will be felt especially by keeping LGBTQ issues high profile. Married, a veteran, a scholar, and, as an antithesis to the previous regime’s Cabinet choices, respectable and qualified, he represents everything one could demand, not only of a government functionary but as an LGBTQ role model. The importance of his status as both cannot be overstated.
Gift from the High Court
Meanwhile, speaking of gifts, the day before, on the 5th day of Chanukah, Indiana’s Attorney General sent one to the Supreme Court of the United States. However, in a surprising Hoosier-daddy-now? snub, the high court didn’t even bother to open it. In so doing, it gave the gift of relief to LGBTQs.
It was a case out of the former Klan Mecca where a Seventh Circuit judge had ruled against the AG’s attempt to deny the addition of names of same sex spouses on birth certificates. SCOTUS declined to hear the challenge to the status of marriage equality without dissent. Aside from the discriminatory nature of the case in its attempt to curtail the rights of same sex parents, it was simply mean, an outburst of straight hate intended solely to satisfy Republican’s appetite for psycho-sadism and hostility towards all things progressive and LGBTQs in particular.
Obviously, any assault on marriage equality adds to the anxiety of those in marriages, establishing families, or simply contemplating the major life decision. The SCOTUS decision offered a sigh of relief, at least for the moment. One can debate why the conservative leaning court declined to hear the case but, suffice it to say, this will not be the last time a challenge to marriage equality will land on the SCOTUS docket.
Meanwhile, let’s just enjoy our presents. Perhaps there are more to come from Georgia on Twelfth Night. Happy (virtual) Holidays!
