Straight Flush

You have to learn it.  Never frowning.  Furrowing your brow.  Registering any negativity whatsoever, no matter what anyone says, or how they go on the attack.  Even when they are attacking you.  If you’re going to sit facing the crowd at a public meeting, bring your poker face.  And pretend you’ve just drawn your fourth ace.

Filling in for the Vernon Hills clerk more than twenty years ago, I sat next to Mayor Byrne during a long and operatic land use meeting.  Facing the crowd was a change of pace, because I was usually up at the staff podium, back to the citizens and talking directly to the Council.  Usually, more than a little feisty and keeping a developer on the straight and narrow, because they tend to over-promise and under-deliver.   A few times during the long meeting, someone said something funny and the whole room laughed.  I smiled because, it turns out, I’m human.

Near the end of the meeting, an unhappy woman stepped up to the podium and lit into the City Council.  I don’t remember everything she said, but I remember this part: “Craig Malin’s been laughing at us this WHOLE meeting!”.  I swear, I only smiled when the whole room laughed at something.  Or, perhaps, the whole room minus the nice lady at the podium, schooling me on the professional utility of my avocational poker face.  I’ve never forgotten that lesson.

A few thousand public meetings have passed since then, so that’s a lot of practice.  I can now convey concern, disgust or bemusement with nearly imperceptible looks and eyebrow movements to people I’m communicating directly with, without making a sound.  Ask Jamie Howard, former Davenport alderwoman.  Somebody would say or do something and she’d look at me.  I’d flash an eyebrow raise no one else was paying attention to and she’d start with a case of the giggles that could last for the rest of the meeting.  

That’s a long setup to marching in a Gay Pride parade yesterday.  But at Thursday’s City Council meeting, there was some discussion about a wholly innocuous LGBT proclamation to go with a parade in Seaside.  The first such parade in Monterey County in years.  Some took offense, which is their right.  Some confused the podium for the pulpit, which can be understandable if they’ve taken on the calling of preaching. 

But some of it was some of the most nasty stuff I’ve ever heard emanating from a public meeting podium.  Dehumanizing people in the name of piety is tough to listen to without registering disapproval.  But there I sat stone-faced, and the Mayor did too, affording everyone their First Amendment rights.  He’d be criticized by some for not shutting people down who crossed the line of civil discourse.  He explained his philosophy of not censuring speech, unless people started swearing.  When people called me on Friday to ask where the hate speech line is and why did we allow that to go on, I gave them the technical answer that hate speech usually has to threaten someone.  I also gave them the non-technical answer that if someone on the backward-looking side of an issue is inadvertently winning converts to the forward-looking side of the issue with distasteful, dehumanizing language … let them talk.     

So there I was yesterday, walking in the Gay Pride parade.  Good thing we had the late baseball game, because I would have hated to let my team down.  I whipped up a sign thanking James Madison on one side and offering the observation that you either use the First Amendment or you lose it on the other side, as I peaceably assembled with a rainbow-hued collection of wonderful people, freely expressing gentle, loving speech.  Seaside PW and PD did a great job on clearing the parade route, and they’d wave as I walked past.

Dehumanizing anyone is wrong.  Treating someone - anyone – as a lesser person, or not a person at all, because of who they are is a slippery slope to genocide.  It’s an even slippier slope to your own diminishment as a person.  Don’t do it.  If you are in a position of leadership, it is your duty to demonstrate that’s not how we operate.  Because bigotry and hate ain’t natural.  It’s learned behavior, destructive to society, and your soul.  Don’t learn it.  Don’t teach it.  Stand up to it. 

So, on a beautiful day in a beautiful city, I walked in a Gay Pride parade with beautiful people. 

Smiling the whole time.