My heart absolutely breaks for the parents and families of the 20 children killed in Connecticut today. The grief must be absolutely unimaginable. It is hard to deny that these mass shooting events have been on the rise for the last fifteen years. Just this week there was another mass shooting at a mall in Washington state. There have been 9 mass shootings in the US since January, 2011, according to Think Progress.
We, as a nation, are to blame for these tragedies. We acquiesced. We allowed our elected officials to systematically dismantle the nation's mental health facilities. Counseling facilities and inpatient mental health facilities have been closed, one by one over the last 15 years or so. Funding has been withdrawn. The Medicaid rolls have been cut. And this is the result. This is what happens when we lose compassion, when we tell people to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Unfortunately, there are people in our society whose boot straps just aren't strong enough to hold them up. They snap.
If you really want to help prevent these tragedies, if you really want to see "meaningful action" taken, as President Obama called for today, demand that your government begin reinstating our mental health system. We must provide in-patient care for those who are too unstable to function on their own, or who need more extensive therapies than can be provided with outpatient care. We must provide outpatient care, free of charge, to those who need it and cannot afford it.
Call your representative. Call your senator. Write to them. Write letters for the editor of your local paper. Call on them to provide funding for mental health treatment. And if you know someone who has been struggling with depression or sadness, take a moment from the constant hustle and bustle of your life to call them up and tell them how important they are in your life. That they mean something to you. That you love them.
And keep the families of those 28 victims today in your prayers. God knows, they need it.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Entitlement Reform: A proposal to begin a conversation about meaningful reforms and end political lipservice
It came to my attention last week that there are a great number of people in this country who have absolutely no idea how the government’s welfare programs work. I’m not entirely sure why this surprised me so much. Probably because all of my life, nearly everyone I knew was on some form of welfare. It is nearly impossible for me to fathom what it would be like to grow up in a family that knew no poverty. But, having learned that there are many of you who aren’t familiar with these programs, I find myself called to educate you about what these programs are, how they function and how we might improve them without punishing the poor for being poor. This is a long one, but I hope you will stick with it and hear me out. There really is valuable information here.
I get pretty amped up over the issue of entitlement reform, in the same way that my mother used to get amped up about welfare reform in the 90’s. Even Bill Clinton, whom I admire tremendously, did no favors for the welfare system with his reforms. Sure, he greatly reduced the number of people receiving benefits, but that is not because they were lifted out of poverty. For many people removed from the welfare rolls, their plight was made much, much worse. His “welfare reform” has evolved in recent political discussions to be called “entitlement reform”, meant to encompass any benefit passed along to individuals through the federal or state government, expanding the commonly thought-of welfare reform to include reforms to Medicare, social security, student loans and grants, and unemployment insurance.
It will likely surprise many people who read my blog to learn that I am not entirely against “entitlement” reform. In fact, I agree completely that the system is broken and requires reforms. I just disagree entirely with the reforms that have been proffered thus far by politicians who have no idea how the programs work, who they actual benefit, or how to potentially make them function better. I also have a problem with the political conversation in this country which requires politicians to vehemently bash “entitlement spending” or bash their opponent’s plans for “entitlement reform” without ever offering a single detail of how those reforms might take shape. The fact that they continue to offer-up “entitlement reform” as a campaign catch-phrase in a context that has the average American conjure up an image of Reagan’s infamous Welfare Queen (Google it, seriously), while really planning to gut programs like education grants and Medicare, programs which greatly benefit the middle class is not just wrong, it is downright deceitful. It is the reason that no one in this country can seem to have an intelligent conversation about this election. Instead we all stand around and shout at our TVs, or watch late night comics make fun of Romney’s latest “foot-in-mouth” episode, neither of which are adding anything intelligent to the political discussion. The truth is that there is need for, and room for, so-called entitlement spending in our nation. And the programs can work if we can decide to use them more wisely. By way of example, I offer my own story.
When I was 14, I got pregnant. It happened. I had to deal with it. I decided to have the baby and raise him myself. Now, being a mother at 15 meant that I needed a LOT of help. A lot of that help came from my family and even more from the father’s family. But a great deal has come from the government, both federal and state. It would have been impossible for me to navigate the path that has led me into my current profession and out of poverty without these programs. They were essential to my journey, and not because I was lazy or refused to work, but because I did work, hard, to lift my family out of poverty.
At 15, I couldn’t even drive, and state law restricted the number of hours I could work in a given work week. My mother was not available to support me. I applied for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needed Families). This program used to be called AFDC and is what most people think of when you say “welfare.” I got a check every month for $253 to be used for whatever I needed it for. There is no mandate that says it has to be used to pay utilities, or that you can only use it to buy clothes at Goodwill, but it is a miniscule amount of money and it is up to the family to use it wisely. There are limits, imposed under the Clinton administration, that require TANF recipients to be either employed, enrolled in school, or actively seeking employment. And even under those circumstances the amount of time a person can receive the benefits is limited to 2 consecutive years, and 5 years in total over your lifetime.
I also applied for Medicaid, a North Carolina state program which is partially funded with federal dollars. Medicaid is different from Medicare, which we all pay for and expect to receive when we retire or become disabled. Medicaid covered my medical expenses so that I could have good prenatal care. I continued to be covered by Medicaid until I turned 21, at which time I was picked up by my employer’s health insurance. My children are currently covered under NC Health Choice, a modified version of Medicaid that requires small co-pays for services they receive. For the last 3 years, I paid a $50 premium per year per child for them to be covered. We pay $1 for prescriptions and $3 for doctor visits. These co-pays could stand to be modified. In truth, I could well afford to pay as much as $20 per doctor visit and $10 for prescriptions. In my opinion, the co-pays should be calculated on a sliding scale based on income.
I also applied for WIC, a program offered through the US Department of Agriculture which provides specific, essential grocery items free of charge for pregnant women and to families with children under 5. This program serves two purposes. It provides foods that contain vital nutrients to pregnant women and children to try to improve their health, and it allows the federal government to subsidize dairy farmers, a task our federal government has loved very much over the last century (anybody remember government cheese?). I received three WIC vouchers per month while I was pregnant that provided me with milk, eggs, cheese, peanut butter, cereal, juice and dry beans. Once Dylan was born our WIC vouchers also provided formula, rice cereal, and baby food in addition to the other items. I continued to receive WIC benefits until Daniel was 5 years old, 10 years altogether. In order to receive WIC, the kids and I had to meet with a nurse every three months to be weighed, have our iron tested and receive nutrition counseling. I understand that the program has been expanded in recent years to also offer several fresh produce items, canned tuna, yogurt and a variety of other foods. It is one of the few government programs to experience such expansions in the last decade.
We also received food stamps, now catchily called SNAP by the federal government. Unlike the WIC program, food stamps can be used to purchase any grocery item regardless of its brand, cost or nutritional value. Food stamps cannot be used to purchase household goods such as toiletries, sandwich baggies, paper towels, etc., nor can they be used to purchase hot foods from the deli. It’s hard for me to recall the amount of my food stamp benefit because it changed every time I switched jobs or got a raise at work. But I believe it ranged over time from about $300 per month to a low of about $150 per month before it ended completely because of my pay increases. Unlike the TANF program, there are no requirements that the head of household be working or seeking work and no limits on the amount of time you can receive food stamps. Also, the amount of benefit received is not calculated on gross wages as other programs are, but are calculated on gross wages minus certain housing and childcare costs which makes far more people eligible to participate in the program.
We also received, and still do receive, childcare vouchers for assistance with daycare expenses. In our area in Western North Carolina, childcare costs average about $500 per month per child for children 1-5 and are even more expensive during the first year of life. The childcare voucher system is set up so that families are expected to contribute a percentage of their monthly gross income toward their childcare and there is a requirement that the parent(s) be working or enrolled in school before even being placed on the waiting list. Luckily for me, there was more funding for this program in the 90’s, the waiting lists were not terribly long, and I had a priority placement on the list because I was a high school student. Had it not been for the assistance provided in this program, had I been required to pay for the full cost of daycare for Dylan and Daniel, it would have been impossible for me to finish school or get a full-time job. Funding for childcare subsidies has declined dramatically over the course of the last 10 years. If a single mother, or even a young two-parent family, has to stay home with a child instead of working they are automatically going to be dependent on other government welfare programs. Let’s be real about the figures here. A single mother working a full-time job at $8.00 per hour is going to gross $320 per week and probably bring home about $280. That means her real income is $1,120 per month, when you subtract the cost of her childcare, her actual income is $620. Can we really justify asking her to sacrifice 40 hours per week with her child to bring home $620? Heaven forbid she be the mother of two children! Then she could spend her entire month working to bring home $120. For many women, it makes much more sense to stay home with their children and draw income from other available government programs. What incentive do they have to work without assistance with childcare costs?
I was also fortunate to benefit greatly from the federal government’s Section 8 rental housing program administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Section 8, now called the Rental Voucher program, assisted with my monthly rent payments. Their formula is a little difficult to explain, but stick with me and we’ll give it a go. HUD says that the average family should spend no more than 30% of its monthly income on rent. So, if you are that single working mother grossing $320/week, you should be spending no more than $426 per month on your housing costs. At the time I was receiving Section 8, the minimum wage was much lower and I was actually making $6.00 per hour. So my 30% contribution was only $320 per month. HUD determines, using a complex statistical formula, what the “market” or reasonable expected rent is for the Asheville Metropolitan Area for houses of different sizes. If you are a family with 2 children of the same sex, you qualify for a 2 bedroom house and the current market rent for that house in the Asheville area is currently $704. When I was receiving benefits 10 years ago that was only $585 and I’m glad to see they have increased it to more closely match the current market. So, HUD will pay up to $704 - $426, or $278 for our example mom. She can go out into the market and find any house she wants to rent so long as the landlord accepts Section 8 and the total rent is less than $704. This was, and is, an excellent program. It assists needy families with housing, a basic human right as defined by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and puts money back into the hands of landowners who paid the taxes to support the program in the first place. Unfortunately, funding for this program saw drastic cuts under the Bush administration, which have not been restored by President Obama’s administration. The waiting list for Section 8 assistance in Asheville has grown so large that they have stopped accepting applications altogether. This is a serious problem, especially when coupled with the fallout from the foreclosure crisis which has forced many families back into rental housing, increasing demand on the market. And in an economy where new construction is extremely limited, the supply of rental housing is not increasing, meaning that rents are going up while assistance shrivels. For our hypothetical single mother making $1,120 per month to shell out even $650 per month to rent a two-bedroom trailer, cheap even by HUD standards, is going to severely limit her ability to provide even the most basic of necessities for her child, and if she is paying $500 per month for her childcare costs, she is already in the hole without spending a single penny on electricity, food, gas or clothing. The solution for many young families has been multigenerational housing. In other words, young families are simply moving in with the folks who are now having to struggle to support their twenty-something’s, their grandchildren, and themselves.
So, now you know all the ways that this teenage, single-mother has mooched off the system for the last 15 years to live lavishly, sometimes even managing to pay the electric bill just before it got shut off, often albeit with the help of Eblin charities. My TANF benefits ended before I graduated from high school because of the time limits imposed, and I was not eligible to apply for Section 8 until I was 18, so I never received both of those benefits at the same time. But, on average, I was receiving roughly $1,200 per month in benefits from the state and federal government (about $300 in food stamps, $250 in Section 8/TANF benefits, $400 in daycare assistance, $100 in WIC vouchers, and about $150/month in health care expenses for myself and for the boys).
I mentioned earlier that there are some smart ways to reform the system. The biggest is in the administration of these programs. They are so splintered and scattered. I had a separate social worker for each and every program. And each program has its own income requirements and calculations for benefits. Each program has a different cycle for recertification and its own set of paperwork to be filled out either annually, semi-annually or quarterly. For years, I had to miss work at least 10 times per year to take paystubs to my various social workers. This may not seem like much, but it means that each one of these social workers, six of them for me, had to send me a notice in the mail, schedule an appointment with me, sit down with me to review my information and have me sign their forms and disclosures, always the same forms I had signed the year before and the year before that and the year before that. They would each tally up my income, notate the difference from the year before, adjust my benefit and send me on my way. At no time were any of them allowed to actually be social workers! They were, and are still, paper pushers whose job is not to help lift needy families out of poverty and off of government programs, but instead to simply tabulate figures, file forms and move on to the next in line. Additionally, it is precisely this splintering of information that allows for people to work the system. Some programs require you to be under a specific gross income threshold, some simply calculate your benefit based on your income, and still others are based on your net income after payment of some basic expenses. Having data collected separately by each program means that individuals can selectively limit which information is provided to each social worker because there is no communication or cross-checking between them.
So, why not reform this system. I see no reason why these programs for the needy couldn’t be consolidated under one umbrella in much the same fashion as the Federal Government restructured a variety of federal agencies under the umbrella of Homeland Security under the Bush Administration. Why require every single recipient to meet with 3 or 6 or 10 different social workers every year to supply each of them with the same information? Why not assign one social worker to the family. Allow that social worker to retrieve the family’s income tax information in the same way that the FAFSA application for college grants does? Design the computer system so that once the tax information is populated from the IRS website into the Social Services program, all of the assistance that the individual or family is entitled to under available Federal and State programs is generated automatically, in one location. Now, this single social worker has done in minutes what it previously took 6 different social workers 6 hours in total to do. How much good can this one social worker do for this family by spending another hour talking about available education programs, job-training programs, parenting classes, early head-start programs for children, and generally supporting the family to encourage and lift them out of poverty? This is what social workers went to school to do. This is what they want to do. We should let them. Simply yanking the benefits away from people and telling them to get out in the world and make a go of it is impractical, ignorant, and lacks compassion. If they were capable of doing so, they wouldn’t have needed these programs in the first place! In addition, consolidating the acquisition and housing of this required information serves to save the federal and state governments in the costs of building space, computer equipment, paper and staffing costs.
Poverty is a cruel cycle which is so very difficult to break out of. Are there people who take advantage of the system, living off of government programs without trying to lift themselves up? Sure, of course there are. But they are not the norm. The vast majority of people using these programs are working parents making less than $25,000 per year. It is not that they are unemployed and lazy for the most part, it is that they lack the skills, education or opportunity to earn more money. (I will refrain from starting my diatribe about the reality that real wages have fallen over the course of the last 30-40 years and every single working family now has to work harder and longer with two wage-earners to sustain the same standard of living previously achieved by having only a single wage earner in every house, but it is worth at least noting.) So let’s talk about real entitlement reform. The kind that could result in meaningful change, in a reduction of the actual poverty rate instead of just putting people out on the street, without food, housing or childcare and telling them to pull themselves up by their tattered bootstraps and get moving.
I am lucky. I was blessed with excellent genes and a mother who taught me to think critically and act with compassion. I have worked so hard to pull myself and my children out of poverty and break that cycle. And for the most part I have succeeded. While we aren’t even middle-class and we do still live paycheck to paycheck, and while they are still receiving NC Health Choice benefits to provide for their medical care and vouchers for a small portion of their afterschool care costs, I am no longer having to use any of the other programs that I was blessed to have been able to utilize along the way, and my children do not remember what it was like to be “poor.” They don’t identify themselves as poor, which in itself will give them a huge leg-up on where I was when I started. Because in this society, if you are poor, there is an implied condescension directed your way, one that weighs on your shoulders and tells you that you are not good enough, that you are reliant on all the rest of the country who are somehow better than you because their circumstances are different than yours and that you should be ashamed. It’s hard to imagine that you are worthy of a better life, capable of providing more, and in fact entitled to earn a real living wage when everything around you tells you that you are not. It is one of my sincerest hopes that this country finds itself doing a serious about-face in the near future when it comes to the discussion of entitlement reform. We should be having real discussions about how the programs work, who we intend to support, how we can direct the benefits to people who need them and help lift people out of poverty instead of shaming them. We have to bring compassion to this discussion. We must. If we don’t I fear that my children may bear witness to the kind of peasant revolts that rocked Enlightenment Era Europe. The poor will only tolerate being shat upon while the rich get richer for so long a time.
I get pretty amped up over the issue of entitlement reform, in the same way that my mother used to get amped up about welfare reform in the 90’s. Even Bill Clinton, whom I admire tremendously, did no favors for the welfare system with his reforms. Sure, he greatly reduced the number of people receiving benefits, but that is not because they were lifted out of poverty. For many people removed from the welfare rolls, their plight was made much, much worse. His “welfare reform” has evolved in recent political discussions to be called “entitlement reform”, meant to encompass any benefit passed along to individuals through the federal or state government, expanding the commonly thought-of welfare reform to include reforms to Medicare, social security, student loans and grants, and unemployment insurance.
It will likely surprise many people who read my blog to learn that I am not entirely against “entitlement” reform. In fact, I agree completely that the system is broken and requires reforms. I just disagree entirely with the reforms that have been proffered thus far by politicians who have no idea how the programs work, who they actual benefit, or how to potentially make them function better. I also have a problem with the political conversation in this country which requires politicians to vehemently bash “entitlement spending” or bash their opponent’s plans for “entitlement reform” without ever offering a single detail of how those reforms might take shape. The fact that they continue to offer-up “entitlement reform” as a campaign catch-phrase in a context that has the average American conjure up an image of Reagan’s infamous Welfare Queen (Google it, seriously), while really planning to gut programs like education grants and Medicare, programs which greatly benefit the middle class is not just wrong, it is downright deceitful. It is the reason that no one in this country can seem to have an intelligent conversation about this election. Instead we all stand around and shout at our TVs, or watch late night comics make fun of Romney’s latest “foot-in-mouth” episode, neither of which are adding anything intelligent to the political discussion. The truth is that there is need for, and room for, so-called entitlement spending in our nation. And the programs can work if we can decide to use them more wisely. By way of example, I offer my own story.
When I was 14, I got pregnant. It happened. I had to deal with it. I decided to have the baby and raise him myself. Now, being a mother at 15 meant that I needed a LOT of help. A lot of that help came from my family and even more from the father’s family. But a great deal has come from the government, both federal and state. It would have been impossible for me to navigate the path that has led me into my current profession and out of poverty without these programs. They were essential to my journey, and not because I was lazy or refused to work, but because I did work, hard, to lift my family out of poverty.
At 15, I couldn’t even drive, and state law restricted the number of hours I could work in a given work week. My mother was not available to support me. I applied for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needed Families). This program used to be called AFDC and is what most people think of when you say “welfare.” I got a check every month for $253 to be used for whatever I needed it for. There is no mandate that says it has to be used to pay utilities, or that you can only use it to buy clothes at Goodwill, but it is a miniscule amount of money and it is up to the family to use it wisely. There are limits, imposed under the Clinton administration, that require TANF recipients to be either employed, enrolled in school, or actively seeking employment. And even under those circumstances the amount of time a person can receive the benefits is limited to 2 consecutive years, and 5 years in total over your lifetime.
I also applied for Medicaid, a North Carolina state program which is partially funded with federal dollars. Medicaid is different from Medicare, which we all pay for and expect to receive when we retire or become disabled. Medicaid covered my medical expenses so that I could have good prenatal care. I continued to be covered by Medicaid until I turned 21, at which time I was picked up by my employer’s health insurance. My children are currently covered under NC Health Choice, a modified version of Medicaid that requires small co-pays for services they receive. For the last 3 years, I paid a $50 premium per year per child for them to be covered. We pay $1 for prescriptions and $3 for doctor visits. These co-pays could stand to be modified. In truth, I could well afford to pay as much as $20 per doctor visit and $10 for prescriptions. In my opinion, the co-pays should be calculated on a sliding scale based on income.
I also applied for WIC, a program offered through the US Department of Agriculture which provides specific, essential grocery items free of charge for pregnant women and to families with children under 5. This program serves two purposes. It provides foods that contain vital nutrients to pregnant women and children to try to improve their health, and it allows the federal government to subsidize dairy farmers, a task our federal government has loved very much over the last century (anybody remember government cheese?). I received three WIC vouchers per month while I was pregnant that provided me with milk, eggs, cheese, peanut butter, cereal, juice and dry beans. Once Dylan was born our WIC vouchers also provided formula, rice cereal, and baby food in addition to the other items. I continued to receive WIC benefits until Daniel was 5 years old, 10 years altogether. In order to receive WIC, the kids and I had to meet with a nurse every three months to be weighed, have our iron tested and receive nutrition counseling. I understand that the program has been expanded in recent years to also offer several fresh produce items, canned tuna, yogurt and a variety of other foods. It is one of the few government programs to experience such expansions in the last decade.
We also received food stamps, now catchily called SNAP by the federal government. Unlike the WIC program, food stamps can be used to purchase any grocery item regardless of its brand, cost or nutritional value. Food stamps cannot be used to purchase household goods such as toiletries, sandwich baggies, paper towels, etc., nor can they be used to purchase hot foods from the deli. It’s hard for me to recall the amount of my food stamp benefit because it changed every time I switched jobs or got a raise at work. But I believe it ranged over time from about $300 per month to a low of about $150 per month before it ended completely because of my pay increases. Unlike the TANF program, there are no requirements that the head of household be working or seeking work and no limits on the amount of time you can receive food stamps. Also, the amount of benefit received is not calculated on gross wages as other programs are, but are calculated on gross wages minus certain housing and childcare costs which makes far more people eligible to participate in the program.
We also received, and still do receive, childcare vouchers for assistance with daycare expenses. In our area in Western North Carolina, childcare costs average about $500 per month per child for children 1-5 and are even more expensive during the first year of life. The childcare voucher system is set up so that families are expected to contribute a percentage of their monthly gross income toward their childcare and there is a requirement that the parent(s) be working or enrolled in school before even being placed on the waiting list. Luckily for me, there was more funding for this program in the 90’s, the waiting lists were not terribly long, and I had a priority placement on the list because I was a high school student. Had it not been for the assistance provided in this program, had I been required to pay for the full cost of daycare for Dylan and Daniel, it would have been impossible for me to finish school or get a full-time job. Funding for childcare subsidies has declined dramatically over the course of the last 10 years. If a single mother, or even a young two-parent family, has to stay home with a child instead of working they are automatically going to be dependent on other government welfare programs. Let’s be real about the figures here. A single mother working a full-time job at $8.00 per hour is going to gross $320 per week and probably bring home about $280. That means her real income is $1,120 per month, when you subtract the cost of her childcare, her actual income is $620. Can we really justify asking her to sacrifice 40 hours per week with her child to bring home $620? Heaven forbid she be the mother of two children! Then she could spend her entire month working to bring home $120. For many women, it makes much more sense to stay home with their children and draw income from other available government programs. What incentive do they have to work without assistance with childcare costs?
I was also fortunate to benefit greatly from the federal government’s Section 8 rental housing program administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Section 8, now called the Rental Voucher program, assisted with my monthly rent payments. Their formula is a little difficult to explain, but stick with me and we’ll give it a go. HUD says that the average family should spend no more than 30% of its monthly income on rent. So, if you are that single working mother grossing $320/week, you should be spending no more than $426 per month on your housing costs. At the time I was receiving Section 8, the minimum wage was much lower and I was actually making $6.00 per hour. So my 30% contribution was only $320 per month. HUD determines, using a complex statistical formula, what the “market” or reasonable expected rent is for the Asheville Metropolitan Area for houses of different sizes. If you are a family with 2 children of the same sex, you qualify for a 2 bedroom house and the current market rent for that house in the Asheville area is currently $704. When I was receiving benefits 10 years ago that was only $585 and I’m glad to see they have increased it to more closely match the current market. So, HUD will pay up to $704 - $426, or $278 for our example mom. She can go out into the market and find any house she wants to rent so long as the landlord accepts Section 8 and the total rent is less than $704. This was, and is, an excellent program. It assists needy families with housing, a basic human right as defined by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and puts money back into the hands of landowners who paid the taxes to support the program in the first place. Unfortunately, funding for this program saw drastic cuts under the Bush administration, which have not been restored by President Obama’s administration. The waiting list for Section 8 assistance in Asheville has grown so large that they have stopped accepting applications altogether. This is a serious problem, especially when coupled with the fallout from the foreclosure crisis which has forced many families back into rental housing, increasing demand on the market. And in an economy where new construction is extremely limited, the supply of rental housing is not increasing, meaning that rents are going up while assistance shrivels. For our hypothetical single mother making $1,120 per month to shell out even $650 per month to rent a two-bedroom trailer, cheap even by HUD standards, is going to severely limit her ability to provide even the most basic of necessities for her child, and if she is paying $500 per month for her childcare costs, she is already in the hole without spending a single penny on electricity, food, gas or clothing. The solution for many young families has been multigenerational housing. In other words, young families are simply moving in with the folks who are now having to struggle to support their twenty-something’s, their grandchildren, and themselves.
So, now you know all the ways that this teenage, single-mother has mooched off the system for the last 15 years to live lavishly, sometimes even managing to pay the electric bill just before it got shut off, often albeit with the help of Eblin charities. My TANF benefits ended before I graduated from high school because of the time limits imposed, and I was not eligible to apply for Section 8 until I was 18, so I never received both of those benefits at the same time. But, on average, I was receiving roughly $1,200 per month in benefits from the state and federal government (about $300 in food stamps, $250 in Section 8/TANF benefits, $400 in daycare assistance, $100 in WIC vouchers, and about $150/month in health care expenses for myself and for the boys).
I mentioned earlier that there are some smart ways to reform the system. The biggest is in the administration of these programs. They are so splintered and scattered. I had a separate social worker for each and every program. And each program has its own income requirements and calculations for benefits. Each program has a different cycle for recertification and its own set of paperwork to be filled out either annually, semi-annually or quarterly. For years, I had to miss work at least 10 times per year to take paystubs to my various social workers. This may not seem like much, but it means that each one of these social workers, six of them for me, had to send me a notice in the mail, schedule an appointment with me, sit down with me to review my information and have me sign their forms and disclosures, always the same forms I had signed the year before and the year before that and the year before that. They would each tally up my income, notate the difference from the year before, adjust my benefit and send me on my way. At no time were any of them allowed to actually be social workers! They were, and are still, paper pushers whose job is not to help lift needy families out of poverty and off of government programs, but instead to simply tabulate figures, file forms and move on to the next in line. Additionally, it is precisely this splintering of information that allows for people to work the system. Some programs require you to be under a specific gross income threshold, some simply calculate your benefit based on your income, and still others are based on your net income after payment of some basic expenses. Having data collected separately by each program means that individuals can selectively limit which information is provided to each social worker because there is no communication or cross-checking between them.
So, why not reform this system. I see no reason why these programs for the needy couldn’t be consolidated under one umbrella in much the same fashion as the Federal Government restructured a variety of federal agencies under the umbrella of Homeland Security under the Bush Administration. Why require every single recipient to meet with 3 or 6 or 10 different social workers every year to supply each of them with the same information? Why not assign one social worker to the family. Allow that social worker to retrieve the family’s income tax information in the same way that the FAFSA application for college grants does? Design the computer system so that once the tax information is populated from the IRS website into the Social Services program, all of the assistance that the individual or family is entitled to under available Federal and State programs is generated automatically, in one location. Now, this single social worker has done in minutes what it previously took 6 different social workers 6 hours in total to do. How much good can this one social worker do for this family by spending another hour talking about available education programs, job-training programs, parenting classes, early head-start programs for children, and generally supporting the family to encourage and lift them out of poverty? This is what social workers went to school to do. This is what they want to do. We should let them. Simply yanking the benefits away from people and telling them to get out in the world and make a go of it is impractical, ignorant, and lacks compassion. If they were capable of doing so, they wouldn’t have needed these programs in the first place! In addition, consolidating the acquisition and housing of this required information serves to save the federal and state governments in the costs of building space, computer equipment, paper and staffing costs.
Poverty is a cruel cycle which is so very difficult to break out of. Are there people who take advantage of the system, living off of government programs without trying to lift themselves up? Sure, of course there are. But they are not the norm. The vast majority of people using these programs are working parents making less than $25,000 per year. It is not that they are unemployed and lazy for the most part, it is that they lack the skills, education or opportunity to earn more money. (I will refrain from starting my diatribe about the reality that real wages have fallen over the course of the last 30-40 years and every single working family now has to work harder and longer with two wage-earners to sustain the same standard of living previously achieved by having only a single wage earner in every house, but it is worth at least noting.) So let’s talk about real entitlement reform. The kind that could result in meaningful change, in a reduction of the actual poverty rate instead of just putting people out on the street, without food, housing or childcare and telling them to pull themselves up by their tattered bootstraps and get moving.
I am lucky. I was blessed with excellent genes and a mother who taught me to think critically and act with compassion. I have worked so hard to pull myself and my children out of poverty and break that cycle. And for the most part I have succeeded. While we aren’t even middle-class and we do still live paycheck to paycheck, and while they are still receiving NC Health Choice benefits to provide for their medical care and vouchers for a small portion of their afterschool care costs, I am no longer having to use any of the other programs that I was blessed to have been able to utilize along the way, and my children do not remember what it was like to be “poor.” They don’t identify themselves as poor, which in itself will give them a huge leg-up on where I was when I started. Because in this society, if you are poor, there is an implied condescension directed your way, one that weighs on your shoulders and tells you that you are not good enough, that you are reliant on all the rest of the country who are somehow better than you because their circumstances are different than yours and that you should be ashamed. It’s hard to imagine that you are worthy of a better life, capable of providing more, and in fact entitled to earn a real living wage when everything around you tells you that you are not. It is one of my sincerest hopes that this country finds itself doing a serious about-face in the near future when it comes to the discussion of entitlement reform. We should be having real discussions about how the programs work, who we intend to support, how we can direct the benefits to people who need them and help lift people out of poverty instead of shaming them. We have to bring compassion to this discussion. We must. If we don’t I fear that my children may bear witness to the kind of peasant revolts that rocked Enlightenment Era Europe. The poor will only tolerate being shat upon while the rich get richer for so long a time.
Monday, September 24, 2012
An Economy Held Hostage
We all heard quite a bit of news coverage about mortgage derivitives after the foreclosure crisis had its stranglehold on the country a few years ago. It was, and is, terribly difficult to understand. I listened to countless stories on NPR and read articles until my head was swimming with mortgage industry buzz words. The gist of it was that banks figured out that they could get groups of people to buy into groups of mortgages so that they could liquidate the mortgages faster and make more loans. So, your pension fund might decide that the 6% interest paid on home loans was a better investment than the 4% they might earn in a mutual fund. So, the pension fund pools together money and buys a bundle of mortgages from Bank of America. The pension makes money on the interest, Bank of America made money on the origination charges. And now the pension has a steady stream of income on its investment and Bank of America has fresh cash to use to make new loans. This system allowed cash to be infused into the mortgage lending industry so that big banks could keep making more and more loans. And all was great, until it wasn't.
There has been considerable coverage and multiple documentaries about the mess that was created in the housing market when the foreclosures started mounting. The domino effect of rising rates, falling values, increased foreclosures, and ultimately blighted neighborhoods. But, there has not been sufficient coverage about what is going on now in the housing market. We are supposed to think that the housing market is not rebounding and that the overall economy is still sluggish. But this simply isn't true. In the last eight months, existing home sales are up dramatically. Many realtors in my area say that they have more properties under contract right now than they had at any time during the great boom in 2005-2008. The key is that they have contracts, but not closings. It would be easier to build a house by hand yourself than to try to get a mortgage loan right now, and there are several reasons why.
The first is that in response to public outcry, the federal government under Obama implemented rigorous new regulations for the mortgage lending industry. These regulations were intended to insure that consumers were well informed about their loan and the costs associated therewith before they sat down at the closing table. Lenders are now required to provide a Good Faith Estimate (GFE) with expected closing costs broken down item by item. The fees paid by the consumer directly to the bank, called Origination Charges, cannot increase between the time the quote is given and the actual closing. The lender also has to estimate the fees that will be charged by vendors or other third parties in connection with the closing and there are limits on the increases for these. The paperwork behind these regulations is cumbersome for the lender, the borrower and the closing attorney or title company (depending on your state). And frequently they do not serve the purpose intended. The problem 5 years ago was not that borrowers were not adequately informed about their loans, but that there was no policing of mortgage brokers or lenders who were not conforming to the similar and less cumbersome regulations that were in place at the time. There were plenty of borrowers who didn't understand the loan they were getting or the implications of an adjustable rate, interest-only mortgage, but that wasn't because they weren't given a disclosure ahead of time, it was because they were financially uneducated. They didn't know what the disclosure meant and no one was making sure it was appropriately explained to them. What was needed was not more regulation, but smarter regulation and better enforcement.
The GFE requirements are a pain, but we can live them. They are not the crux of the problem. The real problem stems from the interindustry fallout associated with the foreclosure crisis. During the boom, loans were closed with such speed and so little attention to detail that just about any transaction could find its way to the closing table, no matter how poorly documented the borrowers income or how terrible the title problem. As foreclosures began mounting and attorneys and title insurance companies once again began searching title with more care, the lenders found themselves stuck holding the bag on some pretty undesireable properties. And the pendulum swung in the other direction, grossly over-correcting. The process of obtaining loan approval for a conventional residential mortgage has become as complex as the mechanics of a BMW, as frustrating as trying to get a colichy baby to quit crying, and as tiring as running a marathon!
Folks, I have seen it all over these last eight months. A widow told she needed a death certificate for her late husband dated within 60 days of submission to the lender. Perhaps this particular lender believed in the possibility of a zombie virus raising the undead from their graves and sending them scrambling for home loans? A client whose lender's unnecessary hard pull on a credit report mid-way through the application process sends his credit score tumbling an unbelievable 4 points! Evidently a significant enough drop to cost him an 1/8th of a point on his interest rate and $800 in origination charges. Too late to back out of the loan since the lender has delayed closing more than two weeks past the contract deadline and the seller is ready to walk. Another client this week is being asked to make her way through three years of bank records spread among three banks to dig up every single cancelled rent check she has written for the last three years! Are you kidding me!? You have seriously got to be kiding me! And client, after client, after client calls me up to say, "I just sent them three more bank statements, explained the change in my address for the third time, provided documentation to support the loss on my income taxes from three years ago, and now they want WHAT?!" And time after time after time I spend hours of my day reassuring sellers that its not that the buyer isn't creditworthy. "No, Ms. Johnson. Honestly I don't think there is anything to worry about with Mr. Smith's loan. I know it is two weeks past the contract deadline and he still doesn't have loan approval, but please believe me when I tell you they are all like this now." And repeating that same conversation for buyers and agents.
All of this exuberant verification is being done, not to satisfy Washington regulators, but to satisfy the requirements of the inter-bank mortgage trading industry. If Bank A can't show to Pension Fund D that all of these mortgages were really and truly made to highly qualified and vetted borrowers, they might not be able to package them up and sell them off. So, instead of formulating reasonable requirements that would allow money to keep moving through the economy and spur on the housing market and associated parts of the economy, lenders are perfectly happy to delay a closing by several months, ask borrowers to resubmit the same documentation over and over, and ultimately continue to hold the rest of the economy hostage so that they can continue to sell their mortgages in the secondary market.
I know that the loan officers I work with routinely are sick of me. They are tired of me complaining. They are tired of me insisting that they get on with it, that they not rewrite the contracts of our clients since they themselves are not lawyers, that they act with reasonableness, and, heaven-forbid, that they return my phone calls and e-mails. And clearly my frustrations are directed at entirely the wrong people. It is not my local loan officer who should bear the brunt of my nagging and derisive voicemails and repeated e-mails. If I wasn't spending so much time trying to get just ONE of my 25 currently open property files to the closing table, maybe I could spare a few moments to tell my President and my Congressmen precisely what I think about their poorly thought-out and terribly executed mortgage lending regulations and offer them a few suggestions for how they might wrangle our economy out of the death grip of the mortage lending industry.
There has been considerable coverage and multiple documentaries about the mess that was created in the housing market when the foreclosures started mounting. The domino effect of rising rates, falling values, increased foreclosures, and ultimately blighted neighborhoods. But, there has not been sufficient coverage about what is going on now in the housing market. We are supposed to think that the housing market is not rebounding and that the overall economy is still sluggish. But this simply isn't true. In the last eight months, existing home sales are up dramatically. Many realtors in my area say that they have more properties under contract right now than they had at any time during the great boom in 2005-2008. The key is that they have contracts, but not closings. It would be easier to build a house by hand yourself than to try to get a mortgage loan right now, and there are several reasons why.
The first is that in response to public outcry, the federal government under Obama implemented rigorous new regulations for the mortgage lending industry. These regulations were intended to insure that consumers were well informed about their loan and the costs associated therewith before they sat down at the closing table. Lenders are now required to provide a Good Faith Estimate (GFE) with expected closing costs broken down item by item. The fees paid by the consumer directly to the bank, called Origination Charges, cannot increase between the time the quote is given and the actual closing. The lender also has to estimate the fees that will be charged by vendors or other third parties in connection with the closing and there are limits on the increases for these. The paperwork behind these regulations is cumbersome for the lender, the borrower and the closing attorney or title company (depending on your state). And frequently they do not serve the purpose intended. The problem 5 years ago was not that borrowers were not adequately informed about their loans, but that there was no policing of mortgage brokers or lenders who were not conforming to the similar and less cumbersome regulations that were in place at the time. There were plenty of borrowers who didn't understand the loan they were getting or the implications of an adjustable rate, interest-only mortgage, but that wasn't because they weren't given a disclosure ahead of time, it was because they were financially uneducated. They didn't know what the disclosure meant and no one was making sure it was appropriately explained to them. What was needed was not more regulation, but smarter regulation and better enforcement.
The GFE requirements are a pain, but we can live them. They are not the crux of the problem. The real problem stems from the interindustry fallout associated with the foreclosure crisis. During the boom, loans were closed with such speed and so little attention to detail that just about any transaction could find its way to the closing table, no matter how poorly documented the borrowers income or how terrible the title problem. As foreclosures began mounting and attorneys and title insurance companies once again began searching title with more care, the lenders found themselves stuck holding the bag on some pretty undesireable properties. And the pendulum swung in the other direction, grossly over-correcting. The process of obtaining loan approval for a conventional residential mortgage has become as complex as the mechanics of a BMW, as frustrating as trying to get a colichy baby to quit crying, and as tiring as running a marathon!
Folks, I have seen it all over these last eight months. A widow told she needed a death certificate for her late husband dated within 60 days of submission to the lender. Perhaps this particular lender believed in the possibility of a zombie virus raising the undead from their graves and sending them scrambling for home loans? A client whose lender's unnecessary hard pull on a credit report mid-way through the application process sends his credit score tumbling an unbelievable 4 points! Evidently a significant enough drop to cost him an 1/8th of a point on his interest rate and $800 in origination charges. Too late to back out of the loan since the lender has delayed closing more than two weeks past the contract deadline and the seller is ready to walk. Another client this week is being asked to make her way through three years of bank records spread among three banks to dig up every single cancelled rent check she has written for the last three years! Are you kidding me!? You have seriously got to be kiding me! And client, after client, after client calls me up to say, "I just sent them three more bank statements, explained the change in my address for the third time, provided documentation to support the loss on my income taxes from three years ago, and now they want WHAT?!" And time after time after time I spend hours of my day reassuring sellers that its not that the buyer isn't creditworthy. "No, Ms. Johnson. Honestly I don't think there is anything to worry about with Mr. Smith's loan. I know it is two weeks past the contract deadline and he still doesn't have loan approval, but please believe me when I tell you they are all like this now." And repeating that same conversation for buyers and agents.
All of this exuberant verification is being done, not to satisfy Washington regulators, but to satisfy the requirements of the inter-bank mortgage trading industry. If Bank A can't show to Pension Fund D that all of these mortgages were really and truly made to highly qualified and vetted borrowers, they might not be able to package them up and sell them off. So, instead of formulating reasonable requirements that would allow money to keep moving through the economy and spur on the housing market and associated parts of the economy, lenders are perfectly happy to delay a closing by several months, ask borrowers to resubmit the same documentation over and over, and ultimately continue to hold the rest of the economy hostage so that they can continue to sell their mortgages in the secondary market.
I know that the loan officers I work with routinely are sick of me. They are tired of me complaining. They are tired of me insisting that they get on with it, that they not rewrite the contracts of our clients since they themselves are not lawyers, that they act with reasonableness, and, heaven-forbid, that they return my phone calls and e-mails. And clearly my frustrations are directed at entirely the wrong people. It is not my local loan officer who should bear the brunt of my nagging and derisive voicemails and repeated e-mails. If I wasn't spending so much time trying to get just ONE of my 25 currently open property files to the closing table, maybe I could spare a few moments to tell my President and my Congressmen precisely what I think about their poorly thought-out and terribly executed mortgage lending regulations and offer them a few suggestions for how they might wrangle our economy out of the death grip of the mortage lending industry.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Live with Intention
Last year Dylan and I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Patch Adams speak at UNCA. He was more amazing in person than the movie could ever capture. Everything he said was motivation to be a better person, a healthier person, a happier person. He said that people quite often ask him how he can be so happy all of the time. Surely there are things that get him down, make him feel sad. Sure, he says, there are sad things that happen, in life, in our community, in the world. Happiness is not the result of ignoring or burying sorrow. It is the result of embracing that pain, feeling it all the way through, releasing it and deciding that, despite that inevitable moment of sorrow, I will live with the intention of being joyous. Is it hard? Of course it's hard. It takes practice and effort. But it is worth it. The comparison he used, that I will never forget, is this: You live every day of your life with the intention of not getting hit by a semi truck. And so far, you have been very successful! Now, just live every day of your life with just as much intention to be happy. Choose to smile at the elderly driver in front of you traveling 15 miles an hour slower than you would like to be going. She knows something you don't in that moment: that there are very few things in the world worth being in that big of a hurry over. Smile at the crying baby in the restaurant. He is learning how to communicate with the world around him. Smile at the unhappy customer. She has had a long, hard day and your smile will make the rest of it just a little bit brighter.
It reminds me of the lessons taught by the beloved Chad O'Shea at Unity Center in Arden. Since I was 8 or 9 years old, I have soaked up the lesson that no one is responsible for my feelings. I choose my reaction to my surroundings. That sound is annoying because I allow myself to feel annoyed. I choose to put my focus there. I could instead choose to put my focus into enjoying whatever task I am engaged in. Misery is optional my friend. It is absolutely optional.
I have chosen a certain level of misery over the course of the past 10 years. I have indulged and overeaten. I have pumped my body full of nutritional garbage. I've been lazy, convinced that because I had so much to do everyday it was okay for me to spend four hours a night glued to the TV, "relaxing." I was wrong. In the past two months I have chosen to redirect my energies. Work is important, but it doesn't come first. My relationship is so very important to me, but it doesn't come first. My children mean the absolute world to me! But they don't get to come first either. Because if I am slowly sinking into a pit of depression by starving my body of vital nutrients and exercise, I am of absolutely no use to anyone! No wonder I was so snappy and moody all the time. No wonder I felt so tired! No wonder I just wanted to be left alone every night to live vicariously through the hour long dramas of prime-time television!
And now that I feel so awake and alive, I want to share this feeling with everyone I know! Put down the Doritos, man! They are KILLING you! All of those artificial flavors, MSG, hydrolyzed this and modified that, and the muck that are artificial sweeteners are confusing your body, making you crave foods that are about as nutritionally complete as a can of beer. And those cravings simply lead you to even unhealthier choices that feeds the cycle of munch, work, munch, sit, munch, sleep, repeat.
You can do two small things this week that will begin to change your life. Swear off high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, and go for a 15 minute walk every day. And when you survive the first week (and you will survive it, I promise!), give yourself a great big hug, acknowledge how hard you worked, and feel the radical awesomeness of your body thanking you by releasing serotonin and helping you be HAPPY!
It reminds me of the lessons taught by the beloved Chad O'Shea at Unity Center in Arden. Since I was 8 or 9 years old, I have soaked up the lesson that no one is responsible for my feelings. I choose my reaction to my surroundings. That sound is annoying because I allow myself to feel annoyed. I choose to put my focus there. I could instead choose to put my focus into enjoying whatever task I am engaged in. Misery is optional my friend. It is absolutely optional.
I have chosen a certain level of misery over the course of the past 10 years. I have indulged and overeaten. I have pumped my body full of nutritional garbage. I've been lazy, convinced that because I had so much to do everyday it was okay for me to spend four hours a night glued to the TV, "relaxing." I was wrong. In the past two months I have chosen to redirect my energies. Work is important, but it doesn't come first. My relationship is so very important to me, but it doesn't come first. My children mean the absolute world to me! But they don't get to come first either. Because if I am slowly sinking into a pit of depression by starving my body of vital nutrients and exercise, I am of absolutely no use to anyone! No wonder I was so snappy and moody all the time. No wonder I felt so tired! No wonder I just wanted to be left alone every night to live vicariously through the hour long dramas of prime-time television!
And now that I feel so awake and alive, I want to share this feeling with everyone I know! Put down the Doritos, man! They are KILLING you! All of those artificial flavors, MSG, hydrolyzed this and modified that, and the muck that are artificial sweeteners are confusing your body, making you crave foods that are about as nutritionally complete as a can of beer. And those cravings simply lead you to even unhealthier choices that feeds the cycle of munch, work, munch, sit, munch, sleep, repeat.
You can do two small things this week that will begin to change your life. Swear off high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, and go for a 15 minute walk every day. And when you survive the first week (and you will survive it, I promise!), give yourself a great big hug, acknowledge how hard you worked, and feel the radical awesomeness of your body thanking you by releasing serotonin and helping you be HAPPY!
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Looking out for #1: It's about time
Something has happened to me in the last thirty days. Something changed. In a good way.
I have struggled with my weight since I was thirteen, or maybe even younger. I can remember being self concious in a 2-piece when I was 10 and vowing never to wear one again. At thirteen, I was in a size 9 while my friends squeezed their tiny tushes into size 0's, or heaven forbid into a size 4. I was jealous. I admit it. I envied their tiny frames. I wanted to be able to share clothes like the cool kids. And from then on, I thought of myself as less than. I wasn't thin enough, pretty enough, cool enough, good enough to get the free drink let alone the guy that bought it. At that point in my life I weighed less than 145 pounds. And I thought I was the fat girl. I wish I could go back in time and slap that version of myself!
I got pregnant with Dylan when I was fourteen and gained 55 pounds. I have been trying to lose weight ever since. Sometimes I have been successful, but mostly I have failed. The truth is, I'm terrible at dieting. I don't have the willpower for it. I give in to small indulgences that ultimately undermine the whole endeavor. But recently, something has changed.
I started the TLS Lifestyles weight loss program in May. The program is focused on a low glycemic index diet and taking steps to heal the metabolism, especially through building muscle mass. The more of your body that is composed of fat, the less calories you can burn. More muscle=more calories burned. So the quickest way to burn the most calories is to add muscle. Pump iron! I have found TLS to be very compatible with my inability to diet. For whatever reason, I am perfectly willing to say no to that giant burrito that I love so much because I know that far too many of those calories are not made up of proteins and fiber and that means I'm not giving my body the material it needs to build my muscles. And lord knows there is no measurable protein in cupcakes or ice cream (small tears really because I do love cupcakes and ice cream!).
The biggest change for me came when I started running. I started the Couch-to-5K program from Cool Running. The program is 8 weeks and will have you running, yes running, a 5K by the time you are done. Even if you are out of shape. Even if you are overweight. I have stretched the program a little because I didn't run when I should have on vacation and there have been two particular workouts that I just couldn't get done on the first try and had to repeat. The program is focused on interval training, allowing you to build up the strength of your muscles, tendons and bones by jogging for short spurts over the course of 30 minutes 3 times a week. That's it. Just 30 minutes 3 times a week. I know, I know. You're busy. So was I. I mean, full time job, single mom, going to school, contract work for the Town, volunteer work on the side - I'm busy. But I knew that I could dig up 90 minutes a week, even if it was coming out of my beloved TV time! So I strapped on a pair of running shoes and dug in. The first 90 second interval wasn't a killer, but the first 3 minute interval was surely going to kill me! But it didn't. And this Tuesday, I ran for 8 minutes without stopping! And then I walked for 3 minutes and then did it again! And then, just for kicks and because I felt like I could, I did it one more time! And it felt great. No shin splints, no huffing and puffing breathing hot fire air. Just muscles and bones moving the way they are supposed to and the refreshing trickle of sweat that means I'm doing it right!
After the first couple of weeks I found that I was really liking the way I felt after a run. I liked seeing the progression, that it was getting easier each time was very rewarding. I wanted more of that feeling. My TLS coach, Carolyn (who is AWESOME!) suggested that I try out The Fire. She had been going for awhile and recommended it very highly. It just so happened that I was not taking any classes this summer and technically had some free time so I thought, what the hell! Why not. I signed up for a fitness evaluation and paid for the first 8 classes. I figured if I didn't stick with it or didn't like or it just didn't work for me, I wouldn't have a monthly membership or anything to contend with and at least I could say I tried. You can tell how much faith I had in myself to get this done...Anyway, My 8 classes were spread out over 6 weeks instead of four because I had a vacation thrown in there. But at the end of those 8 classes, I had dropped 3% body fat and lost 3.75 inches in my waist!! What!? Clearly, this was what I had been missing. I had never had success with dieting because I had only been restricting my calories. When you do that, your body doesn't burn off fat first, it eats away at muscle because more energy is stored there. Your muscles whither which means your resting metabolic rate is lower and lower. Translation - you burn fewer and fewer calories living your everyday life. And then, when you abandon your diet and go back to eating the way you had before, your body packs those pounds on as fat, not muscle, meaning that you have now done permanent damage to your metabolism!
But that damage can be reversed by adding muscle mass. My one month worth of training sessions was $96.00, admittedly more than a lot of people I know can afford to pay to be healthy every month. I get that too. In fact, we are giving up our satellite subscription for the next 6 months so that I can continue to pay for this because it is just that important to me.
At some point in the last six weeks, my health became intensly important to me. Without realizing it, I have been neglecting my health for years. I have been eating crap and refusing to exercise and making excuse after excuse after excuse for why I couldn't do better. I have taken care of everyone in my life, except myself. Maybe its like leaving an abusive relationship. Maybe it just takes 7 tries to really mean it. I've been through at least 7 diets at this point and I am officially ready to divorce my fat self. Sayonara lady! Hit the road! This relationship just isn't working for me anymore!
I'm so excited about my new goals and about encouraging all of the people I love to be healthier too. My children are already healthier since there is no soda, sugar or snacky foods in the house to drive their blood sugars all outa whack. And I know that we will all be happier, even Rick when he decides he is ready to join me in making healthy decisions.
This month The Fire is offering a special. I'll pay for 12 sessions instead of 8 and I can attend as many classes in the month as I want. I'm hoping to get there at least 4 times a week for the month of August. Here's a copy of the schedule. I will be at the 6:30 PM class every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (except the 9th and 13th when the town board meets) and I'm hoping to make at least one and possibly two more classes each week. You can come with me! FOR FREE! Who doesn't like free?? Let me know which time works for you and we'll make it happen. We can go to any of the FireStarter classes.
And I hope after that to be comfortable enough with my workouts that I can take advantage of the free gym at UNCA and save myself some money for the rest of the year and still stay healthy. Since starting my TLS weight loss adventure (which I actually started in February and then abandoned for a few months), I'm down 20 pounds and I've lost 6 inches in my waist. My goal for August is to be down to 190 (12 pounds from where I am now) and lose another 3% body fat. I'm really excited about getting back into those Old Navy blue jeans that have been gathering dust in my closet for the last two years!
And I'm even more excited to finally, finally be taking care of myself. You can take care of yourself too. It's ok. I give you permission. Your family will still love you. Your laundry will still get done. Your children will be there when you come home and you will suddenly have even more energy to play with them. It is not selfish to allow yourself time to exercise. And you don't have to have a gym membership. Youtube that shit! You know you can! Look-up a 20 minute workout and start doing it every other day. Strap on some running shoes and start the Couch-to-5K training! The ACT 5K is coming up in September. You know you want to run it with me!!! Or plan to attend a personal training class with me at The Fire. It is the best thing I have ever done for myself. You won't regret it.
I have struggled with my weight since I was thirteen, or maybe even younger. I can remember being self concious in a 2-piece when I was 10 and vowing never to wear one again. At thirteen, I was in a size 9 while my friends squeezed their tiny tushes into size 0's, or heaven forbid into a size 4. I was jealous. I admit it. I envied their tiny frames. I wanted to be able to share clothes like the cool kids. And from then on, I thought of myself as less than. I wasn't thin enough, pretty enough, cool enough, good enough to get the free drink let alone the guy that bought it. At that point in my life I weighed less than 145 pounds. And I thought I was the fat girl. I wish I could go back in time and slap that version of myself!
I got pregnant with Dylan when I was fourteen and gained 55 pounds. I have been trying to lose weight ever since. Sometimes I have been successful, but mostly I have failed. The truth is, I'm terrible at dieting. I don't have the willpower for it. I give in to small indulgences that ultimately undermine the whole endeavor. But recently, something has changed.
I started the TLS Lifestyles weight loss program in May. The program is focused on a low glycemic index diet and taking steps to heal the metabolism, especially through building muscle mass. The more of your body that is composed of fat, the less calories you can burn. More muscle=more calories burned. So the quickest way to burn the most calories is to add muscle. Pump iron! I have found TLS to be very compatible with my inability to diet. For whatever reason, I am perfectly willing to say no to that giant burrito that I love so much because I know that far too many of those calories are not made up of proteins and fiber and that means I'm not giving my body the material it needs to build my muscles. And lord knows there is no measurable protein in cupcakes or ice cream (small tears really because I do love cupcakes and ice cream!).
The biggest change for me came when I started running. I started the Couch-to-5K program from Cool Running. The program is 8 weeks and will have you running, yes running, a 5K by the time you are done. Even if you are out of shape. Even if you are overweight. I have stretched the program a little because I didn't run when I should have on vacation and there have been two particular workouts that I just couldn't get done on the first try and had to repeat. The program is focused on interval training, allowing you to build up the strength of your muscles, tendons and bones by jogging for short spurts over the course of 30 minutes 3 times a week. That's it. Just 30 minutes 3 times a week. I know, I know. You're busy. So was I. I mean, full time job, single mom, going to school, contract work for the Town, volunteer work on the side - I'm busy. But I knew that I could dig up 90 minutes a week, even if it was coming out of my beloved TV time! So I strapped on a pair of running shoes and dug in. The first 90 second interval wasn't a killer, but the first 3 minute interval was surely going to kill me! But it didn't. And this Tuesday, I ran for 8 minutes without stopping! And then I walked for 3 minutes and then did it again! And then, just for kicks and because I felt like I could, I did it one more time! And it felt great. No shin splints, no huffing and puffing breathing hot fire air. Just muscles and bones moving the way they are supposed to and the refreshing trickle of sweat that means I'm doing it right!
After the first couple of weeks I found that I was really liking the way I felt after a run. I liked seeing the progression, that it was getting easier each time was very rewarding. I wanted more of that feeling. My TLS coach, Carolyn (who is AWESOME!) suggested that I try out The Fire. She had been going for awhile and recommended it very highly. It just so happened that I was not taking any classes this summer and technically had some free time so I thought, what the hell! Why not. I signed up for a fitness evaluation and paid for the first 8 classes. I figured if I didn't stick with it or didn't like or it just didn't work for me, I wouldn't have a monthly membership or anything to contend with and at least I could say I tried. You can tell how much faith I had in myself to get this done...Anyway, My 8 classes were spread out over 6 weeks instead of four because I had a vacation thrown in there. But at the end of those 8 classes, I had dropped 3% body fat and lost 3.75 inches in my waist!! What!? Clearly, this was what I had been missing. I had never had success with dieting because I had only been restricting my calories. When you do that, your body doesn't burn off fat first, it eats away at muscle because more energy is stored there. Your muscles whither which means your resting metabolic rate is lower and lower. Translation - you burn fewer and fewer calories living your everyday life. And then, when you abandon your diet and go back to eating the way you had before, your body packs those pounds on as fat, not muscle, meaning that you have now done permanent damage to your metabolism!
But that damage can be reversed by adding muscle mass. My one month worth of training sessions was $96.00, admittedly more than a lot of people I know can afford to pay to be healthy every month. I get that too. In fact, we are giving up our satellite subscription for the next 6 months so that I can continue to pay for this because it is just that important to me.
At some point in the last six weeks, my health became intensly important to me. Without realizing it, I have been neglecting my health for years. I have been eating crap and refusing to exercise and making excuse after excuse after excuse for why I couldn't do better. I have taken care of everyone in my life, except myself. Maybe its like leaving an abusive relationship. Maybe it just takes 7 tries to really mean it. I've been through at least 7 diets at this point and I am officially ready to divorce my fat self. Sayonara lady! Hit the road! This relationship just isn't working for me anymore!
I'm so excited about my new goals and about encouraging all of the people I love to be healthier too. My children are already healthier since there is no soda, sugar or snacky foods in the house to drive their blood sugars all outa whack. And I know that we will all be happier, even Rick when he decides he is ready to join me in making healthy decisions.
This month The Fire is offering a special. I'll pay for 12 sessions instead of 8 and I can attend as many classes in the month as I want. I'm hoping to get there at least 4 times a week for the month of August. Here's a copy of the schedule. I will be at the 6:30 PM class every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (except the 9th and 13th when the town board meets) and I'm hoping to make at least one and possibly two more classes each week. You can come with me! FOR FREE! Who doesn't like free?? Let me know which time works for you and we'll make it happen. We can go to any of the FireStarter classes.
And I hope after that to be comfortable enough with my workouts that I can take advantage of the free gym at UNCA and save myself some money for the rest of the year and still stay healthy. Since starting my TLS weight loss adventure (which I actually started in February and then abandoned for a few months), I'm down 20 pounds and I've lost 6 inches in my waist. My goal for August is to be down to 190 (12 pounds from where I am now) and lose another 3% body fat. I'm really excited about getting back into those Old Navy blue jeans that have been gathering dust in my closet for the last two years!
And I'm even more excited to finally, finally be taking care of myself. You can take care of yourself too. It's ok. I give you permission. Your family will still love you. Your laundry will still get done. Your children will be there when you come home and you will suddenly have even more energy to play with them. It is not selfish to allow yourself time to exercise. And you don't have to have a gym membership. Youtube that shit! You know you can! Look-up a 20 minute workout and start doing it every other day. Strap on some running shoes and start the Couch-to-5K training! The ACT 5K is coming up in September. You know you want to run it with me!!! Or plan to attend a personal training class with me at The Fire. It is the best thing I have ever done for myself. You won't regret it.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Why Should the Gays Be Spared the Misery of Marriage??
Unfortunately, I haven't had much opportunity recently to participate in the conversation about Amendment One. Things have just been too hectic. But, I've taken some time in the last few days to read up on the arguments from both the "Protect All Families" website and from the "Restore America" website. And I have to say, what a preposterous waste of time, energy and money! I can't believe that we are having this conversation in the 21st century after battling our way through the ending a few millenia of slavery, we are still fighting to oppress people. I have to think that the writers of the Enlightenment Era must've thought that we would be well past the need to converse about the fundamental human rights of our fellow citizens. I mean, really? Wouldn't all of this energy and thought and argument be better spent deciding how we can improve our schools, or reduce the poverty rate, provide universal health insurance or improve our competitive edge in the world marketplace? Apparently not.
I think most people in my generation would find it completely ridiculous that until 1967 it was illegal in many states for a white person to marry a black person. And yet, at the time a great many Americans thought those laws to be quite justified. And a vast majority of those who supported those laws did so in the name of Christianity. They claimed that God Almighty himself had proclaimed that the races should not mix. What nonsense! I hope that my children will find it just as preposterous that we are now attempting to make the illegality of homosexual unions a Constitutional amendment. I hope that when they are of voting age, they will be voting on issues that impact the efficacy of our school system, welfare system, and health care system and talking about crazy it was that their mother had to talk about whether or not a woman should be allowed to be married to another woman.
There are a couple of arguments that I find particularly troublesome. They are troublesome because they stretch the truth for the purpose of confusing the issues and garnering support from people who may not fully understand where the arguments and facts are coming from. And the truth stretching is happening from both the pro-amendment and anti-amendment camps. These half truths are just as bad as outright lies because they encourage people to vote for the wrong reasons. The proposed amendment should be defeated or approved on its own merits and not on half truths or exaggerations of the truth.
Let's start with the argument that the amendment will suddenly upend the state's domestic violence laws. This is simply untrue. North Carolina's domestic violence laws do not depend on the existence of any type of "Union" existing between the parties, and in this regard the "Restore America" folks win their argument. The notion that after this amendment a battered woman would not be able to seek protection from her batterer is ludicrous. An unmarried battered woman today is able to take out a warrant against her assaulter, and so will she be able to after the amendment is adopted. Apparently this issue was raised as a defense to a domestic violence charge in Ohio after the adoption of their state constitutional amendment, and the state's supreme court found that the amendment had no impact on the state's domestic violence laws. I suppose it is possible that such a challenge would find it's way to North Carolina's court system, but I have to agree that our courts are likely to hold in exactly the same fashion as Ohio's. Point to Restore America.
The amendment is also not likely to have an impact on the current state of health insurance laws. Some health insurance companies operating in the state of North Carolina currently offer an option for domestic partners to be covered under the health insurance policy of the primary insured, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. This option is currently available under my health insurance policy from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. With the simple click of a box online and the payment of an additional premium I could cover my boyfriend and his child if we currently lived together. There is no requirement that I prove that we have been "united" in any type of civil ceremony or marriage, only that we live together. The adoption of the proposed amendment would not impact this ability because the insurance company does not require that we prove that we are in some type of legal recognized civil union. And in this regard, the argument that the amendment affects heterosexual couples in the provision of health insurance is, in my opinion, also incorrect. Again, point to the Restore America camp.
However, the Amendment could be a giant step backward for the efforts of homosexual couples to have access to one another in the hospitals in North Carolina. While the adoption is not likely to have an immediate impact (homosexual couples are already prohibited from visiting each other in the state's emergency rooms because homosexual marriage is already illegal and privacy laws only allow immediate family access to emergency room patients), it would be another hurdle to be crossed by families trying to overturn the current status quo in privacy laws.But, it would not have any impact on the ability of homosexual couples to make decisions for one another under health care powers of attorney or HIPAA agent designations. Point here to the Protect All Families camp, and a wash for the health debate in general.
Finally, there are two things about this debate, both emanating from the Christian Right, that stir up a very passionate (and hateful though I wish it were not) response from me. They are (i) that the Bible, both the Old and New Testament, denounces homosexuality and for this reason we should continue to persecute those who are homosexual, and (ii) homosexuality is a choice. First, let me say that it should be a criminal offense for anyone, particularly our government officials, to persecute a group of people in the name of Christianity. It is the single least Christian thing any person can do. I cannot imagine that Christ would stand in front of a homosexual person and tell him or her that they are in some way less than another person, or that they are not entitled to love, compassion and civil rights. The biblical argument against homosexuality has lost all application for me. Much like the fact that the bible condoned slavery. As we evolve as a race, we must allow for our thought and religion to evolve as well. Much like the Constitution of the United States, the Bible must be viewed as a living document, available to be adapted to the social constructs of the present age. Otherwise, the entire religion is doomed to be relegated to the histories of man as were the religions of the Celts, the Romans, the Greeks and the Zoroastrians.
The reason for the biblical proscription against homosexualilty is simple. In ancient times, homosexuality had to be condemned because it did not foster the continuation of the human race. Homosexual couples could not procreate, and procreation was the most important task any person could undertake in an age when most children did not survive childhood and fertility treatments were not available for heterosexual couples who could not bare children. Much of what was written in the Old Testament, especially in Liviticus, served as an oral history to help a civilization who could not read or write remember how to make their food, which animals were more likely to make them sick, and how to keep clean and prevent infection. All of these things were necessary for people to survive 4,000 years ago. Now? Not so much. But, if we are to take the entire Bible word for word without any adaptation for today's social constructs, then I fully expect all of the Christians I know to stop eating pork and shellfish, to do no work on the 25th day of September (quite convenient for me and my eldest since that is his birthday), to not wear polyblend clothing, to not cut the hair at the temples or trim the edges of the beard, to not get tattoos, and to immediately kill any man or woman who is an adulterer. Clearly the human race, as it has civilized, has chosen to overlook those mandates from Leviticus that no longer seem to have practical application. So should it be for the proscription against homosexuality. It is simply not pragmatic, or civilized, to continue the Biblical argument against it.
And finally, the argument that Amendment One is not a civil rights issue because homosexuals choose to be gay, and therefor the law is a law against behavior and not against the rights of a class of people. I have to admit that I have known people who have chosen to be gay for a time, or from time to time, and changed their minds. A very wise woman I know once said that she did not choose what form the spirit of her soul mate would take, but she did choose to accept that soul mate in whatever form it took. In other words, she fell in love with the soul of the person, not the body. The fact that it is a choice for some people, does not make it an issue of constitutional import, however. And I also have to say that there have been instances in my life when I have known that a particular person was gay well before he was old enough to make any choice about his sexuality. Aside from several of my high school classmates, there was a boy in daycare with Dylan who, from the age of two, preferred to play dress-up, wear high heels and dresses, and play house or dolls with the girls in the daycare rather than playing guns or army with the boys. He was extremely effeminate...and delightful. We loved him to bits. He was several years older than Dylan, and if he is of age now and in love with a man he believes to be his soul mate, how could I wish upon him the unhappiness of never being able to marry his true love? That would not be a choice for him, but an expression of who is his, through and through, and such a cruel denial of a happiness that he deserves to experience.
In the end, the Supreme Court has already held that the right to marry is a basic civil right which cannot be deined to a citizen (in a case involving the desire of a prisoner to be married). And they are right. It is a basic right. The right to be recognized by your government and your community as a loving couple and family. I have seen homosexual couples resort to the extremes of adult adoption to create a legally binding familial relationship so that they can visit one another in the hospital, inherit from one another, and share the same last name. Why do we force people to take such extreme measures under the law to do what they are already doing, loving and supporting one another? It's preposterous. And it has to stop. We are better than this. And truly, the money that has been spent on the PR campaign for the defeat or approval of this amendment would have been better spent putting food in the mouths of the poor than trying to cement the denial of a basic civil right to homosexuals. We must defeat Amendment One. Protect us all!
Unfortunately, I haven't had much opportunity recently to participate in the conversation about Amendment One. Things have just been too hectic. But, I've taken some time in the last few days to read up on the arguments from both the "Protect All Families" website and from the "Restore America" website. And I have to say, what a preposterous waste of time, energy and money! I can't believe that we are having this conversation in the 21st century after battling our way through the ending a few millenia of slavery, we are still fighting to oppress people. I have to think that the writers of the Enlightenment Era must've thought that we would be well past the need to converse about the fundamental human rights of our fellow citizens. I mean, really? Wouldn't all of this energy and thought and argument be better spent deciding how we can improve our schools, or reduce the poverty rate, provide universal health insurance or improve our competitive edge in the world marketplace? Apparently not.
I think most people in my generation would find it completely ridiculous that until 1967 it was illegal in many states for a white person to marry a black person. And yet, at the time a great many Americans thought those laws to be quite justified. And a vast majority of those who supported those laws did so in the name of Christianity. They claimed that God Almighty himself had proclaimed that the races should not mix. What nonsense! I hope that my children will find it just as preposterous that we are now attempting to make the illegality of homosexual unions a Constitutional amendment. I hope that when they are of voting age, they will be voting on issues that impact the efficacy of our school system, welfare system, and health care system and talking about crazy it was that their mother had to talk about whether or not a woman should be allowed to be married to another woman.
There are a couple of arguments that I find particularly troublesome. They are troublesome because they stretch the truth for the purpose of confusing the issues and garnering support from people who may not fully understand where the arguments and facts are coming from. And the truth stretching is happening from both the pro-amendment and anti-amendment camps. These half truths are just as bad as outright lies because they encourage people to vote for the wrong reasons. The proposed amendment should be defeated or approved on its own merits and not on half truths or exaggerations of the truth.
Let's start with the argument that the amendment will suddenly upend the state's domestic violence laws. This is simply untrue. North Carolina's domestic violence laws do not depend on the existence of any type of "Union" existing between the parties, and in this regard the "Restore America" folks win their argument. The notion that after this amendment a battered woman would not be able to seek protection from her batterer is ludicrous. An unmarried battered woman today is able to take out a warrant against her assaulter, and so will she be able to after the amendment is adopted. Apparently this issue was raised as a defense to a domestic violence charge in Ohio after the adoption of their state constitutional amendment, and the state's supreme court found that the amendment had no impact on the state's domestic violence laws. I suppose it is possible that such a challenge would find it's way to North Carolina's court system, but I have to agree that our courts are likely to hold in exactly the same fashion as Ohio's. Point to Restore America.
The amendment is also not likely to have an impact on the current state of health insurance laws. Some health insurance companies operating in the state of North Carolina currently offer an option for domestic partners to be covered under the health insurance policy of the primary insured, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. This option is currently available under my health insurance policy from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. With the simple click of a box online and the payment of an additional premium I could cover my boyfriend and his child if we currently lived together. There is no requirement that I prove that we have been "united" in any type of civil ceremony or marriage, only that we live together. The adoption of the proposed amendment would not impact this ability because the insurance company does not require that we prove that we are in some type of legal recognized civil union. And in this regard, the argument that the amendment affects heterosexual couples in the provision of health insurance is, in my opinion, also incorrect. Again, point to the Restore America camp.
However, the Amendment could be a giant step backward for the efforts of homosexual couples to have access to one another in the hospitals in North Carolina. While the adoption is not likely to have an immediate impact (homosexual couples are already prohibited from visiting each other in the state's emergency rooms because homosexual marriage is already illegal and privacy laws only allow immediate family access to emergency room patients), it would be another hurdle to be crossed by families trying to overturn the current status quo in privacy laws.But, it would not have any impact on the ability of homosexual couples to make decisions for one another under health care powers of attorney or HIPAA agent designations. Point here to the Protect All Families camp, and a wash for the health debate in general.
Finally, there are two things about this debate, both emanating from the Christian Right, that stir up a very passionate (and hateful though I wish it were not) response from me. They are (i) that the Bible, both the Old and New Testament, denounces homosexuality and for this reason we should continue to persecute those who are homosexual, and (ii) homosexuality is a choice. First, let me say that it should be a criminal offense for anyone, particularly our government officials, to persecute a group of people in the name of Christianity. It is the single least Christian thing any person can do. I cannot imagine that Christ would stand in front of a homosexual person and tell him or her that they are in some way less than another person, or that they are not entitled to love, compassion and civil rights. The biblical argument against homosexuality has lost all application for me. Much like the fact that the bible condoned slavery. As we evolve as a race, we must allow for our thought and religion to evolve as well. Much like the Constitution of the United States, the Bible must be viewed as a living document, available to be adapted to the social constructs of the present age. Otherwise, the entire religion is doomed to be relegated to the histories of man as were the religions of the Celts, the Romans, the Greeks and the Zoroastrians.
The reason for the biblical proscription against homosexualilty is simple. In ancient times, homosexuality had to be condemned because it did not foster the continuation of the human race. Homosexual couples could not procreate, and procreation was the most important task any person could undertake in an age when most children did not survive childhood and fertility treatments were not available for heterosexual couples who could not bare children. Much of what was written in the Old Testament, especially in Liviticus, served as an oral history to help a civilization who could not read or write remember how to make their food, which animals were more likely to make them sick, and how to keep clean and prevent infection. All of these things were necessary for people to survive 4,000 years ago. Now? Not so much. But, if we are to take the entire Bible word for word without any adaptation for today's social constructs, then I fully expect all of the Christians I know to stop eating pork and shellfish, to do no work on the 25th day of September (quite convenient for me and my eldest since that is his birthday), to not wear polyblend clothing, to not cut the hair at the temples or trim the edges of the beard, to not get tattoos, and to immediately kill any man or woman who is an adulterer. Clearly the human race, as it has civilized, has chosen to overlook those mandates from Leviticus that no longer seem to have practical application. So should it be for the proscription against homosexuality. It is simply not pragmatic, or civilized, to continue the Biblical argument against it.
And finally, the argument that Amendment One is not a civil rights issue because homosexuals choose to be gay, and therefor the law is a law against behavior and not against the rights of a class of people. I have to admit that I have known people who have chosen to be gay for a time, or from time to time, and changed their minds. A very wise woman I know once said that she did not choose what form the spirit of her soul mate would take, but she did choose to accept that soul mate in whatever form it took. In other words, she fell in love with the soul of the person, not the body. The fact that it is a choice for some people, does not make it an issue of constitutional import, however. And I also have to say that there have been instances in my life when I have known that a particular person was gay well before he was old enough to make any choice about his sexuality. Aside from several of my high school classmates, there was a boy in daycare with Dylan who, from the age of two, preferred to play dress-up, wear high heels and dresses, and play house or dolls with the girls in the daycare rather than playing guns or army with the boys. He was extremely effeminate...and delightful. We loved him to bits. He was several years older than Dylan, and if he is of age now and in love with a man he believes to be his soul mate, how could I wish upon him the unhappiness of never being able to marry his true love? That would not be a choice for him, but an expression of who is his, through and through, and such a cruel denial of a happiness that he deserves to experience.
In the end, the Supreme Court has already held that the right to marry is a basic civil right which cannot be deined to a citizen (in a case involving the desire of a prisoner to be married). And they are right. It is a basic right. The right to be recognized by your government and your community as a loving couple and family. I have seen homosexual couples resort to the extremes of adult adoption to create a legally binding familial relationship so that they can visit one another in the hospital, inherit from one another, and share the same last name. Why do we force people to take such extreme measures under the law to do what they are already doing, loving and supporting one another? It's preposterous. And it has to stop. We are better than this. And truly, the money that has been spent on the PR campaign for the defeat or approval of this amendment would have been better spent putting food in the mouths of the poor than trying to cement the denial of a basic civil right to homosexuals. We must defeat Amendment One. Protect us all!
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