Data Access Objects and Same-Sex in Vermont

Sunday, February 6, 2000

Dear Readers,

I'm learning Microsoft Access the hard way, but it's the only way I know how. Instead of sitting down with "Access 2000 Development" chapter by chapter (Alison Balter, 1999, 39 Chapters, 1342 pages), I have started out with a project of my own, and then, when I need help, I reference the book and test the sample code.

My project (what a user might see of it) is a simple Address book. Underlying that are complex structures and algorithms that make what you see simple and intuitive. I wish I could talk about it all day.

I'm struggling with SQL (simplified query language), which interrogates or manipulates the databases underlying the Household and Members forms that the user sees. Of course, like politics, it comes in several flavors. Do I want to use SQL code for Data Access Objects (DAO), or the newer Activex Data Objects (ADO)? Do I have a choice? What works?

I'm trying to do all this in Visual Basic on the fly, so I left some bad code in my project and cooked up some lunch. When in doubt, take a break and come back to it.

What's nice about the neat, orderly world of programming code is you can leave it on the table. Dysfunctional code doesn't make itself worse, it doesn't rot, it doesn't spread itself to neighboring modules. With the exception of maliciously designed viruses (believe me, you can't do this by mistake), bad code simply sits inertly until (a) some other part of your code calls upon it to perform its task, or (b) you fix it.

Ah, that it were so in real life. Over lunch, I read a well-written article in the Sunday paper: "Vermont citizens clash over views on gay marriage".

Ah, yes. That one. I'm encouraged, but skeptical ... even though I AM gay, and even though our household stands to eventually benefit from it enormously if the good folks of Vermont do the Right Thing. Which, I and the polls are pretty much convinced, they're not about to do.

Fixing ideological differences is MUCH more difficult than fixing bad code.

The article was by Carey Goldberg of the New York Times. It did a better than average job of getting to the underlying issues. Among them:

Pro:

"(We) have been married for 52 years (and) for the life of us, we can't imagine how gay marriage would adversely affect anyone in our family."

Love your neighbor as yourself - whether or not your neighbor is gay.

"The state is not in the business of giving people their morality."

Anti:

"No matter how far back it goes, to the Bible, marriage has been one man, one woman. That's all. Not one man, one man, one woman, one woman."

Leviticus calls it "an abomination".

The nation's founders established the country based on Judeo-Christian morality, and ... the morality inherent in the biblical concept of marriage could not be separated from the law.

There were other interesting arguments. Is our government responsible for protecting minorities, or should we "let the people decide"? Are there parallels to other struggles for civil rights, or is this the precursor to "the downfall of every civilization"?

Note that all the "anti" arguments were based on religious assertion.

What caught me eye was the last "anti" argument, "The nation's founders established the country based on Judeo-Christian morality."

This is the "underlying argument", the code underneath what you see, which explains the most else about the visible behavior of the creature.

I've been watching this one for decades, long before I began to struggle with sexual orientation issues on a cultural or personal level.

So it comes down to this. The argument is really whether the database engine should be constitutional, or biblical.

Outside the clubby and powerful neo-Christian sects, you don't hear that argument often -- that the law must or may be based on biblical foundations. When you do, most often it's a verbal articulation by someone else, who, in turn, heard it from a clubby neo-Christian sect.

There's a good reason why theocratic proponents don't like to see this in print too often. To a person who believes in the rule of impartial law, it's blasphemy. It's a fundamental contradiction of everything we learned about constitutional law.

As with database engines, we should be able to take apart the code and ask questions like this:

"Just say no to biblical law" has some serious ramifications. The idea that the State may reward, or punish, based solely on the personal convictions of a majority, is a cherished one. Whether those personal convictions stem from the Bible itself, or someone's second-hand interpretations of them, or even from some other theology or ideology, makes very little difference in practice.

The question is whether it is right to go down to the polls and impose our own standards of morality upon someone else's behavior, even when nobody else is getting hurt.

Where do you stand on any of the other following issues?

Most people feel that it's in the State's self-interest to regulate non-violent behavior of others "for the common good".

When push comes to shove, anti-gay activists argue that the status quo they are struggling to protect is really no different than other laws you may already support.

And they may still be wrong, but they may be right. Is it too late for a constitutional defense of civil rights for gays and lesbians? Proponents of both sides of a variety of defining 20th-century issues have argumentatively exploited this inconsistency, time and time again. It works, by paralyzing the opposition with its own internal conflicts.

Taken this way, is either of the following two statements true?

I'm not calling this one. Historians will decide, probably way too late to benefit or comfort any generation alive today. There is too much work to be done "on the underlying database", before any clear national consensus emerges.

Racism is one of many variants of self-induced cognitive disorder in which a decision is made to operate the conceptual engine on belief, in calculated ignorance or defiance of demonstrable fact.

Racism is one of the most malignant of twentieth century cognitive disorders. We are exposed daily to many other "isms", and too few of them have been de-fanged. In a single lifetime, spanning both the 20th and 21st centuries, it seems too soon to say whether we have really learned anything from this.

This appeal to reason and to the humanity of the participants echoes throughout the previous century. We heard it at the freedom marches and in the wearing of the pink triangle armbands.

It somewhat benevolently assumes people wouldn't act this way in public, if only they were cognizant of the consequences for the affected individuals.

I'm afraid I can't share that benevolent assumption.

Between pro- and anti-gay activists sit a huge middle ground of undecideds, some of whom personally know and like others who are gay ot lesbian, and some of whom don't. Politically, this is the group that calls the shots.

Given that not changing the status quo doesn't violate any other principle this middle ground thinks it stands for, the electorate is not going to validate gay marriage, or even support a system of equality for domestic partnership, if it can help it.

Why should middle-grounders support domestic partnership when they already support the monstrously expensive "war on drugs", censorship of television and the Internet , and other violations of civil rights which don't affect them personally?

The premise: people who don't comport themselves in private the way we would like them to should be punished. Existing laws provide us with a means of inflicting such punishments. Besides, existing laws are the law, and so should be upheld. That's all.

Conclusion: the 20th century proved that principles can't be made to work, so (Step 1) we have to put our faith in the will of the electorate. (Step 2) If you happen to be on the receiving end of this national largesse, see (Step 1).

I think most people who support new or continuing legislation to discriminate against others know who their victims are. I think they know exactly what they're doing. With apologies to Susan Clark of Vermont, I don't think they care.

In the end, I think it will be up to the courts to rewrite the broken code of the social interaction engine, and I support (among others) groups that concentrate their efforts toward liberty in the arena of constitutional law.

In the end, it was the courts and Justice Department that mandated the demise of Jim Crow (and enforced other gains in civil liberties) -- not the electorate.

I don't think it's too late for a constitutional approach to civil liberty, but I do think the neo-Christian approach implicitly subordinates the rule of law to a favored group's interpretation of the rule of the Bible. This, and not "gay marriage", will strip the nation of its defining characteristic of freedom.

If the "downfall of civilization" should come to pass, the uneven hand of religious law will play a large part in it.

It is no more reasonable to expect the good people of Vermont to strip themselves of privileges they already exercise, than to expect politicians to vote to strip themselves of power and a pay raise.

I rest my case. I'm going to take a break back in the safe world of SQL and database engines.

 

 

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