What Can We Do?

I've been a bit surprised, and very gratified by all the comments left on my post on marriage equality:

Greenwoman -- Your concern for perceived hurts, born of nuances in awareness and experience, is encouraging to me. Sometimes, I get convinced that "no one" cares. You've reassured me that my sense of complete alienation from the rest of humanity is misplaced.

Tapestry -- the re-echoing of that affirmation of validity is important to me. Thank you.

Impish1 -- I like that phrase: functional love vs dysfunctional...

KG -- I don't know how the "common law" part of all of this might work. I do know that the approach of marrying somewhere else in order to "force" recognition here seems pretty fruitless for the most part.

It is interesting that the laws that prohibit polygamy in our culture might be found (by our courts) to be discriminatory against women who are immigrant from other societies where the practice is more common. Thank you for looking into this.

sara -- another enlightening phrase and viewpoint in your words: "the superficial structure, not the heart to heart reality underneath." I like that very much.

bridget -- It does seem true that one has to live this in order to actually have a sense of what is missing. It is very difficult to explain the nuances of this to those who are safely ensconced in the cultural mainstream with regard to marriage.

Finally, OliviaManners asked a very difficult and challenging question in her comment:

"swan, it is a big question...but what do you think that people like you and I could do to effect any real change in perception or acknowledgment of this area?"

I feel a little overwhelmed, actually, when I contemplate some sort of "strategy" for pushing us (as a society) toward change. I'm sure that there are more politically and legally savvy minds than mine that have spent time contemplating the possibilities. With that disclaimer firmly in place, I am drawn to making some attempt at mapping out paths that might begin to shift the current set of realities:

1) I think that if we are committed to creating some sort of true marriage equity in our society, we need to begin by addressing the misconceptions and erroneous assumptions about marriage that are pervasive in our society. We need to be able to confront and correct the kind of blatant falsehoods that go unchallenged everyday in discussions about the nature of marriage. So, for example, some rudimentary historical perspective would cause educated people to respond to a Warrenesque declaration that marriage has "always, in every society and every religious tradition, for over 5000 years" been defined as between one man and one woman. No. That is simply incorrect. Master wrote about it at length in His treatise on Modern Monogamy. There's plenty of historical and anthropological information to inform our understanding of the roots and traditions that have shaped the practice of marriage in western culture. We don't have to let the conversation be shaped by those who would promulgate lies as the foundation for our ongoing decision making.

2) We need to become clear and definitive about what it is that marriage confers on people in terms of rights and benefits. I think it is easy for those who are not directly, intimately, immediately impacted by the disparities in our laws to assume that it is really "much ado about nothing." Having lived without those legal and financial benefits, I can attest that it is not even remotely "nothing." The following list, prepared by Lambda Legal, outlines some of the approximately 1400 rights and benefits that accrue to individuals once they marry:

joint parenting;
joint adoption;
joint foster care, custody, and visitation (including non-biological parents);
status as next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions where one partner is too ill to be competent;
joint insurance policies for home, auto and health;
dissolution and divorce protections such as community property and child support;
immigration and residency for partners from other countries;
inheritance automatically in the absence of a will;
joint leases with automatic renewal rights in the event one partner dies or leaves the house or apartment;
inheritance of jointly-owned real and personal property through the right of survivorship (which avoids the time and expense and taxes in probate);
benefits such as annuities, pension plans, Social Security, and Medicare;
spousal exemptions to property tax increases upon the death of one partner who is a co-owner of the home;
veterans' discounts on medical care, education, and home loans; joint filing of tax returns;
joint filing of customs claims when traveling;
wrongful death benefits for a surviving partner and children;
bereavement or sick leave to care for a partner or child;
decision-making power with respect to whether a deceased partner will be cremated or not and where to bury him or her;
crime victims' recovery benefits;
loss of consortium tort benefits;
domestic violence protection orders;
judicial protections and evidentiary immunity;

3) Those of us who are somewhat aware of this issue can begin to change things by beginning to change the way we see the world. Our society operates from a set of assumptions that divide the world into "singles" and "couples." There is the embedded view that those are the two possible relational states for adult humans in the world. Evidence of this perception is everywhere:

• pillowcases are sold in singles or pairs
• restaurants seat people (generally) at tables for two or four -- almost never odd numbers
• when there are promotions or deals for travel or entertainment opportunities, they are always arranged for couples
• you can buy his and hers towels, but not other configurations
• a wide range of products (especially food items) are packaged and sold to be served to two
• almost every image that we see that depicts adult loving relationship shows the cultural "norm" of one man and one woman
• almost every media mention of family and marriage assumes the "one man and one woman" construct

4) We can believe, and refuse to stop believing in the possibility. I like the ideas of the Transcendentalist, abolitionist, Underground Railroad leader, Unitarian reformer Rev. Theodore Parker. Most of the causes that this frail minister worked for never came to fruition until years after he died at 49 in 1860. He said: "Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice. Things refuse to be mismanaged long."

5) We can speak up and speak out. We can write to every legislator, every political entity, every media outlet -- over and over again; pointing out the truths of our lives, refusing to accept the easily delivered lies, insisting that they see and correct the unrecognized biases that spew from our televisions, radios, and newspaper pages every day. We can show up. At city council meetings, and legislative hearings, and political debates, and town hall meetings -- until the sheer weight of our presence begins to shift the balance.

6) We can refuse to attend "mixed-sex" weddings. This is a radical and demanding position to take, but consider... Those of us who are not able to marry should ask why we are expected to participate as observers in a social event that we may not ever legally partake of. Our silent acquiesence to these ceremonial events allows the mainstream of our culture to continue to uncritically embrace injustice and discrimination because we let them do that! If we want the larger culture to open their eyes and lose their blindness to the discriminatory politics of engagements, marriage, and weddings, we must point out the segregated nature of these rituals and institutions.

7) Where we are able, we have to come out of hiding and act to challenge the status quo. Those who can do so, might attempt to register, or obtain marriage licenses at the local county clerk's office on some sort of regular basis. I understand that we'd be turned down and turned away, but our presence -- over and over again, across the country would, in time, make the statement that we are here. Even better if such efforts could be made in some coordinated and public fashion.

8) We could co-opt the media coverage that swarms to celebrity weddings -- appearing outside the places where those weddings are held, silently holding up signs stating "Participation in Marriage is Participation in Injustice," or "Saying I Do when We Can't = Bigotry."

9) We could encourage our justice-minded friends who ARE allowed to marry to boycott marriage until the institution is democratized. Those who love and care for us who are barred from marrying could make a major contribution in undermining the status quo by refusing to participate in the institution of marriage until it is open to all. Such a movement could put an economic dent in the wedding industry, as large numbers of COUPLES refuse to open their wallets for marriage licenses, wedding receptions, bridal dresses, photographers, and honeymoon excursions.

Probably, there are lots of other possibilities that I've not thought of. I'd welcome others who want to join this conversation with ideas to share. Please -- everyone, feel welcomed to join this discussion.

swan

Witch Balls, Kugels, Windy Weather, and Tears

Our gardens have been adorned for the last couple of years with these iron "sun sticks" and the mouth-blown glass orbs that are sometimes called kugels (friendship balls) or witch balls. T's has a lovely, sunny, amber colored ball that is a swirl of golds, reds, and oranges. Mine, very much like the picture, was full of blues and smoky purples. Our gardens shimmered from day to night with these enchanting bits.

The lore of witch balls goes back centuries, originating in England and then continuing in New England. These intricate glass globes were thought to provide protection from mischievious spirits and negative energy. Hung in a window or doorway, a witch ball would attract the attention of the troublesome spirit, who would then be drawn into the interior and trapped there forever. Hence, witch balls preserved the harmony of the household...

Ours, displayed on their heavy ornamental stands, have stood in our gardens for some time now (T's will be three years old this summer, and mine was new last summer). Both were purchased as gifts to commemorate anniversaries -- the 6th anniversary is marked with iron and glass.

Friday night, the weather here turned windy. It had been rainy for a number of days. We went to bed without any thought about the winds, but I slept very badly, plagued by some insomnia and then disturbing dreams when I did sleep. I got up Saturday morning, feeling groggy and unsettled. Opening the blinds on my patio, I glanced out and saw... my witch ball and its iron stand ripped from the soggy earth and crashed to the ground outside my door. My beautiful glass globe was smashed to a thousand glittering blue shards in the grass. I gasped with shock, and then went out into the rainy morning, to pick up the pieces. As I worked, still barely awake, I began to sob, tears running down my face. It seemed to me there in the gray morning, that the shattered glass was emblematic of my own brokeness. By the time I got back inside, and back to Master, I was a mess -- miserable and heartbroken over what I am sure seemed a silly triviality.

He, nonetheless, held me, patted me, murmured soft assurances into my incoherent babblings -- and then fled to T. Together, they found the supplier of the witch balls where the first ones were purchased, and within a very few minutes, a replacement globe was ordered. The one that is coming is as close as it was possible to get to the original. It was the only thing I could say clearly to Him -- I wanted it to be like it was.

swan

Toy Collection Report #6

Master got a beautiful new knife for Christmas. As is the case with most new knives in His collection, He has been all wrapped up in it -- spending long periods of time gazing at it, scratching with it, shifting the weight of it from hand to hand. Getting bonded to a new knife is a process...

Predictably, late Saturday night, as He and I sat watching a football game, He managed to slice a finger open accidentally. If there was any question about the sharpness of this particular blade, that doubt was banished in an instant. The cut was deep and bled profusely. He was adamant that He was NOT going to the local emergency care facility to get it taken care of, so I cleaned it and bandaged it, working to staunch the flow. He will heal just fine I suspect.

However... there'll be no hand spanking with that finger for awhile. The last thing we need is to break that wound open again and start the bleeding all over. That reality was part of what led to Sunday morning's opening to our session -- when He decided to substitute the dragon paddle for the hand spanking that is quite often the beginning of our play nowadays.

The dragon paddle is really not the same as getting spanked with His hand. It is harder, sharper feeling than His hand. Still, it is way gentler and way more sensuous than a wood or lexan paddling. One other thing that I noticed is the noise it makes. It lands with a sharp crack sound that reverberates around the room. Somehow, my pretty little dragon paddle makes a horrible bit of noise.

Anyway, Sunday was a morning that was largely "themed" around leather implements -- a real departure from the norm. At one point, I was floating softly toward the edge of "the purple place." I don't think I actually was able to get "over the edge" to subspace, and He finished with a very long and very intense caning that ultimately reduced me to begging for "help." Then the Hanson paddle, and then the end and a chance to curl into His arms.

swan

Toy Collection Report #5

Finally.

We finished up, this morning, going through all that group of Hanson paddles that I wrote about here. The last one was the very heaviest, wooden one. I think He settled for about 10 smacks with it, at the very end of a session. It really was sort of perfunctory -- enough to say we'd done it, but He was clear He doesn't like using those very heavy paddles. He called it a "club."

It has taken a good bit of time to get through all of them. Between His schedule, the multitude of challenges that health presents us with these days, and His awareness of the sheer intensity of some of those paddles, He has spread the paddlings out over some significant time. Intellectually, I know that has been a very good thing, and I am grateful -- although the emotional impact of having all those impending paddlings hanging has been enormous...
Whatever. It is done. There are no more Hanson paddles for me to introduce. I'll continue to encounter the evil critters, on a regular basis, but for now, we've done the "tour."

swan

Polyamory Observations #11

I just cannot get my mind off the subject of marriage these days, and specifically, the subject of marriage equality.

Some of that, probably much of that, is the continued consternation, around here, about the involvement of Rick Warren in the Obama inauguration. That unfortunate impending horror is so terribly offensive to those who campaigned to defeat California's odious proposition 8, and who see the question of marriage equality for those who are GLBT as a simple matter of civil rights. I'd count myself there.

There's just one problem with all of that, and that is that I know that some significant part of the GLBT community won't stand up for MY right to the same marriage equality they want so desperately for themselves. I know that as the right wing hate mongers start pointing to the "slippery slope" that leads to (HORRORS!) polygamy and polyamory, there are plenty of gay, bi, and lesbian folks that are more than happy to go over to the dark side and declare that "they never want to see multiple partner marriage equality. That is nowhere on their radar or agenda."

Here's the link to Tristan Taromino's keynote on the subject at the October Poly Pride event: Poly Pride Keynote



My present distress over this whole subject is, in some large degree, related to an interesting bit of fantasizing that I let myself fall into as the campaign season rambled along. I let myself imagine a society, a world, where people everywhere simply understand that "marriage" is about people who love one another choosing to create suitable family structures for themselves. I let myself believe that we might come to a reasonable understanding that there have been many successful and working "marriage" / "family" structures throughout human history, and the fact that we view man/woman pairings as the "norm" is really only a simple bit of cultural myopia. I let myself imagine that we might soon come into a more enlightened time where all the narrowness, hatred, intolerance, and sheer dishonesty that gets spewed by the right-wing fringe would begin to be quieted as more sensible heads began to guide public policy and thought.



Call me PollyAnna.



I am coming to terms, in the last little bit, with the reality that, whatever comes to pass in the fight for "marriage equality," it is never going to reach me. The longing to be able to publicly BE really a "spouse" is strong in me, but it is a longing that will have to forever go unanswered. There is no distinction made between all of us inside our own walls, between legally spouse and not-legally spouse, but the world surely marks the difference -- and acts upon the distinction. I can't ask my employer for leave time to deal with illness of my "non-spouses." I can't manage my finances in concert with my spice without all sorts of silly and annoying contrivances -- because we aren't married. I can't show up at social events with my partners. I can't even talk about the people who are part of my days without generating serious risks to my ongoing livilihood. I have to dance the dance in a thousand little ways everyday, and there is no way around it all. It is what it is.



I understand that not all poly people want marriage. I understand that there are many people out there who are linking up in a thousand different ways that have nothing at all to do with traditional marriage.



It's just me. I want the right to choose marriage. And I can't have it. Ever.



swan

Happy New Year

We are through the holiday wildness.
The presents are all opened, and the family gatherings are all past.
Himself has a brand new, full-length, black leather trench coat, and a shiny new knife. Today we picked up two new sports coats that T and I took Him to buy just before the holiday. They've been appropriately altered, and are ready to wear. So, He is all ready to enter the new year looking spiffy.
T got her much wanted mandolin and a ScanPan to replace one damaged earlier in the year. A couple fuzzy warm things to wear and some reindeer pretties add to her collection.
I have a new little video camera and an absolutely beautiful wall clock that I've wanted for YEARS.
We've eaten out more than is good for us, but it has been fun.
We are relaxing and enjoying a long weekend together. Tonight, we went for a walk together through the remarkably balmy (nearly 70 degree) weather that we are having here. It is very odd for the end of December, but made for a nice stroll.
We've had our bumps. Somedays are kind of tough, but overall, life is very good and we are very lucky.
We wish all our friends a very, very happy New Year.

swan

IO Saturnalia, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Joyous Yultide, Joyous Solstice

Whatever winter Solstice celebration you find meaningful in your life and family, we sincerely hope you experience a time of light, joy, and happiness in community with friends and family (or better yet with friends who are like family and family who are like friends:)

I have come to be taken in recent years with the absolutely huge untruth entailed in the widely accepted modern day beliefs about Christmas. The fantastic extent of those lies are only exceeded by the extra-historicitousness of contemporary orthodox Christianity.

What follows is terrifically long and is as comprehensive a history of Christmas (and Christianity)in the U. S. as I have found. If you invest the time it takes to wade through this (and it does indeed require investment) I think you will find the factual background on Christmas is wildly yawed from what you have been taught since childhood and in your Church, if Church is part of your life.

I sincerely hope you enjoy this season's most wonderful gifts, feasting, and joy, and don't forget that many of the original commemorations of this season involved the celebration of fertility by stinging women and girls with whips:)

All the best,

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.


THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN CHRISTMAS MYTH AND CUSTOMS
B. K. Swartz, Jr.
In 1951 I took a course on American History from Professor SoorenFrankian at Los Angeles City College. When the Christmas holiday season came around he abandoned his regular presentation and gave a lecture on the origin of Christmas customs. Thirty years later, in the Christmas season of 1981, the idea of giving a special Christmas lecture to my introductory archaeology class at Ball State University intrigued me and I remembered Dr. Frankian's lecture. I had kept the notes of that lecture, added some material I had and gave my special Christmas lecture to the class. From that time forward I annually revised and expanded the material, especially during the holiday season. Almost nothing of Frankian's lecture now remains intact. Much of the material compiled is "popular" in nature and was then evaluated, revised and verified. The eminent anthropologist Ralph Linton wrote an article entitled" One Hundred Percent American" in the American Mercury, Vol. 40 (1937) highlighting the idea that almost all the customs and beliefs we hold dear have foreign origins. I used my Christmas lecture to illustrate this theme. Ironically the recent book The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum (1997) demonstrates that the composite of a non-ecclesiastical Santa Claus we all know and love who brings gifts on the day of Christ's nativity is probably a completely American construct and not of Dutch origin!

GENERAL BACKGROUND
Fundamentally Christmas celebration is based on the intertwining of two ethnic patterns, Roman transition rites and Germano-Celtic Yule(jiuleis) rites-feasting and mortuary practice. First known use of the word Christes-Maess was in England, 1038. The English titled Feast Days with Mass Days. No Saint's day listed for December 25th. Abbreviation Xmas; X is Greek Chi, the first letters of Christmas--not X blank out. In colonial New England Thanksgiving, not Christmas, was the important seasonal holiday. Puritans passed an anti-Christmas law in 1659, repealed 1681. Christmas celebration was resisted by the Congregationalist Cotton Mather (1663-1728). First recorded post-repeal celebration was in 1686. Christmas was declared a holiday in Louisiana, 1837, and a national legal by the U. S. Congress in 1875. It was unimportant in the United States until 1880's when the church relented. In 1885 a law was enacted giving federal employees Christmas day off. Christmas declared a legal holiday in U.S. late(1894 or early 20th century).
DATE
Though generally assumed to be an approximate conventionalized date for the solstice, the original significance of the date December 25th(25 Kisleu Jewish calendar) is unknown. We know the day had important ceremonial and social significance, apparently unrelated to solstice activities, among the Seleucids by 167 B.C. (I Macabees 1:58-59, IIMacabees 6:7). In pre-Christian Rome Mithra was seasonally reborn not on the day of the solstice, but on December 25th. The Romans had another deity for the solstice, the goddess Angerona. Her festival day is December 21st. A passage of Plutarch implies Mithraism was brought to the attentionof the Romans from accounts given by Cilician pirates in 67 B.C. The Mithraic mystic cult developed in Armenia from a local late surviving version of Mazdaysnian. Mithra (originally a pre-Avestan Indo-Iranian god of contracts and broad pastures) was syncretized with the Semitic Babylonian gods of the sun--Shamash and seasonal regeneration--Tammuz(originally rendered as Dumuzi a Sumerian fertility god). After his introduction to Rome the composite Mithra, and perhaps his December 25 date of celebration, were again syncretized with Solis indigeni (a Roman sun god derived from the Pelasgean titan of light - Helios). This resulted in a composite being Solis invicta, the invincible sun. Mithra was the god of the regenerating sun and was annually reborn on December 25th. Aurelian eventually proclaimed Mithraism the official religion of the Roman Empire in A.D. 274 and Natalis Solis Invicti (Birthday of the Invincible Sun) became an official holiday. Worship of Christianity was legally allowed in the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great, Edict of Nicomedia (Milan), A.D. 313. Now the two focal celebrations of both religions occur on December 25th,Mithra's sun regeneration and the Christian nativity (Sun of Righteousness). According to St. Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople,the "Roman Church purposefully placed the keeping of Christmas between two popular folk festivals, Saturnalia and the Kalends of January, in order to give Christians something to celebrate [undisturbed] about while others were engaged in secular merrymaking." The December 25th date for the Roman Christian celebration was generally accepted in Western Roman Empire probably some time before A.D. 336 when parts ofthe Philoclian calendar were composed, but certainly before A.D. 354 when the text was completed and the act officially recognized byBishop Liberius. The Christmas nativity gradually replaces Mithra's birthday ceremony. It is reasonable to suppose that the conjunction of Mithra's birthday with a holiday honoring Jesus Christ's nativity would eventually lead to the assumption that Jesus was born on December 25th. This transference, however, is not explicitly documented. The date of the birth of Jesus (Yehoshua-Ben-Yosef) is unknown. There was no concern of this event by Christians in the first century. In the bible there are no common narrative features and many contradictions on the birth of Jesus between Matthew and Luke. There are only two common points in the accounts, (1) Bethlehem location(which is necessary to fulfill prophecy of earlier time though there is not one shred of historical evidence, i.e. the messiah is to be born in city of David's birth) and (2) the Virgin birth of Jesus by Mary(Miriam) (actually from Hebrew "almah" - a marriageable women of child-bearing age, not necessarily a virgin by contemporary meaning). A third nativity account is given in the Pseudepigraphal gospel of James. It is considered unreliable. To this day January 6 is the Eastern Church date to celebrate the Theophany of Christ. Before AD 381 it was a unified date celebrating both Christ's nativity and baptism. Originally it was a nativity date established by Egyptian Christians in the 1st century and was apparently calculated from the belief Jesus died April 6, A.D. 29(year inferred from Luke 3.23, date from Passover of that year) and "existed" on earth exactly 30 years from his incarnation). December 25th was the later accepted date of Christ's nativity by eastern Christian churches (Orthodox, Ukrainian, etc.; Armenians still do not). Chysostom states in AD 387 that the vacated January 6th had become the date of the Epiphany for the western church. This shift in dates was not due to Gregorian calendar correction. Representation of Epiphany in Western churches was based on the manifestation of Christ by Magi (who may have been Parthianastrologers). In the Eastern churches it was based on (1) Christ's baptism by John, and (2) his first miracle at Cana. The twelve holy Roman days (actually nights, there are 13 days) established in 47 B.C. between the end of the Saturnalia (December 19th) and the Kalends (January 1st) eventually became the twelve holy days of the Christian Christmas celebration. They were officially adapted to the Christmas-Epiphany interval at the Council of Tours, A.D. 567. The Romans transferred the Saturnalia to the beginning ofthe year in the 4th century."Her [Holda] annual progress, which, like those of Herke and Berta, is made to fall between Christmas and twelfth-day, when the supernatural held sway" (Grimm, Jakob 1844 Deutshe Mythologie, translated by Steven Stallybrass, Teutonic Mythology, 1966 Dover: NewYork, 4 vols., p. 268). This passage indicates the Germans accepted the twelve days of Christmas. The Anglo-Saxons may have introduced this idea to England in post-Roman times."Old Santeclaus with much delight His reindeer drives this frosty night. O'er chimney tops, and tracks of snow, To bring his yearly gifts to you.....Each Christmas eve he joys to come Where love and peace have made their home" William B. Gilley, A Children's Friend, 1821. This is the first documented reference associating Santa Claus with Christmas on December. 25th, rather than St. Nicholas' gift giving Saint Day, December 6th.
SAINT NICHOLAS(ecclesiastic bishop)
There is a shrine dedicated to a Bishop Nicholas in Myra, Lycia (AsiaMinor), its origins dating back to at least the 6th century. A Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, attended the First Council of Nicaea in A.D.325 (Nicene Creed establishing the trinity). That is all the first hand evidence known about Nicholas. Before the ninth century tales of feats about Nicholas evolved. The best known states that before he was a Bishop he saved three dowerless maidens from being forced "to shameful means of earning a livelihood" by throwing in at their window on three successive nights purses of gold, thus providing each with a dowry. Hence the custom of distributing gifts and his protection of virgins becomes associated with him. In later time he becomes the saint of mariners, thieves, virgins and children. Accounts by Bishop Methodus of Constantinople, A.D. 842-46 remake Nicholas. He was born, perhaps, in A.D. 280 at Patara and died in December 6, A.D. 342, 343 or 345. This allows him to be of plausible age at Nicaea. The exact day of his death may be an adaptation of Poseidon's feast day to connect Nicholas with the ocean and mariners. Nicholas may have been promoted to saint status at this time and a Saint's Day is provided. Vladimir Duke of Russia (Kiev) visited and was baptized at Constantinople in 1003. Upon returning to Russia he made St. Nicholashis country's patron saint (this may have been a composite with St. Nicholas of Penora who died in the 7th century). He soon becomes associated with an arctic landscape and was popular with the Lapps andSamoyeds. This may be the result of the syncretization of St. Nicholas with the Russian winter folk spirit Father Frost. Father Frost has along white beard, is dressed in furs and drives a sled drawn by reindeer. St. Nicholas becomes the dominant saint of the Eastern Church. Italian sailors transported his remains from Myra to Bari, Apulia in1087. The contracted Muslim craftsmen wrote "There is no God butAllah, and Mohammed is his prophet," in disguised calligraphy on the wall of the church that housed his remains. When discovered it could not be effaced. About 80 years later a west European St. Nicholas cult was established with a center of commemoration at Metz, Lorraine, which then spreads up the Rhine and into the Low Countries and eventually England. In England, however, his identity was lost due to theReformation and a Druid like Father Christmas was created.St. Nicholas was removed from the Universal Calendar of Saints byPope Paul VI, 1969. He still maintains sainthood in the Orthodox Church. Some of his remains (including a piece of skull) and possessions were transported from Bari to the Greek Orthodox shrine, Flushing, NewYork, 1972. Other reputed remains are at Myra.
SINTER CLAES(1400?-1773, ecclesiastic trappings, syncretized with Woden, rotundDutchman, not connected with Christmas)
The original Sant Nikolaas or St. Nicholas, just described, was the patron saint of sailors and navigators and, hence, admired at theDutch maritime center of Amsterdam, who made him a hero. St. Nicholas and the Low German god Woden became syncretized as a single figure. Prior to this St. Nicholas was portrayed as a youth with black trimmed beard. The Dutch also celebrated Woden (better known as the Norse Odin) who wore a full white beard, had a magic cloak and dispensed gifts to children. Woden was an Iron Age Indo-European god who rode ahorse. Children placed their shoes and hay (to feed the horse) nearthe fireplace. Eventually Woden merges into St. Nicholas, corrupted asSinter Claes.In 1442 Aragon (Spain) takes over the Norman Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (where Bari is located). In 1556 Holland is united with Spain(Spanish Hapsburgs). It became the custom for Holland's bishops to take summer vacations in Spain, including the fictive St. Nicholas. He was overwhelmed with updating his ledgers on children's behavior and rewards. He hires a Moorish youth named Zwart Piet (Black Pete), to keep his records. He accompanies Sinter Claes to Holland and on the eve of his feast day, December 6th, Sinter Claes rides his horse, lands on rooftops and descends through chimneys. Black Pete transported and dispensed birch rods for bad children. In function Black Pete serves as a Dutch non-pagan version of the German knecht (servant) Ruprecht (Robert), a black sprite helping St.Nicholas as a disciplinarian of children. Ruprecht "appears in shaggy,sack on back (like later Santa Claus) and rod in hand" in the 16th and17th centuries (Grimm, op. cit., p. 504, fn., compiled before 1844).The English counterpart of knecht Ruprecht, Robin (Robert) good fellow is documented as early as 1489 had a loud laugh of Ho Ho Ho (W.J. Thoms 1839, in Grimm, op. cit., p. 502). Indeed numerous supernatural "little people" were associated with St. Nicholas at this time in German folklore, contributing to his eventual elfin status and collaboration with elf helpers. Sinter Claes with Black Pete
SANTA CLAUS
Phase 1 (1773-1793)(no description, probably an ecclesiastic bishop)The claim that Dutch settlers, in 1626 introduced Sinter Claes to New Amsterdam (to be New York) is an invention of Washington Irving(History of New York, started in 1809). Charles W. Jones states (1954,Knickerbocker Santa Claus, New York Historical Society Quarterly, Vol.38, No. 4, pp. 357-383, see pp. 367-71) that no documentary evidence has ever been found of a Dutch Santa Claus cult in New Amsterdam or in the [pre-1773, BKS, see below] British colonial period in New York. The settlers of New Amsterdam were Protestants, not Catholics, with little St. Nicholas tradition. Santa Claus was apparently made an important figure (Saint of the City of New York) by English-Americans. The earliest known documentary record is 1773, "otherwise known as St. a Claus" Riverton Gazateer,New York, Dec. 23, 1773. This is the first known reference associating Santa Claus with Christmas. It may be a take off from a 1772 proclamation of a St. Tammany and Protecter referring to a well known 17th century Delaware Indian. There was a second meeting of: Son o fthat "Ancient Saint" in 1774 in New York.There is no further reference of Santa Claus until 1793. He may have gone underground, being an anti-British figure during theRevolutionary War. He may have been the precursor of Uncle Sam who first appears during the War of 1812. Americans may have chosen the figure of St. Nicholas to oppose the British symbolic leader, St.George. It is interesting to note that in the first illustration of Santa Claus by Nast (see following), 1863 - Civil War, he is attired a star spangled jacket and striped pants.
Phase 2 - (1804-1841)(ecclesiastic bishop to an avuncular elf)In 1804 John Pintard and others founded the New York Historical Society, Pitard making St. Nicholas the society's patron saint. This was a revival of the Dutch tradition of St. Nick as a gift bringer. It is not certain that Pintard was familiar with the Phase 1 American Santa Claus developments. Washington Irving joined the society the following year and attended the annual St. Nicholas say banquet. A woodcut of a long-robed Sinterklaus was present. Pintard commissioned Alexander Anderson to prepare a broadside of St. Nicholas. He is ecclesiastical but wields a birch? stick and holds bags (of coins?). This illustration was distributed to the Historical Society members in 1810. This seems to have been a conspiracy to promote a benign figure for the Christmas celebration in order to quell inter class muggings and riots in the city of New York. Anderson broadside of St. Nicholas (1810)Washington Irving adopts and adapts the Dutch Sinter Claes cult.Between 1804 and 1821 Santa Claus becomes an elf fully dressed in fur(from pelznichol?, see below) in an arctic landscape with reindeer and sleigh, all miniaturized. The reindeer team and arctic residence maybe an Anglo-American borrowing of Father Frost (see above), and his elfin nature may be based on Pennsylvania Dutch (German)pelznichol association (see below)."Old Santeclaus with much delight His reindeer drives this frosty night O'er chimney tops, and tracks of snow To bring his yearly gifts to you."William B. Gilley, A Children's Friend, 1821.This is the first mention of Santa Claus with reindeer. The word "drives" in Gilley's poem is third person single, indicating only one reindeer. An illustration accompanying the poem shows a non-ecclesiastical Santeclaus, but with a scepter. The classic poem A Visit from St. Nicholas [or ''Twas the NightBefore Christmas] traditionally written by Clement C. Moore, was composed for Christmas 1822 in New York, published December 23, 1823 in the Troy, New York Sentinel. In this poem Santa drives a sleigh(Dutch device, not English) with an 8-reindeer team [Dasher, Dancer,Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder and Blitzen (i.e. thunder andlightning, the Dutch spelling for the former, rather than Donner,being used), portrayed in the poem. Nissenbaum, Stephen, The Battle for Christmas, 1997 makes some interesting observations about Moore's poem. Due to widespread practices of upper class extortion in New York during the Christmas season Moore wished to create a gift giving figure that was not threatening. Santa could not be an ecclesiastical bishop or patrician. He could not wear a robe, but a sooty fur suit. He had to be a jolly elf and plebian. He smokes a stubby pipe characteristic of the plebian class rather than the upper class long pipe described by Irving. "He looked like a peddler, a peddler just opening his pack."Don Foster has questioned Moore's authorship of the poem (AuthorUnknown: On the Trail of Anonymous, 2000) by making a comparative analysis of the poem to known Moore compositions. Moore did not claim authorship until the poem was published in a book in 1837. Foster suggests Henry Livingstone, a Revolutionary War veteran from Poughkeepsie, New York, may have been the author. The use of anapestic tetrameter in the poem is similar to the tripping meter of Pitard's poem inscribed on the 1810 broadside of St. Nicholas. Because of some structural similarities Nissenbaum offers the suggestion that the writer might be acquainted with the poem "Days of Doom," by Michael Wigglesworth, 1662. Also, its theme of judgment day could relate to punishment of bad children. A later book of the poem was published in 1848, illustrated with seven wood engravings by T. C. Boyd. The portrayals are unrelated to the description in the poem, i.e. Boyd's Santa Claus is adult in size with fur forming only a jacket fringe and cap. The reindeer are fully antlered. Male reindeer have undeveloped or no antlers during the winter."He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf" "When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer. With a little old driver....." "He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot and his clothes were tarnished with ashes and soot." "The stump of a pipe held tight in his teeth," "When out on the lawn these arose such a clatter.....When what to my wondering eyes should appear To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!.....As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky So up to the housetop the coursers they flew.....And away they all flew like a down of a thistle" It appears to have been driven on to the lawn and then the team leaped on to the roof, violating Phase 1 and later fully airborne accounts. "Stockings were hung by the chimney with care" "And he filled the stockings....." This is an Anglo-American adaptation from Dutch children having their wooden shoes filled with gifts. "Hang up a stocking on the chimney," mentioned by Irving, 1809. The Pintard commissioned engraving by Alexander Anderson, 1810, shows a fireplace flanked by two oversized stockings. A poem, in whose meter Moore later copied his work, was published in a New York newspaper, 1815. It asks Santa Claus to bring gifts for children's stockings. This appeal may have been the crucial factor that suddenly allowed the shift of custom. There is a variation to the legend (see above) of St. Nicholas dropping gold coins through the chimney into stockings hung under the chimney to dry by the dowryless maidens. No Christmas tree is mentioned, not common in 1822. The writer borrowed from Washington Irving's text for the poem: "And laying his finger aside his nose, and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; "Irving describes this same mannerism, but associated with a wink. The visit has Santa Claus winking at an earlier time in his poem. In colonial New York body language this mannerism means, "it is between you and me, and in this situation it would be "it is a dream, you know I do not exist," and the understanding is emphasized by the wink."And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath". Irving says "Like a cloud overhead."A Post-Moore, Pre-Boyd Santa Claus, by Robert W. Weir (1837)New York Historical SocietyPhase 3 (1841-1885/6)(often full-sized or even overly large, avuncular, skin-tight red attire, Victorian bourgeoisie appearance, Woden-like beard becomes full and eventually gray) A man-sized image of Santa Claus becomes dominant around 1841. In thisyear a Philadelphia merchant, J. W. Parkinson, hired a man dressed as Kris Kringle (see following) to climb a chimney outside his shop. Thomas Nast, the well-known political cartoonist for the Harper's Illustrated Weekly, drew illustrations of Santa Claus from 1863 to1886. In the Christmas season of 1866 he compiled a montage of drawings of Santa Claus. George P. Walker made five of these drawings into color lithographs illustrating a poem in a widely distributed children's book Santa Claus and His Works, ca., 1870 under the pseudonym George P. Webster. The poem steals in form, meter and style from Moore's poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, but with different content. Santa is portrayed as an overly fat, jovial, white bearded elf, wearing a spotted red-brown, skin-tight suit, the base of the jacket trimmed in white ermine lined with spots or attachments just below a red sash. This is the earliest portrayal of Santa Claus in red. Medieval Greek Orthodox Bishops (which is what St. Nicholas was) wore red vestments He wears what Walker calls a "queer cap." It is red, circular with a fur-like rim and a smooth-surfaced conical top tapering to a tassel at the apex and a sprig of holly is on the front. In one of these lithographs he holds a long pipe (cf. Irving)."He is round at the waist, but what care we have for that. Tis good natured people who always get fat." "But Santa Claus comes in his queer looking hat." Walker has Santa's sleigh pulled by deer--not reindeer: "His deer from the mountains, all harnessed [to his sleigh] with care." Unlike Moore, Walker has the team airborne: "With his queer looking team through the air he will go, and alight on a roof, now all white with snow, and into a chimney will dart in a trice, when all are asleep but the cat and the mice; then will fill up stockings with candy and toys."Moore's Santa is elfin, but does not employ elves; he works alone. Walker does not mention elves in Santa's workshop: "He goes to his shop and labors once more, and all the long year with his paints and his glues. He is making new toys, little children, for you." Nast emigrated from Bavaria and was familiar with pelznichol (seeKriss Kringle following). Elves and Santa's workshop are probably post-Civil War (replacing the void of Black Pete's absence?) and probably originated with Nast who was familiar with industrious dwarves of German mythology who are busy making things. Walker's verse, 1870, indicated that Santa Claus lives near the North Pole: "In a nice little city called Santa Clausville, with its houses and church at the foot of the hill, lives jolly old Santa Claus....." "His home through the long summer months, you must know, is near theNorth Pole, in the ice and snow." "I told you his home was up north by the pole, a palace of ice lives this happy old soul." In a Nast cartoon Santa Claus is sitting on a wooden trunk addressed "Christmas Box 1882, St. Nicholas, North Pole." This continues the arctic cast of Santa Claus. There was enthusiastic acceptance of Santa Claus by Finns during Russo-Finnish War, 1939. They maintain Santa's winter quarters are at Rovaniemi, Finland, not the North Pole. Features of Santa mentioned by Walker and have not persisted to the present are his dog, named Watch, and his spyglass. "With his dog standing behind him, and spy glass in hand, he looks for good children all over the land." Nast illustration (1866) of Walker's (1870) Santa Claus
Phase 4 (1885/6-Present)(white fur-trimmed red suit, black belt and boots, sometimes miniaturized until 1931)
In 1885, Louis Prang (see Christmas Cards), established the presently clad Santa Claus with black boots and belt, a bright red non-flannel white fur-lined suit and a white tufted tassel hat, in Christmas card illustrations. By the 1920's the red suit becomes standardized. About 1890 Santa Claus' modern Christmas role becomes established. The first store Santa Claus was James Edgar, Brockton, Mass., 1890. Mrs. Claus created by Katherine Lee Bates, Sunshine and other Versesfor Children, 1890 (ref?), violating sainthood celibacy restrictions. Letter to Virginia (O'Hanlan), Francis P. Church, New York Sun,1897--"Yes Virginia. There is a Santa Claus. " The image of Santa Claus now becomes varied and often elfin, rejecting Nast's robust figure. The Oz illustrator W. W. Denslow drew Santas of Munchkin-size. Arthur Rackham, an artist and illustrator of children's books drew Santa as an elf. Norman Rockwell drew full-sized Santas for the Saturday Evening Post. Archie Lee of the D'Arcy Advertising Agency proposed a realistic, modern appearing Santa Claus with red cheeks and wrinkled face, but appearing vital and young, for Coca Cola. This image was painted in oil by a commercial illustrator Hadden H. Sundblom, starting with the 1931 holiday promotion. The original model was Lou Prentice, a retired salesman who died shortly thereafter. This is the Santa Claus we know today. Straw and carrots are left for the reindeer. Hay was left for St.Nicholas's horse before 1821. These items were, at one time, left for the Magi's camels. Americans leave milk and cookies for Santa Claus. In England sherry and mince pie are left. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was created Robert L. May, promotion pamphlet, Montgomery Ward, Chicago, 1939. The song composed by John Marks, October, 1948. The song becomes a hit with Gene Autry's 1949 rendition. Rollo and Reginald were names also considered by May. Pipe association lost soon after the release of the U. S. Surgeon General's Special Advisory Committee report in l964 connecting smoking with lung cancer. Norman Rockwell Santa Claus (1920)Sundblom Santa Claus (1931)
KISS KRINGLE
St. Nicholas cult was overcome by the Reformation in Germany since it not mentioned in Bible, but reaction eventually produced a secular figure. St. Nicholas was replaced by the figures pelznichol (furNicholas), perhaps borrowing in turn his fur outfit from Father Frost, and Kristkindlein (Christ Child). In America the Pennsylvania Dutch called pelsnichal belsnickel. Originally Kristkindlein was Christ Child, then a messenger.(p) Kristkindl is portrayed as a radiant veiled child figure with golden wings, wearing flowing white robe and a sparkling jeweled crown, and carrying a small Christmas tree or wand. Belsnickel, sometimes posing as Santa Claus in furry disguises, sometimes with whiskers, may have been Donner (Lower German thunder god better known as the Norse Thor) rather than Woden (see 1869 Harper's Illustrated Weekly sketch), hence being the devil, pagan and anti-Christian. Kristkindl corrupted to Kriss Kingle in the U.S. Amalgamated with St. Nicholas, Kriss Kringles's Book (added "r"), Philadelphia, 1842. Unlike Santa Claus early Kriss Kringle did not fill socks, but put presents on the tree.
FATHER CHRISTMAS
Father Christmas is a Post-Reformation English equivalent of Santa Claus. St. Nicholas reference and ecclesiastical trappings are completely removed. He is portrayed as a giant, wearing a scarlet or green fur-lined robe, has a crown of holly, ivy or mistletoe, carries a Yule log and a bowl of punch. He distributes gifts on Christmas Eve. The "Ghost of Christmas Present" in Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol,1843, is Father Christmas.
CHRISTMAS TREE
The account of the Seed Tree (or "tree of all germs") in Paradise, described in the Avesta, becomes the story of the Tree of Life(Genesis 2:9) in the biblical Garden of Eden. With the introduction of Christianity in northern Europe the beliefs of sacred trees in Germanic mythology incorporate the concept of the Tree of Life. This association is explained by the English missionary Winfred (later St. Boniface) in northern Germany during the early 8th century. The fir tree commemorates the Holy Child. Winfred chanced upon a group of heathens at an oak tree. They were preparing to sacrifice a little prince to the god Thor. He stopped the sacrifice and cut down the"blood oak." As the oak fell a young fir tree appeared--the tree of life representing Christ. Decoration maybe was based on the Paradise Tree (apples--the serpent)from the popular mystery play about the "fall of man," which was being performed by 1415. December 24th was Adam and Eve's Day in the early Christian calendar. The play ends with foretelling Christ's coming andincarnation--Christmas tie to Nativity? Another medieval mystery play setting was the Weihnachtspyramide, a wooden pyramid. A wooden pyramid "of green brush wood," with candles was present for a Moravian Christmas in Bethlehem, Pa., 1747. These two devices were probably the origin of the Christmas tree. Estonians claim to have displayed evergreen Christmas trees since 1441. An evergreen tree was decorated on Christmas Eve in Riga, Latvia, 1510. There is no continuity of this event and later developments. "No burgher shall have for Christmas more than one bush of more than eight shoes' length," Forest Ordinance of Ammerschweier, Alsace, 1561. Clearly Christmas vegetation, probably decorated, was being put in homes by this time. The first recorded tree referred to as a Christmas tree was at Strassburg, Alsace, in 1604. It was called a Paradise Tree(see above). Christmas trees are common throughout Germany, from Alsace-Lorraine area, by early 19th century. Christmas trees were in England by 1789, became common by 1829, andpopular after Dickens' Christmas Carol (1843). In 1848 Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert (of German Saxe-Colburg, Gotha,background) had a four foot high tree at Windsor Castle. It had candles, ornaments, ribbons and trinkets. A widely dispersed engravingof the tree pictures Albert, Victoria and their children. Modified copies of this engraving (removal of queen's tiara and alteration ofornaments) appeared in U.S. illustrated magazines including Godey'sLady Book, 1850. An immense Christmas tree was present at the Crystal Palace Exhibition, London, 1851.Prince Albert Christmas Tree Engraving (1848) Possibly the Christmas tree may have had limited occurrence in America by Upper Rhine Pennsylvania Dutch as early as 1710. According to legend Christmas trees were introduced to America by Hessian troops, but there is no documented evidence. Washington crossed the Delaware without resistance, 1776, since the Hessians were supposedly celebrating Christmas. Hessians are credited with introducing the tree to children at Newport, R.I. Another undocumented reference is that in 1804 U. S. soldiers stationed at Fort Dearborn (now Chicago) hauled trees from the surrounding woods and placed them in their barracks for Christmas. The Pennsylvania Dutch probably introduced the Christmas tree to America. First documented occurrence was Matthew Zahm, Lancaster Co.,Pa., 1821. It was popular in New England after widespread distributionof a penny pamphlet reprint of a page in Retrospect of Western Travel, Harriet Martineau, 1838. Commercially cut trees were in Philadelphia markets by 1848 and tree cutting in the Catskills by Mark Carr, 1851 created a market in NewYork City. The artificial Christmas trees, made of wire and covered with feathers, appear in Germany in the 1800s. The first artificial brush trees were manufactured by the Addis Brush Co in 1930s. A Christmas tree at the White House, Washington, D.C., was decorated byFranklin Pierce (friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne) in 1856. The annual lighting of the Christmas tree at the White House began in 1923. The tree was cut and sent to President Calvin Coolidge from Middlebury College in his native state of Vermont. National Living Christmas Tree was planted at Sherman Square near White House, 1924. A communal Christmas tree was displayed on Mt. Wilson near Pasadena, California in 1909. General Grant redwood in Kings Canyon National Park was dedicated as the official Nation's Christmas tree, 1926. The Christmas tree is not present to this day in Mediterranean countries--Italy, Spain, rare and recent in Greece (Olive tree used byByzantines).
CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTS
There is information that Neo-Babylonians practiced a lighting ceremony commemorating the rebirth of Tammuz (see Date sec., para. 2)symbolizing the return of light and heat at the time of the winter solstice. This ceremony was transferred to the commemoration of Mithra after syncretization with Tammuz by the Mazdaysnians. Lighting wasprobably achieved by use of oil lamps, but when the ceremony became establish in Rome, dipped tapered candles, a method and form devisedby the Romans, was used. This "Feast of Light" (a phrase used byJosephus) was transferred to the celebrating of the Christian Nativity, when this celebration replaced that of Mithra's rebirth. Christmas tree candles common by mid-19th century. They were possibly adapted from tree ring (candle circle around tree) or candle pyramids, important features of Paradise Mystery Play (see preceding). Use of candles in floor trees evolve from table trees in the late 19th century. They were a fire hazard. Bayberry candles may be English. Bayberry is a coastal plant. Bayberry candles are popular in New England. The annual lighting of the Christmas tree at the White House began in 1923. The tree was cut and sent to President Calvin Coolidge from Middlebury College in his native state of Vermont. National LivingChristmas Tree was planted at Sherman Square near White House, 1924. First electric lights in a tree were at home of Edward Johnson,Thomas Edison's assistant, New York, 1882. The first publicly lighted tree was at the home of Edward Johnson, Thomas, Edison's assistant, New York, 1882. The first publically lighted tree was at Reading, Pa.,1886. Strung telephone switchboard lights, New England, 1895, were commercially sold by Ever-Ready Co., General Electric, 1903. President Grover Cleveland first used Christmas tree lights in the White House,1895.
OTHER CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATION
The 15th century Klausenbaum was a craft guild tradition. The tree was wrapped in paper and decorated with apples and candies. A star or angel was placed atop the tree by the beginning of the 17th century. Metallic angel hair used on Christmas trees in eastern U.S. cities by 1830's. Fiberglass angel hair developed in Germany about 1880. Used as garlands in Europe, individual stands in America. Glass blowing of Christmas tree ornaments develops as a cottage industry in Lauscha, Thuringia, Germany, in the 1840's. These ornaments become common in America in the 1870's and include glass globes (Paradise Tree apples?). Ornaments are kept from year to year. Patent for tree stands was issued to Hermann Albrecht and Abram C. Mott, Philadelphia, 1876. Thin silver sheeting was produced in Germany about 1610. Silvertinsel (icicles) developed in Nuremberg, Germany, 1878. They tended to tarnish and lead foil was substituted. They became popular in the U.S. in the 1920's. Concern of lead poisoning led to the substitution Mylar after World War II. Metal "Rope" garland becomes popular about 1890. It originates from manufacturing process of extruding silver-plated copper, developed for decorating military uniforms, Germany, 1610. Hooks replace string for hanging ornaments, 1892.Plastic foam is post World War II.
OTHER PLANTS
Mistletoe, Connected to Germano-Celtic tree worship (see Christmas Tree section above). Mistletoe is a common parasite on oak and ash trees. It remains green throughout the winter, thus symbolizing renewal. Kissing under mistletoe bough or sprigs was a custom of the English servant class in the 18th century until 1850 when it begin to spread to the upper classes. Dickens describes the activity in the Pickwick Papers, 1837. Holly, used on festive occasions in Rome. Ivy was a common alternative, especially in England. Wreaths with berries originate with the Roman Christians. According to legend Christ's "crown of thorns" was of holly, the berries turning from white to red after crucifixion. Advent candles (four, one each Sunday before Christmas) in a wreath occur in Hamburg 1839, made by Lutherans. This custom may date back to 600 and may be the basis of the Advent Calendar? Commercial holly available today was hybridized by Kathleen Meserve on Long Island, New York in the 1950's. It is hardier than wild forms with brighter berries and glossier leaves. Also, unlike English holly, it can survive temperatures as low -20°F. It is called Meserve Holly. Poinsettia, introduced to U.S. from Mexico by Joel Roberts Poinsett, Charleston, S.C., in 1828, while he was Minister to Mexico. It was considered to be the "flower of the blessed night," representing the star of Bethlehem to Mexicans in the 18th century. It is a common decoration in Mexican Nativity processions. The poinsettia as a potted plant was promoted by Albert Ecke, Hollywood, California, in the early1900's. Yule log (usually of oak or ash), is a burning rite, probably of some antiquity, recorded in Germany in 1184 and later in the Italian Alps,Balkans, Scandinavia, France and Iberia. The ceremony is flourishing in Devon, England, by the 1630's and becomes associated with Father Christmas. Goose as Christmas food is probably a part of this complex too.
FOOD
The Christmas food we eat today is a blend of two feast patterns. The first is the Winter Festival Feast, a la Dickens This pattern was Germano-Celtic in origin in Europe and centered on the solstice celebration. In America this pattern became established in the Mid-Atlantic states in Virginia (Episcopal control) and New York Dutch(not Pennsylvania Dutch which have sausage, smoked meat, ham, etc.).The second food pattern is the Harvest Bounty Feast. It has a reformist background and its origins are from the post-Henry VIII Harvest Home Ceremony. Pilgrims in New England established this tradition and by the 19th century the celebration was transferred from autumnal thanksgiving harvest time to winter Christmas time. The bulk of the colonial Atlantic south (Maryland to Georgia) had little celebration, Christmas being disdained by Scotch- Irish Presbyterians. Winter festival food (original Christmas food at Jamestown, 1608) is oysters, fish, "meat," wild fowl and bread. Eggnog, originally egggrog (post-1750) is a later colonial Virginia concoction. It was made by adding rum to the French drink lait de poule. Traditional winter festival food is boar, roast, mince (meat) pie, plum pudding (raisin"hearts," no plums), sugarplums (originally greengage plums boiled in syrup and cornstarch, crystallized by cooling, but now considered to be chocolate coated cordials. The term survives from Moore's A Visit from St. Nicholas poem "with visions of sugarplums dancing" and TheNutcracker Suite "Sugarplum fairy"). Goose also in complex (see above). Wassailing (salutation drinking from a bowl), is anAnglo-Saxon (at least the term) - Wass Hael, "Be in health." The bowl to be kept full from Christmas Eve until the Twelfth Night. Harvest bounty food (supposed original food at Plymouth Rock, 1621) is turkey, pumpkin, corn, lima beans and cranberries. The only food items that have any documentation at the original meal, however, are venison and wild fowl (turkey?). Turkey was domesticated in Mesoamerica and was in England by 1524 and then to New England by early colonists and crossbred. Some original Pilgrims may have eventually known of domesticated turkey. To show the split in food pattern, Puritans banned mince pie in colonial and commonwealth Massachusetts. They believed the devil was baked in. It is now tolerated for Thanksgiving. By the 19th century these two basic food traditions were blending in Europe and America. Though Dickens, Christmas Carol (1843), conveys a Winter Festival food tradition, Tiny Tim's family served fowl, and turkey is mentioned at end of the story. An ideal New Yorker (city) Christmas meal in 1875 was turkey stuffed with oysters. Hubbard (winter) squash (Andes) is later food item and now thrives in the cool climate of New England. The "Irish" potato was domesticated in the Andes highlands and was introduced to America from Ireland after the Irish famine of 1845-46. The sweet potato was domesticated in northern tropical South America. It probably was introduced to thesouthern U.S. by Caribbean slaves in the early 18th century. To this day it is not popular in New England. The yam we are familiar with is not a true yam, but a variety of sweet potato.
NATIVITY SCENE
The circumstances of the birth of Jesus are unknown (see Date section,para. 5). Biblical accounts are contradictory about the type of locale of Jesus' birth. In Luke 2.11 it says "laid him (Jesus) in a manger"(feeding trough). There is no mention of a stable. In Matthew 2.11 it says the Wise Men enter a house. In biblical times a typical house had an attached room for animals. Though Joseph and Mary may have been turned away from an inn (Luke 2.7), they were probably not outdoors when Jesus was born as is assumed in modern creche scenes. There is tradition that Christ was born in a cave near Bethlehem, according to the pseudepigraphal gospel of James, and by Justin Martyr in the 2nd century.Though the evidence of a pastoral setting for Jesus' birth is not clear it was assumed by some as early as A.D. 343, the earliest recorded manger scene. There are Medieval manger scenes in caves, houses and churches, and occasionally in stables or with shepherds. The ox and ass legend is no earlier than 3rd century and was added in art representation by 1498. It is based on non-gospel biblical accounts: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib"(Isaiah 1.3). "In the midst of 'two animals' [actually 'the year,'Septuagint mistranslation] thou shalt be known" (Habakkuk 3.2). St. Francis of Assisi, in Greccio, Italy, 1223, initiated the tradition of the more elaborate nativity pageant with animals in a grotto. Pastoral nativity pageants (in stable with shepherds) are post-Medieval and develop in south German areas, probably from Moravian German putz (decoration). In Luke (2.16) shepherds do visit the scene. Shepherds were also present at birth of Mithra (see Datesec., para. 2). Luke may have transferred this tale to his gospel account. There is no connection of the Magi with a manger and no mention of camels in the gospels. The idea of camels may come from"crossing the desert" from "the east.", but two the gifts are materials suggesting southern Arabian origin. Though three Magi are shown in nativity scenes it is not known how many there were suppose to be. Madonna portrayals are common in Renaissance Italy and were copies of Isis with Horus representations in Egyptian art from the Middle Kingdom and later. In the Eastern Church Mary is not portrayed sitting with the child in her lap, but lying down, recovering from the biological act of childbirth. It is not considered a virgin birth.
CHRISTMAS CAROLS
The pre-Carol song "Glory to God in the Highest" was ordered to be sung by Roman Christians, Bishop Telephorus of Rome, A.D. 129.Choros was a Greek circle dance. Carol music was in Western Europe well before 1020. The prototype was the French Carole, a secular ring dance. Carols evolved despite the Edict of Rouen (7th century) banning caraulas (dancing and leaping songs). They developed in the vernacular, outside the church and were spread by traveling minstrels. They were adapted as religious music Carol laudi (pious lyrics) by St.Francis of Assisi, in the 13th century, cf. French noel and Germanweihnachslieder. The word "carol"was in the English language by 1300 as a song bearing both a burden and refrain. The traditional Yule carol almost disappears during the Puritan repression in both America and England, but persisted in rural areas. It was revived in 19th century. Dickens' Christmas Carol, 1843, further associated carols with Christmas. "The First Nowell," English, is one of oldest known carols. "Angels We Have Heard on High" was composed around 1290. Major traditional carols written and composed in the U.S. are "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," Edmund H. Sears (Wayland, Mass.) and Richard Willis, 1850-51 (New York), "We Three Kings of Orient Are,"John H. Hopkins, Jr., 1857 (Williamsport, Pa,) and "O Little Town ofBethlehem," Phillips Brooks and Lewis H. Redner, 1868 (Philadelphia). "Away in the Manger," is an American folk carol. "Go Tell it on theMountain" is a black American carol collected by Frederick Jerome Work(1820-1942).Wasseil songs have separate origin as Christmas music.
GIFTS
Gift giving was common during the Roman Saturnalia. Nuns in France started giving gifts to the poor on the eve of St. Nicholas' , 13th century. Gift giving was repressed by the medieval church. Post-Medieval gift giving was rationalized as part of Christmas in post-Medieval times by the Catholic church on the basis that (1) it associates St. Nicholas with Christmas, and (2) gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh were gifts given to Christ by Magi. Protestants honored the Weihnachtsbaum (spruce), symbol of gift giving on Christmas day. Gift giving in colonial America was based on class differences, the poor accosting the rich and demanding food, drink and money. In the1820's, borrowing from the New York Dutch, gift giving was transferred to gifts for the children from parents. Moore's poem may have been a factor in this. This started Christmas commercialization. Christmas shopping was encouraged to overcome the 1839-40 depression. Boxing Day, England, Feast of St. Stephen, December 26th is a legal holiday. Church alms boxes open to collect money for the poor. A Christmas bonus is given by businesses to its employees in England.
CHRISTMAS CARDS
Salutation - "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" were present in 17th century correspondence. Merry is probably of English origin and was introduced to America in Dickens time. In Moore's poem (l822) the reader is addressed at the end with the phrase "Happy" Christmas. Merry originally meant "short (of time)", or time is short when you are enjoying yourself. The precursor of the Christmas Card was elaborately penned school compositions for the student's family. The key factors permitting the development of the Christmas Card were the 1840 British penny post and the invention of the steam press. Christmas cards were first printed (1000) in London, England. They were designed by John Calcott Horsley of the Royal Academy for Sir Henry Cole in 1843 and were sold at Felix Summerly's Home Treasury Office. The greeting was "A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You." A portrayal of a child sipping wine in a toast on the centra lpanel caused a stir with temperance groups. Cards were first mailed(to friends) by W. C. Dobson (Queen Victoria's favorite painter) in 1845. First mailings in U. S. were in 1846. Louis Prang, a Boston lithographer, marketed multicolored Christmas Cards in Europe in 1865, and in the U. S. in 1875. He made Christmas Cards popular. Mailing was expanded with the "penny post card," 1893. Half-tone engravings appear in 1900. The home photograph card begins in 1902 by Eastman Kodak. The first Christmas seals were circulated by Einer Holboell, Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1903. In the U.S., Miss Emily Bissell distributes Christmas seals, Wilmington, Delaware, Post Office, 1907. The proceeds were to fight tuberculosis.
MISCELLANEOUS CUSTOMS
Bells. The kinds of bells that relate to Christmas are, (1) cup form Church bells, which appear ca. AD 400 in Italy, and (2) bells on traveling animals, a practice that goes back to antiquity. Bells are transferred from St. Nicholas's horse to Santa Claus's reindeer. There is no reference to Christmas in "Jingle Bells," recorded by J. S.Pierpont, Boston, 1857. The first Salvation Army donation kettle was present at Oakland ferry in 1891. The associated hand bells are not mentioned at this time.
Colors. Colors may come from a composite of St. Nicholas's Greek Orthodox Bishop vestment (red) and Woden (English Father Christmas source with green robe). The green of Woden would represent the Celto-Germanic idea of evergreens surviving through the winter and representing the renewal of life.
Candy cane. Candy canes are replicas of shepherd's crooks. It was children's candy originated by a Cologne cathedral choirmaster in the 1670's. It is ideal in form to hang on the branch of a Christmas tree. In 1859 Amalia Eriksson, Granna, Sweden, devised the manifacture of alternating red (peppermint) and white striped rock candy in 1859. According to Nancy Baggett (All-American Dessert Book, HoughtonMifflin 2005) candy canes became popular in the United States in the1920s when Bob McCormack of Albany, Georgia produced them in large numbers. His ingrediants were corn syrup, sugar, peppermint flavoring and starch. In the 1950s his brother-in-law devised a machine that enabled him to undertake mass production

INDEX TO EARLIEST KNOWN ORIGINS OF AMERICAN CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS
Note:- American origin locations generally not indicated.
Advent candles - 600?, at Hamburg 1839
Airborne reindeer and sleigh - 1870,
WalkerCandy cane - 1670's, Cologne
Christmas cards - 1843, England, Horsley
Christmas carols - well before 1020, Europe
Christmas seals - 1903, Copenhagen, Holboell
Date (December 25th) - before 336, Rome
Egg Nog - after 1750
Epiphany - 387, Rome
Ho Ho Ho (Santa's laugh) - 1839, England, ThomsHoliday - 1837, Louisiana
Holiday, federal - 1885
Lights (oil lamps?) - ca. 600 B.C., Neo-Babylonia
Lights, dipped tapered candles, Rome
Lights, tree, candles - common by mid 19th century
Lights, electric -1882, Johnson, public 1886
Lights, strung (switchboard) - 1895
"Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" - 17th cen., Europe
Mrs. Claus -1890, Bates
Name, Christes-Maess - 1038, England
Nativity scene - 343, Roman Christians
Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, historical record - 325, Nicaea
Poinsettia -1828, Mexico, Poinsett
Reindeer and sled - 1821, Gilley
Reindeer, team of eight and sleigh - 1822, Moore
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer - 1939, May (hit 1949)
Saint Nicholas invented - 842-46?, Methodus, Constantinople
St. Nicholas cult in Western Europe established - ca. 1160's, Metz,Lorraine
St. Nicholas removed Universal Calendar of Saints - 1969, Paul VI
Santa Claus (earliest documentation) - 1773, New York.
Santa Claus (with Christmas nativity celebration, documented) - 1821,Gilley
Santa Claus as an elf - 1822, Moore
Santa Claus, man-size - perhaps 1841, Parkinson
Santa Claus in red attire - 1870, Nast
Santa Claus near North Pole - 1870, Walker
Santa Claus at North Pole - 1882, Nast
Santa Claus in current dress - 1885, Prang
Santa Claus standardized realistic portrayal - 1931, Sundblom
Stocking at fireplace - 1809, Irving
Store Santa Claus - 1890, Edgar
Tree, Paradise - before 1415, Europe
Tree, evergreen, decorated on Christmas Eve - 1510, Riga, Latvia
Tree, Christmas in U.S., Pennsylvania Dutch - 1710?; doc.1821, Zahm
Tree in White House - 1856, Franklin Pierce
Tree, communal - Mt. Wilson, 1909 from: http://www.bsu.edu/web/01bkswartz/xmaspub.html

Christmas -- Mission Accomplished

Our T's mother lives in the city just about 45 minutes north of us. Her brother lives just a few minutes from her mother's house. She has a young-adult niece and teenage nephew, both of whom she helped to parent when they were very small, who live with their mother in Michigan. When the kids come to visit, it is an event.

Our usual routine at the holidays is to go one evening to her mother's house to have dinner with the kids and open gifts with them. The timing of that is always a little tight as their visit is sandwiched in between jobs, school, and their desire to get back home for Christmas day with their younger siblings.

Tonight was the planned gathering. We were scheduled to head north as soon as Master and T got home from work. The "enchilada casserole" (our contribution to dinner) was ready to go. But then trouble struck in the form of a significant ice storm. The warnings were that there were accidents everywhere and that the roads were increasingly difficult closer to T's mom's place. We checked the online weather services and found that it was projected to get icier and icier until about 2 AM. By the time she was ready to leave work and head home, T had decided that it was impossibly dangerous to make the trip tonight. She was heartbroken; so was her mother.

Both Master and T made it home safely after work, and we ate a very somber supper. T was terribly upset. We talked about how many years we've pulled this off without ever being impeded by weather. As we talked, Master came to a decision. He'd driven in far worse weather than this, and He was quite sure that He could navigate the roads. We were on our way after all...

T called her niece and nephew to tell them we were on the way, and they were amazed. "But the roads are terrible," they told her. She assured them that it would be OK. "After all, your Uncle is a force of nature," she told them.

We made it just fine. We picked the kids up at their father's house, and went on to their grandmother's house. The neighborhoods were pretty dicey, but we did fine. We hand a lovely visit, opened all the gifts, chatted for a bit, and headed on home. Master is the Hero of the season. What could have been a very sad ending to our evening before Christmas Eve turned into a happy family gathering because He made it happen.

We're well launched into the seasonal festivities. May all of you find your way, through whatever obstacles, to be with those you love and care for. Have a wonderful Christmas.

swan

My Mom ADORES Tom! (and I think he is pretty swell, too!)

Because we are a blended family, we have lots of obligations during the holidays. Last Sunday, we did a dinner at the retirement community where Tom's Dad lives. Tomorrow, Swan and I will prepare the annual Christmas Eve dinner with the 3 of us, Tom's Dad, Tom's son, our Ex-Wife, and our Ex-Mother-in-Law. Thursday we will do Christmas Dinner and gifts with the afore mentioned group, plus Tom's daughter, her partner and Son's girlfriend. That will be held at our Ex-Wife's home. Whew!

And today, is when we exchange gifts and do dinner at MY Mom's. But all was falling apart for tonight. The weather was shitty.... Ice was falling from the skies. Mom called me 2 times at work to express her concerns about us traveling up to her. And finally I relented. I called Swan and told her not to bake the enchilada casserole. I called Tom and told him about the weather at Mom's and how the mailman almost fell on her sidewalk due to the icy conditions. And I cried as I called my Mom and told her we could not safely make it to her, my niece and nephew. I said that they should call me on a speakerphone, so I could be a part of the gifting... And I cried. I cried all the way home from work.

When I got home, the 3 of us shared the enchilada casserole I had made to share with the rest of my family. It is one of my Mom's favorites, I made it for her....and I cried. Tom was doing everything he could to cheer me up. He came up with all sorts of ideas to get me to my Mom's...even leaving here at 1am and opening presents with her at 2am! And then he got all Domly with me and said "The hell with it! I have driven in worse than this. We are going!" .... and I cried.

We packed it up and headed north to my Mom. Picked up my niece and nephew and we went to her house. Took us 4 tries to get into her driveway because of the severe icing. But she was thrilled and I was VERY touched that Tom did all of this for me....and my Mom.

We have been home about 30 minutes. And about 20 minutes ago, Mom called to make sure we got home safely. And to tell me "We got ourselves a good one. Tom is a wonderful man and we are lucky to have him."

Yes, Mom. We are indeed lucky to have him. There are days that I want to strangle him when he is being a poo-head (not very subby of me, I know). And then there are times that he is forgetful or preoccupied and I am not the first thing on his mind. And then there are these precious times that he goes beyond reason to make me happy and to care for my family. I cannot express my gratitude for Tom's presence in my life.

During this season of giving, we are often too caught up in the actual presents, and fail to see the gifts before us. Tom is our gift. Swan and I are blessed to have him in our lives.

I love you, my B-B. You bring joy to my life and fill my heart with love.

Mores & Mores,

T

Toy Collection #7

This is another Toybag Toys paddle, called (creatively enough) the heart paddle. Duh!

It is a tiny, little thing -- not much bigger than the palm of my hand. Done in solid maple, it is a gorgeous thing to look at, and deceptively sweet... Do not be fooled. Looks can be deceiving, and this is a wicked little toy.

The heart paddle, unlike the dragon paddle, can and does leave impressions on my ass. Carefully and accurately placed strikes will leave perfectly shaped, lividly red, heart-shaped marks all over the place.

Anyone who has had much paddle experience can tell you that the more diffuse the blow from such an implement, the less intense the sting it creates. A very large paddle surface can be challenging just because it is often heavy and capable of bruising, but a tiny little paddle like this one creates a flashing, white-hot sort of burning sting that is really quite breath-taking. When these were still being sold by Toybag, it was not unusual for unsuspecting, inexperienced submissives/bottoms to ASK for one of these monsters. After all, they look entirely innocent, and really very cute. I've never known anyone, who ever asked for the heart paddle more than once...

swan

Toy Collection #6

I've got nothing to report about all the Hanson paddles, so let's just move on.

This is the "dragon" paddle. It is, in my view, the very best of paddles. It is a beautiful, decorated, leather piece, purchased years ago from an E-bay auction. The hand-painted dragon is embossed into the surface. There was a time, when this paddle was new, that my then-husband would attempt to create dragon impressions on my ass. That never really worked, but this paddle remains one of my favorite implements. It is both sensuous and lovely. To me, that "lovely" bit is somehow important or significant, although obviously, I don't get to see it much in action.

Nowadays, the dragon paddle languishes, neglected, at the bottom of the trunk where we keep the toys we hardly ever use. When I mention it, Master just snickers. It doesn't seem like a paddle to Him...

swan

A beautiful White Light of Our Community Now Burns Only in Our Hearts

caitlin of caitlin smiles, we have just learned from her devoted Master and husband, has died. Those of us who had the privilege of getting to know this sensitive, caring, brilliant, and very articulate woman feel her loss very deeply. She was someone who enriched your life just in the most basic interactions. You always left your communications with her feeling your life had somehow been enhanced.

She was good enough to carry on a correspondence with us privately and to also phone us and stay in touch. We knew that she was very ill and that she struggled to stay with her Master and his family and to be the glue of her family. She was the essence of a true M/s spouse, despite barriers that almost no one would have overcome to carry forward.

We three feel huge regret for her loss and the greatest sympathy and desire to support her Master and family. We hope that as time goes along the wonderful gifts we know she shared with them in so many ways will overshadow the pain of her loss.

This is a sad moment for us all.

Tom
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

The Hits Just Keep on Coming

Our t, having not sworn off watching news programming reported at breakfast this morning that during the George Stephanopulous Sunday morning news talking heads program Democratic Party spokesperson Donna Brazile minimized the flap over Rick Warren's role in the inauguration saying that "by the time Aretha Franklin sings everyone will have forgotten about Rick Warren."

I sent the following statement to her at her personal website and the ABC website :

I was appalled at the callous disregard for the bruised feelings and passions of civil rights activists in your on air comments this morning that by the time Aretha Franklin sang at the inauguration, everyone will have forgotten all about Rick Warren.

My family and I worked terribly hard and sacrificed not readily available finances to help elect Barrack Obama believing he was a sincere civil rights advocate and that the Democratic Party was espousing a platform for social progressivism and self-determination for all Americans regardless of what class or color or orientation or belief. We were fooled and we were lied to by the Democratic Party, and by Obama.

Those of us who are advocates for civil rights for Americans and who have been so since the 60's will not be watching an inauguration the spiritual center piece of which is the bigot Rick Warren, so Aretha's dulcet tones will be lost on us, and we will never be led down the path again by the Democratic Party. By the way, I am not gay. I hear consistently in the media that the only people who care about the Bigot Warren's role in the inauguration are gay activists. I don't want you to make that assumption.

There has never been a greater demonstration of the concept that there is nothing to be offered Americans by either major political party. I have worked to elect Democrats and to fight for civil rights since I graduated high school in 1967. I will work from this point forward to empower a third party to defeat Obama and whoever the Republicans trot out in 2012. I never thought that when we saw a black man finally assume the leadership of our nation, he would embrace, as his spiritual standard bearer, the leading bigot in today's anti-civil rights battle in America. Now that there is an African American in the White House it is clear he is so "in" that he can join the establishment in discriminating against others.

We will forget all about it when Aretha Franklin sings.............YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED.....and you will be astounded at the duration of our memories!!!!!

All the best,

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

The Dominant Culture

I've found it interesting to read the comments in response to Master's post about the invitation made by the Obama inauguration planning team to Rick Warren. Clearly, there is a perspective, that is pretty widely shared, that Rick Warren is just a guy whose opinion differs from ours, and that he is of course entitled to that opinion -- and really no one should judge him harshly. People both here, and in the wider culture seem to have real trouble with those who would point to Warren and those who believe as he does, and use the label, "bigot." I am just fascinated.

Merriam-Webster defines "bigot" as a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices ; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance. I suppose we would quibble about whether Warren is obstinate or intolerant or treats gays and women and those with a scientific world view with hatred, but here he is -- judge for yourself:







Actually, as I read about and listen to the various snippets of comments that Warren has made, I am increasingly convinced that he is so sure of his own cultural status and role that he is utterly blind to the potential that his views might be wrong. It is not an unusual thing for those who are part of a dominant culture to see their own ways of doing things as "superior" to all the others that they might encounter. Anthropologists are familiar with this issue, and work to be careful about making culturally biased assumptions as they encounter different societies and customs. Much of the historical injustice in the world can be traced to this phenomenon. Here's an anthropological cautionary note on the subject:

Dominant culture -- Whereas traditional societies can be characterized by a high consistency of cultural traits and customs, modern societies are often a conglomeration of different, often competing, cultures and subcultures. In such a situation of diversity, a dominant culture is one that is able, through economic or political power, to impose its values, language, and ways of behaving on a subordinate culture or cultures. This may be achieved through legal or political suppression of other sets of values and patterns of behaviour, or by monopolizing the media of communication.


The problem is that for most of us, the culture in which we are raised and trained simply looks more "right" to us than everything else. It takes real awareness and openess to understand the value of another culture. That insulated cultural viewpoint is so ingrained that we scarcely notice it most of the time. Thus it is that, until very recently, most of us bought and used "flesh colored" band-aids, and never ever considered that they are only "flesh-colored" if you are caucasian. For all those of any other racial group, band-aids were nowhere near flesh-colored. Today, Johnson & Johnson markets a band-aid that they call "Perfect Blend," but it has been nearly 100 years since the first band-aid came to market. Progess comes slowly.


The current battle for marriage equality for GLBT people reflects, in significant ways, the long battle to end the application of miscegenation laws in this country. Laws prohibiting miscegenation in the United States date back as early as 1661 and were common in many states until 1967. That year, the Supreme Court ruled on the issue in Loving v. Virginia, concluding that Virginia’s miscegenation laws were unconstitutional.

The first recorded interracial marriage in North American history took place between John Rolfe and Pocahontas in 1614. In colonial Jamestown, the first biracial Americans were the children of white-black, white-Indian, and black-Indian unions. By the time of the American Revolution, somewhere between 60,000 and 120,000 people of “mixed” heritage resided in the colonies. There was some serious thought that it would be appropriate and beneficial to encourage the practice of interracial marriage. Among the advocates were president Thomas Jefferson, and American patriot Patrick Henry, who proposed that intermarriage between whites and Indians be encouraged through the use of tax incentives and cash stipends. Despite this, interracial unions were not well accepted in the colonies and, in many cases, were made illegal. The idea that Africans and their descendants were not only different from, but inferior to the English was prevalent. Increased immigration at the turn of the twentieth century generated discourse on the question of race. Theodore Roosevelt, repeatedly expressed his belief that the Irish were of an inferior race, that Asians should not be allowed to enter the U.S., and that Jews had “not yet gotten far enough away from their centuries of oppression and degradation” to become a physically strong race. In 1924 Congress passed the Immigration Act, a series of strict anti-immigration laws calling for the severe restriction of “inferior” races from southern and eastern Europe. As late as the 1950s, almost half of the states had miscegenation laws. While the original statutes were directed wholly against black-white unions, the legislation had extended to unions between whites and Mongolians, Malayans, Mulattos, and Native Americans.

During the 1960s, the civil rights movement helped reverse many of the legal barriers against miscegenation. Then, in 1967, the supreme court took up the case of Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia. In that year, sixteen states still had laws that made interracial marriages illegal. The case was brought about by Perry Loving, a white man, and his African American and American Indian wife, Mildred Jeter. Since interracial marriage was illegal in their home state of Virginia, the couple was married in Washington, D.C. When they returned to Virginia, the newlyweds were arrested and put in jail for breaking the law. Before dawn one morning, police officers barged into their bedroom, shined a flashlight on them, and demanded to know what the couple was doing. Mr. Loving pointed to their framed marriage certificate on the wall, but the officers informed them that the D.C. license was not legal in Virginia. At the trial, the Virginia judge gave the Lovings a choice: they could spend one year in jail or move to another state. In his opinion, the judge said:
Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

The couple grudgingly moved to nearby Washington, D.C., and appealed their case, which eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ultimately, the Court found the laws against interracial marriage unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the Court’s decision: “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed upon by the State.” With that decision, all the remaining anti-miscegenation laws in the country were null and void.

It is the battle that, ironically, paved the way for our soon to be 44th president. Born in 1961, Barack Obama is the son of a white mother and a Kenyan father. Had the prevailing, dominant cultural view not been challenged, and eventually overturned, no child of "mixed" parentage could have risen as he has in this country. For me, it is precisely that fact that makes it so hard to countenance Obama's seemingly naive insistence that marriage is only what today's dominant culture says it is. Because, in spite of Rick Warren's adamant assertion, marriage has not ALWAYS been defined the way he defines it. The definition of marriage depends on not only the historial period, but also on the geographical location and the cultural traditions of the individuals involved in the marriage relationship. A general definition of marriage is that it is a social contract between individuals that unites their lives legally, economically and emotionally -- the religious context is a rather latter-day afterthought. Being married also gives legitmacy to sexual relations within the marriage. Forms of marriage include:
monogamy
polygamy
polygyny
polyandry
same-sex
pragmatic (arranged)
romantic
forced

So, we are locked in a huge battle for cultural dominance. No matter what he might think, no matter how overpowering the numbers of others who believe as he does (about 71% of U.S citizens identify as Christian -- about 7% of those are of the evangelical stripe), Rick Warren (and others like him) do not have the right to simply override those who differ from him in this culture. The United States appears to be going through an unprecedented change in religious practices. Large numbers of American adults are disaffiliating themselves from Christianity and from other organized religions. Warren could/should take a lesson from the BDSM culture. Our community understands how dominance works. If you are the dominant half of a relationship, then you get to have things be the way you say they will be. That is the nature of power exchange dynamics. Relating based on a defined power exchange can be good and positive and joyful, but we all understand that the essential prerequisite is consent. Non-consensual power exchange wears labels like rape and kidnapping and abuse.

Better, we keep in mind the words of President William Clinton at his own inauguration: "Thirty-four years ago, the man whose life we celebrate today spoke to us down there, at the other end of this Mall, in words that moved the conscience of a nation. Like a prophet of old, he told of his dream that one day America would rise up and treat all its citizens as equals before the law and in the heart. Martin Luther King's dream was the American Dream. His quest is our quest: the ceaseless striving to live out our true creed."

To the "pastor" I'd simply say this, "Please feel free to believe and preach as you choose. You are surely entitled. What you are not entitled to do is IMPOSE your set of values and beliefs on me or mine. You are not the boss of me. I do not accept your views, and I will never, ever consent to your dominance. Someday, there WILL be marriage equality in this country. People will be able to love and form families as they choose. That will not harm your marriage. It will not weaken the fabric of our society. It will come -- for people who are GLBT, and eventually for those of us who believe that love is not limited to only two.

swan