The moment we were waiting for, worked toward for decades, had finally arrived.

John and Ignatius, dressed in matching outfits, stood atop a raised platform in front of the spacious, soaring wood-ceilinged room at San Franciso’s Delancey Street Foundation. The setting was perfect for these two men, known well throughout San Francisco and across the United States for their generosity to causes far bigger than themselves. Delancy Street Foundation was created 44 years ago to help people rebuild their lives. John & Ignatius, by adding there enormous credibility and example of commitment to it, were helping to rebuild the institution of marriage.

Together for 25 years, the two of them have devoted much of their time, talent and personal resources to helping others, whether in the areas of public health, or in gaining and strengthening equal rights for the LGBT community or advancing fundamental human rights for all. To know these men was to love them, and a few hundred of us honored to be witnesses at their wedding, were testament to that.

Unlike many other weddings—same sex or opposite sexes–Carol and I have attended in our 43 years of marriage, this one was unique. There were no stretch limos, no lavish floral arrangements, no flowing-lace wedding gowns with receipts as long as their trains, nor any Long Island-style, over-the-top cocktail hours which could feed the entire homeless population of San Francisco.

Everything about the wedding, like the lives of the two men legalizing their long-standing commitment to each other, was centered around service to others. The choice of the location, the non-profit they established to receive donations in-lieu-of gifts, and the simply wonderful way they entered the room: barefoot, walking on a thin, white scrim that made them appear to be walking on a gentle cloud.

When they reached the platform at the front of the room, both paid tribute to the photos of their parents, deceased, which were placed up high in positions of honor. Then, they sat facing each other. With a room full of friends looking on, John & Ignatius performed the most basic act of humility and service, rich in symbolism and religious meaning: they slowly, lovingly washed and dried each other’s feet.

They weren’t elevated in their chairs and paraded around the room; they weren’t surrounded by bookends of bridesmaids and groomsmen, whose dresses, or shirt collars, were uncomfortably tight. It was just Ig & John up there, elevating the institution of marriage by stripping it down to its’ bare essentials—love, honor, sacrifice, service, commitment, community, family—of what mattered most.

I watched them and the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s Majority decision in the marriage equality case, handed down just 12 hours earlier, danced in my head:

        “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union two people become something greater than they once were…marriage embodies a love that may endure, even past death…they respect marriage so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves…They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

I touched Carol, who was standing next to me. Our marriage of 43 years—our life-long partnership– took on an even deeper meaning. The power of love in our case, and theirs, had overcome all obstacles.

Tears flowed; cellphone cameras created their own cacophony of clicking. Then silence, as the judge proclaimed:

“And by the power vested in me by the State of California, AND the United States Constitution, I now pronounce you married!”

Everyone erupted into wild applause and cheers. I whistled my loudest New York whistle, as if I was rooting on Buster Posey at AT&T Park. It was the first time in 66 years of life, I had ever heard the U.S. Constitution receive raucous reverance at a wedding.

Carol and I looked at each other again, grateful that the uncomplicated love, respect and fundamental rights we were fortunate to share with family and friends four decades earlier, at our simple, little civil ceremony, were finally available to all.

“Why Can’t A Woman Be More Like A Man?”

What is a woman’s mind? A woman’s soul? A woman’s heart? Does it exist? Is it any different from a man’s? Caitlyn Jenner thinks so. So does Vanity Fair. So do the misogynists in the Republican Party. And so, apparently did Henry Higgins, a century ago:

From My Fair Lady: “A Hymn to Him” (Henry Higgins, lamenting to his male friend Pickering, a century ago, of ‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man.”

Henry: What could’ve depressed her?

What could’ve possessed her?

I cannot understand the wretch at all.

Women are irrational, that’s all there is to that!

Their heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags!

They’re nothing but exasperating, irritating,

vacillating, calculating, agitating,

Maddening and infuriating hags!

[To Pickering]

Pickering, why can’t a woman be more like a man?

Pickering: I beg your pardon?

Henry:

Yes…

Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;

Eternally noble, historically fair;

Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.

Why can’t a woman be like that?

Why does ev’ryone do what the others do?

Can’t a woman learn to use her head?

Why do they do ev’rything their mothers do?

Why don’t they grow up- well, like their father instead?

Why can’t a woman take after a man?

Men are so pleasant, so easy to please;

Wherever you’re with them, you’re always at ease.

Would you be slighted if I didn’t speak for hours?

Pickering:

Of course not!

Henry:

Would you be livid if I had a drink or two?

Pickering:

Nonsense.

Henry:

Would you be wounded if I never sent you flowers?

Pickering:

Never.

Henry:

Well, why can’t a woman be like you?

One man in a million may shout a bit.

Now and then there’s one with slight defects;

One, perhaps, whose truthfulness you doubt a bit.

But by and large we are a marvelous sex!

Why can’t a woman take after man?

Cause men are so friendly, good-natured and kind.

A better companion you never will find.

If I were hours late for dinner, would you bellow?

Pickering:

Of course not!

Henry:

If I forgot your silly birthday, would you fuss?

Pickering:

Nonsense.

Henry:

Would you complain if I took out another fellow?

Pickering:

Never.

Henry:

Well, why can’t a woman be like us?

Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

Men are so decent, such regular chaps.

Ready to help you through any mishaps.

Ready to buck you up whenever you are glum.

Why can’t a woman be a chum?

Why is thinking something women never do?

Why is logic never even tried?

Straightening up their hair is all they ever do.

Why don’t they straighten up the mess that’s inside?

Why can’t a woman behave like a man?

If I was a woman who’d been to a ball,

Been hailed as a princess by one and by all;

Would I start weeping like a bathtub overflowing?

And carry on as if my home were in a tree?

Would I run off and never tell me where I’m going?

Why can’t a woman be like me?

(This version redacted–only slightly– straight (?) from the Republican Party Platform of 2016, and from the Editorial Boad Policy of Vanity Fair Magazine.”)

Just when you think it’s safe for Hillary to run for President against a field of Republican racists, homophobes, misogynists, fanatics, science-denialists and fools, her husband is caught getting hand-jobs from non-profit organizations, corporations, U.S. contractors and governments around the world.

These hand-jobs for Bill are not cheap tricks. The minimum price tag for them is $500,000, and the payoff can be as little as the Hillbilly yodeling for 30 minutes or more at a corporate or non-profit dinner, to as much as billions of dollars in US government contracts—or foreign aid—when Hillary was Secretary of State.

This is serious stuff,  and raises a “fundamental question of judgement” on Hillary’s part, relevant to the 2016 Presidential campaign, according to Lawrence Lessing of Harvard University’s Safra Center for Ethics. Journalist David Sirota writes in the May 29 issue of “Truthdig,” that while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State her agency approved “$165 billion of commercial arms sales to Clinton Foundation Donors.” As bad as that may be, Sirota reported on the number of foreign governments—some of whom had clear records of human rights violations–currying favor with the US government for foreign aid, by donating large sums of money to the Clinton Foundation.

These reports have sickened me. I want Hillary to be better than her Hillbilly husband. I want my granddaughters to grow up under a female President. But it smells of the same kind of shakedown artistry which Bill Clinton has always used to bastardize philanthropy on a grand scale.   A front-page story in the May 30, 2015, New York Times headlined “Clinton Award Included Cash to Foundation,” illustrates how the Hillbilly has strangled honest giving and made fools of philanthropists.

The Times reported on the “Happy Hearts Fund”, the charity established by model and Phuket Tsunami survivor Petra Nemcova, which paid a $500,000 fee to the Clinton Foundation for the Hillbilly to receive an award and speak at the non-profit’s gala, held on the 10^th Anniversary of the Tsunami last year, at Cipriani’s in NYC.

Cipriani’s is a pricey place to hold an event. As a CEO of a NYC based, national non-profit for nearly a decade, I avoided Cipriani’s because of its high pricetag.   The “Happy Hearts Event,” cost Nemcova $363,000—before—she paid the Hillbilly’s speaking fee of half-a million dollars. That meant that operating costs for the event—including the Clinton shakedown—neared the 50% level of the $2 million the gala raised: an unconscionable cost figure for ANY non-profit, in violation of all industry standards.

Executive Director of “Happy Hearts,” Sue Veres Royal, was dismissed for disagreeing with Nemcova’s numbscull spending, and she told the Times: “ The Clinton Foundation had rejected the Happy Hearts Fund invitation more than once, until there was a thinly veiled solicitation and then an offer of an honorarium….Petra called me and said we have to include an honorarium for him—that they don’t look at these things unless money is offered, and it has to be $500,000.” (Here’s the link to a copy of the invoice: http://nyti.ms/1FHg12n ) 

Columbia University’s Doug White, who heads the school’s Masters Program in Fund Raising Management was flabbergasted: “This is primarily a small but telling example of the way the Clintons operate…I find it—what would be the word?—distasteful.”

The “Happy Hearts” attack, was not the first time the Hillbilly filched from philanthropists.   Just one year earlier, the Israeli Jewish National Fund agreed to pay Bill Clinton $500,000 to deliver a 45-minute speech at a 90^th Birthday celebration for Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Peres Academic Center.

Jews like me, and in Israel, were furious. For decades, we supported the Jewish National Fund by “Planting Trees in Israel”, for $10 per tree, or three for $25, to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, and to commemorate the lives of family members who died. I planted one by hand, myself, in a JNF forest in 1991, to honor Harry Jacobson, the patriarch of my wife’s family.

The outcry from Jews who had trusted the JNF to spend our money on growing Israel’s forests, not the Hillbilly’s bank account, forced the JNF to rescind its pay-off to Bill. While the Clinton Foundation claimed it “redirected” the payment made to another charity, the highly respected Israeli publication Ha’aretz reported that after one year, the Clinton Foundation still had not repaid the JNF some $250,000.

The Clintons, it seems, find none of this distasteful and they can’t see past their greed for greenbacks to the green forests or trees. To the Hillbilly, those rolling hills of green are piles of cash, awaiting harvest.  Or, to turn the old Chinese proverb on its head:  every crisis, including Tsunamis that kill 200,000 people,  is an opportunity to clean up.

I don’t care about Bruce Jenner’s genitals. I don’t care if they’re male or female, intersex or no sex at all. It’s his biz, not mine.

I do care about the emotional torture people experience when they have questions about their gender identity or sexuality, especially if they are fragile adolescents, struggling to “fit in.” For that reason, I was hopeful that the Bruce Jenner interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC-TV would be a true public service and soothe some kid struggling between suicide and self-acceptance.

I hoped his tears were real, not the rehearsed ones of a reality-show retread. I wanted his words to be sincere when he said he wasn’t profiting from his soul-searching announcement. I almost deferred to Diane Sawyer’s journalistic integrity to sniff out sincerity, and not serve as a shill for a new sur-reality show starring Jenner’s genitalia. But alas, we were all scammed by the man whose glistening grin once graced a box of Wheaties. As for Diane, well…she once worked for Richard Nixon, the master of the national emotional con game.

The Hollywood Reporter’s story which ran on the same day of the heavily promoted ABC-TV Jenner/Sawyer interview, detailed that Bruce had already inked an agreement with E! Entertainment TV to do an 8-part “docu-series” about his transgender journey. Somehow, Loose with the Truth Bruce forgot to mention that tiny detail in his two hour heart-to-heart with Diane. Somehow, Sawyer forgot to bring it up as she looked into his crocodile-teary eyes. Maybe she didn’t know; maybe Jenner’s new reality-show deal—being produced by the same two producers who keep shoveling us “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,”–wasn’t signed until after the show was taped. Or maybe, just maybe, the bigger deal for ABC was to air the interview—which was a ratings romp over all other programs in that timeslot —by agreeing not to mention that Bruce and E! had a contract in hand as a condition of Jenner not jumping with his interview to a competing network.   Surely, Comcast, the owner of BOTH E! and NBC, had to know it’s Entertainment Network had been negotiating a new deal for yet another reality show featuring a Kardashian castoff. Network deals are not done overnight, and Comcast is the type of tightly run company where every deal is carefully scrutinized by its corporate lawyers.

For Jenner, it was like winning a Triathalon . He had a contract in hand with E! to pay him handsomely. His sex-change would be handled as a “docu-series”—a serious reality show; AND he took into his confidence, and his clothes closet, the credible former ABC Nightly News Anchor Diane Sawyer to serve as such a sympathetic salesperson. How could the slippery scheme be dismissed as just another extended series of Kardashian classlessness, if it were so subtly sewn into Diane Sawyer’s sophisticated hemline?

ABC got the botox injection of ratings it mainlines, Comcast/NBC/Universal got two hours of free Superbowl-style hype for an upcoming E! reality series starring Jenner’s genitals, and Jenner got….. an Olympic-sized Gold Cup overflowing with money, Diane Sawyer’s sugary sympathy, and a grateful nation of voyeurs turning our lonely eyes to him, once again.

Will this All-American hero/heroine donate a sizeable portion of his “Jenscam” (or “Genscam”) proceeds to counseling & healthcare services for transgender youth around the world? Will he use his new fame and fortune to fund anti-violence campaigns against the LGBT community, or at least to educate his fellow Republicans about sex, sexuality, gender and equality?

Will ABC devote part of the network’s financial windfall from the Jenner interview to do an 8-part “docu-series” on the lives of transgendered youth?

Will Diane Sawyer be fired—a la Brian Williams—for being duped, and missing the story of Jenner’s pre-existing contract with E! to bare all?

Don’t touch that touch screen…

( New lyrics by Steve Villano, with generous assistance from Paul Simon, and sung to the tune of “Me & Julio Down By the Schoolyard.”)

Mama Sonoma rolled out of bed

And she ran to the polling station.

When White Papa found out, he began to shout,

And started the investigation.

“It’s against the law; against natural law,

What the Mama saw, was against natural law.”

Mama ran down, campaigned around town,

Every time the name gets mentioned.

White Papa said “NO,” not a Castro,

I want to stick him in the house of detention.

We’ll we’re on our way, and we all know where we’re goin.’

We’re on our way—we’re takin’ our time, but we all know where—

Goodbye to Crazies, the Deans of Cojones,

See, it’s Hil and Julian up in the White House..

See , it’s Hil and Julian up in the White House.

In a couple of days they’ll try to take me away,

But the Tweets got my story leaked.

And when the radical Right tried to snuff out my life,

We was trending with all social news geeks.

Well we’re on our way, and we all know where we’re goin’.

We’re on our way—we’re takin’ our time, but we all know where—

See, it’s Hil & Julian up in the White House;

See, it’s Hil & Julian up in the White House.

Goodbye to Crazies, the Deans of Cojones,

See, it’s Hil and Julian up in the White House.

See, it’s Hil and Julian up in the White House.

See , it’s Hil and Julian up in the White House.

(Dedicated to “Mama Sonoma,” Mara Levy Kahn, whose wonderful full-of-life, full-of-love photo inspired this rendition.”

(A poetic parable, inspired by my granddaughters, ages almost 6 and 3 ½.)

Jack & Jill came home from school,

With empty pails for water;

Buckets for the bath & shower,

To catch runaway drops like we oughta.

The showers went on, the pails went in

And each one filled right to the brim.

“Now, careful! Don’t spill,” said Jack to Jill.

And gently, gingerly they went down the hill.

When they arrived, the plants were alive,

Leaves stretching up towards the sky, where rain

Once came, bye and bye,

Until the sky…just…went…dry.

Month after month, no rainfall fell

Making the ground feel hotter than… Well,

Hotter than it’s ever been,

Drier than anyone had ever seen.

Tomatoes shriveled on the vine,

And grapes just died before their time.

No sauce for the pizza,

No wine for the palate—

Just getting through the day

Felt like being hit by a mallet.

Lawns went dry; golf courses fizzled.

All for lack of a gentle drizzle.

“We’ve got to save enough to drink,” the Gov’nor said,

“Or we shall sink.”

So farms cut back, and frackers turned blue.

Cars went dirty, and sidewalks did too,

Just being sidewalks,

Like most sidewalks do.

Sprinklers didn’t sprink,

And people didn’t even THINK

Of filling up pools,

Or being greedy fools.

The grown ups had failed,

To fill up their pails,

Or save enough water,

For sons and daughters.

So Jack and Jill, came down the hill,

Joined by classmates by the mill…

Each kid had a pail, filled with melted hail

And each plant they saw, sipped carefully through a straw.

The plants began to cheer,

“Hooray, the future’s here!”

At last, the humans have found the cure:

It’s caring for each other, simple and pure.

So while awful dolts fought over puddles and piddles,

Sensible solutions came from those who were little.

They learned about sharing and caring in school,

And new cooperation was very, very cool.

Bucket by bucket our water grew,

One million pails, now there are two.

Keep ‘em coming , Jill, Jack & Janet;

You’ll be the heroes to save our planet!