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I'M A MEMBER OF THE LIBERAL MINORITY
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He's embedded deep in the trenches of the culture war
By GERALD NACHMAN
of TheColumnists.com
When my visa to travel to Kansas arrived last week
at my home in San Francisco, I began making plans for my first
trip out of state since the presidential election.
I had applied for a “provisional visa” several months
ago, during the heat of the Kerry campaign, but it was held up
until a well-placed friend at the Topeka DMV was able to pull
a few strings and speed up the slow-moving process that permits
“blue staters” to spend up to six weeks in the Midwest
for faith-based purposes.
I had, I was later forced to admit under intense questioning,
spent a couple of weeks as an election monitor in Akron, Ohio,
which only served to delay my papers of transit. There was some
initial suspicion when I wrote on my application for a visa that
I wanted to go to Kansas for “the waters,” but I was
able to talk my way out of it by explaining that I had somehow
confused Topeka with Hot Springs, Ark.
As a founder of Democrats Without Borders, I had the backing
of Habitat for Humanity and People for the American Way, which
only delayed my visa. It wasn’t until I got a letter of
recommendation from Gov. Schwarzeneggar’s office that the
visa finally came through.
After I was visited by a man from the Department of Heartland
Security, who spent four hours quizzing me on my reasons for
wanting to visit a red state so soon after the election, I received
a temporary permit to travel through middle America so long as
I identified myself as a fully-vetted heterosexual born in the
San Francisco border town of Oakland who was a member of a disorganized
religion (albeit a Jew, I assured the Federal agent that I rarely
attended synagogue but support Israel and the Christmas holidays),
I signed a sworn affidavit that marriage, as well as hooking
up and heavy petting, is often between a man and a woman.
When I vowed under oath that I did not drink wine, take drugs, rent porno or foreign films or dally with interns, my travel status was elevated from blue to purple.
I was asked if I had ever
been a card-carrying member of the Sierra Club, which I had not,
but forgot to report that I once belonged to the Save-the-Redwoods
League and had once requested that the city’s Urban Forest
foundation plant a tree in front of my house--probable grounds
for blacklisting by the Concrete Protection Agency.
When the officer from Heartland Security demanded to know my
reasons for visiting a red state, I said that it was purely non-partisan,
part of an exchange program between Topeka and San Francisco
to bridge the growing gap between cultures. Kansas authorities
had been reluctant to take part at first, but they were willing
to go along if they could monitor our work with an embedded observer
from the Republican National Committee who would act as our guide
to Kansas tourist attractions, once regarded as off-limits to
Californians.
As I explained, I would be holding seminars in local churches
in Topeka with the goal of bringing a few Frisco-based cultural
beliefs to the former hinterlands. Meanwhile, Kansas representatives
of American core values would open their homes to me and members
of my group--a gay person, a black person, a female CEO, a filmmaker
and a rapper.
Taking our cue from TV
reality shows, we would live as Kansans for a month in an effort
to better understand what it was like to live in an alien environment.
We in turn planned to offer our Topeka sponsors a chance to visit
San Francisco, tour the Castro District and dine at a fusian
Thai-Mex restaurant with a member of the liberal press, a bag
lady and Mayor Gavin Newsom. In return, I would receive a signed
photo of John Ashcroft, suitable (like so many of us) for framing.
Democrats Without Borders hopes to gain acceptance in all of
the red states by not forcing our way of life upon the indigenous
peoples of the Midwest, but, rather, by a concerted good will
program to show that Americans share certain basic beliefs, such
as most of the Bill of Rights, our love of country and even city,
that we are nearly one nation most likely under God, that guns
may be issued with a valid library card but that a tank-control
law is worth considering, and that life begins with the first
non-French kiss.
©2004 by Gerald Nachman. The Nachman caricature is ©2000 by Jim Hummel. The illustrations are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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