Three Voices, Millions of Stories

“My story of coming out is no harder than anybody else’s,” or words to that effect, says a Manhattan lawyer. But, sorry, I’m not buying in. Why? Because Richard Socarides was coming out to Charles Socarides, and however famous the first Socarides may be now, the second Socarides was probably even more prominent. He was a well-known Upper East Side psychiatrist, a lecturer or professor at Albert Einstein University, and a specialist in treating the illness of homosexuality by “conversion therapy.”

In short, for the son, it was a true, “oh fuck” moment.

It ended happily, to a modified degree: initially angry, Dr. Socarides settled down, wrote his son a loving letter, and went right on believing that homosexuality was an illness. But family trumps some things.

I know all this because I got hooked on what is the 21^st century equivalent of Word is Out. Remember that? If not, here’s Wikipedia:

Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives is a 1977 documentary film featuring interviews with 26 gay men and women. It was directed by six people collectively known as the Mariposa Film Group. Peter Adair conceived and produced the film, and was one of the directors. The film premiered in November 1977 at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, and was released in 1978.

The interviews from the film were transcribed into a book of the same title, which was published in October 1978.

Well, that’s the official story. But I suspect that—more than the filmmakers will ever know—there are personal stories, stories that went something like this.

By the time I saw it, after it had premiered in the film festivals and been shown in art venues or wherever people saw such things, it would have been 1980, when PBS could finally muster the guts to risk a slash in public funding and air the documentary. So for days I had seen clips advertising the documentary, and I had set aside the hour to watch. My real worry was that my old TV—black and white with a 13-inch screen, and oh, it required two men to lift—would break down.

Did I have butterflies in my stomach and sweaty palms? A dry mouth? I may have, because even to watch the film, alone in my studio apartment in Madison, Wisconsin, felt radically subversive.

It was in the air, but it was never spoken. “He’s a fag,” people would whisper. “Don’t drop your soap in the shower,” people would snigger. “San Francisco” was code word for something that was so unthinkable that it couldn’t be named. It was worse than cancer.

Here’s how it was, since I—blogfully devoted to my Readers—have invested $2.51 to bring you the opening words of Consenting Adult, one of the earliest novels about a family’s coming to terms with a gay child:

She came to the end and stood as if tranced, without tears, nothing so easy as tears, stood motionless in the sensation of being smashed through every organ, through every nerve, every reasoning cell. Love for him, pity for his suffering, pride for his courage in telling her, horror at it, at the monstrous unendurable it— a savagery of feelings crushed her, feelings mutually exclusive yet gripping each other in some hot ferocity or amalgam. She read the letter again. Then only did she begin to cry, but not the ordinary crying, nor she the ordinary weeping woman; it was, rather, a roaring sobbing, of an animal gored. She heard her own sounds, and went to her bedroom door to close it, though there was no one in the apartment

Hobson, Laura Z. (2011-12-27). Consenting Adult (Kindle Locations 28-31). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

Horror, monstruous, ferocity, gored, sobbing. Oh, sorry, overlooked “savagery….”

OK—Hobson may never have been accused of an excessively light touch, but she wasn’t too far off the mark, either. Because coming out meant that you had been doing laps around and through hell for months. Even to think ‘I might be gay,’ was unimaginably scary.

So yes, I probably had sweaty palms that night when I turned on the TV because that, in a way, was to invite in the possibility that yes, I might be gay. Because my lack of the famous, adolescent, raging-bull lust for girls had been dismissed as, “you’re just not ready yet…..” (Yeah? A 16-year old getting erections in Algebra, and I’m not ready?) Oh, and then there was, “You’re just waiting for the right girl to come along….” (Guys? I’ve seen short girls, tall girls, fat girls, skinny girls—in short, every sort of girl—and not one of these is the “right” girl?)

“The homosexual,” you see, was an abstraction—but seeing a guy telling the story of coming out to his father? I was in tears. So much so that I can tell you how it went:

Son: Dad, I gotta tell you something important.

Dad: OK, let me grab a cigarette…

Son: Grab the pack…

To watch the documentary was to invite lesbians and gay men into my apartment, look at them, size them up and—most importantly—size myself up. Would I look at them, be repulsed, turn off the television, and embrace my newly-discovered straight self?

Do I have to tell you?

Well, I was thinking about all this yesterday, as I came upon Socarides via a wonderful project, “I’m from Driftwood.” Hmm—and what was Driftwood?

A small town in Texas, and the hometown of the founder of the project, Nathan Manske. Manske was inspired by a sign held by Harvey Milk, reading “I’m from Woodmere, N.Y.” So Manske began to wonder—we are all from somewhere. What if we went on the road, and collected the coming-out stories of everybody, famous but mostly not, of people as they endured that most challenging moment? The fifty state tour was born!

In a way, it’s a bit like “It Gets Better,” about which I have always had problems. Why? Because too often it felt like “it gets better” was more about us—those of us who have made it to the other side—making ourselves feel better. We survived, we thrived, we are now on television, and rich, and famous, and oh—here’s my perfect life, and you can do it too!

Yeah?

I’m sixteen and have pimples and all my friends are women or fucked-up artist types, and my father knows everybody in town, and he just told me he won’t support the ERA because it was for homosexuals, and ALL HIS KIDS ARE NORMAL. So, look: I’m so happy for your perfect life, but you know what? It just makes me feel worse….

Somehow, I’m from Driftwood feels different. I might be wrong—I often am—but I know one thing.

The project should be much better known.

Twenty Years Post Messiah

OK, my duty is clear: if yesterday we celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Messiah, don’t you, Devoted Readers, deserve to find out about it?

Anybody who has been to New York, and especially the Crown Heights section in Brooklyn, has seen them: the Hasidic Jews, easily identifiable by the long beards, the black Fedora hats, and the dark clothing. And I knew a bit about the Hasidim, since I had read the work of Chaim Potok, a novelist most famous for his first book, The Chosen.

But what do the Hasidic Jews and the novels of Potok have to do with the Messiah? Well, they are both intricately wound up with this figure, about whom Wikipedia says:

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (April 5, 1902 – June 12, 1994), known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe or just the Rebbe,[3] was the most influential rabbi in modern history and most famous rabbi since Maimonides.[4] From 1950 he served as the seventh and last Rebbe (Hasidic leader) of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

OK—even if Schneerson wasn’t the Messiah, to be called the most important rabbi since Maimonides is no little feat. Here’s what Wikipedia says about him:

Our Rabbi/Teacher Moses Son [of] Maimon"), was a preeminent medieval Spanish, Sephardic Jewish philosopher, astronomer[5] and one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars and physicians[6][7][8] of the Middle Ages.

OK—most of us know people who are “assimilated” Jews: men and women who may practice their religion to some extent, but who are essentially indistinguishable from the Methodists or Mormons or just atheists with whom they mix. But the Hasidim are in your face, and they’re intent on preserving a traditional way of life. How traditional? Well, they keep kosher: not eating pork or shellfish—hey, more shrimp for me!—and not mixing meat and dairy products. Women wear wigs or scarves—or both—in public and even in their homes, since, what if there’s a visit? And then there’s the matchmaker, who may have a “database” of hundreds or thousands of names.

True, it’s not quite as it used to be: the boy and girl meet, and sit together until they “feel comfortable.” Then, the marriage takes place quite quickly, with the bride and groom kept apart until the ceremony itself.

Domestic life is guided by 613 rules found in the Torah, and a prime job of the Hasidim is to procreate: eight children is the norm. And like the Mormons, there’s a big push to get out there and proselytize, though only to other Jews. Here’s one writer on the subject:

Lubavitchers (another term for Hasidim) are sent into the street as 13- or 14-year-olds to ask passersby, “Are you Jewish?” For those who say yes, they offer to help put on tefillin, the little wearable black boxes containing prayers, or, depending on the season, give them matzos or Hanukkah menorahs. They, too, may not convince others to become observant, but they are always solidifying their own observance.

So who was this man, the most important rabbi since Maimonides if not the Messiah? Well, he was born in Russia in 1902, the son of a rabbi. After becoming a rabbi himself, he made it to Portugal in 1941, to take one of the last boats out of Europe to the United States. There, he joined his wife’s family: his father-in-law was the rebbe of the Lubavitch community there. And his mission, as Wikipedia states, was:

…to rebuild Jewish life after the devastations of the Holocaust; to reverse the Communist eradication of Judaism in Russia; and to combat widespread assimilation by encouraging Jews to engage more deeply with their faith.

And the rebbe must have succeeded, since he sent 4000 missionaries around the world, reviving Jewish traditions, starting schools and day camps, and getting the fold back to a more faithful practice of the religion.

He knew both the great and powerful; here’s Wikipedia again:

During his years as Rebbe, he was visited by Presidents, Prime Ministers, Governors, Senators, Congressmen and Mayors. Notable among them are prominent American politicians such as John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Jacob Javits, Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, David Dinkins and Joe Lieberman.

But he also started, in the year he became the rebbe, the practice of talking to anyone who sought an appointment. The sessions would start at 8 PM on Thursdays and Sundays, and would often go throughout the night. In these meetings, the rebbe would give a dollar to this person who had sought his counsel; the dollar was to be given to charity.

His power and influence was great—in the world of orthodox Jewry certainly, but in many other places as well. Go to YouTube and check out, as I did, what Margaret Thatcher had to say about him.

And so for 40 years he was the rebbe, living, after his wife died, in the main synagogue, at 770 Eastern Parkway. Not a bad address—take a look:

And who was this guy, who apparently never claimed he was the messiah? Well, he seems singularly elusive:

We know nearly nothing of the Rebbe, whose organizational talent is largely responsible for keeping Judaism a worldwide religion (as well as keeping Judaism somewhat vibrant in pockets of communist countries, like those of the former Soviet Union)…. If the Rebbe had any personality outside his persona, either nobody saw it, or those who saw it don’t tell. Beholding the discretion of those around the Rebbe, one can only wonder that every pope should be so lucky.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/199036/why-rabbi-schneerson-was-good-for-jews-but-bad-for/#ixzz36KqaTjYQ

And so, last night, thousands of Hasidim gathered in the Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, New York, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the death of the rebbe. The men were in one side, the women in another, there was even a section for the goyim, or gentiles. People were writing names of the dead down on pieces of paper, asking for a special blessing; believers were parking cars on irate neighbors’ driveways; the devout were having a nip or two of—presumably—vodka.

Who knows, maybe he was the Messiah?

Conversion Therapy Minus One

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Pssst… The Minister's Gay

Consider these words:

McConnell matter-of-factly told me he likely helped write Bush’s 2004 remarks endorsing the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Even now the gay speechwriter defends that course. “I believed the president was taking a principled position, and the words he spoke on that issue were always reasonable and tolerant. That hasn’t always been the spirit of the debate, but it’s always been the spirit of George W. Bush. There was never a day I wasn’t proud of him and the vice president.”

(Full article here.)

It’s reasonable and tolerant to endorse legislation that restricts an essential human right? And you’re gay, and you’re writing the speech? Oh, and everybody knows you’re gay, since you’re bringing your boyfriend to White House activities?

If any of this makes sense to you, you’re firmly in the closet. Wait—make it stronger—you’re a mote of dust on the top shelf of the closet. But it turns out that McConnell was hardly the only gay staffer at the White House: there were more than seventy of them, a number that has surprised everybody.

By all accounts, Bush was a gracious man who, initially, was hardly the most vehemently homophobic Republican (remember Pat Buchanan?) True, two or three years into his term, he embraced the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, but he had appointed openly gay people and committed significant funds to combating AIDS in Africa.

Nor was he the only Republican to go to bat for gay people: there was Ronald Reagan, who as far back as 1978 came out and opposed the Briggs Initiative, which would have forbidden gay people to teach in the public schools. Here’s what a long-term Democrat said about Reagan:

“Never have I been treated more graciously by a human being. He turned opinion around and saved that election for us,” Mixner said. “We would have been in deep trouble. He just thought it was wrong and came out against it.”

Curiously, after not having thought about the Briggs Initiative for years, it’s cropped up twice in the last two days, since I spent a fair amount of time contemplating Troy Perry, the founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, a denomination that currently has 222 congregations in 37 countries.

Born in Northern Florida in 1940, Perry always felt the call to preach—his aunt had been a snake-handling pastor in another state. So he got married, got ordained, and had two kids. Then a sex partner outed him at work.

It happened in those days, and the result was predictable: he was immediately dismissed and the head of the church council threatened to tell his wife. So Perry lost his wife—whom he loved—his kids, and his job.

And if all that weren’t enough, when he finally met a guy he loved, the man dumped him, leading him to attempt suicide. After a period of depression, he went on to found his church, with a ministry specifically for LGBT folk.  

It’s always felt a little bogus to me—why should gay people want to associate with a religion that has some significant homophobic baggage? Shouldn’t we get over it, stop wanting to be accepted, stop needing to be religious? And why does it feel that starting our own church is sad, in a way?

That said, Perry has balls of the most polished brass. They burned down three churches—one incident left 32 people dead. And when the Briggs’ Initiative came up, Perry went on a 17-day hunger fast to raise the money to help defeat the measure. And every Valentine’s Day for years, he and his now-husband went down to the county clerk’s office to ask for a marriage license. When he finally got married, he came back to California and sued the state to recognize his marriage.

He’s fought every battle, and seen a number of victories; he also is a shining example of the power of one person to move mountains. And if I have not been given the gift of faith, I can admire someone who has, and who has led his life according to his beliefs. For those of us who are out and proud, it’s hard not to wonder what seventy gay men and women working in the Bush White House might have accomplished.

Pop Quiz, Boys and Girls

Pop quiz, boys and girls. Get out your No. 2 pencils and get to work!

1.     The statement below is _______ true / ________false

The Vatican said Friday that Monsignor Jozef Wesolowski was found guilty by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in recent days, and sentenced to the harshest penalty possible against a cleric: laicization, meaning he can no longer perform priestly duties or present himself as a priest.

If you answered “true,” you got a zero on the quiz, but guess what? You’re also not alone. Here’s a sweet little description of “the harshest penalty possible against a cleric:”

Poor prisoners are called "ranas" or frogs. They sleep on the floor with mice and vermin around them. They have no private rooms or baths and they must use latrine-type holes in the jail patio and openly evacuate. These prisoners all shower together and fight for the last drop of water, while the goleta owners enjoy private baths. Every morning at about 9am there is a "conteo" or prisoner count where they are asked to walk out of the cells into the hallway to be counted.

Wesolowski was the papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and had the habit of strolling, beer in hand, the malecón and contracting the local boys to do you-know-what. And he was so open about it that the local news picked up on the story. Before he could be investigated and /or arrested, however, the archbishop of Santo Domingo went off to tell the pope that they had a little problem. The pope did what they always do: refused to turn the pedophile over to the civil authorities. Instead, for the last ten months, Wesolowski has been sitting in the Vatican, where he enjoys—or enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

So Wesolowski has two months to appeal the decision, and then faces a criminal trial in the Vatican. If convicted, he’ll be jailed there, presumably under conditions a bit more humane than the ones in Dominican Republic.

Isn’t it time to say it? The “state” of Vatican City is a joke—it not only is the smallest nation in the world, it also is just 108.7 acres, making it smaller than the average American farm. And I had assumed that the nationhood that everybody accords it was an ancient thing, from the times with the Vatican had real states. Wrong again—it dates from 1929.

OK, you say, so it’s bogus, but who cares? What difference does it make?

Well, for one thing, the Vatican denied the Dominican Republic’s extradition request, on the grounds that Wesolowski was a “citizen of Vatican City,” which has a policy of not extracting people.

There’s more. Allegations have been floating around the Internet that a common dodge for bishops is to give the files on abusive priests to the papal nuncio, since in several dioceses, victims of abuse have successfully sued to have the files made public.

And so Wesolowski may still have diplomatic immunity. What no one is saying is that he allegedly committed crimes, yes, in the Dominican Republic, but also here, in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. And since the FBI, reportedly, is looking into the situation of priestly abuse, are they also looking at Wesolowski? Because Wesolowski made frequent trips to Puerto Rico, and stayed in the parish of a now defrocked priest, José Colón Otero. More, the parishioners were doing everything short of standing outside the church with cardboard placards, so desperate were they—the parishioners, not the placards—to get some church official to do something. They wrote to the bishop, then Wesolowski, and finally the Vatican. And what did Wesolowski do? Nothing.

There is something fishy going on in Arecibo. Consider the fact that the current bishop, Daniel Fernández Torres, is being investigated by the FBI for abuse. Oh, and he came out and said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had cleared him of the whole thing. But the lawyer representing the victim? She came out and said the Vatican never talked to her client.

Guys? It’s hard to know which is greater: the arrogance or the shamelessness.

A Hotbed of Homosexuals

Note: this post was originally to be published over a month ago; for technical reasons, Mr. Fernández and I are not joining the suit. Wish we were! 
_________________

It was a message I found a little screwy, until I went onto a Facebook page entitled “Boicot contra Pedro Julio Serrano por sus comentarios de odio hacia cristianos;” the film-equivalent of the page would be that scene in The Shining when Jack Nicholson….

…you remember it, right?

The message we were receiving, last night, was that we were being brave, incredibly brave, for standing up and demanding our rights and refusing to be second-class citizens. What I was thinking, however, was what an incredibly boring group of people we were.

Confession—I have so often wished I had the life that some fundamentalist Christians think I have. Because, wow—what fun that could be: going from the orgy to the ecstasy-fueled rave to the drug-frenzied satanic rituals with the inverted crosses and the squealing newborn about to be sacrificed on the altar! Whee!

Instead it’s:

Marc: Hey, have you seen the garlic press?

Raf: Many times!

Marc: Very funny—now where the hell is that press?

Raf: How should I know? You washed it.

Marc: Dammit, do you want to eat or not?

All right—this is a rather low example of domestic life, but that’s the point. And so I found myself looking, last night, at the six gay and lesbian couples who had assembled in the law offices of LGBT activist Ada Conde and thinking how ordinary we all were: nobody was in drag, the whips and chains had decently been left at home, and there wasn’t a strand of purple hair. It was as lurid as a Tupperware party.

Not that there weren’t some serious people: two lawyers from Lambda Legal had flown in from New York, and Lambda Legal, about whom I’ve read for years, is major. Here’s what their website says:

With the generous support of thousands of friends around the country, what began in 1973 as a couple of volunteers working out of a spare room in a supporter’s apartment has now grown to an expert staff of more than 80 in five offices around the country—New York, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles. 

What didn’t I know? Well, the organization’s bylaws were borrowed from the Puerto Rico Legal Defense and Education Fund. Nor did I know—though I may have forgotten it—that the organization had to fight for its very existence. Here’s the site again:

A panel of New York judges turned down our application to be a nonprofit organization because, in their view, our mission was "neither benevolent nor charitable." With pro bono help, Thom appealed to New York’s highest court, which finally allowed Lambda Legal to exist as a nonprofit organization.

Since then, it’s easier to list what they haven’t done than what they have, since short of bringing down DOMA and Proposition 8, they’ve done it all.   

In addition to the two lawyers from Lambda, we were joined by a constitutional lawyer from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. Then, two more lawyers came in, from the staff of the president of the senate, Eduardo Bhatia. ‘It’s come at last,’ I thought, ‘I finally have a legal team….’

We were there to join the lawsuit brought by Conde to force the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to recognize her marriage to her wife. And by doing so, we would become the first state / territory in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Why? Because for reasons I’ve never understood, Puerto Rico belongs to the First Circuit, which lives in Boston and comprises the New England states, all of which have sensibly adopted same-sex marriage. So it’s up to Puerto Rico to carry the torch.

And Puerto Rico, as Pedro Julio reminded us, has every reason to be proud: we are by no means backward in legislation regarding employment and hate crimes, and most of the work has been done by volunteers who have gotten out there and shouted.

And Pedro Julio should know, since he’s the founder, in Puerto Rico, of Puerto Rico para tod@s and the communications manager for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, in New York City. So Pedro Julio has a foot in both places; this weekend, he’s on the island.

“What was that thing about the death threat,” I asked Raf after the meeting. I remembered vaguely that somebody had tweeted a death threat to Pedro Julio, and that they had found the guy. But whatever happened to the guy?

Thanks to Google, I can tell you: Pedro Julio had intended to go to the march celebrating the Día Internacional contra la Homofobia y Transfobia, when some guy—whose name I know, but why give it?—tweeted that Pedro Julio could end up like some guys had in the Boston Marathon. The FBI found the guy, he was tried in federal court and sentenced to three years in prison, three years probation, and three years of being Twitterless.

In fact, Pedro Julio had warned the public, in January of last year, that he had been receiving more death threats:

“Durante mis más de 15 años de activismo, he recibido innumerables amenazas de muerte, pero nunca en la cantidad y la hostilidad de los últimos días".

(“In over 15 years of activism, I have received innumerable death threats, but never in the quantity and level of hostility as in recent days.”)

‘There are levels of “out,”’ I thought, ‘which is funny, since I thought I was pretty—sorry about this—far out. But I’m a piker next to Pedro Julio or Ada….’

And one of the things about being out is that it gets normal after a while. A man I know was once asked by his new boss, “and what’s your wife’s name?” The boss was trying to prep for the Christmas party.

“John,” said my friend, who is also named John.

“That makes it easy,” said the boss.

This is the stuff we do every day, until it becomes no big deal. So it’s easy to forget how very, very important, as well as difficult, being out can be.

“I think I was put on this earth to fight this fight,” said Yolanda, meaning the fight of the night: getting Puerto Rico to recognize same-sex marriage. The whole room inhaled.

“She’s been in tears four times this evening,” remarked Ada, “and now, it’s five.”

The night had started being somewhat routine: a meeting to go to, some people to meet, then bus back home and hit the sack. But it changed with Yolanda’s remark.

‘It is a big deal,’ I thought. ‘And there’s a reason why we drive the fundamentalists nuts, why Pedro Julio has two pages boycotting him on Facebook: we are a threat. What we’re proposing is fundamental, too. There is nothing more fundamental than the right to declare who your husband or wife will be, and have that decision respected by the state.’

I looked around the room and began to wonder—how much extra struggle had it taken each of us, and each couple, to realize that she or he was gay, to embrace it, to announce it to family and friends, to bosses and—now—to the public at large?

In the week of my mother’s death, I was sitting on a miraculously beautiful spring twilight talking with my brother John.

“You’ve had it so much harder than either Eric or I did,” he said. He meant coming out, struggling with the inner-demon of the cello, facing down my father over my being gay, moving to a foreign-in-a-domestic-sense land, learning a new language, being jobless, losing my mind, and providing the way out for my mother, when she wanted to die. So I thought about all that.

“You may be right,” I told him.

But it was also worth it….

Sam and Company

Now then, having straightened out the Mormon Church—rescind that excommunication, boys!—I can get right down to work on the Walton family.

Full disclosure: I worked for seven years for Wal-Mart, and was treated well, even when they decided to cut me loose (they gave me a severance package that was not legally required). And though someone once described founder Sam Walton as “the world’s nicest guy until he gets down to putting you out of business”—well, why not? This is business, guys, not a Sunday school class: do you think Macy’s isn’t going after Bloomingdale’s?

There were things I liked about Sam. He squeezed that dollar till the eagle squawked, once picking up a muffler he found on the side of the road, since he was mufflerless himself at the time. Did the guys at the shop sigh heavily, throw the damn thing away, install a new one, and never tell Sam? Think that’s how that story went….

There were the reporters who asked why he was still riding around in the famous red truck, which sits squarely in the Walton museum, or visitors’ center, or whatever it is. “Get a decent car, for God’s sake, Sam!” His response? Something like where was he gonna put his four hunting dogs in a Rolls Royce?

Well, I was thinking about all this yesterday, when I read an article Susan had sent me about the Walton Family Foundation. True, it’s from a website called Liberal America, which tells you right off the bat what song this choir will be singing, but the question is: is it true? Because the headline reads:

New Report Suggests Walmart Heirs’ Foundation Is A Massive Tax Dodge

Ouch! And a further ouch when I read this:

An analysis of 23 years of foundation tax returns revealed that Sam Walton’s heirs only gave only 0.04 percent of their combined net worth to their own foundation–not even a fraction of what other wealthy Americans give to charity.

The article goes on to say that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett give over 36% and 27%, respectively, of their net worths to charity. And Rob Walton? You know, chairman of the board, Sam’s eldest son? He hasn’t given anything.

OK—let’s let Walmart speak:

Sam Walton believed in the power of opportunity to change individual lives and communities, and that anyone through hard work and determination can achieve the American dream, something he personally experienced. His wife, Helen, understood the importance of giving back. In fact, one of her favorite sayings was “It’s not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.” Their combined vision has led the Walton family to contribute more than $5 billion to charitable organizations and causes and continues today to drive the work of the Walton Family Foundation. 

In 2013, the foundation invested more than $325 million in K-12 education reform, freshwater and marine conservation and quality of life initiatives in our home region. Family members carried forward a philanthropic approach of sustained and focused giving, believing that it is the key to achieving lasting change, and they continue to challenge the foundation to find new, innovative solutions as well as measure impact from the individual grant level to the effectiveness of overall strategies.

Here’s a view from the middle, Forbes Magazine:

The Walton family is America’s richest, worth some $140 billion between them and longtime fixtures of the Forbes 400 list thanks to their approximate 50% ownership of Walmart, the world’s largest retailer.

Their Walton Family Foundation, established by the late Sam and Helen Walton in 1988, is considered a heavyweight in the world of nonprofits with just under $2 billion in assets.

Granted, the Forbes article was based, as was Liberal America’s, on a report by the Walmart 1%, which is a project of Making Change at Walmart, which doesn’t sound rabidly pro-Walmart. But it’s still Forbes, which presumably vets things….

All right, how does the Walmart Family Foundation match up with other foundations? According to Wikipedia, the world’s largest fund is something out of the Netherlands called the Stichting INGKA Foundation with a cool thirty-six billion. Next up are Bill and Melinda's, with 34.6 billion. And the Walton Family Fund?

Not on the list…

Yes, that list only covers the top 31 (no idea why they chose that number…) and number 31, with 3 billion—that’s a billion more than Walton—is the Kresge Foundation.

Kresge?

Could it be?

Run back to Wikipedia:

In 1924, with an initial gift of $1.6 million, Sebastian Kresge established The Kresge Foundation in Detroit. Twelve years earlier, he and partner John G. McCrory opened the first 5-and-10-cent store, and parlayed the concept and operations into a chain of stores that were incorporated as the S.S. Kresge Company. Many years later the enterprise became known as Kmart.

What would Sam think?