The U.S.’ Move Toward Less Love and More Hate; Why California House Prices Remain So High–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Oct. 19, 2023

Indy Digest: Oct. 19, 2023

I just put the finishing touches on our November print edition—which is our 11th annual Pride Issue. All day, I’ve been thinking back to June 26, 2015.

It was a day I didn’t think I’d see in my lifetime: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples had the right to marry, and states had to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. Legal gay marriage was the law of the land—across our entire country.

I joined hundreds of others that evening at Frances Stevens Park in downtown Palm Springs to celebrate. There was such joy. It seemed like the United States was truly inching toward a better, more loving, more equitable future.

Instead, the country went in the opposite direction.

Last year, the increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court threw out years of established law and precedent by reversing Roe v. Wade. Earlier this year, that same court ruled that businesses could legally discriminate (in a case, it turns out, that used various details that were completely made up). It’s possible that the victory we celebrated on June 26, 2015, could be reversed next.

Meanwhile, Republican politicians have set their sights on specific segments of the LGBTQ+ community to use as scapegoats—including drag queens. While there’s no evidence ever cited that a drag queen at a public performance or library story time has ever harmed a child, Republican leaders across the country have riled up concerned citizens and urged them to harass library boards, all while pushing—and, in some cases, passing—legislation outlawing public drag-queen events.

Even worse, bills targeting the trans community have become law in almost half of the states in the U.S.

On Monday, we’ll be publishing a Q&A I did with Mike Thompson, the CEO of the LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert. He recently returned to the Coachella Valley after a couple of years back in his home state of Oklahoma—and he told me something I can’t get out of my mind: “I talked to a number of trans people who are needing to get out of Oklahoma, because they no longer feel physically safe there because of the political rhetoric, and the social climate that has been informed by the political rhetoric, so they need an escape plan. We want to be a beacon of hope for people living in those communities to get here because of the safety that can be found here.”

I am grateful to organizations like the LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert, Greater Palm Springs Pride and many others that do good work to make sure the Coachella Valley, for the most part, is a place where LGBTQ+ people can feel safe—and a beacon of hope for people in places where, because of discrimination and political persecution, they don’t feel safe.

We should all make sure we’re doing everything we can to get the United States heading back in the direction of a better, more loving, more equitable future.

—Jimmy Boegle

Best of Coachella Valley voting: last chance!

More News

• Our partners at Calmatters ponder the fact that even though interest rates are sky-high, California house prices have not come down: “The rate on a typical 30-year fixed-rate mortgage cracked 8% on Wednesday, according to the tracking site Mortgage Daily News. Weekly data from Freddie Mac shows home borrowing rates are now higher than they’ve been in at least two decades. That’s thanks almost entirely to the work of the U.S. Federal Reserve, which has been ratcheting up the cost of borrowing in an attempt to rein in inflation. … The number of homes sold in September of this year is down 21.5% from the previous year, according to the Realtors report. But despite the drop off in demand, California’s notoriously high home prices haven’t budged much. Statewide, they’re up about 3% over last year. What’s the deal?“

• Also from Calmatters: Laphonza Butler, nominated to the U.S. Senate to take the place of the late Dianne Feinstein, will not try to keep the seat on a longer-term basis: “The newly-appointed senator announced today she will not run for a full six-year term, avoiding an already crowded 2024 field that includes three fellow Democrats: U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff. ‘I’ve always believed elected leaders should have real clarity about why they’re in office and what they want to do with the responsibility and power they have,’ she said in a statement. ‘I’ve spent the past 16 days pursuing my clarity—what kind of life I want to have, what kind of service I want to offer and what kind of voice I want to bring forward. After considering those questions I’ve decided not to run for Senate in the upcoming election.’” 

• Some politicians repeatedly talk about growing rates of violent crime. However, the FBI’s latest stats are in—and violent crime is actually down. Yep. CBS News says: “Violent crime ticked down in 2022, and car thefts spiked, according to data released by the FBI Monday. The FBI’s 2022 crime report compiles crime statistics from law enforcement agencies and partners nationwide, painting a picture of top crime trends in the U.S. Crime and public safety consistently rank high among issues for Americans heading to the polls, with politicians on both sides of the aisle messaging on violent crime and gun control measures. … Nationwide violent crime waned a little in 2022, according to the FBI report. Accounting for murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault and robbery, violent crime decreased collectively by 1.7% last year. Homicides dropped by 6.1% nationwide, while aggravated assaults dipped by just 1.1% overall. Rape decreased by 5.4% in 2022, according to the data.”

• Americans have been slow to get the updated COVID-19 vaccine—and the government, in part, blames a lack of messaging. CNN reports: “As of Thursday, only about 3% of the U.S. population—about 10 million Americans—have gotten an updated COVID-19 vaccine since their approval in mid-September, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The slow penetration of the new vaccines—which lower a person’s risk of hospitalization, death and long COVID—comes at a time when funding for public education around the updated shots has been slashed. This summer, as a result of budget negotiations between the White House and Republicans in Congress, HHS lost $150 million that had been allocated to a public education campaign that put ads on TV, websites and radio, in newspapers and outdoors in places like bus stops to increase awareness of the need for vaccination. The effort was also conducting research on drivers of vaccine confidence and vaccine hesitancy in different groups.”

• The Washington Post looks at how Lunchables qualified in some places to be school lunches. Yes, really: “The weak standards that govern federally subsidized school lunches illustrate the power of the food industry in Congress and the outsize influence of food companies on the School Nutrition Association, which represents 50,000 school lunch personnel. While many nations have adopted more-nutritious school meals and stricter advertising standards, pizza sauce and French fries still count as vegetables for schoolchildren in the United States, and U.S. food companies remain virtually free to advertise to youngsters any way they like. Together, these circumstances contribute to the country’s harrowing childhood obesity problem.”

• And finally … Arlene Rosenthal, the former president of Well in the Desert, has passed away at the age of 79. Here’s a story about her passing by our friends at the Palm Springs Post. A snippet: “Rosenthal, a graduate of UCLA who moved to the desert in 1973, had many roles in her life, including teacher, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ advocate, small business owner, and more. But her work as president of Well in the Desert—a nonprofit dedicated to advocating and aiding the less fortunate—will be what she is most remembered for here. Unafraid to confront those who would question her methods at advocacy, she was often perceived as brash. But to those who knew her best, her approach was the type of leadership needed to help those who were often unable to help themselves.

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