The Real Voyage of Discovery Consists Not in Seeking New Landscapes, but in Having New Eyes.” Marcel Proust
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust 2007 Annual Report c. dean jackson, Farand Gunnels, Kevan Gardner, Kodey Park Bambino The mission of the Arcus Foundation is to achieve social justice Antonin Kratochvil that is inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity and race, Photo: © and to ensure conservation and respect of the great apes. Jurek Wajdowicz Arcus Foundation EEO Policy Requirement The Arcus Foundation requires all organizations seeking funding to have in place a board-approved Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Policy that specifically includes and lists sexual orientation and gender identity, and requires compliance with all other applicable federal and local EEO laws. Organizations with non-compliant EEO policies will not be considered for funding. Front cover: Grub, a chimpanzee at Center for Great Apes Photo: © cover: Front ANNUAL REPORT 2007 1 Antonin Kratochvil © “What is the threat that GLBT people bring to our world?”Jon Stryker Dear Friends ur annual report’s essay theme this year is Religion As Urvashi has outlined: we were once considered psycho- It seems to me that the words of the Bible and Jesus, Arcus is directly responding to the challenges of engaging O and Values. Religion is a difficult and troubling logically sick but now we are accepted as sane; we were as well as other religious texts, are perverted in an attempt with religion and values. We hope to contribute to a subject for me personally — but it has not always once considered criminals, but now the highest court of to make gay people feel condemned, separate and some- rational, calm, meaningful and transformative conversation been that way. Looking back on my youth I remember a our nation has ruled us lawful; but still we are condemned how evil. It completely baffles me why otherwise good that will ultimately change hearts and minds around the bedtime song we sang: “Jesus loves me this I know, for as immoral. I believe this supposed immorality is the great people do this. world to accept and cherish all people regardless of their the Bible tells me so.” challenge of our generation. sexual orientation and gender identity. Denial, shame, lies and guilt obviously do not contribute It brings back particularly poignant and tender memories What is it about love between two same-sex people that to the kind of world that I want to live in and certainly of my mother singing this with me, and the sweet calming is so feared, hated and dangerous? And equally I wonder: don’t move me closer to God. My coming out as a gay man sense it gave me as a child. At the time it seemed like a why are people condemned for expressing their gender has been crucial for me. My friends and family have been message of unwavering love and acceptance. identity in non-traditional ways? allowed into my heart and soul and mind, allowing deep and meaningful relationships to grow. Coming out has During my early teens, when I was trying to come to grips What is the threat that GLBT people bring to our world? Jon Stryker finally allowed me to fully actualize my own being and my with my sexuality, I quickly learned that gay people were Why do so many religious leaders around the world feel so President and Founder work in life. It seems like religion can and should be able not valued and loved, but instead were overtly despised complacent when they condemn us? Why do people who Arcus Foundation to accommodate a person like me. and feared — even by the leadership of my church. As with profess a belief in a God of love and compassion try to most gay youth of that time, my awareness of my sexual- push us out of their religious communities, encourage laws It is clear to me that religion once gave me a vision of a ity was a secret and lonely struggle. The joys of my youth to try to deny us the same rights they value as crucial in world of peace and mutual love that included me, but then were sadly distracted and I think in some ways stolen by their lives, and try to take our children away and destroy morphed into an institution that condemned and excluded the pressure to conceal such a real and incredibly integral our families? Why do they even encourage and sometimes me. Whether I like it or not, religion is a force that shapes part of who I was. I found it necessary to somehow recon- enact physical violence against us? much of our world and is here to stay. It is one of the most cile the fear, shame and hatred that our culture so unfairly important places we need to have our voices heard. foists on our GLBT youth with my own sense of myself as a good person. 2 ARCUS FOUNDATION ANNUAL REPORT 2007 3 © Jurek Wajdowicz Tom Genarra Tom “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, © we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”Pierre Teilhard de Chardin “The revolution in values has begun”Urvashi Vaid Mari, an orangutan at Center for Great Apes Leaving a Moral Footprint The Animal-Human Boundary Urvashi Vaid is Executive Director of the Arcus Foundation. The morality we need at this crucial time is not the “faith Dipika Nath is a graduate student in women’s studies at the University nonhuman apes themselves had first to be placed below of our fathers” nor the “traditional values” of our mothers. of Washington. Her dissertation is titled “Feral Fantasies and Colonial the human, both on empirical and ethical grounds. That s I reflect on another year of work by the conserva- Exclusions: Animal Reared Feral Children, Discourses of Race and It will not be found in the exclusionary forms of funda- is, the dehumanization of specific human groups on the tion and human rights movements, I feel inspired Animality, and the Treatment of Animals in Colonial India.” A mentalist religions dividing the world today, even if it is basis of race, gender, sexuality and socioeconomic class by the moral footprint these movements are leaving disguised in the rhetoric of community and love. efining humans as distinct from and superior to depended upon the prior devaluing of nonhuman animals around the world. Moral values are at the core of the world’s other animals has been a longstanding venture — and specifically of apes, because they threatened any future. And issues of morality and values are at the heart The moral values we need today can be found emerging D in Western scientific, religious and philosophical neat division of humans from nonhumans more starkly of the work of the Arcus Foundation, in both great ape from people who are creating movements for social justice discourse. The presence of a rational and immortal soul, than did most other animals. conservation and gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender around the world — accountability, pluralism, democratic language and speech, tool-use and tool-making, laughter, human rights. participation, human rights, rule of law, caring and environ- As humanitarian and humane movements across the globe cooking, self-recognition, culture, a sense of time and mental sustainability. These movements put their faith in and a growing awareness of environmental crises increas- Even the recently released report by the World Economic history — these and other criteria have been offered as imagination, not tradition. Their leaders are the visionaries ingly draw attention to the plight of human populations in Forum (best known for the annual gathering of global the distinguishing mark of humanity at specific historical who are creating solutions to all sorts of threats and risks. the global South as well as of marginalized human groups elites at Davos in Switzerland), titled Global Risks 2008, moments. What unites these diverse claims to distinction is in the North, it is easy to lose sight of the animal side of the underlines the centrality of a debate on values. While Social justice movements remind us that our care and that they attempt to counter the obvious similarity between question. The struggle over resources between nonhuman I was happy to see that gay and transgender people did stewardship of the environment must shift toward sustain- humans and other animals by privileging some aspects of and human populations in the so-called Third World is por- not make the list of global risks this year (nor any year), ability and away from mere profit. And they challenge us some humans. trayed as a “conflict” between these two dominated groups. serious threats like the danger of global warming and to affirm the moral worth and basic goodness of gay and Distinguishing between humans and other apes continues Because of its characterization in the mainstream media, further environmental degradation, perilous financial lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people. to be a particularly fraught but ongoing project. Scientists this conflict often appears to exist independently of the systems and the risk of economic panic, the competition For this year’s annual report, Arcus asked some of our and philosophers — from Carl Linnaeus and Charles Darwin transnational corporate capitalist interests driving habitat for fuel and the growing insecurity in access to food all colleagues to share their thoughts on how religion and on — have consistently noted the striking similarities destruction and poverty production. In the ensuing battle challenge our lives and futures. values inform their work. As a result, the following pages between nonhuman ape and human physiologies, behaviors over resources, we tend to overlook the common interests The key dilemmas of our times involve moral choices.