I have been called upon to defend my statements here that are interpreted to support same sex marriage. The most adamant critics are asking about the religious implications. One statement was: Marriage is an institution that has existed for 5000 years, and now they want to change it. Another: It is an offense to people of faith to have the same designation as homosexuals.
I am surprised that the leadership of the Anti Prop 8 movement seems to be from the Mormon community. I know that more recently than 5000 years they have had to struggle with the definition of marriage within their faith, and everyone didn’t agree to one man and one woman. I don’t want to start a quarrel with the Latter Day Saints, but that beam in your own eye hasn’t been out long enough to open an optometry shop.
As regards the argument about being lumped together with people who are different, I go back to the response about racial marriage laws. In 1948 California made it legal for blacks and whites to marry each other. A hundred years before that Abe Lincoln made it legal for African Americans to marry each other anywhere in the US. But it wasn’t until 1967 that US law allowed interracial marriage. I know that sexual orientation isn’t the same as race. The point of the argument is that as our society progresses, we keep deciding to treat people like people. If we really want all people treated equally, let’s go ahead. If we want some people treated as “less than” equal, please send me a list. Lastly, I would like to quote something I read on the internet site Religioustolerance.org,
"I guess I just don't understand how people can be so passionately hateful about something that won't affect their lives one bit."

Being in my early fifties, I think of being an older adult as over about 65. It’s always more than a decade away. But the Older Americans Act calls 60 and over “older.” AARP and the casinos on Fremont Street start at 50. Speaking of AARP they have a lawsuit in the news, an age discrimination claim. They are being accused of passing over a 61 year old employee for promotion based on her age. Now if you’re thinking that’s too old to take up a new job, the other sexagenarian in the news is another 61-year-old woman in Japan who is reportedly the oldest woman in the world to give birth!
So what is the connection? Sixty may be the new 40, but there are parts of our biology that don’t respond to fashion. We have elders work as long as they want to, even when they may lose efficiency, their experience should count for something. I was on a whitewater rafting trip this summer with my family. Our guide on the river was an older man by any definition. He was careful, read the river well, got us through the trip with a sense of adventure but no real damage. There were younger guides working with groups of young adults and teens. I was glad my kids (and me!) were in the hands of someone with decades more time on the water. Experience pays. But the ability of the body to support another life is pretty delicate. Hormone balance, nutrient absorption, blood distribution are all age related. I don’t know how the kid is doing, but I wouldn’t want all my eggs in that basket. The birth mother was a surrogate carrying her daughter’s child. I must say, someone younger may not have been as connected, but would certainly have been safer. This is one of the few safety versus freedom arguments where I will stand on the safety side. It’s not my safety, it is the child’s. And no matter how old we get, I think that is still our most important job.(If we can get it.)

I’ve made comments in the past about the Medicare web site, mostly negative. A new study finds that three out of four older adults couldn’t find the best Part D (prescription coverage) plan even when they were trained to use the site. It takes about ten pages of sorting to get there and most older adults couldn’t negotiate the technical language and multiple choices necessary. They also tried to have the test subjects, all of whom had college education and basic computer skills, enroll in home health. The same percentage failed that task as well. I guess that will keep the costs down. The other federal cost saving measures in the news have to do with restricting the use of PET scans to diagnose cancers. This is highlighted by the recent news that Christina Applegate was diagnosed with breast cancer only because of computerized scanning. She had several high risk factors that elevated her danger, so she had both the gene testing and scans done. This is a bit different than the concern about testing men for prostate cancer after 75 years of age. The life expectancy for newly diagnosed prostate cancer is 10- 20 years. For untreated breast cancer it is months. The AMA published a study done in Norway about B Vitamins having no preventive effect in heart disease. I want to be sure to underline that it is necessary for nerve function. Don’t stop taking your supplements because it proves ineffective for one illness without checking on other things that might benefit. For example there was a Cornell study that shows the mechanism of action for antioxidants in artichokes, blueberries and pecans to prevent blindness by protecting cells in the eye. I guess the broad advise would be, partner with your doctor, follow the age-old wisdom, and get help with the computer. The Center for Health Care Rights can help with the last. www.healthcarerights.org

It seems there are economic concerns about same sex marriage. One issue is business. The other state that recognizes same sex marriage, Massachusetts, does not allow non-resident same sex couples to marry there. California allows people to come from other states, get a license and wed here. Tourism is a huge part of the Southern California economy and people I know in the wedding business, event planners and such, are very interested in bringing that out of state money to our local economy.
Another slant on the economic issue is personal income, what does it do to help individuals? Married men tend to make more than men who have never been married. Researchers at the Federal Reserve of St. Louis found there may be a few reasons for this. For one thing, employers may have a bias in favor of married men because marital status might signify a man's stability or responsibility. Gay men have often been accused of being less stable so the ability to marry will dispel this stereotype. Another possibility is that marriage frees men up to focus on work, rather than on household tasks. If you’ve been in an apartment shared by a couple of single guys, you know they don’t keep house. It is somewhat of a myth that if you go to the home of a gay couple, you want to hire them to clean yours. The most likely reason is that the qualities that appeal to an employer are similar to those that appeal to a mate—characteristics such as background, education, and appearance.
A 2007 study from University of Northern Iowa looked at 2000 census data and found that cohabitating lesbians earn about 10 percent more annually than married women. They also earn more than cohabitating, unmarried, heterosexual women. Having someone support you in your work makes you work more effectively. A wife does that for her mate, male or female. I know that Prop 8 isn’t about the money, but in politics, money does talk. I wonder if who will listen.

I think the idea of gay marriage is so disturbing to some older adults that they don’t think out what exactly they are reacting to. It may seem at some level like they are voting on the private behavior of those individuals, not whether they should have rights. I know many clergy that have an attitude based on their reading of scripture that prohibits same sex marriage. They should never perform a wedding for a gay couple. Ever. No is going to ask them to perform such a wedding, it’s a day about love, why ask someone who hates?
But should they be able to stop people of other faiths from getting married? Should a Native American that isn’t Christian be barred from marrying? Should a Buddhist? Should a Catholic stop a Baptist? If marriage means only for procreation should women over 50 be barred from ever getting married? Does anyone propose fertility tests as a requirement for a marriage license?
On the web site www.letcaliforniaring.org, a story is posted from a guy who was with his partner for 50 years. When the partner died unexpectedly, he could not bury him, he could not get social security benefits, he lost his home. If the late partner had been married five times for ten years each in those 50 years, each of his ex-wives would get social security benefits.
There are many other stories there, many of them from seniors who have tried for decades and some never lived to have “the happiest day of their life.”
When you watch the commercial, the young bride who meets obstacle after obstacle, finally realizing she can’t marry the person she loves, do you think of someone you disapprove of? Or someone you love? California is the only state to approve same sex marriage through the legislative process, and we’ve done it twice. AB 849 and AB43 both would have made it legal but the Governor vetoed. The State Supreme Court ruled on the In re Marriage Cases and found it was legal. Prop 8 will try to reverse all this. All I suggest is that we think before we vote.

Labor Day is this coming. I have had this thought I want to write about since the conference in Napa last spring. Dr Torres-Gil warned the audience of mostly government employees about the inequity between their benefits and the publics average employment benefits. Los Angeles County is the largest employer in LA County and its employees are eligible for retirement through LACERA. I worked in the private sector for 25 years before going to the county and so I have paid into Social Security, a private retirement account and was vested in LACERA this year. It doesn’t mean I get to triple dip; you don’t get full benefits from SSI and LACERA if you paid both. We are represented at the county. Labor Unions act to negotiate and enforce agreements with the employer and employee. They tend to do a pretty good job at looking after the employee’s interest. So what Dr Torres- Gil was predicting was that the difference from most working people’s retirement benefits and medical – dental- insurance would become a point of contention. Although the reasons are not limited to the idea of government taking care of itself first, that is the inevitable perception. Since I have a foot in both worlds, I will be very interested in how this unfolds as the retirement age population begins to balloon.
I stopped by a big retirement facility on Duarte Road the other day to take my friend Harry a beer. He doesn’t go out much at 87 years old, but when he was living independently we often enjoyed a cold one together. He invested well enough to be able to live comfortably without worrying about what the SSI raise will be this year. As you enjoy the “day off for the working man” on Monday, consider these two things: what plans are you making to support yourself in retirement? Whose shoulders are we standing on that could use a friendly visit on the holiday?And if you do go out to visit, remember this is the last day to wear those white shoes until Easter!

Well good news at last! At least for those of us who need a calculator to get our BMI. There was a paper published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that called for a look at the difference in overweight and obese fit people and physically unfit normal weight people. They used a treadmill test and men who could keep up with an increasing grade for 8 minutes and women for 5 and a half minutes live longer than normal weight folks who can’t keep up. Even minimal fitness is a better predictor that weight.
The study suggests about one third of fat folk are metabolically healthy. They have good cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar levels. One in four skinny people have bad numbers in at least two risk factors. It’s better to be thinner and healthy than fat and unhealthy, but it’s still preferable to be healthy and fat than unhealthy and thin.
There were some foreshadowing studies last fall by the CDC and National Cancer Institute that showed heavier people have longer life expectancy than normal weight people. So the great obesity epidemic may not turn out to be all it was feared. And going to the doctor for those tests, and responding to the results, is maybe more important than getting on the scale every day. By the way, my writings last year about gastric surgery holds up in this light- the immediate effects on blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol save more lives than Lindora and Jenny put together. Exercise at least thirty minutes a day, not marathon training, gardening, walking, play the Wii. Have fun and loosen the belt, it’s OK!

There were a couple of manly stories in the medical field that are of interest to older guys. They are trying to decide if getting the blood test for prostate cancer is worthwhile after 75 years of age. It seems that the disease takes so long to kill you that the treatment is worse than the disease for the older men. The assumption is that the normal patient won’t live past about 85. I know a few much older men, and expect to know more as the baby boomers move up. The same discussion happens with lots of treatments and the conclusion is pretty consistent- yes treat old people if they have something medically wrong. The other story is in the same area, at least anatomically. Without prostate cancer, men don’t seem to have a whole lot more problems with bowel and bladder control as they age from 50 to 70 and 80. It is not “normal: to develop problems there. It is normal to have a little more trouble with what they call now ED. It’s certainly not universal but a Dutch study of 3800 men showed that many have a need for help, the kind Bob Dole was endorsing a few years ago. Oddly enough there was one other connected story, that doesn’t have quite the same focus. I read these so you don’t have to. It seems they were trying to deliver anti-cancer drugs to specific tissue in the brains of lab rats and found Viagra (Senator Dole’s little blue friend) and Levitra, another ED drug, were effective in getting the cancer drug to the tumor without affecting the rest of the brain. How’s that for improving potency?If you find a mistake in any of my columns, please remember that I do try to write something for everyone and some people just love looking for mistakes, so I try to add something for them.

I’ve been a guest speaker for several classes on aging at Cal State during the summer quarter. The students there are surprisingly focused on issues relating to older adults. One of the presentations I’ve given is a report on domestic violence with older adults. It is a very sensitive topic and there are factors that confound the students and me.
One of the most challenging ideas is the Faith Factor. Now I have often been a supporter of the partnership of health care and church in education, social and heath programs. Harvard researcher Dr Herbert Benson has documented the benefits of strongly held religious belief and physical healing. I always discuss the protective factor of religious practice in suicide prevention.
What provokes us in the domestic violence area is the perception by victims that a church (regardless of what kind) fosters domestic abuse and is not a resource for getting help. The difference in Theology and tradition may be the problem. Older women report feeling that if they go to a faith leader they won’t get any help. They feel pretty much the same about health care workers too. The only resource the women see as a possible protective factor is law enforcement. And they often believe it is only temporary relief. Since clergy members are mandated reporters of elder and child abuse, if they suspect abuse they must report it to APS and law enforcement. APS is staffed by social workers whose mission is to protect. No one deserves to be frightened, hurt or exploited. No one should have to bear the secret of having family treat them that way. There is help.Domestic Violence Safety Hotline is (800) 978-3600 with many language capabilities. APS phone number is 1(877) 477-3646. You can obtain assistance from Bet Tzedek Legal Services for an elder abuse restraining order (323) 939-0506. Other social services can be found in LA County by calling 211.