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If I can go through the rest of my life without hearing the phrase “sends the wrong message to children” or any variation thereof, that would be dandy.
Henceforth, any piece of writing that contains that phrase or any variation thereof will immediately be disregarded by me.
Thank you.
And even though Banned Books Week was last week, really, in this time of closing bookstores and shrinking libraries, EVERY week is for reading ALL books. An uneducated, unenlightened, unimaginative population is begging for tyranny or extinction.
As I’ve watched the ENDA debates play out across the blogosphere, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is the one fight that should never be a fight. ALL employees should be protected from discrimination in the workplace. Period.
No matter what language it includes, when ENDA gets to Bush, he’s going to veto it. Period.
An unwinnable fight is still worth the effort when it’s for justice and equality under the law. Sooner or later, when we stop letting ENDA’s opponents–and shockingly, its supporters–divide and conquer us, we’ll get the workplace protection that over 86 percent of Fortune 500 companies, seventeen states and the District of Columbia, and 88 percent of Americans polled concede is fair.
In light of that debate, I’m glad that Joe.My.God. made me aware of this letter that Julian Bond wrote in the context of an entirely different news story. It’s an eloquent perspective of why a struggle for equality is everyone’s fight.
Marsha Ellison, President
Fort Lauderdale, Florida NAACP
1409 NW 6th Street Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311
Dear President Ellison:
Thank you for your courageous stand against homophobia in your community.
I am astounded by those who believe hostility toward homosexuals and the denial of civil rights to them is not a civil rights issue.
That’s why when I am asked, “Are Gay Rights Civil Rights?” my answer is always, “Of course they are.”
“Civil rights” are positive legal prerogatives – the right to equal treatment before the law. These are rights shared by all – there is no one in the United States who does not – or should not – share in these rights.
Gay and lesbian rights are not “special rights” in any way. It isn’t “special” to be free from discrimination – it is an ordinary, universal entitlement of citizenship. The right not to be discriminated against is a common-place claim we can expect to enjoy under our laws and our founding document, the Constitution. That many had to struggle to gain these rights makes them precious – it does not make them special, and it does not reserve them only for me or restrict them from others.
When others gain these rights, my rights are not reduced in any way. Luckily, “civil rights” are a win/win game; the more civil rights are won by others, the stronger the army defending my rights becomes. My rights are not diluted when my neighbor enjoys protection from the law – he or she becomes my ally in defending the rights we all share.
For some, comparisons between the African-American civil rights movement and the movement for gay and lesbian rights seem to diminish the long black historical struggle with all its suffering, sacrifices and endless toil. However, people of color ought to be flattered that our movement has provided so much inspiration for others, that it has been so widely imitated, and that our tactics, methods, heroines and heroes, even our songs, have been appropriated by or serve as models for others.
No parallel between movements for rights is exact. African-Americans are the only Americans who were enslaved for more than two centuries, and people of color carry the badge of who we are on our faces. But we are far from the only people suffering discrimination – sadly, so do many others. They deserve the laws’ protections and civil rights, too.
Sexual disposition parallels race – I was born black and had no choice. I couldn’t and wouldn’t change if I could. Like race, our sexuality isn’t a preference – it is immutable, unchangeable, and the Constitution protects us all against prejudices and discrimination based on immutable differences.
Many gays and lesbians, along with Jews, worked side by side with me in the ’60s civil rights movement. Am I to now tell them “thanks” for risking life and limb helping me win my rights – but they are excluded because of a condition of their birth? That they cannot share now in the victories they helped to win? That having accepted and embraced them as partners in a common struggle, I can now turn my back on them and deny them the rights they helped me win, that I enjoy because of them?
Not a chance.
Opponents of homosexuality have the right to their opinion: they do not have the right to use their beliefs to denigrate and marginalize others. A people who suffered bigotry in the past and suffer from it today ought to be the last people in the world to tolerate bigotry towards others.
Best wishes,
(Signed)
Julian Bond, Chairman
NAACP National Board of Directors
Some Not Really Trivia:
In 1981, the United Nations voted to observe an International Day of Peace each year. The U.N. invited all Member States, organizations of the United Nations system, regional and non-governmental organizations, and individuals to commemorate the Day in an appropriate manner, including through education and public awareness, and to cooperate with the United Nations in establishing a global ceasefire.
During the first year of the observance, 1982, the date chosen was Tuesday, September 21, the opening day of the U.N. General Assembly. In subsequent years, the date varied because it was on the third Tuesday in September.
On September 7, 2001, the United Nations voted to designate a set day for the International Day of Peace, choosing September 21 of every year, and also voted to officially call for a 24-hour global cease fire on each International Day of Peace. The official Peace Bell ceremony to announce this decision was scheduled for Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at the U.N.
The Peace Bell ceremony did not take place until September 14 that year.
This year, at the Peace Bell ceremony which began the International Day of Peace at the U.N., homage was paid to late United Nations Messenger of Peace Luciano Pavarotti.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, by 2005, world military expenditure had reached an estimated $1.1 trillion per year.
The web site that provided information through 2006 regarding the International Day of Peace is no longer updated because of lack of financial support.
On September 21, 2007, one French soldier and 40 rebels were killed in Afghanistan by a suicide bomber.
The focus of this year’s International Day of Peace was Afghanistan. According to news reports, people gathered in Afghanistan’s cities to mark the occasion in numbers the U.N. had not seen in that country before…
…as occurred all over the world with vigils, prayer, meditation, demonstrations, moments of silence, and celebrations involving children, parents, teachers, artists, bloggers, and religious and civic leaders in schools, town halls, public places, work places, places of worship, and online.
If you didn’t know that September 21 was the International Day of Peace, there’s always next year–and every day.
A character in my next Coventry novel finds herself in a La Quinta Inn off of I-10 in a western state. This weekend, in an effort to finish this novel, I’m letting life imitate art and am doing the same. Earlier this week, I received a sweet sign that Coventry needed my attention.
On Friday, my friend Lynne and I had a long conversation about the various stresses in our current lives. She had to go out of town Saturday for business, and this was her plan:
Arrive at her destination airport.
Take a cab to her hotel.
Check in.
Immediately take a long, hot bath.
Go to bed and watch TV until she fell asleep.
Sleep as long as she wanted to.
Nine-thirtiesh (p.m.), my phone rang. Lynne’s ride from the airport to her hotel took over an hour because of traffic. Upon her arrival, the totally booked hotel had no reservation in her name, and she’d failed to write down her confirmation number on the papers she had with her. Would I go to her office and find the confirmation number of her hotel reservation on her desk and call her with it so she could TAKE HER LONG, HOT BATH?
Of course I would. I WANTED her to have that bath and that good night’s sleep. She deserves it.
I went to her office building. (Note: Empty parking garages and skyscrapers are scary at night. I’m grateful life doesn’t come with a soundtrack.) I didn’t find her confirmation number and had to call her with that sad news. Her next move was to get a cab to another hotel. As I was about to leave, I heard something down the hall in the LOCKED suite that her office is in. My next move was to frantically call Tom.
Freaking ice maker.
In light of the fact that I think Lynne’s day went much worse than mine, I won’t provide further details of my Saturday except to say that Tom brought home a new coffeemaker. (And I will NEVER have an ice maker.)
The End.
Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t even say the word of what I just found in my trash can.
I’m so traumatized that I may get in my car and drive far away.
Edit: After I throw up.
Second edit: Don’t tell Rex I took the car.
I’ve heard.
Years ago, my mother was having a problem with a certain retail giant who kept incorrectly charging her credit card for something she didn’t buy. This situation went on for months, and finally someone at the retail giant seemed to understand the problem and correct it. So imagine my mother’s fury a month later when she got her bill and the charge was back.
She jerked the phone book from the cabinet, looked up the number, dialed it (yeah, we still had rotary phones and used phone books in those days), and began an angry rant as soon as the phone was answered. She spoke for several minutes without letting the other person get a word in, detailing the entire history of the conflict and her determination to HAVE JUSTICE and even to close her account. When she finally stopped to take a breath, the voice on the other end of the phone said, “Ma’am, I’m so sorry, but you misdialed. This is Dr. Stewart’s office.”
I like to call that kind of event “being Julia Sugarbaker and finding out the microphone’s turned off.” I had such a moment today, when a post provoked me to write what I thought was a well-reasoned response, then before I could submit my comment, the post was removed. Now I’m just annoyed at myself for getting sucked in to another of those discussions in which no one’s mind is ever really changed anyway.
I have a novel to finish.
Imagine that it takes you–you, who do not have dial-up, but pay a monthly fortune for high-speed Internet access–about an hour to get online. That you read your e-mail. That you suddenly realize you’re offline when you try to respond to an e-mail. That you wait about half an hour, get online again, answer that e-mail and another one or two, then pull up LiveJournal. That you read comments to your posts. That you begin reading your friends’ posts. That you compose a comment, but when you hit send, you’re no longer online. You wait ten to fifteen minutes. Get back on LJ. Post that comment. Read another post. Try to answer. Guess what?
Repeat this several times a day. Add to it that you go offline every time you’re trying to research something for what you’re writing, every time you try to read the news, look at a Google map, fact check something, follow a link from someone’s post, read a friend’s blog, upload a photo, download a document…
Imagine that this goes on every day for twenty-two days. That you’ve reported trouble with your cable modem numerous times. That you’ve replaced your modem. Replaced your wireless router. Dealt with crating the dogs so the cable guys can come in and out of your house. Found that it’s never fixed after they leave. Closed the gate so Rex can’t escape because no one understands that the SAME GATE THAT HAD TO BE OPENED WHEN YOU GOT HERE HAS TO BE CLOSED WHEN YOU LEAVE.
Called the cable company again, knowing that each call is an investment of at least 15 minutes just to get a live voice on the line. Realized that even though the live voice will be polite and helpful, you will be a raging bitch because YOU’RE JUST SO TIRED OF THIS.
While it’s going on, AT&T calls you almost daily and tries to seduce you into switching to their DSL plan. But you realize that the phone lines into your house are old old old, often have static, and your phone has a tendency to stop working. Do you really want to make that change? Will AT&T really be any better than Time Warner Roadrunner Comcast or whoever they are today?
When you call the cable company–AGAIN–to ask them that question, they give you a full month’s credit on your “high speed Internet access” (ha!) and modem rental. And you’d like to be grateful, but all you really want is to be able to be online for more than a few minutes at a time without drama.
Try to work on two novels when you’re this frustrated. Let me know how that works out for you.