Monthly Archives: August 2013

The Promised Land

 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Reverend Martin Luther King compared himself to Moses who led his people out of slavery, saw the Promised Land, but never got there himself.

In April of 1968, Martin Luther King was in Memphis, Tennessee supporting a garbage workers’ strike.

On the evening of April 3rd, King told the congregation, “I don’t know what will happen now.”  He said he’d “been to the mountain top”   and “seen the Promised Land” but “I may not get there with you.”

His promise, however, was that “we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”

Toward evening, that next day, April 4th, King stepped out on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee.

A rifleman shot a .30-06 caliber bullet that broke Dr. King’s jaw, cut through his neck and spinal cord, and the slug lay spent in his shoulder blade.  King died.

Robert Kennedy said in Indianapolis to a crowd that had not yet heard of King’s death that we must “tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world.”

King couldn’t have agreed more and his prescription to reach the Promised Land was to challenge “the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.”

We know today that the Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott, deciding that a man was property, was wrong.

But we don’t’ seem to appreciate that a Supreme Court that compromises voting rights is also wrong. Continue reading

The Cheating Republicans

It may sound harsh to call Republicans, or anyone for that matter, “cheaters.”

But what else can you call a political party that has dropped any pretense about suppressing the vote nationwide and made it a party policy that their presidential primary candidates will duck the tough questions in their upcoming public debates?

After Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt “47%” Romney disappeared into an electoral abyss deeper than anything imagined in Lord of the Rings, the Republican leadership said that they learned their lesson.

They were going to reach out to persons of color, to seniors, women and to the young, enlarge their political tent, and embrace those who they couldn’t attract in 2012 so that they’d pull the Republican voting lever in 2016.

Well they’re “not gonna do it.”

Instead they have mostly Southern legislatures, in 14 states, passing laws that the Justice Brennan Center says will likely suppress about 5 million votes, and that’s quite enough votes to make the difference in the 2016 presidential election. Continue reading

The Bitter Liberals in concert for Mary Daniel

“We think Tea makes for a boring party. We would rather drink Liberals.”

And we would much rather have a reality-based moderate who respects people representing the 33rd District in Richmond than a radical self-important nanny-stater with a penchant for taking the law into his own hands (even though the latter would certainly help hasten the demise of what the contemporary Virginia GOP has become).

These guys are awesome. Trust me.

Bonus recipe for those wishing to get into the spirit; I’m guessing you would want to add an extra dash of bitters to this.

1 1/2 oz rye whiskey
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
1/4 oz Amer Torani
2 dashes orange bitters
lemon twist garnish

In a mixing glass, add all ingredients except lemon twist.
Add ice. Stir.
Strain into a chilled martini glass.
Garnish with a lemon twist.
Enjoy responsibly, the way we would like to be governed.

A good example of false equivalency

I misunderstood a comment by the author of the letter to which I respond below. His letter was originally published almost exactly one year ago (publication dates don’t include the year), which means that it was the author’s reposting of the year-old link that was actually inspired by our online conversation. I think it’s fair to say that my reading of it as pre-meditated exploitation of a conversation that he initiated, and in which I was participating in good faith, led me to respond more harshly than I otherwise would have. For that I apologize to Mr. Dickinson. He obviously did not, as I suggested in my response, write this to deflect negative attention generated by the Grand Jury report, or the censure, or any other Delgaudio-related drama of the past year.

On the other hand, his point in posting the link to that thread was to say that he more strongly than ever endorses the idea that the reporting of hate group activity is the moral equivalent of the very hate group activity being reported, even openly warning that I, personally, could be responsible for “fomenting a hate attack” because I discuss the hate group activities of the Sterling supervisor. The veiled suggestion that I had best not continue reporting on his active campaign to incite fear and hatred of people like me is offensive.

Continue reading

Other crimes against humanity we shouldn’t be talking about

As noted in the first comment on the Uganda post below, we were admonished by a frequently irritated visitor to this blog for talking about the crimes against humanity unfolding in Uganda. Apparently – and I don’t know how else to interpret these words – because we are “highly educated” and fortunate to live in the rural end of the most affluent county in “the most free country in the world,” our concern about what’s going on in Uganda at the alleged direction of a US-based hate group leader is “over the top.”

I take the position that if you’re a human rights advocate, you should be concerned about crimes against humanity anywhere, not just where you live. And you should be especially concerned when the crimes are the outcome of collusion with a U.S. hate group leader, who is running the operation from within your own country precisely because it is free.

The situation in Uganda began with propaganda that defamed and dehumanized LGBTI people with claims that we sexually assault children. All human rights catastrophes started somewhere, and studying them is how we learn to do better. Do I think that what’s happening in Uganda could happen here, just because Scott Lively is the leader of a hate group, and Eugene Delgaudio is also the leader of a hate group? No – but pretending so is a lazy, simpleminded way to attack Eugene’s critics, isn’t it?

Anti-gay hate groups don’t have much of a future here. It’s more likely that when Nervous Eugene‘s cash cow runs its course in the U.S. he’ll move on to something or somewhere else. And if that new enterprise involves human rights abuses of LGBTI people in some other country we’ll have a responsibility to help them, too.

So this happened in 1935, as human rights advocates were warning of the deteriorating climate for certain disfavored groups in Germany: Continue reading

This is why they’re called “hate groups”

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

[The lawsuit] boils down to nothing more than an attempt to define my Biblical views against homosexuality as a crime..

..Clearly, this lawsuit is intended not only to silence me as an effective voice of opposition to the ‘gay’ agenda, it is also to intimidate everyone else who would dare to follow my example.

Now, who does that sound like? A certain disgraced and censured Sterling supervisor who fills his bank account by running a hate group at Loudoun taxpayers’ expense? And some of his shameless apologists?

Yes, but it’s actually another hate group director, Scott Lively. Mr. Lively is currently facing a federal lawsuit for his role in creating a deadly climate for the LGBTI community in Uganda. Readers may remember him also as the man who hired a known child rapist to run his fake “ministry” out of a coffeehouse designed to attract teenagers. But that was okay, because the predator had “accepted the salvation of Christ” (and of course, the children he preferred were female).

Mr. Lively has tried to have the lawsuit against him dismissed on First Amendment grounds. But it turns out that there are limits even to free expression when that expression is an integral part of criminal activity, and the criminal activity of which Mr. Lively is accused is aiding and abetting in the commission of a crime against humanity.

Continue reading

Young Ben’s Soldier

Young Ben

Young Ben

Benjamin Thomas Powell, 11, is a 6th grader in Middle School at Blue Ridge.

Ben has a ready smile, a lot of enthusiasm, that’s in fact quite infectious, and he especially loves soccer; Ben even likes school, every subject, but especially science.

Recently, he went with his Mom, Suzanne and Father, Brent, to the Olive Garden Restaurant in Sterling.

It was busy that evening and so they sat at the bar; Ben was laughing, consuming lasagna with abandon, “having a good time,” Ben said, and talking up a storm with his Mom and Dad.

Unbeknownst to Ben, there was a young marine back from service in Iraq, dining with his family at the same restaurant.

We live in a time when persons talk about community and connectedness but are inclined in their day to day life to act only selfishly, on behalf of themselves, turned increasingly inward, mirroring what our technologies say about us, i-Phones, i-Pads, i-Tunes, i-Pods, all about about I, and so much less than when it used to be about “us” about “we” as a community of people.

But this young soldier, in his late 20s, had seen things this family at Olive Garden had not, and perhaps Ben, if he’s lucky, never will, and it affected this young marine.

He happened to tell Ben’s father, “I picked up your check.”

Brent asked, “Why would you do that?” Continue reading

Kill the Ill

“Kill the ill” is not a law enforcement mandate.

We cannot ignore the statistics, however, that half of the people killed by law enforcement in the United States are mentally ill.

We have such dystopic law enforcement results because we fail to train for crisis intervention, lack oversight, and, of course, we’ve cut back mental services nationwide.

I have known law enforcement agents, detectives and cops my whole life as a federal and state prosecutor and as a criminal defense counsel, and, given the resources, guidance and proper directives, they will do the right thing.

But these killings are distressing.

In Houston, Texas, for example, an officer shot and killed a pen-wielding wheelchair bound double amputee in the head when the police were called to a group home for the mentally ill.

In Saginaw, Michigan, six police officers gunned down a homeless, schizophrenic man in a vacant parking lot when he refused to drop a small folding knife.  Sound familiar. Continue reading

What a surprise, religious liberty is alive and well

Have you all noticed that there is very little complaining on the anti-gay fringe about the ongoing avalanche of changes to public policy in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA? The Department of Defense now extends full military benefits to same sex spouses, the Department of State is issuing immigrant visas to same sex spouses, and a multitude of other federal benefits of marriage will now be enjoyed by LGBT families previously denied them. But the anti-gay fringe is largely silent about these events that are actually happening, preferring to talk instead about a hypothetical event that is not only not happening, but is impossible due to our First Amendment protections. What they are talking about – and talking about incessantly in that hysterical, strident tone they favor – is the impending loss of religious liberty for churches “forced to perform homosexual weddings.” Really. It’s bound to happen any day now.

Fear not, fearful mongers of fear: Churches can (still!) refuse to marry any couple, for any reason. The First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs in Mississippi, for instance, just told an African American couple that they would have to be married in a different church, because, according to the pastor, “This was, had not, had never been done here before so it was setting a new (precedent) and there were those who reacted to that.

Continue reading

WTOP Regurgitates Delgaudio Press Release

Eugene Delgaudio, his ex-county-paid aide and "the Walrus" defend the BSA

WTOP’s Hank Silverberg wrote a lazy incompetent report, Censured Delgaudio Bites Back in Loudoun County that reads like a Delgaudio Press release. Silverberg describes Public Advocate as a “right-leaning group” and then quotes Eugene.

“So, when you go to people and say, ‘he’s president of Public Advocate, a nonprofit that defends the Boy Scouts of America and defends traditional marriage’ – string me up?”

In Delgaudioland, defending the Boy Scouts means driving down to the Capital with a bunch of YAF protoges, putting a bag over your county-paid aide’s head, insulting Ernst & Young’s CEO, and spreading the lie that gay men are pedophiles. In other photos from the above YAF Public Advocate protest, the actors present a check to the Jerry Sandusky Defense fund.

Public Advocate only “defends” Eugene’s wallet. Hank Silverberg needs to turn in his “journalism” license.