Blue Heart of Dixie

In the future, I will only post there, without copying here.  Please update your links, and read me there :-)  Thanks, and I will see you in cyberspace!!!

Jason

Copenhagen and Denmark are such nice, peaceful, and friendly places. The Danes are quite possibly the most orderly people I have seen. Even their riots seem orderly, and amazingly enough, no one died. You can be sure in the United States, people would be killed in such riots. The rioters threw things at the police, but no one had a gun or started shooting.

The reason behind this rioting is a long simmering controversy over something called "UNGDOMSHUSET" or Youth House. In the early 80s, this building was abandoned, but still owned by the city. Leftist youth groups, made up of mostly Communists and hard left Socialists (I am told), started squatting on the property, turning it into a sort of commune. The city did not do much to evict them, and the situation has remained for the past 25 years.

In 2000, the city finally sold the property to a mysterious "Christian Group". I say "mysterious" only because no one in the media will name this group. It is unclear if it is the Danish state church or some other organization. Yet, I would think the identity of the group would be important. Why did they agree to buy a property they had to know was occupied?

Upon sale, the group went to court to get an eviction notice. The students fought back, saying that the city had no right to sell "their" house while it was occupied. The courts disagreed, and an order of eviction was entered. That brings us to Thursday, March 2 when the riots began.

The students protested by overturning cars, setting them on fire, setting fire to police barriers in the area, and throwing bottles, rocks, etc at the police. The police have arrested over 500 people during the weekend, and everyone was urged to stay away from downtown Copenhagen. The police have tightened border controls, because this Youth House is a rallying cry for far left groups throughout Europe.

The interesting thing about this situation for me is that under US property law, the students would long ago have seized title over the Youth House. They would have done this under the concept of Adverse Possession. From 1982 onward, the city did nothing to exercise its legal property rights or dominion over the building. They sat back while the students seized the building, lived in it, and passed it on to other students. In the US, when you neglect your property as it is being publicly seized and used by someone else for a period of 7 years, you lose that property. It is as if you legally made a gift of it by abandoning it. So around 1990, those students could have had title in US courts. Not so in Danish courts.

The building is being demolished so the police are expecting things to quiet down. However, that may not be the case for long. On a website devoted to the students, plans for major protests this weekend are in order. Hopefully, it will be peaceful.

The sad thing in all this to me is the lack of US coverage of this event. I went online to let my mom know quickly that I was OK, and she said, "What riots?" Same for my friends. No one had any idea that anything was happening in Copenhagen. The US papers said nothing. A bus full of ball players crashes on I-75 in Atlanta, and every news website in the world headlines the event. I would think that a peaceful city like Copenhagen exploding into riots would also merit coverage.

To educate my readers on this issue, I refer you to the following articles:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6414657.stm
http://www.ungdomshuset.dk/en.php3?id_rubrique=4
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6414481.stm

And if you can perchance read Danish, the best coverage is probably found here:
http://politiken.dk/

Twice today a cross has been traced on my forehead with ashes created from burned palms. And twice I have been told that I come from dust and to dust I shall return. In a couple of hours, that will take place again at the final service for Ash Wednesday.

It is a difficult day. Ash Wednesday usually is. Hearing the words "dust you are and to dust you shall return" spoken hundreds of times leaves an imprint on ones mind and soul. The Litany of Penitence has some extremely moving petitions in it, so very appropriate, particularly those that deal with our failure to love God and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And then there are those that deal with our exclusion and dismissal of those different from ourselves. Yes it is a difficult day.

I have been distracted during the first two services and will likely be for the next. I’m usually somewhat distracted just taking care of my duties during the service, so that’s not new. I search for and take personal prayer time whenever I can get it.

The distraction today comes from the fact that the communiqué’ from the Primates keeps rattling around in my head. Add to that poignant postings such as those that Ann has shared with us and the potential for distraction increases. And then there are the dozens of emails, private emails, sent to me about the communiqué and my response to it on this list. There is so much pain and anguish.

A frequent question is if this is still a church that welcomes lesbians and gays. Another comes from a parent who sees the pain, the every day pain of her lesbian daughter and wonders about the church to which she professes to belong. Another talks about the tears that were shed in reading the communiqué and wondering where, if anywhere, the writer might belong. Yet another grieves over the fact that a relationship that has endured for decades will still not be honored by the church in which they place their faith life. Still others come from clergy in relationships who wonder what will happen to them. And another states that he has given up and is going to seek a new faith community for spiritual nourishment. There are new messages of like content every time I check my email. And I suspect the same is likely of any of us who are identified in some leadership role within the church and who are lesbian or gay.

What can I tell them? What do I say? Their faith has once again been trashed… This time by some who purport to be the highest ranking religious leaders of our church. So what do I say? (And if anyone writes back and says that the Primates are simply "following Scripture" I swear to God I will jump through the telephone/cable wires and personally strangle them! We have been beaten up by the Bible for long enough and it is time for that to stop…so be warned.)

Some will say that we, both lesbians/gay and the Episcopal Church, brought this on ourselves. Hogwash. We have not told a single other province of the Anglican Communion that they had to do what we do or even support what we do….we have just told them that this is where we felt that the Holy Spirit was leading us. Some will try to insist that we, as "westerners" are trying to impose our beliefs on others. Again, hogwash. We have not done that. What we have done is prayed and discerned and studied and discerned some more and prayed some more to reach conclusions we have reached. And those who did not participate in that process in The Episcopal Church have no excuses and no one to blame but themselves. Everyone had the opportunity and has had it for over three decades now. Taking ones time about change is one thing, but some things become ridiculous.

Those who want to try and make the Episcopal Church and/or the Anglican Communion an exclusive body or club will use any way they can to try and make that happen. They do so without the support of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus had no litmus tests. Jesus did not have any mechanisms for proving orthodoxy. Jesus didn’t really seemed to mind who hung on to His little rag tag band at the time. His invitation was never coercive. It was never guilt-causing. It was gentle and always simply issued to the listener. His irritation was clearly reserved not for those who were the outcast of His day, but for those mentioned in the Gospel reading for today, Ash Wednesday, those who found their reward here on earth rather than in a life grounded in serving God.

I still do not know what to tell the folks who write to me. I do know how I feel at the moment and it isn’t all that good. A certain part of me really wants to say: "Fine, you have your way. Every blessed lesbian and gay person in the Episcopal Church and the entire Anglican Communion needs to walk out the door, shaking the dust off of our feet as we go." That would make some…and I will name names…Kendall, Jean, Donald, John, Jim S., Dan…and a few others, very happy. Just remember, if we are gone, who will the purity police go after next? Will it be one of you? You never know once such machines get rolling. A certain German got a similar machine in motion in the middle of the last century and millions died because of it. A wrong comparison? Hardly! Those who start sorting the children of God as if they were God are engaged in just as awful a purification process as that was.

The one thing I am looking for is something I have not seen or read yet: Affirmation from bishops that lesbians and gays remain welcome in their own dioceses, regardless of what else may take place. Bishops Andrus and Sisk have done so, but there are an awful lot of quiet bishops out there at the moment. Nor am I talking about quiet postings to diocesan websites. I am indeed talking about clearly supportive statements on this very list serve. Where are they? Why are we not hearing them?

Two concepts come to mind: One is from the earlier days of the AIDS epidemic and it is "silence equals death." Not too strong a concept here. Silence may well mean death in a variety of forms, including the physical. Those who killed Matthew Shepherd weren’t hearing anything that gave them an indication that what they were doing was wrong. Fred Phelps later actually praised their murderous activities.

The other concept comes from, of all sources, Robert’s Rules of Order…part of the governance of our meetings. It’s a very clear concept used in discussions and votes. Silence implies consent. If the chair hears nothing to the contrary, whatever is before the body is affirmed or approved. Are we to take the silence of so many as implying consent to the exclusionary aspects of the communiqué? Remember, Lambeth 98 - whether you voted for it or not - is clear in its contention that lesbians and gays are not compatible with Holy Scripture.

Off to church now and once more to be told that I come from dust and will return to dust. I will pray for those who hate me. I will even pray for those who just dislike me! And I will ask for forgiveness because I have been forgiven and because it is the right thing to do. Maybe at this service I will not be as distracted. Maybe God will provide some reassurance that I am indeed still beloved by God regardless of what some of God’s followers might have been saying. And maybe when I check email again there will not be another tearful and sad question. And if I am very blessed, maybe I will see and end to the silence of the bishops of my beloved Episcopal Church.

Bruce Garner, Executive Council

Bruce Garner ebgarner@netzero.net "Since when do you have to agree with people just to defend them from injustice?" Lillian Hellman, Writer(1905-1984)

This week is when we begin Lent, the period of reflection before the celebration of Christ’s sacrifice for our collective salvation. This is also the week that the Primate Communique from the Anglican Communion Primate Meeting inTanzania has been released like a kick to the teeth and a sucker punch to the kidneys to not only myself, but to LGBT Anglicans everywhere, and especially to LGBT Episcopalians in particular.

It seems to me that the conservative bigots, led by +Peter Akinola, have demanded surrender by the ECUSA or else. The conservatives are supposed to get just about everything they wanted short of the expulsion of the ECUSA from the Anglican Communion. Of course, the not-so-veiled threat of the Primates is that unless the ECUSA does what is demanded and bitch slaps LGBT Episcopalians and tells us we "are not (after all) worthy of full inclusion in the life of the church, because it turns out, Jesus really doesn’t particularly care for your sort. We thought He did, but whoops…our bad."

The Key Recommendations of the Primates (or, as I like to call them, Key Ultimata) are even more noxious to my heart, mind, and soul. These two documents articulate the pain and suffering that some Episcopalians are suffering because the Episcopal Church has not fully accepted the Windsor Report. The primates fail to comment upon the pain and suffering of GLBT people across the world, which tells me they simply do not care. This is especially true for Nigeria where legislators are considering it a crime to even APPEAR to be gay. Nigerians convicted of being openly gay, having gay sex, or even hanging out with someone of the same gender suspected to be gay would be sentenced to a five-year conviction in the Christian South and potentially beheaded in the Muslim North.

Father Jake has an excellent analysis of why the the ECUSA should tell the Primates, especially those from the Global South, to buzz off. He points out five strikes against this communique that should doom it to failure:

1. The "Recommendations" together make up a large ultimatum to the ECUSA, not a recommendation.
2. The Pastoral Council will empower foreign bishops to make authorizations and take actions that affect the ECUSA which is clear violation of our provincial integrity as a church.
3. The "Recommendations" make demands of our House of Bishops that not only undermines the General Convention (our highest legal authority in the Church) but also ignores the House of Deputies which is made up of clergy AND lay people.
4. There is a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth for the poor, abused Conservatives who cannot stand homos in their midst or women in leadership roles, but not a word about the suffering of LGBT Christians or Via Media parishes trapped in reactionary dioceses.
5. The Archbishops who have actively engaged in plundering assets of the ECUSA by setting up dioceses of their own and consecrating bishops is actively APPROVED unless the ECUSA caves into Global South demands. This kind of interference has never been tolerated in the past, nor should it start now.

Father Richard, of California, has a brilliant analysis, and the key observation for me was this:

Were the situation reversed, would we mirror the demand by requesting that, say, a diocese in Nigeria begin authorizing same-sex blessings, and promising consequences if they didn’t? We have not, for better or for worse, done so in other matters, such as in the ordination of women.

He is absolutely correct. Until now, even ordination of women, and the consecration of women bishops did not cause this kind of reaction where boundaries and are violated and the polity of the ECUSA is proposed to be destroyed.

Integrity USA had this to say in a press release entitled, "Primates Choose Bigotry Over Baptism":

“The primates of the Anglican Communion have utterly failed to recognize the faith, relationships, and vocations of the gay and lesbian baptized,” said Integrity President Susan Russell, responding to the communiqué released today from Dar Es Salaam.

Integrity encourages its membership and allies to directly contact their bishops—urging them to reject the demands of the primates. Our leadership will seek an immediate meeting with the Presiding Bishop to express our deep concerns and encourage the Executive Council to insist on the inclusion of all orders of ministry in the ongoing process of discernment on Anglican Communion issues.

I am a bit emotional as I have just read this communique and am trying to digest it, but I read English just fine, and it seems clear to me that gauntlet has been thrown down: the ECUSA can either throw LGBT Christians under the bus or there can be schism. The price of "unity" is clearly capitulation to the demands of the conservatives and the subjugation of LGBT Episcopalians. If that is the price of unity, I do not think UNITY is worth it. I was driven from the church of my youth once because I was gay and couldn’t stomach the hate and the lies that God did not love because I was gay. I feel like someone is trying to get my new spiritual home to do the same thing…to say that I do not matter, that I am not worthy of Christ’s love or mercy, that I am no longer WELCOME in my own church.

As the early reactions clearly show, this fight is not over. We will NOT go quitely into this night.

My spiritual life in the Episcopal Church is extremely important to me, and I will join in the struggle to stop this madness now. If that means we are kicked out of the Anglican Communion, so be it. I won’t stand silently by as I did at age 19 when my pastor said from the pulpit, "I could never have love in my heart for a homosexual. If I knew of any in the church right now, I would come down off this pulpit, escort them out the door, and tell them never to return." It was 7 years before I entered a church again for the purposes of worship. I won’t be expelled or banished so easily this time.

The Primates of the Anglican Communion are meeting in Tanzania this weekend. This is the first meeting of the global leaders of Anglican provinces around the world since the General Convention of the Episcopal Church last year and the election of Katherine Jefforts-Schori as our Presiding Bishop. The questions swirled over whether +Katherine would be seated at the meeting, or would be excluded. Not because she’s a woman, mind you, but because she supported the election of the homosexual as Bishop of New Hampshire. Being a woman just adds insult to injury, right fellas?

The Archbishop of Canterbury would have none of it. +Katherine is the legally elected primate of the US Church, and will be allowed at all meetings. If the Africans and others in the Global South don’t like it, they can leave.

The other part of the drama surrounded what would happen to the Episcopal Church now that it has responded to the Windsor Report. The report from a Primate sub-committee said that we had largely complied with the Windsor Report, except where it comes to same sex blessings. That position is unclear, according to the report.

A good source for a lot of the chatter surrounding this meeting at the Thinking Anglicans site.

The conservatives are not happy thus far. The report did not condemn the Episcopal Church as an apostate organization that treats its homos as people of God, clearly going against the intent of the Bible and Jesus, who repeatedly stated and showed his hatred for all things homosexual.

Sarcasm aside, the conservatives are ready for war. They want Schism NOW. Many are actively praying for it, namely the head of the American Anglican Council. Others say the report on Windsor compliance makes schism inevitable. They are foaming at the mouth about the Episcopal Church and how gays are welcome and it is led by a woman, how we don’t take every word of (fill in the version) Bible seriously as the spoken Word of God, etc, etc.

I do not know what will happen. It is sad to me that there are so many people filled with such venom in their hearts. They want to use Christ and the bible to conquer and destroy. They do not care about love and redemption. To get this result, they will destroy the very thing they claim to love…the church.

Others think that creating a new province will work. You would have the Episcopal Church and then (I guess) the American No-Fags-No-Women-Outside-the-Pews Anglican Church. People could just pick the province they like best. Of course, the problems with this are: a) the Episcopal Church would never consent to such an action and b) you would have to allow this in every church. That means a new province for African countries too where there is disagreement. The hope is that you could have a two American provinces for a few years until the new Anglican Convenant (which would obviously ban women and homos) is adopted, which would expel the Episcopal Church for refusal to agree to the terms of said Covenant.

I do not know what will happen. I have written in this blog before about my feelings on this issue within the Episcopal Church. I was effectively evicted once from my church home, and I will be DAMNED if I will let it happen again.

Attending from Georgia were:

Jason Cecil (National Committeeman)
Flora Brooke Hesse (National Committeewoman)
Kirk Miller (YDA Rules Chair)
Billy Joyner (YDG President)
Benson Manica (YDG Secretary)
Kyle Bailey (Atlanta Stonewall Democrats)
Skyler Atkins (University of West Georgia)
Page Gleason (Executive Director)
Rebecca Miller (DeKalb)
Erin O’Neil (Atlanta)
Bernita Smith (DeKalb)
Melissa Thompson (Women’s Caucus chair)
Juliana Illari (Cobb)
Brian Peterson (VP-Membership)
Robin Reynolds (LGBT Caucus chair & CDG President)
Nikema Williams (Atlanta)
Rahsheim Wright (Chatham)

As you can see, our delegation was nearly 20 strong! It was an excellent turnout by our state and one of the best in the nation.

Thursday was the start of DNC meetings, and every participant in YDA got a guest pass to the DNC. The College Democrats got a private tour of the US Capitol, complete with a visit to Speaker Pelosi’s office and her private balcony at the Capitol. The DNC Rules meeting on youth participation did not go as well as we had hoped. The chairman, committee counsel, and staff were all against us, and convinced the group to turn their backs on a long standing violation of the DNC charter. At one point, the committee counsel made the Nixon/Bush-like argument that since the Convention is the highest authority of the Democratic Party, any action taken by a convention is de facto in line with the charter (Remind anyone of Nixon’s famous saying, "If the President does it, then it is not illegal"? How about Bush’s stance that since he’s Commander in Chief, he can ignore the Constitution?) It was the 1980 Convention that purposefully, but inexplicably, removed youth from representation in future delegations. What they did not do was remove youth from the chater, meaning that the DNC has been involation of the charter since 1980. Instead, a letter will be sent to the state parties urging them to "pretty please" remember to include youth in their delegations. YDG will work with the state party to ensure that youth delegates are seated as part of the 2008 Georgia contingent.

Every Presidential candidate who has declared for the Democratic nomination was invited to speak on Friday and Saturday morning. The general consensus from our group was that Edwards, Clinton, Obama, and Richardson impressed the most. There was even an opportunity for us to meet the candidates individually, an opportunity of which several of us were able to take advantage.

On Friday night, many of us attended the YDA Founder’s Day event, which was a casual buffet showing the various decades that YDA has been in existence. This year is the 75th anniversary of the organization. It was an interesting party, although I went into it thinking it would be fancier than it was. And all of us from GA and other southern states were horrified by how rudely people treated Mrs. Vilseck, the keynote speaker. She is not the most exciting speaker, but to have people talking over her in separate conversations was rude. We were delighted to have DPG Chair Jane Kidd join us for the evening. We were able to see her at many events throughout the weekend, along with other DPG delegates to the DNC such as Labor Commissioner Mike Thurmond and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

The final amendments to the YDA charter were considered and partially rejected. The amendments to the charter failed, but the corresponding bylaw changes passed. This means that for now, YDA’s bylaws and charter conflict. This happened due to politics, and the desire of some to poke a stick in the eye of the outgoing YDA President. It also happened because the Rules committee got tired of looking at each line that was changed in the charter and hastily moved to adjourn without allowing the dissenters a full hearing on their concerns.

Speaking of the YDA Presidency, David Hardt formally launched his ticket’s campaign for office. The reception that David, Chris, and Crystal hosted was fantastic. Having the chair of the Texas Democratic Party introduce David was a nice touch too. Texas doesn’t have the best reputation in the world for being nice to gay people (see Lawrence v Texas), but David has managed to marshall the full support of his state party in a genuine way. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes discussion about who should be the DNC Man on the ticket, and a huge meeting was held where just about anyone interested in sharing an opinion was invited to do so. It is this kind of collaboration that is good for YDA, and I look forward to David’s administration.

The next YDA meeting will be in May at a time and place yet to be determined. The only thing I do know is that the meeting will be west of the Mississippi River. Once details are released, we will share those with you.

NATIONAL CONVENTION UPDATE

Mark your calendars for July 18-21, 2007!!! The YDA National Convention will be held in Dallas, TX at the Adams Mark Hotel. For those who have attended previous conventions in San Francisco (2005), Buffalo (2003), and Tuscon (2001), you know these conventions are a lot of fun and great way to get together with YDs from across the nation, settle on a national YD platform, and elect national officers.

Confirmed speakers include Hillary Clinton and John Edwards so far. The convention website will not be up until late February or early March, but some financial details are available for you to start saving your pennies. The Adams Mark Hotel is the largest hotel in Texas, and for rooms with two queen size beds, the cost is $125/night (or $31.25/person with 4 people in a room). For those who want your own room, a king size bed is available in the Royal Tower for $145/night. Reservations can be made by calling 877-319-2326 or visiting http://resweb.passkey.com/go/yda2007. Registration will cost $60/person, and there will be a way for financial hardship to be argued on an individual basis. American Airlines is offering a 5% discount off airfare for conference attendees (use code A8577AM at http://www.aa.com/) and if 10 or more people fly Southwest, an unspecified discount will apply. If you make reservations on your own, please be sure to email Jason at http://webmail.bellsouth.net/agent/MobNewMsg?to=jacecil6@bellsouth.net an d let him know the details for our records.

With the convention being in Dallas, we will likely have a driving option for those interested in that. The downside of Dallas is that in order to maximize Georgia’s votes at the Convention, we must have 34 people in our delegation. Fundraising will obviously be key, and YDG will work with local chapters to offset the costs. The experience of the national convention is worth it, though. Dallas has world class shopping and entertainment, and it promises to be a good time for everyone. I hope you will make plans to attend.

Democratic Party of Georgia Executive Officers:

Chair
Jane V. Kidd (Clarke)

First Vice-Chair
Michael Thurmond (Clarke)

Congressional District/County Liaison Vice-Chair
Sally Rosser (Fulton)

Constituency Group Vice-Chair
Virgilio Perez Pascoe (Forsyth)

Candidate Recruitment Vice-Chair
Winfred Dukes (Dougherty)

Secretary
Stephen R. Leeds (Fulton)

Treasurer
Rex Templeton, Jr. (Chatham)

The elections were exhausting.  The last couple of weeks featured
plenty of behind-the-scenes intrigue as the elected officials and old
guard of the party worked overtime to make sure Mike Berlon did not get
elected chair.  It took 4 ballots, but Mike was defeated.  His vision
for the party was probably too radical in the end, the changes too
great. 

That’s fine, really.  It is in the great American tradition to vote for
change, but not radical change.  But make no mistake, the DPG of our
fathers and grandfathers is gone.  For the first time ever, we have had
truly democratic elections for the party leadership.  A real debate of
ideas was forced, and the conversation moved the party forward.  The
ideas that Young Democrats need to be embraced by the party, and that
grassroots is the way to fight our way back into the majority have
gained real traction.

From a Young Democrat viewpoint, the election was definitely positive.
At least three of the executive officers have made an explicit point of
valuing the Young Democrats and the benefits we can bring to the party
as we move into the future.  This includes the new chair, Jane Kidd.
Jane has been a friend of Young Democrats for a while, and she has been
especially close to the UGA chapter, which has worked heavily on her
state house and senate races.  The state GOP felt threatened enough by
Jane Kidd to redistrict her senate district to add enough GOP voters to
prevent her election.  That decision is one they will come to rue.  I
guarantee you that the GOP will one day wish they had just left well
enough alone, because dealing with Chairwoman Kidd will be much more of
a painful experience than dealing with State Senator Kidd would have
been.   I look forward to helping Jane put the hurt on.

We have an Hispanic businessman from Forsyth County whose campaign
almost gave the exact talking points that the Young Democrats of
Georgia has been promoting for our own future.  Plus, with Hispanics
being a crucial electoral block in the future, having DPG with a major
Vice Chair who is Hispanic will only help us reach out to that
community which is currently under attack by the GOP.

The best part of Mr. Pascoe’s election was the defeat of an anti-gay,
anti-choice candidate for the office.  Mr. Pascoe was unapologetic
about his past as someone who worked very closely with the LGBT group
at Coors.  He is thoughtful and business oriented.  One of his
opponents was a key turncoat vote in 2004 to force a vote on the gay
marriage amendment.  Not only did he advocate openly in the Democratic
caucus against gay people, his actions led directly to the loss of at
least 5-6 seats in the GA House that we might have kept had Rep. Smyre
been allowed to sit on the amendment in the House Rules Committee.
This man’s followers claimed he was a preacher, and had to vote and
advocate against gay people, and against abortion rights.  That’s fine,
and if his constitutents don’t care, that’s fine too.  But bigots don’t
need to apply for major office in the Democratic Party.  That DPG said
"NO" to this individual warms my heart and makes me proud to be a
Southern Democrat!

Mike Thurmond is not only Commissioner of Labor, but our 1st Vice
Chair.  He will have the support of elected officials not only in GA
but also in DC.  Steve Leeds and Sally Rosser provide crucial
leadership, and a perspective of what has and has not worked in the
past.  They are also forward thinking people whose talents promise to
be unleashed under Chairwoman Kidd.

In two crucial contested elections, Young Democrats came out on top.
In my own 5th District, home of Representative John Lewis, my good
friend Will Curry was elected chair of the the 5th Congressional
District by a vote of 17-10.  He unseated the incumbent who happened to
be his own state representative.  Will is a fine addition to the DPG
Executive Committee, and Congressman Lewis will find that he has a
fine, dynamic young leader as the focal point for his party in his
district.   

In the 13th Congressional District, home of Representative David Scott,
another good friend, Nikema Williams survived a nasty campaign to
defeat the incumbent District Chair 8-5.  The incumbent used every
trick at her disposal to force Nikema out of the race, and then to
intimidate the committee members voting in her district.  If looks
could kill, Nikema would have been gutted like a fish during her
speech.  But poise, and actions, spoke louder than words and nasty
looks.  Nikema, unlike her predecessor, will work WITH her congressman,
not against him.  She certainly won’t run against him for office!
David Scott will have a true Democratic partner in his district now,
and everyone will be better for it.

So, while the day was exhausting, the elections were a good thing.  I
have great hopes that the new leadership will move us forward, and chip
away at the GOP machine that has arisen since 2002.  Georgia is
rightfully a purple state, and if our leadership is as bold as I hope
they will be in enacting their campaign promises, we will finally
become a swing state.

Georgia
already has the constitutional maximum of 159 counties, the 2nd highest
total number of counties in the nation after Texas.  Yet, with the
Republicans in control of the state government, Milton County may be
ressurected.  All in the name of making damn sure
that rich white folks’ money won’t be spent on anything that might
benefit a person of color!  Jim Crow racism, 21st century
style….alive and well here in Georgia.

This whole movement
started with Sandy Springs begging for cityhood status starting in the
late 1960s, early 1970s.  At that time, white flight from Atlanta was
in full force, and Sandy Springs was terrified that Atlanta might come
incorporate them into the city.  Democrats in the city of Atlanta
blocked cityhood attempts until the GOP took over the legislature
following the 2004 elections.  At that time, the long tradition of
honoring a local delegation’s wishes regarding local legislation was
abandoned.  What the GOP representatives wanted for Sandy Springs was
to seal it off from the majority black Fulton County, despite what a
majority of the Fulton delegation wanted.

Personally, while I
know that Sandy Springs cityhood push was steeped in racism, I cannot
deny that a 90+% vote in favor of cityhood does clearly indicate where
the citizens wanted to go.  They’d been pushing for a city for 30
something years, so while it did hurt Fulton for Sandy Springs to
incorporate, the movement didn’t bother me too much.

What has
happened since Sandy Springs became a city has bothered me a great deal
because the obvious racial hatred driving it is blatantly obvious.  The
drives to incorporate Johns Creek and Milton in North Fulton were not
based in history, but on a childish fit by people who are consistently
outvoted by their fellow citizens to the south.  Admittedly, Fulton
County government is a mess, but until this year, it’s been run by
Republicans since 1994!  The County chair has been a member of the GOP
all that time, although the commission was usually 4-3 in favor of
Democrats.  The chairs have also been white, so I don’t know where the
spoiled rich people in North Fulton got the idea that if they could
just seal themselves off from the "darker" South Fulton and Atlanta,
they’d be fine.

Milton and Johns Creek were about destroying
Fulton County’s government by making sure all local taxes went to the
cities.  However, Fulton still runs schools, libraries, health centers,
etc.  The entire former Milton County is now incorporated into
different cities, but that still allows some taxes from wealthy North
Fulton to potentially be spent in poorer South Fulton.  For the rich
bitches in Alpharetta, that’s UNacceptable!

It has been reported
that North Fulton has 42% of the property wealth in the entire county,
although it’s land mass is much smaller.  People have written into the
paper furious that while they provide 42% of the tax base, 42% of the
taxes are not spent on them.  That kind of logic is ridiculous, and it
would mean that only the wealthiest citizens deserve any government
services at all.  I realize we’re talking about Republicans here, but
haven’t they heard of the social contract?  To those whom much is
given, much is expected.  Rich people who have gained tremendous
benefits from the entire society have an obligation and responsibility
to give back to that society.  They deserve good schools, police
protection, etc….but so do the poor.  To achieve the American dream
of upward mobility, we must have a tax structure that gives the poor a
chance to get a good education and to better their circumstances.  We
do a piss poor job of it now, but if we follow the "I provide 42% of
the tax base, so you must spend 42% of the taxes on me" philosophy, we
will re-create a medieval society where the poor get poorer, the rich
get richer, and the middle class disintegrates.

Luckily, there
are many obstacles in the way of giving rebirth to Milton County.
First, the Constitution of Georgia forbids it.  Unless you want to go
South Georgia and dissolve, say, Jeff Davis County in order to make
room for a reborn Milton County, you must amend the constitution to
allow more than 159 counties.  That requires 2/3 of the both houses of
the General Assembly plus a vote by the people.  Thankfully, the GOP
does not control 2/3 of the legislature, so if Democrats just stick
together on this question, the proposal can be defeated.

Let’s
say the GOP does peel off enough Democrats to get their 2/3 majority to
send the question to the people of Georgia.  It’s likely Georgia will
yawn and vote "yes" to Milton.  But there are unanswered questions as
to how to affect a divorce.  Fulton has contracts with Grady Health
System, MARTA and others.  Milton cannot just shirk those contracts,
although you can bet they will look for the first chance to break
them.  After all, Grady provides services to the poor (and probably too
many black folks for Alpharetta’s tastes), and we all know they don’t
care for MARTA.  Then there is the matter of the school system.  How do
you split that?

The GOP sponsors of the drive to recreate Milton
County have no answers for these questions.  It’s because this drive is
not rooted in anything that makes good governmental sense.  It is
steeped in racism, pure and simple.  Exposing this basis for separation
is the new proposed map of Milton.  Milton County reborn would not stop
at the Chattahoochee River at the thin neck of Fulton County, as would
be historically accurate.  Milton would absorb Sandy Springs too, and
some would like for it to also include Buckhead.  Gee, I wonder why
that map exists.  The demographics carefully cherry pick the wealthy,
mostly white areas of the county and cleave them into a lilly white,
conservative, GOP bastion.

This drive to re-create Milton County
must fail.  It’s intent is to financially destroy the city of Atlanta,
and to cause the fiscal collapse of the southern portion of Fulton
county simply because the citizens there are mostly of the wrong color
and have too low of a bank balance.  Democrats in the legislature must
make a united stand against this foolishness, because only they can put
a stop to it.

I have written about
the struggles of the Episcopal Church of the USA regarding
homosexuality.  My adopted church not only ordains openly gay clergy,
but also has an openly gay bishop.  This summer, at our General
Conference, our deputies and clergy elected the Katherine
Jefferts-Schori as the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of
the USA.  As such, she is considered the "primate" of the United States
in the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the equal to Archbishop Peter
Akinola of Nigeria.  This turn of events, some have decided, must not
stand.

The wealthy, largely conservative, and most certainly Republican,
parishes of Northern Virginia who voted to leave and join the Anglican
Church of Nigeria are bigots who should be faced with the full legal
force of the church to strip of them of the property they hold in
TRUST, a trust they have broken.  For them, it was bad enough when we
let women become priests and bishops.  It got much worse when
homosexuals were allowed to wear the clerical collar, and they reach
the end of their rope when an openly gay man was elected Bishop of New
Hampshire.  Apparently, having a woman as the chief bishop of the
church in the United States was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
They simply REFUSE to acknowledge the authority of a woman, and instead
back a man who holds their views that women shouldn’t be priests, let
alone bishops, and gays deserve jail and death rather the the love of
Christ and the church.

These people are stalwarts of the
Republican Party nationally, considering the location of the fleeing
parishes.  They hold nothing but contempt for a process based on the US
Constitution and written largely by our Founding Fathers.  This
contempt is based on the fact that they have lost the argument. They
are on the wrong side of the great issues of the day, and they will not
tolerate it.

Personally, I’m tired of mollifying these
conservatives and their right wing, hate-filled agenda.  If they want
to leave the Episcopal Church, fine.  Lock the doors and give us the
keys as you leave.  All property is held in trust by Parishes on behalf
of the National Church.  That national church should be vigorous in
enforcing its rights in court.  Let these bigots meet in a field for
all I care.  We have tried and tried to reach compromise, approach
these people in good faith and loving spirit, and they spit in our eyes
each and every time.  It’s their way or the highway, and I’m personally
sick of it.  We have a woman as the head of our church, and some
dioceses may feel called to elect an openly gay person as their
bishop.  Get over it.  Time marches on.

Let’s look at what this
"savior" of theirs from Nigeria has been up to.  Peter Akinola is a
proud bigot.  He claims he must discriminate against women and gays
because the bible commands it (it doesn’t), and because he’s in
competition with Islam for the souls of Nigeria.  Nigeria is a state
that is 50% Muslim and 50% Christian. The Muslims control the northern
parts of the country, and the Christians control the southern parts.
There is a real competition for control of Nigeria’s religious life.
Since Islam hates gays, Christians must to in order to "compete". 

In
this spirit, Archbishop Akinola has openly supported a new law in
Nigeria that would not only outlaw gay marriages (which are now legal
in South Africa), but ANY form of association between gay people,
social or otherwise, as well as the publication of any materials deemed
to promote a "same sex amorous relationship."  Under the law, anyone
attending a meeting between gay people could receive a sentence of 5
years in prison.  Other activities prohibited by this law are
participating in gay clubs, reading books, watching films, or accessing
Internet sites that "promote" homosexuality.

Take a moment to
digest that paragraph.  It’s stunning the malice and sheet hatred of
gay people expressed in this new Nigerian law.  Two men having DINNER
together could be construed to be illegal under this law.  Straight
people who allow more than one gay person in their home would be
eligible for a prison sentence of up to 5 years!  Reading this blog
could get you put in prison or stoned to death.  Apparently, the
Christian south would only use prison, but the Muslim north would be
allowed to use the death penalty, which constitutes stoning to death.
The Republican Episcopalians in Northern Virginia have aligned
themselves with Peter Akinola and his precious Gay Holocaust law.  Make
no mistake, that this bill is intended to eliminate any person deemed
to be homosexual.  No one will be safe.

In NYC, Archbishop
Akinola was visiting a church.  Afterward, he was greeting parishoners,
and a man shook his hand, told him how much he enjoyed his sermon, and
then introduced him to "my partner, who’s been with me for several
years."  When Akinola understood that the man clasping his hand was
GAY, he recoiled in horror, jerked his hand away, and jumped back.
Later, he recalled this story with PRIDE.

Personally, I’m done
with Nigeria too.  In my work, I’ve known the problems they cause in
polio eradication, the corruption, the graft, etc.  We should simply
build a wall around Nigeria and them rot.  Oh wait, they have OIL, so
we can’t do that.  Still, my disgust with this country leads me to
support such a wall nontheless.  They are trying to destroy my church,
and if I went into their country, they would try to take my very life.

Reading my blog, one might think that all I care about are gay
issues.  That is certainly not true, as anyone who knows me could tell
you.  I care about access to quality healthcare, women’s rights, strong
families, fiscal responsibility, patriotism, fighting terrorism, etc.
The list goes on and on.  Yet, as a gay man, I feel a sense of danger
in the political world surrounding me.  I do have the sense that all
will be OK in the end, but it will take a while.  I do not think that
any state in the USA would dare pass a law as draconian as the Nigerian
law.  Yet, I see people from the other side of the political spectrum
rising up to CHEER the very men who push forward such laws.  Perhaps my
being a gay man makes me more sensitive, and more likely to have a
vociferous opinion when it comes to gay issues.  I would love to have
no reason to blog about it ever again.  Unfortunately, I think I will
be an old man before that happens.

Yet, there’s
hope in this petition.  The Supreme Court of Massachusetts told the
legislature it had a duty to vote on citizen petitions.  In November,
the Massachusetts General Assembly simply adjourned a constitutional
convention without voting on the anti-gay measure.  The rule on citizen
petitions is that only 25% of the legislature, sitting as a
constitutional convention, has to OK an initiative for it to pass.  Out
of 200 legislators, only 62 voted for the anti-gay petition.  That’s
only 31%!

The newly elected governor of Massaschusetts, Deval Patrick, had this to say about the vote: 

"I am disappointed by today’s vote in the Constitutional Convention. We
have never used the initiative petition to limit individual freedoms
and personal privacy, but today’s vote was a regrettable step in that
direction.

"We have work to do over the next year to
turn this around. I am heartened by the fact that the overwhelming
majority of the members of the Legislature — a margin of over 2 to 1 —
voted to move on. I pledge to do what I can to build on that momentum,
so that our Constitution will continue to stand for liberty and
freedom, and not discrimination."

I cannot imagine
a day where Sonny Perdue or any elected Governor in Georgia would issue
such a statement.  Here’s a man who was overwhelming elected to his
office, and he’s quite forcefully advocating that the amendment be
defeated, and not be put to a vote.  Unlike Mitt Romney, who lead
rallies against gay marriage, and railed about how evil it was and how
it harmed children, Gov. Patrick personally petitioned lawmakers to
vote down the proposal, and seems to indicate he will continue to do so.

The
roll call is now a matter of public record, and the newly elected
Massachusetts General Assembly has a gain of 6 votes in favor of
keeping gay marriage.  That means only 6-7 more votes are needed to
defeat the measure, and many think that those 6-7 votes can be found
before the issue arises again later this year.

The Boston Globe’s editorial board said it best:

"When
a final vote is taken by the new Legislature, the members must consider
whether this is an appropriate issue to put to the voters. We believe
Massachusetts voters would not take away this right, and a popular
endorsement might be considered healthy. But civil rights are
fundamental, and gay marriage should not be subject to plebiscite here,
any more than it would have been appropriate to have Alabama voters
directly decide school integration or Virginia voters decide
interracial marriage."

That’s the whole problem with the "let
people vote" mentality.  Civil rights really shouldn’t be put to a
vote.  You know that old time segregationists are kicking themselves
for not using this method to block those "uppity" blacks who had the
temerity to demand to be treated as equal citizens.  Imagine what the
vote totals would have been all throughout the South in the 1950s and
1960s if segregation, interracial marriage, or school desegregation had
been put to a vote.  What sense of decency stopped those bigots of the
mid-20th century from using the popular vote as a bludgeon?  And more
importantly, what happened to it?