Signal Boost 4 - Joseph Hayne Rainey 1832-1887; Represntative of South Carolina 1870-1879

As I have mentioned in prior posts, this project is more about personal accountability, I want to do something for myself that counteracts the disproportionate amount of attention of the voices of white supremacist. I have committed to do 365 posts (not every day, so this project could take years), to do the work to learn more about people of color, Jewish people, and movements for social justice and to do so in a manner that seeks to amplify/signal boost those people and those voices. To that end, I've created a static webpage - Signal Boost Supplement - Better Sources than Me. I will try to update this page with resources I come across.

Now onto Signal Boost 4 (again, my primary source is Black Americans in Congress 1870-2007, please check it out as it has much more vibrant information):

Joseph Hayne Rainey is one of those interesting complex people. He was born enslaved. His father was a barber and the person who enslaved him "allowed" him to work for wages, so long as he paid some of the wages back. He was able to buy his family's freedom in the early 1840s, and approximately a decade later, enslaved two males for his family.
Rainey served for the Confederate Army in 1861, escaping to Bermuda, a British colony that abolished the practice of enslaving human beings in 1834. He stayed there through the Civil War, returning to Charleston in 1866, with enough wealth acquired in Bermuda to "elevate his status in the community."

Quick Facts About his Political Life:

• 1868 - participated in the South Carolina constitutional convention as a representative of Georgetown.
• 1869 Attended a state labor commission.
• 1869 - Official census taker.
• 1870 - Won a seat to the state senate, immediately becoming a chairman of the finance committee.
• 1870 - Appointed to fill the seat left vacant due to Rep. Benjamin F. Whitemore's resignation amidst a scandal about getting paid for appointments to U.S. military academies.
• 1870 Won the full term by 63% and later by 86%.
• Was unopposed for the 43rd Congress.
• 1872 -Ran a race against another Black candidate (Samuel Lee), winning by 52%, his opponent challenged the result because some people spelled Rainey's last name incorrectly. 
• Won the seat in the 45th Congress against Democrat John S. Richardson by 52%. Richardson accused the Rainey and the Republicans of voter intimidation because of the presence of federal troops during the election. 
• March 3, 1879 - Rainey retired from the House, after being defeated by John S. Richardson, a Democrat by more than 8,000 votes. 

Highlighted Parts of his political career: 

• 1871, in his first major speech, argued for the use of federal troops to protect Southern Blacks from the recently organized Ku Klux Klan. After the act passed, he had to argue for it to actually get funded. 
• He favored desegregating schools, but also favored a poll tax for schools, which many at the time thought would exclude people recently emancipated from enslavement. 
• He was the first Black American to preside of the House of Representatives (as a Speaker pro term in April or May of 1874). 
• Generally opposed restricting the influx of Asian immigrants to the U.S. 
• After a July 4. 1876 tragedy where black militia celebrated by parading through the streets in Hamburg, South Carolina and white men fired upon them, killing several militiamen, Rainey condemned the murders and exchanged coarse remarks with Democratic Representative Samuel Cox of New York who had propounded the believe that the "Hamburg massacre" was the fault of Black South Carolina leaders. 

Quotes from this speech from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Hayne_Rainey

• ... if it had not been for the blasting effects of slavery, whose deadly pall has so long spread its folds over this nation, to the destruction of peace, union, and concord. Most particularly has its baneful influence been felt in the south, causing the people to be at once restless and discontented. Even now, sir, after the great conflict between slavery and freedom, after the triumph achieved at such a cost, we can yet see the traces of the disastrous strife and the remains of disease in the body-politic of the south. In proof of this witness the frequent outrages perpetrated upon our loyal men. The prevailing spirit of the southron is either to rule or to ruin. Voters must perforce succumb to their wishes or else risk life itself in the attempt to maintain a simple right of common manhood." 
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•  I could dwell upon the sorrows of poor women, with their helpless infants, cast upon the world, homeless and destitute, deprived of their natural protectors by the red hand of the midnight assassin. I could appeal to you, members upon this floor, as husbands and fathers, to picture to yourselves the desolation of your own happy firesides should you be suddenly snatched away from your loved ones. Think of gray-haired men, whose fourscore years are almost numbered, the venerated heads of peaceful households, without warning murdered for political opinion's sake
• Speech in Favor of Civil Rights of 1875

... I am somewhat surprised to perceive that on this occasion, when the demand is made upon Congress by the people to guarantee those rights to a race heretofore oppressed, we should find gentlemen on the other side taking another view of the case from which they professed in the past. The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] has taken a legal view of this question, and he is undoubtedly capable of taking that view. I am not a lawyer, and consequently I cannot take a legal view of this matter, or perhaps I cannot view it through the same optics that he does. I view it in light of the Constitution - in light of the amendments that have been made to  that Constitution; I view it in the light of humanity; I view in the light of the progress and civilization which are now rapidly marching over this country. We, sirs, would not ask of this Congress as a people that they should legislate for us specifically as a class if we could only have those rights which this bill is designed to give us accorded us without this enactment. I can very well understand the opposition to this measure by gentlemen on the other side of the House, and especially of those who come from the South. They have a feeling against the negro in this country that I suppose will never die out. They have an antipathy against that race of people, because of their loyalty to this Government, and because at the very time when they were needed to show their manhood and valor they came forward in defense of the flag of the country and assisted in crushing out the rebellion. They, sir, would not give the colored man the right to vote or the right to enjoy any of those immunities which are enjoyed by other citizens, if it had a tendency to make him feel his manhood and elevate him above the ordinary way of life. So long as he makes himself content with ordinary gifts, why it is all well; but when e aspires to be a man, when he seeks to have the rights accorded him that other citizens in the country enjoy then he is asking too much and such gentlemen as the gentlemen from the Kentucky are not willing to grant it.  

... just as soon as we begin to assert our manhood and demand our rights we are looked upon as men not worthy to be recognized, we become objectionable, we become obnoxious, and we hear this howl about social equality.  

...We do not ask the passage of any law forcing us upon anybody who does not want to receive us. But we do want a law enacted that we may be recognized like other men in the country. Why is it that colored members of Congress cannot enjoy the same immunities that are accorded to white members? Why cannot we stop at hotels here without meeting objection? Why cannot we go into restaurants without being insulted? We are here enacting laws for the country and casting votes upon important questions; we have been sent here by the suffrages of the people, and why cannot we enjoy the same benefits that are accorded to our white colleagues on this floor? 

I say to you, gentlemen, that you are making a mistake. Public opinion is aroused on this question. I tell you that the negro will never rest until he gets his rights. We ask them because we know it is proper, not because we want to deprive any other class of the rights and immunities they enjoy, because they are granted to us by the law of the land. Why this discrimination against us when we enter public conveyances or places of public amusement? Why is a discrimination made against us in the churches; and why in the cemeteries when we go to pay that last debt of nature that brings us all upon a level? 

Gentlemen, I say to you this discrimination must cease. We are determined to fight this question; we believe the Constitution gives us this right. All of the fifteen amendments made to the Constitution run down in one single line of protecting the rights of the citizens of this country. One after another of those amendments give these rights to citizens; step by step these rights are secured to them. And now we say to you that if you will not obey the Constitution, then the power is given by that Constitution for the enactment of such a law as will have a tendency to enforce the provisions thereof.

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Signal Boost 3 - Dick Gregory 1932-2017

Just a reminder to anyone coming across this blog without knowing anything about my project. Signal Boost is my effort to commit to 365 posts of learning about People, including women, of Color, Jewish people, and movements for social justice. The idea of the project came from being tired of media was amplifying the voices of white supremacists and craving to hear the sides all to often left out.

It's only day three and I'm doing something I didn't want to do, take a short cut and write about someone getting significant national attention. I am making the exception already because this project is about educating myself and I did not really know of Dick Gregory before. I was listening to DemocracyNow!, the best source I've ever found for  news that centers voices of activists and people of color and they dedicated their show to this man and I was simply blown away (not unexpectedly, when you see the images of the Civil Rights Movement, we know there are a lot of unsung heroes who put their lives on the lines over and over again who will never get proper credit for their roll in making this country live up to its ideals).

Dick Gregory was comedian and activist. I'm not a huge fan of comedy because it so often takes shortcuts with homophobia, sexism, racism, ablebodism, etc., etc. Listening to him speak, here is a man that mentioned problems of intimate violence multiple times in his interview. Not as a joke, but as a serious commentary on the problems in our world.

Here's one example from the DemocracyNow! transcript

Alcohol consumption, right now, as we talk right now is about 34 percent higher than it was before Ground Zero. Now, what do this mean? It mean get ready for battered wives. If, before Ground Zero, every four seconds in America a woman got beat up by her boyfriend or husband — not strangers, people she know — then think about what happens now with the amount of alcohol and drug consumption that’s out here. 

What he did to open doors for Black comedians is incredibly important. But what turns my head was his remarkable lifelong quest for justice.  He marched and integrated lunch counters, and schools. He protested the Vietnam War:

No, nonviolence to me means not that I’m not supposed to hit American white man, nonviolence mean to me that death might put me on its payroll, but I’ll never put death on my payroll.

 And this thought on police brutality:

Let me say this, never before in the history of this planet have anybody made the progress that African-Americans have made in a 30 year period, in spite of black folks and white folks — the now — the number one problem we confronted with now is police brutality. Now am I saying police brutality is worse today than it was 50 years ago? No. Then what has has changed? My mindset. There’s things I would have tolerated 50 years ago, that I won’t tolerate. 

 In addition to DemocracyNow! Tributes to Dick Gregory are available at NPR  and the New York Times. 

I learned from the NYT he is an author and Goodreads author page lists the following books that he authored - so in the spirit of Signal Boosting, check out his own books.

• nigger by Dick Gregory and Robert Lipsyte (1965) 
• From the Back of the Bus - (1962)
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  The Shadow That Scares Me

  Jan 1968  by Dick Gregory and James R. McGraw
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  Dick Gregory's Political Primer (Perennial Library, P264)

  1972 by Dick Gregory
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  Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin' with Mother Nature  by Dick Gregory, Alvenia M. Fulton (Editor), James R. McGraw (Editor) (1973)
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  Up from Nigger

  Nov 1976 by Dick Gregory
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  Bible Tales (Perennial Library)

  May 1978 by Dick Gregory
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  No More Lies

  Nov 1, 1997 by Dick Gregory
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  Callus On My Soul: A Memoir

  Feb 1, 2003 by Dick Gregory and Shelia P. Moses (American history in a conversational memoir.)

As someone not into comedy, it didn't even occur to me there would be audio collections, but there are some- check out this link fro Amazon. 

Signal Boost 2 - Hiram Rhodes Revels, 1827-1901; U.S. Senator from 1870-1871

As I have mentioned in prior posts, this project is more about personal accountability to do the work to learn more about people of color, Jewish people, and movements for social justice and to do so in a manner that seeks to amplify/signal boost those people and those voices. To that end, I've created a static webpage - Signal Boost Supplement - Better Sources than Me. I will try to update this page with resources I come across.

Now onto Signal Boost 2 (again, my primary source is Black Americans in Congress 1870-2007, please check it out as it has much more vibrant information):

Hiram Rhodes Revels, 1927 -1901, served as a United States Senator from 1870 to 1871. He was a Republican from Mississippi (most of the first Black people to serve in office were Republicans, because the Republican party was the party that lead the charge to end the enslavement of human beings).

Personal Quick Facts: 

• Born Fayetteville, North Carolina, September 27, 1827; 
• Parents were not enslaved and he claimed his ancestors, "as far back as my knowledge extends, were free). 
• Father - Baptist preacher; Mother of Scottish Decent.
• Scottish background, African and Croatan Indian lineage
• Went to a school taught by a free black woman and worked for a few years as a barber. 
• Complete his education at Beech Grove Quaker Seminary in Liberty Indiana, 
• The Darke County Seminary for black students in Ohio; 
• Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois (he was one of the few college-educated black men of the time). 
• Ordained in African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church; 
• Married to Phoebe A. Bass, a free black woman, and had six daughters.
• While preaching at an AME church in St. Louis, he was imprisoned for preaching to the black community (It was illegal for free blacks to live in Missouri). 
• In 1862, when the Civil War broke out, he helped recruit two black regiments and served as a chaplain. 
• In 1863 he established a freedom school in St. Louis, Missouri. 
• He settled in Natchez Mississippi in 1866.
• He died of a stroke on January 16, 1901,

Political Quick Facts

• Elected as Natchez alderman in 1868; 
• 1869 won a seat in the Mississippi state senate (Revels was one of more than 30 Black legislators out of 140 state legislators. As of 2017, there are 51 Black Legislators, 38 in the House and 13 in the Senate.) 
• Revels was chosen by the legislature in a vote that was 85 to 15 to fill the one year term for Senator (that was the remaining amount on a vacated seat before election);
• Senate Democrats sought to prevent Revels from being sworn in citing, inter alia, that Revels was not a U.S. Citizen until the 14th Amendment in 1868 and therefore ineligible to become a U.S. Senator. 
• Quote from Nevada Senator James Nye:

What a magnificent spectacle of retributive justice is witnessed here today! In place of that proud defiant man who marched out to trample under foot the Constitution and the laws of the country  he had sworn to support, comes back one of that humble race whom he would have enslaved forever to take and occupy his seat upon this floor.

• Served on the Committee on Education and Labor and the Committee on the District of Columbia 
• Argued before the House that the North and the Republican Party owed Georgian Black Legislators their support (Georgians elected 29 black legislators to its house and 3 to its senate and Democrats and moderate Republicans attempted to block their ability to be seated, claiming that the state constitution did no permit black officeholders. The Georgia legislature eventually agreed to a congressional mandate reinstating the legislators as a requirement for rejoining the Union. 
• Advocated against legal separation of the races, believing it led to animosity.
• In early 1871, successfully appealed to the War Department on behalf of Black mechanics from Baltimore who were barred from working at the U.S. Navy Yard. 

Additional Important Information learned while writing this blog: 

From Smart Politics, African-American US Representatives by the Numbers - By Dr. Eric Ostermeier August 28, 2013

• As of August 2013, 25 states have yet to elect an African-American to the U.S. House and 49 percent of the total number of U.S. House elections won by blacks in history have come from five states: New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, and Georgia.
• The percentage of House seats won by African-Americans has increased during each subsequent 10-year redistricting period culminating with the 43 black U.S. Representatives (9.8 percent) who have been elected to serve in the U.S. House for the 113th Congress (although two did not serve: Jesse Jackson, who resigned, and Tim Scott, who was appointed to the U.S. Senate). 
• States that have never elected an African American to the U.S. House are spread out across all four regions of the country (regions as designated by the U.S. Census Bureau):

  · Five states in the Midwest: Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota

  
  

  · Five states in the Northeast: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont

  
  

  · Four states in the South: Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

  
  

  · Eleven states in the West: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

• States that have elected the largest number of Black Representatives:

                  Maryland

                  South Carolina (most of these were Republican, which makes me wonder if it was post-Reconstruction) 

                  Florida

                  Georgia

• The only Republicans to serve in the 20th or 21st Centuries were Oscar De Priest of Illinois, Gary Franks of Connecticut, Tim Scott of South Carolina, J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, and Allen West of Florida.

Signal Boost 1 - The Original Black Caucus of Congress

In the last year there's been a troupe going around that black people did not get the vote until the 1960s. I understand where the thought comes from,because white people fought like hell to take away the rights of Black Men (until 1920 and then also Black Women) to vote. But it is a pet peeve of mine because (1) it is legally and factually inaccurate; (2) it white-washes history; (3) it makes invisible the backlash and intentional efforts of white people to take away the voting rights of black people; (4) it helps maintain a culture where we need a Voting Rights Act to try and protect constitutional rights. 

The Fifteenth Amendment is unequivocal: 

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Efforts to deny the right to vote should have been unconstitutional (and still should be, including any and all laws which do not allow people to immediately have their voting rights back after they have finished any criminal sentence). 

My first series of Signal Boosts is going to be about the members of Congress elected after enslaving other human beings was finally abolished. My source of information is "Black Americans in Congress 1870-2007." This was prepared under the direction of The Committee on House Administration for the U.S. House of Representatives and lists Robert A. Brady, Chairman and Vernon J. Ehlers, Ranking Minority Member. Despite being a paper back book, it is heavier than most of my law school books and packed with information. 

The book identifies what it calls "The Symbolic Generation" - a group of 17 Black Congressional Represented (yes all "Congressmen" but I believe in using gender neutral terms), including eight formally enslaved people were in Congress. They specifically worked to improve the lives of their black constituents and all black people in the U.S. 

According to the book, they had three primary goals: providing education, enforcing political rights, and extending opportunities to enable economic independence. 

The First Black Members of Congress were: 

• Hiram Roach, Senate
• Jefferson Long, House
• Joseph Rainey, House
• Benjamin Turner, House
• Robert DeLarge, House
• Robert Elliott, House
• Josiah Walls, House
• Richard Cain, House
• John Lynch, House
• Alonso Ransier, House
• John Hyman, House 
• Charles Nash, House
• Robert Smalls, House
• James O'Hara, House

My future posts will be about these men. About providing a signal boost for their legacy. 

Signal Boost - Series

Signal Boost Project - I am sick of the white supremacists getting too much airtime. I want to signal boost the lives of people of color and Jews to combat white supremacy. I want to do this to push myself to learn more, and to do it through more than just listening to amazing podcasts. This project is mainly for me, but if you get something out of it great. But if you're pressed for time, don't read my blog. Instead please explore some of my favorite podcasts: Another Round with Heben and Tracy - created by BuzzFeeed (two Black Women interview amazing people and their podsquad puts together a fabulous Newsletter - read that instead); Code Switch on NPR with Gene Dempsy (Black Male) and Shereen Marisol Meraji (" a native Californian with family roots in Puerto Rico and Iran"). These Podcasts, along with their guests will say smarter things than I ever will.

Who am I?
If you somehow stumble across this blog and you are not one of my friends who found it because I mentioned it on Facebook, allow me to tell you enough about myself so you can understand where this project is coming from.

In the wake of election and particularly the rise of white supremacists being granted far too much airtime I have wondered what I can do. I have been passionate about social justice issues for as long as I can remember. Despite being white, I have also been aware of the festering problem of white supremacists groups. I read some of the Turner Diaries in high school - I cannot remember why, just that the overall project was about how this was horrifying and they were based in the PNW, where
I'm from, so any notion that racism was a Southern Problem was completely shattered).

In high school, we had a section of "hicks" that believed they should be allowed to fly the confederate flag in their trucks pretending it was some sort of "state's rights" statement. They refused to listen to people telling them how uncomfortable and how unsafe it made them.

In college, I took Women As Revolutionaries in college and fell in love with Angela Davis. I took minority Women Playwrights and fell in love with the way that art can connect us for a moment in the lives of those who are different from us and connect us to our overall humanity. I remember learning about intersectional feminism and altered the motto that thread it's way through my women's college from remembering to always ask, "Where are the women?" to always asking "Where are the women of color?"

I have had children in my life who are kids of color. I have realized that if I am going to buy books for my nephew, nieces, or step kids that I cannot just show up at a book store, I have to go to library book sales (okay, I love library book sales, so this is only a hardship because I've never been a prior planner), I have to go online. I have to do research.

Having been married to a Jewish woman and her having the most amazing little Black boy, I also learned that world is organized for straight haired people like myself. People would literally stop my ex-wife to ask her about what products she used. Even in all my attempts at being woke, I never had an understanding of the daily issues of not having the products for your body/hair readily available. One of those moments where the ivory tower part of my mind got better context. I had read cases about Black Women not being able to proceed with an employment discrimination case because of how they wore their hair (braids) and understood that it was a biased decision to say that black men couldn't do it and white women couldn't do it, so it couldn't violate non-discrimination laws to say that black women couldn't do it, but I never understood just how complicated hair can be on a personal level.

I heard a judge speak at an event once, she was a woman of color. She said that it isn't that people of color on the bench make better legal decisions, it's simply that they have a better understanding of a different set of facts and you can only properly apply the law when you fully understand the facts. I cannot understand the facts by living any different experience. I can however, work hard to educate myself about the lives and struggles of others.

That is the reason for this project. Signal Boost is going to be a project where I do 365 blogs (I'm not saying a year's worth of blogs, because I may not do it every day, life happens, but I want to do what would be a years worth of blogs).  The focus of the blogs is going to be to learn more about people and organizations that do work for racial and social justice. The focus is going to be on people of color and Jewish people. To do one thing that continues to push me to never stop working on myself and to add at least one more idea in the market place of ideas to make it so racism and antisemitism are drowned out. So that ideas of social justice and equality rise to the top and stay there.

I have also added a page to keep track of Podcasts, Books, Movies, etc. that I would like to signal boost. You can find that page here.

Arlene's Flowers - It's about notoriety, not religious beliefs

It's time for my apparently annual post. This time the issue that prompts me away from my busy day is the Richland flower case, which has received all sorts of press:
Huffington Post Article
KVEW Announcement about ACLU involvement
MSNBC Piece
The Blaze article all about the AG Suit
KEPR News (local Richland News Station)
Advocate Article when it all began
NPR Story quoting a UW Law Professsor (To correct the NPR post, after this incident, the gay and bisexual employees have all quit because their employer is forcing them to engage in illegal activities, violating the law against discrimination.)

A little summary of the case. Gay male couple, using the same florist for years and years, spending thousands of dollars during their romance: anniversaries, Valentine's Day, housewarming, whenever they just felt like being mushy towards each other. Florist knows they're gay. Serves them. Helps them in their constant courtship of one another. Law changes and now the couple can get married. They go to this florist who has helped nurture their relationship and suddenly she says, nope not going to do a floral arrangement for you because of my relationship with Jesus Christ.

I call malarkey on that and so should you. All of us gays are familiar with what the fanatical religions have to say about us. It's things like "man shall not lie with another man the way he lies with a woman." And that we're "unnatural." Religion does not say that marriage between to people of the same-sex is wrong, it says any relationship between two people of the same sex is wrong. If Arlene's Flowers' refusal to serve were actually based in faith, she never would have sold flowers to the men in their relationship. Let us be very clear: this is about notoriety. It is about being able to be used as a pawn in a national debate against marriage. NOM is already using this incident as fodder against marriage equality in other states. Other states that may actually not have this issue, because even though it took more than 30 years to pass and the never ending work of Cal Anderson, Ed Murray, and Jamie Pederson (to name a few of the most well-known fighters), Washington is one of a few states that actually includes sexuality and gender identity in their nondiscrimination provisions (and it's only been included since 2006).

Arlene's Flowers' refusal to serve has absolutely nothing to do with religious practice or beliefs. Religious beliefs are anti-gay, not simply anti-gays getting married. Common sense makes it clear that because she participated for so long in nurturing this relationship through flowers, that this is not about any views on homosexuality. It is simply about getting her name out there with the big dogs in this national marriage debate (and based on the selection or articles I posted above, it's been successful).

I actually feel a bit sorry for Arlene's Flowers and the owners, because I suspect this is an incident where a national campaign came in and got them in over their heads. They have lost employees, they have severely damaged their reputation in a state that overall supports marriage equality. It's like they say, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only a moment to destroy the reputation. Their actions may for this moment have some religious bigots supporting them, but a year from now, five years from now, the legacy of this moment will haunt them. Because even though opponents of marriage equality want to claim that this is a divisive issue like abortion that we'll be fighting about 40 years later (which BTW is a misleading argument as abortion really is not that divisive issue as the majority of Americans support access to abortion, and that the number continues to rise. It's simply those with money and power have hijacked state legislatures to make it an issue.). But marriage equality isn't going to be like the abortion debate. Opponents of marriage equality are never going to have the ability to call marriages between two people of the same sex "murder." The ability to label abortion as "murder" and the personal beliefs people have about when life begins are the only reason any non-misogynist actually opposes abortion. That's just never going to happen in the case of gay marriage. The more homosexuality aligns itself with heteronormative values, the more archaic homophobia is going to seem. I predict that fewer people will be opposed to homophobia than continue to be opposed to interracial marriages for one simple fact: We're everywhere. We're you. We're you brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, children, favorite afternoon talk show host, favorite comedian, co-worker, etc. etc. you see unlike so many of our differences (race, national origin, religion) which we have an ability to segregate ourselves from, we cannot separate ourselves from the gays. In fact, arguably, no matter how straight a person is, they can't even separate themselves from the occasional homoerotic feelings. It happens. We're human. Some people are just insanely hot, regardless of your sexual orientation. Even I sometimes find sex with men a little erotic (seriously if you have never watched Queer as Folk yet, you should watch it, you'll understand). It doesn't make me actually want to have sex with a man, nor does it make me want to be a man so that I can have sex with other man. But it does help me understand why someone else would. We all have our own version of Queer As Folk.

Okay that tangent aside, what I'm saying is that as more time passes, homosexuality is going to be no big deal. As we get closer get closer to that place, what we will remember is Arlene's Flowers chose to take a hurtful action against their loyal customers for no reason other than to advance the opposition's efforts to scare people away from marriage equality. Because let's be very clear,  even if it has been a registered domestic partnership ceremony in Washington and Arlene's Flowers refused to serve the couple, she would be facing the same legal challenges under Washington law. In fact, had she refused to serve them for a Valentine's Day floral arrangement, she'd be facing the same legal challenge. In the same way religious bigotry is about hating gays and not about marriage; the Washington Law Against Discrimination is about not being allowed to use your hate for any protected class as a reason to not serve individuals when you hold yourself out as serving the public.

My point is this, don't be fooled: the situation around Arlene's Flowers has nothing to do with religion and the ability to exercise your own religion. Arlene's Flowers did not previously express any opposition to their same-sex relationship and it is incredibly disingenuous to claim that their religion prohibits providing flowers at wedding but not in the nurturing of the romantic relationship. Their opposition is simply about notoriety. It is about using religion as a tool for politics and for hate. There is nothing novel in this approach. There is a long long history of using religion to oppress others. But let's not forget that there is also a long and important history of religion being leaders in changing the world for greater justice. That is true for marriage equality as many churches (and other houses of worship of different religions) are strongly in support of marriage equality. Many people of faith are strong believers in the idea of nurturing more love in our world. Many gays are religious. In this moment, on this issue, make no mistake, love is winning. Arlene's Flowers and all of the people using faith for hate will be eating crow. They will probably find themselves needing to close their doors as the initial supporters distance themselves and a floral shop with a reputation for hate for the simple sake of notoriety, just isn't a place anyone is going to want to buy their flowers.

Problematic Politics

I am beyond tired of politics. Not just the politics on the national screen. The never ending battle over controlling women's bodies and preserving the patriarchy. The way that we have been pushed far enough to the right that the radical right is demonstrating what should have been obvious to anyone with an understanding of history, that abortion was just the tip of the ice berg. They want to take away birth control. They want to reduce the programs that address violence against women, specifically VAWA. But in the same breath of trying to limit federal reach into people's home lives, they will support DOMA. I find it insanely problematic that legislators, that are supposed to be upholding the ideals of our country, which include a separation of church and state, use religion as their objection to using state resources to benefit citizens of our country. I am reminded of Martin Niemöller's famous quote about the Nazis, first they came for the socialists, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a socialist, then the trade unionists, and so on, ending with "Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak up for me." Here we have a vocal minority (religious extremists willing to use the state to enforce their beliefs), and not enough people are willing to speak up. Too many people who maybe agree with the ideas, but disagree with the methodology do not speak up and say that it is an abuse of the power of the state to further our religious ideals. That belongs in our churches and communities. I am also beyond irritated at the politics on a more local level. I'm involved in a workgroup to address bullying in schools. The organization that is meant to oversee has taken charge and just sent one of those emails that insists something occurred that never occurred. They are pushing for an agenda a certain way and are trying to discourage dissent to their approach. An approach that will amount to making "work" a misnomer. An approach that will do very little, if anything to give the legislature anything to work with with regard to addressing the reason why the problem of bullying lingers. It is a missed opportunity and the leadership is so concerned with their own self-importance that they are missing an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students. Instead they will create these useless reports that I doubt most of the workgroup will read, and surely no legislatures, school boards, principals, teachers or students will ever bother to look at. Then there are the organizations I'm involved in where there are people who create crappy proposals and it seems like they want to be showered with praise. But when I read them, they are excessively poorly put together. When I try to send some feedback in the most helpful, positive way possible, they treat it like I am asking for some greater work. They fail to acknowledge that yup, they missed something pretty obvious, or that it was a good point, thanks for the feedback. Sometimes I get so tired of diplomacy and trying to be polite about it all and I just want to say, would you step up and do what you're supposed to do in a timely fashion. Cut out your freaking ego. Acknowledge when you can and should do better and don't make it seem like you are doing more than you should have done in the first place. Do not mistake my rant for me saying that I am perfect. I fail on a regular basis. I am committed to too much and don't feel like I am doing anything particularly well, good enough to get by, but not not nearly as good as I would like. I also take other people's failures personally. Like somehow I could have done something better to make them respond to a poll, submit a committee report, do what they said they would have done. I wonder if maybe there is something I do that thwarts their efforts. Whether they can see that below the surface of my encouraging suggestions is the thought, wow that was a piece of crap, and so they do not want to do something because they are afraid that I will point out all its flaws. Which leads me to my final point. I HATE the expression, "You get more bees with honey than vinegar." First and foremost, I don't want any freaking bees or flies or whatever. Second, what it really seems to say, is don't be honest, and I think any motto based in an idea that people are too fragile for the truth encourages us to treat people with disrespect, which is sometimes how I feel like I treat someone when I try to sugar coat my thoughts in an effort not to alienate people who are putting in the time for a cause. But the thing is, just because you're heart is in the right place, I don't believe that you should get a pass on putting your best foot forward.