Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Saturday, 6 April 2013
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
45 years ago this evening Dr. King was in Memphis, TN to stand in solidarity with striking sanitation workers. It was the last public speech he gave.
The next day he was murdered by an assassin's bullet at his hotel.
Enclosed here is the text of the speech.
Instead of the text of the speech, I will offer this commentary. With the recent rapid and sometimes exponential movement in LGBT Rights in the last 20 years, Rachel Maddow offered this observation on her program last week:
We're still seeing Dr. King's light to this day. And the many Civil Rights leaders and other history makers that stood for change. Their light still shines on us despite their physical presence is no longer with us. I can see them all gathering in some meeting place (a restaurant, a bar, someone's living room, campfire, car on a long road trip, think tank) in Heaven/The Great Beyond/some other plane of existence and talking about what is going on down here.
It is important to look back on the sacrifices and efforts that all kinds of people made to get us to where we are today and learn from the lessons of the past in order to move forward to creating "that more perfect Union" and ensuring that we live up to the ideas we proclaim so loudly in our founding documents.
Friday, 29 March 2013
"The Last Word" comprised a montage clip of Representatives and Senators who stated their opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) back in 1996. It turns out they were right all along.
There are two that stood out. First was this statement:
“Why shouldn’t my partner of 13 years be entitled to the same health insurance and survivor’s benefits that individuals around here, my colleagues with second and third wives are able to give to them?”
Full video is provided via Buzz Feed.
Mr. Gunderson was a Republican, but he was the only member of his party serving in the House AND Senate to vote against DOMA in 1996.
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) gave this stirring response to voting against the DOMA back in 1996. I am certain that if he wasn't in Congress he would have been a minister.
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
While doing the research for Republicans who signed the amicus briefs in support of Overturning Prop 8 and DOMA, I came across this article written by Jon Huntsman for The American Conservative.
Mr. Huntsman served as a United States Ambassador to two Asian countries: Singapore (August 1992-June 1993) and China (August 2009- April 2011). He was also governor of Utah from January 2005 until August 2009.
After resigning as US Ambassador to China in April 2011, Mr. Huntsman concentrated on making a run for the Republican Party nominee for President. Huntsman made it as far as the South Carolina primary before suspending his campaign and endorsing eventual nominee Mitt Romney.
For a Republican, Huntsman's positions are rather moderate compared to the rest of the field he was in. He once tweeted during his campaign in response to Governor Perry's claim that global warming was a myth: "To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." The Huffington Post described him as "a conservative technocrat-optimist with moderate positions who was willing to work substantively with President Barack Obama." He was the one candidate that gave the Obama campaign a real concern.
There is one paragraph that caught my eye while reading. It doesn't just apply to the current marriage equality debate. I think it applies to a whole list of other issues and should serve as a guide to our elected officials as a reminder of who they represent and who should be their advocate for their issues. I highlighted it.
Anyways, here's the article:
The party of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan has now lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. The marketplace of ideas will render us irrelevant, and soon, if we are not honest about our time and place in history. Unfortunately, much of the discussion has focused on cosmetic solutions to, say, our underperformance among ethnic and young voters. This is a mistake: we cannot cross this river by feeling for stones. Instead, we need to take a hard look at what today’s conservatism stands for.
Conservatives can start by examining how Republicans working with Democrats have governed in several successful states, including Utah; free-market-based healthcare reform, tax reform that eliminated deductions and closed loopholes to bring down rates, and practical education reforms that spoke to 21st-century realities.
Instead of using immigration reform as a wedge issue, like many leaders in Washington, Utah passed legislation to help manage immigration based on our real economic needs. If conservatives come to the table with solutions that put our communities first, it will go a long way toward winning elections.
But it’s difficult to get people even to consider your reform ideas if they think, with good reason, you don’t like or respect them. Building a winning coalition to tackle the looming fiscal and trust deficits will be impossible if we continue to alienate broad segments of the population. We must be happy warriors who refuse to tolerate those who want Hispanic votes but not Hispanic neighbors. We should applaud states that lead on reforming drug policy. And, consistent with the Republican Party’s origins, we must demand equality under the law for all Americans.
While serving as governor of Utah, I pushed for civil unions and expanded reciprocal benefits for gay citizens. I did so not because of political pressure—indeed, at the time 70 percent of Utahns were opposed—but because as governor my role was to work for everybody, even those who didn’t have access to a powerful lobby. Civil unions, I believed, were a practical step that would bring all citizens more fully into the fabric of a state they already were—and always had been—a part of.
That was four years ago. Today we have an opportunity to do more: conservatives should start to lead again and push their states to join the nine others that allow all their citizens to marry. I’ve been married for 29 years. My marriage has been the greatest joy of my life. There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love.
All Americans should be treated equally by the law, whether they marry in a church, another religious institution, or a town hall. This does not mean that any religious group would be forced by the state to recognize relationships that run counter to their conscience. Civil equality is compatible with, and indeed promotes, freedom of conscience.
Marriage is not an issue that people rationalize through the abstract lens of the law; rather it is something understood emotionally through one’s own experience with family, neighbors, and friends. The party of Lincoln should stand with our best tradition of equality and support full civil marriage for all Americans.
This is both the right thing to do and will better allow us to confront the real choice our country is facing: a choice between the Founders’ vision of a limited government that empowers free markets, with a level playing field giving opportunity to all, and a world of crony capitalism and rent-seeking by the most powerful economic interests.
Adam Smith was not only an architect of the modern world of extraordinary economic opportunity, he was a moralist whose first book was The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The foundation of his thought was his insight that free markets and open commerce strengthened our moral fiber by reinforcing the community of shared and reciprocal economic interests. Government, he thought, had to be limited lest it be captured and corrupted by special business interests who wanted protection from competition and the reciprocal requirements of community.
We are at a crossroads. I believe the American people will vote for free markets under equal rules of the game—because there is no opportunity or job growth any other way. But the American people will not hear us out if we stand against their friends, family, and individual liberty.
This letter, authored by Michael Watts, is in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dallas Morning News, and Lewisville Texan Journal.
Mr. Watts served in the United States Navy from 2002 to 2008 as a nuclear propulsion mechanical operator. He is currently a student at the University of North Texas pursuing a degrees in Mathematics and Political Science.
The Supreme Court is currently deciding the issue of same-sex marriage.
I am a terminally heterosexual Navy veteran and I support same-sex marriage.
I know several gay and lesbian veterans. We wore our country's uniform and took the same oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
In 2008 I watched Marine Staff Sergeant Eric Alva's testimony to the House Armed Services Committee regarding "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," a policy that banned gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military until it was repealed in 2011. Sergeant Alva was the first Marine wounded in Iraq and received a Purple Heart.
He is also openly gay.
If gays and lesbians can serve in our armed forces and if necessary make the ultimate sacrifice, then surely we can allow them to marry the person they love.
In addition, I have gay family members; one on my mother's side and one on my father's side. I strongly believe in their equal rights because they are people that I deeply care about.
I am standing on the right side of history, and I encourage my fellow Texans to join me.
Michael Watts
Veteran, US Navy 2002-08
Denton, TX
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