Old Hymns and Hope - revised

"The Dust Bin of History" was the name of a column I wrote. Its sole purpose was to bring attention to 21st century people who just "didn't get it.” Usually, they were very odd and second-rate characters found on the third paragraph of a news story who were caught up in ideas popular a hundred years ago, or even worse, pretending they understood how concepts expressed a hundred or even a thousand years ago should be interpreted today.

But located on the front or back of a newspaper, each of them had one common characteristic: their voice and/or actions represented ideas, faiths or political points of view that people in the successive generations from now, will just shake their head and wonder, “Why?”

History is filled with “dust bins” – ideas and people whose names and ideas are forgotten like flecks of dust. Does anyone remember the names of folks who nailed Jesus to a cross, who believed in slavery or who relegated women to the kitchen? Names like Caligula, Jefferson and Hitler come to mind but they were the leaders of lost causes.

I wonder how many of the "common" folks from those times went along with their leaders’ thinking. Did they say, “Well, I’d rather keep my old fashion belief." or "He represents how I feel." or “My tried and true feelings always worked in the past.”

I can never know how people felt then; all I can ask now is; why do change or the future frighten them so.

When I was in college I had a conversation with the Chair of the English department which ended with her saying: “Oh, Frank, logically prejudice cannot survive … not in America.” So in the 70s I thought that if this country could move beyond the “gay" issue, beyond narrow-minded folks and divisive rhetoric, then perhaps, just perhaps, we could move into a brighter future.

Decades later I now realize that some women died before they had the vote; that slaves died enslaved and that many gay persons will never see a world of equal rights...

There is an old Christian hymn whose first line reads: "The strife is o'er, the battle done, the victory of life is won." I can hear the tone as I write those words. It is a restoration song whose words point to that better future.

I live in the hope that the strife surrounding gay persons will be o’er and that the victory of life will be won.

There is movement ... yes ...

Julian Bond ... this is a must see.

IT HAS BEEN A WHILE

First, this is more of diary entry than a blog but then I think allot of posts on the blog-a-sphere are just that ...

I don't often refer people to another person's blog ... particularly for something I should have written myself but an Episcopal priest here writes a blog called, "An Inch in Time," and her latest post say so much ... heard it HERE.

That writer is much better at updating her blog than I am these days ... but then the past election took a lot out of me...

... end diary entry ...

HOLIDAY PROTEST ...

This picture was taken at another holiday protest against the passage of Prop 8. It was supposed to be a quiet, no signs event. We had enough people to cover the four corners of two historic main streets in town. What is surprising me are the number of str8 people who show up at these events ... And young people too; perhaps that is the best part ...

NOTE: tiny little battery candle in my hand ... no more wax on the hands! the times are changing.

THE FACTS ON CALIFORNIA PROP 8

I think this has been posted every where ... but it doesn't hurt to say it again ... Fiction vs. the Facts

Fiction: People can be sued over personal beliefs.

Fact: California’s laws already prohibit discrimination against anyone based on race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. This has nothing to do with marriage.

Fiction: Churches could lose their tax-exemption status.

Fact: Nothing in Prop 8 would force churches to do anything. In fact, the court decision regarding marriage specifically says “no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs.”

Fiction: Same-sex marriage would be taught in public schools.

Fact: Not one word in Prop 8 mentions education, and no child can be forced, against the will of their parents, to be taught anything about health and family issues at school. California law prohibits it. A Sacramento Superior Court judge has already ruled that this claim by the proponents of Prop 8 is “false and misleading.” In fact, the “case” that is cited in the ad is from Massachusetts…the proponents knew what California law said, so they used another state, again to mislead voters.

Fiction: Four Activist Judges in San Francisco…

Fact: Prop 8 is not about courts and judges, it's about eliminating a fundamental right. Judges didn't grant the right, the constitution guarantees the right. Proponents of Prop 8 use an outdated and stale argument that judges aren't supposed to protect rights and freedoms. This campaign is about whether Californians, right now, in 2008 are willing to amend the constitution for the sole purpose of eliminating a fundamental right for one group of citizens.

Regardless of how you feel about the issue, we should not eliminate fundamental rights for ANY Californians. Please vote NO on Prop 8.

Freedom of Speech?

A reporter said recently, I felt dirty writing about it. I feel the same. And I don’t know how to get that feeling out of my system. It is odd how it brought together my hometown, my faith and my life.

York, Pennsylvania is scattered throughout my writings; probably all writers invoke the places they grew up; "beginning places" are part of your DNA. To keep in touch I take to reading the online version of the York Dispatch … ever so often a name or place has a unique meaning.

In March of last year I read an OB for a soldier killed in a war I deeply believe is wrong. There was a picture of a 20 year old boy, “killed in a non combat-related vehicle accident in Anbar Province.” Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder. I played with “Snyders” when I was a kid.

The paper said he was a good Catholic boy; his aunt: "He was a wonderful son, and we're very proud of him and he served our country well.” I could not look at his picture without remembering the friends I’ve lost in other wars and thinking again, "what a waste."

Then yesterday in the on line Huffington Post I found a John Ridley column which began, “God Hates Fags? – NOT ANY MORE -- the Fred Phelps (of the) "God Hates Fags” family of the loving Christian Church (sic) in Topeka Kansas (has) finally being sued for protesting a soldier's funeral and a jury awarded the plaintiff $11 million for invasion of privacy and emotional distress.”

Who sued Phelps? The plaintiff was Matthew Snyder’s father who lives down the street from my third grade friend Richmond, in York. “The goofy jury threw a fit at God," Phelps said -- an eleven million dollar fit!

I’ve had my own experiences with the Rev. Phelps; two of them. One at church, and a more vivid one at an annual Pride Parade in West Hollywood at which I had been coxed from sidewalk viewing and into the parade by friends from church. It was exhilarating, waving to thousands of people until we came to that large intersection at Beverly and Santa Monica Boulevards.

There our little band of gay Christians, lead by an acolyte carrying his church’s golden cross, paused because of the parade's movement and encountered Phelps' "God Hates Fag" signs, drums and all. When his group saw the cross, it drove them into a frenzy. The commotion so mesmerized me that as the group moved, I stood there watching as they spewed out curse words.

In that moment I lost touch with the larger theatre around me. I don't know why I raise my hand and made the sign of the cross over them. But when I did several hundred people in 15 levels of bleachers behind me stood up, roared and applauded this guy standing alone in the middle of street, doing something he’d done before.

“What happened?” said my friends after I ran and caught up, “You’re blushing.” All I remember asking was, “Who ARE those people.” “Some Christians from Kansas.”

Christians! How could they be Christians? Why did their disfigured, hateful existence lead them to yell and scream at the symbol that has been at the center of my life; how can they bring their sick, distorted lives to a funeral of a grieving family whose son fought and died for his country.

Research reveals their aborted theology says that: God hates America and American soldiers because this county has a permissive attitude toward gay persons. And all of that precedes from a literal reading of the Biblical book of Leviticus.

The Huffington Post author suggests that there is little difference between Phelps and the so-called “mainstream,” right wing speakers at last month's Values Voters Conference at which all the Republican candidates for President appeared or Ann Coulter or Peter Pace or Jerry Falwell ... the list goes on and on.

That “list” would like to set themselves above the Phelps of the world; it is reported that other fundamentalist Christians in Topeka turn their heads away when someone mentions his name … but they all quote the same bible verses and preach the same gospel of intolerance making gay persons, as William Sloan Coffin says, the “last respectable minority to hate.”

As I grow older I begin to feel things changing. I think they are because I am. Stories abound about tolerance emerging from Utah, Kansas City, Nebraska, all of this in spite of red state labels, anti-gay marriage amendments, and a dying breed of sick Christian preachers. Even the consternation within my own Episcopal denomination speaks to a better future.

I guess that sense of change found its roots in the Susquehanna River bottom country; in cathedral sermons; in twenty year olds like Matthew Snyder who fight and died for a cause he believed in and for a county, that despite it aches and pains, grows toward acceptance and tolerance. And that washes away the dirt.
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Psalm 20:1-2
1 May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble, *
the Name of the God of Jacob defend you;
2 Send you help from his holy place *
and strengthen you out of Zion;

REPUBLICANS, PUBLIC RESTROOMS, ETC

And now another, yes another, Republican has been nabbed by the toilet police ... this time it is a Daytona Beach City Commissioner named Mike Shallow. Perhaps the Republican Party should start recruiting at the nation's public restrooms? Think of the possibilities! Why use those flimsy wooden voting booths? It’s costing the city of Minneapolis $15,000 to fix up Senator Larry Craig’s old stall. Save on Taxes, Vote in a Stall! On second thought perhaps Craig's appeal on the constitutional grounds of Free Speech with reference to his actions "in the stall" should succeed first.

And, there is this sidebar on the Craig story ...
David Phillips, pictured above, is the man reported to have "tricked" with Craig, you know -- in the public restroom. Phillips' license plates read: "POOFTER" which the dictionary says is a negative British colloquialism for gay men. Ya' learn something new ever day! Anyway, after 13 years the Commonwealth of Virginia apparently has caught on and is recalling his "vanity" plates. Why? Sounds like the cover fits the book!

FAITH TAKES YOU HERE?

When I first read about South Carolina high school principal Eddie Walkers and his resignation from his Columbia school, it seem he was acting simply on a matter of principle. As you know his resignation was triggered by a conflict involving his professional career and religious beliefs.

He was against the formation of a Gay/Straight Alliance Club (GSA) which his school district had told him he was legally bound to allow. Rather than do that, Principal Walker quit. And that was where this bust bin episode ended until we were contacted by the founder of an organization called “Sean’s Last Wish” and its founder, Elke Kennedy.

Come to find out Ms. Kennedy’s son, Sean, was murdered last year in Greenville in an anti-gay hate-crime, the details of which are graphically recounted and the monumental injustice render to the perpetrator recounted in the news of the time. The high school club was founded in part due to a reaction to Sean Kennedy’s murder.

“Sean's last wish recognizes the significant lack of inclusive diversity education for faculty and administrators within our public school systems. The organization has worked with many GSA's throughout South Carolina and North Carolina to raise awareness of issues that impact the lives of these students and will continue our efforts to educate the public about the need for such student clubs and the need to better protect all student populations," says Ms. Kennedy.

So let me get this straight … the formation of the high school club was a reaction to extreme violence against gay youth and Principle Walker resigns! I'm confused. What kind of a faith leads a man to, in essence, say "I'd rather have another murder on my campus than promote understanding?" Perhaps he thinks that sexual orientation is worse than murder? What faith, any faith could possibly do that?

Principal Eddie Walker: today's recipient of the Into The Dust Bin of History Award.