Heather's Blogpile

We went to the Fine Arts Cinema in Fairfax yesterday and saw Fahrenheit 9/11. Its an important film - and I'd urge anyone who is curious to see it - but if you rather not spend money for a film, I found the following website to be an excellent parallel resource - it outlines and defines many of the points that Michael Moore makes in his movie, and has links to commentary by many folks (republican, democrats and others). Its a must read for all ...

Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government

Michael Moore, Director of Fahrenheit 9/11

the Institute for Policy Studies

Posted by Heather at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While in Colorado, Kerry made a quick stop in Aspen for a $500,000 fund-raiser at the home of Michael Goldberg, president of Miami-based airline leasing company Aerolease International. Kerry invited Aspen resident and writer Hunter S. Thompson to ride in his motorcade and brought three copies of Thompson's book about the 1972 presidential race, "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail" for autographs.

"Just to put your minds all at ease, I have four words for you that I know will relieve you greatly," Kerry told the fund-raiser. "How does this sound - Vice President Hunter Thompson."

From a Yahoo News Story

Posted by Heather at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, Late Saturday night we got back from our whirlwind tour of Boston - whew! What, you didn't know about our trip?? I guess I never mentioned it online, only in meatspace -

The reason? My partner Emma had reached the end of her 5 years of classes, study and candidacy (internship) and it was time for her interview to determine if she would become a pastor in the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Church (UFMCC - or MCC for short). Her interview was scheduled for Sat June 19th in Boston, so we made plans to drive up on Thursday, spend Friday relaxing and seeing the sights, then drive back to Virginia Saturday after her interview.

And the lobster?? I promised her a New England Lobster dinner while we were in Boston, so we dropped by Legal Seafood at Kendall Square in Cambridge and had a fine dinner - lots of fun!

Saturday morning I took her to the MCC interview at the Episcopal Divinity School - and a bit over 1 hour later, she was Reverend-Elect!

The only thing left now is the ordination ceremony - which involves the "laying on of hands" by various peers and mentors. She's hoping to do have that ceremony in Richmond, as her parents can't travel far, and she wants her dad to be involved. He retired 2 years ago after 50 years of being a Methodist Minister - so it would be very cool for him to "pass the baton" to her. Tho Emma has lots to do before we get to that point, its still very cool that all went well at the interview ...

Posted by Heather at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 

Posted by Heather at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

God may (also) be the reason Attorney General John Ashcroft, the administration's lightning rod because of his questionable actions that critics argue threaten freedoms granted by the Constitution, remains part of the power elite. West Wing staffers call Bush and Ashcroft "the Blues Brothers" because "they're on a mission from God."

See http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4636.shtml

Found on GMS Legion's LiveJournal - a link to this blog - http://peterdavid.malibulist.com/archives/001713.html

Posted by Heather at 6:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Time carried a story about an report published Friday in the national Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper

Bush Asked for Vatican's Help on Political Issues, Report Says
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Published: June 13, 2004

On his recent trip to Rome, President Bush asked a top Vatican official to push American bishops to speak out more about political issues, including same-sex marriage, according to a report in the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper.

In a column posted Friday evening on the paper's Web site, John L. Allen Jr., its correspondent in Rome and the dean of Vatican journalists, wrote that Mr. Bush had made the request in a June 4 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state. Citing an unnamed Vatican official, Mr. Allen wrote: "Bush said, 'Not all the American bishops are with me' on the cultural issues. The implication was that he hoped the Vatican would nudge them toward more explicit activism."

Mr. Allen wrote that others in the meeting confirmed that the president had pledged aggressive efforts "on the cultural front, especially the battle against gay marriage, and asked for the Vatican's help in encouraging the U.S. bishops to be more outspoken." Cardinal Sodano did not respond, Mr. Allen reported, citing the same unnamed people.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the report "mind-boggling."

"It is just unprecedented for a president to ask for help from the Vatican to get re-elected, and that is exactly what this is," Mr. Lynn said. Linda Pieczynski, a spokeswoman for Call to Action, a liberal Catholic group, said, "For a president to try to get the leader of any religious organization to manipulate his fellow clergymen to support a political candidate crosses the line in this country."

Once a reliably Democratic constituency, Catholics have become divided, with traditionalist Catholics making common cause with conservative evangelical Protestants on social issues like opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. But Mr. Bush is also a born-again Methodist who is likely to face a Roman Catholic opponent, Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. And the pope and other Catholic officials have repeatedly criticized the Bush administration over the war in Iraq.

In the last six months, a handful of Catholic bishops in the United States have already weighed in on the presidential race by threatening to withhold communion from Catholic politicians who disagree with the church's stance on abortion, a group that includes Senator Kerry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/politics/13george.html

Posted by Heather at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BoingBoing today has a link to The Oyez Project.   The Oyez project is releasing US Supreme Court oral audio of historic cases in streaming and MP3 format. This audio is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. This license allows listeners to download, share, and create derivative works using these audio files.

I did a search through their archives and soon Emma and I found ourselves fascinated listening to the oral arguments in the 1967 case of Loving V. the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Its a significant decision about Virginia's inter-racial marriage Law that anyone looking into Gay Marriage should know about ...

Loving v. Virginia
388 U.S. 1 (1967)
Docket Number: 395
Audio Resources
Oral Argument and MP3 form

(The streaming audio is 2 hrs & 15 minutes) http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/214/audioresources

The United States Supreme Court, Mr. Chief Justice Warren, held that miscegenation statutes adopted by Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on basis of racial classification violate equal protection and due process clauses of Fourteenth Amendment.

Posted by Heather at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night Emma and I went to the June 7th meeting of Equality Fairfax. It was a chance to meet local candidates and to let them listen to our community speak about GLBT issues. I expected mainly Democrats, so I was suprised and pleased to see two Republican representatives. However, a few minutes into the meeting, I was most surprised to see Senator Devolites enter. I was encouraged for a moment that, perhaps, just like other representatives from both parties who had supported HB 751, she came to the meeting last night "to listen and to learn". But my feelings quickly turned into even greater surprise when, during her edgy introduction to the roomful of 120+ people, she suddenly asked if Heather and Emma were attending.

Of course, we stood and proudly acknowledged our presence. She thanked us for having the courage to identify ourselves (?), and then, she proceeded to angrily explain "the mean spirited and hateful thing" that "we" did (actually, Emma has nothing to do with my weblog). She took out some papers and read select portions from my March weblog posting. She was in tears by the end of her reading, and she said, "This is NOT how you get moderate conservatives like me on your side! This is NOT how you get moderate conservatives like me to listen!"

[And, gesturing in our direction, she implied that ALL of her future votes against our community might be blamed on us.]

All I could really think was, "Senator Devolites reads my little weblog! " That, and - "She's a MODERATE conservative??? "

Emma asked for a moment to respond. She thanked Senator Devolites for coming down just to read that this evening; and she made some good points regarding our community's anger, anguish, hurt, and pain over HB 751. And Senator Devolites DID listen, although I'm not entirely certain that she really heard what was being said (much like she blamed me - but hadn't seemed to register that my original weblog posting was mostly links to news sites like the Post and the Associated press).

Then some other folks asked the Senator some questions. One woman asked if her Catholic faith was why she didn't believe in Gay Marriage or Gay Civil Unions, and Senator Devolites said yes, that's why she doesn't believe in them, and she added that her faith is what drives many of her political views. The woman who asked the question then replied, and essentially suggested that Senator Devolites please separate Church and State.

And while I am on that subject, it is one thing for someone to practice what they preach. It is an entirely different matter for that person to expect EVERYONE to practice what they preach - by law! That is why people came over to make this county in the first place - RELIGIOUS FREEDOM! That is why people have fought and died - Freedom from the religion of others! That is why people are still fighting and dying. I do not want the Pope in my life, uninvited, making my laws, voting for them, and telling ME what to vote for. Nor do I want someone to represent me who may believe that their salvation depends on what the Pope may dictate. And not just the Pope - I don't want to be forced to follow George W Bush's interpretation of Christianity either. Being forced to follow anyone else's vision of religion is truly frightening.

Anyway, Sen Devolites passed the microphone to other representatives, and within a few minutes, she left the room. She never came back - it seemed pretty obvious that she didn't really want to have a dialog, she just spoke her piece and having done what she came to do, she left the building.

I wrote my original posting after we received a letter from Senator Devolites thanking us for calling her office to express our feelings on HB751, but explaining that she didn't believe in gay Marriage or Civil Unions.   You can see her scanned letter here.

We had also gotten a letter back from Chap Peterson - but he indicated he was open for further discussion on the issue - that began a dialog with him that continues ... he didn't slam the door in our face.

My original posting included quotes and links to articles on the Washington Post website, the Chronicles website, and an Associated Press story on the Fox News website. These were not fanciful writings on my part. They are a matter of public record (repeat: public record!), and are easily available to anyone with a bit of time and a good search engine (I like Google). These matters are a part of the public fabric of Senator Devolites life, just as our relationships are a part of ours- and they are matters which are both public and personal at the same time, and are matters over which no one should be ashamed.

I wrote my March posting shortly after the Virginia House and Senate passed that hateful HB 751. This was also after all the publicity for that ridiculous Britney Spears marriage in Vegas. She can get married for 55 hours and divorced on a whim for publicity. Yet my partner in love of 8 years and I cannot have a simple civil union to declare us bonded.

Virginia already had the DOMA law stating that Gay Marriages weren't legal. There was no need to write HB 751 to overstate the fact. Yet they did. And that was a mean and hateful thing.

It took leadership in the 50s and 60s to stand up against the racism that was so widespread then, and so divided our nation... If it had been up to a purely popular vote at that time, we would probably (and sadly!) still have those racist laws in Virginia (which many people upheld with conservative religious views, by the way). But our leaders did not preach oppression, they spoke of freedom, and the nation stirred, good people stood up, and folks of character and every color moved forward.

We need our leaders to have courage and listen now ...
... because we are speaking.
Not just people of one faith or another.
All of us.
This is an issue of basic human rights... civil rights... relationship rights.   This is an issue of equality.
We are speaking of Freedom.

I am not exactly certain what Senator Devolites came to do, or hoped to accomplish with her dramatic reading last night (it was certainly not one of her finer moments). I could speculate, of course, but when it is said and done, I'll simply let her action speak for itself.

After all, you know what they say: the devil is in the details.

Posted by Heather at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)