Words To Keep In Mind...

as we watch to see if deeds follow the words.

Obama at the White House Reception to Recognize LGBT Pride and Stonewall 40th:

And I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that. It's not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago.

But I say this: We have made progress and we will make more. And I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I've made, but by the promises that my administration keeps. And by the time you receive -- (applause.) We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration. (Applause.)
....

And finally, I want to say a word about "don't ask, don't tell." As I said before -- I'll say it again -- I believe "don't ask, don't tell" doesn't contribute to our national security. (Applause.) In fact, I believe preventing patriotic Americans from serving their country weakens our national security. (Applause.)

Now, my administration is already working with the Pentagon and members of the House and the Senate on how we'll go about ending this policy, which will require an act of Congress.

Why an act of Congress? Harry Truman ended segregation in the military by executive order with a stroke of his pen. There's back and forth about whether Obama can end DADT by executive order, but according to Rep. Rush Holt, at TPM:

In the meantime, the President could issue an executive order announcing a study of the current policy. During that time, there could be a moratorium on any investigations or prosecutions of LGBT soldiers.

Yes, indeed! Just do it, Mr President!

I wonder if Obama simply does not want to take full responsibility for the action. He may have a point in wanting the Congress to stand with him, but what if they won't?

Thanks to David@Montreal for sending me the text of Obama's speech.

I'll probably have more to say about other promises that the president made in the speech that we must keep in mind.

No Surprise Here

This won't come as the slightest surprise to those versed in health care policy issues. But I fear it's only barely permeated the health care reform debate in the country, certainly in Washington. And that's this: the opposition to a so-called 'public option' comes almost entirely from insurance companies who have developed monopolies or near monopolies in particular geographic areas. And they don't want competition.

Note, I'm not saying more competition. I'm saying any competition at all. As Zack Roth explains in this new piece 94% of the health care insurance market is now under monopoly or near-monopoly conditions -- the official term of art is 'highly concentrated'. In other words, there's no mystery why insurance costs keep going up even as the suck quotient rises precipitously. Because in most areas there's little or no actual competition.

Read the rest by Josh Marshall at TPM.

The shenanigans of operators at the health insurance companies are enough to make you sick.

State employees in Louisiana have a public option for health insurance. Our secondary insurer, after Medicare, is the state, thus Grandpère and I are covered entirely by public options, and we are pleased with our coverage.

Saintly Ramblings - 25 Years A Priest

SR with his mother and father on the big day.

Some clergy celebrate their 25th anniversary with a special service or a parish party. That's not for me. Today is a marker on the journey, and gives a certain sense of satisfaction that I've made it this far, but I don't intend to wave flags or inflate balloons.

25 years ago today I first put on a clerical collar. These days I hardly ever wear it. "O tempora o mores!"

And he can't remember where he washed his clothes when he was in seminary.

Wish him another 25 years at his blog.

I've seen him, you know, and he hasn't changed a bit, but for his mane, which is a tad less luxuriant these days.

From Roseann

When In Doubt, Sing: Prayer in Daily Life by Jane Redmont. This book is so spirit renewing!

I'm riding the health roller coaster again. Had some tests done and should get the results today. Hopefully I won't have to go back to the hospital. I'm having a hard time keeping my chin up right now. Gary has gone back to work which is great. I miss him so much though. Poor baby me, can't stand to be away from him for 8 hours. LOL It is probably really good for him though to be away from me and around healthy people.

Leave a word at Give Peace a Chance, Please.

Update on Roseann:

From Sue:

Mimi,

Roseann is being admitted to the hospital this afternoon. I'll keep you posted. She must have her laptop with her, because she told me she'd send me a room number when she could.

Sue

Lest We Forget Too Soon

From the Guardian:

faces of the dead and detained

We want to put a face to each of those hundreds - possibly thousands - killed or arrested since the Iranian election.

Have a look at their website.

Remember and pray for the safety and release of the detained and for the families of the dead.

And Did You Know...?

From a reader.

Obama Family Chooses A Church

From Time:

For the past five months, White House aides and friends of the Obamas have been quietly visiting local churches and vetting the sermons of prospective first ministers in a search for a new — and uncontroversial — church home. Obama has even sampled a few himself, attending services at 19th Street Baptist on the weekend before his inauguration and celebrating Easter at St. John's Episcopal Church.

Now, in an unexpected move, Obama has told White House aides that instead of joining a congregation in Washington, D.C., he will follow in George W. Bush's footsteps and make his primary place of worship Evergreen Chapel, the nondenominational church at Camp David.

A number of factors drove the decision — financial, political, personal — but chief among them was the desire to worship without being on display. Obama was reportedly taken aback by the circus stirred up by his visit to 19th Street Baptist in January.
....

Each week, regardless of whether the President is on-site, Evergreen Chapel holds nondenominational Christian services open to the nearly 400 military personnel and staff at Camp David, as well as their families. A music director from nearby Hood College coordinates adult and children's choirs (Clinton sang occasionally with the choir when he visited). In December, the kids in the congregation put on a Christmas pageant and the chapel holds a candlelight service on Christmas Eve.

A wise decision, I believe. Had he chosen a DC church, he would have created a media circus each time he attended, and he and his family would have had no privacy in their worship.

Camp David's current chaplain, Lieut. Carey Cash, leads the services at Evergreen. If the White House had custom-ordered a pastor to be the polar opposite of Jeremiah Wright, they could not have come as close as Cash. (As it is, the White House had no hand in selecting Cash. The Navy rotates chaplains through Camp David every three years; Cash began his tour this past January.) The 38-year-old Memphis native is a graduate of the Citadel and the great-nephew of Johnny Cash. He served a tour as chaplain with a Marine battalion in Iraq and baptized nearly 60 Marines during that time. Cash earned his theology degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth — and, yes, that means Obama's new pastor is a Southern Baptist.

Johnny Cash's great-nephew? I don't know about you, but I find that exciting, inveterate celebrity-watcher that I am. Kinship counts, you know.

Let's all hope that Obama doesn't make a habit of following in George W. Bush's footsteps.

H/T to Nicholas Knisely at The Lead at the Episcopal Café.

UPDATE: Paul the BB posted this link from a diary at Daily Kos concerning Lt. Carey Cash in the comments. I don't much like his ideas about evangelization.

UPDATE 2: "Not so fast", says Nicholas Knisely at The Lead, with a link to the Christian Science Monitor:

“The President and First Family continue to look for a church home. They have enjoyed worshipping at Camp David and several other congregations over the months, and will choose a church at the time that is best for their family,” Deputy White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki said in a statement.

"Complaint from a Voter :>)"

Words fail me.

I think I'll just go pick some chips off the Doritos tree in the backyard to go with the stiff drink I think I need right now.

Word! - from Doug.

UPDATE: A reminder from Erp.

40th Anniversary Of Stonewall

Photo from Counterlight's Peculiers.

From Frank Rich at the New York Times:

LIKE all students caught up in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, I was riveted by the violent confrontations between the police and protesters in Selma, 1965, and Chicago, 1968. But I never heard about the several days of riots that rocked Greenwich Village after the police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in the wee hours of June 28, 1969 — 40 years ago today.

Then again, I didn’t know a single person, student or teacher, male or female, in my entire Ivy League university who was openly identified as gay. And though my friends and I were obsessed with every iteration of the era’s political tumult, we somehow missed the Stonewall story. Not hard to do, really. The Times — which would not even permit the use of the word gay until 1987 — covered the riots in tiny, bowdlerized articles, one of them but three paragraphs long, buried successively on pages 33, 22 and 19.

I mostly missed the Stonewall stories, too, and when I read Counterlight's amazing series of posts on the history of the gay liberation movement, I received an education. I had only vague memories of hearing or reading about the riots.

The younger gay men — and scattered women — who acted up at the Stonewall on those early summer nights in 1969 had little in common with their contemporaries in the front-page political movements of the time. They often lived on the streets, having been thrown out of their blue-collar homes by their families before they finished high school. They migrated to the Village because they’d heard it was one American neighborhood where it was safe to be who they were.
....

After the gay liberation movement was born at Stonewall, this strand of history advanced haltingly until the 1980s. It took AIDS and the new wave of gay activism it engendered to fully awaken many, including me, to the gay people all around them. But that tardy and still embryonic national awareness did not save the lives of those whose abridged rights made them even more vulnerable during a rampaging plague.

The stories passed from my memory, too, until AIDS began to strike gay men down. My cousin, who was straight, so far as I know, had by-pass surgery in the early 1980s, received several units of blood, and contracted the disease. When he first got sick, my mother went to visit him in the hospital. When she asked him if he had a diagnosis, he said, "The doctors think I may have AIDS," and then he laughed as though it was impossible. She told me later, "I hope I don't catch it." He died a few years later, and his immediate family never said what he died of. They were so ashamed that they had a private funeral for him, but the extended family knew that he died of AIDS.

I read, The Boys in the Band in the late 1980s, an exposé of the government's failure to address the seriousness of AIDS. And then, in the 1990s, I saw Andrew Sullivan in an impressive interview on TV, Charlie Rose's show, maybe, pushing his book, Virtually Normal, which I purchased and read. Next came Maurice by E. M. Forster. I love Forster's novels, and I thought I had read all of them, but I'd missed the gay novel, which was published only after his death. I paid only sporadic attention to issues involving gays, and I was ashamed at how little I knew of the gay liberation movement when I read Counterlight's series of posts. I was ashamed, but I believe that Frank Rich and I had lots of company in ignorance amongst the citizenry of the US.

Then, Gene Robinson was elected bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire, the House of Bishops consented, and he was consecrated Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. Well, that got my attention, and the attention of the people in my church, and the attention of people in Episcopal churches across the land, and in the whole of the Anglican Communion, even to the point of obsession some might say, because those in opposition to equality for LGTB folks never seem to stop talking about the evils of same-sexuality.

Our president, Barack Obama, who promised to be gay-friendly during his campaign, has not kept his promises, except for throwing the gay community a bone in the form of certain partnership rights for federal employees, but stopping short of full health-care benefits.



Gay Pride parade New York City today.

Note: Counterlight's posts can be read at his blog by clicking on the pictures of the riots on the right of his sidebar.

As IT Says, "Yee-Haw!"

The rappsure fixin' ta happen in Anaheim, an' iffen yer not thar, yer a-gonna be lef' behind. Don't be tore up, now, on account o' ah warned yo'.

And I'm waiting for Arkansas Hillbilly to check in and correct my dialect. I'm sure to have something wrong.

Arkansas Hillbilly's version:

"The rappsure afixin' ta happen in Anaheim, an' iffen ye ain't ther, you'uns is gonna be lef' behind. Don't be tore up, now, on account o' ah warned ye'."

He was late, but he weighed in. He and the missus are busy waiting for Sprout and all, so I understand.