Using a provocative tactic, made famous by the Orangemen in N. Ireland and utilized by the KKK and neo-nazis on many occasions, the Minutemen marched directly down a thoroughfare packed with the very people they target.
The Minutemen numbered about 120 while counter-protesters numbered around 200. I'm sure the reports on numbers will vary widely but the march was handcounted and 120 is the number I have.
A professional crowd counting service hired by a radio station on March 25 estimated the crowd at La Gran Marcha 2006 at 1.7 million. If this is true today's march was almost 15,000 times smaller. Miniscule by comparison. Just a blip.
LAPD numbered around 100. Police presence was heavy and the Minutemen, like the KKK before them, marched with a police escort. The Minutemen acting brave and jovial behind the heavy riot police guard but I'm sure they weren't happy with the way things occurred.
Homeless advocate turned anti-immigrant token black activist Ted Hayes marched arm-in-arm with known migrant hunter Jim Gilchrist. The unusual looking Barbara Coe also marched arm-in-arm with Hayes.
Save Our State leader Joe Turner was not spotted and appeared to be absent from the proceedings.
Another strange turn saw the Minutemen marching with a banner reading "Civil Rights in Mexico".
The counter-protesters were loud and they followed the Minutemen all the way up to City Hall. At City Hall the police line was extended and counter-protesters were not allowed to get near the racist rally was taking place on the steps.
Little by little various Minutemen and their supporters made their way down the hill, across the lawn toward the side where the counter-protestors had amassed. In an apparent error in planning, porta-potties were set up on the other side of the police line right next to the counter-protestors.
Originally dubbed an American Civil Rights March organized initially by Ted Hayes, the numbers of African-American participants on the Minuteman side were very, very small.
Let's be honest, the total of all Minutemen participants was very, very small.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Thursday, August 17, 2006
ACT NOW and sign the petition.
ACT NOW and sign the petition.
Click here to sign the petition
The founders of our nation believed that all Americans should have the right to worship according to their own beliefs, or not to worship at all. So strong was their commitment to religious freedom that they enshrined it in the first sentence of the Bill of Rights.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
This constitutional guarantee is often known as the "first freedom."
Religion is a deeply personal matter. Americans must be free to practice their religion without coercion. Government exists to provide for the general well-being of all people, and its workings must be independent of specific religious doctrines. Simply put, there must be a separation of church and state.
If we do not stand together as a nation, we stand to lose this fundamental freedom.
We, the undersigned, call upon elected and appointed officials to join us in reaffirming America's religious freedom by demonstrating a commitment to the following:
* Every American should have the right to make personal decisions -- about family life, reproductive health, end of life care and other matters of personal conscience.
* American tax dollars should not go to charities that discriminate in hiring based on religious belief or that promote a particular religious faith as a requirement for receiving services.
* Political candidates should not be endorsed or opposed by houses of worship.
* Public schools should teach with academic integrity and without the promotion of religious preference or belief.
* Decisions about scientific and health policies should be based on the best available scientific data, not on religious doctrine.
We join together, as the most diverse nation in the world, to commit ourselves to defending and preserving this freedom.
Click here to sign the petition
The founders of our nation believed that all Americans should have the right to worship according to their own beliefs, or not to worship at all. So strong was their commitment to religious freedom that they enshrined it in the first sentence of the Bill of Rights.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
This constitutional guarantee is often known as the "first freedom."
Religion is a deeply personal matter. Americans must be free to practice their religion without coercion. Government exists to provide for the general well-being of all people, and its workings must be independent of specific religious doctrines. Simply put, there must be a separation of church and state.
If we do not stand together as a nation, we stand to lose this fundamental freedom.
We, the undersigned, call upon elected and appointed officials to join us in reaffirming America's religious freedom by demonstrating a commitment to the following:
* Every American should have the right to make personal decisions -- about family life, reproductive health, end of life care and other matters of personal conscience.
* American tax dollars should not go to charities that discriminate in hiring based on religious belief or that promote a particular religious faith as a requirement for receiving services.
* Political candidates should not be endorsed or opposed by houses of worship.
* Public schools should teach with academic integrity and without the promotion of religious preference or belief.
* Decisions about scientific and health policies should be based on the best available scientific data, not on religious doctrine.
We join together, as the most diverse nation in the world, to commit ourselves to defending and preserving this freedom.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Thank you, APA!
American Psychological Association criticizes “ex-gay” proponents
The American Psychological Association (APA) released a statement Thursday criticizing groups such as Focus on the Family for creating an “environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish” by erroneously labeling homosexuality an illness and advocating for so-called “conversion therapy.” The statement was issued during the APA’s annual convention, which drew an anti-gay protest led by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Truth Wins Out held its own event to counter NARTH; the APA issued this statement:
“For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure. The APA’s concern about the positions espoused by NARTH and so-called conversion therapy is that they are not supported by the science. There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.”
For a comprehensive analysis of the “ex-gay” movement, see the recent Task Force Policy Institute study Youth in the Crosshairs: The Third Wave of the Ex-Gay Movement.
The American Psychological Association (APA) released a statement Thursday criticizing groups such as Focus on the Family for creating an “environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish” by erroneously labeling homosexuality an illness and advocating for so-called “conversion therapy.” The statement was issued during the APA’s annual convention, which drew an anti-gay protest led by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Truth Wins Out held its own event to counter NARTH; the APA issued this statement:
“For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure. The APA’s concern about the positions espoused by NARTH and so-called conversion therapy is that they are not supported by the science. There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.”
For a comprehensive analysis of the “ex-gay” movement, see the recent Task Force Policy Institute study Youth in the Crosshairs: The Third Wave of the Ex-Gay Movement.
Abstinence-only message misguided
Abstinence-only message misguided
Aug. 14, 2006
The Toronto Star
SCOTT H. EVERTZ AND SANDRA L. THURMAN
We come from opposite sides of the aisle, having served in the same role as director of national AIDS policy under President George Bush and President Bill Clinton, respectively. Still, we agree on one thing:
America isn't getting the job done on AIDS.
This week, nearly 25,000 scientists, policy-makers, activists, and HIV-positive people will meet in Toronto for the 16th International AIDS Conference to discuss progress and challenges in fighting the global AIDS pandemic.
One nation under the HIV prevention microscope is the United States. After all, it was to resounding applause that Bush announced in his 2003 State of the Union address his monumental commitment to fight the AIDS pandemic. But advocates and scientists alike fear that U.S. prevention policy has shifted from a truly comprehensive "ABC" approach — abstinence, be faithful
(monogamy) and condom use — to an ideologically-driven abstinence-until-marriage focus that places many at risk of needlessly contracting HIV.
That fear is particularly warranted when it comes to young people. The U.S. prevention policy for the world's youth is limited to abstinence and, for those who are already sexually active, a commitment to refrain from further sexual activity, or "secondary virginity." This policy doesn't make sense given that teens and young adults now account for more than half of all new HIV infections and more than one-third of people living with AIDS.
As representatives of U.S. AIDS policy under two administrations, we have met countless young people around the world for whom a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention can quite literally be a lifesaver: the young AIDS orphan on the streets of Kampala trading sex for food to care for her siblings; the teen girl in Lagos reliant on a "sugar-daddy" to finance her education; the young Indian woman sent to work in a brothel to provide income for her family; the young gay teen in Washington, D.C. told to abstain until married when marriage is not possible.
These young people must be provided with the education and tools to minimize their risk while society labours to eliminate the root causes that landed them in these untenable positions in the first place.
Our first-hand experience has been backed up by hard research. According to Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based public health agency, there are more than 11 million unmarried, sexually active youth in countries targeted by the president's AIDS initiative, making a primary reliance on abstinence messaging dangerously misguided. The notion of "secondary virginity" is fine in theory, but has little relevance as a public health strategy in the real world.
A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office showed that the abstinence-until-marriage funding requirement in the president's AIDS plan is undermining HIV prevention efforts on the ground and creating confusion and fear among grantees regarding the appropriate role of condoms. What's more, the U.S.-based Society for Adolescent Medicine found that the "U.S. emphasis on abstinence may also have reduced condom availability and access to accurate information on HIV/AIDS in some countries." These are serious missteps if the U.S. is committed to stemming the spread of HIV.
Let us be clear: abstinence must be part of any effective HIV prevention campaign. Likewise, condoms are the single most effective prevention tool we have for those who are sexually active. Attempts to censor information about condoms or abstinence are incompatible with sound public health policy and basic common sense.
This country committed — with 188 other United Nations member states — to reduce by 25 per cent the rate of infection in young people by 2005. Now, we must face the grim reality that U.S. HIV prevention policy has helped make that much-needed accomplishment impossible. Every day, more than 6,000 young people, ages 14 through 24, become infected with HIV. In sum, we have failed our youth.
The world's youth need the endorsement of a truly comprehensive approach to prevention — including both lessons in abstinence and condom use. That is the only way the U.S. and its allies in the fight against AIDS will live up to their stated commitments to turning the tide on this terrible pandemic.
www.thestar.com
Aug. 14, 2006
The Toronto Star
SCOTT H. EVERTZ AND SANDRA L. THURMAN
We come from opposite sides of the aisle, having served in the same role as director of national AIDS policy under President George Bush and President Bill Clinton, respectively. Still, we agree on one thing:
America isn't getting the job done on AIDS.
This week, nearly 25,000 scientists, policy-makers, activists, and HIV-positive people will meet in Toronto for the 16th International AIDS Conference to discuss progress and challenges in fighting the global AIDS pandemic.
One nation under the HIV prevention microscope is the United States. After all, it was to resounding applause that Bush announced in his 2003 State of the Union address his monumental commitment to fight the AIDS pandemic. But advocates and scientists alike fear that U.S. prevention policy has shifted from a truly comprehensive "ABC" approach — abstinence, be faithful
(monogamy) and condom use — to an ideologically-driven abstinence-until-marriage focus that places many at risk of needlessly contracting HIV.
That fear is particularly warranted when it comes to young people. The U.S. prevention policy for the world's youth is limited to abstinence and, for those who are already sexually active, a commitment to refrain from further sexual activity, or "secondary virginity." This policy doesn't make sense given that teens and young adults now account for more than half of all new HIV infections and more than one-third of people living with AIDS.
As representatives of U.S. AIDS policy under two administrations, we have met countless young people around the world for whom a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention can quite literally be a lifesaver: the young AIDS orphan on the streets of Kampala trading sex for food to care for her siblings; the teen girl in Lagos reliant on a "sugar-daddy" to finance her education; the young Indian woman sent to work in a brothel to provide income for her family; the young gay teen in Washington, D.C. told to abstain until married when marriage is not possible.
These young people must be provided with the education and tools to minimize their risk while society labours to eliminate the root causes that landed them in these untenable positions in the first place.
Our first-hand experience has been backed up by hard research. According to Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based public health agency, there are more than 11 million unmarried, sexually active youth in countries targeted by the president's AIDS initiative, making a primary reliance on abstinence messaging dangerously misguided. The notion of "secondary virginity" is fine in theory, but has little relevance as a public health strategy in the real world.
A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office showed that the abstinence-until-marriage funding requirement in the president's AIDS plan is undermining HIV prevention efforts on the ground and creating confusion and fear among grantees regarding the appropriate role of condoms. What's more, the U.S.-based Society for Adolescent Medicine found that the "U.S. emphasis on abstinence may also have reduced condom availability and access to accurate information on HIV/AIDS in some countries." These are serious missteps if the U.S. is committed to stemming the spread of HIV.
Let us be clear: abstinence must be part of any effective HIV prevention campaign. Likewise, condoms are the single most effective prevention tool we have for those who are sexually active. Attempts to censor information about condoms or abstinence are incompatible with sound public health policy and basic common sense.
This country committed — with 188 other United Nations member states — to reduce by 25 per cent the rate of infection in young people by 2005. Now, we must face the grim reality that U.S. HIV prevention policy has helped make that much-needed accomplishment impossible. Every day, more than 6,000 young people, ages 14 through 24, become infected with HIV. In sum, we have failed our youth.
The world's youth need the endorsement of a truly comprehensive approach to prevention — including both lessons in abstinence and condom use. That is the only way the U.S. and its allies in the fight against AIDS will live up to their stated commitments to turning the tide on this terrible pandemic.
www.thestar.com
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference
National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference
Together, We Build A New National, Broad-Based, Immigrant Rights / Civil Rights Movement!
Friday - Sunday July 28-30, 2006
Ward Circle Building, American University, Washington DC
National Immigrant Solidarity Network http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/2006Conference/
About the Conference The success of May 1st's "A Day Without Immigrants" has been an historical turning point for the immigrant rights movement. The National Immigrant Solidarity Network was one of the main groups who helped to organize the historical Los Angeles March 25th "Gran Marcha" and the national May 1st "A Day Without Immigrants" boycott/strike (Please visit http://www.NoHR4437.org ). At this point it's vitally important for the immigrant rights movement to keep the momentum going, and there's an urgent need for national meeting in which community/grassroots immigrant activists can meet face-to-face to discuss how to build a new national, broad-based, immigrant rights/civil rights movement, and to set a 6-9 month national strategy for actions.
We envision this is a broad-based, multiethnic conference of organizers, and we are inviting organizers from African American, African immigrant, Asian American, Latino/Latina, Arab-Muslim-North African, progressive labor, interfaith, LGBT, student, anti-war/peace and global justice groups from across the country. Our “Ten Points of Unity†are:
- No to the anti-immigrant HR4437/SB 2611 legislations from Congress
- No to militarization of the border
- No to criminalization of immigrant communities
- No to the planned immigrant crackdown across the country
- No to the guest worker program
- No to the Employer Sanction
- Yes to amnesty for undocumented immigrants
- Yes to immigrant family reunification
- Yes to a humane path to citizenship
- Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers
Latest lists of participants includes:
A World Beyond Capitalism * ACLU of Texas * AFSC (Baltimore, MD)* AFSC (New Jersey, NJ) * AFSC (Portland, OR) * AFSC (Washington, DC) * AFSC Project Voice (Cambridge, MA) * AfterDowningStreet.org * Andy Shallal (Iraqi American activist) * AOL Latino * Boston May Day Coalition * CAIR Coalition * Camp Democracy * Campaign For Labor Rights * Carpenters' District Council of Greater Kansas City and Vicinity * Casa Freehold * Catedral Basilica de Newark * Chelsea Uni‚ndose en Contra de la Guerra * Coalicion por una amnistia general para todos * Code Pink * Comite de Salvadorenos * Detention Project/Asylum Project of Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition * Detention Watch Network * El Centro Hispanoamericano * Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting * Families for Freedom * Forest Hills Community House * Frente Unido Western Mass * Global Exchange * Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition * Guyanese-American Workers United * Hispanic Organizations Leadership Alliance * Industrial Workers of the World * Instituto Familiar de la Raza, Inc. * Laborer's International Union of North America * League of United Latin American Citizens * Los Angeles March 25th Coalition * Massachusetts Global Action * MDI-Movimiento por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes * Migration Policy Institute * Mission: Middle East * Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation * National Asian American Student Conference * National Council of La Raza * National Immigrant Solidarity Network * National Immigration Project * National Interfaith Committee For Worker Justice * National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health * National Organization of Women * Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala * New York May 1st Coalition * North American Alliance for Fair Employment * Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition * Pittsburgh Friends of Immigrants * Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign * Queers for Economic Justice * Rescue Community * Rights Working Group * SmartMeme Media Collective * Solidarity Committee of Capital District, NY * Student Immigrant Movement * Tecschange* Tenderloin Neighborhood * Development * UCC Latina Organizing Group * United for a Fair Economy * United For Peace & Justice * United Students Against Sweatshops * University Leadership Initiative * Washington Peace Center * Washtenaw County Workers Center * Western Mass Coalition of Immigrant Rights * Western Mass Global Action Coalition * Woodbridge Workers Committee
Goals of the Conference
1. Keep the momentum gained throughout the country this spring going,
2. National meeting in which community/grassroots immigrant activists can meet face-to-face to discuss how to build a new national, broad-based, immigrant rights/civil rights movement.
3. Set a 6-9 month national strategy plan that unites in a national action campaign that respects our diversity of political positions and strategies.
Lists of Workshops
Organizing Day Labor Center (Casa Freehold)
Developing Immigrant Community Programs (National Organization for Women)
LGBT Caucus (Queers For Economic Justice)
Immigrant Media Strategy, Talking Points Formulation SmartMeMe Media Collective)
Reading Between the Headlines: Learn to analyze news coverage(Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting)
Counter-Minutemen Organizing (Los Angeles March 25th Coalition)
A Multi-Ethnic "Role-Playing" Activist Approach towards Immigrant Education and Understanding (Mission: Middle East)
Detention and Deportation: Overview and Organizing (National Immigration Project/Detention Watch Network)
Women's Caucus (National Organization for Women)
Rights on the Line (American Friends Service Committee)
Low-wage immigrant worker strategies (American Friends Service Committee)
March 25th, May 1st organizing (Los Angeles March 25th Coalition)
How To Do Your Congressional Lobbying (United for Peace and Justice)
Away from Militarization and Towards Human Mobility: Civil Disobedience and Direct Action-Militarization/Diverse Tactics to Achieve Goals (American Civil Liberties Union of Texas)
Planning Camp Democracy (Camp Democracy)
Overview of Latino Immigrant Politics (League of United Latin American Citizens)
Film Showing: Divide We Fall
Latest Updates on the Immigrant Legislation - An Introduction (National Immigrant Solidarity Network)
Panel: Immigrant Student Organizing (National Council of La Raza, National Asian American Student Conference)
Panel: Labor Union and Immigrant Organizing (Carpenters' District Council of Greater Kansas City and Vicinity)
Multi-Ethnic Organizing (Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign)
Acknowledging the Role of Faith in Addressing Social Justice and Defending Immigrant Rights
Trade and Immigration: Organizing around the failed "Free Trade Model" (Campaign for Labor Rights)
Panel Dialogue: Our May 1 Experience
Panel: Faith & Action: Our Spiritual Responsibility for Protecting Immigrant Rights (Imam Mahdi Bray, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation)
+END+
Plain Text Attachment [ Scan and Save to Computer | Save to Yahoo! Briefcase ]
National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference
Together, We Build A New National, Broad-Based, Immigrant Rights/Civil
Rights Movement!
Friday - Sunday July 28-30
American University, Washington DC.
Called by National Immigrant Solidarity Network
For Registration and More Information
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/2006Conference/
Together, We Build A New National, Broad-Based, Immigrant Rights / Civil Rights Movement!
Friday - Sunday July 28-30, 2006
Ward Circle Building, American University, Washington DC
National Immigrant Solidarity Network http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/2006Conference/
About the Conference The success of May 1st's "A Day Without Immigrants" has been an historical turning point for the immigrant rights movement. The National Immigrant Solidarity Network was one of the main groups who helped to organize the historical Los Angeles March 25th "Gran Marcha" and the national May 1st "A Day Without Immigrants" boycott/strike (Please visit http://www.NoHR4437.org ). At this point it's vitally important for the immigrant rights movement to keep the momentum going, and there's an urgent need for national meeting in which community/grassroots immigrant activists can meet face-to-face to discuss how to build a new national, broad-based, immigrant rights/civil rights movement, and to set a 6-9 month national strategy for actions.
We envision this is a broad-based, multiethnic conference of organizers, and we are inviting organizers from African American, African immigrant, Asian American, Latino/Latina, Arab-Muslim-North African, progressive labor, interfaith, LGBT, student, anti-war/peace and global justice groups from across the country. Our “Ten Points of Unity†are:
- No to the anti-immigrant HR4437/SB 2611 legislations from Congress
- No to militarization of the border
- No to criminalization of immigrant communities
- No to the planned immigrant crackdown across the country
- No to the guest worker program
- No to the Employer Sanction
- Yes to amnesty for undocumented immigrants
- Yes to immigrant family reunification
- Yes to a humane path to citizenship
- Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers
Latest lists of participants includes:
A World Beyond Capitalism * ACLU of Texas * AFSC (Baltimore, MD)* AFSC (New Jersey, NJ) * AFSC (Portland, OR) * AFSC (Washington, DC) * AFSC Project Voice (Cambridge, MA) * AfterDowningStreet.org * Andy Shallal (Iraqi American activist) * AOL Latino * Boston May Day Coalition * CAIR Coalition * Camp Democracy * Campaign For Labor Rights * Carpenters' District Council of Greater Kansas City and Vicinity * Casa Freehold * Catedral Basilica de Newark * Chelsea Uni‚ndose en Contra de la Guerra * Coalicion por una amnistia general para todos * Code Pink * Comite de Salvadorenos * Detention Project/Asylum Project of Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition * Detention Watch Network * El Centro Hispanoamericano * Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting * Families for Freedom * Forest Hills Community House * Frente Unido Western Mass * Global Exchange * Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition * Guyanese-American Workers United * Hispanic Organizations Leadership Alliance * Industrial Workers of the World * Instituto Familiar de la Raza, Inc. * Laborer's International Union of North America * League of United Latin American Citizens * Los Angeles March 25th Coalition * Massachusetts Global Action * MDI-Movimiento por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes * Migration Policy Institute * Mission: Middle East * Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation * National Asian American Student Conference * National Council of La Raza * National Immigrant Solidarity Network * National Immigration Project * National Interfaith Committee For Worker Justice * National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health * National Organization of Women * Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala * New York May 1st Coalition * North American Alliance for Fair Employment * Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition * Pittsburgh Friends of Immigrants * Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign * Queers for Economic Justice * Rescue Community * Rights Working Group * SmartMeme Media Collective * Solidarity Committee of Capital District, NY * Student Immigrant Movement * Tecschange* Tenderloin Neighborhood * Development * UCC Latina Organizing Group * United for a Fair Economy * United For Peace & Justice * United Students Against Sweatshops * University Leadership Initiative * Washington Peace Center * Washtenaw County Workers Center * Western Mass Coalition of Immigrant Rights * Western Mass Global Action Coalition * Woodbridge Workers Committee
Goals of the Conference
1. Keep the momentum gained throughout the country this spring going,
2. National meeting in which community/grassroots immigrant activists can meet face-to-face to discuss how to build a new national, broad-based, immigrant rights/civil rights movement.
3. Set a 6-9 month national strategy plan that unites in a national action campaign that respects our diversity of political positions and strategies.
Lists of Workshops
Organizing Day Labor Center (Casa Freehold)
Developing Immigrant Community Programs (National Organization for Women)
LGBT Caucus (Queers For Economic Justice)
Immigrant Media Strategy, Talking Points Formulation SmartMeMe Media Collective)
Reading Between the Headlines: Learn to analyze news coverage(Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting)
Counter-Minutemen Organizing (Los Angeles March 25th Coalition)
A Multi-Ethnic "Role-Playing" Activist Approach towards Immigrant Education and Understanding (Mission: Middle East)
Detention and Deportation: Overview and Organizing (National Immigration Project/Detention Watch Network)
Women's Caucus (National Organization for Women)
Rights on the Line (American Friends Service Committee)
Low-wage immigrant worker strategies (American Friends Service Committee)
March 25th, May 1st organizing (Los Angeles March 25th Coalition)
How To Do Your Congressional Lobbying (United for Peace and Justice)
Away from Militarization and Towards Human Mobility: Civil Disobedience and Direct Action-Militarization/Diverse Tactics to Achieve Goals (American Civil Liberties Union of Texas)
Planning Camp Democracy (Camp Democracy)
Overview of Latino Immigrant Politics (League of United Latin American Citizens)
Film Showing: Divide We Fall
Latest Updates on the Immigrant Legislation - An Introduction (National Immigrant Solidarity Network)
Panel: Immigrant Student Organizing (National Council of La Raza, National Asian American Student Conference)
Panel: Labor Union and Immigrant Organizing (Carpenters' District Council of Greater Kansas City and Vicinity)
Multi-Ethnic Organizing (Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign)
Acknowledging the Role of Faith in Addressing Social Justice and Defending Immigrant Rights
Trade and Immigration: Organizing around the failed "Free Trade Model" (Campaign for Labor Rights)
Panel Dialogue: Our May 1 Experience
Panel: Faith & Action: Our Spiritual Responsibility for Protecting Immigrant Rights (Imam Mahdi Bray, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation)
+END+
Plain Text Attachment [ Scan and Save to Computer | Save to Yahoo! Briefcase ]
National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference
Together, We Build A New National, Broad-Based, Immigrant Rights/Civil
Rights Movement!
Friday - Sunday July 28-30
American University, Washington DC.
Called by National Immigrant Solidarity Network
For Registration and More Information
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/2006Conference/
Friday, July 21, 2006
If this is not hate... what is?
MS: ANTI-ABORTIONISTS' BURNING OF QURAN CALLED 'HATEFUL' - TOP
Jean Gordon, Clarion-Ledger, 7/20/06
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20060720/NEWS/607200393/1001/news
Jackson Muslims and a statewide interfaith group reacted with
disgust Wednesday to reports that the national anti-abortion group
Operation Save America burned a Quran during a Tuesday night
gathering at a Pearl church.
"A group that acts in such a hateful way does not really represent
the word of God," said Emad Al-Turk, co-founder of the International
Museum of Muslim Cultures in Jackson.
Activists from Operation Save America, formerly known as Operation
Rescue, have been in Jackson since Saturday for eight days of
protests against the state's only abortion clinic, the Jackson
Women's Health Organization in the Fondren neighborhood.
During a demonstration at the Capitol on Tuesday, anti-abortion
activists tore up pages from the Quran, the Muslim holy book, along
with a gay pride flag and copies of six U.S. Supreme Court rulings
related to religion in public schools, sodomy and abortion.
The group intended to burn the items at the Capitol but couldn't
because it didn't have a permit, said Operation Save America
volunteer Pat McEwen, a retired college professor from Palm Bay, Fla.
Instead, the activists burned the Quran and other items Tuesday
evening in the parking lot outside Making Jesus Real Church in
Pearl, McEwen said. Police confirmed the burning. (MORE)
Jean Gordon, Clarion-Ledger, 7/20/06
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20060720/NEWS/607200393/1001/news
Jackson Muslims and a statewide interfaith group reacted with
disgust Wednesday to reports that the national anti-abortion group
Operation Save America burned a Quran during a Tuesday night
gathering at a Pearl church.
"A group that acts in such a hateful way does not really represent
the word of God," said Emad Al-Turk, co-founder of the International
Museum of Muslim Cultures in Jackson.
Activists from Operation Save America, formerly known as Operation
Rescue, have been in Jackson since Saturday for eight days of
protests against the state's only abortion clinic, the Jackson
Women's Health Organization in the Fondren neighborhood.
During a demonstration at the Capitol on Tuesday, anti-abortion
activists tore up pages from the Quran, the Muslim holy book, along
with a gay pride flag and copies of six U.S. Supreme Court rulings
related to religion in public schools, sodomy and abortion.
The group intended to burn the items at the Capitol but couldn't
because it didn't have a permit, said Operation Save America
volunteer Pat McEwen, a retired college professor from Palm Bay, Fla.
Instead, the activists burned the Quran and other items Tuesday
evening in the parking lot outside Making Jesus Real Church in
Pearl, McEwen said. Police confirmed the burning. (MORE)
Real Christians Fight Intolerance
Real Christians Fight Intolerance
By Rev. Jim Rigby, AlterNet
July 14, 2006
Progressive Christians tend to be nonjudgmental and to feel that
challenging the intolerance of others is itself intolerant. For that
reason we often sit by silently when Fundamentalist Christians
criticize homosexual persons. We tend to think of this as being open
minded.
Not that long ago, it was considered consistent to be a Christian,
and yet, hold slaves. The day came when slavery was understood as an
affront to the gospel itself. I want to suggest that the day has come
when Christians must declare that gay bashing is an attack on the
gospel and that real Christians do not participate in any form of
discrimination.
Several years ago, I was asked to do the funeral of a gay man who had
been beaten to death in a hate crime. At that time, I had never
thought deeply about the danger many gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender people face in this culture. That week as I worked on the
service, I kept hearing a local "Christian" radio station blaming gay
and lesbian people for everything wrong in America. By the end of the
week I understood the link between religious hate speech and the
funeral I was performing.
I know that critics of homosexuality do not consider themselves to be
hateful. They would say they "love the sinner but hate the sin." If
the shoe were on the other foot, however, and someone were attacking
their families, trying to take their children away, and constantly
working to pass legislation to deprive them of basic civil rights, at
some point they would understand that "homophobia" is too mild a word
for such harassment. "Hatred" is the only proper term.
I was raised in Dallas, Texas and had classmates who were in the
Klan. I remember that they did not consider themselves to be
attacking other people. They perceived themselves to be defenders of
Christian America. Their "religion" consisted of an unrelenting
attack on people who were black, Jewish or homosexual. If anyone
challenged these views, these Klan members considered themselves
under attack and believed that their right to free exercise of
religion was being threatened. In other words, they felt that
harassing other people was a protected __expression of their own
religious faith.
In the Gospel, biblical literalists and judgmental people were the
negative example in many of the stories. The point of those stories
was to teach us the hypocrisy of judgmental religion. When a woman
was caught in adultery, the Biblical literalists lined up to protect
family values. They pointed out that the Bible literally says that
adulterers are to be stoned. If Jesus took the Bible seriously, they
claimed, he would have to participate in the mandated biblical
punishment of an adulteress.
Instead of following scripture, Jesus tells the woman to get her life
together and tells everyone else to drop their stones of judgment.
The only way to take this story seriously is to conclude that real
Christians don't use the bible to condemn other people.
It violates the teaching of Christ to say that God will get angry if
America does not confront homosexuality as a sin. Jesus did not
mention homosexuality and it is a lie to say he did. Furthermore,
Jesus said "Judge not or you will be judged." These false prophets
are saying "Judge or else you will be judged."
Jesus was kind and understanding, but he was not silent about those
who abused the vulnerable. He called them "wolves in sheep's
clothing." Christians must follow the example of Jesus and confront
those vicious predators who use the Christian religion as a
camouflage for bullying. We must be as understanding and kind as we
can be, but to be tolerant of the oppression of others is not true
tolerance.
I believe the time has come to say that genuine followers of Jesus
Christ do not participate in discrimination against gay and lesbian
persons. Is it intolerant to challenge intolerance? Are we doing the
same thing as those we are challenging?
Gay bashing is not just an opinion, it is an assault. Just as the
Klan did, religious fundamentalists have a right to believe that
homosexuality is a sin. They even have a right to preach a message of
hate. But when they harass people in public, it is time for
Christians to rise to challenge their intolerance. We have an
obligation to protect our neighbors from harassment and slander,
especially when it is done in our name.
It is time to say that gay bashing is not only wrong, it is
unchristian. If Christianity is grace, then judgment is the ultimate
apostasy. If Christianity is love, then cruelty is the ultimate
heresy.
The Rev. Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in
Austin, Tex. He can be reached at jrigby0000@aol.com.
By Rev. Jim Rigby, AlterNet
July 14, 2006
Progressive Christians tend to be nonjudgmental and to feel that
challenging the intolerance of others is itself intolerant. For that
reason we often sit by silently when Fundamentalist Christians
criticize homosexual persons. We tend to think of this as being open
minded.
Not that long ago, it was considered consistent to be a Christian,
and yet, hold slaves. The day came when slavery was understood as an
affront to the gospel itself. I want to suggest that the day has come
when Christians must declare that gay bashing is an attack on the
gospel and that real Christians do not participate in any form of
discrimination.
Several years ago, I was asked to do the funeral of a gay man who had
been beaten to death in a hate crime. At that time, I had never
thought deeply about the danger many gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender people face in this culture. That week as I worked on the
service, I kept hearing a local "Christian" radio station blaming gay
and lesbian people for everything wrong in America. By the end of the
week I understood the link between religious hate speech and the
funeral I was performing.
I know that critics of homosexuality do not consider themselves to be
hateful. They would say they "love the sinner but hate the sin." If
the shoe were on the other foot, however, and someone were attacking
their families, trying to take their children away, and constantly
working to pass legislation to deprive them of basic civil rights, at
some point they would understand that "homophobia" is too mild a word
for such harassment. "Hatred" is the only proper term.
I was raised in Dallas, Texas and had classmates who were in the
Klan. I remember that they did not consider themselves to be
attacking other people. They perceived themselves to be defenders of
Christian America. Their "religion" consisted of an unrelenting
attack on people who were black, Jewish or homosexual. If anyone
challenged these views, these Klan members considered themselves
under attack and believed that their right to free exercise of
religion was being threatened. In other words, they felt that
harassing other people was a protected __expression of their own
religious faith.
In the Gospel, biblical literalists and judgmental people were the
negative example in many of the stories. The point of those stories
was to teach us the hypocrisy of judgmental religion. When a woman
was caught in adultery, the Biblical literalists lined up to protect
family values. They pointed out that the Bible literally says that
adulterers are to be stoned. If Jesus took the Bible seriously, they
claimed, he would have to participate in the mandated biblical
punishment of an adulteress.
Instead of following scripture, Jesus tells the woman to get her life
together and tells everyone else to drop their stones of judgment.
The only way to take this story seriously is to conclude that real
Christians don't use the bible to condemn other people.
It violates the teaching of Christ to say that God will get angry if
America does not confront homosexuality as a sin. Jesus did not
mention homosexuality and it is a lie to say he did. Furthermore,
Jesus said "Judge not or you will be judged." These false prophets
are saying "Judge or else you will be judged."
Jesus was kind and understanding, but he was not silent about those
who abused the vulnerable. He called them "wolves in sheep's
clothing." Christians must follow the example of Jesus and confront
those vicious predators who use the Christian religion as a
camouflage for bullying. We must be as understanding and kind as we
can be, but to be tolerant of the oppression of others is not true
tolerance.
I believe the time has come to say that genuine followers of Jesus
Christ do not participate in discrimination against gay and lesbian
persons. Is it intolerant to challenge intolerance? Are we doing the
same thing as those we are challenging?
Gay bashing is not just an opinion, it is an assault. Just as the
Klan did, religious fundamentalists have a right to believe that
homosexuality is a sin. They even have a right to preach a message of
hate. But when they harass people in public, it is time for
Christians to rise to challenge their intolerance. We have an
obligation to protect our neighbors from harassment and slander,
especially when it is done in our name.
It is time to say that gay bashing is not only wrong, it is
unchristian. If Christianity is grace, then judgment is the ultimate
apostasy. If Christianity is love, then cruelty is the ultimate
heresy.
The Rev. Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in
Austin, Tex. He can be reached at jrigby0000@aol.com.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Hate and Godlessness in Hazleton, PA
From the Los Angeles Times
City Vents Anger at Illegal Immigrants
Hazleton, Pa., creates one of the strictest laws in the U.S., polarizing its whites and Latinos.
By Ellen Barry
Times Staff Writer
July 14, 2006
HAZLETON, Pa. — Standing outside City Hall in the gathering dark, Norman Tarantino felt, for once, that he was lucky to live in Hazleton.
Most of his friends had moved away, over the years, convinced that the old coal city's best days were behind it. But as of Thursday night, Tarantino said, Hazleton once again has something to be proud of: It is the most hostile environment in America for illegal immigrants.
Not 20 feet away stood Daniel Jorge, a Dominican immigrant who moved his family to Hazleton last year after 25 years in New York City. Jorge, a real estate agent, was wondering how he would break the news to his wife, who had been enchanted with the small-town friendliness she found in Hazleton, a small city in the hills 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
"I'm sad. I loved it here," Jorge said. He gazed at the police officers lined up in the middle of Church Street, separating crowds of white and Latino demonstrators. "I never in my wildest dreams thought I would see this here in this city."
By a vote of 4 to 1, Hazleton's City Council on Thursday approved the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which imposes severe penalties on landlords who rent space to illegal immigrants, suspends the licenses of businesses that employ them, and declares English the city's official language.
The ordinance has brought celebrity status to Hazleton's mayor, Louis J. Barletta, and has prompted a ripple of proposed new laws in neighboring communities.
In Florida, the communities of Avon Park and Palm Bay will vote on similar laws, as will the city of Escondido in California.
The law has also attracted a legal challenge from the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which has promised to sue the city on the grounds that the ordinance unconstitutionally infringes on federal jurisdiction over immigration.
Local Latino activists warn that the vote could mark an ugly turning point in Hazleton, whose Latino minority has grown over the last decade to constitute about 30% of the population.
"What I worry is that this will be a pretext for people to allow their racist feelings to show," said David Vaida, an attorney in Allentown, Pa., who signed the legal challenge to Barletta. "It will allow people to take that deep, dark side of them and let it come out. It will pit neighbor against neighbor, and then the city will be worse off."
But the mood in City Hall was upbeat Thursday; white residents exploded into applause when Barletta strode into the chamber, wearing a bulletproof vest under his suit jacket. They yelled "Yes!" when a local Latino leader asked whether they would deport U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, and cheered again when City Council President Joe Yannuzzi compared illegal immigrants to burglars.
"If I come home and find someone in my home, is he just an unwanted guest? Must I keep him there and take care of him?" he asked. "I say he has committed a crime, and should be treated like a criminal."
Under the new law — which is a modified version of a ballot initiative proposed in San Bernardino — anyone seeking to rent a dwelling in the city will have to apply to the city for a residency license, and submit to an investigation of citizenship status. Landlords found renting to people without licenses will be fined $1,000 a day. Business owners found hiring, renting property to, or providing goods and services to illegal immigrants will lose their business permit for five years on a first offense and 10 years on a second.
Barletta, whose grandfather hauled coal with a horse and wagon, said Thursday's vote was the culmination of years of complaints from constituents.
"There's no place for me to hide in a small city," he said. "I get it in the grocery store, I get it at the lunch counter, when I get my morning coffee, when I'm pumping gas.
"People are begging me, because we are losing the one asset that this city has to offer — our quality of life."
Hazleton was a shrinking and mostly white city when Latinos began to arrive.
Older residents reminisce about the miners who emerged every evening from the "40 shaft" and streamed down Diamond Avenue past the Italian bars — Andruzzi's, Fidule's, Yannuzzi's — while the smell of meatballs hung in the air. People lived in tight ethnic clusters — Donegal Hill for the Irish immigrants and Nanny Goat Hill for the Italians.
The city reached its peak population in the 1940s, at 38,000, then began a steady decline as mining and textiles work disappeared. The 2000 census showed a population of 23,000, with a median age of 40.
Immigrants, flowing in from New York and New Jersey, changed that trajectory, bringing the city's population back up to between 30,000 and 31,000.
The influx brought economic growth. Donna Palermo, president of the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce, said Latino immigrants built 50 to 60 new businesses in the city's downtown and helped boost the value of some homes to $90,000 from $40,000. In an October 2005 interview with the Northeast Pennsylvania Business Journal, Barletta said the population boom had brought the city's economy to its healthiest state in decades.
But tension surrounded the newcomers from the beginning. Elderly residents on fixed incomes struggled to catch up with the higher cost of living; a school built for 1,800 students tried to absorb 2,500.
When John Quigley, a Democratic mayor, lost his reelection bid in 1995, it was amid rumors that he had rented billboards in New York to recruit Latinos to move to town in exchange for government payments of $1,000 a head. Quigley called that rumor "an urban legend … conjured up by some gutter politicians," but many in Hazleton believe it.
The most persistent complaints center on crime, which most residents interviewed agreed had become a more serious problem in the last year.
"They try to recruit these children into gangs; we're having graffiti sprayed on houses now," Barletta said. "This is not the same population I was defending when they moved in here."
Barletta, 50, said he could put his finger on the exact moment when his perspective on immigration changed. On May 10, a 29-year-old man, Derek Kichline, was fatally shot outside his home on East Chestnut Street, culminating in the arrest of four illegal Dominican immigrants; that same day, a 14-year-old fired a gun at the Pine Street playground.
Barletta said he stayed awake that whole night, thinking about the city he grew up in, where "a playground was sacred ground."
"I laid there and stared at the ceiling. I literally prayed. I realized I had to do something drastic to save the city. If I just let this go and sat back, this wouldn't be a city that anyone wanted to live in," he said. "I felt almost hopeless at that point, watching my city being destroyed right before my eyes."
Latino advocates say Barletta has never produced evidence that illegal immigrants are responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes.
Agapito Lopez, an eye surgeon originally from Puerto Rico, said the two crimes most often cited by Barletta — fatal shootings on October 20, 2005, and May 10 — involved a total of eight illegal immigrants, and should not be applied to a population of 11,000.
"Crime has been here for a long time. It has been white crime, and now we're starting to see brown crime," Lopez said.
Statistics compiled by the Pennsylvania State Police Uniform Crime Reporting System show a reduction in the number of total arrests in Hazleton over the last five years, from 1,458 in 2000 to 1,263 in 2005. Whereas the number of thefts and drugrelated crimes has risen from a low point of 80 in 2001 to 127 in 2005, the total number of reported rapes, robberies, homicides and assaults has decreased since 2000.
Barletta acknowledges that he can't point to data proving that illegal immigrants are responsible for most of the city's crimes, or even establish how many illegal immigrants live here. But he said that any time police spent responding to calls involving illegal immigrants was a waste of city money, and "we are arresting illegal individuals much more often than we ever have."
Over the last month — since Barletta introduced his proposed ordinance — relationships in Hazleton have been remapped, Latinos say.
White people feel free to speak openly about their annoyance with immigrants, said Jessica Cruz, who waits tables in two local diners.
Cruz sputtered with anger recalling a recent day when she greeted three friends in Spanish, and a customer looked up from his seat, pointed his finger at her and told her to speak English. Another customer looked into the kitchen and said he couldn't wait until Immigration came to take away the Mexicans.
"Every day, he is eating, and the Mexicans are cooking," said Cruz, 26. It's the mayor, she said, who "gives support for talking like that."
Kim Resovszky, 35, feels edgy too, but for different reasons. A family that looks Latino just moved into a house across the street — mother, father, two kids. They seem nice, she said. But who knows what to expect from the rest of the summer?
"It's scary. Are you going to see more gunfire?" she asked. "There have been drive-by shootings, for example."
Resovszky said she supported the ordinance, as did virtually all of the city's white residents.
"The only ones who are against it are the Hispanics," she said, "and that's because it's against them."
City Vents Anger at Illegal Immigrants
Hazleton, Pa., creates one of the strictest laws in the U.S., polarizing its whites and Latinos.
By Ellen Barry
Times Staff Writer
July 14, 2006
HAZLETON, Pa. — Standing outside City Hall in the gathering dark, Norman Tarantino felt, for once, that he was lucky to live in Hazleton.
Most of his friends had moved away, over the years, convinced that the old coal city's best days were behind it. But as of Thursday night, Tarantino said, Hazleton once again has something to be proud of: It is the most hostile environment in America for illegal immigrants.
Not 20 feet away stood Daniel Jorge, a Dominican immigrant who moved his family to Hazleton last year after 25 years in New York City. Jorge, a real estate agent, was wondering how he would break the news to his wife, who had been enchanted with the small-town friendliness she found in Hazleton, a small city in the hills 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
"I'm sad. I loved it here," Jorge said. He gazed at the police officers lined up in the middle of Church Street, separating crowds of white and Latino demonstrators. "I never in my wildest dreams thought I would see this here in this city."
By a vote of 4 to 1, Hazleton's City Council on Thursday approved the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which imposes severe penalties on landlords who rent space to illegal immigrants, suspends the licenses of businesses that employ them, and declares English the city's official language.
The ordinance has brought celebrity status to Hazleton's mayor, Louis J. Barletta, and has prompted a ripple of proposed new laws in neighboring communities.
In Florida, the communities of Avon Park and Palm Bay will vote on similar laws, as will the city of Escondido in California.
The law has also attracted a legal challenge from the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which has promised to sue the city on the grounds that the ordinance unconstitutionally infringes on federal jurisdiction over immigration.
Local Latino activists warn that the vote could mark an ugly turning point in Hazleton, whose Latino minority has grown over the last decade to constitute about 30% of the population.
"What I worry is that this will be a pretext for people to allow their racist feelings to show," said David Vaida, an attorney in Allentown, Pa., who signed the legal challenge to Barletta. "It will allow people to take that deep, dark side of them and let it come out. It will pit neighbor against neighbor, and then the city will be worse off."
But the mood in City Hall was upbeat Thursday; white residents exploded into applause when Barletta strode into the chamber, wearing a bulletproof vest under his suit jacket. They yelled "Yes!" when a local Latino leader asked whether they would deport U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, and cheered again when City Council President Joe Yannuzzi compared illegal immigrants to burglars.
"If I come home and find someone in my home, is he just an unwanted guest? Must I keep him there and take care of him?" he asked. "I say he has committed a crime, and should be treated like a criminal."
Under the new law — which is a modified version of a ballot initiative proposed in San Bernardino — anyone seeking to rent a dwelling in the city will have to apply to the city for a residency license, and submit to an investigation of citizenship status. Landlords found renting to people without licenses will be fined $1,000 a day. Business owners found hiring, renting property to, or providing goods and services to illegal immigrants will lose their business permit for five years on a first offense and 10 years on a second.
Barletta, whose grandfather hauled coal with a horse and wagon, said Thursday's vote was the culmination of years of complaints from constituents.
"There's no place for me to hide in a small city," he said. "I get it in the grocery store, I get it at the lunch counter, when I get my morning coffee, when I'm pumping gas.
"People are begging me, because we are losing the one asset that this city has to offer — our quality of life."
Hazleton was a shrinking and mostly white city when Latinos began to arrive.
Older residents reminisce about the miners who emerged every evening from the "40 shaft" and streamed down Diamond Avenue past the Italian bars — Andruzzi's, Fidule's, Yannuzzi's — while the smell of meatballs hung in the air. People lived in tight ethnic clusters — Donegal Hill for the Irish immigrants and Nanny Goat Hill for the Italians.
The city reached its peak population in the 1940s, at 38,000, then began a steady decline as mining and textiles work disappeared. The 2000 census showed a population of 23,000, with a median age of 40.
Immigrants, flowing in from New York and New Jersey, changed that trajectory, bringing the city's population back up to between 30,000 and 31,000.
The influx brought economic growth. Donna Palermo, president of the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce, said Latino immigrants built 50 to 60 new businesses in the city's downtown and helped boost the value of some homes to $90,000 from $40,000. In an October 2005 interview with the Northeast Pennsylvania Business Journal, Barletta said the population boom had brought the city's economy to its healthiest state in decades.
But tension surrounded the newcomers from the beginning. Elderly residents on fixed incomes struggled to catch up with the higher cost of living; a school built for 1,800 students tried to absorb 2,500.
When John Quigley, a Democratic mayor, lost his reelection bid in 1995, it was amid rumors that he had rented billboards in New York to recruit Latinos to move to town in exchange for government payments of $1,000 a head. Quigley called that rumor "an urban legend … conjured up by some gutter politicians," but many in Hazleton believe it.
The most persistent complaints center on crime, which most residents interviewed agreed had become a more serious problem in the last year.
"They try to recruit these children into gangs; we're having graffiti sprayed on houses now," Barletta said. "This is not the same population I was defending when they moved in here."
Barletta, 50, said he could put his finger on the exact moment when his perspective on immigration changed. On May 10, a 29-year-old man, Derek Kichline, was fatally shot outside his home on East Chestnut Street, culminating in the arrest of four illegal Dominican immigrants; that same day, a 14-year-old fired a gun at the Pine Street playground.
Barletta said he stayed awake that whole night, thinking about the city he grew up in, where "a playground was sacred ground."
"I laid there and stared at the ceiling. I literally prayed. I realized I had to do something drastic to save the city. If I just let this go and sat back, this wouldn't be a city that anyone wanted to live in," he said. "I felt almost hopeless at that point, watching my city being destroyed right before my eyes."
Latino advocates say Barletta has never produced evidence that illegal immigrants are responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes.
Agapito Lopez, an eye surgeon originally from Puerto Rico, said the two crimes most often cited by Barletta — fatal shootings on October 20, 2005, and May 10 — involved a total of eight illegal immigrants, and should not be applied to a population of 11,000.
"Crime has been here for a long time. It has been white crime, and now we're starting to see brown crime," Lopez said.
Statistics compiled by the Pennsylvania State Police Uniform Crime Reporting System show a reduction in the number of total arrests in Hazleton over the last five years, from 1,458 in 2000 to 1,263 in 2005. Whereas the number of thefts and drugrelated crimes has risen from a low point of 80 in 2001 to 127 in 2005, the total number of reported rapes, robberies, homicides and assaults has decreased since 2000.
Barletta acknowledges that he can't point to data proving that illegal immigrants are responsible for most of the city's crimes, or even establish how many illegal immigrants live here. But he said that any time police spent responding to calls involving illegal immigrants was a waste of city money, and "we are arresting illegal individuals much more often than we ever have."
Over the last month — since Barletta introduced his proposed ordinance — relationships in Hazleton have been remapped, Latinos say.
White people feel free to speak openly about their annoyance with immigrants, said Jessica Cruz, who waits tables in two local diners.
Cruz sputtered with anger recalling a recent day when she greeted three friends in Spanish, and a customer looked up from his seat, pointed his finger at her and told her to speak English. Another customer looked into the kitchen and said he couldn't wait until Immigration came to take away the Mexicans.
"Every day, he is eating, and the Mexicans are cooking," said Cruz, 26. It's the mayor, she said, who "gives support for talking like that."
Kim Resovszky, 35, feels edgy too, but for different reasons. A family that looks Latino just moved into a house across the street — mother, father, two kids. They seem nice, she said. But who knows what to expect from the rest of the summer?
"It's scary. Are you going to see more gunfire?" she asked. "There have been drive-by shootings, for example."
Resovszky said she supported the ordinance, as did virtually all of the city's white residents.
"The only ones who are against it are the Hispanics," she said, "and that's because it's against them."
Thursday, June 29, 2006
God, Recibe a hero with you... Eric Rofes
From the NY times...
Eric Rofes, an educator, author and organizer whose iconoclastic writings on gay concerns preceded the AIDS epidemic and who then helped define its stages, died on Monday in Provincetown, Mass. He was 51.
The cause was not determined, said Richard Burns, executive director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in New York.
Dr. Rofes (pronounced RO-fes) founded or led gay organizations in Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco and was a principal organizer of three national meetings on gay and lesbian issues. He wrote or edited 12 books, some of which provoked sharp debate.
Dr. Rofes became a leading exponent of the view that the AIDS emergency had passed and that gay men should cast aside the crisis mentality of the 1980's. What he called his "reconceptualization of AIDS" included not only tolerance for promiscuous gay sex, but also cautious approval.
"We value the enactment of our desires and will not always give them up in a grand gesture of sacrifice to the AIDS epidemic," he wrote in his book "Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures" (1998).
He defended unprotected sex as, at least, unavoidable.
Larry Kramer, Gabriel Rotello, Michelangelo Signorile and other prominent gay writers criticized such views as dangerously irresponsible, even with a decline in AIDS cases.
Dr. Rofes's outspokenness extended to comparing gay men in the time of AIDS to survivors of Nazi death camps. He wrote what may have been the first book on gay people and suicide, and he strongly criticized AIDS service organizations and anti-AIDS activists for what he saw as dogmatism and fostering a culture of terror.
When testifying to the National Commission on AIDS in San Francisco in 1991, he wore leather chaps, vest and gloves to suggest that sexual expression took many forms.
Eric Edward Rofes was born on Aug. 31, 1954, in Brooklyn. He grew up in Commack on Long Island. Dr. Rofes graduated from Harvard in 1976.
In the 70's, he was one of the so-called "Boston Mafia" who founded the Gay Community News and the Boston Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance. In an article he wrote last year for White Crane, a quarterly intended for gay men, he told of his joy in joining the emerging gay culture.
"Gay was good," he wrote. "Gay was very good. Gay was excellent."
In that period, he taught sixth grade in public school until he was fired for being openly gay. He then taught for five years at the Fayerweather Street School in Cambridge, Mass. He and his students published three books on young adults' perspectives, including "The Kids' Book of Divorce: By, for and About Kids" (1981).
In 1985, he was hired as executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. After moving to San Francisco in 1989, he headed the Shanti Project, an AIDS service group.
Dr. Rofes received his master's from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1995 and his doctorate in 1998. He had taught at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif., since 1999.
His research subjects included charter schools and schoolyard bullies, and he consistently used his own experience and research to document the changes in gay culture from the time before AIDS to the disease's epidemic proportions to what is happening now.
"Dr. Rofes's contribution is unique in the continuity it provides with the political movements of the late 1970's, before the derailment that occurred in the early 1980's as a result of AIDS," The Gay Community News wrote in 1996.
Dr. Rofes brought detailed descriptions of his own experiences, including explicitly sexual ones, to his work, as well as stark emotions.
The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, in reviewing "Dry Bones" in 1999, suggested that it "is at root not about AIDS at all, but about what AIDS took away from him and his generation, what it left him with, and what he's doing with his anger about the theft."
Surviving are his partner of 16 years, Crispin Hollings of San Francisco; a brother, Peter, of Milwaukee; and a sister, Paula Casey-Rofes.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Why did I leave the roman Catholic Church
Today's NY Times dropped the bomb... in an article that sort of officially announces the side that the Archbishop of Canterbury is taking: He is not taking the side of the "Anawin YHVH", the poor and oppressed of the world, he is taking the side of the powerful conservatives, that have hijacked Christianity since the Trent Council.
It makes me sick the name of people like Akinola, or the American Anglican council, who in my opinion actually work for the devil, not for GOD. These Pseudo-Christians refuse to seat at the table with those who differ from their views. These sons of satan accuse Gay and Lesbian inclusive Parishes and Dioceses of "attempting against the ortodoxy of Christianity" but the reality is that, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender folks have been quiet for centuries about the injust and ridiculous demands of the so called "mainstream Christianity" and now, that people are finally start listening to the voice of God and speaking out without fear... they -the conservatives- are making sure that the voices who disagree with them are silenced, punished and ridiculed.
As I was reading this morning's NY Times, I was reflecting on why did I leave the roma catholic Church in the first place. It may be just easy to think that the idea was just to go to a more inclusive church, but in reality, I astrugled more than that.
I remember reaging Garry Wills' "Why am I still a Catholic" or some articles from different sources by Andrew Sullivan. I remember looking for very progresive roman catholic Parishes, I became active with progressive roman Catholic groups and ministries... and nothing worked. The voice of God, like a very gentle wind, walked me out of the roman Church forever and gently guided me to the doors of the Episcopal Church. In the Episcopal church, I found diversity and a level of plurality that I don't think I will ever see in the roman Catholic Church. While I secretly admired John Paul II as a man of concern for some of the poor of the world, I am convinced tha he was also biased about who he thought deserveed compasion... and who was living "in sin". In the Episcopal Church, I experienced the bennefits of my rupture with a systema that imposed personal views and disregarded the signs of the times, and I was very happy to break with a church -the roman- that has abandoned the Gospel , by considering homosexuals and women sencond class humas beings. I still admire their views on immigration, but I still think they should go forward and listed to the profetic voice of those who claim full inclussion of All.
Today, I see the poetic immage of the "beast of seven heads" colorfully presented in the book of Revelation 12:3, as representing the conservatives of the world, those who are trying to steal the baby boy from the Strugling Mother. My faith calls me to believe that they will be defeated, even when our struggling progresive Churches have to be nurtured in the wilderness, in a place prepared for God.
John the Baptist "The voice of one crying in the wilderness" said "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." Mattew 3:3, and he was killed by herod. The Bible teaches us that the rigtheous may always prevail, but no without struggle... and that is how I would like us -progressive people- to be remembered by future generation, that contemplate the atrocities that are taken place against Gays and Lesbians in the name of "ortodoxy" and God.
It makes me sick the name of people like Akinola, or the American Anglican council, who in my opinion actually work for the devil, not for GOD. These Pseudo-Christians refuse to seat at the table with those who differ from their views. These sons of satan accuse Gay and Lesbian inclusive Parishes and Dioceses of "attempting against the ortodoxy of Christianity" but the reality is that, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender folks have been quiet for centuries about the injust and ridiculous demands of the so called "mainstream Christianity" and now, that people are finally start listening to the voice of God and speaking out without fear... they -the conservatives- are making sure that the voices who disagree with them are silenced, punished and ridiculed.
As I was reading this morning's NY Times, I was reflecting on why did I leave the roma catholic Church in the first place. It may be just easy to think that the idea was just to go to a more inclusive church, but in reality, I astrugled more than that.
I remember reaging Garry Wills' "Why am I still a Catholic" or some articles from different sources by Andrew Sullivan. I remember looking for very progresive roman catholic Parishes, I became active with progressive roman Catholic groups and ministries... and nothing worked. The voice of God, like a very gentle wind, walked me out of the roman Church forever and gently guided me to the doors of the Episcopal Church. In the Episcopal church, I found diversity and a level of plurality that I don't think I will ever see in the roman Catholic Church. While I secretly admired John Paul II as a man of concern for some of the poor of the world, I am convinced tha he was also biased about who he thought deserveed compasion... and who was living "in sin". In the Episcopal Church, I experienced the bennefits of my rupture with a systema that imposed personal views and disregarded the signs of the times, and I was very happy to break with a church -the roman- that has abandoned the Gospel , by considering homosexuals and women sencond class humas beings. I still admire their views on immigration, but I still think they should go forward and listed to the profetic voice of those who claim full inclussion of All.
Today, I see the poetic immage of the "beast of seven heads" colorfully presented in the book of Revelation 12:3, as representing the conservatives of the world, those who are trying to steal the baby boy from the Strugling Mother. My faith calls me to believe that they will be defeated, even when our struggling progresive Churches have to be nurtured in the wilderness, in a place prepared for God.
John the Baptist "The voice of one crying in the wilderness" said "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." Mattew 3:3, and he was killed by herod. The Bible teaches us that the rigtheous may always prevail, but no without struggle... and that is how I would like us -progressive people- to be remembered by future generation, that contemplate the atrocities that are taken place against Gays and Lesbians in the name of "ortodoxy" and God.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Gay Pride/ Episcopal Pride
A day of healing and bonding LGBTQ Episcopalian of the Diocese of NewYork and Diocese of Long Island.
It is an increasing tradition for LGBTQ folks to start and end thecelebrations of Gay Pride in church. Thruought the week, the presenceof LGBTQ Episcopalians was felt in virtually every Pride Celebration,such as the Garden Party, and the endless breakfasts and dinners,vigils, demosntrations and even dances that take part in the City. For many people, Gay Pride day religious services are an opportunityto explore what the church has to offer, and for lots and lots is thevery first contact with an all open, accepting and inclusive churchenvironment. Also, the presence of LG families with babies was muchmore visible this year.
Another interesting thing is how the EpiscopalChurch is the one were many interacial Lesbian and Gay couples can beseen, and actually both partners feel accepted.The Morning service that my lover and I attended was held at the Allinclusive church of the Holy Apostles in the very Gay Chelsea area.Holy aposltes is open and accepting beyond the Sunday services, theyoffer a very generous soup kitchen and space for "Beth-Simcha Tora"the LGBTQ Synagogue of NY. The homily was delivered by MotherElizabeth G. Maxwell and was about how, while many of us are fellingthe pain of the recent events before the closing of generalConvention, the struggle is not over. The complete homily can beenjoyed at http://www.holyapostlesnyc.org/church/sermons/sermons.htm
and a verbatim will be placeed soon on line ofr people to read.The group from church, then, proceded to head to the gathering area,close to Fifth Ave. Many of us noted that the contingents wereconsiderably smaller than last year, whn Bishop Robinson honored uswith his presence. Actually, No bishop marched with us this year.
Tradionally, the churches along Fifth Ave, open their door and scoresof volunteers donate time offering water to the thousands of marchers.Some of the Churches are Marble Collegiate Church (which count withthe largest ministry for LG parents, Saint Thomas Episcopal Church,Ascension Episcopal Church, Fifth Avenue Presbiterian Church...etc.The only one, also traditionally barricated on both sides -their ownside walk and the side walk acccross the street, along the fron ofRockefeller Center- is, off course, Saint Patrick's Cathedral. In thepast, Dignity NY use to stad up to greet people from there... not sureif it is still happening. Saint Patrick's Cathedral is the only oneclosed, barricated and not offering water... or anything else.
Upon our arrival to the Greenwich Village, at the end of the parade,The Episcopal Church of Saint Luke in the Fields open its doors to theMarching Episcopal Churches, and more scores of volunteers donatecheesburgers, juice, snacks and candy. The End of the parade can beseen from the gardens of Saint Luke's, facing Christopher Street.The Even song at Saint Luke in the Fields was -as usual- a moving andlovely service, celebrated by Bishop Katherine Roskam. The homily wasdelivered by The Rev. Martin Smith, from Washington D.C., aboutthe "unfinished" work that we are witnessing in the world as LGBTQpersons, and our responsibility to the future, not the past. theHomily will be soon available to read -and is strongly recomended- atwww.stlukeinthefields.org
finally, just wanted to mention that Many of us marched with a Badgethat read:"My manner of Life presents a challenge to the wider Church"Resoultion B033and through the entire march, services, etc. was a way to identifywith each other, and the most talked about topic in an environmentfull of half naked men and women with beautiful bodies. This was alsothe year that I felt the most cohesion yet among LGBTQ and straightallies from the Episcopal Church.Thank you all for keeping the doors of our churches open for us andthe ones to come... thank you for opening your hearts to everyone."The Episcopal Church Welcomes You"
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
The Da Vinci senator...
The Da Vinci Senator
By Bob Geiger, AlterNet. Posted June 19, 2006.
http://www.alternet.org/story/37668/
The United States Senate is often called "the greatest deliberative body in the world," which usually raises the bar on the tenor and intellectual content of speeches given on the floor, if not for the official record.
Not so for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who took to the Senate floor last week to deliver a strident push for the bigoted "Marriage Protection Amendment." Alongside the typical massive distortions of the issue was an argument that was based almost solely on the opinion of a little-known conservative think tank affiliated with the Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei.
"The problem we have in front of us is the institution of marriage has been weakened, and the effort to redefine it on this vast social experiment that we have going on, redefining marriage differently than it has ever been defined before," the Kansas senator grimly intoned last week. "This effort of this vast social experiment, the early data that we see from other places, harms the institution of the family, the raising of the next generation. And it is harmful to the future of the republic."
Brownback then went on to give figures for how various states have shown their hatred of gay people with their own prohibitions on same-sex marriage and used that as his rationale for a similar amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
But Brownback really hit his stride when he described a paper called "Ten Principles on Marriage and the Public Good," published by a fairly new and extremely conservative group at Princeton University. According to Brownback, the paper is an "important statement of principles from top American scholars [to] be considered carefully by my colleagues." He then added that the sentiments expressed in the nonscientific treatise were so vital to our national dialog that they should "… help guide our debate on this issue."
The paper, sponsored by the Witherspoon Institute at Princeton, makes a case for banning same-sex marriage altogether. What's extraordinary is the idea of a United States senator attempting to sway opinion on an amendment that would have altered our Constitution (had it not been defeated last Wednesday) by using a paper from an organization linked to Opus Dei, a strict religious group that some former members have described as a cult.
Brownback spent a good part of his lengthy Senate speech last week citing the study and attributing it to "this Princeton group of scholars," while never mentioning that all of the findings were based on the ultraconservative Witherspoon Institute bolstered by the involvement -- directly or indirectly -- of a nonprofit, tax-exempt religious organization in Opus Dei.
So what exactly is the Witherspoon Institute, whose paper formed the foundation of Brownback's anti-gay argument?
The institute, which has only been around since 2003, has close ties to Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, but is also tightly aligned with Opus Dei. Indeed, Luis Tellez, the president of the Witherspoon Institute is also the director and lead cleric of Opus Dei in Princeton.
Since its founding in 1928, Opus Dei has been known for its traditionalist values and right-wing political stances. And critics in academia -- which include former members who sometimes go through "deprogramming" upon exiting Opus Dei -- charge that organizations like the Witherspoon Institute are just veiled attempts by Opus Dei to spread its influence in top-tier academic circles.
So why then, is a U.S. senator offering to Congress "research" linked to Opus Dei on something as vital as amending the Constitution? It turns out that Brownback, who was formerly an evangelical Protestant, converted to Catholicism by way of Opus Dei in 2002 and was sponsored in that conversion by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., a vocal Opus Dei advocate.
Tellez, the leader of Opus Dei in Princeton, is a "numerary," considered the most conservative of the sect's members -- they are unmarried, celibate, devote every aspect of their lives to their spiritual beliefs and turn over their salaries from secular jobs to Opus Dei.
Again, it bears repeating that Tellez is also the head of the Witherspoon Institute, the group Brownback cited at great length as his primary argument against gay marriage.
And remember, it is Brownback, as an Opus Dei convert, who also leads the charge on Capitol Hill against abortion and stem cell research and who, along with Santorum, is seen by the Religious Right as a point man on "culture war" issues.
The other central figure in the Witherspoon orbit is Dr. Robert George, a Princeton professor and a board member in the institute who, not coincidentally, helped draft the federal gay-marriage ban that was just defeated in the Senate. George chaired a meeting of religious leaders in late 2005 that included Dr. James Dobson and other members of the extreme Religious Right. In fact, in addition to his pivotal role in the Witherspoon Institute, George is also a board member at Perkins' Family Research Council, a group known for its bigoted positions on the gay community.
And, via Brownback, all of this is ultimately finding its way into the halls of Congress.
While it may not be technically illegal for Brownback to be so clearly mixing hard-right religious ideology -- and faux-academic papers promoted by religious organizations like Opus Dei -- with debate on the Senate floor, it should certainly raise some eyebrows. In a country where strict separation of church and state is mandated, it seems Brownback is freely blending the two, attempting to use religious dogma to influence public policy -- all the while not disclosing to his Senate colleagues the background sources of the research he is citing.
But this should not be surprising coming from Brownback.
In a January 2006 Rolling Stone article, "God's Senator," Brownback is described as a religious zealot with a view for America's future that could almost be described as medieval.
"In his dream, America, the one he believes both the Bible and the Constitution promise, the state will simply wither away. In its place will be a country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric of the last hundred years -- schools, Social Security, welfare -- will be privatized or simply done away with," reads the article. "There will be no abortions; sex will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead families, mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will take care of all."
After all, it was Brownback, who came to Congress in 1994 and refused to sign Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America" because he felt it wasn't conservative enough. Even then, as a newcomer to the House of Representatives, Brownback believed that the vast majority of what he saw as Big Government should simply be eliminated, including the departments of education, energy and commerce.
And, yes, it was also Brownback who was so outraged at the split-second glimpse of Janet Jackson's nipple during the 2004 Super Bowl, that he introduced the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which substantially raised fines for such simple on-air displays of nudity.
Finally, in addition to being brought into Catholicism by the likes of Opus Dei and using laundered research by an affiliated group on the Senate floor, Brownback chairs a meeting every Tuesday night with the "Values Action Team," consisting of religious leaders like Dobson who help the senator formulate his thoughts on public policy issues.
According to Time magazine, Opus Dei has assets in the neighborhood of $2.8 billion and, with John McCain unlikely to significantly rouse the Religious Right in 2008, look for Brownback to be the guy that Opus Dei, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council turn to as their presidential candidate.
And make no mistake about it: Brownback wants to run. So if you think his views for a new America, as viewed from the Senate floor, are scary, think of what he'll be like sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
In his mind, it may already be ordained.
By Bob Geiger, AlterNet. Posted June 19, 2006.
http://www.alternet.org/story/37668/
The United States Senate is often called "the greatest deliberative body in the world," which usually raises the bar on the tenor and intellectual content of speeches given on the floor, if not for the official record.
Not so for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who took to the Senate floor last week to deliver a strident push for the bigoted "Marriage Protection Amendment." Alongside the typical massive distortions of the issue was an argument that was based almost solely on the opinion of a little-known conservative think tank affiliated with the Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei.
"The problem we have in front of us is the institution of marriage has been weakened, and the effort to redefine it on this vast social experiment that we have going on, redefining marriage differently than it has ever been defined before," the Kansas senator grimly intoned last week. "This effort of this vast social experiment, the early data that we see from other places, harms the institution of the family, the raising of the next generation. And it is harmful to the future of the republic."
Brownback then went on to give figures for how various states have shown their hatred of gay people with their own prohibitions on same-sex marriage and used that as his rationale for a similar amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
But Brownback really hit his stride when he described a paper called "Ten Principles on Marriage and the Public Good," published by a fairly new and extremely conservative group at Princeton University. According to Brownback, the paper is an "important statement of principles from top American scholars [to] be considered carefully by my colleagues." He then added that the sentiments expressed in the nonscientific treatise were so vital to our national dialog that they should "… help guide our debate on this issue."
The paper, sponsored by the Witherspoon Institute at Princeton, makes a case for banning same-sex marriage altogether. What's extraordinary is the idea of a United States senator attempting to sway opinion on an amendment that would have altered our Constitution (had it not been defeated last Wednesday) by using a paper from an organization linked to Opus Dei, a strict religious group that some former members have described as a cult.
Brownback spent a good part of his lengthy Senate speech last week citing the study and attributing it to "this Princeton group of scholars," while never mentioning that all of the findings were based on the ultraconservative Witherspoon Institute bolstered by the involvement -- directly or indirectly -- of a nonprofit, tax-exempt religious organization in Opus Dei.
So what exactly is the Witherspoon Institute, whose paper formed the foundation of Brownback's anti-gay argument?
The institute, which has only been around since 2003, has close ties to Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, but is also tightly aligned with Opus Dei. Indeed, Luis Tellez, the president of the Witherspoon Institute is also the director and lead cleric of Opus Dei in Princeton.
Since its founding in 1928, Opus Dei has been known for its traditionalist values and right-wing political stances. And critics in academia -- which include former members who sometimes go through "deprogramming" upon exiting Opus Dei -- charge that organizations like the Witherspoon Institute are just veiled attempts by Opus Dei to spread its influence in top-tier academic circles.
So why then, is a U.S. senator offering to Congress "research" linked to Opus Dei on something as vital as amending the Constitution? It turns out that Brownback, who was formerly an evangelical Protestant, converted to Catholicism by way of Opus Dei in 2002 and was sponsored in that conversion by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., a vocal Opus Dei advocate.
Tellez, the leader of Opus Dei in Princeton, is a "numerary," considered the most conservative of the sect's members -- they are unmarried, celibate, devote every aspect of their lives to their spiritual beliefs and turn over their salaries from secular jobs to Opus Dei.
Again, it bears repeating that Tellez is also the head of the Witherspoon Institute, the group Brownback cited at great length as his primary argument against gay marriage.
And remember, it is Brownback, as an Opus Dei convert, who also leads the charge on Capitol Hill against abortion and stem cell research and who, along with Santorum, is seen by the Religious Right as a point man on "culture war" issues.
The other central figure in the Witherspoon orbit is Dr. Robert George, a Princeton professor and a board member in the institute who, not coincidentally, helped draft the federal gay-marriage ban that was just defeated in the Senate. George chaired a meeting of religious leaders in late 2005 that included Dr. James Dobson and other members of the extreme Religious Right. In fact, in addition to his pivotal role in the Witherspoon Institute, George is also a board member at Perkins' Family Research Council, a group known for its bigoted positions on the gay community.
And, via Brownback, all of this is ultimately finding its way into the halls of Congress.
While it may not be technically illegal for Brownback to be so clearly mixing hard-right religious ideology -- and faux-academic papers promoted by religious organizations like Opus Dei -- with debate on the Senate floor, it should certainly raise some eyebrows. In a country where strict separation of church and state is mandated, it seems Brownback is freely blending the two, attempting to use religious dogma to influence public policy -- all the while not disclosing to his Senate colleagues the background sources of the research he is citing.
But this should not be surprising coming from Brownback.
In a January 2006 Rolling Stone article, "God's Senator," Brownback is described as a religious zealot with a view for America's future that could almost be described as medieval.
"In his dream, America, the one he believes both the Bible and the Constitution promise, the state will simply wither away. In its place will be a country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric of the last hundred years -- schools, Social Security, welfare -- will be privatized or simply done away with," reads the article. "There will be no abortions; sex will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead families, mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will take care of all."
After all, it was Brownback, who came to Congress in 1994 and refused to sign Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America" because he felt it wasn't conservative enough. Even then, as a newcomer to the House of Representatives, Brownback believed that the vast majority of what he saw as Big Government should simply be eliminated, including the departments of education, energy and commerce.
And, yes, it was also Brownback who was so outraged at the split-second glimpse of Janet Jackson's nipple during the 2004 Super Bowl, that he introduced the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which substantially raised fines for such simple on-air displays of nudity.
Finally, in addition to being brought into Catholicism by the likes of Opus Dei and using laundered research by an affiliated group on the Senate floor, Brownback chairs a meeting every Tuesday night with the "Values Action Team," consisting of religious leaders like Dobson who help the senator formulate his thoughts on public policy issues.
According to Time magazine, Opus Dei has assets in the neighborhood of $2.8 billion and, with John McCain unlikely to significantly rouse the Religious Right in 2008, look for Brownback to be the guy that Opus Dei, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council turn to as their presidential candidate.
And make no mistake about it: Brownback wants to run. So if you think his views for a new America, as viewed from the Senate floor, are scary, think of what he'll be like sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
In his mind, it may already be ordained.
Monday, May 08, 2006
Protest songs... are they the exclusive right of a group?
Note from Spirit and soul: In recent days I have seen with great sadness that, while the immigrant movement strugle to gain some rights, some other groups that until no long ago were the opressed class have becomed opressors trough their intelectual elite.
Is it that the inspiration of Dr. King or Ghandi belong only to a specific group, or is it something that we -as human race- learn from history?.
I am often inspired by protest music from around the world, and -despite what certain individuals claim- the lessons learned from the strugle of different groups can be an element of support in difficult times. I have learned a lot from protest folk American music, as well as from Chilean and Central American music.
Is the strugle of a group less important or relevant than any other? I think not....
Here is an homage to American folk music:
Freedom and Protest Songs of the United States By: www.sbgmusic.com
People often use singing as a way to feel better when sad, or to express discontent. Some people even believe that singing can change the world. There have probably been protest songs as long as there have been songs and situations that make people unhappy.
The songs of African American slaves before the Civil War were certainly songs of freedom and protest, even though they were carefully worded to avoid arousing the suspicion of the slave owners. A spiritual like "Go Down Moses" told a story from the Bible, but the refrain "Let my people go!" certainly could be applied to the situation of the African American slaves, too. Other songs, like "Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd," were simply coded instructions to help slaves escape to freedom.In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people used protest songs to denounce slavery, promote women’s suffrage, promote temperance, and organize workers in labor unions. Often, protesters put new words to existing tunes. Julia Ward Howe, who also wrote the words for "Battle Hymn of the Republic," used the tune of "America" for her "Suffrage Song.
"Woody Guthrie was an American composer who wrote and sang about what he saw in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Many people were out of work and hungry. Some were homeless. Guthrie hoped he could make things change. His most famous song, "This Land Is Your Land," was written as his answer to the song "God Bless America." In this song (originally titled "God Blessed America") Guthrie expressed his belief that America, and the responsibility for taking care of it and its people, belong to the people.In the 1960s, the world was still far from perfect. Many American young people believed it was time for change. They used Woody Guthrie’s example, plus musical styles drawn from folk, gospel, bluegrass, and blues, to create protest songs.Protest songs were both political and spiritual. One of the leaders of the 1960s protest song movement was Pete Seeger, who published a magazine called Sing Out! Some of the most important performers in the movement were Phil Ochs, Eric Andersen, the group Peter, Paul, and Mary, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan.
When African Americans in the southern United States were trying to win their civil rights in the early 1960s, many of these singers joined them. Folk-gospel singer Odetta, opera singer Marian Anderson, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and pop star Harry Belafonte all sang for their own struggle for civil rights during the 1963 March on Washington, D.C. They used the songs of African American slaves—spirituals like "Oh, Freedom" and "I Shall Not Be Moved"—to inspire action for a new level of freedom for African Americans. The issue of civil rights was not the only one that was engaging people in 1960s in America.
The United States was involved in a very unpopular war in Vietnam. Young men were being drafted to go into the war whether they wanted to go or not, and thousands were killed. Many of the singers who became involved in the civil rights movement, including Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, and the group Peter, Paul, and Mary, also became involved in protesting the United States’ involvement in the war in Vietnam. Folk singer Joan Baez refused to pay the portion (approximately 60%) of her federal income tax that went to support the war.Other singers became involved in protesting the war, too. Among the most notable was one of the Beatles, John Lennon. When he and Yoko Ono were married in March of 1969, they had a week-long "bed-in for peace" instead of a honeymoon.
From 10:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. every day, John and Yoko sat in bed, in their pajamas, conducting interviews with the press. They succeeded in drawing attention away from the war and onto peace, and in showing people that there are many ways to protest peacefully.In May, during another bed-in in Montréal, Québec, Canada, John sang a new song he had written, "Give Peace a Chance." It became one of the most popular songs of the anti-war movement. At a November 15, 1969, war protest in Washington, D.C., Pete Seeger led a crowd of about 250,000 people as they sang the song over and over again.The Vietnam War was finally over in 1975, but that was not the end of protesting and supporting causes with music.
More recent songs have tried to end world hunger, protest nuclear weapons and nuclear power, and help family-owned farms, among other causes. Protest songs grow out of almost any controversial situation, and they can be found around the world.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo is a date of great importance for the Mexican and Chicano communities. It marks the victory of the Mexican Army over the French at the Battle of Puebla. Althought the Mexican army was eventually defeated, the "Batalla de Puebla" came to represent a symbol of Mexican unity and patriotism. With this victory, Mexico demonstrated to the world that Mexico and all of Latin America were willing to defend themselves of any foreign intervention. Especially those from imperialist states bent on world conquest.
Cinco de Mayo's history has its roots in the French Occupation of Mexico. The French occupation took shape in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. With this war, Mexico entered a period of national crisis during the 1850's. Years of not only fighting the Americans but also a Civil War, had left Mexico devastated and bankrupt. On July 17, 1861, President Benito Juarez issued a moratorium in which all foreign debt payments would be suspended for a brief period of two years, with the promise that after this period, payments would resume.
The English, Spanish and French refused to allow president Juarez to do this, and instead decided to invade Mexico and get payments by whatever means necessary. The Spanish and English eventually withdrew, but the French refused to leave. Their intention was to create an Empire in Mexico under Napoleon III. Some have argued that the true French occupation was a response to growing American power and to the Monroe Doctrine (America for the Americans). Napoleon III believed that if the United States was allowed to prosper indescriminantly, it would eventually become a power in and of itself.
In 1862, the French army began its advance. Under General Ignacio Zaragoza, 5,000 ill-equipped Mestizo and Zapotec Indians defeated the French army in what came to be known as the "Batalla de Puebla" on the fifth of May.
In the United States, the "Batalla de Puebla" came to be known as simply "5 de Mayo" and unfortunately, many people wrongly equate it with Mexican Independence which was on September 16, 1810, nearly a fifty year difference. Over, the years Cinco de Mayo has become very commercialized and many people see this holiday as a time for fun and dance.
Oddly enough, Cinco de Mayo has become more of Chicano holiday than a Mexican one. Cinco de Mayo is celebrated on a much larger scale here in the United States than it is in Mexico. People of Mexican descent in the United States celebrate this significant day by having parades, mariachi music, folklorico dancing and other types of festive activities.
Interesting view on immigration patterns...
I have submitted the following letter to the editor of our local newspaper. Since they haven't printed one of my letters in quite some time, I doubt they will this one either. Still I believe it is worth thinking on.
Enjoy!
+Rusty
I find it ironic that countless numbers of people, many illegally, seek entrance to the US in search of a better life, while countless numbers of US citizens, albeit in perfectly legal ways, head south of the border to retire to a better (read warmer and cheaper) life. Those who come here illegally work in jobs that few of us would ever take. How many of us really aspire or hope our children aspire to be migrant farm workers, or head cashier at fast food restaurants, or want our children to become a day laborer, or a nanny, or a housekeeper? Meanwhile, again in that warped but legal way, we have real estate developers creating vast gated communities in Mexico, buying up land, creating vast living spaces so we can move there and leave cheaply, at least once we can afford the homes. How many would be willing to move into already existing housing in the neighborhoods of the villages and towns we think so idyllic to live among the Mexican community? And how many of us will actually learn Spanish, fluently mind you, once we are there and agree to pay the same prices for goods and services that we pay here? No? Of course not, because we don't have to. We are US citizens and we can manipulate the laws in our favor. Wouldn't it be frightening if all those demonstrators for immigration last Monday learned how to do that here? Ironic.
The Rt. Rev. William M. Clyma III
San Francisco
Note: Thte Rt. Rev. William M. Clyma III is a bishop of an independent church called The New Church - Inclusive Anglican Reform. For more information on his denomination Click here
Thank you for your contribution Rev. Clyma!
Thursday, May 04, 2006
The Episcopal Church Speak up on Immigration Issues
BISHOP BRUNO ADDRESSES CLERGY ON IMMIGRATION ISSUES
April 4, 2006
To the clergy and lay leaders of the Diocese of Los Angeles:
We find ourselves at a pivotal point in this country’s history. The debate on immigration reform has heightened our own awareness of what our response must be as Christians. Our church has been clear that a holistic, comprehensive immigration plan is called for, and that we must be a people who respond with compassion.
You have by now had the opportunity to read my letter to the Los Angeles City Council dated March 8, 2006, in which I urged them to oppose an Immigration Reform Bill proposed by in the House of Representatives by Congressman Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin (to read the full text of the letter visit file://www.episcopalnews.com/ and scroll down the page). To refresh your memories, H.R. #4437 calls for criminalization of the 11 million undocumented workers and family members now in the United States. I am writing to you now because the provisions of H.R. #4437 could become law and if so, the lives of millions of people---in fact, all of us---will be negatively impacted.
Our immigrant families would be physically separated and emotionally destroyed, the economies of the countries to which they send back their remittances would collapse, and our own economy would be seriously affected, causing more and more horrendous and needless suffering. The bill would also criminalize any person who assists an illegal immigrant in any way, including charitable work such as providing food or clothing. This would directly affect many of the works of this diocese as well as the ministry of our congregations.
Our faith tradition calls us, through our sacred scriptures, to welcome and embrace the strangers in our midst, for in them we see the face of Christ. This is defined in our sacramental life. Our Baptismal Covenant asks of us:
“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”
And we have promised:
“I will, with God’s help.”
We who are ordained are all deacons first. The Examination at our diaconate ordination instructed us:
“In the name of Jesus Christ, you are to serve all people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely.
You are to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world.
At all times, your life and teaching are to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.”
The Sin of Racism: A Call to CovenantA Pastoral Letter from the House of Bishops of the Episcopal ChurchMarch 2006
In this same light, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold issued a statement last week calling for Congressional action that is “just and humane,” adding that "as Christians, we are called to remember the Gospel mandate to extend hospitality to the stranger. As Episcopalians we embrace a baptismal covenant which requires that we seek and serve Christ in all persons. It is primarily for these reasons that we ask the Senate to reject those measures now before it which are essentially punitive and impractical." His statement notes further that "basing national policy on fear of the stranger and a rejection of those newcomers whose gifts we need is in conflict with the teachings of the Gospel." (For the full text of Bishop Griswold’s remarks, visit www.episcopalchurch.org/ens).
This past Monday, in what might be described as a miracle, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a comprehensive bill to be offered to the full Senate that is more “just and humane,” that would allow people to enter the United States legally, and offer opportunities for citizenship for those who are already living and working here. But while we mark that day as a success, the challenge has actually become greater. In the two weeks before Congress’ scheduled Easter break, the full Senate is expected to debate the immigration issue, possibly working with two competing bills: the newly-amended proposal from the Judiciary Committee, and one from majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN) which retains the enforcement provisions called for in the House of Representatives bill.
Please call the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein today and thank her for supporting a fair immigration bill this week. Ask her not to waver in the face of anti-immigrant sentiment, but to continue to work for the passage of the bill that she helped produce in the Judiciary Committee. The phone number for Senator Feinstein’s office at the Capitol is 202.224.3841. Please call instead of e-mailing or writing: phone calls have greater immediate impact.
The Center for Community Change has called on the faith leaders who attended the Capitol Hill rally on March 27 to participate in a national Day of Action for Immigrant Rights on April 10. Leaders in each city will be encouraged to plan events for that day to show support for what they see as more appropriate immigration reform. I am calling on the people of this Diocese to mobilize, to be a strong presence for justice at this event – here in Los Angeles as well as in other counties and cities around our diocese. An interfaith march is scheduled from 5:00 pm until 7:00 pm on Monday, April 10, beginning at La Placita Church at 535 North Main Street, Los Angeles, and ending at the Federal Building on Los Angeles Street. As we receive more information we will pass it on to you.
If all goes as anticipated, we will have “next steps” information available for the clergy of the diocese when we gather for the Renewal of Vows on Tuesday, April 11.
Finally, my brothers and sisters, if the more severe bill becomes law, I ask the clergy of the Diocese of Los Angeles to be ready to disobey it. The work of the Gospel comes first.
Your brother in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno
Bishop of Los Angeles
March 8, 2006The Honorable Eric Garcetti, President of the Los Angeles City Counciland Honorable Council membersCity Hall, Los Angeles, CA
Dear President Garcetti and Members of City Council:
I write this letter to you with a heavy heart because I see a great and irrational fear overtaking our country in relation to the issues surrounding homeland security, and an outcome of this fear is making scapegoats of millions of members of our immigrant population with measures reminiscent of the rounding-up of Japanese immigrants in this city during World War II or the hatred and blame cast at the Jewish community prior to the horrors of the Holocaust. I am writing about HR4437, and I am asking you, as our City Council, to declare your opposition to this bill
Dear friends, we pride ourselves with a tradition and history of compassion around the world with those less fortunate than ourselves, and, yet within our own borders, we contemplate the criminalization of 11 million undocumented workers, classifying them (men, women, children, seniors) as aggravated felons. I am a Bishop in a faith tradition that calls us, through our sacred Scriptures, to welcome and embrace the strangers in our midst, for in them we see the face of Christ. The Baptismal Covenant of the Episcopal Church asks, “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” Those to be baptized answer, “I will, with God’s help.”
Do you realize the implications of this bill will also criminalize organizations and individuals assisting undocumented immigrants? The majority of these organizations are churches, synagogues, and mosques helping our brothers and sisters, who have come here from horrible conditions, at great risk, to make their lives better and to contribute to the fabric making up the mosaic of this great city and others like Los Angeles. Do you realize the economy of this City would collapse if this bill passed?
Immigration reform is needed, but not this bill. Please exercise your responsibility as our elected officials by standing up against this inhumane bill titled HR 4437.
s/s The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno Bishop of Los Angeles
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
US Immigration Law 'Inhumane' To Same-Sex Couples Human Rights Group Says
US Immigration Law 'Inhumane' To Same-Sex Couples Human Rights Group Says
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
May 2, 2006 - 11:00 am ET
(Washington) Thousands of U.S. citizens and their foreign same-sex partners face enormous hardships, separation and even exile because discriminatory U.S. immigration policies deprive these couples of the basic right to be together, Human Rights Watch and Immigration Equality said in a report released Tuesday.
The report comes a day after hundreds of gays and lesbians joined more than a million people across the U.S. to demonstrate against the treatment of illegal immigrants.
In its report Tuesday HRW and Immigration Equality said that Congress also must end the discrimination that lesbian and gay Americans and their foreign partners endure under U.S. immigration law.
The 2000 U.S. Census estimated that in the United States there were almost 40,000 lesbian and gay couples in which one partner is a U.S. citizen (or permanent resident), and the other a foreign national. This figure does not include the many thousands of binational couples who have to hide the fact they are partners, are forced to live apart, or who have been forced to leave the United States the report said, noting that under U.S. statutes, these couples have no recognition under the law.
“Discriminatory U.S. immigration laws turn the American dream into a heartless nightmare for countless U.S. citizens and their foreign partners,” said Scott Long, co-author of the report and director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program of Human Rights Watch. “As Congress debates immigration reforms, it should end discrimination against lesbian and gay immigrants as well as their U.S. partners.”
The 191-page report, “Family, Unvalued: Discrimination, Denial and the Fate of Binational Same-Sex Couples under U.S. Law,” is the first-ever comprehensive report on the issue, said Long.
It documents the consequences of this discrimination and shows how it can separate not only loving partners from one another, but also parents from children. It also shows how this policy has destroyed careers, livelihoods and lives.
“Our immigration laws are undermining the traditional American values of fairness and family,” said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality.
“U.S. immigration policy is designed to keep families together. But the current law targets an entire class of American families and tears them apart.”
For more than 50 years, family reunification has been a stated and central goal of U.S. immigration policy, the report notes. Immigration law places a priority on allowing citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their spouses and close relatives for entry into the U.S.
The report says that although the system remains imperfect, riddled with delays that rising anti-immigrant sentiment only intensifies, U.S. citizens and their foreign heterosexual partners can easily claim spousal status and the immigration rights that it brings.
U.S. citizens with foreign lesbian or gay partners, however, find that their relationship is considered non-existent under federal law. The so-called “Defense of Marriage Act,” passed in 1996, declared that for all purposes of the federal government, marriage would mean “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” Since lesbian and gay couples are excluded from the definition of “spouse,” U.S. citizens receive no legal recognition of their same-sex partners for purposes of immigration.
Based on interviews and surveys with dozens of binational same-sex couples across the United States and around the world, the report documents the pressures and ordeals that lack of legal recognition imposes on lesbian and gay families. Couples described abuse and harassment by immigration officials. Some partners told stories of being deported from the United States and separated from their partners. Many couples, forced to live in different countries or continents, endure financial as well as emotional strain in keeping their relationships together the report says.
“No family should be forced apart, no matter what the sex is. This is how immigration laws have affected us,” a woman in North Carolina said, describing how her Hungarian partner and their children were forced to leave the United States. “We are separated and without each other.... We just want to be together, that’s all.”
Many U.S. citizens are forced into exile in countries where their relationships are recognized according to the report.
At least 19 nations worldwide provide some form of immigration benefits to the same-sex partners of citizens and permanent residents, while the U.S. still refuses. These include Canada as well as 13 European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom). On other continents, this list includes Brazil, Israel, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
The report calls on Congress to "immediately pass the Uniting American Families Act" Human Rights Watch and Immigration Equality said. The bill, sponsored by Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) would offer binational same-sex couples’ relationships the same recognition and treatment afforded to binational married couples.
The proposed law would add the term “permanent partner” to sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act where “spouse” now appears. Thus, a U.S. citizen or permanent resident could sponsor their permanent partner for immigration to the country, just as they can now sponsor such family members as siblings, children or husbands and wives. The bill was introduced in the current Congress on June 21, 2005; it has a total of 104 cosponsors from both houses.
In addition to repealing the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, Congress should enact reforms to U.S. immigration law to guarantee respect for the human rights and labor rights of non-citizens the report recommends. These reforms should include measures that end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive individuals it said.
©365Gay.com 2006
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