My Evening with the Young Republicans...and Mike Jacobs

Rep. Mike Jacobs (D-to-R, Atlanta) has steadfastly refused to speak with any Young Democrat since at least December, and the only Democrats I know he's deigned to speak to since then are either living in his district or have been sources of money for him. His switch to the GOP has not only been a political betrayal but a personal one, as someone who worked on his campaign in 2004 to get him elected in the first place. The only way I was going to get any answers directly from him was to seek him out in his new environment. When I found out he was the special guest at the Young Republicans of Buckhead meeting this month, I knew I had to go, not only for myself, but for the Young Democrats in general.

The meeting was held at Copeland's, which is across from the Disco Kroger at Piedmont and Peachtree. I knew I was going to be alone in this venture, although we were trying to get someone in there who could stealthily record Mike's comments for internet distribution. Shelby had rigged a spy camera with audio, but I'm not certain as of now how much he got.

I'll admit that I was nervous going to this meeting. This was YR turf, and I was invading it. I did not want to disrupt, but I was hoping to throw Mike off his game. I was also curious if his change of party also belied other, more fundamental, changes in his beliefs on certain social issues close to my heart, namely being pro-choice and pro-gay rights.

I came at 7:30pm, hoping to avoid the social hour that started at 7pm. Interestingly, Republicans don't know how to start on time any more than Democrats do. Must be a political thing. :-) I went to the bar and ordered a beer to calm and nerves and to have something to do while I waited for things to start.

I noticed that Mike was holding court right in the doorway, and there was no way to enter without him seeing me. I managed to slip in and make my way to a back table where I sat with a couple of other newcomers to YR-Buckhead meetings. I was a relatively well dressed white guy, so I didn't immediately stand out. To be fair, there was a nice mix of people. Male and female, and about 3 black folks in a crowd of 30. I sipped my beer and just observed.

It wasn't long before Mike spotted me. He was pretty subtle, but I did notice him spreading the word to his YR hosts. They weren't quite as subtle at turning to get a look at me. The meeting finally started with a man named Rufus shouting that if we were proud Republicans to stand up and cheer for Mike Jacobs. The room erupted in a standing ovation, except for me.

The YRs had a nice bulletin to hand out to everyone with Mike's law firm biography and a schedule for the evening. We started with the Pledge of Allegiance, which I gladly participated in. Then came the word of the prayer. Democrats do the same thing at major meetings, and I have no qualms about the pledge or opening in prayer. Well, non-sectarian prayer that asks a Higher Power to bless our meeting, etc. This prayer was not such a prayer.

It began by asking strength to fight those who would "take You out of the public square". It continued by remarking that God has ANNOINTED the GOP to enact His Will here on Earth, and asking for guidance and wisdom in the American people to fight the forces of evil who will lead our country astray. So now I'm with the forces of evil seeking to destroy God and drive Him from the public square. Oooooookay. It made a couple of more references to evil ones (aka Democrats) but stopped short of calling for a mighty jihad by the Army of Christ to strike down the infidels. Then they asked all this in Jesus's name, amen.

The prayer disturbed me on several levels. First, it assumes that everyone in the room was or should be Christian. There were several Jews in the audience. Secondly, the whole invocation of God as having anointed a particular political party to enact His Will smacks of theocracy. How is that different from the radical imams of Iran? They think they are anointed by God to enact His Will too. Then the references to Democrats as forces of evil seeking to undermine God, drive him from the public square, etc. was just laughable if I didn't know they were quite serious. There was a demonization of people who disagree in the prayer that made invoking the name of Christ blasphemous in my opinion. To me, it was nothing short of taking MY Lord's name in vain.

Then Mike was introduced and started speaking. He immediately called attention to me by saying that I should "take notes" on his transformation to a Republican. I was sort of live texting with a few people just to have something to do other than stare at Mike. He started with his story of transformation.

The story began with growing up in Broward County, Florida...home of the hanging chad. I suppose the point was to say he comes from a stock of people who were closely divided between Democrat and Republican. He mentioned Florida several times in his talk from his discussion of property taxes to vouchers to general competition between states. It was weird how much he seemed enthralled with the Florida experience, and I'm not sure why he chose Florida over other border states with Georgia like Tennessee, South Carolina, or Alabama.

He started with taking us back to a night in November 2006 when Mike and his wife took their ballots, sat at the kitchen table, and decided how to vote. I guess this means Mike votes absentee since everyone else votes on electronic machines, and you can't haul one of those to the kitchen table. Anyway, the result of this voting for 2006 was almost a straight GOP ticket. It was a profound awakening for Mike that something was terribly amiss.

Then, the John Eaves ad for the Fulton County run-off happened. This was the infamous ad where John Lewis, Andy Young, and Shirley Franklin said that electing a GOP county chair would be like going back to the days of fire hoses and attack dogs. The ad was way over the top, but effective. Mike said it was typical of race-mongering in the Democratic party and infuriated him. He pointed out that not one Democrat spoke out against it at the time. That is true, and my guess is that the reason was the ad had a point. It was over the top, and not to be taken literally, but the GOP hasn't exactly had the best interests of black folks in the South close to their heart since 1964 when they decided the way to break the "solid South" was to make racist appeals to Southern Whites. It still works...look at the ad against Harold Ford last year in TN which blatantly appealed to the old stereotype of an over-sexed black man out to steal "our white women". I know the GOP doesn't like to be called on their subtly racist appeals to voters, let alone have the tactics used so openly against them. I think the ad was over the top and probably should not have been made, but I can't say the underlying premise that the GOP is hostile to black people as a group is not true.

He continued on a laundry list of wrongs committed against him by the House Democratic Caucus and the DeKalb Democrats in general. Now I'll be the first one to admit that DeKalb Democrats are a special breed. Many could say that they are a bat sh*t crazy bunch, and they would not be wrong. Race issues run long, hard, and deep through the County and the Democratic party. Most people could find a reason to be frustrated by DeKalb Democrats, especially when you ARE one.

Anyway, his point was that the Democratic Caucus continually insisted he vote against the interest of his constituents. This included killing his drive to expand charter schools and his drive to stop DeKalb from making general obligation bonds without going to the voters first. There's a loophole in the law that allows the county commission to load up on debt without asking voters first. Mike has a point that such behavior is wrong and should be stopped. It may not make him popular with the county delegation, but it is an issue important to District 80 who really does not see any of these bond improvements.

This also led to the death of his reform of the DeKalb government, which he oddly blamed on some kind of "deal" that made no sense to me at all. Especially when I know that it was the county commissioners going down to lobby in person against the bill that killed it. It wasn't Vernon Jones, but it was all but one of the county commissioners telling the legislature the bill was unwanted and unnecessary.

The Dunwoody bill was also another part of Mike's grievances. He mentioned that Rep. Stan Watson, who is running for DeKalb CEO next year, said at a forum, "I'm not racist, but this issue is about race." Mike says it is purely about local government. Interesting how the local government angle wasn't a real problem until black folks completely took over the reigns of power in 2000 with the election of Vernon Jones as CEO. The drive behind all these cities is for white folks to keep their money in their neighborhoods. They have grown tired of having their money pay for improvements in black neighborhoods, or at least neighborhoods that are not theirs. I don't know if the recipient neighborhoods were white if it would make a difference, but the timing of this drive is suspect. Mike mentioned he's close to drawing up boundaries for a city of Brookhaven, and that he's even had calls about creating a city of "Toco Hills" to stop the massive development at North Druid Hills and Briarcliff Rds. Toco Hills is a shopping area, not a city. Maybe my area can become the city of Oak Grove. LOL Local control, you know? Not to mention, higher taxes to pay for it all.

Mike also talked about his vote to save vouchers for special needs kids. He mentioned several times that he got 20 (count'em....twenty...two, zero) emails from his district on the issue, and they were ALL in favor of the bill! Some were from constituents who had special needs kids. Not ONE email from his district was received against the bill. So 20 people out of the thousands he represented informed his policy. Mike is now in favor of vouchers across the board to create competition. He doesn't mention how a $7000 voucher will allow a child from a crappy school in a crappier neighborhood to attend the private school of his choice when private school tuition around Atlanta generally starts at $15,000. Vouchers solve nothing in crumbling schools with parents who don't care and children who struggle to just survive. Until they do, there is no point in pursuing them except to give a taxpayer subsidy to those wealthy enough to afford private schools for their kids.

Mike then went on a love fest about tax reform. He believes property taxes are completely unfair and should be abolished. He wants to replace that with a sales tax that will tax just about everything we do in the course of a day. Says it would be revenue neutral. Wonder how neutral it will be when we have an economic downturn and people don't buy stuff? Ask TN how a sales-tax only has worked. They pay about 10% in sales tax there, and that's just the STATE tax. Local taxes can make it go up to 12%. Getting rid of property taxes in GA would allow us to have unfettered development and steal residents and businesses from Florida which suffers a very heavy property tax burden along with a heavy homeowners insurance burden thanks to being a hurricane magnet. So in the rush to take jobs and development from other states, no property taxes will be the answer! I'm a bit skeptical.

This crowd ate it up though. Tax policy is important, but it doesn't jones me up like other issues do. To me, tax policy is the nuts and bolts of government, and people really don't understand how taxes drive everything else. People want to pay little to no taxes, but they want lots of cops on the street, firemen ready to save their home, and paved streets and lights that work. They also want sewage, water, trash collection, etc...all of which are not free. They come from taxes, and someone has to pay them. It's silly to think that you can not pay taxes yourself and still receive the kind of services you demand from government. That kind of Republican thinking makes me question their logical thinking skills.

Mike also went into a litany of complaints about how mean the House Democratic Caucus was to him, all because he voted his district. I'm not sure his district was for keeping kids off Peachcare, as Mike was. There are other examples, but I've already mentioned them in a previous blog. I do remember that the legislatures I knew all referred to him in very demeaning terms. When legislators I know to be generally respectful and even-keeled started calling Mike "that little turd", I knew it was bad for him. Perhaps the schoolyard bullying was not the tactic to use with Mike, but he also did not know how to play the legislative game. There are Democrats in the House in good standing who vote against the caucus quite a bit, but still maintain relationships. Mike does not know how to do this, and it's his way or the highway...exactly what he accused the Democratic caucus of being. He also used the old canard of the Democratic party being held in thrall of the "far left fringe" that doesn't allow for individual expression. OLD argument that continues to go on in the party to this day. If it were true, the Democratic party would be much different than it is. The difference is that Democrats take their squabbles public while Republicans fight behind the closed doors but give a locked down united front when the doors open.

Mike talked about how nice it was to go to a GOP caucus retreat a couple of weeks ago to discuss the tax reform issue, and how open the Speaker was to different viewpoints, etc. He contrasted that with the nasty Democrats who berated him and called him names when he spoke in the well. It was like Mike was on the Student Council, not in the legislature. He also accused Sen. David Adelman of trying to kill one of his bills quietly while voting for it. He doesn't have proof of that, as he'll readily admit, but that's who he thinks it was. Legislators of both stripes do that sort of thing all the time. It may be odd, but it's part of the process. That's why there is a saying that there are two things you never want to know the details of: sausage making and legislating. Mike can't handle the relationships that it takes to be effective within his own caucus, let alone the legislature.

Mike also mentioned several times that Democrats will be gunning for him in 2008 and he will have a very tough race. He will need volunteers and money. That sounded familiar. It was a call we answered in 2004 when he first ran, but to hear Mike talk last night, his 2004 campaign was composed of him and his wife. End of story. They were the ones who knocked on every door in the district and fundraising at the same time. Mike and Evan did do an amazing job walking every street of the district. It was an effort that all of us marveled at. But he did NOT do it alone. He did not hand write all those "Dear Neighbor" cards, and he did not flier his district several different times for community meet-and-greets. The Young Democrats working his campaign did all that, and the Red Clay Democrats had a huge hand in his fundraising. But nary a peep was mentioned, not even a side remark of the work we did for him in that initial race. Ungrateful, rude prick.

He also mentioned immigration and how illegals shouldn't consume government services, period. I would agree with that statement, but then he went on to talk about how we need to build a wall at our border. Like a wall worked so well in Berlin. And it's interesting how we only need a wall at Mexico, but not at Canada. Some guy piped up that we didn't need a wall, just more rifles at the border. I'm not for illegal immigration, but the notion of "hunting" Mexicans driven by desperation to try to enter the US illegally is chilling to me.

Mike also made a comment about Middle East security and Israel, and how quite frankly, the Democratic approach is dead wrong. All but called us anti-Israel. I personally took offense to that, along with the stated notion that to be pro-military is to be GOP. I daresay that Democrats care more about the troops and their wellbeing than any GOPer who looks at them as mere pawns in a hunt for terrorists. Not to mention the GOP which votes to cut the benefits and care for our soldiers.

Anyway, the talk FINALLY ended, and Mike opened it up for questions. There were many follow-ups on economic policy, which is the heart of Mike's Republican change.

I did raise my hand for a question, and Mike actually called on me. I asked him if was still pro-choice and pro-gay rights. I could tell the question angered him, because I pointing out an area that his new Republican friends would not likely appreciate....his socially liberal views. He tried to "politician" me by saying he's always said he supported individual rights, to which I replied, "But that doesn't answer..." and then he erupted. "YES! Alright? YES! The answer is YES." He lost his cool, and I had pointed out a difference that many of the GOP faithful would NOT approve of. My work was done.

That was when I was completely outed. I was asked to introduce myself and who I represented. I told them. "My name is Jason Cecil, and I am the President of the Young Democrats of Georgia." A murmur went through the room, and someone said, "That figures!" We somehow got onto a discussion of gay rights, and I was told there were many people in the room who were pro-gay rights, and I said, "Well, you should speak to Sadie Fields about that then." Snarky? Yes. But here was a group of Republicans seriously trying to tell me that pro-gay rights stands fit within the GOP philosophy when every bit of evidence suggests otherwise.

Rufus at this point told me to shut up, that I was at a Buckhead YR meeting and I could be escorted out. I had wondered if I would be kicked out, and I was prepared to go quietly. But the leadership, both the Buckhead YR chair and the state YR chair told people to calm down, leave me alone, and that I was welcome and safe here. I admit that was pretty classy of them, and it provides an excellent example of civility that I would expect Young Dems to provide to them should they ever come to our events. In fact, I'd insist on returning that kindness. They did not have to step up like that, and I truly appreciated it.

Anyway, we discussed the gay issue more, and Mike seconded that many GOPers would be supportive of gay rights, and I had to pipe up to mention that Jill Chambers was the only GOPer to vote against it in 2004. Mike said had he been there, he would have been a 2nd GOP vote against it. Then people said I was harping on one issue that wasn't important, etc. Well, it's vitally important to me, as a gay man in Georgia who was profoundly affected by the 76% vote in favor of stripping me of any relationship recognition EVER in Georgia. I became quite the focus of many comments, and one girl even remarked, "Be nice, maybe we can convince him to join our side."

The meeting ended with announcements, and the Vice Chair who delivered the prayer had a message for me. He said all Republicans are not white, rich, homeowners. Many rent! But what the GOP provides is opportunity. What the Democrats provide is a guarantee, and a pretty mediocre guarantee at that. And that our nation would never have moved forward had the Democratic mentality been in force at key times. Abe Lincoln wasn't happy with the status quo, and saved our country and freed the slaves. Then he invoked Martin Luther King as not being happy with his guarantee and fighting for more. Yes, MLK was invoked as a key GOP figure in history. He ended with a hope that I would return and perhaps join Mike in seeing the light and joining the GOP.

It was a breathtaking misunderstanding and/or distortion of what it means to be a Democrat. Yes, we stand for having having a floor...a bare minimum that every citizen deserves to have no matter what. But saying that we want that floor and nothing more is ridiculous. Democrats today stand for having welfare recipients actually work to better themselves to maintain benefits. Democrats are also devout Christians, but we don't disdain the Atheist, Jew, Hindu, or Muslim who seeks to participate in our civic discourse. We also don't believe in shoving our faith down the throats of others. We don't think we are "anointed by God" to do His will, but we hope and pray that our actions reflect God's will. We also do not want to drive God from the public square, but there is a difference between being against theocracy and the establishment of a sect of Christianity as the standard for laws in the nation, and driving God from the public square. We wouldn't do half the things we do as Democrats if we didn't take Christ's message of love and compassion VERY seriously.

I could go on, but this post is long enough. I left the meeting after it broke with an offer to come on some radio show to face irate right wing callers, and without saying a word to Mike Jacobs. I have had my say with him. The rest will take place on the streets.

On the Young Democrats' Own Benedict Arnold: Mike Jacobs

Fellow Young Democrats-

This morning, the Young Democrats of Georgia were betrayed by one of its own. State Representative Mike Jacobs of House District 80 announced on his blog (http://meetmikejacobs.wordpress.com/) that he is becoming a Republican. He now claims that his fiscal conservatism and desire to eliminate property taxes in their entirety make him a better fit as a "moderate Republican" in the mold of Jill Chambers, Fran Millar, and Ed Lindsey.

Indulge me while I examine the types of people Mike Jacobs has now embraced and remind everyone why this is a betrayal that the Young Democrats of Georgia will not take lightly and have every intention of seeking vengeance at the ballot box.

Jill Chambers - what a lovely woman. She may have been the sole Republican to vote against the gay marriage amendment, but her record is hardly moderate.

1. She has engaged in dirty and deceitful campaign tactics every time she has run for elected office.
2. Jill Chambers has taken thousands of dollars from Big Oil and Big Drug companies to spend on her negative campaigns. (see www.ethics.georgia.gov).
3. Jill Chambers has voted against the separation of church and state. This bill allows the Attorney General of the State of Georgia to defend counties who display the 10 commandments, meaning you, the taxpayer, are footing the legal fees. (http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2005_06/fulltext/hb941.htm)
4. Jill Chambers has voted with the majority to cut funding for state schools, a total loss of $89 million to Dekalb County Schools. www.legis.ga.gov
5. Jill Chambers voted to increase your natural gas bills by allowing the gas companies to pass on infrastructure improvements to you, the consumer. (http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2005_06/fulltext/hb1325.htm)
6. Jill Chambers voted to protect predatory lenders and payday loan-sharks that prey upon our military families and soldiers. (http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2003_04/sum/sb157.htm)
7. Jill Chambers voted against legislation that would have stopped the out-sourcing of our jobs to overseas corporations. (http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2003_04/sum/hb1281.htm)
8. Jill Chambers voted with right-wing extremists in denying voters the right to chose their representatives (http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2005_06/fulltext/hb244.htm)
9. Jill Chambers voted with the GOP (AND Mike Jacobs) in cutting funds for Children's Healthcare. (http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2005_06/sum/hb1027.htm)

Ed Lindsey and Fran Millar are more of the same.

To say that Mike Jacobs’ actions are a disappointment is a gross understatement. He has proven himself to be a selfish opportunist concerned only with his personal power. He first came on the scene as a law student at UGA where he was a driving force behind the website Burns Watch. After he graduated, he moved to DeKalbCounty with his wife, Evan. He immediately joined the DeKalb Democratic Party as a post seat holder. When the courts invalidated the 2002 redistricting maps, the seat that Mike lived in opened up.

With our encouragement, he decided to make a run at this seat, now House District 80. The seat had long been held by a Republican who had recently died, and Mike's opponent in the general election was the namesake son of that representative. Mike's campaign was COMPLETELY staffed and run by Young Democrats. All of us who worked on that campaign spent countless hours making phone calls, helping with town hall meetings, flyering the district, and going door to door. The district had a Democratic performance of 52%, which made it a swing district. We faced an uphill fight, and the state party gave us no chance of winning. We were truly on our own.

But we had a good candidate (or so we thought). Someone whose progressive ideas were genuine but who was charismatic enough to win crossover votes. He personally said to me that there were principles he could never compromise on, and gay rights was one of them. He said he would rather be defeated than to vote against the gay community. Somehow, I now wonder when it comes time to vote on things like gay adoption, Mike will heed the demands of his beloved Speaker Richardson and vote to legally destroy gay families all over this state. Mike Jacobs has no morals and no core values other than his personal aggrandizement and self-interest. I have no reason to believe that his support of the gay community will continue.

Mike won that election by a very close margin in 2004, just as we lost control of the House to complete the GOP takeover of Georgia. It was that shift in power, and Mike's response to it that told of troubles ahead.

Mike has continually supported cuts to Georgia's Peachcare for Kids program, which helps provide health insurance coverage to children of working families. His vote for HB 340 would have allowed thousands of children to be denied health insurance coverage arbitrarily by an unaccountable bureaucrat, and to have their dental and vision coverage removed altogether. Hopefully Mike's newborn child will never need the Peachcare that he wishes to gut.

Mike also supported this year's ghoulish and predatory payday lending legislation. He voted this year, by supporting HB 163, to allow payday lenders to charge up to 395 percent interest rates and to provide de facto amnesty for those loan sharks that broke the law for the better part of the last century by offering these loans despite the fact that they were clearly illegal under Georgia law.

Mike has also supported several measures in the Judiciary Committee that would limit the applicability of the Open Records Act and make public documents more difficult to obtain. Even more disturbing was his support for requiring open records requests to be made in writing. He supported this despite uncontested testimony in committee that the bill would have allowed government to require a citizen to identify themselves and state the reason they wanted certain records in writing before having their request for public information processed. Public documents belong to the public, and should be made available without requiring a citizen to be subjected to aggravation or even political retribution for requesting them. Mike's hilarious statement of support "open government" while he seeks to undermine it through his work in the legislature, is one of the oldest and worst parlor tricks in politics. Such duplicity creates fertile ground for the cynicism that makes good public service more difficult.

Further eroding any credentials he claims as an advocate for open government and individual liberty has been his fawning and unabashed support for Glenn Richardson as Speaker. Richardson has, each and every year that he has been Speaker, sought to limit public debate in the House by gutting the ability of legislators to offer amendments to bills both on the floor and in committee. Richardson has also sought to limit the Open Records Act to allow secret government negotiations affecting millions in taxpayer dollars with private business.

The Speaker has also used his power, won with the aid and support of legislators like Mike Jacobs, to pursue new limits on women's reproductive freedom each year and repeatedly stifled ethics legislation that would eliminate or at least reduce the lavishing of expensive gifts on legislators by registered lobbyists. All this in exchange for committee appointments that serve nothing but to protect his seat.

Mike's rapturous support for Mr. Richardson as Speaker has also enabled the blockage of any meaningful legislation dealing with transportation and traffic congestion. His constituents will have plenty of time to contemplate the many faces of Mike Jacobs as they continue to sit in ever worsening traffic without any meaningful plan for relief. Although it wouldn't surprise me if Mike isn't "rewarded" for his disloyalty to friends and ideals with a seat on the Transportation Committee.

Mike's blog post also suggests support for Richardson’s tax plan, which depending on which version you support would increase current sales taxes by more than 25% and levy billions in new sales taxes on needed everyday goods and services such as groceries and doctors visits. His statement of a belief in fiscal restraint, when combined with his willingness to support a plan to tax everything that moves, raises additional questions about Mike's basic credibility and honesty as a human being.

It reminds me (and many others) of a time last summer in the days before the primary election when Mike sought to switch his support from Cathy Cox to Mark Taylor only because it was obvious that Mark was going to win. That incident was very telling, and espouses Mike Jacobs as a person whose ONLY core value is expediency and whose thoughts are only of the very next political calculation that may advance his self-interest.

Mike's ultimate reason for abandoning the Democratic Party and stabbing all of his friends in the back lies in self-interest and a selfish pettiness. It is no secret that Mike never got along with House Democratic leadership. Whatever personality conflicts may have been behind that (and, to be fair, not all Reps who voted for Richardson as Speaker qualified for the vilification Mike received), the point remains that Mike has betrayed every principle he allegedly held dear when he ran in 2004. Every principle except protecting his own personal "power" as a State Representative. He never attempted to reach out to friends or intermediaries to work out problems with caucus leadership. Mike petulantly declared he must do his "thing" for his district, and that was the end of the discussion. The fact remains that the GOP has NO credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility. Mike's move today is of a man who cares only for himself and his personal aggrandizement. This is exactly the kind of person who destroys faith in government. It makes me sad to think how far he has fallen from the man we helped elect in 2004.

For all the Young Democrats who gave of their blood, sweat, and tears to elect Mike Jacobs, there is nothing that can return those hours to us for use in a REAL Democrat's campaign. If you gave Mike money, I urge you to ask it back. And understand that when a credible challenger is found to Mike Jacobs, the Young Democrats of Georgia will be there to work day and night to be certain that the lying snake is returned to his hole in North DeKalb. We will not forgive, and we will not forget. When Mike Jacobs' political come-uppance happens (and it will), the Young Democrats of Georgia will have its collective fingerprints all over it.

In Democratic Solidarity,

Jason Cecil, YDG President

P.S. I would be remiss if I did not thank Rep. Rob Teilhet (D-Smyrna and a Young Democrat for whom we can be VERY proud) for much of the language about Mike’s behavior in recent sessions.

A Good Example of Why I am an Episcopalian

That’s How the Light Gets In

A sermon preached by The Right Reverend Leopold Frade, Bishop of Southeast Florida, at his Annual Visitation for Confirmation on Trinity Sunday, June 3, 2007, at Trinity Cathedral, Miami


“Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.”

Those words come from a poem by the Canadian poet and composer Leonard Cohen. I thought that they were an appropriate way for your Bishop to be able to make you aware of the different cracks that exist at present in your church.

I don’t know if you know that one of the hurricanes the year before last caused considerable damage to the roof of our Cathedral.
Unfortunately, now we have a major crack in our roof where we can see not only the light, but even the stars and the moon.

But also you need to be aware of other cracks that at present exist in this Cathedral. That’s why it is important for you to be reminded of this poem:

“Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.”

I am sure you know how imperative it is to take care of this unfortunate crack in the roof of our Cathedral. It must be fixed soon, and I know that your dean is working very hard to accomplish it, but he needs your help and your money to achieve it.

I know that we have an excellent dean--we chose right--but even if some of you tend to believe it, you have to be aware that he doesn’t walk on water. Yes, trust me on this--he really doesn’t walk on the water of Biscayne Bay to get to work and back home. The dean actually drives back and forth in his car across the bridge like the rest of us mortals. He needs your help and your money to fix that hole in the roof.

Now the crack in the roof we need to fix--patch it, cover it and block the light. But there are other cracks that exist in our church of which we must be aware. We must fix the crack in our roof, but let’s be careful to leave those other necessary cracks alone, so that through them light may get in and shine to banish the darkness of our world.

I am not only talking about this Cathedral, but also about the many cracks that the Episcopal Church seems to have--or as some may perceive it, the imperfections of our Episcopal Church.

Yes, we are a Church that has many cracks. We are an imperfect church, and there are many things that someone from the outside looking in may perceive to be flaws that need to be fixed.
I am sure that some may even think that we must be the craziest bunch of believers in all of Christendom.

But that is precisely why I became an Episcopalian. That is why I left a calm, cozy, culturally friendly Protestant denomination to belong to a church where priests were being put in jail, and where bishops dared to question many things that were considered as untouchable and not for discussion.

I must have been crazy, but I have no regrets. Many people can’t understand us. I just heard a comedian saying that Episcopalians are a kind of Cliff Notes of religion, or for the youngsters here the sparknotes.com of religion.

Some people, when they look at us from the outside, think that we are just “Catholic Light” and that instead of asking our penitents to say a couple of “Hail Marys,” we suggest that they should have a couple of Bloody Marys. I wish it were that easy to be an Episcopalian! So if you think that by being confirmed or received in our church this morning you have it made, I’ve got news for you. It is not that easy to be one of us.

So I say to all of the candidates for confirmation and reception and to all of you that will witness the vows that are going to be made:

“Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.”

The current struggles that we are going through in our Anglican Communion are just an example of what I mean. We are being asked by our brothers and sisters of our Communion to patch the cracks that we have made. I won’t pretend that our actions have not affected the Communion as the British accented prelates stated: “The recent actions of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America have damaged the bonds of affection of the Anglican Communion.” There is no question about it, and for that we can be sorry and apologize. But the fact that we apologize doesn’t mean that we are about to fix that crack. You see, that’s how the light gets in.

Some may say that this newest crack is much worse than those that occurred in the past, but I am convinced that they are just trying to justify their prejudice. At the same time there are others that while they vilified this new group demanding their rights, they are jealous to protect their own rights and will scream holy hell if someone would treat them the same way that they treat others.

Let me give you a little background of why I say this: I became an Episcopalian almost 40 years ago because I saw in this church a group of Christians that were willing to defend justice and the rights of those being abused. For me it truly reflected what I was reading that Jesus Christ was saying in the Gospels.

I had just been asked to leave a Methodist-affiliated college in the south because of my big mouth. After the forced integration of my college, I just couldn’t understand how people who seemed to be truly devoted and committed Christians were able to insult, discriminate and even persecute Americans who happened to be black. There were black persons from other countries in that college and I never heard a complaint about them, but when the first African-American student showed up all hell broke loose.

As a foreign student, I had been raised in a different culture and I lacked those chips of selective racial prejudice in my brain. So I decided that it was OK to challenge Southern white persons from Kentucky on issues of race. Big mistake!!

That’s how I ended up in New York, and it was there at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine that I became enamored by the beautiful liturgy of our church.

It was love at first sight and there I discovered a church that didn’t ask you to leave your brain at the door, but allowed you to come in with your brain in order for you to think and reason with it; a church that besides having a firm belief in the Scriptures and a willingness to be guided by tradition, also believed that reason is a gift of God for us to use.

You see, reason is what would not allow us over 400 years ago to accept the theory of “Limbo” that Rome so assiduously taught up to a few weeks ago. Also it didn’t allow us to insist that the sun rotated around planet earth and that our planet was the center of the universe. Now, reason was also a factor that prevented us from saying dumb things like that the Teletubbie Tinky Winky was gay because of his triangular antenna, his color purple and his handbag.

Reason has helped us to recognize that Blacks and Hispanics are not inferior, that men are not superior to women and that women can and are called by God--and ordained by the church--to be deacons, priests and bishops.

What is exciting is that the Spirit of God has been active during these days and is helping us to comprehend that human beings don’t end up being gay or lesbian because they are possessed by demons or have simply chosen an “unnatural” way of life.

It was that 3-legged stool of Anglican thought, Scriptures, Tradition and Reason, that moves the members of our church to be involved in bringing justice and peace and “to respect the dignity of every human being.”

Today as we look at the photographs of marches and demonstrations during the days of the Civil Rights movement in our country, you are bound to recognize in the crowd an Episcopal priest dressed in black with a round collar around his neck. When you go through the list of people jailed, attacked and even martyred, you will find many Episcopalians, including a seminarian named Jonathan Myrick Daniels who was killed in Alabama while saving the life of a young African- American woman.

It was through the cracks that were made with blood and sweat during those days that the light of justice and racial equality got through in America.

Now we are not totally perfect ourselves, and we need to sadly accept our own sins and remember with shame that even in this Cathedral black persons were not fully welcomed until a few decades ago. But there were those among us who were willing to create cracks and made it possible for the light to get in, and the changes began to happen-- and they will continue to happen.

Some talk about the decrease in membership in our church as a symptom of our discussion on sexuality. But they forget to mention that the main exodus from our denomination was not because of Prayer Book changes or the ordination of women or the acceptance of gays and lesbians, but it was mainly due to the departure of white persons who refused to worship next to a black person who had dared to enter into their beloved homogeneous, culturally friendly environment through cracks that were being made by our clergy and laity to end segregation and discrimination.

There were other cracks in our church that were made, and through them other groups of persons that were being kept away were able to get in. It took a long time but I was there to witness it: It was in 1976--a year when I was so handsome and slim and with lots of hair-- at General Convention in Minneapolis when we voted to allow the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate. Another crack was made, but you see that’s how the light gets in.

Then 27 years later I came back to Minneapolis, and by 2003 I was overweight and with very little hair. But at that General Convention another crack was made. That year the bishops and deputies consented to the election of 10 bishops, something that is a routine for us.
However, one of those bishops was the Bishop of New Hampshire, who happens to be a gay man in a committed relationship. And that’s how the light of justice got in.

And now this American church is being told by a number of persons from other cultures and nations, as well as from a small group of our own members, that we must patch the crack that occurred due to our actions. That is very easy for them to say, but if we do that, how will the light of justice get in?

I know that by refusing to patch that crack our “bonds of affection”
with some of our brothers and sisters are being strained or even broken. I know that there may even be other drastic consequences.

But every time I falter and begin to think that maybe we should compromise, I remember Jonathan Myrick Daniels.

He could have compromised and not bothered to try to register African- American voters in Alabama. He could have stayed home up north, but instead he chose to make a crack in the name of Christ at the boulders of injustice that blatantly existed in the South at that time.

Every time I falter I think of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who could have minded his own business and not bothered to challenge the boulder of apartheid in South Africa.

I am convinced that we must be willing to permit these cracks that have occurred in our church so that the light of justice can continue dwelling among us.

If we are not hypocrites and hold double standards, we must say that injustice is injustice in any way, shape or form that it may appear.
As a Hispanic I say that if I want justice and equality for those like me, then I have no business whatsoever being part of anything that seeks to deny justice and equality for others, even if those others are gays and lesbians. You should not talk about equality on issues of race and culture if you at the same time--using selected verses from the Bible--refuse justice and the full participation in the life of our church to others with a lifestyle different from yours.

You see my dear candidates, it is not that easy to be an Episcopalian. My God, even our first American bishop was refused ordination by the British because he was not going to pledge allegiance to crazy king George that Americans had just defeated in our Independence War!

God bless those Scottish Jacobites who in Aberdeen, Scotland, dared to make a crack in the Anglican Communion and consecrated our first bishop, Samuel Seabury, against the will of the powers to be at the time. That’s how the light got in and we were able to have our first American bishop.

It didn’t take long for the Brits to realize that we were here to stay, and that we were not anymore the Church of England but the Episcopal Church of these United States of America.

Now, I know that you want to be confirmed and received by me this morning, but I want to make sure you know that we really mean for you to keep the promises that you are about to make.

We really mean it when we ask you to reaffirm your renunciation of evil and to commit to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Yes, my beloved candidates and all of you present this morning in this Cathedral, you need to be aware that we really mean it when we ask all of you if you are willing to persevere in resisting evil and also if you are willing to love your neighbor as yourself.

Not some neighbors but all neighbors. Not just those who talk like you, or cook like you, or vote like you, or pray like you, or those whose affections God has wired different from yours. We really mean all.

I also want to be sure that you know the consequences of responding to the last question of the Baptismal Covenant with, “I will, with God’s help.” It’s important, because with the condition of the world we live in today, it could really make a difference for good.

That final question is going to be this:

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people? Will you?

Will you respect the dignity of every human being? Will you really do that?
Do you realize how many cracks we will have to make to be able to achieve this?

I have to admit that if I say that I believe that we must strive for peace, then I must chisel hard and make a crack at that boulder of war brought to our nation through lies and deceit. A boulder of war that brushes aside the death of over 3,000 American youngsters and now insists on a surge that will only increase the number of those killed.

If I am to declare that I must strive for justice, then I must be willing to say stop the embargo against the people of Cuba. It has failed and it only punishes the poor and the weak and not those in power in that island.

If I believe in resisting evil, then I must do something to stop the exploitation of farmworkers taking place today in Immokalee, Florida.

I must also be willing to look at immigration issues with the eyes of the one who insisted in proclaiming that we must love our neighbors as ourselves.

There are other churches in our country where blacks and Hispanics are kept away. There are quite a few other churches out there where gays and lesbians are bashed and considered evil, where war is praised and encouraged, where women are kept in their place, churches where cracks are not allowed to happen. This Cathedral is not one of them.

Now if you really insist on becoming an Episcopalian, then welcome to this church and help us to make sure that we keep some of our cracks. It’s important--you see, that’s how the light gets in.

AMEN.

Help Georgia Young Dems Go to Dallas!

The Young Democrats of America biennial National Convention that is taking place July 18-21 in Dallas:

In order for a young democrat to go to Dallas, he or she faces the following costs:

1. Convention Registration = $60
2. Hotel Room (4 nights, 4 people to a room) = $155
3. Travel Cost (airline, bus, or car) = $100-300
4. Spending money for Dallas = $200 ($50/night)
   

The grand total is $515-715. For a young professional with a steady job, this cost is doable, but will require some savings. For anyone not employed full time, the costs are prohibitive, meaning that some of our best young talent simply cannot afford to go. After all, we're not Republicans with country club memberships and trust funds.

The fundraising program we are implementing to help out with the costs of attending this great event are outlined below. We know that the costs will pose a great financial burden on many of our members, so we are holding a prize drawing fundraiser to help fund your trip!

What is the Prize Drawing and How Will it work?
Starting today, YDG is selling $10 prize drawing tickets. The ticket sales will go through Saturday, June 30^th. Ticket purchasers will have a chance to win one of two domestic travel vouchers that we will be giving away. We will be drawing the tickets during a party at Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta on Friday, July 13^th .

Physical tickets will be sold by YDG members. We have also set it up so that people can purchase tickets online (check out www.georgiayds.org).

With the funds raised with this prize drawing, YDG is prepared to pay for your convention registration fees, as well as your hotel room. So pretty much, if you can get yourself there, then you are set!

The only way we can fund everyone the $215 subsidy (registration fees and hotel) is if you buy tickets! Contrary to popular opinion, grant funds generally cannot be spent on national convention. $10 is a bargain for a free plane trip too! Plus, your money is going to a good cause that will allow 37 Young Georgia Democrats to partake in national convention and all the fantastic grassroots training it will offer!

We are requiring everyone who plans on attending the YDA National convention to sell at least 30 prize drawing tickets between now and June 30^th.

We have created a website off of the YDG website for ticket purchases. Once you send our Vice President of Finance your name, she will add it to the drop down "Sponsor a YDG Member" menu on the ticket purchase site. After that you can tell your family and friends to just go on to http://www.georgiayds.org, click on the Prize Drawing links, select you as the member they wish to sponsor, and you will be well on your way to attaining your 30 ticket sales goal!

Any questions? Feel free to contact Nicolette at anytime by email (vp_finance@georgiayds.org ) or by phone (404-538-7262) and she would be happy to answer them!

Forever a Hokie

I have spent the last week sorting through the complicated feelings I have about the masscre at Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech holds a special place in my heart as the place where I earned my undergraduate degree in Biology with minors in Chemistry and Biobusiness in 1997. Virginia Tech is the place where I learned to accept myself as a gay man and be OK with that. It is a place where I formed many dear friendships that I cherish to this day. I can hardly believe that it will be 10 years since I graduated next month!

I first heard about the shootings while getting ready to leave on a business trip to Copenhagen and Croatia (where I am now). Like most people, I think my first reaction was shock. It is hard to convey just how idyllic a place Virginia Tech is to people who have not been there. Nestled in the New River Valley of southwest Virginia, Virginia Tech is an oasis, a true academic refuge. When school is not in session, the town of Blacksburg has only 10,000 residents, most of whom are connected to VT in some way. When school is in session, the population surges to nearly 40,000. In October of each year, the fall leaves hit their peak. Virginia Tech, surrounded by the Appalachian mountains, is ablaze in a glory of colors. There is a bumper sticker I remember that said, "God is a Hokie - Otherwise Why Do the Leaves All Turn Orange and Maroon in the Fall?" I was never a "mountain person" when I came to Virginia Tech, but I left one.

The buildings are all built with material from Virginia Tech's limestone quarry, and we call it Hokiestone. In the 1980s, the Board of Visitors (it's a Virginia thing....think Board of Directors or Regents) decreed that every building at Virginia Tech must have Hokiestone on its exterior. The architecture is American Gothic, and the Hokiestone gives an ancient feel to a campus that is "only" 135 years old. You can walk everywhere; indeed, parking is such a hassle that I never once contemplated moving off campus, and I only used my car to travel to Roanoke (the only gay bar for 100 miles around was there) or to go home. Otherwise, I did not need it.

So, with these cherished memories in mind, I could not contemplate the horror that visited the campus last Monday. It was incompatible with what I knew of my beloved VT. I called my friend Yonsenia, who is a professor of Art at VT, and she was fine. She does not have class on Monday, so she was not campus. She knew more information than the news was releasing, but it was a lot of rumor. She said that she heard some "Asian dude" had done the shooting.

Honestly, that made some sense to me. Virginia Tech's premier program is engineering. The sciences, the business school, and the hotel/restaurant management school are all excellent, but it is the engineering program that is world-famous. One startling fact I discovered when I went to VT was that there were more Asians on campus than African Americans. Even coming from Kentucky, I felt disoriented by the lack of black students and explosion of Asian students. The Engineering program attracts most of these Asian students, as anyone who has endured Intro to Calculus classes at VT can attest. I served on the Judicial Council as a student, and part of that was investigating charges of cheating as well as serving on student-run juries. There were several cases that came before me during my 3 years on the panel with Asian students who were in the engineering program to please their parents and were failing. The end result of cheating exposed people at their most desperate. So I figured that if an Asian was the shooter, it had to be an engineering student who had snapped under the pressure of upcoming finals. Especially knowing that Norris Hall was always known as the "Civil Engineering building" when I was a student.

That's what I get for following stereotypes! While the shooter was Asian, he was an ENGLISH major. And he was apparently a psychotic person with no real grip on reality. I took a couple of classes with two of the English professors who tried to ring the alarm bell regarding Cho's dangerous mental state. Yet, at first glance, I do not see how VT did anything wrong. His writings were disturbing, and he was a creepy person in general, but he had not made any specific threats toward people. You cannot just lock up someone because you think they MIGHT do something. More should have been done following a court's decision that Cho receive an evaluation, which apparently never happened.

That is an indictment of the piss-poor mental health system not only in Virginia but across the nation. We simply do not take mental health problems seriously, and we overburden and underfund the programs we do have. Insurance is finally starting to treat mental health as seriously as physical health. There is still a great stigma in admitting you have a problem and need help. With so many people alarmed by Cho's behavior, something should have been done. He should have been forced into treatment and suspended from school until he got it. But VT did not have the authority to do that until Cho either threatened someone (including himself) or actually DID something. Unfortunately, last Monday, he did do something....something monstrous and unimaginable to most of us.

Having this school shooting hit so close to home for me, I have been disconnected from the ensuing arguments over gun control. Being in Europe while this story plays out has been interesting, because Europeans really do think we're crazy for loving guns as much as we do. It reminded me of the relatively peaceful (albeit destructive) riots in Copenhagen a couple of months ago. No one had guns, and no one was killed. Property was destroyed, and hundreds were arrested, but not one life was extinguished. That amazed me because I knew that had this riot happened in America, it would have been a bloodbath with bullets flying. Europeans don't allow anyone who is not military or in the police force to have a gun. Their gun violence is almost nothing as a result.

Yes, I know that we have the 2nd amendment for very good historical reasons, and I support the right for law abiding, mentally and emotionally stable citizens to own firearms. I support the right to hunt and fish, although not with a machine gun. I think that criminal background checks are not enough. We need to block anyone with a history of mental illness (including depression) from owning a gun. And we should take away guns from people who develop such illnesses. I know that would proclude even me from having a gun because I have a history of depression. But I am OK with that. We can't take away all guns, but the restictions should be such that only the most stable and law abiding should be able to have them. And increase those penalities for having an illegal gun. I do not think that having students pack heat to class is the answer. It is only the most well trained who could be counted on shooting the shooter in a case like Virginia Tech's massacre. I do not know the answer to this question, but these are my thoughts right now.

Another thing hitting me hard about the Virginia Tech massacre is the murder of an RA (resident advisor) in West AJ who was killed just doing his job. My first year as an RA, I served on the 2nd floor of East AJ, which is the sister building of West AJ and the traditional dorm for band members. When Cho decided to confront and kill that girl in West AJ, the RA responded as he was taught to do, as he was expected to do. We never expect someone to have a gun. I imagine all he did was ask what was going on before Cho coldly shot him through the neck. As a member of the RA "fraternity", this death hits my soul. It could have easily been me or any of my friends coming upon a heated situation who could have been killed. We never considered that when we served as RAs. Mostly, we worried about belligerence and keeping people safe. We wanted to prevent people from having alcohol poisoning or having an accident. Murder was not something we considered. Now, future RAs will have to consider just that.

VT also hit the right notes regarding student grades. Students who cannot face going back to school can just accept their grade as it stood on Monday, April 16. Or students can submit assignments, but not take the final. Or they can go on and finish out the semester as "normal". That was a fair, compassionate answer. I'm not sure what choice I would have made; it would depend on where my grades had stood at the time of the shooting.

I do know one thing: Virginia Tech will endure and come out of this stronger. Around the world, Hokie alums are united in their grief and their love for the university. I hope the press respects the university's request to leave and let the students come back to class in peace. It will be difficlut enough to get back to normal without the world's press following every move. I would still send my own child to VT, and I would not hestitate to recommend Virginia Tech as a safe place to send anyone's child. What happened in Blacksburg could have happened anywhere. It does not matter if you are Amish and isolated from the rest of the world, or in a lilly white upper class suburb of Denver; NO ONE is safe from this kind of psychosis. When a psychotic person is in your midst, you are not safe from his/her wild behavior. I think most college students realize that what happened at VT could have happened on any campus. That is why i have hope that there will be something positive to come out of this tragedy.

News, including links to the Hokie Spirit Fund can be found at http://www.vt.edu/tragedy.

Virginia Tech Convocation and Vigil slideshow

I am Virginia Tech Class of 1997.

We are Hokies !! We will prevail

Nikki Giovanni is simply amazing.

Watch Out, Scandanavia! Here Comes Starbucks...

In my daily news from the US Embassy came this tidbit:

McDonalds, Burger King, 7-11 – and now Starbucks. As the latest US global consumer phenomenon, the Seattle-based international coffee giant will open its first outlet in this country at Copenhagen Airport on the 1st of June, in response to demands from coffee-thirsty travelers. A spokesman for Copenhagen Airport Au-thorities said: ‘Everybody keeps asking why there is no Starbucks at the airport so we’ve made a massive effort to attract the company here. It’s a massive compliment to us that we will be home to the first Star-bucks in Scandinavia.’

One of the most charming things about Denmark that I have discovered is that the small store is alive and well. There are chains, but they compete with small, entreprenurial shops run by families. This is something the US has lost in the last 50 years of suburbanization and the ever present pursuit of "a bargain." Denmark, and the rest of Scandavia would do well to guard against this particular American phenomenon.

Leave It to South Carolina

From the state that brought us the nullification crisis of 1832, secession in 1860, the Dixiecrat movement of 1948, and the rabid segregationist Strom Thurmond comes the next stellar idea to embarass American democracy! That's right, dear readers, South Carolina is at it again, but this time, they are going for the body organs of prisoners.

You have not misread that sentence. The South Carolina Senate is now considering a set of 3 bills, which you can read here, here, and here. For the mere cost of a kidney or bone marrow, a prisoner could have six months of his or her sentence reduced. The bill that made it out of a SC Senate committee would allow the Department of Corrections to decide which inmates could donate. Presumably, they would have to clear the inmate of common prison health problems such as TB, HIV, and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Of course, participation would be entirely "voluntary". "Voluntary" in the sense that perhaps the only thing standing between you and early freedom is giving up your kidney or some bone marrow. "Voluntary" in the sense that the prison environment is not based on coersion at all.
“We would check that this was voluntary and they had all the information. It would not be forced upon them,” said State Senator Ralph Anderson, who came up with this gem of an idea.

According to the LA Times (warning, must register to see the article), the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network estimates that, nationally, over 95,300 people are awaiting an organ transplant and that about 6,700 die annually while waiting. Of course, there are rigorous standards for donating an organ, and it is unclear whether a state prisoner could meet those requirements, given the condition of prisons today, and the activities (rapes being one) that go on inside.

Some credit does go to the South Carolina legislature, though. While in the past, they have been little concerned with the legality of their actions, this time, the South Carolina legislators are examining whether the proposal violates federal law which prohibits the exchange of organs for “valuable consideration.” Ah, the fly in the ointment. Anderson, of course, argues that personal freedom in the form of a reduced sentence is not "valuable consideration", probably because you cannot place a dollar value on it. That is the point, though. Freedom is completely invaluable. Over the centuries, millions of men and women have willingly died in defence of freedom. To wave an early ticket out of prison in exchange for an ORGAN is certainly "valuable consideration." Even if the federal government would give the OK for this scheme, it has to be argued that it violates medical ethics. When a proposal such as this one gives you an immediate feeling of being "dirty", that is a pretty good sign that it is grossly unethical.

South Carolina is on the way to passing this bill. Will someone with some sense stop them before they embarass themselves (and the United States) yet again?

Immigrant Integration

A touchy subject in Denmark (not to mention the United States) is immigration. Denmark was one of the first to enact strict immigration rules in the wake of 9-11. The country has received criticism for this stance. They have also closed the doors to further immigration by Iraqi refugees, preferring instead to send money to Jordan or Syria where many of those refugees now live. Critics of the Iraq War have said that Denmark, until recently a key member of the "coalition of the willing", is morally obligated to take in refugees that they helped create. Perhaps there is a ring of truth to that, but this is not the main topic for my post today.

The question I am pondering is what does it mean for an immigrant to integrate into his/her adopted nation? The United States is a land of immigrants, but we have struggled with that throughout our history. At various points of US history, the Irish, the Italians, the Eastern Europeans, and finally, the Latinos have all received ferocious push back from "US born" citizens. Currently, we have seen much bigotry from the GOP on the matter of suppressing the use of Spanish or enacting draconian measures to stop illegal immigration.

Yet, as a nation of immigrants, the US is unique in that there is an understanding of what it means to be American, at least on the basic level. We have a set of ideals, which we sometimes do not fulfill very well, that guide us. These ideals are embodied by the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Our system of government and concept of liberty is what defines us as Americans, although we fight vociferously about what it all means exactly. There is now an argument whether the English language is essential to the American identity, since our founding documents are all in English and we have traditionally spoken English. I do not know the answer to that question, although in our public life together as Americans, I think we should agree to conduct ourselves in English. I also do not want to deny anyone their heritage or their language, because it is our diversity of backgrounds that has made the US strong.

The Danish are struggling with what it means to be Danish. They do have a constitution, but Denmark itself as a land and a people are far older than that document. The Dane are an ancient people whose ancestors were Vikings and who once ruled all of Scandanavia. As Africans and Muslims flood to Europe to escape hardships in their homelands, the question of integration has risen its ugly head.

In today's US Embassy news update, there was discussion of a new report coming out today. It asks: Should men have precedence over women when applying for a job? And is it OK to demand to be examined by a doctor of one's own gender? According to a report to be published today by a group called "Think-Tank for Better Integration" (sounds like an anti-immigrant group named by a Republican...like the jokester who named Bush's open pollution law the "Clear Skies Initiative"), the answer to both questions is no – but according to many immigrants from non-Western countries the answer is yes.

The report, based on a survey of the attitudes and values of foreigners in Danish society, states that many immigrants' "cultural baggage" plays a decisive role in their lack of integration. 92% of all Iraqi residents in Denmark disagree with homosexuality and 50% of those with a Turkish background believe that men should have first refusal on vacant jobs. These are statistics that Denmark's local councils and authorities should take into consideration when formulating integration policies, according to the think tank. "It's up to administrators at local level to stress what is important for integration," says one member of the think tank. "Should a Muslim be forced to work alongside a homosexual, and how should a school teacher react when parents say that their son's education is far more important than their daughter's. There has to be a clear policy."

Clearly explosive stuff, but these are questions people ask, especially when immigrants coming into a country do not seem to value the same things at a basic level that the other citizens do. Hence the question: What does it mean to be Danish? Or to be American? Considering the conflicts of today, can a person be both a "good Muslim" and a "good Dane"? How about a "good American"?

For the Danish, it is the question of Muslims. For Americans, the question is increasingly about Latinos, although the code words will be about "illegals". I watched an interesting show on BBC world this weekend called "The Doha Debates" where this British guy hosts a debate in front of an audience in Dubai on controversial topics. This week was the wearing of the face veil. Many women were indignant that people were not willing to just look in their eyes and see their heart, but insisted on seeing their face too. The question there was one of integration too. If you are an immigrant, is it OK to keep yourself clearly apart from your new country through the wearing of a face veil or anything else? How much of yourself do you have to sacrifice to fit in? Should you even sacrifice at all?

They did not come to a conclusion in that show, and we do not have an answer to the immigration question. The questions posed by the report in Denmark are interesting. I believe a person should have absolute freedom to see the doctor of his or her choice. If you want only female doctors, so be it. If you are a black person and do not want to see a white doctor, that may be a foolish attitude, but I think it is to your benefit to see a doctor with whom you are comfortable. Men should NOT have precedence over women. We live in a society where everyone is considered equal in the eyes of the law, and to give men preference would be discrimination.

I am also terribly sorry that 92% of Iraqi immigrants disagree with homosexuality (not sure how you can disagree with a fact), but they can be as prejudiced as they want in their homes. If you do not like having an openly gay coworker, get another damn job. It is YOUR problem, not the gay worker's. And if a parent tells a teacher that his son's education is more important than his daughter's...so what? As a teacher, you are not asked to agree or disagree with parenting styles or choices. You teach the child you have in your classroom, and if the parents refuse to get help for a female child because she doesn't have a penis, there is not much you can do.

If, as an immigrant, having a culture where women are subverient to men and where freedoms are based on religious law, gay people are not tolerated, etc....why in the world would you move to a Western nation? Especially when you know that nation has laws which directly conflict with your deeply held personal beliefs? Oh, is it about the opportunity to make money? Well, good. Have you ever considered that the freedoms you find so offensive in that society have been the basis for that opportunity to make money? Which is more important to you: suppressing women and gays or making a good living? Life is sometimes full of these hard choices, especially for an immigrant.

I think immigrants should honor their culture, language, and history. But I think too that there must be a desire to fully enter the life of your new nation. Maybe that means learning English (which in the US, we should help you do). Maybe that means gritting your teeth when you are "forced" to work with an openly gay colleague and not say or do anything about it. Maybe it means having to accept authority from a woman over you. Both the immigrant and the new nation have a duty to each other to meet in the middle. If one side refuses, the integration will never occur.

The ECUSA Executive Council Responds

On Sunday, March 4, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church issued a letter as its initial response to the Primates' Ultimatum to get rid of gays in the church, or else. The letter is typically Episcopalian in that seeks a compromise statement that is not too strident. There are two things that I found most interesting in the letter.

1. "We wish to reaffirm to our lesbian and gay members that they remain a welcome and integral part of the Episcopal Church."

In a separate account of the meeting, it is clear that the letter underwent two drafts. Considering my friend Bruce Garner was invited to join in the 2nd draft, which was adopted, the first draft must have been much weaker and did not include the statement I just quoted.

(Bruce) called for a clear statement about the continuing inclusion of gay,lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the Episcopal Church. He said that the statement was needed because gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people were "targeted" by the communiqué issued by the Primates after their Tanzania meeting. Those people are feeling "very vulnerable" and worried that they have been cast out of the Church or will be "exiled" soon.

He recalled that while being in church on Ash Wednesday he found it "painful for me to keep replaying parts of that communiqué and wondering if I was welcome in that place." Garner said that if he, who has felt for years that he was welcomed in the Episcopal Church, wondered how new members of the church must be feeling.

The Rev. F. N. "Butch" Gamarra (Diocese of Los Angeles) told the Council that he was conflicted between the desire to work for remain open to reconciliation and the "elephant in the room," which he said was the fact that the Church is getting "hammered" for being inclusive.

The people in the pews need to hear from the Council that "we are not appeasing" people whom he characterized as bullying and disrespecting the Episcopal Church, he said.

"The language is terribly important to people in the pews," said Bettye Jo Harris (Diocese of Hawaii). She described how her son feels as if he's been driven from the Church since the communiqué was issued.

I applaud the determination of the Executive Council to stand up for LGBT Christians in their midst. They have given clear voice to the violence done against LGBT Episcopalians by the Primates Ultimatum. Rev. Gamarra is correct to call the conservatives and Africans trying to force gays out of the church bullies who disrespect the Episcopal Church itself.

2. Yet, they also issued this statement: "Further, we offer our prayerful affirmation to all who struggle with the issues that concern us: those who are deeply concerned about the future of their Church and its place within the wider Communion, and those who are not reconciled to certain actions of General Convention. We wish to reaffirm that they too remain a welcome and integral part of the Episcopal Church."

That is a damn sight more than what the conservatives offer US! For the conservatives, it is their way or the highway. There is no living together in peace. They either want to force their vision on everyone, or they will attempt to destroy the Anglican Communion by driving out anyone who disagrees with them. Here, the Executive Council is saying, you may not agree with us or the decisions of the church, but you are still welcome. Of course, that means they would have to accept that in some places, gays are welcome, as well as women in leadership roles. Can't have that, can we?

I do not see any way forward that does not lead to schism. The right wing of the church are determined to force their agenda down everyone's throat they way they accuse us of doing that. Yet, the Episcopal church does not force any church or diocese to have female priests or bishops if they do not want them. No one would even force them to accept LGBT Christians into their congregations, let alone force them to bless relationships. The Episcopal Church says that as a church, we allow women and gays, but we won't force anyone who cannot accept this to do anything against their conscience. That is not the case with conservatives. Anything short of banishment and condemnation of gays will not satisfy them. If the ECUSA finds a way out of the current Ultimatum bind, we will certainly be backed into a corner with the proposed Convenant. And God only knows what kind of draconian resolutions the Africans and others will ram through at the 2008 Lambeth. In fact, I think the 2008 Lambeth will be the place of final schism, if it does not occur before then. The "Global South" will demand draconian measures against gays, and they have the sheer numbers to pass such a resolution.

In the end, it will backfire. The Global South will be separate even from England. What has not been widely discussed is that priests in England are already performing blessings for gay couples who marry under the new Civil Union law. The way they have gotten around the vexing questions is a stated assumption that no sex will occur in these unions, and the priests are not to ask the intentions of the couple entering the union. It is "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" at its most ridiculous. If the ECUSA is kicked out of the Anglican Communion, it will not be long before England will find itself in the crosshairs too.

Copenhagen Riots Update

I have discovered more information thanks to a news service that the US Embassy sends out to all Americans stationed in Denmark. First, the situation has been calm since the weekend, and nothing happened Monday or Tuesday as they tore down the Youth House.

The new owners of the Youth House (who got a court order evicting the youth and demolishing the building) are a fundamentalist Christian sect in Denmark called Faderhuset. Faderhuset was founded in 1990 by the married couple Knut and Ruth Evensen who are still involved in its leadership. Both have been involved in Christian movements since the 1970s. They started their own religious community in the beginning of the 1980s in the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen. As of January 2007, the church has 120 members and is an approved religious community by the Danish state. Apparently this fact is well known on the "street" level, but the press make no mention of it. The US Embassy newsletter, though, has no hesistation, which is as it should be.

Before last week's riots, the Youth House students had rejected an offer to take over a closed school near their location. This was the final offer by the Copenhagen City Council, which is furious at the amount of damage the riots have cost. The spokesman for the controlling Social Democrats said that he had "no wish to enter into any form of dialogue with tehse people or spent time looking for alternative accomodation for them." This from a political party that is to the left of center in Denmark! I am not sure why the students rejected the offer for a free new place, other than sheer stubbornness in the righteousness of their cause. The result is that they are now either arrested or homeless.

Ruth Evensen, the leader of the Faderhuset sect (not sure where the husband is in all this...and I thought fundamentalists did not like women as leaders...or is that only in the USA?), has been forced to hire bodyguards. She has received numerous death threats related to the case with the Youth House, and the threats have escalated since riots began last week.

That is not the only person being targeted either. Someone vandalised Mayor of Copenhagen Ritt Bjerregaard's private residence by carving out a large '69' in her front door, a direct reference to the Youth House's address at Jagtvej 69. The buildup to a massive protest outside city hall this Saturday seems set. The question is, will violence continue to be avoided now that the leftist youth have nothing to lose? Their Youth House is rubble now, and even workers are wearing full face coverings to protect their identities. Companies have hidden logos to protect themselves too as the demolition and removal continues.

Faderhuset plans a building to house a Christian café and cultural activities. Not sure what a Chrisitan café means. Will they only use Holy Water for the coffee and tea? Sell Jesus biscuits? Napkins with "Repent Now!" written in Danish? And with the trouble they have experienced from buying the Youth House, evicting the inhabitants, and then demolishing the building, do they imagine that Youth activists will let their new building sit in peace? I do not even know how they will build on the spot without fear of sabotage. What construction company would take the risk? Maybe some of our American fundies can "help" out against what I am sure they would consider "attacks by the forces of Satan on a Godly group." Shoot, I am sure that more than one gay person lived in the House too, so they could make it part of the "Gay Agenda" to conquer the world and force heterosexuals into gay relationships.

I wonder what the motives of the Faderhuset were in buying the Youth House, which has been well known since 1982. Was it to get close to their leaders' roots in Nørrebro? Didn't they forsee the problems they would have with buying this house and taking the steps have taken to possess it? They were within their legal rights, and the students should have taken the deal for the alternative property that would have been theirs outright. In this situation, they all lose.

Riots in Copenhagen

Imagine my surprise when, Thursday evening, I discovered pictures of cars ablaze, police in riot gear, and breathless Danish TV reporters covering it all LIVE in downtown Copenhagen. The TV reporters were really quite dramatic, although I could not understand what they were saying. I found out later, they were describing the scene as a "war zone".

Copenhagen and Denmark are such nice, peaceful, and friendly places. The Danes are quite possibly the most orderly people I have seen. Even their riots seem orderly, and amazingly enough, no one died. You can be sure in the United States, people would be killed in such riots. The rioters threw things at the police, but no one had a gun or started shooting.

The reason behind this rioting is a long simmering controversy over something called "UNGDOMSHUSET" or Youth House. In the early 80s, this building was abandoned, but still owned by the city. Leftist youth groups, made up of mostly Communists and hard left Socialists (I am told), started squatting on the property, turning it into a sort of commune. The city did not do much to evict them, and the situation has remained for the past 25 years.

In 2000, the city finally sold the property to a mysterious "Christian Group". I say "mysterious" only because no one in the media will name this group. It is unclear if it is the Danish state church or some other organization. Yet, I would think the identity of the group would be important. Why did they agree to buy a property they had to know was occupied?

Upon sale, the group went to court to get an eviction notice. The students fought back, saying that the city had no right to sell "their" house while it was occupied. The courts disagreed, and an order of eviction was entered. That brings us to Thursday, March 2 when the riots began.

The students protested by overturning cars, setting them on fire, setting fire to police barriers in the area, and throwing bottles, rocks, etc at the police. The police have arrested over 500 people during the weekend, and everyone was urged to stay away from downtown Copenhagen. The police have tightened border controls, because this Youth House is a rallying cry for far left groups throughout Europe.

The interesting thing about this situation for me is that under US property law, the students would long ago have seized title over the Youth House. They would have done this under the concept of Adverse Possession. From 1982 onward, the city did nothing to exercise its legal property rights or dominion over the building. They sat back while the students seized the building, lived in it, and passed it on to other students. In the US, when you neglect your property as it is being publicly seized and used by someone else for a period of 7 years, you lose that property. It is as if you legally made a gift of it by abandoning it. So around 1990, those students could have had title in US courts. Not so in Danish courts.

The building is being demolished so the police are expecting things to quiet down. However, that may not be the case for long. On a website devoted to the students, plans for major protests this weekend are in order. Hopefully, it will be peaceful.

The sad thing in all this to me is the lack of US coverage of this event. I went online to let my mom know quickly that I was OK, and she said, "What riots?" Same for my friends. No one had any idea that anything was happening in Copenhagen. The US papers said nothing. A bus full of ball players crashes on I-75 in Atlanta, and every news website in the world headlines the event. I would think that a peaceful city like Copenhagen exploding into riots would also merit coverage.

To educate my readers on this issue, I refer you to the following articles:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6414657.stm
http://www.ungdomshuset.dk/en.php3?id_rubrique=4
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6414481.stm

And if you can perchance read Danish, the best coverage is probably found here:
http://politiken.dk/

No Better Expression...

This letter has been shared publically by a friend and fellow parishoner of All Saints Episcopal Church in Atlanta, GA. I cannot add anything to the sentiments of this letter.

Twice today a cross has been traced on my forehead with ashes created from burned palms. And twice I have been told that I come from dust and to dust I shall return. In a couple of hours, that will take place again at the final service for Ash Wednesday.

It is a difficult day. Ash Wednesday usually is. Hearing the words "dust you are and to dust you shall return" spoken hundreds of times leaves an imprint on ones mind and soul. The Litany of Penitence has some extremely moving petitions in it, so very appropriate, particularly those that deal with our failure to love God and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And then there are those that deal with our exclusion and dismissal of those different from ourselves. Yes it is a difficult day.

I have been distracted during the first two services and will likely be for the next. I'm usually somewhat distracted just taking care of my duties during the service, so that's not new. I search for and take personal prayer time whenever I can get it.

The distraction today comes from the fact that the communiqué' from the Primates keeps rattling around in my head. Add to that poignant postings such as those that Ann has shared with us and the potential for distraction increases. And then there are the dozens of emails, private emails, sent to me about the communiqué and my response to it on this list. There is so much pain and anguish.

A frequent question is if this is still a church that welcomes lesbians and gays. Another comes from a parent who sees the pain, the every day pain of her lesbian daughter and wonders about the church to which she professes to belong. Another talks about the tears that were shed in reading the communiqué and wondering where, if anywhere, the writer might belong. Yet another grieves over the fact that a relationship that has endured for decades will still not be honored by the church in which they place their faith life. Still others come from clergy in relationships who wonder what will happen to them. And another states that he has given up and is going to seek a new faith community for spiritual nourishment. There are new messages of like content every time I check my email. And I suspect the same is likely of any of us who are identified in some leadership role within the church and who are lesbian or gay.

What can I tell them? What do I say? Their faith has once again been trashed… This time by some who purport to be the highest ranking religious leaders of our church. So what do I say? (And if anyone writes back and says that the Primates are simply "following Scripture" I swear to God I will jump through the telephone/cable wires and personally strangle them! We have been beaten up by the Bible for long enough and it is time for that to stop…so be warned.)

Some will say that we, both lesbians/gay and the Episcopal Church, brought this on ourselves. Hogwash. We have not told a single other province of the Anglican Communion that they had to do what we do or even support what we do….we have just told them that this is where we felt that the Holy Spirit was leading us. Some will try to insist that we, as "westerners" are trying to impose our beliefs on others. Again, hogwash. We have not done that. What we have done is prayed and discerned and studied and discerned some more and prayed some more to reach conclusions we have reached. And those who did not participate in that process in The Episcopal Church have no excuses and no one to blame but themselves. Everyone had the opportunity and has had it for over three decades now. Taking ones time about change is one thing, but some things become ridiculous.

Those who want to try and make the Episcopal Church and/or the Anglican Communion an exclusive body or club will use any way they can to try and make that happen. They do so without the support of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus had no litmus tests. Jesus did not have any mechanisms for proving orthodoxy. Jesus didn't really seemed to mind who hung on to His little rag tag band at the time. His invitation was never coercive. It was never guilt-causing. It was gentle and always simply issued to the listener. His irritation was clearly reserved not for those who were the outcast of His day, but for those mentioned in the Gospel reading for today, Ash Wednesday, those who found their reward here on earth rather than in a life grounded in serving God.

I still do not know what to tell the folks who write to me. I do know how I feel at the moment and it isn't all that good. A certain part of me really wants to say: "Fine, you have your way. Every blessed lesbian and gay person in the Episcopal Church and the entire Anglican Communion needs to walk out the door, shaking the dust off of our feet as we go." That would make some…and I will name names…Kendall, Jean, Donald, John, Jim S., Dan…and a few others, very happy. Just remember, if we are gone, who will the purity police go after next? Will it be one of you? You never know once such machines get rolling. A certain German got a similar machine in motion in the middle of the last century and millions died because of it. A wrong comparison? Hardly! Those who start sorting the children of God as if they were God are engaged in just as awful a purification process as that was.

The one thing I am looking for is something I have not seen or read yet: Affirmation from bishops that lesbians and gays remain welcome in their own dioceses, regardless of what else may take place. Bishops Andrus and Sisk have done so, but there are an awful lot of quiet bishops out there at the moment. Nor am I talking about quiet postings to diocesan websites. I am indeed talking about clearly supportive statements on this very list serve. Where are they? Why are we not hearing them?

Two concepts come to mind: One is from the earlier days of the AIDS epidemic and it is "silence equals death." Not too strong a concept here. Silence may well mean death in a variety of forms, including the physical. Those who killed Matthew Shepherd weren't hearing anything that gave them an indication that what they were doing was wrong. Fred Phelps later actually praised their murderous activities.

The other concept comes from, of all sources, Robert's Rules of Order…part of the governance of our meetings. It's a very clear concept used in discussions and votes. Silence implies consent. If the chair hears nothing to the contrary, whatever is before the body is affirmed or approved. Are we to take the silence of so many as implying consent to the exclusionary aspects of the communiqué? Remember, Lambeth 98 - whether you voted for it or not - is clear in its contention that lesbians and gays are not compatible with Holy Scripture.

Off to church now and once more to be told that I come from dust and will return to dust. I will pray for those who hate me. I will even pray for those who just dislike me! And I will ask for forgiveness because I have been forgiven and because it is the right thing to do. Maybe at this service I will not be as distracted. Maybe God will provide some reassurance that I am indeed still beloved by God regardless of what some of God's followers might have been saying. And maybe when I check email again there will not be another tearful and sad question. And if I am very blessed, maybe I will see and end to the silence of the bishops of my beloved Episcopal Church.

Bruce Garner, Executive Council

Bruce Garner ebgarner@netzero.net "Since when do you have to agree with people just to defend them from injustice?" Lillian Hellman, Writer(1905-1984)