Bigotry is a poison that can be disguised in many ways. Martin Luther King knew bigotry well, and he fought it in every form it took. This is why he is the public figure I have most admired, besides Ghandi, in my lifetime. King's embrace of   Bayard Rustin throughout Rustin's persecution as a gay man,  was the mark of a leader who would not accept bigotry in any form no matter the price.

Here is a 2004 column by Earl Ofari Hutchinson which I found informative, and perhaps you will was well.  

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The sight of the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., standing at the gravesite of her father with thousands of demonstrators to denounce gay marriage was painful and insulting.

The Rev. Bernice King and the march organizers deliberately chose King's gravesite to imply that King might well have stood with her and them in their protest. Given her father's relentless, and uncompromising battle against discrimination during his life, it defies belief that he would back an anti-gay campaign.

But it's not the first time that a King family member has sullied King's name and legacy to torpedo gay rights. In 1998, King's niece, Alveda King, barnstormed the country speaking at rallies against gay rights legislation. In case anyone missed the King family connection, her group was named, "King for America."

Gay rights groups everywhere countered King's repent-and-save-yourself message to gays by quoting a public statement Coretta Scott King issued in 1996 in which she noted that King would be a champion of gay rights if he were alive.

In this case, King's daughter was careful not to mention gay marriage in her talk. Her mentor and March organizer, Bishop Eddie Long, cautiously downplayed the issue. But Bernice King is an outspoken evangelical, and in the last couple of years she and other black evangelicals have marched, protested, wrote letters and petitions denouncing gay marriage. Polls show that their hostility to gay marriage is much stronger than that of white evangelicals. Long prominently touts Bush's federal amendment banning gay marriage on his church website.

In King's day, though, gay rights was invisible on America's public policy radarscope. Homosexuality, among blacks, and whites, was hushed up. There's not a word in any of his speeches or writings about homosexuality or whether he believed the civil rights struggle was inclusive of gays.

There's a way, however, to gauge what King's feelings were on the issue, and what he might say and do about it today. That gauge is the long time personal and political relationship King had with Bayard Rustin.

Best known as the driving force behind the historic 1963 March on Washington, Rustin was a close King associate, ally, supporter, and a known homosexual.

In 1953, Rustin was convicted of morals charges. In the frozen mood of that day and time that was the parlance for homosexual acts. It carried a quick, and sometimes, stiff jail term. King knew this, the Kennedys, top FBI officials, black elected officials, civil rights leaders and the tight circle of black ministers around King, knew it as well.

That didn't deter King from embracing Rustin. At the high point of the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott that launched King into the national spotlight and over the vehement opposition of black ministers who called homosexuals and Rustin unsavory and evil, King invited Rustin to come to Montgomery as an advisor.

A year later, King turned to Rustin and asked him to draft the resolutions and the organizational charter of his fledging Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He demanded that the SCLC board, mostly composed of black ministers, hire Rustin as its coordinator and publicist. King didn't win that one. The board flatly turned him down, and though it was unstated, Rustin's homosexuality was a major reason.

The issue continued to dog King and his relationship with Rustin. Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell publicly threatened to accuse King of having a homosexual affair with Rustin if he didn't call off planned demonstrations at the 1960 Democratic Convention. King didn't buckle to Powell's blackmail threat and went ahead with the demonstrations anyway.

During the next few years, the assault on Rustin's homosexuality, and the pressure on King to dump him, escalated. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, busy with his blatantly illegal spy campaign against King, publicly released wiretaps of scurrilous remarks King associates made about Rustin's homosexuality.

On the eve of the March on Washington in 1963, South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond denounced Rustin on the Senate floor as a sexual pervert, and inserted a copy of his 1953 arrest booking slip in the Congressional Record. The Kennedys also flatly demanded that King get rid of him. King did not publicly break with Rustin. And when he did eventually distance himself politically from Rustin, he gave no public hint that his homosexuality was an issue.

King risked much to work with and defend Rustin during the tumultuous battles of the civil rights era. He valued him as an ally and a major player in the struggle. He also believed that deeply embodied in the civil rights fight was a person's right to be whom and what he was.

While King may have praised his daughter for having the courage and conviction to march for her beliefs, bigotry is still bigotry, whether it's racial or sexual preference. He would not have marched by her side.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author, political analyst and columnist for Alternet and Blacknews.com. He is the publisher of The Hutchinson Report Newsletter, an online public issues newsletter.

This article reprinted with permission from Alternet.

This is reprinted from a blog titled:

    The Republic of T----Black. Gay. Father. Father. Vegetarian. Buddhist. Liberal.

"Historically Black Homophobia" was originally  published Friday, Oct. 27, 2006.

It was republished  on Thursday, November 6, 2008, after the  historic election on November 4, 2008--a date that unfortunately  will live in infamy in the gay community.

It's been a strange month to be black and gay in America so far. First there was the gay bashing that killed Michael Sandy in New York, and the disturbing news of Tyrone Garner's lack of a burial 37 days after his death with the possibility of a pauper's burial in the end. Those depressing stories were balanced out somewhat yesterday by the news of the New Jersey Supreme Court decision and the fact that a black lesbian couple was among the plaintiffs whose willingness to take a stand yielded that historic moment.

But even that good news was tempered by reading Keith's post about his speech at Central State University, a historically black college in Wilberforce, Ohio. It was the inspiration for the title of this post. I considered titling it "Hysterically Black Homophobia," because of the reaction Keith says his speech got. But it felt too serious a topic for snark, though the response of the students as described by Keith does indeed seem hysterical, and the homophobia at its foundation is historical.

I'd have written about it yesterday, but sometimes when they're angry people say things they either don't mean or that are said in a manner more inflammatory than constructive. For example, yesterday I probably would have written some things pretty inflammatory things about Black folks and religion. Would have meant them too, as much as the students who heard Keith's speech meant everything they said in response.

One of the thing I might have said about religion if I'd posted yesterday is that it can sometimes cause people to divorce themselves from reason and any ability to think critically about what they're told.

When the subject turned to religion, a few students in the audience starting shouting at me to express their disagreement. I discussed the story of Adam and Eve from the Book of Genesis. I talked about Leviticus 18 (man shall not lie with man) and put it in context with Leviticus 19:19 (not to wear mixed fabrics), Leviticus 19:27 (not to shave or get hair cuts), Leviticus 19:28 (not to wear tattoos), and other passages of the Bible that are selectively ignored. I even reminded the audience how white slave owners had used religion to justify the oppression of black slaves. But only a few people in the audience seemed to pay attention. Many of the rest were on their feet, moving about and protesting.

When an audience member shouted out something about Jesus, I reminded him that Jesus never discusses homosexuality anywhere in the Bible. "Noooo!" they shouted. "You're misinterpreting the Bible," another yelled. "Not in my Bible," I heard someone say in the distance. Then I posed a challenge. "I have $100 in my wallet," I said. "I will be happy to give it to anyone if you can find a single passage in the Bible where Jesus talks about homosexuality." The audience exploded in outrage. It took another 60 seconds to get them to calm down again.

I continued on with my speech. A few minutes later, a young man in the back row of the audience stood up and yelled something. I think he said "I found it!" but I couldn't hear him well enough to be sure. The crowd turned to face him in the back, and I stopped for a moment to listen. He yelled something about the Bible and he walked to the far aisle and walked all the way down to the front of the stage, where I motioned him to join me at the podium with his Bible.

I held the mic to his face as he quoted the passage from the New International Version of the Bible. He read aloud: "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

The audience erupted in shouting and applause again, and the young student slammed shut the Bible and marched off the stage as though he had proved his point. After the crowd finally quieted down, I explained. "The passage he just read was from 1 Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 9. It was an epistle written by Paul, not by Jesus," I said. "That's because Jesus never mentions homosexuality anywhere in the Bible."

The audience didn't buy it. That's because many of them have never studied the Bible. Unfortunately, they've been taught simply to repeat the homophobic rhetoric recited by their pastors and their parents. Anyone who challenges that rhetoric must be the devil. Even if the concerned Christians in the audience can't prove their arguments, they feel morally superior enough to repudiate mine without any real knowledge or facts.

At a seat of knowledge, a "historically Black" seat of knowledge, ignorance and superstition reign; and on a subject most of the students there would probably consider more important than anything else they study. Though if they study their other subjects the way they've apparently studied the Bible, there isn't much to say about the quality of their education, if they've never questioned what they've been told and never read beyond what was placed in front of them. So, when presented with a reality that doesn't fit neatly into the box that defines their world, they hide behind what another black gay blogger wisely defines as "headless monsters".

A headless monster a belief that has been refuted over and over again, but is still pushed as fact, usually by someone who has a vested interest in telling lies.

You can kill the head but the monster still lives because it is being propped up.

I was raised in a church probably much like those in which the Central State students swallowed (not learned) their faith. I heard the same Bible stories, and probably nearly the same sermons, more or less. I guess the difference is that at some point I asked questions, and when I didn't find the answers in what was given to me, I went looking. And perhaps that's where I went wrong since, depending on who you ask, "original sin" has less to do with sex than with seeking knowledge. And at some point I realized that God had not leaned down from heaven with quill in hand and written the Bible from beginning to end, and that it wasn't unchanged and unchanging, but that it was written and rewritten by people grounded in a time an place in history that influenced what they wrote; compiled and edited by people who were grounded in a time and place in history that influenced what they voted in and what they left out.

When I was growing up, I heard an old legend that if you read the Bible all the way through from beginning to end, it would make you crazy. Now I think what makes you crazy isn't reading the Bible, but reading it literally and to the exclusion of anything else. That will drive you insane as surely as sitting in a dark room and never allowing any light to enter it would make anyone insane. Let in a little light, and you see enough to make things out. More light than that, and suddenly the way you thought the world around you worked doesn't make sense anymore. But not enough light and you either have to create stories to explain what you can't fully see, or you have to not see it. With African Americans, it began with the first slaves who were converted to Christianity only to be confronted with the biblical passages that justified and even sanctified their enslavement, and for the sake of sanity had to "not read those parts."

Having read and reviewed Horace Griffin's new book Their Own Receive Them Not: African American Lesbians And Gays in Black Churches, I basically concur with his premise that the vehement homophobia expressed by many Blacks stems from a the history of so many Black slaves being converted to Christianity by conservative denominations that stressed biblical literalism, strict Victorian sexual morality that was prevalent during the same period as American slavery, and a reaction against the stereotypes of Blacks as insatiable sexual savages. The Central State students, however, do not have the excuse that their ancestors had. Having a few centuries between them and slavery, and being at most a few steps away from information -- or, to extend the metaphor, a few steps away from the fucking light switch in that darkened room you're now sitting in and choosing to keep darkened -- makes choosing not reaching out for it and inexcusable act of willful intellectual and spiritual laziness.

It is easy to take literally the words on the page, rather than try to understand them in the context of the time, place, and people who produced, translated, and selected them. It is easy to ignore the contradictions from one text to another; to dismiss, as Sam Harris put it, "the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes," and to yet be willing to embrace that which you can fully impose on others. It is harder to read more widely and deeply, for a deeper understanding of faith that may not affirm everything you've been taught. It is harder to leave the embrace of certainty and make peace with uncertainty -- to admit that you don't know or have all the answers to how the world should work, and that they can't be easily found between the covers of any one book -- but that may also be part of what it means to "walk by faith and not by sight."

The Central State students have taken the easy way out on their religion. They are, as Staceyann Chin (who shared the stage with Keith for that memorable experience) wrote in her poem about the Central State convocation, still practicing a slave version of their religion, with little more understanding than that; hiding behind "headless monsters," as invested lies that define others as inferior to them and despised by their god, much like the owners of their ancestors were not all that long ago.

and so Black folk continue to be caught wheel and hamster
between racism and under-education
and misguided loyalty
disguised as religion

same Bible that told niggers
"be happy they got nice Masters!"

Same pages now being used by niggers to tell black faggots
they ain't shit

never mind the number of choirs they have kept going
the revolutions they have orchestrated

never mind the dykes that kept marching in Selma
and DC
and Philly
and New York

fuck the writers that made it so Black students could be in college
making infantile noises at a phenomenon they know nothing about
except that they despise us

And no, by the way, I no longer give a shit about defending African Americans against the notion that they're more homophobic than whites, for the same reason I no longer give a shit about defending a Black politician like Harold Ford against the racist attack ads the Republicans are running against him. Because Harold Ford is no different than the racist Republican candidate running in Virginia, and the students at Central State University are no different than the Klan or a gang of marauding skinheads. I don't defend anyone who would turn around and leave me and mine twisting in the wind. I no longer care.

I no longer care, because in a world ordered the way they appear to want it ordered against me and mine, every single one of them would have and should have the very life stoned out of them. Those who aren't stoned to death can be sold into slavery. The female students and faculty should be driven from the school completely, and maybe even handed over to be raped it if means preserving the dignity of men. The Bible, the one they flip through so furiously to condemn someone else that they skip over the passages that -- just a few verses down -- condemn them too, says so. Part of me hopes they get it, even given what it would probably mean for me, just so long as I can stay long enough to look into their eyes, to see their faces when it arrives for them too. I'd even happily greet them in hell, if I believed in it, just to see their faces when they arrived.

I no longer care because they aren't my people. There was a time when I would have been saddened by the behavior of the students at Central State; depressed because it would have been another case being rejected by "my people." But no more, because they aren't my people. They aren't my people like Wellington Boone isn't when he accuses gays of "raping his movement," as though Bayard Rustin, James Baldwin, an Barbara Jordan never existed. They aren't my people, just like Michael Steele isn't as the newsletter from Equality Maryland this week reminded me of his statement that he opposed marriage because "white gay men already have a lot of rights."

They aren't my people because they don't think people like Keith, Staceyann and I exist, or that we should exist and if we do we deserve whatever we get. They don't believe that couples like Alicia Heath-Toby and Saundra Toby-Heath exist or should exist.

We have been a loving and committed couple for 15 years. We live in Newark, New Jersey, and our church, Liberation In Truth Unity Fellowship Church, is a part of our extended family. We attend church services and participate in church events, and we are active in our community.

For us, marriage is not a political issue or an academic issue. This is a real issue about our lives. Our burdens are heavier and our expenses are greater simply because we can't get legally married. We can't get family health insurance, so we have to pay two deductibles instead of one. And in order to protect ourselves in case something happens to one of us, we have to go through the expense of hiring a lawyer to prepare legal documents. We have to go through all that just to get the same legal protection that most couples get when they say "I do."

Our relationship is just like many others. We take care of each other. We think about what the other needs. We work at our jobs, and we pay our taxes. But if something should happen to one of us, all that can mean nothing if the state, the hospital, the insurance company, or the employer doesn't recognize our rights. We pay first-class taxes, but we're treated like second-class citizens.

We are your neighbors next door. We ride the bus and subway with you. We sit next to you at lunch. We work next to you. We have a home, two sons and 5 grandchildren. And we have a family.

If two complete strangers met each other last week and got legally married today, they would have more rights under the law than our relationship has after 15 years of being together. That's not fair, and that's why we're here today.

It doesn't matter to them that black gay and lesbian members of their families and communities (and churches, whether they realize it or not) stand to lose or gain the most in the fight for marriage equality.

Black same-sex couples have more to gain from the legal protections of marriage, and more to lose in all 13 states that passed amendments banning marriage and other forms of partner recognition. A groundbreaking study released in October 2004 by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute and the National Black Justice Coalition shows that Black lesbian couples are parenting at almost the same rate as Black married couples, and that Black same-sex couples parent at twice the rate of White gay couples. They also earn less, are less likely to own a home, and are more likely to hold public sector jobs.

Three in five Black female same-sex households (61 percent) include at least one child of one or both of the same-sex partners. Black lesbian couple households are almost as likely as Black married opposite-sex couple households to include a child of one or both of the adults (69 percent). Nearly half of Black male same-sex couple households (46 percent include a child of one or both of the partners.

Black same-sex couples earn $20,000 less per year than White same-sex couples and are less likely to own the home they live in. They also earn less than Black married opposite-sex couples.

Black same-sex partners are more likely than White gay partners to hold public sector jobs, which may provide domestic partner health insurance. Eight of the 11 state anti-gay marriage amendments approved on November 2 ban or threaten domestic partner benefits provided through state and local governmental entities, such as Dekalb County, Georgia or Ohio State University.

They don't know or don't care that marriage equality would mean benefits for black gay and lesbian members of their community.

* Forty-five percent of Black same-sex couples reported stable relationships of five years or longer on the U.S. Census.

* Twenty percent of Black men and twenty-four percent of Black women in same-sex households in the Maryland area work in the public sector but are denied healthcare benefits for their partners by the government.

* Same-sex couples do not receive the protections of joint rental leases with automatic renewal rights. Only approximately 55-57% of Black same sex couples own their own home.

They don't care what happens to couples like Alicia and Saundra or what happens to people like Michael Sandy or Tyrone Garner as much as they care about a two thousand year old book that damns them as surely as they believe it damns us; even as it leads them to lie down with politicians who will send their brothers and cousins and sisters off to die in a needless war, and leads them to stand beside politicians and a party who don't flinch at appealing to racism in voters or fielding racist candidates, who will turn around and attempt to bring back the poll tax, and who'll promise big things but leave you holding the bag.

But more than anything else, they don't care about the hell they create for their brothers, sisters, etc., in the name of a heaven that sounds about as plausible as the big rock candy mountain. I know because I did my time in it, and occasionally those of us who managed to escape it hear echos or catch glimpses of those still trapped inside, as Keith relates at the end of his post.

I know there are gay men and lesbians on that campus who are suffering from the oppression of their classmates. One student came out to me in an email message sent a few hours after the event. Needless to say, there are dozens of other students out there who were hoping for a comfortable space for dialogue but instead found themselves forced deeper into the closet. I feel sorry for those students. I think some of the students who openly challenged us are themselves struggling with their homosexuality.

I remember during my freshman year of college, there was another young black man who started the same year and lived in my dorm. I noticed him because he caught my eye, and I thought I caught his. But we never talked because we moved in different circles and went in different directions. I came out rather publicly, joined the gay student group, and eventually became a co-director of the group. He pledged one of the black fraternities on campus, and eventually became a brother. I saw him occasionally on campus, and we always seemed to catch each other's eye, but never spoke.

Then one evening, he walked into a meeting of the gay student group. I saw him, and gave what I hoped was a friendly smile. But I hung back because I didn't want to make him nervous or think I was making a move on him, and scare him away from the group, because I realized how hard it was for him to be there and how much he really needed to be there. He looked relieved and scared to death all at the same time. He'd heard all the things his minister/family/fraternity brothers always said about people like me/him/us. They were probably echoing in his head the whole time he was in the meeting. I can only imagine he probably feared both the possibility of being shut out of the only world he'd ever known or been prepared to live in and the possibility of shutting off a part of himself he probably always knew was there. He probably knew, as Dwan Prince learned, that being honest about who is was would mean losing the support and protection of the only community he'd ever known.

He hung around for a while after the meeting, and I introduced myself to him before he quickly left. I never saw him at another meeting again. I saw him around campus from time to time, and several months later at an MLK Day march, where I marched with the gay student group and he marched with the black student organizations that jeered at us. Our eyes met that day too, and he didn't join in their derision of us. I don't know what happened to him, but my guess is that he went back into the closet and probably stayed there, with the help of his friends, fraternity, brothers, family, and church who did everything they could to keep him there.

They're kinda like Pharaoh's army, in all it's various incarnations down through the ages. Looking at them, don't see my people. I see Jeff Davis or Bull Connor. I catch glimpses of my people, hidden away behind holy walls mortared with ignorance and fortified by cruelty, suffering inside and looking for a way out.

If the students at Central State knew their own history or journeyed deeper into their faith than the stories they heard in sunday school, the sermons they heard in church, and the condemnations carefully selected from legalistic scriptures that damn them as much as anyone else, and have been used to dehumanize them in the same way they use them to dehumanize others, then they might see the same thing I see. They'd see their people hurting because of them. They'd see my people, hurting because of them, and reach out with healing and acceptance instead of hatred and condemnation. Then to me, they'd be my people.

But they can't and they won't so they aren't. And probably never will be. Period.

My mother died about a month ago. It has been a hard and painful time for many different reasons. And I doubted anything could stir me to write a diary,  but the confusion on this site about blacks and gay marriage and gay rights has pushed me over the edge.

No one is saying ALL blacks hate gays or that ALL black churches hate gays. Ok?? Please reread this as it seems to me diarists are tempted to make this assertion as soon as the reality of the MAJORITY black view on gays and gay marriage is mentioned.

I also do not believe ALL blacks are prejudiced.

And who the hell knows what Obama thinks about the subject? I sure don't. Any more than I knew what Hillary really thought. The issue is political dynamite.

All that said. This is the new reality and the new political landscape:

It was black voters who turned out in extraordinary numbers to support Barack Obama for President who passed Prop 8 in California.  

SEVENTY percent of black voters in California voted in favor or Proposition Eight.

So while I was voting for Barack Obama, you know me-- a typical white woman-- blacks were voting not only for Obama, but against my right to live a life equal to theirs in terms of the right to marry.

This pisses me off!!

But even more it makes me sad. The black church in this country historically has been a voice calling for equality, and now it is increasingly siding with the Christian Right and becoming a voice calling for bigotry and prejudice.

Think I exaggerate. Google MLK's daughter.

Shit. OK!!

And let us who took a beating on election day-- even as we stood up for Barack Obama-- have our moment to mourn without attempting to take our grief  away or minimize it or say we are exaggerating.

We aren't.

On Thursday, September 13, 2001, I traveled by foot and bus--along with thousands of other New Yorkers--to Union Square, a well-known park on 14th St. in the heart of Manhattan. It is situated about 30 blocks from "Ground Zero'. This historic gathering place--long consecrated throughout the last century with protests and spontaneous demonstrations--sits at the border beyond which no civilian could any longer travel to lower Manhattan.

Not surprisingly it became a natural magnet for New Yorkers seeking to communicate, commiserate and console one another after the attack on the World Trade Center.

I entered the park from the uptown end. Anxiously I looked around initially fearful that it had been a wild goose chase. Then I picked out a milling, eerily quiet gathering of people at the opposite or downtown end of the park. A woman I had met on the bus--like myself another turned-away blood donor and volunteer--was also going to `the memorial', and she cradled a blood red bouquet of roses for those killed.

I had no flowers, but I brought a notebook. In times of crises we return to what we know. I have been a news reporter for at least half my life.

The two of us didn't really know much, only that some NYU students--also frustrated volunteers-- late the day before, Wednesday, had taped long rectangles of butcher paper on the ground, and that people in the park had begun writing on them.

I had brought a pen. So had my new acquaintance.

As the two of us joined the hushed and milling throng we shook hands and said, `Goodbye.' Without saying it we both understood that privacy was part of our need.

I knelt down with those squatting or sitting in front of a 12-ft. high plaster pillar, naked wire resembling a torch flowing out of its top.

On its front in silver glitter someone had glued the letters:
To The Victims of Terrorist Attacks.

No one seemed to know when, but sometime later an unknown person had wired to it, a long rectangular piece of World Trade Tower Two.

In front of this pillar floated a sea of candles, small US flags, bouquets of roses by the dozens, many still in their cellophane wrappers, and single flowers of every kind. Spreading out from these were messages. They were Bold like headlines or artfully drawn like Murals. There were also notes--some short, some long--printed or scrawled in every color pen, ranging from sentences to headlines to poems to long rambling outpourings. Many included quotations of every kind and they were written in all the languages of all the people who comprise this American melting pot: Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, and many more.

It would be awhile before I realized that these messages spread out from this
Center in a hodge podge in every direction and that they numbered in the thousands.

All around me people were crying.  They were young and old, Black and White and Asian. A young girl with wicker wings tied to her back asked if I needed a hug. I did. But I said I didn't. Hours later, at the end of my travel through this many chambered heart of the city's collective wound, I hugged  a compete stranger. It was the only thing to do.

As I walked around I jotted down, at random, some of the notes inscribed there. It is my great honor to share them with you. When they are signed I have included those names.

"Gentlemen may cry `Peace, Peace'--but there is no peace."
                            Patrick Henry

Dear NYC,
    I've lived here for a year, and I didn't think I was from here till this week. With  Love and Remembrance to All.

ROB TIPALDI
RICH CAGGIANO
JUDI SAFI

Together in School
Together in Work
Together in Heaven

Capt. Brown of Ladder Co.3.
Pray for him and his men.
            YLF 9-13-2001

UNFORGIVABLE

This is just too much grief for my mind to process.
Robert Wagner Garden and All the things I love are gone and thousands of people died while I watched.
Why was I spared?
How can I go on?
                Janet Wolfman
                Sept. 12, 2001

Love Bears All Things
Endures Forever
God Is Love

This Won't Stop New York!

Fear the Evil Within
Before Evil Without

Bomb the Taliban Now!!!!!!

If you hate, they've Won!

God Bless America
Land That I Love
Stand Beside Her
And Guide Her

THEY FAILED

Make Their Countries Parking Lots.
                      Vietnam Vet

What would the DaliLama say?

Towers are small
Love is Infinite
No Day But Today

[Drawing of a Dog]
Spot, Protector of All New Yorkers, sez:
New York will bounce
Back stronger than ever
Arf Arf Arf

[As I watched, a father read this to
his 7-year-old son]

My Heart Will Hurt Forever
            Joe

WE WILL NOT BE MOVED

Peace is the God's One Love

To ALL Americans
Russia Feel Your Pain
        Igor, Alina, Olga, Oleg

There can be no world peace without YOU

"Live" is a verb

Bible quotes, "And God shall wipe away
All tears from their eyes..."
                Rev. 21:4

Let us not into Temptation
And fall in the hands of
The Greatest Enemy
HATE

Don't Give Up People,
Still life down there
        Signed with a Chinese Ideogram

[Enclosed inside  a heart]
USA  all the Way and a cross

We Must Love Each Other or Die

As I watched those buildings fall,
 A part of me died with you.
New York is my home and you--though I
did not know you personally--were
My brothers and sisters. We have
been dealt a serious blow, but we
are not defeated.
God Bless You Families.
                Reggie Liu

I believe in the American Liberty
            Camilla Wasclay

We all lost thousand of relatives

[As I watch a woman kneels and writes]
Scotty you are in our thought and prayers

This is the first time in my life I prayed
For people I didn't know.
                Nash

[Red & White Roses and Bluebells lie
Across a  long butcher paper sheet of
Messages]

Light a candle in your heart but do not
Fuel the anger

Today My Heart Has Been Touched
 By The Spirit Of A Nation

WHY?

Arab & Jew
Catholic & Protestant
EveryFucking Body!
Let's stop fighting and
Sit down and have a pint
            XOX

I'm not ready to kill
I'm not ready to die
To Be Honest, I'm hardly
Ready to Live
And I'm running out of time

[An origami bird with print on
the wings]
Not one More life Should be taken [on the left wing]
[on the right wing] Say it Again

We Shall Overcome

Shanti Shanti Shanti

[Scattered among the message papers
were Red Cross Flyers: Advice For Stress]

They will not stop us
They are cowards
And must pay
For what they have done
            FR

Don't blame the entire Arab world
They were born into this mess.
Just like everyone else.

Heroes are created
Everyday when ordinary people
Risk their lives for others.
In remembrance for all that risked

They All must pay
They All must die

[Hebrew script by one writer;
then another writer's
English translation]

Peace will yet come to Us
and to
Everyone

[white roses lay on this]

My Name is BRIANNA
MIGNaNO and I am 6 years old.
I would like to tell all the
Mommies not to cry.
We will pray for
your missing children.

I feel as Blue as this piece of paper

To All Victim's Families
I am deeply sorry.
I was shocked when I heard what
happened.
It's shocking!
In school no one told us
what was wrong.
That made it scarier.
When we finally found out that the twin towers
were gone it was shocking.
It turns out we knew someone on the plane.
My Mom was friends with her and her husband.
He wasn't on the plane.
They also have a dog.
The day it happened there were roses
and candles outside their apartment building.
They lived near us so we saw it before we
knew she was on the plane.
Again, I am truly sorry for all your losses.
            Sincerely,
            Sabrina
            11 years old

Lehman Brothers
1 WTC, 38th to 40th Floor
Programmers. Call us and let
us know you got out too. I
Love you guys.
            Pamela

Tears of Blood Fall On Our City
            Katheryn Winnick

[a large mural with columns of
colorful stick figures of many races
except for two columns in the middle
which are  empty and white]

We are Still Standing

Our Hearts Mourn and Our Souls Weep

For Heather HO, Windows on the World
Pastry chef, Fred and Family.
We are with
You wherever you are.
                Love, LG 9/13/01

ALOHA

[On a pillar by the subway tunnel,
people taped  pictures of missing friends
and relatives]

Letter to Margaret Echterman:
We will see you again on Earth or in Heaven

I ended my time in the memorial by sitting
off  to one side on a construction lumber pile and
listening to a lone bagpipe.
The woman who played wore shorts and a black
Ghostbusters T-shirt . Somewhat like the shrine,
she at first appeared a most motley mourner.
But as I watched her pace and listened to her mournful piping,
 I realized No one much cared what she looked like.
 The tears wept in response to her music were all that mattered.

This is my offering to America's Day of  Prayer and Remembrance
Please pass it along.

**I wrote this 3 days after the attack on my hometown and it has traveled around the world several times over.

I'd like to introduce you to my mother, the roadrunner. Remember that cartoon---beepbeep. Whiz!!

Unfortunately a roadrunner is a problem in the modern hospital and they get tied up-- to a wheel chair, or lashed down in their bed. We have cute little names for these restraints: a  bed-vest, a wrap around, and wrist restraints.

My Mom has experienced all of these since Friday when I took her to the emergency room about 6 p.m. for shortness of breath, and a high temperature. She also  had been doing her own particular roadrunner routine, non-stop since 6 a.m.

In the emergency room early tests showed the possibility of a tumor in her lung. But that was ruled out. And while they were doing more tests her blood pressure hit 213 over 160. And her cough, did I forget to mention the cough? It was escalating by the minute. As was her temperature which hit 101.4.

However, when no problem could be found other than labored breathing and blood pressure indicating imminent stroke--the temperature wasn't even mentioned--the ER doc, rather than admit her to the hospital, decided to send her home. My Mom's caretaker and I dug in our heels. Nothing doing. So The ER doc sent in a different doc, the Admitting doc, to talk to us.

This fellow  had quite a good routine: she will be with very sick people and you risk exposing her to disease; are you wanting to dump her here because there are very good facilities we can recommend. And--we probably don't even have a bed.

When we could not be dissuaded, he found her a bed. By then it was midnight. We had arrived at 6 p.m.

The next morning we found her tied to her bed, no intravenous fluids, and no doctor. The nurses agreed her cough was getting much worse. And they agreed she needed fluids. They also agreed that she needed something to calm her anxiety  which had escalated again. But nothing could be done without the doctor.

Who is the doctor??? And where is he??

They didn't know. Finally Edith, my mother's nurse, spent about 45 minutes on the phone, found the doctor who would be attending my mother and put a call in. When he responded to her page he said:

I'll be there when I get there.

He got there at 6 p.m. Saturday night.

This was 18 hours after she had been placed on the ward.

And until that time nothing could be done for my mother. A catheter had been inserted in the ER and one could see that there was barely 2 inches of dark urine for the entire day. This for a woman who if she did not have pneumonia had an escalating case of bronchitis.

In response to our prompting and urging, the Dr. did request all that was needed after he arrived. But his orders could not be executed immediately. An anti-anxiety medication had to be ordered from the pharmacy, the floor was out! And the IV also took time.

And thank heavens Mom's new caretaker is knowledgeable because I would not have known what exactly to ask for.

By this time the nursing staff and I had forged quite a bond. They hated the position they were in. Sure write it up one of them said with a smile. Someone should know what goes on here.

Yeah, someone should. And if you have no one to lobby for you, intercede for you, and take care of you in the modern hospital you are ignored and neglected.

Health care reform is as pressing as any other domestic issue in this campaign.

I liked Hill's plan best. But I will take Barack Obama's plan over McSame's any day.

We need it desperately.

I just read through the latest diary about  me, my motives, and the issue about Obama.

I did not intend for this to become the hullabaloo that it has, and  contrary to wanting  the attention--I hate it!

My blogmates on CFO deserve, I think a huge round of applause and a thank you from everyone on mydd. No one on CFO approved of the diary I wrote, but many of them believed I should be able to say it without being flamed and crucified. So I want to say to them:

I didn't exactly drag you into this, but I do appreciate your defending my right to say something so terribly unpopular and clearly hateful to so many.

While we are on acknowledgements I would like to thank chitown denny and the blogger who has penguin in his name. I'm sorry I can't remember your name better--and I don't have the heart to look it up right now. You know who you are.

Here is what I have been thinking over the course of this entire mess which began last Sunday and has continued now, unabated, for six days.

When I was small, before I could talk, I was badly hurt by someone in my family. Part of the injury  that I sustained was that I could not tell anyone what happened. After I could speak, no one believed me. As a result of not being believed,  the injustice and mistreatment continued unchecked. And as it did,  year by year so did my passion to speak my truth--as I see and I experience  it. By the seventh grade I  was telling anyone who asked I was going to be a news reporter.

Sometimes, this tendency is helpful as when I named a behavior that had existed, but had never been named, and then wrote the first book about sexual harassment of women on the job. And this commitment has helped many in all sorts of ways over the years.

Sometimes, this tendency is not helpful, can be seen as inappropriate and unnecessary, if not unwanted. And at times is perceived as downright hateful.

I have come to terms with this part of my character. I will do it, and I will take my lumps if that is what expressing `how I see things' requires me to do.

During the primary wars here I said some things  which sent people over a cliff. And I was accused then of echoing right wing talking points and like that. What I said then, and what I say now, is that I am a former news reporter with the Associated Press and sources come from all sorts of places. Some are true and some are not. The days when we could safely assume that some sources were honorable and above board while others were Always biased and inaccurate are gone. For example, I watched Fox news during the primary because it was often the only place I could catch any pro-Hillary slant. I do not watch them now because they are essentially a Republican mouthpiece with a pro-McCain slant.

As for the issue of right wing sources, etc. To many on the left, almost any publication in Israel is suspect and ips facto right wing. I once published one line here that used some Israeli source--but only after it had been used by the Los Angeles Times. No one on here cared that the LA times had published what I was now saying. I was smeared as someone who quotes right wing whack jobs.

I did write for Savage Politics. I have not spoken to anyone there since  they published an avalanche of pure hate about me when I declared my  support the nominee. It was the same at Hill44. And I was  excommunicated by Alegre from Hillary'svoice with no explanation. I have not gone back to any of those sites and I have only heard from others how hateful they became about me.  Altho a few people do write me now and then and we discuss as best we can across this great divide that separates us now.

CFO began as a place for people who supported Hillary and who now support the nominee.  We wanted to commiserate and support one another. We were a truly small and rather isolated group. I think adleft and psychodrew are to be commended for their creating this haven and attracting a wonderful group of bloggers.

And then there is me. And here is my truth about Obama. I am skeptical. But because I will vote for him I work at liking him better. But ever since the primary ended he has been metamorphosing into something different than who he appeared to be in the primary. And so I feel as if I keep playing catchup.

For the record:

I do not think he is a secret Muslim. [although I wouldn't care if he was]
I have no issue with his middle name, and in fact, I like it.
I do think his campaign used the race card against the Clintons and I believe he lied about his relative going to Auschwitz.. [This was another one that brought down the house here and Canadian Gal was among the chief scoffers.]
I am beginning to like his wife and I think his kids are smart and spunky.
I think he has led an extraordinary life and I  like his thoughtful approach to issues.
I think his idea of a team of rivals is encouraging--as long as he is decisive.
I like his stand on off-shore drilling.
I wish he would speak out more forcefully about "women's issues," but I do not think he will give up a woman's right to choose. And I trust he will appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will ensure this is the case.
I think he will use Al Gore and we might actually get somewhere on the environment.

I could go on, but you get the drift.

Was I thrilled with his trip overseas. The answer is no. I thought it was a mistake. I think we are in an economic meltdown and people here at home are hurting, and something about that trip was not helpful to his image here. I especially do not think it helped his foreign policy credentials in the least. [My take on this may be influenced by the fact my Mom's savings were at risk when Indymac failed]

And then we come to prayer-gate. I am not going to rehash it all. Many, many here cannot understand that someone who supports him believes the prayer was deliberately leaked. After reading and seeing all there is to see about it I  would have to say that my honest opinion is: I don't know. And at this point I do think it is unclear what actually happened. But I  have a very jaundiced view of the Obama campaign machine. Perhaps this comes with having been on the other side in the primary, I don't know.

Does that make me a bad democrat? Does that make me someone who cannot support the nominee? Does that mean I am a troll or a right wing plant, or a Republican or engaging in swift boating our nominee?  

Of course not.

I am just speaking my truth the best I can, calling things as I see them, willing to listen and debate.

However, I have learned one important lesson through all of this. Maybe this is not the best time to dwell on our nominee's shortcomings. Obama does need to get elected. And I  am 100 percent on board with that necessity. So if this discussion about the leaking of the  prayer, which I assumed to be a discussion  among ourselves--all people who support him-- was not helpful--I apologize.

My 2 cents.

NO. The shooter at a Knoxville Church yesterday didn't open fire on a bunch of churchgoers killing two and injuring seven, because he didn't like "the liberal movement." This  is inaccurate  and it slides over the reality in a way that borders on falsehood.

The man who opened fire in a Tennesee church hated gays

The church had just put a sign up welcoming gays! Yeah. The shooter left a 4 page letter in his car saying he didn't like "the liberal movement," but  this is often code for a social agenda which fosters equal rights for gay people and that specifically was the trigger issue.

This is the headline that is more accurate:

Several people shot at gay affirming church in Knoxville. Shooter may have targeted church because of its support for gays.

Of course, this headline only appeared in a gay newspaper Out and About

When Kitty Genovese in 1964 was stabbed to death 25 times by a man in Queens-- while 38 bystanders looked on it and did nothing-- the case was reported in the national media as the worst case of bystander apathy in American history. In all the media publicity and furor, nowhere was the fact that Kitty Genovese was a lesbian, who had been prone to loud fights with her girlfriend, ever mentioned.

The bystanders who refused to help her as she was stabbed to death refused to come to the aid of a lesbian.

Bystander apathy was a phony issue. However, it was widely believed because a) no one  bothered to find out she was gay or b) if they did find out, refused to say so publicly.

As of 8 am today, two of the victims have died, two were treated and released and five remain in critical or serious condition at University of Tennessee Medical Center.

As a result of  the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church at its Sunday morning service, Linda Kraeger, 61, died last night at at UT Medical Center. Greg McKendry, 60, died when he confronted the gunman as he entered the church.

The shooter, Jim D. Adkisson 58, of Powell, Tenneessee, shot eight people with a 12 guage shotgun after firing 3 shells. Of those shot, all were adults: four women and three men. Although at the time of the shooting a group of children were singing from a church production of "Annie."

The FBI is assisting in the investigation which is required in a hate crime.

The church is the site of gay affirming activities. A member of the congregation wrote in a national blog that the church just recently put up a sign welcoming gays. One of the goals of the church's long range plan is to:

Increase congregational participation in human rights programs forgay/lesbian/transgendered persons.

"Elrod," who posted a comment on the blog The Moderate Voice says he is a member of the church. He said he was not present on Sunday, but did add:

all we know right now is that the suspect was not connected to the church in any way. I have no idea if the man had some sort of political or cultural agenda (TVUUC had just put up a sign welcoming gays to the congregation), or if it's just some lunatic acting for no reason at all.

The church  is home to Knoxville's Spectrum Café, which is an eight year old social gathering place for Knoxville area high school youth who:

support the principles of diversity, tolerance, and the worth and dignity of every human being.

Teens who come to Spectrum respect each others' ideas, religious views, race, sexual orientations, abilities, and ethnic backgrounds. The group welcomes:

self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, or who are questioning their sexual or gender identity.

The Knoxville Monday Gay Men's Group meets at the church each Monday from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

David Massey, who  is one of the coordinators of Spectrum Café, also known as "Spectrum Diversi-Tea and Coffee House," said recently in the Unitarian Universalist World Magazine:

We advertise it as a safe harbor for teens who identify as LBGTQ and their straight friends and allies, plus any other youth who are being harassed for religious beliefs, appearance, or abilities.

At least seven people were shot - Becky Thompson with UT Medical Center confirmed to NBC News that seven people were transported from the church to UTMC for medical treatment.

http://outandaboutnewspaper.com/article. php?id=2803

Okay. Look. I am not all impressed by the Obama Grand Tour. There was a movie a few years ago with Sandra Bullock who plays a grungy cop made over by Michael Caine to go undercover as a contestant in the Miss Universe Contest. One of the running jokes in that movie is that each contestant for the Biggie Prize ends  her speech with "And I am for World Peace."

So I just don't get how this 2 continents in  a handful of  days with photo ops, little prayers leaked to the press and Biggie speeches on World Peace makes Obama a better candidate for President.

I mean this is supposed to be shore up his foreign policy credentials? Frankly, I was embarrassed.

I also don't like grandiose and soaring hyperbole. I don't trust it. I feel as if I am always screaming in my head: but what the effing hell are you gonna do? Jeeze, as long as I am doing this I may as well say that for me, anyway, Obama's speeches don't touch Jack Kennedy's. Now that guy could give a speech.

Ok. OK. I know. I am out of synch with half the democrats in the country.  And this is probably when I should say I am going to vote for the guy. But I am nervous about it. I don't want to bring up unpleasant subjects, but FISA totally jammed up my personal little drive to get on the Bus.

Will he take out the troops in a year or won't he? Will he pick a Republican Vice President or won't he? Will he support gay rights and gay marriage, let alone repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell or won't he? For every person who tells you he will do all these things, there is another one with evidence who says he says he won't.

Obama has left a trail of  misdirection, half-truths and pandered positions that makes my head swim. And I don't like it.

So maybe now you are wondering why I am going to vote for the guy. I hate John McCain. And I hate the Republican Party. I fear the election of John McCain the way some people fear snakes. He is the Anti-Christ. And the Republican Party is the elephant in the middle of  America's living room. So I am I guess the loyal opposition. And I want to see people here hold Barack Obama's feet to the fire on basic Democratic Party principles.

I don't wanna hear about a Republican Veep because this creepo could become President. I wanna hear about repealing the Patriot Act and FISA. I want to hear about bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, so we can begin to restore the reality--as opposed to giving lip service to the ideal-- of a free press. I want a President who is friendly with the press and does not manage it in the interest of image control. I want a President committed to Social Security, raising the minimum wage and universal health care. I want a doer--not a talker. I want a President who understands the value of a civil service with appointments across the board who are the best at their job. Bush has gutted this bedrock principle--a bedrock of our democracy and its  ability to serve our citizens well and fairly.

Sure I want all the bells and whistles in terms of a forward looking thinker about global warming, about moving us away from fossil fuel dependence, about solutions to  our shrinking water supply, about our cities built in deserts, and about our over population.

So here's the deal. I am taking Obama on faith in the Democratic Party. Because this guy, himself, ain't doing it for me. Will he be another Carter, as President?  I dunno. Ok. I know some of you love Carter. I didn't. Now there's a guy who could talk you to death. I myself do not think we would have ever gotten to where we are today in the Mideast if we had acted to free our hostages in Iran Immediately. And I don't think the party would have sunk so low with the American people.

So, the bottom line is this. Dear Barack Hussein Obama, stop with the effing soaring and get down here in the trenches with us little people who need healthcare and assistance with aging parents, who are losing their  homes in the mortgage fiasco and money in banks that are failing, who want to drive cars with better gas mileage and who know the time for mass transit is Here. We don't care about  fancy speeches. But we do care about vision and commitment and honesty.  Show us the money, Barack. OK??