Don’t vote … unless you care about your future, your children’s future, your grandchildren’s future, the economy, civil rights, human rights, women’s rights or gay rights, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to worship (or not to worship) how you choose, education, defense, the arts, the environment, alternative energy, renewable energy, oil prices, gas prices, healthcare, welfare, social security, veteran’s affairs … if you care about any of these things, then perhaps you might want to consider voting.

Vote your heart. Vote for the person who you feel best represents your values. Vote for the person who you think will do the best job.

But only if you care. Otherwise, don’t vote.

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. would be a proud man today … for his dream is almost reality.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

“My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!”

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

FLOGGING MOLLY - DRUNKEN LULLABIES

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Five hundred years like Gelignite
Have blown us all to hell
What Savior rests while on his cross we die
Forgotten freedom burns
Has the Shepherd led his lambs astray
to the bigot and the gun

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

I watch and stare as Rosin’s eyes
Turn a darker shade of red
And the bullet with this sniper lie
In their bloody gutless cell
Must we starve on crumbs from long ago
Through these bars of men made steel
Is it a great or little thing we fought
Left a conscience blessed to kill

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

Ah, well maybe it’s the way we’re taught
Or maybe it’s the way we fought
But a smile never grins without tears to begin
For each kiss is a cry we all lost
Though nothing is left to gain
But for the banshee that stole the grave
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

I sit and dwell on faces past
Like memories seem to fade
No colour left but black and white
And soon will all turn grey
But may these shadows rise to walk again
With lessons truly learnt
When the blossom flowers in each our hearts
Shall beat a new found flame

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

Yeah, sure, this song may technically be about about the fight for Irish freedom, fighting against an oppressive British regime, but the sentiment is valid in every nation being oppressed by its government, including our own.

For if anyone believes that the citizens of the United States are truly free anymore, they are seriously deluded. Thankfully, we only have another 6 1/2 months under our current oppressors, who will then retire off to Texas and Wyoming with taxpayer protection for the remainder of their lives.

One can only hope that our next President will help restore that which the current has taken away.

FLOGGING MOLLY - WHAT’S LEFT OF THE FLAG

His eyes they closed
And his last breath spoke
He had seen all to be seen
A life once full
Now an empty vase
Wilt the blossoms
On his early grave

Walk away, me boy
Walk away, me boy
And by morning we’ll be free
Wipe that golden tear
From your mother dear
And raise what’s left of the flag for me

Then the rosary beads
Count them: one, two, three
Fell apart as they hit the floor
In a garb of black
We must pay respect
To the color we’re born to mourn

Walk away, me boys
Walk away, me boys
And by morning we’ll be free
Wipe that golden tear
From your mother dear
And raise what’s left of the flag for me

In his place there grew
An angry festered wound
Filled with hatred and remorse
Where I pick and scratch
‘Til the blood amassed
To silent rage now that fills my lungs
For there are many ways
To kill a man they say
With bayonet, axe or sword
But son a bullet fired
From a shapeless guise
Just leaves the shell of a Thompson gun

Walk away, me boys
Walk away, me boys
And by morning we’ll be free
Wipe that golden tear
From your mother dear
And raise what’s left of the flag for me

From the east out to the western shore
Where many men and many more will fall
But no angel flies with me tonight
Though freedom reigns on all
And curse the name for which
We slaved our days
So every men chose Kingdom Come

But sure as night turns day
It’s the passion play
Oh my God
What have they done
With madmans rage
Well they dug our graves
But the dead rise again you fools

Walk away, me boys
Walk away, me boys
And by morning we’ll be free
Wipe that golden tear
From your mother dear
Raise what’s left of the flag for me

Walk away, me boys
Walk away, me boys
And by morning we’ll be free
Wipe that golden tear
From your mother dear
And raise what’s left of the flag for me

LONG, TOO LONG AMERICA

LONG, too long America,
Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn’d from joys and
        prosperity only,
But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grap-
        pling with direst fate and recoiling not,
And now to conceive and show to the world what your children
        en-masse really are,
(For who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children
        en-masse really are?)

AMERICA

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair’d in the adamant of Time.

  — Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), American poet, essayist, journalist and humanist.

To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world–and at the same time that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.

— Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, p. 15.

To be modern, I said, is to experience personal and social life as a maelstrom, to find one’s world and oneself in perpetual disintegration and renewal, trouble and anguish, ambiguity and contradiction: to be part of a universe in which all that is solid melts into air. To be a modernist is to make oneself somehow at home in the maelstrom, to make its rhythms one’s own, to move within its currents in search of the forms of reality, of beauty, of freedom, of justice, that its fervid and perilous flow allows.

— Ibid., pp. 345-346.

Gay Rights, Religious Liberties: A Three-Act Story : NPR

Morning Edition, June 16, 2008 · As gay couples in California head to the courthouse starting Monday to get legally married, there are signs of a coming storm. Two titanic legal principles are crashing on the steps of the church, synagogue and mosque: equal treatment for same-sex couples on the one hand, and the freedom to exercise religious beliefs on the other.

The collision that will play out over the next few years will be filled with pathos on both sides.

As many of my regular readers know, before I moved to Utah, I lived in San Francisco for many, many years, and Santa Cruz prior to that. Needless to say, having spent nearly 2 decades in Northern California, the issue of gay rights has had a lot of visibility in my life … so to me, the recent California Supreme Court decision overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriage prompted thoughts of “It’s about freakin’ time!”

I’ve always felt that it was just plain wrong to deny gay couples involved in a committed long-term and loving relationship the same basic rights that a violent, abusive husband has simply by virtue that his wife hasn’t yet filed for divorce.

And seriously, how does Adam & Steve getting married have a negative impact on Adam & Eve’s marriage?

Wedding bells chime for California same-sex couples

Lesbian rights activists Del Martin, 87, and Phyllis Lyon, 84, were the first same-sex couple to receive a marriage license in San Francisco on Monday, with Mayor Gavin Newsom presiding over their wedding ceremony.

“This is an extraordinary moment in history,” Newsom told a cheering, standing-room-only crowd at City Hall. “I think today, marriage as an institution has been strengthened.”

But this morning, I listened to the above linked (and excerpted) story on NPR’s Morning Edition … and it got me thinking about some of the other involved issues tied to gay marriage … and religious freedom.

In the story, a lesbian couple wished to have their (New Jersey) civil union ceremony performed in a Pavilion owned by a Methodist retreat center, formally known as the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. The Methodist group gave them permission to have their ceremony anywhere on the property except those areas used for religious purposes by the group.

The couple filed an anti-discrimination suit. The NPR story continues:

The Methodist organization responded that it was their property, and the First Amendment protects their right to practice their faith without government intrusion. But Lustberg countered that the pavilion is open to everyone — and therefore the group could no more refuse to accommodate the lesbians than a restaurant owner could refuse to serve a black man. That argument carried the day. The state revoked the organization’s tax exemption for the pavilion area. Hoffman figures they will lose $20,000.

Now, with the help of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian legal firm, Hoffman is appealing the case to state court. He says religious freedom itself is in jeopardy.

“And that potentially affects every religious organization in America, not just Christian organizations, but every religious organization. And I get calls from Jewish rabbis who are equally concerned — people from across the spectrum who think it’s a battle worth fighting. And we agree,” Hoffman says.

Now, I am hardly the most religious person in the world, but I do believe that any person should be able to practice the religion of their choice … and in this particular case, I happen to agree with Reverend Hoffman; especially since the group didn’t tell the couple they couldn’t have their ceremony on the property at all, just not within structures used for religious purposes by the group.

A case like this, carried to its extreme, could mean that the the Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (and everyone else) could be forced to allow gay couples to hold their civil ceremonies (and/or marriages, in those states which currently or will ultimately allow them) on, and within Church property.

While part of me finds the idea of the Mormons being forced to allow gay weddings amusing, not only on Temple Square but within the Temple itself, a far bigger part of me feels that the members of a church should be allowed to worship as they please, and that churches should be able to disallow activity on their property that goes against their core beliefs.

I don’t equate a church refusing to allow a gay couple to “marry” on church property because it’s against their religious beliefs, with a restaurant owner refusing to serve a person simply based on the color of their skin … primarily because owning a business isn’t protected as free speech or freedom of religion, as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Elsewhere in the overall piece is a story about a wedding photographer who was sued for discrimination because his business indicated that they would not photograph same-sex marriages because it goes against the owners’ religious beliefs.

This is a little closer to the restaurant analogy … but it’s still an iffy situation.

I’m afraid that these kinds of legal battles may lead to a backlash against the gay and lesbian community; that groups like the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association will close up their property to everyone, and only allow it to be used for religious purposes. I’m afraid that more states; less enlightened states, will put amendments banning gay marriage into their constitutions.

I’m afraid that society, while making making some huge steps forward right now, will get pushed back even further …

What are your thoughts, dear readers?