Define Benefit

State Senator Luke Kenley is quoted in a news story about the public transportation bill currently before the General Assembly.

“I have a surprisingly large number of constituents who are strongly opposed to this,”  says Sen. Kenley (R-Noblesville.)  “They just feel like it’s going to be a tax increase on them without any particular benefit.”

There are a number of responses that come to mind: the most obvious is that all the bill requires is an opportunity for the citizens who will be taxed to vote on the matter. Those opposed will have an opportunity to make that opposition known.

That said, the belief that those who wouldn’t use public transportation wouldn’t benefit from its availability is incredibly short-sighted. We all benefit from cleaner air, economic development and improved quality of life–all outcomes associated with the availability of good public transportation systems. The attitude displayed by Kenley’s constituents reminds me of people who don’t want to support good schools, because their own children are grown, despite ample evidence that a good school system adds to property values and an educated workforce is a requirement for economic development.

These are all tangible benefits that even the whiners will enjoy. But we might also wonder whether there isn’t some intangible benefit in creating a community that works for everyone, not just the self-satisfied “makers” with two cars parked in the garage of their suburban home in a gated community.

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Representing Indiana?

The Journal-Gazette has an article about Indiana Congressman Marlon Stutzman, and his “leadership” on “gun rights.”

So far this year, in his second term in the House, he has sponsored legislation that would require states to honor one another’s concealed-carry gun permits, and he has written letters inviting gun manufacturers Beretta USA and Magpul to move to Indiana from Maryland and Colorado, respectively, because of gun-control bills advancing in those states’ legislatures.

The article details Stutzman’s role as leader of a new Congressional committee formed to “protect” Second Amendment rights, and his ownership of a small arsenal of weapons of his own. It also notes the variance between his positions on gun-control issues and those of the public, as shown in numerous recent polls. Like all Indiana Republican Representatives, his candidacy was endorsed and supported financially by the NRA.

Interestingly, Stutzman was the only Indiana Congressperson to vote against the Violence Against Women Act.

Draw whatever conclusions you will.

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The Personal and the Political

There has been a flurry of publicity in the wake of Ohio Senator Rob Portman’s announcement that he has changed his position on same-sex marriage. Portman had been a reliable vote for pro-discrimination measures—he’d supported DOMA and voted for a Constitutional amendment to declare marriage a union between one man and one woman, among other things. Now, he is the only Republican Senator to support marriage equality. So what changed his mind?

His son came out.

Critics immediately pounced. The criticisms focused on the fact that Portman was perfectly willing to demonize and disenfranchise people he didn’t know—that it was only when disparate legal status hit closer to home that he was willing to re-examine his previous positions.  Some speculated that he had never really been a “culture warrior”—he had never led the charge against GLBT folks, only voted the party line—but that he’d been willing to parrot the homophobes in his party (and not so incidentally pander to the GOP base) until the policies hit close to home.

Others in the gay community were more willing to welcome Portman to the side of the good guys, essentially arguing “better late than never.” If it took a personal connection to the issue to usher Portman out of the dark side, so be it. At least he made the move. And he clearly loves and accepts his son. (A reporter asked Rick Santorum how he would react in a similar situation, and the answer was far less affirming.)

My own reaction is that Portman’s intellectual honesty is irrelevant. If there is anything that this most recent conversion proves, it is the wisdom of the tactic of coming out—the broad and lasting political impact of thousands of acts of personal courage over a period of many years.

I remember the time when most gay people were firmly in the closet—when a chance encounter with one of my sons’ high school teachers when my husband and I met friends at a local gay bar clearly terrified him. Had I mentioned the encounter, he could have lost his job. In that world, a bigot like Jesse Helms could credibly claim that he’d never met a gay person. In the popular imagination of the time, gay men wore feather boas and danced in gay bars. Gays and lesbians were exotic “others,” and easy to demonize.

Coming Out as a deliberate political tactic changed that forever.

Younger gay people may still dread coming out to their friends and families, but the environment they face is dramatically more accepting than it was ten or twenty years ago. For that, they owe an earlier generation a great debt of gratitude. A generation ago, coming out took tremendous courage. You could lose your job, your friends, your family. The thousands who took that risk, however, put a face on what had previously been faceless. Suddenly, gays weren’t some deviant and foreign species—they were your doctor, your nephew, your Aunt Gladys and her “roommate” of 30+ years. They were people you knew and loved.

They were Ellen DeGeneris and Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow.

In the early days of the Women’s Movement, a favorite saying was “The personal is the political.” Each of us has the power to change social norms—one person at a time, confronting injustice, makes a difference. The enormous cultural shift that has occurred as a result of thousands of GLBT folks coming out is proof that the slogan is true.

At the end of the day, do we really care whether Rob Portman casts a vote for equality because he has weighed the equities of the situation and recognized that it is the just and moral thing to do, or because he loves his son?

I don’t think so.

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Send Money

I’m turning this morning’s post over to a government teacher at Cathedral High School, who is trying to raise money for her students to travel to Washington, D.C. to compete in the national We The People contest.

My name is Jill Baisinger; I am the coach of Cathedral High School’s We the People team.  My class is trying to fund raise our trip to Washington D.C. for the We the People National Competition.  Below is some information regarding the program and our school’s involvement.  

We the People is a national civic education program that is taught in 5th grade, 8th grade, and 12th grade classrooms. Its purpose is to help prepare students to become more active citizens. Students specialize in an area of constitutional studies from founding philosophies, historical application, civil rights, civil liberties, or current applications. The culminating activity is a competition set up as a Congressional hearing where students take and defend their constitutional view as they have a conversation with attorneys, judges, historians, and other members of the community.

This is only Cathedral’s second year to have a We the People program, yet the team this year won their Congressional district competition and the Indiana State competition, which is one of the three hardest competitions in the country. Cathedral is now “Team Indiana” – and will represent Indiana at the National hearings at the end of April in Washington D.C.

In the past, when We the People was fully funded through a Congressional earmark, the Indiana Bar Foundation was able to pick up the cost of the team to travel to D.C. and compete. During these economic hard times, this is no longer the case; now the team must raise $33,000 to get to the national competition. Students, parents, and Cathedral High School are working hard to make this come true – and this is what the money would go toward – getting the team to D.C. to compete against the best We the People teams across the country.

The students and I would be more than happy to do a 15 minute demonstration for you, to introduce you to the program. Or I would be more than willing to meet you to chat about the benefits of the program myself – Just let me know! Here is the website for our group – that gives a little more information about the program, history at Cathedral, and the team’s achievements in a short period of time. www.gocathedral.com/wethepeople ;

If you are interested in more information on ways to make a tax-deductible contribution to Cathedral’s “We the People…” team, please contact Cathedral’s Development Officer, Michelle Rhodes at (317) 968 – 7311 ormrhodes@gocathedral.com.

The decision to de-fund We The People has to rank as one of the stupidest, “penny-wise, pound foolish” decisions by a Congress that seems to wallow in stupidity. The program is one of the very few that has consistently been demonstrated to be effective in imparting basic civic understanding. As someone who has been a judge for the state contest, I can personally attest to the depth of historical and constitutional knowledge the students display. And unlike contests like “brain game,” all of the students in a given class participate–the extent of that participation is one of the criteria for which points are awarded. A couple of bright kids can’t “carry” the others.

I know young people for whom participation in We The People was a turning point, an experience that engaged them in active citizenship for years afterward. Competing at the national level can only intensify that experience.

I’m going to send a contribution to Cathedral; I hope many of you reading this will choose to do likewise.

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