Nick Vaughn: "A Historian’s Perspective on Confederate Statues."

I first met Nick Vaughn in 2015 when he was younger than he is now (oddly, I haven't aged) and was running for city council in the Republican primary. Nick lost a very close race, then graduated from high school, began his studies at Hanover College, breezed through university in what seemed like a few months, and ran for office again, this time for a county council seat. Unfortunately Nick lost another  tighterthanthis primary contest, but he's plowing forward with plans for the resurrection of The Aggregate (stay tuned) ... and found time to submit this guest column.   

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A Historian’s Perspective on Confederate Statues

I do not like to tout my credentials because I was taught to always be humble, however I feel it is necessary to explain my educational background for clarification. Firstly, on May 1st I graduated from Hanover College with a Bachelor of Arts in History. I did not have an official focus and I took classes on many topics including The Reformation, American Revolution and early republic, and a class specifically dedicated to Abraham Lincoln’s life, legacy, and how he has been portrayed by historians and popular media throughout the years. Additionally, I wrote my required Senior Thesis on Abraham Lincoln’s sole term in Congress.

While I tried to keep a diverse schedule of classes, I always gravitated towards the classes covering the time period from 1815 to the end of Reconstruction. Of course, the Civil War lay in-between the start and end date of the period of American History I find most interesting.

Before truly diving into the subject at hand, I also want to highlight my experience as a Republican college student. Many faux-conservative, incendiary personalities would have you think that Republicans are under constant chastisement, harassment, and belittlement on a college campus. Some also would have you believe that college campuses are hollowed liberal grounds where only the Democrats, Socialists, and Communists are able to freely share thoughts and ideas.

Friends, while I cannot speak for all college campuses, this was not my experience at Hanover College. You know those faux-conservatives I mentioned? I’m sure they have a rough time at colleges like Hanover. In fact, I know some who did. This is not because of their ideology, instead it is because of their inability to craft a coherent, fact-based argument. Additionally, some were poor students. I have had plenty of disagreements with professors who hold different political beliefs than I do, however I was never punished, chastised, harassed, or belittled for being a Republican. At Hanover, you don’t survive based on your ideology, but instead on the laurels and merits of your argument.

To suggest Hanover College is a very liberal school in an attempt to discredit what we have learned and the hard work it took is dishonest and extremely disrespectful to the thousands of people who have graduated from the college.

As someone who loves history and possesses a degree in the subject, the past couple of weeks with protests across the country advocating for police reform seemed like an unlikely place I would find myself. Of course, many are pointing out the shades of similarities this year has had to the 1920s due to a pandemic, or the year 1968 due to heightened racial tensions brought on by long standing and systemic injustices.

Recently, scars from the American Civil War have begun to be reopened as protesters advocating for racial equality have (rightly) begun advocating for the removal of Confederate statues and symbols from publicly owned land. As someone who has studied the Civil War, the Union, the Confederacy, and the historiography, this seems appropriate to me. Why do we have statues and symbols dedicated to traitors who attempted to break the Union because they wanted to enslave people?

To my initial surprise, many do not agree with this sentiment. However, after remembering back to my “Readings on the American Civil War” class, a class dedicated to the study of Civil War Historiography (what historians and scholars have written about the Civil War), I recall a couple weeks where we discussed Southern Revisionism and the Lost Cause ideology.

As someone who has read Jefferson Davis’ The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which, like nearly all former Confederate traitors, attempted to rationalize the reason for the South’s attempted secession as being due to states’ rights (and as being honorable), I can tell you this distorted reality is very far from the truth.

So why do people think that tearing down Confederate statues and symbols is “tearing down history?” Well, I suppose those monuments dedicated to traitors are historical in the sense that they represent a historical event, although from a perverted point of view. The argument, to me, is not whether they are historical or not, it is why do statues of traitors exist in the first place and why are people so irrationally attached to them?

There are three points I want to make in attempting to answer those questions: first, Southern Revisionism, the coming of the Second Ku Klux Klan, and groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy have spread lies so successfully about the American Civil War, that many schools across America still incorrectly teach the subject. Second, history is much more complicated and nuanced than Twitter or Facebook allow historical events to be conveyed. Third, racial undertones have turned into overtones regarding the subject as the removal of statues have been used as rallying points for the alt-right, neo-Nazis, and other traitorous and dangerous organizations.

In regards to Southern Revisionism as it relates to the KKK an infamous black and white film by D.W. Griffith (a Southern Revisionist who made propaganda films in support of the Lost Cause, white supremacy, and the KKK), The Birth of a Nation highlights the disgusting and disingenuous imagery and language used by Southern Revisionists. David W. Blights points out in his book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory that “Dixon's [Dixon wrote the book Griffith’s film was based on] vicious version of the idea that blacks had caused the Civil War by their very presence, and that Northern radicalism during Reconstruction failed to understand that freedom had ushered blacks as a race into barbarism, neatly framed the story of the rise of heroic vigilantism in the South. Reluctantly, Klansmen—white men—had to take the law into their own hands in order to save Southern white womanhood from the sexual brutality of black men. Dixon's vision captured the attitude of thousands and forged in story form a collective memory of how the war may have been lost but Reconstruction was won—by the South and a reconciled nation. Riding as masked cavalry, the Klan stopped corrupt government, prevented the anarchy of 'Negro rule' and most of all, saved white supremacy.”

Today, you see similar disingenuous remarks made on Twitter regarding the cause of the Civil War. One tweet that made my blood boil is shown here.

The supposed quote from Robert E. Lee is fake, however he has written similar things as a way to play into and prop up the Lost Cause ideology. The quote, which is one sentence in a much longer statement from Abraham Lincoln attempts to portray Lincoln as never truly being opposed to slavery and instead was focused on the preservation of the Union. The full quote, from 1862, is “If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

The main goal of the war, in Lincoln’s mind, was certainly the preservation of the Union, however it should be noted that Lincoln was opposed to slavery ever since he saw the boats carrying slaves on the Ohio River between Indiana and Kentucky. During his time in Congress, he introduced a resolution to end the practice in Washington D.C. The issue of slavery and Lincoln is, as I stated earlier, much too complex for a Twitter or Facebook post. Hell, it’s even too complex for this article. If you’d like to learn more about Lincoln and the issue of slavery, I recommend starting by reading my thesis (linked above) and then using the bibliography to find further reading. Additionally, the movie Lincoln is a good starting point as well.

In the AP’s article on the disparity between where someone lives and how the Civil War is taught, they point out that “Confederate sympathizers have long promoted the “Lost Cause” theory that the Southern side was heroic against impossible odds, and that slavery was not the driving force behind the war. Edward Countryman, a history professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said he learned that idea growing up in New York State in the 1950s.”

I want to especially point your attention to the “growing up ... in the 1950s” part of that quote. I would be being dishonest if I did not point out the obvious generational differences in the understanding of the Civil War. Not to be overly general, but the vast majority of people I know who post on Facebook about Lost Cause ideology and are opposed to the removal of Confederate statues and symbols are of a certain, older age group typically labeled “Baby Boomers.” This is because during the 50s and 60s, in response to the Civil Rights Movement, the Lost Cause ideology saw a resurgence and began to be taught in white schools again (or even more vigorously if not previously ended).

To be fair, both people vastly older and vastly younger have fallen victim to the Lost Cause myth, and it makes sense that more people will as Facebook and Twitter refuse to label falsehoods as such.

If there is anything you should take away from this article, I hope it is this: if you think that tearing down Confederate statues and symbols, memorials to traitors who enslaved people, is tearing down history, you might want to turn off the phone and computer, and pick up a book written by a reputable historian, take a trip to a museum, watch the movie Lincoln (not Gone With the Wind), or give me a call, because I am sick and tired of the ignorance.

A good reading list on the topic:

David W. Blight, Race and Reunion
David Donald, Lincoln
Kenneth Winkle, The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln
Kenneth Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War
William Davis, Look Away
Gary Gallagher, The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History

Routine traffic stops? "Let's stop using the terrible design of our cities as a random pretext and, instead, be proactive about fixing the design."

I'm having trouble finding the extract from this essay that best conveys the central point, so I've chosen two.

Routine Traffic Stops Should Not Be Used to Fight Violent Crime, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

“I’ll bet we can watch him drive for five minutes and pick out a traffic infraction.”

Those were the words of a Louisville police officer speaking to a resident about her son. The young man had been pulled over for an improper turn, which led to a lengthy episode in which he was ordered from his car, frisked, and then handcuffed while his (turned out to be mom’s) car was searched and, to a degree, dismantled.

There is a lot of outrage about this video. It’s a case study in psychology, and not a flattering one. But I’m not going to focus on that. Instead, I want to return to a topic I’ve written and spoken extensively about: the routine traffic stop.

Back in 2016, I wrote a column calling for an end to the routine traffic stop. My arguments were simple. First, routine traffic stops are very dangerous for police officers. Second, they have little to do with traffic safety. And, third, the pretext for most routine traffic stops—that someone has committed a traffic infraction—is arbitrary, disingenuous, and ripe for all the worst kinds of abuse.

As I wrote in a follow up piece, also from 2016:

Randomly enforcing traffic laws that are routinely ignored in other times and places (because they are not well-correlated to actual safety) as a pretext to initiate contact with high crime populations is unnecessarily dangerous for all involved. In addition to breeding resentment, I also strongly suspect it does not reduce crime, although it creates the illusion of fighting crime.

If we're worried about traffic safety, let's deal with that. If we're worried about catching bad guys, let's deal with that. Let's stop using the terrible design of our cities as a random pretext and, instead, be proactive about fixing the design.

There is a breakdown of the Louisville incident, then several conclusions.

And because I care about traffic safety, when the GPS coordinates associated with traffic infractions show a cluster of violations in the same spot, we need to get our engineers and urban designers out there to make some changes to the site. Our streets should be designed to be intuitively safe. If people are repeatedly doing unsafe things in a specific place, that indicates a design issue. The answer is to fix the design.

And because tens of thousands of people die in automobile collisions each year, and many more people—inside and outside of vehicles—are maimed and crippled through auto crashes, I want traffic enforcement taken seriously. I want it to focus on serious deviants: those operating a vehicle in ways that are threatening. And I want it done by traffic police, not by a violent crimes unit using traffic law as a pretext for a fishing expedition.

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Democratic mayoral candidate David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing, and NA Confidential advocates just such a deep civic cleansing. 

After eight years on the job, Mayor Jeff Gahan's list of stunning "achievements" is long, indeed: tax increases, budgetary hide 'n' seek, self-deification, daily hypocrisy, public housing takeover, non-transparency, pay-to-play for no-bid contracts, bullying city residents and bullying city employees. Eight years is enough. It's time to drain Gahan's swamp, flush his ruling clique and take this city back from Gahan's Indy-based special interest donors. 

NA Confidential supports David White for Mayor in the Democratic Party primary, with voting now through May 7. 

Evan Stoner previews the advent of Southern Indiana Pride.

Evan's essay begins with an appropriate history lesson before seguing to the launch of Southern Indiana Pride. It appears that Southern Indiana Pride will be a successor of sorts to a previous group, now defunct. 

UPDATE: Southern Indiana Equality is no more.

At times it takes time, and the time seems right ... right now.

Launching Southern Indiana Pride, by Evan Stoner at Medium

... Hyper-partisanship and division plagues the current state of U.S. national discourse. I strongly believe that re-discovering American unity rests squarely on the shoulders of my generation. Since 2016, Jeffersonville Pride has refused to pour gasoline on a partisan wildfire. Our organization has consistently invited leaders who represent opposing political views to speak at Jeffersonville Pride and have welcomed support from Democratic and Republican leaders. Why? Because supporting LGBT civil rights transcends political partisanship. In these starkly divided times, our organization has been a strong voice of unity. We are proud of this identity, and we are proud to announce an upcoming event that will truly reflect our commitment to building bridges of unity throughout our hometown.

In early October, a brand new organization will launch. Southern Indiana Pride will harness the support and enthusiasm of Southern Indiana creators, educators, business leaders, and world-changers from across our region to work towards advancing LGBT inclusion and equality in Southern Indiana. Southern Indiana Pride will take Jeffersonville Pride’s place as the new host of the annual PRIDE parade and festival in Southern Indiana. Southern Indiana Pride is slated to take place summer 2019 in Jeffersonville.

The official launch of Southern Indiana Pride will take place at 7PM on National Coming Out Day, October 11th, 2018 at 300 Spring St. in downtown Jeffersonville! ...

R.I.P. Dick Leitsch. His "sip in" was a pioneering act of civil disobedience, clearing "the way for gay bars to operate openly in New York State."

Photo credit: The Villager.

“If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, not as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles.”
― Howard Zinn, The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy

Time for a history lesson.

Dick Leitsch, Whose ‘Sip-In’ Was a Gay Rights Milestone, Dies at 83, by Robert D. McFadden (New York Times)

 ... Three years before the Stonewall Inn uprising accelerated the gay rights movement in America, Mr. Leitsch challenged the common practice of bars’ serving gay customers under a no-questions-asked arrangement necessitated by an unwritten State Liquor Authority policy that regarded homosexuals as inherently “disorderly.” Bars that knowingly served them could have their liquor licenses revoked.

The policy, supported by no law and apparently unconstitutional because it precluded the right to free assembly, led to charades by gay men and lesbians. They would sometimes minimize their sexual identities by avoiding affectionate touching or dancing with one another or any other conduct that might be interpreted as “queer.” Bartenders looked the other way and poured the gin.

It was just another of the countless indignities and rights violations that gay men and lesbians endured in an age when vice squads raided bars frequented by gay clientele and entrapped men in homosexual “encounters.” Many publications, including The New York Times, referred to gay men and lesbians as “sexual deviates.”

Hypocrisy infected the era. Gay men and lesbians were widely regarded as sick by the medical establishment, sinners by the clergy and criminals by the law. Judges accepted the testimony of undercover officers who had solicited sex from gay men and then arrested them. For those with a name, job or family to protect, lewdness charges could carry fines, jail time and ruinous publicity ...

(Psst -- it's not about the flag or the military, and it never has been.)

I'm often reminded of Thomas Jefferson's words:

"Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

To avoid misinformed confusion, readers old enough to remember the Vietnam War era will recall Tricky Dicky Nixon's law-and-order platform, as a blunt missile aimed squarely against "anti-American" war protesters (attacking the flag and our soldiers overseas) and African-Americans (being all uppity about rights and freedoms).

A space alien (or Mr. Spock) might ask: But was the overseas war just, and did the civil rights protesters have a point?

If you're saying to yourself, well, I never protest, and when I do it is done tastefully, so as to be inoffensive to others ... you just might be revealing yourself as a privileged societal cog unable to fathom injustice.

Would you have participated in the American Revolution?

If so, on which side?

You see, etiquette typically goes out the window when TJ's tipping point occurs, as it did in America in 1776, or in Russia in 1917.

Of course, the plain fact is that NFL protests have been breathtakingly sober and polite. If you're upset about free speech and conscience, but not troubled by the mangled brains of players who perform so you can remain safely inside your bubble, there isn't much more anyone can say except "dude, I'm so very sorry for you."

It’s Not About the Flag or the Military. It Never Has Been.

When athletes protest during the national anthem, they are acting on behalf of people who can’t speak as loudly.

By Andrew Cohen (Brennan Center for Justice)

President Trump’s weekend attack on athletes exercising their constitutional right to protest followed the longtime model used by police unions. Instead of acknowledging the legitimacy of the complaint that there is discrimination and misconduct in policing — Trump, like the unions, changed the subject, lashing out at the athletes as unpatriotic, even anti-American. The protests were mischaracterized as attacks on the flag, the anthem, the military, or the nation itself. As if it were ordained somewhere that one must stand, as opposed to kneel, for the anthem.

This is nonsense, of course. There is nothing more American than protesting injustice when it is manifest, nothing more patriotic than speaking for those who do not have a voice or whose voices are rarely heard. When people protest police misconduct, and racial disparities in our criminal justice systems, they are acting to improve the conditions of their fellow Americans, acting to force necessary reform on people (like Trump) and institutions (like police unions) that resist this change. This is “anti-American” or unpatriotic only if you believe the protections of the First Amendment are overrated or unnecessary. And only if you believe it’s unpatriotic to want to make America more just ...

1960s activists on modern politics: "I hate cynicism; you have to fight."

You say you want a revolution? If so, it's time to begin defining your terms.

'I hate cynicism; you have to fight': 1960s activists on modern politics, by Sarah Marsh and Guardian readers

From Donald Trump to Brexit, the world is changing rapidly. Here, those who lived through the transformative 1960s give their view on changing times

Since becoming the US president-elect, Donald Trump has left some people worrying about their rights. He has vowed to roll back on abortion freedoms and deport millions of illegal immigrants with criminal records. He has also appointed Steve Bannon, who has been labelled a “white nationalist”, as White House chief strategist.

Many of the liberties being challenged were fought for and won in the 1960s. The women’s liberation movement, for example, battled for abortion to be made legal (it happened in the UK in 1967 and the US in 1973). In America, the civil rights movement, led by Martin Luther King, campaigned for racial equality and against discrimination.

So how do those who stood up for these freedoms feel about Trump? We spoke to activists in the US and the UK about the 1960s and whether they believe what they battled for is now at risk. We also asked their advice on dealing with political uncertainty and standing up for what you believe in.

On being a woman in Iceland.

Not an Aunt Tammy here ... photo credit: The Nation.

Rewinding to a time when it had been only 30 years since the Cubs played in the World Series:

... What made Iceland’s day of protest on 24 October 1975 so effective was the number of women who participated. It was not just the impact of 25,000 women – which, at the time, was a fifth of the female population – that gathered on the streets of Reykjavik, but the 90% of Iceland’s female population who went on all-out professional and domestic strike. Teachers, nurses, office workers, housewives put down tools and didn’t go to work, provide childcare or even cook in their kitchens. All to prove how indispensable they were.

Brilliant.

Why Iceland is the best place in the world to be a woman, by Noreena Hertz (The Guardian)

Since 1975, the Nordic country has blazed the trail in gender equality and now, from infancy to maternity, women and girls enjoy a progressive lifestyle. But how did they achieve it?

Rebekka is so tiny that, even on her tiptoes, arms aloft, she cannot reach. So her teacher lifts her up to the unvarnished wooden monkey bar. “One, two, three,” her classmates count. She hangs on, determinedly. When she reaches 10, she jumps to the ground. “I am strong,” she shouts proudly.

It’s an ordinary morning for this single-sex class of three-year-olds at Laufásborg nursery school in Reykjavik. No dolls or cup-cake decorating on the lesson plan here. Instead, as Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir, the school’s founder, tells me: “We are training [our girls] to use their voice. We are training them in physical strength. We are training them in courage.”

It’s a fascinating approach to education. And a popular one. In a country of only 330,000 people, there are 19 such primary and nursery schools, empowering girls from an early age.

The council's DemoDisneyDixiecrats: Co-option comes right after self-interest, and just before irrelevance.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana lists the rights below under the all-purpose umbrella of "equality." They're merely an opening salvo, not a detailed rendering.

It seems to me that if one must "belong" to one (or more) of these groupings in order to feel solidarity with them, and consequently to take action on their behalf, prospects are daunting indeed for ultimate success in their advocacy.

On Thursday, the only openly gay member of New Albany's city council offered a non-binding resolution expressing solidarity with the city of Orlando in the wake of the horrible massacre there. The resolution noted support of universal LGBT rights and repudiated violence. It was impeccable, and all eight council representatives in attendance concurred.

Yet, there is something nagging about this. While it is perfectly fitting and proper that councilman Greg Phipps represents the conscience of the LGBT community in his job as member of the body, if representation derives only from identity, then the body is not at all representative.

Look at the list below. There are no women, immigrants or racial minorities on the city council. Only one councilman is south of 45 years of age. None are disabled. Our council is composed of nine white males with an average age of around 60.

At Thursday's meeting, Dan Coffey ventured the view that perhaps there should be a council resolution on behalf of all those who've suffered from violence, irrespective of identifier or subheading, and he was right (though probably for the wrong reasons).

However, what is needed even more than another omnibus, non-binding resolution is some coherent notion of how the city's executive body can be part of the solution when it comes to all these human rights issues raised by the ACLU -- and don't even bother mentioning the city's Human Rights Commission, which was built to be moribund.

At the moment, this idea seems more likely to emanate from council's three Republicans and two Independents rather than its remaining four Democrats, who surely find themselves tied to a governing political party script that defines quid pro quo in exacting detail.

I'd suggest that they closely examine the "quid" before accepting the terms of the "pro quo," because co-option comes right after self-interest, and just before irrelevance.

As much as we'd all like to wave a magic wand and produce a society of love, not hate, the chances are slim. All we can do is to keep on keeping on. At the same time, municipal government can help achieve substantive progress in these human rights areas, if only incremental, but the legislative body cannot do so by deferring to the carpenters of stage scenery in the back corridors of City Hall.

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EQUALITY
"All men are created equal." While it is a simple concept, it is one that can be especially hard to put into practice. The course of American history has been paved by movements for equality — civil rights, women's rights, and most recently, LGBT rights. The ACLU of Indiana has been there to fight for them all.

Disability Rights
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) prohibits discrimination and ensures equal opportunity for persons with disabilities in employment, state and local government services, public accommodations, commercial facilities, and transportation.

Immigrants' Rights
Under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the rights of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.

LGBT Rights
Religious freedom is fundamentally important; that's why it's already protected in our state and federal Constitutions. But that doesn't give any of us the right to discriminate against others. We must ensure that hardworking gay and transgender people are not denied a job, evicted from their apartment, or refused service by a business just because of who they are.

Women's Rights
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall ...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Youth Rights
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides for equal application of the laws, prohibiting states from denying any person the equal protection of its laws.

Racial Justice
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana mounts epic struggles to ensure everyone in America gets to enjoy the rights, freedoms and liberties that the Constitution guarantees. Since our formation, we have been involved in all aspects of the struggle for racial justice across the United States.

Southern Republicans imitate Indiana Republicans, or maybe vice-versa.

In an essay charting this year's “God, guns and gays” legislative sessions, as occurring down yonder in the defeated Confederacy, during which reactionary laws were enthusiastically embraced, only to illicit backlash from the very business and economic engines sustaining local economies, we're unfortunately reminded that when it comes to geography, the Mason-Dixon line has a weird curvature near the shores of Lake Michigan.

"Following a pattern established last year in Indiana."

Jeeebus, that hurts.

Southern Republicans: Going rogue (The Economist)

Republicans in the southern statehouses are angry—fundamentally, perhaps, about the waning of the values they are fighting for.

 ... On the face of it, much of this seems odd. Judging by the rhetoric of the Republican presidential contest, the country is going to the dogs; in parts of the South, the infrastructure is indeed crumbling. Yet the region’s politicians are concentrating on problems that, to put it mildly, are often less than pressing. Florida passed a law stopping clergy from being dragooned into conducting same-sex marriages, a threat already neutralised by America’s constitution. Predatory men infiltrating women’s toilets, the spectre raised in North Carolina and elsewhere, is a similarly apocryphal fear. Remarkably some southern governors have elevated such concerns above job-creation. Many in Georgia think Mr Deal should have followed suit: predicting that “religious liberty” will haunt next year’s session, too, Josh McKoon, a disappointed state senator, says that while “prosperity is an important value, so is individual freedom”.

What explains this eccentric turn? It is a reaction, most obviously, to last year’s Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, of the kind that often follows dramatic social change. Melton McLaurin, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, notes that this particular “rearguard action” resembles opposition to racial desegregation in emphasising the supposed endangerment of women and children. But many southern Republicans feel beleaguered by more than one ruling: they see Washington as at once insidiously liberal and hopelessly gridlocked. Religious-liberty bills and the like offer the consolation of decisive action (even if some are destined to be struck down), of a sort that, unlike new roads and bridges, requires no tax dollars ...

 ... Tension between urban liberals and their more conservative environs is an old story, given extra piquancy by the migration to some southern cities of sophisticated types from elsewhere in the country. Yet the role of demography in the South’s political convulsions runs deeper. As well as exemplifying the frictions between different levels of government and different strands of Republicanism (business-minded and religious), these flashpoints also illuminate a bigger clash: between the past and the future.

"Pence’s attack on women’s rights, and on Indiana."

And Ron Grooms sticks to Pence like glue.

Tully: Pence’s attack on women’s rights, and on Indiana, by Matthew Tully (Indy Star)

Time and again, Gov. Mike Pence has hurt Indiana with his ideological obsessions. This time, he has signed an abortion bill that has been condemned by doctors and many others.

For the 11 years I’ve written this column, I’ve largely avoided one topic: Abortion.

I've avoided it for many reasons. For one, I saw no way that anything I wrote could help, even a little, in a debate that is as fierce and divisive as anything in American life. Second, and much more important, I truly believe that on this issue the voices of women are more powerful and compelling than any words I could produce. And, finally, I have to be honest and admit that I have never once felt comfortable writing or even talking about this topic.

I'm sorry.

I apologize because my desire to avoid this topic led me to keep my mouth shut in recent months as Gov. Mike Pence once again thrust Indiana into an unnecessary and harmful culture war. I'm sorry because my discomfort led me to sit by as Republican state lawmakers and our horribly misguided and miscast governor waged a war on women’s rights and continued to damage the state so many of us love so dearly.

John Gregg undergoes a pre-election LGBT conversion.

In a recent article about John Gregg's evolution since 2012, online.com/news/opinion/commentary-john-gregg-mike-pence-and-a-locked-steering-wheel/article_723b88c4-c99f-11e5-b0ed-dbbe112fc955.html">John Krull offered this quote: "You shouldn’t lock the steering wheel in life, because the road does bend."

There's a reserved seat for Mike Pence in dustbin of history, and yet I still need convincing about Gregg. In 2012, he came off as exactly the sort of  non-Democratic Faux Democrat we've learned from experience to loathe here in Floyd County.

We'll see.

A one-on-one with the Indiana Democrat looking to take down Mike Pence, by By Rick Sutton (The Word, via NUVO)

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The Word, central Indiana's LGBT monthly publication, is paying close attention to the 2016 election cycle. The Word's Political Editor, Rick Sutton, sat down with Indiana Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Gregg for a recent interview, which is featured in the April issue. A similar interview or guest column has been requested of incumbent Republican Gov. Mike Pence. That request remains open. NUVO will reprint that interview or column, if it ever happens.]

Former Indiana House Speaker John Gregg is the Democratic nominee for governor. It's his second try — in 2012, his campaign ran afoul of the LGBT community for divisive statements regarding Indiana's then-pending Constitutional amendment on marriage.


After that hard-fought but losing campaign, Gregg considered his options and decided to seek the state's top job in 2016. As part of that process, one of his major considerations was LGBT civil rights —and he arrived at different conclusions than his 2012 campaign proclaimed.

Let's keep the spotlight on the civil rights FAIL perpetuated by Mike Pence and Indiana's Republicans.

But that's life in a one-party state.

EDITORIAL: Legislature, governor fail test of courage, at the Evansville Courier & Press

... With five weeks remaining in the short, non-budgetary session, the 2016 Legislature, without great leadership from the governor's office, has accomplished little. We acknowledge that, usually, there is a great rush of bills through Indianapolis in the final week, but beginning with civil rights legislation, it's disheartening what Gov. Mike Pence and the Legislature chose to not push through.

Once again, the simple act of assuring equal rights for all escaped our elected leaders and became a debate that reached the national stage — though, thanks goodness, not as much as last year's Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In an effort to appease both those who support civil rights and those who fear their religious beliefs would be infringed upon, nothing moved forward — which you sense, in this election year, is exactly what Gov. Pence had hoped.

"Gov. Mike Pence and the General Assembly have failed Indiana and its residents, not just those from the LGBT community, but all of us."

When I was a wee lad, being Republican was all about obeying the every desire of high-powered economic interests.

Now it's groveling to the prejudices of our Christian Taliban. It's hard to decide which aspect of the One Party State is worse.

Editorial: A legislative letdown over LGBT rights (Indy Star)

The General Assembly and Gov. Mike Pence’s refusal to extend the state’s civil rights law to include sexual orientation and gender identity continues to tarnish Indiana’s image and jeopardize long-term economic prosperity.

Last spring, after a firestorm from passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act blew up in their faces, lawmakers pledged to address legal protections for LGBT citizens in the next legislative session.

But after meeting privately Tuesday, Senate Republican leaders decided to kill legislation that would have protected gay Hoosiers from discrimination. In doing so, they not only failed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Hoosiers but also their families, friends, coworkers and anyone else in our state who values equality ...

"It’s time for Pence to lead ... full civil rights protections based on sexual orientation."

Inelegantly written, but hey -- it's a business publication.

And no, I have NOT forgotten the role of Ron Grooms in this debacle.

EDITORIAL: Governor must back full LGBT rights (Indianapolis Business Journal)

Gov. Mike Pence owes the state leadership on LGBT issues that have damaged our reputation nationally while creating an ugly chasm among Hoosiers.

Pence helped to create the problem earlier this year when he pushed the General Assembly to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law that was a poor solution in search of a largely non-existent problem ...

 ... It’s time for Pence to lead—and there’s only one place to go: Full civil rights protections based on sexual orientation.

The move may not put him in good stead with social conservatives, but Indiana needs to make the public statement—a national statement—that it’s the warm and welcoming place that we all enjoy.

A simple fact: "Gays, not Christians, are still America’s truly embattled minority."

Whomever chose Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" to serenade Kim Davis upon her release from prison merely offered the most recent example of American conservatives somehow not being able to grasp the applicability of popular music to photo ops.

Here are two hints: Read the lyrics and ask permission.

Conversely, had Davis chosen to expend her 14th minute of fame to bask in the glow of Ted Nugent's "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang," the planets would have remained in perfect ideological alignment.

But enough flippancy. As The Economist makes clear ...

Some martyr; Gays, not Christians, are still America’s truly embattled minority (The Economist)

 ... Ms Davis is fully entitled to her horror, but it is irrelevant to her duties ... to compare her recalcitrance, as some admirers have, to the refusal of Rosa Parks to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, or to the 19th-century figures who declined to return runaway slaves, is absurd.

Absurd because, unlike slavery or segregation, gay marriage is almost completely victimless. Therein lies another fallacy of Ms Davis’s martyrdom: she makes it seem that Christians have been persecuted by the Supreme Court’s ruling, directly and en masse, when, in reality, only a few have been inconvenienced (and many more gay Christians stand to benefit) ...

 ... The furore in Kentucky shows the extent to which some Christian Americans feel besieged by what they perceive as a strangulating godlessness. Given the freshness of the gay-marriage ruling, perhaps that paranoia is understandable. The truth, though, is that Americans’ freedom to practise their faiths is robustly defended by both the constitution and federal law (see article). The rights of the godly are actually much more secure than those of gay Americans—who still lack federal protection from prejudice like that granted to other groups by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In most states of America homophobes can still legally discriminate against homosexuals, married or otherwise. That is a much graver scandal than Ms Davis’s theatrical refusal to do her job.

Nash on the rights of everyone.

Matt doesn't mention our very own Ayatollah Coffey by name, but he needn't bother. By now, the silence has grown deafening: Fellow council members (most of them Democrats), Jeff Gahan and the Democratic Party itself, all cowering in their respective bunkers as Coffey once again mocks them with impunity.

Coffey has no challenger in his re-election race, but you're free to punish the others by withholding your votes. Consider this a recommendation.

Thanks to Matt Nash for another fine column.

NASH: The rights of everyone, by Matt Nash (Jeffersonville Now!)

... The irony of the local situation is the offending words came during a discussion about “Freedom of Religion” and the free exercise thereof, another of the rights guaranteed by the same First Amendment. It is true that you can practice whatever religion you see fit, but it also forbids the establishment of a state religion. Now I understand that the courts have ruled that prayer prior to public meeting does not violate the establishment clause, but why must you feel the need?

What will happen when a non-Christian clergy decides that it is time that you pray to his or her god before you hold your city council meeting? Who gets to decide what religions are worthy of this honor? Will members of the New Albany City Council be so open to their free exercise of their religion?

Human rights in New Albany?

Thus far in 2015, it has been a year in which the United States Supreme Court took up same-sex marriage, and the streets of Baltimore echoed with violence. In America, we're debating the legalities and illegalities of immigration, the pros and cons of the death penalty, and theory and practice of terrorism.

In Indiana, among other forays, a recent question has been whether intravenous drug users deserve to contract HIV for using dirty needles. In short, considerations of civil rights and human rights are very much with us ... if we bother to listen to their recitation.

Civil right and human rights co-exist and are very much a part of one another. Both are designed so that people can live the lives they choose without fear of persecution, and these rights apply to every single person no matter where they live in the world.

Often in these pages, we advocate the notion of progress by design, and since 2012, New Albany has possessed a reconstituted Human Rights Commission. Since it was formed again and duly stocked with appointees, it has had very little to do, not because New Albany is a fundamentally functional utopia of tolerance and good sense, but because City Hall's evident design for the HRC has been that it remain unused -- reserved for show and public relations pronouncements, while kept hermetically sealed and out of controversy's way.

This has disgusted me from day one, and continues to do so. It implies that "quality of life" derives solely from capital intensive building projects, and has nothing to do with fundamental human dignity. It is both cynical and cowardly to first enable a Human Rights Commission, then render it caged and impotent.

My most recent reprinting of the following column on the topic of the Human Rights Commission was on March 21, 2011. The column itself was written in 2009. Ironically, as I read the final paragraphs, there is considerable itony. We certainly did determine that the members of New Albany's political class could vote "for" something.

Unfortunately, they seem to be content with form over content. This needs to change.

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REWIND: Human rights in New Albany? (2009).

As you already know, I am running for city council at-large, and my newspaper column is on hiatus pending the outcome of the primary election in May. During my first incarnation as columnist, from January 2009 through February 2011, a total of 111 essays were published, and because many of them pertain directly to campaign issues, it seems appropriate to reprint some of them. The following appeared in the Tribune on April 16, 2009.

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Human rights in New Albany?

To my delight, last week the Iowa Supreme Court defied the American theocratic establishment by affirming a non-discriminatory definition of marriage as a secular institution, existing concurrent with organized religion, but not dependent on its supernatural sanction for validity.

By doing so, the court did its own little bit to reclaim genuinely salvageable culture, correctly espousing the rule of law and exposing the fraudulence of those whose vision of America as a “Christian nation” forever requires depriving fellow Americans of basic human rights clearly enunciated during the founding. Moreover, I’m reminded of this passage written by H. L. Mencken more than 75 years ago:

“The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking … Since the earliest days the church, as an organization, has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings.”

Coincidentally, my wife and I, who were married in 2004 by the city clerk, recently had the chance to watch “Milk,” the acclaimed biopic of gay activist, politician and martyr Harvey Milk. Sean Penn, the finest actor of his generation, stars in a riveting, Oscar-winning performance as the title character. Drop what you’re doing, rent the DVD of “Milk,” and prepare to be challenged, rewarded and enriched.

While the real Harvey Milk’s principled political activism in the diverse milieu of 1970’s San Francisco specifically espoused gay rights, his focal point is inseparable from the broader context of human rights and freedoms, providing the basis for a question I won’t stop asking until some semblance of a coherent answer is provided:

Precisely which aspects of the past are organizations like Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK) seeking to reclaim?

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Buried deep within New Albany’s terminally neglected Code of Ordinances is a 1974 law mandating a Human Rights Commission. It existed for a time, and then was unceremoniously discarded, so today I’m embracing a custodial public service duty by reminding the community that there is statutory authority to re-energize and staff a new Human Right Commission. We should do so immediately.

The administration of Mayor James Garner displayed a keen private grasp of the moribund commission’s potential importance, but nothing happened, and if you’re looking for a nutshell summary of the Garner era, this is as good a place as any to begin. Excellent intentions were accompanied by a supreme mastery of detail, but an inexplicable absence of political acumen and simple stick-to-it-ive-ness resulted in stasis.

No matter. That was then, and this is now. I support a rehabilitated Human Rights Commission simply because I always try to put myself in others’ shoes, imagining how it must feel to do as I’ve done by publicly promoting civic improvements and espousing reforms in an effort to make the city itself a more livable and civilized place, while recognizing that even these hard-fought gains may not provide protection from discrimination and harassment owing to race, gender or sexual orientation.

For instance, consider the fundamental human act of walking.

I walk New Albany’s streets on a daily basis, and do so at all hours, seldom giving the notion a second thought. Then again, I’m a white male standing well over six feet, and weighing 270 lbs. at last reading. Naturally, in a world filled to the brim with firearms, physical stature alone neither precludes violent acts nor negates harassment … but it does have a way of reducing problems.

Even so, occasionally a passing dullard finds it amusing to bait a man my size. Imagine going out for a walk as a more vulnerable potential target: Female, or gay, or an ethnic minority, or handicapped, or all four together, perhaps leading one to forsake activities and pursuits taken for granted by others, thanks to social and cultural primitivism that extends well beyond familiar urban woes like drugs and impoverishment, into public racism, overt homophobia and violence.

Just as speeding is not an enforcement issue, but a design issue, so goes an active daily consideration of human rights. A tweaked and reconstituted Human Rights Commission, even if chronically underfunded in the sad New Albanian tradition of penny wise, pound foolish, might provide an effective bully pulpit for making this city a place that welcomes diversity and its accompanying benefits, and not views “different” as opportunities for abuse and exploitation.

Now is the time. Is there the will?

A Human Rights Commission is sorely needed in a place where topics like basic rights, diversity, and fundamental human dignity are regularly the targets of gleeful disparagement and outright malice on the part of those of dominant white, male culture, who've obviously never suffered institutionalized deprivation.

Furthermore, thinking back to its conceptual origins in housing discrimination, a functional Human Rights Commission might be a component of solutions to the city’s rental housing problems. Tenant rights and human rights are cut from the same bolt, aren’t they?

Are any members of our local political establishment willing to go on record as supporting the revival of New Albany’s Human Rights Commission?

Or: Are any of them willing to go on record as supporting anything?

SCOTUS Friday: "Historic day for gay rights?"

It was one of my favorite stories from last year.

Pence takes to his bunker as Indiana's gay marriage ban is ruled to be unconstitutional.

More recently, IL's Joe Dunman set the stage for SCOTUS.

Dunman: "Supreme Court should approach same-sex marriage issue from a contemporary constitutional perspective."

Now we'll see.

Conceivable outcomes causing the Pence Shirts to squirm are the best ones, aren't they?

Historic day for gay rights?, by Lyle Denniston (National Constitution Center)

Sometime Friday, probably before noon, the Supreme Court is due to have a conversation about gay rights, discussing whether to open what could be the final judicial chapter on same-sex marriage. The Justices will not be deciding that question; rather, the issue before them tomorrow is whether it is now time to decide.

Bob Russell says "God" gave you your race, not your sex.

I am of the conviction that religion is not a tax-exempt issue at all. It is a taxable issue. By the way: GET OFF MY PORCH, Bob.

Are Gay Rights Civil Rights?

... I am of the conviction that homosexuality is not a civil rights issue at all. It is a behavioral issue. To have sex with someone of the same gender is an individual choice. It is not a distinctive like race, which is a God-given feature that cannot be denied ...

Same-sex marriage, Indiana and the legal deluge.

In which the Hoosier state's conservative cadres are on their heels, wagons circling.

Indiana Finds It’s Not So Easy to Buck Gay Marriage Trend, by Monica Davey (NYT)

... So suddenly Indiana, where lawmakers in the coming weeks are expected to call for the second vote needed to put a ban before voters in the fall elections, is now in a far more tense, unpredictable and closely watched spot than anyone here had imagined — a test case in whether a state will impose new limits on same-sex marriage in this fast-moving political and legal environment.

It's a fine seasonal gift, isn't it?

online/blogs/comment/2013/12/same-sex-marriage-the-legal-deluge.html">SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, THE LEGAL DELUGE, by Jeffrey Toobin (New Yorker)

... Then, on Monday, two days before Christmas, a federal court in Ohio issued a lower-profile decision that may have been the most important of all. James Obergefell and John Arthur, who lived together in Cincinnati, married in Maryland at a time when Arthur was gravely ill. In anticipation of Arthur’s death, the couple petitioned the state of Ohio for Arthur to be listed as “married” on his Ohio death certificate, and to record Obergefell as the “surviving spouse.” Ohio, which does not allow same-sex marriages, refused, but federal judge Timothy S. Black ruled against the state and in favor of the couple. The judge said it was “not a complicated case.” Throughout Ohio’s history, Ohio has treated marriages solemnized out of state as valid in Ohio. “How then can Ohio, especially given the historical status of Ohio law, single out same-sex marriage as ones it will not recognize?” Black asked in his opinion. “The short answer is Ohio cannot.”