Herban Sprawl

11 November 2009

Happy Veteran’s Day to Uncles Cookie and Earl, and especially Big Kitty

I neglected to wax brilliant about one important detail in that four page dissent submitted by the volleyball coach….

All that business about alleged conflict of interest on the part of the independent 3rd fact finding panelist is poppycock. Here is why.

A fact-finding panel consists of a representative of each side in the disagreement. Those two are to select an independent third person, who is then the chair of the panel and presides over the hearing. In the event the two sides are unable to agree on a third person (and they never do), they request a list of candidates from the local circuit court judge. Judges maintain a list of people who are skilled in mediation just for these purposes. The two representatives then jointly select someone from the judge’s list and the proceedings then begin when the chair agrees to be on the panel and sets the hearing schedule.

Susan Willis’s panelist, the volleyball coach, and the administration’s panelist selected that panelist. That panelist was not forced on anyone, contrary to what that 4 page list of fake problems said. The panelist had no need to recuse himself.

If anything, he was the best person for the job because if the school administration had been out of line, he would have been looking for ways to ding them. He would have been listening real hard for evidence of coercion.

I was heartened to hear City Councilwoman Anita Price offer her hope that Susan Willis would put this behind her, and allow the whole business to be laid to rest. I know that took guts because the black community isn’t going to be happy that she didn’t stand up for the sistah, but as the former REA president, Anita Price knows the real story about Susan Willis. And that’s the story no one else will ever hear on the record.

I hope the good teachers and kids at Fleming were able to start today with the weight lifted from their shoulders, and I hope the community isn’t stupid enough to buy the junk that was in those four pages. If Susan Willis wants us to believe her, she’s going to have to release the WHOLE report, not just her representative’s piece. I’ve written one of those myself (and the teacher’s attorney didn’t have to rewrite it, I should add) and I know what her job was. I’ve sat in that seat. Let’s see the whole report, Susan… Come on… show me what you’ve got… Come on… I dare you….

10 November 2009

After a very long, probably boring, grievance hearing, the news is out. The fact-finding panel ruled against Susan Willis. The school board then voted, unfortunately along color lines, to fire her. They did the right thing.

Last week, Ms. Willis didn’t give a reporter for the Times a straight answer. She said she’d been vindicated, but she did not say the panel found in her favor. As was proper, the school board was mum. The newspaper editors then opined that if she had prevailed, she should quit playing coy and say so. I read that and thought, “Oho, she lost.”

So, she allowed the dissenting panelist’s four page disagreement to be published. I read that thing. She was sure trying to lay a lot of the mess at the superintendent’s feet, but much of it was stuff that could easily be refuted, or was obfuscation.

For example, her panelist noted that Dr. Bishop didn’t conduct Ms. Willis’ evaluations. The general public might not know this, but Dr. Bishop is free to assign someone else that task. Back in the day, someone from the personnel office observed my principal when she observed me, and then observed the follow-up conference.

There were other items like that, and they were clearly intended to provoke and turn public opinion against the superintendent. My guess is that the lawyers wrote it. It went point by point, and I have a hard time believing the volleyball coach had the time or inclination to write that thing. You can tell lawyer writing, especially when they try hard not to sound like lawyers. It’s pretty pathetic in that regard.

But it clearly was intended to set the stage for the inevitable lawsuit. I’m still trying to figure out where she is getting the money for a team of Richmond lawyers and a p.r. firm, not to mention her Armani suits. (Of course, those could be knock-offs… or she could have shopped at Loehmann’s.)

For now, though, the teachers at Fleming have to be breathing a sigh of relief that she won’t be back. To be sure, there were some who got along with her, but the talent drain from that building during her short time there was pretty hard to ignore. She was an equal opportunity bully, so teachers left.

It remains to be seen what the fall out will be. It’s never a good thing when an African American administrator goes down in flames, and it’s especially bad when that fall from grace is carried out in the papers. The two A-A school board members didn’t vote to fire her, and an A-A city council member has voiced support for her. Another A-A council member is an employee of the school board. If I’m her, I keep my mouth shut and simply acknowledge that due process was followed, the chips fell as they did and it’s time to move on. As a past president of the education association, she had to be aware of the turmoil in that building, so it’s fair to assume she has mixed feelings. Race is still a big factor in this town, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the race card will be played in her next gambit.

Now then, where is the Department of Education in this whole ordeal and why haven’t they pulled her certificate? If they did, there would be no grounds for a lawsuit, and certainly, anyone who cheats on the SOLs deserves their worst punishment. They really do need to make an example of her.

This is Virginia, the state that blinked blue but didn’t have the sense to stay blue. With our luck, the DOE will hire her to investigate other allegations of SOL cheating. After all, she could be considered an expert in her field!

25 September 2009

We have an interesting race for the Virginia House of Delegates going on in our area. A Republican resigned and now a city council member is running, as well as a lawyer from Botetourt county. Last night I was polled, and after a few questions, I figured the poll was for the Republican. You can always tell their slant. They worry more about raising taxes than they do about paying for state services like rest stops along the interstate or a full complement of teachers and university employees.

But, I was a good sport and went along with the thing. At the end, when I cracked up, and I do mean CRACKED UP, as the woman’s script told me the poll was paid for by the Republican, I think she was a little disconcerted. “You didn’t need to tell me THAT,” I chortled. “I could tell by the way the questions were slanted and intended to inflame!” She bravely soldiered on with her spiel and we hung up amicably.

Here it is. The man is wants to paint the Democratic candidate in the light of being secretive. (She voted for a closed door session to fire the city manager.) Um, people, it was a personnel discussion. Those are ALWAYS behind closed doors to give the employee the privacy they deserve.

He wanted to know if I favored budget cuts or raising taxes. Well, how in the name of goddess does the dummy expect to pay for anything? We already are a state chock full of Northern Virginia millionaires (the Mars family? the Reynolds family?) who could probably fund the state’s highway restroom facilities without even blinking an eye. Our taxes are not high and the stupid general assembly hangs onto the state ABC stores like they are some sacred cow. Just think of the state employees that we wouldn’t have on the books… For every ABC employee, we could fund another teacher!

I’m not saying I’m crazy about the Democratic candidate. I’m not. She’s got a snippy know-it-all attitude that I find downright annoying, and I do not look to her to be too responsive to the citizens’ requests or suggestions. However, I am sick and tired of the deadlock in Richmond. The Republicans have had their chance and Virginia has slipped from being dragged kicking and screaming into the 19th century to the 18th century.

That said, it’s time to get off the dime, mow and trim the front lawn to a fair-thee-well and post a couple of campaign signs in the yard. I’m going to start with the candidate for sheriff, Frank Garrett. I worked with him when he was a school resource officer. My deputy friends all want him as their boss, and I think they are the best judge of who will repair the broken windows at the jail and such. As a school resource officer, he was a stand-up guy. He was a straight shooter, no pun intended, and worked well with teachers as well as the kids he was trying to keep on the straight and narrow. He knows there are two sides to every story. I like that in a person.

07/17/09
The inevitable happened yesterday, and it happened right on schedule, by Big Kitty’s and my calculations. The day before Kim was about to pack the truck to get herself and her mother-in-law to SUUSI, the poe-leece rolled up and took her away to jail. They have charged her with first degree murder. We just knew they would time it accordingly. Never mind that it would disrupt the registration process of 100 Unitarian Universalists as they arrived for thier annual camp.

I must admit to a certain amount of confusion. Our webmaster had talked to her the day before and it seems Kim knew there was a warrant for her arrest, as well as blood and DNA samples. However, I talked to her that night and she didn’t tell me that. She was sick and attributed it to stress. My worry at the time was that she had, due to stress weakening her immune system, contracted a communicable bug that had the power to infect the lot of us next week. I’m thinking she was sick to her stomach over what was about to happen. That is, if our time frame is correct.

So where does this leave us? Two women are being accused of having an affair. Is that a crime? No, but then again, in North Carolina a wronged wife can have “the other woman” charged. It turns out they will do that for a gay couple, even though gay marriage is not a legal reality in that state. Go figure.

Taking it one more step, two women are accused of not just having an affair, but also of killing a very sick woman partner. Could it have been a mercy killing? Not likely. A mercy killing would probably involved drugs, rather than a violent death. And a mercy killing by someone who won’t even consent to having her aged and very sick cat put down? Doesn’t really compute.

So now we have two women who are accused of having an affair and just want the sick partner out of the way so they can get on with their life together. This is what the poe-leece and the district attorney seem to be thinking.

Those of us who have dyke friends know they don’t operate that way. If someone wants out of a relationship, she just packs her stuff and moves out. What’s that old joke my dyke friend once told me? “How do you know it’s a dyke’s second date? When you see the U-haul hooked up to her truck.” Unfortunately, my friend acknowledged, there is more than a grain of truth to that.

In a society where gay marriage is reluctantly gaining traction as a bona fide right, we’re seeing those who do marry struggle with the same issues straights have always had with their marriages. Only now, if they have legally married, they are also finding out that splitting up isn’t as easy as it used to be. There are all the warts associated with marriage…child custody battles, distribution of common assets, messy affairs that destroy trust….

We have to ask if Kate would have had an affair while she was still devoted to her sick partner. Maybe. But if she did, something tells me it would have been merely a sexual thing with the understanding that she was committed to Sharon and there was no probability of anything else until she saw her partner through to the inevitable end of her life. That could have been many years hence. And that’s what the poe-leece seem to be hanging onto for a motive.

Other dykes in the community have come out saying they could picture Kate murdering her partner. Um, I can swear on a stack of Bibles, or whatever other book, that I have had murderous thoughts from time to time. Would I ever have acted on them? HELL, no. It’s one thing to get so exasperated with one’s spouse that one would like to throttle the daylights out of him or her; it’s totally inconceivable to actually do it. Granted, there are some who go into a rage and do just that. But the Kate I know is the child of divorced parents and she has enough savvy to know how to roll with the punches.

Kim maintains that on the night of the murder, she was in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, getting stone drunk in a bar. Does she have witnesses who could corroborate her story? Don’t know. It was five years ago, it was in a bar, everyone was drinking, and the big news of the night wasn’t who won the game, but rather that Janet Jackson had bared her boob. Would anyone have any memories beyond that of a pretty normal looking woman sitting at the bar drinking? If she was a regular, perhaps, but five years ago? Let’s be realistic.

In the end, there is the circumstantial evidence. There are two pillows that ostensibly were used to muffle a pair of gun shots. There was one woman with two bullet wounds in her back, and one who had sustained a pretty nasty cosh on the head and who was interrogated while she was concussed - not to mention the fact that she was denied medical care. The poe-leece are struggling with the fact that she was knocked unconscious for an hour or so. Given the knot that existed a year later (I felt it, folks, I felt it!), I don’t find that hard to believe. In a way, I’m surprised she survived it, and I’m also surprised she hasn’t had the symptoms of a severe head injury since the event.

An affectionate series of emails are considered evidence in the civil suit against the two women. If a women who makes her living as an IT specialist was plotting to kill her partner, would she leave any of that sort of evidence lying around in her computer?

Kate had also allegedly had a key made for Kim, and allegedly met her in a local restaurant where she gave her the key. Uh-oh. I have a problem. I gave a key to a kid who was helping me out with my yard. He was later convicted of child molesting and is now serving a 15 year sentence. I had no idea. Uh-oh. I gave a key to our house to how many different people over the years for one reason or another? Is this going to come back to haunt me?

Sharon and Kate had pets. Could it be that Kim was going to come down and housesit their pets?

There are a lot of questions. There are also innocent answers to them. If you read crime novels, as I do, you could probably piece together a good story, but it would be fiction. Sometimes when the police piece together a story it is also fiction, and we have the innocent people who have served sentences for crimes they didn’t commit to prove it.

The morning paper greeted me with an intriguing headline. Sarah Palin is resigning as the governor of Alaska. Wow, I thought, that’s interesting.

The pundits all had their opinions, of course, and so did the blogs that Big Kitty reads. While we scraped and sanded the porch, we discussed it, and it comes down to this. It’s hard to dress up in designer clothes when you are hampered by the rules and regulations, not to mention ethics and etiquette, of being a public official. It’s hard to be squirreled away in Alaska, when all the action is in the lower 48.

Some are saying she’s throwing away her chances at the 2012 election. I say she knew she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hawaii of getting the nomination because the moderates are desperately trying to stitch the party together.

The other piece of this is that Sarah Palin got used to all the attention. She loved being all dressed and made up and being in front of the cameras. The trouble is, her shoot from the hip style got her into trouble as a politician. That wouldn’t be the case if she was the female version of Rush Limbaugh. And certainly, she is photogenic enough for television, so there it is. I’m thinking she got an offer that would insure a designer wardrobe, a lot of money for a big family, and she wouldn’t have to worry about staying inside the lines.

Did her kids really want her out of politics? Probably. The teenagers were probably thinking how good it would be to be able to make out with their boy/girlfriends at the drive-in without worrying about the paparazzi for the National Enquirer being in the next snowmobile over. If Mama’s on t.v., though, they’re gonna continue to have problems - at least it won’t be hurting Mama’s shot at the White House.

If I’m a heavy-hitter moderate in the Republican party, I grease the wheels to make sure she gets some kind of television deal because then she’s only a talking head. She and Rush and O’Reilly and Ann can continue to stir up the conservatives, but the moneyed moderates can retake the party.

Is this the last we’ll see of her? Never. That woman loves the limelight, the cameras love her face, and she’s still the darling of the right wing nuts. I’m thinking her picture will produce a lot of material for the sperm bank, so maybe she’s not a total waste after all.

Oho! Rob Shrader of SunTrust wins today’s prize for Banker of the Year. I brought him up to speed and he mulled the situation. Then he opened an account for the Kate Hofmann Legal Defense Fund. We are set to gratefully receive your gifts of love and justice as paper checks or electronic checks!

Bing, bang. boom - literally - he hammered the daylights out of that keyboard and before I knew it, he’d ordered a lot of deposit slips and we’d agreed that the seven starter checks would be sufficient for paying Kate’s legal eagle.

Please give as generously as you are able, and don’t be afraid to send small amounts periodically. Please understand, there is no amount that is insignificant. It all adds up. My friend Sammy used to send $10 and $15 checks to the opera. At the end of the year, his contribution totalled in the hundreds! You won’t find a more grateful recipient.

Remember that in the United States, the accused is considered innocent until proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that she is guilty. All citizens deserve the best legal representation they can get. In this case, we’re asking for $25,000 worth of expertise.

Please send paper or electronic checks to:

Kate Hofmann Legal Defense Fund

c/o Blue Ridge Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

P.O. Box 3115

Roanoke, VA 24015

Please be sure to include your full name and address so that we can keep accurate records. There will be an accountability team checking the books periodically, so help us out by providing that information.

If you have questions, please address them to:

katehofmannLDF@yahoo.com

Thank you to all who have asked, “What can I do?” Now you know how best to help.

It’s been a tragic week. There is no other way to say it. We’re still reeling from the gravity and enormity of the circumstances, and for now, there is not one darn thing we can do to ameliorate the situation. There is no way to do the story justice, but here goes.

In 2004, two friends returned home from a Super Bowl party. The one with MS made her way into their home at her pace. The other went directly to the bathroom, where she was coshed on the head and rendered unconscious. When she came to, she discovered her partner had been shot to death.

The knocked out woman owned a handgun, and it was missing from the premises. When the police came, they didn’t take the injured woman to the hospital for treatment. Instead, they attempted to interrogate her at the police station. She didn’t have any powder residue on her.

By now, if you are a savvy reader, you have correctly surmised this was a lesbian couple. They had been together for around nine years, and the relationship was a strong one. They were the kind that would have gotten married legally, if permitted to do so. The outpouring of love and support was enormous. Big Kitty and I traveled to Greensboro for the memorial service, and it was an emotional thing for us.

Kate had been the little sister in Big Kitty’s extended family. He had carted her and her friends to a bunch of Liberal Religious Youth get-togethers in her mom’s old Volvo stationwagon. This was the crazy, semi-functional/semi-dysfunctional family that took him in as readily as they did any other stray cat. When I came along, I was just another cat to be fed, and it was home for me, too.

We were the first members of this tribe to meet Sharon. Sharon was shy and nervous, but Kate was smart. She knew we were the easiest of the easy, and all would be well. Sharon was wonderful. She could be serious when necessary, and had a playful streak a mile wide. She became a devoted aunt to Kate’s nieces and nephews, and was deeply loved in return. Her death was not easily accepted by any of us, and its violence was one we had a great deal of difficulty comprehending.

Sharon had been plagued with multiple sclerosis, and at the time of her death, often needed to use a motorized wheelchair to get around. She tried hard to manage without it, but would grudgingly give in when Kate would insist. The disease was clearly taking its toll on her body, but both partners bore it with amazing grace. Neither was the type to whine and cry. Both were stiff upper lip kind of women. They managed, and they loved each other in spite of it all.

Not long after Sharon’s memorial service, another woman came into Kate’s life. A little too soon, perhaps, but when I think of the number of men who have remarried within a year of a spouse’s death, I can’t think that this was much different. Suddenly the police have seized upon this as ‘probable cause.’ You know, Sharon was sick, so let’s kill her and we can get together.

Good grief.  As motives go, that one is pretty thin. It is also rather specious in light of the fact that these were lesbians. Could the police have been any more blatant in their prejudice?

Meanwhile, Sharon’s family sued Kate and her now-partner, Kim. Well, not before they kindly offered to not sue if Kate would just hand over what they deemed to be their fair share of Sharon’s estate (as in all of it).

It was no secret that Sharon’s family did not like the idea that she was a lesbian. It went against their religious beliefs and they had a lot of trouble reconciling it. One brother was openly hostile. This can be the case for families, and Dear Abby would advise them to turn to PFLAG for help. I don’t know what they did, but I vividly remember how out of place they appeared to feel at the memorial service in a Unitarian Universalist church where their daughter was a beloved member.

And so, five years later, after living in the same house and going to the same job, the police decided they now had incontrovertible evidence that our Kate was the perpetrator of Sharon’s untimely demise. They went to her workplace last week and arrested her. They have charged her with capital murder.

Kate’s mother, who is in the middle of a divorce, now has to raise $25,000 as an upfront fee for an attorney. Needless to say, friends are creating a legal defense fund. And, because she is not allowed her own personal effects, such as a sports bra or toothpaste, a commissary fund has had to be set up so she can purchase what she already has. You know, it isn’t like they can’t run those things through an xray machine to make sure there is nothing in them that could harm herself or another inmate or guard. But no. Our criminal justice system doesn’t work that way.

In our household, devastation has given way to anger and frustration. There is no small amount of injustice in this situation. If this had been a heterosexual couple I have no doubt it would have been handled differently. Instead, this case is already being tried in the press as the local newspapers in North Carolina focus on as much sensationalism as they can manufacture. The responses in their online versions are mean-spirited and convey the kind of prejudice and hatred that only narrow-minded and repressed people can manage to spew. How fair a trial can she expect under these circumstances?

In our nation, one is considered innocent until found guilty by a jury of one’s peers. Will her jury have even one gay or lesbian person? We’re talking peers, here, and those would be her peers. The accused is not a Christian, but rather a devout and active Unitarian Universalist. Since those of our faith are rarely understood in religious terms, will that work against her, too?

I have no answers. Only questions. I have beliefs, though, and one of those is the unshakable belief in Kate. Luckily, I am not alone, because in the days ahead, we will calling upon all who are out there asking, “what can I do?” to contribute whatever amount possible to her defense fund. We have to insure she has excellent representation in order to keep this trial as fair as possible. There are some prejudices we will never overcome, but we have to stand by her and show the world that when you love someone, you do what needs to be done - with love, in love and alongside love.

Those of you who are so inclined, are now cordially invited to say prayers for justice, and in the name of whatever deity you choose. We Unitarian Universalists gratefully accept all prayers that are said on our behalf, and this woman is going to need a steady stream of them.

This morning I read a stellar letter to the editor that was from, I am pretty sure, my history professor. It had to do with rebutting the op-ed piece that was written by a religion professor at another local college. I won’t dignify it by giving his name because he doesn’t deserve any more mention…

Once again that man had to write something that said if we legalize gay marriage, it’s going to lead to legalizing polygamy.

My professor went point by point and refuted the arguments (this is why I’m pretty sure it was my guy who wrote this piece), and raised serious questions about each. For example:

“2. If marriage is primarily a religious custom, are nonbelievers less legitimately married?”

My question: are the believers limited to only certain denominations? Is this guy suggesting that since we belong to a denomination that welcomes all those who seek religious truth wherever it may be found, that our marriage, which was performed by a doctor of divinity in our faith, is not valid? Tell that to the IRS!

My personal favorite was this one:

“4. If marriage is meant only for “sexual opposites” because the union is “primarily for the procreation of children,” is the marital union of couples who choose not to have children, or who are incapable of it, morally inferior?”

Another question from me: So those of us who are ‘of an age’ when we luck into finding the perfect spouse, and who are no longer driven to procreate (not that either Big Kitty or I ever wanted to do that), have a marriage that is not as important or as valid as those where kids were involved? Hmmm Then if we wanted to split, all we’d have to do is depart each other’s company and we wouldn’t have to go through all that legal mess?

But finally, he had this line:

“Since he has a window into the future, could he also advise me what stocks to buy, or perhaps tip me off on the win, place and show at Churchill Downs this year?”

I was howling out loud over that one! 

The window to the future referred to the religion guy’s certainty that gay marriage was only the first step toward legalizing polygamy. Personally, I think the guy needs to enroll in the history class to learn about how Americans have felt about polygamy….. Maybe he should interview some of Joseph Smith’s and Brigham Young’s descendants about what all they have had to live down…. His leap (of faith?) doesn’t compute.

That was the first hot button.

The second was an email from national AAUW soliciting donations in honor of our mothers. It’s no secret that I despise Mothers’ Day. When you don’t have one, it’s hard to get worked up over a Hallmark Holiday. When your husband shirks his Hallmark duties with his own mother and she expects you to do it for him, that’s just not acceptable. It makes a girl really angry. Well, at least this one.

Ah, well. I don’t have money for them. I have local entities that need my paltry hand-outs! Their names are Barney, Charlie, Simon and Big Kitty! For the record, they don’t give me Mother’s Day cards or presents, either. We’re a household of Hallmark Holiday infidels!

As it happens, marriage and Mother’s Day are two very difficult issues for a lot of people. Two of the happiest people on earth are Brent ‘n Butch. They have stars in their eyes, and it’s been a few years. When Butch’s mother, Miss Emma Lou, could no longer live on her own, she went to live with her son and his spouse. Here in Virginia, I am inviting trouble to refer to Brent as being Butch’s spouse, but it is what it is. Brent cared for his mother-in-law with all the love and faithfulness he had extended to his grandmother when she needed help. When they could no longer keep her at home, they found a really nice place for her and the visits are regular - by both of them.

I know hetero couples who do not work together with that kind of harmony, or sense of purpose.

I don’t ever remember being put off by gays or their relationships. I had a cousin who rode motorcycles, wore pants and lived with a woman roommate. My grandmother and aunt and great-aunt lamented the fact that she always wore pants. Her mother said it was because she had unsightly sores on her legs. From the vantage point of history (thank you Dr. Hanson!), I can now say, with certainty, that my cousin in all likelihood was a lesbian. So what? Did I turn into one because of it? Not hardly…

The point is, gay couples in committed relationships have been in existence for more years than people who are purposefully ignorant of history care to acknowledge. The women who first lived in our house had a “Boston marriage.” They both taught in our schools.  By and large, the best administrators in the Star City’s school division have been gay women in committed relationships. Has it meant that our kids are now running off to have gay sex? Not hardly.

Has the Star City or any other community seen an influx of illicit polygamy as a result of their gay residents being in committed relationships? Are Brent ‘n Butch’s neighbors in C’ville taking in multiple wives and looking for ways to make it legal?

So where does this guy get these ideas and furthermore, why in heaven’s name does the newspaper give him those huge op-ed spaces in which to spout his nonsense?

Wayne ‘n David went across the border to California to get married, before all that Mormon money bought them a constitutional amendment banning the civil proceeding. (I think their constitution is too easily amended, but that’s the left coast for ya.) If the Mormons are putting the brakes on gay marriage, is it because they fear the pockets of old-time Mormons are going to rise up and demand legal status for their multiple marriages? I don’t know. And I bet no one else is willing to put money on that, either. (Take that “Big Love”!)

Over the last 40 years, give or take, of my life, I have seen a lot of social upheaval that has changed our culture. Some of it hasn’t been necessarily for the good, and some of it fizzled out. Some of it has helped and some of it has set us back. One constant is that we have been trying, over and over, to get it right where discrimination is concerned. It was a big deal when interracial marriage was legalized, but it sure didn’t lead to scores of interracial couples flocking to the city clerk’s office for marriage licenses. All of the hand-wringing was for naught. The same will be true when the U.S. decides, once and for all, to separate civil and religious unions.

Right now, in this country, there are going to be countless gay couples who go all out for Mother’s Day. These are the people who are teaching us that it goes beyond the one day of the year designated for this kind of thing. These are the people who are showing us that two dads can successfully raise boys and girls, two moms can successfully raise boys and girls, and no amount of red herrings will dissuade them from the rightness of how they live their lives, nor from the depth of their love for their families.

I think I’ll email my prof and ask if that other guy sent him any stock tips…

You can see it at http://www.aauwofva.org. Stephanie, Virginia’s own Teacher of the Year, shaking hands with the President of the United States, in her fawn Talbots suit, looking totally blown away.

Okay, I am still over the moon about this. Tonight is the ball and she’ll be wearing the beautiful teal dress that her spouse, Joe, selected from the batch of probable contenders.

There are some things that still have the ability to move us to tears, cause us to roll on the floor laughing, or storm outside to the garden to yank out tree roots with our bare hands. Satchmo was right: What a Wonderful World.

It should come as no surprise to American women that when it came time to show their true colors, the men of the Republican party shined a giant moon on us. The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 came up for a vote (S. 181 for those of you who keep track) and it passed.

Here, for your consideration is the breakdown:

• Democrats (male and female) voting for the measure: ALL
• Republicans voting for the measure: ALL their women, ONE man (Arlen Spector as it happens)
• Independents voting for the measure: BOTH
• Democrats voting against the measure: NONE
• Republicans voting against the measure: ALL but one of the men
• Independents voting against the measure: NONE

John McCain voted against the measure. For those of you still nursing hurt feelings because he and his hot mama couldn’t manage a win, consider this: if he could vote against the ability for women to go after lost wages, then why did he even bother with the window dressing? Phoney baloney is what I call it. Pandering is also what I call it.

For those who aren’t aware of what this act means to women, it reverses the conservative Supreme Court’s ruling that Lily Ledbetter couldn’t sue for back wages because there was an unreasonable statute of limitations imposed on such suits. It ruled that 180 days was sufficient. As it happened, Lily didn’t find out until after the statute of limitations had expired that she had been cheated out of equal pay for an equal job for many years. This Act reversed the Supreme Court’s backward thinking. Lily is now able to go after those back wages, and believe me, no one deserves them more.

It’s been a long, hard battle for her, but she won on behalf of women everywhere in this country who are treated unequally when it comes to pay. Thank you, Lily!!!

With the exception of Sen. Spector of PA, the Senate Republican MEN tried to deny women this opportunity to achieve equity in the workplace. What it means is that in spite of their Republican neanderthal mindset, American businesses will have to take another look at their pay scales to insure equity, lest they risk a lawsuit.

I am sure that The Lion of the Senate was sick at heart that he wasn’t able to be there to cast the unanimous Democratic male vote on behalf of women, but I know he was with us in spirit. It takes a big man to acknowledge that women don’t always get a fair shake, and it takes even bigger men to stand up for what is right.

The Republican men (excepting Sen. Spector) showed us what big asses they are, and it’s the only thing that’s big about them as men.