Monthly archives: May, 2009

Notre Dame Welcomes Obama with Thunderous Applause

May 17, 2009
Barack ObamaDemocratic NewsEducationReligion
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Graduating students, faculty and guests just welcomed President Barack Obama with thunderous applause.

Commencement activities have just gotten under way, and there is no doubt that Notre Dame loves Barack Obama.

A commentator on CNN is stressing the “all Catholic bishops” object to the president receiving this degree at Notre Dame.  The number is slightly more than 70, and that represents only 20% of all American bishops.

CNN needs to give more time to Rev. Jim Martin.  This talking head from EWTN is a loose cannon and a joke.

Watch live now on CNN: http://www.cnn.com

Erie PA Officer James Cousins Mocks Black Murder Victim

May 17, 2009
RaceRantStrangeViolence
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Officer James Cousins II would rather you not see this.  He requested that it be pulled from the Internet.

This is Officer James Cousins mocking the death of Rondale Jennings Sr., son of Yvette Jennings, of Erie, PA.  The video has “upended race relations” in Erie, Pennsylvania’s fourth largest city.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

For nearly eight minutes, Erie police Officer James Cousins II was captured on a cell phone camera mocking the death of Ms. Jennings’ son, Rondale Jennings Sr., 31, who was shot in the head outside a local bar on March 28. The officer also imitated Ms. Jennings’ response when she saw her son at the crime scene, and joked about using a Taser on a suspect in another incident.

At the time he was recorded, Officer Cousins, who is white, was off duty and drinking with friends at another bar.

“It was sickening. It was hurtful,” Ms. Jennings said last week. “He described the exact moment when I saw my son’s face.”

Officer Cousins was suspended for 10 days without pay after the video surfaced. He wrote an apology to Ms. Jennings, and he is now on desk duty until he receives psychological testing.

Again from the video:

In the video, Officer Cousins seems visibly intoxicated as he imitates Mr. Jennings’ shaking body. He also jokes about the bullet hole in the victim’s forehead, claiming the body was lying under a malt liquor sign that said “take it to the head.”

He told his friends, “One less drug dealer to deal with. Cool.”

He also called Mr. Jennings a “turd,” which some viewers interpreted to be a racial epithet.

Both the NAACP and the FOP are weighing in now.

The constant media coverage has angered rank-and-file Erie police officers, said Sgt. Kensill of the FOP.

“Police are under a microscope,” he said. Officer Cousins has admitted his mistake, and any further punishment would be unfair, he said. The officer could not be reached for comment.

Yet Ms. Jennings isn’t satisfied with the officer’s apology, calling it insincere.

“In every job, there are people that don’t belong in the field. I feel like Officer Cousins is in the wrong field,” she said. “He lacks the ethics and values to be an officer. I don’t trust him.”

This was not a “mistake,” and we are hard pressed to imagine that this is the only time Officer Cousins has made remarks like this.  This is the only time Officer Cousins has been caught making remarks like this.

Officer Cousins defined his legacy, all by himself.

Kim Hendren Apologizes After Calling Sen. Schumer “That Jew”

May 14, 2009
Republicans
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From the Huffington Post:

A Republican candidate for Senate from Arkansas reportedly referred to Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer as “that Jew” during a recent appearance before a Republican group.

State Sen. Kim Hendren told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was wrong to refer to Schumer’s religious affiliation during a Pulaski County Republican Committee meeting last week. Hendren said he doesn’t remember the exact wording of his comment, but he was quoted by conservative blogger Jason Tolbert as calling Schumer “that Jew.”

“I ought not to have referred to it at all,” Hendren told the AP. “When I referred to him as Jewish, it wasn’t because I don’t like Jewish people.”

And some of my best friends are Jewish.

Amazing the things we’ll say sometimes when we think we’re safe, isn’t it?

Notre Dame’s Pres Jenky Writes to ’09 Grads About Obama

May 13, 2009
Barack ObamaEducationReligion
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Earlier this week, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., sent the following letter regarding Commencement to the Class of 2009.

Visit the ND website to view the Commencement ceremonies that will be broadcast live via streaming video. For the University Commencement Ceremony, the live video will be available starting at 12:45 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 17. The academic procession begins at 1:15 p.m. ET and the ceremony starts at 2:00 p.m. ET.

The text of the letter follows:

May 11, 2009

Dear Members of the Notre Dame Graduating Class of 2009:

This Sunday, as you receive your degrees at Commencement, your joy – and that of your families – will be shared by the faculty, staff, and administration of the University. We have had the privilege of laboring with each of you to inquire and discover, to teach and to learn, and we will send you off with affectionate and fond hopes for the future.

For those of you who are undergraduates, I feel a special kinship. You arrived in your dorm rooms as I arrived in the President’s Office. You have learned much; I may have learned more. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to learn with you, come to know you, and to serve you during our time together at Notre Dame.

During your years here we have endeavored to train you in the various disciplines and urged you to ask the larger questions – discussing not only the technical and practical but also the ethical and spiritual dimensions of pressing issues. I have been proud of you as you’ve grappled with intellectual, political, and spiritual questions. But I have never been more proud than I have been watching the way you’ve conducted yourselves over the past several weeks.

The decision to invite President Obama to Notre Dame to receive an honorary degree and deliver the Commencement address has triggered debate. In many cases, the debate has grown heated, even between people who agree completely on Church teaching regarding the sanctity of human life, who agree completely that we should work for change – and differ only on how we should work for change.

Yet, there has been an extra dimension to your debate. You have discussed this issue with each other while being observed, interviewed, and evaluated by people who are interested in this story. You engaged each other with passion, intelligence and respect. And I saw no sign that your differences led to division. You inspire me. We need the wider society to be more like you; it is good that we are sending you into that world on Sunday.

I am saddened that many friends of Notre Dame have suggested that our invitation to President Obama indicates ambiguity in our position on matters of Catholic teaching. The University and I are unequivocally committed to the sanctity of human life and to its protection from conception to natural death.

Notre Dame has a long custom of conferring honorary degrees on the President of the United States. It has never been a political statement or an endorsement of policy. It is the University’s expression of respect for the leader of the nation and the Office of the President. In the Catholic tradition, our first allegiance is to God in Christ, yet we are called to respect, participate in, and contribute to the wider society. As St. Peter wrote (I Pt. 2:17), we should honor the leader who upholds the secular order.

At the same time, and born of the same duty, a Catholic university has a special obligation not just to honor the leader but to engage the culture. Carrying out this role of the Catholic university has never been easy or without controversy. When I was an undergraduate at Notre Dame, Fr. Hesburgh spoke of the Catholic university as being both a lighthouse and a crossroads. As a lighthouse, we strive to stand apart and be different, illuminating issues with the moral and spiritual wisdom of the Catholic tradition. Yet, we must also be a crossroads through which pass people of many different perspectives, backgrounds, faiths, and cultures. At this crossroads, we must be a place where people of good will are received with charity, are able to speak, be heard, and engage in responsible and reasoned dialogue.

The President’s visit to Notre Dame can help lead to broader engagement on issues of importance to the country and of deep significance to Catholics. Ultimately, I hope that the conversations and the good will that come from this day will contribute to closer relations between Catholics and public officials who make decisions on matters of human life and human dignity.

There is much to admire and celebrate in the life and work of President Obama. His views and policies on immigration, expanding health care, alleviating poverty, and building peace through diplomacy have a deep resonance with Catholic social teaching. As the first African-American holder of this office, he has accelerated our country’s progress in overcoming the painful legacy of slavery and segregation. He is a remarkable figure in American history, and I look forward to welcoming him to Notre Dame.

As President Obama is our principal speaker, there will no doubt be much attention on your Commencement. Remember, though, that this day is your day. My fervent prayer is that May 17 will be a joyous day for you and your family. You are the ones we celebrate and applaud. Congratulations, and may God bless you.

In Notre Dame,

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President

Catholic Archbishop Weakland Comes Out as Gay Man

May 13, 2009
GLBTReligion
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A Catholic Archbishop from Milwaukee is coming out, according to the Human Rights Campaign:

In religion news, a former Wisconsin Archbishop is coming out as a gay man in a new book.  Archbishop Rembert Weakland says he wanted to be candid about his struggle understanding his sexual orientation, suppressing it and then finally accepting it.  He is the former head of the Milwaukee archdiocese.

Weakland’s book, A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop, will be released in June.

News that Weakland is gay is not new.  In 2002, he admitted to a relationship with another man.  From the National Catholic Reporter:

Most Catholics already know that Archbishop Rembert Weakland resigned in 2002 after it came to light that he had had an affair with a man and paid him to keep it quiet after the man made a sexual assault claim. Weakland publicly apologized for his indiscretions and received a standing ovation in Milwaukee, where he has continued to live.

The difference now is that we’ll be able to read Weakland’s own words.  An advanced review of the book in Publishers Weekly called it “the poignant journey of a soul.”  Here’s the complete review:

When Weakland resigned as Milwaukee archbishop in 2002 after revelations of a past homosexual relationship and a confidential payout, it was seen as another stunning episode in the unfolding clergy abuse scandal. It was especially painful to liberal Catholics who viewed Weakland as their champion. Weakland was publicly penitent, but other events that year—chief among them the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston—made Weakland’s drama a footnote. With this frank and well-told memoir, that’s no longer the case. A Benedictine monk, Weakland is up front about his homosexuality in a church that preferred to ignore gays, and about his failures in overseeing pedophile priests. But this is really the poignant journey of a soul, not a mea culpa about sex, with chapters on his hardscrabble boyhood and fascinating, and sometimes sobering, insights into the life of a bishop and the tensions between the American Catholic Church and the Vatican. At points the narrative has more than enough detail on the life of a globe-trotting abbot. But overall this is an invaluable historical record and a moving personal confession. (June) 

In 2002, the Catholic Church blamed gay priests for the clergy sex scandals, a scandalous lie in itself.  Pedophiles are overwhelmingly heterosexual.  Gay Catholic priests have been run out of the ministry for years.  In 1998, Rev. David Garrick, a theater professor at the University of Notre Dame, resigned, saying that the university has failed to embrace part of the broader Catholic family, those who are gay and lesbian.

Weakland has had his own issues in Milwaukee.  Was he denied the red hat because he is gay?  Who knows.

For years I have had professors tell me that upwards of 50% of all Catholic clergy are gay, and some of them are the most oppressive.

Weakland is a good man, and he has demonstrated compassion.  Read his book and get to know him yourself.

Todd Stroger is Confused About Taxes

May 12, 2009
ChicagoChicagolandCook CountyDemocratic NewsEconomy
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First, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger wanted to cut taxes.  That big announcement was made around tax day 2009:

Less than a year before he seeks re-election, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger today asked commissioners to roll back part of the major sales tax increase he pushed through last year.

Under the proposal, the county’s sales tax rate would drop from 1.75 percent to 1.5 percent. At a a news conference, Stroger said federal stimulus package dollars would make it possible.

Pressed to explain how exactly stimulus dollars would replace sales tax revenue, Stroger replied that he had “no hard numbers” because the county continues discussions with federal officials.

Given Stroger’s inability to focus or clearly explain his positions, it was not surprising that Stroger had “no hard numbers.”  Much like the U.S. Senate Republican’s 2009 budget proposal — which essentially was a glorified coloring book — Stroger’s budget proposals have been erratic.

Forward one month:

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger has vetoed a 12-3 vote of the County Board to repeal his beloved sales-tax increase. Deep down, he says, he supports killing the full tax increase. But not now, and not even on a set schedule. No, he wants to roll back the tax “as funds become available.”

Right.  So that federal stimulus package that was supposed to save the day doesn’t count.

The Trib has a plan:

We figure the 12 board members who voted to kill the tax increase will vote to override. Similarly, the three who previously voted to keep the increase in place — Jerry “Iceman” Butler, William Beavers and Robert Steele — probably will vote against an override.

So Stroger’s veto brings tremendous pressure on the two members who missed that 12-3 vote. Either can be the fourth vote he needs. And both may have Democratic challengers in February’s Illinois primary precisely because of their past support for Stroger’s tax policies.

Surely they would appreciate your guidance on whether to let Stroger keep collecting his tax increase. Earlean Collins represents Chicago’s West Side and some west suburbs. Her telephone numbers are 312-603-4566 and 773-626-2184. Deborah Sims represents parts of the South Side and south suburbs. Her numbers are 312-603-6381 and 708-371-4251.

Readers, start dialing.

That’s a good plan.

Look, I know I’m naive.  I don’t get it.  I should better understand why Commissioner Deborah Sims is so loyal to Stroger in the first place — but I don’t.

The Cook County Board needs to grow some and override the veto.  Make your calls.

Tell Your Illinois Rep to Vote YES on Civil Unions

May 8, 2009
Civil LibertiesDemocratic NewsGLBT
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Passing this along from Equality Illinois.  Please contact your Rep. again even if they are already supportive:

The end of the Spring session of the Illinois General Assembly is approaching. There is a good chance that we can pass the civil union bill before the end of the session.

The civil union bill is on its’ third reading in the House which means it can be voted on at any time. Equality Illinois’ full lobbying team is in Springfield putting together the votes necessary for the passage of the bill. But we need help. Even if you have done so before, please call, write or email your state representative and urge a yes vote on HB 2234.

The Tribune, Sun-Times and Daily Herald have all strongly urged the General Assembly to pass this legislation now. Over 160 Illinois clergy from a wide range of denominations signed a letter to the General Assembly urging a yes vote on this bill. And, the Equality Illinois lobby day brought Illinoisans from every part of our state to the State House to speak with legislators.

But, our legislators still need to hear from you today.

Opponents of fairness and decency for all Illinoisans have bombarded our legislators with anti-civil union calls and letters. Our legislators need to hear from fair-minded Illinoisans in greater numbers.

We are on the threshold of passing legislation to recognize and protect same-sex couples.

Please contact your legislator today. It will make all the difference.

Click here to contact your state representative through the Equality Illinois Action Alert messaging system. Send this message to your family, friends, coworkers and associates around the state, urging them to contact their representatives also.

Gay Marriage Legal in Maine

May 6, 2009
Civil LibertiesGLBT
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From WTAE Pittsburgh:

Maine’s governor has signed a bill making the state the fifth to allow gay marriage. 

Gov. John Baldacci signed the legislation shortly after the Maine legislature passed it Wednesday. 

New Hampshire legislators are also poised to send a gay marriage bill to their governor. He has not indicated whether he’ll sign it. 

If gay marriage becomes law in New Hampshire, Rhode Island would be the sole holdout in New England.

Thank you to Gov. Baldacci and the all legislators in the state of Maine.

It’s time, Illinois.  Let’s get with it.  We’re ready.

Let’s Waterboard Ann Coulter

May 1, 2009
LegalRepublicans
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Watch the video above if you can stand to watch Ann Coulter. Coulter compares waterboarding to hazing, punishment for small children.

Thanks to our friends at Media Matters for America.