Jesus Chavez, July 2017. Thank you.

Last night, Metro DC PFLAG honored Jesus Chavez, who has served as our outstanding Director of Operations for the past three years. We wish him well in his new endeavors back home in California.

In his quiet, yet persistent, work to improve the lives of LGBTQ people and their families, Jesus has exemplified what Robert Kennedy spoke of more than 50 years ago in Capetown: “It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Jesus is such a man.

Dr. King and the Second American Revolution: My 1999 presentation at Temple Emanuel

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., SERVICE TEMPLE EMANUEL
February 12, 1999
David Fishback

On this Shabbat Evening, we commemorate the birth, and celebrate the life, of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a 20th Century American prophet, who called our nation to its highest ideals.

In reflecting on Dr. King and his legacy, the first thing that usually comes to mind is that Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement forced America to examine itself closely: To confront the simple fact that the principles upon which we believed our country was founded were being ignored with respect to citizens of African-American descent.

The American Jewish Community was particularly receptive to this message, not just because it evoked our ancient stories of slavery and freedom, but because Jews in the Old World were made to feel as outsiders, just as blacks were in America. Our ancestors came to these shores so that they and their children and grandchildren would never again have to be outsiders, oppressed by undemocratic governments and hostile "host" cultures. For in America -- a "nation of immigrants", a "nation of nations" — the Dream was that all peoples could belong, that no one need be an outsider.

The Dream, of course, was imperfect, but the American Jewish experience taught us that, with each succeeding generation, the reality came closer to the theory. As we became comfortable in American, the glaring exception to the American Dream finally was confronted.

It is important to understand that the confrontation was far more than a secular issue. It is easy, but mistaken, to view Martin Luther King as essentially a secular figure, using the church simply as an organizing base. But an examination of his life and work reveals that the religious basis of his vision was deep and profound.

Religion for Dr. King was not merely an organizing tool. Rather, it was the well-spring of public morality that King saw as rooted in, and emerging from, the best Judeo-Christian traditions. He spoke with a religious voice, harkening to the words of the Hebrew prophets: "Let justice well up as waters," he quoted from Amos (5:24), "and righteousness as a mighty stream." Dr. King expressed not a religion of the rulers, but a religion of the masses: Speaking truth to power, condemning injustice, calling on an entire society to live up to the beliefs it held, but did not practice.

It was this prophetic vision that led Dr. King to a deep friendship and alliance with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose yahrzeit commemorate at the season of Dr. King's birthday. Rabbi Heschel was a refugee from pre-Holocaust Europe and a renowned biblical scholar. In January 1963, "an unprecedented ecumenical gathering of nearly 1000 delegates including established leaders of nearly every religious body in America" (Branch 21) met at the Chicago Conference on Religion and Race. This Conference, according to Taylor Branch in Pillar of Fire, was intended to deal with the widely-differing responses (and non-responses) of Christian churches to segregation in America.

But, as Branch relates, "Far from positioning Jews safely as helpful bystanders to an essentially Christian conflict, Heschel declared that the soul of Judaism was at stake and had been so ever since Moses contended with Pharoah at the "first" summit meeting on religion and race. 'The exodus began,' said Heschel, 'but is far from having been completed. In fact, it was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for a Negro to cross certain university campuses.'" (24)

What set both King and Heschel apart at the Chicago Conference was their insistence on the prophetic vision and approach to the crisis. "Moralists of all ages have been eloquent in singing the praises of virtue", wrote Heschel. "The distinction of the prophets was in their remorseless unveiling of injustice and oppression." And in the months and years that followed, Rabbi Heschel became one of Dr. King's staunchest allies in the struggle. The large picture along the stairway to the Religious School classes shows them together at Selma. And it was at Selma March that Rabbi Heschel reported, "It felt as though my feet were praying."

It is fitting that the annual American celebration of Dr. King take place in houses of worship, as well as in the secular realm.  First and foremost, Dr. King was a preacher, a man of religion.  But he wove a vital synthesis of religious conviction and a belief in American democratic principles.  In 1961, he observed that America

is essentially a dream, a dream as yet unfulfilled. It is a dream where [people] of all races, of all nationalities and of all creeds can live together as brothers [and sisters] . . . . Ever since the Founding Fathers of our nation dreamed this noble dream, America has been something of a schizophrenic society, tragically divided against herself. On the one hand we have proudly professed the principles of democracy, and on the other hand we have sadly practiced the very antithesis of those principles.

Across the American South, and across our entire nation, Martin Luther King was both the spiritual and the action-oriented leader of the Civil Rights Movement. And he understood that the struggle was not just to bring down the barriers of American Apartheid, but also to bring to reality an America of economic, as well as social, justice; to create an environment in which all of our children would have the opportunity to live happy and healthy lives.

Dr. King saw into the Promised Land, although he did not live to fully experience it. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were only beginning to bear fruit when he was gunned down just before Passover in 1968. It has been nearly a quarter-century since that terrible spring, beginning with the assassination of Martin Luther King and ending with the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Although progress has been slow, and we have, at times, had reversals since those days, we must remember how far we, as a nation, have come from what was, in the lifetimes of the adults here this evening, an apartheid structure in much of our own country.

Dr. King had known it would be a long process. In 1965, he said that

it is the keystone of my faith in the future that we will someday achieve a thoroughly integrated society. I believe that before the turn of the century, . . . we will have moved a long way toward such a society.

Well, we are approaching that turn. And we have, in the last 1/3 of a century, moved a long way. But, as Dr. King knew would be the case, there is still a long way to go.

The wisdom of celebrating Dr. King lies not just in his call for justice and democracy, but in the means by which he achieved it: the doctrine of militant non- violent direct action. The success of that approach enabled us to undergo what was truly a revolution with very little bloodshed. We had our martyrs, black and white, Christian and Jewish. But they died in circumstances which strengthened the Movement, and which caused a rotten system to shrivel up in a few short years. This was, in fact, the Second American Revolution. An important part of its significance was that it dealt with the exercise of power in a revolutionary context in a completely new way. Dr. King explained it thusly:

Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political or economic changes. In this sense, power is not only desirable, but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice. One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. What is needed is a realization that power without love in reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.

The Second American Revolution was not only a revolution in the change it brought about, but in the way it brought about change.

The Second American Revolution -- of which Dr. King was the most visible leader -- may well turn out to be as important, or even more important, in its world-wide impact as in its impact within our borders.

To understand the impact of this Second American Revolution, we must remember the impact of the First American Revolution. In the 18th Century, the fledgling democracy of the colonial experience expelled, by force of arms, monarchical control. What emerged was the first real democracy on a significant scale in the history of the human race. Even though it was flawed by the genocide of the Native American population and the existence of African slavery in the South, the message which went out to the rest of the world was that governments could, to quote Jefferson, be based upon "the consent of the governed."

That message led to a century and a half of upheavals, which ended in the establishment of freedom and democracy in Western Europe and Japan. That message also led to the Gandhian Movement in India, which led to another expulsion of colonial rule and the creation of democracy in the most trying of circumstances. Gandhi added a new element to the formula: militant, mass non- violent direct action. And although the Indian Independence Movement was often overcome by terrible violence, particularly during the partition, it was instructive to a young minister in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955.

By 1956, Dr. King was involved in intense discussions with American disciples of Gandhi (Rustin and Wofford). In 1959, he traveled to India to learn more of Gandhi's impact: how his ideas were followed and how they were not. By the early 1960s, the strategy of militant non-violent resistance to injustice and oppression was being refined by Dr. King and his associates, bringing about the Second American Revolution: the turbulent, but relatively peaceful, end of American apartheid. While the First American Revolution was, of necessity, based on the exercise of military power, the Second American Revolution was based on the exercise of spiritual power -- the militant appeal to conscience and love. And its successful implementation brought about the turbulent, but relatively peaceful, end of American Apartheid.

So the ideas that began in the First American Revolution swung to Europe and Asia, where they were refined, and were sent back to America, where they sparked the Second American Revolution. The strategy of the Second American Revolution, in turn, spread back to the Eastern Hemisphere, as the historic events of the last decade have demonstrated.

The success of King's adaptation led, in large part, to its adoption by the freedom movements of Eastern Europe and the Far East. The victorious non-violent massing of people opposing dictatorship and making it impossible for dictatorship to continue, was seen in Manila, Prague, East Berlin, and, finally, even in Moscow. The success of non-violence, I believe, gave heart to those in South Africa who recognized that apartheid was untenable and that a transition to freedom and democracy was not only essential, but possible. Mandela and DeKlerk, for all their courage and vision, stand on the shoulders of Martin Luther King. Of course, the work is not finished — the Tieneman Square Movement, for example, was crushed. But, as Dr. King reminded us, "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Just as, at the Seder, we, as Jews, are required to retell to our children the story of the Exodus from Egypt, I believe that, at the King Holiday, we, as Americans, must retell to our children the story of our nation's internal Exodus from apartheid to equal rights. Both are stories of movement to freedom. While the first required flight from an oppressive society -- flight which we as Jews have been familiar with over the centuries -- the second tells perhaps an even more astounding story: a transformation of the oppressive society.

In the Exodus from Egypt, as this evening's Torah portion relates, Pharoah's "heart was hardened" after each plague. In the Exodus within America, Pharoah was the entire white society, and ultimately its heart was softened and its soul was changed by the non-violent demonstrations, the civil disobedience which forced the 20th Century Pharoah to itself be transformed. In many ways, we have gone from the Georgia of Lester Maddox to the Georgia of Jimmy Carter, from the Arkansas of Orval Faubus to the Arkansas of Bill Clinton.

It would be wonderful if the American Exodus had already led to a Messianic Age. But it has not, just as the Egyptian Exodus did not. It took the Hebrew people 40 years in the desert to recover from slavery. It will take American society a long time to recover from slavery and apartheid. But this should not be cause for despair; that is the lesson we must learn from Dr. King. Again, "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice." If we work for progress, we can achieve progress. If we work for a Messianic Age, we can continually improve our world, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. 

Frank Underwood and Donald Trump: Which is more chilling, the fiction or the currrent reality?:

I have been watching House of Cards on Netflix.  It is hard to tell whether or not it is a welcome relief from the disaster of the Trump Administration.  The parallels are there, but the differences are also stark.  The fictional President Frank Underwood is contemptuous of virtually everyone else in the world (and of what most of us view as the norms of democracy) and only cares about himself and perhaps a couple of other people.  On the other hand, unlike President Trump, the Underwood character is is totally self-aware and is very, very smart.  

Those who have seen any of House of Cards know that occasionally, Frank Underwood speaks directly to the camera, breaking down the proverbial third wall of drama.  Here is the text of his chilling direct statement to the Netflix audience in the middle of his swearing in as President of the United States.  The text may not do full justice to Kevin Spacey's chilling performance, but here it is:

And now here I am.  President of these United States.  You made this bed, America.  You voted for ME. 

Are you confused? Are you afraid? Because what you thought you wanted is now here. And there you are, starring back, slack-jawed, bewildered, wondering if what this is what you actually asked for. 

This Democracy, your Democracy, elected ME.  And if you think it was hard getting here, you’re beginning to understand what I am willing to do to stay.  

I look across at this crowd gathered today, and I know that that these are not my supporters.  I’m looking at the people who are waiting, with a smile on their face for their turn.  And the most vicious among them are the ones who are smiling and clapping the hardest.  Power IS a lot like real estate.  Remember?

Silver Linings, Dark Clouds, and Hypocrisy: DOJ Pride at the Department of Justice

DOJ Pride DOJ Pride is an organization of LGBT U.S. Department of Justice employees.  It has existed since the Clinton Administration.

I was heartened to read an Associated Press report this morning that yesterday DOJ Pride held its annual Pride event in the Main Justice Building, honoring Transgender Rights hero Gavin Grimm and the DOJ attorneys who worked on the litigation against North Carolina's H.B. 2 until the Trump Administration pulled the plug on the case.

This seemed to be progress of a sort with respect to Republican Administrations, inasmuch as in the Bush II Administration, Attorney General John Ashcroft barred all DOJ Pride activities at the Department, and this exclusion continued until the last year of the Bush II Administration.

Current Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not comment at all about the upcoming event until, according to the AP report, a DOJ intern asked about it.  Then, and only then, did Sessions say that, "We will protect and defend and celebrate that, and protect the rights of all transgender persons," noting that he had directed the Civil Rights Division to review some cases in which transgender people were killed.  "We are not going to allow persons in this country to be discriminated against or attacked in any way because of their sexual orientation." (Sessions does not appear to understand the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity.)

The hypocrisy of the current Attorney General's statement is palpable -- it is nice that he is against murder, but opposes all laws protecting LGBT people against discrimination.  (Similar, I suppose, to those 20th Century Southern politicians who decried lynching, but opposed all moves toward racial equality.)  But even that hypocrisy has its value, since it is a public recognition of the humanity of LGBT people -- something virtually absent from recent Republican/Trump/Family Research Council discourse.  That seems reminiscent of the Reagan Administration 1984 Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Ceremony at DOJ.  I had just started working at DOJ, and initially was horrified that the speaker at the MLK Ceremony was Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds, whose mission seemed to be to halt civil rights enforcement.  On reflection, I realized that this represented progress, because the culture had so changed that even people like Reynolds felt the political need to pay lip service to civil rights.

But upon closer reading of the AP report, I learned that the Sessions Department of Justice excluded the press from yesterday's DOJ Pride event.  And then I learned from another report that this exclusion was unprecedented.

So Sessions does not even meet the Brad Reynolds standard of decency.  Sessions allows DOJ Pride to meet, but then hopes that his homophobic/transphobic base will not notice.

Prince George's County Executive Candidate C. Anthony Muse's history of opposition to laws protecting LGBT people

Longtime Maryland State Senator C. Anthony Muse announced yesterday that he is running for the Democratic Party nomination to succeed Rushern Baker as Prince George's County Executive.

LGBT people, their families, their friends, and all people who support equal rights and treatment of LGBT people should be concerned.  From 2007 until 2014, Senator Muse opposed, and was in a position often to block, legislation barring discrimination against the LGBT community.  In 2007, as a member of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, he voted against protections for transgender people, and his vote prevented the full Senate from voting on an anti-discrimination bill, even though he had previously indicated support.  See here.

In 2008, again as a swing vote on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, he indicated opposition to Civil Marriage Equality at the hearing on S. 290, although he left the meeting before testimony from the public.  As a Board member of the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG, I wrote to Senator Muse, hoping to address the concerns he set forth at the meeting.  This, and other appeals, had insufficient impact; Senator Muse helped block S. 290, and set forth his theologically based reasons in statements given to the Washington Post.

In 2011, Senator Muse again opposed Civil Marriage Equality.  Note this excerpt from a Post report:

"Here's my question: Where does it stop?" asked Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George's), who is also senior pastor at the Ark of Safety Christian Church of Upper Marlboro. He questioned whether polygamy or marriage between people of very different ages would one day be acceptable.

The next year, 2012, Civil Marriage Equality was enacted by the Maryland General Assembly, but Senator Muse continued his vociferous opposition. See here.  Indeed, he was a leader in the unsuccessful effort to overturn the Civil Marriage Equality law by referendum, publishing an impassioned op-ed piece in the Post just a couple of weeks before the referendum vote.

A few months later, in March 2013, Senator Muse was a key Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee vote blocking a bill to extend anti-discrimination protections to transgender people.  See here.

Happily, however, the next year, Senator Muse voted in favor of the Fairness for All Marylanders Act, extending civil rights protections to people regardless of gender identity, and it became law in May 2014. See here.

So has Senator Muse had a change of heart on LGBT matters?  With respect to transgender people, it would appear so.  But with respect to gay people, there is no reason to believe that his views have changed. In any event, the burden is on the prospective County Executive to show that he has moved passed the things he said at least as recently as 2012.

2008 Letter to State Senator C. Anthony Muse

February 15, 2008

The Honorable C. Anthony Muse (anthony.muse@senate.state.md.us )

Maryland State Senate

304 James Senate Office Building

11 Bladen Avenue

Annapolis, Maryland 21401

Dear Senator Muse:

I attended yesterday's Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee meeting with my wife Barbara, who spoke about our children in supporting S. 290. Unfortunately, you had to leave the room before she so movingly explained the need for children who happen to be gay to know that they will not be treated as second-class citizens when they grow up. Her testimony is attached.

I listened with great interest to your questions. Perhaps these perspectives will be useful to you.

1. First, the question of whether the movements for equal rights for African Americans and for gay Americans are exactly the same. I agree with you that they are not identical. The reality was and is that African Americans (except for a small number of very light-skinned people) cannot avoid discrimination because they are obviously African American. Gay people can hide, can "pass." That is a very big difference.

            The salient issue before the Committee on S. 290 is whether gay people should have to “pass” to avoid discrimination. Should they have to pretend to be straight -- including marrying people to whom they are not romantically attracted -- in order to be full citizens? We all know the deleterious effects on people who must hide who they truly are -- whether people who "pass" as white, or people who "pass" as straight.

2. The answer to the first question leads to the matter of whether gay people can choose to be straight, or whether their sexual orientation is just the way God made them. This was of particular interest to my wife and me, since we have two gay sons. We learned that the mainstream medical and mental health professional associations have concluded that one’s sexual orientation is not a choice. Here, for example, is what the American Academy of Pediatrics has concluded about why some people are gay:

            A variety of theories about the influences on sexual orientation have been proposed. Sexual orientation probably is not determined by any one factor but by a combination         of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences. In recent decades, biologically          based theories have been favored by experts. The high concordance of       homosexuality among monozygotic twins and the clustering of homosexuality in        family pedigrees support biological models. There is some evidence that prenatal androgen exposure influences development of sexual orientation, but postnatal sex     steroid concentrations do not vary with sexual orientation. The reported association in        males between homosexual orientation and loci on the X chromosome remains to be replicated. Some research has shown neuroanatomic differences between homosexual       and heterosexual persons in sexually dimorphic regions of the brain. Although there             continues to be controversy and uncertainty as to the genesis of the variety of human            sexual orientations, there is no scientific evidence that abnormal parenting, sexual            abuse, or other adverse life events influence sexual orientation. [emphases added.]

The full AAP report may be found at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/113/6/1827)   See also the American Psychological Association’s Answers to Your Questions About Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality, which may be found at http://www.apa.org/topics/orientation.html.

            For your information, attached is a Fact Sheet from the Metro DC Chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) summarizing the conclusions of  mainstream medical and mental health professional associations.

            If gay people do not choose to be gay, why should they be prohibited from having the same rights and responsibilities with regard to their life partners as straight people? Particularly since we want to encourage stable, monogamous relationships, why should gay people be pushed into the shadows? If we want to encourage stable, monogamous relationships, shouldn’t we extend full marriage rights to gay people? (If I had a daughter, I certainly would not want her to marry a gay man – for such a marriage would be false and ultimately painful to both of them.)

3. I understand that some people have religious objections to the government's sanctioning of same sex relationships. People have told me that they, personally, do not care whether gay couples are allowed to marry, but that they must oppose it because their religion (and, by extension, their understanding of what God commands) opposes it. Of course, different religions have different understandings of what God commands. For example, the position of the Roman Catholic Church, contrary to that of other denominations, is that God instructs that divorce and birth control methods (other than the “rhythm” method) are barred. We do not enshrine that in civil law because we understand that theology should not dictate civil law.

            Some religious denominations oppose same sex marriage, while others support it.   The question posed yesterday by Senator Simonaire was whether any religious viewpoints should have a role in how the state government deals with whether marriage rights should include gay couples.  I think that misconstrues the issue. The question, I would suggest, is whether particular theological viewpoints should be determinative. This should not be,  fundamentally, an issue of whose theology ought to prevail in the General Assembly – just as it is not an issue with regard to civil divorce or birth control.

            I think Senator Obama set forth the framework best, in discussing how religious viewpoints should impact on important social issues, given that there are so many different theological viewpoints in our society:

            What our deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the religiously          motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific        values. It requires that their proposals must be subject to argument and amenable to   reason. If I am opposed to abortion for religious reasons and seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or invoke God's will and expect that argument to carry the day. If I want others to listen to me,          then I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to         people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

The Audacity of Hope, p. 219 (emphasis added).

            The same analysis applies to the question of whether gay couples should have the same legal rights and responsibilities as straight people. So the question before the General Assembly is really how “universal, rather than religion-specific values” inform the issue of whether equal marriage rights should be extended to couples, regardless of sexual orientation. That universal value is the Golden Rule.

            Senator Obama’s formulation leads us to make a distinction between theology and morality. Attached is a presentation I gave at my synagogue at our annual Martin Luther King service in January 2005, entitled Theology, Morality, and Faith: A Legacy of Dr. King. This presentation does not discuss gay rights. It does discuss Dr. King's teachings in terms of how we use our religious convictions in the governmental sphere. At bottom, the lodestar in terms of how we judge what is moral is the Golden Rule. I would point you to one particular passage from the sermon:

            If the Golden Rule is just the starting point, how do we decide, in each instance, what is moral?

            Dr. King addressed this question in a 1961 discussion of the difference between just     and unjust laws in the context of segregation statutes.

            "What is the difference,” he asked, “between a just and an unjust law?” “I would          say,” he answered, “that an unjust law is a code that the majority inflicts on the minority that is not binding on itself.” But this was not the end of his analysis. He      elaborated on the question in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail in 1963: “How          does one determine when a law is just or unjust? . . . . Any law that uplifts human        personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

            The stories told at yesterday’s hearing show how extension of equal marriage rights to gay couples “uplifts human personality,” and that the current ban on same sex marriage “degrades human personality.” I believe that is why Mrs. King was (and Congressman John Lewis is) such a strong supporter of equal marriage rights for gay people. And while theology should not govern this issue, I would ask, "Would a loving God expect any less?"

4. Finally, you asked Attorney General Gansler whether he would be in favor of putting the same sex marriage issue to a referendum, as is being done with the slots issue.

Whatever one thinks of the Governor’s proposal to “punt” on the slots issue by putting it to referendum, slots do not raise issues of fundamental human rights. Just as it would have been an inappropriate in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s for repeal of the anti-miscegenation laws to be put to referenda because a legislatures (or courts) did not want to take their responsibilities for the protection of human rights seriously, the General Assembly should not punt on this issue either.

            A fundamental principle of our representative democracy is that our elected leaders deliberate over difficult questions, calmly assessing the issues, and coming to just conclusions. Having done such justice, they are then answerable to the voters. If voters have different views, then it is the job of incumbent legislators to explain their votes. That is the essence of leadership. And that interaction between the electorate and their legislators is far more amenable to reasoned public discourse than the referendum process, in which special interest groups can pour in huge amounts of money and (too often) lie and distort the issues in contexts in which voters are not always paying full attention. We have a representative democracy because important issues should be given full deliberation. Government by plebiscite has always been a dubious proposition, particularly when it comes to basic human rights. We certainly would not have wanted such a governing theme in the 1950s and early 1960s. The genius of the American experiment in representative democracy is that we understand that core individual rights ought not to depend on the transient  popularity or unpopularity of certain groups.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If I may be of any assistance as you work through these issues, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

David S. Fishback

Member, Board of Directors, Metro DC Chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)

cc:        Democratic Members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee

            Senator Madaleno

            Senator Kramer

Grassroots victory on Transgender Rights in Frederick County, MD

Whatever backsliding we see in the Trump Administration on LGBT rights, let's remember the good things that are going on at the grassroots. Congratulations, Frederick County MD.

Frederick County school board approves policy to protect transgender students
By Allen Etzler aetzler@newspost.com

Jun 14, 2017 Updated Jun 15, 2017

A last-minute turnout of opposing residents was not enough to delay a vote on the Frederick County Board of Education’s transgender policy.

The board approved the policy Wednesday evening. In part, the policy allows students to choose which bathroom to use based on the gender with which that student identifies.

It also gives any student who is uncomfortable for any reason using a gender-segregated bathroom the option to use a safe and non-stigmatizing alternative — such as privacy curtains, provisions to use private restrooms or office restrooms, or a separate changing schedule in locker rooms.

The policy also allows transgender students to participate in sports that align with their gender identity. So, a transgender girl could play girls soccer, and a transgender boy could play baseball. The policy also says that students are not required to disclose their gender identity.

Board member April Miller was the lone member to oppose the policy. She said she wanted to delay the vote to make the policy more clear in regards to what information parents had a right to know. She cited a policy that Fairfax County, Virginia, Public Schools is working on as having more comprehensive language.

Board member Joy Schaefer said the policy does not preclude the regulation being worked on by Fairfax County Public Schools.

Before the meeting, transgender student activist James Van Kuilenburg organized a rally of about 50 supporters of the policy outside the Frederick County Public Schools central office building.

Van Kuilenburg, a transgender student at Gov. Thomas Johnson High School, was one of 15 speakers to offer public comment on the policy, though most of the commenters spoke out in opposition.

Dan Cox, a former Republican candidate for Congress, spoke out against the policy, saying the board was putting students at risk.

“You’re exposing every child in this county to potential of sexual abuse,” he said.

Arlin Hatch spoke in opposition to the policy because he said he felt that parents were being shut out of the process, and that the school board was overstepping its boundaries.

“If the school system excludes parents from [the] equation, it would cripple parents’ ability” to intervene and help, said Hatch, whose wife, Veronica, also spoke at the meeting.

Schaefer said it’s the board’s preference for schools to work with parents, and the board hopes they would do so.

County Councilman Tony Chmelik asked the board to delay the vote as well, citing feedback he has received from members of his district.

“What’s the problem with hitting the pause button?” Chmelik asked.

The board expressed that after five policy committee meetings, and three regular full board meetings, it was ready to vote.

“I feel like I’m doing the right thing,” school board member Ken Kerr said in support of the measure.

“We’re not doing [this] because we want to be an activist or because we think it’s fun.”

Student board member Carter Gipson, whose vote does not count, said he had concerns about the policy when it first came up. But throughout the process he has come to support it.

“It’s worth trying,” he said.

Several board members agreed that this process has been a learning experience, and if the policy needs to be amended, it can be.

“Is it perfect? I don’t know,” board President Brad Young said. But the policy can be amended in the future, he added.

Board member Colleen Cusimano was not present at the meeting and, therefore, did not vote.