Category: Injustice to Women

Is Rape Serious?

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: April 29, 2009
The New York Times

When a woman reports a rape, her body is a crime scene. She is typically asked to undress over a large sheet of white paper to collect hairs or fibers, and then her body is examined with an ultraviolet light, photographed and thoroughly swabbed for the rapist’s DNA.

It’s a grueling and invasive process that can last four to six hours and produces a “rape kit” — which, it turns out, often sits around for months or years, unopened and untested.

Stunningly often, the rape kit isn’t tested at all because it’s not deemed a priority. If it is tested, this happens at such a lackadaisical pace that it may be a year or more before there are results (if expedited, results are technically possible in a week).

So while we have breakthrough DNA technologies to find culprits and exculpate innocent suspects, we aren’t using them properly — and those who work in this field believe the reason is an underlying doubt about the seriousness of some rape cases. In short, this isn’t justice; it’s indifference.

Solomon Moore, a colleague of mine at The Times, last year wrote about a 43-year-old legal secretary who was raped repeatedly in her home in Los Angeles as her son slept in another room. The attacker forced the woman to clean herself in an attempt to destroy the evidence.

Tim Marcia, the detective on the case, thought this meant that the perpetrator was a habitual offender who would strike again. Mr. Marcia rushed the rape kit to the crime lab but was told to expect a delay of more than one year.

So Mr. Marcia personally drove the kit 350 miles to deliver it to the state lab in Sacramento. Even there, the backlog resulted in a four-month delay — but then it produced a “cold hit,” a match in a database of the DNA of previous offenders.

Yet in the months while the rape kit sat on a shelf, the suspect had allegedly struck twice more. Police said he broke into the homes of a pregnant woman and a 17-year-old girl, sexually assaulting each of them.

“The criminal justice system is still ill equipped to deal with rape and not that good at moving rape cases forward,” notes Sarah Tofte, who just wrote a devastating report for Human Rights Watch about the rape-kit backlog. The report found that in Los Angeles County, there were at last count 12,669 rape kits sitting in police storage facilities. More than 450 of these kits had sat around for more than 10 years, and in many cases, the statute of limitations had expired.

There are no good national figures, and one measure of the indifference is that no one even bothers to count the number of rape kits sitting around untested.

Why don’t police departments treat rape kits with urgency? One reason is probably expense — each kit can cost up to $1,500 to test — but there also seems to be a broad distaste for rape cases as murky, ambiguous and difficult to prosecute, particularly when they involve (as they often do) alcohol or acquaintance rape.

“They talk about the victims’ credibility in a way that they don’t talk about the credibility of victims of other crimes,” Ms. Tofte said.

Charlie Beck, a deputy police chief of Los Angeles, said that there was no excuse for the failure to test rape kits, but he noted that integrating a new technology into police work is complex and involves a learning curve. Since Human Rights Watch began its investigation, he said, the department had resolved to test rape kits routinely — and as a result, cold hits have doubled.

While the backlog and desultory handling of rape kits are nationwide problems, there is one shining exception: New York City has made a concerted effort over the last decade to test every kit that comes in. The result has been at least 2,000 cold hits in rape cases, and the arrest rate for reported cases of rape in New York City rose from 40 percent to 70 percent, according to Human Rights Watch.

Some Americans used to argue that it was impossible to rape an unwilling woman. Few people say that today, or say publicly that a woman “asked for it” if she wore a short skirt. But the refusal to test rape kits seems a throwback to the same antediluvian skepticism about rape as a traumatic crime.

“If you’ve got stacks of physical evidence of a crime, and you’re not doing everything you can with the evidence, then you must be making a decision that this isn’t a very serious crime,” notes Polly Poskin, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

It’s what we might expect in Afghanistan, not in the United States.

1 Comment by George Swanson on May 3, 2009
filed in Injustice to Women, Sexual Abuse

WELCOME DIANA RAMSDELL NEWMAN!

From Sea to Shining Sea
by Diana Ramsdell Newman
Note by George: This is the first piece by Diana here on Katrina’s Dream web site. I wanted to get this up as soon as possible. In the future we will have a special page (something like “Just Words”) which will focus on Liberty and Justice for Indigenous Women. I am so grateful to Diana for beginning this. Those of you who were at the Weekend for Liberty and Justice for Women in 2006 will remember Diana and her husband Crow Suncloud who participated in the Saturday Congress and shared their music with us on Saturday night.

Traditionally, Native American women were integral to native governance. In fact, the majority of tribes were matrilineal. Women were not viewed as being inferior to men. They were entrusted with vital, respected decision making positions. Men’s and women’s roles were viewed by both genders as being distinctive but complementary and of equal importance. Even in patrilineal tribes women were held in esteem as equals. Violence against women was unusual and was not tolerated by tribal communities. Women were valued as being uniquely powerful, practical, reasonable, strong, and spiritually discerning.

Elizabeth Cody Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, women’s rights advocates of the mid-nineteenth century, expressed great admiration for the egalitarian worldview modeled by the Iroquois. Whereas these two women felt disenfranchised by men in their own patriarchal culture, they witnessed firsthand the dignity with which Iroquois women were treated. Iroquois women were not similarly marginalized but exercised considerable influence. Stanton and Gage noted that the nomination of chiefs was entrusted to Iroquois women. Women were likewise free to initiate definitive, corrective actions if they became disenchanted with the actions of an errant chief.

It may warrant mentioning that although early white feminists are rightly celebrated for their awareness and courageous initiative in relation to gender issues, many Native American women view the impacts of racial discrimination and class status as far outweighing gender bias as being the primary determinants of oppression in the lives of women of color. A fuller view of the causes of their oppression must take into account the pervasive and debilitating impact of the Manifest Destiny and colonization upon Native Americans.

With colonialism came the wholesale importation and imposition of a hierarchical, Eurocentric model of governance that ran counter to Native American practices. Its patriarchal view and biased suppositions claiming the inferiority of women had far-reaching and devastating consequences in the lives of countless Native Americans. For instance, white government officials and settlers typically refused to talk with tribal women regardless of the women’s leadership roles and status within the tribe. The undermining of kinship traditions, the persistent lack of acknowledgement of female leadership, the forced displacement, abuse, and annihilation of native peoples, and the violation of indigenous homelands served to cut off at the very roots much that had successfully sustained the integrity of traditional cultural values.

The sense of place, a profound kinship with the land, and its inhabitant’s respect for the reciprocal nature of relationship between all living beings was of paramount importance to Native American spirituality. The natural homeland as a place of reverence was a kind of sacred geography as essential to Native Americans as was the primacy of the church building to many European immigrants.

In direct relationship with nature, life, and death Native Americans viewed time as cyclical and reciprocal. The prevailing mindset of the invading Europeans was by contrast given over to linear thinking and concepts of ownership that were the antithesis of indigenous experience and values. To the Native American the living, the generations to come, and the ancestors were inextricably and holistically connected as a sacred ecology from which a natural theology was recognized. While there was much diversity among tribal groups, a common hallmark of the over 500 tribal nations is that its land-based experience spawned sensibilities and cosmologies that embodied a deeply informed awareness of the relational interconnectedness of all creation. Thus native religion was naturally and intrinsically bound in vibrant relationship with specific bioregions. Within the rich and multidimensional circumference of bioregion all was considered sacred. Thus, to witness exploitation of nature was to native peoples nothing short of utter disregard for the Creator, and was equivalent to seeing the desecration of one’s beloved church or violation of one’s mother. Pervasive displacement of native peoples from their ancestral homelands was a vehicle of religious persecution and genocide.

An undeniable part of the legacy of the dominant culture is that the sovereignty of over 500 indigenous nations on this continent called Turtle Island has been violated and its lands have been largely desecrated! So it is understandable that contemporary Native American women activists often articulate and exercise a distinctive feminist ideology that takes into account the necessity of environmental justice, reclamation of displaced kinship traditions, and the concept of “birthright’ in relation to homelands.

Remarkably the strong oral tradition integral to traditional native culture has survived and continues to uniquely inform and rekindle native women’s vision and activism today. In fact, indigenous women from all parts of the globe are gathering, networking, and articulating their concerns and hopes. Future installments will address issues specific to indigenous women, their struggles, and their vision.

Many people in the United States continue to rationalize or understate the magnitude and unjust impact that the legacy of the Manifest Destiny has had on indigenous populations including its contemporary incarnations (economic usurpation and environmental degradation of ancestral lands) which continue to violate indigenous peoples. Do nations of our earth actually share a consensual view about any of this? In 2007, after twenty years of study and dialogue, The United Nations passed a landmark Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 143 nations endorsed the resolution which affirms and upholds the rights of self-determination to the world’s indigenous groups.

Even though the Declaration is legally nonbinding and cannot be enforced by international law it does clearly articulate the predominant and unequivocal sentiment of the participants that native people’s throughout the world deserve authentic redress of grievances and the rightful exercise of sovereignty. There is some optimism that the resolution is an indication that several nations will now be willing to voluntarily engage in negotiations with indigenous groups whose lands have been acquired though domination and colonization. But in keeping with the United State’s current propensity to dig in its heels and exempt itself from global responsibilities and protocols, it was one of only four nations that voted against the resolution. Given the sheer enormity of the amount of land and resources acquired at the expense of native sovereignty on Turtle Island “from sea to shining sea” is it really any surprise that countries opposing the resolution such as the U.S. and Canada would shy from the accountability of colonizers implicit in the Declaration? No doubt Article 26 of the Declaration poses a bit of a problem to big time land grabbers: “Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.”

If returning an entire continent to the descendants of over 500 indigenous nations is untenable how then will the United States begin to make authentic restitution? Perhaps one way is for its citizens and governing bodies to reach beyond tokenism and make a steadfast commitment to foster true freedom and justice for all.

No Comments by George Swanson on December 10, 2007
filed in Indigenous Women, Injustice to Women, Peace & Justice, Uncategorized, Women & Justice

This is Katrina’s Dream

Today is Equal Pay Day.

The date—Tuesday, April 24th—symbolizes the fact that on average, a woman must work for a year and four months to earn the same wages as a man receives in a year.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 made it illegal to pay women less than men for work that is “substantially equal,” unless the pay difference is because of legitimate factors such as seniority or experience.

However, 44 years later, the gap still exists. According to recent data, a woman earns an average of 77 cents for every $1 a man earns at an equivalent job. This pay gap adds up: On average, a 25-year-old working woman will lose about $455,000 to unequal pay during her working life.

CLICK BELOW  –  Tell your senators and representatives to help close the pay gap by supporting two important bills to step up efforts to end wage discrimination:

· The Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 766 and H.R. 1338), which would provide more effective remedies for victims of wage discrimination on the basis of sex.
·
· The Fair Pay Act (S. 1087), which would prohibit sex-based wage discrimination and would address the issue of comparable worth by calling for equal pay for equivalent work.

TELL ‘EM BY CLICKING BELOW:

Over the weekend, Congress came to an agreement on the first federal minimum wage increase in 10 years. But raising the minimum wage isn’t the only way to help working people struggling to get by–closing the pay gap would help the growing number of dual-earner families.

Equal pay is not only about basic fairness; it’s also about basic family economics. The average U.S. family loses $4,000 a year because of the pay gap. More wives and mothers are working than ever before. (In 2003, both parents were employed in 61 percent of two-parent families with children under age 18.) The earnings of these working women are essential to supporting a family. Pay discrimination hurts husbands and families, too.

Tell your senators and representatives to support the Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 766, H.R. 1338) and the Fair Pay Act (S. 1087).

In solidarity,

Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO

No Comments by George Swanson on April 25, 2007
filed in Injustice to Women, Money, Women & Justice

Day Care

Day Care Debate Misses the Point
By Ruth Conniff March 28, 2007

From the headlines about the latest day care study you’d think something big had happened. For the report click here;

The Fox News story was typical: “Study Links Child Care and Bad Behavior”. Click here for Fox story:

 Local television news ran teasers like “Day Care Takes a Beating,” and “Today’s Hot Topic: Are You a Bad Parent If You Put Your Child in Day Care?” Click here for story.

Instead of focusing on the rather modest results of a study that shows the difference between kids in child care and those not in it, the media would do well to focus on the extreme scarcity of quality care, and what a huge difference there is between the good and bad places for parents to leave their children.

So ready are U.S. audiences for a rehash of the stay-at-home versus working mom debate, the story fit neatly into a media niche: Score one for stay-at-home parenting–down with day care!

It might come as a surprise, then, that the National Institutes of Health press release describing the study actually led with the good news: Children in high-quality day care score significantly higher on vocabulary tests than their peers. The headline was “Early Child Care Linked to Increases in Vocabulary, Some Problem Behaviors in Fifth and Sixth Grades.” With all the recent emphasis on testing and grade-schoolers academic skills, you’d think that this news might jump out at people.

The long-term, NIH-funded study recruited new mothers of 1,364 babies in hospitals at ten different locations in the United States, and monitored their child care until they were four and a half years old. “Child care” was defined as care by anyone other than the child’s mother — including fathers — for at least ten hours a week. Researchers followed up with tests that showed vocabulary gains in the children from higher-quality child care backgrounds in grade school, and with teacher surveys that showed greater aggressiveness and other problem behaviors in all kids who came from some kind of child care.

Keep in mind that the types of child care arrangements measured included families in which children stay with their dad or a grandparent for two hours a day, go to an enriching morning preschool program, and those who are in low-cost, high-turnover, chain day care centers from seven in the morning until seven at night. It’s quite a range. Children who had been in center care scored higher on teacher evaluations of aggressiveness and disobedience.

“The study authors suggested that the correlation between center care and problem behaviors could be due to the fact that center-based child care providers often lack the training, as well as the time, to address behavior problems,” the NIH press release notes. “For example, center-based child care providers may not be able to provide sufficient adult attention or guidance to address problems that may emerge when groups of young children are together, such as how to resolve conflicts over toys or activities.”

On the other hand, in high-quality child care settings, these are exactly the skills that children learn.

How often do we parents marvel at our favorite preschool teachers’ calm, patient, skilled handling of toddler tantrums and scuffles over toys? A good teacher not only shows little children how to use their words, master their emotions, and solve conflicts peacefully, she (or, less frequently, he) models these critical social and emotional skills for parents. Having the support and good example of someone who really knows how to handle children is a precious resource for parents. After all, how often do stay-at-moms and working parents alike go to bed feeling guilty because they lost their cool when their willful tots tested their patience one last time after a long day? And how often does the image of the calm, good-humored, professional child care teacher float into our heads to help us remember the right way to deal with our children? Use your words, don’t yell, calm down, take a break, keep your sense of humor–above all, when confronted with toddler rage, remember that you are the adult. All of that is a lot easier said than done. But if we want our kids to learn to control themselves and turn into the kind of people others can live with, we have to give them a good example. Good preschool teachers do it every day, under battle conditions.

But here is the real news, obscured by the flap over the NIH study: there aren’t enough good preschool teachers. The chaotic center environment that the researchers postulate might account for children’s anti-social behavior is the norm in this country. So much the norm, in fact, that it would be hard to find a significant number of truly high-quality child care settings even in a group of 1,364 children.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children has a set of standards for judging quality and awarding a kind of Good Housekeeping seal to centers that meet its criteria. But the child care centers that meet NAEYC standards represent only about 10 percent of all child care in the United States. For standards click here.

 More common is the revolving door of overworked, underpaid staff who receive little or no training in children’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. The harried staffers at the average for-profit center, or the family day care providers with little training or support who take on tons of kids whose parents rush to work all day, are not
necessarily great models for parents.
But in our nonsystem of child care in the United States, the kinds of places where kids are stashed while parents go to work is of very little interest. Instead of focusing on the rather modest results of a study that shows the difference between kids in child care and those not in it, the media would do well to focus on the extreme scarcity of quality care, and what a huge difference there is between the good and bad places for parents to leave their children.

Instead of talking about stay-at-home motherhood versus child care, reporters and policymakers should take a look at what we are doing for a group of kids who have received a lot of media attention in the last two decades–the children of women on welfare.

Under welfare reform, supports for child care in states across the country have been frozen or are going down. In some states, the government will dock child care payments if a child doesn’t attend at least half time in any given week–which can happen easily due to illness and other temporary problems. As federal pool of money for child care has been shrinking, parent co-pays and child care rates are going up. Without adequate child care, welfare reform is nothing but punishment for parents and children alike.

Aggressiveness and inadequate social, emotional, and intellectual stimulation and learning are bigger problems for kids from the poorest families. But the lack of good child care is a problem that reaches way up into the middle class.

If only our society could get more interested in that problem, instead of an imagined cat fight between working and stay-at-home moms, which, in my experience, ended a long time ago.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 29, 2007
filed in Injustice to Women, Peace & Justice, Women & Justice

Bishop Katharine, Copy the Brits

Reforming Bishop to Head up Prison Monitoring Group
By Ekklesia Staff Writers 21 Mar 2007

A network of prison monitoring groups is to be headed up by the Bishop of Worcester when he leaves his current post.
Dr Peter Selby’s move will take place when he retires in September after 10 years in charge of his diocese.
He was appointed by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams as the Church of England ‘Bishop to HM Prisons’ in 2001, and will become the President of the National Council for Independent Monitoring Boards in January 2008.
Dr Selby has spoken out firmly in favour of the retention of an independent inspectorate of prisons, forcing the government onto the back foot on the issue.
He is also an advocate of methods of restorative justice – which the Church of England has backed in a recent Synod report that he made a major contribution to, and he has been a critic of prison privatisation.
Peter Selby, a former research professor in practical theology at the Universities of Durham and Newcastle, said he had worked in prisons since 1965.
His first eucharist as Bishop of Worcester was at Long Lartin prison. The prisoners there sent him a wall-hanging.
He said that he had decided to take the National Council for Independent Monitoring Boards job because he felt it was “a bullet with my name on it”.
He added: “Although I wasn’t actually looking for a retirement task at this stage I didn’t really think I could say no to it.”
Each prison has an independent monitoring board made up of ordinary members of the public whose role is to monitor the day-to-day life within the jail and ensure inmates are treated correctly.

1 Comment by George Swanson on March 21, 2007
filed in Injustice to Women, Peace & Justice

They Get It Right!

Bishops’ ‘Mind of the House’ Resolutions

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

[Episcopal News Service] The following resolutions were passed by the House of Bishops March 20 during its annual Spring retreat meeting in Navasota, Texas.
Mind of the House of Bishops Resolution Addressed to the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church

Resolved, the House of Bishops affirms its desire that The Episcopal Church remain a part of the councils of the Anglican Communion; and
Resolved, the meaning of the Preamble to the Constitution of The Episcopal Church is determined solely by the General Convention of The Episcopal Church; and
Resolved, the House of Bishops believes the proposed Pastoral Scheme of the Dar es Salaam Communiqué of February 19, 2007 would be injurious to The Episcopal Church and urges that the Executive Council decline to participate in it; and
Resolved, the House of Bishops pledges itself to continue to work to find ways of meeting the pastoral concerns of the Primates that are compatible with our own polity and canons.
Adopted March 20, 2007
The House of Bishops
The Episcopal Church
Spring Meeting 2007
Camp Allen Conference Center
Navasota, Texas

To the Archbishop of Canterbury and the members of the Primates’ Standing Committee:
We, the Bishops of The Episcopal Church, meeting in Camp Allen, Navasota, Texas, March 16-21, 2007, have considered the requests directed to us by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in the Communiqué dated February 19, 2007.
Although we are unable to accept the proposed Pastoral Scheme, we declare our passionate desire to remain in full constituent membership in both the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church.
We believe that there is an urgent need for us to meet face to face with the Archbishop of Canterbury and members of the Primates’ Standing Committee, and we hereby request and urge that such a meeting be negotiated by the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury at the earliest possible opportunity.
We invite the Archbishop and members of the Primates’ Standing Committee to join us at our expense for three days of prayer and conversation regarding these important matters.
Adopted March 20, 2007
The House of Bishops
The Episcopal Church
Spring Meeting 2007
Camp Allen Conference Center
Navasota, Texas

A Statement from the House of Bishops – March 20, 2007
We, the Bishops of The Episcopal Church, meeting at Camp Allen, Navasota, Texas, for our regular Spring Meeting, March 16-21, 2007, have received the Communiqué of February 19, 2007 from the Primates of the Anglican Communion meeting at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We have met together for prayer, reflection, conversation, and listening during these days and have had the Communiqué much on our minds and hearts, just as we know many in our Church and in other parts of the world have had us on their minds and hearts as we have taken counsel together. We are grateful for the prayers that have surrounded us.
We affirm once again the deep longing of our hearts for The Episcopal Church to continue as a part of the Anglican Communion. We have gone so far as to articulate our self-understanding and unceasing desire for relationships with other Anglicans by memorializing the principle in the Preamble of our Constitution. What is important to us is that The Episcopal Church is a constituent member of a family of Churches, all of whom share a common mother in the Church of England. That membership gives us the great privilege and unique opportunity of sharing in the family’s work of alleviating human suffering in all parts of the world. For those of us who are members of The Episcopal Church, we are aware as never before that our Anglican Communion partners are vital to our very integrity as Christians and our wholeness. The witness of their faith, their generosity, their bravery, and their devotion teach us essential elements of gospel-based living that contribute to our conversion.
We would therefore meet any decision to exclude us from gatherings of all Anglican Churches with great sorrow, but our commitment to our membership in the Anglican Communion as a way to participate in the alleviation of suffering and restoration of God’s creation would remain constant. We have no intention of choosing to withdraw from our commitments, our relationships, or our own recognition of our full communion with the See of Canterbury or any of the other constituent members of the Anglican Communion. Indeed, we will seek to live fully into, and deepen, our relationships with our brothers and sisters in the Communion through companion relationships, the networks of Anglican women, the Anglican Indigenous Network, the Francophone Network, our support for the Anglican Diocese of Cuba, our existing covenant commitments with other provinces and dioceses, including Liberia, Mexico, Central America, Brazil, and the Philippines, our work as The Episcopal Church in many countries around the world, especially in the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Taiwan, and countless informal relationships for mission around the world.
Since our General Convention of 2003, we have responded in good faith to the requests we have received from our Anglican partners. We accepted the invitation of the Lambeth Commission to send individuals characteristic of the theological breadth of our Church to meet with it. We happily did so. Our Executive Council voluntarily acceded to the request of the Primates for our delegates not to attend the 2005 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham. We took our place as listeners rather than participants as an expression of our love and respect for the sensibilities of our brothers and sisters in the Communion even when we believed we had been misunderstood. We accepted the invitation of the Primates to explain ourselves in a presentation to the same meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. We did so with joy.
At the meeting of our House of Bishops at Camp Allen, Texas in March, 2004 we adopted a proposal called Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight as a means for meeting the pastoral needs of those within our Church who disagreed with actions of the General Convention. Our plan received a favorable response in the Windsor Report. It was not accepted by the Primates. At our meeting in March 2005, we adopted a Covenant Statement as an interim response to the Windsor Report in an attempt to assure the rest of the Communion that we were taking them seriously and, at some significant cost, refused to consecrate any additional bishops whatsoever as a way that we could be true to our own convictions without running the risk of consecrating some that would offend our brothers and sisters. Our response was not accepted by the Primates. Our General Convention in 2006 struggled mightily and at great cost to many, not the least of whom are our gay and lesbian members, to respond favorably to the requests made of us in the Windsor Report and the Primates’ Dromantine Communiqué of 2005. We received a favorable response from the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates, which found that our effort had substantially met the concerns of the Windsor Report with the need to clarify our position on the blessing of same sex relationships. Still, our efforts were not accepted by the Primates in the Dar es Salaam Communiqué.
Other Anglican bishops, indeed including some Primates, have violated our provincial boundaries and caused great suffering and contributed immeasurably to our difficulties in solving our problems and in attempting to communicate for ourselves with our Anglican brothers and sisters. We have been repeatedly assured that boundary violations are inappropriate under the most ancient authorities and should cease. The Lambeth Conferences of 1988 and 1998 did so. The Windsor Report did so. The Dromantine Communiqué did so. None of these assurances has been heeded. The Dar es Salaam Communiqué affirms the principle that boundary violations are impermissible, but then sets conditions for ending those violations, conditions that are simply impossible for us to meet without calling a special meeting of our General Convention.
It is incumbent upon us as disciples to do our best to follow Jesus in the increasing experience of the leading of the Holy Spirit. We fully understand that others in the Communion believe the same, but we do not believe that Jesus leads us to break our relationships.

We proclaim the Gospel of what God has done and is doing in Christ, of the dignity of every human being, and of justice, compassion, and peace. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including women, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church. We proclaim the Gospel that stands against any violence, including violence done to women and children as well as those who are persecuted because of their differences, often in the name of God.

The Dar es Salaam Communiqué is distressingly silent on this subject. And, contrary to the way the Anglican Communion Network and the American Anglican Council have represented us, we proclaim a Gospel that welcomes diversity of thought and encourages free and open theological debate as a way of seeking God’s truth. If that means that others reject us and communion with us, as some have already done, we must with great regret and sorrow accept their decision.
With great hope that we will continue to be welcome in the councils of the family of Churches we know as the Anglican Communion, we believe that to participate in the Primates’ Pastoral scheme would be injurious to The Episcopal Church for many reasons.
First, it violates our church law in that it would call for a delegation of primatial authority not permissible under our Canons and a compromise of our autonomy as a Church not permissible under our Constitution.
Second, it fundamentally changes the character of the Windsor process and the covenant design process in which we thought all the Anglican Churches were participating together.
Third, it violates our founding principles as The Episcopal Church following our own liberation from colonialism and the beginning of a life independent of the Church of England.
Fourth, it is a very serious departure from our English Reformation heritage. It abandons the generous orthodoxy of our Prayer Book tradition. It sacrifices the emancipation of the laity for the exclusive leadership of high-ranking Bishops. And, for the first time since our separation from the papacy in the 16th century, it replaces the local governance of the Church by its own people with the decisions of a distant and unaccountable group of prelates.
Most important of all it is spiritually unsound. The pastoral scheme encourages one of the worst tendencies of our Western culture, which is to break relationships when we find them difficult instead of doing the hard work necessary to repair them and be instruments of reconciliation. The real cultural phenomenon that threatens the spiritual life of our people, including marriage and family life, is the ease with which we choose to break our relationships and the vows that established them rather than seek the transformative power of the Gospel in them. We cannot accept what would be injurious to this Church and could well lead to its permanent division.
At the same time, we understand that the present situation requires intentional care for those within our Church who find themselves in conscientious disagreement with the actions of our General Convention. We pledge ourselves to continue to work with them toward a workable arrangement. In truth, the number of those who seek to divide our Church is small, and our Church is marked by encouraging signs of life and hope. The fact that we have among ourselves, and indeed encourage, a diversity of opinion on issues of sexuality should in no way be misunderstood to mean that we are divided, except among a very few, in our love for The Episcopal Church, the integrity of its identity, and the continuance of its life and ministry.
In anticipation of the traditional renewal of ordination vows in Holy Week we solemnly declare that “we do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation; and we do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church.” (Book of Common Prayer, page 513)
With this affirmation both of our identity as a Church and our affection and commitment to the Anglican Communion, we find new hope that we can turn our attention to the essence of Christ’s own mission in the world, to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19). It is to that mission that we now determinedly turn.
Adopted March 20, 2007
The House of Bishops
The Episcopal Church
Spring Meeting 2007
Camp Allen Conference Center
Navasota, Texas

No Comments by George Swanson on March 20, 2007
filed in Church Politics, Gay & Lesbian, Injustice to Women

$lavery Today

Slavery not yet Abolished, Say Archbishops
By Ekklesia Staff Writers 17 Mar 2007

Forsaking the formalities of officialdom in their attempt to reach a new audience, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have gone online to talk about the nature of the slave trade in readiness for the Walk of Witness to take place in London on Saturday 24 March 2007.

They highlight those elements of slavery that have not yet been ended – including the debt burden on the poorest and sex trafficking.

The joint reflection has been posted on YouTube. CLICK ON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBTErUDIcz8

It is also accessible through the Archbishop of Canterbury’s web site. Go to: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/sermons_speeches/

It was filmed at the site of the Slave Market in Zanzibar, now the island’s Anglican Cathedral, during the recent Anglican Primates Meeting – where the media focus had been more on the church’s row over sexuality.

The Archbishops were shown two small preserved slave pits, where up to 175 men, women and children were held in appalling conditions, chained and in darkness, often without food and water. Dr Sentamu spent some time at a memorial to the slaves which features some of the original chains used when the market was operating.

In the film, Dr Williams says that the experience brought home the reality of the trade: “You see there the fetters that were used for slaves, the fetters used to bring slaves in convoy, so that they could barely stand and walk, they were so closely shackled together; and to see some of the real, the actual shackles that were used until really very recently in this part of the world as part of the paraphernalia of the slave trade, it’s a reminder that it really happened, it really happened not very long ago.”

He says that the instinct to enslave is still very much present in the modern world: “It’s as if slavery is a kind of compulsion for human societies, people go back again and again to treating people as objects, as possessions, and I don’t think we can simply sit back and say ‘it’s a thing of the past and no more’. All those modern forms of slavery, economic slavery, debt slavery in effect, the slavery of sex trafficking; these things are still with us.”

Dr Sentamu says that holding the original chains was a harrowing experience: “I found the whole experience heart-rending … When I went outside and actually saw those figures – how slaves were tied together – and touched the actual chains that were used, I was rendered absolutely speechless. I felt I was going back in history, but I was also in the present where still slavery in some parts of the world still happens.

He declares: “Every person is made in the image and likeness of God, of great worth and of great value and to be treated with great dignity. In that place was almost I felt, almost like an altar where you couldn’t but take off your shoes … you were on holy ground – holy ground.”

The Archbishops’ YouTube talk has been issued in the run up to the Church’s Walk of Witness, to be held in London on 24 March. The walk will be led by both Archbishops and will culminate in an act of public worship in Kennington Park, where the two Anglican leaders will offer further reflections on the nature of the slave trade and its modern legacies.

More details of the walk can be found at http://www.makingourmark.org.uk/. The event has been organised by the Church of England’s Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns (CMEAC).

Other church and civic leaders will join in, though there has been some criticism that the Established church is putting itself to the fore – just as there have been concerns that the focus on William Wilberforce has overlooked others who played a key role in ending the transtlantic slave trade – from which the Church of England itself profited at the highest levels.

Black historians and activists are furious that slave rebellions in the Caribbean are being marginalised in the way the story of abolition is being told. Indeed, black people are virtually invisible in the film Amazing Grace – even though there were 20,000 of them in London at the time, many taking an active interest in ending the iniquitous trade.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 19, 2007
filed in Injustice to Women, Money, Peace & Justice

Flowers of Evil

Most Mother’s Day Flowers
Will come from Exploited Workers says Report

By Ekklesia Staff Writers 15 Mar 2007

Flowers handed to mothers this Sunday will come from workers in developing countries who have risked their health for unsafe, insecure jobs supplying UK supermarkets, a new report suggests.

‘Growing Pains’ by anti-poverty charity War on Want investigates the human cost of cut flowers in British supermarkets, and calls on consumers to buy fair-trade flowers.

Supermarkets sell 70% of all the flowers bought in the UK – the highest proportion in Europe. But the workers in Colombia and Kenya supplying those flowers to the supermarkets face low wages, health problems and miscarriages through exposure to pesticides the report alleges.

Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s are all named as sources from one or both of these countries. The report suggests that they have enormous influence over flower producers and ultimately the health and safety of workers.

Many UK businesses have adopted voluntary standards for their suppliers, but these are still failing to protect the health and safety of workers, the charity says.

War on Want is calling on the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alistair Darling to urge the government to introduce binding legislation to enforce corporate accountability. This, campaigners say, should give overseas workers the right of redress in the UK, i.e. the ability to seek compensation for damage to their health and loss of earnings as the result of actions of UK companies or their suppliers.

Flowers are likely to be the most popular Mother’s Day gift with £225m lavished on seven million bunches.

Although shoppers are increasingly aware of the environmental damage caused by pesticides and air miles, the report said they were “largely unaware” of the human price paid for their flowers by workers in poor countries.

A study of 8,000 flower workers in Bogota in 2002 found they had been exposed to 127 different pesticides, one fifth banned in the US for their toxicity.

Colombian flower workers – 65 per cent of whom are women – are being paid 50p an hour. In Kenya, the wage is £23 a month. Overtime is “compulsory” and workers have to put in longer hours in the run-up to celebrations such as Mother’s Day. Sexual harassment is “widespread”.


No Comments by George Swanson on March 16, 2007
filed in Injustice to Women, Money, Peace & Justice

Sex Trafficking in America

As you read these words a young man is waiting to pick up his next sex slave outside a group foster home near you. He is a pimp. He knows his job. He learned it when he was in jail for dealing drugs. “What you do,” he was told, “is find a group home for girls in a city a couple of hours away from where you live. Hang around there. Get to know one of those girls (ages 9 through 16) and treat her right for six to eight months. Take her to a movie. Buy her a steak dinner. Nobody’s ever treated her nice in her whole life. She’ll love you. Give her presents, whatever she wants. She’ll be eager to sleep with you. So do it often. Then, tell her you’ve had a bad month. Can’t pay the rent. Because you both would do anything for each other, ask her to sleep with a man who’ll pay your rent. Then take her back to your city and put her to work. Beat her up. Starve her a couple of days. She doesn’t know anybody to complain to. Cops don’t bother you. The competition won’t kill you like when you were dealing. She’ll do $500 worth of tricks a day. She gets busted and you bail her out. You get some more girls. You’re a rich man.”

I heard this from two speakers at Theological Opportunity Program meeting at the Harvard Divinity School on October 19, 2006. Lisa Goldblatt-Grace spoke about her work at the Home for Little Wanderers in Boston. Mei-Mei Ellerman spoke to us abut the Polaris Project.

Goldblatt-Grace speaks to girls at schools and in group homes, telling them the story in my first paragraph. Warning them. Ellerman is an academic whose children drew her into a new career of activism against the sex trade – here in America as well as world-wide.

Ellerman described a district in Washington, D.C., with 200 brothels, guarded by the police to keep things “orderly.” Leading male citizens are the regular Johns. Only the slaves get arrested on the occasional police “raids.” The Johns go back to their leadership roles in our democracy and the pimps post bail for their victims.

Check out:
http://www.polarisproject.org/polarisproject/
for information on the Polaris Project.

Stories from some of the victims are at:
http://www.slaverystillexists.org/

The Home for Little Wanderers is at:
http://www.thehome.org/site/content/index.asp

Katrina was right when she recited the Pledge of Allegiance, “With Liberty and Justice for Some.”

No Comments by George Swanson on October 22, 2006
filed in Injustice to Women, Sexual Abuse

What does God want PECUSA to do?

In each generation, the real ‘sacred’ of the Gospel will emerge quietly and gently, usually at the hands of those whom the strongest supporters of the sacred regard as inimicable to faith and good customs.

– James Alison in “Faith Beyond Resentment” page 181

James Alison’s many admirers will find in this book [Faith Beyond Resentment] . . . wit, clarity, depth and surprises.

– Rowan Williams

James Alison is the most fascinating theologian I have read for ages, both courageous and intellectually irresistible….

– Monica Furlong

Jesus may be calling the Episcopal Church to preach the Good News! How about that!

The Good News is:

EVERYONE IS WELCOME IN GOD’S FAMILY: INCLUDING WOMEN, GAYS, LESBIANS, BI-SEXUAL, AND TRANS-GENDERED!

We kind of fell into this after some ordinations.

First: After years of Anglican rejection of Florence Lee Tim Oy’s ordination in WWII, some Episcopalians ordained the Philadelphia Eleven and the Washington Four. That still causes acid reflux at home and abroad.

Second: New Hampshire chose a well known diocesan priest as its new bishop – and he was “one of those” for heaven’s sake.

The ordinations in Philadelphia, Washington and New Hampshire were done by Christian people following Jesus.

Why should we apologize or compromise or wait hat in hand outside the palaces of ecclesiastical monarchs?

Sure – we owe those who disagree a full, loving explanation of “the hope that is in us” as Paul says. We should explain why we think this is what God wants.

Conservatives do not have to justify their continuing to follow the holy (or unholy) traditions of God’s people.

We – those of us who have done a new thing – we owe it to God who has inspired our action . . .

We owe it to our conservative sisters and brothers who are shocked by our action . . .

What we owe is this . . .

To explain how God called us to do this as part of Jesus’ promise to “draw all people to myself.”

God has not left us without inspired witnesses. For instance: James Alison explains how the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans does not forbid gay and lesbian sexual intercourse. Instead it forbids Christians from going to pagan temples and worshipping false gods with gay and lesbian intercourse.

Check out:

http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/texts/eng15.html

Our conservative sisters and brothers who grieve at our welcoming women and gays and lesbians and bi-sexual and trans-gendered – they deserve our time for loving discussion with them about every verse in scripture that has been said to forbid women and gays and lesbians and bi-sexuals and trans-gendered Christians from 100% full membership in God’s Church.

Our vocation is to be truly evangelical – proclaiming the Good News of God’s welcome to all.

Let’s have some real prayerful Bible study – with people of all opinions – asking God to “open our hearts to your holy will.”

I’d like to study the Bible with you.

Would you be interested?

I’d like to hear from you.

George Swanson
george@katrinasdream.org

5 Comments by George Swanson on September 29, 2006
filed in Gay & Lesbian, Injustice to Women

Democrats: Missing the Boat Again?

Last weekend your fearless reporter was a first time delegate at the 2006 Maine Democratic Party Convention in Augusta.

Before I describe the problem, it was a SPIRITED, COMMITTED, EXCITED group of Americans.

We are determined to throw the rascals out.  And may do it.

Great to be with them.

With ONE GLARING OMISSION the leadership was focused, generally not long winded, factual and inspiring.  That’s pretty good, really. 

Conventions can punish one’s sitting apparatus and mental alertness.  The leaders pretty much kept us jumping up to applaud and agreeing with their rhetoric.

We have two excellent challengers for Senator Olympia Snow, probably very difficult to defeat.   But either one of these two would be a great senator — Jean Hay Bright and Eric Mehnert.

We heard from party officials, Governor Baldacci, and other elected folk.  The attorney general was magnificent.  He is the dedicated enemy of injusice.  (With one glaring omission.)

Senator Russell Feingold gave passionate, short, punchy reviews of what America needs to clean up the Republican mess – and also significant Democratic achievements.  (Same glaring omission.)  However, I would vote for him for president.  He may be too decent to get elected though.

So what did they do WRONG?

They forgot Abigail Adams once again.  It is the American way.  The way of the world.  We are good at forgetting.

She wrote to her beloved John when he was putting together our nation, “Remember the ladies.”  He didn’t.  After just barely giving women the vote, America hasn’t remembered much at all 

Very, very few speakers at the convention even mentioned WOMEN for heaven’s sake!  Not even mentioned.

Where was Laura Fortman, the dynamic head of the Maine Department of Labor?  I don’t believe she spoke.  She or one of her excellent team could have electrified the convention.  Moved us to anger and action to correct the FORGOTTEN 51% of Americans.  (And the children they care for – maybe another 20% of the population.)

One would think that a problem for 70% of Americans would get major attention at a wide awake political convention. 

Earlier this year I had an exciting conversation with Ms. Fortman and some of her assistants about the ways in which women were still second class citizens.  For instance women’s wages are about 25% less than for a man doing the same work.

Boy did I get my ears pinned back when I raised the question at the Hancock County Caucus after lunch. 

It went this way.

About 75 good neighbors of mine from Hancock County were sitting idly while the votes were being counted for our representatives to the state Maine Democratic Committee.  I raised my hand and asked if I could ask a question.  The chair said OK.  I said that I was a first time delegate, really impressed with what was happening.  Grateful to be there.  However I was concerned that I had not heard the men who were speaking raise the issue of injustice to women.  I did not know what was in the platform.  (Ordinary deleages do not have copies of the platform — we only vote on it.)

The chair deflected my question.  He explained the fascinating history of the platform over the last few years.  We could revise . . . etc etc etc.  I heard a lot about platform and ZERO about women from the chair.

Then an amiable man who clearly has worked hard for the party kindly explained to me how I could propose anything I wanted for the next platform. I would go to the County platform committee and . . . etc etc etc.  He explained how to get something into the platform in great detail.

I thanked him but said that my question had not been answered.  I said, “Nobody is talking about WOMEN, the injustices they suffer.  I had the pleasure of meeting Laura Fortman, Maine’s Secretary of Labor and some of her staff.  They showed me the deep injustices to women in Maine (and in America.)  Why weren’t WOMEN even mentioned here today?”

A woman said to me, “The Governor’s wife mentioned women’s issues.”

Getting hot under the collar I said, “If women’s issues can only be mentioned by women, then we have sent women back to the THE WOMEN’S AUXILIARY!  We are taking the issue and saying ‘The hell with it.’”

A man near me objected to my language.

The chair was relieved to report that the counting was done.  As it turned out we had elected two excellent women and an equally first rate man. All three will be a good influence on Maine Democrats and harass the Republicans.  The meeting ajourned.

As I left I tried to reach the woman who had mentioned the Governor’s wife to see if we could get a cup of coffee and talk it over, but I missed her.

That wasn’t the end of it.

During the afternoon, I wandered around the hall, looked at the various booths and bought 10 bumper stickers, CLINTON LIED & NOBODY DIED.  At different times during the afternoon three different women came up to me out of the blue.  I didn’t know them from Abigail Adams.  It was easy to find me with my bright red wind breaker.  Each one took my hand and said something like, “I am so glad you raised that issue.  Nobody else did.  Thank you very much.”

Hey, Democrats, WOMEN are no fools.  They know they are getting a bad deal.  If we Democrats want to improve American – why not remember the ladies?

If we Democrats want to win elections – why not remember the 70%?

If simple justice matters – why not . . . etc.

Why not?
 

1 Comment by George Swanson on June 8, 2006
filed in Injustice to Women