Sally Ride's death and admission to being gay

According to her obituary--which she co-wrote--Sally Ride acknowledged that she and her partner had been in a homosexual relationship for 27 years.  If people had known she was gay 30 years ago, they would have wrecked her career and her life.  Some people actually believe that if you are gay, you will "make a child" gay or try to force yourself on anyone, including children.  I have known a lot of gays in my time--and most of the time, I never knew they were--and it surely did not and does not change my respect for them as  people, for what they accomplished in their careers and the military, wherever.  The world is full of bullies and the gays, Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, obese, mentally ill--anyone who is somewhat different--will always be a target.  So many bash the gays but don't seem to blink an eye at the heterosexuals who have sex outside of marriage, during marriage, and/or with numerous partners.  I know that we have all sinned and being gay—which so many people get their “knickers in a knot” about--is the bottom of my list.  Murderers, mass murderers, child molesters, abusive husbands and abusive wives (or significant others), rapists, and anyone who would be cruel to a person or an animal are the ones that concern me.  I have known gays with more compassion for people and animals than many a person who sits on a pew every Sunday.  To deny anyone access to a church, school, place of business, military--anywhere because of sexual preference--is no different than denying any minority those same rights.  Too many want to send missionaries to a foreign field to save the "heathens"--and spreading the Gospel is a great thing--but if you can't live it at home and in your church, you have failed miserably as a Christian in my book--and not just as a Christian, but as a human being.

Now, let's get this straight. The City of Montgomery will allow a bunch of drunks to "crawl" through the downtown district with open containers of alcoholic beverages--when we all know that a lot of lives are disrupted by the abuse of alcohol and lives lost on the highways--yet, God forbid, electronic bingo, casinos and a State lottery be allowed. Such blatant hypocrites!

Carole T. Weldon
8761 Stoneridge Place
Montgomery, AL 36117
334 396-5473

Holocaust Memorial at AUM

Every year for the last 10 years or so, my sister and I have attended the Holocaust Memorial program at the AUM Gym.  This year's date is April 25, 2012 (Wednesday) at 9:30 a.m.  It lasts until noon.

As with WWII veterans, the numbers of the Holocaust survivors are disappearing and there are few left in Alabama to share their compelling stories.  Only this week, there was an article about the dwindling number of survivors in Israel and how many of them are homeless. 

Schools participate in essay contests about the genocide and the program is very moving.  Speakers have been Alabama’s survivors, Max Steinmetz, Max Herzel and Lt. Col. Robert Lieberman.  So much is said and written about how the Israelites are the Chosen People and how we should support them yet I see very few churches represented.  Perhaps we should all read again the timeless poem by Martin Niemöller, "Then, They Came for Me." 

In the 2007 program, it was stated that "the Nazi Regime exterminated 11.5 million people, including 6.5 million Jews (40% of their population) and 5 million Christians.” Of the 6.5 million, I believe it was stated that 1.5 million were children.

Also noted was that the crematoriums annihilated 5,000 people a day--the equivalency of the Auburn Montgomery student body [in 2007]; at that rate, the entire city of Montgomery would be executed in 43 days."  [From a 2007 article written by me.] 

Some of you said you don't think Alabama's immigration bill is racist. What happens if they pull you over in Alabama for giving a ride to a child with darker skin, i.e., an adopted child perhaps? I have friends who are Hispanic, Latino, Black--and this bill is no bloody different than what was enforced under Jim Crow for years! The children will be targeted in school and since we are supposed to preach the gospel to everyone, what about those who pick up a child to take to Sunday School? Under this barbaric law, they can be cited for breaking the law. What about kids in school who have friends who are Hispanic or Latino? Will they be picked up for giving a ride to their friends? These children have no control over their parentage.

I just don't get it. I can remember when we celebrated someone's becoming a U.S. citizen and I have friends whose parents were here from other countries who did not get their citizenship papers for 35-40 years and established restaurants and other businesses in the city and brought in business, and they were welcomed and featured on local TV and in newspapers. Why should it take that long for anyone to become a citizen? Does it take that long for those who come here from the “fairer skin” countries? I seriously doubt it.

I understand the need for controlling our borders but I think that those who work hard and want to become citizens should be allowed a "path to citizenship." And many of the ones who are here do pay taxes and do pay into Social Security. With this bill, farmers will have a difficult time getting their crops harvested and the prices will go up.

I can understand how the Border States have mixed feelings about the issue but we took the land from the Native Americans and put them on reservations, made slaves of the Blacks and treated our Black citizens as anything but American citizens, and we made life miserable for the Cubans and Haitians. Now, it is the Mexicans and Latinos. People admire them when they win a pennant for us, when they are on screen and making records but, like the Blacks, we just don't want "those people" to break bread with us or sit next to us in church.

I would certainly hope that if I were ever in another country I would not be treated this way. I just hate that the South—especially the Cradle of Civil Rights--is going this route again.

June 26, 2011

Donald Trump

I have always considered Donald Trump to be a rich clown with bad hair. It amazes me that a man with his supposed education and expertise can become so crass as to suggest our President is not an American citizen. Someone needs to remind "the Donald" that his former wife Ivana was from Czechoslovakia. Does that mean his children aren't American citizens? President Obama could have been born on the moon and still would have been a citizen because his white mother was American-born and was from Kansas; her parents lived in Hawaii. My niece was born in Ankara, Turkey in 1965 and both of her parents were American-born citizens so she is also. Why don't these people concentrate on the issues rather than some knee-jerk criticism of our President?

What scares me is that with Trump's money he can buy his way into the White House. Frankly, I think it says more about the President's detractors than it does him and reminds me of one of my favorite sayings of Dr. Phil: "You can't fix stupid."

Recy Taylor, gang-raped by white men.

This case makes my blood boil! Had the roles been reversed and a gang of black men raped a white woman they would have been lynched. This poor 24-year-old married black woman was subjected to a rape by white men who hated her and her kind--the same people who wouldn't be seen with a black woman; who thought blacks were unworthy of education, the vote, sharing a water fountain, restaurant, bathroom, school, church, a seat at the front of a bus, and always related to the "back door" of any establishment or a home. Rape is the most degrading of crimes. It has nothing to do with sex; it is about control and demeaning the person.

Hell isn't big enough for the likes of these men. At age 90, I am glad Mrs. Recy Taylor finally received an apology from the State of Alabama and that the State and, hopefully, its people recognize the cruelty of slavery and segregation, and that they realize that God created EACH OF US. I really wonder what the racists and bigots will think on Judgment Day when they realize that HEAVEN HAS NO BACK DOOR.

President Obama's Faith

While in Albuquerque, NM this week, President Obama responded to questions about his Christian faith. He stated, “I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead -- being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me. And I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we’re sinful and we’re flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God. But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is [to] still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace.”

But those with their own agenda will continue to push and spread the malicious lies about this man and our President. But the trouble lies within their hearts--not President Obama's. Many of them who raise the point are not even attending their churches regularly and seem to have forgotten "he who is without sin, cast the first stone," and "judge not that ye be not judged." Why should anyone think he/she has the right to question a man's faith? Our relationship with the Almighty is just that: OURS.