Tag: civil rights

Generational Apologies

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

In the September 2015 issue of Christianity Today Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra writes a column that asks a question I have been asking for years. The column is titled “Sins of Our Fathers,” and subtitled, “Should denominations apologize for acts they didn’t commit?” My position, for as long as I can remember ever considering the question, has always been no. I have usually referred to them as generational apologizes, when one generation apologizes for something a previous generation committed. I can see no point in it, no real substance or merit. In my mind, such apologies are hollow words. Dictionary.com defines apology as, “a written or spoken expression of one’s regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another.” I think that is a solid definition for apology, and that is exactly why a generational apology is, in my mind, worthless. For me to apologize to someone or to some group of people for something that happened to their ancestors before I was even born is as meaningful as Person A apologizing to me for something that was done to me, or said about me, by Person B. It might be a nice sentiment, but it ultimately does no good, costs nothing and therefore means little.

Zylstra’s column is centered around a vote held at this year’s general assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Ligon Duncan III, the chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary, and Sean Lucas, a church historian, introduced a resolution that would apologize on behalf of the PCA for “involvement in and complicity with racial injustice” during the civil rights era. Duncan said the motion grew out of the relationships and friendships he has developed with African American pastors. According to Zylstra, supporters of the motion said it would be “an essential step toward reconciliation in a time of growing diversity.” The motion was deferred by a vote of 684-46, and it will come up for consideration again next year. But even if it passes, what good will it do?

I respect Ligon Duncan and I have learned from him in the past. He said, “When you become friends with a person who has experienced oppression, and you begin to love that person, you begin to care about the things that have hurt their heart.” I believe those are sincere words, and I agree with them. My position, however, remains the same. Caring about someone, empathizing with them, even wishing that something had not happened to them or expressing sorrow that it did happen are all fine, all understandable and all appropriate. They are also all different from apologizing.

If I become friends with a woman who has been raped, and she entrusts me with that fact, do I apologize to her on behalf of the male race for what happened to her? I would not. And while I do not know for certain, I think she would find it hollow and contrived if I did. I did not perpetrate the attack, so how could I sincerely and meaningfully apologize for it? I do not and cannot speak for the entire male race, so what good would that do? Even if I knew the specific individual responsible for the attack, I could not apologize for him. I do not see these generational apologies by groups or churches as any different.

In this specific case there is a bit of difference since there are still individuals alive who experienced the racial injustice of the civil rights era. This makes it different than other similar motions passed by groups, including the PCA, on slavery, since there are no individuals still living who experienced the forced slavery that ended more than a century ago. However, any motions or apologies should still only come from the individuals or churches who were involved in order to be meaningful. Interestingly, Zylstra reports that some PCA pastors question the need of Duncan’s motion because the PCA did not even exist as a body until nine years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed. This raises a valid point, one that serves only to reinforce my position. Alex Shipman is the leader of the PCA’s African American Presbyterian Fellowship and to this point he argues that while the PCA did not exist, many of its member churches did, and some of them, he said, barred African Americans from joining their churches and did nothing to bring about an end to Jim Crow. Fine. Then those churches should apologize if there is going to be any apologizing done, not an entire body like the PCA, with the vote being made by hundreds of individuals who had nothing to do with the attitudes and actions of those churches and who may not even have been alive at the time.

Apparently some individuals were shocked that Duncan’s motion was delayed by such a resounding vote. “There was a sense of, ‘Why would you want to drag your feet on repenting?'” Duncan stated. Hmmm… I am not a member of the PCA and I was not at their general assembly. But at least one reason someone might want to drag their feet springs immediately to mind: how can I repent of something I did not do? To use a definition again, Dictionary.com defines repent this way: “to feel sorry, self-reproachful, or contrite for past conduct; regret or be conscience-stricken about a past action, attitude, etc.; to feel such sorrow for sin or fault as to be disposed to change one’s life for the better; be penitent.” I cannot be conscience-stricken over something I did not do; I cannot be disposed to change my life for the better when what I would be changing from is not something I have ever done. When I watch movies or documentaries, or when I read books, that deal with slavery, with the way Native Americans were largely treated by the United States government, of the Holocaust, of the way many African Americans were treated in the American south, I do feel remorse, I do feel anger, I do feel sorrow. I will not, however, apologize for any of it, because I cannot.

Simon Wiesenthal addresses with this dilemma in his book The Sunflower. In it, Wiesenthal, a Jew, recounts being asked by a German soldier who was near death to forgive him for what he had done to the Jews. Wiesenthal’s book is excellent reading, and it includes thoughts on this matter from some of the world’s leading thinkers. Wiesenthal’s own conclusion is that no one has a right to forgive for others. I read Wiesenthal’s book as a high school sophomore, and perhaps his conclusion has influenced my own thinking, I do not know. What I do know is that he and I are in agreement: no one has the right–nor, I would add, the ability–to forgive on behalf of anyone else.

Alex Shipman references biblical examples of the people of Israel confessing the sins of their fathers. Daniel 9 is one example given by PCA pastor Lane Keister. he also acknowledges, though, that Ezekiel 18 provides an example of the opposite, making it “clear that each person is only condemned for his own sin.” I think there is a difference between confession and apology. I see no problem with a person or a group acknowledging that the actions or attitudes of previous generations were wrong. If any church stood by and condoned Jim Crow laws or segregation, that church was wrong. I will acknowledge and confess that in a nanosecond. That wrong is not on me, though; I hold to guilt nor blame for it. Neither can I apologize for it, nor will I. Such apologies, whether from me or any other person or group, are useless, pointless and meaningless.

The Weakest Link

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

On Tuesday, President Obama delivered the annual State of the Union address to Congress and the nation. As presidents (almost always) do, Obama proclaimed the state of our union to be strong. However, his address, regardless of whatever else you may think of it, also proved a prime example of the proverb about the weakest link: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, it says. If that is true–and I think we have all seen ample evidence in our lives that it is–then the state of our union is actually quite fragile. Let me tell you why.

President Obama, as he has done repeatedly throughout his administration, championed the rights of all “people groups” in his SOTU address. The “last pillar of our leadership,” Obama said, is “the example of our values.” What do those values include, according to Mr. Obama? Respecting human dignity, speaking out against “deplporable anti-Semitism,” “rejecting offensive stereotypes of Muslims,” defending free speech and advocating for political prisoners. It also includes “comdemn[ing] the persecution of women or religious minorities or people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.” And why do we do these things? “We do these things not only because they are the right thing to do but because, ultimately, they make us safer.”

Really? In many cases, I would say that’s true, but there is a glaring exception to Mr. Obama’s position.

He went on to state that, “As Americans, we have a profound commitment to justice.” For that reason, he said, it is time to shut down the terrorist prison on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Keep in mind, of course, that the detainees at Gitmo are suspected or convicted terrorists.

Several paragraphs later, President Obama stated that Americans “live the idea that we are our brother’s keeper, and our sister’s keeper.” Then, a few lines later, “[A] better politics is one where we appeal to each other’s basic decency instead of our basest fears.”

What we do not see in any of this rhetoric is any acknowledgement of the unborn. We respect human dignity, the president said, but apparently not the dignity of the unborn. We deplore anti-Semitism and reject offensive stereotypes of Muslims (as we should), but evidently we neither deplore nor reject the notion that a woman has the right to kill an unborn child in her womb. We condemn the persecution of women or religious minorities or homosexuals, but we allow and even champion the “right” of a woman to dispose of another human being if that human being’s birth or temporary occupation of a uterus is inconvenient. We are committed to justice, yet somehow that means closing a prison that houses dangerous terrorists while permitting the murder of unborn children. We are the keepers of our brothers and sisters, but evidently only after they have left the womb; until then, they’re out of luck. Our “basic decency” does not include defending the right to life.

The President’s only mention of abortion was when he said this: “We still may not agree on a woman’s right to choose, but surely, we can agree it’s a good thing that teen pregnancies and abortions are nearing all-time lows….” Of course we can agree that is a good thing! Yet the fact that those numbers are at all-time lows (if they are; I have not checked the numbers) does not, by any means, negate or excuse the fact that we still murder a million unborn children every year. According to the Guttmacher Institute’s July 2014 fact sheet on abortion, “Half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion” and “Twenty-one percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.” This is not okay!

Just a few paragraphs from the end of his address, President Obama said, “I want our actions to tell every child, in every neighborhood: your own life matters, and we are as committed to improving your life chances, as committed as we are to working on behalf of our own kids.” In fact, Mr. Obama is not committed to improving the life chances of children at all. He may be committed to improving the chances they have in life, and he may desire to see today’s children have wonderful opportunities during their lives, but his commitment does not begin until the child leaves the womb.

As long as abortion is legal in the United States–as long as we are willing to, as a nation, defend and embrace the “right” of a woman to kill her unborn child–the state of our union will never truly be strong. When we refuse to defend the sanctity of life, we undermine everything else we claim to stand for. The United States’ position on abortion is truly its weakest link.

“The biggest obstacle”

~ jbwatson ~ 1 Comment

I do not really want to address the topic of the transgender movement in the United States but it appears I do not have much choice because it is an issue that is not going away. According to studies by the Public Religion Research Institute only 9% of Americans say they have a close friend or family member who is transgender. And that number may even be a bit high, because other studies indicate that only 0.5% of the American population is transgender. And yet, the issue of accepting the choices of transgender individuals and granting them special privileges and “rights” in accordance with those choices is potentially going to impact us all.

In South Dakota, where I live, the state’s high school activities association just last month approved a policy whereby students shall have the opportunity to participate in the association’s activities “in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the student’s records.” Therein, of course, we find the root of the problem. For millennia human beings have identified, within moments of birth, the gender of the baby just born. Ever since the advent of birth certificates that information has been recorded officially. And rarely, if ever, has there been any question as to whether that identification was up for debate. Now, apparently, it is.

The June 9, 2014 issue of TIME featured a cover image of a transgender individual who stars on the television show Orange Is the New Black and a feature article entitled “America’s Transition.” This individual, Laverne Cox, has become, according to the piece, “a public face of the transgender movement.” I am going to elaborate later on why the entire notion of transgender is a problem. First, though, I want to touch on a statement Katy Steinmetz includes in the second paragraph of her TIME article. Here it is…

Almost one year after the Supreme Court ruled that Americans were free to marry the person they loved, no matter their sex, another civil rights movement is poised to challenge long-held cultural norms and beliefs. Transgender people–those who identify with a gender other than the sex they were “assigned at birth,” to use the preferred phrase among trans activists–are emerging from the margins to fight for an equal place in society. This new transparency is improving the lives of a long misunderstood minority and beginning to yield new policies, as trans activists and their supporters push for change in schools, hospitals, workplaces, prisons and the military.

There are an incredible number of problems contained right there in those few sentences. First of all, the Supreme Court did not, in fact, rule that Americans are free to marry whomever they love, but I’ll get way off track if I follow that tangent, so let’s just leave that one there. Secondly, as I have argued repeatedly in the past, homosexual “marriage” is not a civil rights issue. Neither are transgender rights. In fact, as I will argue later, the entire notion of transgender individuals being entitled to any special privileges or treatment at all based on their “gender identity” is ridiculous. Third, the paragraph above does accurately link the tremendous strides made by homosexual activists to achieve “rights” for homosexuals to the now-burgeoning movement among transgender activists. Again, as I have argued before, once we redefine what has been accepted for the entirety of human history as marriage we are, for all intents and purposes, jumping onto a slippery slope that will result in all kinds of redefinitions and changes.

Fourth, the notion that gender is “assigned” is a very clever and subtle choice of wording that is designed to convince us that gender and body parts are in no way connected. More on that later, too. Fifth, Steinmetz states that transgender individuals are emerging in order to “fight for an equal place in society.” This is clever wording, too, because who would not be in favor of someone receiving equal treatment and an equal place? After all, equality is a major part of what our nation was founded on, right? Transgender individuals, however, do not want an equal place in society. Instead, they want a special place. They want to receive unique and privileged treatment based on their personal choices. Sixth, and finally, whether or not this “new transparency” is really yielding any improvement in the lives of transgender individuals is debatable, but the policies being adopted to cater to transgender folks are indeed going to touch us all eventually.

A few paragraphs later Steinmetz writes that “the biggest obstacle” faced by transgender individuals is that they “live in a world largely built on a fixed and binary definition of gender.” Very subtle, and intentional, wording there, too–notice that the “binary definition” by which mankind has lived since God created Adam and Eve is an “obstacle” to these individuals living life the way they want to live it. Guess what? There are plenty of obstacles that prevent every one of us from doing things we would like to do on a regular basis. For example, I would like to be able to jump off of the roof of a building a fly–or at the very least enjoy a relaxing downward descent and a soft landing. The “obstacle” of gravity seems to prevent that, though. I would prefer to drive to town doing 100 miles an hour. The road is straight and flat and there is seldom any traffic, but the “SPEED LIMIT 65” signs that stand along the road are obstacles to me doing what I want. I would prefer to have a Porsche in my garage without the cost of buying, insuring or driving one, but life simply doesn’t work that way. Maybe those are silly examples but I challenge you to take a moment and think about all of the “obstacles” that you have to live within each and every day. Take me up on that and I suspect you will literally find dozens of them.

This is a discussion that I am, sadly, just beginning. The next several posts will address this topic, so stay tuned.

Who We Are

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

WORLD Magazine columnist Janie B. Cheaney is a good writer. I enjoy reading her columns, and I often find them to be well thought out and even thought-provoking. I have also found, however, that I seem to disagree with her at least as often as not. Such is the case again with her column entitled “The heart of the matter” in the June 1, 2013 issue. The subtitle of her column is “Homosexuals and the rest of us sinners are who we are, and that is the problem.” Unfortunately, Cheaney’s premise is wrong, and she makes several assertions throughout her column that are wrong.

Cheaney begins her piece with a quick rundown of some of the more prominent conservatives to have endorsed same-sex marriage. But then she starts the second paragraph with this: “So-called gay rights (for lack of a better term) is the third great civil-rights movement of the last 60 years, and the most vexed. Here’s why: Racism challenged society, feminism challenged the family, but sexual identity challenges our very being.”

I have argued in this space on numerous previous occasions that gay rights is not a civil rights issue, and I was disappointed to say the least that Cheaney has jumped on board with those who say that it is. And the reason that it is not is because the conclusion of Cheaney’s explanation is exactly wrong. Sexual identity does not challenge our “very being.” Our “very being” is that we are human beings created in the image of God. If you want to go further than that we are male and female human beings. But that is the extent of our “very being.” The identities that have been created in recent years, neatly summed up in the letters “LGBTQ” are man-made labels to describe chosen behaviors and preferences, but they are not identities. Cheaney calls them “a range of identities with unfixed borders,” but that is wrong. The unfixed borders part of the statement may be accurate; after all, the Q stands for, depending on who you ask or where you look, “queer” or “questioning,” but means, in either instance, someone who is uncertain of which label fits them.

Still, labels is all they are, not identities. For one thing, identities do not change; the very beginning of the definition of “identity” is “the state or fact of remaining the same one or ones, as under varying aspects or conditions.” They are further not identities because those behaviors abbreviated by LGBTQ describe personal preferences and possibly personal behaviors, but not who a person is. The same is just as true of a heterosexual as a homosexual, by the way. Heterosexuality is defined as, “sexual feeling or behavior directed toward a person or persons of the opposite sex.” Neither feelings nor behaviors are identities. I am certainly not identifiable by my feelings–and thank God for that, by the way! Nor am I identified by my behaviors. You may be able to learn a lot about me by what I do, but none of those things are me. Many labels can be applied accurately to me–husband, father, son, brother, teacher, friend, fan, reader, writer, colleague, employee, and on and on I could go. But if you took away each and every one of those things you would not eliminate me; I would still exist if none of those labels were still applicable, and therefore none of those things are my identity.

Cheaney uses a man named Christopher Yuan as an example of her point. Of Yuan she writes, “His identity was inseparable from his sexuality, and by his early twenties he knew he couldn’t change it. He was and always would be gay.” Therein lies the problem, though; his sexuality is separable from his identity.

Cheaney goes on to explain that sin is a matter of who we are. She writes, “‘This is who I am’ unwittingly bears the human soul. Sin is not primarily a matter of what we do but who we are. We are liars, idolators, adulterers, hypocrites, perverts. That is why we lie (to ourselves especially), worship the creature rather than the Creator, stray from our true lover, pretend righteousness we don’t have, and misuse God’s gifts to our own selfish ends. But most of those sins can be hidden, even within the church. The homosexual’s peculiar burden is that his sin can’t be hidden.”

Let’s take that apart a bit. First of all, yes, we are sinners–all of us. Scripture makes it clear that every human is a sinner, and that every human is born a sinner. Sinner, therefore, could accurately be included as part of our identities. And while Scripture also makes it clear that to be guilty of any part of the law is to be guilty of all, that does not mean that every person has actually committed each act. James 2 makes it clear that when we break God’s law in any way we are guilty of it all. James 2:10-11 reads, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law” (ESV). That does not mean, though, that if I have committed adultery I might as well also commit murder. It does not mean that if I have lied I might as well also steal. It simply means that it does not matter which of God’s laws I break, by breaking them I fall short of the glory of God and am therefore unworthy to spend eternity in His presence (Romans 3:23).

However–and this is a very important however–the fact that I am a sinner does not mean I have free license to sin. By God’s grace my sins have been forgiven, and with the leading of the Holy Spirit and my yielding to Him I do not have to live a life of sin. Paul makes it very clear that just because God’s grace enables the forgiveness of sins does not give me freedom to sin (Romans 6). So yes, some sins can be hidden, and some much more easily than others, but the fact that we are born sinners does not mean we have to sin continually, and certainly does not mean that we should sin.

So, to my second point, Cheaney says that homosexuality cannot be hidden. I disagree. If homosexuality is a feeling, it can definitely be hidden. People hide their feelings all the time. If homosexuality is an action it can be both hidden and avoided. Plenty of people throughout history have engaged in homosexual activity and hidden it, I am sure. But the real point is that no one has to engage in homosexual behavior! As I have stated repeatedly, even if I were convinced that people are “born homosexual” (I am not) they still have the choice to practice homosexuality. And this is why gay rights is not a civil rights issue. People can not choose or change the color of their skin, and people cannot choose their gender, either (though with the “technology” available these days they can have it medically changed).

At the end of her column Cheaney quotes Yuan as coming to realization that the Bible does condemn homosexuality as a sin, and that God called him to be holy. “My identity was not ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual’ or even ‘heterosexual,’ for that matter. But my identity as a child of the living God must be in Jesus Christ alone,” she quoted Yuan. And in that regard Yuan is quite right. The problem is that she prefaced that by writing that God “was not calling him to be straight, but to be holy.” The problem is, one cannot be holy and be a practicing homosexual. If the Bible says homosexuality is a sin (it does) and the Bible says that Christians are to be holy because God is holy (it does) one cannot then argue that it is possible to be both holy and homosexual (it isn’t). Am I saying all homosexuals will go to hell? No, I’m not. Homosexuality is a sin, but God forgives the sins of those who ask, homosexuals included.

My point, though, is that Cheaney is wrong about homosexuality or heterosexuality being anyone’s identity. It simply is not. I also disagree wholeheartedly that homosexual is what anyone “just is.” Who we all are is fallen human beings, created in the image of God but born in sin and therefore ineligible for eternal life. My identity now, praise the Lord, is a sinner saved by grace. And that is a identity anyone can have who is willing to call on the name of the Lord.

Which one doesn’t belong?

~ jbwatson ~ 3 Comments

Do you remember those puzzles you would do as a child, where there was a sequence of pictures and you were supposed to determine which one did not belong? There might be a glove, a baseball, a hockey stick and a bat, for example; clearly the hockey stick does not belong because it is not related to baseball. Well, I felt a bit like I was doing one of those puzzles as I listened to Barack Obama’s second inaugural address. In it, he said this:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall, just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone, to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

The president’s alliterated reference to defining moments in the fight for equality likely went either unnoticed or not understood by many who heard it–especially those of younger generations. As a student and teacher of history, though, it did not escape me.

Seneca Falls is where the first convention focused on women’s rights was held in 1848. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were the most notable names involved probably, but the Declaration of Sentiments that emerged from the convention made it abundantly clear that women wanted the right to vote. Years later, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified these women were up in arms since, for the first time, the Constitution now included the word male when addressing voting rights.

Selma, of course, is the town in Alabama that is usually considered to be the launching pad of the civil rights movement.

But what about Stonewall? Most of us thinking of Confederate general T.J. “Stonewall” Jackson when we think of any historical significance to that term, but the is certainly not what the president had in mind on Monday. Instead, he was referring to the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City where a riot occurred in 1969. The riot was sparked by a police raid on the bar, apparently one of the few bars in the city where homosexuals could gather. Not only were gays openly discriminated against at the time, but it was a crime to serve alcohol to homosexuals. Police were there with a search warrant to investigate reports on the illegal sale of liquor. The result was a riot in which the bar’s patrons began throwing just about anything they could find at the police officers, four of which were injured in the melee. Rioting continued for the better part of a week.

According to Martin Duberman, a professor, author and gay-rights activist who founded the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at City University of New York, Stonewall became symbolic for the gay rights movement. In 1999, the Stonewall Inn was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

My contention is that Stonewall doesn’t fit with Seneca Falls and Selma. I am not suggesting that discrimination against homosexuals is okay in the areas of basic rights–making it a crime to serve alcohol to them, for example–but the connection that President Obama was trying to make was that because gay marriage is still not permitted, homosexuals are still being discriminated against. Not too long after the excerpt above, Obama said,

Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

Notice he said nothing about housing, employment, voting, even drinking alcohol. I do not know anyone who reasonably and rationally believes that homosexuals should be denied any of those rights. Rather, the president was focused on gay marriage–“the love we commit to one another” he called it. And for it to “be equal as well” he wants marriage to be redefined to include homosexual marriage.

I have addressed this issue in this blog before; homosexuality and gay rights is not the civil rights issue of our day, as so many people like to assert that it is, and as the president seemed to be suggesting in his speech. Why not? Because gay marriage is not a civil right. Homosexuality is not the same as gender or race. Homosexuality is not an irreversible fact of life over which individuals have no control. Even if I were to grant the argument that there is such a thing as a “gay gene” and homosexuals are born homosexual (something I do not grant, by the way) engaging in homosexual behavior is still optional; being a woman or being black is not optional.

Perhaps it should not surprise me, but it does, that Benjamin Todd Jealous, the president and CEO of the NAACP, had this to say in response to Obama’s remarks:

In his speech, I think the president did ultimately what he does best, which is to really speak to the commonality across so many different groups in our society, the commonality across so many different struggles for rights, and get right down to the core that at the end of the day, what we’re all seeking to do — and what the freedom fighters at Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall are all trying to do — is just simply move our country towards the realization of its own pledge, that this be one nation, with liberty and justice for all.

We need to wake up. The “commonality across so many different struggles for rights” is no commonality at all when it comes to the issue of gay marriage. Gay marriage is not included in the founder’s embrace of “liberty and justice for all.” Gay marriage is not a right, it is not a civil rights issue, and if it ever becomes the law of the land it will result in a fundamental redefinition of the basic unit of humanity. Oh, and it will throw wide open the doorway to redefining just about anything else, too; if homosexuals are granted the right to marry, after all, how can we deny polygamists the right to marry multiple wives? That is but one example of where that doorway might lead; the others are addressed elsewhere on this site, and for the sake of time and space and climbing out of the mud I will not elaborate here.

Bottom line…Stonewall does not belong, and never will belong, with Seneca Falls and Selma.