The Baltimore Orioles recently released a video statement for the "It Gets Better" campaign against anti-LGBT bullying and youth suicide (Hat tip: Sen. Rich Madaleno).
It may seem obvious by now, but times are clearly changing when the jocks are getting behind LGBT civil rights. But Maryland is on track to become the first state to approve marriage equality through a referendum. Onward for the Free State!
Now that President Barack Obama has endorsed marriage equality, I hope it is dawning on folks that marriage equality and LGBT rights are obviously among our generation's current civil rights struggles.
To help illustrate this point, Maryland Juice has juxtaposed a number of past and present news and cultural items below, including two Norman Rockwell prints that I dragged out of my closet.
We also provide several worthwhile video clips below, in our quest to historically memorialize Senate President Mike Miller's explanation of why he is opposed to marriage equality:
ITEM #1: MOTHER'S DAY MESSAGE FROM MOM OF TEENAGE SUICIDE VICTIM - MAY 2012. Tracy Rodemeyer's 14-year-old son committed suicide last September due to years of bullying about his sexual orientation. Sadly, he even made a videotaped message for the "It Gets Better" project before taking his own life. His parents are carrying on the fight for him (excerpt from the Huffington Postbelow):
...What more could a mother want but two beautiful, healthy children with two parents there to love them? We seemed to have it all, the perfect family: one girl, one boy, a beautiful dog in a nice little house. Life was complete! My husband and I would talk about how to raise them right, how to prepare them for the world; never did we utter an ignorant phrase like, "Boy, I hope they are not gay when they grow up." We wished for health and happiness, and to be able to teach our children enough to make them responsible adults who could tackle the world on their own some day....
As my children got older, I would look forward to Mother's Day, because we made sure we spent the full day together, and I would tell the kids the stories of when they were born, or how much they changed my life forever. I could never have imagined my life without them. My life had not been complete until they entered it. They started to make me cards and gifts that I will cherish forever.
Little did I know that Sunday, May 8, 2011 would be my last Mother's Day with both my children. Half my life was taken away from me on Sept. 18, 2011. This is when my son Jamey committed suicide. I began to reexamine my life: Why am I here? Why do I exist? Do I deserve to remain on this Earth when my son is no longer with us? My children were my life, the air that I breathed, the reason for my existence. The blood that ran through me was inside both of them. This Mother's Day I will ask myself a question I ask myself every day: Do I deserve to be recognized on Mother's Day after all that has happened? This Mother's Day will be the hardest ever....
And from the mouth of Jamey: "Love yourself, hold your head up high, and you will go far." Don't worry about the negative things that people may say about you. Be yourself, and love yourself. That is all that matters. We are all different, and we should all embrace those differences, because they make us all unique and special.
To all you moms out there: Happy Mother's Day, and remember to appreciate your children, respect them for who they are, and cherish every moment you have with them, both the good and the bad, because how you look and what you are deep down inside is not all by choice. To all you children: look past what you see as criticism, and understand that you are so loved, more than you can ever imagine, but you may not understand or appreciate it until you are a parent one day. Love yourself, because baby, you were born this way!
ITEM #2: BALTIMORE PRIEST INVOKES SEN. PRESIDENT MIKE MILLER WHILE LEADING RALLY AGAINST MARRIAGE EQUALITY (scary music courtesy of Juice) - JAN. 2012:
ITEMS #4-5: NORMAN ROCKWELL CAPTURES 1960'S AMERICA - 1964-1967:
Norman Rockwell, The Problem We All Live With 1964
Norman Rockwell, New Kids in the Neighborhood 1967
ITEM #6: NORTH CAROLINA LESBIAN COUPLE ARRESTED FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE - MAY 2012: The day after North Carolina voters added a same-sex marriage ban to their State Constitution, gay and lesbian couples in the state attempted to get married anyway and were arrested (see photo below and full article at NY Daily News):
Politicians, your words have real-world consequences. Below, see two reasons why we must keep fighting. How many reasons do you need? No more waiting for Superman. He's not coming. It is up to us.
ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE: Every morning, Brittany Geldert stepped off the bus and bolted through the double doors of Fred Moore Middle School, her nerves already on high alert, bracing for the inevitable.
"Dyke."
Pretending not to hear, Brittany would walk briskly to her locker, past the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders who loitered in menacing packs.
"Whore."
Like many 13-year-olds, Brittany knew seventh grade was a living hell. But what she didn't know was that she was caught in the crossfire of a culture war being waged by local evangelicals inspired by their high-profile congressional representative Michele Bachmann, who graduated from Anoka High School and, until recently, was a member of one of the most conservative churches in the area. When Christian activists who considered gays an abomination forced a measure through the school board forbidding the discussion of homosexuality in the district's public schools, kids like Brittany were unknowingly thrust into the heart of a clash that was about to become intertwined with tragedy.
Michele Bachmann's Holy War
Brittany didn't look like most girls in blue-collar Anoka, Minnesota, a former logging town on the Rum River, a conventional place that takes pride in its annual Halloween parade – it bills itself the "Halloween Capital of the World." Brittany was a low-voiced, stocky girl who dressed in baggy jeans and her dad's Marine Corps sweatshirts. By age 13, she'd been taunted as a "cunt" and "cock muncher" long before such words had made much sense. When she told administrators about the abuse, they were strangely unresponsive, even though bullying was a subject often discussed in school-board meetings....
So maybe she was a fat dyke, Brittany thought morosely; maybe she deserved the teasing....
Like Brittany, eighth-grader Samantha Johnson was a husky tomboy too, outgoing with a big smile and a silly streak to match Brittany's own. Sam was also bullied for her look – short hair, dark clothing, lack of girly affect – but she merrily shrugged off the abuse....
Brittany admired Sam's courage, and tried to mimic her insouciance and stoicism. So Brittany was bewildered when one day in November 2009, on the school bus home, a sixth-grade boy slid in next to her and asked quaveringly, "Did you hear Sam said she's going to kill herself?"
Brittany considered the question. No way. How many times had she seen Sam roll her eyes and announce, "Ugh, I'm gonna kill myself" over some insignificant thing? "Don't worry, you'll see Sam tomorrow," Brittany reassured her friend as they got off the bus. But as she trudged toward her house, she couldn't stop turning it over in her mind. A boy in the district had already committed suicide just days into the school year – TJ Hayes, a 16-year-old at Blaine High School – so she knew such things were possible. But Sam Johnson? Brittany tried to keep the thought at bay. Finally, she confided in her mother.
"This isn't something you kid about, Brittany," her mom scolded, snatching the kitchen cordless and taking it down the hall to call the Johnsons. A minute later she returned, her face a mask of shock and terror. "Honey, I'm so sorry. We're too late," she said tonelessly as Brittany's knees buckled; 13-year-old Sam had climbed into the bathtub after school and shot herself in the mouth with her own hunting rifle. No one at school had seen her suicide coming.
