It seems fitting that on this day honoring Martin Luther King, I would, while browsing at Barnes and Noble, chance upon a recently issued edition of a heretofore unpublished manuscript of one of America’s greatest writers and read in the blurb about this wordsmith that he stands among the great black writers.

To be sure, Richard Wright was a black writer, but why did the publishers of A Father’s Law seek to limit his importance? Wright ranks among the great American authors who was able to write about his experience as a black man growing up in the South and later moving to Chicago such that he wrote not just about that experience but about the human experience.

Were the publishers (to paraphrase Dr. King) seeking to judge him by the color of his skin and not the universality of his themes?

His novel Native Son ranks along with Melville’s Moby Dick, Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, Cather’s My Ántonia and Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter as one of the greatest American novels. His Memoir Black Boy is perhaps the most powerful written by an American.

Do people call Truman Capote a great American writer or a great gay writer?

Heck, we can even dispense with the adjective describing Wright’s nationality. He was simply put a great writer, the power of whose works endures long after his death.

About a decade ago, when I was reading Wright’s work, I rushed off to the Borders near me (then in Northern Virginia) to buy another book, but I couldn’t find any of his writings in the “Fiction & Literature” section. It struck me as strange that a bookstore with that large an inventory would not have a single work by this great author.

When I asked, I learned that they shelved his works in the African-American section. By that logic, a bookstore out here would shelve John Steinbeck in the Calfornia section.

Just as Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great American, Richard Wright was a great writer. Each achieved his greatness by drawing on his experiences as a black man in a segregated society, then found a means to transcend racial difference to address universal theme.

We will truly have learned from Dr. King’s positive vision if we come to see Richard Wright as a great American writer and place his works where they belong, alongside Cather, Hawthorne, Melville, Steinbeck, other great American writers.

Today, we celebrate the holiday honoring one of the greatest Americans of the last century. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. beautifully articulated the vision of our founders and applied it right one of the great wrongs in our society.

Celebrating the American dream, he saw how various state laws mandating segregation and state policies preventing black citizens from voting not only violated the rights guaranteed these individuals by the constitution, but also damaged our nation. As much as our founders, Martin Luther King, Jr. understood what it meant to be American and sought to extend the benefits of a free society to those denied it by Jim Crow legislation.

State legislatures in southern states enacted those laws in the late nineteenth century in order to stop the progress blacks were making in the states where they had once been enslaved. And the U.S. Supreme Court was complicit in this system of segregation by refusing in such cases as Plessy v. Ferguson to strike that obviously unconstitutional legislation.

Dr. King reminded us of the principles of our constitution and the ideals of our nation. He succeeded in changing our national consciousness and helped restore our national purpose.

For that reason, for reminding us of the animating spirit of our nation, the principles our founders articulated and countless soldiers fought for in our Revolution, the Civil War and the Second World War, for extending those principles to Americans who had not previously enjoyed them, we honor Dr. King today.

Like the great Americans of the previous centuries, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and others, Dr. King recognized that the idea of freedom was central to the idea of America. His speeches were full of references to and quotations from our founding documents and patriotic hymns.

He mentioned “freedom” 21 times in his “I Have a Dream” speech (using the word, “equality” only once). His Letter from a Birmingham Jail included the word “freedom” sixteen times without once using the word, equality. While he favored equal rights, he recognized that freedom was central to the American ideal.

These two documents belong among the most important documents in American history.

In recent days, much as made (as it should have been) of Hillary Clinton’s comment that it “took a president” to realize Dr. King’s dream. Hardly. While indeed, then-President Lyndon Johnson’s signature made made the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the law of the land, that legislative victory was only part of the accomplishments of the Civil Rights’ Movement. It took someone of Dr. King’s stature to change our attitudes so that a man like Johnson who harbored racial resentments would sign the bill.

Mrs. Clinton’s comments missed the point. It shows she has little understanding of the power of a true leader to change our nation. He need not do it by enacting legislation or even by assuming a position of political power. He does it by changing minds. Dr. King did that by the power of his presence, his gift with words and his understanding of the American ideal.

Through the power of his words, he made Americans see the folly of segregation, how it blocked certain Americans from participating fully in the life of their nation while preventing others Americans who enjoyed those freedoms from recognizing the humanity of their fellows.

Dr. King showed us how segregation violated the spirit of our founding ideals and did so not by attacking this great nation, but by reminding us of our values as a people — and the promise of our founding. In his speeches and writings, he frequently referenced our patriotic hymns and the documents which defined and established the United States. He was truly a great American in the spirit of others we honor at various times during the year.

And that is why we honor this great man today.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King. And thank you for reminding us of the meaning of America. And helping correct a flaw in our nation which prevented certain Americans from realizing its promise.

- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)

It’s amazing what one can find via Google sometimes. I was curious who the first recorded gay soldier was that faced disciplinary action in the military and found this interesting excerpt from Conduct Unbecoming: Gays & Lesbians in the U.S. Military by Randy Shilts:

On March 11, 1778, just sixteen days after [Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von] Steuben arrived at Valley Forge, drums and fifes assembled on the Grand Parade in the brisk morning air to conclude the punishment ordered by a general court-martial and approved by General Washington himself. On that morning Lieutenant Gotthold Frederick Enslin became the first known soldier to be dismissed from the U.S. military for homosexuality.

Enslin had arrived in the United States on September 30, 1774, aboard the ship Union, which had sailed from Rotterdam to Philadelphia. He was in his late twenties or early thirties. He arrived alone, according to the ship’s records, suggesting that he was single. Three years later he enlisted in the Continental Army; within a few months he was serving as an officer in Colonel William Malcom’s regiment.

Though little is known of Enslin’s earlier life, the exact penmanship he used on his company’s muster sheets and his command of the English language indicate that he was an educated man of some financial means. The Continental Army preferred its officers to be educated and able to provide their own supplies.

Under the bunking arrangements at Valley Forge, enlisted men lived in communal barracks while officers resided in small cabins with officers of similar rank. It was in Enslin’s cabin that Ensign Anthony Maxwell apparently discovered the lieutenant with Private John Monhart. Maxwell reported this to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Burr. Enslin responded that Maxwell was lying in an attempt to impugn his character.
(more…)

I don’t know how one would classify me in the realm of economics, and it is certainly not my strong suit.   But based on 39 years of experience paying taxes and acting like a normal human being when something is taxed versus not-taxed… I have a pretty good idea of how to spend the $150 Billion that Bush & Congress are talking about.

Forget the $800.00 check for most Americans.  It is fine for lower- and lower-middle class, don’t get me wrong.  But I’d gladly give up my $800.00 if Congress would use the money for more strategic economic and security projects.

Call it my “Kill Many Birds With One Stone” Economic Plan:

Fine, cut a check for $800 to those who would best benefit from it and were likely to put it back into the economy.

Have most of the rest of Federal money specifically targeted toward energy independence construction — ANWR development, refinery construction, nuclear plant construction, and drilling infrastructure off the coast of Florida (where Castro is trying to steal our oil reservers).

Simply set aside $10B to build a wall on our Southern Border.  Use only American construction workers. 

These are kind of jobs that American workers would definitely want!!   And the investment now would reap future benefits in energy independence and border security.

It seems like a no-brainer to me.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Just as his wife attempted to rewrite the reasons for her husband’s support for the Defense of Marriage Act in the Logo Debate (claiming it was to stave off an amendment enshrining the traditional definition of marriage in the federal constitution), so too is Bill Clinton trying to rewrite the record of his (or should I say “their” given the experience she claims?) Administration. The former president’s latest whopper is claiming that when he signed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” he hadn’t expected that “anti-gay forces in the military” would start “using it as an excuse to kick people out.”

Log Cabin did not mince words in taking issue with Clinton’s latest lie. Organization President Patrick Sammon said:

“President Clinton either didn’t understand the legislation he signed or he’s lying. . . . If he actually thought the military wasn’t correctly implementing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ why didn’t he do anything about it for the seven years he served as President after signing the legislation?  Clinton apparently forgets he was Commander-in-Chief.

Given the way his wife’s been campaigning, in the unfortunate event she wins election, she’ll forget she’s chief executive if things don’t go as she wants. And she’ll just try to pass the buck.

Citing a 1993* Department of Defense press release announcing the new policy, Sammon noted further:

From the very beginning of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ there was no doubt what the law meant—gay and lesbian Americans could only serve if they lied about their sexual orientation or kept it a secret.

We’re pleased to see Log Cabin taking on a Democrat. Indeed Sammon finds the former president’s latest misrepresentation just “another example of the Clintonian excuses and re-writing history.” Ms. Hillary is running on experience. Yet, just like her husband, she’ll twist her actual experience to fit the narrative of the moment, turning, for example, a goodwill mission abroad to a diplomatic initiative.

For the Clinton’s facts aren’t the way things were, but the way they want things to have been to fit their latest campaign narrative, to please whatever audience they’re addressing at the time, whose votes they need to win the election at hand.

If Hillary is running on her experience, then her experience is her husband’s record. And we know all too well what that means to the gay community. As Patrick Sammon puts it, Clinton is “a man who gladly took support and money from gays and lesbians and then delivered ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and the so-called ‘Defense of Marriage Act.”

Kudos to Log Cabin for taking on this dishonest Democrat. Let’s see if any of the other gay organizations take note of Clinton’s attempt to twist his record on gay issues to suit his purposes.

ADDENDUM: At least one gay blogger has taken note. Chris Crain writes that it’s Déjà Bill all over again.

*********

*A year when Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress.

UPDATE: Chris Crain has more on Bill Clinton’s weasley ways, commenting in a second post on the former president’s misrepresentations on DADT:

It is incumbent on the media and gay rights groups, whatever their presidential candidate affiliation, to call Bill Clinton out on his misrepresentation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and correct the record once and for all.

He also links a post providing video of the former Democratic president’s latest fib. As with anything by Chris Crain, read the whole thing because even when he’s wrong, he’s got a point to make. This time, he pretty much gets it right.

UP-UPDATE: Even Barack Obama has noted the former president’s dishonesty, commenting, “He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts.” (Via Baldilocks via Instapundit.)