“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” - Martin Luther King Jr. Fifty years have now passed since Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech on the mall in Washington. It’s been 93 years since women got the vote in this country in 1920. Equal rights for people with dift erent sexual orientations are also slowly working through centuries of struggle. Sadly, still almost no nonCaucasian, no female and no gay/ lesbian/bisexual/ transgender person would declare, even in 2013, they totally share the equal rights and freedoms this great country was supposed to be built upon.
Always the excuses - “These things take time” or “Society isn’t ready;
you’ll have to wait” - are spoken to masquerade denial as simple delay.
Time for what? For the ruling powers of society to decide they’re ready to give over a tad of humanity and empathy, to free a few slaves, to throw a few crumbs? Or is it for the time it might take for developing a difterent social construct that appears more just,but in truth keeps the powers-that-be secure and unmoved. Or is it for time to reverse or slow down the gains and inroads being made by those deemed lesser somehow?
Women, especially those between 18 and 45, need to pay close attention to what ground is eroding under them in regard to decisions about their health, their bodies, their education, their careers, their income levels, their clothes, their marriages and their possible roles as mothers. They need to learn what gains women have made that are now being severely challenged, changed or lost.
Women also need to know their own “herstory.” For example, Tuesday marked a dift erent 50-year anniversary. In 1963, the day before King’s dream speech, state legislator Paul Van Dalsem explained to the Optimist Club in Little Rock how to handle uppity women who were lobbying for election reform to prevent tampering and voter fraud. He advised, “We don’t have any of these university women in Perry County, but I’ll tellyou what we do up there when one of our women starts poking around in something she doesn’t know anything about. We get her an extra milk cow.
If that don’t work, we give her a little more garden to tend to. And then if that’s not enough, we get her pregnant and keep her barefoot.”
If he believed we all get what we deserve, I’m happy that nothing else Mr. Van Dalsem did, for good or bad, has been remembered except those famous lines.
Society’s evolution and subsequent backlash to change is like committees making sausage - not a pretty endeavor. But at times there is a moment of sunshine we can capture and hold. I got to see one of those flashes July 20 in Atlanta when I attended the fi rst marriage of two people of the same gender ever sanctioned by and held in their church, a beautiful old Episcopalian cathedral on Peachtree Street. That street’s history, dating back before the Civil War, added a bit of sweet irony considering the battle for freedom such a marriage represents in our culture.
Although not legal in Georgia, the marriage of these two women, who have been together for 25years, was more important to them because of the loving embrace of their church than any legal granting they may or may not live to enjoy in their chosen state.
About 350 people smiled, sang, cheered and cried as they watched history being made in the form of absolute joy and happiness simply achieved from two people loving each other. If we could just leave sex out of this same-gender marriage discussion ( it’s nobody’sbusiness anyway) and speak rationally about the right to choose one person in life to stand by and love us through thick and thin, would we really design a society to deny what God supposedly is about - love? Are we so selfrighteous society’s rulers should sit on high and grant or deny permission for the ways, legal or emotional, people can express what they feel?
Yes, these questions are indeed about time - life time. The minister givingmy friends their exchange of vows opened his service saying that usually when he marries couples who have been together a long time, their friends toast them with, “It’s about time!” Then he smiled, glanced skyward, looked at these two people and said, “It’s about time.” FRAN ALEXANDER IS A FAYETTEVILLE RESIDENT WITH A LONGSTANDING INTEREST IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND AN OPINION ON ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE.
Opinion, Pages 13 on 09/01/2013