A New Low

Mailed notice told Spanish-speakers that they can't vote

THELMA GUERRERO
Statesman Journal

http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061105/STATE/611050343/1042

November 5, 2006

A message sent to immigrants-turned-citizens in California that falsely claims it's a crime for them to vote has raised concerns close to home.

The Oregon AFL-CIO is urging voters in the state to report any attempts to interfere with their right to vote.

"A healthy democracy depends on every citizen's vote being counted," said Tom Chamberlain, the president of the Oregon AFL-CIO.

The labor federation's concerns stem from a letter, written in Spanish, sent to Spanish-surnamed naturalized U.S. citizens born in Latin American countries who are registered voters in Orange County, Calif.

The letter purportedly warned people that only U.S. citizens can vote, that voting by immigrants is a crime and a deportable offense, and that immigration-restriction organizations have access to federal databases of properly registered voters.

A California state investigation into who sent the letter has focused on a Republican congressional candidate who was running on an anti-illegal-immigration platform.

Maternal Profiling

My comments follow the article...



Maternal Profiling
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Anita Dufalla, Post-Gazette


Since becoming a mom I now understand a lot of things about mothers that never seemed to make sense to me way back when. Like why my mom would stand at the end of the driveway when I rode off on my bike, or why she insisted on brushed hair and clean nails, or why she tended to be a stress case around the holidays. With four kids of my own, I get it, Mom. Promise. But there are some issues involving motherhood I don't understand at all, one I learned about just a few weeks ago.

At a special screening of an about-to-be-released documentary film called, "The Motherhood Manifesto," based on the book of the same name by Joan Blades and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, I happened on a little known fact about mothers in our state.

In Pennsylvania it is legal for employers to ask job applicants if they have kids or if they are married. The applicants' answers can determine if they are hired, or not, meaning they can be rejected not because of their qualifications but because of blanket perceptions about what having children (or not), or being married (or not) means. More often than not, these types of questions are directed at women, and tend to hurt mothers, especially single mothers.

The film features a woman named Kiki Peppard, from Effort, Pa., who, when she was new to our state 12 years ago, couldn't find a job in Pennsylvania, because, as she was told by numerous, would-be employers, she was a "single mom."

"I don't want to have to carry your kids' health benefits," was one reply Kiki got, when she asked an employer why it mattered if she had kids.

Kiki had excellent references, was a fast and accurate typist and never missed work, according to her former employers in Long Island, N.Y. But, in the Poconos, Kiki learned that none of her credentials mattered. After 19 interviews -- all starting with the questions, "Are you married? Do you have kids?" -- Kiki still did not have a job. Kiki and her daughter and her young son (who suffered from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis) were forced onto welfare.

The more I thought about the film, the more worked up I got. How, in this day and age, could the people of Pennsylvania tolerate "maternal profiling?" The first person I called after seeing the film was Kiki.

"I asked other single moms, 'How do you get jobs?' and they would all say, 'Oh, I lie and say I don't have kids. That's how it works around here,' " Kiki said. "But three months go by, and it is time for benefits, these single moms are in a bad spot, because they lied in their interviews about their kids in the first place. The kids go on without health coverage. It is devastating. It happens all the time."

In New York, as in several other states, it is illegal to ask questions about marriage and family in a job interview, so Kiki had never faced those questions before, and she never had trouble finding work in New York.

"I am as mad today as I was 12 years ago," Kiki said. But Kiki didn't just fume, she took action. After calling the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission to complain, she was told that her experience in Pennsylvania was common, and legal. She also was told by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that marriage and family status are not protected federally either.

"What can I do then?" Kiki asked a representative of the Pennsylvania commission. "Get a law passed," he answered.

For six years Kiki struggled to get a lawmaker to sponsor legislation. She has spent six more years fighting to get it made into law.

The legislation, HB 352 and SB 440, would amend the 50-year-old Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, and make it illegal to ask "marital" or "familial" questions of job applicants. The bills remain stalled in committees.

Where is the massive, public outcry?

"There has not been an understanding or appreciation of how widespread this type of discrimination may be," state Sen. Jane Orie, R-McCandless, sponsor of SB 440, wrote me in an e-mail.

"Many believe that familial discrimination is currently illegal in Pennsylvania," Ms. Orie continued.

It's true, not one person I have talked to about this issue in the last month believed that asking an job applicant about married life or kids was legal in Pennsylvania, but, according to complaints lodged with the state and women's organizations, there are plenty of Pennsylvania employers out there who know their "rights" and take full advantage of them.

Homer Floyd, executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, is worried. "There are a lot of consequences to this kind of discrimination. Many women find it far more difficult to find quality health care for themselves and for their children. Many mothers can't get a good job that pays the kind of living wage that takes care of themselves and their kids. It is extremely important to have the law changed now and we do think this is very important," Mr. Floyd told me.

Why an employer would discriminate against a potential, qualified employee doesn't make sense to me, especially an employee who needs the work to support her kids and could, therefore, be that much more committed to her job and her productivity.

The "bottom line," it appears, is a key factor when employers discriminate against mothers, driven by a belief that health benefits (if there are any) could cost the employer more if a spouse doesn't have insurance or if the woman is single, or that mothers are less productive.

Could it be that these employers don't understand the nature of moms?

"Discriminating against a mother is disingenuous. Mothers are well known for their juggling skills, and, most of the time, can keep all their balls in the air," said Debra Levy, director of Mothers & More, a national association for mothers.

Another possibility is that some employers just don't accept that the world is different now.

"The model of a family living off the wage of one worker and one person at home is obsolete and is never coming back. It is a disorienting time for our country, but we have got to find a way to accommodate these changes," said Judith Stadtman Tucker, editor of Mothers Movement Online.

Stadtman Tucker says the time has come for businesses, and the nation, to make a leap of consciousness. "People call it the 'changing' work force," she pointed out, but, really, it is the "changed work force."

For businesses that embrace the new world of work, it can pay off.

Georgia Berner, a mother of four, took over the New Castle-based manufacturing company her husband ran when he was killed in a plane crash 22 years ago. Since then, Berner International has grown 600 percent, embracing a host of family-friendly policies that include health care, personal leave and flex time.

"We have a teamwork approach. Job performance goes up, efficiencies improve, mistakes occur less often, we work together to create a quality product, when we are committed to each other. The fear that having respect for employees' personal lives will lower the bottom line of a company is outmoded and irrational," Ms. Berner said.

"As for single mothers," Ms. Berner added, "The ones I know take their jobs very seriously."

As it turned out, in two of her job interviews, Kiki was not asked questions about marriage or kids, and in both cases Kiki was offered a job. She works today for one of those employers.

HB 352 (sponsored by state Rep. Craig Dally, R-Monroe County) and SB 440 must be passed by the end of November or the bills will die in committee. Ms. Orie told me she would re-introduce SB 440 if necessary, but how long can this go on?

Cindia Cameron, organizing director of 9to5, a national association for working women, said a lot of eyes are on Pennsylvania right now. As one of 28 states without protections against maternal profiling, the commonwealth could influence the rest of the country not only on job discrimination, but also on a host of other issues critical to mothers, such as child care, health care and family leave. "If this legislation passes, Pennsylvania has the potential to start a crucial chain reaction," Ms. Cameron said.

Kiki and her campaign represent two of the most important things I have come to understand about mothers: 1) They want to leave the world a little better than they found it, and 2) When mothers set their minds to something, they get it done.

It is up to all of us, not just moms, to get it done, to call our legislators and tell them that HB 352 and SB 440 need to become law because doing away with discrimination would make Pennsylvania better for everybody. And this would be a perfect time for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and his new Women's Commission to weigh in.
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As long-time readers of my blog are well aware, I live in Oregon, not in Pennsylvania. Still, I believe this is an issue that affects all Americans, everywhere, and I urge voters in that state to contact their legislators and urge them to pass HB 352 and SB 440. I find it absolutely unconscionable that single mothers are being forced onto welfare in order to feed their kids; mothers who are more than willing and able to contribute positively to the workforce, but are being barred by maternal profiling. In the end, it is our tax dollars shouldering the misconceptions and outright bias of these employers who begin interviews with potential female employees with questions like "Do you have kids" and "Are you married," questions I highly doubt they are asking the male applicants. It is gender bias, plain and simple...and it should be illegal.

Pennsylanvia lawmakers: do the right thing. Help the mothers in your state provide for their children by passing these bills. Because it is abundantly clear that if you don't, you'll be providing for those kids through welfare instead...and robbing the state of a workforce that is both determined, capable and desperate to prove itself. Pass these bills. It's the right thing to do.

Soldier's Religious Memorial Denied

No Wiccan symbol for soldier's memorial
Monday, July 10, 2006
WASHINGTON POST NEWS SERVICE


WASHINGTON -- At the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in the small town of Fernley, Nev., there is a wall of brass plaques for local heroes. But one space is blank. There is no memorial for Sgt. Patrick Stewart.

That's because Stewart was a Wiccan, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has refused to allow a symbol of the Wicca religion -- a five-pointed star within a circle, called a pentacle -- to be inscribed on U.S. military memorials or grave markers.

The department has approved the symbols of 38 other faiths, about half of them versions of the Christian cross. It also allows the Jewish Star of David, the Muslim crescent, the Buddhist wheel, the Mormon angel, the nine-pointed star of Bahai and something that looks like an atomic symbol for atheists.

Stewart, 34, is believed to be the first Wiccan killed in combat. He was serving in the Nevada National Guard when the helicopter in which he was riding was shot down in Afghanistan in September. He previously had served in the Army in Korea and in Operation Desert Storm. He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.

His widow, Roberta Stewart, scattered his ashes in the hills above Reno, Nev., and would like him to have a permanent memorial.

She said the veterans cemetery in Fernley offered to install a plaque with his name and no religious symbol. She refused.

"Once they do that, they'll forget me," she said. "I feel very strongly that my husband fought for the Constitution of the United States, he was proud of his spirituality and of being a Wiccan, and he was proud of being an American."

Wicca is one of the fastest-growing faiths in the country. Its adherents have increased almost 17-fold from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. The Pentagon says that more than 1,800 Wiccans are on active duty in the armed forces.

Federal courts have recognized Wicca as a religion since 1986. Prisons across the country treat it as a legitimate faith, as do the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. military, which allows Wiccan ceremonies on its bases.

"My husband's dog tags said 'Wiccan' on them," Stewart noted.

But applications from Wiccan groups and individuals to the VA for use of the pentacle on grave markers have been pending for nine years, during which time the symbols of 11 other faiths have been approved.

"I really have no idea why it has taken so long" for the Wiccan symbol to gain approval, Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Josephine Schuda said.

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Nine years, it has taken, for the pentacle to be approved. Even for the slow-as-molasses government, that is about 8 years and 6 months too long.

I find it disgusting, that in this country where religious freedoms are heralded as one of our greatest achievements, that a person's religious symbols can still be denied him or her.

I hope those in the military take heed: Sgt. Stewart died for this country. He fought and died for those ideals we take such pride in. To deny this hero his own religious freedom, after fighting hard for the freedoms of others, is a travesty.

NDN NEWZ: No Fires This Year

Bans douse Indian fire ceremonies
By John Aguilar, Rocky Mountain News
July 5, 2006


For nearly a decade, Bobbie Gleason has hosted American Indian sweat lodge ceremonies at her home in Gilpin County - heating rocks with fire and purifying the spirits who gather.

"I've been doing this for eight years and I've never had a problem," said Gleason, who comes from Northern Cree heritage.

But that came to a halt late last month when Gilpin County officials declined to exempt from their fire ban Gleason's planned sweat lodge ceremonies, in which stones are heated over an open fire, brought inside a covered dome and doused with water to generate steam.

In a June 27 letter to Gleason, County Manager Roger Baker wrote that county commissioners "have no intention of interfering with anyone's religious practices" but that public safety concerns take precedence.

Commissioner Al Price said that allowing ceremonial fires in the bone-dry county would open the floodgates for other people seeking a way around the ban, raising the risk of a wildfire.

"It was all or nothing," Price said. "You allow them to do this and you're going to have to allow campfires and voodoo ceremonies. Where do you stop?"

Ray Rubio, who lives a short distance up Colorado 119 from Gleason and hosts his own ceremonies, resents Price's choice of words, saying that they show "disdain and scorn" for American Indian religious customs.

The 52-year-old Southern Paiute tribal member said it was fire-based ceremonies - such as vision quests, sweat lodges and sun dances - that enabled him to overcome his addiction to alcohol and pursue a law career.

"This is our method of prayer," Rubio said. "It's a social gathering; it's a spiritual gathering; it's an act of worship. "It saved my life."

All across Colorado, Indians who rely on fire to express their faith are coming up against challenges similar to those posed in Gilpin County, as the open fire ban on state lands enters its second month and fire restrictions continue to ripple across individual counties.

Even the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, one of only two reservations in the state, requires that special notification be given before a ceremonial fire can be lit.

During this sun dance season, many Indians are finding that the only way to freely exercise their religion in a state starved for moisture is to negotiate a fire ban exemption with local officials, find a substitute for fire or move their ceremonies to far corners of the state.

'Permit to pray'

Robert Cross, a Lakota Sioux spiritual leader from Littleton, said that after years of being "hassled" on the Front Range, he decided to relocate his ceremonies to a secluded spot near the Nebraska border in the Pawnee National Grassland.

"Almost every year, I have to go to some official or government and get a permit to pray," he said. "I'm tired of it."

Cross, 52, is in the fourth year of a five-year special-use permit on the Pawnee, where he conducts vision quests and sun dances for those seeking spiritual purification.

But while Cross is not subject to the statewide fire ban when he's on federal land, he still conducts healing ceremonies at an active sweat lodge site on Valmont Butte in Boulder.

And he keenly remembers New Year's Eve of 2004, when police raided a ceremony there.

Although Boulder officials later apologized for extinguishing his fire, blaming it on a misunderstanding, the incident left a foul taste in Cross' mouth.

"You have a church on every corner of the block, but you don't have cops going into churches and telling them to stop what they're doing," he said standing atop the butte. "But as soon as I light a fire, they were up here like we were doing the worst thing in the world."

Cross said he and other spiritual leaders respect the power of fire and take precautions - such as cutting back vegetation, clearing brush, appointing fire watchers and having plenty of water on hand - before ever striking a match.

"These ceremonies have been going on for untold thousands of generations," he said, sweeping his hand across the land below him. "These ceremonies have always been here."

Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said the county tries to accommodate Cross and others who want to use fire for religious purposes, even during the ongoing countywide fire ban.

"We don't have problems with sweat lodge fires starting fires, we have problems with knuckleheads drinking in the woods and having campfires," he said.

In a recent e-mail, Pelle directed his deputies to work with a man who wants to hold a large fire-based "eastern religion ceremony" in the county, asking them to "help him comply (with the fire ban) and go ahead with the ceremony."

"We're trying to balance religious freedom with public safety needs," Pelle said.

Fireworks show cited

Rubio believes that kind of balancing act is sorely lacking in Gilpin County.

He said that while the county shut down his and Gleason's sweat lodges, it didn't say a thing about Black Hawk's massive fireworks show Tuesday night.

"If you stand this extravaganza against our little burn, it's exponentially a bigger risk to do what they're doing over what we're doing," Rubio said.

He said Gleason's ceremony would have involved heating about 30 rocks in contrast to the gambling town's plan to shoot hundreds of rockets into the air.

"If it's really a public safety issue, then why don't they raise an objection with the city of Black Hawk?" Rubio asked.

County Manager Baker said the county has no jurisdiction over the Black Hawk fireworks display, so the argument is moot.

He said the commissioners simply saw no "compelling reason" last week to exempt Gleason from the open fire ban.

"The decision was to ban open fires, not their fire in particular," he said.

In his letter to Gleason, Baker suggested she find "alternative methods for heating the stones" in order to conduct her ceremonies.

But for many American Indians, fire itself is so integral to the ceremony that heating rocks by any other means - with a propane stove, for example - would eviscerate the ritual's true meaning.

"In order for the Creator to answer our prayers, our ceremonies have to be done a certain way, and fire is at the center of that," said Lee Plenty Wolf, a Broomfield-based Lakota Sioux spiritual leader.

"We need that fire to pray for rain and that there won't be any wildfires," he said. "In the worst circumstances, that's when you really need prayer."

Taking precautions

At the same time, Plenty Wolf and others recognize there are limits to fire-dependent ceremonies, in both time and place.

"It's common sense that on some days it's too dry and windy and you can't fire it up," Plenty Wolf said.

He said he's not out to pick fights with authorities, but rather tries to always get their permission before sparking up.

Which is exactly how the Colorado Commission on Indian Affairs, chaired by Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, thinks a balance between religious freedom and public safety can best be achieved.

Ernest House Jr., executive secretary of the commission and a member of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe in southwest Colorado, said his agency is preparing to send a letter to county officials across the state asking them to be mindful of American Indian religious practices when imposing fire bans and restrictions.

That letter may come too late to satisfy Gleason, who had to cancel her sweat lodge ceremony Saturday, even after she tried to mitigate the wildfire risk by cutting down trees on her property and bolstering the corrugated tin fence that surrounds her fire pit.

"I don't understand why we're not allowed to pray," she said.

Nutbag Homophones Strike Again: FDA Proposes to Ban Gay Sperm Donors

Just when you think you've heard it all, heard every way a homosexual can be degraded and discriminated against in this country, along comes this filth:

New Rules to Bar Gay Men as Anonymous Sperm Donors

NEW YORK (May 6) - To the dismay of gay-rights activists, the Food and Drug Administration is about to implement new rules recommending that any man
who has engaged in homosexual sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor.

The FDA has rejected calls to scrap the provision, insisting that gay men collectively pose a higher-than-average risk of carrying the AIDS virus. Critics accuse the FDA of stigmatizing all gay men rather than adopting a
screening process that focuses on high-risk sexual behavior by any
would-be donor, gay or straight.

"Under these rules, a heterosexual man who had unprotected sex with
HIV-positive prostitutes would be OK as a donor one year later, but a gay man in a monogamous, safe-sex relationship is not OK unless he's been celibate for five years,'' said Leland Traiman, director of a clinic in Alameda, Calif., that seeks gay sperm donors.

Traiman said adequate safety assurances can be provided by testing a sperm
donor at the time of the initial donation, then freezing the sperm for a six-month quarantine and testing the donor again to be sure there is no new sign of HIV or other infectious diseases.

But it is the provision's symbolic aspect that particularly troubles gay-rights groups. Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal, has called it "policy based on bigotry.''

"The part I find most offensive - and a little frightening - is that it isn't based on good science,'' Cathcart said. "There's a steadily increasing trend of heterosexual transmission of HIV, and yet the FDA still has this notion that you protect people by putting gay men out of the pool.''

In a letter to the FDA, Lambda Legal has suggested a screening procedure based on sexual behavior, not sexual orientation. Prospective donors - gay or straight - would be rejected if they had engaged in unprotected sex in the previous 12 months with an HIV-positive person, an illegal drug user, or "an individual of unknown HIV status outside of a monogamous relationship.''

But an FDA spokeswoman cited FDA documents suggesting that officials felt the broader exclusion was prudent even if it affected gay men who practice safe sex.

Many doctors and fertility clinics already have been rejecting gay sperm donors, citing the pending FDA rules or existing regulations of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

However, some sperm banks, notably in California, have welcomed gay donors. The director of one of them, Alice Ruby of the Oakland-based Sperm Bank of California, said her staff had developed procedures for identifying gay men with an acceptably low risk of HIV.

The FDA rules do not prohibit gay men from serving as "directed'' sperm donors. If a woman wishing to become pregnant knows a gay man and asks that he provide sperm for artificial insemination, a clinic could provide that service even if the man had engaged in sex with other men within five years.

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Under the Bush regime, even the FDA has foregone science in the name of discrimination, homophobia and questionable morals. It is a sad, sad day indeed. Shame on the FDA, and on any sperm bank that uses this "policy" to blacklist homosexuals. Geez, you'd think this was 1985, not 2005, with all this "gay men are a higher risk, even if they are monogamous" crappola....