Tag Archives: equal rights

Endorsed by Equal Rights Washington

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I just discovered that I was endorsed by Equal Rights Washington for the election this week. I didn’t win the election, but this recognition by ERW is bigger for me than winning or losing the race for school board. Finding my name on ERW’s list of endorsements was one of the highlights of my week.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

“ERW’s non-partisan endorsement committee uses a specific set of carefully developed criteria in making our endorsements. We back candidates who have a track record of support for LGBTQ equality in a number of areas, and who advocate on behalf of the issues we support, such as trans justice, gender and racial equity, anti-bullying and banning conversion therapy for minors.”

Your Value

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Some interesting and thought-provoking conversations in the last couple of days have caused me to feel the need to say this:

Women – your value goes beyond any ability you have to get pregnant and give birth. You are whole human beings with your own unique talents and gifts to share with the world. Please use every gift you have to make the world a better place. The world needs you – ALL of the good in you – not just your uterus.

Men – never think that you are “disposable” and that you aren’t valued. Don’t be afraid that you’re not needed or necessary. Your value goes beyond big muscles or the size of your paycheck. You are worth so much more than that.

Listen, intelligence and wisdom, kindness and honesty and courage, compassion, empathy, and strength – these are all valuable to our world. You don’t need money to share these things with others. And these things aren’t limited to one gender – you don’t need a uterus or a penis to be kind or courageous or strong. All of us – of whatever gender or sexual orientation – can express intelligence and kindness, courage and honesty and strength in our lives.

Okay. I guess that’s all I have to say about that at this time. Please know you are loved and valued.

– Karen

“Both sexes should be loving, pure, tender, and strong.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

Do we really even need to debate this stuff?

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I can’t believe we’re still debating stuff in 2018 that we should have moved beyond long ago.

No, it’s not alright to separate children from their parents at the border. No, it’s not alright to torture ANYone or thing. No, we shouldn’t be taking from the poor to give to the rich. Yes, we should be caring for our planet – it’s the only one we’ve got. No, we should not be denying people their rights to life, liberty, happiness, and prosperity because of their race, religion or non-religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Are these things we really even need to debate? Sheesh.

debating stuff

 

The Urgency of the Moment

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“…Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment…

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood… I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…

“…and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
from the “I Have a Dream” speech

King’s words are still relevant today – and we are, again, living in a time when we need to recognize “the urgency of the moment.” Our nation is at a crossroads, isn’t it? All the slime and ooze hidden on the bottom of the pond has been stirred up and is coming to the surface – corruption, racism, bigotry, and greed are being exposed to the light. Now it’s up to us to decide, as a nation, what we’re going to do about it. The decisions we make now – the direction we choose to go – is going to determine our fate.  I’m thinking we should choose equality, freedom, and justice, right?

I keep hanging onto the memory of that night – the night of the election – when I saw a shooting star streak across the sky and the voice said, “Trust. Everything is happening as it needs to happen.” But the voice didn’t tell me what was to come would be easy, or that it wouldn’t involve some effort, time, sweat, tears, courage, and prayer…

trust

“Peals that should startle the slumbering thought from its erroneous dreams are partially unheeded; but the last trump has not sounded, or this would not be so. Marvels, calamities, and sin will much more abound as truth urges upon mortals its resisted claims; but the awful daring of sin destroys sin, and foreshadows the triumph of truth.”
– Mary Baker Eddy