Legendary journalist Dan Rather on the passing of John McCain (via Facebook):
America has lost one of its iconic political leaders with the passing of John McCain. He was of course a senator of distinction and a presidential candidate. Born into a storied military family, McCain first earned national attention during his years of imprisonment in Vietnam. His sacrifice, heroism and courage during that time is of a nature few, thankfully, will ever be forced to comprehend.
In the political career that followed, McCain was controversial and far from perfect. In short, he was human. But at his best, which was frequent, he echoed the highest ideals and traditions of American democracy. He voted his conscience and spoke out fiercely against the current regime.
I knew John, well enough to admire many of his qualities from up close, not well enough to call him a friend. He had many close friends and I mourn for them and his loved ones. John’s good-bye was long and brave and very public. None of that will lessen the hole he will leave behind.
I also mourn for the fact that John will not be alive to see the repudiation I believe is coming to the current degraded state of the republic. We will need more voices of conscience, more iconoclasts, and more people imbued with a service greater than that of their own greed and power. In short, we will need more John McCains.
Here’s just a few pics of our furry family members over the years including Bruno (daddy dog) and puppies Tyler, Bandit and Bear (who are now 10 years old but we still call “puppies”).
I can’t imagine life without dogs.
#DogsRule
Handsome Bruno, the wonder dog
Michael with the kids
Michael had been away a few days when this was taken
Tyler, Bandit and Bear posing for a picture (kinda, sorta…)
The Catholic Charities of Buffalo has announced the organization will end its adoption and foster care services because Jesus.
New York state law bans discrimination against same-sex couples when it comes to adoption or foster care, but the Catholic Church’s position is that marriage is only between a man and a woman.
“We’re a Catholic organization, so we have to practice what we do consistent with the teaching of the church,” Dennis C. Walczyk, the chief executive officer of Catholic Charities, told The Buffalo News.
The issue came to a head when a same-sex couple recently filed an application to become adoptive foster parents. Rather than place a homeless child with a loving couple, Catholic Charities chose to shut down.
It’s worth noting that this is the same Catholic Church which is currently facing enormous scandal in neighboring Pennsylvania where a two year grand jury investigation revealed over 300 priests sexually abused over 1,000 children across 7 decades.
The state issued a statement underscoring its commitment to allowing ALL families to take part in foster care and adoption programs.
“In New York State, we welcome all families who are ready to provide loving and nurturing homes to foster or adoptive children,” said Children and Family Services spokeswoman Monica Mahaffey. “There is no place for providers that choose not to follow the law.”
There are currently 34 children in 24 of the the Catholic Charities certified foster homes. Those children will eventually be transferred to the auspices of another agency.
Sadly, those couples in the middle of the adoption process will be forced to begin again with a new agency.
In this day and age, its utterly ridiculous that an organization that alleges to care for children can’t somehow find a middle ground on this issue.
It is a shame that the church cannot find a way to bridge this chasm, which will eventually open in every state. Does placing a child with a same-sex couple necessarily mean that the church endorses same-sex marriage? Surely there are differences between approving of such unions and simply acknowledging the fact of them. And isn’t any child better off with a loving family that wants to provide its support?
It’s clear the Catholic Church’s answer to those questions is ‘no.’
It seems it’s better to leave children homeless than allow a same-sex couple to offer their love and shelter.
Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Neil Simon
Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Neil Simon has died at the age of 91.
According to TMZ the celebrated playwright had been suffering from a failing kidney, Alzheimer’s and dementia.
One of the most prolific playwrights in Broadway history, his success began in 1961 with Come Blow Your Horn.
That was quickly followed by Barefoot in the Park in 1963.
He would go on to be honored with Tony Awards for his plays The Odd Couple, Biloxi Blues and Lost in Yonkers (for which he also was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1991).
The were many other major hits along the way including The Sunshine Boys and the musicals Promises, Promises, and Sweet Charity.
Incredibly, in one theater season he had 4 plays running on Broadway simultaneously.
Across 30 plays, 17 Tony nominations, dozens of screenplays, a Kennedy Center honor in 1995 and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006, Simon’s writing was celebrated for his depth of humor and humanity.
H was the first playwright to have a Broadway theater named after him.
Sen. John McCain, who after years in the U.S. military went on to serve 35 years in Congress, has died at the age of 81 due to glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive type of brain tumor.
The son and grandson of four-star Navy admirals, he volunteered for combat duty in the Vietnam war upon graduating from the Naval Academy.
He was famously shot down over Hanoi suffering two broken arms and a shattered leg, and was a prisoner of war for five and a half years. During that time he rejected early release ahead of his fellow prisoners.
After retirement from the Navy, he ran for and won two terms in the House of Representatives beginning in 1983 and then six terms in the U.S. Senate.
His was a career of extreme highs and lows. He ran for president twice – losing the Republican nomination to George W. Bush in 2000, and then losing the general election in 2008 to Barack Obama.
But his 2008 run for the White House was marred by a series of bad decisions, most prominently selecting the half-term governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his running mate. Many in politics today point to that moment as the beginning of a surge of unqualified, untempered candidates that opened the door to the election of Donald Trump.
And in the waning days of the election, as the country became mired in financial crisis, he declared the ‘fundamentals of the economy’ were strong.
While there’s no doubt that McCain was a conservative through and through, one of the hallmark’s of his long career in service was his distinct ability to change with the times.
Although he spent years opposing LGBTQ rights, like his longtime opposition to openly gay and lesbian military personnel, he would go on to become a defender of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.
And six years after it’s repeal, he opposed an amendment to a defense spending bill that could have undercut an executive order by President Obama that banned LGBT discrimination by federal contractors. The amendment would eventually be stripped out of the bill.
In 2013, the self-described ‘maverick’ was one of only ten Senate Republicans to vote in favor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In his home state of Arizona, he was highly critical of a proposed “license to discriminate” bill.
In 2015, he gave his full-throated support to President Barack Obama’s nomination of Eric Fanning, who became the first openly gay Secretary of the Army.
And when Donald Trump proposed a complete ban on transgender military service members last year, McCain stepped up early vigorously opposing the policy, saying in a statement, “There is no reason to force service members who are able to fight, train, and deploy to leave the military — regardless of their gender identity.”
His last ‘maverick moment’ of his career came when he dramatically gave a thumbs-down on a repeal of the Affordable Care Act last year.
“He served his country and not always right,” McCain responded. “Made a lot of mistakes. Made a lot of errors, but served his country. And I hope we could add honorably.”
President Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton issued this statement:
Senator John McCain believed that every citizen has a responsibility to make something o the freedoms given by our Constitution, and from his heroic service in the Navy to his 35 years in Congress, he lived by his creed every day.
He was a skilled, tough politician as well as a trusted colleague alongside whom Hillary was honored to serve in the Senate. He frequently put partisanship aside to do what he thought was best for the country, and was never afraid to break the mold if it was the right thing to do.
I will always be especially grateful for his leadership in our successful efforts to normalize relations with Vietnam. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Cindy, his mother, Roberta, his children, and his entire family.
And from President Obama:
John McCain and I were members of different generations, came from completely different backgrounds, and competed at the highest level of politics. But we shared, for all our differences, a fidelity to something higher-the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed.
We saw our political battles, even, as a privilege, something noble, an opportunity to serve as stewards of those high ideals at home, and to advance them around the world. We saw this country as a place where anything is possible – and citizenship as our patriotic obligation to ensure it forever remains that way.
Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did. But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John’s best, he showed us what that means. And for that, we are all in his debt. Michelle and I send our heartfelt condolences to Cindy and their family.
Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin issued the following statement:
“Senator McCain was a patriot and a hero, whose life was defined by his service and sacrifice on behalf of our country.
“While we disagreed on many issues, later in his career, he became an increasingly vocal advocate for LGBTQ servicemembers.
“In the last few years, Senator McCain blocked anti-LGBTQ language in the National Defense Authorization Act, opposed a ‘license to discriminate’ bill in Arizona, denounced the Trump-Pence Administration’s effort to ban transgender troops and spoke out against the nomination of the anti-LGBTQ Mark Green to lead the Army.
“We join with millions of Americans in mourning his loss, and extend our deepest condolences to Senator McCain’s wife, Cindy, and his entire family.”
Donald Trump, a five-time draft dodger who criticized McCain during the 2016 campaign and questioned if he really was a war hero (“I like people who didn’t get captured”) refused to apologize to McCain in his last days.
As American leaders hailed McCain tonight, all Trump could muster this evening was a tepid tweet which read, “My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!”
.@SenJohnMcCain lived a life of service to his country, from his heroism in the Navy to 35 years in Congress. He was a tough politician, a trusted colleague, and there will simply never be another like him. My thoughts and prayers are with Cindy and his entire family.— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 26, 2018
John McCain was many things – a proud graduate of the Naval Academy, a Senate colleague, a political opponent.
John McCain was an American hero, a man of decency and honor and a friend of mine. He will be missed not just in the U.S. Senate but by all Americans who respect integrity and independence. Jane and I send our deepest condolences to his family.
With the passing of John McCain, we have lost a bastion of integrity and statesmanship. In a time of hatefulness and deceit, he renewed our sense of honor and decency. America has lost a good man. pic.twitter.com/4WYrmUOU4x
Republican governors and attorneys general from 16 states have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that LGBT employees can be fired based merely on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
The states that signed onto the friend-of-the-court brief are Nebraska, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming, Maine, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
Currently, only 20 states plus Washington, D.C. have passed laws expressly banning LGBT discrimination in the workplace.
A study by the Human Rights Campaign in 2011 showed a whopping 87% of voters erroneously believe its illegal under federal law to fire someone just for being LGBT.
Its notable that Maine and Utah, two of the 20 states that have LGBT workplace protections in place, have signed on in support of the brief.
The request to the Supreme Court comes in response to a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a transgender funeral home employee in Michigan, Aimee Stephens, who was fired in 2013 after sharing with her supervisor she was transitioning.
In 2017, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Harris Funeral Homes illegally discriminated against Stephens in firing her referencing Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which bans workplace discrimination based on sex.
At the time, Judge Karen Nelson Moore of the 6th Circuit wrote in the opinion that anti-trans discrimination is inherently sex based.
“[I]t is analytically impossible to fire an employee based on that employee’s status as a transgender person without being motivated, at least in part, by the employee’s sex,” she wrote. Businesses that discriminate against a worker on the basis of being “transgender or transitioning status,” is taking sex into account thus violating Title VII.
Led by Nebraska Attorney General David Bydalek, the 16 states are asking SCOTUS to overturn that appeals court decision saying Congress didn’t intend for the ban on sex discrimination in Title VII to cover bias against lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender employees.
“The States’ purpose is to note that ‘sex’ under the plain terms of Title VII does not mean anything other than biological status,” Bydalek wrote.
The Supreme Court will decide this fall whether to take up the case. (h/t Bloomberg Law)
High school student Shankar Lal wanted to come out to his fellow students at his graduation ceremony at Hillcrest High School in New York this past June, and that’s exactly what he did in one smooth move.
“I decided that I wanted to come out at graduation a month before it actually happened,” the recent grad shared with BuzzFeed News. “I remember shopping at Target and seeing all the pride gear. I thought to myself, Wouldn’t it be crazy if I just whipped out a pride flag at graduation?”
ABC News series ‘What Would You Do?’ looks at opinions on gay adoption
ABC News’ popular What Would You Do? series took a dive into the issue of gay adoption and foster care with a scenario involving a gay couple and their seemingly adopted daughter.
Pointing out that almost 60,000 foster and adopted children across America are being raised by same-sex couples, WWYD notes that the laws regarding same-sex couples adopting vary from state to state.
For instance, in New York state, gay couples are allowed to adopt children no matter their marital status. But in Kentucky, the state requires same-sex couples to be married in order to adopt.
In the experiment, the show set up the same scenario in those two very different states to see if folks’ opinions varied as well.
What would you do if you heard a restaurant patron openly criticize a gay couple for raising a little girl?
First up, in Bardstown, Kentucky, the actress portraying the “intolerant” role calls across the restaurant to compliment the young girl. But when she finds out the couple are two gay dads, things go sour quickly.
“Don’t you think she should have a mother?,” the woman asks loudly. “I don’t think a child should be raised that way,” she adds.
A customer at a table between the couple and the hater quickly shifts her seat so that she blocks the hater’s view.
When the hater addresses the customer, her husband doesn’t hesitate to quickly stand and ask, “Lady, are you nuts or something?”
“You want me to leave?,” the hater asks. “That would be great,” says the gentleman as he sits down to his lunch as the woman exits the restaurant.
“Lady, are you nuts or something?”
In another scene, when the Kentucky hater yells, “That’s an innocent child with two gay men raising her,” another patron calmly explains to the woman, “I’m a teacher. I see it all the time and the children do not have problems.”
Bam!
Up in Orangetown, New York, the hater is calmly confronted by a diner patron with this epic takedown:
“You need to lighten up lady. You need to back off. Get into the real world. You’ve got two people celebrating and demonstrating love for a child. You’ve got a lot of nerve. It doesn’t matter. Love is love. Would you rather see that child homeless, starving to death? It’s not about your opinion. It’s about the welfare of a child, a human being. The problem in the world is not two men raising a child. The problem in the world is you making comments like that.”
BamBam!
Flipping to Bardstown, when the Kentucky hater tells a restaurant customer, “I can’t believe you’re ok with this,” the patron doesn’t miss a beat: “I can’t believe you’re as intolerant as you are.”
Eventually, the entire restaurant turns on the hater and demands she leave.
Back at the New York diner, a male customer claps back in direct style telling the harasser, “My wife was raised by two women. It’s still love for the child and that’s all that f**king matters. You got a problem with that, f**king leave.”
As a young dancer, it’s totally true that I thought – like the rest of the world – that Gene Kelly was the bomb. He made dance look so easy with boundless charm.
This week would have been the timeless terpsichorean’s 106 birthday.
