Today is the 48th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s How Long? Not Long! speech.

The Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, march in 1965 which included Bloody Sunday, ended with this speech in Montgomery.

It took 3 attempts to make that march.

They tried the first time on March 7, 1965, known as Bloody Sunday, and were met with extreme violence when they crossed the Edmund Petus Bridge. They faced fire hoses and police beatings with night sticks. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), in his early 20′s then, was beaten severely and sustained a skull fracture among many other injuries, of which he still bears the scars.

They tried again the second time on March 9, but they were stopped by a court order. Dr. King and his supporters marched to the Edmund Petus Bridge in Selma, where they stopped, held a brief prayer meeting, and dispersed so they wouldn’t violate the court order.

On the third try, on March 25, 1965, they succeeded. They marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, the state capitol, where Dr. King delivered the How Long? Not Long! speech:

The following quotes are timeless:

Because truth crushed to earth will rise again.

Because no lie can live forever.

Because you shall reap what you sew.

Because the ark of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Photo credit: National Geographic

Technorati Tags: Bloody Sunday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., How Long Not Long speech, Rep. John Lewis, Selma to Montgomery AL march

She is taking a well-deserved rest after being one of the most active and widely traveled Secretaries of State this country has ever had, but I don’t see that position being the end of her career as a public servant. The following video shows she is still engaged as a citizen to continue to serve the country and speak for equal rights for everyone around the world.

Americans are moving forward quickly toward marriage equality. It’s already a right in some other countries, Canada being the closest one to the U.S.

As we fight for our right to marry, there is still a long fight in other countries for LGBTQ people to have the right to be who they are and not be persecuted, arrested, imprisoned and executed. Secretary Clinton has spoken eloquently to world leaders to end this horrible, inhumane treatment of LGBTQ people.

As America makes progress, we must not forget our brothers and sisters in countries that would rather see them dead than out of the closet with equal human rights. Sec. Clinton worked hard to make this message clear to the world and its tyrannical governments.

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton, LGBTQ civil rights, LGBTQ Human Rights, LGBTQ marriage rights, same-sex marriage equlality

Meredith Baxter was America’s mom on Family Ties back in the 1980′s. She has been married to 3 different men and has 5 children, and later in life, she figured out she’s a lesbian.

As you do, Meredith came out on Today talking with Matt Lauer on NBC in December 2009, after she and her partner, Nancy Locke, went on a Sweet cruise to shoot season 2 of We Have To Stop Now, a comedy web series (season 1 and the fabulous soundtrack are at these links). In season 2, Meredith plays a set of identical twin psychotherapists. It started as a lesbian web series, and turned out to be a comedy web series that happened to have lesbian characters.

Here’s the interview (9 min):

She wasn’t in the closet or hiding. She’s just a very private person and has been out of the public spotlight for a long time. She was out to her family, close friends, former cast members, and those close to her and her partner. She just wasn’t out to the public at large.

Someone on the cruise decided to out her to the world in a tabloid when they got back to the U.S. To prevent losing control of the situation, Meredith did the right thing. She did an end-run around the tabloid and came out first on her own terms.

Why hadn’t she come out before? She wasn’t exactly in the closet. She just wasn’t all over TV and movies, and her personal life wasn’t big news or anything the paparazzi were chasing.

I agree with Cathy DeBuono and Jill Bennett on this one. If we find out who on that cruise conspired to leak Meredith’s orientation, there will be serious social consequences. That person will lose the support of her larger community. If it turns out to be a ship crew member, there will be a job loss.

The lesbian community is a family, a tribe, and we support each other, not reveal information we have no business revealing. Meredith’s orientation would have become more widely known over time as We Have To Stop Now becomes more widely seen by the general public. But to reveal it in a tabloid as though it was some kind of scandal is disgusting, and far below the dignity of all LGBTQ people.

If you haven’t read Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering, I highly recommend it. I read it in a very short period of time, and it was riveting. Figuring out I’m gay when I was older, I identified quite a lot with Meredith Baxter’s journey through an inability to connect emotionally with men in intimate relationships. I didn’t suffer her childhood, nor the abuse she faced in her marriages. But it took me a long time to realize that the inability to emotionally connect was an important sign to decipher and understand.

Please leave your thoughts and discussion in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Coming out stories, Meredith Baxter, Nancy Locke, Untied: A Memoir of Family Fame and Floundering, We Have to Stop Now