Lemonade

Well, it's been quite a week, in the aftermath of Dr. Tiller's assassination last weekend. Yesterday there was an interfaith service organized by a couple of ministers downtown who are board members of Interfaith Ministries - Michael Gardner at First UMC, and Cathy Northrup at First Presbyterian. MKJF was a cosponsor. It was probably attended by about 400 people, the service was High Mainline and it worked well, very emotional, especially the candlelighting ceremony. (I was interviewed by Channel 12.) Today was the funeral.

The one thing about it that bothers me is that the statement for the interfaith event was so broad and non-political that the exteme "pro-life" elements were able to sign on to it. While I can understand the impetus to a community-wide statement, if Troy Newman is able to sign on to it, it's too broad a statement for me. I'm tired of being so concerned with the honestly held beliefs of extremists - for me, that's over now.

I'm hoping that what will come out of this is a renewed conversation on reproductive choice, even if it's just a little for a little while. There's so much extremism on this issue out here, it's incredible. Every year the legislature tries to move the line of constitutional permissibility significantly to the right (we'll do this, let a court strike it down) and you'll see the Republican candidates for Senate falling all over themselves to be more "pro-life" than the other next year. If this serves to make the most extreme practitioners of pro-life politics a little radioactive politically, at least that would make some lemonade out of some very bitter lemons.

One thing I'm thinking might work, is a public meeting with some clergy talking about the religious argument for choice. I think we could pull it off before the attention goes elsewhere and the status goes back to quo. It'd be better if there was a local RCRC chapter here, but it's dormant, maybe we could kick it off again. I don't know if the progressive clergy would be into it. Stay tuned.