I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Author: Sheila Morris

  • Road to Equality – Revisiting the Obama Presidency


    President Barack Obama was the first American President I ever heard who openly supported marriage equality for LGBT citizens. My emotions were a mixture of joy and amazement the first time I heard him say the words. I felt an overwhelming sense of validation because a President of the United States declared my love for Teresa was as deserving of respect as his love for Michelle. He set me free with his words, my personal emancipation proclamation.

    He is also responsible for the appointments of two Supreme Court Justices without whom the votes on the bench could have gone differently. The road to marriage equality would have been a much longer one without the support of this American President throughout his presidency. His is a legacy of love.

    First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage?

    Ask the Supremes

    (originally published April 04, 2013)

    The dust has settled after the media frenzy surrounding the Supreme Court hearings on two cases affecting the future of same-sex marriage in the United States. Whew! The gays and gay-friendlies partied. Jon Stewart skewered DOMA and its supporters on Comedy Central. The Republicans tried desperately to find someone – ANYONE – in their party to explain their position on marriage on CNN in a way that the general citizenry wouldn’t characterize as narrow-minded at best or bigoted at worst. That search is ongoing and a generous reward is offered to the finder.

    The hearings are over and the rulings expected in June. Eight Associate Justices and the Chief Justice hold the key to opening doors of equality that have been slammed shut since the founding fathers held these truths to be Self-evident in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. “…That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

    I am amazed to realize I have seen all of these Supremes don the robes of the Court at the end of the required appointment process…

    … Justice Sonia Sotomayor … is a Yale graduate who was appointed by President Barack Obama. She is the sole Hispanic Supreme. Justice Elena Kagan is another Obama appointee …at the time of her appointment she was Dean of the Harvard Law School…

    In summation, Your Honors, I find that the fate of same-sex marriage in the United States in 2013 rests with folks who graduated either from Yale or Harvard law schools and were born in the New York/ New Jersey area on the East Coast or California on the West Coast with one stray Southerner thrown in for good measure. Well, maybe not good measure, but certainly thrown in.

    The question before us today is whether this hodgepodge of political appointees will take its place in history as the Court that restores the unalienable rights of a minority of its LGBT citizens who have been made to feel “lesser than” and treated with discrimination that often threatens their Lives and their Liberty and always endangers their pursuit of Happiness.

    I respectfully ask the Court to stand and deliver on the promises that have been the hopes and dreams of all Americans for more than two hundred years.

    I rest my case.

     Let’s Hear It for the Supremes!

    (originally published June 26, 2013)

    Well, I never.  No, really, I never.  Today’s decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to give equal federal treatment to same-sex marriage in the twelve states and District of Columbia that recognize these marriages is a stunning pivotal day in our nation’s history of constitutional revelation.  I honestly thought this day was my dream to be realized in a future generation.

    And while I understand the significance of this ruling for our country and for the message it sends around the world to other nations about American civil liberties, today the political became personal.

    I share this day especially with the woman I love, a woman who has been with me through the battles in our state for justice and equality for the past twenty years and a woman who raised a son during difficult times of  hurtful discrimination against them both.  We live in the states of South Carolina and Texas which are states that are unaffected by this ruling.  Yet we celebrate with our brothers and sisters who will benefit from the victory today and we will continue to work until all of us are treated fairly and have the opportunity to pursue happiness.  Teresa, I share this day with you.

    I have many personal heroes during the past twenty years of my activism in South Carolina – both sung and unsung.  I am grateful to all of them for the labor we’ve made together in the days before Will and Grace and afterwards.

    But today is Edith Windsor day for me.  I will forever remember the petite 84-year-old lesbian from New York who changed the course of history with an outrageous act and a not-so-everyday rebellion.  Thank you, Edie.

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  • Benghazi – Revisiting the Obama Presidency


    On September 11, 2012 one of the most notorious events of the Obama presidency took place at the American Embassy in Benghazi, Libya when our ambassador was killed in a raid which was originally described by the administration as a possible retaliation for an anti-Muslim video filmed in the United States. My post was written six days later on the 17th. Interesting.

    Second Chances

    Our lecture for today, O cyberspace class, is the epistemology of the second chance. (Sometimes I just throw in a big word to see if anybody’s paying attention.) Frankly, I don’t remember  much about epistemology from my scholarly life except that I heard it used in my undergraduate philosophy classes and my graduate studies in theology.

    To refresh my memory, I looked up the definition and found the word epistemology involves knowledge and the justification of knowledge; but then the dictionary wandered off into a question of what is knowledge and how can it be justified and I immediately remembered why I dropped out of seminary. Way too much digression and iffiness and grey areas for a 23-year-old CPA who dealt in absolute numbers before answering a “call” to the ministry that was surely a wrong number.

    I gave up absolutes many years ago, however, about the same time the numbers became images on a computer screen and lacked any connection to reality. Who knew if 2 + 2 equaled 4 any more and who cared?

    So I’ve grown accustomed to vague responses and half-truths and tried to blend in with a landscape camouflaged by degrees of knowledge  that are justified with competing strident voices blasting away at each other from polarized positions of territorial absolutes. Wow. Now there’s a mouthful to chew on.

    Yep, nothing like trying to convince people you own a piece of knowledge when they don’t agree with you. You just can’t justify it to them no matter how hard you try and how loud you get. Because, see, they own a piece of knowledge, too, and it happens to be totally different from yours. And there’s the rub.

    A good example is the current turmoil over an anti-Muslim video that was Made in the USA. The American President has denounced it, the American Secretary of State has apologized for the fact that it was filmed in California where they film every possible video you could ever think up without anybody checking to see if it’s inflammatory because that would require an army of Video Checkers; and the justification of the knowledge of the situation is irrelevant to a Muslim world that owns a different enlightenment which doesn’t include the concept of second chances.

    That’s how it all goes downhill and the histrionics aren’t far behind.  I’m wondering how many Muslims are golfers?  If they were golfers, they would know about Mulligans.   Mulligans are second chances.

    If you hit a shot with your driver off the tee on the first hole and the little white golf ball vanishes mysteriously in deep woods closer to the fairway for the third hole than they are to the first hole and you know you’ll never be able to find it, you can say Mulligan and have a second chance to locate your own fairway again.

    You may hit a beautiful shot for your Mulligan or you may not, but the important thing is you have a new opportunity. The American government asked for a Mulligan from a partner who doesn’t play the game the same way it does. The game is over before it even starts.

    In our personal lives second chances are sometimes painfully obvious and at other times so subtle we may miss them.   Lesson Number One: Be open and available and alert and don’t think you won’t ever need one.  You will.

    Lesson Number Two:  When you get a second chance, try not to think of it as an opportunity to repeat mistakes. Mistakes are hard to take back so don’t blow the Mulligan.

    Lesson Number Three:  Be sure to tell your friends about your second chance. It may give them hope and inspire them to offer one or accept one. Honestly, can there be too many second chances going around?

    Lesson Number Four:  Your second chance may be your last chance. Seriously? Seriously.

    Lesson Number Five: Never be afraid to take a second chance when you have one. As Franklin Roosevelt famously said when the Hounds of the Baskervilles were closing in around him, We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

    And so, O cyberspace class, the lecture concludes with a little bit of knowledge mixed with a bunch of justification that adds up to the epistemology of the second chance as seen from the eyes of a 66-year-old who has had her own share of second chances and has, at various times in her life, blown them, needed a third or fourth, and had some of them bring incredible joy and happiness.

    Be generous to those you love and even to those whose knowledge is different from yours. Ouch. Is that really necessary?  Absolutely.

     

  • Body Ink – Revisiting the Obama Presidency


    As the year comes to a close, I’ll spend time saying goodbye to the Obama family and his presidency. This essay was originally published here in August, 2011 and later became a chapter in my book I’ll Call It Like I See It: A Lesbian Speaks Out.

    Sheila Morris's avatarI'll Call It Like I See It

    THE TATTOO

          I  got a tattoo two years ago in November, 2009.     I think it’s beautiful. It’s an elaborate cursive “T” in the standard bluish-green tattoo ink used by first-time tattoo getters. It originally stood for Teresa, my life partner of the past ten years.

    Now, I notice all tattoos with greater interest and find a wealth of visible body art on display. Most of what I see is far more creative and in much brighter colors than my three-inch alphabet letter on the inside of my left wrist. However, other people’s ink creations don’t put a damper on my enthusiasm for my own ink.

    The young man who performed the artistry tried to hide his surprise when I walked into his business and announced I wanted a tattoo. I told him I mulled it over for fifty years and thought that was an adequate amount of time to consider…

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  • Casa de Canterbury Christmas – 2012


    I’m dreaming of a Christmas…not a white one…just like the ones I used to love…thank goodness for the scrambled pictures I have – they match the scrambled memories of four years ago when everyone was present and accounted for…

    christmas-at-casa-de-canterbury-2012

    (click on images to enlarge)

    Merry Ho, Ho, Ho! We had a rowdy gang that year and as Granny Selma used to say when she was in her right mind, that Christmas was a Memory Maker.

    May any blues be replaced by red and green this week –

    as we try to spread  hope with the words that we speak.

  • Winter Wonderland…Somewhere


    Sleigh bells ring – are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening. A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland. (music by Felix Bernard, lyrics by Richard B. Smith – released in 1934)

    I can see my mother sitting at the old black upright piano in our tiny living room right now. She had to move the bench closer to the keys because the giant Christmas tree she just finished decorating poked her in the back while she played and sang loudly to lead my dad and grandmother and me in some of her favorite Christmas tunes. Winter Wonderland was sure to be a part of the holiday repertoire.

    It was an interesting choice for many reasons. Number one, no one in my living room had ever heard a sleigh bell ring unless it was on the radio – we didn’t have sleighs, much less sleigh bells in the rural town of Richards, Texas – a town where the weather in December might be as warm as it was on an island in the Caribbean or as cold as could be if a blue norther whipped through town blowing with it the wind chill of our version of the North Pole. But never a Christmas snow… and definitely no sleigh bells.

    Problem number two, we had not the first “lane” in Richards. We had a few dusty roads in between the maybe thirty houses in the town – roads that became red mud after a rain, dangerous to travel in anything other than a pickup truck, but not even a poet could call them “lanes.”

    Finally, neither my dad nor grandmother nor I was interested in walking anywhere. Decorating the tree was an ordeal supervised by my petite mother who was very domineering in her strict supervision. Each strand of lights,  every decorative ball and other hanging ornament had to be carefully situated on the tree. The final touch was the silver icicle threads that she draped individually one by one  on the tree branches with just the right degree of separation from the next one.

    My dad and I were banned from working on the tree alongside my mother because we did not have the proper respect for the decorating process. We were caught throwing the icicles randomly on the tree and rebuked by my mom who retrieved the errant shimmering strands and patiently added them to her group.

    Regardless, finally, after much ado, the tree would stand as a testament to my mother’s passion for perfection, and she would move on to what we called singing around the piano. No Christmas tree was ever complete without being serenaded.

    “Let’s sing around the piano,” she’d say. My dad was always up for a song, and my maternal grandmother would sit on the dark green living room sofa next to the piano and occasionally join in for a chorus if she knew the words.

    I learned a lot of Christmas carols plus a variety of other popular songs and traditional hymns in those singalongs around the piano. I didn’t worry about the words then – I just learned to sing them with as much gusto as my family always did.

    The “beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight”  lyrics were true for me. My beautiful sight was my family together in that living room with the perfect tree…we were happy those nights…whether we were walking in a winter wonderland or singing about one…

    I will miss them all this Christmas.

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