Tribute

My grandmother died this morning, a week short of her 95^th birthday. The last couple of years her health had started to deteriorate and she spent quite a bit of time lately in and out of the hospital. I’ve been prepared for this for a while now, though I feel keenly for my mother and my aunt.

This is how I remember my grandmother:

She was a Southern Baptist who loved to go dancing.

She loved Gospel music,hymns, and Big Band.

When she was a little girl, in the early 1920s, she bullied the barber of her little Arkansas town into cutting her hair in a bob like the big girls had. She told him her grandmother (who raised her) said that he should just do it and stop arguing. Said grandmother was not amused.

During WWII, my grandfather got a job in Oak Ridge working in the lab (I’m not really sure what he was doing exactly). He had told my grandmother to get some new tires from the rationing board to make the drive from Texas to Tennessee. The man at the rationing board refused to give her the tires. When she told him she was going to meet her husband who was working for the government in Oak Ridge, he refused to acknowledge the existence of Oak Ridge. She stood there in front of him with two little girls and argued with him until he gave her the tires.

In the 1950s, she was one of the first women to work in appliance sales in her Sears store. At the time, only men were allowed to sell appliances, as the work was considered too strenuous for a woman. It was also considerably better paid as appliance salesmen earned commission and the ladies selling brassieres did not. She fought her way into appliances and was soon meeting and topping the commissions earned by the men.

In the 1980s when my grandfather died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s Disease, she moved from the town in Idaho where they had retired to Glendale, CA to live with my aunt. My aunt was a long-time employee of the Los Angeles Unified School District--first as a teacher, then as an administrator--and had quite a diverse array of work friends, including at least one gay gentleman. My grandmother, a conservative at heart, seemed to accept this gentleman as a beloved part of my aunt’s life. I don’t know how she felt about him, or how she spoke of him when I wasn’t around, but I never heard her talk about him with anything but respect.

When my husband met my grandmother for the first time, we were sitting in her living room with my mother and my aunt. My mother was chiding my grandmother for being too stubborn. My husband told me later that as he looked from me, to my mother, to my grandmother, he caught a glimpse of who I would be in the future and that it was both intimidating and really cool.

I love you, Grandma. Give Grandpa my love and do a little foxtrot in Heaven.

Willie E. Merry 1914-2009

Sent to President Obama

Dear President Obama,

At a press conference in December 2008, you described yourself as a fierce advocate for gay and lesbian Americans. At the time I was skeptical, having seen little evidence of fierce advocacy, particularly since the comment was in response to criticism of you inviting noted homophobe, misogynist, and religious bigot Rick Warren to speak at your inauguration.

Since that time, I have scoured the news for reports of your fierce advocacy. Here is what I have seen:

· Since April of 2008 your office has pledged to fight to overturn Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. As Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, you could have issued an executive order restricting enforcement of DADT while working with the Democratic majority in Congress to overturn it. Instead, your administration has issued briefs supporting the policy and has backpedaled on your pledge, claiming that you are too occupied with the economy right now to do anything at all about DADT. Additionally, you made light of the situation at a fundraising dinner in Southern California when you joked that you couldn’t remember what promise the protesters outside were talking about.

· You have, on numerous occasions, expressed your desire to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. However, when faced with a challenge to DOMA, the Justice Department chose to respond by supporting the law, not just on the legitimate standing issue, but by comparing same-sex marriages to those between an uncle and niece and between an adult and a 16-year old. Language tying the marriage of two consenting, unrelated adults to those that are bordering on incest and pedophilia is what we have come to expect from homophobes, not allies.

· Perhaps in response to criticism of the above stances, your office announced that it will extend fringe benefits to federal employees in same-sex partnerships. However, since DOMA is still in effect, the federal government is barred from extending marriage benefits to same-sex couples. If no benefits will actually be extended, your announcement is an empty gesture.

In short, Mr. President, I have yet to see the promised fierce advocacy. I see political expedience, hollow promises, and appeals to bigotry. While I do not expect instantaneous change in long standing policies, I do expect you to take steps to fulfill the promises that were, after all, the reason I voted for you and not the Green Party ticket.

Until I see that your administration is taking steps to fulfill its promises to the LGBT community, my monetary support will go only to those candidates and organizations that are actively fighting to make substantive changes in the way the federal government treats LGBT citizens. You will receive no contributions. The Democratic Party as a whole will receive no contributions.