Some political issues like ERA just won’t die, even after they’re long dead

When it comes to conservative political people in Illinois, they long have thought of their ability to kill off the Equal Rights Amendment as one of their major accomplishments.

A past image for an antique amendment

And it seems they’re not about to give up that “victory,” no matter how ridiculous they make themselves look in the process.

FOR THOSE OF you so young that you don’t have a clue about anything that came before your time, the Equal Rights Amendment was an effort that tried to put in the Constitution to protect women from discrimination.

It failed back in 1982 when enough state Legislatures failed to ratify the amendment. The Illinois Legislature was among those that failed to act, and some say it was Illinois’ failure to approve that inspired other holdouts to stubbornly act out as well.

But there are some legal scholars who have argued that the 1982 deadline for ratification is not as rock solid as political people always presumed it was. Which is what caused the Illinois Senate this week to take a vote this week.

The Democratic majority that now controls the Illinois Senate voted to approve, and the Illinois House of Representatives likely will take a vote in coming weeks. Even though it is likely the 1982 deadline remains in place, and the action becomes one of pure symbolism.

MEANING IT’S NOT likely to make a difference. We’re not likely to get the Equal Rights Amendment as a part of the Constitution any time in the near future.

Will we get future protest marches like this?

But that’s not stopping the ideologue-inclined from getting all bent out of shape.

Officials with the political action committees of the Federation for Right to Life, Illinois Citizens for Life, Lake County Life, Illinois – Stop ERA, Illinois Family Action and the Concerned Christian Americans signed off on a letter informing legislators that they’ll lose out on the endorsements and possible money that the activist groups might otherwise provide to them as they seek re-election come Nov. 6.

They’re going to make the demise of the Equal Rights Amendment – which is what the late Phyllis Schlafly used to gain her national reputation – their big issue.

Schlafly 'made her bones' on Illinois ERA failure

I KNOW SOME people are shocked to think that anybody in these days would vote against the Equal Rights Amendment. Although considering that ERA opposition always had a tinge of nonsense attached to it, nothing should be shocking.

How nonsensical?

I remember back when the issue was alive for real, opponents would toss out the argument that the Equal Rights Amendment would mean separate restrooms would no longer be acceptable for men and women and that women could face conscription into the military.

You can’t really use those arguments anymore because we have unisex bathrooms and women are a part of the modern military.

NOW, THE ARGUMENT being used is that equal rights for all would undermine local laws that restrict abortion access. Which means that ERA opponents must be the knuckleheaded-types who want to talk of criminal punishment for women when the day comes they can overturn the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that upheld abortion rights for women.

What is humorous about this is that the actual Equal Rights Amendment merely says, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied, or abridged, by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” That’s all!

The past's offensive image has largely come true

Where anyone ever read anything about unisex bathrooms into that is beyond me. Just as I don’t see anything in there about abortion – unless you really think it proper to harass pregnant women.

But like I wrote, the death of the ERA is a political victory the “right” can claim. And they’re not going to let any smart-alecked dames even think about taking it away – that’s the pathetic way some of us still think in this Age of Trump.

  -30-

It’s no lie that women face harassing environment at Ill. Statehouse; Or, is “Miss America” a sexist slur?

It is with some interest that I’ve read the reports about the letter bopping about Springfield these days, pointing out the sexist behavior that women working as part of the Statehouse Scene have to put up with.

Illinois Capitol; long the scene of sexist (not sexy) behavior

From my own days as a reporter-type person at the Illinois Capitol, I know full well it is true. From one former colleague whom I remember telling me I had never been belittled due to my gender the way she was by would-be news sources who’d trivialize her very presence. To another who said she’d be told to “Go to Hell!” any time she tried asserting herself.

I ALSO REMEMBER one spring session when I had a reporter/intern working with me who could accurately be described as a voluptuous blonde. I still recall the days when all the lecherous pigs of the Capitol hung out in my cubicle so they could catch a glimpse – or dream of getting themselves a piece.

Yes, I’ll admit to taking advantage of their attention at times so as to get information for stories – which indicates less-than-noble behavior on my part.

I can recall her complaining about the people on the state payroll who thought the fact she was busty entitled them to their attitudes. I also remember the many rumors that got spread about her – many of which struck me as “wishful thinking” on the part of some people as to what they wished she would do to them.

HUTCHINSON: Not naming names

My point being that when I hear accounts of women being threatened of job loss if they didn’t play along, I find it believable. Elected officials can be just as scuzzy as anyone else in any walk of life – even though some would have us think they are the most noble form of creatures in existence.

IN SOME WAYS, it’s a part of the Capitol Culture, which is sad if we continue to sit back and think this is the way things are meant to be. Because some of the Capitol types view such behavior toward women as part of the perk of being in politics.

Just because the history of the Illinois Statehouse contained many stories from the past of the “monkey girls,” the assorted young women who worked clerical jobs at the Capitol while also cavorting with the legislators when they were in Springfield – rather than back home in their legislative districts.

HYDE: His Statehouse indiscretion exposed

The label, according to the old joke, meant these girls got their jobs by using their tails – so to speak.

If you think I’m exaggerating, just recall the late 1990s reports of long-time Congressman Henry Hyde – who while serving in the General Assembly back in the late 1960s had an extramarital affair with a local woman who was married and with children.

HYDE WAS FAR from unique. He’s just one who got found out – both when her husband told Hyde’s wife, and decades later when Salon.com felt compelled to report the old tale at a time when Hyde was leading the failed Congressional effort to impeach and remove Bill Clinton from the presidency.

In reading the reports, I noticed the view of state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields, who pointed out she wasn’t going to name publicly her colleagues who had harassed her.

“That open letter was never intended to start hauling people out of the Capitol and criminalizing a whole bunch of stuff,” she said. “The issue is this survives in silence.”

HAROLD: Will 'Miss America' image help or hurt? Is it sexist to mention?

Because I have no doubt the reaction among some male political operatives will be to want to use names so that this can be turned into a partisan issue with which to beat electoral opponents over the head.

JUST AS I have noticed some criticism over whether state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, who is now running for Illinois attorney general, was a sexist jerk when he made comments belittling his eventual Republican opponent, Erika Harold, as “Miss America” – for which he promptly issued an apology.

The question is that much of Harold’s own campaign is based on the fact that she was a former Miss Illinois who, in 2003, won the Miss America pageant. Does this mean she can only be praised – and not criticized? That would be against the spirit of aggressive campaign tactics; and I’m sure when the campaigning steps up Harold will fight back with her own digs to take at Raoul.

The fact is that if we let this issue be turned into just more rounds of campaigning, it will distract from the serious issue at stake.

And only the real sexist pigs amongst us would want to see that happen.

  -30-

Does Trump think he can keep up the racial/ethnic hostilities for 4 years?

I’m seeing a lot of a video snippet these days that it seems everybody feels compelled to put on the Internet – that bit of the woman shopping at the Michael’s crafts store in the Lakeview neighborhood who goes on a profane diatribe because she thinks she’s being abused by the store’s black employees.
 

TRUMP: Used intolerant label, now must live w/ it

Of course, watching the video, it seems the only person who’s being abusive is this lady, who happens to be white and probably doesn’t deserve to be thought of as a lady. But during her diatribe, she comes out and says she’s being picked on by black people because she supported the presidential aspirations of Donald J. Trump.

MANY OF THE people who felt the need to post this video did so out of a sense of wanting to show how outrageous and over-the-top the Donald Trump people are capable of being in their behavior.

They seem to side with the store’s management, which it seems remained calm in the face of a hysterical customer.

It kind of reminds me of my old days working in retail when bosses would pass on to me the old Marshall Fields’ slogan “The Customer is Always Right.” Which in my mind always translated to, “The Customer is Usually a Pompous Buffoon.”

Even if I always managed to keep this to myself during the stints I worked in retail many years ago at a suburban Carson, Pirie, Scott location and also in stores at the Water Tower mall on North Michigan Avenue.

THIS WOMAN SURELY showed herself capable of behaving poorly. Although I suspect in her own mind, she will forevermore remember the incident as the time she “told off” the incompetent pygmies who worked at that store and stood up for herself in the face of victimization.

Which may well be the scariest part of the whole Trump political phenomenon – the people who banded together into a group large enough to give Trump a victory even though a majority of voters wanted Hillary Clinton really want to think of themselves as the victims!

Which also means they want to use their newfound political influence to be punitive. It’s not an exaggeration to say their interpretation of “Make America Great Again” probably means elimination of many of the measures that civil rights activists fought decades to obtain.

I’m sure even Trump should be thought of in that way. This was the man who started out his campaign activity with vicious slanders against people in this country from Mexico, and now seems to want to continue that line of attack.

BECAUSE I KNOW there are many nitwits in our society who are desperate to use the label “illegal” to the existence of people from Latin American nations (and “no,” I don’t think those ideological twits are capable of distinguishing the 23 different countries of the Americas).

So when Trump spewed his nonsense this weekend that the only reason he didn’t win the popular vote is because of, “millions of people who voted illegally,” I have no doubt he’s trying to appeal to people such as our woman in the Michael’s video who want to believe that a just society is one that regards their existence as superior to that of all others.

Even though I’d argue that this nation probably would go up a notch or two if we were to deport her back to whatever nation her grandparents (or maybe great-grandparents) came from.

Not that anybody is seriously proposing that. It would be as absurd as just about everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth, or off his computer keys when he feels compelled to type out a pithy (in his mind) one-liner on Twitter.

THIS KIND OF hostility and ugliness is something we’re going to encounter quite a bit in coming years – at least until we can do the next election cycle and replace Trump with someone more credible.

Not that we’re going to give in to this kind of nonsense. If anything, I’m motivated by the numbers of people who are offended. It makes me realize that the so-called “silent majority” is really neither.

They’re at least 2 million people fewer than those who’d rather be preparing for the Hillary Clinton administration. And after watching this woman’s diatribe, silent is the last thing you’d ever call them!

  -30-

Some of us don’t want to consider anyone unlike us. I say it's their loss

Perhaps it is because I come from an ethnic origin that would never be mistaken for the stereotypical WASP – I tend to view Arabs and those of the various ethnic origins of the Middle East as just another group of people.

Yet another language in our societal mix, and let’s be honest, some of their foods are quite good.

SO WHEN I hear people get all worked up over Islam and Muslims, I can’t help but think the over-reaction rating is kicking into over gear. Don’t people realize that over-reacting so much isn’t good for their health?

Such useless stress.

Such as all the stink created last week with that now-suspended professor from Wheaton College who offended the higher-ups at the place that likes to think of itself as evangelist Billy Graham’s alma mater.

Her offense? She made a point of wearing a hijab to class, while also saying that Christian and Islamic religious faiths have a common basis. The oft-claimed statement made by people who don’t let ideological leanings dominate their thoughts that we all ultimately pray to the same god.

COLLEGE OFFICIALS HAVE since elaborated to say they don’t care about the headscarf she wore to class. It’s her comments that bother them.

Because the college that likes to believe it is a place where people can seriously study religious faith seems to have its own ideological leanings it wants to spew. And yes, I choose the word “spew” such as is done with garbage because I can’t help but think the college’s action is something they ought to know better than to resort to.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m an Illinois Wesleyan alum and remember Wheaton College as one of our athletic rivals.

But I can’t help but think the college has created a whole mess upon its own reputation; and one that is particularly sad because it was avoidable. All it would have taken was to accept that a professor was trying to make a larger point.

WHICH, IF YOU think about it, is what a serious place of higher learning is supposed to be about. I don’t know how this situation will turn out, other than that I’m sure Wheaton officials are ensconced in their own little world (most universities are) and think they’re really not accountable to anyone else.

Similar, I’d say, to the incident in rural Virginia where people are sending hostile e-mails to officials in the school district where parents are offended by a calligraphy lesson.



The offensive assignment

Students were asked to copy Islamic writing – not with any sense of comprehending what they were writing, but to try to copy the form of the various letters and symbols.

No one was trying to teach the meaning of the Shahada, that prayer that includes the line, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.”

BUT YOU HAVE some people out there who already are peeved that they’re not allowed to impose Christian prayer on all students as a part of the regular classroom activity feeling that someone is now trying to force Islam down their children’s throats.

Probably because they presume everybody else in the world will behave in the same bad way they want to behave.

I’d like to say those people are just too isolated from the real world to realize how nonsensical their behavior is. But we have to be honest enough to realize this kind of widespread hostility exists elsewhere – why else isn’t Donald Trump the ultimate joke of the campaign trail?

And so long as we have a government that doesn’t go out of its way to reinforce the racial and ethnic hang-ups some in our society have, that’s probably the best we as a people can hope for.

  -30-

Some people hear “Islam” and want to think the worst – no matter the facts

I stumbled across a pair of stories Friday that really have nothing in common – except they show how some people will get all freaked out at the mere mention of the word “Islam.”

A tarbush; worth extra scrutiny?



Some people just want to have their hang-ups, which is the real problem that confronts our society.

BOTH OF THESE incidents – one at the Statehouse in Springfield, Ill., and the other just across State Line Road in Hammond, Ind. – had the effect of making me feel a funk as we go into this weekend.

In the latter incident, a man who lives in suburban Midlothian is suing the federal government, in particular the Secretary of State’s office, because he couldn’t get a passport (which would confirm his U.S. citizenship when he travels overseas).

His lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for northern Indiana because he made his passport application at a post office in Hammond – where he used to live until he moved across the state line into the south suburbs.

The Times of Northwest Indiana newspaper reports that the man believes the reason his passport application got tangled up in the bureaucratic maze that eventually shot it down was because the photographs of himself that he submitted depicted him wearing a tarbush – a red, brimless cap with a tassel that is considered religious garb by some Middle Eastern men.

THE MAN HIMSELF described the hat in his lawsuit as religious headware, and he wasn’t about to take it off for a photograph.

His lawsuit says he wants financial damages to compensate him for the delay, along with issuance of the passport itself.

Reading about the legal case, I couldn’t help but think this might be more an instance of bureaucratic bungling, rather than religious-motivated bigotry.

For it seems that when the passport application initially was denied, the federal government asked the man to provide additional forms of identification. But he had trouble getting copies of some of the documents that the federal government wanted, and that caused the United States of America to tell the man he would have to start the process all over again.

YES, THAT WOULD be frustrating. I don’t blame the man for being irritated.

And yes, there is a part of me who wonders if the sight of a man wearing a “foreign-like” hat caused him to pay special attention to the passport application.

Considering that the man in question is a U.S. citizen by birth, there should really be no complicating factors in him getting the one official document that confirms his citizenship.

Someone’s religious suspicions should not be enough reason to create a bureaucratic nightmare.

I CAN’T HELP but sense the same sentiment about the Illinois state Senate, which these days is considering whether to confirm various appointments made by Gov. Pat Quinn.

One of those appointments is that of Munir Muhammad. The Chicago resident was chosen by Quinn to serve on the Illinois Human Rights Commission.

Actually, he has been on the commission since 2003 and no one has brought up any complaints about his performance.

But it is Muhammad’s affiliation with the Black Muslims that has some people suspicious – although I suspect that it was that affiliation that originally got him appointed to the state commission in the first place.

SPECIFICALLY, THE COALITION for the Remembrance of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is a group that Muhammad co-founded to pay tribute to the founder of the Nation of Islam (now headed by Louis Farrakhan).

Now I know there are people who don’t agree with the Nation of Islam (and I know some Muslims who insist that the nation really has nothing to do with “Islam”). I don’t exactly agree with them on some issues.

E. MUHAMMAD: Supporting him causes concerns



Then again, I never understood those Pentecostals who believe that snake handling is a part of legitimate religious practices. But so long as no one tries to force their thoughts on me, I really don’t care what they do on their own.

Besides, like I implied earlier, I suspect that Muhammad’s differing perspective was the reason he got picked for the commission that investigates complaints of discrimination, and probably should remain on it so long as Quinn desires his presence there.

DOES ANYONE REALLY think that a commission concerned with discrimination should consist solely of like-minded people who can’t perceive those who are different from themselves?

Does anyone really think that a fez-like hat ought to warrant additional attention?

And where’s the aspirin? These incidents are giving me more of a headache than that White Sox loss from earlier this week – the one that turned a 4-1 victory to a 10-4 defeat in a matter of one inning.

  -30-