A week to walk...for so many reasons

by Mary Reiman

Let’s begin by walking through this week in history. 

June 8th, 1789, in an address to the House of Representatives, James Madison proposed amending the Constitution to include the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment includes the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Do our elected officials remember the Bill of Rights? 

June 9th, 1954, during the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings, Army special counsel Joseph N. Welch berated Senator Joseph McCarthy, asking: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”    It is now 2025, how does our Congress defines ‘decency’ today?

June 10th, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act of 1963, aimed at eliminating wage disparities based on gender. 62 years ago. Today the Center for American Progress reports that full-time working women, regardless of hours or weeks worked, will not obtain parity until 2052. 

June 11th, 1963, the University of Alabama was desegregated as Vivian Malone and James Hood became the first two Black students allowed to enroll in classes.

Governor George Wallace initially blocked the doorway to the auditorium where course registration was taking place, delivering a speech before deferring to National Guard orders to move.  The National Guard has been deployed throughout the country this week.

June 12th, 1942, Anne Frank received a diary for her 13th birthday. Her family went into hiding from the Nazis a month later. How many children are in hiding today?

June 13th, 1966, the Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v. Arizona. Criminal suspects had to be informed of their constitutional rights to remain silent and consult with an attorney. How is this ruling interpreted today?

June 14th, 1775, the Continental Army, forerunner of the United States Army, was created by the Second Continental Congress. My dad was in the Army from 1942-1945. 

What will the American History textbooks say about the days of June in 2025? 

If you watched the Tony Awards on Sunday evening, you heard many actors and directors giving voice to how they feel about the state of our nation. Francis Jue, for his role in Yellow Face, won Best performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play. In his acceptance speech he passionately said to those who feel disenfranchised. “I see you.”

As we walked this weekend, I looked around our community. The streets were lined with homemade signs. All ages holding those signs. Boomers, Gen X, Millenials, Gen Z and Generation Alpha (some in strollers). Walking to remind ourselves, as well as our government officials, that we are guaranteed our rights.

We walked for Pride, for our Rights, for our Democracy. We walked in this city of generous souls who donated $9,501,701 this year to 502 nonprofit organizations on Give to Lincoln Day. It is what we can do…and we did. We can give directly to our community for the many, many, many organizations that support those in need…and we did. We can’t always convince our legislators or our state officials or our federal officials to fund much needed resources (health care/food inequities/public education/libraries and museums, to name a few), but we can do so locally…and we did. I am proud of our city. And I greatly appreciate all who work tirelessly advocating for their organizations.  

So on this Flag Day, we dissent. Because it is our right. To show we are concerned/worried by comments such as “I didn’t read it” and “I didn’t mean it” from our elected officials. 

So many handwritten signs from today’s peaceful protest demonstrating the fears and frustrations, such as:

“We the people are the final guard rail”

“First they came for the immigrants”

“I’m too old to be this mad”

“Seeking safety is not a crime”

"Free speech. Free country"

"Fight ignorance not immigrants"

"We no longer have a difference of opinion. We have a difference of morality"

Standing together, sharing stories, helped us each realize we are not alone.

We are making, in the words of John Lewis, ‘good trouble.’

And we will keep walking...

Sine Die...but not quite

 By Marilyn Moore

The Nebraska legislature adjourned Sine Die on June 2.  Another session, done.  Another session, with a huge budget deficit to manage.  Another session, with daily references to reducing property taxes.  Another session, with bills that hurt real people – bills that restrict access to food and health care.  Another session, where the will of the people, the legislature’s second house (that would be us, the Nebraska voters), is ignored with bills that counter our passage of legislation regarding minimum wage, paid sick leave, and medical marijuana.  Another session, with deliberate attempts to infuse religious instruction into the school day and provide public funds for private schools.  Another session, where one very small group of Nebraskans was vilified, humiliated, and lifted up for public abuse.  Our trans neighbors, especially, our trans children, were the targets.  

An inordinate amount of time was spent by the legislature on LB89, which defined “male” and “female” according to biological reproductive characteristics at the time of a person’s birth, and restricted athletic competition and use of locker rooms and bathrooms accordingly, according to a person’s sex assigned at birth.  A last-minute profile in courage moment by Senator Marv Riepe stripped the provisions about locker rooms and bathrooms from the bill; his statement that he didn’t run for office to be a part of the “Nebraska potty patrol” is the most memorable line of the session.  Without those provisions, the bill passed, and the governor signed it into law with a big press conference, proudly announcing his support for women.  

I’ve written about this before, and I told myself I would not address this again.  There’s only so much that can be said, and I’ve said a lot.  Until…in the governor’s press conference as he signed LB89 into law, he commented that the provisions about locker rooms and restrooms would be addressed in legislation next year.  No surprise there, of course it will be back, because it’s one of the hot culture items that a segment of our population expects.  But then he said that until laws are passed regarding who can and cannot use school bathrooms, he has confidence that most young boys and men in Nebraska know right from wrong, “and they’ll take care of whoever tries to go into the locker room.”  

That sounds like vigilante language.  The governor said later that he didn’t mean that at all, that he would never promote violence.  He simply meant that he expected boys to have peer-to-peer conversations.  I hope that students will always encourage each other to follow the school rules; that’s part of being a good citizen.  Some peer-to-peer messages that would be helpful would include, “No means no.”  “Don’t interrupt her.”  “Yes, girls can be scientists, and boys can be artists.” But I’m very concerned about vigilante language, language that encourages people to take rule-enforcement, or law enforcement, into their own hands.  Because it’s easy to move from “it’s against the rules” to “it’s wrong to be gay, or trans.”  At its most extreme, this led to a century of lynching of Black Americans.  And it leads today to violence again LGBTQ persons; Matthew Shepard’s story is a part of this generation’s story.  

In addition to the vigilante language, I’m also concerned with the repeated messages that trans kids are getting from some elected officials – that they’re not normal, they’re not okay, they’re not who they know they are, they’re not welcome.  And when the next iteration of LB89 is introduced next year, they’ll hear those messages again and again and again. Those messages inflict very real damage.  The suicide rate for trans teens is way higher than that of cis teens.  I know families who are moving out of Nebraska to states with a more friendly stance toward trans children and their parents.  And when a teen who is different from the norm in some way, e.g., size, skin color, religious practice, sees a trans teen threatened because of who they are, that teen will likely fear that they, too, could be threatened because of who they are, different, in some way.  Vigilante language invites this.

Not every social issue needs to be addressed by state law.  Who plays on sports teams doesn’t need to be codified by statute.  There are state and national organizations that govern everything about interscholastic and intercollegiate competitions; they will figure this out.  It’s noteworthy that in the past seven years, exactly eight trans students in Nebraska have applied to the Nebraska School Activities Association to play on a high school sports team matching their gender identity.  Eight, in seven years, out of more than 100,000 high school students in that time period.  Not an overwhelming problem.  

Who uses what restroom or locker room doesn’t need to be decided by the legislature.  If a student is assaulted in a bathroom, the assault is a school rule violation and likely a statutory violation; there are procedures to handle that.  If a student is bullying another student, or harassing a student, or threatening a student, there are school rules against that, and a school procedure to deal with it.  Principals do not need state statutes on this issue.  

Most of all, our trans children and young adults do not need to be the subject of ridicule, fear, and exclusion.  They did not choose to be trans, any more than I chose to be cis.  They are who they are, real human beings, loved by God, struggling to live in a society that at best does not understand and at worst is hateful.  In this Pride month, I’m looking for ways especially to support the “T” people in the LGBTQ population.  I invite you to join me.

A completely unexpected blog: A moment of compassion in a harsh world

 

By Mary Kay Roth

After a stunning sunrise at the lake this morning, I was walking back to the parking lot with my two walking buddies – Bethany and Anne – when my dog, Pip, started fiercely pulling on the leash and looking back toward the dam. We saw that Pip was gazing into the distance, watching a woman cautiously inch her way down the steep, paved path along the side of the dam.

She was dressed in a long, beautiful saree, but it had been raining and the path was slippery. Suddenly she stumbled and sort of somersaulted down at least half of the pathway.  

She landed hard. And she was still. 

We all went running.

By the time we reached the path, the woman was grasping at bloody and already swelling knees. We gently approached and started asking questions, but quickly discovered she couldn’t speak English.

She was terrified and said very little, but quietly cried and simply rocked back and forth in pain.

Bethany went running for a first-aid kit from her car while Anne sat down beside the woman and embraced her.

The woman started to pray and we prayed with her. We kept telling her we were there to help and tried showing her how to breathe.  She was sobbing in obvious distress but watched us and tried to calm.

We shared our names and she spoke for the first time.  Her name was Sujata.  

She told us the language she spoke and upon googling, we puzzled out that she was from India.

A dog walker along the path noticed us and asked what happened, then explained she was a nurse practitioner.  She looked over the woman, gingerly, checking on the painful areas.  She suggested she call an ambulance – and did.  She warmly wished us good luck and headed on.

The four of us all started to hold hands and we tried to tell the woman help was coming. We formed our hands in prayer together.

A lovely quiet surrounded us all.  And despite the trauma of the moment, it was somehow impossible not to pause in wonder.  We had no language to share, but here were four women in a circle of care and support.  

“Even though we didn’t speak the same language,” Anne said, “we all understood compassion, love and caring.”

Ever so subtly we started hearing sirens in the distance and knew help was coming.  We squeezed Sujata’s hands, told her to hold on.

And just as the fire truck and ambulance pulled up. the woman’s grown son came running.

His name was Shrikanth and he has lived here a decade. His mother only arrived this week.  

Apparently they had gone for a walk but his mom wanted to take a short jaunt on her own.   Just a short one.   Then she had vanished and her son had been searching for her.

The emergency folks immediately went to work and did a quick examination.  They managed to lift Sujata onto a stretcher and move her toward the ambulance.

Gratefully her son could translate.

And though the woman was incredibly frightened, she continued to hold our hands until the very last moment – speaking perhaps the only English words she knew.

“Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.” 

“Oh, thank you, thank you.” 

Bethany gave her son directions to the hospital.  We all hugged the woman one last time and by then we were all crying.

The ambulance pulled away.  My friends and I were alone again.

We talked about concern over all the red tape and barriers they will face.  I fear she has a broken leg. Bethany got the son’s phone number so we will be checking.

But we also held one another this morning in deep gratitude.

For a dog with super powers.

For a nurse practitioner who stopped to help.

For great medical responders in our community.

For three women being at the right place at the right time.

You know, I was going to write a blog today, ranting again about Trump and all his continuing and despicable actions.

But I’m left with a dramatically different feeling this special morning.

Our hateful president can hand down all the executive orders he wants.  He can impose initiatives that result in cruelty and harm.

But he can’t stop three women from stopping to help another woman in trouble.  

He can’t stop us from holding hands and hugging.  

If we’re willing to pay attention. If we’re willing to respond when the moment calls to us.

Nothing can stop us from caring for one another. Nothing can stop basic human compassion.

We’re praying for you, Sujata.