my final farewell to the san francisco young dems:

"I Bid You Adieu"

While some of you may wish I perform "Thanks for the Memories" ala Connie Chung, I won’t go out that gracefully. I plan on ending my reign as your Newsletter Editor with a bit of holier-than-thou vitriol. So listen to me now and hear me later: You guys rock!

Seriously, I have been incredibly impressed by the passion and ongoing commitment each of you, and the club as a whole, have devoted to our common cause for our Democratic principles. It has been my pleasure to serve with you for the last year and I will miss this direct connection with you each and every month.

That said, I know my successor will do a terrific job and bring about some interesting and vibrant changes to your Newsletter. I may pop in now and again to assist where I can, but for the most part, this old man bids you adieu. Feel free to keep up with me and my goings-on anytime via my personal blog: www.reesesworld.com.

and my latest alice column:

"Changing Hearts and Minds"

Change doesn't always come quickly. In fact, it often is monotonously slow. But when it comes bearing fruit that couldn't have been imagined before, you know that it’s especially sweet.

Back in the late 1980's in Kansas City, Missouri, a huge fight was brewing at City Hall over the very simple—by today’s standards—cause of adding the term 'sexual orientation' to the city's human rights ordinance. See, simple-- there was already an anti-discrimination ordinance and this was just adding us to the list of protected classes.

The masses of right-wing bigots who showed up and rallied inside and outside City Hall in early 1990 when this came up for a vote would have one believe that the apocalypse was upon us. But strikingly, the nascent LGBT community of Kansas City began to form and come out to City Hall too. And they also began to 'come out' to their friends and coworkers and families, and to the public in Middle America for many for the first time.

I was actually one of those new-comers. Although, frankly, my own trajectory was more related to my coming of age and timing within my own life—I was all of 19 years old. But one of the very first activities I did upon coming out was traveling to City Hall with others I just met and would meet en masse to watch the civic proceedings and participate in public debate before the City Council.

Well, to make a very long political story short, the addition to the ordinance was unfortunately voted down through a procedural vote. We were very disappointed. But there were chants and songs of "We Shall Overcome" heard throughout the halls of the building that day.

One of those who voted against us at that time was a City Councilman known as Reverend Emanuel Cleaver. He was an up-and-comer and well respected in Kansas City's African-American and civil rights community. And he received a great deal of anger from our LGBT community at the time for his vote.

However, things began to change for the better soon after.

Astoundingly and graciously, Reverend Emanuel Cleaver took it upon himself to come to the Kansas City Pride Picnic.

This was not a little thing. In Kansas City, politicians don't exactly swarm to Pride like they do here in San Francisco. And this was also 15 or so years ago. So for him to attend our picnic and speak before us was a huge deal. And he spoke to us from the heart. He spoke to us from a little stage that we had at our little picnic in a little triangle park in downtown—no more than maybe a hundred or so people. And he told us about how the right-wing opposition to the Human Rights Ordinance had come to him and talked about how we LGBT people were 'trash' and deserved to go to Hell and all that fire and brimstone stuff.

And then he said something I've still never forgotten, although a bit paraphrased due to my own senility.

He said to us at the picnic, "My God don’t make no trash! No one created in His image is trash."

And the crowd went crazy. He pledged to bring the Human Rights Ordinance back. And when he became Mayor of Kansas City shortly thereafter he signed it into law.

I tell you all of this because of a recent event that’s even more amazing.

Reverend Cleaver is now the Congressman for the Greater Kansas City area. And during the recent fight in the House of Representatives over the Federal Marriage Amendment, he not only voted against the anti-Gay constitutional amendment, he also led the opposition. He spoke to the House floor as the only one in the whole body who is a practicing minister about how he, as a minister and a man of Faith, finds this constitutional amendment abhorrent. And he not only did this for his colleagues in the House, but he also did it for his community back home by meeting with the Editorial Board with the Kansas City Star and with local community groups and the like to talk about how angry he is that anti-Gay scapegoating is sinful and detrimental to our society and our democracy. And he spoke from the heart.


Now, I must tell you, this column is not about a change in one politician. It's not about a growth in humanity. It's not about faith in politics. It's not even about Kansas City...

This column is about how when we as a community openly and steadfastfully fight for our rights, live honestly and openly, live by the truth, and show the love that we are all about, we can bring change in the hearts and minds of politicians, the public, our friends and families, and even open up doors we never knew were possible.