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This week, Ashley Broadway is paying close attention to the Supreme Court as it hears two cases on the politically charged issue of same-sex marriage. For her, it’s about family: her spouse, Army Lt. Col. Heather Mack, their son, two weeks’ shy of 3 years, and two-month-old daughter.
“Regardless of how someone feels about same-sex marriage or their religious convictions, we can’t have second-class citizens, especially people defending our country and our constitution,” she said.
Although Sheryl Sandberg’s book came out just weeks ago, it seems we’ve been talking “Lean In” forever. Is the manifesto about women not doing enough or trying to do too much? Will busy working women be able to spare the time to see its lessons as valuable rather than additions to already crowded to-do lists? If women feel guilty about shortchanging home or work, is that really Sandberg’s fault?
As women decide which points in her message to hold close and which ones might be wiser to disregard, black working women, as well as all women in jobs light years away from the Facebook chief operating officer’s lofty perch, are taking at least one piece of advice from Sandberg: They are speaking up.
Andy Griffith was more than an actor; he was an icon. That goes double in North Carolina, inspiration for the mythical Mayberry, where his Sheriff Andy ruled wisely and warmly. Griffith died last year at the age of 86, and now some friends and fans are objecting to his widow’s apparent plans to tear down a small house he owned on the North Carolina waterfront.
Would it make a fine museum, a place to display memorabilia? Could it one day rival Graceland, Elvis Presley’s former home and present shrine in Memphis?
We may never know if Cindi Griffith follows through on the demolition permit that records show she’s obtained. But should we care?
It was a funny though welcome text message, congratulating me on “my” new pope. From 3,000 miles away, my friend knows how much my Catholic faith means to me and wanted to share the good news. Though she was raised Baptist and doesn’t really practice any religion now, she understood. What did I think of Pope Francis? Wait and see, I told her. The church is wading through earthly and spiritual challenges, and this conservative pope likely won’t rock the theological boat. But I said I was impressed by his humility, his commitment to social justice and his Jesuit pedigree.
It felt good to be a part of the discussion during such an important transition, in a church that has not always been so welcoming to black Catholics.
Elections have consequences. In North Carolina, which elected Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and a GOP super-majority in both the state House and Senate in 2012, legislation to institute photo identification as a prerequisite for voting is again on the table.
Do women separated by party, principle and vocation have more in common than not? When the conversation turns to the challenges faced and rewards gained when working toward leadership roles, it seems so. Or perhaps, as one of the high-powered women in a discussion on “CBS This Morning” offered, women strive for consensus. In Wednesday’s installment of the show’s “Eye-Opening Women” series, Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state for President George W. Bush and CBS contributor, Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama, and “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl were joined by interviewers Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King, who added thoughts of their own. Charlie Rose sat this one out.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – On the announcement, his picture was squeezed between images of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, former presidents the GOP can get behind. Artur Davis was in North Carolina, where Republicans rule in the state house and legislature. It’s a place where the party that is suffering setbacks elsewhere could relax for a triumphant evening. At least, that’s what I think the folks at the 2013 MeckGOP Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner were doing Saturday night. Luckily, before the closed-press event, featured speaker Davis previewed his remarks and why his inclusive message matters to the GOP’s future.
“I think the conservatives have to understand that we’ve got to talk about not just the government we want to repeal but how we’re going to make the government that exists work better,” Davis told me. As the parties spar over sequester, appointments and more, it seemed a timely message.
Just the memory of Rosa Parks can still get the job done. In this case, 100 years after her birth, the late civil rights icon is bringing together the president and the Democratic and Republican leaders of both the House and the Senate. In the partisan atmosphere of Washington, D.C., that’s close to a miracle. The lineup of speakers was scheduled for Wednesday’s dedication of a statue in Parks’ honor in National Statuary Hall of the United States Capitol.
As an image is being revealed, it’s past time to correct the false one in America’s imagination: That Rosa Parks was a meek, humble seamstress, who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus that day in 1955 – because she was tired – and spontaneously sparked a more than yearlong boycott and a movement. The Rosa Parks sold to the public was what was accepted for a woman, particularly a black woman, but it hid her full measure. She was the respectable symbol that was needed at the time, even though the flesh-and-blood activist was far more interesting.
Even as most of the headlines coming out of Washington these days contain the word sequester, another bill is moving along, making progress without quite so much drama. But the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), passed in the Senate and due for action in the House, is no less important.
House Republicans last week released their own version of the legislation and are prepared to take it to a floor vote this week. While House Republicans are confident of the effectiveness of their bill, it has not resolved disputed differences with the Senate proposal.
“I cannot say enough about the revolution that was the Violence Against Women Act,” said Sarah Tofte, director of policy and advocacy for the Joyful Heart Foundation. “Those of us who work on these issues, who care about these issues, see it as forming the core of our country’s response on violence against women and girls.
