NOTE: “Don’t Say ‘Gay’”? Smacking around Disney’s Mouse?? Bullying teachers??? Squashing Drag Storytime?? Hectoring trans folk??? Guv, you must have a secret stash of the more colorful works of William Prynne (1600-1669). Back in The Day, old Willie P. Knew how to put the Pew and the Pure back into Puritanism. Let’s hear a bit … Continue reading Memo to Florida Gov. DeSantis: DON’T You DARE Read This!
In 1848 Quaker farmer Jonathan Roberts moved his family south from New Jersey to a new farm in northern VA in 1848. He arrived with high hopes and even higher ideals. The new spread adjoined George Washington’s Mt. Vernon plantation, already a historic site for the still-young nation. Yet with its distinguished lineage, the property … Continue reading The “Quaker Scout”: Highlighting A Very Relevant Piece of Quaker History
[NOTE: This review does not mention that amid the spreading devastation of the English Civil War, which in 1649 led to the execution of the defeated Charles I, a new radical religious group, derisively called Quakers, was coming into being. The earliest Friends were at least in sympathy with Cromwell’s anti-monarchical “Commonwealth,” and not a … Continue reading Quakerism was born in a terrible civil war. Could it survive another one?
Some liberal pundits are predicting a tidal wave of backlash against the leaked SCOTUS decision to reverse Roe & Casey, the decisions that have made abortion a right since 1973, forty-nine years ago. (The full text of the draft decision is here.) I’ve written that, while a Roe supporter, I’m not at all sure any … Continue reading Quakers & the End of Abortion Rights: A Very Mixed Bag
SPECIAL FOR WOMEN’s HISTORY MONTH — NOW BANNED BY PRESIDENTIAL EXECUTIVE ORDER It was a great day for an “overground railroad” escape. Maybe not such a great day to die, but for some there was no escaping that. Imagine we were in Aiken, South Carolina: a pretty town, near Augusta and the Georgia border, with … Continue reading Remembering Friend Martha Schofield & Her Courageous Leading