Category Archives: Signs of the Times

Northwest Update: The Expulsion Plot Thickens

When it comes to West Hills Friends in Portland, Oregon, expelled from its association for becoming LGBT welcoming, , the main positions are pretty well laid out:

— If the expulsion is overturned (West Hills can stay), then some are clear NWYM is headed for hell in a handbasket, and they may head for the door.

— If West Hills is indeed forced out, then some others are sure the YM will be barreling toward Hades in a Prius, and they may look for an exit.

— If there’s no decision?

(This last is the only possibility that’s much interesting to me. That’s because there have been numerous times in Quaker history when yearly meetings have been in conflict, and decided to stay together and live/work them through. Taking such a path in NWYM might also provoke some attrition, but would be both novel and for many, uplifting — even Christian.)

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A Marker for her Mother: A Survivor’s Journey

The case itself was old news – from 1974, in fact. But only in 2007, thirty-three years later, was a marker to be placed on the victim’s grave, by her daughter.

The victim was Beryl Mitchell, killed by her Army Green Beret husband on December 1, 1974: stabbed, strangled, and dumped nude in a wooded area of Ft. Bragg. Her husband was later convicted of murder and spent several years in an Army prison.

Their daughter, Christine Horne, was in elementary school. She worked for decades to overcome the impact of that trauma. As a closing part of that process, Horne was coming to Fayetteville to organize a memorial for her mother and install a headstone; the fact that the ceremony took place at the beginning of what is called Domestic Violence Awareness Month was entirely not coincidental.

The memorial became an impressive public event; both the police chief and the Cumberland County sheriff were there –though the army did not respond to her invitation to send someone. The event climaxed in the release of thirty-three lavender balloons at the cemetery. A crowd of fifty-plus watched the balloons rise into the blue sky. Among them were many women, survivors of domestic violence, who showed up unannounced to be part of the witness.

I was Director at Quaker House in Fayetteville then; and Quaker House became a quiet part of this story. Domestic violence was not one of our program priorities then, though of course we heard about it in our counseling, and as part of the life of the community. (The military has an ongoing epidemic of domestic violence, which it works diligently to downplay and keep quiet. Of course, much the same thing could be said of the rest of our society as well.)

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The Northwest Gay Expulsion Impasse: Is A Break In Sight?

The Northwest Gay Expulsion Impasse: Is A Break In Sight? At its September business meeting, West Hills Friends (WHF) in Portland Oregon considered a statement accepting its expulsion from Northwest Yearly Meeting (NWYM) for having become a LGBT-welcoming congregation. If approved, the statement would be issued jointly with NWYM. The decision to expel West Hills was made … Continue reading The Northwest Gay Expulsion Impasse: Is A Break In Sight? →

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Free Speech, Islamophobia & The Murder of Innocents

I’m mindful of, and disturbed by the steady stream of articles I see decrying there decline of free speech on and around U.S. universities. Many of these come from rightwing pundits; but others come from worried but otherwise progressive observers.

A Carolina memorial to three victims of anti-Muslim violence, February 2015.
I’ve held back from joining the fray, mainly because it’s almost twenty years since I worked on a college campus, and it’s way too easy to succumb to hand-wringing fads and facile generalizations about “kids these days”; to moan about how academia is abandoning rational discourse, and its millennial occupants are all going to hell in a handbasket woven from organic fair trade dried kale.

Perhaps it’s so; but how would I know that? I live near some large campuses, but don’t hang out there.

But then a week or so ago, an advocacy group I’m part of was asked to sign on to a letter. The missive, written by Manzoor Cheema, for the Movement to Ed Racism and islamophobia, called for a lecture series in Chapel Hill NC, to be shut down. The letter’s money quote was:

“we urge Extraordinary Ventures to say no to the voices of hatred and bigotry. We request Extraordinary Ventures to cancel Diana West’s upcoming speech and the future lecture series by ICON.”

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