What We Choose to Honor Matters- the Reasonable Voice
Memories of what matters are reset every Memorial Day, like letters from home to Philadelphia reminded Founding Fathers, the road to freedom passes through sacrifice and justice to get to equality.
I remember, despite Declaration of Independence exceptions, our mold for who matters was cast, ‘for better or worse,’ and the road to equality, though less travelled, was paved with the ‘blood, sweat and tears’ of all those left out, until next installment of who matters, on New Year’s Day 1863.
I remember teachers to whom education mattered, making me feel I mattered — Teachers like those in Moore Oklahoma and Sandy Hook who threw themselves between wrath of God and madness of man to protect and serve.
I remember 9/11 and those who, by land and East River, raced to help those in need, disregarding colors, political parties and sexual preferences. I remember learning at mass, ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.’
Honoring Commanders-in-Chief, I remember all the women standing in line, just behind, kept below, and salute Sergeant Molly Hayes, Anna Maria Lane, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emma Lazarus, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, Marian Anderson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Henrietta Lacks, Rosa Parks, Hillary Clinton, one hundred women buried at Normandy Beach, more than a thousand volunteer Air Force Service Pilots (WASP aviators), who flew in much needed wartime supplies to those in battle, including delivering bombers and many other types of aircraft, and I’m haunted by those maimed or killed in Iraq and Afghanistan especially those raped by our own.
Truth is, America can’t be exceptional until without exception, penis or not, every American is constitutionally equal. This is the very fiber in which we are woven together with Eden, Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor and Memorial Day, and if we don’t want this ‘infra-structure’ of society to fail from neglect like our bridges, we need to insist Congress and State Houses acknowledge, ‘Women Matter.’
The failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment or even eliminate the deadline to do so, with H.J.Res.43 and S.J.Res.15 matters - Yes, Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, this legislation matters.