It's Sunday afternoon. What a contrast of experiences. After watching and discussing Biden and Barack's spech all afternoon, in the evening we strolled down the 16th street mall with all of its kiosks and t-shirt shops replete with obama gear. So many different buttons to choose from, even toilet paper with a drawing of Bush on it. As I thought about which of my friends might get the biggest kick out of it, I was struck by how, when I was growing up, we had faith in and at least a modicum of respect our political leaders, and how my dad would not allow us to show disrespect for our presidents, even the ones we didn't agree with. Now that changed a bit with Nixon, but the era of Bush has lent such embarrassment to the office of the president that I know my daughter feels no obligation to respect his leadership. As I looked at the toilet paper, I thought about how much I hope my daughter can once again, soon, respect the presidency as an office deserving of admiration and to see the president as an honest, committed, decent person! And, after this reflection, I decided not to buy the TP!
Walking down the 16th Street Mall is a bit risky as the very wide buses barely miss the sidewalk and the street looks more a pedestrian walkway then a road! But there is a BIG law enforcement presence here with large groups of uniformed officers on many corners. I think weve seen cops on horseback, on motorcycles on bicycles, in riot geae, riding on running boards of SUVs. They are letting their presence be felt!
And then it got interesting. We were eating at the Chilis in front o our hotel, when all of a sudden there were sirens and 3 SUVs surrounded the entrance to an alley that runs alongside our hotel. Cops were blocking off the entrance to and the sidewalk in front of the alley. They let us go back into our hotel, but from our room we could see the alley and it was full of law enforcement and the parking lot had oficers checking under cars. Sowe decided to get out of the building. On the way ou I asked one of the cops what was going on, and he said something about a "suspicious device." When I asked him if residents of the hotel sould be concerned, he said it might be a good time to take a stroll! By the time we came back 0 minute they had evacuated the entire block of the Mall in front of our hotel. We heard an explosion wwhen they detonated the device and about 10 minutes later they reopened the street. (One side note: before going back to our room, we stopped at the 7/11 and we met Donna Brazille from CNN - I think she's awesome and I loved her during the hearing on MI & FL. She told me she'd come look for me on the convention floor! But I digress...) We saw a huge van and FBI folks with sniffing-dogs out in the alley for a couple of hours afterwards.
Today there are even more officers out on the streets, one of whom explained that they had found a homeless person's backpack in the alley and it had originally tested positive for explosives, although it turned out to be nothing. Today the so-called pro-life folks have been marching and there have been various protests with standoffs with police, some arrests, but nothing that serious.
This morning I went to the Stonewall Brunch for the LGBT community, where we had great presentations from the co-chairs Loir McBride fro CA and Steven Driscoll from MA. Both have been able to marry their same-sex partners because of groundbreaking laws in their states (CA's is being challenged, unfortnately). One of favorite lines was from Steven: divorce threatens marriage, domestic violence threatens marriage, poverty threatens marriage, but marriage doesn't threaten marriage! I was moved by a presentation from a PFLAG member (parents & friends of lesbians and gays) emphasizing the power of connecting to folks with their love of their children. He said that he had 3 children, 2 who are heterosexual and married and the other who is a lesbian and with a life-partner, and that he would never imagine loving any of them less because of who they chose to love. It was so inspirational! Stonewall as made great strides in moving GLBT rights to have a stronger place on the agenda of the Dem party.
A highlight of the breakfast was hearing and meeeting DEVAL PATRICK, Gov of MA. He has been such an ally on ga rights and made links between the rights of GLBTs and everyone's rights to live, liberty and pursuit of happiness. For those who say LGBT issues aren't "their" issues and aren't "that important," he said, we need only remind them that once we deny freedom and rights to one group, we start denying them for all of us. It was great to shake his hand.
I'm off to a reception. More on the day, including the amaing "Faith in Action Interfaith Ceremony" later..
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