Herland Sister Resources

Dear St. Sybil,

I am downheartened, hurt and even frightened by the approval of the amendment banning same-sex marriage, not only in Oklahoma but in every state where it was on the ballot; and by such huge, hateful margins.

I don’t know whether to move to Canada or just hole up and look after myself instead of trying to change the world - I could use the time, I’ve got a novel or two I’ve been wanting to write. I suppose I could just get out there and fight louder and harder than ever for equal rights, but then people are saying the climate here today is an awful lot like it was in Germany in the early 1930’s, and that’s scary as all get-out.

What to do, Syb?

Anxiously,
Mo Rose

Dear Mo,

In 1968, both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. Now that was a bad, scary time, and some people did leave the country in anger and disgust, and fright. They almost all came home again within a year or two. Home is home is home, and most people need to bloom where they are planted, no matter how arid the soil might be.

You should write your novel by all means, but not at the expense of any righteous work you are doing. And why exactly is anyone despairing over this recent setback? How long has the “gay rights movement” been rolling? If you go back to the Mattachine Society’s formation around 1951, you’ve been working towards acceptance and equality for 53 years; and if you consider the movement to have really begun with the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, it has only been thirty five years. It took 72 years, over twice that long, for Universal Suffrage giving women the right to vote to become the law of the land.

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863. Thirty-three years later, in 1896, the US Supreme Court issued their decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, upholding Jim Crow and the Separate But Equal doctrine. It was not until 1954 that the Supremes reversed that decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. That was ninety-one years after the Emancipation Proclamation. And the first major Civil Rights Bill was not passed until 1964, one hundred and one years after the proclamation.

So you folks living where you are on the time continuum are just going to have to hunker down and keep fighting. Why would you think it would be any easier and quicker for you than it was for the others? And you also need to realize that even after you win the legal battles, homophobia won’t go pfff and disappear. Racism and sexism are still prevalent — make that rampant — in the land, and as long as there is a buck to be made or a feeling of superiority to be gained from it, homophobia will never entirely fade either. Still, you can —and will — make it socially unacceptable to be openly homophobic, and if you keep working at it, one day the gender of the bride and groom will be as irrelevant as their race is today.

About the Nazi Germany climate worry, it’s true; humans are capable of anything when they are mesmerized by evil leaders. Be vigilant.

And above all, don’t forget to dance.

Peace & Love,
Sybil

The Oklahoma Legislature has authorized a special Animal Friendly license plate, provided that 100 paid applications are received within 180 days after July 1, 2004. If 100 prepaid applications are not received by the Oklahoma Motor Vehicle Division by Dec. 28, 2004, money will be returned to the applicants and the tag offer will be cancelled. The plate costs $35 in addition to regular tag fees with $20 of that going to spay/neuter projects, giving priority to areas of greatest need.

The tag will contain wording to indicate that spaying and neutering of pets stops overpopulation. Hence, every vehicle that bears the tag will become a rolling billboard with that important message. Oklahomans may obtain an application by calling the Special Plate Section of the Oklahoma Motor Vehicle Division at 405-521-2468, or you can download a PDF file.

A great choice for your own car or for a Chanukah/Christmas/Solstice present for a loved one! Help control the dog and cat overpopulation problem with this simple gift.

Herland has the complete first season of The L Word on DVD and will be showing it at Herland beginning Friday, January 8, 2005. We will show two episodes each Friday evening for seven weeks ending on February 19. The Showtime series focuses on the lives, careers and romantic relationships (gay and straight) of a group of women in Los Angeles. The L Word kicks off its second season on February 20th at 9 pm.

This is a fundraising event and the cost will be $3 per night or $15 for the whole series. In addition, the box DVD set will be given away on the last night of the showing (Feb. 19). Each ticket you buy will enter you in the drawing for the DVD set. (If you buy the series for $15, you will get 7 tickets for the drawing.) So join us as we watch the first season of The L Word at Herland.

Support your favorite teams with this handy, printable schedule for Central Oklahoma colleges (NCAA and NAIA). Click here to download.

Note: PDF format — if you don’t have Acrobat Reader, you can download it here.