Tength Congressional District Democrats

A Personal Journey

By Bonnie Bernstein Levy

When I was growing up, Voting Day was always a happy day. I remember the excitement and pride I felt as a five-year-old, all dressed up in my best dress, wearing little white gloves, standing next to my mother in the curtained booth as she voted.

At the many extended-family meals and celebrations I participated in, everyone at the grown-ups’ table was a Democrat.  And I could hear the grown-ups as they loudly discussed the issues and the candidates. So I felt informed and involved. I remember liking Adlai Stevenson who ran against Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956.  I can still see the silver shoe pin, with a hole in the bottom of the shoe.  To this day I can hear my family talk about Stevenson’s television interview where, when he crossed his leg, you could see a hole in the sole of his shoe!

We identified with Stevenson because that hole showed he wasn’t obsessed with vanity and slick looks.  He was a man who worked hard—like us.

The next campaign button I wore with enthusiasm was a shiny large pin that said: “Mamie—start packing.  The Kennedys are coming!”  I adored JFK.  We all did.  It was a time of hope and youth and excitement and promise. I still was not close to voting age, but I was an American and proud of it. How wonderful it was checking in with the local Kennedy campaign office.  How proud we were passing out literature and going door-to-door. 

I grew up.  I took my own daughter with me when I voted – without the white gloves.  I became a teacher.  The kids in my classes knew how proud I was to be standing with them reciting the Pledge of Allegiance each morning, and they knew I took it seriously. They modeled my strong posture, hand planted over my heart.  I felt proud that I was teaching our American system with our ideals and values to the next generation.

In 2008 I added Social Studies to my Language Arts curriculum.  How fabulous it was that I got to teach the Constitution and the electoral system—and that a neighbor of ours was running for President.  I heard kids say “My uncle goes to the same barber with him!” or “He lives down the street from us and always asks what we were learning in school.”  It was exciting that Barack Obama was one of ours.

But I didn’t ever wear another campaign button as an adult, or get involved in elections, because I felt everything was all right.

That is until now.

Last month, I listened to every word in every speech of both parties’ conventions.

First, the Republican Convention.  It was staged.  The Trump Team looked like they were pop stars auditioning for a reality show, a lot like a series of five-minute auditions for America’s Got Talent.  Appropriate, since Donald Trump created and starred in his own reality TV show, immortalizing the phrase, “You’re fired!” He craves being the star of the show. He makes no bones about it when he proclaims that he likes to win, he will win, and he will do anything he can to win.

But becoming President of the United States is not a game.  It is the opposite.  Work.  And when we hold an election we hire a President to work for us and uphold our ideals and our laws.

Donald Trump does not work well with others. He purposely surrounds himself with people who will applaud all of his ideas.

We need someone who listens thoughtfully to a variety of courses of action, even those he or she may not favor.  These are complex times, with complex issues. Donald Trump considers himself to be his own closest advisor.  And he wants us to be fearful.  He incites people to fear and to hate others.

We need a President who wants to bring us together, who likes people, who cherishes the individual.

By the close of the Republican Convention, I was furious, and worried.  Then came the Democratic Convention. 

I watched, and I listened.  The difference between the two candidates was startling. Contrasting the ersatz glam and glitz of Trump’s “reality game show” convention, Hillary’s convention was real life. She is proven, tried, and true.

Hillary has demonstrated a life-long commitment to helping people.  Real people—not those on a reality show, but the people of everyday life. And she has experience turning these ideals into real change.  Throughout her life she has worked for children, for women, for families.

And not just in the United States.  Her activism on behalf of women and children across the world is renowned. She has always fought for and achieved help for people who need help.   She articulates everything I have always believed in and have worked for as a teacher.

I had to help.  I had no idea what I could do, or where I could go, but I just had to get involved.  I googled “Hillary for President,” and I found a local phone number.  Lauren Beth Gash, the Founding Chair of Tenth Dems, answered the phone.

I asked, “How can I help?”

She said, “Come on over.”

I thought, “Now?”

Of course she meant now, and of course I went.

As I entered the office, I saw a wall festooned with posters and stickers from a multitude of elections.  The room was buzzing with the energy of people planning, talking on phones, peering at computer screens.  I was welcomed and offered cake. The frenzy provoked warm memories.  I had not worked in a Democratic office since high school. My eyes lingered on a photograph of President Kennedy and another of Bobby; they were beckoning to me. I smiled back. I was where I belonged.

We decided I would do well on the phones.  Knowing how important every single vote for Hillary is, I brushed aside my initial nervousness and could not believe when they told me the office was closing, that five hours had gone by. I was so involved…I was actually talking to other voters. I had wonderful conversations with real people with real feelings about real issues. We need a President who can bring people together.  Hillary does just that.  I had always believed that, and now I was on her team, because that’s just what I did that day—I connected to people I had never met both on the phone and in the office. She brought us together.

I came home smiling, knowing that this time I was involved.  I was working for what I truly believed in.  I could make a difference.

Remember that spot above my heart that my Kennedy button occupied? Well, I’m once again pinned! This time it is Hillary who is by my heart and in my heart.

I can’t wait to get back to work.

By Steven Gan  – A personal perspective

By the time you’re reading this, the Republican and Democratic Conventions will have come and gone and Trump’s campaign of insults, lies, and outrageous and outlandish remarks, assertions, and beliefs will be in full swing. But now he’s going to have a sidekick who will try to modulate Trump’s sewer mouth, joining those advisors who do their embarrassing best to get Trump to be more “presidential.”

I can’t say that I was surprised when Trump picked Governor Mike Pence of Indiana to be his running mate. When he called Ted Cruz “Lying Ted,” while holding up the Bible and proclaiming him to be a religious hypocrite, Trump alienated Evangelicals throughout the country.

This was a real problem for Trump.  Most religious conservatives revere Cruz. In addition, many suspect that Trump is just not a real conservative.

So who is Mike Pence?  He was suddenly in the national spotlight in April, 2015, when he signed Indiana’s so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in Indianapolis. Although legislation with the same name was originally passed on the federal level under President Bill Clinton, and a version of it was even passed in Illinois with the support of then-Senator Barack Obama, additional legislation at the federal and Illinois State levels was also passed to make it clear that no business that sells to the public could discriminate against anyone based upon sexual orientation or sexual identity. This was not the case with Indiana’s RFRA.

But the fact that the country has overwhelmingly changed its understanding and acceptance of LGBT Americans means that any legislation that has the potential to undermine the rights of LGBT Americans is now recognized as being discriminatory.

So just after Governor Pence signed Indiana’s RFRA bill—in relative secrecy, surrounded by a bunch of conservative religious men and women and some anti-LGBT activists—he got a swift kick in the derriere when many corporate and political leaders threatened to pull their business out of his state. This would have caused serious economic damage and earned Indiana the moniker “The State of Hate.” Furthermore, the inclusion of the RFRA into the Indiana Constitution would have made it possible for florists, wedding caterers, photographers, and anyone else who sells to the public at large to say to LGBT Americans, “Sorry, but my faith doesn’t allow me to recognize your same sex wedding or other gay ceremonies. You’ll have to go somewhere else.”

From Pence’s twisted perspective, this was all perfectly logical, since a person of sincerely held religious beliefs should be able to discriminate against those who they feel might be in violation of their religious doctrine. Fortunately, the blowback made Pence’s head spin, and an amendment to the RFRA was quickly signed into law to make sure that Hoosier LGBT Americans could get their flower arrangements, photos, cakes, gowns, liquor, bands, etc. from any vendor who provides their services generally.

Pence has had a long and illustrious career when it comes to his obsession with religious liberty as an excuse for opposition to gay rights. When running for Congress in 2000, Pence’s campaign website was full of homophobic gems like this: “Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexuals as a ‘discrete and insular minority’ entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities.”

The website also declared Pence’s support for gay conversion therapy, evinced the belief that organizations receiving HIV-treatment funds under the Ryan White Care Act “celebrate and encourage” HIV transmission, and demonstrated his conviction that “homosexuality is incompatible with military service.”

In Pence’s 12 years in Congress, he voted to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, opposed measures to block employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, and opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In 2009, he opposed the expansion of hate crime definitions to include crimes motivated by sexual orientation because he claimed that it would have a “chilling effect” on religious expression. A year later, he told CNN that open LGBT military service amounts to “social experimentation.”

So here we have it. Trump picked Pence to shore up the Evangelical vote.  And rumor has it that Pence was willing to be Trump’s running mate because his reelection as Governor of Indiana was in doubt. So I say to Mike Pence:

Hopefully this will be your last year in any government office as your bigoted and discriminatory beliefs towards LGBT Americans have no place in a civilized, enlightened, inclusive, and rational society.

And shame on you, Donald Trump, for your willingness to exploit Pence’s homophobia to further your own ambitions.