Cagle World

My father had terminal lung cancer. He fought like a Spartan at Thermopylae, his body riddled with chemo and radiation, his stomach filled with macrobiotic foods lovingly prepared by my mother, his mind steeped in the defiance of death as exhibited by Dylan Thomas who wrote the words that were buried with him, in his coffin:

“And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

My father was also a smoker for many years. He started as a young teenager in the 1940s when it was as common as breathing air, and only stopped five years before his death at 43. You could say that my father brought his illness upon himself, because there is no denying that smoking causes lung cancer, and lung cancer hastens death.

We would never accuse someone of causing their own death from lung cancer. We would never, if we were truly good people (and most of us are), smirk triumphantly about the sad lessons being taught to those who ignore science. No one, at least not to my face, dared to blame my father for voluntarily cutting off half a life. If they had, they would have regretted it.

And that is why I am having a very, very hard time with the reaction to Luke Letlow’s death from COVID-19 complications last week. The young congressman-elect from Louisiana, a Republican, was rushed to the hospital on Dec. 19 after his condition worsened. He died of a heart attack following an operation.

Letlow was a strong proponent of reopening the economy, a critic of the stark restrictions imposed on small businesses in his state, and for that reason, many on the left began to weave their narrative of “I told you so, he deserved what he got.”

You don’t need to believe me. Go to Twitter, and follow Vox’s Aaron Rupar, or any number of other people without blue checks after their names who found it appropriate to wag their fingers triumphantly as a man was being carried to Heaven.

Letlow was not an anti-masker. His social media was filled with photos of him wearing masks, social distancing and taking the precautions we are all told to take. But because he was outspoken about his concerns over hidden COVID casualties, including the collateral damage caused when people lose their jobs and sink into irreversible depression, he became the left’s poster boy for “karma is a bitch.” To see it unfold was as unsettling as it was nauseating.

Of course, many of the ghoulish critics are trying to walk back their comments. Some, like Rupar himself, posted this self-serving explanation on his Twitter feed: “I mean it sincerely – Letlow’s death is tragic. It was also avoidable. It shouldn’t take tragedies for policymakers to treat the coronavirus pandemic with the seriousness it deserves.” The disingenuousness of this journalist is an insult to everyone who can read between the lines.

The left is not a monolith. There are decent people there, including many of my friends, who offered heartfelt condolences and eloquence. But the stench from the extremists in their trenches fills the air, with people celebrating a death that serves their partisan goals.

I’ll be wearing a mask, to protect myself from those toxic fumes wafting in from the left. And I will take comfort in the words of another great poet, who crushes all sarcasm and hostility with this eternal truth:

“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”

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Copyright 2020 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].

Civil rights legislation always has its genesis in humanitarian principles: Protecting the weak, advocating for the voiceless, providing opportunities for the disenfranchised.

The Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts were remedies for institutional and generational racism that blocked many minorities, primarily African Americans, from obtaining equal status with their fellow citizens. The Americans with Disabilities Act, which marked its 30th year in 2020, mandated that this country treat those with mental or physical conditions that made their lives more difficult to navigate with respect, honor, and dignity.

Title IX is landmark legislation that was passed to ensure that women would have the same opportunities as their male counterparts in any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. While Title IX did not explicitly mention athletics, it’s come to be known for its impact on women and their participation in collegiate sports.

Fast forward a few decades. Whereas it was clear that Title IX would apply to women, it has become increasingly difficult to define what, exactly, qualifies as a “woman” or more specifically, a female. That is because the trans rights movement has made biological certainty less important than “identification.”

Now we have biological men identifying as women, even though they were born with male genitalia, and may in fact still have that genitalia. We have individuals who have all of the biological attributes of males, including their strength and innate athletic abilities, who present themselves as females.

Society is slowly (although not quickly enough for some) accommodating those who have a disconnect between their biological and psychological realities. And to the extent that we want to protect people from being persecuted, or discriminated against because of the way they feel about themselves, that’s a good thing.

But what is not a good thing, and what is not acceptable, and what must stop, is the consistent and inexcusable discrimination of biological females in order to make trans women feel better about themselves.

Over the past few years, there have been an increasing number of biological males who, after coming out as “female,” have demanded inclusion on women’s sports teams. This has put actual females at a huge disadvantage, because there is no question and no doubt that a biological male has certain innate advantages over females. We can philosophize all we want about “I am woman, hear me roar” and the legitimate observation that Ginger Rogers did “everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels,” but ignoring the fact that testosterone provides endurance and strength advantages is magical thinking.
It’s all well and good to put your “personal pronouns” in your email identifiers so that the woke folk know that you are as woke as they are, but it is quite another to pretend that a person who presents as a girl but is really a boy can compete at an equitable level with actual girls.

Tulsi Gabbard agrees with me. The Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii and erstwhile presidential candidate has bucked her own party and presented legislation which would prevent biological males from competing as females in women’s athletics. Her bill would clarify Title IX to limit protections to those who were born as biological women, and not extend to those who identify as such.

According to Gabbard, “Our legislation protects Title IX’s original intent, which was based on the general biological distinction between men and women athletes based on sex. It is critical that the legacy of Title IX continues to ensure women and girls in sports have the opportunity to compete and excel on a level playing field.”

Gabbard is absolutely correct. We can’t eviscerate the protections afforded to one vulnerable group to advance the less than legitimate goals of another. Trans women and men should be protected against a host of ills and crimes, but they should not be able to appropriate a bill designed to protect an equally vulnerable group for spurious purposes.

It’s not just about gender politics. There have been unfortunate intersections and conflicts when dealing with other sorts of civil rights legislation where, in attempting to advance the interests of one group of people, you end up treading on the rights of another. Victims come in all shapes and sizes, and protecting some, sadly, harms others. I’m glad that at least in this limited arena, a legislator actually figured that out.

And now I understand why Tulsi Gabbard never made it through the primaries. She made too much sense.

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Copyright 2020 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].

I have always thought that Planned Parenthood got a pass on its origins. While most people know that Margaret Sanger was an avid eugenicist, defenders of the organization she founded have tried to downplay her philosophy for decades.

Fast forward to the pandemic. Today, we are in the midst of a crisis that sees widespread fatalities and limited resources to address them. Now that at least two vaccines have been approved for widespread distribution, it is only natural that our attention turns toward whom will get it first, given the fact that not everyone who needs treatment can access it.

Here is where the principle that undergirds eugenics comes into play.

It has always been common to hear medical professionals say we need to make difficult ethical choices when seeking to do triage in emergencies. Doctors are often forced to decide which of two equally deserving patients will get life-saving attention, and which will be sacrificed for the greater good. This is nothing new. There is also nothing new in the suggestion that the younger you are, the more worthy you are of treatment. The thought is that the elderly have lived their lives, and it is only fair to provide those on the lower end of the chronological scale opportunities that their elders have already been given.

There is also the idea that those who are disabled should be sacrificed in the interest of the able-bodied, because “quality of life” is more important than “life” itself. Of course, just who should determine what that “quality” looks like is up for debate, as is the definition of “quality.”

As someone who has opposed abortion ever since she could understand what that was, and what it meant, I am no stranger to the arguments about quality of life. Many of those who believe that pregnant mothers who receive a diagnosis of Downs, or encephalitis, or spina bifida, or Tay Sachs, or any other debilitating condition for their unborn children should have the right to terminate their pregnancies as an anticipatory form of euthanasia. Others believe that euthanasia on the sick, and the elderly, is compassionate. They have either convinced themselves of their sincerity, or they are blinded by a desire to reject the core principle of eugenics. And that is what Planned Parenthood does, on a regular basis.

But as horrific as eugenics truly is, it can get even worse. We saw what that looks like last week, when a professor at the University of Pennsylvania opined that since most front line caregivers are people of color, and most elderly people in nursing homes and elsewhere are white, the caregivers should be given preference when distributing the vaccines.

Racism, meet Miss Sanger.

This layering of a race narrative over an already dangerous supposition that some lives are more important than others (youth greater than age, ability better than disability) has brought us to a place where those “death panels” envisioned by Sarah Palin don’t seem so silly anymore. But now we do it with an “anti-racism” twist.

In an interview with the New York Times, ethics and health policy expert Harold Schmidt stated that, “’Older populations are whiter. Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”

There are so many things that are wrong with this comment, it’s hard to know where to start, but I’ll try. First, the idea that front line workers are predominantly people of color has a tinge of racism to it. Next, the idea that the elderly are overwhelmingly white is misguided. Even if the statistics do bear out the fact that there are more white people over a certain age than people of other races, this does not factor in economics, health and other metrics which would have some bearing on the statistic. Finally, the idea that the race and age of a sick person should be used to either favor, or harm them, is repellent. I wonder if the good ethicist would have said the same thing if the races and ages were reversed.

Eugenics is a Pandora’s Box that was opened by Sanger and her crew, and fully exploited by a gentleman in Germany a few decades later. Harold Schmidt and those who agree with him are in that same class. We need to nail that box shut, once and for all.

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Copyright 2020 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].

We are approaching the anniversary of the most horrific gun massacre in the history of the United States.

This time of year, I’m overwhelmed with the memory of those little boys and girls who will never become teenagers, young adults, mothers and fathers, and grandparents who themselves cherish the little boys and girls surrounding them.

I was forever changed by Sandy Hook, and each Dec. 14 has become a day of mourning and reflection, of anger and defiance and a promise to work towards guaranteeing that no other child risks their life by sitting at a desk in a Kindergarten class. I am not wedded, soldered or joined like a Siamese twin to the Second Amendment, and I’m am not now, nor will I ever be, a member of the NRA.

But I am still able to reason with the brain that God gave me, and the other day, my insanity detector was working at optimum levels.

A little boy in Illinois went to the mall, which in and of itself is a joyous and miraculous thing in these pandemic days, to see Santa. He was 4 years old, and he was excited to talk to the man who would make his little boy dreams come true.

Unlike some people who have very high thresholds for satisfaction, the boy’s wish was relatively modest – he wanted a Nerf Gun. He sat across the table, socially distanced from the man in the red suit and the white beard, leaning forward from his mother’s lap. He asked for the gun. And Santa said “No. No guns.”

The little boy’s mother thought Santa hadn’t heard correctly and clarified by insisting “He wants a Nerf gun.” And Santa held the line. No guns.

My favorite Christmas movie of the last few decades is “A Christmas Story,” based on the Jean Shepherd memoir. The central character, Ralphie, wants a Red Ryder rifle under the tree. It’s all he wants. And although it seems as if his parents and his teachers and every adult in his town is lined up against him, he eventually gets that gun. This opposition to guns is not a new thing. Ralphie’s story takes place many years ago, in a simpler America.

But, and this is a big but: There were no moral trappings to the opposition to a gun. The reason most parents might have been hesitant to get a weapon for their yearning child was because, as in Ralphie’s case, they were afraid they’d shoot their eyes out, or of some other non-life threatening catastrophe. There was not this sense that giving a toy gun to a child was grooming him to become a sniper.

Today, there are a lot of people out there who are unable to separate the very real dangers posed by actual guns and actual felons from the normal hazards of a wayward sponge pellet flying through the air. I have been the hapless victim of these pellets, and it is not exactly fun to have to pick them out of nostrils when they make contact.

The idea that we should deny little boys, and for that matter little girls, the joy of playing with the toys that they want to play with because we are moralizing preachers of some secular gospel of safety, is anathema. It is wrong to make children feel the weight of our anger against actual catastrophe and to make them mourn, by proxy, with us.

A little boy who wants a gun will not turn into Lee Harvey Oswald. He will not enter a classroom and start shooting at innocents. He will not become a wild-eyed killer, a hardened criminal, someone who has no moral North Star. He is just a little boy who has a list of dreams, and wants to have as many of them fulfilled as possible.

For any adult, let alone the most important adult in a child’s December universe to say “No!” because he wants to make sure we all know that guns are evil, is a cruelty that reduces little boys to tears, and mothers to raging on social media.

Fortunately, the little boy in Illinois did get his Nerf gun, delivered by a much kinder Santa after the moralizing Mall Santa was forced to resign.

And that, my friends, is an example of the magic of Christmas, common sense and the underestimated power of decency.

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Copyright 2020 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].

I have been pretty honest and clear about my refusal to sing Kumbaya with the other side on policy. But I’m not willing to demonize people with whom I disagree in areas where politics and policy, ideology and integrity are irrelevant.

Case in point: Phil Murphy.

The governor of New Jersey was out last month dining with family, when two irate constituents began to heckle him with foul but familiar epithets. I will leave to your fertile imaginations the sort of things that were thrown around (and yes, they had some passing reference to fertility). It was a disgraceful, horrific display of subhuman behavior. It was wrong, and none but the most brainwashed partisan could justify that type of conduct.

It’s exactly the same type of behavior I condemned when I saw it being used against members of the Trump administration and perceived allies, people like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mark Meadows and “Javanka.” It was the same rude, crude hatchetry used against Melania and her son Barron, against former DHS Secretary Kirsten Neilson, against Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Vile is vile, no matter the voter registration of the abuser.

I understand that we are a divided country, and I have absolutely no problem with the divisions when they impact governance and fundamental rights. I will bring the full weight of my anger against legislators who push for liberalized abortion laws, against women who make false accusations against female jurists and lawyers they do not like, against men who are selective with their misogyny.

But that is what I will do at the public level, at the level where dissent is effective, necessary and appropriate. What I will not do is carry this over to my personal interactions with friends (the easy part) and strangers (much harder), because that will require hypocrisy, and there is nothing that I despise and devalue more than hypocrisy.

In the intimate relationships that form the tiny pieces of the great life mosaic, there is a need for reciprocal respect, and an open mind. From people who represent nothing more than the face of our own humanity, we should demand kindness. And we should extend the same, until it is no longer deserved.

I am not saying that I will always turn the other check. In fact, I never have. In terms of Christian perfection, you could put me in the lower third of the virtue pyramid. I was born a fighter, under the sign of St. Michael. Don’t tread on me, and all that.

But again, this is when I see my lifestyle, livelihood and value system threatened. Joe Biden will find no friend in Christine Flowers if he does what he has promised to do, including his desire to enshrine abortion rights in a constitutional amendment, or those things he has refused to reject, like packing the courts. In those instances, the battle armor is hanging in the closet, shined up and ready for wear.

Still, not every moment is political. Not every act is public. Not every gesture carries a dual intent, a dichotomy in connotation and import. Some things are private, and impact only the normal intercourse between human beings of good faith.

For example, I was in a Barnes and Noble bathroom last week when I overheard one woman ask another to put on a mask. I would never do that, because (1) I am not in the business of mask-shaming and (2) I am worried about the reaction I might get. And given what happened in the bathroom, I would be entirely justified in that anxiety.
The maskless woman started screaming racial epithets at the other woman, calling her a “white (fill in the blank)” and telling her that she would “(blank up) her white (blank)” for daring to make what, in all honesty, is a fairly normal request these days. Stunned barely describes my reaction, as I imitated that little Amish boy in “Witness” and pulled my legs up so no one would know I was in the room. (I later made a report to the security.)

Then you have the people who were issuing death threats to public officials in Georgia who, despite pressure from the White House, continue to do their jobs and certify the election. That is madness, and it is borderline criminal. We have become an angry, vicious tribe, and the vitriol transcends voter registration.

I hope that I can find that point of commonality with my political enemies, in the moments when we can be personal friends. I hope that we can all navigate the roiling waters, raging fires and storms that surely await, with one singular Polestar: Decency when it is warranted, caution and benefit of the doubt when it is unclear, and a righteous war cry to the heavens when the enemies come at us with their swords.

Phil Murphy was eating dinner. No swords were out. Sometimes, a meal is just a damn meal, and should be honored with silence, in anticipation of higher battles.

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Copyright 2020 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].

People might get tired of stories about my father Ted and his summer in Mississippi. They might roll their eyes when I, once again, write about how he faced hostility and the KKK during his time in the places that have become legendary for their ferocious efforts at silencing Black voices and votes.

There are many out there who never heard of my father, but who are doing their damndest to make sure that people like him are silenced and forgotten. They are doing this because they have fallen victim to a disease that some call tolerance, others deride (justifiably) as “wokeness,” and still others call a reimagining of history.

To paraphrase Orwell, it is actually the “stopping” of history. And it is already leaving a brutal scar on the landscape of humanity.

Last week, in Burbank, Calif., a school district decided to ban the teaching of certain books that were considered offensive, demeaning and a source of what has come to be known as “microagression” against students of color. While the books themselves will still be available in school libraries, teachers have been told to “pause” their instruction, effectively consigning those books to the intellectual ghetto where only racists and the uneducated live.

And here’s a list of the books that will be “paused:” “Huckleberry Finn,” “The Cay,” “Of Mice and Men,” “Roll of Thunder,” “Hear My Cry” and “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

Some of the books were targeted because they included the “n” word, which apparently traumatized some middle school students in the district (despite the fact that they can hear it on a loop in rap songs and other cultural phenomena). That, however, is a traditional argument against certain pieces of literature which generally gains little traction in academic communities.

Another reason that some of the books have been sidelined is because they focus on white children learning about racism from wise elderly Black men, something that apparently offended the ban-seekers because it makes people of color supporting characters in their own stories. That is also a specious argument, since the wisdom imparted to the white children stems from the racism experienced by their teachers.

But the most troubling case deals with “To Kill A Mockingbird,” a book that not only won the Pulitzer Prize but was voted the most-loved American novel in a 2018 PBS competition “The Great American Read.” Outside of my father, that book is the single most important reason that I became a lawyer. And I am not alone. Generations of men and women entered law school in the shadow of Atticus Finch. So the suggestion that it should be banned, or even “paused,” is anathema.

It is also a sign of the perilous times in which we find ourselves, a “mockingbird” in the coal mine if you will. The main reason that people are beginning to openly object to Harper Lee’s masterpiece is because it places a white man at the center of the race narrative, turning him into its righteous hero.

Black Americans and their white allies have started to push back against the idea that white folks played a major role in the civil rights movement, and are reframing the struggle in terms that place Blacks at the center of events. And of course, there is nothing wrong with that given the towering figures who did populate the movement, people like Congressman John Lewis, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Justice Thurgood Marshall, Cecil B. Moore and Malcolm X.

But does that mean we ignore the allies, people like the two young Jewish boys who shared a grave with a Black coworker in Philadelphia, Miss.? Does that mean we ignore the martyrdom of Viola Liuzzo, who was murdered while driving some Black friends back home after attending a civil rights rally in Alabama? Does that mean we ignore the teachers and preachers who marched arm in arm with their Black sisters and brothers across the Edmund Pettis Bridge, down the streets of Selma, into the jails of Birmingham and to the steps of the courthouses in Hattiesburg and Jackson?

When the movie “Mississippi Burning” came out almost 20 years ago, there were complaints that it glossed over the contributions of Black Americans in the struggle for civil rights. Fair enough. Tell that story.

But in the wake of the George Floyd killing and the Black Lives Matter uprisings, there has been a movement to amplify Black voices by marginalizing white ones. Allies have been told “thank you, but we got this now.” And that is a deliberate slap in the face to people who bled, fought and died for rights that are still hanging in the balance, people like my father.

So let’s make sure Atticus Finch is still hailed as a hero, not sidelined as an extra in the struggle for equality. To do otherwise is ignorance at best, bigotry at worst.

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Copyright 2020 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].

In the suburbs of Philadelphia, Montgomery County’s Board of Health issued an order by unanimous vote last week to shut down all in=person learning at school for two weeks.

The reason for the shutdown is the reason every local, regional, and national official has used over the past eight or so months: COVID, corona, Wuhan, call it whatever you want. The pandemic is making decisions for us.

Except, not everyone is accepting these decisions with the docility that these governmental entities had hoped or expected. A group of parents in the county have been battling back against the edict, filing two separate lawsuits in state and federal courts to keep the schools open.

The federal case alleges that the shutdown order violates the due process and equal protection rights of parents and, most importantly, children. As of this writing, there has been no decision in that litigation.

If I were the judge, I’d have no problem finding in favor of the parents. Closing down schools is a random act that, unlike closing restaurants and for-profit institutions, cannot be justified under the general “well the welfare of the community trumps the economic needs of the small business owner.” Here, the science has shown that the virus does not pose a serious threat in academic settings, and the incidence of spread is statistically insignificant. In fact, until quite recently, the Centers for Disease Control had posted guidance on its website urging schools to reopen. That message was mysteriously removed under circumstances that, at this moment, have little bearing on the scientific data.

If anything, COVID-19 is spread at the school-age level by sporting events, private gatherings and other situations that put children in contact with others who are not taking the appropriate precautions. Most schools, on the other hand, have taken the precautions that are more than necessary to keep children safe and, more importantly, prevent them from infecting the adults in their circle.

But despite the science, officials are ordering children be forced back into the virtual dungeons they inhabited from March through July. It is unconscionable that these de facto oligarchs are telling parents what is best for their children, particularly where the science proves that giving those parents a choice is a legitimate alternative.

We are seeing cases of serious psychic and psychological damage being caused by these unnecessary shutdowns, with young children losing the social skills that they were just starting to develop in elementary and middle schools. We are seeing kids who are channeling the stress and anxiety of the adults around them but without the coping mechanisms that come with maturity. We are watching as young boys and girls are not only missing out on the benefits of proximity and kinship, of interaction and reaction, but are becoming fearful little vessels of apprehension.

This is wrong. And the fact that it is being done under the guise of “protecting children” and reducing the spread is as dishonest as it is reprehensible.

It is clearly not the solution for the economically disadvantaged child who doesn’t have a laptop, and whose mom and dad work two jobs to make ends meet, and will not need to get third and fourth jobs to pay for day care. It is definitely not the solution for children with learning disabilities, whom are already impacted by the isolation from friends and teachers who cannot communicate concern, knowledge and real time caring through a portal.

It is bad enough that we are turning our cities and towns into some updated version of Tombstone, where the tumbleweeds that roll through the streets bear the labels of all of the stores that have been forced to close. It is bad enough to say to small business owners, especially restauranteurs, that they are selfish if they dare complain about restrictions. It is bad enough to make people feel ashamed for wanting to celebrate a holiday with loved ones who might not be here next year.

But it’s so much worse to carry this anti-scientific virtue signaling into the classroom. The virus is invisible. Unfortunately, so is the price we will pay for this unnecessary crusade to close the schools.

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Copyright 2020 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].

A few days after the election last week, when things were still a bit murky, I made an offhand remark to some friends about what kind of hat I should crochet for the march that would be taking place the day after Joe Biden’s anticipated inauguration.

Of course, we won’t be needing any hats. There will be no throngs of women parading down the avenues of big cities like Washington D.C., New York and Philadelphia with needlework replicas of genitalia on their heads. That is so 2016, that super-spreader therapy session for pre- and post-menopausal liberal women, because the ladies are happy, happy, happy! The great p—- grabber is gone, and the blinding light of Biden’s suspiciously perfect dental work will chase away the darkness in the valley.

Biden does seem to be the winner, despite Donald Trump’s legitimate attempts to figure out whether the 600,000-vote margin in Pennsylvania melted away due to actual votes or because some deceased residents of Philadelphia rose up, like characters in the “Spoon River Anthology,” and filled out ballots. I am prepared to accept the election results, although I find the election to have a fishy, unpleasant smell to it, much like the odor which emanates from the Potomac swamp and never disappeared under Trump’s administration.

In the days following the election, as the numbers and margins changed and morphed with each passing hour, Democrats separated into two distinct camps. On the one side were those who sought harmony, peace, conciliation and kumbaya. Biden and his running mate placed themselves on that side of the blue line in the sand. They are the squishy, albeit touchingly naive ones, who think that after four years of vilifying people who don’t agree with them they can extend an olive branch.

But it’s the other camp that interests me more, the one that has no problem being open and in-your-face about its agenda. On Twitter, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led the charge by suggesting the left should make up lists of those who had supported Donald Trump, in order to make sure that history did not forget what they had done and to ensure that they were no longer in a position to cause “harm” to others.

That sentiment was echoed by others on the left, including once respected public figures like former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who said there should be a “Truth and Reconciliation” commission similar to the one established in South Africa after Apartheid ended. The obvious implication was that supporters and “enablers” of Donald Trump should be held accountable for their alleged crimes. Sen. Elizabeth Warren suggested that the Justice Department might want to set up a task force to target former Trump administration officials, and the so called “conservative” Lincoln Project tweeted out a photo of two of Trump’s election attorneys with the comment, “Let’s make them famous.”

You might say that anyone who either worked for or assisted Trump is fair game in the business and political world. A Washington Post reporter wrote a snarky article about how former Trump allies might want to update their resumes to make them more palatable for future employers. You might even think that the public harassment engaged in by those who listened to Rep. Maxine Waters is hunky dory. Having been born below the Mason Dixon line I will take a phrase from my southern ancestors (I must have some) and say, “Bless Your Heart.”

But what you cannot legitimately do is support the compilation of lists, the establishment of “commissions,” the creation of task forces and the doxxing of private individuals who legitimately believed that they were advancing political goals that – let’s be honest – were supported and shared by a large plurality of the American public. You cannot do that and pretend to be Americans. And if you are capable of deluding yourself into feeling virtuous while persecuting others, I’m thinking you were that kind of person well before Donald Trump descended that escalator six years ago.

So to those who are seeking reconciliation, good luck with that. And to those who are seeking Truth and Reconciliation commissions, you got a good look at what the #Resistance looks like when you were marching with those genitalia hats on your heads. This time, though, the #Resistance will be much better dressed.

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Copyright 2020 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].

Philadelphia often makes national news for unfortunate reasons, like bombing its own neighborhoods, rioting in its streets, pelting Santa with snowballs, and threatening the Boy Scouts with eviction from the home it built for itself.

But sometimes, good things actually do happen in and around Philadelphia, despite President Trump’s suggestion to the contrary.

Last week, Catholic Social Services of Philadelphia appeared before the Supreme Court to strike a blow for religious freedom at a time when people of faith are being targeted around the world.

Several years ago, the city of Philadelphia ended its contractual relationship with Catholic Social Services and its foster care program on the grounds that – stay tuned for the surprise – the Catholic-based program did not place foster children with same-sex couples. In fact, no same-sex couple had ever sought the services of CSS. They were apparently smarter than the advocates for the city, who were shocked that a Catholic organization would be opposed to placing children with two mothers or two fathers, in violation of the church’s precepts.

As it did when faced with adults who used the alleged plight of children to advance their own socio-political agendas, city representatives chose to terminate their contract with CSS, thereby leaving needy children without the loving, necessary care they had been receiving from the organization for many years. No one had previously complained about the policy, and it was only when a newspaper story highlighted the phantom grievance of phantom victims that the city of Philadelphia put on its rainbow-colored superhero cape and decided to defend the rights of gay and lesbian prospective foster parents who had no idea they were being discriminated against in the first place.

CSS then sued the city, choosing as its name plaintiffs two deeply devout, Catholic African American women named Sharonell Fulton and Tony Simms-Busch, alleging religious discrimination on the part of the city under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. They lost at both the district and circuit court levels before it was picked up by the Supreme Court and argued on Nov. 4.

At that hearing, the plaintiffs established the only reason the city had ended its contract with CSS was because the organization remained true to its religious principles. There was evidence that the only way that an organization could operate a foster care service in Philadelphia was to contract with the city, which had a monopoly. Therefore, the city was forcing CSS to either concede in its demands to accept same-sex couples as foster parents or be barred from providing desperately needed services to vulnerable children.

At the hearing, the attorney for the plaintiffs Lori Windham from the Becket Fund noted that “religious organizations should be free to serve the public, regardless of their beliefs. The public square is big enough to accommodate everyone who wishes to do good – and that should be especially true when it comes to taking care of children in need.”

It seems that the plaintiffs might have swayed several key justices. The one who made the most cogent and compelling observation was Justice Alito, who stated that, “If we are honest about what’s really going on here, it’s not about ensuring that same-sex couples in Philadelphia have the opportunity to be foster parents. It’s the fact the city can’t stand the message that Catholic Social Services and the archdiocese are sending by continuing to adhere to the old-fashion view about marriage.”

Same-sex couples have the right to be foster parents, if they choose. They do not, however, have the right to impose their will on an institution that has for centuries ministered to the least of these, and made sure that orphaned children would have a home, nourishment and care. Adults do not have the right to use children as proxies in their battle for equality.

Let us hope that Philadelphia, the city in which the principle of religious freedom was made manifest in our laws and character, will remember its noble roots and stop this needless discrimination against good people of faith.

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Copyright 2020 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].

I grew up understanding the sacred nature of the franchise. I didn’t need to read about female suffragettes marching for the vote, or civil rights workers facing down the KKK in the deep south during the 1960s. I had a real life hero living in my house in Havertown.

Ted Flowers was a scrappy kid from West Philadelphia who basically raised himself, having been left in foster homes by parents who weren’t ready to be parents. He went on to graduate law school, and before starting his career, Daddy joined the Lawyers United for Civil Rights and went down to Jackson, Mississippi, to help register voters.

It was 1967, and the real life Philadelphian encountered a deep south that was experienced by fictional Philadelphian Virgil Tibbs in the film “In the Heat of the Night.”

Daddy was a white Irish Yankee, but he saw what was happening to Black people below the Mason-Dixon line: Intimidation, threats, violence, death. This was what met the folks who dared exercise their then-tenuous right to vote, a right that had to be buttressed and reaffirmed in the Voting Rights Act. Daddy was there to help those folks register to vote, and then actually make it to the primaries in one piece.

My views on voting have been amplified by the clients I have worked with as an immigration lawyer. About 15 years ago, I represented an asylum applicant from Albania, who had been a poll watcher in his hometown outside of the capital Tirana. A rival political group beat him so viciously that he lost all of his teeth. He was a 22-year-old man who had to wear dentures because they had beaten his teeth out of his head. Imagine the force it takes to do that. And yet, he never regretted being there, and doing what he needed to do.

I had another client a few years later, whose family was still living in Iraq. She showed me a cell phone photo of her sister, with that famous blue stamped finger, proof that she had voted in a free election. She was so proud.

Still another client from Kenya had been the campaign manager for her brother, who ran for office as an opposition candidate to a very brutal incumbent. She had been raped because of her advocacy, and still, she continued to speak out. Voting was that important to her.

Not one of these people mailed in a vote. Not a one refused to show up in person, putting their bodies on the line, bodies that were beaten and bruised, crushed and coerced, to make that mark of citizenship, that indication that they exist as civic creatures, that powerful statement of “I matter.” Not a one.

You might say that mail-in voting didn’t exist back in the 1960s when Ted Flowers was in Mississippi, and you would likely be right. You might say that what happens in other countries is irrelevant to what is happening in the United States, and I can’t fault you there. You might say, over and over, “Pandemic!” and I would understand your fear of contagion.

But I actually don’t understand why anyone would let the most important choice they make as citizens be left up to the postal service. It’s not that I don’t trust the mail, even though I have a suspicion that games will be played on both sides of the aisle.

It’s more the fact that I keep thinking of the things my father wrote in his journal, about elderly African Americans, some with canes and some in wheelchairs, putting their bodies on the line to vote in the shadow of the KKK. It’s that I remember the photos my Albanian friend showed me, the ones taken of him at the hospital with his mangled and bloody mouth. It’s that I remember the look on the face of my Iraqi client, and her radiant smile at the memory of her sister. And it’s that I remember the defiance in the eyes of my Kenyan friend, who still carried with her the burden of her fight, and her vote.

I will be in line on Tuesday, at my polling place. I don’t care how many hours I have to wait. I want to be certain that my vote is counted. And I want to honor the people who went through the hell I don’t have to, in order to exercise their human right.

Putting a stamp on an envelope is far less than they are owed.

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Copyright 2020 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].