It was a depressing Tuesday across the country, including here in Texas, where we have been working our tails off to elect Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte. It would be easy to wallow in despair or run around hair on fire after our Election Day losses, but much better to find inspiration, look forward, and get in the mood for the next election. Long haul and what-not. At the end of her concession speech, Wendy had this to say:
I will leave you tonight with words from Jacob Riis. He's a twentieth-century muckraker who said that, "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know that it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before." My friends, keep believing with me. Keep fighting with me. Keep hammering with me, and in the end, we will win.
Even with substantial losses on Tuesday, I find inspiration in local people who toil daily in places many people haven't heard of, hammering away even when it seems hopeless. I read an article
in the Texas Observer recently about one such person, and I thought it appropriate to highlight her this week. Follow me below the fold...
But First, A Word From Our Sponsor:
Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top™ to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top™ to pop up in diaries posts around Daily Kos.
Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist poster reserves the right to edit all content.
Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...
|
For its size, Texas only has six openly LGBT public officials on the municipal level, three of which are in Houston (you already know about Mayor Annise Parker, I'm sure). One of the six is Aja Edwards, a 33-year-old openly lesbian city council member in New Braunfels, a small city of about 60,000 between Austin and San Antonio. Life as an out elected official isn't made easier by the reality that New Braunfels is a Tea Party stronghold. But that isn't stopping her from advocating on behalf of the city's LGBT community, especially youth. Edwards, after all, was once an LGBT youth in New Braunfels. More on her backstory from the Observer:
Aja Edwards says she dated girls as a teenager, but in conservative New Braunfels, it was always discreet and she didn’t really know what it meant.
“Growing up here in high school, I watched several people get the tar beat out of them and go to ICU for being gay, and I was not about to do that,” Edwards said.
After college, Edwards returned to her hometown and got married. Then, after a divorce, she came out as gay eight months ago.
“Over the past few years, I finally found myself and I had the courage to leave a pretty bad marriage, and I did a lot of self-analysis and realized I don’t even like guys, so why am I doing this?” she said.
Edwards, who owns a successful real estate business in town, was elected a year and a half ago, before her divorce and coming-out. And she did not face a huge backlash--her connections and community involvement probably helped on this front. She has not faced too much resistance in the city council, either:
There’s just been a couple haters, but overall my fellow council members and city staff individually have come up to me and either voiced their support or just said that, "Hey, we don’t care."
Hey, it's 2014, and things are changing for LGBT people, even in New Braunfels. So, faced with little backlash and in a position with which she can possibly make a difference in a conservative city, Edwards decided to be a voice for the New Braunfels LGBT community. She started by launching
LGBT NB on Facebook in October, meant to be a community-building tool for LGBT and allied people who are feeling alone. According to the
Observer, it has grown to almost 200 people, which is not unimpressive. The group's description:
A safe, welcoming place for the LGBT community and straight allies in New Braunfels to come together and share struggles, successes, support each other, and help NB move towards inclusion and embrace diversity.
More backlash came, however, when Edwards publicized her plans to work on resources for LGBT youth to a Facebook group called
Moms of New Braunfels. Her post, which can no longer be seen on the group's page:
Hi moms! I’m in the beginning stages of working on some programs and resources for LGBT youth in NB. If you are a mom of a child who is out or the mom of a child who might be struggling with sexual or gender identity issues, please PM or comment here. I’m looking to use these parents and kids as a research panel to see what kinds of programs might be needed. Thanks!
Reaction was mixed, but the post drew some nasty comments:
Anyone else have a problem with this? Get out of city council if you want to promote LGBT issues in NB. Agree? for (sic) Disagree?
She was married with step children and after becoming elected she’s divorced and gay… Seems as shady as any politician. I believe change starts in small government such as city council, well I don’t want someone representing the city when she can vote and truly represent who she truly is.
According to the
Observer story, the backlash spread to another Facebook group called New Braunfels Political Moms, where the administrator denies that the negative reaction had anything to do with Edwards' sexual orientation. They're just worried about New Braunfels funding such LGBT-supportive programs. Horror of horrors! Said administrator Michele Barns to the
Observer:
I do not care that she is gay – like I told her. I’m all for helping those who need it, but done with private funds. … The use of funds is all that I was concerned about. (some have other issues with her – and its their right to have those issues) As for me personally, what she does in her free time is her business.
For her part, Edwards has spoken up about the controversy in the comments section of an article on the topic
in the alternative TX Citizen:
To those who don't like that I'm gay, that's your prerogative. To those who legitimately wanted to know if I was using public funds for a support group, that was a totally fine question to ask and it was easily answered. To those who feel duped because they voted for me and would have never voted for a homosexual person, sorry I guess? Yes, at the time I ran, I was married to a man and raised his 3 kids for 7 years. Not to air my dirty laundry, but it was not a happy marriage and I had to get out. But you divorce husbands, you don't divorce kids. I am still in very close contact with the 2 older ones and see the younger one as much as allowed. They all still love me and I love them with all my heart. Unless you have been close to someone who has struggled with LGBT issues, it's just too challenging to explain how someone waits until their 30's to finally live their own life for themselves. My hope, and perhaps it's Pollyanna of me, is that people voted for me for what good I could do for our community and not who I date/marry. I'm still me. I'm still the servant leader who is putting into practice the issues I voiced in my campaign. I'm just a human trying to help other humans. I chose to focus my personal efforts right now on LGBT humans.
And she's not backing down on this issue. Inspired by her own experience as a lesbian youth in New Braunfels, Edwards is pushing forward on behalf of LGBT youth, who are among the most vulnerable in the community yet have no place to turn. In addition, she is considering the introduction of an LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination ordinance, which is sure to spark a fight (we couldn't even pass one in Houston without controversy).
Edwards is up for reelection in 2016, and it remains to be seen how much of an impact she is going to have and if she'll be able to retain her seat as an out lesbian. In the meantime, she has a platform and a voice, and she's using both. Good for her, and LGBT people in New Braunfels are certainly fortunate to have her. These kinds of local fights really matter, and I'm inspired by people like Edwards who keep hammering away in the face of intimidating opposition.
TOP COMMENTS
November 7, 2014
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU
when you find that proficient comment.
From peregrine kate:
In Shaun King's diary today about an appallingly racist news story out of Minneapolis (in which the mayor was accused of trading gang signs with a young black "hoodlum"--their representation, not mine) Calvino Partigiani supplied the perfect visual demonstrating the long, long tradition of gang signs in Italy.
From greenbird:
Really. What can I possibly say? annieli is unsurpassed. From Hunter's diary Republican who claims Obama is possessed by demons elected to Colorado House.
From JG in MD:
This quote supplied by Heart of the Rockies is right on the money for those of us who just can't quite make it through thickets of excess words.
From BeninSC:
Flagged by tarkangi, this comment by NCTim is simply an embedded YouTube song, but see if it does not pick up your mood!
Flagged by indie17 (with qualification and dialogue!), this comment by LeMoJoust makes constructive suggestions.
From your diarist, Chrislove:
In Shaun King's diary about #pointergate, Catte Nappe posts a hilarious tweet underscoring the absurdity of Minneapolis' KSTP TV's racism-laced attack on the mayor.
|
TOP PHOTOS
November 6, 2014
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
|