The house I live in, the home of liberty … this is what America once meant to me
Yesterday, when The Society published the moving story of Hurricane hero Joe Dore leaving his job at the local store – a job he had held for 30 years – I only felt it would do good. Maybe help a little man who rescues animals and has helped many people in the town of Winnie in Texas.
I didn’t earn money from this story, never intended to.
However, I am now the lone star in the troubled dark hearts of some people who live there who want me to remove this sentence from the story …
This is the offending statement: “Despite being bisexual – something said to be sneered at by many Trumpists in the Lone Star State – Joe has won massive respect from the residents of Winnie.”
I see it as a fair statement of opinion grown out of years of writing and Broadcasting on The Donald … however, as a writer, journalist and cable TV presenter, it appears I am not allowed to have an opinion, unless that opinion is that Donald Trump is a good and honest man.
There are many in this world who would not agree with that view.
Let’s look back at the summer of 2020 which was, in some ways, somewhere over the rainbow for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in America.
The Supreme Court had came up with a decision giving ‘workplace protections’ for LGBGT people.
This followed the fifth anniversary of the high court’s ruling on marriage equality.
However, President Trump was silent throughout what could have been a pot of gold for those in America with alternative life-styles. He faced it all with his boy-ly quiff and turned-down mouth, macho and manly. Pin-up boy for those who work with their backs to the sun.
But in that summer, I can find no tweet from Trump about Pride Month, even though aides had apparently said it might be a good idea.
However, I can find the Trump administration sliced a regulation by the Obama administration in 2016 to mandate health care as a civil right for transgender patients under the Affordable Care Act.
Do you know, one thing America has always meant to me, is Democracy. The right to speak your mind out.
No more though, not when those who live with alligators, floods and hurricanes – tough to a man and a woman – decide to stand up to protect one of their own, one who is a bit different from them, and an itinerant writer comes along to praise what they are doing and not to bury the man of their political dreams
This is the offending article:
This is a song about democracy in America, a song by Frank Sinatra first and then by Paul Robeson… the black and the white of the land of the free …
These are the lyrics:
What is America to me?
A name, a map or a flag I see,
A certain word, “Democracy”,
What is America to me?
The house I live in,
The friends that I have found,
The folks beyond the railroad
and the people all around,
The worker and the farmer,
the sailor on the sea,
The men who built this country,
that’s America to me.
The words of old Abe Lincoln,
of Jefferson and Paine,
of Washington and Jackson
and the tasks that still remain.
The little bridge at Concord,
where Freedom’s Fight began,
of Gettysburg and Midway
and the story of Bataan.
The house I live in,
my neighbors White and Black,
the people who just came here
or from generations back,
the town hall and the soapbox,
the torch of Liberty,
a home for all God’s children,
that’s America to me.
The house I live in,
the goodness everywhere,
a land of wealth and beauty
with enough for all to share.
A house that we call “Freedom”,
the home of Liberty,
but especially the people,
that’s America to me.
But especially the people–that’s
the true America…
#democracy #USA #winnie #texas #lonestar #joedore #franksinatra #paulrobeson #trump