The City of Fairmont, West Virginia, is a place that 20,000 call home. It’s in Marion County, located on I-79, between two larger cities, Morgantown and Clarksburg. I practiced law in Fairmont for 38 years before I became a prosecutor.
The City of Fairmont just passed a “Human Rights Commission” ordinance, which has gathered lots of press and discussion on social media attention.
The HRC Ordinance is extraordinarily weak. It lacks any sort of real power. It’s sole strength is moral suasion, and what is called “Jawboning,” or convincing people to do what other’s think they should do. That goes back to President Hoover. President Johnson loved the term and used it.
The question was - and is - (1) do we need a Human Rights Commission on a local level and (2) will it be effective.
If you expect a definitive answer in these Dispatches, sorry, you’re looking in the wrong place. MY answer is (1) to create, what the heck, we might as well try it, because it would be tough to screw up human dignity any more than we’re doing and (2) whether effective, not in any appreciable fashion over the short term.
Had I continued on the Fairmont City Council, I would have had to have voted on it. I probably would have voted Yes. It’s not often that you can vote on something that the downside is that what you’re trying will merely be useless. [See Note 1 for my story of the shortest political career in Fairmont history.]
Let’s start with the Mission assigned to the HRC: “. . . [T]o encourage and endeavor to bring about mutual understanding and respect among all persons and encourage and endeavor to safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to be free from all forms of discrimination[,] whether by virtue of race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, blindness or handicap.”
WOW. That’s some goal. It’s a worthy meal, like serving a tiger steak. The catch is, first you have to catch the tiger.
The HRC’s mission is what God, Jehovah, Allah, Zeus, Odin, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, The Force, The Universe, and Congress have been trying to do since the beginning of time. (OK, Congress wasn’t really trying - They realized that it was very unlikely. Instead, they adopted the Viking Motto: “I’ve got mine.”)
The fact that so far, amity and understanding has never worked doesn’t mean that it’s stupid or invalid, just that it’s unlikely to happen to humans. But, didn’t Robert Browning say (in Andrea del Sarto,) “Ah, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
Oh, a “Man’s reach”? Oops. [See Note 2.]
In 1978, I became the Chairman of the first Fairmont Human Rights Commission. The first HRC stopped working in the 1990's, perhaps because that ordinance was unwieldy, full of twists and turns, and didn’t apply to lots of people. Oh, and in retrospect, some of the provisions (e.g., exclusiveness of the remedies - if you went with the original HRC and they ruled against you, you were done) are unconstitutional. It also could have secret hearings and could handily escape Freedom of Information requests. But it could convene hearings and make weighty pronouncements. Harrumph, harrumph.
Oddly, “human rights” was in style in 1978, and it received almost no press. Social media did not yet exist, so discussion was limited to word-of-mouth and the press. That didn’t that a few folks didn’t like it. The City Manager at the time (I forget his name) called the first HRC “a bunch of bomb-throwers.”
So why bother with it now?
Look, we discriminate all the time. There are four restaurants within easy walking distance of the Courthouse. If I go out for lunch, I’ll eat at Moe’s, hands down. He makes a good bowl of chili. I discriminate against the vanilla diner, the Mexican place and the Chinese place. Is that because I’m repulsed by Americanism, Mexicans and Chinese? Or is it because I favor the sons (and daughters) of Italy. (I knew Moe’s father - He was an immigrant from Italy and established a thriving law practice in Barbour County.) To some people, I’m obviously a pro-Italian bigot. No one will EVER convince them otherwise. Some people just cannot handle that I like chili, Moe’s style.
We discriminate in what cars we drive, what town we live in, what colors we wear, what tattoos we get, ad nauseum. Some of the time, we choose stuff which MAY be based on race, religion, etc. If I get a Confederate Battle Flag tattoo, first it’s my business, not yours. I can be driven by racism, a celebration of history or because I think it’s a nice flag. If I tell you were to tell you WHY, you will not believe me because that’s the sort of thing you - and everyone else - has already made up her mind about. (By the way, my only tattoo is Christian. Like any symbol, that’s driven by the First Amendment.)
But we as a society DO discriminate partly on the wrong reasons, on illogical reasons. But that discrimination (1) is hard to prove and (2) won’t change until people’s minds change. The mind has to DECIDE that the barber’s sexual preference doesn’t affect how she can cut hair and national origin doesn’t (usually) mean that you blow stuff up. And then we need to differentiate amongst rational discrimination based on classification from silly reasons. Foreigners who talk jihad shouldn’t get in the country. A blind person shouldn’t get a pilot’s license.
As with everything, the devil’s in the details. If we try to make up rules for everything, the day after tomorrow a situation will arise not covered by the rules. Common sense will take a vacation and everyone will try to fit it within a rule that doesn’t apply.
It seems to take some sort of moral elevation or evolution to discriminate rationally. We’re far from that.
So, will this little city HRC be effective?
Oddly enough, it’s strength is that the ordinance renders it powerless. The new HRC cannot force anyone to do anything. The only affirmative duty it imposes is that the City cannot contract with someone who discriminates based on race, blah, blah, but that already illegal under a host of other laws.
Hmmmm - I’ve just come upon a personal example of the power of thinking things through. As I started this post, I would have said, nope, the HRC won’t be effective. Now, an hour later, I’m not so sure. It depends on who is appointed to the HRC. I’m really not sure who to appoint.
But I have an opinion about who NOT to appoint:
- People who already know exactly what the problems are.
- People who know the answers and cannot believe that we don’t see it.
- People who hide their feeling behind the cover of political correctness.
- People who hide their feelings behind the delusion of political INcorrectness.
- Most people who say, hey, I’d be a good member (as opposed to a faithful member or a thoughtful member).
- People who think it will be easy.
The new HRC’s strength is it’s powerlessness. The members can talk. They can advertise. They can cajole. In other words, they can join the public discussion. In doing so, they can be a part of the solution. Or part of the problem - It’s their choice what messages they deliver and how effective the message will be.
Were I on the commission, I would start by patiently listening. Patience is necessary because everyone needs to get stupid ideas off his chest to make room for thoughtful ideas. If you think that American society will live or die based on what bathroom people use or whether we fly the “Stars & Bars,” that’s a stupid idea. But people have stupid ideas and they need to utter them a while before they will start thinking. In fact, I’d be prepared to patiently listen for a couple of years before thought kicks in.
Then, we MIGHT be prepared to discard what we already “know” and start to think rationally. Oh, and the members will be made up of the larger pitiful group called “humanity,” so they’ll have to spout stupid stuff, too.
Then, the commission needs to be ready to make lots of mistakes, go down lots of dead ends and learn from them. Ideally, what will the answer be? Beats me. Maybe I could qualify as dumb enough to be a faithful or thoughtful commissioner, but if I said I was qualified, I’d automatically (by my rules) disqualify myself.
But this I do know: What the members of the new commission cannot do is bring about an instant change in the human heart. So be ready for the long haul or be ready to be disappointed.
Mizpah!
Note 1: Yes, I was an active member of the City Council in Fairmont - for less than 5 hours. I was appointed on a Tuesday night about 6:30 PM. I was feeling great. At 11:00 that night, I had a stroke and was unable to return to work for three months. So my political career is a mere speck in the dustbin of history, far less than identifying who was president under the Article of Confederation.
Oh, I recovered great from the stroke. I can fight twice my weight in wildcats now.
Note 2: I wonder what the supporters of the HRC would say about Browning. The poem is quite sexist. It included the lines, “Your soft hand is a woman of itself / And mine the man’s bared breast shw crawls inside.” Does that render any helpful opinion void? Does the fact that he lived in a sexist time count? Should we ignore everything that George Washington or Thomas Jefferson said because they were sexist slaveholders? You decide. And lots of luck.
Hey, it works for Willie Nelson - He crooned a memorable song urging mothers not to let their babies grow up to be cowboys. Certainly, there are fewer cowboys today.
He sings,
“Cowboys ain't easy to love and they're harder to hold.
They'd rather give you a song then diamonds or gold.
Lonestar belt buckles and old faded Levi's and each night begins a new day.
If you don't understand him and he don't die young.
He'll probably just ride away.”
And then it gets worse.
So yes, by Golly, Willie has convinced this old Buckeroo to discourage my son from becoming a cowboy.
(Oh, he’s already a firefighter-paramedic. He’s lost to the world of 9 - 5 easy work.)
But Willie needs to update the lyrics to address a new set of mama’s. Nothing else seems to be working, so maybe a song will dissuade impressionable young parents from smoking methamphetamine and raping young children. (If the subjects too raw, move on. It won’t go away, but if you’re lucky, you’ll only blindly support the issue by paying taxes and bitching about why “somebody won’t do something.”)
There was a newpaper article in the Exponent-Telegram today which quotes my boss as saying we’ve file 75 abuse & neglect child petitions already this year. The county has 17,000 people. Um, sorry you were in Court all day Friday, Thomas. We’re up to 80 - it was a busy day. We need to talk in the morning.)
(One of these days real soon, I’ll tell you how this ol’ gunslinger defense lawyer ended up on the Lone Ranger’s side of the law. I do abuse & neglect and crimes against children. There is plenty to keep me busy. At the end of a case, I look all solemn, but I admit, my heart does a little zippidee-do-dah when the baliff takes into custody a child molester.)
I’m absolutely not fooling when I tell you that half of abuse & neglect cases are based on the parents use of drugs. Around here, it’s usually methamphetamine which it pretty easy to tell - It rots your teeth, covers you with sores like a leper, you lose massive amounts of weight and you forget that you have kids. Oh, we do have the heroin here and pain pills there, together with the “treatment meds,” buphrenorphine, but meth is our big deal now.
Do you remember how your parents watched you every minute and you could get away with anything? And if you were away from the house and smoked a cigarette, a well-intentioned (ho-ho) neighbor ratted you out before you got home?
There’s less of that which goes on now. In the last year, I’ve had 2 year olds go exploring on a farm (including one that had an unprotected farm pond), 4 year olds take their odd assortment of toys in a wagon on a BUSY highway because they were hungry. I’ve seen multiple kids left with drug-addicted babysitters, some of whom appear on the sex-abuser lists. Those are the high points, just some examples.
Well, somebody ought to do something. Harrumph. Harrumph, I say. (Psssst - Hey, Governor - the freeze in state hiring and the across-the-board budget cuts are doing wonders for our work with children. Nice going.)
Oh, and the title mentions having sex with children. Another quarter of our Abuse & Neglect cases are sexual. Oh boy, does it happen. I know that you don’t believe that it happens in your nice neighborhood. After all – A child molester doesn’t bring the kid out on the front steps and abuse him or her or both him and her there. By and large, they are warped, they’re not stupid. And then after the abuse, after the damage is done, they do additional damage by making up all kinds of BAD THINGS that will happen to the kid and the family if he or she tells. Then, the kid sits in a private hell for 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 years before s/he reveals. And then the defenders do what they are supposed to do - cast doubt because it’s not a fresh complaint. If only the children knew that your average child molester (usually a man) is a screwed-up giant pussy who’s afraid of his own shadow.
And the saddest part is, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Mizpah!
Rev. Joel Osteen and his megachurch are getting a lot of noise about not opening the church during the Hurricane Harvey flooding in Houston.
I don’t really care for Joel Osteen. I have no reason to hope that something bad happens to him. If he were coming down the street, I’d greet him like I greet everybody. But if he were coming down the sidewalk on the other side, I wouldn’t bother crossing the street just to meet him.
It’s that smile. In the original Star Trek, a Klingon commander said he didn’t trust anybody who smiles that much.
And it’s that “prosperity gospel,” which seems a bit shaky scripturally. (1) It seems rather self-serving that God wants me to have all this money. And disappointing when it doesn’t work.
And now the good Reverend is getting heat for not opening up his “megachurch” in Houston for victims of Hurricane Harvey.(2)
The internet is aflame. Anyway, that’s what everyone says. There was a cute, catchy article in the Washington that the only thing that the megachurch shelters is people from paying taxes. Whether that’s accurate is not nearly so important than I didn’t think of that line.
I have two concerns about the criticism.
First, have the noisemakers done anything other than make noise against Osteen?
It’s awfully easy to say “You should be doing thus-and-so.” In this case, open up the church. How many people does the Washington Post house in an emergency? What about the last sub-zero day in Washington, how many folks slept on cots in the newsroom? How about us as indivduals? The Red Cross is accepting donations. Wouldn’t it be more honest to criticize Osteen only after you pitch the ARC10 bucks?
Second, what resources does the church actually have?
Well, there’s money of course. Picking on someone rich ignores the significance of the Widow’s Mite. From each a portion is expected and fair - but from everyone in accordance with their means.
There’s the “megachurch” building. What’s shown on TV is HUGE - theater seating for maybe 10,000 adoring church members. It’s got to be 150,000 square feet. Couldn’t you store refugees in there?
Well, it’s not like a warehouse. It’s REALLY high and unless they’re going to erect scaffolding, only the lower 7 feet of the floor plan can be used. What is there? Well, it’s 2/3 filled up with theater seating for maybe 10,000 adoring church member. Look, listening to The Sound of Music in a theater seat is bad enough. Try living there.
There’s the rest of the building. Never been there. I assume it has some purpose which in many cases would be inconsistent with housing refugees. Sorta like the newsroom at the Washington Post.
What resources other than space would the church (or the Washington Post or your house) have to provide?
Water - To drink, for sanitation, at least one gallon per person per day. Water, normally no problem. Uh-oh, severe flooding shuts the water service down. So you depend on what you have stored and what you can get by truck. For every thousand people you house, you have to have 4-1/6 tons of water every day.
Food - 1500 calories per person per day, with some special needs (e.g., diabetics) thrown into the mix. There will be no electricity, so it has to be food that will withstand room temperatures for long periods. It also has to be refreshed from time to time, even freeze-dried items. The people in the Greenbrier in West Virginia - where the emergency congressional bunker was located - knew that when items from cans started showing up in the employee’s kitchens that the Government was replacing the emergency food supply.
Electricity? We got along for a 100,000 years without electricity. But we are so used to being at the end of (fragile) power grid, when the electric goes off, we freak.
We have an example for how a facility roughly like the big church works for a hurricane, Hurricane Katrina. The City housed people in the Superdome, the NFL stadium. The toilets quit working, they ran out of water and food was scarce. Also, kids were going crazy because their electric toys to which they were addicted didn’t work.
I wonder if the Osteen church has buses? I note below that a lot of people gambled that the storm wouldn’t be as bad and they lost. The truly poor couldn’t gamble. Had they had a “let’s get the hell out of here” mentality, they didn’t have the means. So I can see churches, bus companies, RV owners, van owners having a moral duty to help people who are sufficiently cautious to get out of Dodge.
To do emergency planning, you have to do it before the emergency. And then, you have to have ONE person/heirarchy making decisions. In the 1985 West Virginia Floods, the State emergency people were ineffective, until Gov. Moore stepped in and ran it like a King.
In a widespread emergency, someone needs to activate the specific-type emergency plan for the region and extend it however far geographically as it needs to go. (Wow, this is dry stuff. Emergency planning is dry. Until the hurricane. Or the TRULY sudden emergency, an earthquake.)
After all, a disaster is not defined as something which has to kill a lot of people. It’s an emergency that the normal response assets in a community cannot deal with. A serious school bus wreck in Barbour County, West Virginia, would be a disaster. We don’t have enough rescue companies or ambulances to respond and take care of everyone. The same school bus wreck in New York City would be a bad school bus wreck, not a disaster. The World Trade Center was a disaster.
By the way, Flight 93 wasn’t a disaster. The people in Flight 93 were killed on impact. That’s a great big huge tragedy. It’s not a disaster. A few fire trucks, police to mark off the scene, and the NTSB are all that they needed.
Houston is a disaster, no doubt. But don’t go picking on one megachurch as being the bad guy. In helping others, most of us are bad guys.
(1) I probably approach about the mean among the readers, so don’t take the “shaky scripturally” as the voice of authority.
(2) I hesitate a little to use “victims” about everybody inconvenienced. What some of them were are people who miscalculated that a hurricane that they knew 2 days in advance was coming with a lot of rain. It’s not like an earthquake where one minute you’re normal and the next minute things have gone to hell.
