Right on target
When I read of Judge Tena Callahan’s brave and legally correct decision in a same-sex divorce case ("This is our new Buchmeyer decision," Dallas Voice, Oct. 9), I had exactly the same thought as the opening line in John Wright’s article: What a meaningful tribute to my recently-deceased father, U.S. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer, who struck down the Texas state sodomy law as unconstitutional 21 years before the U.S. Supreme Court reached the same legal conclusion.
And District Court Clerk Gary Fitzsimmons’ comment is right on point: Judge Callahan is arguably the braver judge because she faces re-election, while my father was appointed to his bench for life. I, for one, look forward to voting for Judge Callahan and to assisting in her next campaign in any way possible.
As Judge Buchmeyer’s daughter, I am proud to be a Dallas lawyer and proud to be a member of the Dallas GLBT community. Thanks to John Wright and the Dallas Voice for your professionalism and for your thorough news analysis. To John Wright, my warmest regards.
Pam Buchmeyer
Dallas
A victory over ignorance, hatred
Thanks to the Dallas Voice, Bishop Herman Murray is steaming mad that politicians will no longer visit him at Full Gospel Holy Temple in Oak Cliff (Letters, Dallas Voice, Oct. 2).
Go to YouTube and view his sermon this past Sunday, Oct. 11, and you’ll see that at both the day service and the night service he denounced the existence of all homosexual people. He told his audience that, "In about a year, you’ll lose your freedom to these people."
Of course, he was referring to the hate crimes bill that was signed in Congress last week. The speech by him and his grandfather, Apostle Lobias Murray, the pastor of the church, is readily available on YouTube. Everything that they said concerning gays could — arguably — be said to be hate speech.
Thanks to the Dallas Voice, we have won a battle in the long war over ignorance and hatred.
The church is located in an area where, according the The Dallas Morning News, 82 percent of all children born are born to unwed mothers; 62 percent of all adults are school dropouts; 60 percent of the males over 21 are on probation; and 63 percent of all males over 21 are unemployed.
So the church feels that the problem to tackle in each sermon is homosexuality. Go figure.
James Dunn
Dallas
LifeWalk needs more life
Maybe it was just the gloomy cold weather, or the ongoing economic gloom or merely the gloominess of chimerical hopes that a real cure is just always out of reach yet one more year running. Whatever the reason, a very palpable sense of perfect-storm ennui hung over the Sunday, Oct. 11 annual Aids Arms LifeWalk in Lee Park.
About one-third as many booths appeared to be set up from previous years — and most of those were devoted to dogs. One booth was devoted entirely to hawking nothing more life-affirming than information expounding the virtues of switching from one’s current home electricity supplier to theirs.
Where were the cheerleading drag queens, the leather daddies, the "bear" contingent and muscle twinkies in wife-beaters? Where were even the Frisbee throwers? The North Texas Infectious Disease Consultants booth was offering free Frisbees for the taking. No one was flying them. More telling still, some of the local hotels had provided oversized beach balls for the front-line marchers to swat back and forth down the crowd en route. Most marchers — disinterested to say the least — let the balls simply fall where they may; three had already bounced down into Turtle Creek within 1 minute of the march’s 1 p.m. opening salvo.
Even the LifeWalk 2009 T-shirts were uninspired — and coasting … yet again. For the third year running now, they’ve featured the same tired design of abstract people tossing orange, magenta, blue and green polka-dots (balloons?) into the air. 2006 was the last year in which the "Celebrate Life. Walk." T-shirt offered any imaginatively joyous art graphics.
When even the T-shirts have reached ennui, something is wrong.
Howard Lewis Russell
Dallas
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 16, 2009.
Dear Howard Lewis Russell,
While you cling to the actions of the failed past most of us have moved on. You can continue your walk, following the same tired contingent of losers. You walk as if somewhere on the streets lies the piece of paper with the answer you seek. If only you could see that following the same path as the one in front of you will not lead to the answer. Maybe if you all split up and walked down different streets you would find the answer. You could certainly cover more ground that way. Damned shame you don’t understand that walking around is not going to yield the answer. Guess what? The cure is not on a piece of paper laying on some street. You sir is what is wrong. Pity.
Dear James Dunn,
My guess is that you have nothing better to do with your poor pathetic life than to worry about what goes on in a church you don’t attend.
So the problem you choose to address is one that has no impact on you what-so-ever. Go figure.