From: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org (mad-mission-digest) To: mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Subject: mad-mission-digest V15 #7 Reply-To: mad-mission@smoe.org Sender: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk * If you ever wish to unsubscribe, send an email to * mad-mission-digest-request@smoe.org * with ONLY the word unsubscribe in the body of the email * . * For the latest information on Patty's tour dates, go to: * http://www.pattygriffin.net/PattyInConcertDB.php * OR * go to http://www.atorecords.com * . * PLEASE :) when you reply to this digest to send a post TO the list, * change the subject to reflect what your post is about. A subject * of Re: mad-mission-digest V8 #___ gives readers no clue * as to what your message is about. * Also, PLEASE do not quote an entire digest when you reply to the * list. Edit out anything you are not referring to. mad-mission-digest Sunday, April 29 2012 Volume 15 : Number 007 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: MM: Follow-up from 1999 (NPC) ["Bev Baird" ] Re: MM: Follow-up from 1999 (NPC) [jmphlbat@comcast.net] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:24:55 -0400 From: "Bev Baird" Subject: Re: MM: Follow-up from 1999 (NPC) Wow. I am listening to Larry on NPR right now. http://wamu.org/programs/all_things_considered/12/04/26/39_years_later_orego n_man_apologizes_to_teacher Larry, well done all around. Maybe you have set something in motion? The day you sent your first follow-up post, as I was walking to my car after work I was thinking about one of my wish-I-could-take-it-back moments. I came home that night and your email was here. I said something terrible in anger ... but I don't have the name of the person I wronged. I was a freshman in college, and definitely old enough to know better. That was over 30 years ago and it still troubles me. Thank you for giving me much to think about, and for letting me hear that I am not just a terrible person, but one like many others, who made a mistake. Bev ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:23:45 +0000 From: jmphlbat@comcast.net Subject: Re: MM: Follow-up from 1999 (NPC) Is there anyone else alive out there Murph Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry - -----Original Message----- From: "Lawrence Israelson" Sender: owner-mad-mission@smoe.org Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:55:10 To: Subject: MM: Follow-up from 1999 (NPC) There may be nobody left here who remembers or cares, but this is kinda where it all started, so... More than 12 years ago, the list had a very spirited discussion regarding anti-gay prejudice. As part of that discussion, I recounted something from my past that I had never previously shared with anybody, but that had always bothered me. A few list members at the time responded to me privately and urged me to try to find the person that I had wronged and apologize to him. It was a long time coming, but earlier this year I was able to do just that. Also, although it hadn't been my intention to "go public", a journalist helped me track down my old teacher and (with our permission) wrote a story about it that seems to have touched a nerve in thousands of people. Following are links to the current story and my original list post from 1999 (which I have also copied and pasted in case you don't want to wade through an old MM digest). Thanks for putting up with all of this non-Patty-related content. Aren't we overdue for a new release? Larry Israelson in L.A. http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2012/04/a_teacher_a_student_a nd_a_39-y.html#repete http://www.smoe.org/lists/mad-mission/v03/v03.n283 Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 11:41:24 -0700 From: L & C Israelson Subject: Re: MM: UGH, ignorant people (NPC) I didn't chime in on this issue right away because it deserves more than a dashed-off response... Rachel was absolutely right to confront this girl regarding her hateful opinions. If the girl hears it enough, and asks herself a few questions, she may eventually become more tolerant and accepting of those "different" from herself. Otherwise, for all we know she is a couple of personal setbacks and/or misfiring synapses away from planting a bomb at a gay bar. Although I never belonged to a fundamentalist church, at one point my beliefs were actually quite similar to this girl's. When I was in eighth grade (wow! 25 years ago), I had a male teacher who wore bow ties and walked and talked, well, a little funny. I can still remember the comments he wrote on one of my essays: "A+. Your command of the English language is exceptional." Everything was great, until a group of classmates approached me in the lunchroom and asked how I liked Mr. _______. When I acknowledged that he was one of my favorite teachers, I was told, "Well, then you must be a fruit just like him." At that age, I was pretty clueless sexually, but I knew damn well that I didn't want to be a "fruit," so I marched into the assistant principal's office and demanded a new teacher. I never again spoke to Mr. _______, and within a week I was transferred to another classroom for that subject. Although I thought nothing of it at the time, my actions must have hurt him terribly. I would be hard-pressed to come up with anything else I have ever done that makes me less proud. And, ironically, to this day I have no idea if Mr. ________ really was gay. As I matured, my attitudes softened but I still must have exuded some sort of ill-concealed hostility. For instance, I knew of gay co-workers through third parties, but nobody ever revealed his/her homosexuality to me directly. Finally, two incidents provoked the epiphany I needed. At this point, I may be mixing them up chronologically, but the first involved some sort of gay pride festival in a public park in Orange County. At the instigation of Rev. Wildmon, a fairly sizable group of anti-gay protesters gathered across the street and proceeded to shower the festival-goers with spit and epithets, not to mention a few rocks and bottles. I asked myself, if Jesus Himself walked upon this scene, with which group would He stand? Some time later, actor Dick Sargent (the second Darrin on "Bewitched") was near death, I believe due to AIDS-related complications. I saw a TV interview with the Rev. Fred Phelps, a minister from the Kansas City area. He announced his intention to picket Sargent's funeral to (I'm paraphrasing) call attention to how God exacts his vengeance from the immoral. During this interview, Phelps said, "You can't preach the true meaning of the Bible without preaching hate." I can be pretty oblivious at times, but I knew there was no way the God I believe in could make some people homosexual and then expect everybody else to despise them. Since then, I have consistently expressed, with both voice and pen, the following: if someone feels about a person of the same gender the way that I feel about my wife, then that is something that ought to be celebrated rather than condemned. And, to all those I shunned and snickered at for even the appearance of being gay, I am deeply and truly sorry. Larry I in LA

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