Longfellow published the poem quoted in Cohen’s song in 1849, another bad divided era of American history. We survived the inevitable conflict that was brewing then, and if we have the same courage and dedication, we’ll survive this one as well. (Hopefully with less bloodshed, since we’ve got that earlier example to remind us.)
From the Washington Post, “Sharice Davids, who sees past discrimination as her asset, could become the first gay Native American in Congress”:
… If elected in November, she would be the first gay Native American to claim a seat in the Capitol’s chambers. She would also become the first openly gay person to represent Kansas in federal office and possibly one of the first two Native American women to enter Congress. Deb Haaland, a Democratic nominee in New Mexico, is a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe; Davids is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin.
The history-making potential of Davids’s candidacy is not the focal point of her pitch to voters. After all, this is Kansas, where only a slim majority of people said they supported same-sex marriage in polling conducted last year.
“I definitely think there are quite a few people who are excited about that, but the thing I hear more often is that people are excited about electing someone who just has a shared experience,” Davids, 38, said, still basking in her victory in last week’s six-way primary…
Enumerating the experiences she shares with Kansans, Davids described being raised by a single mother, being first in her family to attend university, starting out at community college and having to work while in school, whether as a carhop at a Sonic Drive-In or as a bartender at a Marriott.
At first, she didn’t even note her sexual orientation — the reason, said Brett Hoedl, chairman of the Kansas City Metro chapter of Equality Kansas, that so many gay voters placed their trust in her.
“It’s one thing to fight for someone else’s rights versus having someone who has experienced discrimination or experienced the issues that the LGBT community has faced,” Hoedl said. This desire, to have someone of your identity representing you, is driving a surge of gay candidates seeking office this year, just as it’s driving a surge of female and Muslim candidates, he said. “When you look at the rhetoric coming out of this administration, and some of the policies getting rolled back,” he said, “there’s a need to actually have these folks in office.”…
At the beginning of the year, when Davids looked at the slate of candidates vying to take on Yoder — a fellow attorney who was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives in 2002, the same year he earned his law degree — she wasn’t satisfied, she said. There was no woman in the race, for one. “I remember looking around and thinking, ‘who is a strong woman who could get into this race?’ I felt like since I was asking the question, I should be part of the solution.”…