Baby owl communication

Watch Boulder County, Colorado Sheriff's Deputy communicate with a baby owl in July 2015.  This blog was named after four baby owls on a vine in trees next to our home in St. Augustine, Florida, whom I encountered in 2012 -- we hung out, regarding each other, for some 20 minutes from a short distance away.  Precious creatures.  Give a hoot -- don't pollute!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J3lPssz1Ms

July 11, 1983: Al Gore's Mercury Pollution Hearing in Oak Ridge, Tennessee -- Largest Mercury Pollution Event in World History (4.2 Million Pounds)

July 11, 1983 was a fun day in American history. If Hollywood made a film and asked about music, I would suggest, "The times they are a-changin," and "the world stood upside down" (played when Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington). 32 years ago this afternoon, shortly after lunch, I was in the Oak Ridge Museum of Atomic Energy auditorium, on stage. I was testifying in the heart of East Tennessee's Oak Ridge Oligarchy of Atomic Blunderers: I was testifying before then-Reps. Al Gore, Jr. and Marilyn Lloyd about the recently-declassified Oak Ridge Y-12 Nuclear Weapon Plant mercury pollution. Workers were forbidden to talk about health problems, mercury was promiscuously consumed and recklessly emitted, a scientist was fired for taking "unauthorized soil samples" and asking questions, and the 1977 Elwood inventory report was stamped "Business confidential" by Union Carbide (later perpetuator thousands of poisoning deaths and injuries in Bhopal, India). That's the way it was, until our tiny Appalachian Observer weekly newspaper's FOIA and declassification request was granted by DOE on May 17, 1983. Gore swore in all the witnesses, conducting an investigative hearing. Yet no one ever went to prison or jail for even a day for putting 4.2 million pounds of mercury into local creeks and groundwater, and into workers’ lungs and brains, without signs, fences, respirators, warnings or basic protections. Half the free world’s mercury was in Oak Ridge: Union Carbide and the Atomic Energy Commission and successor agencies “LOST” 10% OF IT. Years after the hearings and billions were spent on cleanup, mercury levels are rising. Read all about it, here.

Words to Live By: Sir Thomas Winton (who helped save and free 669 Czech Jewish children from certain death in 1939 and told no one for 50 years, until his wife found his scrapbooks)

"I work on the motto that if something's not impossible, there must be a way to do it."

Ed on Gays and the Supreme Court, interviewed by Derek Hankerson for FirstCoast.TV

RAINBOW NATION: SUPREME COURT RECOGNIZES GAY MARRIAGE

Ed interviewed by Derek Boyd Hankerson on FirstCoast.tv re: Gay marriage decision

EDWARD A SLAVIN

(Photo credit: Historic City News)

By Ed Slavin

(c) Copyright Ed Slavin 2015, All Rights Reserved

“Joy cometh in the morning,” the scripture says.  The morning of June 26 is now triply historic,  as exemplified by the Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision this morning, and two Supreme Court decisions the same morning in June 2013, and recognizing marriage equality and equal justice under law, and another Supreme Court decision on the same morning in 2003, overturning Texas' anti-Gay "sodomy" law.

It's morning in America.

Thanks to Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the United States Supreme Court today recognized the Constitutional right to Gay Marriage.  Their majority opinion stated, ""the challenged laws burden the liberty of same-sex couples, and it must be further acknowledged that they abridge central precepts of equality. Here the marriage laws enforced by the respondents are in essence unequal: same-sex couples are denied all the benefits afforded to opposite-sex couples and are barred from exercising a fundamental right. Especially against a long history of disapproval of their relationships, this denial to same-sex couples of the right to marry works a grave and continuing harm. The imposition of this disability on gays and lesbians serves to disrespect and subordinate them. And the Equal Protection Clause, like the Due Process Clause, prohibits this unjustified infringement of the fundamental right to marry." The Court held, "No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia attacks the majority's "mummeries," "hubris," "pretentious," "egotistic" "judicial Putsch," and "straining-to-be-memorable passages," indulging in fulsome Freudian slips when he scorns the "naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power."  Scalia attacks our American Bar Association, stating, "the predominant attitude of tall-building lawyers with respect to the questions presented in these cases is suggested by the fact that the American Bar Association deemed it in accord with the wishes of its members to file a brief in support of" Gay marriage.  Scalia mocks the opening line of the majority opinion by concluding that if asked to include such language in an opinion as the price of a fifth vote": "I would hide my head in a bag," opining that "The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."

 In dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts ululates, quotes dictionaries and caterwauls, "the Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?"

We are the United States of America, now joining some 23 other countries recognizing a right to Gay marriage, rejecting homophobia as belonging in the dustbins of history.  We are not "Bushmen, Chinese, Carthaginians or Aztecs," Chief Justice Roberts, and this is no "fortune cookie," Justice Scalia.

I've been waiting for this day since 1974, when I was a freshman at Georgetown University. My improbable Gay American life begins anew today. I did not “come out” until I was 31, had graduated law school and completed a judicial clerkship at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C.

I was “afraid, very afraid.”

It was a time when Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning (GLBTQ) people were routinely killed, expelled, fired, evicted and even arrested, with the living enduring depression, suicide and addictions as a result of society's group hatred. I did not hear any school or church or government authority figure of any kind say one positive supportive word about Gays, either individually or as a group, until my freshman year at Georgetown, when, about five or ten days after we moved in, one of my two resident assistants on New North Hall, P. Michael Nugent, rebutted what another freshman said about "queers" -- a senior at the time, Mike Nugent earnestly and effortlessly pointed out that a prominent investigative reporter was Gay, and that being Gay was okay and nothing to disrespect or disdain.

But generally, in those decades: Hate ruled our world.

Gays lived in fear, in the closet, afraid of “detection, rejection and infection” (and that was before AIDS).

After all, thousands of Gays and Lesbians were fired on President Eisenhower's orders.

Those of us GLBT people under 40 years of age may have difficulty appreciating what a sea change this decision is in our country.  Why? Because they're much more tolerant than earlier generations, and more accepting of diversity.

 “Queers don't have constitutional rights!” That's emphatically what our courts said until 2003, only ten years ago when our United States Supreme Court voted 6-3 to invalidate Texas' sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas.  But as Justice Anthony Kennedy said in today's 5-4 decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, "Outlaw to outcast may be a step forward, but it does not achieve the full promise of liberty."

“Queers don't have constitutional rights!”: That's an exact quote from Anderson County, Tennessee Chancery Court Clerk and Master Forrest M. Bridges in 1983, referring to me, and Knoxville attorney Herbert Moncier's filing of my federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Oak Ridge Tennessee for retaliatory false arrest. (Named for KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest, the late racist homophobe Forrest Bridges was once indicted for receiving payments for a no-show job from John Marshall Purdy, Anderson County Clerk, who committed suicide in 1979. He bore malice to my publisher, the DA and me.)

Forgive him. The Supreme Court in June 1986 held that states could criminalize Gay sex, with Chief Justice Warren Burger writing the majority ruling, holding anti-Gay prejudice “has ancient roots” (so does every other prejudice).

Justice Byron White rubbed it in when he actually wrote that to assert Gay rights under our Constitution was “at best facetious.”

When Hardwick v. Bowers was decided, I was in Memphis, studying for the Tennessee Bar Exam, and was deeply depressed at those harsh words in that erroneous holding (the sequela of vote-switching conservative Justice Lewis F. Powell falsely believing he had “never met a homosexual,” when he already had several Gay law clerks at the time).

Two 2013 landmark Supreme Court Gay marriage decisions roundly reject bigotry. The Supreme Court decisions rightly agree with Justice Antonin Scalia, who in 2003, in dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court decision decriminalizing consensual sodomy, declared that it would lead to Gay marriage. Thank you for pointing out what indeed had to happen, and it happened yet again today.

And yes, Mr. Justice Scalia, our Constitution IS a “living document” and the reason I know that is my Memphis State University Constitutional and Civil Rights professors (Claude Coffman, former USDA Assistant General Counsel and Mississippi Law Review Editor and Barbara Kritchevsky, an “out” lesbian who taught me legal writing), both told me so, and they knew more than straight-laced ninny Nino Scalia ever will about the Constitution and the conscience of our country).

In much the same way that slavery, Apartheid, Jim Crow segregation, Antisemitism and sexism have been or are being kicked into history's dustbins, anti-Gay hatred is becoming a remnant of the past. Young people don't hate as much as their great-grandparents. What a joy.

 I was the scion of working-class Democratic Roman Catholic parents – an outspoken, heroic WWII 82nd Airborne Divn. paratrooper and a brilliant well-read secretary -- I struggled with my homosexuality for three decades.

I figure I would have made a good spy, because I kept my secret. I struggled through Boy Scout sexual harassment by older Boy Scouts demanding that the younger Scouts provide sexual favors (I rejected them and was guilt-ridden and afraid to tell my parents, staying in the Scouts and resenting the older Scouts' abuse of authority); to childhood diseases, one or both of which one learned doctor thought “psychosomatic” (arthritis and rheumatic fever); through college (where my college roommate and I were prematurely labeled as Gay and once “pennied” in our room by a couple of loudmouth drunks using pennies to keep us from opening our dorm room door;  to Appalachia, where at the Appalachian Observer, I was possibly the world's most closeted newspaper editor, winning declassification of the world's largest mercury pollution event at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant, operated by Union Carbide, helping prod DOE to an environmental cleanup that will continue nationwide until at least 2043, when I will be 86 years old, and possibly 2057, when I will be 100. I was working 80 hour weeks, also helping citizens to eject a corrupt school superintendent and prosecute a corrupt Sheriff.

Then I went to law school at Memphis State University,still closeted (winning election as American Bar Association Law Student Division representative, then winning in 1985 ABA Law Student Division Assembly passage of eleven resolutions on law school reform, including nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation)(batting average of .733).

Then I left Tennessee and accepted an administrative-judicial clerkship, in Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Administrative Law Judges. In 1986, Federal employees could still be fired for being Gay – and were-- during the Administration of Ronald Wilson Reagan – who, until he learned Rock Hudson was Gay, let hundreds of thousands of people die of AIDS without adequate efforts to solve and halt the plague – reckless, feckless intolerance and indifference to the value of Gay peoples' lives.

In 1988, at the end of my judicial clerkship, I “came out” to my parents, who were lovely and accepting. My mother said Brian was “the kind of boy you want to invite home and bake cookies for (she always liked him the best).

A couple of my relatives were wonderfully accepting but I was quite cruelly rejected by almost all of my other living relatives, not one of whom has  invited me to a single family gathering since 1988 -- 25 years. Several relatives' late arrivals, hate stares and coldness at my father's funeral are burned in my memory forever. How disappointing.

 But as Wayne Dyer says, “Your friends are God's way of apologizing for your relatives.”

I “came out” to my parents at the conclusion of my judicial clerkships, at first for a marvelously outspoken openly Gay judge (the late Department of Labor Administrative Law Judge Charles P. Rippey, who died in 2014), then also for Nahum Litt, then the Chief Administrative Law Judge of the U.S. Department of Labor, whom I served as a policy adviser. I “came out” to Chief Judge Litt, who helped us pass a sexual orientation nondiscrimination resolution in the American Bar Association House of Delegates, of which he was then a member.

What a swell victory, and achieved so quickly – and one that had twice before eluded Gay activist-ideologues until I suggested the winning compromise. Future ABA President Jack Curtin of the Litigation section followed our suggestion, taking the definition from the District of Columbia Human Rights Act: “Sexual orientation means heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality” – hence, no bogus arguments about pederasty or bestiality. (A St. Louis delegate was heard to quip, “When it comes to bestiality, just say, WHOA!”)

During 1989-1990, I represented the prevailing plaintiff Duane David Rinde in the Rinde v. Woodward & Lothrop Gay case.  Duane's courage -- and the collective chutzpa of 24-year old Duane, his spouse, Steptoe & Johnson lawyer Robert I. Teir, the D.C. GlBTQ community (and my legal advocacy) and a threat of a boycott -- resulted in equal discount benefits for the partners of GLBTQ employees at thirty department stores in six states and D.C. (Woodward & Lothrop and John Wanamaker). Then I was asked to write the first article on Gay marriage for an ABA publication (“What Makes A Marriage Legal,” Human Rights, 1991), one of eight articles I published in American Bar Association publications (three in the Judges' Journal). A Gay marriage bibliography shows that this was the first article on Gay marriage in an American Bar Association publication.

It's probably one of the reasons I was targeted for disciplinary actions as an attorney for courageous environmental and nuclear whistleblowers in nine states, including nine federal administrative law judges. I'm glad I wrote the article, no matter what the consequences.

In 2004, my law license was taken away in the wake of the homophobic Chief Administrative Law Judge of the U.S. Department of Labor, John Michael Vittone, who was active in ABA circles and opposed the 1989 Gay rights resolution Judge Litt helped us pass in the House of Delegates.

On March 15, 2005, I attended former Reagan UNESCO Ambassador Alan Keyes' Nuremberg-style anti-Gay marriage hate rally, which County Commissioners allowed him to hold rent-free in our St. Johns County Convention Center at the World Golf Village.  Sheriff David Bernard Shoar's lieutenants threatened to women who called for picketing, falsely claiming they could be prosecuted, falsely claiming it was "private property."  (Sheriff Shoar is now under FBI criminal investigation as a result of coverups, including the September 2, 2010 shooting of a Sheriff's deputy's girlfriend, Michelle O'Connell, exposed to the world thanks to the New York Times, PBS Frontline, et al., Dateline NBC, Dr. Phil, The Guardian, et al)

Inspired by the Alan Keyes hate rally and Sheriff Shoar's harassment of activists, I did the historical research and lawyer recruitment that helped St. Augustine's Gay Pride committee leaders to win a federal court order by United States District Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr. in Jensen v. City of St. Augustine under the First Amendment requiring flying of Rainbow flags in honor of Gay Pride on our historic St. Augustine, Florida Bridge of Lions in 2005 (a First Amendment victory that was achieved by showing GLBTQ history, including the 1566 order of a Gay French interpreter of the Guale Indian language on orders of our City's founder, because the translator was a “Sodomite and a Lutheran” in an intimate relationship with the son of the cacique (chief). 

Listening to the tapes of the Supreme Court oral arguments on the Gay marriage cases in March 2013 and again this year, I am proud of our local governments, including our Sheriff, State's Attorney, Mosquito Control District and Cities of St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach -- all have adopted sexual orientation nondiscrimination rules, commencing with the Mosquito Control District in 2009. That's eighteen local public officials.

Every single vote has been unanimous and bipartisan – St. Augustine amended its Fair Housing ordinance in 2012, St. Augustine Beach added one in 2013, also adding an employment nondiscrimination ordinance. This is in sharp and marked contrast with Jacksonville, Florida (formerly known as “Cowford”), where months of bigotry halted efforts to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to that City's human rights ordinances.

As Folio Weekly quoted me in 2012, decisive St. Augustine commissioners decided to protect Gay rights in less time than it took people in Jacksonville to “clear their throats.” In 2014, St. Augustine also adopted nondiscriminatory pension rules for Gay and Lesbian employees' surviving spouses.  The motion was made by Commissioner Donald Crichlow, who once made pejorative remarks to Folio Weekly after our 2005 Rainbow flags victory: he said "it's the right thing to do" and I responded, in the words of Pope Francis, "who am I to judge?"

Our new St. Augustine Mayor, Nancy Shaver, recently met with the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) group about expanding protections for employing, housing and public accommodations nondiscrimination here in our Nation's Oldest European-founded City, an island of progressivism in Northeast Florida.

Reading the 2013 and 2015 SCOTUS and other Gay marriage decisions, I remember all of the pain that being Gay brings. The night Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered, Senator Robert Kennedy said, “My favorite poet was Aeschylus, who said, “In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop on the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

Here are 24 images of that “pain” carved in my brain – whatever “brain boogers” I may have I owe to these experiences:

1.Seeing (and almost walking into) a bloody crime scene sidewalk in DuPont Circle, on P Street in Washington, D.C., after the knifing hate crime murder of a Gay man. There but for the grace of God, go you or me.

2. Learning that GLBTQ teens have thrice the suicide rate of straight teens and watching unenlightened legislators try to bar teachers from helping (with “don't say Gay” laws).

3.Watching Georgetown University, my alma mater, fight for years recognizing a Gay student group, spending $1.2 million fighting to the highest court the case of Gay People of Georgetown University v. Georgtown University just to deny an office, mailbox and student activity fees; it then almost destroy our alma mater's future by appealing to the Supreme Court (Williams and Connolly partner Edward Bennett Williams wanted to ague the case personally, which would have placed us on a level with Bob Jones University and other institutional bigots in Supreme Court case law. (We won; Georgetown did not seek certiorari, thanks to the timely intervention of our Gay and Lesbian Alumni/ae of Georgetown University)

4.Watching President Bill Clinton sign the hateful compromise 1993 “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” law. (He has since apologized; the law has been repealed under President Obama). I later wrote an cover story for Out in the City (former Jacksonville GLBTQ publication) about a Navy nuclear submarine chief who successfully challenged his removal, which retired U.S. District Judge Stanley K. Sporkin told me was one of the ten judicial decisions of which he was most proud).

5.Watching President Billl Clinton sign the 1995 Defense of Marriage Act, which was declared unconstitutional. (He has since apologized and DOMA was held unconstitutional).

6.Watching an unapologetic, smirking President George W. Bush win re-election in 2004 on a wave of anti-Gay marriage sentiment, allied with organized bigots in states passing constitutional anti-Gay amendments, carving their bigotry into state constitutions.

7. Watching Governor Charles Crist support a state law constitutional amendment banning Gay marriage (he has since apologized).

8.Being brushed off condescendingly by then St. Augustine Record Editor Peter Ellis on the subject of Gay marriage, as if his (or advertisers) subjective value preferences should dictate what 200,000 St. Johns Countians are allowed to read and think and feel.

9. Reading the 32 very looong pages of anti-Gay hatred in the St. Augustine Record's “Talk of the Town” website in 2005 directed against Gays in response to the Bridge of Lions Rainbow flags cases, some of them written by public officials under NICs – then watching City Commissioners vote 3-1 to ban all but government flags from our Bridge of Lions (Commissioner Boles, later our Mayor, was the only “no” vote, and I salute him).

10.Listening to a Florida court-appointed mediator refer to a male litigant as “she,” and not correcting himself.

11.Complaining about an unruly child in a Houston restaurant and being told by the putative parent that we only complained because we “can't have children.”

12.Hearing a heterosexual fellow law student at Memphis State University in 1985 trash-talk about another student's assumed sexual orientation – doing so behind closed doors, in our Moot Court Board's chambers, in judging a Moot Court round -- trying to persuade two other Moot Court Board members to flunk his appellate argument because he was Gay. In response, my fellow Moot Court Board member and I both scored the Gay student somewhat higher than he deserved, thereby resulting in a mathematically correct score, the two of us correcting for the other student's bigotry sub silentio.

13.Hearing other law students on a faculty recruitment panel discuss the assumed sexual orientation of an applicant (and correcting for the bigotry by reporting it to my mentor on the faculty)

14. Learning our Black Muslim office manager quit her job in 1990 over me because I was hired at the Government Accountability Project (after a year of my working there, she quit in protest of my permanent hiring, without having another job).

15.Seeing my Washington, D.C. public interest group employer (Government Accountability Project) colleagues unkindly refuse to press the George Washington University HMO over equal health care benefits for Brian, even after I won the Woodies' case and Brian lost his job at AAAS, and never treat me as an equal, never inviting us to heterosexuals-only dinners and parties for four years.

16.Hearing anti-Gay jokes and taunts from schoolyard bullies and numerous and respected relatives, employers, and friends.

17.Reading the transcript of security clearance interviews where Gay people were quizzed for hours about their intimate affairs. (Thanks to Gay rights leader Dr. Franklin Kameny, fired as an government astronomer for being Gay in the 1950s --- and five days of House of Representatives investigative hearings in 1989-90 where whistleblowers, Gays and I testified, Presidents Clinton and Obama have banned such odious practices forever).

18. Seeing an illegal sign in the Oak Ridge Federal Building demanding that people report “criminal, homosexual or immoral conduct.” (Having it reported and removed – priceless).

19. Hearing a heterosexual friend say he was afraid to be seen swimming with me.

20. Hearing my respected high school teacher mentor talk about queers.

21. Learning my best high school friend never wanted to see or talk with me again after learning I was Gay during my clerkship.

22. Hearing some of my otherwise intelligent pre-law school employers emphatically ask, “Who would hire a queer lawyer? (And not saying a word).

23. Hearing that a rich and powerful Gay bank lawyer in 1982 told the local DA that he was afraid to drive into his East Tennessee hometown before dusk after neighbors learned he was Gay.

24. Reading news articles about heterosexual weddings, as my fellow Floridians, and residents of other American states, pass Nuremberg-style laws banning Gay marriage, enshrining hatred and discrimination into our state constitutions, using hatred and oodles of corporate cash, from sea to shining sea, to divide rather than unite us, in much the same manner as Adolf Hitler manipulated the laws for years to offend, hurt, insult, discriminate against and then kill millions of Jews.

Father, forgive them. Every single one of them (well, except Hitler).

All people are created equal – our Founders in 1776 were the first people to write t down, in our Declaration of Independence, the 237th anniversary of which we shall celebrate on July 4th. Today is a time for healing, across America, and Florida.

Today, we are blessed to live in the UNITED States of America, with an independent judiciary.

Today it is no longer so bossed by bigots, bullies and braggarts (“Christian conservatives” who are neither) – the Supreme Court has rejected sputtering extralegal arguments by arrogant authoritarians who purport to love “freedom.”

In anger and depression at invidious discrimination and a world of hurtful people, I would often ask myself, for years, “Why does it have to hurt so much?”

 Well, the United States Supreme Court (and numerous other courts) have told the world, it was a violation of the Fifth Amendment for Congress to enact DOMA, for the express purpose of hurting Gays and Lesbians allowed to marry by their states, expressing “moral disapproval of homosexuality” in the wake of a Hawaiian court decision that promised that Gay marriage would become reality. DOMA writes inequality into the entire United States Code.”

Passing laws to hurt GLBTQ people is unconstitutional, the Court reaffirmed. Meanwhile, the Court held that organized California bigots do not have legal standing to appeal the lower courts' ruling that California voters' Amendment 8 is unconstitutional. California's Attorney General and Governor did not appeal – carping harpies don't have Article III standing to contest the lower courts rulings: California Gay marriages will now resume. Two wonderful 2013 victories for human rights from our United States Supreme Court, and many more since: we won.

Today, it doesn't hurt so much any longer. Former U.S. Department of Labor Chief Administrative Law Judge Nahum Litt, my mentor (now retired to New Smyrna Beach) said after SCOTUS ruled in 2013, “You won.”

He said the same thing earlier this year after I told him about Judge Hinkle's order on Florida's law he asked when I was going to get married (a question my late mother would sometimes ask until I came out to her).

I just called Judge Litt again.  He expressed hope that I might marry and might get a notary license to perform the ceremony.  From his lips to God's ears.

How sweet it is. Our Supreme Court has again said that GLBGT people are not to be treated as persona non grata.

We are now "a Rainbow Nation."Thanks to mentors like the late Dr. Franklin Kameny, Ph.D. and a cast of thousands, from Duane David Rinde and his partner, Rob Teir, to hundreds of prevailing plaintiffs and lawyers, from to David Boies and Ted Olsen and Evan Wolfson, to President Obama and Vice President Biden to Mary L. Bonauto and Shannon Minter and Abby Rubenfeld and Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who argued for the United States of America before our Supreme Court, “Gay and lesbian people are equal.  They deserve equal protection of the laws, and they deserve it now.” 

 Queers DO have constitutional rights. As former South African Nelson Mandela declared after Apartheid fell in South Africa; “courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace."

In 1978, Moral Majority” leader Rev. Jerry Falwell announced a "Thirty Years War against homosexuality." In 1988, Republican Presidential candidate and former Nixon White House aide Patrick J. Buchanan declared a “culture war” at the Republican National Convention in Houston.

In 1996, dissenting in Romer v. Evans (invalidating Colorado voters' anti-Gay Nuremberg law, Amendment 2), Justice Scalia used the phrase “Kulturkampf,” German for “culture struggle.”. Well, today the “Kulturkampf” is over. The “Thirty Years War” is over. All thinking people now know the “Christian Right” was neither – it was asinine “AstroTurf” designed by bullies , using it in 1978 in election after election, using Gays as objects of fear and loathing to mobilize voters. Why?

To defeat progressives at the polls, dividing our country.

Gays won the “culture war,” because hundreds of Fortune 500 corporations (after the Woodies case) supported us, including signing on to Supreme Court amicus curiae briefs. We did it.

Gays have beat the Ku Klux Klan and its allies (once again), just as we did here in St. Augustine in 2005 with our Rainbow flag case in Federal Court.

Kudos to Judge Robert Louis Hinkle for his January 1, 2015 Order and earlier orders, Florida became on Twelfth Night (January 6, 2015) the 36th state to recognize gay Marriage.  Kudos to our St. Johns County Circuit Court Clerk and her lawyer, Geoffrey Dobson, for not taking the low road (as nine other Florida Court Clerks did in refusing any more Courthouse weddings, and the multi-million dollar Florida Court Clerks' Association, which tried to delay matters by publishing an incendiary threat emitted by Greenberg Traurig, an unethical corporate law firm, that court clerks could be prosecuted).

As I predicted in 2013, "We will soon be seeing Gay marriage everywhere." This is both equality and “Democracy on the March,” in the words of David Lillienthal's book about TVA.

 “Let America be America again,” wrote the poet Langston Hughes (a Gay African-American). 

“America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel,” wrote the poet Alan Ginsburg, in “Howl.” 

Someday, we'll elect a President – I predict: she (or he) will be “fabulous.” What do you reckon?

Ed Slavin
www.fourowls.blogspot.com
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
www.staugustgreen.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998
(c) Copyright Ed Slavin 2013, All Rights Reserved

(This article is revised from what I wrote in June 2013 after the Supreme Court's decision in two Gay marriage cases and in January of this year after Florida Gay marriages were recognized by Judge Hinkle).

OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES

I'm reading yet another beautiful, landmark decision by Justice Anthony Kennedy joined by four justices, once again vindicating GLBT equality.  We've come a long way -- 24 years ago, I was honored to be invited to write the first article on Gay marriage for an American Bar Association publication (Human Rights, 1991), after we brought, litigated and settled the pioneering Duane Rinde v. Woodward & Lothrop Gay domestic partnership equal benefits case (1989-90)(equal discount benefits for employees at 30 department stores in six states and Washington, D.C.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html

Snowball's Chance

Republican Oklahoma United States Senator JAMES MOUNTAIN INHOFE, a Presbyterian, has issued a fatwa, tells Pope Francis to butt out of discussing climate change. Pope Francis is a former Jesuit university chemistry professor. Lugubrious legislator INHOFE chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and brought a snowball to the Senate floor to "prove" that global climate change does not exist. INHOFE does not have a snowball's chance of stopping worldwide action against promiscuous proliferation of fossil fuels. All good Presbyterians should tell INHOFE to stop deceiving the public about climate change and carbon emissions. I look forward to reading the Pope's encyclical this week, and ask, "Why do the heathen rage? http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/11/james-inhofe-republican-climate-denier-pope-francis

Did Houston's No-Zoning, No-Planning Anarchy Help Cause Floods?

In 2015, Houston, Texas still lacks zoning and has poor planning. The result is the hideous floods we saw recently. We lived in Houston for two years and it is the most hideous City in America -- tacky, ugly and mosquito-ridden, with sulfurous refinery emissions, and condos next to auto repair joints next to honky tonks next to churches next to fried chick joints next to scrapyards next to vacant lots. Some 25% of the land is unoccupied, leading to sprawl. In H.L. Mencken's phrase, Houston looks like it was designed by someone "with a libido for the ugly." Worse, there is poor drainage (see photo). In contrast, Memphis, Tennessee (where I lived during law school) learned its lesson from 1880s Yellow Fever epidemics, when Memphis ceased to exist and lost its corporate charter from Tennessee. There is exquisitely good drainage in Memphis, almost none in Houston. LESSON: we need more zoning and planning, not less.

Washington Post on Capitol Hill Workers Working The Night Shift

Lovely long article in May 20, 2015 Washington Post about all of the thousands of workers who work through the night cleaning, disposing of trash, polishing, waxing, painting, maintaining and protecting our U.S. Capitol and Congressional office buildings. It speaks of workers as people, talks about the importance of their work, and treats them as heroic. Steve Hendrix, "The Capitol’s Shadow Army -- Hundreds on the night shift tidy the corridors of power after democracy’s workday is done (Washington Post, May 20, 2015). Why can't other U.S. publications ever write about workers as anything other than objects, if at all? Why are the only people treated as important people with money and power? The 1% are dumbing down debate, destroying the middle class, destroying lives, while debates on tax, living wage and other policies treat people as expendable digits. Enough. Look at the "profiles" in any newspaper (including the better ones). The Post article may be read here

70% of Irish People Vote for Gay Marriage -- Overwhelming Vote -- When Irish Eyes Are Smiling -- Éirinn go Brách (Ireland Forever!)

I awoke this morning with a song in my heart to the news from NPR on my cellular telephone: we won!

 The ancestral home of my first American ancestor just voted by some 70% to recognize Gay marriage, the first nation in the world to do so by popular vote, and now the 20th in the world.

Irish people returned to vote from as far away as Australia. Éirinn go Brách! (Ireland forever!)

In 1991, I wrote the first article on Gay marriage for an American Bar Association publication ("What makes a marriage legal") after our landmark case of Rinde v. Woodward & Lothrop (equal discount benefits for Gay and Lesbian employee partners for department store employees at 30 Woodward & Lothrop and John Wanamaker stores in six states and D.C.).

 Here's a song dedication -- sing it loudly and proudly -- it's our time, our planet and our equal rights will be respected and not neglected.

 WHEN IRISH EYES ARE SMILING 
Chorus: When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, sure 'tis like a morn in spring. In the lilt of Irish laughter, you can hear the angels sing. When Irish hearts are happy, all the world seems bright and gay, And When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, sure, they steal your heart away.
Verse 1: There's a tear in your eye and I'm wondering why, For it never should be there at all. With such power in your smile, sure a stone you'd beguile, So there's never a teardrop should fall, When your sweet lilting laughter's like some fairy song And your eyes twinkle bright as can be. You should laugh all the while and all other times smile, And now smile a smile for me.
(Chorus)
Verse 2: For your smile is a part of the love in your heart, And it makes even sunshine more bright. Like the linnet's sweet song, crooning all the day long. Comes your laughter so tender and light. For the springtime of life is the sweetest of all, There is ne'er a real care or regret. And while springtime is ours, throughout all of youth's hours, Let us smile each chance we get.

ALL-WHITE "SISTER CITIES" EXCHANGE, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA AND AVILES, SPAIN: CIVIL RIGHTS COMPLAINT FILED WITH ATTORNEY GENERAL LORETTA LYNCH

Exhibit A -- All-white City of St. Augustine, Florida and St. Augustine Sister Cities Association, Inc. Delegation to Aviles, Spain, April 2015

The St. Augustine Sister Cities Association, Inc., City of St. Augustine, Florida and CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR. --- Civil Rights Complaint re: Race Discrimination

Dear Attorney General Lynch:

Congratulations on your appointment and confirmation.  

Please direct the Civil Rights Division to investigate possible civil rights violations by Respondents, The St. Augustine Sister Cities Association, Inc., the City of St. Augustine, Florida and CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR.; Respondent Association's registered address for twenty years has been ℅ City of St. Augustine, St. Augustine City Hall, 75 King Street (Box 210), St. Augustine, Florida 32084.  See www.sunbiz.org 

1. A recipient of millions of dollars of federal funds, our City of St. Augustine, Florida (municipal government and recipient of millions of dollars in federal funds) and its alter ego, the St. Augustine, Florida Sister CIties Association, Inc. (non-profit "cultural exchange" group), and its longtime leader, ex-Mayor CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR. (LEN WEEKS) for:

A. Repeatedly sending all-white citizen delegations to Aviles, Spain;

B. Not sending African-American high school students to Aviles, Spain (while sending the wealthy, including at least one of Respondent WEEKS' own children).

2. Other than one former Commissioner, Errol Jones, I have found no documentary evidence of any African-American participation in this putative "cultural exchange."  Respondent City responded to my Request No. 2015-98 that it has no documents on civil rights compliance or any Mayor, Commissioner or staffer ever expressing any concerns about the all-white "cultural exchange."

3. Our City of St. Augustine provides the mailing address and funding and gives significant encouragement to this all-white group, with City funds subsidizing City Commissioners and former Mayors and Commissioners, receiving tens of thousands of dollars in travel, lodging, meals and entertainment for an all-white "cultural exchange."

4. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from jail on June 11, 1964 that St. Augustine was "the most lawless" city in America.  

5. As a result of five decades of citizen efforts, our City is now finally but diffidently attempting to remedy environmental injustice and employment, housing, utilities, services and public accommodations  discrimination.

6.  This is too little, too late, however. We have waited long enough.  

7.  This is the 450th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine, our Nation's Oldest European-founded City.  

8. There may be further complaints and our city, St. Johns County and nearby City of St. Augustine Beach will be reformed, in Dr. King's words, "if it takes all summer.

9.  Exhibit A, above, was provided by Respondents to the St. Augustine Record and shows the all-white City of St. Augustine and St. Augustine, Florida Sister Cities Delegation to Aviles Spain "last week" (story below) on the occasion of dedication of a replica of teh 1812 Spanish Constitution Monument from our Slave Market Square to the City of Aviles, Spain.

10. Even in celebrating constitutionalism, on its 450th birthday, our Nation's Oldest European-founded City has resorted to apparently unconstitutional means -- a racially discriminatory delegation to our sister city in Spain.  Enough invidious discrimination.  Please bring an action for injunctive relief under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, made possible by the courage of local residents and other civil rights activists, including Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ambassador Andrew Young, Dr. Robert S. Hayling, D.D.S., et al. 

11. The City Manager of the Respondent City of St. Augustine, Florida is John Patrick Regan, P.E..  The address for both Respondent City of St. Augustine and the St. Augustine Sister Cities Association, Inc. is St. Augustine City Hall, 75 King Street, St. Augustine, Florida 32084.  

12. The St. Augustine Sister Cities Association, Inc. registered agent for service of process, officers and directors are as follows 

Registered Agent Name & AddressKIRKER, LYNDA

3732 HARBOR DRIVE
SAINT AUGUSTINE, FL 32084

Name Changed: 04/18/2012

Address Changed: 01/16/2014 

Officer/Director DetailName & Address

Title P

WEEKS, LEN 

62 HYPOLITA ST.
SAINT AUGUSTINE, FL 32084

Title VP

MCCORMICK, PENNY 

9224 JULY LANE
SAINT AUGUSTINE, FL 32080

Title RS

DONIE, DOWIE 

217 LYONS GATE
ST AUGUSTINE, FL 32080

Title T

KIRKER, LYNDA 

3732 HARBOR DRIVE
SAINT AUGUSTINE, FL 32084

Please investigate and file an action for declaratory and injunctive relief under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Thank you.

With kindest regards, I am,

Sincerely yours,

Ed Slavin

www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com

www.fourowls.blogspot.com

Box 3084

St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084

904-377-4998

Happy tenth anniversary, St. Augustine!

April 11, 2005 was the first time I spoke to the St. Augustine, Florida City Commission. I've been doing it for ten years, despite threats, including the one ab initio by the then City Manager that "I could have you arrested for disorderly conduct." April 11, 2015 marks the tenth anniversary: I have been reporting on St. Augustine now for 1/45th of its existence (2.2%), or 1/15th of its existence since the Civil War ended (6.6%). How should St. Augustine commemorate this event? What have we accomplished here? What's next? You tell me. http://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2014/12/its-been-wonderful-decade-thank-you-for.html

President Obama Gives Rainbow Salute Upon Leaving Jamaica

Photo credit: The White House

TWIN PEAKS CAST DEMANDS FULL WRITER BUDGET: I AGREE WITH DAVID LYNCH AND CAST

LIBERAL BLAME FOR INDIANA HATE-GAYS "RELIGIOUS FREEDOM" LAW?

Let's share the blame: Congressional liberals introduced a weak bill, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, that left out housing, education, public accommodations, and health care, as if GLBT people did not need those things. Typically, "liberal" legislators make their deals and sell out ab initio, leaving nothing to negotiate over later. The bill fizzled. Yet it sent a message like no one has done since President George H.W Bush's Ambassador April Glaspie signaled Saddam Hussein an invasion of Kuwait was okay. http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/09/wikileaks-april-glaspie-and-saddam-hussein/

INDIANA HATE GAYS LAW: Conscientious objectors or lugubrious goobers?

As if taking a law school exam question and finding real-life people to act out the roles, the government of Indiana and religious conservatives flopped, then flipped.

 The notion that someone's conscientious objections should keep them from pulling a trigger is enshrined in American military law. During Vietnam, thousands of Americans were spared combat on their good-faith religious beliefs, which were rigorously examined by draft boards and courts. Roman Catholics had particular tough times, because rather than opposing all wars, the COs invoked the "just war" theory. My father was a World War II paratrooper whose priests understood the need to stop Hitler. But if I had become a CO in Vietnam, he would have supported me, as evidenced by his telling NBC News Today Show host Joe Garragiola, proudly, "My son is anti-war" (during a segment with 82nd vets in which Garragiola tried to bait the paratroopers about Vietnam protesters).

The notion that someone's conscientious objections should keep them from arranging flowers, baking a cake or making a pizza is absurd. There is no assertive conduct in arranging flowers, baking a cake or making a pizza. If anyone is so frail as to worry to what use their flowers, pizza or cake will be used, he needs to be in a velvet room, like Proust. These hick hacks are pretenders. They're going for KKK and fundamentalist votes.

 I've studied the religions of the world, from the Baltimore Catechism on. None preach flower, pizza or cake withholding. So a few pouty pretentious pompous bluenosers want exemptions from cake-baking?

 The Devil-food with their supercilious, excuse-making maladroit "complaints." Let the cake corporations bake cakes or go out of business. Business owners are not permitted to use religion as a basis for race discrimination or other invidious acts: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2349546/newman-v-piggie-park-enterprises-inc/ "Neither is the court impressed by defendant Bessinger's contention that the judicial enforcement of the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 upon which this suit is predicated violates the free exercise of his religious beliefs in contravention of the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is unquestioned that the First Amendment prohibits compulsion by law of any creed or the practice of any form of religion, but it also safeguards the free exercise of one's chosen religion. Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 8 L.Ed.2d 601 (1962). The free exercise of one's beliefs, however, as distinguished from the absolute right to a belief, is subject to regulation when religious acts require accommodation to society. United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 64 S.Ct. 882, 88 L.Ed. 1148 (1944) (Mails to defraud); Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 25 L.Ed. 244 (1878) (polygamy conviction); Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 64 S.Ct. 438, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1943) (minor in company of ward distributing religious literature in violation of statute). Undoubtedly defendant Bessinger has a constitutional right to espouse the religious beliefs of his own choosing, however, he does not have the absolute right to exercise and practice such beliefs in utter disregard of the clear constitutional rights of other citizens. This court refuses to lend credence or support to his position that he has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of the Negro race in his business establishments upon the ground that to do so would violate his sacred religious beliefs. The sole question for determination under the circumstances of instant case is whether any or all of defendants' eating establishments are places of public accommodation within the meaning and purview of Section 201 of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Section 2000a).[2] In arriving at this determination the court is primarily concerned with the following factual and legal questions, which will be considered in inverse order hereinafter: (1) Is corporate defendant's establishments, or any of them, "principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises;" (2) Does said defendant at its establishments serve or offer "to serve interstate travelers;" and (3) has "a substantial portion of the food which it serves, * * * or other *946 products which it sells * * * moved in commerce"?

Lawyers/firms contracting, combining and conspiring to boycott the D.C. Superior Court were not treated with kid gloves as having exercised First Amendment rights. In Superior Court Trial Lawyers Association, a unanimous Supreme Court held that the First Amendment does not extend to a boycott of private lawyers. FTC v. Superior Court Trial Lawyers Association, 493 U.S. 411 (1990)

INDIANA, Home of the Hick Hack Homopobic Elected Officials

Analysis of three differences between federal and Indiana RFRAs. http://joshblackman.com/blog/2015/03/26/comparing-the-federal-rfra-and-the-indiana-rfra/

Attorney General Loretta Lynch Gets Confirmed: Do the Math -- Huffington Post Out to Lunch (Again)

Huffington Post (Jennifer Bendery) just reported on March 26, 2015 that only four Republicans plan to vote for Loretta Lynch, leaving a fifty-fifty vote, saying she needs another Republican to be confirmed, wondering where the 51st vote could possibly come from. Why wonder? The Vice President of the United States is President of the Senate and votes to break all ties. It's in the Constitution. Article I, section. 3, clause 4. Reporters, please study constitutional law. Now. Enough clueless lugubrious gooberishness from national news media. Good night.

Stanley Johnson, R.I.P.

I fondly remember Johnson Gage Company CEO Mr. Stanley Johnson as a man of courage. He empowered ethical professional engineers, including one of my clients, to speak out against retaliation and low-quality fasteners at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station of Southern California Edison Company. The transcript of his unrebutted expert testimony on gaging in San Diego (before U.S. Department of Labor District Chief Administrative Law Judge Robert D. Kapan of Camden, N.J.) indicates he picked up a fastener and it "rang" because it was dimensionally-nonconforming. Some 60-70% of the fasteners at San Onofre were dimensionally nonconforming -- hundreds of thousands of them located close to an earthquake fault line. Although NRC was insouciant, Mr. Johnson helped us win justice for my professional engineer client against Southern California Edison Company. Mr. Johnson was a truly wonderful man who was angry at injustice and coverups by the U.S. nuclear powerplant industry. He enjoyed life and he freely gave of his time to help us conquer what General George S. Patton, Jr. might have called "the wickedness and oppression" of the "enemies" of workplace free speech rights in the nuclear industry. By the way, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has finally closed. Salud, Mr. Johnson!

Granville P. Ambidexter For President?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON's secretive e-mail suppression and deletion scheme makes me want someone to run for President as a Democrat who is not a narcissist, not a corporate shill and not a disaster-in-waiting.
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Brian Schweizer, or even Granville P. Ambidexter?
Who is Granville P. Ambidexter?
 A made-up name of a possible dark horse, in the mouth of a journalist character the late New York Times Associate Editor Tom Wicker's great political novel, "Facing the Lions."
 America needs HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON to be coronated without vigorous primaries as the Democratic nominee for aPresident like a moose needs a hatrack.
 What do you reckon?

Save the day: February 28, 2015 Protest at St. Augustine NOCHE de GALA: Justice for Michelle O'Connell. Now. End Corruption. Now.

Save the day: February 28, 2015 -- a good time to protest the government coverup of the September 2, 2010 shooting of Michelle O'Connell in the home of Sheriff DAVID BERNARD SHOAR's deputy, JEREMY BANKS. The Noche de Gala honors the 497th birthday of St. Augustine's founding genocidal murderer, PEDRO MENENDEZ de AVILES. Come see and picket well-paid City of St. Augustine managers and others getting free $195 tickets for themselves and their spouses). Also attending will be wealthy local business people, corpulent corporate lawyers and lobbyists raising money for the Lightner Museum -- but where did all the money go? The City Manager has not provided documents.   But God is watching. And We, The People will be there. February 28, 2015.  Save the date.  Stay tuned Justice for Michelle O'Connell.  Now.

New York Times article  PBS Frontline story

Disabled Citizens Forced to Stand, Then Retaliation for Expressing Concerns -- ADA COMPLAINT TO JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

St. Augustine's new Mayor, Honorable Nancy Shaver, sworn in by Florida Supreme Court Justice Peggy Quince December 1, 2014 before record crowds, witnessing inauguration of our second woman mayor in 450 years, first time a St. Augustine city official was sworn in by an African-American. (Exhibit A)

Disabled people and elders were among some 50-100 people forced by the three Respondents to stand for more than 53 minutes Mayor Shaver's Inauguration -- a Violation of ADA Reasonable Accommodation Requirements. (Exhibit B) Sent: Sat, Feb 7, 2015 6:49 pm Subject: Ed Slavin v. JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E. et al. -- ADA and Retaliation Complaint re: City Managers Refusing to Provide Enough Chairs for New St. Augustine, Florida Mayor's Inauguration ------------------------ Ed Slavin, Complainant, v. JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E, City Manager TIMOTHY BURCHFIELD, Assistant City Manager, LORAN LUEDERS, Police Chief Respondents (a/k/a "the three Respondents"), ℅ St. Augustine, Florida Box 210, 75 King Street St. Augustine, Florida-32085-3084 904-825-1006 904-669-1873 (cellular) 904-826-1096 (fax)

 1. I am a person with disabilities, including juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, over the age of 40 .

 2. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote rabbis June 11, 1964 that our City of St. Augustine was "the most lawless city in America." Three lawless City officials -- Respondents JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E, City Manager; TIMOTHY BURCHFIELD, Assistant City Manager; and LORAN LUEDERS, Police Chief of the City of St. Augustine, Florida --- intentionally violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. These three (3) unjust stewards -- three ultra_vires agents -- of our Nation's Oldest City refused to provide sufficient chairs to accommodate the large predicted, anticipated crowd, including persons with disabilities , who attended the inauguration of Nancy Shaver as Mayor on December 1, 2014 at St. Augustine City Hall , 75 King Street. (See Exhibit B, above, photo taken by Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline, showing 50-100 standees .

 3. Some 50-100 people stood for more than 53 minutes because the three Respondents (REGAN, BURCHFIELD and LUEDERS) refused to provide chairs: they violated ADA: See Exhibit B (second photo, above). http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2014-12-02/changing-guard-st-augustine#.VNaHqN5iOqQ (article refers to "those who were seated" standing to applaud) (Exhibit C).

4 . This unjustified denial of a very reasonable accommodation (chairs) violated well-settled, obvious requirements of ADA and 504 : as a direct and proximate result, some 50-100 people (including disabled persons and elders with canes) were illegally forced to stand without chairs . This is in violation of federal law and the duty to reasonably accommodate persons with disabilities. 

5. Respondents' unreasonable refusal to provide sufficient chairs was an intentional act, bordering on sadistic, as the y refused my repeated requests for weeks to provide enough chairs.

 6. Before and after the chair debacle of Respondents' creation, I criticized their failure to provide sufficient chairs by phone, in person and on voicemail -- protected activity. As our Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence, we Americans have an indefeasible right to resist oppression with "manly firmness."

 7. Some 36 hours later, I was hit with an illegal, retaliatory, baseless no-trespass order by City of St. Augustine City Manager JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E.

 8. There was no bona fide public purpose to the no-trespass order by REGAN, who exclaimed to HR December 2, 2014, "We have to do something about Ed Slavin!"

 9. There was no bona fide purpose in failing to provide enough seats at the Mayor's inauguration. 

10. Some 50-100 people were forced to stand for more than 53 minutes as a result of REGAN's violation of ADA and 504. See archived video: http://staugustinegovernment.com/CoSATV1.cfm (Exhibit D)

 11. This refusal to provide chairs and cruelly forcing people to stand for more than 53 minutes violated the federal ADA and 504 duty to provide a reasonable accommodation (chairs).

 12. My ADA rights -- and those of dozens of others -- were recklessly violated.

 13. In addition, I have been retaliated against and defamed in violation of ADA, 504, the First Amendment and other laws.

 14. The retaliatory December 3, 2014 no-trespass order by the three Respondents, led by Respondent St. Augustine City Manager JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E., was widely disseminated, chilling protected activity and Respondent REGAN procured and published daily newspaper articles December 4, 2014 and February 6, 2015 .

 15. I repeatedly complained about the failure to provide chairs on and before December 1, 2014 : Respondents issued an illegal "no-trespass" order December 3, 2014, and published defamatory falsehoods: http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2014-12-03/st-augustine-resident-slavin-issued-no-trespass-order-city-hall (Exhibit E) http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2015-02-06/no-charges-filed-aganist-slavin#.VNZ70N5iOqR (Exhibit F).

 16. I have suffered damages as a result and seek full remedies.

 17. I request that DOJ conduct a civil, criminal and administrative investigation of the ADA and 504 violations and retaliation for ADA and 504 protected activity.

 18. I request that Respondents be ordered to comply with ADA by providing sufficient seating. See Exhibit G, and that they be ordered to provide the fullest remedies allowable by law to end their illegal no-trespass order, provide just compensation for taking my rights away, and deter further violations of ADA, 504 and protected activity rights under ADA and 504.

 19. I request that Respondents be order to pay all sums personally, without reimbursement by the CIty of St. Augustine, its residents and taxpayers.

 20. I request that Respondents be ordered, at their personal expense, to obtain mandatory sensitivity training on ADA and 504 and retaliation.

 21. By copy of this E-mail, Respondents, and their current employer, the CIty of St. Augustine, are requested to preserve all paper and electronic documents and tangible things, including photos and video and audio tapes, subject to the penalties in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other federal laws for destruction of evidence. See Request No. 2015-50 (Exhibit)

 22. I request mediation by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) or Community Relations Service (CRS).

 Respectfully submitted,

Edward Adelbert Slavin, Jr.
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
www.fourowls.blogspot.com 
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida
32085-3084
904-377-4998

Department of the Interior Inspector General Complaint E000591 Filed re: Federal 450th Commemoration Commission

Re: Department of the Interior Office of Inspector General Complaint E000591: Notice to Preserve All Records on 450th Commemoration Due to Pending Request for Civil, Criminal and and Administrative Investigation in Response to Complaint to U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Inspector General Today re: Federal "St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission" Holding Secret Meetings and Sponsoring 2015 Noche de Gala Good afternoon, Mr. Boles, Ms. Culver, Messrs. Wilson, Williamson, Ste. Claire, Regan, Burchfield, Ms. Fountain, Mayor Shaver, Vice Mayor Horvath, Commissioners Freeman, Sikes-Kline, Neville, Ms. Bray, Ms. Ratkovic, Messrs. Birchim, Piggott, Lueders, Litzinger, Ms. Breidenstein, Mr. Graham and Ms. Lopez, greetings: 1. Please preserve all city, staff and personal records on the 450th Commemoration or the Federal 450th Commission. 2. This is a mandatory legal duty under federal criminal law due to my filing today of U.S. Department of the Interior Inspector General Complaint No. E000591 and my requesting a civil, criminal and administrative investigation of secret meetings and Federal Advisory Committee Act violations by the Federal St. Augustine 450th Commission and the Commission's sponsorship of the 2015 Noche de Gala honoring the 497th birthday of Pedro Menendez de Aviles. 3. It appears that prior galas' financial records are unaudited and have not been made public. 4. Why? 5. Where did the money go? 6. Please take immediate steps to preserve all paper and electronic records. 7. Please provide all previously requested records and kindly explain: where has all the money gone? Thank you. With kindest regards, I am, Sincerely yours, Ed Slavin www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com www.fourowls.blogspot.com Box 3084 St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084 904-377-4998

Hater ANDREW LEO SHIRVELL Now Living in Palm Coast, Florida

Hater ANDREW LEO SHIRVELL, who lost $4.5 million case involving his stalking a Gay student at the University of Michigan while SHIRVELL was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Michigan, now lives in Palm Coast, Florida, south of St. Augustine, and "Gave the invocation at the Florida Federation of Young Republicans’ Fall 2014 Quarterly Road to Victory Dinner featuring [our] Congressman," Rep. RONALD DEON DeSANTIS. What do you reckon? Here is his LinkedIn profile: Andrew Shirvell Attorney Palm Coast, FloridaLegal Services Previous Michigan Department of Attorney General, Statewide Political Campaign, Political Action Committee Education Ave Maria School of Law 280 connections Join LinkedIn & access Andrew's full profile. It's free! As a LinkedIn member, you'll join 300 million other professionals who are sharing connections, ideas, and opportunities. See who you know in common Get introduced Contact Andrew directly View Andrew's Full Profile Background Summary I am a fully licensed attorney admitted to practice in all Michigan state courts, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio. Experience Assistant Attorney General – Appellate Division Michigan Department of Attorney General May 2007 – November 2010 (3 years 7 months)Lansing, Michigan • Represented state prison wardens in federal habeas corpus litigation, including at hearings. • Argued ten (10) times before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. • Worked on state criminal appellate cases. • Assigned as the Attorney General's personal research assistant (April 2007 - Aug. 2007). • Rated "outstanding" in overall job performance (last Annual Performance Evaluation, June 2010). Legal Assistant – Public Service Division Michigan Department of Attorney General November 2006 – April 2007 (6 months)Lansing, Michigan • Worked directly with staff attorneys on cases before the Michigan Public Service Commission. • Responded to all communications from citizens. Deputy Campaign Manager Statewide Political Campaign August 2006 – November 2006 (4 months)Livonia, Michigan Political Consultant Statewide Political Campaign January 2006 – April 2006 (4 months)Lansing, Michigan Research Assistant for Special Assignments Michigan Department of Attorney General June 2005 – August 2005 (3 months)Lansing, Michigan • Assisted with several high profile cases for the department. • Directly aided assistant attorneys general with legal research, writing, and oral argument preparation. Political Consultant Political Action Committee September 2004 – November 2004 (3 months)Plymouth, Michigan • Recruited and supervised individuals conducting political literature drops in residential neighborhoods. Research Assistant Michigan Department of Attorney General June 2004 – August 2004 (3 months)Lansing, Michigan • Worked closely with the attorneys in the department's Public Employment, Elections and Tort Defense Division on specific projects. Special Research Assistant for the Executive Division Michigan Department of Attorney General October 2003 – August 2004 (11 months)Lansing, Michigan • Conducted long-term policy research. • Presented findings in official executive memos. Research Assistant to the Chief Deputy Attorney General Michigan Department of Attorney General February 2003 – August 2003 (7 months)Lansing, Michigan • Researched current legal issues that had time sensitive deadlines. • Discussed findings with senior executive management, including the Attorney General. Campaign Scheduler Statewide Political Campaign July 2002 – November 2002 (5 months)Livonia, Michigan Book Processor The Ruthven Museum Library September 2000 – July 2002 (1 year 11 months)Ann Arbor, Michigan Intern Regional Office of NY State Assembly Republican Minority Leader June 2001 – August 2001 (3 months)Hauppauge, New York King Kullen Cashier King Kullen June 2001 – August 2001 (3 months)West Islip, New York Maines Paper & Food Service, Inc. Temporary Receiving Clerk Maines Paper & Food Service, Inc. June 2000 – August 2000 (3 months)Farmingdale, New York Independent Contractor Southwestern Company May 2000 – June 2000 (2 months)Orem, Utah Faculty Research Assistant The Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program September 1998 – April 2000 (1 year 8 months)Ann Arbor, Michigan Per Diem BOCES Textbooks June 1998 – September 1999 (1 year 4 months)Copiague, New York • Worked during the summers of 1998 and 1999 stocking and supplying textbooks for parochial and private school children. Sacristan Our Lady of Lourdes R.C. Church April 1995 – August 1998 (3 years 5 months)West Islip, New York Maintenance Worker Private Residence June 1996 – August 1997 (1 year 3 months)Babylon, New York • Helped restore an old mansion during the summers of 1996 and 1997. • Duties included painting, yard work, and miscellaneous jobs. Bingo Table Set-Up Our Lady of Lourdes R.C. Church September 1993 – August 1994 (1 year)West Islip, New York Organizations St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Respect Life Ministry Facilitator June 2014 – Present • Runs monthly meetings. • Leads ministry activities. • Writes weekly column for parish bulletin. • Serves as the main liaison to the parish pastor. Palm Coast Life Chain Coordinator October 2014 – Present Flagler County Republican Executive Committee Secretary December 2014 – Present • Elected to represent Precinct 21 (May 2014). • Served as a poll watcher during the 2014 primary and general elections. • Duties as Secretary of the Committee include determining quorum at the monthly general meetings, composing meeting minutes, and managing the e-mail list. Flagler County Young Republican Club Member June 2014 – Present • Gave the invocation at the Florida Federation of Young Republicans’ Fall 2014 Quarterly Road to Victory Dinner featuring Congressman Ron DeSantis. City of Charlotte, Michigan Planning Commissioner November 2009 – February 2011 City of Charlotte, Michigan Alternate – Zoning Board of Appeals December 2008 – November 2009 Michigan Republican Party Elected Precinct Delegate August 2008 – February 2011 Volunteer Experience & Causes Usher at 11 a.m. Mass Our Lady of Lourdes R.C. Church – West Islip, NY May 2012 – August 2013 (1 year 4 months) Weekly Pro-Life Columnist RightMichigan.com August 2007 – August 2008 (1 year 1 month)Civil Rights and Social Action Causes Andrew cares about: Rights for the Unborn Religious Liberty First Amendment rights Organizations Andrew supports: Thomas More Society Citizens for a Pro-Life Society Pro-Life Action League Priests for Life Americans United for Life Students for Life of America American Family Association Right to Life of Michigan Florida Right to Life Salesian Missions Education Ave Maria School of Law Ave Maria School of Law Juris Doctorate, Law 2003 – 2006 Activities and Societies: • President, Bioethics Society (2004-2005) • Chairman, Lex Vitae Education Committee (2003-2004) • Lector, St. Mary Student Parish (2005-2006) • St. Mary Student Parish Social Justice Ministry (2004-2006) • St. Mary Student Parish Life Issues Taskforce (2003-2004) University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), History and Political Science, Graduated with Honors 1998 – 2002 Activities and Societies: • President, Students for Life (2000-2002) • History Honors Program (2000-2002) • Delta Epsilon Iota National Honor Society (2002) • University Honors (2001-2002) • Phi Alpha Theta History Honors Fraternity (2000) • National Society of Collegiate Scholars (1999) • Class Honors (1998) • Lector, St. Mary Student Parish (1999-2000) • Vice President, Students for Life (1999-2000) • Alternative Spring Break (Feb. 1999) • Head Usher, St. Mary Student Parish (1998-1999) St. Anthony High School – South Huntington, NY 1994 – 1998 • Awarded the Academic Medal for Theology, Class of 1998 (1/492) • American Legion Citizenship Award Co-Recipient, Class of 1998 (2/492) • Recipient of the Brother DePaul Costello Award for X-Country Achievements, Academic Excellence, and Leadership Ability (1997-1998) • All League Award for X-Country (1997) Activities and Societies: • Co-Captain of Varsity X-Country Team (1997) • Kolbe Society (1996-1998) • National Honor Society (1996-1998) • Spanish Honor Society (1995, 1997) • St. Anthony Leadership Team (1996-1998) • X-Country, Winter & Spring Track (6 Varsity Letters) Our Lady of Lourdes School – West Islip, NY 1985 – 1994 • Salutatorian, Class of 1994