The Courage of The Missouri Democratic Senators #NotInMyState

It was my privilege to listen to the 39 hour filibuster of Missouri Democratic Senators who tried to prevent the passage of SJR 39, a joint Senate resolution that purports to "protect" those with a "religious" objection to same sex marriage by establishing an amendment to the Missouri Constitution. Mind you, these protections were not merely those rights to religious freedom already protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. SJR 39 is much broader. In essence, people who disapprove of members of the LGBTQ society could be free to discriminate - refuse to sell products, rent housing, refuse employment, etc., if they claim being gay, lesbian, or trans-sexual is against their religious beliefs. The First Amendment already protects religious acts. For instance, a Catholic priest need not perform a wedding of a Jew and a Hindu in a Catholic Church. Weddings, funerals and such can be part of a religious ceremony, and are thus protected. No, the Senate Majority sought to include non-religious activities, such as baking wedding cakes, etc. So sad. This legislation, which seeks to put the matter to voters as a Missouri Constitutional amendment, is reminiscent of the Missouri Constitutional Amendment 12 years ago purporting to ban same sex marriage. That amendment is now unconstitutional because of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell last summer. What an exercise in futility based out of fear, insecurity and hate.

How the prejudices of some play out in a sad display of the worst of human weaknesses. We try to stop what we fear. In the past, people claimed inter-racial marriage violated their "religious" views and states declared those marriages illegal for many years. Those laws were an embarrassment. Why we try to control the behavior of others and force them to conform our desires is beyond me.

The 39 hour filibuster was so life-affirming. These Senators talked on and on. Not one of them has declared him or herself a member of the LGBTQ community, but they had their LGBTQ brothers' and sisters' backs. They stood up to protect their constituents, all of their constituents, not just those in the majority. That is what makes our country great, we protect those in minorities. We abhor fascism.

The Senate majority effectively stopped the filibuster by using a little use technique and the measure will likely pass, for now. The Missouri Constitution will probably be amended, because that just takes a majority of Missouri voters.  The LGBTQ community is not in the majority. This demonstrates why the actions of the Democratic Senators was so important, and so heroic. With a little time, and a lot of wasted public taxpayer dollars, the amendment will be found to violate the U.S. Constitution and eventually the majority will have to accept that everyone need not believe one way, need not feel one way, need not love one way. We are in the midst of a new civil rights struggle and ultimately justice will prevail.

Thank you to all of those brave Senators, who talked for 39 hours in hopes of furthering justice and protecting others. Than you Senators Maria Chappelle-Nadal, Kiki Curls, Jason Holsman, Joseph Keaveney, Jamilah Nasheed, Jill Schupp, Scott Sifton, and Gina Walsh. We need people like you.

Fighting Migraines -To The Bravest Woman I Know

Imagine feeling pain every single day of your life. You wake up with a dull ache behind your eyes that shoots inward to your brain on steel needles when you gaze upon the sunlight. As the day wears on, your head begins to throb. Sitting close to a perfumed woman makes you gag. Loud noises create stabbing feelings on the top of your head. The pain distracts you, but you persist. You go to work even though you hurt and you love what you do, caring for animals, dogs and cats, who are so innocent and pure. You try to keep up with your schoolwork, even though the glare from the computer screen makes your eyes ache and grow tired. You must memorize the anatomy of animals, take the tests, get along with your peers and make sure you and your husband make enough money to pay the rent, feed the animals you foster, and take care of the dogs and cat you have adopted.

You cannot stop, because if you do, you might not be able to start back up. Secretly, you fear that if you stop, giving up will become too tempting. But, you miss classes and work hours. You've explained what's going on to your boss and to your teachers. You worry that those in charge won't understand. Only those close to you can see the pain in your eyes when the migraine is in full force. Otherwise, you look normal. You gave up going to the Royals games and even movie theatres because the bright lights and booming noises have become unbearable. But, your boss and teachers don't know how different your life has become from theirs.

You hope they understand. You hear other students and co-workers are complaining about your attendance. You crave compassion, but realize those without health issues cannot understand. You fear that federal and state laws for people with disabilities are little real protection. You understand how others might resent you, and it depresses you. Oh, to be pain free.

You don't know how you happened to get the short end of this stick, and it really doesn't matter. Life is what it is. You are not going to give up. Pain be damned. But, pain sure makes life hard. You need to distract yourself. There he is, that big white dog you love. One kiss from him, as he sits in your lap, makes it all seem wothwhile. Onward.

A Drumpf Presidency - What Would the Neighbors Think

You know that feeling when your house is in disarray and you don't want anyone visiting. You don't want anyone outside your family to find out that your furniture needs some polish, or that there are grease marks on your kitchen walls. Plus, what if you are arguing with your spouse because he likes to watch TV in his tidy whites with his Boulevard Pale Ale bottles strewn across the coffee table, next to the greasy papers and food wrappers thrown throughout the floor. What if your weird Uncle Luther is there, with his dirty white tee-shirt, two sizes too small, with his butt crack protruding over his low-slung jeans. You like to lay prone across the big stained beige cloth recliner eating peanut M&M's and watching Real Housewives of Hollywood. Your pregnant sixteen year old niece is hiding the cigarette she's smoking outside the backyard door, while the beagle humps her boyfriend's leg as he reclines on the couch.

This is America with Donald Drumpf in charge. Do you really want those Parisians or Londoners, with their cool manners and haughty judgments coming a' calling. They are all in their fancy clothes and discerning palates, walking into the rotten food smell of the living room, or the indescrible stench of the bathroom. Angela Merkel wants to drop by. What do you do?  Do you want the world leaders spying the disgrace your country has become with Boob Donald Drumpf in charge. I am listening to the Drumpf on the tube right now. Oops, just dumped some beer on my nightgown and spilled the M&M's. Please let me wake up from this nightmare.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does - Legislator Author of HB 2610 Abuses Public Trust

A Missouri Legislator proposed HB 2610 - a bill that states that legislators serving the minimum 2 year term, that is less than 5 months each term, is qualified to become a lawyer or judge. Cool!  No requirement of going to any stupid law school, learning, contracts, torts, real estate law, or anything except how to pass legislation. No tests. No studying. No bar exam. No college even necessary. Presumably, a high school diploma is not needed. No ethics exams. No three years of intensive study. No bar exam. No moral and ethical qualifications probed. All you need to do is file to become a representative in a small county with no resistance, and after two years, you too, can sit as a judge on Missouri's highest court, the Supreme Court. You, too, can ignore precedents, statutes and constitutional mandates to further your narrow biased or crazy agenda. What difference is it if a little chaos ensues, if you can further your narrow-minded uneducated right-wing agenda and punish all people who have different opinions. 

And Missouri residents pay the salary of this bozo who either could not get into law school or is too lazy to earn a law license the regular way- after years of work. Scary.

Atticus Finch, Harper Lee, and the American Presidential Election

Doesn't it make you tired?  Our country is divided.  Some of us want to keep Muslims out of our country. (What a cockamamie idea - I'm sure they must be native Americans, since the rest of us come from immigrants.) Some of us want single-payer health care.  Others want no legal abortions no matter what. Free college. No IRS. No Obamacare.  No government. More government. No national debt. More national debt. Oy. We cannot agree on anything. 

Doesn't it make you tired?  Hillary Clinton is a dishonest bitch. Bernie Sanders is an old hippy.  Donal Trump is .... well, Donald Trump. Cruz is mean and creepy. Rubio is a robot. Who is fit to be President?

I must like conflict more than I care to admit, because I have dealt with conflict professionally for close to 33 years. But, I am growing tired. I fear this country is turning into a big dysfunctional family. We fear everything - terrorists, wackos, "thugs,' rich people, poor people, corporations, politicians. I understand Rodney King, "Why can't we all just get along."

Where are the rational people?  Harmony must count for something. We need more empathy.  As Harper Lee wrote, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." Of course, she also wrote, "Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it."  

And so it goes.  Ms. Lee also wrote, 'They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."  

So, the political climate has been crazy ever since we elected a Black man. And now a woman is running. Is racism or sexism partly responsible for this discord?  Maybe.

S

And so it goes.

Why I Support Hillary, Part II

I understand Bernie Sanders supporters.  Part of me wants to be a Bernie Sanders supporter, and I will be if he is nominated.  However, I wanted to explain why I, and probably some other women of my generation support Hillary.

I have grown up with Hillary Clinton.  When I started practicing law in 1983, there were essentially no women civil trial lawyers in Kansas City, with the notable exception of one.  I was so fortunate to try my first case with the only woman that I know tried civil jury trials before me, Martha Hickman. When Martha got out of law school, she could not join the local bar association because of her gender. Martha was my only female mentor and I was fortunate to work with her on several cases. However, most female lawyers on the plaintiffs' side had no mentors.  When I was searching for a job out of law school, knowing that I wanted to be a trial lawyer, several male lawyers in male law firms asked me how I expected to be a trial lawyer and still mother my child.  They were parents, too. In never occurred to them that my struggles with life balance should have been there struggles, too.  In fact, just this summer, a male lawyer who was opposing counsel told me that he thought it was too hard for women to be trial lawyers and have a family.  His wife had quit law when she got pregnant. I did not argue with him, I just went about the business of representing my client trying his case.  My children, now grown, are well-adjusted adults, who incidentally appreciate both of their parents. Plus, my son is just as ardent a feminist as is his sister.

I remember when Hillary was first lady.  I worked in an office where it was common for some of the employees to constantly ridicule her.  And ridicule her they did.  She couldn't do anything right.  I never understood why people hated her so much. I could never see what she was doing wrong as first lady. Sure, she took a more active role in policy decisions than any other first lady.  But, she is very smart and driven.  I think people were threatened by her. I really admired how she held up when her husband was being impeached.  I would have withered under all of the scrutiny.  She did not. She is determined, perhaps to a fault.  

Many women today have never been without female role models. I think that's great.  I think Bernie Sanders respects women.  However, he has never personally felt the sting of non-acceptance based on gender.  Women make up 52% of this country.  It's time for a woman to be President.

Why I support Hillary Clinton, and Love Bernie Sanders

When I was 19 years old, the Constitution was amended to allow 18 year olds the right to vote. The first opportunity I had to vote was in the Presidential election on 1972. I was young and idealistic and sick of the war in Vietnam. There was one candidate who offered a clear choice to end the war - George McGovern. Most of today's electorate are too young to have experienced the 1972 Presidential election the way I did. I had posters with sayings like, "What if there was a war, but no one showed up," and "Make love, not war."  Unbelievably, I was selected as a delegate to the 1972 Missouri Democratic election. What an experience!  It changed the trajectory of my life. Instead of pursuing education to become a psychologist, I changed my major to political science, which led me to law. As a lawyer, I have chosen to fight for civil rights. I learned so much from that election. And one thing I learned, from being an avid supporter of George McGovern is that candidates on the fringes or extremes of a party will lose in the general election. George McGovern lost every state except Massachusetts and President Richard Nixon, one of the worst presidents in history, was elected in a landslide.  If only Hubert Humphrey had publicly cut ties to President Lyndon Johnson sooner, this country might be a different place.

Bernie Sanders has a great idea. I support a political revolution. Wall Street is too powerful. The recession was a series of crimes committed by investment banks. And, yes, I believe it could happen again. The banking crisis politically is akin to the Vietnam War.  And, for the same reasons George McGovern lost in 1972, Bernie Sanders will lose if he is the Democratic nominee in 2016.

Bernie Sanders has one big idea - breaking up the banks, like McGovern's one big idea, which was ending the unpopular Vietnam war. Plus, I live in middle America. We are the Midwest, but more appropriately, we here in Kansas City are the Heart of America. I have many similarities to Bernie; I am descended from European Jews, even Polish Jews on my dad's side, and I am not very religious. I don't know if Bernie's supporters realize that in this day and age in middle America being a non-religious Jew, especially with a pronounced New York accent, is not a great selling point. There are many evangelicals in middle America and Bernie's views, spiritually and politically, differ greatly from theirs. I am more practical than my 19 year old self, I do not want another Nixon in the White House.

Plus, I like Hillary. I relate to her. In trial, jurors have commented on my clothing, jewelry and whether I "look" like a lawyer in ways the youngest or weirdest male lawyers have never known. Hillary is the most persistent person in the world. She has been the subject of public scorn since the 1992 presidential campaign of her husband. Her marital problems and personal life have been the subjects of public comment for decades. She has "cankles'', wears ugly pants suits, gained weight, is shrill, is phony, and everything she does is scandalized. She is 'bossy' and too loud. There is no other presidential candidate who, during my lifetime, has been subjected to such scorn. You can't tell me that this is anything but sexism. Yet, she never gives up.

I do not agree with everything Hillary does. I was saddened when she voted to attack Iraq. I wondered how she could stay married after her husband's dalliances became so public. I think she is overly hawkish at times and I disagree with her position on the death penalty. But that woman never gives up. She is an incredible role model for America's, and the world's, girls and young women.  We need a woman president. The world needs us to have a woman president. And she is smart, and savvy, and hard-working. We need Hillary Clinton. The Republican alternative is way too scary.

LGBT Discrimination - Everyone Deserves To Be Treated With Respect

The Missouri Supreme Court declined to take my client's employment discrimination case based on his sexual orientation. The Missouri Legislature is reviewing several bills providing protection against housing, public accommodation and employment discrimination for LGBT.  It's predicted to fail, for the ninth or tenth year in a row. While the United States Supreme Court declared that there is a constitutional right for same sex marriage, two people getting married can legally be evicted and fired because they are gay. Is this justice?

Some people declare that they have religious beliefs contrary to gay people. I have never heard of religious beliefs mandating harassment and ridicule. For crying out loud, no laws will require people to marry someone of the same sex against his or her will, or even to hug or kiss anyone they do not want to hug or kiss. No laws will mandate changes in religious beliefs. Churches could still refuse to perform marriages contrary to the tenets of the religion. Straight people will lose no protection and anyone who is threatened by treating people with dignity and respect have a screwed up view of what the law will do.

Discrimination laws merely protect people from being discriminated against, which simply means they cannot be treated worse because of sexual orientation or sexual identity. In other words, you can't bully gay and transgender people and you have to treat them with respect and give them the same opportunities as every one else. It's simply treating others with dignity and respect. Why is that concept such a threat?

When I was a young lawyer, I thought members of the LGBT community had little chance of fair treatment. Fairness for LGBTs was a distant future frontier in justice. Last year, I had hoped that we, as a society, had finally realized the gross injustice we inflict when  we allow and foster discrimination  against gays and lesbians and transgender people. I had hoped I could contribute to the abolition of this injustice. It looks like I was wrong. I hope I am not.

How To Deal With Failure

When clients come to me, something really bad has usually happened. Getting fired is devastating. Employers can, at times, have the power to destroy not on;u ones ability to put food on the table, but also  to love the face in the mirror.

We all have to deal with devastating blows in life  - rejection in love, work, or in society. We all lose loved ones to death. Many of us have financial problems, children acting out, disease and death of loved ones, and mental illnesses of us and loved ones We are all going to die. So what's the point?

We humans are made to be resilient. But, we are human nonetheless.

When tragedy strikes:

1.  Lean into the pain.  A friend told me that once. It means face the pain, don't run. If you run, the pain will keep chasing you.

2.  Do not wallow in self-pity, seek professional help if necessary.

 3. Get help from friends and family (but avoid plastering Facebook.).  Vulnerability is often strength, not weakness. Your friends want to help. 

4. Do things for others, give of yourself without thought of taking.

5.  Meditate, exercise, or do whatever to stop thinking about yourself. 

6.  Keep rolling on. Persist.  Be spontaneous and present. Don't dwell on the past.

7. Accept responsibility for your part, learn from it, and forgive yourself. 

Every failure is a lesson. Keep moving. If you can't bounce back alone, get help. Life is full of failure. It's what you do after the failure that makes the difference.

Positive Aspects of Being A Lawyer

I believe that when one gives to another, the giver should expect nothing in return. Of course, in business, that is not true,because there are contracts. But, if we do something purely out of the goodness of our hearts, you cannot expect a reward. That is. True giving, true charity. There should be no strings attached.

Practicing law is different. It is the way I make my livelihood. I handle cases because a believe in them (hopefully) but I need to pay bills. Occasionally, I have cases where the issue is more important than money. They come in two categories:

1.   REPRESENTING AN AMAZING PERSON

   Recently, I represented a wonderful, long-term employee was fired from his public service job. After the jury want out to deliberate, my client came up to me and my co-counsel and staff and told us that he was satisfied. He thought the jury really heard his story. He felt vindicated. The one was irrelevant. That comment is one of the most meaningful and gratifying statements that it was almost enough. The jury then awarded actual and punitive damages and it was great. But, satisfying our client made the most difference. Our client told us both before the jury decision and after that the money didn't matter and to him, winning didn't matter. He wanted to be heard and understood. After he felt heard and understood, that was enough. The rest was gravy.

2.  REPRESENTING PEOPLE ON ISSUES OF UNIVERSAL IMPORTANCE

Up until the 1970s it was illegal, moreover criminal, to be married to a person of a different race in Virginia and other states. Not until the case of Loving v. Virginia did the Supreme Court abolish these laws. Women in this country did not have the vote until 1920. Same sex marriage was forbidden in most of the United States until this past June. We fought a war to end slavery. These human rights breakthroughs do not come easily. It is hard to fight those in power to obliterate the status quo. Many people died to free the slaves, but today we all recognize how horrible and inhuman slavery is. It is beyond belief to most of us that a mere 150 years ago this country allowed its citizens to own humans. The drafters of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the constitution must have felt gratified. There is nothing like feeling your work will historically be considered just and fair.

The goal of lawyers should not be simply to make money. This is a profession. Lawyers have a higher calling. We need to remember what lawyering is supposed to be.