Rock ‘n’ Roll!

With the season of summer camps upon us and their youthful spirit in the air, we want to share with you one recent development in the world of womaen that we’re excited about: rock’n'roll camps for girls. These camps give girls a voice in a creative, positive, cooperative space where it’s good to be female. We know of camps in the Bay Area and Portland, Oregon, and if you know of any others around the country, let us know.

(Rock ‘n’ Roll camps for girls – on the web:

Portland: http://www.girlsrockcamp.org/main/

Bay Area camp: http://www.bayareagirlsrockcamp.org/)

A new documentary traces the development of these excellent girl-empowering programs.

Straight Privilege Reminder Wedding Vows

(A Joke, for Three Readers) by Audrey of Coursey

Officiant:
Bride and Groom,
today is the day you commit yourselves to each other
before family, friends, the state,
and whatever Deity may care to notice.
Your love has chosen you for each other,
and that choice has opened you up
to the many changes you now face,
as you become legally wed.
Your lives will never be the same.
You will leave today joined to each other
as you are joined to no one else on Earth.

Bride:
Dearest, today I promise to file a joint tax return with you,
every spring.

Groom:
My love, today I promise to visit you in prison,
should you ever be incarcerated,
for the rest of your days.

Bride:
Darling, I commit to you, through sickness as through health,
and to visit you in the hospital when you are ill,
since I will now be legally admitted to see you.

Groom:
Sweetie pie, I pledge to make well-reasoned decisions
about your medical care,
as your legal spouse with the right and responsibility to do so.

Bride:
Honey, I pledge to file joint bankruptcy with you,
in the case of such extreme financial need.

Groom:
Angel, I commit to celebrate our union
by making full use of discounted family memberships,
at whatever venue thus honors our wedded love.

Bride:
Sugar, today I vow to consider, and perhaps use,
my spousal right to immunity from testifying against you
in a court of law.

Groom:
Sunshine of my soul, if you should be killed as you follow your dream calling as a policewoman, I promise to collect the $100,000 death benefit awarded by the state to the spouse of a public safety officer killed in the line of duty.

Bride:
Keeper of my heart, since, under federal laws governing reclamation and irrigation of lands, the basic unit of ownership is 160 irrigable acres, and inherited lands in private ownership that become excess after the death of a spouse are eligible to receive water from a project under the Federal Reclamation Laws, I promise to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to furnish water to those lands without contract, as long as the lands are owned by me, the surviving, legal spouse, until I remarry.

Groom:
Beloved, today I vow to make full use of my legal entitlement to
bereavement leave, in the unthinkable case of your passing.

Officiant:
You found the keys to each other’s hearts,
but they have become lost in the cluttered house of your relationship.
Now you must remain there, in each other’s hearts, forever.

Both:
I promise to love and care for you.
I will try in every way to be worthy of your love.
But most of all, I promise to be a true and loyal friend to you.
I love you -
at least as long as same-sex marriages are illegal,
because when gay people can legally get married just like us,
which would inevitably endanger our own marriage through unforeseeable threats we shudder to think of,
this union will be automatically null and void.

Officiant:
I now pronounce you legally wed.
You may now make out with each other in front of everyone you know.

(And, yes, these are all things wedded couples are entitled to, and domestic partners are, usually, not.)

Guns on Peace Campuses?

School shootings have horrified pacifists along with all other citizens of our fair nation. We all want to prevent such violence. We all want our campuses to be safe places for higher learning, not danger zones that put students’ lives at risk. We all know that this is a terrible challenge to discern how to keep our schools safe, and that there is no one perfect answer. But shouldn’t peace church members use different means of keeping our campuses safe than our less-pacifist brethren?

Apparently not, at some Brethren schools, that is. An embarrassing Washington Post article explores how different colleges affiliated with the three historic peace churches – the Church of the Brethren, the Mennonites, and the Friends/Quakers – have equipped their campuses in response to the tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. What’s embarrassing about it is that it’s only Brethren colleges (two of our seven schools), not Mennonite or Quaker schools, that have resorted to the tools of empire to (supposedly) protect students, by hiring armed guards.

Sure, even at these schools there were voices of dissent. And sure, many of the other schools rely on armed local police, but it’s only Brethren schools that have taken the initiative to bring weapons onto their campuses. Somehow, most of these schools remember their identities as peace churches, while it’s Brethren college representatives who forget and think adopting the violent means of our state will end violence. How does this make Brethren look to others, that we’re so confused about what it means to be a “living peace church” that we bring guns onto our campuses? (How does this make me look when it’s my Quaker friend sending me the link to this article?)

If any of us needed evidence of the phenomenon Carl Bowman and others are propounding, that Brethren have lost much of their peculiar identity, they need look no further than this article. Why is Brethren heritage not a “huge part” of the “culture and identity” at some Brethren colleges? Or, why is pacifist renunciation of the tools of warfare not a huge part of our Brethren heritage? Where are the Brethren pioneering “another way of living” and another way of responding to tragic violence? Do the Juniata trustees really think guns will make the campus safer? Are none of the peace church voices loud enough to drown out the national cacophony meeting violence with more weapons – are there no recognized alternatives?

The closing line of the article, a quote by Donald B. Kraybill of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at E-town, pretty well sums up my feelings on the matter:

“I would hope that colleges in the peace church tradition have the brainpower to come up with creative nonviolent alternatives.”

Indeed.