As if a daughter receiving her father’s medals 26 years later weren’t enough, it turns out that both of her sons are serving in the military as well. They took leave to fly back to Massachusetts for this ceremony. Their presence made the event even more of a meditation on patriotism, love of country, and a family’s tradition of service — and made it all the more poignant that they were finally receiving the tangible acknowledgement of their grandfather’s service.Throughout the ceremony, I had so many thoughts and feelings coming up — about service and community and family traditions and what it means to genuinely honor patriotism, as distinct from giving it lip service as a way to score political points — that I’m not even going to try to write them out; I’m just going to invite people to watch for themselves.
The video is 27 minutes long. For those who don’t have that much time, here’s a guide to the video so you can scan ahead to specific points (you really ought to watch the speeches by the family, at least):
Beginning: Edmund W. Mulvehill, Jr., Director of Veterans Services for Norwood, talks about Armit Tilgner’s service and explains why this collection of medals is rather astonishing.
4:50 Helen Tilgner speaks
8:05 Helen Tilgner’s two sons speak
14:10 John Kerry speaks
24:17 John Kerry presents the medals to the family — and really, you just have to watch the final 2 minutes of the video; this part is just after the ceremony proper has ended, as Helen and her sons look at the medals with the Senator
What a moving ceremony.
but was afraid John Kerry would have stumbled when I introduced him to the Senator. Kerry (I could imagine), “It’s a pleasure to meet your huuuuuuu, um civil partner, umm roommate, uhh friend, how’s that, that’s safe isn’t it?”
Since he’s gone on record — repeatedly — as saying he does not believe Massachusett’s same-sex marriage rights should be repealed. I’ve never heard of any incidents in which the Senator was in any way awkward or discourteous with gay couples.
He didn’t display any social awkwardness whatsoever in meeting a lesbian couple.
That’s the event at which marriage equality was even mentioned (in answer to Cambridge Paul’s question during the Q&A.)
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p>If not, I fail to see what your comment is doing on a post about a family finding closure regarding the death of a loved one.
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p>Furthermore, Senator Kerry is the soul of graciousness and I’m sure he would be perfectly comfortable speaking with both you and your husband.
There is Segregation in this country regarding LGBT people and Senator John Kerry (my Senator) is a Segregationist. As long as he buys into putting LGBT people in a separate category he has earned that title. John Kerry says that he doesn’t believe Massachusetts same-sex marriages should be repealed while he states publicly that he is against same-sex marriage personally…and that is supposed to make me satisfied?
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p>It reminds me of those people who still exist though were much more prolific during my childhood who would say things like, “I believe in civil rights for Blacks, though I would hope that my daughter doesn’t marry one.” Give me a break!
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p>And why would I bring up this topic on this post? Because I have a big problem when I read or see anyone in the military. You see I cannot serve and never would have been allowed to serve my country because I am an “out” gay man. One of my closest friends is in the Army, is also gay and I see what he goes through. The two lives he is forced to lead… so forgive me when I read about a (military) “family finding closure on the death of a loved one” and my mind goes to those LGBT people serving in the military who are NOT ALLOWED to tell their fellow straight service men and woman that if anything were to happen to them to tell their significant others (ie partners) that they loved them. Sorry, if I was so insensitive to darken this blog post!
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p>And before you say that Senator John Kerry is against the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy…” I will say that as long as he publicly speaks Segregationist language regarding LGBT, he puts fuel in the fire which retains this nasty, un-American policy.
Even if your point were correct, and I don’t think it is, this ceremony had nothing to do with that.
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p>Listen to his answer to Cambridge Paul. There is nothing to suggest he wouldn’t be supportive of close relative who was gay.
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p>As to the military – which you say is why you added this here, Kerry was one of strongest people willing to go on record that gays should be allowed in the military. (This is before Clinton came up with “don’t ask, don’t tell”) Here are excerpts from his January 27, 1993 speech from the Senate record (the whole thing is long – and you can easily get it from Thomas.com :
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p>So let me begin with as clear an articulation as I can make of what I think is the issue.
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p>The issue of discrimination against gays in the military is not before us and is not important because the President made a pledge during the election campaign. It is not important because of who promised to consult whom prior to taking action, although clearly, consultation and education are needed. It is not important because of what it says or does not say about a particular lifestyle. It is important because it involves a fundamental question of right versus wrong.
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p>The President is not seeking to endorse a lifestyle or to embrace an agenda of social change with which many in the country might disagree. The President is seeking to lead, as he ought to lead, in ending discrimination, in keeping full faith in this country between the American people, its elected leadership, and the constitutional promises of this Nation. That is what this issue is.
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p>Mr. President, when you stop and analyze this issue, after you say, all right, I concede there may be problems, there are perceptions that we have to get over, there are years and years of inculcated tradition and of belief around which the current military is built. We all know that. That is true. That does present us with a certain set of problems.
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p>But against that you have to measure what those problems really represent once you have acknowledged them: Why is there a problem? There is a problem because many people view gays with scorn or derision or fear. There is a problem because when people look at gays or lesbians, they find a lifestyle which they may abhor, cannot understand, do not want to understand, and believe they should not have to understand, and so do not.
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p>The result is that we find ourselves put in the position of either embracing or rejecting what is a fundamental form of discrimination–a dislike of someone or something else because it does not conform to our sense of how we want to be or how we think everybody ought to be.
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p>That is not what this country is supposed to be about. Whether it is a matter of skin color or religion, that is not who we are. And it is also not who we are with respect to matters of sexual preference.
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p>Now, I am not going to spend a lot of time going into or discussing why someone is or is not gay . I am no expert on that. I can only suggest that the vast majority of people to whom I have talked who are gay do not view it as a matter of choice. They are born with that choice already part of their constitution. And for many, there is a lifetime of agony in trying to face up to the realities of who they are as a human being, as a person. And those agonies can drive some to suicide. They drive some to live a life of lies and running away. Others embrace it more readily and more capably.
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p>We are supposed to be a society that does not drive people to run away from themselves or from their history or who they are. We are supposed to be a society which allows human beings to live to the fullest capacity of who they may want to be or who they are, defined by themselves, as long as they do not break the law, break the rules, intrude on other people.
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p>(snip)
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p>Is there anyone who does not believe that there are thousands of gays and lesbians in the military at this minute? Eleven thousand of them over the last few years have admitted it, voluntarily or not and they were drummed out.
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p>We can be assured that there are surely thousands more who are scared to admit, who are forced by our policy to live a lie. They go about their business. They defend their country. They defend our freedoms. They defend the Constitution because they believe in what we, as a nation, stand for.
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p>The question is not whether we should have gays in the military , because we have gays in the military . Gays have fought in the Revolution, in the Civil War, in both World Wars, in Korea, in Vietnam, in the Persian Gulf, and they fought, Mr. President, and they died not as gays or lesbians, but as Americans.
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p>So the question is whether we as a country should continue to treat a whole group of people as second-class citizens? Is it appropriate to codify a lie, to pretend that there are no gays in the military ? Is it right to continue a policy that says to this group of Americans you are somehow not part of America, not entitled to help defend America, not someone whom we are willing to openly associate with in the military , even though every day in the workplace, every day in schools and colleges across America, we have learned to live and work together?
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p>Mr. President, to codify discrimination in the military alone is not worthy of America. These are people who want to serve our country. They want to risk their lives and we respond instead by treating them like criminals, requiring them to hide from the fundamental part of their own identities not asked for but God given, forcing them into lives of secrecy and needless and senseless fear.
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p>It is this simple, Mr. President. Lifting the ban on gays in the military is simply one of those things that we have to do if we are going to continue to make progress toward becoming a more just and honorable society, not because we embrace or like the life style, but because that is the right thing to do in a diverse, pluralistic society. To do less would be to institutionalize and legitimize homophobia. It would be to separate our Armed Forces in an artificial and false way from the very Nation that they are charged with defending. To do less would be to abandon tolerance, and to ratify intolerance as a guiding principle of national policy. It would be to be forever unfaithful, literally semper infidelis, to what this country is all about.
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p>(snip)
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p>Now some say, well, we cannot have an effective military service if we allow gay people to serve openly in the Armed Forces. I ask, why not? Other countries have proven that they can do it. Israel is renowned for the strength and effectiveness of its Armed Forces but does not discriminate. Most of the European armies do not discriminate. Americans train with NATO forces from countries that do not discriminate. I wonder whether we are so timid or so driven by insecurity and intolerance, and even so immature as a society that we cannot function in the presence of individuals different in some respect from ourselves.
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p>(snip)
The fact is that there has been a lot more commotion about this controversy than the substance of it truly warrants. Trust me, if the ban on gays were lifted tomorrow, and it will not necessary be, I suspect, but if it were, the Sun is still going to come up, our aircraft carriers will remain afloat, and we will continue to have the force and presence that we now have around the world. The difference is that we would be conducting ourselves in a way that does not defy the very principles that we try to put into place in a host of other walks of our society, and that is at the center of our Constitution, and at the center of the service of so many who have preceded us, who have died in uniform so that others will not be discriminated against.
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p>
Still a Segregationist. No matter how you want to package it.
Kerry has no excuse to not support marriage equality, ie equality for LGBT 100%
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p>anything less than is ignorance and prejudice
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p>sorry folks, there isn’t a Santa Claus
But Mr. President, regarding the issue of whether we should allow “gays” to marry, the answer is no. And in the cases like Massachusetts where they manage to anyway, legally…I won’t take their marriages away from them.
In fact, in the one chance Kerry had to vote in accordance with your made up quote – he voted NO. That was DOMA. You apparently didn’t notice that he was in a small minority of Senators who stood up against this bill.
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he fell to convention and came out against same-sex marriage.
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p>Sorry, Karenc, your Senator has no clothes
of legislators on same-sex marriage, ie EQUALITY for LGBT. Over a 3 1/2 year period, we educated then and many made progress and understood the definition and the benefit to society. You are right, John Kerry did speak out against DOMA. He made us all proud many years ago. Then instead of being a leader, he digressed when all of his state legislators moved forward.
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p>He went from being a hero to becoming an embarrassment to Massachusetts and the LGBT community.
You also did not concede that you were wrong to blame Kerry on gays being in the untenable position they are in the military. As others posted, he always was for civil unions with full federal and state rights. In the US Senate, this is, itself, a very progressive position and one that would still be hard to get the majority behind. What federal legislation could help you get what you want?
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p>- A repeal of DOMA? Kerry was against DOMA when only 13 Senators voted against it. He is still against it.
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p>- A move to change federal law to treat any state recognized relationship as marriage in terms of rights and privileges. This is what Kerry was for in 2004. Who else has clearly said this? This actually is a position where he was in the lead.
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p>Kerry has never voted against your interest – he has a 100% record. There are many BIG issues in this campaign and Kerry has been a leader on many. Who will you vote for?
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p>A move to establish gay marriage at the state level is pushed by no one and it might not even be constitutional as that right is given to states.
I am waiting with bated breath to see clips of Monday night’s debate on NECN. Oh, no good propaganda there. Gee I hope you’re filming in Worcester tomorrow. I’ll bbe the regular citizen in a wheelchair that Kerry doesn’t give a shit about. Chances are very good he’s not stopping to chat, I’m not a millionaire. I hope his AC works with his windows rolled all the way up like that.
I’ll see you there. I’ll be the woman with the long hair and the camcorder. Please be sure to say hi.
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p>We have video of the debate, but haven’t bothered to post it yet — it was unbelievably boring, and anyway it’s available over on the NECN site, isn’t it?
Is it boring. Seems Monday was employees only for Kerry. Jeff Beatty had volunteers. Shh, don’t tell anyone, easier for Jeff Beatty to win .
That survey was done on Monday thru Wednesday – so it is likely that two thirds of the polling was after the debate. In early August, the same poll had Beatty at 29%, he was at 19% this time. The difference is outside the margin of sampling error. He was WAY behind, and now he is further behind. Senator Kerry’s number, on the other hand, went up.
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p>I don’t know if I would use the word boring, I would use a similar “boorish” to describe Beatty’s behavior. I don’t think he did himself any favors by not stating his positions on many issues while he used the time to attack the Senator.
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p>As I said, I didn’t see a Kerry email inviting people to come out to the debate. It is clear that Beatty’s team brought out their people. Even if you are correct that there were no Kerry volunteers there – which I suspect there were – this means nothing.
… I can’t find a video of the whole event, but there are a couple of archived reporting stories with some snippets on particular issues. They may have agreed with you at NECN that it was too boring to bother to air in its entirety.
They had it on this week.
rtsp://video1.c-span.org/archive/c08/debates/state/c08_102008_masenate.rm
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p>(real media)
Nice to meet you!
all readers that you won’t get that hour back. Time is finite, and the question is do you really want to watch a debate featuring a high school amateur like Beatty? Frankly, it was embarrassing especially when he kept whining “it’s my turn” after he had rudely interrupted everyone else on the panel. The only real information I gleaned from the entire debate was that Kerry was an early supporter of an anti-predatory lending bill that the Republicans repeatedly blocked in the Senate starting in 2000. Other than that, it was neither informative nor entertaining what with Mr. Amateur constantly interrupting or launching ridiculous attacks.
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p>As to the attack on the diarist, hey — you post what you want and the diarist will post what he/she wants. I mean, since Noisy Democrat took the time to film something that would otherwise be lightly covered, I say good for him/her.
I blamed Kerry for taking a position on LGBT which is Segregationist. And that feeds into the continuance of policies and attitudes and legislation and discrimination against LGBT.
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p>Don’t shroud the man with excuses like, ” A move to establish gay marriage at the state (Federal?) level is pushed by no one and it might not even be constitutional as that right is given to states” to somehow paint him as 100% pro gay.
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p>My Senator makes public statements against MY Equal Rights when he wants LGBT to have “another word” for what he is allowed to do (marry) again and again. This “other word” status is Segregationist. You can argue all you want and spend your whole day in front of your pc to do it, but what John Kerry is doing does and can most defitiely hurt the equal marriage/equality movement.
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p>The Stonewall Dems Endorsement? Look what they had to work with. An endorsement does not over shadow the facts that John Kerry will seriously hurt Equal Rights for LGBT (even on a state level) if he continues to come out for Civil Unions. Stonewall Dems have endorsed John Kerry. And John Kerry has endorsed Segregation.
He’s already said that marriage equality in MA should not be repealed. He’s already refused to support things like DOMA. In what arena, exactly, do you fear that he’s going to be pushing for civil unions over marriage?