Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Vagina - Everyone's Hometown

This has been a very interesting year in Michigan politics, with the Republicans doing all they can to take over the state. In their latest effort, Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas barred Representative Lisa Brown and Representative Barb Byrum from speaking for comments made he didn't like. Censorship, plain and simple. These two women represent thousands of Michigan residents. So their voices were silenced, too.

The fuss over Representative Brown was due to this statement:

"Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but no means no”.

Last night, thousands of women and men descended on the Capital for a live performance of "The Vagina Monologues" to protest this latest attack on women by the Republicans . The creator of this groundbreaking play, Eve Ensler, flew all the way in from California to be part of the event.

About ten minutes before the rally started, a woman walked up to a microphone and started speaking. The crowd cheered and roared. We were fired up. It was very hard to hear her, clearly she had little experience with a microphone. Then she said something about call this number and the power was cut to her mic. She was an anti-abortion protester. Hat's off to her. That took guts. I would love to see one of us do that at one of their rallies. She was allowed to yell at the crowd for a few minutes (this was about free speech after all), then gently escorted off the Capital steps.

Soon the rally started. Representatives Brown and Byrum, Ms. Ensler, eight other female legislators, and some actors gave a rousing performance of the Vagina Monologues, saying the "V" word over 100 times. How surreal to be at a rally at the Michigan capital surrounded by thousands of people shouting Vagina! at the top of their lungs. It was glorious. It was stupendious. It was, well, simply powerful.

The best part of the rally for me was being with people who care about freedom. I wasn't locked away in my small house cheering with the commentators on MSNBC. I was with old women and young women, babies and children, old men and young men, blacks, latinos, asians, native americans, whites, mixed bloods. I was with rich and poor and somewhere in the middles. I was with dogs and dragonflies, statues and flowers. And uniting us all was Vagina. Seems fitting given that the Vagina is everyone's hometown.

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