aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Saturday, May 21, 2005

A graduation in Alabama

Kim at Alas, a blog tells this graduation tale from Montgomery, AL:

A pregnant student who was banned from graduation at her Roman Catholic high school announced her own name and walked across the stage anyway at the close of the program.

Alysha Cosby’s decision prompted cheers and applause Tuesday from many of her fellow seniors at St. Jude Educational Institute.

But her mother and aunt were escorted out of the church by police after Cosby headed back to her seat.

What about the boy?

The father of Cosby’s child, also a senior at the school, was allowed to participate in graduation.

Comments Kim:

It’s not often that I feel a tremendous amount of pride in the actions of a complete stranger, but this incident definitely was inspiring. The question remains, however, how a group so adamant about sending a message to women to not have abortions can behave so shamefully towards a young woman who did exactly that, and add insult onto injury by welcoming the father of the child to participate in commencement with impunity.

Absolutely true.

While on the topic, check out this Washington Post article, Centrist Courage on Abortion:

The 42-year-old Nassau County executive is a churchgoing Catholic who believes that abortion should remain legal. He is also a Democrat who thinks that government should take concrete steps to make it easier for women to choose against abortion. He’s proposing that his suburban jurisdiction on Long Island spend some serious money to make that happen.

Via Steve Gillard (who’s take on the topic differs from mine--I believe there is a middle, difficult as it is to find).

America’s sinking

As we leave Philadelphia via the requisite cheese steak stop in South Philly on the way to the airport to drop off mom-in-law, I note that my alphabetical neighbor and Center City resident blogger has linked (a metaphor for our times) to the sinking of the America:

The retired aircraft carrier USS America is on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, sunk by the Navy in a series of explosive tests...No warship this size or larger had ever been sunk...Since its decommissioning in 1996, the America had been moored with dozens of other inactive warships at a Navy yard in Philadelphia.

Luckily, there’s still time to save the United States.