I have never subscribed to the idea that citizens who refuse to vote for a Democratic candidate in a tight race are somehow morally responsible for the election of a Republican, however bad that Republican might be.
If we are serious about liberal democracy, then we must recognize that every citizen has the legal, moral, and civic right to cast their vote as they choose, and that every single vote for every candidate must be earned. I may regret that many people voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 or Jill Stein in 2016. But it is wrong to presume that I can think or choose for others. The bottom line is that, given the arcane U.S. Electoral College system, the Gore campaign failed to win enough votes in 2000, and the Clinton campaign failed in 2016. It is not the fault of those progressives who refused to support them.
Dr. Jill Stein on Defining Success
for the Green Party
One discouraging thing I’ve discerned from living in the U.S. for 30 years is that Americans are probably one of the most propagandized populations in the world. That most Americans would dispute this is testimony to the success of this propaganda.
So who or what is behind all of this? Well, the reality is there’s long been a ruling corporate elite, an oligarchy, that is hell-bent on maintaining control of resources and the flow and concentration of capital primarily through a political duopoly – an enforced two-party system that stymies, disadvantages, and/or shuts out the electoral initiatives of other parties, including the “people-powered” (as opposed to corporate-backed) Green Party.
The corporate “mainstream” media has and continues to play a major role in this suppressing of genuinely democratic voices and movements in the U.S. For as Norman Solomon has pointed out, “[the] oligarchy’s biggest and strongest arm are the corporate media outlets.”
Anyone who dares challenge the oligarchy – including people who attempt to facilitate reform within one of the two parties, for example Bernie Sanders and Marianne Williamson within the Democratic Party – are routinely dismissed, maligned, ridiculed and/or invisibilized by corporate media. That’s simply a fact.
Perhaps no persistent challenger to the corporate capture of our political system has been more maligned, has had more disinformation levelled against her than Dr. Jill Stein, 2024 Green Party presidential candidate.
Last Tuesday (10/22/24) Dr. Stein was interviewed by Justin Hunte on Hunte’s podcast, The Company Man. The following comments in response to this interview provide a good overview of it. But by all means judge for yourself by watching this hour-long interview below.
• The [misinformation about Stein] being a grifter, about her and the Green Party doing nothing when a presidential race isn’t around, and her being in Russian pay have been chasing her ever since I first heard of her. . . . But every time I’ve heard her talk she’s impressed me with her honesty and analysis. Plus she handled all that criticism really well [in this interview].
• It’s amazing how she was able to consistently give straight answers to questions. Even the difficult questions about Putin and calling him a war criminal. This is leadership.
• Great interview – and great interviewee! Jill Stein is the only anti-genocide/pro-peace candidate worth voting for. America and the world deserve an intelligent and compassionate president with a conscience. That person is Jill Stein.
• Straight forward and a very insightful interview. Gonna continue to support Jill Stein.
• Thank you for having this interview with Dr Stein. This whole notion of voting Democrat as harm reduction is no longer compelling for me and my vote, when they continue to fail the people at every juncture and promote themselves ever upward.
• This was a great interview. When you told me you would be willing to have her on, I was a bit skeptical. Thanks for following through! I can’t remember the last time Stein got to sit for an interview that didn’t have an agenda, either pro or con. You coming in with a fresh, non-hostile perspective allowed discussion of some issues she doesn’t usually get to speak about.
• Jill Stein and [her running mate] Butch Ware have more than earned my vote here in Dallas, Texas. Enough with the duopoly! They’ve gotten us nowhere and put us in this predicament.
• Best interview of Jill Stein I’ve seen. No agenda. Just asking the questions and letting her answer uninterrupted.
• Already cast our votes for Stein/Ware! We desperately need to end the corrupt corporate duopoly. Let’s start by voting Green.
The following from the Jill Stein/Butch Ware 2024 campaign expounds upon the infographic that opens this post.
Top Goal:Turn the White House Green
Through our prolific ballot access efforts, the Stein/Ware campaign is eligible for 508 Electoral Votes – and we only need 270 to win. That means you can use your vote to vote for what you actually want and put President Jill Stein into the White House this election.
National Goal:5% of the Popular Vote for Public Funding
By earning at least 5% of the national popular vote this November, the Green Party will be eligible for millions of dollars in public funds for the 2028 General Election. This would be an absolute game-changer and a major challenge to the broken two-party system.
State Goals:Maintain Our Ballot Access
Ballot access is an incredibly large lift for candidates outside the two-party system, because Democrats and Republicans have designed restrictive, anti-democratic ballot access hurdles to protect themselves from competition. We are very proud to have overcome these hurdles to earn ballot access in most states, and the results of this election can also help us in future races. By earning at least a certain percentage in many states – some as low as 0.5%, many in the 1-2% range – we can ensure ballot access for state Green Parties in future elections, making it much easier to run more Green campaigns in the years to come.
Issues Goal:Win the Debate
Our agenda for people, planet, and peace is extremely popular with voters, but many of these critical issues and solutions are never even discussed by the establishment parties. For decades, Greens have led the way on countless issues, including single-payer healthcare, marriage equality, justice for Palestine, ranked-choice voting, marijuana legalization, reparations, the Green New Deal, canceling student debt, and more. With every voter who hears our message and every vote we get in November, we are gaining traction for the winning ideas in our platform and building demand for the policies we need.
Organization Goal:Build the Green Party
Polls have shown for years that a large majority of Americans believe we need a new major party because the establishment parties don’t represent the people. Our campaign is building the Green Party as a vehicle to challenge the failed two-party system and achieve the change we want to see in the world. By gaining ballot access across the country, building support for Green values and positions, and recruiting people into the Green movement, we are growing a sustainable political force that can change U.S. politics for good.
While the political establishment has destroyed or co-opted many other political parties and movements, for decades the Green Party has survived to continue fighting, with many wins along the way. Greens have long been an integral part of many people’s movements and have won more than 1,500 elections, making the Green Party the largest and most successful independent party in the U.S. that doesn’t take money from corporate interests. By channeling the energy of this campaign into building the Green Party movement, we are working towards getting more Green candidates into elected office and turning our vision of a better world into a reality.
Our message is resonating because we are not bought by special interests like Wall Street, fossil fuels, and the military industrial complex, freeing us to speak about the real change that Americans need. If you’re ready to break free from corporate-controlled politics, join us and vote for Jill Stein.
Thanks for all you do to build this inspiring movement for people, planet, and peace!
Autumn is the season of the soul. As the leaves just fall and let go of everything, so do we have to let go of the past and situations that are not ours anymore.
We all struggle, we all feel pain. Autumn is the season to become a little more introspective and to connect with the mystery and magic that is so tangible this time of year. In autumn, we are preparing ourselves to be reborn with the new year. This is a time of turning inward as we begin exploring our “underground” selves – our dreams and our intuitive powers.
As we watch leaves fluttering to the ground, we are reminded that nature’s cycles are mirrored in our lives. Autumn is a time for letting go and releasing things that have been a burden. All the religious traditions pay tribute to such acts of relinquishment. Autumn is the right time to practice getting out of the way and letting Spirit take charge of our lives.
Autumn reminds us of the impermanence of everything. We have experienced the budding of life in spring and the flowerings and profusions of summer. Now the leaves fall and bare branches remind us of the fleeting nature of all things.
I turn 59 today, and as has long been the tradition at The Wild Reed, I mark the occasion of my birthday by sharing a song, prayer and/or reflection that I find particularly meaningful; that says something about where I’m at on my journey and what’s most on my heart and mind.*
This year I’ve decided to share a song by singer-songwriter Loreena McKennitt, whose music I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing twice in concert, both times at the State Theatre in downtown Minneapolis – once in 1994 (my first year in the U.S.) and more recently last November with my friend Andrea (left). The song I share today is “Never-ending Road (Amhrán Duit),” from Loreena’s 2006 album An Ancient Muse.
I chose this song because I wanted something that returns me to what I know to be loving and true about both my own life and the shared life of humanity. I’m very much feeling the need for such grounding, especially given the profoundly troubling times we’re living through. They are times of genocide and a multitude of other forms of violence, of rapidly approaching climate catastrophe, and the undermining of democratic ideals and norms by both ongoing neoliberalism and rising fascism. And here in the U.S., I’m not alone in experiencing disheartenment and stress due to a presidential race dominated by two candidates dedicated to genocide, the “war machine” and oligarchy (hallmarks, it should be said, of the declining American empire).
I find myself daily needing to make time to quieten and still my mind so as to connect through prayer and/or silent meditation with the Divine Presencewithin and around me; to align with the Living Light of this presence and allow myself to be a conduit of its transforming love through my words and actions. I trust that this makes a difference, a positive difference, both in my life and in the world.
For me, Loreena McKennitt’s “Never-ending Road (Amhrán Duit)” brings to mind and heart all of these spiritual understandings and experiences I’ve come to trust. It does so through lyrics that reflect the two deepest of these understandings/experiences – the journey and the Beloved.
Years ago I described my spiritual journey as “spiralling forward with focus, direction, and energy.” I very consciously chose spiralling as I think it describes well the nature and trajectory of my journey. There’s often something circular, cyclical about it; yet I nevertheless discern and experience progress, a forward momentum. I also appreciate how spiralling brings to mind the graceful and focused movements of the whirling dervishes of the Sufi tradition, a mystic tradition with which I deeply resonate.
A hallmark of my journey to date is my ever-deepening embodiment of the mystic’s response to God as “the Beloved,” a response found within a range of mystical traditions – Christian, Sufi, Jewish – and one that often has erotic, including homo-erotic, overtones. I’m drawn to this type of universality, though to be sure, it’s a catholicity of religion rather than of church.
It’s also a universality reflected in “Never-ending Road (Amhrán Duit),” and one which Loreena acknowledges when talking about the song in the liner notes of An Ancient Muse.
No paticular time or place can be pinpointed as the inspiration of this piece. Instead, it has been one that has evolved over many years of reading the works of many poets, mystics from across the religious traditions, who sought to reflect the divine through love poetry: Rumi, Hafiz, Yunus Emre, Solomon ibn Gabirol, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Ávila. The universal theme is one of love, and in this never-ending road of life and rebirth, surely this is the sentiment that must endure.
The road now leads onward ~ As far as can be
Winding lanes ~ And hedgerows in threes
By purple mountains ~ And round every bend
All roads lead to you ~ There is no journey’s end
Here is my heart, I give it to you
Take me with you across this land
These are my dreams, so simple and few
Dreams we hold in the palm of our hands
Deep in the winter ~ Amidst falling snow
High in the air ~ Where the bells they all toll
And now all around me ~ I feel you still here
Such is the journey ~ No mystery to fear
It now leads onward ~ I know not where
I feel in my heart ~ That you will be there
Whenever a storm comes ~ Whatever our fears
The journey goes on ~ With your love ever near
* As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, it’s somewhat of a tradition to mark my birthday here at The Wild Reed by sharing a song or prayer or reflection that I find particularly meaningful. On my 44th birthday, for instance, I shared Stephan Gately’s performance of “No Matter What,” and when I turned 45 I shared “Where the Truth Lies” by the band Exchange.
In 2012, when I turned 47, I shared a prayer for balance at a very trying time, not only for myself, but for many of us here in Minnesota.
Seven years ago, on the first day of my fiftieth year, I shared a “guidepost on the journey,” and then one year later on the day of my 50th birthday, I shared Buffy Sainte-Marie’s rousing “It’s My Way.”
In 2017, when I turned 52, I shared a poem by John O’Donohue; while on my 53rd birthday I shared “Love Is,” a beautiful meditation on the mystery of love by my favorite male vocalist Carl Anderson.
The year I turned 54 I shared “This Is the Time,” a beautiful song by Senegalese singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daby Touré, and when I turned 55 it was Black’s “Wonderful Life” that encapsulated much of what I found myself experiencing at that time.
When I turned 56 I shared Dusty Springfield’s reflective recording “Home to Myself,” while on my 57th birthday I explored some “deeper understandings” via Kiki Dee and Carmelo Luggeri’s rousing song “The Long Ride Home.”
The area had been designated as a safe zone and as a result was densely populated with patients as well as refugees who had set up camps around the hospital. Shaban’s story gained widespread attention when a video began to circulate online of him trapped in his hospital bed by the IV drip to which he was connected while trying to get out and burning alive. Shaban’s mother was also burned alive in the fire. Shaban’s younger siblings and father survived but were severely burned in the attack. A few days after the attack, on October 17, 2024, Shaban’s younger brother, 11-year old, Abdul Rahman al-Dalou, died after succumbing to his severe burns. [10/21/24 Update:Farah al-Dalou dies in hospital days after her brother Sha’ban al-Dalou burned to death.]
Shaban al-Dalou (2004-2024) “He was a hafiz. I pray Allah made the fire ‘cool’ and ‘peaceful’ for him, like he made it for the prophet Ibrāhīm when he was thrown into the raging fire. Ameen.”
– Mossun Riaz
Green Party vice presidential candidate Butch Ware referenced the death of Shaban al-Dalou in a recent campaign speech. He said we should be outraged by the video footage of this young man being burnt alive, but noteed that there’s a difference between outrage (a response that has the potential to propel us forward in constructive ways) and rage (a reaction closely associated with momentary anger and fury).
Ware also talked about the importance of cultivating an inner life of groundedness in love so as to model and embody a society “built in love and abundance and prosperity and goodness, and honoring that which makes us unique and distinct, while also honoring that which we all share in our basic humanity.”
It’s an inspiring call to action, to be sure. And one sparked by outrage over Shaban al-Dalou’s death and the many other atrocities and horrors we see on a daily basis as the Israeli government continues its genocidal assault on Gaza.
It is of the upmost importance that we root ourselves in our meditative traditions, our spiritual traditions, our ancestral traditions. If we do not understand that we are going undergoing cosmic harm as a human family every single hour that this genocide drags on, then our hearts are asleep. This is a kind of cosmic warfare against the human spirit itself. Lean on each other. Love one another. What is really going to get us free is love.
. . . The reality is that in our movement space right now, we have a lot of people who have been traumatized and harmed by white supremacy and are still unhealed. And so we move in the space from a place of anger and rage and fury and even hatred. And we think that this is contructive of something. We must as a community learn to cultivate in our inner beings a distinction between outrage and rage. Outrage, that which propels us forward. We should be outraged when we see such images [of Palestinian people being burnt alive]. Our hearts should bleed and our eyes should weep for the suffering of our brothers and sisters in humanity.
But instead of simply venting that anger and frustration with momentary expression, a moment of anger, let it simmer, let it cook. Cultivate that outrage. Live in that space where you live for your brother and sister in humanity, to stop harm from reaching them.
Hurt people hurt people, and we have a lot of unhealed people in the space. Take care of one another. Connect with the resources of your own tradition. Because the most important thing that we can be thinking about now, if we know all empires fall, is What will replace it? What are we planning to construct? What are we going to build? Are we going to see one another through the revolution with care, with love, with empathy, with community, with solidarity? Because if we are then that has to start in the revolutionary struggle itself. It will not come if it waits till freedom day. Because [if we don’t start it in the struggle itself] we will build patterns and institutional structures that wire our brokenness into them. We will become the next oppressor. We will become the next imperialist if we do not engage in this radical act of love, this radical act of solidarity.
This is a tragic, heartbreaking moment in the history of humanity. But I believe that we will look back on this tragic and heartbreaking moment as the beginning of a new age in human history. With God as my witness, we have everything that we need for all of us to live an existence of prosperity and abundance.
If we had spent the last 40 years trying to maximize benefit instead of trying to maximize profit, human beings would be working about two hours a day, right now, all of us, across the whole planet; and everybody would have what they need to eat. If we actually model the society we want to build, one that is built in love and abundance and prosperity and goodness, and honoring that which makes us unique and distinct, while also honoring that which we all share in our basic humanity, then I know that freedom is coming. Freedom is promised. And may we be alive to see it. May we be the instruments that deliver it. May our children grow and flourish in it.
Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein was in the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis yesterday for a number of campaign events, including a fundraising dinner in south Minneapolis hosted by the Green Party of Minnesota.
Earlier, Dr. Stein attended the weekly anti-genocide vigil at the intersection of Summit and Snelling in St. Paul, where I had the chance to briefly meet and talk with her. Also present was my friend Christine, mother of Stein’s running mate, Butch Ware.
Yesterday at The Wild Reed, I explored the Democratic Party’s panic about – and blacklash to – Jill Stein and her presidential run. One issue I highlighted in this exploration was Green Party surrogate Kshama Sawant’s recent comments that the Green Party can’t win the presidency but could secure another victory: denying Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris Michigan and thus potentially the White House.
I shared in yesterday’s post Butch Ware's response to Sawant’s comments. Today I share Jill Stein’s response, which she shared yesterday on the Due Dissidence podcast.
The moves of a desperate party
and a losing campaign? I guess
the Democrats’ internal polls
must be devastating.
The Democratic Party’s ongoing efforts to smear Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein continue to backfire spectacularly.
First it was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s cringe attack video against Stein and the scathing backlash it received. Since then various other Democratic “vote Blue no matter who” sycophants have been furiously tweeting and penning smear pieces, including a recent op-ed by Thom Hartmann over at Common Dreams. Somehow, though, I don’t think Hartmann expected the barrage of critical responses he received from readers of this would-be “progressive” platform. You can peruse these responses here or check out the following sampling.
• The Democrats made their bed and now they can die in it. They had a choice of catering to the Cheney voters or to the Stein voters and they chose wrong. There are no “progressives” left in the un-Democratic Party. Don’t blame Jill Stein and those of us who support her for the Democrats’ immorality. No party that condones genocide should receive anyone’s vote. Harris could still change course and call for a cut-off of weapons to Israel. She could call for Medicare for All. She could call for removing the Social Security cap. She could call for an end of using federal land for oil and gas production. She could call for massive cuts in the military budget. She could call for an end to ALL wars, coups, and sanctions. But she won’t. That Democratic Party died a long time ago. It’s not the Greens who murdered it, Thom; the Democrats committed suicide. Don’t blame Jill Stein for that!
• Right now, progressives are totally unrepresented. There was a time the Democrats welcomed progressives. Those days are long gone. Democrats now use the Schumer strategy which reasons they’ll gain more votes by moving right than they’ll lose. If that’s true, they should STFU when progressives vote third party. The Democrats have become the party of Cheney. They can whine all they like about losing votes to the Greens but they are the sole reason this is happening. They have no one to blame but themselves.
• It’s flippin’ right in the dang article! . . . “There’s a fair amount of data now that suggests the Democrats have lost. Unless they give up their genocide.” Yet it is the Green Party’s fault they are working to build a coalition with people who are against genocide? As [Green Party vice presidential candidate] Dr. Butch Ware said in an interview, “Would a Jewish person vote for the Nazi Party?” These people aren’t voting for the Democratic Party because of the Dem’s own actions!
• The fact people can and have voted for Jill Stein as president disproves [Hartmann’s] claim that the system cannot have more then two parties by design. That she cannot garner more then a small percentage of votes is on the voter and has people like Hartmann as an underlying cause when he suggests the world will end unless people vote for the Party he backs. Hartmann and the mainstream media is part of the problem even as he points fingers elsewhere.
• I’ll be the first to say Jill Stein will not win. That being said, she didn’t cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election. . . . In my state of Michigan, Harris should try harder to get Arab American votes by breaking away from Biden on Israel. Or don’t and lose. It’s really her choice. Nobody can cause you to lose but yourself in an election.
• Common Dreams has every right to publish whatever point of view they choose. Thom Hartman has/had a rather large following, so it probably wouldn’t have made sense, as an entity seeking to gain/keep readership, for them to push back before accepting the level of vitriol in this article. But as a long time reader, and with an awareness that electoral politics isn’t the route to achieving the changes many of Common Dreams’ readers would like to see, especially in the area of U.S. imperialism, I have to say I am very disappointed to read this type of article here. It certainly got my attention and inspired me to act, but probably not in the way the author and publisher intended. I will very likely vote for Jill Stein for President of the United Stares, and stop reading Common Dreams, for all the excellent articles their staff writes, until they stop publishing Democratic Party propaganda.
• Whatever her motive might be, and propagandists like Thom Hartmann would assume to know, Jill Stein is telling the truth, far more than Harris, Biden, Blinken, Sullivan or Trump would tell. Of course, partisan pride precludes acknowledging that your party is now the party of George W. Bush, stoking conflicts around the globe and working directly against the public interest. When your presidential nominee is anointed and is “proud” to receive an endorsement from Dick Cheney, it should trigger reflection as to why your party has become so desperate and what you are doing making excuses for right-wing warmongers.
An important endorsement
Of course, what’s fueling the panic of the Democratic establishment and its media lackeys is the rising support that Jill Stein and the Green Party are receiving from Muslim voters in key swing states, including Michigan (right).
As podcaster Sabrina Salvati highlights in the 20-minute video below, this is an important development not just for the Stein/Ware campaign but for third parties in general.
At this point I should note that from here on out I’m going to refer to “third parties” as independent parties. I do so after hearing Green Party vice presidential candidate Butch Ware say in Minneapolis last month that “independent parties” is a better term as it speaks to how the Green Party is independent of corporate funding and thus control. Another term to describe this type of party is “people-powered,” as they are funded and supported by citizens, “the people,” not corporations.
A progressive Democrat weighs-in
Ths past weekend (October 12-13) the Democratic Party released a Kamala Harris-approved attack ad against Jill Stein. According to Jaime Harrison, head of the Democratic National Committee, it’s the first time the party has released an ad focused on a third party. The crux of the ad is that a vote for Jill Stein is the same thing as a vote for Donald Trump.
On an October 14 segment of the podcast Rising, progressive Democrat Nina Turner weighed-in on her party’s attack ad against Stein. From my perspective, Turner’s response is the sanest way for Democrats to respond to the reality of the presidential campaign of Jill Stein and of the presence of independent parties on the political landscape in general.
Turner’s wise words and the mere existence of the Democrats’ attack ad against Stein raises questions for me. First, is such an ad warranted? By this I mean is Stein really the reason for Harris’ loss of momentum and underperformance with key demographics? Is there a better, more productive focus for the Harris campaign than targeting an alternative party candidate? Maybe Harris should work on distinguishing herself more forcefully from the unpopular Biden and his policies (from Gaza to the economy), or maybe she could start campaigning with progressive Democrats and independents like Nina Turner and Bernie Sanders rather than neo-con Republicans like Liz Cheney.
Following is the 6-minute Rising segment featuring Nina Turner sharing her thoughts of the Democrats’ Stein-focused attack ad.
An “epic lib meltdown”
A recent insident that has caused some controversy and raised the ire of some Democrats is a speech that Green Party surrogate Kshama Sawant delivered at a camapign event earlier this month. In her speech, Sawant said that the Green Party can’t win the presidency but could secure another victory: denying Kamala Harris Michigan and thus the White House.
In the following 20-minute segment of the Due Dissidence podcast, hosts Keaton Weiss and Russell Dobula offer insightful commentary and analysis of Sawant’s remarks and the “epic lib meltdown” that followed.
Butch Ware in Minneapolis: “I got into this fight to win it”
I mentioned that Green Party vice presidential candidate Butch Ware was in the Twin Cities last month. He was here again for a number of events this past Monday (October 14) and I went and heard him speak at May Day Books (right), located just blocks from my home in south Minneapolis.
Ware also gave an interview on Monday to the JENerational Change podcast in which he responded to Green Party surrogate Kshama Sawant’s recent controversial comments. It’s a very worthwhile 10-minute interview, and I find Ware to be a very informed and inspiring speaker. Interestingly, he doesn’t view himself as a “politician” but rather a public servant.
Says Ware:
I got into this fight to win it, and I take great exception to Sawant speaking as a surrogate for the Green Party and saying we are not in position to win. I told her that at a [subsequent] campaign event and [I also told her that her statement was] a mistake that I do not wish to see repeated. . . . I understand that the odds are long, but there’s a certain group of leftists who have been battered by their experience with the Democrats and now have internalized some colonial mentalities, and they’re essentially lowering their aspirations. That would be my biggest critique of the so-call left, that they’re just happy to be on the field. And I ain’t built like that at all. . . . I’m not in this to be a spoiler. . . . I’m in it to win. . . . So that attitude that Sawant is displaying in not a realistic attitude; it’s a defeatist attitude and I reject it utterly.
I established The Wild Reed in 2006 as a sign of solidarity with all who are dedicated to living lives of integrity – though, in particular, with gay people seeking to be true to both the gift of their sexuality and their Catholic faith. The Wild Reed's original by-line read, “Thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective.” As you can see, it reads differently now. This is because my journey has, in many ways, taken me beyond, or perhaps better still, deeper into the realities that the words “progressive,” “gay,” and “Catholic” seek to describe.
Even though reeds can symbolize frailty, they may also represent the strength found in flexibility. Popular wisdom says that the green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm. Tall green reeds are associated with water, fertility, abundance, wealth, and rebirth. The sound of a reed pipe is often considered the voice of a soul pining for God or a lost love.
On September 24, 2012,Michael BaylyofCatholics for Marriage Equality MNwas interviewed by Suzanne Linton of Our World Today about same-sex relationships and why Catholics can vote 'no' on the proposed Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment.
"I believe your blog to be of utmost importance for all people regardless of their orientation. . . . Thank you for your blog and the care and dedication that you give in bringing the TRUTH to everyone."– William
"Michael, if there is ever a moment in your day or in your life when you feel low and despondent and wonder whether what you are doing is anything worthwhile, think of this: thanks to your writing on the internet, a young man miles away is now willing to embrace life completely and use his talents and passions unashamedly to celebrate God and his creation. Any success I face in the future and any lives I touch would have been made possible thanks to you and your honesty and wisdom."– AB
"Since I discovered your blog I have felt so much more encouraged and inspired knowing that I'm not the only gay guy in the Catholic Church trying to balance my Faith and my sexuality. Continue being a beacon of hope and a guide to the future within our Church!"– Phillip
"Your posts about Catholic issues are always informative and well researched, and I especially appreciate your photography and the personal posts about your own experience. I'm very glad I found your blog and that I've had the chance to get to know you."– Crystal
"Thank you for taking the time to create this fantastic blog. It is so inspiring!"– George
"I cannot claim to be an expert on Catholic blogs, but from what I've seen, The Wild Reed ranks among the very best."– Kevin
"Reading your blog leaves me with the consolation of knowing that the words Catholic, gay and progressive are not mutually exclusive.."– Patrick
"I grieve for the Roman institution’s betrayal of God’s invitation to change. I fear that somewhere in the midst of this denial is a great sin that rests on the shoulders of those who lead and those who passively follow. But knowing that there are voices, voices of the prophets out there gives me hope. Please keep up the good work."– Peter
"I ran across your blog the other day looking for something else. I stopped to look at it and then bookmarked it because you have written some excellent articles that I want to read. I find your writing to be insightful and interesting and I'm looking forward to reading more of it. Keep up the good work. We really, really need sane people with a voice these days."– Jane Gael
"Michael, your site is like water in the desert."– Jayden
