Ohio Politics and Gay Adoption

http://www.politics1.com/blog-0206a.htm#0227

(with thanks to chibirhm)

State Senator Robert Hagan (D-Ohio) says he will introduce legislation to ban Republican couples from adopting children. According to Hagan, "credible research'' shows that adopted children raised in GOP households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities." Hagan agrees there is no scientific evidence backing his claims about Republican parents -- just, as Hagan notes, there is none backing State Representative Ron Hood's (R) bill banning gay parents from adopting. Hood claims children purportedly suffer from emotional "harm" when they are adopted by gay couples. Hagen admits he created his proposal to mock Hood's proposed ban on gay adoption in a way that people would see the "blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive" nature of the bill. The GOP House leadership does not support Hood's proposal.

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I bet that one might be able to actually find such scientific evidence if one looked in the right places. Where's my rubber graph paper!

Effa Manley, first woman elected to Baseball Hall of Fame and a social activist

Cross-posted to Sheroes

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11593224/from/RS.3/

[h3]Baseball Hall of Fame elects first woman[/h3]
[b]Former executive among 17 from Negro League era, and before, voted in[/b]

pdated: 4:30 p.m. ET Feb. 27, 2006

TAMPA, Fla. - Effa Manley became the first woman elected to the baseball Hall of Fame when the former Newark Eagles executive was among 17 people from the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues chosen Monday by a special committee.

This year’s Hall class — 18, including former reliever Bruce Sutter — is by far the biggest in history. The previous record was 11 in 1946.

Manley co-owned the New Jersey-based Eagles with her husband, Abe, and ran the business end of the team for more than a decade. The Eagles won the Negro Leagues World Series in 1946 — one year before Jackie Robinson broke the major league color barrier.
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“She was very knowledgeable, a very handsome woman,” said Hall of Famer Monte Irvin, who played for the Eagles while the Manleys owned the team, as did Don Newcombe and Larry Doby.

“She did a lot for the Newark community. She was just a well-rounded influential person,” Irvin said. “She tried to organize the owners to build their own parks and have a balanced schedule and to really improve the lot of the Negro League players.”

Manley was white, but married a black man and passed as a black woman, said Larry Lester, a baseball author and member of the voting committee.

“She campaigned to get as much money as possible for these ballplayers, and rightfully so,” Lester said.

Manley used baseball to advance civil rights causes with events such as an Anti-Lynching Day at the ballpark. She died in 1981 at age 84.

“She was a pioneer in so many ways, in terms of integrating the team with the community,” said Leslie Heaphy, a Kent State professor on the committee. “She’s also one of the owners who pushed very hard to get recognition for Major League Baseball when they started to sign some of their players.”
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More on her at the African-American Registry, http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/2357/Effa_Manley_Queen_of_the_Negro_Leagues

Her influence extended beyond baseball; she was also active in the Black civil rights movement. She took over day-to-day business operations of the team, arranged playing schedules, planned the team’s travel, managed and met the payroll, bought the equipment, negotiated contracts, and handled publicity and promotions. Thanks to her rallying efforts, more than 185 VIPs -- including New York Mayor Fiorello LeGuardia, who threw out the first pitch, and Charles C. Lockwood, justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York -- were on hand to watch the Eagles’ inaugural game in 1935. But the Eagles proved unable to rise to the occasion, and dropped the opener to the Homestead Grays, 21-7. Although many of the men in the sport resented her and complained loudly about her brashness, they respected her.

Manley was also a social activist. As part of her work for the Citizen’s League for Fair Play, Manley organized a 1934 boycott of a Harlem stores that refused to hire Black salesclerks. After six weeks, the owners of the stores give in, and a year later 300 stores on 125th Street employed Blacks. Manley was the treasurer of the Newark chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and often used Eagles games to promote civic causes. In 1939, Manley held an "Anti-Lynching Day" at Ruppert Stadium. Several stories about her have become part of Negro League folklore. One such tale is that she provided the Eagles with an air-conditioned, $15,000 Flexible Clipper bus, a first for the Negro Leagues in 1946.
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This sounds like one amazing woman!

Josh Shaine