Fresh Updates from RAC

Last year, like every year for almost three decades, this incredible organization plucked five wide-eyed graduates out of a pool of hopefuls, saving us from the fate of moving home and living with our parents.

Dayenu.

With two suitcases, a plane ticket from London, and new roommates I found on Craigslist, I arrived at the RAC in late August hoping I could fake it just long enough to figure out how a bill becomes a law in this country. Coming from Surrey, England, Washington D.C. felt a long way from home – 3,700 miles to be exact. Twelve months later, I’m packing my bags to take the return flight, and I can’t imagine a better way to have spent my year.

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Where I went to school, we learnt algebra from a mother-of-seven with an impressive selection of floral hijabs (headscarves). We all knew never to mess around during Ramadan – her temper was fierce when she was hungry. We were taught music by a young man who wore a Dastaar (turban) and used to rock out Beethoven on his sitar if we all handed in our homework on time. Friends used to have henna parties and danced to Bollywood like it was Britney Spears. At our year 9 arts recital, the Michael Jackson moonwalkers were followed by an enactment of the Hindu love story of Rama and Sita. I played Sita. No one blinked when most of the class came in wearing sarees on dress down day, or when Malpreet was cast as Mary in the nativity. It was like the little multicultural Utopia of Tiffin Girls’ School.

If only the whole world was like that.

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It’s not a secret that the Senate can be more like the tortoise than the hare – a little slow, but reliably steady. When something comes to fruition in its chamber, there is a feeling it has done so with intention, deliberation, and just a little wisdom. That is, after all, how the Founding Father’s decided it should be. While sometimes this blueprint can leave the Senate a little out of touch with popular opinion, events this week have shown that is not always the case. In fact, it seems that some members of the Senate have been listening very carefully.

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Each year, approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools. The bipartisan Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act (H.R.1842/S.952) addresses the precarious situation faced by these ambitious young people, many of whom were brought to the United States as children, and who have since grown up here, stayed in school, and been law-abiding contributors to our communities. The DREAM Act would provide certain undocumented youth conditional legal status and eventual citizenship if they pass background checks, prove to be of good moral character, graduate from high school, and go on to attend college or join the military.

These young people want to contribute to building our country. According to a recent poll by Opinion Research Corporation, 70% of likely voters are are supportive of the DREAM Act, including 60% of Republicans. Yet some Members of Congress are standing in their way. In the 111th Congress, the bill passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support and received a bipartisan majority vote in the Senate, only to fail because of a filibuster.

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Last week, Reps. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), and Steve King (R-IA), unveiled their new anti-immigration plan: to mandate that all employers in America use the online verification system known as E-Verify to check the immigration status of their employees. Currently, 17 states and the District of Columbia have an E-Verify mandate in place. The idea is that if all American employers use E-Verify, undocumented workers will no longer be able to find work in the United States, and so will essentially deport themselves.

The reality of E-Verify is that it is a deeply flawed system that will negatively impact the American workers, businesses, and taxpayers it was designed to protect. The E-Verify database’s error rate is unacceptably high. In fiscal year 2010, it is estimated that over 80,000 workers lost their jobs due to E-Verify mistakes – and the system had barely been rolled out. If made compulsory on the national level, we could be looking at 770,000 people mistakenly losing their jobs, and 1.3 million people a year blocked from getting new ones due to computer error. And what are those people suppose to do when they are mistakenly rejected? They’re forced to navigate the overburdened Social Security Administration, an organization that turned away 3.3 million visitors to its offices in 2010.

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Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a bill into law this month that makes it is illegal for any physician to “ask questions concerning the ownership of a firearm” or “harass…a patient about firearm ownership during an examination.” Governor Scott says the bill will protect patient privacy. However, one has to question whether it is legal and constitutional to enact a law that threatens doctors with fines or the loss of their jobs if they talk with families about the very real risks of a gun in the home or offer advice on gun safety. Really, the new bill just protects patients from feeling bad or judged at their doctor’s office. Even if patients only think their doctors are trying to make them feel bad about their guns, the doctors are culpable for disciplinary proceedings. The possibility of accidental death, grievous injury, or suicide apparently has nothing on being uncomfortable at a check-up.

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There are close to 500,000 young people currently in foster care across the United States, around 120,000 of whom are eligible for adoption every year. Finding homes is not always easy, and as things stand today, nearly 25,000 prospective adoptees will “age out” of the system without a family before the year is through.1 Yet the current patchwork of discriminatory state laws and policies is denying vulnerable kids access to safe, stable, and permanent homes just because of the sexual orientation or gender identity of the prospective parents.

We are simply not doing what’s in the best interest of the children.

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Until this week, I had never stood side by side with a Pastor from the Metropolitan Community Church while our gathering was blessed with a Buddhist incantation. I didn’t know it before, but I was missing out. In the sweltering D.C. sunshine, Unitarian Universalists chatted Old Testament with Reform Jews, while Southern Baptists debated queer theory with Mennonites. All were taking part in the struggle that continues to define modern America: the struggle towards equality.

This May 22-24, I joined faith leaders from all 50 states and dozens of faith traditions and the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT rights organization in the country, to talk to members of Congress about passing legislation that protects lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from bullying in schools, discrimination in employment, and marriage inequality. Over 240 Representatives and Senators had an opportunity to hear from faith leaders who feel compelled by their values and faith to support laws that protect all human beings.

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