Last week, I did something that could become a crime in Montana – I raised my hand, rolled up my sleeve and donated lifesaving blood to help a patient in need.
Introduced by Rep. Greg Kmetz, R-Miles City, House Bill 645 would criminalize both blood and organ donation in Montana by anyone who has received a COVID-19 vaccine. It would also make it a crime to receive blood or an organ from a person vaccinated for COVID.
Simply put, this bill would have a devastating impact on our blood supply, our hospitals and patient care across the state. Experts estimate that if it passes, this measure would reduce Montana’s blood supply by 80 percent and have life-and-death consequences for so many who depend on these products being available on hospital shelves. Every two seconds, someone in this country needs lifesaving blood, whether it be a cancer patient, an expecting mom, an accident victim or someone undergoing surgery. Politics shouldn’t get in the way.
Blood can’t be manufactured – the only way to meet patient demand is through the generosity of blood donors. Encouraging people to put a needle in their arm and help someone they don’t know is difficult enough without criminalizing this altruistic act. Blood banks already struggle to meet current needs, and HB645 would have very real and very dire consequences for all of us and our loved ones.
Please let the House Human Services committee know you oppose HB645 by visiting https://leg.mt.gov/web-messaging/ and sending a quick and clear message.
I’ve never done drag—unless you count the floor-length robe and colorful stole I wear every Sunday when I preach. Sometimes I think it could be fun (I’ve even got my drag name picked out: “Pauline Epistle”), but I know it is far more work than I am prepared to commit to. It’s also, apparently, extremely dangerous.
In Montana, as in over a dozen states, legislation is moving forward to ban or severely restrict drag performances. These bills mischaracterize drag as inherently sexual in nature, “appealing to prurient interest.” That’s the language of Representative Mitchell’s HB359, which passed its second reading in the Montana House this week.
I recently got a chance to chat with my senator, who is one of the bill’s co-sponsors, about why he chose to attach his name to it. He gave the usual talking points, saying that the intention was to protect children from “sexualization.” It’s the same impulse that’s behind the recent surge book-banning and educator-muzzling rhetoric and policy. Save the children; protect their innocence from the perversions of our culture.
When I asked my senator if he had ever attended a drag show, he told me that he had not, which I imagine is true of most of the people backing the bill. (Although it’s always possible one of them might have had a past life as a drag performer in South America, I suppose.)
If they had, they might realize that nine times out of ten, particularly in the case of all-ages shows, drag performers have more in common with clowns and ballerinas than with actual adult entertainment performers, which HB359 tries to paint them as.
But, of course, this has never been about protecting children’s innocence. The same people concerned about the psychological damage a child might experience witnessing a man in a colorful dress read a storybook about being kind to people have no problem telling the same child that unless they pledge their eternal servitude to an invisible being who watches their every moment and knows their every thought, they will be tortured for all eternity—out of love.
The real reason they want to ban drag performances from the public sphere is because drag, emblematic of queerness itself, is a threat to entrenched systems of power.
In a recent legislative committee for Montana SB234, discussion about how we define obscenity led to the point being made that the Bible itself could easily fit the category of obscene literature.
Ezekiel contains language more explicit than even the bawdiest drag show I’ve ever seen, and it does so for the purpose of prophetic critique. The prophet uses a graphic analogy of adultery to denounce Israel and Judah for their dalliance with Assyrian and Babylonian empires, respectively. (In a similar manner, today’s prophets have rightly pointed out that much of the American church is ‘in bed’ with White Nationalism).
Likewise Isaiah walked around naked for three years, and Jeremiah paraded around with a pair of dirty underwear, disrupting norms and provoking shock and disgust.
The Hebrew prophets were the original performance artists.
The intersection of artistic expression and social critique terrifies those with vested interests in maintaining authoritarian control. As Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann says in The Prophetic Imagination: “every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.”
Drag is dangerous for that very reason. It points out the farce of rigid black-and-white—or rather, pink-and-blue—thinking and imagines a rainbow of possibility for God’s beloveds. We really are all born naked, and the rest—as Mama Ru says—is drag.
We are not so far off from the 1960s, when trans people and drag artists could be arrested just for existing in public, experiencing grotesque violence at the hands of the state. The violence is still happening, emboldened by the increase in hateful legislation and political rhetoric.
It was drag queens and trans people leading the charge in those days, sparking a revolution that would transform the country and make it safe for people like me to be fully myself. Now it is up to the rest of us to stand with them, speak out against the fear and hate, and celebrate the joy and the beauty that queer people bring to our world.
I have little reason to believe those trying to legislate queer and trans people out of existence will have a change of heart and relent from their “slate of hate.” But that just means my calling to speak out on behalf of the marginalized, to imagine a world where everyone has what they need, is as clear as it has ever been.
And if I need a refresher course in the prophetic vocation, I’ll find a big, scary Drag Queen and let her spill the tea.
Rev. Stephen Underwood is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), serving a congregation in Great Falls, MT. The above opinions are exclusively his own.
Image retrieved from Glacier Queer Alliance. Follow their work here: https://www.facebook.com/GlacierQueerAlliance
The 2023 Legislative session is shaping up to be one of the ugliest in living memory. Bills attacking Indigenous Peoples, medical privacy, LGBTQ+ children, and the poor have dominated the session. And today, in yet another show of ignorance, Republicans tabled Senator Shane Morigeau’s bill to recognize Indigenous People’s Day.
Attempts to change the name of Columbus Day have been made at the state, local, and national level for years. So today, I’m sharing a piece from Rylee Mitchell, who wrote this piece as a Teen Columnist for the Great Falls Tribune in 2017. At the time, the requested change was for “Montana Heritage Day” to replace Columbus Day, a measure which also failed. Though this piece is nearly six years old now, Montana decided again today to continue honoring the rapist and genocidal murderer, Christopher Columbus.
This piece was written by Rylee Mitchel and published by the Great Falls Tribune on February 27, 2017.
“Columbus Day or Montana Heritage Day — the name of the holiday might not mean much to you, but to me, as a Native American, it matters quite a lot.
And it’s not just the name of the holiday but also how we teach Native American history in our schools. Learning about Columbus Day involves taking 10 minutes to go over the day he reaches America and how he sailed the ocean blue in 1492 in search of gold, spreading Christianity along the way. Then we jump to Thanksgiving and then to Lewis and Clark with nothing in between. No discussions about boarding schools, wars or mass killings. Native American history gets left in the past.
Let’s not forget that Columbus paved the way for the wicked and cruel murder and rape of the indigenous people.
We are people who don’t deserve to live in the Europeans’ shadow. We deserve to have our stories told in the history books just like everyone else.
By not properly educating people about Native American history, it makes them much less likely to relate to us and understand us. They think we aren’t like everyone else.
But why?
Because of the color of our skin? Because we should be on a reservation?
Ignorance leads to name calling like redskin, Pocahontas and war heads. We aren’t depicted as real people in pictures, just as fictional characters.
“All that Native Americans gave us was land and diseases.”
“Native Americans killed us, like the holocaust.”
“God gave the Indians Europeans to help them.”
I heard all these comments and more when we talked about Native Americans in class last year.
Native Americans still deal with the mass killings of the past. The times when the men went to get food and came back to find all the women and children killed and the camp burned. We deal with the history of boarding school rapes and abuse and the sterilizing of Native American women.
Our tribal members still must cope with all these things, and the drinking that can come with it. We are still getting hurt, stereotyped and treated like we aren’t human. We are lucky we are still here.
Changing the name of this holiday would give a voice to Native Americans and represent a step forward to understanding our culture. We deserve for our history and stories to be told in schools. Education leads to more understanding and fewer labels and stereotypes.
We are human. We deserve to have our story told.”
Rylee Mitchell is an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Montana. Rylee is from Great Falls, Montana. Rylee is currently studying Civil Engineering at Montana Tech in Butte, Montana.
The great thing about human beings is that we learn from past mistakes. Unless you are Governor Greg Gianforte and his Republican allies in the legislature. As the Governor rolls out his package of tax cuts, and legislators clamor to get on board, it seems that no one remembers the 2003 Montana Legislature and Senate Bill 407, Judy Martz’s big tax cut plan that failed to deliver on its promises.
But before getting into the lessons from Senate Bill 407, let’s refresh ourselves on the economic theory that is driving Republicans to promote big tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s called “trickle down” economics. The idea is to give tax cuts to wealthy people who will then hire more people and pay more taxes which will lead to a better world. It turns out that cutting taxes on the wealthy just allows them to put more dollars into things like stock buybacks, offshore accounts, and other financial mechanisms that simply make them richer and do little for community investment. Even though most economists have debunked “trickle down economics,” Republican politicians cling to it as an article of faith and continue to promote it.
Now, back to 2003 and Senate Bill 407. Judy Martz was the Governor, and Republicans held majorities in both houses of the legislature. Then as now, Republicans were supremely confident that tax cuts result in increased revenue by stimulating growth. So they passed significant reductions to capital gains taxes and the income tax rates paid by wealthy individuals.
Specifically, SB 407 reduced the tax rate on top income earners (that’s tax speak for rich people) from 11% to 6.5%. It also created a 1% tax credit for capital gains income (that’s tax speak for money people make selling things like stock and real estate). Sounding familiar? Gianforte is proposing to reduce the top income tax rate along with giving a tax credit to people paying capital gains taxes.
But the real story about SB 407 is just how wrong the projections of the effect on public services and state revenue turned out to be. It ended up costing more than its promoters promised. . .lots more. In 2011 the Department of Revenue conducted an analysis of the fiscal impact of SB 407. Among other things the analysis concluded that the cut in income tax turned out to cost more than three times the projections during the 2003 legislature. The cost of the capital gains tax cut was double the projections. That meant much less money available for schools, local governments, and basic public services. Not surprisingly, the analysis also showed that the beneficiaries of these tax cuts largely turned out to be rich people.
So, here we sit in 2023, just like 2003. Republicans control both houses of the legislature and the Governor’s Office. And just like 2003, these politicians seek to cut taxes mostly on rich people. But there is a big difference as well. In 2003 the state was facing a budget crisis. Thanks to Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, in 2023 we have a big budget surplus and, along with that, we have the opportunity to invest in our institutions and infrastructure. While rural nursing homes are closing across the state, while the State Hospital is crumbling before our eyes, while cities and counties are struggling to make ends meet, while schools are hard pressed to find qualified staff, why would we make it a priority to give tax breaks to the wealthiest among us before those problems are addressed? The answer from the Republicans is, “Just be patient. It will all trickle down.”
Ken Toole was a member of the Senate Tax Committee in 2001, 2003, and 2005. He served as the vice chair in 2005. He served on the Public Service Commission from 2007 to 2011. He was also the President of The Policy Institute, a private group which conducted research on economic issues including taxation.
In all seriousness, how do you celebrate Columbus Day? Do you take advantage of a big mattress sale? Do you walk into a random person’s home, set up shop, rob and exploit them?
What’s that? Oh, you don’t celebrate. Unless you are part of the problematically named Knights of Columbus, chances are Columbus Day means absolutely nothing to you. In fact, besides the sing-song “Back in 1492,” you probably don’t ever give much thought to Columbus.
But Indigenous People of the Americas do. Seeing the name pop up on the calendar every year is a stark reminder that upholding American mythology is more important than the actual history. More important than recognizing how today’s struggles that our communities face are the direct result of colonization and attempted genocide.
Now, Google is free so I will not lecture you with the laundry list of atrocities committed by Columbus and his men that were sanctified by the Doctrine of Discovery. But 500+ years later, we know and can do better. It’s time to shift the narrative perspective and amplify the voices that have been silenced or talked over. Let’s celebrate the contributions, resiliency, and beauty of your Indigenous neighbors, friends, and relatives.
Please join me in emailing or calling your legislators today and ask them to support SB 141. Mitakuye Oyasin. We are all related.
Tawny Cale is an enrolled citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a resident of Great Falls, MT.
