Over the weekend I posted a story about the Indiana Speaker of the House, Brian Bosma. The original is
here. he defended his stance on overtly Christian prayers in the House to a group of Jews saying,
"How many Jews are there in Indiana? About 2%? There are at least 80% Christians in Indiana."
My Rabbi sent out an email, I turned it into a diary, and it ended up running here,
The Daily Pulse,
My Left Wing,
Street Prophets, all over the place. The whole list is below. A LOT of you wrote emails.
Tonight, Bosma apologized
Here is a piece of the email from the Rabbi, so you know what it's about. The story begins with the Jewish lobbying day in the Indiana statehouse. The last stop was a meeting with Mr. Bosma:
Speaker Bosma wondered why we hadn't discussed the controversy surrounding the issue of prayer in House chambers. He told us his version of what happened and what he believes, and a passionate exchange took place. The end of this exchange left us, the Jewish delegation, in shock. Speaker Bosma, defending the prayer issue, asked, "How many Jews are there in Indiana? About 2%? There are at least 80% Christians in Indiana." The implication of this statement was that our minority community doesn't and shouldn't have any say or any voice. It is about the majority and what the majority wants. The jaws of the delegation dropped to the floor. We were speechless. Everything we believed about this country had just been trampled. Gone was the belief of the constitutional protection of minorities. Gone was not feeling marginalized. Gone was the belief we were not strangers in this country. I am sure that Speaker Bosma is a fine man, but in that moment, for the first time in my life as a citizen of this country, I was scared. It is what I now call the 2% solution (and Jews are much less than 2% of this state) that if you are only 2% don't even bother to speak up as the "Tyranny of the majority" will prevail.
When this email went out I asked permission to disseminate it. I know the Rabbi didn't expect this kind of coverage. It got picked up locally and nationally:
http://thedailypulse.blogspot.com/...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/...
http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.myleftwing.com/...
http://www.dailygotham.com/
http://www.streetprophets.com/...
http://www.talk2action.org/
http://www.politicalcortex.com/...
http://www.masson.us/...
http://community.livejournal.com/...
In a blatant attempt to pile on, I added a cartoon at Hypnocrites, my cartoon blog:
Today, Bosma's office called leaders in the Jewish community for a meeting. He apologized to them, and again on television tonight. He said
that he values his ties to the Jewish community "and that they are very valued citizens and that anything that had said to cause them to think anything differently that I sincerely apologized for that and he accepted that."
The TV story has a link to the video.
The coolest part- it was the blogs that drove it, causing Bosma to respond, to call a meeting with the Jewish community, and to issue the apology. Apparently, all your emails made a big impression (I don't think he liked the cartoon much, either). It's below the bump. Both The Daily Pulse and the cartoon are on the video. is that cool or what?!
Once again we see the real power we have when we act as a group.
Final update- Bosma has a challenger, Susan Fuldauer. I'll post contact info to an open thread when I have it.
Pat yourselves on the back. Great job, people.