A Refreshingly Different View of Masonic Responsibilities

This letter, addressed from the Venerable Master of Lodge Luiz Gonzaga do Nascimento  N°. 203  in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to the Municipal Mayor of Rio de Janeiro after the shocking attack of school teachers by military Police in City Chambers, came across my desktop yesterday. I feel it imperative to share this with Masons in North America. I feel this firstly because too few US citizens even are aware this atrocity occurred. Secondly, it clearly exemplifies a form of Freemasonry which those who speak much and do little, would object to as representing an "unseemly" breach of Masonic Dogma. That dogma favored in North America claims to forbid the admixture of Freemasonry and politics under any circumstances. While I will not excoriate those who hold that position, I will note that this unseemly example seems pretty seemly to me. I think it is a breath of fresh air, and demonstrates an alternate perspective of the best that Freemasonry can be. Sorry, London, I beg to differ!

School Teacher attacked by
Police in Rio de Janeiro 

The English translation follows:

Your Excellency Mr. Jorge Felippe Councillor, Mayor Municipal Cidadae of Rio de Janeiro.

The august and respectable Masonic Lodge Luiz Gonzaga do Nascimento     N°. 203, meeting in Ordinary Assembly, takes note of The VIOLENT ACTS which occurred within the Camara Municipal of Rio de Janeiro, involving teachers in the public education and municipal police officers at his command.

Thus, this Board has chosen to publicly express their vehement repudiation of all these VIOLENT ACTS, which are transforming the State to a stage of TRAGEDY, while we call for immediate and urgent measures confirming the FACTS and making the guilty accountable.

18 defenseless military police confronted by dangerous educator

In fulfilling its role in the struggle for human rights guarantees, it is requested that urgent measures are provided to rescue the democratic rule of law, PEACE, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE GUARANTEE OF  SOCIAL JUSTICE, insisting that the priority be the RIGHTS OF CITIZENS.

Furthermore, we request that you, in a dignified and honorable manner, resign the presidency of the chamber and its mandate.

Rodrigo dos Santos Morato
Venerable Master

A Real Valentine's Day Story

Now, this is a true love story, and one which everyone should stand in awe of.

Mildred Jeter was of African American and Native American descent, and Richard Loving was a white man. The couple met when she was 11 and he was 17. He was a family friend and years later they began dating. They lived in Virginia, where interracial marriage was banned by the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. When Mildred was 18 she became pregnant, and the couple decided to marry in June 1958. They traveled to Washington, DC to do so.


The Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924 criminalized marriages between white and non-white persons. After the Lovings' return home to the tiny town of Central Point in Caroline County, they were arrested at night by the county sheriff, who had received an anonymous tip. The Lovings were charged under Virginia's anti-miscegenation law with "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth."

The Lovings pled guilty and were convicted by the Caroline County Circuit Court on January 6, 1959. They were sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for 25 years on the condition that they leave the state. They moved to the District of Columbia. In 1964,frustrated by their inability to travel together to visit their families in Virginia, Mildred Loving wrote in protest to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU filed a motion on the Lovings' behalf to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence, on the grounds that the statutes violated the Fourteenth Amendment. This began a series of lawsuits which ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court. On October 28, 1964, when their motion still had not been decided, the Lovings began a class action suit in United States district court. On January 22, 1965, the district court allowed the Lovings to present their constitutional claims to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Virginia Supreme Court Justice Harry L. Carrico wrote the court's opinion upholding the constitutionality of the anti-miscegenation statutes and affirmed the criminal convictions. (He was later Chief Justice of the Virginia Court.)

The Lovings and ACLU then appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, Loving v. Virginia, was decided unanimously in the Lovings' favor on June 12, 1967. The Court overturned their convictions, dismissing Virginia's argument that the law was not discriminatory because it applied equally to and provided identical penalties for both white and black persons. The Supreme Court ruled that the anti-miscegenation statute violated both the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Lovings returned to Virginia after the Supreme Court decision.

Mildred Loving said she considered her marriage and the court decision to be God's work. She supported everyone's right to marry whomever he or she wished. In 1965, while the case was pending, she told the Washington Evening Star, "We loved each other and got married. We are not marrying the state. The law should allow a person to marry anyone he wants."

Many thanks to this remarkable couple!


http://tv.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/arts/television/the-loving-story-an-hbo-documentary.html

Civil Society? It starts with taking responsibility.

Today we are witness to a remarkable event and that should make us wake up to what has been going on around us. Today, Google has made an unprecedented plea to the public to speak out against SOPA. Wikipedia has actually shut down for the day to protest, and they're not alone. The threats to our civil liberties, and without civil liberties we will have no civil society, have gotten so profound that even a newspaper as conservative as the Washington Post has printed an opinion piece entitled 10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free. In the name of "the war on terrorism" which is really a war on American rights, our inalienable rights have been whittled away by the same so-called leaders who have declared war upon the American Middle Class. And conservative Americans applaud them while running like lemmings to the cliff.

Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) is famous for the following quote, and although he was speaking of his experiences in Nazi Germany, it is appropriate to repeat what he said here as it applies to our situation more than ever,
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me."

Benjamin Franklin (Remember him? He was an American Revolutionary and Freemason) said "He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security."

SPEAK OUT!