{"id":5415,"date":"2013-03-03T21:07:14","date_gmt":"2013-03-04T02:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=5415"},"modified":"2013-03-03T21:07:40","modified_gmt":"2013-03-04T02:07:40","slug":"intimate-murder-political-opportunism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html","title":{"rendered":"intimate murder & political opportunism ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My sister is very lucky. She has been in two abusive domestic relationships, and she survived each. Once, when she ran across the street to my grandmother’s, crying & half-dressed, my great-aunt Bonnie attacked her pursuer with a broom: this tiny, (literally 90 pounds soaking wet) blue-haired old lady beating this huge crazy drunk w\/ a broom.<\/p>\n

Other women are not as lucky. And it has a lovely (if bleak) name: intimate murder.<\/em> Death at the hands of your significant other. Death by familiar, intimately well-known, hands. It’s the major cause of death for pregnant American women. And 1\/4 of all American women will fight against it at some point in their lives. For Native American women, the figure is more than twice that high: 60% of NA women live in fear of their partners.<\/p>\n

I could go on. But the point to this is that while Congress did (finally!) pass the Violence Against Women Act, my state Congressmen overwhelmingly voted against it: both Oklahoma’s senators and 4 out of 5 of our state representatives. Only Tom Cole voted for women.<\/p>\n

What is wrong with people? I mean it: what on earth can trump helping \u00a0another human being escape violence? Is money the challenge? And it turns out that for one of our senators, it is. Money — ‘inefficient government’ — is a more important principle than protecting women. \u00a0Another important principle is that we not spend money protecting lesbian women, or become involved in protecting Native American women.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Oklahoma has a high level of intimate murder — we rank 7th nationally<\/a> in the number of women murdered by men they know. Oklahoma also has the\u00a02nd largest number of Native Americans in the country<\/a> (following California). More than 8% of Okies are NA. But let’s not worry about domestic violence that currently is the 3rd leading cause of death in NA women<\/a>…<\/p>\n

If my sister had been Native American, she might well have died. But the people (men \u00a0AND women) who voted against the VAWA have reasons, they say, to protest the prosecution of non-Natives on tribal lands. It’s all about ‘precedent’ and ‘principle,’ not lives.<\/p>\n

The engaged Buddhist in me wants to engage these ‘principled’ nay-sayers in conversation about why some women (not Indian women on tribal lands, and not lesbian women) deserve protection and not others. Are some lives more valuable than others? What kind of principle is that?<\/p>\n

I don’t pretend to understand political posturing. It’s popular now, at least among Oklahoma politicos, to cite ‘cost-saving’ as a reason for almost everything. But there\u00a0always seems to be enough money for war and Congressional raises. Just not for women. The principles here elude me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My sister is very lucky. She has been in two abusive domestic relationships, and she survived each. Once, when she ran across the street to my grandmother’s, crying & half-dressed, my great-aunt Bonnie attacked her pursuer with a broom: this tiny, (literally 90 pounds soaking wet) blue-haired old lady beating this huge crazy drunk w\/…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,406],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,468,1228,467,466],"class_list":["post-5415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compassion","category-women","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-domestic-violence","tag-engaged-buddhism","tag-intimate-murder","tag-violence-against-women"],"yoast_head":"\nintimate murder & political opportunism ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My sister is very lucky. She has been in two abusive domestic relationships, and she survived each. Once, when she ran across the street to my\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"intimate murder & political opportunism ~ - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My sister is very lucky. She has been in two abusive domestic relationships, and she survived each. Once, when she ran across the street to my\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-04T02:07:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-03-04T02:07:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/02\/battered-woman.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"intimate murder & political opportunism ~ - Beginner's Heart","description":"My sister is very lucky. She has been in two abusive domestic relationships, and she survived each. Once, when she ran across the street to my","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"intimate murder & political opportunism ~ - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"My sister is very lucky. She has been in two abusive domestic relationships, and she survived each. Once, when she ran across the street to my","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2013-03-04T02:07:14+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-03-04T02:07:40+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/02\/battered-woman.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html","name":"intimate murder & political opportunism ~ - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/02\/battered-woman.jpg","datePublished":"2013-03-04T02:07:14+00:00","dateModified":"2013-03-04T02:07:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"My sister is very lucky. She has been in two abusive domestic relationships, and she survived each. Once, when she ran across the street to my","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/02\/battered-woman.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/02\/battered-woman.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/intimate-murder-political-opportunism.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"intimate murder & political opportunism ~"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5415"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5431,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5415\/revisions\/5431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}