Independence Day Thoughts...

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

I have a mild obsession for the American Declaration of Independence, It is a magnificently written document that expresses in glorious Jeffersonian prose, the hopes, and dreams of the people living in those thirteen British colonies in 1776.

As a result, the Fourth of July, has always been one my favourite holidays. I love all the Americana that goes with it. When I lived in Chicago, I would practically force my friends to come with me and picnic in Grant Park where we would sit on the grass eating watermelon, waving sparklers and listening to the Chicago Symphony play “Stars and Stripes Forever” as the fireworks boomed over our heads.

It was always at that moment, seeing the thousands of people around me cheering and waving flags, I’d feel so fortunate to have been born an American. A nation that, despite all its flaws and foibles , has nevertheless, never stopped striving to be that place Katherine Lee Bates called “American the Beautiful”.

The experience of celebrating American independence from outside the United States is not a new one for me. Today is the fifteenth July 4th holiday in my life, spent as an “ex pat”.   I have observed this day in Germany, in South Korea and here in the UK. Friends and co-workers here, were surprised to learn I was not going to take the day off today. I had thought about it, but when you get right down to it, Tuesday, July 4th, is just another workday here. So when in Rome... or in this case, London...

Having served its original purpose in announcing independence, the text of the Declaration was initially ignored after the American Revolution. Its stature grew over the years, particularly the second sentence, which came to be seen as a sweeping statement in support of human rights:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

I have always loved those words, because at their core, they proclaim why American was designed to be different. What would set us apart from the other nations of the world. No feudal systems of hereditary privilege for us, thank you very much. You keep your Kings, and Dukes and Earls and Viscounts and whatnot.

For us, America would be a place where power and governance would rest in the hands of the many, not the one.

Now on this 4th of July I find myself feeling another emotion... Embarrassment. Now don't misunderstand, I am not embarrassed to be an American, quite the opposite in fact. I have been and always will feel I am blessed to have born a citizen of my country. No I am embarrassed by my country's Government, my country's electorate, and by its choices.

I am horrified, appalled and disgusted by my country's President.

On this day, of all days. It is worth revisiting that brilliant founding document. Jefferson's masterful expression of the American Mind. The American Declaration of Independence


Never in my lifetime would I hear those words and think that a passage written in defiance of a mentally unstable king, would apply so aptly to the President of the United States.

A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

The legacy of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and all the other Men and Women who on this day in 1776, set sail in "a skiff, made of paper"; is now in the hands of a mentally unstable, narcissistic man-baby, whose infantile reaction to one of America's core freedoms, the freedom of the press,  was to take to the internet and post.... this:

This... whatever  you want to call it, is what passes for an official statement from the President of the United States in 2017.   To all Americans  wherever you are in the world, if  you are not embarrassed by that, then you are as ignorant of  what this day means as the rodeo clown  in that video is.   

It is my fervent hope that  my nation will soon come to its senses and  reclaim our legacy as an example to the rest of the world.  Instead of what Donald Trump is making it...  An embarrassment.

Happy Independence Day everyone. 

Independence Day Thoughts from London....

This is the second year in a row that I have celebrated the Fourth of July from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in London. The city doesn't do much to mark the occasion. A few pubs will hang American flags out front in hopes of attracting wandering tourists. 


The American Military Memorial Chapel in Westminster Abbey gets a slightly larger number of visitors than usual. Other than that, it was just another Summer Sunday here in London.   



The day before on other hand was a different story, there were tens of thousands of people massed on the streets of central London Trafalgar Square was standing room only as various music acts and celebrities appeared on a stage and huge video monitors. As Eric and I made our way through the crowd I overheard one elderly American tourist ask her companion; "is all this for the Fourth of July?" Her friend replied she thought it must be. I didn't have the heart to tell them they had wandered into the middle of London's LGBT (Lesbian, Gay Bi-Sexual and Trans-gender) Pride celebration.

I will confess a certain ambivalence toward Pride celebrations in the U.S. this year. Part of it stems from the fact that I am in London partially by choice, and mostly by necessity. As travelling to the UK is far easier for me, than travelling to the US is for Eric. When I get asked at Heathrow Airport; "What is the purpose of your visit the UK?" I smile and say I am here to visit my Fiancé who is a UK Permanent Resident. At this point the UK Immigration officer invariably smiles and says; "that's nice, how long have you been engaged to her or him?"

Yes you read that correctly, they say "her or him". I smile and say how long I have known Eric and how long I will be staying in the UK on this visit. Often times I will get "congratulations", and once the immigration official who actually remembered me from my numerous other trips through Heathrow Passport Control, said; "tell Eric hello from us!"

It's amazing how the addition of that one little word "him", didn't cause the sky to fall on to the United Kingdom. Frogs didn't fall from the sky, the Earth didn't open up and spew lava all over Central London. At UK Border & Customs control, recognition of the dignity and equality of same sex couples is as ordinary as asking if you have any taxable good to declare.

Meanwhile over on the other side of the Atlantic the very idea that Same Sex couples might deserve the same BASIC civil rights and protections as everyone else is a subject of more debate than proposal to declare independence from Great Britain provoked back in 1776.

Fast forward to 2010, for the Republican Party and the "Tea Party Movement" they have manufactured,  the idea that Gay and Lesbian Americans (who pay the same taxes as everyone else yet are denied the same basic civil rights) might be allowed to get married, is tantamount to the world coming to an end.

So the GOP demands that the United States continue to cling to a law that prevents any recognition of Same Sex couples by the Federal Government. Of course I am talking about the ridiculously mis-named "Defense of Marriage Act." (DOMA) It provides the legal excuse for the United States to discriminate against us and over 40,000 bi-national same sex couples just like us.

The Republican "tea baggers" have a problem with me wanting to get married. It is the fact that the person I love has the audacity to be the same gender as I am. Now if Eric was female then Uncle Sam would give us his blessing no questions asked. I would be able to sponsor my fiancé for permanent residency in the U.S. and my government ( that I support through my taxes), would beam it's approval down upon us both. But the fact that Eric is a man just as I am, means that as far as my government is concerned , our relationship doesn't even exist.

All this despite the clear promises my President has made to the contrary.

So on this  Independence  Day  weekend,  as I  look back  across the Atlantic, I see an  irrational  fixation  by  Conservatives  to deny me and  millions of Americans  like me  the same basic  right  to  the  "pursuit  of happiness " they  claim to hold so  dear.  

Here in London I see  the  Armed Forces  of  Great Britain marching  proudly in London's  LBGT Pride parade  and instead of  the hysterical cries of  lunatic  homophobes,  I heard the  boisterous  cheers of  pride and support from tens of  thousands of  Londoners.

Now,  I really don't  want to leave my country.   Unlike  Sarah Palin and the scared gullible bigots that  hang on her every sad pathetic twitter posting,  I  really do  believe  that the  greatness of  the Unites States lies in our diversity.  "E Pluribus  Unum" - Out of Many , One.    Yet  for me to do something as basic as get married to the person I love,  I have to do just that.   Leave my country.

So I am moving to the United Kingdom.  Because unlike in 1776, in 2010 it is the people of Great Britain who have more civil rights and greater freedom than Americans do.  Unlike in 1776, in 2010 it is the American Government, not the British Crown,  that subjects its people to unfair taxation without representation.  Unlike in 1776, it is The United States of America that has politicians  seeking to preserve a status quo of inequality and treats groups of its own citizens unfairly.

In 2010,  the only quote by Thomas Jefferson  the  Republicans like to remember is the one about  'watering  the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.'  Everything else Jefferson said on human rights, and the innate dignity of every person,  they like to forget.

In 2010  the  Republican Party and  "tea bagger" monster it has created  have abandoned John Adams' vision of America  as  the beacon of freedom for the world.  Instead,  they have a  scared, narrow vision of  America as  a place of freedom  only for some.  Everyone else, (especially if your skin happens to be a darker hue,  or worse, you  don't worship their idea of God in the way they prescribe ),  is suspect and therefore "un-American".

I look across the Atlantic  and I see  a country  which remains  determined  to treat me and the person I love  as something less than equal.   A country  that  gives credence to lunatics who claim that granting me the same basic civil rights as everyone else would bring about  nothing less than the destruction of the country and possibly even the world.  

How do you respond to that kind of  irrational hatred?

I can't help but wonder  what  John Adams would now think of  the nation he helped start .  He probably  would still be asking the question he asked back in  1776.  The same question I am asking as I look across the Atlantic and see  the Republican Party, a  party I once supported, allow itself  to become the standard bearer for  hatred, racism, xenophobia  and  bigotry;  Is anybody there?   Does  anybody care?.  Does anybody see,  what  I see?



When I hear clueless ignorant wingnuts, in their opposition to marriage equality say; "Same sex couples can draft contracts that give them the same rights as everybody else. We don't need to repeal DOMA, it's hard not to throw things at the t.v. Same sex couples in the U.S. are anything BUT equal.

So unless President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party suddenly grow a spine and decide to keep all those wonderful promises about equality they made back in 2008, I am am stuck choosing between love or country. After years of a trying to make a long distance relationship work, the choice has been made very clear.   So  as I waved my American Flag in Central London yesterday,  I  was all the while  acutely  aware  of  what  I must do to have those inalienable rights to  "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."   Country must lose.

Happy Independence Day everyone.

Dave & Eric.

We Hold These Truths...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I will confess to a having a mild obsession for the American Declaration of Independence, It is a magnificently written document that expresses in glorious Jeffersonian prose, the hopes, and dreams of the people living in those thirteen British colonies in 1776.

Not surprising, the Fourth of July, has always been one my favorite holidays. I love all the Americana that goes with it. When I lived in Chicago, I would practically force my friends to come with me and picnic in Grant Park where we would sit on the grass eating watermelon, waving sparklers and listening to the Chicago Symphony play “Stars and Stripes Forever” as the fireworks boomed over our heads.

It was always at that moment, seeing the thousands of people around me cheering and waving flags, I’d feel so fortunate to have been born an American. A nation that, despite all its flaws and foibles , has nevertheless, never stopped striving to be that place Katherine Lee Bates called “American the Beautiful”.

The experience of celebrating American independence from outside the United States is not a new one for me. This will be the tenth July 4th holiday in my life, spent as an “ex pat” . Six of those were spent in Germany, one in South Korea and this next Monday , will be my third here in the UK. Friends and co-workers here, were surprised to learn I was not going to take the day off next Monday. I had thought about it, but when you get right down to it, Monday, July 4th, is just another workday here. So when in Rome... or in this case, London...

Yet being honest, I will admit there are other reasons I find myself feeling somewhat ambivalent about the Fourth of July this year, and it (as always) goes back to the document that started it all. That Declaration of Independence. Here is what the ubiquitous internet oracle Wikipedia has to say about the declaration:

" The Declaration justified the independence of the United States by listing colonial grievances against King George III, and by asserting certain natural rights, including a right of revolution. 

Having served its original purpose in announcing independence, the text of the Declaration was initially ignored after the American Revolution. Its stature grew over the years, particularly the second sentence, a sweeping statement of human rights:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

I have always loved those words, because at their core, they proclaim why American was designed to be different. What would set us apart from the other nations of the world. No feudal systems of hereditary privilege for us, thank you very much.  You keep your Kings, and Dukes and Earls and Viscounts and whatnot.  

For us,  America would be a place where even a skinny mixed race kid from Hawaii,  with a name like Barack Hussein Obama can grow up to be President.   (Hey Europe! Do ya’ like apples?  Well, how about them apples!)   

The United States of America would be democracy in its truest form. "E Pluribus Unum" From out of many, one with liberty and justice for.... Well, you know rest. At least that's how it's all supposed to work.

The problem is, as a nation we have an unfortunate habit of not always living up to our Jeffersonian prose. Especially when it comes to  that whole,  all men are created equal, bit.     It took us  over 140 years  after the abolition  of slavery  to  elect  a President who wasn't  white.   

As recently   as  40  yrs ago,  many people  argued that  to apply that idea of  equality  throughout  the country  was a violation of "States Rights".    Many   in  Southern States said  it was  State Law that should  decide  who could  work  where,  who could go to what school,  how some people  could vote, and  who could marry who.  All based on the color of  a person's skin.

In the 1963,   President Kennedy  took  the issue  head on.

The lesson of the  great civil rights  struggle of the  20th Century  was that  the Federal Government  has a role  to protect the rights of all  Americans  from  bigotry  and  discrimination cloaked in the  camouflage  of  "States Rights".  Jefferson's  exhortation of  unalienable Rights, wasn't  just  for  some people living in some parts of  the  United States.   It was for everyone.    Well at least it is supposed to be.  In  2011 it turns out those rights are for... almost  everyone.

The argument of states rights is back. In the 21rst Century it is not race, but rather the idea that Same Sex couples might deserve the same BASIC civil rights and protections as everyone else, that is causing more debate than the proposal to declare independence from Great Britain provoked back in 1776.

So the United States continues to cling to a law that prevents any recognition of Same Sex couples by the Federal Government. Of course I am talking about the ridiculously mis-named "Defense of Marriage Act." (DOMA) It provides the legal excuse for the United States to discriminate against me and my spouse,  and over 40,000 bi-national same sex couples just like us.

So thanks to DOMA,  the Federal Government has a problem  with my wanting to enjoy the same rights as any other American.   It is the fact that the person I am legally married to here in the United Kingdom, has the audacity to be the same gender as I am. Now if Eric was female then Uncle Sam would give us his blessing no questions asked. I would be able to sponsor my spouse for permanent residency in the U.S. and my government ( that I support through my taxes), would beam it's approval down upon us both. But the fact that Eric is a man just as I am, means that as far as my government is concerned , our relationship doesn't even exist.

Now, I really didn't want to leave my country.  Unlike Sarah Palin and the scared gullible bigots that hang on her every twitter posting, I really do believe that the greatness of the United States lies in our diversity. "E Pluribus Unum" - Out of Many , One.   Yet for me to do something as basic as have that pursuit of happiness. To be with the person I am married to, I had to do just that. Leave my country.

So now I live here, in the United Kingdom. Because unlike in 1776, in 2011 it is the people of Great Britain who have more civil rights and greater freedom than Americans do. Unlike in 1776, in 2011 it is the American Government, not the British Crown, that subjects its people to unfair taxation without representation. Unlike in 1776, it is The United States of America that has politicians seeking to preserve a status quo of inequality and treats groups of its own citizens unfairly.

What is perhaps most confusing for us, and thousands of couples like us, is that in 2011, that states right argument is not being made by bigoted, angry State officials. This time the argument that basic civil rights should be left up to the states to decide,  is being made by the first African American President of the United States.

So for the federal government to step in and enforce the constitution is the feds "poking its nose into what states are doing"??    I will say it again;   if Presidents' Truman, Kennedy and Johnson had all approached civil rights for African Americans, the way Barack Obama is for LGBT Americans, the Military, public schools, and most public services would still be segregated in many parts of the U.S. His own parents would not have been allowed to marry in 3/4 of the country.

I can't help but wonder how Barack Obama would feel, if in order to stay together with his wife Michelle, he had to leave the U.S and move overseas. Oh wait... I don't have to wonder how he would feel...

He'd feel like I do.

Have a great Fourth of July Weekend everyone. Those of us in "DOMA Exile" will be thinking of you , and waiting for America to finally live up to those words Jefferson penned, 235 years ago.

Ex-Pat Musings... "Home" Again...

Well I  got back to London yesterday from  my two week business trip to the  U.S.  As good as it always is  to get back to the United States, it is  at the same time  a reminder  of  the reasons I had to leave in the first place.

First was a week in New York, which  is always a bit of a blur.   I  do love  NYC but  it is a city that moves at a ridiculous pace.   It is largely why New Yorkers are the  resilient , slightly cranky people that they are.   New York  is an argument.  If you want to live there,  the city is going to fight you most every step of the way.     I forget who it was who once wrote that every person should live in both New York City  and San Francisco once in their life.  But  not stay in  NY  so long as to become hardened by the experience, or  in SF long  enough to become soft.

My week in New York was incredibly busy, but  I did manage to find time to hang out with  my amazingly talented friends Daniel and Gerardo.  They  moved from  SF to NY  shortly before I moved to London.  So getting to see them in their  new NY Life is always  a plus for me.  As Eric was unable to  come with me  this trip,  Daniel and Gerardo prevented me from spending every night in my hotel room watching MSNBC.

After a week in New York,  I  then flew back to San Francisco.   I  spent Pride Weekend  with my incredible Niece Sophie and my wonderful adopted niece (her flatmate)  Sogole.    It was great to get back to  SF, even if only for  a day and a half.    Of course the frustrating part of it was,  being a just a regular spectator  at  SF Pride,  after years  of being heavily involved at a volunteer.   It was the first time since  2004 I had watched the Parade  from the public side of the barricades.

Then after that all too short visit back to SF,  it was on to Los Angeles  where  I spent all of last week.    I will confess,  LA  has grown on me.  I still could never ever see myself living there.  But  I find I enjoy visiting there far more  then I have in previous years.   I think, as with most  cities,  the more you get to know it,  the more comfortable  you feel.  There was very little free time,  but  I did manage to get down to Manhattan beach and dip my toes into the Pacific Ocean.   Then after  some required  shopping at  Walgreens  to  pick up the various odds and ends I can't get in the UK,  I headed back to LAX and  flew home.

While in New York, I was  walking down Broadway with one my co-workers who had accompanied me on this trip.  We were discussing the  pending  Supreme Court ruling on Health Care.   I remarked that   the United States still didn't have a  NHS  "like we do at home".  My colleague  looked at me in amusement and  pointed out that was the fist time he had heard me refer to London as  "home".    He was correct,  during my previous   business trip to the US, back in January,  I  still spoke of  how nice it was to spend sometime visiting "home",  meaning  California .  

The ex-pat existence is an odd one.   It is a life of  living neither here nor there.   London is my home,  but  it is a city where  I am always  a foreigner.  New York and  Los Angeles are  cities I have never lived in, and therefore certainly can't call them  "home", but  even so,  for  two weeks  I will confess it was very nice to not be the foreigner  for a while.    Back in London,  this week I will celebrate yet another  American Independence Day  from outside the United States, looking in.

As the rhetorical battle  over  equal rights for  LGBT Americans  plays out over the coming months of the  U.S. Presidential election campaign,  those of us who live in  DOMA-Exile  will watch from across oceans and borders and continue to hope for the day that all American couples are treated  equally by our own country.

Happy Fourth of July everyone...

Happy Fourth of July

MARY LOUISE KELLY,

And I'm Mary Louise Kelly with a document from a deeply divided time. It was a time when Americans turned against each other.

STEVE INSKEEP,

A man in Philadelphia declared the rich, the poor, the high professor and the profane seem all infected with a grievous disorder, so the love of our neighbors seems banished. The love of self and opinions so far prevails.

KELLY: If the language seems old-fashioned it's because the time was 1776. The United States was early in its Revolutionary War. Even those who opposed British rule disagreed on what to do.

INSKEEP: And it was in this atmosphere that a few dozen men - the Continental Congress - drafted the document which John Adams called a declaration of independency. Its principles have guided the country ever since.

KELLY: Not all people were then held as equal, yet this document declared them so.

INSKEEP: American colonists were not entirely free to speak their minds. Indeed, their denunciation of British rule was considered treason punishable by death. Yet they signed the paper insisting on their freedom of speech, which Ben Franklin had once called a principal pillar of a free government.

KELLY: On this Independence Day, their words are read by our colleagues, NPR journalists.

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The Declaration Of Independence

Steve Inskeep


When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Rachel Martin


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. --

David Greene


That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Julie McCarthy


Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;

Sam Sanders


and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Don Gonyea


But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —

Deborah Amos


Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

Joe Palca


The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Audie Cornish


He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

Shankar Vedantam


He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro


He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

Sylvia Poggioli


He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

Frank Langfitt


He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

Cheryl Corley


He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

Nina Totenberg


He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.  He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.  He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

Michel Martin


He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

Elizabeth Blair


He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

Ofeibea Quist-Arcton


For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:  For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

Mary Louise Kelly


For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:  For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

Mara Liasson


For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences  For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

Linda Wertheimer


For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:  For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

Sonari Glinton


He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

Jackie Northam


He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

Gene Demby


He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

Ari Shapiro


He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.  In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

Eyder Peralta


A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.  Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.

Susan Stamberg


We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

Scott Horsley


They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

Cokie Roberts


We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;

David Greene


that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;

Rachel Martin


and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances,establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

Steve Inskeep


And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Mary Louise Kelly


Two-hundred forty (two) years ago today, church bells rang out over Philadelphia as the Continental Congress adopted this draft of the Declaration of Independence.
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Music - (SOUNDBITE OF ERIC WEINBERG'S "DAWN AT YORKTOWN")