Today's recipe honors the most important work of Bill Thom and Lambda Legal. Most of the gains that we have made in human rights have come from the courts, not from the ballot boxes. Read about this organization, while enjoying a rich homemade soup!
This is so much better than from a can! The aroma of the tomatoes simmering in the kitchen will tantalize.
Ingredients
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 slices of bacon, cut up into pieces
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 carrots, chopped (about a cup)
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken broth, homemade or low-sodium canned
1 (28-ounce) can stewed tomatoes, with liquid
1 15 oz can roasted diced tomatoes with liquid
1 Tbs parsley flakes
1 tsp thyme
1 cup non fat half & half
1¾ tsp salt
pepper to taste
Directions
Do your cutting: chop up the carrots, onion, garlic, and bacon.
Heat the butter in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook, stirring, until crisp and most of the fat has rendered, about 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate and set aside.
Lower the heat to medium, add the onion, carrots, garlic, and butter and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until soft and fragrant, about 8 minutes.
Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes. Pour in the broth and tomatoes and bring to a boil while whisking constantly. Add seasonings to the pot.
Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from the heat. Carefully using an inmersion blender puree until smooth. Return to reheat over medium heat.
Whisk the half & half and salt into the soup and season with pepper to taste. Divide among warm soup bowls, garnish with the crispy bacon, and serve immediately.
Per Serving: 198 calories; 12.3 g fat; 20 g carbohydrates; 4.3 g protein; 38 mg cholesterol; 906 mg sodium.
For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFU1GeGFpzY
Happy to serve this to my Master Indy
socialslave
To satisfy and restore.
To nourish, support and maintain.
To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to nurture, assist, and sustain
…..I cook!
Please buy slave's cookbook:
The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White
Bill Thom and Lambda Legal
William J. Thom (1941), is a founder of Lambda Legal and the first out gay judge in New York.
Lambda's first case was filed on its own behalf! It was a time of overwhelming prejudice against gay people: A panel of New York judges turned down the application to be a nonprofit organization because, in their view, the mission was "neither benevolent nor charitable." Founder Bill Thom used pro bono help to appeal to New York’s highest court, which finally allowed Lambda Legal to exist as a nonprofit organization—the nation’s first legal organization dedicated to achieving full equality for lesbian and gay people. That was on October 18, 1973.
Because of the scarcity of openly gay lawyers in 1973, Lambda Legal formed a Board of Advisors of eminent New Yorkers sympathetic to the cause of gay rights. Also on the Board of Advisors were two lawyers who later became New York State Supreme Court Justices: Phyllis Gangel-Jacob and Shirley Fingerhood.
At its inception, Lambda Legal could find no lesbian lawyers who were willing or able to be openly associated with a gay activist organization. Nathalie Rockhill, a major figure in the early post-Stonewall days of Gay Liberation, was the first woman elected to the board in 1974. She was soon followed by lesbian law students and, in time, by lesbian lawyers. By the 1980s, men and women were equally represented on Lambda's board.
Lambda's growth paralleled the growth of the gay movement. By the 1980s, with the advent of AIDS, gay activism had grown significantly.
Work
Lambda Legal has played a role in many legal cases about gay rights, including the 6-3 United States Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which invalidated sodomy laws in the United States.
Throughout the 1970s, Lambda Legal fought and won some of the nation's first cases on behalf of lesbian and gay parents and same-sex couples. In one of our first cases (Gay Student Organization v. Bonner), we successfully helped a gay student group at the University of New Hampshire fight a ban on their school activities.
In July 2012, Lambda founder Bill Thom was interviewed at his nursing home in Manhattan and gave a first-hand account of the early years of Lambda Legal.
Lambda Legal started in my studio apartment. I put a Band-Aid on my mailbox with the name on it and a $25 bank account. Forty years ago, people were under the impression that gays and lesbians were apart from the human race. I’m so proud that Lambda Legal has quite literally made life more just and therefore better for millions upon millions of people.
From the beginning, we had two roles to play: the first litigation, the second education. We were ambitious and wanted to have a national focus.
My partner became the general counsel and, as I recall, I was president and chief cook and bottle washer for the first five years. I think in our best year we probably raised $50,000. That was worth a good deal more then than it is now, but it still wasn’t a great deal of money. I took a couple of fundraising courses, but we were inexperienced. It felt at times like we were just muddling through. We were fairly cautious about the cases we took. Even though we were doing the legal work for nothing, lawsuits have a lot of other expenses. For instance, in the military challenge that my partner handled against the Department of Defense, the case was tried in Washington, D.C. Anytime there was activity, in that case, he had to make that trip. If it’s a busy case, as this one was, the costs can add up. The defense department settled that case, and we later took cases involving access in federal prisons to gay publications, a couple of custody cases, and an immigration case. We had quite a cross-section from the beginning, and since we had no publicity budget it was surprising how quickly we became known.
We met once a month as a board and we would discuss the facts of a case, the resources it would take and the opportunity for the case to be precedent-setting. The key to being a successful legal advocacy organization is to get the best factual case you can. So it was very important in those early days for us to determine whether we had as close to an optimum set of facts as we could to make the best case. Those of us who were there, in the beginning, were involved because we believed in the cause — equality for LGBT communities — but one of the things that has allowed Lambda Legal to endure and prosper is that we always put the clients first and the cause second. It was always about the people. We still have a long way to go in the fight for equal rights across the board for our communities. But the changes I’ve seen since I got involved 35 years ago are so astonishing and so widespread that I’m pretty confident that we’re going to have substantial equality in my lifetime — and I’m no spring chicken
—Bill Thom, founder
Lambda Legal carries out its legal work principally through test cases establishing positive legal precedents that will affect lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those affected by HIV. Lambda Legal's staff of attorneys works on a wide range of cases, with their docket averaging more than 50 cases at any given time.
Lambda Legal also maintains a national network of volunteer Cooperating Attorneys, which widens the scope of their legal work and allows attorneys, legal workers, and law students to become involved in the program by working with Lambda Legal's legal staff.
Lambda Legal pursues litigation in all parts of the country, in every area of the law that affects communities they represent, such as discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and the military; HIV/AIDS-related discrimination and public policy issues; parenting and relationship issues; equal marriage rights; equal employment and domestic partnership benefits; "sodomy" law challenges; anti-gay initiatives; and free speech and equal protection rights.
Lambda Legal publishes the "Little Black Book," which contains information regarding the possible consequences of gay men "cruising" for sex in public places. The "Little Black Book" includes the following material: "If you cruise in parks, bathrooms or other spaces open to public view, trust your instincts, be aware of your surroundings -- and know your rights. While Lambda Legal and other groups are fighting against the ways police target men who have sex with men, having sex where others might see you and take offense can subject you to arrest, publicity and other serious consequences. If you feel unsafe, you should leave." The "Little Black Book" goes on to advise as follows: "If you’re cruising for sex and an undercover cop hits on you, what you do can still be a crime."
Its national headquarters remain in New York City, but today it has regional offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Washington.
A letter from the current co-chair of Lambda Legal to Bill Thom dated September 25, 2012 which says "The world is a vastly better place for LGBT people than when I started practice 20 years ago and is almost unrecognizable from the world in which you took on the heroic and unprecedented task of fighting back."
No comments:
Post a Comment