Jennifer Frye, associate director of Democracy North Carolina, helps Michael Corbitt with his registration form.
"Only reading the headline I’m going to guess that this is a Democrat initiative(?)"
You guessed it.
Posted on 07/20/2008 6:10:29 AM PDT by DJ Taylor
Leon Quinn got out of prison in New York last year, moved to North Carolina and tried to start a new life.
But employers don’t want to hire a convicted felon, and it’s hard to get your own place when you don’t have a job, he said.
“It’s like we’re marked as criminals,” Quinn said. “It’s like we don’t have a say.”
But, Quinn learned Saturday he does have a say, even with a felony conviction.
In North Carolina, people convicted of a felony can vote, once they’ve served their time behind bars and completed the terms of their probation and parole. On Saturday, three criminal justice organizations hosted a rally at Bronco Square on Murchison Road to educate people about convicts’ rights and to register to vote as many felons as they could.
About 75 people came to the rally, which was hosted by Democracy North Carolina, Fresh Start Incorporated and the Institute for Community Justice of Fayetteville State. Jennifer Frye, associate director of Democracy North Carolina, said the group registered 9 voters who had been convicted of a felony.
“The right to vote is one of our most fundamental rights in a democracy,” Frye said. “It’s a ticket to feeling like a first-class citizen.”
Quinn agrees. He was watching television with his girlfriend Saturday morning when he saw Charles Evans, a Fayetteville city councilman, on the air. Evans was saying that felons could register to vote in North Carolina. Quinn almost didn’t believe it.
“He was under the impression that, as a felon, he couldn’t vote,” said his girlfriend, Margo McMillan.
Quinn had been in and out of trouble since he was a teenager. He mostly sold crack, and figures that from 1981 — when he first got arrested — to 2007, he spent about 15 years locked up.
The thought that he might have a say in how his society functions made him happy. He’d like to elect someone who will help him get a job.
“That’s why I’d like to vote,” he said, laughing.
McMillan nodded.
“Once you did your time, I don’t think you need to keep paying for your past,” she said.
Staff writer Laura Arenschield can be reached at arenschieldl@fayobserver.com or 486-3572.
Anybody know a good community activist to assist in this change?
Jennifer Frye, associate director of Democracy North Carolina, helps Michael Corbitt with his registration form.
"Only reading the headline I’m going to guess that this is a Democrat initiative(?)"
You guessed it.
Ah, stars and levitating balls!
.
Yup
I could not find my bouncing basketball
Not sure how Obama’s “touching the star” shows up
.
That .gif was well ahead of the news!
Before it’s time, huh? I had some reason for thinking of it at the time.
Is this a protestant concept, or is it shared by the catholic and orthodox?
But playing the elder brother boosts one's ego like little else.
“Is this a protestant concept, or is it shared by the catholic and orthodox?”
We need to continually repent for our sins. In fact, the Desert Fathers taught that in their entire lives, despite having spent them in faithful prayer, they hadn’t even made a beginning of repentance. One of the most respected saints in Orthodoxy, +Symeon the New Theologian, wrote
“...it is good to repent every day, as the commandment demands. For the words: ‘Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ impose upon us a practice not limited to a definite time but for always.”
Is this a protestant concept, or is it shared by the catholic and orthodox?
I cannot make a generalization on protestantism on this question, but certainly, it would seem to be consistent with what is taught at some protestant churches and is clearly a core element of the gospel according to Joel Osteen. As you know, a traditional catholic/orthodox view is that such sufferings are a gift from God, that through our ordeal, we may strengthen our faith and learn to more fully rely on Him and not ourselves.
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