This is a group of Rhode Island clergy who showed up for the R.I. Senate vote for Marriage Equality.
They look sharp. They look with-it. They look like people who live in, and are engaged in the issues of, NOW. Not 1972. NOW. Today. They look smart, strong, warm, approachable, and influential. These are all things you want to project when you appear before the legislature to witness for justice.
Notice that there’s just nothing quite so handsome and dignified as simple black clericals. Take a lesson from that, “creatives” and non-conformists who keep trying to come up with alternative options that so often wind up looking sloppy and silly! Take a lesson from that, colleagues who keep trying to make a flapping colorful stole look respectable over street clothes! It doesn’t work. It looks awkward, distracting and immature, like you either don’t know how, or do not want to, claim authority.
The woman in the front row who has the stole on over her clothes looks beautiful and appropriate because she created an elegant, long line of neutral color from neck to toe. Her garments’ proportions are just right (the long tunic with the stole) and the stole is simple, lovely and staying put. That’s how it’s done if you’re going to go that route.
So happy to see the gents in suit and tie. That’s how THAT’S done, too. Do you think the legislators came to vote in T-shirts and jeans? No, they did not. If you hope to influence that vote, you should be dressed as formally as the people doing the voting. It communicates that you are equals, that you are respect their work, and that you have self-respect. If you genuinely do not own a suit or cannot afford one, the dynamic is different. But Lord preserve me from privileged clergy who think that dressing “like the people” (whom they imagine to all be clad in T-shirts and jeans, which proves that they don’t spend much actual time with “the people” at important occasions) is a groovy statement of solidarity. It’s not. It’s self-indulgent and sloppy.
Why, I do believe PeaceBang has worked herself up into her first rant of the spring of 2013! That must mean she’s feeling almost back to normal!
Way to go, Rhode Island colleagues! Good work, jubilant outcome, lookin’ good. I salute you.
Click to enlarge.
