Box Turtle Bulletin

Pastor: Religious Leaders Opposing Cleveland’s Domestic Partnerships “Confuse Religion With Faith”

Rev. Kenneth W. Chalker, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Cleveland, as also weighed in on Rev. C. Jay Matthews’ attempts to overturn Cleveland’s toothless Domestic Partnerships. He says that Matthews and others are confusing religion with faith:

It is not unlike the pastors 150 years ago who proclaimed the Bible’s endorsement of slavery as a legitimate enterprise, argued that there was no valid marriage between slaves, and therefore no reason to recognize loving relationships between slaves or recognize, in a legal way, their children.

It is not unlike a number of leading pastors in Birmingham, Ala., who joined together in 1963 to give biblically endorsed reasons why the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was out of line and moving too fast with his advocacy for civil rights and the elimination of legal segregation based on race and skin color.

It is all the result of confusing religion with faith.

Pastor Opposes Cleveland’s Domestic Partnership Registry With No Benefits

Ever since we learned that Cleveland passed a Domestic Partnership Registry last month — the one which proved extremely controversial among some council members, the one that is still so controversial that Rev. C. Jay Matthews of Mount Sinai Baptist Church is trying to overturn it — we’ve been trying to figure out what that registry provides. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Connie Schultz, it’s not much at all:

The registry just guarantees that unmarried couples with none of the legal rights of marriage can pay the city a fee to document that they are unmarried couples with none of the legal rights of marriage.

It’s as if Cleveland City Council said, “Look, we know that all committed adult couples should be equal in the eyes of the law, but we just can’t bring ourselves to say that out loud, ‘kay?”

Now, the registry does arm gays and lesbians with a defense, sort of, against greedy relatives, self-righteous clergy and all sorts of official-looking people who think only heterosexuals should have the legal right to marry, no matter how many times it takes them to get it right. To be specific, the registry gives homosexual couples a piece of paper to call their own.

For example, let’s say you’re gay and weeping over the body of your recently deceased partner when her parents show up at the funeral and demand the keys to the house you shared for the last 20 years. If the house was in her name only, I’m afraid you’re still headed for a rental with a futon, but now you can whip out that sheet of domestic registry paper, wave it wildly and shout, “We are too a couple. Says so right here on this document.”

Much better, don’t you think?

This is what the fuss is all about?

Is Calling Someone Gay Defamation?

We are trying out Gabriel Arana as a possible new contributor to Box Turtle Bulletin. Gabriel is a graduate of linguistics from Cornell University, and he is now pursuing a career in journalism. Some of you may remember him as a former patient of ex-gay therapist Dr. Joseph Nicolosi. While he’s had a personal blog for some time, he’s new to the world of LGBT community blogging. He’s an Arizona native — specifically from Nogales on the U.S./Mexico border — but he now makes his home among the bright lights of New York City. Please welcome Gabriel to the pad. — Jim Burroway.

With the LGBT legal community’s eyes set on fighting for marriage rights, another important issue that reinforces negative attitudes toward gays has gone largely unmentioned: the law concerning defamation and false accusations of homosexuality.

Rulings vary by jurisdiction over whether it is defamatory to out someone falsely, reflecting the fragmented evolution of social and legal attitudes in different areas of the country.

Examples include the case of a Los Angeles judge who awarded Tom Cruise $10 million in a libel suit against a man who claimed Cruise was his lover. Other courts have ruled the opposite, including Boston judge Nancy Gertner, who in 2004 ruled that “a statement implying that an individual is a homosexual is hardly capable of a defamatory meaning.”

The issue here — and its significance for LGBT policy — is perhaps more easily understood by analogy to a schoolyard fight. If a kid calls another kid gay, should the teacher tell him to stop or, believing that there is nothing wrong with being gay and being identified as such, ignore the negative consequences that arise from the teasing?

Some background: According to libel (printed statements) and slander (typically oral statements) law, a plaintiff must prove the following in order to establish defamation:

• that the information reached a third party;
• that the person in question is identifiable from the information;
• that the publisher is at fault;
• and — most importantly — that the publication of the information caused harm or “[tended] to hurt the reputation of another so as to lower him in the estimation of the community.”

There are two countervailing positions to consider:

1. Courts should not recognize defamation lawsuits based on the (false) accusation of homosexuality.

This is perhaps the goal — to live in a society in which being gay is a neutral descriptor that has neither a positive nor negative connotation. Defamation lawsuits based on gay accusations enshrine the perception of homosexuality as something bad and further reinforce this belief. Courts are not in a position to define homosexuality as a stain on someone’s reputation.

2. Courts should recognize such lawsuits until the social mores of the society change.

No one wants to wait for social norms to change, but the standard for harm is subjective: whether or not calling someone gay “[hurts] the reputation” of a person depends on how the community feels about homosexuality. The function of the Court is not to determine whether a certain attribute is desirable or not, but merely establish that being labeled as such leads to diminished reputation/harm. Dismissing such suits leaves plaintiffs who have lost their jobs or suffered other damages with no recourse.

Of course the question of whether people who actually are gay should be outed or not (e.g. as in the case of gay politicians like Mark Foley who pass anti-gay legislation) is not a defamation issue — the one surefire defense against defamation is that the published information is true.

In any scenario, the solution to this problem from a policy standpoint involves changing public opinion, a task taken up by a good number of activist organizations. The more thorny issue is what the strategy among legal advocates should be. This may or may not be a case in which the law must trail — and not lead — social progress.

Incoming White House Press Secretary Gives One Word Answer On DADT

Incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is featured in a second YouTube post addressing questions submitted by ordinary citizens via President-Elect Barack Obama’s change.gov web site. After five other questions about the economy, “No Child Left Behind,” transportation, sound science, and health care, Gibbs came to this question at the 4:16 mark:

Thaddeus from Lansing, Michigan asks, “Is the new administration going to get rid of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy?”  Thaddeus, you don’t hear a politician give a one-word answer much, but it’s ‘Yes’.”

Of course, saying ‘yes’ and giving an indication of a timetable or priority is two different things. We’ll see.

Colorado Episcopal Church Ordains Lesbian

From the AP:

The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado is ending its so-called “period of restraint” on ordaining gay priests.

Bishop Robert O’Neill ordained Mary Catherine Volland to the priesthood during a ceremony at St. John’s Cathedral on Saturday.

A Truly Stupid Example of Transphobia

Gainesville, Florida, has an ordinance allowing transgender persons to select whichever bathroom they find most appropriate. The haters and the fools have come up with a campaign to overturn this ordinance and to require transgendered persons to… well, I’m not sure exactly.

This is the television ad they are running:

Transgender persons – like any group – are too complex to make many absolute statements. But I’m willing to say with absolute confidence that there is not a single solitary male-to-female transgender out there that lurks around in public looking like this guy. And there isn’t a police force on the planet (much less Gainesville) that wouldn’t arrest this dude.

Ironically, however, this appearance would not be out of the question for a female-to-male transgender. And I just wonder just which bathroom the Citizens for Good Public Policy would want him to use.

Of course, their effort have nothing to do with where a T-girl pees. It’s just a cover for an anti-gay, anti-trans agenda.

The proposed amendment, if approved by the voters of Gainesville, will require the city’s civil rights categories (contained in the Code of Ordinances) to match the State of Florida’s civil rights categories. This action will remove two current categories—sexual orientation and gender identity disorder—as well as nullify current laws, such as the Gender Identity Ordinance, that specifically pertain to these categories.

The Good Citizens just want to have the right to discriminate.

Pastor Supports Warren Protests

Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel, Senior Pastor of Victory For the World United Church of Christ in Stone Mountain, GA., has written a stirring op-ed in the Daily Voice, supporting the protests against Rick Warren as Obama’s choice to give the Inaugural invocation, as well as Warren’s invitation to speak at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in January. Dr. Samuel writes:

While expressing some disagreement with Rev. Warren’s views about gay people, most [civil rights] leaders have generally defended his invitations to participate in these events based upon the conviction that both Barack Obama and Martin Luther King, Jr. stand for reaching out to persons of divergent views and bringing them together in dialogue.

While there is great value in such a conviction, the fact is that Rick Warren has not been invited into a dialogue at either occasion. He has been invited to invoke God’s presence on behalf of the nation at one occasion and to speak in tribute to the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. at the other.

To be sure, if Reverend Warren had been invited into a dialogue about marriage equality, he most likely would have declined…

I am certain that gay rights groups and their allies would certainly prefer to be joining hands and hearts with the Obama administration and the King Center in the quest to re-vitalize the American economy, improve public education, save Social Security, provide universal health care, protect the environment and end the war in Iraq.

Instead, we must now deal with the sting of having been again slapped in the face by fellow fire fighters before we can even focus on putting out the fire which threatens to engulf everyone’s house. These ‘minor’ insults are actually ‘major’ distractions that we should no longer allow. Lest we continue to be derailed from the common aim of “liberty and justice for all”, the protests must proceed.

[Hat tip: HRC Backstory]

Group Tries To Derail Cleveland’s Domestic Partnership Registry

Last month, we learned that Cleveland was about to offer a Domestic Partnership registry. Now we learn that opponents are determined to derail the measure.

Rev. C. Jay Matthews of Mount Sinai Baptist Church failed in his first attempt to gather 11,000 signatures by Wednesday to force a citywide vote on the measure. He’s now focusing efforts on what is called an ordinance by initiative. It requires 5,000 signatures to submit legislation to city council for a vote. If the City Council doesn’t pass it, it goes to the voters. Matthews hopes to be able to submit the legislation by April.

Prop 8 and Race: Who’s Really To Blame?

When I first looked at CNN’s exit polling data on November 5th for Prop 8, my first reaction was pretty simple — and I quote, “We have done a very poor job in reaching out to the African-American community.” That was on seeing the exit poll which said that African-Americans voted for Prop 8 by a 70%-30% margin. Leave aside whether this figure is accurate or not, it was emblematic to me of a plain and undeniable fact, one that Andrew Sullivan recently backed up with other polling data — that “African-Americans are more opposed to gay equality than any other ethnic group.” And we failed yet again in reaching out to make a dent in that dynamic.

But to my dismay, that wasn’t the larger reaction. Instead, people pounced on those numbers and said, “Ah-hah! That’s why we lost!” The polling numbers became a sort of get-out-of-jail free card for many of us who fought to defeat these marriage amendments in California, Arizona and Florida. We get to wash our hands and say, “If it hadn’t been for those people, we would have won!”

The problem, of course, is that we know the dangers of blaming a minority group for someone else’s troubles. Graveyards around the world are filled with the results of that kind of scapegoating. And yet, that is what this morbid debate has devolved into. One side says it is the African-American community’s fault that Prop 8 passed. The other side says no it isn’t; the exit polling data is flawed.

Well thankfully, the NGLTF came to the rescue with a study which lets that besieged minority off the hook. Which is good as far as that beleaguered minority is concerned, because now everyone’s rushing to embrace it with a palpable sense of relief. See? It wasn’t their fault after all! Whew! Well okay then, let’s talk about something else…

But then, all of the sudden, this humble little web site stirred the pot again, and we’ve gotten an awful lot of attention around the blogosphere lately because Timothy Kincaid looked at the study and saw some things he felt didn’t add up. And now the grand debate is back on: are African-Americans to blame or aren’t they? And there’s an added twist this time: What’s the deal with Timothy not letting them off the hook? (For an answer there, I encourage everyone to re-read Timothy’s last five paragraphs — they deserve a post of their own.)

Let me say that I have not looked at NGLTF’s study, nor have I looked into Timothy’s analysis of it. That means I have some homework to do this weekend. I generally trust Timothy’s judgment and his analytical skills. But beyond that, I won’t comment on this particular study until I get a chance to look at it myself.

But I think we all can agree — in fact, I think it is indisputable — that there is a very large divide between the gay community and the African-American community. That the problem of homophobia is higher in the black community than it is among Latinos and Whites. (And that homophobia isn’t exactly a small thing among Latinos and Whites either.) I don’t think anyone who has been paying attention can dispute any of this.

We don’t need studies or polls to define the problem. All they do is throw quantitative numbers at it, and allow us to operate under the delusion that if we can only somehow change the numbers, the problem will somehow go away. NGLTF changed the numbers — or at least they gave us a study with numbers we’d much rather see. Okay, maybe the Black vote didn’t lose the election for us, I don’t know. But somehow I don’t think the problem of Black homophobia is any better. Yet it appears that too many of us like NGLTF’s numbers so much better that we’d rather pretend the problem just went away so we could go on whistling happily in the dark.

Or worse, we can conclude — as the No on 8 campaign did before the election — that the number of voters among African-Americans were small and not worth engaging after all. Even though Black leaders were at the ready to speak out against Prop 8.

So let me say this loud and clear: It is not the African-American community’s fault that Prop 8 passed. And I do agree with at least one point in the NGLTF’s press release: To say that African-Americans caused Prop 8 to pass is a myth. It is an evil, pernicious, odious myth.

It is axiomatic in politics that the glory of winning a race goes to the winning campaign. The corollary then is that the blame for losing a race goes to the losing campaign. And as one who served as chair for a grass-roots effort to defeat Prop 102 in Arizona, I bear the blame for what happened here as well. In fact, I’ll cop to a huge failure right now: I cannot even claim that many of my best friends are Black with a clear conscience. I suspect more of us White LGBT people share that failure than we care to admit.

If we aren’t willing to admit to our own failures, then we’re just doomed to more failures in the future. And our failure in not asking specifically for Black votes — using Black voices, Black media, Black leaders, Black entertainers, Black opinion makers — while addressing Black concerns and misconceptions, well that was a whopper. The black vote may or may not have ensured Prop 8’s passage. But our failure by not asking directly for the Black vote meant that we got precisely the result what we asked for.

That is clearly our fault, and we need to own it if we want anything to ever change in the future. In fact, we need to regard the entire failure of Prop 8, Prop 102 and Amendment 2 as though they were our fault. That is the only way we can generate the sense of urgency it will take to change how we deal with propositions like this in the future. Because after thirty some defeats, we clearly need to do something different, and we need to do it urgently.

So what do we do now? Do we continue to engage in the false debate over who’s to blame for Prop 8’s passage? Does anyone really think that such a debate gets us anywhere? Or do we instead roll up our sleeves and try to find opportunities to actually talk to Black people — including leaders and opinion makers — to listen to their concerns, address them, stand up with them, and show by example that we’re all in this together? That when one of us is diminished, we all are diminished?

Or do we continue to diminish someone else? Because right now, that’s the path we’re on. And that does nobody any good, especially Black LGBT people who are caught in the middle of all of this with all too tragic consequences.

So, who’s really to blame for Prop 8’s passage?

I am!

And I am committed to making the hard changes required to keep it from happening again. I am committed to changing what hasn’t worked before.

As long as there is anyone else we can blame, we will have an excuse to sit back and do nothing differently. And if we do nothing differently, then we will have no right to expect a different result.

Who else has the guts to join me?

Tennessee Hotel Employee Fired For Being Gay

They say this sort of thing never happens, but here it is. David Hill says he was fired from the Artee Hotel (a former Holiday Inn) in Brentwood, Tennessee, simply for being gay. Not only that, but the owner who fired him dared him to sue:

“They literally said to me because of my orientation and my alternative lifestyle, that I was not a fit for the hotel,” said Hill.

Hill said he used to be the human resources director and is shocked at the owner’s decision to dismiss him because of his sexual preference. “The owner (Tarun Surti) said, ‘I don’t give a damn. They can sue me. I will not have any of the gays in leadership roles in my hotel.’ And that’s a quote,” said Hill.

Assistant general manager, Leonard Stoddard, confirmed Hill’s allegation. He should know, because he said he was the one who had to fire Hill. He spoke with Nashville’s Channel 4 News:

“The owner, Mr. Surti, comes from a culture that is not very tolerant to the gay lifestyle, and therefore he felt it necessary to have him removed from the workforce at the property,” said Stoddard.

“(He was fired) strictly because of his sexual orientation?” asked reporter Katina Rankin.

“I do believe that’s a very fair assumption,” asked [sic] Stoddard.

“Did you agree with his decision?” asked Rankin.

“I did not,” said Stoddard. “It is in our employee handbook that no one should be discriminated against, harassed verbally, physically or any other means for their sexuality, their sexual orientation, gender, race or anything of that sort.”

Meanwhile, it appears the firings didn’t start with Hill, and may not end with him:

Stoddard said Hill’s termination came after Surti received a letter which listed the names of several gay staff members including Hill and Stoddard. That letter was written by a former employee who had been fired for, among other reasons, being gay, Stoddard said.

…Stoddard said Surti fired Hill and told Stoddard he would soon need to find a new employer, as well. Stoddard has worked at the hotel for 10 months. He has not been officially terminated yet, but expects to be soon.

Which may explain why Stoddard spoke so freely with Channel 4.

Surti wouldn’t comment to Channel 4, but according to Out & About, Surti blamed the firings on staff cutbacks.

Hill plans to file a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Labor, bt it’s not clear how far that will go. While U.S. law does protect against employment discrimination on the basis of religion, race, and ethnicity, and disability, it doesn’t cover sexual orientation.

Anti-Gay Donors Spooked

The organizers behind Proposition 8 are suing to keep anti-gay donations secret (LA Times):

Proponents of a ballot measure that banned same sex marriage filed a lawsuit in federal court this week seeking to overturn state campaign finance laws that require that names and personal information of donors to state political campaigns be made public.

Their lawsuit (seen here) includes the following arguments

30. Plaintiffs and other supporters of Proposition 8 have been subjected to threats, harassment, and reprisals as a result of the support for Proposition 8…

31. The threats and harassment have included threatening phone calls, emails, and postcards…

32. Supporters of Proposition 8 have also had their personal property vandalized or destroyed…

Most of the anecdotes listed as evidence are trivial to the point of being laughable. For example, “Decl. of John Doe #4 (received email that read “I AM BOYCOTTING YOUR ORGANIZATION AS A RESULT OF YOUR SUPPORT OF PROP 8″)”

The basic gist of their argument is that political donations should be secret because otherwise that political support can have consequences such a loss of business or personal criticism.

They are asking that the court to

a. Declare all registration, reporting, and disclaimer requirements unconstitutional as applied to Committee Plaintiffs, Major Donors, and all other individuals and organizations holding similar views.

b. Enjoin [the Secretary of State] from enforcing all registration, reporting, and disclaimer requirements against Committee Plaintiffs, etc.

c. Expunge all records of Reports filed by Committee Plaintiffs, etc. on California’s campaign and reporting disclosure system.

It’s amusing to note that they are specifically asking that only those who supported Proposition 8 (those holding “similar views”) be excused from obeying reporting requirements. One might almost forget that it was this campaign that sent extortion letters to opponents of the Proposition.

This may seem odd at first. After all, these records have been downloaded and stored by scores of gay individuals and groups. It would take little effort for them to become public knowledge again immediately.

And challenges to this 1974 law have consistently lost over the years. It’s not likely that they will succeed this time.

The law was intended to prevent money laundering and to provide disclosure of who is making contributions to political campaigns. It has withstood several previous legal challenges. Experts on the 1st Amendment experts said they did not believe the suit stood much of a chance of success.

But Justin McLachlan noted

They’ve also asked the court to prevent the state from requiring them to file upcoming reports, due on Jan. 31, that they say will reveal the names of previously undisclosed campaign donors and they want protection from filing reports that reveal the names of their treasurer and campaign officers, like registration documents.

That’s an awful lot of expense and effort to go through on the off chance that the courts rule in their favor. Something makes me think that there is perhaps a bombshell hidden in the new reports, something that the campaign does not want to go public.

Let’s hope that Fred Karger and Californians Against Hate are ready to give it close scrutiny.

Nine Men Jailed in Senegal for Homosexuality

Diadji Diouf, who heads an organization which provides HIV prevention services to gay men in Senegal, was been convicted along with eight other men of homosexuality and sentenced to eight years in prison. This depite the fact that Senegalese law only provides for five years in prison for homosexuality. The judge added three more years, claiming the men were also members of a “criminal group,” presumably the HIV services organization.

Diouf’s organization, AIDES Senegal, provided condoms and HIV treatment out of his apartment. Police raided his apartment on December 19 and arrested the men. The raid came just weeks after Senegal hosted an international AIDS conference which included LGBT participants.

The head of a Senegalese gay rights group, speaking anonymously to AFP news, said that conditions in the country were getting steadily worse for LGBT people. “Many gays are already fleeing to neighboring countries because of our living conditions,” he said.

AFA Boycotts Pepsi

Remember when we asked whether the American Family Association was gearing up for a Pepsi boycott? Well, game on.

Barney Frank on Rick Warren, Obama, and the “Gay Agenda”

Jeffrey Toobin has a great profile of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) in the latest New Yorker. First thing that pops out is that Frank intends to be much more aggressive than Obama:

Frank’s mordant view of human nature presents a contrast to the sunnier approach of President-elect Obama, a difference reflected in their dispute over Obama’s choice to have Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor, give the invocation at the Inauguration. “Obama tends to overstate his ability to get people to change their opinions and underestimates the importance of confronting ideological differences,” Frank told me. “It’s one thing to talk to somebody. I talk to more conservatives than anyone, because I’m trying to get legislation passed. But it’s another to make Rick Warren the most honored clergyman in the world.” In California, Warren supported Proposition 8, the successful anti-gay-marriage referendum. “Now, when we fight Warren in California, we are going to hear, ‘Oh, yeah, but Obama picked him for the inaugural.’ He doesn’t deserve that honor. And I don’t want to hear that the other clergyman at the inaugural, Reverend [Joseph] Lowery, supports gay rights. I didn’t vote for a tie in the election.”

Frank worries that Obama’s evenhandedness may prove to be a political liability.

I think we all can relate to that worry. Frank, on the other hand, won’t let that get in the way of what he thinks needs to be done for the economy (he’s chairman of the powerful Committee on Financial Services) and for LGBT rights:

Frank is uncharacteristically hopeful about the future, including gay rights. “We’re going to do three things in Congress,” he told me. “First, a hate-crimes bill—that shouldn’t be too hard. Next, employment discrimination. We almost got that through before, but now we can win even if we add transgender protections, which we are going to do. And finally, after the troops get home from Iraq, gays in the military. The time has come.” [Emphasis mine]

That last point is key. If we’re going to wait until after the troops get home from Iraq, then repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” probably won’t happen for a very long time. But his response to those who claim that this represents some sort of radical agenda was pretty good:

“I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the Army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.”

Another Reason to Love Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt is one of the most beautiful men alive, coupled to one of the sexiest women on the planet, successful, rich, and famous. He’s also a competent actor, a decent guy, not a diva, committed to helping the less fortunate, a good family man, and – of all things – an activist for gay equality. There is no shortage of reasons to love Brad Pitt.

But here’s one more (W magazine):

“People who are against gay marriage do not understand the very freedoms that they themselves are enjoying,” he argues. “What if someone said, ‘Sorry, no Christianity here? No Judaism. Certainly no Mormons.’ No one would stand for that, and I wouldn’t allow anyone to say that either. I’d fight them in the same way.”