Box Turtle Bulletin

Obama Calls On UN To Protect Gay Rights

President Barack Obama spoke at the United Nations General Assembly today, where he called on member states to protect the human rights of gays and lesbians:

And to make sure our societies reach their potential, we must allow our citizens to reach theirs. No country can afford the corruption that plagues the world like a cancer. Together, we must harness the power of open societies and open economies. That’s why we’ve partnered with countries from across the globe to launch a new partnership on open government that helps ensure accountability and helps to empower citizens. No country should deny people their rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but also no country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere.

According to the White House, this is the first time that a sitting U.S. President affirmed the rights of gays and lesbians before the U.N. General Assembly.

Buffalo Teen Latest Suicide Following Anti-Gay Bullying

Fourteen-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer posted an “It Gets Better” video last May describing his struggles with the constant bullying he experienced at school. He expressed confidence at that time that his family and friends could carry him through the difficulties. But when he started  a new school year as a high school freshman, the bullying got worse. It turns out that that support wasn’t enough:

Soon after coming home from a family camping trip, Jamey was found dead Sunday. His parents say he was always under pressure because of struggles with his sexuality.

Jamey’s mother Tracy Rodemeyer said, “So he hung around with the girls a lot, so then the teasing started happening like ‘Oh you’re such a girl or you’re gay or whatever and that bothered him for many years.”

Now, they want to carry in his message in hopes of preventing another tragedy like this one.

Jamey’s father Tim Rodemeyer said, “To the kids who are bullying they have to realize that words are very powerful and what you think is just fun and games isn’t to some people, and you are destroying a lot of lives.”

Santorum Wants Google To Clean Up His Frothy Mix

GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum is upset that he has a Google problem. And he thinks Google should clean up his mess:

”I suspect if something was up there like that about Joe Biden, they’d get rid of it,” Santorum said. “If you’re a responsible business, you don’t let things like that happen in your business that have an impact on the country.”

He continued: “To have a business allow that type of filth to be purveyed through their website or through their system is something that they say they can’t handle but I suspect that’s not true.”

Santorum’s solution is for Google to go into the business of manipulating search results, something the Google refuses to do:

A Google spokesperson responded to Santorum by advising that users who want “content removed from the Internet should contact the webmaster of the page directly.”

“Google’s search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the web. Users who want content removed from the Internet should contact the webmaster of the page directly,” the spokesperson said. “Once the webmaster takes the page down from the web, it will be removed from Google’s search results through our usual crawling process.”

Google’s page ranking systems is a closely guarded secret in an attempt to prevent web sites from gaming the system, but one of the important elements is the number of links that a page about, say, Santorum, receives from other web sites. But the problem with Santorum‘s complaints about Google is that his page-rank problem is bigger than Santorum. His web site comes in seventh, below even his own Wikipedia page. Which make’s Santorum’s complaints about his Google problem so incredibly counterproductive. Because the more people talk about Santorum’s Google problem, the more likely they are to link to Santorum‘s neologism. And when they do that, it only gets worse for poor Rick Santorum.

DC Gay Man’s Death Ruled A Homicide

Earlier reports that a Gaurav Gopalan, a Washington, D.C., man who was found dead September 10 while dressed in drag, died of natural causes appears to be wrong. The district’s Medical Examiner has ruled his death a homicide with the cause of death being blunt force trauma to the head.

Washington has seen a rash of shootings and attacks against transgender people, with four people shot since July and more than a dozen attacks against transgender women in the district this year. One woman died from the shootings. While Gopalan wasn’t transgender, his attack certainly fits the bill for an attack against gender variance.

Follow-up To Gay Airman Who Came Out To His Father On YouTube

Just as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was about to be thrown onto the trash heap of history, we brought you the dramatic video a gay airman stationed in Germany as he came out to his father. In the weeks leading up to Tuesday, he had been posting videos on YouTube discussing his thoughts on coming out to his comrades, but in those videos he never showed his face. But on Tuesday, we saw him, unobscured, as he undertook the nerve-wracking task of coming out to his father over the phone, and the wave of relief that came over him as his father re-affirmed his love and pride in him.

As of this hour, his video has been seen 1,532,380 times, with 17,456 likes and 707 dislikes. ABC News followed up with Air Force Senior Airman Randy Phillips, who is stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Phillips says he feels comfortable now that he no longer has to hide:

It feels great. It’s nice not having to look over your shoulder or worry about who you are talking to, Phillips told ABC News the day after “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was officially repealed. “I never thought I’d be so comfortable with it. It’s very supportive. Everybody’s been so great.”

…Now that “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” has been repealed, Phillips, like many other enlisted men and women, can at last reveal his face, and cannot officially tell his fellow airman and commanding officers the truth. He told ABC News that he is happy that he has inspired others. He also said that now the whole family knows that he is gay.

As for Phillips’ father, he told ABC News that he was not exactly thrilled that his son put the clip on YouTube — but reiterated once again that he loves his son, and always will.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, September 21

THE DAILY AGENDA:
Gay & Lesbian Medical Association’s 29th Annual Conference: Atlanta, GA. The goal of the conference which begins today is to provide a forum for the exchange and knowledge among health care professionals about the health disparities experienced by LGBT patients and the unique challenges faced by LGBT healthcare providers Among the speakers at this years convention are Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, and Kate Clinton will be the emcee for the awards gala. The conference concludes on Sunday, September 25, when the GLMA’s convention will join the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and Southern Comfort for a symposium on transgender health issues.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Albany, NY; Brampton, ON; Flint, MI; Calgary, AB; Corner Brook, NL; Dryden, ON; Grand Prairie, AB; Halifax, NS; Louisville, KY; Moncton, NB; Mt. Pleasant, MI; Oklahoma City, OK; Oshawa, ON; Ottawa, ON; Peterborough, ON; Red Deer, AB; Regina, SK; San Diego, CA; Seattle, WA; St. John, NB; Thunder Bay, ON; Traverse City, MI; Windsor, ON and Winnipeg, MB.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Holyoke, MA; Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa; Peterborough, ON; Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC; Richmond, VA; St. Cloud, MN; Soweto, South Africa; Sunderland, UK.

Also This Weekend: Folsom Street Fair, San Francisco, CA.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Amanda Bearse Comes Out Of the Closet: 1993. The Married… With Children star made headlines across the country when she became the first prime time actress to come out of the closet. Rumors about her sexuality had been floating around in the tabloids since 1991, but she wasn’t ready to deal with it. “The day I was outed was the anniversary of my brother’s death. I had woken up that morning thinking about my brother, and in the grand scheme of things, being outed didn’t matter.” She came out under her own steam two years later in an interview with The Advocate. “I would love this interview to be the impetus for someone else to come forward,” she told reporter Steve Greenberg. There are numerous celebrities, gay and straight, who contribute to our community. That buys us a lot of political power. I have friends who are more active who have… respected my pace. I guess with this interview I’ve stepped on the gas.”

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Gay WWII Veteran Reflects on DADT Repeal

Jack Strouss, an 88-year-old gay World War II veteran, speaks about DADT’s repeal at a ceremony in Atlanta.

14,346

According to Servicemembers United, that’s the final tally of the number of soldiers, sailors and airmen/women who were discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” since it was enacted in 1993.

Former Ex-Gay “Jewskimo” On Living In “No Man’s Land”

Stories of former ex-gays are almost exclusively told from an Evangelical Christian perspective, which makes Jayson Littman’s essay in Heeb magazine so interesting. He is a former ex-gay client of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing (JONAH, formerly Jews offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality). He described his entry into JONAH as being a choice between conversion therapy and dying. The idea of coming out as a religious Jew was unthinkable. In JONAH, Littman found like-minded individuals trying to figure out how to live in “No Man’s Land”:

I became close to other men around my age who were on the same journey. We would often sit around and talk. I called the stage we were in “no-man’s land”—there was an obvious literal meaning to that as we weren’t sexually active with men or each other, to the dismay of most who think that’s what happens at these retreats. And we weren’t attracted to women, so we mainly hung out with each other and talked. We decided we didn’t appreciate the term ex-gay. How can we be ex-gay if we were never gay to begin with? We spent hours one afternoon debating what to call our in-between status. We broke down ex-homo to ex-mo and because we said it so many times fast, we realized it sounded like Eskimo. We then further segregated ourselves to Jewskimos, Chriskimos. We never met any Muskimos (Muslim Eskimos) during our journey.

In his ex-gay phase — one in which he eventually came out of — he and fellow ex-gay Jews often attended Christian ex-gay conferences, where he was struck by one immediate difference between Christian culture and Jewish culture:

I learned a lot from my Jewish and Christian brothers on my journey. I realized that many Christians who were attempting to change had an end-goal of celibacy, while the Jews wanted to get married and have children. The obvious difference had everything to do with religious dictates. Celibacy was highly regarded and practiced in the Christian culture, while Jews focused on biblical procreation, also pleasing our families.

Littman’s cheerful essay is devoid of drama and regrets over his experience with ex-gay therapy. Indeed, he credits his coming out to many of the valuable things he learned there. And he observes that Jewish culture, including Orthodox culture, has come a long way over the past decade. Littman today runs He’Bro, a gay Jewish promotion events group in New York, and this Saturday he’s throwing a huge “Jew Years Eve” bash for Rosh Hashanah.

We Don’t Have Homosexuals On Grindr

A BTB reader sent this in:

Look who I ran into last night on GRINDER.

found him under “Iranian Lover” – Ahmadinijad – Iran’s President.

I couldn’t resist myself and talked to him. He is in town for the UN general assembly.

“he” was very funny.

The real Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really is in New York this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly. In 2007, the Iranian President gave a talk at Columbia University, saying, “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”

Maggie Gallagher Attends Staged Reading of “8” In New York

National Organization for Marriage founder Maggie Gallagher was in the balcony of the Eugene O’Neil Theater for the all-star world premiere of Dustin Lance Black’s new play “8”, which is based on the trial transcripts of Perry v Schwarzenegger, the federal court case which declared California’s Proposition 8 unconstitutional. The play featured all the major courtroom figures, with John Lithgow as Ted Olson, Morgan Freeman as David Boies, Bradley Whitford as Alliance Defense Fund attorney Charles Cooper, and Jayne Houdyshell as Maggie Gallagher. Meanwhile, Gallagher herself was sitting in the balcony, grazing away:

My friends Phil and Ronald sat directly in front of her. You can see Ronald in the top photo. They had a hard time listening to the show because along with her nerve, Ms. Gallagher brought a large plastic bag of loud food, which she rustled and munched throughout the production (she’s still got it on the way out). Perhaps she thought it was a popcorn flick she was going to. In any case, someone should have told her that it’s rude, perhaps even against the rules, to eat in the theatre.

Much of the play was taken directly from the trial transcripts themselves, interspersed with screenings from the Yes on 8 campaign. The transcripts are part of the public record, although the video recordings taken during the trial are not — yet. The reading was a fundraiser for Americans for Equal Rights, who are backing the Prop 8 litigation on behalf of California couples. Other cast members included Ellen Barkin, Kate Shindle, Stephen Spinella, Matt Bomer, Campbell Brown, Anthony Edwards, Cheyenne Jackson, Larry Kramer, Rob Riener, and many more.

Elaine Donnelly Still Trying To Keep Her Day Job

It’s hard to know what the raison d’être for Elaine Donnelly’s Center for Military Effectiveness could possibly be except to hang around for a possible GOP president in 2013 who can reimpose “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” via executive order. Maybe that’s why she’s still pounding the pavement defending dead DADT. The American Family Association’s OneNewsNow commiserated with Donnelly on DADT’s passing this way:

“The law requires more than just PowerPoint presentations,” she tells OneNewsNow. “The administration is supposed to describe exactly what will happen under the new LGBT law. [But] they haven’t done that! They’re barreling ahead anyway. The president [is] just determined to impose LGBT law on the military, regardless of the concerns of Congress.”

The CMR leader predicts litigators for homosexual activists and the homosexual movement are going to have a field day. “Without the law on the books, they will go into court and challenge anything that stands in the way of what they perceive as a civil rights issue,” she warns.

Donnelly told Focus On the Family’s CitizenLink that people should “watch and report to Congress about the fallout from the repeal.”

DADT DEAD

The U.S. Army's official Notice of DADT Repeal (Click to enlarge).

Today marks the end of the last legally-sanctioned governmental witch hunt for gays and lesbians with the demise of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” That milestone isn’t sitting very well with anti-gay activists.On Friday, Elaine Donnelly, who really ought to be out of a job by now at her so-called Center for Military Readiness, demanded that Congress, which repealed DADT in the first place, reimpose the ban because, apparently, it’ll lead to active-duty unions in the military — or something like that. (Which is why I think we have Donnelly’s incompetence to thank for DADT’s repeal almost as much as the valiant efforts of LGBT advocacy groups.) A few members of the House appeared ready to take up that call, with Reps. Howard McKeon (R-CA) and Joe Wilson (R-SC) calling for a delay in the implementation of the law that both houses of Congress passed less than a year ago. That call was met with stony silence from the Pentagon.

Then the Family “Research” Council took the opportunity to express their abysmally low opinion of America’s military on Friday when they said, “In a matter of days, the U.S. military will be embarking on its most difficult mission yet: celebrating homosexuality in its ranks.” That’s right. Most difficult mission. More difficult than Iraq, Afghanistan, Tet, Inchon, D-Day, and Guadalcanal. Star and Stripes shot that down with the precision of a smart bomb and predicted that the first day without DADT will be business as usual, and The Marine Corps Times prepared the way last week with a banner headline proclaiming, “We’re gay. Get over it!”

It’s nice to see the military establishment regarding today’s milestone as a non-event, but we’d be kidding ourselves if the passing of the last legal requirement for the governmental pursuit of gay people was meaningless. It’s not by a long shot. Here’s a round-up of today’s events:

Servicemember Comes Out Via YouTube: For several weeks now, a YouTube channel under the account name of “AreYouSurprised” has been featuring videos posted by a servicemember in Germany discussing the importance of DADT’s repeal and weighing the pros and cons to coming out to his unit. Until now, he has never shown his face. Until now, when he comes out to his father in Alabama with the camera rolling:

I hope you had a hanky handy.

“I Do,” one minute after midnight: With DADT tossed to the dustbin of history, one Navy officer and his partner celebrated two civil rights victories with a Vermont marriage:

When Navy Lt. Gary Ross and his partner were searching for a place to get married, they settled on a site in Vermont, in part because the state is in the Eastern time zone.

That way, the two men were able to recite their vows before family and friends at the first possible moment after the formal repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Just after midnight Tuesday, the partners of 11 years were married.

I think it was a beautiful ceremony. The emotions really hit me…but it’s finally official,” Ross said early Tuesday.

White House Tweets DADT Repeal: Also shortly after midnight, the White House and President Barack Obama announced via Twitter that DADT’s repeal was official.

The White House has also posted this video commemorating the sacrifice of gay and lesbian servicemembers under DADT.

Stars & Stripes Reveals OutServe Co-Founder’s Real Name: Now that DADT is officially history, the founder of OutServe can show his face and say his name:

"J.D. Smith" no more: Air Force 1st Lt. Josh Seefried

Finding out that 1st Lt. Josh Seefried is gay won’t be a shock to most of his co-workers at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey. He has already come out to some of them, and dropped not-so-subtle hints for others. …But now that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law barring openly gay troops from serving in the military has been repealed, even some close friends who know Seefried’s personal life will be stunned to find out that he has an even bigger secret. For more than a year, Seefried has been using the pseudonym “J.D. Smith” as an organizer with OutServe, speaking on behalf of the group’s 4,000-plus gay active-duty and veteran members.

He has briefed officials at the White House and been a lobbying force within the Pentagon. He has been a regular in the press, including several national TV and radio spots. And he and the other OutServe founders have positioned the group as a critical bridge between closeted troops and the professional military establishment in the months following the repeal.

“I’m living a triple ‘double life,’ I guess,” Seefried said. “When I go into work now, my life will be completely changed. It’s scary, but it’s also exciting. And that’s how it will be for a lot of gay troops.”

“Diseased Aliens”: Michelle Benecke, who co-founded the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network remembers the hysteria surrounding the imposition of DADT:

”People forget what it was like in 1993. The right wing portrayed us as diseased aliens who wanted to hurt the military – and raised the specter of AIDS at every opportunity,” she says. ”It’s hard to explain that time, but they manipulated people’s fear of AIDS to paint us as the other. For lots of reasons, not just because of AIDS, but definitely, gay people were painted as the other – as strangers trying to hurt the military.”

Looking at that landscape, she says, ”In my view, we were at a pre-civil rights framework. First, we had to get people to recognize our humanity, and servicemembers did that by telling their stories.”

And so, she and Osburn began SLDN the day after President Clinton signed the bill into law. From that early support, gay, lesbian and bisexual servicemembers became not just the subject of the law but a key part of its repeal.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, September 20

TODAY’S AGENDA (OURS):
RIP DADT: Everywhere. Finally. The day has finally arrived in which gay and lesbian servicemembers can concentrate on performing their assignments for the defense of the country rather than constantly look over their shoulder to see who might turn them in. LGBT organizations that have fought so hard to see this day come have an impressive lineup of celebrations and commemorations on tap for today. Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has celebrations organized in all fifty states today. You can check out their web site for the celebration nearest you. Servicemembers United. And today’s edition of OutServe Magazine features 101 actively-serving military members identified by name, rank and duty station. Among those profiled is OutServe’s co-founder, Air Force 1st Lt. Josh Seefried, whose name until now appeared on the masthead as “J.D. Smith” because he, too, is an active servicemember.

OUT On the Hill Black LGBT Leadership Summit: Washington, D.C. The National Black Justice Coalition convenes its second annual OUT On the HIll summit today. The focus this year is to make an expanded effort in recruiting emerging Black LGBT leaders to “engage in an intergenerational dialogue that will help grow the leadership pipeline necessary to sustain a vibrant, forceful movement for equal rights.” Toward that end, they will conduct briefings with the Obama Administration, Congressional leaders and federal agency officials, with many delegates being fully registered to participate in the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative conference. The summit continues through Sunday.

Advocating for Sexual Minorities In Uganda: New York, NY. Julius Kaggwa, Executive Director of Support Initiative for People with Atypical Sexual Development (SIPD Uganda) will speak this evening about the underlying causes of extreme homophobia in Africa and the most effective ways in which non-Africans can help. The talk will take place at the LGBT Community Center, 208 W 13th Street, Room 412 in New York, 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Rally and March for Fairness: Berea, KY. Bereans for Fairness launched an ad campaign last night highlighting pro-equality statements made by six of eight members of the Berea city council. The group contends that this shows that there is support for gay rights in the central Kentucky town. The Berea city council is considering establishing a local human rights commission to deal with anti-discrimination measures in employment, housing, and public accommodations. If enacted, this would propel Berea (pop. 14,400) into the same leagues with its much larger brethren of Louisville, Lexington and Covington. Berea is home to the highly-ranked Berea College, which was founded in 1855 as the only racially integrated and coeducational college in the South, and this heritage has instilled a strong progressive tradition in the small town just 35 miles south of Lexington. The group plans to rally at 4:30 p.m. this afternoon at Union Church and march to City Hall to pressure lawmakers to pass the Fairness ordinance.

Free Screening of “This Is What Love In Action Looks Like”: Brooklyn, NY. In June 2005, sixteen-year-old Zach Stark announced on his MySpace blog that his parents were sending him away to an ex-gay youth program. He also posted the program’s rules that he would be forced to live under while participating in the program. Thanks to Zach’s blog posts, Memphis-based Love In Action, an Exodus-affiliated program, became the focus of worldwide controversy and daily protests. “Love In Action” was investigated by the state of Tennessee for child abuse and for operating a separate unlicensed drug and alcohol treatment program. Love In Action eventually settled with the state and shut down their youth program. Morgan Fox’s documentary, This Is What Love in Action Looks Like, chronicles those events and features interviews with Zach, then-LIA director John Smid, other former ex-gay leaders and former LIA clients, and receives a free screening tonight at the reRun Gastropub Theater beginning at 7:00 p.m. Morgan Fox will be there for a Q&A after the show.

TODAY’S AGENDA (THEIRS):
The Way Out Ex-Gay Conference: Louisville, KY. Modeled roughly after Exodus Internationals “Love Won Out” conferences, this two-day conference begins this afternoon at 1:00 at the gets under way today at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. Featured speakers include National Strategist for Gender Issues of the Southern Baptist Convention Bob Stith, former Exodus International vice president and current board member Mike Goeke, and ex-gay speaker Christopher Yuan.

Triangulator In Chief

TODAY IN HISTORY:
President Clinton Announces Signing of DOMA Into Law: 1996. President Clinton announced his signing of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, which outlaws federal recognition of same-sex marriage, and allows states to ignore the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S Constitution when they want to refuse to recognized valid marriages from other states. Clinton said that he signed DOMA to head off a federal constitutional amendment, but LGBT advocates grumbled that the act was less a defense of marriage and more a defense of his 1996 reelection campaign. Those suspicions were confirmed when the Clinton campaign released a radio ad bragging about his signing of DOMA and ran it on Christian radio stations across the country. In response to loud protests from LGBT advocates, the Clinton campaign pulled that ad two days later.

Rocking the Paradise

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Chuck Panozzo: 1948. Do you remember the band Styx? I’m not sure how much play they get on classic rock radio these days, but they were huge from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. They were my favorite band in high school; I thought 1977’s The Grand Illusion was, you know, so deep. Anyway, basist Chuck Panozzo co-founded the band with his fraternal twin brother, John Panozzo. In 2001, Chuck came out as gay and as a person living with HIV, and since then he has been involved with AIDS awareness campaign. His autobiography, The Grand Illusion: Love, Lies, and My Life with Styx, chronicles the rise of Styx and the his own struggles to come to terms with himself. He is currently touring with Styx.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Judge Orders Prop 8 Trial Tapes Unsealed Effective September 30

U.S. district chief judge James Ware ruled today (PDF: 65KB/16 pages) that video recordings made during the Proposition 8 trial should be made public. Judge Ware wrote, “Foremost among the aspects of the federal judicial system that foster public confidence in the fairness and integrity of the process are public access to trials and public access to the record of judicial proceedings,” and dismissed Prop 8 supporters’ claims as “unsupported hypothesis or conjecture” that releasing the tapes would have a “chilling effect” on witnesses.

The judge accompanied his ruling with a stay effective until September 30 to allow opponents to the move to file an appeal. Prop 8 supporters are expected to appeal.