Box Turtle Bulletin

Gay GOP Candidate Accuses Democratic Rival of Gay-Baiting

In case anyone was under the illusion that gay-baiting was strictly a Republican tactic:

Patrick Forrest, the gay Republican running for state Senate in Reston, Va., said he’s heard that Democratic volunteers for State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Reston) have been reaching out to conservative voters in her district to inform them of his sexual orientation in an effort to dissuade them from supporting him.

Forrest said he heard this information from Republicans in Virginia’s 32nd district while knocking on doors and campaigning.

“I’ve been approached by several people … very, very conservative — and had basically said to me, ‘You know, we heard you’re a homosexual,'” Forrest said. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’m gay. I’ve always been openly gay.’ Well, we were actually told by … volunteers from the Democrats that you would be promoting the homosexual agenda in our schools.'”

 The Washington Blade obtained recordings of between Eric Newland, Forrest’s field director, and Kavita Imarti, a Democratic precinct captain in Reston, who both justifies the tactic and claims that it is coming from Howell’s campaign:

Asked on the recording to clarify whether this tactic is coming from the Howell campaign, Imarti says, “Yes! You guys are openly prejudiced against someone due to orientation. I think that’s wrong. That’s wrong.”

Later, Imarti says, “What my campaign is saying is here’s your Republican candidate. He’s a homosexual. Why would you want to vote for someone who’s a homosexual and is going to push his agenda in your schools?”

Howell vigorously denies that her campaign is engaging in gay-baiting. Imarti herself is not affiliated with Howell’s campaign, and she now says that she was drunk when the recording was made. Forrest however says that reports of gay-baiting go way beyond Imarti’s admission, and says they include contacts with GOP leaders in the state legislature.

Howell denies the charges, and points to her endorsement by Equality Virginia, as well as her sponsorship of bills allowing companies to provide life and health insurance benefits to the partners of their gay employees and her opposition to the 2006 anti-marriage amendment.

Forrest  has been endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.

Texas Student Suspended Over Gay Kiss

A 17-year-old Senior was caught kissing another male student in the high school’s band hall, and for that he was kicked off the cheerleading squad and suspended. That’s outrageous enough, but what adds to the problem is that he wasn’t caught by a teacher of another student, but by surveillance camera. Which leads him to believe he was being targeted by school official because of his sexual orientation.

“They never check cameras for anything unless something is stolen,” the young man said, asking not be identified. “We would be the ones getting caught because I’m sure we were the only ones, sexual orientation wise, being caught like that.”

As is true with high schools everywhere, kissing is common at Alice High School — among heterosexual couples. If he had been kissing a female, he says he would not have been suspended. “In this school [kissing] is everywhere, if that were the case, suspending everyone for that, half the school would be suspended,” he said.

The student’s parents met with the school administrator Thursday, who said that the principal’s decision would be under review. If there is any change in the decision, they will notify the parents next week. The parents say they will pursue further action if the student is not placed back on the cheerleading squad.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, October 14

TODAY’S AGENDA:
AIDS Walks This Weekend: Atlanta, GA; Austin, TX; Los Angeles; CA; Philadelphia, PA; Tucson, AZ and Watertown, NY.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Bakersfield, CA; Jacksonville, FL;  Memphis, TN; Minsk, Belarus; Oklahoma, OK (Black Pride) and Tucson, AZ.

Also This Weekend: Floatilla, Hong Kong and Fort Lauderdale Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
First Gay Rights March on Washington: 1979. About 75,000 people from across the country and around the world marched down Pennsylvania Avenue for a rally at the Washington Monument for the first national gay rights march in U.S. history. Demands included the repeal of sodomy laws, approval of a proposed expansion of the Civil Rights Act to cover sexual orientation, an end to discrimination in child custody cases, and a presidential order ending the ban on gays in the military. Steve Ault, the march’s organizer, declared “This rally marks the first time that the gay constituency has pulled together on a national level and that is a very important political step for us.”

Congress Bans Federal Funds for AIDS Programs that “Promote Homosexuality”: 1987. The U.S. Senate voted 94-2 on an an amendment proposed by Sen. Jesse Helms to restrict federal funds for AIDS education to materials stressing sexual abstinence and which did not “promote homosexuality.” Citing comic books produced by the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York — material that had not been paid for by federal funds — Helms complained, “If the American people saw these books, they would be on the verge of revolt.” He claimed the books showed “graphic detail of a sexual encounter between two homosexual men. The comic books do not encourage a change in that perverted behavior. In fact, the comic books promote sodomy.” The only senators voting against the measure were Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) and Sen. Lowell Weiker (R-CT), who said, “If you’re going to censor that education, you’ve got no solution” to the AIDs crisis. The amendment would later be approved by the House on a 358-47 vote. It would remain the law of the land until 1992, when a federal court ruled that the restrictions were so vague they violated AIDS service organizations’ First and Fifth Amendment rights.

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?

Bank of America Stands Up for Fairness (!)

Bank of America has decided to reimburse its domestically-partnered employees for “gay tax” they pay on their health insurance benefits.  Our opponents will decry this as special treatment, so be ready. Here’s a reprint from March, 2010, where I calculated the gay tax’s impact on me.  You can use the analysis and link to figure out the havoc it wreaks on you, as well.

I investigated how much it would cost to add a domestic partner to my heath plan. If I were a straight man adding a wife, I could find the answer right in my employee handbook: $729.04 a year. And of course I wouldn’t have to pay taxes on that money, which eases the pain.

But a domestic partnership is more complex, because the law says I do have to pay federal income tax on it — and by “it” I don’t just mean my own contribution. The feds tax me on my employer’s contribution, too: $5876.52 a year. This appears on my W-2 as “imputed income.”

Add it up, and being gay means my taxable income would be $6605.56 greater than if I were straight. So, at my marginal tax rate, my federal taxes would be higher by $1849.56.

But there’s more. That’s $1849.56 in take-home pay. What kind of salary cut does that represent? Don’t forget, take-home pay is only a fraction of your actual salary. My employers sent me to this site for calculating that sort of thing. It turns out a take-home hit like that is equivalent to a $3500 salary cut.

That’s right. Adding a spouse to my health plan is like getting $3500 pay cut, compared to what would happen if I were straight.

And this is at a company with full domestic partner benefits.

Actually, that analysis is pretty limited. It only looks at medical and dental benefits, and only takes into account federal income taxes. My accountant would have to calculate my taxes in two different ways: once as a single man for federal income tax, and once as a domestically partnered man for state income tax. That extra effort costs extra money.

And then there’s the death-by-a-thousand-cuts. To find all this out, I had to research company policy, call HR, be transferred to Payroll, then back to HR, and then wait on hold while the rep went hunting this information down. After that, I had to go online and play with payroll calculators. Same-sex couples go through this sort of small hassle again and again. And sometimes the hassles aren’t so small. Don’t forget, the National Organization for Marriage doesn’t even want to give us the right to claim our partner’s body from the morgue unless we’ve had the foresight to fill out a special bureaucratic form — a requirement married couples don’t face. These many small burdens add up to a Kafka-esque nightmare, and our opponents are quite happy to send us there.

Speaking of NOM, what does its president, Maggie Gallagher, have to say about the insurance issue?

But when both adults are working (as in egalitarian relationships), both partners tend to sustain their own health insurance.

Wow. How many ways can one sentence be lame?

• “Egalitarian relationships”? That’s an odd term to pull out. And it doesn’t even mean what she think it means. Egalitarian relationships are those in which partners share control and decision-making equally. Employment status has nothing to do with it.
• Why is Maggie only concerned with situations in which both adults are working? This month’s unemployment rate is 10.6%.
• “Both partners tend to sustain their own health insurance.” Tend to? What does that mean exactly? Way to obscure the issue with vague, undefined terms.

Here’s are some facts for Maggie.

• One out of every five America workers is uninsured.
• Even workers with insurance don’t necessarily get it from their employers. In my state, less than half of working adults get insurance through their jobs.
• Do some basic analysis on that stat, and it suggests about half of all couples face a situation where one partner is insured through work and the other is not (that’s rudimentary analysis – don’t quote it as expert commentary, but it’s a statistical ballpark). That’s the fraction of couples in need of spousal benefits.
• Even if both partners are insured through work, one partner’s employer might offer much better coverage, so tax-free spousal benefits would be a blessing.

Maggie, of course, ignores all that. Instead she just makes up stuff like:

But when both adults are working (as in egalitarian relationships), both partners tend to sustain their own health insurance.

And then she pretends she’s actually said something.

[Feel free to share the table/picture at the top of the post; please just link it back to me.]

Ex-Gay Survivor To Former Leader: “This Is What An Apology Looks Like”

The recent statements from John Smid, the former director of the Memphis-based Love In Action ex-gay ministry, in which he says that he has never met an actual ex-gay who has changed his sexual orientation, and that gay relationships can be incorporated into “an authentic relationship with Christ,” has been hailed throughout the LGBT blogosphere as a startling and welcome change. It certainly gives new meaning to Exodus International’s slogan, “Change Is Possible!” Smid has followed up his previous post with a new one expressing his gratitude for the response and announcing that he will be undergoing an “I’m Sorry Campaign” as part of this weekend’s Memphis Pride.

There are a couple of problems with all of that though. While it’s well and good for Smid to announce a public “I’m Sorry Campaign,” he needs to be very careful of two things. First, the announcement of the campaign with Chicago-based Andrew Marin skirts dangerously close to becoming a hey-everyone-look-how-sorry-I-am self-promotional bandwagon. If Smid’s goal is to truly demonstrate how sorry he is for all that he has done in the two decades he headed the ex-gay residential ministry, a parade (whether it be literal or figurative) strikes me as an unseemly and inappropriate setting for that.

But the greater problem could be with who he’s apologizing to. Sure, Memphis’s LGBT community deserves an apology. But as ex-gay survivor and former Love In Action client Peterson Toscano pointed out in a comment he left here at BTB, he has a lot more work to do with those he harmed directly before forgiveness can be granted and healing can begin:

I believe there is an important difference between “hating on John Smid” and critically considering his transformation, what he has said, what he has not said, and his entry into spaces among the very people he previously reviled. It is more than a simple matter of someone “doing something stupid,” offering an apology, and then being berated. There is history that cannot be ignored. There are people who have been harmed who are “in the room.”

These are big changes for Smid, perhaps part of an on-going evolution in his beliefs, perhaps first steps before many, but after years of devising and practicing psychological torture to the many men and women who suffered under his treatments and theories, he should not be just given a free pass and a full, cheerful welcome into LGBT spaces and particularly “gay Christian” spaces inhabited by many people directly harmed by ex-gay treatment. Thoughtfulness for the victims needs to be considered.

It is a complicated and delicate matter when a former abuser admits wrong and seeks to rebuild relationship.

John Smid and his staff are responsible for the pain and suffering of hundreds if not thousands of people. For over two decades he has spoken passionately in public, in the media, at conferences and churches, spreading harmful and inaccurate teaching that has set parents against children and fueled the self-hatred of LGBT people.

As a former client, I understand that John Smid provided me with weapons to go to war against my sexuality and personality. His program was abusive, cruel, and damaging to me and others. People have suffered and still suffer and have needed to spend time and money seeking recovery from the treatment Love in Action inflicted upon us. Many of us went to John Smid and LIA seeking help. We ended up harmed. Some were even forced against their will to endure these treatments.

John Smid, like all of us, needs community, and it is likely that his former friends and colleagues in the ex-gay world and conservative anti-gay church will want nothing to do with him. But his entry into the LGBT world is complicated for some ex-gay survivors.

And while his statement is yet another brick to fall off the crumbling ex-gay edifice, I believe he needs to do much more to demonstrate his regret and new found understanding. It is proper justice for John Smid to acknowledge what many of us already discovered for ourselves. It is proper justice for John Smid to begin to set the record straight. It is proper justice for John Smid to seriously and deeply consider the harm he has caused. And before people forgive John Smid and welcome him into the fold on the behalf of all of us, I believe it is essential to ask critical questions and expect much much more from someone who has done much much harm.

What will that much much more look like? How can John, if he is willing, begin to make amends for his destructive actions?

For just a small taste of those destructive actions, listen to former LIA client Jacob Wilson describe one component of the “treatment” — LIA’s “Friends and Family Weekend:

I’ve had other LIA clients corroborate Jacob’s experience. Peterson wrote about the destructive impact that weekend had on his parents, with damage that haunted his mother right up until the day she died.

And so you can well imagine that while those of us who haven’t been personally affected by Smid’s two decades of abuse at LIA might be inclined to accept his apologies, we are not the ones in a position to do so. I do not want to diminish the tremendous and welcome journey that Smid has undertaken since leaving Love In Action, and I do not think we should dismiss the importance of his change of heart. I do believe it is worthy of encouragement and praise.

But we cannot offer absolution. We are not the ones in a position to forgive him. That can only come from the thousands who crossed his path at Love In Action. And I believe it will only come about through one personal apology at a time. Just as Smid forced everyone to undergo exhaustive personal assessments and stand up before a stage in front of their parents and loved ones to reveal each and every deep, darkest secret they can uncover, Smid will now have to demonstrate his willingness to undergo the same humiliating experience himself. When you consider the foundations of his Christian faith, it is not without precedent. Christian theology holds that Christ’s “humbling upon the cross” is the very cornerstone of forgiveness.

Which means that the act of repentance will likely end up being a lifetime of work for Smid, just as he originally saw his leadership in the ex-gay ministry as his life’s calling. And you can also imagine that it is going to take much, much more work (and I would suggest, probably much more humility on John’s part) for those thousands who walked through Smid’s door to let bygones be bygones.

Peterson has posted what he thinks an appropriate apology might look like. But by ending his re-working of Smid’s apology with questions, he shows how difficult the task remains: “What can I do further to address the wrongs I have done? How can I demonstrate just how much I regret my actions and the consequences they brought to you and to others?”

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, October 13

Frank Kameny with an original picket from 1965

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Rainbow History Project Commemoration of Frank Kameny: Washington, D.C. The Rainbow History Project had already planned a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Frank Kameny’s founding of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Mattachine Society. The plans were set, the rooms reserved, and Frank was to appear as featured guest. But with his passing on Tuesday, the planned anniversary celebration will now become a memorial in his honor. It will take place tonight beginning at 7:00 p.m. at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue NW . You can find more information here.

OutServe Summit 2011: Las Vegas, NV. The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy meant, of course, that gays in the military could not serve openly. It also meant that OutServe, a group set up by and for LGBT servicemembers, was forced to operate entirely in the shadows. Because of DADT, all of their activities geared toward mutual support and professional networking had to be done in secret. Even the organization’s co-founder, Air Force 1st Lt. Josh Seefried, had to work under the pseudonym “J.D. Smith.” But all of that changed with DADT’s repeal, and this weekend OutServe will host its first publicly announced event. Its first annual OutServe Armed Forces Leadership Summit takes place beginning today in Las Vegas’s New York-New York Hotel and Casino, and it will continue through Sunday.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Bakersfield, CA; Jacksonville, FL;  Memphis, TN; Minsk, Belarus; Oklahoma, OK (Black Pride) and Tucson, AZ.

Also This Weekend: Floatilla, Hong Kong and Fort Lauderdale Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Protest at U.S. Supreme Court: 1987. Somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people had gathered for the second March on Washington that weekend, making it the largest gay-rights demonstration in U.S. history. That demonstration included the first public viewing of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which covered the equivalent of two city blocks on the National Mall. In the final act of the weekend’s demonstrations on Sunday, two thousand people protested in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to denounce the court’s discussion to uphold sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick. About six hundred were arrested as they tried to enter the Supreme Court building in waves, between 9:30 a.m. and about 2:00 p.m. Among those arrested was Michael Hardwick, whose arrest had led to the Supreme Court case. Ignoring advice from health experts, police wore surgical gloves as they made the arrests, which led to further outrage from the crowd. It would be the largest mass arrest in the post-Vietnam era.

France Approves Civil Partnerships: 1999. After spending two years debating one of the most bitterly-contested pieces of legislation in years, France’s National Assembly passed the Civil Solidarity Pact by a vote of 315-249. The bill allowed unmarried couples to register their union to access some of the tax, legal and social welfare benefits of marriage. The bill however explicitly excluded adoption rights, and it was broadened to include any pair of adults living in the same household — including brothers and sisters or an elderly parent and a child — in an attempt to placate the opposition. Today, the majority of couples taking advantage of the Solidarity Pact are heterosexual couples.

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?

What Frank Kameny Meant By “Gay Is Good”

If anyone would ask the late Frank Kameny what he thought his greatest accomplishment was, he’d give what many would consider a surprising answer. You might expect that he would point to the first public pickets in support of gay rights, the APA’s removal of homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, or Rob’s example of the slow process of overturning the federal ban on employing gays in government positions. Instead, as I remembered late last night of an email exchange I had with him and others, he would point to his coining of the slogan “Gay is Good.” Bob Witeck, a longtime friend and adviser of Frank’s, posted the following explanation of why Frank saw this slogan as being the foundation of everything he set out to accomplish. I and others are posting this with Bob’s permission.

Bob Witeck: On December 1, 2008, my husband Bob Connelly, who is also an adjunct professor at American University, invited Frank to speak to his undergrads about LGBT civil rights issues, and to conduct a Q&A with his students. Frank always had game on, especially talking with students. Here’s the final question from the class, asking Frank how he wished to be remembered. I am aware many of us are familiar with Frank’s coda, “Gay is Good,” but not entirely aware of its genesis, and the kinds of logic and messaging that Frank gave to everything he said and wrote.

Professor Bob Connelly: Is there one thing you’ve done that stands above all others, as what you are most proud of?

Dr. Franklin Kameny: Well, yes. The one thing I’ve said, if I want to be remembered for nothing else, it’s back in July, 1968 I coined the slogan “Gay Is Good.”

And that really, it sort of, it epitomizes really my entire approach to all the issues. You have to take an affirmative approach on these things. In other words, if I may expound for a moment — people tend almost automatically, since we are under attack, and we are under criticism, they tend to respond defensively and reactively.  Around then, taking the next step and responding on the offensive and proactively. In other words, the tendency — we’re told that homosexuality is bad in all sorts of different ways so the response tends to be “It’s not bad.”

You have to take the next step and say, “Not really, it’s not bad.  It’s good.”  It’s not that same sex marriage will not damage the institution of marriage. Same sex marriage will enhance the institution of marriage. You have to consciously take the next step and move over into being affirmative and so here again, it’s not that gay is not bad, it’s that gay is affirmative and good.

That came out of, in those days — again you have to go back to the issues of that day and the rhetoric of that day — in June of 1968 I saw on television an item of Stokely Carmichael leading a group of students at a college in Salisbury Maryland, chanting, “Black Is Beautiful.” And again, same thing. It’s not that black is not ugly, or in other ways lesser.  We’re going to take the next step, “Black Is Beautiful,” and I realized I had to do exactly the same thing.  I tossed around words and phrases. “Homosexuality” was obviously too clinical. “Good” was sort of bland; on the other hand it covered all the possibilities. Some people had suggested to me, “Gay Is Great,” but that sounded a little bit too informal. So ultimately I came up with that. It was adopted in August at a meeting of what was then the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations as a slogan.

Meanwhile, in those days, Playboy had a separate little publication called the Playboy Forum, and they had a long article, just about that time, July, August, September, which was sort of, at best wishy-washy about the gay issue.  So I wrote them a long letter — I can be verbose at times — and I included “Gay Is Good.”  And to my pleased astonishment, the following February or March of 1969, they published my whole letter under their heading, “Gay Is Good.” And that sent it out to the whole public, and we’re off and running.

The Battle Frank Kameny Took Up

Jim has posted a lovely tribute to Frank Kameny below. I’d like to add a note of my own.

With presidential hopefuls saying our struggle has nothing in common with the civil rights movement, with lawyers from the House of Representatives — paid for with our tax dollars — claiming gays don’t face a significant history of discrimination, this is a good time to look at the huge, official, morally-sanctioned, seemingly-unbreachable wall of bigotry, ignorance, and hate that Kameny helped knock down.

Start with this letter to Kameny from the US Department of Commerce, explaining why it’s just good sense to fire homosexuals (click to enlarge):

Here’s one from the State Department, saying that if an open homosexual is to be hired, then at the very least the homosexual would have to admit to being sick:

.

This is the battle Kameny faced. You can find more in the Kameny Papers Archive.

I’ll tell you, sometimes I feel moral exhaustion just from monitoring the extreme, fringe, anti-gay views of Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer, and the folks at NOM. I’m awestruck by Kameny’s courage and fortitude in fighting this sort of bigotry when it was the official policy of the federal government.

The company I work for doesn’t discriminate against gays. I owe Kameny for that. The Board of Directors doesn’t see my orientation as bringing hatred, ridicule, and contempt to the firm. The HR department will never brand me as sick or emotionally disturbed for being gay. I owe Kameny for that.

I owe Frank Kameny a lot.

The battle’s not done. Perkins, Fischer, and the rest of them are working to bring back the bad old days. We still have to fight. We have to ensure Kameny’s legacy of dignity and respect isn’t ground into the mud of bigotry and hate. But thanks to Frank Kameny, many of us — not all, perhaps not even most — but at least many of us can take up the cause without fear of losing our jobs, our homes, our very means of survival.

Rest in peace, Frank Kameny. You’ve earned it.

White House Honors Lesbian Widow Denied Hospital Visitation

Janice Langbehn holding a photo of Lisa Pond

The White House has announced (no link yet) thirteen winners of the 2011 Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation’s second-highest civilian honor. Included among the thirteen honorees is Janice Langbehn, who was denied access to her partner, Lisa Pond, as she lay dying in a Florida Hospital in 2007.  The White House statement honoring Janice reads:

Janice Langbehn, Lacey, WA
While on vacation with her family in February 2007, Janice Langbehn’s partner, Lisa Pond, suddenly fell ill and was rushed to the hospital.  Langbehn was refused access to her partner, who had experienced a brain aneurysm and later died alone.  With the help of Lambda Legal and GLAAD, she filed a federal lawsuit and worked to get her story out to the nation. Janice’s story received attention from President Obama, who personally apologized to her for the way she and her family was treated.  He went on to revise hospital visitation rights for gay and lesbian couples, which went into effect this past January for any hospitals receiving federal Medicare or Medicaid funds. Langbehn receives the Citizens Medal for her efforts to ensure all Americans are treated equally.

In 2008, Janice sued Jackson Memorial Hospital, which is affiliated with the University of Miami, but a Federal judge dismissed the case. In 2010, the Obama Administration, citing this case, issued new regulations requiring hospitals to honor same-sex couples’ rights to visitation and medical decisions.

Ex-Gay Leader Reconsiders Criticism of “It Gets Better” Commercial

Back last May — so long ago that I imagine many of you have forgotten about it — Exodus International president Alan Chambers reacted to a Google Chrome ad featuring Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign. The ad portrayed ordinary people using YouTube, a Google-owned service, to post videos encouraging young people to just hang in there for just a short while longer, a message that had been inspired by a wave of suicides of LGBT youth.  Google’s fast-paced ad showed tiny snippets of celebrities who contributed to the project. One of them was the character Woody from “Toy Story,” who says simply “You’ll be fine, partner.” His cameo made up all of two and a half seconds of a ninety second commercial. That was enough to send Chambers to his keyboard:

“Children all over the world, including my two children are fans of ‘Toy Story’ and to see a character like that endorsing something that at this point children have no need to know about, it’s disappointing,” he told The Christian Post.

Chambers, who overcame homosexuality and is now a father of two, suspects that if the commercial airs while he and his children are watching a show and “if they happen to see that and ask questions and if they get the full understanding of what the commercial is actually about, we will have to have the conversation. It’s not something I plan to talk to my kids, 5 and 6, about.”

As I wrote at that time:

The conversation Chambers could be having with his children is how to handle themselves if they find themselves being taunted and bullying in school. That’s what the commercial was about. If Chambers really isn’t prepared to have that conversation, then he is really falling down as a father.

But of course, that’s not what Chambers is worried about. It’s the message that, even for gay teens who feel very much alone, it will, at some point, get better. Chambers protests, “”For organizations like Exodus International, which has thousands of men and women like me who have lived a gay life, it obviously didn’t get better living a gay life for them.” Perhaps he’d be happier with an “It Gets Worse” campaign instead. After all, that is at the core of their message

Five months later, Chambers has reconsidered his earlier opposition to that ad. In a blog post at Exodus International’s web site, Chambers writes:

A few months ago I went on record criticizing the “It Gets Better” campaign that has gone viral with an anti-bullying message for LGBT teens.  My criticism was over the use of “Woody,” the fictional star from the box office smash Toy Story trilogy.  I reacted because I hate when iconic children’s heroes are used to further what I perceive to be adult causes.  With further reflection and thought, though, I have to admit that I was wrong to question their marketing strategy without expressing my full support for what is the heart of their campaign – encouraging LGBT teens to choose life.

…When it comes to kids killing themselves, I can’t justify criticizing a campaign that, at its deepest core, is most about saving the lives of LGBT kids.  I care MORE about a kid choosing life than whether or not he or she embraces a gay identity. Life comes first. Living out our biblical convictions means fighting for the lives of young people at all cost.  Can any of us actually say we’d rather our teens, neighbors, friends or complete strangers kill themselves than be gay?  I certainly can’t.  Regardless of where someone falls on the debate over sexuality, I hope we can all agree to move the issue of bullying and suicide, especially where kids are concerned, to a non-polarized, non-politicized and non-divisive issue. [Emphasis in the original]

Chmabers’s commentary is well thought out, at least until the penultimate paragraph, where Chambers tacks on his message to kids being bullied. That paragraph goes on to reinforce the core Exodus message that being gay is a choice that God doesn’t approve of:

By the way, for kids being bullied, it does get better.  No matter what you decide to do in life, don’t allow others to cause you to question whether life is worth living. The truth is that God gave us the freedom to choose the life that we want to live and death is the end of that choice. What I discovered as an older teenager was that those few years when I was bullied didn’t accurately reflect who I was.  The names that were hurled at me were careless and ones that God would never say. We serve a great God who created us for more than we often settle for, but He never belittles us for the decisions we make, even if those decisions don’t line up with His best for us. [Emphasis in the original.]

Given the hopeless messages that many gay kids already receive from their churches that God isn’t terribly happy with them as they are, I’m not sure how constructive Chambers’s approach will be by delivering the same message. Yet a very astute kid could read that same carefully constructed passage and come to an alternative reading: that if they can hold out just a little bit longer, they may discover that what Chambers would have them settle for isn’t necessarily what God would have them settle for. Here’s hoping that they do.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, October 12

TODAY’S AGENDA:

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Atlanta, GA; Austin, TX; Los Angeles; CA; Philadelphia, PA and Watertown, NY.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Bakersfield, CA; Jacksonville, FL;  Memphis, TN; Minsk, Belarus; Oklahoma, OK (Black Pride) and Tucson, AZ.

Also This Weekend: Floatilla, Hong Kong.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Matthew Shephard Died: 1998. At about 4:30 a.m., the  Poudre Valley Hospital’s CEO Rulon Stacey released this medical update during a hastily called press conference at 4:30 a.m.:

At 12 midnight on Monday, October 12, Matthew Shepard’s blood pressure began to drop. We immediately notified his family who were already at the hospital. At 12:53 a.m. Matthew Shepard died, his family was at his bedside.

Matthew arrived at 9:15 p.m. Wednesday, October 7, in critical condition. Matthew remained in critical condition during his entire stay at Poudre Valley Hospital. During his stay, efforts to improve his condition proved to no avail. Matthew died while on full life support measures.

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Frank Kameny Has Died

Frank Kameny, 1925-2011.

One of the greatest and most steadfast pioneering advocates for the gay rights movement, Frank Kameny, died on Tuesday, October 11 at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 86. He appears to have died of natural causes. According to the Washington Blade:

Timothy Clark, Kameny’s tenant, said he found Kameny unconscious and unresponsive in his bed shortly after 5 p.m. on Tuesday. Clark called 911 police emergency and rescue workers determined that Kameny had passed away earlier, most likely in his sleep. Clark said he had spoken with Kameny shortly before midnight on the previous day and Kameny didn’t seem to be in distress.

Kameny was born on May 21, 1925 in New York City. He is a World War II veteran, having seen combat in Europe. After the war, Kameny earned a doctorate in astronomy from Harvard University and went to work for the Army Map service as an astronomer. He became a gay rights activist when he was fired by the Army in 1957 when they learned he was gay. At that time, gay people were prohibited from Federal employment due to a 1953 Executive order by President Eisenhower. In Joyce Murdoch and Deb Price’s book, Courting Justice: Gay Men And Lesbians V. The Supreme Court, Frank called his 1957 firing the spark which energized his long dedication to securing equality for all LGBT people:

“I just couldn’t walk away,” recalled Frank Kameny, a brilliant Harvard-educated astronomer who became nearly destitute after being fired from his government job in 1957. The phrase echoed through many interviews with gay people who fought against dreadful odds after losing a job, being embarrassed by a “sex crime” arrest or suffering some similar humiliation. “For the rest of my life, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself,” Kameny added. “I would be dead of stomach ulcers by now. There’s simply a burning sense of justice.”

He immediately set about challenging the his firing and the federal ban, taking his case all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Because he acts as his own attorney, he became the first known gay person to file a gay-related case before the high court. In his petition before the court, Kameny let loose his full rhetorical powers which would  become a trademark throughout his life of activism:

…the government’s policies…are a stench in the nostrils of decent people, an offense against morality, an abandonment of reason, an affront to human dignity, an improper restraint upon proper freedom and liberty, a disgrace to any civilized society, and a violation of all that this nation stands for.

Jack Nichols, Frank Kameny, and other members of the Washington Mattachine Society picketing the White House, April, 1965.

Kameny lost the case, but was undeterred. He, along with Jack Nichols, co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. The Mattachine Society elsewhere was know for being rather conservative in their tactics, but Kameny’s leadership of the Washington chapter brought an unprecedented boldness to gay activism. The Washington chapter organized the very first picket for gay rights in front of the White House on April 17, 1965, and that was followed by further pickets in front of the Pentagon, the Civil Service Commission, and, in cooperation with other East Coast activists, in front of Philadelphia’s City Hall.

Inspired by the civil rights movement’s slogan “Black is Beautiful,” Kameny coined the phrase “Gay Is Good.” That message may appear rather simple today, but it was a particularly significant slogan for 1968 when homosexuality was still considered both a mental illness and a criminal act. It was also a message that many gay people didn’t understand or fully believe themselves. Kameny didn’t just want to change how the laws treated gay people, he also wanted gay people to see themselves as fully equal to everyone else as people, deserving full equality not as a priveledge to be won but as a right earned at birth. In an email exchange with me in 2007, Frank reflected:

I’ve said, for a long time, that if I’m remembered for only one thing, I would like it to be for having coined “Gay is Good.” But never did I expect that that would make its way to the Smithsonian. I feel deeply contented.

When Washington D.C. was awarded a non-voting seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1971, Kameny became the first openly gay man to run for Congress. He lost that election, but went on to become the first openly gay member of the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Commission. Meanwhile, Kameny saw that the American Psychiatric Association’s listing of homosexuality as a mental disorder was the primary roadblock to full civil equality for gay people. He worked with other gay rights activists, principally Barbara Gittings, to convince the APA to remove homosexuality from that list. They were ultimately successful in 1973. In 1975, Kameny was also successful in getting the Civil Service Commission to drop their blanket ban on hiring gay people. Federal personnel officials “surrendered to me on July 3rd, 1975,” he recalled. “They called me up to tell me they were changing their policies to suit me. And that was the end of it.”

OPM Director John Berry delivers an official apology to Frank Kameny on behalf of the U.S. Government

In 2006, Kameny’s papers were donated to the Library of Congress, where they were catalogued and made available to the public. In 2008, his personal collection, including original picket signs from the 1965 protests and an original “Gay Is Good” button, were donated to the Smithsonian Institution. But in June, 2009, Kameny’s long years of activism finally came full circle. More than fifty years after his firing from the Army Map Service, Frank was invited to a special ceremony to receive a formal letter of apology from John Berry, the openly gay Director of the Office of Personnel Management, which is the organizational successor to the Civil Service Commission which had fired untold thousands of gay people. Kameny was also bestowed the Teddy Roosevelt Award, the department’s highest honor. Upon receiving the apology, Frank Kameny tearfully replied, “Apology accepted.”

Poland Selects First Transgender Member of Parliament

Transgender Europe has sent out a press release congratulating Anna Grodzka for becoming the first transgender member of Poland’s National Assembly. The press release identifies Grodzka as a member of the Palikot Movement, “a new political party which has come forward with progressive ideas especially on LGBTQI matters during elections.”

Poland’s lower house, the Sejm, has 460 members who are elected to four year terms through a system of proportional representation. In other words, if a party receives more than 5% of the vote, the party names the members of the Sejm according to the number of seats awarded to it. This is not an unusual system for many parliamentary democracies, and is designed to enhance the representation of political minorities.

Dominionism Is Not A Myth, Continued

When concerns arose last August about the close ties that two GOP candidates for president, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, have with extreme elements of far-right Cristianism known as Dominionism, the reaction among the far-right was, incredibly, to complain that there was no such thing as Dominionism. They said that Dominionism was a myth made up by the “East Coast media elite,”, or that it’s just an artifact of “old anxieties among liberals about evangelical Christians.” Lisa Miller even claimed that because mainstream Evangelicals have never heard of Dominionism (and they probably haven’t) and that mainstream Evangelicals aren’t interested in taking over the political world (a point that’s arguable, but at least not in the sense that Dominionists would have it), then there is no such thing as Dominionism. Which is like saying that because mainstream white people don’t want to bring back Jim Crow, then that means there are no such thing as White Supremacists.

So I wonder how all of those naysayers will respond to Marsha West, whose post on the arguably small-d dominionist web site RenewAmerica warns that “Dominionists are on the move…and they mean business.” She’s a very conservative Evangelical Christian, and she seems about as alarmed over C. Peter Wagner’s New Apostolic Reformation as the rest of us.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, October 11

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Today is National Coming Out Day. Who do you sill have left to come out to?

UN Consultation: Compass to Compassion: New York, NY. The Union Theological Seminary will host the Compass to Compassion conference to discuss strategies for LGBT global theological equality, with particular emphasis on the some churches’ roles in recent efforts to impose the death penalty on LGBT people in Uganda. Jeff Sharlet, author of C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy, will be the keynote speaker. Also speaking are retired Ugandan Anglican bishop and LGBT advocate Christopher Senyonjo, Political Research Associates Rev. Kaypa Kaoma, Ugandan LGBT advocate Val Kalende, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Daniel B. Baer. The two-day conference will conclude tomorrow with a special reception honoring Bishop Senyonjo from 6 to 7 p.m.

Salt Lake Community College’s Speakers Bureau Presents Eric Alva On “The End of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: Salt Lake City, UT. Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, became the first American to be injured during the invasion of Iraq when he stepped on a land mine and lost his leg in the explosion. As he was recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital, he was visited by President George Bush, First Lady Laura Bush, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. None of then knew that Alva was gay. Since recovering from his injuries, Alva became the first national spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign’s fight to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Today, he will be speaking as a part of the Salt Lake Community College’s Speaker’s Bureau and their recognition of National Coming Out Day. He will speak at the College’s Taylorsville Redwood Campus in the Markosian Library on the Second Floor from 11:30 to 1:30 p.m. and also at the Salt Lake City Public Library Main Branch Theater from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. Panel discussions and questions-and-answer sessions will be held after both of Alva’s speeches. Both events are free and open to the public.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Second March on Washington: 1987. Somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 LGBT people descended onto the Mall in Washington for the largest gay rights demonstration in history, demanding an end to discrimination and for more federal money for AIDS research and treatment. About a hundred members of Congress and other prominent civic, labor and religious leaders signed letters endorsing the March, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had declared himself a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, spoke and promised to support the goals of the march. Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Gerry Studds (D-MA), both openly gay members of Congress, also spoke. The march also marked the debut of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which was shown publicly for the first time. The quilt occupied the equivalent of two city blocks, and included 1,920 panels commemorating more than 2,000 persons who have died of AIDS.

Act-Up Occupies the FDA: 1988. The gay community was feeling the pressure of a ticking time bomb, with someone in the U.S. dying of AIDS every two hours. AZT had been approved by the U .S. Food and Drug Administration in 1987, but it was prohibitively expensive and required taking a pill every four hours around the clock. European health officials had been approving new treatments for AIDS, but the FDA continued to cling to its multi-year approval process. And while the FDA dithered, more names were being added to the AIDS quilt. By 1988, frustration and anger had built to a builing point, and more than a 1,200 demonstrators, led by ACT-Up activists, invaded the FDA’s grounds in Rockville, Maryland, for a nine-hour protest demanding quicker action on drug approvals. About 175 demonstrators were arrested

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, later recalled that the protest had left a deep impression. He later told PBS’s Frontline:

“After a little while, I began to get beyond the rhetoric and theater of the demonstrations and the smoke bombs, to really listen to what it is that they were saying, and it became clear to me, quite quickly, that most of what they said made absolute sense, was very logical and needed to be paid attention to. … Interacting with the constituencies was probably one of the most important things that I had done in my professional career.”

Eight days later, the FDA announced new regulations to cut the time it took to approve new drugs for treating HIV/AIDS.

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?