Box Turtle Bulletin

Zimbabwe Police Raid Office of LGBT Advocacy Org

The advocacy group Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) reports that their offices in Harare have been raided by police. According to a brief statement:

Today at 1330 hours the Zimbabwe Republic Police came to the GALZ offices demanding entry. No members of staff were present at the time. No arrests have been made so far. The police have remained at the premises all afternoon and only produced a search warrant at 1830 hours.

Human rights lawyers have been present from 1530 hours and continuing engaging with the police officers. At the time of this alert, the police are still searching the offices in the presence of our lawyers. So far, as at 2100hours, we have been informed that the police intend to confiscate some booklets, pamphlets and computers from the offices that they have accessed so far.

According to a status update on Facebook, more than twenty police officers arrived in two trucks. This appears to be part of a larger crackdown on the LGBT advocacy group. Last Friday, GALZ reported that police were once again searching for 44 GALZ members who they arrested, beaten, then released without charge earlier in August. In a detailed report which has not been posted online, GALZ reported:

Four police officers attempted to gain entry into the GALZ premises shortly after the launch of the GALZ Violations Report and the briefieng of the Second Draft of the Zimbabwe Constitution done by the Crisis Coalition, advocacy committee Chairperson on Saturday 11 August 2012. About fifteen riot squad members descended on the office and effected arrest. Thirty one men and thirteen women members were detained overnight at Harare Central Police Station on 11 August 2012. Police, some of them visibly drunk, assaulted most of the members using baton sticks, open hands and clenched fists before detaining them without charge. Police denied lawyers access to all 44, however they released all 44 on Sunday 12 August without charge.

…Members were beaten, verbally abused, and were forced to assault each other. Transgender people were verbally abused and their gender questioned. …

In 2010, Zimbabwe police launched a raid on GALZ’s offices and arrested two employees. The offense: they had a signed photo and statement from former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown denouncing Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe’s stand on homosexuality and praising GALZ’s work. The two activists were held by police for six days before being released on bail. The activists allege that they were beaten and tortured by police while in custody. They were found not guilty of charges of possessing porn.

President Robert Mugabe’s government has a long history of homophobic policies. Mugabe has attacked homosexuality as foreign to African culture, and famously described LGBT people as “worse than dogs and pigs.” Homosexuality is illegal in Zimbabwe, with penalties of up to three years’ imprisonment for violating the nation’s colonial-era law.

NOM’s unintentional self-parody

Apparently someone didn’t take their irony supplements this morning. Because the National Organization for Marriage posted this:

“Bachelorette” star Ryan Bowers tweeted his support for Chick-fil-A and the “sanctity of marriage” on the Appreciation Day:

“Everyone is eating at chik fil-a today to support the Kathy family and their stand for the sanctity of marriage!!! Lv it!”

(For those who are not familiar with the series, Bachelorette is a television show on which a couple dozen men compete for the privilege of marrying a woman. A potential husband is eliminated each episode and drama is enhanced by showing viewers the general sleaziness and underhanded tactics of the competitors. Much of the show is reportedly scripted and edited to create a storyline.

Of the eight seasons, only the first bachelorette is currently married to the winner. Ah, sanctity.)

The Daily Agenda for Monday, August 20

TODAYS AGENDA:
Pinwheels Of Hope: Louisville, KY. The Kentucky-based Fairness Campaign will hold a memorial for Nakhia “Nikki” Williams, a proud transgender woman, a writer and painter, who was brutally murdered in Louisville on August 20, 2008, a few days shy of her 30th birthday. Today, on the fourth anniversary of her murder, family and friends will gather to remember Nikki and all victims of bias-motivated violent crime at the site of her murder at 15th and Market Streets in Louisville at 10:30 a.m. Pinwheels will be distributed at the gathering to symbolize hope of ending all bias-motivated violent crime.

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
Letter to a Probation Officer: 1965. Throughout much of the twentieth century, the mental health professions were exceptionally slow to come to grips with the distinction between sexual orientation (defined according to the gender one is attracted to) and gender identity (defined according to the gender in which one views oneself). Until relatively recently, it was broadly believed that every man who “wanted” to be a woman was gay, and that every gay man secretly wanted to be a woman. The magnitude of suffering inflicted on gay and transgender people due to this ignorance is incalculable; it is also illustrated by a letter that one psychiatrist, Rodolfo M. Bramanti, of the New Mexico State Hospital in Las Vegas, New Mexico, wrote to a probation officer. Bramanti published the letter in the August, 1965 edition of the journal Southwestern Medicine to “discussed some of the medical, legal and social problems that homosexuality creates.” Bramanti doesn’t say how it is that “Mr. Peter M.” came into the state mental hospital system. The letter begins:

Dear Mr. M …… .

This letter is in reference to Mr. Peter M., a previous patient in this Unit, who was released on ….. , I have been quite concerned ever since in trying to secure the best solution to his problem, and, as I promised you in our telephone conversation, in the following I will try to discuss this case and summarize the conclusions at which I have arrived.

…Although the diagnosis in this specific case is more an academic matter, I would like to express my opinion that Peter is not suffering from a true psychotic disorder. I know that he was diagnosed before as a schizophrenic; however, in my interviews, as well as in the observation of his behavior during his stay in the hospital, no symptoms or signs on which to base such a diagnosis were found.

I think he belongs to the group that modern psychiatry knows as sociopathic personality, sexual deviation (also called sexual perversion), in whom the only manifestations of the disorder are in the sexual sphere. The pervert suffers from an anomaly of the sexual drive and gets satisfaction either in some other activity than that of complete heterosexual intercourse, or, in some deviant activity, acts that are not accepted bv our morals, customs or laws.

Peter, as the generality of homosexuals, has a tendency to be immature in his reactions, is easily depressed and discouraged, frequently frustrated, emotionally unstable, dependent and self-indulgent, and involved in love affairs with other men which end in disappointments, frustrations and suicidal thoughts. These could have the appearance of psychotic symptoms, but, altogether, do not constitute the well-defined picture that characterizes the schizophrenic.

…The problem, as I see it from a practical standpoint, is that we are dealing with a youngster, who at the present time shows all the emotional feelings of a female, even though he has the complete appearance of a male. Due to his abnormal urges he has been indulging in homosexual relations and creating a difficult problem in his community.

Bramenti then launched into a long and wide-ranging dissertation on the attitudes of society towards homosexuality and transgender people, a dissertation that cites the Judeo-Christian tradition, the 19th century Napoleonic code (which dropped all sanctions against homosexuality), and, surprisingly, the rigidity of gender binaries, leading Bramanti to conclude that “our laws and the community attitudes in this respect are not only unscientific but unjust.”

Bramanti then discussed the range of therapeutic options available to Peter, and it is here that it becomes rather obvious to anyone reading it today that Peter’s problem wasn’t so much that he was a gay man in a homophobic society, but that she was a transgender person among professionals who haven’t the slightest clue about what that distinction meant:

Peter came to this hospital with the idea that an operation could be performed to make him apparently, at least, more female_ In other words, he completely refused the idea to become a male: even more, he was disgusted, disappointed because his physical appearance did not fit with his female mind and he thought that medical science could convert him into what he has been longing to be.

Bramanti briefly describes the case of Christine Jorgensen (who Bramanti insists on calling “Chris Jorgenson”), who was the first celebrity transgender person to be written about in the popular press (see May 30). Bramanti considered the option of gender reassignment for Peter:

Can we advise such an operation in the case of Peter M … ? There are many factors to be considered. In fact, could we legally sanction such an operation? Should a surgeon agree to perform it? Is it justified from the religious point of view to try to transform what God decided? In the event that the operation is performed, should he be considered as a man or as a woman in spite of the fact that he will be lacking the male sexual characteristics as well as those of a female.

I feel that with all these drawbacks. we can hardly advise such a porcedure and, p;actically, we rule it out as a prospective solution of this problem.

Investigating the option of gender reassignment, in hindsight, appears to be the most logical course of action based on what we know today. Had Peter been under the care of a mental health professional who was knowledgable about gender identity issues, there may well have been a more positive outcome. But just when Bramanti brought up the most logical option, he retreated, not to a scientifically-valid position, but to an entirely religious-based one.

Bramanti then considered other therapeutic options for Peter, including hormone treatments to “accentuate the masculine characteristics,” electroconvulsive therapy, and psychoanalysis, all of which he rejected because he believed they would fail to provided the hoped-for outcomes. Convinced as Bramanti was that he is dealing with a homosexual problem, he even quoted, in its entirety, Sigmund Freud’s famous letter to an American mother (see April 9), the very letter in which Freud said that homosexuality was “nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation.” That, apparently, didn’t phase him. Bramanti considered an institution in California “that takes care of sexual perverts,” but discovered that it only handles people who are genuinely psychotic. He also considered “Labortherapy,” which, he said, “may also be, as you very well pointed out, good.” Bramanti contacted the head of the Vocational Rehabilitation Department, who told him that Peter “could have good chances for such a program, provided that he wear clothes according to his sex, which, as you know, the patient refuses to do.”

After considering that there is nothing that can be done clinically to “change Peter’s condition,” Bramanti made the following six recommendations, which, given the tortuous journey he took to getting to them, turned out to be relatively-for-1965 somewhat enlightened:

1) Take an understanding attitude toward his sexual behavior by explaining to his family, his relatives and members of the community that Peter M. should be accepted the way that he is.

2) Alleviate his emotional tensions, his frustrations, anxieties and periods of depression. In this sense, psychotherapy, adjusting him to his inversion, is the type of therapy recommended, if financially feasible. Some psychopharmacologic agents could also help him in achieving this end.

3) Punishment is by no means indicated. The best thing one can do is treat him as politely as one would anyone else. He, on his part, of course, should be expected to abide by the ordinary rules of decency such as applied to relationship between men and women, namely, he should not seduce others nor force himself on people who are not interested in his company. He should not flaunt his desires in public by dressing in clothes of the opposite sex or otherwise and he should not embarrass those around him by making love or about it in public.

If he behaves himself and controls himself as discreetly as people with heterosexual desires are expected to do, his private life should be of no more concern to anyone else than should a normal person’s. Putting him in jail or in a hospital results only in providing him and the other inmates or patients with added opportunities for abnormal sexual activity.

4) Due to the tendencies of being immature in his reactions, easily depressed, discouraged and frequently frustrated, he could be a suicidal risk: therefore, close supervision by the Probation Officer is in order.

5) The tentative idea of placing him in Vocational Program for the purpose of training him as a beautician should be encouraged, if he would agree to dress as a man during the training period.

6) It is also felt that a priest could help by providing him with support.

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?

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, August 19

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations Today: Allentown, PA; Columbia, MO; Copenhagen, Denmark; Galway, Ireland; Kelowna, BC; Madison, WI; Mocton, NB; Montréal, QC; New York, NY (Black Pride); Prague, Czech Republic; San Jose, CA; and Waterford, Ireland.

Other Events Today: Ascension Beach Party, Fire Island, NY; Dunas Festival, Gran Canaria; Tropical Heat, Key West, FL; Louisville LGBT Film Festival; Louisville, KY;

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Frank Kameny Throws Down The Gauntlet: 1969. Benning Wentworth was an electronics technician for a private research contractor for the U.S. Air Force when, in the spring of 1966, he was accused of homosexuality and his eleven-year security clearance was revoked. Frank Kameny, co-founder of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., and who himself had been fired by the Army Map Service in 1957 because of his homosexuality, worked as Wentworth’s counsel in an appeal before the Industrial Security Clearance Review Office in the Department of Defense. The Pentagon justified its blanket denial of security clearances to gay people by claiming gays were subject to blackmail. Kameny pointed out the obvious flaw in that logic: Wentworth was out — he even appeared in a press conference about his hearing — and it’s impossible to blackmail someone over their homosexuality if the whole world knows about it. In his opening remarks, Kameny described a different unnamed person, known only as OSD 66-44, who was allowed to keep his clearance as long as he spent the rest of his life in the closet and pretended to be straight. But for Wentworth and others, that was not longer an option. The logic behind the two cases made no sense whatseover. Kameny declared:

The Department got its satisfaction out of OSD 66-44, whoever he may be. We hope he sleeps soundly these days, poor man. OSD 66-44 may have compromised. He may have knuckled under. He may have crawled. He may have groveled. He may have submitted to Departmental blackmail of the most contemptible kind.

We will not. We stand our ground.

We throw down the gauntlet, clearly, unequivocally and unambiguously.

We state for the world, as we have stated for the public, we state for the record and, if the Department forces us to carry the case that far, we state for the courts that Mr. Wentworth, being a healthy, unmarried, homosexual male, 35 years old, has lived, and does live a suitable homosexual life, in parallel with the suitable active heterosexual sexual life lived by 75 percent of our healthy, unmarried, heterosexual males holding security clearances; and he intends to continue to do so indefinitely into the future. And please underline starting with the word “and intends to do so into the future”. Underline that, please, Mr. Stenographer.

Kameny Way: Frank Kameny (left) with D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Councilman Jack Evans

Kameny lost that case, but his commitment to the gay rights struggle was unwavering. He continued to dog the federal government over its active discrimination against gay people until, over the next several decades the barriers fell one by one. But it wouldn’t be until President Clinton signed Executive order 12968 in 1995 that homosexuality would be formally removed as a reason for denying a security clearance (must governmental agencies had dropped the ban informally by then). Today, Kameny’s papers are a part of the Kameny Archives of the Library of Congress, his home is listed as a D.C. Historic Landmark by the District of Columbia’s Historic Preservation Review Board, and 17th Street between P and R streets, N.W., has been designated as “Frank Kameny Way.”He passed away last year at the age of 86. You can read Kameny’s entire opening statement in the Wentworth case here,

Anti-gay Extremist Paul Cameron Hired As Congressional Adviser: 1985. This Associated Press Report appeared in newspapers nationwide:

A Psychologist who believes homosexuals should be quarantined has been hired as an expert on AIDS by a congressman who sits on the House subcommittee overseeing research on the disease, a newspaper reported Sunday. Paul Cameron of Lincoln, Neb., was hired for a $2,000, one-month tenure to advise Rep. William Dannemeyer, R-Calif., on homosexuality and acquired immune deficiency syndrome, the Register of Orange County reported. Cameron, who says the quarantine should be ordered to stop the spread of disease, has linked homosexuality to criminal behavior, including mass murder and child molestation. Dannemeyer, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and environment, said he trust Camerin as an adviser even though the psychologist has been expelled from the American Psychological Association and repudiated by the Nebraska Psychological Association.

Not only was Cameron kicked out of the APA and censured by the NPA, he was also denounced by several other professional organizations for gross and unethical misrepresentations of legitimate scientific research. Cameron would go on to say that medical extermination of people with AIDS might be a legitimate consideration, and in 1999 he wrote admiringly of how the Nazi’s “dealt with” homosexuality. Dannemeyer’s record on LGBT issues was little better. In 1986, Dannemeyer was the only prominent politician to support Lyndon LaRouche’s Proposition 64 in California, which would have labeled AIDS a disease subject to quarantine. In 1989, Dannemeyer read into the Congressional Record Cameron’s graphic description of gay sex, “The Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do.” Dannemeyer left the House in 1992 to try to run for the Senate seat for California, but he lost in the primary.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Renée Richards: 1934. The opthamologist, author and professional tennis player completed her transition to female in 1975, after which she was denied entry into the 1976 US Open by the United States Tennis Association. The association had suddenly come up with a “born-women only” policy and demanded that Richard submit to chromosomal testing to confirm her eligibility to compete. She sued, and in 1977 she won the right to play as a woman.

Richards’s tennis career resumed in 1977. That year, she was a finalist in women’s doubles with Betty Ann Stuart at the U.S. Open, but lost in a close match to Martina Navratilova and Betty Stöve. Richards won the 35-and-over women’s singles. She continued playing until 1981, and she ranked as high as 20th overall in 1979. She later became Navratilova’s coach, Richards would be known more for her transitioning than for her tennis career. In her 2007 autobiography,  No Way Renée: The Second Half of My Notorious Life, she describes the challenges and the freedom that came with her decision to transition, while expressing her frustration over the intense public scrutiny that concentrated so much attention on it. She was the subject of an ESPN documentary in 2011, and she still practices opthamology with offices in Manhattan and Westchester County, N.Y.

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?

I invented a nutritional supplement this morning.

The market is HUGE!

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, August 18

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Allentown, PA; Columbia, MO; Copenhagen, Denmark; Galway, Ireland; Hampton Roads, VA; Kelowna, BC; Lafeyette, IN; London, UK (Black Pride); Madison, WI; Mocton, NB; Montréal, QC; New York, NY (Black Pride); Prague, Czech Republic; Reno, NV; San Jose, CA; Taos, NM; and Waterford, Ireland.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Reno, NV.

Other Events This Weekend: Ascension Beach Party, Fire Island, NY; Dunas Festival, Gran Canaria; Tropical Heat, Key West, FL; Louisville LGBT Film Festival; Louisville, KY; Schwules Straßenfest, Munich, Germany; Provincetown Carnival, Provincetown, MA.

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?

Sexual Minorities Uganda Denounces “Anonymous” Hacking Attack

Sexual Minorities Uganda has issued this statement denouncing the vandalization of Ugandan governmental web sites by the “hacktivist” group Anonymous:

IT has come to the attention of the office of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and its collaboration of partners that yesterday a Ugandan government website was hacked into and shut down by the activist group that calls itself Anonymous. SMUG and its partners do not condone this action.

No member in our office, network, or in the Ugandan LGBTI community was consulted or involved in this action by “Anonymous” in any way. The hacking of government websites and the corresponding statements by Anonymous do not reflect the views of SMUG and its partners, allies and/or friends. As Ugandans ourselves, we stand with our community and equally share in the burden of this illegal and counterproductive action. In our view, the act opens every Ugandan citizen to the potential of danger and hinders the operations of our sovereign nation. Additionally, it has the unfortunate potential consequence of further targeting the LGBTI community – the very individuals Anonymous claims to be supporting through their action. If a member of Anonymous had contacted any person in this office or in the LGBTI community, they would have learned this from us directly.

Anonymous by nature is an unknown, secretive entity who acts independently against the governments and organizations it opposes. Its members did not reveal themselves to us or provide us with any communication on their proposed actions. Further, as an organization that advocates and practices only peaceful and legal pathways in its effort to ensure that basic human rights are guaranteed to all Ugandan citizens, SMUG and its partners would like to distance and distinguish themselves from the organization that calls itself Anonymous.

Sexual Minorities Uganda does not condone the activities of this group and shares in the dismay, frustration and anger that our fellow citizens have experienced. We are prepared to work with the Ugandan government to ensure that those responsible for this action are found and held accountable.

Gay man helms Canada’s largest Protestant church

Ottawa Citizen:

In a historic vote, the United Church of Canada has elected its first openly gay moderator.

After six ballots and nearly eight hours of voting at the Church’s 41st general council in Ottawa on Thursday, Rev. Gary Paterson emerged from a record field of 15 candidates to win the top job at Canada’s largest Protestant church. He is thought to be the first openly gay person to head any mainstream Christian de-nomination.

If We Don’t Call it “Hate,” What Shall We Call It?

One of the best lessons I ever got in professionalism came from a boss who said, Don’t just bring me a problem. Bring a solution, too. Great advice. Suggesting a solution — even if it’s unworkable, a mere starting point for discussion — shows you’ve thought seriously about the problem, and you’re not just an alarmist hack or concern troll.

That advice comes to mind now that some pundits, both conservative and liberal, want the SPLC to drop its “hate group” terminology. Go ahead and make that case, but if you want to us to take you seriously, you have to answer this: What term should we use?

I agree no one should be accused of hate merely for opposing same-sex marriage. Fortunately, neither I nor the SPLC has ever called labeled anyone a hate group on those meager grounds. For instance, here’s why SPLC named the Family Research Council a hate group:

The Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but its real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians. The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

Also at that link, you’ll find a damning list of quotes from FRC leadership, especially the blood libel that gays are after your kids.

More generally, the hate groups identified by the SPLC are guilty of one or more of the following:

• Distorting scientific research to demonize gays, even over the researchers’ objections. (FRC has done this)
• Calling for the criminalization of homosexuality. (FRC has done this)
• Accusing gay men of recruiting children and being more likely to molest them than straights. (FRC has done this)
• Advocating the death penalty for gays.
• Holding gays responsible for Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

If we are not to call these groups hate groups, then what are we to call them?

That’s not a rhetorical question. These organizations fall in the same genre. Their work belongs in the same oeuvre. They are a collection of groups who employ aggressive dishonesty in open pursuit of an overriding goal: denying basic civil liberties to LGBT folk. What shall we call that genre?

Christian? No, their fundamental strategy of bearing false witness disqualifies them; so does their violation of Christ’s dictum to love your neighbor; besides, too many Christians abhor these groups.

Anti-gay? No, that doesn’t go far enough.

How about Groups that distort scientific research to demonize gays, callforthecrimininalizationofhomosexuality-accusegaymenofrecruitingchildren-andbeingmorelikelytomolestthemthanstraights-advocatethedeathpenaltyforgays-andholdgaysresponsibleforNaziGermanyandtheHolocaust?

That’s unwieldy.

But we do need a term. It’s not enough to call out these transgressions one by one. They are not isolated misdeeds. They represent a pattern of behavior, and we need a name for that pattern.

If you don’t want that term to be “hate,” then what do you prefer? I’m open to suggestion. Just show me you’re serious by doing more than bemoaning a problem. Tell me your solution.

Gang Style Chicken

08 Nov 1964, Atlanta, Georgia, USA --- Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. eats lunch with his family after church services and learning that he won the Nobel Peace Prize. --- (CORBIS)

As much as I’d like to ignore it, Floyd Lee Corkins, II, has forced me to think once more about Chick-fil-A and the food fight between the left and the right.  Dan Cathy’s remarks several weeks ago opened up a fault line – suddenly, instead of staying safely within our left-wing and right-wing echo chambers, Americans are debating the First Amendment and boycotts and marriage rights.  Many in the LGBT community report that once-silent family members are now sending them emails, proudly posting pictures of chicken on Facebook, and calling them late at night to quote Bible verses about death and destruction.  Just two days ago, Mr. Corkins shot a security guard at the Family Research Council and fifteen Chick-fil-A sandwiches were found in his backpack; it’s safe to assume he wasn’t delivering Tony Perkins’ lunch.

Although food has loomed large in touching off historical debate (see the Boston Tea Party, Gandhi’s march to the sea to make salt, or four college students sitting implacably at a Woolworth’s lunch counter), the food is only a foil for a larger, more important debate – what constitutes our community’s values, how do we define those values, and which of those values can bring us together rather than tear us apart?  The single common denominator throughout all these “food fights” is that in each instance a community stood up to protest its second-class status.  The same holds true for today’s debate.

The question at hand is this – can LGBT people and the unions they form, the children they raise, the families and community bonds they form, be truly accepted into American society?  Can the American dream accommodate a group once pegged by the majority as alien and subversive?  Now that, in 2012, it seems clear that the majority has begun to respond with a resounding yes, how do we deal with the not-insubstantial minority that is left angry and upset?  How do we deal with those within our own ranks, as it appears Mr. Corkin was, whose rage at those who refuse to “see the light” may translate unforgivably into violence?

In 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center designated several anti-gay groups as “hate groups” for the first time.   Their research of FBI documents over the previous fourteen-year period revealed a little-publicized fact:  LGBT people are overwhelmingly the largest target of physical attacks inspired by hate in the U.S.  Our status as second-class citizens is second to none.  Coming from a conservative family background as I do, my first reaction when I heard that Mr. Corkins had attacked an organization labeled as a “hate group” was this – is that label helpful in any way?

Reading up on how the FBI discusses groups that inspire violence it became clear that labeling the Family Research Council and other organizations like it as hate groups is simply a recognition that the violence occurring against the LGBT community has a real, concrete source and a real, concrete voice.  When Tony Perkins talks about the “homosexual agenda” and Dan Cathy triumphantly says “guilty as charged” when asked about the millions of dollars he contributes to anti-LGBT causes, their words fall dangerously close to the dividing line the FBI has established between rhetorical violence on the one hand and physical violence on the other.  Identifying seven distinct stages along this spectrum, the last stage between rhetoric and physical violence is Stage Five when

“the hate group attacks their target without weapons . . . prowling their turf seeking vulnerable targets.”

This is what America saw on Mike Huckabee’s “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day”: a community rallied together to attack the idea that the LGBT community – our unions, our families, our places of gathering, our places of worship – is worthy of first class citizenship.  Chick-fil-A restaurants and its packaging has become home turf, a veritable gang sign, and Mr. Corkins’ deplorable attack two days ago was simply a confirmation of that fact.

In our national gang-style fever, calling out hate is not only justifiable but critically important.  Keeping up the fight for marriage equality, for equal protection laws, for first class citizenship in a calm, rational manner is the most effective way to take the long view and play it out in full.  In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, pictured above eating fried chicken with his family,

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”

The Daily Agenda for Friday, August 17

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Allentown, PA; Columbia, MO; Copenhagen, Denmark; Galway, Ireland; Hampton Roads, VA; Kelowna, BC; Lafeyette, IN; London, UK (Black Pride); Madison, WI; Mocton, NB; Montréal, QC; New York, NY (Black Pride); Prague, Czech Republic; Reno, NV; San Jose, CA; Taos, NM; and Waterford, Ireland.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Reno, NV.

Other Events This Weekend: Ascension Beach Party, Fire Island, NY; Dunas Festival, Gran Canaria; Tropical Heat, Key West, FL; Louisville LGBT Film Festival; Louisville, KY; Schwules Straßenfest, Munich, Germany; Provincetown Carnival, Provincetown, MA.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Kurt Hiller: 1885. The German essayist and political journalist was an early influential writer of the German gay rights movement in the first few decades of the twentieth century. In 1922 he published §175: Die Schmach des Jahrhunderts! (“Paragraph 175: The disgrace of the century!”), the title of which referred to the German penal code which criminalized homosexual activity between men. It was widely distributed, including to members of the Reichstag, during the debates on the sexual penal code in the 1920s. In 1929, Hiller took over as chairman of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, the world’s first organization to advocate for gay rights, after the Committee’s founder, Magnus Hirchfeld, stepped down to focus his attention on the Institute for Sexual Research.

After the Nazis came to power, they banned both the Institute and Committee. Hiller, who was a gay pacifist socialist Jew, had more than enough reasons to land on the Gestapo’s radar. He was arrested and spent time in various concentration camps before being released on the brink of death in April of 1934. He fled to Prague later that year to avoid another arrest. He then fled Czechoslovakia for London in 1938 just ahead of the German armies. While in London, he continued to write for the German exile press. In 1955, he returned to Hamburg, and tried to resurrect the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in 1962. That idea didn’t take root, but Hiller nevertheless continued to write on behalf of the gay rights movement. He published numerous articles and essays in the influential Swiss gay magazine Der Kreis. In 1965, Der Kreis returned the favor with a five-page commemoration for Hiller’s 80th birthday. Hiller died in 1972.

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?

Shirvell’s unhappy day

Andrew Shirvell certainly can’t be very happy about the results of his trial. (Detroit News)

A federal court jury Thursday awarded $4.5 million to a gay former University of Michigan student body president who accused a former state attorney of stalking him, according to the lawyer.

Deborah Gordon said the jury came back with the verdict late Thursday afternoon. The civil case involved Andrew Shirvell, the former assistant attorney general fired in 2010 after he criticized Christopher Armstrong, an openly gay former University of Michigan student.

But I guess the upside is that unless Shirvell’s a trust fund baby, he has an excuse to keep in contact with Armstrong for the rest of his life. I have no idea as to Shirvell’s employment status, but I suspect that it would take him approximately 1,875 years to pay off that award.

Wall Street Republicans fund GOP congressional candidates

Perhaps “Wall Street Republicans fund GOP congressional candidates” isn’t exactly ground-shaking news. But the reason that the Republican Unity super-PAC selected its first three recipients might surprise you. It’s because they want to build a base of pro-equality supporters within the GOP. (Politico)

American Unity PAC, launched by Elliott Associates hedge fund executive Paul Singer earlier this summer with a $1 million donation, is poised to advertise in the races being fought by Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) and Judy Biggert (R-Ill.). While none of the three candidates has stated a clear position on gay marriage — only one GOP House member supports it — the group hopes to move the people it backs toward support of it.
…
The major contributors to the PAC, aside from Singer, are financier Cliff Asness, who gave $100,000, [hedge fund manager] Dan Loeb, who gave $250,000, and [investment group founder] Seth Klarman, who also gave $250,000. Asness and Loeb played a role in Singer’s efforts to fund the push for New York’s successful gay marriage legislation in 2011.

While Bono Mack, Hanna, and Biggert have not taken public positions in support of marriage equality, they are generally supportive of the community. And I rather suspect that when Mr. Singer calls and says, “Hi. I’m Paul Singer and I just saved your political career. Let’s talk about marriage”, they just might find his arguments very convincing.

How Not To Support LGBT People of Uganda

In March of 2009, three American anti-gay activists parachuted into Uganda, a country which was (and still is) a powder keg of anti-gay hysteria just waiting to blow up. They gave their talks, stirred up a hornets nest of trouble, and swiftly flew out of the country leaving the local LGBT community to deal with the growing and unrelenting backlash that ultimately led to the introduction into that nation’s Parliament a proposal to kill anyone who is “repeatedly” gay and imprison anyone and everyone who would come to their defense. While the Ugandan LGBT people suffered through beatings, arrests, and even murder, the three Americans were safely ensconced in their comfortable homes, not quite a dozen timezones distant from the now dangerous streets of Kampala, but nevertheless an entire universe away from the havoc they wrought.

This past week, we’ve had disturbing word of yet another group of westerners wreaking havoc on Uganda while safely ensconced in their comfortable homes. The Internet “hacktivist” group Anonymous hijacked the web sites of Uganda’s office of the Prime Minister and  posted an obscene message along with a statement saying:

LGBT People of Uganda, Anonymous and Elite Society do not speak for you. You have inspired us with your pride, courage and self-respect. YOU are OUR heroes LGBT people of Uganda.

Anonymous is right, if not a bit paternalistic, in announcing that they don’t speak for the LGBT community in Uganda. But they nervetheless presumed to place themselves — outsiders with little at stake — as the protector and defendor of Uganda’s LGBT community. And they chose to show their respect for Uganda’s LGBT community by vandalizing at least one of the nation’s official web sites without bothering to ask the LGBT leaders whether they even wanted Anonymsous’s “assistance.” And after this group of foreigners took it upon themselves to hack these web sites and leave messages of support for Uganda’s LGBT people, they leave it to those very same people to deal with whatever fallout that may come from local police, politicians, political leaders and media. Val Kalende, no shrinking violet herself (she bravely became the face of Uganda’s lesbians in an important local newspaper profile in 2009 following the introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill), articulated her concerns to Melanie Nathan:

My concern is the manner in which Anonymous claim to speak on behalf of Uganda LGBT activists with no consultation whatsoever. Has SMUG or any other organization asked them hack government websites? Do they understand how their actions could be perceived by Ugandans? I question the motive of Anonymous. They need to be advised. Those well-meaning interventions can cause severe backlash for activists on the ground. Hacking government websites to “help” victims of state-sponsored homophobia? Who does that? I think this extremist violent intervention MUST STOP. I would advise you speak to activists on the ground for their views on this.

For the past several years, I’ve watched from afar as the Ugandan LGBT community came together and responded bravely and effectively to the backlash caused by those three anti-gay Americans in 2009. While there was considerable international outrage and attention paid to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, there are many other stories of successes on the ground in Uganda that we don’t hear about, successes which are directly attributable to the brave men and women who live and work there. And more than a few LGBT leaders there are getting a little tired of all of the negative publicity and are frustrated that signs of progress brought on by their very hard work are too often overlooked. In fact, that was one of the reasons they celebrated Pride to begin with. Val Kalende reinforces that point again today in a piece for the Huffington Post.

Anonymous’s actions show an appalling disregard for the efforts of Ugandan LGBT leaders and a gob-smacking huberis that they, from the comfort of their bedrooms and coffee shops, know better than the Ugandan LGBT people on the ground. Meanwhile, those very same Ugandans are on Facebook bracing themselves for what may come.

Thoughts on how my words have consequences

I cringed when I first heard about the shooting at the extremist anti-gay group Family Research Council. I’d like to say that it was out of concern for those who work there, and I was concerned, but truthfully I was more afraid of the political fallout of the situation and desperately hoped it wasn’t someone gay who was the culprit.

By the time we learned that Floyd Corkins was not only gay but also a volunteer at an LGBT center, I’d calmed down enough to realize that while this event was jarring, it didn’t exactly come as a surprise to me. Nor would I have been shocking if it had been, as it so often has, an attack on a LGBT person or organization by a deranged person on the far right.

A suicide bomb. A place of worship defaced. An innocent kid shot in a drive-by. A racist epithet hurled at a politician. A shooting at FRC.

These things get attention and news space. They get public outcry and denunciation. As they should. And I am proud that my community spoke with one voice in denouncing the violence yesterday. It was the only appropriate response.

But these are not events that occur in a vacuum. No one wakes up one day and decides – purely on whim – to shoot up a Sikh temple because it was the first building they happened upon. No one steps aboard an airport bus full of Israelis with a bomb because he thought it had the best air conditioning.

And it was not purely out of happenstance that Floyd Corkins walked into the lobby of the Family Research Council.

I don’t know Corkins’ intentions yesterday. Perhaps he left the house thinking that he would confront someone at FRC and tell them off or throw a chicken sandwich at them. Or perhaps he thought that he would go make a brave act of political assassination and be hailed as a hero who took out someone who doesn’t deserve to live. Perhaps we will eventually know, perhaps not.

But we do know that Corkins took a gun with him and we can surmise that his intentions were to do harm. And if not, I think it’s fair to say that if it wasn’t Corkins, it would have eventually been someone, some gay person who believed that violence against the Family Research Council was justified.

And that is what Corkins believed. Because that is the message that Corkins heard.

Oh, I doubt anyone ever said to him, “Tony Perkins should be shot!” But I’m certain that during his volunteer work at the center he heard plenty about how Perkins was a H8ter and a ReTHUGlican and a Christer. I’m sure that he learned that the Family Research Council consisted of people who hate him and who would see every gay person dead if they could get away with it.

Cartoon villains. Single faceted characters without any redeeming qualities. Evil personified.

Disposable.

The world would be better off without them.

How do I know Corkins heard that message? Because I’ve heard it; you have too. And sometimes I’ve used language about our political opponents that failed to recognize their humanity. I’ve allowed my contempt of someone’s beliefs and advocacy result in contempt of them as a person.

Of course I feel no hesitation about opposing bigotry and discrimination. I believe that it is not only justified but necessary to call the Family Research Council what it is: a hate group. Nor will I wrap Tony Perkin’s efforts to diminish our lives in the false piety of “love” and “religious opinion”. Lies are lies and Perkins is a liar.

I’m comfortable with that. I know that most people who read here would never ever see anything that might cause them to think that violence towards Perkins, or any of our adversaries, is in anyway encouraged or acceptable. Most people know that “it goes without saying” that such a response would condemned without exception.

But for some people, it doesn’t go without saying. For some people, it has to be said. Some people have to be told that we will not see them as heroes if they take – or even threaten – the life of someone else.

Do I say it enough?

In our culture, in which one half of the population seems to be engaged in war with the other half, a lot is said. A lot is insinuated. A lot is claimed. And a lot of it has basis in nothing more that the dehumanization of people with whom we disagree.

We see it so often that we don’t even hesitate. Today I read that only a “privileged white lady” would call and ask police to base their actions on her religion. And that because of Republican victories in 2010 that it wouldn’t be surprising if someone called for a constitutional amendment declaring women as property. And I shrugged. It’s just hyperbole.

Of course it comes from the other direction as well. And in our community we document and expose the crazy rantings of Bill Donahue and Bryan Fischer. As we should.

And we decry the failure of those who claim that they are only trying to protect the family and love the homosexual but look away when their allies call us child molesters who shake our fists in God’s face. And yes, it absolutely is odious that NOM’s Brian Brown would dare to self-righteously claim to have “condemned all violence and vilification” when he’s often their number one cheerleader.

But I think that – more often than I care for – I allow their attitude to dictate my own. Because NOM says heinous things, I can say them back. Because they are H8TERS, I’m justified in hating them.

But does it really matter “who started it”? Is my own sense of morality so unstable that the words or behavior of someone else should justify doing or saying something that I know to be wrong?

And every bit as important, can I let stand outrageous things that others say? I know that if I too aggressively chastise “my side” for extreme language then I become an aider and abettor, a kapo, a quisling, and lose any power to impact the conversation.

But do I go far enough? Or do I look away while those who disagree with me are depicted as fascists, racists, and misogynists?

And I know that writing this commentary runs risks. Some readers will see this only in terms of whether I’m blaming our community for Corkins’ actions. I’m not. Some who advocate for anti-gay political positions and are cynically capitalizing on this tragedy might claim that I’m validating their outrageous assertions. Of course I’m not.

But does that mean it shouldn’t be said? Should I wait for someone else who can better articulate or who will be better received?

And I also know that I can too quickly make this about “them”, the ones on the right or left, gay or anti-gay who “go too far” and leave the wrong impression. I can get lectury and lay out a sermon about what “we” could have done when I really mean what “you” could have done. Because it’s a lot easier to see others’ errors than one’s own.

Do I really own this problem to the extent that I think I do? Or am I being all self-congratulatory and better?

I don’t have answers. I’m not even sure I have the right questions. But I do know that I will try and pay more attention. I’ll try to to be aware that that which “goes without saying” doesn’t. And I’ll try to remember that my words – not just those of Tony Perkins and Linda Harvey and Brian Brown – have consequences.