Box Turtle Bulletin

Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part

The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009. (Click to download, PDF: 847KB/16 pages)

Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been re-introduced into Parliament and is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. As the Committee considers what to do with the bill, there has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other seventeen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In this series, we will examine the original text of bill’s eighteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

In the bill’s memorandum which serves as a prologue, it gives as the bill’s first objective as “provid(ing) for marriage in Uganda as that contracted only between a man and a woman,” but it waits until Clause 12 before finally banning it. What’s more, it doesn’t just ban same-sex marriage, it specifies a criminal penalty for it:

12. Same sex marriage.
A person who purports to contract a marriage with another person of the same sex commits the offence of homosexuality and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.

In more than half of the states of the U.S., same-sex marriage is banned, as it is in most other parts of the world. Where it is banned, nearly every other jurisdiction is satisfied to simply make such an arrangement a legal impossibility. But it is an exceptionally rare country (is there another one?) that goes so far as turning marriage into a criminal offense, let alone one such as Uganda that carries a penalty of a lifetime in prison. And yet, that is exactly what this bill would do. Any Ugandan who presents another person of the same sex as a spouse has broken a law so severe that the individual would be cast for the rest of his or her life into a Ugandan prison.

But not only that, it would appear possible that with the clause beginning with “a person who purports to contract a marriage…” might endanger any foreign married visitor who enters Uganda, either as a business person or a tourist, who mentions his or her same-sex spouse to anyone in Uganda.

Yet with all that, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee felt that the clause didn’t go far enough.  They recommended the addition of a second subclause:

2) A person or institution commits an offence if that person or institution conducts a marriage ceremony between persons of the same sex and shall on conviction be liable to imprisonment to a maximum of three years for individuals or cancellation of licence for an institution.”

With this provision, a minister in a denomination or religion that recognizes same-sex marriage could be imprisoned for practicing that denomination’s religious beliefs. Both of these provisions together run counter to Uganda’s own constitution (PDF: 460KB/192 pages), which under Chapter 4, Article 29, (Page 42) includes the following:

(1) Every person shall have the right to—

…(c) freedom to practise any religion and manifest such practice which shall include the right to belong to and participate in the practices of any religious body or organisation in a manner consistent with this Constitution;

So much for religious freedom in Uganda.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”
Clauses 5 and 6: Anyone Can Be A Victim (And Get Out Of Jail Free If You Act Fast)
Clauses 7 and 14: Anyone Can “Aid And Abet”
Clauses 8 to 10: A Handy Menu For “Victims” To Choose From
Clauses 11, 14, 16 and 17: Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t Only To Report Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, February 21

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Important Prop 8 Deadline: San Francisco, CA. Today is the last day in which Prop 8 supporters can file a petition for en banc review of the decision by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a lower court’s ruling that the passage of Prop 8 violates the U.S. Constitution. If Prop 8 supporters don’t file a request, then the stay on the lower court’s ruling expires exactly one week from today. If the do file a request, then the stay remains in place until until the request for a re-hearing is either denied or accepted and ruled on.

Alternatively, Prop 8 supporters have ninety days following the February 7 decision to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If they do that, then they can request an extension of the stay from the Ninth Circuit Court pending the Supreme Court’s review. If the Ninth denies the stay’s extension, Prop 8 supporters can also file a petition to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has responsibility for answering petitions in the Ninth Circuit. With all of those options, it still looks like it will be a very long time before marriages can resume in the Golden State.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Atlanta Gay Bar Bombed: 1997. Memrie Wells-Cresswell, of Snellville, GA, went to Atlanta’s Otherside Lounge to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Memrie had not told many people that she was lesbian, but the bombing that night at the popular lesbian bar would change all that. Five people were injured, but hers were the most serious: a three to four inch nail entered her arm and severed a brachial artery. When Mayor Bill Campbell mentioned her by name everyone suddenly knew her sercret, including her employer who fired her. She later told The Advocate, “The company ended up giving me some hush money just to make me go away.”

Police found a second bomb just outside the bar, which they detonated with a robot. It had been placed there to harm police and medical workers responding to the first explosion. That fit a pattern established with two earlier Atlanta bombings, one at the Centennial Olympic Park on July 27, 1996 and another at an Atlanta abortion clinic on January 16, 1997. Three days after the Otherside Lounge Bombing, police received a letter from an organization calling themselves The Army of God claiming responsibility. The letter threatened “total war” and promised more attacks against abortion clinics and gay people.

In 1998, Federal Authorities charged Eric Rudolph with the three Atlanta bombings and a fourth one at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. They spent the next four and a half years looking for him around the town of Murphy, North Carolina, where Randolph spent his teenage years. Murphy residents printed teeshirts reading “Run, Rudolph Run.” He was finally captured there on May 31, 2003. He was well-groomed and well-fed, suggesting he had help in Murphy. On August 13, 2005, Rudolph pleaded guilty to all four bombings in a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid the death penalty. In an eleven page statement, he wrote, “Whether it is gay marriage, homosexual adoption, hate crimes laws including gays, or the attempt to introduce a homosexual normalizing curriculum into our schools, all of these efforts should be ruthlessly opposed.” He also said that the attack on The Otherside Lounge was “meant to send a powerful message in protest of Washington’s continued tolerance and support for the homosexual political agenda.” He is currently serving four life sentences.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Alan Chambers: 1972. Exodus International president Alan Chambers yesterday tweeted out that today is his big 4-0. I don’t know whether he finds these kind of milestones difficult (Chambers doesn’t strike me as the sort of person to obsess over these things, but I don’t know him personally), but I can say that as someone who crossed the half-century mark more than a year ago that forty is no big deal. Life for many begins at 40. It did for me. That’s when I made the first steps toward coming out of the closet.

AZ Sheriff, Ex-Boyfriend Appear On CNN

Pinal County, Arizona, Sheriff Paul Babeu appeared with CNN’s Wolfe Blitzer today for an extensive interivew. In this clip, he says he supports marriage equality as an issue that should be left up to the states. I haven’t been able to find any position he might have taken on Arizona’ Prop 102 in 2008. (Gay rights, it should be noted, is not a topic that comes up very often in sheriff races.)

With his outing over the weekend and this statement to the press, I really have my doubts that Babeu will win his primary. The Congressional seat he’s running for in south-central/western AZ is very, very different from the one Jim Kolbe, the last openly-gay Republican in Congress, held in Southestern Arizona and East Tucson. Kolbe’s seat was a swing seat alongside the border. which, ironically, is not as upset over immigration issues as other districts further away. (In Arizona, it seems the further north you go from the border, the more freaked out people get over immigration, with the notable exception of Flagstaff which is generally pretty easy-going.) The seat Babeu’s running for is much, much more like Imperial Valley in its politics, and frankly I’m not even sure he could win as Sheriff of Pinal County again, at least for the time being.

In the next statement, he denies threatening “Jose” with reporting him to INS.

UPDATE: “Jose” appeared on CNN and stands by his allegations. He also says his immigration status is current and he has a 10-year, US tourist visa that allows him to cross the border. That’s a very common visa for Mexicans living along the border to hold.

Nowhere to Run, Nowhere To Hide

The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009. (Click to download, PDF: 847KB/16 pages)

Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been re-introduced into Parliament and is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. As the Committee considers what to do with the bill, there has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other seventeen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In this series, we will examine the original text of bill’s eighteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

As we’ve seen so far in this series examining Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, the dangers that this bill poses extend far, far beyond the gay community itself. It threatens anyone who in any way come in contact (even literally) with gay people. Clause 11 provides yet another danger this bill would pose to just about anyone:

11. Brothels.
(1) A person who keeps a house, room,set of rooms or place of any kind for the purposes of homosexuality commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years.

2) A person being the owner or occupier of premises or having or acting or assisting in the management or control of the premises, induces or knowingly suffers any man or woman to resort to or be upon such premises for the purpose of being unlawfully and carnally known by any man or woman of the same sex whether such carnal knowledge is intended to be with any particular man or woman generally, commits a felony and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for five years.

The title of the clause names brothels, ordinarily understood as houses of ill-repute, places of prostitution. But the subclauses below it suggest nothing of the kind. They don’t mention prostitution, making money from sex, charging money for sex, arranging or accommodating for sex-for-pay, or anything else that one might associate with running a brothel. But among the things this clause does prohibit is renting a home, a room or even lending a spare bed to anyone who is gay. That act would expose them to the danger of being imprisoned for ether five or seven years, depending on how the police and prosecution decide to press charges. Homeowners, landlords, hotel owners, hostel operators, or just someone (even a relative) offering guest accommodations to gay visitors can find themselves in trouble with the law. In the worst possible scenario, this clause could also be used to prosecute those who provide safe houses for gay Ugandans who are in hiding for their own safety.

If the goal of this bill is to drive all LGBT Ugandans out of the country, this clause alone would be one way to do it. After all, if it becomes impossible to find a place to live because the property owner could be jailed if authorities found out you were gay, where could you go? Back home to your family? Think again:

14. Failure to disclose the offence.
A person in authority, who being aware of the commission of any offence under this Act, omits to report the offence to the relevant authorities within twenty-four hours of having first had that knowledge, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty currency points or imprisonment not exceeding three years.

Clause 1 defines “authority” this way:

“authority” means having power and control over other people because of your knowledge and official position; and shall include a person who exercises religious. political, economic or social authority;

Again, it’s the definition’s broadness which invites trouble. Because of the “social authority” invested by Ugandan society in family ties, relatives fall under the requirement to report their loved ones to police within twenty-four hours of discovering they were gay. As Makarere University Law Professor Sylvia Tamale pointed out during a public debate on the bill in 2009:

The bill requires family members to “spy” on one another.  This provision obviously does not strengthen the family unit in the manner that Hon. Bahati claims his bill wants to do, but rather promotes the breaking up of the family.  This provision further threatens relationships beyond family members.  What do I mean?  If a gay person talks to his priest or his doctor in confidence, seeking advice, the bill requires that such person breaches their trust and confidentiality with the gay individual and immediately hands them over to the police within 24 hours.  Failure to do so draws the risk of arrest to themselves.  Or a mother who is trying to come to terms with her child’s sexual orientation may be dragged to police cells for not turning in her child to the authorities.  The same fate would befall teachers, priests, local councilors, counselors, doctors, landlords, elders, employers, MPs, lawyers, etc.

She also points out that this clause opens up family members to potential abuse, blackmail and extortion. Logic would have it that if family members could be blackmailed, then landlords and hotel owners could also fall prey. Pay up, or we’ll report you along with the gay people you’re harboring.

So, you can’t rent a home, you can’t return to your family, what’s next? Go abroad?

16. Extra- Territorial Jurisdiction.
This Act shall apply to offenses committed outside Uganda where –

(a) a person who, while being a citizen of or permanently residing in Uganda, commits an act outside Uganda, which act would constitute an offence under this Act had it been committed in Uganda; or

(b) the offence was committed partly outside and or partly in Uganda.

17. Extradition.
A person charged with an offence under this Act shall be liable to extradition under the existing extradition laws.

That’s right. Uganda reserves the right to prosecute Ugandans living abroad with crimes under the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Extradition is normally reserved for the most serious felonies — murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, etc. It’s likely that very few nations would extradite a gay Ugandan from their borders. But many nations have deported Ugandans back to their home country after denying them asylum. Gay Ugandans in this scenario, even if they had been squeaky-clean back home, could be charged for anything they had done outside of Uganda.

(The scope of clauses 16 and 17 are so broad that we will return to them again later in this series.)

When the bill went to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee during the Eighth Parliament, they recommended keeping Clause 11. But they found Clause 14 “will create absurdities and the provision will be too hard to implement.” They recommended deleting Clause 14, along with Clauses 16 and 17, of which they said “the practical enforcement and implementation of the provision will be difficult.” But the Eighth Parliament ended before the committee’s recommendations could be accepted in a floor vote. The original bill, which was reintroduced earlier this month into the Ninth Parliament, is back in the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee for further consideration. And with it, these four clauses are again under scrutiny.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”
Clauses 5 and 6: Anyone Can Be A Victim (And Get Out Of Jail Free If You Act Fast)
Clauses 7 and 14: Anyone Can “Aid And Abet”
Clauses 8 to 10: A Handy Menu For “Victims” To Choose From
Clauses 11, 14, 16 and 17: Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t Only To Report Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition

The Daily Agenda for Monday, February 20

Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Roy Cohn: 1927. Could there be a more despicable character in all of gay history? The Columbia Law grad showed signs of legal brilliance early, having been admitted to the bar at twenty-one, becoming an Assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan and playing a prominent role in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1951. In 1952, Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) appointed him as chief counsel to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on the recommendation of FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, where Cohn became known for his aggressive questioning of suspected Communists. Cohn brought in his good friend, David Schine as consultant to McCarthy’s staff. But when the young and handsome Schine was drafted into the army in 1953, Cohn embarked on a private campaign to ensure special treatment for Schine — light duties, extra leave, an exemption from overseas assignment — and threatened to “wreck the Army” if they didn’t accede to his demands. The bitter irony of all this is that while Cohn was pursuing special treatment for his special friend, McCarthy’s witch hunt extended beyond communists to also include gay people (See, for example, July 2, July 15, July 18, Sept 7).

Roy Cohn and David Schine on the cover of Time.

By 1954, McCarthy’s anti-communist and anti-gay witchhunt extended to the Army, which decided to fight back. During one exchange during a committee hearing, the Army’s head counsel, Joseph Welch, asked a McCarthy staffer about the origin of a photon that included a picture of Schine and Army Secretary Robert Stevens, which had been doctored to omit the presence of Air Force Colonel Jack Bradley. Welch asked the  staffer sarcastically, “Did you think it came from a pixie?” McCarthy interjected, “Will counsel (Welch) for my benefit define– I think he might be an expert on that– what a pixie is?” Welch responded, “Yes. I should say, Mr. Senator, that a pixie is a close relative of a fairy.” Others in the chamber who were in on the rumors, broke into laughter. Cohn later called the remark, “malicious,” “wicked,” and “indecent.”

Roy Cohn, four months before he died in 1986.

Cohn later forced to resign from McCarthy’s staff due to growing outrage over his tactics. He returned to New York and entered private practice, where his clients included mafia figures, the New York Yankees, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, and Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. He was friends with Barbara Walters (she served as his “beard” for a while), columnist Walter Wenchell, and North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms. While publicly closeted and working actively against gay rights, he partied at the best gay bars and threw lavish parties in New York and Provincetown. In 1984, he was diagnosed with AIDS. He used his connections to jump to the head of the line for treatment with the then-scarce and experimental AZT. By the time he died in 1986, he maintained his public denial both of his homosexuality and his disease — he said it was “cancer.” In Tony Kushner’s Angels In America, Cohn is portrayed as a power hungry, self-loathing hypocrite who is dying of AIDS while haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg. Cohn’s name is also on a panel of the AIDS memorial quilt. It reads, “Roy Cohn: Bully, Coward, Victim.” A fitting eulogy if there ever was one.

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

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, February 19

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Celebrations This Weekend: Road Runner Regional Gay Rodeo, Chandler, AZ; Rainbow Reykjavik, Iceland; Sitges Carnival, Sitges, Spain; and Out In the Desert Film Festival, Tucson, AZ.

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
The following letter to the editor appeared in the February  1884 edition of the journal Alienist and Neurologist (an alienist is an archaic term for a psychiatrist). The letter was notable for two reasons. Nearly all letters to the editor were routinely signed, but this one is kept anonymous. And it is also a very rare early example of an American writer, apparently a professional, asking whether men who don’t conform to the rigid gender roles of the day should be left alone (or at least relatively alone) and not treated as a criminal:

MR. EDITOR: — Will you kindly permit me to say a few words about Sexual Perversion, in reply to Dr. Rice’s paper. The latter says that it has but little forensic interest in this country, and I beg to differ with him. In the first place, it is quite generally admitted that lunatics and maniacs are not responsible, and irresponsible people are not to be punished for a thing that they cannot help doing.

When a man dons female attire, or vice versa, he either has an object or he has none. If he has an object, it may be good, bad or indifferent. If it is to conceal past crime, or as an aid to future crime, it is bad, and deserves punishment. If he seeks the disguise to enable him to ferret out a crime, the object is praiseworthy, — detectives are allowed it. In the third case, it must be said that the sole object is pleasure or satisfaction of some sort. Crime may be a pleasure to some, but if we exclude all evil intent, is it not harmless? Another case that resembles, sometimes one and sometimes another of the above, is when it is done for a livelihood; women give this as an excuse, a plea to be allowed men’s dress; men rarely.

Quite a large number of cases are occurring in all large cities, of persons arrested for dressing like the opposite sex. But few are criminals; many are highly respectable and honorable. Should they be punished as criminals? If the object is good, No! If bad, Yes! If neither, what then?

It is self-evident that no sane man will take the pains and go to the expense of obtaining a full set of female attire, and persist in the practice of wearing it until he becomes expert in its uses, initiating himself into all the mysteries of a lady’s toilet, submitting voluntarily to the tortures of tight corsets and high-heeled boots and false hair, hoops, pull-backs and frizzes, unless impelled thereto by some motive stronger than mere mischief. There can be no doubt in my mind that such a miserable being deserves pity rather than punishment. There have been several arrests in this city within five or six years for wearing female attire, and I believe nearly all the victims belonged to that innocent class, since no other object or purpose was ever proved against them.

Why should it be a crime, to dress as you please? The dress itself inflicts punishment enough on its wearer. No one but the wearer is injured, nor need others be any the wiser for it. Certain it is that many of these poor people have suffered severe punishment at the hands of our judges, and with no one bold enough to defend them.

Is it not sad enough that they must suffer daily between two fires — love of this dress, and fear of punishment, which they have known to be swift and certain? Would the world be any the worse for allowing them this little modicum of comfort, the only pleasure they have in life, under proper restrictions? What these restrictions should be I am not prepared to say. Perhaps an asylum or retreat might be provided, where they could resort when these paroxysms came on, and there enjoy (?) in seclusion from the public eye, where the law could not reach them, such indulgences as might be deemed proper, or compelled to follow these practices until they were thoroughly cured of such desires. I know of one case, at least, that would be benefited, perhaps cured, by suitable treatment of this sort. I should be glad to hear the opinion of those of greater experience than myself.

E.J.H.

(From “E.J.H.” (Anonymous) “Correspondence” Alienist and Neurologist 5 no. 2 (February 1884): 351-352. All italics and parentheticals in the original.)

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AZ Sheriff Outed, Mexican Ex-Boyfriend Says He Threatened Him With Deportation

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu

Jeez, I live in a God-forsaken freakshow of a state.

Pinal County, Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu, who made national headlines for his strident anti-immigration stance, threatened his Mexican male lover with deportation when the ex refused to promise never to disclose their long-term relationship. The details were provided in an article published in the Phoenix New Times this week. Today, Babeu acknowledged that he is, in fact, gay, but denied all of the other allegations published in the Phoenix paper.

According to the New Times:

He (Babeu’s ex-lover) says lawyer Chris DeRose demanded he sign an agreement that he would never breathe a word about the affair. But Jose (New Times is withholding his last name because Babeu and his attorney have challenged his legal status) refused.

The 34-year-old from central Mexico charges that the sheriff’s lawyer warned against mentioning the affair with Babeu. DeRose said gossip about Babeu would focus attention on Jose, attention that could result in his deportation, Jose says.

Melissa Weiss-Riner, Jose’s attorney, confirms her client’s account.

She says she spoke directly to the sheriff’s lawyer, DeRose, about the Babeu camp’s threats that Jose could be deported if he “revealed the relationship.” She says DeRose falsely claimed that Jose’s visa had expired.

“Jose came to our firm because he felt he was being intimidated, and he was in fear for his life,” Weiss-Riner says. “He wanted his legal rights protected.”

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu

“Jose” says he and Babeu met in 2006 on gay.com. As the relationship grew, Jose created and maintained Babeu’s campaign websites and social media. New Times published text messages and voice mail exchanged between Jose and Babeu in 2011 soon after the relationship soured. The relationship fell apart when Jose found Babeu’s profile on adam4adam.com. Jose created a fake profile posing as “Matt” and soon Babeu began sending him explicit photos and messages. New Times provides the details of those messages and photos here.

In 2010, the Pinal County Sheriff’s office gained national attention when Deputy Louie Puroll claimed that he was ambushed in the desert by Mexican drug runners. Babeu became a regular feature on Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, stoking anti-immigrant hysteria that had, by then, led to Arizona’s passage of Senate Bill 1070, the so-called “show me your papers” bill. He also appeared in a commercial with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) demanding that the feds “build the danged fence.” Babeu continued to stand behind his deputy even after the story began falling apart. When Puroll later told a reporter that a drug smuggler threatened to kill the reporter, Babeu fired his deputy because the alleged incident hadn’t been reported to superiors. Just last week, Babeu gave a rabble-rousing speech at the right-wing CPAC conference.

In a news conference today, Babeu admitted that he was gay, and said that he was stepping down as Arizona co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. Babeu also admitted to having had a personal relationship with Jose, and also did not deny the text messages or photos that were published in New Times, which include some of the threats he made to Jose.

According to the Arizona Republic, a reporter was meeting with Babeu Friday just as the New Times story went online. With the reporter present, Babeu read the story on his smartphone, “shaking his head as he read. Afterward, his face appeared to strain with emotion.”

Babeu is currently running for Congress against fellow Republicans Rep. Paul Gosar and State Sen. Ron Gould for Arizona’s new 4th Congressional District in central and western Arizona. Pinal County is located between Tucson and Phoenix. Babeu and his DeRose say that they don’t think the story will impact his campaign. Babeu said, “My personal life is exactly that.”

The fallout from this scandal may spread far beyond Babeu and Jose. Openly gay state Rep. Matt Heinz (D-Tucson), who is running to fill the recently-vacated Congressional seat of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was one of just two Democratic lawmakers to vote to give the Pinal County Sheriff’s office $5 million to combat “border violence,” even though Pinal County is more than 70 miles from the border. The legislature later scaled back the appropriation to $1.7 million. A week after Heinz’s vote, the Babeu spent the night at Heinz’s home:

“I’m at Mat Heinz and his boyfriend for dinner & ice cream… we are going out to bar and … to their house. [Am] staying over,” Babeu texted to Jose at 1:04 a.m. last April 2.

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, February 18

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Love Won Out Ex-Gay Conference: Atlanta, GA. Exodus International is taking their Love Won Out traveling infomercial to the Atlanta suburb of Villa Rico, for an all-day sales pitch for those “struggling with homosexuality.” They will be met by a contingent of people who aren’t struggling in the least with their homosexuality, as Wayne Besen’s Truth Wins Out is teaming up with the Southern Poverty Law Center for a protest beginning at 10:00 a.m. at the conference venue, with an “early bird” shift assembling at 7:00 a.m. to greet conference participants as they arrive.

Celebrations This Weekend: Road Runner Regional Gay Rodeo, Chandler, AZ; Rainbow Reykjavik, Iceland; Sitges Carnival, Sitges, Spain; and Out In the Desert Film Festival, Tucson, AZ.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Marquess of Queensbury Accuses Oscar Wilde of Being a Sodomite: 1895. British playwright Oscar Wilde was dining at the Albermarle Club when the Marquess of Queensbury left a calling card with the porter. It read, “To Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite.” The misspelling may have been the product of Queensbury’s rage over the relationship between Wilde and his son, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas. Queensbury had ferocious arguments with his son, trying to get him to stop seeing Wilde, but Bosie refused. Queensbury even threatened to go public with what he knew, but Bosie refused to back down. So on February 18, 1895, Queensbury followed through on his threat.

This action led to a long string of events which eventually led to Wilde’s disgrace, imprisonment, exile in France, and early death. Perhaps all that could have been avoided if Wilde had decided not to sue Queensbury for libel. His friends advised him against it, but he may have felt he had little choice. Having been called out publicly like that, declining to sue might be taken as an admission of guilt. Unfortunately, Wilde’s libel case collapsed when Queensbury’s lawyer asked whether he had ever kissed Walter Grainger in greeting. “Oh, dear no,” Wilde replied, “He was a peculiarly plain boy. He was unfortunately extremely ugly. I pitied him for it.”

Queensbury’s lawyer pounced on Wilde’s admission that attraction was the reason he didn’t kiss him.  In short order, Wilde lost the case, and was charged with gross indecency. Wilde’s first criminal trial ended in a hung jury but the second one resulted in Wilde’s conviction and sentence to two years at hard labor.

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).

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Canada corrects divorce snafu

Back in January there was ten seconds of panic when it appeared that the Conservative government might seek to invalidate same-sex marriages of non-Canadians. It proved to be either confusion or naive zealousness on the part of a government lawyer and not some plot on the part of Steven Harper and the Conservative leadership to undermine marriage equality.

As it turned out, the problem arose because Canadian law allows for non-residents to marry in Canada, but not divorce. This isn’t generally a problem as divorce isn’t exactly a destination-based activity (“no honey, let’s get divorced on a beach in Hawai’i”) and tend to file papers where they live. But same-sex couples who live in locals that don’t recognize their marriages were left in a strange limbo, married in some places, single in others, but unable to divorce anywhere.

The government promised to fix the legal glitch and confirm that they do recognize Canadian weddings between same-sex foreigners. They have now submitted a bill to do that.

According to the Vancouver Sun, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson stated that the bill was presented to fix “an anomaly in our civil-marriage laws” and that it would validate the marriages in question and that Canada would allow non-resident same-sex couples to divorce if the were married in Canada and unable to divorce in their place of residency.

Mormons for Marriage concerned about possible church involvement in Washington state

After the black eye that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints received in the days and months following the passage of Proposition 8, I thought that they would do everything they could to avoid controversy or assume an anti-gay visible presence in the future.

Ever aware of how they have been perceived, the Mormons have for decades worked towards a public image as “good honest friendly neighbor” and suddenly finding themselves known to half the population as “the meanie who takes away rights” left them flailing and in confusion as how to respond. And what with a decent chance of having a Mormon in the White House, I seriously doubted that they would take any stance that could reflect negatively on anyone.

But I may be wrong.

Mormons for Marriage, an organization of faithful who support inclusion of gay people in civil marriage law, are reporting that opponents of the law are meeting with Mormon leadership.

Less than 24 hours after personally filing Referendum 74 with the Washington state attorney general’s office, Joseph Backholm of the Family Policy Institute of Washington and John Paulton of Focus on the Family met with “Mormon Church Leaders” in Washington. A staffer at the Family Policy Institute initially disclosed the meeting by phone, the meeting was later confirmed directly by Joseph Backholm.

It isn’t known what was requested, promised or denied. However, in California we learned that a request from the Prophet will get Mormon volunteers in the streets, making calls, giving money. Let’s keep an eye on this development.

Justice Department Won’t Defend Law Prohibiting Benefits for Married Gay Troops

US Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that the Justice Department will not defend Title 38, which prohibits married gay troops from receiving housing,medial, family separation, disability and death compensation benefits. Citing a similar announcement a year ago in which Holder determined that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act would not stand up to heightened scrutiny and was therefore indefensible as constitutional, Holder said that the same standard should apply to the case of McLaughlin v Panetta as well, which challenges the exclusion of benefits to gay couples in the military solely on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Holder made the announcement in a letter to Congress (PDF: 1504KB/2 pages, via SLDN):

McLaughlin presents a challenge, among other things, to provisions of Title 38 that are the equivalent to Section 3 of DOMA. Like Section 3, the provisions of Title 38 challenged in McLaughlin classify on the basis of sexual orientation, by denying veterans’ benefits to legally married same-sex married couples for which opposite-sex married couples would be eligible. Also like Section 3, these provisions as applied to legally married same-sex couples cannot survive heightened scrutiny because they are not “substantially related to an important government objective.” Clark v. Jeter, 486 U.S. 456,461 (1988). Under heightened scrutiny, “a tenable justification must describe actual state purposes, not rationalizations for actions in fact differently grounded.” United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515,535-36 (1996). “The justification must be genuine, not hypothesized or invented post hoc in response to litigation.” ld. at 533. The legislative record of these provisions contains no rationale for providing veterans ‘ benefits to opposite-sex spouses of veterans but not to legally married same-sex spouses of veterans. Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Veterans Affairs identified any justifications for that distinction that could warrant treating these provisions differently from Section 3 of DOMA.

I have accordingly determined that 38 U.S.C. § 101(3) and 38 U.S.c. § 101(31), as applied to same-sex couples who are legally married under state law, violate the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. My determination is confined to the defense of those particular provisions against challenge under the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment, and does not implicate the other challenges raised by the plaintiffs in McLaughlin.

The Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson observes:

Holder’s decision is likely to have a bearing on another lawsuit challenging Title 38 and DOMA,  Cooper Harris v. United States. The lawsuit was filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center earlier this month on behalf of Tracey Cooper-Harris, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran who’s seeking disability benefits for her spouse.

Holder’s letter essentially places the ball in House Speaker John Boehner’s court to decide whether Congress wants to take up the challenge of defending Title 38 in court. Boehner has already authorized the defense of DOMA on behalf of the House of Representatives.

The names are released

After two years battling in the courts, those who put their signature on the line to subject their neighbors’ rights to public refutation are known.

For two years the anti-gay movement has argued in the courts that those who stand up for morality and let their voice be heard for righteousness and put their reputation behind their values should remain anonymous lest they be seen, recognized and have their reputation impacted by their action. Their position was that they should be entitled to work to eliminate the rights of gay people to the laws that impact how businesses deal with couples, but that it should be done in secret lest it hurt their business. They argued that they were right to seek to destabilize gay families, but that having it be known would unfairly destabilize their families. They argued that it was their Christian duty to condemn abominable sinners who corrupt youth and are all pedophiles who die at age 42 anyway, but that if it were to get out that they signed the petition that someone might call them a bigot! Right there in the grocery store! A bigot! And so they are entitled to the very extra-special right to be exempt of all consequences that come from advocating for mistreatment of gay people.

Okay, those weren’t their exact arguments, but honestly they also aren’t that far off.

But unable to convince courts that you should be entitled to secrecy lest the victims of your animus become offended, and unable to drag this any further in court, the folks who put Referendum 71 on the ballot lost. And since the data was not in the physical possession of the National Organization for Marriage (who would simply refuse to provide it) finally the names of the signatories have been made public.

WhoSigned.org

Be nice, people. We win no battles by calling people names or threatening them; that only fuels their absurd claims. (“I hope you die a horrible death and rot in Hell” only becomes a “death threat” in the hands of anti-gay activists looking for “evidence” that Tey Gheys are violent and intolerant.)

But if you see someone you know, someone who likes you and doesn’t want to do you harm, this might be an opportunity to talk to them in measured and preplanned terms about how the effort to exclude you from the promises in your constitution hurts and diminishes you. Let them know that you are aware they didn’t mean to insult you personally, but when they take steps to carve out exceptions and say that equality is for everyone but people like you that it’s hard not to take it personally. It impacts you as a person.

And maybe, just maybe, this time around Aunt Thelma, can your love and duty to your niece be stronger than your love and duty to the politics of your priest? He’ll get over it, it doesn’t impact his life in the slightest. But you, … well, if she thinks so little of you that she cares more for her pastor’s approval than the real harm done in your life, then maybe this is good-bye.

Without anger.
Lovingly.
Please.

Christie Vetoes New Jersey Marriage Bill

As expected, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie today vetoed the marriage equality bill that passed the House yesterday and the Senate on Monday. In his veto message, Christie asserted that civil unions should be just as good as marriage, and that “Discrimination should not be tolerated and any complaint alleging a violation of a citizen’s right should be investigated and, if appropriate, remedied.” He also continue to insist that putting American citizens’ rights up to a vote is the best way to deal with this issue, and suggested appointing an ombudsman to address problems with New Jersey’s civil union law.

You know, if he had just let the bill become law after 45 days without a signature, Garden Staters wouldn’t have a use for an ombudsman. Christie’s suggestion is pure nonsense. The mere fact that Christie thinks its a good idea to appoint an ombudsman for civil unions is prima facie evidence that civil unions aren’t equal to marriage.

But hey. At least he won’t have a Romney-style marriage problem when he runs for president in 2016. His career is still in the clear.

UPDATE: Garden State Equality’s Steven Goldstein reacted to Christie’s ombudsman proposal:

In vetoing the marriage equality bill, Governor Christie’s offer to create a civil union ombudsman is the very essence of the political theatre he decries.

How in the world would a civil union ombudsman enforce the civil union law for New Jersey couples who work in New York, a state that recognizes marriage equality – would New York State actually deputize a New Jersey civil union ombudsman to work within its own borders?   How in the world would a civil union ombudsman deal with the children being raised by same-sex couples – children stigmatized at school by questions about the perceived inferiority of their families because of the second-class civil union label?   How in the world would a civil union ombudsman deal with the assault on the dignity faced by civil union couples by hospitals and employers who understand the civil union law perfectly well – but sneer at the relationship of couples who aren’t married?

A civil union ombudsman might well be the country’s first-ever Enforcer of Discrimination – and worse.   A civil union ombudsman is nothing more than the shameless dressing up of a veto of people’s dignity and equality – the equivalent of gold-plating a separate water fountain for a specific class of people.

In my opinion, Christie’s ombudsman idea is just as looney as his suggestion that we would have been better off if African-Americans’ civil rights had been put to a popular vote in the South during the 1960s.

Maryland House Passes Marriage Equality

The Maryland House of Delegates this afternoon passed the Civil Marriage Protection Act by a vote of 71-67. The bill now goes to the Senate. I don’t have a breakdown of the vote, but will try to get it as soon as I can.

Update: Washington Blade’s Phil Reese adds:

Del. Tiffany Alston’s (D-Prince George’s) vote in favor of the bill proved critical to its passage. Del. Sam Arora (D-Mont. Co.), a former supporter of the bill, voted against it.

Alston’s opposition last year played a key role in sinking a similar bill, as was Sam Arora’s, whose turncoat opposition outraged many LGBT constituents in Montgomery County who worked for his election on his promise to support marriage equality. He even co-sponsored the bill when it was introduced, only to turn his back on his constituents and abruptly announce his opposition to his own bill.

Update: [tk] The official vote count has been amended to be 72-67. Also a late amendment set the effective date back from October to January 2013, at the request of Delegate Wade Kach, (R-Baltimore County). I assume that Kach did not want the change to go into effect immediately before the voters went to the polls.

The Blaze confirms that federal directives mandate the contents of sack lunches at West Hoke Elementary

The Blaze, a conservative news site created by Glenn Beck, is reporting that a second mother at West Hoke Elementary is claiming that due to government inspection, the a cheese and salami sandwich on a wheat bun with apple juice she sent to school with her daughter was replaced with chicken nuggets, a sweet potato, bread and milk.

Diane Zambrano says her 4-year-old daughter, Jazlyn, is in the same West Hoke Elementary School class as the little girl whose lunch gained national attention earlier this week. When Zambrano picked Jazlyn up from school late last month, she was told by Jazlyn’s teacher that the lunch she had packed that day did not meet the necessary guidelines and that Jazlyn had been sent to the cafeteria.
…
When Jazlyn said she didn’t eat what her mother had made her, Zambrano went to her teacher and demanded to know what happened. She said the teacher told her an official had come through that day to inspect students’ lunches and that those who were lacking certain food groups were sent to the cafeteria. After she received her cafeteria food, the teacher told Zambrano, Jazlyn was told to put her homemade lunch back in her lunchbox and set it on the floor.

Zambrano said the teacher told her it was not the first time student lunches have been inspected, and that officials come “every so often.”

As this is a ideology driven publication, one must be mindful to separate fact from opinion or spin. One must not, however, dismiss the facts because they don’t like the source. In addition to the woman’s story, The Blaze published a memo that appears to verify that home prepared school lunches are being subjected to state-agency inspection and that the school determines what parent-provided lunches are acceptable based on federal government directives.

It would appear that:

• In North Carolina, the contents of home prepared lunches are part of the consideration in maintaining a state license.
• Lunches prepared by parents must (the school’s word) comply with USDA Meal Guidelines and contain one serving of milk, two servings of fruit or vegetables, one serving of grain, and one serving of meat or meat substitute.
• If a home prepared lunch does not include “the correct selection of food”, students will be “offered the missing portions which may result in a fee from the cafeteria.”

There has not, to my knowledge, been any dispute about whether the West Hoke Elementary cafeteria provides lunches in which chicken nuggets are featured. It has also been asserted that their items also include tater tots, fried foods, pizza, and donuts. While this has not been specifically confirmed for West Hoke, these additional items would not be out of the ordinary for American schools.

Other details in the story have been investigated by McClatchy News Service (Sacramento Bee, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, etc.), a newspaper group which was lauded for journalistic independence due to investigating and publishing the perspectives of dissidents and doubters in the buildup to the Iraq war.

An agent from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Child Development and Early Education was at the school Jan. 30 assessing the pre-kindergarten program, said Bob Barnes, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for Hoke County schools.

The agent examined the lunches for the six students in the class and believed one did not meet nutritional requirements spelled out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Barnes said.

This appears to be in conflict with the North Carolina Health and Human Resources letter stating that it is not DHHS’s policy to inspect, go through or question any child about food items brought from home” and that “no DHHS employee or contractor did this.”

But whether or not DHHS employees did or did not personally go through the sack lunches of children is, to me, not the most important element of this story. What bothers me is the following:

• the federal government has established guidelines which are being applied far beyond any funded federal program and which are being used to dictate to parents what they must feed their children.
• schools are punished or rewarded based on parental compliance to a component and quantity tick-list which seems to have no measurement of the quality or nutritional value of foods or make provisions for specific individual needs.
• agents visit schools to, at least in part, make certain that they comply with the tick-list.
• this state enforced federal mandate has resulted in reported incidents in which the nutritional quality of food consumed by some children was significantly diminished.

And perhaps most disturbing about the whole situation is the unquestioned assumption that meeting federal guidelines is a goal worth achieving. Says who?

Because the federal government declares that a lunch must contain a specific list of elements, it is presumed that this list was prepared in an unbiased, child-focused, fair manner and that the policy was prepared while respecting parents rights and the needs of individuals, and prioritizing health. Further, it is taken for granted that the implementation of the policy is not impacted by corporate food conglomerates, food preparer unions, commodities lobbyists, financial pressures, or bureaucratic mindset.

Now I don’t dispute that a diet needs to be rounded and nutritionally based. And I have respect for dietitians and good-food advocates. While I find his approach a bit too skewed for television entertainment, I have great respect for what Jamie Oliver is trying to do.

But West Hoke is feeding children chicken nuggets.

I don’t know what brand of nuggets the children are receiving. Some use whole breast chicken, some use a paste made of left-over parts and fillers, and the former are far more expensive than the latter. But none of them can be considered a good choice for nutrition.

For example, Tyson Chicken Nuggets, a premier brand that features 100% chicken, provides in an adult size portion (five) which contains 290 calories (200 from fat), 22 grams of fat, 600 milligrams of sodium, but only 11 grams of protein. Thus the “protein” component of the USDA approved diet would provide on its own 34% of an adult’s recommended daily fat, 25% of recommended sodium, but only 22% of daily recommended protein and that’s the reason it’s on the plate.

But somehow this fits the USDA mandate of “lean meat, poultry, or fish without bone” and that makes it okay.

Some of my outrage is worldview. I resist governmental intervention, mandates, directives, and lists. I can’t think of many examples in which involvement with the government has personally been a rewarding experience.

But I recognize the necessity for some uniformity, rules, and bureaucracy. I don’t know how giving out $88 parking tickets for an expired meter in a row of empty spaces improves anyone’s life, but I live with it as a part of having stability and in avoiding chaos on the roads. I’m not sure why my postal delivery guy hasn’t figured out yet the concept that my mail should be put in my mailbox even if the sender leaves off the last digit, but I can just have everything sent electronically and I’m sure that the postal service is providing a livelihood to someone who is otherwise unemployable.

But not everyone is like me or shares my perspective. Some enjoy the comfort of knowing that someone is watching out for the children. There are bad guys out there and even simple ignorance and laziness can do harm. A government that monitors the actions of its citizens can provide ease of mind to those who believe that well administered programs care and provide for those who would be left helpless without a strong and vibrant centralized and regulated society.

So, in recognition of diverse views, I’ll concede that perhaps a case could be made that there are times when in the interest of protecting the next generation some agent of government – one which is subject to public questioning and election repercussions – should step in to ensure that children are receiving healthy food.

But he best not be serving chicken nuggets or have donut crumbs on his tie.