Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyNovember 10th, 2011
The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA) this morning on a 10-8 vote after two hours of debate. The RMA would not only repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), it would also require the federal government to recognize the marriage of any couple “valid in the state where the marriage was entered into.” This provision would also apply even if the couple lived in a state where the marriage wasn’t recognized.
The Washington Blade reported yesterday that three amendments had been proposed to the bill. But in today’s hearing, ranking minority committee member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said, “We know where the votes are,” and declined to offer the amendments.
A similar bill to repeal DOMA has been introduced in the House, but the GOP-controlled chamber is not expected to take up the bill.
Update: Here’s a video of Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) fact-checking Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on the supposedly unchanging definition of marriage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btZiyGQZk8sNovember 10th, 2011
Sidney Nsubuga Enoch (L), convicted and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for the murder of gay rights advocate David Kato. (Daily Monitor / Johnson Mayamba)
Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, reports that Sydney Nsubuga Enoch, who had plead guilty to murdering LGBT advocate David Kato, was sentenced to thirty years in prison. The African blog Behind the Mask also reports.
Justice Joseph Mulangira sentenced Nsubuga, on his own plea of guilty, for the murder of the gay rights activist on January 26, 2011 at his home in Mukono district.
Nsubuga pleaded guilty to both the police and before a magistrate, before he was committed to the High Court to stand trial.
Under Uganda’s judicial systems capital offences such as murder, rape and defilement are only heard by the high court, although suspects are brought before magistrates and charges are read to them as investigations go on.
David Kato
Nsubuga had been arrested in February, just a week after Kato’s death. At the time, many LGBT activists in Uganda expressed doubts about the police investigation leading to the arrest. But in this article at Behind the Mask, Kato’s layer, Francis Onyango, expressed satisfaction with the unusually speedy trial and conviction of Nsubuga, which seems to have caught everyone off guard. “Even the witnesses, lawyers and families of the man never knew he was convicted and sentenced. But this is normal in a criminal trial,” he said.
Meanwhile, the account in Daily Monitor mirrors the story which had been spread by editors of the notorious Rolling Stone tabloid (no relation to the U.S. publication by the same name), which sought to place the blame on the murder of Kato himself. In this latest account from Daily Monitor, “The police issued a statement to the effect that Kato’s killing was no way related to his campaign for gay rights.” LGBT activists in Uganda disputed that assertion.
The suddenness of today’s proceedings before anyone was even notified of the trial and sentencing only added to those doubts. Frank Mugisha, who is in Washington, D.C. to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award today, posted on his Facebook page, “It is disheartening that this trial happened secretly and hurriedly with out any one knowing about it and leaves many questions unanswered.”
Front cover of the Oct 2, 2010 edition of Rolling Stone, featuring a photo of David Kato (left) and Bishop Christopher Senyonjo (right). (Click to enlarge.)
Davik Kato Kisule, the Advocacy and Litigation Officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda, was found in his home on January 26, 2011, after having been beaten in the head with a hammer or blunt object. Residents told police that they saw a man entering David’s house, and then they saw him leaving dressed in the David’s shoes and a jacket that covered part of his face. Later, they became suspicious and went to check on David but found the door locked. After they forced their way in, they found him and rushed him to Mulago Hospital, but he died on the way.
The attack occurred a few months after David’s face appeared on the front page of the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone (no relation to the U.S. publication by the same name) under a headline that demanded “Hang Them!” Kato and others sued the paper, seeking damages and a permanent injunction against the paper’s “outing” campaign. Kato and the other plaintiffs prevailed, and Rolling Stone ceased publication shortly after.
November 10th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Senate Judiciary Committee to Hold Markup for DOMA Repeal: Washington, D.C. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an Executive Business Meeting this morning to go over, among other things, Senate Bill 598, known as the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. This bill was scheduled to be marked up last week, but Republicans on the panel forced a delay for a week. The Washington Blade has obtained copies of three proposed amendments:
Of the three amendments, only one is germane: a measure that would strike Section 2 of the Respect for Marriage Act. That portion of the bill enables federal benefits to flow to married gay couples even if they live in states that don’t recognize marriage equality. Under the bill as it currently stands, a couple could marry in a state such as New York, where same-sex marriage is legal and still receive federal benefits if they move to a state such as Michigan, which doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage. The other two have no relevance to the Respect for Marriage Act, but still can be offered under Senate rules, which allow non-germane amendments to legislation.
The committee, chaired by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) will meet at 10:00 a.m. in Hart Senate Office Building, room 216, and will be webcast here. The House version of the Respect for Marriage Act has 128 co-sponsors, but because the House is under Republican control, it is extremely unlikely it will take action on the bill.
Frank Mugisha to Receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award: Washington, D.C. Ugandan LGBT advocate Frank Mugisha will be presented the prestigious human rights award in a ceremony at the Kennedy Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building. The award will be presented by Kennedy’s widow, Ethel Kennedy, and Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
United States Conference on AIDS: Chicago, IL. Billed as the largest AIDS-related gathering in the U.S., the conference organized by the National Minority AIDS Council will kick off today, bringing together over 3,000 workers, including case managers, physicians, public health workers, advocates, people living with HIV/AIDS, and policy makers, to build national support networks, exchange the latest information and learn cutting-edge tools to address the challenges of HIV/AIDS. The three day conference begins today at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Phyllis Lyon: 1924. The Oklahoma native earned a degree in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley in 1946 and worked as a reporter for a California paper before moving to Seattle to work at a magazine in 1950. That’s where she met the love of her life, Del Martin. They became a couple in 1953 when they moved to San Francisco together. “We really only had problems our first year together,” she later told The Washington Post. “Del would leave her shoes in the middle of the room, and I’d throw them out the window.” Del responded “You’d have an argument with me and try to storm out the door. I had to teach you to fight back.” Their life together was all about fighting back. In 1955 Phyllis and Del, along with six other women, formed the Daughters of Bilitis, the first national lesbian organization in the U.S. Phyllis was the first editor of the DOB’s groundbreaking newsletter, The Ladder from 1956 to 1960, when Del took over. Pseudonyms were common then, and Phillis edited The Ladder as “Ann Ferguson” for the first few months, but she dropped it to encourage their readers not to hide. By October 1957, they had 400 subscribers across the country. In 1964, they helped found the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, bringing together national religious leaders and gay and lesbian activists for a national discussion of gay rights. Phyllis was also the first open lesbian to serve on the board of the National Organization for Women in 1973. Phyllis and Del were also active in San Francisco’s Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club.
On February 12, 2004, Phyllis and Del married for the first time when San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom ordered that marriage licenses be granted to same-sex couples. That marriage lasted until August 12, but not because the couple split up. That was when the California Supreme Court voided several thousand marriage licenses given to same-sex couples. Del and Phyllis were deeply dissapointed. “Del is 83 years old and I am 79,” she said. “After being together for more than 50 years, it is a terrible blow to have the rights and protections of marriage taken away from us. At our age, we do not have the luxury of time.”
But they had the luxury of just enough time. They were married again on June 16, 2008 after the California Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting same-sex marriage was against the state constitution. Del and Phyllis were given the honor of being the first same-sex couple to be married, and they wore the same outfits in which they were first married in 2004. Del passed away two months later, on August 27, 2008.
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).
As always, please consider this your open thread for the day.
November 9th, 2011
Organizers of Rainbow Toulouse had hoped that maybe a hundred people at the most might to show up in front of a small Evangelical church to protest a planned ex-gay seminar. Instead, they were pleasantly surprised to see between 200 and 300 protesters turning out. Michel Megnin, secretary of Rainbow Toulouse, called the showing “the most important LGBT gathering in Toulouse aside from Gay Pride.” Protesters denounced the ministry, saying “we are not sick.” Another sardonically noted the price of an ex-gay seminar that was scheduled for last weekend and said, “At €330 (US$400), I am too poor to become straight.”
The scheduled seminar, scheduled for last weekend, is affiliated with Andrew Comiskey’s Living Waters program in the U.S. Comiskey, a former president of Exodus International, has been aggressively expanding his Desert Stream Ministries and its Living Waters program in Canada and Europe. Former ex-gay leader Vonnie Pits issued an apology for her role in a Living Waters-based program she set up in New South Wales, Australia. Last year, Comiskey posted an admission on his blog that a staffer at DSM had sexually abused at least one teenager under their care. But instead of publicly apologizing for the appalling transgression or expressing anguish over the teen’s abuse, he talked about his own anguish over having been interrogated by police and liability insurers, and he thanked his god that “God spared us” from the humiliation of their story appearing in the newspapers. In 2005, DSM moved to Kansas City where Comiskey announcedhe was partnering with Dominionist theologian Mike Bickle (organizer of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s crusade in Houston) and the International House of Prayer. DSM reportedly uses “extreme methods that involve forms of exorcism (deliverance/healing prayer) and rely on teachings that believe that people become gay through demonic influences and the sins of ancestors.”
You can see a video testimony of an ex-gay survivor of Living Waters here.
November 9th, 2011
Responding to today’s Daily Agenda, a friend of mine sent me this video. He says it begins with a traditional Armenian dirge accompanied by a duduk, a traditional wind instrument, for about the first minute and forty-five seconds. And then suddenly….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsxMgUMjn8I have a feeling there are a million of these out there.
November 9th, 2011
Yesterday was a very good day for gay and -pro-gay candidates throughout the country. Here is a wrap-up. Please let me know what else is out there in the comments.
NOM Loses Big: Same-sex marriage remains secure in Iowa as Liz Mathis won big, 56-44%, over her NOM-backed opponent, Cindy Golding, in a special election for the Iowa state Senate. The National Organization for Marriage threw about $40,000 toward their failed attempt to elect Golding by making same-sex marriage an issue in the race. But soon after it was clear Golding lost, NOM’s cultural director Thomas Peters tweeted: “That’s what happens when a state GOP nominates a weak candidate.” Wow. Talk about your fair weather friends.
Virginia’s First: Adam Ebbin became the first openly gay state senator in Virginia after defeating his Republican challenger by a margin of 64-35%. His district, which is solidly Democratic, includes parts of Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax counties.
First Openly Gay, African-American Republican Mayor: At least that’s what we think happened when Bruce Harris was elected mayor of Chatham Borough, New Jersey.
Charlotte’s First: LaWana Mayfield became the first openly gay city council member as part of a Democratic landslide in North Carolina’s largest city. North Carolina, which will see a marriage amendment on the ballot next year, saw a number of other LGBT victories:
Cincinnati’s First: Chis Seelbach became the first openly gay city council member. He worked in 2004 to help defeat Article XII in the city charter which banned anti-discrimination ordinances for gay people.
Indianapolis’s First: Zach Adamson became the first openly gay city council member. S
Missoula’s First: Caitlin Copple became the first openly gay city council member. She defeated one of only two city council members who voted against the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance in 2010, which made Missoula the first city in Montana to provide discrimination protections in housing and employment regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Youngest Mayor: Alex Morse, 22, beat incumbent mayor Mary Pluta in Holyoke, Massachusetts, to become the nation’s youngest mayor.
Houston Re-elects: Mayor Annise Parker was re-elected with more than 50% of the vote, a margin which allows her to avoid a run-off. Mike Laster also became the first openly gay member of Houston’s city council.
Traverse City Supports Anti-Discrimination Ordinance: Voters in Traverse City, Michigan voted by a 2-to-1 margin to keep an anti-discrimination ordinance. The vote came more than a year after Traverse City adopted the ordinance to prevent discrimination against gays in employment, housing and other areas. Opponents of the measure collected signatures to place a referendum for repeal on the ballot.
And on a final note, there were a number of gains in school board elections around the country which I didn’t cover, but I would like to point one out anyway: Daniel Hernandez, Jr., Rep. Gabrielle Gifford’s openly gay intern, was elected to as seat on the board of the Sunnyside Unified School District in Tuscon’s south side. Hernandez was one of the recognized heros during the January shooting at a Northwest side Safeway which killed six and critically injured Rep. Giffords. And on a more personal note, I couldn’t be happier about the stunning news that Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, architect of infamous anti-immigrant S.B. 1070 which was later found unconstitutional, was ousted by voters in favor of a political newcomer in Mesa.
November 9th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
My apologies for not posting anything yesterday except for yesterday’s agenda. I’ve been extremely busy. I’ve got a lot of things in the pipeline for BTB, but they are time consuming. Which means they’ll be done and published when they’re done.
And as for today’s agenda, this is one of those days where I don’t have any notifications of anything happening, nor do I have any historical items or birthdays to write about. But I do have this from Domenick Scudera, describing what a typical day in his totally gay lifestyle looks like:
7:00 a.m. I wake up, and just as I have done every morning since puberty, I choose to be gay today. This will come as a great relief to my gay, homosexual, male lover who lies beside me. Because being gay is a choice, our relationship is a gamble day to day. Even though we have both chosen to remain gay and to be together every day for the past 16 years, we never take anything for granted. One of us just might throw in the towel one day and give up the lifestyle.
7:30 a.m. I take a gay shower and let the gay water rinse off my gay body.
8:00 a.m. I have a gay breakfast of cereal with milk, and a good, strong, gay cup of coffee. I am fortified for another day of ruining the fabric of American society.
That doesn’t hold your interest? Well how about this video that Rob Tisinai found: a bunch of old Chinese people singing Lady Ga Ga’s “Bad Romance”?
You think you have anything better? Tell us about it in the comments.
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).
November 8th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Secretary of State Clinton to Deliver Remarks on Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic: Bethesda, MD. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will deliver remarks this morning at the National Institutes of Health on the fight against the global HIV/AIDS epidemic in light of recent scientific advances. Her talk is titled, “A vision for the next steps in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” and will be live-streamed on the State Department web site beginning at 11:00 a.m. EST.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
Police Woman “Flowers of Evil” Episode Airs: 1974. When NBC’s hour-long action drama Police Woman starring Angie Dickinson began airing in 1974, was so popular that even its reruns in the spring and summer of 1975 ranked number one in the Nielsen ratings, making it the first successful police drama to feature a woman in the starring role. Dickinson’s unabashed sex appeal, undoubtedly, played a far greater role in its success than the plot lines themselves. One particularly odious episode, “Flowers of Evil,” had Dickinson’s character, Sgt. Pepper Anderson, investigating a trio of lesbians who run a retirement home where they murdered and robbed their elderly residents. Positive portrayals — indeed, any portrayal — of gays and lesbians were extraordinarily rare, which made this episode particularly egregious.
To add insult to injury, the Police Woman episode aired one month to the day after a similarly negative plot line appeared on ABC’s Marcus Welby, M.D., in which a child molester was portrayed as gay. Police Woman’s “Flowers of Evil” was originally scheduled to air on October 25, but after the National Gay Rights Task Force organized national protests which led some advertisers to pull their commercials, NBC pulled the episode for re-editing. But with the filming wrapped up, the edits were mostly cosmetic. After the episode aired on November 8, TV Guide called it “the single most homophobic show to date.” A week later, a group known as Lesbian Feminist Liberation occupied NBC’s Standards and Practices office overnight, unfurled a banner from an office window reading “Lesbians Protest NBC.” Advocates continued to negotiate with NBC for several more months, and NBC finally agreed in 1975 to not rebroadcast the episode during re-runs and to withhold it from syndication. The “Flowers of Evil” episode re-appeared again, but only after thirty years had passed, in the Season 1 DVD box set
Harvey Milk taking the oath of office.
Harvey Milk Elected to San Francisco Board of Supervisors: 1977. Newspapers across American carried this two-paragraph news item a few days after election day:
Homosexual Elected to Supervisors’ Board
San Francisco (AP) — Harvey Milk Tuesday became the first avowed homosexual to be elected to the city’s board of supervisors, some 25 years afte he was discharged by the navy when it learned he was gay. Mr. Milk, 47, a camera store owner, said Wednesday, “I’m a symbol of hope for gays and all minorities. My election, against all the odds, shows that the system can work and that there is hope.”
Mr Milk defeated a field of 17 candidates which included several other gays and former San Francisco 49ers football player Bob St. Clair.
This was Milk’s third run for Supervisor. He lost in 1973 and 1975 when all six Supervisor seats were elected in city-wide at-large elections where the top six vote getters joined the board. He also ran for the State Assembly in 1976, but lost in a close race. In 1977, San Francisco switched to single-member districts, and Milk won a seat on the Board of Supervisors on his third try.
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?
November 7th, 2011
As in the United States and much of the world, in the 1980’s the United Kingdom implemented a ban on blood donations by gay men. The UK Department of Health has now revised the ban to reflect the changes in blood analysis and knowledge about HIV that have occurred since that time. (herald)
.. following a review by the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (Sabto), men who have not had homosexual sex within a year will be able to donate if they meet certain other criteria. The move will be implemented in England, Scotland and Wales.
Men who have had anal or oral sex with another man in the past 12 months, with or without a condom, will still not be eligible to donate blood, the DoH said. They said this was to reduce the risk of infections being missed by testing and then being passed on to a patient.
Health officials agree that this policy change will not measurably increase risk of HIV contaminated blood.
However, over the objections of the Red Cross and other health officials, the United States continues to base its blood donation policies on fear and prejudice rather than science.
November 7th, 2011
In the same weekend in which about 70 people attended the annual convention for the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) in Phoenix which included a very large contingent of people associated with the Mormon ex-gay group Evergreen International as well as other LDS church members, about 300 people attended a three-day conference in a Salt Lake City church to discuss the issues surrounding gay Mormons. The conference, held at First Baptist Church, featured author and playwright Carol Lynn Pearson, Utah Democratic Party Chair Jim Dabakis, researcher John Dehlin, filmmaker Kendall Wilcox, Faith in Action’s Jimmy Creech, and gay psychologist Lee Beckstead. The conference was organized by Mormon Stories, which is not affiliated with the LDS church, and was intended to “build bridges between all who identify as Mormon,” at task which Beakstead said he found difficult:
During the Saturday morning session, Dr. Lee Beckstead, a Salt Lake therapist whose research has focused on resolving sexual, social and religious conflicts, said Mormons with same-gender attraction often feel torn apart by individuals urging them to “get off the fence — to be gay or be Mormon,” suggesting that one can’t be both.
Beckstead said either choice is painful.
“You can’t cut off a part of yourself and not do harm — even if you’re doing it to please God, or parents, or family or friends,” he said. While Beckstead said that he personally had a hard time being both gay and Mormon, the same may not be true for others.
“My resolution may not be your resolution,” he said, urging conferencegoers to “keep exploring for yourself what your truth is, what is right for you. That is where you will find your happiness.”
The Salt Lake Tribune (no link, although that may change soon) reports that Kevin Kloosterman, an LDS bishop from Illinois described the treatment of gays by the church as “an atrocity” and personally apologized, although he clarified that he was only speaking for himself and not the church. But he added that “straight members of the church have a lot of repenting to do.”
November 7th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA (THEIRS):
Michele Bachmann to speak at FRC: Washington, D.C. The Family “Research” Council has announced that GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann will give what they’re calling a “‘values speech’ … on critical issues of policy that affect this country and, in particular, the institution of the family in all of its aspects.” She will deliver this speech from FRC headquarters in Washington, D.C. this morning at 10:30 a.m. EST. It will be broadcast on the web.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
José Sarria Runs for San Francisco City Supervisor: 1961. He lost, of course, but he also won by losing. Before throwing his tiara into the ring, Sarria was better known as a drag performer and waiter at San Fransisco’s Black Cat bar, where he regaled audiences with campy versions of Italian opera. He fought constantly against police raids against gay men and gay bars — he himself had been arrested in an entrapment case. One tactic was for police to raid gay bars and arrest everyone dressed in drag for violating a city ordinance that barred men from dressing as women with “an intent to deceive.” He printed up buttons for drag queens to wear on their dresses reading “I am a boy.” That tactic effectively ended the raids on drag queens. When Sarria decided to run for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1961, he became the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States. The elections that year were for five at-large seats in which the top five vote-getters citywide were seated. Sarria almost won by default until city officials put out a call for more candidates at the last minute when they realized what was up. Thirty-four candidates ended up running for the five slots. Sarria earned nearly 6,000 votes, putting him in ninth place. While he didn’t make it onto the Board of Supervisors, his 6.000 votes effectively defined a significant voting block which could not be ignored in future elections. Sarria’s loss marked a change in San Francisco city politics as a result. As Sarria recalled, “From that day on, nobody ran for anything in San Francisco without knocking on the door of the gay community.”
Prop 6/Briggs Initiative Defeated: 1978. State Sen. John Briggs had been a part of Anita Bryant’s campaign two years earlier to roll back a gay rights ordinance in Miami, Florida. So when he decided to run for the Republican nomination for California Governorship in 1978, he thought he had hit on the perfect campaign platform: the so-called threat posed by gay teachers in the public schools. He lost the Republican nomination, but managed to get placed on the California ballot Proposition 6, which would have banned gays and lesbians as teachers,along with anyone else, whether gay or straight, who defended gays and lesbians whether they did so in the schools or outside. In September, Prop 6 looked like a sure thing, with 61% supporting the proposal. But several events conspired to lead to the measure’s defeat: at San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk’s encouragement, thousands of gays and lesbians emerged from the closet for the first time to their friends, families and co-workers; Log Cabin Republicans organized to become a rallying point for other conservative Republicans to oppose the measure; and former Gov. Ronald Reagan came out against it — going so far as to write an op-ed against Prop 6 for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. “Whatever else it is, he wrote, “homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual’s sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child’s teachers do not really influence this.” Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter also came out against it. When election day came, Prop 6 went down in defeat, 42% to 58%.
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?
November 6th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Palm Springs, CA.
Also This Weekend: REELING LGBT Film Festival, Chicago, IL; Invincible Truth, Hong Kong, China.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
West Hollywood Incorporates As A City: 1984. Voters in the an unincorporated area of Los Angeles known as West Hollywood voted to incorporate as a city and elected a city council in a combined election. Attention in the news media focus on the fact that three of the five new council members were gay or lesbian in the new municipality, while many gay leaders hailed the new city with gays making up an estimated 40% of the population as a “gay Camelot.” But the main issue that ignited the incorporation campaign in a city where 90% were renters was the decision by the County of Los Angeles to significantly reduce its rent-control regulations. Nevertheless, gay leaders saw incorporation as yet another stepping stone toward full acceptance. Valerie Ferrigno, who was selected by the council to serve as mayor for the council-manager city government, became the first known lesbian mayor of an American city. “You don’t have to say avowed lesbian or admitted lesbian,” she said. “I am a lesbian. I won’t deny it.” She then summed up the significance: “We were illegal not too long ago. The first consenting adults bill wasn’t proposed until 1968. Ten years ago I couldn’t have been elected, and not because I was too young. We’ve come a long way in a very short time.”
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?
November 5th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Living Library for Youth: Moscow, Russia. Here’s an interesting project as reported by the Russian LGBT web site Anti-Dogma. Today and tomorrow, the Russian State Library for Youth in Moscow will be having a “Living Library.” Here’s how they explain it (via Google Translate):
“Living Library” works just like a normal library, “readers” come to fill a library card, choose the “book” and read it for half an hour. After that, return the “book” in the library and if they want to take on another. The only difference is that the “book” in “Living Library” – this is real people, and “reading” – this is conversation. Conversation, “reader” and “books” – is: – free dialogue – an opportunity to ask any question – the opportunity to talk with people, which does not meet in everyday life.
Among the “books” participating are a journalist, foreign expats from Germany and the U.S., a homeless person, a Buddhist monk, a girl who embraced Islam, and many others — including a gay person, a lesbian, a transgender person, and an HIV-positive person. The Living Library takes place today and tomorrow from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
AIDS Walks This Weekend: San Luis Obispo, CA.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Buenos Aries, Argentina and Palm Springs, CA.
Also This Weekend: REELING LGBT Film Festival, Chicago, IL; Invincible Truth, Hong Kong, China.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
First Openly Gay Candidate Elected to State Legislature: 1974. Elaine Noble, an “avowed Lesbian” in the parlance of the day, made history when she became the first openly gay candidate to win a seat in a state legislature. She won her seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives with 59% of the vote. When she decided to run, she was pressured to hide her sexuality. “There was a lot of pressure from some of my supporters in the community not to mention it,” she told reporters after her win. “But I thought it was necessary to state that politically. I mean, we’re not purple, right? … I figured the worst thing that can happen is that I lose.” And so she listed among her qualifications in her campaign literature her master’s degree from Harvard, her membership in the Women’s Political Caucus, and her radio program “Gay Way” on a local FM station. she focused her campaign on neighborhood issues: crime, health care, housing for the district’s many elderly residents, and the neglect in city services. She later described the campaign as “very ugly.” Her windows were shot out, her car was vandalized, and windows were broken out at her campaign headquarters. The harassment continued even after she took office. She had to deal with obscene profanities, and at one time human feces were left in her desk. But when she stood for re-election two years later, she won with almost 90% of the vote.
San Francisco Bans AIDS Discrimination: 1985. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a measure forbidding the firing or eviction of anyone because they had AIDS, and would prohibit others from requiring AIDS tests. The move came after similar bans were enacted in Los Angeles and West Hollywood.
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?
November 4th, 2011
One of the cleverest characters to have been created for Saturday Night Live was Dana Carvey’s Church Lady. Enid Strict, as host of show-within-a-show Church Chat, would interview guests focusing on their real or imagined failings and attribute them to … (pause for effect) … SATAN!
Her colorful euphemisms (e.g. “naughty parts all engorged and tingling”) and smug superiority made the Church Lady an instant cultural reference point. But the real success of Carvey’s character was based on the recognizable attitudes she espoused. Yes, Church Lady was way over the top, but only slightly more over the top than the very real people on religious television that she parodied.
And it would seem that the Church Lady’s proclivity to see Satan as the personal instigator of all manner of things is still alive and well. Take, for example, an amusing but real illustration out of Massachusetts.
The Pilot Catholic News is “America’s oldest Catholic newspaper” and the “Official Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston”. And on October 28, the Church shared with us the wisdom of Daniel Avila, a policy adviser at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
I give Avila some credit. He has, after all, accurately articulated the problem that I have with the conservative theology on the matter of sexual orientation.
That is, if God causes same-sex attraction, and yet commands that it not be satisfied, then this is divine cruelty. Or, if God causes same-sex attraction, then it must be the divine will that those with the attraction should act on it and it is the Church that is being cruel in its teaching or at the very least tragically mistaken about what God wants.
Yeah, though I’d use different phrasing, that’s pretty much what I believe. Either the Church is misunderstanding the will of God, or the god they serve is a petty bully delighting in his own cruelty.
But Avila has discovered the flaw in my thinking. As it turns out, sexual orientation is not a naturally occurring phenomenon present in a stable minority of humans and illustrating either God’s intent or His consent. Nope. Avila’s found another culprit.
His logic goes like this: God wants us to be male or female, as evidenced by “male and female genes”. And as same-sex attraction is likely the result of “random imbalances in maternal hormone levels” and “their disruptive prenatal effects on fetal development”, then surely someone is causing those imbalances in order to thwart God’s intent.
And who is it that’s making all those male genes want to design ballgowns and those female genes want to play softball? Hmmmm? Could it be…. SATAN?!?
Why yes. It could.
Catholics do not have the luxury of being materialists. We look for ultimate explanations that transcend the strictly physical world and that stretch beyond our limited ability to mold and reshape reality as we know it. Disruptive imbalances in nature that thwart encoded processes point to supernatural actors who, unlike God, do not have the good of persons at heart.
In other words, the scientific evidence of how same-sex attraction most likely may be created provides a credible basis for a spiritual explanation that indicts the devil. Any time natural disasters occur, we as people of faith look back to Scripture’s account of those angels who rebelled and fell from grace. In their anger against God, these malcontents prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. They continue to do all they can to mar, distort and destroy God’s handiwork.
Therefore, whenever natural causes disturb otherwise typical biological development, leading to the personally unchosen beginnings of same-sex attraction, the ultimate responsibility, on a theological level, is and should be imputed to the evil one, not God.
Well that’s nice. It turns out that you are a product of Satan.
So if you think little Johnny is demon possessed because he’d rather play dolls with his sister than hit her with a toy truck, Avila’s theology is the one for you. And if you beat little Johnny to death because of his demons, well surely the Church can understand your holy stance for righteousness.
And they printed it. Really. The Editors of the Pilot Catholic News (the Official Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston) didn’t notice any problem with an editorial that claimed gay people were created by the devil.
Well, not until those outside the enclave of the faithful read it and either were horrified or laughed their asses off. Then they recalled that the words they were supposed to use in public were “image and likeness of God” and “inviolable dignity”, not “spawn of Satan”.
Ooopsie
And so a “retraction” was issued.
“Statements made in my column, ‘Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction’ of October 28, do not represent the position of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the column was not authorized for publication as is required policy for staff of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The teaching of Sacred Scripture and of the Catechism of the Catholic Church make it clear that all persons are created in the image and likeness of God and have inviolable dignity. Likewise, the Church proclaims the sanctity of marriage as the permanent, faithful, fruitful union of one man and one woman. The Church opposes, as I do too, all unjust discrimination and the violence against persons that unjust discrimination inspires. I deeply apologize for the hurt and confusion that this column has caused.”
I put retraction in quotes because, to me, if you are taking back some truly evil and vile thing you have just said about people, you don’t use the opportunity to “proclaim the sanctity” of denying those people’s rights. That is neither apology or retraction but rather a smug pat on his own back.
And, while I’m at it, I’m sick of the Catholic Church opposing “unjust discrimination.” Guess what, Avila? The distinction between “unjust” discrimination and “just” discrimination isn’t determined by whether or not you want to engage in it. Justice isn’t defined as “what the Church endorses”.
So you can stop doing your little Superior Dance.
And now the latest word is that Daniel Avila has resigned his advisor position. And the church gratefully accepted his resignation.
Which solves everything, doesn’t it?
Sure, except that behind the pretty-speak about being children of God, we know what they really think. Avila is not alone. His column passed the editorial staff without question and he’s received no rebuke from the church.
And the next time the Roman Catholic Church tries to appeal to their moral values to take away civil rights from you and those you love, remember this: they may say that they love you, but that love is the same love they would feel for any other vile creatures created by Satan himself.
Well now, isn’t that special?
– – – –
thanks to Ned for the links and the copy of the original article
The Pilot pulled the opinion piece (who could blame them) but you can read it after the break
Read the rest of this entry »
November 4th, 2011
Dear Representative Bachmann,
Why do you oppose religious freedom? And why are you such an enemy of the soldiers who guard our liberty?
I’m referring to your signature on Rep. Todd Akin’s letter to Senate leaders, which calls for rolling back the new policy allowing military chaplains to perform same-sex weddings in states where it’s legal. The policy’s pretty simple:
A military chaplain may participate in or officiate any private ceremony, whether on or off a military installation, provided that the ceremony is not prohibited by applicable state and local law. Further, a chaplain is not required to participate in or officiate a private ceremony if doing so would be in variance with the tenets of his or her religion or personal beliefs. Finally, a military chaplain’s participation in a private ceremony does not constitute an endorsement of the ceremony by DoD.
(I emphasized a few key phrases for you.)
Some chaplains have worried the military would compromise their religious freedom by forcing them to conduct same-sex weddings. This policy prevents that. In fact, this policy maximizes religious freedom by leaving the decision entirely up to each chaplain’s conscience. Yet you oppose this freedom! You’re eager to let the government dictate religious policy. How and when did you become such a foe of religious liberty?
According to the letter you signed, this policy violates DOMA. That’s nonsense, of course. DOMA has two main provisions:
Nothing in the policy violates either principle. Your letter tries to assert otherwise:
The use of federal property or federal employees to perform anything but opposite-sex ceremonies is a clear contravention of the law.
Do you expect us to believe that? DOMA certainly doesn’t say it. And what a violation of liberty it would be! Consider a federal employee, say a guard for the Border Patrol — or a scientist for the National Institutes of Health, or a geologist with the Department of the Interior — who is also an ordained minister. Are you truly claiming DOMA prevents these good people from marrying same-sex couples in a private ceremony simply because they happen to be federal employees?
If not, then retract the claim. And if so — again, when did you become such a foe of religious liberty, such an advocate of government control over religion?
The real travesty, though, is your contemptuous treatment of our troops. We ask such sacrifice from them, and you are pointlessly trying to make their lives harder. Hampering their legal right to marry in states that allow it. Restricting their choice of who will preside over the most important ceremony of their lives.
And you’re not just harming gay and lesbian troops. As your letter acknowledges: “the National Defense Authorization Act is well underway and needed funds for our troops should be expedited without delay.” Yet here you are, trying to delay those funds, because you’ve made restricting the religious freedom of chaplains a higher priority than protecting American soldiers.
Really, Ms. Bachmann, have you no shame?
Sincerely,
Robert Tisinai
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