Box Turtle Bulletin

Log Cabin takes up mantle of liaison to House

As the control of the House of Representatives shifts to Republicans, so too does the primary responsibility for lobbying the House leadership on matters of importance to the LGBT community shift to gay Republicans. And Log Cabin is cautiously optimistic that they have built bridges towards the leadership which could result in more movement on our issues than might otherwise be expected. (Washington Blade)

Although Democrats retained their control of the Senate, most political observers — including LGBT advocates — agree that major LGBT-related bills would have no chance of passing in Congress next year without the consent of Republican leaders like Boehner. And most observers believe House Republicans won’t allow gay bills to come to the House floor for a vote.

Cooper, however, said he and his Log Cabin team have a plan for persuading congressional Republican leaders to consider and agree to a vote on at least two gay bills. According to Cooper, one is an as yet to be unveiled tax reform bill that would address “tax inequities that affect the gay community.” The other is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which Democratic leaders declined to bring up for a vote during the past two years. The measure calls for banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Cooper said the tax bill would appeal to “the broader conservative community” while addressing inequities in the gay community.

Although I am not privy to information about the tax bill, I speculate that it would eliminate the tax on insurance premiums paid by companies to dependents of gay employees. This could be packaged as an undue burden on businesses as well as an unnecessary and punitive special tax.

Another area which Cooper may consider approaching the leadership could be on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. This policy is universally unpopular with virtually every demographic in the country and would cost individual congressmen very little to support the repeal. Leadership could play both sides by allowing a free vote while opposing the change “during wartime” thus avoiding offending their “base” but allowing for future credit for the change.

I don’t know whether Cooper is basing this on realistic expectations or just blowing smoke. But the truth is (and I think we all know it) that the relationship between the gay community and the Democratic Party is at an all-time low. Exit polls show that not only did fewer gay people show up yesterday than two years ago, but they had much less party loyalty. (AmericaBlog)

Percent of gay voters who voted Democratic in House races:

2006 House races: 75%
2008 House races: 80%
2010 House races: 68%

And ironically, the Republican Party really has to do very little to do if it wants to further disillusion gay voters and add to the decay of this dependable Democratic voting bloc. President Obama’s lack of adequate communication with the community accompanied by what is perceived as either stalling or even tactical hostility on issue of DADT, DOMA and other legal battles has gays and lesbians doubtful about the Democratic Party depth of commitment to civil equality.

It is possible – though I think unlikely – that political calculations could lead Republican leadership to strategically concede on some issues of importance to our community based on the recognition that social change will force their hand eventually anyway Even backing off and not aggressively “fighting against the homosexual agenda” could leave some gay voters without any loyalty to Democrats or fear of Republicans and that could plausibly shift the vote by as much as 1% in some crucial races in 2012. (I am aware that this may be more wishful thinking than reality)

In any case, I wish Log Cabin well. They have a thankless job, and will receive from our community leaders all of the blame for anything harmful that the Republican Party does and no credit whatsoever for any success that they are able to achieve. But if they are able to bring about a vote on ENDA, they will indeed have my respect.

More Christians see need to speak out against bullying

From Connecticut’s MinuteManNewsService:

Two vigils held in Fairfield in the last week have sought to shine light, literally and figuratively, on the tragedy of gay teens who have taken their own lives after being bullied.

One vigil was to be held at Fairfield University Wednesday night after our press time and the other was held in front of First Church Congregational at the corner of Old Post Road and Beach Road last Friday night.

Jennifer Habetz, Youth Minister of First Church, said, “We are morally obligated, in the face of suicide after suicide to work to change the world in which our young people are growing up. And we must do so loudly and visibly, so they know that they are not alone.”

Habetz runs a ministry at First Church which seeks to provide a space for kids of all faiths to counteract the messages which say “they are less than acceptable in the eyes of God.”

At Fairfield University, their Jesuit heritage called on them to support troubled kids and to give comfort a higher priority than condemnation.

The head of Campus Ministry Reverend Michael Doody, S. J. said, “We don’t beat up or demonize people we disagree with. Everyone is entitled to their dignity.”

“The sin against that young man (Tyler Clementi at Rutgers) is far more grievous than anything he could have thought of committing,” said Doody, who pointed out that the Church also says that drinking too much is a sin.

“The Vigil is being held to raise the consciousness of the University Community,” said the priest, adding, “We’re all God’s people. God doesn’t discriminate in His loving.”

Shhhhhh. Don’t tell the Pope.

Not a good night for NOM

The Republicans picked up significant gains in the midterm election, gaining control of the House of Representatives, and bringing the Senate to within a few votes. This is not good news for the prospect of having issues of inequality addressed in the next two years.

However, this change in the direction of power was not a mandate for social conservatives. Indeed, it was those Republicans who made the most of their socially conservative credentials who fared least well. Christine O’Donnell lost miserably, as did Tom Tancredo, while Tea Party and Republican candidates that minimized or refused to discuss their positions on social issues attracted support.

But no indicator seems to have been more consistent this election than the extent to which a candidate was supported by the National Organization for Marriage. If you were a Senatorial or Gubernatorial candidate whom NOM supported, it seemed to be the kiss of death.

In New Hampshire, NOM has ran an anti-Lynch campaign for two years, and has ratcheted up the anti-Lynch television ads going into the election. Lynch just won his fourth consecutive election, a feat not accomplished for the past 200 years.

In California, NOM sponsored a bus tour for senate candidate Carly Fiorina, encouraging Latino voters to “vota tus valores“. Not only have the networks called this election for Barbara Boxer, Latinos found Fiorina’s valores not to be their valores by two-thirds.

NOM sued the state of New York in hopes of running anonymous ads in favor of Carl Paladino. Paladino’s homophobia sunk his campaign and he ended up pulling but 35% of the vote leaving Cuomo – a marriage support – one of the strongest winners of the night.

In Minnesota, NOM ran radio ads for Tom Emmer claiming that “Mark Dayton and Tom Horner want to impose gay marriage with no vote of the people.” Although Minnesota has not been called, Dayton is 7% ahead of Emmer with 85% of the vote counted.

This kiss of death is consistent with results of NOM’s electioneering in the District of Columbia during their primary. It would seem that using gay couples as a fear tactic seems to have peaked and dissipated.

This is not to say that NOM will not have any causes for celebration. The efforts to reject three supreme court justices in Iowa who were part of the unanimous decision to recognize gay Iowans as protected by the state Constitution, appears to have succeeded. Each appears to have only 46-47% support. Expect NOM to claim this as a clear mandate that the “people of Iowa have spoken” and that they don’t like their gay neighbors so much. NOM was not, however, successful in their effort to oust the Polk County judge who first found for marriage equality.

And NOM’s very own Andy Pugno – the attorney for the Prop 8 campaign – is running for state assembly in California’s 5th Assembly district. At present the vote is too close to call.

All in all, while NOM’s vindictive smearing of the Iowa justices may have proven effective (and may well prove to bring a chilling effect to future legal battles), we can say that they were big losers tonight.

UPDATE: 10:28 pm PST. LA Times:

With more than half the votes counted, Democrat Richard Pan holds a 51% to 45% lead over Republican Andy Pugno in a seat currently held by Republicans.

Not only may Pugno’s repugnant attack on gay couples have cost him the 5th Assembly seat, it may actually move the Democrats in CA closer to a supermajority. NOM must feel so proud.

Gay Uganda On Safety In a Climate of “Outing”

Gay Uganda speaks to CNN’s David McKenzie:

David McKenzie: On your blog it’s clear what it’s about. It’s about being gay in Uganda. Why don’t you put your name there?

Gug: Because I know I don’t want to be killed. No, I mean, security, anonymity is… our anonymity is the most important weapon that we have. I lived, I’ve grown up, I studied, I’ve been in Uganda throughout my life. Now, all people who know me, most of them know that I’m so and so, but they don’t know that my sexuality is such and such. I can’t tell people that I work with that I’m gay.

I mean when you hear the president of the country say you should be arrested or when you hear the head of the Muslims say you should be marooned on an island, it’s the kind of thing you want to shake somebody, you want to express this anger. And that’s what it does for me.

Gay Uganda writes today about the “very, very personal nightmare” of being outed. These public vigilante campaigns have become “an almost inevitable right of passage for those of us who dare live in the glare of the public eye.” The recent campaign has hit close to home for many in the community:

Sunday, we were with a friend when we learnt that three of the papers had outed some people.

He is a professional, with a budding carrear. And, suddenly, he was unsettled. Jittery, wondering whether or not his name appeared in the unprecedented three papers outing on the same day! Wondering how it would affect job, earnings, carrier, just the whiff of scandal from the most gossipy of rugs in the country. But this the most damaging of rumours… gay in Uganda! His fear was contagious. At midnight, he wanted to go search for a copy of the filthy rugs, to confirm or not that he was amongst those outed.

Fear. That is an almost crippling feature of any outing happening, however it does. Worst is when it happens in the papers.

Prop 8 Proponents’ Response Filed

Yesterday was the due date for the filing of the response of the Proponents of Proposition 8 to Ted Olson’s rebuttal of their appeal. And, interestingly, for their premise they took a page out of NOM’s book and cried, “Don’t call us bigots!”

The response went something like this: Good and decent people differ over who should be allowed to marry; these people are not bigots; therefor they have a reasonable basis for their gendered definition of marriage other than just to harm gay people; and thus Proposition 8 meets constitutional review.

But the overwhelming majority of people on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate, in California and throughout the country, are good and decent Americans, coming from all walks of life, all political parties, all races and creeds. Their opinions on this issue are motivated by nothing more than “a sincere desire to do what’s best for their marriages, their children, their society,” ER517 (Rauch), and are entitled to consideration and respect. And their opinions on this issue are not static, but rather are constantly evolving and changing as the debate and experience matures.See Jonathan Capehart, Obama Begins Shift on Gay Marriage,THEWASHINGTONPOST, Oct. 28, 2010 (President Obama quoted as saying that attitudes on same-sex marriage evolve, “including mine.”).

People of good will can and do differ in good faith on the issue of same-sex marriage, and their differences should be resolved through the political process, not here.

All of which is fine and good and none of which addresses whether the intent and purpose of this particular proposition was to single out gay people and remove from them a fundamental right shared by all others. And that is why the trial of fact was so important; it found that regardless of after-the-fact purportedly lofty ideals, this proposition was prepared, packaged, and sold based on anti-gay animus.

The rest of the brief is a recitation of their argument (with lots of use of the phrase “procreative purpose”): gay people can’t be identified or defined, they are politically powerful, they can become heterosexual, and thus discrimination targeting them is not subject to heightened review; banning marriage between gay people does not deny their fundamental right to marriage; children are better in heterosexual families, deference should be given to bald bigotry (or “instinctive, deeply ingrained beliefs”), and the court should ignore the campaign materials and believe that Proposition 8 was all about channeling heterosexual procreation instead of protecting little girls from hearing in school that they could marry a princess too. In other words, a barrage of opinion, lies, misstatements, and misdirection, none of which had anything to do with Proposition 8 and all of which is contrary to the findings in Judge Walker’s court.

FRC values anti-gay conformity more than pro-life advocacy

The Family “Research” Council sees itself as a protector of conservative social values, specifically by opposing abortion rights and equality for gay Americans. But it appears that FRC has a hierarchy in their social agenda and they may well value partisan conformity to anti-gay positions more than they value “the inherent dignity of every human life from conception.” (Times-Picayune)

The conservative Family Research Council Action PAC has launched a last-minute radio ad campaign against Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, R-New Orleans, for his support of gay rights.
…
Cao co-sponsored both the Hate Crimes Protection Act of 2009 and House legislation to repeal the policy that prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the armed forces, known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“I believe it is a human rights violation to impose government-sanctioned penalties on a group of people just because of their sexual orientation, just as it would be a human rights violation to impose penalties on a group because of its religious affiliation or race,” Cao said. “I will continue to fight for the protection of human rights for all people.”

This alone might not raise eyebrows. It would not be unusual for FRC to oppose pro-gay candidates. But it should be viewed in context: (FrumForum)

Further confounding is the fact that Cao is one of the most pro-life Republicans on Capitol Hill. He was only persuaded to vote against the final version of the healthcare bill because he wasn’t satisfied that it would not fund abortions. On pro-life issues, the National Right to Life has Cao supporting them on all of their five identified pro-life votes in the last Congress.

FRC is willing to give up a staunch pro-life vote, and replace him with a Democrat who is not likely to vote with FRC on many issues at all. Why is FRC trying to throw the election?

Because FRC is not just opposing Cao due to his gay advocacy; rather, FRC is furious that Cao dare be a Republican who supports gay people. Tony Perkins and FRC are desperate to hold onto the Republican Party and keep gay equality as a partisan issue for as long as possible. His biggest fear is that it will soon become acceptable for elected Republicans to be pro-gay; when that happens, the battle will be over.

The amicus briefs that we’ve all waited for

In September the Proponents of Proposition 8 filed an appeal (along with their argument for being granted standing to appeal) and several anti-gay activist groups filed amicus (friend of the court) briefs to support their position. At the time it felt a bit lonely.

But last month the Plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger filed their rebuttal and it was turn for advocates for equality and constitutional law to let their opinions be known. And a great many did so.

Kathleen Perrin has loaded all of the filings in this case on her Scribed site so you can read each one there. Some are well worth the time. I’ll not provide a synopsis here for each amicus brief, but rather will group them in category and provide a few of the better quotes

The numbers refer to the court document filing. In some instances some of the entities who filed together in a joint brief fit in different categories so you’ll see the number more than once. In in few cases I was completely baffled as to what these organizations had in common.

THE PROFESSIONALS

163 – American Psychological Association, The California Psychological Association, The American Psychiatric Association, and The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy – representing nearly 250,000 mental health professionals, this very dry brief calmly lays out the methods by which one should evaluate studies, and presented “an accurate and balanced summary of the current state of scientific and professional knowledge concerning sexual orientation and the family relevant to this case.”

193 – American Anthropological Association, American Psychoanalytic Association, National Association of Social Workers, National Association of Social Workers, California Chapter, American Sociological Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics, California – wrote in to share “the psychological and social ramifications of discrimination.”

THE LEGAL FIELD

150 – Justice Donald B. King and the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (N. Cal) – King is a sort of super-judge on family law issues who claims to have “authored more published opinions in family law cases than any appellate justice in California’s history”.

To assess the rationality of Proposition 8, the proper comparison is whether legal recognition of a supposedly “sub-optimal” environment would be better for the child than what the actual alternative would be. And here, the alternative is not that a child being reared by parents in a same-sex relationship is suddenly going to be swooped up and deposited into the “optimal” environment of the home of an opposite-sex married couple. The alternative is that, rather than having that child’s household environment (two loving same-sex parents) being accorded full and legitimate status in the eyes of the law, that child instead will be reared in the very same home, but with Proposition 8’s mark and brand of inferiority.

152 – Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom – this is a collection of 42 organizations, including national, metropolitan, local, and minority bar associations and national and local non-profit organizations. They range in size and focus from the Los Angeles County Bar Association, with 27,000 members, to the much smaller Bay Area Association of Muslim Lawyers.

201 – Another nine groups signed on to BALIF’s arguments.

167 – California Professors of Family Law – these 26 professors teach law at USC, Stanford, UCLA, California Western, UC Davis, Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, University of San Francisco, Whittier, Berkeley, McGeorge, Pepperdine, Hastings, and Golden Gate University.

172 – Howard University School of Law Civil Rights Clinic – Howard is among the oldest and most revered of the traditionally black universities. They spoke from a history of civil rights and made comparisons that the gay community on its own dare not claim. Read this brief. The conclusion is truly touching:

In the final analysis, there is nothing new in the arguments against same-sex couples having the freedom to marry. However much opponents of marriage for same-sex couples may insist “this time it is different,” there remains an appalling familiarity to the refrain that allowing same-sex couples the same human dignity as everyone else will threaten social order, degrade individuals, and harm children. We suffered through the same awful dirge when slave owners sought to preserve the ban against slave marriage and segregationists opposed interracial marriage. Then, as now, some claimed with all sincerity and unwavering conviction that, if African-Americans were accorded full human dignity, our society, our morality, and our faith would come to grief and lay in ruins.

But the certainty and monotony with which some will always sound the death knell for society, morality, and faith, just because two adults choose to marry cannot obscure the reality that we heard virtually the same arguments for almost three hundred years to justify preventing two black people from marrying and then a black man from marrying a white woman. Nor, when all is said and done, can these jeremiads about how marriage equality for same-sex couples will lead to our final slouching toward Gomorrah obscure the reality recognized long ago by the great African-American gay writer, James Baldwin, that it is “an inexorable law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one’s own.”

175 – National LGBT Bar Association – an umbrella group for other local LGBT bar associations which has since 1992 been an affiliate of the American Bar Association.

187 – Professors William N. Eskridge, Jr., Rebecca L. Brown, Bruce A. Ackerman, Daniel A. Farber, Kenneth L. Karst, and Andrew Kippelman – professors of constitutional law at Yale, USC, Berkeley, UCLA, and Northwestern.

188 – Constitutional Law and Civil Procedure Professors Erwin Chemerinsky, Pamela Karlan, Arther Miller, and Judith Resnik, et al. – The “et al.” includes Bryan Adamson, Janet Cooper Alexander, Barbara A. Atwood, Barbara Babcock, Joshua P. Davis, David L. Faigman, Toni M. Massaro, David Oppenheimer, Fred Smith, and Larry Yackle. Chemerinski is the founding dean of UC Irvine School of Law. Also represented are Yale, Stanford, Seattle, University of Arizona, University of San Francisco, Hastings, Berkeley, NYU, and Boston University.

197 – ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., and National Center for Lesbian Rights – these guys fought the good fight before Olson and Boies. Together, the ACLU-NC, Lambda Legal, and NCLR were counsel in In re Marriage Cases, the lawsuit which brought marriage equality to California for the summer of 2008, and GLAD was counsel in Goodridge v. Dept. of Pub. Health and Kerrigan v. Comm’r of Pub. Health, which won marriage equality for Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Proposition 8 constitutes a per se violation of the Equal Protection Clause—i.e., a law that serves no purpose other than to mark one class of citizens as inferior to others—and is unconstitutional regardless of the applicable level of scrutiny

THE STATES

158 – Legislators from the United States Jurisdictions that have legalized same-sex marriage – These politicians – prominent and obscure, local and state-wide – from Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Iowa, and the District of Columbia submitted numerical evidence that the “parade of horribles” which anti-gay activists fear have no basis in reality.

Since the legalization of same-sex marriage in their jurisdictions, these legislators have witnessed none of the harm to marriage and families claimed by opponents of marriage equality. They submit this brief to document the absence of any ill effects of legalizing same-sex marriage in their jurisdictions, in order to refute the argument made by the proponents of Proposition 8 and their amici that legalizing same-sex marriage results in a series of deleterious effects on heterosexual couples, the institution of marriage, and children reared in jurisdictions where same-sex couples are permitted to marry. This brief is being filed with the consent of the parties

176 – The Commonwealth of Massachusetts – not only have they not had problems, marriages have become more stable.

Since same-sex couples began marrying here in 2004, Massachusetts’ marriage rate has remained stable, its divorce rate has declined, and its nonmarital birth rate has remained well below the national average. Marriage equality has also led to greater acceptance of gays, lesbians, and their children, increased stability for gay and lesbian families, and improved public health outcomes.

THE PEOPLE OF FAITH

198 – California Faith for Equality, California Council of Churches, General Synod of the United Church of Christ, Univeral Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, The Episcopal Bishops of California and Los Angeles, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis, Unitarian Universalist Association, and Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry California – Interestingly, the Unitarians, Episcopalians, and Pilgrims (UCC) trace their roots to the earliest foundation of our nation.

Though Proponents’ amici suggest that Proposition 8’s demolition of same-sex couples’ right to marry was designed to protect Californians’ religious liberty, quite the opposite is true. The real threat to religious liberty comes from enforcing as law the religious doctrines of some sects, to outlaw marriages that others both recognize and sanctify. Clergy and congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the United Church of Christ, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, Reform and Reconstructionist Rabbis, and others, proudly solemnized the legal marriages of same-sex couples – until Proposition 8 adopted other sects’ religious doctrine to outlaw those marriages. They should be free to do so again.

THE ORGANIZATIONS

151 – Constitutional Accountability Center – a progressive think tank

162 – National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Human Rights Campaign, American Humanist Association, and Courage Campaign Institute – basically Gay, Inc. … and the humanists.

172 – Americans United for the Separation of Church and State – they signed on to Howard University’s amazing brief.

181 – California Teachers Association – on behalf of their 300,000 members and 1,000 school districts in the state, they corrected the lies spread by the Proposition 8 campaign.

182 – Anti-Defamation League – perhaps drawing on the “you can blend in” experiences of Jews in our history this ardent opponent of anti-Semitism made an odd but interesting argument.

Discrimination and hate crimes against gays and lesbians are all too prevalent in our society and the segregated system required by Proposition 8 puts gays and lesbians who wish to enter state-recognized committed relationships at risk because it forces them to disclose their sexual orientation in situations where it is completely irrelevant and potentially unsafe to do so. Extending the right to marry to same-sex couples would remedy the constitutional infirmities of the segregated system and also leave the decision of when and where to disclose one’s sexual orientation to the discretion of the individual.

183 – NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc. – as with Howard University, they draw on the history of marriage discrimination. Mildred Loving would be proud.

Over 40 years ago, in Loving v. Virginia—a case in which LDF participated as amicus—the Supreme Court was confronted with the constitutionality of prohibitions on interracial marriage, which persisted in sixteen states nearly one hundred years after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868. In a significant step forward in our nation’s progress toward a “more perfect Union”—one that was the subject of bitter controversy, but now seems obvious—the Supreme Court tore down this lasting and notorious form of discrimination, holding that anti-miscegenation laws violate the Constitutional guarantees of Equal Protection and Due Process.

The basic Fourteenth Amendment principles addressed in Loving are not limited to race, but must be universally applied to any state action that denies a person the right to marry the person that he or she loves.

196 – The Southern Poverty Law Center – this civil rights icon added to the voices unashamed to discuss marriage in terms of the continuum of forms that discrimination has taken.

199 – Asian American Justice Center, Asian Law Caucus, Asian American Institute, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Asian Pacific American Women Lawyers Alliance, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, API Equality, California Conference of the NAACP, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, Korematsu Center at Seattle University, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Zuna Institute – remind the court that all minorities are threatened when the majority is unlimited in its ability to deny fundamental rights.

Amici are concerned that enactment of Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage allows a bare political majority to enshrine discrimination into the California Constitution against a class of persons otherwise accorded heightened judicial scrutiny under California law. Amici believe the use of the referendum process to deprive gay men and lesbians of a fundamental right without the protection of heightened scrutiny raises the likelihood that other classes protected under California law—including classes defined by race, ethnicity, national origin or gender—may be similarly deprived of long established civil rights. Amici share a common interest in ensuring that the fundamental right of protected classes to be free from discrimination is not at the mercy of an electoral majority’s whims.

200 – Equality California – Gay California, Inc.

THE COLORFUL CHARACTERS

166 – Jon B. Eisenberg – submitted an argument that the whole initiative and proposition process is in violation of the California Constitution because it was incorrectly implemented in 1911.

Looking back to the list of notable amici who argued for the right of the people to take away fundamental rights from an unfavored minority, they just don’t look so impressive any more.

Second Ugandan Tabloid Gets Into the “Outing” Act

Uganda's "Sunday Onion" from Oct 31: "Fr. Tony Has Turned Me Into His Sodomy Toy" (Click to enlarge.)

A second Ugandan tabloid, the Sunday Onion (no relation to the U.S. satirical paper by the same name) has decided to join Rolling Stone (no relation to the U.S. magazine by the same name — why can’t anyone come up with anything original?) in a “me, too” game of gay outing. Sunday Onion’s cover story proclaims “Fr. Tony has turned me into his sodomy boy: Boy confesses being sodomized by priest, names partners in homo sex.”

The priest named in the Sunday Onion, “Fr. Tony,” is Fr. Anthony Musaala, a popular Catholic priest and gospel singer who was accused of homosexuality more than a year ago. That so-called “outing” was the start of an intensive “pastor’s war,” in which rival pastors accused each other of homosexuality as a means of discrediting the more popular and wealthy pastors. Martin Ssempa was a key player in many of those accusations. He was eventually brought up on charges of filing false reports with the police, but it is unclear today where those charges stand.

Sunday Onion, Oct 31, 2010, page 3. (Click to enlarge. Names and photo psbscured by BTB.)

Ssempa is also believed to be behind the latest anti-gay campaign being executed by Rolling Stone. That tabloid was ordered by a Ugandan court earlier today to cease publishing “identities by name or pictures or any relevant implication of the person or person perceived by the respondents to be gay, lesbian or homosexual in general.”

Sunday Onion is under no such injunction. In addition to a very florid account by a so-called “top gay activist,” Sunday Onion pubished the identities of nearly twenty LGBT Ugandans. Many of those identified were well-known LGBT advocates, but many more were ordinary private citizens. In some cases, their occupations and towns were listed as well.

Red Pepper, Oct 31, 2010: "Media Advisory: Serial Lesbo On the Run." (Click to enlarge. Names and photo obscured by BTB.)

Meanwhile, Red Pepper, the tabloid which practically invented the art of anti-gay vigilantism, engaged in a bit of gay-baiting itself in its most recent issue. A page 6 article, titled “Media Advisory: Serial Lesbo On the Run,” alleges  that a lesbian had “surfed the yoyo” of her housekeeper and was now being sought by police.

Of course, the main intent of the story is not whether there is any factual information behind it, but to reinforce the stereotypes that run rampant in Uganda of predatory gays and lesbians. Undoubtedly, if there’s anything we’ve learned from watching Uganda’s tabloids, it’s that the easiest way to get back at someone — whether it’s a pastor or an unpopular sports figure — is to accuse that individual of homosexuality.

Red Pepper routinely carries stories in which various public and private figures are accused of homosexuality. It’s last major anti-gay campaigns however occurred in April and December of 2009.

Ninth Circuit stays DADT Injuction during appeal

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has extended its temporary stay on the injunction against the operation of the Military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. (Forbes)

A federal appeals court in San Francisco has indefinitely extended its freeze on a judge’s order halting enforcement of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
…
The panel granted the government’s request for a stay while it challenges the trial court’s ruling that the ban on openly gay service members is unconstitutional.

VT Supremes uphold Miller-Jenkins custody ruling

The Supreme Court of Vermont has confirmed Judge Cohen’s custody order. (WaPo)

The Vermont Supreme Court says a family court was right to award custody of an 8-year-old girl to her non-biological mother in a lesbian custody case.

In a ruling released Monday, the court upheld a 2009 order giving Janet Jenkins sole custody of Isabella Miller-Jenkins. It rejected an appeal by attorneys for biological mother Lisa Miller.

It’s rather fascinating that Lisa Miller’s attorneys are continuing to act on her behalf, all while claiming that they haven’t heard from her in a year.

Iowa justices get Republican support

Failed gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats is leading a campaign to unseat three of Iowa’s supreme court justices to punish them for finding that gay people have a claim on that state’s constitutional protections. If they justices are not retained, it will be considered a mandate on the issue of marriage equality.

However, by positioning the vote in this manner, they have created some unlikely “pro-gay advocates”: those who value an independent judiciary. Take, for example, Robert Ray, the Republican governor from 1969 to 1983:

Polls show the vote to be close.

Uganda Court Orders Tabloid To Halt Outing Campaign

The AFP is reporting that the a Uganda High Court judge has ordered the tabloid Rolling Stone (no relation to the U.S. publication by the same name) to immediately cease its outing campaign against that country’s LGBT citizens:

High Court judge Vincent Musoke-Kibuuka granted “an interim order restraining (Rolling Stone or any affiliated publication) from any further publication of the identity of any person perceived by them to be gay, lesbian or homosexual.”

Musoke-Kibuuka called the editorial material “an infringement or invasion of the right to privacy” of the individuals identified.

The order was sought by Sexual Minorities Uganda on behalf of LGBT people who were attacked following the paper’s first outing campaign nearly a month ago. Managing editor Giles Muhame reacted to the order on his facebook page:

I have heard on grapevine that Kampala high court today afternoon issued an injunction barring the mighty Rolling Stone from publishing information that could lead to the identification of homosexuals…..the newspaper has already achieved its objective….By the way this means we can write about homosexuality but not identify them….ok, understood…we are law abiding citizens….

It’s worth watching closely to see what he means when he says “we can write about homosexuality but not identify them.” Muhame told AFP:

“We will publish more pictures but in a diplomatic way, so that we can dodge the law,” he said. “We might not name them as homos, but the public will know what they are.”

Mohame resumed publication of Rolling Stone this morning despite not having received the proper license to do so from the Uganda Media Council. The tabloid was ordered to halt publication for failure to register with the authorities. It’s very likely that Rolling Stone will react with similar disregard for the law with this order.

A further hearing is scheduled for November 23. There were no lawyers present to represent Muhame or Rolling Stone at today’s hearing.

The anonymous blogger GayUganda celebrates the “small sweet victory” as a “milestone in gay rights in Uganda.”

Update: The text of the court’s order is provided below, and appears very comprehensive:

Click here to read the court’s order.

Little Rock religious leaders speak out against bullying

Perhaps one positive result has come from the bald bigotry spewed by Arkansas school-board member, Clint McCance; it seems that some religious leaders have become shocked by McCance’s attempts to justify his statements by appeals to religion.

On Friday, several ministers in Little Rock spoke out against bullying and in support of gay and lesbian kids. (Arkansas Times)

The Arkansas Interfaith Alliance, a group of local religious leaders, spoke this morning on the steps of Christ Episcopal Church downtown in support for bullied gay and lesbian teens in the wake of the resignation of Midland School Board member Clint McCance.

The speakers were minister Barbara Jones, Bishop Charles Crutchfield of the United Methodist Church, Ruth Shepherd of Just Communities of Arkansas, Rabbi Gene Levy, pastor Bob Cline of the Universalist Unitarian Church, and former United Methodist Church Bishop Kenneth Hicks. They were backed by other community and religious leaders, including Judge Wendell Griffen and gay and lesbian advocate Randi Romo of the Center for Artistic Revolution.

It’s hard to say whether this is but a momentary response or whether this is part of a growing recognition on the part of people of faith that they have an obligation to break the connection between religion and bigotry. Let’s hope it is the latter.

Ugandan Tabloid Resumes Anti-Gay Vigilante Campaign

November 1, 2010 edition of the Ugandan tabloid "Rolling Stone." (Click to enlarge. Photo obscured by BTB.)

After nearly a month’s hiatus due to its failure to register with government authorities, the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone (no relation to the venerable U.S. magazine by the same name) has resumed its promised anti-gay outing campaign against private LGBT citizens.

In the latest edition, Rolling Stone has apparently gone online to reproduce photos and other information from profiles of LGBT Ugandans posted on dating web sites. On the page two article titled, “More Homos’ Faces Exposed,” the so-called “investigative team” displayed a complete ignorance of default settings on profile pages, the clueless reporter writes, “The homosexuals say they intend to make love to interested men at least below the age if 99. This implies that even 90-year-old pensioners are welcome for sex.”

Page 2 of the November 1, 2010 edition of the Ugandan tabloid "Rolling Stone." (Click to enlarge. Names and photo obscured by BTB.)

As amusing as this confusion may be, the real damage for LGBT Ugandans comes from the photos published on a two-and-a-half page spread following the main article. Unlike the previous edition however, there are relatively few names, addresses or places of employment published in this edition.

The so-called “investigative team” also has discovered the discredited American “researcher” Paul Cameron. Writing in their page-two article, the author writes:

According to Dr. Paul Cameron of a Colorado-based medical research institute, homosexuality is more dangerous than smoking as it reduces one’s lifespan by 24 years.”

Cameron has been censured numerous times for professional misconduct, most recently in 2007 by the Eastern Psychological Association when he falsely claimed to have presented a paper before the association’s annual convention. His so-called “Family Research Institute,” which he runs with family members out of his kitchen table, is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of only about a dozen anti-gay hate groups in the U.S.

The paper claims that gays in Uganda have a target “to recruit at least 1 million kids by 2012 — is your kid safe?” The paper also denies that they are seeking mob justice:

In fact we are sternly warning public not to attack homosexuals, though there is no such case on record, but to report them to police for action.

Editorial and photos from Page 4 of the November 1 edition of "Rolling Stone." (Click to enlarge. Names and photos obscured by BTB.)

On a page four editorial, managing editor Giles Muhame takes great pride in the dangerous controversy he’s created. He denies that publishing the names, addresses, and photographs of private citizens is an invasion of privacy. Referring of the numerous interviews he gave to foreign news services, Muhame writes:

I explained that the story was in “public interest” since a cross section of homosexuals is seriously recruiting and brainwashing unsuspecting kids into gay circles. “For example if security learnt that one os assembling a bomb at his residence, would they fear to raid the place fearing ‘invasion or privacy?'” I asked a journalist who had come for an interview. In such extreme cases, especially where life is endangered, journalists are bound to forego “privacy” for the good of society.”

Muhame also denies that anyone was harmed as a result of last month’s outing campaign:

On inciting violence, the International Press Institute (IPI) was told lies that some homosexuals and lesbians had been attacked after the story. Amisingly, neither of them had photographs of their houses being pelted with stones or medical reports showing bodily injuries sustained from the attacks.

In fact, there are numerous reports of gays being attacked as a direct result of Rolling Stone’s earlier vigilante installment. This morning, LGBT advocates in Uganda have launched an official complaint against Rolling Stone before High Court in Kampala.

Pages 3 and 5 of the November 1 edition of "Rolling Stone." (Click to enlarge. Names and photos obscured by BTB.)

At only twelve pages, this edition of Rolling Stone is about half the size of previous editions. And the almost complete lack of advertising (there are only two ads) continues to raise questions about who is providing financial backing for the paper. In fact, in the page 4 editorial Muhame taunts, “I wish you knew who is behind us!! You would stop barking.” One clue over who is behind the vigilante campaign can be found in some of the rhetoric published in this edition. For example, in the page-two article, we find:

Homosexuality involves “fisting” where one puts a hand in the rectum and may end up destroying it, causing fatal injuries, inflammation and transmission of HIV. No wonder homosexuals usually seal the butts with tiny pillows — to save the shattered buttocks from pain if they were to sit on a wooden chair.

This passage contains striking parallels to the rhetoric of Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa, who was famously derided the world over for his “eat da poo-poo” appearance on the Current TV documentary “Missionaries of Hate.” The article also names an unnamed source saying that the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill,, which provides for the death penalty for homosexuality under certain circumstances, will be passed once Uganda becomes “an oil producer.” This, too, echoes the argument that Ssempa put forward on Uganda’s state broadcaster UBC last December.

Page 10 of the November 1, 2010 edition of "Rolling Stone." (Click to enlarge.)

But the largest clue — large enough to be a virtual smoking gun — is Ssempa’s photo splashed on an article on page 10, titled “Lesbians destroyed my life at age of 16 — Sandra.” The story consists of an interview by Ssempa with a so-called “ex-gay” by the name of Sandra Baggotte, who has been featured on Ssempa’s prior anti-gay rallies and media campaigns earlier this year. The interview also mentions Paul Kagaba, another so-called “ex-gay” associate of Ssempa’s who was behind a vigilante campaign waged by the rival Red Pepper tabloid last December.

Several clues from the October 2 edition of Rolling Stone also point to Ssempa’s active participation in this anti-gay media campaign as well.

[Update: Warren Throckmorton has learned from two independent sources that both both Giles Muhame and advertising manager Cliff Abenaitwe both attend Ssempa’s Makerere Community Church. Together with the other evidence before us, it is impossible to see this as anything other than a Ssempa-driven and directed campaign.]

There are additional reports that a similar outing campaign is currently taking place in at least one other tabloid Onion (also unrelated to the U.S. satirical paper by the same name). We also hear that Red Pepper may also have launched a campaign as well. We’ll post more information on those developments as we receive them.

Last week, Ugandan M.P. David Bahati, the sponsor of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, has promised that the bill would become law before Parliament disbands before the 2011 elections. Several otherwise reputable news outlets have falsely reported that the anti-gay bill had been “withdrawn.” But as we’ve been consistently reporting, the bill has instead been sitting quietly in committee where it could be brought before the floor of Parliament at any time. Two weeks ago, Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo, another ardent supporter of the bill, promised that the bill would be passed “in due course.” Increasingly, it appears that this renewed media campaign is very likely intended to increase public pressure for the bill’s passage.

Ugandan Human Rights Advocates To Sue Tabloid Over Vigilante Campaign

Sexual Minorities Uganda has issued a press release announcing that LGBT and Human Rights advocates will bring the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone (no relation to the U.S magazine by the same name) to the High Court over the anti-gay vigilante campaign that was unleashed early last month and resumed again this morning. According to advocates in Uganda, they are scheduled to bring the case before High Court today at 10:00 am before Judge Kibuuka Musoke.

In the press release issued by Sexual Minorities Uganda, LGBT advocates call on the media to end all activities which call for the incitement of violence against LGBT people. SMUG also calls on the government to “take all appropriate measures to put an end to this blatant incitement to public violence against a particular group of citizens” and to honor its human rights commitments under the Ugandan constitution and international treaties.

The full press release from Sexual Minorities Uganda is shown below.

Click here to read the full press release.