Box Turtle Bulletin

On vacation

If over the next week you notice that I haven’t posted a commentary, it’s not that Jim and I are feuding, that I’ve gone into an ex-gay ministry, or that I’ve been kidnapped by Ugandan spies. I’m simply on vacation.

Have a great week and I’ll see you when I get back.

Mother of Bullied 11-Year-Old Who Committed Suicide Last Year Calls on President Obama to Do Something to Protect America’s Youth

First, watch this video from CNN in Atlanta.

The epidemic of bullying in schools has been close to the top of the news cycle for over a month now. The American attention span, often reduced to 30-second sound bites, remains focused on the heart-wrenching stories of young people and their families from around the country. The youth in these stories have ranged in age from 11 to 19 and they have come from all manor of background and socio-economic status.

What they all share in common is the tragic impact of bullying and a lack of successful intervention by those tasked with ensuring the protection of students in school on a daily basis. Inconsistency in action by school teachers and administration is matched by inconsistency in laws and policies designed to address and prevent bullying in schools.

As of September 2010, only 14 states and the District of Columbia have laws that addresses discrimination, harassment and/or bullying of students in school based on sexual orientation and gender identity: California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.

In addition to those states, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin ban discrimination and/or harassment based on sexual orientation (gender identity is not included as a protected category).

A number of additional states have anti-bullying laws that do not enumerate categories of protection, including sexual orientation or gender identity. No doubt these laws were created, in part, to allay the concerns of social conservatives who fight tooth and nail to prevent sexual orientation and gender identity from being included in legislation.

However, as former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said in the landmark ruling against Colorado’s Amendment 2, “Enumeration is the essential device used to make the duty not to discriminate concrete and to provide guidance for those who must comply.”

In other words, nondiscrimination and anti-bullying laws should absolutely include sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as other categories of protection.

In an earlier post, I wrote about unique opportunities that arise to create legislative and social change, often without some coordinated plan by activists and pressure groups focused on a particular issue. This is one of those opportunities to address bullying and discrimination in schools.

I applaud and honor Masika Bermudez-Carrasquillo, in memory of her son, for appealing directly to President Obama to do something to force schools to better care for bullied students and ensure accountability for those who fail to do so, including the parents of bullies.

Leading up to and post the mid-term election, Congressional leaders and President Obama have a historic opportunity to take leadership on an issue that the overwhelming majority or Americans will support: Protecting our nation’s youth.

There is an opportunity to revisit legislation already languishing in Congress – the Student Nondiscrimination Act (SNDA) and the Safe Schools Improvement Act (SSIA) – to see whether their provision adequately address the need to protect students. For example, many Box Turtle Bulletin readers, commenting on a previous post about those laws, called for more explicit provisions that allow parents to take legal recourse against school districts and administrators who fail to protect students.

While the tragic affects of bullying will likely continue, at some point the American consciousness will move on. Our major news outlets will be enraptured by the outcome of the mid-term election and momentum to create change on this issue will diminish.

NOW is the time for the President and Congress to act. I encourage you to contact your Senators, Representatives, and the President to ask them to take leadership on this issue.

I also encourage you to contact the leadership at HRC (202.628.4160), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (202.393.5177), and GLSEN (212.727.0135) to voice your hope that they are doing everything they can to seize this moment to protect our nation’s youth.

Middle School Student Takes a Stand Against Bullying

An NBC affiliate in California covered this story about 7th grader Marco Melgoza, a victim of anti-gay bullying at his middle school in Madera, CA. Despite efforts made by school administrators to curb the bullying, Marco reports that it is still happening. It’s amazing to see youth standing up for themselves with the support of their parents.

Phoenix Clergy protest anti-gay declaration

I believe that the ideals behind our quest for rights are appealing. We want equality, we want to be included, we want to make family, we want to be responsible citizens. In fact, I think that a decent society would be naturally inclined to positively address our concerns.

But there’s the God thing. Our culture has been convinced to a great extent that gay rights run counter to what “the church says” and, well, there are a lot of decent people who defer to religion when they are uncertain.

But what is seldom understood is that in America there is no one religious position on homosexuality. While the media pits “gay activists” against “people of faith” for more dramatic ratings, the truth is that a good many people of faith, congregations, regions, and even denominations loudly and proudly support gay people and their full inclusion into society.

But it is not just the media’s fault. It is, to an extent, our fault as well; we have been too compliant in allowing our enemies to set up the religion v. homosexuality dichotomy. And blame also rests on our religious allies who have allowed the discussion of religion in our country to be dominated by right-wing extremists. Those who are more religiously liberal have been embarrassed to sound as though they were claiming to be “real Christians” and were hesitant to denounce the beliefs of others, even those who espouse views that are exclusionary and homophobic.

But that may be changing. More and more I see men and women of the cloth publicly standing up and declaring anti-gay attitudes to be immoral and contrary to God. One such example is No Longer Silent – Clergy for Justice.

The group will be protesting the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix who has organized an event to celebrate their decision to adopt the virulently anti-gay Manhattan Declaration. (AZ Central)

The liberal clergy group, known as No Longer Silent – Clergy for Justice, plans to place several hundred people along the sidewalk outside the basilica to challenge what they consider hateful rhetoric. They will protext while people leave an 8 a.m. Mass kicking off the Manhattan Declaration events.

“When religious authorities in the name of God tell people they are less than whole, few things are more destructive,” said the Rev. David Ragan, a leader of the group who works at Beatitudes Campus.

The Rev. Jeff Proctor-Murphy of Asbury United Methodist Church in Phoenix said the group hoped to help people understand “there is an alternative way to be Christian and to understand scripture, to love people even when we don’t understand them.”

I wish them tremendous success and much visibility. And I hope that many more religious leaders will be emboldened to stand up for all of God’s children and oppose the voices of condemnation and contempt. As anti-gay ideology ceases to be the religious position and becomes just a religious position in the mind of the public, then they will feel freer to choose decency, equality and love.

The Tragic Suicide of Alan Turing

Alan Turing was a brilliant English mathematician who helped the Allies win World War II.

Working as a cryptographer at the now famous Bletchley Park complex he used his incredible focus and intelligence to crack the seemingly impossible codes of the German Enigma Machine. By locking himself in his room for days at a time he managed to reverse engineer the Enigma Machine — a stroke of pure genius that allowed the British and their allies to anticipate attacks and other vital information, changing the course of the war.

He’s also known as the father of computer science. Time named him one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century.

[E]veryone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine.

Alan Turing was gay. He killed himself on June 8, 1952, by eating a bite of an apple laced with cyanide. But why? We’ve seen a lot of theories from the right on why gay kids are killing themselves. Could any of them apply?

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association might say it’s because society was pushing too hard for people to be gay:

It must be pointed out that homosexual activists are not wholly innocent in these tragedies either. Homosexuals cannot reproduce so they must recruit. Part of the agenda of groups like GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) is to urge students at younger and younger ages to come out and declare a disordered sexual preference. Sexually confused youth are pressured into locking into a sexual identity far before they are mature enough to do so.

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council might argue that society was too accepting of homosexuality:

Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., said the rash September suicides by gays might be linked to the students believing they were born gay. “That creates hopelessness,” he said. “It is more loving and compassionate to say you don’t have to be gay for the rest of your lives.”

His colleague Tony Perkins might back him up:

Some homosexuals may recognize intuitively that their same-sex attractions are abnormal–yet they have been told by the homosexual movement, and their allies in the media and the educational establishment, that they are “born gay” and can never change. This–and not society’s disapproval–may create a sense of despair that can lead to suicide.

Could Turing have killed himself because homosexuality was illegal in Britain?

Could he have done it because police discovered his sexual orientation while investigating a burglary of his home, and he was convicted of gross indecency?

Could it have been because in order to avoid a prison term he submitted to chemical castration by the government via female hormones?

No, of course not. As Tony Perkins makes clear, society’s disapproval does not cause suicide. Alan Turing must have killed himself because Britain was just too damn accepting.

Obama Administration does not appeal federal ruling… in favor of Alliance Defense Fund

Anti-gay activists argue that the federal government has an obligation to appeal pro-gay rulings as far as they can. And this administration has – to date – chosen to appeal decisions that have been made in Federal Court which find anti-gay laws and policies to be in violation with the US Constitution.

But this argument is false. There is no legal obligation to defend laws, much less appeal the rulings of judges. And this administration’s Justice Department does not always challenge cases that they lose: (WaPo)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Aug. 6 that the Park Service’s regulation forcing individuals or small groups to obtain a permit for First Amendment activities was unconstitutional. But the court upheld the agency’s policy of setting aside designated park areas for larger demonstrations and the sale of printed material after applicants obtained a permit.

The Justice Department this week declined to appeal the ruling.

Servicemembers United, which is furious with the Obama Administration for their decision to appeal Judge Phillips’ finding on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, noted their choice. They also noted who had challenged the Park Service, the notoriously anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund.

“In the very same week, the administration says that it absolutely must appeal a federal court’s decision on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ while it orders the Justice Department not to appeal a federal court’s ruling in favor of the conservative Alliance Defense Fund. This contradiction is simply incomprehensible and insulting,” said Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United and the sole named veteran plaintiff in the case along with the Log Cabin Republicans. “Servicemembers United renews its call for the administration to withdraw its appeal of both the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ ruling and the injunction pursuant to that ruling.”

I happen to think that the ruling reducing permit requirements for small casual gatherings is not unreasonable. But you have to admit that Nicholson has a point.

Long Island Police Arrest Teens for Bullying

Nassau County Police on Long Island have arrested three teens who stomped and kicked another teen on a school bus because they perceived him to be gay. Investigators have learned that the bullying went on for weeks. Police have charged Chase Morrison, 16; David Spencer, 18; Roy Wilson, 16 with felonies as hate crimes:

“Punches, backhand slaps and kicks, the victim retreated to the back of the bus where the defendants followed and continued with the assault,” Nassau County Police Det. Lt. John McEwan said.

The trio allegedly stomped on the victim’s arms, legs, stomach and thigh, while making disparaging remarks about his sexual orientation.

It also looks like the school system may be held responsible for the attacks as well:

Unfortunately, buses and locker rooms and hallways and playgrounds are fertile fields for bullying,” said Alane Fagin of Nassau County Child Abuse Prevention Services. The bus driver and matron are cooperating, being questioned by their supervisors and police, who said it is their duty to immediately report any taunting or bullying on the bus.

I’ve asked before when will the time come when school administrators and personnel are held responsible for bullying that takes place on their watch. While it’s not clear in this case whether school employees ignored the bullying, but it looks like the police are taking the possibility seriously.

Interview With Last Known Surviving “Pink Triangle”

Rudolf Brazda, 97, is probably the last surviving “Pink Triangle”, gay men who were rounded up by the Nazis and detained in concentration camps for being gay. They were made to wear pink triangles as an indication of their reason for imprisonment. Brazda spent three years from 1942 through 1945 at Buchenwald. Some estimates push the number of gay men who died in the camps at somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000.

Eleventh Man Arrested In “Wolf Pack” Attacks

The circle of suspects continue to widen in the vicious gang attacks against two 17-year-old gay youths and a 30-year-old gay man in the Bronx to weeks ago.  Luis Garcia, 26, who police say wrapped a chain around his fist and beat the 30-year-old man, is the eleventh arrested suspect in what’s being called the worst gay hate crime in New York City in memory. Garcia will be arraigned in Bronx Criminal Court today.

Belgian Archbishop: “AIDS Is a Kind of Immanant Justice”

Belgian Catholic Primate Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard

According to Flandersnews, the Belgian Catholic Primate, Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard, is about to publish a memoir in which he describes AIDS as a kind of “Immanent justice.” The news item contains very little information on the context of the remarks, but the Archbishop’s spokesman Jürgen Mettepenningen confirmed that those comments accurately reflect the Archbishop’s belief:

Jürgen Mettepenningen: “When the Archbishop spoke of homosexuality as a misunderstood form of sexuality I also sounded the alarm (to the archbishop). I thought that this could be formulated in a better way. But I don’t have the job of thinking for him. I am only his spokesman.”

The Catholic Church in Belgium is embroiled in a massive child sexual abuse scandal. Last June, police seized files on 475 cases last Juny, but a court declared the raid illegal and ordered the files returned. The Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vengheluwe, resigned in April after admitting he had sexually abused his nephew for years. In September, Bishop Guy Harpigny, the Belgian bishops’ spokesman on the abuse scandal, told Belgium Radio that the church is afraid to give a full apology for the sexual abuse of children by its priests as this could open the door to compensation claims.

Defense Dept Ends All DADT Discharges

Even though the Justice Department has announced that they intend to appeal the Federal Court ruling that declared “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” unconstitutional while filing for a stay in the injunction prohibiting its enforcement, the Defense Department has announced that they will bring to immediate halt to all DADT discharges while the case is on appeal.

“Earlier today, the staff judge advocate generals from the military services, in consultation with the Office of the Secretary of Defense Office of General Counsel, sent to their service staff judge advocate counterparts in the field an e-mail informing them of the ruling by Judge Virginia Phillips of the Central District of California, issuing an injunction barring the enforcement or application of 10 United States Code 654, commonly known as the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ statute,” Pentagon spokesman Marine Col. Dave Lapan said in a written statement.

This builds on news from earlier that the Air Force had announced that they would no longer discharge servicemembers under DADT.

Justice Dept Asks for Stay of Injunction on DADT, Declares Intent to Appeal

The Justice Department today filed an application (PDF: 16 KB/3 pages) before U.S. Federal District Judge Virginia A. Phillips, asking that the injunction ordering the immediate suspension of the enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” be lifted. The primary objections to the injunction was outlined in a declaration (PDF: 1.4MB/48 pages) by Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Clifford L. Stanley. The Under Secretary is responsible for personnel policy decisions in the Defense department, and he is a member of the Defense Department’s working group assessing the impact of DADT’s repeal and developing the plan for implementing the repeal.

Stanley asks the Judge to set aside the injunction because, since the administration intends to appeal the decision, “the military should not be required to suddenly and immediately restructure a major personnel policy that has been in place for years, particularly during a time when the Nation is involved in combat operations overseas.” Stanley says that the working group has determined that the magnitude of the impact of repealing DADT is too great to be undertaken on short notice. Instead, he says that an immediate injunction stands in the way of President Barack Obama’s call for the repeal to be implemented in “an orderly way.”

Stanley describes the tasks that the working group has identified in order to end the enforcement of DADT. They essentially break down into two areas:

• Implement changes to written policies and DoD regulations “to address the issues associated with repeal and to mitigate any potentially negative impacts repeal may have.”
• Develop tools and training for the leadership and servicemembers. Stanley complains, “It will be difficult, if not impossible, to provide timely education to forces engaged in combat operations.”

It’s that second point that forms the main part of Stanley’ argument. He warns such training for all levels of service is essential to avoid a chaotic transition:

It is important to keep in mind that thousands of military personnel have enforced the DADT policy for many years. Any change to the policy will require that these personnel receive training and instruction in a number of areas, including: (i) how the policy has changed; (ii) why the policy has changed; (iii) how the change in this policy affects other existing policies; (iv) appropriate treatment of gay and lesbian servicemembers who reveal their sexual orientation; (v) appropriate treatment of servicemembers who object to serving with servicemembers they know to be gay or lesbian; and (vi) principles to consider when handling other issues that may arise the elimination of the DADT policy. Thus, it is not simply a matter of saying that a particular statute shall no longer be enforced.

Stanley also states that the injunction places LGBT servicemembers and the DoD under great uncertainty on how to act during the repeal process:

The military also should not be required to restructure military policy and law during the pendency of the Government’s appeal. If the Court’s judgment is overturned on appeal, and Congress has not since repealed the statute, the Department of Defense will be obligated by statute to reinstate DADT. Removing and then reinstating DADT will be extremely disruptive, as well as unduly costly and time-consuming, particularly at a time when this Nation is involved in combat operations overseas.

Enjoining the operation of the statute before any appeal is concluded, moreover, would place gay and lesbian servicemembers in a position of grave uncertainty. If the Court’s decision were later reversed, the military would be faced with the question of whether to discharge any servicemembers who have revealed their sexual orientation in reliance on this Court’s decision and injunction.

Stanley warns that “an abrupt change – without adequate planning or time to implement a plan – substantially increases the probability of failure or backlash in the early months of this transition, months that will be critical to our long-term success.” Later, he reiterates:

If the DADT policy is eventually abolished, the military will only get one chance to implement the change. For a change of this magnitude, the initial stages are extraordinarily important to the long-term success of the project. That is one reason why the President, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have emphasized the need for careful planning of this transition. A poorly implemented transition will not only cause short-term disruption to military operations, but will also jeopardize the long-term success of the transition. Either outcome would irreparably harm our military and the national security of the United States.

Log Cabin Republicans, who brought the successful suit against the government in Federal Court, pledged to fight the Administration’s application:

We are not surprised by the government’s action, as it repeats the broken promises and empty words from President Obama avowing to end ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ while at the same directing his Justice Department to defend this unconstitutional policy,” said Dan Woods, White & Case partner who is representing Log Cabin Republicans. “Now that the government has filed a request for a stay, we will oppose it vigorously because brave, patriotic gays and lesbians are serving in our armed forces to fight for all of our constitutional rights while the government is denying them theirs.”

Christian Berle, Deputy Executive Director of Log Cabin Republicans, also urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring DADT’s repeal back up for a vote during the lame duck session following the November election.

A Fierce Advocate from Ft. Worth

What do you say we elect Ft. Worth City Councilman Joel Burns our next President?

Cuomo promises marriage equality

Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic candidate for NY Governor could have a lock on the gay vote simply by not being homophobic loon Carl Paladino. So it’s nice to see him actually make promises to the community. (Daily News)

“I don’t want to be the governor who just proposes marriage equality. I don’t want to be the governor who lobbies for marriage equality. I don’t want to be the governor who fights for marriage equality. I want to be the governor who signs the law that makes equality a reality in the state of New York,” said the Democratic nominee.

Sounds good to me.

Air Force stops enforcing DADT

From the AP

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network circulated an e-mail on Thursday that it says was written by the Air Force’s Judge Advocate General Richard Harding. In that e-mail, Harding says the Defense Department “will abide” by a court order that says the military can no longer discharge service members who are openly gay.

Meanwhile, some in the Pentagon are all in a tither about what to do. Why, it could have “enormous consequences”. So, as a service to my nation, I offer the following Q&A.

Q: How do we administer the change???

A: Put any current investigations in the shredder.

Q: But where will the gay soldiers sleep?

A: In the bunk they’ve been sleeping in.

Q: But what about the homophobic soldiers? Don’t they get to make any input?

A: They get the exact same input as to where they will be shipped, what uniforms to wear, and whether they will serve with people of other races.

Q: But the public, what about the public?

A: The public really and truly couldn’t care less.

And if they have any more concerns, I’m sure there’s still room on my post-it note.