The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
Ask Cleveland, Cleveland's most active LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights organization, announced today that Cleveland volunteers will present more than 2,500 postcards from supporters of a transgender non-discrimination law to members of Cleveland City Council before Monday evening's Council meeting. The postcards, signed by voters across the city, urge council to enact legislation that would add gender identity and gender expression to the city's existing non-discrimination law.
"Right now, it's legal to fire someone from a job, throw them out of housing, or even deny them service in a restaurant just because they're transgender," explained David Caldwell, spokesperson for Ask Cleveland. Transgender people, including thousands of people in our city, make up one of the most marginalized groups in society. A 2006 study concluded that the unemployment rate for transgender people was 35%, with 59% earning less than $15,300 annually. Many of Ask Cleveland's own transgender volunteers have suffered discrimination -- discrimination that is currently legal.
So what did Ask Cleveland do? Here's the plan:
In response to an August survey by the Gay People's Chronicle, an Ohio gay newspaper, only 8 of the 21 members of City Council expressed support for the non-discrimination law. "It will be much easier for members of Council to publicly express their support for this law -- and vote to pass it -- knowing that thousands of the voters they represent are asking them to support it," added Caldwell.
Ask Cleveland, a volunteer-based grassroots organization, has been working since May to organize supporters of the law in Cleveland. Hundreds of volunteers have talked with thousands of voters where they live - Glenville, Fairfax, Collinwood, Edgewater and other neighborhoods. "We've seen overwhelming support for legislation that would protect transgender people in our city," said Jennifer Dowd, Ask Cleveland's field director, "and it's clear that voters want Cleveland to join the many cities throughout Ohio that already have laws like this one."
Basic civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people is something the general public has been supporting in opinion polls, and have voted to support is cities like Gainesville, Florida and Kalamazoo, Michigan. It seems that antidiscrimination and public accommodation laws are the low-hanging fruit on the LGBT civil rights tree. Essentially, there's no reason to think civil rights based on gender identity and expression couldn't become law in Cleveland, Ohio.
When I woke up after the November 2008 election, I woke up with the reality that about half the people I saw on the street in my hometown of San Diego did not want to see my lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community have equal marriage rights under the law. Moderating the CoverItLive (CIL) live-blogging/chat room thread, I saw some LGBT folk in the Northeast realize, like I did last November, that just over half of their families, friends, neighbors, and people they see in the street voted against their equality, with regards to marry, under the law.
I put out the poll early on in our live blogging coverage about which election result our blenders were following closest:
I'm one of the 2% who said the election result I was following closest was the basic civil rights election in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I cared about that most because I believe it was the one that spoke to the basic civil rights issues of trans people and community most directly, and because the opposition fought that piece of legislation with the Bathroom Meme -- the Bathroom Meme that states crossdressed men and trans people are going to invade public restrooms to prey on women and children.
And, as I pointed out in the Godly Perverts And The Bathroom Meme, one has much more to fear from Godly Perverts in women's public restrooms than one has to fear from crossdressed men and trans women.
That this is the second municipality in a row (the first being Gainesville, Florida) where voters rejected those who used the Bathroom Meme in an attempt to and deny basic civil rights to LGBT people...well, I think this says something positive about America regarding America's views on housing, employment, and public accommodation for LGBT people.
Still, I'm with Pam and many other baristas and blenders in this though: Civil rights aren't things that should be subject to mob rule. As happy as I am in winning in Kalamazoo, I'm not happy at all that there was a referendum on a basic civil rights ordinance for LGBT people.
The city council is expected to vote Thursday on a proposal to expand Tampa's anti-discrimination laws to include transgender individuals.
The proposed ordinance, if approved, would extend laws prohibiting discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation, sex, race and religion to include "gender identity or expression" as a protected class...
Let's hope that if this passes we don't end up with another "mob rule" referendum on the ballot.
We keep hearing about the potential danger of crossdressed and/or trans women predators in public restrooms, and yet the folks who purport that anti-trans Bathroom Meme can't point to any examples of trans people
But we can point to bad apples on their side of the house.
A clerk at a Christian bookstore in Simi Valley was arrested on suspicion of peeping after Simi Valley police found a video camera hidden in a bathroom at the store, authorities said today.
Officers were called to the Family Christian Book Store in the 2900 block of Cochran Street on Sunday afternoon after a 40-year-old woman and her husband reported finding the video camera, said Simi Valley Police Sgt. Dwight Thompson.
After examining the video, investigators determined that 28-year-old Joseph Moreaux had gone to the restroom just before the victim to hide the camera and record her while she was inside...
The CVS Pharmacy manager who allegedly admitted Friday to filming women in his store's bathroom was an active participant in the 2008 charter amendment to "keep men out of women's restrooms."
Jonathan Matheny, 27, was charged with one count of video voyeurism after a customer told police she had discovered a cell phone equipped with a camera under a pile of tissues in the CVS bathroom at 125 S.W. 34th St.
And you want to talk about predatory behavior towards children, the same Focus On The Family that posted this radio ad...
Here's the TV commercial created by Citizens for Good Public Policy, encouraging Gainesville, Fla. voters to vote "yes" on Charter Amendment 1 on March 24.
Hate for transgender people, and by extension lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, fighting for basic civil rights for LGBT people now includes off-the-shelf lies in opposition television ads about how trans people behave in public restrooms.
Emphazsizing the bathroom (whch we call the Bathroom Meme and the Bathroom Predator Meme) is the new tact for denying the entire LGBT community civil rights -- as this bill is not just about trans people. We, as a community, are going to have to come up with a effective LGBT argument to counter this kind of anti-LGBT ad, or we're going to see this tact used against the entire LGBT community civil rights for a long time to come.
It's a bit hypocritical when that group was allegedly putting the petition on the ballot to protect women in bathrooms and then the manager of the store who was allowing the petition gathering was in fact preying on women in bathrooms.
~Terry Fleming, spokesman for Equality in Gainesville's Businesses (the political action committee created to oppose the charter amendment that failed at the ballot box)
The CVS Pharmacy manager who allegedly admitted Friday to filming women in his store's bathroom was an active participant in the 2008 charter amendment to "keep men out of women's restrooms."
Jonathan Matheny, 27, was charged with one count of video voyeurism after a customer told police she had discovered a cell phone equipped with a camera under a pile of tissues in the CVS bathroom at 125 S.W. 34th St.
Police are looking for other victims.
The petition drive in the summer of 2008 was aimed at a city ordinance that provided rights, including equal access to public accommodation, for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals.
Matheny signed the petition, according to records with the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Office, and opponents of the charter amendment say they received reports that Matheny allowed the petitions to be distributed and signed at his store. Those behind the drive said the amendment was essential to prevent men from using the public-accommodation portion of the law to enter women's restrooms and film, rape or otherwise prey on the opposite sex...
There is no case that the conservative "Christians" opponents can point to where a crossdressed or trans individual has engaged in predatory behavior against women or children in public restrooms, yet now we have a case where a supporter of one of these bathroom bills has engaged in predatory behavior -- voyeurism -- against women in a public women's restroom.
I hope our LGBT civil rights organizations note this story about a supporter of an anti-LGBT piece of legislation labeled a "bathroom bill." I believe we need to point to this voyeurism story as relentlessly as "Christian" conservatives would be pointing out a story of a trans or crossdressed individual preying on women or children in a public restroom -- They can't find such a story to point to.
However, now we find a bathroom voyeur in the ranks of the bathroom bill supporters. A campaign conservative "Christian" organizations financially supported.
Sickening.
F***ing Hypocrites.
By the way, CVS has just lost all business from me until they donate significantly to a campaign batting ordiances and legislation for a bill labled by conservative "Christians" as a "bathrom bill." CVS needs to donate significantly to an organization that lesbian, gay, bisexual AND transgender civil rights, and they need to donate significantly to an organization that provides direct services to needy, unemployed transgender people.
CVS needs to own the story of this CVS manager/bathroom predator who worked against trans people -- trans people like me. CVS needs to own this story by doing significant work for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and expecially transgender people their Manager sought to deny civil rights to in a business under the banner of their corporate CVS logo.
A few years ago, when we still had time for such things, my husband and I belonged to a book group. One of the last books the group read before it's leader moved away (and, having become a first-time parent that year, I declined to be in charge of much else besides keeping myself in relatively clean clothes) sparked an exchange between me and my husband that came to mind as I watched the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings.
The book was Middlesex (a delightful read), and in one chapter the protagonist's family of Greek immigrants shopped for a new home. They encountered a real estate agent who asked how many relatives lived with them, and subtly directed them toward certain neighborhoods and away from one — where "ethnics" like themselves would "not fit in."
It hit me like a slap in the face. It sounded familiar, but different. To me, this fictional family was white. But in the time and place they occupied on the page they weren't "white enough."
"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. My husband, who was reading the same book, looked at me.
I looked up from the page, looked at him, and said with a note of wonder in my voice, "There are different shades of white."
"Yes," the son-of-Polish-immigrants that I married said, dryly. "There are."
Or at least there were. From the moment Judge Sotomayor's nomination was announced, it's become more and more evident that all those varied shades of white have since blended into a much paler, but more uniform, shade.
I was probably an annoying person to have around if you were watching the Sotomayor confirmation hearings. I was so frustrated listening to them that I couldn't help ... um ... talking back to the television. There is, after all, only so much the mind can take before it explodes.
At least, that's true of my mind. As for the minds of some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, last week was like a crash course of what I've often referred to as "self-evasion of the mind."
It was some time before I recognized “self evasion of the mind” as the act of contorting the mind so as not to have to see or acknowledge what is obvious to anyone who simply looks.
It's a phrase I learned from an admired college professor, and I've since expanded my understand of it to include contorting the mind in order that one may continue to hold conflicting views or beliefs, or engage in behavior that is diametrically opposed to your stated beliefs.
Basically, it's amounts to working very hard at not having a clue. Or, in the case of Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, working overtime at not having a clue.
Civil rights leaders Cรฉsar Chรกvez and Thurgood Marshall - whose names appear on schools, libraries, streets and parks across the U.S. - are given too much attention in Texas social studies classes, conservatives advising the state on curriculum standards say.
"To have Cรฉsar Chรกvez listed next to Ben Franklin" - as in the current standards - "is ludicrous," wrote evangelical minister Peter Marshall, one of six experts advising the state as it develops new curriculum standards for social studies classes and textbooks. David Barton, president of Aledo-based WallBuilders, said in his review that Chรกvez, a Hispanic labor leader, "lacks the stature, impact and overall contributions of so many others."
Marshall also questioned whether Thurgood Marshall, who argued the landmark case that resulted in school desegregation and was the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice, should be presented to Texas students as an important historical figure. He wrote that the late justice is "not a strong enough example" of such a figure.
The recommendations are part of a long process as the State Board of Education prepares to write new social studies curriculum standards for public schools. Debate on the issue, which will also include questions of the role of religion in public life, could be as intense as that on new science standards that were adopted by the board in March, when evolution was a major flashpoint...
...Board members and their appointees have complained about an "over representation of minorities" in the current social studies standards. This is ironic in light of the changing demographics of our country. Sadly, Latino and African-American children have the highest drop-out rates in the country. It's essential to ensure schools are providing students with role models and historical figures whose experiences reflect their own.
We must be concerned when the contributions of Cesar Chรกvez, Thurgood Marshall and other individuals who have contributed so much to the landscape of American democracy are cast aside and ridiculed. We should welcome the inclusion of all Americans who have helped to make this nation great.
It is horrific to discover that the TX State Board of Education has allowed these panelists to use our children's social studies curriculum as a platform for their political agendas. Please take action today to stop this travesty from going forward. Send your e-mail to the Chair of the Texas Board of Education Gail Lowe (R).
I don't know about you, but Cรฉsar Chรกvez and Thurgood Marshall are civil rights heroes of mine. I've taken to quoting Cรฉsar Chรกvez, and this quote of his seems particularly relevant:
Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity?
In my mind, Cรฉsar Chรกvez and Thurgood Marshall are civil rights heroes whose life accomplishments tell us about the best of humanity. Since Texas is such a large purchaser of school textbooks, the disinclusion of Cรฉsar Chรกvez and Thurgood Marshall in social studies textbooks for Texas would have ripple effects for what's in textbooks sold to school districts across the broader United States.
If you're interested in telling Texas to keep the contributions of Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall in the school social studies curriculum, then consider going to the United Farm Worker's action alert and sending off an e-mail to that Chair of the Texas Board of Education.
But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.
On the 45th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination must not stand. Not on account of color or gender; how you worship or who you love. Prejudice has no place in the United States of America.
NOTE FROM PAM: Former Co-Chair of the Obama LGBT Leadership Council during the 2008 campaign, Stampp Corbin, contributed this essay on discrimination that is spot on -- it discusses the numerous subtle ways that we are "othered" every day in a heterocentric society that have a great impact on our lives.
Counting all forms of discrimination against LGBTs by Stampp Corbin
The original definition of the word discrimination was a harmless one. It's meant to have the ability to detect fine distinctions, like a wine connoisseur can detect citrus and oak in different bottles of chardonnay. Today the word discrimination is used to describe treatment based upon a class or category, rather than individual merit or simply put, prejudice. Discrimination comes in all forms, from the overt to the subtle.
When it comes to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, discrimination against us is often some of the most subtle. Much of it is so subtle; most Americans don't even know it exists. How are members of the LGBT community discriminated against? Let me count the ways.
First, there is our inability to be open and honest about our relationships at work. Whether it is in the military or at the local family restaurant, some in the LGBT community are closeted at work because they can be fired in many states just for being a member of the LGBT community. Yet, our straight co-workers can extol their divorces and third marriage to reckless abandon. A gay man talking about his 12 year relationship with his partner, not good.
Let me count the ways. In some states where gays and lesbians have domestic partnership or civil union health care benefits, those benefits are taxed as ordinary income. That means a gay spouse pays $1,000 to the government for the same $3,000 worth of benefits that are given to a straight spouse with no taxation. When it comes to the military, "traditional" families are given many benefits when their loved one is deployed. LGBT families get none of these benefits. In fact, many LGBT partners are informed of their loved one's death not by the military, but by the soldier's family. Thanks for making the ultimate sacrifice. We would have kicked you out anyway had we known you were gay or lesbian.
Let me count the ways. If my brother and I were killed in an automobile accident and my brother left an estate of $1 million, his wife would receive his entire estate tax free. My partner Scott would be forced to pay an estate tax of about 30 percent because the federal government does not consider us related. So Scott pays $300,000 to Uncle Sam, my brother's wife would pay nothing. That is discriminatory.
When it comes to social security, my sister-in-law would be the beneficiary of my brother's social security, my partner Scott would get absolutely nothing. So the LGBT community is contributing to the stability of the social security system by letting all the money we have contributed go back into the system at our death, instead of to our loved ones. Sound fair to you?
Then there are those pesky hospital situations. Scott and I had to hire an attorney to ensure that he has the power to make medical decisions for me. No problem for my sister-in-law, this ability is automatic with her marriage certificate. What's worse is my sister-in-law simply has to state to the doctor or nurse, "I am his wife." No asking for proof, it is accepted. Scott says "I am his partner," the response often is "Do you have a living will stating so, and do you have a copy for our records?" Isn't discrimination grand?
Let me count the ways. How about the member of the LGBT community that falls in love with someone from another country. Does their partner get to immigrate to the U.S.? Absolutely not. A straight couple, the spouse is welcomed with open arms. In fact, mail order brides still exist and they get automatic citizenship. LGBT partners, get in line; you may get citizenship in seven to ten years. All men are created equal...except lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender.
So now you know. The LGBT community is discriminated against in everyday life. There are over 1,100 rights that married couples get from the federal government that Scott and I are denied. So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to be part of the problem or the solution?
In a recent column, columnist Dan Savage took aim at a comparison I have often made (just this week, in fact) about the similarities and differences in the fight for gay civil rights and the end of the drug war. I've always said it is an inexact comparison, but helpful for making strategy and understanding the political climate.
(Savage Love) I am a high-functioning regular heroin user (not quite an addict), and I feel constantly compelled to hide my drug use. I feel that there are similarities between being a drug user and having an alternate sexual orientation in the sense that both users and gays are constantly confronting judgmental opposition from an ill-informed and puritanical American public. I wonder whether you have any thoughts on this matter. Do you believe that drug users are deserving of the same kind of empowerment and liberation as gays, or do you view drug use as a "disease" that needs to be "cured" the same way that the Carrie Prejeans of the world believe gays need to be "cured"?
I realize that one significant difference between heroin use and sexual tastes is that heroin use is illegal, but of course gay relationships were illegal until relatively recently. Am I just rationalizing? Or could drug use be the next civil-rights frontier?
-Dude Requests Understanding Gay Sensibility
Uh... gee.
I don't believe that all drug use is abuse, and I believe that recreational drugs can be used responsibly. And I believe a person should be able to use a drug regularly without being labeled-by himself, by others, by court order-an "addict." I also wish that more people were open about their drug use-but, in the hypocritical fashion of most Americans, only when we're talking about drugs that I like and have used myself, e.g., caffeine, sugar, pot, and my boyfriend's pheromones.
Recreational heroin? Heroin seems kind of extreme, DRUGS, as recreational drugs go. I've known a few people who've self-medicated with heroin and functioned well enough to get by-just-and I think that all drugs should be legal, your drug of choice included. We need to end the war on drugs, a failure and a waste of money and lives. And the quickest way to end it is for successful drug users-people like you, me, Michael Phelps, and the president of the United States of America-to be open about our past, present, and future drug use. But I don't think "drug user" is an identity that's really comparable to sexual orientation. Using drugs is something you do, DRUGS, it's not something you are.
Look at it this way: If you stopped doing drugs today, DRUGS, you'd no longer be a drug user. If I stopped inhaling my boyfriend's pheromones-and cock-today, DRUGS, I'd still be a big homo. Because gay is like Cats ("now and forever"), while heroin is like Twitter (fun at first, sure, but you'll regret it one day). See the difference?
But, yeah, the freedom to use drugs can certainly be viewed as a civil-rights issue: It's about the right to control what you do with your own body, and that argument resonates with others advanced by gay-rights advocates and advocates of reproductive choice. But different drugs carry different risks-risks of harm, risks of overdose, risks of death-and, legal or not, heroin is a highly dangerous drug. It's a drug that's made more dangerous by its prohibition, sure, but it's dangerous even when it's pure. But I think you have a right to use it, if you want to use it, and that you should have access to safe, medical-grade heroin and clean needles. But I don't think you should use it, not when there are other, better, safer drugs available.
Like my boyfriend's pheromones.
Savage makes good points, many I've made before, but his post led me to thinking about this comparison in a broader context.
Good news in Michigan -- Kalamazoo has outlawed discrimination against LGBTs in employment, housing and access to public accommodations. Video is from WOOD-TV:
Oddly, Americablog blogger John Aravosis chosen to use a New York Times article on the improvement to the lots of transgender federal workers, entitled New Protections for Transgender Federal Workers to highlight the need for an apology from President Obama on the DOJ's recent DADT DOMA brief. Aravosis' piece begins as follows:
Lawyers for President Obama are quietly drafting first-of-their kind guidelines barring workplace discrimination against transgender federal employees, officials said Tuesday.
The guidelines will be in an updated federal handbook for managers and supervisors to be distributed and posted online in the next couple of months, and they could also be included in other materials for managers. They will list transgender people - those who identify their gender differently from the information on their birth certificates - as among several groups protected by antidiscrimination laws.
This is a good thing, and an important step for the transgender community...
A "good thing" John? Really? You really think so?
Well, back to that point in a short bit. Aravosis, in this recent piece, calls for President Obama to apologize, and lists other grievances he has for the Obama Administration:
Not a word from the White House about that little chestnut. And there's the rub. It's great that the White House suddenly feels the need to act on a number of issues that help the gay community, only after we collectively beat the crap out of them. And they seem intent on finding every non-top-of-the-agenda item they can to "fix" in order to boost their pro-gay bona fides. Today, for example, we learn of the government's apology to Frank Kameny for having fired him 40 years ago for being gay. This is good thing. But again, it is not an explanation for how our president's DOJ could compare us to incest and pedophilia, and for why our president refuses to issue a stop-loss order preventing real governmental discrimination taking place today in 2009, not in 1957. It's almost as if the Obama administration hopes that if it can piece together a big enough list of small items, they can make us go away on our biggest issues, Obama's biggest promises, to repeal DOMA and DADT.
Let's remind the White House once again why we are all here:
• Will this president apologize for comparing our community to incest and pedophilia?
• Will he explain why the brief gratuitously argued for the dismantlement of the legal underpinning of our civil rights (suggesting that Loving v. Virginia had nothing to do with gay marriage equality)?
• Will he explain why our civil rights do not matter his making an exemption - which he is in his rights to do - to the standard, but not exclsuvei [sic], practice of a president defending existing law? Why won't he oppose DOMA in court?
And then there's DADT...
Funny now that Aravosis uses a piece that begins with a transgender component to begin an screed against the president's policies towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. It's "funny" because John Aravosis has pretty much said that he doesn't believe transgender people belong in the -- or perhaps I should say "his" and not the -- "gay community". And of course, he never apologized for his statement.
Hey, if Mr. Aravosis wants to rail against the Obama Administration for not doing enough for the LGBT community, I'm going to side with him -- the Obama Andministration hasn't done enough. But, for him to use a New York Times on transgender federal employement issues to argue that the Obama Administration owes the LGBT community an apology on the DADT brief? Oooooooooh no. That doesn't get a pass from me at all.
Mr. Aravosis owes an apology to the transgender subcommunity of the LGBT community for personally approving of kicking transgender people and issues out of the broad lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community for the benefit of ENDA 2007/2008, and now he currently owes a fresh apology to the transgender subcommunity of the LGBT community for using a story about the transgender subcommunity to make a point about the Obama Administration's treatment of LGBT people.
Frankly, the term is overused, but I'm still going to use it here because I don't have a better term to describe how I feel about Aravosis' use of the transgender subcommunity of the LGBT community to make a point about the Obama Administration: I'm offended by Aravosis' statement. When John Aravosis issues an apology to the transgender subcommunity, and he writes a piece about how he now embraces lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in a broad lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights movement, then in my opinion he will have at least some sort of moral authority on which to turn news about the transgender subcommunity into calls for apologies.
Please. Mr. Aravosis should take a read at Matthew 7:
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
Mr. Aravosis should be pulling the plank out of his own eye regarding trans people and issues before using transgender people to make a point on LGBT civil rights -- before using trans people and issues as a starting point for making a statement about how the Obama Administration needs to appologize regrding LGBT civil rights -- and that horrid DADT DOMA brief of a couple of weeks ago.
A Blender named Beth did this video, "Gay Civil Rights Movement is Our Civil Rights Movement," and wanted me to share it with you. The provocative piece is worth your time.
Making this video has left me drained, speechless and sad. I am triracial: African American, Native American and various flavors of European American. Although we're triracial, my family and I primarily identify as African American. Mormonanswerman (a YouTube user) has claimed that African Americans do not like to have comparisons drawn between the GLBTQ civil rights movement and the African-American civil rights movement. Speaking as an African American, the comparison holds true. The history of discrimination may be be different, but the effects of hatred, bigotry and bias are the same.
This discussion has come up before, but it's hitting the news wires again as longtime LGBT rights activist Cleve Jones announced again that there are plans for a march on October 11 to demand that Congress address equal rights for LGBTs.
Cleve Jones said the march planned for Oct. 11 will coincide with National Coming Out Day and launch a new chapter in the gay rights movement. He made the announcement during a rally at the annual Utah Pride Festival.
"We seek nothing more and nothing less than equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states," Jones said.
He stirred up a crowd of thousands just blocks from the Salt Lake City headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, part of a conservative coalition that worked last fall to pass California's Proposition 8, which overturned a court ruling legalizing gay marriage.
"I've got a message for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," Jones shouted. "I've got two words from California ... I've got two words for the prophet ... Thank you. Thank you for uniting us. Thank you for galvanizing us."
Not stated in this article is the fact that on October 11, Congress is in recess, and so no one who goes to Washington would be able to speak with their elected officials. This is asinine. If showing our numbers is to represent power, it should be paired with direct action.
It is not the time for a march, IMHO. People who would scrape up the time, energy and enthusiasm to get to DC to march should at the very least be able have the opportunity to learn how to lobby elected senators and reps, since we all know people love to turn out to demonstrate en masse, but rarely show up to speak with lawmakers with the same enthusiasm. Also, direct contact with lawmakers is something the right wing far surpasses us at in terms of effectiveness -- this has to be the goal of any effort of the scope of a national march. Give people tools they can use back home at the state level, not just provide an offline social networking opportunity to hear feel-good speeches in the equivalent of an echo chamber. Stonewall 2.0 grassroots efforts like the initial Join the Impact rallies showed us that we have to take advantage of online direct action to spur targeted offline action. And it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.
A march will cost and arm and a leg, and require foot soldiers to negotiate space, hotels, all sorts of logistical nightmares in such a short time frame. Wouldn't you rather see resources to put people on the ground in Maine, or New York, or Washington state, or any other place where there are opportunities to stop anti-gay efforts and promote equality gains? Our movement is already stretched thin; there are a lot of great minds and dedicated people ready to work hard, but we have actions going on all around the country that need our support, and the economy presents us with difficult choices about how to help best. The last thing we need is an ill-timed effort to drain time and attention from other worthy efforts. But that's just my two cents (whatever that's worth). What is yours? Make the case for the march - is this about mobilizing those who didn't have the opportunity to march last time around? A reboot of the movement?
Is a march on Washington the best use of organizing power and LGBT money, at this point and time, for the movement?
(UPDATE: Nadine has responded to questions raised in the comments. See below the fold.)
Nadine Smith of Equality Florida wrote this timely and valid piece, "'No Excuses. No Delays.' Do we really mean it?" and asked me to post it on the Blend to generate discussion.
It's a fair question to ask -- what are we really willing to sacrifice to call attention to the severity of the discrimination that profoundly our day-to-day lives?
At a recent speaking engagement, I asked a group of people what the world would be like if from the day they were born prejudice had never touched their lives.
No homophobic bullying in school. Supportive families at homes No trans-bashing humor on TV. No workplace discrimination. Equal treatment of all families regardless or orientation or gender identity. No closet, ever, because you had never, ever needed one.
Most of the people responded by talking about new laws that would be in effect but they struggled to name the deeper, more personal impact on the texture of their daily lives. A few talked about what they would no longer fear but struggled to articulate what affirmative would replace those fears.
And one man wept and said it broke his heart that he could not imagine, even for a moment, what his life would have been without the constant presence of bigotry and hatred he'd endured for more than 60 years.
I encourage everyone to try this exercise because it is surprisingly difficult, and because I believe it is the pathway to our most potent tools in response to government-imposed second class citizenship:
A Sense of Urgency and the >Willingness to Sacrifice to harness the transformational power of living "as if." "As if" the laws had already changed. "As if" society were just.
Sitting at a lunch counter that bans your presence is living "as if". Keeping your seat when ordered to relinquish it to someone the law has designated your superior is living "as if."
As a child I was told that Rosa Parks was tired and fed up one fateful day and decided right then and there that she would not give up her seat. I was impressed by her courage.
Later, when I learned that her protest had been contemplated at length with the consequences fully measured, I was inspired even more deeply by her willingness to intentionally sacrifice her freedom and safety to make the country confront the ugliness of Jim Crow.
So where are the places where we contemplate the consequences of living "as if" equality had already arrived. Housing discrimination, workplace discrimination, adoption/ custody issues and hate violence are constant threats in LGBT lives, but not in inevitable or predictable ways. Where are the "sit-in" opportunities for the LGBT movement that can expose the contradiction between what our fellow Americans believe they stand for and what they allow to be done in their name?
Certainly discrimination in marriage laws and the military provide the most direct opportunities. These are the places the law defines us specifically as unequal, where we can make a reliable appointment with discrimination and be certain it will show up right on time.
Servicemembers who come out while on active duty and fight for the right to continue to do their jobs are a model for this kind of personal commitment and sacrifice. They decide not to participate in their own discrimination. They and the organizations fighting for them are shifting public opinion in dramatic ways.
What is the civilian equivalent? What can we do that demonstrates not only the rhetoric of equality but the personal sacrifice that will awaken the conscience of a nation?
Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
The morning of November 5th, 2008, was bittersweet. I awoke that morning, after Barack Obama's historic, with a sense of hope diminished by a nagging despair following the passage of Proposition 8 in California, which attempted to snatch away the equality that that the state Supreme Court granted to same-sex couples just months ago. The Obama campaign slogan, "Yes we can," was transformed into "Yes we did," by revelers in the streets of D.C. and in other locations across the country and around the world. I couldn't honestly join in the celebration without also reminding myself that "No, we didn't."
I'm never particularly comfortable in front of the camera, but here you go...it's like take #50. But the message is sincere, not scripted, (thus the multiple do-overs). I was just winging it from what I expressed in my original post introducing The Dallas Principles. But this is what it's about -- grassroots efforts, not a lot of polish!
PAM SPAULDING: Hi. I'm Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend.com, and I'm here to talk to you about why I support The Dallas Principles. It's time to take a fresh look at the equality movement and how we can best achieve full civil rights under the law for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in this country faster.
In 2008, people turned out for change, and the voted in unprecedented numbers. Here in North Carolina, people voted for change by electing the first woman as governor of the state as well as flipping us from Red to Blue.
Unfortunately, for those of us who are LGBT North Carolinians, we don't have full civil rights under the law. There is no hate crimes legislation the books. There is no anti-discrimination law in place statewide.
What we have is a chance to make some difference at the federal level with your help. You can get involved by talking to your neighbors, your friends, your family, your legislators...and you can also share grassroots ideas about how to achieve full civil equality at the federal level by going to TheDallasPrinciples.org. I hope you'll join me. Thanks!
I actually shot a better version of it in HD, but for whatever reason, the file hosed my computer.
There has been a lot of talk on Barack Obama's first "100 days of silence" regarding the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (and associated law). First we go back to a recent article about the changes on the White House website which first featured the wording "changing" in regards to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. The White House quickly did an about face that evening and adjusted the site to say "repealing."
With two high profile discharges this month of two Asian Americans, including Army Lt. Dan Choi and Army 2nd Lt. Sandy Tsao, Barack Obama can't afford to remain silent on this issue. A break in the silence came May 7th in the form of a hand written letter from the President to 2nd Lt. Sandy Tsao in which the President promised "changing" the policy as a response to a letter she wrote him back in January on the day she came out to her command.
I think it's great that President Obama has said something promising to keep his promise. However, I'm still concerned with the wording. "I'm committed to changing the policy" doesn't mean the same as repeal. And while we can all give him the benefit of the doubt on his true intentions it doesn't escape the fact that the White House website initially said "changing," the officials in the Administration are saying "I don't know," and Nancy Pelosi is saying "What we're focused on is jobs, jobs, jobs." One gets the feeling their not even on the priority radar of our elected officials other than as a pariah to generate campaign donations to all sides of the argument.
One option the President may have as explained by Pam below is an executive order suspending enforcement of the policy, which could easily be re-instated by the next President. Or the President could use his "bully pulpit" and really get out in front of his issue.
In a recent exclusive interview with me for the Blend, Aubrey Sarvis, he said his "concern is, if the president remains silent, Don't Ask Don't Tell is going to become his law... silence [will] and in fact, will okay, the continuation of Don't Ask Don't Tell enforcement and funding."
And the question becomes "Will the President allow this to become his law? Will he allow Don't Ask, Don't Tell to be defined by his almost deafening silence?" The right wing has started to take notice as well. This, today's missive, from The Peter.
It is interesting that the White House through its official website retained Obama’s promise to repeal “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” (thus allowing open homosexuality in the armed forces) even as it removed his pledge to repeal DOMA–one of the top goals of his homosexual activist allies.
Obama has a lot to gain and nothing to lose for standing his ground on his ORIGINAL campaign promises. This game of "change" needs to turn into something real.
Counting all forms of discrimination against LGBTs
At a recent speaking engagement, I asked a group of people what the world would be like if from the day they were born prejudice had never touched their lives.
