"We are all only here because of those who marched and bled and died, from Selma to Stonewall." Thus spoke Michelle Obama as she worked hard to earn support and assure her GLBT allies that that support would be returned. It's true that these are only words, but they're powerful words, risking flak from those among the black community who decry the notion that there is a single thing in common between the struggle for civil rights for African Americans and that for GLBT Americans. I think it was worth nothing. As is this sentence that Mrs. Obama used, something the AP failed to adequately note: "states should decide for themselves how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. "
I stayed on the sidelines in the presidential primary for a while... I supported neither Hillary, nor Obama... nor Edwards, for that matter... till the day of the last primary. But it's something a former acquaintance of mine said to me the day Hillary endorsed Obama that made me an official supporter of Obama. And it's what Michelle said that paved the way for me to march as part of the Obama Pride contingent in yesterday's Gay Pride Parade.
Sorry, I seem to have forgotten to properly introduce myself or my diary, which is sort of a supplemental to my previous diary on the same topic.
I did want to start by giving a summary of the way NYC Pride was... the turnout was incredible, the enthusiasm nearly overwhelming. It did actually rain around 2:30 PM and stopped and started again briefly later in the afternoon... but that wasn't enough to drive away the out and proud GLBTs in the Greater New York City area and beyond.
I personally didn't see the Governor (who made an appearance); it's a long line of floats and groups, but you can view a picture of him greeting cheerers watching from the sidelines.
In other news --
Bolthouse Farms, a producer of juice products, seems intent on pulling an Anita Bryant. They are helping to fund the drive to push through the anti-gay amendment that would deny Californians equal marriage rights. You can find out more about them here, courtesy of The Bilerico Project, which maintains a continuing presence here on DK.
Lacing something with arsenic in an attempt to kill them is one thing, but have you heard of homosexual-laced mayo? If you can stomach it, here's the scoop. If after reading that, you're mad as hell and ain't gonna take it any more, gailwmcdonald has a diary for you. It's too late to rec, but you can still act (and vote in the poll, while you're at it!)
After several reversals, the resident wingnuts over at Arizona's GOP-controlled legislature prevailed. As in 2006, an amendment that, if passed, would ban any prospect of marriage equality in the state any time soon will appear on the November ballot, after all. As many know, Arizona is so far the only state to have rejected one of these ballot measures.
Beyond the obvious reasons, this is really, REALLY not good for marriage rights across the country. This will strain the resources of pro-LGBT organizations across the country, and those who believe in equality will probably have to pick between California and Arizona, making it likely that AZ's defenders of civil rights will be strapped for cash in the fight to beat back the bigots once again.
Interestingly, the development in Arizona has gone either unnoticed (or ignored) by the usual gay Republican apologists:
Chris Crain? Not a peep.
Boi From Troy? Nada.
The "Independent" Gay Forum? Zilch
And of course, the infamous Log Cabins, who failed to do a press release on their official site (they'd probably rather talk about destroying every remaining vestige of gun control; what was that about certain things not being "gay issues"?) or even mention it on the organization's regular blog, where they'd rather waste space attack Kossack Pam Spaulding (of House Blend fame). Pam, meanwhile has covered the AZ debacle extensively and she lives on the other side of the country. Someone should tell these idiots to get their priorities in order.
Steve May, an openly gay Republican who served in the AZ state legislature until he was defeated by a more conservative candidate in a primary (surprise!), and was planning to run against Rep. Shadegg for the nomination for his seat, has apparently been too busy to say a word about this. He has been credited with some as being part of the winning coalition that defeated the ballot amendment in 2006. Let's hope he does his part this year.
Coming back to the NY area, hardly anyone that follows NY politics doesn't know that Joe Bruno has stepped down from the his position as majority leader of the state senate. One aspect of Bruno's (if I'm allowed to employ a bit of irony) stonewalling of progressive items from getting a floor vote on the senate is the marriage equality bill that passed handily last year in the Assembly.
But what doesn't get as much attention are two other bills that provide more basic protections -- DASA (Dignity for All Students Act), which is a statewide version of a bill meant to protect students from vicious bullies, not least of which are students that are or are perceived to be GLBT (something Mike Bloomberg fought tooth and nail) and GENDA (Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act), which would do for transgender people in the state, what SONDA did for GLBs. Both bills would assuredly pass the state senate were they to make it onto the floor. Bruno never allowed that to happen. It remains to be seen whether Dean Skelos will in the half a year he'll have left before the Democrats take the state senate, or they'd prefer to kiss the GLBT vote in the state of New York good-bye for the next half century.
Colorado has two House races that are of special interest to gay people in the state -- Marilyn Musgrave, of Federal Marriage Amendement fame (or infamy, as most people, even in her district, see it) and Jared Polis. If Polis were to win the primary in the district he's aiming for, he would be only the third openly gay member serving in the House.
Help elect Jared Polis to Congress!
The Mormon Church is putting their considerable power to pick a side in the CA equal marriage fith (guess which side they picked?). And although Utah and Nevada are the two states with by far the largest Mormon populations, they have considerable clout in a quite a few other states. They were the reason why Hawaii's vote against the constitution was overwhelmingly on the anti-side. Even if they only comprise a handful of percentage of the overall population, they could swing it over the top for their side.
On a related note, the season premiere of the new season of 30 Days featured a Mormon woman from California of all states, going to stay with a gay couple in Michigan that has 4 kids Hailing from Fullerton in OC (which figures, if you'll forgive me for saying), her home county paper recently came out in favor of legal rights, including civil marriage for gay families. The usually conservative leaning OC Register gives the usual line of libertarian types -- "Marriage shouldn't be government's concern, but since it is, there's no reason not to extend the recognition to same-sex couples". As for the 30 Days episode, although it's one of those rare instances where the experience hasn't been magical and the woman's opinion on gay adoption is largely unchanged, that's now what bothers the Advocate newsmagazine. They see more of a problem with comments made by Peter Sprigg of the "Family" Research Council, a far-right organization. The Advocate was given a courtesy copy of this episode before it aired, and asked that FRC's comments either be removed or balanced with a non-fundy perspective, but the episode was left completely unchanged. The Advocate offers contact info through which you can contact FX along with the article.
FX actually has a history of portraying very... let's just say, "unhealthy"... depictions of GLBT characters, as an article on AfterElton.com documents extensively. For me personally, all I needed to watch was one exchange on the firefighter-featuring drama Rescue Me. In one scene, the gay son of one of the very conservative firefighters was asked if his dad accepted his "choice and lifestyle". Ugh! Speaking of Rescue Me, tonight features the premiere of the new season, in which another of the show's characters, fireman Mike dreams that he went to Massachusetts to get married to Timmy (who is a male in case, you weren't 100% sure). What's especially notable about this is that in at least some of the briefer previews of the new season, those scenes make up the entire preview. Apparently, Rescue Me is ready to acknowledge that they have a large gay segment among its fan base. That won't be enough for me to forgive them for their spreading of ignorance in previous seasons, however.
With all the recent debate about military service and how sacred those who serve in the military are in every single way, it seems shocking that the media has had no choice but to do continuing examinations about how the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy is working, since repeal of the policy seems to be "off the table", no matter how much time has passed. Then again, if anyone who served in the military was respected, America wouldn't have tolerated the Swift Boat smears, so maybe the double standard against gay people (not to mention Democrats) who serve in the military isn't all that surprising, after all.
It seems more and more religious figures (who are probably the ones who would have the biggest problem with it) are treating Anderson Cooper's sexual orientation as an open secret, not least is the famed CNN primetime anchor himself. If you want to blame someone for Cooper being forced to remain semi-closeted, it's the high muckamucks at CNN, not Cooper; I'm getting the feeling that if he had a choice, he would be out by now, even if it might cost him the very, very, very occassional interview. For his part, Al Sharpton, who has a long history of supporting gay rights including civil, and even religious marriage for those denominations that wish to marry gay and lesbian couples (among which would be his church), said something that was interpreted as outing Cooper, but he has denied this. Now if someone can only send a memo entitled "Turn your venom on CNN instead of Cooper; it's in his contract" to the Washington Blade's Kevin Naff.
On the international front:
In Paraguay, a couple jailed on "suspicion of having a same-sex wedding" were freed two weeks ago. It's OK; call off the full force of the law and the best underpaid prosecutors the country's law schools have on tap. That wasn't another woman that got hitched with the bride, it was only a hermaphrodite, so you can go back to solving actual crimes like... I don't know... murder, asssault, burglarly. Now if only someone in the country could get TPTB to get the point and realize that there is no reason in hell (which apparently Paraguay has ambitions to be if it has laws this draconian in a continent that is otherwise becoming more progressive all around) that people engaging in a private ceremony shouldn't get legal sanctions regardless of gender, let alone actually get arrested for participating in one that doesn't get any legal sanction at all!
June may be a time where we in the West can take for granted that we will be able to look forward to our annual festivities of fancy floats, colorful costumes, and hot men... and women, and sexy trans folk, too.
But let's take time to congratulate those in other countries that are celebrating their VERY FIRST Pride Celebrations ever.
Among them are India, where the first national Gay Pride Marches are being held and the Czech Republic.
India's, in particular, comes days before the High Court in Delhi hears final arguments in a case meant to get courts to strike down Section 377, which is what that nation's sodomy laws, are called. Activists are hoping that a successful verdict in their favor would do the same thing in India as was done here in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling.
Kuwait, a staunch ally of ours since even before the first Gulf War, has enlisted its "Social Vice committee" to go after GLBT members of its population. Guess the Kuwaiti government doesn't appreciate all the gay soldiers that fought to protect them among the international coalition in the early 90's, or feel that the country's own GLBT citizens deserve respect and liberty either way.
Although homophobia as a political vote-getting tool doesn't really work as well as it would have on anyone but the usual suspects four years ago here, the same can't be said for Jamaica, where 70 percent of the population oppose gay rights, compared to 26 who support it. Although Rev Dr Marjorie Lewis remains a principled voice that doesn't believe the minority should be subjected to the tyranny of the majority, a poll found that 45% of likely voters said they would vote for the right-leaning centrist party in power, over the center-left opposition because the Jamaican PM, Bruce Golding, said he would exclude openly gay MPs from serving in his cabinet. Meanwhile, a heterosexual woman wrote in to the island's largest paper asking whether or not she should shun her lesbian friend for fear that others would think she was gay because the two are friends. The columnist, mercifully advised her to value her friendship over what gossipy strangers think about her, but it's safe to say we have a long way to go in changing attitudes in Jamaica.
And we'll conclude with the sheerly ridiculous:
Have you heard of Tyson Homosexual, the famous Olympic track-and-field star? Apparently, you're not the only one. A Google search for Mr. Homosexual's full name (in quotes, indicating an exact phrase search) turned up 1630 results as of Monday June 30th at 6:00 PM.
Update 7/02 at 12:30 PM I've apparently been rescued. Thanks to the Rangers, and PaintyKat in particular, for popping my "never-been-rescued" cherry!
My, how good it feels to be de-virginized!