I always thought Maine was a beautiful state...not a SLOW one!

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Gay rights can lead to end of abuse of power

Total victory for gays, lesbians and others who express their love, or their gender, differently from 85 percent of the population will come when most of the general public judges us by our own individual character.
Now that after 28 years, Maine is the last New England state to have the protection of the gay civil rights law, our work at educating the public that there are good and bad gays has just begun.
The Proud Lesbians of Poverty will fight to prevent abuse of power once called rape or molestation wherever ignorance prevails. We see our job as educating the public not to degrade and abuse power over another human being.
We see the biggest barrier to the implementation of this law being that the public believes gays are all perverts. That is not the case. Most of the stealing of souls of our precious children is inflicted by men in heterosexual relationships.

We want the public to know rape is not a sexual act any more than using a fry pan to beat someone's head in can be called cooking. We at the all-inclusive Proud Lesbians of Poverty hate abuse of power no matter who commits it. We work for a kinder, more courteous world where all people, no matter whom they love, or their income, skin tone or their religion, are valued. Let us have a total victory of love in the next few years.

Jan LightfoottLane
Hinckley

Michigan, wake up, you guys!

State sees sharp rise in hate crimes
FBI report not 'anything close to a realistic picture'
By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman
Originally printed 12/15/2005 (Issue 1350 - Between The Lines News)

DETROIT - Living in Michigan is becoming less safe for lesbians, gays, and people of color, according to hate crimes statistics released by the FBI in 2003 and 2004. The 2004 figures show a seventy-eight percent rise in reported hate crimes against gays and lesbians in one year. During that same time, hate crimes against people of color rose by twenty-eight percent. Michigan ranked third in the nation for hate crimes, and second in the nation for hate crimes against lesbians and gays.
"We know in Michigan that most law enforcement agencies don't even have a place in their paperwork to indicate an anti-gay hate crime," said Triangle Foundation Executive Director Jeffrey Montgomery. In addition, the City of Detroit did not report hate crimes statistics to the FBI, nor does the FBI collect statistics on hate crimes against transgender individuals. These lapses, said Montgomery, means the FBI report, "doesn't have anything close to a realistic picture," of the scope of anti-gay hate crimes in Michigan.
Ninety-three hate crimes against LGBTs were reported to Triangle in 2004, most of them within the metro Detroit area, Montgomery said. According to the FBI, there were forty-one reported anti-gay hate crimes in 2003 and seventy-three in 2004. During that same time period, hate crimes against people of color rose from 286 to 366.
Montgomery said that even the Triangle report was probably highly inaccurate. "Even those of us [agencies working with victims of anti-LGBT hate crimes] who are doing a very good job of capturing reports about [victims] are getting only about thirty percent," of the actual crimes committed, he said.
Montgomery said that the rise in anti-gay hate crimes in the FBI report could be a sign that more local law enforcement agencies are contributing data. According to Montgomery, the federal government does not fund the collection of hate crimes data, leaving local jurisdictions little incentive to do so.
"We show consistent rises in our figures over the years, but we also disclaim very clearly that it doesn't necessarily mean that crimes against gay people are increasing - it may mean that our efforts are paying off with more people reporting what's actually going on," he said.
On the other hand, "To the extent that crimes are increasing, it should not surprise anyone," Montgomery said, and explained that there has been a historical correlation against anti-gay ballot measures and an increase of hate crimes against gay and lesbian individuals.
Explaining that any real increase in hate crimes against lesbians and gays in Michigan may be tied to the Proposal 2 campaign, Montgomery said, "Unfortunately the only way that the hard right wing can gain success in those kinds of campaigns is to say the worst, most harmful, most virulently anti-gay rhetoric they can come up with. And we know that there is a direct connection between that kind of rhetoric coming from so-called religious leaders and right-wing political hacks and people feeling empowered to do violence to people they think are LGBT."
As for the increase in crimes against people of color, Montgomery said he sees a connection.
"The administration in power in this country, both at the executive level and in Congress, is basically racist, homophobic and classist. The kind of leadership that they choose to provide ... reflects those biases and encourages people to find scapegoats and enemies so they won't notice the horrible leadership that they are getting."
Leaders in Detroit's black LGBT community agreed with Montgomery.
"I think that one of the things that you found is that there's this hatred message that's coming through from the far right," said HRC of Michigan Board Member Michelle Brown. "What you're finding is that even though it's coming from a religious base it's a message of intolerance. They're supporting the anti-affirmative action initiative, they're against the fight for gay rights, so who do those point at?"
"What they're saying is, 'If you're not just like us we can't tolerate you and so it's okay to beat, kill, hurt people who are different.' It's a very 'them' and 'us' society that they're pushing," she added.
"With the rhetoric around these elections, and politicians using us as scapegoats, everyone else focuses on us, too," said Johnny Jenkins, co-founder and director of the Detroit Black Pride Society. "And those politicians don't realize that their rhetoric affects our quality of life,"
Jenkins said that he thinks part of the reason for the rise of anti-gay hate crimes in Michigan in 2004 "is all that fallout from Proposal 2."
"I think that the religious right - or the religious wrong, as I like to call them - actually have helped to contribute to this negative climate for people of color and for gay and lesbian people by being so opposed to gay civil rights such as marriage, second parent adoptions, the right to employment without discrimination," said Kofi Adoma, founder and president of Karibu House, "and certainly their voice is out there and it's affecting a lot of people. And it creates an atmosphere in which people feel it's okay to hate somebody."
Adoma and Jenkins agreed that social conservatism has fueled anti-gay hatred in the black community as well.
"I know even within people of color communities the same kind of conservatism is going on," Adoma said. "You've got people like Keith Butler running for Senate, saying it's okay to vote for [George W.] Bush and to discriminate against gay and lesbian people. When you've got people like that, people are going to listen. And people are buying into it, unfortunately."
"We know that homophobia is really intense in the black community, and when you don't have those open discussions, there's so much of a deep divide where people don't understand the effects of homophobia," Jenkins said.
Jenkins added that LGBT community members of all races need to be more persistent about reporting hate crimes when they happen.
"I know for a fact that my community doesn't report enough to Triangle," Jenkins said. "It's getting worse the worse the economy is, and it's not going to get any better. It needs to become a higher priority within the black LGBT community as well as the community overall. [We] need to encourage people to make a report to Triangle so we can start documenting this stuff."

Celebirity sighting and exciting week just ahead!!!

Wow, it's already been 2 days since this occured, but better late than never, right?

Anyway, Dane Cook, the irrepressible comedian, one of my favorite stand-up acts of all time, happened to be on Yahoo! IM, so, I IMed him and...and...he actually wrote me back. Well, okay, so it was only two short lines, but still, I was honored, giddy and all giggly to receieve them from the man himself! Here's the proof (God bless you Yahoo! Message Archiver!):

CeCe (12/12/2005 11:07:09 PM): Hello?

CeCe (12/12/2005 11:07:40 PM): Dane???

CeCe (12/12/2005 11:09:17 PM):

CeCe (12/12/2005 11:10:20 PM): Well, at least I did get to say hi to you even if you're not writing back, I still got to say it and it makes me happy.

CeCe (12/12/2005 11:12:21 PM): My name is Celia, by the way, and I won't bother you anymore. I think you're cool and very funny and a sweet guy, too.

DaneCookcom (12/12/2005 11:14:32 PM): no prob

DaneCookcom (12/12/2005 11:14:37 PM): thanks for the IM celiaaaaa

CeCe (12/12/2005 11:16:04 PM): Coooooool, anytime! (sighs) he wrote back! (*faints*)

Other than that, things in my life are mundane and boring right now. At least on Friday and Saturday I have something very exciting and cool to look forward to: visiting my love, Ryan, for a whole 7 days! :-D I'm a happy girl about that, what more do I need to say, world?

'Daddy's dead like me, grandpa, and now he's come home to us!'

After reading Eric Bailey, Sr's obit, I did a little "googling" of the cemetery he is burried in--and guess what? Sure enough, his "little boy that died" was there in the cemetery records. They are much more than likely buried next to each other now. The more I learn of this man's life, the sadder I become.

Here's Eric Martin Bailey, Sr. obituary as it appeared in the http://dentonrc.com (Denton TX Record Chronical on Wednesday, November 15, 2005:

Wednesday, November 16, 200506:59 AM CST on Wednesday, November 16, 2005Eric Martin Bailey Eric Martin Bailey, 41, died Sunday, Nov. 13, 2005, at his home in Denton. He was born April 27, 1964, in Bethesda, Md., and moved to Texas in 1971. He graduated from Bryson High School in 1982. He graduated from Midwestern State University in 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in theater and speech, and did graduate work at the University of North Texas, University of London, Kings College Chelsea and Oxford University. He began work for the Denton school district in 1997. He was named Denton High School’s “Most Inspirational Teacher” in 2005, Texas Teacher of the Year in 2004 (Educational Theatre Association) and Denton High School’s “Most Talented Teacher,” 1998–2004. He served as interim director for the Denton Community Theatre in 2005, and in February 2005, he received the Greater Denton Arts Council’s Community Arts Recognition Award for education. A funeral service will be at 2 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 17, at the First Baptist Church in Graham. The Rev. Chad Stubblefield of Loving Baptist Church will officiate, assisted by the Rev. Gary Tull of First Baptist Church. Burial will be in Graceland Cemetery in Jermyn. A memorial service will be at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 18, in the Ly­ceum of the Student Union at the University of North Texas in Denton. Survivors include his mother and stepfather, Kay and Mark Shepard of Graham; his son, Taylor Bailey of Evansville, Ind.; daughter, Jordan Bailey of Hen­rietta; their mother, Joy Hicks of Henrietta; two brothers, Frankie Bailey and Brandon Bailey of Graham; one sister, Kelly Smith of Graham; grandmother, Vestal “MeMe” Martin of Abilene; four nieces and three nephews. He was preceded in death by his son, Eric Martin Bailey Jr.; and his father, Frankie Weldon Bailey. Morrison Funeral Home in Graham is in charge of arrangements.
-------

I'm numb; I don't know what else I can say for today.

Sheer hell, day 2.

I'm still in utter disbelief! Life and the world seem to be mocking me and all my sorrow and pain. Oh, you never think it can happen to you...I mean, I knew something like this had to happen--people lose people, people die every day, every minute...I knew I was bound to lose someone close to me. Eric must've done this to test me and all his loved one's strength and depth of faith.

Oh, God...I hear the song "Starry Night" in my head, the stirring one by Don McLean (he writes such moving songs) and I can only think he was singing not only of the famous Vincent Van Gogh, but of Eric, too...and the millions just like him that take their own lives here in this country alone each year.

Now I understand...
What you tried to say to me...
And how you SUFFERED for your SANITY...
They will not listen, they do not know how...
Perhaps they'll listen now!

...And when NO HOPE WAS LEFT INSIDE
Of that Starry, Starry NIGHT...
You TOOK YOUR LIFE AS LOVERS OFTEN DO...
But, I could've told you, Vincent (Eric),
THIS WORLD WAS NEVER MEANT FOR SOMEONE AS BEAUTIFUL AS YOU!!!

...NOW I UNDERSTAND
WHAT YOU TRIED TO SAY TO ME
AND HOW YOU SUFFERED FOR YOUR SANITY;
THEY WILL NOT LISTEN,
THEY'RE NOT LISTENING STILL--
PERHAPS THEY NEVER WILL!!!

I was never good at saying goodbyes, I never will be, and I'm neither ashamed nor am I proud to admit this. Goodbye is such a permanant word. This can't be the end--I will not let it be the end!!! It's not the end because I still love him and I know he still loves me. Love lasts even beyond death, I know this. I've always known this. I sit here and act like I'm the only person who loved him deeply and is missing him and feeling such agony. No...there are at least hundreds who feel the same way or similar about him and what became of him. His students, his children, his co-workers, his friends, the rest of his family...

Oh, God, how he must have suffered!!! Why didn't he ask for help??? I'd've giving him my life to help him, to save him...hell, to give him just ONE MORE DAY!!!! Wake up, Eric...just wake up...

Or, rest in a peaceful, gentle sleep...one or the other...don't be lost...because you're HOME now...you're HOME..and you'll be waiting there for me just like you were at the end of the Super Pit Tunnel, waiting to greet and embrace me when I graduated...you waited to kiss me, God, how could I ever forget???? I KNOW, I KNOW, I SIMPLY KNOW...when my day comes, too...you'll be there waiting for me. And I know exactly how you'll greet me, too:

(close embrace)

Eric: Oh, little girl, my little squirrel-bait...what took you so long???

And without missing a beat, to you, I'd reply:

Celia: It was you, remember? It was ALWAYS you. You gave me a reason to live life so passionately and for as long as I could. But, hey, I'm here now! Let's laugh again, just like we used to!

Love,

your Celia

Why my life will NEVER, EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN...!!!

At first, it all seems just a bad dream...I'll wake up, and he'll still be there, teaching, laughing, babbling, all stressed and excited at the same time...the day will fly by, as usual, and students will flock home or to hang out with friends, and they'll hear him call out: "Love ya, mean it, DON'T DO DRUGS!" as they go...

Why was it so hard to see that he'd go like he did? Sure, he was fun-loving, he laughed much, he seemed to have a light heart. Why didn't I see it??? His sadness, how he was really drowning?

Eric...Eric Bailey, only 40 years old. God! I'm already more than half his life span at 23 years old. 40 years old and...no more. And yet, still, no less. He is no less to me and thus will always be.

"O, Captain, my Captain...fallen, cold and dead!"

No...! It's not only a bad dream...it's a cursed nightmare from wicked Hell! And this time, this time, I cannot wake up!!!

I worry about his own children, his boy and his girl...what about them? How will they cope without Daddy? How will they go on? How will they reguard this monstrous tradgety? They're in their own nightmare...their own hell...

And his students, his other children...what hell are they in???

Memories are all that's left, sweet memories of my Captain...

The way he laughed, the way he hugged, the way he walked, the way he spoke...the way he was. And yet...he was just a man, scared, lost, hurting. And so like a man, he hid it away from this world.

I have so many favorite memories of him. Like the time I accidently "ran over" him in my chair and he pretended to be hurt. I couldn't for the life of me stop laughing! And the time he read my theater inventory to my Theater III/IV class giggling his butt off!

He and I used to tell each other "dirty jokes" too that I can't write out or God would smite me. He used to call me "little girl" all the time and "squirrell-bait", too! Geez, "squirrell-bait" is a name only Mr. Eric Bailey would come up with!

I remember he was hurt when I didn't take his Theater IV class, but Mr. Shaw messed that one up for me as I couldn't take ASL III and Theater IV together--they were during the very same block class, A-2!

Once, when I was absent from his class the previous day, he found me in the cafeteria line, stopped me, and said, "Where were you yesterday, little girl?" He geniunely sounded hurt. I had been sick the day before but I promised him I wouldn't miss his class anymore. I did my best not to.

The day that I graduated...a day I will never forget... (May 25, 2000--my 18th birthday, no less!) he waited for me and greeted me when I came out of the Super Pit. He gave me a card from him. "I'll never forget Annie in a plane crash! Love, Eric" it said, among other very sweet things. "Annie in a plane crash" was something I improvised in class one morning in Theater II. Bailey loved it and told friends and other students about it! I pretended I was a child star singing "Tomorrow" as our fictious plane we were all was going down!

I guess why I love him so much (well, there are countless reasons why I love him) was because he and his class helped me get through all my personal hell when my parents divorced and neglected me for almost 3 years while I was a Sophmore-Senior at Denton High School. He gave me a reason to live and to want to live.

In the 2 years after I graduated, before I had to move, I visited him whenever I could. We would literally hold our own parties and laugh/joke fests back there in his office; sometimes, it became so wild that Ms. Shaw would come back there to quiet us down!

Eric was so good to me and he cared about me as no other teacher did. We could talk about almost anything together. I think I'll miss the two of us laughing together the most though, laughing together at our own jokes and lives for 7 straight unforgetable, wonderful, magical years!

Miss yahs, Bailey! I love you forever--please do not forget me!!!

Your "little girl" and "squirrell bait",

Celia Foster

My life will NEVER, EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN!!!

Denton theater director dies
Eric Bailey, 40, acclaimed for turning Denton High into competitive program
07:23 AM CST on Monday, November 14, 2005
By Ava Thomas Benson / Staff Writer
Eric Martin Bailey, director of Denton High School's Theatre Arts Department, was found dead in his home Sunday morning. He was 40.

Eric Bailey
Bailey's teaching career in the Denton school district began at Calhoun Middle School in 1997. He moved into his role at Denton High the following year and has taken the school's one-act play to Uni­ver­sity Inter­scholastic League state competition four times in the past eight years. Bailey, a popular teacher, is credited with making Denton High's theater program competitive.
Russell Cox, a Denton High junior, said Bailey was a key figure at the high school.
"It's like the death of an era," Cox said. "Bailey was our theater department and that's just gone now."
In February, Bailey won the Greater Den­ton Arts Council's Community Arts Re­cognition award for education. He was a University of North Texas graduate, served as the interim director for Denton Community Theater during the summer and had lead roles in several of the theater company's productions.
Cox said Bailey was close to his students.
"The last conversation I had with him was about my grades," Cox said. "I used to go to his house and watch movies sometimes. He was really like a brother to me -- a big, 40-year-old brother."
Denton theater students gathered at Cox's house Sunday to grieve, he said.
Kerri Peters, a Denton High senior, said it was helpful to have someone to talk to.
"I think us being together right now is really helping everybody out and kind of relieving some stress," Peters said.
Peters is president of Denton High School's International Thespian Society and has been involved with the theater department since her freshman year. She said she called many of her peers to tell them the news.
"Their first reaction was like mine was, it was ‘What are you talking about?' and ‘That's not possible,' and then breaking immediately into tears," Peters said. "I think we're all just st! unned. He was really inspiring all around as a teacher and as a friend."
Denton school district officials are ensuring that counselors are available for students who want or need them, Denton Superintendent Ray Braswell said.
"He did a wonderful job with the theater program," Braswell said of Bailey's effect on the school. "He was high-energy, very personable and very likeable. He had really taken the theater program to a new level."
School board member Rick Woolfolk said Bailey inspired him to learn more about the district's arts programs.
"The more I got to know Eric and the work that he did with the kids, the more I supported the program," Woolfolk said. "He took a program that had been maybe OK, and he took it to best in the state."
Most impressive was Bailey's ability to work with the students, Woolfolk said.
"The kids just worshipped him a! nd would go out of their way to achieve the level that he exp! ected ou t of them, and he had very high expectations," Woolfolk said. "He had a compassion and an ability to connect that was extremely good."
School district spokeswoman Sharon Cox said the district would set up an Eric Bailey fund through the Denton Public School Foundation. Donations can be made in Bailey's name to the Denton Public School Foundation, 1307 N. Locust St., Denton, TX 76201.
The school district has also canceled Monday night's performance of Ryan High School's play, Never the Sinner. It would have been the closing performance for the play.
AVA THOMAS BENSON can be reached at 940-566-6875. Her e-mail address is abenson@dentonrc.com

The discriminitory WNBA...hmm...

Throwing upan air ball Local WNBA team misses slam-dunk opportunity to market to lesbian fans
By KATHERINE VOLIN Friday, November 11, 2005
WHEN THE WNBA EMBARKED UPON its virgin season in 1996, heterosexuality reigned supreme.
Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes were displayed by the league as proof that the elusive combination of physical prowess and heterosexual beauty was alive and well within the WNBA.
Swoopes was the first player signed to the WNBA, and her pregnancy,which started showing early in league days, seemed further evidence that if the league had lesbians, it wasn’t announcing it.
Funny how things turn out. Swoopes came out publicly in October.
“I just thought it was interesting that someone that the league had presented as a model of motherhood and coming back to play after giving birth [is a lesbian],” says Sandra Robinson, a local self-identified “die-hard” WNBA fan.
Robinson and her partner, Juanita Deans, have held Washington Mystics season tickets since the team’s inception. Although they were both pleased to learn that Swoopes is a lesbian, they say that the WNBA in general and the Mystics in particular have done little to acknowledge their lesbian fan base.
Pat Griffin, author of “Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and Homophobia in Sports,” says that in the WNBA’s early days, lesbians were ignored in favor of selling the athlete’s heterosexual appeal.
“Certainly lesbians are a huge fan base of sports of all kinds,” Griffin says. “I think they wanted to make the lesbians as invisible as possible and to really put the emphasis on ‘look at these heterosexual sexy athletes.’”
Robinson says that the number of lesbians at the game is so high that some women only come to socialize with other lesbians.
“I’m a big basketball fan, so I really enjoy the games for the action, for the style of play, but also it’s turned into a big chance to see some of our friends,” Robinson says.
Robinson says the WNBA’s summer season — it generally runs May to September — is as much of a chance to hold court as to watch the ladies play on it.
Sheila Alexander-Reid, a former Mystics season ticket holder, agrees that Mystics games have been a mainstay of the local lesbian social scene since the WNBA came to Washington.
“At halftime, all the lesbians go up to the little bar or restaurant area on the club floor [of the MCI Center, where the home games are held] and socialize and network and eat and drink,” Alexander-Reid says.
The Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest gay civil rights organization, holds a party at every season opener, an event an HRC spokesperson says draws a diverse crowd, including a “significant number of lesbians.” HRC holds no such event for Washington’s NBA team, the Wizards.
ALTHOUGH HRC KNOWS THAT THE lesbian market at the Mystics games is virtually unmatched, the league and team pass over lesbians as a moneymaker, Alexander-Reid says.
“For the first three or four years, it seemed like they went out of their way to avoid any public connection with the lesbian community,” Alexander-Reid says. “They sort of courted us privately.”
All this was happening, Alexander-Reid says, while the Mystics were accepting critical backing in the stands from lesbians.
“I believe without the lesbian support, the WNBA would have folded several years ago,” Alexander-Reid says. “They’re sort of the unheralded backbone of the WNBA.”
Mystics management says the team is reexamining marketing strategies. Sheila Johnson, a former owner of Black Entertainment Television, purchased the Mystics franchise in May. Chief operating officer Curtis Symonds says the new management is still establishing how to best market the team.
“Our core market for the Mystics are young women, 18-34 and young ladies 10-17,” Symonds says. “I’ve been on board now for three months and I’ve got to tell you, we haven’t done much in the past [to market to lesbians].
Symonds says that the team keeps no precise data on the number of lesbian fans.
Ticket holder Deans says the untapped potential of lesbians at WNBA games baffles her.
If you had every gay person boycott one game, I doubt very seriously that the arenas would be half full,” Deans says.
“Why miss marketing to gays and lesbians, especially lesbians, when the dollars are there? ... If you picked one day and say this is gay and lesbian day, if you had one day that said, ‘We want your business,’that would go miles.”

Viewpoint piece in Time

Posted by Pam Spaulding at 11:34 AM
A break from the Alito madness...
Jeninne Lee-St. John has an excellent Viewpoint piece in Time this week, writing on the current conflict within the religious black community on gay civil rights. It's worth the read.
Just look at the black religious leaders—like Rev. Bernice King, a daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.; evangelical juggernaut Bishop T. D. Jakes; and groups like the Memphis-based Coalition of African American Pastors—who've joined ranks with the conservative Right in opposing gay marriage. They say gay rights are not the same as civil rights. They accuse gays and lesbians of "hijacking" the civil rights movement for their homosexual agenda. They say it's unholy and unnatural. But it's for perhaps that last argument alone that, as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court mulls a challenge to an old state law now being used to prohibit out-of-state homosexual couples from wedding there, black Americans should sympathize with gays and lesbians who want to marry.Lee-St. John accurately notes that anti-miscegenation laws in the South prevented blacks and whites from marrying for those same "unnatural" and "unholy" reasons. When that was over turned, it was not the end of American culture and civilization. Those yahoos hell-bent on "protecting marriage," such as Falwell, Dobson, Santorum, Rick Perry, a host of black homo-bigot pastors, and of course, our friend in the Vatican, Papa Ratzi, have made it practically their life's work to restrict same-sex couples to second-class citizen status.
The hangup many blacks have is the comparison to the gay rights struggle as equivalent to slavery, which is ludicrous. It's not a zero-sum game that civil equality for gays means blacks will somehow have their rights removed or restricted. This, of course is also nonsensical if one considers that there are those among us that are both gay and black, something that clearly is an uncomfortable reality for many religious blacks (see what occurred at the Millions More March, for instance, when black gay activist Keith Boykin was turned away from the podium by homophobe Willie Wilson).
Of course there are important differences. "The comparison with slavery is a stretch," Jesse Jackson asserted in a speech at Harvard last year, "in that some slave masters were gay, in that gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution and in that they did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote." All of which is true. Race is most often, rightly or not, signified physically. While gays have been, and still are in many instances, forced to play straight, they at least had a refuge. It was historically difficult, usually impossible, and often illegal, for a black person to pass as white (even if 15/16ths of his blood was). They had nowhere to hide.
So yes, in the game of Who's Been More Systematically Oppressed?, black people win hands down. But that doesn't discount the hardships of other groups. (Remember the federal Defense of Marriage Act?) And it doesn't mean everyone isn't entitled to equal rights.Massachusetts Governor (and apparently an '08 prez contender) Mitt Romney is clinging to that 1913 law, and knows that there will be a domino effect, a likely positive cascade of gay rights rulings that will follow, if it is overturned by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Lee-St. John challenges those black leaders on the side of the gay-bashing evangelicals on this issue to remember how black civil rights and gay civil rights intersect.
Conservative blacks should denounce the Massachusetts law in question not because they've suddenly decided to embrace something they find wrong but because the law is wrong. It's ostensibly a Federalist argument that is in fact homophobic—and was racist—in intent. And it offends me to the core that lawmakers would deny equal rights to one minority group using a statute created to target others, a statute that could have barred, even invalidated, my existence and might have prevented me from marrying my (white) boyfriend from Massachusetts in Massachusetts. Remember that it took until 1967 for the U.S. Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional the anti-miscegenation laws that remained on the books in 16 states—and that Alabama still didn't repeal its law until five years ago.
Filed: GLBT Race Religion
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Comments
R. Mildred said on October 31, 2005 01:01 PM:
These people need to bone up on their black history: black slaves weren't allowed to marry each other, nevermind white people.
When you're imitating the slave masters, you know you're ideas about the limits of civil rights is wrong.
And how did martin luthor jr's daughter get to be reverend anyway, doesn't she know women reverends are unholy and unnatural?

Why we aren't winning (any faster)

BLADE BLOG

Why we aren't winning (any faster)
If you want to know why, more than 35 years since Stonewall, gay and lesbian Americans still lack basic federal civil rights protections, an important part of the answer can be found in two stories about the Human Rights Campaign in this week's Washington Blade.
HRC is the nation's biggest gay rights group, with an annual budget of $31 million and a staff of almost 150. HRC claims some 650,000 members, although Blade readers learned earlier this year that this number includes every single person who has ever donated at least $1 and provided an address, minus a few who've died or written the group canceling their membership. Still, HRC is the biggest fish in the gay pond, and has led the way for efforts to win federal gay rights laws.
A quarter-century after HRC's founding, there's still no federal legislation protecting gay Americans from bias in the workplace, housing or public accommodations, or enhancing punishment for anti-gay hate crimes. This despite strong public support in the polls and — at various times — supposedly friendly Democratic control of the White House and both houses of Congress. But two landmark anti-gay laws — "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act — were both signed into law by Bill Clinton, an HRC endorsee.
For years under the leadership of Elizabeth Birch, HRC focused far too much focus on growing the organization and not enough on its mission, including millions and millions to purchase and renovate an upscale headquarters in Washington, D.C.
When HRC does get around to actual lobbying, it is far too timid: too timid in pressuring Democrats and moderate Republicans and too timid in making our case to the American public. Now, the two examples from this week's Blade.
First, we reported that HRC hired as its media relations director Brad Luna, the former spokesperson for a Democratic congressman who aggressively supported amending the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage. When then-Congressman Brad Carson voted for the marriage ban amendment, he even issued a press release bragging about it.
"As a life-long Southern Baptist," Carson said in the statement, "I firmly believe that marriage must remain a consecrated union between one man and one woman. I was the first member of the Oklahoma delegation to publicly call for a ban on gay marriage."
That HRC would hire a staffer from "the enemy camp" was itself newsworthy, if not necessarily a bad thing, especially if we are to gain insight about how best to lobby Democrats and moderate Republicans like Carson. But in typical HRC fashion, Luna's position was that Carson and other "red states" Democrats deserve a "pass" on gay marriage, even when it comes to amending our nation's founding document to ban it:
Luna said he urged Carson not to support the marriage amendment and frequently called on him to be more supportive on gay rights, but said he knew instinctively that the political reality in Oklahoma required Carson to distance himself from gay rights to remain a viable candidate for public office.
Well more than 30 Democrats from conservative "red states" voted against the gay marriage ban, so why can't Carson be faulted for not doing the same? "Distancing himself from gay rights"? You can't get much more distant. Carson scored a whopping 11 out of 100 on HRC's congressional scorecard, refusing to back employment protection, hate crime legislation, or even broader HIV treatment.
With a lobbying strategy that excuses such aggressive hostility to gay Americans, who needs opponents?
Speaking of the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, the Blade also reported that Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas held a hearing last week on the measure, which he recently reintroduced. HRC helped recruit friendly witnesses to testify but made the strategic decision not to publicize the hearing.
[HRC Legislative Director Christopher] Labonte said HRC decided not to issue a press release or call attention to the hearing because the group’s strategists believe public attention to the issue would work to the advantage of the amendment’s supporters.
How is it possible that HRC's lead legislative strategist believes that conservatives have the better side of the argument on amending our Constitution to ban gay marriage?
In fact, HRC has for years tried to change the subject when presented the opportunity to engage the public on gay marriage. In state after state facing ballot measures banning gays from marrying, HRC's strategy has been to avoid discussing gay marriage itself and instead argue that constitutions shouldn't be amended to discriminate. The resulting string of defeats — by remarkably similar margins, whatever the year or the state's political leanings — has still not convinced HRC to modify its strategy.
HRC strategists will claim in their defense that the public needs to be educated first on the issue, but how can we educate if we shirk from opportunities to talk about our lives?
Last year, when Laura Bush was pressed on whether she supported her husband's constitutional ban on gay marriage, her innocuous answer was that the issue was "something people should talk about and debate." Rather than welcome such a rare invitation, HRC's then-leader Cheryl Jacques released a letter criticizing the first lady, saying there were more important issues — like the economy! — for Americans to discuss.
When our biggest gay rights lobbying group is ducking opportunities to actually lobby for our equality, and then makes excuses for those who oppose us, is it any wonder we aren't winning?
Posted by Chris Crain, Executive Editor Nov. 1 at 10:59 PM ccrain@window-media.com

Saturday, November 13, 2004
9:21PM - A long while.
Hi, John.I have returned again. Did you miss me? Since I've been gone a lot of things have happened: I am in touch with both relatives of Heather O'Rourke and Judith Barsi! I am still proudest of Trixy, J.'s best friend. I hope Trixy calls me back soon today. I have friends named Jeff and Sandy and Ron and...I'm just excited. I really miss Diemo, though. I hope he is okay and not in any kind of trouble. I will pray for him tonight. I really hope he is okay.
Current mood: worried
Current music: You Don't Know Me as sung by Ray Charles
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Friday, January 23, 2004
12:16PM
Dear John,It's been a while, I know. On Tuesday, I saw David again for fitting. He said I looked so cute in plastic. :) He should've taken a picture like he said he would. I'm going to ask S. if I need to bid for him. Signing off for now.
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Monday, October 6, 2003
8:35PM
Dear John,Today was a little less ordinary. By that I mean a couple of things.1. David Russell, all around wheelchair genius came over (bringing tea, of course) and finalized my new chair settings and features. Commentary: He is an extremely sweet man. A little afraid to loosen up when presented the opportunity, but that's no big deal; he was after all, on the job. I'm not saying I expected him to take off this shoes and put his feet up on my desk while I got him a beer, but...I like to see what I can ease him into sharing.He again told me I was a very bright lady, which I do appreciate, but I get the feeling it impresses him a bit too much, like when your parents dig the fact that you have the skill to use the bathroom by yourself. Again, no big deal, really.I do wish he could've stayed a little longer to drink tea with me, though I do understand all too well when one must leave for a long trip away. Mom got me used to saying goodbye on very short notice. I will see him again for the actual fitting process but for an odd and very social reason I want to spend time with him outside of wheelchairs and business just to get to know him on a much more personal level. I feel intuitively that he is more than worth getting to know as a person, as the special David he is, not just as a therapist or wheelchair mechanic, but as a....friend. Something about him makes me want that. I hope he does not mind that. I was, considering my flirtatious spirit and giddy manner, reasonably well-behaved and courteous. I am fond of thinking (although the rest of the world may not agree) that I have an open heart and am willing to show everything to those who come in my world. At times, I know I must seem cold and distant to others around me who do not venture too closely for more than a chat. Hopefully, this is not my overall impression on people I come into contact with. I mark this enocounter with Daivd as (I do not wish to use the term "successful" as it is rather subjective and confusing) as lovely. Perhaps this, also, is too bold a term, but unlike the former, it is plain in its meaning and defines the experience aptly; moreso than I can express any further. 2. Diemo Pulss is now a very close friend; closer than I ever anticipated. I fear most, John, that I will lose him one day, which saddens me beyond all reason and eloquence. The present is indeed all we can control and is most worthy of our attention. As this moment passes, I think on what he means to me. Come what may, he is my friend until I pass on to the next world.My ideas and works are terribly malnourished as of now; how do I expect to createwithout the means neccessary or the inspiration? My moments will come, I suppose.
Current mood: thankful
Current music: Blackbird by The Beetles
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Thursday, October 2, 2003
7:35PM
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/cfspen/lst?.dir=/Celia&.src=ph&.order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/
Current mood: accomplished
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7:21PM
For those who say I have no life or little of one to live this is my reply: how can you now breathe my air, think my thoughts, dream my dreams and claim you have not lived? How can you say that you have burned my candles through the wick, how can you feel you have rolled my tears? What right do you have to stand in my skin? Comparatively so, perhaps you have seen things so mighty, real or terrible as to shut me up and off but not still my blood or run it cold. What is so better about what you see that I cannot be me and say that I too have been on your earth as you so boldly call it? Why are you so special that you make that claim? I am no more special, real, or fantastic a soul than any, so why am I different and what makes you the same? I have not sang, nor thanked, nor loved, nor heard, nor felt more deeply than the likes which you stem from. The difference is this: what I choose to do about my hurt. What of babies never born yet in their mother?s wombs had suffered a death before their life in your world that you so vivaciously absorb? Can you say now they had more want to live than I? Or would you say they never wanted this from the start? Oh, there?s a belly-laughing joke. Are you so cocky, haughty, self-indulgent, indignant--you call me wretched, peevish, petty? Who can say they have out-lived you at 17? Anyone. That?s right. Just like you.They call me an old soul where I come from. Let me bore you by telling you why. Once upon a time, some angels got together and said, "The world is too exciting! We covet the lives of those terrestrial beings!" And so I was unborn. Yes, unborn. Too dull and drab and sluggish to be born. I wasn?t even attached; they saw no need for that. They figured I must pass as quickly as possible for you born sort. And, so according to plan, my soul has ripened and rotted at my age of 19. Just call me a stereotypical, rug-burned Jew. What is living? What is a life? And how would only you know? The only people who never live are those that never realize the world is more than just one place. Who has lived now? That?s right. Everyone.
Current mood: cranky
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Saturday, August 16, 2003
8:49PM
Dear John, Feeling kind of sad right now as my day winds down; I don't mean to say or imply that my day was bad in any way. It was in fact quite good. I updated my Return to Oz site, and submitted a quiz on it for the more hardcore fans.Heather O'Rourke is still almost fully on my mind and haunting me...in a good way, though. I just can't get over her being dead at 12. I never could. Updated message board with a lot of info on Chron's Disease and some on Intestinal Stenosis. I hope that helps all others with questions that they may have on how Heather died.S. and I are growing closer I think. I love him so. I can't really describe the way he makes me feel, because just to say that he makes me feel loved or wonderful is an understatment of the worst kind, and I don't want to short-change the person he is by saying that. I guess it's all "part of the experience" whatever that really means. I only know enough to say that I am in love and even if it doesn't pan out, I can always look back and smile on the happy memories he has given me.I'm nervous about my mom, sister and aunt coming here and I really can't explain why. I just really want them to have a great time with me here. Here's hoping.....
Current mood: morose
Current music: Sara by Bob Dylan
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Friday, August 15, 2003
3:02PM - Heather O'Rourke
Dear John,I'd like you to meet someone I never knew. And yet, I've become a little something like her messenger, a storyteller. She came to me in several dreams. Some of my other friends say that she didn't really, but I know she must have or I wouldn't be doing what I have been doing for the last five years. It was as clear as flesh. She came to me and told me to help her. So, I have to stop short of saying that I am self-appointed as a messanger, but I will neither say she herself appointed me. This someone is Heather O'Rourke. She, though she died so young, seemed so genuinely happy and full of life right up to her last breath. It still burns me like the fires of Hell that she only lived 12 years. This was a terrible injustice for the world. She wanted so much to grow up and be a mother and film director; maybe win an Oscar someday. If she lived longer, she would have done these things most certainly.Sometimes I cry about it and miss her like she had been my good friend. Crazy? No. That only illustrates how much she meant in life to so many people. Think of it: she only lived a short time and yet the Lakeside Chapel was packed way beyond compacity for both her funerals. This is only scratching part of the surface of why she intregued so many others, even after she'd gone.She's on my mind constantly, and I've dealt with a number of heartaches, losses and problems just to keep her memory alive on the web. But that is not to say that the reward of having thousands of people see all the effort put into the whole project mean nothing; it couldn't be further from the truth.I work there for Heather because I love what I do and I believe in and love her like she was always in my life. I'll gladly go through more rough waters and turbulant times to survive and promote her life, death, creativity and memory. She is a muse for me from which I cannot run from; a dream I cannot wake from, a beauty I can never take from. So much of that is she and so much is more that I don't know how to express. For, you see, John...one cannot speak for beauty; true beauty speaks for itself.
Current mood: determined
Current music: Carol Anne's Theme
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2:48PM - The Journal in the life of a Dreamer...
Dear Journal,I should think first, you deserve a proper name: John. I hope we can be good friends, you and I. Here and now from this moment until forever begins once more, I will try my hardest to write in you every day. Should I ever be absent I know you will understand. You deserve a great writer to compose in you and fill you up with stories, gossip, idle musings, passing fansies, secrets and adventures. Am I such a writer? I don't know, but I will try to fullfil my promise and earn you as a friend.
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LOL. Too true, folks!

http://www.godlovesfags.com/

Places to go on the web

Here are all of the major sites I work on or contribute to in a major way on the web:

http://heatherorourke.net

http://judithbarsi.com

http://returntoozthemovie.com

http://sandragrabman.com

http://kristendawnfrench.org

Talk to Action

Talk to Action

I think everyone should visit this website!