Patricia Clarkson's speech to the Human Rights Campaign

If you adore Patricia Clarkson as I do, this video is well worth fifteen minutes of your time. She gives this speech in her native New Orleans.

Scott Brown Watch....

According to Bay Windows, Senator Scott Brown joined Republican peers in attempting to halt the performance of legalized same-sex marriages in the District of Columbia until the issue could face a referendum vote. The Senate considered the proposed amendment that included the stipulation for the referendum as a possible addition to President Barack Obama’s health care bill.

Not all Republicans did this.  The two senators from Maine did not participate in the vote.

"It is always offensive when Congress tries to meddle with the decisions of the democratically-elected government of the District of Columbia, but this is unfortunately nothing new," Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), said. "What is deeply cynical about the Bennett Amendment, however, is the attempt by Senate Republicans to use marriage equality in the District as a political wedge to kill the historic effort to improve the health care system for all Americans. Fortunately, a strong majority of Senators rejected this political ploy."

Brown had told Barbara Walters in a January interview that he believes state government should be solely responsible for determining issues of marriage equality. "And on the marriage issue that you brought up, it’s settled here in Massachusetts," he said.

What he didn't say was that he was one of the leading opponents of same-sex marriage -- and even civil unions.  Funny how people are already forgetting history now that their bigotry is becoming clearer.  

A really nice way to end the week

Here's one way a school responded to the Fred Phelps gang and the Westboro Baptist Church.





With thanks (as usual) to Joe.My.God. for finding this on youtube.

Posts for April 1, 2010

Palin, Romney and McCain Urge Republicans to Support Same-Sex Marriage

In a surprising turnaround, three major Republicans held a joint press conference this morning to announce that they are now supporting same-sex marriage. 

“It was really quite simple,” Ms. Palin said.  “For years I didn’t know any gay people.  I couldn’t even see one from my house! But that changed once I got to know so many members of the Congress. I’ve come to think of gay people as just a bunch of mavericks!  I mean, airport bathrooms?  Snorkeling?  Those guys are mavericks.  By the way, do you all think Barney Frank is gay?”


John McCain echoed Ms. Palin’s conversion.  “My friends, the tipping point for me was my good buddy Joe Lieberman.  And he is just a buddy so don’t assume I’ve gone whole hog for the idea.  But Joe sat me down at lunch one day and told me Ricky Martin was gay.  Well, I didn’t know!  And I like Ricky Martin.  And I like Joe Lieberman.  But only as friend. So, my friends, that’s how I ended up here.  Ha-ha-ha.”

But it was Mitt Romney, the man who tried to stop gay marriage in Massachusetts, who seemed the most enthusiastic.  “Well, I just want to say that right now I consider myself gayer than a gay person.  I’m going to flip back to my position in the 1990’s and say that I’d be better for gay people than Ted Kennedy, God rest his soul.  Today I say, I’d be better for gay people than gay people!”



Military Leaders Announce New Policy to Replace Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Top military brass gathered in front of the White House today to announce their new policy to replace Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  Called DAJY (Don’t Ask, Just Yell) the generals said they hoped this would allow LGBT people to feel more comfortable.  

“We don’t want them to simply tell us they’re gay,” said one officer.  “We want them to yell!  We want to hear chants of We’re here, we’re queer, we’re going shootin’”  on the battlefield.



Focus on the Family Changes Its Mind

The head of Focus on the Family announced today that the group will no longer oppose same-sex marriage.  Instead, he said, "We’ve changed our name to Focus on the Famine.” 

This really was what we meant to be all along.  You know, focusing on famine.  Somehow someone misprinted our letterhead and wrote Focus on the Family.  Now we decided to get back to our roots.

And you know, we started thinking that starving children was a little more important than two guys kissing, even though that still gives us the creeps.

From Orange Juice to Milk!
Former Miss America Anita "Scary Juice Lady" Bryant, who in the 1970’s worked tirelessly to make sure gay people had no rights whatsoever, has changed her mind.  It is hoped that her new slogan, “Milk is better than orange juice,” will keep the pressure on the Federal Post Office to issue a stamp with the image of Harvey Milk.

Former General Apologizes

Mike Corder of the Associated Press is reporting that John Sheehan, the retired American general who suggested that gay Dutch soldiers were partly to blame for the Srebrenica massacre by Serb soldiers in Bosnia, has apologized.

The Defense Ministry released an e-mail Tuesday from Sheehan to retired Dutch Gen. Henk van den Breemen saying he is sorry for his statements to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 18.


Gen. Sheehan had cited Gen. Hank van den Breeman as saying that allowing gay soldiers to openly serve in the Dutch military was one reason why the Srebrenica massacre occurred.

"I am sorry that my recent public recollection of those discussions of 15 years ago inaccurately reflected your thinking on some specific social issues in the military," Sheehan wrote to Van den Breemen.

Dutch Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop welcomed the apology.

"The minister is satisfied with the apologies and very pleased that the case is closed," Van Middelkoop's spokesman Otto Beeksma said.

A group calling itself Pink Army said it will likely drop plans to sue Sheehan in a U.S. court.

"The reactions and publicity in the Netherlands and United States have clearly put him under so much pressure that he had to retract his words," said Peter Schouten, who set up Pink Army.

"Now that he has expressed regret, the need to start legal proceedings has vanished," he added.

Poor Mitt

Full disclosure:  I'm a little ticked off at Mitt Romney right now.  I drive 10 hours to Toronto to get away from the American political climate and write peacefully, and he decides to show up within walking distance from our apartment to read at a bookstore.  I mean, really.  Leave me alone, Mitt.  Stop following me or I'll get the wrong idea. I guess your appearance is a little offset by Judy Collins reading at the same store this week.

But poor Mitt Romney.  Seems like just whenever he switches his position to accommodate what he perceives as popular opinion, the political winds start to blow the other way.

Take gay marriage, for example.  When he was governor of Massachusetts, he did everything he could to stop same-sex couples from marrying in the Bay State.  He thought he might ride this wave of anti-equality right to the White House, if not in 2008, then certainly in 2012.  Well, it looks like that issue really isn't the hot button issue it was years ago.  Opponents of same-sex marriage seem to be mellowing.  But wherever Mitt goes these days its seems that there are protests and newspaper ads reminding Mitt and the rest of us that his church spent 30 million dollars to pass Prop 8 in California, which, by the way, polls show that people no longer support.

And then there's health care.  Mitt thought he had done himself proud when he brought health care reform to Massachusetts as governor.  It was so impressive, in fact, that some of this reform was incorporated into the health care bill that just passed.  Now how much does Mitt like his own reform?  Not so much.  He's defending himself by saying that health care should be a state issue, and that he helped his own state years ago.

But then there's this nagging issue of wanting the federal government to step in and make same-sex marriage illegal for all states.  He wants a constitutional amendment to that effect.  So two guys committing to a relationship rises to national importance, while millions of people who don't have health care -- thousands of whom will die -- is a state matter.

Mitt, you must have a computer program to keep track of all your twists, turns, changes and contradictions in your political views.

By the way, I stayed home and didn't say hello at the bookstore.   Even that didn't go so well for you.  You were completely upstaged by Ann Coulter's Canadian tour.

The Apples Really Don't Fall Far from the Trees

On Top Magazine  is reporting that some students and parents have decided to hold a private prom rather than attend the prom with Derrick Martin in attendance.  Bleckley County High School gave Derrick permission to take his boyfriend to the prom.  Derrick's parents subsequently kicked him out of the house.

“It's not just his prom, it's my prom too and everybody else's at the school,” Amber Duskin, a student at the school, said.

“I'm going to speak out,” Amber's father, Bobby Duskin, said. “Because I'm a father, and I'm proud to be a father and I'm going to look out for my kids no matter what and I'm going to stand up for them no matter what.”

(Question for you, Dad.  Just what are you looking out for?  The safety of your daughter?  Just how is your daughter going to be affected by Derrick's attendance?)

Said one anonymous source, “You sit here and you tell me that if somebody walked up to you and you've already paid all your money to go to a prom that you've waited 11 years to go to and it's a sacred event and somebody walks in and says 'Oh, I'm gay, I'm going to do a walk through with another guy.'”

(A question for you, anonymous: Again, just how is this going to ruin your evening?  You don't need to sit next to him, do you?  You don't have to stare at him and his boyfriend all night, do you?  Maybe you might not have a good time because your bigoted rage will get to you?)

Reporter Kimberley Newman at WGXA, a local news source, began her piece on the issue: “A gay high school student in Bleckley County is defying the community's wishes and bringing his boyfriend to the prom.”

(Kimberly, why not start with: Community's bigotry creates tension of one gay couple attending prom?)

And one final question:  Just how are you all going to explain your behavior to your children and grandchildren?  Maybe you won't.  Maybe you'll conveniently forget your role in perpetuating hate.  And yes, refusing to attend a prom because you don't like what (not who) a person is, is, in my book, hate.

Just a typo, I guess

Ivor Volsky of Think Progress has story about a major screw-up on the part of religious conservatives in Oklahoma.  With the signing of the  Matthew Shepard Act, sexual orientation, gender and gender identity were added to the list of hate crimes criteria.  Lawmakers from Oklahoma decided that they didn't like LGBT folks being protected, so they set out to essentially wipe out LGBT people from the law in their state.

But in trying to strip LGBT people of protection, the Oklahoma State Senate inadvertently cited the wrong section of the U.S. code. The bill stripped rights under Title 18 U.S. Code Section 245, but protections for sexual orientation and gender identity is actually under Section 249.  Section 245 of the Code refers to race and religious protections. Therefore, Oklahoma actually passed a statute allowing state law to ignore race race and religion in hate crime law.

So right now LGBT people are still protected.  And a statute has been passed to abolish race and religion as defining a hate crime.


(Thanks to Jennie R.)

The New Faces of the Gay Rights Movement

There's an absolutely wonderful piece by Ken Williams in the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News saluting three gay rights leaders that have emerged recently.

Writes Mr. Williams:

The face of the gay rights movement has suddenly changed in the past few weeks as Lt. Dan Choi, Constance McMillen and Derrick Mason have declared that they refuse to sit on the back of the bus any longer.
 

Choi and former Capt. Jim Pietrangelo chained themselves to a White House fence to protest inaction on repealing the military’s controversial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve their country as long as they remain in the closet. Both were arrested while wearing their uniforms. But the two soldiers – both of whom were drummed out of the military for being openly gay -- put a human face on why DADT is not working.

Constance wanted to bring her girlfriend to the prom in Mississippi, but she was denied by the school board. She sued, and a judge ruled that her constitutional rights were violated – potentially a groundbreaking ruling on behalf of LGBT students across the U.S.

Derrick got permission to bring his boyfriend to the prom in Georgia, but his joy was short-lived because his parents then kicked him out of the house. The incident shows how some parents react to having gay or lesbian children: It’s not always with love and support.

As Ken Williams notes, these three brave people "are now on the frontlines of the gay rights movement, risking life and limb to fight for their rights. To each we owe a debt of gratitude and a big thanks for their courage."

May they inspire us! 

New genetic findings

One way to handle Fred Phelps' hate

I just love this way of dealing with hate monger Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.

Frank Rich on the Health Care Bill

Wise words from Frank Rich at The New York Times about the uproar of the passage of the health care bill.  The entire essay in the Sunday Times.  Here are two paragraphs that really struck home to me.

If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from. 

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin's "reload" rhetoric.

Thanks, Frank Rich.  This (and the rest of the piece) nails the current political climate better than anything I have read.

Just outrageous

 I keep thinking that the response of the Roman Catholic Church to the sex abuse crisis can't shock me any longer, but, unfortunately, it still does.  The latest outrage was Pope Benedict XVI's  Palm Sunday missive to the faithful.  One line sums up everything that is wrong with the Church.

In a not-so-subtle reference to the recent investigations into further sexual abuse, the pontiff said faith in God helps lead one “towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion.”

Okay.  A few points here.

1. The sexual abuse of thousands of children is not "petty gossip."  It is real and painful.  It could have been stopped.  It has left lasting scars on its victims.  Petty gossip?  You insult every victim of clergy abuse with these two outrageous words.

2. The sexual abuse of children in the church is not "dominant opinion."  As I used to teach my middle schoolers, opinion is what we conclude after weighing all the facts.  The sexual abuse of children is the fact!  This is not an opinion.  Opinions aren't proven.  Facts are reality.  That the Roman Catholic Church closed its eyes (or worse, abetted the perpetrators of sexual abuse) is as much a fact as the sky is blue.  Given that much of the struggle of sexual abuse victims entails doubting one's own reality, this statement is, in itself, further abuse.

3. Courage?  You dare use the word courage to describe the Church in the face of the sexual abuse scandal?  Here's what courage is.  It's a middle aged man or woman still in therapy, still hoping to have a healthy intimate relationship with another human being, despite being sexually assaulted by a person they trusted.  That's courage.  The Church has shown nothing but cowardice.

4. Intimidation?  You dare say that the church should not allow itself to be intimidated by gossip?  I can't think of anything more intimidating than a person in a position of religious authority taking a vulnerable child and forcing himself on that child sexually.  If you have a better example of intimidation, I'd sure like to know.

For shame.