Contacting Your Legislators about SJR-7

I’ve mentioned this several times, but it bears repeating. If you haven’t contacted your legislators about SJR-7 (or even if you already have!), you can do so in a number of ways.
Two sites have easy contact forms you can use, that look up your legislators for you based on the information you provide. You can use either or both of them to send a message to your legislator, and they both allow you to customize your message.
Stoptheamendment.org is one of the sites – go there and enter your zip code in the left-column under “Contact your Legislators” and it will take you to the form.
Indiana Equality also has a form on their Action Center that works similarly.
Also, if you want to look up your legislators and contact them directly by calling their office or sending a direct email, you can look up their contact information at Project Vote Smart. They also have a look-up by zipcode form in the left column of their home page.

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Bias Crimes Legislation Pending Before Indiana House

Bias Crimes Legislation Pending Before Indiana House. Make Your Voice Heard! Tell Your State Representative why Bias Crimes legislation is good for Indiana.

House Bill 1459 (Bias Crimes) authored by State Representative Greg Porter (D-Indianapolis) will be considered by the full House of Representatives during the week of February 19th. HB 1459 amends Indiana’s sentencing law to add the following as aggravating circumstances for persons who commit “bias crimes,” specifically the person who committed the offense knowingly or intentionally:

(A) selected the individual who was injured by the offense; or (B) damaged or otherwise affected property by the offense; because of the color, creed, disability, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex of the injured individual or of the owner or occupant of the property.

The proposal also creates a civil action which a victim of a bias crime can institute against a bias crime offender.

In an ugly display of bigotry against Indiana’s minority communities, out-of-state groups have unleashed a hateful and false attack on the bias crimes bill. Opponents of the freedom to live free of persecution are flooding the State House with calls to reject HB 1459.

Please counteract their call in campaign by contacting your legislator. You can contact your Legislators through Indiana Equality here.

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500 attend Rally, House Democrats Hide from Constitutents

Rally Attendees
About 500 people attended the Rally in the Indiana Statehouse, organized by Indiana Equality to address SJR-7, the amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and to support the hate crimes bill, which will include sexual orientation and gender identity. There were several speakers, including Candace Gingrich, lgbt civil rights activist and sister of Newt Gingrich.
Great Sign
See all 52 of my photos of the Rally on Flickr
Unfortunately, House Democrats were "in caucus" today, and were "unable" to meet with their constituents to talk about SJR-7, so a group of people, including Indiana Action Network members, IYG Youth and IU Students went to protest outside House Speaker Bauer’s office — chanting "Pat, Pat, come out and talk."
Protesting the Democrats being in Caucus
What happened next? Indiana Equality Lobbyist Mark St. John got angry at the attention being paid to House Speaker Bauer – gee, I wonder why? Maybe you can find the answer in this post on Advance Indiana – and forcefully grabbed Bil Browning of Indiana Action Network – with the cameras rolling.
I’m processing the video of WRTV’s coverage and uploading it to YouTube…
I happened to be standing right there (you can see me in the video), so I heard what St. John said — he fired Bil from his job at Lambda Consulting because Bil “betrayed his trust” in not getting permission for the impromptu protest at Bauer’s office. A while later, after he calmed down, he said that wasn’t going to happen, but I’m not sure what the repercussions will be in the future.
Incidentally, I also saw St. John grab and physically drag by the arm another protester – one of the IYG youth, I believe – away from the protest to have a heated debated about why the Democrats were in caucus – St. John was claiming that it had nothing to do with the Rally or SJR-7. I’m not sure I believe St. John’s claims about why the “caucus” happened. I do know that Representative Orentlicher, who was at the rally and at the impromptu protest after, was actively trying to get Bauer to come out and speak to the protesters.
In all, I hope the day was an effective event, but the fact that people were unable to lobby their Representatives was a pretty striking blow to the cause. The likelihood that all of the people signed up will be able to have face-to-face meetings with elected officials at other times in the future is pretty slim – many people were from out of town, or happened to have this day off work due to the President’s Day holiday. Face-to-face meetings are far more effective than phone calls and emails.

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University Domestic Partnership Benefits at Risk

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In a neat bit of investigative work, Bil Browning discovered that SJR-7 author Brandt Hershman’s statements about the bill not affecting domestic partnership benefits for Purdue and Indiana University faculty members is not only false, but that he wrote the bill specifically to target those rights.

Bill uncovered legislation by Hershman to repeal those rights that had been killed several ago in the legislature – exposing Hershmans’s true intent. Read more about that here…

Now this won’t just mean that the faculty members who enjoy domestic partnership benefits will lose them if SJR-7 passes. It will mean that Purdue, IU, Ball State and other universities won’t be able to attract quality faculty members in the future, which will have a devastating effect on the quality of education in Indiana. The state of Wisconsin can testify to that:

This summer, Wisconsin lost a good deal of its edge in the nanotech revolution thanks to the Legislature’s refusal to provide domestic partner benefits to university employees. That refusal, plus the Legislature’s push to ban gay marriage, has prompted a leading nanotech researcher, Robert Carpick, an associate engineering physics professor, to leave the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a job at the University of Pennsylvania.

And if that, along with Michigan’s recent repeal of benefits for university employees doesn’t properly scare the crap out of Purdue and Indiana University, what’s going on in Kentucky right now should. A bill to strip universities of those rights in that state is moving through their state legislature, with some pretty serious affects:

Last year, during the debate over bills designed to improve Kentucky’s lagging math and science scores, it came up that the higher educational institutions in the state of Kentucky graduated only one qualified physics teacher last year. One.

Kentucky’s ability to attract qualified faculty to their sagging universities will die off as well, and the already poor quality of education that can’t even produce physics teachers now will deteriorate further.

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Grassroots Organizing Against SJR-7

I attended a summit this evening of a bunch of different organizations and groups that are opposing SJR-7, along with a bunch of individuals – it was a group of around 30 people, all of whom are active in working on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered issues at one level or another in Indiana. The group was pulled together by Bil Browning, who is president of IAN, and who owns the bilerico.com blog. It was a pretty unique gathering of people all in one room, including people who in the past have not always seen eye to eye about strategy and organizing, which was really great to see.
The idea was mainly to come together and discuss what people are doing, what can be done in the future, and how to coordinate efforts, and there was a lot of great discussion and planning, which I hope will make a big difference over the next six weeks, before SJR-7 goes through the house.
I got a chance to talk to some of the local members of PFLAG – Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, which I’ve never really done before. Very nice folks, and it occurred to me that several people I know might fit into both that category and that organization very well.

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Rally Reminder

Please don’t forget there’s a rally tomorrow against SJR-7 at the statehouse — indoors, 1 – 2:30 p.m. in the North Atrium of the Indiana State House, 200 W. Washington St. (enter North Entrance, off Ohio Street). Candace Gingrich will speak at 1:40 PM.
Many of you have President’s Day off tomorrow – please attend the rally. You would not only be doing it for my sake, but for your own; the Indiana Constitution belongs to you, too, and shouldn’t be amended to discriminate against anyone. You’d be striking a blow on behalf of your own rights as well.

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Leviticus in My Spam Filter

I was going through a site migration checklist of things to remember when you move your site from one host to another, and one of the items was to remember to look at your comment spam filter keywords, to make sure that additions you’ve made stayed in the list. Which made me remember a conversation I had yesterday with a friend. I mentioned that I regularly get anti-gay hate comments posted to my site; usually it’s three or four a week, but depending on whether something I’ve written winds up in the target of a group of people, it can be a lot.
To combat this, I have several terms in my comment spam filter that most people wouldn’t; words like “leviticus” “sinner” “dyke” and “faggot” are a few of them. Usually that means I catch the comment before it gets posted to my site, but not always. Occasionally stuff will slip through.
But I wonder if other people have this sort of specialized problem, and what words they block…

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Comparing the Indiana Legislature to the 20’s KKK is NOT Hyperbole

I’m sorry, RiShawn Biddle, but if you studied your history, like Chris Douglas and Gary Welsh have pointed out to you in several posts, you’d know better that to call it hyperbole. RiShawn is an editorialist for the Indianapolis Star, and posts to a “blog” on the newspaper’s site — which I still maintain is bizarre – if you write for a newspaper, it’s and editorial column, not a “blog.” Lately, RiShawn has taken it upon his bad self to tell the gay community that they need to be more civilized and “reasonable” while their rights are attack, claiming that making comparisons to the KKK and other oppressive bodies is “hyperbole.”
Gary Welsh points out [RiShawn Biddle Just Doesn’t Get It] that in the 1920’s the KKK was in the background of legislation much like SJR-7:

Under our former constitution, our esteemed legislature decided to enact Article 13 (appropriately numbered) to our old constitution. It excluded new black arrivals from the state, barred interracial marriages and prohibited a black man from testifying against a white man, among other things. One of the state’s leading newspapers, the Sentinel, endorsed Article 13 so that the state would not be “overrun with a miserable population” according to the “Centennial History of the Indiana General Assembly.” There were legislators at the time who decried racism at the same time they cast a vote in favor of it. One such legislator was Sen. James Hester (D) of Brown County. He described the proposed laws as “inhuman, and will . . . be inoperative in enlightened communities.” He said he, nonetheless voted for it because he believed a majority of his constituents wanted it.” A Whig newspaper in Madison, Indiana, distraught at the position of lawmakers like Hester, wrote:

There seems to be a determined and studied prejudice, against those unfortunate citizens who have a black skin, in the Legislature of this State at the present time. Constitutional privileges and natural rights–to say nothing of human sympathy–seem to be but feeble barriers when opposed to this prejudice. Some of these gentlemen are evidently courting popularity under the false impression, that public sentiment is as insane and inhuman as they will, doubtless, succeed in proving themselves to be.

At that time in history, the only legislators who voted against these racist laws were the Whigs. The Republican Party was just being born, and the Democrats, who dominated the legislature during some of this dark period, embraced the racist agenda. In the 1920s, it was the Republican Party which dominated the legislature and carried the torch for the KKK, although a number of Democrats joined forces with them as well. Fortunately, Article 13 was nullified after the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution following the Civil War. Such discrimination has never made its way back into our state’s constitution, although there have been plenty of discriminatory laws enacted by our esteemed legislature.
Now, David Long, Brandt Hershman, Brent Steele and all the others who champion SJR-7 as the end-all, be-all solution to preserving the sanctity of marriage can profess all they want that they aren’t anti-gay bigots. The fact remains they are carrying the torch for folks from the religious right, such as Eric Miller, Jim Bopp and Micah Clark, who most assuredly are anti-gay bigots. The end result is the same as Sen. Hester understood back in the 1850s when he cast his lot with political expediency over the fundamental rights of black people. When legislators cast a vote for the anti-gay bigot’s agenda, they are endorsing this form of bigotry, just as those legislators who supported the KKK’s agenda in the 1920s and the organized racists of the 1850s endorsed institutionalized racism and bigotry. Everyone knows SJR-7 will do absolutely nothing to stem the breakdown of “traditional marriage” as represented by a growing divorce rate and an increasing number of children being born out of wedlock. It’s purpose is to punish gay people–nothing more and nothing less.

And Chris points out [The Goebbels Experiment] that the Jewish community here in Indianapolis, who have spoken eloquently against SJR-7, recognize the parallels to their own history:

“Shortly, you will be either looking the other way from, or even supporting, measures that will denude your Jewish engineering professors of their rights of citizenship, because of your distaste for them… well.. not for your personal professor or tutor, who might be friends, but for ‘Jews’, who really will not be… well…’German’ enough.
“Then your alma mater will strip your professor of his ability to support his family, including his spouse who is sick. You will think that somebody maybe should have done something, except you will be too busy and you will not want to risk your own career by being identified as a friend of the Jews… not any Jew specifically… after all some , some will be friends…but.. you know… ‘The Jews.’ Anyway, your professor, from whom you learned much and upon whom the department depended for at least one area of expertise, will leave for another place, America, where a university will be willing to employ him. You will think that is regrettable, but perhaps think it was just as well. Especially, since his position will open for somebody who will truly be a friend, and not some abstract, unfortunate Jew.
“You will protest that what follows then will be the actions of others, not your own, for it would be unreasonable to pin on you and your inaction the fact that your beautiful and peaceful Germany will go on to invalidate Jewish marriages, to attack Jewish participation in all economic life, and to drive Jews from their neighborhoods. When the rights of Jews are being stripped in their early stages, all those things will appear too absurd for you to imagine. The Jews who will protest will appear unreasonable and alarmist, and all the more distasteful for it. After all, yours will appear to be a civilized society; though it will become uncivilized because of the actions of others, it will not be because of you. You couldn’t be blamed for what happened later… not the ghetto… not the extermination…. not the destruction of the peace, beauty, and civilization. Who will have thought?”
Nice little mental game, isn’t it?

RiShawn would do well to spend a bit more time reading history and a bit less time lecturing gay citizens on how best to protest the erosion of their basic civil rights. For any kind of civil matters or divorce cases etc, people need to contact family lawyers serving Lapeer County.
To me — it’s all the same hate. The men pushing SJR-7 are no different, in my mind, than the guy who fired me from my job because I’m gay, or the guy who stalked and raped me, or the guy who pistol-whipped my roommate in the alley outside Greg’s Place downtown.
One takes their hate and puts it into action by crafting hate-filled legislation, and the other used the blunt-force of a gun handle against someone’s skull – why do I have to treat one differently then the other? They have the same devastating effect on my life, either way; I fail to see any real distinction between the two. But I have to engage in “principled, reasonable discussion” with one, but not the other? Mary, please.
A bigot by any name is still a fucking bigot.

Continue ReadingComparing the Indiana Legislature to the 20’s KKK is NOT Hyperbole

Angry Mob Attacks 3 Gay Men in Jamaica

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According to the Jamaica Observer:

THREE men branded as homosexuals were yesterday rescued by the police from an angry mob outside a pharmacy in Tropical Plaza, where they had been holed up for almost an hour.

But even after the police managed to take the young men from the Monarch Pharmacy, one of the three was hit with a stone, forcing officers to fire tear gas on the crowd which included men, women, teenagers and small children.

The approximately 2,000 people gathered outside the Kingston pharmacy hurled insults at the three men, with some calling for them to be killed.

The crowd grew larger as the minutes ticked by and the three men and staff inside the pharmacy were visibly terrified as the mob demanded that they be sent out so they could administer their brand of justice. “Send them out!” shouted one man.

The men, who all had bleached-out faces, and dressed in tight jeans pants and skimpy shirts, were saved due to quick action by police from the St Andrew Central Division.

When the officers arrived and attempted to push the crowd back from the front door of the business place they were greeted with some resistance and when they attempted to escort the men to a police service vehicle, which was parked near to the entrance of the pharmacy, one of the alleged homosexuals was hit on the back of the head with a stone as he flashed a wry smile before attempting to hustle inside the police car.

The cops were forced to disperse the large mob by dispensing tear gas canisters and whisking the men away as the crowd scampered in all directions in an effort to escape the irritating fumes.

One man in the crowd was determined to get a chance to beat them and hurled insults at the police when they drove out of the premises.

“Unu can come save them nasty boy yah? Them boy yah fi go down,” the man bellowed.

One woman expressed surprise at the brazenness of the men who were clearly displaying effeminate behaviour.

“Jamaica has lost its way if men think they can openly flaunt being gay without any consequences. We don’t want that kind of open gay life in this country,” the woman said.

Homosexuality is frowned upon in Jamaica and gay rights groups have constantly branded the island as anti-gay.

Under Jamaican law a male can be slapped with a sentence of up to nine years if caught in a compromising position with another man.

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