Indianapolis

The controversial post about 7th district candidate Kris Kiser

If you’ve been following local politics at all, you may have noticed this little dust-up. Democratic candidate for congress Kris Kiser threatened legal action against a local political blog for a post one of their contributors made about him, alleging some shadiness about his personal life and business dealings when he lived (recently) in Washington D.C. The local blog pulled the post because they’re a small operation, and they were worried that any legal action would be a strain on them.

Let me back up a step futher and explain who Kris Kiser is. He’s a gay carpetbagger democrat who just moved to Indianapolis from Washington D.C. and decided to set up shop here in Indianapolis to run against, of all of the ever-loving things — popular Democratic incumbent Julia Carson. Which strikes me as something akin to beating one’s head against the wall whilst investing in the 12th level of a pyramid scheme, but hey, far be it from me to stand in the way of other people’s masochism.

One of the first things he did after unpacking his carpet bag was get an endorsement from the sleazebag gay “newspaper” “The Word” published by Ted Fleischaker. That’s a pretty good sign he’s not from in town right there, because that paper is taken about as seriously in the LGBT indianapolis community as the plastic baggy I use to pick up my dog’s poop.

Another fine idea he had was to imply that popular gay political office holders Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank were endorsing him. Of course, that whopper was immediately debunked by local blog Advance Indiana, who then suffered an onslaught of abuse from Ted Fleischaker and a hacked website to remove posts. But the controversy didn’t die down, and Barney Frank came all the way to Indiana to fundraise for Julia Carson to drive home the point that Kiser wasn’t associated with him in any way.

Which brings us back around to this weeks controversy — the blog post and threatened legal action.

The post was made by Marla Stevens. I certainly haven’t been on her side of things all the time, as you may well know. And I definitely don’t know whether the allegations she made are true. It seems to me that someone with connections to people in D.C. could verify or debunk some of the claims. But just for the sake of you knowing what the controversy is about, I was able to pull the original post out of my rss feed reader, and with all due “allegedly”s and cautions about the veracity of the post, here it is:

Kiser revisited or Here’s a real “Word” for the wise…

In case anyone cares, my legal residence is in Iowa. I own property in Indiana and continue to rent property in the 7th district. I’m not in Iowa right now and wasn’t for the time change. Iowa does observe daylight savings time.

None of these things have anything to do with the sorry state of candidate Kiser’s character that makes him not fit for public office, including the sham “marriage” he tried to pass off on gullible Hoosier queers as proof that he cares about them and their needs.

Nor does it have anything to do with the fact that he’s hired not one but two notorious polling organizations and is readying last minute push poll attacks on his opponent, Rep. Julia Carson — if he hasn’t started them already.

Nor does it have anything to do with the gaping hole in common sense Kiser’s self-purported recent history poses.

Really…here’s a gay man known for being a very hearty partier in D.C. circles — with a great job as a business association top lobbyist of the sort that pays solidly enough in the six figure range to enable that partying — partying that reportedly includes enough significant drug use and sex for hire, (including one hunk from Baltimore who sported a sex-for-hire website, no less [until reportedly being hired to play husband in Indiana], and was known in such circles up and down the eastern megalopolis and Miami and who is player enough that, when imported to Indianapolis to play husband*, couldn’t resist “entertaining” an out-of-town buddy in the notorious upstairs of the 501) that only an MSM as timid and incurious as Indianapolis’ wouldn’t dig it up in due course. (Same ones it took decades to expose the open secret of Rep. Dan Burton’s “family values” hypocrisy in his personal life despite that such hypocrisy is perfectly legitimate political fodder. I can only guess that, with only a few months of campaigning to worry about, Kiser wasn’t worried about our hapless press stumbling over his dirty laundry.)

The top lobbyist puts out two different stories about why he’s no longer working as a top lobbyist but instead came back to his family’s home he’s barely set foot in for decades to run against an incumbent he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of beating:

Story #1: He quit his to-die-for job on his own to engage in the house restoration work he loves. That one fails to pass muster for even the least skeptical.

Out comes Story #2: Top lobbyist supposedly was politically forced out of his job because he’s not a Repug even though he’s done a many years long expert hatchet job on such dear-to-Dems’ hearts’ issues as the right of workers to organize, get health insurance and other worker benefits, and other issues the support of which one would expect from the likes of John Roberts instead of a loyal-enough-to-be-fireably-irksome Democrat — even of the DLC kind.

And he just can’t seem to find a new job despite that D.C. is a veritable boom town for lobbyists of late — for a year??? — which he spends predominantly in D.C., trying to find a new job, not Indiana as he later claims.

Doesn’t compute. Doesn’t even come close.

A reasonably curious person would ask questions…and the answers that are floating around K Street aren’t pretty.

The scuttlebutt is that he was forced out all right but not because of his party or even his partying — at least not for the consensual sort — and it just goes downhill from there.

It’s not atypical for people with Kiser’s expertise and experience as a corporate gun who were fired even for cause (even for something as damning as sexual harassment — even same-sex sexual harassment) — to get another chance in the sort of hot labor market that is D.C. lobbying right now. Ruthlessness and relentlessness in winning is the name of the game and Kiser was good enough at that to be rehirable under all but the most limited of circumstances — perhaps conditionally but rehirable nonetheless.
People who know me know that I don’t get riled up by people’s personal peccadilloes — that I’m usually the last person who’d care except for two things, one of which — using a false cloak of heterosexuality to hurt fellow queers — is impossible for a gay man as out as Kiser has been to be guilty of, leaving just one thing…

I cannot begin to tell you how much you do not want Kris Kiser as your neighbor, much less your congressperson.

* When this didn’t fool anyone but the most willing to be fooled, the campaign got as degayed as when a Mom-not-in-the-know is coming for a visit. Don’t take my word for it. Check the candidate’s website for yourself.

I don’t know what to think about this post. I will say this, though — I know Julia Carson. She lives in the neighborhood north of me. Several times I’ve walked my dog past her house and waved to her in her yard, and once I stopped to talk to her about a political issue. She’s lived in Indianapolis for decades, and she’s be a true friend to the GLBT community in dozens of ways. She pushed city-county councilors to support the Human Rights Ordinance. I’ve seen her speak at numerous gay pride events and AIDS Walks. I stood next to her at a candle-light vigil on the circle for Planned Parenthood when the local clinics were being threatened with anthrax letters by domestic terrorists.

I’ve studied her voting record.

I don’t know Kris Kiser from Adam. But if Ted Fleischaker is endorsing him, I’m voting for anybody but him. And I’m inclined to vote against anyone who held a position as a professional lobbyist in Washington, too.

UPDATE: Regarding Marla’s quote, “People who know me know that I don’t get riled up by people’s personal peccadilloes — that I’m usually the last person who’d care except for two things…” the second thing that she doesn’t name but leaves hanging in the air is pedophilia, if I’m guessing correctly.

I was in a GLBT political organization with Marla in the early 90’s when she discovered that a local gay “leader” we were working with had coerced young people he had access to into sexual relationships with him. (One of them having been a college friend of mine.) Marla went to Child Protective Services and had a full-blown investigation of him started when he suddenly dropped dead of complications due to AIDS. Marla actually took the time to sit down with the young people to give them good counseling about how to get AIDS tests at the same time the guy was being revered in the GLBT community as a visionary.

Of course that may not have any bearing on Kris Kiser at all, and it’s all personal speculation on my part about what Marla might have been trying to say there. Allegations of pedophilia seem to be the go-to smear tactic of choice in the GLBT community in Indianapolis, too. I’ve heard whisper campaigns against other gay figures in the community where no foundation ever appeared to support the rumors. So I’d consider that on its merits.

Either way, without Marla’s post as a factor, I was still voting for Julia Carson over Kris Kiser.

Continue ReadingThe controversial post about 7th district candidate Kris Kiser

Karen Celestino-Horseman for Judge

Karen Celestino-Horseman is a former member of the Indianapolis Marion County City-County Council, and she’s running for a position as Marion County Superior Court Judge. Please consider voting for her in the upcoming May 2nd primary.

In 2002, (then City-County Councilor) Karen Celestino-Horseman introduced Proposal 278, which would have provided domestic partner benefits to Indianapolis city employees. She’s a progressive candidate with great courage and considerable public service experience. You can read more about her on her website, where you can also donate funds to her campaign.

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Overachieving Kids in Indianapolis

This is deeply scary article — 10 kids in Indianapolis under the age of ten who are over-achievers. One of them actually uses the phrase “extrapolate outward” in a sentence.
I wonder how many of these kids will be shooting up the hallways of their high school, or getting their California Ranch raided a few decades from now?
UPDATE – When I got to the entry on Connor Quinn I started to wonder if this was an April Fool’s article. I’m still not sure.

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The Harrison Center and Anti-Gay Religious Groups

This is extremely disturbing, and not a hoax, despite today’s date. An “Ex-Gay” event will take place in Marion, Indiana, planned and sponsored by a church in our downtown neighborhood — the Redeemer Presbyterian Church at 1505 North Delaware, Indianapolis, IN., which is also home of the The Harrison Center art gallery, run by our neighbor Joanna Taft, who appears to be a member of the board of the church.

According to the Indy Star:

Ministry says it helps gays become straight
Indianapolis Star April 1, 2006

Brad Grammer says he gets 120 calls a year from people asking for help in shaking their attraction to people of the same gender.

As director of Hope and New Life Ministries, a small Downtown operation based in Redeemer Presbyterian Church, he helps the callers find counselors or directs them to churches with support groups.

Grammer’s work is part of a network of “ex-gay” ministries affiliated with Exodus International, a 30-year-old Christian organization built on the premise that gay and lesbian people can change their sexual orientation.

For one week this summer, Exodus will make Indiana Wesleyan University the hub of the ex-gay movement when it brings its 31st Annual Exodus Freedom Conference to the university’s campus in Marion. The event is billed as the largest gathering of ex-gays anywhere in the world.

Exodus says the gathering, which starts June 27, will feature personal stories from people who consider themselves to be ex-gays.

“We are not trying to shove this on someone that is not ready,” said Julie Neils, a spokeswoman for Exodus International, which is based in Orlando, Fla. “We are here to say that change is possible because we have evidence of that, with hundreds of thousands of ex-gays that have come out of homosexuality.”

Leaders in Indianapolis’ gay community are wary of Exodus and its claims. They question whether anyone can turn from an orientation they were born with.

And they say perpetuating the idea that change is possible makes family members and public policy makers insensitive to the real needs of gays and lesbians.

“In my congregation, there are any number of people who had been part of the ex-gay movement,” said the Rev. Jeff Miner, senior pastor at Jesus Metropolitan Community Church, a Northeastside congregation that believes committed gay relationships are not contrary to the Bible. “The stories they tell me is that it was an excruciating time in their life when they were trying to be something they could never be.”

Religious leaders and gay rights groups have for years been locked in highly public battles over same-sex marriage.

Grammer said Christians who believe homosexuality is contrary to the Bible have frequently failed to show love and compassion toward gay individuals.

Exodus International President Alan Chambers agrees. He said Christian groups have spent too much energy pointing fingers at gays and making hostile arguments in the public square.

“The truth is that Christ died for all of us or he died for none of us,” Chambers said. “The way you win the battle is that people are changed when you reach their hearts.”

Some mainstream church denominations have opened their doors to gays and lesbians without challenging their lifestyles. Now, there are tentative signs that churches that don’t condone homosexuality are seeing the need to take a softer tone — not on their doctrine, but in how they welcome gay individuals.

Grammer said at least four such churches in the Indianapolis area have established ministries aimed at helping people who say they want to leave homosexuality. He is trying to develop more.

Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana, a self-described pro-family lobbying group, said churches with traditional beliefs on homosexuality have been slow to get involved in ex-gay ministries. But more are getting interested.

“As homosexuality is becoming more and more acceptable in the culture, even to the point of being hip or chic — particularly among teenagers — churches are realizing that this may be a growing problem that they need to address,” said Clark, whose organization is among those telling churches about the conference.

The conference includes sessions for married couples in which one spouse struggles with being attracted to people of the same sex.

A youth-day event will point conflicted kids toward the path of heterosexuality. And there will be support groups and educational sessions for parents with gay children.

Miner, with Jesus Metropolitan Community Church, said he feels only a “deep sense of sadness” for the people who will attend.

He says few — those with an ambiguous sexuality — ever change, and many more will find only heartache.

“The message I try to give to people in the ex-gay movement is that if this doesn’t work for you, remember it is not your only option,” he said. “You can be both gay and Christian.”

But Chambers, the president of Exodus, says he is a former gay man who is now married with children.

He says hearing the stories of other ex-gays helped him find a way out.

He expects many who come to Indiana Wesleyan’s campus this summer will find it also.

“I had been told prior to that by people in the gay community that I couldn’t change, that there was no hope for overcoming that,” he said.

“The truth, in our opinion, is that people come out of homosexuality.”

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Outword Bound Bookstore seeks horse, sheep for Brokeback Mountain video release party

Yup, Outword Bound Bookstore (at 625 North East Street downtown, near Massachusetts avenue) is planning a party for the video release of the film Brokeback Mountain. Here’s an appeal they sent out for some help with the party planning:

We are planning a Brokeback DVD release party for April 3 starting at 9PM. (Call or stop by the store to reserve your copy! 317-951-9100.) So, in order to have an interesting party, we are looking for someone who would let us borrow a horse and a couple of sheep. We also need to find someone(s) who knows how to lasso, willing to let Tammara borrow their rope.

Heck, that sounds like an interesting party. I’d stop by to see what happens. I’m curious to see what Tammara’s going to do with the rope.

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Indianapolis Police are big drama queens about uniform design

According to today’s IndyStar, the newly merged IPD has arrived at a badge design, but is still deciding on what color their new uniforms will be.

Members of a merger subcommittee endorsed a proposed patch design Friday and indicated they are close to agreeing on a new badge for the combined Indianapolis Police and Marion County Sheriff’s departments. Whether the new uniforms will be blue or black, however, is still undecided. The color issue remains a hot topic.
“Officers look at this uniform as a symbol of what they once dreamed of wearing one day,” said Sheriff’s Department Col. John Layton, the subcommittee’s chairman. “They tested and trained for that right all while knowing that they could, if necessary, pay for that right with their lives.”

More drama than even gay men engage in while picking out their wardrobes. I’m sure no matter what color they pick, they’ll look just fabulous.

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“The Kiterunner” does not contain “pornography”

Some (idiot moron) parents in Lawrence Township schools are objecting to the book “The Kiterunner” being assigned in class, because they claim there is a scene that is “pornographic” in it.
The Kiterunner is a story of children living in contemporary Afghanistan, and is a wonderful, amazing book. It is, unfortunately, fairly true to life, and there is violence and brutality in it, including a scene where a young boy is brutally raped by other young men who are bullying him, and children who later become the victims of child exploitation. But that is a fairly real picture of what can happen in countries that are torn apart by strife, as Afghanistan is. And to be blunt, the story of children bullying and raping each other can and does happen here in Indiana, too. If you don’t think it does, you’re a naive fool.
The idea that the scenes are “pornographic” — I want to go to those parents (Julie and Tom Shake are their names) and say “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”
What really sucks about all this is that because some retarded parents complained about it to the school board, the township is considering having a panel of people review all teaching materials that will be presented to students. So a censorship board is being planned for Lawrence.
Too bad the response from the school couldn’t be giving the parents a ticket for stupidity and requiring them to come back to school and get a better education so they understand what the hell “pornography” is. Stupid is as stupid does, I guess.

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2008 GOP Convention in Indianapolis?

The [link deprecated: http://www2.indystar.com/articles/1/243304-2091-127.html] Indy Star reports that our fair metropolis is on the list of cities invited to bid to host the 2008 GOP Convention. Requirements: we have to foot the bill for security.

God no. Please no. I’d rather gargle with motor oil than pay for security for wingnuts. Oh, wait. Can I pay for really crappy security?

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LGBTQ Youth Equality Ride Across the U.S.

During March and April The Soulforce Equality Ride will be visiting 19 religious and military schools to give voice to those who can not speak up themselves because of oppressive school policies. Many of these schools expell lgbtq students who come out or are outed.
At military and religious colleges around the nation, bans on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender enrollment force students into closets of fear and self-hate. These bans devalue the life of GLBT people and they slam the door on academic freedom. The Equality Ride empowers young adults to challenge these college bans.

Scheduled to take place in the spring of 2006, the Equality Ride will take 25–30 young adults on a seven-week bus tour to confront numerous religious and/or military colleges that ban the enrollment of GLBT students. At each stop along the journey the members of the Equality Ride will present a powerful case for GLBT equality.

Like the Freedom Rides of the 50’s and 60’s, the Equality Ride is a student-led effort that takes young adults into epicenters of intolerance and oppression to make a better tomorrow. In going on this journey, the Equality Riders draw inspiration from those Freedom Riders over forty years ago.

The goal of Soulforce is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.

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Human Rights Ordinance Elimination Bill Withdrawn

Representative Thompson withdrew his amendment today to House Bill 1010 which would have eliminated local human rights protections in cities throughout Indiana. The House reconvened at 1:30 pm today. Rep Thompson withdrew his amendment and the House was recessed until 5:30pm tonight.

This amendment may be only temporarily dead; it could still be attached to another bill sometime during the legislative session, and rumors are that Republicans intend to try just that, potentially at a very busy point in the session to reduce the chance of it being noticed or to reduce the ability of opponents to act on it.

Indiana Equality is still asking people to attend the gathering at the Statehouse at 5 p.m. tonight, to thank legislators for killing the amendment behind the scenes and to help make legislators aware that opponents of the amendment are keeping tabs on the legislature this session.

Also, don’t forget that Indiana Equality is sponsoring a rally in the Statehouse North Atrium (indoors!) on February 9th from 1-3 p.m.

Continue ReadingHuman Rights Ordinance Elimination Bill Withdrawn