The Holmes Report is a large corporate communications/PR publication, and the above headline is on an article on their site.
Ford is doing a hell of job damaging their brand if this kind of article is showing up in heterosexual corporate publications.
Last night, Proposition 622 to amend the Human Rights ordinance passed out of committee by a vote of 5 to 3. It will be voted on in the full committee in a special session on Monday night. I’ll post details of time and room as soon as I hear them. Here are the undecided councilors that need to hear from people before Monday:
Ron Gibson (D) rgibson@indygov.org
Patrice Abduallah (D) pabduall@indygov.org
Lynn McWhirter (R) L8638@aol.com
Suzie Day (R) susieday20@yahoo.com
Marilyn Pfisterer (R) (distant maybe)
Bob Cochrum (R) (distant maybe) 856-5549
Mike Speedy (R) (distant maybe) m.speedy@sbcglobal.net
We kicked butt last night. The gay community in Indianapolis really rose to the occasion and gave strong testimony and coherent arguments. I found myself saying “that’s a really good point!” on about ten different occasions during testimony.
There were about 2 of our supporters for every one of theirs, and they hauled out the same lame, illogical, irrelevant arguments that they did last week. I’m totally proud of the GLBT community. You’re rock stars, people.
The local media, however, sucked raw eggs. Fox was the only news station that covered the committee hearing well. Channel 6 had lots of coverage; all of it was yellow journalism, showed dis-proportionate speakers. They also kept airing the “there are already laws on the books” argument — there AREN’T laws on the books to cover this. I didn’t see anything on Channel 8, and Channel 13 had a 10 second overview. The IndyStar has a decent article on the issue, but with the completely lame headline: “Gay Rights plan stands chance of passing this time.”
IT’S NOT A GAY RIGHTS PLAN. It’s a human rights plan, and the ordinance also has changes for people with disabilities, veterans of any war (not just vietnam) and it also covers STRAIGHT people — making it clear you can’t be fired for any sexual orientation or PERCIEVED sexual orientation. Yes there are straight people fired because people think they’re gay.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
Your help is needed to get the HRO passed and to stop discrimination.
Task #1 – – Contact your City-County Councillor and tell him/her that discrimination is wrong and that they should support the HRO amendment. Write, call, phone or all three –just do it. Find out who your Councillor is by calling 327-4242 or by going to: http://imaps.indygov.org/GovntProfile/
Task #2 – – Attend the Council committee hearing on the HRO amendment on Tuesday, December 13th from 5:00pm to 6:30pm at the City-County Building, 2nd floor. We must pack the house!
Task #3 – – Attend the City-County Council meeting for the HRO amendment on Monday, December 19th at 7:00pm (arrive at 6:30pm) at the City-County Building, 2nd floor Public Assembly Room. We must pack the house! The final vote will be taken this night!
You can park in the lot just east of the City County Building off Market Street downtown for any of these events. Enter the city-county building through the north revolving doors. There is a security pass through, and you’ll be heading upstairs and to your right. There should be a crowd, and it’s fairly obvious where to go.
Thanks to the tireless work of Indiana Equality Region 8 (especially Bil Browning, Jerame Davis, Jeff Newman, Seth Kreigh, Gary Welsh and many others including the folks from Greater Indianapolis Fairness Alliance) in getting information and education about anti-gay descrimination to the city-county council, the president of the council, Steve Talley (D) has decided to vote in favor of Proposition 622 to include sexual orientation and gender identity in the city’s Human Rights Ordinance. This is a great sign for the ordinance, and is a real victory for justice and fairness in Indianapolis.
There’s still a ways to go; a second committee hearing is on Tuesday, and the vote in the full council is coming up soon. For both events, we need everyone possible to attend the meetings at the city-county building downtown (I’ll post directions and parking info before each event). And I need you to attend Tuesday for moral support!
You can thank Steve Talley for working hard to get information and education by talking to GLBT people about their experiences by e-mailing him: stalley@indygov.org. While you’re at it, stop by Bilerico and thank them as well.
I got a fundraising letter from a local gay organization today (quoted below the jump line) in my inbox today… the kind that drives me absolutely bananas. I’ve written it on my site and on the gayindy.org mailing list dozens of times, and I’ll say it again: this is not enough information for me to give you money.
Specifically the sentence that caused my knee-jerk reaction of anger was this: “By taking swift action and working in conjunction with civil rights, child protection, and family rights organizations, Indiana Equality forced Senator Miller to withdraw her bill from consideration.”
How delightfully ambiguous, and yet credit-seeking at the same time.
Define “swift action” please.
Now, I witnessed several organizations take swift action on the Pat Miller issue: Rock Indiana sent out emails and told people how to call, several women’s rights organizations did the same, Nuvo Newsweekly wrote articles, numerous bloggers posted information (including me; maybe I should ask for money). I don’t recall hearing a peep from IE about it. I also don’t notice any of the people I did see take action hitting me up for cash at Christmas time.
Maybe they did something behind the scenes? Did they call people? Lobby on the issue (using the same paid lobbyist that, coincidentally also works for other “civil rights, child protection, and family rights organizations”)?
Whatever they actually did, they need to tell me about it, because I know better than to take e-mails like this at face value.
I volunteered for a little organization a few years back called Justice, Inc., that asked me to write fundraising newsletters just like this, when they didn’t actually have the lobbyist they claimed to have, or the influence with political leaders or the media, and they never actually took action on anything. They asked me to write delightfully ambiguous prose like this for them, and I finally quit because I felt awful about doing it, because I knew it was lies. So I know how to read between the lines.
All I’m asking is to be plain and specific about what the “swift action” was and who took it.
Who would Jesus beat? According to the Wichita Eagle:
University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki said that the two men who beat him made references to the class that was to be offered for the first time this spring.
Originally called “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,” the course was canceled last week at Mirecki’s request.
The class was added after the Kansas State Board of Education decided to include more criticism of evolution in science standards for elementary and secondary students.
The antigay American Family Association claimed a cultural victory on Thursday and called off its threatened boycott of Ford Motor Co. On Friday, Ford spokesman Mike Moran confirmed to Advocate.com that the company will stop advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in gay publications but insisted it was strictly a business decision.
The Dearborn, Mich., automaker came under fire from the AFA in May for its longtime efforts to increase LGBT workplace diversity and support gay rights causes. Ford has long been a regular advertiser within gay media, including The Advocate, and has donated significant sums to LGBT causes and nonprofit groups such as the Human Rights Campaign.
Threatened with a boycott by the Mississippi-based AFA, Ford and some of its dealers agreed to negotiate, and the AFA announced in June that it would hold off on its planned action. On Thursday, AFA announced the boycott would be canceled altogether.
“They’ve heard our concerns; they are acting on our concerns. We are pleased with where we are,” said Donald Wildmon, AFA’s chairman, in a statement. “Obviously there are still some small matters of difference, as people will always have, but generally speaking, we are pleased with the results—and therefore the boycott that had been suspended [is] now officially ended.”
Specific terms of any formal agreement between the AFA and Ford—and whether any such agreement has in fact been reached—remain unclear.
When first contacted, Ford spokesman Moran referred Advocate.com to the AFA statement, suggesting that the company had no disagreement with Wildmon’s assertions. In a second conversation he confirmed that the company would no longer advertise Jaguar and Land Rover products in the gay media, saying that the decision was strictly “business.”
well, I was getting shitty gas mileage anyway.
Americablog has excellent coverage of this issue, with numerous posts, including the lame responses of Ford Executives about why the made the decision, and some insider information about how Ford cut the deal with the AFA to target gays.
Advance Indiana does an excellent job of narrating the action from last night’s city county council meeting, so I won’t duplicate the effort here.
If you want to see it for yourself, the committee meeting will be broadcast several times on Channel 16, so haul out your TIVO.
I was asked to speak at the council meeting, and I was too freaked out by the idea to do so. I won’t make that mistake again. I’ll be speaking about my experiences at the next Committee meeting on Tuesday, December 13th. I’ll need all the moral support I can get, so if you could make it, I’d appreciate it.
Several things that struck me as really interesting: the obviously miserable “ex-gay” couple (notice how they always marry each other so they don’t have to make excuses for why they don’t want to have sex) who testified were strange and heartbreaking. The man, who flamed more than any other gay man I know, actually said that “I can’t guarantee that I won’t slip and fall back into the lifestyle. But I’m here to testify that it can be done.” Um, if there’s a greater indicator that this law is needed than that, it was this:
19 people, most of them ministers and religious people, stood up and testified against the HRO, and every one of them spewed hatred and malice against gay people, and then had the audacity to claim that there’s no real discrimination against gay people and that the laws aren’t needed. It’s was as ironic as if we held a civil rights hearing, and the KKK showed up in their cloaks and testified that black people are 2/3rds of a person, then tried to claim that there’s no discrimination against blacks so civil rights laws are not really needed anyway.
And every single person against Prop 622 invoked the Christian God. So those of you who aren’t Christian — if you’re Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, agnostic or atheist, be aware that your beliefs aren’t important to the city-county council.
