lgbt rights

Mark Foley blames crimes on being abused

Priest comes forward to tell of his inappropriate behavior with Mark Foley when Foley was young.

Let me make it really clear:

I was not molested as a kid. Most of my gay friends were never molested as kids. I have several friends who were molested. Some of them are straight and some are gay, and there seems to be no correlation whatsoever between the gender of the person who molested them and their current sexual orientation.

Many studies over the years have shown that there is no causal relationship between sexual molestation and homosexuality.

Also — I’m a 38 year old woman. The woman I love is 34 years old. I’m really quite tired of having our loving, nurturing relationship being equated with pedophilia, pederasty or predatory sexual behavior of any sort, and I’m really hating that I’m reading tons of that crap coming from the religious right currently.

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Mark Foley, and “real” gay relationships

In an opinion piece for the LA Times, Michelangelo Signorile says that the media should have “outed” Mark Foley as gay soon after his hypocritcal votes in favor of anti-gay legislation. I agree with Signorile about “outing” hypocritical public figures, and always have. But there’s something else in the article that I wanted to highlight…

Foley lived in a glass closet in Washington, where many people, we’re now being told, assumed he was gay, even as he orchestrated a lie for the voters of his district with help from the media both in Washington and at home in Florida.
Foley’s closet wasn’t just about protecting his political career. He seemed to be filled with shame. According to one gay man quoted in the Washington Post last week who challenged Foley on his voting for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, Foley justified marginalizing gay marriage by saying, “I could never compare any relationship I have ever had to the nature of my mother and father’s relationship.”
For Foley, homosexuality meant second-class status.
That kind of self-loathing is bound to play out in harmful ways. Would Foley have made online sexual advances on teenagers if he were openly gay or if he’d been reported on, truthfully, by the media as a gay man long ago, and faced the consequences? It’s quite possible the answer is no.

I find the phrase I highlighted above just heartbreaking, for Mark Foley’s sake as well as for my own.
I love my parents, and the people who are especially my role models for a good marriage — my paternal grandparents, who are just wonderful people. But do they somehow have a more “valid” relationship than mine? Of course not. When I see my girlfriend, I see someone as important to me as the members of my own family; someone that I love, adore, want to become a better person for, to live with and build a life with.
If I can live up to my grandparent’s example even half way (I’ve referred to them in the past as living examples of “happily ever after”) then I will be more successful as a spouse than 95% of heterosexual married couples are. And I love Stephanie so much that I want that for her and for me. I want a relationship like my grandparents have, with love and stability, surrounded by family and friends.
As loathsome as I think Mark Foley’s behavior was, I hope that someday he finds a relationship that moves him in that way, too — an equitable relationship based on respect and honesty and concern for the well being of his partner, and not taking advantage of people over whom he has power.

Continue ReadingMark Foley, and “real” gay relationships

Here Is The Big Gay Agenda

I’ve seen humorous takes on “The Gay Agenda” before… in fact I have an example of it on my site. But this recent column from the San Francisco Gate is nicely written:

Do you want to know the real gay agenda, what 96.8 percent of all gay couples wish for every single day including Sunday? Here it is:

From what I can glean and above all else, the gay people of America seem to want this simply inexcusable level of boundless, unchecked normalcy. It’s true. For some reason, they believe the utterly disgusting idea that they should be able to live their lives in peace and trust and health, with full support and assistance from their schools and hospitals and government, just like everyone else. I know. Shudder.

It is, in fact, remarkably similar to what heteros want. And women. And black people. And immigrants. And dwarves. That is, to be able to fall in love and maybe even get married (or at least have the option) and have decreasing amounts of sex and raise a family and hold down a good job and pay their taxes and argue with their lovers over who the hell spent 200 bucks on long distance to their mother, all while not having to worry about getting the living crap beaten out of them with tire chains by Arkansas and Alabama and most of Texas, or secretly loathed by small-minded pseudo-Christians who wouldn’t know Jesus’ true message if it bit them on the other cheek.

Ah, the deviousness of it all, the sheer nerve to desire the same sort of lives as everyone else. But do you want to know the kicker? The true aspect of the “gay agenda” that makes the religious right’s skin really crawl? Here it is: When all of that normalcy is in place, when these repulsive gay beings who like to walk around in public and eat at restaurants and drink their lattes and laugh out loud and stick things into each other’s bodies for sexual pleasure, well, they want the most appalling thing of all: They just want to be left alone.

I know. It’s hideous. How dare they! How dare most gays ask not to be harassed and not really care to flaunt their sexuality or convince anyone that homosexuality is cool or righteous or the only way to be, beyond reassuring children that it’s OK to be whatever religion or sexual orientation your mind and body and heart and soul guide you to be. Can you imagine? What horror. Ignorant, intolerant schoolteachers should protest that nasty idea right now.

Continue ReadingHere Is The Big Gay Agenda

Indiana Bill Amendment Would Make Illegal Local LGBT Non-Discrimination Policies

TODAY the Indiana House of Representatives will debate an amendment to House Bill 1010 that would prohibit cities and counties from providing equal rights protections based on sexual orientation or gender identity — like the Human Rights Ordinance we worked so hard on here in Indianapolis.

Please Contact your State Representative immediately (TODAY!) and tell them you oppose this amendment. Municipalities must retain the right to pass the laws that are appropriate and needed for their community and their citizens. Seek help from sex discrimination lawyers to fight for your rights. Basic human rights should be ensured for all Hoosiers.

In reaction to the recent update of Indianapolis’ Human Rights Ordinance and other local non-discrimination laws throughout Indiana – the Religious Right, led by Advance America’s Eric Miller, tapped Representative Jeff Thompson (R) to author an amendment to HB 1010 (eminent domain). The proposal, Amendment #12, specifies that local government may not extend protections for employment or housing that is “greater than those protections or opportunities offered by the Constitution of the State of Indiana, the Constitution of the United States, or federal law, except as expressly granted by statute.”

This proposal would make illegal human rights protections based on sexual orientation or gender identity, including those that have been enacted in Bloomington, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Lafayette, Michigan City, West Lafayette, and Tippecanoe County.

On Tuesday afternoon Democratic House members argued that the amendment was neither acceptable nor relevant to the bill. Nevertheless, the amendment was ruled germane and debate began. After intense questioning of Rep. Thompson by a number of Representatives (both Democratic and Republican), Speaker Brian Bosma adjourned House for the day without taking a vote on Amendment #12. As there was no vote, the House will continue discussion on the proposal when they re-convene at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, January 25th.

What You Can Do

1.) Contact your State Representative immediately and tell them loud and clear that this proposal is simply not acceptable! Municipalities must retain the right to pass the laws for that are appropriate and needed for their community and their citizens.

2.) Join Indiana Equality at the Indiana State House on Wednesday evening, January 25, 2006 and deliver a message in-person to your Representative to reject Amendment # 12. Meet at 5:00 pm at the State House Rotunda.

Don’t Forget!! – Our Families Count!

Join Indiana Equality for the “Our Families Count” rally. February 9, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm at the Statehouse. Don’t miss this historic event.

Continue ReadingIndiana Bill Amendment Would Make Illegal Local LGBT Non-Discrimination Policies

Time on Two Crosses–The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

My friend Marti passed along this quote from Bayard Rustin, who was a friend of Martin Luther King’s, and who worked alongside him during the civil rights movement:

“Indeed, if you want to know whether today people believe in democracy, if you want to know whether they are true democrats, if you want to know whether they are human rights activists, the question to ask is, ‘What about gay people?’ Because that is now the litmus paper by which this democracy is to be judged.”
“There are four burdens, which gays, along with every other despised group, whether it is blacks following slavery and reconstruction, or Jews fearful of Germany, must address.
The first is to recognize that one must overcome fear.
The second is overcoming self-hate.
The third is overcoming self-denial.
The fourth burden is more political. It is to recognize that the job of the gay community is not to deal with extremist who would castrate us or put us on an island and drop an H-bomb on us.
The fact of the matter is that there is a small percentage of people in America who understand the true nature of the homosexual community. There is another small percentage who will never understand us. Our job is not to get those people who dislike us to love us. Nor was our aim in the civil rights movement to get prejudiced white people to love us. Our aim was to try to create the kind of America, legislatively, morally, and psychologically, such that even though some whites continued to hate us, they could not openly mainifest that hate. That’s our job today: to control the extent to which people can publicly manifest antigay sentiment.”

There are a couple of significant differences in what gay and transgendered people face than other oppressed groups of people. One of them is that our families usually don’t prepare us for the hatred and discrimination that will be directed at us as we grow up, or to help us understand who we are and why we are before we face that hatred. Many time the people who discriminate against us are our own family members, which makes it doubly painful.
The other significant difference in the struggle that gay people face is that much of our history is completely lost to time. We know that gay people have been persecuted, oppressed, tortured and executed for centuries because we have seen the evidence of it in our history books, but only from the view of the persecutors, and very little of it survives from the point of view of gay people.
Other oppressed groups were able to pass history of their people through oral tradition through families and communities, and although that is a fragile method, it’s still significant.

Continue ReadingTime on Two Crosses–The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

I really want to be proud of where I live

But it’s really hard to do when my elected officials embarrass the crap out of me every time I turn around. Turns out the Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar are both at the top of the list of politicians who take sleazy free vacations from lobbyists. Way to represent, guys.
And because I was in the hospital when it went down, I haven’t had a chance to blog about my very own city-county council representative, Patrice Abdullah. He’s a democrat. I voted for him. I actually took off work early one day, back when he was running for office, to go to our neighborhood meeting to talk to him and ask him where he stood on gay rights issues. He assured me that he didn’t believe in discrimination. But he recently voted against a change in Indianapolis’ Human Rights Ordinance that would protect gay people from being discriminated against, claiming his Muslim beliefs meant that he was expected to discriminate against gay people.
Guess what Patrice? You’re not going to be on the city-county council in the next election. I may not be able to do anything about the retard in the Oval Office, but I can single-handedly get your ass kicked to the curb, and I will be doing exactly that.

Continue ReadingI really want to be proud of where I live

We Kissed Inside The Statehouse

Photo Set: 2005 Rally Against SJR-7

We had a wonderful, successful rally at the Indiana Statehouse yesterday! Hundreds of people showed up with extraordinary signs to protest the SJR7 legislation. We were getting people’s contact information, and of the people who agreed to sign up, we got 757 contact addresses. That was about 3/4ths of the crowd, so we had about 1,000 people attending.

What I was really impressed with was not just the fact that I saw tons of people I knew (some of whom I’d never imagine going to a political rally) but I saw tons of people I’ve never seen before in my life. That’s really amazing, because when you’ve been out in the gay community as long as I have, you tend to think it’s really small and that everyone knows everyone else. It takes something like this to make me realize that we have a HUGE gay community in Indiana.

There were excellent speakers, and according to some of the people who lobby regularly, we made a great impression on some of the legislators. Nobody expected the size of crowd we had. At the end of the rally we went inside to lobby, and ran into Eric Miller’s Advance America bigots as they were leaving. Most of Miller’s crowd were home-schooled kids and christian school kids who get extra credit for being bussed into Miller’s rally.

So we chanted at them and basically screwed up the end of their rally. Stephanie and I were by the doors, and a group of bigots who were leaving started to bunch up to trap us inside, chanting and trying to intimidate us. So we kissed in front of them and freaked them out. It was GREAT! They RAN outside to get away from us. A reporter from the IU School Paper snapped our photo while we were kissing, and then interviewed us, so we’re likely to end up in the IU paper. It was really exciting.

UPDATE: Stephanie and I were quoted in the IU paper but they didn’t include our picture.

Indiana Daily News

Other’s Pictures from the Rally

Scott Barrett’s Photos
Marti Abernathy’s Photos
Scott Barnes’ Photos
Wilson’s Photos

Media Coverage of the Rally

Check out this picture of an anti-gay bigot attempting to punch one of the people from our rally:

South Bend Tribune
Another Story of threatened violence from the bigots from a person at our rally: “The Advance America people were filing out —a small group of 5 or 6 young men approached me holding our big IE sign and one said, ‘Don’t you wish we had some torches?!’ The others laughed and they continued on down to the sidewalk.”

NUVO Story: “God hates gays”
Indy Star
WISH-TV
WTHR
The IndyChannel (RTV6)
WXIN – Channel 59 (Indianapolis)
WIBC/Network Indiana
Associated Press
Courier-Journal (Louisville)
Indianapolis Star (Dan Carpenter column) “Inside the anti-gay crusade”
Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne)
Courier & Press (Evansville)
Northwest Indiana Times
365Gay.Com

Continue ReadingWe Kissed Inside The Statehouse

Statehouse Rally for Equal Marriage Rights – March 8

I will be attending this rally on March 8th, and I’m inviting you all to join me. I will be one of the crowd-control folks in a lovely orange vest. If you want to get together for a sign-making party, please let me know; this event is only a few short days away.

In response to the State Legislature’s current bill (SJR 7) seeking to limit equal marriage rights for same-sex couples by amending the constitution, gay rights advocates and their friends and families are planning a Rally/Silent protest at the east steps of the Indiana Statehouse on March 8 at 11 a.m. to protest this piece of legislation and several others that are currently under consideration. Organizers are expecting over 1,000 supporters to attend the rally.

This rally will also serve as a counter rally to the one taking place on the west side of the statehouse, held by the right-wing organization Advance America, founded by former political candidate and longtime lobbyist Eric Miller.

The Legislation
A number of bills have been introduced into into the Indiana State Legislature this season that will have an effect on the lives of gay and lesbian citizens of Indiana. Here is a synopsis of three of them:

SJR 7 – EQUAL MARRIAGE RIGHTS: This bill seeks to amend the Indiana constitution to limit the possibility of marriage to a definition of one man and one woman, and additionally seeks to prevent any legal arrangements between same-sex couples that are intended to provide the same protections as marriage.

SJR 585 – ADOPTION/FOSTERING: This bill will prohibit gay people from being foster parents and adopting.

SJR 541 – DOMESTIC PARTNER BENEFITS: This bill will limit eligibility under a state university health plan to an employee of the university and to the spouse and dependant children of the employee.

The first legislation, SJR 7 has already passed in the senate and will move on to the house in this legislative session. If it passes the house (it is expected to) it will need to be passed again in a future legislative session, and with then be placed on a ballot referendum for Hoosiers to vote on.

Additional Rally Information
Organizers describe the rally as a silent protest intended to emphasize the attempts by the religious right to silence the gay and lesbian community. They also ask attendees to remember that they want no noise, rude behavior or disorderly conduct, and that rally supporters are asked to stay off the Statehouse grass, to avoid blocking entrances to the Statehouse and foot traffic on the sidewalks. 15 to 20 organizers of the event will be on hand to provide crowd control and to help attendees maintain order.

There will be several speakers, including the possibility of Senators who opposed the legislation.
Attendees of the Rally are encouraged to make signs. Organizers suggestions include: “SJR7 – The Hate Debate” or “SJR7 – Blatant Discrimination” or “Eric Miller -Conservative Approach; Extremist Agenda” or “Hate is Not a Family Value” or “It’s Our Constitution Too”

More information about the rally, including a map of the Statehouse, flyers that can be distributed, and parking information is available at [link deprecated: http://www.stopthebigots.org] Stopthebigots.org.

Parking for the Rally

Attendees of the rally are urged to carpool to the event due to downtown parking and traffic considerations. Parking at Circle Center Mall may provide the best location.

Continue ReadingStatehouse Rally for Equal Marriage Rights – March 8

An e-mail from the Former Chair of the Indiana Democratic Party

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Last week I commented here on an IndyStar article about the Indiana Democratic Party, and how some Democratic candidates took money from the gay rights organization the Indiana Stonewall Democrats, and then sent out mailings that were anti-gay in nature. I included a quote from the article by Kipper V. Tew, the chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party (who resigned Nov 16th), and I reacted negatively to that quote.

Last night I received an e-mail from Kip Tew regarding my post, which was very gracious considering what I said about him, and umm… his horse. 🙂 Here is the e-mail he sent:

I was out last week and did not see any press, but I checked this week and noticed that you told me to fuck off because of comments that were attributed to me.

If you will indulge me the opportunity to respond in my defense I would like to say the following.

The quote, as people like to say, was taken out of context. Let me tell you how I feel. I was trying to insure that we had a Democratic Majority in the Indiana House of Representatives. Why? Because with a Democratic Majority Speaker Bauer could continue to bottle up the attempts by the Republicans to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, as he did in the 2004 session. Not everyone in his caucus agrees with him. However, as long as he was speaker, we could keep that from happening. It is my belief that if that happens it will stop the progress for Gay equality for many years. The point of my quote was not that I was unwilling to stand up for a principle, but that I was willing to help elect someone who is not as forward thinking about this issue in order to not go backwards. I am sorry that we did not win this year. I think we will suffer setbacks because of it. I hate that. I hope that soon the American people will change their opinion about these issues. I think it is happening but it is a slower process than either you or I would like. But we must continue to fight for what we think is right and continue to argue with the other side. And occasionally we have to retreat a little to move forward. The civil rights struggle took over 100 years from the end of slavery until the civil rights and voting rights act were passed. Then it has taken two generations to effect real change after the laws were changed. The Gay rights struggle won’t take that long but the struggle will be hard and folks like you need to continue to hold politicians’ feet to the fire. Thank you for giving a damn!

Continue ReadingAn e-mail from the Former Chair of the Indiana Democratic Party

Indiana Democrats Admit They Have No Principles

In response to criticism that several local Democratic candidates took money from gay rights organizations in Indiana, and then came out with policy stances against gay rights during the election, Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Kip Tew had this to say:

“The race was about winning. I will not allow us to go down without a fight, nor will I allow us to take a stand on principle that will cause us to go backwards and diminish our chance for success for many years.”

Interesting. If the race is about winning, and not about having a set of principles, then how the hell are Democrats different than Republicans? And what’s the point of running at all?

Fuck you, Kip Tew. And that “democratic” horse you rode in on.

Continue ReadingIndiana Democrats Admit They Have No Principles