ACT On Principles

Submitted by Andrew

The “Hate Crimes” bill is an aspirin to the LGBT Equality headache. A little something for the symptom, but nothing for the problem.  It does not create or contribute to our equality.

HRC and other professional LGBT advocacy groups operate with a mindset that seeks to delay equality for as long as possible. They have no incentive to do anything quickly. Because of this – most of our donations are wasted on salaries, not strategies.

Equality is something we – as a movement – will have to do. We are not much closer to equality than we were 40 years ago and WE DO NOT HAVE A MOVEMENT.  If we did,  more than 10% of our Community would actually be involved.

The Hate Crimes Bill may have a placebo effect and lessen our pain and frustration for a moment – but, it should not be celebrated as a “victory.” It does not contribute to our equality – it only punishes bad behavior.

Our equality relies on changing minds (like these young men were doing in Maine, door-to-door: http://www.queerty.com/2-minutes-of-your-time-a-maine-marriage-equality-canvassing-diary-20091030/) and not on changing laws. Laws do not create equality – people do.

Collectively we seem to keep obscuring the real goal – equality.  “Equal Rights” are not equality.  Making us a “special class,” “protected class” or a “minority” only perpetuate our differences – instead of confirming our “sameness.”  As a gay white man I do not want to be “tolerated” or “protected.” I would rather not gain “minority” or “victim” status, either.  I think it is counterproductive.  We will be equal when people believe we are.  Unfortunately, the scattered efforts within the LGBT Community seem completely fixated on “equal rights” and not equality.  They are very different.

I am not dismissing any efforts or their sincerity, but I am asking that we reconsider our goal.  If we truly want equality we must have conversations with our fellow citizens – friends, family, neighbors and even strangers.  Two thirds of our fellow citizens will support us, but we are not having those conversations.  We need to.  We need to ask for their help.

Perhaps, instead of spending all our resources on political and judicial solutions, we should focus on creating a viable strategy and plan for our equality.  One that will unite our community and ignite a real, sustainable “movement.”

I have organized a series of meetings in Dallas and other cities to give full consideration to ideas, tactics and strategies that lead to LGBT Equality.  These are very honest, objective discussions that have delivered many attractive proposals.

I have done this with an open invitation to everyone in our community – nobody needs permission or endorsement.  This has lead to some very encouraging possibility and promise.

Please join us for these important meetings Thursday evenings at 7pm at the iLume Complex, 4123 Cedar Springs Rd. Dallas, TX (Enter on Knight Street). Or email me for Updates: [email protected]

admin | October 30, 2009 | 4 comments

I’m sitting down to a late dinner and watching the news about the Bay Bridge remaining closed after years of this important piece of the commute in and out of San Francisco being allowed to be in various degrees of disrepair. It amazes me how 20 years after the 1989 earthquake that caused such damage to this bridge, the repairs are still trudging along. And now, with a piece of the bridge that was recently worked on has fallen down on evening commute traffic, this never ending drama is left to go on and on and on.

I can’t help but look at this as a metaphor for the state of human rights for LGBT people everywhere. Just like the bay bridge has been allowed to be repaired just enough to be operational, for over forty years since Stonewall our rights have been allowed to be only operational and in too many places not even that. We’ve been vocal and active enough only to get the minor repairs of a marriage right here and there, adoption rights in a handful of states, domestic partnerships and protections from work discriminations in only some of our states.

On the global level, our LGBT brothers and sisters are being jailed, tortured, beaten and often killed for the crime of being who they were born to be. In London earlier this month,  a 62 year old gay man, who was attacked in a homophobic assault died. Ian Baynham, 62, was walking through Trafalgar Square in central London with a friend when a woman began shouting homophobic abuse at him. He went to talk to her but she attacked him and a man and a second young woman joined in on beating him. Just for being himself..

In Bagdad, Gay activists have claimed that more than sixty gay men have been murdered in Iraq so far this year. They also assert the U.S. has ignored the murders because the government doesn’t want to upset the religious authorities in Iraq.

On the morning of February 12, 2008, 14 year old Brandon McInerney was witnessed repeatedly looking at 15 year old Lawrence “Larry” King during a class.  Bothered by Larry’s wearing women’s accessories and shoes, McInerney pulled out a 22 caliber pistol from his back pack and shot King twice in the head.
And as recent as July 2009, gay Navy Seaman August Provost was killed while on sentry duty at Camp Pendleton in SanDiego, not long after video clips of him tlaking about his lover were posted on the internet. Provost, 29, of Houston, was shot to death at the Navy’s landing-craft compound adjacent to Interstate 5. Navy officials still insist there is no evidence that Provost was killed because he was gay.
And while we now have the Hate Crimes Bill signed in the US, that’s no guarantee that there will be no more Matthew Shepherds or Gwen Araujos or Lawrence “Larry” Kings.

We cannot settle for quick fixes to be applied on the damaged, unequal human rights of this or any country. We have to stand up and speak out about Hate Crimes everywhere. We need to protest with civil disobedience after civil disobedience for human rights for everyone everywhere.

A patchwork repair has shown it will not work for the bridge from Oakland to San Francisco and, in the same way, a patchwork of limited rights does not work for the bridge from discrimination to equality. But unlike the Bay Bridge where we are forced to wait for the professionals to eventually do the right thing, the Bridge to Equality is something that we all can and we all must work on to repair and rebuild.

Kelly Rivera Hart | October 30, 2009 | 2 comments

Submitted by: Tommy News
On Wednesday, October 28, 2009, something extraordinary happened in
the East Room of the White House. President Obama signed into law the
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. LGBT
equality activists have been working for this moment for over ten
years.

This is the first time that ANY federal equality measure protecting
LGBT rights has become law. The very first time. And it is the first
federal law to explicitly protect transgender people. The law also
protects women, the disabled, and minority groups against crimes of
hate. It is a touchstone in our movement, a triumph of what is right.

The right wing and the GOP fought hard against this legislation, with
rampant lies, homophobia, and false claims that this legislation would
outlaw thought, religion, free speech, and even Christmas. Shame on
the thirty five Republican Senators and one Democrat who voted against
the bill. We must remember their votes on election day.

As we celebrate this historic triumph, let us now hope that the Obama
administration and the Congress will champion and advance other vital
LGBT equality issues, including legislation to bar workplace
discrimination, ENDA, to allow military service with the repeal Don’t
Ask Don’t Tell, to repeal DOMA and fully recognize same-sex civil
marriages, to enact HIV/AIDS legislation, and to amend The Civil
Rights Act of 1964 to include LGBT people, women, and disabled people.
The time is right. The time is NOW!

The remarks of President Obama commemorating the enactment of this historic legislation:

5:45 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you so much, everybody.  Thank you so much, and
welcome to the White House.

There are several people here that I want to just make mention of
because they helped to make today possible.  We’ve got Attorney
General Eric Holder.  (Applause.)  A champion of this legislation, and
a great Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.  (Applause.)  My dear
friend, senior Senator from the great state of Illinois, Dick Durbin.
(Applause.)  The outstanding Chairman of Armed Services, Carl Levin.
(Applause.)  Senator Arlen Specter.  (Applause.)  Chairman of the
Judiciary Committee in the House, Representative John Conyers.
(Applause.)  Representative Barney Frank.  (Applause.)  Representative
Tammy Baldwin.  (Applause.)  Representative Jerry Nadler.  (Applause.)
Representative Jared Polis.  (Applause.)  All the members of Congress
who are here today, we thank you.

Mr. David Bohnett and Mr. Tom Gregory and the David Bohnett Foundation
– they are partners for this reception.  Thank you so much, guys, for
helping to host this.  (Applause.)

And finally, and most importantly, because these were really the
spearheads of this effort  — Denis, Judy, and Logan Shepard.
(Applause.)  As well as Betty Byrd Boatner and Louvon Harris  –
sisters of James Byrd, Jr.  (Applause.)

To all the activists, all the organizers, all the people who helped
make this day happen, thank you for your years of advocacy and
activism, pushing and protesting that made this victory possible.

You know, as a nation we’ve come far on the journey towards a more
perfect union.  And today, we’ve taken another step forward.  This
afternoon, I signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.
Hate Crimes Prevention Act.  (Applause.)

This is the culmination of a struggle that has lasted more than a
decade.  Time and again, we faced opposition.  Time and again, the
measure was defeated or delayed.  Time and again we’ve been reminded
of the difficulty of building a nation in which we’re all free to live
and love as we see fit.  But the cause endured and the struggle
continued, waged by the family of Matthew Shepard, by the family of
James Byrd, by folks who held vigils and led marches, by those who
rallied and organized and refused to give up, by the late Senator Ted
Kennedy who fought so hard for this legislation — (applause) — and
all who toiled for years to reach this day.

You understood that we must stand against crimes that are meant not
only to break bones, but to break spirits — not only to inflict harm,
but to instill fear.  You understand that the rights afforded every
citizen under our Constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those
rights — both from unjust laws and violent acts.  And you understand
how necessary this law continues to be.

In the most recent year for which we have data, the FBI reported
roughly 7,600 hate crimes in this country.  Over the past 10 years,
there were more than 12,000 reported hate crimes based on sexual
orientation alone.  And we will never know how many incidents were
never reported at all.

And that’s why, through this law, we will strengthen the protections
against crimes based on the color of your skin, the faith in your
heart, or the place of your birth.  We will finally add federal
protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender
identity, or sexual orientation.  (Applause.) And prosecutors will
have new tools to work with states in order to prosecute to the
fullest those who would perpetrate such crimes.  Because no one in
America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding the
hands of the person they love.  No one in America should be forced to
look over their shoulder because of who they are or because they live
with a disability.

At root, this isn’t just about our laws; this is about who we are as a
people.  This is about whether we value one another
– whether we embrace our differences, rather than allowing them to
become a source of animus.  It’s hard for any of us to imagine the
mind-set of someone who would kidnap a young man and beat him to
within an inch of his life, tie him to a fence, and leave him for
dead.  It’s hard for any of us to imagine the twisted mentality of
those who’d offer a neighbor a ride home, attack him, chain him to the
back of a truck, and drag him for miles until he finally died.

But we sense where such cruelty begins:  the moment we fail to see in
another our common humanity — the very moment when we fail to
recognize in a person the same fears and hopes, the same passions and
imperfections, the same dreams that we all share.

We have for centuries strived to live up to our founding ideal, of a
nation where all are free and equal and able to pursue their own
version of happiness.  Through conflict and tumult, through the morass
of hatred and prejudice, through periods of division and discord we
have endured and grown stronger and fairer and freer.  And at every
turn, we’ve made progress not only by changing laws but by changing
hearts, by our willingness to walk in another’s shoes, by our capacity
to love and accept even in the face of rage and bigotry.

In April of 1968, just one week after the assassination of Martin
Luther King, as our nation mourned in grief and shuddered in anger,
President Lyndon Johnson signed landmark civil rights legislation.
This was the first time we enshrined into law federal protections
against crimes motivated by religious or racial hatred — the law on
which we build today.

As he signed his name, at a difficult moment for our country,
President Johnson said that through this law “the bells of freedom
ring out a little louder.”  That is the promise of America.  Over the
sounds of hatred and chaos, over the din of grief and anger, we can
still hear those ideals — even when they are faint, even when some
would try to drown them out.  At our best we seek to make sure those
ideals can be heard and felt by Americans everywhere.  And that work
did not end in 1968.  It certainly does not end today.  But because of
the efforts of the folks in this room — particularly those family
members who are standing behind me — we can be proud that that bell
rings even louder now and each day grows louder still.

So thank you very much.  God bless you and God bless the United States
of America.  (Applause.)

END
5:53 P.M. EDT
Source:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-reception-commemorating-enactment-matthew-shepard-and-james-byrd-

admin | October 29, 2009 | Leave a comment

We are delighted with the enactment of the hate crimes legislation and achieving our first Equality Goal. This is the first out of 13 major areas of federal law in which the LGBT community is not equal.

We have updated our Federal Legal Equality Index in the eQualityGiving and ActOnPrinciples (see the top left column). See how the Federal Legal Equality Index is computed here.

Check the chart of the work that still needs to be done for LGBT legal equality.

Juan Ahonen-Jover | October 29, 2009 | Leave a comment

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Can a former Republican and a U.S. Senator evolve?  In a piece in today’s Huffington Post, Senator Arlen Specter, wrote:

The time has come to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Enacted 13 years ago when the idea of same sex marriage was struggling for acceptance, the Act is a relic of a more tradition-bound time and culture.

Curious, since Specter – then a Republican – voted with his even more conservative Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum to help enact DOMA in the first place. I’m all for evolution, so this is welcome news.

Will a newly minted Democrat put some muscle behind the easy breezy words of a HuffPo piece by INTRODUCING a DOMA repeal into the US Senate? I called the Senator’s office today, and asked if he will be doing just that.  I’ll report back on what I learn.

I LOVE that we are whipping HR 3567, Nadler’s Respect for Marriage Act.  I think the AOP webmaster can make some room for Senate companion legislation, but he can’t until it is introduced. If you want to call Senator Specter to urge that he introduce a DOMA repeal, his number is 202-224-4254 .

John Bare | October 27, 2009 | Leave a comment