ACT On Principles

Here is a great essay written by Michelangelo Signorile from The Advocate:

COMMENTARY: Taking to the streets — and to the World Wide Web — is the only way get this White House to move on gay issues, columnist Michelangelo Signorile says. So it could be time to plan another march on Washington.

The National Equality March, which Time magazine estimated brought roughly 200,000 people to the National Mall earlier this month, was such a huge success even before it happened that we must plan another one — even if it never happens. That’s because we’ve learned a few things in this first year of Barack Obama’s presidency. 

First off, this administration responds to pressure, and unlike the previous Democratic administration, these White House officials cannot contain our discontent by going to groups like the Human Rights Campaign or politicians like Barney Frank (more on that and the reasons why farther down).

They want to keep LGBTs at arm’s length, but we continue to make that difficult, and we force them to move — ever so reticently — each time we have applied pressure.

Sure, it was dispiriting to realize that after electing Obama we have to make a lot of noise to get even a little attention, but hopefully we’ve gotten over that: They’re politicians, they must be pressured, and there is absolutely no downside to pushing them hard.

The successes of the march began when the president decided to address our issues days before the march, agreeing to speak at HRC’s annual dinner. Just as he decided to commemorate Stonewall back in June, inviting gays to the White House after much public criticism of the administration’s dragging its feet, the president was responding to the marchers’ criticisms. The speech didn’t outline any new details on how the president would follow through on his promises, but he did spend a bit of capital just by speaking to a gay group — and doing so with much more passion than any time before, and saying a few things more emphaticall y— and sending a message via the televised coverage to the mainstream and to the opponents of LGBT rights.

Click here for full essay.

This posting comes to Act on Principles by AOP supporter: Mark Snyder

Beginning in 7th grade, I was mock raped, pushed, kicked, punched, spit on, and isolated from my peers. The supportive teachers in my rural Pennsylvanian school didn’t know how to help me, and the other teachers watched in silence. By ninth grade I was suicidal and threatening to quit school. My parents paid $8,000 a year for me to go a different public school in a college town an hour drive away, which provided a little bit more safety. Yet even at the new school I received death threats on my car and locker. It was during the fall of the year I transferred that Mathew Shepard was murdered. Like me, a thin effeminate male. My brother commented to my mom that I “could have been that kid.”

I was lucky enough to escape rural Pennsylvania for college in Boston where I found a supportive queer community who nurtured my activist nature and allowed it to blossom. Today, I runQueerToday.com, an online hub for queer activists who fight for social justice, and I work for an organization that serves LGBTQ headed families. My partner and I still experience harassment, like the time guys threw beer bottles at us in San Francisco while calling us fags, but we’re better prepared to handle it.

Given my past and my current work you might think I would be excited about the passage of hate crimes legislation. I’m not. In fact, I’m very conflicted about it. The legislation has been attached to military and war spending. I don’t think we should throw a single penny more towards weaponry the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. This hate crimes legislation also has the potential to increase prison sentences for those who commit crimes.  My father is in jail (after being entrapped for paying for sex with a male sex worker) so I have first hand experience to validate the mounds of research that show jail, the death penalty or long prison sentences do not deter crime or rehabilitate people. Finally, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project ( a legal organization serving the transgender community) has noted (and given examples) that hate crimes laws have been and can be used against our community, especially LGBTQ people of color and the transgender community.

It feels good that the new administration is showing us they care, and that they want to view us as equals. I understand why people would feel very compelled to support hate crimes legislation, but I’ll have to stand on the sidelines with Dennis Kucinich (who voted no) for this fight.