ACT On Principles

From GetEqual:

We’re heading into the end of summer, and there has been both an eerie silence from Congress and whispers of surrender from the White House about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Despite these challenges from our elected leaders, GetEQUAL is determined to pull out all the stops to get ENDA passed in 2010.

We’ve heard promises for 40 years that this legislation will be passed — but we have a moral obligation to speak out while it is still perfectly legal for employers in 29 states to fire someone for their sexual orientation and in 38 states to fire someone for their gender identity or expression.

Our elected leaders tell us that this legislation is “complicated” and we should continue waiting.

But while Members of Congress are back in their home districts trying to save their jobs, we are left waiting for legislation that would safeguard ours. There are millions of LGBTQ Americans who are at risk of losing their jobs, at a moment’s notice, because there are no federal job protections in place.

Join the “ENDA Summer” campaign today: http://www.getequal.org/endasummer

This isn’t a legislative issue — this is a moral issue. And we’re targeting legislators in specific states who have not yet shown the moral courage to support this legislation.

We’re tired of legislators telling us that basic job protections for LGBTQ Americans are politically inconvenient — that some are more concerned with securing their own jobs than those of their constituents. We’re tired of being asked to wait — we’ve been waiting for 40 years.

GetEQUAL has created a targeted list of legislators who we think need to hear from you in order to pass this legislation in 2010, as promised. [1] Every day that this legislation is not passed, there are LGBTQ Americans scared to be “out” at work, fearful of losing work stability, discriminated against for not conforming to gender stereotypes, or fired for acting “too gay.”

Join the “ENDA Summer” campaign today: http://www.getequal.org/endasummer

We appreciate your ongoing commitment to taking bold action to secure LGBTQ equality, and we look forward to connecting you with our local organizers on the ground in your state!

Get Out! Get Active! GetEQUAL!

Robin McGehee

Co-Founder and Director, GetEQUAL

You’ve paid your dues and through the nose. You’ve heard and said it all. You’re done with all the drama. You did your part.

But what did you do it for?

One of my oldest friends is still in the grassroots game. He’s even coined the new phase: Stonewall 2.0.

But he’s taking a pass on “federal activism,” having seen the demise of the National Equality March organization and lived through the tortured takeover of Equality Across America by the International Socialist Organization (ISO).

Understandably scared away, his focus now is on “building a [state-level grassroots] activist network that can respond ad hoc to developments of concern to our community.” To me this sounds like activism for activism sake; a reactive army, without strategy or focus. And it sounds like a different person.

Really, dear old friend? Really? Is that your intention now?

That wasn’t your motivation when we started. You were driven by your childhood suffering (in a state that recently created a decoy prom for the gays and misfits). You were intent on changing the laws and government culture. You took on city police commissioners over entrapment. You forced hate crimes reporting and enforcement. You lobbied law after law for state equal rights and fought marriage referendum. You helped elect Mayors and Governors and Senators and Presidents. But for what?

Here we are with a President that is a direct product of the black Civil Rights struggle and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which made it the U.S. public policy not to discriminate based on race. And yet, here we are with no federal Civil Rights protection for our community. No hope in sight of ever having an openly gay or lesbian or transgendered President. And no end game in play. Is that what we’ve worked all this time for? No.

But you don’t want to be involved in “federal activism.” Well old friend, that’s not good enough.

We can’t count on your new ad hoc responder network. We can’t count on new edgy activists that go mainstream in minutes. We can’t wait decades to make insider contacts. And we can’t do this without the veteran experts.

We need our use-to-be activists to resurrect and those still in the game, like you, to reconnect to their youthful intentions. Because a narrow window of opportunity is now open and the time has come to protect our community with America’s civil rights laws. Now.  In Obama’s 1st term. We cannot count on a 2nd and should not have to wait anyway.

For this, there is a new proposed bill called The American Equality Bill, created by EqualityGiving and written by Karen Doering (former Senior Counsel for the National Center for Lesbian Rights), which seeks to just that. It puts SO+GI right along side “race, color, sex, national origin and religion” where we’ve belonged all along. It’s ready to go and sponsors are being sought for filing in November, with an impatient and ambitious view toward public hearings by May of next year, and passage by June of 2012.   But it’s all grassroots and it needs you.

Filing it alone will ignite a conversation long over due about homophobia and civil rights. In fact, filing the bill will represent a statement about our own dignity that, by itself, will start to free our youth from the 2nd class reality they continue to experience.

Because filing it says: “We are entitled to the same protections the President had as a child. We are equal.” It will show your ad hoc response team that there is a prize we deserve greater than anything they are aware of, and much more than we have asked for so far, or they know to seek. This is what the elders are supposed to be doing.

But to file and pass this legislation our community needs you working exactly where you are – in your state, not just building networks, but engaging them. This is not federal activism. It is state activism. The Congressional sponsors and Senate sponsors will come from the states. The votes will come from the states. And the activists needed to make this dream a reality will come from the states.

This is what we have prepared ourselves for our entire lives. This is the struggle for which we honed our politics and built our organizations. This is the civil rights struggle of the millennium and it needs you.

It is not time to stand down, old friend. It is time to stand up.

• @GetEQUAL partners with @ActOnPrinciples Public Whip Counts for ENDA Summer Campaign #LGBT http://bit.ly/agmPLo #

Cleveland OH just became the 33rd city in this nation to support the passage of the Uniting American Families Act! Many thanks to Tim K for getting this resolution passed! Below is a report from him that we would like to share with you!

Well, make MY hometown Number Thirty-Three! (Is that correct?)

I am happy to share with the group that last night The City Council of Cleveland, Ohio unanimously passed Resolution 1053-10,“AN EMERGENCY RESOLUTION Urging Congress to pass The Uniting American Families Act, and supporting the removal of legal barriers to immigration by permanent same-gender partners.”

The resolution was originally sponsored/introduced by Councilman Joe Cimperman, but was also co-sponsored by Councilman Matt Zone (the councilman of the ward my business is in), Council Majority Leader Phyllis Cleveland and The Honorable Frank Jackson, Mayor of Cleveland himself! Cleveland City Council has nineteen members and EVERY SINGLE MEMBER voted to support the resolution; in fact, Councilman Cimperman shared that he believed even MORE Council members would have been co-sponsors had this not been a “special meeting month” (council is on legislative recess for August) and the council schedule would have been normal.

I am so very proud of my city today, and EVERY city, state assembly and county board that has issued similar resolutions. I really, REALLY feel that these resolutions send a message to our elected officials — these resolutions ARE important! I hate to boast but I have worked to secure TWO resolutions now, Lakewood, Ohio and Cleveland, Ohio. And I am not done yet — Ohio has has a LOT of cities, LOL!

I challenge everyone that reads this post to try for at least one resolution. O4I can supply all the tools you need — believe me, if I can get two, I know you can get one! Imagine if we had resolutions from the 100 Largest Cities in America — now THAT would be a powerful argument to present Congress to pass UAFA as a stand alone bill…

One takeaway that I feel is VERY important to share from this whole experience? I know it sounds like a broken record, but when we SHARE OUR STORIES, share our joy and the pain we suffer because of current stupid immigration laws, then we connect with our elected officials on a human, emotional level and change happens. I know many of you are afraid; I was, too, when I started. But by putting myself out there, I feel like I have really done something to help bring my beloved “M” home to me for good. Think about it. You and your partner CAN make a difference.

I hope I can count on you all to send a brief thank you note to the following officials:

The Honorable Frank Jackson, Mayor of Cleveland: [email protected]

Council Majority Leader Phyllis Cleveland: [email protected]

Councilman Joe Cimperman: [email protected]

Councilman Matt Zone: [email protected]

Keep up the good fight, my brothers and sisters. We CAN win this fight — and, I think maybe sooner than later — but we MUST keep fighting for what is ours. We must keep sharing our stories and talking about our situations and asking for the rights we are being denied until there is no one left to ask.

Your brothers in the fight for swift, just and gay- and lesbian-inclusive immigration reform in 2010,

Tim in Cleveland and my beloved “M”

out4immigration.blogspot.com

Another great civil disobedience day exposing injustice.  Read full article here.

On the day hundreds of gay and lesbian couples statewide planned to obtain their long-awaited marriage licenses, a crowd of about 50 people gathered at the county clerk’s office Thursday to protest a federal judge’s stay of a federal ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

Three people were taken away in plastic handcuffs by sheriff’s deputies early in the demonstration and an additional six people were removed later. A deputy said they were detained for blocking access to a county office.

• RT @ltdanchoi: I salute the San Diego arrestees fighting #prop8. http://tiny.cc/5vjzz #

• RT @ltdanchoi: I salute the San Diego arrestees fighting #prop8. http://tiny.cc/5vjzz #

Last week, President Obama stood on principle.  At an Iftar dinner at the White House celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the President announced of his belief in the right to build a mosque in Lower Manhattan because of the constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Politico described it like this:

Taking a political risk in the interest of the pluralistic vision that has always been central to his political identity, President Obama will take a strong stand in favor of a mosque near Ground Zero in remarks at the White House Iftar Dinner tonight.

Obama, echoing Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and spurning national polls, virtually all Republican leaders, and many members of his own party, cast the controversy as a test of tolerance.

Those who believe in basic constitutional rights welcome this development.  We should commend the President for standing on principle and honoring his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

Mike Allen later reported in Playbook the process that lead to the President’s announcement at the dinner:

EXCLUSIVE: A White House official says an aide raised the “Ground Zero” mosque with President Obama during a meeting on other topics last week and Obama said: “This isn’t one the president of the United States can duck.” The official recalled: “There wasn’t a lot of debate because he made it clear that he WAS going to take it on.”

–A top official tells us the White House knew the polls were decisively against the mosque: “We had no illusions about this. He didn’t take this on as a political strategy. He took it on because it was a matter of fundamental principle. One of the reasons we work for him is that he doesn’t sit there with a political calculator on these big, tough issues that come along. There was never any hesitation about the decision, and he has absolutely no regrets about it. He understands the emotions swirling around it and the horrific events that occurred there. But he doesn’t believe shifting from our moorings as a country on questions like religious freedom — treating one faith differently than another — is the right answer. It would be a betrayal of who we are.

This sounds like the Obama who campaigned on change and gave us something to hope for.  Something here really irks me, though. President Obama is standing on part-time principles.  Only sometimes will he make a solid argument for the undeniable rights of a minority.

As a state Senate candidate in 1996, Barack Obama said on a signed questionnaire for a gay and lesbian newspaper in Chicago:

“I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”

Back in 1996, Barack Obama took a principled stand on marriage equality.  In 2010, he has regressed and abandoned that position.  That’s part-time principles.

Since the President has taken office, we’ve seen some amazing developments in the fight to win marriage equality:  the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously that denying civil marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples was unconstitutional; New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine each passed legislation providing for equal marriage rights; the freedom to marry suffered a heartbreaking defeat at the polls in Maine; and recently Proposition 8 was ruled unconstitutional by a Federal judge.

These developments have provided ample opportunity for the White House to, at a minimum, acknowledge the deep emotional highs and lows being experienced by the LGBT community as we fight to win civil equality.  However, the WH has offered very little, sometimes making a cursory statement and other times being stunningly silent.  Sometimes the silence is the worst; other times cursory statements are worse.

Increasingly, courts are affirming marriage for gays and lesbians as an undeniable constitutional right. The President is backing himself into a corner in which he will no longer be able to play coy on the issue of marriage quality.  He didn’t campaign on part-time change or part-time hope and we don’t need a President with part-time principles.