Showing posts with label gays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gays. Show all posts
Monday, November 22, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns Tells Teens It Gets Better
I'm in awe of the courage of the fine public servant who I met with his husband over lunch last December. A real living example of how diversity in public life can make a difference. Watch his speech at a Fort Worth City Council meeting and interview on CNN.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
A Really Cool Positive Idea
Kudos to Dan Savage for beginning this amazing and brave online video series profiled in the New York Times called the It Gets Better Project. Dan was inspired to start this after hearing about Billy Lucas, an Indiana gay teen targeted by bullies who committed suicide. Here is Dan and Terry's video.
Friday, December 14, 2007
New Military Policy: Do Tell, Go Back to Work?
Is the shortage of soldiers making it harder to get kicked out of the military for homosexuality?
After leaving Iraq, he says he started receiving anonymous emails warning him about his openness that suggested he was being watched, so he went to his commander to head off an investigation he felt was coming.Randy Shilts wrote in Conduct Unbecoming that discharges for homosexuality commonly decline in wartime. This war is no exception with discharges down 50 percent since 2001. Another theory is that, like other Americans, soldiers have become more tolerant and just think this is a dumb policy.
"I didn’t know how else to do it,” he tells Stahl, acknowledging that he initiated an investigation of himself by violating the policy. “I felt more comfortable being the one to say, ‘This is what is real,'" Manzella says.
He then says his commander reported him, as he was obliged to do, and then “I had to go see my battalion commander, who read me my rights,” he tells 60 Minutes.
He turned over pictures of him and his boyfriend, including video of a passionate kiss, to aid the investigation.
But he tells Stahl he was surprised by the outcome.
"I was told to go back to work. There was no evidence of homosexuality," Manzella says.
"'You’re not gay,'" he says his superiors told him.
Friday, November 09, 2007
ENDA Passes the House but Equality MD Not Celebrating
Equality Maryland issued the following statement via email after the passage of the Employment and Non-Discrimination Act by the U.S. House of Representatives (no link because I cannot find it on the EM website):
Yesterday, the United States House of Representatives voted 235-184 to pass H.R. 3685, a non-inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which protects workers from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation alone, and not gender identity. This is the first time the United States House of Representatives has passed an employment nondiscrimination act that, if enacted, would ban discrimination against most lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people in the workplace. The bill has an uphill battle in the Senate and would almost certainly be vetoed by President Bush.Equality Maryland is part of the United ENDA coalition which issued the following negative statement (reproduced by Equality Maryland):
For some, the passage of a non-inclusive ENDA feels like an important symbolic victory, even though it will not be signed into law to tangibly help lesbian, gay or bisexual Americans in the immediacy. Equality Maryland acknowledges three decades of work by our allies in Congress and by national LGBT organizations who have been passionate and determined to bring this civil rights legislation before Congress. Certainly, passing ENDA may serve an educational value for society as a whole as to the discrimination faced by some in our community. Still, Equality Maryland remains concerned that passage of a non-inclusive bill damages efforts to pass truly inclusive legislation both in Maryland and at a time when such legislation will have the support of the President of the United States.
While the passage in the House of Representatives today of this stripped down ENDA is deeply disappointing, we have seen a tremendous shift in the commitment of a growing number of legislators to only support an inclusive ENDA in the future when passage in the Senate and the signature of a new President make the enactment of comprehensive employment protections a possibility. We remain frustrated and disappointed that an inferior bill was brought to the floor. The stripping away of gender identity not only abandons transgender people - the most vulnerable within the LGBT community - it ignores the reality that gender identity and expression are at the root of much anti-gay discrimination.Meanwhile, the Human Rights Campaign issued the following upbeat statement:
"Today, we witnessed the making of civil rights history in the U.S. House of Representatives by the passing of ENDA," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. "This vote by Congress is an important step at ensuring that millions of gay and lesbian Americans will never again have to go to work in fear of losing their jobs because of who they are."The Advocate reports that 70% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people supported HRC's position that an ENDA without protections for transgender people is better than no ENDA at all.
In 31 states, it is currently legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation. In 39 states, it is legal to fire a person for being transgender.
The Human Rights Campaign helped introduce ENDA 13 years ago to prevent workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. This year, for the first time, HRC and allies on the Hill included gender identity in the bill to also protect transgender workers. One month ago, House leadership made it clear that Congress did not have the votes to pass HR 2015, which prevents discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This week, House Rules Committee reported out Congressman Frank’s HR 3685, a bill that protects only sexual orientation, to the floor.
While HRC was disappointed that HR 3685 did not include protections for transgender Americans, it believes the successful passage of Congressman Frank’s bill is a step forward for all Americans, and that it paves the way for additional progress to outlaw workplace discrimination based on gender identity.
"Our fight for equality will not be won overnight," said Solmonese. "It will be won one step at a time, and we will not give up until we reach the finish line. This is a critical piece of legislation and a major step toward the finish line for all Americans."
Throughout history, Congress has often taken an incremental approach toward equality for other civil rights and business regulatory legislation. For example, the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was introduced in five consecutive congresses for eight years and was vetoed twice by former President Bush before it was finally signed into law on February 5, 1993, by President Clinton. Each time the FMLA was introduced, Members built upon the protection from the previous year’s legislative action.
Additionally, each piece of civil rights legislation passed by Congress -- in 1957, 1960, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1990 -- continued the legislative path of the expansion of essential civil rights protections in law.
On Tuesday, the Human Rights Campaign joined the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR); the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), among other organizations in the civil rights community, in support of the bill that would make it illegal for employers to discriminate on sexual orientation. The letter was signed by 10 national civil rights and worker protection organizations representing millions of Americans.
I expressed my thoughts immediately after the passage of ENDA here. Below is an except from the transcript of the YouTube which I posted yesterday of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) fighting with his usual passion and skill for the passage of the bill on the floor of the House. I found it far more eloquent and moving than any official statements or polls:
Mr. Speaker, we say here that we don't take things personally, and usually that is true. Members, Mr. Speaker, will have to forgive me. I take it a little personally.
Thanks Barney.Thirty-five years ago, I filed a bill to try to get rid of discrimination based on sexual orientation. As we sit here today, there are millions of Americans in States where this is not the law. By the way, 19 States have such a law. In no case has it led to that decision [i.e. same-sex marriage]. The Massachusetts law passed in 1989, that did not lead to the decision in 2004. Unrelated.
But here is the deal. I used to be someone subject to this prejudice, and, through luck, circumstance, I got to be a big shot. I am now above that prejudice. But I feel an obligation to 15-year-olds dreading to go to school because of the torments, to people afraid that they will lose their job in a gas station if someone finds out who they love. I feel an obligation to use the status I have been lucky enough to get to help them.
I want to ask my colleagues here, Mr. Speaker, on a personal basis, please, don't fall for this sham. Don't send me out of here having failed to help those people.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Gay Donors in Maryland
The Atlantic has a fascinating story explaining how gay mogul Tim Gill is organizing wealthy gay donors to finance campaigns against anti-gay state legislators as part of an effort to knock them off before they can do damage at the state level, or a la Rick Santorum, make it to the federal league:With that in mind, he assembled a bipartisan team of political operatives and tested his theory in 2004, quietly targeting three antigay Colorado incumbents; two of them went down. Through the combined efforts of a host of progressive interest groups, including many supported by Gill, Democrats captured both chambers of the legislature for the first time in forty years. Gill’s decision to back Democrats in Colorado was the only choice that would produce the gay-tolerant leadership he’s pursuing. But ten years from now, he told me, he hopes he’ll be able to give evenly to Republicans and Democrats.
As it turns out, Gill has already made his wish come true at least as far as campaigns in the Old Line State. I wasn't too shocked to discover that Gill supported Democrat Dana Beyer's campaign for the House of Delegates in District 18 with a donation of $1000. He also gave $500 to Democrat Heather Mizeur's campaign for the House of Delegates in District 20. (Beyer is transgender and Mizeur is lesbian.)
I was surprised to discover, however, that he also gave $2000 to the reelection campaign of Gov. Bob Ehrlich--not usually seen as a great friend of gays and lesbians as he vetoed legislation that would have given more rights to same-sex couples on the grounds that it threatened "the sanctity of traditional marriage."
Friday, February 09, 2007
Michael Wilbon . . .
. . . once again shows why this particular sports columnist is one of the more savvy and smart writers on discrimination issues. He takes on the issues of gays in pro-sports today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
