02/01/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
There is an old truth about setting up a study in the government- you do it in order to delay actually taking action while making it look like you are taking action. The military in the United States is set to propose a year long study to determine the best way to implement a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The reason for this study is simple. It is to try and put off action on this repeal until such time as either Congress changes, the President changes, both change, or no one cares that this is going on any more. It is designed to look like something is happening while not actually doing anything.

Ten years ago, the British military lifted their ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. The majority of America’s NATO allies also allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, as does Israel. These are militaries that the United States is either deployed along side of in Afghanistan or routinely have joint military exercises with. Our troops already serve along side men and women who are serving openly despite being gay or lesbian, and yet, the American brass seem more than ready to kick the can down the road and let someone else take care of it- or not take care of it.

Implementing a repeal of DADT is likely not to strain the majority of the soldiers in the US military. The majority, after all, are more than willing to have this law repealed. Most of the push back against allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military comes from the upper echelons of the military hierarchy. Part of it has to do with the fact that the majority of the brass come from a time before even DADT existed and being gay or lesbian was grounds for dismissal from the military outright.

The plan for repealing DADT should have already been put together. It is not as if repealing DADT is not popular with the American people, and a necessary step at a time when losing even one experienced soldier over this law. It should be up to the military to implement and even push for a repeal at a time when the military is reduced to accepting recruits far below their normal standard. The military brass should be pushing for an end of DADT simply because of the financial pressures that the military is facing fighting two wars, and every single soldier that the military has to get rid of because of DADT costs the military thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars to replace.

Instead of studying how to implement a DADT repeal, the military should be raring to go and pushing to get this law repealed. Unfortunately, the brass want to delay this as long as possible.

1/29/10-by Paula Brooks
Harold Ford Jr. may or may not be running for the Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand, but he certainly seems to be more than willing to sound like it.

Of late he has been telling the LGBT community what a great pal he is to us… and is of course an avid and lifetime supporter of both gay marriage AND civil unions, whatever that means… But… When the rubber hit the road… Harold Ford voted for a constitutional ban on marriage equality while representing Tennessee in the House and that says volumes on his true stand on LGBT rights.

In addition to maybe running for the Senate, Ford is a vice chairman with the Bank of America Merrill Lynch, a job he has held since February 2007.

This week Bank of America Merrill Lynch, along with the Royal Bank of Scotland helped to set up the shares for the initial public offering acquisition of Ugandan oil interests by Irish oil company, Tullow Oil that will infuse 1.35 billion USD into the Ugandan economy. Tullow, along with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and RBS are set to reap huge sums at in this investment – as much as a 35% return on their capital investment. That’s three times what’s internationally recognized as a fair profit. Unfortunately,coupled with this great investment news from Bank of America Merrill Lynch comes the story of the Ugandan military running villagers out of the oil regions and reports have nearly 30,000 people being displaced from their homes by this project so far and that number would be on top of an already existing 1.4 million internally displaced Ugandans.

One can only assume that that with this many angry displaced people it was becoming very clear to the Ugandan Government that they may have a lot of angry citizens on their hands how just might have something of a bone to pick with at Government. Then add in attacks on political freedom in the country that included the arrest and beating of opposition Members of Parliament, the jailing of Ugandan President Museveni’s main political opponent and that in 2006 he was accused of rigging elections in his favor…well, you probably know the rest of the story…

Culturally and traditionally in Uganda, we gays have never been a very poplar minority. Ugandans also have no real love for the “White Colonial Devils” either.

So after a well funded junket led by evangelist Scott Lively that held packed seminars, and told churches and rallies, that Ugandan homosexuals had lots of money, and backing from America and Europe and were a danger to the nations youth, on October 13, 2009, The government of Uganda proposed an Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would, if enacted, broaden the criminalization of homosexuality by introducing the death penalty for people who have previous convictions, are HIV-positive, or engage in same sex acts with people under 18 years of age. The bill also includes provisions for Ugandans who engage in same-sex sexual relations outside of Uganda, asserting that they may be extradited for punishment back to Uganda, and includes penalties for individuals, companies, media organizations, or non-governmental organizations that support LGBT rights.

Uganda ranks 9th in world AIDS deaths so the “Kill the Gays Bill” has been a fairly easy sell in Uganda and has done wonders to direct internal attention to away any possible wrong doings by the government in Kampala and on to that country’s gay population. However, learning lessons from the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia, Dafur and so many other human rights disasters, many religious and world leaders have made it pretty clear that if this bill should become law, that they will hold Uganda and it leaders responsible for the resulting human rights violations.

Three openly gay members of the U.S. House of Representatives, along with 91 of their colleagues, have sent a letter to President Obama urging him to do everything he can to stop the bill and to hold the government of Uganda accountable for the resulting human rights abuses should it be instituted. Additionally, 12 US Senators- including Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y), sent a letter to President Musseveni, saying, “by creating harsh penalties for homosexuality, this bill not only codifies prejudice, but could also foster an increase in violence towards people simply based on sexual orientation and they urged that he block enactment of the “anti-homosexual” bill pending in the Ugandan Parliament.

Last month U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also denounced the Ugandan legislation during an appearance at Georgetown University, as did the UN’s top human rights official.

Several Nation’s have also told Uganda’s government and politician that they with be held responsible for any human rights abuses resulting from “the kill the gays bill” and that they could face sanctions if they continue down this path.

But companies, like nations and individuals, should also be held accountable for their decisions. However, to date, Mr. Ford has not publicly expressed any concern over this investment by Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Ugandan Oil… or called for Uganda to roll back it’s “Kill the Gays Bill.”

It’s disappointing that any business would choose to put so much money into a country that has such disregard for basic human rights and dignity simply because it helps the bottom line of that company.
It is even more disappointing that Mr. Ford, who is now claiming to be the friend of the LGBT community, would have not been aware of this bill before his company, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, entered into this agreement with Tullow, and financed yet one more human rights abuser solely for the sake of profit.

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01/28/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Those Republicans who are, like Mark McKinnon, dismayed that President Obama did not abandon his liberalism after the election of Scott Brown of Massachusetts are misreading the Tea Bags…er tea leaves. As the Tea Party turns on their fellow members by going after Sarah Palin for endorsing John McCain in the Arizona Senate primary- a race he could lose, there are lessons to be learned from the election of Scott Brown, but also the debacle that was New York 23.

The typical sentiment out of the Republicans after the win of Scott Brown has been that their message- the message of obstruction- has resonated with the American people. This is not quite true. Yes, most people oppose Obama’s health care reform package, but not for the reasons that the Republicans want to think. It is sort of like a scene out of Futurama. “I say your three cent titanium tax goes too far,” one Presidential candidate said. “And I say that your three cent titanium tax does not go too far enough,” said the other. Those who oppose Obama’s health care package are split between two groups. One sees it as going too far, and one sees it as not going far enough. The majority of those opposing Obama’s health care package feel that it does not go far enough. The people who voted for Scott Brown in Massachussets were against Obama’s health care reform package because it did not go far enough. The people who voted for Martha Coakley voted for her because they were against Obama’s health care reform package because it did not go far enough. Wait- WHAT?! That is right, most Massachussans are opposed to Obama’s health care reform package because it does not go far enough and is worse than what they have in their own state. Even Scott Brown, in a FOX News interview made it clear that he was in favor of universalized health care and health care reform. Is this man a Republican or a Democrat?

In some ways, Scott Brown is a Moderate to Center Left Republican. If he was a Democrat, he would be called a Blue Dog.

The other lesson is from the New York 23 debacle for the Republican Party. While many Republicans- and even Democrats- are more interested in ignoring this race, it is important. What happened there was that the Conservative candidate was the darling of the Right, and even pushed out a moderate Republican who could have won the race with ease. In Massachusetts, Brown was unopposed from the Right, and with the lack luster run by Coakley, Brown was able to win over many Democrats and Independents who were willing to vote for him.

Right now, the sentiment in this nation is one of anger, but it is not exactly the anger that many Republicans are trying to steer in their direction. People are suffering from an excess of the Conservative ideals which are embodied by Ronald Reagan- namely unfettered capitalism coupled with deregulation and hobbled government agencies. Small government is wonderful in principle, it is often very bad in practice, and what is worse is the fact that the small government that was proposed by the Republicans is mostly for a limited group of people. Often times, people find themselves watching as big business interests are able to do whatever they want while small businesses are hobbled by regulations, paperwork and taxes. Small businesses often pay far more than big corporations in taxes, and yet big corporations provide fewer jobs in total than small businesses, but provide a far bigger strain on the economy than small businesses. In many ways, too big to fail means too big to succeed as big businesses become bloated behemoths. There hits a point where big corporations slash their work forces in order to make up for their overblown fixed costs such as rent, electricity, and so on.

Right now, the people of the United States are angry, but there really is no one who is taking up the cause in either party to fix the real problems. On the Republican side, the politicians would have to give up their ideas that the corporations are what is good for America, and on the Democratic side, the leadership is busy saying “don’t hit us anymore.”

What needs to happen in this country is a return to balance. It is time to ignore the ideas of big government vs. small government and have efficient, balanced government coupled with businesses which support the country rather than stuff their foreign bank accounts with tax-free money. It is time to end the farce that small government means better government and realize that small government is nothing but a code word for allowing the big corporations to run rampant.

President Obama did not move to the Right last night so much as embrace the true Center in politics. This is something that many Republicans are unwilling to do, and something that many Republicans are unwilling to understand. Perhaps Scott Brown will embrace the center as well and be willing to stand up to the rampant corporate interests.

01/20/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
The blame game has begun. Well, technically, the blame game over Massachusetts began before last night. Certainly the lack of a campaign from Martha Coakley hurt, but so did the national ground game which did little to push back against the “Tea Party” Protests, most of which were organized behind the scenes by people such as Dick Armey. There is a sense of desire to fix the blame rather than fixing the problem, but there is also the realty that those who want to assign blame often want to look at those who were already critical rather than looking for the person who brought about the disasters in the first place.

There is an old truism about being in the military, or for that matter, just about any confrontation. The soldiers do not respect the general who remains aloof from the fray. General Patton may have been a major jerk, but he was a true general. Admiral Lord Nelson did not command the battle at Trafalgar from outside the confrontation. Instead, the HMS Victory was right there in the fray, and when Nelson died in battle, Lord Collingwood did not move the HMS Sovereign out of the fray to command the finish of the battle, but rather was in the thick of the battle himself. General Grant was a drunken sot and a bad soldier, but he was in the thick of battle as well. Generals who sit in their tent sipping drinks do not win wars. Typically, they charge their troops into battles like the one celebrated as the Charge of the Light Brigade. For those who do not know, it was a famous charge of British troops against entrenched Turkish gun emplacements. Almost the whole brigade was slaughtered by the Turkish guns.

For the most part, the blame can be easily spread around, but some of the biggest problems lie with the general and the commanders in the field. Certainly, the complete botch job that Martha Coakley did as a campaigner hurt big time. She was arrogant; went on vacation in the middle of the campaign, and took for granted that she was going to win, but there were other problems which made matters worse. President Barack Obama is a great orator, a natural Senator, and a rather lousy leader. In some ways, he has a lot in common with his predecessor, George W. Bush. Bush was a lousy leader as well. Both men rushed through the political landscape without any real understanding of how to govern. Both men were loathe to wade into the actual governance in order to direct policy. This is the kind of situation which often leads to the commanders running amok. While this is not a problem for the Republican Party, which has always been a Party which functioned better in the absence of a strong central leader, this is a situation which will result in a Democrat being eaten alive.

While Republicans are often quite happy with the Party being the governing structure, Democrats often look to a strong leader to solidify the actual governance. In many ways, the two Parties are negative images. The Republicans have always operated best without a strong central leader, and a common vision. The Democrats have always operated best with a strong central leader to wade through and measure the various visions that the Democratic Party has. In many ways, this is why the best Democrats have always been men like Franklin Roosevelt, Bill Clinton and Lyndon Johnson. The best Republicans have always been people who have a vision, but others carry it out. This is why Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan are the better Republican Presidents of the last seven decades.

The problem for the Democratic Party is that they only respect trench politicians. If one isn’t in the trenches giving orders, then one isn’t going to get a lot of respect. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Tim Kaine are not trench politicians. They are hands off politicians who have always been best at being rank and file. Democrats are like cats, and herding them is difficult. The strongest of the House Speakers and Senate Majority Leaders have always been ones who could herd cats. Lyndon Johnson, as Senate Majority Leader, was one of the best. He was a dirty fighter who had dirt on everyone. Heck, Johnson probably even knew about J. Edgar Hoover’s little black strapless.

In the fall out over Coakley’s disastrous Senate run, there is a lot of blame being assigned. One of those being blamed is Governor Howard Dean. Supposedly he undermined President Obama on policy. What he did was air concerns like so many Democrats have. What he has not done, though, is undermine Obama. Obama did that on his own. Of course he had some help. After all, Pelosi, Reid and Kaine were all manning the shovels through their own inability to work from the trenches.

In a sense, the blame game often feels more like a game of kill the messenger. The problems were there, but a lot of people want to blame those who were trying to warn everyone else.

01/19/10- by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
As the chaos of the Coakley Senate run comes to the final stretch, the finger pointing has already begun. Problems plagued this campaign, including the arrogance of the candidate who ran a more passive campaign than she should have. Ms Coakley also had other issues, including unwisely wading into sports when it appeared that she knew very little about it. As the Democrats begin to assign the blame, the problem is that they will not assign blame where it is due. Yes, Coakley ran a rough campaign, but there are systemic problems which are not being addressed.

While it is true that Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele is a fund raising disaster and an embarrassment to the GOP, he is not quite the disaster that Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine is. While people are fearful and angry at Obama, Kaine has done little to counterattack those seeking to undermine the DNC brand, and to sink Obama. He let fear hold sway over the August recess, and that fear turned into a situation where a handful of Democratic Senators were able to steamroll the ineffective Harry Reid into all but killing health care reform and exacerbating the situation. Governor Howard Dean did a better job countering the GOP propaganda machine with his own attacks, often from the sidelines. He had strong enough connections to the grass roots community that he was able to bring together a broad coalition of people to counter the Republicans and keep the demoralized party on the ropes. He was able to tap into them while also tempering their expectations, something that Governor Kaine has been unable to do.

Governor Dean, unlike Governor Kaine, was a full time DNC chairman. At a time when it was necessary to protect the majority in the Senate, Governor Kaine was wrapping up his final term as Governor of Virginia, a job which went to a Republican. While the GOP may gripe about Michael Steele’s day job selling his book, few people have really complained about Governor Kaine’s day job.

With two major losses, and a third more than likely on the way, one has to wonder just what kind of a leader Kaine has been, and whether or not the arrogance within the Democratic Party in the wake of Obama’s election lead to a series of losses.

Perhaps it is time for the Obama Administration, which arrogantly rode over the power of Governor Dean’s chairmanship, should be asking him to return to the office that let him turn the DNC into a competitive Party once again.

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1/16/10-by Paula Brooks
As Republican Scott Brown’s surge continues in the days leading up to the Massachusetts Senatorial Special Election, President Obama has finally weighed in on the race to succeed Sen. Edward M. Kennedy…

“Our Fierce Advocate” has put out an impassioned plea for Attorney General Martha Coakley and said his “very important” agenda depends on her getting elected… “They believe that by defeating Martha and by replacing Ted Kennedy with a Republican opponent, that they’ll be in a position to tie up the senate and prevent a vote on health insurance reform, financial reform and other issues so important for working families,” Obama says. “A lot of people don’t even realize there is an election Tuesday. So I need you to put on your walking shoes again.”

During last years Presidential campaign LGBT’s in large number indeed put on their walking shoes for Mr. Obama… because he promised us change… and most importantly he promised us HOPE.

We had Hope, because, when Candidate Obama was courting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, he said that he would support repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions.

But for right now however… Mary Ritchie, a Massachusetts State Police trooper and lesbian, who has been legally married to her partner in that state for five years… is having to sue President Obama to get access to federal benefits that other married couples automatically receive when they get married in Massachusetts, such as tax benefits, pensions and health insurance.

Ritchie’s says she and her spouse have paid nearly $15,000 more in taxes than they would have if they had been able to file joint returns…. And she would like it back… as would the other dozen plaintiffs joining her in this suit.

Yet Obama’s Department of Justice lawyers say that the federal government needs to be “neutral” with regard to its treatment of married same-sex couples in order to ensure that federal tax money collected from across the country not be used to assist same-sex couples duly married by their home states and are defending the law with court filings in this Massachusetts case that argue, DOMA is constitutional and contended that awarding federal marriage benefits to gays in Massachusetts would infringe on the rights of taxpayers in the 31 states that specifically prohibit same-sex marriages…. And President Obama says he is committed to “the long followed the practice of defending federal statutes as long as reasonable arguments can be made in support of their constitutionality, even if the Department disagrees with a particular statute…” Notwithstanding the fact prior administrations have declined to defend laws in court they did not agree with.

So Mary Ritchie and her family are still light their 15k.

That fifteen grand would have bought more then a few pairs of LGBT walking shoes in Massachusetts to help advance Fierce Advocate Obama’s other… more important… agendas…

Now I don’t live in Massachusetts, but if I did, I would be telling President Obama I would gladly put on my walking shoes again… if he would only show me the money as it were, and do something about getting Mary Ritchie’s $15,000 back to her a little more expedient fashion… like withdrawing his Justice Department defense to Mary’s case… and to stop betraying my hopes for equality at every opportunity he gets.

However until he does… I would be telling every LGBT I know… come Tuesday… they should send Mr. Obama a loud and clear message about his dicking around with our civil rights and STAY HOME IN MASS on Election Day…

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01/15/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
President Barack Obama is now facing a very real problem in Massachusetts. He rushed there to try and shore up the flagging likelihood that Martha Coakley would, in fact, succeed Senator Ted Kennedy in the seat that he one held. What had once been a sure thing, now looks like it could be a loss. The why is simple. The base is upset and dispirited. They elected President Barack Obama to usher in a new era of liberalism in this nation. Instead, they got a man who was more willing to cut deals than to push what he campaigned upon through the Senate. Sure, he has managed to get almost everything he wanted, but rather than pushing through with health care reform, and pushing it hard, President Obama ceded that fight to the faux grassroots astroturfers who are less about fixing what is wrong, and more about ensuring what is wrong remains broken.

For the LGBT Community, Obama’s lack of spine has been a big problem. Instead of pushing through his promises of getting LGBT issues addressed in Congress, such as revoking Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act, President Obama has been signaling that he is more than willing to wait for his second term in office before being willing to address those issues. For the millions of gays, lesbians and transpeople, the President’s lack of movement on key issues beyond the Matthew Shepard Act- an act that had to be attached to another piece of legislation in order to pass- has been frustrating in the extreme.

It is there that Massachusetts becomes a problem. Massachusetts is a state with some of the largest numbers of LGBT Americans in the country, and a large number of LGBT allies. The lack of movement on Obama’s part on these issues is discouraging, and many may be unwilling to vote for Coakley because Obama has been so timid when it comes to these battles. In many ways, it will not be the fact that the Democrats went too far with health care reform and financial reform and even the repeal of anti-LGBT laws that lost them this seat, and threatens to make 2010-2013 a legislative deadlock unlike anything this nation has seen in a long time, but rather the fact that the Democrats did not go far enough in pursuing an agenda of popular Progressivism.

Obama, Reid and Pelosi forgot to fight for the people who put them into power, and now they are at risk of being unable to do anything for years to come.

01/11/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Should Senator Harry Reid resign over comments he made regarding President Barak Obama’s dialect? Peter Beinart over at the Daily Beast made an interesting article on this. “Barack Obama because he’s ‘light-skinned’ and has ‘no Negro dialect.’ Reid’s use of the word ‘Negro’ was, to be sure, unpleasantly retro.” Of course there are dozens of other places where the reader can find arguments regarding Reid’s statements- for, against, and indifferent. what follows is not an analysis of anything to do with the accuracy, inaccuracy, reality or unreality of the comments made by Senator Reid, but rather about something completely different.

And now for that something completely different. Is there wisdom in the attack on Senator Reid? The Republicans have seized upon this comment to push the idea that there is some sort of double standard going on regarding Senator Reid’s comments and the reaction from the Democrats regarding it. They point to the ousting of Senator Trent Lott for comparison. There is some problems with this comparison. First of all, Trent Lott had a strong history of voting against rights for African-Americans, he voted against renewing the Voting Rights Act, and was opposed to the continuation of the Civil Rights Act. He also voted against having Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a national holiday. At a birthday party for Senator Strom Thurmond, Lott stated “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.” Lott stated something similar at a 1980 rally. Lott was also facing problems from within the Republican Party at the time. He was in conflict with the Bush over much of the President’s policies. In many ways, Lott could have survived the controversy if it were not for the behind the scenes pushing by his own party to remove him.

For the Republicans, removing Harry Reid is actually a rather dumb move. Reid is an unpopular, ineffective Senate Majority leader that even many Democrats do not like. Reid has been loathe to push a Progressive agenda in the Senate, and has caved on a number of issues such as the Public Option in order to get Senators Ben Nelson and Joseph Lieberman behind the bill instead of threatening to pull their power and influence in the Senate. He has been reluctant to punish the Republicans for stalling legislation, and only just now been willing to bypass the Republicans in negotiating legislation such as the health care reform bill. If anything, many Progressives have been more than willing to see Reid leave due to a feeling that he is incompetent when it comes to ruling the Senate, and it is a perception which is causing a great deal of weariness and fear among the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party. The lack of enthusiasm in that wing could be the only way for the Republicans to make a come back in 2010 as the GOP is currently so lacking in money that it may not be able to effectively run a campaign for local rat catcher.

Should Reid resign his leadership position, his likely successor would be Chuck Schumer of New York. Schumer is far from being as willing to be bi-partisan as Reid is, and that would certainly whip up the base. Schumer is also more likely to push a Progressive agenda than Reid.

While the GOP has jumped on this scandal that most people really aren’t all that upset about, they risk dethroning their best asset in the Senate.

Posted and written by Melanie Nathan:

This week a Plane is leaving for Taiwan and one more American is forced to leave the Country he loves so dearly, simply because the love of his life is of the same sex.   He is about to be exiled and here is his story……. but first let me explain

In April 2009,    I advocated to help Shirley Tan obtain the introduction of a Private Bill from Senator Feinstein. Her story is well known to those who follow the plight of our bi-national brothers and sister and the desperate need for legislation to keep us in the US with equal rights to sponsor our partners for green cards.  Now that we have been left out of the current Immigration Reform Bill, as introduced this past week by Gutierrez, I pitched a special column to Paula Brooks of Lez Get Real and she said “Go for it!”   

Here is the plan – I will post a new true life story, bi- monthly featuring a story of one binational lesbian or gay couple who are either in hiding in the US, waiting for a visa to run out, living in exile or living alone unable to be with a beloved partner.  I vow to do this until one of two things happen first:  

a. UAFA (or equivalent) is passed into law, giving us our equal right to sponsor our partners for green-cards, equally;  or

b. I run out of binational couples – The estimate is between 40,000-100,000 binationals which means I can keep writing – lets see- 2 per month for 12 months – divide into – lets do the smaller amount in case the big amount is inaccurate – so divide 24 into 40,000 = 1,666 years – please check my math…..  okay I hope “a” happens first!  

My first bi-national story so published fell into my lap this week, through one of the very many responses I have received to my recent posts.  I have been given permission by Des and Jon to publish their story and my subsequent communications with them.   I hope you will share these stories with everyone you know. It is time to wake America up to what is going on.   We have been told by our representatives that the ONLY way we will get legislation passed is if we tell our stories –but that cannot stop at the door of our friends, only.  We must open the hearts and minds of all American; even the most progressive of Americans are completely unaware of the enormity and extent of the hardship to our community.  Many presume that we can stay together in the USA simply because a few States allow us to marry- but that is not the case…..

Please read the story of John and Des – in their own words and then read the correspondence that follows:-

This week a Plane is leaving for Taiwan and one more American is forced to leave the Country he loves so dearly, simply because the love of his life is of the same sex.   He is about to be exiled and here is his story….

“   Feb-  My name is ‘Des’*, I am a male U.S. citizen, born and raised here. In August 2002, after being largely unemployed for more than 2 years as a result of the dot-com bust, I went to Taiwan to support myself as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language.  In 2004 I got a job as a technical writer in the capital city, Taipei. In July of 2005, I met the love of my life, whom I shall call “John” (not his real name), in Taipei.

Eventually John was able to get a job in the US and after a brief separation we both moved here to my home.

Coincidentally, right about the time I met John, a friend and coworker of mine, “George,” (also a U.S. citizen), who had joined the same company just about the time that I did, met a young woman while on vacation in another country and soon fell in love with and married her.

John is on a very limited visa, which enables him to work for one single company only, on contracts that can be renewed for up to 5 years.  His company has notified him that his current contract will not be renewed after the end of 2009.  At that time, he will have to leave the USA, and I will have to choose between staying with the person I love or remaining in my home and the country I love.

We have been struggling for years now to find a way to stay in the same country, legally and permanently.

Right now, our best hope seems to be Canada, where we could legally marry – IF we can get in. Ironically, my former coworker, George, returned to the USA with his wife about 6 months ago. Because he is male and she is female, they were able to marry, and he was able to sponsor her for permanent residency in this country. Inexpensively and in a matter of mere months.

However, because John is male and I am male, even if we marry,   I cannot sponsor him for a “green card.” We have a committed, permanent, long-term relationship that is exactly like marriage in every way except in the eyes of current U.S. law.  I cannot sponsor John because of the discomfort that many people feel about the nature of our relationship in the abstract.

Meanwhile, in reality, John is a highly skilled worker, with a master’s degree in physics and rare expertise in integrated circuitry testing protocols, and our economy is being denied his contributions because as a U.S. citizen I am being denied our constitutional guarantee of “equal protection under the law.”  

George and his wife are now living peacefully in another state. John and I, however, are living with the daily stress that comes with not knowing when or where or if we will be able to safely live together in one country without the likelihood that one of us will have to leave at an unpredictable time because of immigration law.  (Dated 3/09)”

In July of 2009 I was contacted by Des and he was in great despair; he told me that there were no options available to them. He wrote:- 

“ Melanie,  I’ve followed your website for a while and just read your article on LezGetReal. My partner is a citizen of Taiwan and will have to leave the country when his work visa expires in December.     For about a year and a half, I’ve been trying to find a way for us to at least stay in North America, if not the USA, by immigrating to Canada. But that option continues to seem impossible, for many reasons.  It is not as easy as people think.  By now, I’m resigned to the strong likelihood that UAFA will not pass and that I will have to once again go and live in a polluted, overcrowded, sweltering developing country where I can barely speak the language in order to stay with my partner. I’ve tried repeatedly to talk to my Congressman (Pete Sessions, R-TX), but he has repeatedly been evasive and even deceptive and has refused to meet with me.   ………………….     Des.”

There have been exchanges between us over this past year, but adly, this is the latest exchange which I received just these past few days from Des:

“Melanie, I read your letter sitting here in a hotel after moving out of our apartment today.  Several days of making arrangements, two sets of movers, umpteen boxes and hands worn raw.

 So it really hit home with me when you say in your letter  (now on your blog at www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com ) that nothing can be worse than having to leave your home in order to flee to a foreign country just to be able to continue living with your partner.

We will be flying out to Taiwan in a few days.

 My Congressman, Pete Sessions is one of the hard-core cookie-cutter “conservative Christian Republicans” who will never spout off anything other than the latest GOP talking points. I tried on multiple occasions to lobby him on UAFA, but he won’t even be honest about stating what his position is.

We’ll be in Taiwan for god-knows-how-many years now. We are both sad, my partner maybe more so, because he feels like in some way he has “failed” in our attempts to live in America.

I don’t know what to say – am physically and psychologically exhausted. Thank you for all of your determined hard work on behalf of equal rights for all.  I hope that I will be able to contribute in some way, even from 8,000 miles away.

 Thanks again, and take good care,    Des”

 And my response:-

 Des,

 Your letter just broke my heart.   I literally weep for you right now.  Please keep in touch with me.   I feel like I am the one who has failed , as has all of the citizens of the United States – because essentially you are being booted out of your own country.   It is all of our responsibility.

 Every time I hear someone is exiled it eats at my sense of what is right and I continue to be dumbfounded by the injustice.

 I wish you both all the best. My thoughts and prayers are with you.  

Hugs and Hopefully some peace,

Mel.

 —————————————————–   

 Today..  December 19, 2009

“Hi Melanie, Thanks very much for your reply.  Please don’t despair — you’re one of our real heroes! John & I will be alright. It’s a drag, but at least we’ll be together, and I think we’ll at least eventually both be employed without any real ticking time-bomb for my having to leave HIS country (fingers crossed). ……….. (information intentionally left out)…………….”
 

Our brave exile went on to look at his glass half full and like many heroes and courageous exiles expressed his gratitude for at least having a place to go and being with his beloved.   There are many of you who cannot and I encourage you to send me your stories too.

 Des continues:   “I think that we’re relatively lucky compared to many, many other binational couples. I was overwhelmed by all of the people who wrote to me in support and solidarity. Even more amazing was the heart-breaking stories that so many of them have — far worse than our story!

I think you really captured it when you said, “Most of America has no clue and that is what is so outrageous; “   I honestly believe that if the average voter was aware of our plight–conservative, moderate, or liberal–a large majority would say, “Well, they should be able to sponsor their partner, sure.”  I think this because of my experience with my brother and sister in law, who are life-long conservative Christian Republicans. So many close friends — progressives — didn’t even realize that I couldn’t just “go to Massachusetts, get married, and then apply.” It’s like there’s this nationwide blanket of denial about the conscience-shocking unfair discrimination that a great many (50,000? 100,000?) U.S. citizens and their partners face because the U.S. Government still openly discriminates against its own citizens on the basis of sexual orientation.    So I think the task is to get even moderates and conservatives to agree that the status quo is wrong and to tell their won U.S. Reps just that. Maybe one or more national polls on the issue could help to both educate the masses and also supply empirical evidence to fearful legislators that voting for UAFA would not imperil their re-election chances.

Melanie – your tireless efforts —————intentionally blank——– You do so much for us already!  Re: LezGetReal, yes, I’d be honored to be the topic of one of your pieces exposing the plight of binational couples.  Des”

 Dear Des and John,

Bon Voyage my Brothers.

Mel.

 *Note:  Des and John (Real names withheld for their safety)

What you can do to Help others in Session’s Distirct – call and tell him how sad you are that his American constituent is now in Exile and he refused to help him:

Washington, D.C. Office:
Congressman Pete Sessions 
2233 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-4332
Phone: (202) 225-2231
Fax: (202) 225-5878

Dallas, Texas Office:
Congressman Pete Sessions
Park Central VII
12750 Merit Drive, Suite 1434
Dallas, Texas 75251-1229
Phone: (972) 392-0505
Fax: (972) 392-0615

Flo Helton 
Casework Administrator for Pete Sessions
Flo is originally from New Orleans but has spent the last 27 years in Dallas. Prior to working for Pete, she spent 23 years with Southwestern Bell Telephone as a secretary to the District Manager in Customer Services. Flo is responsible for community outreach and constituent service.

” Immigration – from Pete Session’s website

One of America’s greatest strengths is that we are a nation of immigrants. The immigrants that built this country did so by working hard to contribute to the economy and becoming productive members of American society. This country would not be where we are today if it had not been for the enterprising devotion and entrepreneurial spirit of legal immigrants.

  Posted by Melanie Nathan, Advocating for UAFA, as a ‘Stand Alone Bill’
A Bill for Equality - Using a few words to Provide equality for American  LGBT Partners
Under the current Immigration Law of the USA.

nathan@privatecourts.com
www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com
www.visualcv.com/melnathan

Tweet me @oblogdeeoblogda

12/18/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Yesterday, I went a little ballistic over the Health Care Reform and joined the ranks of those who have called for the end of this bill. I did not explain the totality of why. The why of healthcare reform is something that no one seems to want to explain. Before I left Georgia, SCHIP went bankrupt. It ran out of money. The why of it running out of money is simple. Too many people had no choice but to put their children on that program because their employers would not give them health coverage. The largest reason was the Walmarticization of the American workforce where people are given part time work, no benefits and not enough money to pay for healthcare. In the end, this set up made it necessary for people to put their children on the only healthcare program that they could- SCHIP. When the attempt to scuttle the program went through under President Bush, Georgia’s SCHIP program ran out of money.

Americans are not earning enough to get insurance because corporations insist upon squeezing every last cent of profits that they can, often at the expense of employees. I do not mean small businesses, but the mega-corporations which often refuse to give their employees adequate pay, and adequate benefits. “If you take care of your employees, and you take care of your customers, your profits will take care of themselves,” as one person in my life use to say.

The growth that this country has so long enjoyed is an illusion. It exists, but only at the top. Yes, since Ronald Reagan took office, the economy has grown and grown. That is, until you walk through the rotting streets of downtown Brunswick, Georgia. The rich folk on Saint Simon’s Island desperately wanted to build a new bridge at the top end of the island so that people coming to their beaches would not have to see anything of the city, or drive passed the turpentine plant and its toxic cloud of fumes. They certainly did not want people to go down Norwich Street and see the boarded up buildings, vacant eyed residents, and crumbling facades. I lived in that city for eighteen years save for a few where I lived in Savannah and a six month sojourn in England. I saw people scrambling for crumbs who were not idiots and not stupid. Instead, I saw people who had been beaten down for so long by the businesses which told them that they would move the plant out of the country if anyone complained, and churches which promised salvation, eternal rewards, and a belief that contradicting the corporations was somehow wrong.

It would have been better if that turpentine plant had left. The chemicals it spewed into the air rotted roofs on the houses right near by and caused ash to fall like snow on bad days. If anyone complained about the smell, people would say “that’s our bread adn butter.” They fought the environmental regulations which required them to put in a reclamation boiler. They spent more fighting that boiler than it cost to install it! All the time, they did not care if their workers were being slowly poisoned by those self same fumes. They should move away, after all. Move somewhere safer. As if any of them could afford to do that. The plant eventually had to be sold because the company that owned it couldn’t make enough money off of it after the legal battles.

There was an Arco plant there. The land around the plant is so heavily polluted that one person recommended napalming the land in order to clean it. Those chemicals forced the closure of the drive in cinema next to it a long time ago. It did not, however, force the people near that plant to be moved. The soil was so toxic that working around that plant was dangerous. I found the location of a very rare Native American site marked on an old map. That site could never be excavated. The land it was on had been used as a toxic dump site for over a hundred and fifty years. That dump site sat right on the river too. The fish there could not and should not be eaten under any circumstances.

And into this, what I saw was simple. I saw people without hope, without health, and without a future. I saw a society which valued money over people, and did not care about the blood that money was made from. My great-grandfather was, by all accounts, a Marxist. He was a Marxist for largely the same reason I can be counted as such. He tried to help the people around him. He was a pharmacist. He owned drugstores across the Caribbean, and he employed people who could dispense medicine with enough training to also diagnose most basic ailments. He provided the poor with the medical services that they could not pay for at a clinic. According to what we know, he died of a heart attack in a Dominicanan prison soon after Raphael Trujillo took power in the Dominican Republic. He felt that the society should take care of its people irregardless of their age, their race, or their class. Poverty breeds crime. There was a time roughly two hundred years ago where it was believed that the poor were naturally inclined to being both poor and criminal. By “natural” I mean the belief was that the poor lacked jobs because they were naturally stupid, naturally lazy, and naturally criminal. If you wanted to solve a crime, just have the thief taker grab some poor person off the street, beat them until they confessed, and sentence them. Voila, justice was done. Of course, it was not done. In part, this is why the Constitution states that “cruel and unusual punishment” is prohibited. It is to stop mock justice from being done. Our Founding Fathers, and in this case I mean more specifically those Anti-Federalists who supported the inclusion of the Bill of Rights, knew then that torture only muddied up justice. I also muddied up the gathering of military intelligence.

Lloyd Bensen once, famously, told Dan Quayle “I knew Jack Kennedy and you are no Jack Kennedy.” My view of Kennedy is far from being rosy. I have always liked Lyndon Johnson. He may not have been perfect. He was far from the best President that the country could have had, and the era he lived in was almost ungovernable. Still, Johnson at least had courage. He had passion. He spent a stint working as a teacher in rural Texas. He saw first hand what poverty and prejudice do to people, especially young children. President Johnson said before a joint session of Congress on 15 March 1965:

My first job after college was as a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, in a small Mexican-American school…Somehow you never forget what poverty and hatred can do when you see its scars on the hopeful face of a young child….I never thought then, in 1928, that I would be standing here in 1965. It never occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students and to help people like them all over this country.

But now I do have that chance- and I’ll let you in on a secret: I mean to use it.”

I live in Vermont now. Outside my window is a view of the city I was born in. It is officially a city. It has seventeen thousand residents. I often hear talk about “Small Town America”. My friends live in small town America. I go to college in a small town north of here. Vermont is full of small towns. I listen to politicians who talk about small town America every day. It comes with the job. Somewhen, not too long ago, people created this myth about Small Town America. They started by taking all their beliefs and ascribing it to the people in small towns across the country. They then sold that vision to people. And then they took on a phony “folksy” accent to make it sound like they were one of “us”.

When I was in fifth grade my family and I lived in the Interbay. It’s kind of sandwiched in between McDill Air Force Base and Tampa in Florida. We lived in a house where the floor was rotting, the spiders were huge, and one good tropical storm, and we were in the ocean. We lived off of the charity of others. My father had lost his job recently. The area was crime ridden, filthy, and scary. Maybe it is because I am empathetic, maybe it is because I care about others, but I have always wondered what happened to those children I spent a year getting to know.

I attended Senator Sander’s town hall meeting in August. The majority of the folks wanted- even demanded a single payer plan because it would put an end to all of the problems that they face. Five years ago, I went into the primary election in Brunswick and cast a single, solitary, symbolic vote for one man, Governor Howard Dean. I did not live in Vermont while he was Governor, and I know that he is not loved by everyone. I do not agree with all of his policies or his political stances. He is, however, someone with guts. He is someone who turned the Democrats around in four years only to have Barack Obama and his crew snatch it away and give it to some schmuck of a Chairman who could not and did not support the base on important issues like marriage equality, but, instead, supported a candidate who barely had a chance of winning election anyway. Governor Dean has stated now on Morning Joe that he will not vigorously support Obama’s reelection. Perhaps, instead, Governor Dean will consider the unusual, and even the unthinkable. Perhaps he will run against a sitting President. Governor Dean knows that he is going to be attacked for his stance. Because of Governor Dean, I have health insurance. I have that dreaded “Socialized Medicine” everyone talks about, and it has not caused Vermont citizens any loss in freedom when it comes to health care.

Jacob Heilbrunn recently wrote about giving President Obama some slack. I have given him plenty of slack. Until the last twenty-four hours, I have given him his fair due. I have argued that he needs to be given time. Time, unfortunately, has shown that Obama is not willing to fight. Time has show that Obama is not willing to take the battle to the enemy. Instead, he has consistently caved in on issues where he needed to be strong. One can argue that had he pulled out of Afghanistan the Right would have gone after him- THEY ARE GOING AFTER HIM ANYWAY. One can argue that he should not have gone after single payer Medicare For All because the right would have called him a Socialist or a Communist- THEY ARE ALREADY SAYING THAT ABOUT HIM. One can argue that he needs to reach out and befriend the opposition or they will oppose him- THEY WILL OPPOSE HIM ANYWAY. President Obama has decided to reach out for his enemy and hope without thinking that they will, somehow, support him. They will not. They will continue to fight him because he is not one of them. They will continue to obstruct him no matter what he hands them.

It is always tempting to reach out to the enemy and offer them your hand in friendship. The problem comes when they will not reach out as well. When we live in a society that does not know the difference between “Socialist”, “Communist”, “Marxist”, “Fascist”, “Nazi” and “Dictator”, we cannot have a discussion based upon facts. Instead, we have an argument based upon propaganda. Hell Fire and Brimstone, we are not even having an argument. “An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition,” as Monty Python once said. What we have here is Contradiction, the automatic gainsay of what ever the other side says. Until the GOP is willing to actually have an argument, then there is no point in reaching out to them. As for those in his own party who are willing to scuttle the bill for personal gain, make it clear that there are consequences to their decision to throw this under the bus. There was an uproar on the Right over pulling Nebraska’s military base. Do it. Tell Nelson that the base will be pulled if he does not follow the will of the party. Politics is nasty, dirty, and painful. It is time President Obama figures out that he cannot get people to follow behind him if he refuses to lead.

In 2012, I will have trouble supporting President Obama. If the GOP wises up and supports someone like Joe Scarborough or if Mitt Romney wakes up and goes back to his old social positions, I will gladly vote for them. I will go further. I will support them. The Left is rumbling. The political storm is approaching.

(I do wish to apologize for the length of this. I usually try to go no more than five hundred words. Unfortunately, this is something I am passionate about. As much as LGR is a blog, I do not do a great deal of editorializing. Analysis, yes, reporting yes, but not much off the cuff opinion work.)

12/17/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
This is what happens when you cave in to one person who is having a snit. Another one comes along and demands that you cave in to him. In this case it is Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska who has decided to kill the bill. The time has come to ‘kill’ him and Lieberman. It is time to strip them of any and all power that they have within the Senate. The time has come to remove them from their committee assignments, and if needs be, the caucus as a whole. It is time to kill this bill. No ‘ifs’, no ‘ands’, no ‘buts’, no negotiation. And, if President Obama cannot learn to lead and Senator Reid cannot grow a spine, then it is time for them to leave or be removed. Senator Nelson has demanded that his amendment condemning women to die for lack of coverage for a legal procedure must be in the bill or he will filibuster. If that is his decision, then fine, remove him from everything. If he leaves to join the Republicans, great, replace him next election. Or replace him anyway.

One year and six months ago, or there abouts, I cast my ballot in the first primary in recent memory where Vermont was important. I cast my vote for Hilary Clinton. While I have held out hope that President Barack Obama would be better than he has turned out to be, I hate to say that he has lived up to my expectations. I voted for him in the general election because I saw in his opponent someone who was even less ready for the Presidency than Obama, and who chose a running mate who, in all honesty, seemed more of a caricature than a real person, especially in light of her transformation from the time she ran for governor to when she ran for Vice President. The why of my vote had mostly to do with History. Senators rarely make good Presidents, and one term Senators often make very weak Presidents. I knew in Obama we did indeed have a John Kennedy. The problem was that no one really goes beyond Kennedy’s assassination to look at the President. Kennedy has never impressed me as anything more than an decent orator. Johnson, at least, had guts. He had scars too and would show them off to anyone who wasn’t squeamish. Ok, that’s wrong, he would show them off to the squeamish as well.

I knew that Obama would not fight the way everyone thought he would. I knew that he would have trouble herding Democrats into doing anything. Obama was good at speeches, but not much else. It is because of that I have not been disappointed in his lack of movement. It is because I knew that Obama was not this great, grand Liberal leader that I have not been disappointed at the immobility of many LGBT issues, and many others. I knew that Obama was more interested in compromise than anything else. It has been painful to watch as Liberals come to the same place I was a long time ago.

Last night, Kieth Olbermann took what looked like and felt like a very difficult step. He called for the death of the health care reform bill and the creation of a new one. Until Senator Nelson made his demands, i was on the fence about this. Now, I am not. The bill must die and, as Governor Howard Dean said, be rewritten. It is time for the Democrats to fight back. It is time for it to be bluntly clear to people like Nelson and Lieberman that there are consequences for going against the majority of their party and the majority of the people. It is time for someone to make Joe Lieberman understand quite bluntly that his desire for revenge is not only unconscionable, but against everything that the Senate has ever stood for. This kind of petty politics is suppose to be confined to the House of Representatives not the Senate. Yet, it is in the Senate that we find more and more people who want to do nothing but hold their collective breaths until they turn blue in the face and then- and then Senator Reid will cave in and give them their treat. If the Republicans want to slow the bill to a crawl, then let them do so. Let there be no other business until this is done. If the government shuts down from their tantrum, then BLAME them. Make it clear that Senators Lieberman and Nelson are responsible for shutting down the government and starving our troops of the funds they need. If they shut down the government, make it clear that the Republicans with the help of Lieberman and Nelson are responsible for doing so. Blame them instead of capitulating. Perhaps then they will come to their senses and realize that compromise can be achieved on issues that they want.

But that is the problem, is it not. This is not about the Republicans WANTING anything policy wise. This is about them wanting power, pure and simple. They want to win the ideological battle that has been going on in this country since it was founded. They want power, and in order to get it they will do anything from lying, cheating and even shutting down the government. I have listened appalled at how the Conservatives spin History into something so out of shape and out of place that they it is unrecognizable. They talk about Our Founding Fathers as if they were some singular block that agreed upon a particular issue, and somehow, some way were of one mind and that mind was for small government without regulations to hold businesses accountable, and without the power to tax people. What they do not say is that we tried that form of government before the Constitution was written, and at that time, the states almost went to war with each other and the central government was so weak that it could not govern even enough to make this nation safe. What our Founding Fathers wanted was a balanced government, and they did not get there by decree or one side winning over the other. Instead, they created a government that was balanced by consensus and compromise. What we do not have here is any of that. The people who claim to speak for the Founding Fathers, or at least in their model of thought, do not any more than any Liberal in this country.

I am not a Liberal, and yet, no matter what I say or do in this blog, I will be branded as such. I am an academe, and that alone gets me attacked by people who have never understood that colleges are as diverse in their political thinking as any place out there. In fact, more so. Of all the colleges I have been to, only one was liberal, and that is not necessarily Liberal, but open minded in its approach to education. I have met professors who would not look me in the eye because I am a transwoman on some college campuses. Distrust Education, Distrust Government, and eventually what you have is anarchy. I often write on this blog in a Liberal manner because, no matter how much I may not be that label, it will be applied to me. That is what Olbermann said last night as well. No matter what he said or did, he would be labeled a liberal for daring to not follow lock step behind the Conservative mantra. When did Conservative become the same word as dictatorship?

You will forgive me if, by now, I am angry with how this has turned out. I had hoped that I was wrong about Obama, and I hate to admit that I was not. For me to be angry takes some doing, but I stand beside my Senator in condemning this mess. I stand beside Bernie Sanders, the Independent from Vermont. In four years, should he choose to stay in the Senate, I will vote for him. It was an honor to hear him speak. Like him, I am angry now too.

I am including the video from Olbermann’s special comment last night. Please, enjoy.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Clouds On The Horizon (follow up editorial)

  Blogged by Melanie Nathan.  The statement below my comment was released today by the undersigned LGBT organizations;   an expression of the frustration felt by the leadership on behalf of the organizations which they represent.   I agree with what they express but at the same time I would be remiss if I failed to communicate what I believe to be the true grass root question – perhaps somewhat rhetorical and then the sentiment: Why are you able to come together in this fashion when things do not happen and unable to do so to form a multi-organizational PINKPLAN to address our entire movement.  Why do we not all move toward a CIVIL RIGHT ACT AMENDMENT and from that everything would flow? 

My opinion is that these expressions of frustration are a result of a fractured leadership, where organizations struggle to survive through their specific micro-causes, at the inextricably detrimental shot in the toe to our movement as a whole.  The other part of the problem are the grassroots – who when asked to write letters to congress, tell their stories etc, fall so way low of what we could achieve.   It is time to wake up LGBT community we are being thrown to the wolves on every issue, by everyone- all we have is us and there are 2 ways to get this done-

1. Forget the fragnmented micro legislation as an emphasis for victory – DEMAND leadership conference and establish a PINKPLAN with the ultimate goal 1. Civil rights amendment and 2. Repeal of DOMA

2. Get out on the Streets and stand on corners

3. Boycott everything and everyone anti gay

4. That would include the US Government; “I refuse to pay tax from this moment on!”

5. Law firms come out to help us!

6. All Gay closeted folk – now is when you should show us who you are. You should come out in the name of equality

7. ALL members of the military COME OUT ON THE SAME DAY in defiance of DADT- how about TAX day? April 15^th – that will give you time to get your savings accounts in order

8. Call on our friends in Congress to take the helm and push for us: I specifically name:

Reps and Sens:  Kristin Gillibrand, Chuck Schumer,  Jerrold Nadler, Zoe Lofgren, Lynn Woolsey. Jackie Speier, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Sestak (wants Specter’s Senate seat),  Patrick Leahy, Barbara Boxer (up fro reelection) and please feel free to add to the list.

9. Go to your corporate employers and ask them to take a stand

10. LGBT non profits – risk your status and stop paying payroll taxes for your employees. 

THIS IS THE STATEMENT THAT TRIGGERED MY COMMENTS:

In light of continuing delays in the House of Representatives, we must state clearly and unequivocally: Passing basic job protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people must happen now.

At a time when our government is deeply focused on the critical issue of employment, it is inexcusable to delay action on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Each and every job lost to prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity needlessly compounds the unemployment challenges facing our nation. We call on Congress for the immediate passage of ENDA.

For decades now, we have called upon Congress to pass legislation to address the basic right of LGBT people to work free from discrimination at our jobs, and now Congress tells us we must wait another year. In 29 states, it remains legal to fire people based on sexual orientation and in 38 states, discrimination based on gender identity remains legal. In failing to take swift action to pass ENDA, our government allows unfettered bigotry to go unchecked, leading to the loss of jobs, fear in the workplace, economic instability, and personal hardship, while allowing employers to lose competent experienced workers. ENDA is urgently needed by our communities.

The majority of Americans consistently state their support for employment protections and voters have affirmed similar state and local measures. There is absolutely no reason for Congress to continue to delay this non-controversial bill or drop LGBT issues to the bottom of their agenda. We will not be denied basic rights any longer. Nothing is more important than protecting people’s jobs, so ENDA must pass now. Further delays are absolutely unacceptable.

Those who signed the Statement:

Matthew Coles & James Esseks, Co-Directors, American Civil Liberties Union LGBT Project

Terry Stone, Executive Director, CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers

Toni Broaddus, Executive Director, Equality Federation

Jennifer Chrisler, Executive Director, Family Equality Council

Lee Swislow, Executive Director, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders

Jarrett Tomás Barrios, President, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation

Joe Solmonese, President, Human Rights Campaign

Rachel B. Tiven, Executive Director, Immigration Equality

Earl Fowlkes, President/CEO, International Federation of Black Prides, Inc.

Kevin Cathcart, Executive Director, Lambda Legal

Christian Berle, Director of the Log Cabin Republicans National Office

Sharon J. Lettman, Executive Director/CEO, National Black Justice Coalition

Kate Kendell, Executive Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights

Mara Keisling, Executive Director, National Center for Transgender Equality

Rebecca Fox, Executive Director, National Coalition for LGBT Health

Rea Carey, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund

Michael Mitchell, Executive Director, National Stonewall Democrats

Gregory Varnum, Executive Director, National Youth Advocacy Coalition

Selisse Berry, Founding Executive Director, Out & Equal Workplace Advocates

Jody Huckaby, Executive Director, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) National

Jo Kenny, Interim Director, Pride at Work AFL-CIO

Masen Davis, Executive Director, Transgender Law Center

 Blogged by Melanie Nathan

12/4/09-by Paula Brooks
After months of focusing on health care, Afghanistan and just about everything else, (except maybe his promises on gay rights issues), President Obama finally turned that focused like a laser attention of his on the fact this country has some rather high levels of unemployment. However he also made it clear that after health care, Afghanistan and just about everything else (except maybe his promises on gay rights issues)… the government is broke and won’t be able to help out much in this department.

On Thursday, Mr. Obama held a White House “Jobs Forum” where he sought new ideas from business executives, labor leaders, economists and others. After that meeting, Mr. Obama said he would entertain “every demonstrably good idea” for creating jobs, but also warned the nation, “our resources are limited,” and said, “I want to be clear: While I believe the government has a critical role in creating the conditions for economic growth, ultimately true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector.”

However, Fred Lampropoulos, founder and chief of Merit Medical Systems Inc., a medical device manufacturer in Utah, said after the forum, that businesses were uncertain about making any investments in the present because “there’s such an aggressive legislative agenda that businesspeople don’t really know what they ought to do.” That uncertainty, he added, “is really what’s holding back the jobs.”

But Obama has said that, “if we keep on putting off tough decisions about health care, about energy, about education, we’ll never get to the point where there’s a lot of appetite for that.”

Yesterday on the Huffington Post, Elizabeth Warren, the Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the banking bailouts, noted that, “one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can’t make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.”

Many Conservative and moderate Democrats are troubled that the push on health care, which Republicans are now using to paint them as fiscally irresponsible boobs to their constitutes back in their home districts, has hurt them back in those districts.

The fact we’re still invading Afghanistan and the $40 billion price tag the will go along with that invasion, is also freaking out many Congressional Democrats at a time when some of those Dems are seeing unemployment rates pushing well into the double digits in their districts, and they are starting realize they are probably not going to get re-elected if one in every 5 people in their district are out of work and living under bridges, as those bridges crumble over them from lack of maintenance funds.

In the House, lawmakers I speak with are particularly sensitive to the employment and Afghanistan issue since they all face re-election next year, and it is starting to become crystal clear to many of them that they are going to be pretty much going to be rolled under the bus by the White House in its efforts to advance its legislative agenda in the mid term elections and the push for any kind of healthcare bill as is now is simply because it will enable Obama to tout a victory, leaving some Dems seriously questioning whether the effort on health care and Afghanistan should have taken a backseat to the economy and jobs issue.

As a widowed gay working mother of two, and a businesswoman struggling just to get by, I am at the edge the precipice of financial disaster and worried this new healthcare bill in its current form has every potential to jack up the costs of the little healthcare I already have. I am worried that it will end up putting my family, and my business over the edge…. Because once we are locked into this chopped up piece of crap that is the current healthcare bill, we will never see the light of a new reform till next century.

I am the sister of one Marine who lost his leg in Iraq, and another Marine who is waiting to be deployed to Afghanistan.

I am also the niece of a man who has his name on a sorrowful black wall dedicated to a far off struggle, in a forbidding landscape, in which we depended on an ineffectual government to ’step up’, all the while facing a foe that has proven effective at waiting out an enemy…. I see someone is not paying attention to history… and I do not want my brother ending up as another a name on another wall dedicated to another far off struggle, in a forbidding landscape, in which we depend on an ineffectual government to ’step up’, all the while facing a foe that has proven effective at waiting out an enemy like my uncle did.

I would say to those Congressional Democrats worried about their jobs as someone who could easily be considered part of “their base” … Those worries are not wholly unfounded.

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 From the Mediation desk of Melanie Nathan:     Recently in my mediation practice I have had a spate of divorce cases where the spouses (partners)  have been at odds about how to deal with underwater real estate.  When dividing community property real estate, the purpose of the mediator is to assist the parties in  dividing the asset, either through a sale of the property, a buyout by one spouse of fifty percent of the community property equity interest;  and possibly a continuing partnership in the property.  This may also apply where there is no community property and the parties jointly own the property.

 Since the recession and housing bust, there has been an increasing amount of homes either about to be foreclosed or upside down. Often both or one party may still be feeding community or post separation income into  an unviable  property.    These situations may be remedied by short sales, loan modification, divorce settlements providing inter spousal transfers and indemnifications for debt assumed, or simply by walking away.

This difficult situation adds to the stress of divorce, especially if the parties are not in tandem as to the fate of the property.   Some may want to hold on to the property in the hope of a future upside,  and whomever remains on must be prepared to take responsibility for their share of the holding costs, such as mortgage payments, property tax, maintenance costs and insurance.  If one party decides to hold on, there is no likelihood of the other receiving any cash settlement  for an upside down property, regardless of what went into the property or the dream of a future upside.   

 I have had cases where one spouse holds the property, like the sword of Damocles, over the head of the other, asserting they will be stuck with poor credit, unable to find rental accommodation, in legal trouble, creating fear resulting in the threatened party holding on for longer than necessary.   

 This is where a neutral mediator and/or advice of a consulting attorney is imperative.  The neutral can help the party step out of the dream into reality.  The neutral provides a safe and peaceful environment for joint exploration of the remedies and can facilitate a productive discussion, helping the parties crunch numbers,  call in other  professionals such as CPA or Mortgage expert to assist with the analysis.  

Fear, misunderstanding  and false senses of security ought not stand in the way of moving forward. It is important to pursue the evolving legal remedies.   These cases need to be mediated rather than litigated. Positioning and pos toward resolving all the issues. Using separate attorneys can be counter- productive and may result in wasted precious time, while throwing good after bad. A party can always have a separate consulting attorney on the side.  

 With all this in mind I was delighted to come across an article by Kenneth R. Harney, November 29, 2009, in the LA times: “Professor advises underwater homeowners to walk away from mortgages; Brent T. White, a University of Arizona law school professor, says that it’s in the homeowners’ best financial interest to stiff their lenders and that it’s not immoral to do so.” … read on…   ( A MUST READ!)

“Go ahead. Break the chains. Stop paying on your mortgage if you owe more than the house is worth. And most important: Don’t feel guilty about it. Don’t think you’re doing something morally wrong.

That’s the incendiary core message of a new academic paper by Brent T. White, a University of Arizona law school professor, titled “Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis.”

White contends that far more of the estimated 15 million U.S. homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages should stiff their lenders and take a hike.”  

 This Article, a breathe of fair air, served to endorse my sentiment which I have not hesitated to express in mediation. These are unusual times.  Although the facts of each case may seem similar, they all have a distinctive circumstance and the facts must be explored in detail before a strategy is employed. The one piece of generic advice that I can impart is that one spouse should not be held hostage by the other to a hope or dream about the  future of the property, or to any obligation.  Divorce provides a unique opportunity to walk away from the property and leave it in the hands of the Party who does not want to give it up.  The mediator can help draft documents to reflect such an undertaking by one, documenting the discussion that led to the decision.      The change in spousal relationship can have an impact on negotiations with mortgage lenders and indemnities can be established between spouses for an element of protection if the lender pursues the non-owner spouse in the future.  Also of course a plan can be made for both to walk away. 

 Save your money,  and muster up six months of rent instead of paying it into the property. If you have bad credit and need to rent a property you can offer a few months of advance rental.  However BUYER BEWARE – when you pay rental ahead- be sure that the home you are renting is not about to be foreclosed upon as you may find yourself the victim of the Landlord’s inability to pay his/her mortgage.  

 I believe that walking away from an expensive dream opens the door for an inexpensive reality and good nights of sleep. 

MELANIE NATHAN 
nathan@privatecourts.com
www.privatecourts.com
www.divorcemediators.us

 By Melanie Nathan -  After much back and forth emanating from my article on the Manhattan Declaration, a comment by Paula Brooks (thanks Paula) sent me scurrying to the CATH PEWS site.  If you have read the thread of over 100 comments from the latter article, you will note the tussle between LGR and CATH PEWS.  The site Administrator of Cath-Pews has denied gay hate, anti-gay language, yet it is very easy to find.  The articles they provide to enhance their arguments against gay marriage are hateful in purpose. It is there to subvert our rights and our equality.  How else can it be construed?

 So having been challenged by the admin of Cath -Pews I am providing a cryptic analysis based of one such article promoted by Cath Pews.   I have provided a demarcation between the article wording and my comments as can be seen from ITALIC BOLD = CATH-PEWS and REGULAR= Melanie.

 ANDERSON:-   ARTICLE :_
How to Make the Case for Marriage ,
(Using Non-religious Language)  
By Mary Jo Anderson

 Whether we like it or not, secularism is the dominant mode of public discourse today. Even those we encounter who are not “anti-faith” often place a high value on their understanding of “separation of church and state.”  Catholics must therefore be prepared to support moral positions without recourse to Scripture or religious vocabulary. That is an enormous challenge to Catholics who want to defend and preserve marriage as the only healthy model for an orderly society.  Before we go any further, we should make it clear that using secular terms to make the case for marriage in secular terms in no way suppresses or denies the faith. While it does omit a higher dimension of marriage, the secular case is effective because all truth—including the truth about men and women, marriage and family—is God’s truth. 

 MELANIE – Anderson, the Author provides an excuse and subversive means to hide the intention of faith behind overt secular language. This article is all but a ruse a desperate attempt to provide secular legitimacy to a faith based argument.  You cannot hide behind the intention! Simply ridiculous!

 ANDERSON – As such, it has an internal coherence that is part of the created order. One need not credit God with the physical laws of nature, such as gravity, to know that gravity works. Where the physical laws are violated, breakdown occurs. The same goes for the moral realm: A violation of God’s moral order brings chaos in human relationships. The evidence of that chaos is the source of the daily headlines and the nightly news broadcasts. When people of faith make the case for marriage using this kind of evidence, it is less likely to be perceived as “imposing religion.”

 MELANIE:-  This is a flagrant misrepresentation, as is the entire surreptitious intent of this article-  (A Catholic Virtue – to be manipulative and furtive? Anderson is providing the readers a way to Circumvent the truth of their own assertions by trying to slip it into secular form; a clear case of scape-goating?  How do we know that the church itself is not to blame for the depravity on earth?  After all the church has a violent history, borne through war for conversion!

ANDERSON   There is a secular argument for preserving natural marriage as the only legal definition of marriage and the one model of family life deserving of tax relief. The major building blocks are these:

1.             Nations that fail to form families suffer grave consequences, including loss of workers, loss of tax base, and decline in human ingenuity and productivity

MELANIE :-  “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”   as my beloved granny Rose would say: Firstly there are an ever increasing amount of Gay families out there.  In the US and abroad who are contributing to society in a big way.   The new census  2010, may reveal these numbers.  Let me give you my family as one itsy bitsy example and as a metaphor for all of us:-

I am a lesbian. I married spouse under California Law. We have been together for almost 10 years.  

I went to University for many years and have law degrees, which I use in my Conflict Resolution and Mediation practice, which I established over ten years ago.  I used to practice law and decided I would prefer to resolve conflict through mediation.  I function as any other American who owns a business.  The fact that my spouse is of the same sex has zero impact on my productivity or functionality.   In fact I was recently appointed by our County Board of Supervisors as a Commissioner on the County Human Rights Commission.  I serve on the Board as Vice President of A Fair Housing Group and volunteer in our congregation on social justice issues. I volunteer in the Courts to mediate family law matters for people who cannot afford attorneys.  I advocate in DC for equality. I would say about 90% of my free time is devoted to volunteer or pro bono work.   

My spouse teaches Hebrew language to children and adults; as well as bible studies.  She has   almost complete a Masters in Education.  She is brilliant and spends much of her free time with our children.  Our four year old has never had a babysitter because one of us is with the kids at all times.

In fact your argument is so false it makes an argument for the fact that we NEED EQUALITY.  You see we do not get to file Federal tax returns together and so everything costs us more. We have no Federal government benefits.   Your argument highlights that gay families are discriminated (in fact your thesis even calls for the discrimination …”no tax relief..”) against because within the realm of our productivity we are denied the  benefits that you get as a result of your productivity = unequal!   Your productivity does not endure as a result of your sex nor that of your spouse; my production does not occur as a result of my sex or the fact that my spouse is of the same sex.   The government takes our tax money- but as separate and not as joint, while we function as fiscally joint. Your argument has no foundation and simply makes no sense.

We have two daughters.  One was adopted from an orphanage in Vietnam as an infant, suffering from malnutrition and scabies; and is now a thriving all A’s scholar, budding young leader, who loves to help those less fortunate than herself.  She has great talent and will certainly be a productive and well adjusted adult. She will go to University, get a degree, help others, continue to volunteer for our congregation which focuses on helping the needy.  Just last week her class organized a lunch for homeless people in the area. This is not just a one- time event.   

My second daughter was conceived through donor sperm and Artificial Insemination.  She is four now and very smart. We were able to choose sperm of a genius and so have contributed to the population. Who knows maybe our daughter will be President of this Country. Who knows maybe our daughter will be the one to find a cure for diabetes, cancer, aids. Point is – we as a family have conscientiously and decidedly contributed to the increase of population and done so in a responsible fashion.

The adoption costs us about $35,000 and the insemination cost us about $8,000.  So you can see by choosing our modes of ‘birth” if you will, we have contributed to the economy.  We have saved a child from a difficult life and turned it into a situation where she will be ready to give to society in a big way. We pay for childcare, we pay for extra -activities, we pay for clothes, for food

IN SUM ,  Anderson  re my family:

1. We have added to human ingenuity;
2. We provide tax base plus more than we ought to if we had equality;
3.We are an extraordinarily productive family and contribute to our economy in a big way;
4. There are hundreds of thousands of other families like us- maybe millions;
5. If we had equal rights then we would have an opportunity to have more contributing gay families – and increase productivity.    

Conclusion – This  Anderson Argument is DOA!

ANDERSON:-  2. The question is not about denying individual rights but about promoting the good of the whole society.

MELANIE:- This is the argument that I just cannot understand. Most Pedophiles are straight white men.  Most incest occurs via straight fathers raping their children.  The US divorce rate is high;   we all know and easily condoned by Churches – some of which choose annulment. The latter simply denies the marriage ever took place even though there are children. Is that not destructive on society and morality?  

This particular statement made me laugh because of the contradiction in terms.  Ms. Anderson   we will be promoting the good of society if we had equal rights.  How can you on any level think that by denying equality society will improve? (Maybe we ought to bring Jesus in here – lest I forget this is a secular argument.)   Inequality leads to hate, validates inequities and injustice on a secular level. The scales are tipped. People suffer terrible hardship, such as Shirley Tan who highlights the plight of all  binational gay couples.   You tube and hear her testimony.

The question IS about denying rights and in doing so you are promoting an unequal society.  Argument DOA.

ANDERSON:-  3. Marriage and family provide benefits to society by producing, raising, and educating the next generation.

MELANIE:- Gay and lesbian families are in no way deterred in this function. We are already doing this and having equal rights and benefits will only strengthen our ability to be more even productive. Oh yes… Britney Spears marrying for 24 hours is productive; reality shows making a mockery of marriage where you line up bachelors and pretend to fall in love for TV exposure is a fine way to honor marriage and maintain its sanctity.  I could go on…. Let us add this to our secular argument.   Anderson Argument DOA.

ANDERSON:-  4. A strong family life offers the benefits of mental and emotional health.

MELANIE : Gay and lesbian families are in no way deterred in this function. We are already doing this and having equal benefits and rights will only strengthen our health.  Studies have been done to show how stressful it can be not to have equal rights.   

What part of my family life is not strong?  What position is Ms. Anderson in to make that assumption or judgment unless based on falsehood.  Would you like testimonials from my daughter’s school, from my clergy?  From my neighbors, from the homeless guys we fed yesterday?  Are you thinking my kids will turn out to be criminals? Are you presuming that my emotional and mental State is not in good order?  Simply ludicrous.  I can list the names of professionals, judges, politicians, moms, teachers, doctors, scientists, professors who are openly gay and who offer perfect emotional and mental health in living their lives at home and in society.  Who are you using as your example the ‘straight’ Senator with a straight marriage who played tootsie- footsie under the toilet door with a male prostitute?

 It is not possible with the amount of parental involvement and love we provide, to imagine that my home is anything but emotionally stable.  I am  not in need of super nanny and nor do I need a reality show.    There are studies showing that gay parents are of a high caliber and that we provide good and safe homes for our kids. . There are many millions of emotionally imbalanced straight families.  What about the woman, Smith who drove her kids into a pond and drowned them?   The mother who drowned five kids in the bath tub?  The suicides stemming from military returning home from WAR? What about the child abuse day to day; the trash who loose their kids in the night to suspect circumstances? You only have to watch Nancy Grace’s show to see that my life and that of hundreds of thousands of gay families have had nothing to do with the sicko’s in this society.  Straight America is doing fine in its own destruction without gay help or influence. I challenge you to find one gay family convicted of murder.   Anderson argument = DOA

ANDERSON:-  5. These blocks build on the foundation of the common good: shared commitment to a society ordered to the good of the most members.   No Marriage, No Civilization

MELANIE:- Exactly and thanks for making my case and RESTING  MY CASE FOR ME-  THANKS MARY JO ANDERSON – not only have you failed to make your secular argument but you have revealed a furtive attempt to avoid the faith based argument AND  you have successfully made the argument for WHY GAY MARRIAGE EQUALITY WILL ACTUALLY ENHANCE SOCIETY.  

  Yeah – at last We are in agreement marriage – Civilization – Give everyone the right to marriage one person of their choice regardless of sexual identity. This secular argument, albeit furtive,  works after all. It works for our equality and not against it.  So maybe Ms. Anderson your attempts have backfired and you should go back to your religious argument. In truth the religious argument is the only one that may hold any relevance at all and to that end I say thank G-d for the separation of Church and State.

In the words of Anderson per an article on credentials for Bishops “Our bishops must foster authentic marriage and family life. In the heart of the family the dignity of the human person is taught and the future is nurtured. Healthy families are the source of a moral people, ethical citizens, and vocations,” she concluded. ”

In light of this comment Ms. Anderson how hypocritical is it of you to argue against marriage for all G-d’s flock?

  Mary Jo Anderson :-  

By Blogger, Melanie Nathan, contact
nathan@privatecourts.com /
www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com

 By Melanie Nathan The billboard, located at 4855 Miller Road, shows two cartoonish images of Obama wearing a Muslim turban and reads “PRESIDENT or JIHAD?” It also says “BIRTH CERTIFICATE – PROVE IT!” alluding to the conspiracy theory which claims Barack Obama was born in Kenya rather than Hawaii, which would disqualify him for the office of President.  The words “WAKE UP AMERICA! REMEMBER FT. HOOD!” appear on the bottom of the billboard. The sign belongs to a sleazy looking bloke (sorry my judgment)  used car dealer who describes his business as a “car dealership.”

“Since Fort Hood, I’ve had it,” owner Phil Wolf, displaying an educated command of the English language, told FOX 31 News Friday. “You can’t suggest things. You can’t profile. You gotta call a spade a spade.”    ”Everything I have read about Mr. Obama points right to the fact that he is a Muslim. And that is the agenda of what Muslim is all about. It’s about anti-American, it’s about anti-Christianity,” Wolf said.  (I call that treason talk, Mr. Wolfe not freedom of speech – !) 

The Anti-Defamation League condemned the sign, as did AM760 radio host David Sirota, who discussed the sign and interviewed Wolf on his program Friday morning. “It’s out of control,” Sirota said. “This conservative hatred of Barack Obama is out of contol, and this brings together all those strands of it: the racism, the anti-Muslim fervor. It’s one thing to criticize the president on health care, or Wall Street reform, or immigration. But this is outrageous. And I think it’s a fair question to ask why these questions about religion and ancestry are being directed so viciously at the first African-American President of the United States.” 

 “Are you a racist Wolf?” asked Ed Schultz on his ED SHOW, MSNBC TV?  “I am not,” answered Wolf.  I was unclear as to why Ed Schultz gave this apology of an American the time of day.  Did Ed think he would get a retraction from him? Or an explanation that made any sense?    Anyway I was much relieved to hear Mr. Schultz speaking to a woman named Pat on his radio show the next morning, and was proud of her resilience and her courage. 

 A  small group of dedicated progressive women, led by PAT have been protesting at the Wolf car lot since last Friday. They are organizing a big protest for Saturday Nov 28, starting at 10 am (“until we run out of volunteers to carry signs”).  This will probably go for at least 3-4 hours if the ladies’ past efforts are any guide. An internet  notice said “Would be great if a lot of men showed up, this time too.”

On the Ed morning show, she explained how a few women had pulled together and protested at the site of the billboard in question.  They braved the insults of a group of male bullies who went scurrying the moment men arrived to stand on the side of the women.  The minute the good men left the little cowardly bullies would reappear with their insults and threats. 

I thought Pat was amazing – a brave hero- standing before a group of adversaries for hours and enduring the insults.   She insists on continuing her protest and will be out there tomorrow with a big request for many more to join her side and that of the progressive women who show no fear.   

 The  ADL issued a statement calling the billboard an exploitation of the Ft. Hood shootings that is “divisive and offensive, and perpetuates hateful and harmful stereotypes about Muslims”, prominent conservatives have been silent thus far. “That could suggest that conservative leaders are afraid to confront the extreme fringe of their base,” Sirota said. “Or it suggests they actually condone this message. Either way, it’s disturbing.”

I ASK YOU – Help these wonderful progressive women protest the Racist Anti-Obama Billboard in Wheatridge Sat Nov 28 @ 10:00 AM (Visibility / Sign Waving)  -    They are getting some flack from the dealership. Having some men with them could help. The protesters and the sign are just 50 feet from I-70 Westbound so the protest has the potential to be seen by hundreds of thousands of Black Friday-Christmas Shoppers driving by on Saturday.  

Their message is – Dust off your old Anti-Iraq War signs, impeach, Stop Torture, whatever… and bring them Saturday. Show the public what Wolf is so proud of.  Help change the discussion back to the crimes of the Bush Administration, The protest is at Wolf interstate Leasing and Sales Location: 4855 Miller St Wheat Ridge, CO 80033  Map from the Wolf Website .   http://wolfwheatridge.com/index.asp?s=7772

To contact the organizer of the event directly email Saturday, November 28 from 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM patdunn4@comcast.net 

Hope this post gets a few over there to help/.  Have a Great Weekend and goodluck to you brave ones who speak for us all….

UPDATE Apparently Wolf had erected the Billboard in response to a challenge by a Denver  radio host Peter Boyles, who hosts the top-rated morning program on Denver’s KHOW-AM, Wolf who owns multi State car lots is planning on erecting more Billboards across the Country.

My thoughts: Where does one draw the line? While freedom of speech serves our essence as a nation, this language is deplorable both in intent and effect. We are a Country at War.  The proponents of this language are in essence committing a subversive and treasonous act when one considers all the circumstances. They accuse the President of the United States as being on the side of the enemy during a time of war? I would never have imagined seeing anything like this.  Its not mere lack of decorum or common decency – it is a sign that racial hate is so intensely pervasive that it has the power to cause Americans to turn into traitors.  Speaking of our President in the fashion has the significant stench of siding with the enemy.

 Blogged by Melanie Nathan nathan@privatecourts.com 

11/24/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Chris Matthews is never an easy person to be interviewed by. Having watched his show off and on for the last several years, I can tell people that, no matter how strongly the interviewed wants to prevaricate with regards to a given subject, when Matthews asks a question it had better be answered or the interview will go no further. It is a tough lesson for Bishop Tobin to learn. No matter how exalted one’s rank, Matthews will not take the standard rehashed answer. Unfortunately for Bishop Tobin, he made the mistake of trying to evade and ignore the questions posed by Matthews, and in so doing, only further emboldened the television host.

Matthews is Irish American and Catholic. He is also angry, at least from the tone of his voice in the interview, with the Roman Catholic Church interfering with the secular law of the United States. He is not alone. Many Catholics and non-Catholics are tired of seeing a religious institution demand that other people not of their faith follow their religious beliefs, and the Catholic Bishops are furious that people are questioning them on their involvement in American secular law.

There is a feeling that, if they cannot stand the heat, they should get out of politics, only the politico who said that was far from being polite about his sentiments.

In Latin America, there is a nation which decided to follow the edict of the Pope regarding abortion. All abortions are illegal in that nation now, and the maternal mortality rate has quadrupled, last I knew. No matter what the state of the law is, women will find a way to have an abortion for a variety of reasons. If a woman feels that there is an alternative to having an abortion, she will. The problem is when there is no safety net, and no easy way of giving a baby up for adoption. If there is no prenatal care for mother and child, and there is no help for disabled children or a place other than an orphanage to place a child whose parents cannot take care of it, then women will seek to terminate the pregnancy. In short, if the woman believes that the choice is between giving up a child to a life of torment and suffering or terminating the pregnancy, then they will choose to terminate. It is never a light or simple decision for any mother, and it is something that will always haunt them for the rest of their life.

The only way to really reduce the rate of abortions in the United States and elsewhere is to empower women in their own lives. It is to make sure that women have the means to prevent pregnancies when it is impossible for them to take care of them. it is to make sure that a woman is cared for throughout her pregnancy. It is to make it so that giving up a child for adoption is not stigmatized as it is in our society right now. It is to make sure that adoptions are fair, legal, and likely to place a child in a loving home. It is to give women the ability to take care of the children they have and the children that they will have in the future.

In short, making women equal to men will help to make abortion unnecessary. Making abortion illegal will not stop it. After a while, as Mr. Matthews suggested, it becomes necessary to go beyond simply making it illegal into making it criminal with criminal penalties for the woman who has an abortion. Will they institute the death penalty? Matthews suggested that Bishop Tobin knows that any suggestion about enforcing this via legal sanction would result in people being more upset with Tobin’s position than they are already.

The problem is that people like Bishop Tobin are unwilling to push it that far, and worse. They are unwilling to actually take the steps necessary to make sure women are empowered and capable of making sure that unwanted pregnancies do not happen in the first place. While telling women they should not abort a pregnancy, but rather give the child up for adoption after birth, they push to restrict adoption to only the approved families that follow their moral and spiritual guidelines.

Solving the problems that create abortions will reduce them. It will make them less needed.

If this is truly about the sanctity of life, then the Catholic Bishops must be out there demanding an end to the sale of all weapons since those facilitate murder. They must be out there demanding safe driving conditions since those result in deaths every year. They must demand that Pfizer be punished for selling medication for ailments that those drugs do not treat. That particular one has killed people. They must demand the shuttering of every business which belches out toxic clouds to poison the populous. They must excommunicate any Catholic dictator who murders to hold onto power no matter what their stance on the Church is.

It is hypocritical for the Roman Catholic Church to stand there and demand that one and only one medical procedure be banned on the rationale that life is sacred when there are so many other issues out there which are, frankly, also destroying not only people’s lives but their health.

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment was a fool’s bargain. It was a bargain with the Devil. The Catholic Church will not endorse healthcare reform. They will say a few nice words, but that is it. They will continue to harangue and even drive out any politician who dares to follow the will of his constituents not the will of the Pope in Rome.

Two hundred and more years ago, Catholics were barred from holding office in the American Colonies. Catholics were not allowed to get married in their own churches, and were barred from many civil rights that the United States granted them. There were places where they could not even vote. The Bishops spit upon the memory of my ancestors who fought for this war so that they could practice their Catholic faith unhindered and unfettered by the laws of Britain. My ancestors fought to give this nation freedom of and from religion. By putting their noses into our political system, not only do the Bishops trample the memory of those French Catholics who came to America for freedom, but upon the Irish Americans who sought a free nation to practice their Catholic faith. They trample upon the Scots who were forced from their homes. They defile the memory of John F. Kennedy who stands as the only Catholic to become President, and who made it clear that no President would bend knee to the Pope over the Constitution.

And worse, they spit upon the memory of John Paul II who demanded the withdraw from politics of all Catholic clergy and who never harangued a Catholic politician for his political stances.

In Maine, the Catholic Church spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to enshrine their religious beliefs in the secular law. That is money that could have gone to helping prevent abortions by helping women live better lives so that they would not need to have an abortion.

In the end, this is not simply a battle about abortion, but a battle to keep religion out of our political system.

This is the interview.

As a personal note- I believe in keeping an absolute barrier between religious beliefs and secular politics. It is a very slippery two way street that would end up not only with religious law being put into secular law, but with the government eventually telling churches what to do. My personal beliefs on abortion are simple- keep abortion legal, safe, and fix the problems so that it is rare.

11/23/09-by Bridgette P. Lavictoire
If you are a Catholic and you want to be rid of your marriage, all you have to do is pay to make it go away. Oh, certainly there are some restrictions to it, but it boils down to a hypocritical belief that a ‘donation’ to the Church will buy you a religious divorce and, with the stroke of a pen, not only undo the work of God, but alter the time-space continuum and make it as if that marriage never happened.

A papal dispensation is a way to exempt someone from Church law and give them the right go about their business. These typically fall into two types, a general dispensation and a matrimonial dispensation. These are the kinds of dispensations which allow for an Anglican priest to become Catholic without giving up his wife. Of course, the priest could just ask for a dispensation and no longer be married. In fact, it probably requires a dispensation to legitimize his marriage in the eyes of the Church since the Roman Catholic Church lists as one of the grounds for a matrimonial dispensation a difference in religious beliefs. The other, of course, is a lack of consummation.

Matrimonial dispensations are, quite honestly, something for the rich. They can be expensive to obtain due to a variety of compensations that must be paid to the Church for things like drafting the edict and putting together the right Divine legal information. Of course, a couple hundred dollars worked nicely to grease the wheels and get it done, and that doesn’t include the postage. Of course, there are also the fees imposed by the congregation in order to both benefit pious works and to make sure that petitions not be made too often. All together, the fees for a matrimonial dispensation may range into the thousands of dollars. It is hardly something that the pious poor Catholic can afford, but something that a rich Catholic could easily.

It is also a practice which violates the very argument that marriage is a sacred bond. If marriage is a sacred rite than none other than God himself should be allowed to sunder it. The Catholic Church should dispense with this practice forthwith. It is a violation of the very beliefs that they claim they are upholding by opposing marriage equality. Not even the Pope should be allowed to exempt a person from their matrimonial vows if it is truly a sacred bond. It should not matter if the marriage is unconsummated, childless, or if the person can afford to buy their way out of it. In allowing for that bond to be broken under Church law, they defile its very sanctity. Not only that, but anyone who so much as strays or commits adultery should be automatically excommunicated without so much as a single through. Married men should not be allowed to join the priesthood of the Church no matter how many exemptions are written for them.

If the Catholic Church is going to argue that the society should follow their religious beliefs, then they should begin by following them strictly as well. It is time to do away with dispensations to allow Anglican priests to remain married. It is time to do away with people being able to purchase Pope endorsed divorces which, quite often, violate even the most basic writs of common sense and reality. How can a Church divorce be granted to a person who most definitely consummated their marriage and who entered into that marriage with the understanding of what it meant.

The Roman Catholic Church has chosen time and time again to interfere in the temporal affairs of the United States, so it is time to learn the real meaning of the First Amendment protections on Religion. It is time for the State of Maine to enact under the very same reasoning that Question 1 was brought a total and complete ban on all papal dispensations for all civil marriages conducted in that state irregardless of their religious affiliation.

If the Catholic Church wants to interfere in the secular practices of the people of the United States, then they should not be held immune by the very law they thumb their noses at. If they cannot keep their business out of the secular affairs of the nation, then the civil government should not be exempt from interfering in their affairs.

Ten days ago, the House passed the Stupak Amendment, which would be one of the biggest setbacks to women’s health and rights in recent decades; unless we stand together and stop it, this will provide license for our rights to be rolled back to where the right wing would have us. Do not think the backlash would stop at women’s issues. It will go every which way!

The Stupak Amendment is discriminatory, extreme, and just plain wrong. At Lez Get Real we have been reporting and commenting on the Stupak Amendment, and we are not letting up – why? Because it will take away health insurance coverage that women already have. This would be a huge step back for women’s health. Now this together with the suggestion by Government Task Force regarding Breast Cancer screening at age 50 as the new recommendation is simply unacceptable and worthy of a revolution for our health!!! The mere fact that they can think this up is disturbing to me….

We support Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) launch of a petition because women must not be denied access to safe and legal medical procedures. If you want to join : click here -Senator Boxer wrote her supporters and saying: “For decades, a very difficult and delicate compromise has held firm: Women can use their own private funds for legal reproductive health care procedures, but federal funds cannot be used for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother. But in a stunning turn of events, anti-choice House members passed the Stupak Amendment as part of the health care reform bill and shattered that compromise. The House amendment would tell women who participate in the new health insurance exchange that they can’t even use their own funds to buy a policy that includes abortion coverage. We need to be sure that all our voices are heard clearly on this issue.”
Boxer asks: “How can we tell women that they will lose coverage that they already have? How can we tell women that they can’t buy insurance coverage for a legal health care procedure, even if it’s paid for with their own money?”

 SIGN THE PETITION and then visit our site in the next few days for my personal story on how Breast Cancer Screening in my forties saved my life…   

Blogged by: Melanie Nathan, nathan@privatecourts.com : Picture – Credit to Artist Benny Ovid, Tel Aviv, Israel – Thanks to  Dorit Israel, from her Personal Art Collection.

   By Melanie Nathan- Congratulations to Shirley Tan and Jay Mercado  and the boys and Mommy. Shirley was named  ADVOCATE MAGAZINE ’s  Activist of the Year for 2009.   This is well deserved.  However they may have been used in a way that could result in resentment from the community rather than the applause they deserve:   Here are the comments from Immigration Equality’s (IE) BLOG site where IE makes the announcement:   Quoting the Announcement by IE on their BLOG:

“Congratulations are in order for Shirley Tan (pictured here with her family), who has been chosen as one of The Advocate’s “People of the Year” for 2009.   Shirley, who testified before the Senate in June and was also recently featured in People Magazine, was chosen by Advocate editors as their 2009 Activist.  “There are two types of activists,” the magazine writes, “. . . those who revel in the spotlight, and those who would rather slink away from it when the speech is over. Speaking with Shirley Tan, who catapulted into national discourse following an early-morning arrest last January by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in her Pacifica, Calif., home, you get the sense that she’d prefer going back to relative anonymity.”  But, the magazine notes, Shirley “is visible, but not eagerly.”    “I’m certainly not used to this,” she told The Advocate. “I’m just an ordinary housewife, living my own life, doing everything for my kids and my family. But this is what I have to do now. It’s not only for our family, but the 36,000 bi-national couples who are relying on UAFA.”

 Indeed, Tan has become a passionate and effective advocate for bi-national families. In addition to her testimony before the Senate, she has also met with White House officials and spoken out widely in the media about the need to pass immigration reform that will help families like hers.  All of us at Immigration Equality applaud – and thank – Shirley and her family for their extraordinary work. We are proud to be standing with them to end our country’s discriminatory immigration laws.

 To read the full write-up about Shirley, pick up a copy of the December/January issue of The Advocate, on newsstands now. ”

HERE are the first seven comments that followed the post - including my own – number 7….

1. Check this out on Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125816110639347917.html
If they are the key players for the immigration overhaul, we might be screwed, especially with Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s bill because he is a co sponsor of UAFA, but under his bill, he did not include us in his bill. On the other hand, Chuck Schumer is also a big supporter of UAFA, but whether he will include us in the bill remains unknown. Unless we can gain momentum for UAFA, let’s keep fighting for the inclusion of bi national couples in the bigger immigration bill. If we don’t do anything, we will be ignored and defeated again!! Comment by Chung Cheng Fang — November 14, 2009 @ 11:08 pm

2. I am so sincerely happy for this family. At the same time, disappointed that all of us are not being afforded the same opportunity with extended stays for our partners, etc. We all deserve the same attention and “exceptions” – Again, I truly, am happy for you! Tom Comment by Very happy For the Tan Family But Disappointed For the Rest Of Us — November 15, 2009 @ 4:32 am

3.We don’t yet know if Gutierrez has included us. His bill hasn’t been introduced yet. The House version of the CIR will be introduced in December. Or perhaps I missed something. Comment by nola — November 15, 2009 @ 10:02 am

4. There is a lot of talk about moving Immingration reform to the top of priorities for Obama…ARE YOU ON IT IE? We need to be in there getting our rights! Comment by Brian — November 15, 2009 @ 12:30 pm

5. re – the talk about moving immigration reform to the top of priorities – where is this information coming from or is it hearsay? Comment by Where Is This Talk Comming From — November 15, 2009 @ 3:51 pm

6. It would really piss me off if any immigration bill didn’t include UAFA. I think I would leave and never come back to this country again. It would be disgusting if 12 million illegal immigrantsget in front of someone that has been in the usa legally, and has been in a relationship with an American citizen for almost 4 years. Comment by Gerry D — November 15, 2009 @ 11:15 pm

7.  MY COMMENTS :- This week I testified together with Shirley Tan at a symposium with the Immigration Commission in San Francisco.  Nancy Pelosi sent a staffer as did Zoe Lofgren. The symposium had a group of panelists including Professors at Law schools etc.  NCLR was invited and did not show up.**(update)  IE had no rep there either.  There were no panelists to speak for UAFA- yes at a symposium that was looking for advice on Immigration Reform, reporting to Mayor Newsom and the SF  Board Of Supervisors . My verbal testimony is  published on my BLOG at http://oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com/uafa-hearings/.   Reluctantly trapped in IE’s strategy I did promote UAFA as a component of CIR and asked the commission to work on behalf of its locals to ensure that UAFA is included in CIR.  Afterwards a  key Immigration Organization insider in D.C. who was on the panel suggested that IE had made a big mistake – that we should have pushed for UAFA as a stand alone.  This is something I have been writing about since June 4th, 2009. I brought Shirley and Jay to IE and worked as the lead advocate and strategist on Shirley Tan’s Private Bill. I promised Julie Kruse of IE that Shirley would advocate for UAFA, as she had given me her word in exchange for my pro bono work.  Indeed instead IE used Shirley to promote UAFA as a component of CIR.  A strategy I would only have pursued AFTER exhausting all opportunities to get UAFA moving on its own. Shirley and Jay have innocently followed their lead.   A mere few made this decision on behalf of all binationals.  The grassroots have had no control over this as only IE has an effective lobby with the HILL and no other LGBT organization seems to show much interest in UAFA. IE left Shirley with no choice but to advocate for CIR. 

I just want to be clear- that if UAFA is not in CIR – Shirley was used by IE for their own strategy and should not be blamed.   If UAFA is in CIR, it may be very bad for us because then we can  no longer promote it as a stand alone and we will be at the mercy of the bigger Immigration Lobby, including the faith based groups who are anti LGBT.  If we are NOT included it could be very bad because then UAFA may be perceived as DOA…. Basically we are screwed either way. HOWEVER maybe it is best left out and we can be sneaked in -through committee – we have our necks in a very tight noose right now, the noose of IE strategy and the components that were not thought through.  I hope that this will have all LGBT and friends call reps tomorrow to sign on to UAFA NOW, regardless of CIR!!!  “”     end of Immigration equality BLOG comments

 I am documenting this in the hope that for prosterity we all remember that Shirley and Jay are innocent bystanders to their own activism – who got caught up in a situation where they received help due to their unique circumstances.  They have been inadvertent, yet willing  activists and are being guided by those around them. If anything goes wrong it will not be for lack of trying on their behalf to help others. It would have been much easier for them to remain silent.  I resent those who display their short vision by thinking Shirley and Jay received special treatment – they did not – their case was unique and as their advocate I seized the oppportunity and took the risks that relied completely on their particular circumstances.    We were told that a Private Bill could not be done and yet we went ahead.  The risk was great and no others were willing to take it on.  It happens our strategy worked.  So I am asking for 3 things:

1. Tell ALL your stories NOW to local press; tere are still not enough stories out there. Once you have told your story report the publication of it to my BLOG or to OUT4immiggration.com You can keep the foreign partner/ spouse invisible. Its the American partner who is missing his/her right;

2. Ask your National Reps to Support and co-sign UAFA NOW.  It will help whichever Strategy we end up with;

3. Call your local city councils, counties, state legislators, commissions and ask for Resolutions to support LGBT bi-nationals with UAFA and to ensure that we are part of ALL Immigration Reform discussions. Our leadership is asleep at the local level when it comes to advocating. That was clear to me when NCLR had signed up as a partner for the Symposium in San Francisco and failed to provide a speaker, or even show up and also failed to refer our interests out to another LGBT organization.

4. Always respect what Shirley and Jay are doing, regardless of your own needs and regardless of the strategy that they may find themselves hhaving to support; and most of all regardless of outcome.  When I asked them to go out for UAFA, they had no conditions except one – they did not want any money or fundraising in relation to their advocacy.  All they wanted to do was help others and ensure ultimately that Shirley, who is still at risk, is not deported.   

** UPDATE; 11/18/09  re: “NCLR was invited and did not show up” Today I received a phone call from NCLR’s communications director, Calla Devlin, who explained that NCLR was ONLY asked to co-sponsor the event, but was never asked to to participate in any form. This was clearly a misunderstanding in that the organizers seemed to think that NCLR would be there.  Nonetheless Calla reassured me that NCLR has UAFA and its LGBT immigration asylum cases at the helm of pivotal issues.  Of course resources are limited.  This is one organization that I would send my dollars to especially because while others are decreasing staff, they plan to ramp up on legislative staffer/s in DC.  Perhaps I should have called NCLR before mentioning this as a ‘no show’ and I apologize for that to NCLR.   I am pleased that we were able to have a discussion that touched on a lot more about LGBT binational interests . 

Thanks for the visit and the support…… keep the fight for UAFA strong. Contact me if you want to get involved in a bigger better way…. nathan@privatecourts.com     
  You can see my Testimony to the SF commission (albeit a strategy I disagree with – I am cornered into having to promote UAFA  with Comprehensive Immigration reform and so I will do it..)

 Blogged by MELANIE NATHAN, CEO of Private Courts, Inc. Consulting, mediation & private advocacy ; motivated by injustice, I blog about family law/mediation, politics, news and LGBT equality and anything that ‘tickles my fancy.’ Otherwise blogging as O-blog-dee-o-blog-da. Websites and blogs include: http://www.privatecourts.com; http://www.divorcemediators.us; www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com.

11/16/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
In the 1890’s, the New York Post published an article detailing the arrest for murder of a woman who conducted illegal abortions for patients in New York City. She was not arrested for providing the abortions, though those were illegal. Instead, she was arrested when one of her patients hemorrhaged and died. The police knew about the abortions, but did not want to interfere because they felt that she was providing a useful service to the community. The New York Times did not report the story at all. The motto of the New York Times was “all the news that’s fit to print.” This was not deemed fit to print.

The arguments for and against abortion and marriage rights are often boiled down into a soft, mushy, ambiguous statement which is easily countered and easily held onto. It lacks any real depth, but it is that shallowness that makes it easy to understand and easy to cling to.

Abortion, like most social issues, is not about murder, changing a definition, or any of those surface issues. They are about how the country defines itself, and what reality is. In truth, you have one side of this fight who wish beyond hope that they could shut their eyes and cover their faces and make all the “bad” stuff disappear, and those who know that the “bad” stuff is not going to go away.

You end up on one side of the equation, a group of people who lack empathy and the ability to understand, and on the other, a group of people who think that an emotional argument will break down those barriers. The recent battle over marriage equality in Maine is a prime example. The No on 1 campaign waged a battle showing how non-threatening LGBT families are, and how we are all like them. It was an emotional appeal to let us have equality in order to have normal lives. The Yes on 1 campaign focused on fear of the other, and making darned sure that people feared the idea of even empathizing with LGBT Americans. The hope out of the Yes on 1 campaign is that, by banning same-sex marriage, they can make it go away because it is uncomfortable and scary to them. They hammer away with arguments which are blatant in their fear mongering, and equally blatant in their incoherence, and yet, they get away with it because they have a lot of people who believe that, should marriage be denied to gays and lesbians, they’ll just marry a straight person. Their logic does not include the idea that homosexuality is genetic, and it certainly does not include the idea that marriage equality will actually preserve far more marriages than it will destroy.

The past is something that has been romanticized over and over again with a Victorian patina of respectability. Read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology some time, there will be no single mention of the same-sex love between Athena and Pallas, and the role of Ganymede as Zeus’ lover is certainly not part of that book. Mythology was sanitized for the reading public. It is to that patina, that mythology, of what the past use to be like that these people want to return, and there is little arguing with them. They have created their own little belief system which states that, if abortion is illegal, it will stop, and that, if gays and lesbians are unequal, they will disappear. It has nothing to do with reality since it is, ultimately, divorced from reality.

Theirs is a world view in which crime must be punished and not understood. Theirs is a world which believes that a psychotic should be executed. Theirs is a world view where the reality of the life of ordinary people cannot penetrate. They make arguments rooted in religion, in culture, in the past. They ignore what does not fit within those set beliefs, even within their own religion.

They often know that what they are preparing to do is going to hurt others. They know that what they are doing is, at some level, wrong. They do not care so long as it returns this nation back to the mythological past. They seek to return to a white picket fenced house with a mother, a father, two kids, and not a problem in the world.

Of course, they fail to see the Audrey in the yard (think Little Shop of Horrors).

Theirs is a procrustean bed upon which reality must be put and the bits that do not fit must be chopped off.

I make these assertions with gravity, for they are grave assertions to make. I do not make them without thought and research. I do not make them without grave concerns about what I am saying. Each word is often worked over. This particular article is the work of three days. Its roots are in the wake of the Stupak Amendment and the Maine Vote.

It is often hard to be the person standing in the middle wanting not to abandon reason or to go to extremes. It is often hard to want to understand the motivations and rationales of everyone, and yet to be unable or unwilling to forgive trespasses on either side. There are issues on the Left that drive me as far up the wall as those on the Right. There are Liberals who make me as upset as there are Conservatives. Even Keith Olbermann can anger me as much as Bill O’Reilly, no matter how much I like Mr. Olbermann, and no matter how much what he says matches my own beliefs. Of those times that the Left angers me as much as the Right, I will write about at a future date.

11/13/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Sometimes the death penalty is not a punishment, but rather a release. It can be the easy way out. If Major Nidal Malik Hasan is guilty of the murder of thirteen soldiers at Ft. Hood, then he does not deserve death. Instead, he deserves to live the rest of his life either deprived of his senses through medication or in agony from his wounds. You see, there is a very strong likelihood that Major Hasan will be paralyzed for the rest of his life. According to his family appointed lawyer, he cannot feel his legs and his hands are in terrible pain. Sometimes the available punishments do not fit the crime.

There is, however, one wrinkle to this that could mean that Major Hasan will not be serving time in jail. What has been ignored by those who have more of a stake in revving up anti-Muslim sentiment is that there are reports that Major Hasan may have been mentally imbalanced. That, at some point, he suffered a psychotic break. If he did suffer a psychotic break, then the stories he listened to from returning soldiers would have only fueled that. The tormenting that he received for his religion would have driven him further into both the psychosis and the most radical ends of the Islamic spectrum. After all, when under assault, one tends to seek refuge in the comforts of the solidness of the past, and radical Islam always portrays itself like radical Christianity- as Defenders of the Past.

In the coming weeks, months and years that this horror story unfolds, we will likely see a number of reasons and rationales for why Major Hasan was not pulled out of the ranks. We will hear people say why he was not given treatment for his degrading mental status. We will probably hear people state that they kept him in and under surveillance in case he could lead them to other radical Islamists. We will hear people say that they were worried that his mental health was going down the tubes, but did not think that he was bad enough to report. We will hear people give a thousand and one reasons, including ones that fit into the cries of the Conservatives in this nation. We may even here that Major Hasan was not removed because he did not seem bad enough to remove, and the military needs the men. Of course, they do not need gays and lesbians according to some generals.

Major Hasan, it has been reported, wanted out, at least of deployment. By the time he got to that point, however, it was already too late. He had been the victim of hate crimes, of harassment, and of a conflict between his faith and his duty. He had become incoherent.

He had snapped.

The problem with someone who is put into that pressure cooker is that they will, eventually, break. It does not matter if that person is Muslim, gay, lesbian, transgender, African-American, Asian, or what ever minority. Eventually, a person put into the pressure cooker of hate crimes, harassment, and degradation will snap. Some will just sink into depression. Others will take a gun and start shooting people. It is a pattern seen over and over again, but one that is never actually addressed. It never occurs to people that crimes like those allegedly committed by Major Hasan are a result of the harassment and prejudice of others.

It is a prejudice that blooms every time we see someone calling this terrorism, or attacking this because Major Hasan’s religion. All that ends up happening, in the end, is that someone, somewhere will snap as well.

With the growing tensions between the Religious community and the LGBT community, there is a lesson to be learned. The hate, prejudice and lies by the religious community will, at some point, lead to a backlash that will get physical instead of verbal.

The price of prejudice is often blood.

11/11/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year 1918, the guns stopped. My great-grandfather fought in that war, known then as the War to End All Wars or the Great War. We know it today as World War I. He served in the Royal Canadian Army.

That day became known as Armistice Day, but today is known as Veterans’ Day.

In the past 400 years, my family has heeded the call to arms for four nations. First for France and England, then for Canada and the United States. Among the wars that have been fought on this continent, they have served in nearly all. I sit today just over twenty-five miles from where ancestors of mine fought to prevent the English from sailing down the Champlain.

The promise of America has always been that all of its citizens are equal. While, at the time that promise was made, only white men were considered to be true citizens, that promise was made to all. This country fought a Civil War in order to put an end to the ownership of one man by another, and almost fought another in order to make sure that the political and civil rights of those people were held to be equal to those who had enjoyed them for so long.

That promise was extended to women.

That promise was extended to gays, lesbians and transpeople.

That promise is, as of yet, unfulfilled.

It matters little that our President is African-American, and it matters little than a woman is Speaker of the House.

What matters is that our President has been attacked for his race and not his merit. That people have attacked the Speaker of the House for being a woman. That, in the last campaign, the one woman who was fighting to become President was belittled for being a woman. What matters is that our gay and lesbian soldiers serve in silence and dread every day because of policies which betray the very promise of this nation.

What matters is that, today, America is still far from the promises that were made to its citizens, and that the fight for a more perfect Union continues.

11/05/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
There is something called damning with faint praise. Mr. Andy Towle recently commented upon how Contessa Brewer of MSNBC used the wording “defining marriage traditionally” in her reports the day after the election. Ms Brewer, a native of Maine, often used that phrasing with a slight hint of irony and sarcasm that came through despite her professionalism. While Mr. Towle went on to state “On another note, in the earlier clip I posted of Brewer I was just noting the unfortunate use of the term ‘traditional marriage‘. I thought the rest of her reporting was excellent,” it might have been better for all concerned if he had simply emailed her to discuss changing her phrasing in the future.

Ms Brewer did a fine job reporting on the Maine election despite her own dislike of the outcome. She did not stop reporting on the outcome until late in the night, and was up and at work reporting again early the next morning. The people who are busy commenting upon his blog are already stating that she is a big supporter of our cause, and that most had either not noticed or not been offended by her wording.

Ms Brewer was a natural choice for this report. The thirty-five year old is from Parsonsfield, Maine in York County. This is her home state.

When Mr. Towle chose to go after Ms Brewer for her phrasing, he said simply that she had done some fine reporting. She did do some fine reporting. By backhandedly complimenting Ms Brewer, Mr. Towle is still condemning her for using a phrase that he does not agree with.

To Mr. Towle, I would say this…we are not the Republican Party. Public pillorying of our own hurts us more than it helps us. Simply writing to Ms Brewer on this subject would have been better than dragging this into the public for a lot of people who, quite frankly, probably did not notice the words that she used.

Addendum: The story itself comes from Jamison Foser at Media Watch. While they are busy condemning Ms Brewer for using non-neutral language, they themselves are guilty of the same thing in not using non-neutral language to describe Ms Brewer’s stance on this issue. If the language is non-neutral in its tone, it does not help to attack someone for using it by implying that they are anti-gay, especially when the opposite is true.

If they had a problem, they should have used less problematic language in describing this.

Edited to reflect the removal of the post from Queers United.

Melanie Nathan: Considering Maine and Reflecting on California:

Does marriage equality and more specifically same-sex marriage hurt traditional marriage? This most confounding question has yet to be answered by anyone, especially those who expound the rhetoric while seeking to ban same-sex marriage.  The derogatory impact of same-sex marriage on straight marriage has yet to be quantified.  I wonder how one would be able to figure it out.

Could it be that for every 4 gay marriages one straight person will not marry his fiancé; could it be that for every 4 gay marriages one straight couple will divorce?  Could it mean that allowing gay marriages will result in less straight people marrying and thereby reduce the numbers of married people?  I am trying so hard to come up with a formula, can someone please help me?   

Proposition 8 succeeded in California, and effectively removed a fundamental constitutional right, as endorsed by the Courts by way of popular vote – the right for any couple in California to marry regardless of gender was stripped.  Prop 8 was initiated in direct response and its mantra was  to “protect the institution of marriage” by keeping lesbians and gays out.  

After the barrage of voracious advertisements led 51% of voting Californians to believe that gay marriage would by its mere legality threaten straight marriages. Churches poured their money into the advertising coffers, tacitly claiming the interests of their God.   Silly them there is a better way to save the institution of marriage and just think it can be done without stripping other Americans of their inherent rights, as well as the advantage of quantification.  The obvious, unambiguous and only one absolute vehicle to sustain the precept of marriage is clearly the “The outlawing of Divorce.”  We must bring a new proposition to the voters in this earnest quest and that would be  ahh maybe -Proposition 9 – “Repeal of the Legislative Right to Divorce Act.”

Notably, divorce, unlike same sex marriage, can be easily quantified.  I believe in California the divorce rate is approximately 1 in 3. There you go – for every 60,000 marriages ending in Divorce, we can save 60,000 saved – see how easy that was. Not like our difficulty when we attempted to quantify the impact of same-sex marriage on ‘ traditional marriage.’ – that means we would have 60,000 out of every 180,000 marriages saved… How powerful is that!

This is a call to all those who truly believe in the sanctity of marriage. Support the rescue of marriage by ending divorce for good. Here is a safer and better plan – how about making that retroactive.  Anyone who has been divorced consider your good-selves remarried.

Indeed the next obvious step is legislation that prohibits one’s right to divorce.  Divorce is not an inherent right; it is one that is granted by specific statute. For example in California there would be no divorce if the Family Law Code did not deal create it. It gets worse – Divorce involves one spouse suing the other for divorce.  In California the first paper served by a plaintiff spouse on a defendant spouse reads “SUMMONS- You Are Being Sued.”  How bizarre – to separate church and State in this fashion.  It is an abomination to the sacred right of marriage to think that after spouses have said “till death do us part” that one may sue the other for divorce and that our law allows that to happen.

If Maine supports the ban of same-sex marriage tonight, I profess this to be the nest obvious step there too. 

Is this ban on Divorce a joke?  Not according to a Sacramento man, John Marcotte who is collecting signatures to place a new piece of legislation on the 2010 ballot for the people of California to decide on. He wants to make it illegal to divorce in California. Read his petition here.

Why? He contends that this is a natural extension of what religious conservatives did when they voted “Yes” on a ballot measure to ban gay marriage so that they could “protect traditional marriage”.

From John Marcotte’s Rescue Marriage website, here’s the statement announcing the new ballot measure:

“I loved Proposition 8, but felt it did not go far enough. So fresh from the office of our legal counsel, I present the 2010 California Protection of Marriage Act.

No party to any marriage shall be restored to the state of an unmarried person during the lifetime of the other party unless the marriage is void or voidable, as set forth in Part 2 of Division 6 of the Family Code.”

Marcotte has just launched his first couple of PSAs on the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act. Here they are:

Few Choice Quotes From the PSAs:

“My kids are being taught in school that divorce is all right.”

“You said ‘Till death do us part’. You’re not dead yet.”

“Hell is eternal, just like your marriage is supposed to be.”

“If we allow anyone to get divorced, before you know it, people will be divorcing their dogs.”

Lock Step-lock-jaw-Republicans-and conservatives- and those on the right – do not fail – put your money where your mouth is and support the BAN on DIVORCE.

Blogged by MELANIE NATHAN, CEO of Private Courts, Inc. Consulting, mediation & private advocacy ; motivated by injustice, I blog about family law/mediation, politics, news andLGBT equality and anything that ‘tickles my fancy.’ Otherwise blogging as O-blog-dee-o-blog-da. Websites and blogs include: http://www.privatecourts.com; http://www.divorcemediators.us; www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com. nathan@privatecourts.com

11/03/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
“If you put it up to the vote of the people, we’d have slavery again.”- Jesse Ventura.

Maine voters have decided that they would rather be bought out than uphold the traditions of liberty and freedom that have made New England a haven for those seeking rights away from the tyranny of others. They have bowed their heads to the nameless, faceless financiers of campaigns which continue to sew bigotry, hatred, and suspicion of their fellows. They have bowed their knees to potentates in the Catholic and Mormon Churches and claimed that this was about their freedom of religion.

They have betrayed all that made New England the unique place that it always was. They let themselves be scared by a state that is their neighbor.

What is worse, now that they have accepted those pieces of silver to betray their own state, expect that their Senators will be challenged by people from Alaska, Utah, Georgia, and Alabama. Let them face the fact that those who believe in buying elections will come knocking on their doors in order to unseat Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Let them find out what it means to become a state that whores out its own opinions to others.

The day will come very soon when Maine will regret turning its back on equality. It is time that the legislature of Maine strip the Catholic Church of all its exemptions. It is time to force the National Organization into the light. It is time to purge their dens of iniquity and shame and to force them into the light.

It is time to dismantle those who seek through deception and fraud to repress others.

Maine has chosen. They have chosen to abandon freedom for tyranny. They have chosen to allow the repression of others to continue.

Today, Maine joined those who seek to dismantle what Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Gouverneur Morris sought to build. They saw a nation devoted to freedom and liberty where the minority was not the subject to the tyranny of the majority.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Jefferson.

Today, Maine voted to ensure the majority’s tyranny continued.

Governor Ventura is correct, and more. Had the Civil Rights Act of 1964 been put to the vote, it would have been struck down. Had any rights of the minorities been put to the popular vote, they would have been struck down.

And the Catholic and Mormon Churches should remember this, had the majority of the past had their way, their churches would not exist in America today.

If they had voted on the First Amendment, we, today, would all be required to be Anglicans.

11/02/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
By now, many of the people watching the battle in Maine have heard that Yes on 1 has increased their ad buy to $25,000 on the eve of the election, and yet, this is the campaign that, until this past Friday, was deep in debt and running out of money. The question that every Maine voter tomorrow should be asking themselves as they go to the polls is whether or not they want their votes bought by people outside the state. That is what this coming to. Yes on 1 has received little money from inside Maine, and now they are suddenly able to buy more ad time with money that they did not have even four days ago? This is fishy.

In all likelihood, the money comes from the National Organization for Marriage out of New Jersey who are trying to buy- yes BUY- the election in Maine. If it does not come from NOM, then it may come from the Roman Catholic Church who are shuttering schools and churches in an attempt to stay solvent and running the risk of splitting their congregation at a time when the Catholic Church is already bruised from repeated scandals involving priests assaulting children.

The people of northern New England have always been proud of their independence. When outsiders have come to take our Senate seats, we have sent them packing. When the battle over marriage equality hit Vermont and New Hampshire, the outsiders were all but told to leave.

Tomorrow, Maine voters will go to the polls, and they will be offered their thirty pieces of silver by the potentates sitting in some exotic location like Atlanta, Salt Lake City, New Jersey, or even Rome. Tomorrow they will face the biggest decision of what it means to be a Mainer. Will they sell their votes to those who have provided all but nine percent of the funds for this No on 1 campaign and strip their fellow citizens of the rights that they worked so hard to obtain. Will they follow the nameless, faceless financiers of this campaign and condemn their fellow citizens to second class status?

Today, there were seven rallies in support of No on 1. At one rally, there were as many as two thousand people gathered. People of all faiths, all races, and all traditions gathered to state clearly that any nation that is willing to sell out the freedom of a few risks having freedom for none.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

In Georgia, I watched a political campaign in which a Mormon was smeared as being a non-Christian. His opponent said ‘vote for me, I’m a real Christian’. In Georgia, I watched as Catholics were discriminated against and called Papists and treated as if they were trying to take over the country. I listened to people talk as if Catholics liked to not only rape young children, but drank their blood and ate their flesh at Mass. In Georgia, I listened to people talk as if Jews were greedy, and that they too ate young children.

Bigotry does not stop simply because you say that you support their causes on one issue. The day will come when Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and others will be the next target. They do not want to hear that, but that is the reality.

This country was founded on the principles that all were created equal, and that freedom and liberty were for all people. In 1961, a war broke out to try and bring freedom and equality to all. That work is still not over.

But, tomorrow, Maine’s voters will go to the polls and they will find out whether or not their vote can be bought by a coalition of organizations who have made up, now, about ninety-two percent of the money used to fund the Yes on 1 campaign.

Only know this, if your vote can be bought, when they come for you, none of us will speak out for you.

Bishop E. W. Jackson Sr., who leads Exodus Faith Ministries in Chesapeake, Va., says that while he’s against anti-gay violence, he also opposes homosexuality and wants to be free to preach against it, as reported in the Virginian-Pilot. While reading this I am clear that the smiling Bishop and I clearly do not share the same Adonai. His comments were made in conjunction with President Obama’s signing of the Mathew Shepard Hate Crime Act into law, yesterday. Jackson stated that federal legislation defining attacks on gays and lesbians as “hate crimes” will stifle religious freedom.

I say – if stifling religious freedom saves lives, so be it!

Jackson told the newspaper he fears religious leaders could be prosecuted for inciting anti-gay violence, even though the legislation — expected to be signed Wednesday by President Barack Obama — contains language meant to preclude prosecution of religious leaders and others on the basis of speech or beliefs.

I say – let the chips fall where they may!

“We could find ourselves in a situation where we’re accused of inciting someone,” Jackson said. “I am categorically opposed to the hate crimes bill.”

I ask -Why did he not come out against Hate Crimes before sexual orientation was included?

Thank my Adonai for the solace I find in the voice of Rev. Steve Jolly of Freemason Street Baptist Church in Norfolk’s who disagrees, telling the Virginian-Pilot: “If I stand up in the pulpit and say the consumption of alcohol is evil and we should pour it all in the river, that’s a personal opinion. That’s very different from saying, ‘There’s a bar down the road; let’s break in and pour all the alcohol into the river.’”

But I must say – people like the BISHOP – scare me still! Has he considered that the Hate Crimes ACT protects lesbians like me from people like him? His intent is clear and I am pleased to recall my law school lesson where I learnt mens rea is mens rea!

Refs: http://blackchristiannews.com/news/2009/10/virginia-pastor-says-hate-crimes-bill-stifles-religion.html

Blogged by MELANIE NATHAN, of Private Courts, Inc. Consulting, mediation & private advocacy; motivated by injustice, I blog about family, law, mediation, politics, news and LGBT equality and anything that ‘tickles my fancy.’ Otherwise blogging as O-blog-dee-o-blog-da. Websites and blogs include: http://www.privatecourts.com; http://www.divorcemediators.us; www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com. nathan@privatecourts.com

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BOSTON — Associated Press reports today that a gay Brazilian man has been denied asylum by the Obama administration and won’t be reunited with his Massachusetts husband in the U.S.

Tim Coco, the US citizen binational spouse said that  Attorney General Eric Holder did not act on a Friday deadline in the case of Genesio “Junior” Oliveira, effectively denying the 30-year-old Brazilian man’s request for asylum in the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.

This is not the first time a gay man from Brazil has been denied an immigration path through marriage to the USA.  The other case involving a Brazilian is that of the husband of US citizen Gordon Stewart, as Pfizer employee who is now living in exile in the United Kingdom so he and his spouse can live their marital relationship.

In June 2009, Gordo, together with Shirley Tan provided oral testimony before Senator Leahy and other Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the hope that the Uniting American Families Act would engage congress enough to do something about the inequities in our immigration law.

Coco said, “We needed the Attorney General to make a decision on whether Junior could come home,” said Coco, 48, of Haverhill. “He didn’t take this request seriously.”  It seems as if the Justice department has yet to respond to questions about this case.

In 2002, Oliveira had sought asylum in the U.S. apparently basing his case on a rape as a teenager in Brazil.  But an immigration judge denied his request.  The Associated Press noted that it does not typically name rape victims, but Oliveira speaks openly about his case and is allowing his name to be used.

Oliveira  and Coco married in Massachusetts in 2005 and bought a house together. However unlike other married couples in the US, gay marriages have no bearing on the immigration law that overtly discriminates against same-sex spouses.  The undeniable fact is that gays and lesbians are allowed  to marry in the US in under the law of certain States. Yet because of the Defense of Marriage Act they are precluded from federal rights which includes that provided by the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

In March, Sen. John Kerry asked Attorney General Eric Holder to grant Oliveira asylum on humanitarian grounds.  Kerry spokeswoman Brigid O’Rourke said Monday that the senator will continue to work toward a solution that would reunite the couple for good. The fact is that if Tim and Junior were a heterosexual married couple, they would never have suffered through more than two years of separation,” said O’Rourke.

The Uniting American Families needs it’s time now. While there are thousands of unpublicized stories in the shadows right now, many more are being exposed to Congress and yet Senators such as Kerry who favor the passage of UAFA are still failing in their leadership on the issues.  What is the point of advocating for individuals when you have the power of the legislation in your hands?

Coco said he thought there was “no way” the Obama Administration would deny Oliveira’s asylum request after Kerry made his plea to Holder.  “We are profoundly sad,” said Coco. “This is more than any married should have to face.”

AP reports, the case comes as Obama tries to smooth a rocky relationship with gay activists, who want him to end the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays, which he has pledged to do but hasn’t given a timeline. Tens of thousands of gay rights supporters marched in Washington earlier this month, demanding Obama keep his promise to end the policy.

Coco said he has spent about $250,000 in legal bills and hasn’t seen Oliveira since January, though the two video chat online every night. A heterosexual sponsorship of a spouse costs $750-$1500 if you use an attorney.

Oliveira was denied a visa to return to Massachusetts last year for the funeral of Coco’s mother. Gordon Stewart’s husband has been denied the right to visit his spouse’s sister who has cancer. 

Coco said the couple plans to launch a legal challenge against the federal Defense of Marriage Act as a violation of immigration laws.

That may be a worthy attempt but with my experience in this issue I believe that energy should be put into legislation – we should be calling all our Representatives in Congress and demanding the change we were promised.  Challenging this in the Courts will still yield one major shield for those who are not allowed to marry in their respective States.  Until marriage is uniform, UAFA, which ascribes the right to Permanent Partners, as the relationship that seeks validity to circumvent DOMA.  

 In the meantime, pending legislation, which must happen and soon,  I call on Senators Feinstein, Kerry, Gillibrand, Schumer, Frank to pave the way for binationals by enacting / introducing/Class Private Bill whatever it takes -a moratorium on all deportations of married LGBT spouses;  by providing a special Visa Program with status for married LGBT couples (perhaps one that can sunset pending a solution or legislation– similar to the R1 (religious workers visa program) for married lesbians and gay spouses.

When I was in DC during August I spoke with congressional staffers and received an “interested” response to this idea. 

The reason for this is based less on the privilege granted to ‘a would be immigrant,’ but rather based on the RIGHT – the CIVIL RIGHT of the American Spouse…. Never since the days pre-civil rights movement has there been such a flagrant apartheid-esque practice perpetuated upon US citizens.  We do not have a right that other Americans have.

O’Rourke said Kerry supports the couple’s legal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, which limits how state, local and federal bodies can recognize partnerships and determine benefits. He also called for a law to extend benefits to domestic partners. This I personally find outrages. Why does Senator Kerry not get behind the REPEAL of DOMA.  Congressman Nadler has had the courage to introduce it in the form of the Respect of Marriage Act.  Why is he talking Domestic Partnership.  Another incremental crumb? I don’t want to hear that word…Domestic Partnership.

This month, Obama called on Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Well do it. This case is one in thousands. We need our remedy now. I am not available for a life on hold. Neither is Mr. Coco.

 Melanie Nathan. nathan@privatecourts.com

blogger  and personal advocate
www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com

10/24/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Those whose cause is righteous and whose motives are pure need not fear the light. Those who advance causes which are not righteous and whose motives are impure find every means to operate from the dark. Those who are afraid of the consequences of their actions seek to hide behind anonymity, but those who fight for what they believe in with all their heart will not hide for they will risk whatever they have in order to win.

When the signers of the Declaration of Independence did so, they did not sign ‘anonymous’ to the document, but rather they signed their names. They let the Crown and Parliament of England know not only their grievances, but their identities. They did not hide behind masks to remain anonymous like some rogue afraid to be seen in the daylight. Instead, they let the world know who they were and what they stood for.

The donors to the National Organization for Marriage are afraid to take the consequences of their actions. Should they be found out, they might face boycotts, taunting and even threats. They would face the very actions that every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender person in this country faces every day. They would face the anger of a people who do not agree with them, but, if their cause was right and pure, they would be more than willing to undertake that risk. They would declare openly that they gave to this cause because they believe with all their heart that it is right.

Instead, they slink back to their dens to hide and throw stones at people in passing. They crave the darkness and the anonymity that it offers. They decry what they see as sin, but are unwilling to openly declare themselves opposed to it. They hide knowing that what they seek to do is rob another, and they do not want that known.

If the National Organization for Marriage believes in their cause, they should open their donor lists and let it all be known. Let us see who donates to them. Let us be sure that it is not some Hugo Chavez seeking to influence the American people through anonymous funding, but rather see who believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Let them declare themselves openly without hiding from the world. If their cause is right, then they should not fear.

The Human Rights Campaign is a multi-state organization who has not hidden away their donor lists in hopes that they can continue to be funded by anonymous sources. Instead, they are willing for their donors to be seen in the daylight.

A Celtic Queen once told the wife of Augustus Ceaser “we make love to our best in the light while you are debauched by your worst in the dark.” In the darkness, sin happens. The sins of greed, lust, debauchery, you name it. Only with the light can we see what things are. They hide in the darkness. They hide in their sinful, prideful, hateful dens hoping that people will not see them. They are afraid to stand for what they believe in.

If they have nothing to hide, and their cause is right, then they will stand in the light and let those who oppose them call them names and threaten them. If, however, they are afraid of the light…if they are somehow beholden to those who seek nefarious ends…if they are taking money from those who do not have the best interests in the nation at heart…then they will remain in the dark. They will hide away from the world and hope that no one sees their true face, and their true heart.

10/20/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
If truth is important, it will not need a bodyguard of lies to make it shine through. The fact that those who oppose marriage equality have surrounded their beliefs in a bodyguard of lies only shows that their ‘truth’ is not worth anything. Protect Marriage Washington has put out another ad full of lies in order to “protect” marriage. They trot out the idea that marriage equality in Scandinavia lead to an epidemic of suicide and drug use. Never mind that Scandinavia is a region not a nation, and that suicide rates in those three nations have gone down in the last decade not up. But this is about fear, not reality.

According to Protect Marriage Washington, 77% of all AIDS cases are due to homosexuality. This is a VERY old statistic since the latest from 2007 pegs it at under 50%, and that is likely due not to the number of actual cases so much as the fact that gay men are more likely than straight men to get tested due to the attitude that AIDS is a ‘gay disease’. Roughly a quarter of the AIDS cases are related to heterosexual activity. Of course, this would all be relevant if the facts were important in this discussion.

Of course, Protect Marriage Washington brought out to show the world the whole “they are going to teach your children about same-sex marriage!” conspiracy. This, of course, is a fear held by people who hate homosexuals. Oh My God! They’re going to teach our children that homosexuality is…acceptable. The HORROR! Yes, they will, along with teaching that other religions, ethnicities, and cultures are alright. But it is not alright, of course, to scream that it is wrong to teach your children about Asian or Mexican cultures.

The truth is that the definition of marriage has been amended and changed so many times in the last two millennia that it is not what the Ancient Greeks practiced. Even the idea of one man/one woman marriage is not even of the Northern European culture and comes from Ancient Greece where a woman had no choice who she married, and was typically raped on the wedding night. It was also a society where men and women were segregated to an extreme, and where homosexuality was encouraged.

Of course, knowing this means being willing to be open to reality and not fear. Change is frightening, and these are people who are in the business of spreading that fear like manure on a field and hoping to have a bumper crop.

10/12/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Apparently, I did not get the memo when I was a minute and a half old that, when I grew up to be a full participatory member of the LGBT Community, I must follow lock step behind the political beliefs of someone I had never met, and likely would never meet. Not even all gays, lesbians and transpeople are in agreement over whether or not we need to repeal certain laws even though most do agree on that. We do not agree on what should come first marriage rights or employment rights. We do not even seem to agree on whether or not to have nights where we all just gather in one place and socialize.

A recent opinion piece at the Daily Beast by Jacob Bernstein sought to show the world in a very horrified tone that the LGBT Community was, well, not unified. Anyone living within the LGBT Community could have told them that, as could our allies, and even many of our detractors. The fact that, by some estimates, as many as 150,000 gays, lesbians, transpeople and their allies marched in Washington, DC this weekend is a triumph in and of itself. While there was no unity in the support for President Barack Obama, there was a unity of purpose.

No Civil Rights movement is ever unified. I do not believe that Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X ever sat down and said “ok, we’re going to all march peacefully in the streets until we get what we want.” Instead, the two had different philosophies and different views on how to achieve a set of goals that overlapped, but were not even themselves unified. There was not even agreement over whether or not to push hard to change the establishment. Some people even pushed for a slow, gradual change to the system rather than a more liberal or radical push for equality.

Representative Barney Frank, for instance, comes from a generation which is, let us face it, not the most active when it comes to the fight for equality, but also he comes from within Congress and has a very different view of what we should be doing. There are people who agree with him, and there always will be. There are also a lot of people who disagree with him, and there always will be. Rep. Frank comes from a generation where being openly gay, lesbian or transsexual was, honestly, not something that was expected, and it was quite dangerous. Mr. Frank is not openly gay by his own choice. He was forced out of the closet due to a scandal back in the 1980’s. He is unlike Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis who were elected after coming out. I know, it is hard to imagine that a person from a time when one stayed silent about ones sexuality or gender identity would be excited about the rally on Sunday.

To a certain extent, Representative Frank is right in that a rally like Sunday’s does little to lobby Congress, but there are things that it does that are more important than that. For all our disagreements, and all our lack of unity, what it shows is that we are not singular. We stand as a group. The LGBT Community is, quite honestly, not a community. There are precious few neighborhoods where you can walk in and see someone just like yourself mowing the lawn or walking down the street. We are not like the African-American Community, the Latino Community, the Asian Community with a ready made structure of community. We have always been, at best, a collection of small groups and individuals. We do not have a unified set of cultural icons, and we do not have a unified history in the same manner as other minorities. The idea of a hundred and fifty thousand gays, lesbians and transpeople with their allies standing together calling for equality will have some impact. It means that we are visible.

There are divisions in the LGBT Community. Gays, lesbians, and transpeople do not always get along as internal groups within the larger Community. Racial minorities within the LGBT Community often do not get the same kind of representation as whites do. We are an imperfect group, but we are a group seeking to gain respect and a right to live our lives as we see fit. We are not some stereotype.

The showmanship, the Madonna-esque nature of some of the performances, as Mr. Bernstein said, are not out of place in a massive rally like this. This is not the floor of the Congress, but rather a rally where, quite bluntly, people expect red meat (except for our vegan friends) speeches designed to lift the spirit and provide a unifying sense of who we are.

What is more, there is a reason that Mr. Bernstein overlooked as to why we, as a Community, are not fully behind Healthcare reform because of HIV/AIDS, and it has to do with the reality. It is hardly a unifying or even unique experience. The percentage of gay men with HIV/AIDS is higher than the numbers among lesbians, and the overall number of heterosexuals with HIV/AIDS outnumbers both. It is not our issue, it is everyone’s issue, and the sooner people, especially politicians, realize that the better. It concerns us, yes, and it should concern everyone, but it does not define us.

And, to Meghan McCain, no, we as a community have not given President Obama a free pass on his promises. By saying as much, Ms McCain, you put yourself into the same category as the other Obama naysayers such as Rush Limbaugh and the cast of FOX News. Some of us are here every day pushing President Obama and Congress to repeal discriminatory laws or to pass those that grant us greater protections. Some of us have greater patience than others, but very few of us are giving him or Pelosi and Reid a free pass on any of these issues. I certainly am not. While I am more patient than most and more understanding of the process than is typical, I am not going to sit here and not voice my belief that we need to get our rights. I am not going to say to our President, sir you can walk all over me if you want, so please, Ms McCain, do not think that we are. It is rather insulting to those of us who fight this every day that you who have been a great supporter of our rights would pull this kind of crap. Just because one group (who were not fully unified behind him either) applauded him and let him speak at their dinner does not qualify as rewarding him.

Ms McCain, do not expect that you will get a free pass either.

The LGBT Community is not a unified group, nor should it be. We should not all be expected to walk lock step behind every single person who ‘leads’ us. Even those of us who adore President Obama grow impatient with the delays, and we want action. We want to know that we are not forgotten, or ignored.

This is not the fight of that occupied much of the middle of the last century. This is about civil rights, not political rights, and it will take little to end the de facto (legalized) homophobia and transphobia of the government so that the du jour (informal) homophobia and transphobia can begin to be addressed.

picture of Meghan McCain via Wikipedia

09/28/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
There comes a point where the absurdity of a situation is so blatant that it is easy to see. In the case of the supposed lesbian seduction of Representative Jan Schakowsky, the absurdity of the entire affair is incredibly easy to see. Let us begin with the simplest of facts. If the nation of Turkey had wanted access to secrets that the United States wanted, then the way to do it is not to spend a ton of money hiring, training, and sending out spies to seduce and blackmail members of Congress. Instead, you spend a ton of money hiring lobbyists to spend money to buy influence and get Congress to agree to the sale of those secrets. That way, you are more likely to succeed, and it is probably less complicated and expensive than trying to find a bunch of spies who you can trust to pass along these secrets and not turn around and sell them on the blackmarket.

Of course, if you want the stuff that the United States is not willing to sell, which honestly is probably not much, then what the heck are you doing talking to Congresspeople?! Do you honestly believe that Denis Hastert or Jan Schakowsky has access to that level of stuff? Probably the President does not even have access to some of the unredacted items which are considered unsellable since even the President is not all that trustworthy. Maybe Dick Cheney had access to it, but still…why go through the trouble.

The problem staring Sibel Edmonds in the face and that she is missing is that there is a high probability that she is telling the absolute truth as she knows it. The intercepted communications between the Turkish spies in the United States and their Turkish handlers no doubt detailed a vast blackmail ring which set out to seduce members of Congress in order to get secret information from them.

The problem for Ms Edmonds is that she was a translator and not an analyst. She even admits to having never seen the original files which have been put into storage. The timeline for the whole thing makes less and less sense when one delves into it. First of all, Ms Edmonds was hired in the aftermath of 9/11 and is suppose to be doing counter terrorism related work. Instead, she is placed on this case which has been ongoing for six years. Ok, if this was an important case, why had they not hired a translator before then to go through these intercepted communications? It is not like Turkish is a hard language to find translators for. It is not like Farsi, a language that caused MI6 to try and get an opera singer to join their ranks so that he could translate.

There are other issues here that need to be addressed. For instance, these communications appear to implicate many members of the Republican Congressional leadership at a time when they are looking for anything to take down President Bill Clinton. Why would Clinton not just leak this, or better yet, make the tapes available to the media since it appears that they had enough information to continue this going for some time? After all, being blackmailed by Turkish spies trumps the President getting a few blowjobs in the oval office. Ok, failing that, how much damage could this information have done if released, say, two weeks before the 2000 election? If this had any substance, by that point, they would have used it for political advantage.

The other direction is true as well. Why did President George W. Bush, a man who was more than willing to use anything at his disposal to smear the Democrats, not use this information to hurt Jan Schakowsky. By the time that it came out that others were compromised, it would have been too late.

The problem for Ms Edmonds is that she has not only staked her reputation on this issue, but it is largely why she was fired. She was fired for continuing to pursue this case based upon the information that she found in the translated communications even when she was told to drop it. Ms Edmonds has also staked the reputation of the organization she works with regarding federal whistleblowers, and risks perjury charges if it is discovered that she unknowingly lied under oath. She also risks derailing an entire case. There is a lot more riding on this for her than there is for Rep. Schakowsky. In fact, other than the American Conservative and the blogosphere, this has not even shown up as being on the radar of most of the media probably for the same reason that this entire case troubles me.

What this entire case reminds me of is a book by Graham Greene. In the book Our Man in Havana, Jim Wormwold is recruited by British Intelligence to create a network of spies and informants in order to feed that information to the British. Wormwold does that. In fact, he manufactures the network of spies and informants and begins feeding equally manufactured information to the British. Of course, he is eventually unmasked by the Cubans who decode one of his communications.

This case does remind me of that. The probability is that the Turkish spies manufactured the whole thing. Both Edmonds and Schakowsky are probably telling the absolute truth in this matter.

There are a lot of things in this that do not make sense, and it may be time to investigate, on that I do agree with Ms Edmonds, but I suspect that she is going to be sadly and sorely disappointed with what she finds out. However, attacking a sitting Representative, no matter how great your credentials are, is not going to get that investigation, and doing interviews with the American Conservative is not the way to get access to those files which supposedly prove your case.

09/20/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
The Justice Department issued another defense of the Defense of Marriage Act and asked that the lawsuit out of Massachusetts be thrown out on grounds that the law itself is Constitutional. As always, the anger from the LGBT Community occurred as if on cue. However, is this accurate? Is it possible that there is more to this than the simple brief asking for it to be dismissed might lead to one believing.

The reality is that such actions out of the DoJ are often intended to make legal precedent and make it harder to file lawsuits seeking to create disparities later, and to make such laws truly unconstitutional. This is why the briefing asking for the dismissal both states that the law is constitutional, and states that the Administration believes that the law is unjust and unfair.

This briefing also showcases something else. It shows of something that is terribly wrong within the Obama Administration. In truth, President Barack Obama is very different from Justice Antonin Scalia or Chief Justice John Roberts. President Obama is a true Constructionalist. Unlike Scalia and Roberts who pay lip service to the way in which the Constitution should guide policy and governance, Obama and those around him actually believe in the structures of the Constitution.

This is also seen in the Healthcare Reform debate. President Obama gave a directive to Congress to craft a bill. He told them what he would like to see, but did not state absolutely what had to be in it. This is something that a President like George Washington would have done, and often did. “This is what I would like to see, now please hammer it out,” was something that could often be attributed to most Presidents prior to Franklin Roosevelt. While there were some Presidents before him who were big on directing legislation and were more hands on, most were hands off. They saw that there was a distinct separation between the powers granted in the Constitution between each branch.

This meant that Congress wrote the laws, the President enforced the laws, and the Courts interpreted the laws. In a lot of ways, this became meaningless after the rise of the modern America.

Congress really has not written the laws in recent years as that job has been outsourced largely to either the President or to lobbyists. Certainly Congress debates the laws, but they do not actually write them anymore. They mark them up, rewrite them, but they are not actually written by Congress anymore. What is more, most times the lawmakers do not even read the laws that they are voting on, and are only being given the highlights by their aids.

The President and the Executive branch not only enforce laws, but often write regulations. These regulations are designed by Congress to allow them to actually get laws passed since far too many lobbyists are busy saying how they do not want the laws to actually have any teeth to them. Unfortunately, this means that the Executive now is in the business of writing laws and enforcing them, and what those regulations are changes with each Administration allowing for Bush to overturn overnight regulations which would have protected people from deadly levels of arsenic in their water.

It also means that Presidents would use court cases to shape policy by not defending laws that they saw as wrong in order to not only get them removed, but to tie the hands of future generations of lawmakers.

The way that the court operates has not changed greatly over the last two centuries. The biggest problem is that the process has become highly partisan and often times judges are blocked simply because a President of the opposing party has chosen them. Making the matter worse is that the judges are often chosen specifically to fit into a partisan niche in order to influence the decisions and dictate from the bench what the law should be. There are “activist judges” on both sides.

The problem with President Obama is that he is trying to clean up the system. He is trying to go back to the same structure that the United States had prior to the rise of what could easily be called the Modern America where the President has a lot more power at his disposal than the Constitution necessarily allows for. Unfortunately, this creates a major problem for not only the Democratic Party, but for the President himself, and for his constituents.

What it means is that he is trying to create a precedent via a method of defending a law he disagrees with despite the fact that it is going up before a judiciary which is more than willing to find some technicality to throw the law out upon.

It means that he has ceded to the Congress the writing of laws in the vacuum of direction, and ensured that the process will be messy, complicated, and easily derailed.

It means that the President will have trouble leading in a time when leadership is necessary.

It is admirable that President Obama wants to take us back to a simpler time in our history when each branch had its own sphere of influence. It is admirable that he wants to clean up Washington. Unfortunately, he is no Teddy Roosevelt. President Roosevelt had power and strength. It is said that he once locked two disputing groups in a conference room and informed them that he would not allow them out of there until they came to an agreement. He cleaned up New York City in a time when no one else could. He struck so much fear into the hearts of his own party that they kept trying to sideline him and prevent him from getting power.

Unfortunately, President Barack Obama cannot match the stature of President Theodore Roosevelt. Sorry, Mr. President, but asking politely is not going to bend the DC establishment.

09/16/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
With the news that Caster Semenya may have been put on suicide watch, the question facing the International Association of Athletic Federations is what is the human cost in their pursuit of the goal of trying to determine if Ms Semenya is biologically female, and whether or not they acted in a manner approaching even the boundaries of appropriate.

There are some who seek to blame the South African athletics federation for their handling of this situation. They were asked by the IAAF to investigate Ms Semenya’s gender, and they did a cursory check of the facts. Undaunted and unsatisfied, the IAAF initiated a full out gender screening in order to determine whether or not Ms Semenya was a man, a woman, or somewhere in between. The only reason they had for wanting to do these testing appears to be the fact that Ms Semenya has a gruff and masculine sounding voice and a masculine demeanor. There are a lot of biological women- both lesbian and straight- who have that kind of voice and demeanor. To date, Ms Semenya has not shown an excessive amount of speed on the track, nor has she shown any great advantage over other runners.

Indeed, she has not broken the world record. Her victory in Berlin was a personal best, and broke the record for South Africa.

Screening for excessive testosterone is normal procedure for drug testing these days. Many banned substances in competition cause there to be excesses of testosterone in the blood. The IAAF ‘leaked’ that Ms Semenya had elevated testosterone levels. The fact that Ms Semenya had elevated testosterone levels is not even something that is considered to be surprising enough to raise a red flag. It raises a yellow flag to the officials and she would have had to be retested a short period of time after that.

They should have only instigated the gender testing after that point. Instead, the IAAF rushed into this and made the assumption that there was something wrong with Ms Semenya. Compounding the issue is the fact that they have repeatedly “leaked” information regarding the testing which is supposed to be conducted with absolute secrecy and privacy, and threats that Ms Semenya could be barred from the sport which she loves so much.

The IAAF needs to have a house cleaning, starting with the firing of every single person who has leaked Ms Semenya’s information, and if that means firing every single person in the IAAF who has had direct access to her testing, then so be it. Then the IAAF needs to institute some clear policies as to what causes there to be a trigger for gender testing to be initiated. There has to be some reason other than the discomfort of some athletes who are showing prejudices which border on transphobic. Finally, there has to be some policy put into place to let someone who is born intersexed continue to compete. Transpeople are already allowed to compete in the Olympics so long as they are two years post surgery.

And, yes, to a certain degree, the discomfort and attacks have been largely grounded not in racism but transphobia. Ms Semenya may not be transsexual. Indeed, she may not be intersexed. The assumption that her gruff voice and body language are absolutely indicatory of her being male is transphobic, at least how I see transphobia. People are afraid of any deviation from the gender structure they believe is normal.

The problem is Ms Semenya may indeed be normal. A lot of women have gruff voices and masculine manners, and no one ever says anything other to assume that they are lesbian. Something, however, needs to be done by the IAAF because, honestly, they have pursued this in a manner which may not only have ruined a young woman’s career, but her very life.

09/14/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
There is a fallacy that is heavily stressed in classes on counter-terrorism. That is the fallacy of the universal person. The crux of the theory is that all people everywhere are the same. This is the basis of ethnocentrism and prejudice, and it is relevant to the discussion of same-sex marriage rights.

During the Victorian and post-Victorian eras, the tendency was to sanitize and normalize those parts of history and culture which did not match the ideology that was being espoused by those scholars doing the writing. Thus, the tendency was to assume that marriage rights were the same everywhere in the ancient world, and that any deviation from what was considered “civilized” was be seen as being barbaric. Any deviation from the norms of masculine centered power structures was also deemed barbaric. Indeed, any cultural structure that did not match the Victorian view of what constituted civilized had to be altered in order to fit into that ideology.

There is an Ancient Greek story about Procrustes. It is said that he owned an inn with one bed. Any visitor who wished to stay had to fit on that bed. If they did not fit on the bed, they were made to fit upon it. Thus, if a person was too short, they were stretched out to fit it. If the person was too tall, the bits dangling off were chopped off. That gave rise to the idea of the Procrustean bed. This is what the academes of the past often did to civilizations.

The assumption implied by most of those who argue against marriage equality is the notion that all cultures had marriage rights whereby a couple would go up to a priest and say ‘I do’. This is the fallacy of the universal person, and their entire argument centers around it despite what they may say to Dr. John Corvino. What Dr. Corvino fails to point out in countering someone who tried to counter him is that the notion of a sanctified heterosexual marriage of the type that is supposedly universal is far from universal.

The notion that marriage is between one man and one woman only holds true under certain constraints. The first constraint requires the removal of all cultures which believe exclusively in Islam and have a legal system based upon the Quran to one extent or another. Arab civilizations have always, and Islamic societies since it was founded, have engaged in polygamy. Then the removal of all Native American societies is required in order to make the idea of one man/one woman heterosexual marriages be considered universal. Most Native American cultures had, before the introduction of Christianity, some form of same-sex marriage within their society.

By the time one gets through all the constraints on their examples, the pool of available marriage definitions is actually quite small. It amounts to Greece and Rome among a few hundred societies, and even that is not necessarily accurate. It may be down to Rome. Ancient Israelis before Rome arrived had polygamous marriages. Greek culture was subjected to the Procrustean bed of Victorian academia and is still recovering. After all, Victorian sources on Greece consistently fail to mention the long standing love between Athena and Pallas that stretched long after Pallas died in an accident, or that Athena took her lady love into herself to keep her spirit alive.

What it may be time is to stop dancing around this point. It is time to ask them what their absolute definition of marriage is, and if it is “a sacred union between one man and one woman”, then it is not a true definition of marriage as understood by the vast majority cultures and societies in the history of the world. And it is time to slam that one down and make sure that they understand it.

Their definition of marriage does not belong to the world. It belongs to their religion, and their religion is not mine.

09/08/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
HIV/AIDS is a disease which infects an estimated 33 million people in the world today. It is an automatic death sentence, even though that time can be stretched out. It also has the stigma of being a “gay disease.” This largely came about because HIV/AIDS was first isolated in the gay male community back in the 1980’s. According to some numbers that have cropped up (though they may be inaccurate) a higher percentage of gay men have HIV/AIDS than do straight men; however, a greater number of straight men have the disease than gay men do.

OK…According to the CDC’s 2007 numbers, male to male sexual contact accounts for half the new cases in the country, and a third are due to high risk heterosexual contact. The question that is not asked by the CDC (of course, this is the Bush CDC we’re talking about here) is this due to a greater tendency to be tested among the gay male community, or is it due to higher risk behaviors among gay men? They do not ask that even though they state that they believe that almost a quarter to a third of all HIV/AIDS infected people are unaware of their infection.

I use to live in Glynn County, Georgia where the HIV/AIDS was the highest in the state, or at least that is what everyone said. In truth, they may have been saying that because there is a secondary underlying attitude that HIV/AIDS is also a poor person’s disease, and a minority disease, and anything other than a disease that affects everyone. After all, HIV/AIDS hits those who are drug users, promiscuous, and all other sorts of horrible people who are not “our type”.

Thus there is the uncomfortable issue of the continued stigmatization of HIV/AIDS and its association with the LGBT Community. HIV/AIDS is not a gay disease. It strikes everyone. The earliest confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in the United States is now been pegged back to the 1950’s. There are estimates that it entered the US back in the 1920’s, but no one caught that it had because of the variety of symptoms and the lack of medical knowledge to find it.

Every time a politician wants to attract the LGBT Community to vote for them, the tendency is to include something under the LGBT rights section with regards to HIV/AIDs irregardless of the fact that it is infecting huge numbers of straight people of all races.

It is an uncomfortable question, really. Should we start to voice our displeasure with politicians for lumping HIV/AIDS into our issues? Is it time to put our foot down and declare that it is time to start seeing HIV/AIDS as being a world health issue, or even a national health issue?

09/02/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
“Societies have always regulated who could marry. Brothers and sisters cannot legally marry, for example, nor can anyone marry someone underage or marry multiple people.” This is the central argument of an editorial by Marc R. Mutty in the Sun Journal out of Maine.

Mr. Mutty is trying hard to find a way to say that marriage is not a civil right. It might interest Mr. Mutty that societies do not define who can and cannot marry. Cultures do that. Societies are, basically, based upon borders. That might sound strange, but really, a society is based solely upon the national border. Vermont is a society. The United States is a society. Canada is a society. Within each of those entities is a variety of cultures swirling around bouncing off each other and fighting for dominance. Societies are little more than borders.

Now, a variety of cultures do define marriage. One of the things that a variety of different societies count as marriage might shock people. Muslims are, by Sharia, allowed up to four wives. The culture known as Islam (which overlaps with the religion), believes in polygamy. Celtic and many Native American cultures allowed for multiple partner marriages. The Ancient Egyptians allowed for brothers and sisters in the royal tier of the culture to marry and have children. In fact, it was almost obligatory.
Now, here is the shocker. Marriage between two men or two women occur in a variety of different cultures. The Celts appear to have had marriage between people of the same sex. The Ottawa and other Native American cultures also did. These cultures are just as legitimate in the eyes of many, but not in the eyes of men like Marc Mutty. In truth, in his eyes, any culture except for his own is not legitimate. This is known as ethnocentrism. He believes that his own subculture of the American culture based upon a Biblical belief in the way that the culture should be is legitimate.

Mr. Mutty tries, desperately, to explain how the issue of same-sex marriage is different than misogyny. He brings up children. The usual run of examples always apply about putting an end to marriages between old people and childless couples applies here. What he fails at, though, is his own point. Societies within the American Conglomerate defined marriage as being racially pure. The culture of America said that was wrong. It was not based upon the notion of the couples involved having children, but upon the right of one person to marry the person that they loved whether or not they had children. Modern America does not see marriage as being about children. The majority of cultures in the history of the world did not see marriage as being about children, but rather about economics and property. You did not get married and have children just to have children. It was not about reproduction. It was about having someone to pass that property to when you kicked it.

In the history of the Western World, the culture was not about having children for the sake of having children. Children were had to help out around the farm, make money, have someone to give the property to, and hope that they’re around when you get old. Unless that people like Mr. Mutty want to return specifically to a time when this culture was based in agrarianism, the old ideas of marriage are no longer necessary, and no longer valid in arguing about who should be allowed marriage rights.

Marriage is no longer about children, property, or any of the other issues that men like Mr. Mutty want to believe that they are. Their arguments are no longer valid. That is, if they ever were. For those who are against marriage, such as in Maine, their arguments are based in a belief that only their culture is the right one, and that all others are lesser. It is easy to see in every argument they make where they assume that their cultural beliefs are the beliefs of all cultures in the world.

08/31/09- by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
At just passed midnight tonight, Vermont will begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The party, however, has already begun, and is expected to last the week. But it is not just gay and lesbian Vermonters who are celebrating. According to Rev. Erica Baron of the Unitarian Universalist Church both of the congregations that she oversees will be celebrating the institution of marriage for all people and is welcoming the only the LGBT community to come and say their official vows, but for all people to come and get married or renew their vows. The number of Vermonters expected to be getting married on 1 September is comparatively small; however, having a civil right is important to many Vermonters. In terms of the tourism industry, Vermont is one of the top destinations for those wishing to get married.

Vermont is, of course, not the only state the legal recognition of marriage equality. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa all legalized same-sex marriage via the courts prior to Vermont’s passage of the marriage equality bill through its legislature. New Hampshire and Maine followed suit. Currently Maine is battling an attempt to have a voter veto go before the people of Maine.
However, there might be another issue with regards to a lack of rush to marriage. As with Willie Docto and Greg Trulson owners of the Moose Meadow Lodge in Waterbury, there is a feeling they would be more appropriate to wait until the anniversary of the couple’s civil union rather than rush out on the first day that marriage licenses are available. In the case of Docto and Trulson, that will be 10 November.

Another reason that there is not a rush to get married on the first day that same-sex marriages are legal in Vermont is because 1 September is on a Tuesday. Rev. Barron is planning to celebrate several marriages at her two congregations in Rutland and Bennington this weekend with day long festivities and marriages. There is also no fear that there will be any attempt to yank this right from the people of Vermont in the same way as is being tried in Iowa and Maine.

Vermont is also facing the realization from many outside of Vermont there are issues regarding marriage equality throughout the country. This may make many people in the 43 other states that do not either have legalized same-sex marriage or recognize such unions leery of traveling to Vermont to get married. Between the Defense of Marriage Act and many state and local constitutional amendments and laws, many gays and lesbians could get married in Vermont but their unions would not be recognized in their home state. Irregardless, tomorrow will be a wonderful day for many Vermonters, and Lez Get Real will be covering some of the events firsthand.

When Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa stated that the rancor in the healthcare debate had largely to do with people’s distrust of the government he is, largely, correct. However, it is incorrect as to the origin of this distrust since the last 30 years worth Conservative propaganda concerning the inability of the American government to adequately cover its own people had left a certain segment of the population devoid of any understanding of how either the government runs or how dangerous unfettered unregulated Capitalism can be. The reality is that unfettered unregulated business will look after only themselves and their profit margins. The debate about healthcare comes down largely to the reality that healthcare insurance providers are not in true competition with each other or with any government run program which would force them into competition with someone else. Nor have they been regulated, allowing them to pretty much engage in any kind of business practice without any kind of accountability. It is impossible for a business to shop around for health insurance and actually get any kind of competitive deal.

It’s time for President Obama to finally and aggressively target the Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans who stand in the way of the majority of Americans on especially to issues that the public option for healthcare reform and the policy known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The overwhelming majority of Americans support a public option for health care insurance which is run by the government and an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Support for both the public option and the Military Readiness Enhancement Act or MREA cuts across many of the political divides in this country. It is time that President Obama, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Reid stop kowtowing to the minority within the political establishment who are more willing to protect the profit margins of the insurance industry and religious views of a handful of evangelical chaplains within the military. It is time for the leadership of the Democratic Party to metaphorically grow a pair. Inform the Blue Dog Democrats that if they do not get aboard on getting the public option and the MREA then they will spend the rest of their careers which will likely be short on the Post Office subcommittee in charge of listening to complaints. If the preliminary polling more than six months out from the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary is any indication many of the more moderate Democrats are in trouble from within their own party. It appears that Senator Arlen Spector is beginning to lose ground against Representative Joe Sestak.

Too many Americans are focused in upon a handful of entertainers masquerading as journalists without any standards or any ethics concerning what they say, or to failed politicians who are more invested in preventing President Barack Obama from advancing the agenda that he was elected by the American people to advance they are in the good of the nation, or the will of the People. The rancorous and disruptive nature of many of these town hall meetings is drowning out the voices of the average American who supports a public healthcare option, or an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It is also time for the American people who voted for President Obama to remind him that he was not elected to play nice and allow the minority within the Congress to dictate policy. He was the lead to lead this nation not to allow special interests to have full reign on the political process. It is time for us Americans to write to our Congresspeople, and to the White House to make it clear to them that this is what the fold my majority of Americans believe is right, and that while it is all right to take into account the concerns of the minority opinion within the political spectrum allowing the minority party to run roughshod over the majority of American, including many of the minority party supporters, is unacceptable.

For those who are going to now complain about the tone of this editorial and attempt to twist these words even attempt to state that it is equally wrong for the LGBT Community to demand equality is running roughshod over the majority, it should be noted that minority population are different from minority political opinion, and that the political machine is set up for the good of all no matter their race, creed, religion, sex, gender, or cultural heritage. Attempts to deny minority populations the same civil rights as all others goes against the political history of the United States, and the theory it was built upon many centuries ago at a time when the dominant culture was British and the dominant religion was Anglicanism.

Pictures from Saturday’s Town Hall Meeting In Rutland, Vermont provided by Lee L.

8/15/09-by Paula Brooks
Bill Clinton has been in the closet for sometime now… and has been keeping a pretty low profile since his wife, Hilary Rodham Clinton’s defeat last year in the Presidential Democratic Primaries and her subsequent appointment as President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State.

But now he is out and he is back… Bigger, Badder and Bolder then he ever was…

Clinton is a regular James Bond figure these days, jetting from crisis to crisis for President and country; rescuing damsels in distress from North Korean prisons, meeting with drug company executives, securing a deal to provide lower-cost AIDS and tuberculosis drugs to patients in developing countries and appearing in Las Vegas with two Obama administration top dogs, making a case for a clean energy policy at the same time he was trying to save Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s ass in 2010.

He is Clinton…. Bill Clinton. And nobody can do what Bill Clinton can do.

Thursday night, Clinton was in Pittsburgh delivering the opening keynote address at Netroots Nation 2009, and defending President Obama and the Democratic health care initiatives against “crazy’’ accusations by right wing subversives… when former Human Rights Campaign staffer and ‘News For the Left’ ninja blogger Lane Hudson “ambushed him,” asking ol’ 0042 if he would “call for a repeal of DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell right now? Please.”

James Bond theme –

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8/13/09 11:47 AM- by Paula Brooks

The Rev. Ted Pike of the National Prayer Network has a plan…. a plan that has the hearty endorsement of Former Ku Klu Klan Grand Wizard David Duke…

And that plan is to expand the conservative temper tantrums currently going on at town hall meetings across the country from Obama’s healthcare plan to that of “a greater conspiracy”; Presidents Obama’s and congressional support of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Bill.

The Shepard Hate Crime Bill still has three legislative steps to go through before it becomes law:

1. Approval by Democrat and Republican conferees in conference between the House and Senate this September.
2. Final approval by a majority vote of both House and Senate.
3. Signing by the President.

Rev Pike is noting that the fight to kill the bill is not over by a long shot and that it can be killed if enough pressure on Democrats and Obama is applied… especially considering the upheaval of town hall mob rushes against Democrats going on right now.

Rev Pike is telling his flock to show up at town hall meeting currently being held by members of congress who voted for the bill and disrupt those meeting by using such tactics as screaming “No hate bill!” so nothing else is heard during the meetings and waving “Stop hate bill!” signs and banners, to get attention.

He is in addition suggesting that the faithful ask questions such as these…

• “Attorney Gen. Holder testified in the Senate Judiciary Committee that there is no equal justice under the hate bill. He said the hate bill will not protect whites, ministers, males, police and soldiers. It will only protect such minorities as homosexuals, Jews, Muslims, blacks and Latinos. Why did you vote for a bill that discriminates against most Americans?”
• “In dozens of countries of the western world, hate laws just like the federal hate bill you voted for have led to an end of free speech. In Canada, England, France and Australia, it is a federal crime to criticize homosexuals or Muslims. With this record of abuse, why did you vote for it?”
• “Sen. Harry Reid said the hate bill would give special protection to Muslims over most Americans. Why did you vote for such discriminatory legislation?”
• “Congressmen Steve King and Louie Gohmert said the hate bill violates the 14th Amendment, giving special rights and protections to homosexuals and even homosexual pedophiles. Why did you vote for this pro-pedophile bill?”
• “In Senate Judiciary testimony, Attorney Gen. Holder could present no examples of a state not adequately enforcing laws against hate crimes. Yet the hate crimes bill gives the federal government the powers of a police state to take over local hate crime enforcement any time it wants. Why did you vote to give police state powers to the government?”

Photo Denton TX Health Care Town Hall Meeting on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

And Rev Pike was so kind… that he give a link to those congress members.

He is also asking people to barrage the White House with this message… “Mr. President, we will never forgive or forget if you sign the freedom-destroying, pedophile-protecting hate bill.”

But because of the healthcare debate input currently being directed to White House comment line, it is now difficult to call 1-202-456-1111 and leave that message. Ever the proactive thinker however… Rev Pike is telling his folks they should instead repeatedly fax that message all summer to the White House at 1-202-456-2461.

In the previous Congress, House and Senate likewise approved the hate crimes bill, yet it failed to become law because, as we in the LGBT community well know, Democrats tend to lack a spine many times when it comes to LGBT issues.

Maybe we of the LGBT community should steal his thunder by borrowing Rev Pikes plan… and fax a few messages of support for the bill and show up a some of these town hall meeting ourselves… just to stiffen those Democratic spines.

I am just saying here…

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The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force will holding a fund-raiser in Miami this October. These are the same people who did not believe that California’s Proposition 8 would pass, and thus put up a rather meager defense against it. Right now, they are among those advocating that the LGBTI community wait until 2012 to fight Prop 8, and are vocally opposed to the lawsuit brought in California by Ted Olson and David Boies claiming that this is not the time to chase after the courts. Never mind the fact that the United States Supreme Court is actually tipped more towards rights for gays, lesbians, and transpeople than it is against. That is, of course, assuming a similar voting pattern that was in place for Lawrence v. Texas.

Rather than giving our money to an organization which seem to have a feeling of ‘wait and see’, or more aptly ‘wait and pray’, that money should be going to groups such as Marriage Equality USA which are busy working to ensure our rights. According to Marriage Equality USA, they would need a thousand new marriage equality supporters a day before 2010 in order to get a Prop 8 repeal on the ballot, and they are working for it right now. The NGLTF is busy raising money for a fight which they do not seem to be willing to engage in. Indeed, the NGLTF, which according to Queerty was badly reviewed by most in the LGBTI community, feels that “too much work remains to be done in changing the minds of voters.”

Many gays, lesbians and transpeople in California are ready for the fight to happen next year. They do not want to wait until 2012 in order to fight to overturn Prop 8. The combined California war chest for three organizations including MEUSA comes to around $50 Million. According to one source, though it may be erroneous, groups such as the National Organization for Marriage have less than $5 million. It is estimated that another battle over same-sex marriage in California could cost in excess of $80 million. Of course, if your have money to donate and would rather give it to a California based organization for Prop 8’s upcoming round two, then Equality California would be a good choice. Certainly LGBTI groups can fight and fight effectively. The Fairness Campaign in Kentucky is a good example of this. In a recent battle over adoption rights in that state, the Campaign was able to stop the bill cold. They are fighting for our rights, and fighting hard. In some ways, there are so many good campaigns fighting for our rights that there is not enough money to go around.

It is easy to want to believe that the best time to not fight a fight is after a defeat. However, this is political war not military war. Unlike a military battle, a political one can be fought again and again. All that is needed is money and the will to fight. There is an old saying “fortune favors the bold”. Well, the person sitting in the back saying how we need to wait is not going to see us get our rights any faster. In fact, we might as well wait for the next Ice Age (and no, I do not mean Ice Age IV The Glaciers Melt or what ever they decide upon). Equal rights is important to us all. A married straight couple has more economic stability than an unmarried gay or lesbian couple simply because of the rights conveyed by that little slip of paper. While many straight people are worried about their jobs, and the economy, we have to be worried about our jobs, the economy, and what horrible things will happen if one of us in a couple cannot work, gets ill, or worse, dies. For many heterosexual couples, the worry over the economy means that they are less worried about the “terrible moral threat” of marriage equality. For many gays, lesbians and transpeople, the economic crisis only underscores the horribly tenuous situation we face, and how much those rights mean to our economic survival.

Overturning Prop 8 is possible, but only if we fight for it now. If we wait, the time will have passed. Please donate to those who can and will fight for the repeal of Prop 8 right now.

Sites:
http://www.marriageequality.org/
http://www.eqca.org/site/pp.asp?c=kuLRJ9MRKrH&b=4026385
http://www.couragecampaign.org/

Supporting articles.
http://gaysocialites.com/2009/07/national_gay_lesbian_task_forc.html
http://www.queerty.com/shock-your-favorite-gay-non-profits-do-not-include-hrc-glaad-or-ngltf-20090716/

picture- Eugene Delacroix La Liberte Guidant La Peuple

From the sounds of even the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor will be receiving a promotion to the highest court in the land. Even Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions appears to have been impressed by her testimony on the first day of the hearings. But what does a Justice Sotomayor mean for the LGBTI Community?

In truth, the impact of this woman being on the Supreme Court is hard to measure. Some justices change when the don that robe. What is more, Judge Sotomayor has little in the way of litigation on LGBTI rights. The leaves any speculation a bit difficult. Given her political and judicial leanings, the probability is that she will side with the LGBT Community on most issues in a manner not unlike retiring Justice David Souter. Currently, there are several high profile cases which are potentially making their way to the Supreme Court concerning LGBTI rights. These include a case involving Prop 8, the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Unfortunately, the last major case involving LGBT rights to reach the Supreme Court was Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. The Lawrence case overturned sodomy laws in the US. Since that time, two justices have retired and one has died.

Of those who heard the Lawrence case and are still on the court, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, and Anthony Kennedy all voted in favor of Lawrence. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas both voted against. This leaves three votes that were not present- Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and soon to be Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

To begin with, the Supreme Court rarely hears cases. Most often, the Supreme Court takes cases that only revolve around three potential fields. The Supreme Court is likely to hear cases if they resolve around uncertainty in federal law; to resolve an egregious error in the application of the law; or to resolve conflicts within the courts’ interpretation of the law. Typically, the Court hears around one hundred cases within a calendar year. This is out of a case volume that can reach 10,000 per year. For some issues, such as Proposition 8, the likelihood is that the Supreme Court may choose not to intervene dependant upon the manner that it is presented before the Court.

Judge Sotomayor may rule in the direction of LGBTI rights in part recalling the motto etched in Vermont marble on the Supreme Court building’s western facade- Equal Justice Under The Law. As a Latina, she has seen first hand the effects of prejudice upon people. However, Judge Sotomayor has always tended to rule close to the law as it is. While she may be empathetic, she has tended to uphold the law as it is.

On LGBTI issues, a Justice Sonia Sotomayor will likely tack more in the manner that her predecessor David Souter did. This could, of course, lead to a zero sum game with the Court on many key issues. If the court were to rule on many hot button LGBTI issues in a manner similar to how they did in Lawrence v. Texas, then the possibility exists that the Court will go five to four on many issues. Certainly it is possible that Justice Alito, a strict interpreter of the Constitution, will side with the LGBTI Community on many issues.

In truth, all Supreme Court decisions are hard to predict. If the oral arguments go badly, or the Justices find holes in the arguments, or the opposition simply presents a better case, then it is always possible that a case could be lost. In truth, there is never a ‘right time’ to take a case before the Courts, and no ‘sure things’ either.

Last night Meghan McCain was on The Colbert Report and discussed being Pro-Sex, Pro-Life, and Pro-Gay Marriage. I have said it before and I’ll say it again – Meghan is my favorite Republican.

The most interesting part of the interview is when Meghan talks about gays and which party is best for them. McCain says,

“I do believe the Republican party can be a safe place for the gay community. President Obama said he was going to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and I think me and a lot of people are still waiting for that. And the Democratic party isn’t necessarily a better place for the gay community than the Republican party is. And I think if you go to the basic beliefs of the Republican party, keeping government out of your life, why can’t that include marriage?

There has been a call to boycott the June 25th Democratic National Committee LGBT Leadership Council fund raising dinner at Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC. Maybe it’s time we stop blindly funding the Democrats and actually expect results. We must hold them accountable. I agree with Meghan McCain – the Democratic party is really safer right now than the Republican party. I agree we are accepted by more Democrats than Republicans. And more Dems are willing to take our money and “support” our issues. But I’m changing the definition of support. I don’t want it to be “yes I wish you could have equal rights.” I want it to be “I did this, this, and this to get you your equal rights.” Then I will give my money to the Democratic party again.

President Obama and the other leaders in the party, this is not 1993. We have seen California voters take rights away from us. We will not sit idly by and wait for things to happen to us. We will demand and make change and you will help us – or you will lose us. I believe this because I think there are more Meghan McCain’s out there. One thing we have seen is the Republicans want to keep their money flowing. Just look at all the abstinence only programs and the countless other things the religious right were able to get in the last 8 years. The Republicans aren’t going to lose that money as long as they stay Pro-Life.

Wouldn’t it be something if the Meghan McCain Republicans got more done for the gay community that the Democrats have.

Lezzymom has two kids and a wonderful partner. Her political commentary has appeared on C-Span and CSPAN.org. Visit her Lezzymom blog for more of her insights.

I’m not really a political person, but all the activity around my basic rights lately has nudged me to be more concerned about what’s going on in the White House, especially after the last President’s term (yes I’m talking about Bush).

Imagine my surprise when all the while my hope was floating along with the rest of the LGBT community, President Barack Obama dropped the ball on us and his promises to make change for us all.

He had me built up to believe that he was going to come in and take swift action against injustice and it looked like that was the case at first. He did sign the U.N. resolution to decriminalize homosexuality; but he backtracked on repealing the ban on gays in the military in his own country, and has yet to make mention of when he will repeal the federal ban on same-sex marriage. He only made a brief statement in regards to The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, and his administration has also since downsized the list of commitments to the LGBT community on the White House’s official website to just these two sentences.

President Obama also continues to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. He supports full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples and opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

**Blogger Matt Algren has screen shots: The White House website BEFORE and AFTER. Click to zoom in.

You want to know what MY official quote on this situation is???

“What a let down.” – Julie Phineas on President Obama’s Pulling Back on His Support of Equal Rights for the LGBT Community

UPDATE: The White House has officially updated their site to include more support of the LGBT community… two whole sentences.

He supports full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples and opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. He supports repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security, and also believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation.

I have faith there is a higher purpose to all of this and am anxiously awaiting a surprise move by the Obama Administration which would grant full equality to all Americans. You can bet you’ll find that posted here if that is ever the case. I still have a glimmer of hope – he can still make a save…

I just read on the Box Turtle Bulletin that Miss California Carrie Prejean has agreed to appear in an ad against gay marriage produced by the same people behind the “Gathering Storm” commercial.

I am not sure if Carrie Prejean has ever seen this particular commercial, and is aware of the ‘gathering storm’ of ridicule awaiting this project. I was willing to wait things out to see if she would change her stance on “opposite marriage” and gain a bit more tact at expressing her beliefs in a crowded planet room. This recent choice of hers to join forces with the NOM however has brought to the surface how birds of a feather flock together. Her answer was tactless, their commercial was tactless – it’s a no brainer – they belong together.

We’ll see what kind of backdrop they use for this one… and I wonder if she’ll be wearing a sash and tiara? Do we get to see some struggling actors or is this one going to be star-studded? With a $1.5 million budget, the NOM was smart to put this pretty girl on the payroll, but did they save enough for scenery? I guess only time will tell.

The National Organziation for Marriage has scheduled a press conference with Prejean in Washington on Thursday to unveil the new ad, called “No Offense.”

You can bet I’ll be posting that video when it comes out! Stay tuned folks, and be sure to get your Giant Gay Repellent Umbrella before then. ;o)

As we approach the 100-day mark of his presidency, Barack Obama has high levels of popularity and we are all still hopeful he will lead us all toward a more peaceful, prosperous and equal future.

He has signed the most costly single piece of legislation in American history with the nearly $800 billion fiscal stimulus that rewrites the role of government in energy, education, health care, infrastructure and science. He has also started to figure out how to get troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan and has sought to build a new American image in the world, with major summits in Europe and Latin America. Obama has too, ended the limits on stem cell research, ordered the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and released secret legal memos on terror interrogations.

However, we have yet to see how any of that is going to work out yet.

Now I am not going to say Mr. Obama has not been a very busy man… but I would like to point out that when he was running for office he also did some serious courting of the LGBT community for both votes and money, especially during the primaries when he was trying to overcome the Clintons, and he made quite a few promise to get them.

Last week Lez Get Real ran a poll asking: Do you think President Obama will keep his promises to the LGBT community in the U.S.?

32.0%, said No, Obama only made promises to get our vote, with another 11.0% saying that once he got into office his agenda for us changed.

40.0% said they think it’s just a matter of time before he does keep his promises.

The reminder either didn’t know or didn’t care.

By my math, that is 43 percent of our community who seems thinks Mr. Obama has had his way with us queer folk and has kicked us out of bed without giving us any cab fare. I’d say that is a rather significant portion.

So lets look at what Barack promised and the progress he has made on those promises so far.

During the election Mr. Obama said he would push for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors…

I was there during the House hearings last week on Capitol Hill…. And there was no one from the White House even present, let alone doing any pushing…

Mr. Obama made it a big point to tell us LGBT’s that he would expand the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity…Obama said during the election he would “place the weight of (his) administration behind…a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

However, there has not been much weight been placed on this issue yet… perhaps the President is on a diet?

During the election Obama said he would call for repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military….

In January, right after Obama picked mega homophobe Rick Warren to stand with him on the Inaugural podium, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs gave a one-word answer, ‘yes,’ when asked if this president is going to end the policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ for gays in the military and we all danced in the street with joy.

But last month U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in an interview on Fox News Sunday where that promised stood and why is there currently money in the 2010 budget to keep enforcing that policy by Chris Wallace, Gates said, “Well, it continues to be the law,” Gates said. “And any change in the policy would require a change in the law. We will follow the law, whatever it is.”

Gates went on to say…”That dialogue, though, has really not progressed very far at this point in the administration. I think the president and I feel like we’ve got a lot on our plates right now, and let’s push that one down the road a little bit.”

We understand that Mr. Obama can’t on his own undo “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Congress has to repeal the policy. But Gates saying he, and more importantly, President Obama were pushing this promise “down the road,” indicates to many that the administration not really working on it that hard, if they are working on it at all.

Mr. Obama said on the campaign trial that he would urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws and said he would As president, “will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws.”

Yet during a trip to Iowa last week… he made no mention at all about that states Supreme Court striking down the Iowa Defense of Marriage law and allowing same-sex couples to finally have full family equality in Iowa.

But in his defense, President Obama has been out of the country a lot lately, smusing with our European allies and posing for pictures with Hugo Chavez… so it is just possible he missed that news from Iowa.

Finally, Mr. Obama told us he would support repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. Obama said, “I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples.”

But for right now however… Mary Ritchie, a Massachusetts State Police trooper, who has been legally married in that state for almost five years… is having to sue President Obama to get access to federal benefits that other married couples automatically receive when they get married in Massachusetts, such as tax benefits, pensions and health insurance.

Ritchie’s says, she and her spouse have paid nearly $15,000 more in taxes than they would have if they had been able to file joint returns…. And she would like it back… as would the other dozen plaintiffs joining her in this suit.

Most of the pundits and historians agree that when it comes to evaluating a president’s first 100 days… The time is far too short to seriously measure anything substantive about a president, and is not a really good gauge of future success.

But something President Obama might want to take a look at is that George W. Bush had a 58 percent approval rating after his first 100 days in office, but those numbers went to levels lower then snake shit by the time he got on the helicopter and got the fuck out of Washington…. just before the country tarred, feathered and ran him out on a rail.

Last month, President Obama was reported as saying during a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother ” to Rep. Peter DeFazio after DeFazio voted against the administration’s stimulus bill.

I liked that line and think it should become the new LGBT rallying cry.

I hope Mr Obama can find some time for the LGBT community in his second 100 days… Because President Obama needs to understand that not all LGBTs are liberals and there are some in the LGBT community that know from the beginning where exactly we will stand with Sarah Palin in 2012, and say at least she will be honest about it.

Obama promised to use his Bully Pulpit for us… He needs to start using that Bully Pulpit while he still has that Bully Pulpit and start showing some leadership on LGBT issues.

The President is heading onto some big fights over health care and immigration that are sure to starting bringing his popularity numbers back to earth… and it will be George Bush’s Economy for only so long.

Obama will need the support of our community yet again…

The question is will it still be there when he needs it?

Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother…. Yes we are…

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Here is a story that says our friends (?)from north of the border either have too much time or too many drugs on their hands… and left me staring at my computer screen asking just who pays for studies like these anyway and is this study all just part of a Canadian plot against American children and to undermine the American Family?

An article from CBC news is saying.… A study, published in the online issue of the Canadian Journal of Pediatrics, found that children born to women who had been nauseous and vomiting during pregnancy performed better on a number of tests used to assess IQ and mental acuity…. And is suggesting that children born to women who suffered from nausea in pregnancy may be smarter.

The study also found that children born to women who took the drug diclectin for pregnancy-related nausea did not have lower scores than children whose mothers didn’t use the drug to control morning sickness…

Diclectin is the same thing as Bendectin, which was produced in the United States until 1983 and then voluntarily removed by its manufacture Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals from the market following a slew of lawsuits alleging birth defects…

But in studying the drug, Dr. Gideon Koren, director of the Motherisk Program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and his colleagues also looked at the children of women who refused treatment for their morning sickness and found that they scored higher on tests than children whose mothers didn’t suffer from nausea during pregnancy.

“A lot of women are still afraid to treat their morning sickness because of the fear of medications, often with very severe costs on their health,” said senior author.

“They can be dehydrated, they cannot work. Poor quality of life. So in a way this study further supports them and empowers them to treat themselves.”

Koren was quick to add that while the difference was statistically significant in scientific terms, it doesn’t mean that the children whose mothers weren’t nauseated were developmentally slow. Rather, it was just that the other children scored a bit higher.

The concerns about Bendectin, came to light after the thalidomide scandal, led to the drug being extensively studied, said Dr. Tina Chambers, a teratologist at the University of California, San Diego’s School of Medicine. Teratology is the study of abnormal fetal development, congenital malformations and what causes them, btw.

Chambers said the evidence overwhelmingly supports the notion that the drug is safe for use in pregnancy and this study adds further weight to the argument.

A Canadian Drug manufacture plans seek approval to market Diclectin in the United States later this year.

Recently U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has taken a lot of crap from Republicans and conservative groups for comparing the U.S.-Canada border to the U.S.-Mexico border and questioning Canadian immigration policies.

But when I was pregnant… I spent a lot of time with my head in the toilet throwing up and do have some pretty smart babies… but I took no Canadian drugs… so stuff like this may also yet prove Janet Napolitano right about those Canadians not having our best interest in mind…

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