Pam Spaulding's Blog, page 30

The Obama 2012 gAyTM sales pitch: 'Just imagine what we'll accomplish with 6 more years'

If you have some cash handy and are feeling full of righteous equality, you're invited to attend the High Tea Party Express train to the Obama Gala in New York on June 23, 2011.

Contribution Options:

$1,250 - Guest

$2,500 - Host

$10,000 - Vice Chair (Includes VIP Reception)

$35,800 Chair (Includes VIP reception and Photo with the President)

Well after the whole Righthaven mess, I'm not exactly flush with cash to fork over anything to Team Obama right now. However, perhaps you'll feel full of equality as you peruse this color-coded accomplishments table:

 

 

The full e-blast, in all its glory, is below the fold. 

Having trouble viewing this email? Click here

 

Elizabeth Birch
June 8, 2011

Email: elizabethbirch@me.com

Dear ++++,

This a note to just a few friends -- and a very few of I do not know yet -- encouraging you to please come with me on the High Tea Party Express train to the Obama Gala in New York on June 23, 2011. Many of us supported then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008.

Here is my perspective. I used to get so fed up with people who said -- "We have made progress. Just look -- they let us visit the White House!" or "Holy smokes, can you believe we get to be in this room?" That kind of measure of progress is ancient. It is important but it is a given, not a gift. A million smiles and handshakes do not = progress.

Here is what progress looks like: Tangible laws that have passed the most powerful legislative body in the country -- the United States Congress -- and are signed in ink into law by the President of our nation.

We have never seen this in the history of our nation until President Obama.

I see the President this way: you can't speed him up but you will not slow him down. He has a list of goals for the rights, privileges and other necessary attributes of citizenship and protection he wants to accomplish for LGBT Americans. He is methodically moving through the list and expending all necessary political capital and muscle to get things done. In just two years he has done more than all Presidents combined in our history AND he has done something no other President has done: passed laws. Not talk, not platitudes, not nice intentions: laws.

(click on the image or here to download the PDF file)

President Obama asked us to do one thing: Judge him at the end of this journey, not at the beginning. At the 2-year mark I have already seen two major breakthrough which make progress inevitable. Should we count the number of appointees, the events, the manner in which the White House has reached out in a meaningful and unprecedented way to gay people and our families. Of course! All that is important. Should we be moved and thrilled at the attention to LGBT workers and issues in the various agencies of the Obama Administration. Of course!

But, for me, and for my children, and as a lawyer, I measure success in terms of laws and statutes. And only this President has delivered that progress. So, join me on a train, and lets go support this upright, strong, steady leader named Barack Obama.

 

Please RSVP
for the LGBT NYC Gala!
If you haven't yet sent in your RSVP for the gala, please do so today! I am putting together tables of my closest friends and would love for you to join me at this important (and fun) event - the various contribution levels are below and include a VIP reception, etc. This is going to be a fabulous event, bringing together LGBT leaders and straight friends and allies from across the country.

 

The list of confirmed participants so far includes: President Barack Obama, White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, actor Neil Patrick Harris (hosting), singer Audra McDonald & former Congressman Patrick Murphy (many more VIPs and celebrities are being confirmed). I hope you can join us at this historic and star-studded event for the President, who has been done more for our community in the past two years than all other presidents combined.

Contribution Options:
$1,250 - Guest
$2,500 - Host
$10,000 - Vice Chair (Includes VIP Reception)
$35,800 Chair (Includes VIP reception and Photo with the President)

You can RSVP here or download the print invitation.

Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Birch

CT Sportscaster Comes Out Of The Closet Slams Former Political Employer

Well this is something which doesn’t happen very often .. thank goodness. My hometown (and current) Danbury, CT is slowly making the LGBT spotlight as being less than LGBT friendly, at least as perceived by a former employee of Danbury City Hall.

This all started and came to light this past Sunday when the Hartford Courant and subsequently also its sister medium FOX-CT (channel 61) ran a story about Jason Page a radio sportscaster here in Connecticut whose show The Back Page Live was carried on ESPN Radio station WPOP-AM in Hartford until January. In the front page feature he kicked open the closet door and announced I’m Queer And Here. Must be something in the water at ESPN affiliate radio stations as Page follows ESPN Radio in NYC Jared Max who came out last month.

Now if that’s all there was to the story we’d stop here boys and girls … but there’s more !

You see kids aside from giving his coming out story, which you should read by the way in the link above (ran a story) Page whose real name is Jason Gontarek, worked for about six months back in 2002 as the communications director for the City of Danbury and it’s during this short term of employment that Page claims Mayor Mark Boughton and Boughton’s former chief of staff Michael McLachlan, who is now a CT state Senator, found out shortly after Page started working that Page was … oh clutch my shiny pearls … a homosexual ! and according to Page was told by them that he should have told them he was gay before they hired him, this according to  the local print sheet here in Danbury, The News-Times.

Well bust my bloomers … Mayor Mark Boughton one of my Facebook pals who I see in town off and on, wished me well after my car accident and hip operations and who has no problem with me being part of the LGBT community telling someone that they should have told him, et al that he wuz de gay ?  I’m not going to say that Page isn’t telling the truth I just .. well you could knock me over with a feather that Mayor Boughton would say something like that. McLachlan I don’t know because I don’t know the man. I am at the very least, and mind you if true that Mayor Mark would pull an anti-gay stunt like that, disappointed to hear it.

In quotes in The News-Times article Page says that while he never had any direct problems from then and current Mayor Boughton the same could not be said of McLachlan, “He was very cold to me,” Page said. “The second McLachlan found out I was gay, he didn’t want me there anymore.”

“I don’t remember the conversation he’s talking about,” Boughton said. “It was nine years ago.” Boughton is quoted in the article.

“There are people who are gay that work in various parts of the administration, and it doesn’t and shouldn’t impact their ability to do the job,” Boughton said. “It’s performance and results that count.” Now that’s the Mayor Mark that I know.

After this is posted I’ll scoot off a copy to Mayor Mark and not that he has to add anything in regards to the accusations of Page, if he does I’ll add them to this posting.

So yes it’s nice to see someone come out of the closet but why wait until now, nine years after the fact to complain about City Hall when you could have legally done something way back when. I’m just asking boys and girls, just asking.

Cross-posted with video story from FOX-CT at Focus On The Rainbow

Part 1 Of 'The Sissy Boy Experiment': The Consequences Of Ex-Gay Therapy

If you missed the first part of three-part CNN special, here it is via ThinkProgress LGBT:

And don't forget to surf over to Box Turtle Bulletin for Jim Burroway's in-depth, multi-part series on George Rekers.

Who knew I was 'A Bitter Racist White Gay Man Trapped In Black Lesbian's Body'?

I'm not responding to this bizarre, fact-challenged, race-baiting, misogynistic shiz; but feel free to fertilize his virtual lawn to keep him busy. An aside - the fact that he's affiliated with the Courage Campaign Equality Hub and spouting garbage like this is pretty problematic IMHO, but he has the right to do it.

Michigan governor seeks to destroy local governments

From this morning's Wall Street Journal:

Michigan has 1,773 municipalities, 609 school districts, 1,071 fire departments and 608 police departments. Gov. Rick Snyder wants some of them to disappear.

The governor is taking steps to bring about the consolidation of municipal services, even whole municipalities, in order to cut budgets and eliminate redundant local bureaucracies. His blueprint, which relies on legal changes and financial incentives, calls for a "metropolitan model" of government that would combine resources across cities and their suburbs.

In doing so, Mr. Snyder, a Republican, is taking aim at that twig of American government so cherished by many citizens-the town hall. The long national tradition of hyperlocal government prevails in much of the Northeast and Midwest, with their crazy quilts of cities, towns, villages and townships.

"You do have to ask: 'Boy, do we really need 1,800 units of government?'" says Mr. Snyder's budget director, John Nixon. "Everybody likes their independence, and that's nice to have. But if you're not careful, it can cost you a lot more money."

So as a cost saving measure, Governor Snyder wants to eliminate local independence and consolidate small governments into larger, less responsive and less local Big Governments. How is this going to save the state money? And why is a state governor butting in to local politics like this anyway?

It is no wonder that the people of Michigan are trying to undo their mistake and recall the governor.

OutGiving.org launches web site featuring video of speakers from 2011 Conference

In March I was invited to appear on a panel at The Gill Foundation's Outgiving conference . There was quite a to-do by some on the Internets, who claimed that the meeting was populated by a secret cabal of rich folks steering the LGBT rights movement, planning its destiny regarding legislative priorities and planning advocacy positions.

I cannot speak about the past meetings, but the 2011 conference, the first that I have attended, was quite benign compared to the speculation.

The purpose was to inform donors about the state of the movement to date, and to discuss effective giving strategies. The meeting was off the record.

After all, if you were wealthy and donating to the movement, you'd want to know if those dollars were spent effectively; you'd also want to learn about new grassroots initiatives and technology and how these make an impact as well.

In its wisdom -- and to dispel the rumors and give you a look at what occurred during the conference. The Gill Foundation has launched the OutGiving web site , featuring videos of the speakers, who cover a wide range of topics. Tim Sweeney, President & CEO for the Gill Foundation in an emailed press release:

Tim Gill created OutGiving in 1996 to build a network of peers who would share ideas and encourage each other to give more generously and strategically for the LGBT movement. This new site will feature videos of the incredible donors, movement leaders, and allies who've been part of OutGiving. We hope these videos will motivate others to support the movement and participate in OutGiving.

We're featuring some of the best speakers from OutGiving 2011, and we'll add more videos in the coming months. We invite you to share these videos with others in your network of friends and colleagues. Please also give us your feedback as we continue to expand the site.

A donor at OutGiving 2011 reminded us all of something Tim Gill said at one of the first conferences: "Many can lead, but few can be the fuel. If not us, then who?" Our movement benefits from tremendous leadership within our ranks and among our allies, and we have incredible opportunities in front of us to advance equality. Thank you for helping provide the fuel.

So if you want to see what your blogmistress blabbed about, here's the video from the conference. You'll have to tell me how I did; I hate watching myself on video. When Bobby Clark of Gill asked for me to approve the cut, in my head I was thinking "please don't make me watch this." I looked at about 30 seconds I just told him that I'm sure it's fine.

Pam Spaulding: Life of a Blogger. Pam has been blogging about LGBT issues for more than seven years. Here she shares an example of a single blogger influencing the outcome of a political race and how blogswarming ended an anti-trans campaign - both using nothing more than social media and blog posts.

A synopsis from my earlier post.

I was invited to discuss -- as only one person on a panel of several people -- the impact of social networking has on activism and there were concrete examples to share. More importantly, I additionally took on the matter of how fragile the mostly self-funded and under-resourced LGBT blogosphere is. I felt it was my duty to try to represent the problem and promise of citizen journalism. And that includes posing the question of whether those donating to the movement 1) see the blogosphere as something to bolster by thinking creatively about a sustainable economic model; or 2) do nothing (the current model), and leave the landscape as is, with the natural course of things -- letting some bloggers fall off the radar (after all, a job loss or too little available time "kills off" a lot of talented bloggers), and others picking up where there is a void. Advertising, if you don't accept "skin" ads, is not a sustainable model except for the largest, earliest established political blogs.

Both of those subjects have been tackled not only by me, but other bloggers at many conferences, no state secret. Clearly no one has come up with an answer to address how independent journalism of this type is sustained outside of hiring the best into existing non-profit or for-profit publishing ecosystems, which in essence crushes "independence" to hold controversial positions without worrying about donor or advertiser pushback. And at the present time, legacy orgs are still struggling to figure out how to work well with bloggers, even though the keyboardists may bite their hands from time to time.

One of the interesting and revealing talks was given by Joanne Herman, on Developing Transgender Philanthropy. Take a look.

The top three transgender organizations in the country only have a combined annual budget of $1.4 million, and that's concerning for Joanne Herman, author of Transgender Explained For Those Who Are Not. So concerning that at OutGiving 2009 Joanne helped launch the first-ever national transgender giving circle and did everything she could to get it off the ground. Listen as Joanne explains the process and what she learned about giving and philanthropy within the transgender community.

NOM contradicts itself on gay parenting

crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

Yesterday, some Catholic Charities in Illinois (the dioceses of Springfield, Peoria and Joliet) announced that they are suing the state of Illinois for the right to exclude gay and lesbian couples from adopting and becoming foster parents even though they receive taxpayer funds for these services.

Naturally the National Organization for Marriage (NOM)'s blog is trumpeting the news as a case of "religious liberty."

As a matter of fact, in posts about gay adoption and foster care vs. religious groups receiving taxpayer dollars while discriminating against gays and lesbian, NOM has been careful in its attempts to portray the issue as one of "religious liberty," rather than religious groups discriminating on the taxpayers' dime (i.e. gays and lesbians do pay taxes).

This seems to be par for the course for NOM. According to Equality Matters, the organization has posted several pieces that speaks against same-sex parenting -  the implication being that a same-sex household supposedly" robs children of a chance to have a mother and a father:"

May 12: New Book: Psychologist Writes of Daughters' Father HungerMay 17: Sociologist Brad Wilcox: The “Elite Wisdom” on Moms & Dads is Dead WrongMay 19: Dr. Jenet Erickson on Why Having a Mother Really MattersMay 26: Canadian Sociologist on Why Mothers MatterMay 27: Gender Confusion over at Slate

But here is the interesting part about NOM's position on gay parenting: Maggie Gallagher, chairwoman of NOM, said during a recent Congressional hearing that "there are some gay people who make wonderful parents." She also said she thinks its unfortunate that people misinterpret things she says as a condemnation of "gay people" and their parenting skills."

This is a heavy contradiction.

If Gallagher thinks that gays make wonderful parents, then why does her organization go out of its way to undermine gay parenting?

Only 12? Think Progress LGBT rounds up 'Rick Santorum's 12 Most Offensive Statements'

The former Senator from Pennsylvania and current PHB 2012 GOP Clown car occupant has had some stellar moments, that's for sure. Igor Volsky rounds up 12. I'll share a couple. Click over for the rest.

1. "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be....If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." 4/2003

2. "Is anyone saying same-sex couples can't love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?" 5/22/2008

And bonus points for this one:

8. "In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don't both need to....The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness". 7/6/2005

Syrian-American lesbian blogger missing after arrest attempt by government

Executive Editor for Lez Get Real, Paula Brooks, has passed along disturbing distressing news - Amina Abdallah Arraf the publisher of A Gay Girl In Damascus and contributor to LGR is missing and has apparently been abducted. From Amina's blog, her cousin wrote on June 6:

Earlier today, at approximately 6:00 pm Damascus time, Amina was walking in the area of the Abbasid bus station, near Fares al Khouri Street. She had gone to meet a person involved with the Local Coordinating Committee and was accompanied by a friend.

Amina told the friend that she would go ahead and they were separated. Amina had, apparently, identified the person she was to meet. However, while her companion was still close by, Amina was seized by three men in their early 20's. According to the witness (who does not want her identity known), the men were armed. Amina hit one of them and told the friend to go find her father.

One of the men then put his hand over Amina's mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan with a window sticker of Basel Assad. The witness did not get the tag number. She promptly went and found Amina's father.

The men are assumed to be members of one of the security services or the Baath Party militia. Amina's present location is unknown and it is unclear if she is in a jail or being held elsewhere in Damascus.

LezGetReal:

LezGetReal has been working as well behind the scenes to try and get any word we can. Amina's first post on LGR was about "HALFWAY OUT OF THE DARK": ON BEING A GAY GIRL IN DAMASCUS all the way back on 15 February of this year. She came to LGR via a comment posted on an article by L.S. Carbonell about Syria. On 20 February, she set up "A Gay Girl In Damascus" and often cross posted stories on both up until her connection to the internet became very dicey.

Amina first commented on the story Syria's Protests Canceled in which she corrected our writer on the facts about Syria. This comment lead to an apology and eventually, Amina writing on her own.

Amina and Sandra were planning a vacation to Rome this month, but Amina was worried about leaving Syria. Ms Bagaria told The New York Times "She did not want to risk being trapped outside Syria,. She wanted to be part of what is going on there. She wanted to keep protesting every day, meeting with people and organizing community meetings. She had a lot of contacts to make sure the protests would keep going and the opposition would keep growing and growing, to make people aware of what the regime was doing."

Leah McElrath at

The Sissy Boy Experiment: the horror of ex-gay therapy exposed on AC360, Box Turtle Bulletin

CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 is airing the first installment of a three-part series, "The Sissy Boy Experiment," at 10:00 p.m. ET. For the public at large, this will be a window into the junk science and the pain foisted upon boys for being effeminate and/or gay.

At the center of this nightmare is one George Rekers, now known mostly for having been outed in spectacular fashion in the "luggage-lifting rent boy" scandal. Via Joe.My.God, you can see below that Rekers at the time tried to deny the story, but then his "vacation companion" blew it all out of the water.

As the founder of the Family Research Council he was one of America's most prominent anti-gay activists. A Baptist minister, Rekers believed that sexual orientation of gays could be changed and he had a lot to lose after that scandal.

Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin has a seven-part look at Rekers and one of his victims, "What Are Little Boys Made Of?"". A snippet from the synopsis:

In the summer of 1970, just before Kirk's fifth birthday, his parents learned about a new federally funded research program at UCLA for young boys who were showing early signs of being effeminate. Concerned that Kirk was exhibiting some of the behaviors listed by a UCLA researcher on a local television talk show, Kirk's parents decided to take him in for an evaluation and treatment. Ten months later, Kirk's therapy was judged a success and his parents were reassured he would now grow up to be a normal, heterosexual man.

When Kirk was undergoing treatment at UCLA, he was under the care of a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. In 1974, Rekers and his mentor, Dr. Ivar Lovaas, published a landmark paper describing "Kraig's" treatment - "Kraig" being their pseudonym for Kirk. That paper, which appeared in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, was "the first experimental study on the subject of childhood cross-gender problems." That paper launched Rekers's career, first as an expert in childhood sexual development, and later as an anti-gay activist.

Kirk survived his ordeal, and he continued to grow up under relative anonymity. Neither he nor his family knew that he was the subject of nearly two decades of discussion among behavioral therapists working to change their clients' sexual orientation. Through it all, Rekers wrote that Kirk had a "normal male identity, had normal aspirations for growing up to be married and have a family, and was well-adjusted as a teen-age boy in general." The truth was far different. His suicide attempt at the age of seventeen was unsuccessful. But twenty years later, he took his life on December 21, 2003. He was 38.

And that is what the ex-gay movement has to answer for - death, ruined psyches, unnecessary family pain through the use of junk science and the homophobia-based desire of individuals -- and parents -- to not accept them as they are.