Pam Spaulding's Blog, page 80

Maggie Gallagher addresses NOM's claim about gay marriage and children

crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

In my last post, I talked about National Organization for Marriage's Maggie Gallagher attempt at covering her tracks in regards to claims of racism she lodged against those angry at Maryland legislator Sam Arora.

Gallagher had initially implied that the anger of the lgbt community over Arora's shift from supporting gay marriage was due to racism. However, this was not the case. Lgbt anger at Arora dealt with his backtracking on gay marriage even after he campaigned for and supported the issue.

In the midst of her efforts to wipe away her initial claim, Gallagher emailed me. I took that opportunity to ask her for a response on another matter regarding NOM's claim that gay marriage was being "taught" to kindergartners in Massachusetts because of that state's law allowing gay marriage.

The Pulitizer-Prize winning site PolitiFact had called NOM out in February after investigating and finding this claim to be false. However, NOM continued to push the claim, even to the point of sending out mailers last week in Maryland saying the following:

Massachusetts public schools teach kid as young as kindergartners about gay marriage. Parents have no legal right to object!

This was the initial claim - word for word - which PolitiFact said was false.

Gallagher's response to me was as follows:

Contact Brian Brown for NOM's response.

But personally I think deciding the two instances Politifacts says were offered (I don't know the details only what PolitiFActs claims happened) were insufficient might justify a finding of "unproven" but hardly shows it is "false."

Moreover in the court cases surrounding these incidents, all the major gay marriage groups argued that in fact parents have no right to prevent their children from being exposed to gay marriage in public schools.

We have never claimed the law will require teaching about gay marriage. We have only said that once it is the law, it will be taught in public schools.

In fact don't you think it ought to be?

Now in all honesty, there should be some fairness to Gallagher there. She is the Chairman of the Board at NOM, and not the operational CEO.

But still her answer to my response leaves a lot to be desired. It does appear to be misleading.

What she said about "claiming that the law will require teaching about gay marriage" is an evasion.  PolitiFact never said that NOM was making a claim that the law will require gay marriage to be taught to kindergartners.

NOM's claim said word-for-word that:

Massachusetts public schools teach kid as young as kindergartners about gay marriage. Parents have no legal right to object!

And PolitiFact said the following about this claim:

Bottom line: The National Organization for Marriage mailing says that Massachusetts public schools teach kindergartners about gay marriage. The wording, including the present tense verb, gives the impression this is happening now, in many schools.

But the group’s only evidence is two incidents five years ago. It’s possible that somewhere, in one of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts, other kindergartners have been taught about same-sex marriage. But NOM couldn’t cite any other examples. We find its statement False.

And to reach this conclusion, PolitiFact talked to several sources including

Jonathan Considine, spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, who said that "Massachusetts does not require that students in any grade be taught about gay marriage,"Laura Bennett of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, who said she was unaware of gay marriage being discussed with kindergartners in Massachusetts, andThomas Gosnell, president of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, who said the same thing, i.e. he is unaware of gay marriage being taught to kindergartners in Massachusetts.
The point is this -  NOM's claim is that if gay marriage is allowed, children as young as kindergartners will be "forced" to learn about gay marriage (and in religious right translation, learning about "gay marriage" is the same thing as learning about "gay sex.")

To justify this claim, NOM said that this sort of thing is happening right now in Massachusetts because of that state legalizing gay marriage.

But it's not happening. The claim is a lie designed exploit ignorance and scare the hell out of people by conjuring up images of "gay boogeymen" spinning their influence on "impressionable children."

In other words, NOM has brushed off  the old Anita Bryant lie of "gay recruitment" and is placing it on display.

It worked for them in Maine and California. The question is will it work in Maryland?

In reality, children being made aware of same-sex households have nothing to do with any law, but basic common sense. Same-sex households populate probably every state in this country regardless of whether or not lgbt couples can marry. These households do contain children and these children do attend public schools.

By than exploiting these innocent households for political gain, Gallagher and NOM are doing a basic disservice these families and especially the children. Is a child wanting to talk about a family vacation in the wrong simply because that family is from a same-sex household?  Should he or she be shushed by their teacher? Should this child be made to feel that somehow his or her household is inferior?

To paraphrase the words of House Speaker John Boehner:

Hell no!

Again in fairness to NOM,  I will be emailing Brian Brown, NOM's president, on this matter. But shouldn't NOM have sent out a response in February when PolitiFact made the initial charge?


Related posts:

Arora controversy has National Organization for Marriage scrambling for cover

Lgbt community hit with betrayal in Maryland?

National Organization for Marriage continuing to spread false claim about gay marriage and children

PolitiFact catches anti-gay group NOM in a huge lie about gay marriage and children

Sunday Night open thread - and the flight from hell

Miami International Airport (MIA) sucks big time. So disorganized. Crowd handling = zero. I learned after my last trip there for a conference that if at all possible, always carry on your bags. So I traveled light. I had my boarding pass and was dropped off at terminal A; didn't learn what gate it was until I checked the monitor and it was Terminal E. Oh man, E was like a mile away. No transportation or moving walkway. I had time, so that wasn't an issue, but man, the neuropathy was killing my feet, but I managed to make it with plenty of time.

Though the plane ride is only 90 minutes to RDU, it might as well have been a lifetime. I board, heading to my window seat (no one likes the middle seat; I detest the aisle because people hit you with bags and run into you constantly). I look and there is a family taking up the entire 3-seats of 19, dad, mom, a 3-ish child on the mom's lap and a 5-ish one in my seat. The father says "they split us up; you can have either 20C or 21 (unintelligible). Not "could I switch," but here's my choice.

The five year old is kicking the back of the seat of the person in front of them, the 3 year old is screaming at the top of his lungs, pleased with the sound of his voice. Parents are doing zip. I take the aisle seat across from them and begin hoping that they will go silent and settle in.

It inevitably goes from bad to worse below the fold.
Oh, no they don't and the parents apparently haven't a care in the world. When the person getting kicked turns around, the mother tells her child "if you were sitting there like this person, would you want someone to do that to you"? The child shakes her head no -- and proceeds to continue kicking the seat for another 30 seconds or so. I just shook my head.

Meanwhile, Junior had escalated to jumping off and on mom's lap still screeching. He was thankfully settled enough for takeoff, but even then, the yelping and cackling at a high decibel level continued. For the whole flight. That was interrupted intermittently by mom telling him to "shush" which clearly meant nothing.

Now I posted about this on Facebook with varying responses, most sharing my frustration at such passive parenting. We're not talking about a colicky baby, we're talking children old enough to take commands (or ignore them, apparently knowing there weren't any consequences). But the apologists for bad public behavior by kids (and the blame lies with the parents) were there:

the world is made for everyone, including noisy children. sorry.

And...

I'd like to see an end to parent bashing, personally. Having been the mother of two extremely mellow, well-behaved kids who will respond to direction and one who doesn't care about any kind of punishments or rewards or threats or anything and will scream bloody murder about the slightest thing, like the seam of her socks being uneven- let me just say that sometimes there is just not much of anything a parent can do. By the time you see that kid screaming in public and it looks like the parent is doing nothing, they've actually decided to give up fighting for a moment to regain their sanity. Maybe we could just keep our kids knocked out on Nyquil so they don't bother anybody?

Am I way off base in thinking that raising this issue to ask the question about whether parenting norms have changed for the worse? I'm not suggesting drugging kids. I'm opening the floor to ask whether the issue is lowered expectations of children's behavior in public or less public tolerance of kids?

I've never been on a flight were passengers confronted the parents of misbehaving children. I have been on flights with well-behaved kids that were quite young, and poorly behaved older kids whose parents do little or nothing to stop the behavior, as well as parents who try and apologize for the difficult situation with a baby, young child or sick child.

This situation today was about bad parenting. There are kids that have not been told No, or followed through with consequences (and I'm not even talking about spanking) of any kind. Pointing it out is not an indictment of all parents, all kids or the rants of a person without patience for children.

As a child, I was expected to act appropriately in public, during travel, and when at a restaurant. We were told what to do beforehand, what was right, what was wrong, and if we did do something she disapproved of, she only had to give my brother and I "the eye." You didn't want to see that. You knew you f*cked up and there would be consequences. But the thing is, this rarely happened. We were easily quieted with a coloring book or picture book (no DVD players, Walkmans, etc). I have no idea why I see so many more fidgety kids in public.

My brother and sister in law have preferred to pack up the car and drive with my nephew (even several hundred miles) vs. flying. They've been fortunate on the few flights so far (because I ask), because Mr. E is generally quiet, and he has known what using "the inside voice" means for a long time. They are conscious of not making an already poor situation in coach worse - they remember all too well what it was like to be in the presence of under-parented kids on an airplane.

I think parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world; given the host of medical issues and the busy schedules Kate and I have we know it's not for us. Being aunts is fine; there are enough too many people procreating already, and apparently too many parents not up to the challenge who think we all think their kids are as cute as they do while tired and flying in a tin can. I give kudos to the single dads and moms (including my mom for many years), and the two-parent families who know that raising healthy, happy, socially well-adjusted kids who are still able to behave in public is also part of the job.  

George Will declares Mike Huckabee a vibrator

George Will has already decided the 2012 GOP Clown Car will only be stuffed with five men (of course Palin didn't make the cut, or Bachmann).

Let us not mince words. There are at most five plausible Republican presidents on the horizon - Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Utah governor and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Massachusetts governor Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty.

What's quite peculiar is his description of Mike Huckabee, who has been going off of the rails birther crazy. Referring to the former Arkansas governor and pastor as a "vibrator" has got to be the funniest thing I've read in a long while.

[S]ensible Americans, who pay scant attention to presidential politics at this point in the electoral cycle, must nevertheless be detecting vibrations of weirdness emanating from people associated with the party.

The most recent vibrator is Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who won the 2008 Republican caucuses in Iowa and reached that year's national convention with more delegates than Mitt Romney, and who might run again.

No One Cared He Was Gay Except The Pentagon - A Soldier's Memoriam

There were days I hated being a reporter or news/sportscaster as that was when I had to report on tragedy or death. All these many years later I have come full circle because today I hate my vocation as a journalist blogger.

I could have ignored this story, wrote something more palatable to ones senses or not posted at all today. But that would have been the easy way and going against the mission of this blog to focus on one person, issue or event in the Rainbow a day at a time. Back then I would report such stories often with a damp eye. Today will be no different as I write this except you won’t hear my voice crack as I once spoke into a microphone.

It was a week ago today in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan that Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt age 31 was killed during an attack on his unit by insurgents with an IED. Wilfahrt was from Rosemount, Minnesota and this past Friday Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton ordered that yesterday all flags be lowered to half-staff to honor the state’s fallen son. A celebration of Cpl. Wilfahrt’s life was celebrated Friday at the Ft. Snelling Officers’ Club. He was a proud member of the 3rd platoon 552nd MP Battalion U.S. Army serving on patrol at the time of his death. But there is more to this story.

Up until the time some two years ago when Wilfahrt decided to enlist he was an out and proud gay man. But with finding himself in the quandary of wanting to serve his Country and the policy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, he decided for the sake of pursuing his wish to join the Army he would go back into the closet so he could protect the Constitution and all of us the American citizens. That is quite an irony. Protect the Constitution and a Nation which at best holds him as second class person and a military ready to kick him out.

In a radio inteview the other day his mother Lori Wilfahrt spoke to reporter Cathy Wurzer of Minnesota Public Radio (you can hear the interview and read it here) and when Wurzer asked her if she was concerned about her son being gay and in the military she replied, It did a lot. I think it concerned him as well. He spent a lot of time thinking about it and he came to terms with it. He knew he would have to go back in the closet, that he would have to keep that to himself. And he did, for at least part of his stay in the Army. But when I talked to him (or when he wrote maybe) when he was in Afghanistan, he said nobody cares. He said, ‘Everybody knows, nobody cares.’ He said, ‘Even the really conservative, religious types, they didn’t care either.’

Nobody cared that Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt was gay.

Not the enemy, not his fellow soliders, only the Pentagon. Rest In Peace Corporal.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived. – George S. Patton

Cross-posted at Focus On The Rainbow which also has a memorial video of Cpl. Wilfahrt and a comment from Cpl. Wilfahrt's father.

Washington's Rep. Jim McCune: Damn the Constitution, full theocracy ahead!

Last night the Washington state House passed HB 1649 by a vote of 58 to 39.  If signed into law, this bill would recognize as a valid domestic partnership in Washington state a legal union of two persons, including a marriage, that was validly formed in another jurisdiction and that is substantially equivalent to a Washington state-registered domestic partnership.

With Rep. Glenn Anderson (R-Fall City) and Rep. Maureen Walsh (R-Walla Walla) breaking ranks with the Republican caucus to vote in favor of the bill along with the entire Democratic delegation, the bill passed handily.  But not before some sad attempts by anti-gay Republicans to stop the bill.  You can watch the 15-minute debate in the TVW video to the right.  A full transcript with commentary is below.  It's really too amusing.
The first order of business on any bill is to entertain any amendments that may have been filed.  As expected, Rep. Matt Shea (R-Spokane) filed an amendment intended to gut the bill.

SHEA:  Once again we are in the middle of the night talking about a bill like this, Mr. Speaker, instead of the light of day.  And I urge adoption of this amendment quite simply because this is going to remove the reciprocity portion of this bill which forces us to recognize same-sex marriage from other states.

We passed the "defense of marriage" act from this body with overwhelming support.  And by putting this reciprocity clause in there it undermines our current law in this state, and will serve I think as the final thing to undermine our "defense of marriage act" in the State of Washington.  And therefore and for that reason alone I would urge its adoption.  Thank you.

What Rep. Shea neglected to acknowledge about the proposed reciprocity clause is that it would function only to downgrade real marriages to domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian couples who were married elsewhere when those couples are within the borders of Washington state.  That sounds like fully respecting Rep. Shea's so-called "defense of marriage act" to me.

Does anyone know whether Rep. Shea creates a fuss over every bill debated in the evening, or just bills that seek to treat gay and lesbian Americans with decency?  Late night debates aren't unusual.  Any non-fiscal bill not passed from one chamber to the other by March 7th dies in the house of origin, so the Legislature is pulling some late nighters to consider as many bills as possible.  This particular bill has seen a lot of daylight starting with its first reading on January 28th and including a public hearing held in the House Committee on the Judiciary at 8:00 am on January 16th.  The committee's executive session was held the following day at 10:00 am.  As I noted earlier, not a single person signed up to speak in opposition to the bill during the public hearing.

Rep. Jamie Pedersen (D-Seattle) offered this clear-eyed reply, explaining the state's need for this technical fix to the underlying domestic partnership laws.

PEDERSEN: I'm going to ask for a "no" on the amendment.  Three years ago when we adopted this reciprocity provision in the underlying domestic partner law, there were a number of jurisdictions that had civil unions, reciprocal beneficiaries or domestic partnership relationships for same-sex couples.  There was only one jurisdiction in our country that had marriages for same-sex couples.  

A lot has changed in the 3 years that has elapsed.  We have a growing number of states that allow same-sex couples to marry.  We also have had voter confirmation of the work that we did over 3 years in establishing and building our domestic partner registry.

And so now we have the rather perverse situation where a couple married in California comes to Washington and has absolutely no recognition, but a couple with a domestic partnership comes to Washington from California and has the full benefit of our domestic partner law.  

I suggest that that is unjust and that this is a relatively small correction that we need to make to the law, and therefore urge your rejection of the amendment.

Rep. Shea's amendment failed on a voice vote.  No other amendments were offered, so Mr. Speaker opened debate on the bill itself.  Rep. Laurie Jinkins (D-Tacoma) began the debate by illustrating why this technical fix is so important to real families.

JINKINS: Mr. Speaker this bill is about fairness for all families.  Right now there is a hole in the law.  And by passing Referndum 71 Washington decided that they wanted all families to be able to protect themselves under Washington state law.

The problem is that couples who've decided to use the laws of their states lose those same protections when they come here to Washington.  If they were in their own state, they'd be protected.  If they were citizens of our state, they'd be protected.  It's a flaw in the law.  It's a hole we need to fill.

I want to tell you why it matters so much.  Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond, who were from right here in Lacey, were in Miami for a family cruise with their three children when Lisa suddenly collapsed.  She had a massive stroke.

Even though Janice held Lisa's Durable Power of Attorney and her Health Care Directive, the hospital refused to accept it.  They wouldn't even accept any information about her medical history to help save her life.

The doctor finally spoke with Janice.  He told her there was no chance of Lisa's recovery.  And despite the doctor's acknowledgment that there was no medical reason that would prevent visitation, neither Janice nor their children were allowed to see Lisa as she lay dying.  

Her children were right outside.  Her partner was right there.  She couldn't see them.  They couldn't see her.  She died alone.

Soon after Lisa's death, Janice tried to get her death certificate in order to get life insurance and Social Security benefits for their children, and she was denied.  

Now you might say that this wouldn't happen here in Washington.  Because voters passed Referendum 71 it won't happen to our citizens while they're here in our state.  But if we want other states to honor our laws to protect our citizens when they travel outside of our borders, then we need to do the right thing by them when they're in our borders.  We should be good hosts.  We should treat them with fairness and kindness even when they're here just to sightsee or to kayak or to taste wine.  

We should also treat them with kindness and respect if the worst possible thing imaginable happens to them or to their loved ones.  Because that's how each of us would want to be treated, because it's the right to do and because what happened to Janice and Lisa and their children should not happen here in Washington state to any family from any state.

Please vote "yes" on this bill.

Not unexpectedly, Rep. Matt Shea stood next to speak against the bill he'd just failed to undermine with his rejected amendment.

SHEA:  This obviously is an emotionally charged subject, but I would respectfully disagree with the previous speaker because that's not what this bill does.  Line 7 of this bill takes out the words "other than marriage".  This is about recognizing same-sex marriage in the state of Washington.  

The scenario that was talked about by the previous speaker has already been taken care of by the many different versions that we have passed of domestic partnership law Mr. Speaker.  That's not what this bill's about.  It's about recognizing same-sex marriage in the state of Washington, which clearly is contradicting the "defense of marriage act" in this state, and is undermining that as well.  

And for that reason Mr. Speaker again, I don't think we need to be debating this at 11 o'clock at night.  We need to do this in the light of day.  Have the folks of Washington state take the matter to them, let them decide, not do this in the middle of the night.  Because this is about marriage, not about domestic partnerships.  

And Mr. Speaker, I would once again respectfully urge you to vote no.  Thank you.

So basically more of same from Rep. Shea, garnished with a hint of "let the people vote" near the end.  Perhaps Rep. Shea is unaware that any Washington voter, himself included, may file a referendum "any time after the Legislature has passed the act that the sponsor wants referred to the ballot".  The instructions are all here.  Rep. Shea has no one to complain to but himself if nobody refers this bill to the voters.  

But Rep. Shea won't go anywhere near a referendum on this bill.  The reason is that since the voters approved the domestic partnership law in 2009 via Referendum 71, he knows that a referendum challenging this technical fix to that law is a waste of paper.  In other words, Rep. Shea was wasting the Legislature's time with political grandstanding.

Next up was Rep. Jim McCune (R-Graham).  He apparently opposes this bill because his copy of the Washington State Constitution was torched in order to light the pages of his Bible, which includes the chapter "How to Worship Our Founding Fathers" where Matthew 22 is normally found.

MCCUNE:  I had the privilege a few years ago, about 13 years ago to sit in this body and vote for the "defense of marriage act".  And since then we've been chippin' away at that quite successfully, and it saddens me.

But I want first to say I'm speaking for myself and not my caucus.  And I have love for every member in the House.  And there's no greater joy than love member (?), lay your life down for your brother.

But Speaker, I have to speak the truth.  God has given me a filter that I use as the Word of God.  And I use that Word to filter most of these issues out.  And as I filter that out on truth, in His Word He says, God created the institution of marriage between only a man and a woman.  And I cannot change that.  And that is not my words, those are His words.  That's His institution, as Christ is the image of the church.  He created these words.  They're pretty simple and in the Scripture.

And as we set up this great nation and our founders were all basically Christians.  They wanted to keep the nation that way as well.  They believed in marriage in this nation as well and they wanted to keep it that way Mr. Speaker.  

And Mr. Speaker I'll go back 230 years ago as George Washington was being sworn into office.  He had his hand not just on the Bible, he had his hand on the open Bible, on Deuteronomy 28.  Very important verse because that verse actually says on the laws of God how you can keep your nation from falling away.  And on the other side of the Scripture there in Deuteronomy 28 it says how you lose your nation.  And it's really clear, on those Scriptures how we're moving to lose our nation.

Today this saddens my heart.  I give you a warning that George Washington gave, and also he gave that warning in his Farewell Address, what we could do to keep our nation.  He gave 7 strict warnings.  Today we're violating I think, what I believe is the Word of God.  And I believe God created all human beings, and He created this earth.

So with that my heart is saddened.  We're really moving towards I think breaking our nation down and I'm asking you to please vote "no".  Thank you Mr. Speaker.

Rep. Jamie Pedersen (D-Seattle) respectfully brought the conversation back to the legal realities of today.

PEDERSEN:  I do appreciate that there are people of good faith who have very different views on this subject, but from my perspective this is really a technical correction to a law that the voters of our state have in their wisdom approved.  

Our voters have already decided that same-sex couples who register under the domestic partner law ought to have all of the rights an obligations that are associated with civil marriage in our state.  Our voters have already confirmed that we ought to provide reciprocal recognition to the relationships of couples from other states who provide recognition to those relationships.  

And the very small hole that we fill here is the hole presented by families of states where what they call that is not domestic partnership or civil union status, but instead marriage.  

This leads to some very illogical results.  At the time that we passed the reciprocity law, most of New England -- Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont -- had civil union laws.  Those laws have since been replaced with marriage laws.  So civil unions that would have been recognized at the time that we passed this law automatically became unrecognized as they matured into marriages in their own states.  

No change of the people involved, no change in their states of residence, but suddenly our state is saying that if Janice Langbehn had been from New Hampshire and had come instead to Seattle for an Alaska cruise with her family, that she would not have enjoyed any of the protections of Washington law.  I suggest that that is unfair and that it is a small injustice that we can correct.  

I urge your support of the bill.  Thank you.

Last up was Rep. Jay Rodne (R-North Bend) with an angrier rehash of Rep. Shea's speeches.

RODNE:  I appreciate that the deep-held views of the folks on all sides of this issue.  I this think that -- I take a little I guess offense that it's a Friday night at 11:15 pm and we're debating this bill tonight that really is the last step towards the repeal of DOMA.  I mean let's just be honest.

And let's not shy away from that debate.  I would really hate it if I fervently believed in something so much, and yet I had to debate it on a Friday night at 11:15 pm.  Stand up for your convictions!  If same-sex marriage is something you believe in and you're in the majority, let's bring that debate on.  Let's bring a bill, let's do it in the daylight, let's do it when these galleries are full, let's take our votes based on our conscience and let's go home and face our constituents.  Let's face it!  Let's face that debate.  Let's not shy away from it, and let's stop the surreptitious repeal of DOMA.

Fortunately this is the last step that the proponents of this issue can take.  There's nothing else left.  So next year we're going to have a bill that will be the marriage bill.  We're gonna have that debate.  I guess I just wanna get there and have that debate.  And I would think that you all on the other side of this issue would want to have that debate too.  But not at Friday at 11:15 pm, but on like a Monday at noon or Tuesday at 10 am.  That's my challenge to you all next session.  Thank you Mr. Speaker.

Like Rep. Shea calling for a referendum that he himself seems unwilling to file, Rep. Rodne wants to debate a marriage equality bill that he could well have filed himself if he'd so chosen.  He didn't.  Such weak and whiny arguments like this don't serve his constituency, but at least he had a good 2-minute catharsis and then the House passed the bill by a huge margin.  Win-win.

Related:

* Visiting Washington state while married: a tragedy waiting to happen

* All of Washington state is moving towards equality

Maryland: Time to Release The Little Monsters!

The fingerprints of New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage's monstrous meddling in out-of-state politics are all over the chaos surrounding Maryland's House of Delegates as the floor vote approaches. The prospects for the vote this week are iffy.

 Fortunately, we equality-minded Americans have a pretty awesome General in this fight ourselves, and she commands an army of little monsters of her own: Lady Gaga.

Let's try to loop her into fight and get her army of little monsters to work with Equality Maryland. I have a plan.

The pop superstar famously went to bat for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal, working with Servicemembers Legal Defense Network on news generating events and Senate lobbying efforts. And she's still in the fight for equal rights. She called out a New York Republican State Senator just yesterday:

Let's see if we can get her to help Equality Maryland to bring Marriage Equality home this week in the Free State. I actually reached out to Equality Maryland and made the suggestion, they liked it, and sent this reply.

But first, we have to get her attention. Now, I don't have a lot of Pop Superstars in my rolodex (I know! Shocker!). But I do have a Twitter account. So, I started a Twitter petition with a simple request:

petition @ladygaga to join @EqualityMD's fight for Marriage Equality #LGBT http://act.ly/37l RT to sign

You can go here to retweet it. It tweets the request to her Twitter account and will show up as a mention of her. She has all she needs right there, Equality Maryland's Twitter address. Gaga famously exchanged tweets with Senator Gillibrand during the DADT fight, I trust she can do the same with Equality Maryland.

And, I'm sure they have some great ideas on how she might be able put some heat behind passing this the bill. I'm sure they have some great action items she might tweet to her nearly 9,000,000 followers. She, being a world famous pop superstar on a busy touring schedule, may well be unaware of how close and tenuous this major LGBT Civil Rights victory is in Maryland. Let's let her know!

The delegates have heard from Maggie Gallagher and the National Organization for Marriage and their regressive right-wing Christianists. And now, it's time to engage the Maryland youth vote to speak their own minds. We passed the 26th Amendment to the Constitution so the youth could have a say in the political process. A poll from Grove Insight shows of Maryland voters:

Support for marriage equality is strongest among young Maryland voters- 65% of voters aged 18 to 29 support marriage equality. Registered independents - a key voting bloc of swing voters - favor marriage equality by a formidable 27 points with fully 59% in support.

I'm sort of assuming Lady Gaga's 8,586,007 Twitter followers are probably pretty close to monolithically onboard with marriage equality. And a good number of them simply have to reside in Maryland by statistical probabilty, maybe even wavering Tiffany Alston's district? Who better to whip them into their own frenzy than Lady Gaga? So if you have a Twitter account, please lend your voice. Update: The power of the network!

Thank you for joining the fight, Lieutenant! We stand in solidarity with our families in Maryland who deserve equal protection under the law!

The Honesty Of Being Trans

There is an insightful read over at Questioning Transphobia (there actually are many insightful reads at Questioning Transphobia, which is why I read the blog) entitled holding on. This post talks about why author little light loves trans community and believes in its members -- and it has to do with the honesty of trans community members. An excerpt:

I want to suggest that we believe in us because we, as a people, are marked above all by our integrity.

There is not much you can say that describes all trans people. We are a broad and heterogeneous bunch. But you can say this: contrary to what the cheap punchlines and propagandists, the frat boys and the Womyn's Landers, the sketch comedians and the murder defendants would have you believe, we are not united in a grand campaign of deceit. We may not be magical, or magically virtuous, but we are, as a people, astonishingly honest.

You look at those numbers we've let outline us-the grief and the blood and the hurt, writ vast and cruel-and that is a truth. But I believe the greater truth is us: we looked at that world-that heartless world that tears us up and turns us away from every hearth-fire-and we looked at the option of deceiving it into letting us in, the option of pretending to be something we weren't in order to survive, and we said, to a person: no. No, we will not lie, even in the face of starvation, of isolation, of loss, of torture, of death. No, even to escape the risk of a world that will never treat us right, we will not lie. We will not pretend. Not today. Not again. At some point, if you are here, and reading this, and calling yourself a trans person or something like, no matter how many compromises and illusions you had to throw up in front of you to make it to today alive, you eventually said "no more." You refused to lie, even if only to yourself.

I believe in trans people because, above all, we know something about the great and terrible worth of the truth. Not because we have paid that price-it has hit some of us harder, and some of us have come through nearly unscathed. Not because whatever we have suffered has made us more special than any other person. Because each of us is a person who looked out at a very dangerous, risky landscape and chose, eventually, to travel through it because the truth mattered most. We know something about the truth. We know what it is worth. And we, as a people, surrounded by those who do not believe us and want us to pretend for them that they are right, chose that truth knowing it might cost us everything.

little light's assessment is one I find myself agreeing with, but hadn't really thought about before reading her essay. Even if you find yourself in disagreement with any or all of the essay, to me her entire essay at Questioning Transphobia should be a must read her intriguing concept. Her comparrison of trans people being incredibly honest verses trans people as deceptive and dishonest in their presentation to others, is well thought out, and the arguments for her postulations are compelling.

little light's essay reminds me of a Cesar Chavez quote on committment:

"...there has to be someone who is willing to do it, who is willing to take whatever risks are required. I don't think it can be done with money alone. The person has to be dedicated to the task. There has to be some other motivation."

Again, I believe this essay should be a must read -- I very highly recommend it.

Arora controversy has National Organization for Marriage scrambling for cover

crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

The situation with Maryland delegate Sam Arora which nearly derailed gay marriage in Maryland is fastly blowing up in the face of the National Organization for Marriage, the organization trying to prevent gay marriage from taking place.

Arora is the Maryland legislator first supported the gay marriage bill. He campaigned on it, raised money because of it, and engaged in discussions with lgbt families in terms of why this bill is important.

And for while he decided, even after all of this and publicly giving his support to the bill, to change his mind and vote against it.

Arora faced a serious firestorm from voters who felt betrayed, angry, and hurt at his shift. Because of this, he changed his mind again and said he will vote for the bill, while emphasizing that the question of gay marriage in Maryland should be the subject of a referendum.

Into this controversy stepped Maggie Gallagher, head of NOM, via a post on the organization's blog during Arora's initial change:

First, if Sam Arora is wavering under this media firestorm, he must be hearing from hundreds of constituents who do not want him to vote for gay marriage.

Secondly, as someone married to an Indian-American, I find it interesting that the gay marriage machine appears to be re-focusing its attacks from Black Democrats who oppose gay marriage to an easier target: Indian-Americans.

Tiffany Alston appears now to be off the hook regardless of how she votes.

Supporters of the Maryland gay marriage bill seized on Gallagher's comment, claiming that she was unfairly accusing those angry Arora of being racists. And they had a point. Nowhere in her post did Gallagher address the simple fact that the ire at Arora was solely because of his backtracking of an issue which played such a central part in his election.


Apparently THAT outcry against Gallagher was so strong that she felt the need to post the following "update" on her blog entry:

Update: Some folks seem to think I'm accusing critics of Sam Arora of racism. Weird. Racism requires animus or bias towards a race, which I never suggested... It would be absurd to imagine that the people going after Sam don't like Indian-Americans.

It is not absurd to imagine that picking a fight with important black Democrats would pick a fight in two core bases of the Democratic party and that it could be perceived as good to avoid that.

Personally, Gallagher's explanation not only makes no sense, it sounds as if she was caught off guard by the events of the Arora controversy and is now scrambling for cover.

She even sent me a personal email (this email was due to my constant nagging on her blog and a final request for an answer as to why she did in fact pull the "race card" in the Arora controversy):

I'm pretty sure nothing I said would satisfy you. You are free to read things the way you choose. Your entitled to your opinions, but not mine.

I clarified because people were misreading what I said. You find it unsatisfying and "bizaree." Well tastes differ. Take care, thanks for coming to NOM.

Sounds like she is getting defensive to me.

Whatever the case may be, I took advantage of Gallagher's correspondence to ask her the following:

Thank you for your response Ms. Gallagher,

And since you are in a responding mood, would you care to respond to the piece in PolitiFact which states that your organization, NOM is spreading a false story regarding kindergartners being taught gay marriage in Massachusetts.

This story is a key mailer that you sent to Maryland.

I would love to get your opinions on this.

I don't think I'm going to get an answer to that question.

Harvard's Fail On The Return Of An ROTC Program

Here today --Friday, March 3, 2011- I've been at Stanford University, speaking to staff and students about why an ROTC program shouldn't come back to Stanford. This afternoon I gave a formal talk, explaining why lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and progressive communities should not  endorse the return of ROTC programs back to college campuses after the passage in to law of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) repeal bill.

There are three-plus-one reasons why ROTC programs shouldn't return to college campuses. The three reasons are as follows:

• As currently proposed, implementation of open service for LGB servicemembers won't include an explicit antidiscrimination policy.

•  As currently proposed, implementation of open service for LGB servicemembers won't include partner benefits -- such as healthcare coverage, exchange and commissary benefits, and partner relocation costs for change of duty station moves.

• Repeal of DADT will not result in transgender people being able to serve openly in the military services.

And the "plus one" reason is this:

It's premature to welcome back ROTC programs when lesbian, gay, and bisexual servicemembers are still under DADT rules; are still not able to as yet serve openly. Discussion of whether ROTC programs should return to college campuses should wait until LGB servicemembers are able to serve openly, not just on a promise they will be allowed to serve openly soon.

So  this morning it was a disappointment -- a fail -- to learn that the President of Harvard University has made the decision that an ROTC program should be welcomed back to Harvard. From the Time's ROTC Back at Harvard After Skipping Class For 40 Years:

Good news that Harvard is set to recognize ROTC today after nearly 40 years. Originally booted off campus because of opposition to the Vietnam War, Harvard University and many other elite colleges kept the Reserve Officer Training Corps away following the U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam in 1973, and Saigon's fall to the North Vietnamese communists in 1975, because they didn't like the military or its mission.

Then, after Congress passed a law barring openly gay men and women from serving in uniform in 1993, the schools grabbed for the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" excuse to keep ROTC and other military events off campus -- even though the military had no choice but to obey the law. But now that Congress, under pressure from President Obama, has decided to lift the ban, all is forgiven.

Later today, Harvard is set to recognize the Navy's ROTC program, which funds students' educations in exchange for their agreement to serve in uniform after they graduate. "Our renewed relationship affirms the vital role that the members of our armed forces play in serving the nation and securing our freedoms, while also affirming inclusion and opportunity as powerful American ideals," Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust says.

Added Navy Secretary (and Harvard Law graduate) Ray Mabus: "NROTC's return to Harvard is good for the university, good for the military, and good for the country." The other services are discussing bringing their programs back to Harvard's Cambridge, Mass., campus as well. In recent decades, Harvard students wanting to belong to ROTC have had to travel to the nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology to train.

Here at Stanford, there was already a response in the Stanford's Fiat Lux article Harvard Announces Return of ROTC:

Alok Vaid-Menon, president of Stanford Students for Queer Liberation, in a message to the SSQL chat-list, responded that he was "speechless," not only at the decision, but at the lack of transparency with which the decision was made.

Harvard was never transparent about the procedure they were adopting for this question. Last time they had a vote by the faculty. This time it seems like the President made a decision himself. This is a violation of student rights and faculty rights and is in direct violation of Harvard's non-discrimination clause.

I called our Harvard contact today and he said he met with the administration last week and they said they appreciated his "transgender argument" because it would foster interesting debate. The administration was very unclear about what procedure they were taking to address this issue. Essentially, the President made this decision behind closed doors without critically engaging with the perspectives of the Harvard community.

Tomorrow activists at Stanford are demonstrating in front of the President's Office.

I stand in solidarity with them and condemn Harvard's President for violating his own non-discrimination clause.

There's more in the Stanford Daily's Case brought against ASSU ROTC advisory bill. for how Stanford is handling their situation.

If there is ever a case to be made for community building at college campuses -- getting broad support for several organizations, such as students of color organizations, student feminist organizations, and students with  disability organizations -- to find commonalities between the members of these antidiscrimination focused organizations, as well as individual members at the intersections of two or more of these organizations...well, it's now the time to make this happen. A coalition focused on fostering ordinary equality for all of humanity speaking out on antidiscrimination -- that would be a coalition with much moral authority. In my mind, it's well past time to remind people that equality is about the broad us of humanity, and not about the individual "me's" and the "those who share my particular demographics."

The president of Harvard was wrong in signing with the U.S. Navy to open a new ROTC program on campus; the president of Harvard came down  on the wrong side of ordinary equality...the wrong side of history. His decision was a complete fail.

I'm hoping Stanford comes down on the right side of history.

Guest column by Irene Monroe: Rev. Peter Gomes, an accidental gay advocate

Rev. Peter Gomes, an accidental gay advocate

Rev. Irene Monroe

If during your tenure as a student at Harvard you did not encounter the Reverend Peter J. Gomes, you have not had the quintessential Harvard experience.

For undergraduates, if they were paying attention, Gomes bookended their four-year experience at Harvard with his welcoming remarks during orientation and his baccalaureate address at graduation.

In between those years, undergraduates had ample opportunities to partake in Gomes' weekly teas at Sparks House, the university's parsonage, to hear his rich melodic baritone voice most Sunday mornings preaching at Memorial Church in the Yard, or to enroll in his popular courses: Religion 42: "The Christian Bible and its Interpretation," which I had the privilege to be his head teaching fellow for several years, and Religion 1513: "History of Harvard and its Presidents."

During the wee hours of the morning this past Tuesday when I received a phone call from a reporter at WBUR, the voice on the other end said "Hello and Good Morning Rev. Monroe. I would like to speak with you before our 8 a.m "Morning Edition" Show about the passing of Rev. Gomes. I'm very sorry if you're not aware of his passing. I want to talk with you about his legacy and impact in your life and Harvard's," I dropped the phone in despair.

For forty-two years Gomes had been a fixture at Harvard. As an ordained Baptist minister Gomes was the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at the School of Divinity and the Pusey Minister of Memorial Church, joining the faculty in 1974 and overseeing Memorial Church for thirty-five years. As a proud Republican who offered prayers at the inaugurations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, Gomes became a Democrat when his former student, Deval Patrick, won as Massachusetts' first black governor, offering prayers at Deval's first inauguration in 2007.

Taunted by his grade school peers as "Peter the Repeater" for being held back in the second grade, Gomes became one of the worlds internationally known preacher, scholar, and theologian with a bachelor's degree from Bates College, a master's of divinity degree from Harvard, a bevy of honorary doctorates from around the world, and with the Gomes Lectureship at the University of Cambridge in England named after him.

Noted for his activism to rebut biblical literalism and fundamentalism, especially on gay issues Gomes' 1996 best-seller  "The Good Book: Reading the bible with Mind and Heart" stayed on the best-seller list for years. In refuting the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative (Genesis 19:1-29), one of the most quoted scriptures to argue for compulsory heterosexuality and queer bashing, Gomes wrote "To suggest that Sodom and Gomorrah is about homosexual sex is an analysis of about as much worth as suggesting that the story of Jonah and the whale is a treatise on fishing."

As a native son of Plymouth, Gomes primary interest was in early American religions, church music, Britain, and Elizabethan Puritanism. He served as president of the Pilgrim Society, and chairman of the town's anticipated 2020 celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim's landing in Plymouth.

"I know I'm African-American, not Anglo Saxon, and the Pilgrims were Anglo Saxons, and so in theory I should feel this great divide, but I didn't feel that great divide, I thought they were just the first citizens of the town I lived in and I should find out about them, and I claimed them," Gomes told the New Yorker.

Gomes became an accidental gay advocate. As a matter of fact, the New York Times reported,  "While much of his later life was occupied by scholarly questions of the Bible and homosexuality, he came to abhor the label "gay minister.'"

But in 1991 Gomes came out of the closet as a pre-emptive strike against a rabidly conservative Christian student group on campus whose magazine hurled homophobic diatribes against us lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students that also wanted to remove Gomes from his position as the University minister. "I now have an unambiguous vocation - a mission - to address the religious causes and roots of homophobia," he told The Washington Post months later. "I will devote the rest of my life to addressing the 'religious case' against gays." In taking on former Secretary of State Colin Powell's military ban on LGBTQ servicemembers, Gomes wrote in his essay, "Black Christians and Homosexuality: The Pathology of a Permitted Prejudice," that Powell's concern that gay Americans in the military would "destroy unit cohesion," and thus compromise military capability, is a fallacious argument that he should know is reminiscent of the military's long history of racist arguments that he, too, had once endured.

Gomes passing has sent seismic shock waves throughout Harvard, Massachusetts and around the world.

When Tom Lang heard of Gomes' death, he wrote to Baywindows stating, "Peter Gomes was a very dear friend. My husband and I have known him for 25 years. We actually were the first legal same-sex marriage that Peter performed back on May17th, 2004.He always checked in to make sure that his "married" flock was still together-- that was very important to him."

I'll miss Peter.  We all will who have had the pleasure to encounter him.