General: December 2004 Archives

On Thursday, Lambda Legal declared a victory for LGBT employees at Foot Locker after the company settled an anti-gay discrimination lawsuit filed in June.

Lambda Legal sued on behalf of Kevin Dunbar of Columbia, S.C., who said he was fired after complaining about the anti-gay harassment he suffered at the hands of co-workers -- despite the company’s nondiscrimination policy.

At one point, Dunbar was promised that his complaint would be kept confidential. But when he transferred from one store to another, Dunbar said his new manager knew about what happened and refused to shake his hand. According to Dunbar, the manager said, “I heard about your shit; I don’t want your faggot ass in my store.” [...]

After settling its lawsuit with Lambda Legal, Foot Locker says it will train all of its managers and employees more aggressively about anti-gay harassment. Training at the company’s Columbia, S.C., stores, where Dunbar was harassed, is expected to be finished by the summer. [...]

Dunbar also received an undisclosed monetary settlement. (source)

Previous entries concerning this:
June 29, 2004, Foot Locker Stores Accused Of Gay Discrimination
June 30, 2004, My response to Foot Locker
September 24, 2004, WNBA fans face protesters

With all the negative talk in the world about one thing or another, I thought I’d post a story about something very positive; just being yourself.

A few months ago, during a debate over whether government workers should get benefits for same-sex partners, Passaic County Sheriff’s Department Detective Cpl. Douglas Laverty revealed that he is gay -- something he had kept secret from even close friends. [...]

In July, when New Jersey’s domestic partnership law went into effect, Laverty began wondering whether the policy extending benefits to same-sex couples would extend to the county level. He has been in a committed gay relationship for three years, and refers to his partner of three years, James Roche, as his spouse and husband.

Laverty asked for a meeting with Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale, telling the sheriff’s aide only that he wanted to discuss a personal matter. The sheriff didn’t flinch when Laverty said he was gay, and immediately put him in contact with county freeholders to discuss the possibility of granting same-sex benefits. (That hasn’t happened yet.)

Soon, a newspaper got wind of his inquiries and profiled him in a front-page article. The night before it was to be published, Laverty couldn't sleep, fearing what he might have gotten himself into.

When he got to work the next day, his desk was filled with cards and notes -- all offering support. (source)

Remnants left over from the old days. Ten years ago, the trooper would have had cause to arrest the couple for kissing in public. There couldn’t be any outward form of expression for gay people in Texas. I don't believe there was a specific law addressing kissing, but it would have been prosecuted as “lewd conduct” or some such charge. It’s kind of hard to imagine. And we still called ourselves a “free society”.

A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper has been placed on probation for telling two gay men who were kissing at the state Capitol that homosexual conduct was illegal in Texas.

Trooper Michael Carlson was placed on job probation for six months and given a written reprimand, DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said Friday. Carlson, who has been a DPS trooper for three years, also has been ordered to have more training on Texas laws.

Texas law does not prohibit gays from kissing. Also, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s anti-sodomy law in June 2003. [...]

Corvino (one of the men involved) said he tried to tell Carlson that they were not breaking the law, but he said the trooper told them again that “homosexual conduct is against the law.”

“We won’t have you doing this on Capitol grounds,” Carlson told the men, according to the complaint. (source)

WEST JORDAN, Utah (AP) - A principal who wants gay couples to get permission slips from their parents before they can attend school dances promised to re-evaluate the policy after protesters held four days of protests.

Copper Hills High School Principal Tom Worlton issued the policy last month but agreed to revisit it Friday. He said he saw the policy as a way to alert the parents to the dangers their children might face.

Jason Atwood, 17, his boyfriend, Tom Tolman, 15, who attends another school, and small circle of friends held protests across the street from the suburban Salt Lake City school before they met with Worlton. The protesters said they were subjected to insults, obscene gestures, egg throwing and snowballs from passing cars during the four days. (source)

Gay Americans say they are hurt, bewildered and confused about what they see as a powerful outpouring of anti-gay sentiment. Some are reacting by renewing efforts to change public sentiment while others are retreating.

“It has been a severe blow to many people. There has been a lot of grief and heartache,” said the Rev. Jay McNell, whose Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Overland Park, Kansas ignited controversy when it recently ordained a lesbian elder.

“It reminds me of the civil-rights days when we saw discrimination against African-Americans,” he said. (source)

Heartache. I think that is a good word for what a lot of us are feeling. I’m starting to realize that there are a lot of people who are feeling bewildered and disenfranchised right now. I was talking to a coworker this morning about some volunteer work she is doing in her town, on one of the town’s committees. It’s basically Democrat versus Republican, even in the committee she is in. She’s tired of it and, as an Independent, she’s tired of being put in a position of taking sides and constantly defending her position.

And we live in a “liberal” Blue state! In the same article quoted above, a section reads:

Here in America’s heartland, LeAnne, a stay-at-home mom, has taken down the colorful gay-pride windsock that once flew from her front stoop.

Elsewhere in Kansas, a public school administrator has fresh worries about being fired despite 19 years of tenure.

And a veteran fundraiser for a religious charity in Missouri fears a backlash if anyone found out she was raising two children with another woman.

This is the America of George W. Bush. This is “compassionate conservativism”. In 36 states, you can still be fired for being gay. That’s a fact. But, being able to legally fire someone for being gay and actually doing it are two different things. In parallel with that you have people who realize that yes, they could be fired for being gay, but until recently, most probably felt that it would not likely happen.

Now, people are starting to be low key out of fear of retaliation, and not just at work. I am “out” to people. Not necessarily by choice. I don’t believe I’m flamboyant, but have been told that me trying to “act straight” is a point in futility. So, I just try to be me. But even in my liberal state of Connecticut, I wouldn’t do anything around my house to advertise that I may be gay, such as displaying a rainbow anything. Why? Not because I’m ashamed or anything like that. I’m very aware that some of my neighbors voted for Bush, judging from the Bush/Cheney signs in their front yards. Why invite unfortunate things, such as vandalism to my home? But the real issue is this; the fact that I’m even giving it a second thought and thinking through my actions shows the mental state of the America we live in today.

This is where America is now. I realize that what happened at work with my friend is not isolated. There are three sides in this country right now: the conservative right, the liberal left, and the rest of us who are ducking for cover. And if you are a gay American, there are a lot of people who have you in their cross hairs.

Buck conveyed my feelings about America exactly on his blog, Postcards from Nowhere:

Is the United States of America really worth all this grief? Can things change without, unfortunately a new Revolution? I’m not so sure anymore. It seems that the United States is more and more setting itself up to be a marginal rogue state much like the USSR in the 60s, 70s and 80s. We’re too big, too powerful and much too dangerous to ignore but we also have no respect for human rights, fairness, tolerance, or even our own Constitution.

With every victory we achieve, I find myself thinking, “Oh crap! What’s going to happen now? How big will the bashlash be?” We now have full legal marriage for gay couples in Massachusetts. Does anyone really feel that we came out ahead? If you do, perhaps you should ask the gay couples in one of the eleven states that passed constitutional amendments against gay marriage how they feel. And, if it is indeed full-fledged legal marriage, why isn’t the Federal Government recognizing the marriages of Massachusetts as such? I doubt that the IRS will allow a gay couple who lives in and was married in Massachusetts file a joint federal tax return. So much for “full faith and credit”.

We live in a time where we view it as a victory that the United States Supreme Court refused to hear arguments on the decision passed in Massachusetts by the Supreme Judicial Court allowing gay couples to marry in that state. I suppose we view it as a victory that they didn’t want to touch it for fear of reversing it because we are so shell-shocked over what we lost in the last election.

There’s a great irony here. Opponents of gay marriage say that it was “activist judges” who overstepped their authority in Massachusetts by demanding that anything less than marriage was not equal. It is those same opponents who are disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t step in to intervene (or become activist judges, if you will) and reverse the decision of the “activist judges”. I guess you aren’t an activist judge if you rule according to their wishes.

Should we be like Neo and all the other people in The Matrix and be good citizens (read, keep your mouth shut, go to work, come home, have dinner, watch mindless TV, go to bed, repeat it all again the next day but never EVER say anything against THE ESTABLISHMENT)?

Do we now live in an America where making waves in the form of free speech could cause you serious personal consequences?

Michigan’s constitutional amendment against gay marriage and “similar unions” (Proposal 2), passed on November 2, has been used to remove benefits for same-sex partners from all contracts negotiated with state workers.

“The governor’s office and the union representatives are being overly cautious,” said Jeffery Montgomery, the executive director of the Detroit-based gay rights group, the Triangle Foundation.

“Proponents of Proposal 2 kept telling voters it was only about marriage, the amendment wasn’t about domestic partnership benefits, and people believed it,” he said. “But this decision shows that just wasn’t true. We warned them. Eliminating domestic partnership benefits from the current contract exposes those people who backed Proposal 2 for the deceitful scoundrels that they are.” (source)

Do you still think that these constitutional amendments prohibiting gay marriage was about protecting marriage? It’s much more simple than that. It’s simply about bigotry.

And yesterday in Oregon, a state constitutional ban on gay marriage took effect. The Oregon Supreme Court is awaiting final briefs from lawyers to determine whether nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples are valid. Think about that. You get married. It's one of the happiest days of your life, a defining day. Then, the state could find it to be invalid.

(Lansing, Michigan) Gov. Jennifer Granholm will remove same-sex partner benefits from contracts negotiated with state workers, said an aide, citing a voter-approved amendment to the Michigan Constitution that bans gay marriage “and similar unions.”

Michigan voters approved the amendment Nov. 2.

Granholm aide David Fink said that negotiated contracts scheduled for adoption by the state Civil Service Commission on Dec. 15 will be stripped of the same-sex domestic partner benefits.

Fink, who holds the title of state employer, said the Granholm administration decided to eliminate the benefits because of the passage of Proposal 2, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman and bans same-sex marriage and “similar unions for any purpose.”

“We’re about following the law and honoring the intent of the voters,” Fink told the Detroit Free Press.

He said the benefits could be restored before the contracts take effect on Oct. 1, 2005 if the courts have resolved the issue by then.

Republican legislators have been pressing the Democratic governor to strip the same-sex benefits from the contracts.

UAW lobbyist Alan Kilar said earlier this week that the union reached an agreement with the state in good faith and expected the state to stick with it.

“They agreed to this,” Kilar said. “It’s a contract and an agreement is an agreement.”

The UAW said if the governor goes ahead and voids the contract provision it will ask a court to determine if the benefits contravene the state Constitution.

UAW Local 6000 President Sharon Rivera said Thursday that the union will not submit that portion of the agreement to the Civil Service Commission until its legality is determined. (source)