General: March 2007 Archives

I received the following email from Love Makes A Family. I am posting it here for your information. At the end is a full copy of General Assembly Bill 7395, “An Act Concerning Marriage Equality”, that will be proposed this session.

I heard the testimony of many who testified before the committee. What struck me was how many of the speakers were trying to deny that this struggle for marriage equality could not be equated or compared to the inequality black folks suffered before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I expected that.

What surprised me was how many legislators themselves completely denied that was true and stated that there was a direct connection to the two in that a segment of the population is being targeted for the purpose of exclusion from civil benefits afforded to marriage, thereby granting that segment second class citizenship. I’ve been saying that a long time, but it was really gratifying to hear so many state legislators bringing it up, and many of them are African American!

Very heart warming indeed.

READ, TAKE ACTION, & FORWARD

Yesterday the legislature’s Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on HB 7395, An Act Concerning Marriage Equality. The hearing lasted nearly 12 hours!

There was powerful testimony from a broad range of supporters.

View all written testimony from the public hearing
Watch the public hearing in its entirety at CT-N
Read the testimony of Love Makes a Family Executive Director, Anne Stanback

The arguments in support of marriage equality clearly won the day. But public testimony is not enough.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION

The Judiciary Committee will vote soon. Legislators need to hear from their constituents. Please take a minute now to help move this bill to the full House of Representatives for debate.

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Love Makes a Family’s lobbying and outreach efforts are heating up. We estimate that it will cost $20,000 for this next push to make history and get our state’s FIRST successful vote on a marriage bill. We need YOUR support more than ever. Please consider making a secure on-line credit card donation today!

Full text of General Assembly Bill 7395:

A gay couple looking to rent a hotel room say they were turned away because of their sexuality.

“She wasn’t discreet about it,” said Jason Pickel, referring to a hotel employee. “She was not apologetic. She just said, ‘We do not rent to gay people.’”

For the past two and a half years, Pickel and Darren Black Bear have been in a committed relationship. During a search for a temporary home, the couple says it went to Affordable Suites of America, a long-term stay hotel located on Gion Street in Sumter.

“We were inquiring about the price, deposits, extra person fee, and she asked who the room was going to be for, and I said for my partner and I,” Pickel said. “She said, ‘Oh we don’t rent to multiple people of the same sex.’ I said, so you don’t rent to gay couples? She said, ‘No, we don’t rent to gay people at all.’” (source)

It’s amazing to me in this day and age that we still run across this. Kent and I travel a lot and we’ve never run into this situation. We do try to stay within major hotel chains. Perhaps that’s the difference. At any rate, if we should ever find ourselves in Virginia, North Carolina, or South Carolina (I’d rather eat glass), we won’t be staying at the Suites of America where this occurred.

Of course, now that the media has gotten hold of this, they are now denying it all.

However, when News19 called the owner of the hotel, Carroll Atkisson, he says there had been some confusion. He says any couple can come to the place and they will rent to them, period. Atkisson says the policy was not mean to target homosexuals. He says they were just trying to stop two single people from being in the same bed.

Righhhhhhhhht. That sounds believable. Better to be cheap than bigoted. I suppose this still happens in many areas of the country. When it does, find a different motel that will rent to you, and simply make it known what they are and what their policies are. Bigotry hates light.

BARTOW, Fla. -- Authorities are investigating the killing of a central Florida man as a hate crime after interviews with people who knew him revealed he was gay, officials said.

William David Brown Jr., 20, and Joseph Bearden, 21, were being held without bond in the Polk County Jail Saturday after being charged with first degree murder in connection to Ryan Keith Skipper’s death, authorities said.

They are also charged with the armed robbery of Skipper’s car and computer. If convicted of murder, the two men would be eligible for the death penalty under Florida law. [...]

He had been stabbed about 20 times, she said.

A witness came forward and said Skipper was killed because he made an advance toward Brown, Wood said. (source)

It seems a bit outdated in this day and age I suppose to suggest that a murder would not be prosecuted because the victim was gay. Yet, I know that in some parts of the country, it is still the practice to turn a blind eye to crimes against gays, even if that crime ends with murder.

It used to be a well known defense to accuse the gay victim of making an unwanted sexual advance on the person who committed the crime, therefore in some twisted way, asking for the punishment that was to come. This legally came to be known as the “homosexual panic” defense. The straight man who was the victim of a homosexual advance was so overcome with fear and rage, that he was simply unable to control himself. This was used in the defense of the killers of Matthew Shepard as well. In that case, it was thrown out because Wyoming had no statute on the books to allow that kind of defense.

So to say that Ryan Keith Skipper was killed because he made an advance toward William David Brown is just gearing up for the “homosexual panic” defense to be used once again. To jurors who are sympathetic to this defense, it can be powerful. After all, the only witnesses to the crime are the two killers and the victim, and the victim is dead. So, it can come down to a character assessment of what the victim would do or not do. Those who knew him may come forth as state that it was not in his character to make such advances. Sometimes that works. And other times, the killers can get off with community service and probation. This has actually happened!

But I see the days of the “homosexual panic” defense numbered. Everything is connected for us. We come out more, and more people know us. That makes it more difficult for people to look at us and deny us benefits for being gay, deny us justice in a court room, deny us service to our country in the military, and get away with murdering us. We are starting to be seen as citizens, and we are demanding that we have all the rights and privileges of citizenship.

I’ve relaxed a great deal in the past couple of months. I’ve let a lot of personal issues of inequality go, for a lot of reasons. First, it’s not good for you and can effect your health. Second, it can color every other thing in your life - good and bad. But the really big reason for me is this....

We have a limited number of years on this earth. Now, I can let morons and homophobes win by letting them make my short time on this earth miserable, or I can win by living a wonderful, full, and happy life. I HAVE THAT CHOICE, and so do you! I choose to be happy. I will from time to time point out people and places to watch out for, but the days of giving certain people and things the ability to effect my emotional well being are over for me. I made that choice, and you can too.

Think about it.

BRUSSELS, March 21 (UPI) -- Poland would sack all gay teachers if a draft plan banning debate on homosexuality in schools and universities is accepted, Brussels reports said Wednesday.

If teachers violated the rules, they would face punishment of being sacked, fined or even jailed, the EUobserver said. Teachers who could be identified as gay on sight could lose their jobs without having violated any rules, the report said. (source)

“Teachers who could be identified as gay on sight could lose their jobs without having violated any rules...”

It sounds to me that Poland may have forgotten what it was like when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. This sounds a lot like the beginning of the Final Solution that Hitler started. This is how it all starts... in small steps. So if you look gay in Poland, this can happen to you?

I didn’t have any aspirations of visiting Poland in my life. Now, I can formally add them to my “do not visit” list, along with around 40 of the states in the United States, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and a whole bunch more.

I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way.

As an individual, I would not want [acceptance of gay behavior] to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else’s wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior. - Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (source)

I have a few pet peeves about this. They are, in order of importance...

1) What has happened to this nation’s news service organizations? I swear, they have more in common with the happenings of General Hospital than they do with what is happening in the world today. I wish that they would report the news, instead of putting something out made up purely of personal opinions. It’s not just this case. It’s everywhere. Very few do actual reporting anymore. Reporting means that you report the facts as you know them, without a care in the world about how it will look or who it will make look bad. They fail at doing this. Every story is marred by how it will effect the President, or how it will change the face of politics. I have news for the news folks. That is not your job or your concern! Your job is to report the facts as you know them, and if you had done your job, the current administration would not be getting away with half the crap that they are pulling off. Every single day is a new controversy. But news organizations don’t want to take the heat for stepping on the wrong toes and offending someone who could effect their revenues. And that is the heart of the problem. News agencies have become pure profit centers. Where money is the bottom line, money will be able to buy how a story is written and how it will be presented to the sheep (that’s us, folks), who will follow without question.

This all falls into line with the question that was asked General Pace. General Pace was asked his personal opinion if Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell should be repealed. His personal opinion if homosexuality is immoral or not is IRRELEVANT to his position, or to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell for that matter. The question should never have been asked as a matter of news. Perhaps it would be more appropriate in a Barbara Walters interview. See my point?

The fallout has already started with this swift and strong response from the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

General Pace’s comments are outrageous, insensitive and disrespectful to the 65,000 lesbian and gay troops now serving in our armed forces. Our men and women in uniform make tremendous sacrifices for our country, and deserve General Pace’s praise, not his condemnation. As a Marine and a military leader, General Pace knows that prejudice should not dictate policy. It is inappropriate for the Chairman to condemn those who serve our country because of his own personal bias. He should immediately apologize for his remarks. Regardless of one’s opinion about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ every service member deserves respect. Secretary of Defense Gates should immediately condemn Pace’s remarks. Their apologies should be swift and sincere. - C. Dixon Osburn, Executive Director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) (source)

2) Let’s talk a bit about morality, since General Pace brought the subject up.

Being gay and sleeping with someone’s wife are not the same thing. When you apply to the military, you are asked on the enlistment form if you are a homosexual. To be able to serve your country, you lie. Is telling a lie immoral? Because if it is, I would argue that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy has failed the morality test just on that alone. Is being honest immoral, when it comes to telling others that you are gay?

Is sleeping with someone else’s wife immoral? It all gets rather muddy to put these two issues together, as though they are one. This is what General Pace has done. The military will (supposedly) prosecute a member found to be committing adultery. IF Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell were not in place, and IF gay people could actually get married, I would expect the military to hold both gay and straight couples to the same standard with respect to adultery. If you sleep around with others in the military, and you are married, you will suffer the consequences. That is not a gay or straight issue, assuming gay couples could get married.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is purely an issue for gay people, and an issue of lying to stay in the military. How moral is that?

Is it moral to go into war with another country when that entire war is built on a foundation of lies?

Is it moral for CIA field operatives to be exposed as payback for someone’s revenge?

Is it moral to propose a constitutional amendment against an unpopular minority solely to garner votes from conservative voters, when you have no intention of following through with the passage of the amendment?

Is it moral to support and carry out torture of other human beings under the guise of “protecting our way of life”?

Is it moral to ship detainees to other countries known for the brutal torture techniques that we are legally unable to carry out, so that our purposes will be achieved?

Is it moral to hold detainees (just for the sake of argument, let’s call them “enemy combatants”) for was long as we deem necessary without giving them any legal way to get out of their situation?

Is it moral that we are more concerned with Britney Spears and who won an Oscar than the situation in Darfur?

Is it moral to send our troops into harms way without proper equipment and sacrifice them for a cause built on a lie?

Is it moral to deal with every issue that comes up by finding a scapegoat to take the fall for “what went wrong”, instead of going after the real people responsible for the issue in the first place?
Hurricane Katrina - Michael Brown says victims are partly responsible. Later, he is fired as the scapegoat. None of this sticks to President Bush.
Walter Reed Army Medical Center - Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley resigns because he’s the scapegoat. None of this sticks to President Bush, although I’m sure he would say “I take full responsibility...”. That is becoming easier and easier for him to say isn’t it? Especially when it doesn’t really mean anything.
MANY others....

Is it moral for us to accept a statement from a Secretary of Defense (Rumsfeld) who stated, “You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”? Is it moral for us to accept that knowing that lives will be lost in sending that Army to war without proper preparations?

Is it moral for our military to accept help from Iraqi citizens who put their lives in jeopardy to help the United States, then have the United States later turn our backs on those Iraqi citizens when they ask for protection?

General Pace, since you seem to be willing to offer up your personal opinion on morality, what would you say about these issues? They are just as real as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. My bet is that you will say nothing about them. Why? Because those issues all point to the same place: THE WHITE HOUSE, and not a bunch of queers who are an easy and politically safe target for you. You are a soldier. Show some backbone damn it.

All of these issues make looking at the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy through the rosy colored glasses of morality a rather silly argument. You have gay people who are willing to risk their lives defending this county, while sacrificing their personal integrity and pride to do that. And this is what gets attention while all these other issues that are eroding our country’s image and national security are merely brushed under the carpet as the news du jour.

How moral is that?

Final thought....

Judging gay men and women in the military for factors unrelated to their fitness to serve undermines our military’s effectiveness. Certain leaders’ bigotry should not be a rational basis for discrimination. This kind of prejudice is going to continue to have a direct impact on our national security as we allow qualified gay men and women to lose their jobs for no good reason.

This policy, and General Pace’s bigotry, is outdated, unnecessary and counter to the same American values our soldiers are giving their lives for each and every day. - Eric Alva, the first soldier to be wounded in the current Iraq conflict. He was awarded a Purple Heart award for bravery by the President of the United States after stepping on a land mine in Iraq in 2003, breaking his right arm and damaging his leg so badly that it had to be amputated. Eric came out as a gay man last month. (source)

Other Interesting reading....
Anti-Gay Remarks of Military Chief Suggest Gay Ban Lacks Rationale (except below)

Nathaniel Frank, a Senior Research Fellow at the Palm Center who is writing a book on the gay exclusion rule to be published next year by St. Martin’s Press, said that in recent history, military leaders had carefully constructed a rationale for the gay ban that sought to confine its reasoning to military necessity rather than morality or bias. “They came up with the unit cohesion rationale,” Frank explained, “which argued that the presence of gays and lesbians in a unit would undermine the morale, readiness and operational effectiveness of the military. For some, this was just a cover for the real source of their resistance to gay service, which was moral.”

But Frank said overwhelming evidence from the U.S. and foreign militaries showed that openly gay service does not impair the military. In a January op-ed in the New York Times, Pace’s predecessor, Gen. John Shalikashvili, called for an end to gay exclusion, saying research has shown that gay service does not undermine cohesion.

“That statement more or less ended the debate over unit cohesion,” Frank said, “forcing the voices opposed to gay service to revert to moral dogma. But there is really no basis for excluding an entire group of people simply because some of the military has a moral problem with those people. If it doesn’t translate into military impairment, they'll probably need to just grin and bear it. No one ever said that, when you serve your country, you're entitled to choose everyone you serve with.”

The increasing incoherence of the military's gay exclusion policy (except below)

...the number of convicted felons who enlisted in the U.S. military nearly doubled in the past three years, totaling 4,230 in the last four years. The recruits entered under the “moral waiver” program, which enlists those who otherwise would not qualify because of immoral behavior, such as committing felonies. This lowering of standards continues as two to three competent gay service members lose their jobs every day. More than 11,000 have been fired under the policy, including more than 800 mission-critical specialists and 300 linguists covering 161 different occupational specialties.

The Palm study should be required reading for Pace, so he can explain why gay counterintelligence officers are too immoral to serve in the military, while it made sense to admit Pvt. Steven Green, a high school dropout with three criminal convictions and a history of substance abuse who is charged with the rape and killing of an Iraqi family in Mahmudiya, Iraq. Green was enlisted through a moral waiver.

Sharp Drop in Gays Discharged From Military Tied to War Need (except below)

The number of homosexuals discharged from the U.S. military under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy dropped significantly in 2006, according to Pentagon figures released yesterday -- continuing a sharp decline since the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts began and leading critics to charge that the military is retaining gay men and lesbians because it needs them in a time of war. [...]

“It is hypocritical that the Pentagon seems to retain gay and lesbian service members when they need them most, and fires them when it believes they are expendable,” said Steve E. Ralls, a spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a nonprofit that opposes the policy. [...]

There are an estimated 65,000 gay men and lesbians serving in the military today, according to census-based research by the Williams Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles...

“I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot.’ So, I’m kind of at an impasse. Can’t really talk about Edwards. ...”

That was the quote that landed right-wing political commentator Ann Coulter in hot water. But we all know what Ann Coulter is. Is she a homophobe? I suppose. But more than that, she caters to the sensational -- she will say just about anything to get attention to further her career. None of this surprises me, any more than the article on the non-biased “fair and balanced” article on Ann Coulter has been pulled from the Fox News website. So, none of this surprises me, and, like most of you, I’ve been sitting idly by enjoying all the hoopla over this incident.

What does surprise me is the reaction from some in the gay community...

Dan Savage, editor of the Stranger, a Seattle alternative news weekly, and author of several books on his life as a gay man, said the reaction to Coulter could indicate a change in how people view gays.

“I always thought we would be reaching a tipping point with anti-gay hate where it will no longer be acceptable, and maybe we are reaching that tipping point now,” said Savage.

I think Mr. Savage is right. All of this has happened because we are seeing a tipping point in attitudes.

Conservative gay scholar Andrew Sullivan, who heard Coulter’s comments live, said she uttered it with “malice aforethought.” But equating it to other slurs is a difficult comparison, Sullivan said.

“Nothing has the power of the n-word,” he said. (Source)

WRONG! Andrew, tell that to any kid who is thought to be gay in middle school and high school. Being called a faggot, or being thought to be gay, can bring with it intimidation, threats, bullying, beatings, and death. The threat is real and being called a “faggot” is just as hurtful as being called the “n-word”. Sometimes, I honestly don’t understand where Mr. Sullivan is coming from. It’s as if he grew up in an alternate universe.

I grew up with the reality that I may not make it out of high school alive. I left Emmett, Idaho and went to college, but not to get an education. I left Emmett to save my life, and in so doing, I happened to pick up an education. The weight of that was every bit as evident and real to me as being black in Emmett. But I’m not reliving that experience here. That has been covered in vivid gory details in other posts. You can look it up if you are interested. My best friend’s family was literally burned out of their home when I was in Emmett. His sin was being black. So I don’t know. To me, being gay and being black in Emmett was pretty much equal. He was called the “n-word” and I was later called... what would you call it, the “fa-word” (there’s already a reserved “f-word”).

I just think it’s really ironic for an educated gay man such as Andrew Sullivan to simply not get it.

And then there’s this from Matt Arundel who lives in Shreveport...

I implore all readers to understand that I do not oppose free speech, and Coulter can feel free to write as many books as she pleases. However, I will not sit by and watch this woman try to slur a presidential candidate using a word that has enabled violence against gays. She calls it a joke. I challenge Ann Coulter to defend the context in which she used the word “faggot” and tell us how it’s funny. The same context, I might add, that has been shouted to victims of hate crimes as they were left to die or suffer in pain because they had the strength and courage to tell an unkind world they were different. (source)

Well, that just hits too close to home for me. “Faggot” was exactly what they were yelling at me as I was being beaten and left. Andrew Sullivan, want to let that happen to you and then come back and say, “Nothing has the power of the n-word&rdquo? Enough said.