American Values Alliance | Practical voice for progressive valuesAmerican Values Alliance | Practical voice for progressive values
You may notice the Bilerico Project looks a little different today as we stand in solidarity with the ACLU to demand that Guantanamo Bay be shut down. We'll be orange from midnight to midnight on the 6th anniversary of the first arrival of detainees.
Wear orange today to protest Gitmo and stop by the ACLU website to find quick ways you can help shutter this travesty of justice.
We also have an open thread going asking "What do you think is the worst atrocity committed by the Bush administration?"
[BIL'S NOTE:] Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wrote this guest post for The Bilerico Project to explain his support for LGBT civil rights. I've posted the front section of the post here. For the rest, come over to the Project and join the discussion.
Over the last several weeks, the question of GLBT equality was placed on center stage by the appearance of Donnie McClurkin at one of my campaign events. McClurkin is a talented performer and a beloved figure among many African Americans and Christians around the country. At the same time, he espouses beliefs about homosexuality that I completely reject.
The events of the last several weeks are not the occasion that I would have chosen to discuss America’s divisions on gay rights and my own deep commitment to GLBT equality. Now that the issue is before us, however, I do not intend to run away from it. These events have provided an important opportunity for us to confront a difficult fact: There are good, decent, moral people in this country who do not yet embrace their gay brothers and sisters as full members of our shared community.
We will not secure full equality for all GLBT Americans until we learn how to address that deep disagreement and move beyond it. To achieve that goal, we must state our beliefs boldly, bring the message of equality to audiences that have not yet accepted it, and listen to what those audiences have to say in return.
This isn't directly AVA related, but is aimed at our Indianapolis readers who've been following along with the Scott Keller campaign. Since it's the day before the election, I don't have time to write much today, so I am putting this press release about Keller's opponent stooping to untruthful attack mailers. Consider this an open thread on negative campaigning - does it help the candidate or does it hurt them?
(Full disclosure: Councilor Keller is an AVA board member)
Councilor Keller Condemns Negative,
Untrue Campaign MailingsIndianapolis City-County Councilor Scott Keller condemns untrue attack mailings sent out by his opponent’s campaign. Three recent attack mailings have attempted to paint an intentionally distorted picture of Councilor Keller to voters.
“My opponent, Brian Mahern, refused to pledge a clean campaign earlier this year. Now I see why,” Councilor Keller said. “While I was willing to overlook his attack on my physical appearance in one mailing, I will not stand idly by as he deliberately lies to the voters.”
This has been quite the past couple of weeks for the Bilerico Project. First we had three of our contributors make the Out 100 - a prestigious feat unmatched anywhere else on the web. Congratulations are in order for Lane Hudson, Joe Solmonese and Mike Rogers for making the list! The editorial team did interviews with the Washington Blade this week too for a story about our site. And now today brings more good news!
The Bilerico Project is a top ten finalist for the 2007 Weblog Awards Best LGBT Blog! What an honor to be selected for the Academy Awards of Blogging! We've all worked hard to develop the site into a national gathering spot where you can find the best commentary on LGBT issues side by side with entertainment, advice columns and general wackiness. Plus, two of our contributors also made the cut for their own blogs. Pam Spaulding's Pam's House Blend and Terrance Heath's Republic of T are both finalists as well. Pam has won the category for the past two years running.
Other finalists include friends of the blog Joe.My.God. and Mombian as well as Gay Patriot, Average Gay Joe, Susie Bright's Journal, Keith Boykin, and Fetch me my axe. Voting opens tonight for your favorite LGBT blog of the year. Of course, no disrespect to Terrance and Pam, but I'm very much hoping that we take the top prize; it would be nice capstone on our re-launch. *grins* Winners will be announced next week, so we're counting on all of you to vote early and vote often - and tell all of your friends to vote for us too! Let's see if we can't knock Pam off her (well-deserved) perch.
(The following is cross-posted from The Bilerico Project. Managing editor Alex Blaze is the author.)
The Nation's Chris Lisotta has an article up that goes through the ENDA split and the ensuing drama of these past several weeks. It's pretty thorough, but buried in it is this paragraph:
One of the consequences of the ENDA conflict is a realization that LGBT rights groups have organized themselves differently over the past decade. In the 1980s and early '90s, a handful of national organizations based primarily in New York and Washington lobbied legislators and served as mouthpieces for gay rights issues, most often AIDS-related funding. But with the Republican Congressional takeover in 1994, plus the cultural shift toward more openly gay people living outside big cities, local LGBT political organizations flourished, especially after the spate of marriage amendment campaigns began. The move has started to pay dividends; with help from national organizations, Equality Arizona helped beat back a marriage amendment initiative in its state in 2006.
That is pretty interesting and strikes me as pretty true. As the gays have been moving away from coastal-urban areas to small towns and the country in the past decade, and those of us who were already out there are finally getting some attention because we're finally coming out.
But I'm interested in this idea that the marriage amendments have actually galvanized the gay rights movement, and that's after the jump.
With all the ENDA controversy, we can sure use some humor. This has to be the funniest Larry Craig mockery yet... Will bathroom stall jokes ever get old now? Hell, I hear his "wide stance" has entered the national lexicon...
(Hat tip to Scott-O-Rama)
(I'm cross-posting this entry from the Rev Irene Monroe at The Bilerico Project. I think the audience here will enjoy it.)
Since President Bush took office, religion has been the litmus test to discern a presidential candidate’s electability. And in the current pool of 2008 presidential hopefuls, this litmus test has produced a star-studded cast of Democratic prophets extolling their religiosity as well as Republican religious bigots promulgating their politics. The one-time separation between church and state has been hijacked by both political parties.
John McCain is our latest, but certainly not our last presidential hopeful to tell the country that a government’s embrace and execution of Christian principles is the quintessential marker that the right person is holding the highest office the land. As McCain said in a interview posted on Beliefnet:
I think the number one issue people should make in the selection of the president of the United States is, ‘Will this person carry on in the Judeo-Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?’ I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, ... personally I prefer someone who I know has a solid grounding in my faith.
A solid grounding in McCain’s faith of Judeo-Christian principles would not only run aground of America’s solid tradition of religious pluralism, but it also runs counter to upholding the civil liberties of marginalized populations in this country - like lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens, who are continually battered by the way religion is used by social conservatives.
(I'm cross-posting this excellent entry to the Bilerico Project from Nadine Smith. Nadine is the Executive Director of Equality Florida. In case you're not up on the current LGBT controversy, Rep. Barney Frank has decided to remove coverage for transgender folks from ENDA - the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Obviously, this has sparked outrage amongst the LGBT community.)
Don't get angry, get organized
That's an old activist slogan to remind us that in a fight we do better to get strategic than to simply lash out. Are you upset to hear that gender identy and expression has been stripped from our national ENDA bill? Well, now is not the time to perform the autopsy on how a fully inclusive bill came unraveled. The patient is still alive and we have work to do.
History shows us that we can win.
Years ago I heard Tim McFeeley, then Executive Director of HRC, tell the story of how the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act was almost halted by the disability community leaders themselves.
In 1990, the landmark measure had passed the House and the Senate with bipartisan majorities and was on its way to then President George H. W. Bush who had already firmly committed to signing the bill. But disability community leaders, many of whom had spent decades fighting for this historic legislation were not happy. In the final moments, both chambers had suddenly amended the ADA to specifically exclude HIV positive waiters, cooks and anyone designated a "food-handler".
(This post is cross-posted from The Bilerico Project. Please forgive the references to the AVA site as a 3rd party.)
You may remember Bill Groth from his frequent comments here on The Bilerico Project or you might know him from his own blog at the American Values Alliance (where Sheila Kennedy and I blog also). By far, Bill has one of the brightest minds I've ever had the pleasure of picking. He's probably forgotten more than I'll ever know.
Bill hasn't been blogging as much lately since he's been a little busy - and he's about to get a lot busier! Yesterday, the Supreme Court announced that they would take up the Voter ID case that Bill has been arguing on behalf of the Indiana Democratic Party. Bill explained his involvement in the case in a post he did last month:
I filed the final brief with the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday, asking that Court to agree to review the highly controversial split decision of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals which upheld the constitutionality of Indiana’s 2005 law that requires all persons who wish to vote in person (the Law excludes mail-in absentee voters from the ID requirements) to produce a government-issued license with a photograph.
Among the remarkable features of this case is the fact that the State conceded that the General Assembly had no evidence that even a single person had ever been charged with, much less convicted of, the crime of imposter voting. The State defended its enactment of the Law simply referring to “reports” of such voter fraud from other states. In the past two years, every one of those “reports” has proved to be unfounded. In fact, it has since become clear that some of these “reports” were deliberately concocted and then widely-spread by Bush Administration political operatives to justify the enactment of restrictive voter-ID laws in an effort to game the political system in favor of the Republican Party. Congress is currently investigating whether at least two U.S. attorneys, David Iglesias and John McKay, were fired because they failed to play along with this political strategy.
"President Bush keeps bringing up the threat of Al Queda and the fact is if the President would have done his job after 9/11, there would be no Al Queda. The truth is Al Queda are criminals and you fight criminals with crime fighters, not the military. President Bush said we will be in Iraq long after he leaves office, and that is unacceptable to a vast majority of Americans. We are not the ignorant masses the President likes to think we are."
-- Congressional candidate Barry Welsh regarding the address President Bush gave to the nation the other evening.
Indiana Fairness Alliance (formerly the Greater Indianapolis Fairness Alliance and the Indiana Action Network) will be meeting Tuesday at 7pm at Boulevard Place Cafe - 4155 Boulevard Place. Topics for the meeting will be how to support local LGBT supportive candidates among other things. Everyone welcome!
Local playwright and actor Tony McDonald is currently performing his one man show "Lies My Parents Told Me" at The Alley Theater in Indianapolis. The play traces Tony's experiences growing up gay in southern Indiana. The Alley is at 1716 N. Illinois St. and the box office can be reached at (317) 926-8888
The Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce’s HobNob is fast approaching! HobNob is the largest non-partisan political event in central Indiana. The event gathers the political candidates for the upcoming election year in a casual and fun environment and provides community members the opportunity to interact one-on-one with the candidates. Community members can network with over 800 attendees including regional community leaders and policymakers. The 2007 event will take place along the canal in a festival-like atmosphere and will include a short program and food and beverages for attendees to enjoy. The political process requires active participants, not spectators. Please plan to attend! Pre-registration is not available. Please plan to pay $10 at the door.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
5 – 8 p.m.
Indiana State Museum
650 W. Washington St.
Do you need to feel all warm and fuzzy inside? For all the griping and moaning most people do about "the youth of today," occasionally you find a story like this.
On the first day of school, a new student was bullied and mocked for wearing a pink shirt. Ten bullies called him gay and threatened to beat him up.
The next day, Grade 12 students David Shepherd and Travis Price decided something had to be done about bullying.
"It’s my last year. I’ve stood around too long and I wanted to do something," said David.
They used the Internet to encourage people to wear pink and bought 75 pink tank tops for male students to wear. They handed out the shirts in the lobby before class last Friday — even the bullied student had one.
"I made sure there was a shirt for him," David said.
...
When the bullied student put on his pink shirt Friday and saw all the other pink in the lobby, "he was all smiles. It was like a big weight had been lifted off is shoulder," David said. No one at the school would reveal the student’s name.
Dan Savage has an excellent post calling for his readers to donate to buy the kids something nice.
I go this e-mail from my neighborhood association this morning and I'm simply amazed at it. Granted, prostitution is a problem in my neighborhood; I've had to run off hookers from picking up johns in front of my house. But what do you think? Is this going too far? I'm actually uncomfortable with this e-mail, but I don't know the history behind the case.
HELP WANTED
ATTEND ACCUSED PROSTITUTE'S COURT HEARING
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH, 1:00PMIrvington residents are being asked to attend the court hearing for ABC XYZ who has been arrested over 20 times for prostitution and other crimes. Your attendance at this hearing will help insure that the court understands that these crimes do have victims and that these activities harm your neighborhood. There is a real concern that Ms. XYZ could be back at work along East Washington Street before you get home from work Thursday evening.
The hearing is Thursday, September 13th at 1:00pm... We hope to see you there.
(Cross posted from The Bilerico Project)
Is anyone else watching Power of 10? I've caught it a few times and it has an interesting concept. Power of 10 is a high-stakes game that challenges contestants to guess the behaviors, opinions and lifestyle choices of the American public for the chance to win $10 million dollars. Power of 10 airs Wednesdays (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on CBS. Drew Carey is the host. You learn a few things about the American public, but the questions can be so out of context that I'm forced to wonder how much stock to put in the results. For example, this week you may have picked up these tidbits:
LGBT people are back on the minds of Indiana's conservatives, but you can bet your bottom dollar they're not concerned with treating us fairly or equally to themselves. No, instead we get more of the same - extreme rhetoric, lies and falsehoods. Oh, and - of course - the possibility of making them some more money!
First we had former Speaker of the House Brian Bosma (who can't understand why Jews might be peeved when he allowed evangelical Christians to praise Jesus as the world's saviour in the legislature's opening prayers instead of sticking to the time honored practice of using a non-sectarian prayer) who again affirms the importance of an amendment in an interview with a local blogger during the Midwest Republican Leadership Conference. Check out this video (the pertinent part starts around the 6 minute mark) where suddenly Bosma claims "property taxes" as the most important Republican agenda item. What happened to the marriage amendment being "the most important piece of the people's business," Brian? Oh - wait there it is at the 7:15 mark - so a minute and 15 seconds later the amendment rears it's head. Damn those gays for buying houses! Arrrgh!
More examples from the machine after the jump:
3 hours 15 min ago
4 hours 19 min ago
5 hours 56 min ago
9 hours 9 min ago
1 day 2 hours ago
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