Monthly Archives: February 2015
Alabama Judge, Ordered to Recognize Same-Sex Marriage, Denies Second-Parent Adoption
Gay People Are Gods: Protecting LGBT Communities Is a Divine Right
Gay People Are Gods: Protecting LGBT Communities Is a Divine Right
It was night time. An openly gay man was walking alone down 10th Street in the crime-ridden section of Long Beach, California. Wearing neon red parachute pants, a bright pink polo shirt, the latest Air Jordan shoes, and sporting a white Kangol hat, he looked like a cross between Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Prince. It was the early 1980s.
I was nine years old, and I knew this gay man from around my neighborhood. He was the first gay person I’d ever met.
As this man walked towards the intersection of Orange Avenue, suddenly he was bum rushed by ten local gang members. They formed a tight circle around him, knocked off his hat, and punched him around like boxer Floyd Mayweather punching Manny Pacquiao.
The gay man stumbled to the hard concrete and the gangsters began to violently stomp him into the cement; yelling and screaming with blind rage.
“Stay out of our hood, you flaming ‘F’!” The gangbangers used the demeaning F-word to refer to members of the gay community.
While I watched the gay-bashing, my nine year old mind could not process the nature of the bitter homophobic juggernaut that compelled these hardcore thugs to beat down a helpless homosexual man.
In my neighborhood everyone knew that “snitches get stitches” and “if you open your mouth, a gun goes in your mouth”. These colorful ghetto code phrases mean that one must never intervene in a fight and never report crimes to the police. In my low-income housing project, the police were considered enemies and the gang members were considered friends.
Terrified by the savagery and afraid of these hoodlums, I ran away from this episode of anti-gay violence. Meanwhile, the gay man was thug-jacked and booty-crushed. No one intervened and I heard the man nearly died.
On the same night of this beating, I watched a video tape of Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream speech.” I distinctly remember Dr. King oozing moral courage and socio-political power as he continually described his compassionate dream of equality and justice. A tear rolled down my face as I listened to the speech.
Today, as I reflect upon the pain inflicted on this particular gay man, I am inspired with a new dream — not only an aspiration for LGBT equality — but a dream of gay empowerment. For without power there can be no true security or freedom of choice.
I have a dream today that gay people and lesbians will have a vested and inalienable right to universal marriage equality backed by the power of law. Gay marriage is not only a civil right to be enacted by governments, but it is a fundamental human right bestowed by the almighty hands of God.
Today, in a major step towards fulfilling this lofty dream of social justice, I submitted an innovative proposal to the offices of California State Senator Mark Leno and California Assembly Member David Chiu.
My proposal calls for the creation of “California LGBT Police Departments” throughout the Golden State. These police departments, funded by the state, would be staffed exclusively by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender police officers. The goals of these proposed “LGBT Squads” are to better serve communities while minimizing troubling incidents of anti-gay violence.
I believe it is important for heterosexual people and homosexual people to love and respect one another regardless of sexual orientation or transgender identity. However, it is also vital for LGBT communities to wield police power backed by the force of law. In other words, we must not only demand “gay rights,” but we must also demand “gay power.”
As I think back on the savage episode of anti-gay bashing I witnessed as a small boy, I now understand that LGBT communities worldwide must be empowered with the weapons to fight for justice.
This essay is humbly dedicated to the memory of Matthew Shepard (December 1, 1976–October 12, 1998).
Mark Charles Hardie is a candidate for United States Senate in California (2016). An attorney, Mr. Hardie is a veteran of both the United States Army and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He is a member of the World Jewish Congress and the NAACP. His critically acclaimed autobiography is titled “Black & Bulletproof: An African American Warrior in the Israeli Army” (New Horizon Press, New Jersey, 2010).
Discriminatory “Conscience Protection Act” Suffers Setback in Senate Judiciary Committee
Discriminatory “Conscience Protection Act” Suffers Setback in Senate Judiciary Committee
HRC Arkansas urges legislature to abandon consideration of H.B. 1228
HRC.org
Homophobic Teacher Succeeds In Suing The School That Fired Her, And Now She Wants Even More
Homophobic Teacher Succeeds In Suing The School That Fired Her, And Now She Wants Even More
For the past two years, special ed teacher Jenye Viki Knox (pictured) has been in a legal battle with administrators from a Union Township High School in New Jersey after she claims they violated her free speech and religious rights by firing her for launching into an unprovoked homophobic tirade. Now, a judge has ruled in her favor.
The incident happened back in September 2011. After noticing a poster for LGBT Month hanging in the school hallway, Knox took to Facebook to express her outrage, writing:
“Why parade your unnatural immoral behaviors before the rest of us? I DO NOT HAVE TO TOLERATE ANYTHING OTHERS WISH TO DO. I DO HAVE TO LOVE AND SPEAK AND DO WHAT’S RIGHT!”
She then listed all her religious objections to the billboard, which included statements from the bible about homosexuality, calling homosexuality a sin and an act of “disobedience to God,” and calling for salvation through Mr. Jesus H. Christ.
School board officials determined Knox’s behavior was “unbecoming” of a state employee who is supposed to be a role model to young people, and as a result, she was suspended without pay for three months, a punishment Knox feels was unfair.
“It’s not like she was a teacher standing up in the middle of class and saying I believe in ‘this, this and this,” her attorney, Demetrios Stratis, argued in court.
At the end of the school year, she resigned from her job, saying that being branded as a zealot and a homophobe had gotten to be too “stressful.”
She now claims the incident caused her considerable “physical and emotional toll” and that she hasn’t been able to work since.
This week, U.S. District Court Judge Kevin McNulty ruled in Knox’s favor, opening up an opportunity for her to argue her case before a federal jury. She is seeking reinstatement, back pay, and monetary damages.
h/t: Raw Story
Related stories:
Gay High School Teacher Fired For Announcing His Engagement On Facebook
Schoolteacher Who Referred To Student As “Fag Number One” Quickly Fired
Graham Gremore
Westboro Baptist's Shirley Phelps-Roper Knows Why Neil Patrick Harris Stripped at the Oscars: VIDEO
Westboro Baptist's Shirley Phelps-Roper Knows Why Neil Patrick Harris Stripped at the Oscars: VIDEO
Shirley Phelps-Roper and a bevy of her Westboro Baptist Church minions traveled to L.A. to picket the Oscars over the weekend and decided they would make a stop by the sidewalk in front of the offices of The Hollywood Reporter the next day.
Why? Because the media mob is doomed to Hell, that’s why (see Shirley’s song and dance in the video that follows)!
THR Reporter Seth Abramovitch, who made a point of letting them know he’s gay and Jewish, went out to speak with them and discovered that Shirley and her clan still love the spotlight as much as any Hollywood star.
She had a few comments on the Oscars, on things such as Neil Patrick Harris’s underwear stunt:
“They say that [Neil Patrick Harris] saw that [the show] was really boring. The answer for a fag to something that is boring is to take his pants off. I saw the backside of him over my shoulder. I think that he needs to keep it covered.”
And as for Lady Gaga?
“Lady Gaga needs to shut up and repent or she’s going to go to Hell with the rest.”
And how about Joan Rivers getting snubbed by the Academy. Shirley says the WBC was much more reverent:
“We didn’t snub her. We had our ‘Joan Rivers in Hell’ sign.“
Shirley is rendered speechless, however, when asked about the sign she’s holding up top.
Check out the hilarious interview, AFTER THE JUMP…
Andy Towle
Suicide is never the option. LGBT lives matter.
Suicide is never the option. LGBT lives matter.
LGBT & suicide have been happening more than normal recently. Let’s spread positivity and love to those who are going through a struggle. Twitter: thatsojalen Instagram: thatsojalenn : jalentheinte…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWHwB5Qwhoo&feature=youtube_gdata
Vice Shares an Inside Look at a Texas 'Ex-Gay' Camp
Vice Shares an Inside Look at a Texas 'Ex-Gay' Camp
In the first part of a series, Vice takes a look at the industry that claims to help people change their sexual orientation.
Michelle Garcia
www.advocate.com/ex-gay-therapy/2015/02/25/vice-shares-inside-look-texas-ex-gay-camp
Inequality Is Connected, Any Color Any Land
Inequality Is Connected, Any Color Any Land
I probably surprised many people when I fell in love with a woman. After all, I didn’t look like a lesbian, but like an average, long-haired, white girl from the Midwest. My college best friend Lois was probably the most shocked of all, though she hid it well. That is, until I announced my wedding. Then she sent an email, saying how “Congratulations” would be a lie, given that I was walking into darkness and suffering and all.
I was inseparable from Lois in college. I was quirky and loud to offset her soft sweetness. We took road trips across states, ate ice cream every day, studied, joined clubs as a pair. I convinced her to sneak around town at night, writing happy messages in sidewalk chalk. We invented holidays. We threw corn kernels into obscure places to make wishes. She was alternately baffled at my unpredictable fire, and my biggest fan. I was amused at her naiveté, and loved her devotion to me.
Sometimes I went with her to church. I believed in the overarching ideas of loving neighbors and a humanity that was headed somewhere, while Lois was what Rob called a turbo-Christian. Rob and I would know. We gravitated toward the Christian crowd because they didn’t party and made reasonably good choices. In whatever time I wasn’t spending with her, I dated Rob. He and I skated on the periphery of the Christian circles, unsure together.
We finished college and Lois got married in a way that only God or Disney could orchestrate. I stood up at her wedding wondering if she was savvy enough to be out in the world. Yet she seemed to live in a different world than most of us. The God tentacles then reached into every region of her brain, into every conversation. I admired this. Her faith was a testimony for her magical life and vice versa. She settled into marriage and I filled my life with new best friends.
Calls, visits, updates, our different paths still inspired each other, right up until the email. I wrote responses, some in God language, some not. I never sent any of them.
My life grew in some ways she would have relished: my wedding on a farm near our college, with a double rainbow; my efforts to become a writer, an undertaking she began long before I did; the shared transition into motherhood, as we both started families.
I also didn’t talk to Lois about my move to a neighborhood and country that struggles with inequality in ways that take my breath away. Each morning in the car I see hundreds of black South Africans walking miles from township to suburb to work for white people. I squirm when the servers in the restaurants are all black, the management and patrons all white, and when housecleaners are referred to as “domestics.” I heard a rumor that white South African women have babies by C-section, because they don’t want to give birth the way black women do. I collect scenes when I witness genuine camaraderie across racial lines. In two years, I can still count these on two hands.
On the day Mandela died, the air in the country resonated with loss for their leader, love pulsing and gathering. Signs and billboards bidding him Hamba kakuhle grew out of the ground like weeds. I saw teens weeping in each other’s arms. My family and I drove out of our complex, and waving to our black guards, Joseph and Shaka. We went to Soweto, to the street where Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu once both lived. Joseph and Shaka were stuck at work.
Vilakazi Street was filled with parading, dancing, singing and celebrating. We were among very few white faces. Everyone except us knew the words to the resistance songs, the stomping and spinning, the call and response orchestrated like they’d been rehearsing for weeks. In reality, these songs were simply etched in their story. Some of these people sang in the same streets when apartheid raged.
We sat at a crowded outdoor restaurant and from within the celebration a woman approached. Her poster showed a picture of an older Mandela, fist in the air, and the words Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. She sat and collected herself while the songs and colors swirled. “Thank you for coming to Soweto to be with us,” she said.
“There is nowhere we would rather be. Thank you for sharing your leader with the world.” I smiled.
“This is all Mandela wanted,” she replied. “To have whites and blacks sitting at a table together.”
A few months later my father contacted me with news that Lois had called, crying, saying she needed to talk me, to apologize.
That evening I sat on the couch, looking at my wife, feeling so tender, so protective. I suddenly sensed how deeply the taproot of discrimination sinks in, through layer upon layer of self. With Lois, I was preparing to face a judge about to pardon me, when I had no reason to be on trial in the first place. I fumed with resentment that her judgment my marriage seemed smaller, less than hers. There was no way I could ever feel she respected me, not with her words in our past.
What surged in me that night was a new shade of empathy for black South Africans. After being beaten down for generations they were told, “Our bad. You can be equal now.” That those in power could grant equality demonstrated that they were, in fact, superior. Steps like these, in the right direction, are still embedded in the systems they try to erase.
Accepting an apology is costly, in ways I hadn’t dared imagining. My heart knotted each time I passed Joseph and Shaka at the gate, knowing they must have similar moments of gathering their pride in the stale air of unfairness. I wanted to hug them, to yell from the rooftops, You have always been equal! Instead, I lamented on my couch for my own tiny drop in the injustice bucket.
After a few days of looking around with a wider, more sensitive heart, I called Lois. Not because I wanted to. I called because I felt a kinship to the black people in this country who still held their heads up high.
I recognized every nuance of her voice. “I need to ask your forgiveness. I don’t want to break relationships. I’ve learned a lot about God’s love in the last few years …” On and on she went. I remained guarded, but relieved she was growing.
I told her I forgave her. I told her how the past few days had stretched my heart in ways I was ultimately grateful for. I asked what changed her mind.
“I still believe you what you’re doing is wrong. I’m just sorry I said it in a way that hurt you. Maybe this is a topic we shouldn’t discuss.”
My heart stumbled and I looked around the room, trying to figure out what conversation I was actually in. She wanted to be friends, but ignore that I had a wife and kid? “Well,” I said, “if you ever learn about love in some other new ways and want to talk as equals, I’ll be here. Happily married and willing.”
“God’s word is unchanging,” she said.
“But… we are always learning. And there are many new lands still ahead for each of us.”
I hung up, sweating, filled with a victorious sense of self-preservation. And shortly afterwards, guilt. I was the gay person in Lois’s life. Didn’t that make it my responsibility to show her the goodness of my marriage, to schlep her heart across to that other shore? Though she lived in Tennessee and I in South Africa, wasn’t that my assigned role in advancing human rights?
I called Rob, now a lawyer for the ACLU. He told me not to worry, that people like Lois were his job. Again, the landscape shifted in my heart. With a few words, an atheist ex-boyfriend showed me the power, the aching gratitude, buried in solidarity.
I thought of the men at my gate and the people in the country around me. When it comes to equality, I stand on one side of the struggle as a gay person, but on the other side every day as a white one. Both of these positions are hopeful, daunting, and powerful, on every shore I call home.
Brave Spaces Premiers at HRC
Brave Spaces Premiers at HRC
Last Wednesday proved a compelling night of discussion in HRC’s Equality Forum, as community members and faith leaders gathered to watch the premiere of Brave Spaces.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/brave-spaces-premiers-at-hrc?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
