The economy is in tatters, and the state of California is almost out of money. This puts 35,000 HIV-positive Californians in danger of losing support for costly treatment and medication.

HIV prevention programs may also be shown the door — resulting in higher long-term costs for the state and its families, as infections rise among youths and married couples.

Let’s not forget those among us who are still living with HIV. Let’s honor those who have died by helping those still with us. Please sign and pass around the linked petition from the San Francisco AIDS Foundation to rescue HIV funding in California.

I did more than March for Marriage on the day the California state Supreme Court issued its Prop 8 ruling: I got arrested for it.

Right after the lopsided ruling was announced, I went up to a Yes on 8 church group. A boy of no more than 15 was holding up an anti-gay sign that would have been worthy of Nazi Germany. I asked him if he was aware that the kind of negativity his signage promoted was driving people to suicide. “Do you even care?” I asked.

“No,” was the reply.

I asked him about things the church had supported in the past, like the Salem witch trials, slavery, and the slaughter of Native Americans. “Do you have any remorse about those things?” I asked.

He laughed.

Only 15 years old, and already his church had taught him to hate. And so, I went out into the middle of Van Ness Avenue, in front of the San Francisco Opera House, where hundreds were already seated, blocking traffic.

“Room for one more?” I asked, as I sat down. A lesbian rabbi, two lesbian pastors, and a Buddhist monk all welcomed me.

Two police officers, one a lesbian, the other a gay man, told us they agreed with our action. Volunteers brought coffee, water, bagels & donuts to the protesters.

As each of us was handcuffed and taken away, the crowds cheered.

I spent about a hour in a wagon with six other guys. We chatted casually. At 850 Bryant (police headquarters) we were processed in the parking lot, and released without bail. On June 26th, at 8 a.m., I will appear in court to answer to misdemeanor charges of blocking traffic and disturbing the peace. The officer who handed me my summons shook my hand.

“Just don’t get arrested again tonight,” he said, referring to that evening’s upcoming protest.

“I won’t,” I promised. “But I might on Saturday.”

A friend from New York called me to tell me of the huge protest that was going on in Sheridan Square, right across the street from the original Stonewall Bar. I boasted of my new status as a jailbird, immensely proud of what I had just done.

Before leaving 850 Bryant, I signed up with Marriage Equality USA to canvass neighborhoods, knocking on doors so as to educate people about our cause. “Can you work in Daly City this Sunday?” I was asked. Daly City is the town next to San Francisco. It’s largely straight and leans toward the conservative.

“Yes,” I said.

I also chatted briefly with Molly McKay, the out lesbian who founded Marriage Equality USA.

“We need more LGBT unity,” I said. “Prop 8 passed because we didn’t work together. We don’t support each other. Half of us won’t even speak to each other.”

Molly, a grand marshal of the upcoming SF Pride Parade, smiled. “Be the change you want to be,” she said.

This coming Saturday, May 30th, thousands will gather in Fresno (in the middle of the State) for the Meet in the Middle rally to overturn Prop 8. More info can be found at: www.MeetintheMiddle4Equality.com

To continue the fight beyond that date, please visit the Equality California site.

It’s only a matter of time until Prop 8, and similar propositions around the country are overturned. This movement isn’t going away, it’s growing.

Having watched the court proceedings on television, I was pretty certain that the California Supreme Court was going to uphold Proposition 8, the ballot initiative to overturn an earlier court ruling allowing gay couples the freedom to marry.

Still, knowing that a punch to the gut is coming does not make it hurt any less. The 6-1 ruling was degrading, humiliating and a shameful day that will live in infamy. The decision upheld tyranny of the majority and promoted the idiotic idea of mob rule.

What next?

Can the voters of California now decide whether I can eat bacon and eggs for breakfast? Are they able to choose if I can own a cat or a dog? May they regulate my weight or pick what career I choose?

These are serious questions. The fact is, banning my potential marriage is more an imposition and hardship than if the voters had chosen to enact the above examples. Any non-biased person would agree that the idea of the public banning the possibility of their marriage would be both invasive and traumatizing. Yet, the voters of California, backed by the Supreme Court, upheld this Orwellian idea.

Really, what are the limits to such insanity? Are we unique individuals with inalienable rights or public property with provisional rights granted or eliminated by the whims of the fickle electorate?

In his dissent, Justice Carlos Moreno was correct to write, “Denying gays and lesbians the right to marry, by wrenching minority rights away from judicial protection and subjecting them instead to a majority vote, attacks the very core of the equal protection principle.”

There are now calls from gay and lesbian leaders to place the marriage question back on the ballot in California. The competitive side of me says, “bring it on, let’s win.” But, another side believes that the gay and lesbian community should simply boycott all votes relating to rights — and take our outrage to the streets and the halls of Congress. After all, why are we the only minority in the history of this nation that has had to explicitly win public approval for our most basic needs? (Read More)

Court Favors Mob Rule By Allowing Majority to Dictate Basic Rights

NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out expressed deep dismay over the California Supreme Court’s split 6-1 ruling today that upheld Proposition 8, a ballot measure which abolished the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. The court did, however, allow the 18,000 marriages that took place in California, while marriage equality existed, to stand.

“This was a shameful day that will live in infamy,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “It was a heartbreaking loss that established the tyranny of the majority as the law of the land in California.”

Today’s ruling defies a string of marriage equality victories and a trend of societal acceptance. In the past few months, Vermont, Maine and Iowa granted same-sex couples equal marriage rights. New Hampshire’s legislature also passed a bill supporting marriage equality. According to the Human Rights Campaign, twelve states plus Washington, D.C. have laws providing at least some form of state-level relationship recognition for same-sex couples.

“Our movement is resilient and stands ready to fight on until full equality is achieved,” said Besen. “This ruling is merely a speed bump that will not deter us from ultimate victory. We must turn disappointment into determination and pain into progress.”

In recent years, the reparative-therapy lobbying group NARTH has taught outdated information, distorted valid scientific data, supplied false information to antigay Catholic authorities, misrepresented the policies of mainstream mental-health organizations, and published strawman arguments about its critics.

At his web site, Michael J. Bayly — who happens to be executive coordinator of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities — offers an excellent overview of NARTH’s efforts, culminating in the latest unraveling of one of NARTH’s foundations: the misguided work of Masters and Johnson.

In an article published May 22 by Focus on the Family’s political wing, FOTF Action, Focus protests a new Colorado law that ensures gay government employees enjoy the same family benefits as heterosexual employees.

In Focus’ view, state governments should tax gay residents while granting special benefits solely to heterosexual government workers.

Focus whines, “Taxpayers will foot the bill for the benefits, which include health care.”

Focus wants gay government workers and their families to be underpaid, denied health care — or just plain fired.

In Omaha, Nebraska, a child’s parents and therapist have determined — after years of struggle, extensive counseling, and careful consideration of their unique circumstances — that it is best, at least for the time being, to allow their child to live as the opposite gender.

WJXT-TV in Jacksonville, Fla., has an in-depth story and video about the child’s background and struggle.

According to KTIV-TV,

[Therapist] Ellie Hites says the brain is sometimes wired differently than the body is.

She says many of her transgender clients have suffered from nervous breakdowns, suicide attempts and deep depression because they’ve been forced to hide their true identity.

Hites tells KETV-TV in Omaha, “I wish that society was open and loving enough to let that child be who that child perceives himself to be.”

But the activists of Focus on the Family and the Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha will hear nothing of it. It is still considered politically correct for members of conservative political institutions to ridicule sissies and tomboys and to dismiss any child development issue as something that can be cured with a good spanking and strict conformity. Focus’ Jeff Johnston — who has no professional mental-health credentials — ignorantly diagnoses that the child must have “gender identity disorder” and further declares, “Many boys who are troubled with gender-identity disorder grow out of it,” he said. “Good parental, pastoral and therapeutic support can help.”

In other words, Focus on the Family declares that its political activists — not a child’s parents or therapist — know what’s best for all children. And it deems itself qualified to blame parents and therapists for the failure of some children to conform to the dictates of Colorado Springs evangelicals. Meanwhile, the Catholic archdiocese in Omaha has been just as smug, ignorant, conformist, and superficial: It has thrown the child out of Catholic school.

According to WJXT,

The mother, a life-long Catholic, thought making the transition in their parish would be the best place for their child to continue friendships, with a support system that included other parents and children.

“The child is welcomed to come, but it would not be acceptable to change the child’s gender and present as a girl,” said Omaha Archdiocese’s Chancellor, the Rev. Joseph Taphorn.

Instead of utilizing this moment to teach its school children about gender, tolerance, and respect, the conservative archdiocese politely told the family to get out. This is the sort of sweetly worded ostracism that conservative Catholics and Focus on the Family try to market as “love” these days.

Focus on the Family and its religious-right therapeutic mentor, NARTH, have a long history of advocating ridicule and harassment of children as a means of imposing traditional gender roles and identities by force. This latest situation suggests that Focus has not yet learned how to approach issues of youth and gender with sensitivity, grace, patience, and respect for parents’ authority and first-hand knowledge.

It’s much easier for a conservative organization to humiliate a family and to dictate comforting, self-satisfied, and politically partisan stereotypes, than to support Christian families with intelligence and compassion in unique and difficult circumstances.

Evangelical antigay lawmakers in South Carolina have amended a bill originally intended to stop teen dating violence, so that the legislation excludes gay teens.

The bigots’ reasoning: Any effort to discourage domestic violence in gay teen relationships would implicitly acknowledge the existence and dignity of gay teens and would lessen the pressure upon teen-agers to pretend to be heterosexual or ex-gay.

Exodus International has two activist organizations and two member churches in the state — none of which have protested the exclusion of gay teens from antiviolence legislation, and none of which support antibullying programs in the state’s schools.

If you live in South Carolina, please let these activists know, politely, that those who tolerate or affirm violence against gay youth in your state betray fairness, justice, morality, and Christian values.

Contact New Song, the so-called Truth Ministry, Christian Assembly of God, and Westminister Presbyterian Church.

As a follow-up to stories posted here at TWO and at Queers United:

We’re pleased to report that satellite provider Dish Network, the only major television carrier to not offer Logo, has added the 24/7 LGBT network to its HD line-up. Dish HD customers can now get Logo on channel 373.

Dish Network remains the sole national carrier of Free Speech TV, the somewhat radical, left-wing alternative network that airs Gay USA, a weekly hard-news show, and other gay-friendly programs.

The HD package that offers Logo costs $20 per month, and includes MGM HD and HD Movie Net, both of which air many classic films, all shown uncut.

Dish customers should check the Dish website monthly for installation specials. For the remainder of this month (May 2009)
customers with HD televisions can switch to HD service at no installation fee.

GayNZ.com has added the ex-gay movement to New Zealand’s list of endangered species.

Following the failure of several organizations, the web site reports, “Auckland’s Exodus houses the only ‘exgay’ outfit in New Zealand. It has no newsletter, no website, and apparently restricts itself to elderly conservative religious gay men who experience sexual identity crises.”

Former Exodus International leader Sy Rogers still resides in the western Pacific island nation, but apparently spends much time marketing conservative-Christian pop music and inflicting sex-and-gender ambiguity and confusion onto innocents in Malaysia. (Watching Rogers and Exodus’ Randy Thomas pose as experts on masculinity is about as convincing as the notion of Gwen Stefani or Pink posing as Amish Christian homemakers.)

GayNZ.com comments:

In effect, the exgay movement has failed largely because the New Zealand Christian Right has remained stubbornly unable or unwilling to develop counselling or psychotherapeutic skills. Most mainstream New Zealanders accept that sexual orientation constitutes a durable source of social identity and cannot easily be changed. These organisations have dwindled in the face of growing lesbian and gay community organisation, assertion and social inclusion, leading to exgay ‘enclavism,’ largely restricted to individuals who have lived most of their lives in fundamentalist social networks, isolated from mainstream New Zealand society.

Exodus International clearly senses that this grim future is on the horizon back in the United States — which is why the organization has smartly sidelined support to its member ex-gay ministries in favor of a focus on political networking among prejudiced antigay churches and religious-right organizations.