Your task, if you choose to accept it (and you will if you know what’s good for you *hrmph*):
I wrote (and everybody else wrote too) about the school board in Itawamba County, Mississippi, which chose to punish an entire school by canceling the prom, rather than treating everyone equally and letting a lesbian student bring a girl as her date. Everyone should be able to attend the prom with the person they want to go with, and if you happen to be in a high school romance, you definitely want to go with your significant other. We all remember those times.
So here’s what you need to do:
1. If you haven’t joined the Facebook group, do so. That’s the easy part.
2. Write a nice, heartfelt, firm e-mail (or make a phone call) to the members of that school board. There’s no need to yell at them. This is a time for them to hear our voices clearly, with a tough sort of love. We’re defending this kid here. Let’s act like it. (Righteous indignation is FINE.)
All right, you have your assignments. Get to it, my babies!
UPDATE:
Two things. First, here’s a petition you can sign asking the school board to reverse their decision. Second, I’ve decided to post the letter I sent here as well. If you’re having trouble knowing where to start, feel free to use it as a guide:
Dear Sirs and Madams:
You’ve all received hundreds of e-mails at this point about your decision to cancel the Itawamba Agricultural High School prom. I’m glad. Those e-mails have been from straight, gay and lesbian people from all over the country (and possibly the world). I’m also a writer and spokesperson for a national gay rights organization called Truth Wins Out, and we see firsthand the trauma that gay and lesbian kids deal with just trying to fit in in a world that often sees them as different. Look, we all have our beliefs. I respect that, and this is the United States, where we are given the freedom of those beliefs. But we are not given the freedom to impose our personal beliefs on others. I’d like you to consider something for me: Of all the “moral issues” facing this country, why does this one divide so many? And why is it that those most likely to be supportive are those who actually know gay people the best? There is a reason the younger generations are, in large majorities, supportive of LGBT people. They’ve grown up with gay and lesbian aunts, uncles, moms, dads, teachers, coaches, neighbors, friends, classmates, etc., and they know something many in the older generations do not. They know that we are no different, qualitatively, than they are. In fact, they know that we’re part of the exact same fabric they are. Because of their firsthand experience, they also know that much of what they may have been taught about who gay people are, what gay people are like, etc., simply isn’t true. All over the country, and yes, even in the South, gay kids are striving and thriving just like their straight peers. Just down the road from you in Memphis, gay kids have been taking their same gender dates to proms (in the suburbs!) for years now. And you know what? It’s turned out okay. Give your kids a chance to have the same opportunities to experience their prom in a way they’ll remember fondly.
Frankly, I expected better from the adults in the situation. Children rely on us to set a good example, and the example you’ve set says that it’s okay to punish a whole group for the (perceived) sins of one, and you’ve also shown them how to scapegoat an innocent person for the crimes of others. And let me let you in on a little secret, folks: Constance isn’t the only LGBT person at that school. You may not realize it, and the students may not realize it, but numbers don’t lie. There are gay boys and lesbian girls in that class, but they’re scared to come out. You’ve shown them this week that they have a reason to fear. You’ve shown them that the adults in their lives don’t have their backs, and for some, you’ve confirmed their fears that they’re alone in this world. You’ve now actively encouraged a climate of cruelty, of fear, of bullying, and of violence with your ill-conceived decision.
As I said before, we hear the stories on the other side. Some of them have happy endings. Others do not.
It’s in your hands. Be the adults.
Evan Hurst
Truth Wins Out
http://www.truthwinsout.org
Today, the trial against Proposition 8 included a lot of expert testimony on the history of marriage, and on the long, shameful history of discrimination against the gay community in the United States (click here for detailed liveblogs). The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) has been live-tweeting the trial, and reported that a film from the 1950’s by the name of “Boys Beware” was introduced as evidence of said discrimination. Well, here’s that video. It’s fairly grotesque, I’ll warn you. It has all the hallmarks of the “vintage educational film”: the father-knows-best narrator, the ridiculous music, etc. But in this video, instead of teaching kids to duck and cover or whatever, we’re told about the threat of the “homosexual” as child predator. Viewed through the lens of sanity in the year 2010, you might feel like you’re watching something produced by The Onion. That we’ve come as far as we have from those days is the good news. The bad news is that there are still people in this country who secretly still believe this sort of crap, and they have no qualms about vilifying the LGBT community with similar smears. I wrote earlier about the Atwater-ization of anti-gay bigotry, and that applies here. In the 1950’s, it was “protect your children from the homosexual predator.” Now it’s simply “protect the children” from gay marriage. All the bigots have really done is amended the text, but it still sounds the dogwhistle for a certain ignorant, uneducated segment of the populace.
In the first step toward a global index of stigma against HIV/AIDS, a new British report finds that, years after HIV/AIDS education programs were gradually shelved, prejudice and discrimination are returning.
Researchers found that one in five people with an HIV diagnosis had been harassed, threatened or verbally assaulted in the past 12 months. Many reported ignorance and prejudice from within the medical profession, particularly from GPs and dentists. One in five reported being denied medical treatment because they had HIV.
In findings to be unveiled in parliament tomorrow, The People Living With HIV Stigma Index, a two-year research project funded by the Department for International Development and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, found that only 39% of people felt confident that their medical records were being kept confidential, with 18% saying their HIV status had been revealed without their consent.
Lisa Power, head of policy at the Terrence Higgins Trust, said that the public was more ignorant about HIV than a decade ago. “This research is really important because it’s about people’s perception of the prejudice they face.”
Musician Annie Lennox will be one of several high-profile speakers at a briefing on the subject of HIV stigma at the Houses of Parliament on Monday.
The Stigma Index is designed as a global initiative, but the UK results are the first to be obtained.
It is hoped that the initiative will be both a catalyst for creating and fostering change in the communities in which it is used, by empowering both the individuals and communities most affected by the epidemic.
The Tuscaloosa News reported yesterday that a state legislator has prefiled a bill, with the support of the governor, to prohibit public universities from offering employee benefits to same-sex domestic partners.
But the same lawmaker is willing to subsidize unmarried heterosexuals who shack up.
The legislation penalizes the state’s taxpayers in order to subsidize the benefits of heterosexual bureaucrats, based on the religious bias of evangelicals who oppose religious freedom and the separation of church and state.
Rep. DuWayne Bridges said taxes should not be used to treat state workers equally. He said it is objectionable to “subsidize same-sex lifestyles” but offered no apparent objection to subsidized benefits for unmarried heterosexual couples.
Contrary to Bridges’ assertion that “liberals” engage in social engineering, it is he and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley who seek use taxpayer money to reward sectarian religious activists’ favored bureaucrats and to cheat skilled and accomplished government workers out of equal benefits.
Bridges also applauded the notion of Alabama voters deciding who is or isn’t entitled to constitutional rights, when they voted to ban marriage equality. The new bill will be introduced to the state legislature in January.
What next — a bill to require universities to hire only conservative Christians?
Pope’s Effort To Unite Conservatives By Promoting Discrimination Is Divisive, Says TWO
Truth Wins Out today condemned the Vatican’s effort to steal conservative members of the Anglican Church by promising that Rome will remain hostile against women and gay people. In his naked appeal to prejudice, the Pope solidified his reputation as a divisive figure that is out of touch with modern society, said TWO.
“The Vatican’s efforts to unite conservatives through ‘The Dogma of Discrimination’ is disgraceful,” “said Wayne Besen, Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director. “Bonding through bigotry against women and gay people seems to be the Vatican’s strategy to lure disaffected Anglicans. The Catholic Church is defining itself by who it stands against, rather than the principles it stands for.”
In a divisive move that will likely set back relations between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI ordered the Vatican to create a new plan to incorporate Anglicans and enable the faith’s married priests to transition into Catholic clerics.
Rome’s opportunistic recruitment plan is in response to fissures in the Anglican Church over allowing gay bishops and ordaining women. In the 1990’s social conservatives were angered when the Anglican Church allowed women to become clergy. They went ballistic in 2003 when openly gay V. Gene Robinson was selected as Bishop of New Hampshire. Since then, conservative Episcopal factions in America – egged on by anti-gay peers in developing countries – have threatened to bolt and take every bit of property that isn’t bolted down to the church floor. During this crucial time period, Rowan Williams, (Pictured Right) Archbishop of Canterbury, refused to take a firm stand against discrimination, while also failing to placate conservatives.
“The feckless and ineffectual leadership of Rowan Williams opened to door for the Vatican’s unseemly power grab,” said TWO’s Besen. “When one stands for nothing, the void is always filled by those with a more lucid vision. At an historic time when the Anglican Church needed a leader, it got a lemming, and so it is not surprising that the Pope moved to fill the leadership vacuum.”
The antigay parents group P-FOX is demanding that the Walt Disney Company offer special protection for non-existent ex-gay employees who are already protected, in any event, under existing antidiscrimination policy covering sexual orientation.
According to TowleRoad, P-FOX also falsely claims (again) that the Superior Court of the District of Columbia ruled that “former homosexuals are a protected class that must be recognized under sexual orientation non-discrimination laws.”
In fact, the city court merely held that mutability of characteristics may not be used under the city’s Human Rights Act as a pretense exclude persons from protection under the city law. The ruling has no effect outside Washington, D.C., due to the extreme breadth of that city’s antidiscrimination law.
Knowing that polls show conservatives more concerned about religious freedom than marriage or equality for sexual minorities, Focus on the Family tonight repeated its well-worn protest against religious freedom and the plain truth.
Focus contended that conservative Christians cannot enjoy religious freedom unless they withhold religious freedom from non-heterosexual workers.
For some reason, Focus considers its “digital media director,” Stuart Shepard, an expert on Congressional legislation and federal antidiscrimination law. Many people remember Shepard not as a lawyer or civil-rights champion (he’s anything but), but rather as the Focus dude who prayed for “rain of Biblical proportions” at the Obama inauguration.
Anyhow, Shepard said that any law respecting the economic and religious freedom of LGBT workers (including people of faith) by protecting them from discrimination would “impose a substantial and crippling burden on religious organizations.”
Shepard neglected to tell Focus readers that the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) fully exempts non-profit religious organizations — and that many religious organizations tolerate or affirm their LGBT employees.
Shepard also neglected to explain why Focus does not oppose existing laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of chosen religious identities such as Islam or Buddhism.
Focus on the Family’s selective opposition to religious freedom is sure to win donations, if nothing else, from people who don’t think too hard about silly matters such as, you know, liberty and constitutional equality and all that stuff.
The antigay parents group PFOX claimed today that it has won recognition of “former homosexuals” as a protected sexual orientation in a D.C. Superior Court ruling. PFOX said:
“We are gratified that the ex-gay community in Washington D.C. now has the same civil rights that gays enjoy,” said Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX), which had filed the lawsuit against the District of Columbia government for failing to protect former homosexuals in the Nation’s Capital.
In a discrimination complaint filed by PFOX against the National Education Association (NEA) for refusing to provide public accommodations to ex-gays, the D.C. Office of Human Rights (OHR) had agreed with the NEA that sexual orientation protection did not extend to former homosexuals. “By failing to protect former homosexuals, the sexual orientation laws gave more rights to homosexuals than heterosexuals who were once gay,” said Griggs. “So PFOX asked the Court to reverse OHR’s decision, which it did. The Court held that ex-gays are a protected class under ’sexual orientation.’”
“All sexual orientation laws and programs nationwide should now provide true diversity and equality by including former homosexuals,” said Greg Quinlan, a director of PFOX. “I have experienced more personal assaults as a former homosexual than I ever did as a gay man.”
Not so fast, Greg. The court did not reverse OHR’s decision; it ruled in June 2009 that the NEA was justified in excluding PFOX for its stridently discriminatory, antigay literature, and it chose not to reverse the decision. According to Washington City Paper:
While [Judge Maurice] Ross decided in the NEA’s favor, he also held that ex-gays do, in fact, constitute a protected group under the D.C. Human Rights Act. Judging from PFOX’s eerily celebratory press release, this is kind of a big deal for them.
According to Ross’s decision, the Human Rights Act doesn’t only protect groups defined by “immutable characteristics,” as the Office of Human Rights’ decision claimed. The Act also protects groups defined by “preference or practice” —like people who previously “practiced” gayness, and now “prefer” to practice heterosexuality:
OHR’s determination that a characteristic must be immutable to be protected under the HRA is clearly erroneous as a matter of law. . . . Indeed, the HRA lists numerous protected categories such as religion, personal appearance, familial status, and source of income, which are subject to change. . . . Pertaining to sexual orientation, moreover, the HRA in §2-1401.02(28) defines sexual orientation as “male or female homosexuality, heterosexuality and bisexuality, by preference or practice.” Thus, the HRA’s intent and plain language eschews narrow interpretation.
But while the NEA can’t discriminate against “ex-gays,” it may legally discriminate against exhibits that are explicitly anti-gay:
The Court affirms OHR’s ultimate determination that PFOX’s application was denied legally. In NEA’s judgment, PFOX is a conversion group hostile toward gays and lesbians. Thus, even though PFOX vehemently disagrees with NEA’s characterization, it is within NEA’s right to exclude PFOX’s presence at NEA’s conventions. . . . Indeed, the HRA would not require NEA to accept an application from the Ku Klux Klan or a group viewed by the NEA as anti-labor union or racist. . . . Similarly, military organizations and the Boy Scotts of America are excluded from renting exhibit space at the NEA Annual Meetings because of the positions those organizations take with regard to gay and lesbian rights.
. . . Thus, PFOX’s arguments miss the point. The NEA did not reject its application because PFOX’s members include exgays, homosexuals, heterosexuals, or members of any other sexual orientation. Rather, NEA rejected PFOX’s application because PFOX’s message and policies were, in NEA’s opinion, contrary to NEA’s policies regarding sexual orientation.
In other words, the D.C. Human Rights Act may protect groups who identify as “ex-gay” based on their mutable, previous and current sexual “practices” but does not — contrary to PFOX’s wishes — protect ex-gay activist groups such as PFOX that seek to use other organizations as soapboxes to spread political opinions and policies that are contrary to those of the host organization.
Unfortunately, the D.C. court has also legitimized a ludicrous claim that sexual orientation can be defined by what one isn’t, rather than what one demonstrably is.
Addendum: Given a great deal of misreporting by various blogs, I wish to reiterate:
Blame for the court’s logic regarding sexual orientation lies with the D.C. Human Rights Act (HRA), which broadly defines orientation as a matter of either “preference” or “practice.” The court observed:
While [Office of Human Rights'] analysis and the Title VII cases cited by OHR speak in terms of immutable characteristics, the HRA clearly does not limit itself only to immutable characteristics. The premise of the HRA is simple: to end all discrimination based on anything other than individual merit. Numerous protected classes listed in the HRA include mutable traits. Furthermore, the definition of sexual orientation defines an individual’s sexuality as a “preference” or “practice.” D.C. Code §2-1401.01. OHR’s analysis posits that the immutability of a person’s preferred sexual orientation categorizes them as a member of a protected class. In focusing on federal discrimination cases, however, the OHR misses the broad scope of the HRA and the explicit inclusion of the term “practice” in the HRA’s definition of sexual orientation.
If PFOX truly affirms D.C.’s Human Rights Act, then it will not only respect the NEA’s right not to host hostile and discriminatory organizations such as PFOX, but also move to hire “practicing” gay people in accord with PFOX’s claim to represent both “ex-gays” and those who “practice” homosexuality.
It remains the responsibility of the D.C. Council and mayor to reconsider language in the Human Rights Act which misdefines sexual orientation as a matter of “practice” or lack thereof.
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.
Many Dish Network subscribers have wondered why the satellite service pulled the plug on HERE! TV, which it once offered, and why LOGO has never been offered at all.
Our friends at Queers United raised that very question in this blog post. Within that post is a link to another Queers United post in which it’s revealed that Dish Network’s board voted down a company anti-discrimination policy by a shocking 90% margin!
Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergin says the anti-discrimination policy is not necessary, since LGBTs are not being harassed at the company. Ergin further points out that the Colorado-based Dish Network follows the laws of its home state, which already bars anti-LGBT discrimination.
Queers United feels that the company should have voted Yes on the bill as a show of good faith.
And everyone wants to know why Dish Network, which offers more than a dozen Christian channels, offers neither of the gay networks.
So is Dish Network anti-gay?
“No,” says Dish press rep Parker McConachie, who not only returned my calls, but was quite friendly. Friendly, but cautious, when he offered this official statement: “Dish Network is not discriminating against the gay community. However, we do not comment on current or future contract negotiations.”
HERE! TV did not respond to a TWO email, but LOGO did. The MTV-owned LOGO revealed that it was in negotiations with Dish Network and urged interested viewers to contact Dish Network and request the channel. But LOGO offered no information on the status of the negotiations.
There are definite questions regarding Dish Network’s inclusion/exclusion of the LGBT community that need answering. If the service does begin providing LOGO, then some of those questions will be answered.
To be fair, it should be pointed out that Dish Network is the sole national carrier for Free Speech TV, perhaps the most radical, far-left network on the air. Free Speech TV is the home of Gay USA, the first, and only weekly hard news show on American television (Gay USA can also be viewed online at the Free Speech website: www.FreeSpeech.org). Free Speech TV has also offered exclusive airings of many fine LGBT-themed documentaries, so the Dish cupboard isn’t completely bare.
But subscribers want to know: when will they get LOGO? And when will HERE! TV return?
To request these channels, or to comment on the Board’s decision to not sign an anti-discrimination policy, please contact Dish Network through its website: www.DishNetwork.com
In the first step toward a global index of stigma against HIV/AIDS, a new British report finds that, years after HIV/AIDS education programs were gradually shelved, prejudice and discrimination are returning.
For some reason, Focus considers its “digital media director,” Stuart Shepard, an expert on Congressional legislation and federal antidiscrimination law. Many people remember Shepard not as a lawyer or civil-rights champion (he’s anything but), but rather as the Focus dude who prayed for “rain of Biblical proportions” at the Obama inauguration.
