LGBTQ

Indiana Religious Freedom Law Rewrite A Victory Over Discrimination

April 4, 2015 Zack Ford, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Faith, Indiana, Law, LGBTQ

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) and state Republican leaders have been playing damage control this week, claiming that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is not a law that enables anti-LGBT discrimination. Meanwhile, however, the conservatives who advocated for the bill have been spurning this attempted walkback, asserting in the process that the goal was ensuring discrimination all along. At the forefront of the conservative reaction is Micah Clark, who serves as executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana and who stood right behind Pence as he signed the bill. Speaking Monday to Tim Wildmon, head of the national American Family Association, Clark explained that conservatives should oppose any effort to clarify that the law does not legalize discrimination. “That could totally destroy this bill,” he explained.

Indiana Activists Protest Anti-Gay Law

March 30, 2015 Associated Press, www.theguardian.com Resist! Indiana, Law, LGBTQ

Hundreds of people gathered outside the Indiana Statehouse on Saturday, to rally against a new law that opponents say could sanction discrimination against gay people. Republican governor Mike Pence signed a bill on Thursday prohibiting state laws that “substantially burden” a person’s ability to follow his or her religious beliefs. The definition of “person” includes religious institutions, businesses and associations. The measure will take effect in July. Saturday’s crowd chanted “Pence must go” and held signs reading “I’m pretty sure God doesn’t hate anyone” and “No hate in our state”.

Human Rights Campaign Under Fire In LGBT Community

January 12, 2015 Toshio Meronek, www.truth-out.org Educate! Capitalism, LGBTQ

The HRC is the de facto organization journalists call when they need an "LGBT viewpoint" on a topic. It has the ears of high-profile politicians - even deeply conservative ones like Alaskan senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, who credited an HRC postcard for causing her to vote with "The Gays." And the campaign is one of a few large LGBT nonprofits that hog political advocacy funding for the community's issues. However, lots of people from the increasingly fractured "community" (often, white, wealthy gays vs. the rest) don't want to support an organization that devotes a good deal of its resources into making certain big corporations look like they're on the right side of history.

9 LGBTQ Stories From 2014

January 7, 2015 Toshio Meronek, www.truth-out.org Educate! Human Rights, LGBTQ, Media

Radical queer organizing was alive and well in the US in 2014; you just may not have heard about it in mainstream media. The mainstream "Homosexual Agenda" in 2014 revolved around conservative issues like gay marriage and transgender military inclusion. That meant lots of important queer and trans stories didn't get much of a voice. Buzz about the criminalization of trans sex workers and the horror stories of undocumented queer people in immigration detention centers may have been muted by the Big Media gatekeepers, but these issues deserve a wider audience. Here are nine stories that will no doubt reverberate in 2015. . .

Listen To Leelah Alcorn’s Final Words

January 2, 2015 J. Bryan Lowder, www.slate.com Educate! LGBTQ

The LGBTQ community is exiting 2014 on a tragic note with the death of Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old transgender teen from Ohio who, according to reports, committed suicide early Sunday morning. Alcorn’s passing has become an international story due to the public nature of the event—she was struck by a tractor-trailer on the interstate—and to an eloquent Tumblr post that she had scheduled to go live in the event of her death. In her post, Alcorn speaks of her Christian parents’ refusal to accept her trans identity and her sense that life could not get better if she had to wait to transition any longer. Alcorn’s death has brought forth an outpouring of anguish from trans writers and allies, who rightly view the incident as symptomatic of our society’s widespread transphobia, especially with regard to teens wishing to transition.

Meet The Kansans Who Bravely Fought For Gay Rights

October 27, 2014 Steven Rosenfeld, www.alternet.org Organize! Human Rights, Kansas, LGBTQ

Michael Nelson stared at the room packed with students from the University of Kansas’ various LGBT groups. The 2014 school year had barely begun and the white-haired pastor, poet and gay rights advocate had come to talk about his lawsuit challenging Kansas’ same-sex marriage ban and other discriminatory laws in state court. Nelson could not help but see his younger self in the students’ eager, contempletive and occasionally vulnerable faces. So as he started to speak, he took a personal turn, because in Kansas, as he and the students already knew, anti-LGBT discrimination runs deeper than what is written into law—or deliberately kept out of it.

How Movements Can Win More Victories Like Gay Marriage

July 10, 2014 Mark Engler and Paul Engler, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! culture, Gay Marriage, Law, LGBTQ, Movement

Not long ago, same-sex marriage in America was not merely an unpopular cause; it was a politically fatal one — a third-rail issue that could end the career of any politician foolish enough to touch it. The idea that gay and lesbian couples would be able to legally exchange vows in states throughout the United States was regarded, at best, as a far-off fantasy and, at worst, as a danger to the republic. It can be difficult to remember how hostile the terrain was for LGBT advocates in even recent decades. As of 1990, three-quarters of Americans saw homosexual sex as immoral. Less than a third condoned same-sex marriage — something no country in the world permitted. In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman and denied federal benefits to same-sex couples, passed by an overwhelming 85-14 margin in the U.S. Senate. Figures including Democratic Sen. Joe Biden voted for it, and Democratic President Bill Clinton signed the act, affirming, “I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages.”

LGBTQ Activists Protest At DNC Fundraiser

June 19, 2014 El Hispanic News, www.elhispanicnews.com Resist! Barack Obama, DNC, Immigrant Rights, LGBTQ, Protest

Today outside Gotham Hall, where the Democratic National Committee’s LGBT Leadership Committee held one of its largest fundraising events of the year, LGBTQ and immigrant rights groups GetEQUAL, Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project, a project of United We Dream, Immigration Equality, and Make the Road New York risked arrest in order to call on President Obama and the Democratic Party to stop deportations and grant administrative relief to undocumented immigrants in the United States. President Obama was on-site as the keynote speaker. Though the protesters blocked the street in front of the fundraiser as the presidential motorcade passed by, the New York Police Department refused to arrest them. Barack Obama’s administration is responsible for over two million deportations — more than any other administration in U.S. history. Many of those deportations have been LGBTQ immigrants, who face extraordinary discrimination within the detention system and who are often deported to countries in which they face harassment, abuse, violence and sometimes, death due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Nat’l LGBT Groups Demand US Stop Negotiating With Brunei

June 14, 2014 Jerame Davis, www.prideatwork.org Resist! Brunei, LGBTQ, TPP

Today, several prominent national lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality organizations released a joint letter to President Obama demanding that the US cease further negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement with Brunei after that country enacted a strict new penal code that targets women, LGBT people, and religious minorities. "Brunei's new laws are an affront to human rights and basic decency," said Jerame Davis, interim Executive Director of Pride at Work. "The United States, and every other nation considering doing business with Brunei, should immediately cease any negotiations or consideration for that country as a trading partner. Human rights abusers don't get preferential treatment."

Activists Oppose Separate Justice For Muslims

June 4, 2014 Aviva Stahl, www.thenation.com Resist! Civil Rights, Criminal Justice and Prisons, LGBTQ, Muslim, Terrorism

On a miserable Monday evening in early April, when most people were scuttling for the nearest subway, a motley group was huddled before an unremarkable grey building in lower Manhattan, declaiming into the rain. “[In 2006] we fought for Shifa’s safety, we fought for the Sadequee family’s safety, we fought for all of our safety,” said a woman standing in front of the crowd. “[Today] we must still come together across religious and spiritual traditions, across race and nations, across sexuality, across our beliefs, for our collective safety and livelihood.” The woman was Cara Page, executive director of the Audre Lorde Project and a prominent black queer activist; “Shifa” was Ehsanul “Shifa” Sadequee, a young man convicted of terrorism-related charges five years ago. The two had little obvious in common, but Page had been in Atlanta at the time of his trial and a member of the Free Shifa campaign, a coalition of supporters who argued that his prosecution and detention were unjust. It was proof, they said, that the inhumane detention of “War on Terror” suspects has occurred on American soil, too. Years later, most of the world had moved on from Sadequee’s story, but Page, like the others bundled around her, had not.

Re-Queering Pride

June 3, 2014 Ngoc Loan Tran, www.youngist.org Resist! History, LGBTQ

June was Pride month in the United States. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks from coast to coast celebrated the history of queer resistance led by drag queens, poor and homeless queer youth, and trans* women of color like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson… oh what? Word? That’s not what you thought Pride was? Well, maybe that’s because it isn’t what Pride looks like these days. For some members of the LGBT community, June arrives in an explosion of glitter and rainbows, complete with crowds of sweaty half naked gay men drinking Absolut Vodka and signing up for Wells Fargo savings accounts. But for others, June comes as a reminder that while Pride month is about LGBT folks proclaiming our existence, many of us – queer and trans*, disabled, fat, migrant, poor – have to try a little harder to be recognized, to have our histories remembered and our struggles made visible.

Do More Than Dedicate A Postage Stamp To Harvey Milk

May 24, 2014 Cathy Kristofferson, www.oblogdeeoblogda.me Resist! LGBTQ, Protest

Today, the White House saw demonstrators lobbying attendees gathered for the first-day-of-issue ceremony of the Harvey Milk postage stamp. Members of the LGBTQ group 1AngryOldLesbian.org urged attendees to insist President Obama sign the long awaited Federal Contractor Executive Order. That one signature would truly honor Harvey Milk, protecting 22% of the U.S. work force while making a great stride towards the goal of full federal equality. As recently as this past weekend, President Obama said in his International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) statement: “Tomorrow, as we commemorate the 10th annual International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, we recommit ourselves to the fundamental belief that all people should be treated equally, that they should have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential, and that no one should face violence or discrimination – no matter who they are or whom they love.” We wonder how anyone will “reach their fullest potential” while hiding in the closet to retain their job. Not to mention their home, their health care, their emotional and physical well being, … It’s time for the President to step up and take the actions he can. With the Congress in gridlock, and his promise to combat their inaction with executive action during his State of the Union speech, signing the Federal Contractor Executive Order is a simple move.

Manning On Proposed Move To Civilian Prison

May 15, 2014 Byt Staff, www.chelseamanning.org Resist! Chelsea Manning, Criminal Justice and Prisons, LGBTQ

Late last night, May 13, an AP article reported that unidentified Pentagon officials had indicated that the Office of the Secretary of Defense might transfer Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison facility so that she could receive treatment for gender dysphoria. Chelsea responded to the report concerning her potential transfer as follows: “I wish to clarify that my request for a treatment plan did not involve any request to be transferred. At the beginning of 2014, the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, KS and the Army Corrections Command were ready to approve and implement a treatment plan that at least conservatively met the standards set forth by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. I was content with this plan. Based on these facts I don’t understand why the Office of the Secretary of Defense would feel the need to punt this issue by transferring me.”

The People Are With Us

May 4, 2014 Josh Sager, www.theprogressivecynic.com Educate! Abortion Rights, Climate Change, Democracy, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Immigration, Inequality, LGBTQ, Marijuana, Medicare, Minimum Wage, Single payer health care, Social Security, Taxes, Wars and Militarism, Women's Rights, Worker Rights and Jobs

It is a persistent belief among many in the political and media establishments that the United States is a “center-right nation” which finds progressives to be far too liberal for mainstream positions of power. If you look purely at electoral outcomes, those who assert this appear to have a fairly strong point. The last several decades of federal politics have been dominated by center-right policies and truly left wing politicians have been largely marginalized (ex. Bernie Sanders). Even Clinton and Obama—the last two Democratic presidents who, theoretically, should be leftists—are corporate-friendly moderates who have triangulated during negotiations with Republicans to pass center-right policy compromises (ex. Obama’s Heritage Foundation inspired ACAor the Clinton Defense of Marriage Act compromise). While electoral results support the idea of a center-right USA, looking beyond electoral politics—which involve a mixture of policy choices, party politics, fundraising, and propaganda—and focusing purely upon raw policy preferences, leaves us with an entirely different picture -- the people are progressive and leaning left on almost all critical issues.

SC Town Rallies For Fired Lesbian Police Chief

April 27, 2014 Harriet McLeod, www.occuworld.org Resist! discrimination, LGBTQ

A one-square-mile South Carolina town with four traffic lights is challenging the mayor’s power to strip its lesbian police chief of her badge in what supporters are calling a case of workplace discrimination. The controversy surrounding the firing of Crystal Moore, 42, has rallied the town of Latta and drawn the interest of national gay rights groups who argue that her case highlights the need to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. Moore, a 20-year veteran of the police force and chief for two years, said her job record was clean until Mayor Earl Bullard issued seven reprimands in one day and fired her on April 15. The town council responded this week with a unanimous vote of confidence in Moore and blocked the mayor from hiring a new chief for 60 days. Residents rallied outside the town hall to show their support and set up a “Stand With Chief Moore” fund.

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