There was an article the other day in the NYT about a male-looking lesbian in NYC who was kicked out of the women's room of a bathroom in a restaurant. Apparently, the female patrons on the restaurant freaked out, thinking a male pervert was prowling around the woman's room, and ran to the management. The male bouncer went to the restroom, banged on the bathroom stall and demanded the "man" (who was really a woman) leave. She told him, I'm a woman, let me show you my ID. He said no, no ID, get out.
This case is now being used as proof of why we need to include "gender identity" in ENDA (the gay rights bill that would outlaw job discrimination against gays). This fits into a larger argument/concern that the trans-inclusive ENDA side keeps raising - that if we don't include gender identity in ENDA, employers will fire effeminate gays and masculine lesbians for being effeminate or butch rather than being gay, and a GLB-only ENDA, the argument goes, would allow this.
First, let's consider the case in NYC. At first, the case horrified me. Then I put on my lawyer hat and thought about it. The concern of the trans-inclusive ENDA side of the argument is that your boss will either:
a) Know you're gay and try to use your masculine or feminine attributes as an excuse to fire you when he really wants to fire you because you're gay.
In the story above, the discriminator didn't know that the woman was gay - he wasn't participating in any ruse at all. He didn't even know that she was a woman. He did not have any animus towards the class that we want to protect - he didn't dislike her because she was a butch woman, he didn't dislike her because she's gay. He went after her because he honestly thought she was a man who was stalking women.
b) The other concern from the trans-inclusive ENDA folks is that your boss may legitimately like gay people, but he still doesn't like butch women or fey men and he'll fire you anyway, and without gender identity, this would be legal under ENDA, or so they claim.
But again, in the story above, this isn't a situation in which the bouncer didn't like butch women. He thought the woman was a man, and thought that the man was about to sexually molest women in the bathroom. Had he said "I know you're a woman, but get out anyway, you're too masculine," then you've got him. But that's not what happened.
Now, the bouncer obviously should have looked at the woman's ID when she offered it. Having said that, IDs can be faked, and he was convinced some perv was stalking women in the bathroom. The guy hardly had a bad motive - or animus, as we call it in the law.
So, the question remains, is this the kind of thing that we want to cover in the law, and is it the kind of thing that we want to cover in ENDA? I'm just not sure. In every civil rights case I can think of, the bad guy is going after you expressly BECAUSE you're a member of a protected class and he knows it. You're kicking transsexuals out of the bathroom because you KNOW they're transsexuals, and you don't like it. You're firing the gay guy because you don't like gays or you don't like effeminate men. You don't serve blacks in your restaurant because you hate blacks. In each case, you have a problem with the class in question. Is this case really the same, and is this really what ENDA was meant to protect?
I'll make one final point. Part of what we do in the law is create incentives for good behavior. I.e., we might cover the above scenario in ENDA because we want bouncers to think twice about whether the man in front of them might really be just a butch woman. But including this under ENDA will have one other effect - it will make men think twice when rushing to the aid of women who they believe are being sexually molested. And before anyone scoffs, that is exactly what the bouncer thought. The next time he gets a report that women are being attacked by a man, he's going to think twice. Is that the lesson we want this guy, and others, to take away?
It's a tough case. But I'm just not convinced that it's a civil rights case.
PS I do find it interesting that in this case, the problem is that the woman did too good a job of not conforming with her gender, which is what gender identity is all about, or so we are told - the right to non-conform to your gender. But if gender non-conformists do such a good job of not conforming, of looking like the other gender, or something in between, then how can we blame society when someone believes their non-conformity?
Let me give you another example. Would the following, should the following, be covered under a civil rights law:
A transgender anatomically female person (i.e., born with female genitalia), dressed as a man - and looking like a man, no one would know they were transgender - enters the ladies room at some public venue. Again, the powers that be freak out because a man is prowling the woman's bathroom. Do we really expect a security guard's first reaction not to be to tackle the man who is in the woman's room? And if the security guard does this, is he guilty of discrimination, and should this be covered by civli rights laws? Is it really the same thing as the security guard saying "I know she's really a woman, but I don't like that she looks like a man?"
Just curious what folks think since this article is being quoted, a lot, to "prove" that gay-only civil rights laws don't protect butch lesbians and fey gay men.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) will hold a press conference.... The subject will be the obligation of the Democratic Party to govern responsibly when confronted by a demand to react emotionally by a deeply committed, single-issue faction insisting on putting ideological purity over achievable advancement of our values.
The specific example discussed will be the current demand that the Democratic leadership kill the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which has been the prime legislative goal for gay and lesbian people for over 30 years, because we do not have the votes to include people who are transgender.
I'm very much a layman when it comes to the ENDA debate -- sure, I'm relatively well-read and well-informed on the issues, and gays and lesbians are a huge part of my family and friend groups, but without the legitimacy of a personal stake in the debate, I've largely avoided weighing in. But the discussion of it here has been so interesting and provocative that I can't help but jump in to note my agreement with John and others who would rather see a GLB ENDA pass in Congress than a GLBT ENDA get voted down.
It's been baffling to me to *yet again* see Democrats, progressives, and activists ready to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Thirty years to get to this point. Thirty years! And people want a symbolic defeat? For what? For what? These things are wars of attrition; any movement one way or the other is important. You don't win wars by giving up territory because it's not big enough, and to put forth a bill that won't pass instead of an almost-as-good one that will is ceding territory. You don't give up a golden opportunity to benefit tens of millions of people just because it's not 100% perfect. Passing the ENDA bill as it's been written for decades isn't abandoning people, it's establishing a damn foot in the door.
It's fascinating to watch this argument play out, because to a large extent the two sides are talking about totally different things. Broadly speaking: On one side, people support including T because it's the right/moral thing to do. On the other, those who would accept a non-T ENDA say it's a good pragmatic, political move (which is its own moral argument, I think, if not specifically presented as such). Here's the thing: I haven't read a single persuasive argument that putting up a T-inclusive ENDA to get voted down in Congress (which it assuredly would, whereas a GLB ENDA would just as assuredly pass) would help the cause of T (not to mention GLB) rights, either in short or long term. Opposing a non-T ENDA is about the symbolism and ideals, rather than tangible benefit or strategy.
I'll take this one step further: Some commenters have opposed a non-T ENDA by asking the question, if ENDA covered, say, just lesbians, should we still support it? The question is meant rhetorically, as if the idea is too ridiculous to be contemplated, but I think one could make a persuasive case that the answer should be . . . yes! If that would pass Congress, and no more progressive alternatives would, you do it. If the most progressive bill you can get through Congress is to create legal protection for all lesbians named Jane in towns whose names start with "W" then you pass that. I'm not saying pass less than you can, but don't torpedo something by including something you *know* is a poison pill. You get what you can, when you can get it. Then when people see that the world hasn't ended, and there are benefits, and we haven't all immediately gone to hell, there's more room for even more advancement.
There's this idea that rights would go to GLB *at the expense of* T. I think that is a serious mischaracterization of the situation. This debate is not about whether transgender inclusion has to wait -- that is, unfortunately and sadly, a foregone conclusion. Either it will wait because it's not included, or it will wait because it is included and the bill resultingly fails. Again, a GLB passes in Congress, a GLBT bill doesn't. There is a chance, however, to move forward on rights for tens of millions, and it would be a shame (and a decided failure) to reject that opportunity.
Can you imagine if people had told black Americans they had to wait for the right to vote until women got it as well? After all, that's a similar oppression. Or if we had said a disabled person shouldn't have employment protections until gays could too? Partial victories set the stage for further victory; partial failures set the stage for further failures. The right understand that, but we forget it far too often. (On the opposite side, think about the choice battle: Abortion rights have been whittled down time and time again, and it certainly isn't because choice foes refused to pass bills unless they outlawed abortion altogether.)
It's important to note that I have nothing but respect for those who have honest and sound disagreements on this. I think the vast majority of people who reject a non-T ENDA do so for principled and idealistic reasons, and this is obviously an issue that friends disagree on. Still, I would much prefer an ENDA that passes Congress to one that goes down in flames.
Openly gay Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) released a statement about ENDA this afternoon. It's long, but read it:
Being in the legislative minority is easy – pulling together to block bad things does not require a lot of agonizing over tough decisions. Being in the majority is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, we have the ability to move forward in a positive way on important public policy goals. Detracting from that is the fact that it is never possible for us at any given time to get everything that we would like, and so we have to make difficult choices. But it is important to remember that the good part of this greatly outweighs the bad. Going from a situation in which all we can do is to prevent bad things from happening to one in which we have to decide exactly how much good is achievable and what strategic choices we must make to get there is a great advance.
The current manifestation of this is the difficult set of decisions we face regarding the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. We are on the verge of an historic victory that supporters of civil rights have been working on for more than thirty years: the passage for the first time in American history by either house of Congress of legislation declaring it illegal to discriminate against people in employment based on their sexual orientation. Detracting from the sense of celebration many of us feel about that is regret that under the current political situation, we do not have sufficient support in the House to include in that bill explicit protection for people who are transgender. The question facing us – the LGBT community and the tens of millions of others who are active supporters of our fight against prejudice – is whether we should pass up the chance to adopt a very good bill because it has one major gap. I believe that it would be a grave error to let this opportunity to pass a sexual orientation nondiscrimination bill go forward, not simply because it is one of the most important advances we’ll have made in securing civil rights for Americans in decades, but because moving forward on this bill now will also better serve the ultimate goal of including people who are transgender than simply accepting total defeat today.
When the bill banning sexual orientation discrimination was first introduced by Bella Abzug and Paul Tsongas more than thirty years ago, it was a remote hope. Over time because of a good deal of work, education of the general public, and particularly the decision by tens of millions of gay and lesbian people over that time to be honest about our sexual orientation, we have finally reached the point where we have a majority in the House ready to pass this bill. Those of us who are sponsoring it had hoped that we could also include in the prohibition discrimination based on gender identity. This is a fairly recent addition to the fight, and part of the problem we face is that while there have been literally decades of education of the public about the unfairness of sexual orientation discrimination and the inaccuracy of the myths that perpetuated it, our educational efforts regarding gender identity are much less far along, and given the prejudices that exist, face a steeper climb.
We introduced legislation opposing sexual orientation discrimination with explicit inclusion of gender identity for the first time this year. Earlier this session under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, we were able to get through the House a hate crimes bill that provided protection against crimes of violence and property damage for lesbian, gay and bisexual people and people who are transgender. There was some initial resistance to the inclusion of transgender people but a very organized effort on the part of Congresswoman Baldwin, who took a major role in this, myself, and the Democratic leadership allowed us to overcome it, with the support of some of our Republican colleagues.
We then began the work on passing a transgender inclusive ENDA. I was optimistic at first that we could do this, although I knew it would be hard. One of the problems I have found over the years of discussing this is an unwillingness on the part of many, including leaders in the transgender community, to acknowledge a fact: namely that there is more resistance to protection for people who are transgender than for people who are gay, lesbian and bisexual. This is not a good fact, but ignoring bad facts is a bad way to get legislation passed. I have for some time been concerned that people in the transgender leadership were underestimating the difficulty we faced in a broadly inclusive bill being adopted.
Still this seemed to me an effort very worth trying, and, when I testified before the Education and Labor Committee on ENDA I spent much of my time explicitly addressing the need to include transgender people. In fact, I believe I spent more time on that than any other witness. Sadly, as the time approached for the vote to be taken in the Committee, we encountered a good deal of resistance. The great majority of Democrats remained committed to this, but with Republicans overwhelmingly likely to be opposed – even on hate crimes on the critical vote we were able to retain only nine Republican supporters out of two hundred Republican Members – it became clear that an amendment offered by Republicans either to omit the transgender provision altogether or severely restrict it in very obnoxious ways would pass.
Responding thoughtfully to this requires people to accept facts. Some have tried to deny this unpleasant reality. The Democratic leadership, which is in complete sympathy with a fully inclusive bill, did a special official Whip count – a poll of the Members. There had been earlier informal counts that had showed significant support for a bill that included transgender, although even these informal checks never showed that we had a majority. But Members will sometimes be inclined to give people the answers they think the people who are asking the questions want until the crunch comes. In the crunch – the official Whip count taken in contemplation of the bill – it became very clear that while we would retain a significant majority of Democrats, we would lose enough so that a bill that included transgender protection would lose if not amended, and that an anti-transgender amendment would pass.
The question then became how to proceed. There were several choices. One was to go forward with the bill understanding that an amendment would be offered to strike the transgender provision. There was a proposal to have the Democratic leadership do that in what is known as a manager’s amendment, in the hopes of avoiding a divisive roll call on the subject. But the Democratic leadership did not want to take the lead in killing a provision to which its Members are committed as a matter of principle, and in fact, given Congressional procedures, there is no way to prevent a roll call even on that. People have claimed that the desire to avoid a roll call is aimed solely at protecting some Democrats from having to make a tough choice. That is of course a factor, and asking your supporters to vote with you on a matter that is doomed both to lose itself and to lose you votes is not a good way to build up support. But it is also the case that a number of the Democrats were prepared to vote for the inclusion of the transgender provision even though they knew that it would hurt them politically. The main reason not to put this to a vote is our interest in ultimately adopting transgender protection. If we were to push for a vote now, knowing that the transgender provision would be defeated by a majority, we would be making it harder ultimately to win that support. As recent campaigns indicate, Members of Congress who are accused of switching their position on votes are pilloried, even when this is done unfairly as it was to Senator Kerry. Thus, forcing a vote on transgender inclusion now, which would without any question result in a majority against it, would make it harder to win when we have done better in our educational work, because Members who vote no now will be harder to persuade to switch their votes than to persuade them to vote yes in the first instance.
In addition, going forward in this situation leaves us open to Republican procedural maneuvers in which they could succeed not only in getting rid of the transgender provision. This would not kill the bill, but it would substantially delay it, and would be have very bad psychological effect in a situation in which maintaining the right psychology –optimism – is important.
That is why I believe that a strategy of going forward with a transgender inclusive provision that would certainly be stricken at some point in the procedure by a vote in the House would be a mistake.
Leaders in the GLBT community, who strongly support the inclusion of transgender, now acknowledge that this would be the case – namely that the transgender provision would lose – so their proposed alternative was simply to withhold the bill from the House altogether.
That is, their recommendation was that the Speaker simply announce that she was not going to allow the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to come up at all. I believe that would be a disaster – politically, morally, and strategically. While their reason for this would be the debate over how ultimately to achieve transgender inclusion, the impression that would be given to the country was that Speaker Pelosi, the first Democratic Speaker in thirteen years, and a lifelong strong supporter of LGBT rights, had decided that we could not go forward on what had been the major single legislative goal of gay and lesbian people for over thirty years.
Some in the transgender community and those who agree with them have given a variety of strategic arguments why they think it would be better not to go forward. One variant is that since the President is likely to veto the bill anyway, it does not make any difference if we fail to vote on it. But it should be noted that this is directly contradictory to the arguments that the LGBT community has been making for years. That is, we have been very critical of arguments that we should not push for votes on anti-discrimination legislation simply because it wasn’t openly going to win. People have correctly pointed to the value of getting people used to voting for this, of the moral force of having majorities in either the House or the Senate or both go on record favorably even if the President was going to veto it, and have in fact been getting Members ready so if that if and when we get a president ready to sign this, we are closer to passage. To repeat, the argument that we should not take up legislation unless we are sure the President is going to sign it is directly opposite to all of the arguments LGBT advocates have been making for as long as I can remember.
The real reason that people are now arguing that we should withhold any action on the antidiscrimination bill unless it includes transgender as well as sexual orientation is that they are, as they have explicitly said, opposed in principle to such a bill becoming law. That is the crux of the argument. There are people who believe – in the transgender community and elsewhere – that it would be wrong to enact a law that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation unless it fully included people who are transgender. I think this argument is deeply flawed.
First, I would note that since I first became a legislator thirty-five years ago, I have spent a lot of time and energy helping enact legislation to protect a variety of groups from discrimination. In no case has any of those bills ever covered everybody or everything. Antidiscrimination legislation is always partial. It improves coverage either to some group or some subject matter, but never achieves everything at once. And insistence on achieving everything at once would be a prescription for achieving nothing ever.
To take the position that if we are now able to enact legislation that will protect millions of Americans now and in the future from discrimination based on sexual orientation we should decline to do so because we are not able to include transgender people as well is to fly in the face of every successful strategy ever used in expanding antidiscrimination laws. Even from the standpoint of ultimately including transgender people, it makes far more sense to go forward in a partial way if that is all we can do. Part of the objection to any antidiscrimination legislation is fear of consequences, which fears are always proven to be incorrect. There is a good deal of opposition now to passing even sexual orientation legislation. Enacting legislation to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and getting a year or two’s experience with it, will be very helpful in our ultimately adding to it protection for people who are transgender. That is, if you always insist on doing all the difficult things in one bite, you will probably never be successful. Dismantling the opposition piecemeal has always worked better.
For these reasons I have proposed along with the Democratic leadership the following strategy. First, we have introduced two bills. One will be ENDA as it has historically existed, banning discrimination on sexual orientation. A second will add transgender protections to that basic scheme. We will move forward with the ban on sexual orientation for which we finally – after thirty-plus years have the votes. After we are successful in winning that vote, I will urge the Committee on Education and Labor to proceed with our next step, which will be to continue the educational process that I believe will ultimately lead to our being able to add transgender protections. This will mean within a month or two a hearing in the Committee on Education and Labor which, unlike the hearings we previously had on this bill, will focus exclusively on transgender issues, and will give Members a chance to meet transgender people, to understand who they really are, and to deal with the fears that exist. The other options are either to bring a bill to the floor in which the transgender provision will be defeated by a significant majority, making it less likely that we will be able to succeed in this area in the future, or ask the Speaker of the House in effect put aside her lifelong political commitment to fairness and be the one who announces that we will not pass a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation even though we have the votes to do it. Passing ENDA in part and then moving on to add transgender provisions when we can is clearly preferable to either of these approaches.
Robin is a long-time lesbian activist. She joined me as a co-founder of StopDrLaura.com, among other ventures.
For Immediate Release Robin Tyler, plaintiff, California same-gender marriage case, robintyler@robintyler.com
A CALL FOR SUSAN KENNEDY, LESBIAN, CHIEF OF STAFF TO GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, TO RESIGN
GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER said today, that he will veto the bill legalizing same-gender civil marriage because 61% percent of California voters favored Proposition 22 in March 2000. Ms. Kennedy agreed with the Governor's decision using Prop 22 (which only bars California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed outside California), when he used the same excuse to veto the bill in 2005. He says he will never sign this bill. In 1948, if California voters had been allowed to vote on inter-racial marriage when the California Supreme Court struck down the anti-miscegenation law and found in favor of inter-racial marriage, over 72% of the voters would have voted against it.
Even though I, a plaintiff, am going to the California Supreme Court next year, (and the Governor has said he will "abide" by the CA Supreme Court's decision), I am not only extremely disappointed in the Governor's lack of courage, but am especially disappointed in Susan Kennedy, his chief of staff, whose "same gender wedding" I attended in Hawaii several years ago.
Since I attended Susan's wedding, why is she so against attending mine? Both Arnold and Susan know that it is unconstitutional for the majority to deny a minority equal protection under the law. To hide behind that [Prop 22] as an excuse, is cowardly and unforgivable, for both the Governor and especially for Ms. Kennedy, a lesbian. Rather then backing the Governor's decision with unacceptable excuses, I ask that Ms. Kennedy resign as Chief of Staff. If not, shame on you Susan, to side against your community, and deny civil marriage to your friends.
Let's get this first bit of lunacy out of the way -- Fred Thompson on who should face criminal sanction for an abortion:
"Don't punish women who have abortions," presidential hopeful Fred Thompson says. Punish the doctors who perform them...Authorities "can do whatever they want to with abortion doctors, as far as I'm concerned," the former Tennessee senator said while campaigning in Western Iowa according to the Los Angeles Times. But "if it comes down to giving criminal sanctions to a 19-year-old girl and her mama, I'm against that."
Wait a minute. If it's going to be a crime, why not punish the mother? If we're going to do the whole law and order thing (har-dee-har-har), when it comes to state womb control, doesn't the woman represent the one contracting the hit on the fetus?
As even one Freepersanely noted, the inconsistency makes no sense:
Under Thompson's logic here, it's perfectly legal for a woman to use a coat hanger to perform an abortion on herself but illegal for her to receive medical assistance in doing it. In other words, it's not illegal to kill a child. But it's illegal to help a woman do such. That doesn’t make much sense to me at all. I'm not sure how that’s even a pro-life argument.
And what about the male partner in this equation? What if he agrees with the woman in question that she should have an abortion, perhaps even drives her to the clinic in support of her decision -- is he then an accessory to the crime? Shouldn't he be prosecuted, Fred? Maybe the fantasy candidate of the freeper set agrees with Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He recently said that women who seek out the abortion are too "impaired" to be responsible for their actions.
The newest occupant of the GOP clown car also made it plainly clear where his thinking lies regarding marriage equality:
Thompson chastised those judges in Iowa, Massachusetts and other states for rulings that opened the way to same-sex marriage, calling for constitutional amendments to curb judges' power to do so.
"What we're seeing here is a totally judicially created problem," he told a crowd in Sioux City, Iowa according to the Times. "You know how many states have affirmatively approved gay marriage? State legislatures? Zero."
He also would like a constitutional amendment called for an amendment to bar judges from allowing marriage equality unless it is approved by a state legislature.
Fred's setting himself up to have egg on his face fairly soon, because California's legislature again approved a marriage equality bill, which first passed in 2005 and was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. This year the Governator has until October 14th to sign or veto the bill. He has cited in the past that the courts (I guess those "activist judges") should decide what to do about marriage, not the legislature.
Terrance Heath of The Republic of T (he's also a contributor to Pam's House Blend) was one of several bloggers and political types invited to breakfast with the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
As a gay father, he knew that this was an opportunity to ask a question about the issues that affect gay families (or non-families, as far as legal considerations go in most states). Here's his question -- and Pelosi's answer.
Childcare. Family leave. Health insurance. Even something simple simple as joining a freakin' gym isn't so simple when you have to make the case that you qualify as a family, when various and sundry laws say you actually don't. For example, I just started working as an independent consultant. I'm buying my own health insurance as a result (not cheat, by the way, but I'll talk about health care later). If I were legally married to my husband, I'd have the option of being carried on his insurance. But right now that's not possible. That's just one of many issues where LGBT families get the short end of the stick.
So I raised my hand, and when the microphone came to me, I managed to get something close to this out:
As a working father of a four-year-old, with another on the way [Ed. Note: At this point the Speaker gave me a big smile and said "Congratulations!"], and as a gay dad I'd like to hear more about strengthening families. How do we do it in a way that strengthens all families, and that recognizes the reality of diverse families; families where both parents work, families where parents aren't married to each other, families where the parents can't marry each other, single parents, etc.?
I'm not sure if the way I opened my question disarmed her, but I'd swear the Speaker blinked and even stammered for a minute, like she wasn't expecting that one. (Even though my question came close on the heels of one about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which the speaker favored getting rid of.) But it was only a minute. She quickly righted herself and gave an answer that basically, and I'm paraphrasing here until the transcript is up, that boils down to this: we should already be there, and we can get there by supporting the current agenda. Put another way, we can get to a more progressive place where we will strengthen all families, but not yet.
That's about what I expected. It's a pragmatic answer. The way to get there is to strengthen our position in ways that are possible now. Which implies that what we're asking for isn't possible now.
The fact of the matter is that too many who should be in our corner are "not there," as in "we understand but are not willing to spend political capital on you -- but please open your wallet for me." There's always some political obstacle standing in the way, and the onus has always been on LGBTs to convince the general public that we are entitled to civil rights taken for granted by most Americans. Many of our Democratic "allies" in office aren't ready to come along until the public approval ratings hit the right target number for them to feel comfortable taking political risks (or, perhaps more accurately, doing the right thing).
That said, Speaker Pelosi is well-known as an ally for LGBT rights; she is working to pass the hate crimes bill and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. She will be the keynote speaker at HRC's annual dinner, where she will receive the 2007 Equality award for her leadership on LGBT issues. It just shows you how some of these topics need better framing and more open discussion -- we can all learn more on how to move these issues forward.
No, there's no need for hate crimes legislation...none at all. Tell that to the family of Kenneth Cummings Jr., a Southwest flight attendant, who was killed by a man who believed he was doing God's work. (Houston Chronicle):
"I believe I'm Elijah, called by God to be a prophet," said 26-year-old Terry Mark Mangum, charged with murder June 11. " ... I believe with all my heart that I was doing the right thing."
Interviewed in the Brazoria County Jail Saturday morning, Mangum said he feels no remorse for killing 46-year-old Kenneth Cummings Jr., whom relatives described as a "loving" son who never forgot a holiday and a devoted uncle who had set up college funds for his niece and nephew. He worked at Southwest for 24 years.
Mangum, who described himself as "definitely not a homosexual," said God called on him to "carry out a code of retribution" by killing a gay man because "sexual perversion" is the "worst sin."
Mangum believed Cummings to be gay.
"I planned on sending him to hell," he said.
Cummings was stabbed with a six-inch blade, and his charred body was found near San Antonio on property owned by Mangum's grandfather.
While not everyone can agree on whether there should be hate crime laws, the fact is that if it's on the books, why shouldn't sexual orientation and gender identity be added to the list, which includes religion -- protection you won't see fundies ready to give up any time soon.
In fact, it's the religious zealots of the right, the usual suspects -- the Traditional Values Coalition, the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America and the rest of the professional persecuted "Christian" set, who like to hide behind homobigoted black pastors that are all-too-willing to be trotted out there. Take a look at this ridiculous video, from a recent rally on Capitol Hill.
Rusty Lee Thomas, who's mentioned in an earlier post, is seen bleating this winner:
"Yes, I dare state that there is a direct connection between the sins and crimes of abortion and the sodomite agenda and the Islamic terrorism that threatens our nation."
As expected, black pastor puppets are also prominently featured. Here's Rev. Johnny Hunter of the Life Education and Resource Network:
"Pastors not only have a right, but they have an obligation to state emphatically that according to scripture, a man or a woman should not perform a sex act with a person of the same sex...nor with a dog...nor with a snake...nor with a hamster or any other creature."
They know that they can quote Leviticus all day long if the measure is passed. The the ACLU has outlined how free speech will be protected, but no matter. That doesn't fill the coffers of the professional hate machine.
As far as the status of the hate crimes bill on the Hill is concerned, the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act was recently attached as an amendment to the defense authorization bill. The latter was subsequently pulled from the floor in the Senate by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). It's unlikely to be reconsidered until September or October, according to the Washington Blade.
Although Reid is said to be committed to Senate passage of the hate crimes bill, his decision to delay action on the defense bill upsets the timetable that gay leaders and their congressional allies had set for successive votes this year in the House and Senate on both the hate crimes bill and ENDA.
...With a number of crucial appropriations bills waiting for Senate action, said the lobbyist, who spoke on condition that he not be identified, Reid and Senate Democratic leaders would have to juggle Senate business to accommodate an ENDA vote. He said concern by some Democratic senators from conservative states that an ENDA vote could hurt their chances for re-election in 2008 provides an incentive to put off an ENDA vote this year in the Senate.
Ah yes, we put those Dems in office and they are ready to stab us in the back. Thanks very much.
BIG WIN IN MASSACHUSETTS. Opponents of gay marriage lost. They only got 45 of the votes needed to put the measure on the ballot. They needed 50.
So glad Mitt Romney decided to run for President. The pro-gay Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, among many others, helped make this outcome happen.
The proceedings in the Mass. State House started at 1 P.M. To get a measure on the ballot to repeal gay marriage, opponents need 50 votes. It's going to be close.
The Kerry Edwards 2004 campaign says Bill Clinton tried to throw gays under the bus. Bill Clinton's office says it's not true. Who do we believe? And what does this mean for Hillary Clinton's presidential run?
As Pam Spaulding noted last week, Democratic political consultant Bob Shrum claims in his new book that during the 2004 elections, Bill Clinton advised John Kerry to support the Federal Marriage Amendment, i.e., the anti-gay amendment to the US Constitution that would have banned gay marriage and vitiated scores of other rights that gay couples may have, including health insurance, inheritance, child custody, parenting, and more. Shrum reports that Kerry refused to endorse the amendment.
I decided to check with Bill Clinton's office and the Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign to find out if this is true. Here is what I found.
Jay Carson, spokesman for President Clinton told me:
"I checked and it's completely untrue. He never advised John Kerry to support the gay marriage ban President Bush was pushing."
A senior Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign staffer told me:
"It's definitely true. Newsweek had reported that Clinton had said Kerry should support some of the state [anti-gay] ballot initiatives. Clinton believed it would be this grand master stroke to neutralize Bush's base."
I went back to both President Clinton's office and the Kerry-Edwards campaign official, asking them to reconcile the apparent discrepancy. Clinton's spokesman stands by his denial - to the best of his knowledge, it didn't happen. The senior Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign staffer also stands by their statement that it did happen, noting that Clinton's denial was "typical Clintonian revisionism."
(As an aside, I also went back to Clinton's spokesman to make sure that he wasn't parsing his words - i.e., Clinton never advised Kerry to support the anti-gay amendment that Bush was pushing, but did he advise him to push any other version of the federal amendment? Clinton's spokesman assured me that there was no intent to parse, Clinton never advised Kerry to support any version of the federal constitutional amendment.)
Who to believe? Is there absolute proof that Clinton said it? Not yet. But you've got two sources who say he did, to one source who says he didn't. Then you have to look to the veracity of the sources. Shrum is not well-loved in bloggyland, though I'm not sure he's thought of as a liar - rather the charge is that he's inept at winning. The Kerry-Edwards campaign is not known for its electoral victories either, to be sure, but it's also not known for lying. Then there's Bill Clinton. I'm not going to revisit ancient history, but it certainly "sounds" like something Clinton would say and do, and it sounds like something he'd subsequently deny.
To get a sense of whether this "sounds like Clinton," let's look back at Clinton's record on federal bans on gay marriage. Go back to the Clinton re-election campaign in 1995. Clinton hired Democratic strategist Mark Penn as his pollster and political adviser along with now-conservative pundit Dick Morris. (Mark Penn is also Hillary Clinton's chief strategist for her current presidential run - more on that later). Penn, Morris and Clinton had decided that Clinton was going to win the re-election based on his support for "family values." And family values meant "bashing gays."
By the time Clinton arrived in Chicago for his party's convention in August, nothing that hinted at liberalism was left hanging on him. When the President, who had begun his term advocating the rights of gays in the military, came around to supporting the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition for gay and lesbian unions, Dole was wide-eyed. "Is there anything we're for that he won't jump on?" Dole asked. The answer, essentially, was nothing...
It's no coincidence that after hiring Penn, Clinton signed the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act and then ran radio ads on Christian radio touting his support for DOMA.
From the Associated Press, October 17, 1996:
After angry complaints from gay-rights advocates, the Clinton campaign on Wednesday replaced an ad running on religious radio stations that boasted of the president's signature on a bill banning gay marriages....
The Clinton spot also touted his signing of the Defense of Marriage Act, in spite of earlier White House complaints that the Republicans' use of the issue amounted to "gay baiting."
DOMA wasn't something Bill Clinton was forced to do, it's something he chose to do, wanted to do, was happy to do. And that explains why Bill Clinton has never repudiated his support for DOMA. I thought at the time, and still thought up until a few days ago, that Bill Clinton was forced to sign DOMA. That the only reason he hadn't repudiated that support - hadn't said "look, it was GOP gay-baiting and I didn't have a choice, no Democrat had a choice" - was because it might put Hillary in a bind, forcing her to also repudiate DOMA, something she of course would WANT to do but couldn't because it might prove politically dangerous. But now it seems Clinton's Choice was much clearer, and more calculated, than that. Clinton thought DOMA was a great idea for him then, and thinks it's a great idea for his wife now. It's not a necessary evil, it's manna from heaven.
The final proof that legislative gay-bashing is still something President Clinton recommends as smart Democratic politics? Bill Clinton wanted to make sure that John Kerry's presidential defeat in 2004 would be blamed on Kerry's unwillingness to sufficiently bash the gays. That's the most sensible explanation for why he made the following leak to Newsweek within days of Kerry's loss (Kerry-Edwards campaign staff tell me that they were not the ones who leaked this to Newsweek, and Clinton and his people were the only other party involved).
President Clinton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act when he was in the White House, advised Kerry in a phone call early in the campaign to find a way to support the state bans. Kerry never considered abandoning his principles to that extent, but he also didn’t take seriously enough the threat.
So now the gays lost Kerry the election. Priceless.
It gives me no joy to bash Bill Clinton. I cannot express sufficiently how much I admire the man's intellect and his political acumen. We had lunch with him last fall, and my first thought was "this is what a real president is like." He possesses so many of the qualities that our party and our politicians lack nowadays. But the man is politically amoral. Not immoral - amoral. And he, along with his amoral campaign aide Mark Penn, are the top advisers to Hillary Clinton's presidential run. And that should give every supporter of gay rights, civil rights, or any other issue, serious pause.
There's already a growing concern in the gay community that Senator Clinton, while "good on paper" on gay issues - and once considered remarkably good personally - will throw us under the bus if and when she becomes president. And let's be clear. We're not talking about some arcane tax policy issue. We're talking about our lives. Having the Democratic party's top two legislative gay-bashers as her top two advisers, men who will betray any cause, any principle, any supporter, for a bump in the polls (read more about Mark Penn's own loyalty problems here and here), does nothing to assuage those growing concerns.
PS And if I'm wrong, if Bob Shrum is wrong, if the senior Kerry-Edwards campaign official is wrong, if history is wrong, then let Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton publicly repudiate DOMA in its entirety.
New Hampshire Debate: GOP Candidates’ Support of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Puts National Security at Risk
Standing in Stark Contrast to Sunday Night’s Democratic Debate, No Republican Candidate Supports Repeal of Dishonorable Policy
WASHINGTON – When asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to raise their hand if they support the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, not a single Republican candidate’s hand went up in the air. The position of every single Republican candidate on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” not only stands in stark contrast to the unified support of repeal by all Democratic Presidential candidates but it is also out of step with the majority of the American people.
“America’s national security was sacrificed tonight in the name of divisive political maneuvering,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “Every single Republican candidate for President just looked the American people in the eye and voiced their support for a policy that is more concerned about the sexual orientation of an Arabic linguist than it is our military’s ability to decode the next piece of intelligence from terrorist groups.”
“I hope tonight’s debate wasn’t aired over the Armed Forces Network because otherwise over 60,000 gay and lesbian troops on active duty just heard a message of dishonor. For these candidates running to be the next Commander in Chief to dishonor the service of men and women standing on the streets of Baghdad and serving around the globe is shameful,” said Eric Alva, National Spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign and the first U.S. troop wounded in the Iraq War.
On March 12, 2007, USA Today reported, "Polls indicate growing acceptance of gay troops. A Harris Poll this month found that 55% supported allowing gays to serve openly, up from 48% in 2000. A Pew Research Center survey last year found that 60% favored gays serving openly, up from 52% in 1994. Support ran 3-to-1 among those younger than 30.
”The American people have moved forward. Unfortunately, the GOP candidates for President have not,” continued Solmonese. “Apparently, the GOP presidential candidates have decided to ally themselves with the extreme views of the right wing, instead of the vast majority of Americans. Not a single hand raised tonight spoke volumes about their willingness to discriminate against gay and lesbian servicemembers.”
During tonight’s New Hampshire debate aired on CNN, none of the Republican candidates for President supported repeal of the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” (DADT) law that prevents gay and lesbian Americans from serving openly in the military. Mitt Romney actually supported repeal of DADT in 1994 but switched his position tonight. Ironically, Senator John McCain stated that while the U.S has a great military, "there aren't enough of them." Although, he went on to state his willingness to kick out gay and lesbian Americans wanting to serve.
So much for their supposed state constitutional amendments to "ban gay marriage." In fact, the religious right is using such amendments to take away health care benefits from gay people. What a surprise. In Ohio, their "ban gay marriage" amendment was used to stop a woman from being able to charge her abusive boyfriend with "domestic violence." And even worse, the religious right groups in Ohio sided with the battering boyfriend in his case against the abused woman. (What possible reason would a self-proclaimed "Christian" find for siding with a man who beats women? Can you feel the love of Jesus?) You see, they weren't married, so under the gay marriage ban it's illegal in Ohio to give the battered woman "special rights." Just as it's about to become illegal in Michigan to give the partner of a gay person health insurance benefits because according the judges, that would make the gay person almost like a married person (yeah, I guess if being healthy makes you like a married person).
And now these amendments are threatening states that want to pass laws outlawing job discrimination against gays. Joe and I have been saying for years that these "marriage" amendments have nothing to do with marriage, and everything to do with the religious right's desire to regulate, and ban, everything in the lives of heterosexual and gay America. (Your right to divorce is next on their list.)
The religious right pretty much wants us all dead.
Let's get this