Hey Heterosexuals, Come Out of the Closet!

 

Yes, that’s right! Because it is so difficult for heterosexual people to find support, advocacy, and information about their sexuality, Texas has decided that if colleges or universities fund LGBT awareness programs, they must also provide an equivalent program that promotes “traditional moral values”. This means that if your school has an Ally or other diversity training, they will have to provide an equivalent program to train people about what it means to be straight. I mean, there are certainly no relationship models for straight people anywhere in pop culture, media, politics, academia, religion, business, or any other facet of society, so it is obvious that we need dedicated, focused outreach to really help educate Americans about what it means to be straight.

“Republican Representative Wayne Christian’s budget amendment was approved with a lopsided 110 to 24 vote, The Dallas Morning News reported. The amendment would force state colleges and universities using state funds to promote diversity programs based on sexuality or gender to spend an equal amount of money to promote “family and traditional values.”” Read the rest of the article.

Down Low at West Point

This photo was taken in 1980, representing the first women to graduate from America's most prestigious and demanding military school

And here, 30 years later, another batch of students is making a difference at West Point. This time, as the New York Times reports, those cadets are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Most are “on the down low”, but now, more and more are coming forward, and facing military “justice” for deciding that their oath of honor means more to them than keeping their true selves hidden from the bigots and fearmongers who prattle about combat readiness and moral hygiene.

As one such student, Katherine Miller put it, “I have lied to my classmates and compromised my integrity and my identity by adhering to existing military policy. I am unwilling to suppress an entire portion of my identity any longer.”

And these are the people we think we can afford to lose with so many enemies abroad?

like a dart in the face

 

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) system is “updating” its non-discrimination policy to create a loophole that would allow GLBT people to be fired, or not even hired to begin with, based solely on their orientation or gender identity.

The “update” was proposed by Raymond Noah at Tuesday night’s closed board meeting. Here’s what it says:

“DART is committed to hiring, promoting and retaining the best qualified persons in all positions and, EXCEPT to the extent permitted by federal and/or Texas law, DART will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by law.”

I added the bold and all caps to the word except, ‘cuz here’s the thing: in Texas, it is permitted to discriminate against LGBT people! So, basically, what I’m hearing is “we won’t discriminate unless we’re allowed to, and we are allowed to, so we’re gonna go ahead and do it.”

Fuck you, DART! Fix this shit NOW!

Iceland recognizes gay marriage – unanimously

Iceland’s parliament voted 49-0 today to add “man and man” and “woman and woman” to their existing marriage laws.

The Marriage Scorecard to Date:

Netherlands (2001)
Belgium (2003)
Spain (2005)
Canada (2005)
South Africa (2006)
Israel* (2006, marriages from other countries)
Norway (2008, Civil Unions since 1993)
Sweden (2009, Registered Partnerships since 1995)
Portugal (2010)
Iceland (2010)

Monday is International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO)

To mark this year’s International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO), which is officially Monday, May 17, at least 6 US cities as well as other cities worldwide  will celebrate with the “Great Global Kiss-In” this weekend.  IDAHO wants you to participate and send them a video. Find out more here:

Presidential Memorandum Demands Hospital Visitation for Gays & Lesbians

Can queers visit their partner’s bedside at a federally funded hospital? Yes we can.

“There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital. In these hours of need and moments of pain and anxiety, all of us would hope to have a hand to hold, a shoulder on which to lean — a loved one to be there for us, as we would be there for them.”

“Yet every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides… uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.”

Read the memorandum here

LGBT Action Alert!

Action Alert from the National Coalition for LGBT Health

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is currently circulating a letter in the Senate, requesting funds for the addition of a question about sexual orientation and gender identity to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), the federal government’s most comprehensive and influential survey. This question is vitally important for gathering the information needed to understand and address the health disparities affecting the LGBT community.

Please call your Senator today and urge them to sign on to Senator Whitehouse’s letter. To contact your Senator, please dial the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121, give your state, and ask to speak to your Senator. When you are connected to your Senator’s office, ask to speak to the staff member who works on Health and Human Services Appropriations. Tell them you are a constituent who supports appropriating an additional $2 million for the National Health Interview Survey and that you would like them to sign on to Senator Whitehouse’s letter.

In order to sign on, they must contact Nick Bath in Senator Whitehouse’s office and enter their request in the Appropriations Committee’s database. If they have any questions, please have them contact Rebecca Fox at 202-558-6828 or rebecca@lgbthealth.net

Spill your guts

“Woodhull Freedom Foundation wants your personal essays about how you experience (or don’t experience) sexual freedom in America. Essays should be approximately 500-1000 words, and should be engaging and well-written. Selected essays will be published on our website or our blogsites, and you will always receive credit for your work. Please include the name you’d like it published under and a brief (one to two sentence) bio.”

 

Submissions should be sent to kbartlett @ woodhullfoundation . org.

Will Phillips Gets It

You might remember Will from our previous coverage of his refusal to stand for or say the pledge of allegiance because there isn’t “liberty and justice for all” when it comes to LGBT rights. Instead, he’s standing up for progress, in support of GetEqual.org

Silver Linings (and updates!)

I found it! I found it! I found the elusive chimera, that rare creature thought to be mythological by so many for so long!

I found good news! Bless your heart, Andy Towle!

Take THAT, Pope Benedict Arnold

Some years ago I converted to Catholicism. I may have mentioned I’m a serious masochist before. But I’ll admit it; there are parts of the faith I suck at. Believing in hell for example. Never could pull that off. I’m more in line with what Company of Thieves says about such things. “We are all our own devil… and we make this world a hell.”

But one of the reasons I hopped on board and started participating as a lector in my church is the wonderful, loving, wise priest who listened to me and understood my need to confess. As a long time Vincentian monk, he was part of the really old school movement for social justice in the church, now being denied and shit on by the likes of Glenn Beck. When I say old school, I mean several centuries old, though he was also a huge proponent of Romero’s liberation theology.

True, I was politely asked to leave by the new priest after that wise man passed on. He was fine with me coming back to the church after transition, but not during. Couldn’t afford to alienate people. Make them uncomfortable. Services no longer required. I didn’t give up the faith though. Just the church.

And this is the church we’re probably used to hearing about nowadays. The church that kicks people out, decides who’s Christian and who isn’t, often while protecting pedophile priests. These things are both entirely real and, as my students might say, “some ol’ bulllllllshit”.

But by heaven, it is NOT all of us. When the Denver archdiocese removed a young girl from their school, not for being gay mind you, but for her PARENTS being a lesbian couple, Christians stood up. And they’re still standing up. They’re telling their own leadership that this is not Christlike. That this is not acceptable.

And I’ll be damned (likely for many reasons) if there isn’t more evidence of good people in community reaching out to do good things. As an update to previous posts on Mississippi and Utah respectively, we get examples of honesty and love being rewarded and hypocrisy being exposed.

Constance McMillen and ALL her peers will get their prom, due to a couple big donors, even as the facebook page created to support her and her girlfriend has garnered 250,000 followers.

And those fine upstanding gents in Utah who spend their days thinking up new and creative ways of strangling civil liberties? The pharisees out west are “shocked” and “stunned” by one of their own confessing to a skinny-dipping excursion some years ago with a minor.

I need to add a couple things here for balance. I know as a blogger I don’t really have a responsibility to be fair in the way journalists might. It’s just my own ethics that beg for at least lip service.

Truth is, if we believe people can change, that they can learn from mistakes, then I think any ethical adult would have to admit that there’s going to be more to this Utah story than the scandal. We need to listen to the grown woman’s story and his. We need to extend what we’re so often not given ourselves: the chance for forgiveness and healing. It seems like the world could use a lot more of that in general.

But it doesn’t necessarily mean we need to extend them legislative authority while a legitimate question about their ethics remains unanswered. I have no illusions of being voted in as Texas governor as a sex worker. Maybe Illinois governor, but not the Lone Star.

For now though, I’m just gonna bask in the fact that there’s still a great big chunk of hope out there, growing in the hearts of loving people, that we can all take a bite of. I’ve even given the flying monkeys the day off.