Tag Archives: LGBT equality

GetEQUAL TX activists released on bail, promise more actions

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Sit-in2

Cd Kirven as she was escorted out of the Capitol

Cd Kirven and four other GetEQUAL TX activists were released on $1,500 bail each on Wednesday. They were charged with class-B misdemeanors.

The five held sit-ins in state Senate offices to protest Senate bill SB 237 not being moved to the Senate floor for a vote. The legislation is a statewide LGBT employment nondiscrimination law.

“We have three weeks to push hard,” Kirven said.

GetEQUAL TX had threatened action if the bill was not moved to the Senate floor by May 1. Kirven said additional actions are planned.

While they were being arrested, Kirven said she was talking to officers about the lack of workplace protection for LGBT people.

“No wonder you’re doing this,” she said her arresting officer told her.

Kirven said a vote from just one of four Republican Senators targeted is needed to move the bill to the floor.

A preliminary hearing for the arrested activists is set for May 15, but defense attorney Dax Garvin left the country this morning for several weeks. His associate Makenna Hatter said the first hearing is always reset in Travis County so the case will probably be rescheduled for the end of the month.

Garvin also represents Dallas marriage-equality demonstrators Major and Beau Jiminez.

Kirven said GetEQUAL plans polling place demonstrations on May 11 when municipal elections are held throughout the state to let the public know about the lack of workplace protections. She said other actions are planned in and around the Capitol through the session until the bill moves to the floor of both houses for a vote.

Class-B misdemeanors are punishable by a fine of up to $2,000 and/or a jail sentence of up to 180 days. The court may also impose a maximum of two years of probation or three years of community supervision with an extension.

Kirven said she’s not sure if the charges against the group will stick. The Texas Capitol is considered public park land.

“You can’t criminally trespass on public land,” she said.

In 2010, Kirven was arrested in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in Washington, D.C., demonstrating for the federal ENDA bill. After serving six months probation, charges were dismissed.

After posting bail in Austin on Wednesday night, Kirven returned to Dallas and got home about 3 a.m.

“They haven’t seen the last of us,” Kirven said.

—  David Taffet

Census bureau releases new same-sex couple stats and straight marriage, divorce stats

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The Census Bureau released a massive new report with new statistics about same-sex couples and heterosexual marriage and divorce. The report includes hundreds of charts of raw data with no analysis. Here’s some analysis:

The bureau reports 6,502,121 “unmarried-partner households.” Of those, 280,410 are “male householder, male partner” and 300,890 are “female householder, female partner.”

That terminology is confusing because those numbers include all those same-sex households of people who actually live in places like Massachusetts and are legally married. But the census bureau was prevented from actually asking that question directly and is projecting the numbers from the way people answered.

Analysis: The census severely under-counted same-sex households. And total number of gays and lesbians? They didn’t even try.

More analysis: The divorce figures disprove that allowing same-sex couples to marry will destroy marriage. Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate at 2.2 per 1,000 population. Second is Iowa with 2.4.

The Texas divorce rate declined from 5.5 per 1,000 population in 1990 to 4.0 in 2000 to 3.3 in 2009. That compares to a national figure of 3.4.

The states with the highest divorce rates were Nevada 6.7, which was a decline from 11.4 in 1990, Arkansas at 5.7 and West Virginia and Wyoming at 5.2.

The decline in the Texas divorce rate, however, may be linked to the decline in marriage in Texas. Despite having about 10 million more people living in the state since the 1980s, the number of total annual marriages in 2009 only rose by about 1,000.

Analysis: Lots more gays and lesbians have come out over the past 20 years. Don’t know why the straight people who are left are less likely to marry. Marriage equality opponents may pick up on the stat to “prove” that marriage equality is destroying “traditional” marriage.

One marriage statistic is confusing and unexplained —”People who got married, and divorced in the past 12 months by state, 2009.”

In Massachusetts, 41,000 men married and 40,000 women married, while 20,000 men divorced and 20,000 women divorced. The difference in the marriage stat can be accounted for with same-sex marriages. The divorce stat indicates that it’s straight people getting divorced, not gays and lesbians.

However, in Texas that year, 202,000 men married and 195,000 women married.

Analysis: That number either includes 7,000 same-sex marriages performed in other states or countries that have marriage equality, which the census bureau claimed they weren’t counting in marriage stats, or 7,000 Texas women didn’t know they got married or 7,000 men think they did.

—  David Taffet

HRC bus tour to visit Texas, 10 other states in South, Midwest where support for equality lags

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The above chart (click to enlarge) shows why HRC selected the 11 states it will visit on the bus tour.

The Human Rights Campaign on Monday announced a bus tour later this year to 11 states in the South and Midwest that lack both employment protections and relationship recognition for LGBT people. The tour, “On the Road to Equality,” will visit Texas from Sept. 9-11, stopping in Austin and College Station but not North Texas. In announcing the bus tour, HRC released new poll results showing that while Americans widely back LGBT equality, support lags in the South and Midwest. For example, 51 percent of Americans support marriage equality, compared to 43 percent in the South and Midwest; 71 percent of Americans support domestic partnerships, compared to 61 percent in the South; and 79 percent of Americans support LGBT employment protections, compared to 73 percent in the South. HRC spokesman Michael Cole-Schwartz said the poll’s sample size wasn’t large enough to yield reliable results for individual states. (A poll commissioned by Equality Texas last year put support for marriage equality at 43 percent and civil unions at 63 percent.) HRC’s full press release, as well as links to the poll results, can be found here.

—  John Wright

UN passes historic resolution in support of LGBT equality

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FRANK JORDANS  |  Associated Press

GENEVA—  The United Nations endorsed the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people for the first time ever Friday, passing a resolution hailed as historic by the U.S. and other backers and decried by some African and Muslim countries.

The declaration was cautiously worded, expressing “grave concern” about abuses because of sexual orientation and commissioning a global report on discrimination against gays.

But activists called it an important shift on an issue that has divided the global body for decades, and they credited the Obama administration’s push for gay rights at home and abroad.

“This represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement.

Following tense negotiations, members of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council narrowly voted in favor of the declaration put forward by South Africa, with 23 votes in favor and 19 against.

Backers included the U.S., the European Union, Brazil and other Latin American countries. Those against included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Pakistan. China, Burkina Faso and Zambia abstained, Kyrgyzstan didn’t vote and Libya was suspended from the rights body earlier.

The resolution expressed “grave concern at acts of violence and discrimination, in all regions of the world, committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation and gender identity.”

More important, activists said, it also established a formal U.N. process to document human rights abuses against gays, including discriminatory laws and acts of violence. According to Amnesty International, consensual same-sex relations are illegal in 76 countries worldwide, while harassment and discrimination are common in many more.

“Today’s resolution breaks the silence that has been maintained for far too long,” said John Fisher of the gay rights advocacy group ARC International.

The White House in a statement strongly backed the declaration.

“This marks a significant milestone in the long struggle for equality, and the beginning of a universal recognition that (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) persons are endowed with the same inalienable rights — and entitled to the same protections — as all human beings.”

The resolution calls for a panel discussion next spring with “constructive, informed and transparent dialogue on the issue of discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against” gays, lesbians and transgender people.

The prospect of having their laws scrutinized in this way went too far for many of the council’s 47-member states.

“We are seriously concerned at the attempt to introduce to the United Nations some notions that have no legal foundation,” said Zamir Akram, Pakistan’s envoy to the U.N. in Geneva, speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Nigeria claimed the proposal went against the wishes of most Africans. A diplomat from the northwest African state of Mauritania called the resolution “an attempt to replace the natural rights of a human being with an unnatural right.”

Boris Dittrich of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch said it was important for the U.S. and Western Europe to persuade South Africa to take the lead on the resolution so that other non-Western countries would be less able to claim the West was imposing its values.

At the same time, he noted that the U.N. has no enforcement mechanism to back up the resolution. “It’s up to civil society to name and shame those governments that continue abuses,” Dittrich said.

The Obama administration has been pushing for gay rights both domestically and internationally.

In March, the U.S. issued a nonbinding declaration in favor of gay rights that gained the support of more than 80 countries at the U.N. In addition, Congress recently repealed the ban on gays openly serving in the military, and the Obama administration said it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the U.S. law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

The vote in Geneva came at a momentous time for the gay rights debate in the U.S. Activists across the political spectrum were on edge Friday as New York legislators considered a bill that would make the state the sixth — and by far the biggest — to allow same-sex marriage.

Asked what good the U.N. resolution would do for gays and lesbians in countries that opposed the resolution, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel Baer said it was a signal “that there are many people in the international community who stand with them and who support them, and that change will come.”

“It’s a historic method of tyranny to make you feel that you are alone,” he said. “One of the things that this resolution does for people everywhere, particularly LGBT people everywhere, is remind them that they are not alone.”

 

—  John Wright

Hitting a tipping point

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Phoenix Suns President and CEO Rick Welts (Michael Chow, The Arizona/Associated Press)

Sports figures’ decisions to come out can push LGBT community one step closer to equality

HARDY HABERMAN  |  Flagging Left

In his book The Tipping Point, Malcom Gladwell writes about what he calls “social epidemics.” Just like a disease epidemic can blow up and spread very quickly, ideas can suddenly become embraced by the public at large and spread at a rapid pace.

That point when something goes from being just a few people who embrace the idea to the critical mass needed to flood the mainstream consciousness of the country is the “tipping point.”

At its most fundamental level, the LGBT movement begins with opening the closet door. That coming out process is almost always difficult and sometimes it takes years, but it is the beginnings of genuine liberation.

Well, on the coming out front, we may be at the tipping point and for the LGBT rights movement that could trigger a big change

Today I read a story about Jared Max, a sportscaster for ESPN Radio who said this in his morning show:

“Are we ready to have our sports information delivered by someone who is gay? Well we are gonna find out. Because for the last 16 years, I’ve been living a free life among my close friends and family, and I’ve hidden behind what is a gargantuan-sized secret here in the sports world: I am gay.

“Yeah. Jared Max. The sports guy who is one of the most familiar faces in New York sports isn’t quite like the majority. And while you already knew I was a little different, this might help make sense of it. But more so, I’m taking this courageous jump into the unknown having no idea how I will be perceived. …”

This is pretty big news, but even bigger when you consider the other folks who came out in the just the past few weeks:

• Don Lemon, weekend anchor for CNN Newsroom announced last week that he is gay. He did so in advance of the release of his new book, Transparent, in which he discusses his life as an African-American newscaster and as a gay man.

• Look to sports again as the CEO of the Phoenix Suns, Rick Welts, came out in a story in the New York Times. Why? He said that he wanted to do something to help youth struggling with their own sexual identity issues, to assure them they could come out and still have a successful career.

• Former Villanova basketball star, Will Sheridan, kicked open his closet door coming out publicly on ESPN just a day after Rick Welts.

• And all this after former NFL player Wade Davis came out as part of a GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) Sports Project a couple of months ago.

Perhaps I am the only one to see a trend here, but when broadcasters and, more specifically, sports figures start feeling it’s OK to come out, we might be nearing that tipping point.

This trend is not that new either. In the past few years dozens of high-profile people have made their sexual orientation known. My hope is that the cumulative effect will push things over the edge.

What would that look like? Well, it would be somewhat of a continuation of what we see now: more and more people publicly coming out until the mere act of announcing one’s sexual orientation or gender identity will become so commonplace that it is no longer news.

That would signal that LGBT people had really taken a major step toward full equality. The day when a celebrity or sports figure comes out and is no longer headline material, or more importantly no longer feels the need to hold a press conference to do it, will be a great day for LGBT rights.

So to all those celebrities, sports figures, actors, politicians who are still in the closet: Come out! You may be the nudge that pushes things past the tipping point — and that is something that will benefit everyone.

Hardy Haberman is a longtime local LGBT activist and a member of Stonewall Democrats of Dallas. His blog is at http://dungeondiary.blogspot.com.

—  John Wright

Disappointed in Dan Choi

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Dear Lt. Dan Choi,

When I attended the National Equality March in October 2009, I went with hopes of being inspired, becoming more informed, and a fire to fuel my college town and the city where I came out, which has been plagued as one of the most conservative cities in the nation. While gathering for the march to the nation’s Capitol, I was awestruck by the thousands of people who surrounded me. Queer college students from Connecticut, various gay couples who had been together for many years in a partnership that is not legally recognized, children with their same-sex parents, out of the closet, in the closet, Texans, Mexicans, Blacks, Asians, veterans, and even dogs donning rainbow attire. I no longer felt alone in my passion for fighting for what is right. I met people who had, like myself, scrounged together money to be able to attend such a momentous and life-changing event. I was 19 years old, in college, and ready to begin my journey to changing the world.

That day, I heard Cleve Jones speak. “We don’t organize to march, we march to organize.” he said. That sentence impacted me tremendously. He had just given me a huge responsibility. He told me that the fight didn’t stop on the grassy lawn of the Capitol. He forced me to make my scope of reality wider and bigger than I had anticipated. This wasn’t about me being at the National Equality March. This wasn’t about marching with 155,000 people who wanted the same thing as I did. This was about me going back to my small, conservative college town and creating my own movement. I took his words to heart, but I still wasn’t sold.

I was sitting on the ground when you began speaking. Then I heard you say, “But of all those things that are worth fighting for, love is worth it. Love is worth it!” I got goosebumps and immediately rose to see you speak, despite my exhaustion. As you were finishing, I had tears in my eyes. What you said impacted me more than any other speaker that day. I had then decided that I was in undeniable agreement with you — that love was worth it. Love was worth what were to be sleepless nights, three-hour conference calls, upsetting those who didn’t want change, inspiring those who did, and growing into myself all at the same time. Because of you, I decided that love was worth traveling to places to participate in demonstrations and protests when I couldn’t afford it, holding people in the movement accountable for their actions, educating those who were ignorant, and loving those who hate. After all, no amount of money can equate to love, right?

Since the march, I watched your speech over and over again to the point of memorization. For a long while, people would ask me why I am an activist, and I would say simply, “Because love is worth it.” Since that march, I began the arduous journey to get you to speak at my school, Texas Tech University. While speaking to your extremely rude agent, hype began to spread about your appearance. People were excited, and I just knew with my entire being that if I could get you to speak to the people I help every day, a fire would be lit in the queer community of Lubbock, Texas. To me, the mere hope of reaching out to those who meet my words with deaf ears was worth putting up with your agent and the exorbitant amount of $10,000 to get you out here. I never for a moment questioned why it was that much, or why you were charging anything at all.

I had the privilege of speaking during an event to commemorate the 41st anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion in Dallas. I spoke to the marchers with intensity and all of the passion I had. I made sure they felt every word to the core just as I did when I heard you speak. I ended with telling them to, “Own their own truth.” Many have wondered what that means. I’ll explain it as this: Owning your own truth is holding yourself accountable as a participating person for the progress of the movement. Owning your truth can start by coming out, loving yourself, loving others like you and who differ from you, and progressing to sacrificing and putting together events for the movement for equality.

Make sure you read the definition of owning your own truth carefully.

About a month ago, after nine months of dealing with your agent, I received an e-mail directly from you. In short, you basically said that the only way I could get you to speak is if I raised enough money to bring you to Tech. No deals, no compromises, end of story.

Sir, before I say my point, I want to say that I respect you as a servicemember and war veteran of this country. My brother graduated from the Air Force Academy a year after you graduated from West Point, and I have the utmost respect for both of you for that. I appreciate your service and risking your life to protect mine.

However, I’ve lost all respect for you as a gay- and human-rights activist. In the course of my two short years as an activist in the communities I have lived in, I have met amazing people such as Irene Andrews, C.d. Kirven and Michael Robinson, who travel from city to city, state to state with their own money and ask NOTHING from those who request their speaking services. These people, like myself, live, breath and eat queer activism. They live to inspire others. They live to show the compassion of love to others. They have not lost sight of what is truly important here: equality for all.

You, sir, have lost sight in one of those many $10,000 checks written to you, of why you came out and became an activist in the first place. Remember, Lt. Choi? LOVE IS WORTH IT. LOVE is worth cutting a deal to poor college kids in an extremely conservative city who’s only desire is to make headway in their community. LOVE is worth sacrificing money to give my friends and others who are currently serving in silence the hope to remember they are worth it. Love isn’t made by money. Love isn’t made by your agent, Alec Melman. Love isn’t tangible when you’re suffocated by greed as you are. Love is constantly flowing through the heart and brain. Love is giving. Love isn’t defined by financial status, color, gender, creed, age or sexual orientation.

Your definition of love is no longer my definition of love.

So, I ask you, Lt. Choi: Own your truth. Hold yourself accountable for your actions. Look at what you preach and see if it matches your actions. Think about when you were my age, just going into West Point, and feeling alone next to your brothers and sisters. Remember Matthew. Remember Irene, C.d. and Michael. Remember me. Remember those 155,000 people who heard your words. After you do that, think about those in Lubbock, Texas, and other cities who couldn’t “afford” you and how you could have changed their lives.

This is about love, sir. Not money.

Best,
Nonnie Ouch
Texas Tech University
Gay-Straight Alliance
President
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1515030199

—  John Wright

DP benefits on ballot in El Paso

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We just love it when they put our rights on the ballot. Somehow it shows they really care.

A group called El Pasoans for Family Values (what is this, 1992?) has gathered enough signatures to force a public vote on the city’s domestic partner benefits program, which was approved by the council last year.

The election will cost the city $150,000 — which, we’re guessing, is far more than what it’s cost to extend health insurance to the gay and straight unmarried partners of employees.

Read more in the El Paso Times.

—  John Wright

DART committee to vote on trans protections

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dartlogo.JPGA Dallas Area Rapid Transit committee is expected to vote Tuesday on a proposal to add gender identity to the agency’s employment nondiscrimination policy.

The proposed policy change came about as a result of DART’s alleged discrimination against a transgender bus driver.

Last year, DART attorneys sought to intervene in family court to oppose the employee’s petition for a gender-marker change.

The employee, who’s been with the agency for 25 years, began transitioning in 2003 and had sexual reassignment surgery about three years ago. The employee alleges that DART supervisors have at various times told she couldn’t have long hair, couldn’t wear a dress and couldn’t use women’s restrooms at the bus yard.

Dallas Voice articles about the alleged discrimination prompted an outrcy from the LGBT community, with activists speaking at several DART board meetings earlier this year.

If the policy change is approved by the Economic Opportunity and Diversity Committeee, it will proceed to the full board, which could take a final vote in June. Tuesday’s committee meeting will be at 3:30 p.m. in DART Conference Room C, on the first floor of the agency’s headquarters at 1401 Pacific Ave. in Dallas.

—  John Wright

Local LGBTs contribute to 'Truth in Progress' dialogue on race, sexual orientation issues

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Marilyn Alexander, C.D. Kirven and Rev. Gil Caldwell
Marilyn Alexander, C.D. Kirven and Rev. Gil Caldwell

At the Creating Change conference in Dallas earlier this year, I had the opportunity to have lunch with an old friend, Marilyn Alexander, and a new friend, the Rev. Gil Caldwell.

The two have teamed to create Truth in Progress. The project began as a dialogue on issues of race, sexual orientation and faith that began 10 years ago.

Truth in Progress developed into a multimedia project taking a special look at the similar yet different experiences and histories of the black civil rights and LGBT equality movements.

After the jump is the first video created by Alexander and Caldwell.

Continue reading “Local LGBTs contribute to 'Truth in Progress' dialogue on race, sexual orientation issues” »

—  David Taffet

2 Arizona cities vote to sue state over new anti-immigration law; others begin boycotts

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May 1 Mega March in Dallas
May 1 Mega March in Dallas

The city councils of two Arizona cities voted to sue the state over its new immigration law on Tuesday. Tucson and Flagstaff are both concerned over the impact on tourism and the cost of enforcement.

Participation in Saturday’s Mega March in Dallas and in other marches across the country was fueled by opposition to the new law, which would require law enforcement officials to question people about their immigration status if they’re suspected of being in the country illegally.

Gay groups that participated in the Dallas march support comprehensive federal immigration reform that includes equality for LGBT immigrants.

Four lawsuits had already been filed against the law. A police officer from Tucson and one from Phoenix each have sued on their own behalf and not on behalf of their departments. The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, and a Washington-based researcher who plans to visit Arizona have also sued the state.

According to the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup “said the law is based on a misguided notion illegal immigrants are bad for the area’s quality of life and economy. ‘Frankly, I don’t believe that’s true,’ Walkup said.”

In Texas, El Paso is the first city to officially react to the law.

The El Paso Times reports that city workers were instructed to avoid travel to Arizona until the law is repealed. Only one city council member voted against the boycott.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association has already canceled their fall convention that was scheduled to be held in September in Scottsdale.

The law won’t take effect until July . More coverage in Friday’s Dallas Voice.

—  David Taffet