LGBT History
Vermont Same-Sex Marriage is About to Become Official
Published August 14, 2009 @ 08:56AM PT
Earlier this year, legislators in Vermont were able to override a veto threat from Republican Gov. Jim Douglas to enact marriage equality in the state. After a few months of getting everything in gear, Vermont started handing out its first same-sex marriage applications this week (on view up above in the photo), with gay and lesbian couples officially able to tie the knot starting on September 1, 2009.
Most are noting that this is happening with little fanfare, a sign that marriage equality just isn't as controversial as many on the right-wing would like it to be. The Times Argus notes that most towns in Vermont, from Brattleboro to Rutland, are planning to watch same-sex marriage become officially legal without much to do.
Couples with a wedding planned after Sept. 1 can pick up a Vermont License of Civil Marriage application at their local town offices – the document that, once signed by the correct authorities, allows them to get a marriage certificate.
"I picked up mine today," said Jace Sheppard of Colchester who plans to marry his civil union partner Michael Sheppard on Sept. 1 after the two get out of work for the day. "We're going to sign it soon and probably return it tomorrow."
So far, very few same-sex couples in Vermont seem to be lining up to get the applications, although more than two weeks remains in the month before the start of the new law.
Yes, despite what the right-wing might say, gay and lesbian Vermonters will quietly walk into the history books in a few weeks as if it were just a natural, everyday occurrence. And that's not to discount the hard work and extreme efforts that went into making marriage equality a reality in Vermont. But it is to say that marriage equality is increasingly becoming a part of everyday life.
Bill Clinton's Complicated History with LGBT Rights Continues
Published August 14, 2009 @ 05:53AM PT
Former President Bill Clinton spoke to nearly 2,000 bloggers and activists at Netroots Nation last night, in an address that mixed reflections from his presidency with thoughts on why progressives need to come together to do something about health care reform and climate change now. But his most vigorous moment may have been responding to audience member Lane Hudson, who challenged Clinton over his administration's support for the Defense of Marriage Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." And that confirms that yet again, LGBT rights supporters still view this president with a degree of skepticism and anger over policies that many see as too compromising in the arena of equal rights.
Halfway through Clinton's talk, Hudson was moved to ask the President whether he would use his speech at Netroots Nation to call for a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Clinton responded, but it certainly wasn't with a call for a repeal. It was with a bit of frustration over the fact that, for Clinton, he gets a lot of flak for these two laws without much credit for the efforts he did take during his administration to improve the lives of LGBT Americans.
Specifically, Clinton said that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was the farthest he could move military leaders and Congress, and that instead of going after me, LGBT rights activists should do some soul searching over how they didn't lobby their legislators on this issue. And while he regrets how it was implemented, he said at the time "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was supposed to allow gay and lesbian soldiers to have a private life where they could be (at least somewhat) open about their sexuality.
You want to talk about "Don't Ask Don't Tell," I'll tell you exactly what happened. You couldn't deliver me any support in the Congress and they voted by a veto-proof majority in both houses against my attempt to let gays serve in the military, and the media supported them. They raised all kinds of devilment. And all most of you did was to attack me instead of getting me some support in the Congress. Now that's the truth.
Secondly -- it's true! You know, you may have noticed that presidents aren't dictators. They voted -- they were about to vote for the old policy by margins exceeding 80 percent in the House and exceeding 70 percent in the Senate. They gave test votes out there to send me a message that they were going to reverse any attempt I made by executive order to force them to accept gays in the military. And let me remind you that the public opinion now is more strongly in our favor than it was 16 years ago, and I have continued supporting it...
Let me also say something that never got sufficient publicity at the time: When General Colin Powell came up with this Don't Ask Don't Tell, it was defined while he was chairman much differently than it was implemented. He said: 'If you will accept this, here's what we'll do. We will not pursue anyone. Any military members out of uniform will be free to march in gay rights parades, go to gay bars, go to political meetings. Whatever mailings they get, whatever they do in their private lives, none of this will be a basis for dismissal.' It all turned out to be a fraud because of the enormous reaction against it among the middle-level officers and down after it was promulgated and Colin was gone. So nobody regrets how this was implemented any more than I do. But the Congress also put that into law by a veto-proof majority, and many of your friends voted for that, believing the explanation about how it would be eliminated. So, I hated what happened. I regret it. But I didn't have, I didn't think at the time, any choice if I wanted any progress to be made at all.
In other words, the question definitely fired up the former President, and fired up some LGBT activists who look at "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as one of the worst ideas to come out of the Clinton era. Same with the Defense of Marriage Act. On DOMA, Clinton said that at the time, DOMA was an effort to stall and block any possible momentum for releasing a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. While he suggested that DOMA was bad policy, Clinton firmly held to the fact that it prevented something worse from happening.
he reason I signed DOMA was -- and I said when I signed it -- that I thought the question of whether gays should marry should be left up to states and to religious organizations, and if any church or other religious body wanted to recognize gay marriage, they ought to. We were attempting at the time, in a very reactionary Congress, to head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states. And if you look at the 11 referenda much later -- in 2004, in the election -- which the Republicans put on the ballot to try to get the base vote for President Bush up, I think it's obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican Congress from presenting that. The President doesn't even get to veto that. The Congress can refer constitutional amendments to the states. I didn't like signing DOMA and I certainly didn't like the constraints that were put on benefits...
Clinton circled back around after making these two points on DOMA and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to thank bloggers for helping change the minds and hearts of people, especially on these two issues. Clinton noted that American culture is heading toward a very communitarian worldview - one that recognizes that we're only as good as our neighbor, and that we succeed or sink together.
But the incident certainly renewed the debate over Bill Clinton and his legacy among LGBT activists. Was he the President that promised change but delivered more of the same discriminatory policy that had impacted the LGBT population for decades? Or was he a President that did everything he could to make sure that the right-wing in this country couldn't push for a full-on assault of LGBT rights?
Perhaps that's up to each of us to decide as we reflect back on who this President and what his legacy, given the context of a right-wing reactionary Congress for six years of his term, says.
For more on why Lane Hudson decided to interrupt President Clinton's talk with some questions on DOMA and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," check out his confessional on HuffPost. I think he sums it up pretty well when he says, "As I sat in the audience thinking about how Netroots Nation is about celebrating the most open forum of discussion ever to exist, it occurred to me that we were nothing more than a captive audience being talked to. One way communication was NOT what we were there to celebrate and advance." Kudos to President Clinton, too, for engaging Hudson (and all of us) with some answers.
Billie Jean King and Harvey Milk Get Presidential Medals Today
Published August 12, 2009 @ 04:18AM PT
Two of the most influential LGBT people in the last fifty years are due to get the Presidential of Freedom Medal today. Billie Jean King, the legendary lesbian tennis player, and Harvey Milk, the legendary gay San Francisco politician who was assassinated in 1978 after becoming the first openly gay man elected to political office in the country, are due to be honored by President Barack Obama today.
There are many other power players receiving awards today, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, former Irish President Mary Robinson, Senator Ted Kennedy, and actor Sidney Poitier. Looking at that list, there are a couple of very LGBT-friendly straight allies (Tutu, Kennedy) getting medals, too.
Obama called all of this individuals "Agents of Change," which as a blogger at change.org is definitely a term I'm pleased by :) But when it comes to talking about how significant it is for both Billie Jean King and Harvey Milk to win these awards, it goes even a bit further. Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund President Chuck Wolfe said that in Milk's case, his award is both a chance to remember what might have been if Milk weren't killed, but also a chance to remember that Milk represented the aspirations of all Americans.
This is a moment that will transcend identity politics because Harvey Milk represents the aspirations of all Americans. More than 200 years ago Washington, Jefferson and Adams fought to create a more perfect union. They probably had no idea that their vision would be embodied in the late 20th century by a gay, Jewish camera shop owner in San Francisco...
Milk's murder could have had a chilling effect on the then burgeoning gay rights movement...Instead it's a testament to American idealism that in the 30 years since Milk's assassination, we have continued to appreciate and honor his political work.
In her own right, King is thought to be the first female athlete to receive this honor, a testament to both her amazing ability as a sports star, as well as her commitment to equal rights. King commeted to the Associated Press in the wake of the announcement that she'd receive the Presidential Medal:
I think it's the first time the LGBT community has been acknowledged. It's another breakthrough.
Agents of change, breaking through and being honored by the highest office in the United States. Yup, today is going to be one of those days where LGBT history gets written.
Obama, the Antichrist, the Apocalypse and LGBT Rights
Published July 21, 2009 @ 11:25AM PT
Sounds like we're throwing everything and the kitchen sink into this subject, eh? Well, truth be told, there won't really be any kitchen sinks after the apocalypse anyway. But how's this for a concept: some conservative evangelicals are starting to wonder if Obama's support for LGBT rights is a sign that the end of days is near. Moreover, they're even rumbling that Obama himself might be the antichrist.
Antichrist? Apocalypse? End of Days?
Hmm...with a Democrat now in office, is a surge in apocalyptic rhetoric on the horizon?
That's the conclusion reached by Matthew Avery Sutton over at Religious Dispatches, who does a great job tracking the history of evangelical apocaplyptic thinking over the past 100 years, and notes that when Democrats are in power, some religious leaders start planning for Armageddon.
For instance, during FDR's administration...
The rapid expansion of the New Deal state and FDR’s dream of a global United Nations threatened evangelicals’ sense of religious liberty and national independence. For the faithful living in the 1930s and ’40s, to support Rooseveltian liberalism or internationalism was to be complicit in the rise of the Antichrist.
Good, but I think it can be topped. Here's what Sutton has to say about apocalyptic thinking during the days of LBJ:
In the late 1960s, evangelicals once again faced growing state power in the form of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” while simultaneously witnessing the apparent evaporation of cherished American values. They responded by reverting to apocalyptic jeremiads. This was most evident in the runaway success of Hal Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth, the best-selling nonfiction book of the 1970s. At the same time evangelicals, although scorning Hollywood, turned to modern technology to preach Armageddon. The result was the cult phenomenon A Thief in the Night, an Armageddon-themed film that popularized one of the first pop Christian hits, Larry Norman’s “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” The movie scared countless teenagers (and probably an equal number of adults) into preparing for the rapture.
And who can forget the Clinton administration:
Millennial fervor swept evangelicals again in the late 1990s on the heels of the two-term Clinton presidency. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins published Left Behind, the first in a series of novels that grew into the best-selling series of the past decade (until they were finally overtaken by the true prince of darkness himself, Harry Potter). Films, music, and even a line of kids’ books turned Left-Behind apocalypticism into a billion dollar business. Evangelicals were well prepared then to view the terrorist attacks on 9/11 as evidence of God’s judgment for the Clinton years.
Now with Obama, apocalyptic fervor is at an all-time high it seems. Already there's conservative Internet buzz suggesting that Obama is indeed the antichrist (Cable news happens to employ one of those who believe this...cough, cough, Glenn Beck, cough cough). And as Sutton puts it, most of Obama's legislative agenda - at least as it was set out during his campaign and during the first 200 days of his administration - only reaffirms for some conservative religious folks that Armageddon might be here as soon as next Tuesday. Here's Sutton's take on Obama's viewpoint among deeply conservative evangelical Christians:
Obama is caught in a classic catch-22. The Antichrist, the Bible explains, is going to masquerade as an angel of light. This means that the more Obama accomplishes as president and the more he improves America’s image abroad, the more suspicious evangelicals will become; they don’t want to be duped by the devil. Obama’s talk of more cooperation with other nations, the possibility of a national health care plan, his move to nationalize some private businesses, and his goal of expanding protection of the rights of gays and lesbians will drive evangelicals to one certain conclusion: the End of Days are upon us.
Of course, seen from the lens of U.S. history, it's really clear that the End of Days has less to do with anything Biblical, and more to do with right-wing religious hysteria over Democratic Presidents who might mention the word "gay" or "lesbian" once in a while. Obama has certainly done a great job of reaching across the political football field and engaging religious conservatives (sometimes to the detriment of support within his own base).
But for people who want to believe that progressive social values are the highway to the apocalypse, there's very little Obama can do to simmer down the hysteria. Given that, hopefully there will come a time soon where the Obama administration worries less about what the 700 club thinks of him, and more about what progressives believe about his tenure in Washington.
Remembering Walter Cronkite and LGBT Rights
Published July 20, 2009 @ 01:17PM PT
It must say something about a person when at your death, people who weren't even born during they heyday of your career feel remorse at having lost someone trustworthy. Such is the case with Walter Cronkite, who passed away last week at the age of 92. A number of touching tributes have come in for the man who ended each newscast with a "And that's the way it is."
One of the coolest we've seen is over at Philebrity, where Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal weighs in with his first interaction with Walter Cronkite, and how it perhaps changed the way that CBS News covered the issue of LGBT rights from the mid-1970s onward. In the years immediately following Stonewall, Segal was a part of an LGBT rights group that practiced a lot of direct action, staging demonstrations and public confrontations on everything from the Mike Douglas Show to the Tonight Show.
As Segal notes, one of his direct action moments in the spotlight occurred on the CBS Evening News in 1973. Here's Segal's story:
Segal was the leader of an activist group called the Gay Raiders, who, during that year, staged disruptions designed to draw attention to the cause of gay rights on The Today Show, The Tonight Show, The Mike Douglas Show and perhaps most notably, the CBS Evening News....In the case of Cronkite’s CBS broadcast, the gambit worked; within a week, Cronkite was doing stories on gay rights legislation nationwide.
We didn't think of this before reading Segal's story, but now that it's mentioned, does anyone remember the archive news footage from the movie "Milk," which covers the epidemic of Anita Bryant ballot initiatives throughout the country in the late 1970s? It's a Walter Cronkite story they flashback to in the movie. Would that story have been covered by Cronkite if it weren't for the direct action of groups like the Gay Raiders? It's tough to say.
Segal notes that in Cronkite's later years, well after his retirement from the news business, the former anchor came out in favor of repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," of funding HIV/AIDS initiatives, and for marrriage equality. Cronkite even wanted to reflect the importance of LGBT rights in his memoirs, according to Segal, who noted that Cronkite showed a clip of the Gay Raiders disruption to show how the news affected one particular community.
Given Segal's piece, and a really excellent reflection from Karen Ocamb over at The Bilerico Project, it's pretty clear that Cronkite wore two hats: that of a journalist reporting news, and that of a humanitarian, concerned about the dignity and self-worth of the people he reported on. Which may be one reason why everyone seems sad that he's passed: there's just too few characters in the news media today that do a good enough job melding the mind with the heart.
On Anniversary of Stonewall, Police Raid Texas Gay Bar
Published June 28, 2009 @ 08:07PM PT
Add this to the file of "You've got to be kidding me!" On the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, police in Fort Worth, Texas violently raided a gay bar known as the Rainbow Lounge, arresting nearly half a dozen people and showing that the more things change in this country, sometimes the more they stay the same. Count the Fort Worth Texas Police Department as the most clueless and insensitive police departments around.
Protests sprung up throughout the day in Fort Worth, as LGBT rights activists demanded to know why the police chose the anniversary of Stonewall to make a violent raid on a gay bar. Here's the scoop on the protests and the ridiculous antics of the Fort Worth police department, fresh from the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Hat tip to reader Marlin Bynum for the heads up on this:
A crowd of more than 100 protesters chanted "No more!" from the steps of the Tarrant County Courthouse Sunday evening as they demanded an investigation into a police raid earlier in the day at a gay night club.
One patron was seriously injured in the raid, several protesters said, as police used excessive force in making seven arrests. Police defended their actions.
Speaker after speaker demanded an inquiry into the late-night raid at the Rainbow Lounge on South Jennings Street.
"I was scared," patron Todd Camp said at the protest Sunday afternoon. "I have never seen anything like this in my life."...
Witnesses say that police arrived at the nightclub about 1 a.m. Sunday and arrested seven people and that one of those arrested suffered a fractured skull during the takedown and is at a Fort Worth hospital.
Police brushed this off as a normal bar check, to make sure patrons were not breaking the law and that no minors were in the crowd. But as Todd Camp (founder of Q Cinema, and also quoted in the excerpt above), this was no normal bar visit by police. Instead, police showed up with zip cuffs and paddy wagons, which sure as hell sounds like they were trying to re-create Stonewall some 40 years ago.
"I have friends who are cops and I know what to do when officers are working," Camp said. "No one was acting aggressive to officers."
Camp said that he has been attending bars for years in Fort Worth when TABC conducts raids.
"Usually, they're very orderly and respectful – they work with the bar staff and check IDs, it's quick and painful and then it's over and then they're out," Camp said. "This was not that. This was harassment, plain and simple."
General manager Randy Norman said the bar had just been open a week and they had complied with all ordinances.
"Officers just don't come in armed with zip ties and a paddy wagon for a routine check of a bar," Norman said.
A group has now sprung up on Facebook for folks to receive up-to-date information on this incident. Unbelievable. Police departments are supposed to protect people from violence; they're not supposed to be raiding gay clubs with zip ties and paddy wagons, and cracking people's skulls. Stay tuned and see if we get some sort of apology out of this sad story.
Happy Anniversary, Stonewall
Published June 28, 2009 @ 09:42AM PT
After a week's worth of anticipation, today officially marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the event that catapulted the LGBT rights movement into the forefront of American politics and culture. And the coverage? Well, it's all over the stratosphere.
Below we're offering our five best video snapshots at Stonewall. From the BBC to the AARP (and every other initial in between!), folks are doing an amazing job of drawing attention to the riots that launched a movement. Check out the clips below...and happy anniversary, Stonewall!
5. BBC News: Stonewall Veteran Recalls Gay Riot. In this BBC News clip, SW veteran Martin Boyce talks about the night the riots started, and the frenetic and spontaneous clip at which the riot moved over the next 24 hours.
4. San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus: 40 Years After Stonewall. A screen cap of a rainbow flag flying in the wind starts this video off, which then morphs into scenes of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus (the first gay chorus in the country) performing at various venues. The narration ties the struggle for equal rights during the Stonewall days to the struggle for equal rights during the No on 8 days.
3. Democracy Now - Stonewall Riots 40th Anniversary. Democracy Now has a series of videos and commentary on the significance of Stonewall. Below is Part One. Parts Two and Three are available here and here.
2. CBS News Does Stonewall 101. CBS News correspondent Itay Hod pulls a "jaywalking" type story with this piece that takes to the street to ask people how much they know about the Stonewall Riots. It's a bit tongue in cheek, but it also shows that the historical impact of Stonewall hasn't hit home for people who didn't live through it.
1. AARP TV: Stonewall at 40. One of the largest advocacy agencies in the world tackles the anniversary of Stonewall, with this great piece that asks, "Have gay rights progressed all that much since Stonewall?" The video features original footage of the night of the riots, as well.
