This Site Aims to Promote the Historic Oil Region of Northwestern Pennsylvania as a Welcoming Place for All and to Challenge the Bigotry of Those Who Seek to Exclude Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender People from Open and Equal Participation in Community Life, particularly the Venango County-based Hate Group known as the American Family Association of Pennsylvania. Learn more at OutintheSilence.com
The leading national organization opposing same-sex marriage has sought to split the Democratic Party base by pitting African-Americans and Hispanics against gay-rights groups, according to confidential strategy memos made public by court officials in Maine.
"The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies," says one of the memos. It also suggests "interrupting" the process of cultural assimilation for Hispanics in hopes of curtailing support for same-sex marriage.
The documents, dating from 2009, were written by the National Organization for Marriage and had been kept from the public until Monday, when they were unsealed by court officials in Maine.
They were part of a two-pronged legal challenge of Maine's financial disclosure laws. Still unresolved is whether the NOM will have to release the names of donors to its successful 2009 campaign to ban same-sex marriage in Maine.
The Human Rights Campaign, a major gay-rights organization, first circulated the documents Monday night, and its president, Joe Solmonese, assailed the strategies that they detailed.
"With the veil lifted, Americans everywhere can now see the ugly politics that the National Organization for Marriage traffics in every day," Solmonese said. "While loving gay and lesbian couples seek to make lifelong commitments, NOM plays racial politics, tries to hide donors and makes up lies about people of faith."
Through the Human Rights Campaign, veteran civil rights leader Julian Bond also condemned the NOM strategy.
"NOM's underhanded attempts to divide will not succeed if Black Americans remember their own history of discrimination," said the statement from Bond, a former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "Pitting bigotry's victims against other victims is reprehensible; the defenders of justice must stand together."
NOM's president, Brian Brown, was unapologetic, issuing a brief statement hailing his organization's collaboration with other black and Hispanic leaders, including Bishop Harry Jackson, a Maryland church pastor, and New York state Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. "Gay marriage advocates have attempted to portray same-sex marriage as a civil right, but the voices of these and many other leaders have provided powerful witness that this claim is patently false," Brown said.
"Gay marriage is not a civil right, and we will continue to point this out in written materials such as those released in Maine," Brown added. "We proudly bring together people of different races, creeds and colors to fight for our most fundamental institution: marriage."
The NOM documents depicted Democratic Party leaders as "increasingly inclined to privilege the concerns of gay rights groups over the values of African-Americans."
"Find, equip, energize and connect African-American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots," one memo said.
The memos stressed the pivotal political role of Latinos as a swing constituency.
"Will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values?" one NOM memo asked. "We must interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity ... a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation."
The NOM strategy also called for portraying President Barack Obama as a "social radical" and seeking to cast same-sex marriage in a negative light by linking it to other issues, such as pornography and sexualizing of children.
Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry, a national advocacy group supporting same-sex marriage, said the memos suggest the NOM "will stop at nothing to push its agenda, pitting American against American, minority against minority, family members against family members."
"These smoking-gun documents show how NOM has sought, in the most cynical ways imaginable, to bait the gay community in hopes of provoking a hurt response that would further divide," he said.
The NOM is playing an active role this year as battles over same-sex marriage unfold in several states. In Maryland and Washington, the organization and its allies are gathering signatures to place measures on the Nov. 6 ballot that would overturn recently passed same-sex marriage laws.
In Maine, it will be seeking defeat of a measure already placed on the November ballot that would legalize same-sex marriage. In North Carolina and Minnesota, the NOM is supporting ballot measures that would amend the state constitutions to define marriage as only between a man and woman.
The unsealed court documents illustrated that the NOM sometimes falls short of its goals. The memos said a priority for 2010 was to repeal gay-marriage laws in New Hampshire, Iowa, and Washington, D.C. But same-sex marriage remains in effect in those three jurisdictions along with Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and New York.
The memos contained extensive details about NOM's finances, but they do not identify individual donors, including three who had given more than $1 million apiece as of late 2009.
In Maine, the group leading the campaign to legalize same-sex marriage — Mainers United for Marriage — announced the appointment of Matt McTighe as campaign manager. He had been the state public education director for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, a Boston-based gay-rights law firm.
McTighe said he was reviewing the NOM documents Tuesday, but was troubled by what he saw on first take.
"We try to focus on telling the positive stories on why marriage matters to all committed loving couples in Maine, and here they are trying to use fear and scare tactics to turn people off," he said.
Why, preventing justice and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of the American military, of course!
In fact, the AFA of PA's illustrious President, Diane Gramley (pictured right), says in a press release that repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, the law banning openly LGBT people from military service, was a "Military Death Sentence."
So much for priorities, morality and family values!
The Venango County Republican Party has been dominated for generations by the Breene family. Martha Breene (right) is presently GOP party chair and her husband, Charlie, is the party committee person. Thus it's been for many, many years. Suddenly this year, it seems that Diane Gramley (below, President of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania) has taken an interest in GOP party politics.
Diane and a few of her followers examined the signatures on the ballot petition forms for GOP committee positions and found minor errors on 10 of them including the petition form of Martha Breene. Diane filed a complaint with the board of elections which ruled in Diane's favor and removed the names of the 10 individuals from the ballot including Martha's name.
Martha and the other GOP committee candidates immediately hired a lawyer, Mike Hadley, and sued to have their names restored to the ballot. The court hearing on Tuesday was noisy and choatic with frequent outbursts not only from those directly involved but from spectators as well.
One interesting bit of testimony was that Diane wished to replace the GOP chair, Martha Breene, and the 9 committee people with members of the local Tea Party headed by Jane Richey, an old ally of Diane's and owner of WAWN which is the local Christian Broadcasting radio affiliate. (The dynamically bumbling duo is pictured here, Richey on left, Gramley on right.)
I just spoke to a friend in the courthouse who tells me that Judge White handed down his decision today in favor of Martha Breene and the other committee people allowing them additional time to correct the errors on their petition forms which will restore their names to the ballot.
Hence, Diane loses not only in her attempted coup but she loses big time in her standing with the "establishment" in Venango County.
I'm no fan of the Breene's or the local GOP party but challenging them on technical errors on a petition form in a courthouse controlled by Republicans before an ardent Republican judge is not the smartest move.
If Diane had any credibility locally previously, she lost it with this whacky move.
I very much doubt that she or her followers will have any credibility in giving testimony before councils in Oil City and Franklin and she has damaged the reputations of the election board that did her bidding as well although the chair, Tim Brooks, is also a Tea Party member.
Minnesota’s largest school district has agreed to adopt a wide-ranging plan to protect LGBT students from bullying and harassment, in a settlement that will resolve an SPLC lawsuit.
A consent decree was approved by the Anoka-Hennepin School Board in suburban Minnesota tonight.
“This historic agreement marks a fresh start for the Anoka-Hennepin School District,” said SPLC attorney Sam Wolfe. “Unfortunately, this district had become notorious for anti-LGBT hostility and discrimination. This consent decree sets the stage for Anoka-Hennepin to become a model for other school districts to follow.”
The agreement also will resolve a separate complaint brought by the U.S. Justice Department, which today released the findings of an investigation conducted jointly with the U.S. Department of Education.
The SPLC sued the Anoka-Hennepin district in July on behalf of five students who faced a constant torrent of anti-gay slurs due to their actual or perceived sexual orientation. Students were also physically attacked – in some cases choked, shoved, urinated on and even stabbed with a pencil.
The lawsuit charged that the school district’s “gag” policy – which hampered the efforts of teachers to address the harassment – stigmatized gay and lesbian students and helped perpetuate the abuse. In several cases, officials told the harassed students to “lay low” or “try to stay out of people’s way.”
“No one should have to go through the kind of harassment that I did,” said Dylon Frei, one of the plaintiffs in the SPLC case. “I am happy this agreement includes real changes that will make our schools safer and more welcoming for other kids.”
The district’s 18-year-old gag policy was repealed in February after the SPLC and other groups urged district officials to end it. It has been replaced with a policy that requires district staff to affirm the dignity and self-worth of all students, including LGBT students.
The decree, which still must be approved by U.S. District Judge Joan N. Ericksen, outlines specific steps the district must take to address and prevent anti-LGBT harassment, including fully investigating reports of harassment and instituting training that specifically addresses anti-LGBT bias. The departments of Justice and Education will monitor the district’s compliance for five years.
Other steps required by the decree include:
- The district will hire a harassment prevention official to lead efforts to eliminate and prevent future instances of harassment in the district. It also will hire a mental health consultant to assess how the district helps harassed students. The district’s annual anti-bullying survey will be strengthened.
- The district’s policies and practices regarding harassment will be reviewed by the Great Lakes Equity Center, which will recommend revisions. The district will work with the center to identify harassment “hot spots” in its schools, on school buses and in other locations. The center is a federally funded organization that helps public schools promote equal educational opportunities.
- The district will work with its harassment prevention official and the equity center to provide anti-harassment training to students and district employees who interact with students.
- The district will ensure that a counselor or other qualified mental health professional is available during school hours for students. It will develop procedures for parental notification that are sensitive to a student’s right of privacy regarding his or her real or perceived orientation or gender identity.
- The district will improve a recently formed harassment prevent task force which will advise the district on how to promote a positive educational climate.
Under the decree, six students who brought lawsuits against the district will receive a total of $270,000 in damages.
The investigation by the departments of Justice and Education found that the school district violated Title IX and Title IV of the Education Code by permitting a hostile environment against students on the basis of sex, including the failure to conform to sex stereotypes. Federal investigators reviewed more than 7,000 district documents and included interviews with more than 60 individuals, including current and former students, parents, district staff, teachers and administrators.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and Faegre Baker Daniels, LLP, served as co-counsel on the SPLC’s case. NCLR, with local counsel Culberth & Lienemann, LLP, brought a lawsuit on behalf of a sixth student plaintiff.
KAMPALA, Uganda — At first, it was a fiery contempt for homosexuality that led a Ugandan lawmaker to introduce a bill in 2009 that carried the death penalty for a “serial offender” of the “offense of homosexuality.”
The bill’s failure amid a blitz of international criticism was viewed by many as evidence of power politics, a poor nation bending to the will of rich nations that feed it hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.
But this time around — the bill was reintroduced this month — it is a bitter and broad-based contempt for Western diplomacy that is also fueling its resurrection.
“If there was any condition to force the Western world to stop giving us money,” said David Bahati, the bill’s author, “I would like that.”
The Obama administration recently said it would use its foreign diplomatic tools, including aid, to promote equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people around the world. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain has threatened to cut aid for countries that do not accept homosexuality.
But African nations have reacted bitterly to the new dictates of engagement, saying they smack of neo-colonialism. In the case of Uganda, the grudge could even help breathe new life into the anti-homosexuality bill.
Antigovernment demonstrations sometimes turn violent and news about corruption scandals fills the tabloids here, but two things most people agree on is that homosexuality is not tolerated and that Westerners can be overbearing.
The United States says it remains “resolutely opposed” to the bill, and at the American Embassy in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, officials are actively engaged in lobbying Ugandan policy makers to oppose the bill, too.
“Our position is clear,” said Hilary Renner, a State Department spokeswoman.
The pressure has worked, to a certain degree. Some of the most contentious elements of the bill — the death penalty, and a clause ordering citizens to report known acts of homosexuality to the police within 24 hours — would be taken out, Mr. Bahati said in a recent interview. That could make the bill less explosive for lawmakers.
But the diplomatic tensions surrounding the bill also seem to be increasing its popularity.
“While covert behind-the-scenes donor pressure on the Ugandan government has been useful in the past,” said Dr. Rahul Rao, a lecturer at the Center for International Studies and Diplomacy in London, “overt pressure can be extremely counterproductive.”
The government of President Yoweri Museveni, while distancing itself from the bill, defended the right for the bill to be debated in Uganda’s Parliament, saying in a recent statement that “cultural attitudes in Africa are very different to elsewhere.”
Kizza Besigye, an opposition leader who has courted the West, said Western pressure on the issue of homosexuality was “misplaced” and “even annoying.”
“There are more obvious, more prevalent and harmful violations of human rights that are glossed over,” Mr. Besigye said. “Their zeal over this matter makes us look at them with cynicism to say the least.”
When Mr. Bahati reintroduced the bill in Parliament, he did so to rounds of applause.
In this religious and traditional society, the tug of war between advocates and opponents of gay rights remains tense.
Days after the bill was reintroduced, a clandestine gay rights meeting at a hotel was broken up personally by Uganda’s minister of ethics.
“In the past they were stoned to death,” said the minister, Simon Lokodo. “In my own culture they are fired on by the firing squad, because that is a total perversion.”
Last year, a newspaper published a list of gay people in Uganda and urged readers and policy makers to “Hang Them.”
Much of Africa’s anti-homosexuality movement is supported by American evangelicals, the Rev. Kapya Kaoma of Zambia wrote in 2009, who are keen to export the American “culture war” to new ground. Indeed, American evangelical Christians played a role in stirring the anti-homosexual sentiment that culminated in the initial legislation in Uganda.
The few gay rights advocates in Uganda who work publicly on the issue have seen their own exposure — and support — widen, too. One received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award last year. The organization whose conference was shut down this month receives tens of thousands of dollars from the American Jewish World Service, according to the organization’s Web site. As for Mr. Bahati, orphaned at the age of 3 and until recently a relatively unknown politician, the past several years have been a roller-coaster-ride of emotions, from obscurity to fame and infamy. The American news media, he said, have shredded his reputation.
“They really worked out on the word ‘death,’ ” he said, referring to coverage of the bill’s death penalty provision. “We used to have friends in America, but most of them are now scared even to identify with us.”
It was in the United States, Mr. Bahati contended, that he first became close with a group of influential social conservatives, including politicians, known as The Fellowship, which would later become a base of inspiration and technical support for the anti-homosexuality bill.
Mr. Bahati said the idea for the bill first sprang from a conversation with members of The Fellowship in 2008, because it was “too late” in America to propose such legislation. Now, he said, he feels abandoned.
“In Africa we value friendship,” Mr. Bahati said. “But the West is different.”
Richard Carver, who said he served as president of The Fellowship until August 2011, said members of his group were actively involved in Uganda, including one with close ties to lawmakers. But Mr. Carver said the group never took an official position on the proposed legislation.
“This is a very large group,” said Mr. Carver, adding that “individuals can speak for themselves.”
Mr. Bahati contends that African nations like Uganda, by contrast, cannot speak for themselves — that reliance on international aid makes “unindependent.”
Nothing was more telling, he said, than Prime Minister Cameron’s threat to cut development aid to countries that refuse to accept homosexuality. As for the United States, the State Department has pledged at least $3 million to civil society organizations working on gay rights.
According to Mr. Bahati, his anti-homosexuality bill would upend that. A clause in the bill prohibits organizations that support gay rights from working in Uganda, potentially including the development arms of foreign governments.
“It becomes very easy,” Mr. Bahati said. “Their licenses will be revoked.”
A parliamentary committee has 45 days to debate the bill before sending it back to Parliament or asking for an extension. Mr. Bahati said that he was confident the bill would pass, but that if it did not, he had a Plan B: hope for a Republican victory in November.
“The good thing with the West is that we know that Obama can influence the world only up to 2016,” he said. “That’s a definite.”
There are so many good things emerging in Venango County, but, as home-base for a viciously anti-gay hate group, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, which side of history will it be on when it comes to inclusion, fairness and equality for all?
The Many Faces of Marriage in America
The same shift that occurred in opinions about interracial marriage — from disapproval to approval — is happening in attitudes about same-sex marriage.
A quarter-century ago, 65% of Americans thought interracial marriage was unacceptable for themselves or for other people. Yet in the span of a generation, as intermarriage has become more common and the United States has grown more racially diverse, a dramatic change in attitudes has taken place. Today, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 87% of Americans say that the rise in interracial marriage has either been good for society or made no difference, while only 11% think it's a change for the worse.
That's the thing about the tide of history: It tends to flow from intolerance to acceptance. The same shift that occurred in opinions about interracial marriage is happening in attitudes about same-sex marriage. Just ask folks in Washington and New Jersey.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage on Monday, and on Thursday the New Jersey Assembly approved a similar measure. Voters in those states will probably have the final say; opponents are organizing a petition drive for a Washington ballot measure to ban gay marriage, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has vowed to veto his state's marriage bill and present the issue as a referendum instead. There's no telling what voters in either state will decide, but such occasional shoals matter less than the overall direction of the tide, and we know which way that's turning.
Surveys show a major generational divide in attitudes about gay marriage, with younger people widely favoring it while older people are generally opposed. As time passes, there's only one direction this trend can lead. And it's the same direction this country charted during the civil rights era, when anti-miscegenation laws were overturned amid a raucous outcry from conservatives who feared that interracial marriage would unravel our social fabric.
Through surveys like Pew's, we also know what will happen in the decades that follow the widespread legalization of same-sex marriage: An issue that divides Americans as intensely as any in our ongoing culture wars will simply cease to matter, as conservatives discover their own marriages are in no way devalued. Today, according to Pew, 63% of Americans say they "would be fine" if a family member opted to marry someone outside his or her racial or ethnic group, and the overall percentage of interracial marriages is soaring: It hit 15.1% nationwide in 2010 and is even higher in California, where the majority of such unions are between whites and Latinos.
Someday, we suspect, most Americans won't be bothered by the prospect of their sons or daughters marrying someone of the same sex. All it takes is time, and enough examples to demonstrate that the fears of marriage-equality opponents are baseless.
There are approximately 1.6 million to 2.8 million homeless young people in the United States and a disproportionate number — 20 to 40 percent — are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. LGBT youth often run away from home because of family conflict and then “face overt discrimination when seeking alternative housing, which is compounded by institutionalized discrimination in federally funded programs.”
Last night, a local CBS affiliate in Miami, Florida offered an in-depth look into the crisis of LGBT youth homelessness and the children who are put out “like trash” by parents who refuse to accept them:
Studies show that 320,000 to 400,000 gay and transgender youth face homelessness each year and that many lose their homes at the young age of 13 or 14, as they come out to their parents. Fortunately, the Department of Health and Human Services is already providing “training and technical assistance to States and Indian Tribes on a wide variety of LGBTQ-related issues” and the Obama administration has released recommendations for providing the best possible care in shelters for homeless LGBT youth.
But still, more must be done. There are currently no federal programs specifically designed to meet the needs of gay and transgender homeless youth and federal grant awards for homeless youth services “are being awarded to providers without mandating that they not discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity. As the Center for American Progress has recommended, President Obama should issue an executive order “recognizing both lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender homeless youth and homeless youth in general as special-needs populations, and protecting them from discrimination by federal grantees” and the federal government must begin developing programs “that help families from all communities support and nurture their gay and transgender children.”
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) has also introduced the Reconnecting Youth to Prevent Homelessness Act, a bill “designed to help homeless youth rejoin their families and escape life on the streets.” The measure calls for a “demonstration project for improving family relationships and reducing homelessness for LGBT youth” and the development of programs “that improve family relationships and reduce homelessness for LGBT youth.”
by Amelia, on the Huffington Post: Considering that my son has a longstanding crush on Glee's Blaine and regularly refers to him as "my boyfriend," I thought there was a fair chance that he would someday say, "I'm gay." But my kid is only 7 years old. I figured I had a few years before we crossed that threshold (if we ever did), probably when he was 14 or 15. I never thought it would happen this soon.
Six months ago "gay" wasn't even a word in my son's vocabulary. He has always known that some of our male friends are married to men and some of our female friends to women, and it is such a normal part of his life that he never needed a special word to describe them. When he did notice the word and asked what it meant, I told him that when boys want to marry boys and girls want to marry girls, we call that "gay." He didn't seem very interested and quickly went off to do something else more exciting than a vocabulary lesson with his mom.
Fast-forward a few months. I was on the phone with a relative who had just discovered that I was blogging on The Huffington Post and openly discussing my son's crush on Blaine. I was in another room alone (I thought), explaining, "We're not saying he's straight, and we're not saying he's gay. We're saying we love who he is," when my son's voice piped up behind me.
"Yes, I am," he said.
"Am what, baby?" I asked.
"Gay. I'm gay."
My world paused for a moment, and I saw the "geez, Mom, didn't you know that already?" look on my son's face.
I got off the phone and leaned down to eye level with him and rubbed my nose against his. "I love you so much."
"I know," he said, and ran off to play with his brothers.
Since that day, any time the word "gay" has come into conversation, he has happily announced to those around him, "I'm gay!" He says this very naturally and happily, the same way he announces other things that he likes about himself. Mention that a person is tall and he'll quickly add, "I'm tall!" If he hears the word "Legos," barely a second passes before he says, "Legos. I love Legos." Saying "I'm gay" is his way of telling people: this is something I like about myself.
It's amazing, but it's also shocking. How many people have a 7-year-old come out to them? A lot of people don't know how to react, and I don't blame them. Before my son, I'd never met a child who came out this young -- and we don't know anyone else who has. The mere idea of children having a sexual orientation makes people uncomfortable. It's something we don't think about (or just don't like to).
But here's the thing: straight children have nothing to announce. Straight is the assumption. No one bats an eye at a little girl with a Justin Bieber poster in her bedroom, or when little girls love playing wedding with little boys every chance they get. If our sexual orientation is simply part of who we are, why wouldn't it be there in our elementary years?
I've heard from countless adults who say they knew that they were gay as young as kindergarten but lacked the language to talk about it. And in most cases, they knew it was something wrong that they should hide. Because gay people are part of my son's everyday life, he has the vocabulary, and it has never occurred to him there is anything wrong with it.
On one occasion after an "I'm gay" announcement, I watched my husband reach out to ruffle our son's hair. "I know, buddy," my husband said to him. "And you're awesome, too." That's how we're handling it. We want him to know we hear him, and that he's wonderful. It feels like the right thing to do, and that's all we have to go by. We don't have any other examples.
We did take a few extra steps. Within a few days we had a quick talk with him about how some people don't like it when people are gay, explaining that those people are wrong. If he hears anyone says anything about being gay like it is something bad, he is to run and get us immediately. We had a brief conversation with his teachers: Our son is identifying as gay. We don't think there's anything wrong with that or with him. And this is the only acceptable opinion on the subject. All his teachers, while surprised, were on board. We learned that he hasn't used that word at school yet, so we'll cross that bridge when the time comes.
I don't think it will always be easy. We don't know what to expect. At this point we aren't looking for trouble, but at the same time we're preparing for it. We know we have a journey ahead of us, just like everyone does. And this is one part of the story of our son and our family.
Do I think this is the last word on his orientation? I don't know. He's 7. Maybe as he gets older he'll tell me something else, but it's just as likely that he won't. But really, that doesn't even matter. What matters is right now. And right now I have a young son who happily announces "I'm gay." And I'm so proud to be his mom.
COON RAPIDS, Minn. — The school board in Minnesota’s largest school district on Monday night approved a replacement for a policy that required teachers to stay neutral when sexual orientation comes up in class, a stance that some critics blamed for fostering bullying.
The Anoka-Hennepin School Board adopted the “Respectful Learning Environment” policy on a voice vote. Only board member Kathy Tingelstad voted no.
After hearing more than an hour of testimony from more than 20 people, board member Scott Wenzel said he believed the change will help the district and the community move forward.
Tingelstad told reporters afterward she didn’t appreciate all the outside pressure that has come down on the board over the issue in recent months.
The new policy commits the north suburban Twin Cities district to providing “a safe and respectful learning environment for all students.” It says that when contentious political, religious, social matters or economic issues come up — it does not specifically cite sexuality issues — teachers shouldn’t try to persuade students to adopt particular viewpoint. It calls for teachers to foster respectful exchanges of views. It also says in such discussions, staff should affirm the dignity and self-worth of all students, regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
The proposal was unveiled at a Jan. 23 school board meeting after an earlier revision attempt left all sides unsatisfied. The new policy takes effect immediately.
The district’s teachers union endorsed the policy change.
The district is the target of two lawsuits over the old policy, and the change may move them closer to settlement.
Critics said the old neutrality policy kept teachers from preventing bullying of students who are gay or perceived as gay. It had the support of some parents who believe homosexual conduct is immoral and told the board they don’t want their children taught otherwise.
The old policy had been under fire since six students in the district committed suicide in less than two years. A parent of one of the students who committed suicide says her son was bullied for being gay. Gay advocacy groups say some of the others students who killed themselves were also bullied.
The district has said its internal investigation found no evidence that bullying contributed to the deaths. But the district, which has 38,500 students, changed its anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies in October 2010 to clearly state that harassment or bullying of gay students wouldn’t be tolerated.
The district has about 38,500 students and 2,800 teachers.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Rau has scheduled the next round of settlement talks for March 1 and 2 in two lawsuits filed by students, former students and parents against the neutrality policy. Both sides have been keeping those discussions confidential, but the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which are representing the plaintiffs, issued a statement applauding the policy change.
“Today is the first day in nearly 18 years that Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District no longer has a harmful policy that singles out lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. Although we would have preferred for the District to have repealed this stigmatizing policy without replacing it, we are pleased that the new policy expressly requires district staff to affirm the dignity and self-worth of all students, including LGBT students,” the statement said. “The repeal of this policy is an important first step, but the District must do much more to create a safe, welcoming, and respectful learning environment for all students, including LGBT and gender non-conforming students, and those perceived as such.”
The Loving Story, a documentary film, tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving to examine the drama, the history, and the current state of marriage and tolerance in the United States.
There are few Supreme Court rulings that have had the impact that the Loving case had on our culture and politics. In 1967, the year of Loving v. Virginia, 16 states had laws against interracial marriage. Had Barack Obama’s white mother and black father lived in one of those states when they married in 1961, their marriage would have been a felony. Yet the culture of interracial marriage is slow to catch up with legal realities. The 2000 census found only 4.9% of US marriages were interracial.
White Supremacy groups are growing in the US – the very communities that perpetuated and maintained anti-miscegenation laws up to the 1967 Supreme Court ruling. While we’ve elected the first mixed-race President, we also recently witnessed a Louisiana Justice of the Peace refusing to marry a mixed-race couple. Anti-miscegenation sentiments are at the heart of racial segregation and apparently still alive today. The struggle for same-sex marriage has important civil rights parallels. Both address basic human rights.
The Loving Story rouses discussion and debate about interracial marriage and tolerance in the US. It brings together all groups with stakes in marriage equality to seek out commonalties and understanding. It examines the miscegenation crime the Lovings were accused of committing – its roots based in slavery and its lingering, pervasive impact. Freshly revealed,the Loving’s story inspires mixed race couples and their children to share their struggles and claim their unique identities.
Not surprisingly, Venango County-based Hate Group, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, is completely out-of-step with public attitudes on many issues important to the health and well-being of all in the community.
Local leadership is needed, however, to counter the effects that the AFAofPA's demonizing propaganda has on vulnerable youth and families. And, that day cannot come too soon.
Despite the deep divide between some religious leaders and government officials over contraceptives, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll found most voters support the new federal directive that health insurance plans provide coverage for birth control.
In addition, most voters said they favored some type of legal recognition for same-sex couples, at a time when the New Jersey Legislature is set to vote on gay marriage and after a federal appellate court ruled that Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage in California was unconstitutional.
While same-sex marriage and coverage for contraceptives have generated significant debate this month, the poll suggests that voters do not place social issues high on their agenda. When asked to name one issue that presidential candidates should discuss, most voters, including Republicans who described themselves as primary voters, mentioned an economic problem, like unemployment or the budget deficit. Few said they wanted to hear the candidates talk about abortion or gay marriage, for example.
On contraceptive coverage, 65 percent of voters in the poll said they supported the Obama administration’s requirement that health insurance plans cover the cost of birth control, and 59 percent, said the health insurance plans of religiously affiliated employers should cover the cost of birth control.
In a compromise last week, President Obama said insurance companies could shoulder the costs required under the new federal health care law, but the Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious leaders continue to oppose the rule.
A majority of Catholic voters in the poll were at odds with the church’s official stance, agreeing with most other voters that religiously affiliated employers should offer health insurance that provides contraception. Jennifer Davison, 38, a Catholic from Lomita, Calif., agrees with the federal requirement. “My opinion is that it is a personal issue rather than a religious issue,” she said in a follow-up interview.
Unlike Catholics, white evangelical Christian voters were more divided, with half objecting to requiring the health insurance plans of religious employers to cover contraceptives; 43 percent supported it. “It is a religious issue with me,” said Jessica Isner, 22, an evangelical Christian from Elkins, W. Va. “I believe that providing birth control is O.K. if the hospital is not religiously affiliated.”
Gay marriage is another debate in which the Catholic laity disagrees with church doctrine. More than two-thirds of Catholic voters supported some sort of legal recognition of gay couples’ relationships: 44 percent favored marriage, and 25 percent preferred civil unions. Twenty-four percent said gay couples should receive no legal recognition.
Again, white evangelical Christian voters expressed more conservative views. A majority said there should not be legal recognition of a gay relationship, while 18 percent said they should be allowed to marry and 25 percent supported civil unions.
The nationwide telephone poll included 1,064 registered voters, of whom 226 were Catholic and 238 were white evangelical Christians. The margins of sampling error are plus or minus three percentage points for all voters, plus or minus seven points for Catholics, and plus or minus six points for white evangelical Christians.
The LGBT community owes a great big thanks to the "One Million Moms" (actually, closer to 40,000) for launching the best LGBT-friendly public relations blitz the community has seen in ages, and battering Christian conservative's image in a way the LGBT community could never hope to do.
Not since Rick Perry's "Strong" has an anti-gay campaign played out so poorly for the instigator and so well for the target. This tiny subgroup of the hate group the American Family Association (which has a particularly ugly and viciously anti-gay state affiliate in Venango County, Pa.) recently declared war on arguably America's most popular and likable lesbian, Ellen DeGeneres. The group, reacting to the news that DeGeneres would serve as a new spokesperson for JCPenney department stores, sent out this alarm to "family values" conservatives nationwide:
DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there. The small percentage of customers they are attempting to satisfy will not offset their loss in sales.
JC Penney has made a poor decision and must correct their mistake fast to retain loyal customers and not turn away potential new, conservative shoppers with the company's new vision.
...
By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years.
The irony is rich in another part of their release: "Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful." JCPenney can only demonstrate their "neutrality" by firing Ellen for being gay? If that's neutral, what's gay-hostile?
In this move the One Million 40,000 Moms have demonstrated that these days, the term "traditional values," as defined by the religious right, is really just code for capricious, indiscriminate cruelty, bigotry, divisiveness, and cowardice. And America saw it as exactly that.
Now, one doesn't get named to the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of hate groups without constantly taking cheap and ugly shots at someone or something. And this latest poutage over yet another sign of the impending apocalypse (lesbians shilling t-shirts for a family department store!) could have gone mostly unnoticed by mainstream culture, as have their wars on Walgreens and Macy's.
But it it was the absolute absurdity of casting the innocuous, likable, almost painfully inoffensive DeGeneres as some sort of radical warrior in the deviant homosexuals' nefarious plan to destroy all things wholesome and American that really made America stop, take notice for just a moment and say, "WTF are these crazy people talking about?! Ellen? They hate Ellen? Really?! Ellen?!"
Now, admittedly, the One Million 40,000 Moms got a little help from GLAAD, who swiftly launched a "Stand Up for Ellen" campaign. This likely drew more attention to the story than the moms could have ever have hoped to draw themselves.
Though GLAAD's ostensible call to action was to persuade JCPenney not to fire Ellen, there may have been an ulterior motive. It's entirely possible that the crew at GLAAD didn't seriously worry about Ellen's continued employment with JCPenney. Ellen would be fine either way: she's rich, she's famous. But GLAAD's messaging picked up on the fact that what the moms were calling for, firing someone for being LGBT, is perfectly legal in most of the United States for those of us who aren't rich and famous already (despite polls showing 90 percent of Americans believe it is illegal). It was a "teachable moment" for America.
We certainly can thank the One Million 40,000 Moms for cooking up a scheme that had enormous amounts of Fail baked right into it from the start. I'm sure JCPenney knew Ellen was a lesbian when they hired her; it isn't a state secret. It's probably a safe bet they actually thought that through before they inked the deal.
Ellen's LGBT activism, like her humor, has always come with soft edges. It's hard to imagine in 2012 what a brave act it was for her to come out in 1997, when she was the star of a major network sitcom. But she was executing the simple act of activism that Harvey Milk tasked LGBT people to do two decades before: "come out." She told Diane Sawyer at the time, "For me, this has been the most freeing experience, because people can't hurt me anymore." And it was that act, by her -- and millions of others -- that inoculated her from this attack. There was a time no major sponsor would touch a gay star. But those days are long gone.
There never was any doubt that JCPenney would brush off the One Million 40,000 Moms. When JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson spoke to CBS News, he called it a "no-brainer" and dismissed that there was even a controversy to be debated. The Moms couldn't have looked smaller or more irrelevant when Johnson said, "[W]e stand squarely behind Ellen as our spokesperson, and that's a great thing. Because she shares the same values that we do in our company. Our company was founded 110 years ago on The Golden Rule, which is about treating people fair and square, just like you would like to be treated yourself."
We can also thank the One Million 40,000 Moms for not being as bright as the average high school bully. Even teenage high school bullies know that if you're going to pick on someone, pick on someone no one likes (because you'll get away with it a lot longer). And America wasn't going to let the One Million 40,000 Moms get away with this.
That is another immense level of Fail the One Million 40,000 Moms really should have seen coming. Just last year the New York Times reported that it isn't just the LGBT community that likes Ellen; America likes her. A lot. A whole lot. The Times described how Warner Brothers and NBC, in mapping out the future of daytime TV in 2010, conducted research into Ellen's market popularity. They knew they had a winner in Ellen, but still, her popularity as measured by a media research firm "startled" them: "The 52-year-old Ms. DeGeneres is seen as relaxed and relatable. Already, she is seen as more likable than Ms. Winfrey, according to the Q Scores Company, which measures consumer preferences." Moreover:
"When the Magid panelists were surveyed about their attitudes toward daytime hosts, Ms. DeGeneres was in a virtual tie with Ms. Winfrey, even though there is a ratings lag, according to Steve Ridge, president of the media strategy group for Magid.
"Ellen already has equity with daytime viewers, which is worth its weight in gold," he said.
Oh, one suspects the folks over at GLAAD might not have worried as much about Ellen's future with JCPenney as about seizing an opportunity to demonstrate to America just how very much the far right Christian conservative base really does hate gay people: "Look, America, you can be Ellen DeGeneres, the queen of nice comedy, and they still hate you and want you to be fired."
And in short while, the LGBT community rushed to Ellen's defense, but not just them. And we can thank the One Million 40,000 Moms for rallying people left, right, and center to the cause of defending Ellen and condemning this sort of divisive, hateful rhetoric.
Very popular radio host Howard Stern described himself as "outraged" at the One Million 40,000 Moms' action and threatened to organize a boycott of JCPenney if they caved. In a 12-minute rant he asked, "What do you want these [gay] people to do? Do you really want Ellen to go away? Do you want her to die? You want a public flogging of this woman?" Co-host Robin Quivers added, "You want her to force herself to be with a man to make you happy?" (That would be yes, yes, yes, and yes, please.)
Not ordinarily known for sensitivity, Stern and Quivers discuss at great length the plight of LGBT teens suffering at the hands of bullies. They mention Tyler Clementi and other teens driven to suicide, and lay the blame on groups like the Moms. Stern takes no prisoners, saying the president should just come out for marriage equality. And then in Stern's typically bombastic style, he goes full-on Godwin on the country's most notorious homophobes:
This Michele Bachman and Rick Santorum, they're the two worst people on the planet. They get up wherever they can, they still feel comfortable getting up in front of an audience in 2012, and fuckin' saying shit about gays, about how they shouldn't be getting married, they feel no qualm about putting out this kind of bigotry. Now, Hitler put this kind of shit out pre-World War II in Germany in beer halls, if the entire beer hall had gotten up and beaten they shit out of Hitler and kicked him in the face, you wouldn't have had World War II, and you wouldn't have had any problems.
He goes on to say they should be "drummed out of the country," "spat upon," and "ignored, shunned, and treated as lunatics."
This language is unlikely to be adopted by any LGBT rights groups, like Human Rights Campaign, anytime soon -- and for good reason. But we can thank the One Million 40,000 Moms for prompting our straight ally Howard Stern for saying what responsible LGBT activists would not.
From the right, we can thank the One Million 40,000 Moms for recruiting the most unlikely of LGBT allies to come to DeGeneres' defense: Bill O'Reilly of Fox News. Bill's segment begins with a snarky introduction that draws America's attention to the inherent cowardice of the anti-gay movement, their reluctance to come out of the closet with their hate: "Now we tried to get one of the One Million Moms to come on the Factor tonight. But we could not. Apparently, all the million moms are busy tonight." Their cowardice was also reflected in their decision to delete their Facebook posting when the story became widely known. The group has made no media appearances to defend themselves or their actions.
O'Reilly chats instead with Fox News contributor Sandy Rios, who attempts to defend the One Million 40,000 Moms. But Bill-O isn't really having it; it's a very combative session, and Rios comes out looking pretty bad. Perhaps it's a libertarian streak in him, but his objections are placed in the Republican frame of free-market captialism; he essentially argues that JCPenney has the right to hire whoever they want, and the One Million 40,000 Moms are conducting a "witch hunt," and worse, "McCarthyism." He asks, "What is the difference between the McCarthy era of the '50s and the One Million Moms saying, 'Hey, JCPenney and all you other stores, don't you hire any gay people. Don't you dare'? What is the difference?" One Million 40,000 Moms? Something went really wrong with your plan when you prompted Fox News' highest-rated commentator to stick up for a lesbian and compare you to one of the most notorious names in American history, Senator Joe McCarthy.
Again, better O'Reilly should call these anti-gay bigots "McCartheyesque witch hunters" than the LGBT community. And we can thank the One Million 40,000 Moms for prompting him to do so. Surely a few Fox News viewers' heads exploded that evening.
The LGBT community themselves could never have planned an action that would prompt personalities as disparate as Howard Stern, Bill O'Reilly, Ron Johnson, and all the other voices, big and small, to chime in and express disgust and outrage at anti-gay bigotry and condemn yet another overreach of the religious right.
We can thank the One Million 40K Moms for that.
For too long the Christian right has presumed to speak on behalf of people who have "values." And for too long, too many people took them at their word that they represented "good Christian values." We can thank the One Million 40,000 Moms for tearing off the mask off that façade before a very wide audience.
Under the guise of "religious freedom," they assert their right to say God hates gays. However, in the case of Ellen, God seems to be smiling on her. She has a loving and lovely wife, extraordinary talent, a long, very distinguished career, and great wealth, and she has endeared herself to millions. So, since God has, thus far, failed to act on his scorn for Ellen, the One Million 40,000 Moms have taken it upon themselves to act on his behalf. They want to be sure God's punishment is meted out in this lifetime, where they can watch.
We can thank the One Million 40,000 Moms for kickstarting another round of conversation about what our "values" are. Ellen has long demonstrated in her career that "meanness" is not among hers. In an era that has increasingly rewarded comedians that belittle, degrade, and ridicule, Ellen never went there. Her brand is as a "nice" comedian, someone who makes you laugh but never at the expense of others. If Ellen takes a shot at anyone, it is at herself, a humble, self-effacing teasing that says, despite her fortune and fame, "I'm really not special."
Which makes her the perfect foil for that cabal of Americans who really do think they are special. The One Million 40,000 Moms think they are the ones who get to decide the best values for JCPenney, the country, and everyone.
Ellen herself eventually spoke on the controversy, and she got the opportunity to address the One Million 40,000 Mom's condemnation of her "values." She said, "Here are the values I stand for: I stand for honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you'd want to be treated, and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values. That's what I stand for." The studio audience cheered uproariously in agreement. They know she not only speaks but lives those values, like the time, just the previous week, when her show arranged a $100,000 donation to a struggling Pennsylvania school.
It's certainly presumptuous to say anyone "speaks for the LGBT community." But in that moment, I think it's safe to say that Ellen spoke very well for the LGBT community, and she made us, and every kind-hearted American, proud.
And the One Million 40,000 Moms? We can thank them for creating a national jump-the-shark moment for the protectors of "traditional values."
During a commercial break at the 2012 Grammy Awards, pop singer Adele sang a new version of her Grammy-winning hit "Someone Like You" in honor of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
This week, Roland Martin, a bombastic cultural and political commentator was suspended by CNN from his role as a political analyst on the network for Twitter messages published during the Super Bowl.
One message read: “If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl.” Another read: “Who the hell was that New England Patriot they just showed in a head to toe pink suit? Oh, he needs a visit from #teamwhipdatass.”
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said the messages advocated “violence against gay people” and asked CNN to fire Martin. CNN called the messages “regrettable and offensive” and suspended him “for the time being.” Martin issued an apology in which he said that he was just “joking about smacking someone.”
There is vigorous debate online about what Martin meant, about GLAAD’s reaction, and about CNN’s policy on who gets suspended or fired and for what kinds of statements.
Martin and GLAAD have signaled, over Twitter, that they plan to meet and discuss the matter. Maybe something positive will emerge from that.
But whether it does or not, I don’t want to let this incident pass without using it as a “teachable moment” for us all about the dangerous way in which we define manhood and masculinity. At the very least, Martin’s comments are corrosive on this front.
I follow Martin on Twitter. I know that he likes to joke and tease. I have even joked with him. So I can believe that, in his mind, he may have thought that these were just harmless jokes in which the violence was fictional and funny.
But in the real world — where bullying and violence against gays and lesbians, or even those assumed to be so, is all too real — “jokes” like his hold no humor. There are too many bruised ribs and black eyes and buried bodies for the targets of this violence to just lighten up and laugh.
We all have to understand that effects can operate independent of intent, that subconscious biases can move counter to conscious egalitarianism, and that malice need not be present within the individual to fuel the maliciousness of the society at large.
(This is not to say that Martin has been egalitarian on this front. In fact, a widely cited 2006 post on his Web site suggests otherwise. In it, he criticized the Rev. Al Sharpton for appealing to black churches “to become more accepting and embracing of homosexuality.” Martin wrote that gays and lesbians “are engaged, in the eyes of the church, in sinful behavior.” Furthermore, he said, “My wife, an ordained Baptist minister for 20 years, has counseled many men and women to walk away from the gay lifestyle, and to live a chaste life.” And he compared homosexuals to adulterers, disobedient children, alcoholics and thieves.)
Words have power. And power recklessly exerted has consequences. It’s not about being politically correct. It’s about being sensitive to the plight of those being singled out. We can’t ask the people taking the punches to also take the jokes.
And it’s about understanding that masculinity is wide enough and deep enough for all of us to fit in it. But society in general, and male culture in particular, is constantly working to render it narrow and shallow. We have shaved the idea of manhood down to an unrealistic definition that few can fit in it with the whole of who they are, not without severe constriction or self-denial.
The man that we mythologize in the backs of our minds is a cultural concoction, an unattainable ideal, a perfect specimen of muscles and fearlessness and daring. Square-jawed and well-rounded. Potent and passionate. Sensitive but not sentimental. And, above all else, unwaveringly heterosexual and without even a hint of softness.
A vast majority of men will never be able to be all these things all the time, but they shouldn’t be made to feel less than a man because of it.
And this narrowed manhood ideal has a truly damaging effect on boys.
In “Boy Culture: an Encyclopedia,” which was published in 2010, the editors point out: “Boys are men in training. As such, most strive to enact and replicate hegemonic masculinity so that they achieve status among male peers, and pre-emptively guard against accusations or perceptions that their masculinity is deficient.” The editors went on to quote a 2001 study in which a boy who does not measure up to dominant prescriptions of masculinity is “likely to be punished by his peers in ways which seek to strip him of his mantle of masculinity.”
In fact, a 2005 report entitled “From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America,” which was commissioned by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, found that a third of all teens said that they are often bullied, called names or harassed at their school because they are, or people think that they are, gay, lesbian or bisexual.
We have created this culture, and we can undo it.
Start with this fact: The truest measure of a man, indeed of a person, is not whom he lies down with but what he stands up for. If we must be judged, let it be in this way. And when we fall short, as we sometimes will, because humanity is fallible, let us greet each other with compassion and encouragement rather than ridicule and resentment.
Whatever was in Martin’s heart, what was in his Twitter messages wasn’t helpful. They may not lead directly to intimidation or violence, but they may add to a stream of negativity that feeds a culture in which intimidation and violence by some twisted minds is all too real. I don’t believe that Martin wanted that.
Let’s show the whole of mankind that men can indeed be kind, even to other men who dare to wear pink suits.
In right-wing America, dominated by hate groupsthat pump out demonizing propaganda, like the Venango County-based American Family Association of Pennsylvania,lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are an enemy to be feared, criminalized, exterminated.
Throughout the world lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people are the target of human rights violations. They are killed, tortured, raped, and sexually assaulted simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. More than 80 countries consider consensual, adult homosexual relationships criminal behavior. Penalties include lengthy jail sentences, torture, and forced psychiatric treatment. In at least seven countries, individuals can be executed for homosexual conduct.
Even in countries that do not criminalize homosexual conduct, hate violence remains prevalent. Other serious human rights violations against LGBTI people include invasions of privacy; arbitrary detention; and discrimination in employment, family rights, housing, education, and health care. Additionally, when LGBTI people try to organize to assert recognition of their basic human rights, their rights to freedom of expression and assembly are frequently denied, and they often face both government and nonstate violence and harassment.
Despite these challenges and the pervasive discrimination that exists, more and more LGBTI people are engaging in a vibrant and growing global social movement to advance their rights. However, while these rights groups now exist in every region of the world, they continue to face major obstacles including social stigma, lack of recognition by broader civil society communities, and limited resources.
The Open Society Foundations seek to empower LGBTI communities to promote and defend their human rights. The LGBTI Rights Initiative will provide funding to local rights groups and regional networks in the developing world. It will also support global advocacy initiatives that advance LGBTI rights and complement efforts at the local level.
The results of a five-year study of the Millennial Generation—people born between 1982 and 1993—are in. Thanks to the Barna Group, a 28-year-old, California-based, Christian research firm, we now know that conservative evangelical churches are losing formerly–affiliated “young creatives:” Actors, artists, biologists, designers, mathematicians, medical students, musicians, and writers.
Some leave because they oppose the church’s doctrinal stance. Others are turned off by its hostility to science, and still others reject the limitations placed on permissible sexual activity. The report cites the tension felt by young adults who find it difficult—if not impossible—to remain “sexually pure,” especially since most heterosexuals don’t marry until their mid-to-late twenties. “Young Christians are as sexually active as their non-Christian peers,” Barna concludes. What’s more, the report admits that Millennials see the evangelical church as an exclusive club, open only to those who adhere to every rule. This runs counter to values that rank high on the Millennial playlist—among them, open-mindedness, tolerance, and support for diversity.
These findings, of course, don’t necessarily mean that young evangelicals are becoming progressively engaged, but they do suggest that an opening exists for prochoice, feminist, and pro-LGBTQ activists to touch the hearts and minds of Generation Y. Angela Ferrell-Zabala, director of Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom, a project of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, says that former Evangelicals are hungry for information about alternative faith and lifestyle options. “Technology has given Millennials access to philosophies and people from all over, and they tend to think in ways that are bigger than where they came from or how they were raised,“ she begins.” At the same time, “young folks are not necessarily throwing in the towel on their faith. They’re working to reconcile the pieces of their lives, asking, ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is my place in the world?’“
The relationship between seemingly disparate issues, or intersectionality, holds great appeal to Millennials, Ferrell Zabala continues. “When we speak about reproductive justice we’re speaking about the whole person--being able to access jobs and higher education as well as contraception. When we talk about voter suppression or immigration, the conversation leads back to the choices a person is able to make.” And regardless of whether Millennials ultimately join a mainline Protestant church or live as atheists or agnostics, Ferrell-Zabala is adamant that the desire to respect others and be respected is of utmost importance to them.
That said, it is often difficult for ex-evangelicals to break away from family and childhood friends. Carol Hornbeck, an Indianapolis-based Marriage and Family therapist, stresses that when an individual’s worldview begins to unravel they typically feel unsettled. “People’s ideas usually begin to shift when a personal experience runs counter to their expectations,” she begins. “This may be because they’ve learned that a trusted friend or colleague is gay or has had an abortion. As long as the issue is at arm’s length, they can hate it, but it changes the paradigm when it’s your next-door neighbor or your friend’s sister. When the person is one step removed from your inner circle, it’s hard to be judgmental or condemning.”
But it may still be unsettling. “If the young person continues to want a connection to Christianity, he or she will need to find a church that welcomes uncertainty,” Hornbeck concludes.
Writer/activist Brittany Shoot grew up in Anderson, Indiana, the headquarters of the Church of God, in a deeply religious evangelical family. Her move away from the church was gradual. “When I was a child I was told that someone I cared about was HIV-positive. I somehow learned that he was gay and had contracted the virus through sex. There was such shame around the diagnosis. I knew that I shouldn’t tell anyone he was sick because they might shun me. Even as a kid I thought, ‘something is wrong here.’” Later, when Shoot was in high school, a friend disclosed his homosexuality. “You didn’t come out in the Christian culture we lived in,” she says. “He didn’t feel safe; we also knew that no church in the area would love and protect him.”
Now 29, Shoot no longer attends services but frequently writes about religion, feminism, and sexuality. Although she is critical of evangelism, she is also protective of people of faith. “In progressive circles it’s common to trash talk religion. This is damaging,” she says. “Most people who’ve moved away from evangelism still have family members who are religious. Those outside the community need to be sensitive and not make churchgoing people their target.”
Activists should also be open to questions about sexuality, Shoot says. “Despite Internet access, kids raised in the church were told, ‘don’t do anything until marriage,’ so when they finally get to a place where they can talk freely, they need it to be judgment free. Don’t hate on the girl who doesn’t know what a vibrator is or who knows next to nothing about reproduction.”
Writer/activist Mandy Van Deven agrees. Van Deven grew up in small-town Georgia where schools taught nothing but abstinence. “When you grow up in communities where sex outside of marriage is stigmatized, you see the effects of not having access to comprehensive sex education or reproductive health services—high rates of teen pregnancy, abortion, and sexually transmitted infections.”
While outsiders can certainly organize in these locales, Van Deven puts the onus for outreach on former evangelicals. “It’s helpful for the people who have already started to sway to the reproductive justice end of the continuum to preach to those who haven’t yet made the leap,” she says. “They know better than others what it takes to reconcile a more liberal ideology with the conservatism of their upbringing.”
Whether or not former evangelicals will do this remains uncertain. Nonetheless, the Barna report implies that once Millennials abandon evangelism, the barriers to progressive change can begin to crumble. Stay tuned for developments.
Eleanor J. Bader is a teacher, freelance writer and activist from Brooklyn, NY. She is also the co-author of Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism, St. Martin's Press, 2001.
Court Overturns Prop. 8 in California, Says State Can’t Ban Gay Marriage
The 9th Circuit Court in California struck down the state's voter-passed ban on gay marriage, ruling 2-1 that it violates the rights of gay Californians.
"Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples," Judge Reinhardt wrote in the decision. The Court concludes that the law violates the 14th Amendment rights of gay couples to equal protection under the law. Gay marriage will still not be allowed in the state, leaving time for Prop 8 defenders to challenge the decision.
The Circuit Court backed up District Judge Judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled in August of 2010 that the state of California has no "rational basis" to single out gay men and women as ineligible for marriage. The group fighting for Proposition 8, which passed in 2008 after thousands of gay couples had already married, appealed Walker's decision arguing that it should be vacated because Walker is gay and has a long-time same-sex partner. The 9th Circuit Court judges denied this motion.
Walker's sweeping 2010 decision was called a "grand slam" by gay rights advocates, who hoped it would convince the Supreme Court to decide that states cannot outlaw gay marriage. But Reinhardt was explicit in his decision that his court's decision is "narrow" and only relates to California, not to the entire nation. In California, gay people had the right to marry for several months before it was taken away from them by a majority of voters. This amounts to a violation of equal protection because a right was specifically taken away from a minority group, Reinhardt writes. But this argument would not apply to gay people in other states. "It's a strong decision but it is not the ringing endorsement of broader marriage equality that some might have hoped for," Hunter College professor and gay rights advocate Kenneth Sherrill said.
Ted Olson, the former U.S. Solicitor General under George W. Bush who represents the plaintiffs, said at a press conference that the decision is the first step to ending discrimination. "Today we are more American because of this decision," he said.
The pro-Prop. 8 camp has said it will appeal the decision. The group can now ask that all 11 members of the 9th Circuit hear their case, instead of just the panel of three who decided against them on Tuesday. "Today's ruling finally clears the field for an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, where we are confident we will be victorious," the Save Prop 8 campaign said in a statement.
When two of the most prominent spokesmen for their sides of the marriage equality fight sat down on Monday for a 10-minute debate over what's happening in New Jersey, you knew it would be worth watching.
Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, set about dismantling the "torrent of talking points" that Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, unloaded during the televised discussion on Up Close With Diana Williams.
When Brown insisted gay rights activists in New Jersey were trying to "redefine marriage" with a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, Wolfson shot back that, "Marriage is not defined by who is denied it."
And when Brown claimed that "democracy doesn't count here" because Wolfson opposes a proposal by Gov. Chris Christie to put same-sex marriage up for a statewide debate and vote, it was answered with a civics lesson on American values:
"I disagree with Mr. Brown's explanation of how the United States is supposed to function," Wolfson said on New York's WABC-7. "Here in the United States, we actually believe there are basic rights, basic freedoms, that are protected for everybody under the Constitution. And it's exactly what we don't do is have a big debate about whether you should have freedom of religion, or whether I should have freedom of speech, or whether you should have the freedom to marry. We are all Americans, and we are all entitled to basic rights and protections. And we don't put that up to an up-or-down vote."
The leading national organization opposing same-sex marriage has sought to split the Democratic Party base by pitting African-Americans and Hispanics against gay-rights groups, according to confidential strategy memos made public by court officials in Maine.
