ADVOCACY RALLY ANNOUNCEMENT: Cleve Jones, a long time gay rights activist and friend of the late Harvey Milk will be joining us at Pittsburgh Pride’s First Adovocacy Rally on the steps of the City/County Building – Friday, June 4th at 6PM

The Advocacy Rally is a new addition to the Pride activities this year. Many are familiar with other aspects of Pride, such as the Pride in the Streets, street dance and party, Pride March, and PrideFest, a day long festival. These activities happen over the weekend of June 12-13, and the rally is being added as a kick-off event on the Friday starting the week-long Pride. During the week following the rally and culminating in PrideFest will be a series of events sponsored by various groups. Last year, this blog, in cooperation with Equality Advocates, STeel City Stonewall Democrats, and the Women’s Law Project sponsored an Advocacy training that was well attended, and a similar event will be planned this year as well.

More information about Pride: http://pittsburghpride.org/

Ruling on gay Air Force major creates dilemma :: EDGE on the Net.

The state already prohibits same-sex marriage with a DOMA type law passed a number of years ago. With the economy still struggling, so many people out of work, and the budget negotiation process about to begin, why devote any time at all to a bill that does not do anything to help the state move forward, or address the key issues facing the state at this time?

The point of this legislation is not marriage or the prohibition of same-sex marriage. The point of it is the amendment of the PA constitution, and to do so in a way that produces benefit to no one in any way. Patterned loosely on what was done in California, those who are opposed to equality for gays and lesbians see such a move as important in their battle. But as Pennsylvanians, what is important to us? Putting time , energy, and resources into a bill that will produces nothing tangibly positive for the people of the state, or the proliferation of a conceptual argument? It might be different if it looked as if the PA DOMA was threatened, but there are no court cases pending or planned to challenge the PA law. There is no need embed this into the PA constitution.

If you want our Senate to be working to put people back to work if you want our lawmakers to set Pennsylvania up as a leader in clean energy; if you want our elected officials to pass a budget on-time, tell the members of the Judiciary committee to ignore this bill at this time, and look at the priorities of the state.

Here is a list of the members of the Judiciary committee. Take a few moments and compose a short letter, and then send a copy of it to each of them. In it, say something about why you don’t want them to waste time on this bill. You can email it to them, but it is more likely to be actually read if you mail it via snail mail. Take a few more minutes and call their offices, and leave a message, asking them to set this bill aside and turn their attention to more important issues.

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/cteeInfo/cteeInfo.cfm?cde=19&body=S

Often this type of story is a big deal because it is the thing needed to get the a**hole out of office and stop his attacks on gay rights, but no such luck this time. Due to term limits he was already barred from further damage. No, has already had a number of terms to wreck havok for civil rights!

The really damning indictment of this incident is aimed at the gay rights/activist community of California. These are the individuals who ought to be hanging their heads and offering apologies for allowing this self-hating fag to do damage for so long.

I want to be clear: everyone including self-hating homos deserve the right to self-disclosure or hide in the close closet, and their privacy should be protected all the way up until they start voting against equality and civil rights. That’s the moment at which they give away their right to privacy and gay activists have the obligation to shine a light on the hypocricy.

That California gay rights activists are out of touch or out of control may not seem like news. However I doubt that this is a California specific phenominon. It may be that anywhere, as gay rights group grow and gain structure as well as prestige, it becomes harder for them to act on the defensive and scrappy. To both, be at the table and serve as watchdog becomes a challenge. Or is this really a matter of just turning a blind eye? In how many other capitol cities, let alone, in DC, does this happen?

Are you helping to hide any self-hating homos, who in their official work capacity work to treat gays and lesbians as second citizens? Think about it: who does this help and who does it hurt?

The hypocrisy of an anti-gay senator and those who protected his secret | San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

http://sdgln.com/commentary/2010/03/05/hypocrisy-anti-gay-senator-and-those-who-protected-his-secret?utm_source=Empowering+Spirits+Foundation+News&utm_medium=twitter

Here in the US, a few strategies have been tried when it comes to selling same-sex marriage. One of these, is to focus on the “civil” part of civil marriage. Same-sex couples who already live in committed relationships,  but they are denied the 1400+ rights and privileges that straight couples take for granted. In other words, it is a simple issue of equality and being treated the same as others. Another strategy has been to focus on the fact that gay families do already exist, and are all around us. Ads such as those used in the Maine battle showed same-sex families- they brought a real human face to the issue.

I have for the most part, focused on the first. It is logical, and non-confrontational. I have felt that it is also the best argument when trying to battle the religious fanatics because it has nothing to do with moral judgement. I have believed that the second strategy is as important, if not more important, but promoting the message, “our families are just like your families” has never really sat well with me. How I am alike a straight person is not why I deserve to be treated equal. My similarity or difference is not the deciding factor. All americans deserve to be treated equally. Period.

But another side of this issue is every bit as real as these, and one I have known, but haven’t really addressed, and it is this one that has all the religious crazies in such a tizzy. Getting married is a way that humans validate their commitment to each other, and set the stage for building a life together. The CEREMONY of it, including all the ritual and hoopla is important and meaningful and these things are every bit as valuable as the 1400+ rights that follow.

I have written quite a bit about the gender role basis of Christian opposition to gay marriage: God the Father and Son; the dutiful virgin mother; the church understood as Christ’s bride; even Adam and Eve. So much of Judeo-Christian orthodoxy relies upon gender roles and a male dominated power system. Same-sex marriage defies those gender and power dynamics and threatens the very nature of the Church’s (as institution) control of our lives.

The ceremony of marriage itself, spare and minimal expressed as a set of questions before a Justice of the Peace, or elaborately expressed through a series of rituals and vows called a Wedding, does something essential, by bonding two individuals together  within a community to be something that didn’t already exist. To be a family.

In some regard our oppressors are correct- same-sex marriage is a redefinition of family. Where they are wrong however is in suggesting that without same-sex marriage , family only means what they claim it does. Family has been redefined by many for a very long time. We are just giving voice to that reality. They are also wrong when they suggest that a redefinition of family will invalidate the meaning and value of their own marriages. The success or failure of straight marriages  is based entirely on the individuals within them, and not on some rule about what is supposed to be. This is why the “sanctity of marriage” argument is so laughable. Even if there was never a gay or lesbian couple who wanted to marry, it isn’t hard to look around and see the institution of marriage crumbling – families destroyed by lies, selfishness, betrayal,all that goes with these behaviors.

The creation of family happens regardless of the gender of the participants. Straight couples and gay couples, and the strength of those commitments over time are not dependent on the gender differences of the two participants. Doesn’t every family deserve the right to begin with a ceremony?

My partner and I have been together for 12 years, but we are not married in the legal sense. If one day we get married, it won’t be the ceremony itself that defines us as a family. It has been 12 years of work that has done that. The strength of our commitment to each other, and how that bond has been strengthened  or tested through the bad as well as the good times. We have not had a perfect relationship. But there is no doubt that it has been a strong, meaningful, and enduring relationship.

I remember as a young man just coming out as gay, reading that I would never be happy. The straight powers that be, have tried to define who we are as gays and lesbians, and tried to tell us what is and isn’t acceptable. Yet, they have been utterly wrong at every turn.  I have had a full , happy and amazing life that I wouldn’t trade for anything! For gays and lesbians, demanding same-sex marriage is one more step in the process of gays and lesbians defining themselves instead of allowing others to define us. For our culture around us, allowing same-sex marriage is simply an act of acknowledging what already exists- that family already means more than what a rigid gender-role definition suggests.

Turin, Italy Mayor ‘Marries’ Lesbian Couple in Symbolic Ceremony – Towleroad, More than gay news. More gay men.

The linked blog post from Joe.My.God is about a California GOP senator who was arrested for DUI after leaving a Sacramento gay bar with another guy in his car. Of course, he issued a statement:

I am deeply sorry for my actions and offer no excuse for my poor judgment. I accept complete responsibility for my conduct and am prepared to accept the consequences for what I did. I am also truly sorry for the impact this incident will have on those who support and trust me – my family, my constituents, my friends, and my colleagues in the Senate.

But I think there is a bigger story here. Here is a well known political figure who is seen in a gay bar, and leaves with another man. Most of the news stories on this do not even mention this detail, and now that we are 2 days from it, there still are few details surfacing. The Querty blog labels him as a “patron” of Faces, the gay night club. Do that mean he was known to be there often? Was this his first time in a gay bar?

Comments on Joe.My.God and others are filled with some of the expected stuff. People who call Asburn a hypocrit and clearly take some pleasure out of the fact that he is now getting some grief after causing so much to many of us, but why is it just an expressed sentiment? Why is the man who was with him, unidentified? If he was known at that club, why wasn’t he outed before this?

I think anyone has the right to self-disclosure, and if they choose to stay in the closet, that is their right, until- they start to vote and work against LGBT rights.  When that happens, they lose their right to self-disclosure! The rest of the anti-gay opponents do everything they can to harm us and our civil rights movement, and it is time we start fighting back and stop turning a blind eye to hypocrisy.

In any state where we are working for greater equality, members of our community must help in that cause, but shining a light on people like this!

Joe. My. God.: Anti-Gay GOP CA State Sen. Roy Ashburn Busted For DUI While Leaving Sacramento Gay Bar With Another Man.

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/03/anti-gay-gop-ca-state-sen-roy-asburn.html

Enjoy!

When College Football Coaches Advance Gay Rights | Gay Rights | Change.org.

The most effective way to impact legislation, especially at the state level, is for regular every day voters develop a relationship with their elected official, and use that relationship to share their ideas about issues with their elected officials.

So how do you get this relationship started? I think the best way is with a personal letter and follow that up with a meeting with your elected official in their district office. And a number of legislators suggest this is true. So, what to put in a personal letter? There is no set list of things that must be in a personal letter, but here are some general ideas to consider.

A few general guidelines to get started:

• This is a personal letter, coming from you about an issue that is important to you, and the purpose is twofold. It will let the legislator know how and why you feel a certain way about a specific issue, and it will set the stage for meeting with the legislator.
• It doesn’t have to be real long, in fact shorter is probably better as long as it is a real letter and expresses your personal thoughts. 300-600 words may be plenty to express your point.
• It can be handwritten or typed, but it needs to be a personal letter, and not a form letter.
• You should be a registered voter. While you can write to legislators who don’t represent your area of the state, it may be best to start with your own legislator. Additionally, if I bill is in a committee, the members of that committee may be contacted.

Let’s talk about content: what to put in the letter.

Use these bullet points as a guide.

• If you know how your legislator has voted in the best on an issue, you can thank him or her, or note it.
• Your legislator may take more notice, if your issue is related to a bill they are currently addressing, so know the bill number and what the bill does.
• Share your position about the issue or bill.
• Let the legislator know what you want them to do. This may include voting for or against a bill, signing on as a co-sponsor, or be more or less active in relationship to the bill.
• Share a bit of your personal story with the legislator. Talk about how the bill impacts your or your loved ones directly.

What do you leave out of your personal letter:

• Threats. It accomplishes nothing to say that you will or won’t vote for the legislator based on what they do with this bill.
• Lies. Surprisingly, many people lie as if they need to justify themselves. Things like ” I have voted you..” if you haven’t won’t help you. Just be real and honest.
• Insults. Calling a legislator crazy or stupid will serve no purpose, except to turn them off to hearing your opinions. The Golden Rule is perfect guidance. Treat others as you would want to be treated.

If you don’t know where to send your letter:

You can find the address for your legislator on several web sites. Here are two:

ACLU PA

PA General Assembly web site

If there is a local or regional organization that is halping promote advocacy work, send a copy of your letter to them as well.

On Monday, March 8, 2010 The Lancaster City Human Relations Commission is sponsoring a community discussion about Pennsylvania HB300

7:00-9:00PM at the Southern Market Center, City Council Chambers, 100
South Queen St., Lancaster, PA.

The public is invited to attend.

Participating in this panel discussion/question/answer forum will be Stephen A. Glassman, Chairperson of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, P. Michael Sturla, State Representative of Lancaster City, Representative Dan Frankel of Pittsburgh, who introduced this legislation, and Representative Babette Josephs of Philadelphia, the chairperson of the Pennsylvania House State Government Committee which approved the bill. Also taking part in the discussion will be Rev. Susan Minasian, College Chaplain, Franklin and Marshall College, and Franklin A. Miles, Jr., Esquire, VP, Secretary & General Counsel of Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Company. J. Richard Gray, Mayor of Lancaster & Louise Williams, President of The Lancaster City Council will also participate.

Co-Sponsors of this event are the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, SEIU Healthcare PA, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, and the Central Pennsylvania Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. For more information on the forum, please contact Linda Martin at 717-393-2883.

I am acutely aware of the work that was done with Senator Costa over the last four years.  Personal meetings and outreach happened with him and clearly that is now paying off.  There is, at times, a sense of impatience with advocacy work by the general community.  Change is like throwing stones in a pond.  A ripple starts and one thing leads to another.  Senator Costa’s clear support of our community is an example of that.

Many of us may get involved in advocacy work because of a specific situation or event. Like the November 2008 election where Obama won, and Prop 8 passed in California. These two votes happening at the same time galvanized a new generation of gays and lesbians to get involved in the political process and want to fight for equality. For me, the event was the 1987 March on Washington and seeing the AIDS Quilt display there. But as Dana suggests, change comes during the reverberations of events and situations, the ripples as it were, and it is seen over time.

Last week, Daylin Leach, the PA Senator who sponsored a Marriage Equality bill in the PA Senate (SB 935) was a guest speaker for the GLEC meeting here in Pittsburgh. We brought him in via conference call, and he stressed developing relationships with your elected officials. That translates into what Dana was referring to as “outreach over the past four years.”

We may start that relationship with a personal letter to our elected official, and follow it with phone calls, and then meeting with him or her. And over time, we keep contact. I don’t know here Senator Cost was 4 years ago, on issues of equality, but I know where he is today because of that ongoing contact- not by just one constituent, but by a number of folks.

I also received this in an email message from a someone who had attended the GLEC meeting:

This ia a new thing for me, I’m almost ashamed to say, but everything in its own time, I guess. But I do feel the time is now to be actively interested and attentive politically.

It is never too early to start this relationship if there is a specific issue or bill that is important to you and others. But real change isn’t about one legislative bill or one issue. So, it is never too late to get involved in issue advocacy work if real equality is important to you. We need to find a balance in a pursiut of urgency for individual parts of the whole and endurance as we seek the whole of equality.

For me, PA SB 707 is at the top of my list of issues, followed closely by PA HB  300. At the top of the blog are buttons that lead to pages with info of what you can do about these important issues.

I want to close this with another quote from Dana, which sums it all up:

I want people to know that advocacy work happens by everyday people just doing everyday things like having a conversation.