thomascwaters.com

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

The linked story below is from change.org, and Michael’s writing, as always is a great read. Additionally the connected story is also a great read. I know I have some readers really into the football thing, and what’s more- this story is about my Alma Mater- Ohio State!

Enjoy!

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

If you read my blog regularly, you know I operate with a basic premise:

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 received an email today from Dana Elmendorf, a Pittsburgh activist who has been very active for some time in issue advocacy. Not only is she a wealth of knowledge about advocacy work, but she has been at it for some time, and this history gives her a unique perspective. She was commenting on a letter she had received back from PA Senator Costa concerning PA SB 707. She wrote:

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.

The link below is to a DCAgenda article by Lou Chibbaro:

The D.C. Court of Appeals Friday denied a request by a Maryland minister for an injunction to block the city’s same-sex marriage law from taking effect March 3, ending the last potential obstacle to the start of gay nuptials the following week.

Most interesting to me was this snippet from the Judges’ ruling:

The three-judge appeals court panel also held that Jackson and others who have joined him in requesting the injunction failed to show that allowing the marriage law to take effect would cause them “irreparable harm.”

This is important as one of the primary arguments used against gay marriage is that it will cause irreparable harm to others by destroying the family. A claim that is laughable, but one still capable of evoking fear at the ballot box.

via Last hurdle removed to start of D.C. same-sex marriages | DC Agenda.

You may be getting these emails like I do. Seems there is a letter making its way around the US Senate and Senators are signing on, demanding a public option be added to the Health Care Reform. Of Pennsylvania’s senators, Arlen Specter has already signed the Bennet letter, but Casey has not. I spoke to his Pittsburgh office yesterday about this, and was told that he is waiting to see what the President does before deciding to sign the letter or not. Waiting to see what the President is going to do?

The public option is the creation of an option sot hat people who are not happy with their current for-profit insurer can choose. Because it would not be a for profit venture, all of the resources can go to actually health care coverage. This would have the affect of costing less, and therefore, prompt the entire industry to do a better job controlling costs. It would allow competition, and provide consumers with choice. Polls show the american people want the public option. They want choice!

Waiting to see what the President is going to do? Senator Casey, we pretty much know what the President is going to do, so what is the wait? And it is just a letter anyway!

Senator Casey- the people of Pennsylvania elected you to be a leader, and not a follower. We elected you to put the needs of the people of our state above all else. Thank you for being very good on many issues, but now is the time to be a leader in the Health Care reform debate as well. It is time to lead.

You can reach Senator Caseys office:

Philadelphia PA: Phone: (215) 405-9660

Pittsburgh, PA Phone: (412) 803-7370

Lehigh Valley Phone: (610) 782-9470

Central PA Phone: (814) 357-0314

Erie Phone: (814) 874-5080

Harrisburg: Toll Free: (866) 461-9159

Washington D.C. Phone: (202) 224-6324

http://casey.senate.gov/contact/

Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Bev Smith will give the keynote address, “Loss of Liberties and Social Injustice: It’s All About Perception.”

For more on Bev: www.bevsmithtalks.com

• When: Sunday, March 21 at 7:00 p.m.
• Where: Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild – 1815 Metropolitan Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15233.

Greater Pittsburgh Chapter Annual Meeting :: American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

A few years ago, I was in Philadelphia and went to the Betsy Ross House, and it made the entire trip to Philadelphia for me! I had always thought about Betsy Ross and the flag as a quaint little story, but seeing the house and learning about her and her life gave me a context to see her (as well as other patriots) with new eyes, and I gained an appreciation for her as well as felt a link to her. This is from a web biography of Betsy Ross:

Elizabeth Griscom — also called Betsy, their eighth child and a fourth-generation American, was born on January 1, 1752.

Betsy went to a Friends (Quaker) public school. For eight hours a day she was taught reading, writing, and received instruction in a trade — probably sewing. After completing her schooling, Betsy’s father apprenticed her to a local upholsterer. Today we think of upholsterers primarily as sofa-makers and such, but in colonial times they performed all manner of sewing jobs, including flag-making. It was at her job that Betsy fell in love with another apprentice, John Ross, who was the son of an Episcopal assistant rector at Christ Church.

Quakers frowned on inter-denominational marriages. The penalty for such unions was severe — the guilty party being “read out” of the Quaker meeting house. Getting “read out” meant being cut off emotionally and economically from both family and meeting house. One’s entire history and community would be instantly dissolved. On a November night in 1773, 21-year-old Betsy eloped with John Ross. They ferried across the Delaware River to Hugg’s Tavern and were married in New Jersey. Her wedding caused an irrevocable split from her family.

I’m sure it is not a stretch for many gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgenders to relate to her experience. Many of us have been cast off by our own families because who we are as people- seems to be at odds with our family’s religious beliefs, and many of us feel this pain deeply. However, how arcane does Betsy’s situation seem today? Today, two people of different faith backgrounds, especially both Christian easily get married. But Gays and Lesbians?  Not so much. For us, the use of religious prejudice and discrimination still apply.

Pennsylvania is currently looking to embed religious bigotry and discrimination into our state’s constitution with SB 707. This has been tried twice before, but both times it has been defeated. Still the radical religious right persists, and is again wasting time and tax dollars to again attempt this change to the constitution.

For me, PA SB 707, the Marriage Protection Amendment, isn’t about marriage equality, but rather it is about a deeper and more important question: will we as Pennsylvanian’s allow discrimination to be embraced by adding it to the constitution? Proponents of the amendment claim that the goal is to protect the family, but the family is not at risk in Pennsylvania at this time nor in the foreseeable future.  So, why now? Why are some pushing so hard on a piece of legislation that won’t change daily life in Pennsylvania?

If the future of our state is important to you, then I urge you to oppose PA SB 707, and demand that our legislators devote their time, and energy, and our resources to solving our state’s issues such as jobs and unemployment, energy, education, public safety, and the environment.

Often, I post stuff that deals with Religion and Homosexuality over my my other blog, Queer Look at the Bible, but then, I usually feel compelled to try and sort out some theological commentary about it. Additionally, this seems to deal more with the Talmud, still a religious text, but not the Bible. So, for whatever reason I want to come up with, posting this here.

My friend on Twitter @mattincinci posted this, and I had to follow up. It generally seems as if it is just the crazy fringe Christians who blame natural disasters on gays- people like Pat Robertson- but in reality, there is  also a group of fundamental rabbis who are also in on the blame game.

Here is the thing about this blame game.  Anything at all can be attributed to God (or as the rabbis write, G-d). And there is no verification at all. It isn’t like Dick Cheney, who will go on TV to try and save his image. No way to get ahold of G-d and ask, for verification. So, no matter whatever happens,  claim that it was G-d! In some regard, this in the tradition of fundamental Judiasm. So much of the Hebrew Scriptures (Christian Old Testament) deals with just this sort of stuff: big catastrophes attributed to G-d’s happiness or upset with G-d’s creation, man.

But these old stories also come from an era where it was believed the sun moved around the earth, and the world was flat. And, if you pay attention, there are others gods in the Hebrew scriptures and many of the Biblical stories are about demonstrating that the Hebrew G-d was greater than the other gods.

Wow, this is writing itself as if it were over on the other blog…

So these rabbis are doing what the religious community leaders have always done. When faced with what were seen as attacks to their status quo, they spoke out  in an attempt to control, and keep the community following that status quo. This is different from the hateful Christians who blame everything on the gays. While conservative Judaism has not been supportive of homosexuality, it also hasn’t created a  history of persecution of demonization of gays. Maybe that is changing?

It isn’t useful to brand these rabbis as simple haters (one strategy some gays will want to take), nor is it helpful to dismiss this stuff as old fashioned quackery. I think though it is important to see it as another symptom of the way cultural changes are impacting the status quo, and those who see it as their job to protect the status quo are doing just that. That said, the linked post points out some great points worth noting.

Does Gay Sex Cause Earthquakes? – Jeffrey Goldberg.