And from my perspective, the Mayor has shown by his statements following the incident and now today, that he is committed to doing things differently. This is good news for the residents of Pittsburgh! Thank you Mr Mayor!
Just received via Twitter the below announcement. This follows a tweet I sent regarding my blog post from yesterday which went to the Mayor. I’m looking forward to reading the announcement, and appreciate the Mayor’s efforts to do things differently than they have been done in the past.
This specific conversation is focused on Race and Media: a Discussion of Fruitvale Station and 12 Years a Slave. Panelists are Billy Jackson, NOMMO Productions; Luqmon Abdus-Salaam; Darius Prier, Duquesne University; Liana Maneese; and Njaimeh Njie, Ya Momz House.
The big deal for us, in Pennsylvania is getting two bills, HB 300 and SB 300 passed to provide protections from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations. If you’ve been a long-time reader, you know this bill has been a passion for me since 2008.
Both individuals suggest that the vote of the people trumps all else, which is not the way it works in the United States, no matter how much these homophobes wish it did. We live in a Constitutional Democracy. Here is what is meant by a Constitutional Democracy
It is possibly the advocates role to help that history keep from being forgotten, and our job to embrace lessons from past struggles so that we can employ then anew in new struggles against the same old power structure of oppression.
This situation was and will always be a case where the timeline to an employer benefits change created hardships for one or more persons. This was never a situation about discrimination. LGBTQ persons are no longer the isolated victims we once were. We can’t trot out the discrimination card at every bump in the road. Gay, lesbian, bi, trans, queer, and straight people encounter hardships because employers change benefit packages all the time. Let’s address those issues without trying to make everything be about discrimination.
A few days ago, I received via email from Ron Frisch, University of Pittsburgh Associate Vice Chancellor, that there would be no change in the University of Pittsburgh’s domestic partnership benefits.
A petition at moveon.org because Allegheny County has announced that they will terminate all same-sex domestic partnerships by the end of July and any employee currently receiving benefits under a DP, will have to get married to maintain those benefits.
Tomorrow evening is the first of a series of community forums, sponsored by Mayor Peduto, one in each police zone, where the community is invited to share their ideas about what they feel is important in a new police chief. I wrote briefly about this last week, but want to again encourage everyone to participate. Unlike some cities which have a pronounced gayborhood, we have lesbian, gay, bi, trans*, and queer persons living everywhere within[Read More…]