State-wide progress requires state-wide work, state-wide coalition building, state-wide communication and state-wide cooperation. All Pennsylvanians who care about Fairness and Equality must be willing to listen to one another, understand the various factors at work in different parts of the state and together seek solutions.
So, reliance upon “Gay” as an identifier fits well into our known experience of advocacy and legislative advances even as it fails to speak to the real culprit causing a lack of Equality.
This morning I received a Facebook chat message from Michael Lucas. He wanted to know why I was still friending a Russian gay activist, Nikolay Alexeyev: Sorry to bother, but how can you still be friends with Nikolay Alexeyev after his Jew hating remarks on FB? http://americablog.com/2013/09/russian-gay-activist-alexeyev-huge-new-anti-semitic-meltdown-facebook-twitter.html I friended Alexeyev after the news about Russia’s Gay Propaganda law started to dominate LGBT news. While some were calling for the IOC to pull the Winter Olympics out of[Read More…]
I’ve been reading and re-reading the published letter from Kate Bornstein to Chelsea Manning, and trying too select a portion to excerpt. I’ve picked one, finally, but this reading project has brought me to a new awareness of the letter. Isn’t this the letter that every coming out Queer person wishes they had received? And in a way- since it is public ally published, I can’t find any reason why each and every little girl,[Read More…]
Contemporary efforts like voter suppression and rigid immigration controls are about preserving what a privileged class has and realizes it is losing. The work of the NRA to attack all gun laws is designed to help perpetuate fear of white men with guns, and at the same time impede fighting real gun violence, which is often within minority communities.
Missing from any discussion of the the boycott seems to be mention of why a boycott is being discussed. Ultimately, the goal is to help gay, lesbian, bi, trans, and queer people, especially youth in Russia.
Some who are pushing for gay athletes to compete at the Russian Olympics in Sochi, justify their efforts by pointing out that at least Russian gay activist, Nikolai Alekseev wants to see the Olympics there so that it can be used to draw attention to the plight of queer people in Russia. But now questions are arising as to if Alekseev is all right or if something has happened to him. (bolding is mine) Something strange[Read More…]
I am so over the rhetoric being expressed against a boycott of the SOCHI Olympics! I respect that everyone is entitled to an opinion, but really, why all the opposition to this idea?
I have often had folks question if gays and lesbians are really discriminated against enough that a state law protecting them in employment, housing and public accommodations is necessary. They say, “But I’ve never heard of someone being discriminated against.” This story comes from Florida, but the same could happen here in Pennsylvania: A Florida condominium association says it won’t allow gay or unmarried heterosexual couples to purchase a home in its development, stating that[Read More…]
A new German law stipulates that children who are born of indeterminate gender no longer have to be categorized as “male” or “female.”