Guest post on ENDA from Congressman Barney Frank

September 28, 2007 by savvyplanners.com ·  

via The Bilerico Project | Daily Experiments in LGBTQ

September 28, 2007

This guest post comes to us from Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA). Congressman Frank is one of two openly gay House members, is the Chair of the Financial Services Committee, and has been a leader in the development of the Employment NonDiscrimination Act.

barney Guest post on ENDA from Congressman Barney FrankBeing in the legislative minority is easy – pulling together to block bad things does not require a lot of agonizing over tough decisions. Being in the majority is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, we have the ability to move forward in a positive way on important public policy goals. Detracting from that is the fact that it is never possible for us at any given time to get everything that we would like, and so we have to make difficult choices. But it is important to remember that the good part of this greatly outweighs the bad. Going from a situation in which all we can do is to prevent bad things from happening to one in which we have to decide exactly how much good is achievable and what strategic choices we must make to get there is a great advance. The current manifestation of this is the difficult set of decisions we face regarding the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. We are on the verge of an historic victory that supporters of civil rights have been working on for more than thirty years: the passage for the first time in American history by either house of

No Comments · Add a Comment

Newark triple murder may be anti-gay hate crime

September 27, 2007 by savvyplanners.com ·  

Victims’ friends driven to despair over alleged police, media cover-up

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | Washington Blade

A close friend of three college students who were shot to death execution style in a Newark, N.J., schoolyard in August said the students planned to join him in attending a black Gay Pride event in Queens, N.Y., the day following their deaths.

News of the students’ plans to attend the Aug. 5 event at New York City’s Riis Park Beach surfaced after a New Jersey gay group released a letter last week calling on Newark authorities to investigate the murders as possible anti-gay hate crimes.

The murder of the three students and the shooting of a fourth student, who is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head, shocked Newark’s citizens and became the subject of international news coverage.

READ THE FULL STORY

No Comments · Add a Comment

New Jersey Gay Rights Group Tells State Commission: ‘Civil Union Law Is A Fiasco’

September 27, 2007 by savvyplanners.com ·  

Article Date: 09/27/2007

By Chrys Hudson

Last night, during the first public hearing of the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission, Garden State Equality presented evidence it believed shows “the failure of New Jersey’s civil union law to provide equality as real marriage would.”

Thirty civil-unioned couples from across the state presented a joint letter to state leaders at the hearing. The couples were chosen to represent more than 300 couples who have complained to Garden State Equality, a leading gay rights group in the state, that employers won’t recognize their civil unions.

In the letter, addressed to the commission as well as to New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, Senate President Dick Codey and Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, the couples wrote: “The failure of the civil union law has affected our lives deeply. It is not a political issue to us, but a personal one. The law’s failure is harming not only us, but also the children of us who are parents. We cannot wait for the equality that the civil union law was supposed to provide, but does not.

“The law’s deprivation of equality has wreaked its worst havoc on same-sex families with fixed incomes, particularly in health care,” they added. “Because employers in New Jersey are not recognizing civil unions on a consistent basis, the civil union law has, in effect, established one system of health care coverage for same-sex couples and another for straight couples.”

An expert from Vermont also attended the hearing and testified that civil unions in Vermont “still don’t work like marriage, seven years after Vermont enacted a civil unions law.

“It’s not true that as time passes, civil unions will be accepted like marriage,” Beth Robinson, chair of Vermont Freedom to Marry and an attorney who has worked for years with same-sex couples, said in a statement released before the hearing. “Marriage is a word of difference.”

Likewise, experts from Massachusetts testified about the differences that have developed between the two states.

“As a labor leader whose very job involves keeping his finger on the pulse of LGBT workers all across Massachusetts, and as an advocate in constant touch with every civil rights organization and agency throughout the state, I am in a unique position to learn about, and report to you, complaints that same-sex married couples have had with ERISA,” Tom Barbera, a long-time leader in the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and in the AFL-CIO’s Pride at Work organization, said in a statement released prior to Wednesday night’s event.

“From the immediate weeks after May 17, 2004, when marriage equality took effect on Massachusetts, right on through today, ERISA has barely been an issue in Massachusetts, certainly not compared to New Jersey,” he added. “Without the term ‘civil union’ or ‘domestic partner’ to hide behind, employers would have to acknowledge that they are discriminating against their employees because they are lesbian or gay. And employers in a progressive state like Massachusetts are loathe to do that, as they would be in a similarly progressive state like New Jersey were you to enact a marriage equality law.”

Some of the night’s most compelling evidence, however, came from Jodi Weiner, a New Jersey resident who testified that the benefits administration company working with her union had refused to grant her and her partner benefits under New Jersey’s civil union law, citing the federal ERISA loophole. When the company learned Weiner and her partner had actually gotten married in Massachusetts, the company relented and agreed to give the couple benefits.

“The difference between the words ‘civil union’ and the word ‘marriage’ could not be greater,” Weiner said in a statement released before the hearings. “The words ‘civil union’ were not good enough for us to get equality in New Jersey , but the word ‘marriage’ is. Members of the commission, and elected officials, we can all talk about how the civil union law is supposed to work just like marriage. But in my case and others, it doesn’t work that way in the real world.”

Source: Garden State Equality Press Release

© 2007 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved.

No Comments · Add a Comment

Senate votes 60-39 for cloture on hate crimes legislation; voice vote adds Kennedy-Smith hate crimes amendment to Department of Defense authorization

September 27, 2007 by savvyplanners.com ·  

via HRC

Chris Johnson

Picture_18_2BREAKING NEWS: We just won the Senate cloture vote on the hate crimes legislation, 60-39. Seconds later, the Senate voted by voice vote to add the Kennedy-Smith hate crimes amendment to the Department of Defense authorization bill.

*****

UPDATE:

Joe Solmonese just released a statement on the hate crimes bill:

For over a decade our community has worked tirelessly to ensure protections to combat violence motivated by hate and today we are the closest we have ever been to seeing that become a reality. Congress has taken an historic step forward and moved our country closer to the realization that all Americans, including the GLBT community, are part of the fabric of our nation. The new leadership in Congress fully understands that for too long our community has been terrorized by hate violence. And today, the US Senate has sent a clear message to every corner of our country that we will no longer turn a blind eye to anti-gay violence in America.

No Comments · Add a Comment

Garden State Equality will work to defeat any version of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act that excludes the transgender community

September 27, 2007 by savvyplanners.com ·  

gse web small Garden State Equality will work to defeat any version of the federal Employment Non Discrimination Act that excludes the transgender community

The Garden State Equality Board of Directors today adopted the statement below as organizational policy.

The Washington Blade reported today that Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are likely to drop anti-discrimination protection for transgender people from the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill now making its way in Congress.


We are fortunate that New Jersey state law prohibits all discrimination, employment and otherwise, against transgender people. In 2006, New Jersey enacted a sweeping law to prevent anti-transgender discrimination, expanding the state’s Law Against Discrimination. But federally and in too many other states, discrimination against the transgender community continues without impunity.


Were Congressional Democrats to remove the transgender community from ENDA, they would be sending a morally repulsive signal that discrimination against transgender community is acceptable.

With fury over this potential Congressional disgrace, and with not an ounce of equivocation, Garden State Equality hereby declares that we will work passionately to oppose any form of ENDA that excludes the transgender community.


We wish to emphasize what our opposition would mean. We would not merely be silent or neutral on an ENDA that excludes the transgender community. We would actively oppose the bill.


We would involve our 21,000 members – and hundreds of thousands of other LGBT New Jerseyans and our allies – in a hardball grassroots campaign that would relentlessly communicate our opposition to members of the state’s Congressional delegation. We would aim to stop a trans-exclusionary ENDA cold.


Is Garden State Equality really saying we would rather have no ENDA at all, rather than an ENDA that excludes the transgender community? You bet. Let there be no doubt.


The standards today must be different for a Democratic Congress than the standards might have been when the Republicans were in the majority.


With Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, the notion of being practical, or taking one step at a time, with something as simple as preventing basic discrimination, is obsolete and grotesquely insulting.

Public officials in the party to which most LGBT people in America belong – and vote for and contribute to – cannot be given latitude to sell out any segment of the LGBT community, especially the transgender community.

For decades, transgender Americans have suffered heinous discrimination in employment. Transgender Americans, like the rest of the LGBT community, have been told for too many years to wait their turn. Meanwhile, they worked hard to elect a Democratic Congress.


If this is what the transgender community is getting in return, it’s enough to make the skin crawl of anyone with a conscience. The LGBT community is one. Garden State Equality insists that we stand together for one another. The time has come to say enough.

No Comments · Add a Comment

Oct 12, 2007 National Coming Out Day for People of Faith

September 26, 2007 by savvyplanners.com ·  

logo rsm Oct 12, 2007 National Coming Out Day for People of FaithOct 12, 2007 National Coming Out Day for People of Faith

On October 12, 2007 the remembrance of the anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s life, the Rainbow Sash Movement will be holding a sacred liturgy of remembrance for Mathew. We stand opposed to any form hate, and the murder of Mathew Shepherd was a hateful violent crime. Christians must ask what part they and Christianity played in enabling this horrific crime.

As Catholic Christians we are ashamed of our Church, and other Christian Church’s for not addressing the issue of homophobia within our own ranks. We are ashamed of those who speak up for human rights and exclude GLBT people from that umbrella, as if we came from another planet, what hypocrisy. There is no justification for this whether it is theologically, or biblical based. There is no excuse for hate.

Matthew Shepard calls us to a better way one of dialogue, and active listening. We must remember who we are, children of God. That memory has faded for many of us because of our divisions. In that spirit we welcome all people of faith, and goodwill to this National Sacred Liturgy. Our Eucharist table is a place where all God’s people gather, and we will not challenge any that feel called to join us. We will welcome you with open hearts. Let Catholics and non-Catholics come together to pray and remember the life of this wonderful young man.

Our national Liturgy will be held in the Archdiocese of Chicago to attend please email Sashmovement@aol.com, or phone 312-266-0182. We are also calling on other communities of faith across the nation to hold this day as a national day prayer for Mathew. October 11, 2007, is national coming out day; perhaps October 12, 2007 should be national coming out day for people of faith.

Please visit for our web site www.rainbowsashmovement.com.

No Comments · Add a Comment

Gains For Transgender People in South Florida

September 26, 2007 by savvyplanners.com ·  

Gains For Transgender People in South Florida

From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

via Straight, Not Narrow

Transgender is quietly becoming a protected class in South Florida as cities vote to prohibit discrimination against a group that faces tremendous challenges fitting in.

Palm Beach and Broward counties may extend the protection next, which could leave the broadest imprint by affording civil rights to people for their gender identity or expression. The movement accelerated with the March firing of Largo City Manager Susan Stanton, who transitioned from male to female this year.


“It shined a light on what this discrimination is,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Stanton’s attorney. “It really underscored how important it is to have these ordinances.”

Lake Worth, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Tequesta and Oakland Park have approved nondiscrimination clauses this year either covering city employees or all residents. Oakland Park was the latest last week and Wilton Manors may consider adding transgender as well.

County ordinances would go further by outlawing discrimination in the workplace and housing in all cities and unincorporated areas. Thirteen states and more than 90 cities and counties already have such laws, with the first passed more than 30 years ago. Advocates hope local ordinances will lead to a statewide law, health insurance coverage for sexual reassignment surgery and greater acceptance.


Advocates, though, say it’s not about cross-dressing. Employers would not be asked to modify dress codes. But such suggestions speak toattitudes about gender.


Advocates like to speak of transgender more broadly as gender expression and identity to cover more people than only transsexuals.


“The transgender community is sadly one that is almost like an underground movement because of the fear of the unknown out there,” said Michael Emmanuel Rajner, co-founder of the Transgender Equality Rights Initiative. “They’re living, breathing human beings. They should have the same rights as everyone else.”

Treating trandgender people as human beings–pretty radical but it just might catch on.

No Comments · Add a Comment

Gay Marriage and Civil Unions Are Unconstitutional

September 26, 2007 by savvyplanners.com ·  

mnd brand1 Gay Marriage and Civil Unions Are Unconstitutional
moz screenshot 25 Gay Marriage and Civil Unions Are Unconstitutional
David R. Usher


DaveUsher 0844 web 701956 Gay Marriage and Civil Unions Are UnconstitutionalShortly after the Massachusetts Supreme Court forced same-sex marriage on folks living Down East, I realized why defenders of marriage lost the case: they litigated morals and tradition in front of a secular court looking for an equal rights argument.

I quickly realized a principle that could have won the Goodridge case, and prevented subsequent losses in other states. The principle was first published in my February 2004 article “Why Gay Marriage Is Unconstitutional”.

“[Heterosexual] marriage is the first, and the greatest guarantor of human equality in history. It is the only civil rights institution that eliminates all natural and culturally-imposed social, economic, physical, and gender disparities of men and women. It is heterosexual marriage which forms the whole cloth of the human race.”

Forty-five states have enacted constitutional amendments barring same-sex marriage, for good reasons beyond the most dangerous civil one: If any two women can marry each other, marriage will eventually become a feminist monopoly.

Feminists dearly want feminist marriage because it would feature at least six incomes: the earnings of two mothers, at least two sets of child support orders, and two sets of welfare entitlements. Feminists have invested tremendous resources litigating, whining, and screaming “discrimination” since the late 1980’s when they decided same-sex marriage was the best way to finally end all social attachments to men, ending poverty for single mothers, while making feminist marriage handsomely profitable.

Same-sex marriage has been official feminist doctrine since January 1988, when the N.O.W. Times highlighted a cryptic mandate issued by Sheila Cronin instructing normal women to pretend they are lesbian and to actively help realize the final goal:

“… The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be {identified} as a lesbian to be fully feminist. …” [emphasis added]

In the same-sex marriage battle, gays and lesbians are merely straw mannequins propped up in courtrooms for introduction of a scurrilous equal-rights argument. This sham is revealed in the Goodridge decision, which orders the state to marry any two humans who walk through the door regardless of their sexual proclivities.

Same-sex marriage and civil union equivalents would hyper-magnify disparities between the sexes and effectively segregate them into two classes of “haves” and “have nots” based on “marital preference”. Powerful economic motivators combined with racy sexual-liberation ideologies of radical feminism would propel women to take the final, pre-emptive step to fully control family, economic and health resources, politics, and law. It would also spell a secular end to religion as we know it.

Heterosexual marriage is weathering unrelenting legal assaults by multi-purpose feminist organizations who are misusing Violence Against Women (VAWA) and other federal program entitlement dollars to force same-sex marriage on America.

Seattle activists hope to weaken the legal tenet that marriage is synonymous with procreation by passing an inititiative requiring dissolution of any heterosexual marriage if a child has not been born within three years of marriage.

New York Mayor Bloomberg hopes to slyly make same-sex marriage legal by permitting anyone to arbitrarily change the sex listed on their birth certificate.

Despite not finding a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, the New Jersey Supreme Court overstepped its authority ordering the legislature to create a civil simulation thereof The National Organization for Women promptly declared a qualified victory — insisting it will not settle for anything less than full same-sex marriage rights.

Phyllis Schlafly warns that President Bush must “un-sign” the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women [CEDAW]. Like the language of the ERA, equal-rights mandates in CEDAW could be applied to force same-sex marriage by international fiat.

Until same-sex marriage and civil unions are found unconstitutional, heterosexual marriage will slowly be whittled away by cities, legislatures and the courts. I am confident that my explication on heterosexual marriage, if fully developed by legal scholars, could be applied to stop same-sex marriage and civil unions, because it immediately proves that same-sex marriage and civil-union equivalents would commit grotesquely unequal wrongs in the name of equal rights.

One conservative legal scholar suggested that I am wrong in believing that same-sex marriage could be found unconstitutional. I disagree vigorously. Where establishment of same-sex marriage will unquestionably turn marriage into an institution that disenfranchises men in the family and society, pre-empting parental and economic rights simply because they cannot bear children from their own bodies, is to establish a separate and unequal form of government based on sex.

Men and women are unquestionably and tremendously different. The human species requires a strong civil and moral instrument guaranteed to automatically mitigate all differences that exist between the sexes, harnessing them collaboratively for pro-social purposes under God.

Feminism is the most dangerous indigenous cult in America. Its dual agenda of entitled liberation and predatory victimization continue to propel the growing divorce and illegitimacy crisises. Predatory feminism operates on the principles of repressive tolerance, espoused by Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse.

Evidence now proves that organized feminism has left more women and children in helplessness and poverty, living in dangerous streets, than any war in American history. America’s report card is found in UNICEF’s report “An Overview of Child Well-Being In Rich Countries”. Despite massive federal expenditures on the welfare-state nearing a half-trillion annually, the United States ranks number 20 out of 21 nations.

We must vigorously oppose any and all political candidates who support either civil unions or same-sex marriage, regardless of their positions on other issues. America cannot survive if we permit it to be run by entitled feminism.

We must not permit feminists to conveniently monopolize the institution of marriage after having gone to extraordinary lengths to destroy it. The answer to the majority of our socio-economic problems begins with protecting the civil institution of traditional marriage. Once this is accomplished we must reform federal and state policies that seriously weaken marriage via an acid combination of no-fault divorce laws and automated entitlements for illegitimacy and divorce.

————————————————-

David R. Usher is Senior Policy Analyst for the True Equality Network

————————————————-

No Comments · Add a Comment

Call to action on ENDA from HRC

September 18, 2007 by savvyplanners.com ·  

Human Rights Campaign: Take action against hate crimes  Call to action on ENDA from HRC
 Call to action on ENDA from HRC
 Call to action on ENDA from HRC
 Call to action on ENDA from HRC  Call to action on ENDA from HRC  Call to action on ENDA from HRC  Call to action on ENDA from HRC

Equal Opportunity.

Unless you’re GLBT.

ENDA icon Call to action on ENDA from HRC

Tell Congress to end anti-gay workplace discrimination!

 Call to action on ENDA from HRC
 Call to action on ENDA from HRC
Dear Friend,

You love your job. Your supervisors give you top ratings. Then, one day, a colleague finds out you’re gay. A week later, you find your desk emptied into a box. You’re fired. The reason? Your sexual orientation.

Here’s the worst part: firing you for being gay was 100% legal. It’s an outrage. In 31 states, you can be fired solely because you’re gay – and if you’re transgender, that’s 39 states.

After years spent laying the groundwork, the Human Rights Campaign is poised to end this injustice by helping pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). This vital legislation is likely to come up for a vote in Congress in the coming weeks – and we need your voice.

Tell your Representative to stand up for GLBT equality in the workplace before the House votes this month!

What’s even more outrageous is that the radical right is fighting to keep this legislation from passing. They’re using scare tactics to fire up their base, saying things like:

    “ENDA will force businesses with 15 or more employees to accommodate homosexuals, drag queens, transsexuals, and even she-males in their employment practices and facilities.”1

It’s absurd. And their campaign to enshrine hatred and bigotry in the American legal code will only intensify – they’re putting major resources into blocking our progress, by flooding Congress with lies and misinformation.

We need your help to make sure your lawmakers know:

  • Current federal law protects workers against discrimination based on their race, gender, religion, national origin, and disability—but NOT based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
  • ENDA is NOT about special treatment. It does not excuse poor job performance. It simply gives gay and transgendered workers the same rights and protections as their colleagues.
  • Nearly 90% of Fortune 500 companies now include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies. It’s time the government caught up with the private sector.

Our momentum is growing in the House. And Americans overwhelmingly agree that GLBT people should have equal employment opportunities. But sometimes it only takes a vocal anti-gay minority to derail legislation like this. We must spread the truth, today.

Send a message to your Representative in support of GLBT workers’ rights.

We live in a country that was founded upon the principle of equal opportunity. Yet centuries later, that principle does not apply to GLBT Americans.

Thank you for helping us end this hypocrisy – so that millions of Americans can work without fear.

Warmly,

Joe Solmonese
Joe Solmonese
President

No Comments · Add a Comment

Md. high court says marriage ban OK

September 18, 2007 by savvyplanners.com ·  

maryland Md. high court says marriage ban OK

  • Md. high court says marriage ban OK
    A divided Maryland high court today affirmed the constitutionality of the state’s law limiting marriage to couples of the opposite sex. Robert A. Zarnoch, the assistant attorney general who argued to uphold the 1973 law that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, said that any change in the statute should be decided by the legislature. In his dissent, Chief Judge Robert M. Bell noted that, “…[M]any of the arguments made in support of the anti-miscegenation laws were identical to those made today in opposition to same-sex marriage.” The Sun (Baltimore) (free registration) (9/18) btn email story Md. high court says marriage ban OK
No Comments · Add a Comment

Next Page »