The most frustrating part of the fight for LGBT rights is that many people, both inside and outside the community, view it as a grab bag of issues. It isn’t. It’s One Issue with many moving parts, and it really doesn’t matter to me where we succeed first. The work will continue until the One Issue is completed, because in truth the One Issue is more than the sum of its parts.

There’s a reason LGBT people suffer depression and anxiety so much more often than straight people do. There’s a reason we’re twice as likely to suffer PTSD. There’s a reason our youth are three to seven times (depending on environment) more likely to die by suicide.

It’s no coincidence that our statistical 5-10% of the nation’s youth make up 20-40% of all homeless youth, that LGBT homeless youth are 56% more likely to abuse alcohol than straight homeless youth and 76% more likely to have been sexually assaulted.

Solving the One Issue has the side effect of bringing people back from the edge. That’s the real reason the fight is so important. It’s not about me getting married (I won’t) or joining the Marines (it is to laugh). It isn’t about me not getting a job because I’m a fag or being politely turned down for a loan or being turned away from a restaurant or being told my blood is tainted.

It’s about people knowing that they exist, that their lives are real and important, that their government won’t assault them, and that it actually considers them in the same way it considers their parents and siblings and friends. That One Issue is the keystone to all the others.

The U.S. government is, right now, today, harming us with its codified discrimination because people in the majority approve of it. I want that harm to cease, quite selfishly, because I’m one of those people being harmed and I know a lot of other people who are being harmed. And though it irks me to no end, I suppose I shouldn’t think too poorly of people, even those who think they’re our allies, for not wanting it to change badly enough because of their own selfishness.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m going to shut up and bow my head until that far off, imaginary, never-to-come day when people in the majority have everything they want and decide it’s okay to finally make the government stop harming people.

No sir.

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Mr. Woodhouse,

In response to your request for a small donation, I must unfortunately reiterate what so many others have said in the last few months. The Democratic party will not see one penny from my pocket until and unless substantial gains are made in the field of LGBT rights.

In 2008, the LGBT community helped give you the White House, the House of Representatives, and a super-majority in the Senate. What we’ve discovered is that there is little difference between a Democratic-led government and the Republican-led government of five years ago. Instead of taking a clear and decisive pro-civil rights stance, you thanked us by running the other way and choosing ***anything*** but LGBT civil rights.

• You punted repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, with a compromise that doesn’t actually repeal anything, has yet to be voted on in the Senate or signed by the President, and reportedly is being considered for veto by President Obama.
• You’ve put off the Employment Non-Discrimination Act until it’s logistically unlikely this year, with Speaker Pelosi characterizing the bill as “controversial” rather than rallying Democrats around this clear issue of civil rights.
• Repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act isn’t even being considered, no matter how many times President Obama says he’s “urged” Congress to do so.
• Ending the discriminatory anti-gay blood donation ban has been discussed and rejected with no real push from the DNC to follow the science and penalize risky sex rather than responsible gay men in monogamous relationships for thirty years.
• Bids to institute state-wide marriage equality have failed in part because of the lack of leadership and funding from the DNC, most notably in Maine last year.
• Even a bill to offer safety to all school children has failed to find congressional footing because members of Congress get squeamish at the bill’s specific mention of LGBT kids who are many times more likely to be bullied, depressed, isolated, and suicidal than their straight peers.

So no. You will not get my money, you will not get my time, you will not get my voice, and you will not get my vote until you show me that you consider my rights as important as yours.

Candidates who have shown leadership for these completely reasonable LGBT demands retain my support and vote, but until I see substantial leadership and not excuses from the national party, my response remains the same:

NOT. ONE. CENT.

Cordially,

Matthew D. Algren

For far too long, Democrats have viewed LGBT people as nothing more than a committed source of funding and a reliable voting bloc. It’s time to teach them that we’re more than that.

Take the pledge.

Here’s why.

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Once they were done at the White House, Get Equal moved to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s offices on Capitol Hill and in San Fransisco. There they refused to leave until Speaker Pelosi committed to a vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which has been languishing in Congress for…well, years.

No identities yet; will update when I get them

After several tense hours, four protesters at Pelosi’s office on the Hill were arrested and taken, coincidentally, to the same facility that Choi and Pietrangelo are being held in. Just before midnight, the ENDA 4 were released without bail.

Incidentally, Choi and Pietrangelo are being held without bail or contact to the outside world until they appear in court tomorrow.

Speaker Pelosi continues to stall on ENDA.

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Remember now? About ten minutes into the episode, Sideshow Bob appears in the following 23-second scene:

On February 5th, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) made the rounds not unlike Sideshow Bob, telling Virginia employees through Executive Order that they would not be discriminated against–specifically–due to their race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, or any disabilities.

And for the first time since 2002, Virginia’s lesbians and gay men have been left off the list. In other words, “That is all.”

From the Virginian-Pilot:

A 2008 Gallup poll showed nine out of 10 Americans believe gays deserve equal rights for job opportunities. A Virginia poll that same year produced identical results.

Those polls have translated into tangible improvements in working conditions for countless people. Most Fortune 500 companies ban discrimination against gays. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, adopted its anti-discrimination policy in 2003. Thirty states have adopted protections for public workers. Salt Lake City, the epicenter of conservative America, passed an anti-discrimination ordinance last year with the support of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The state workers who plow Virginia’s roads, investigate consumer fraud complaints and monitor rivers for pollution aren’t able to share in that progress. Since the 1970s, Virginia governors have issued executive orders barring discrimination in the state work force based on race, gender, disability or religion. Govs. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine extended those protections to gay employees. Gov. Bob McDonnell signed an executive order last week but did not include sexual orientation, saying that decision is up to the legislature.

After coming to work each day for eight years knowing that they were guaranteed equal treatment in hiring and promotion decisions, gay state workers are now left to wonder and worry about their careers.

We need a federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

That is all.

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As I see it, the real problem is that millions of people will be tuned in on Sunday not knowing that Tim Tebow is lending his credibility (such as it is) to Focus on the Family (FoF), a dangerous, homophobic organization built on a doctrine of prejudice and fear.

Here is a short, incomplete list of positions that Tim Tebow supports through his association with FoF and by extension FoF’s sister organization Family Research Council (FRC). (FoF and FRC were split in 1992 solely for tax reasons.)

• In February 2009, FoF official affiliate Family Policy Council of West Virginia ran a commercial that said that same sex marriage was “attacking” marriage while showing a heterosexual family in crosshairs.
• In March 2009, FRC President Tony Perkins said that the United States should sign an anti-gay rights statement offered in the United Nations, thereby joining with GWB’s “Axis of Evil”.
• In May 2009, FoF founder James Dobson claimed that the Matthew Shepard Act (now Law) protects pedophiles because the law doesn’t define “sexual orientation”. Of course, current law already defines the term, so there was no need for a new definition. This was explained in committee before an amendment ordering definition was rejected as unnecessary.
• In July 2009, FoF celebrated the “findings” in a “study” by NARTH that said that Ex-Gay treatments are “beneficial”, a statement that every credible source rejects outright.
• In September 2009, FoF organized a rally in support of Maine’s anti-gay civil rights campaign. They were so frightened of having their words on the record, they barred the press from the event.
• Not only that, they refused tickets to people who didn’t fall in lock-step with their agenda.
• In February 2010, five days before the Tebow commercial was set to air, FRC Senior Vice President for Policy and Government Affairs Peter Sprigg told Chris Matthews’ audience that gays should be thrown in jail. Two years earlier, Sprigg told a reporter that he wanted gays “exported”.
• In February 2010, three days before the Tebow commercial was set to air, FRC Senior Vice President for Policy and Government Affairs Peter Sprigg unambiguously advocated kidnapping if a non-custodial parent doesn’t like the judge’s order.

These positions and more (I’ve barely scratched the surface) are supported by Heisman Trophy-winning Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow through his association with FoF. And don’t give me any guff on the harshness; we’d say the same thing if he did a commercial for any other supremacist group.

Hopefully next time Tebow’s on the field he’ll put Matthew 23:23-28 under his eyes. He (and they) could use the reminder.

P.S. Another reason I’m in favor of CBS running the commercial: That’s $2.8 million they won’t have to spread more vitriol against the LGBT community.

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And so to the question: What can we gain from this experience? I think we can use this failure (theirs, not ours) as an opportunity to reconsider our strategy.

We need to remember that we never chose this war. Remember, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) came about 14 years ago because the Hawaii Supreme Court ordered that the state must show compelling reasons to exclude lesbians and gays from marriage. Anti-gay forces recognized the repercussions if that battle didn’t go their way, so they got DOMA passed to preempt a potential loss.

Then they got busy on individual states. In every single case (someone correct me if I’m wrong), the Religious Right pushed us into a marriage battle, most notably in 2004 under the direction of twice-divorced Karl Rove. Now Maggie Gallagher uses lies to continue their assault on civil rights.

Understand, even if civil rights were to win at the ballot box, you can bet they would be ready to drop another load of lies that we would waste another couple million dollars defending against, and then we’d lose. Again, that’s not because we’re doing something wrong, but because bigotry and fear are easy sells, especially when the opponent has no relationship with the truth.

My point is that we’ve been on the defense from the start. That’s a losing plan. After 31 popular votes and I-don’t-know-how-many state legislature votes, it’s time to start playing offense.

And that’s not the only reason.

The biggest problem is that when the votes from the legislature or the people are counted up we’ve still encouraged either the legislature or the people to vote on someone’s rights, regardless of who wins. That’s not just unethical, it’s downright Unamerican.

You know what I’d really like to see? The next time the question goes to the public, we make one ad, not telling people to vote for us, but telling them not to vote on the issue at all. We should acknowledge up front that we anticipate a loss but have made that sacrifice in favor of the greater constitutional principle. Then we take the millions we would have spent on a losing campaign and give it to the homeless or some other worthy cause.

In other words, stop playing the game. Opt out.

I think we win something if we opt out of their battle and lose. We’re 0-31 in the popular vote, and the last one in Maine was lost by a nearly perfectly run campaign. We will continue to lose that battle regardless of what we do, so why not turn that energy toward a different battle, one of our choosing?

We should pour some money and effort into finding the best attorneys to fight the best court cases, like the upcoming challenge to Prop 8 (more on that later) and the case being brought by Lambda Legal and Garden State Equality against yesterday’s decision in the New Jersey Senate.

In the end, that’s where we’ll win.

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• WIN! The trans-inclusive anti-discrimination ordinance in Kalamazoo, Michigan passed by a landslide 24 point margin. An exceptional cap to the campaign that saw our opposition predictably return to public bathroom fear-mongering. Kudos to Kalamazoo for seeing past the nonsense! (photo from mlive.com)
• WIN! According to Chuck Wolfe, 50 of the 79 openly gay political candidates endorsed by the Victory Fund in 2009 have been elected. That’s 50 City Councilmembers, School Board members, Commissioners, and Mayors elected across America, in most cases with their gender preference used as a weapon.
• WIN! (Well, probably.) Washington’s Referendum 71, which approves the Everything-But-Marriage Law passed in May. There are still a few hundred thousand absentee ballots to be counted, a process that may not be completed for several days. The current (Wednesday 3:00 pm PST) count is 51%-49% for passage. We have reason to be hopeful, as election officials have revealed that the majority of uncounted votes are from counties that generally supported the referendum. So tentatively, congratulations to Washington for letting lesbians and gay men get everything except get married.
• LOSS! A major losses for the feminist and LGBT communities in the Virginia gubernatorial election. Liberty University graduate Bob McDonnell handily defeated his opponent, even after his amazingly anti-woman and anti-gay master’s thesis was uncovered. In 1989 he wrote that, “…when the exercise of liberty takes the shape of pornography, drug abuse, or homosexuality, the government must restrain, punish, and deter.” As others (even FOX, for goodness’ sake) have pointed out, McDonnell’s thesis is a blueprint for his record so far as an elected official. LGBT people (and women) in Virginia, be on your guard!
• LOSS! In the greatest loss of the night, Maine voters stripped their lesbian and gay neighbors of their marriage rights. With 98% of votes counted, Maine’s Question One passed by 53% – 47%. Once again the majority has decided that the minority group doesn’t deserve the same rights they enjoy. The Yes on One campaign, funded and directed largely by the Catholic Church (probably with help from the Mormons), ran a campaign centered almost completely around lies, fear-mongering, and more lies. Their television ads focused almost exclusively on statements that state officials and legal experts directly disputed. More details (and photo at right) from Rex Wockner.

We had some good results, but when you ask people if lesbian and gay relationships should be treated like theirs, the answer is still a resounding NO. Even when the Washington legislature passed a law that complied with bigoted requirements, we can barely eek out a majority vote.

And you know what? I’m tired of it. I’m tired of getting excited when a state legislature takes an unconstitutional vote that works out in our favor, and I’m tired of being disappointed when the populace takes an unconstitutional vote that reinforces systemic bigotry. I’m tired of acting like this incremental approach is reasonable anymore.

So I quit. No longer will I work for piece-meal measures and popular votes. It’s wrong, it’s unnecessary, and it allows our enemy to choose the battlefield.

I don’t completely deride incrementalism, by the way. It was a good and necessary part of the national strategy from 1996 through 2006 when we had a hostile president (first Clinton, then GWB) and a hostile congress. Our community kept hope alive for a decade with work on more local levels until we could get theoretically sympathetic majorities.

But now we have those majorities in congress, and we have a theoretically fierce advocate in the White House. The time for the confusing patchwork of laws that change every time we cross the county line is over.

It’s quite possible that a marriage law will be passed by year’s end in Washington, DC, and there’s talk of that possibility in of that happening through special sessions in New York and New Jersey, but you won’t find news of them here. If the fag hag and her closet case from NOM want to go at it on a national level, then fine. Otherwise, I’m not interested.

Either we’re fully equal or we’re not. Either the 14th amendment protects us or it doesn’t. I say we are, and I say it does.

What say you?

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My time before the March seemed to split between Christianity and DADT. Here is some of what I did last weekend. (I know some of these events were filmed; I’ll be linking later if I find the video online.)

First, regarding religion:

• Talked Methodism with Joey Heath, who challenged his minister’s right to deny membership in the United Methodist Church (UMC) because of homosexuality. He’s much more optimistic than I am on the future of the UMC. He’s also much more adorable.
• Received communion from Rev. Dr. Karen Oliveto, co-pastor at Glide Memorial UMC in San Fransisco, at a UMC worship service held at Capitol Hill UMC on Saturday night.
• Got to ask a question of Rev. Irene Monroe, one of the most important theologians of our time, at a panel about Faith and the LGBT Community at MCC DC on Friday night.
• Shook the hand of Rev. Troy Perry after he gave the invocation Sunday afternoon (video below). Rev. Perry helped found the Metropolitan Community Churches 41 years ago this month.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWyUTranbD0[/youtube]

And concerning DADT:

• Shook the hand of Cpt. Alex Nicholson, who was fired from the US Army six months after 9/11 and later founded Servicemembers United.
• Stood a few feet from Frank Kameny (fought to overturn the gay hiring ban after being fired from the Civil Service Commission in 1957), David Mixner (the man behind the March), Lt. Tracy Thorne-Begland (came out on Nightline in 1992 and was subsequently fired from the Navy under both the original ban and under DADT), and many other LGBT heroes at a memorial service for Air Force Sgt. Leonard Matlovich.
• Met Lt. Dan Choi, who recognized me from the facebook when I shook his hand, which is simultaneously insane and intoxicating. Oh, it made me all gooey inside. (His better half is fantastic, too.)

Whew. What a weekend. I’m a little overwhelmed.

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Here’s what I’m planning so far:

1. Faith and the LGBT Community
   Can You Be a Person of Faith and Still Be Who You Are?
   Friday: 7:00pm-8:30pm
2. DADT Protest & Memorial Service Honoring Leonard Matlovich
   Speakers Span Four Decades of Fighting the Ban on Gays in the Military
   Saturday: 2:00pm
3. Old Divisions, New Coalitions: Race and the LGBT Movement
   With Irene Munroe and Derek Washington
   Saturday: 3:00pm-4:30pm
4. United Methodists Welcome National Equality Marchers
   Prayer and Thanksgiving!
   Saturday: 7:00pm-9:00pm
5. National Equality March
   March for Equality!
   Sunday: 12:00pm
6. National Equality March Rally
   The March culminates in a rally at the Capitol Building
   Sunday: 2:00pm-5:00pm

I may have to cut number three for time. Hope not, but unless the two events are really close to each other, I don’t know how I’ll make both.

What you’ll see here during the weekend will be shorter posts with pictures and video through flickr and possibly audio through trottr. I’ve never used the latter, and I’m not sure I can get it to auto-post. I’m going to be traveling with no computer but my mobile, so I’ll be limited to what I can transmit through MMS. In addition, I might decide to write a longer post when I get back to the hotel, depending on whether they have a communal computer I can use.

All of this will be seen here on Asterisk, and on iQreport, a new aggregation site. As always, you can follow me on Twitter to catch a few non-post-worthy observations.

I hope to see you there! I’ll be the fat guy breathing heavy from all the walking.

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But that’s all taken care of now, as the Committee has made available an archival video of the hearings. Click here to view the full three hours. (Opens in Windows Media Player, at least for me.) Alternatively, you can check out the Department’s youtube channel for shorter snippets of testimony and flickr account (yes, really) for pictures from the hearing.

Witnesses in yesterday's hearing, via flickr

Witnesses before the committee were:

• U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
• U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), last mentioned on this blog last month
• Hon. Stuart J. Ishimaru: Acting Chairman, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• William Eskridge: John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence Yale Law School
• Vandy Beth Glenn: Trans victim of legal discrimination
• Camille Olson: Partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP
• Craig Parshall: Sr. VP, National Religious Broadcasters Association (who has the funniest glasses in the history of mankind)
• Rabbi David Saperstein: Director The Religious Action Center
• Brad Sears: Executive Director Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law

Thanks to Committee Chair George Miller (D-CA) for making these impressive and forward-thinking resources available.

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