The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen’s accusation, and they shook their fists at him in rage. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand. And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!”

Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen.

[...] So Ananias went and found Saul. He laid his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, has sent me so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Instantly something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he got up and was baptized. Afterward he ate some food and regained his strength.

Saul [also called Paul] stayed with the believers in Damascus for a few days. And immediately he began preaching about Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is indeed the Son of God!”

All who heard him were amazed. “Isn’t this the same man who caused such devastation among Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem?” they asked. “And didn’t he come here to arrest them and take them in chains to the leading priests?”

Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic

Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.

GWB's 2004 Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman

Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter’s questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.

Mehlman’s leadership positions in the GOP came at a time when the party was stepping up its anti-gay activities — such as the distribution in West Virginia in 2006 of literature linking homosexuality to atheism, or the less-than-subtle, coded language in the party’s platform (“Attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country…”). Mehlman said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans.

Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.

“It’s a legitimate question and one I understand,” Mehlman said. “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.” He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: “If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding.”

Mehlman is the most powerful Republican in history to identify as gay.

Sometimes our worst enemies become our greatest advocates.

Keep that in mind as you debate whether we should accept Mehlman’s help, or the help of other high-profile anti-gays who come out of the closet in the coming years.

(P.S. Mike Rogers still has a 100% perfect record. When he says someone is gay, they’re gay.)

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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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Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach

From the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network:

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) and Morrison & Foerster LLP (MoFo) filed a request for a temporary restraining order on behalf of their client, Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, seeking to block the Air Force from discharging him under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the discriminatory law barring gay and lesbian service members from serving openly and honestly. The filing in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho, seeks a court order preventing the Air Force from discharging Lt. Col. Fehrenbach, arguing that the government cannot establish that his continued service on active duty hinders “morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.”

The General Counsel’s Office to the Secretary of the Air Force confirmed to MoFo and SLDN that the Air Force Personnel Board recently reviewed Lt. Col. Fehrenbach’s case and has sent a recommendation to Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley’s designee. According to Air Force regulations, had the Board recommended to retain Lt. Col. Fehrenbach no further action would have been required by the Secretary or his designee (AFI 36-3206 Chapter 6.10 and Chapter 6.10.1). Although SLDN and MoFo understand the Secretary has delegated his authority to act on the Board’s recommendation, Secretary Donley has the power to step in and retain Lt. Col. Fehrenbach. Without action by the Secretary, the Board’s recommendation is expected to stand and Lt. Col. Fehrenbach could be discharged within days.

A request for a temporary restraining order asks the court to prevent irreparable injury to the plaintiff and preserve the status quo until a more complete hearing can be held on the merits of the case. If the court grants the request, the Air Force will be prevented from discharging Lt. Col. Fehrenbach until a full hearing can be scheduled. The Fehrenbach case is among the first to challenge a discharge under DADT by applying the so-called Witt standard. In the case of Air Force Maj. Margaret Witt, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit – which governs the District of Idaho – held that discharging a service member violates the Constitution unless: (1) the government advances “an important governmental interest;” (2) the government shows the intrusion “upon the personal and private li[fe]” of a service member “significantly furthers that interest;” and (3) the government shows the intrusion is “necessary to further that interest.”

Fehrenbach is a many-times decorated 19-year veteran of the US Air Force, and on a personal note, a native of Dayton, Ohio, just a few miles from where I live. Fehrenbach has received nine commendations for 88 missions over the last two decades, including being hand picked to guard the skies over Washington, DC on September 11, 2001.

A statement tonight from Lt. Col. Fehrenbach:

“I have been waiting more than two years for the Air Force to do the right thing by letting me continue to proudly serve my country. To say that I’m disappointed with where things stand would be a monumental understatement — I am crushed. I have given my entire adult life to the Air Force that I love. I have deployed six times and risked my life for my country. In the two years that I’ve been sitting at my desk rather than inside my jet, I’ve offered to deploy numerous times. I’m ready, willing, and able to deploy tomorrow, but I’m barred from deployment, because of this unjust, discriminatory law. Meanwhile, moms and dads, sons and daughters, and my friends go back for the third, fourth, fifth deployments. While our country is engaged in two wars, my service is needed now more than ever.”

I don’t know if it should, but maybe money will give people a reason to give a damn. It is now less than a year before Lt. Col. Fehrenbach’s 20 year retirement. If discharged under DADT, he will lose $46,000 every year for the rest of his life. If he gets a less-than-honorable discharge, which by custom he will because he’s fought his discharge, he will lose an additional $80,000 in separation pay.

Lt. Col. Fehrenbach appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show tonight. Video of that interview, as well as the rest of the night’s DADT show, is embedded below.

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The ruling contains 80 findings of fact and a conclusion of law which finds that Prop 8 violates both the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.

Like most people on both sides of the issue, I expected Judge Vaughn Walker to rule in our favor. There was, after all, a veritable mountain of evidence from the plaintiffs and a striking lack of credible evidence from the defendants. He surprised me, though, by ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional because of due process and equal protection. I expected one or the other, but never both. (Truth be told, I audibly gasped when I saw that.)

Rachel Maddow spent three segments on Thursday night discussing Judge Walker’s decision, and one the following night marveling at the decided lack of reaction from the Religious Right. I’ve embedded all four below.

David Boies, one of the attorneys leading the case against Prop 8, spoke at the Commonwealth Club in San Fransisco Thursday night. In this clip he discusses the history of state-sanctioned, codified anti-gay discrimination and the outlook of this case.

Then there were the Sunday talk shows. David Boies faced off against Family Research Council‘s Tony Perkins on Face the Nation. (You may recall last year when Mr. Perkins wanted the US to side with GWB’s “Axis of Evil” against gays.) Boies took Tony to the woodshed on this one by doing what most TV pundits are trained not to do: He called Tony a liar and then proved it.

Meanwhile, former Solicitor General Ted Olson, the other lead attorney on the case, had a must-see interview on FOX with Chris Wallace. Olson bluntly challenged Chris on his rhetoric and righted the discussion to the true issue at hand.

(Side note: Kudos to MSNBC on their video embedding. CBS and FOX are leagues behind them with the absolute worst embedding capabilities I’ve seen.)

Finally, Jon Stewart talked about the media reaction to Judge Walker’s ruling on the best newscast around, The Daily Show.

So yeah. It was an important week. We have a long way to go, and it’ll extend at least into 2011, but this will go down as a historic decision for the cause of civil rights.

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The attention to detail on those nooses is almost impressive.

(Photo by Alice Hoenigman for Bilerico.)

And remember the interview Arisha Hatch of Courage Campaign‘s NOMTour Tracker got with Larry Adams, the man who made that sign?

You know what I wonder?

I wonder why those three people, including at least one NOM staffer (popped collar guy), who interrupted the interview to tell Larry not to talk to Arisha didn’t just look her in the eye and tell her that Larry’s pro-genocide stance is wrong.

Doesn’t that seem weird to you?

I’m left with the logical conclusion that they didn’t have a problem with what he was saying; they just didn’t want him to say it on camera. They know that having that kind of hate on film reveals NOM’s true goal more honestly than most people would find acceptable.

(In the days since the Indianapolis rally, NOM accounts of the day have carefully steered clear of Larry Adams and his sign, even as outside groups have called for NOM to repudiate the message of genocide.)

By the way, my case is only strengthened when you consider NOM’s reaction to calls for genocide on their facebook page last month. When confronted with people openly advocating the mass murder of gays, they just said “bite your tongue” instead of telling the offending supporters to take a hike.

Make no mistake, Larry’s sign tells what NOM is all about: Making gay people disappear from society, even if it means killing us. The proof is starting to mount up. The only question is how long it’ll take for people to understand that.

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Lt. Choi appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show last night to talk about his firing.

I’m not going to lie; I cried at the end of the interview as these two heroes of the LGBT community paid respect to each other. I know some in the community are frustrated with Rachel’s less aggressive stance, but as Dan said, she has been on this story for a long time, always willing to bring the unvarnished truth about DADT to millions of homes. Rachel Maddow has talked more about the absurdity of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the last 18 months than all the rest of cable news combined.

Here’s the important line from the letter that Lt. Choi got on Thursday. This is the unmitigated bigotry that the US government pretends is a respectful end to a soldier’s career after serving his country for over a decade.

Based on the approved board findings that 1LT Choi did publicly admit…that he is a homosexual…I direct 1LT Choi be discharge (sic) from the New York Army National Guard with an Honorable characterization of service.

PATRICK A. MURPHY
Brigadier General, NYARNG
The Adjutant General

But as Lt. Choi said, this is not the end. His voice will continue to be heard as he holds Congress’ and President Obama’s feet to the fire, telling them in no uncertain terms that their job is to do the right thing.

Whatever you do, don't hide.

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But at the last minute, the federal government dropped the case. GetEqual, the group that staged the protest, released a statement later in the day (excerpted):

Apparently, Prosecutor Christine Chang was unaware of the government’s decision as she stated, “I was ready,” and wasn’t able to explain the last-minute decision not to prosecute.

“Today, truth was the victor against a demeaning, discriminatory law known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” said Lt. Dan Choi. “We won’t stop pressing for repeal and pressuring those standing in the way until the day comes when not one more gay or lesbian servicemember is fired. And, as of today, the President refuses to tell us when that day will actually come.”

“It is clear that the government was embarrassed and we were prepared to make them defend this antiquated and homophobic law. The government is afraid of having to defend this issue,” said Cpt. James Pietrangelo II. “The subpoena was an embarrassment for them, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is an embarrassment for them and, after three months of discovery and preparation, the government dropped the case because they know it’s an embarrassment.”

“Civil disobedience won today,” said Robin McGehee, co-founder and co-director of GetEQUAL. “We’re thrilled today that Dan and Jim’s actions have been validated and that non-violent civil disobedience has been proven again to be effective in combating prejudice. We are proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Dan, Jim and other LGBT active-duty servicemembers who are taking action to end this discriminatory policy.”

Choi and Pietrangelo with their attorneys

So what happened? President Obama has had plenty of embarrassments with LGBT issues lately, and perhaps someone decided this was one too many.

My guess is that the Administration is finally beginning to understand that the strategy of putting off civil rights issues until 2013 has backfired and that Democrats entering midterm elections have a huge credibility problem with the LGBT community.

Remember, DADT is still the law and prosecutions are actively being pursued. Lesbian and gay firings are still happening at a rate of around two firings a day.

Something tells me Choi and Pietrangelo (and the good folks at GetEqual) will keep on making a ruckus until we’re all allowed to serve without fear.

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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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Brittney Hansen: We need this injustice to stop but the only way to do so is to put ALL gay people on an island with a weekly drop of food and supplies and let them all die off. We dont have to deal with them and they dont have to deal with us.

On Monday, Good As You’s Jeremy Hooper published a killer post concurring with me that Louis Marinelli III can reasonably be identified as an agent of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). To use Marinelli’s term, he is a “NOM Strategist,” and his rhetoric is wildly off-message for NOM.

Now that someone with a higher profile than mine has called Marinelli and NOM out on the connection, Marinelli’s been trying to hide what he’s been saying for the last few months since NOM aligned themselves with him. A few hours after the post went up, most of the group’s youtube videos, including the ones I embedded here in early May, joined the group’s twitter account on the scrap heap.

What was Marinelli trying to hide? I’ll let Jeremy tell you:

So once we had that confirmation that Mr. Marinelli is, in fact, in NOM’s inner circle, we started considering all of the eye-opening things that he had seen Marinelli tweet over the past few months. And frankly, we were shocked. Because in addition to the “gays have shorter life spans” one, there was a retweet that declared all gays to be single. There was the time that Mr. Marinelli said that Peter LaBarbera and his fringe “Americans For Truth” group merely “tell the truth about homosexuality.” There was the determination that marriage equality is “a mockery and a hijacking of the civil rights movement.” There were times when he flat-out called us an abomination, citing Leviticus. There was this one: “Deviance” describes actions or behaviours that violate cultural norms – homosexuality is far from a cultural norm. Therefore, it is deviant.” And this: “Homosexuality and gay marriage are wrong and harmful to society.” And this: “#iaintafraidtosay that there shouldn’t be any recognition of homosexual relationships because that is saying that homosexuality is OK.” There was this one, accompanied by a smile: “What they do is blantantly [sic] immoral. :)” There were times when Mr. Marinelli compared our unions to that which might exist between a sterile brother and sister. And other times when our very character was assaulted: “#nevertrust activists of the homosexual agenda – they are deceitful people who care only about themselves and not what’s best for society.” And so on and so on.

After Marinelli tried to erase evidence of that paragraph and more, he took to his group’s facebook page and made this request (link to the thread and a screencap from about 2:00 AM EST):

Protect Marriage: One Man, One Woman: No hate speech, no derogatory comments against homosexuals. Show your support for one man, one woman marriage. That’s what this page is about. If you’ve got something negative to say, bite your tongue. Just play nice, please.

A good suggestion, even if Marinelli was just trying to save face because people were connecting him with NOM. But as I showed you at the top of the post, it’s nigh impossible to rein people in after you’ve spent so much time and effort teaching them how to, you know, go nuts with hate speech and derogatory comments.

By the way, Marinelli’s been actively involved on the NOM facebook page since this message was posted, and that usually includes deleting posts that he considers off-message. And yet we have Brittney Hansen showing the world what she’s learned from NOM Strategist Louis Marinelli III.

Brittney Hansen: We need this injustice to stop but the only way to do so is to put ALL gay people on an island with a weekly drop of food and supplies and let them all die off. We dont have to deal with them and they dont have to deal with us.

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Last post, I talked about the Malawi couple that had been jailed, convicted, and then pardoned by their government. Tiwonge Chimbalanga (known as ‘Aunt Tiwo’) had gone missing and there wasn’t much word on her husband, Steven Monjeza.

Since then (several weeks ago, actually), a story surfaced that answered some of the questions.

The good news is that Aunt Tiwo turned up and nothing was said about her disappearance. Either the source I cited had bad information or (more likely) she had just gone underground for a few days to process this ordeal.

Meanwhile, Steven has succumbed to the intense pressure from his government, family, friends, and culture. He has rather suddenly announced that he is scheduled to marry a woman. Whether money is involved in this arrangement is anybody’s guess. Regardless, Steven is doing his best ex-gay impression to regain his place in society.

Oh, and he says that this whole gay thing is false. He was kidnapped by some sneaky homosexuals who got him liquored up and made him do sex in orgies and whatnot, but he’s not gay. I want to be mad at Steven, but I can’t help but understand his decision, offensive as it is. The pressure to conform was intense, and he’s just trying to survive.

Aunt Tiwo only found out about the upcoming sham marriage through the press, by the way. She seems to be taking it in stride, at least publicly.

Is this the end of Aunt Tiwo and Steven’s story? I can’t help but feel that another shoe is waiting to drop, and I’m hoping it’s not a deadly one. Looking past the couple and their relationship, it’ll be interesting and perhaps a bit scary to discover the effect of this ordeal on the LGBT community in Malawi.

One thing’s for sure: It’s getting harder and harder, even on an international scale, to put people back in the closet. Even when they do retreat, is anyone even fooled by their slap-dash gunpoint retractions?

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