The Bilerico Project

Prop 8 anniversary in LA draws 150 and a Police Commissioner

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:30:00 -0500

Openly gay Los Angeles Police Commission Rob Saltzman was among about 150 people of all ages who rallied at the Metro station at Santa Monica Boulevard and Vermont Ave Wednesday night marking the one year anniversary of the passage of Prop 8. Several also carried signs criticizing Maine for banning their marriage equality law from going into effect.

Here are some photos from the rally and march up Vermont Ave:

Continue reading "Prop 8 anniversary in LA draws 150 and a Police Commissioner"...

URGENT! Gays Could Lose Domestic Partnerships in Washington State Nov 3

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0500

While the eyes of the LGBT nation are now focused on President Obama signing the federal hate crimes bill and on beating back the Religious Right Prop 8 sequel in Maine - same sex couples in Washington state are sweating bullets that in just over a week they might lose the simplest of family relationship protections - Domestic Partnerships.

Continue reading "URGENT! Gays Could Lose Domestic Partnerships in Washington State Nov 3"...

The APLA AIDS Walk, the Age of Aquarius, and people like me

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:30:00 -0500

Most of us take historic events in stride, rarely pausing to notice that once something momentous happened that day.

Religious holidays, on the other hand, demand that attention be paid - if only in buying of gifts or breaking of bread.

But for people like me, LGBT and of a certain age, certain events are both historic and spiritual, if not religious - events such as Sunday's APLA AIDS Walk.

Is Obama a sissy?

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0500

When President Obama walked out onto the HRC stage tonight - I watched on C-SPAN - he received a thunderous reception and then hugged Joe Solomonese, I thought, "Well, there's a picture we're going to see forever."

Yes, it's great to have the President of the United States and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize speak to HRC - and presumably, through CSPAN and CNN - to anyone else in the country who might care about him speaking to us - mostly, I fear, the Religious Right professionals. And, yes, as the repeated standing ovations tonight indicated - we love this country and we want this president to succeed.

But Barack Obama has been under considerable fire from the LGBT community for the inertia with which his Administration has moved on LGBT rights and he needed to bring it tonight.

He didn't.

He gave Joe a hug and he delivered some great campaign speech-like lines - the best of which was "It is a priviledge to be here tonight to open for Lady Gaga....I've made it."

I laughed. Everyone laughed. It was a promise of a great speech of truth and compassion and movement on our rights.

But, like so much so far, it was a promise unfulfilled.

Continue reading "Is Obama a sissy?"...

Dallas Voice's John Wright on the big marriage news out of Texas

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By now, you've probably heard about the big news coming out of Texas. A state district court judge considering whether a gay couple married in Massachusetts could get a divorce in Texas, which has a constitutional state ban against same sex marriage, ruled that the state ban is unconstitutional.

Here's the top of
Dallas Voice news editor John Wright's article published late Thursday night:

Continue reading "Dallas Voice's John Wright on the big marriage news out of Texas "...

Los Angeles Group Files Ballot to Repeal Prop 8

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:30:00 -0500

A coalition of grassroots groups seeking to repeal Prop 8 in California next year filed an initiative with the state Attorney General Thursday morning. However, there is still no consensus on strategy or ballot language.

The proposed initiative submitted by Love Honor Cherish opens with strong language that protects "religious freedom" - exempting religious officials or institutions from have to perform same sex marriages.

The initiative then strikes the current definition of marriage as between a man and a woman and substitutes - "Marriage is between only two persons and shall not be restricted on the basis of race, color, creed, ancestry, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or religion."

Love Honor Cherish (LHC) co-founder John Henning said that the group conferred with attorneys and pollsters "within and outside the LGBT movement" on the language - some of whom do not favor the 2010 strategy - before the initiative was submitted.

Executive director Geoff Kors confirmed that they helped with the language.

Continue reading "Los Angeles Group Files Ballot to Repeal Prop 8 "...

The Religious Right is Swiftboating Same Sex Marriage in Maine

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:00:00 -0500

"God has no grandchildren," the evangelical ex-Marine father of my late friend Chip Howe said, explaining how he surrendered judgment and came to accept Chip's homosexuality. Chip, a Lieutenant in the Navy during the Vietnam War, was supposed to get married and provide his parents with grandchildren. Chip's father thought being gay meant that would never happen.

That was in 1990, before there was any real hope for marriage rights for same sex couples. Though Chip had known love before he died, he never got to experience the fruition of his constitutional right to pursue happiness - marriage and a family of his own.

The story is instructive because Religious Right professionals have succeeded in making it appear as if all people of faith are antigay and anti-marriage equality. Worse yet, they are using religion as an excuse to perpetrate lies and deception - to swiftboat same sex couples in the name of God, when in fact they are just advancing another end-justifies-the-means political scheme.

Continue reading "The Religious Right is Swiftboating Same Sex Marriage in Maine"...

Homosexuality as a Weapon of Torture

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:00:00 -0500

Update:Both CNN and ABC News reported Friday morning that 8 ArmorGroup contact guards identified in the pictures by a US State Department investigator have been fired. Two others have resigned; other guards are still under investigation. We await word to see if the investigator or the State Department addresses the issues raised below. - KO

When I first saw the explicit photos on Gawker of the "sexually confused frat boys" who are under contract with the US State Department to guard the US Embassy in Afghanistan, my brain just could not stop screaming about the total hypocrisy of military and paramilitary life.

These hyper-macho straight contactors, many former military personnel, according to the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight (POGO), get to party down in drunken exhibitions, pretending to have anal sex, doing "butt shots," and "eating potato chips out of ass cracks" to blow off steam in the high-pressured environment of fighting a war. But if a gay military guy in Afghanistan - or any other situation - even mentions his sexual orientation, he's kicked out of his job and ex-communicated from the religion that worships all things male.

Surely the gay community would rise up and point to these sexual party pictures as evidence that the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is inherently unfair. Nope. In fact, many of the gay guys with whom I shared emails shrugged and said these naked sexual frat boy hazing "animal house" activities go on all the time. No big deal.

Continue reading "Homosexuality as a Weapon of Torture "...

Ted Kennedy's Life is a Parable

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:00:00 -0500

It was mid-December 2007 when longtime politico Steve Smith beseeched me to go hear fledgling presidential candidate Barack Obama speak at the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal City. He's the real deal, Steve insisted.

To Baby Boomers like us, saying someone was the "real deal" meant something. And indeed, not since 1968 and the excitement generated by presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy had I felt the aspirations of youth embraced so authentically as they were that night by the thin African American embodiment of change American needed.

And it meant even more about six weeks later when "liberal lion" Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama over Hillary Clinton, passing the mantle of the Hyannis Port Kennedy legacy to the son of an integrated marriage when such a union was widely scorned and outlawed in some states. It was as if Kennedy was anointing Obama with the joyful burden of fulfilling the promise of Camelot - a promise of an age of peace, prosperity and humble nobility as it was romanticized in the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and the presidency of his brother John F. Kennedy.

Ironically, the life of Ted Kennedy, who passed away from brain cancer late Tuesday night, may also serve as just a potent a parable for America as JFK's Camelot.

Continue reading "Ted Kennedy's Life is a Parable "...

Steve Hildebrand's Mission to Sell 2010

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:30:00 -0500

Steve Hildebrand, who gained fame as Barack Obama's deputy campaign manager, is stopping in as many LGBT spots as possible to advocate going back to the ballot in 2010.

Sarah Reece, the expert field organizer for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, asked him directly at the planning meeting at Jewel's One Disco Sunday if he was campaigning for the job of campaign manager for the repeal Prop 8 campaign. He said 'No way" - but added a few caveats so I asked him again.

Continue reading "Steve Hildebrand's Mission to Sell 2010"...

Will the Repeal Prop 8 Campaign Look Like No on 8 After All?

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:00:00 -0500

It was a breathtaking moment. Courage Campaign founder Rick Jacobs introduced Steve Hildebrand, the deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and the cavernous dance hall at Jewel's Catch One Disco filled with about 150 marriage activists fell still and listened.

(Hildebrand and Jacobs)

No LGBT post-Prop 8 meeting or rally has been as respectful as the Next Steps Working Meeting. It was organized by the Coalition for Repeal of Prop 8 (formerly the Coalition of the Willing) to get down to planning for the initiative campaign. It helped tremendously that the goal of the meeting was to discuss ballot language and assess what individuals and organizations could do to contribute, rather than engage in yet another heated debate about whether the initiative should be placed on the ballot in 2010 or 2012.

Continue reading "Will the Repeal Prop 8 Campaign Look Like No on 8 After All?"...

John Duran's Moving Summation of a Generation

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:00:00 -0500

At first glance, someone 49 years old seems too young to be receiving a "Lifetime Achievement Award." But openly gay and HIV positive West Hollywood City Councilmember John J. Duran has been fighting for civil rights since he was 18.

On Aug. 1, Equality California presented Duran with its Lifetime Achievement Award at a gala at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza. There was an introductory video that included comments from such longtime friends as David Mixner and Diane Abbitt and highlights from his long career as a civil rights attorney. He successfully sued the county of Los Angeles in the 1980s to get access to medications for HIV prisoners, for instance, and he represented ACT UP in criminal court. And he co-chaired California's first LGBT and HIV/AIDS statewide lobbying group - LIFE Lobby - out of which grew Equality California, which he has also helped lead as co-chair.

I first met John Duran in 1988/89 when I was reporting for Frontiers on a lawsuit filed by congressional candidate Brad Sherman challenging the tax-exempt status of Rev. Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition. I was new to LGBT reporting and asked Duran for help in understanding the antigay Religious Right fervor of the late 1980s.

Continue reading "John Duran's Moving Summation of a Generation "...

The Tel Aviv Shootings Hit Home

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 16:00:00 -0500

Update: Approximately 25,000 people protested the shootings in Tel Aviv on Saturday, according to Yetnews.com. President Shimon Peres said "The gunshots that hit the gay community earlier this week hit us all."

My best friend in third grade in Hempstead, Long Island in the late 1950s was Esther Rudnick. I was a good little Sunday school Christian with smart parents who approved of my going to Hebrew School with Esther after regular school and to her house for special holidays like Passover. Esther's parents were pleased, too, to help educate a young person in the ways of their faith. Even if I didn't quite understand the language, the bond of friendship built a bridge between cultures.

Though we were only seven years old and didn't know it, Esther and I were already nurturing the seeds of social justice activism inherent in our respective faiths.

I couldn't help but think of this when I covered the memorial service for 26-year-old Nir Katz and 17-year-old Liz Trubesh, killed last Saturday night in a sudden horrific explosion of bullets when a masked gunman burst into an LGBT youth center in Tel Aviv. The Esther I knew could well have been the murdered straight ally Liz Trubesh, there to learn more about my LGBT people, just as I had learned something about being Jewish.

Continue reading "The Tel Aviv Shootings Hit Home "...

Judy Chu - An Ardent New Ally in Congress

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:00:00 -0500

On July 24, Dr. Judy Chu was sworn in as California's 32nd Congressional District's newest representative after winning a special election to fill the seat left vacant when former Democratic Rep. Hilda Solis became Secretary of Labor. Chu becomes the first Chinese-America woman in Congress. Last Saturday Chu was honored by Equality California with the Equality Advocate Award at a gala at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel.

Those are the barest of facts, belying Chu's stance as one of the most principled and unwavering fighters for LGBT equality and justice in California. She promises to bring that dedication to Congress.

Continue reading "Judy Chu - An Ardent New Ally in Congress "...

The Unnoticed Power Player at the Repeal Prop 8 Leadership Summit

karen@bilerico.com (Karen Ocamb) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:30:00 -0500

The California LGBT community is in the throes of a transformation, catalyzed by the movement for marriage equality. In addition to the important Ted Olson-David Boies challenge to Prop 8, new grassroots and institutional LGBT organizations are struggling with each other over when and how to return to the ballot box to repeal Prop 8 in a state that is issuing IOUs. Since I was apparently the only full time reporter covering the statewide LGBT Leadership Summit, I want to report back as fully as possible. My report is being published in three parts:

The demographics that challenge recent blog reports
Advice from political consultants and how that was received
An interview with a California Democratic Party big-wig who went largely unnoticed at the summit but who may play a significant role in the future

Someone who escaped much notice in the Repeal Prop 8 Leadership Summit room - but who could have a significant impact - was Eric Bauman, the openly gay vice-chair of the California Democratic Party. Equality California executive director Geoff Kors tried unsuccessfully to get the California Democratic Party engaged before Prop 8 qualified for the ballot, though the party did contribute to the Decline to Sign campaign. This time around, Bauman is not only engaged, he's married.

My interview with him is after the jump.

Continue reading "The Unnoticed Power Player at the Repeal Prop 8 Leadership Summit"...