Archive for the 'Equality' Category

NUS LGBT Conference Manifesto

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Patrick
1 month, 1 week ago
in Equality, Gay, Leeds and Politics
. 0 Comments

I am a fourth year Politics student, and I’ve just returned from the NUS Annual Conference. I’ve been involved behind the scenes in LUU LGBT events since my first year, helping plan events and considering strategy. This past term I ran for election to the Union Exec because I want to promote OUR issues and highlight that we are still not truly liberated.

We have too many friends who are silent about the discrimination we face daily, and we have too many friends for whom ‘gay’ is a term for ‘weird’. We must campaign for our rights and ensure that our visibility on campuses across the country is a force for improvement. We must continually compel Student Union Officers to represent STUDENT ISSUES BEFORE ALL ELSE, not political concerns thousands of miles away.

It is easy to be distracted by irrelevant agendas. We weaken our cause by directionless rants about issues not within our mandate. The NUS system takes some work to understand but can be made to work in our favour. I will aid our delegates in casting INFORMED votes and help them understand how to make the system support our positions.

* I strongly oppose and am continually offended by the ban on gay male blood donors.
* I prefer ‘marriage’ to ‘civil partnership’. How can it be acceptable that LGBT citizens are denied the same institutional unions as everybody else?
* FIGHT to encourage the acknowledgement of LGBT issues by the student body. We can and must be more ambitious than we are. When LGBT allies and non-activist friends show their support we CAN BE A FORCE OF STRENGTH AND PROGRESS.

VOTE Patrick for LGBT Conference!

HRC Poll shows gays/lesbians don’t think lack of trans protection should halt ENDA support.

Published
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Patrick
6 months ago
in Asides, Equality and Sex
. 0 Comments

Of those surveyed, 67.7% agreed with the statement about the recent Employment Non-Discrimination Act:

National gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights organizations should support this proposal because it helps gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers and is a step toward transgender employment rights.

(as opposed to, for example, opposing it because it doesn’t specifically protect transgender rights.)

On Towleroad these results produced much debate because the issue of trans rights is often, by some, viewed in partnership with that of gay rights. I say gay rights because I think gay rights should be and can be used as an umbrella term for gay male, lesbian and bisexuals. It’s a term for ‘alternative’ sexual orientations. Trans is an issue that is similar, but not the same:

I support individual freedoms short of cause pain, suffering, and damage to others. I support whole heartedly bisexuals and transgendered people - but I’m sick and tired of gay and lesbian issues being diluted, blurred, and marginalized because they’re intertwined with issues of gender identity and… whatever.

Youth Obsessed?

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Patrick
7 months ago
in Equality, Gay and Video
. 0 Comments

It’s funny how you read, so often, about the gay culture of youth. We’re, apparently, consumed with the concept of staying young forever with cremes and pills and gyms and every single type of tonic you could ever hope for. The image, I presume, comes from all those pumped up bodies you see in gay magazines. I bought one today, they’re there. There is a culture of youth. Some people clearly believe it. But it’s ironic for me to point to that link because it’s a gay guy saying how gays are youth obsessed.

I come to this topic through a rather roundabout route. Gayclic, a wonderful french gay-themed ‘news’ video blog linked to GLAAD’s media campaign titled ‘Be an Ally & a Friend‘. It was promoting the idea of being an ally to people coming out on National Coming Out Day (October 11th). Be supportive by being respectful. That’s all. On their website there are a couple other video links which I decided to check out, one of which led to David Mixner, an LGBT activist, speaking at the Empire State Pride Agenda 2007 annual dinner. It’s a New York gay-rights charity.

He recounts, tragically, how as a result of the AIDS epidemic sweeping through his community, killing all his friends, he gave 90 eulogies

“We thought that freedom was very close at hand… and then came AIDS… But you gotta remember what it was like. I lost 296 friends. I gave 90 eulogies in two years. And I lost the man that I loved most in my life, for 12 years. We were not treated by dentists, nurses wouldn’t touch us, homecare workers wouldn’t come to our homes, doctors wouldn’t treat us, insurance companies told us we had brought this upon ourselves.”

It makes me stop and think. Perhaps, yes, gay culture is youth-obsessed. But perhaps that’s really only because almost all of the older generation were killed off by AIDS. Those who are still alive, those who lived through 1982 and onwards as out gay men and women are the lucky ones. The fact that they survived is enormously lucky, and in the same breath perhaps terrifying in how many of their nearest friends and loved ones died around them. So we are like a culture culled of all its patrimoine. How can you ever have an awareness of heritage without any elders. What other society has ever so publicly lost so much of a generation? Wars kill men but often leave their wives and lovers back home. This destruction, the destruction of an gay AIDS pandemic took homes and ruined neighbourhoods just like a war. It’s a certain way to create a ghost town, to tell people that by behaving as they had been behaving will lead to almost certain death. Nobody’s going to go to that bar. It takes homes because, as David Mixner says, sufferers had to sell them for their health care treatments, because it was fundamentally their own fault. But then also, there are no lovers or wives left behind because those lovers were the victims buried in the last funeral you attended or the last hospital visit you went on.

But today, this is interesting because Mixner spoke at a dinner that made me think that perhaps as a culture we’re not so gratuitous in our obsession with youth. We know nothing better. It’s those in their early 40s now who might be the first not to know the AIDS epidemic. They are the bearer of a culture’s heritage because there is nobody else to do it.

Part one of his speech is above. Youtube has the rest.

Indiana teacher suspended, transferred for gay-tolerant school publication

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Patrick
1 year ago
in Asides, Equality, Gay and Politics
. 1 Comment

[Indiana teacher] Amy Sorrell was put on paid leave in March following the publication of a pro-gay tolerance essay by sophomore Megan Chase in the Woodlan Junior-Senior High School Tomahawk (which Sorrell supervises). Following a warning for “insubordination” by the school’s principal Edwin Yoder, Sorrell was suspended from teaching and put under “investigation” Yoder also said all future issues of the school newspaper would require his approval before going to press.

The results of the school’s “investigation,” according to the Indianapolis Star? Sorrell will be “transferred to another school and barred from teaching journalism for three years.”
Towleroad.com: Indiana Teacher Transferred, Barred from Teaching Journalism for Allowing Pro-Gay Tolerance Essay

A Discriminating Position: Equal Opportunity Employers

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Patrick
1 year ago
in Apple Computer, Business, Equality and Science/Tech
. 2 Comments

I’ve been looking at jobs this afternoon after a bit of prompting from a friend. I’ve been interested in technology and one of my key interests has been as a typical ‘Apple fanboy’. Paint me with that brush. I’ve also somehow diversified in my interests in that I’m also really interested in the financial markets, banking and investment. I don’t have any experience with any of this of course: I’m a student and students by definition don’t have any money. I tell a lie, I do have a little bit of experience, but not something serious. Some years ago, I flirted for about five minutes with the BBC’s Celebdaq game which attempts to act as a fake stock market for the star power of various celebrities, based on media coverage and traffic in selling ’shares’ in the celebrity and so forth. I tried it, and hated the fact that it was so subjective. I like to really know about a subject so that if I think about actually investing in it I know I’m not being silly. I don’t need to invest in someone like Britney Spears and then find that one fine day she’s shaved her head.

So out of this interest in Apple, and an interest in investments and stocks, I end up reading quite a lot of financial news. One of the companies that is best known in the analyst sector is IDC, a data analysis firm that offers guidance to investors on market trends in much the same was as others such as Gartner. They collect data or carry out their own research operations and form opinions on their findings. In looking at their jobs on offer today I found what I think has to be one of the most comprehensive lists of things they absolutely don’t care about in their employees.

I get the impression that they actually just want the best employees and don’t really care about anything else. This is the kind of company I could work for.

IDC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IDC does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, ancestry, sexual orientation, disability, handicap, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy-related conditions, or political beliefs.

French Presidential(e) Elections

Published
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Patrick
1 year, 1 month ago
in Bruxelles, Business, Equality, Europe, French, Media and Politics
. 0 Comments

The sneaky ‘e’ is a wink to Madame Ségolène Royal who is the Parti Socialiste’s candidate. She’s been a bit creative with her campaign by appending an ‘e’ (signifying the feminine form) to the word président, creating ‘présidente’. This is notable because président is normally a masculine word, and because everyone is making a huge fuss about how she’s a woman. Early in the campaign (which only officially started today) she was asked, ‘But who will take care of the children?!’ France may be more progressive than some states but in other ways it seems as progressive as a glacier. They’re as chauvinist as any rabid Republican in the US, but fiercely proud of their liberties, equalities and fraternities, as long as that doesn’t include women being paid equally to men, equal treatment of immigrant groups and so forth. It’s a funny place; I love it.

At around 10:30 last night I was randomly channel surfing and came across a promo for the news of TF3 (Télévision France 3). Because I was in that exhausted phase that I get for a while after a really good but hard run, I decided to wait around for this news program. While waiting for it, rather unexpectedly, I was presented with 15 minutes or so of political ads for the various Presidential candidates. I read the newspapers here a lot so actually catching these things was fascinating; even more so because I’ve been taking a class on Political Communication in which the professeur would each week give us a summary of the campaign and often show clips of the high profile interviews of each (main) candidate. A couple things that I thought of on seeing these ads:

  • At times the fringe parties do themselves no favors. They use their allotted time to show themselves chatting with ‘representative’ citizens on the street. This doesn’t work because combined with people talking in odd accents and too fast, fast cutting of the film, the subtitles (show for all candidates) and the possibility of picture-in-picture to make room for someone signing the broadcast, there’s too much going on. It looks disorganised. Viewers don’t care about having to watch other ‘ordinary’ people question a politician: they’re not very good at it. We know this because we have professional interviewers who find it hard enough with training. ‘Everyday people’ doing their job just makes the citizenry stupid.
  • The far left liberals don’t need to put everything they display on a red background. It’s already clear they’re the communist party. They did, however, have by far the best presentation, with ‘live’ text on the screen and short snippet-like responses: the kind of thing needed to keep a viewer interested. How many people will really wait for 15 minutes to see all of the broadcasts? I’m guessing, not that many.
  • Ségolène Royal had active and lively graphics but instead of showing a lot of what she had done, most of the time, as when they had dozens of clips of her in bubbles flying toward the viewer, it made the production look amateur. She was also the only candidate who didn’t face the camera head on. She looked like she really meant to talk to somebody else on the other side of the room rather than the camera.
  • There was no mention of the Iraq war in any of the broadcasts. The top topics were unemployment (’le chômage est beaucoup trop haut’), tax on business , immigration (’nous avons toujours la peur dans notre pays’) and nationalism (’being a citizen should be an honour not a right!’), the environment, economic protectionism (I’ll tell Bruxelles to…’) and a need for a renewal of social values. Many of the broadcasts seemed to say absolutely nothing at all, or at least ten seconds after their end I’d already forgotten the content.
  • Neither Bayrou, Le Pen nor Sarkozy were on tonight. Perhaps that’s a special treat for tomorrow.

In the news, the thing that really struck me (call me strange), is that the ads on political billboards put up in every town (normally outside schools and other public buildings) are put up by ClearChannel. ClearChannel, an American multinational that controls billboards all over the world, hundreds of radio stations in the US and a large number of concert venues and promotion vehicles. I just think it’s ironic that a company that stands for so much that France is actively against is the one actually promoting their political process.

Wayne Besen: Eradicate gays, eradicate christians

Published
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Patrick
1 year, 1 month ago
in Equality, Gay, Politics, Religion and US
. 3 Comments


‘Phelps’, taken by Ron’s Log.

Wayne Besen, on his blog, discusses the the idea of a Southern Baptist leader Rev Albert Mohler Jr that one day, were a genetic propensity to homosexuality ever discovered, he would condone the use of anti-gay treatments to correct these traits. The idea is interesting because it comes from a man who is clearly in a position of power in his community. He’s riding high and there are few natural predators. There’s no need to watch your back, right? But what if he did have to? What if he were to consider his stated view but from the position of a Christian who is unpopular. You go to Turkey, go to China, go to Indonesia and perhaps the idea that eradicating gays might not be quite as powerful. Why? Not that these men and women who criticise everyone else’s lifestyles would have had a change of had, not that their hatred would have diminished, but in the light of threats to their own eradication and extermination perhaps they would have less haste in persecuting others. Besen says:

Before you dismiss this question as hypothetical or academic, consider that research into the origins of spirituality is a robust field of inquiry. There are currently about a dozen studies that show shared personality traits among religious people, suggesting a genetic or biological basis. …In Mohler’s world, conservative Christians are a majority and considered a paragon of virtue. However, the late singer John Lennon is not the only person who has “imagined” a world without religion and its Inquisitions and suicide bombers. Indeed, there are prominent scholars and writers who consider religion to be little more than a psychological defect - much like the Southern Baptists now consider homosexuality.

While the right in America is strong they think of their worldview as omnipotent and supreme. But their lack of humility and their absolute faith, which often equals a disregard of and lack of respect for the views of others could be a threat to themselves. Who is to say that in some future time, our increasingly laïque and secular societies will not view religion as a greater threat to humanity than ‘alternative’ sexualities? Gays don’t start wars because other people aren’t gay, we just want to be left alone. But those crazy christians are just bringing fire onto themselves. By pushing to continually persecute gays, legislating against us, protesting against us, hating against us, praying against us, shooting, stabbing and killing us, they will eventually undermine their own position of what is for now strength. Love thy neighbor flys out the window when those neighbors are both guys. Maybe they should rethink that?

Wayne Besen: Mohler’s Slippery Slope

formerly.. Just how gay is the right?

Become an Activist and Don’t Make Me Be the Only One

Published
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Patrick
2 years, 5 months ago
in Equality, Gay, Media and Politics
. 1 Comment

Keith Boykin talks to Gay.com about his experience in becoming an activist and how this has caused some problems for him in his desire to represent himself. It’s easy to ignore the world around you and live a hermit life away from the problems of the real world, only concerned with what’s impacting your corner of space, but at the same time any activist will tell you it’s also disarmingly easy to get sucked into being ‘the voice’ for many people. If you’re personable, presentable, goood looking, media-savvy, chatty, intelligent or just eager then you’ll likely get volunteered to be the mouthpiece for yourself and your friends.

I’m not an activist at the moment, because I don’t know yet what exactly I care enough about to campaign for. I don’t know where my efforts would best be focused. When I find out though, when I come to some epiphanic conclusion, you can be sure I’ll be out there fighting, just don’t assume that’s the only thing I care about. What I care about is as varied as the people on the street, the books in the library and the autumn leaves blowing across my feet. Activism is only fun when you’ve got others to share the experience with, to laugh at the highs and mellow in the lows. If you care about as many things as I do, if you care at all, think about who you’d like to campaign for; we all should have a cause.

I have no regrets about my experiences, but I’m eager to find new leaders who can learn from their own experience. In recent years, I’ve spoken to LGBT high school students, recruited talented college activists to join the board of the National Black Justice Coalition and opened my Web site to new expressions from young columnists. But the more I did, the harder it was to get others involved.

Unwittingly, I had become an obstacle to my own recruitment plans. The more visible I became, the more difficult it was for others to become visible. Whenever I suggested that others should speak, I continued to be called on to speak instead. So last month, I decided to take a stand. I shut up. After the Millions More March, I got calls from CBS News, Essence Magazine, the Boston Globe, The Advocate, National Public Radio, Air America Radio and numerous other media outlets looking for a comment, and I told them all the same thing: Talk to someone else, please. I don’t want to be pigeonholed solely as black and gay. I’m proud of who I am, but I’m more than the sum of my identities.

Gay.com: Developing the next Rosa Parks

UPDATE:

This reminds me of an article I read earlier in the year, from the Seattle PI, where one of their columnists bemoans the lack of representation and public concern for gay rights legislation in Washington State. In a State that’s perceived as one of the most liberal, West-Coast hippy places in the country, the Democrat led legislature and executive can’t put through any legislation protection citizens from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Why? Because people in the state don’t think it’s an issue to get worked up about. People are so apathetic or so accepting that they don’t think of gay rights as something that needs fighting for; it’s already there. But because there’s a lack of profile for the issue and pressure on the politicians, elected officials are able to shirk off their responsibilities to their constituents.
This is why we need activists: someone needs to shepherd every cause along. Issues don’t come to prominence by themselves, there needs to be push, profile building and argument to get those who don’t care to at least understand.

The Democrats rule the House. Democrats control the Senate by a slim margin. They have even got their candidate, Christine Gregoire, in the governor’s mansion.

Yet despite this, two conservative Democrats in the Senate joined Republicans last week to derail a civil rights bill that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. …There’s [a] disturbing wrinkle arising from last week’s vote: apathy from the mainstream. People did voice anger on Capitol Hill, but that’s to be expected from a Seattle neighborhood that is the heart of the region’s gay community.

Just as bad is the deafening silence about the bill’s fate from quarters that should know better. Civil rights groups such as the ACLU, the NAACP and Equal Rights Washington are familiar with the pain of injustice. These organizations have mewled instead of roared — if they have said anything at all.
The quiet is unnerving.

Seattle PI: Robert L. Jamieson Jr: Who will stand up for gay rights? Anyone?

12 Reasons That Gay Marriage Will Ruin Society

Published
by
Patrick
3 years, 1 month ago
in Equality, Family, Gay, General and Politics
. 1 Comment

I know this is old (it was originally posted over a year ago), but I just came across it today and I think it’s fun. I think the gay marriage debate is no less big news right now than it was or will be in the next few months. Today I read a report about how Gay Marriage was debated before the Washington State Supreme Court about two weeks ago and it’s not clear which way the court is leaning. If things are cleared up, in the right way, then the legacy of Gay Marriage debates will fester and carry on just like the abortion debate has done since Roe vs Wade. And so I give you the dry humor alternative:
12 reasons same-sex marriage will ruin society:

  1. homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.
  2. heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children.
  3. obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.
  4. straight marriage will be less meaningful, since britney spears’s 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.
  5. heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn’t changed at all: women are property, blacks can’t marry whites, and divorce is illegal.
  6. gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.
  7. gay marriage is not supported by religion. in a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. that’s why we only have one religion in america.
  8. gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.
  9. legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. people may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license.
  10. children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. that’s why single parents are forbidden to raise children.
  11. gay marriage will change the foundation of society. heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven’t adapted to cars or longer lifespans.
  12. civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a “separate but equal” institution is always constitutional. separate schools for african-americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.
[courtesy gator gsa]
[via evijhserf]

Can She Ever Stop?

Published
by
Patrick
3 years, 6 months ago
in Equality, Gay and Personal Life
. 0 Comments

We hang out, we mess around, we play-fight, we swear, we do domestic duties. My friend and I have been hanging out the last couple days and just doing the normal weekend kind of thing. She’s a girl, I’m a gay boy… what can I say - it’s a natural synergy.

There’s a snag. I’m in a hall, staying in large building where I have to live with a lot of straight guys. Straight girls really don’t mind a fag in their midst - it’s just one more person to advise them on what to wear to the club tonight. Straight boys however feel threatened. So when we’re watching the Lord of the Rings and we see Merry and Pippin hugging on screen, it’s not really that great for me when she declares to the room, “Oh my god, they’re almost as gay as Patrick!”

Really, it just isn’t funny.

I don’t want to have to tell her to cut it, but to be honest, she doesn’t get it. Being a boy means that you have to pay unbelievably close attention to the moods of those around, even if you pretend to not be aware, and this is where most attempted tom-boys fall down; they don’t watch. When the guys wriggle and squirm at the thought that there’s a boy who does other boys sitting next to them, she doesn’t stop talking but just laughs louder. I smile and don’t say anything because what can I say, she’s a friend but she’s not helping me. That is not friendly.