News and views for Sunday, December 14th and Monday, December 15th …

[NY, USA] Two news reports on the Binghamton, New York city council’s passage this evening of a transgender anti-discrimination bill: “In a move that was hailed by state civil rights groups, the city council on Monday passed a law that would outlaw discrimination against transgender individuals … Council member Sean Massey, D-5th District, who proposed the local law, said it was a “sad fact” that its protections were necessary … The director of the Central New York Civil Liberties Union, Barrie H. Gewanter, said the city was sending a strong message to state lawmakers who have not yet passed laws protecting those people … Galen D. Kirkland, Commissioner of the New York State Division of Human Rights, wrote to council members last week to express that agency’s support for the bill.” — Council approves anti-discrimination law, City council passes anti-discrimination bill

[OH, USA] In Columbus, Ohio, the city council was expected to pass a transgender anti-discrimination bill on Monday evening: “Tansgender residents of Columbus — men who consider themselves women and women who consider themselves men — would gain legal protection under legislation going before the City Council tonight. The Columbus Community Relations Commission has recommended that the city add gender identity to the list of categories in local anti-discrimination ordinances. The move would put Columbus another step beyond Ohio law and on par with dozens of other big cities and college towns … Columbus has protected gays in its civil-rights ordinances for about 20 years. Backers of the new legislation say the term sexual orientation once was thought to include people who live or dress as the opposite gender. People still refer to the “LGBT community,” which represents lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people, but advocates say one’s gender identity is different from one’s sexual orientation. And acceptance of transgender people often lags, they say … Gender identity and other new categories added to the anti-discrimination ordinances also would be added to the city’s hate-crimes ordinance.” — Gender identity on city’s agenda: Anti-discrimination proposal would add transgender people

[USA] From columnist Deb Price in The Detroit News today, “But the [Schroer v. Billington] ruling, while a groundbreaking warning to other employers that they might be sued and held liable for similar discrimination, doesn’t automatically protect anyone beyond Schroer. In fact, federal judges disagree over whether federal sex discrimination laws cover transgender Americans … The ACLU is heartened, though, that President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, in an historic first, includes “gender identity” in its nondiscrimination policy for appointment-level jobs in the next administration. The legal group hopes, as president, Obama will take the next step — signing an executive order formally banning job discrimination based on gender identity within the federal civilian work force. President Bill Clinton signed a similar order banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in civil service jobs.” — Activists pin hopes on Obama banning transgender bias

[USA] From today’s Washington Times, two transgender persons figure in the Young America’s Foundation’s list of “top 10″ examples in 2008 of political correctness “running amok” on college campuses: “The roster includes … West Point, the veritable bastion of military tradition, recently hosted Allyson Robinson, a transgendered speaker and one-time graduate of the Army academy … [and] the University of St. Thomas for censoring pro-life speaker Star Parker while showcasing liberal comedian-turned-Senate candidate Al Franken and Debra Davis, another transgendered activist.” — Critics of PC decry ‘top 10 abuses’ of ‘08

(Allyson Robinson currently serves as Associate Director of Diversity at the Human Rights Campaign. A report on her return to West Point — well worth the read — can be found at Trans Universe. Debra Davis recently spoke at the University of Kansas.)

[USA] A sign of the times: “Activity on TJobBank has all but stopped as far as new job postings, even from the non-profits and advocacy organizations.  Funding for non-profits has become scarce as the economy slides deeper into recession.” — Jobs - Trans-employment in a Recession

[USA] From Radha Smith, “I have argued that the gate-keeping process hampers the therapeutic relationship between client and therapist and I believe it does. I also believe that transitioners very much should have a therapist who can work with them, guide them, follow them and hold and hear their inmost yearnings, doubts and struggles … Opposition is not always a bad thing. It can help us to see cracks and fissures in our plans and timelines. It can show us areas we still require working in before we’re absolutely ready to move to the next transitional stage. Better, it seems to me, have that before one’s surgery than after. That much less work to do later on. Because, later on, we’ll still have problems. It’s inevitable. However, the impulse remains, quite naturally, among some transitioners to “game the system,” to get what I want when I want it and caution or discovery be damned. OK, I understand the impetus; but, I still maintain that sometimes the transitioner should be slowed in her headlong rush. Self-discovery and self-acceptance are always worthy attainments. The therapist who cares enough, is skilled enough, to demand that I do that for him or her should be held by me to be a “good therapist” not as one who “wants to derail me.”” — Gaming Therapists, Gaming Ourselves

The National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, The American Civil Liberties Union, and Equality California have issued a media release indicating the organizations are jointly challenging the legality of Proposition 8. Their position is that the initiative process cannot be used to undermine the constitution’s core commitment to equality for everyone:

The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a writ petition before the California Supreme Court today urging the court to invalidate Proposition 8 if it passes. The petition charges that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution’s core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians. Proposition 8 also improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities. According to the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.

The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works. Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn’t happen with Proposition 8, and that’s why it’s invalid.

Having lost my faith in the basic fairness and decency of the majority Californians around 3:00 AM PST this morning, I’m hoping this latest legal maneuver is sucessful.

Well, maybe after the A.C.L.U. takes care of this case, they can take on this issue …

(Anyone for renaming Helena … “Girlsie” … ? )

Law.com and the National Law Journal have a new piece up on retired Army Colonel Diane Schroer’s pending case before the federal court in Washington, DC. This looks as if it may turn out to be the most significant case regarding transgender people and federal employment to ever reach the courts.

The ACLU has summed up the story behind Col. Schroer’s case as follows:

Diane interviewed for a job as a terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress and accepted the position, but the job offer was rescinded when she told her future supervisor that she was in the process of gender transition. The ACLU is now representing her in a Title VII sex discrimination lawsuit against the Library of Congress. This is her testimony.

She described her case at the recent Congressional Hearing on Transgender Discrimination:

Arthur Leonard of the New York Law School said this about the case:

This is potentially very significant, partly because the case is against the federal government, which could impact federal employment policy and people all over the country. It also is addressing an emerging issue as to whether people whose gender identity differs from the norm would be protected by the law’s provisions against sex discrimination [in Title VII].

[More below the fold.]

Read the rest of this entry »

British actor Paul Scofield, renowned for his stage and screen portrayal of Sir Thomas More in “A Man for All Seasons,” died yesterday. Mr. Scofield, the New York Times noted …

… made his debut as Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet” on the school stage. “I had to wear an embarrassing blond wig,” he said. “But it was a turning point, because thenceforward there was nothing else I wanted to do.”

The Thomas More Law Center was also in the news yesterday. The TMLC has frequently been at odds with trans people, including …

• Opposing transsexual marriage in Kansas
• Opposing legislation against discrimination based on gender identity in Michigan
• Opposing trans-inclusive sex education in Maryland

Or some this and that, as Autumn refers to it, about trans, gender and whatever …

#1 - Nevermind cross-dressing, what do you know about cross rates and all that stuff? If you have a yen for currency, what do you think about this settlement? Is this worth a lot of Lats … ?

A man with gender identity disorder whose work contract was not renewed has settled his lawsuit against the employer for ¥1.8 million, his lawyer said Thursday.

…

Man sacked over gender disorder settles lawsuit

#2 - Down by the river, they’re going “lawless” in a more than typical American city …

WYANDOTTE — Dressed for guests in heels and a short skirt, Janet Law sipped a drink alone in the private club she hopes to open for cross-dressing men.

She mailed invitations to city officials in hopes of making peace in a year-long feud over the club. None came Tuesday to Janet’s Place, the disco-lighted lounge and dance floor in the back of Law’s Fort Street speed shop and race car engine-building business, National Machined Engine.

“I was hopeful, but did I really think any of them would come and meet me and see what they fear? No,” said Law, 56, who was well-known in the car racing community as Edward “RJ” Law before getting breast implants four years ago and living as a cross-dresser.

…

Officials keep club for cross-dressers shuttered

#3 - From down by the river, albeit a different one … comes this story (in the interests of full disclosure, I have not set foot in Hoboken in 33 years and never met one ugly woman there, and I am not a former transsexual either) …

In the spring of 1995, Hoboken motorcycle police officer John Aiello told his superiors that when he returned from his leave, it would be as a woman named Janet.

Rumors of the situation began circulating around the mile-square city, but police officials refused to confirm them for the press. Finally, in July of 1995, the New York Post landed an interview with Aiello, then slapped the officer’s photo on their cover with the headline, “Sex-op cop fights for job.”

The media promptly descended on the mile-square city, and a media frenzy ensued, with a New York radio DJ calling Aiello “one ugly woman.”

Meanwhile, Aiello continued taking hormone pills, and the police had to navigate procedures and policies as seemingly routine as whether to allow Janet/John to use the women’s restroom at work.

But after the hubbub died down, Aiello retired and left Hudson County forever, settling in New York City, where she lives today.

…

Former transsexual cop opens up

#4 - It’s been at least 33 years since I’ve set foot in simpler times, and 23 years — or more, it seems — since knowing Eric Blair’s (Who?) name was not just trivial pursuit … now it’s time to get REAL …

Oh, for simpler times again.

Life will soon get more complicated for most Americans — but not for me. Over the next six years, most Americans will have to get “more secure” driver’s licenses.

It’s part of the homeland security push that still reverberates from the events of 9-11. The final rules for what is called the “REAL ID” is still very hush-hush in the deepest bowels of Washington, but the general idea is to create IDs that most Americans would have to present to get on airliners, into federal buildings, etc.

I say “most Americans” because the government has now decided that we decrepit old baby boomers are becoming a pretty toothless risk and have extended the deadline for the over-the-hill gang to have the IDs to 2017 (at which time we will be even more toothless).

REAL ID is one of those things that makes you squirm a little regardless which side of the argument you choose when it comes to a national ID.

The intent is to make it harder for terrorists, illegal immigrants and crooks to get identification. It’s quite possible some of the 9-11 terrorists might not have been successful had they not gotten their hands on some drivers’ licenses and IDs.

Well, that sounds good.

But on the other hand, it implies another step toward reality of Big Brother — the government being able to more closely track the lives of ordinary citizens.

That doesn’t sound good.

The American Civil Liberties Union is fighting the concept, claiming it creates a system that makes it just too tempting for government agencies to go snooping about in private lives. The ACLU is often pegged as a liberal group, but the national ID is an issue that ruffled feathers on both sides of the political spectrum.

The man in charge of putting the program together, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, put it this way: “This is a win-win. As long as people use driver’s licenses to identify themselves for whatever reason there’s no reason for those licenses to be easily counterfeited or tampered with.”

I’ve read that sentence about 12 times and still have no earthly idea what it means (which might explain why Chertoff has risen to high levels in the bureaucracy).

Admittedly, I was a little bothered by the idea of carrying around a card that tracks me like a bar code on an eight-pack of Charmin. But then I read this Associated Press article:

The FBI has hit a major hang-up in its wiretapping surveillance program: failing to pay its phone bills on time.

Facing tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills, telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals, a Justice Department audit released Thursday shows. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

Big Brother might be watching — but he might not be listening much longer.

Walker: Big Brother may be watching

Deepest bowels of Washington? Win-win?

#5 - We haven’t forgotten the rest of ‘07 … coming soon … before ‘09 gets here, anyway.

Our Wednesday and Thursday, 100% more news edition …

#1 - Inside Indonesia looks beyond the stereotypes in this profile of the country’s transgender (waria) community …

Before she even opens her mouth, the petite, jilbab-wearing and refined looking Shuniyya Ruhama Habiiballah has already gone a long way towards achieving one of her driving missions in life: to challenge the dominant stereotype of Indonesia’s large transgendered community, who describe themselves as waria, a term for transgendered people derived from the words wanita (woman) and pria (man).

As Shuniyya says in her softly spoken, decidedly feminine voice: ‘People see the waria as sex workers on the side of the streets at night, dressed in mini-skirts, with silicone-inflated breasts as large as watermelons. They see the show business drag queens who perform on stage and on television. They see these waria and think that they know what a waria is. They don’t. The waria they see are just the most obvious and easy to identify, and the ones the straight community are most likely to meet.’

…

Defining waria

#2 - As Oakland Park has become the latest Florida community to protect its transgender employees and residents from discrimination, Palm Beach and Broward counties may be next to do so …

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

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

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

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

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

…

Transgender community works to gain protections in South Florida

(You can vote in the Sun Sentinel’s “Transgender poll” here. The Sun Sentinel, by the way, does not support this legislation.)

#3 - Candis Cayne appears Wednesday evening in the debut of ABC’s Dirty Sexy Money.

#4 - Some reading from the “dark side” …

Homosexuals and cross-dressers may in fact be a lot of things, but an oppressed minority they are not. And I, for one, resent their temerity in suggesting that a rejection of their chosen lifestyle is in any way equivalent to what truly oppressed peoples in this country went through for the right to vote, sit at a lunch counter and/or stay in the hotel of their choice.

Homosexuals are not immutable – there is a difference between refusing to change one’s behavior and being unable to change the color of one’s skin. They are no more economically deprived than others, and they certainly do not have a history of political and historical powerlessness. Ergo, sexual orientation is not a civil right. Homosexual activists represent one of the most powerful lobbies per capita in the country. But I digress.

Homosexuality is not a civil right

The conflated logic of the ACLU’s bathroom briefs seems to be that someone entering a public restroom intending to use it for traditional purposes has no protection either from the gender sign posted at the door or from the otherwise vaunted right to privacy. Someone entering a public restroom intending to solicit and engage in sex, on the other hand, is protected by both the First Amendment and the right to privacy.

What else would you expect from a group that embraces an ideology that holds that partially born babies have no right to keep their skulls intact?

Get the ACLU Out of Our Bathrooms

ENDA would “strike at the very heart of our American liberties,” said
Doug Napier, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. It’s
especially threatening to businesses that are already “regulated to
death,” Napier said. “And now we’re going to tell you who you can hire
and who you can’t fire, based on a category of protection that is not
based on an immutable characteristic, but a choice of lifestyle.”

Tom Strohbar, an expert in stockholder interests in Dayton, Ohio, said
the workplace is the wrong place for this issue, where it is
inappropriate – even illegal – for employers to inquire about workers’
sexual activities or orientation.

“Really, what they should be asking employees is that when they come
to work, they don’t talk about their personal sexual interests and
activities,” Strohbar told Family News in Focus. “And if they don’t
talk about these things, the issue is completely moot. We don’t need
the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.”

ENDA: Workplace is the Wrong Place for Sexual Politics

#5 - The Boston Globe had an op-ed piece yesterday about the some of the deceitful disinformation being aimed at the Matthew Shepard (Hate Crimes) Act pending in the U.S. Senate …

AMERICANS who understand basic principles of justice have no problems with the hate crime bill known as the Matthew Shepard Act. This legislation, now awaiting a vote in the Senate, would finally protect the many citizens who are targeted for violence simply because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, and it would provide law enforcement the necessary resources to investigate bias-fueled brutality.

Unfortunately, some clergy across the nation have joined together to oppose this bill in an aggressive and divisive manner. For instance, conservative African-American leaders - most notably Bishop Harry Jackson of Maryland’s Hope Christian Church - have been inundating the media and faith communities with the message that this legislation will allow police to storm into worship services and arrest clergy if they speak against being gay. They make the incendiary allegation that the bill will create “thought crimes” by punishing people for thinking ill of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

The truth is that the Matthew Shepard Act protects all First Amendment rights. And, although that is a given, this bill goes out of its way to protect the free speech of ministers. Those pastors who wish to continue condemning and dehumanizing the gay community will be free to do so.

The hate crimes bill provides resources for the investigation of violent actions - not beliefs, thoughts, or words. The proposed federal statute does not punish nor prohibit free expression of one’s religious beliefs. As University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone recently concluded, “The argument of the pastors that the proposed legislation in any way threatens their right to preach their version of the Gospel is, to be frank, ridiculous.”

…

Fabricated fears about hate crime legislation

#6 - Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who’s visiting the U.S., has claimed that his country does not have a gay problem …

At Columbia University on Monday, Mr Ahmadinejad said homosexuality did not exist in Iran. “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” he told a questioner who accused his government of executing gay people. “In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who has told you that we have it.”

(Nature abhors a vaccum.)

While Mr Ahmadinejad may want to believe that his Islamic society is exclusively non-gay, it is a belief undermined by the paradox that transsexuality and sex changes are tolerated and encouraged under Iran’s theocratic system.

Iran has between 15,000 and 20,000 transsexuals, according to official statistics, although unofficial estimates put the figure at up to 150,000. Iran carries out more gender change operations than any country in the world besides Thailand.

Sex changes have been legal since the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution, passed a fatwa authorising them nearly 25 years ago. Whereas homosexuality is considered a sin, transsexuality is categorised as an illness subject to cure.

While the government seeks to keep its approval quiet, state support has increased since Mr Ahmadinejad took office in 2005. His government has begun providing grants of £2,250 for operations and further funding for hormone therapy. It is also proposing loans of up to £2,750 to allow those undergoing surgery to start their own businesses.

Maryam Khatoon Molkara, leader of the country’s main transsexual organisation, said some of those undergoing operations were gay rather than out-and-out transsexuals.

…

Sex change funding undermines no gays claim

#7 - Christine Daniels writes about going to Southern Comfort and … talking football …

When I say Southern Comfort played a big part in my recent vacation, I don’t mean I went on a five-day whiskey bender — although it’s fair to say I spent the time surrounded by some high and lively spirits.

Southern Comfort, held annually in Atlanta, is said to be the largest transgender conference in the country, which is a much more substantial claim today than it was when the event debuted 17 years ago. The map and the calendar are now dotted with such events: Be All (Chicago), California Dreamin (San Jose), Colorado Gold Rush (Denver), Esprit Gala (Port Angeles, Wash.), Fantasia Fair (Provincetown, Mass.), IFGE (Tucson next spring) — just to name a half-dozen. They are all examples of a North American transgender community continuing to grow, wanting to connect and needing to educate.

…

Southern Comfort (plus refreshments!)

#8 - Sad to say, Holly Woodlawn has seen better days …

“Holly came from Miami F-L-A,
Hitchhiked her way across the USA,
Plucked her eyebrows on the way,
Shaved her legs and then he was a she …”

That’s how Lou Reed made Holly Woodlawn, the Warhol Factory superstar and legendary drag queen, famous in his 1972 song Walk on the Wild Side. Here’s Woodlawn’s expanded version: “I was 15 years old and failing at high school in Miami Beach because I was too busy partying. I was supposed to go to summer school to catch up and really didn’t want to, so I joined some of these Cuban queens to go to New York. I hocked some jewellery and we made it all the way to Georgia, where the money ran out and we had to hitchhike the rest of the way.

“Atlanta, Georgia, of all places - you could expect to be tarred and feathered and murdered in those days! But we survived and I remember the first time I saw New York: the Emerald City. I thought the sidewalks were made of diamonds because of the specks of mica in the asphalt. It was 1962. Marilyn had just died. I lived on the streets like everyone does when they run away. I met some girlfriends who took me in and we found a place in Queens. I was really lucky. I met this guy who fell in love with me and asked me to be his girlfriend. I started taking hormones for a sex-change and lived as his wife, working in the days as a clothing model at Saks Fifth Avenue. Oh, the things I did! And for six or seven years they never knew I was a boy. Not a clue!”

…

‘Oh, the things I did!’

#9 - Over in Oregon, where the usual suspects would like to repeal the pro-GLBT legislation passed this spring, Byron Beck writing in Willamette Week passes on this advice …

Be Nice to Your (Republican) Neighbors. When chatting up your holier-than-thou neighbors, don’t preach about how your rights are about to be yanked out from under you. That didn’t work on Measure 36 in ’04, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to work four years later. Just smile and let them prattle on about how nice it is to have neighbors who care as much about their lawns as they do. Pretend not to be offended when they say, “The gays have great green thumbs.” But for godsakes, take notes, make lists, and by all means videotape any behavior that can be construed as even the tiniest bit homophobic—there are bloggers out there just waiting for your link to YouTube.

…

Best Friends, Worst Enemies
It’s the time for queers to go back in the closet.

#10 - Finally, some upcoming events. On Thursday …

Attempts by Republican Senator and Presidential hopeful John McCain to block new legislation that would extent hate crimes to cover LGBT people will come to a head tomorrow with a crucial vote.

Democratic Senator Harry Reid has filed a cloture motion on the hate crimes bill, a procedural move to overcome Senator McCain’s objection to bringing the amendment to the floor.

…

US hate crimes law faces key vote in Senate

And, on Friday on the Oprah Winfrey Show …

What would you do if your 7-year-old daughter said, “Mom, I should be a
boy.” Meet guests who say they were born in the wrong body. Their stories on
facing the world transgendered.

Born In The Wrong Body

In my hometown of San Diego there has a long running court case with the Boy Scouts of America regarding discrimination against LGBT and atheist people over its lease of a camp in the city’s Balboa Park.

Apparently, the City of Philadelphia has similar concerns about the Boy Scouts of America Cradle of Liberty headquarters.  The Boy Scouts there are getting a below market lease for the property it’s regional headquarters — located on City Property — in violation of Philadelphia’s anti-discrimination laws. That may change really, really, soon.  Per the Philadelphia Enquirer, Philadelphia last week in a surprise move voted to end it’s below market lease with the Boy Scouts:

The long-simmering dispute over whether the Boy Scouts of America’s Cradle of Liberty Council must publicly affirm it will not discriminate against openly gay people - or pay fair-market rent for the city-owned Logan Square land on which their landmark headquarters is located - boiled over anew yesterday as City Council authorized the city to end the lease.

The resolution was introduced unexpectedly by Councilman Darrell L. Clarke and passed, 16-1, with no debate and with Council Minority Leader Brian J. O’Neill voting no.

Both Clarke, a Center City Democrat whose district includes the building at 22d and Winter Streets, and City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. said they hoped the resolution would spur talks to resolve the dispute so Cradle of Liberty Council could continue to use at nominal rent the Beaux Arts building it has been in since 1928.

“My hope is that the resolution will give a little more leverage to the city and that [the parties] can come up with some kind of compromise,” Clarke said. “Honestly, no one wants to see them out of there.”

Diaz said the Council vote was the last step required to end the lease under the 1928 ordinance that leased the land to the scouts “in perpetuity.”

Diaz said the scouts had to have a year’s notice and the administration’s recommendation had to be ratified by the Fairmount Park Commission and City Council.

“The year’s-notice clock is ticking,” Diaz said.

As Bayard Rustin said:

Our job is not to get those people who dislike us to love us. Nor was our aim in the civil rights movement to get prejudiced white people to love us. Our aim was to try to create the kind of America, legislatively, morally, and psychologically, such that even though some whites continued to hate us, they could not openly manifest that hate. That’s our job today: to control the extent to which people can publicly manifest antigay sentiment.

It looks like Philadelphia has taken a pretty significant step to stop the public’s pretty significant subsidy (in the form of a below market lease) of the Boy Scouts of America — an organization that has publicly manifested anti-gay, anti-trans, and anti-atheist sentiments in their membership polices. Per Bayard Rustin, this is what we should hope will happen everywhere by our hard work lobbying our politicians.

As an LGBT citizen and taxpayer, I’m very pleased to see Philadelphia is doing the right thing by its LGBT and atheist citizens in starting the process to end the lease.

In one of my first posts in this blog, I commented on how in California marriages, taking one’s wife’s surname costs a husband more for than for a wife to taking her husband’s surname. Well, the California legislature is addressing the problem with the Name Equality Act of 2007. Per the San Jose Mercury News:

What’s in a name? Everything, the California State Assembly decided Monday, in passing legislation to streamline the laborious process for married couples and domestic partners who wish to change their surname.

If the Name Equality Act of 2007 becomes law, county-issued marriage license applications and state-produced domestic partnership certificates would be amended to allow couples to jot down any last name when tying the knot.

The measure, AB102, will save couples hundreds of dollars and many months of hassle required under the current process to change a last name, which can only be done through a court order.

The measure seeks to make it as easy for domestic partners, and husbands, to change last names as it is for wives. If the measure passes, California would become the first state to allow domestic partners to change their last names without a court order.

“AB102 is about equality and flexibility, and getting with the times,” said Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, who proposed the legislation.

The bill passed on a 45-22 vote.

I’m surprised there were 22 votes against the bill. Seems like fixing the name change problems in current law would save the state money by reducing lawsuits based on how gender, marital status, and sexual orientation cause unequal treatment — which I believe is prohibited by state law.

Let’s here it for the ACLU, Okeechobee High School Gay-Straight Alliance President Yasmin Gonzales, and the dedicated members of this Gay-Straight Alliance Chapter!

From PlanetOut:

Students at Okeechobee High School in Florida have the right to meet on campus to form a Gay-Straight Alliance, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore found that GSAs are not “sex-based” clubs, rejecting the school’s argument that the club would violate its abstinence-only education policy, Associated Press reported.

Yasmin Gonzalez, president of the Okeechobee GSA, called the ruling “great news.”

“I am so glad that we’re going to be allowed to meet on campus just like kids in other clubs already do,” Gonzalez said in a written statement from the ACLU, which represented students who formed the club.

“Even though I am graduating this year, I now know that by standing up to intolerance today, future students at OHS will benefit from a more open environment and not have to endure the same treatment from our school in the future,” Gonzalez said.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

–
The New York Times has a piece on this too entitled Judge Orders a Florida School to Allow a Gay Tolerance Club.

“I may be able to move on when I graduate, but we have to stand up against the hatred and bigotry today to ensure that everyone is treated as equals tomorrow.”
–Yasmin Gonzalez, president of the Okeechobee High School Gay-Straight Alliance

From PlanetOut:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida filed a motion in federal court Friday to allow Okeechobee High School’s gay-straight alliance to meet on campus during ongoing legal proceedings against the school district. The district has prohibited the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance from meeting since the club was formed in September.

“These brave students in Okeechobee are trying to promote tolerance and acceptance while fostering a safe and open environment for everyone to learn,” said Rob Rosenwald, attorney for the ACLU of Florida’s LGBT Advocacy Project, in a written statement.

“Clearly it is not just the students that need to be taught tolerance but the administrators and faculty who are relegating gay and lesbian students to a second-class status and sending a message of prejudice,” Rosenwald said.

Tomorrow’s LGBT activists are pretty impressive, I’d say. Yasmin Gonzalez — You go grrl!

Cross-posted from a Pam’s House Blend diary entry:
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San Diego’s Boy Scout camp is in the news again. For those not aware, in 2003 U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones Jr. ruled that the Boy Scouts’ below market lease of public parkland (one-dollar a year at the time of the lawsuit) in Balboa Park (the “Central Park of San Diego“) violates the Constitution. Specifically, it’s one of those “separation of church and state” things.ACLU volunteer attorney Matt Stephens said in 2004: