One Person's Definition of Equality in Day to Day Living

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The following haas been clipped and posted from The Bilerico Project Report dated 16 September 2009.

Equality; being involved in LGBT politics means that I probably utter or hear this word a hundred or more times every day but, do I truly understand what it means? What are the implications it carries for my private as well as my public life?

I work for One Kalamazoo, a ballot question committee campaigning to affirm a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender inclusive Non-Discrimination Ordinance in Kalamazoo, MI. The ordinance was passed unanimously ...twice by the city commission and derailed...twice by a small group of opposition. It will go to a city-wide vote on November 3. I've been working for this ordinance for quite sometime now and I've observed closely as new faces joined in support.

Equality can mean many things to different people. In fact, it means many things to me, for instance; it means I should have the same civil rights as you. It means I don't get to judge you and you don't get to judge me. It means that how much money somebody makes doesn't give them the right to treat me as their lesser. Often, our opponents accuse us of demanding "special rights." Not true. "Gay agenda"? Maybe; if you consider fair and equal opportunity for everyone an agenda. Within the context of my politics, it means that others shouldn't be allowed to deprive me of the same rights and considerations under our common laws that are widely taken for granted. It's not right that my viability as a person can be called into question because I may not conform in some way to mainstream standards which are unthinkingly and unquestioningly agreed upon by a fictional majority. That is my understanding of the public position of the LGBT equality movement as well.

Continue reading "What is equality, really?"...

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Joan Walsh @ Salon: The Blackening of the President

The following has been clipped from Salon via The Bilerico Project Report dated 16 September 2009.

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There's a portion of America that has insisted, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that the nomination and election of the first black president was proof that we've reached a post-racial society. The President's status as a biracial man largely raised in the Midwest was seen as a "safe" black man -- not of the traditional civil rights leadership often seen as an ornery bunch mucking in society by many. He was not the descendant of West African slaves, an origin that made many American blacks of that extraction suspicious of his racial fidelity.

But as the campaign wore on, we saw display after sad display of outright racism and bigotry (documented in dozens of Blend posts) emerge, stoked by the McCain/Palin campaign and the noisemakers on the right. But the vile behavior seemed to come from a demographic we all knew was below the surface -- people who would never vote for a black man under any circumstance. It all died down for a millisecond -- a period of calm after the inauguration, but the full-out attack was cooking as the anger at the reality that Barack Obama is President sunk in when he started affecting policy and approach to governing.

Continue reading "Joan Walsh @ Salon: The Blackening of the president"...

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• http://www.bilerico.com/2009/09/joan_walsh_salon_the_blackening_of_the_president.php (bilerico.com)

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ENDA and gender identity protections

The following has been clipped from The Bilerico Project Report posted 04 September 2009
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ENDA and gender identity protections

Editors' Note: Guest blogger Tobias Barrington Wolff is Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, the Jesse Climenko Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard, a civil rights lawyer, and the former LGBT policy advisor to presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The re-introduction of ENDA promises to bring with it a renewed discussion about the importance of federal statutory protections for gender identity and expression. In the past, much of that discussion has focused on our trans brothers and sisters. And indeed anti-trans discrimination ought to be enough by itself -- more than enough -- to justify including gender identity and expression within ENDA.

But there is a danger of drawing artificial divisions within our community when we assume that protection against discrimination based upon gender identity or expression is exclusively about trans people. That has never been the case. Those protections are designed to safeguard all of us against being punished because we somehow fail to conform to another persons's expectations about gender.

In the hope of arming people with information to help them make that important case, I'd like to point out a decision that was handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [PDF] the other week, Prowel v. Wise Business Forms, http://www.bilerico.com/2009/09/Prowel%20v.%20Wise%20Business%20Forms.pdf concerning the harassment and discrimination suffered by a man named Brian Prowel. Prowel was fired from the factory where he had worked for 13 years. He is, as he describes himself, an effeminate gay man. Throughout much of his time at the factory, he was subjected to horrible mistreatment.

http://www.bilerico.com/2009/09/enda_and_gender_identity_protections.php#more

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Ruby-Sachs: The Opposition

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OF INTEREST . .
Once again the Holy Mother Roman Catholic Church has been caught with her hands in the cookie jar of American civil rights and politics.
OF NOTE . . . . . .
Ruby-Sachs: The Opposition

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OF COURSE . . .
It would be a . . . a miracle . . . were her hands to be slapped. You never know.

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