September 30, 2007
Christian73 writes:
I may have mentioned before that I work for IN THE LIFE, sort of an LGBT “60 minutes” on public television. Today, we launched our new website:
www.inthelifetv.org
This new site has our entire last season to stream and download and the premiere of our new season will be available on Tuesday.
As we’re all civic-minded queers here, I thought you’d be interested in some of the stories we have on the site, such as, Taylor vs. Rice (the story of a guys who’s suing the State department because they refused him entry into the Foreign Service because he’s HIV+), the Women of ACT-UP (kind of self-explanatory), A Church Divided (about the impending split between the Epsicopal Church and the Anglican Communion). And much more…
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Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Television
New Version of ENDA Stripped of Gender Identity and Expression Protection
By David Mariner
After many years working as a bartender for Harrah’s Casino, Darlene Jespersen was fired for failing to conform to the Casino’s new ‘personal best’ grooming policy. As a female bartender, Jesperson was required to have her hair “teased, curled, or styled,” and to wear stockings. Jesperson was also suddenly required to put on makeup everyday: lipstick and nail polish mandatory.
It was a regimen she found burdensome and demeaning, and while sexual orientation was not an issue in her case, I know quite a few lesbians who might feel the same way. What would Ellen Degeneres do if NBC decided she needed to wear skirts on her show everyday? What would k.d. lang do if her record label demanded she adopt a ‘less masculine’ haircut?
While this may not have happened to Ellen or k.d., this kind of discrimination happens all the time. Darlene Jespersen lost her job because she did not live up to the female-specific requirements of her new dress code. And when she fought her termination in court, she lost.
Congress is now looking at two different versions of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. One would make this type of discrimination illegal. The other would not.
Congressman Barney Frank has chosen to introduce a straight-acting-only version of ENDA which bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation but not gender identity and expression. This version may protect gays and lesbians based on their sexual orientation, but it won’t protect gays and lesbians who don’t adhere to society’s view of what men and women should be.
It won’t protect the gay guy who dresses up in drag on Halloween. It won’t protect the lesbian who doesn’t want to be forced to wear a skirt as part of a company uniform. It won’t protect any gay man who can’t live up to society’s standards and “act more like a man”. It won’t protect any lesbian who can’t live up to society’s standards and “act more like a woman.”
We should be outraged that Barney Frank is considering a bill that excludes the transgender community, but let’s be honest, the transgender community are not the only ones being thrown under the bus. Some may argue that we should start protecting straight-acting gays and lesbians, and then come back for the rest of the LGBT community later. As the Task Force [and] other organizations have documented by looking at state laws, this simply does not happen. It is always easier to stand strong and stand united and pass an inclusive bill than it is to go back later and try and pass protections based on gender identity and expression.
Make no mistake, a straight-acting-only ENDA ais a hollow victory one that is not worth achieving because it takes us further, not closer towards the goal of protection from employment discrimination for all of us.
© David Mariner, All Rights Reserved. This article originally appeared in Temenos (www.temenos.net), the progressive lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and intersex community online.
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Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Barney Frank,
Employment/ENDA,
Guest Articles,
Transgender
September 29, 2007
From the Springfield, Missouri, News-Leader:
Iranian president a true conservative
Cal Thomas complains that our “Liberal Universities” deny conservatives a voice while bemoaning Columbia University’s invitation to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mr. Thomas’ positions are contradictory. Ahmadinejad is the poster child for conservatives. He does not allow gay marriage, enforces abstinence before marriage and heads a religious state that bases its laws on ancient superstition, bans abortion, restricts immigration and maintains heavily patrolled borders. He holds state security above individual liberty and supports a military/industrial complex at the expense of human rights.
While he does give us more freedom to record and disseminate his speeches than (John) Ashcroft, he is almost as right wing as the Republican Party. If he were a U.S. citizen he would be a shoe-in for the Republican nomination.
Jim Evans, Republic
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Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Iran,
Republicans
Utah County gay couple fight DCFS for custody of children
Loving couple. Loving home. Steady jobs. No criminal history. Kids like them and the birth mother wants it.
Despite all that, Michael Valez and Michael Oberg are wading upriver through the state child protection system to be able to take care of four kids belonging to Valez’s niece. The two Salem men say it’s because they’re gay.
“They’d rather pull them out of a loving, caring home and put them into a foster home,” Valez said. “You walk into our house without anybody here and it’s going to be like any other house.”
To the state, it’s a simple matter of the law, which says that to adopt or be a foster parent, you must be legally married or single and not cohabitating. Officials asked for clarification of a judge’s directive that Valez have custody of the children, requesting that the court take custody or grant custody to the state’s Division of Child and Family Services. On Friday, the courts took custody, then turned around and granted Valez temporary custody of the children.
. . .
There are only three states that have outright bans on homosexual parents: Florida, Mississippi and Utah, though Utah’s is tied to the cohabitation rule and not expressly against homosexuals. In fact, people who are gay could adopt or be a foster parent, as long as they aren’t living with a partner…
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Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Category:
Parenting
Anglican rift sparks move for new church
PITTSBURGH–Conservative Anglicans in Canada and the U.S. plan to break away from their increasingly liberal national churches within 15 months, setting up a parallel continental church along orthodox theological lines.
. . .
If successful, it would be the first time the worldwide Anglican Communion has seen a church, known in Anglicanism as a province, established solely on the basis of shared theology. Currently, provinces are only set up along geographic lines.
. . .
A founding convention for the new North American church will be held within 15 months, once participating parishes and dioceses have formally broken ties with their national churches. The new group would then seek recognition from the communion as an orthodox province for North America.
. . .
The new North American church would have its own college of bishops, meeting every six months, and a shared method of worship and sacraments.
. . .
The Anglican Communion has been in crisis since 2003 when the Episcopal Church, as Anglicanism is known in the United States, named the openly gay Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. Increasing support for same-sex marriage blessings in the U.S. and Canada has widened the rift between theological liberals and conservatives, pushing the church toward schism.
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Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Anglicans / Episcopalians
Notes the NYT:
Newt Gingrich has sent so many hints pointing in so many different directions that we’re dizzy trying to follow them all. But now, it appears, he’s made up his mind.
Rick Tyler, Mr. Gingrich’s spokesman, confirmed today that the former Republican House speaker has decided against a presidential run in 2008.
Mr. Gingrich was “presented with legal advice this morning,” said Mr. Tyler in a quick phone interview. “There was a choice presented.”
The choice was to remain chairman of his political action committee, American Solutions, or to allow advisers to move forward with an exploratory committee. But he could not, legally, do both, Mr. Tyler explained.
. . .
Mr. Gingrich’s flirtation with a candidacy has been long and replete with mixed signals. Throughout the spring, he mocked the other candidates for starting their campaigns so early, and he said then that if a “void” existed after his American Solutions conference in September, he would consider jumping in.
Aw, we think the little jerk should run. Nothing like diluting the GOP field even further with one of the most polarizing RWers in recent history. And they can always use yet another hypocritical, mistress-shagging serial divorcé to represent the real values of the party.
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Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Election 2008,
Republicans
Reports PlanetOut:
A court in Jaipur, India, has denied an HIV-positive woman custody of her 8-year-old daughter, a rights activist said Friday.
The woman, who was not identified to protect her privacy, married a soldier from northwestern Rajasthan state in the late 1990s without knowing that he was HIV-positive, said Kavita Srivastav, state convener of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, a private rights group.
Her husband died four years ago. After his death her in-laws began treating the woman badly and took her daughter on the grounds that the mother had become HIV-positive, Srivastav said.
. . .
The court rejected her plea this week, ruling that she would not able to take care of her daughter because of her HIV-positive status, Srivastav said.
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Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Category:
Asia,
HIV/AIDS,
Random Bigotry
