Four major pieces of pro-gay legislation should be passed within Obama’s first term.
First will be the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which will protect gays from hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace for the first time at a federal level. With a Democratic majority in both houses, transgendered protections removed from ENDA before the election will most likely be reinserted.

Later should come bills to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy responsible for the sacking of over twelve thousand gay military personnel over the last 15 years, and the Defense of Marriage Act that bans any kind of recognition of same-sex couples at a federal level.

Well, yeah. I’d go along with all of the above. However, beyond using the bully pulpit of the presidency to oppose discrimination and support equality, there’s little the president can do on any of the above until or unless Congress sends passes a hate crimes bill, ENDA, a repeal of DOMA. 

That doesn’t mean there can’t be some changes made right away, tho’.

It’s already been reported that Obama’s transition is reviewing about 200 Bush executive orders that can be eighty-sixed toot sweet. He’s already said to be drafting a repeal of one Bush’s worse executive orders.

Among a slew of executive orders Barack Obama is said to be drafting, observers believe one may lift a ban on US funding for overseas family planning groups that even dare mention abortion.

…US funds to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) have been blocked since 2002, with the State Department saying the UN agency supports China’s one-child policy, which is says amounts to coercive abortion.

“The Bush administration has said the UNFPA supports coercive birth control methods and that’s why they’re blocking money to it,” said Tait Sye, a spokesman for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA).

“The problem is that UNFPA money goes towards things like family planning and contraception, too,” vital services in developing countries, he added.

A World Bank report published in July said women in developing countries, where access to contraception is poor, often turn to abortion as a means of birth control.

Abortion is more costly than providing contraceptive services, and around half the 42 million abortions performed annually are unsafe, the report said.

wUNFPA senior culture adviser Azza Karam stressed at the launch of the UN agency’s annual State of World Population report in Washington this week that family planning is “not a luxury of whether or not you’re going to have premarital sex” but a service that women must have access to.

One woman dies every minute somewhere in the world because of complications during birth, she said.

It’s kind of ironic that Bush and the folks who keep his approval rating in the double digits to cut the funding of a program that might prevent abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancies. At least until you remember that these are the same people who define contraception as abortion (another rule change that didn’t require congressional approval and one that Obama may have in his sights).

Bush’s UNFPA policy has had devastating consequences for women around the world, something I blogged about a couple of years ago, after seeing an Anderson Cooper piece on problem of women in Africa suffering fistulas as a result of violent, multiple rapes.

You see, women like those mentioned in the article were getting help, from an organization called the United Nations Population Fund (UNFP) and its campaign to end fistula, until the Bush administration blocked those efforts in 2001 and has continued to stand in the way.

… Nevermind that Bush sent a hand-picked State Department delegation to investigate the claims. Their findings, namely that the UNFP didn’t support forced abortions or sterilizations and thus should have its funding restored, didn’t jibe with the administration’s ideology. There are a couple of things about Heal Africa that do jibe with the Bush ideology, though.

The post goes on to cover how the money that might have gone to UNFPA was instead funneled to religious organizations that ran clinics and also advocated an “abstinence only” approach to HIV/AIDS prevention. (Another policy whose days may be numbered in an Obama administration.)

So, it makes my top ten lists of Bush’s executive orders that should be circling the bowl on or shortly after January 20, 2009. Salon has a top ten list of their own, compiled from reader suggestions, that would also be a good place to start. In fact, I’d sign off on all ten, with this one at the top of the stack.

No. 8: Letting Religious Groups Call the Hiring Shots
Executive Order 13279 (PDF)
Dec. 12, 2002

What the order says: Adding to the pair of 2001 executive orders that encouraged religious groups to apply for federal money for social services, Bush’s December 2002 order made it easier for churches and synagogues to take the money by letting them skirt certain anti-discrimination laws. Because of this order, the faith-based groups can take federal funds while refusing to hire people who aren’t of the faith the groups espouse.

Why it should go: As Timothy Noah pointed out in Slate at the time, this seems sensible enough at first: “Why shouldn’t government-funded religious charities be allowed to favor members of their own religion when hiring, firing, and promoting?” But there are a couple of problems here. The first is that the groups get to define for themselves who counts as a good Baptist or a good Jew—and what if they decide someone is out because he or she is gay, for example? The second problem is that it’s not really clear why Catholic charities should be able to hire only Catholics to serve meals to the homeless, if that work is being funded by the government. In a debate on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, Christopher Anders of the ACLU framed the order this way: “What this is about is creating a special right for some organizations that don’t want to comply with the civil rights protections.” James Towey, then director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said, “The question is, ‘Do they lose right to hire according to religious beliefs when they take federal money?’ ” Either way you frame it, the order is a bad idea. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have pledged to continue federal funding of faith-based programs, but Obama has promised that groups taking the money won’t be able to make social-services hires on the basis of religion.

But why stop there? Why is the government funding religious organizations to do, well, anything? As I wrote two years ago, there are inherent problems in giving the church access to the state’s purse.

Leaving aside whether or not Bush is more of a “dry drunk” than a recovering alcoholic, and whether he wanted votes at least as much as he wanted souls (if not more) it’s clear that he and the “peer-review panelist” wear the same blinders Kuo wears and miss the same point he comes close to reaching in the book, but ultimately doesn’t get either: that the government should not be in the business of “saving souls” or helping people to “know Jesus,” nor should it pay anyone else to do so.

The inherent danger in that is evidenced in the kind of discrimination Kuo writes about, that was an ingrained part of the thinking of the most ardent supporters of the initiative. Combined with the lack of oversight (which perhaps has its origin in what Kuo describes as evangelical Christians willingness to give the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt even with it seemed to ignore or short change their issues) creates situations like the one I noted before, where an organization like the Salvation Army gets nearly all of its budget from the government, and then uses it to purge Jews and homosexuals from its staff; Jewish and homosexual taxpayers, that is, whose taxes now supply the organization’s budget. (Not to mention Buddhist, Muslim, and non-religious taxpayers who would probably also be out of a job, courtesy of their tax dollars.)

It’s a danger only enhanced by the Bush administration’s efforts to weaken rules that were intended to protect the separation of church and state. The danger becomes even more apparent when you consider that the “soul-saving” mission is combined with belief that it’s an it is an “‘error‘ to judge federally-funded social service programs by the effectiveness of the services they provide, instead of judging them by religious ‘long-term ends’,” because it creates an atmosphere where effectiveness doesn’t matter in a situation where lives are literally at stake.

It leads to an HIV prevention educator in Africa being told, “Just remember, whatever you do, don’t mention condoms,” just before he stepped out onto a stage to talk HIV prevention to Ugandans, because he was hosted by a faith-based “abstinence-only” program. Never mind that advances against HIV in Uganda have withered away under the Bush administration, because anti-condom propaganda has effectively decreased condom use, but hasn’t affected the practice of unprotected sex. Because the effectiveness of the services offered is not important, and neither is any increase in the rate of HIV infection among Africans. That’s a short-term goal after all. The long term goal is “salvation,” which is still possible after and HIV infection, but unquantifiable.

…And, really, it couldn’t happen any other way. The problem with the faith-based initiative that Kuo misses, isn’t that it wasn’t done right. The problem is that it can’t be done right. Or that it’s almost impossible to do right, simply given human nature, the fact that the U.S. is overwhelmingly Christian, the tendency of the major faiths — Christianity, Judaism, and Islam — to reject the legitimacy of any other faith (unless practiced by the kind of moderates Sam Harris talks about, which still leaves the door open for their extremist co-religionists), and the tendency to one’s co-religionists (or in Bush’s case “a brother in Christ”) the benefit of the doubt.

By the time someone like Kuo pulls the curtain aside, much of the damage has been done already. And cleaning it up will end up being someone else’s job.

For those reasons, I would add to the list of executive orders that need to go Executive Order 13199.

By the authority vested in me as President of the United States by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to help the Federal Government coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faith-based and other community organizations and to strengthen their capacity to better meet social needs in America’s communities, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. Faith-based and other community organizations are indispensable in meeting the needs of poor Americans and distressed neighborhoods. Government cannot be replaced by such organizations, but it can and should welcome them as partners. The paramount goal is compassionate results, and private and charitable community groups, including religious ones, should have the fullest opportunity permitted by law to compete on a level playing field, so long as they achieve valid public purposes, such as curbing crime, conquering addiction, strengthening families and neighborhoods, and overcoming poverty. This delivery of social services must be results oriented and should value the bedrock principles of pluralism, nondiscrimination, evenhandedness, and neutrality.

Sec. 2. Establishment. There is established a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (White House OFBCI) within the Executive Office of the President that will have lead responsibility in the executive branch to establish policies, priorities, and objectives for the Federal Government’s comprehensive effort to enlist, equip, enable, empower, and expand the work of faith-based and other community organizations to the extent permitted by law.

Sec. 3. Functions. The principal functions of the White House OFBCI are, to the extent permitted by law: (a) to develop, lead, and coordinate the Administration’s policy agenda affecting faith-based and other community programs and initiatives, expand the role of such efforts in communities, and increase their capacity through executive action, legislation, Federal and private funding, and regulatory relief;

(b)
    to ensure that Administration and Federal Government policy decisions and programs are consistent with the President’s stated goals with respect to faith-based and other community initiatives;
(c)
    to help integrate the President’s policy agenda affecting faith-based and other community organizations across the Federal Government;
(d)
    to coordinate public education activities designed to mobilize public support for faith-based and community nonprofit initiatives through volunteerism, special projects, demonstration pilots, and public-private partnerships;
(e)
    to encourage private charitable giving to support faith-based and community initiatives;
(f)
    to bring concerns, ideas, and policy options to the President for assisting, strengthening, and replicating successful faith-based and other community programs;
(g)
    to provide policy and legal education to State, local, and community policymakers and public officials seeking ways to empower faith-based and other community organizations and to improve the opportunities, capacity, and expertise of such groups;
(h)
    to develop and implement strategic initiatives under the President’s agenda to strengthen the institutions of civil society and America’s families and communities;
(i)
    to showcase and herald innovative grassroots nonprofit organizations and civic initiatives;

(j)
    to eliminate unnecessary legislative, regulatory, and other bureaucratic barriers that impede effective faith-based and other community efforts to solve social problems;
(k)
    to monitor implementation of the President’s agenda affecting faith-based and other community organizations; and

    (l)
        to ensure that the efforts of faith-based and other community organizations meet high standards of excellence and accountability.
    Sec. 4. Administration. (a) The White House OFBCI may function through established or ad hoc committees, task forces, or interagency groups.

(b)
    The White House OFBCI shall have a staff to be headed by the Assistant to the President for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The White House OFBCI shall have such staff and other assistance, to the extent permitted by law, as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this order. The White House OFBCI operations shall begin no later than 30 days from the date of this order.
(c)
    The White House OFBCI shall coordinate with the liaison and point of contact designated by each executive department and agency with respect to this initiative.
(d)
    All executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall cooperate with the White House OFBCI and provide such information, support, and assistance to the White House OFBCI as it may request, to the extent permitted by law.
(e)
    The agencies’ actions directed by this Executive Order shall be carried out subject to the availability of appropriations and to the extent permitted by law.

Sec. 5. Judicial Review. This order does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or equity by a party against the United States, its agencies or instrumentalities, its officers or employees, or any other person. GEORGE W. BUSH
The White House,
January 29, 2001.

And Executive Order 13198. 

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to help the Federal Government coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faithbased and other community organizations and to strengthen their capacity to better meet social needs in America’s communities, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment of Executive Department Centers for FaithBased and Community Initiatives. (a) The Attorney General, the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall each establish within their respective departments a Center for FaithBased and Community Initiatives (Center).

This one should be the first in the shredder, and the offices occupied by the “Centers for Faith Based and Community Initiatives” returns to something resembling the proper function of government.

As some have suggested where regulation in the financial sector is concerned, the first step is to go back to what we had before, when religious organizations were already eligible to receive federal dollars, and were simply required to meet the same standards and requirements as any other organization applying for funding, to comply with all the same regulations regarding licensing, professional staff, training, and to have proper “firewalls” between government funded services, and the religious services of the organization.

In other words, let them play by the same rules as everyone else. Or not at all.

The videotaped beating of a transgender woman in police custody in Memphis last February led to charges against two officers and national condemnation from gay rights groups. The officers were fired, and the Police Department overhauled some of its procedures and began sensitivity training for the entire force.

But a week ago, the woman, Duanna Johnson, 43, was found fatally shot near downtown. Ms. Johnson’s death has revived scrutiny of the case as the department is under pressure to find the killer.

“Duanna Johnson’s case was tragic before, and now it’s an almost unimaginable loss,” said Jared Feuer, the Southern regional director of Amnesty International. “Her treatment demonstrates a culture of violence against transgender people that must be addressed.”

Ms. Johnson sustained a gunshot wound to the head late on Nov. 9, the police said, and officers found her body after responding to a shooting call in North Memphis. Investigators said three men were seen near the crime scene before the officers arrived, but police officials say they have no suspects, have made no arrests and do not have a motive for the killing.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay civil rights group, called for a federal investigation.

It’s a terribly sad ending to what was, by all reports, a hard life.

To say that 43 year-old Duanna Johnson leads a difficult life would be an understatement.  At her small, rundown, North Memphis house you’ll find condom wrappers on the ground outside her door. 

Her power meter is missing.  Not that it matters because her electricity was turned off months ago after she stopped paying her utility bill.

She has one extension cord running from her bedroom window to the neighbor’s house.  They charge her $20 a month to plug into their electricity.   It powers the single fan Duanna uses to cool her house.

And because Johnson has no running water in her home, neighbors often let her use their bathrooms to wash up and take care of her personal hygiene.

And, as I posted before, her position is one that many transgender women face.

The D.C. media, in contrast, wants you to believe that it was the “lifestyle” that Bella and Emonie were living that led to their deaths - as if their transgender status was a simple life choice, and that this choice somehow forced their killers’ hands.

Being transgender can be a recipe for a difficult life. Many transgender people are cut off from the employment and education opportunities that are basic expectations in our culture, and discrimination leads many into sex work as their only means of survival. Such may well have been the experience of Emonie and Bella.

Some studies have put transgender unemployment as high as 70 percent, well above even the worst levels in these economically troubled times. While many places have enacted legislation to protect the rights of individuals seeking and keeping employment - regardless of their gender expression or identity - no such protections exist nationally, or in Washington, D.C.

And they still have to find a way to make a living.

During a press conference following Evengelista’s murder, Budd told how transgendered women informed her that they turned to prostitution only after they had been denied jobs because of their appearance.

“It’s a matter of simple survival,” Budd said. “Some of the girls have no other choice but to turn to the streets for survival.”

… Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said about 50 people attending a transgender “speakout” meeting in the District on Sept. 9, discussed a wide range of issues and problems faced by transgendered people, including the issue of prostitution.

“It’s about economic opportunity or the lack of opportunity,” Keisling said. “I call it survival sex work, which is not the same as commercial sex work,” she said.

“If you were thrown out of your house at 10 and you didn’t finish school, what are your chances of going to college at Georgetown?” she said.

I don’t know much about Johnson’s story before the jailhouse beating that turned a spotlight on her life, but it probably took a course similar to other transgender women’s stories.

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I won’t speculate about who might be responsible for Johnson’s murder at this point. But I hope the matter is thoroughly investigated, and every potential lead followed-up.

Most of all, I hope she can finally rest in peace.

Now that the election is over, and in light of Johnson’s murder, I’ll probably dedicate a bit more time to updating the hate crimes project.

As an African American parent, I experience it as the moment I know is coming and that I dread, when both my sons will find out what it’s like to be held suspect because of their race. (For, though much has changed, much has remained the same.)

As a gay dad, I experience it in those moment when we have to explain to our son that some people don’t like his family, because his family is different. Particularly when we had to explain (because we’re always honest with our sons, in an age-appropriate manner) that “according to the rules” Daddy and Papa aren’t really married.

It’s not something we ever really discussed with him until recently, when we went to Annapolis for Equality Maryland’s Lobby Day. Our job was relatively easy, as our delegates are very supportive, and our state senator is a gay dad, but we felt it was important to take part.

When we explained to Parker why we were going, the hubby put it this way. “We’re going to see the people who make the rules, and ask them to change the rules so that Daddy and Papa can get married, because Daddy and Papa love each other very much.”

And when Parker asked if we were married I answered, “Daddy and Papa are married in our hearts, because we love each other very much, but someday we hope we can get married in front of everyone else too.”

A couple of days later, Parker turned to me and asked, “Did they change the rules yet so you can get married?”

I had to tell him no, but we were still married in our hearts, and someday soon the rules will change so that we can get married in front of everyone else. As much as it hurt me to have to say that, Parker seemed to understand, and wasn’t that bothered by it. (Why should he be? He’s happy and safe at home, and he’s got Daddy and Papa to love and care for him?) But it became even more important to me that our son know that his parents are married to each other, and what that means to us and for him.

Even as we were having the conversation with Parker, the hubby and I exchanged looks that wordlessly expressed our concern. Would he worry about something happening to our family? Would he worry about being taken away from us? Would he feel less secure?

Fortunately, I think the love and honestly we’ve tried to raise him with have gone a long way towards preventing that. But what if we’d lived in a state where one day we were legally married, and the next day w weren’t because that was taken away from us.

What’s that like a child, to find out that an awful lot of people voted that your family can’t be a family any more? Not legally, anyway.

Ed Swanson couldn’t move on.

The day after the election, the San Francisco lawyer and his husband, Paul Herman, a stay-at-home dad, had had to face the fact that Proposition 8 could mean that their marriage would be invalidated. They’d also had to go to parent conferences and tell the teachers that their five-year-old daughter, Liza, might be struggling in school because she was scared that her family might fall apart.

Liza, who has a twin sister, Katie, had peppered Swanson and Herman with questions once she’d realized that marriages uniting “a boy and a boy” were no longer allowed.

“They can’t take yours away, right?” she’d asked her parents. “They can’t take yours away when you have children, can they?”

“That’s when we realized she was afraid something would happen to us,” Swanson told me by phone on Wednesday. “We said, ‘They can’t take us away from you. We will be here for you forever.’”

“It’s difficult to explain to a five-year-old why it is people don’t want your parents to be married,” he continued. “They’re young enough that there was a chance they could have grown up thinking all their lives that their family was equal and accepted. Now they’re not going to have that chance. They’ll have to spend at least part of their lives knowing that their family is something that people don’t feel is acceptable.”

The Yes on 8 campaign made a great deal of political hay telling outright lies about what legal same-sex marriage could mean for children in schools, etc., and scaring people into thinking the purpose of proposition 8 was to “protect the children.” When the truth is they did a great deal of harm to a great many children. Dana points out that the 52,000 children being raised by 26,100 same-sex couples in California, or the 125,000 children being raised by LGB Californians (including single parents) were in the bullseye of the Yes on 8 campaign along with their families.

Would it have made a difference for parents to think about their children’s friends and classmates waking up on Nov. 5, feeling like their families were torn apart by the state? Having their self-confidence shaken when they were told their families were second-class? Hearing the hateful rhetoric from the right? Questioning the values that our country stands for? Would it have made a difference if parents knew that regardless of the curriculum, their children would learn about same-sex parents and relationships because they shared classrooms and playgrounds with the children of LGBT parents?

Yes, parenthood comes with many moments of heartbreak built in. But some of us get extras moments of heartbreak installed.

• Citizen Crain: Prop 8 and common sense (II) - Conceivably pro-same sex marriage advocates could put the question on the ballot again in 2010. This time for numerous reasons, including that it is not a presidential election year, same sex marriage may win by the same narrow margin by which it just lost. Same sex marriage would once again be legal. That of course would provoke the anti-same sex marriage folks, including the Mormons, who would redouble their efforts in the presidential election year of 2012 to once again outlaw same sex marriage. They might be able to win again in 2012. I think you get the picture. With the margin of victory or loss being so close, there could be a ridiculous back and forth legal mess. The Supreme Court should consider the possibility of on again, off again civil rights and all that implies before they validate Prop 8. Civil rights by a simple majority that could change every couple of years would be a disaster.
• Citizen Crain: Prop 8 and common sense - Jump forward to Prop 8. It was the exact same wording as Prop 22, only this time they labeled it a constitutional amendment. It passed by only 52% to 48% — much much less support support than Prop 22. But this time they called it a constitutional amendment instead of a ballot initiative. The same wording passed with less support. Does it make sense in any legal scheme that simply changing what it is labeled on the ballot (and getting fewer votes) should allow it to "stick" this time? Not in my law book of common sense.
• Yet Another Reason the GOP Failed | AlterNet - As Republicans sift through the ashes of their latest defeat, the data shard that Democrats probably most hope their battered rivals ignore is this one: Voters ages 18 to 29 — who cast nearly one in five ballots — favored Democrat Barack Obama over Republican John McCain by 66 percent to 32 percent. In contrast, voters ages 65 and older — about 16 percent of the 2008 vote — favored McCain 53 percent to 45 percent, exit polls show.
• Zakaria: GOP bereft of ideas or trapped by wrong ones - CNN.com - The Republican Party has become a party bereft of ideas or trapped by the wrong ones. The Reagan-Thatcher revolution of low taxes, deregulation and tight money isn't relevant to the problems of under-regulated financial products, huge deficits and a deepening recession. Add to that the Republican Party's social program is out of tune with an increasingly young, diverse and tolerant electorate. Something similar has happened in foreign policy. Voters have seemed to sense that there is a new world out there and that the solutions presented by McCain in his campaign didn't address the change.
• The GOP’s last chance: Become Democrats | Salon - The right's love affair with the feckless Palin indicates it has learned nothing from the Bush and McCain debacles. Bush's presidency was a decisive refutation of the idea that Republicans can win by playing only to true believers. And McCain's fateful decision to embrace the Bush-Rove play-to-the-base strategy cost him any chance he had at winning the election. Right-wing ideologues are suffering from massive cognitive dissonance (not to mention a healthy helping of denial). They can't grasp why their party imploded because the vast majority of them always supported Bush and his policies and still do. A few conservative critics have blasted him for lacking fiscal discipline, but most right-wing pundits liked Bush's policies just fine — until the public turned on him and on McCain.
• Protect Gay Married Couples: Three Suggestions | New America Blogs - Lost in all the publicity about post-election No on 8 protests is the question of whether the 18,000 gay couples who tied the knot this year in California will see their marriages voided by the courts. Protecting these marriages is essential as a matter of humanity, of avoiding a bigger legal mess. Here's how to respond.
• Mombian » Blog Archive » LGBT Parents: the Forgotten Voices of Prop. 8 - What both sides made invisible by their actions were the 52,000 children being raised by 26,100 same-sex couples in California. The total number of children affected by the prejudice of Prop 8 is even higher, as 125,000 LGB Californians, including single parents, are raising children, according to the Williams Institute of UCLA, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2005/2006 American Community Survey. LGBT parents are raising children in every California county, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Interestingly, though, among the counties with the most same-sex couples raising children, the top six, and eight of the top 10, all voted in favor of Prop 8.
• WoodMoor Village: Can I Vote on Your Marriage? - Check out the T-Shirt for sale at Zazzle.com. That is a great line, but I wonder if folks that wear it will get verbally assaulted or worse. You can also get it as a bumper sticker. Neat perspective by incongruity example for my Dramatism class next semester.
• On the Castro Confrontation Incident - 1. If these soulless cretins went into an insular Hasidic community in Brooklyn and tried to tell the residents — who had been minding their own business — that they were sinners, that Jesus is the only way to Heaven and that God abhors their “lifestyle choices,” the response would have been quite uglier than this. 2. When the peaceable gay Christians of the Soulforce Equality Ride visit Evangelical colleges, seeking only to have a respectful dialog with students, the colleges’ theocratic Christianist administrators’ response is almost always the same: Set one foot on our campus and you will be arrested.
• Stop…Obama time - starobserver.com.au - Not only the first black president of the United States of America, last Tuesday Barack Obama also became its first president to specifically acknowledge gays in an acceptance speech, thanking Americans both straight and gay. Four major pieces of pro-gay legislation should be passed within Obama’s first term.
• On What “Closing Guantanamo” Does and Does Not Mean - In a post-Bush, post-Boumediene Washington, closing “Guantanamo the Base” (i.e., while merely transferring the remaining detainees to a military prison on U.S. soil, to face a prosecution that comports with due process) is a simple, uncomplicated yet important symbolic step that by itself would represent a tremendous step back from the brink, for it would repudiate, finally, the notion that we as a nation are ever entitled to behave lawlessly.
• An Open Letter to L. Whitney Clayton - If someone were to walk up to me, hit me in the face for no legitimate reason and walk away, then I would probably not chase him down just to hit him back. But when someone walks up to me, hits me in the face for no legitimate reason and then tells me it’s “time to heal” — well, then I’m going to hit back.

OK, I’ve gotta do this before I get all sappy and weepy, etc. But six years ago today, an incredible little person came into the world, just a couple of days before I even knew he was coming into my life, and every day since then he’s grown into and even more incredible, not-so-little person.

So, pardon me if I go all “proud, doting dad.

Six years. I can hardly believe it, but it’s true. The kid that I could almost hold in one hand as a newborn now comes past my waist when se stand together.

The kid who’s first words were toddler-speak for “thank you,” which came out as “dee doo,” is now a regular chatter box and is taking Spanish.

The kid I once recorded singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” now requests two songs per night from me when it’s my turn to put him to bed. (And makes up some rather interesting songs of his own.)

The kid whose first steps I witnessed how plays soccer and takes swimming lessons.

The kid whose boo-boos I kissed now comforts his little brother when he falls down, or catches him before he falls. The same kid felt bad when a friend of his was sick and couldn’t come to his birthday party, and wanted to send him a card or a present to make him feel better.

I could go on, but suffice it to say that as a parent and a human being, I feel indescribably lucky and blessed to have Parker as my son and to be his dad. In fact, every so often I think to myself “I’m someone’s dad,” and it blows my mind a little.

Every day I am more proud of his spirit, his compassion, his confidence, his intelligence, and so many other things that on a daily basis cause me to smile or shake my head with wonder.

Every night that I put Parker to bed, before I close his door I say to him “Daddy and Papa love you.” Because I want that to be the last thing he hears at night, but also because we do.

The greatest gift of parenthood, for me, has been the discovery of a capacity to love I didn’t know I had, and the depth of which I never imagined.

When Parker was a toddler, I got down on the floor and looked at him and asked, “Do you know how much Daddy loves you?” And he’s open his arms and I’d say “more than that,” and he’d open them wider and wider until he started laughing, and I’d say “you can’t open your arms wide enough to show how much I love you. I can’t either.

My hope as a parent, is that I my children grow up never doubting that they have my acceptance, support, and love, and I draw on that capacity every day, to give as much of that to them as I can.

So, thank you, Parker. For being. And happy birthday. Daddy loves you. Always will.

Meanwhile, five civil rights groups asked California’s highest court Friday to annul the ban on the grounds that Proposition 8 threatens the legal standing of all minority groups, not just gays.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and two other groups petitioned the state Supreme Court to prevent the change from taking effect.

The petition is the fourth seeking to have the measure invalidated. But it’s the first to argue that the court should step in because the gay marriage ban, which overturned the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay unions, sets a precedent that could be used to undermine the rights of racial minorities.

Eva Paterson, president of the San Francisco-based Equal Justice Society, said the election raises the specter of voters deciding to bar illegal immigrants from public schools, disenfranchising black voters or otherwise using the ballot box to promote segregation.

“The court ruled that to discriminate in the area of same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and violated our guaranteed equality,” Paterson said. “Why should a slim majority of Californians be able to put discrimination back into the California Constitution?”

OK. there’s one thing that bears repeating here.

The petition is the fourth seeking to have the measure invalidated. But it’s the first to argue that the court should step in because the gay marriage ban, which overturned the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay unions, sets a precedent that could be used to undermine the rights of racial minorities.

Next time you go to a protest, somebody please put these words from a previous post on a protest sign or poster. You have my express permission to use these words over and over and over again on as many signs, flyers, buttons, etc. you want.

You may not be gay, but you may be next.

The NAACP, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and those other civil rights groups probably get that they may not be gay, but if what happened in California on proposition 8 stands, they may be next. You may not be able to fit the next part on a sign, but it’s the rest of the argument.

Remember that we used to live in a country where civil rights weren’t decided by majority vote. Remember that we used to live in a country whose founding documents cite “inallienable rights.” Remember that we’re may not be living in that country anymore, and even if your rights were not up for a vote this time around, they are almost certain on someone’s hit list.

Better yet, put this question on a sign.

Which of your civil rights do you want put to a majority vote?

Or this.

Which of your civil rights do we get to vote on?

Or this.

Who gets to vote on your civil rights?

Or this. [Via Woodmoor Village.]

If you think for one minute that the people who have been against civil rights from the beginning will stop with same-sex marriage or with gay people, you may be surprised. What they did in California was to establish a beachhead as a basis for overruling almost any established civil right on nothing more than a simple majority vote. In other words, they got a foothold for establishing majoritarianism.

What’s unsaid and unquestioned in all of the arguments above is the increasing conservative push for majoritarianism. Or, to put it plainly, absolute majority rule. Might, in other words, makes right. The majority is automatically right , no matter what it wants or doesn’t, because it’s the majority. Only the current crop of Republicans and religious conservatives go a step further than traditional majoritarianism, by seeking to bar a future majority from disagreeing with the (perceived) current majority.

What’s scary is that the creeping support for majoritarianism may result in a situation where no one has any “unalienable rights,” that the majority can’t take away, because the two avenues minorities have traditionally had to access justice that the majority withholds — the courts and the legislature— will have been delegitimized fo that purpose.They’ll henceforth exist only for the purpose of enforcing the will of the majority because, as noted above, the majority can’t be wrong.

What’s scarier is that some pretty smart people either don’t seem to realize this, or just don’t question it.

Kip put it better than I did by simply placing two significant quotes next to each other.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

–Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Who’s going to tell us what a civil right is and what’s not? Well, the people will.

–Massachusetts Governor, Harvard Law School graduate (and Christian), Mitt Romney, June 28, 2006

Who? The people?

Like maybe Gladys? Or any of the rest of these folks?

Think about it for a second. If they had a shot at it, which civil rights court rulings would these people like to see overturned? And not just the people in the video, but the far more politically savvy people who get them “angried-up” and out at the polls? The people whose founders, favored politicians, and spokespersons have a peculiar habit of defending America’s peculiar institution? The people who could conceivably mount a campaign to repeal civil rights rulings that they are “not against” but that are “no longer necessary”? (I’m just guessing how they might spin it.

Which would you like to see up for a vote:

• Brown v. Board of Education (school desegregation, major blow against “separate but equal”)
• Roe v. Wade (reproductive freedom)
• Shelley v. Kramer (racially restrictive “covenants” in real estate - This one’s definitely on Glady’s list)
• Bailey v. Patterson (segregation in intrastate and interstate transportation)
• Batson v. Kentucky (basically says you can’t put, say, a Black person on trial and exclude Black people from the jury)
• Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (defined “hostile work environment” as sexual harassment under the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
• Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Serv. Inc. (same-sex harassment can be the basis for a sexual harassment claim)
• Romer v. Evans (overturned Colorado amendment prohibiting protection of LGBT rights)
• Lawrence v. Texas (decriminalized sodomy, overturned sodomy laws)
• Grisswold v. Connecticut (overturned law banning contraception, right to “marital privacy”)
• And of course the major civil rights acts of
• • 1957 (established the Civil Rights Commission)
  • 1960 (federal inspection of voter registration polls)
  • 1964 (prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, sex, and national origin)
  • 1968 (Fair Housing Act)

You could almost line them up chronologically and figure out how far people would like to turn back the clock if they could. In a very real sense, even if you’re not gay, you could be “next” on their list.

Granted, we do not have anything like a national ballot initiative, yet. But there is a movement for one, supported by former presidential candidate Mike Gravel.

I don’t know if it would open the door to putting civil rights to a majority vote, and I don’t particulary want to find out. Neither, apparently, does the NAACP.

I’ve known for a while now, through the grapevine that Wanda Sykes is a lesbian. I’m just glad she said it out loud

.

In Las Vegas, comedian Wanda Sykes made a surprise appearance at the rally Saturday. Sykes, who was in town performing on the Strip, said the passage of Proposition 8 has led her to be more outspoken about her sexuality.

“You know, I don’t really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn’t feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life,” Sykes said. “Everybody that knows me personally, they know I’m gay. But that’s the way people should be able to live their lives.”

Of course, she said much more. [via Vegas Happens Here.]

“I thought, man we are moving in the right direction. And then at about 11 o’clock I was crushed. We took a huge leap forward and then got dragged 12 feet back. I felt like I was being attacked, personally attacked, our community was attacked. I got married Oct. 25, I don’t really talk about my sexual orientation, I felt like I was living my life, I wasn’t in the closet, but I was just living my life. Everybody who knows me personally, they know I’m gay. And that’s the way people should be able to live our lives, really. We shouldn’t have to be standing out here demanding something we automatically should have as citizens of this country. … They pissed off the wrong group of people. They have galvanized a community. We are so together now and we all want the same thing and we shouldn’t have to settle for less. Instead of having gay marriage in California, no, we’re gonna have gay marriage across the country. When my wife and I leave California, I want to have my marriage also recognized in Nevada, in Arizona, all the way to New York. … I’m proud to be a woman, I’m proud to be a black woman and I’m proud to be gay.”

…Sykes also disputed the much-reported claim that 70 percent of black voters in California voted to ban gay marriage. Several prominent writers, including Dan Savage here, have railed against homophobic blacks. Wanda said the exit polls were wrong and admonished me, “Please stop spreading that 70 percent of African-Americans voted Yes on Prop 8 because it’s just not true.”

I’ve been a fan of Sykes for a while now, and her coming out doesn’t surprise me. I saw her on television a couple of months ago, having lunch with Margaret Cho (another of my favorite comedians), on a Logo network show, and I said then, “I bet she’s testing the water and getting ready to come out.”

Lately, we enjoy Sykes’ brand of humor via “Back at the Barnyard” (where she gives voice to Bessy), which has become one of Parker’s favorite shows. But Sykes’ funniest and best moments are when she’s just being herself.

Good for you, Wanda. Good for all of us. More power to ya and — if it’s possible — you just made me an even bigger fan.

In the week since, California has seen an outpouring of demonstrations ranging from quiet vigils to noisy street protests against Proposition 8, including rallies outside churches and the Mormon temple in Westwood as well as boycotts of some businesses that contributed to the Yes on 8 campaign.

Many of those activities have been organized not by political professionals and established leaders in the gay community, but by young activists working independently on Facebook and MySpace.

The grass-roots activism is a tribute to political organizing in the digital age, in which it is possible to mobilize thousands of people with a few clicks of a mouse. It has generated national attention — and set up a series of Saturday demonstrations that organizers hope will attract tens of thousands of people to city halls throughout California.

But the demonstrations also have raised questions about whether the in-your-face approach will alienate voters, who may be asked one day to approve gay marriage. Twice in the last eight years, voters have rejected it.

“I think the No on 8 forces have devolved into mob justice,” said Jeff Flint, a campaign strategist for the Yes side.

Mob justice? Please. Man, you haven’t seen mob justice. If anybody got mobbed, it was the couples who saw their marriages voted — and their civil right to marry each other — voted out of existence. If that doesn’t make you angry, there’s probably something wrong with you.

In the week-and-a-have since proposition 8 was defeated, I’ve been taken to task for saying that people had the right to be angry after prop. 8 passed. I’ve read blog posts advising that me that “anger loses.” (And, no disrespect to the blogger who wrote that post, but if one more person tells me “We all won,” I might just explode. We did not “all win,” some of us had very painful losses, even in the middle of all celebrating.) I’ve heard premature “calls for healing.” I even did a double take when I saw a sign on the bus declaring “Anger is false power,” but then realized it was a poster for anger management counseling.

Maybe anger management is necessary sometimes, but this time? Fuck it. There are times when anger is a natural, justified, and even powerful reaction.

Where would gay people be without anger? The event that launched the modern gay rights movement was a riot that started when the police raided the Stonewall Inn on the wrong night, queens weren’t having it and fought back. Where would we be without that bunch of pissed off queens and dykes, right?

When Dan White got a slap on the wrist for assassinating Harvey Milk and George Muscone, gays rioted again, showing at least that they weren’t going to lie down and take it.

And the when anger at the Reagan administration’s lack of action on the AIDS crisis was channeled into ACT-UP, whose demonstrations and direct action brought attention to the epidemic and government action that wasn’t forthcoming until people acted up.

And remember what we’re talking about here, and what people are so upset about, are not riots. We’re talking about demonstrations. Loud, but (so far) lawful demonstrations, where passions have gotten out of hand sometimes, but we’re not talking roving bands of marauding, angry queers.

Anger is the right response, and a healthy response, when it rises from a denial of humanity, an assault on dignity. or enforced injustice. In those situations it’s a natural right.

When, people get angry, they fail to remember their “place.” Calls to move instantly into self-examination and to adopt a “healing” attitude overnight literally while still feeling the sting of the above is to deny the right to feel anger over injustice and a reminder that it’s not your “place.”

Now that California voters have outlawed same-sex marriage, an LDS Church leader called Wednesday for members to heal any rifts caused by the emotional campaign by treating each other with “civility, with respect and with love.”

“We hope that every one would treat each that way no matter which side of this issue they were on,” said Elder L. Whitney Clayton, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Presidency of the Seventy.

…The LDS Church’s campaign to pass Proposition 8 was its most vigorous since the 1970s, when it joined the effort to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment.

Clayton said the church never considered Proposition 8 to be a political issue.

Somehow anger means that you are wrong, not that you’ve been wronged. And shutting it off means those who have wronged you don’t have to face any kind of accountability.

Meanwhile, know this: You can stoke the factional lusts of the Great Unwashed. You can harness your vast financial resources to tear down the separation of church and state, and thereby purchase legitimization from your fellow anti-reason theocrats in other cults and sects. You can continue to control an entire state as the stale, stagnant, dreary mini-theocracy that you would gladly see the rest of the country emulate. You can continue to torture your own sons and daughters who had the dumb luck to be born gay in a Mormon family. You can enjoy the last few gasps of fleeting “successes” of today — until you finally do the world a favor and die off, leaving your children to apologize to your grandchildren for your sins.

But there is one thing you cannot do: You cannot force me to “heal.” The perpetrator of a harm has no standing to demand that his victim heal according to the evildoer’s timetable. To suggest otherwise simply shows your disingenuousness.

I will choose the day when I “heal.” But rest assured that today is not that day. Today, I hit back.

Might, after all, makes right. It’s a lesson I learned as a child, when I was hit and then dared to cry. A call to instantaneous “healing,” to excise a natural response of the human heart to hurt, is also a call to accept that hurt and even places the one who inflicts the hurt in the “victim” position. (The batterer always says to the battered, “look what you made me do.”) It is a call, sometimes even a demand to quietly accept injustice. (”Stop or I’ll give you something to cry about.)

Anger — at an injustice done or pain inflicted — is a privilege.

I’ve notice something. No one seems to seems to question whether the angry white men that swept Newt Gingrich and the Republican majority into power in 1994 were justified in their anger. It’s assumed that whatever they’re angry about they have a right to be angry about.

But not so for the so called “angry black women.” Their anger is somehow less “real” and less justified. Perhaps that that’s because being angry is a privilege in this culture. Anger, if you are a minority, is dangerous. If you are a woman, or a person of color, gay, etc., your movements must be calm, your voice must be modulated, and your anger must ever show.

Joy is permitted. You may sing, dance, and celebrate in your joy. It is a performance, sometimes a command performance, demanded of you even in the midst of despair. Suffering is permitted. It, too, is familiar and non-threatening. It can even be reaffirming to those looking upon it; reaffirming their power and privilege. Sadness is permitted. You are allowed to mourn, and to moan, keen, and cry in your mourning. Fear is permitted. Your fear — wide-eyed screaming of stunned silence — is familiar, and recognizable.

You are allowed all of the above, especially in response to another’s more “real” anger, but not your own anger. Anger implies entitlement — to material goods, to power and privilege, or a certain kind of treatment. Anger implies a right to expect something, and is a justifiable response to not receiving one’s due. And you aren’t due that which you’d have a right to be angry about having been denied.

Stonewall happened because people got angry. When Dan White got a light sentence for Harvey Milk’s murder, people got angry. ACT-UP and and the awareness and action it helped bring about happened because people got angry. Stonewall, an the movement it inspired, happened because people decided they’d had enough, and got angry.

People get angry when they’re denied the basic human dignity they have a right to, when they citizenship and their humanity itself is denied. They get angry, then they organize and do something about it.

First, you get mad. You can’t just stop there, because anger by itself — undirected and unchanneled — gets nowhere, focuses on the wrong targets, like people who are actually on your side.

Geoffrey, a student at UCLA and regular Rod 2.0 reader, joined the massive protest outside the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Westwood. Geoffrey was called the n-word at least twice.

It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. YOU NIGGER, one man shouted at men. If your people want to call me a FAGGOT, I will call you a nigger. Someone else said same thing to me on the next block near the temple…me and my friend were walking, he is also gay but Korean, and a young WeHo clone said after last night the niggers better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them.

Los Angeles resident and Rod 2.0 reader A. Ronald says he and his boyfriend, who are both black, were carrying NO ON PROP 8 signs and still subjected to racial abuse.

Three older men accosted my friend and shouted, “Black people did this, I hope you people are happy!” A young lesbian couple with mohawks and Obama buttons joined the shouting and said there were “very disappointed with black people” and “how could we” after the Obama victory. This was stupid for them to single us out because we were carrying those blue NO ON PROP 8 signs! I pointed that out and the one of the older men said it didn’t matter because “most black people hated gays” and he was “wrong” to think we had compassion. That was the most insulting thing I had ever heard. I guess he never thought we were gay.

Anger unfocused, undisciplined, and undirected is destructive to cooperation and community. It alienates allies and potential allies. It is no longer “righteous anger” or justifiable anger, but a furious imitation of the worst traits of those who inflicted the harm; the real source of your anger. It is the abused imitating the abuser, and in the process continuing the cycle that spirals down to a place where you become what you started out to fight against. In that sense, it transforms you and your world, but in all the wrong ways.

Sometimes anger is healthy and necessary fuel for the work ahead. But don’t just “take it to the streets.” Join a movement, or start one, and make an impact. Amplify your voice by joining with others who share your experience and anger, at a lifetime of being told “you can there, but you can’t sit here.”

You can’t because it’s not your world. It’s their world, and you just live in it.

Growing up gay in a largely straight world, and being told that you can have your legal contracts for your relationship if you’re lucky, or live with domestic partnerships if you’re really lucky, is a bit like growing up in a big, old house. You’re allowed to live there - in fact, you were born there and grew up there - but certain rooms are off-limits. “You can’t go in there,” the adults say, as soon as you learn to walk. “Or there,” they remind you as you get older. And you wonder why. But you’re a good kid and don’t want to make a ruckus, and it’s your home too and your family, and they seem very insistent. After a while, they allow you to go up to the second floor and even third floor. There are rules there: don’t touch that vase, don’t put your feet on that couch, don’t spill anything on that rug. But you can still hang out there if you really want to.

But there’s one room at the very top of the house that has always been forbidden, and the more lee-way you are given elsewhere, the more stringently that rule is enforced. In the end, they say, “You can go anywhere and do anything - apart from that room.” And you accept this, because they seem so intent on it. And you love them. But you keep wondering: why that room? What is up there? What am I not allowed to experience or to see?

And one day, you get up your courage and you wait till the adults are out and you gingerly make your way to that room you have never been in before.

And you go in, and look around, with some awe and burning curiosity. And you look in the cupboards and the drawers and under the chairs, and finally you find, in one dusty old desk, what they never wanted you to find.

You find the legal papers, the deed, that proves that they own the house. And you don’t. However long you live, whatever you do, however you conduct yourself, this house will never be yours. You can live in it - with their permission, and under their authority. It is your home, because where else were you born and where else would you live - but only to rent, never to own. It is your family, but you are always kept one critical step away from being fully part of it. There is one fine line you will never be allowed to cross.

Take it to the doorsteps of those who actually did the harm.

Carrying signs reading “Love not H8″ and “Did you cast a ballot or a stone?”, a large crowd of gay-marriage supporters gathered outside a Mormon temple to protest the church’s endorsement of a same-sex marriage ban in California.

The rally Wednesday night outside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple came hours after gay couples exchanged vows for the first time in Connecticut amid cheers and tears of joy.

The milestone did not ease the sting of a major loss for gay-marriage supporters last week. Gay activists planned protests across the country over the vote that took away their right to wed in California.

In the Upper West Side of Manhattan, demonstrators chanted “Shame on you!” outside the temple. Leaders of the Mormon church had encouraged members to support passage of California’s Proposition 8, a referendum banning same-sex marriage.

“I’m fed up and disgusted with religious institutions taking political stances and calling them moral when it’s nothing but politics,” said Dennis Williams, 36. “Meanwhile they enjoy tax-free status while trying to deny me rights that should be mine at the state and federal level.”

Church spokesman Michael Otterson said that while citizens have the right to protest, he was “puzzled” and “disturbed” by the gathering since the majority of California’s voters had approved the amendment.

Remember they’re “disturbed” because they’ve always and only ever expected you to simply “take it.” Remember the injustice you and others have endured for the sake of their comfort. Remember that you do not owe them their “comfort.” Remember that their “comfort” is not your responsibility. Remember that they do not have the right to be “comfortable” at your expense.

Take it to those who approved of the injustice done, and wanted it done.

In Orange County, police officials and protest organizers estimated that about 250 to 300 gay-rights advocates fanned out along sidewalks leading to Saddleback Church in Lake Forest.

The protesters were angered by the megachurch’s support of Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment approved by voters Tuesday that bans same-sex marriages and overturns the state Supreme Court decision in May legalizing such unions.

Human Rights Campaign volunteer Ed Todeschini accused the church of helping propagate what he called misinformation about the Supreme Court ruling, including that gay marriage would have to be taught to kindergartners.

…”They told such obvious lies, they used their lies to deceive the public,” Todeschini said of the church, which gained national attention in August when its pastor, Rick Warren, brought Obama and McCain together to discuss their religious faith. The two candidates embraced during what was otherwise an often-contentious presidential campaign.

Todeschini said Sunday’s rally was peaceful, with demonstrators waving placards with slogans including “Equality for all” and “Shame on you.”

In Oakland, where the highway patrol rerouted traffic, protest organizers said they hoped to tone down the anger that has characterized some previous protests.

“Our intent is not to disturb churchgoers,” organizer Tim DeBenedictis said in a statement. “Our goal is to mend fences and build bridges so that all Californians can achieve marriage equality under the law.”

Watch more MySpace videos on AOL Video

Take it to those who enabled the injustice.

In the 10 days since Californians passed Proposition 8, a wave of impromptu pro-gay marriage rallies has exploded into boycotts of businesses whose owners and employees supported the marriage ban, plans for simultaneous protest rallies nationwide and talk of an initiative to overturn the ban in 2010.

While leaders of the No on 8 campaign say the grass-roots activities underscore the deep resentment gays feel in losing the right to marry, backers of Proposition 8 say they have become the target of an ugly, anti-democratic witch hunt. They say printing the names of people who donated to the yes cause and circulating “blacklists” on the Web unfairly penalize small donors who believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage.

“We’re in the midst of a social change. Remember the riots, the dogs, the fire hoses when they tried to integrate the public school system. It was tumultuous. That’s what happens when you go through social changes, and there’s going to be quite a bit more tumult,” predicted Assemblyman Mark Leno of San Francisco, a leader in the gay marriage movement.

…Already, high-profile Sacramento theater director Scott Eckern, who donated to the Yes on 8 campaign, resigned his job of 25 years after opponents threatened to boycott the theater. A host of businesses, ranging from restaurants to car dealers, have been targeted by boycotts after their owners’ or employees’ names appeared on pro-8 donor lists. And in workplaces around the state, employers and employees are watching their backs.

Proponents of Proposition 8 have labeled the activities “mob justice” and decried the donor boycotts as “McCarthyism.” The measure had passed 52-48 percent.

“People have the right to protest, but when you go over the line deciding to send out blacklists and boycotts because you lost, that is wrong; that is intolerable,” said Frank Schubert, manager of the pro-Proposition 8 campaign. “It’s a political mob as bad as McCarthy was.”

Remember that the mob justice happened on election day, when your civil rights, your full citizenship, and your membership in the human family was literally put to an “up or down” majority vote. Remember who incited that mob. Remember that you have as much right to your anger and its lawful expression as they have to their opionion. Even if doing so makes them “uncomfortable.”

Although Margie is usually a spry woman, today she was breathless, and distraught and appeared fragile, not an easy task for a woman of her height. She stood supported between her daughters and read a prepared speech - most of which had already been released.

She praised the restaurant as a beacon of diversity, people from all places and where everyone doesn’t have to agree, where they can get along even with differing views. She credited her aunt for being sympathetic to the plight of the “gay individual” before there was support and how the restaurant became a safe haven for “that community”. She told of visiting sick people and providing “a healing place”.

She explained that she had been a member of the Mormon Church all her life and that she had responded to their request with a personal donation. She shared that El Coyote had contributed to many gay interests and charities.

Margie told of the 89 employees whose families relied on their job. She expressed how customers were part of the Coyote family. She lamented that this situation could harm a place with such diversity and harmony and joy and mutual respect and diversity of viewpoints.

Find out who they are.