In Virginia, the electorate shifted back towards Republicans in the 2009 elections. So, you have a new governor who has written some pretty far-right stuff in his past. And you have an Attorney General who is going out of his way to end non-discrimination policies at the state’s universities.
Campus activists across Virginia put spring break on hold Monday to mobilize against Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, who has riled student groups with a letter advising public universities to retreat from their policies against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Students at Virginia Commonwealth University, one of the few in the state not on break, planned a rally for noon Wednesday, with several hundred students committed. At Christopher Newport University, student Republican and Democratic leaders will discuss their next steps at a bipartisan meeting Friday. (Washington Post)
As we saw in the Prop 8 election, the line between those who support equality and those who oppose it is less about political party and more about age. Age was one of the largest dividing lines. Those under the age of 30 voted against Prop 8 at over 60%, while those over 65 voted in support of it at over 60%.
And in Virginia, we are seeing students who are standing up for the values that they want to see embodied in their institutions. While the law is not really clear if the Attorney General can really force the universities to roll back their anti-discrimination policies, as they are semi-independent, the letter is bringing attention to the issue. Democrats are pushing the Governor to support a non-discrimination bill in the legislature, where bills have been previously blocked by the Republicans.
With every passing day, Americans shift gradually toward equality. As millenials become as big of a voting bloc as the Baby Boomers, marriage discrimination laws will fall like dominoes. It’s why the Right is pushing so hard to get constitutional amendments to close down debate as much as possible. They are trying to lock in discrimination now, before the tide of equality washes over them.
In what amounts to a political epitaph as a Republican in a virulently anti-gay political party, state Sen. Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) admitted what much of the Sacramento establishment has known for a while now.
Republican Sen. Roy Ashburn, who has been on leave from the Senate since his DUI arrest last week, confirmed today that he is gay.
“I’m gay,” Ashburn told KERN radio host Inga Barks in an interview this morning. “Those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long.”
Ashburn’s announcement follows reports that Ashburn was leaving a gay club before he was arrested for driving under the influence last week.
The closet is a soul-crushing, debilitating place to be. It rips you apart, and eventually, you will do something stupid. When you try to hide something so important to who you are, it will eventually consume you. And, to be clear, this is most assuredly about more than just sex, it is about who you love, who you want to share the rest of your life with, and who you are.
The closet cracks in more or less dramatic fashion. For Ashburn, it was more dramatic because of his history of support for anti-gay causes. For people like Bill Postmus, the damage can lead to self-medicating with drugs or self-destructive behaviors. But in the end, the close will always take its toll. It will always win; control your life in some way or another. You simply can’t control your life if you are trying to hide who you are.
Ashburn tries to cover for his hypocrisy by pointing out that his constituents would want it that way. But constituents don’t elect a set of political positions, when they are voting on candidates, they are choosing a person. A person with failures and faults, and a sense of morality. Ashburn was so busy trying to hide who he was that he forgot to mind his conscience and whatever sense of morality to which he subscribes.
Time will move on, and Bakersfield will likely elect another anti-gay Senator come November. Ashburn will end his political career in disgrace and shuffle off to play the Sacramento third house games in some way. But, he will do so as an openly gay man. And he will soon discover that telling the truth means more than the ability to go to a gay bar in peace, but also a sense of liberty that you just don’t have in a stifling closet.
During my sophomore year in college, I spent a semester in London. When I went in to donate blood a few months after I came back, I discovered that I wasn’t eligible. Apparently, I might have been exposed to mad cow disease. A sensible precaution I suppose, as the disease is difficult to detect, and can lie dormant for an extended period of time. I had yet to come out, so that was the factor that kept me away.
Years after returning from London or of being at any risk for mad cow disease, I am still ineligible to donate blood. Today, it is because I am an openly gay man. That I admit that fact means that under the current guidelines I can never give blood. Ever. You can see the full guidelines here. Note that if you have paid or been paid for sex, you can donate blood after 12 months. Monogamous gay sex? Never
However, 18 Senators, and one of my favorite members of the House, Anthony Weiner, have written a letter calling for that outright ban to end. In an op-ed for the Bay Windows, Sen. Kerry points out some of the ridiculousness of the ban:
It’s more than a little hard for most people to believe that federal law today bans gay men from donating blood. But it’s true; in fact, any man who has had a sexual relationship with another man, even once, since 1977, is banned — for life — from donating blood. It’s a cruel reality that I thought warranted a close examination of the justifications.
As it turns out, not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban. The three largest blood donation organizations in our country — the American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, and AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks) — all agree calling the ban “medically and scientifically unwarranted.” The American Medical Association supports modifying the restriction. And this week, I was joined by more than a dozen other United States Senators in calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review and modify this discriminatory ban.
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Nothing better highlights the unjustified nature of the discrimination against men who have had sex with other men than the FDA’s own screening guidelines for other high risk sexual behaviors known for transmitting HIV. FDA guidelines dictate that if you pay a heterosexual prostitute for sex you are deferred from donating blood, but for just one year following the incident. If you have had heterosexual sex with someone you know is infected with HIV, you are deferred from donating blood for just one year. But a man who has had protected sex with a monogamous male partner, even one time 33 years ago, is barred for life from donating blood. (Bay Windows)
Now, the Senators seem to point toward a 12 month defferal for male-to-male sexual contact. The thing is that if we are going to start really classifying behaviors, let’s classify behaviors according to their actual risk. If we are asking these personal questions when we are donating blood, let’s ask the relevant ones. Same-sex partners in a truly monogamous relationship are at no greater risk than an opposite sex couple. I will certainly admit that gay men are known to be a smidgen more promiscuous, but in these times, infidelity in straight marriages is hardly noteworthy. Yet having multiple sex partners is not even one of the factors in the donation restriction list.
I’m not trying to be sex-negative here, but the fact is that having multiple sex partners over a short period of time is a far larger risk factor than having a single monogamous same-sex relationship. HIV antibodies are undetectable for about three weeks, so a deferral for promiscuous people, no matter who they are having sex with, seems reasonable.
The best we can do is to ask the relevant questions, and quit pretending that we can neatly classify people. Ask the real questions, rather than relying on outdated and unscientific categories.
In Minnesota, as I mentioned yesterday, the legislative committees have been hearing testimony, and as you would expect, the logic tends to be on our side. Fortunately for us, we have see about two and a half hours of Youtube video. Grab a bucket of popcorn, and let’s go through this for a little bit.
You’ll have to wade through some really vile stuff if you are going to get through it. Dr. Bill Harley, a “psychologist” who claims that he’s done “many” successful “conversions.” And, according to him, the victims “patients” who change from a same-sex to a opposite sex orientation, their life becomes more happier. Same-sex couples relationships, according to this expert, are less stable, more brief and more violent. According to a “study he read”, no source cited here, over the past eight years, same-sex male couples in Sweden are 50% more likely to divorce, and women are 160% more likely to divorce. Of course, Prof. Carpenter later put the lie to this “study” by pointing out that, in fact, Sweden didn’t allow gay marriage until 2008. Thus, making his entire study non-sensical. Apparently, “Dr.” Harley was studying the gay people in his brain.
His thing isn’t so much that lgbt couples shouldn’t marry, more that there shouldn’t be lgbt people:
It should be obvious that a change in orientation would benefit the adults.
When the legislator asked him where he got his information, he eventually came to the fact that it was from “people and thereapists that he’s spoken to.” So, basically, this guy went to some Exodus International Summit and talked to a bunch of people trying to pray away the gay. And from that, decided that, in fact, self-loathing gays and lesbians would be way better off being self-hating “straight” folks.
After that guy finally gets off the stage, a converted lesbian, Janet Boynes, tells the world about how much she hated herself as a lesbian. The thing about all these people isn’t that they hated being a lesbian or gay, it’s that they simply suffered from severely low self-esteem. These are people who loathe one thing or other about themselves, and
Finally, at about 70 minutes, we get to somebody who actually has a grasp on facts. At about 80 minutes in, University of Minnesota Law Professor Dale Carpenter goes through all the myths that the right wing has been spreading. He simply eviscerates all of the hateful testimony of the speakers before him. He presents the facts as they, not as the right-wing tries to fear people into believing. All in all, a terrific job.
If you have several hours this weekend, take a look at the whole video. If not, check out Prof. Carpenter’s testimony. It’s moving and logical at the same time. As he said, it is time for the state to say yes to the people.
In Washington, DC, marriage equality is now the law of the District, with couples having applied for, and received their marriage licenses. As Donald Marron says at the Christian Science Monitor: Love Wins!
The photos on the front page of the Washington Post are usually depressing. War, natural disasters, and other tragedies provide a seemingly endless stream of sad or horrifying images.
Not so this morning. When I picked up my paper, the images were joyful, depicting happy same-sex couples who were finally able to apply for marriage licenses in our nation’s capital. I went to the WaPo’s web site and discovered that it has a whole slide show of photos of happy couples. (dmarron.com)
But, progress is not limited to Washington this week. In Minnesota, the Legislature is now taking up a series of bills to expand same-sex marriage rights.
On Monday, the Minnesota House held its first ever hearings into legalizing gay marriage in Minnesota. There are three bills that the House is considering but there will be no votes.
Still, the hearing for the Civil Justice Committee is stirring up a lot of emotion. The bills would recognize gay marriages in Minnesota and from other states. The bill would eliminate the word marriage in state law and replace it will civil union contract. Gay and lesbian couples told the committee they lead normal lives but opponents called it immoral.
“With tippy cups and car seats and visits to pediatricians and bedtime stories. For people who are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with gay and lesbian families, what we have found over our many years of being parents, that folks hang out with us and find that we’re pretty much like everybody else that they know,” said same-sex marriage supporter Deborah Talen.(WCCO)
Progress may seem slow, but it’s happening. Every time somebody sees the full facts, they slowly understand what this issue is about. And every time that happens, we take a tiny step forward. There is no issue of justice remaining, the anti-equality camp has only fear left.
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