A long-overdue Bent Alaska update — October 2013

Make "Housing First" a reality, support Karluk Manor

HOUSING FIRST

Make It A Reality

A Housing First project is critical to our efforts in eliminating homelessness from our community. RurALCAP is working hard to establish Anchorage’s first large Housing First complex (48 efficiency-style units); Karluk Manor. Without a Housing First project, Anchorage will continue to struggle with the negative community impacts caused by the chronically homeless population.

Four A’s has approximately 15 clients who are chronically homeless who would greatly benefit from this project. These individuals have been unsuccessful in any of the housing programs we have provided over the years. Without housing, these individuals are unable to remain adherent to HIV medications or consistently access support services. Each year we are serving more and more hard-to-serve/house individuals. Without this project, these people will remain homeless.

WE NEED YOUR VOICE NOW!!

To make Karluk Manor a reality, RurALCAP requires a conditional use permit. We need you to voice your support for the project. For more information on Karluk Manor, click here. At the bottom of the page is information regarding Housing First (PDF) and Karluk Manor (PDF).

Click here to voice your support. Without community support, this project will die and we will not have a Housing First project for many years to come. Help us achieve our goal of 100 people providing positive testimony for Karluk Manor. Comments can be as short as “I support Karluk Manor”, to more details outlining why you support the project.

Please join us and countless others in letting our community know the importance of Karluk Manor. The Municipality is putting forth many road blocks that have the potential of “killing” this project. Without your voice, they will win. Share this request with friends and family. We need the city to hear we want Housing First….we want Karluk Manor.

The deadline for public comment is July 9, 2010 so click here today to make your voice heard.

The ordinance one year later (video)

Denali Moose Scat Race benefits Interior AIDS

ARAMARK parks and resorts is kicking off their season with the annual Moose Scat Scoot Race. Thanks to the community’s previous donations and assistance, our staff can continue to bring various recreational and social events to Denali. The goal of this event is to raise funds for the Interior Alaska AIDS Association.

This year’s Moose Scat Scoot will take place on Saturday, June 26, 2010 inside Denali Park. The race consists of a half marathon bike/run, 5k run/walk, and a 1/2 mile fun run/walk. There will be an entry fee of $25 for each runner, with sponsorships to raise money for the Alaskan Interior AIDS Association.

We hope that you will consider donating items to provide us assistance with prizes and merchandise that will go toward participants and winners, as well as helping provide friendly benefits for the community. Your contributions will be one huge asset to the race and any donation will go directly to the Interior Alaska AIDS Association.

For further consideration, any business which is able to provide prizes and items in the amount of $200.00 or more will have the benefit of displaying their business’ name screen-printed on the back of the event T-shirt.

Assembly passes PrideFest resolution, shelves Bronson

The Anchorage Assembly unanimously passed a resolution supporting Alaska PrideFest at Tuesday night’s meeting! Then the Assembly scored a second Pride Week victory by voting to indefinitely postpone the appointment of Alaska Family Council chair and professional hater Dave Bronson to a school commission.

Time to thank our Assembly members – the longtime advocates, the new members who supported us, as well as the conservatives who stood up to Prevo in support of Alaska Pride.

The PrideFest resolution introduced by vice-chair Patrick Flynn welcomes Alaska PrideFest 2010, recognizes the contributions of the LGBT community to Alaska, and “encourages all residents to enjoy this celebration.” The Diversity Parade and Pride Festival is on Saturday, June 26 starting at 11 a.m.

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
AR NO. 2010–200

A RESOLUTION OF THE ANCHORAGE MUNICIPAL ASSEMBLY WELCOMING ALASKA PRIDEFEST AND ENCOURAGING THE RESIDENTS OF ANCHORAGE TO CELEBRATE OUR DIVERSE COMMUNITY.

WHEREAS, Anchorage is richly endowed with a great diversity of people, cultures, religions, sexual orientations, and languages; and

WHEREAS, the strength of a civil society is measured by the level of outreach, participation and engagement of all its members in the social, economic, and political activities of the community; and

WHEREAS, Anchorage is a more welcoming and stronger place as a result of the inclusion and celebration of so many diverse communities within our greater municipal community; and

WHEREAS, along with others, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities have made significant contributions through active involvement in the Alaska economy, and the cultural, social and civic life unique to Alaska; and

WHEREAS, Alaska PrideFest 2010 is a 10-day celebration involving various non-profit, social, and business organizations hosting special events at venues throughout Anchorage from June 18—27, 2010; and

WHEREAS, on Saturday, June 26, 2010, Alaska PrideFest 2010 activities include the Celebrating Diversity Parade through downtown Anchorage and the PrideFest Festival featuring live entertainment, vendors, food, friends, fun and carnival activities on the Delaney Park Strip; and

WHEREAS, although residents of our community may disagree on issues, Anchorage benefits from the ongoing dialogue, awareness, and celebration that builds bridges and strengthens our interdependence as an Alaskan community;

NOW, THEREFORE, the Anchorage Municipal Assembly

WELCOMES Alaska PrideFest 2010

and encourages all residents to enjoy this celebration themed “2010 A Pride Odyssey.”

PASSED AND APPROVED by the Anchorage Assembly this (22nd) day of (June), 2010.

Good work, Anchorage Assembly. THANK YOU!

Ossiander defends position for man who threatened her *UPDATE: Bronson shelved*

UPDATE: The Assembly heard our concerns and voted to postpone Bronson’s appointment indefinitely! Only Birch and Starr voted against the postponement. Kudos to Ossiander for standing up to Prevo this time.

—-

Tonight, the Anchorage Assembly will vote to oppose or approve Mayor Sullivan’s appointment of Alaska Family Council chairman and ABT member Dave Bronson to a school commission. Please remind the Assembly to oppose this inappropriate choice: wwmas@muni.org.

A Bent Alaska reader wrote to the Assembly about Bronson, and forwarded a strange response from Debbie Ossiander:

Dear Assembly Members,

Please reject the nomination of Dave Bronson to any position on any board, commission, or committee in the municipality. His open letter to Debbie Ossiander (during the 2009 AO64 hearings) alone should disqualify him from consideration. He has clearly declared himself to have highly politicized and rigid views which would preclude him from working productively with the wide variety of officials and citizens of our city.

On the other hand, his resume shows that he is clearly qualified to pilot an airplane if any such municipal need should arise.

Thank you

On Friday, the reader sent an update saying, “Can you believe her? I got responses from others agreeing, one from Ernie Hall saying thank you for your letter, and this,” an odd response from Ossiander:

thanks for the note…I do want you to know that there are no qualifications listed anywhere for this advisory volunteer committee. Historically it has been filled by anyone who is interested and willing to serve. Their sole responsiblity is to write and advisory letter on the ASD budget. I believe it is a 9 member committee and still has several vacant seats.

No comment on Bronson’s inability to work productively with the Assembly, his anti-gay activism and political extremism, or his dislike of diversity – diversity that exists in the Anchorage school system and is reflected in the ASD budget.

Would Ossiander really give a city position to someone who threatened and blamed her personally for the downfall of Anchorage? Here is a quote from Bronson’s open letter to Ossiander during last summer’s battle for an equal rights ordinance:

Madam Chair, when Catholic Social Services (CSS) and Latter Day Saints Social Services cease operations because their faith compels them to adopt children to heterosexual couples only… you, personally, will be to blame. When religious schools close their doors because in obedience to their faith they simply cannot allow practicing homosexuals or transsexuals to teach their children… you, personally, will be to blame. I wonder why you think Anchorage is now such an evil city that it must undergo such a radical transformation just to assuage your guilt that someone you may know and care about is being treated terribly by someone who is simply exercising their right to be ignorant. Mind you, your ignorance, demonstrated by a vote for AO 64 will be far more harmful to many more individuals that you can imagine… and you, personally, will be to blame. Whether you intend these catastrophic consequences to happen or not is simply meaningless. The language in AO 64 is clear and it will cause exactly what I have articulated.

And she would approve him for a city position? Wow.

KTVA on PrideFest 2010 (video)

KTVA Channel 11 in Anchorage reported on the week of events for Alaska PrideFest, with video and interviews from Saturday’s Annual Gay Memorial Service and clips of last year’s Pride Festival. The intro reads: “A bevy of businesses will host special events around town celebrating PrideFest – a ten-day lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community celebration.”

Prop 8 closing arguments made, decision in a few weeks

“What we are talking about here is allowing individuals who have the same impulses, the same drives, the same desires as all of the rest of us to have a relationship in harmony, stability, and to form a family in a neighborhood, all of those things that the Supreme Court talked about. And now tell me how it helps the rest of the citizens of California to keep them out of the club? It doesn’t.”

“… you are discriminating against a group of people, you are causing them harm, you are excluding them from an important part of life and you have to have a good reason for that. And I submit at the end of the day ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I don’t have any evidence,’ with all due respect to Mr. Cooper, it does not cut it. It does not cut it when you are taking away the basic human rights and human decency from a large group of individuals and you don’t know why they are a threat to your particular institution.”

“You cannot then in the face of all those decisions by the United States Supreme Court say to these individuals we are going to take away the constitutional right to liberty, privacy, association and sexual intimacy that we tell you that you have, and then we will now use that as a basis for not allowing you the freedom to marry. That is not acceptable. It’s not acceptable under our constitution. And Mr. Blankenhorn is absolutely right, the day that we end that we will be more American.”

Today’s arguments overwhelmingly demonstrated the volume and strength of the plaintiffs’ evidence, and the complete lack of evidence in support of Proposition 8.

Theodore Olson of Gibson, Dunn did a masterful job for the plaintiffs. He focused his presentation on the two plaintiff couples’ moving testimony about why marriage is important to them. Olson also highlighted the testimony from all of the expert witnesses – on both sides of the case – who unanimously agreed that marriage would enhance the well-being of same-sex couples and their kids. Olson hammered home the point that during the election, Prop 8 backers argued that children needed be “protected” from gay people — but during the trial, the Prop 8 backers did not raise this argument, which echoes themes that anti-gay forces have used for decades to stigmatize and marginalize gay men and lesbians. Instead, the attorneys defending Prop 8 argued that same-sex couples must be excluded from marriage because the purpose of marriage is procreation. Olson countered that the right to marry, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, is about the individual right to form a family, whether or not procreation is involved.

Asked by Judge Walker to describe the evidence supporting his position, Charles Cooper, the attorney defending Proposition 8, repeatedly said that there was no need for evidence to support his case. At one point, he claimed that even the single expert witness on his side, David Blankenhorn, had been unnecessary, because simply looking at the dictionary would show that the definition of marriage presumes procreation. Judge Walker asked Cooper about different-sex couples who cannot or do not procreate, and about different-sex married couples who do not procreate “naturally” because they adopt children or need medical assistance to conceive. Cooper returned time and again to the argument that marriage is needed in order to “channel” heterosexual people into having sex, and procreating, within marriage, but was unable to point to any evidence from trial that allowing same-sex couples to marry would have any effect on the “channeling” of heterosexual reproduction into marriage.

Judge Walker’s sharply questioned both Olson and Cooper about the facts presented at the trial. Although it’s risky to predict how a judge might be leaning based on the questions he asked, several of Judge Walker’s suggested that he might be considering applying some type of heightened scrutiny to Prop 8 because it discriminates against people based on their sexual orientation. Judge Walker indicated that in his view, whether a trait is “immutable” and whether the excluded group lacks political power are not the key factors supporting heightened scrutiny. Instead, his questions indicated that he considers it more important that the group have a long history of discrimination based on a factor that is irrelevant to their ability to contribute to society. Based on the evidence presented at trial, that would certainly be true of gay men and lesbians. Ted Olson and David Boies’s team put on compelling expert testimony about the long and painful history of discrimination against LGBT people. If the judge does decide to apply some type of heightened scrutiny, it’s very hard to see how Prop 8 could be upheld. The defenders of Prop 8 offered no evidence that there was even a rational reason, let alone a compelling one, for the voters to single out one category of California couples for unequal treatment under the law.

Celebration of Life for Dan Carter-Incontro, June 19

Please join the Alaska friends and family of Dan Carter-Incontro, a civil rights champion and good friend to many, for a Celebration of his Life & Legacy during Alaska Pride Week, on Saturday, June 19, from 3-5 p.m. at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Anchorage.

Dan died on April 18 in Clermont, Florida, at the age of 62. He is survived by his husband and partner of 42 years, Al Carter-Incontro, and his sister Sarah. Memorial services were held in Florida and Anchorage, but the local Celebration of Life was delayed until Al could join us.

Dan lived in Anchorage for about 30 years, worked for the Transit Department, and was a supporter of the Anchorage Gay and Lesbian Community Center, Identity, the Metropolitan Community Church, and other LGBT groups. He was also active in the Alaska Democratic Party and served as Alaska’s first openly gay democratic delegate. The new LGBT Democratic Caucus has been named after him, as the conference room in the Community Center was named after Dan and Al several years ago.

Celebrate the Life & Legacy of Dan Carter-Incontro: Saturday, June 19, from 3-5 p.m. at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, on the corner of Lake Otis & Tudor in Anchorage.

Santaland responds to anti-gay incident

Dear Sir,

I appreciate your invitation to respond to the allegation that we evicted a guest of Santaland RV Park based on sexual orientation.

With regard to this particular incident, there were a number of things that were considered when we made our decision to ask this guest to leave our park. For privacy reasons I will not go into these factors, but I can assure you that sexual orientation was never even considered in the course of our decision to evict the guest, and certainly never came up in our discussions with this particular guest.

We have had tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of happy guests through our park over the years. We have always, and will continue to welcome everyone to our park, regardless of sexual orientation or any other factor.

Sincerely,

Santaland RV Park

Where Santa Spends His Summers!

125 St. Nicholas Drive, North Pole, AK 99705

1.907.488.9123 / Toll Free 1.888.488.9123

www.SantalandRV.com / info@SantalandRV.com

I’m from Alaska: True LGBT Stories

I had my first [coming out] conversation twenty-nine years ago, driving my friend, Trent, back from a high school dance in downtown Juneau to his house near mine in the Valley:

“I want to tell you something, but I’m afraid it could hurt our friendship, and I don’t want it to. It’s hard to talk about, and I’ve been avoiding telling you, but I want to.”

“Okay.”

“I’m gay.”

“Okay. It’s no big deal. Just slow down!” Apparently, my nervousness had caused me to tense up and clamp down, including clamping my foot down on the gas pedal.

“Well,” I thought afterward, “that went a lot better than I feared.”

There are gay stories from every corner of the Earth and I think they should be told. But why? What does it mean??

To the gay teens struggling to come out and deal with their sexuality, who to this day still attempt suicide 4 times more than straight kids, it says “you are not alone.” Other people have dealt with similar situations, families, communities and churches, and have overcome and are now living happy lives. It can happen for you, too. It gets soooo much better, I promise. Hang in there, kiddo.

And to the people who don’t support equal rights, it says we’re not all that different after all. We all have stories and problems and loves and lives just like everyone else. So maybe we should all be treated like everyone else, too.

“Mom, I have something I need to tell you.” I said, trying to find the words. “I don’t know how to tell you this, so I will just put it out there. I am gay.”

There are some things in my life that I never considered that I would be sharing with my mother, or any of my family for that matter. I never saw my preference in a love partner as anyone’s business but mine. The climate of hostility that still surrounds the issue of gay and lesbian people only secured the thought in my mind. All of that changed last year.

In January of 2009 a good friend of mine, Chris, passed away from complications with the HIV virus. I took his death hard, but in a way it helped me more than I knew at the time. The whole time that I knew Chris he pushed me to talk with my family about being gay. He told me that the closet put so much stress on me that I wasn’t even able to see yet. When he passed away I was finally able to see what he meant.

For over a month I was not able to discuss with anyone that a close friend of mine had just died. I was not able to cry about it. I was not able to deal with the feelings that his death brought up in me. Instead these feelings were only allowed to fester and grow inside of me until I could not bear it anymore.

I called my mom one morning. “Mom, we need to talk. Would it be alright if I came over tonight?”

“I would love to talk with you, John.” She said. “Come over when I get home from work.”

Even with the now obvious stress that keeping quiet was putting on me, I almost backed down. I almost chose to remain silent. The level of hostility that still remains in society around the issue of gay and lesbian people scared me enough that I was not sure how my own mother would take this news.

“Mom, I have something I need to tell you. I don’t know how to tell you this, so I will just put it out there. I am gay.”

“I am not shocked.” my mother said.

“Is that all?” I asked, ready for any response.

“John, I still love you. I am not shocked by this. If you are going to choose to explore this path, I will support you. There may come a time when things change for you. You don’t really know who you are until you are a bit older.” she said.

I had a mixture of feelings. Mostly overwhelming joy, though. There was a subtle hint of annoyance, but joy overpowered this. She still loved me. These were the words I was hoping to hear for longer than I realized.

“What made you want to tell me this now?” She asked me.

I explained to her that I had a friend that had died recently, and that having to hide this part of me meant having to hide my pain in relation to him.

The conversation went long into the night. There were a lot of happy tears mixed with some sad ones. When the conversation drew to a close my mom offered these last words.

“John, I want you to be happy. If this is what will make you happy I will support you. If you bring someone home, though, be sure it is someone I would approve of, male or female.”

In the months since this I have had similar conversations with the other members of my family. I look back on the last 9 years that I spent hiding with a lot of regret. I somehow allowed other people’s fear and misunderstanding of gay and lesbian people to damage and restrain my relationships with my family. I spent nearly a decade hiding from myself. Now I will spend the next decade, and longer, working to ensure that the next generation will not have to hide from themselves, or anyone else.

I leave you with the words of the author Dr. Seuss. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”