Articles in News
The New Spin on Palin and LGBT Rights
The Log Cabin Club (gay republicans, not Alaskan homesteaders) believes that Palin’s anonymous gay friend makes her an “inclusive” Republican despite her record of strong opposition to LGBT rights.
It’s pre-emptive doublespeak. They label Sarah an “inclusive” Republican to hide the real problem – that her religious and political views are openly homophobic and the ticket is hostile to LGBT equality.
Alaskans know Sarah Palin’s record against same-sex partner benefits, against same-sex marriage, and against LGBT civil rights. We’re not fooled by the new spin. Don’t you be fooled either.
This Blade article on the inclusive/divisive issue quotes Marsha Buck, co-chair of Alaskans Together for Equality.
‘Inclusive’ or divisive?
Palin praised by Log Cabin, denounced by gay Democrats
By LOU CHIBBARO JR., Washington Blade | Sep 3, 10:52 AM
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate, strongly opposes domestic partner benefits for Alaska’s state employees, even though she vetoed a bill to block same-sex partners from receiving the benefits.
Officials with Log Cabin Republicans and National Stonewall Democrats, the nation’s largest gay GOP and gay Democratic groups, offered sharply differing views this week on Palin’s gay rights record as the groups jumped into the political fray over a vice presidential pick that surprised leaders of both parties.
“Governor Palin is an inclusive Republican who will help Sen. McCain appeal to gay and lesbian voters,” said Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon. “She’s a mainstream Republican who will unite the party and serve John McCain well as vice president.”
But John Marble, spokesperson for National Stonewall Democrats, called Palin a “champion of anti-LGBT special interests.” Marble noted her 1998 support of a state constitutional amendment approved by voters that bans gay marriage and her 2006 opposition to domestic partner benefits for state employees.
Palin, 44, is the first woman to be named as a vice presidential candidate by the Republican Party. She is a self-described maverick who shook up the Republican Party in Alaska by unseating a fellow GOP governor, Frank Murkowski, in the 2006 Republican primary and defeated a Democratic former governor, Tony Knowles, in the general election.
During her 2006 gubernatorial campaign, Palin revealed her approach to certain gay issues in a questionnaire for Eagle Forum Alaska, a conservative group.
Among other questions, the group asked, “Will you support an effort to expand hate crime laws?” Palin responded, “No, as I believe all heinous crime is based on hate.”
She also answered a question about extending spousal benefits to domestic partners. That question asked, “Do you support the Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling that spousal benefits for state employees should be given to same-sex couples?” Palin responded, “No, I believe spousal benefits are reserved for married citizens as defined in our constitution.”
Another question asked Palin for her priorities “in relationship to families.” The second priority she listed was “preserving the definition of ‘marriage’ as defined in our constitution.”
The questionnaire also asked whether candidates would support funding for abstinence-until-marriage programs, an issue that hits close to home for Palin, whose 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant.
Her response: “Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”
Prior to being elected governor, Palin served as mayor of the Alaskan town of Wasilla, which has fewer than 10,000 residents. She started her career as a sports reporter for an Anchorage television station after receiving a degree in journalism from the University of Idaho. In 1984 she was named Miss Congeniality and first runner-up in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant.
She is married to Todd Palin, a native Yup’ik Eskimo who works as an oil field production operator in the state’s oil rich North Slope. The couple has five children.
Palin’s position on domestic partner benefits is being closely scrutinized by gay activists, with some gay Republicans praising her decision to veto a bill aimed at blocking the partner benefits from taking effect.
The benefits issue became a political hot potato in Alaska in 2005, when the state’s Supreme Court ordered the state to provide the same health and pension benefits to domestic partners of state employees that were available to the employees’ married spouses. The court’s decision, which stemmed from a 1999 lawsuit filed by nine same-sex couples, found that the equal protection clause of the Alaska Constitution required that same-sex partners of state employees receive benefits equal to those received by married employees.
Palin won election as governor in November 2006. Under Alaska’s election law, she took office in December 2006 — less than a month before a Jan. 1, 2007, deadline imposed by the court for implementing the same-sex partner benefits.
Shortly before Palin took the oath of office as governor, the Alaska Legislature passed a bill that defied the high court ruling by prohibiting the Alaska Commissioner of Administration from providing the health and pension benefits to same-sex couples. The legislature also passed a separate bill that called for a non-binding, advisory ballot measure asking voters whether the state should adopt a constitutional amendment overturning the court’s decision on the partner benefits.
On Dec. 20, 2006, in one of her first legislative acts, Palin signed the bill calling for the advisory ballot measure, saying it would lay the groundwork for a state constitutional ban on the partner benefits.
Eight days later, on Dec. 28, 2006, she vetoed the bill seeking to block the benefits from being offered to same-sex partners of state employees, saying her attorney general advised her that the bill was unconstitutional.
“Signing this bill would be in direct violation of my oath of office,” Palin said in a statement.
At the time of the veto, Palin reiterated her opposition to the court ruling on the benefits issue as well as her opposition to same-sex marriage.
“I believe that honoring the family structure is that important,” Palin told the Anchorage Daily News in explaining why she opposed gay marriage and same-sex partner benefits for state employees.
The newspaper reported that Palin said she’s “not out to judge anyone and has good friends who are gay.”
Her strong religious views, which also include opposition to abortion, were the underlying reason for her opposition to gay marriage and same-sex partner benefits, she told the Anchorage Daily news.
In April 2007, Alaska’s voters approved the advisory measure in support of a constitutional amendment to overturn the court’s decision on same-sex partners by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent.
Marsha Buck, co-chair of Alaskans Together for Equality, a statewide gay group whose members campaigned against the advisory ballot measure, said the 47 percent vote opposing the measure shocked many of the state’s conservative, anti-gay advocates, who expected the measure to pass by a landslide.
“They expected the margin to be similar to the 1998 marriage amendment, which passed by a vote of 65 percent to 35 percent,” Buck said. “It took the wind out of their sails.”
One month later, in May 2007, the proposed constitutional amendment itself came before the Alaska House of Representatives and fell short of receiving the required two-thirds majority vote. Later that year, the proposed amendment died in committee in the Alaska Senate.
The amendment’s lead supporter, State Rep. John Coghill, a Republican, has vowed to bring the measure up for another vote, although it has not yet resurfaced this year.
“America may not know much about Sarah Palin, but based on what our community has seen of her, we know enough,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay advocacy group.
“Sarah Palin not only supported the 1998 Alaska constitutional amendment banning marriage equality but, in her less than two years as governor, even expressed the extreme position of supporting stripping away domestic partner benefits for workers.”
Solmonese noted that the strong backing Palin has received from conservative religious groups like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, which oppose gay rights, indicates that she would be hostile to gays if elected vice president.
Marble, in a statement on the National Stonewall Democrats’ web site, joined Democratic critics who have pointed to allegations that Palin attempted to pressure Alaskan state police into firing her ex-brother-in-law, who serves on that force. Marble also seized on criticism suggesting that Palin is unqualified to become vice president due to her limited experience as a former small town mayor and governor of two years.
“Sen. McCain is demonstrating that he does not approach the weighty issues of war, terrorism and the economy with heavy thought — as demonstrated by selecting a corrupt, first-term governor,” Marble said. “The greatest requirement of a vice president is the ability to lead when called upon, yet Sen. McCain has selected a running mate who, only two years ago, had only tackled the responsibilities of a part-time village mayor.”
But Palin’s supporters at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis dismissed such criticism this week, saying she has more executive experience as a former mayor and a governor than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
Buck said the gay and lesbian Alaskans she knows don’t view Palin as a friend of the gay community and are puzzled over press reports that Palin has gay friends.
“We hear from people in the lower 48 that she is somewhat supportive,” Buck said. “We don’t see that. We don’t know who these gay friends are. We are thinking they must not be Alaskans.”
More on Sarah Palin and Gay Rights
Today was another big news day for Sarah Palin and LGBT issues in Alaska.
(For a good summary of Palin’s record, see Alaskans Together on Palin’s LGBT Record.)
First I found this post with a cabinet member and Alaskan delegate to the RNC commenting on Gov. Palin’s opposition to gay rights, from The Gist, via Good As You:
Well, our pal Michelangelo Signorile is here to help us out. He is actually on site at the Republican convention, where he has obtained even more proof that the “pro-gay Palin” notion is just wishful thinking. This from Mike’s blog:I went to the Alaska delegation and spoke with a woman who is in Palin’s cabinet. She assured me that Palin is not in favor of giving any rights to gays and didn’t want to give domestic partnership rights to government employees but that she had to veto the bill that would have rescinded such rights because of the Alaska Supreme Court ruling. So can we please cut this crap Log Cabin and the McCain campaign have been trying to put out: Palin only vetoed an antigay bill because she had to, by law. This woman, Annette Kreitzer, who serves in Sarah Palin’s cabinet in the Department of Administration, said, oh, well, it was the law — drat! — or something like that.
Then several people sent this post from the Washington Blade on Palin’s answers to three LGBT-related questions:
WASHINGTON – During her 2006 run for Governor, Sarah Palin filled out an Alaska Eagle Forum questionnaire that reveals even more about her stance and view on LGBT equality.One of the questions the conservative group asked her on the questionnaire was her views on expanding hate crimes laws. The question reads, “Will you support an effort to expand hate crimes laws?”Palin answered, “No, as I believe all heinous crime is based on hate.”Another question from the same survey asked, “Do you support the Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling that spousal benefits for state employees should be given to same-sex couples? Why or why not?”Palin answered, “No, I believe spousal benefits are reserved for married citizens as defined in our constitution.”And last, but not least, Palin was asked what her top three priorities, as regards to families, would be while Governor.Palin answered, “#2 – Preserving the definition of ‘marriage’ as defined in our constitution.”
I just received this quote about her church’s support of the anti-gay conference coming to Anchorage in ten days, from an article on TIME:
Churches proliferate in Wasilla today, and among the largest and most influential is the Wasilla Bible Church, where the Palins worship.At the 11:15 a.m. Sunday service, hundreds sit in folding chairs, listening to a 20-minute sermon about the Book of Malachi and singing along to alt-rock praise songs. The only sign of culture warring in the whole production is an insert in the day’s program advertising an upcoming Focus on the Family conference on homosexuality in Anchorage called Love Won Out. The group promises to teach attendees how to “respond to misinformation in our culture” and help them “overcome” homosexuality.
Does Sarah Palin believe that homosexuality can and should be “overcome?” I’d love to hear her answer to that question.
Palin Supports Gay Rights?
No, she doesn’t. She opposes health benefits for gay and lesbian partners, and supported a $1.2 million non-binding advisory vote for legislation that would have taken away the partner benefits granted by an Alaska Supreme Court ruling. (The vote passed by a narrow margin, and the benefits remain.)
For the full story on the health benefits, see: Alaskans Together on Palin’s LGBT Record. For Palin on other gay issues, see the Sarah Palin Series.
But conflicting reports about Gov. Sarah Palin’s stand on gay rights are showing up all over the web. Outside reporters know little about her record on gay rights (or anything else) and call her everything from ally to enemy.
The mainstream media says she opposes same-sex marriage but has gay friends and is sympathetic to gay issues. (Their evidence of her sympathy shows how little they know about her.)
The national liberal and conservative media found something to agree on: that Palin is anti-gay.
The evangelical writers are excited to vote for her, the progressives are disgusted by her anti-health benefits stand and by the media’s “gay friends” spin.
The national LGBT media recognizes her opposition to equality and civil rights – except the Log Cabin Republicans (gay republicans, believe it or not) who think she is a wonderful choice.
And the fringe elements are joining the fray.
In these reports, I found only two LGBT Alaskans quoted (both in the same article by Gay City News):
Some press reports following the McCain campaign announcement have repeated the right-wing rhetorical flourish that has Palin declaring that she has gay friends. That softer image is not what some Alaskans saw.“That’s just completely wrong,” said Allison E. Mendel, the attorney who brought the 1999 [partner benefits] case. “She spoke on radio programs all throughout the campaign saying, ‘I want a constitutional amendment, I think these things are only for a man and a woman.’ … I don’t think she’s ever said a friendly word about gay people, that they ought to have health benefits like other people do or anything along those lines.”On AIDS issues, Palin simply has no record at all.“There is not a lot to speak of for AIDS policy because she hasn’t done much,” said Trevor Storrs, executive director of the Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association. “She’s never been given the opportunity to address our situation here because it has never been put before her.”“She has done very little to address the major epidemics,” he said.
But the most often quoted sentence about her stand on gay rights was from her old Wiki profile: “She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination.”
Then her Wiki profile was changed and currently reads: “Palin has said she has good friends who are gay, opposes same-sex marriage, but complied with an Alaskan state Supreme Court order and signed an implementation of same-sex benefits into law, stating that legal options to avoid doing so had run out. She supported a non-binding referendum for a constitutional amendment to deny benefits to homosexual couples.”
The Associated Press reported that Palin “opposes gay marriage — constitutionally banned in Alaska before her time — but exercised a veto that essentially granted benefits to gay state employees and their partners.”
That sentence is quoted in numerous articles to imply that she is sympathetic to gay and lesbian rights.
The national LGBT rights group HRC has the real story:
“Sarah Palin not only supported the 1998 Alaska constitutional amendment banning marriage equality but, in her less than two years as Governor, even expressed the extreme position of supporting stripping away domestic partner benefits for state workers. When you can’t even support giving our community the rights to health insurance and pension benefits, it’s a frightening window into where she stands on equality.”
Meanwhile, someone has created a web site called Sarah Palin Gay Rights . com. This is the full text:
Sarah Palin (GOV-Alaska-Republican), supports gay rights, says Anchorage Daily News.Quote “Gov. Sarah Palin vetoed a bill Thursday that sought to block the state from giving public employee benefits such as health insurance to same-sex couples.”Quote “”It is the Governor’s intention to work with the legislature and to give the people of Alaska an opportunity to express their wishes and intentions whether these benefits should continue,” the statement from Palin’s administration said.”Coghill said he’s interested in a new plan that would allow state employees to designate one person — maybe a same-sex partner, but also possibly a family member or roommate — who would be eligible for state-paid benefits. But the employee would have to pay to add that person to his or her benefits.”Sarah Palin’s veto gave gays the same rights as married couples in Alaska.A vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for gay marriage.
The quotes don’t support the conclusion, but the overall message is clear: evangelicals should not be fooled into voting for McCain because they think Palin supports their agenda. The site is anonymous, maybe by a disgruntled Huckabee supporter?
Many readers of Bent Alaska are LGBT Alaskans and our allies. You know more about Sarah and gay rights in Alaska than the Outsiders. What do you think about Palin and gay rights?
Sarah Palin and Gay Rights in Alaska
UPDATE: For Gov. Palin’s response to all three pieces of LGBT legislation, see: Alaskan’s Together on Palin’s LGBT Record.
From Gay City News:
Republican Senator John McCain has selected Sarah Palin, Alaska’s governor and a little-known conservative with a slim record on gay and AIDS issues, to be his running mate in the 2008 presidential race.
“She’s fairly socially conservative, she’s fairly anti-choice,” said Jeffrey A. Mittman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska (ACLU).
Palin became governor in 2006 after serving as a councilwoman and then mayor of a small Alaskan town. She made an unsuccessful run at becoming Alaska’s lieutenant governor in 2002. Palin has confronted a single piece of gay rights legislation in that time.
In 2005, Alaska’s highest court ruled, in a case brought in 1999 on behalf of nine couples, that the state could not deny benefits to the domestic partners of state government employees. The court ordered the state to implement that ruling in late 2006.
The ruling was seen by right wingers as conflicting with a 1998 amendment to the Alaska Constitution, passed by voters in a ballot referendum, that defined marriage as solely between one man and one woman. The Republican-dominated State Legislature passed a bill that barred the state’s administrative agency from implementing the ruling. Palin vetoed it.
“The Department of Law advised me that this bill… is unconstitutional given the recent court order… mandating same-sex benefits,” Palin said in a statement. “With that in mind, signing this bill would be in direct violation of my oath of office.”
The statement added, “The governor’s veto does not signal any change or modification to her disagreement with the action and order by the Alaska Supreme Court. It is the governor’s intention to work with the Legislature and to give the people of Alaska an opportunity to express their wishes and intentions whether these benefits should continue.”
Eight days before signing the veto, Palin signed another bill that called for a “statewide advisory vote” regarding the ruling from Alaska’s high court, saying in a statement, “We may disagree with the rationale behind the ruling, but our responsibility is to proceed forward with the law and follow the Constitution… I disagree with the recent court decision because I feel as though Alaskans spoke on this issue with its overwhelming support for a Constitutional Amendment in 1998 which defined marriage as between a man and woman. But the Supreme Court has spoken and the state will abide.”
The ACLU’s Mittman framed the way the bill calling for the statewide advisory played out in the ongoing controversy about the high court’s order.
“Then what happened was the anti-gay forces came up with what they called an advisory vote,” he said. “It was essentially a way for anti-LGBT people to try and rally public opinion to try and move their agenda forward.”
In 2007, the state spent an estimated $1 million to hold that vote and Alaskans expressed their opposition to the court ruling by a narrow margin. The vote did not have the effect of making law.
The McCain campaign has very effectively spun the veto to show Palin, 44, as sympathetic toward the gay and lesbian community.
Palin opposes same sex marriage.
A 2006 Anchorage Daily News story, said of Palin: “She’s not out to judge anyone and has good friends who are gay,” but that “she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment.”
Some press reports following the McCain campaign announcement have repeated that right-wing rhetorical flourish that has Palin declaring that she has gay friends. That softer image is not what some Alaskans saw.
“That’s just completely wrong,” said Allison E. Mendel, the attorney who brought the 1999 case. “She spoke on radio programs all throughout the campaign saying, ‘I want a constitutional amendment, I think these things are only for a man and a woman.’ … I don’t think she’s ever said a friendly word about gay people, that they ought to have health benefits like other people do or anything along those lines.”
On AIDS issues, Palin simply has no record at all.
“There is not a lot to speak of for AIDS policy because she hasn’t done much,” said Trevor Storrs, executive director of the Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association. “She’s never been given the opportunity to address our situation here because it has never been put before her.”
With roughly 1,200 AIDS cases, Alaska is a “low incidence state,” Storrs said, and most of its HIV funds come from the federal government.
Then Palin’s 20 months in the governor’s office have been taken up with the state’s oil and gas industry. Health issues generally, such as substance abuse or mental health, have not received much attention, Storrs said.
“She has done very little to address the major epidemics,” he said.
1049 Daily US Newspapers Accept Same-Sex Wedding Announcements – But Only 339 Have Received Them
Q. Which of Alaska’s daily newspapers will print same-sex wedding announcements?
A. All of them – technically.
Alaska is one of only 9 states where all of the daily newspapers will print same-sex wedding announcements, according to a report this week from GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
The Juneau Empire posted a same-sex wedding announcement in May, and the Anchorage Daily News has printed several. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner agrees to print them (but hasn’t yet) only if the wedding is legally recognized where it was performed. Alaska’s other daily newspapers (see chart) will print our wedding, union and commitment ceremony announcements – but none have been submitted.
The Announcing Equality project asks us to send our announcements to local newspapers to increase LGBT visibility.
In cities and small towns all over the country, communities are seeing the lives of their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) family members, friends and neighbors reflected in their media outlets. These stories will spur the kinds of everyday conversations that will change hearts and minds.GLAAD first launched the Announcing Equality campaign in 2002, after working with The New York Times to open its weddings/celebrations pages to lesbian and gay couples. Six years later, the number of inclusive newspapers has jumped from 70 to 1049, and nearly 72 percent of all daily newspapers in the United States now accept wedding and/or commitment ceremony announcements for same-sex couples.Unfortunately, most of these papers haven’t had a chance to run an announcement. That’s where you come in!We’re urging you to recognize the celebrations and milestones in your life by sharing the story with the newspaper, and to share your story in other forms of media, from office newsletters and union periodicals to church bulletins, public radio, Facebook and YouTube.
And be sure to send the link to Bent Alaska!
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ALASKA
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Media Outlet
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City
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URL
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Will Publication Print an Announcement?
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Has Publication Printed an Announcement in the Past?
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Anchorage Daily News
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Anchorage
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Y
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Y
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Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
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Fairbanks
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L
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N
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Juneau Empire
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Juneau
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Y
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Y
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Peninsula Clarion
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Kenai
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Y
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N
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Ketchikan Daily News
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Ketchikan
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Y
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N
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Kodiak Daily Mirror
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Kodiak
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Y
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N
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Daily Sitka Sentinel
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Sitka
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Y
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N
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L = Newspaper will print announcements only if the union is legally recognized.
One in Three Same-Sex Couples in Alaska Have Children?
The New York Times’ Freakonomics blog asked “What will U.S. suburbs look like in 40 years?”
One of the eight respondents was Gary J. Gates, co-author of The Gay and Lesbian Atlas and the demographics expert behind the Advocate Magazine’s article citing Anchorage as an “emerging” gay and lesbian city.
Here are a few quotes from his comments:
“In 1990, fewer than one in ten same-sex couples had children. Today, it’s more like one in five. In states like Mississippi, South Dakota, Alaska, South Carolina, and Louisiana, it’s one in three.”
“The gay-by boom is alive and well in small town and suburban America.”
“While Ward and June Cleaver and their two boys might still be around in the suburbs in forty years, my guess is that their neighbors will be Olivia and Harriet and their twin girls.”
Read the full story, posted today.
“Ex-gay” roadshow targets Anchorage
As if the gloomy weather wasn’t bad enough, the “ex-gays” are coming to town. The anti-gay groups Focus on the Family and Exodus International are bringing their de-gaying conference to Anchorage’s Abbott Loop Community Church on September 13, 2008.
Historic Rainbow Flag Brightens Fairbanks Parade
It didn’t rain on the Golden Days Parade, and the forty-five-foot rainbow flag from Key West, Florida cast multicolored light on the girl skipping beneath it as the PFLAG contingent marched down Second Avenue in Fairbanks, Alaska.
For the third year in a row, the Fairbanks chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) carried the big rainbow flag, a segment of the longest gay pride flag ever made, and this year it was the top parade photo published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
“The flag did not arrive until the afternoon before the parade,” said Terrie Donovan, marcher and organizer of the PFLAG Golden Days Picnic after the parade. “There was a lot of anxiety that it might not get here in time.”
In 2003, Key West Pridefest commissioned Gilbert Baker to make the world’s longest gay pride flag, which was sixteen feet wide by a mile and a quarter long and took 3,000 volunteers to carry. Baker created the original rainbow flag design in 1978 at the request of the late Harvey Milk, the first openly-gay San Francisco City Supervisor.
After the Key West Parade, the flag was cut into sections and loaned to gay pride groups around the country. Peter Pinney of Fairbanks PFLAG and Tim Stallard of Out in Alaska arranged to borrow a sixteen foot by forty-five foot section for the Golden Days Parade.
The Golden Days Parade celebrates the gold rush origins of Fairbanks. Many local groups and politicians march in the parade, and spectators camp out in folding chairs to reserve a good spot.
PFLAG marcher Beverly Chmelik was interviewed for the Channel 11 live parade broadcast, and her interview was on the local news. “They asked what PFLAG was about and what we do. I told them it was a support group for parents of gay, lesbian and transgender children, and for those who are coming out and wanting to tell their families.”
“I forgot to say that for more information, please see our booth at the Fair.” PFLAG Fairbanks is building a themed booth for the Tanana Valley Fair, August 1-9.
PFLAG held their annual Golden Days Picnic at Nussbaumer Park, providing hamburgers, hotdogs and lemonade to a group of lesbians, gay men, transgendered women, straight allies and children. The picnic was funded by a grant from the Imperial Court of All Alaska.
The historic rainbow flag segment was returned to Florida – until next year.
Before the parade, Beverly Chmelik, Pete Pinny and another PFLAG member hold the Fairbanks chapter banner while the rest of the contingent holds the historic rainbow flag from Florida. Photo by Shayle.
Alaskan Vigils for UU Church Shootings at "Welcoming Congregation"
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowships in Anchorage and Juneau are holding vigils in support of everyone effected by the tragic shooting at the UU Church in Tennessee, and as an expression of solidarity with all people of faith who engage in spiritual work for social justice.
The Juneau Unitarian Universalist Fellowship vigil is at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 29 in the Marine Park shelter. The Anchorage vigil is at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 30th at the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 3201 Turnagain Street.
“We invite all members and friends of Juneau’s faith community to join us in this solemn moment,” said Dave Dierdorff, the current lay leader of the Juneau Fellowship. “The shattering of the sanctity of any sanctuary, no matter the faith, is an attack on all of us.”
On Sunday, Jim David Adkisson went into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville and shot several congregants, killing one man on the spot and fatally wounding a woman from the Westide Unitarian Universalists congregation, who died shortly after being taken to the hospital.
The evidence now strongly suggests that hate was the motive for the crime. Adkisson had in his car a four-page handwritten note in which he blamed what he called ‘the liberal movement’ for his inability to get a job, and targeted the church because it received publicity regarding its ‘liberal stance.’
“He disliked blacks, gays, anyone who was a different color or just different from him,” Carol Smallwood of Alice, Texas, told the Knoxville News Sentinel.
TVUUC is a Welcoming Congregation and hosts numerous LGBT groups, including the Knoxville chapter of PFLAG and the Spectrum Cafe, which “especially welcomes teens who self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, or who are questioning their sexual or gender identity.” One of the transgendered teens was in the church at the time of the shooting, in a special youth performance of the musical Annie. Her new foster father, Greg McKendry, stepped in front of the gunman to protect others in the church, and was killed.
On Monday evening, the Second Presbyterian Church — next door to the TVUUC, which is now a crime scene — held a candlelight vigil that drew hundreds in solidarity.
The Anchorage UU is also a “Welcoming Congregation” and sent this message to the community:
We were all shocked and saddened to learn about the horrible events that took place at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville.Apparently a deeply disturbed man entered the sanctuary yesterday during Sunday morning service, shouted “hateful things” according to a witness, and opened fire into the crowd during a children’s program. Two adult members of the church were killed, and 6 others are currently in the hospital being treated for serious injuries.Such senseless violence happening in a place of worship and peace is difficult to process. Especially difficult is the fact that this horrible incident is now being investigated as a hate crime after a letter was found in the shooter’s car indicating that his motivation was born out of hostility toward “the liberal movement.”Details of the letter are unavailable, but the church had just become a UU “Welcoming Congregation,” openly showing their support and welcome to the GLBT community, in addition to promoting religious tolerance and acceptance of those with differing or no religious beliefs.The Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, also a “Welcoming Congregation,” will be holding a candlelight vigil in support of all those affected by the tragedy, and all those who hold dear the ideals of freedom, reason and tolerance for all people.We invite any and all to attend who wish to be together in reflection, compassion and support.
Sen. Stevens Indicted
U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens was indicted this morning by a federal grand jury, on seven counts of failing to disclose thousands of dollars in services he received from VECO Corp., an Alaska-based oil services company, and from its CEO, Bill Allen, over an eight-year period.
From May 1999 to August 2007, prosecutors said, the 84-year-old senator concealed “his continuing receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things of value from a private corporation.”
During that time, the indictment says, Allen and other VECO employees were soliciting Stevens for “multiple official actions …. knowing that Stevens could and did use his official position and his office on behalf of VECO during that same time period.”
VECO’s requests included funding and other aid for the company’s projects and partnerships in Pakistan and Russia, and federal grants from several agencies, according to the indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.
