Sunday, 6 October 2013 – 5:19 PM
| Comments Off on A long-overdue Bent Alaska update — October 2013
Bent Alaska’s blog will continue in hiatus indefinitely; but the Bent Alaska Facebook Group on Facebook is thriving — join us! A long-overdue update from Bent Alaska’s editor.
Monday, 8 February 2010 – 1:50 PM
| Comments Off on Freedom to Marry Week 2010
The 13th annual Freedom to Marry Week begins today and marriage equality events are planned around the country. In Anchorage, marriage equality supporter and Seattle sex columnist Dan Savage returns for another entertaining and educational question and answer session on all things sexual for UAA’s Healthy Sexuality Week, and we have GLBT Valentine’s events in Anchorage and Juneau.
“Every year, right around President Lincoln’s birthday and Valentine’s Day, symbolizing equality and love, supporters of the freedom to marry take action and promote conversations about why marriage matters to American families, gay and non-gay alike,” said Evan Wolfson, Executive Director of Freedom to Marry and author of Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality and Gay People’s Right to Marry. “This year, Freedom to Marry’s partner organizations across the country – from Rhode Island to Washington state – are organizing Freedom to Marry Week rallies, house parties, film screenings, and lobby days.”
Freedom to Marry Week is February 8-14, 2010. Learn how to talk about marriage equality, and read A Decade of Progress on LGBT Rights at Freedom to Marry Week 2010.
In this video, Dan Savage shows how the definition of marriage has already been changed by heterosexuals, and the absurdity of using children as the reason to deny same sex marriage:
Wednesday was the final day of testimony in the federal Prop 8 trial Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Shannon Minter wraps up the trial in his 12th daily summary on Out For Justice, the National Center For Lesbian Rights blog:
It has been an amazing two and a half weeks. This trial has been a truly historic moment for our community. It is the first time a federal court has heard, first hand, from real live witnesses, about the harm that the denial of marriage equality causes lesbians, gay men and their families every day. It’s also the first time a federal court has heard the arguments in favor of marriage equality presented live in court by an array of internationally renowned scholars who are truly experts in their respective fields.
What stands out the most after having seen all the witnesses on both sides is how overwhelmingly one-sided the evidence in this case turned out to be. The plaintiffs, represented by some of the most skilled attorneys in the country, laid out a well-crafted, meticulous case, backed by the testimony of half a dozen of the most respected historians, psychologists, economists, and political scientists who study marriage, sexual orientation, and child development. Using the Prop 8 proponents’ own outrageous and inflammatory words, ads, and emails, the plaintiffs powerfully demonstrated that Prop 8 was a direct product of hostility, fear-mongering, and demonization of lesbians and gay men. And through the deeply moving testimony of the plaintiffs and other members of our community, they proved beyond question that denying same-sex couples the right to marry causes great harm to LGBT people and their children.
Stacked up against this mountain of facts, scholarship, and science, the Prop 8 proponents – though represented by fine attorneys – were not able to come forward with a case of their own. Before trial, they dropped nearly every witness they had planned to present and relied entirely on two poorly qualified, ill-prepared expert witnesses, neither of whom was able to establish that banning same-sex couples from getting married has any rational or legitimate purpose relating to procreation, child rearing, tradition, or any of the other justifications that have been offered in the past in support of anti-gay discrimination. In fact, nearly all of the defendants’ experts agreed with the plaintiffs that marriage equality would benefit same-sex couples and their families in many real, tangible ways.
It should not have come as a surprise that the defense’s case turned out to be so weak. As our executive director Kate Kendell is fond of saying, the arguments against marriage equality have always been “all hat and no cattle.” This trial showed more powerfully than ever that there truly is no substance to the arguments of those who would deny equality to our families. It has been extremely gratifying to see those arguments aired out in public, before a smart, independent-minded judge, in a way that’s never been done before. It is a shame that the public was unable to see the trial in video, but the transcripts, available at http://www.equalrightsfoundation.org/our-work/hearing-transcripts/, are fascinating reading for anyone interested in learning more about this important chapter in our civil rights struggle.
Judge Walker will now take some time to review all the evidence that has been presented. The lawyers for both sides will return to court in a few weeks (on a date still to be determined) to present their closing arguments.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010 – 3:44 PM
| Comments Off on Gay Weddings on Everest (not Denail)
Imagine advertising gay weddings on Mount Denali, enticing gay tourists from all over the world to spend their travel money in Alaska by offering legal same sex weddings on our tallest mountain.
Well, the country of Nepal is legalizing gay marriage this spring, and they’re advertising same sex weddings on Mount Everest, complete with elephant-riding processions and honeymoon tours to Nepal’s favorite sites.
Nepal is adding rights for sexual minorities to their new national constitution, including the right to marry a same sex partner. Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal’s openly gay member of Parliament, celebrated by opening a travel company catering to gay and lesbian couples, called Pink Mountain Travels and Tours.
Nepal, a mainly Hindu country with some of the most progressive LGBT policies in Asia, is well placed to cash in on the gay travel industry, worth an estimated $670 million worldwide.
“If we brought even one per cent of that market to Nepal it would be big. But I’m hoping we can attract 10 per cent,” said Pant.
Just think what gay and lesbian tourism could do for Alaska! Oh, wait… Alaska banned same sex marriage. Too bad.
A transgender support group in Anchorage was harassed during a recent meeting at Denny’s restaurant and now the Denny’s corporate office is backing out of a proposed diversity training for the local staff. Anja co-founded the trans support group and their TransAlaska Pipeline website. She sent this message to Bent Alaska:
After the ugly incident that ocurred here in Anchorage, Alaska on December 27, 2009 in which a Denny’s manager openly pointed out and made fun of a group of trangendered people TO OTHER CUSTOMERS in the crowded restaurant, we were led to believe that Denny’s would be subjecting their employees to sensitivity training concerning transpeople as an acceptable resolution.
We have been more than diplomatic in dealing with them, requesting that the manager who incited the incident not be fired, but instead be required to attend an Identity, Inc. sensitivity training.
Denny’s obviously took this as a sign of weakness, and is trying to ignore the whole incident now.
It appears that Denny’s corporate is now pushing this off as a local matter to be swept under the carpet with NO action taken anywhere.
We must take a stand on this. To all of my sisters and brothers out there who are tired of being discriminated against, PLEASE write a letter/e-mail of concern to Denny’s Corporate. Let them know that doing nothing about this is unacceptable, and that it must never be allowed to happen again.
Go to the national Denny’s contact page, click the “Email Us” link and voice your concerns.
Denny’s was involved in a series of lawsuits in the 1990’s involving servers denying or providing inferior service to racial minorities, especially African-American customers. After a $54.4 million settlement, Denny’s created a racial sensitivity training program for all its employees.
Last year, Denny’s lost a transgender bias case in Maine. “This company needs diversity training to understand what it means to be gender-nonconforming,” said Betsy Smith, executive director of Equality Maine.
Tuesday, 26 January 2010 – 12:39 AM
| Comments Off on Off-Road Alaska Gays first to Queer the Census
The 2010 US Census begins this week in western Alaska and, for the first time in history, the census will count both unmarried same-sex partners and legally married same sex spouses. Queer the Census encourages married same-sex couples to check the “husband or wife” box:
If you have legally married your same-sex spouse in any state, you may choose the “husband or wife” option, and the Census will record and report on these figures in its official Census tables on married couples in the U.S… Having a count of LGBT married couples will be an historic, important first step in changing the way the entire country understands LGBT partnership. If you are legally married, don’t miss out on being counted!
Before 2000, there was no option for same-sex couples on the census form. If a gay partner checked “husband or wife,” the Census Bureau assumed it was an error and changed the person’s gender. There is still no question on sexual orientation or gender.
Queer the Census explains why the census is important for us:
The census tells the story of who we are as a nation, and that includes LGBT people — but only when we participate, and only when we’re fully counted. Thanks to the collection of unmarried partner data, a more complete picture of who we are has emerged. For example, we know that same-sex couples live in 99% of all US counties, LGBT parents live in 97% of all US counties, and that Black and Latino same-sex couples are raising children at nearly the rates of their heterosexual peers, while earning lower incomes.
Still, there is no question on the 2010 census that asks individuals if they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender — and LGBT questions are not included in almost all other major federal surveys.
It’s a big problem. The census, which counts everyone living in the United States every ten years, provides the data that is used to determine funding and policy priorities at the national and state level.
Being counted isn’t just a numbers game, but a question of whether the LGBT community gets access to the resources that support our health, economic well-being, safety and families. The LGBT community must be visible–and that means participating in the census, but it also means being counted fully.
Get your free Queer the Census sticker HERE (pictured above) and use it to seal the back of your census envelope. For more information, read the FAQ at Queerthecensus.org and visit www.census.gov.
2010 U.S Census schedule:
Jan. 27: Northwest Arctic Borough, Seward Peninsula, & the Y-K Delta (except Bethel, Nome & Kotzebue.)
Feb. 16: Bristol Bay, Kodiak, Interior Villages and Glenallen.
March 9: Aleutians and North Slope.
Mid-March: Census forms mailed to the rest of Alaska and the US.
Monday, 25 January 2010 – 10:24 AM
| Comments Off on Stop School Bullying on No Name-Calling Week
No Name-Calling Week begins today, a week of educational activities aimed at stopping name-calling and bullying in schools. For tips on involving your school community in planning a fun and effective No Name-Calling Week, visit Plan a NNCW Event.
Nik Castillo, a transgender student, spoke about the effects of school bullying and the need for safer schools, at the GLSEN Respect Awards in Los Angeles:
Today is the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s pro-choice Roe v Wade ruling. Why is that on a blog about Gay Alaska? Let’s get Larry from Wasilla to explain the connection:
“This victimization of the underaged female, and the failure of society to remark or to react with condemnation, point to the success of the goal of the liberals who want to use our children for sex toys. This success is marked by the revealing clothes young girls wear, MTV, the ever younger indoctrination of our young in public schools about sex and alternative lifestyles… Abortion is part of the desensitization of society to the taboos associated with how we view and treat our young… The homosexual agenda shares in the goal of the liberal establishment that seeks to breakdown morality and the family to accomplish recruitment for casual sex at ever younger ages.”
Larry Wood was somehow allowed to write an Alaska Gubernatorial column for the Examiner. He wrote glowing columns about Sarah Palin until she quit and made him write about appointed governor Sean Parnell. The quote above is from a column asking Parnell to sign a petition to declare fetuses a protected minority group and thus make abortion a hate crime. The post begins:
“A national movement has finally hit Alaska. This movement seeks to extend Constitution protection to the right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ to the unborn. Given former Governor Sarah Palin’s avowed pro-life stance, one wonders if Governor Sean Parnell will add his voice in support of this initiative?… Unlike Sarah Palin, his predecessor, Parnell has yet to speak out on the issue of whether or not the State should be in the business of killing babies in the womb.”
What do you want to bet that ol’ red-shirt Larry testified against extending protection to the right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ to the LGBT residents of Anchorage who tried to pass a nondiscrimination ordinance last summer? The anti-abortion post isn’t the first time he called gays pedophiles. His post on the passage of the Hate Crimes Act berated our Congress members for supporting it:
“Yes, Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young, two staunch, conservative Republicans voted with the pack, rather than voice their disapproval of this dirty trick by the Reid Senate and the Pelosi House. Of course, Sen. Mark Begich voted with his party to further establish homosexuals as a “protected” class under a system of law that was supposed to be based upon the fact that none stand above any other…. Meanwhile, in our Congress, the priority is keep pedophiles and homosexuals from being offended by heterosexuals. Once again the liberal congress and Alaska’s congressional delegation said to Hell with our troops and their needs. Why, the egos of this evolutionary dead end faction of our society takes precedent over the welfare of our troops in harms way.”
Protecting a minority group that is targeted for discrimination does not raise them above others, it simply levels the field. But given his opinion on protected status – that it raises some groups above others and creates an unfair situation – his argument in the very next column in favor of making fetuses a protected class, and thus unfairly raising them above others, is a stunning about-face. Enough to give one a touch of vertigo.
Of course, Pres. Obama is also to blame for gays and liberal destroying the country. In the special rights for fetuses column, his tirade against gays and “liberals who want to use our children for sex toys”includes a predictable attack on Obama for the appointment of Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educators Network:
“One of the most notable examples is the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), supported by Kevin Jennings, President Obama’s director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools (OSDFS).”
You knew he was going to mention NAMBLA, didn’t you? How tired. And completely untrue. Kevin Jennings is the current punching bag of the far right homophobes because he’s an openly gay man appointed by Pres. Obama – two people who send the far right into crazyland. Jennings founded GLSEN and dedicated his life to creating safer schools for LGBT kids, and no, he does not support illegal sexual activities. But truth is low on the far right list of priorities, well below firing gays and demonizing liberals. He also argues that abortion causes immigration:
“Another byproduct of abortion is the current illegal migrant worker situation. These are foreign nationals that are in the U.S. illegally, who are taking jobs, benefits and resources that are rightfully the purview of the naturalized U.S. citizen and their children. Abortion has created the demand for labor by terminating approximately 45 million Americans before birth, too many in the last trimester of the reproductive process. We have killed those before they are born who would otherwise be there to replace an aging and diminishing U.S. workforce.”
Creepy, huh? Let’s drag his whole paranoid argument out into the light and see what it says. (hold on to something solid):
Abortion causes illegal immigration,
because America doesn’t have enough poor children
waiting to fill all the menial jobs for starvation wages.
And abortion promotes the homosexual agenda
because… well, somehow abortion allows gays to share
in the liberal goal of using children as sex toys.
So if Gov. Parnell is a good governor like Sarah Palin,
he will sign a petition to give ‘special rights’ to fetuses
(protected group status for stigmatized minority groups,
Several bits of news converged this week connecting Sarah Palin, John McCain, gay marriage and republicans in a tangled web that may spell change in the GOP:
1. Cindy McCain, the former presidential hopeful’s wife, posed for a photo shoot with the NOH8 campaign against Prop 8 and in favor of gay marriage. Daughter Meghan already posed for the campaign. Senator McCain’s office released a statement saying that he continues to oppose marriage equality. He is running for re-election this year.
2. Sarah Palin endorsed McCain’s re-election campaign and agreed to stump for him. Palin may have a gay friend (what pageant girl doesn’t have a gay friend?) but she doesn’t support legal rights for gays. She opposes domestic partnerships, civil unions and marriage equality. Cindy McCain’s NOH8 photo shoot is not likely to improve Palin’s opinion of her.
3. Neither Palin nor McCain are speaking at CPAC, the annual conservative conference, but gay republicans are co-sponsoring the event. The anti-gay Liberty Counsel threatened to withdraw from CPAC because the organizers accepted sponsorship from GOProud, who would like to be friends with Sarah but would have better luck with Cindy and Meghan.
4. Palin did not speak at CPAC last year either, or rather, she was supposed to speak but didn’t attend. She said she never committed, CPAC said she did. The conference organizer accused Palin of “whining” after she backed out, which may explain why she isn’t going this year.
5. Other CPAC co-sponsors include the Alliance Defense Fund, the ultra-conservative legal team defending Prop 8 in the current federal trial, and NOM, a national group for straights-only marriage that produced those ridiculous Gathering Storm ads for Prop 8. They also ran the campaign that repealed marriage equality in Maine. These are the groups Palin appeals to, but she isn’t attending the conference. Instead, she’s speaking at a Tea Party shindig while gay republicans climb into bed with the anti-gay CPAC sponsors.
6. The federal court challenge on the legality of Prop 8 continued this week with the republican mayor of San Diego testifying in support of gay marriage because he wants his lesbian daughter to have a legally equal relationship with her lover, not a second class civil union or domestic partnership. Ted Olson, a top conservative lawyer and the former Solicitor General of the United States, is defending gay marriage.
7. GayPolitics posted a list of prominent republicans who support marriage equality, including Steve Schmidt, McCain’s chief strategist during his 2008 presidential run, and FOX News contributor Margaret Hoover, who announced her support for marriage equality last week in an op-ed titled, “Why I’m Joining the Fight for Marriage Equality.” Sarah Palin was hired by FOX the same week.
High profile republicans are coming out in support of gay marriage, even leading the way to marriage equality. Openly gay republicans are co-sponsoring conservative events. Even FOX has a pro-equality commentator. Perhaps mainstream republicans are trying to regain control of their party from the religious extremists by making support for gay marriage a moderate position.
Where will that leave Sarah Palin and her far right religious fans who refuse to accept the “gay marriage = individual liberty” memo? On the outer fringe, where they belong.
The very real consequences of DADT repeal; seeking survivor benefits for same-sex partner of Alaska shooting victim; waiting on SCOTUS decision about whether it will hear Prop 8 case; and other recent LGBTQ news selected by Sara Boesser in Juneau, Alaska.
In this month’s “Ask Lambda Legal” column, Lambda Legal answers a question about the federal government’s longstanding ban against donations of blood from men who have sex with men (MSM).
Alaska Pride Conference 2012 kicks off on October 5 with a First Friday showing at Tref.Punkt Studio of Love is Love, a photographic exhibit of LGBT couples from across the state.
United for marriage: Light the way to justice. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this Tuesday and Wednesday, March 26–27, in two cases about freedom to marry. Please join us on Tuesday, March 26, at the federal courthouse in Anchorage (7th & C) in a circle united for equality.
Pariah, a critically acclaimed film about a 17-year-old African-American woman embracing her lesbian identity, will screen at UAA on Friday, November 2, and will be followed by a discussion on acceptance in honor of Mya Dale. The event is free and open to the public.
