Articles in Politics
Alaska is 1 of 5 states with no gay elected leaders. Really?
Alaska, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia – these are the only 5 states in the nation that have no LGBT elected officials, according to the Victory Fund.
The Fund recently announced the 36 LGBT candidates they endorsed for elected office this year. Based on the categories below their map, 30 states currently have LGBT representation at the state or federal level, another 15 have at least one elected LGBT official below the state level, and only 5 states have no LGBT representation at any level. Alaska is in the last category.
We don’t have a single gay or lesbian elected official in the entire state of Alaska? Hogwash.
We must have a few gay officials among the hundreds of people who hold public office in this state. There are thousands of LGBT people living here, and we are just as capable as heterosexuals. Statistically, it’s inconceivable that there wouldn’t be at least a few elected gay people. Maybe not in high profile positions, but somewhere.
Historically in Alaska, the leaders were people who might not have won elections in the more settled regions of the country. Some would not have been allowed to run for office in parts of the Lower 48. But in frontier Alaska, a capable and friendly person who would commit to staying for a few years might be recognized as a leader despite other characteristics. Some Alaska towns are still like that, and one or two might have a good leader who happens to be gay.
But they wouldn’t be likely to talk about something they were willing to overlook, and a gay leader elected despite their identity wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. It’s besides the point.
For the national LGBT movement, knowing about them is an important point. Someone who is elected in spite of being gay cannot advocate for changes on our behalf without calling attention to their own identity.
When the Victory Fund said “openly LGBT” they didn’t mean being out to friends and relatives, or even co-workers, they meant being publicly out. For a candidate in a city with a large LGBT population, the national exposure can help them get elected. They might as well come out publicly during the campaign so they won’t be outed in office. But there isn’t much advantage in a small town, or for someone who is already in office despite being gay.
So the Fund’s map is basically accurate, although it isn’t true. They just need to change the description of the Horizon category that includes Alaska from “no openly LGBT elected officials” to “no LGBT elected officials who want to come out to the whole world.” That’s probably true for the other 4 Horizon states as well.
But if you’re a capable and friendly Alaskan who wants to run for office as a publicly out gay man or lesbian, the Victory Fund would be happy to add Alaska to their list of active states… and we’d be happy to move out of that column.
Prop 8 trial: pro-gay marriage republican mayor & live-blogging links
The court took a break in honor of Dr. King, and the trial resumes today with testimony from the Mayor of San Diego, a republican who supports gay marriage because he wants his lesbian daughter to be equal.
We may never see the actual trial, but a Los Angeles company is filming reenactments of the Prop. 8 trial using partial transcripts and first-hand accounts from bloggers. They hope to begin posting segments from the first week on Wednesday.
Live-blogging teams converged on San Francisco when the US Supreme Court blocked broadcast of the trial, and these amazing bloggers are typing hour after hour to keep the world informed of the proceedings.
Here are several good resources for live-blogging and analysis of the Prop 8 trial:
The Courage Campaign’s Prop 8 Tracker has a live-blogging team, and posts nightly summaries with commentary.
Bilerico‘s Davina Kotulski is live-blogging with occasional commentary.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights blog has good nightly reviews that are cross-posted on Pam’s House Blend.
FireDogLake has been live-blogging the trial since the first morning. This impressive set of transcripts is a great resource for the media and anyone who has time to read the whole thing.
Karen Ocamb is posting about the trial at LGBT POV, including reports from live-bloggers.
The American Foundation for Equal Rights posts a steady stream of Prop 8 news.
The San Jose Mercury News was live-blogging from the first day with short summaries in place of word for word transcripts.
The bloggers and non-profits work for donations, so please show your appreciation for their efforts. If you have another favorite site for Prop 8 trial news, please add it in the comments.
Federal Job Site Ends Gender Identity Bias
If you are a transgender Alaskan looking for work, hundreds of local open positions are now more available to you: the federal government’s official job site added gender identity to the hiring nondiscrimination policy.
And if you’re a red-shirted local who thinks Alaska is not ready to protect transgender workers from job discrimination, it’s time to get ready for workplace diversity.
While the Anchorage effort for gay and trans protections dragged on last summer, the federal government was evaluating it’s employment practices. On Jan 5, gender identity was added to the equal-employment opportunity notices on www.usajobs.gov, the federal job site.
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said, “The largest employer in the country is doing what all the other large employers in the country are doing, so that’s really great news.”
The change brought criticism from social conservatives, who trotted out the same nonsense we heard in Anchorage: biology = destiny, trans people are faking it, and if we protect them from discrimination the sky will fall.
But the federal hiring practices are now trans-inclusive, and there are HUNDREDS of open federal positions based in Alaska.
The USAJOBS search page currently lists 292 federal job openings in Alaska, but the Alaska page lists 881 results (the anywhere-in-the-US positions make up the difference.)
- There are currently 80 federal job openings based in Anchorage, 57 in Fairbanks, 23 in Juneau, 25 in Homer, etc. and others are listed for regions or the whole state.
- Almost all are full-time and many are permanent.
- They cover 21 fields, mostly science, engineering, office work and medical/health, but also business, finance, education, safety, communications, trades, transportation, and more.
- They represent 16 agencies, primarily Agriculture, Interior, the Air Force and the Army, but also Justice, Homeland Security, Defense, Transportation, and the VA…
Wait, what? Openly gay and trans people cannot serve in the military, but we can work for the military in civilian positions, even on base, and they can’t discriminate against us in hiring for those jobs. Well, that’s interesting.
OK, trans people looking for work in Alaska, head over to the USAJOBS site and check out the options on the Alaska page. You’ll find all kinds of interesting jobs, and a shiny new trans-inclusive hiring policy.
Rachel Maddow covered the policy change following a segment on Amanda Simpson, the first transwoman appointed by Pres. Obama:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Sara’s News Roundup 1/17/10
This week’s LGBT news roundup from Sara Boesser in Juneau, Alaska.
Alaska, Alaskans Together, January 2010
Cleveland, Ohio, Fox8.com, January 11, 2010
Anchorage, Alaska, Anchorage Daily News, January 9, 2010
News10Now, January 11, 2010
Texas, Boston Globe, October 9, 2009
South Korea, Advocate, January 3, 2010
U.K., 365Gay.com, December 24, 2009
London, BBC News, January 11, 2010
Calcutta, India, Calcutta News, January 11, 2010
New York, Gay City News, January 6, 2010
Washington, Huffington Post, January 15, 2010
Straight Alaskans divorce more, despite gay ban to protect marriage
Divorce rates are dropping in states that allow same sex marriages and rising in states with gay marriage bans, according to a new study – and Alaska ranks dead last on both counts, with the fastest rising divorce rate in the country and the first gay marriage ban.
The study compared divorce rates between 2003 and 2008 to the gay relationship laws in forty-three states and the years the laws were passed. The author explains the findings: (my emphasis)
Over the past decade or so, divorce has gradually become more uncommon in the United States. Since 2003, however, the decline in divorce rates has been largely confined to states which have not passed a state constitutional ban on gay marriage. These states saw their divorce rates decrease by an average of 8 percent between 2003 and 2008. States which had passed a same-sex marriage ban as of January 1, 2008, however, saw their divorce rates rise by about 1 percent over the same period.As is somewhat visually apparent, those states which have tended to take more liberal policies toward gay marriage have tended also to have larger declines in their divorce rates. In Massachusetts, which legalized gay marriage in 2004, the divorce rate has declined by 21 percent and is the lowest in the country by some margin…On the other hand, the seven states at the bottom of the chart all had constitutional prohibitions on same-sex marriage in place throughout 2008. The state which experienced the highest increase in its divorce rate over the period (Alaska, at 17.2 percent) also happens to be the first one to have altered its constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, in 1998.The differences are highly statistically significant. Nevertheless, they do not necessarily imply causation. The decision to ban same-sex marriage does not occur randomly throughout the states, but instead is strongly correlated with other factors, such as religiosity and political ideology, which we have made no attempt to account for. Nor do we know in which way the causal arrow might point. It could be that voters who have more marital problems of their own are more inclined to deny the right of marriage to same-sex couples.
Interesting point. Alaska banned same sex marriage in 1998, claiming the ban would protect “the sanctity of marriage.” But Alaska’s heterosexuals are divorcing more than ever, and the state has high rates of domestic violence, rape and incest.
Maybe it wasn’t about the sanctity of marriage after all.
Prop 8 Trial: homophobia and the fear of transparency (days 2 & 3)
Today, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to forbid the public broadcast of this landmark civil rights trial, while in the courtroom, witnesses detailed the history of anti-gay discrimination in America and showed evidence of homophobia by the Prop 8 sponsors.
Days 2 and 3 of the trial focused on expert witnesses giving testimony and being cross-examined:
* Dr. Nancy Cott spoke on the history of marriage in America, including several changes in the definition of legal marriage.
* Dr. George Chauncey detailed the last 100 years of anti-gay discrimination in America.
* Dr. Letishia Peplak covered the similarities between gay and straight relationships, and why gay marriage will not harm heterosexual marriage.
* Prop 8 television ads, and letters from Prop 8 sponsors, were shown (or blocked) as evidence of the anti-gay motives of the sponsors.
Prop 8 Tracker wrote:
The proponents of Prop. 8 seek to hide and obfuscate. They did not want their own ad played in court. They did not want documents from their own strategists to become public because the documents show clearly that their entire campaign was built on the decades of prejudice and fear that we heard about in detail yesterday from Prof. Chauncey. As Ted Olson keeps saying, their arguments do not hold up in public or in court. They only win when they can manipulate the media and the public, using scare tactics.
And they do not want the public to see the truth on television. They appealed to the Supreme Court, and the majority opinion said that no live broadcast will be allowed because it will cause ‘irreparable harm’ to the homophobes. The American Foundation for Equal Rights released a statement in response to the ruling.
So it’s fine to hate on gays in television ads for months before a public vote to take away our rights, but they’re worried that the people who took away our rights will be harmed if the world sees them testifying on why they hate and fear us.
And they do fear us. At the trial, they keep arguing that they oppose our marriages because they need to ‘protect’ their children. But you don’t need protection against good or neutral things – you only feel the need to protect yourself from things you FEAR, whether or not the danger is real. Homophobia is an irrational fear or hatred of homosexuals, and their need to ‘protect’ themselves from gay people who are not harming them proves that they are afraid of us, irrationally afraid, and thus homophobic.
In one cross-examination, the marriage ban lawyers argued that anti-gay discrimination is gone because we have Barney Frank in Congress, plus the show ‘Will & Grace’ and the movie ‘Brokeback Mountain.’ (How can Brokeback be evidence that discrimination has faded? It shows anti-gay murders with no legal consequences and a gay man so afraid for his life that he never lives with the man he loves.)
The Prop 8 lawyers are pushing the same circular argument we saw in Anchorage against the equal rights ordinance: there is no anti-gay discrimination, so we should be allowed to continue discriminating against gays.
Let’s hope that Judge Walker recognizes the absurdity of the argument and comes to a conclusion based on the testimony and evidence, unlike Mayor Sullivan’s ‘popularity contest’ approach to civil rights.
Prop 8 opening arguments and testimony (Day 1)
The first marriage equality case in federal court began Monday morning with opening arguments, testimony from the couples, and a legal twist – the Supreme Court blocked broadcast of the trial until Wed. So instead of video clips, here’s a short review based on the written reports.
Ted Olson gave a strong opening statement, saying that the Supreme Court has repeatedly described the right to marriage as “the most important relation in life” and “of fundamental importance for all individuals.” But Prop 8 took away that right for same sex couples.
Proposition 8 ended the dream of marriage, the most important relation in life, for the plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of Californians.
Olson set out his argument against Prop 8:
First – Marriage is vitally important in American society.
Second – By denying gay men and lesbians the right to marry, Proposition 8 works a grievous harm on the plaintiffs and other gay men and lesbians throughout California, and adds yet another chapter to the long history of discrimination they have suffered.
Third – Proposition 8 perpetrates this irreparable, immeasurable, discriminatory harm for no good reason.
He explained each of the three points and concluded, “Proposition 8, and the irrational pattern of California’s regulation of marriage which it promulgates, advances no legitimate state interest. All it does is label gay and lesbian persons as different, inferior, unequal, and disfavored… It is unconstitutional.”
The opposition also made their opening statement, arguing that marriage is for procreation and, if gay marriage is legal, it will harm marriage for straight people. Nothing new here.
Each of the four plaintiffs testified: Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarillo, a gay male couple from southern California, and Kristin Perry and Sandra Steir, a lesbian couple from northern California. They talked about the struggle to come out, their relationships, the Prop 8 campaign, why they want to marry and the second-class status of domestic partnerships. Only Katami was cross-examined.
Live-blogged day 1 testimony from the plaintiffs can be read here: Prop 8 Trial Tracker, Firedoglake, and The San Jose Mercury News. The National Center for Lesbian Rights has a good summary of the testimonies.
Near the end of the day, Professor Nancy Cott began her testimony as an expert witness on the history of marriage in America. She discussed the public and private aspects of marriage, and showed how marriage has already changed more than once. She will return to the stand Tuesday morning when the trial resumes.
Prop. 8 Trial begins in SF today *video blocked*
UPDATE: This morning, the US Supreme Court *blocked the public viewing of the trial* in other courthouses and on YouTube until they discuss it on Wed. The whole trial is being taped, but we may never get to see it.
In the meantime, people inside the San Francisco courtroom are keeping us informed with written updates, article links, and live twitter feeds. Some of the best: American Foundation for Equal Rights (the group bringing the case), Prop 8 Trial Tracker by the Courage Campaign, and Firedoglake. Ted Olsen’s opening statement is posted, along with testimony from the couples. Look for daily reviews on all of your favorite queer web sites.
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The trial challenging Prop 8 begins today in San Francisco. The case, Perry vs. Schwarzenegger, will decide whether or not California’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the U.S. Constitution.
Live broadcast of the trial will be shown only in federal courthouses in San Francisco, Pasadena, Portland, Ore., Seattle, and Brooklyn, N.Y. The rest of us can follow the updates from bloggers in those locations and wait until the end of each day for the video clips posted on the court’s YouTube channel (which will become available when the first video is posted.) In addition to the video, the court created a web site for legal updates on this case.
Legal foes Ted Olsen and David Boies have teamed up to represent the people challenging the ban. The lawyers will question two same sex couples – known collectively as Perry – experts, and other witnesses during the 2-3 weeks of the nonjury trial.
Olsen is a Republican who explained his reasons for taking the case in the article The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage: Why same-sex marriage is an American value.
Although the case says it’s versus Schwarzenegger, the governor isn’t defending Prop 8. He said he’s neutral, and the state attorney general opposes the ban. So a religious coalition of Prop 8 sponsors is defending it. The main lawyer for their side is Charles Cooper.
The suit was assigned to Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, a 1989 appointee of President George Bush, Sr. Judge Walker has a reputation as a libertarian and a maverick on the bench, and expects his ruling to be appealed to the US Supreme Court either way. But for now, all eyes are on Walker’s San Francisco courtroom.
Sara’s News Roundup 1/10/10
This week’s LGBT news roundup from Sara Boesser in Juneau, Alaska.
California, Time, January 5, 2009
2) Houston mayor calls swearing-in a gay milestone
Houston, Associated Press, January 4, 2010
3) “Cut Homophobia” film campaign
Jerusalem, Israel, Jerusalem Post, December 13, 2009
4) Portuguese govt aims to permit gay marriage
Lisbon, Portugal, Associated Press, December 17, 2009
5) Poll: Americans Split on Same-Sex Marriage
United States, Angus Reid Global Monitor, December 18, 2009
6) Hill Republicans join fight against D.C. gay marriage
Washington D.C., Washington Post, January 7, 2010
7) Mary Daly, a Leader in Feminist Theology, Dies at 81
Gardner, Mass., New York Times, January 6, 2010
8) Task Force: Federal jobs Web site change to include gender identity is step in right direction
Washington, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, January 06, 2010
9) RI lawmakers back funeral rights for gays
Providence, Rhode Island, 365Gay.com, January 6, 2009
10) Opponents hope to challenge N. H.’s gay marriage law
Concord, N.H., New Haven Register, January 5, 2010
11) New Jersey Senate Defeats Gay Marriage Bill
Trenton, N.J., New York Times, January 7, 2010
12) Corvino: Fighting gay dehumanization
365Gay.com, January 8, 2009
13) Lesbian Utah legislator carrying baby for gay couple
Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Tribune, January 8, 2010
14) High-stakes gay marriage trial to begin in Calif.
San Francisco, 365Gay.com, January 8, 2010
Anchorage Assembly’s Drummond brings LGBT Call for Action to Fairbanks
Harriet Drummond, a member of the Anchorage Assembly and a supporter of the recent attempt to pass an LGBT non-discrimination ordinance, will be a guest speaker at the Fairbanks Unitarian Church on Sunday, Jan. 10 for the program “The Anchorage Gay Rights Ordinance: Lessons Learned and a Call for Action.”
After the service, there will be a Community Conversation on Fairbanks GLBT Issues and Developing an Action Agenda, at 12:30 p.m. A light lunch will be provided, and potluck items are appreciated.
The Unitarian Universalist fellowship of Fairbanks is welcoming, open and affirming to all. UUFF is located at 4448 Pikes Landing Road, across from the Princess Hotel.
Other Fairbanks LGBT events this weekend:
The Imperial Court’s Greek Gods and Goddess Toga Party, 7 p.m. at the Carlson Center. Food, fun, fashion show, dancing and live entertainment at an all-ages event. $12 in costume, $15 in street clothes.
Fairbanks PFLAG is holding their first meeting of 2010 on Sunday, Jan. 10 at 4 p.m. Please RSVP.
