A long-overdue Bent Alaska update — October 2013

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.

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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.”

NOH8: I am Human (video)

Miss MeMe’s Glee-themed promo for HIV Testing Week (video)

Alaska PrideFest 2010 Schedule

“The goal of PrideFest is to provide the community with a means to celebrate the diversity within Alaska, and to give expression to the pride we feel as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. We hope this public celebration and affirmation of our heritage and history will serve as inspiration for those who are questioning their own sexual or gender identity.”

Saturday June 26

11am – Celebrating Diversity Parade, with Anchorage Assembly member Elvi Gray-Jackson as the Grand Marshal, will begin at 6th and D and proceed to the Memorial Block of Delaney Park Strip. The 2010 parade route is posted HERE.

Noon – 6pm – Pride on the Park Strip! A festival for all ages with free admission. Bring cash for food, vendors and fun new activities. The Kiddie Carnival is back for the youngest among us. Teens can meet up at the Chill Out Tent. Let out your inner child at the Bungee Run, Bucking Salmon, Sumo Wrestling and more. Plus, you can bike to the park strip where BCA will provide free and secure bike parking beginning at 11am. The festival will be on the Park Strip (between 9th and 10th) near K street.

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

Juneau adds Film Night to Pride Picnic and Hike

"City of Borders" at Mini Film Fest for Anchorage Pride