Ok Folks –
Just a note to say I am going to spend my birthday flying to Brasil. The blog will change somewhat while abroad, it’s a little bit of a hassle to post stuff, and I find that I like to share things I see and do there… keep the faith, enjoy my vacation (via the blog).
Ate já!
D
P.S. for the record the Ponderosa has a house sitter or two, the alarm system is functioning with in all acceptable parameters, and there neighbors be a watch’n… yo!
We would like to share this special message from Gavin Newsom as well as share some exciting news that we just got a few minutes ago.
Lt. Dan Choi, who is facing trial today under the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, is coming to Camp Courage Sacramento on July 11-12. Lt. Choi would like to meet some of the folks who added their name to our letter of support, signed by 158,118 people.
If you would like to meet Lt. Choi, please RSVP here now:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento
Rick Jacobs
Chair, Courage Campaign
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Pam Spaulding has the complete transcript of the president's remarks. At one point Obama was interrupted by somebody's cell phone. The offender's ringtone? A duck call. Hmm. The president quacked up.
| Leading The News | | | |
| Obama promises progress to gay community |
| Posted: 06/29/09 05:43 PM [ET] | |
President Obama worked to assuage tension between his administration and the gay community Monday, telling them that he remains committed to their most important issues. Speaking to a group in the East Room of the White House representing the gay community, Obama reiterated his pledge to overturn both the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the military's Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell rule. Monday's event was the administration's first event honoring Gay Pride Month for a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender audience and it came amid growing tension between Obama's White House and the gay community. The president has come under intense fire from a loyal demographic that has accused his administration of dragging its feet on those two issues. Last week, some high-profile gay Democrats boycotted a fundraiser attended by Vice President Biden. Obama said Monday he is aware that many in the gay community "don't believe progress has come fast enough," comparing their struggles to those of blacks during the civil-rights movement. "It is not for me to tell you to be patient any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago," Obama said. "But I say this, we have made progress and we will make more." The president said that he expects and hopes "to be judged not by words, not by promises I've made, but by the promises that my administration keeps." "We've been in office six months now, and I suspect that by the time this administration is over I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration," the president said. The rift between the administration and the gay community was exacerbated by a Department of Justice (DOJ) brief defending DOMA and comparing gay marriage to incest. In defending the DOJ's brief, Obama also sought to clarify his goal of reversing DOMA. "I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to help end discrimination against same-sex couples in this country," Obama said. "Now I want to add we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides. And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law. I've made that clear." On Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell, the president said he believes "preventing patriotic Americans from serving their country weakens our national security." "I know that every day that passes without a resolution is a deep disappointment to those men and women who continue to be discharged under this policy, patriots who often possess critical language skills and years of training and who've served this country well," Obama said. The president said he has asked the joint chiefs and Congress to find what the White House has called an "enduring" solution to overturning the law. The president also promised to push for an employee nondiscrimination law and a hate-crimes law named after Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was tortured and murdered in Wyoming. |
| Leading The News | | | |
| Obama tries to win back favor of gays |
| Posted: 06/29/09 07:32 AM [ET] | |
| President Obama, under fire from some gay and lesbian groups for what they see as slow movement on two of their most important issues, is taking steps to keep that voting bloc in his column. This week, the president will host an event at the White House "recognizing and celebrating the accomplishments" of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. The event comes just days after Vice President Biden was dispatched to extend an olive branch to the gay community. Despite Biden's efforts at a fundraiser last week, the event was still boycotted by some over the administration's inaction in repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. Further fanning the flames of the gay community's ire, a Department of Justice memo came out earlier this month, defending DOMA and in one instance comparing gay marriage to incest. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said not to expect any announcements on the two controversial policies surrounding next week's event. But Gibbs insisted that the event was planned in honor of Gay Pride Month and not as a result of political pressure. This is not Obama's first entreaty to the gay community. Earlier this month, he signed a presidential memorandum extending some federal benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees, but many in the community say the president hasn't gone far enough. At Thursday night's fundraiser, several high-profile gay Democratic fundraisers boycotted the event, and protesters outside held signs that read "Gay Uncle Toms," "SHAME" and "No Money for DOMA." The event still raised $1 million, about $250,000 more than it did last year, but Biden acknowledged the impatience many in the gay community feel. "I am not unaware of the controversy swirling around this dinner and swirling around the speed or lack thereof that we are moving on issues that are of great importance to you," Biden said. He promised though that the administration will "put some pace on the ball" on some major issues, and he stressed that Obama is committed to "keeping the nation focused on the unfinished business of true equality for all our people." Biden added: "We're not there yet." Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), one of three openly gay members of Congress, met with the protesters outside Thursday's event, and as she turned to go inside the crowd urged her to "boycott the bigots." "We do feel an impatience and a frustration, and I think it's really important that that be expressed both outside and inside," Baldwin told one reporter at the event. Biden, who told the crowd he doesn't blame them for their "impatience," listed what the administration has accomplished for the community so far, including 60 appointments of gays and lesbians with nine that require Senate confirmation. Despite what they've accomplished, however, Biden promised that the gay community's key issues won't be "delayed, put off or not end on [Obama's] plate," receiving standing ovations when he repeated the administration's pledge to repeal both DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell. "I hope you don't doubt the president's commitment," Biden said. |
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The Editors
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Chad Rubel
One of the overlooked elements to the death of Farrah Fawcett was that she and long-time love Ryan O'Neal wanted to get married at the very end, but unfortunately, they ran out of time. Even though they had been mostly together for almost three decades, they decide that getting married was something they wanted to do.
But a marriage that would have lasted hours or even days -- even that kind of marriage isn't an option for gay couples in over 40 states.
We have seen strongly committed gay couples wanting desperately to get married. It is the public face to put on for those who are unsure about gays and lesbians getting married. Show the strong couples, the committed couples, the ones that have been waiting a long time and desperately want to get hitched.
But behind this face are gay and lesbian couples who will want to get married for the reasons that some straight couples tie the knot: for money, professional advancement, on a whim, drunken and in Las Vegas, and even as a sweet gesture as one of them lays dying.
The recent release of "The Proposal" has Sandra Bullock's character wanting to marry Ryan Reynolds' character so she doesn't get deported to Canada. As silly a premise as this is, gay couples can't even do this in the vast majority of the United States. Of course, if this happened to a gay couple, they could just both move to Canada, get married, and not look back.
It is understood that you can't come out and say this is what you are fighting for, but deep down, true equality is having gay and lesbian couples make bizarre or unconventional choices in getting married.
The religious right, which literally preaches the sanctimony of marriage, does two things rather poorly: they don't chastise straight couples for their offbeat reasons for getting married, and they paint gays and lesbians as hedonists, which ironically, marriage would actually disprove this argument.
President Obama is meeting with LGBT supporters, one day after the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and, of course, Pride parades in many cities in the U.S. And the nice round number of a 40-year block -- two generations worth -- demonstrates how bad what the world was like for gays and lesbians in 1969, and the changes since.
But gays and lesbians have every right to be concerned about the defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, and the non-starter that is getting rid of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, or at least not enforcing its major statute.
We have freedoms as Americans to behave as odd, unusual, offbeat, unconventional as we want. But true freedom means freedom for all, for gays and lesbians to be every part of society, including those who want to get married. And not just married, but to be just as married for the same silly or sweet reasons that straight people do. This is when there will be true equality.
CNN -- Jesse Levey is a Republican activist who says he believes in family values, small government and his lesbian mothers' right to marry.
Jeff DeGroot on hiking trip with his mothers, Elisabeth, on his left, and Meg Grear, on his right.
Levey is part of the "gayby boom" generation. The 29-year-old management consultant is the son of a lesbian couple who chose to have a child through artificial insemination. He's their only child.
Critics of same-sex marriage say people such as Levey will grow up shunned and sexually confused. Yet he says he's a "well-adjusted heterosexual" whose upbringing proves that love, not gender, makes a family.
"You can imagine what my parents thought when I was 13 and listening to Rush Limbaugh everyday," Levey says. "But my family had strong family values. I was raised in a loving, caring household that let me be a free thinker."
For the rest of the story at CNN go to: Gay Boom
Many supporters of President Barack Obama have gone "all in" on this administration. Considering it too historic to fail, either they can't see this White House's shortcomings and mistakes or they simply refuse to acknowledge them.
With one notable exception: gay and lesbian activists who are, as they say, so over that.
The relationship got off to a rocky start. Many gays and lesbians were so eager to help put an end to Republican control of the presidency that they enthusiastically became part of the coalition that helped elect Obama – even though he opposed gay marriage.
But before being sworn in, Obama irked gay rights advocates by choosing pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.
Warren is an outspoken critic of gay marriage and supporter of California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex unions.
Since taking office, Obama has been criticized by gay and lesbian activists for not addressing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy that allows for a service member to be dismissed if discovered to be gay or lesbian. Obama has said that he opposes the policy but he has yet to do anything about it.
It gets worse.
Obama is also on record saying that he opposes and would like to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act – which essentially denies same-sex married couples the protection of the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution by preventing the federal government from recognizing such unions. Obama has said that the law is discriminatory and that it infringes on states' rights.
So imagine the surprise, and even disgust, on the part of gay activists when the Obama Justice Department recently filed a motion in support of the Defense of Marriage Act. The administration opposed a lawsuit brought by a married gay couple in California seeking to have their union recognized in all 50 states.
And in making their argument that not all marriages ought be recognized as lawful, Obama's lawyers cited as precedent cases involving, of all things, pedophilia and incest – the same sort of obscene comparisons that some religious conservatives have, in the past, drawn to argue against gay marriage.
All of this has incensed gay and lesbian pundits and activists.
They include prominent blogger Andrew Sullivan and the Joshua Blog.
The rift has prompted editorials in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, both of which were critical of Obama. In response, many of Obama's gay and lesbian supporters have recently pulled out of Democratic fundraisers and some have already threatened to withhold political contributions to Obama's re-election campaign in 2012.
What's more, the activists aren't in any hurry to mend fences with the White House.
When Obama recently signed an executive order granting benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, some activists dismissed the gesture as a feeble attempt at pacifying critics in the gay and lesbian communities – and not an original one at that since, according to a federal employee quoted by CNN.com, such benefits are already available to gay couples who work for the federal government.
Things are so touchy that when Obama recently made a gay-themed joke, some gays and lesbians were not amused.
At the 2009 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, Obama noted that he and senior adviser David Axelrod "have been together for a long time." In fact, Obama said, years ago, he called Axelrod and said, "You and I can do wonderful things together." Then, Obama joked, Axelrod "said to me the same thing that partners all across America are saying to one another right now. Let's go to Iowa and make it official."
The president's critics noted that when the Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in April, Obama didn't really acknowledge it.
And now he makes a joke out of it? The deteriorating relationship between Obama and the gay and lesbian community is no laughing matter. It never is when a group of voters feels written off by one party and taken for granted by another. And it never is when a group of voters feels completely let down by a political leader in whom they put their trust.
Gays and lesbians put their trust in Barack Obama assuming that he would join in their fight for dignity and equal rights. The shame of it is that they're still waiting.
Imagine this: a tranny hustler, mascara streaking her cheeks, peers into a wee rift in the time-space continuum as the angry crowd in front of the Stonewall Inn on Sheridan Square flings beer bottles and fistfuls of spare change at a retreating phalanx of NYPD officers. Nearby, candles flicker at makeshift shrines to Judy Garland, whose farewell performance at an uptown funeral home ended mere hours ago.
Through that snag in the cosmological stocking, our draft-dodging tranny spies an America exactly 40 years on from the Stonewall riots—and two generations removed from the young queerfolk pushing back against the agents of heterosexist conformity and the blackfolk who are setting ablaze the last pillars of Jim Crow.
What does our heroine behold?
A Harvard-educated black man in the White House who defends a vast surveillance apparatus controlled by an Orwellian-sounding entity called Homeland Security and a restive coterie of gays and lesbians who disdain nonconformity and clamor for the right to get married and enlist in the Marines.
“Oh Mary,” our wide-eyed tranny rasps, “I’m gonna need a cocktail to get my head around this one.”
The Stonewall riots of late June 1969—as well as the Summer of Love two years earlier, the Woodstock music festival two months later and the debut of the Cockettes at the Palace Theater in San Francisco the following New Year’s Eve—are examples of what Hakim Bey, a queer anarchist social critic, calls the Temporary Autonomous Zone.
“The TAZ is like an uprising which does not engage directly with the State,” Bey writes, “a guerilla operation which liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen, before the State can crush it.”
Bey’s idea trades on the observation that orthodoxy of any kind—legal, social or religious—is essentially a living fiction, a collective hallucination. Groups that participate in this illusion take its abstractions for reality, and within that margin of error the TAZ springs into being.
And before it can be captured or commodified, the TAZ vanishes, leaving behind an empty husk. Think of Burning Man (or perhaps the Jesus Movement).
The anarchic spirit of the TAZ inevitably calls forth a violent response from those who tend the shadow-fires of orthodoxy. Crucifixions, witch-hunts, and inquisitions embodied this impulse in our historical past, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy during the Consciousness Revolution of the late 1960s also bore its mark.
As did the 50,000 deaths that Ronald Reagan abided before he uttered the word “AIDS” in public.
Today, queer culture is not so much a vector of this spiritual enlivenment as it is a passive beneficiary of it. Rather than dismantling the master’s house, many of us prefer to beseech the master to loan us his tools so that we can construct a tasteful adjoining cottage and two-car garage.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I should hasten to add. Stability has its virtues.
But we have lost sight of something that the most keen-eyed queerfolk of the Stonewall era clearly had in view: the circumstances under which human beings can flourish are innumerable, and cultivating an orthodox view of human flourishing inevitably leads to the oppression of nonconformists and the spiritual degeneration of the culture that oppresses them.
I suspect the next Consciousness Revolution will be sparked not by an uprising of the kind of readily identifiable groups that energized the social changes of the 1960s—women, African-Americans, and queerfolk—but by some as yet unfathomable configuration within the rapidly growing, spiritual-but-not-religious cohort that we’re now haphazardly calling the “Nones.”
Sexual tricksters like our tranny hustler will definitely figure into the mix, as will humanists and other proponents of ethical and moral heterodoxy. The catalyst for the Stonewall of the Nones will likely be some form of revolt against the aforementioned surveillance culture, the perniciousness of which mainstream progressives just don’t seem to grok, even as more radical social critics like Bob Ostertag have already started to sound the alarm.
“The TAZ is…a perfect tactic for an era in which the State is omnipresent and all-powerful” observes Bey, “and yet simultaneously riddled with cracks and vacancies.”
So agitate for same-sex marriage if you feel you must—like I said: there’s nothing wrong with that. But don’t imagine that ipso facto you’re carrying the torch of Stonewall forward.
Just please don’t take up a pitchfork when the real revolutionaries appear.
thanks to Religion Dispatches
