A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
A few months ago there was a lot of hand-wringing among LGBT progressive activists over the possibility that comprehensive immigration reform might not include same-sex partner sponsorship. If it benefits LGBT immigrants but doesn't include same-sex partner sponsorship, do we support it? What a conundrum!
Well, looks like the opposite is happening. The Democrats released their framework for immigration reform last week, and it includes binational, same-sex families:
Included in the "framework" are key provisions of the Uniting American Families Act. The legislation was previously offered as a standalone bill by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont in the Senate and Representative Jerrold Nadler in the House. The measure would allow gay Americans to sponsor an immigrant partner for citizenship.
Argentina's House Of Deputies (similar to the U.S. House) has just voted 125-109 to approve same-sex marriage. The debate now moves to the Senate, where opposition is expected to be strong. I watched the last few minutes of the House vote via a livestream and even though I speak little Spanish, it was quite amusing to me to identify the Argentine counterparts of the familiar players we see here. (The blowhard ranting homophobe, the slightly too-smug liberals, etc.) But when the result was gaveled into officialness and rainbow banners unfurled from the gallery to ecstatic cheers and singing, well, hello, hand me una Kleenex, por favor.
Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) will represent eight married same-sex couples and three widowers tomorrow in their Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) challenge against the federal government. Via press release:
Represented by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), the plaintiffs in Gill et al. v. Office of Personnel Management, all married in Massachusetts, have each been harmed by DOMA treating them as unmarried. Gill was filed on March 3, 2009, and has been called the case with the greatest potential for national impact by the National Law Journal.
“Every day DOMA is hurting couples and families – not just by denying them benefits and rights, but by denying that their marriages exist,” said Mary L. Bonauto, GLAD’s Civil Rights Project Director. “Under our Constitution’s equal protection guarantees, there is no justification for this.” Bonauto will be arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs before U.S. District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro.
Judge Tauro will hear GLAD’s motion for summary judgment as well as the federal government’s motion to dismiss. The hearing will address the issue of whether DOMA Section 3 is constitutional six years after the first same-sex couples in the country started marrying in Massachusetts, the result of GLAD’s groundbreaking marriage case, Goodridge v. Department of Public Health.
Joy Behar's new show on the HLN network was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award, and Behar would "rather have it than [the Emmy]." Seriously. In one of the comedian's markedly abundant moments of sincerity, she confirmed her claim by noting that the GLAAD award seemed to privilege the "heartfelt" and deep-rooted appreciation for entertainers and media makers catering to and being open supporters of the LGBTQ and other communities grossly underrepresented by much of mainstream media. This is indeed a far cry from the now-cliché "favorit[ism]" of many other awards and ceremonies entrenched in American popular culture.
Joy Behar is incredibly popular; yet, she consistently roots for the "underdog" -- or, persons in the "minority" who are often silently subject to "majority" opinions and restrictions. Hers is a powerful allied voice for a number of marginalized communities; she supports LGBTQ-identified persons especially.
Even with the remarkable reach and impact of her voice in media and culture, Joy Behar appreciates the dialogue and discussion elicited by persons of divergent opinions sitting together in the same room. This has been her experience on the Emmy-winning talk show The View, and it is an experience she values greatly, particularly because there isn't "any pretense on the panel": each voice on The View, including Ms. Behar's, knows its own tones and timbre. Each voice appreciates the musical and productive conversation made possible by the collection of diverse sounded opinions, and each voice knows when silent, engaged listening is best for the development of an idea or for the voice's understanding.
It is the exchange of knowing herself, listening to others, and voicing her concerns -- as they are filtered through her personal experiences and careful reading of others' particularities -- that combine to make Joy Behar such an engaging and resounding presence. We, as humans, have our personal histories/pasts, our ears, and our words. They are tools which become very powerful when used in combination to promote productive discussion in constructive spaces. Clearly, when Behar speaks, others listen.
Somewhat overlooked in Friday's furor over the Democrats' biometric ID proposal was the fact that the bill also slips in immigration rights for the partners of gay U.S. citizens. Christianists have picked up on that and are, of course, outraged.
Not surprisingly, the move has been hailed by gay rights groups and condemned by Catholics. "Today's inclusive framework is an historic step forward for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender binational families," said the executive director of Immigration Equality, a group that advocates for binational gay and lesbian couples. But the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urged lawmakers not to include such language when they write legislation. "While we support the general direction of the framework .... we strongly oppose extending marriage-like immigration benefits to same-sex relationships," the bishops said in a statement. "This proposal threatens to undermine the opportunity to bring together the Congress and the American people around a common solution to the important challenge of immigration reform."
The bill includes key provisions of the Uniting American Families Act. The pertinent section of the bill reads (in part): "The proposal will eliminate discrimination in the immigration laws by permitting permanent partners of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents to obtain lawful permanent resident status." It's unclear from the linked story how "permanent partners" would be defined under this bill.
TMZ has broken the news that the big celebrity coming out scheduled for this week by PR king Howard Bragman is country star Chely Wright, who has a memoir and new album both debuting this Tuesday. I never heard of her until today, but apparently she's a big deal and has had a lot of hits, including the below, which went to #1 on country in 1999. I was really hoping it was to be Queen Latifah, dammit.
If I’ve asked it once I’ve asked it a hundred times: how does marriage equality hurtRecently I posed the question yet again to Maggie Gallagher, outgoing president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), as she visited my ethics class at Wayne State University via audio conference.
I “get” that Gallagher wants children to have mothers and fathers, and ideally, their own biological mothers and fathers. What I’ve never quite gotten is why extending marriage to gays and lesbians undermines that goal. One can be married without having children, one can have children without being married; and (most important) same-sex marriage is not about gay couples’ snatching children away from their loving heterosexual parents. No sane person thinks otherwise.
Maggie Gallagher is a sane person. (Wrong, but sane.) For the record, she is not worried that marriage equality would give gays license to kidnap children. Nor does she oppose adoption by gay individuals or couples, although she thinks heterosexual married couples should be preferred. So what’s the problem?
Late yesterday in a strongly worded letter to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen wrote that they oppose "legislation that seeks to change this policy prior to the completion of" the Pentagon Working Group implementation study. Of course this statement flies in the face of the President's commitment in the State of the Union address to work with Congress to repeal the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law this year. Later last evening the White House issued a statement that did little to clarify the conflicting signals being sent.
The question for President Obama now is: does he want to mark this issue in the failure column as President Clinton was forced to do, or does he want to deliver on the change we were promised? It is inconceivable that the Secretary of Defense would so blatantly undermine the Commander-in-Chief's policy commitment and now the country looks to the President to exert his authority and leadership. If the President is going to fulfill his pledge to the American people it is essential that he address this issue.
Secretary Gates himself has said repeatedly that the Pentagon Working Group is designed to review how to implement a change in DADT, not if a change should occur. If those statements were true, there should be no reason that he wouldn't support the plan for which we have advocated where Congress moves forward with repeal while providing additional time for the Pentagon review to complete before implementation.
Action by Congress this year, in the National Defense Authorization bill, will not, as the Secretary suggests, 'send a very damaging message to our men and women in uniform.' But failure to act this year will, without a doubt, continue to send the message to the thousands of gay and lesbian Americans serving their country in silence – and those of us who support them – that their views and concerns, and the impact on them and their families, do not matter to the military leadership, including their Commander-in-Chief.
Clearly this news changes the landscape, but we haven't given up before and we refuse to now. The service of the more than 13,000 discharged men and women under DADT demands that we fight back. The silent service of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines living under the law right now demands that we fight back. Until "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is no more, we will fight back.
