Obama repeats campaign lies at HRC dinner, crowd goes wild.

Last night Obama went to the HRC gala fundraiser (minimum $225 a plate) and gave the same speech he has been giving to the gays since 2007.

He said he is committed to ending DADT, even though he has done nothing to indicate that this lie is anything but that, a lie.  He has been prodded by legislators to halt discharges while they can end the discriminatory ban through legislation.  But he refuses to do so.  Not because of fear of losing political capital (overwhelming majorities of all stripes oppose the ban), but because he is a bigot.

Obama went on to praise himself for being willing to sign a bill passed recently by the house that includes adding gays to hate crimes statutes.  What he didn’t mention is that the amendment was shamefully tacked on to a defense policy bill with bipartisan support that has nothing to do with hate crimes.   Even so, I’ll believe its passage when I see it.  It has gotten this far on several occasions only to get lost in conference with the Senate.  Regardless, Obama has done nothing to speed this important legislation along.  He wants us to celebrate the fact that he simply won’t be an obstruction.

He also took credit for lifting the travel ban for people with HIV/AIDS, even though the ban is still in force.  Furthermore,  it was repealed by law and signed by George W. Bush before he left office.  For some reason, the Obama administration just hasn’t gotten around to actually implementing it. I’m guessing that he’s saving it up for the next time he comes to our community hat in hand.

Then there is the struggle for marriage equality that is heating up in states like Maine.  Once again people will be given the opportunity to legally oppress their fellow citizens  by repealing gay marriage there.  Gaybots were hoping Obama would at least voice his encouragement and moral support in the matter.  They also thought he would congratulate them for our likely success in legalizing gay marriage in the nation’s capital.  He did neither.  And I don’t know why it should come as any surprise.  Obama has admitted that he is a religious bigot whose beliefs keep him from supporting gay marriage.  He doesn’t think “God is in the mix”.  I guess it’s just their audacity of hope…

So why did Obama go to the HRC?  Well, for one it was to reward the HRC and gay media for a job well done.  They’ve been working overtime to advocate on his behalf to members of their own community.  They continue to provide him cover for his bigotry in return for  the power and privilege that access to the White House delivers.  But make no mistake, they’re not doing it for anybody but themselves.  They could care less about the real LBGT grassroots community that continues to languish in second class citizen status.  They are motivated by nothing more than pure selfishness.  Obama also came for the money.  He may feel superior to us, but that certainly doesn’t preclude him from taking our money whenever he can get his hands on it.  And finally, what better way to upstage the March for Equality than to give a speech to the HRC the night before.  Your average Joe or Jane Sixpack (who may be favorable to gay rights, but grossly uninformed on Obama’s betrayal of the LBGT community) is likely to think to themselves, “What a bunch of whiny, petty ingrates”.  And that’s exactly what Obama wants.

All in all I’d say the night was a win-win situation for everyone involved, except the vast majority of us gay and lesbians at home who are denied our basic civil rights yet again.

___________________________

If the HRC were REALLY a gay advocacy group, they would have had Joseph Rocha give the speech on the eve of the march for equality.  Thankfully he was able to share his experiences in the pages of The Washington Post.  Here are some excerpts, but go read the whole thing.  It’s a heartbreaking reality check of what it means to be a member of a minority group whose oppression is legally sanctioned.

I was 18 years old when I landed in the kingdom of Bahrain, off the coast of Saudi Arabia, in the winter of 2005. It was the first time I’d ever left the continental United States. My joints ached after more than 24 hours of travel, but I knew that a new life of service and adventure awaited me on the other side of that aircraft door.

This was the day I had been dreaming about since I’d enlisted in the Navy a few months before, on my birthday. I loved my country, and I knew that I was ready to prove myself in action.

I also knew that I was gay…

…Within days of arriving at my duty station in Bahrain, I decided that I wanted to earn a place among the elite handlers working with dogs trained to detect explosives. After passing exams and completing training, I went from serving among hundreds of military police to serving in a specialized unit of two dozen handlers and 32 dogs. I was responsible for training and working with two dogs throughout the region. Our goal was to keep explosives and insurgents out of Iraq and Afghanistan…

…Shop talk in the unit revolved around sex, either the prostitute-filled parties of days past or the escapades my comrades looked forward to. They interpreted my silence and total lack of interest as an admission of homosexuality. My higher-ups seemed to think that gave them the right to bind me to chairs, ridicule me, hose me down and lock me in a feces-filled dog kennel.

I can’t say for certain when the abuse started or when it stopped. Now, several years removed from those days in Bahrain, it blends together in my mind as a 28-month nightmare…

…In one corner of the classroom was a long sofa, turned away from the door. When you walked into the room, it appeared that one man was sitting on it, alone. But I was there too — the chief had decided that I would be down on my hands and knees, simulating oral sex. A kennel support staff member and I were supposed to pretend that we were in our bedroom and that the dogs were catching us having sex. Over and over, with each of the 32 dogs, I was forced to enact this scenario.

I told no one about what I was living through. I feared that reporting the abuse would lead to an investigation into my sexuality. My leaders and fellow sailors were punishing me for keeping my sexuality to myself, punishing me because I wouldn’t “tell.”…

…But the abuse wasn’t invisible to everyone. In 2005, roughly six months into my time with that unit, a new sailor in our group was taken aback when I was left tied up in a dog kennel. She reported the incident and, from what I understand, this prompted an internal investigation into hazing in my unit. Even then, the abuse continued, and I still couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. It took 90 minutes and the threat of a subpoena to get me to testify.

The Navy confirmed 93 incidents of misconduct, including hazing, abuse, physical assault, solicitation of prostitutes and misuse of

GAY RIGHTS=CIVIL RIGHTS

government property and funds, but the case was closed. After receiving a letter of caution, the military’s version of a slap on the wrist, my chief was eventually promoted in rank and position.

Rocha went on to finally admit his homosexuality and resign from the Navy.

Shame on the HRC, shame on the gay media, and shame on Barack Obama for his craven bigotry.

Maybe next year they’ll invite Rick Warren.

SILENCE=DEATH

Dan Savage on gay ambassadors

As the weekend of the March for Equality kicks off to protest the complete abandonment of the gay community by the Democrats in power, Obama goes on the offensive to try to deflect the criticism.  First, he will actually talk to a room full of gays!!! Hooray!!!!  Then to show that he’s not only about words, he’s about action too, he announced he will appoint David Huebner, an openly gay attorney, as ambassador to New Zealand!

Well shucks, that makes up for selling us out on our civil rights then, doesn’t it?

In fact Dan Savage thinks the President is brave to make such an unprecedented rare …OK, fairly routine appointment:

The president has a troubled relationship with a vocal minority group. To mollify his critics, the president appoints a member of this minority group to an ambassadorship. It’s a symbolic gesture, it doesn’t require the president to change his policies, but it gets a lot of play in the media and Americans, rightly or wrongly, interpret the move as evidence that the president’s heart, at least, is in the right place. Barack Obama in 2009? Nope: Ronald Reagan in 1986:

But Dan….wait, what????  Ronald Reagan?

Reagan’s appointment of  Edward Perkins as our ambassador to South Africa—Apartheid-era South Africa, Nelson-Mandela-still-rotting-in-prison South Africa—was gutsy and bold. It made the South Africans—the ruling white South Africans—apoplectic, which was great, but it also made an important statement about American values. At the time blacks in South Africa couldn’t vote or own property; they weren’t considered citizens. Educational institutions, medical facilities, and public services were all strictly segregated. And America sent ‘em a black ambassador. Look at that picture. South African President P.W. Botha had to formally receive Edward Perkins when he arrived in South Africa. Talk about your 1000 words. Reagan’s civil rights policies—including his refusal to back sanctions against South Africa—still sucked, but you had to admire Reagan’s… what’s the word: Oh, right: you had to admire Reagan’s audacity. The appointment of Perkins meant something. It couldn’t be dismissed as mere tokenism.

First of all, it cannot be stressed enough that Reagan’s enabling of the evil apartheid regime in South Africa is unforgivable.  But his appointment of Perkins makes the appointment of a gay man to New Zealand seem a bit, well, meaningless.  I mean his being gay really doesn’t have anything to do with it, does it?  As usual, Savage is much more colorful in his description of the appointment.

Sending an openly gay ambassador to New Zealand?

Nothing audacious about that. New Zealand will only be too delighted to welcome its first openly-gay ambassador. They’ll probably send a case of local lube to the American embassy. George Bush’s 2001 appointment of an openly gay man as ambassador to Romania—conservative, backwards Romania—was edgier. If Obama wants to show the same boldness and guts that Reagan did—if he wants to make a point about American values—he should appoint an openly gay man as ambassador to Russia, where anti-gay violence is tolerated/encouraged by the state. Or Saudia Arabia, where gay men are publicly executed. Or Iraq, where death squads hunt gay men.

Okay, those nations may be too large and/or too strategically important. So here’s a more realistic suggestion: Obama should appoint an openly-gay man—an openly gay African American man—as ambassador to the most violently homophobic nation in the Western Hemisphere: Jamaica.

That would be audacious…

Sending an openly gay ambassador to Jamaica would be a bold and meaningful move. Sending one to New Zealand is a symbolic sop to disgruntled Democratic interest group. Wouldn’t it be great if Obama had Reagan’s balls?

I don’t know about that, but it would be nice if our own so called “advocates” weren’t so busy around back kissing his ass.   And as far as sending a gay ambassador to Jamaica, that would be gutsy considering a British gay diplomat was just recently murdered there.  Sending them a gay ambassador would definitely send a message about gay rights to the world.  But Obama is a lost cause.  He’s too much of a coward to do anything that meaningful.

But back to those “advocates”.  The gay community needs to present a unified front as we demand our civil rights.  In that regard, groups like the HRC, who are hosting Obama on Saturday to make the protesters outside look petty and ungrateful, are doing more damage to us than those who openly call themselves enemies to our cause. Shame on them!

SILENCE=DEATH

Gay People Are Evil!!!

From the British tabloids:

Gay Satan

A gay man tried to poison his lesbian neighbours by putting slug pellets into their curry after he was accused of kidnapping their three-legged cat.

Gary Stewart, 37, had been at loggerheads with Marie Walton and Beverley Sales for months.

But things looked brighter when he made a peace offering of some curry, claiming he had ordered too much from the Indian takeaway.

There are some seriously screwed up people out there, and yes some of them are even gay.  In this case I’m sure we can all agree about that.

But with the discussion of Kevin Jennings appointment as “safe schools czar”, I’m not finding the right wing attacks on him very convincing.  Regardless of whether or not you think Obama has gone czar crazy, what I’m talking about is the implication by the right wing that Jennings is unfit to mentor children and adolescents.

To gay people this line of attack is hardly surprising.  Whenever gay people assert themselves in matters of family and children, the wingnuts go right to the gay=pedophile argument.  Doesn’t matter that the vast majority of children are molested by otherwise “straight” men.  Even when gay people are not even in the picture, we still get blamed every time some sick man abuses a child.  The Catholic church has even gone so far as to officially blame the priest pedophile scandal on homosexuality.

A Vatican official has said that the child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was caused by gay men preying on teenage boys, rather than paedophilia.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, read out a statement after a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva.

So forgive me if I shrug my shoulders when the homophobes out there get all worked up because one of Jennings teenage students confided in him about a sexual experience he had with an older man.  As I mentioned in the last post, if the student were a straight teen who told his coach or another male teacher about a sexual encounter with an older woman no one would have even thought twice about it (in fact there’s about a bazillion movies about that very subject).  I’m not defending adults having sex with minors, just that the faux outrage is just a little bit hypocritical.

As far as the accusations of his association with NAMBLA, to me it looks like pure hogwash.  He mentioned a man, Harry Hay, who he most likely didn’t even know was associated with the group.  I really don’t know anything about him either.  It’s just the same old gay=pedophile bullshit that they fling at each and every one of us.

As for Jenning’s drug use, our past two presidents have admitted to doing cocaine, marijuana, and being alcoholic.  Why should Jennings be held to a higher standard than them?

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Your corporate media at work

This is very interesting, via Glenn Greenwald:

The New York Times this morning has a remarkable story, and incredibly, the article’s author, Brian Stelter, doesn’t even acknowledge, let alone examine, what makes the story so significant. In essence, the chairman of General Electric (which owns MSNBC), Jeffrey Immelt, and the chairman of News Corporation (which owns Fox News), Rupert Murdoch, were brought into a room at a “summit meeting” for CEOs in May, where Charlie Rose tried to engineer an end to the “feud” between MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Fox’s Bill O’Reilly. According to the NYT, both CEO’s agreed that the dispute was bad for the interests of the corporate parents, and thus agreed to order their news employees to cease attacking each other’s news organizations and employees.

Most notably, the deal wasn’t engineered because of a perception that it was hurting either Olbermann or O’Reilly’s show, or even that it was hurting MSNBC. To the contrary, as Olbermann himself has acknowledged, his battles with O’Reilly have substantially boosted his ratings. The agreement of the corporate CEOs to cease criticizing each other was motivated by the belief that such criticism was hurting the unrelated corporate interests of GE and News Corp:

The reconciliation — not acknowledged by the parties until now — showcased how a personal and commercial battle between two men could create real consequences for their parent corporations. A G.E. shareholders’ meeting, for instance, was overrun by critics of MSNBC (and one of Mr. O’Reilly’s producers) last April. . . .

In late 2007, Mr. O’Reilly had a young producer, Jesse Watters, ambush Mr. Immelt and ask about G.E.’s business in Iran, which is legal, and which includes sales of energy and medical technology. G.E. says it no longer does business in Iran.

Mr. O’Reilly continued to pour pressure on its corporate leaders, even saying on one program last year that “If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt.” The resulting e-mail to G.E. from Mr. O’Reilly’s viewers was scathing. . .

Over time, G.E. and the News Corporation concluded that the fighting “wasn’t good for either parent,” said an NBC employee with direct knowledge of the situation. But the session hosted by Mr. Rose provided an opportunity for a reconciliation, sealed with a handshake between Mr. Immelt and Mr. Murdoch.

Though Olbermann denies he was part of any deal, the NYT says that there has been virtually no criticism of Fox by Olbermman, or MSNBC by O’Reilly, since June 1 when the deal took effect. That’s mostly but not entirely true. On June 17, after President Obama accused Fox News of fomenting hostility towards his agenda, and Fox responded by saying that the “other networks” were pure pro-Obama outlets, Olbermann did voice fairly stinging criticisms of Fox as “more of a political entity than is the Republican National Committee right now, only it’s fraudulently disguised as some sort of news organization.”

But a review of all of Olbermann’s post-June 1 shows does reveal that he has not ever criticized (or even mentioned) Bill O’Reilly since then and barely ever mentions Fox News any longer. And on June 1 — the last time Olbermann mentioned O’Reilly — Olbermann claimed at the end of his broadcast that he would cease referring to O’Reilly in the future because ignoring him (and “quarantining” Fox) would supposedly help get O’Reilly off the air (“So as of this show‘s end, I will retire the name, the photograph, and the caricature”).

So here we have yet another example — perhaps the most glaring yet — of the corporations that own our largest media outlets controlling and censoring the content of their news organizations based on the unrelated interests of the parent corporation.

So the “feud” between Olberrmann and O’Reilly was really just a ratings pissing match, more about both men’s overblown egos rather than their political ideologies (no surprise there). But when it started to hurt the bottom line of the two media outlets’ corporate parents, the bigwigs told them to cut it out. And not surprisingly, they did. That should scare the shit out of anybody who cares at all about the survival of our democracy. I don’t think the particular situation here is what matters, but the reaction of both GE and NewsCorp to silence their “journalists” (who all too willingly comply) when it hurt other sundry interests that they have outside of their media empires is incredibly alarming.

No wonder that Dan Rather recently called for a Presidential Commission to examine the state of the media in this country. While the wingnut blogs and some media painted his suggestion as a bailout of “old media”, I think what Rather is getting at is trying to stop exactly the kind of “engineered” reporting that the NY Times article suggests is happening. It is not a coincidence, I think, that this comes from the same man who was run out of the corporate media on a rail:

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute.

“I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the legendary newsman said…

Corporate and political influence on newsrooms, along with the conflation of news and entertainment, has created what Rather called “the dumbing down and sleazing up of what we see on the news.”..

“I feel particularly strong about coverage of the wars,” he said, noting that covering the war in Afghanistan is his top priority on his HDNet program. “No apologies, both as a journalist and as a citizen I just can’t stand to leave those guys out there, fighting, dying, bleeding, getting torn up and say, ‘Look, it’s page 14 news.’ Or ‘Sorry, not on tonight’s newscast.’ It’s an example of the problem, that and not having the watchdogs.”

The free press, as established by the First Amendment to the Constitution, ought to operate as a public trust, not solely as a money-making endeavor, Rather argued, and it’s time the government make an effort to ensure the survival of the free press. If not the government, he suggested, then an organization like the Carnegie Foundation should take it on. Without action, he predicted, America will lose its independent media.

I fear that it may be already too late. But I certainly believe that the only way to reestablish an independent media in this country at this point is for the federal government to intervene. This is necessary to make sure that our information isn’t supplied based on how it affects the shareholders of the giant corporations that own our media. I say this not because I trust (or want) the government to control the media, but because at this late stage of the corporatization of the media, it is the only entity with enough power reform it. The only problem is that since the 2000 election, the media has proven that they have the power to select who will become the president of the United States (or any other elected position for that matter). Barack Obama certainly doesn’t have the integrity to stand up to them (and why would he want to?). If the netroots and liberals should be focused on anything at this point, it should be to look for candidates who are willing to push back against the corporate media. I think the very survival of our democracy depends on it.

Obama promises to enforce DADT

Well I guess he’d rather you believe that he was actually doing something for the gay community, but as usual there’s nothing but a bunch of smoke and mirrors:

For the first time, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is outlining potential Obama administration plans to enforce the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule selectively so that some gays could serve in the military.

Gates said he is looking at ways to make the policy “more humane,” including letting people serve who may have been outed due to vengeance or a jilted lover. The remarks appeared in a transcript the Pentagon released Tuesday.

In other words he intends to enforce the “don’t ask” part of “don’t ask, don’t tell”. Because the only way to verify an accusation of homosexuality would be to ask the soldier herself, right? And they’re not supposed to do that. In fact, contrary to what the article states, DADT was itself originally intended to be a way for gay and lesbian people to serve in the military. So basically what Obama is instructing Gates to do is obey the law. What is astonishing about this is not that it does anything for the gay community, but that it practically admits that the government has been using DADT as a tool for pursuing a witch hunt of gays and lesbians in the armed forces. It suggests that they have been using third party evidence to discharge gay service members who haven’t declared their sexuality. Seems to me that would be outside the scope of the law.

Even if this were to change anything the policy already mandates, all it really does is expose a totally absurd code of ethics which values lying and subversiveness over honesty and integrity, but that’s whole point of why DADT needs to go. It isn’t fair and it makes people lie about themselves. People in general know that forcing someone to lie is not a good thing. That’s why nearly everyone in this country supports the repeal of the law.

Finally, someone needs to tell Gates that gay people don’t want to be treated humanely, we want to be treated like humans. Is that too much to ask?

Mr. Smalley goes to Washington

Al Franken is now officially the much anticipated 60th Senate Democrat (or at least 60th member of the Democratic Caucus). I guess people really DO like him.

#60

So what’s Obama’s excuse now for not pushing a liberal agenda, including gay rights, universal health care, and FOCA? He finally has super-majorities in both houses. This is the first time Democrats have been in this position in 30 years. And the last time was back when southern Republicans were still pretending to be Democrats. But still the Opologists are saying now is not the time. They say he will lose the good will he now enjoys. Well I think the obots have it all wrong. He should not be a coward and avoid offending the political opposition. The Republicans surely didn’t waste time enacting their agenda once they got a majority in both houses, and they didn’t even have a filibuster proof majority.

If ever there was a time to enact a truly liberal, progressive agenda it is now. We may never have this chance again in our lifetime. Political capital is worthless unless you really intend to spend it. So let’s do it. Now!

Franken is more than just a symbol of this opportunity, and I for one would like to congratulate him on his victory. I really think he will be a strong voice for liberal values in the Senate. And with the Impostor in Chief, we need all of them we can get.

On a lighter note, I looked all over youtube for video of Stuart Smalley. Someone has been quite thorough in removing all clips. I don’t know why. Smalley is one of the greatest characters to come out of SNL. If you haven’t seen Stuart Saves his Family, I highly recommend it. You can see the trailer here (the only clip I could find and the embedding is disabled). So for this morning’s music clip here’s the only video of Franken the comedian I could find. From 80’s classic TV show Solid Gold:

The boss sucks

As President, Obama sets the tone for the workforce of the Executive Branch. Given his cowardice and bigotry regarding gay rights, is it surprising that some of his employees are lashing out at their gay and lesbian co-workers?

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis

Labor secretary Hilda Solis circulated a letter to departmental employees late last week condemning the defacing of gay pride posters hanging in 35 department elevators. Many of the posters, which have been hanging in the elevators since June 22, have been defaced or removed altogether.

Kudos to Secretary Solis for immediately confronting the issue. I would also hope that this might lead to some stronger training on issues of workplace discrimination and harassment. But then again, look what happened when the Secretary of State tried to make her Department more welcoming to its gay and lesbian employees. Until Obama repudiates this kind of bigotry in our government himself, it will continue to rear its ugly head. He is the boss, and when the boss treats gay and lesbians as second class citizens, how can we expect any better from his subordinates?

40 years, and still so far to go.

If you are a straight member of the liberal community reading the NY Times, you might start to believe the propaganda coming out of the White House that the gay community is just being petulant and selfish in their demands for civil rights. I mean by most accounts gays are practically the toast of town.

Interviews with gay leaders suggest a consensus that there has been nothing short of a cultural transformation in the space of just a few years, even if it is reflected more in the evolving culture of the country than in the body of its laws.

“The diminution of the homophobia has been as important a phenomena as anything we’ve seen in the last 15 years,” said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, who is gay.

The NY Times goes on to bemoan the fact that the government has been unable to keep pace with the culture at large when it comes to accepting gays and lesbians. Of course they say that this is the natural order, and therefore Obama is acting just as should be expected. Sooner or later the US bureaucracy will catch up with the culture at large. The implication is that gays whining about rights is a bit indulgent seeing as how the “hard work” is already done.

But while the NY Times and Barney Frank are patting themselves on the back for ending homophobia in America, out here in the rest of the country there’s a stubborn thing called reality which makes it difficult for most gays and lesbians to celebrate our liberation.

What they fail to grasp is that until laws that codify our ongoing discrimination, such as DOMA and DADT and Prop 8 are repealed, we will never be equal to everyone else, no matter how many gay stereotypes are paraded across our tv screens. As if that were proof that gays and lesbians were now full, equal members of society. I don’t buy it for a minute. First of all, hate crimes against gays and lesbians are at their highest levels in 10 years.

Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people increased 2% from 2007 to 2008, continuing the trend of a 24% total increase in 2007, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP)’s 2008 Hate Violence Report. Bias-related murders were at their highest rate since 1999 with 29 known anti-LGBT murders committed in 2008. Reports of violence in Milwaukee increased 64% and Minnesota and Chicago saw increases of 48% and 42%, respectively.

In fact, in the afterglow of the election of the “fiercest advocate the gay community has ever known”, this was going on unnoticed just across the bay from the gay capital of the world.

A woman in the city of Richmond was jumped by four men, taunted for being a lesbian, repeatedly raped and left naked outside an abandoned apartment building, authorities said Monday.Detectives say the 28-year-old victim was attacked Dec. 13 after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. The men, who ranged from their late teens to their 30s, made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation, said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan. “It just pushes it beyond fathomable,” he said. “The level of trauma — physical and emotional — this victim has suffered is extreme.”

Note the age of the assailants. Late teens to thirty. That kind of flies in the face of the logic that the younger generation shall guide us gay folk to the promised land, now doesn’t it?

Finally, it is in remembrance of the 40 year anniversary of the Stonewall riots that the self-congratulatory article in the Times was written. According to them, forty years later, the raids at the Stonewall are nothing but bad memories. Such events have been banished to the dustbin of history. For old time’s sake, here’s an actual account of the event from the July 6, 1969 edition of the New York Daily News:

Last Friday the privacy of the Stonewall was invaded by police from the First Division. It was a raid. They had a warrant. After two years, police said they had been informed that liquor was being served on the premises. Since the Stonewall was without a license, the place was being closed. It was the law.

All hell broke loose when the police entered the Stonewall. The girls instinctively reached for each other. Others stood frozen, locked in an embrace of fear.

Only a handful of police were on hand for the initial landing in the homosexual beachhead. They ushered the patrons out onto Christopher Street, just off Sheridan Square.

Now, forty years later, the Times would have us believe that such things could never take place again. Well, maybe they need to get out of Manhattan a little more often. From The Dallas Voice, June 28, 2009:

I got a phone call at 3 this morning from Todd Camp, the founder of Q Cinema and former reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. It was Camp’s birthday and the night of a special Q Cinema screening of two Stonewall documentaries… because it was ALSO the 40th anniverary of Stonewall, as anyone knows.

Except, apparently, the Fort Worth PD.

Or maybe worse, they DID know and wanted to make a point.

The horrific details after the jump.

According to Camp, the newly-opened Rainbow Lounge is “the only cool gay bar in town,” but the police raided it, arresting numerous patrons for no reason.

I got another perspective in my in-box this morning:

The not awesome thing was the paddy wagon of homophobic police that showed up … looking for trouble. My group and I were sitting on the back patio at a picnic table. Nobody was being wild out there. [The police] came through with flashlights, being loud asking what was going on out here, then asked why everyone was all the sudden being quiet. When one group started up their conversations again, they took one guy away. I left shortly after and as I walked through the front bar there were numerous cops with plastic handcuffs all ready to go. I [left] the bar and they [had] a big van in the parking lot and numerous cars on the street. And just so you know, it wasn’t fire hazard crowded or seedy wild in there. … The worst part is [friends later told me] that [the police] had numerous people face down on the ground outside. I just moved to Fort Worth from Dallas, so this is such a shock to me. I know Dallas would not put up with this. … I am still so shocked it is 2009 and this just happened.

You can see some pictures of the raid here.

So forgive me if I wince when I read articles telling me that we have overcome, and that someone just forgot to send me the memo. Gays and lesbians are still treated with the same bigotry and the same hatred as we were forty years ago. Yes, we have made advances, and we have come a long way. But we still have a long way to go. Until our civil rights are guaranteed by law we will never be truly equal. That is why we must continue to hold the Democrats to their promises to us. We have supported their candidates with our money and our votes with the expectation that they would make a place for us at the table for too long now only to have them repeatedly go back on their word. Now, in addition, they have foisted upon us a President who is a liar, a coward, and a bigot when it comes to gay rights. Enough is enough. No more money until our civil rights are guaranteed. And on the 4oth anniversary of Stonewall, we need to be rioting like never before.

SILENCE=DEATH

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Obama doesn’t have the time or the power to sign an executive order placing a moratorium on the discharge of our gay and lesbian soldiers. He can only muster a “memorandum” to remind gay and lesbian federal employees of the benefits they already have. And he has no choice but to use the most bigoted arguments to support the repellant DOMA. BUT…

He has no qualms about using an Executive Order when it comes to eviscerating our constitution and thumbing his nose at the very principles enshrined in that document by our founding fathers.

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, is drafting an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

So according to the obots, Obama is just so darn busy he doesn’t have time for the gays? Well, does he have time for the fucking US Constitution???

Sick

This is why gay and lesbian civil rights is so important:

A Bridgeport, Conn., church that posted a video of a ritual to cast a “homosexual demon” from a 16-year-old boy should be investigated for child abuse, gay and lesbian advocates argue, according to the Associated Press…

The video of the gay “exorcism” shows the boy writhing on the floor as at least 10 people circle him and shout, beating him with towels and handling him harshly. A woman in charge yells, “Rip it! Rip it from his throat!”

Later, a man drags the boy on his feet by holding him under his arms, while another pushes his hand onto the boy’s forehead and shouts, “Lose your grip! I burn you in the name of Jesus!”

An official for Manifested Glory Ministries told the AP that the child was not hurt, and she denied that the church has antigay bias.

Despite what the media would have you believe, homophobia is alive and well in this country. While the obots tell us that we are being selfish for demanding the respect and dignity we were promised by the Democrats, our status as marginalized, second class citizens, allows this kind of horrifying abuse to take place. Meanwhile, we are continually bombarded with the message that the country, especially the youth, are entering a “post-gay” world where all are treated equally.

This is simply not true. Gay youth are still tormented for no other reason than being themselves. Gay teens are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers. That number jumps to nine times when they come from a family that rejects them for their sexuality. Thankfully some politicians are working to combat this problem, and I’m proud to report that my very own state is one of a handful taking the lead on this issue.

The N.C. House passed legislation Monday night that would add North Carolina to a handful of states with anti-bullying laws that include specific protections for students tormented because of their real or perceived sexual orientation.

The bill also included protection for gender identity as well. And the Democrats in NC did it despite the grandstanding of holier than thou republicans who care more about satisfying their sanctimonious base than they do about protecting children. Good for them.

In other sad news, two icons of my childhood passed away yesterday. When I was a kid Michael Jackson really was the King of Pop. To a fourteen year old in the early 80’s, he was the essence of cool. Then there was Farrah. I don’t know a single gay man my age who wasn’t mesmerized by Charlie’s Angels growing up. We may have acted back then like we were interested in the angel’s looks, but what we really tuned in for was to see them kicking ass and taking names. As childhood legends begin to fade away, I really am beginning to feel the bittersweet nostalgia that comes with middle age…