01.27.09
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 5:51 pm by pikapp44
About 2,200 government employees working in foreign affairs signed a letter supporting the rights of the LGBT employees that was hand-delivered to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s office Monday afternoon.
The letter (full text below) from Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies congratulated Secretary Clinton on her confirmation and then proceeded to outline a number of inequities faced by same-sex partners of employees at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, among others.
“We are concerned that access to the federal health care insurance program is denied to same-sex partners of employees serving in Third World countries with substandard medical care,” read the letter. “We question the logic of leaving same-sex partners to fend for themselves during an emergency evacuation of a high danger post. We are embarrassed when the Department will reimburse a variety of moving expenses, including the cost of transporting a pet, when an employee is assigned overseas, but will not do the same for a same-sex partner.”
The document’s delivery came on the heels of Clinton’s confirmation testimony earlier this month in which she promised to review the policy regarding same-sex partners of civil and foreign service agents. “This issue was brought to my attention during the transition,” Clinton noted. “I’ve asked to have more briefing on it because I think that we should take a hard look at the existing policy.”
Same-sex partners of foreign service personnel are currently deprived of health care benefits and are unable to access other services available to heterosexual spouses, such as subsidized relocation, language training, employment opportunities, on-site medical treatment, and evacuation aid in emergency situations. According to Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA), an order from Clinton to designate gay partners as eligible family members could remedy a number of these inequalities.
J. Michelle Schohn, president of GLIFAA, said the group has not yet received a response from Secretary Clinton but anticipated the issue would be addressed.
“We feel really confident that she will end up seeing the letter and that she is interested in hearing our issues,” said Schohn, who has spent five years as a foreign service officer and whose partner has served for seven. “The mood here is overwhelmingly optimistic — as optimistic as I have seen it.”
Schohn said the majority of the signatories were heterosexual, and she was particularly struck that 92% of the those who signed had no “member of household” — meaning they have nothing to gain immediately from a policy change because they are either single, in a heterosexual marriage, or their partner is also employed as a foreign service officer and so the department usually assigns the couple in tandem whether they are gay or straight.
“Those people were signing just because it’s the right and fair thing to do. I can’t tell you how amazing that feels, being a lesbian person in the department, to have that kind of support from your colleagues,” said Schohn, who had been working on the message since mid November. “It’s just an overwhelmingly positive feeling I’ve gotten from my colleagues during the course of doing this letter.” (Kerry Eleveld, Advocate.com)
Text of the letter:
Madam Secretary:
We congratulate you on your Senate confirmation, and we look forward to working with you in promoting America’s interests and strengthening our national security in this rapidly changing world. Whether assigned stateside or overseas, Civil Service or Foreign Service, active or retired, we are all proud to be serving our nation.
We, the undersigned and representing the diversity of the foreign affairs agencies, would like to bring to your attention a matter that concerns us all. All of us are troubled that our families are not all treated equally and with the same respect. We are concerned that access to the federal health care insurance program is denied to same-sex partners of employees serving in Third World countries with substandard medical care. We question the logic of leaving same-sex partners to fend for themselves during an emergency evacuation of a high danger post. We are embarrassed when the Department will reimburse a variety of moving expenses, including the cost of transporting a pet, when an employee is assigned overseas, but will not do the same for a same-sex partner. We are saddened that individual and community safety are put at risk because full language instruction is not available to same-sex partners. We are uncomfortable that same-sex partners receive less compensation and fewer benefits for performing exactly the same job inside the mission as an opposite-sex spouse, that is, when same-sex partners are given a chance to work.
An order from your office designating same-sex partners as Eligible Family Members (EFMs) could remedy many of the inequalities that these families face. Other remedies will require coordination between the Executive and Legislative branches.
Madam Secretary, we believe that no colleague of ours is a second-class colleague, and no colleague’s family is a second-class family. Given your commitment to protecting the safety and promoting the welfare of all Foreign Service families, we ask for your full consideration of our concerns and we hope that a dialogue aimed at ending this unequal treatment can be started.
Your loyal staff,
Permalink
01.23.09
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 4:24 pm by pikapp44
New York governor David Paterson’s pick to take Hillary Clinton’s seat in the U.S. Senate, former representative Kirsten Gillibrand, said she would support full marriage rights for gay couples during a noon press conference Friday in which the governor announced the appointment.
“I will advocate for marriage equality, women’s rights, preserving Social Security and the retirement that our seniors seem to be losing every day, and call for significant investments in education,” she told a throng of politicians and reporters gathered in Albany for the announcement.
Senator Gillibrand, who was generally seen as a moderate-to-conservative Democratic congresswoman from upstate, had previously supported civil unions. But she placed a phone call to the executive director of the state’s LGBT rights organization, the Empire State Pride Agenda, Thursday night to say she would back gay marriage moving forward, according to sources familiar with the situation.
“After talking to Kirsten Gillibrand, I am very happy to say that New York is poised to have its first U.S. senator who supports marriage equality for same-sex couples,” Alan Van Capelle said in a statement released by the Pride Agenda Friday morning. “She also supports the full repeal of the federal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) law, repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) and passage of legislation outlawing discrimination against transgender people. While we had a productive discussion about a whole range of LGBT concerns, I was particularly happy to hear where she stands on these issues.”
Gillibrand beat a Republican incumbent to win her congressional seat in 2006, was reelected rather handily in 2008, and until now, favored civil unions on the national level as the best way to provide gay couples with the rights and privileges of marriage. Liz Benjamin of the New York Daily News points out this recent Q&A with her on the subject in the January/February 2009 issue of Inside/Out, an LGBT publication in upstate New York.
Gillibrand on marriage versus civil unions: “What I’d like to do legislatively, on the federal level — and I think we’ll be able to do this with the new president — is actually make civil unions legal in all 50 states, make it the law of the land. Because what you want to fundamentally do is protect the rights and privileges of committed couples, so that they can have Medicare benefits, visit in the hospitals, have adoption rights. All [the] things that we give to married couples, committed gay couples should be eligible for. And then the question of whether you call it a marriage or not, what you label it, that can be left to the states to decide.
“[It’s] so culturally oriented. My mom’s generation, they want their gay friends to have every right and privilege that they should be eligible for as a married couple, but they feel uncomfortable calling it marriage. To them, a marriage is a religious word that they learned from the Catholic Church: It’s a covenant between a man, a woman, and God. So they feel uncomfortable with the word. But they don’t feel uncomfortable with the rights and privileges.
“I think the way you win this issue is you focus on getting the rights and privileges protected throughout the entire country, and then you do the state-by-state advocacy for having the title.”
New York’s senior senator, Charles Schumer, supports civil unions, as did Hillary Clinton during her senate and presidential campaigns.
The Pride Agenda clearly hopes to leverage the position of the new junior senator. The final graph of its press release read:
“Should Governor Paterson name her today to fill the seat held by Hillary Clinton, she will join Governor Paterson, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith and numerous other elected officials in the New York State Legislature and across the state who support the freedom to marry for same-sex couples.”
Gillibrand has scored an 80 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign scorecard and supports hate-crimes legislation, an inclusive employment nondiscrimination bill (though she voted in favor of 2007’s noninclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act), repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act, equal tax treatment for domestic partners, funding for needle-exchange programs, and an HIV/AIDS early-treatment bill that allowed states to provide Medicaid coverage for HIV-positive people.
Permalink
01.20.09
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 5:25 pm by pikapp44
When Rev. V. Gene Robinson took to the stage at a star-studded, pre-inauguration event Sunday afternoon in Washington D.C., millions of LGBT Americans eagerly anticipated what the openly gay bishop would have to say about equality in America.
But Robinson’s invocation never aired on television – he was cut from the telecast of the Lincoln Memorial event.
In a call placed to HBO, the premium pay channel on which the Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial aired, a spokesperson told After Elton the decision not to air Robinson’s prayer was made by the Obama transition team.
HBO’s senior vice president, Jeff Cusson, gave a similar account. “HBO had no involvement in the scheduling of those who appeared as part of the televised event. You’ll have to talk to [the Presidential Inaugural Committee] about all of the scheduling decisions. We had a set broadcast time and went forth accordingly,” Cusson told gay activist Leah McElrath.
Permalink
01.15.09
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 4:23 pm by pikapp44
Maine state senator Dennis Damon introduced a bill Tuesday that proposes legalizing marriage for same-sex couples.
“Today I have submitted an act to end discrimination in civil marriage and to affirm religious freedom,” he said at a press conference in the state capitol.
The state now offers domestic partnerships to unmarried couples, including gays and lesbians. Damon’s bill would rewrite present law defining marriage as a union only between a man and a woman.
However, as Damon, a Democrat, submitted his landmark legislation, Republican lawmaker John Tardy worked to draft legislation that would keep marriage limited to heterosexual Mainers. Mark Mutty, director of public policy for the Roman Catholic diocese of Portland, said that redefining marriage “would open it up to all kinds of other things,” according to the Bangor Daily News.
Maine governor John Baldacci said in a statement that he is not yet prepared to support same-sex marriage and still favors civil unions. However, he did concede that gays and lesbians still face discrimination.
Damon agrees. “Heterosexual couples who have decided to spend their lives together are treated differently than same-sex couples who have … that same commitment to each other,” Damon said, according to the Associated Press. “I don’t see the fairness of that. I don’t see the need for that, and this bill will put an end to that.” The Democrats hold the majority in both houses of the state legislature.
Maine would be the third U.S. state with marriage equality for all residents. Fellow New England states Massachusetts and Connecticut allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, while in California gay marriage is currently in limbo as the state supreme court readies itself to hear arguments over whether to overturn Proposition 8, the ballot measure passed in November that limits marriage to opposite-sex couples.
New Hampshire representative Jim Splaine has signed off on a bill proposing marriage equality in his state. He said the bill will face a public hearing within the next two to three weeks. New Hampshire and Vermont currently offer civil unions to gay and lesbian residents. However, Splaine told Reuters, “I think it is important to make our civil unions have full marriage equality with the word ‘marriage’ so that it is clear that we do not discriminate and that we welcome same-gendered couples.”
Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders said Rhode Island may also vote on marriage equality legislation soon. The Boston-based group says its goal is to bring marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples throughout New England by 2012.
Permalink
01.14.09
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 8:25 pm by pikapp44
Sen. Hillary Clinton said Tuesday during her confirmation hearing for secretary of State that she intended to review the department’s policy of not extending benefits to partners of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender foreign service officers. But Clinton stopped short of giving a specific commitment to make partner benefits available, saying she needed more information on the existing policies.
Beyond being deprived of health care benefits, same-sex partners of foreign service personnel are currently unable to access other services available to heterosexual spouses, such as subsidized relocation, language training, employment opportunities, on-site medical treatment, and evacuation aid in emergency situations.
Democratic senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin posed the question to Clinton after he noted that addressing these inequities was a natural outgrowth of the need to build a more robust diplomatic corps.
“Will you support changes to existing personnel policy in order to ensure that LGBT staff at State and [the U.S. Agency for International Development] receive equal benefits and support?” he asked.
Clinton responded: “Senator, this issue was brought to my attention during the transition. I’ve asked to have more briefing on it because I think that we should take a hard look at the existing policy. As I understand it, but don’t hold me to it because I don’t have the full briefing material, but my understanding is other nations have moved to extend that partnership benefit. And we will come back to you to inform you of decisions we make going forward.”
LGBT diplomats who work for the State Department welcomed the comments from Senator Clinton, who is expected to be confirmed next week.
“Secretary-designate Clinton has been a good friend to the LGBT community, and I am delighted that she recognizes that fairer policies make good business sense,” said Michelle Schohn, president of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Service Affairs Agencies. “LGBT diplomats and aid workers serve overseas in some of the most dangerous locations, but current State Department policies continue to be deny equal treatment for our families. I am hopeful that Secretary Clinton will work quickly to implement overdue reforms so that we can continue to serve our country at a time when it needs us most without having to choose our job over our family.”
Permalink
01.09.09
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 5:02 pm by pikapp44
The American Family Association has identified yet another target in its waging of the culture war — PepsiCo. The right-wing organization has asked members to boycott PepsiCo after the company donated a combined $1 million to the Human Rights Campaign and Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
The AFA says it sent two letters to PepsiCo after the donations were made public in October.
“We were indeed surprised by PepsiCo’s support of the homosexual group,” the AFA’s Donald E. Wildmon wrote in October about the $500,000 donation to PFLAG. “It would appear to us that PepsiCo would not involve itself in a political and culture war, especially supporting an organization seeking to redefine marriage and family.”
The letter went on to ask PepsiCo chair Indra K. Nooyi to “remain neutral in this culture war, neither supporting nor opposing the homosexual agenda.”
PepsiCo responded in November that the donation made to PFLAG focuses on designing supportive workplace environments. “The initiative seeks to promote further understanding and equality in the places where people spend much of their time at work,” PepsiCo spokesman Paul Boykas wrote in a letter the AFA deemed “condescending.”
“Among the values promoted by the PepsiCo Foundation is ensuring a work environment that is respectful where associates are valued for their contributions,” the letter went on to say. “I hope this clarifies this grant by the PepsiCo Foundation.”
AFA wrote in a letter to its members that PepsiCo “refuses to give money to any pro-family organization that opposes the homosexual agenda.”
Further adding fuel to the fire, the AFA adds that “most every homosexual organization we know of is overwhelmingly pro-abortion.”
Permalink
01.06.09
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:55 pm by pikapp44
President-elect Barack Obama on Monday named Bradley Kiley, who is gay, as director of the Office of Management and Administration. Kiley has been serving as director of Operations for the Obama-Biden Transition Project and previously served as vice president of finance and operations at the Center for American Progress.
Kiley served as deputy assistant to the president for management and administration at the White House under President Bill Clinton. He was responsible for all aspects of White House operations, including the travel office, the visitors office, and White House administration, which included finance, human resources, and facilities.
Kiley has also held posts at the Democratic National Committee, where he served as director of finance and administration for the 1996 Democratic National Convention, NARAL, and the International AIDS Trust.
Permalink
01.05.09
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 7:51 pm by pikapp44
The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights ruled Monday that a church group discriminated against a lesbian couple when it denied them the right to hold their civil union ceremony on beachfront property the group owns but has advanced as a public space.
The division found that Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster had probable cause to claim that the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association’s rejection of their bid to rent the boardwalk violates the state’s antidiscrimination law. According to a press release from the LGBT civil rights organization Garden State Equality, the opinion was based on the boardwalk pavilion’s being “public” by nature of its historic use as open to everyone without restrictions. For years, the Camp Meeting Association had applied for and received state tax breaks under New Jersey’s “Green Acres” program, which requires facilities to be open and nondiscriminatory to all. In September 2007 the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ended the association’s tax breaks for the boardwalk area based on the group’s ban on civil unions.
Following the ruling in favor of the couple, an administrative law judge will now issue a ruling on how to remedy the situation.
“What this case has always been about from my clients’ perspective has been equality,” Larry Lustberg, the couple’s lawyer, told the Associated Press. Lustberg said they are seeking an order that would require the boardwalk to be equally accessible to everyone.
Alliance Defense Fund attorney Brian Raum, who represents the Camp Meeting Association, said his client would attempt to continue blocking civil union ceremonies on the property.
“Our position is the same,” he told the AP. “A Christian organization has a constitutional right to use their facilities in a way that is consistent with their beliefs.”
Permalink
12.20.08
Posted in Gay Rights at 6:06 pm by pikapp44
From Hollywood’s perspective, there’s a cloud over Barack Obama’s inaugural. Now the question is whether the weather that day will simply be overcast or stormy.
Obama’s selection of Orange County mega-pastor and bestselling author Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his swearing in has hit liberal Hollywood in one of its sorest spots: the passage of Proposition
8, California’s ban on gay marriage, which Warren strongly supported. In fact, he has compared same-sex nuptials to approving polygamy and pedophilia.
Reaction in the entertainment industry — where interestingly, Warren has his own powerful ties — has been swift, angry and bitter. (And nothing undermines a good party quite like disappointment and hurt.)
“Barack Obama is a very smart student of history,” said longtime celebrity publicist and gay activist Howard Bragman. “He saw that Bill Clinton did damage to his early presidency by appearing to pander to the gay and lesbian community. Obama has chosen a different tack.
“What he didn’t realize was how much untapped energy there was in the gay and lesbian community because of the passage of Prop. 8,” said Bragman. “Obama didn’t realize, after all the support he got from the gay and lesbian community, we feel betrayed right now.”
The passage of Proposition 8 galvanized activist Hollywood in a way that the campaign had not.
Whether out of outrage or guilt, actors, filmmakers and other industry types have been on the front lines of protests and calls to overturn the proposition.
While none of the senior activists are advocating a boycott of the inaugural, as some grass-roots voices on the Internet are, they are calling on Obama to make some concrete gestures showing he understands their concerns.
Democratic political consultant Chad Griffin, who this week was named by the Advocate, America’s leading gay publication, as one of its People of the Year, thinks that it’s up to Warren to let Obama off the hook and withdraw.
“Rick Warren needs to realize that he is further dividing us at a time when the country needs to come together,” said Griffin, whose Hollywood clientele includes Rob Reiner, Michael King and Steve Bing. “I think he needs to gracefully step aside.”
As for Obama, Griffin said: “He has a long history of standing up for and defending equal rights. I believe and hope that calling on Warren was just a innocent mistake by the transition team.”
Warren has his own history with liberal Hollywood. He was instrumental in encouraging support among evangelicals for the Al Gore-inspired, Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
At the film’s packed, star-studded Los Angeles premiere a few years ago, which Warren attended, the pastor enthusiastically voiced support for reducing carbon emissions and expressed outrage over official neglect of the global warming issue. Afterward, he hugged and congratulated one of the film’s producers, Lawrence Bender, and vowed to do whatever he could to get the word out.
And Warren delivered. Many credit his efforts with making global warming and environmental stewardship issues in young evangelical congregations across the country. Similarly, his own church’s work to ameliorate the suffering of HIV-positive Africans has drawn the support of many film celebrities.
It’s because of that that activists like Griffin think that an appeal to Warren’s conscience might be a way to resolve the controversy.
Griffin said he planned to ask for a meeting with the pastor to make the case that Obama should pick someone else to do the invocation.
Meanwhile, the head of People for the American Way — a group founded by Norman Lear — said she was “profoundly disappointed” that Warren was asked to play a key role in the inauguration.
“I’m sure that Warren’s supporters will portray his selection as an appeal to unity by a president who is committed to reaching across traditional divides,” said Kathryn Kolbert.
“Others may explain it as a response to Warren inviting then-Sen. Obama to speak on AIDS and candidate Obama to appear at a forum, both at his church.
“But the sad truth is that this decision further elevates someone who has in recent weeks actively promoted legalized discrimination and denigrated the lives and relationships of millions of Americans.”
Permalink
12.19.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 2:43 pm by pikapp44
n the wake of the decision by President-elect Barack Obama to select Reverend Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration, Equality California executive director Geoff Kors calls on Obama to live up to his promise of “One America” and prove he is the ardent supporter of LGBT equality he claims to be.
The decision by President-elect Barack Obama to select Reverend Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration is a profound slap in the face to LGBT Americans and all who stand for equality.
Elevating the status of a person who actively worked to eliminate the rights of LGBT people and supported writing discrimination against us into the California constitution is not inclusion.
Rather, by starting the new administration with a blessing by someone who denies the very humanity of LGBT people sends a message that the new day we had hoped for is further away than we were led to believe.
Our next president has responded to the outcry over his selection by saying that we are a nation of different views and he wants all to be part of his administration. It is one thing to bring people with opposing views to a discussion in order to foster understanding. It is something very different to give such prominence and stature to someone who actively works to harm an entire community.
I find it hard to believe that Mr. Obama would have selected someone who opposed legal equality for any other group to give the invocation at the inauguration. By choosing Reverend Warren, he is indicating that opposition to legal equality for LGBT people is an acceptable position. It is not.
This isn’t about having different views on what the fuel economy standards should be or the size of the bailout of the auto or financial industry. This is about a minority group being excluded from the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution. If President-elect Obama doesn’t understand the difference, then we are in for a very long and disappointing four years.
President-elect Obama has made it clear he will not rescind the invitation to Warren. At the same time, he offered one of his strongest statements in support of LGBT equality. Our voices are making a difference and we must continue to be vocal in our outrage.
We must make it clear that we will no longer support candidates for office who do not support our full equality — a position Equality California has long embraced — and stop acquiescing to the notion that supporting our rights is incompatible with electability. If that were the case, pro-equality candidates would not have won office in districts in California that voted overwhelmingly for Prop. 8.
Candidates for elected office cannot and should not receive the support of our community if they don’t support full equality for LGBT people.
Mr. Obama may be in a difficult position, having made the invitation to Rick Warren. But he can, and he should, rescind this invitation. Being president means having to make tough decisions in difficult times. And certainly the present administration’s unwillingness to admit any errors or do anything to correct them demonstrates the destructiveness of such a position.
However, if President-elect Obama truly believes in our equality and that his vision of “One America” includes us, and yet won’t withdraw his invitation to Rev. Warren, there is something he can do to show that he is the ardent supporter of LGBT equality he claims.
Mr. Obama can and should immediately:
1. Invite one of the multitude of amazing LGBT faith leaders to join Reverend Warren onstage and allow for an additional invocation, showing the world that many LGBT people are people of faith and that we are a part of the faith community.
2. Announce that he will move forward comprehensive legislation to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity — and provide equality in rights and benefits for same-sex couples — in his first year in office. Not piecemeal but the whole kit and caboodle.
We have the most LGBT-friendly Congress in decades, and there is no time like the present to end discrimination once and for all.
We can live in a nation that treats every one of its citizens with fairness, equality, and dignity. Yes, we can.
Permalink
« Previous entries