The title of Irene Vilar's new memoir, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict, is a bit misleading. Although Vilar chronicles 15 abortions over 15 years, "addiction" as a diagnostic category is only hastily grafted onto her tale of existential angst. Cynical readers will wonder whether the packaging of this story as "abortion addiction" originated in the writer's workshop or the marketing department.

Whatever the intentions behind the title, it has provoked pro-life ire--one blogger refers to Vilar as a "serial killer"--and pro-life smugness--a spokesperson for Americans United for Life points to Impossible Motherhood as proof that "abortion is part of a very sad story for women."

There has been favorable coverage of the book as well--most notably a Washington Post story that portrays Vilar, now a mother of two daughters, as a woman who has finally "embraced the role of motherhood" and given reign to her "maternal instincts." The accompanying slide show features romantic photos of Vilar in the nursery, surrounded by her children and their toys. In coverage like this, we can witness the power of motherhood as redemptive fetish.

Continue reading "Irene Vilar's Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict" »

TThis is part two of an interview with Rea Carey, the Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Part one focused on the No On 1 campaign in Maine, the push to repeal Prop 8 in 2010 in California, and the marriage equality movement in general. This part focuses on the state of LGBT rights at the federal level, the Obama administration, and Congress.

Among the highlights:

• Rea refusing to accept any half-measure on the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell
  
• Although criticizing the Obama administration in many respects, Rea declining to call on the Obama administration for an apology over numerous slights towards the LGBT community
  
• Rea commenting on the AMERICABlog donor boycott

The one comment I have is that I disagree on the refusal to call on the administration for an apology over what we all agreed were horrendous mistakes, with the rationale of "I don't know that the administration sees those as mistakes" (see the transcript for more). Glenn Beck called the President a racist, and he should apologize, regardless of whether he saw it as a mistake. LGBT advocates should call for the same from the Administration if serious mistakes were made.

Overall, though, NGLTF is taking a pretty strong stance in terms of language regarding the slow pace of LGBT issues in Congress, on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and with the Democratic Party in general, which is great.

Full transcript below the fold.

Continue reading "Interview w/NGLTF Exec Dir Rea Carey (part two)" »

Sarah Palin madness is sweeping through the teabagger jet set and the latest victim appears to be Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo. As Palin's new "autobiography" (put in scare quotes because she didn't really write it herself and memoirs are usually non-fiction) tops the bestseller charts, Tancredo has decided to imitate the former Alaska Governor's successful leadership style.

He's threatening to run for Colorado Governor not because he wants the job, but because he has to push the conservative "agenda." Oh, those anointed ones; they're so self-sacrificing until they quit. Tancredo, of course, is already willing to throw in the towel on his pseudo-gubernatorial bid if someone will throw him a bone.

Unlike Palin though, Tancredo doesn't want money, he wants power. A lot of it too.

Continue reading "Sarah Palin-style: Tom Tancredo goes rogue" »

Today at noon national religious leaders will be releasing a 4,732-word statement signed by Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical leaders, The statement dubbed Manhattan Declaration

issues a clarion call to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not - under any circumstance - abandon their Christian consciences.

Oh boy here we go.

UPDATE: Full text of "Manhattan Declaration" follows.

Continue reading "Historic Declaration of Christian Conscience?" »

You would think the Reject 71 campaign won in Washington from their first message to supporters after their resounding defeat by the Approve 71 campaign.

In the Reject 71 Campaign Manager Larry Stickney's typical truth bending style he wrote:

Not that we didn't expect it, but the R-71 campaign was handicapped by the bias of our incredibly liberal and increasingly shameless statewide media complex. Like a mantra, the ACCEPT R-71 campaign's talking points were reflexively repeated by nearly every Washington State newspaper, radio, and TV station. How many times did we hear or read that "SB 5688 and R-71 is not about marriage, but domestic partnerships...period"?

It is true, we ran a very effective campaign that earned the endorsement of every main stream newspaper in the state. However, to call those newspapers "incredibly liberal" is blatantly false.

Continue reading "Reject 71 campaign tries to spin history" »

North Dakota is a key state in the fight for ENDA.

North Dakota's Senator Kent Conrad may be a supporter of ENDA, but his vote is unconfirmed.

Please call him today to ask for his support of S.1584.

Facts and contact info after the jump.

Continue reading "ND's Senator Kent Conrad: Legislator of the Day" »

I've been writing a lot on what happened in Maine (most recently this piece yesterday in Frontiers in LA magazine), and where our movement should go from here. NGLTF had run much of the field program in Maine, as well as within the No On 8 campaign in California, so I sat down yesterday to do an interview with Rea Carey, the Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, to address some criticisms and her thoughts on the marriage equality movement. We were joined by Dan Hawes, Director of Organizing and Training, who heads up NGLTF's national field operations and ran the field program in Cumberland County, the most populous in the state.

This is part one related to the No On 1 campaign in Maine and the marriage equality movement in general. I'll be posting the second part, related to LGBT rights at the federal level and the performance of the Obama administration.

Among the highlights:

• Dan commenting that the campaign "could have had a more direct message", "more lengthy conversations at the door with voters", and done more persuasion rather than "just trying to GOTV our supporters"
  
• Rea commenting on marriage equality at the ballot box "we simply don't have enough people to win at the ballot box yet"
  
• Rea and Dan declining to say whether re-run campaigns in California and Maine could have won, or definitively whether marriage equality is winnable in the short-term
  
• Dan defending against criticisms made with respect to the field program in Maine, and praising various aspects of the campaign
  
• Rea and Dan arguing that provided there is a plan and the time is right, despite the movement's recent losses and overall record at the ballot box, donors will "step up" to contribute the tens of millions necessary to win a Prop 8 repeal effort in California

Full transcript below the fold.

Continue reading "Interview w/NGLTF Exec Dir Rea Carey and Dir of Organizing & Training Dan Hawes (part one)" »

Maybe the folks working to end DADT ought to draw attention to the folks who abuse DADT. This is from a lesbian in the military:

Looking for a way out of the service isn't a new idea. Since 9/11, soldiers have been going to extraordinary measures to find the quickest way out of a deployment including intentional pregnancies and cutting off fingers. Hell, my unit's chaplain (who was gay, by the way) went AWOL! He ran away with his lover to Canada the night before we left for Iraq. That's a nice morale booster for the soldiers.

During my time in the Army, a large percentage of the DADT investigations were caused by straight soldiers playing the homosexual card to get out of going overseas. These guys would go to the extreme, staging photographs and videos of themselves with other men, or maybe even making out in front of their commander. They were using DADT as a potential free ticket out of a deployment.

Last year I was talking to a single, straight man in the military who was complaining that he got deployed three times more than other officers in his unit because he was single and didn't feel like coming up with an excuse to get out of something he signed up to do. There was still bitterness, though, towards women he said would start a family to get out of deployment, married men who would say that their wives had "mental health issues" that could never be diagnosed so they needed to stay home and care for them, an officer who herself developed a series of undiagnosable maladies, preferential treatment to folks with "families," and colonels sending assignments they were more qualified for down the chain of command.

All because, deep down inside, many people who join the military really don't want to go to war.

Continue reading "Protect the sanctity of Don't Ask, Don't Tell" »

The marriage equality drumbeat has rumbled on with news that several states will be attempting to re-examine their state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and/or civil unions. Surprisingly, this hasn't received as much attention as I assumed it would in the LGBT blogosphere.

Ohio state representative Tyrone K. Yates (D-Cincinnati), Kentucky state representative Mary Lou Marzian (D-Jefferson), and Michigan House Speaker Pro Tem Pam Byrnes (D-Washtenaw County) have all introduced legislation to repeal their state's respective marriage amendments.

Texas Attorney General candidate Barbara Radnofsky, however, has discovered that the state's amendment also inadvertently "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages. A Texas judge ruled the state's amendment was unconstitutional last month.

None of the four states are known for their LGBT-friendly laws which raises an interesting conundrum. Will the four states re-examination of their marriage equality amendments actually help the LGBT community or will it hurt us instead?

Continue reading "Good news or bad ideas? KY, MI, OH, TX re-examine marriage amendments" »

While the federal Proposition 8 lawsuit continues its battle in federal court, leaders in the LGBT community are casting a suspicious eye on the White House, asking whether or not our 'fierce advocate' up there is going to come to our aide when thousands of same-sex couples in California most need him.

The argument that the Department of Justice used to defend their defense of DOMA in federal court was that they have a duty to defend federal law. Well, this may or may not be true--certainly, there is a lot of credible evidence supporting that this would be correct protocol for any non-dictator President. However, Prop 8 is state law, not federal law--if the Department of Justice chose to file a brief in the case, they would be free to take whichever side they chose, and certainly take side against the law: as Bush's DOJ did on many occasions.

President Obama will, in all likeliness, not actually weigh in on this minefield, however.

Continue reading "What will President Obama do about that pesky federal Prop 8 suit? " »

Newsclipper services send me scurrying all over the Internetiverse, up shadowy staircases, into brightly lit rooms, through mirrored passages and sometimes into rancid larders. Thus it was that I stumbled upon this column spinning the latest complaint from the anti-gay marriage cabal that gay people who are upset about losing battles for their civil rights are sore losers.

That's right: if you can't deal with the fact that people want you to live like a second-class citizen in your own country and not be allowed the legal rights and social privileges of all other tax-paying Americans because you don't fuck the people they think you should be fucking (and let's be honest: this is the only reason people freak out about homosexuality), then something is wrong with you. So get over it.

It's a messed up world, isn't it? And by now, seeing as I'm a sadomasochistic/queer/female/dominatrix person, you'd think I'd have a nice tough hide when it comes to anti-sex rights rhetoric and sexual discrimination. And I do. For the most part. Still, the fundamental injustice of denying people their rights based on what kind of consensual sex they have burns like acid through that hide to the abidingly tender core of my humanism.

Continue reading "Wedded to stupidity: anti gay marriage rhetoricians " »

Here are a few random follow-ups to stories we wrote about a Bilerico:

• Caster Semenya will keep her prize from her 800m gold in Berlin, but it's uncertain whether she'll be allowed to compete any more as a woman. The IAFF has promised not to leak any more of her private medical information.
• With almost no fanfare and at most 5% of noise as the first child, Mary Cheney had her second baby.

  And she named the baby Sarah Lynne Cheney. Apparently she didn't like any of your suggestions.

• Perez Hilton dropped his charges against the manager of the Black Eyed Peas, who hit the blogger a few months back after Hilton called the straight man a faggot. Violence is never ok, yada yada yada, but if you call someone else a faggot, don't be surprised if they punch back.
• Speaking of bashing back, the Bash Back! counterprotested Join the Impact in Minnesota. Priceless quote:

  "It feels like it hinders our efforts," Justin Grey Day, a marcher with the JTI-TC group, said in reference to the BB! group's attempts to drown out the larger march's chants.

  They're counterprotesting you, sweetheart. The entire point is to hinder your efforts.

• The Illinois Family Institute is boycotting Scholastic Books for carrying Luv Ya Bunches, a book that incidentally mentioned the two moms of one of the characters that LGBTQ people got Scholastic to un-ban. Because the only way to show you mean business in this day and age is to start a never-ending boycott that no one will follow.
• And the Transgender Day of Remembrance is tomorrow. Check out the site to find an event you can attend.