The Movement: February 2009
Historic DC: Frank Kameny's house
Filed by Brett Abrams | February 28, 2009 5:00 PM |Gays, lesbians, the homophile movement all received a burst of recognition Thursday when the Historic Preservation Review Board voted unanimously to make Franklin Kameny's house Washington DC's first gay site on the DC List of Historic Sites. The Board also...Read More
VA attorney general says state can purge gay employees
Filed by Alex Blaze | February 28, 2009 3:00 PM |I got a press release yesterday from a man suing the Virginia Museum of Natural History because they fired him for being gay. Instead of arguing that they didn't fire him for being gay, they're saying that there's no employment...Read More
Killer of Ryan Skipper Found Guilty in Florida
Filed by Waymon Hudson | February 28, 2009 11:00 AM |In March of 2007, Ryan Skipper was stabbed 19 times and left to die on a dirt road in rural Polk County, Florida. He was only 25. His killers drove around in his blood-soaked car, bragging how they had killed...Read More
Women's Art and Pink Prettiness
Filed by Father Tony | February 27, 2009 4:00 AM |This evening I attended the Women's Art Exhibit, another of the events of the 2009 Winter Party. The reception was held at the Fache Arts & Amy Alonso Gallery on NE 124th Street in Miami....Read More
Let's Define Our Terms: Bashing
Filed by Scott Kaiser | February 26, 2009 7:00 PM |This has been making the rounds for a while, but that's ok because it deserves and needs the widest possible audience. If you haven't seen this yet, please take a moment to watch. The most effective thing you can do...Read More
How Gay Marriage Put an End to Gay Sex
Filed by Yasmin Nair | February 25, 2009 6:30 PM |Years ago, I was at a queer political meeting on a Sunday afternoon. Some of us felt that our group lacked a broad enough representation of all demographics, particularly women. A man, at the time a dear friend of mine,...Read More
Take A Minute to Be A Voice for Equality
Filed by Nadine Smith | February 25, 2009 10:00 AM |We are looking to get folks to do 30, 60 or 90 second unscripted videos about why working for full equality matters to them. Your video will be posted on our website and included in education packets to lawmakers on...Read More
It's a Dirty Word
Filed by Guest Blogger | February 24, 2009 3:00 PM |Editor's Note: Guest blogger Josh Verbeke is a student at IUPUI and a longtime LGBT activist. Josh attended the Midwest LGBT College Conference on behalf of Bilerico-Indiana. Bilerico Project was a sponsor of the conference. Queer. No matter who you...Read More
RNC Chair Michael Steele: Gay Rights? Depends on when you ask me...
Filed by Waymon Hudson | February 24, 2009 10:00 AM |Michael Steele, the new RNC Chair who has promised an "off the hook" make-over for the Republican Party, can't seem to get all of his issues squared away or remember what he's said in past interviews. Steele, who has a...Read More
There is compromise on this issue, but this isn't it
Filed by Alex Blaze | February 23, 2009 5:30 PM |Guest blogger Jack Drescher and Nan Hunter both addressed this recent NY Times column on a supposed compromise on the issue of same-sex marriage. I wanted to address the column from a different point of view, but both of their...Read More
Mary J. Brenny: More Important Than The Gay
Filed by Scott Kaiser | February 23, 2009 4:00 PM |The following is from a blog post that was forwarded to me by my partner. It was written by JC Christian of the blog Jesus' General. The post illustrates well the absurdity of gay politicians voting against gay issues. I...Read More
Prop 8: Our Children's Perspective
Filed by Dana Rudolph | February 23, 2009 12:30 PM |If you're like me, you've read an awful lot about Prop 8. While you still want to spread the word to those who need education about it, you're probably getting a bit tired yourself of reading yet another article pro...Read More
Holding "Ex-Gay" Programs Legally Liable For Harm
Filed by Michael Hamar | February 23, 2009 12:00 PM |Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal have teamed up to produce a booklet, Ex-Gay & The Law, that looks at the possible harmful effects of reparative therapy utilized by "ex-gay ministries" - which is condemned by the American Psychiatric Association,...Read More
And the Winner Is...Gay Marriage! Or: Why Milk and Sean Penn's Acceptance Speech Do not Equal the Need for Gay Marriage
Filed by Yasmin Nair | February 23, 2009 11:00 AM |As expected, Milk received major 2008 Oscar awards, including the one for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor (Sean Penn). And, as I expected, the success of Milk has become, in a bizarre fashion, some kind of emblem for the...Read More
Phenomenal Woman
Filed by Sara Whitman | February 22, 2009 10:00 AM |One of the hardest things I did last Saturday at the Mass Equality gig, was get up on stage, and be in front of 500 people. I've done it before, I'll do it again, but the next day, I always...Read More
Minnesota's Gay Republican Senator Koering Answers Questions about his Anti-Equality Vote with Nasty Email
Filed by Waymon Hudson | February 20, 2009 2:00 PM |Wow. If this is "damage control", I'd hate to see him stick his foot in his mouth! State Sen. Paul Koering, R-Fort Ripley Minnesota, is answering those who are asking him about his statement that he will not vote for...Read More
Twitter, Facebook, blogs and the future of the LGBT movement
Filed by Jerame Davis | February 18, 2009 6:30 PM |In a recent interview, Bil Browning and Justin Cole have a discussion about blogs and social media that I think is really important for the future of the LGBT movement. One of the points they touch on is how too...Read More
Black History Month: Bayard Rustin
Filed by Patricia Nell Warren | February 18, 2009 11:30 AM |Barack Obama's election as America's first black President is a good time for refreshing our memory on LGBT figures in the black civil-rights movement. Bayard Rustin -- that brilliant, charismatic, passionately courageous man who was Dr. Martin Luther King's chief...Read More
Pity party for Jonah Goldberg
Filed by Alex Blaze | February 17, 2009 2:00 PM |Jonah Goldberg, wingnutty conservative columnist extraordinaire, is on his anti-PC hobby horse again in the LA Times: And yet, I've met innumerable writers and editors who are scared, even terrified, of one or more of these groups: gays, blacks, Latinos,...Read More
Justin Cole: The future of LGBT organizing
Filed by Bil Browning | February 17, 2009 10:00 AM |The best interview I've done was with Justin Cole, GLAAD's Director of Digital and Online Media. Justin is one of the movement's brightest minds. He gets social networking and how to work in an online environment. He knows how to...Read More
I don't agree with that Suze Orman video everyone loves!
Filed by Alex Blaze | February 16, 2009 4:30 PM |Can we admit, as LGBT people, that this makes no sense? In my opinion it is such a travesty that, a few months ago, Proposition 8, in California, passed. Proposition 2, in Florida, passed. What is that about, everybody? We...Read More
Beer Pong, the Sequel: An Update on Agnes Scott's Filming Policies
Filed by Guest Blogger | February 16, 2009 11:00 AM |Editors' Note: Louisa Hill is a senior at Agnes Scott College where she studies theatre, French, and women's studies. She last guest blogged on The Bilerico Project in December, when she informed us of the filming of Road Trip II:...Read More
NCTE's Mara Keisling sits down for a Q&A
Filed by Bil Browning | February 16, 2009 10:00 AM |One of the things you quickly see after hanging out with the LGBT Inc. crowd a few times is the personality behind the corporate title or the public persona. One of the most dynamic forces working on behalf of our...Read More
Coalition to Stop the Arrests Protest
Filed by Father Tony | February 15, 2009 7:00 PM |The otherwise engaged Eric Leven has asked me to post his video of a protest held on Valentine's Day, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 79th Street (near Mayor Bloomberg's front door). Watch it after the jump....Read More
What about the freedom NOT to marry?
Filed by Nancy Polikoff | February 15, 2009 4:00 PM |Freedom to Marry week garnered more attention than usual this year, no doubt a result of all the attention to California's Prop 8 and the litigation challenging it. Most Freedom to Marry activists say they want same-sex couples to have...Read More
Join the Impact? What impact?
Filed by Guest Blogger | February 15, 2009 2:30 PM |Editors' Note: Guest blogger Elián Maricón is a PhD candidate at a university in an undisclosed location. He lives in an undisclosed location with his life partner and their two chihuahuas (Dick Cheney is fortunately nowhere in sight). Before returning...Read More
Join the Impact? What impact?
Filed by Guest Blogger | February 15, 2009 2:30 PM |Editors' Note: Guest blogger Elián Maricón is a PhD candidate at a university in an undisclosed location. He lives in an undisclosed location with his life partner and their two chihuahuas (Dick Cheney is fortunately nowhere in sight). Before returning...Read More
Get A Backbone!
Filed by Brett Abrams | February 14, 2009 2:30 PM |The opening session of the 16th Annual American University Conference on Lavender Languages and Linguistics challenges gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders and queers to believe in our rights and push politicians. The discussion, "Is 'Hope' Enough? Anticipating the LGBTQ Discursive Landscape...Read More
We Will, Ultimately, Prevail
Filed by Kate Kendell | February 13, 2009 6:00 PM |Earlier this month, I was in Denver for Creating Change, the annual activist conference sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The event was packed with LGBT folk of every description, from all over the country. I reconnected...Read More
More GSA Fights in Florida
Filed by Waymon Hudson | February 13, 2009 2:30 PM |The ACLU of Florida has filed a lawsuit against another Florida School Board for denying a Gay-Straight Alliance to form. Administrators from the School Board of Nassau County, Florida have unlawfully denied students' requests for permission to form a GSA...Read More
Does HRC have to be the anti-Christian homosexual activists from the movie?
Filed by Alex Blaze | February 12, 2009 7:00 PM |You've gotta give the AFA some credit here. Their strategy was brilliant, and they're going to profit well from it. Earlier this week we learned that the AFA had purchased a one-hour primetime slot in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to run...Read More
ePride Guide
Filed by Jerame Davis | February 12, 2009 6:00 PM |I had the opportunity to talk to Sue Hoffman, president of Indigo 501 Creative, about an exciting new project she's been working on - the ePride Guide. The ePride Guide is a website and accompanying iPhone app that will allow...Read More
Welcoming Schools Guide Teaches Tolerance
Filed by Guest Blogger | February 12, 2009 2:00 PM |Editors' Note: Guest blogger Ellen Kahn is director of the Human Rights Campaign's Family Project. One year ago, 15-year-old Lawrence King was shot in the head by a fellow student at a middle school in Oxnard, CA. While the motives...Read More
Lobbying 101
Filed by Guest Blogger | February 11, 2009 1:30 PM |Editors' note: Frequent guest blogger Monica Helms is the president of the Transgender Americans Veterans Association. 'Tis the season where new Senators and Representatives begin getting used to their new jobs, while the cherry blossoms bloom in the springtime. Capital...Read More
Kate Clinton and Alicia Skillman: Got a new job?
Filed by Bil Browning | February 11, 2009 11:30 AM |On the last day of Creating Change, I had interviews scheduled with Bilerico Project contributor Kate Clinton and the Triangle Foundation's new Executive Director, Alicia Skillman. Alicia is only the second African-American to head a state equality organization. (TBP contributor...Read More
Clearly, you need more Gina de Vries in your life!
Filed by Gina de Vries | February 11, 2009 10:00 AM |Attention Pioneer Valley, Boston, NYC, & New England people! I'm hoping to make it out to the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Reproductive Justice conference at Hampshire College this April, and to turn it into an opportunity to do some...Read More
Surrender Dorothy: the Clarke Wags a Broomstick at the Trans-Community
Filed by Kelley Winters | February 10, 2009 7:00 PM |I am saddened and frightened by news that Professor Lynn Conway, a dear friend and outspoken advocate for the trans-community, has been threatened with a lawsuit by attorneys on behalf of the University of Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental...Read More
Let's Talk Stimulation: The Economy & the LGBTQ Community
Filed by Waymon Hudson | February 10, 2009 4:30 PM |We have lots of issues facing us as a community. They are all extremely important (I'm not one to make grand "this is the number one issue facing LGBTQ folks" statements). But one that seems to not get included in...Read More
Marriage Equality and the Protection of Children
Filed by Dana Rudolph | February 10, 2009 3:30 PM |This seemed appropriate for Freedom to Marry Week. It first appeared in slightly modified form at 365gay.com. Denying marriage to same-sex couples harms our children. So said the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission, which published its final report at...Read More
The Greatest Gay Lie Ever Told?
Filed by Guest Blogger | February 10, 2009 2:30 PM |Editors' Note: Guest blogger Zack Rosen is a founder and first full-time employee of The New Gay, an alternative queer resource based in Washington, DC. Bilerico is happy to have him back again as a guest blogger. In a recent...Read More
Sturm und Drang
Filed by Alex Blaze | February 10, 2009 12:00 PM |I posted, elsewhere, a couple months ago, and I mentioned without even thinking about it that there was no guarantee that the US was going to get more queer-accepting in the future, and, if it did, that it would remain...Read More
Exclusive interview with Toni Broaddus
Filed by Bil Browning | February 10, 2009 11:00 AM |I had an opportunity to sit down with Toni Broaddus, the Executive Director of the Equality Federation. The Federation is the umbrella organization for the various state equality groups (Indiana Equality, Equality Ohio, etc.). As a quiet force behind the...Read More
Freedom To...Starve?
Filed by Rebecca Juro | February 09, 2009 2:30 PM |I don't know about you, but I'm long past sick of the elitist tunnelvision of these so-called marriage equality advocates. America is in the beginnings of a massive recession. Americans are losing their jobs by the millions. LGB and especially...Read More
Blog for Freedom to Marry Week: The Only Agenda Is Love
Filed by Dana Rudolph | February 09, 2009 10:00 AM |Please join a blogswarm for the Freedom to Marry! Today, bloggers in the LGBT community and our allies will be participating in "The Only Agenda Is Love," a blogswarm in support of Freedom to Marry Week. By being a part...Read More
Counterpoint: Loving Hate: Why Hate Crimes Legislation is a Bad Idea
Filed by Yasmin Nair | February 08, 2009 2:30 PM |The Matthew Shepard Act (H.R. 1592) would expand the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The bill also requires "the FBI to track...Read More
Invalidate Prop 8
Filed by Michael Crawford | February 08, 2009 10:30 AM |I don't know how anyone can look at the divorce video by Courage Campaign and say "I'm not political." The video which has been viewed nearly 100,000 times puts a face to the 18,000 married same-sex couples in California facing...Read More
Map Showing Supporters of Florida's Amendment 2 Hits the Web
Filed by Waymon Hudson | February 07, 2009 1:00 PM |Financial supporters of Florida's Amendment 2, the dangerously worded constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in the state, may now have their day in the sunshine. A new website called Marriage4All.org has launched with a handy, searchable database and map so...Read More
Dr. Zucker Fights Back, and the APA's Special Exemption on Reparative Therapy Remains
Filed by Mercedes Allen | February 06, 2009 3:30 PM |Q: When is reparative therapy not reparative therapy? A: When the patients are gender variant children. Then it's okay, or so the implicit judgment from the American Psychiatric Association would still seem to say. But more on that in a...Read More
A Question of Religion
Filed by Waymon Hudson | February 06, 2009 1:30 PM |I'll be the first to admit that I have a long and messy history with organized religion. Having been chased out of the Southern Pentecostal church I grew up in for at first asking too many questions, then for coming...Read More
This will break your heart
Filed by Father Tony | February 05, 2009 6:30 PM |Watch this video. Sign the letter....Read More
A casual chat with NGLTF's Ex Dir Rea Carey
Filed by Bil Browning | February 05, 2009 3:30 PM |Rea Carey is one of my favorite people, so I should warn you that in this interview I'm pretty casual as versus some of the other interviews I did that were more formal. Rea "gets it" and unlike a few...Read More
20% of same-sex couples in Oregon got registered
Filed by Alex Blaze | February 04, 2009 5:00 PM |From 365gay.com: A year after Oregon established a domestic partner registry, about 2,600 Oregon same-sex couples - about one in five - have registered.[...] Under the partnership law, couples who register are guaranteed the right to visit partners in hospital...Read More
Exclusive: NGLTF Deputy Executive Director Darlene Nipper on mental illness and other queer issues
Filed by Bil Browning | February 04, 2009 10:00 AM |It was my honor to interview Rev Darlene Nipper, NGLTF's new Deputy Executive Director, at the Creating Change conference. Darlene has a prestigious background both in and outside of the LGBT movement. From her bio on the NGLTF site: She...Read More
Pretty girl, foxy lady, or both?
Filed by Gina de Vries | February 03, 2009 7:00 PM |It's my birthday today! I am 26, officially closer to thirty than twenty. That brings up a very important question: Do I have to relinquish my femme chicken status? I'm being mostly tongue in cheek in asking this question --...Read More
LGBT Parenting Roundup
Filed by Dana Rudolph | February 03, 2009 5:00 PM |Assorted recent news about LGBT families: California's KNBC-TV refused to air an ad during the Super Bowl from GetToKnowUsFirst.org, featuring a gay family. They say the NFL Legal Department considered the ad "advocacy," and would not let it run. During...Read More
Avon or Old Spice
Filed by Father Tony | February 03, 2009 2:00 PM |Would you either buy or avoid a product based on what you know about the LGBT attitude of the company that produces it? If so, you might want to contrast and compare the following. First up is this lovely story...Read More
Creating Change Plenary Speech on HIV/AIDS
Filed by Guest Blogger | February 03, 2009 12:30 PM |Editor's Note: Kenyon Farrow is an organizer, communications strategist and writer working on issues at the intersection of HIV/AIDS, prisons and homophobia. A current Policy Institute fellow with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Farrow is working on a...Read More
Moving Forward
Filed by Sara Whitman | February 02, 2009 4:00 PM |Denver... you have to love a city where they don't run you down when you're in the crosswalk. And everyone is actually in the crosswalk. Strange for a Bostonian to see. The community continues to digest the Prop 8 loss....Read More
Why the family planning funding mattered
Filed by Alex Blaze | February 02, 2009 12:00 PM |Several people argued on my last post about Obama capitulating to House Republicans on funding for women's reproductive health in the stimulus package that it's in the spirit of bipartisanship, not capitulating, to take rational criticism from the minority party...Read More
Why the family planning funding mattered
Filed by Alex Blaze | February 02, 2009 12:00 PM |Several people argued on my last post about Obama capitulating to House Republicans on funding for women's reproductive health in the stimulus package that it's in the spirit of bipartisanship, not capitulating, to take rational criticism from the minority party...Read More
"Domestic Partnership" Does Not Equal Marriage
Filed by Michael Crawford | February 01, 2009 11:30 AM |An editorial on marriage in the Portland Press Herald laid out in the clearest language possible why the debate around relationship recognition should about marriage and not just the collection of rights and responsibilities accessed through marriage. A domestic partnership...Read More
Stories from the Helpline - The Trevor Project
Filed by Guest Blogger | February 01, 2009 10:00 AM |Editors' Note: "Stories from the Helpline" is a recurring feature on The Bilerico Project, bringing in the personal accounts of Helpline counselors from The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project is a non-profit organization that operates the only nationwide, around-the-clock crisis...Read More
