VIDEO: Legendary Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson Disgusted By Santorum's Homophobia

 

 

If the Republican Party had a Jimmy Stewart-like figure it might just be the tall 'ah-shucks' former Senator Alan Simpson. Representing Wyoming for 18 years in the United States Senate he comes across as the lone cowboy on the endless ranges of that state. He was Minority Whip under Bob Dole in the Senate for ten years until Southern Trent Lott defeated him for the post.

The quirky Simpson has never been accused of being moderate and is a die-hard conservative but more in the Barry Goldwater school than the Santorum school. On Sunday he gave a remarkable interview with Bob Schieffer on "Face The Nation." Here is what he said about Rick Santorum and his views on LGBT Americans. Be sure to listen to the entire interview. It is a treat. (via Towleroad.com).

He said, 'I want a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage,' and they said, 'Well, what about the people who are already married?' And he said, 'Well, they would be nullified.' I mean what is, what's human, what's kind about that? We're all human beings, we all know or love somebody who's gay or lesbian so what the hell is that about? To me it's startling and borders on disgust."

LGBT: Five Actions The LGBT Community Must Do To Win The Ballot Measures

 

 

In just seven months, Americans will start their 'early voting' for the November election. That means for the LGBT community that all of our television time, mailers, calls, endorsements, etc must be completed and ready to implement. Now is the exactly the time our leaders, organizations and major donors should be finalizing plans to win the pending ballot measures that will be on the November ballot.

Now is not the time to wait, hold back, speculate and second guess. Delay is our enemy since I can promise you the other side, as in previous elections, is getting its act together. If we can win at least Maine and Washington State it will be huge victory. If we can add Maryland and Minnesota to that tally then it will be a 'knock out' punch to the anti-marriage equality folks.

A four or five state victory would make marriage equality an inevitability.

Here are five actions the LGBT community should be working on (or continuing to work on in some cases):

1. President Obama: Having the President stake an unequivocal position in favor of our side in different states is essential to victory. Our opposition last time used his statement that 'marriage is between a man and woman" against us in California. We must have the kind of statement from the President and First Lady that can be used in ads, robo-calls, targeted mailings, etc. This must be done sooner than later. His assistance will be especially needed in Maryland where the African American community is 30% of the state vote.

2. Republicans: Yep, that is right, I am saying we need to mobilize among the Republicans. The operational models used and in New York and Maryland should be extended to the electorate. Ken Mehlman has done a spectacular job of mobilizing Republican support for these efforts. If that same team would be able to obtain persons like Laura Bush / Dick Cheney to do targeted mailings or robo-calls, it would not be out of the question that we could increase by at least 5% the number of Republicans voting for marriage equality.

3. Money: Now is not the time for our major donors to hold back and play coy. They must coordinate and get early money into the campaign organizations or set up their own super PACS. Early money is the name of the game. Fortunately because of the Mehlman operation there are significant Republicans funds this time around. In addition, New York and California major donors should be made aware of the consequences of delay and the real opportunity of victory if step forward in a timely manner.

4. Endorsements: Freedom to Marry is doing an excellent job of lining up major endorsements. HRC has its video program of prominent people endorsing marriage equality. Of great assistance in Washington State was the entire business community (Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks) endorsing marriage equality. Now we have to get national sports stars, entertainers, business folks, etc who will make ads or sign mailers not 'generally' coming out for marriage but specifically in different states asking people to vote the right way.

5. LGBT Community: No one in this community gets a free ride this election. Every single one of us must step forward and be counted. The grassroots around the country can do an enormous amount to help the different efforts.

-Have house parties, dances, etc to raise funds. Do one a month for a different state.

-Individuals can write $10, $20 or even $100 checks for each state contest. Some of you can do it every month. To pledge $10 a month for each of the five states is the cost of five drinks each month. Think about it.

-Using social media urge everyone you know to give, write relatives and friends in those states, volunteer at national organizations that are assisting the efforts, beg your national professional organizations to take a stand, write letter to editors.

-Pray for Victory!

LGBT: Five LGBT Marriage Equality Ballot Measures In 2012?

 

 

If the Maryland State senate passes the marriage equality bill being sent to it by the Maryland Assembly, the likelihood of a referendum in Maryland is extremely high. If that is the case, then the LGBT community will face five ballots measures in the 2012 election come November. Two of them will be defensive and three will be to keep/establish marriage equality.

Over the next week is a good time to reflect on how we can prepare effectively in each of these states. Needless to say, money is always essential but quite honestly we are getting to the tipping point - people's minds are mostly made up on the issue. There are of course targeted communities where an enormous amount of work needs to be done, including getting out the vote and the responding to any lies and inevitable distortions by our opponents.

However, we enter this political season with more resources than ever before including a lead in some states. Powerful people from around the country are now willing to step forward as indicated by the willingness of former Vice President Cheney to make some calls to Republicans in Maryland. The political playing field is becoming more even. Some of the states have been preparing for this moment for quite some time (for example Maine) and others are facing this issue with limited resources (North Carolina).

Here are the five states and a quick summary:

MAINE: On the ballot in November will be a measure to institute marriage equality in the state of Maine. Marriage equality has been a battleground issue in this state for at least three election cycles. The LGBT community and its allies are well organized. The last election was a reasonably close one and a great deal has changed since then. They will always need financial assistance but they seem in great shape organizationally. LGBT Americans have a real opportunity to make Maine our ninth marriage equality state.

MARYLAND: The measure will be to overturn the passage by the legislature of marriage equality in November. The state has good resources both in the Washington suburbs and Baltimore. Maryland has one of the highest African American populations in the United States (30%) and they will vote heavily in the fall because of President Obama. While we are in very good shape with that community's leadership, the faith leaders are more of a challenge. You know that NOM will focus on them heavily. This is where we will win or lose in the state.

MINNESOTA: In November there will be a measure to place into the State Constitution an amendment to ban marriage equality. The state has a large progressive base that is very energized by the issue but the latest polls have it running almost dead even between no and yes. Their major problem is that the focus nationally will be on protecting marriage equality and adding states (Maine, Maryland and Washington) instead of a more defensive battle.

NORTH CAROLINA: The Republicans have placed on the ballot a state constitutional amendment similar to Minnesota's. In an effort to 'fix the game' they have placed it on the May primary ballot where there is only a Republican Primary for President. Meanwhile the governor has to step down and there might be a Democratic Gubernatorial primary. Because of how the Republican 'rigged the election,' this one is an uphill battle.

WASHINGTON: Like Maryland, this effort will be to save marriage equality recently passed by the legislature. The LGBT community in this state has been working for years for this moment and has successfully faced initiatives so far. The polls are looking good and along with Maine, this might be our best shot.

Five Legendary Creative LGBT African Americans

 

 

 

Lorraine Hansberry

 

February is Black History Month. The LGBT community has so many heroes and heroines who were African American. They not only helped define a broad base LGBT community but literally their efforts changed the world. In a salute to African Americans everywhere and with sadness of those could have been chosen, here are five of our best creative minds from our history.

Alvin Ailey, Jr (1931-1989): Simply put, the choreographer changed the face of dance. With fierce abandon, he brought modern dance to the masses. Ailey's "Revelations" is one of the most respected works of dance ever. He broke down barriers left and right in the dance community and his Alvin Ailey Dance Company is known around the world. He died of AIDS at the age of 58. Ailey was totally out as a gay man but was in the closet about having HIV/AIDS.

James Baldwin (1924 - 1987): Baldwin forced mainstream Americans of all races to look at the black writer as a voice for liberation. Through his poetry, essays and best selling works of fiction (the two most famous being "Giovanni's Room" and "Go Tell It On The Mountain", he became one of the great voices of the civil rights movement in the 1960's. Baldwin made the cover of TIME doing the Birmingham protests in 1963. He lived as an expatriate off and on through his life making France his home. Baldwin was open about his homosexuality and partners.

Lorraine Hansberry (1930 - 1965): Best known for the huge Broadway hit "A Raisin In The Sun", While the play can be seen almost in any community today, it was the first play written by an African American women to every be produced on Broadway. She was the youngest women ever to receive the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. What is not known is that she worked closely with such famous leaders as Paul Robeson and W.E..B DuBois. Hansberry joined the Daughter of Bilitis and wrote for the lesbian magazine 'The Ladder".

Langston Hughes ( 1902 - 1967): Handsome, militant and poetic is the only way to describe this amazing man. Langston Hughes is one of America's greatest poets. He was the center of the Harlem Renaissance. He is described perfectly in his bio:

Hughes and his contemporaries had different goals and aspirations than the black middle class. They criticized men who were known as the midwives of the Harlem Renaissance: W. E. B. Du Bois, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Alain LeRoy Locke, as being overly accommodating and assimilating eurocentric values and culture for social equality. Hughes and his fellows tried to depict the "low-life" in their art, that is, the real lives of blacks in the lower social-economic strata. They criticized the divisions and prejudices based on skin color within the black community.

While Hughes was seimi-closeted and some today insist he wasn't a gay man, his works often had homo-erotic images and there is little doubt among scholars today of his homosexuality. Mo

Audre Lorde (1934 - 1992): Legendary poet and feminist who tackled the hard issue of race and class in the modern day feminist movement. She described herself has a "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet!" White feminists often saw her as divisive and assuming a 'moral authority' based on race and class. Lorde responded, "What you hear in my voice is fury, not suffering. Anger, not moral authority."

Marriage Equality: A Very Special Day In Washington State

 

 

Today, if all goes well, Governor Chris Gregoire (D) will sign into law full marriage equality for Washington State LGBT citizens. The state becomes the seventh state plus the District of Columbia to pass marriage equality.

One only has to think back to the year 2004 when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered marriage equality. At first it was viewed as a "Massachusetts anomaly" and most likely would not be duplicated elsewhere. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Today we officially have "The Magnificent Seven" plus for the first time ever a majority of Americans wanting full marriage equality for their LGBT neighbors.

In May it will be eight years since that Massachusetts decision, not even a decade, and look how far we have come. Just imagine what life will be like for us in 2020! Congratulations to the LGBT community in Washington. They did a spectacular job of getting this passed and signed. This is a very special day indeed.

Enjoy this remarkable video of Washington Republican Representative Maureen Walsh who voted for marriage equality. It is a lovely moment from that debate.

Marriage Equality: The Magnificent Seven!

 

 

The Washington State House of Representatives voted for marriage equality (55 to 43 vote) yesterday afternoon. By joining with the State Senate, the bill now goes to the desk of Governor Christine Gregoire. She has promised to sign the legislation and is expected to do so in a couple of days.

This now makes for marriage equality advocates "The Magnificent Seven!" Washington will join six other states and the District of Columbia as marriage equality states. The seven states are: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Iowa, New York and now Washington State

Also yesterday legislation was submitted in Illinois to make that state a marriage equality state. A vote is expected next week in New Jersey and we will see if there are enough votes to override Christie's promised veto. Finally work is well underway in Maryland.

Washington United for Marriage has asked all of us to sign a petition that they can take to Governor Gregoire at the signing to say 'thank you' from everyone. Please join me in signing that petition by clicking here.

Court Case: Reflections On A Historic Day......

 

 

When the news broke that we had won the Proposition 8 Court Case in Federal Court for a moment it seemed almost unbelievable. Surely, at long last, the Courts of the United States not only bestowed equality upon the LGBT community but did so with such grace and dignity. Yesterday was a major step, a historic one, for the LGBT community. Yes, we still have far to go and there are many appeals and rulings ahead. However, to understand the full scope of this victory we need to acknowledge how far we have traveled over the last decades.

I will never forget, while in college, my first awareness with the role that the courts would play in my life as a gay man. In the paper was just a minor article that most readers would miss entirely. Being in the closet it might as well have been the front page headline for the impact that it had on so many lives. A judge faced four young men from good families who had taken a baseball bat and beaten to death a gay man coming out of the bar. The judge at the sentencing noted their 'good families' and gave them all probation. In meting out the sentence, this judge praised the young men for performing 'a community service' in dealing directly with such perversion. That article and that injustice never left my mind. Oh, how I wish I could remember the victim's name and honor him here today.

Then I reflect on the hundreds of millions of dollars....yes, hundreds of millions ...that the LGBT community has had to raise over the last decades since the late 1970's fighting ballot measures that enforced our status as second class Americans. In city after city and state after state, this noble and proud community was forced to fight over and over again for our Constitutional rights. In a sense, it became a form of societal terrorism when LGBT Americans saw their neighbors and fellow citizens strip us of the protection of the Constitution. The pain of those election nights was horrific and the campaigns against us were barbaric. Many of the issues of self-hatred among our young and the high suicide rate came from the hateful and bitter rhetoric in those campaigns directed to this community.

Then in 1986, while we were fighting to stay alive and save our friends, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Bowers v. Harwick a decision by a 5 to 4 vote that made the sodomy laws legal. Reinforcing to the nation that the way we made love was against the law and it was entirely correct, if the government chose, to put us in jail. Stunned doesn't even begin to describe our reaction that day over 25 years ago. The decision was a like a knife to our guts.

Of course we must never forget the thousands who fought by our side and were taken too soon by HIV/AIDS and never lived to see this day. The names of two brilliant legal minds come to the fore - Tom Stoddard and Dan Bradley.

Yesterday I was jubilant with our victory in the Federal Court. Our second major court victory on Proposition 8 was given to us and which was led by the incredibly talented team at the American Foundation for Equal Rights and without a doubt the two best lawyers in America, David Bois and Ted Olson. This organization and our lawyers' names should be remembered forever by our community.

So, from the days of a judge praising our deaths, I have reached a point when I can listen to the news and read the reports and hear Federal Judge Stephen Reinhardt say:

“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect in California, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples. The Constitution simply does not allow for laws of this sort...'

How sweet it is!

Election 2012: Could This Be The Election Year That LGBT Americans Score Big?

 

 

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LGBT Americans and our progressive allies could be looking at an election in 2012 that will be historic - perhaps even a turning point in the battle for LGBT full equality. The potential is there and the community has to be made aware that we need everyone to step up, give until it hurts, volunteer and make sure we don't miss this moment. Everywhere we look there is history waiting to be made. The ballot box for LGBT Americans could hold a considerable number of victories for us come November. Let's take a look:

-The LGBT community has an excellent opportunity to add two more marriage equality states by winning ballots in both Washington and Maine. Polls are increasingly favorable for us in those states and victory is within grasp. The Washington effort is being led by Washington United for Marriage. In Maine you can send your assistance to Equality Maine.

-While polls are close LGBT Minnesotans have a chance to defeat the religious right's amendment to the Minnesota State Constitution banning marriage equality.

-Very strong efforts for marriage equality are underway in Maryland and New Jersey. If they succeed through the legislative process in Maryland, we could face a ballot vote in the Old Line State which could be a tough battle but within reach. New Jersey simply becomes a question if we can muster enough legislative votes to override a veto by Republican Governor Christie.

-In New Hampshire where the situation appeared dire, there seems to be some sense that if the Republicans legislatively repeal marriage equality, they will lose enough of their own members and not be able to override Democratic Governor Lynch's veto.

-North Carolina will vote on banning marriage equality in May.  The Republicans moved it to the May primary date so there would be less Democrats voting.  Basically they attempted to rig the election so few voters would vote. It is an uphill battle but we might make a surprising showing for a Southern state. 

-The LGBT community could see a major historic moment if Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin is elected to the United States Senate. She would be the first openly LGBT person every to serve in that institution. You can send your support to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.

-While Congressman Barney Frank is retiring and Congresswoman Baldwin is running for Senate we should not be afraid that Congressmen Jared Polis and David Cicilline will be left alone. There are at least four viable openly LGBT Americans who have announced they are running for Congress. They are:

Mark Pocan (WI-2)

Mark Takano (CA-41)

Richard Tisei (MA-6)

Matt Heinz (Arizona)

In addition there are two candidates who have not officially announced but if they do, they would be powerful candidates. They are:

Sean Maloney (Upstate New York)

Justin Amash (Western Michigan)

-There is a very good chance we could take the mayor's seat in San Diego.

The above is the tip of the iceberg of all the excitement at the ballot box for LGBT candidates and victories for marriage equality. This could be our moment in the sun. Please don't miss it.

Election 2012: President Obama Getting The Job Done...

 

 

For months, it has been looking bleak for President Obama with a slew of issues that seem to be working against his re-election. However in the last months, despite one of the worse House of Representatives ever, the President is slowly but surely getting the job done. The President has endured endless rounds of attacks, attempts to derail any progress by the Republicans who don't want him to be a success and skeptics within the Democratic Party. The time has come for us to celebrate his accomplishments and there are many of them.

Polls clearly show that many Democrats, including myself, have began to understand the depth of the President's record. In the last months there has been some major accomplishments and they bear repeating, Sometimes it has been hard to hear the Presidents story of success because of all the noise made by the Republicans. More than any other President I have known, he has been slowly (more slowly that is comfortable for some of us) keeping his promises of the campaign. Among the major promises are:

1. Economy: The good news is that January's unemployment rate is now 8.3% which is the lowest in three years. He is creating jobs. In addition, he is fighting for benefits for the unemployed, the poor and those without homes.

2. Iraq: He kept his promise and the 'war started on lies' has come to an end. What happens now in Iraq is up to the people of Iraq.

3. Afghanistan: After the disappointment of a troop increase he has announced that we will begin bringing the troops home from the ten year war. Hopefully it will all be done within a little over a year and the people of Afghanistan can take responsibility for their own nation.

4. LGBT Rights: With the passage of hate crimes, the repeal of DADT, the refusal to fight for DOMA, the commitment to link American foreign policy to LGBT rights and a host of other appointments and executive orders, he has an extraordinary record on LGBT rights. He must soon make the final and important step of supporting marriage equality.

Space limits the endless lists of accomplishments by this remarkable President but they do indeed exist. In all the hoopla of the Republican nomination battle, people should not be distracted and get to work and re-elect our President.

LGBT: Major Survey Says College Freshmen Want LGBT Americans To Get Married!

 

 

The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA has released results of a survey of incoming college freshmen in 2011. More than 200,000 first time, full time students participated in the survey. The students at the four year colleges were generally more liberal on marriage equality, abortion and legalizing marijuana than they were two years ago.

The students certainly want to get LGBT citizens to the 'church on time"! An amazing 71% of college freshmen believe same sex couples should be able to legally get married. That is up from 64% in 2009. Now if all those freshmen could just convince their parents and grandparents we would be in great shape.

Regarding the issue of abortion, 61% believe in a women's right of choice. That is up from 58% two years ago. As for smoking a joint, 49% believe it should be legal and that is an increase of 3%.