Senator Harry Reid Says Obama Should Sign Order on Gay Troops, SLDN Also Joins Call for Executive Option
SANTA BARBARA, CA — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called on President Obama to sign an executive order suspending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, according to the Advocate magazine.
Referring to the repeal of the ban, Reid told Advocate reporter Kerry Eleveld that, “My hope is that it can be done administratively.” Eleveld added that, “A Democratic aide later clarified that Reid was speaking about the possibility of using an executive order to suspend discharges or perhaps halting enforcement of the policy by changing departmental regulations within the Department of Defense.”
As well, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) has called on President Obama to sign an executive order. In a letter to the New York Times yesterday, SLDN Executive Director Aubrey Sarvis wrote that, “President Obama should consider all viable options he can take on his own to get rid of this discriminatory law, including issuing a ’stop-loss’ order.” For more than a decade, SLDN has been the largest and most influential group in the country working on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
The idea of ending the ban by executive order gained momentum after the release last month of a Palm Center study showing that the president has the authority to suspend “don’t ask, don’t tell” via a stroke of the pen. Before that time, many argued that only Congress or the courts could lift the ban on service by openly gay troops.
Others calling for the President to sign an executive order include the New York Times editorial page, the Human Rights Campaign, Knights Out, an organization of gay and lesbian alumni of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center CEO Lorri Jean, and former Clinton White House official Richard Socarides.
Palm Center Director Aaron Belkin said that awareness of the executive option has changed the conversation about “don’t ask, don’t tell” substantially. “Obama used to duck the issue by blaming Congress for the inertia. Now it’s clear that he has unilateral authority to fulfill his campaign promise.”
The Palm Center is a research institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Center uses rigorous social science to inform public discussions of controversial social issues, enabling policy outcomes to be informed more by evidence than by emotion. Its data-driven approach is premised on the notion that the public makes wise choices on social issues when high-quality information is available. For more information, visit www.palmcenter.ucsb.edu.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/senator-harry…
TAKE ACTION: Obama Defends DOMA
President Obama had a chance to take a strong stance against the Defense of Marriage Act – and he blew it, going back on his promise to repeal the discriminatory law.
In a recent California Federal Court challenge filed by a couple married in California, President Obama’s Justice Department filed a brief supporting DOMA and justifying discrimination in government benefits against legally married same-sex couples.Enough is enough.
Demand that President Obama stop defending DOMA and instruct the Department of Justice to take any and all actions to support its repeal.
Demand President Obama push for complete equality for LGBT Americans, as he promised during his campaign.
We have been promised too much and have waited too long. Send a letter using EQCA’s Action Center and it will be delivered immediately to President Obama.
President Obama has let us down. He can still fix this mistake, but he must act fast. Make sure he knows you want full equality now.
Please forward to everyone you know.In solidarity,
Geoff KorsExecutive DirectorEquality California
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/take-action-o…
Gay Pride in Moscow: Report from a Chicago Activist
MOSCOW, May 14, 2009 (Gay Liberation Network) – After 14 hours of flights, last night I found myself in Eastern Europe for the first time in my life, warmly greeted by lesbian and gay activists who, despite state repression, are organizing their fourth annual pride event in this city. This year’s event is dubbed ‘Slavic Pride’, denoting the significant participation of activists from around the region.
The previous three years’ events have gone forward despite bans from the authorities and violence from neo-fascists in Russian orthodox and skinhead garb. This year the authorities not only banned the Pride event, but for good measure, approved the anti-gays’ application to hold their own event this past Tuesday.
That same day, our Moscow friends countered with their own unsanctioned action at the Department of Registration of Acts of Civil Status – an attempt by two lesbian activists to get a marriage license.
Leading Slavic Pride activist Nikolai Alekseev said the action was inspired in part by a February civil disobedience action at a marriage license bureau in Chicago. The Moscow action received widespread international press coverage, including from the New York Times.
As I shadowed Alekseev around the city last night, press coverage if anything seemed to build, with Nikolai’s two cell phones ringing incessantly and meetings with Finish and Slovenian journalists held near midnight just outside of Red Square.
Slavic Pride is slated for this Saturday, amidst the big ‘Eurovision Fest’ being hosted this year by Moscow. For those not familiar with what Eurovision is, think American Idol times ten, with a profusion of media coverage and street banners that puts Chicago’s 2016 Olympics bid hype to shame.
While our specific plans for Saturday are necessarily secret at this time, the aim is to cause maximum embarrassment to the government if they attempt to arrest us or allow the neo-fascists to attack.
In response to Moscow activists’ application for a permit this year, police chief Vladmir Pronin told the Russian news agency Interfax that gay pride parades in the capital are “unacceptable - gay pride parades shouldn’t be allowed”.
“No one will dare to do it, such ‘braveheart’ will be torn to shreds,” he added. “The West can say we’re bad guys, but our people will see it is right. Our country is patriarchal, that’s [sic] sums it up… I positively agree with the Church, with the Patriarch, politicians, especially with [Mayor] Luzhkov, who are convinced that man and woman should love each other. It is established by God and nature.”
However, Moscow Pride organizers have vowed to move forward with this year’s Pride event despite the police chief’s threats.
“Mr. Pronin already showed his incompetency last year when his services were unable to prevent us unveiling a banner directed against the Mayor, right opposite his office,” said Alekseev.
The main pride event successfully took place nearby at the monument to the famous Russian gay composer, Peter Tchkaivosky, while the authorities and neo-fascists were hoodwinked in to thinking that it would take place outside of homophobic Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s office.
Today at the start of a gay rights conference at an undisclosed location east of the city, I was joined by British gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and LGBT activists from around Russia and Belorussia Minsk, Rostof, Sochi, Ufa, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Ekaterinbourg, Volgodonsk, Ryazan and of course Moscow.
As we gathered on a coach to go to the conference, Moscow activist Nikolai Baev explained how a group of young activists from Ryazan, about 200 miles south of the capital, got involved in organizing this year’s Slavic Pride:
“There is a very discriminatory law in the Ryazan region which prohibits so-called propaganda about homosexuality20and among minors. The law passed in 2006 and we had pickets that said that homosexuality is absolutely normal and we are proud of our situation. We picketed in front of schools in Ryazan and we were detained because it was illegal.”
Two people were found guilty and fined 1500 roubles (about $45 US) each. Alekseev came to Ryazan to help in the campaign and in the appeal of their cases to the Constitutional Court of Russia.
Then, Sergey Yenin, 19, explained how he became involved in gay rights organizing in Belorussia :
“I felt myself to be gay from my early childhood, he explained.
“Last year I came to Minsk and there I got acquainted with some gay activists and I thought it would be great if I fought for my gay rights. There are a lot of people who don’t fight for their rights, who don’t participate in such activist movements, and they just consume our achievements.
“For example, we fought for our gay club, our one gay club in Minsk. It was in danger of being closed [by the government], but it still exists, due to us.”
I asked Sergey if he had participated in Minsk Pride events before.
“Yes, of course. The most outstanding Pride parade took place in 2001. But I didn’t participate because I was only 11 then. There were over 300 people participating in this event and 300 watching. This was fabulous This was an historical moment in Belorussia.
“The last one took place in October of 2008. It was named Queer Walk and it took place on the 11th of October 2008, the international day of coming out, and we organized a pride parade. It was a rather private, intimate event, there were fifty participants because we cannot organize such a public event because of our government.
“If we applied for an event, we would be denied.
“There is an action that takes place [each year] called Chernobyl Way, and all of the opposition parties take place there, and our LGBT group participated last year and this year. Last year we raised the rainbow flag and there were a lot of bad comments about it, there were a lot of thre ats [of violence]. There were such political parties as Right Alliance, and they threaten us all of the time. This year we didn’t20raise our rainbow flag because the organizer of the Belorussian National Front, the main opposition party, they coordinated a call to us, do not raise your rainbow flag, not because we have anything against you, because our fight for clean air, free of radiation will turn into a fight for gay rights.”
I asked Sergey why he personally joined the 15 others for the ten hour train ride from Belorussia to join this Saturday’s Slavic Pride: “I [only] made the conclusion [to come] on May 12 because I was really very frightened about myself and my friends. I know that there is some information that Pride is going to be canceled, and more than this, that Pride participants are going to be beaten.
“Because this is my fight really.If I don’t go to the pride parade, who will go there? My reasons to come was to support my friends – and of course to support gay rights.”
SEE ALSO
Tatchell To Attend Moscow Gay Pride. Despite threats to bash and arrest the marchers, British gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will attend this Saturday’s Moscow Gay Pride parade – this year renamed Slavic Gay Pride to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality struggles in all Slavic countries, Russian and non-Russian. (UK Gay News, May 11, 2009)
Gay Marriage Campaign Starts in Russia. Two women will apply for a marriage license in Moscow on May 12, it emerged this afternoon. The announcement was made today during a press conference for Slavic Pride which is planned for later this month in Moscow. (UK Gay News, May 5, 2009)
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/gay-pride-in-…
ACLU Seeks Immediate Florida Supreme Court Hearing For Gay Adoptive Dad And His Children
MIAMI – The American Civil Liberties Union and lawyers for Martin Gill’s adopted children filed a request today in Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals seeking to expedite the appeal of last week’s court ruling that the ban on adoption by gay people violates the Florida constitution.
Everyone in this case agrees that prolonging a child’s stay in foster care is not in his best interest. The trial court found that these children are thriving in this home, and that there is no reason – scientific or other – that they should be denied the permanency and protections of adoption,” said Rob Rosenwald, Director of the ACLU of Florida LGBT Advocacy Project. “Today we ask the court to take the best interest of these kids into consideration and not make them wait the extra years it would take for the case to make its way through the traditional appellate process.”
On November 25, 2008, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy Lederman granted adoption of two brothers, ages four and eight, to Martin Gill of North Miami, after a four-day trial that highlighted scientific evidence that proved gay and straight people make equally good parents. The decision overturned a 31-year-old discriminatory law banning gays and lesbians from adopting – the only such law in the U.S. – that was put on the books after the anti-gay campaign led by Anita Bryant in the 1970’s.
Lederman noted in her decision that the fact that parental sexual orientation has no impact on children’s well-being has “been accepted, adopted and ratified by” the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League of America and the National Association of Social Workers, and that it is “beyond dispute” that the exclusion of gay people from adopting does not protect the interests of children.
The state appealed the decision immediately after it was announced last Tuesday. If today’s request is granted, the case will go straight to the Florida Supreme Court instead of having to go through a lengthy appeals court process. The state has five days to file a response to today’s court filing, which is not available to the public because the document is part of a juvenile court record.
In addition to Rosenwald, Gill is represented by Leslie Cooper and James Esseks of the ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project and Shelbi Day of the ACLU of Florida. The children are represented by Hilarie Bass and Ricardo Gonzalez of Greenberg Traurig, and Charles Auslander, an attorney and former District Administrator for Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF).
For more information on the case, visit http://www.aclu.org/gill
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/aclu-seeks-im…
