Blacks play key role in D.C. marriage equality
(WASHINGTON) Gay and lesbian couples will soon be able to marry in Washington, but the debate over same-sex marriage has sounded different here, with references to interracial marriage and Martin Luther King Jr.
During the past year, both sides have courted the support of Washington’s black community, a majority of the …
Full story: Congress acts to extend hate crimes to cover gays
(Washington) The House voted Thursday to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation, significantly expanding the hate crimes law enacted in the days after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968.
With expected passage by the Senate, federal prosecutors will for the first time be …
L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center to President Obama: ‘We Need Action and We Need It Now!’
Center CEO Welcomes Obama to L.A. With Open Letter, Urging Him to Fulfill Campaign Promises and Speak Out in Favor of LGBT Equality
LOS ANGELES, CA — The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s Chief Executive Officer Lorri L. Jean released the following letter to President Barack Obama today:
Dear President Obama:
Welcome to California, Mr. President. I welcome you with a heavy heart because of the California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Prop. 8, relegating same-sex couples to second-class status and denying us that most noble promise of America, “liberty and justice for all.”
You are arriving in Los Angeles on the heels of emotional demonstrations throughout California and our nation and your silence at such a time speaks volumes. LGBT people and our allies have the “audacity to hope” for a country that treats us fairly and equally and for a President with the will to stand up for those ideals. From you we expect nothing less.
We know the country faces many serious challenges and we have strived to be patient. We’ve waited for the slightest sign you would live up to your promise to be a “fierce advocate” for our equal rights while watching gay and lesbian members of the armed forces, who have never been more needed, get discharged from the military. And so far you have done nothing. No stop loss order. No call to cease such foolish and discriminatory actions that make our nation less safe.
You pledged to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, Mr. President. You promised to support a “complete repeal” of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and pledged to advocate for legislation that would give same-sex couples the 1,100+ federal rights and benefits we are denied, including the same rights to social security benefits. You said, “Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples.”
What of those promises, Mr. President?
Your commitment to repeal DOMA has been removed from the White House Web site. Your promise to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was removed and then replaced with a watered-down version. And in the aftermath of yesterday’s California Supreme Court ruling, you have remained silent while your press secretary summarily dismisses questions about the issue.
We not only need to hear from our President, we need his action. And we need it now.
We need your words, Mr. President. But we also need your deeds. We expect you to fulfill the promises you made to us. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us, “Justice too long delayed is justice denied.” Do not delay, Mr. President. The time for action is now.
Sincerely, Lorri L. Jean Chief Executive Officer L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/la-gay-lesbia…
California Gay Marriage Backers to Try Again
Same-sex marriage backers in California, anticipating a loss in court, are preparing to make their case at the ballot box in 2010 rather than waiting until 2012.
“The right time is now,” San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom told ABC News. “And if that means going back in 2010, I couldn’t be more supportive.”
“Wait almost always means never,” he added, invoking Martin Luther King Jr.
California voters approved Proposition 8 in November, a change to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage. Although a decision has not yet been rendered in the legal challenge to Proposition 8, many gay marriage proponents in California expect the state Supreme Court to uphold the voter-approved ban on new gay marriages while leaving intact the gay marriages performed in 2008 when a decision of the state’s High Court had temporarily legalized the practice.
See California Gay Marriage Backers to Try Again
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/california-ga…
Outside Ebenezer Church, gay rights activists protest Atlanta Journal Constitution, USA
Dozens of gay activists protested the Rev. Rick Warren’s speech Monday at the Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative services outside Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Gathering at the corner of Jackson Street and Auburn Avenue, they hoisted signs declaring: “We still have a dream: Equality.” And they chanted: “Gay, straight, black or white, we demand our civil rights.”
Warren, a best-selling author and the pastor of an evangelical mega church in California, helped rally support in California to outlaw same-sex marriage.
“Rick Warren is not a voice of unity or equality,” said Jeff Schade, director of GLBTATL, which stands for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Atlanta.
See Outside Ebenezer Church, gay rights activists protest
Atlanta Journal Constitution, USA
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/outside-ebene…
Friend of late Coretta Scott King to discuss her gay activism
Winston Johnson of Atlanta, who was a longtime friend of Coretta Scott King, will take part in a discussion with Dave Hayward of the gay Atlanta history project Touching Up Our Roots at YouthPride tonight. A reception begins at 6:30 p.m. with Johnson speaking at 7:30 p.m. The program is part of Atlanta’s numerous MLK Weekend events.
Johnson, who is gay, met Mrs. King right after the assassination of her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They became close friends and he eventually helped her begin her vocal gay advocacy after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick — a case that arose from Atlanta — that it was within a state’s right to arrest gay people who violated the state’s sodomy law.
Numerous parties are also taking place tonight as part of MLK Weekend, including an appearance by “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Sheree Whitfield at Vita.
See Friend of late Coretta Scott King to discuss her gay activism
Southern Voice, GA -
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/friend-of-lat…
Gay protest likely at King Day service
Gay protest likely at King Day service
Members of metro Atlanta’s gay community plan to protest Monday when the Rev. Rick Warren speaks during the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Warren, the pastor of an evangelical megachurch in California, is known for inspiring Christians across the country to serve the poor and needy. Last summer, he also helped rally support in California to outlaw same-sex marriage.
See Gay protest likely at King Day service
Atlanta Journal Constitution, USA
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/gay-protest-l…
Lowery’s Preaching, Not Warren’s, Will Illuminate Inaugural Day The Nation.
No one should be surprised that President-elect Barack Obama would choose self-promoting Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inaugural. Warren has been hustling for years to make himself the “new Billy Graham” — seeking to fill the vacating role of spiritual adviser to presidents, be they born-again Republicans or born-right-the-first-time Democrats.
Obama, always on the watch for ways to broaden his base of support, has been developing a relationship with Warren for many years, as he has with other fundamentalist preachers who try to put a smile on their intolerance.
Back in December 2006, when he was merely a senator with unannounced presidential ambitions, Obama delivered a smart, sensitive address at Warren’s “2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church,” a high-profile event on the pastor’s Saddleback Church campus in Lake Forest, Calif.
Twenty months later, as the soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee, Obama went back to Saddleback for an unfortunate joint appearance with Republican John McCain — the last major misstep of the senator’s bid for the nation’s top job.
Past is prologue, and Obama’s dalliances with Warren, for better or worse, always pointed to the placement of this particular pastor on the inaugural stage.
What will be significant about Warren’s remarks, however, is that they will be so insignificant.
Warren’s invocation will be forgotten five minutes after it is finished.
Indeed, the only “news” that will come from his appearance at the inaugural is the controversy surrounding it — and the protests that controversy may spark.
Far more significant, and encouraging, than his off-putting selection of Warren to deliver the invocation is Obama’s choice of a genuine spiritual progressive to deliver the benediction.
It is the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery who will present the far more uplifting and meaningful religious message on Inauguration Day. And in his appealing selection of the 87-year-old Lowery, Obama has made a choice that is far more adventurous — even, dare we say, radical — than his unappealing designation of Warren.
Lowery was the longtime president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which he co-founded in 1957, before Obama was born, with the Revs. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shuttlesworth. An essential player in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, Lowery was sent by King to deliver the demands of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march to Alabama’s segregationist governor, George Wallace, and it was to Lowery that Wallace apologized three decades later.
Long after King and most of the other founding fathers of the civil rights movement had been buried, Lowery carried on the struggle. He led the 1982 drive to extend the federal Voting Rights Act. In 2005, when it came time to renew the act once more, Lowery famously cornered Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a memorial service for Rosa Parks to ask for maintaining voting rights protections. Why did Lowery choose so somber a setting to make his appeal to the most prominent African-American member of President Bush’s Cabinet? “Because I knew she could not move,” he explained.
See Lowery’s Preaching, Not Warren’s, Will Illuminate Inaugural Day The Nation.
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Warren protest planned at King church
(Atlanta, Georgia) A coalition of activists is planning to protest The King Center’s choice of the Rev. Rick Warren as keynote speaker on the federal observance of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
The Jan. 19 event in Georgia is the day before the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, who …
