Gay activists applaud Kagan – tepidly

Gay legal activists are applauding President Obama’s second nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court [1]: Solicitor General Elena Kagan. But it could hardly be described as a standing ovation.

Former Clinton White House aide Richard Socarides called Kagan a “brilliant, pragmatic progressive interested in listening to all sides and building coalitions.”

Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Executive Director Kevin Cathcart called Kagan “a strong position” in opposing the military’s ban on gays but noted that Obama administration has also “taken legal positions on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and the so-called ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ with which we strongly disagree.”

Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese applauded her selection as fulfilling Obama’s promise to promote “diversity” on the court.
If confirmed, Kagan would become only the fourth woman ever named to the court –out of 104 justices in the history of the court.

Kagan is of particular interest to the LGBT community. While serving as dean of Harvard Law School, she took sides with gays against military recruiters because the military would not abide by the school’s non-discrimination policy. That policy prohibited recruiters who discriminated based on sexual orientation.

Kagan clerked for one of the Supreme Court’s staunchest liberals, Thurgood Marshall, and was a research assistant for one of the greatest legal defenders of gay civil rights, Laurence Tribe.

Single and 50, she was also the subject of a CBS News website blog report last month which claimed that, if named to the court, Kagan would be the “first openly gay justice.” But Kagan has not publicly identified with any sexual orientation, and the White House moved quickly to say the report was “inaccurate.”

The president announced his selection at a 10 o’clock press conference this morning.

Socarides called Kagan “one of the smartest people I know” and “someone the country will come to like and respect.”

“Her thinking is well within the mainstream,” said Socarides, and “very much in keeping with Obama’s overall philosophy…. Pretty much a home-run appointment.”

Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights called Kagan “well-qualified” and said members of his organization “strongly support increasing the number of women on the court.”

Lambda’s Cathcart said he did not expect Kagan “to answer questions about how she would rule on specific issues such as these that will come before her.” But he said Lambda does “expect that she will respond to questions about her judicial philosophy and her understanding of core constitutional principals of equal protection and privacy that are so crucial to the civil rights of people who face discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and/or HIV status.”

Long-time gay legal activist Paula Ettelbrick, an adjunct professor of law at New York University Law School, said Kagan’s nomination is “most historic” and that “it moves women’s representation on the Court to a more meaningful plurality.”

Mainstream news organizations immediately set about assessing her odds for confirmation. MSNBC speculates both conservatives and liberals could criticize her. Commentator-reporter Chuck Todd said conservatives would fault Kagan over her opposition to military recruiters at Harvard. He said liberals could fault her for defending some policies put in place by the administration of President George W. Bush.

In introducing Kagan to the press conference Monday morning, Obama praised Kagan for having sought conservative views to balance liberal views at Harvard. During her confirmation process for Solicitor General last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee received letters in support of Kagan from such well-known conservatives as former Solicitor Generals Charles Fried and Kenneth Starr, and such well-known liberals as Eleanor D. Acheson.

Her confirmation as Solicitor General was opposed, as expected, by some ultra-conservative groups, including Concerned Women for America, who faulted her for opposing military recruiters, as well as Focus on Family and more than a dozen other groups who said she could not be counted on to defend “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

Kagan, an attorney, has never served as a judge but is widely respected as a legal scholar.

NCLR’s Minter said, “Because she has not served previously as a judge, it will be important to hear more about her judicial philosophy and whether she has a strong commitment to enforcing constitutionally protected rights and liberties. “

Given that she filled out the Senate Judiciary Committee’s lengthy questionnaire just last year, the vetting of her by various senators should go fairly rapidly.

In response to questions from the Judiciary Committee last year, Kagan said she views as “unjust the exclusion of individuals from basic economic, civic, and political opportunities of our society on the basis of race, nationality, sex, religion, and sexual orientation.” But she also said she was “fully convinced” she could defend U.S. laws even when they do not reflect her personal views, including the federal law which penalizes universities which ban military recruiters.

Kagan’s questionnaire also indicated that she delivered a welcoming address to introduce panel members at a Harvard University Gay and Lesbian Alumni event in September 2008. And in April 2006, she moderated a panel of the LAMBDA Student Organization concerning the “Relationship between Law Schools and the Military.” Such participation is fairly typical of law school deans and her list includes an even greater number of appearances before groups promoting civil rights for black law students.

Senators Orrin Hatch and Jon Kyl, two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee who voted for Kagan as Solicitor General, issued statements

Monday morning saying their vote is not guaranteed for the Supreme Court appointment.

If confirmed, Kagan will become the third woman on the U.S. Supreme Court today and the second unmarried justice. Justice Sonia Sotomayor,

Obama’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, was married briefly but divorced in 1983.

A press release from HRC applauded Kagan’s “commitment to fairness and equality.”

“Specifically, we applaud Elena Kagan’s vocal opposition to the Solomon Amendment and the discriminatory ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law.

HRC said it would continue examining Kagan’s record on issues that affect the LGBT community.

Kagan’s nomination is being made to fill the seat of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, who announced his retirement last month.

The composition of the Supreme Court is increasing critical to the LGBT civil rights movement. Three important cases seeking equality in marriage rights are winding their ways to the high court and it seems nearly inevitable that the high court will choose to weigh in on at least one, if not all three. The court will also hear a case this fall that will determine whether a virulently anti-gay protest group has a First Amendment right to stage their demonstrations in ways that disrupt private funeral services.

While many nominees introduce close members of their family at the press conference, Kagan noted that her parents had already passed away and said she was “thankful for my brothers and other family and friends” for being there with her.

[1] http://www.365gay.com/news/ap-source-elena-kagan-picked-for-supreme-court/

Quebec director sweeps awards for gay coming-of-age movie

Quebec filmmaker Xavier Dolan swept three of the four prizes Friday at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight for his film I Killed My Mother (J’ai tue ma mere).

The 20-year-old’s first feature won the Art Cinema Award, given by an international jury of independent cinema programmers and the SACD Prize for best French-language film.

Dolan also won the Regards Jeunes 2009 Prize, given to a first film by a jury of young cinephiles.

The remaining prize, the Europa Cinemas Label, was given to the Austrian movie La Pivellina by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel.

The Montrealer wrote and directed the coming-of-age movie, which is about a 16-year-old boy just discovering his gay sexuality and fighting with his mother, who constantly annoys him.

The film was one of the most talked about titles of the Directors’ Fortnight — a sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival — and its first screening was greeted with a standing ovation.

Dolan, who has compared his Cannes experience to a fairy tale, said the awards left him speechless.

“I’m completely flabbergasted, we never thought we would win a prize,” Dolan told the French language all-news network RDI.

“I can’t begin to tell you how moving this is,” he added.

See Quebec director sweeps awards for gay coming-of-age movie Canada.com

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‘Milk’ Oscar Winner: My Emotional Voyage Home to High School

Editor’s Note: On May 9th, Academy Award-winning “Milk” screenwriter Dustin Lance Black returned to his high school in North Salinas, CA, as part of Live Out Loud’s Homecoming Project. Aiming to inspire a new generation of role models, the program brings lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) leaders back to their high schools to share their personal stories with today’s students. In this exclusive submission to the MTV Movies Blog, Black tells us about his first time returning to the school since that powerful Oscar night speech, when he had spoken of his struggles as a gay teenager.
by Dustin Lance Black
My palms got a little sweaty as I turned off East Alvin Drive in Salinas, and onto Kip Drive.
For the first time in 17 years, I saw the entrance to my old high school, the same one where I was once called “gay” by my peers. And it wasn’t said as a compliment — it was said with hate, anger, and on one occasion I was honestly afraid of getting my butt whipped.
So, I did what so many kids still do — I tried to vanish. I didn’t get great grades, I didn’t excel, I shrunk and hid, and I did my best to disappear at lunch. High school is tough for almost everyone, but for LGBT kids, it can be truly frightening. And as much as I know that I’m all grown up now, and that I can stand up for myself, I still got a little knot in my stomach as we pulled up to the front doors of North Salinas High and the camera crews closed in.
Before my speech, I hung out in a back room waiting to be announced, but I could hear the crowd inside the gym. It sounded big. Then I heard them play my Oscar speech, and if you haven’t heard it yet, it’s pretty clear that I’m a gay guy fighting for the LGBT kids out there. The room got very quiet; I got a little nervous. But when the Principal called my name and I came through those doors, I was greeted by a standing ovation from the over 1000 students who chose to show up. That was my first clue that something had changed at North High. See ‘Milk’ Oscar Winner: My Emotional Voyage Home to High School
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Larry Kramer Blasts Yale’s ‘Conspiracy of Silence’ on Gay History

When more than 300 Yale alumni and their guests arrived at Yale for the University’s first-ever lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender alumni reunion this weekend, they found not only camaraderie, but also controversy.

The first-ever recipient of the GALA Lifetime Achievement Award, gay activist Larry Kramer ’57, harshly rebuked the University for its treatment of gay history as an academic field during the three-day reunion, which was jointly organized by the LGBT alumni association Yale GALA and the Association of Yale Alumni. At a dinner ceremony Saturday, Kramer said the University has wrongly relegated the study of gay history to LGBT studies, arguing that there is a significant semantic difference between gay “history” and gay “studies.”

Declaring that queer and gender theories are “relatively useless,” Kramer — who was among the first to call for action against the AIDS crisis — said gay history has been “hijacked” by queer theorists.

Kramer and Yale have clashed before; in the mid-nineties, Yale rejected a sizable gift from Kramer to create either an endowed chair in gay and lesbian studies or a student center for gay students. In 2001, Kramer’s brother, Arthur Kramer ’49, gave a $1 million gift in Larry’s name to found the Larry Kramer Initiative for Gay and Lesbian Studies, which was closed after five years when the gift was spent.

In order to demonstrate the importance of gay history, Kramer declared that he believes many prominent American historical figures were gay, including George Washington, the famous explorer Meriwether Lewis, Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth.

The study of gay history is therefore important as a means of promoting acceptance for LGBT individuals, Kramer said.

“The plague of AIDS was allowed to happen because most of the world hates us,” he said. “They don’t know we’re related to Washington and Lincoln.”

While alumni sat attentively throughout the speech and gave Kramer a standing ovation, some said afterwards that they were standing not necessarily out of agreement with Kramer, but rather out of respect for his activism in the wake of AIDS.

“He’s been a provocateur all of his career, since the AIDS crisis,” said Ken Demario ’64. “I don’t know if this was an appropriate forum for as nasty a broadside as his was against the University.”

In a brief interview after the speech, Provost Peter Salovey said he agreed that the study of LGBT history is important.

See Gay activist and playwright Larry Kramer Blasts Yale & Yale Daily News. * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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Transgender model steals fashion show

(Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Rio closed its main fashion event of the year with less attention to the clothes than the model – a transgendered actress.

Patricia Araujo received a standing ovation after parading along the runway for the Complexo B brand to end the event in a city that delights …

Transgender model ‘star’ of show

Rio closed its main fashion event of the year with less attention to the clothes than the model — a transgendered actress.

Patricia Araujo received a standing ovation after parading along the runway for the Complexo B brand late Friday to end the weeklong event in a city that delights in shocking the prudish with each year’s Carnival celebration.

Complexo B designer Beto Neves said he invited Araujo to amaze the public.

“In fashion, the cool thing is to surprise,” he told the O Dia newspaper.

See Transgender model ‘star’ of show (pic)