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Teaching Lessons

Local elections are just around the corner.

Next Tuesday, many of us will vote for town board members, mayors, supervisors—the folks that make our local municipalities function on a day to day basis.

Whenever candidates come to my door I always ask them two questions—are you pro-choice? And are you pro-gay rights?

According to conservative columnist George Will, it’s ridiculous to ask local candidates where they stand on reproductive choice. In a recent op ed, he contended that since the right to an abortion is so much a part of our culture, even a U.S. Supreme Court that is more conservative than the one we have now would not overturn Roe v. Wade.

He justified his perspective by citing the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist who (according to Will) thought that the Constitution did not require police officers to read what are now known as “Miranda rights” to presumed perpetrators. But, when the Supremes had an actual opportunity to overturn the 1966 Miranda ruling, Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion keeping Miranda in place because it had become part of routine police work.

The right to abortion (according to Will) is just as ingrained in society as Miranda and the likelihood of it being overturned isn’t great. And, if Roe was overturned, he said, “So what? . . . All it would actually do is restore abortion as a practice subject to state regulation.”

Well, George, that would bring us back to our local electeds. As it is, anti-choice local officials often make life difficult for Planned Parenthoods. For example, they tend to turn a blind eye on anti-choice zealots who picket in front of clinics.

And that’s why I always ask. Most of the time, the candidates are thrown off by the questions. “What do those issues have to do with the office I’m running for?” they ask. To me it’s quite simple. These local candidates may be running for town board today but tomorrow, they could be running for the state legislature. 

And, whether they realize it or not, local elected officials do have an impact on human rights issues. A case in point is the Albany County Legislature’s inaction on extending human rights protections to the transgender community.

When New York’s State Omnibus Non-Discrimination Act passed in 2002 it did not include protection for transgender people. Now, just as we worked incrementally in community after community to get gay rights laws passed until state lawmakers saw the light and enacted a statewide bill, we have to do the same for protecting folks whose gender identity or expression is different.

To get that ball rolling here in Albany, trans activist Hawk Stone worked to get a bill through the Albany City Council. It happened quickly and without a lot of fanfare. Then he turned his sights to the Albany County Legislature—not so easy.

Suffice it to say that, today, unless a trans person lives in the city of Albany, he or she is not protected in the county.

When, Phil Steck, my own county legislator came knocking on my door this fall asking for my vote, I remembered his flip-flop support of the bill. I asked him why, as one of the original sponsors, he took his name off the bill.

Phil’s response was pure politics. He told me he knew the bill wasn’t going to pass and since he and the bill’s prime sponsor, fellow democrat John Frederick, had had some disagreements in the past, he pulled his support to teach John a lesson.

Well…as far as I’m concerned you don’t play politics with human rights—whether or not a bill looks like it’s going to pass. And as far as teaching Frederick a lesson about how to “get along” in the county legislature—John left to take a job with the State Education Department where, perhaps, he can have an impact on lessons of another kind.

And my county legislator?  He lost my vote at my front door. He and George Will don’t understand that Tip O’Neill’s old adage is tried and true—all politics is local.

Iceberg Politics

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. George W. Bush was clearing brush in Crawford while New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

And what were a majority of LGBT activists and bloggers doing while the U.S. Senate stealthfully confirmed anti-gay judge Leslie Southwick to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit? They were throwing rhetorical bombs at Barack Obama for including an ex-gay African-American minister/Grammy award-winning gospel singer who thinks we can be cured in the candidate’s “Embrace the Change” gospel tour in South Carolina this weekend.

Now, I know it is important for us to draw a line in the sand and hold candidates responsible when their words don’t support their actions.

Although I’m not sure where he stands in the latest go round about trans inclusion in the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Obama supports all of the legislative initiatives important to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community except same-sex marriage. Inviting Pastor Donnie McClurkin, who has struggled with his own sexuality and now considers himself cured of being gay, wasn’t the brightest move when it comes to my community. It was, however, a smart move for Obama whose goal is to build a base among the more conservative African-American church going community down south.

Political pragmatism outweighed political correctness—a reality of political life that many in the LGBT community can’t reckon themselves with.

Unfortunately, our myopic perspective may just leave us with a federal judiciary that will have a much more negative impact on our future than whether or not Donnie McClurkin sings Obama’s praises in the south.

The confirmation of Leslie Southwick is just one more notch in the belt of the neo-conservative mission of making a strict constructionist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution the rule rather than the exception.

This effort didn’t start with Southwick’s nomination. It’s been going on for decades. Former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Bill Bradley detailed how well the conservative right has laid a foundation for its political sea change in a March 30, 2005 New York Times op ed piece entitled, A Party Inverted.

Bradley explained that in the 1970’s and 80’s, the Republican Party and their neo-conservative brethren built a strong base of foundations and think tanks to support their candidates and their socially conservative initiatives. The goal was to change the face of our elected officials from those who represent the people to those who represent their interests—all done with a folksy populism that fooled the electorate into thinking they were voting for the guy or girl next door. The down home, aw shucks, I’m just a regular guy persona of George Bush during the 2000 election was the cynical electoral culmination of this political tom foolery.

An un-winnable war is not the only legacy of W’s eight years in the White House. In fact, the Iraq War has served the neo-cons quite well as a cover for their real agenda—turning the nation’s judiciary to the right.

This is much more of a threat to LGBT rights than all the ENDA hand wringing and Obama bashing combined.

When I first got involved in LGBT activism, we knew legislative victories would be few and far between. But, our saving grace was that we could always turn to the courts. Based on the Warren Court’s interpretation of the Constitution, by and large, they usually did the right thing. Earl Warren’s Supreme Court saw the Constitution as a living document—one that needed to be interpreted for the times. Without that Court’s foresight, Jim Crow laws would still be in place, schools would still be segregated (unfortunately, some still are) and women would be scouring back alleys for abortionists who would leave them dying on a table.

With conservative jurists like Southwick being confirmed to the federal bench, much of the freedoms we have taken for granted are under threat.

These judges, whose role models are Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and John Roberts, have reached their judicial heights because we’ve been out organized. And soon, we may be out our civil rights. These are the folks who don’t think the constitution guarantees a right to privacy—the basic tenet of so many of the decisions that speak directly to the lives of LGBT people.

We’ve been out organized because we’re always looking at the short term, always getting angry at our latest savior for not being exactly on cue, always focusing on political purity rather than pragmatism.

Leslie Southwick is just the tip of the iceberg and global warming isn’t about to melt the neo-conservative ice cap. And, if we’re not careful, we all may be taking a cruise on the Titanic.

GOP=Gay Old Party

Larry Craig’s interview this past Tuesday evening with NBC’s Matt Lauer gave the espionage-born term, plausible deniability, a whole new life.

It’s usually a term used as a cover when large government agencies—such as the CIA or FBI—engage in covert actions that can be denied higher up the political food chain. Craig’s performance gave it a new twist—his denials of what happened in that Minnesota airport bathroom were plausible.

Craig really believes his denials. It was all a matter of circumstance he said. He didn’t know tapping feet was a sign that men who have sex with men use to pick each other up. His foot did touch the police officer’s who was waiting there to entrap. But it’s because, as Craig said, he’s a big guy and has a wide stance while sitting to keep his pants from hitting the floor. And, he didn’t reach under the stall partition—he was just picking up a piece of toilet paper that had stuck to the bottom of his shoe so that when he was done with his bathroom business he wouldn’t walk out with white tissue traipsing behind him.

All plausible making it all the easier to deny the actions that the undercover—or should we say “in the stall”—cop said happened. I’m not sure when toe tapping, foot touching and hand movements became illegal actions—there was nothing spoken except Craig’s plaintive “no-o-o-o” when he saw the cop’s business card and extended thumb gesturing for Craig to meet the officer outside the stall.

What is abundantly clear is that Craig is in deep denial. He says he’s not gay. His wife says he’s not gay. Lauer even went so far to ask if Craig was bisexual. The answer was no. What Matt didn’t ask was, are you a man who has sex with men?

These are the guys who don’t identify as gay. You’ll never find them at a Pride parade but you will find them furtively searching for a quick one while their wives are taking a nap during a Provincetown vacation.

Lucky for Larry, he’s not the only man in the Republican Party who has sex with men but would never, ever identify as gay.

The GOP—maybe we should start calling it the Gay Old Party—has a long history of duplicity when it comes to gay rights and gay men.

Remember a guy named Terry Dolan? In the 1970’s and early 80’s, he ran NCPAC—the National Conservative Political Action Committee. He produced hateful AIDS-baiting TV spots to help elect far-right Republicans and was instrumental in making Ronald Reagan president. A closeted gay man who could be found at the exclusive DC gay bars, Dolan died of AIDS in 1986.

Fast forward to 2006 and you have Mark Foley, the Florida Republican Congressman who blames his sexuality and his inappropriate behavior with Congressional pages on the supposed abuse he suffered at the hands of his childhood priest.

And, Craig isn’t the only one to frequent bathrooms.. Republican Bob Allen, a member of the Florida House of Representatives, was arrested this past July for actually offering a cop he met in a men’s room $20 for sex. After the arrest, Allen tried to use the police officer’s race—he’s African American—to deflect his guilt. He said he offered to have sex because the cop was a “burly black man” and he “didn’t want to become a statistic.” Allen was one of 21 Florida legislators to sign a friend of the court brief supporting the state’s ban on gays adopting children.

In Louisiana, St. Bernard Parish Councilman, Joey DiFatta’s past caught up with him. He too cavorted in men’s rooms and when his actions came to light he withdrew from a State Senate race.

Then there’s Glen Murphy, the 33 year old Indiana Republican operative, who this past summer became national chair of the Young Republicans. He’s has a history of getting fellow twenty-something Young Republicans drunk and them sexually assaulting them after they’ve fallen asleep. Murphy has advised candidates to use same-sex marriage as a wedge issue to paint their opponents as supporters of untraditional values.

These guys are just the tip of the iceberg—there are plenty of gay staffers who work for politicians who consistently vote against us as well.

Maybe these folks need to realize that being a Republican is a choice, being gay isn’t.

The Party Never Really Started

It’s been quite a whirlwind for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in the last few weeks.

The excitement leading up to the U.S. Senate vote on the Matthew Shepherd Act, also known as the hate crimes bill, was palpable. Across the country, LGBT activists worked with groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and spoke with one voice to their individual Senators telling them to pass the bill. With bi-partisan support, the Senate voted 60 to 39 for a bill that the House of Representatives approved in May with a vote of 237 to 180.

In a savvy political move, Senate leadership attached the bill to a defense reauthorization measure to continue funding the fiasco in Iraq. Once again abandoning his “compassionate conservatism” campaign call, Bush has said he would veto the hate crimes bill bowing to pressure from the Radical Christian Right who consider it a “thought crimes bill.”

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but that never let Bush or the Right stop them. The strategy behind attaching the hate crimes bill to defense legislation is that it would make it much more difficult for Bush to veto. We’ll see.

The hate crimes celebration didn’t last long, however. Once the community breathed a collective sigh of relief that the bill passed, that sigh turned into a shout as the activist leadership of the LGBT community railed against a move to delete the transgender community from the Federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act—or ENDA as it is more commonly known.

It seems that someone did a head count in the House and came up short if ENDA included protection for transgender Americans. The bill’s main sponsor, Massachusetts’ Congressman Barney Frank, decided it was best to take the “T” out of this LGBT non-discrimination bill so it could pass.

It was a political decision—calculated to get the bill passed so that, as Frank put it, we could protect as many people as possible—a  political decision that was derailed by the quick organizing of over 100 LGBT organizations and allies like People for the American Way.

The lightening speed at which we were able to bring a collective, incredibly loud “no way” to the exclusion of the transgender community was amazing. Blogs were ablaze. You could almost hear the web humming with automated e-mails and action alerts. New sites like www.nosubstitutes.org and www.unitedenda.org have popped up, virtually, overnight.

Both sites are great organizing tools. I just wish the LGBT community could respond as quickly to passing good legislation as it has to stopping bad legislation.

Caught in the middle of this maelstrom is the Human Rights Campaign, the LGBT community’s largest and most powerful political organization.

Formed in 1980, HRC has built an impressive “inside the beltway” reputation—and it is that insider politic that has so many upset. It seems that HRC took too long to voice its opposition to the Frank compromise bill and when it did, it wasn’t strong enough.

This is all about the politics of politics.

Instead of flatly coming out against the bill, the Human Rights Campaign reaffirmed its support for a trans-inclusive ENDA but was clear that it would not lobby against Frank’s revised bill. Some consider this to be playing both sides off the middle. I consider it to be shrewd politics by an organization who knows how to play the game.

And, that is what gets many of the grassroots LGBT activists mad. Maybe it’s because they’re not in a position to play the game, maybe it’s because they don’t want to. Whatever the reason, the hyperbole from many corners of the LGBT community regarding HRC’s decision is over the top and, quite frankly, naïve.

As a political entity, the LGBT community needs insiders as well as outsiders. Our movement has grown at lightening speed. We’ve accomplished so much in a relatively short period of time because we learned from other social change movements. Intentionally or not, we’ve taken a more sophisticated view of politics and recognize activism is needed at all levels—both inside and out.

To marginalize HRC because it’s not taking the “politically correct” stand—as defined by those who believe their position is the only effective approach—is not only doing a disservice to our community, but it is hurting our community.

21st Century Hitler

I’ve watched both 60 Minute interviews with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Each time I came away thinking, this guy is the 21st century’s Hitler—only a little more charming.

Hate was written all over Hitler’s face—you can see it every time you watch an old newsreel. Ahmadinejad hides his hatred behind a seemingly friendly face, almost always smiling. His eyes dark and congenial—hardly ever expressing what’s going on in the brain their fronting.

Like Hitler, Ahmadinejad thinks God is on his side and that his lies are the truth. But Iran’s president has also learned from the past. He’s mastered the American political art of never answering a question.

On this past Sunday evening’s 60 Minutes broadcast, Scott Pelley pressed him for a yes or no answer about pledging not to test nuclear weapons. In response, Ahmadinejad wondered if Pelley was a CIA investigator simply because the reporter was doing his job—trying to get to the truth.

Clearly, Ahmadinejad doesn’t value a free press—there really isn’t one in Iran—so the notion of being aggressively questioned by a reporter was obviously shocking.

“This is not Guantanamo Bay,” he said. “This is not a Baghdad prison. Please, this is not a secret prison in Europe. This is not Abu Ghraib. This is Iran. I'm the president of this country!"

In other words, I’m the President of Iran. In my country the press doesn’t get to ask me these types of questions and I’m certainly under no obligation to answer yours. And, if reframing the argument to make you seem like the tyrant—an interrogator from some of the United States’ worst prisoner embarrassments—then that’s what I’ll do to not answer your question.

Like I said, he’s mastered the art of not answering the question. But even in our country, that only goes so far. After a while, the press and the people see through the act and demand answers. We’re seeing that today with the country turning its back on our failed Iraq war. We’re no longer willing to listen to “mission accomplished,” “need more time,” or “troop surge.” We know its not working and we’ll make our voices heard loud and strong in 2008.

Ahmadinejad thought he could use that political trick at Columbia University this week when he answered some questions after his address at the school’s World Leaders Forum.

When asked about the treatment of gays in Iran, he said “We don’t have homosexuals like in your country . . . We don’t have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you we have it.”

Well he must have thought the sexual cleansing that has been going on under his regime was complete. Thankfully, it’s not.

There are still plenty of gays and lesbians that his death squads haven’t rounded up yet for torture, jailing and killing. But, they live a persecuted life. They live underground. They live in constant fear that the next knock on the door will be a policeman dragging them from their homes to probably never be seen again until they’re hung in the public square.

Yes, that’s the truth about Iran’s gay community. A truth he doesn’t want to speak. The transcript from the Columbia event was printed in its entirety on Ahmadinejad’s English website, www.president.ir. However, according to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, when you go to the Persian-language site—the place where his country’s media goes for authoritative transcripts of his speeches, any and all references to gays in Iran have been purged.

If Iran’s president doesn’t officially talk about gays in his country, then they must not exist. And, if they don’t exist, then the reality of his sexual purge of gays and lesbians won’t come to light. Not a single Persian-language media outlet in Iran has reported on his comments.

But, it is getting a lot of play elsewhere. The September 25th New York Times’ article about the event at Columbia lead off with “He said that there were no homosexuals in Iran—not one—and that the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews should not be treated as fact, but theory, and therefore open to debate and more research.”

Opening the event, Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger said to Ahmadinejad, “Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.”

Like I said--the 21st Century’s Hitler.