The Republic of T.

This has got to be a joke. Right? [Via Queerty.]

Of course it is. Highlights after the jump.

Technorati Tags: current events, feminism, gender, masculinity, politics, religion

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First it was Iowa, where a judge ruled against the state’s ban on gay marriage (and then stayed his ruling hour later, but not before at least a few queers tied the knot). Now there’s two weird stories about presidential candidates and marriage. First, since when is a Republican candidate like Sam Brownback booed for opposing same-sex marriage?

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton continues to dodge the marriage question.

Technorati Tags: 2008 election, civil rights, current events, gay marriage, gay rights, marriage, politics

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Thirteen minutes. That’s the amount of time that passed between the moment police arrived to take a report from a bar employee in Roanoke, VA, who called 911 — after a man asked for directions to a gay bar, flashed his gun, and said he was “wasting faggots” that night — and the the moment when the shooting at the Backstreet Cafe was called in to police. When Ronald Gay stopped to ask an employee at the Corned Bee & Co. Bar for directions to a gay bar, flashed his gun, and declared his intentions, it was between 11:00 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Police arrived at Corned Bee & Co by 11:39 p.m., and by 11:46 p.m.

The shooting at the Backstreet Cafe, a gay bar in downtown Roanoke, was called in to police at 11:51 p.m. By then Danny Overstreet was dead, and six others wounded. Police stopped Ronald Gay around midnight, two blocks away from the bar. He quietly surrendered, and later told police that he’d thrown his gun into a garbage can (and gave them the location) because he didn’t want to harm any police officers when he was inevitably picked up. They, after all, were no this targets that evening.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, homophobia, politics

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A commenter at Pam’s asked an excellent question. Why is discrimination a one way street when it comes to discrimination?

why is discrimination allowed to go only one-way?  it’s patently unfair.  the existing protections for fundamentalist gay-hating christians must be removed–sexual orientation and religious beliefs must be held on the same grounds, and work in the same ways.  if i am the owner of a small (less than 15-person) business and i discover that one of my employees is a gay-hating christo-fascist, i should have the right to can his ass!

In other words, why is no one allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion but religious organizations are allowed to discriminate against others on the basis of their religious beliefs?

Technorati Tags: current events, discrimination, gay rights, politics, religion

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I’ve been so immersed in researching and documenting cases for the LGBT Hate Crimes Project that I haven’t had, or at least, taken much time to come up for air and do my usual blog reading and posting on other topics. But I’m glad I did come up for air this afternoon, or I’d have missed news that an “ex-gay” activist seems to have falsely reported being attacked by “gay activists.” Fortunately, I saw Jim’s post at Box Turtle Bulletin, or I’d still be too wrapped up in documenting hate crimes that did happen to notice one hate crime that didn’t happen.

Here’s what the PFOX activist reported.

The gays became infuriated when our ex-gay volunteers testified about leaving homosexuality. They adamantly refused to accept the ex-gays’ sexual orientation. One gay man went so far as to hit our ex-gay volunteer because he refused to recant his ex-gay testimony. We summoned a police officer, who ejected the gay man off of the fairgrounds. Our ex-gay volunteer decided not to press assault charges against the gay man because he wanted to turn the other check as Jesus had done.

But David at Ex-Gay Watch did some detective work that suggests there’s more fiction than fact in the above report.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, current events, hate crimes, homophobia, politics, religious

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This is rich. Speaking of ENDA, apparently it’s making some religious organizations nervous, despite the fact that it contains exemptions for religious organizations. It’s not because they’re afraid they won’t be allowed to discriminate any more. It’s because they might have to say that they discriminate, and say why.

Congress may soon call on religious institutions ranging from summer camps to charities to declare up-front whether they are unwilling to hire gay employees.

A bill that, if passed, would become the first federal law to prohibit employment discrimination against gays contains a broad exemption for religious organizations. But to qualify for that exemption, religious groups would have to declare “which of its religious tenets are significant” and must be adhered to by employees. Lawyers say this requirement could put pressure on religious organizations to state a doctrinal prohibition against homosexuality in order to continue to legally exclude gay job applicants.

“This is something new,” a law professor at George Washington University, Ira Lupu, said. The effect of such a law, Mr. Lupu said, would be that “there is no more First Amendment right to be exempt unless you want to tell us that making us hire these people is really in conflict with our religious commitments.”

It gets better.

Technorati Tags: civil rights, current events, discrimination, gay rights, politics, religion

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Or just another end-run?

It’s that time again. Time for another congressional hearing on the Employment Non-Discriminintion Act (ENDA), which would prohibit workplace discrimination baed on sexual orienation; of course, that’s with exemptions for religious organizations, the armed forces, businesses with fewer than 15 employees, etc. Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? My guess is that lots of people don’t know that it’s not illegal to fire someone from a job solely because of their sexual orientation; even if that individual performs his or her job well and gets nothing but positive reviews.

I remember my first congressional hearing on ENDA, shortly after I moved to D.C. I’d done some support work on the bill (the kind of work any administrative policy assistant does, and I got to attend the hearing. It was certainly exciting. I’d never set foot in the capitol before, and couldn’t help but be a little thrilled when Ted Kennedy and John Lewis came down the hall and stopped to shake hands with those of us who were lined up to attend the hearing in support of the bill. It was even exciting to see the opposition show up. But thinking back on it now, it all seems like so much kabuki theater.

Technorati Tags: 2008 election, bush, civil rights, current events, D.C., elections, gay rights, homophobia, politics, discrimination

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I very nearly subtitled this post “blood money.” I started researching it and writing it on the day I read two seemingly unrelated news articles. The first was about religious organizations that promote homophobia in a significant portion of their fundraising efforts have raked in over $400 million in the past year. The second was about the death of Richard Jewell last week.

Richard Jewell, accused by the media in 1996 of being the prime suspect the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing during that year’s Olympic Games was found dead in his home in west Georgia. The true perpetrator, Eric Robert Rudolph, would later bomb a gay and lesbian nightclub, the Otherside Lounge also in Atlanta. Rudolph also bombed two abortion clinics.

…It was later discovered that he had no involvement with the crime whatsoever and eventually homophobic, anti-government extremist, Eric Robert Randolph, pleaded guilty to the crime and is serving a life sentence.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, courts, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, homophobia, politics, religion

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“I always said he was a ___________________.” (Fill in the blank with favorite body part. This artist did.)

British artist Jonathan Yeo had every reason to be offended. The Bush Library in Texas had yet again rescinded a commission it had given him to paint a portrait of United States President George W. Bush. In the end, though, the artist decided to go ahead with his artistic portrayal of the 43rd president, even if he wasn’t getting paid for it — and created a portrait of Bush using a collage of pornographic images.

The tribute has not gone over well with Bush’s supporters. A spokesman for Republicans Abroad International described the portrait as a “cheap stunt” in an interview with the British tabloid The Sun. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Republican Party in Bush’s home state of Texas didn’t find much humor in the portrait either. “This picture is very distasteful,” he told the paper, adding angrily, “Why would anyone want to make a picture of our president from pornographic material?”

Why, indeed.

[Via lancerlord.]

Technorati Tags: anti-bush, bush, current events, humor, politics, art

In the five days following the murder of Bella Evangelista, just over a year after the murders of Ukea Davis and Stephanie Thomas, August of 2003 hadn’t gotten in any safer for transgender women in Washington, D.C. On August 16, 2003, Emonie Spaulding became the second transgender woman to be murdered in D.C. in six days, and the second of three transgender women to be shot, as Dee Andre was shot and wounded the same night that Spaulding was murdered.

The amazing thing about Emonie Spaulding’s murder was that the police and the prosecution seemed not to think that Spaulding’s murder was bias motivated. In fact, they were at a loss to imagine a motive for the crime until the moment the defense attorney stood up in court and gave them one.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, courts, crime, current events, gay bashing, gender, politics

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Edgar Garzon and Julio Rivera died just one block from one another; one block and eleven years. In the process of researching Garzon’s murder, I couldn’t help reading about Rivera’s as well. And once I finished writing up the entry on Garzon, it just made sense to write up Rivera’s murder as well. (Garzon’s friend, Andres Duques, blogs at Blabbeando, and wrote a must-read series of posts about the attack on Garzon, his death, and the aftermath.)

Aside from the obvious, two Latino gay men murdered in the same neighborhood more than 10 years apart, have more in common. Both galvanized the community. Vigils, and candlelight marches ensued in the wake of their deaths, with calls for the murders to be investigated as hate crimes. Rewards were raised for information concerning both murders. In both cases one one of the alleged attackers fled to another country.

And, most of all, more than ten years later, here we are still talking about whether stuff like what happened to Garzon and Rivera should even be considered hate crimes.

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