The Republic of T.

I’ve been in meeting most of the afternoon, so I haven’t had a chance to read anything, let alone post anything. But it was nice that the first thing I read when I get back to my desk was that Florida’s anti-gay adoption law has been overturned.

Today a Florida circuit court today struck down a state law that bars lesbians and gay men from adopting (see yesterday’s blog post for more about the case). The court granted adoptions to our client Martin Gill, a North Miami resident who, along with his partner, has been raising two foster children since 2004.

The court ruled that the ban violated the equal protection guarantees of the state constitution because it singles out gay people and children raised by gay people for different treatment for no rational reason. The court also found that the ban denies children the right to permanency provided by federal and state law under the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.

The court’s decision comes after a four-day trial in October where the court heard from experts on children’s health and development and the justifications offered by the state for the ban. In reaching its decision, the court rejected the false assumptions and stereotypes about gay people that the state offered to justify the ban, holding that many “reports and studies find that there are no differences in the parenting of homosexuals or the adjustment of their children. These conclusions have been accepted, adopted and ratified by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatry Association, the American Pediatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League of America and the National Association of Social Workers. As a result, based on the robust nature of the evidence available in the field, this Court is satisfied that the issue is so far beyond dispute that it would be irrational to hold otherwise; the best interests of children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption.”

There’s also a video about the family involved in the suit, talking about how the ban affected their sons.

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It’s their world. The rest of us just live in it.

I wrote about this earlier, but another story about minority reaction to passage of prop 8 came to my attention via the LGBTPOC listserve.

California’s gay marriage ban could open the door to legal discrimination against unpopular groups if the state Supreme Court allows the voter-approved measure to stand, blacks, Latinos, Asians and other minorities said.

The November 4 vote, supporting an end to legal same-sex marriage in the most populous U.S. state, has caused a nationwide furor as opponents of the measure decry what they consider a civil rights violation.

…Legal scholars say the measure, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, breaks new ground by limiting the courts’ ability to protect minorities.

“They could take away any right from any group,” said University of Southern California Law Professor David Cruz, who filed a brief in favor of gay marriage in an earlier case.

This is something I tried to convey, with varying degrees eloquence and success in my first ever appearance on bloggingheads.tv.

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Drop Dead. That’s the best answer that some conservatives have been able to offer to a country in teeth of the worst financial crisis we’ve faced in a generation. When the Wall Street crisis loomed and the bailout was being debated: let the market fail, and risk another Great Depression, “for the sake of the altar of the free market.” Now, the economic downturn having worsened — and in ways that are more deeply felt in parts of the country far from centers of financial or political power — their response to rescuing the largest remnant of our manufacturing sector? “Drop Dead,” and devil take the hindmost.

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OK. I know I posted this picture a while back, and I know that Virginia Republicans were seriously working the “Hooters Demographic” with Palin, but I honestly don’t get it. And it has nothing to do with my being gay, believe me. I can spot, and appreciate a gorgeous, sexy woman as well as anyone. (It’s just that I’m not going to want to sleep with her, so much as take her out for lunch and maybe a little shopping.) When it comes to celebrities women like Angela Bassett, Catherine Zeta-Jones can stop me in my tracks.

But what, please somebody tell me, what is sexy about Sarah Palin?

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Yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance. My intention was to post something yesterday featuring some of the stories from the LGBT Hate Crimes Project, but I was swamped with work, and then got called into meeting. So, it didn’t happen.

But since I missed posting this yesterday, I thought I’d post it today.

It’s not all of the transgender stories, though. You’ll find more here.

Reading the headlines over the past week, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a single agency in the United States government that conservatives haven’t left in worse shape than they found it. I’ve been reading about demoralized government employees, under-resourced departments, and agencies left in shambles after eight years of Republican rule.

A few days after the election I participated in a telephone survey about the outcome. The surveyor, at one point, asked me how I felt about the Bush administration and the congressional Republicans. After a couple of tries at explaining conservative failure, I finally blurted out, “People hate government, and don’t believe it can do any good, just can’t govern effectively.”

After this week, I think I’d probably amend that statement. Conservatives don’t believe government doesn’t work. They believe it shouldn’t. And when they get elected they make damn sure it can’t.

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If you’re like me, and like a lot of other people, you probably woke upon November 5th wondering what the hell happened. The country appeared to take step forward. It looked like we were making progress. Unless you were gay, and maybe wanted to get married, now or someday.

In that sense, it was kind of a letdown. And though we’ve all had a chance to blog about it ad nauseam, until now most of us haven’t had a chance to  pose questions to the leaders of the campaigns to defeat the initiatives. Until now.

Bil, at BIlerico is  hosting a liveblog today at 7 p.m. with Kate Kendal, Nadine Smith, and Barbara McCullough Jones. They’ll take your questions about Prop 8, Amendment 2, and Prop 102.

You can sign up below to get an email reminder of the liveblog.

Gay people in Massachusetts won marriage equality. Five years later, the sun still rises and and sets, the mountains haven’t crumbled, the oceans haven’t boiled, and — most shocking of all — heterosexual marriage appears to be doing just fine.

Over 11,000 same-sex marriages later, neither has happened.

Massachusetts has yet to become, as former governor Mitt Romney predicted, the “Las Vegas of same-sex marriage.” Gay marriage rates leveled off at about 1,500 a year - about 4 percent of all state marriages - in 2006 and 2007. The divorce rate in Massachusetts has remained the same - and the lowest in the country.

…What’s really changed is more subtle than cosmic, more about the everyday lives of gay couples in Massachusetts than about a national transformation. Gay and lesbian couples here said they are attracting fewer startled looks when they rent cars, less consternation when they hold hands, fewer awkward questions when they visit spouses in hospital rooms.

“When we’re out together as a couple, it really doesn’t come up; we’re never challenged anymore,” said David Wilson, one of the plaintiffs in the 2003 SJC case and the current chairman of MassEquality, a gay-rights advocacy group. “It’s now considered normal.”

And that’s what the other side is afraid of. That people might see us as human beings who laugh, love, and live our lives pretty much the same way they do.

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Wow. I’ve been busy with daily, detail-oriented, deadline-driven work until just now. So, I missed this. It probably isn’t news to anyone else, but half the day goes by before I get to catch up news, etc.

eHarmony has changed its tune on queers. Sorta.

The California-based company will begin providing same-sex matches under as part of a settlement with New Jersey’s Civil Rights Division.

Garden State resident Eric McKinley filed a complaint against the online matchmaker in 2005.

Under terms of the settlement, the company can create a new or differently named Web site for same-sex singles. The company can also post a disclaimer saying its compatibility-based matching system was developed from research of married heterosexual couples.

Neither the company nor its founder, Neil Clark Warren, admit any liability.

In addition, eHarmony will pay the division $50,000 to cover administrative costs. It will pay McKinley $5,000 and give him a free one-year membership to its new service.

A separate site, huh? How, uh, Jim Crow-esque of them. (”We’ll just put those people over here, dear customers. So you can go right on pretending they don’t exist.”)

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An Australian blogger has laid out an ambitious first-term agenda for the Obama administration.

Four major pieces of pro-gay legislation should be passed within Obama’s first term.
First will be the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which will protect gays from hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace for the first time at a federal level. With a Democratic majority in both houses, transgendered protections removed from ENDA before the election will most likely be reinserted.

Later should come bills to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy responsible for the sacking of over twelve thousand gay military personnel over the last 15 years, and the Defense of Marriage Act that bans any kind of recognition of same-sex couples at a federal level.

Well, yeah. I’d go along with all of the above. However, beyond using the bully pulpit of the presidency to oppose discrimination and support equality, there’s little the president can do on any of the above until or unless Congress sends passes a hate crimes bill, ENDA, a repeal of DOMA. 

That doesn’t mean there can’t be some changes made right away, tho’.

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In the time since I started the LGBT Hate Crimes Project, I don’t ever had a follow-up or an update in which the victim of an earlier attack is eventually murdered. Until now. Via the LGBTPOC listserve, I learned last night that Duanna Johnson — whose case I wrote about in August — has been murdered.

The videotaped beating of a transgender woman in police custody in Memphis last February led to charges against two officers and national condemnation from gay rights groups. The officers were fired, and the Police Department overhauled some of its procedures and began sensitivity training for the entire force.

But a week ago, the woman, Duanna Johnson, 43, was found fatally shot near downtown. Ms. Johnson’s death has revived scrutiny of the case as the department is under pressure to find the killer.

“Duanna Johnson’s case was tragic before, and now it’s an almost unimaginable loss,” said Jared Feuer, the Southern regional director of Amnesty International. “Her treatment demonstrates a culture of violence against transgender people that must be addressed.”

Ms. Johnson sustained a gunshot wound to the head late on Nov. 9, the police said, and officers found her body after responding to a shooting call in North Memphis. Investigators said three men were seen near the crime scene before the officers arrived, but police officials say they have no suspects, have made no arrests and do not have a motive for the killing.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay civil rights group, called for a federal investigation.

It’s a terribly sad ending to what was, by all reports, a hard life.

To say that 43 year-old Duanna Johnson leads a difficult life would be an understatement.  At her small, rundown, North Memphis house you’ll find condom wrappers on the ground outside her door. 

Her power meter is missing.  Not that it matters because her electricity was turned off months ago after she stopped paying her utility bill.

She has one extension cord running from her bedroom window to the neighbor’s house.  They charge her $20 a month to plug into their electricity.   It powers the single fan Duanna uses to cool her house.

And because Johnson has no running water in her home, neighbors often let her use their bathrooms to wash up and take care of her personal hygiene.

And, as I posted before, her position is one that many transgender women face.

The D.C. media, in contrast, wants you to believe that it was the “lifestyle” that Bella and Emonie were living that led to their deaths - as if their transgender status was a simple life choice, and that this choice somehow forced their killers’ hands.

Being transgender can be a recipe for a difficult life. Many transgender people are cut off from the employment and education opportunities that are basic expectations in our culture, and discrimination leads many into sex work as their only means of survival. Such may well have been the experience of Emonie and Bella.

Some studies have put transgender unemployment as high as 70 percent, well above even the worst levels in these economically troubled times. While many places have enacted legislation to protect the rights of individuals seeking and keeping employment - regardless of their gender expression or identity - no such protections exist nationally, or in Washington, D.C.

And they still have to find a way to make a living.

During a press conference following Evengelista’s murder, Budd told how transgendered women informed her that they turned to prostitution only after they had been denied jobs because of their appearance.

“It’s a matter of simple survival,” Budd said. “Some of the girls have no other choice but to turn to the streets for survival.”

… Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said about 50 people attending a transgender “speakout” meeting in the District on Sept. 9, discussed a wide range of issues and problems faced by transgendered people, including the issue of prostitution.

“It’s about economic opportunity or the lack of opportunity,” Keisling said. “I call it survival sex work, which is not the same as commercial sex work,” she said.

“If you were thrown out of your house at 10 and you didn’t finish school, what are your chances of going to college at Georgetown?” she said.

I don’t know much about Johnson’s story before the jailhouse beating that turned a spotlight on her life, but it probably took a course similar to other transgender women’s stories.

I won’t speculate about who might be responsible for Johnson’s murder at this point. But I hope the matter is thoroughly investigated, and every potential lead followed-up.

Most of all, I hope she can finally rest in peace.

Now that the election is over, and in light of Johnson’s murder, I’ll probably dedicate a bit more time to updating the hate crimes project.

Well, the NAACP has shut my mouth on this one. I was pretty hard on them this summer, when I got wind of a PFOX exhibit at an NAACP event. But it looks like the outcome off the proposition 8 vote has raised some alarm with civil rights groups, including the NAACP. [Via Kip.]

Meanwhile, five civil rights groups asked California’s highest court Friday to annul the ban on the grounds that Proposition 8 threatens the legal standing of all minority groups, not just gays.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and two other groups petitioned the state Supreme Court to prevent the change from taking effect.

The petition is the fourth seeking to have the measure invalidated. But it’s the first to argue that the court should step in because the gay marriage ban, which overturned the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay unions, sets a precedent that could be used to undermine the rights of racial minorities.

Eva Paterson, president of the San Francisco-based Equal Justice Society, said the election raises the specter of voters deciding to bar illegal immigrants from public schools, disenfranchising black voters or otherwise using the ballot box to promote segregation.

“The court ruled that to discriminate in the area of same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and violated our guaranteed equality,” Paterson said. “Why should a slim majority of Californians be able to put discrimination back into the California Constitution?”

OK. there’s one thing that bears repeating here.

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