Anti-gay laws in some US states are as bad as Russia's? Not quite, but still bad.

We're all upset over the blatantly homophobic laws in Russia that make being an out gay person almost a crime.  Russia forbids "promotion" of homosexuality, which is interpreted as essentially any mention of this being a normal human variant.  Simply holding a rainbow flag is a crime. Ostensibly this is to protect the children.

But did you know that some US states are also oppressive in how they instruct children?  They either forbid mention of gay sexuality altogether, or require anti-gay instruction.  Obviously this isn't in the same league as the violence in Russia, but it's disheartening.

From Think Progress:

Back in the United States, nine states impose limitations on how educators can talk about homosexuality in ways that mirror Russia’s law.

The state by state list includes the fact that Texas state policy on sex education actually states that homosexual relations are criminal.  Even though the Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, overturned their law and decriminalized gay sex.

But Texas apparently has a flimsy relationship with the facts.

Here's the graphic.

Update:  Aravosis  calls the language to task

That’s not to suggest that the anti-gay laws in the states are “good,” by any means. But there’s something to be said for proportionality. During the 1980s, the US (as it does today) most certainly had a problem with racism. As did South Africa. But to suggest that the US, and the world, should not have spoken out about the evils of apartheid, since the US still suffered from racism itself, is not only absurd, it’s also incredibly counterproductive to the cause of human rights.... 

Gays in America are getting married, while gays in Russia are getting beaten. Gays in America serve openly in Congress, the judiciary, and the highest levels of government. In Russia, they most certainly do not.

What's wrong with giving students a list of churches?

From the Advocate:

The University of North Carolina, Wilmington, wants LGBT students to know there are churches that don’t take the “turn or burn” approach to homosexuality espoused by one area congregation — but its distribution of the information has ired some conservatives.

Late last month the school’s LGBTQIA Resource Office put out a guide to gay-friendly local businesses and other institutions, including churches. It listed Metropolitan Community Church (St. Jude’s, pictured), Unitarian Universalist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Episcopal congregations. The head of the sociology department has suggested professors share the information with students, FoxNews.com reports.

Mike Adams, a UNC Wilmington criminology professor and online commentator who frequently writes in opposition to gay rights, criticized the list ....

Speaking to Fox News, Adams admitted the list of gay-friendly churches probably did not violate the constitutional requirement of separation of church and state, noting that it would be a more serious problem if a professor used classroom time to advise students on where to attend church. But the university should cease distributing the information anyway, he said. Travis Barham, an attorney with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, also questioned the appropriateness of the list.

One of the memes of those opposed to equality is that "Christian" means "anti-gay". I suspect the real issue here is that they don't want people to know that there are gay-friendly Christians, and that the hard-right doesn't own "Christian". It's yet another example of why it is SO important for gay-friendly denominations and congregations to "come out" and be vocal.

And is "ired" really a transitive verb?

California FAIR Act, Prop8, and Harvey Milk.

CA governor Jerry Brown this week signed SB48, The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act , which mandates inclusion of gay people in instructional materials. The fundies' heads are exploding.

You see, one of the big scare tactics they used for Prop8 was that if gay people got married, then children would learn about gays! But if gay people didn't get married, they wouldn't!

On Twitter, I saw a post that said,

This is exactly WHY I voted YES on Prop8. Cuz I don't want my children influenced to be gay in any kind of way!!

So, this parent thinks that by learning that gays exist, their kids will be gay. Clearly one of those who thinks we all choose to be gay. (Aside: why would anyone choose to be gay? My personal opinion is that the fundies think that gays have better sex, and thus more people knew about gay sex they'd become gay. This suggests the fundies have lousy sex lives. But I digress.)

The first thing is that this exposes the Prop8 backers as liars. You see, denying marriage equality never did have anything to do with the schools. My favorite tweet is from The Rev Susan Russell:

Since we're going to teach about gays in school anyway, can we have marriage equality back now in CA, please?

You have to wonder if the supporters of Prop8 will realize that their backers lied to them.

The second thing is what the FAIR act, and the kerfuffle it's causing, reveals about the antis. And what it reveals is their desire to make us invisible. If they have to admit we exist, then they might get to know us. They might have to justify their abusive treatment of loving gay families.

Still, you might ask, isn't this a bit much? Mandating teaching about gay people>?

Well, In 2009, a school in Southern California told a sixth grader that she could not present a school report about Harvey Milk unless her classmates had parental permission to attend.

Natalie Jones, a sixth grader at Mt. Woodson Elementary School in Ramona, California, was given an assignment in an independent study project class to write a report on any subject she found interesting. She chose Harvey Milk. Milk, the United States’s first openly gay elected official, was one of Time Magazine’s “Time 100 Heroes and Icons of the 20th Century” in 1999, has been the subject of several books, an opera, a documentary film that won the 1984 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, and a feature film released in 2008 that won two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor.

After Natalie got a near-perfect score on her report, her class was told to make PowerPoint presentations about their reports, which they would show to other students in the class. The day before Natalie was to give her 12-page presentation she was called into the principal’s office and told she couldn’t do so.

The school said that because Harvey Milk was gay, a report about him fell into the category of sex education and the students would have to get permission slips to hear her presentation. Simply by mentioning his sexuality, it was "sex education". You see, the very fact that gay people exist is a threat, because of course it's all about SEX.

Really, that's their obsession with sex again.

Harvey Milk was an immensely influential progressive politician. He was gay. He was assassinated. This is an important period in California history and students should learn about it. Now they will.

Just Love: Conference opposing Ex-gay industry

We recently talked about being "born gay". It is therefore perhaps not surprising that the "ex-gay" movement, which is founded on the idea that it's "just a choice" is at the lead in opposing GLBT rights in this country. The so-called "ex-gay" organizations are criticized by mainstream medical professionals for the harm they do GLBT people. The supporters of this discredited movement are linked to the Uganda bill that would criminalize homosexuality up-to-and-including the death penalty. They claim to be driven by religion, but are viewed with dismay by many religious people.

The "ex-gay" movement is flexing its political muscle. It's not limited to religion any more. Its involvement in Uganda, the calls to criminalize homosexuality in this country , are all linked. Therefore anyone interested in GLBT rights in the secular sphere has to be aware of and fight back against these groups, not dismiss them as fringe religion.

On Saturday March 6, there is a conference opposing the so-called "Ex-gay" movement. The JUST LOVE conference, will be held at St Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, San Diego (which is a leader in local advocacy for GLBT rights). The conference will bring together leaders in medicine, law, faith groups, and advocacy to expose the ex-gay movement and raise awareness of its activities in the USA, as well as its role in the Uganda "kill the gays" bill. Speakers include Michael Bussee (survivor, writes at Beyond Ex-gay); Wayne Besen (Founder of Truth Wins Out, a non-profit that defends the GLBT community against anti-gay misinformation and the “ex-gay” industry) ,and Jim Burroway (from the Box Turtle Bulletin who exposed the link between ex-gay movement and Uganda).

There will be afternoon workshops for legal professionals, media coverage, allies in the faith community, and support/recovery issues for victims of the ex-gay movement.

This conference is FREE. More information here.

Draft program here.

Facebook pagehere.

The conference corresponds with an opposing conference promoting the "Ex-gay" abuse, also in San Diego. There will be protests against the emotional spiritual and physical violence done in the name of the "Ex-gay" movement. Check out this post from blogger MIke Tidmus for more background!

Education is the key to defend our community against the haters.

The Education Question

"I don't want my kids taught in school that gay marriage is okay." But as we saw it has nothing to do with marriage. What they are really saying is "I don't want my kids taught that GAYS are okay."

In a society such as ours, lots of people do things that we don't approve of. Roman Catholics don't approve of contraception, divorce, or remarriage after divorce. Observant Jews don't eat pork. Vegetarians won't eat meat. Mormons eschew caffeine. Values are taught in the home, and the only lessons the schools teach is that people are different, and we need to tolerate our differences.

Why is this so difficult? We don't live in a theocracy. Why is the potential fact of gay marriage so much more offensive than the presence of non-Christians, or meat eaters, or the divorced? The fact is we already have to deal with many people with whom we disagree on value judgments. It's completely unclear why "Teh Gay" (TM) are so much more reviled.

The fact is that gay families exist, and their children go to school. Children of straight parents will inevitably meet children of gay parents. To admit that these families exist is not to say you approve (any more than a Catholic "approves" of someone on their third marriage). Yet it is their very existence that is under attack. The infamous case of David Parker in Massachusetts is a case in point. He protested about a book that showed a picture of a gay family--not in any sexual context, mind you, simply a book that showed all sorts of families.

But he wanted his children removed from any situation where they could be "exposed" , even segregated from classmates who had gay parents, lest those classmates contaminate his child by mentioning they have two daddies. It wasn't gay marriage per se. It wasn't any endorsement. It wasn't anything about sex. It was the very fact of the existence of gay families that he objected to. (The group supporting him, MassResistance, has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.. More about the case and their lieshere.)

"I don't want my kids going to a gay wedding!"

Ah, that was one of the great lies of the Prop8 campaign, wasn't it! Yes, a teacher invited anyone in her class who wanted to, to attend her wedding. No one was forced, it was not a school sanctioned event, yet anyone who went had to have a parental permission slip. And some parents didn't send their kids. Indeed, the ugly irony is that the pictures of children at the wedding that were used in the pro-prop8 campaign were children of supportive families who wanted their kids there. Needless to say, the Pro-Prop8 campaign used these photos without permission. So much for parental consent, eh? The ironies abound.

You see, even though the parents who wanted to opt out, did, their problem is that ANYONE was able to go. They want to completely silence anything about gay couples, even for people who approve. It's not about marriage. It's not about their rights as parents. I have come to realize it's about their desire to impose their beliefs on EVERYONE by rendering gay people invisible, and sanctioning discrimination.

But one thing is clear in the aftermath of the Prop 8 decision. They did not eliminate our families. In fact the court held, 7:0 , that gay families must have exactly the same rights as straight families. All the court let them take away from us was the term "marriage".

So the kids will still need to learn about gay couples, in civics class, and from their classmates. The teacher will still invite her class to her wedding to see her "DP'd". And we will still have protections for our families and our children and take our part in the fabric of society.

Because we're still here.

Silencing Harvey Milk

There's an effort in California to have May 22nd, Harvey Milk's birthday, noted as "Harvey Milk Day" in the state. Not a holiday, but simply a named remembrance of someone who was a tireless worker for social justice as well as the first openly gay man elected to public office in the state. (The governor doesn't agree.) Of course, Harvey Milk was the subject of a recent biopic, and was a victim of assassination.

In Ramona, CA, a rural, conservative town in the hills of San Diego County, a student who wanted to do a presentation on Milk was forbidden to present it to her classmates.

Jones was told she could not talk about Milk because it violated the school district's strict policy on "family life and sex education." Days later, Jones was told she could only give the presentation during recess, and students would be required to get parental permission before they could attend.

The school's policy stresses that parents will be notified if their children are being exposed to lessons about "human reproductive organs and their functions, processes, or sexually transmitted diseases" as well as "family life, human sexuality, AIDS, or sexually transmitted diseases."

Bonnie Jones, Natalie's mother, called the ordeal "unbelievable" in a press release on Wednesday. "To say my daughter's presentation is 'sex education' because Harvey Milk happened to be gay is completely wrong."

Unfortunately, this makes perfect sense in the current right wing strategy. It has nothing to do with Milk's sexuality, which (aside from the adjective "gay") has nothing to do with his story. It's not about gay marriage, which wasn't even on the radar when he lived. It's nothing explicit about his sex life. It's his act of existence...it's OUR act of existence, that the school, and the conservatives, want to eliminate. This is about enforced discrimination.

"Schools that act as if any mention of the existence of gay people is something too controversial or 'sensitive' to discuss are doing a disservice to their students," the ACLU's Elizabeth Gill said in a statement.

Indeed. No newspaper or television is free of "teh gay". Will and Grace, Queer Eye, the L Word, are all years old. It's not as though kids are unaware that some people are gay. What are they afraid of: Milk's sexuality, or his message of equality and social justice? "My name is Harvey Milk, and I'm here to recruit you!!" was not just a rallying cry for the GLBT community. It was how he brought together a coalition of groups for a progressive agenda in the City.

But they are trying to hide that because he was gay. Because we are gay, they are trying the same thing. Claiming we are too controversial for prime time has been increasing of late. Trying to hide us. To deny us rights, and protections. Do not be silenced. Be Harvey. As he said, “I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up.”. Now it's up to us to be the change we need.

The Day of Decision is Tuesday, May 26th. BE THERE!