Five Minutes of Geography ? (tags)
The late Lenny Bruce once joked that the radical Right's fears about ? shock! ? sex education in the public schools were unfounded because schoolkids weren't going to come home and tell their parents, "Today at school we learned five minutes of geography and ten minutes of cocksucking." The modern-day radical Right's campaign to get rid of SB 48, a bill recently passed by the California legislature to require middle and high schools to teach the role and contributions of Queer Americans (along with Pacific Islanders and people with disabilities), is driven by a similar paranoia and a disbelief that there even are such things as Queer people ? and so far the Queer community's response to the attack on SB 48 is all too faithfully copied from the losing campaign against Proposition 8: a "coalition" made up mostly of straight people and a whiny argument about how we supposedly need "role models" to keep from drinking, drugging or suiciding.
SB 48 Referendum: THE Epic Struggle for Queer Rights in California (tags)
Roland Palencia, executive director of the Queer lobbying group Equality California (EQCA), calls the radical Right's attempt to get rid of the FAIR Education Act, also known as SB 48, "the greatest threat in years to LGBT [Queer] Californians." The Act adds Queer people, people with disabilities and Pacific Islanders to the list of communities whose "role and contributions" to American and Californian history and society must be acknowledged in lessons and textbooks used by the California public schools. Radical-Right activists, including some of the same people who successfully eliminated marriage equality in California via Proposition 8, plan to make it a referendum on the very existence and legitimacy of the Queer community and will likely wage an ugly campaign based on many negative stereotypes of Queer people. Palencia's group is fighting back by setting up a broad, mostly non-Queer coalition, and he, EQCA regional field director George Zander and openly Queer San Diego Unified School District board member Kevin Beiser spoke at the predominantly Queer San Diego Democratic Club August 25 to mobilize its members to join the campaign and help organize the grand coalition.
Rally Kicks Off San Diego Pride Events (tags)
San Diego's Queer (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Pride events kicked off Friday, July 15 at a rally on the pride festival site in Balboa Park. The featured speakers were New Age author and credentialed minister Marianne Williamson, who talked about marriage equality as a straight supporter who has performed same-sex weddings, and Daniel Hernandez, the young, openly Gay aide to Congressmember Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) who saved her life when she was shot at an outdoor rally in January. But the most powerful speaker was former San Diego Democratic Club president Larry Baza, who powerfully expressed the history of the Queer rights movement and the challenges it faces in the future.
The vote of the New York legislature to legally recognize same-sex marriage has produced a backlash of unexpected ferocity and scope. It comes from an Iowa-based organization called THE FAMiLY LEADER (that's the way it's printed on their logo) and it's called "The Marriage Vow." It's a far-reaching set of principles that goes beyond attacking same-sex marriage and supporting a Federal Marriage Amendment to ban it nationwide. It targets African-Americans in particular and says Black children born during the slave era were more likely to be raised by their mother and father than African-American infants born since Obama's election. It also calls for bans on adultery, "quickie" divorces, Sharia Islam and laws that don't conform to the Judeo-Christian agenda. The aim of its authors is to get all the current candidates for President to sign it ? and two Republicans, Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty, already have.