(Editor’s note: In part one of this series responding to SCLC Rev. Eric Lee charging the “white male-dominated LGBT community” with “unconscious racism” – I looked at racism within the LGBT community as it surfaced during the post Prop 8 rallies. Here I look more deeply at Lee’s charge and what precipitated it. – Karen Ocamb)
Lee slams LGBT organizations
Given SCLC’s General Counsel Dexter M. Wimbish’s statement to me that“we all would be better off as a country, not just as an organization” if SCLC and NAACP rejected their stand of “neutrality” against the segregation of marriage equality, how is it that SCLC’s Rev. Eric Lee can say in the Huffington Post that LGBT organizations are “holding all of us back in our movement for justice and equality.”
I spent many hours on the phone and on email with a slew of different people since the Huffington Post piece appeared on Friday trying to piece together what had happened to prompt this diatribe from LGBT straight hero, Rev. Eric Lee. Most people were willing to talk only off the record since the issue of race and inter-organizational politics is so delicate.
Please click inside to read more about why Rev. Eric Lee felt so insulted.
Two days before the 47th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Rev. Eric Lee, President of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles, posted an essay on the Huffington Post blasting the LGBT community for “unconscious racism.”
“There is a travesty of justice occurring within lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organizations that is holding all of us back in our movement for justice and equality.
[cut]
I believe that the cause of justice and equality also suffers when the unconscious racism of the white male-dominated LGBT community goes unchecked.”
My jaw dropped. I’ve known Rev. Eric Lee (pictured here at a post-Prop 8 rally) for two years – since he took his courageous stand in favor of marriage equality and against Prop 8. I know him to be a man deeply committed to justice and equality and very comfortable around gay people. So I was stunned that he delivered this painful broadside against the entire LGBT community – especially knowing how beloved and respected he is by that community – without explaining the specifics of what prompted the deeply troubling charge of racism – unconscious or not – or offering any solutions.
This is the first of a three-part series responding to Rev. Eric Lee’s charges. In the segment I look at racism within the LGBT community.
I’ve been a little surprise at the burst of attention over the “news” that Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and attorney general candidate Steve Cooley would defend Prop 8 in the federal trial, if elected and given the opportunity.
Maybe it’s just a California thing – but LGBTs here have been discussing this since before the primaries. In fact, it was a key point during the April 25 Equality California Political Action Committee Forum with all the Democratic candidates for attorney general.
In this post, I look at who’s saying what about defending Prop 8 and get some guidance from Lambda Legal’s Jon Davidson. Here’s an example of some of Davidson’s insight: “If they get elected, Whitman and/or Cooley might also seek to file an amicus brief after their election or after they are sworn in, which would be after the oral argument. They would need to seek permission to file late. There is no way of knowing whether the Ninth Circuit judges hearing the case would grant such a request to file late.” (emphasis mine)
One of the difficulties trying to keep up with all the news during these not-so-dog-days-of-summer for both Frontiers In LA and LGBT POV is that sometimes stories have to wait to get posted. This is one of those delicious moments in which the Courage Campaign’s Rick Jacobs confronts the National Organization for Marriage’s Brian Brown. Again – standing ovation, please, for Courage’s invaluable Prop8TrialTracker and its off-spring, NOMTourTracker, created specifically to cover NOM’s apparently lackluster five-state tour. So enjoy this sparring during which Brian pretends he’s standing up to the Big Intimidating Gay Bully.
So many LGBT reporters and bloggers are doing a good job serving as eyewitnesses to history as the LGBT movement for equal rights bursts with visibility. But from a Prop 8 perspective, I want to especially commend Rick Jacobs and the Courage Campaign, which is providing an incredibly important resource with both its Prop8TrialTracker.comand its off-shoot on the same site, NOMTourTracker, working in cooperation with Freedom to Marry.
As Courage’s Eden James points out, someone who regularly posts comments on Prop8TrialTracker is Kathleen Perrin, who blogs as ownbycatz. Perrin has been posting invaluable Prop 8-related public documents (except transcripts which are available at the American Foundation for Equal Rights) on her Scribd account: http://www.scribd.com/ownbycatz
Someone who has emerged as a grassroots heroine is Courage’s Field Director Arisha Michelle Hatch, (pictured), a former lawyer and Obama 2008 organizer who explains in this interview with Prop8TrialTracker’s Adam Bink (from OpenLeft), what it’s like following Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher around on their National Organization for Marriage Tour in order to expose show NOM’s scarce attendance and their false assertions.
In a preview of her video interview with Dr. Alveda King in Atlanta on Friday, Hatch said:
“My streak of remaining disengaged as an interviewer was broken today in front of the Capitol building in Atlanta. I’ve interviewed Larry Adams, a NOM rally attendee, that suggested that the solution to homosexuality was lynching; I’ve interviewed a Pentecostal minister, speaking in tongues in Providence; I’ve endured Brian Brown’s spin without flinching.
But today was different.
Five minutes into my interview with (video coming), I began to cry.”
Thank heavens for LGBT equality activists and the bloggers who post about them! Otherwise how would we know what was really going on in the culture wars? How would we know that only 40 “protect marriage” supporters showed up for the much heralded National Organization for Marriage’s “One Man, One Woman” bus tour stop in Indianapolis? They’ve been met at every stop along the way by Freedom to Marry supporters, who turned out over 250 LGBT and allied supporters to counter NOM’s rally, according to Bil Browning’s post at Bilerico. He also provided this sign from one of NOM’s God-fearing supporters. This sign alone is critical in countering the “victim” meme NOM and Protect Marriage has been using in court and the media, as Mark Hefflinger reported here earlier this month.
Some of the quotes from Larry Adams: “What you gotta do with sin is take it out.” And, “if it was punished like it was supposed to be, there wouldn’t be so much homosexuality out there.”Larry also admits that he has been attracted to another man, but “I knew it was from the devil so I avoided it.”
UPDATE: Michael Crawford from Freedom to Marry says that they have launched a petition campaign to “Tell NOM to Denounce Call to Murder Gay Couples.” The petition says, in part: “Your fear-mongering and assaults on gay families are inciting prejudice and inviting violence. We call on you to immediately denounce these tactics and the harm you are doing to gay and lesbian families and the national conversation around marriage.”
But contrast this reporting on LGBT blogs with the slick faux-news report from NOM about them being “bullied and intimidated,” a video which can be easily distributed to churches and the NOM network created during Prop 8. Additionally, consider that without LGBT press and blog reporting to counter “reports” such as this, the lazy or otherwise-engaged mainstream media could consider this video, conveniently handed to them by NOM, to be the “truth.”
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) produced a fake news-style report about their summer marriage tour. This is a smart tactic that enables lazy or resource-less religious organizations and conservative media outlets and bloggers to play the spot as if it’s the real thing.
Meanwhile, the Courage Campaign is tracking the NOM tour and just reported that NOM’s president Brian Brown threatened the NOM Tour Tracker videographer with arrest. PERHAPS Brown didn’t want anyone to see images such as this one, taken by Courage staffer Anthony Ash, on the ground in Annapolis where Brown appears to be kicking off the rally to a collection of staffers. Follow the drama here: “#NOMturnoutFAIL: One Man, One Woman”
Many LGBT people do not realize that Cleve Jones, famous for his work with the late legend Harvey Milk and for creating the NAMES PROJECT AIDS Memorial Quilt has a day job working with the hotel workers’ union, UNITE HERE.
On Sunday, Cleve and 70 members of UNITE HERE Local 11 marched in the Long Beach Pride Parade promoting their coalition project “Sleep With The Right People” with straight Latina housekeepers yelling, “Hey, Hey! Ho, Ho! Homophobia’s got to go!” At a Saturday luncheon, gay Hilton Long Beach hotel worker Andres Gallegos spoke about LGBTs respecting their worker-called boycott at the Manchester Hyatt in San Diego and the Hilton Long Beach, which refuse workers the right to unionize.
“Sleep With The Right People is about building an important coalition between the labor movement and the LGBT rights movement,” Jones said in a press release. “We’re not going to get anywhere if we go it alone, and we’re not going to get anywhere if we don’t stand up and fight.”
Please click inside for more on the boycott and UNITE HERE’s campaign.
Has it been two years already? Two years since LGBT people in California got a taste of equality when the California Supreme Court issued their historic and moving decision saying marriage is a fundamental constitutional right which had been improperly denied to same sex couples. And a month later, the marriages began. And five months after that – equality was stripped away a simple majority vote of the people with the passage of Prop 8. LGBTs in California still can feel those moments of joy – and sucker-punched pain. And after a failed attempt to repeal Prop 8 this year, several groups – including Equality California and the LA Gay and Lesbian Center have continued doing outreach, voter identification and trying to figure out how to move Yes on Prop 8 voters to marriage equality before the next attempt to repeal Prop 8 is put before voters in 2012.
Now Rick Jacobs and the “Equality Hub” arm of the non-gay, progressive Courage Campaign has come up with something different – which they will announce Thursday morning in San Francisco. (Rick Jacobs is seen here in the middle backstage at a post-Prop 8 rally in downtown LA with Yashar Hedayat, now San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s campaign manager, and SCLC/LA’s Rev. Eric Lee.) It involves equality and “guerrilla theatre” so you know it will at least be engaging.
Please click inside to read the Courage Campaign’s media advisory about how they plan to launch their new campaign.
Monday morning, come rain or shine – probably rain – LGBT people will join in the annual parade in Los Angeles celebrating the contributions of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..
Milton Davis, LA Field Manager for Equality California, told LGBT POV that EQCA will march with a contingency with groups that include Here to Stay Coalition, Black Lesbians United, the Jordan Rustin Coalition, and the Courage Campaign.
Davis says:
“We will be wearing white tops in a gesture symbolizing peace and unity between the Black and LGBT communities. There were dozens of signs made yesterday indicating that is a pro-LGBT contingency. The signs provided will relate to the groups involved as well as general slogans related to peace, justice, etc.”
The group is meeting at the Lucy Florence Cafe – owned by openly gay twin brothers Ron and Richard Harris – (3351 W. 43rd St., LA, 90008) in Leimert Park at 9:00am where coffee will be served. Water and snacks will be provided as well. Shuttles will take people from Lucy Florence to the starting point of the march.
Observers of the federal challenge to Prop 8 in San Francisco were deeply disappointed with the US Supreme Court ruled that there would be no broadcasting of the trial proceedings outside the federal courthouse. Reporters and bloggers stepped up to provide live-blogging of the critical evidentiary hearing.
There has been so much interest in the trial, Patrick Range McDonald at the LA Weekly reports that freelance journalist and filmmaker John Ireland intends to produce a re-enactment of the trial based on transcripts and post the video on YouTube.
Late Sunday, the American Foundation for Equal Rights sent out a press release with a wrap up synopsis of the first week of trial testimony. Please click inside to read their summary.
NPR is reporting that the US Department of Justice is intervening in the case of a gay high school student who was beaten up for being effeminate.
(Listen to the four minutes All Things Considered story here.)
The case – and the DOJ – are focusing on the Title IX statute, which prohibits discrimination against students on the basis of gender. Most people think of Title IX as it relates to women and sports at universities.
In this case, 15-year-old Jacob, who lives in Mohawk in upstate New York, was harassed for being effeminate before he came out as gay at 14. The lawsuit alleges that his fellow students threw food at him and told him to get a sex change. But as I discuss in this essay, this case of gay bashing and bullying is not an isolated incident in this national climate of willful ignorance and bigotry in schools, the media and the US Supreme Court.
To those of us who dreaded going home for the holidays lest the intimacy of the family moment expose our dark gay secret – the California Courage Campaign is saying – HAVE those conversations, even if you don’t come out. Start the conversation about full equality. History, says Courage Campaign founder Rick Jacobs, is on your side.
Here’re two video Courage Campaign put together with help from actors Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Eric McCormack to encourage LGBTs and straights alike to start having conversations about full equality for LGBT citizens. Click inside to read Rick’s comments and get links to “how-to” help.
The effort to return to the California ballot to repeal Prop 8 in 2010 hit a major snag Monday. After conducting “the first phase of extensive and groundbreaking research about public beliefs and concerns about marriage and homosexuality,” the Courage Campaign and Lambda Legal both announced that they are waiting until more hearts and minds are changed before launching another campaign.
Though neither organization released the research data upon which they based their conclusion, I’ve spoken with David Fleischer, a longtime political analyst who heads up the LGBT Mentoring Project and has conducted his own research who reached the same conclusion. Please click inside to read my report.
Day Two of Camp Courage Sacramento kicked off with the infamous “Team Chants” module. After 20 minutes of preparation, each small group performed a short chant, usually centered around themes of equality and social chance. Whether a group’s chant came together or fell apart, the crowd roared with laughter and elation after each performance. A boisterous time was had by all.
Editor’s note: Rick Jacobs, founder of the Courage Campaign, gave a stirring – and very personal – speech at the end of a protest march in Los Angeles commemorating the one year anniversary of the passage of Prop 8. The march also happened to be the night after the loss of marriage equality in Maine. Click inside to read Rick’s inspirational remarks.
Camp Courage is an intensive two-day training designed to teach the principals and skills of community organizing to activists working to restore marriage equality to California. Inspired by the “Camp Obama” trainings the powered neighbor-to-neighbor organizing across America in 2008, Camp Courage teaches empowerment, team building, leadership development, and grassroots organizing skills. This weekend, we’re in Sacramento.
Just got this in from Jasmine Leiva at the Courage Campaign. As someone who had an abortion in 1975 and who had friends bleed to death from botched abortions – this is no intellectual or religious debate for me and the majority of women. This is as real as human rights and healthcare can get. Please do what you can. Click inside for info and phone numbers. Thank you. – Karen O.
URGENT: Call now to save women’s rights
Right now, the House of Representatives is debating and about to vote on an amendment that could either roll back women’s rights — or destroy the health care bill. We can stop it now if you can make a call to two key California Representatives ASAP.
I first became aware of Julia Rosen during the No on Prop 8 campaign when she and a number of other (mostly male) bloggers created this wild and effective netroots/blogger push during the latter part of the campaign. She regularly blogged (and still does) for Calitics – one of California’s preeminent political blogs. In October 2008, Julia was working with Rick Jacobs and Eden James at the Courage Campaign and her no-frills work ethic, her internet savvy and her clear brain power earned her the kind of admiration that usually wins awards. Instead, Julia went to Maine. Here is her “lessons learned” report, cross-posted with permission from Calitics. Click inside to read her thoughts.
(Editor’s note: In part one of this series responding to SCLC Rev. Eric Lee charging the “white male-dominated LGBT community” with “unconscious racism” – I looked at racism within the LGBT community as it surfaced during the post Prop 8 rallies. Here I look more deeply at Lee’s charge and what precipitated it. – Karen Ocamb) 
Two days before the 47th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Rev. Eric Lee, President of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles, posted an 
I’ve been a little surprise at the burst of attention over the “news” that Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and attorney general candidate 
So many LGBT reporters and bloggers are doing a good job serving as eyewitnesses to history as the LGBT movement for equal rights bursts with visibility. But from a Prop 8 perspective, I want to especially commend Rick Jacobs and the Courage Campaign, which is providing an incredibly important resource with both its 
Thank heavens for LGBT equality activists and the bloggers who post about them! Otherwise how would we know what was really going on in the culture wars? How would we know that only 40 “protect marriage” supporters showed up for the much heralded National Organization for Marriage’s “One Man, One Woman” bus tour stop in Indianapolis? They’ve been met at every stop along the way by 
Many LGBT people do not realize that Cleve Jones, famous for his work with the late legend Harvey Milk and for creating the NAMES PROJECT AIDS Memorial Quilt has a day job working with the hotel workers’ union, UNITE HERE.
Has it been two years already? Two years since LGBT people in California got a taste of equality when the 
Monday morning, come rain or shine – probably rain – LGBT people will join in the annual parade in Los Angeles celebrating the contributions of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..
The group is meeting at the 
Observers of the federal challenge to Prop 8 in San Francisco 
NPR 
To those of us who dreaded going home for the holidays lest the intimacy of the family moment expose our dark gay secret – the California Courage Campaign is saying – HAVE those conversations, even if you don’t come out. Start the conversation about full equality. History, says Courage Campaign founder Rick Jacobs, is on your side.
With a photo of openly gay marriage bill sponsor Thomas Duane thanking a colleague for her vote, the 
The effort to return to the California ballot to repeal Prop 8 in 2010 hit a major snag Monday. After conducting “the first phase of extensive and groundbreaking research about public beliefs and concerns about marriage and homosexuality,” the 
Day Two of Camp Courage Sacramento kicked off with the infamous “Team Chants” module. After 20 minutes of preparation, each small group performed a short chant, usually centered around themes of equality and social chance. Whether a group’s chant came together or fell apart, the crowd roared with laughter and elation after each performance. A boisterous time was had by all.
Editor’s note: Rick Jacobs, founder of the 
Camp Courage is an intensive two-day training designed to teach the principals and skills of community organizing to activists working to restore marriage equality to California. Inspired by the “Camp Obama” trainings the powered neighbor-to-neighbor organizing across America in 2008, Camp Courage teaches empowerment, team building, leadership development, and grassroots organizing skills. This weekend, we’re in Sacramento.
I first became aware of Julia Rosen during the No on Prop 8 campaign when she and a number of other (mostly male) bloggers created this wild and effective netroots/blogger push during the latter part of the campaign. She regularly blogged (and still does) for 
Subscribe to RSS
