LGBT POV

KABC News Channel 7, the local ABC News affiliate, featured a story at the top of their newscast about the upcoming ruling from Chief US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker on the constitutionality of Prop 8. That ruling will be issued between 1:00p and 3:00p today.

KABC News interviewed LA Gay & Lesbian Center CEO Lorri Jean: ”Most of the experts believe that the case that the other side put on was so weak that they expect Judge Walker to issue a decision that says that the United States constitution protects gay people too, just like everybody else.”

Noting that the losing side will appeal the case for to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, then to the Supreme Court, Jean said: ”That is the scary part. This is the most conservative Supreme Court in 70 years in this country so it’s not a slam dunk.”

Possible GOP presidential candidate Fred Karger of Rights Equal Rights (formerly Californians Against Hate) told KGTV in San Diego that he is confident that Walker will overturn Prop 8.  ”I’m very optimistic,” Karger said. “It is an equal protection issue. Everyone should be treated equally.”

There has been some discussion about whether same sex couples should dash out and get married if Walker rules to overturn Prop 98, as expected. Protect Marriage has asked Walker to immediately stay his own ruling so as not to create more legal confusion. Walker is expected to order the stay.

Please note: San Diego-based veteran gay journalist Rex Wockner is keeping track of Day of Decision events at his blog. So far, he has information for 40 cities in 9 states.  There are two sites in Los Angeles: 6 pm at West Hollywood Park and at 8 pm Downtown Los Angeles at Olvera Street Plaza.

ADVISORY: I am also on deadline for Frontiers In LA and my news writer is on vacation. Posting may be light here as I write the other news for the magazine in order to be free to blog consistently once the decision is issued.  Don’t want to miss history!

Like so many of us, my friends Mary Jo Godges and Renee Sotile are anxiously awaiting District Court Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling on the constitutionality of Prop 8, the amendment passed by voters in 2008 that stripped away the right of same sex couples to marry in California. Walker does not have to give any advance warning that the decision is imminent – so we’re all just holding our breath.

Mary Jo (wearing the glasses in this photo) and Renee got married on Election Day 2008, becoming among the same sex couples married before the right was rescinded. When Mary Jo told me she had former Vice President Al Gore and LA Gay & Lesbian Center CEO Lorri Jean on videotape talking about the case – I realized this was more than just waiting for the news. For them, the wait alone was like a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, threatening their marriage, as well, though the California Supreme Court ruled the 18,000 or so same sex marriages remained valid. I asked Mary Jo to write about their marriage – just a reminder to everyone what this Prop 8 ruling is all about. Please click inside to read Mary Jo’s story, plus see video of Lorri Jean on the ruling and Mary Jo and Renee’s wedding.

But first – considering how prescient Al Gore is (he was warning about climate change long before An Inconvenient Truth) – here’s the exchange between Renee and Gore, during a book tour stop in Beverly Hills on Nov. 12, 2009. Renee hands him a DVD of a documentary she and Mary Jo made about Christa McAuliffe, the first Teacher in Space who was killed when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986. (Christa McAuliffe: Reach for the Stars).  Gore says, “I hear good things about the court decision coming up on Prop 8.” He says this six months after the American Foundation for Equal Rights announced they filed Perry v, Schwarzenegger and two months before the case went to trial in San Francisco.

Wonder about what services the L.A.Gay & Lesbian Center have for women? For instance,  the Center has the Audre Lorde Lesbian Health Program that enables visitors to discuss intimate health issues without fear of embarrassment or intimidation.  The Center also has a Transgender Health Program, as well many other programs and activities not related to health issues.

Center CEO Lorri L. Jean and the Los Angeles Women’s Network hold a discussion about the Center’s services for women tonight from 7:30-9:30pm at the Renberg Theatre at The Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Place, Los Angeles, CA 90038. Some of the women who provide those services will also be present.

The format is for Lorri to make some remarks, then answer questions from the audience. Dr. Marki Knox, co-chair of the Center’s board of directors, will moderate the Q&A. A reception in the courtyard will follow. To RSVP, go to: www.facebook.com/centerlawn or call Nellie Sims at 323-993-7691

US Sen. Barbara Boxer, who recently introduced a bill to extend COBRA health benefits to domestic partners, will be a featured speaker at Sunday’s Rock for Equality rally at the LA Gay & Lesbian Center in Hollywood. Boxer is expected to face a tough re-election battle this November.

But excitement is building over the anticipated announcement by Rep. Linda Sanchez, a member of the House Subcommittee on Social Security, that she plans to author legislation that would bring equality to Social Security benefits.

The Rock for Equality campaign organized by the LA Gay & Lesbian Center and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force demands an end to Social Security discrimination against tax-paying same sex couples. Organizers will rally at the Center’s McDonald/Wright headquarters at 1625 N. Schrader Blvd at 9:30am and then march down Hollywood Blvd and Vine Street for a “rocking chair rock-in” at the Social Security Administration building around 11:30am.

Please click inside for more info and to read the resolution passed by the LA City Council supporting efforts to bring equality to Social Security benefits.

Rachel Maddow fans know how she gets all geeky-giggly when talking about “infrastructure” – how great the need is to fix and maintain the crumbling structures and the highways and byways that keep America moving.

Perhaps someone in the US Interior Department should talk to Michael Fleming, Executive Director of the David Bohnett Foundation to see how it’s done. Late Wednesday, Fleming announced grants totally $500,000 to “refresh” the computers in 24 David Bohnett CyberCenters across the United States, including the CyberCenter at the LA Gay & Lesbian Center. (Pictured: Paul Moore, Program Manager, David Bohnett Foundation and Lorri L. Jean, Chief Executive Officer of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center; photo by Patricia Williams.)

The “refresh” program was started in 2004 to keep the CyberCenters up-to-date with each CyberCenter receiving brand new state-of-the-art equipment on a consistent basis, about every three to four years.

Building self-perpetuation into a development plan – what a concept! But this is not just routine maintenance: this is social activism quietly at work. Click inside to read more about the program and what cities are getting grants

At his Inauguration in 1960, President John F. Kennedy said the torch had been passed to a new generation. “Ask not what your country can do for you,” Kennedy said, “ask what you can do for your country.”

And young people by the thousands responded, joining the Peace Corp and creating a counter-culture that cared about eliminating racism and sexism and poverty. LGBT people were there, too – some on the frontlines like the late Morris Kight and Don Kilhefner who created the Los Angeles Gay Community Services Center as a refuge for those coming to terms with their gay identity.

But now, after 50 years of serving America in numerous ways – including automatically paying into Social Security – tax-paying LGBT seniors are asking their country to do something for them: they want – and need – the Social Security they deserve when a partner passes away. Many seniors are used to two-household incomes and without the Social Security supplement – especially in this economy – many seniors are finding themselves with huge bills, no money and living in their cars while awaiting precious and scarce affordable housing.

Leading a new campaign to bring awareness to the urgency of this issue is the LA Gay & Lesbian Center with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Wednesday they launched Rock for Equality, a rally & rock-in to call attention to and end the severe economic discrimination that is embedded in Social Security Administration policies and to secure equal recognition of same-sex relationships.”

They are producing a national event on either side of Tax Day. The first rocking rally will be held in Los Angeles on April 11, 2010, followed by another in Washington, D.C. on April 18.

Rock for Equality is also being lead by seniors themselves, some of whom are featured in this video and on the website. They are billing the event as “a new kind of protest for one of the most critical civil rights issues of the 21^st Century: equal rights, equal recognition and economic fairness for LGBT Americans.” Please click inside for more info.

At the historic August 2007 forum in which Democratic presidential candidates were questioned about their beliefs and policies on LGBT issues, singer Melissa Etheridge talked to Sen. Hillary Clinton about how wonderful gays felt finally being recognized under President Bill Clinton.

“We were very, very hopeful – and in the years that followed, our hearts were broken. We were thrown under the bus. We were pushed aside. All those great promises that were made to us were broken. And I understand politics. I understand how hard things are, to bring about change. But it is many years later now, and what are you going to do to be different than that? I know you’re sitting here now; it’s a year out — more than a year. A year from now, are we going to be left behind like we were before?”

Please click inside to see where I’m going with this. UPDATE: THE WASHINGTON POST REPORTED LATE THURSDAY THAT THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES WILL HOLD A SEPARATE HEARING WITH DEFENSE SEC. ROBERT GATES AND ADMIRAL MIKE MULLEN, CHAIR OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF ON DADT. RACHEL MADDOW LATER SAID THE RESULT COULD BE A DADT-LITE WITH RESTRICTIONS PLACED ON THE INVESTIGATORY PROCESS.

This is LA Gay & Lesbian Center CEO Lorri Jean at the start of Election Night one year ago – anxious with excitement about the likely prospect of the election of America’s first African American president – and hoping-beyond-hope that all the hard work that went into defeating Prop 8 would materialize – and same sex couples would continue to have the right to marry. After 8:00pm Pacific time, hope turned to anxiety – and by the next day, with the certainty that Prop 8 had passed – anger. Click inside to read Lorri’s story.

Election Night one year ago was simultaneously thrilling and devastating with the election of America’s first African American president and the passage of antigay Prop 8.
Click inside to read my contemporaneous story summing up the No on Prop 8 campaign. (Protest stories coming up).

(Editor’s note: No one would really think of LA Gay & Lesbian Center CEO Lorri Jean as screaming with delight or racing through the halls proclaiming anything – but the May 15, 2008 decision by the US Supreme Court ruling that the ban on marriage rights for same sex couple was unconstitutional got her just giddy enough to do that. Click inside to read her story.