LGBT POV

Kudos to The Advocate’s news editor Andrew Harmon, who has committed his team to covering the Log Cabin Republican’s historic federal challenge to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in Riverside, California. Andrew reported on the trial Thursday, during which former petty officer 3rd class Joseph Christopher Rocha (pictured) and DADT expert Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a  think tank based at the University of California/Santa Barbara testified. LCR has posted motions and  the transcripts from the trial (here’s Thursday’s transcript).   UPDATE/CORRECTION: NO ONE IS COVERING TODAY SINCE THEY ARE GOING TO PRESS FOR THE MAGAZINE. 

Here’s an excerpt from Andrew’s summary of Thursday’s trial, which includes a brief interview with LCR lead attorney Dan Woods:

“Former petty officer 3rd class Joseph Christopher Rocha wasn’t the only soldier in his unit subjected to hazing by superiors. But the degrading harassment he faced struck a decidedly different tone.

In a federal trial challenging the constitutionality of “don’t ask, don’t tell” that began this week in a Riverside, Calif. courtroom, Rocha, 24, testified in graphic detail on Thursday about pervasive humiliation he suffered while in training to become an elite military dog handler — abuse that went far beyond ritual hazing.

In one incident, a superior gave him detailed and specific instructions on how to simulate oral sex on another man while fellow soldiers were paraded into the room to watch. In another he was ordered to crawl on all fours and was forced into a kennel filled with dog feces. Fellow soldiers in his unit called him “faggot” and assumed he was gay because he didn’t drink, smoke, gamble, or visit prostitutes in Bahrain, where he was stationed in 2005.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever recovered from it,” Rocha said of the abuse. “It was dehumanizing, I felt like an animal.”

Kerry Eleveld at The Advocate reports that “concurrent meetings took place Monday morning at the White House and on Capitol Hill that could help clear the way for “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal to be attached to the Department of Defense authorization bill later this week.”

Kerry’s report is pretty optimistic – obviously welcome news. I summarized the debate up to this point in a story I posted over the weekend. But truthfully, I was angry at President Obama for failing to use his platform speaking before the graduating class at West Point to make clear he wants DADT repealed this year – meaning before Democrats possibly lose seats in the November election. I also wrote about how no one seems to be linking the spike in military sexual trauma and suicide rates to DADT – borrowing an old ACT UP slogan to say Enforced Silence = Death.

Servicemembers United is also on the optimistic side – strongly urging you to GIVE ‘EM HELL – TODAY!

This is our LAST CHANCE to flood congressional offices with phone calls to send the message that support for repealing DADT is overwhelming.

We are no longer asking. We are DEMANDING that DADT be repealed THIS YEAR. We all have worked long and hard for this time to come. Now that it’s here, we cannot let the opportunity slip. Please join us on Monday, May 24th and help us flood our congressional offices with phone calls demanding repeal of DADT immediately.

Step 1) Call the DC offices of each of your state’s two Senators.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Step 2) Call the DC office of your district’s federal Representative.

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml

Step 3) Post a comment on this page letting us know how it went.

And finally, to all those still serving on active duty under the cloud of DADT, KEEP FIGHTING FOR US AND WE’LL KEEP FIGHTING FOR YOU.

The Advocate monthly magazine is out with its new issue and gracing the cover for the feature piece “Forty Under 40″ is Chad Griffin, who they describe as “aggressive, calculating, and determined to end inequality for gay and lesbian couples once and for all. This is why Chad Griffin, mastermind of the federal lawsuit against Proposition 8, is the new face of the marriage movement.”

Here’s an except from Andrew Harmon’s excellent story:

In Perry, Griffin masterminded the legal team—a ripped-from-the-headlines combination of Ted Olson, a former solicitor general under George W. Bush, and David Boies, Olson’s legal adversary in Bush v. Gore. He launched the American Foundation for Equal Rights to help foot the bills that are accompanying the legal challenge. The organization didn’t exist a year ago. Milk screenwriter and foundation board member Dustin Lance Black only hinted at an early iteration of the group in this magazine’s previous “Forty Under 40” issue, and it remains a small operation, with one full-time staff member and a board that includes Kristina Schake, Griffin’s business partner in the communications and consulting firm Griffin|Schake, and director Rob Reiner, who tapped Griffin in the Las Virgenes campaign and has worked with him on early-education causes. Aesthetically, the foundation’s website is nearly indistinguishable from, say, the Tea Party movement’s site: no rainbow hues, no equality symbols, just American flags—something Griffin was adamant about. “That’s my flag too. That’s the LGBT community’s flag as much as any other group,” he says. “We aren’t some different class of people that wants some unique right.”

In advance of his March 27 debut on Broadway in “Promises, Promises,” actor Sean Hayes finally granted The Advocate an interview. Apparently he was quite annoyed when they did a fake interview when Hayes was starring as Jack McFarland as part of the TV phenomenon known as “Will and Grace.”

Here’s an excerpt from the 2,636-word cover story:

“Suddenly everyone wanted to know if Hayes himself was gay and how he felt about playing a gay character. Faced with the very real prospect of jeopardizing his chance at landing straight roles down the road, he started reciting stock answers, variations on what he told the Detroit Free Press early on: “When I play a gay character I want to be as believable as possible. And when I’m playing a straight character I also want to be as believable as possible. So the less that people know about my personal life, the more believable I can be as a character.” And Hayes never pretended to be something he wasn’t; he never walked some pretty woman down the red carpet or faked a straight relationship.

Please click inside to read more of my reaction to the interview.

This afternoon from 4:00-6:00pm, Roots of Equality is hosting a panel discussion on the Gay Press, featuring yours truly and author Mark Thompson, who has a new book out on his days as an editor at The Advocate.

In fact, Mark was my editor when I wrote for The Advocate under the late editor-in-chief, Richard Rouilard in the early 1990s. And boy, do we have stories! This was also the time of ACT UP and Queer Nation – and it was a time when LGBT people of color were rightly pressuring local gay publications such as Frontiers and the Lesbian News to be more inclusive. We will also discuss the future of the LGBT press now that blogging is so ubiquitous. Hope you can join us. Please click inside for more info, including places to park.