Category: LGBTQ

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Details on CT Ruling

Here is the .pdf of the CT Supreme Court decision, which includes this remarkable language:

Although we acknowledge that many legislators and many of their constituents hold strong personal convictions with respect to preserving the traditional concept of marriage as a heterosexual institution, such beliefs, no matter how deeply held, do not constitute the exceedingly persuasive justification required to sustain a statute that discriminates on the basis of a quasi-suspect classification. “That civil marriage has traditionally excluded same-sex couples, i.e., that the ‘historic and cultural understanding of marriage’ has been between a man and a woman’ cannot in itself provide a [sufficient] basis for the challenged exclusion. To say that the discrimination is ‘traditional’ is to say only that the discrimination has existed for a long time. A classification, however, cannot be maintained merely ‘for its own sake’ [Romer v.Evans, supra, 517 U.S. 635].

Instead, the classification ([that is], the exclusion of gay [persons] from civil
marriage) must advance a state interest that is separate from the classification itself [see id., 633, 635]. Because the ‘tradition’ of excluding gay [persons] from civil marriage is no different from the classification itself, the exclusion cannot be justified on the basis of ‘history.’ Indeed, the justification of ‘tradition’ does not explain the classification; it merely repeats it. Simply put, a history or tradition of discrimination – no matter how entrenched – does not make the discrimination constitutional.”

The boldface is mine. Stunning. The ruling also clarified that civil union is not the same.

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CT, CA, & Prop 8

The state of Connecticut has now made same-sex marriage legal! It’s the third state to do so, after Massachusetts & California, although of course Vermont has civil unions and New York is now recognizing same sex marriages that were performed elsewhere.

It’s exciting. It’s human. It’s patriotic.

That said, the forces for Prop 8 in California – which would repeal same-sex marriage rights – have a lot more money & are spending it on ads & whatnot trying to undo last year’s ruling. To get more information, doante, or find out what you can do, try noonprop8.com.

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LGBT People in Wasilla

Those books Palin was asking about having removed? Books about gays for children. Why am I not surprised?

Interviews with LGBT Alaskans in Wasilla, who talk about how Palin was very much involved with churches who made anti-gay sentiment a political stand, and who condone ex-gay therapies. Very, very important viewing, especially after Palin let it slide in the debate that she is for same-sex marriage rights (even if she doesn’t call it marriage).

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Genderqueer Vid

Has anyone watched this genderqueer video called Gender Rebel that was on Logo? You can watch the whole thing online (which is good, since we don’t get Logo).

The middle part, where Lauren and her partner try to explain genderqueer to Lauren’s aunt, and how they don’t think of themselves as a lesbian couple, is really interesting. The aunt is a lesbian in Howard Beach – notoriously macho, Italian, racist Howard Beach – who doesn’t get it, but I love that she says “I’ll fight to the death for you.” Which to me is mostly what counts.

There are more episodes planned, but I suspect every person who identifies as genderqueer will define it – and present it – differently than the next.

At 19, had this term existed then, I probably would have identified as genderqueer, though I’m still waiting to find a natal female who is genderqueer that dates boys. That is, it still seems a term used by those in the lesbian community, which is why I understand Lauren’s aunt’s confusion. To an “old school lesbian” genderqueer just looks like butch by another name. Even if it isn’t.

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Let’s Start with Seven, in Seven

In a week’s time, straight Americans will be standing up for LGBT Rights – here in New York, including Brooklyn, but also in California, Colorado, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, etc. The basic idea is that straight people will attend vigils – and other media-making events – in order to bring attention to the political issues facing LGBT Americans.

This is a damned good idea (and it’s brought to you by Atticus Circle, and Soulforce).

You can get involved by signing up here, and you can email your friends about it, too.

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Thank You Del

Activist and co-founder of The Daughters of Bilitis, Del Martin, has died. She co-founded the DOB – the first lesbian organization in America – with her partner, Phyllis Lyon, in 1955. Together they wrote and edited the group’s newsletter, The Ladder, and also co-wrote the 1972 book Lesbian/Woman. They were also issued the first marriage license after California’s Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the freedom to marry. That is, they were married on June 16, 2008, nearly 60 years after they met.

Godspeed, Del Martin. And Phyllis — what can anyone say? Thank you both so much for being so brave. Phyllis, I hope your bravery sees you through missing her in the days ahead.

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Book Review: Queer Catholicism

It’s been a year of Catholics, hasn’t it? From the sad news about Ted Kennedy’s health, to the deaths of Tim Russert & George Carlin. So the editors of Queer + Catholic might have unusually good timing, even if none of the Catholics who died this year were queer.

I’m a contributor to this book – I’ll say that upfront to say that I’m biased – but I honestly didn’t know what to expect from it. I feared I would be one of very few to have anything positive to say. But the more of this book I read – and I’ve read almost all of it already – is that I was very, very wrong. The editors have chosen some of the most tender eulogies to their childhood Catholicism, some complicated appreciations of having been both queer and catholic, and honestly, some straight-up love letters to the mysteries that are the Catholic Church.

It is hard not to especially love hearing the way gay men talk about being Catholic: about the first time they noticed the obscenity and eroticism of the way Christ was portrayed, or the many martyred saints, the homoeroticism of all boys’ schools. The love and shame and pride are served up in such equal measure, but always with that kind of gentle, sad-eyed quality that gay men do so well.

How gender-y this book is struck me as well. My own piece is very much about gender, of course: I wanted to be a priest but found I had a vagina, horror of horrors. The other lovely female perverts and poets in this collection are uncanny in the way they talk about bodies, about blood, about sex.

Because Catholics are, as a lot, obsessed with sex. I had an older, experienced crossdresser once tell me that it’s always the Catholic girls who are wild rides. & I believe him.

What is in this book isn’t just sex though; we all, as Catholics, become a bit Jesuitical in seeing always both sides of the same coin. So that sex becomes suffering, and redemption; sex becomes shame, but also pride; sex becomes beauty, and divinity, and transcendence.

So there is something about declaring myself a Catholic that seems exactly right to me in the way the Church’s mysteries always enfolded a little more than you bargained for, and to me, that’s downright vulvic. Mother Church, indeed.

If you’re Catholic, or interested in religion, or in art, or homoeroticism, or spirituality – or any or all of the above – do get the book. These are some of the best, most personal, marrow-full essays I’ve read in a long, long time.

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Too Much Drama

Not only are a ton of queens on Project Runway, but the benefits will be donated to Broadway Cares, in true queen style.

Sweetie looks fucking fantastic. But all of the NY queens we know are fabulous: Hedda Lettuce, Miss Understood, Acid Betty, Sherry Vine. (I hope I didn’t miss anyone!)

Thanks, ladies.

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Diane Schroer & the LOC

The ACLU has a stunning blog post up about the Diane Schroer / Library of Congress case.

Science doesn’t matter, the Library insists, it’s what Congress was thinking of when it passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “Everett Dirksen,” a reporter said to me in the hall outside Court, “wasn’t thinking of Diane Schroer when he helped pass the Civil Rights Act.” “Probably true,” I said as she headed off to meet her cameraman, “but James Madison wasn’t thinking of TV when he penned the First Amendment either.”

The issue isn’t the way someone who wrote or voted for a law was thinking it would apply; the issue is the concept embodied in the law. What was the idea? The flip answer is that on this point, Congress didn’t have an idea; many of those who voted to put sex into the 1964 Civil Rights Act were hoping it would kill the bill.

But in 1964, as today, it is hard to believe that anyone thought sex was just about chromosomes or even just anatomy. It was about the whole package. The issue in the case is how does that idea apply in a world where the package is different than we thought in 1964, a reflection of more things than we thought, maybe not including a lot of things we thought, maybe more fluid than we thought.

It was written by Matt Coles, the Director of the ACLU’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & AIDS projects. Read it.

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Rachel on TV

Rachel Maddow will have her own show on MSNBC starting September 8th, 2008. It’ll be at 9PM, after Keith Olbermann. We’re both big fans of hers, and are very very pleased that all her guest hosting for Olbermann panned out.