MEDIA CONTACT:
Roberta Sklar
646.358.1465 or 917.704.6258 Cell rsklar@thetaskforce.org

 
September 22, 2005

National Gay and Lesbian Task force slams expected Vatican guidelines barring gay men from the priesthood

"This is part of the church hierarchy's calculated - and frankly, evil - campaign to scapegoat gay people for the decades of appalling sex abuse of children and young people that it alone created, nurtured and covered up.' - Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman

Pope Benedict XVI is set to approve an 'Instruction' that gay men should not be ordained as Roman Catholic priests. The document calls on bishops to bar even celibate gay men from seminaries and comes as the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is about to begin Vatican-ordered inspections of its 229 seminaries, looking for, among other issues, "evidence of homosexuality."

Statement by Matt Foreman

"This new 'Instruction' is disgusting and destructive, but hardly surprising given this pope's long-standing, unbridled hatred for gay people. While he's at it, he should order that the Sistine Chapel be painted over and that the Vatican get rid of all the sacred works of art created for it by so-called 'disordered' gay people over the centuries.

"This is part of the church hierarchy's calculated - and frankly, evil — campaign to scapegoat gay people for the decades of appalling sex abuse of children and young people that it alone created, nurtured and covered up. This smokescreen will never hide the reality that the abject, willful negligence of the hierarchy resulted not only in thousands of victims but in essentially squandering nearly $1 billion donated by parishioners to pay damages to those victims.

"Sadly, this affront to the basic tenets of the Gospel is nothing new. The church has many centuries of experience in violent witch-hunting - from pagans to Jews to Orthodox Christians to Muslims to Protestants. This new Inquisition - like those before it - will accomplish no good, but only cause more harm to the church and to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics. We call on all people of faith and goodwill to denounce this latest affront to the human dignity of gay people from the Catholic Church."

Satire from the web.

Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed. The sanctity of Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

Children can never succeed without both a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbids single parents to raise children.

Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. We could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans...

* Forward this if you believe that laws against gay marriage are just plain stupid.

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

Prelate says seminaries should bar men with strong gay 'inclinations'

AP Survey: Support for anti-gay marriage amendment collapses on Beacon Hill

By Steve LeBlanc and Theo Emery, Associated Press Writers  |  September 11, 2005

BOSTON --A fragile coalition of lawmakers cobbled together to support an anti-gay marriage amendment last year has collapsed, virtually guaranteeing same-sex marriage will remain legal in Massachusetts, at least for now.

A poll of lawmakers conducted by The Associated Press has found at least 104 who planned to vote against the amendment when it comes up for a second vote on Wednesday. That's enough to defeat the measure, which would also create civil unions.

Last year, months after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that same-sex marriage was legal under the state constitution, the measure passed by a 105-92 margin. To get on next year's state ballot, the amendment needs the support of a majority -- at least 101 -- of the state's 200 lawmakers in the second round of voting.

Opposition to the measure is likely even deeper than the survey indicates.

Several lawmakers who voted against the proposal last year could not be reached for comment. Others who have voiced strong opposition to the amendment in the past declined to respond to the survey.

The AP attempted to reach all 200 lawmakers with at least two phone calls between Sept. 6-9. Of those reached, 104 said they would vote against the proposal, 19 said they would support it, and 3 said they were undecided.

The reasons for the collapse are many, rooted in the language of the amendment, which seeks to broker a compromise between foes of same sex marriage and supporters of gay rights by outlawing gay marriage but enshrining civil unions.

The compromise ultimately had an opposite effect, alienating foes of gay marriage by creating civil unions and offending gay rights supporters by banning gay marriage.

Perhaps the best indication that support for the amendment -- which was already eroding -- is in free fall are the number of lawmakers abandoning their support of the measure.

More than a dozen lawmakers who voted for it the first time around said they will switch their votes this week, either because they fully support gay marriage or oppose civil unions.

Others simply said that after more than a year of watching gay couples marry with no ill effect on society, they see no need to rescind the right.

Rep. Anne M. Gobi, D-Spencer, had a change of heart after seeing how the opportunity to marry has changed the lives of so many couples. She said she could not support the compromise amendment, as she did last year.

"I haven't talked to any married heterosexual couples that have felt threatened by same-sex marriages," she said. "When you look at the world situation and all the terrible things that are happening, there's a lot worse things ... than allowing two people who love each other to be together."

Rep. James Brendan Leary, D-Worcester, said he didn't want to use the state constitution to take away rights rather than create new ones.

"It's a dangerous precedent to take away rights that have been granted by the court for an identifiable group of people," he said. "It's not simply a policy issue. It's a question of how we use our constitution."

Many foes of gay marriage, who supported the amendment in the hopes of preventing gay marriages from happening, are drawn to a second, much stricter alternative amendment that would ban gay marriage without granting civil unions.

The earliest that proposal, which cleared a key hurdle last week when it was certified by Attorney General Thomas Reilly, could go before voters is 2008.

"We are going back to the beginning and defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman," said Rep. Philip Travis, D-Rehoboth, who voted for the compromise amendment last year, but now plans to vote against it.

Supporters of that amendment must still collect the signatures of 65,825 registered voters, and win approval for it in two sittings of the Legislature. But because the amendment begins with citizens, only a quarter of lawmakers -- a much lower threshold -- must vote for it.

Gay marriage opponents said they reluctantly voted for last year's compromise and welcome the chance to vote for a simple ban.

"I was not a supporter of gay marriage. The (compromise) amendment was the only amendment at that time, because all the other amendments were defeated," said Rep. Paul J. Donato of Medford, who said he would support the new proposal.

Former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, a gay marriage opponent, said the new proposal is superior because it enshrines marriage between a man and a woman, which he said is best for children. But he added the measure would ensure rights for non-married couples, such as inheritance or hospital visitation rights. It's worth the wait to vote on it, he said.

"I'd rather get it right than discriminate or hurt anybody," he said. "I think that it strikes that fair balance."

Some lawmakers who have supported gay marriage in the past declined to respond to the survey, saying they believed the vote was still too narrow.

Rep. Byron Rushing, D-Boston, a vocal backer of same-sex marriage whose district includes Boston's heavily gay South End, declined to say if he would again vote against the gay marriage ban.

"Not on this issue," he said, when asked how he would vote. "It's too close."

The compromise amendment won initial approval last year after some of the most wrenching debates seen on Beacon Hill, with lawmakers tearfully pleading their case on both sides while the nation and the world looked on.

Wednesday's debate promises less drama.

Since Massachusetts' first-in-the-nation legal gay marriages started taking place on May 17, 2004, thousands of same-sex couples have tied the knot here.

Gloria Bailey-Davies, 65, said she's not surprised the amendment appears headed for defeat. She and her partner, Linda Bailey-Davies, 59, were one of the original seven couples who sued for the right to marry.

After 35 years together, the couple was finally able to marry and adopt each other's last names.

"We are finally able to let them see we are everyday people who need the same legal benefits and protections as everyone else," Gloria Bailey-Davies said. "We both feel ever so much more secure knowing that no matter what happens around any health care issues, we will be able to care for each other. We are now each other's legal next of kin."

Many new lawmakers are planning to vote against the measure. Most had been pressed on their stand on the issue before Election Day.

Rep. John Keenan, D-Salem, said he would vote against both last year's compromise and the proposed alternative amendment if it reaches lawmakers.

"Most of us who came in my class have declared one way or another. It's a fairly easy question for us," he said.

And not everyone is switching their vote.

Rep. James H. Fagan, D-Taunton, said he's sticking by his yes vote -- not because he opposes gay marriage, but because he wants the state's citizens to vote on it.

"I support their right to vote," Fagan said. "I would suggest that people do not vote to amend our Constitution." 

Jose Padilla and he Death of Personal Liberty 

"The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of theExecutive." Judge Antonin Scalia

By Mike Whitney 

09/10/05 "ICH" -- -- I had to sit down when I heard the Padilla case had been settled. I literally felt sick to my stomach, like I was gasping for air. The case of Jose Padilla is quite simply the most important case in the history of the American judicial system. Hanging in the balance are all the fundamental principles of American jurisprudence including habeas corpus, due process and "the presumption of innocence". All of those basic concepts were summarily revoked by the 3 judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court. The Court ruled in favor of the Bush administration which claimed that it had the right to indefinitely imprison an American citizen without charging him with a crime. The resulting verdict confers absolute authority on the President to incarcerate American citizens without charge and without any legal means for the accused to challenge the terms of his detention. It is the end of "inalienable rights", the end of The Bill of Rights, and the end of any meaningful notion of personal liberty. 

I remember reading 3 or 4 years ago, in Zbigniew Brzezinski's, "The Grand Chessboard", of a strategy to dominate the world that would result in the loss of freedom for American citizens. Brzezinski recognized the inherent threat that liberty posed to the development of empire. He stated: 

"It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." (p.35) 

Brzezinski's prescient forecast has proved to be astonishingly accurate. The determination of the neocons, the Federalist Society, the far-right radio giants, the Olin, Scaife, Coors and Bradley foundations, and the entire stable of right-wing, quasi-fascist groups that operate openly within American society, have pounded the final wooden stake into the heart of the personal freedom. The basic legal protections that safeguard the citizen from the arbitrary and hostile action of the state have been rescinded. We all stand naked before the absolute power of the President. 

The government has no case against Jose Padilla, a hapless Chicago gang-banger who allegedly visited Pakistan before he was arrested at O'Hare airport 3 and a half years ago. He is simply an unwitting victim of circumstance; a convenient scapegoat for eviscerating the rule of law. The Bush administration has used its extraordinary influence in the media to demagogue the case and keep him locked-away without producing one shred of evidence against him. The entire affair has been a grotesque mockery of justice. The hard-right groups that engineered this plot know exactly where the fault-lines in American jurisprudence lie; in the inalienable protections of its citizens. 

Padilla became the test-case for shattering the Bill of Rights with one withering blow. It has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectation. 

There's no chance that the Supreme Court will retry the case and draw more attention to the shocking details of this judicial-coup; they already punted once before preferring to pass it along to the lower court. Rather, the meaning of the case will be ignored until the president needs to exercise the newly-bestowed powers of supreme leader. That authority is now firmly rooted in the legal precedent established by the Padilla ruling. 

No Longer the Land of the Free 

Americans seem unaware of the great loss we've all suffered by the Padilla verdict. If the President is allowed to arbitrarily decide who has "inalienable rights", than those rights become the provisional gifts of the government rather than a reliable shield against the abuse of state power. It means that every American citizen is as vulnerable to the same violation of human rights as the men currently imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. It also means that the legal wall that shelters the citizen from the random violence of the political establishment has been reduced to rubble. 

The Padilla ruling is the blackest day in American history. The icons of American liberty; the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Statue of Liberty; are empty shrines if they are not underscored by the guarantee of freedom. The Vietnam Memorial, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, the 4th of July, the Federalist Papers, and the American flag; all gratuitous expressions of a principle that has vanished from the political landscape. 

Every man and woman who ever wore an American uniform and died in the service of their country, died in vain. Their sacrifice has been rendered completely worthless by the action of the 4th Circuit Court. 

George Bush has now extinguished every meaningful part of the American dream. The last vestige of the social contract has been defiled and desecrated by the administration and their court. Personal freedom is dead in America; it was impaled by the verdict against Jose Padilla. How many thousands or, perhaps, millions of Americans will die or endure incalculable suffering to regain what we have lost on this tragic day?

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com

The ruling came in three separate cases involving lesbian parents who conceived under differing donor circumstances.

The court decreed that despite their differing circumstances each woman had custody rights and monetary obligations just as parents of the opposite sex do.

The decision comes as a bitter debate over gay marriage rages in California.

In two of the cases two lesbians were living together and had a child after one of the partners donated an ovum to the other, who was then artificially inseminated.

The women were raising the children together, but when they broke up in each case the mother who bore the child wanted to be considered the legal mother.

In the third case a lesbian couple, listed as Elisa B and Emily B, were living together and decided that they should both become pregnant by an anonymous donor.

It was agreed that Emily B would stay at home to raise the couple's three children, but when they later split Elisa tried to argue that she should not have to pay maintenance for Emily's biological children.

A panel of state Supreme Court justices ruled for the first time that those laws which hold estranged fathers to account should also apply to gay and lesbian couples who have children together.

Gay marriage

Three years ago the same court ruled that men who take on the role of a father figure can become legal fathers even of they are not the biological parents.

"These legal principles apply with equal force in this case," Justice Joyce Kennard said.

Being a legal parent "brings with it the benefits as well as the responsibilities," she added.

"The court is now protecting the children of same sex parents in gay families in the same way children are protected with heterosexual couples in heterosexual families," said Jill Hersh, a lawyer for one of the women.

The rulings come amid controversy over whether gay marriage should be legal in California.

San Francisco started issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples in February 2004, after the city's new mayor decided to defy state law and allow gay weddings.

More than 3,400 gay couples got married before California's Supreme Court ordered a halt the following month.

August 17, 2005

http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_432/iraniansourcesquestion.html

August 13 / 14, 2005

Scientific Knowledge Became More Majestic Than the Book of Revelation

Being a Protestant Fundamentalist

By ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ

Sometimes, I think I may be the only leftist, Marxist, feminist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist in the United States who was raised as a Protestant Christian fundamentalist. I remained an evangelizing true believer of the Southern Baptist faith (the largest Christian denomination in the U.S.) in rural Oklahoma until I was 19 years old. My dream growing up was to be a missionary. Leftist accounts or opinions about such individuals and groups strike me as being correct in expressing alarm, but also based on acute ignorance combined with hatred for the lower classes, particularly poor and working-class whites, particularly in the South. Most such self-appointed "experts" steer away from dealing with Protestant fundamentalism among Latinos (the fastest growing market) and African Americans (a majority) and focus on poor whites, the only bigotry that is accepted by most of the left.

Although there are at least two high-profile WASP "born agains" from the blueblood Eastern ruling class ­ George W. Bush and Pat Robertson ­ they are atypical; most Protestant fundamentalists grow up in the poorer segment of the working class, often rural, as I did. The proto-fascist right wing (now mainstream ruling class) has been able to capture and promote for their own ends a mass movement that took off in the Reagan administration but had been brewing since the 1950s when Protestant fundamentalism and patriotism merged under the banner of anti-communism. Politicized fundamentalism was born in the vortex of Cold-War anti-communism and in opposition to school integration that followed the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954. It took three more decades for political fundamentalism to begin achieving national electoral hegemony, fired by a new cause, ostensibly women's right to have abortions that was legalized nationally with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973. Ostensibly, because the right wing backlash was much larger than abortion and went to the heart of the ancient socio-political-cultural acceptance of patriarchy by both men and women, which, as a result of the mass women's movement in the preceding years, was shattered. Gay liberation picked up steam during the same period. Less than a decade later, the right wing brought Ronald Reagan to the presidency, although the anti-women's rights movement had scored victories under born-again Jimmy Carter's administration.

The right wing, hiding under the cover of anti-communism and coded white supremacy (crime, welfare, pre-marital pregnancy), continued under the guise of "protecting the family." But, behind those masks were and are interests that favor the military-industrial ruling class, which pushes for the end of social spending, leaving the state as a vehicle solely for the benefit of capitalism and the war machine. Everything is to be privatized, with the imagined nuclear family as the self-sustaining core of the social order.1

The Democratic Party appears incapable of challenging organized fundamentalism and the transformed Republican Party. Many liberals and a good number of leftists seek to restore the New-Deal-to-War-on-Poverty stance of government, but the policies of that era were driven by the organized working class in the first instance and the Civil Rights Movement in the second; those government policies were stopgaps to prevent the overthrow of capitalism. Now it is obvious that they did not go to the root causes of oppression and exploitation, and it is doubtful that the reform strategies of the past can be re-enacted today or in the future.

What concerns me is not so much that the ruling class has come to this strategy of populist fascism with politicized Christian fundamentalism as its mass base ­ after all, capitalism is a corrupt and unworkable (for the many) system ­ as that so many of those who are committed to social justice, even to a future socialist society, have written off the poor and the working class that they perceive to make up the "mass movement" of this project. Instead of working to unmask the agenda of the ruling class, many liberal and left activists are trying to figure out how to offer religion lite and avoid the issues of abortion, gay liberation, and other "social" issues. One thing I know about Protestant Christian fundamentalists from having been one, however, is that it cannot be substituted by "spirituality."

Christian fundamentalism/evangelism is a precariously balanced house of cards that dwells in the mind of an individual. Remove one card, and down it comes. It is a self-contained system. Once the belief system is accepted, no rational argument can penetrate the mind of the converted. The system rests on quite simple assumptions: you have heard the word of god personally calling you; you have been "born again" or "saved"; you recognize that Jesus is the true son of god who died for your sins; the Bible is literally the truth, the word of god. You do not have to be baptized to be a "born again," but it is recommended, and it must be immersion at an age of reasoning, not sprinkling babies (Catholic) or adults (Methodist, etc.). To be a member of a Southern Baptist church (or some other fundamentalist church), you must be baptized. When I was "saved" at age 13, I took the preacher literally when he said I didn't have to be baptized, and because I was asthmatic and terrified of being without breath, I said I would prefer not to be baptized. For two years, the preacher, his wife, my mother, the deacons, and nearly every member of the church visited me to try to talk to me about being baptized, and I finally caved. It was two years after all my age group had been baptized, and embarrassing, also terrifying. Nor are preachers necessary, theoretically. The "saved" are said to have a "personal relationship with Christ" and can interpret the Bible for themselves without interlopers. But why would anyone choose to do that when the preachers and revivals are so exciting? And in rural areas and small towns, colorful fundamentalist preachers are the best shows around.

When I hear Jim Wallis (God's Peoples) call himself an evangelical, I have to laugh. I know what he means: Christianity inherently is evangelical, but he is no fundamentalist. Wallis tries to convince his ignorant, liberal, secular audience that his kind of "evangelism" can challenge the "bad" kind. Not a chance. I wish it were so. I tried to make the transfer when I was nineteen years old. I fell in love with a fellow Oklahoman my age who was an atheist. Fortunately, for me, he did everything he could to free me of my fundamentalism, which took about six months. He had read the Bible (he was raised Christian in a liberal family) and could argue me down mostly using arguments from science, particularly evolution and astronomy. Scientific knowledge became more majestic to me than the Book of Revelation and the Rapture. It is no wonder that fundamentalists insist on getting evolution out of the schools. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported that forty percent of biology teachers in the public schools avoid teaching evolution, not all because of their beliefs, rather to avoid harassment from fundamentalist groups and parents.

I didn't immediately become an atheist, however; I still believed in a human-like creator god. I joined the Presbyterian church and was married in that church. The services were so boring and reserved that I left it after a year, and tried the Lutheran church, a small congregation in Oklahoma City that had services in German. I loved the Martin Luther hymns in German, which ­ in English ­ were also favorites in the Baptist church, but I was the only attendee under sixty years old. Then, my husband and I moved to San Francisco, and I enrolled at San Francisco State College, where I joined the Unitarian Church. There was no talk of Christ or God, but I found it boring also. I had the good fortune to take a historical geology course from an evangelical atheist, who convinced me that a creator god was something I no longer believed in. Then, I found Marxism in my second year at San Francisco State -- at last, a set of fundamental beliefs I could be inspired by and excited about. Nothing less than an equally fiery passion can replace fundamentalism in the mind of one touched by its flames.

However, it's important to acknowledge that war, phrased as national defense (we are surrounded by enemies), has been a means for the ruling classes to solidify national unity and consensus since the founding of the United States, even during the New Deal era and its aftermath into the 1960s. Since the defeat in Vietnam, that has not been as easy.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a longtime activist, university professor, and writer. In addition to numerous scholarly books and articles she has published two historical memoirs, Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Verso, 1997), and Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960­1975 (City Lights, 2002). "Red Christmas" is excerpted from her forthcoming book, Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War, South End Press, October 2005. She can be reached at: rdunbaro@pacbell.net

This essay originally ran on the new Monthly Review website, which we encourage you to bookmark.

August 11, 2005

Survivors Without Benefits

Social Security Privatization Will Harm Same Sex Couples

By DAVE LINDORFF

Among the big losers if George Bush's proposed privatization of Social Security were to be approved would be gay and lesbian retirees.

As the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force pointed out in a press conference Tuesday, because the federal government and Social Security Administration don't recognize partnerships of gays and lesbians, survivors in such couples do not get any of a partner's benefits the way a surviving spouse would in a heterosexual marriage.

This could leave millions of elderly homosexual people with minimal or perhaps with no retirement benefits, if they were the low-income earner in a gay household.

The taskforce, which released a study called "Selling Us Short: How Social Security Privatization Will Affect Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Americans," (http://www.TheTaskForce.org/) said that the problem is compounded because gays and lesbians already tend to have more difficulty obtaining elderly services.

Mandy Hu, author of the task force's study, said that even though the current Social Security System discriminates against gays and lesbians by refusing to recognize their partnerships and families, "it remains a crucial and consistent element of support."

Sean Cahill, director of the tax force policy institute, also noted that in many ways tax and retirement laws work against gays and lesbians. For example, when a spouse with a 401K retirement plan dies, her or his spouse receives the fund with no tax penalty, but in a gay or lesbian couple's case, the surviving partner must pay a 20 percent tax for the benefits of dead partner's plan. At the same time, most private pension plans don't even allow a same-sex partner to be a named beneficiary.

The big loss for same sex couples, according to Hu, is partner and survivor benefits. In the case of a typical married couple where one spouse was earning $45,000 a year and the other just $7500, the combined Social Security benefits on retirement would be a monthly $1500 and $750, or a total of $2250. If that same couple were gay, however, since their union would not be recognized by the SSA, their combined monthly benefit would be just $1500 plus $300, or $1800. The difference is a $450 "spousal benefit" that the lower-earning spouse is entitled to under Social Security rules-an amount that could spell the difference between survival and desperation.

The disparity in survivor benefits is even worse. Looking at same two couples mentioned above, one heterosexual married pair and one same-sex pair, if the major bread-winner in a married couple died, the surviving spouse would then receive a survivor benefit equal to that spouse's original Social Security benefit, or $1500 a month, plus the survivor's own benefit amount of $300, for a total of $1800 a month. The survivor from a same-sex couple, however, would only get the $300 check,

Disability too, favors the married couple. Should the major wage earner become disabled in the sample family cited by Hu, the couple would receive a disability benefit of $1350 a month, plus another $675 for the spouse, for a total disability payment of $2025. The same-sex household in the same situation would only get the $1350 payment.

The Republican gay and lesbian organization, Log Cabin Republicans, came in for some criticism for endorsing the so-called Ryan-Sununu Social Security privatization plan, a variant of Bush's still vague proposal. Calling the Log Cabin argument that a privatized retirement system would benefit same-sex couples by allowing them to pass on their benefits to partners "ultimately specious," the task force report said, "privatization will harm LGBT Americans for the same reasons it will harm all Americans: it will introduce greater risks-and unsustainable costs with uncertain benefits-to the system. "

Hu wrote that the ability to pass on a plan's collected assets to a surviving partner had to be weighed against the reality that "privatization schemes will leave many with no such savings to pass on." Saying that "privatization will impoverish more people than it will accidentally benefit," she added, "The LGBT community has no interest in gaining rights at the cost of rights for other people."

There could be a grand irony in all this. With the Bush administration pushing ahead with its increasingly unpopular campaign to dismantle Social Security by privatizing it, Americans are paying closer attention to how it works. While gays and lesbians may not succeed in convincing Congress to eliminate the benefits bias against them, married couples with two wage earners may start to realize how badly they are hurt by a system that penalizes the lower wage-earner--a problem that can be readily solved by simply dissolving their marriage and living out their senior years in sin.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Information about both books and other work by Lindorff can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net.

He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com

ARTICLE TITLE: Red Cross fires employee over gay pride celebration

ARTICLE: Aug. 08 (LifesiteNews.com/CWN) - A Christian employee of the 
American Red Cross was fired from his job last month after expressing his 
concerns to senior staff about an e-mail from the diversity office notifying 
him that June was "Gay and Lesbian Pride Month."

Michael Hartman, who had worked at the Red Cross for eight months, received 
an e-mail in late May distributed by Chief Diversity Officer David Wilkins 
that declared, "It is my pleasure to announce that June will be recognized 
as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month at national headquarters ..."

Hartman reported to Concerned Women for America (CWFA) that his immediate 
supervisor did not care that, as a Christian, Hartman was concerned; 
thereafter he voiced his consternation to senior officials. Hartman's e-mail 
to senior management stated, "I would like to start by stating that I am a 
Christian not willing to compromise my beliefs to promote the agenda of the 
homosexual community. I would also like to say that I think it's disgraceful 
that while most of us [at the Red Cross] are trying to save lives, a select 
few are using this organization to promote their own lifestyles which in my 
opinion are unacceptable."

Hartman was immediately called into the regional office in Pomona, 
California, where he was reprimanded for the e-mail they deemed "not 
appropriate." Hartman, who worked to promote and recruit for the Red Cross, 
felt convicted to pursue the matter further, deciding to contact the 
Southern California regional office by e-mail. In the e-mail, he compared 
how his superiors at Pomona had explained that they choose each month to 
celebrate some American minority group. "I'm still struggling to see a 
correlation between celebrating Great Americans and celebrating a sexual 
preference," he said in his e-mail to the regional office. Hartman also 
suggested that the Red Cross honor its commitment to diversity by hosting a 
month to celebrate Christianity.

Hartman was immediately put on "administrative leave" and was called in for 
a meeting with managers. After refusing to meet with Hartman because he had 
brought counsel, the administrators terminated him two days later.

"We are seeing an alarming double standard emerging in corporations and 
nonprofits," said Robert Knight, director of CWFA's Culture & Family 
Institute. "If you are not in a specially protected group, you don't get the 
same consideration. More and more, Christians are being harshly disciplined 
or even fired for actions that would bring a slap on the wrist to a 
homosexual activist or feminist."

In June, an employee of Allstate Insurance was fired for writing comments in 
a non-work related magazine that were critical of gay marriage.

Hartman said, "If the public knew what was going on within the Red Cross I 
have no doubt their unselfish support would screech to a halt."

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=38889

(C) 2005 CHRISTIAN WORLD NEWS

from the Asheville Citizen-Times (N.C.)

Lesbian couple seek tribe’s legal blessing

On Wednesday in Oklahoma, a Cherokee Nation court dismissed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the tribe from giving its legal blessing to a lesbian couple’s marriage.

In its ruling, the Judicial Appeals Tribunal said that tribe member and attorney Todd Hembree had no standing to sue and could not show that he suffered any harm by legal recognition of the same-sex marriage.

Dawn McKinley and Kathy Reynolds, both tribe members, haven’t decided whether they will try again to file their tribal marriage certificate. Because the tribe is sovereign, Cherokee Nation marriage certificates are recognized just like Oklahoma marriage licenses.

The Cherokee Nation is a 255,000-member tribe with lands within Oklahoma. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is a sister tribe with about 13,300 members, many of whom live on Cherokee land about 60 miles west of Asheville.

According to Michael McConnell, an attorney for the tribe, “There are gay and lesbian couples here, but I don’t know of anyone seeking formal recognition of their union.”

About marriage, the Cherokee Code says: “The institution of marriage between a man and a woman is recognized in the territory of the Eastern Band and shall be officially solemnized by any ordained minister or any judicial official of the Cherokee Court.”

It goes on: “A marriage duly solemnized under the laws of North Carolina or any other state or Indian nation shall be given full faith and credit within the Eastern Band’s territory.”

The tribe does not issue marriage licenses (although it does grant divorces after a 30-day separation), with couples instead applying for the license in the county in which they will marry.

Tribe member Merritt Youngdeer Sr., 60, is a Baptist preacher who was a former pastor of Cherokee Baptist Church and is now active in radio ministry.

He said he hopes the Cherokee community will not ever support gay marriage.

“I would hope that they would take a stand for God and not go along with the flow of what society is trying to do,” Youngdeer said. “We just can’t make that compromise.”

However, he said, he expects the issue of homosexual marriage will eventually arise in Cherokee.

“We’re no exception,” he said. “It’s coming.”

The lesbian couple from the Cherokee nation exchanged vows in May 2004 after the tribe gave them the certificate without protest. But Hembree sued and won an injunction that kept it from being filed.

After the couple wed, the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council unanimously approved language defining a union as between one man and one woman.

Previously, tribal laws governing marriages used Cherokee terms for “husband” and “wife” that Hembree claimed were gender-specific. The couple contended the terms were not gender-specific and that the Cherokee words used in the marriage ceremony are “cooker” for wife and “companion” for husband.

The court still would have to accept the certificate before it is filed.

“We’re excited, we’re happy,” Reynolds said. “We’re determining what our next step is going to be.”

Hembree, who serves as counsel to the tribe’s legislative body, said the court’s decision ends the case for him: “That is a decision by the highest court in our land.”

Staff Writer Jill Ingram contributed to this report.

• Harry Belefonte, performer and activist
• Stevie Wonder, musician

AMY GOODMAN: This is Harry Belafonte, actor, activist and calypso king.

HARRY BELAFONTE: Day-O.

AUDIENCE: Day-O.

HARRY BELAFONTE: That's a wake-up call for George W. Bush. It's a hot day in Georgia. And I don't mean the weather. George W. Bush sits in the White House, and he has systematically, consistently and arrogantly ignored us. He has made the assumption that by our silence and by our wonderment that somehow we have lost the verve for battle. Let today be marked on his calendar, this hot day in Georgia is directed at him, is directed at his administration, for him to know that black people do not sleep. Black people are stirring. Black people are awakening.

We are serving notice on the world that there is another truth, that there is oppression in America. We have the largest prison population in the world, and most of that population is made up of black folk. There's only one thing wrong with that picture. It is the fact that why aren't we in prison? Why aren't we filling up the jails of America as we have done in the past. Why are we not saying, we will march, we will violate, we will tell the people of America there shall be no more patience with this slow pace of administration. Let George W. Bush know that we have died for what we believe in, we have been arrested before. We will die again, and we will be arrested again, and that he is hearing this from another hot day in Georgia. Peace! Peace! Peace!

AMY GOODMAN: Singer, actor, activist, Harry Belafonte speaking at the “Keep the Vote Alive” march Saturday. We turn now to the legendary singer, Stevie Wonder.

STEVIE WONDER: First of all, I'm very happy to be here. Clearly, we have a choice in life, and the choices are to do something about what is happening in life, to make it better, or do something to make it worse. I think that your commitment in being here is the proof that you are here to make it better. That we have to have a march in 2005 to ask for the Voting Rights Act and its bill to be amended and for to us speak on having to demand that we have a bill that will guarantee the voting rights of all American citizens forever is ridiculous. But we are here to do that.

This is a very interesting day for me, because 15 years ago, actually, 17 years ago, my son, Kwame Morris, was born. 15 years before that, on the 6th of August, God blessed me with life because I was in a major car accident in 1973. And obviously 40 years ago today was when the Voting Rights Act was signed.

I challenge all politicians and leaders and all clergymen and women who take positions on things they are for or against, they will take a position for that very thing that is for we and every single American that should have the right automatically to vote. We have the right to pay taxes and we have the right to fight a war and die. Then obviously, we should have the right to vote. We must secure the right forever. All of you here and all of us here, we must educate and legislate the Voting Rights Act. Let our President sign a bill that says, there will be never a need for anyone to march again because the right of every single citizen of voting will be forever.

AMY GOODMAN: Stevie Wonder, speaking at Saturday's “Keep the Vote Alive” march in Atlanta, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. When we come back from our break, we'll hear from Congress members Cynthia McKinney. We will also hear from Jesse Jackson. We'll talk about the efforts to renew the Voting Rights Act, and we go to Massachusetts to Northampton to speak with Professor Michael Thelwell. He was a SNCC organizer in Mississippi.

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