Editorial
Editorial:
Reasons to Be Proud...
and to Fight On
Our formal Pride celebration has come and gone. And there are reasons to be proud and to celebrate our identities, our culture, our survival, our persistence, and our gains. Here are some of them:
The Tony Awards became a huge gay love-fest with “The Kiss” and recognition of gay actors and writers and gay-themed Broadway plays.
There are gay days at Disney World.
In New Hampshire, Episcopalians elected the first gay bishop in the country; another gay bishop was appointed in England.
In New Jersey, a civil unions bill has been introduced in the legislature, and Connecticut is also considering such a move.
In Kentucky, Governor Paul Patton signed an order prohibiting discrimination against state employees because of sexual orientation or gender identity. Lexington will offer domestic partnership benefits to city employees.
In California, statewide domestic partnership legislation is making its way through the state legislature with the Assembly’s passage of A.B. 205, the Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibility Act of 2003, granting same-sex couples nearly all the rights, benefits and responsibilities granted to spouses under state law.
In the U.S. Congress, Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., introduced The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act (H.R. 2426, S. 1252), legislation that would grant the same benefits, including health insurance coverage, to the domestic partners of federal employees that are currently granted to federal employees' legal spouses.
And in Canada, same-sex couples – from Canada and elsewhere around the world – can now legally marry. Canada joins the Netherlands and Belgium in recognizing gay and lesbian marriages.
It didn’t rain on our parade, and there were no major mishaps during the Festival. We live in what is currently the only state where relationships between two people of the same gender are legally recognized, and our former governor is running hard promoting a pro-equality agenda. Our legislature will likely consider a measure to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender expression and identity.
We’ve been politically active for years, and we are finally reaping the benefits of some of the energy we’ve sown.
But we can’t stop now! And the reasons we can’t stop are also all around us:
Rick Santorum still holds a leadership position, despite his bigoted support of government intrusion into bedrooms – not just gay and lesbian bedrooms, all bedrooms.
A Department of Justice employee Pride celebration with a six-year history was first canceled by Big Brother Ashcroft, then re-instated on a second-class basis: it could be held, but only if the gay employees paid for the facilities, something no other employee group is required to do. Ashcroft broke an explicit promise he made during confirmation hearings that he would continue the tradition. DOJ Pride declined to pay for facilities they should have been entitled to use for free, and held their celebration elsewhere.
Abstinence-only programs for AIDS prevention, which have not been shown to be effective and do not address the needs of gay men and lesbians, are gaining government funds (our tax dollars), while condom information is disappearing from government health-information websites and grant proposals containing certain words – like gay men, sex workers, and condom distribution – are reportedly being screened out of contention.
None of the rights we as members of glbtq communities enjoy in our home state are recognized by our national government. In fact the current administration is busy undermining the equal rights we seek. In mid-June, the Office of Management and Budget announced newly implemented rules that would allow the administration to potentially privatize half of the federal work force. Under the Bush proposal, privatized workers would lose federal non-discrimination protections that cover bias against individuals based on their sexual orientation.
And then there are the judges with long histories of being anti-gay that Bush continues to nominate for life-long positions on the federal bench, the latest of whom is Alabama Attorney General Mark Pryor. Even the Log Cabin Republicans – a group of conservative gay Republicans – have joined other gay and lesbian groups in opposing his nomination.
We like to think of Vermont as an island of sanity and safety in a hostile world. Vermont is not an island. Right-wing conservatives still run the House of Representatives. And in the Senate, a constitutional amendment has been filed to define away our marriage rights. Those of our neighbors who feel somehow threatened by our very being are biding their time, waiting for us to relax our vigilance. And discrimination still happens, whether you’re gay or lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer.
Civil unions remain a terrific, historic step toward equality and social acceptance, but they still are not routinely recognized beyond our borders. And until some state passes a true same-sex marriage bill and same sex-married couples challenge the federal and state Defense of Marriage Acts, not even marriage will get us true equality before the law.
And then, closest to home for us, there remains the realistic possibility that Vermont’s only newspaper for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities will either cease print publication or devolve into a newsletter.
We have every hope and faith that our communities and our allies will come through, that you all know the value of having our own loudspeaker to amplify our voices statewide, that you care enough to help. Some of you have already pledged or given additional financial support – thank you. Some have promised to advertise – please thank these businesses for their support. For our part, we continue to chip away at our deficits by cutting expenses – including cutting the already minimal pay of two of our three paid staff members.
But we – at Out in the Mountains and in our larger communities – are a long way from being safe.
So, even though we’re tired, and we’ve been traumatized in fighting for legal equality, and we’re worried about our jobs going away and our kids being harassed in schools, we can’t stop now. Please carry on. Second class is not good enough. “Nearly all the same rights” is not equality. The prize is worth the struggle.
Euan Bear