Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand says that she supports extending civil rights to all LGBT Americans, and we have to make sure that Sen. Gillibrand makes good on her support by filing legislation, which would add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Call : 1 (212) 688-6262.
A man, who identified himself as gay, spoke up for himself and on behalf of all LGBT people, after an urban preacher began to shows hateful religious messages. The other straphangers applauded several times in a show of support to the gay man.
The video was posted on YouTube on Saturday, February 16, and it has begun to go viral.
Sign the petition : St. Francis Preparatory High School: Formally Apologize to Mark (Marla) Krolikowski for Sexual Discrimination
From WABC Eyewitness News :
Transgender teacher fired from Queens Catholic school
By : Sarah Wallace, Eyewitness News
Web produced by Cristina Romano, Eyewitness NewsQUEENS (WABC) -- Meet Marla Krolikowski. She no longer has any reason to hide. For 32 years, Krolikowski lived a dual life, teaching at St. Francis Prep School in Queens as a man, Mark, who professionally dressed in a suit and tie.
"I valued the job so much that I was willing to internalize everything, because the job met so much to me," said Krolikowski.
Krolikowski says she did start to add more feminine touches over the years, but claims no one seemed to mind. There are plenty of yearbook photos of her like that.
"I noticed it was a bit more feminine, but I mean, I didn't think it was anything to write home about," said former student Christina Guarino, "so it didn't matter, no."
Apparently, a parent did care. Krolikowski says in October of 2011 that school officials brought her in and confronted her.
"They said, 'are you a drag performer, are you a female impersonator?'" Krolikowski said, "they gave me all these different things, so finally I said 'I'm transgendered and I identify as a woman. Then everybody's jaw dropped, and then, I said, 'Oh God, what did I do?'"
Krolikowski said that someone told her "it sounds like you're worse than gay", and it took all her strength not to cry.
Krolikowski claims she was told to tone down her appearance, and did, but was fired anyway.
When September came, she was not going back to school for the first time in 32 years.
In a statement denying the allegations, St. Francis said: "Mr. Krolikowski's employment was terminated for entirely appropriate and professional reasons, and in no way discriminatory."
"All he wanted to do was to be judged by who he is and not what he is, and it's a horror that in this day an age, the school has chosen to judge him by what he is and not who he is," said Krolikowski's attorney, Andrew Kimler.
"My time is running out. I'm 59 years old and I want to live the way I was intended to be," adds Krowlikowski, "which is as a woman."
Krowlikowski has had breast implants, has started hormone treatments, and plans to have more surgery. She says she doesn't want people to look at her as a freak, because she didn't get to do all the things that girls got to do.
Krowikowski says she has been overwhelmed by support from thousands of current and former students who have signed an on-line petition on change.org. She doesn't have long-term plans but does have an immediate goal - to attend Lady Gaga's Born Brave bus tour that is coming to New York later this month.
Sign the petition : St. Francis Preparatory High School: Formally Apologize to Mark (Marla) Krolikowski for Sexual Discrimination
The @lgbtcenternyc bans Sarah Schulman from speaking about her new book gaycitynews.com/lgbt-center-ba… #GlenndaTestone #censorship #MichaelLucas
— LGBT Civil Rights (@lgbtcivilrights) February 14, 2013
Confronting the President of Magical Thinking : A Vocation of Agony
Barack Obama and his family, the vice president and his family, other government officials, and their supporters celebrated the president's second inauguration today, which coïncided with the federal holiday commemorating the life and accomplishments of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
LGBT Americans were jubilant, because the president said some aspirational words in the second half of his inaugural address.
"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well."
Immediately, the president's supporters acted in lock-step to express support for this expression of a longing for equality.
Corey Johnson is an up-and-coming LGBT politician, who is patterning himself after New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's doctrine of putting politically-expedient identity politics before having to deliver any government reforms. Note how the president failed to say the words lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered in "LGBT," but already the president's supporters were having to say the words that the president found unspeakable.
It appears that Mr. Johnson's excitement could be being based not so much on the president's promise of legal reforms that would result in LGBT equality, but, rather, on political party discipline that calls for a self-motivated unity in messaging to sway Progressive voters into believing that the Democratic Party was on their side.
But for the incomplete messaging that the president's words offer, there is no plan attached to how the president plans to "complete" our "journey."
On Facebook, some LGBT activists picked up on the incomplete messaging in the president's rhetoric, because they had noticed a pattern in his prior speeches.
Some LGBT activists were already picking up how President Obama was unable to utter the words lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.
To the president's army of speech writers, did those words lack any dignity and respect, and, therefore, did not need to be mentioned ?
In his speech during his second inaugural ceremonies, President Obama seemed to be channeling the "great communicator," who, we may all remember, was notable for his failure to uttered the word "AIDS" until after thousands of people had died.
Many of the president's supporters have made a choice to be excited for the president's re-election. But ...
"By the time President Reagan had delivered his first speech on the epidemic, of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with the disease; 20,849 had died," Randy Shilts once wrote. Along a similar vein, when will President Obama say all the words in LGBT ?
So many people want to believe in the hope, change, and love that the president so skillfully articulates in his scripted speeches. We are supposed to want to believe in the magical thinking that the president really is on our side, because doesn't he, after all, say so many nice things that he knows that we want to hear ?
While President Obama's lack of clear communication during this inaugural address may not lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of our "gay brothers and sisters," he nonetheless sets the tone for that which the American people become familiar : either feelings of shame and embarrassment that prevent a president from mentioning lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered Americans, or feelings of equality and respect by dignifying and acknowledging the journeys still being made by lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered Americans.
Some activists on Facebook took a more diplomatic, but forward-looking approach to the editing of the president's words : by using the occasion of the president's rhetoric to build forward momentum on the social movement for LGBT equality in the United States.
The hopes and actions of LGBT Americans and their allies are to fulfill on our shared dream for equality.
But LGBT activists and allies already exchange amongst ourselves the vision and prayers for equality.
For all the president's rhetoric, we already seem to have, at first blush, the president's love and affinity for our community, at least that which could be expressed in his own way. What we need now is action.
The longer LGBT Americans have to wait for full federal recognition of their equal rights, the more that members of our community remain fully exposed to legally-permitted forms of discrimination in broad areas of their life, including in the workplace.
The skepticism within the LGBT community about President Obama's commitment to true LGBT equality stems from some major examples of actions that the president refuses to take, which contradicts his rhetoric.
For example, the president refuses to sign the Federal Contractor's Employment Protections Executive Order. National LGBT civil rights groups, such as GetEQUAL, have been mounting a multi-prong campaign to pressure the president to sign the executive order, but the president refuses.
President Obama embarrassed both his administration and the Democratic Party by once having said that while he was nominally committed to the idea that all Americans shared the same civil rights, he still had to "evolve" on marriage equality. It was as if President Obama was admitting that his thoughts on civil rights resembled that of someone a little bit ignorant and a little bit intolerant, like former commissioner Bull Connor, who once, among other depraved acts of discrimination, ordered the opening up of firehoses on African American civil rights activists.
Surely, President Obama was not seriously putting himself into the same league as Bull Connor, but why was the president torturing hisself by proclaiming in speech his support for LGBT equality that could not be matched by his actions ?
And lest we neglect to mention how so many people conveniently seem to forget to remember how it took a national campaign of civil disobedience, among other actions, for national Democratic Party legislators to repeal the military's discriminatory policy known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The president's political operatives love to mention how the president "repealed" DADT, but they overlook what it took to get a bill introduced in and voted by Congress.
And if the constant push and pull amongst LGBT activists and civil rights groups to define a winning national strategy to deliver a full federal equality bill through Congress wasn't enough, activists must contend with the political trappings of trying to challenge a president who says all the right things and knows how to manipulate support for his administration. And then there are the other unknown, but nonetheless predictable, obstacles for LGBT activists as they set out to challenge power holders, who fail to act to end de jure and de fact discrimination.
While community organising and activism has evolved since the 1960's with the advent of online tools and other empowering platforms of the Internet like Facebook, YouTube, and blogging, every now and then activists must overcome the occasional opening up of digital firehoses.
Read also : President Obama Must Evolve Again on Marriage Equality
RT @occupylondon Obama is no Martin Luther King! n0.gd/10S4rAe n0.gd/WWZLk2 #mlk #mlkday #occupy
— OccupyBot (@occupybot) January 23, 2013
In France, LGBT activists organized a national platform, Meeting LGBT pour l'Égalité, where major candidates were questioned on issues related to LGBT equality. And then the activists posted questionnaires online. But not before they held a national forum of major candidates. And just like that, they helped to alter the national conversation around LGBT equality. Two measures of their impact : activists elected the progressive candidate (François Hollande), and now Hollande will deliver legislation soon for nation-wide marriage equality. Meanwhile, in the United States presidential debates, NOT ONE question has been asked about LGBT equality. What are nationally or regionally elected LGBT politicians and allies doing about keeping the Commission on Presidential Debates accountable ?
Dan Choi's Judge Recuses Herself
BREAKING NEWS: JUDGE STEPS DOWN, HEARING VACATED
Tuesday, September 25, 2012,
12:00pm EST
PRESS CONTACT: press@ltdanchoi.org
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Only 23 hours before Lt. Dan Choi's scheduled criminal hearing, Magistrate Judge Elizabeth C. Wingo, recused herself. The recusal and unprecedented delay is based upon Lt. Choi's motion related to Government Misconduct. Over 30 officials, including Former Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina were subpoenaed to testify about their political roles in the Repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell (2010) and the Tarsands Keystone XL Pipeline Protests (2011).
Lt. Choi has been on trial for over one year and is prohibited from stepping foot on the White House Sidewalk. Lt. Choi's attorney, former Army JAG Officer Capt. James E. Pietrangelo II, remarked "there is something very wrong here. We subpoenaed White House Officials and all of a sudden the hearing is cancelled." Professional Process Server Mr. Daniel Portnoy of D.C. Legal Process has "never seen this before in over 700,000 high level subpoenas served in over a decade."
The hearing tomorrow is cancelled, incurring Lt. Choi over $5,000 in legal preparation and travel fees.
Lt. Choi is still on trial for protesting Don't Ask Don't Tell in federal court, and a hearing in that separate case is still set for October 17, 2012. Further details about the rescheduling of the vacated Tarsands Case will appear on this site. The Tarsands case will likely go before the Chief Judge of the Superior Court, Chief Judge Lee Satterfield, unless he reassigns it.
PRESS CONTACT: press@ltdanchoi.org
ALTERNATE: MR. BRAD LUNA, brad@lunamediagroup.com
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From: lflores22@gmail.comLetter from US General Accounting Office (GAO) to Sen. Bill Frist (R), the Senate Majority Leader, about the 1,138 marriage rights denied to LGBT committed couples, who cannot be legally married under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The GOA described these as : "1,138 federal statutory provisions classified to the United States Code in which marital status is a factor in determining or receiving benefits, rights, and privileges."
2004-01-23 Defense of Marriage Act-USGAO List of 1138 Marriage Rights-d04353r
Businessman's will orders gay son to marry woman, or else son will lose $180,000 inheritance. How's that for de factor LGBT discrimination ?
The late Frank Mandelbaum's dying wish was that his son marry the mother of his grandchild. Only Robert Mandelbaum, 47, a Manhattan Criminal Court Judge, is already married - to a man. Robert Mandelbaum is now fighting to overturn his father's will, arguing that the only 'mother' his two-year-old son knows is his longtime partner Johnathan O'Donnell, 39.
Political Party Polarization Is Now Complete
Reaction to a published essay by Rep. Barney Frank has stirred up criticism about the Washington strategy of LGBT political insiders, who are blocking wider gains in the realm of LGBT equality.
"There is literally no issue in the United States today in which the gulf between the two parties is wider than on the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people to legal equality. This is a relatively new fact in American political life," wrote Rep. Frank.
"Only Barney Frank could brag that "Party Polarization Is Now Complete" - because this has been his sole strategy - to link LGBT hope to the DNC. And this is why he opposes Full Equality anytime soon - to keep us feeding at the political trough. But his game has not worked for us. He & the DNC gave us DADT & DOMA on the down side, with only Hate Crimes on the plus side, and this means 17 years (and counting) of bad federal losses, and one small gain to enhance penalties for violent crimes, but not one non-discrimination bill, for which he offers excuse after excuse. If it were not for Frank, we might have a two-party movement, and much broader support. But he fueled this polarization, and like a proud father now announce it is 'Now Complete' as he exits branding his legacy. How sad for all of us," wrote an LGBT civil rights activist on Facebook.
