Category: Queer

[we’ve only been together for 12 or 13 years]

But definitely not a requirement. Marriage. Not for every couple, but it must be their choice only.

The two quickly-improvised signs pictured above were those we held while we were standing behind speakers at a press conference held below the steps of New York City Hall early yesterday afternoon. We were there along with, I guess, almost 300 others [the maximum number of the non-sports-fan public “allowed” to get anywhere near our seat of government at one time, as it turned out*] attesting to the right of all Americans to enter into marriage contracts certified by the state.
Specifically, we were challenging the mayor of the City of New York to tell the City Clerk to issue licenses to any couple requesting them. We maintain, with excellent legal opinion to support us, that the state’s constitution does not restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples.
It seems that victory is inevitable. What is in doubt is when it will happen, and the manner and degree to which individual politicians will shame or honor themselves in the interim.


the media setting up before the speakers arrived


Council Speaker Miller and, starting counterclockwise from his left, Councilmembers Chris Quinn, David Yassky, Tom Duane and Phil Reed


what looked like a group of hundreds of supporters was kept from entering the grounds surrounding City Hall, but they maintained a chorus of protest in the background

* Even long before September 11 Mayor Giuliani had effectively removed the public, and in particular any public with an opinion likely to be opposed to his own, from access to the area around City Hall. Fallout from the World Trade Center disaster and a murder of a City Councilmember in chambers further compromised people’s right of access to their representatives, but something of a compromise has since been worked out under the current, Bloomberg administration. Today’s Newsday story on the Gifford Miller’s press conference made an exceptional reference to this issue.

City Hall’s security detail turned away about 100 supporters, enforcing a rule that allows a maximum of 300 people to attend a news conference. The event was peaceful and there were no arrests, although some who were standing on the street or in City Hall Park, shouted, “Let us in!”

smile addendum
Overheard while we waited for the proceedings to begin: [Two young men behind us were animatedly discussing the Judy Garland biography of films shown on television recently, but their enthusiasm was quickly redirected when they spied a certain great, breezy, white-haired activist as she approached the steps] “Oh, there’s Ann Northrup! Love her!”
Well, she is a star.

even Log Cabin Republicans.
And the Democrats are not blameless either.
Bush has just now officially come out in support of a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.


[but I no longer think so]

First of all, the media has it wrong. Is their reading deliberately false? This report is from Reuters:

Bush did not endorse specific legislation as the vehicle for the amendment but the White House said the president approved of the broad principles offered by Republican U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado.
Her proposed amendment says “marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.”
Bush left the door open to states to provide homosexual civil unions and other legal arrangements for the gay community.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said these arrangements could include hospital visitation rights, insurance benefits and civil unions.

Bush’s decision to support a Constitutional amendment defining marriage means open war on faggots. It not just an attempt to make our fundamental, secular law define “sacred marriage” narrowly.
If successful, this amendment would virtually outlaw gay and lesbian relationships. The estimable Atrios writes that it would

. . . prevent states from establishing same-sex civil unions of any kind. The sweeping language could also potentially overturn anti-discrimination statutes with respect to housing and other things, allowing landlords to refuse to rent to same-sex couples, or government provided partner health benefits. Don’t believe me? Call up some smart lawyers and ask them.

I consider neither the right to marry, and certainly not , for that matter, what I think of as the dubious privilege of performing military service, to be the first priority for gay rights activists when Queers still have no protection for the most basic rights of employment or residence in most parts of this benighted nation. [significantly, mainstream gays were already focused on marriage and military service, and that strange invention, “hate crimes”, years before the Supreme Court recently “gave” them the right even to have gay sex!] I still regard both marriage and military service only as significant economic benefits which should be available to all, but I realize that sometimes events take a shape and a direction neither anticipated nor intended, and you then have to work with what you have. But let’s leave the churches out of marriage, please, except as eccentric ritual.
Watching what has happened in the last ten days or so in San Francisco, I was first shocked, then pleased and then shocked again, the second time by my emotional reaction to scenes of joy and excitement surrounding the couples who have lined up to have their commitments registered formally by the state, er, city.
Are we going to see these [more than 3000 so far] unions declared dissolved, “divorced”, when California’s forces of reaction, led by an ex-terminator, are able to regroup? And will that be followed by the still more disastrous blow of a 28th Amendment to the federal Constitution, for the first time removing civil rights?
I think there’s going to be a very big fight.
Even if the rights only now being exercised by a long-suppressed minority survive these threats, will the battles be won at the expense of the larger war against the so-called Christian Right and its cynical Republican enablers? Will the Democrats once again collapse this year in confusion and cowardice?
Nader is not the enemy, guys. Greed, ignorance, stupidity and fear, much of it “Democratic”, is the enemy, as it always is.

For more on the mendacity of Bush and the media, see bloggy today. This is an excerpt:

Do not trust the mainstream media to tell you the truth about this.
One last thought. The Democrats’ (including Kerry and Edwards but not Kucinich) position on this, one of “we don’t support gay marriage but we don’t support the amendment either” is bullshit. This kind of splitting hairs is revolting when we’re talking about civil rights, and they’re going to be painted as homo-loving liberals by the GOP no matter what they do. Why not take a principled position rather than some stupid focus group-created one? I will hold my nose and vote for the Democratic candidate, but I can’t say I’m excited about it, unless a miracle happens and we get Kucinich.

[image from Princeton University]

DITCHs on Astor Place September 8th

We spotted the elusive DITCH outside of Harvey Milk High School early in September. The acronym represents the “Dykes’ International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell.” the precise name still not settled just one month ago, when we inquired.
Tomorrow afternoon the new lesbian activist group will unveil itself officially, in Lefty-historic Union Square, with a sassy street party, dubbed “Double D,” expected to go from 1 to 4.
Time Out New York has a feature article on the group in its Gay & Lesbian section this week, but the magazine is too cheap to put anything on their website, so go borrow or steal it for the picture and the text.
Continuing direct action in the wonderful tradition of the Lesbian Avengers, with continuity provided by the fabulous Maxine Wolf.

“There are a million things that I’m enraged about,” declares Marisa Ragonese, 25, before elaborating. “People have elected a right-wing lunatic. Thre are countless issues of race and class dicrimination,” she says. “And I still can’t walk outside my house without being harassed for being a woman.”

Gosh, I hope they can get Max to start using email – even if she won’t get herself a website!

For more images, from this morning, go here.
We returned to Astor Place just before 3 this afternoon, to help the kids as they left school – should they need it.
They didn’t, and it was both because the nuts mostly stayed away and because, as all who were there today learned, they can take care of themselves, especially if they have their community. These kids have seen a lot already, and maybe they don’t have to take it anymore.
Fred Phelps and his family have almost certainly left New York, to resume their ghoulish specialty thing of screaming at funerals of gay men all across the country. At 3 o’clock there were only three bible-thumpers in the Christianist’s police pen [one of them the hottie I described earlier].
For a while, slipping out of the police barricade, the younger two posted themselves across the street, on the sidewalk closer to the school doors. They continued their harangues there, just next to the press area. Four of us spotted them and took it upon ourselves to move there and insert ourselves and our signs in front of them and their bibles. As the kids left the building and some passed by us, our numbers eventually having swelled to 10 or so, we managed to out-shout even the ugly big one with our major cheering.
The police eventually persuaded the two to return to their original pigpen, where all three soon found themselves confronted by the kids themselves. Some were shouting from the south side, but many had crossed the street to investigate their antagonists and to confront them in arguments. Whether they learned anything or not, I think the cult guys were shocked. The shaved-head guy left early with his friend, but nothing seemed to discourage the last one, least of all his own stupidity.
I was stunned by the students’ style and, well, their surprisingly gentle humor and good will. The short photo series above is pretty decent witness.
Yes, the kids will be alright.
For more about this afternoon on Astor Place see Bloggy.

the crowd on Astor Place, entertained by Phelps christianists
For more images, go here.
Barry and I joined hundreds of others outside Harvey Milk High School this morning to cheer students entering the building for the first day of classes.
Across the street was the Fred Phelps family circus of Christianist nuts. The police seem to have understood the difference, and this time their sympathies worked for the good guys. Supporters were assigned the sidewalk in front of the school on Astor Place. The anti’s had to be content with, appropriately, the gutter on the north side, and their screaming was continuously assaulted by the roar of a huge garbage/trash truck adjacent. Who had arranged that intervention?
Their posters alone alienated the cops, as did the sight of several of them standing on or dragging the flag through the dirt, but it was when they pulled out the “THANK GOD FOR SEPT 11” sign, that the police barricade we were standing behind was immediately moved well into the street to give our crowd more comfort, and additional public visibility in the process.
The kids themselves are alright, and we’ll be back this afternoon before 3, to see them safely out.
Bloggy has more, including images. Don’t miss “GOD’S ROD“.
ps

A confession is in order at this time. If you go to my link for more images, the last picture will show what I would say is one pretty hot young bible thumper. Our friend Jon yelled across the street, asking him if he lived in New York. Surprisingly there was an answer, and it was “yes.” Jon followed, “You should get out more. It’s fun.”
You never know. There are all kinds of callings and conversions.

And this afternoon, in a Reuters photo on the MNSBC site:

B’s striped blue polo obscures J’s white shirt – our loopy “YOU’RE OUR ROLE MODELS” sign rises above all. Let’s hope the student queers will be better at signs, but let’s hope they won’t need this kind.

local color, now in New York
I’ve never been drawn to demonstrations with a “battle of the bands” scenario, but sometimes the people who need help need help on the scene, because the really bad guys will be there threatening them.
This seems certain to be the case this Monday for the students of the Harvey Milk School on Astor Place. Regardless of the complexities of arguments over what the city is doing about homophobia, vulnerable kids don’t need the aggravation and hate with which they are being threatened on their first day of school.
Fred Phelps and his sick entourage will be protesting the fall opening of the school early Monday morning. The people organizing the protest are the same ones who protested at Matthew Shepard’s funeral. Fortunately, their website is down, although that means I miss out on linking to it here in order to give just a hint of the malevolence of this cult. [Our fabulous friend Elizabeth, who first alerted me to their plans, absolutely denies credit for the hackwork.]
Supporters are encouraged to be at the school at 7:30 am on Monday, September 8 (first class is at 8:00 a.m.) and 3:00 pm (end of school day), with happy signs and encouragement. The Harvey Milk School is located at Two Astor Place at the corner of Astor and Broadway (take the 6 train to Astor Place or the N or R to 8th Street and Broadway).
Please consider helping to welcome these young people to school. The idea is to bring signs conveying the importance of education and safety for all of our children.
This thing is media candy, especially since we have our own cache of notorious homophobes here in New York, including Ruben Diaz. Be ready for your close-ups, and your fabulous sound bites.
[image from Dr. Truluck]

In a short post about the fluidity of male sexuality, where he references the legendary six beer theory, Welshcake evokes the media’s latest tizzy over the supposed ascendancy of the gay aesthetic, commenting:

Metrosexual? Heteroflexible? Whatever. As my late friend, Richard, was fond of saying, “Ah, they all help out when we’re busy..!”

exactly six beers each [uncoolcentral.com]

Ole von Beust
Rex Wochner reported two days ago:

The mayor of Hamburg, Germany, Ole von Beust, came out Aug. 19 after firing the city-state’s interior minister, Ronald Schill, for allegedly trying to blackmail him.
. . . .
Von Beust’s coming out means Germany’s two biggest cities now have openly gay mayors. Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit also is gay.

Klaus Wowereit
[photo of Beust from Landesseniorenbereit Hamburg/ photo of Wolvereit from Der Bundesrat]