Plus: Praise for Guv’s ex-aide Charles O’Byrne
N.Y. Assembly member would be the first openly gay U.S. Senator.
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By Allen Roskoff
Friday, November 07, 2008
Editor’s note: Read our feature story about Prop 8 protests in New York here, a related article about Internet activsm here and a feature about criticism of the LGBT movement in California here. In addition, Prop 8 opinion pieces are here and here.
Actor Peter Paige (“Queer as Folk”) and I went to one of the protests against the passage of Prop. 8 in Silver Lake, California, last Saturday. The police tallied the attendees at 12,500, but—as one should never believe the words of the police—the actual crowd size was much larger. A great deal of the community’s anger is directed against the Mormon and Catholic churches, which raised large sums of money to pass this hateful amendment. The huge crowd was angry, vocal and energized. I haven’t been to a demonstration like this in years.
Religious bigotry is in part a result of our government’s financial support and tax exemptions to those who believe in the supernatural. If churches had to pay their own bills, like every other business, they would have less time to spread this hatred. We must protest religious bigotry wherever and whenever we can. Those who say otherwise are in the wrong movement.
It is universally believed that the organizers of the No on 8 campaign ran an inept, amateurish and incompetent operation. After spending time in Los Angeles I am convinced this is true.
A post election letter from the directors of Vote No on Prop 8 campaign disgusts me. Written and signed by Delores A. Jacobs, CEO, Center Advocacy Project, Lorri L. Jean, CEO, L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, Kate Kendell, Executive Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Geoff Kors, Executive Director, Equality California, the letter states: “We achieve nothing if we isolate the people who did not stand with us in this fight.… Now more than ever it is critical that we work together and respect our differences that make us a diverse and unique society. Only with that understanding will we achieve justice and equality for all.”
Let’s get real, those who voted yes on 8 hate us and certainly don’t deserve our respect and understanding!
Shame of these so called LGBT leaders.
Joe Solmonese, the head of the Washington cult known as the Human Rights Campaign, issued a similar statement.
HRC is also largely to blame for the heartbreaking defeat and yet Solmonese continues to draw his quarter million dollar annual salary.
After the march, Paige and I were joined for dinner by West Hollywood’s fantastic openly gay Mayor Jeffrey Prang, and successful attorney Christopher Brady and his partner Luc Boudreau, a physical therapist at Hallmark Rehab.
These two guys are totally awesome. I also congratulate Jeffrey, who married his partner three weeks ago.
Concentration Camps
I recently returned from a trip to Munich, Krakow, Prague and Berlin with gay dynamo Will Shields, and I have a few observations.
When visiting concentration camps, we looked for memorials acknowledging the Nazis’ victimization of gays.
At the station in Dachau, a sign mentioned that homosexuals were brought there along with Jews, political dissidents, gypsies and communists. Inside the camp itself, there was one information chart referencing the killing of gays, among hundreds of other charts. At Auschwitz and Birkenau, there was no mention of the gay people killed there. When asked, our tour guide claimed that there were “only” 700 homosexuals imprisoned but that others became homosexual once inside the camp (his words, not mine). In the film shown in conjunction with the tour, we were not included in the list of categories targeted for imprisonment and execution by the Nazis.
Munich has a large gay community with many bars and bathhouses. Krakow and Prague have a more limited selection of gay venues but they do exist. Berlin is the gayest city I have ever seen; it is gay, gay, gay!
I would recommend our hotel, Toms, in the heart of gay Berlin.
In the gay neighborhoods, stores and restaurants catering to our community abound. Also, Berlin’s nightlife continues around the clock (obviously they don’t have local community boards destroying the quality of their lives). Berlin parties like New York did back in the 1970s and 1980s.
For gay travelers, it is a perfect city.
Term Limits
No member of the New York City Council who voted for extension of term limits deserves re-election. These buffoons betrayed the public trust.
Moreover, Brooklyn’s David Yassky, who played both sides of the fence by introducing a pathetic amendment he knew had no chance of passing, should definitely never hold elective office again. It shames me that out lesbian Christine Quinn subordinated herself to her patron, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, and caused this mess.
The term limits extension is a pathetic attempt by the speaker to save her faltering career.
I fought for a seat at the table for openly gay elected officials since 1971 when Jim Owles, my partner, was the first openly gay candidate for any elected office in the country. Sexual orientation alone should not be the litmus test for supporting a candidate. Candidates must be judged by their progressive politics, performance and principles.
While being openly LGBT is a major plus, that alone doesn’t clinch the deal for me as our community certainly has our share of hacks.
Allen Roskoff is a longtime gay rights activist and co-author and lobbyist for the nation’s first gay civil rights bill. He is now president of the citywide Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club.
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