The Bell Tolls for Kameny and Ettelbrick

This Week in GLBT News
BY ANN ROSTOW
October 12, 2011


The Bell Tolls for Kameny and Ettelbrick

Frank Kameny, who died this week at the age of 86, was not just a veteran activist. He was arguably the father of modern gay activism. He challenged his discharge from his federal job in 1957. He founded the Mattachine Society of Washington in 1961. He picketed the White House in 1965. And he led the effort to get homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Society’s list of mental disorders in 1973.

In other words, he forged a trail through a nearly impenetrable thicket of disdain, ridicule, hatred and prejudice and half a century later left the rest of us with a paved highway. If anyone out there thinks times are tough for GLBTs in this country, try taking a time machine back to the days before Stonewall, a time when being openly gay was an invitation to universal public disgust.

In 2009, Kameny received a formal apology from the Office of Public Management, acknowledging that his dismissal from the Army Map Service was “shameful.” Kameny sued the government at the time, taking his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review his firing.

Kameny was found dead at his home in Washington DC on October 11, presumably of natural causes.

Two days before Kameney’s death, we lost another trail blazer, Paula Ettelbrick, who died of cancer in New York. Ettelbrick, 56, was one of the leading lawyers of the post-Stonewall gay rights movement.

Ettelbrick served as Lambda’s legal director from 1988 to 1993, and spent the next five years as legislative counsel to the Empire State Pride Agenda.
In 2003, she became head of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, which she ran until 2009.

“She was unflinching in her feminist vision of full inclusion and justice for all,” wrote National Center for Lesbian Rights Executive Director Kate Kendell. “Paula tirelessly and fiercely fought for the almost forgotten and often ignored. Whether it was people, or issues, Paula was always asking and challenging us to think bigger, more broadly, more expansively.

“Paula had integrity, ferocity, tenacity, and intellect,” Kendell continued. “We will miss, surely, all of that. But where I feel most diminished, is to lose her laughter, her wit, her passion. Paula knew something important about everything, and every conversation with her was a rollicking good time.”
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SCOTUS Turns Thumbs Down on Lambda Case

The main legal news this week is a non-story of sorts. In a surprising and disappointing decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case against the state of Louisiana, where bureaucrats refused to issue a revised birth certificate for two California men who adopted a baby boy in the Bayou State.

Represented by Lambda Legal, the men sued and won in federal court, and subsequently won their case before a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Those victories seemed routine at the time. After all, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit had also ruled in favor of two gay dads on the identical issue back in 2007.

Further, the question at hand presents a fairly straightforward matter of law. Regardless of a state’s view of joint adoption by same-sex couples, do functionaries have the right to deny a corrected birth certificate to couples who have lawfully adopted a child that was born in their state but adopted in another jurisdiction? After all, it’s not that the adoption is up for debate. It’s all about the paperwork that allows parents to enroll their kids in school or get them a passport.

In the current case, the full bench of the Fifth Circuit stepped in and overruled their colleagues earlier this year. The decision was unexpected, and the opinion itself was odd, leading Lambda and others to believe that the High Court might take the case. As usual, the Court gave no explanation for its decision to let stand the conflict between the Fifth and the Tenth circuits.

The Court is still considering another interesting case. It’s not gay, but it concerns religion in the public square. In Utah, the highway patrol has erected giant crosses along some highway to mark the spots where their comrades have fallen. When I say giant, I mean giant. I forget the exact height, but these are not little markers. They’re something like ten or twelve feet tall.

Civil libertarians sued under the Establishment Clause, and won their case in the appellate court. That ruling was stayed pending further appeal, so the giant crosses are still in place and the High Court is reportedly still considering whether or not to take review.
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California Dreaming

So, I don’t know what’s going on at Equality California. Last week they decided not to pursue an attempt to repeal Prop 8 in 2012, effectively making that decision on behalf of the entire gay community of the Golden State. I kind of agree with this non-repeal strategy, but many others think it’s a cop out, and indeed at least one group, Love Honor Cherish, is going forward with a repeal measure of its own.

Running a statewide gay rights ballot measure without the support of the main gay rights organization will be, let’s say, tricky.

At any rate, I gather that Equality California’s brand new executive director has now resigned for vague reasons. What’s up with that? I’m going to leave it to others to figure out, but it sounds as if the gang over there isn’t shooting straight at the moment.

There are some pieces of good news coming out of state politics this week however. Governor Brown signed a trans rights bill that makes it far easier to change one’s official gender on a birth certificate or other state records.

And it looks as if the people trying to repeal the “teach about gays in high school” law have failed to get their measure on the next ballot. They will no doubt still try for 2012.

Speaking of this, I saw a Youtube video, filmed by a California activist who discovered someone collecting signatures for this repeal by implying that the gay education law encourages child molesters. Now there’s an effective strategy, don’t you think? Who’s going to vote for child molesters? Perhaps we can gather names to repeal Prop 8 using this tactic ourselves. Then, we could run the whole campaign with commercials showing sleazy perverts and headlines like: “Get Child Molesters Out of Our Schools! Repeal Prop 8!”
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All Hat and No Cattle

As a staunch Democrat, I go back and forth between the Republican candidates for president. Part of me wants the GOP to nominate a crackpot like Rick Perry. But my patriotic side doesn’t want to take the risk.

It’s kind of like watching a football game when you dislike both teams for different reasons. Whenever one gets up, you root for the other one. At this point, Romney’s up by two touchdowns, so I’m rooting for him to stumble. I suppose that I would like them to blast Romney throughout the primary season, and then reluctantly nominate him.

Then, maybe around September or October of next year, I want some weird development to rock his campaign. Maybe we’ll learn that he keeps his Mormon underwear on when he takes a shower.

Speaking of Mormons, I didn’t understand why all the pundits last week kept pestering candidates to answer the question: “Do you think Mitt Romney is a Christian?”

Yes, I get that Pastor Whatshisname called Mormonism a “cult” and that Perry should have been more aggressive in denouncing this comment from one of his supporters. But of course Romney’s not a Christian. He’s a Mormon! Why would anyone have a problem making that distinction?

Before I drop this subject, let me say one thing about Perry. I have lived in Austin since 2001, so this buffoon has been my governor for over a decade now and I’ve watched him win no less than three gubernatorial elections. Yes, I know Texas is a Republican state, but last year, he trounced Kay Bailey Hutchinson in the primary.

So here’s my question. Why hasn’t the Texas electorate seen the dimwit that the rest of the country has been watching for the last two months? Sure, state elections are easier than national contests. But still. If Texans had seen this Rick Perry back in 2008, Hutchinson would be governor of Texas right now.

I thought he was a crafty politician with a folksy style, corporate interests in his back pocket and little interest in actually governing. I didn’t realize he was a moron as well. Actually, I did think he was a moron. But I thought that was just my liberal bias. Turns out it’s true.
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O Canada

Have you seen some of the latest health news? Exercise leads to early menopause. Vitamins are bad for you. Salt isn’t that bad. Bring on the fries and open another bottle of wine!

Sorry, I’m just avoiding the rest of my GLBT news list. I was going to discuss the Canadian Supreme Court, where justices will examine the nation’s hate speech laws at the urging of a 40-something antigay preacher who’s been nailed for his homophobic ranting and fliers. I must say that as an American, the idea of hate speech laws is unnerving, and I have to root for the preacher. C’mon Canada. You can’t outlaw speech. Let the antigay guy do his thing and let us bring him down in the marketplace of ideas.

There’s also a Republican Congressman who’s trying to derail the defense budget because it allows chaplains to oversee same-sex marriages for military personnel. Buck McKeon, who heads the Armed Services Committee, says he’d rather see the entire budget fail than capitulate on the chaplain marriage issue. Is he out of his mind? I’m just assuming wiser heads will prevail. As for the chaplains, we’re talking about military weddings held in states where same-sex marriage is totally legal. The House had originally blocked same-sex military marriages, but the Senate stripped that language out of the overall budget.
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Worthless Values

Well. I was going to write about the Values Voters conference, or whatever it was called, a hateful little event chock full of diatribes against gays, Muslims and the other American categories that don’t fit into the narrow band of acceptable territory in the world of Christian conservatives. That of course, was the scene of Pastor Jeffress’s cult jab at Mormonism.

But as each section of this column came to an end, I found I could not bear to rehash this annual slugfest. And now I’m at the end so I think I’ll just bag it. You know these bozos. I think Rick Santorum said something about gay soldiers getting it on in the showers. Mitt Romney condemned “poisonous language” which was nice of him I suppose. Whatever.

The classic Christian conservative is losing ground to other types of conservatives; fiscal conservatives, libertarians, tea party small government types. The religious based bigotry is still alive and well, but diluted somewhat, and you can see mainstream Republicans shifting ever so slightly away, like people at a cocktail party who suddenly realize that the popular guest has had one too many.

This country is changing. Large majorities were in support of openly gay military service. Most people think you shouldn’t be fired for being gay. And significantly, Americans are starting to come down from the fence on the side of gay couples rights.

If you’ve been in favor of “civil unions” for a decade, you are starting to realize that civil unions are a temporary compromise and you’ll have to take a stand for or against gay couples--- because American gay couples are demanding a yes or no answer from their compatriots. And as each month and year goes by, more people are saying yes, and the Christian conservatives that drive marriage opposition are diminished in turn.