NAACP plans courthouse rally to support hate crime laws

By Deb Kelly of The Tribune-Star 8/7/2008

TERRE HAUTE — Advocates of hate crimes legislation in Terre Haute are organizing a public rally next week to show support for the legislation.

The Greater Terre Haute Branch of the NAACP is inviting everyone to a community peace rally Thursday on the steps of the Vigo County Courthouse at 6 p.m.

A release from the group states, “In the wake of a recent string of hate crimes that have occurred in our community, the NAACP wishes for citizens of the Terre Haute community to stand united against hate in our community and urge the Terre Haute City Council to pass a resolution urging state lawmakers to pass a hate crimes bill that would punish perpetrators who commit criminal acts against individuals because of their race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, sexual preference, etc.”

Such a resolution is being considered in the City Council, and will be voted on next week.

A. Theressa Bynum, president of the Terre Haute NAACP, said Thursday, “I hope everybody in Terre Haute will be there – everybody who is concerned about the hate in this community, I want them to speak out against the violence and let it be known that we support hate crimes legislation.

“This is an opportunity for everybody who wants to put two cents worth in to let the legislators know that it is time for there to be legislation in the state,” she said.

“I think with the City Council’s support, hopefully it is going to signal some other communities to do the same thing,” Bynum added.

Indiana is one of only five states without hate crimes legislation. The others are Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina and Wyoming, according to the Anti-Defamation League, online at www.adl.org. A federal hate crimes law currently contains a prerequisite that the victim had to have been engaged in a federally protected activity when the crime occurred to be eligible for federal jurisdiction.

Bynum said she thinks the reason it has taken Indiana so long to pass hate crime laws is that, “people in other parts of the state … have some agendas that keep confusing things; they have attempted over several years to derail this.”

City Council President Todd Nation, D-4th, said Thursday he hopes the resolution will both encourage the state to pass hate crimes legislation as well as bring about a change in Terre Haute.

“The impact that I’m hoping for is that Terre Haute will see fewer incidences like some of the recent swastika graffiti, nooses left lying about, crosses burned into lawns, those kinds of actions,” Nation said. “This is just one small awareness-raising action – what I really hope will happen is that it will be addressed at the state level and that it will put some consequences in place for people who engage in this activity.”

Nation added that all nine city councilmen are co-sponsors of the resolution.

“That’s an unusual situation,” Nation said, “and an illustration of the level of support for this kind of legislation.

“I expect it to pass unanimously,” he said.

Bynum said, “It’s exciting that Terre Haute is taking a lead in this … People need to speak up and let folks know this is not going to be tolerated in this community.

“This is the kind of thing, when people are silent, it gives the message that this is OK.”

For more information about the City Council resolution, hate crimes legislation in Indiana, or the peace rally on Thursday, contact the NAACP at (812) 235-8555.

Jamaican lesbian, facing homophobia, will not be deported

By 365gay Newscenter Staff
08.08.2008 3:00pm EDT

(Miami, Fla.) In what is regarded as a landmark ruling, an immigration judge has stayed a deportation order that would have sent a lesbian back to Jamaica because of homophobic violence in the Caribbean country.

”The general atmosphere in Jamaica is a feeling of no tolerance towards homosexuals in general, and as such. . . the respondent’s life is definitely at risk,” Immigration Judge Irma Lopez-Defillo said, according to court documents obtained by the Miami Herald.

The 29-year old, identified by the paper only as “Nicole,” originally had been ordered deported by Lopez-Defillo, but stayed the order based on the climate toward gays in Jamaica.

She was ordered to check in regularly with immigration officials in Miami. The woman is staying with family in South Florida.

Although a number of people facing deportation have claimed they would be subjected to homophobic abuse if returned to their homelands, the argument is seldom accepted. In several cases, immigration judges have ruled the person could avoid trouble in their countries if they remained closeted.

Even though though “Nicole” has avoided deportation for now, she could still be removed from the country by the Department of Homeland Security, leaving her status in the U.S. in limbo.

Sodomy is illegal in Jamaica, with a sentence of 10-years in prison on conviction.

The country has been described by human rights groups as having the worst record of any country in the New World in its treatment of gays and lesbians.

Homophobic attacks are seldom pursued by police and even when charges are laid there are few convictions.

One of the most recent attacks occurred on January 29, when a group of men approached a house where four males lived in the central Jamaican town of Mandeville. They demanded that the residents leave the community because they were gay, according to Jamaican human rights activists who spoke with the victims.

Later that evening, a mob returned and surrounded the house. The four men inside called the police when they saw the crowd gathering. The mob started to attack the house, shouting and throwing bottles.

Those in the house called police again and were told that the police were on the way. Approximately half an hour later, 15 to 20 men broke down the door and began beating and slashing the inhabitants.

Human Rights Watch, quoting local activists, said that police did not arrive until a half hour after the mob had broken into the house – 90 minutes after the men first called for help.

One of the victims managed to flee with the mob pursuing. A Jamaican newspaper reported that blood was found at the mouth of a nearby pit, suggesting he had fallen inside or may have been killed nearby.

The police escorted the three other victims away from the scene; two of them were taken to the hospital. One of the men had his left ear severed, his arm broken in two places, and his spine reportedly damaged.

There have been no arrests.

The attack echoes another incident in the same town on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007, when approximately 100 men gathered outside a church where 150 people were attending the funeral of a gay man.

According to mourners, the crowd broke the windows with bottles and shouted, “We want no battyman [gay] funeral here. Leave or else we’re going to kill you. We don’t want no battyman buried here in Mandeville.”

Several mourners inside the church called the police to request protection. After half an hour, three police officers arrived.

Human Rights Watch said that instead of protecting the mourners, police socialized with the mob, laughing along at the situation.

A highway patrol car subsequently arrived, and one of the highway patrol officers reportedly told the churchgoers, “It’s full time this needs to happen. Enough of you guys.”

The highway patrol officers then drove off. The remaining officers at the scene refused to intervene when the mob threatened the mourners with sticks, stones, and batons as they tried to leave the service. Only when several gay men among the mourners took knives from their cars for self-defense did police reportedly take action by firing their guns into the air. Officers stopped gay men from leaving and searched their vehicles, but did not restrain or detain members of the mob, Human Rights Watch said.

More than 30 gay men are believed to have been murdered since 1997 J-FLAG says. In most of the cases the killers have never been brought to trial.

Arrests, however, have been made in several cases which received international attention.

In 2004, Brian Williamson, Jamaica’s leading LGBT civil rights advocate, was brutally murdered. He had been stabbed at least 70 times in the neck. A 25-year-old man is currently serving a life sentence for the murder.

In December 2005, Lenford “Steve” Harvey, who ran Jamaica AIDS Support for Life, was killed.

Harvey was shot to death on the eve of World AIDS Day. His organization provided support to gay men and sex workers. Four men were arrested almost a year later.

In 2006, the bodies of two women believed to have been in a lesbian relationship were found dumped in a septic pit behind a home they shared. The killers of Candice Williams and Phoebe Myrie have not been caught.

Students at University of the West Indies in Kingston rioted last year as police attempted to protect a gay student and escort him from the campus. The incident began when the student was chased across the campus by another student who claimed the gay man had attempted to proposition him in a washroom.

The same year, a young man plunged to his death off a pier in Kingston after reportedly being chased through the streets by a mob yelling homophobic epithets.

In February 2007, three men in “tight jeans” and wearing what some witnesses described as makeup were cornered by a mob of 2000 in a drugstore. There were yells of “kill them” along with gay slurs and demands the three be sent out “to face justice.” Police had to fire tear gas into the crowd to rescue the three.

Reggae, or Jamaican dancehall music, is blamed for fueling homophobia in that country. Reggae star BujuBanton’s hit song Boom Boom Bye Bye which threatens gay men with a “gunshot in ah head.”

Jared Polis wins primary, will likely become nation’s next openly gay member of Congress

Posted on August 12th, 2008 by admin of Gaypolitics.com

After winning his Democratic primary, Jared Polis is likely to become the first-ever openly gay man elected to the U.S. Congress as a non-incumbent, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund announced.

Polis now advances to a general election to represent Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. As the Democratic nominee in an overwhelmingly Democratic district, Polis is nearly certain to win the seat in November. He would join Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) as the only openly gay or lesbian members of Congress.

“Jared’s election is a victory for democracy. Gay Americans are woefully underrepresented in our government,” said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Victory Fund, which endorsed Polis. “Jared’s victory brings us one step closer to fulfilling America’s promise of a truly representative government.”

Polis, who was previously elected statewide to the Colorado State Board of Education, would fill the seat of Rep. Mark Udall, who is running to represent Colorado in the U.S. Senate. The Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute, the Victory Fund’s affiliated organization, supported Polis when he came out publicly while serving on the Board of Education. Polis is also a graduate of GLLI’s Advanced Candidate and Campaign Training.

Polis would become the sixth openly gay person to serve in the House of Representatives. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat elected from Wisconsin in 1998, was the first openly gay person to be elected to the U.S. House as a non-incumbent. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, also a Democrat, announced he was gay in 1987 after having served several terms in the House. Frank is now the powerful chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. The late Gerry Studds, a Democrat of Massachusetts, came out publicly while serving in the House, as did former Congressman Steve Gunderson, a Republican from Wisconsin, and former Congressman Jim Kolbe, a Republican from Arizona. No openly gay or lesbian person has yet been elected to the U.S. Senate.

Kanye West Challenges Fans to End Homophobia

Rapper Kanye West urged his fans to be more open minded and sensitive about cultural differences and diversity in society as he claims confrontational bigotry is nothing more than "disrespectful".
The hip-hop wonder made the comments during a concert at New York's Madison Square Garden on Tuesday August 5th. He called on his fans to follow his example and be more accepting and considerate of people regardless of their differences - attempting to end homophobia in hip-hop culture.

He preached:

"Open y'all's f**kin' minds. Be accepting of different people. Let people be who they are ... You know how many people came at me, calling me 'gay' cause I wear my jeans the fresh way? Or 'cause I said, 'Hey, dude, how y'all gonna say f*g right in front of a gay dude's face and act like that's OK?' That s**t is disrespectful ... It took me time to break out of the mental prisons I was in. The stereotypes of the fear of the backlash that I would get for believing in what I believe in, for accepting people for who they are."

After airing his opinions, he thanked the patient crowd and signed off by saying, "Thank y'all for listening to me. I had a few things to get off my chest. I want y'all to handle the rest. New York City, good night."

Student finds courage in her art

BY CHRISTY DUAN • FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER • August 12, 2008

For Naomi Zaslow, Orthodox Judaism gave her a clear path in life. She'd go to Jewish school and Jewish summer camp. After high school, she'd get married, or maybe go to a Jewish college in New York and then get married.
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But since her birth on the Sabbath, a holy day of rest, Zaslow has proven restless.

She followed a different path, graduating from the University of Michigan School of Art and Design. That path also has led her to accept her sexual orientation.

Although the Miami native usually is hidden behind a camera, Zaslow's photographs show that she has nothing to hide.

Through "unOrthodox," her senior thesis, Zaslow deconstructs her identity with eight photographs accompanied by audio of her creative nonfiction writing.

"It's like the idea of intersectionality," said Zaslow, 22, of Ann Arbor. "Which is more important: being queer, a woman or Jewish? None can be. There are so many facets of identity that come into play. It's a sum of all those parts."

Facing the decision of a religious or gay community, Zaslow chose a third option. She chose to become Post Denominational. She's involved within the Orthodox Jewish community but adopts aspects relevant to her life.

"When I make art, I want people to feel when they look at it. It's not a matter of 'Is this a pretty picture or not?' " Zaslow said. "People felt something. People started to cry."

But before she accepted her own identity, she was struggling to find her place in the community.

"All the other girls were fawning over young men in their pubescent glory. I wasn't attracted to them. They had acne. They were my friends," she recalled of her 12-year-old self.

"I tried to foster that 'I'm straight, I'm straight, I'm straight.' I thought of all the guys in class. I would think, 'Well, he's good at math and he likes "Star Wars," so it's not a total lie if I said I like him.' "

In an attempt to closet herself, Zaslow covered the walls of her room with posters of boys.

When she read a Newsweek article about Matthew Shepard, a gay student from the University of Wisconsin who was robbed, tortured and left to die, Zaslow was distraught. She sat on her flowered bedspread and wept as posters of Seth Green, Blink-182 and the Beastie Boys surrounded her.

Even though she convinced herself that she was straight, Zaslow would secretly retrieve a gay life column from the garbage after her father edited the paper.

Locking herself in the bathroom, she would spread the forbidden pages on the linoleum floor and read.

Before she knew it, she had spent three years poring over the column.

Amid lectures reproaching so-called deviant behavior and a classmate's denial of the existence of gay Jews, Zaslow created an art portfolio centered on a fictional girl about to die.

"I never expressed to my friends or art teacher that the reason why this girl felt she could never go to heaven was because she was gay. But when people saw it, they understood that I was depressed," Zaslow said. "One night, I realized that if I didn't tell someone, it would be very hard for me to keep surviving."

Although no one in the class earned higher than a two -- or a D in a college-level art course -- the experience made Zaslow realize that she needed to come out.

Since then, she has come out to her friends, brother and mother, but not her father.

"My mom wasn't surprised. My father probably already knows it, but you just don't see what you don't want to see. Self-editing is a huge problem, but between our parents and us, things are so different," Zaslow said.

For those facing similar challenges, Zaslow urges caution -- and hope.

"It feels trite, but you're not alone. Because people do feel alone. It's scary. If you reach out, bad things can happen, do happen," Zaslow said. "But sometimes you do need to take the risk. There are places where you can find support. Things do get better.

"I figured it out in my own way -- through art."

Human Rights Campaign to Host Salt Lake City “Camp Equality,” Train Activists for Election 2008

WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, will hold a campaign training in Salt Lake City, Utah as part of a national program to help elect fair-minded candidates and defeat discriminatory ballot measures. The program – called Camp Equality – will train nearly 1,500 people in 13 cities to work on political campaigns. The Camp Equality training will take place in Salt Lake City on August 16. Those interested in participating in Camp Equality are encouraged to apply online: www.hrc.org/campequality



“We are searching for talented and committed supporters of equality who are engaged in the political process and eager to build the skills necessary to win,” said National Field Director Marty Rouse. “By maintaining a visible presence on campaigns, we’re ensuring that the fight for equality remains a priority in this election cycle and beyond.”



Camp Equality builds on the Human Rights Campaign’s successful Campaign College, which brings 40 college students to Washington, D.C. every summer for intensive campaign training. Camp Equality takes that model out to the country, training individuals in their own communities and providing them with information about opportunities to engage in competitive political campaigns. By recruiting and training supporters of equality, HRC is bringing more people into the political process, training them to help fair-minded candidates achieve victory, and building support for equality across the country.



From mobilizing the GLBT community, recruiting and training a cadre of grassroots political advocates to staff and assist political campaigns on the ground, and strategically targeting “high-impact” races, the Human Rights Campaign is gearing up to make sure that issues of equality for the GLBT community are discussed in ’08 on our terms – not used as a divisive wedge by anti-gay forces on the right.



In 2006, the Human Rights Campaign flexed its political muscle in unprecedented and strategic ways that helped alter the political dynamic in key races across the country. HRC’s influence was felt in key victories for strong pro-equality candidates like Florida’s Ron Klein, Arizona’s Gabrielle Giffords and Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey.



Through an expanded field team and an unprecedented focus on state-level activity, the Human Rights Campaign helped ensure victory for 211 endorsed candidates, offering up a stinging defeat for some of the most anti-gay politicians in the country, including Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. Because of these efforts, HRC was ranked the second most successful political organization in the country by National Journal (“Reversal of Fortune”, National Journal, 11/11/06).



WHAT: Camp Equality Training by Human Rights Campaign



WHO: Human Rights Campaign, Equality Utah, Utah Stonewall Democrats, the Utah Aids Foundation, and the Utah Pride Center



WHEN: Saturday, August 16 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (Time is for media purposes only)



WHERE: Salt Lake County Government Center. 2001 South State St., Salt Lake City, UT 84190 (Location is for media purposes only)

House Formally Apologizes For Slavery and Jim Crow

Jim Abrams.7/29/08.AP

WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.
"Today represents a milestone in our nation's efforts to remedy the ills of our past," said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The resolution, passed by voice vote, was the work of Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen, the only white lawmaker to represent a majority black district. Cohen faces a formidable black challenger in a primary face-off next week.

Congress has issued apologies before _ to Japanese-Americans for their internment during World War II and to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893. In 2005, the Senate apologized for failing to pass anti-lynching laws.

Five states have issued apologies for slavery, but past proposals in Congress have stalled, partly over concerns that an apology would lead to demands for reparations _ payment for damages.

The Cohen resolution does not mention reparations. It does commit the House to rectifying "the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans under slavery and Jim Crow."

It says that Africans forced into slavery "were brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized and subjected to the indignity of being stripped of their names and heritage" and that black Americans today continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow laws that fostered discrimination and segregation.

The House "apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow."

"Slavery and Jim Crow are stains upon what is the greatest nation on the face of the earth," Cohen said. Part of forming a more perfect union, he said, "is such a resolution as we have before us today where we face up to our mistakes and apologize as anyone should apologize for things that were done in the past that were wrong."

Cohen became the first white to represent the 60 percent black district in Memphis in more than three decades when he captured a 2006 primary where a dozen black candidates split the vote. He has sought to reach out to his black constituents, and early in his term showed interest in joining the Congressional Black Caucus until learning that was against caucus rules.

Another of his first acts as a freshman congressman in early 2007 was to introduce the slavery apology resolution. His office said that the House resolution was brought to the floor only after learning that the Senate would be unable to join in a joint resolution.

More than a dozen of the 42 Congressional Black Caucus members in the House were original co-sponsors of the measure. The caucus has not endorsed either Cohen or his chief rival, attorney Nikki Tinker, in the Memphis primary, although Cohen is backed by several senior members, including Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. Tinker is the former campaign manager of Harold Ford, Jr., who held Cohen's seat until he stepped down in an unsuccessful run for the Senate in 2006.