by Peter DelVecchio and Karen Ocamb

Historic Prop. 8 Trial Exposes Anti-Gay Discrimination

Covering the federal Prop. 8 trial for the Daily Beast, Linda Hirshman wrote, “The gay marriage case now unfolding in a San Francisco courtroom may be the most important battle between tradition and modernity since the Scopes trial.”

That may seem a bit hyperbolic, especially sitting in U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker’s courtroom where legendary lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies seem so, well, human—and even the most dramatic and moving testimony is expressed quietly, with only flashes of humor or choked-back tears.

But at the heart of this trial is the fundamental clash of religious and civil values over sexual orientation and the institution of marriage. Olson, Boies and the legal team sponsored by the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) is trying to prove that the Prop. 8 campaign created and passed an unconstitutional law by manipulating voters’ prejudice and fear of gay people and that there is no rational reason to exclude same-sex couples from equally accessing the fundamental right to marriage.

“You can’t deny a fundamental right without a good reason. You need a weighty reason,” Ralph Richard Banks, a Stanford Law School equal-protection law expert, told the Sacramento Bee.

“There is no question, Your Honor,” Olson said in his opening statement, “that what Proposition 8 did and was intended to do was to take away a right of same-sex couples to be in the marital relationship and to confine them to domestic partnerships or some other relationship. It put them in a different category. Now, that’s discrimination.”

The Prop. 8 side, led by legal titan Charles Cooper, said the voters do have a legitimate rationale for restricting marriage to only between a man and a woman—and prejudice doesn’t enter into it.

“Same-sex marriage is simply too novel an experiment at this stage,” Cooper said, adding that the “defining” characteristic of marriage is procreation and that opposing marriage equality doesn’t necessarily mean Prop. 8 supporters harbor “ill will” toward gay people.

But testimony by the plaintiffs, historians and scholars seemed to suggest a clear consciousness of discrimination as a useful political tool as the Olson/Boies team laid out how anti-gay bias fit into the historic continuum of people espousing “traditional” religious beliefs to discriminate against women and people of color.

William Tam, an Official Proponent of the initiative who asked the judge if he could be removed from the case, appeared on camera as a spokesperson for the Traditional Values Coalition. In a fundraising letter, he said failure to pass Prop. 8 would push the “gay agenda” and “[o]n their agenda list is: legalize having sex with children.”

The Olson/Boies team underscored how Yes on 8 campaigned to “protect children” from gays, which fits into a long history of anti-gay discrimination.

AFER is posting the trial transcripts and videos on their site: equalrightsfoundation.org.

Justice Dept. Intervenes in Gay Bias Suit

The federal Dept. of Justice has moved to intervene in a lawsuit on behalf of an openly gay student who sued his school after being repeatedly harassed and brutalized for being effeminate, the first such intervention in a decade, National Public Radio reports.

Fifteen-year-old Jacob, who does not wish to disclose his last name, sued the Mohawk Central School District in upstate New York after allegedly enduring years of harassment, including being told by classmates to get a sex change, being advised by a teacher to “hate himself every day until he changed,” and being pushed down a flight of stairs.

The Justice Dept. argues that Title IX, a federal law typically seen as protecting students against sex discrimination, also covers discrimination based on gender stereotypes.

LGBT groups are heartened by what they see as a strong stand being taken by the Obama administration, but others think the government’s argument goes too far. “If the ... Obama administration want to propose that Title IX be amended to include sexual orientation ... that can be debated in Congress,” said Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity, who worked under President Reagan and the first President Bush.

GOP Wins Kennedy’s Senate Seat

In a turn of events that would have seemed impossible just weeks ago, Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley by a 5-point margin in a Jan. 19 special election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat, the Los Angeles Times reports. Since Kennedy’s death, the seat has been occupied by Paul Kirk, appointed by Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick. Kennedy, who died in August, had held the seat for almost 47 years.

The victory deprives the Democrats of their 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, casts Pres. Barack Obama’s entire agenda into doubt, including pending healthcare legislation, and could be a harbinger of trouble for Democrats in this year’s mid-term Congressional elections.

There could also be ramifications for LGBT issues and legislation. The anti-same-sex marriage National Organization for Marriage (NOM) directed pro-Brown robo-calls into Massachusetts in the days preceding the election, according to Denis Dison of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. NOM would not do that, said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese “if it weren’t convinced that Brown will continue ... his anti-equality record in the Senate.”

Brown falsely “portray[ed] himself as a moderate,” said out U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

QUICK PICK

Actor Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and his boyfriend, David Burka, arrive at the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills on Jan. 17.

VID PICKS

Outrage, Kirby Dick’s documentary about closeted gay politicians, was inexcusably snubbed from receiving a GLAAD Media Award nomination. tinyurl.com/ye9lehz

Out rocker Adam Lambert belts out Sam Cooke’s classic 1964 R&B civil rights anthem “A Change Is Gonna Come,” with an LGBT twist. tinyurl.com/ycfs8q4

The L.A. County Fire Department helped with the miraculous rescue of a woman trapped deep under a collapsed building in Haiti. Remarkably she sings when freed! tinyurl.com/y8sf9v2

Pentagon Lawyers Oppose Ending DADT Now

Attorneys for Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are advising putting the brakes on efforts to end the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (DADT) this year, the New York Times reported Jan. 14.

Under DADT, gays may not serve unless they keep their sexual orientation secret.

“Now is not the time,” Mullen’s counsel said in a memo obtained by the AP. “The importance of winning the wars we are in, along with the stress on the force, our body of knowledge and the number of unknowns, demand that we act with deliberation.” Lawyers opposing early repeal recommend that the Pentagon not send a proposal to Congress for ending DADT until the summer of 2011, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will be winding down under current White House plans. This would bring the issue to a head just as the 2012 presidential campaign moved into high gear.

Other Pentagon advisors, however, are reportedly urging Mullen to move faster, saying repeal would not disrupt military operations or give rise to any serious problems.

Mullen spokesman Capt. John Kirby said the Joint Chiefs of Staff have reached no conclusion on how or when to repeal DADT, but opposition to repeal is reportedly strong among the military’s top brass.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has indicated that he wants to start the repeal process this year. Hearings could begin as early as late January or February, but Levin also wants a 1993 study on gays in the military updated, which could take several months.

Both during the 2008 campaign and since his election and inauguration, Pres. Barack Obama has repeatedly pledged to work towards repeal of DADT, but has so far taken no concrete steps in that direction.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) launched a campaign Jan. 12 aimed at pressuring Obama to act on his promise this year. “The time is now,” SLDN wrote in an open letter to the president in the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call. “Not next year or the second term. To delay another year is to stand aside and okay the daily firing of service members merely because they are gay ... While congressional and military leadership will be essential in ending this discrimination in the ranks, Mr. President, we all look to you to lead the way.”

Drug-Resistant HIV Surge Possible

A scientific model based on transmission of HIV among men in San Francisco predicts a coming surge of drug-resistant strains of HIV over the next five years, newscientist.com reported Jan. 15.

About 15 percent of new San Francisco infections involve resistant strains, some resistant to all three major HIV drug classes. The model predicts 60 percent of the San Francisco resistant strains could generate “self-sustaining epidemics,” according to the University of California, Los Angeles’ Sally Blower, lead author of the analysis.

The proportion of new infections resistant to one major class of drugs, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, could increase by 30 percent by 2013, Blower said. The more people infected with the resistant virus, the faster it will likely spread.

If infected people are diagnosed before passing on the resistant virus and treated with drugs that still work on that particular strain, resistant strains can be kept at bay, according to Blower.

U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Referendum Privacy

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Jan. 15 to decide whether signers of ballot initiative petitions have a First Amendment right not to have their names revealed, the New York Times, reports.

The case stems from a failed 2009 Washington state ballot measure that asked voters to repeal a law granting domestic partners the same rights as marriage. Pro-marriage equality groups sought disclosure of the names of petition signers, intending to post them on the internet. The anti-same-sex marriage group Protect Marriage Washington successfully blocked release of the names in federal court, citing fear of “threats, harassment and reprisal,” but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and ordered the names released.

The high court’s acceptance of the case forestalled release of the names. The state of Washington had urged the court not to hear the case. A decision is expected in June.

14 From Haiti AIDS Group Among Quake Dead

Among the tens of thousands killed by the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that devastated Haiti Jan. 12 were 14 men who worked for or were aided by Haiti’s largest organization serving LGBT people living with AIDS, SEROvie, according to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). Only two attending a support group meeting when the quake struck survived.

Also among the several Americans known to have been killed in the earthquake was transgender artist Flo McGarrell from Vermont (pictured).

“It is now more than ever that SEROvie and ACCV (Civic Action Against AIDS) are needed to provide the quality services we provide to our beneficiaries: food, clothes and any type of help,” SEROvie’s Steve La Guerre wrote in an email to IGLHRC, The Advocate reports. “Light a candle for these souls and for Haiti. Lord help us.”

IGLHRC is sending money directly to SEROvie so it can continue its services, IGLHRC Executive Director Cary Alan Johnson said. To donate to IGLHRC, visit iglhrc.org. To donate to Aid for AIDS International, another group supporting HIV-positive Haitians, visit aidforaids.org. Text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for Haiti.

Quote - Unquote

“Tim and Pam share our respect for life and our passion for helping families thrive.”

—Jim Daly, president and CEO of the right-wing Christian group Focus on the Family, regarding an ad to be aired during the Super Bowl featuring Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam Tebow, as reported in the Orlando Sentinel.

“I am not going after religion. I want to get the players to be truthful about their involvement. ”

—Californians Against Hate founder Fred Karger, regarding a complaint he filed with the California Fair Political Practices Commission accusing the Mormon Church of hiding donations to the pro-Proposition 8 campaign.

“Republicans were historically the party ever-expanding freedom to disenfranchised minorities, from newly liberated slaves to giving women the right to vote.”

—Fox News contributor Margaret Hoover, granddaughter of Pres. Herbert Hoover, urging her fellow Republicans to support same-sex marriage in a Jan. 15 piece posted at FoxNews.com.

As of 7:34 a.m., Jan 19

American Deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan: 5,335 icasualties.org

American Wounded in Iraq: 31,613 antiwar.com/casualties

Iraqi Dead since 2003: 95,061-103,717 iraqbodycount.org

Cost of Iraq and Afghanistan Wars: $950,869,000,000+ costofwar.com

National Debt: $12,276,877,306,806.23 brillig.com/debt_clock

U.S. Trade Deficit: $22,486,000,000.00+
americaneconomicalert.org/ticker_home.asp