NEWSBYNATHAN TABAK

There’s no denying that the past decade has seen great strides forward in LGBT rights. We can now marry in five states, plus the District of Columbia.  Gay men and lesbians will soon be able to serve openly in the military. We have more visibility in the broader culture than ever before.  And more cities and municipalities have adopted non-discrimination policies that protect us from being fired simply for who we are.

But not all LGBT people have benefited from these advances. And thanks to the work of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality, there’s new evidence that the “T” has seen the least progress of the other three letters of that oft-used acronym. “Injustice At Every Turn,” shows just how far transgender people remain from full equality.

World AIDS Day, obviously, tends to be a very somber day.  We remember the millions who have had their lives cut short, both in the United States and around the globe.  We promote awareness of the disease and how it is transmitted, and encourage safe sex practices so as to curtail its spread.

But as we rightly take heed of the tragedies and the very real dangers that have resulted from this epidemic, we should also keep in mind the living.  Thousands of Americans, and millions around the world, are living with HIV – and they are not all victims wasting away in hospital beds, but human beings living full and active lives.

That’s why it’s so important that the magazine Positively Aware has launched a project to send this message.  Its pictorial feature, A Day With HIV In America, contains over a hundred photos of Americans (of which 26 were featured in the magazine’s print edition) of all races, ages, genders, sexual orientations, and walks of life, answering the question: “What does it mean to live with HIV?”

As the pictorial’s title implies, every one of these photos was taken on the same day: September 21 of this year.   And the stories they tell prove that HIV-positive people cannot be easily put under any label or filed into any box.

Let’s not beat around the bush: Fred Karger won’t be sitting in the Oval Office anytime soon.  But that doesn’t mean his quest for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination is worth ignoring – or that advocates of LGBT equality shouldn’t find cause to cheer his campaign on.

Who is Fred Karger?  He’s been a Republican far longer than he’s been a gay rights activist, to be sure, and his record in that regard is unlikely to endear liberals to his campaign. As an April profile in Mother Jones reported, Karger has worked for Republican campaigns since he was 14.  He spent a full 27 years working for the GOP consulting firm Dolphin Group, known for its work with the infamous GOP strategist Lee Atwater, of Willie Horton ad fame.  Karger was also involved in setting up faux-grassroots “Astroturf” groups for large corporations, such as a group created for tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris that lobbied against smoking bans.

Not surprisingly, Karger spent most of his GOP career in the closet.  But when he came out, his career took a colorful turn. In 2005, he publicly waged a campaign to save a Laguna Beach, California gay bar, Boom Boom Room. This effort didn’t succeed, but it ultimately led to Karger’s involvement in the fight against Proposition 8.

In the summer of 2008, Karger founded Californians Against Hate (CAH, now called Rights Equal Rights), a group dedicated to publicizing the names of Prop 8 donors.

It’s been a huge week for supporters of marriage equality, in the wake of Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling in Perry v. Schwarzenegger that California’s Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.  But there are multiple roads to marriage equality in California and around the nation, and they don’t all involve courts.  A new report, published this week, illuminates the path to winning marriage equality at the ballot box.

While Judge Walker’s words are an eloquent and stirring defense of the right to marriage for all, the ultimate fate of Prop 8 isn’t in his hands; the case still needs to go through the long, arduous appellate court process before reaching the Supreme Court, which will take a number of years.  Even there, it’s all but certain that four justices (Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito) will vote against marriage equality.  With the current makeup of the Court, it’ll come down to the Court’s one swing vote: Justice Anthony Kennedy.  This is a gamble, to say the least.

We all hope for the best from the courts during the next few years of litigation.  In the meantime, I advise supporters of equality to closely read a new study from the LGBT Mentoring Project.  This report, written by longtime LGBT activist David Fleischer, not only analyzes the reasons why Proposition 8 passed in 2008, but also reveals how we can learn from our defeat to win future ballot initiatives.  (Full disclosure: I am an employee of Renna Communications, a firm handling public relations for the Mentoring Project.)

Here are just a few of the report’s findings:

You may have seen a compelling story from Chicago’s Gay Pride this year: A group of church volunteers on the sidelines, rather than protesting the sin of homosexuality, instead carried signs such as “I Used To Be A Bible-Banging Homophobe – Sorry!”, and “I’m Sorry for how the Church has Treated You!”

It’s an emotionally moving and cathartic tale of reconciliation between former homophobes and gay and allied Americans, especially when accompanied by the accounts of some of the volunteers (“I hugged a man in his underwear. I hugged him tightly. And I am proud.”)

When this story first spread around the gay blogosphere, many prominent gay bloggers and publications expressed hope that these signs were the olive branch that they appeared to be.  Sadly, it was soon revealed that this story was a work of fiction, because the Marin Foundation, the group that organized the sign-wavers, isn’t telling the truth about its agenda.  Not when LGBT people are their target audience, anyway.

The Marin Foundation, along with its founder, Andrew Marin, had largely disappeared from the national radar in the wake of a scathing 2006 Advocate story by gay activist and commentator Michelangelo Signorile.  In that article, Signorile revealed, among other things, that Marin told friends that “his foundation would make him rich”; that Marin publicly outed two lesbian friends without their permission, by lying about them personally coming out to him; and that Signorile invited him onto his radio program, whereupon Marin refused four times to answer the question: “Is homosexuality natural, normal, and healthy?”

On the morning after the conclusion of the Proposition 8 trial in U.S. District Court, the National Organization for Marriage's Brian Brown had this to tweet: "New poll: 54 percent of Californians still oppose ssm [same-sex marriage.]"

It may sound distressing to supporters of marriage equality, but if you look closely, you'll find that this new poll, conducted by the little-known firm ccAdvertising, should be laughed out of the room.  Here are a few reasons why:

1.  The questions are far from unbiased

Whether they're from Gallup, SurveyUSA, or California's own Field Poll, all reputable pollsters take pains to make their questions as impartial and non-partisan as possible. Not so with the ccAdvertising poll, which includes such questions as these:

• "Do you want the new Congress that will be elected in November to reject Obamacare before it can start affecting our lives?"
• "Do you support a national energy tax, also known as ‘cap and trade,' which will cost every family in America an additional $3,500 a year for energy consumption?"  (Note: This is a highly dubious figure.)

Moreover, just look at the marriage question itself, which echoes the preferred language of NOM and other same-sex marriage opponents: "Do you believe that only marriage between one man and one woman should be legal and binding in America?"  Just compare that to a May Gallup poll, which asked: "Do you think marriages between same-sex couples should or should not be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages?"

"I don't see what trangender rights have to do with me."

That's a sentiment I've heard time and time again from many of my gay friends. And that's a mild slur, compared to the ones who denounce transgender people as diseased or "freaks."

While many gays and lesbians are fully accepting of transgender men and women, there's no question that transphobia is a major issue in the gay community. There have been a fair number of articles on this subject, including a three-post series by Dr. Jillian T. Weiss, which I highly recommend. Seeing as many gay people I personally know have trouble relating to the trans community, I felt it was worth arguing against the idea that the T is somehow completely unrelated to the LGB.

Why does it make sense to put groups as diverse as lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transpersons under one LGBT or queer umbrella?  Because of our shared difference from what the broader culture considers "normative" sexuality.  By "normative," I don't just mean straight; I mean the entire idea that one's biological gender should determine not just what you do with your genitalia, but how you express your sexuality and gender.

And it's those who diverge the most (or often, the most visibly) from those gender norms who suffer the most invidious discrimination in our culture; that includes effeminate men (gay or otherwise) and butch women as well.  It's also why trans persons suffer so much of the violence directed at LGBT persons, including in my own city, Washington.  And this discrimination isn't always violent, of course; a survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that trans persons are twice as likely to be unemployed or live in poverty as the general population, and that an astonishing 97 percent have reported harassment in their workplaces.

It's fair to say that Archie comics aren't exactly at the height of cultural relevance these days. The squeaky-clean misadventures of Riverdale's teenagers have never been known for their novel plot ideas or raw, realistic depiction of adolescent sexuality. They've arguably retained a following precisely because parents can buy them for their children, knowing that the plot will involve nothing more complex or provocative than a new wrinkle in the eternally unresolved Archie/Betty/Veronica love triangle, or Jughead's latest attempt to find the perfect hamburger.  But by introducing a new gay character, Archie may be suddenly — and surprisingly — be on the cultural cutting edge.

That's right. Veronica #202, shipping in September, features the debut of Archie Comics' first gay character, Kevin Keller.  According to the story synopsis, "Kevin Keller is the new hunk in town and Veronica just has to have him. After Kevin defeats Jughead in a burger eating contest at Pop's Chocklit Shoppe, she desperately latches onto him. Mayhem and hilarity ensue as Kevin desperately attempts to let Veronica down easy and her flirtations only become increasingly persistent."

One could certainly quibble with Archie introducing the character in a storyline involving Veronica's presumption of Kevin's heterosexuality being played for laughs, rather than in a more straightforward manner that doesn't evoke decades-old sitcom plots.  And judging from the preview page, I suspect that, like a number of past gay television characters, Kevin will be written to be as desexualized as possible; I'll be pleasantly surprised if he's even shown flirting with any of Archie's male classmates anytime soon.

It’s said that one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. But in the wake of the tragic April 10 plane crash that killed many of Poland’s political and military leaders, I feel it’s best not to whitewash the truth: for the LGBT citizens of his county, Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s legacy is unquestionably an ugly thing.

Whatever his accomplishments on other fronts, Kaczynski was a steadfast supporter of denying Polish citizens equal rights on the basis of their sexuality. Here are just a few low points in Kaczynski’s history of homophobia:

• Prior to assuming the presidency, Kaczynski proved his anti-gay bona fides as mayor of Warsaw. In 2004, then-Mayor Kaczynski banned gay pride parades in Warsaw, in order to “to protect the morality and religious feelings of the inhabitants of the Polish capital.” In 2005, he did the same, on the grounds that such an event would promote the “homosexual lifestyle.” That year, he also reportedly declared that “I am for tolerance, but against propagating the gay orientation,” and suggested that the parade would be a “joke” that conflicted with the unveiling of a statue of a Polish resistance leader. Nonetheless, the 2005 event drew thousands of gay rights supporters in defiance of the ban.
• As if banning the pride parades wasn’t enough, the then-Mayor authorized a “normality parade,” which was held the week after the impromptu gay pride event. According to Amnesty International, the event reportedly involved members of the right-wing All Polish Youth “shout[ing] slogans inciting intolerance and homophobia.”
• In a 2007 speech, President Kaczynski “attacked what he called ‘the homosexual culture’ and suggested that widespread homosexuality would lead to the disappearance of the human race.”
• During a March 2008 speech, Kaczynski showed images of an American gay couple’s wedding to stoke fears that the European Union’s proposed charter of rights would force Poland to legalize same-sex marriage, and referred to such marriages as “institutions contrary to the moral convictions of Poles.” The couple, Brendan Fay and Thomas Moulton, “We are frustrated to hear that images from such a joyous day are used to spread intolerance ... We would never have agreed to permit our photographs as part of a homophobic campaign.” Despite Kaczynski’s homophobic fearmongering, a subsequent poll showed that a large majority of Poles supported the treaty.

Despite this appalling history, it would be unfair to tar the entire Polish government with an anti-gay brush. A heroic counterpart to Kaczynski’s legacy can be found in the career of Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, who was killed in the same plane crash that killed Kaczynski. Jaruga-Nowacka, who served as deputy prime minister from 2004 to 2005, was an outspoken proponent of gay rights, and a critic of Kaczynski’s bigoted actions.

UPDATE:This morning, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates outlined some new Pentagon procedures that will limit circumstances under which current soldiers can be fired from the military under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Video of Gates' statement is online here. According to the Human Rights Campaign, these new regulations will raise "the level of the commander authorized to initiate a discharge investigation, (revise) the threshold for credible information and third-party allegations, and (protect) disclosure to medical and psychological personnel and for other non-military purposes."

It's been nearly two months since President Obama reiterated his intent to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy in his State of the Union address.  But while the time frame for DADT's well-deserved death remains frustratingly unclear, there are some important, and encouraging, developments.

On March 23, the leading progressive think tank the Center for American Progress issued a report (full and summary versions available at the link) on "Implementing the Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the U.S. Armed Forces." CAP's report provides a strong rebuttal to those in the military who wish to delay (and, depending on the results of the November election, potentially kill) the repeal of DADT by waiting for the results of a yearlong study.