NEWSLGBT HISTORY

Last year, the Space Needle made history by flying the Pride flag for the first time ever during Seattle's Pride weekend. Thousands of people celebrated  under the Space Needle and a giant rainbow flag showing the company's commitment to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

Notably, Representative Jim McDermott addressed a crowd of hundreds at Pride. He spoke about how important it was to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."  LGBT service men and women stood with roses in front of the stage as he spoke.

My partner was among those veterans. He was brought to tears as the power of that moment overwhelmed him. I remember watching him, and the other soldiers and feeling incredibly sad that our soldiers not only had to fight for our freedom abroad, but their own freedom at home as well.

Change.org received a statement from the United States Postal Service (USPS) in response to a petition with more than 8,000 signatures started by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force urging USPS to make a stamp honoring Harvey Milk.

Roy Betts, a spokesperson for USPS wrote:

I am pleased to respond that Harvey Milk is under consideration by the Committee for possible future stamp issuance. The Committee is responsible for reviewing stamp proposals and making subject and design recommendations to the Postmaster General.As additional information, the Committee decides on new stamp subject recommendations far in advance of the issue date in order to provide time for planning, design, production, and distribution. Currently, the 2012 and 2013 stamp programs are completed, and stamp subjects for the 2014 program and subsequent years are being selected. Although many of the subjects for upcoming new stamps have been identified, no public announcement of individual new stamps is made until the entire stamp program for that year has been approved. This occurs in the fall preceding the year of issuance.

It is reassuring that a Harvey Milk stamp is still under consideration. The committee could have dismissed the idea by now, but they chose to keep the idea alive.

This weekend there will be celebrations throughout California and the United States for Harvey Milk's birthday on May 22.

Harvey Milk was a pioneer for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights. He was the first non-incombant openly gay man elected to office in the United States.

Milk was relentless with his passionate call for equality. While he was a Supervisor for San Francisco, he helped pass the first city wide civil rights ordinance for gay people in San Francisco.

He was always concerned about LGBT youth. His now famous saying, "You've got to give them hope," is still as relevant today as when he said it nearly 30 years ago. Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" campaign is a living example of Harvey Milk's philosophy. Closeted and and oppressed LGBT people need to know that life can be better.

Sadly, Harvey Milk was assassinated by Dan White before he could complete his important work. Nevertheless he remains an inspiration to all of us who care about social justice.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force started a petition on Change.org to encourage the United States Postmaster to create a Harvey Milk stamp. More than 7,000 people have signed the petition so far.

You too can celebrate the life and legacy of Harvey Milk by signing the petition and sharing it with your friends. If successful, this will be the first United States postage stamp featuring a LGBT civil rights hero. Harvey Milk would sure be proud.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

California would not be the great state it is today if it weren't for a few key historic events.

The settling by indigenous tribes, of course, got the region off the ground, while the establishment of Mexican provincial governments and subsequent battles with the nascent United States altered its course.

And the Gold Rush uncovered vast amounts of wealth, which helped give the state its nickname, the Golden State, and the rise of Hollywood too proved essential to California's development.

And then there was the LGBT rights movement, which helped establish California as a beacon for people of all colors and creeds. Unfortunately, for too long that historical period has gone ignored by official history lessons.

That may soon change, though, for the state Senate this week passed the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act, legislation that would include LGBT contributions in the state's history curriculum.

Harvey Milk. Alan Turing. Jane Addams. Natalie Clifford Barney. Bayard Rustin. Barbara Gittings.

Those are just a few prominent LGBT names in history that, more often than not, never make their way into America's classrooms. But legislation in California could change that, and ensure that the contributions of LGBT people in history are included in the education system.

S.B. 48 -- otherwise known as the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act -- is authored by State Sen. Mark Leno, and received its first committee hearing late last month. If passed, the Act would revise social science curricula in California so that the contributions made by LGBT people in history would be covered. As Sen. Leno put it, part of the goal behind this bill is to help LGBT youth feel less isolated, by showing that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people have made significant contributions to both American and world history.

Several House Republicans have proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as other essential programs.

Arts funding has long been the bane of many a conservative politician's existence, and with the new majority in the House, some Republicans sense an opportunity to eliminate the federal agency once and for all. By eliminating the NEA from the budget under the guise of budget restraint, they hope to end funding for an agency that doesn’t regularly promote a conservative religious world view.

The NEA has historically been ahead of the curve on LGBT issues. By backing Robert Mapplethorpe’s Project X in the 1980s, which was decried for its homoerotic undertones, the NEA took a stand for artistic expression and the value that a queer perspective can bring to art. And thus began a long crusade by the right wing to curb artistic expression, in the name of family values. Sen. Jesse Helms authored amendments meant to curb any HIV/AIDS awareness and prevent funding for art that he considered “homoerotic” and “religiously offensive.” In the 1990s Rep. Peter Hoekstra decried Cheryl Dunye’s Watermelon Woman as an offensive waste of taxpayer money. Even today, LGBT-themed art makes conservatives uncomfortable.

America’s investment in the arts has been under attack for the better part of a century. When the Federal Theatre Project was a part of FDR’s New Deal, his political opponents worked tirelessly until it was dismantled. Artists have been blacklisted, plays and books have been banned, hearings have been held  even since Hallie Flannagan was questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee where one Congressman went so far as to question whether or not 16th century playwright Christopher Marlow was a communist. In the 1990s, Congress had epic battles with President Clinton over the NEA. And even in the recent stimulus bill, Sen. Tom Coburn included a provision that prohibited any arts organization from receiving stimulus funding. Conservatives simply don’t like arts funding, because the arts tend to be socially progressive.

The current budget for the NEA is $167.5 million (coincidentally, the same approximate amount as under Reagan’s last budget). That’s approximately 53 cents per person in the United States. Though opponents claim scuttling the agency is a way to reduce the national debt, which stands at over $14 trillion, the NEA’s budget is a drop in the bucket. The elimination of the NEA has as much, if not more, to do with conservative religious distrust of the arts than it has to do with the debt or deficit spending.

Arts funding is vital to society. Arts centers and projects create a sense of community, keep kids off the streets, allow people outlets to express their thoughts and even create jobs. And investing in these things are important for the well-being of society. When we think about past eras and cultures, we define them using the art they created: when we think of Ancient Greece, we think or architecture and theater; when we think of the Renaissance, we think of Italian painting; when we think of cave men, we think of wall paintings. Today, if the NEA were funding Michelangelo’s David, you can bet a conservative would object to the public funding of a nude male sculpture.

The NEA has supported the queer community and given voice to some of the most important queer artists. For a vibrant society, we must continue supporting this often neglected agency. Congress needs to know that we fully support the National Endowment for the Arts. Be sure to tell them that they need to find their budget cuts somewhere else.

Photo credit: National Endowment for the Arts

Most people remember iconic actor Gregory Peck as the progressive lawyer Atticus Finch in the 1962 big screen adaptation of To Kill a Mocking Bird.

Fifteen years prior, however, Peck starred in a different book-to-movie production, Gentleman's Agreement, in which he plays another idealistic hero, reporter Philip Schuyler Green, who pretends he's Jewish to write an article about anti-Semitism.

His trials and tribulations speak to any number of the nation's ongoing social ills, like homophobia, and this 64-year-old movie's something more than just entertainment: it's a road map on fighting bigotry in its many forms.

Like many people, I thought I knew all that happened during the Civil Rights Movement. I mean, I went to a school named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Experimental Laboratory School from kindergarten through eighth grade! I was taught about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and a tiny bit about Malcolm X. I thought I knew it all!

When I went to college, I started learning about Bayard Rustin, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde and countless others who made huge contributions to the movement. Who were these people? Why were they not mentioned in my grade school classes? Is it because they were gay and lesbian? Why, as a black student, am I not learning my own history?

To learn more, I watched “Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin”. I was very inspired by his life and the film, so I started researching more of his story. He was a non-violent activist who worked behind the scenes to create the non-violent Civil Rights Movement through the mentorship of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1963, Bayard Rustin, along with A. Philip Randolph, organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was where Dr. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Due to Rustin being openly gay, the NAACP chairman did not want Rustin to be credited for organizing the march. After the success of the March on Washington, Rustin went on to organize The New York City School Boycott, write as a columnist for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) newspaper, and  create change for many other Civil Rights and LGBTQ issues.

I’ve never been a girly girl. I try to never wear high heels and I long ago eschewed skirts and dresses for slacks and jeans. I’ve also never really clicked with other young women. I am, as Cosmo Kramer might say, “a man’s woman. You hate other women, and they hate you.” (Although I will watch Bridget Jones's Diary and the five-hour version of Pride and Prejudice over and over and over...).

Cosmo may be overstating things a bit in my case. It isn’t that I have no female friends. I do; fun, wonderful, caring friends. But, for the most part, my closest friends are men. And this can sometimes pose a problem. No matter how empathetic they may be, it can be hard to explain how different my life is because I am a woman.

The LGBT rights movement is no exception to this. After all, it exists in a world where people exploit gender differences, real or imagined. Being a lesbian is still considered “hot,” therefore many are at risk of being objectified in new and exciting ways. With gay men, straight guys are concerned with having to stare at another guy’s wang, or worse, being converted. No one problem is worse than another, but it’s worth keeping in mind that, sometimes, gay men and lesbians have different problems.

This is why I quite like Her HRC, which, according to their Facebook page, is “a national night of celebration for women.” Basically, it just a big, multi-city party for equality. This is an event for women to celebrate women. No other agenda.

By now we've all heard about the controversial New York City HIV prevention Public Service Announcement (PSA). If you haven't seen it, take a look here -- just be forewarned that it is very graphic.

There has been a ton of coverage and debate surrounding this controversial PSA, including two previous posts here on Change.org.  The saying goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity, and this is Exhibit A. As I mentioned in my original post, whether you agree or disagree with the PSA, it gets people talking, and that's a big success.

The New York Times recently did a piece highlighting the sharp divide this campaign has caused among HIV/AIDS activists. Some advocates are highly in favor of this strategy, and some are severely against it. In a blog featured on POZ, the real issue is captured with these words: "The debate over these ads has largely been amongst people who have devoted much of their lives to combating the epidemic, which makes me hesitant to write in terms of the different 'sides' of the issue.  Everyone is on the side of finding the best ways to reduce HIV transmission, but we have differing thoughts on whether this particular campaign will help reach that goal."