By Akilah Bolden-Monifa
On the 30th anniversary of Harvey Milk's assassination, we need to make good on the promise of equality that he died for.
Born in New York, Milk moved to San Francisco when he was 40 and quickly became a community activist. He dubbed himself the "Mayor of Castro Street," and he and other gay folks were abused by the police.
So he started organizing and then ran for political office unsuccessfully three times. The fourth time in 1977 he won a seat on the board of supervisors in San Francisco.
He became the first openly gay man to be elected to a public office in the United States.
Ironically, Dan White, his assassin, won a seat at the same time.
Back then, anti-gay sentiment was rampant. Anita Bryant was in her prime in Florida, campaigning luridly against civil rights for gays and lesbians. There was even a ballot initiative in California to get rid of gay and lesbian teachers.
Milk helped defeat the initiative and went on to get the city of San Francisco to pass an ordinance ensuring that gays and lesbians have equal rights.
Less than one month later, on November 27, 1978, he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White.
Milk would have been outraged that California voters just passed a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage. This was a huge blow for gay and lesbian civil rights. And it was a personal affront to the 18,000 folks (including this author) who were able to enjoy the right to same-sex marriage in the four months prior to the November election.
Milk properly equated gay and lesbian rights with other civil rights. And he saw the recognition of all these rights as part of the American tradition of equality and fairness.
We need to recall his courage and his vision. Fortunately, the just-released movie "Milk," starring Sean Penn, should help us do so.
Harvey Milk inspired hope.
We needed it 30 years ago.
And we need it today if we are to achieve full civil rights for all.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Obama, McCain should support same-sex marriage
By Akilah Monifa, October 20, 2008
Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain see eye to eye on one issue: same-sex marriage. They’re both opposed.
They should have met Del Martin.
For 55 years, she and Phyllis Lyon were partners. Together, they helped establish the nation's first lesbian rights organization, the Daughters of Bolitis, back in 1955.
Martin and Lyon were the first couple to be married in the city of San Francisco in 2004 and again in the state of California on June 16, 2008. Martin died two months later, on Aug. 27. She was 87.
Neither Obama nor McCain has offered a rational, secular reason why these two women should not have married each other.
Lyon is eligible for California state benefits of inheritance and insurance but is denied over 1,000 federally granted benefits, including Social Security.
But now the citizens of California may posthumously annul their marriage. Same-sex marriage in California is in jeopardy because of a proposition on the Nov. 4 ballot that aims to overrule the California Supreme Court's recent granting of the right of all to marry. Same-sex marriage is also legal in Massachusetts, as well as Connecticut, after the state Supreme Court ruling there on Oct. 3.
On such a civil rights issue, I would have hoped that the presidential candidates would have taken a stand.
Instead, they ducked it, even though they made comments that seemed to recognize the validity of same-sex relationships. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Obama said regardless of how folks feel about same-sex marriage, there is universal agreement on allowing visitation rights in a hospital and not discriminating against gays and lesbians.
McCain has echoed this, as did Sen. Joe Biden and even Gov. Sarah Palin in the vice presidential debate.
Del Martin spent her life fighting for equality. Early on, she understood the parallels between discrimination against blacks and discrimination against gays and lesbians. And she opposed all discrimination.
I’m confident that had Obama or McCain known her, they would have come around on this issue.
Our sons and daughters should be eligible for the full slate of state and federal rights should they chose to marry.
Del Martin’s dream should become reality.
Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain see eye to eye on one issue: same-sex marriage. They’re both opposed.
They should have met Del Martin.
For 55 years, she and Phyllis Lyon were partners. Together, they helped establish the nation's first lesbian rights organization, the Daughters of Bolitis, back in 1955.
Martin and Lyon were the first couple to be married in the city of San Francisco in 2004 and again in the state of California on June 16, 2008. Martin died two months later, on Aug. 27. She was 87.
Neither Obama nor McCain has offered a rational, secular reason why these two women should not have married each other.
Lyon is eligible for California state benefits of inheritance and insurance but is denied over 1,000 federally granted benefits, including Social Security.
But now the citizens of California may posthumously annul their marriage. Same-sex marriage in California is in jeopardy because of a proposition on the Nov. 4 ballot that aims to overrule the California Supreme Court's recent granting of the right of all to marry. Same-sex marriage is also legal in Massachusetts, as well as Connecticut, after the state Supreme Court ruling there on Oct. 3.
On such a civil rights issue, I would have hoped that the presidential candidates would have taken a stand.
Instead, they ducked it, even though they made comments that seemed to recognize the validity of same-sex relationships. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Obama said regardless of how folks feel about same-sex marriage, there is universal agreement on allowing visitation rights in a hospital and not discriminating against gays and lesbians.
McCain has echoed this, as did Sen. Joe Biden and even Gov. Sarah Palin in the vice presidential debate.
Del Martin spent her life fighting for equality. Early on, she understood the parallels between discrimination against blacks and discrimination against gays and lesbians. And she opposed all discrimination.
I’m confident that had Obama or McCain known her, they would have come around on this issue.
Our sons and daughters should be eligible for the full slate of state and federal rights should they chose to marry.
Del Martin’s dream should become reality.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Interracial or same-sex marriage: same core civil-rights issues
By Akilah Monifa, June 12, 2008
We’re in the midst of Gay Pride Month, and we have much to celebrate and much yet to achieve.
In May 2008, California became only the second state following Massachusetts to allow same-sex marriage. Currently, 26 states have constitutional amendments stating that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. And 43 states have statutes restricting marriage to two people of the opposite sex.
When I consider this issue, I think of Mildred Loving, the black woman who had to leave her home state of Virginia to get married to a white man. To avoid a jail term after their return and arrest, they were forced to leave the state again.
Before 1964, 17 states prohibited men and women of different races from marrying.
But the Lovings kept fighting — all the way to the Supreme Court.
And on June 12, 1967, the court ruled in their favor and outlawed miscegenation laws. The court said they had a fundamental equal protection right to marry across race.
Mildred Loving, who died this May 2, simply wanted to be able to marry the person she loved.
That’s all that gays and lesbians want, too.
Fortunately same-sex couples are no longer arrested for being together. But the fundamental right to marry eludes us in 48 states,
The prohibitions against marriage based on race and same sex are the same core civil-rights issues. It is a fundamental equal protection right.
May California and Massachusetts lead the way.
Happy Gay Pride Month.
We’re in the midst of Gay Pride Month, and we have much to celebrate and much yet to achieve.
In May 2008, California became only the second state following Massachusetts to allow same-sex marriage. Currently, 26 states have constitutional amendments stating that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. And 43 states have statutes restricting marriage to two people of the opposite sex.
When I consider this issue, I think of Mildred Loving, the black woman who had to leave her home state of Virginia to get married to a white man. To avoid a jail term after their return and arrest, they were forced to leave the state again.
Before 1964, 17 states prohibited men and women of different races from marrying.
But the Lovings kept fighting — all the way to the Supreme Court.
And on June 12, 1967, the court ruled in their favor and outlawed miscegenation laws. The court said they had a fundamental equal protection right to marry across race.
Mildred Loving, who died this May 2, simply wanted to be able to marry the person she loved.
That’s all that gays and lesbians want, too.
Fortunately same-sex couples are no longer arrested for being together. But the fundamental right to marry eludes us in 48 states,
The prohibitions against marriage based on race and same sex are the same core civil-rights issues. It is a fundamental equal protection right.
May California and Massachusetts lead the way.
Happy Gay Pride Month.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Oklahoma state representative engages in intolerance
By Akilah Monifa, April 3, 2008
Elected officials should stop demonizing gay people.
Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern is the latest to fan the flames of intolerance.
Earlier this year, in a speech to the Oklahoma City Republican Club, she stated that homosexuality is “the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.”
She also said, “They want to get our young children into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them. They are going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle. … If you have cancer in your little toe, do you just say that I'm going to forget about it since the rest of you is fine? It spreads! This stuff is deadly and it is spreading. It will destroy our young people and it will destroy this nation.”
After her speech leaked out on the Internet, gay and lesbian rights groups demanded that she apologize.
She refused to do so, though she denied she was “anti-gay” or “gay-bashing.”
And she attended a “Rally for Sally” at the capitol in Oklahoma City on April 2.
Kern told the more than 1,000 demonstrators: “This is not about me. It’s about the church having the right to speak out about the redeeming love of Jesus Christ who died to set us all free from our sins.”
But that’s not the issue at all. Kern and her church can say whatever they want. And in their parochial schools, they can teach children whatever they want. But as an elected official, she has an obligation not to engage in hate speech. And that’s what her comparisons to terrorism and cancer are.
What she so despises about our public schools I applaud. We should teach tolerance there — and throughout our society.
There is too much intolerance going around.
Elected officials should stop demonizing gay people.
Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern is the latest to fan the flames of intolerance.
Earlier this year, in a speech to the Oklahoma City Republican Club, she stated that homosexuality is “the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.”
She also said, “They want to get our young children into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them. They are going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle. … If you have cancer in your little toe, do you just say that I'm going to forget about it since the rest of you is fine? It spreads! This stuff is deadly and it is spreading. It will destroy our young people and it will destroy this nation.”
After her speech leaked out on the Internet, gay and lesbian rights groups demanded that she apologize.
She refused to do so, though she denied she was “anti-gay” or “gay-bashing.”
And she attended a “Rally for Sally” at the capitol in Oklahoma City on April 2.
Kern told the more than 1,000 demonstrators: “This is not about me. It’s about the church having the right to speak out about the redeeming love of Jesus Christ who died to set us all free from our sins.”
But that’s not the issue at all. Kern and her church can say whatever they want. And in their parochial schools, they can teach children whatever they want. But as an elected official, she has an obligation not to engage in hate speech. And that’s what her comparisons to terrorism and cancer are.
What she so despises about our public schools I applaud. We should teach tolerance there — and throughout our society.
There is too much intolerance going around.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
A Call for tolerance education
By Akilah Monifa, February 21, 2008
The murder of gay teenager Lawrence King should wake us all up to the fatal condition of homophobia that still afflicts our nation.
King, 15, was in his classroom in Oxnard, Calif., with 20 other students on Feb. 12 when a fellow student shot him. King died a day later.
He had come out as gay, and there were reports of bullying and harassment because of his sexual orientation and gender expression of wearing make-up and dressing in "feminine attire.”
For all the progress we’ve made in the movement for gay rights over the last 40 years, the hatred of sexual minorities still takes its terrible toll. High-profile murders have not halted the lethal assaults.
Fifteen years ago, Brandon Teena, 21, was raped and killed in Nebraska. His murder was later the subject of the movie “Boys Don’t Cry.”
Ten years ago, Matthew Shepard, 21, was murdered in Wyoming, and his story became immortalized in the “Laramie Project” play.
Five and a half years ago, Gwen Araujo was only 17 when she was murdered in northern California for being transgender. Her story was made into the movie “A Girl Like Me.”
Despite the cultural attention, and despite efforts in the schools to raise awareness, the violence persists.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students are particularly at risk at school and are more likely to report being threatened or injured with a weapon than other students, according to a survey by the California Department of Education.
Why in 2008 are there still hate crimes against sexual minorities? What is it about a young boy in make-up or coming out as gay man or a transgender woman that makes bullies believe they can harass, attack, assault or even kill the person?
Yes, we need better laws.
What’s it going to take to get meaningful gun control is in this country? The same week that Lawrence King was shot dead we had the terrible mass murder at Northern Illinois University.
Enough is enough.
We also need additional hate crime legislation, both on the state and federal levels.
But what is even more essential is ongoing, broad-based tolerance education in the schools.
And this education should be proactive, a core component of secondary education for all students and their parents.
Expressing our sexuality should not put a target on our backs.
The murder of gay teenager Lawrence King should wake us all up to the fatal condition of homophobia that still afflicts our nation.
King, 15, was in his classroom in Oxnard, Calif., with 20 other students on Feb. 12 when a fellow student shot him. King died a day later.
He had come out as gay, and there were reports of bullying and harassment because of his sexual orientation and gender expression of wearing make-up and dressing in "feminine attire.”
For all the progress we’ve made in the movement for gay rights over the last 40 years, the hatred of sexual minorities still takes its terrible toll. High-profile murders have not halted the lethal assaults.
Fifteen years ago, Brandon Teena, 21, was raped and killed in Nebraska. His murder was later the subject of the movie “Boys Don’t Cry.”
Ten years ago, Matthew Shepard, 21, was murdered in Wyoming, and his story became immortalized in the “Laramie Project” play.
Five and a half years ago, Gwen Araujo was only 17 when she was murdered in northern California for being transgender. Her story was made into the movie “A Girl Like Me.”
Despite the cultural attention, and despite efforts in the schools to raise awareness, the violence persists.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students are particularly at risk at school and are more likely to report being threatened or injured with a weapon than other students, according to a survey by the California Department of Education.
Why in 2008 are there still hate crimes against sexual minorities? What is it about a young boy in make-up or coming out as gay man or a transgender woman that makes bullies believe they can harass, attack, assault or even kill the person?
Yes, we need better laws.
What’s it going to take to get meaningful gun control is in this country? The same week that Lawrence King was shot dead we had the terrible mass murder at Northern Illinois University.
Enough is enough.
We also need additional hate crime legislation, both on the state and federal levels.
But what is even more essential is ongoing, broad-based tolerance education in the schools.
And this education should be proactive, a core component of secondary education for all students and their parents.
Expressing our sexuality should not put a target on our backs.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Candidates must rise above racist appeals
1/6/2008 published in The Gulf Times and others
By Akilah Monifa: My New Year’s wish this year is an election campaign shorn of bigotry. But it may be too late for that already.
Last year, Mitt Romney’s campaign said Senator Barack Obama was calling for jihadists to rally in Iraq. Actually, that was Osama bin Laden. What a difference a consonant makes. The Romney campaign fobbed it off as a simple, inadvertent gaffe.
But some gaffes are harder to explain away.
A new report by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley shows the prevalence of racial appeals. The report is titled Race-Bait ‘08: Lessons Learned from the Political Dirty Dozen - 12 Cases Playing the Race Card 1983 -2007.
One classic example is the TV ad in 2006 against Harold Ford, a black member of the House of Representatives who was running for the Senate in Tennessee. The ad, by the Republican National Committee, had a blonde saying, “I met Harold at the Playboy party”, and ended with her saying, “Harold, call me”.
Then there was the infamous Willie Horton ad, which was used against presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988. The ad showed a mug shot of this convicted murderer, who committed another murder while on furlough. Horton is black.
And if you live in North Carolina, it’s hard to forget the 1990 ad that Senator Jesse Helms ran against his black challenger, Harvey Gantt. The ad, which was against racial quotas in hiring, showed someone’s white hands crumpling a letter denying the person a job.
Playing the race card is not limited to white candidates against people of colour.
In 2006, Ray Nagin, the black Democratic mayor of New Orleans running in a post-Katrina election, seized on race to revive his campaign. At least twice in public he referred to New Orleans as “Chocolate City” and added that one day it would be “chocolate again”. Nagin won by taking 80% of the black vote; in his 2002 election, he had won only 40%.
Sometimes, the intrusion of race doesn’t appear to be so calculated.
For instance, in 1984 the Rev Jesse Jackson, a Democrat, had called Jews “Hymies” and New York “Hymie-town”. He later apologised for it.
In 2006, then-senator George Allen of Virginia destroyed his own campaign by calling an Indian American “Macaca”.
And last year, Senator Joe Biden’s candidacy sputtered after he said about Obama: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
Biden’s and Jackson’s comments may have revealed bigoted thoughts that aren’t usually aired in mixed company or on the record.
The amazing thing to me in 21st century America is that many people running for public office can’t resist the bigoted stumble. I almost prefer the blatant racism of Jesse Helms than having the truth come out in an excited or bumbling utterance that is excused as a gaffe.
I expected it from Jesse Helms. But I didn’t expect it from Jesse Jackson or George Allen or Joe Biden. I had hoped we were beyond that.
And I still hope that the candidates this time around can rise above racist appeals, whether intentional or inadvertent.
We’ve seen enough of these already. – The Progressive Media Project/MCT
By Akilah Monifa: My New Year’s wish this year is an election campaign shorn of bigotry. But it may be too late for that already.
Last year, Mitt Romney’s campaign said Senator Barack Obama was calling for jihadists to rally in Iraq. Actually, that was Osama bin Laden. What a difference a consonant makes. The Romney campaign fobbed it off as a simple, inadvertent gaffe.
But some gaffes are harder to explain away.
A new report by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley shows the prevalence of racial appeals. The report is titled Race-Bait ‘08: Lessons Learned from the Political Dirty Dozen - 12 Cases Playing the Race Card 1983 -2007.
One classic example is the TV ad in 2006 against Harold Ford, a black member of the House of Representatives who was running for the Senate in Tennessee. The ad, by the Republican National Committee, had a blonde saying, “I met Harold at the Playboy party”, and ended with her saying, “Harold, call me”.
Then there was the infamous Willie Horton ad, which was used against presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988. The ad showed a mug shot of this convicted murderer, who committed another murder while on furlough. Horton is black.
And if you live in North Carolina, it’s hard to forget the 1990 ad that Senator Jesse Helms ran against his black challenger, Harvey Gantt. The ad, which was against racial quotas in hiring, showed someone’s white hands crumpling a letter denying the person a job.
Playing the race card is not limited to white candidates against people of colour.
In 2006, Ray Nagin, the black Democratic mayor of New Orleans running in a post-Katrina election, seized on race to revive his campaign. At least twice in public he referred to New Orleans as “Chocolate City” and added that one day it would be “chocolate again”. Nagin won by taking 80% of the black vote; in his 2002 election, he had won only 40%.
Sometimes, the intrusion of race doesn’t appear to be so calculated.
For instance, in 1984 the Rev Jesse Jackson, a Democrat, had called Jews “Hymies” and New York “Hymie-town”. He later apologised for it.
In 2006, then-senator George Allen of Virginia destroyed his own campaign by calling an Indian American “Macaca”.
And last year, Senator Joe Biden’s candidacy sputtered after he said about Obama: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
Biden’s and Jackson’s comments may have revealed bigoted thoughts that aren’t usually aired in mixed company or on the record.
The amazing thing to me in 21st century America is that many people running for public office can’t resist the bigoted stumble. I almost prefer the blatant racism of Jesse Helms than having the truth come out in an excited or bumbling utterance that is excused as a gaffe.
I expected it from Jesse Helms. But I didn’t expect it from Jesse Jackson or George Allen or Joe Biden. I had hoped we were beyond that.
And I still hope that the candidates this time around can rise above racist appeals, whether intentional or inadvertent.
We’ve seen enough of these already. – The Progressive Media Project/MCT
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