I'm sure (or I sure hope) this clip is making the rounds. When I heard it on Keith Olbermann's show last night I recognized it as perhaps the most direct and clear spoken case made by a heterosexual for the rights of Gay people to be married. Very moving and spot on.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Py1d_zHmUgY
I slept in this morning.
We worked at CNN until the wee hours of the morning last night, watching and waiting for the ripe fruit of the last few states to fall into the big blue basket of the Democratic column and Obama's historic victory.
Even my big yellow dog didn't demand his Democratic victory walk until I was ready to stir this morning.
I walked out the front door of my building feeling the electricity in the air from last night, still. As I got to the corner, the crossing guard that protects the children going to that school I voted in yesterday from the onslaught of traffic at the crossroad of Classon and St. John's Place raised her voice and hand to everyone who passed and greeted them with a "Happy Obama!"
Happy Obama. Indeed.
It was amazing, gratifying. Brilliant.
It was also maddening.
In many ways, the same voters who made history with the triumphant election of Obama, also opted to vote discrimination into the California constitution. And it is hard for me to separate that from my celebration of Obama's well-deserved victory.
We turn one corner, and come to another. We drive a stake into the heart of one fearful discriminatory impulse in this country that, it seems, rarely does the right thing the first time, and raise up another strawman of fear and loathing on which to focus immature and unimaginative minds.
I don't want to take anything away from this beautiful moment. But I think it is as much a sign of how degraded the American ideal has become in the past eight to 20 years as it is a moment to celebrate. And I think one of the things this President is going to require of all of us is honest self-appraisal.
And I am ashamed and dejected in equal parts to my pride and elation this morning.
I know one thing in my bones: expectations are high for this new President. Everyone is hoping that he is, as they say The One. I read an interview with President Elect Obama in which he spoke about "Gay marriage" (a term I'm not entirely comfortable with) in which he said he believed that "marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman" and he wasn't willing to degrade that in any way.
How can such a brilliant man be so abysmally ignorant?
So, I have high expectations of this man, too. But I am also realistic in my belief that we are all bound to be disappointed in him in some way, at some point. But here is my pragmatic expectation: that someone, somewhere, somehow sits down with this brilliant and inspiring man and explain to him in painfully exquisite detail the gulf of difference between "holy matrimony" and "marriage."
Explain to him how the former is "church" and the latter is "state" and that somehow, in the same way that that unholy alliance once justified slavery and the oppression of Black people that we now justly celebrate the death of…is now being employed to hurt loving men and women, who pay taxes and raise children (or not) and are undeserving of having their civil rights, their human rights unjustly curtailed because of the superstitious tyranny of the majority.
Keep your "holy matrimony" President-elect Obama.
Holy Matrimony is a religious ritual. Marriage is a civil right.
Give LGBT people the same, equal, civilly righteous protections every other citizen in this country has under the sacred language of our constitution, no matter how many times the radical religious right wastes our time, money and souls in the pursuit of their fearful discrimination.
And we will have those rights, Mr. President-elect.
Yes…we will.
Have you heard about how ACORN is ruining democracy?….Get informed. Watch this:
Today the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) honors National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD). Held annually on October 15, the final day of Hispanic Heritage Month, NLAAD helps raise awareness about the disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS in Latino communities throughout the United States and its territories. “The importance of National Latino AIDS Awareness Day cannot be overstated,” says NMAC Executive Director, Paul Kawata. “Like all minority communities, Latinos have experienced increases in HIV infections related to a myriad of social determinants, including lack of access to health care, education and housing.” Indeed, updated HIV incidence data released by the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in August revealed that Hispanics accounted for 17 percent of new infections in 2006, even though they represent only approximately 13% of the U.S. population.
NMAC’s encourages everyone to visit the NLAAD website to find out more about local events honoring the day. NMAC has assisted in raising awareness about HIV/AIDS in Latino communities in several ways. The opening plenary of the agency’s annual United States Conference on AIDS, held this past September 18-21 in Fort Lauderdale, FL, focused on the Latino AIDS crisis. Facilitated by Univision and the Kaiser Family Foundation, with support from the Latino Commission on AIDS, the plenary featured a special screening of the first HIV/AIDS-related Spanish language public service announcement (PSA) targeting Latinos called “Soy” ("I am"). The PSA will debut on Univision and its affiliatestoday. (For more information about Soy, go here.)
“We are dedicated to attaining better data to assess the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Latinos communities, particularly in Puerto Rico,” says Ravinia Hayes-Cozier, Director of NMAC’s Government Relations and Public Policy Division. “The revised CDC numbers are a great place to start in this discussion, but did not include Puerto Rico. This represented a rather major elision, in light of the 11,000 people known to be living with HIV/AIDS on the island. NMAC was further disheartened to learn that the CDC recently announced that it will not be funding Puerto Rico to use the new HIV tracking technology that generated the updated data in the first place.”
To ensure that all Latino communities are included in future HIV incidence and prevalence reports, NMAC and its People of Color AIDS Partnership partners – including Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center, The Balm In Gilead, The Black AIDS Institute, BIENESTAR, National Association of People with AIDS, National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, and National Native American AIDS Prevention Center – are working on a paper about the AIDS epidemic in Puerto Rico for release in 2009.
For more information visit www.nmac.org or click on any of the related links provided above.
Terrence McNally’s controversial play Corpus Christi is playing at the Rattlestick Theatre, New York City, October 14-26. Nic Arnzen directed.
Corpus Christi is a retelling of the Jesus story, updated to 1950s Corpus Christi, Texas. Originally opening ten years ago at the Manhattan Theatre Club to intense protest and bomb threats it disturbed conservative Christiana with its depiction of a "Gay Jesus."
The cast includes Nic Arnzen (Peter), Amanda Axelrod (Simon), Jan Ambler (Andrew), James Brandon (Joshua), Steve Callahan (Judas Iscariot), Melissa Caulfield (John the Baptist), Elizabeth Cava (Matthew), Mark "Colby" Colbert (James), Steve Hasley (Bartholomew), Molly O’Leary (Thomas), David Pevsner (Philip), Sheilagh Polk (James the Less — Week One), Scott Presley (James the Less — Week Two), and Suzanne Santos (Thaddeus).
Presented by the LA-based 108 Productions, this revival is performed in honor of Matthew Shepard, whose brutal murder occurred just 24 hours prior to the play’s world premiere in 1998. Proceeds from the show benefit The Matthew Shepard Foundation, now also in its 10th anniversary, in support of their efforts to "Erase Hate" in today’s society. For more information, visit www.108productions.org.
Vice Presidential pretendee/nominee Sarah Palin credits and praises a Kenyan Minister named Thomas Muthee with helping her to achieve the Alaskan governorship through prayer. It turns out the Muthee also hunts down witches and makes Rev. John Hagee, to say nothing of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., look positively normal. At a speech at the Wasilla Assembly of God on June 8 this year, Palin described how Muthee had laid his hands on her:
“As I was mayor and Pastor Muthee was here and he was praying over me, and you know how he speaks and he’s so bold. And he was praying “Lord make a way, Lord make a way. And I’m thinking, this guy’s really bold, he doesn’t even know what I’m going to do, he doesn’t know what my plans are. And he’s praying not “oh Lord if it be your will may she become governor,” no, he just prayed for it. He said “Lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that’s exactly what happened.”
She might also have enlisted him in some good old witchhunting. After founding the Prayer Cave in 1989 in Kiambu, Kenya, Muthee reportedly says that he spoke with God and was called to the United States where he would be embraced by Palin and her church. While in Kenya, he says that he discovered that the community was inundated by witchcraft: “We prayed, we fasted, the Lord showed us a spirit of witchcraft resting over the place.”
He even identified one witch known as Mama Jane, who ran a competing “divination” center called the Emmanuel Clinic. He declared that she was responsible for a rash of car accidents and led a crusade against her — a movement that would trigger calls for her to be stoned to death. She was eventually arrested and then fled the area.
It is certainly an example of “small town values” but perhaps not the quite type that the campaign is 
looking for. On the other hand, something like 80% of U.S. voters say they believe in Angels. So it’s only a quick hop, skip and a jump to witches, I suppose. Halloween is right around the corner…and let’s not forget that “witches” and “witchcraft” was an early way of the monotheists to crack down on…and mass murder, the Old Folk Ways, and that many of these were strong women, and faeries…
Ellen married Portia, but neither of them have donated to the California Marriage Ballot measure.
Also missing (as of Sept. 10) from the rolls were: Rosie O’Donnell, whose Feb. 27, 2004, marriage to Kelli Carpenter was nullified; Sir Elton John, who tied the civil partnership knot with partner David Furnish in England; rock star Melissa Etheridge, whose domestic partnership/wedding to actress Tammy Lynn Michaels Sept. 22, 2003, was celebrated in In Style magazine.
Other producers and directors not on the list include Paul Colichman (here!TV) Greg Berlanti (Brothers & Sisters), Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives), Bryan Singer (Superman Returns), Joel Schumacher (Batman & Robin), and Gus Van Sant, though Bruce Cohen, who produced Milk, directed by Van Sant, was recently married and did contribute.
I had almost forgotten that today is the seventh anniversary of 9/11. I generally tend to make time to watch the morning news, before I get lost in the world of queer and migration theory. Somehow this morning my body was just not up for watching the news! It was like subconsciously, I did not want to remind myself of those dark days after 9/11. As a brown, materially challenged, Queer, immigrant building a household with another brown-poor-Queer immigrant, surviving the days after 9/11 was nothing short than an act of tremendous of courage, and building collective resistance against an increasingly securitized state.
"Debanuj, wake up! the twin towers have fallen!" David’s voice yelled on the answering machine. Tired from a long night of canvassing in suburban Long Island, I lazily answered the phone, in complete disbelief. "How could it happen? We just saw them last night?" I cried. The first thing that flashed across my mind was "My green-card application is fucked!". Frantically I dialed work, asking how much was in my paycheck for the last two weeks. Because there was no way in hell, as a brown fag, I would canvass in Long Island after the forced castration of collective US consciousness. Only a few months ago several day-laborers were brutally bashed by racist white men in Long Island.
The days that followed were days of intense pain, confusion and desperation. Several of our Pakistani friends were attacked on the streets, about eight Queer and trans-gender South-Asian’s (including myself) were beaten up in New York City. Our household, went from a being a dual income household to a single income household. We ate one heavy meal a day, sometimes we would cook community meals in our house, and silently eat, with fear imprinted on our foreheads. Very soon these community gatherings became rife, places to exchange survival tips, notes on what to do if the FBI came knocking on your door, and, most of all, festive with cheap liquor, Salsa and Bhangra music. As we drank, and danced away our fears and pain, in our small but firm ways we announced to each other our zeal to fight and survive!
Several stories have been told about the brave firefighters, our nation’s heroes, and even of the domestic partners of gay bankers who died in the twin towers. Yet, very little is talked about the undocumented Bangladeshi cooks of Windows to the World, or the Mexican women janitors, whose babies were found by their neighbors days after 9/11 lying alone in their Queen’s apartment. Very, little is talked about a neurotic, diseased, intellectual and his sexy, smart Queer friend, who in spite of the fear, anger, pain and bitterness continued their attempts of community building with their meager income, at their uptown Manhattan residence.
Our bodies do not fit the defined parameters of nation-citizenship-sacrifice and war!
Our bodies cross gender, class and national boundaries.
Our bodies lie at the intersections of poverty, queerness, shades of brown, black and yellow in this "land of the free and mighty".
Our bodies inhabit spaces that fall through the cracks of security-states and biometric regimes.
Inherent in our bodies, lie the strong, silent current that disrupts tropes of domination ever day!
Our Bodies, this body of mine bears history!
A Jihad for Love opens in San Francisco and Berkeley on August 22nd at the Landmark Lumiere and Shattuck Theaters! Producer Sandi DuBowski (Director of the award-winning, Trembling Before G-d) and Director/Producer Parvez Sharma will lead Q & A after screenings from Friday, August 22nd – Monday, August 25th.
Landmark’s Lumiere Theatre
1572 California St., San Francisco
(415) 267-4893
Fri-Sun at 2:15, 4:45, 7:00, 9:30;
Mon-Thu at 4:45, 7:00, 9:30
Director/Producer Parvez Sharma
& Producer Sandi DuBowski in person
4:45 & 7:00, Fri 8/22, Sun 8/24, & Mon 8/25
Buy Tickets Online
Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas
2230 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley
(510) 464-5980
Daily at 3:05, 5:15, 7:20, 9:35 (valid 8/22-28)
Director/Producer Parvez Sharma & Producer Sandi DuBowski
in person 5:15 & 7:20, Sat 8/23 at Shattuck-Berk
Buy Tickets OnlineAfter Premieres at the Toronto and Berlin Film Festivals and in over 20 countries, A Jihad for Love has won five international awards and has inspired a media blitz across the world. Tens of thousands of people have participated in a thought-provoking dialogue about Islam that the film has catalyzed.
Producer, Sandi Dubowski, is a member of the Advisory Board of The White Crane Institute.
