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- Wrong Side Of History (dgsmith.org)
- Montana GOP legislators think homosexuality is a crime (watchdog.org)
- Being Gay or Lesbian Isn’t a Crime! It’s Time to Pass SB 107! (dgsmith.org)
How the Internet Turned Red to Support Marriage
Being Gay or Lesbian Isn’t a Crime! It’s Time to Pass SB 107!
Action Alert! From The MHRN today:
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Senate Bill 107, carried by Missoula’s Sen. Tom Facey, was tabled by the House Judiciary Committee today on a 12-8 vote.
We need you to take a moment and contact your Representative immediately and ask them to support the “blast motion” on SB 107 to put this bill on the House floor for a simple yes or no vote! Click here to email representatives in your area, or call 406-444-4800 to leave messages for up to five representatives in your area!
This bill would finally remove unconstitutional language from Montana law that labels gays and lesbians felons, punishable by fines of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in jail. It was ruled unconstitutional by the Montana Supreme Court in 1997, but remains on the state’s law books because of homophobia and fear. Despite perennial attempts to eliminate this hurtful language from our laws, and the passage of this bill by the full Senate this session and back in 2011, we consistently come up against a brick wall in an ideologically driven and extremely conservative House committee.
But this is not the end of SB 107 this session!
We think there are reasonable members of both parties on the floor of the Montana House that believe language criminalizing gay and lesbian relationships is wrong! We want to see this bill move forward with a “blast motion,” a special procedure that allows a bill that has been tabled in committee the chance to have an up-or-down vote. The catch?We’ll need a supermajority of legislators to agree with us – and that’s why we need your help!
We need you to take a moment and contact your Representative immediately and ask them to support the “blast motion” on SB 107! Click here to email representatives in your area, or call 406-444-4800 to leave messages for up to five representatives in your area!
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (406) 444-4800 to leave a message for up to five legislators in your area at a time.
Thank you for your continued support for equality.
Sincerely,
Jamee Greer
Montana Human Rights Network
Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS Issues Groundbreaking Resolution
The Transgender Law Center applauds the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) for passing a groundbreaking resolution recommending ways to address the high rates of HIV/AIDS among transgender communities throughout the United States. Recently made public, the resolution was passed in February.
Another Yin-Yang-Yuan TransGender-Symbol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
PACHA’s advice and recommendations are vitally important in assisting the White House to implement the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. This resolution is groundbreaking in nature, as it is the first time PACHA has issued a transgender-specific set of recommendations.
“We’re incredibly grateful to PACHA for passing such a strong and compelling resolution,” said Cecilia Chung, Senior Strategist. “These recommendations, if implemented, will meet some of the dire needs of our community, which include data collection, education, and culturally competent prevention and care for transgender people, as our community continues to face extreme violence and discrimination which contribute to a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS.”
Some of PACHA’s 15 recommendations include:
- Relevant Health and Human Services (HHS) operating divisions should dedicate grant funds to projects specifically focusing on transgender health, particularly in the context of HIV prevention and treatment…;
- The Indian Health Service (IHS) should develop a health services protocol specific to providing culturally and clinically appropriate care for male and female bodied, Two-Spirit individuals, including HIV prevention, education, outreach, and treatment;
- And The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) should require facilities and providers receiving any federal funding to undertake regular staff trainings on transgender cultural competency.
The report “Injustice at Every Turn” is one of the few studies that has some data about transgender HIV rates. According to the report, the HIV sero-prevelance among transgender women in the U.S. is more than seven times the national average. The PACHA resolution notes that there is a lack of adequate data about transgender HIV risk and infection rates and recommends ways to collect it. It also points out that transgender people are protected from discrimination in the Affordable Care Act and lists ways to ensure agencies are aware of this and have adequate funding in place to care for transgender people.
Transgender Law Center works to educate legislators, policymakers, and advocates about the importance of addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the transgender community, and eliminating discriminatory barriers that transgender people face when attempting to access quality care. The staff has held meetings with personnel from HHC, HRSA, and the CDC to help educate them about the important issues addressed in the PACHA resolution.
Additionally, in collaboration with Lyon-Martin Health Services, Transgender Law Center has spearheaded Project HEALTH: Harnessing Education, Advocacy, and Leadership in Transgender Health. Since 2008, Project HEALTH has led a comprehensive effort to improve access to and quality of healthcare for transgender people throughout California, and increasingly in other regions as well. Project HEALTH has trained more than 60 students in professional health programs through a clinical rotation hosted at Lyon-Martin Health Services and provided administrative, cultural, and clinical training to more than 25 community clinics and hospitals. In September, Project HEALTH launched TRANSLINE, an online consultation service for healthcare professionals seeking help caring for transgender patients. The team of leading organizations and practitioners has responded to more than 70 requests since September, with a 100% satisfaction rating.
Transgender Law Center works to change law, policy, and attitudes so that all people can live safely, authentically, and free from discrimination regardless of their gender identity or expression. http://www.transgenderlawcenter.org To learn more contact Mark Snyder,mark@transgenderlawcenter.org, 415.865.0176 ext. 310.
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- Transgender Women 49 Times More Likely To Have HIV, Study Says (dailyqueernews.wordpress.com)
- Arizona wants to ban transgender people from using washrooms not designated for their birth gender (theprovince.com)
- California lawmaker seeks rights for transgender students (mercurynews.com)
Odawa Indian tribe hosts Michigan’s first legal same-sex marriage
In case you missed it:
Tim LaCroix, 53, of Boyne City, and his longtime partner Gene Barfield, 60, of Boyne City are married at the government headquarters complex of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians on Friday March 15, 2013 in Harbor Springs. / Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press
The groom wore a black sweater. The other groom wore a red one.
Tim LaCroix, 53, and Gene Barfield, 60, were in the enrollment office this morning (March 15th) at the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians government facility.
The couple took turns filling out an application
to get married, paid the $15 fee and received a marriage license. Both smiled nervously.
It was a historic day. Not just for them and not just for the tribe that LaCroix belongs to, but for Michigan too.
The two men were about to be the first same-sex couple to be legally married in this state.
Last year, the Odawa tribal council debated a resolution to recognize gay marriage, but the measure failed by one vote. When it was reintroduced, the language was changed to require at least one spouse to be a tribal citizen, and that swayed support. On March 2, it passed by a 5-4 vote.
All that was needed was the signature of tribal chairman Dexter McNamara, whose veto would have required a difficult 7-2 council majority to override.
McNamara not only signed it, but also asked to perform the wedding ceremony.
“I’ve always felt that either you believe in equal rights or you are prejudiced,” McNamara said. “We don’t have a dividing line in this tribe. Everyone deserves to live the lives of their choice.”
Out of 500 federally recognized tribes in the country, and a dozen in Michigan, the Odawa tribe became the first ever to legalize gay marriage in the state and only the third in the nation.
And because of tribal sovereignty, neither the state’s constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage nor the federal Defense of Marriage Act can stop them.
“This is their turf,” Barfield said, standing in the tribal offices. “They have their own government, they have their own police force, they have their own rules and regulations. They’re very big on respect, and for them to say to us ‘We respect your relationship and your prerogative to define it as you choose’ is really special.”
“I’m so proud of my tribe for doing this,” LaCroix added. “I just can’t say enough.”
The couple met in 1983 while both were on active duty in the Navy. They live in northern Michigan, where they garden, assemble model railroads and share two dogs and a cat.
“We’ve been partners for 30 years in the way people use the word ‘partner’ for a same sex couple,” Barfield said. “Now we’re not going to be partners anymore. We’re going to be spouses.”
They wanted to get married at the signing ceremony for the statute, which gave them barely two weeks to prepare.
They hastily ordered cupcakes for the impromptu reception to follow. They found a tribal member to perform a traditional ceremony, alongside the secular one. They made little pouches of tobacco to hand out in a nod to tribal custom. And they invited friends and family from this small-town region.
About three dozen guests filled the seats arranged in the lobby this morning. There were relatives from both sides, beefy tribal members, employees who work in the building and wanted to wish the couple well, and a contingent from the hardware store where LaCroix works.
“We’re just all giddy over it,” said Kathy Hughes, his longtime coworker. “They’re like family to us.”
Once McNamara signed the bill, tribe communications coordinator Annette VanDeCar acknowledged it was a controversial decision.
“I’ll be honest,” she told the crowd. “There are people in our community that aren’t supportive of what is happening today, but that’s OK. We as Indians are taught to respect people as individuals, and as individual people have the right to decide what is best for them.”
For this couple, a few tweaks were necessary in both the paperwork and the ceremony, like changing the word “wife” in the vows and on the license application to “spouse.” But it otherwise was a standard civil ceremony.
The chairman read the vows, and LaCroix went first in repeating them.
For better or for worse, to love and to cherish, from this day forward.
“I do,” he said.
Then came Barfield’s turn, and his composure melted a little. As he read the vows, his voice began to crack and his eyes grew moist. All the while, he looked at LaCroix with a beam of a smile.
“I do.”
They exchanged rings, and the chairman pronounced them married. They punctuated the ceremony with a brief kiss and a long, long hug.
Then they repeated it with a tribal ceremony using the sage, the feathers, the maple branch and the drum that were carefully laid out on a table.
There were no activist speeches, no protesters — only a crowd witnessing a wedding that was unlike any they’d ever seen, but was really no different than any other.
“We’re just so excited for them,” Hughes said. “They’ve been together 30 years. It’s longer than a lot of marriages have lasted.”
John Carlisle is a columnist and can be reached at jcarlisle@freepress.com or 313-222-6582.
Wrong Side Of History
An excellent post by The Montana Cowgirl (reposted with her permission)
Montana lawmakers who have spent the entirety of their paltry careers voting against equality now find themselves on the wrong side of history. In the wake of the upcoming supreme court decision on equal marriage, no one who reads a newspaper can come to any other conclusion. Even Rush Limbaugh says marriage equality is inevitable.
The nutjob wing of Montana’s Republican Party aren’t just wrong, they’re way out in right field, and soon to be there alone. Montana is one of only four states that has a law on the books that makes being gay an imprisonable offense. This fact alone is despicable, but when you consider what else the Montana Legislature has done you start to wonder if the Montana legislature isn’t among the most bigoted in America.
Consider this: During the past 21 legislative sessions least 32 bills have been introduced to make all Montanans equal under the law. Some, like Sen. Facey’s SB 107 attempted to repeal the “deviate sexual conduct” law, other would have prevent discrimination in housing, or stopped the bullying of young people in schools. Many have been introduced by Sen. Christine Kaufmann, of Helena.
Not a single one of these bills has ever passed in the history of this state.
But it’s worse than that. The Montana legislature isn’t content with blocking equality bills. They’ve tried year after year to make things worse.
Look what they did in 1995, when Republican Senator Rick Holden added an amendment to a bill to require gay men and lesbians to register as felony sex offenders. Democrats tried to remove the amendment, but 32 of 50 Senators voted to keep it in.
It was only after twenty-four hours of scathing national press coverage from CNN that the Republicans were finally forced to take the sex offender amendment out. But not before Billings GOP Sen. Al Bishop decided to share his beliefs with the world. He said consensual activity between people of the same sex was “a worse offense than rape.” (The bill was HB 214 and predates the online legislative search.)
Anyway, the Chick-Fil-A munching bunch was not happy to be denied a “felony sex offender registry” of gay citizens. A couple of days later anti-gay slurs and graffiti were “scrawled across the doors of the capitol, and a famous statue was defaced. With no sense of irony, and no mention of the anti-gay nature of the spray-painted slogans, Senators introduced a bill to make defacing the capitol a felony.”
And who could forget what happened ten years later in 2005, when the all-day kindergarten was opposed by religious right Repubs, who claimed bill was part of the “gay agenda.” “The purported evidence given by these groups was that gay activists were NOT at the hearing, proving it was part of the activists’ secret agenda.”
Public sentiment is now so firmly behind equality that the reaction to democratic politicians who announce their support at this late date ranges from “who isn’t” to “where were you earlier.” The Montana Senate even voted, finally, to erase our “anti-sodomy law” which makes it an imprisonable crime to be gay. Although invalidated by our state supreme court in 1997, the law has remained on our books because Republicans have always refused to go along with efforts to scrap it.
Now, SB 107, a measure to strike the offensive language from our statutes finally passed the senate. That said, the vote was far from unanimous. Ten Republicans voted no.
Any day now the bill will be voted on in committee, and then on the Floor of the House. No assumptions can be made about body which includes Verdell Jackson, Krayton Kearns, David Howard and Jerry O’Neil, so start contacting the lawmakers in the House of Representatives, which you can do via this online form. FYI, you can always use the back button after submitting your message, which allows you to skip retyping all your info when you contact multiple legislators. Or you can cut and paste this list of House GOP legislators.
Conservatives were on the wrong side of history with women’s suffrage, they were on the wrong side of segregation. Let’s see whose side they’re on now.
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Montana Medicaid Expansion Fails
I’m posting this as sent out in press release today. I’m still too angry to comment on the stupidity involved in this cock up.
STATEMENT: HOUSE MINORITY LEADER RESPONDS TO MEDICAID EXPANSION FAILURE
HB 590 Access Health Montana Tabled In Committee
Today, HB 590 was tabled in committee on a party line vote. If passed, HB 590 would implement Medicaid Expansion in Montana, create a medical home program and expand the WWAMI program in Montana.
“Montanans from all over our state and from all walks of life support expanding critical healthcare coverage to over 70,000 Montanans. Small businesses, physicians, nurses, financial firms, Republicans and Democrats, hospitals, health clinics, ranchers, churches and veterans stood in line for hours to make sure their voices of support were heard.”
“Sadly, I am both appalled but not surprised with this vote. Republicans have told Montanans today, they are unwilling to put aside partisanship to better the lives of so many. When we came here in January, Democrats told Montanans our number one priority in this session was to fight for Montana families. Republicans had and missed the opportunity to join us in that mission today.”
“There are many reasons to support Medicaid expansion. $1 billion dollars in new, direct spending in our economy, upwards of 13,000 new jobs created, opportunities for real and meaningful reforms. However, I am most disheartened that my Republican colleagues refused to simply do the right thing for Montana.”
Young Gay Men’s Retreat April 12-14
Still time to register! Click pic for more info….
Catholics Participate in Prayer Service and Demonstration at Supreme Court
New Ways Ministry staff at the marriage equality demonstration outside the Supreme Court: Sister Jeannine Gramick, Bob Shine, Francis DeBernardo.
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on two marriage equality cases. The historic day began with an interfaith prayer service at the Church of the Reformation, a Lutheran congregation just behind the Supreme Court building.
The service, entitlted “A Prayer for Love and Justice,” featured prayers and rituals from a wide variety of faith traditions–Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, Native American–were all represented as part of the service. Catholics were represented by Sister Jeannine Gramick of New Ways Ministry and Rev. Joseph Palacios, who ministers at Dignity/Washington. The event was organized by the United for Marriage coalition.
Following the prayer service, participants processed to the Supreme Court building and joined the demonstration of thousands of people there who support marriage equality. Among those in the crowd were Jackie and Buzz Baetz, a Catholic couple from Monkton, Maryland, who displayed a sign showing Catholic support for marriage equality.
New Ways Ministry staff also participated in the demonstration outside the court building.
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- ANALYSIS: On gay marriage, Supreme Court ponders not ‘if’ but ‘how’ (religionnews.com)
- Palm Sunday, Oscar Romero, and LGBT Human Rights in El Salvador (newwaysministryblog.wordpress.com)
Still Wearing Red?
You should- the arguments to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act are being heard today. So if you changed your Facebook profile photo yesterday (and most of mine did) don’t change it yet! One of my friends has vowed to keep his red equality pic up until they hand down the decisions.
For a good brief on the impact of DOMA, see today’s Washington Post.
And if you don’t have your facebook pic changed yet- feel free to borrow from yesterday’s post.
Related articles
- Live Updates: Day 2 of Gay Marriage at the Supreme Court (abcnews.go.com)
- Facebook users show support for marriage equality (al.com)
- On Today’s Docket: DOMA (newser.com)
- How Getting Rid Of The Defense Of Marriage Act Will Boost The Economy (thinkprogress.org)
From Eternity To Here 