Five Minutes of Geography ? (tags)
The late Lenny Bruce once joked that the radical Right's fears about ? shock! ? sex education in the public schools were unfounded because schoolkids weren't going to come home and tell their parents, "Today at school we learned five minutes of geography and ten minutes of cocksucking." The modern-day radical Right's campaign to get rid of SB 48, a bill recently passed by the California legislature to require middle and high schools to teach the role and contributions of Queer Americans (along with Pacific Islanders and people with disabilities), is driven by a similar paranoia and a disbelief that there even are such things as Queer people ? and so far the Queer community's response to the attack on SB 48 is all too faithfully copied from the losing campaign against Proposition 8: a "coalition" made up mostly of straight people and a whiny argument about how we supposedly need "role models" to keep from drinking, drugging or suiciding.
SAME Meeting Challenges Queer Establishment, Democratic Party (tags)
The San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality (SAME) hosted a meeting at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center June 23 that was billed as a response to Proposition 8 and a discussion of the future of marriage equality in California — but it also turned into a radical response to the Queer establishment in general and the Courage Campaign in particular. Lesbian activist Robin Tyler, who was one of the lead plaintiffs in the suit that briefly won marriage rights for same-sex couples in California, criticized the strategies and tactics of the Courage Campaign and denounced the Democratic party as having screwed over Queer people for 35 to 40 years, She called for the Queer community to cut ties with the Democrats once and for all.
How the Gay Community Got Chicago'd at the Inaugural (tags)
Back in the days of the first Mayor Richard Daley, when an alderman got out of line during a City Council debate, the power on his microphone was unceremoniously cut, whether he had the floor legitimately or not.
Proposition 8 Rallies Energize Queer Community (tags)
Rejecting the "safe" namby-pamby campaign against Proposition 8 that kept Queer people in the closet and lost anyway, young Gay activists are mobilizing on the Internet and holding mass rallies and marches to offer militant resistance to the anti-marriage initiative. Leo E. Laurence, who started the first Gay-liberation group in San Francisco in January 1969 (five months before Stonewall), finds these new activists reminiscent of himself and his colleagues in the late 1960's and early 1970's.
Prop. 8 and the Triumph of Theocracy (tags)
The passage of Proposition 8 proves that many American voters are committed to a basically theocratic view of government in which THEIR moral values and commitments should rule over others. It also means the Queer community needs to do some soul-searching over why people of color and others we considered natural allies voted for 8 in greater percentages than whites did, and whether "marriage" as a term carries too much religious baggage ever to win majority support for its legal extension to same-sex couples.
Doctors' Group Gives Awards to AIDS "Dissidents" (tags)
San Diego alternative AIDS activist Michael Geiger reported on his visit to Washington, D.C. in May to watch researcher Peter Duesberg and journalist Celia Farber win Semmelweis Awards for their courage in challenging the conventional wisdom about AIDS. The awards arenamed for 19th century doctor Ignaz Semmelweis, who was driven out of medicine and put in an asylum for demanding that doctors wash their hands between patients.