In an open letter, officials with Cathedral High School in Indianapolis said the teacher, who is in a same-sex marriage, was “living in contradiction to Catholic teaching.”
To remain within the archdiocese, the letter said, “Cathedral must follow the direct guidance given to us by Archbishop Thompson and separate from the teacher.”
If the school were to continue employing the teacher, the letter said, Cathedral would no longer be considered a Catholic school. The letter said Cathedral would lose its nonprofit status, its priests would not be able to serve on the school’s board of directors and it could not celebrate important Catholic rituals.
The letter, which was signed by Matt Cohoat, chairman of the school’s board of directors, and president Rob Bridges, described the firing as an “agonizing” decision.
The move was in contrast to another school, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, that defied an order from Archbishop Charles Thompson last week to fire a long-time teacher in a same-sex marriage.
In that case, school officials said Thompson’s “direct insertion into an employment matter of a school governed by a religious order is unprecedented.”
“After long and prayerful consideration, we determined that following the Archdiocese’s directive would not only violate our informed conscience on this particular matter, but also set a concerning precedent for future interference in the school’s operations,” school officials said.
In its letter, Cathedral, which is run by a different order, the Brothers of the Holy Cross, said that while it “respected” Brebeuf’s decision, it could not continue to function in the same way as that Jesuit-sponsored school were it to be banished by the archdiocese.
The schism that resulted in two separate events on June 30, the last Sunday of LGBTQ Pride Month, is the product of a longstanding political disagreement within the community: whether pride is a demand for acceptance and integration into broader society or whether it’s a radical demand for the liberation of all LGBTQ people.
For those paying attention, this tension has been on full display during the past two NYC Pride Marches — while the roots of the broader debate go back decades.
In 2017, activists used a “lockdown” technique to halt the official march in front of the Stonewall Inn to protest the presence of corporations and uniformed police. The NYPD was forced to arrest12 activists outside the Stonewall, where a police raid in 1969 helped spawn the modern LGBTQ rights movement — a raid that the department only apologized for this year.
Then, before last year’s march, a group of activists calling themselves the Reclaim Pride Coalition delivered a set of demands to Heritage of Pride, the nonprofit that has produced the NYC Pride March since 1984.
Reclaim Pride told Heritage of Pride that if it wanted to allow police to participate, the officers had to be out of uniform and unarmed. The activist group also demanded that there be no barricades along the sidewalk of the march, to ease congestion and allow passersby to join the massive annual event. Reclaim Pride also demanded that a “resistance contingent” be given a place near the front of the march to highlight the LGBTQ community’s opposition to the Trump administration’s policies.
“Reclaim Pride Coalition believes that HOP’s management of the annual NYC Pride March, resulting in commercial and police saturation of the March among other unacceptable characteristics, has led to decades long conflict with and the alienation of many individuals and groups within the NYC LGBTQ community,” the group wrote last year.
When Heritage of Pride responded to those demands a month before the 2018 NYC Pride March, Reclaim Pride activists were incensed: The march was shortened, the route was reversed and no changes were made to the presence of police officers or barriers. In addition, Heritage of Pride distributed wristbands for officially sanctioned marchers.
This year, with the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall uprising and the addition of WorldPride to the city’s events, millions of additional people are expected to descend on New York City the last weekend of June. And Reclaim Pride will be holding its first Queer Liberation March — a separate, police-free, anti-corporate, unsanctioned event that will take place just hours before the official NYC Pride March.by TaboolaSponsored StoriesKELLEY BLUE BOOK10 Longest-Range Electric Cars of 2019 SENIOR LIVINGSonoma Apartments May Have Seniors Packing Their Bags
Organizers from both groups spoke to NBC News about their views on Pride. They represent a historic divide that was present even before the Stonewall uprising of 1969: whether the LGBTQ rights movement is a revolutionary one or one seeking integration into the American body politic.
RECLAIM PRIDE’S VIEW
Natalie James, a co-founder of the Reclaim Pride Coalition, said the reason New York needs the Queer Liberation March is because of what Stonewall really was about.
“What was different about Stonewall, in terms of New York City leading up to that time, was the massive response to the brutality,” James said. “People fought back, and they fought back not just for one day, for multiple days.”
The barriers now set up by police for crowd-control purposes prevent passersby from joining the march, James said. During the first pride march in 1970, called Christopher Street Liberation Day and held on the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, marchers shouted, “Off of the sidewalks, into the streets!” — and people listened. By the time marchers entered Central Park, the event’s last stop, the crowd stretched for blocks.
We’re not going to change the world again if we just sort of go along with the program.
MARTHA SHELLEY GLF FOUNDING MEMBER
Several veterans of the early LGBTQ movement agree with James and have thrown their support behind the Queer Liberation March, including Fred Sargeant, one of the organizers of the first pride march, and the activist Martha Shelley.
“I can see the Heritage of Pride point of view, that they need money to pull off a huge party and all that sort of thing,” Shelley told NBC News. “I’m also seeing from the Reclaim Pride point of view that we’re not going to change the world again if we just sort of go along with the program.”
Shelley, a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front, which was founded right after the Stonewall raid, said she is dividing her time between the dueling groups.
“I am going to be the Gay Liberation Front spokesperson at the Heritage of Pride rally on Friday night,” she explained. “And then on Sunday, I’ll be marching with Reclaim Pride.”
When she speaks Friday, Shelley said she’s coming with a political message: “We have to deal with a vast economic inequality and corporate control of our political and economic system.”
“When Gay Liberation Front started, we were a tiny little group of raggedy-ass kids,” Shelley said. “We were, with one or two exceptions, all under 30. We didn’t have careers to lose, and yet we changed the world.”
During its brief existence from 1969 to 1973, the Gay Liberation Front reached out to all sorts of other revolutionary liberation groups, including the Black Panthers, according to Shelley.
“The previous gay organizations were kind of single-issue groups and weren’t making those alliances,” Shelley added, referring to integrationist groups like the Mattachine Society, which had staged an annual, lightly attended picket protest in Philadelphia.
“By doing that — by changing the attitudes on the left first — we eventually changed the entire culture,” Shelley said.
HERITAGE OF PRIDE’S VIEW
Heritage of Pride contends that there is no way to pull off the massive NYC Pride March — which is expected to draw an estimated 4.5 million people this year — without police, barricades and some level of corporate partnership.
“I understand on some level where Reclaim Pride is coming from, but I also have been an event organizer in New York City and I understand that to do a large-scale event like our march, logistically, you can’t do it without barricades,” Sue Doster, director of strategic planning at Heritage of Pride, told NBC News. “You can’t do it without police, and in New York City, if you get a permit for an event of this scale, you automatically get police, you automatically get barricades.”
Doster said that even though the parade’s corporate presence is a far cry from the small group of marchers that first stepped off from the Stonewall Inn in 1970, it is particularly meaningful for people all around the world — particularly those in homophobic countries where LGBTQ people are still demanding basic rights. Doster recounted a discussion she had with an LGBTQ activist from Kenya: “She said to me, ‘Seeing what you do in the United States, even before I came here, seeing the pictures, gives me and my friends hope, because for us it shows us how it can be.’”
When Doster started volunteering with Heritage of Pride in the 1990s, “we literally cut out letters and made our own banners,” she said. “Now, of course, we have mass-produced banners that are vertical on light poles down the entire route — very, very different.”
“When we were making our banners, we actually hung them ourselves,” she added. “We climbed the ladders with ropes and duct tape and attached them to the top of light poles all along Christopher Street.”
Now, the packs of protesters verbally harassing marchers as they paraded past St. Patrick’s Cathedral have been replaced by supportive spectators packed 10 deep on sidewalks along the entire route, according to Doster.
“And the truth of the matter is, regarding sponsors, Pride has gotten more and more expensive over the years,” Doster explained. “A lot of our attendees really want big names, and that is expensive. It’s a balancing act, and I think we at Heritage of Pride are very conscious that it’s the community’s, so that it’s not T-Mobile’s event or TD Bank’s event.”
“They came during the night,” Ahmed said. “They knocked on my door, not saying they are police, but when I opened the door and saw a couple of big, long-bearded men, I knew immediately.”
This is how Ahmed said his torture began in Chechnya, a semi-autonomous region in southeastern Russia. The short-bearded, blue-eyed 20-something, who has since fled to another part of the country, asked to use a pseudonym to protect his own safety, as well as the safety of family members still in Chechnya.
“I was driven to a police station,” Ahmed told NBC News via Skype, his face turned away from the camera while being recorded. “While police officers repeatedly asked me to betray other LGBTQ community members, I was beaten — for hours. They were using a plastic pipe.”
“I was telling them that I don’t know what they’re talking about, but they said that they know who I am,” he added. “Then they started torturing me with electricity.’
AHMED
For at least two hours, Ahmed explained, police officers were putting electricity in his body through his fingers. He said the pain was unbearable.
“Like all your body is burning,” he said. “These police officers are accustomed to torturing people … Some men I know told me that some were left hanging from the ceiling, had been suffocated with a plastic bag or even raped with the police bat. This kind of torture can last for weeks.”
Life as a gay man in Chechnya is far from easy, according to Ahmed. Meeting other gay men can be a dangerous proposition, as authorities use people as bait to attract gay men, he claimed.
“There were many cases where this kind of ‘friendship’ resulted with arrest,” Ahmed explained. “I was not using social networks to meet other gay men, and I believe that this saved me for a long time. I was mostly in a circle of well-known, trusted people, and I was cautious, so that’s why police released me in the end. They didn’t have anything solid on me.”
Ahmed said no one was ever brought in to testify against him. He speculated that his “different appearance” is probably what made authorities suspect he’s gay.
Rachel Denber, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division, said that Ahmed is far from being the only person to face this type of police inquiry in Chechnya.
Human Rights Watch has interviewed several men who have been detained in Chechnya on suspicion of being gay or bisexual. Denber said these men have been through “horrific, depraved torture and humiliation,” including rape. While this torture is allegedly happening at the hands of Chechen authorities, Denber said these “cases of abduction and secret detention” are happening illegally in the region.
Igor Kochetkov, head of the Russian LGBT Network, a nongovernmental LGBTQ rights organization, said there are several dozen Chechens who have been detained and tortured in this most recent wave of persecution, which he said started at the end of 2018.
By Chechen law, he said, there are no legal grounds to deprive someone of their freedom due to their sexual orientation. He added that only few detainees manage to leave Chechnya, since authorities usually take their passports.
“Most of the Chechens who turn to us want to leave Russia, because they are afraid that the Chechen police or their own relatives will be able to find them anywhere in Russia,” Kochetkov explained.
Ahmed was among the lucky ones, as his passport was returned to him, and he was able to flee Chechnya. He is in another part of Russia and is hoping to leave for a country in Western Europe. He did not specify which country, to protect his safety, but he said his partner lives in a European country where gay rights are highly respected.
“I don’t feel safe here at all,” he said of Russia. “[Chechen leader Ramzan] Kadyrov’s people are so powerful that they can find me here, too. I keep a low profile here, and I don’t live a normal life. So until I leave Russia, I won’t be able to live free.”
Chechen authorities have repeatedly denied that this kind of persecution is happening in the republic. At the beginning of the year, Alvi Karimov, a spokesman for Kadyrov, the region’s strongman leader, said “it’s an absolute lie.” In 2017, following the reports of the initial “anti-gay purge,” Karimov stated, “You can’t detain and oppress those who don’t exist in the republic,” seemingly denying the existence of any gay people in Chechnya.
“That is totally not true,” Ahmed said of Karimov’s assertion. “There are gays even among Chechen political representatives.”
Ahmed said he would like to get married one day, but he lamented that same-sex marriage is so far away from being possible in Chechnya. He claimed even heterosexual couples can’t express their love openly in the region.
But despite what he’s been subjected to, Ahmed said Chechnya will always be his home: “If I could live there freely, I wouldn’t go anywhere else.”
An estimated 10,000 LGBTQ youth, ages 13 to 17, have been protected from conversion therapy by living in states that have banned the contentious practice on minors, according to an updated report from UCLA’s Williams Institute.
Starting in 2012 with California, 18 states and the District of Columbia have banned conversion therapy for those under 18, though no state bans the practice on adults. Conversion therapy seeks to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of an individual through various tactics including talk therapy, and, in extreme cases, aversion treatments like inducing nausea or vomiting.
“The scientific research since the late 1940s has been remarkably consistent that sexual orientation and gender identity are remarkably resistant to efforts to change,” Catherine Lugg, a professor at the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University, told NBC News.
“Since the 1970s, no credible medical organization has claimed that one can change — or, by implication, should change — their sexual orientation and/or gender identity,” Lugg added.
In fact, the vast majority of the general population does not support conversion therapy on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth. The Williams Institute reports 18 percent of those surveyed this year believe the practice should be legal for minors, with 56 percent believing it should be illegal, and the remaining 26 percent not sure.
Yet, 32 states haven’t banned the practice, and 16,000 young people in those states are expected to undergo conversion therapy from a licensed health care professional before reaching the age of 18, according to the report.
The negative mental health outcomes caused by the medically discredited practice may affect young people for the rest of their lives, expert say. This month, The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that helps LGBTQ youth in crisis, released its 2019 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, which found that 42 percent of LGBTQ youth who underwent conversion therapy reported a suicide attempt in the last year. That number was even higher (57 percent) when looking specifically at transgender and nonbinary youth who’ve undergone the practice in the past 12 months.
Sam Brinton, the project’s head of advocacy and government affairs, underwent conversion therapy as a minor. Brinton told NBC News that “the real and lasting effects of it are too awful to list and mention.”
Brinton said conversion therapy gives vulnerable LGBTQ youth “false hope” that they can actually change their sexual orientation or gender identity. Being unable to do so then leads to “massive mental health challenges such as depression and suicidal ideation,” Brinton added.
While 13 states have banned conversion therapy on minors in the past two years alone — roughly one state every two months — Brinton expects this pace to slow, noting that the remaining states lean more conservative.
“But that doesn’t mean we don’t try,” Brinton added, noting that an additional 21 states — including reliably conservative Kansas, Kentucky and Georgia — have already submitted bills that would ban the discredited practice for minors.
In fact, The Trevor Project is leading the 50 Bills 50 States campaign, which works to get legislation passed in every state that would ban conversion therapy on minors.
Brinton, however, does not believe legislation alone will end the controversial practice. The key, Brinton said, is making clear to providers that practicing conversion therapy is no longer lucrative.
That’s why Brinton says the recent bill introduced by Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., which seeks to ban taxpayer funding of conversion therapy, is a step in the right direction. Currently, states decide which services Medicaid can cover, and Medicaid doesn’t require a detailed description of the services provided, meaning practices like conversion therapy — which has been discredited by nearly every major health organization — can simply be billed and covered like traditional therapy.
While Brinton was not able to provide an exact number, The Trevor Project tracks close to 500 known conversion therapists and claims “millions of dollars” are currently going into the pockets of these providers.
Brinton made clear it’s necessary to remind LGBTQ youth — especially those being pushed into something like conversion therapy — that they are not alone.
“I remember feeling I was alone, and I was literally so worthless that I was being erased by a doctor,” Brinton recalled. “This is the best time for us to tell them, ‘You’re not alone, and we’re fighting for you in every state across the country.’”
Alphonso David, a civil rights lawyer who has been serving as chief counsel to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was named Tuesday as the new president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ-rights organization in the U.S.
David, 48, is the first African American to lead the Human Rights Campaign since its founding in 1980. At times in the past, some critics perceived the group as focusing too heavily on the interests of white gay and lesbian people. David becomes its seventh president, succeeding Chad Griffin, who has held the post since 2012.
David was appointed as Cuomo’s chief counsel in 2015, and before that served as New York’s Counsel for Civil Rights. He played key roles in the legalizing of same-sex marriage in New York in 2011, banning so-called conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors and establishing non-discrimination protections for transgender New Yorkers.
Dozens of activists in a letter to the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo say the State Department under his leadership “has abandoned full support of LGBTI people within its global human rights policy.”
Council for Global Equality Chair Mark Bromley, Preston Mitchum of Advocates for Youth, American Jewish World Service President Robert Bank, Amnesty International USA Executive Director Margaret Huang, Sharon Nazarien of the Anti-Defamation League, Winnie Stachelberg of the Center for American Progress, Center for Health and Gender Equity President Serra Sippel, Bishop Joseph W. Tolton of the Fellowship Global, GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard, LGBTQ Victory Institute President Annise Parker, Rev. Jim Merritt of the Metropolitan Community Church’s Global Justice Institute, Human Rights Campaign Government Affairs Director David Stacy, Human Rights First Senior Vice President for Policy Rob Berschinski, Immigration Equality Executive Director Aaron Morris, InterACT Executive Director Kimberly Zieselman, International Women’s Health Coalition President Françoise Girard, Darrel Cummings of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, MPact Global Action for Gay Men’s Health and Rights Executive Director George Ayala, National Center for Lesbian Rights Legal Director Shannon Minter, National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling, National LGBT Chamber of Commerce President Justin Nelson, OutRight Action International Executive Director Jessica Stern, PFLAG Executive Director Brian Bond, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights President Kerry Kennedy and Synergía-Initiatives for Human Rights Executive Director Stefano Fabeni signed the letter that was sent to Pompeo on June 20.
The letter, which they made public on Monday, specifically notes the State Department has not publicly acknowledged Pride month and did not issue a statement on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. The activists also wrote the State Department ” has refused requests from a number of diplomatic facilities to fly the Pride flag during celebrations this month — a notable reversal of instructions provided in previous years.”
“To be clear, both IDAHOTB and Pride fit squarely into the Department’s efforts to combat hate crimes, violence and human rights violations around the world,” reads the letter. “We find it particularly disappointing that your choice to pull back has come on the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in New York, an important milestone in our country’s civil rights history which Pride commemorates.”
“Taken together, these actions amount to an irrefutable effort by the administration to distance itself from the American tradition of affirming human rights as part of our country’s foreign policy — an effort that we flatly condemn,” it adds.
The activists in their letter to Pompeo also criticize the State Department over its plans to create a new human rights advisory commission, the Commission on Unalienable Rights, that will stress “natural law and natural rights.”
“We recognize this formulation, which is used by a variety of organizations as code words for denying human and civil rights to LGBTI citizens — a significant deviation from the comprehensive approach that long has guided the human rights diplomacy, programming and reporting of the State Department,” reads the letter.
The activists also note President Trump has refused to support the Equality Act, has banned openly transgender people from the military and has moved to “strike references to LGBTI persons and gender from multilateral documents.”
“We cannot but conclude that you and the president have embarked on a clear-cut effort to undermine LGBTI progress at home and disavow LGBTI populations abroad,” reads their letter.
The activists ask Pompeo to “issue a robust clarification of policy to encourage embassies around the world to show support for LGBTI communities and inclusion during the remaining weeks of LGBTI Pride season.” They also request that he “dismantle the proposed commission and instead invest in the work already underway at” the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
“Failure to take such actions will only encourage the view that, contrary to the president’s previous expressions of support for the rights of LGBTI people, the administration is in fact purposefully distancing itself from American principles of human rights and from the protection of LGBTI people around the world,” reads the letter.
A State Department spokesperson on Monday told the Blade in response to the activists’ letter that “protecting and advancing universal human rights, including for LGBTI persons, has long been and remains the policy of the United States.”
“The department is focused on deterring and responding to violence against LGBTI persons, supporting efforts to decriminalize LGBTI status or conduct, and working to prevent and combat severe official discrimination,” added the spokesperson.
Embassy staff participate in Pride parade, acknowledge IDAHOBiT
The State Department in previous statements to the Blade insists it continues to defend LGBTI rights around the world.
The State Department in recent months has publicly criticized the anti-LGBTI crackdown in Chechnya and a provision of Brunei’s new penal code that sought to impose the death penalty upon anyone convicted of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations. The White House in March announced openly gay U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell will lead an initiative that encourages countries to decriminalize homosexuality.
Tremenda Nota, the Blade’s media partner in Cuba, reported the U.S. Embassy in Havana on its Twitter page acknowledged IDAHOBiT, which took place less than a week after police in the Cuban capital arrested several people who participated in an unauthorized LGBTI march.
A State Department spokesperson told the Blade last week in response to a request for comment about the postponement of the Tbilisi Pride parade in Georgia that “senior U.S. officials have and will continue to urge the government of Georgia to protect and defend human rights and fundamental freedoms for all — including LGBTI individuals.” The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv on Twitter said “dozens of U.S. Embassy Kyiv members participated” in Sunday’s Pride march in the Ukrainian capital.
Pompeo on Monday arrived in Saudi Arabia, a country in which homosexuality remains punishable by death.
The department has in place standing policy guidance that U.S. embassies and consulates should use all diplomatic, assistance and public diplomacy tools at their disposal to protect and defend human rights for all, including LGBTI persons,” the State Department spokesperson told the Blade.
The Stonewall Inn is no longer the only historical LGBTQ site given landmark designation by New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. As of Tuesday, six other locales have been granted the same status.
The sites include the Audre Lorde Residence in Staten Island, Caffe Cino and The LGBT Community Center in the West Village, the James Baldwin Residence in the Upper West Side, the Women’s Liberation Center in Chelsea and the Gay Activists Alliance Firehouse in SoHo.
The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, an organization dedicated to documenting buildings tied to influential LGBTQ trailblazers across the five boroughs, curated a list of more than 200 sites in an initiative titled “Historic Context Statement for LGBT History in New York City.” The organization sent a truncated version of this list to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which then, along with New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, identified the six places now designated as landmarks, according to Ken Lustbader, co-director of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project.
“We’re thrilled that the city is recognizing these sites and establishing them as integral spaces in LGBT and American history,” Lustaber told NBC News. “Millions of people will be in New York City visiting Stonewall for its 50th anniversary, but while Stonewall marked a turning point, LGBT history predates Stonewall and the city is full of places that reflect that rich history.”
The Audre Lorde Residence on St. Paul’s Avenue in Staten Island was home to acclaimed writer, professor, activist and black lesbian feminist Audre Lorde from 1972 to 1987. Lorde, who lived in the home with her partner and two children, often worked in the house’s study and wrote numerous books there, including “Coal,” “The Cancer Journals” and “Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.”
Cafe Cino on Cornelia Street in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood is “widely recognized as the birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway theater,” according to the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. Joe Cino rented a ground-story space in the building in 1958, intending to run a small coffeehouse. Yet soon enough, patrons began staging avant-garde performances there. Caffe Cino became known for elevating the works of unknown playwrights, including William M. Hoffman, who credits his career to the space. Many of Caffe Cino’s early productions featured gay characters and LGBTQ issues, and as a result, the space became a haven for gay men. Caffe Cino closed in 1968, a year after Cino’s death.
New York City’s LGBT Community Center has served as a hub for the community since 1983. Located in the West Village of Manhattan, the center is the birthplace of The Gender Identity Project, which is the longest running provider for transgender and gender-nonconforming people in the state. The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), Dignity/New York and more than 400 other organizations have gathered in the center for meetings since it first opened its doors.
The James Baldwin Residence on Manhattan’s Upper West Side served as the iconic writer’s home from 1965 until his death in 1987. Though the civil rights activist and literary intellectual did not self-identify as gay, he spoke openly about LGBTQ issues and wrote several novels that featured gay and bisexual characters, including “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone” (1968) and “Just Above My Head” (1979), which were published while he lived in the 71st Street residence.
Founded in the 1970s, the Women’s Liberation Center was an integral meeting space for women’s groups, including several that specifically focused on the city’s lesbian community. The Lesbian Feminist Liberation, a group that sought to ensure lesbians were visible and heard at political and pride marches, and Lesbian Switchboard, a volunteer-led counseling hotline, were two of the many groups that met in the center. The Women’s Liberation Center closed in 1997.
The Gay Activists Alliance Firehouse, a firehouse in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, served as the headquarters for the Gay Activists Alliance from 1971 to 1974. The group was considered the most influential American gay political activist organization in the early 1970s. The firehouse also brought together other LGBTQ groups, such as Gay Youth, the Lesbian Feminist Liberation and Gay Men’s Health Project, for social events.
“As people from around the world gather in New York to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Stonewall and World Pride, now is the perfect time to preserve our unparalleled LGBTQ history,” Johnson wrote in an emailed statement. “New York City played such an important role in moving the LGBTQ civil rights movement forward and we owe it to those who fought in this movement to ensure that their legacy lives on.”
“These sites memorialize the diversity and intersectionality of the LGBTQ rights movement and will make excellent additions to the city’s amazing list of landmarks,” he added.
The self-described straight “country boy” whose rainbow pickup truck went viral on social media, joined Oklahoma City’s first official Pride march Sunday.
Cody Barlow, 28, first debuted his decorated tailgate earlier this month with a sign that read, “Not all country boys are bigots. Happy Pride Month.”
“I wanted to share a message of support, particularly for the younger generation of LGBTQ people who are dealing with a lot and who are isolated with nowhere to turn,” Barlow told NBC News. “For those suffering to the point where they may be considering taking their own lives, I wanted to show that not all of us are like that, that we judge people on their characters, not based on who they love.”
Barlow said that while he hoped to bring about positive change, he didn’t expect his truck to inspire far-reaching responses.
“I thought maybe my family and friends would share it. I didn’t think it would be the county, let alone the state or the country,” said Barlow, who hails from Wagoner, Oklahoma, a small rural town with a population of less than 9,000 people.
Yet at Oklahoma City Pride, Barlow spent almost 11 hours taking pictures and signing autographs with those who appreciated his visible support for the LGBTQ community.
“Oklahoma City Pride is the biggest Pride in state. People come from every rural town to celebrate,” said Lauren Zuniga, the president of the Oklahoma City Pride Alliance, which organized the official event. “Cody’s truck made ‘baby gays’ feel at home. Having a visible ally like him can change the trajectory of a young person’s life.”
This year marks the first official Oklahoma City Pride. Technically there have been marches and celebrations in the area stemming back to 1987, but prior to this year, such celebrations were either hidden or not officially recognized by the local government, according to Zuniga.
Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt recently declared the week of June 17 the first-ever LGBTQ “Pride Week” in the city’s history.
“Today is a day to reaffirm our city’s commitment that all people are welcome in Oklahoma City and all people in Oklahoma City are loved,” Holt wrote.View image on Twitter
Zuniga said that the introduction of Pride Week boosted morale among attendees and had an impact on turnout.
“It makes such a huge difference to have the support of Mayor Holt and the local government,” Zuniga said. “There was a record number of people who attended Pride, around 120,000 people, compared to the 85,000 who’ve attended in past years.”
She also noted that Holt’s recognition of the event takes on increased significance when considering the state’s lack of LGBTQ protections.
There are currently no “comprehensive, statewide nondiscrimination protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people in Oklahoma,” according to Freedom for All Americans, a bipartisan organization that advocates for federal and state LGBTQ protections.
“We’re so resilient in Oklahoma City,” Zuniga said. “There’s so many storms we’ve had to weather, and LGBTQ folks are especially tough.”
This year’s Oklahoma City Pride theme was “Legends and Rebels,” and though the legacy of the Stonewall uprising is on many people’s minds, Zuniga said the event is a way to celebrate local LGBTQ history.
Oklahoma City gay bar Angles was raided by police more than a decade after New York City’s Stonewall uprising, which is widely credited with fueling the modern-day LGBTQ rights movement. To commemorate Angles’ history, a number of events during the city’s Pride Week were hosted at the night club.
As for Barlow, he said Oklahoma City Pride is not the last stop on his list. He plans to drive his truck to other municipalities in the state, as well as in neighboring Arkansas.
Our Long Table is a new event benefiting Food For Thought. This relaxing summer evening of food, friends, and music will be held at Vine Hill House in Sebastopol, overlooking world-class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vineyards.
Guests will enjoy refreshing summer wines, a sit-down dinner, live music, and a fun (and short!) live auction.
Ticket Price: $120 per person.
Tickets and more information available at www.FFTfoodbank.org/our-long-table.
Date: Sunday, August 11, 2019
Time: 4:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Location: Vine Hill House,3601 Vine Hill Rd, Sebastopol, CA 95472
Dinner
An elegant multicourse dinner, with menu created by Michele Anna Jordan, James Beard award-winning culinary author.
Live Music Featuring the danceable sounds of the popular band Dgiin.
Live Auction An exciting live auction, featuring some wonderful “experience” packages.
Beneficiary Food For Thought is a nonprofit organization that provides healing food and nutrition to 700 people affected by serious illnesses in Sonoma County. Our life-sustaining services are available at no charge to qualified individuals who are at risk of malnutrition.
Food For Thought provides weekly groceries, nutritional vitamins and supplements, nutrition counseling, healthy cooking classes, and an onsite lunch program three days a week.
In our newest program, Bags of Love, we provide healthy food to people who are both ill and homeless. We pack and deliver ready-to-eat food in paper bags to HIV and other agencies serving the homeless community in Sonoma County.
Website: www.FFTfoodbank.org/our-long-table
Our Long Table Sponsorships We have great sponsorship opportunities for companies or individuals who would like to sponsor Our Long Table. See the website FFTfoodbank.org for more information.
Current sponsors include:
Silver Spoon Sponsors ($2,500) Jim Laufenberg, Coldwell Banker
Snoopy’s Home Ice
Redwood Hill Farm
The Press Democrat
Butter Knife Sponsors: ($1,000) Edward Jones
Exchange Bank
Forestville Pharmacy
North Bay Bohemian
Sonoma County Gazette
Sonoma West Times & News
The Scottish government is to draft a bill calling for a statutory declaration application process to change gender following a consultation to reform the Gender Recognition Act.
Under the new proposals, trans men and women would not have to provide psychiatric and medical reports to legally change their gender.
The SNP Government ordered a review of the Act because trans people complained the process to legally change gender is complicated, time-consuming and intrusive.
The Gender Recognition Act is a 2004 act that allows people in the UK to change their legal gender.
Speaking at Holyrood in Edinburgh, the Scotland capital Social Security Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville, delivered the update.
Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, has previously stated: ‘As an ardent, passionate feminist, and have been all my life, I don’t see the greater recognition of transgender rights as a threat to me as a woman or to my feminism.’
Responding to the news, Becky Kaufmann, Justice Policy Officer at Scottish Trans Alliance, said, ‘We warmly welcome that the draft bill will remove the offensive and intrusive requirement that trans women and trans men provide psychiatric and medical reports in order to change their birth certificates. It is important because trans women and trans men will no longer have to depend on a tribunal panel of strangers to decide the reality of their own lives.’
‘Detrimental to the quality of debate’
James Morton, Scottish Trans Alliance Manager, furthermore said: ‘It has already been sixteen months since the initial consultation on Gender Recognition Act reform closed. The delay in publishing a draft bill has been very detrimental to the quality of debate in some parts of the media and on social media.
‘It is vital that the Scottish Government publish the draft bill as soon as possible to enable appropriate scrutiny of the exact details rather than further unhelpful speculation. Long delays between announcements and actions embolden those who are prejudiced against trans people, and create intense distress for many vulnerable trans people.’
‘Current outdated, intrusive and medicalised process’
Colin Macfarlane, Director, Stonewall Scotland commented: ‘We are pleased to see the Scottish Government’s commitment to introducing a system of self-determination to our country’s gender recognition laws.
‘The proposals outline the Government’s intention to replace the current outdated, intrusive and medicalised process in favour of one that ensures trans people are respected. When delivered, the new system will demonstrate that the Scottish Government recognises trans people for who they are, marking an important step towards trans equality.
‘It’s important the second round of public consultation doesn’t delay legislative progress and instead focuses on making the system of self-determination work effectively for trans communities in Scotland. The Scottish Government has already done a full comprehensive public consultation on the principles of reforming the Gender Recognition Act that ended in March 2018. The original consultation received over 15,000 responses with nearly two-thirds of Scottish people (65 per cent) supporting a system of self-determination. This shows clear public support for reform and bringing Scotland’s gender recognition laws in line with international best practice.
‘While it’s great the Scottish Government plans to simplify the process of getting a Gender Recognition Certificate, it is disappointing to see that recognition for under 18s is not included in this bill. For a government that has prided itself on empowering 16- and 17-year-olds to exercise their judgment in areas like voting, it’s a shame they have not removed restrictions imposed on trans young people.
‘In addition, we welcome the Scottish Government’s move to create a working group to address non-legislative ways of recognising non-binary identities. However, this needs to be backed up by a commitment to review the need for legal gender recognition. For non-binary people, not having any legal recognition means they are currently forced to identify as something they are not and this needs to change.
‘It’s absolutely vital the Scottish Government makes an explicit commitment to uphold their 2016 election manifesto to pass legislation before the 2021 election. Any further delay will allow more fear and misinformation to spread and that will profoundly impact on trans people’s quality of life in Scotland. Trans people have suffered for far too long from inequalities that can be easily removed.
‘We look forward to working with the Scottish Government to take action and show that Scotland is a country where all LGBT people can be accepted without exception.