“Two years ago, our nation witnessed one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history. It was an attack on the LGBTQ community, the Latinx community, and LGBTQ people of color everywhere. It was an attack on the American people and the values of diversity and equality that all of us should cherish. And it was an all too common reminder that our nation is in dire need of common sense gun reforms.
“On this anniversary, let us honor the lives lost that night by recommitting ourselves to the fight for a world where no one faces discrimination, where no life is taken by hatred or bigotry, where everyone is treated with respect and dignity – no matter who they are or who they love. As we celebrate Pride Month, we recognize that the fight for LGBTQ equality is far from over, and the Democratic Party will continue to stand with LGBTQ communities in America and around the world who are fighting for the rights they deserve.”
An emotional, rain-soaked rally on the eve of the Pulse anniversary Monday evening was mixed with anguish and raw anger over the lack of progress on gun reform and gay rights in Florida and the sheer number of mass shootings that have happened since.
“Six hundred and twelve days,” said Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the 2016 Pulse shooting and organizer of the Pulse Rally to Honor Them with Action at Orlando City Hall. “That’s how long it took for Pulse headlines to become Parkland headlines. … That’s how long it took for 49 lives lost to become 17 more. And in those 612 days, nothing changed.”
Pulse survivors were joined on the steps of City Hall by survivors of the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and about 200 rallygoers, several of whom stretched a rainbow ribbon in front of the podium reading “Gays against guns.”
It’s been two years to the day since the Pulse nightclub shooting that claimed 49 lives in Orlando. And for two years, Gov. Rick Scott has faced the same question from many in the state’s LGBTQ community. Why didn’t the governor do more to reach out to LGBTQ citizens after the massacre?
Scott, for the second year in a row, officially proclaimed June 12, “Pulse Remembrance Day.” But some LGBTQ advocates say they want more from the governor. Smith has long criticized Scott for failing to sign an executive order banning discrimination based on sexuality or gender identity in the workplace.
And many have noted the difference in the governor’s response to the Pulse shooting — after which the governor failed to push for any law regulating firearms — and Scott’s legislative push after the Feb. 14 Parkland shooting.
Two years ago on June 12 at 2:02 a.m., Orlando was forever changed. On Tuesday, the city and Pulse nightclub will remember the 49 people who were killed and continue to support the more than 50 others who were shot or injured.
At noon, a bell will toll 49 times at the First United Methodist Church marking the 49 lives taken. Later in the day, a remembrance ceremony and community gathering will happen at the new Pulse memorial beginning at 7 p.m.
A month before the second anniversary of the shooting, the temporary memorial at Pulse opened to the public. It was the first time mourners and visitors had had an official place to leave tokens and write notes at the South Orange Avenue location since the FBI erected a fence around the club hours after the shooting.
Senior leaders at the Pentagon are distancing themselvesfrom the Defense Department’sannual LGBT Pride Month celebrations, declining to formally acknowledge the observances for the first time since the practice became routine after President Barack Obama repealed the military’s ban on homosexuals serving openly.
The absence this year of an official Pentagon memo marking LGBT Pride Month has raised questions among service members and Defense Department civilian employees who are troubled by President Trump’s surprise proclamation last July that he would ban transgender people from serving in the military. Typically, thememo is distributedas LGBT Pride Month begins each June, effectively endorsingthe observance and encouraging personnel to hold local events. The memo has putLGBT Pride Month on par with other special observances and heritage months.
“It opens the door for LGBT service members, civilians and their allies on military bases to hold events recognizing Pride Month without having to ask for special permission or an exception,” said a former senior Obama administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the official’s dealings with the Pentagon. “It makes it known that there’s an authorization, that there’s support.”
Even without an official observance memo, the LGBT employee group at the Defense Department held an event Monday at the Pentagon. Contrary to past years, though, no high-level department leaders made public remarks — another first since such eventsbegan in 2012, the year after the policy known as“don’t ask, don’t tell” was repealed. Instead, Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.) headlined Monday’s gathering.
Air Force Maj. Carla Gleason, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon, declined to discuss why no observance memo has been issuedthis year, saying only: “The Department of Defense supports diversity of all kinds across our military and we encourage everyone to celebrate the diversity of our total force team. . . . We value all members of the DOD total force and recognize their immense contributions to the mission.”
Gleason noted, too, that despite the absence of an official memo, the Pentagon’s LGBT employee group held its annual event.
The event’s organizers designed this year’s promotional posters because, without an official observance memo, the Pentagon’s design office was prohibited from doing the work, according to people familiar with the plans.
The Defense Department Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity maintains a website publicizing the posters and memos designating 2018’s other official observances. As of Monday, it listed five: Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Holocaust Days of Remembrance, and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. In each instance, all materials were distributed across the force in accordance with regular protocol.
The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is responsible for issuing the memos. Robert L. Wilkie, Trump’s nominee to become the next Veterans Affairs secretary, currently runs the office, pending his confirmation to the Cabinet post.
Trump’s transgender ban has yet to go into effect because of court challenges. In the meantime, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has recommended a new policy that disqualifies transgender people who require or have already undergone gender transition, and bans people with current or recent gender dysphoria except in rare circumstances. Gender dysphoria is the medical term for people who feel distress as a result of their birth gender.
Mattis’s policy recommendation marks a reversal of the Obama administration’s decision in 2016 to lift a ban on transgender men and womenserving in the U.S. armed forces, though it grandfathers those currently serving.
Trump positioned himself as a supporter of gay rights during his campaign, promising during the Republican National Conventionto “protect LGBTQ citizens.” His decision last July to announce a ban on transgender people serving in the military has drawn sharp criticism from gay rights groups and raised questions about the commitment he offered on the campaign trail.
The capital of Poland has celebrated Pride with an “unbreakable” monument after the previous one was destroyed.
Before the Warsaw Equality Parade on Saturday, a new rainbow monument was unveiled at a busy intersection in the country’s capital, where a rainbow is formed by light bouncing off of water vapour, producing a holographic rainbow.
The monument is stationed at a busy intersection in the city on the site of a previous rainbow monument before it was repeatedly vandalised.
Organisers hope the rainbow will be “an unbreakable symbol of love, peace, LGBT rights and equality.”
Love Does Not Exclude Association, who helped organise the monument, said that it was symbolic.
Association chairperson Ola Muzinska told The Telegraph: “This rainbow signifies the start of a wider campaign to raise awareness of LGBT rights and in particular the fight for marriage equality in Poland.”
The rainbow has also become a hit on social media, with one person tweeting: “It’s indestructible and here to stay, gay science is so powerful.”
(Creative Commons)
The previous rainbow was made of flowers and erected in 2012, before finally being removed in 2015 after repeatedly being vandalised.
The light rainbow was sponsored by ice-cream company Ben & Jerry’s. The company has notably supported LGBT causes in the past.
The politician blocked same-sex marriage legislation in 2017, stating that marriage between a man and a woman was “clearly and expressly regulated in the Constitution.”
He also vetoed the Gender Accordance Act, which would allow trans people to legally change their gender.
In Poland, approximately 91 percent of the population identify as Roman Catholic, according to a Eurobarometer 393 poll in 2012.
Although it is legal to be gay in Poland, public opinion as a whole is not in favour of LGBT+ rights.
According to pollsters Equaldex, 46 percent of the country surveyed said that society should not accept homosexuality.
Robert Biedron (WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Current polls indicate that one in four Poles intend to vote for the left-wing candidate Robert Biedroń, who entered his political career as an LGBT+ activist.
Biedroń, who is the mayor of Slupsk, a town with a population of 98,757 in northern Poland, is considered a strong contender to current President Andrzej Duda.
Although the election is not set to take place until 2020, it means that the politician has a generous amount of time on his side to win nationwide support.
Civil libertarians and LGBTQ rights advocates praised Republican Gov. Chris Sununu on Friday after he signed into law a bill prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity. “Discrimination – in any form – is unacceptable and runs contrary to New Hampshire’s Live Free or Die Spirit,” Sununu said in a statement after signing House Bill 1319.
“If we really want to be the ‘Live Free or Die’ state, we must ensure that New Hampshire is a place where every person, regardless of their background, has an equal and full opportunity to pursue their dreams and to make a better life for themselves and their families.”
Sununu on Friday also signed legislation banning conversion therapy for gay minors. The transgender rights bill passed the New Hampshire House and Senate with all Democrats in favor and enough Republicans in support to pass it. The roll call in the House was 195-129, and in the Senate, 14-10.
NOTE: New York has banned insurance coverage for conversion therapy by Gov. Cuomo’s executive order, but not by legislative statute as in other states. If you count New York, the current total is 14 states, not 13.
A survey has found more than half of Americans have no qualms when it comes to their colleagues’ sexual orientation or gender identity.
The poll, carried out by Bospar Public Relations and market research firm Propeller Insights, found 55 percent of Americans aged 18 and over were OK with having gay, lesbian or transgender co-workers.
The poll found those aged 75 and over were the age group most likely to be accepting of LGT colleagues, with 60 percent saying they had no preference of sexuality or gender identity.
56 percent of respondents aged 18-to-34 and 59 percent of those aged 35-to-54 said the same.
Baby-boomers were the least accepting, with only 47.9 percent saying they had no preference.
Many Brits still fear coming out in the workplaceThe survey did not include views on bisexual workers.
Of those polled, only 4.7 percent and 4.6 percent said they would prefer to work with transgender men and women respectively.
“I think it shows that we have a long way to, especially with the trans community,” Bospar executive Curtis Sparrer told NewNowNext.
“When I looked at the data it seemed to suggest that people wanted to work with people like themselves, which would explain why straight men and women did so well—since they are a majority of the country’s population.”
The survey was carried out over a five-day period in April and included 1,010 respondents.
A survey by the organisation found that 35 percent of of LGBT people in the UK remain in the closet to colleagues.
The poll revealed discrimination against transgender workers (Mark Makela/Getty)
Ruth Hunt, chief executive of Stonewall, said: “Over the past decade, leading employers across all sectors have shown a real commitment to inclusion and have taken positive steps towards LGBT equality.
“Unfortunately, the findings of our Work Report show there’s still lots to do. The fact that more than a third (35 per cent) of LGBT staff have hidden their identity at work for fear of discrimination shows that change is still very much needed.”
A California man was sentenced to death on Thursday for the killing of a young boy who prosecutors said was tortured because he believed the child was gay, and the boy’s mother was sentenced to life in prison.
Los Angeles County state court Judge George Lomeli sentenced 37-year-old Isauro Aguirre after he was convicted late last year of first-degree murder in the death of 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez.
The child’s mother, Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, 34, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in February and was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Aguirre was Fernandez’ boyfriend.
Gabriel died in May of 2013 in the working class high desert community of Palmdale, north of Los Angeles. Prosecutors said the boy’s skull was fractured, 12 of his ribs were broken, he was forced to eat cat feces, and that he slept, bound and gagged, in a cabinet.
“The conduct was horrendous, inhumane and nothing short of evil,” Lomeli said Thursday in imposing sentence.
Gabriel Fernandez, who was routinely beaten, starved, forced to sleep in a closet and tortured until his 2013 death.NBC News
“It is unimaginable, the pain that this child probably endured. And from what I heard, Gabriel was a kind, loving individual who just wanted to be loved,” the judge added.
Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami said during the trial that Aguirre “liked torture” and systematically abused Gabriel Fernandez because he thought the boy was gay.
“This case showed how evil can not only inflict lasting damage to those who loved Gabriel but our society as well,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement Thursday.
Under the terms of the Fernandez’ plea deal, a sentence of life in prison without parole was expected. In November Aguirre was convicted by a jury, which found that a special circumstance allegation of intentional murder by torture was valid, prosecutors said.
Fernandez said in a statement Thursday that “I want to say I’m sorry to my family for what I did. I wish Gabriel was alive,” and “every day I wish that I made better choices,” according to NBC Los Angeles.
State executions in California have been held up by court challenges since 2006. More than 740 inmates are currently on the state’s death row, according to the California Department of Corrections.
Lacey said that the sentences handed down on Thursday mean “the defendants will now spend the rest of their lives in prison for their reprehensible actions.”
Several agencies investigated abuse allegations leading up to Gabriel’s death, the Associated Press reported. On several occasions, investigators concluded there was no evidence of abuse.
Prosecutors have since filed charges of child abuse and falsifying records against four county social workers in Gabriel’s death.
Isauro Aguirre, left and Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, right, sit during their sentencing hearing in Los Angeles. KTLA / via AP pool
An Air Force veteran, Ryan Gierach, says his neighbors have a long history of discriminating against him because of his sexuality, reported KTLA 5 News.
The San Pedro, California resident said the abuse started once he moved into the neighborhood two years ago.
“When I came here my neighbors directly across from me began calling me names — all of them revolving around gay epithets,” he said.
Gierach claims his neighbors have yelled homophobic slurs, and threw garbage at him. He said they even physically assaulted him.
Gierach said the abuse got worse once the neighbor hung flyers around the neighborhood calling him a pedophile. The Air Force veteran turned journalist said he is used to discrimination, but is fighting so he can be treated with respect.
“For 20 years now I’ve covered this sort of thing happening to other people,” he said. “And it hurt me deeply every time it happened to other people. To be attacked for being a loving person is perverse.”
Gierach said that he has filed multiple reports with the Los Angeles Police Department. Police confirmed that they are investigating for battery, but have failed to make contact with the suspects. After showing up to the accused neighbors homes, police said they were unable to meet with them.Luckily, not all of his neighbors are hateful. Some have rallied behind Gierach to show their support.
“It’s a sad situation, and we’re not going to let it happen, because if you mess with one of us you mess with all of us,” neighbor Aiden Garcia-Sheffield said.
Teaching at Three Local Synagogues about Spirit and Authentic Living. Yiscah Smith was once a Chasidic man, living in Jerusalem with wife and children. But her quest to be her most authentic self led her on a decades-long journey, resulting not only in her transitioning to become the woman she knew she was, but returning into the fold of observant Judaism.
Yiscah now teaches lessons on using Jewish teachings (and religious teachings
generally) not to enforce normative behavior, but as a guide to liberate oneself to live
with utmost spiritual integrity.
Reb Yiscah, who is faculty at Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and the Conservative
Seminary in Jerusalem, is visiting Sonoma County for a 3-day residency sponsored by
three local congregations.
On Wednesday, June 13 at 7PM, she presents “Forty Years in the Wilderness:
My Journey to Authentic Living” – in which she shares the joys and struggles of
her own spirituality and gender identity. This talk is at Congregation Ner
Shalom, 85 La Plaza in Cotati. Admission is free.
On Thursday, June 14 at 7PM, she will teach “Jewish Living as the Cultivation
of a Spiritual Practice” – based on the teachings of the Piasetzner Rebbe, also
known as the Rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto, whose teachings were hidden in a
metal cylinder and unearthed only decades after the liquidation of the Warsaw
Ghetto. This teaching is at Congregation Beth Ami, 4676 Mayette in Santa Rosa.
Admission is free.
On Friday, June 15, at 1:30PM, she will offer a daytime teaching called “Go to
Yourself: Moving from One Self to Another Self”. This experiential session will
involve encountering the Divine within and moving from a finite sense of self to
a place that is limitless and beyond ego. The teaching, at B’nai Israel Jewish
Center, 740 Western Avenue in Petaluma, is followed, for those who wish, by a
thematically linked yoga session taught by Helaine Sheias. The talk is free and
the yoga session is sliding scale.
Studying with Yiscah is a moving experience. Ner Shalom’s Reb Irwin Keller, who has
studied with her in the past, says, “You imagine how much heartache her life journey
has involved; and yet the joy and ease that pours through her is real and it is infectious.
Whether she’s talking about a text in particular or the life of the spirit in general, you
walk away uplifted. And inspired too – so many people have had to turn away from
their religious traditions in order to be their true selves!”
Yiscah’s story is indeed unusual. While one reads and hears stories about transgender
(and other LGBTQ+) Orthodox Jews, those stories rarely have a happy ending in which
the individual can express the full breadth of their identity. With Yiscah as an emerging
voice, we may hope to see more happy endings.
Besides teaching, Yiscah hosts a podcast, and is the author of Forty Years in the
Wilderness: My Journey to Authentic Living. Read more about her at yiscahsmith.com.
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Freshly prepared food for our congregate lunch program is now being prepared in a new location! Local nonprofit, Worth Our Weight, is generously renting its kitchen to Food For Thought every Monday. Chef Coby Leibman and our volunteer cooking crew (featured above) couldn’t be happier in this large kitchen with plenty of room to prepare healthy food for our clients.
We are very thankful that Worth Our Weight has allowed us to use their kitchen and encourage you to support them. The Worth Our Weight Cafe serves brunch every Sunday from 8 am – 2 pm.Catering is also available for events and private parties. We hope you will consider them for your dining and catering needs, as they have been so supportive of Food For Thought.
Two Exciting Positions at FFT
1. Event Coordinator will organize our annual Dining Out For Life fundraising event. The Event Coordinator will work with local restaurants, corporate sponsors, and volunteers to make this one-night event a success. This is a part-time (10-20 hours per week) temporary position, June-December 2018.
2. Warehouse/Stocking Clerk is responsible for performing a variety of manual tasks associated with the acquisition, storage, and distribution of food products and maintenance of the facility. This is a part-time (20-25 hours per week) nonexempt position, with a varied weekly schedule that includes evening and weekend hours.
For full job descriptions and information about how to apply to these exciting positions, please visit our website.
Summer Volunteers Needed!
Are you looking for a great summer activity for the whole family? We have several volunteer opportunities for adults and children across Sonoma County. Open volunteer opportunities include:
Volunteer Delivery Drivers– Deliver healthy food to clients in Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, and Sonoma.
Food Drive Volunteers – Collect food donations from shoppers outside of local markets at locations across the county. Garden Volunteers – Help maintain and harvest our organic vegetable and herb garden.
Visit our website for more information and to fill out our volunteer application online. Please contact our Volunteer Program Manager, Helen Myers, by phone at (707) 887-1647 x 103 or by email at HelenM@FFTfoodbank.org with any questions.
