civil rights

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Sanesha Stewart, a young black transwoman in the Bronx was murdered in her apartment on Saturday, February 9th. You can read about her story at Feministe and New York Blade. Meanwhile, I just received this message from Queers For Economic Justice organizer Reggie Gossett, announcing a vigil to be held in Stewart's memory:

~~~Join Family, Friends and Community Members Saturday, April 5 for a Community Vigil to Honor the Memory and Celebrate the Life of Sanesha Stewart~~~

It's interesting that "Blog for Choice" day falls right after Martin Luther King Jr's holiday. It has me thinking about intersections and parallels of civil rights issues. For those who've studied segregation, the terms "de facto" and "de jure" are familiar. They mean "in fact" and "by law" and they are used to describe the reality of segregation in the United States today. Segregation in schools, for example, has been illegal since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 yet there is a great deal of de facto segregation in American schools.

Are he and his small band of followers on the lunatic fringe of the Christian Right, or aren't they? First they blame the wildfires in California on homosexuality. Now the loss of American troops is also the fault of gays and America's failure to properly condemn them?

The New York Times today has the story of a lawsuit against the Westboro Baptist Church, which is being sued for creating a media circus outside of a soldier's funeral. They protested outside the funeral carrying signs that blamed the deaths of American soldiers on the fact that the U.S. condones homosexuality. Actually they've been doing this for at least two years now, but because the father of a soldier whose funeral was protested has filed a lawsuit, Fred Phelps and his crew are back in the news.

National Coalition for Sexual Freedom -- Media Update
September 3, 2007
www.ncsfreedom.org
media@ncsfreedom.org

1. Bondage case in final stages
2. A night of S&M ends in death. What happened - and who's responsible?
3. A trial like no other
4. "Mistress Gorgeous" busted for sex crime
5. Swingers sexploits
6. Why Lap Dances In Nashville Are Illegal But Group Sex Isn't

I'm more than tired of all the uproar over whether sexuality is biologically determined or chosen. Actually, that's not true. I'm frustrated by the denial that sexuality isomplicated than that question would indicate, and the refusal to believe that the answer has no place in a discussion of rights for gays.

Something new to be proud of during Pride Month!

The New York State Assembly voted to approve marriage equality legislation with bipartisan support. This is a first in the country. When MA legalized marriage for same-sex couples it did so through the courts (though the legislature recently protected that decision) and in CA where marriage equality legislation was passed and then vetoed by the governor, not a single Republican voted for the bill. 85 assembly members voted in favor of the legislation, including four Republicans, while 61 voted against. That's the good news.

The bad news, as noted in this article in The Advocate, is that common wisdom holds that the legislation, which would give same-sex couples the same access to marriage that opposite-sex couples have, will be impossible to pass in the Senate, where there is a very slim Republican majority.