Palin no friend to gays and lesbians

Media claims about Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska do not fit the facts. Specifically, NYT columnist David Brooks asserted "she's pretty progressive on gay and lesbian issues." Au contraire:

...as Media Matters for America has documented, while Palin vetoed a bill in 2006 that would have prevented state officials from granting spousal benefits, her actions followed a 2005 Alaska Supreme Court ruling [PDF] that the state's policy of denying spousal benefits to same-sex partners of public employees violated the Alaska Constitution and a 2006 state Supreme Court order [PDF] requiring the state to issue regulations granting such benefits by January 1, 2007.

Palin followed the ruling begrudgingly:

In the veto message, Palin's office stated that she disagreed with the Alaska Supreme Court's actions: "The Governor's veto does not signal any change or modification to her disagreement with the action and order by the Alaska Supreme Court."

She's no maverick on LGBTQ issues.

Further, as a candidate for governor, Palin also reportedly supported efforts to prohibit state benefits for same-sex couples. The Anchorage Daily News reported on August 6, 2006, that Palin believes "[e]lected officials can't defy the court when it comes to how rights are applied, she said, but she would support a ballot question that would deny benefits to homosexual couples. 'I believe that honoring the family structure is that important,' Palin said. She said she doesn't know if people choose to be gay." [Emphasis added.]

Haven't we heard too many times that LGBTQs are not part of a legit family structure? Conservatives (and sadly some Democrats) reject that we are a naturally-occurring sexual minority. Pfft. Pffft! Forget science. Republicans cling to archaic thinking. I wonder when did Sarah choose to be hetero?

Make no mistake, Gov. Sarah Palin is a hard-line conservative. For trustworthy and astute political analysis (bookmark her blog!), see Anglachel's posts on McCain-Palin here and here. For me, a liberal left-of-center lesbian who opposes Obama for reasons I've reiterated numerous times here at The RealSpiel, the following nugget from Anglachel's, Basic Instinct, on McCain-Palin, sounded all too familiar:

The Obama campaign treated the Clinton Democrat constituency and our champions with disdain and hostility, right down to the roll call vote. "You have no where else to go," is what we were told week after week when we said, no, stupid, it's not race, its the economy. It's the lack of partisan committment. It's the refusal to address our concerns about the social safety net. The magninimity [sic] of the Clintons and their unshakeable [sic] loyalty to the party, fully on display at the convention, threw the petty selfishness and insecurity of the Obamacans into relief.

The general election is now in doubt for the Democrats because Obama has spent most of a year kicking the Clinton Democrats, the base of the party, to the curb. His refusal to even consider our candidate for the ticket shows he puts his emotional satisfaction ahead of the political needs of the party. The campaign's first reaction to Palin was an attack on the person, exactly in the mode of their hateful attacks on Hillary - sexist, disdainful, mocking, and crude....

Shakesville has initiated their famous Sexism Watch on Palin as they did under the feminist aegis of Melissa McEwan on the attacks aimed at Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. Too often in Hillary's case, so-called liberals demonstrated their chosen sexist tendencies. Now they hurl ugly misogynistic rants toward Sarah Palin that has been so typical of Obama supporters. Such as:

“What is this, the Vagina Epilogue?”

From the previous link, Violet sums up the electoral implications of Palin as veep on the McCain ticket:

Yesterday I wrote that the possums will lose this election for Obama by alienating every woman in America who hasn’t already run screaming from the sexism in the Democratic party. Well, not every woman, but enough. Enough women will either stay home or vote for Sarah Palin (not McCain) to make that nut.

They’ll do so not out of spite and not because they’re irrational. They’ll do so because they will have decided that the critical thing, right here, right now, is not to be bound by some historical allegiance to the party that used to be the home of women’s rights, but to strike a hard blow against the sexism and misogny of today.

I can forgive a protest vote for McCain-Palin after having witnessed the shameful treatment of partisan loyalist Hillary Clinton from inside the party.

However, be not deceived that Palin is a friend to gays and lesbians. Given the chance, I daresay she would support a federal amendment banning same-sex marriage, oppose ENDA, and high-five the ban on gays in the military. She's not a ballot option I will entertain for a nanosecond.

To be true to my liberal principles, and after checking the write-in rules of my state, I will lodge a presidential protest vote in November with the Green Party that placed a woman at the top of its ticket and fully embraces LGBTQ equality including "housing, jobs, civil marriage, medical benefits, child custody, and in all areas of life provided to all other citizens" and women's rights.

I don't give Obama high marks on LGBTQ issues or the Democratic Party that used to be the champion of civil rights, a subject of another RealSpiel post coming soon.

Comments captured below:

Why would I vote for a Democrat?

I'm taking a stand. I am sick of holding my nose to vote for Democratic challengers or incumbents who continue to be intimidated by the Republican Party's apartheid stance on lesbians and gays. Initially, my disenfranchisement grew after President Clinton's 1993 flip-flop over lifting the ban on gays and lesbians in the military. He broke his promise after courting pink votes during his 1992 presidential election. Perhaps more egregiously for a Georgia voter such as me, my Democratic senator opposed Clinton's changes to the military policy from the Reagan-Bush Administration and threatened to legislate a permanent ban.

Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, with a cabal of military commanders attacked Clinton's initiative to rescind the anti-gay ban just after Bill entered the Oval Office. After Judge Hatter's decision that stated...

...[t]he Department of Defense's justifications for its policy... are based on cultural myths... very similar to the reasons offered to keep the military racially segregated in the 1940s...

...and a flurry of judicial, legal and political maneuvers, the newly-minted president caved in to tenacious pressure as a congressional statute authorized, Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The march to codify gay discrimination didn't stop there. In 1995, after Republicans swept into power, Congress enacted and Clinton signed the Solomon Amendment, legislation that denied DOD funds to schools (some people resist discrimination) that barred military recruiters from campuses. In 1996, the law was amended to include funds from the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health & Human Services.

Consequently, in protest, I did not vote after 1992 until the 2000 election when I got a whiff of what Texas Republicans such as George W. Bush would envision for our future (not a pretty picture.). However, I did not remain silent through the 1990s. A blessing in disguise, Clinton's 1993 reversal and the resultant bigotry over gays in the military motivated me to finally undertake painting queer and feminist Christology, art that I had conceptualized in 1991. I decided to answer gay apartheid with artistic courage and foster my spiritual belief that God created who we are albeit a sexual minority. Exercising my faith, I believed that Christ did not condemn lesbians and gays and conceivably could have had a male lover.

Since the fateful 200o election, I have rallied to support Democrats with my money and my vote to blunt the advance of Republicans who pandered to homophobic voters and the Religious Right's anti-gay agenda. I also vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq and later voted for John Kerry in 2004 both in the primary and the general election. I had put aside my grievance with the Democratic Party over DOMA and its sometimes wishy-washy attitude towards gay equality. But, on Tuesday, my patience ran out.

When Georgia Democratic voters in the 4th District delivered a victory to Hank Johnson by more than 12,000 votes over Cynthia McKinney in the runoff election, I was absent from the approximately 70,000 voters who turned out. My partner and I participated in the primary to stop Ralph Reed (which I'll explain in a minute) and in the 2004 primary when McKinney barely edged out five other contenders. Yet, 33,591 less Democratic voters went to the polls in this July 18 primary compared to the one in 2004. Why?

From my perspective as a registered voter in the 4th District of Georgia, Cynthia didn't give me a reason to vote for her. When Cynthia McKinney did not show up to vote against FMA, I did not feel compelled to show up to vote for her. Her scuffle with the Capitol police didn't overly alarm me and I liked her defiance of Bush over the years. She wasn't perfect but who is? What I cared about was whether she would represent me, her constituent, a lesbian, a marginalized minority. Perhaps I wasn't the only voter who felt this way. Cathy Woolard, a lesbian for whom I voted in the 2004 primary, received 18,164 votes--more than enough votes for McKinney to have cinched the Democratic nomination in this year's primary. But I had had enough of Democrats avoiding the "gay wedge" issue. Candidates would now earn my pink vote. And Cynthia hadn't. So on Georgia's July 18 primary election day, my partner and I did what we thought was best: We asked for Republican ballots to vote specifically against Ralph Reed and for every Republican challenger to a GOP incumbent in the field.

When Cynthia did not win a majority of Democratic votes, a predicament that put her in the position of having to face a runoff with Hank Johnson, I emailed Hank asking him whether he supported gay civil rights. Did I get a reply before the runoff? No! So Tuesday, my partner and I stayed home. I wondered if other disenfranchised lesbian and gay voters had done the same. The 4th District has an enormous gay population with Atlanta as the gay mecca of the South. I also pondered when the election results were tallied, did McKinney lose by forgetting lesbians and gays in her district, by failing to reach out to us? Who can say? I can count two votes she lost because she didn't.

Yesterday, I emailed Hank Johnson again about his views on gay rights. Will I get an answer before November? I dunno. But I do know this. I will no longer vote for a candidate who will not stand up for gays and lesbians. I will not vote against myself just to vote ABAR (anybody but a Republican). After reading Billmon's post last night and the out-of-state lobbying money that was donated to Hank Johnson's campaign, I am less inclined to vote for him.

In surveying Georgia's candidates, I don't feel I have a Democratic candidate who supports me. So sad, so true, and so disappointing. Unlike Democrats with principles and a spine such as Russ Feingold, too many have not heeded the call from civil rights voices such as the late, great Coretta Scott King or the NAACP.

I would mobilize to vote against Perry McGuire whose outrageous remarks about gay teens cannot go unanswered. However, the Democrat incumbent for attorney general, Thurbert Baker, will likely win re-election, so I see no need to go to the polls in November. ABAR is like voting for a Republican on gay civil rights in effect, so why vote for Republican Lite? Hank Johnson has already taken an antiwar position but he has not, at the time of this posting--after I have sent two emails requesting his position on gay civil rights--declared that he will support an end of discrimination against me. If he won't declare his support for my gay brothers, lesbian sisters, my partner, and me, I don't feel compelled to move my feet for him. Maybe he'll come around. I can only hope but we'll see.

As for the rest of Georgia's Democrats, I will seek clarification on their positions on discrimination against gays and lesbians. If I receive no answer or a lackluster response, neither will I answer their call to vote for them. It's as simple as that.

Did Jesus live the down low?

Rev. Irene Monroe at The Witness blew me away with her provocative and insightful July 3, 2006, column, Church's Code Keeps Jesus on the "Down Low":

For many of us who have always cast a suspicious eye on why biblical scholars, theologians and ministers do not have a clue as to who the historical Jesus was, Dan Brown's bestseller and now blockbuster movie, The Da Vinci Code, sheds an illuminating light onto the hysteria that maintains the mystery.

And the mystery is that there has always been an open secret about Jesus' sexuality that not only attacks the pillars of Christianity, but also profoundly plays into the oppression that women as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people face today in both church and society.

And that open secret about Jesus' sexuality -- along with the suggestions that he was gay, married, or both, if Jesus was on the "down low" -- point to the issues we are wrestling with today in what conservatives call the "cultural war," namely the institution of marriage, women in the church, and gay clergy. The hysteria surrounding those issues creates the perfect climate for stories about secret texts emerging from centuries-old closets and church authorities trying desperately to keep the lid over the "truth about Jesus."

However, the debate about Jesus' sexuality takes him from his mother's womb to his tomb. The Christian depiction of Jesus as that of a lifelong virgin who had no sexual desire and who never engaged in sexual intercourse raises anyone's suspicion, when Jesus' traveling with unattached (and therefore "loose") women and with at least twelve men -- the law of averages would say that at least one out of the bunch was gay -- made his scandalous band the subject of a great deal of winking and nudging around ancient Palestine. Of course, given the compulsory heterosexuality in ancient Palestine, a gay Jesus would have been forced to be on the "down low."

Yup, I couldn't agree more. The de-sexualizing of Jesus caused me to delve into textual criticism, and obviously through my art, I've speculated about a queer Jesus as have others. Rev. Monroe goes on to articulate more fully something that has bothered me for decades and moved me to undertake the subject in oil paint.

Ever notice how lesbians are kewl (a straight guy's wet dream is to get it on with lesbians, right?) but gay guys cause gnashing of the teeth particularly by straight men? I've thought gay guy bias contained an unspoken patriarchal prejudice against the feminine, and historically in usurping the Goddess with a father god, the sacred feminine. Monroe writes (with emphasis):

While homophobia in today's Christian churches is antithetical to the gospel proclaimed by the early Church, so too is the denigration of the sacred feminine.

It would have been highly unusual and very scandalous, given Jewish marital customs, for Jesus not to be married; normally he would have been betrothed and married long before he became an itinerant preacher and called both male and female disciples. And just as any good Jew in Jesus' culture (aside from a few fringe sects like the one that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls) would have obeyed the command in Genesis to "be fruitful and multiply" by having children, any "real man" in Jewish or Roman circles would have shown his masculinity by penetration. Whatever Jesus did or didn't do sexually, his reported failure to marry and have children would have made him, in the eyes of his culture, Queer, unfruitful and feminized.

But Jesus was unashamed to tap into the forbidden zone -- his feminine side. The sacred feminine is not only the life force tied to women's ability to produce new life, but is also the power of the erotic that African-American lesbian poet Audre Lorde depicted as "a source within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling."

Our sexualities are the expressions of who we are with and in our bodies. They are a language and a means to communicate our spiritual need for intimate communion -- both human and divine. They are our self-understanding through which we experience the world.

However, the hysteria that surrounds Jesus' sexuality forces us all to see the walls of partition erected in our society, in our churches, and in our families that prohibit us from living freely in our bodies and force some of us on the "down low."

And these walls not only contribute to the false socialization of who we are as male and female -- they also contribute to the false spiritualization of who we are as the body of Christ.

What powerful words Monroe writes. Recently, elaborating on the idea of the sacred feminine, I dared to paint a Second Coming oil that embraces the return of a female messiah in the form of a blue pasture rose heralded by a way-showing Christ. Optimistically, I envision a future where the sacred feminine reemerges, and in tandem with the sacred masculine, gives birth to another renaissance, another Age of Enlightenment, and a restoration of balance so sorely needed on our planet. Ironically, Mother Earth and the threat of global warming may spark this necessary correction if we as species intend to flourish. Perhaps I'm foreseeing a vision that's decades or centuries away but I am encouraged to read such inspired words from Rev. Irene Monroe that identify the crux of the issue, the false socialization of who we are as male and female and ultimately a false spiritualization.

If Christians and others such as I accept the belief that we were created in the image of the divine, and that undeniably, we are sexual beings with biologically-induced minority and majority traits, inevitably we must resolve the full spectrum of sexuality and spirituality or continue a compartmentalization that robs us of our wholeness and our holiness. Let the transformative integration accelerate for I intuit that is the evolutionary force presently at work. The emergence of a politically-powerful Religious Right so hell-bent in attempting to subvert feminism, gay equality, and control what all of us do in our bedrooms and the personal decisions we make with our physicians tells me that we have embarked upon the road to recovery and an awakening. Adversity in the form of repression, oppression, and suppression has its purpose in propelling us forward, thank God! In time, these obstacles, too, shall pass.

IMAGES: From top to bottom, Judas Kiss, a cropped close-up of an acrylic study for The Last Supper, and The Raped Virgin.

UPDATE: Seems that I have joined the clan of the Fey Women in subverting necrophilia. Well, I was certainly born to be Wild. Ha!

Say NO to bigotry and get America back on track

The Human Rights Campaign alerted me today to take action on the June 5 vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment. Republicans fearing losses during the midterm elections have resurrected one of their favorite boogey-men and a divisive issue--gay marriage--to distract the nation from more important congressional business--the Iraq War, immigration, energy costs, health care, and the economy.

Examine the most important issues facing Americans and you won't find gay marriage on the current list.



Only one poll back in 2004--the last time the GOP used gay-baiting to mobilize social conservatives--listed gay marriage at all and it was a low priority compared to the economy, terrorism, Iraq, and health care.


To the Time Poll's discredit, they lumped the gay marriage topic into "moral values issues," a specious attempt to frame the civil rights of a sexual minority as a "moral issue"--ugly political chicanery--which completely ignores the immorality of discrimination against a legit minority. Shame on Time.

Dishonest GOP politics and the outrageous, undocumented falsehood that allowing gays to legalize their unions will destroy the marriages of hetero people is a dubious claim. The divorce rate won't alter one bit for married hetero couples if gays can marry or legalize their relationships with civil unions. The Right's assertion that the sanctity of marriage is under assault is red herring, a diversion away from the truth, and an underhanded way to exploit the fear of conservatives to react with an emotional knee-jerk. Gay unions won't change how, when, or why heteros marry or divorce. Not. At. All.

But why bring gay marriage into the national debate and to a vote in Congress? Why now? With Bush's job disapproval at an all-time high and division within the GOP, putting FMA on the front-burner will rally the homophobic contingent of the conservative base and distract attention from Republican failures. Don't take the bait.

Do Americans truly want to codify discrimination into the U.S. Constitution? I don't think so and polls demonstrate that Americans oppose a federal amendment that takes away citizen rights. As Americans--and religious leaders--denounce the actions of right-wing efforts to keep gay U.S. citizens at the back of the bus, consider the words of the late civil rights advocate, Coretta Scott King. She didn't agree with anti-gay bigotry and her words powerfully speak the truth:

"I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice... But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people."

...Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood," she said in a speech in Chicago in April 1998, just days before the 30th anniversary of her late husband's assassination. "I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy."

But out-of-touch floundering Republicans want to hype an issue that won't affect the vast majority of Americans in the least to avert scrutiny from their abject failures in leading the nation to more prosperous and peaceful times. Republicans will do most anything to avoid accountability:

Rather than defend Bush, Rove will seek to rally the Republicans’ conservative grass roots by painting Democrats as the party of tax increases, gay marriage, secularism and military weakness. That’s where the national message money is going to be spent.

Take action and stop the insanity of Republicans off-track, heading us in the wrong direction and ignoring America's priorities. Say NO to the Federal Marriage Amendment and YES to no longer being manipulated politically. Voice your dissent and get Congress back on track and on the main issues affecting us all. Don't fall for gay-baiting and the GOP tactic to change the subject as they did in 2004. Look at what that got us.

Champions of gay art

L to R: Charles Leslie, Fritz Lohman, and Wayne Snellen.
Featured artists in the above montage, L to R: Douglas Holtquist and Li Ming Shun

Tonight, Leslie-Lohman Gay Arts Foundation opened a new gallery space in Soho, New York, an occurrence that might seem un-extraordinary. But Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman aren't ordinary. They're pioneers of gay art history and still thriving when others failed. Leslie and Lohman opened the first major gallery during the 1970s exclusively devoted to explicitly gay art after having begun shows at their Prince Street loft the year of the Stonewall riots. An entry at GLBTQ, an encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture, quotes Charles Leslie:

"We regard our work as part of the gay liberation movement."

Indeed, they do. Charles W. Leslie and J. Frederick Lohman, ASID, paved the way, liberating gay artists from obscurity when other galleries wouldn't dare show homoerotic or politically-incorrect queer art for fear of offending a right-leaning mainstream or a homophobic backlash. It takes grit and courage especially when you're members of a minority scorned inappropriately with religiously-charged invectives (sodomites!), marginalized, and denied the rights that most Americans take for granted. And Leslie and Lohman did it when the gay liberation movement was initially taking root and long before ground-breaking icons, Rosie, Ellen, and Missy Etheridge, crashed the pink ceiling coming out of the closet publicly. Rosie and Missy were barely teenagers when Charles and Fritz opened their doors at the Leslie/Lohman Gallery on the corner of Broome and Wooster in 1975. Douglas Blair Turnbaugh at GLBTQ wrote of their early history:

Although the Leslie-Lohman gallery did not make money, it was a succès d'estime and inspired others. By 1980 there were six gay art galleries in New York City, creating a new and vibrant social and cultural circuit for an avid gay public. Then the AIDS crisis struck, and in the terror many gay businesses that had celebrated gay sex, particularly baths, bars, and movie houses, closed or were shut down. Among these casualties were art galleries.

By the late 1980s, Leslie and Lohman had reconsidered, with a raised consciousness, the issues of gay art and gay liberation. They decided to address these issues by setting up a foundation, in order to have the same tax-exempt status enjoyed by religious, educational, philanthropic, and other not-for-profit organizations.

In 1990, after relentless work by their lawyers--and homophobic responses challenging the organization's goals and purposes--the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation came into being. Its name is the first time the word "gay" appeared in the federal government's registry of not-for-profit organizations.

[...]

Since its founding, the foundation has shown the work of 550 artists in more than 200 exhibitions; and its permanent collection has grown to approximately 1,000 pieces, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, and photography.

Examine the list of gay artists whose work has been exhibited at the Leslie-Lohman gallery, click through their exhibition history, and you will find prominent names--Paul Cadmus, Keith Haring, Delmas Howe, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tom of Finland, Wilhilm Von Gloeden, Bruce Weber--to recognize a few. There are so many. Unlike traditional galleries, LLGAF doesn't sell art, acting more as a conduit for artists and collectors (although art is sold during scheduled exhibitions), which helps working artists to survive rather than struggle with the typical 50% to 60% commission that most galleries retain. Such an arrangement keeps artists healthy and art-ing to illustrate that Charles and Fritz put compassionate heart into their visionary efforts.

LLGAF also publishes The Archive, its official newsletter, and its website displays, Milestones: "A Timeline of Gay and Lesbian Artists and History," a comprehensive reference for uninitiated queer culture newbies.

As LLGAF debuted in their new expansive space designed by architect Anthony Pellino in one of New York's oldest cast-iron buildings, the opening gala kicked off, "The Culture of Queer," a tribute to J.B Harter with nine Louisiana artists, and works from Leslie-Lohman's permanent collection. Curated by David S. Rubin from the Contemporary Arts Center in NOLA, the artwork, LLGAF's first traveling exhibition that premiered at CAC, scarcely survived Katrina when the hurricane roared ashore. If you're in NYC, catch the show through Jul. 1 to bolster artists recovering from Katrina and visit a leading gallery and champion of gay art. More LLGAF exhibition schedules and event information are here.

To make a full disclosure since some bloggers have covert agendas and hidden sponsors, I've exhibited at LLGAF twice, showing Judas Kiss in "Vulvavision," 1995, LLGAF's second lesbian group show, and Madonna, Lover & Son in the "Religious Content in Contemporary Lesbian and Gay Art" show in 1998. Naturally, I support LLGAF's mission being a working gay artist and vice versa. If not for the bravery of LLGAF and the Faces of Jesus Gallery (in a Baptist church... wow!), controversial art such as mine and other gay artists might remain only available on the Internet and in publications--venues that can't possibly convey the dynamic impact of viewing the actual artwork.

Props to Charles, Fritz, Wayne Snellen, the director of LLGAF, and the foundation's dauntless staff.

Besides making a tax-deductible contribution to LLGAF, I can't think of a worthier gay culture cause than buying gay art especially during these regressive political times for the sake of GLBT heritage, in support of artists, and perhaps donating art to the LLGAF permanent collection. Consult your tax advisor, but IIRC, donated art to a legit non-profit organization still offers a tax deduction. The tax code discriminates against artist donations but patron donors can deduct the fair market value. And living artists (*cough*) would appreciate the patronage.