So I'm here in the capitol, and I just left a meeting with Chip Arndt, political big whig with the Democratic party for the LGBT community, and I'm going tomorrow morning to meet up with some other activists to get my press rights so that I can cover and report on everything that's going on here in the capitol.

I'm going to try my best to get a feel for what's really going on here... I've talked to dozens of people already tonight that are feeling the march and are in support of what we're doing! Score! I've also met some pretty unfriendly indfividuals that had some colorful words to say about what was going down this weekend.

No matter.

I'm going to try and get my way into the nitty gritty of the events, and I'll be writing an article for QVegas for the November issue, so stay posted here for updates, go to my Facebook page and my Twitter acounts (go my social stream page) for more to the minute updates on the efforts on the ground here in the capitol.

This is truly a momentous occassion and I'm humbled to be here reporting on it and participating in history.

God bless America.

PS
The religious right is going to protest the President's dinner with the LGBT community tomorrow and they're also going to be alongside us at the march on sunday so keep us in your thoughts as we go against the biggots!

That's the question, isn't it? Sure, we'd like to have equal rights, but that means that you'd actually to do something. We all know how much that we all hate actually doing something! How about I tell you a little story of a lesbian couple that did everything right, but was still denied the basic human rights in the most important time in a persons' life... their death bed.

Picture this, you, your partner for over 17 years, and your 3 of your 4 adopted kids arrive in Miami for a wonderful cruise vacation! Sounds great so far, doesn't it? Alright, as you're getting ready for your cruise, your partner suddenly collapses to the floor and is rushed to the local hospital! Gasp! You arrive to the hospital right behind your partner's ambulance with your kids, and immediately try to offer all the medical history and information that you know about your partner because you've been together for over 17 years and have a family together. Just at that moment, your told by the hospital staff that they won't accept any information on your partner because you're in an anti-gay city and state, and that you shouldn't expect to get acknowledged as anything other than a regular visitor.

Are we having fun yet?

Lets go 8 hours into this ordeal, because we could really be here all day, when you and your kids are finally allowed to see your partner, with the help of the priest that was asked to do the last rites for your partner. Imagine that, a priest helping out a gay couple out in their time of need... only after this entire ordeal are you allowed to see your dying partner before they finally pass away in this hateful and disgustingly inhumane hospital. Just wait, because now the state of Florida and county medical examiner are denying you the death certificate because you're a nobody in Florida's eyes. Yeah, take that in for just a second, because it's not enough that they treat you like a second class citizen while your partner is dying, but now you have to fight tooth and nail to get their death certificate!

This was the sad story for a Washington lesbian couple two years ago. Now, the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida has rejected the surviving partner's suit against the hospital, citing that the hospital doesn't have to allow visitors to see patients. Not even in death can this couple obtain justice...

This is why we march in October, for this and many more stories exactly like this. The fight for equality has been ongoing for decades, but it won't ever end if people like you continue to do nothing.

God bless America.

In the house this week, 3 congressmen and women will be presenting a bill that would call for the repeal of the Defense Of Marriage Act, DOMA, a policy that has been violating the LGBT community's rights since 1996. This is not the first attempt that has been made to take down the discriminatory legislation, but I hope that it will be the last.

The consevatives have hi-jacked the moral fiber of the nation! I mean, there are the great moral leaders such as...

John Ensign of Nevada (way to defend marriage from the gays by sleeping with another woman)
Larry Craig of Idaho (a men's bathroom playmate)
Mark Foley of Florida (the alleged child molester and soon to be radio host)
Michael Duvall of California (big sex talker that blames the media for what HE said)
Paul Stanley of Tennesse (another defender of marriage by sleeping around, then his mistress's boyfriend threatened to post naughty picutres of the senator on the internet unless the then senator gave him $10,000) <- per Huffington Post
Mark Sanford of South Carolina (defending marriage with his Agentinian mistress)

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the opponents we face are righteous and valiant but we will overcome.

Come on... If those guys are what we're up against, they wouldn't stand a chance if the LGBT community took a united stand for equality against them! Get on your congresspeople's nerves with all the emails and letters that you and your friends write!

Go to www.senate.gov and look under "Senators" in the top left section to find your state's senators
Go to www.house.gov and look under "Representatives" on the left hand side to find your state's congresspeople

It's the easiest way that you can make a difference.

God bless America

13,000 American soldiers have been dishonorably discharged since "Don't Ask Don't Tell" was passed in 1993 under the Clinton administration. The original blame should fall on that administration for passing a bill like this, but it is clearly stated that the original intent of the bill's implementation was to allow LGBT soldiers to serve more freely. The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Now fast forward 16 years in the future, 13,000 soldiers later, and 2 strong Congressional opponents of DADT later... you'll find former President Bill Clinton defending his reasons and good intentions for the passage of the bill, you'll find that our military is severely strained while waging two wars, and you'll also find that 75% of the public polled by USA Today state that gays should be allowed to serve openly. The nation will also see the Senate Armed Services Committee holding hearings after their August break on this exact issue; there have been numerous accounts and statements from top military posts to the effect of repealing or reviewing this legislation. This is a great first step after the original proposition to repeal DADT couldn't muster up the required 60 votes in the Senate, and we should all look closely to the progress of these hearings.

What you won't see is the President of the United States coming forward and directly supporting the repeal of this legislation that is responsible for 287 discharged men and women since the current administration took office. Then candidate Obama came out in support of repealing DADT, but has since failed on his dedication to the LGBT community. Another big step that you won't see is major Democratic support for the effort in both chambers of Congress to repeal DADT... why is that? The reason is simple... LGBT rights are TABOO! Politicians don't want to upset the status quo, and perhaps they're just following the leader? President Obama's administration upheld the status quo in another Gay rights debate, so I'm assuming that politicians are just taking their marching orders from the top when it comes to the LGBT community.

WANT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?!?!?!?!

FOLLOW THE LINK AND SIGN THE PETITION in support of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's upcoming ASC hearings!

http://www.kirstengillibrand.com/signup?id=0003&ad=G-content-national-dadt

This is the easiest thing that you can do to get your name on a list of supporters that want Congress to repeal DADT!

God bless America.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what our community can do to win the social debate for our equal rights… since the country’s starting to let our plight for equality take the back burner. There are many ways to come at this problem; there are the far lefters and the radicals that want to protest and picket, that’s fne but nobody really cares about protests in this country. Then you have the moderates that want to work from within the system, and that works great as well over a potentially extended amount of time like the organizations for other civil rights movements from the 60’s. I’m saying that our community go on a nationwide PR campaign to improve our public image! It works for this nation’s largest corporations, why couldn’t it work for us?

Think about it, you’ve got oil companies putting out commercials on how much they’re trying to save the environment, when really only a fraction of one percent of their total company’s budget is dedicated to more fuel efficient technologies. Then you have some of the global conglomerates coming out in support of healthy options at their restaurants, green labels on their products, and community outreach programs after their company had a hand in devastating the community they’re now helping. If it can work for them… why not the LGBT community?

It’s simple PR, we have got to get positive exposure! I know that a lot of us are going to be resistant to actually having to do something, but it’s something that has to be done! I have a few general ideas that can be done between the major LGBT groups and organizations here in Vegas, but we would definitely need the help of regular people like you and I. One thing that I was thinking that we could do is to volunteer as a community to organize fundraisers for different charities, who doesn’t like helpful people? We could all participate in the race for the cure event next year, the march of dimes next year, and plenty of other events that would get us out in the public eye as productive members of society.

It’s the cold hard truth that we have to prove ourselves to society… I’m sorry to say it, but it’s the truth. The conservatives are always going to win the social debate over our role in society if we don’t do something to condradict those statements! I’m not talking about running pro-gay events and educational seminars on homophobia… no! We need to get involved in what other people are passionate about, so that we can forge bonds in other communities, thus building more support for our agenda without having to fight to the death against the conservatives.

If there is a group that is fighting against breast cancer, we should be there in support of them, both financially and in numbers! If there is a group advocating for the homeless, we should be there too! We should organize and volunteer within the city limits at soup kitchens, women’s shelters, charities, fundraisers, and anything else that will get us in the news for being the good people that we already are!

Plus… who wouldn’t like to get their picture in the newspaper or be interviewed on the news? We’d be the most fabulous humanitarians in the state!!!

Once we get out there and start becoming involved with making our local community a better place, it will catch on and people will start to realize that we’re not the social deviants that the religious right makes us out to be. The public will see that we’re kind hearted, caring, and good people just like everyone else, and that we deserve equal rights just like everyone else. That’s our final goal, isn’t it? I’ve said it on my blog before that we can play the political game, we can play the radical game, but nothing’s going to matter if we haven’t played and won the social game! In my opinion, our community has to first change the hearts and minds of regular people before we can change Washington.

Give it a try, even if you’re the only one there! Be out and proud while volunteering, and change one mind at a time!

God bless America.

Earlier this month, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand presented an ammendment to a Department of Defense spending bill that would place an 18 month moratorium on the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell legislation that was passed by Congress in 1993. Prominent Democrats in the Senate such as Majority Leader, Harry Reid, came out earlier this month in support of the Matthew Shepard hate crime legislation as well as Senator Gillibrand’s moratorium bill, stating that he’d repeal the DODT law altogether. This proposal by the senator was later shelved after the Supreme Court refused to hear a case from a soldier that was discharged in 2004 after being discovered as being gay. Earlier this week, the Senate Armed Services subcommittee held a hearing on DODT, and Congressman Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania testified in order to repeal the DODT legislation.

Congressman Murphy is fighting on our behalf, not because he’s gay, but because he knows that the service men and women of the military are looking for other men and women that are willing to fight by their side. He challengess Congress to accept our soldier’s professionalism and willingness to serve next to openly gay soldiers; Congressman Murphy is also the first and only Iraq veteran to be elected to Congress. Smart guy.

This is big news…

In an interview with Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, he told reporters that the office of the President has issued executive orders that have changed the political landscape of the military in the past, citing President Truman’s desegragation of the military in 1948; however, Secretary Gates went on to say that these measures took the Truman administration over 5 years in order to reach completion. Gates stated that his office has barely begun to speak with the Obama administration of DODT policy, offering an explanation for the slow progress, he said, “If we go down that road,” it was important “we do it right and in a way that mitigates any downsides.”

This brings to the forefront the idea again of an executive order from the office of the President to end DODT…

According to the US News and World Report, 296 service men and women have been discharged under the Obama administration, with no movement on the President’s behalf towards rectifying this situation. Congressman Murphy is gaining prime support from various factions within the Democratic and Republican parties (mainly the Deomcrats obviously) with his claim that it is more costly for the military to train a replacement for these discharged gay soldiers. We all know that the fastest way into a Republican’s heart is through their wallets, so perhaps this will be a successful tactic.

Either way, it appears as if the Obama administration will be keeping a tight lip about gay rights until they can get healthcare panned out in Congress. It looks like the LGBT community will have to wait until healthcare legislation is done before their voices will be heard.

Two bills in one month against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in Congress, is someone going to tell the President that we’re all talking about this?

God bless America.

I was recently having a discussion with one of my straight friends about politics, and I found out some interesting things that I didn’t know before…

I was over at his house and like I had mentioned, we were discussing politics, something that I find myself doing quite often with almost anyone that will have me. Well, we began discussing how I thought President Obama was doing in office, and I’ve said it before that it is our right to disagree with the president if something he’s doing doesn’t rub us the right way. We may disagree on a few key items like gay rights, full disclosure terms, as well as national security; however, I still know that he’s doing a better job than McCain/Palin would have done. I’m a Democrat through and through. That’s fine, we discussed why I had my opinions of the president, and we both went back and forth on the wars, what happened there, why we’re still there, and why Afghanistan is going to keep getting worse/whether or not our allies will support our mission in that country.

We share similar ideas about politics and how it should work for the people instead of against, because we also went into great detail over the new healthcare legislation that President Obama is trying to get passed. We both agreed that people should be allowed to keep what coverage they have now if they want, that small businesses shouldn’t be overburdoned with having to provide their employees with benefits (price tag for small business benefits shouldn’t bee too high if possible), and that we should increase the taxes on the wealthy in order to help fund this project… sounds good to me so far.

Then we moved into my favorite topic… gay rights, the grand daddy of them all. Here, I was a little taken back that we differed in our views somewhat. When I discuss gay rights, I tend to take the argument back to the civil rights era of the late 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s, because that’s when the women’s lib movement captivated the national arena, blacks took the stage and demanded equality and an end to discrimination, and the gays began to make their move for a piece of the same pie. I discussed how blacks and women were treated as being inferior to white males in their respective ways; I brought up some of the large organizations that represented each of the groups and why they either were or weren’t successful…

We were together all the way up to this point, and then things went askew…

I went into the fact that women’s place in society was that of a subservient housewife, and that blacks were seen as inferior, second class citizens to whites… then he chimed in; “I honestly don’t think that gays are being treated as if they’re inferior.”

I took that in for a second…

How could someone see the current state that our community’s in and not think that we’re being treated unfairly and less than equals to the heterosexual majority? Like I said, I took that in for a second before responding… I then asked him if he thought it was okay for blacks to be forced to sit at the back of the bus, I mean, they at least got to ride didn’t they? He responded with a confused tone, saying that it wasn’t the same thing… I didn’t get upset because anger only makes a situation like that hostile and can damage friendships, so then went into the larger cases and key points that the gay community was fighting for, marriage and the rights that go along with it, don’t ask don’t tell, and the social change that needs to be accomplished in order for all of those to come to fruition.

In my personal opinion, our community is fighting for our civil rights, to get the same rights that all other Americans get to enjoy, the same rights that other minorities had been denied in the past. Interracial marriage was against the law at one point, women weren’t offered protection in the workplace, nor were they allowed the same job opportunities as men throughout history and the early 20th century. I bring up the other civil rights movements because I feel that we have to put everything into context of the time that these events occured… revolt was imminent. There was a social upheaval of the status quo that made the stage right for the civil rights movement to swing into full effect. The context where we find ourselves now is pretty unique, because in the new millennia, we find the attempted upheaval of the status quo being bogged down by special interest groups that tell the people what to think, and when to think it. That’s why our community hasn’t been able to break through to the national arena as effectively as other movements have… but, we’re also in drastic times, with the worst economy since the Depression, international tensions focused solely on us, political cobwebs grinding down the infrastructure of our country’s principles, and on top of that… people deplore discrimination, unless it’s against gays.

My friend and I discussed this part of the issue for quite some time before we were able to meet at a common ground of sorts… what did he honestly expect me to say? “Yea, that’s cool… gays don’t mind missing out on some rights, not worries.” Or, “Who needs all their rights anyway?” Something along those lines I’m sure… it’s fine to differ on opinions as long as there is room for communication and debate. There weren’t too many counterpoints on his part, so I’m pretty sure that he has been enlightened by education. I talked about the social change that needs to occur before we make our move onto the national stage, and I meant it… my friend for quite some time didn’t see this argument my way, and that was news to me. Doesn’t he know that I’m gay? It kind of made me laugh, out of disbelief really… we need to get people educated to the fact that homophobia is wrong, inequality is wrong, and discrimination, above all else, is wrong. I think I won one over for our team, go me!

Our move for equal rights has to take on a grass roots strategy as well as a large scaled one that works within the system… if regular people don’t change their minds about giving us equality, what’s going to make the government change its mind on the issue?

Talk to people that you care about first, and try to get them to see our side of the debate if possible; there aren’t any winners or losers, just people that are willing to share their points of view, regardless if they’re the same or not.

God bless America.

So today, the popular tv program, America’s got talent, aired one of their most successful broadcasts this season… it’s a fun show that I peronally enjoy watching! Also today, President Obama made his best Billy Mays sales pitch for the healthcare plan that he’d like to see happen. Which one was everyone watching? Most likely… America’s got talent, or another show like it. There are many other bills that are affecting our community as well as our state that should be getting attention… I’m not saying that healthcare isn’t important, because it most certainly is. I’m just saying that Washington has a way of pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes in order to take the nation’s attention off of the issues that really matter.

Once again, our community gets pushed to the back of the bus… DODT and DOMA related concerns are nowhere on the senate/house legislative websites, or at least none that I have seen. These are things that affect everyone, not just our community. At a time where we need the most qualified soldiers that we can get, this President is sitting by while they are being cast out and dismissed in shame from service… it doesn’t seem right, does it? Healthcare is a very tricky measure that has conspiracy theories all over it, what with some of the key politicians receiving up to almost half of their campaign financing from large health insurance agencies and their lobbyists… that’s not what we’re talking about here, we’re talking about the fact that healthcare should be passed with a group of intelligent people in charge. Not necessarily politicians… the President pointed out the hospital system in Cleveland and others as good standards for what he wants done; we should find the best systems that work around country, and try to implement their principles on the grander national scale.

I’m sure the gays can wait for their equal rights for another year, right? I mean… we’ve waited this long, what’s another term? Hey, we’re patient, make it two! There are organizations making their stealthy moves around Washington on our behalfs, but it’s everyone else’s job to start making noise about what we want. I’ve said it on my blog, and I’ll say it here… email your representatives and make them represent you, it’s quite the clever concept, but I hear they used to actually do that at some point in the past. What ever happened to no taxation without representation? I don’t feel represented… should we also have a tea party? It’ll probably/hopefully be a little more glamorous than the ones the elephants/conservatives had last year.

Maybe I’m just beating a dead horse, and you’re probably right… however, this is a dead horse that should get the crap beat out of it until congress does something about it. It’s about our civil rights; Although, they’d probably vote on and pass an animal right’s bill that would prohibit me from beating the dead horse before they passed legislation that would give us what we deserve… Maybe I’m crazy, just maybe.

God bless America.