What should have been a celebration dedicating the raising of the Rainbow Flag at the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village on October 11 at noon turned into another attack on LGBTQ people by the Trump administration in a week full of such attacks.
The National Park Service’s Barbara Applebaum, who arranged the permit for the event, dropped out as a speaker at the ceremony — her office citing a schedule conflict — and organizers of the event said in a release that the Park Service dropped its sponsorship of the event.
When it saw the pre-publicity on the ceremony, the National Park Service under Secretary Ryan Zinke’s Department of the Interior worked to certify that the flagpole adjacent to Christopher Park was not technically on federal land so that no Rainbow Flag would be flying on US government property.
Ann Northrop, co-host of Gay USA, who will preside over the dedication, said, “This is an unbelievably petty, sleazy, transparent bit of cruelty by the Trump administration. Evidently, we are so filthy to them and their right-wing supporters that they can’t even be associated with a few yards of rainbow fabric.”
The war has begun. Will you step away from the computer and be on the front lines?
A random polling of Progressive and Democrat attendees at this years Netroots Nation in Providence, Rhode Island uncovered some shocking statistics as 8 out of 10 of those polled could not answer the simple question “What Is ENDA?”
The (unscientific) poll taken by this site BackStonewall.com randomly asked this question to a random sampling of attendees over the four days of Netroots Nation and a mind boggling 80 percent of them did did not know what ENDA (The Employment Non-Discrimination Act) was. Even more shocking was the fact that many were under the belief that LGBT employment discrimination protections were already in place under the 1964 Civil Rights Act and all were unaware and disgusted when they learned that ENDA has been stalled in Congress for over 20 years and LGBT Americans can still be fired for simply being who they are.
Now this is disheartening news to say the least. Especially since this question was asked to a group of actively involved political progressive and democrats.
So the question needs to be asked: “Why didn’t such a large percentage of Netroots Nation attendees know what ENDA is?
A few people I’ve talked with about the results blame the acronyms and names of the LGBT bills that we put forward for lack of recognition. I could actually agree with that if not for the fact that we’ve had over 20 years to get use to the acronym ENDA.
My answer is much simpler. We have a huge problem informing the “general population” of our issues because we have become very myopic on the issues that we do push.
Our biggest issue is not same sex marriage as some may lead you to believe. Same sex marriage is not the do all, and end all of LGBT equality issues. We lay other, more important issues to the wayside as if we cannot concentrate on more than one issue at one time. What are we Congress?
Same sex marriage while important only benefits those who some day would like to get married where in LGBT employment discrimination effects everyone in our community.
Secondly I can almost a guarantee you that at least 9o percent of the traffic of Back2Stonewall.com is of an LGB make up, as it most probably is any of the popular blogs, LGBT new sites, papers, magazines and even Sirus XM’s Michelangelo Signorile’s radio show. Which is one of our biggest problems. We literally preach to the choir. We know what ENDA is.
And while many of our major LGBT organizations do try to get our issues coverage on the national news outlets. CNN, MSNBC, etc. Lets face it, these news outlets are almost like fast food joints. It comes down to a sound-byte which is not very filling and has little to no detailed information of the issue at hand. And the networks are really only interested if they can counterpoint it with anti-gay hate group leaders who spread hateful lies and propaganda that the networks don’t even bother to fact check.
We must all start spreading the word outside of our community and to news sources that people seek out because they are interested issues. AlterNet, TruthOut, The Political Carnival, and progressive radio shows such as The Stephanie Miller Show and The Progressive to name a few. Outlets that reach out further than LGBT audience to those who seek out and want to learn about political issues and who will truly embrace us and help us if we inform and educate them.
While we preach to ourselves, and pass up these opportunities to inform and educate others in independent venues that are far more accessible to us than the major news outlets our enemies aren’t missing a beat promoting their hate, lies and propaganda in any venue possible.
21 year old Max Pelofske went to a party to it to offer his congratulations to a friend’s sister, who will graduate from Proctor High School. But while there Max was jumper by a crowd of at least 11 High School seniors (mostly boys) who savagely beat him and at one point attempted to throw him in a fire pit because he was gay.
Kelly Johnson and Max Pelofske had been at the gathering of about 50 people, mostly current and former Proctor students, for about five minutes when a boy approached her and Pelofske. “He told me to look him in the eyes, and I was really confused because I’d never seen the guy before,” Pelofske told the News Tribune. “He asked me: ‘Are you gay?’ And I said, ‘Yes. Is that OK?’ ”
After that, Pelofske said he was struck in the head by a flying beer can, and a crowd of boys surrounded him, threw him to the ground and began punching and kicking him. “I tried to get up, but I kept getting knocked back down,” said Pelofske, who described his alleged assailants as “all laughing and smiling.”
“They were trying to throw me into the fire,” he said.
Johnson said at least nine boys were involved in the attack. “I thought they were going to kill him,” Johnson said, estimating that the beating went on for five to 10 minutes. She said she tried to intervene but was pushed away. “I was screaming, ‘Just let us leave!’
Max Pelofske was released from the hospital Sunday morning with bruised ribs, a swollen face, and foot marks all over his back and legs
Two teens, ages 18 and 19, are currently being held in custody at the St. Louis County Jail. The 19-year-old in custody is being held on pending charges of assault in the fourth degree — which is a crime of bias, and possession of marijuana. The 18-year-old’s pending charges are unknown.
Last month Father Marcel Guarnizo at. John Neumann Catholic Church refused to give Barbara Johnson communion at her mothers funeral she was a lesbian.
Now comes the news after Johnsons horrible treatment and humiliation that Guarnizo has been removed from the church and placed on administrative leave pending a formal investigation, according to a letter from the Archdiocese of Washington to all of its priests.
“I write to inform you that effective today, Father Marcel Guarnizo’s assignment at St. John Neumann Parish is withdrawn and he has been placed on administrative leave with his priestly faculties removed until such time as an inquiry into his actions at the parish is completed.
This action was taken after I received credible allegations that Father Guarnizo has engaged in intimidating behavior toward parish staff and others that is incompatible with proper priestly ministry,” he said in the letter. “Given the grave nature of these allegations, and in light of the confusion in the parish and the concerns expressed by parishioners, Father Guarnizo is prohibited from exercising any priestly ministry in the Archdiocese of Washington until all matters can be appropriately resolved, with the hope that he might return to priestly ministry.”
Barbra Johnson had said that Guarnizo “put his hand over the body of Christ and looked at me and said, ‘I can’t give you communion because you live with a woman and in the eyes of the church that is a sin.’”
Shortly after the original incident, the Archdiocese of Washington issued a statement saying Guarnizo’s action violated church policy and Archdiocesan officials would look into the matter saying that “Any issues regarding the suitability of an individual to receive communion should be addressed by the priest with that person in a private, pastoral setting.”
In what has to be one of the most truly disgusting, despicable, and insensitive posts and turn of events on the Internet yesterday to do with the shootings in Arizona over at Sarah Palins Facebook page while Ms. Palin or her staff of fellow loons were busy scrubbing off every negative comment about Palin that appeared on within minutes of posting at 18:12 a posting from a horrid subhuman thing named Tina King posted:
“It’s ok. Christina Taylor Green was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as ‘they’ say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly.”
Christina Taylor Green was the innocent 9 year old that was shot and killed.
Did the Palin camp delete this comment NO. It stayed up. Even as they moved forward deleting other anti-Palin posts that appeared well after it.
THIS is who Sarah Palin and her people really are. Make no argument about it.
The failure to remove a highly insensitive and offensive remark about a dead child… a dead 9-year-old child… is so… abhorrent. And this, from a person (and her staff) who portrays herself as a right-to-life advocates is truly disgusting beyond words. I guess the right to life does not apply to 9-year-old children as long as Palin is defended first.
You can read a detailed account of this whole disgusting account by CLICKING HERE
