I received a voice mail message from Montgomery County Commissioner and former Gubernatorial candidate Joe Hoeffel thanking me for my contributions to his campaign. It was a real lift to me.  That's the reason I'll stick with politics and the reason it matters when you thank your elected officials -- it just feels good to be appreciated and valued.

So, thank you Joe.  Thank you for running a race I wanted to support and thank you being gracious enough to call this little blogger.

Just an FYI on how the Pennsylvania House delegation voted on the potential repeal of DADT.  Aye is good, No is not.

I've already discussed the non-surprising NO vote of Critz who has repeatedly told us he is not a liberal.  Another D who voted against the repeal is District 10's Christopher Carney from Northeastern pA. 

I urge you to drop a line to our Western PA allies, thanking them for their support.

Jason Altmire

Kathy Dahlkemper

Mike Doyle

Our parents taught us that a simple thank you is so important for positive relationships. The same holds true for politics. 

sdf

Doylestown, PA is considering an anti-discrimination ordinance, potentially becoming the 17th PA municipality to do so.

The next three Borough Council meetings ? Monday, June 21, Monday, July 19, and Monday, August 16 ? are watershed moments in Doylestown!

Your progressive voices on Council are promoting an ordinance to bar discrimination in our community. Meanwhile, reactionary voices are summoning their troops to fight this. Please contact your Council members to urge their support and come out to these meetings so your voices can be heard or just to show support. Simply stated, we need you!

If you want more information or have questions, contact the lead sponsor, Don Berk at don.berk@comcast.net or 215-340-9355.

The ordinance includes:
1. Assurance that all persons regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry or place of birth, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, age or use of a guide or support animal because of blindness, deafness or physical disability enjoy the full benefits of citizenship and are afforded equal opportunities for: a. employment, b. housing, c. use of public accommodation.

2. We need it because while most of the above minorities have these rights, the LGBTQA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Ally) community does not. We are about making Doylestown an inclusive community.

3. The Life Partner provisions are designed to provide a benefit to couples to whom the state denies a right to marry and to provide a formal status for benefits providers who required such status in order to provide domestic partner benefits. The goal is also to give them a choice to get public recognition of their relationship. Council will consider separating the Life Partner provisions from the non-discrimination protection, so each measure can be considered on its own merits.

Please reach out to Council members to let them know we expect their support on this issue. It wouldn?t hurt to even e-mail those solidly for it, thanking them for their support.

Thank you,
Don Berk

Councilperson, Borough of Doylestown
Lead Sponsor of Doylestown?s Anti-Discrimination Ordinance
President, Bucks County Boroughs Association

The legislation has drawn the typical support and opposition from those who espouse the 'though police' argument ... it gets tiresome that people cannot distinguish between their thoughts and their actions. 

Doylestown is in Buck County, a Philly suburb.

You can find out more on how to support this effort on Facebook.

What a tough year for Joe Sestak and Dan Onorato. Philly and Pittsburgh Pride are on the same days.  Onorato made the good call to attend Pittsburgh's event, but Sestak is in Philly. 

Sestak is sending a surrogate to Pgh, but I think it might speak volumes as to whom he sends.  As I said earlier in the year, I truly think his failure to attend the Steel City Stonewall endorsement event cost him the endorsement. Of course, it could be the decision to endorse Specter that impelled him to stick with Philly.  Who knows?

I spoke with Bill Peduto last night and he confirmed he's attending (he was out of the country last year).  I think there were years when Bill was the only politician who attended.  How far we've come ...

You know I love the man called Potter. His awesomeness is exceeded only by his 27 Facebook fans.  ;-)

Still, he recently gave some pinkwashing props to the Onorato campaign that made me sigh. 

From Slagheap:

In other news, you may have already known this-- word went out a couple days ago -- but county executive Dan Onorato will be speaking at the PrideFest opening ceremonies on June 13. I'm guessing he's got a little ways to go before he's as comfortable touring gay bars as, say, Ed Rendell. But combined with steps being taken by the county to provide domestic partner benefits, it's progress.

This is simply not true.  Whomever is sharing this "word" is grossly misleading the masses ... Onorato spoke at Pride LAST YEAR.  Not a decade ago.  Here's the photo:

Why is it news that he's coming AGAIN to his hometown Pridefest?

Could it be that his campaign might want him at this event to get the very critical support of Philly progressives?

The problem is the pinkwashers aren't content to just put him out there as the best choice.  They have to build this entire fairyland where he's the great hope for homosexuals, when we all know the best we can hope for is that he won't do anything too awful.  It makes me want to vomit that he gets credit for a commission saying domestic partner benefits are a good thing.  It really makes me want to vomit that good journalists like Chris Potter rarely if ever mention the fact that Onorato's failure to act on this for six+ years caused City employees of the 911 Center to lose benefits. To be fair, that falls on the shoulders of Mayor Murphy and City Council, too. 

But for crying out loud ... we are supposed to turn cartwheels and clap our hands with glee because our Chief Executive comes to Pridefest again?  Girl, please.

Speaking of which, Luke didn't show last year and sent the City HRC Chair in his stead.  Anyone taking bets that he'll blow it off again until he's up for election?

Yes, my standards for progress are higher than Chris Potter's, but it isn't his family's health insurance in the balance, is it? 

Oh, for God's sake ...

The state Ethics Commission and the city Ethics Hearing Board will not review Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's nomination of his brother to the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority board, despite requests sent by local officials.

Mayor Ravenstahl nominated his brother, newly elected state Rep. Adam Ravenstahl, to the Alcosan board on May 19, the day after his brother won the special election to the 20th District state House seat, which includes the North Side.

My employer won't let me hire my brother to work for me or have any role in the organization over which I have influence.  This just ILLUSTRATES the very influence Peduto and Shields are worried about Lukey having over the ALCOSAN board.

<shakes head>

Dr. Jillian Weiss is someone I admire greatly.  I've been in touch with her for months, trying my best to contribute to the passage of the Employment Non Discrimination Act on the federal level.  I was part of the ground troops getting commitments from our local electeds and I've written about it quite a bit.

So it is sad to realize that it won't happen. Coming on the heels of the Dyke and Trans March, two groups disproportionately impacted be economic issues, its particularly disheartening.  Jillian has some insight as to what has gone so wrong.

Gay Inc. made a decision in the early 2000's to move away from targeting traditional civil rights movement discrimination, and concentrate almost exclusively on marriage equality via the "good as you" theme. I believe the thinking was that the campaign for marriage equality would drag the rest along in its wake.

That agenda came from our advocacy leaders, who live in an environment insulated from most LGBT people in terms of economics, education and culture. But most LGBT people are also not necessarily prepared to do such analysis in understanding why their advocacy leaders would push them into marriage equality as the number one issue.

Discrimination was moved way down the list in the hierarchy. It was never abandoned, but it limped along.

Marriage equality as a lead issue has proved largely a bust, having been stripped away from Americans in 31 states, in every single state in which it has been placed on the ballot. It has been quietly rotated out for a while, while we lick our wounds and regroup. But the philosophy behind it, the "good as you" philosophy, has not changed.

ENDA, and other non-discrimination measures do not fit with the world-view of "good as you." It requires making the argument that we are victims of oppression, and require liberation, something which I think most gay leaders do not feel.

You really need to read the whole thing to grasp the magnitude of the analysis.  It reminds me of Senator Daylin Leach's decision to move ahead with marriage legislation when a group of us practically begged him to take up the Senate version of HB 300.  He was not interested because his people out east thought marriage was the better issue.  That was just sad.

Gay Inc has taken some hits, especially from the grassroots groups across the nation. Where Pittsburgh falls in this regard is open to debate. A lot of power and influence is vested in a few hands, but I don't see the grassroots folks agitating for access. The divide is wide.  That leaves a lot of room for continued misunderstanding and failure to coalesce. 

I strongly encourage you to read Jillian's piece.  We need to wrestle with these issues locally.  And if the House does take action, we need to pay close attention to Jason Altmire.

I am tired after a long day so I'll save my Dyke March 2010 reflections for Sunday.

I have posted photos on my Facebook page if you'd like to check them out.

Overall, the event was great. The move to Bloomfield was genius for visibility ... tons of people came out on the streets and stoops to watch us march by.  There were very few problems and a good job on the part of the Pittsburgh Police.

There is some inaccurate information floating around about street closures and so forth. I submitted the permit and spoke with the officer in charge so I will clarify tomorrow.  Trust me that Bloomfield's grid was not permanently destroyed by dyke visibility.

Congrats to Eli Kuti, Miranda Vey and the dozens of volunteers who organized a great event.  Best.Dyke.March.Ever. 

Well, today is the day.  This afternoon at say 2:45 PM, we'll see if our "fierce allies" in City Hall were able to finally resolve the issue of police protecton and allow women who don't typically attend fundraisers and public meetings the safety to exercise their first amendment rights?

Don't get me wrong -- I had responses when I reached out, but not a single leader offered to attend in solidarity with these women.  Not to me at least.  They just kept telling me to call if there's a problem.  Making sure the police do their jobs is great, but it is really sad that NO ONE thinks it worth an hour of their time to show solidarity for victims of Pittsburgh bureacratic incompetence and homophobia.

Maybe I'll be wrong and they'll show.  I'll let you know. 

While I am heartened to learn about the recommendations of the Human Relations Commission to extend domestic partner benefits to Allegheny County employees,  I must admit wondering what the next hurdle will be? 

I don't enjoy being cynical on this topic.  My heart feels for the employees left in limbo because the process has taken six + years so perhaps I'm too quick to think the County Personnel Director could have lunch with the City Personnel Director and figure the basics out.  I know unions, rules, negotiatons, blah, blah, blah.  Still, as the recommendations point out ... both the City and the Public Schools overcame those obstacles so yeah, let's stop with the excuses.

I know we have to elect Dan Onorato to save the Commonwealth from uber-crazy and hope the resulting shift right won't roll the liberals into New Jersey.  Still, we don't have to quietly into the good night.  We have an equally important race to focus on federally and there are only so many LGBTQ campaign donations to go around. 

There's a clear benefit to extending these benefits over the summer -- a big progressive bump at Labor Day. What could be the reason for more delays?  Would it really impact the moderate voter?  Would they care?  Would someone in the T see it as a homosexual lobby issue?

I say give the campaign a call and ask when the health care for same sex families employed by the County will be resolved.  That's the day you put on your bumper sticker and write your check.  It really doesn't have to be complicated. 

(412) 281-5678
info@voteonorato.com

Plus, I'd really like to start counting how long it will take Governor Onorato to help pass HB 300.  :-)