As always, I get very excited when folks write about stuff in the PG letters section.  Average folks exercising their First Amendment muscles ... what better way to start a Saturday!

This one made me snort my coffee:

Bring in his brother

Regarding Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's 311 line:

It's annoying that we, Pittsburgh taxpayers, must wait and hear numerous delays when one desires to report a situation to this help line.

I suggest the mayor give his brother Adam a job in the call center, and then maybe the wait will not be so long.

THERESA CIOLLI

sdf

Yesterday, the Allegheny County Human Relations Commission made a formal recommendation that Allegheny County provide domestic partner benefits to County employees ...

Whereas the City of Pittsburgh has made domestic partner health benefits available to its employees for approximately a decade, and,

Whereas in recent years benefits of this nature have been made available by other public employers including the Pittsburgh School District, Pennsylvania?s Court System, and many colleges and universities;

It is hereby resolved that the Commission recommends that Allegheny County take steps to make domestic partner benefits available to its employees.

This is a fairly impressive recommendation given that this was the second meeting of this all-volunteer body.  They didn't really have to look around for evidence that this is the right AND economically sound thing to do (my interpretation).

The nuts and bolts are appropriately left to the Personnel Department. That shouldn't be too complicated as the recommendation points directly to several other entities that have made it work. 

From Slag Heap

While there was some discussion of tax issues -- under federal law, benefits for an unmarried partner count as taxable wages -- McGough says, "The city found ways to deal with that years ago."

Yes, this is a non-issue on the County level.  It sucks that we pay taxes on health insurance that other people get for free, but it is up to the employee to do that cost-benefit analysis.  The proper response would be to lobby the federal goverment to address this unfair taxation.  UNFAIR TAXATION is the issue, not denial of health insurance. 

I'm so pleased the HRC turned this around quickly. My personal opinion, as you may recall, was that Onorato was using this as a stalling tactic for some reason.  But it is done, we know this can happen, should happen and now -- let's make it happen.  Before November, if you please.

The HRC is moving on to tackling discrimination issues. 

Check out this nice piece in the Post-Gazette.  It is a nice article and a nice festival, but I have to admit some sadness that the political/activist edge of Pride has morphed into a celebration of assimilation.  I know that's the trend and it certainly isn't the fault of anyone local that Pride has lost some of that bite. Still ... it seems less than stunning when three white men are the symbols of progress.  All three are accomplished certainly, but I'm just reflecting the disillusionment women and persons of color have been sharing with me.  It is "nice" but not really telling all of us that we belong , isn't it? 

And then there is this column from the Tribune Review.  Again another nice piece.  I like the Mr. Rogers references ... he was known for being a gay advocate in a quiet appropriate way for a preschool rock star. 

Still, Pride coverage hit both papers proving once again that the local media is paying attention to LGBTQ issues. I'll be at Pride and admittedly would like to see a Kip Williams moment when the ahem, elected advocates take the stage. Maybe I'm naughty, but I'm sucking it up for the good of the cause.  I do deserve a little snark here and there, though.  You wouldn't believe me if I extolled Onorato's LGBTQ credibility anyway, would you?

I don't really care. I care about Ricky Burgess not putting his photo in the Pride Guide. What's up with that?  Who is working on it or are we supposed to once again let the behind the scenes folks take care of it? That didn't work out so well for Cue Magazine's coverage of the homo-donut shop and it won't work here.  Well, let me correct myself, it will work for the time being but at some point ... do we all belong if a significant leader in the African-American community bitch slapped the Pride committee?

So much work still to do ...

From Pam's House Blend, a guest post on the increasing presence of GetEqual in the LGBTQ advocacy/activist scene. 

Distraught by recent delays, LGBT activists turn to civil disobedience to encourage the passage of the Employment Non Discrimination and repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell".  Groups like GetEQUAL are making their voices known though direct actions like chaining themselves to fences, organizing sit-ins at congressional offices, and interrupting political speeches with calls from the audience.

Some believe these actions and the increasing visibility of the community's discontent played a role in the House vote on DADT. 

Now they've turned attention to visibility around ENDA.  Recently, GetEqual organizer Kip Williams disrupted a speech by President Obama to show that not everyone in the LGBTQ community is willing to patiently wait for leadership.  The President was not amused and continues to cover his lack of leadership by deflecting attention to the "real" opponents.  This redirection is not unfamiliar here in Southwestern PA, but that's a topic for another post.

Such direction action by individuals are not without precedent.  From the Washington Post: 

Nineteen-year-old Mark Segal became angry when he and a male friend were thrown out of a television dance program one August afternoon in 1972 after the program's host saw them dancing together. In retaliation, Segal barged into the studio of Philadelphia's WPVI a few days later during its evening newscast. Startled studio personnel wrestled him to the floor, tied his hands with a microphone cable and called the police.

Segal became a walking terror with his "zaps," as they were called. In 1973, his targets included "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" and "The Mike Douglas Show." He and a friend staged their last and most notorious zap when they posed as college students and obtained passes for the "CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite." Midway through the broadcast on Dec. 11, 1973, as Cronkite began a story about Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Segal darted in front of the camera with a sign reading "Gays Protest CBS Prejudice."

My favorite part:

Cronkite may have been more startled when Segal's attorney tried to serve him with a subpoena to testify. After CBS attorneys blocked repeated attempts to deliver the document, Segal's lawyer informed the network of a little-used New York law that made photocopies of a subpoena as valid as an original. He threatened to make copies available to the Hells Angels, with a reward for anyone who served the subpoena. Faced with the prospect of having Cronkite stalked by gay activists and bikers, CBS lawyers relented.

The tactics worked.  Segal had a face to face with Cronkite to explain how CBS News was censoring the increasing gay activism.  Cronkite paved the way for on-air coverage and Segal went on to found The Philadelphia Gay News. 

Hmmm. The argument against direct action as a viable tactic has not only historically, but currently proven wrong.  Segal has gone on to play a significant role increasing the visibility of the LGBTQ community in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania.

Impact on the legislative process requires a multitude of tactics from letter writing to direct action. It is all about visibility. The emergence of groups like Get Equal demonstrates our potential to delve into the rich history of LGBTQ activism to tackle issues like DADT and ENDA. 

I do need to point out that what we are missing in Pennsylvania is that activist/direct action middle link. I've written recently about the workings of the insider/Alist advocates who have embedded themselves into the system and work for change from within.  I've also written about the tactics of groups like Bash Back who are at the other end of the spectrum. What's missing is the visibility of those in between -- those who are losing patience and seeking leadership to openly channel that frustration and disillusionment. 

Telling us "I've got it" isn't enough.  Vandalizing property out of anger with the system is also not working. I believe neither approach resonates with the average LGBTQ person without the in between, the actions that connect with our lives and our experiences. 

In my case, I experience the tension of the in between most days. I don't trust those who say they've got it because the results of that approach are not changing lives or meeting the promises of the politicians making the decisions. I am dismayed when people believe the damage to property has any positive impact other than to announce they are angry. 

Finding the leadership for the in between is the key. 

The old joke is that Pittsburgh is 20 years behind the curve in most trends.  Let's hope the slight forward momentum finds inspiration from the national scene to defy those odds.

sdf

Bash Back, a radical transfolk/queer group, has had two recent actions in Pittsburgh.  One involved an evangelical church that promises to cure homosexuality.  The other involved our favorite bakery, Peace Love and Little Donuts. You recall a recent favorable review published in Cue Pittsburgh?  Here's the response from people who care about these things.

In the May issue of Cue Magazine- a local mainstream GLBT magazine- a favorable article was printed about PLLD and Razete?s business. The author of the magazine apologized profusely when contacted and said he had no idea about the shop?s owner- showing that more visibility is needed. He plans to write a follow-up article that will show more truths about Razette?s character. But for local queers, this was another conniving move by Razette to use queer communities to obtain more capital.

In response, queers revisited his shop in May 2010. His locks were glued and ?QUEERS BASH BACK (A)? was painted in large letters covering the front of his shop. Businesses run by queer bashers will continue to be exposed in our city, especially when they use queer communities here to further their capitalist agenda.

Now, I am not in favor of vandalism.  I don't think its constructive, but I also think the mainstream community's refusal to explore the underlying anger and engage the participants is equally not constructive.  We just go round and round. 

The unknown factor at this point is whether Cue Pittsburgh will print the retraction or the promised follow up article. It did not appear in the June issue.

From Facebook:

Do the readers of Cue care enough to raise their own ruckus?  More to the point, do they care enough to stop buying the damn donuts?

Speaking of caring, I am searching for info on the promised meeting with City Council regarding the gay bashing incidents in Bloomfield. I've been encouraging elected officials to get off Grant Street and meet queer folks out in the community to ensure they have information (and solutions?) from diverse points of view.  I'm hoping they respond soon. 

Stay tuned.

will he have an office with a working phone?  Does ALCOSAN provide email addresses?

The PG on the Peduto and Shields letter to various Ethics Boards.  Maria weighs in here.

The Trib ...weighing in on Congressional vote to authorize DADT repeal. 

During an all-day House debate on the bill approving more than $700 billion in spending for defense programs, Republicans repeated statements by military service chiefs that Congress should not act before the Pentagon completes a study on the impact of a repeal.

Congress going first "is the equivalent to turning to our men and women in uniform and their families and saying, 'Your opinion, your view, do not count,'" said Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of California, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.

What we don't see is any commitment or promise from Republicans to support the repeal if the Pentagon report gives a thumb up.  Because they are counting on?

The chief sponsor of the amendment, Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., who served in the Iraq War, said that when he was in Baghdad "my teams did not care whether a fellow soldier was straight or gay if they could fire their assault rifle or run a convoy down ambush alley and do their job so everyone would come home safely."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said that of the 13,500 members of the military who have been discharged under "don't ask, don't tell," more than 1,000 filled critical occupations, such as engineers and interpreters.

Once again it seems the personal bigotries of homophobic soldiers carry more weight than the best interests of the nation's defense. 

So we wait to see (assuming the Senate takes action) how these "what the Pentagon report finds" folks respond if that report creates a reasonable implementaton process.  Hmmm.

From Pam's House Blend.

1) The don't-know-enoughs: They only get information in drips and drabs, so they have no idea of the details of the votes or the compromise.  They believe it's repealed, the discharges stop ASAP; some are open to receiving more info to clarify their view. Others find a boatload of information just too taxing to deal with right now...Glee is on the DVR. Next topic...

2) The "it's all a lie" crowd: The compromise is a complete sham and betrayal of those serving in silence. Anything coming out of the press releases lauding the vote is skimming over the ugly truth. The MSM is making it all worse, and there's anger about how easily the progressives are fooled and don't dig deep to see the injustice that will continue. You can't trust the orgs, the admin, the Pentagon or Congress. A vein might explode. 3) The "rose-colored glasses" peeps: This is the start of something good, DADT repeal was rescued from a certain death; the Obama admin and the Pentagon will do right by those in the closet in the military in short order (as in before 2010 ends). They don't like to hear criticism about the process, the LGBT groups, the Admin, or Congress. Criticism is not useful; it's all about calling your representatives on the Hill alone as the best course of action. There is no back-channel political activity or political infighting  to consider that affects the process.

4) The cross-fingered pragmatists: The people who thought this was going to be totally FUBAR, but realized that in the late stages of the game, this was the best option we had and it's really not a good one at all for those directly affected by DADT. They believe that the system worked, albeit imperfectly, and that all parties -- the LGBT groups, the activists, Congress and the WH did what they thought was right to get it done.

5) The "system is broken" people: These folks are convinced that this whole process was screwed, and if ENDA is to have any chance of success, the whole LGBT establishment needs to take a hard look at what did and didn't work in this process. The messy end result didn't have to be that way, and it's clear that the Beltway process of achieving results is too laden in personal politics that supplant the larger goal of civil equality. These folks, however, don't exactly have a plan on how to fix it.

6) The everyone else-is-a-black-and-white-thinker crowd: These folks are the shoot-first, think-later people who believe they alone are capable of nuanced thinking and are filled with political sophistication. Other people are incapable of this of course, and are stuck in one mode of thinking without consideration of shades of gray in an issue. The everyone else-is-a-black-and-white-thinker person already knows what you might have to say about an issue, even to the point of ignoring actual statements that don't fit their perceived mode. So this results in endless threads/tweets of irrelevant discussion.

Where do you fit in? You may straddle a couple, or change from moment to moment.

Hmmm. I've seen many local Pgh folks celebrating the *repeal* of DADT with no indication that they grasp exactly what the amendment language means. Others celebrate the small step of progress.  No real local backlash thus far, at least not online. 

Some of these dynamics play out with regard to the LGBT advocacy in Western PA. I think people are pretty comfortable acknowledging there are backroom politics at play; they just want to cultivate a sense of loyalty among those who don't have access and take some personal offense when they aren't believed about what happens behind those closed doors.  I also think we have a lot of folks who "opt out" and that doesn't help. 

This indicates that part of the system that is broken is the LGBT advocacy system itself.  There's a lot of power concentrated in a few hands with little opportunity for participation or dissent. Long gone are the days when someone took the (open) mike at Pridefest to challenge the status quo or the powers that be. 

Still, there is something to be said for engaging people in terms of outreach to their elected officials, so I'm sort of straddling the idea that people need to engage within the system AND create more transparency to connect with people who are disengaged.  How that gels given an emerging LGBT political power base that mimics the old-school SW Pennsylvania Jurassic political system ... anybody's guess. 

Getting back to DADT, this is progress, but progress that we need to keep in perspective.  John Aravois from AMERICAblog has this to say.

If I thought this compromise were the end of the world, I'd say so. I'm not happy with the compromise, to be sure, and I'm not happy that the President chose half a loaf instead of just lifting the ban now and being done with it. But I do see a path forward under this compromise. And I see no chance whatsoever if we reject it.

That is why I say that, on balance, this compromise does more good than bad, and is certainly better than the alternative - doing nothing.

Amen.

Preliminary information ...

Steel City's board has officially endorsed Sestak, Conklin and Onorato in the General Election.  Good discussion.  I'm sure the official slate will be up soon on the steel city website.  You can pick up copies at the booth during PrideFest. 

The slate will contain some informaton on why voting Democratic ticket is so important.

Meanwhile on the national scene, debate rages over the timidity of the DADT action.  Some, mainly the insider A-list gays, seem absolutely convinced this is significant.  Meanwhile, the more grassroots/actvist leaders are furious about the timidity.  Make no mistake, this is not a repeal.  The language is much more nuanced.  Pay attention and form your own conclusions.