Marriage vs. full LGBT equality at media summit

by Mark Segal

Each year for the last three years, The Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund of San Francisco has held an LGBT blogger and newspaper summit to increase awareness on issues that need focus. The first year, held at the Desmond Tutu Conference Center in New York City, dealt with immigration; the second, in San Francisco, discussed LGBT youth issues such as bullying and homelessness. This year, the subject was the 2012 election. Haas does an outstanding job selecting speakers and presenters for the panel workshops, which are all held in one day. It’s sort of like a speed dating of subjects for journalists. With Bil Browning of The Bilerico Project and Matt Forman, former head of The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, at the helm this conference has become a way for those in LGBT media to not only meet the newsmakers and explore complex issues, it’s also a space to share our commonality of experiences and wonder, are we the LGBT elite media?

This year we met in Houston, Texas. The night before the conference, Haas hosted a dinner with openly lesbian Houston Mayor Anisse Parker. She was not only candid, but you could tell she was delighted to have LGBT media meeting in her city. One of the first questions she was asked was, “Do you intend to marry your partner?” followed by, “Will Texas ever pass marriage equality”? At one point she joked that she’d rather talk about the city’s new sewage system. This became a recurring theme at this year’s gathering: No matter what the subject of the panel was, the questions always turned to marriage equality. It was the issue du jour.

Like the recent successful battle to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” it is almost impossible to get some journalists to notice that there are other issues as important — if not more important — for the LGBT community. As one trans activist posed: “Has marriage equality kidnapped the movement?” Are important funds which could be used for LGBT homelessness, health and nondiscrimination going to a cause that, while important, is not as crucial as an 18-year-old living on the streets, a teacher being fired, a couple being tossed out of their rental apartment, a battered child, a clinic that won’t understand that lesbians have a higher rate of breast cancer or the abuse of our elders in senior housing?

While it is easy to say that hundreds of thousands of people would benefit from marriage equality, it is also true that many of those people already live in places where most of the heavy lifting has been done and they have secured nondiscrimination laws, have working LGBT health clinics, a community center and a safe place for LGBT youth? But what about the vast majority of LGBT people in this nation who don’t have any protections from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations? Don’t we owe it to them to fight for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act?

Personally, I don’t care about the evolution that President Obama is undergoing on marriage equality: He’ll get there and, being politically pragmatic, I hope it’s after the November election. (Think swing states Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.) As to the Democratic Party having a marriage-equality plank — how many people read a party’s platform? Better yet, how many elected officials actually govern from their party’s platform? It’s a great step forward and something that the party should do. It will advance the issue in places that are already predisposed to do so, and may alienate those areas that are not yet educated on the issue. Our main focus now should be to get the tools needed to re-elect Obama. The question for us is, can we trust his evolution on the subject so that after election he becomes the advocate we need? His record already gives us that answer. In each state where there are ballot initiatives regarding the subject, he’s stated very soundly that he does not believe you take away rights or put them on the ballot. And this is not a recent evolution. In 2008, in the Pennsylvania Primary, legislation was pending in the state Senate to change the constitution to declare that marriage is between a man and a woman. At the time, he urged Pennsylvania lawmakers not to pass that legislation. And recently he did the same with similar legislation in North Carolina. Case closed. Let’s move on.

Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at mark@epgn.com.

Op-Ed: Israel, the gays and Equality Forum

by Mark Segal

The last couple of years have seen progressive LGBT people taking on issues other than equality, as well as bringing the debate into the community. Israel and the Palestinian cause has been a flashpoint. With Equality Forum in Philadelphia poised to honor Israel this May, several progressive blogs have denounced the organization and suggested the honor be withdrawn. Their argument is easy to appreciate: Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and Palestinian state. Those progressives might have a point, but that point is misleading and downright anti-equality.

Full disclosure: I’m Jewish, but also have been a member of “Peace Now,” an organization that has often been at odds with the Israeli government. I’ve traveled throughout the Middle East, and was one of the first LGBT reporters to do a series on LGBT people living in Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Israel. For those national readers, those here in Philadelphia will tell you I have no appreciation of Equality Forum’s executive director. Several years ago, he mass-emailed an obscene, graphic depiction of me that crossed the line of decency. We will never have a relationship. In conclusion, I’m not a diehard who blindly supports Israel or Equality Forum. With that stated, I think I’m in a good place to examine this issue fairly.

Here’s the fine print. Progressives are right. Israel keeps the Palestinians under total control, using roadblocks, settlements and blockades. All true. But at the same time, the Palestinians refuse to recognize the state of Israel and house organizations in the “Palestinian state” that have an agenda to wipe Israel off the map. I believe it’s fair to say that Israel has the right to protect itself against people who are at war with it. But for the LGBT community, that should not be the issue. Here’s what it should be.

Israel has some legal recognition of the LGBT community. It accepts marriage equality from other nations, it was one of the first nations to accept gays in the military, has a gay tourism campaign, gives government funds to LGBT organizations and, when a hate crime happened at the Tel Aviv LGBT Community Center, the prime minister, a conservative hawkish member of parliament (the Knesset), visited to assure the LGBT community that the government would not tolerate hate crimes against them. In the Middle East, and a nation with a strong religious right-wing itself, this is very progressive.

Compare that with the Palestinian state and culture. The culture is so hateful to LGBT people that any LGBT activism is limited due to the very possible chance of violence. There is little if any support within the Palestinian authority for any LGBT issues. Hate crimes against gay people happen regularly and, in fact, many LGBT Palestinians move to Israel for safety. Then there is the issue of honor killings. When a family believes it has been badly shamed, its members feel they have the right to kill. This has happened with families with gay children before. So by supporting the Palestinians, one is supporting an anti-equality cause, if not supporting hate crimes themselves.

Israel should indeed be applauded for being the one place in the Middle East that is a relative safe haven for LGBT people. Our community’s first priority is for the safety of our members. Can anyone state that being openly LGBT in the Palestinian territory is safe? No, you cannot.

Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at mark@epgn.com.

Op-Ed: Christie sees future; Santorum wears George Wallace drag

byMark Segal

This columnist has been preaching for over a year now, but particularly during this primary season, that America is changing — in favor of LGBT rights and equality. That change was never so true as in Monday’s announcement from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Here’s how AP reported it.

“New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie moved to diversify the state’s all-white Supreme Court on Monday by proposing two firsts: the nominations of an openly gay black man [Bruce Harris] and a Korean-born law enforcer to fill two vacancies.

“‘I am proud to be standing here today to announce two historic nominations to the New Jersey State Supreme Court,’ Christie said, expressing ‘extreme confidence in their records and respect for their intellect.’”

At the governor’s news conference, Harris thanked the governor, then said, “I also want to thank my partner Mark for his nearly 32 years of love and support.”

Christie is not considered a moderate. He’s a national rising star of right-wing Republicans but he’s smart and ahead of his fellow party members in understanding that LGBT issues no longer matter to the general population — including Republicans. In other words, you can’t scare the public with the gay issue anymore since they no longer are afraid to have us as neighbors. In fact, most Americans want us as their neighbors and pollsters have discovered that 47 percent of strong conservative Republicans would vote for an LGBT person running for office.

With a generation that has grown up with openly gay friends about to enter the voting system, the handwriting is on the wall.

Now Christie is not for full equality. He’s doing exactly what this column predicted just a few weeks ago: drawing a line in the sand on equality. Domestic partners and civil unions are all OK — but marriage is for one man and one woman only.

All one has to do is watch the Republican primaries and see this working itself into the Republican fabric. As I stated before, enjoy this Republican race and watch Rick Santorum. In this race, Santorum is like George Wallace, the last proud racist to run for president. For Santorum, he’ll be the last proud homophobe to run for president. And like Wallace, he’ll become an outcast in his own party. Wallace eventually apologized, but Santorum is too arrogant to apologize for the hate he has spun.

Back to the Garden State. Here’s the fun part: If Christie vetoes New Jersey’s marriage-equality bill, it’s likely that a pending marriage-equality case will make it’s way to the New Jersey Supreme Court, where Christie’s appointee will cast a vote on equality. We are living in exciting and historic times.

Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at mark@epgn.com.

Op-Ed: There are no Gay Jews

by Mark Segal
For me, the aging process has led to a clearer view of equality. After all, it has been the passion of my life for 42 years. Everywhere I travel, I’m in search of how our community is depicted. Unfortunately, I notice we are not always included. That is discrimination by censorship. And unfortunately, many of our national organizations get a failing grade on this subject. They don’t understand the seriousness of this censorship. Even GLAAD doesn’t know the history of the battle to end censorship in mainstream media. They must learn that our collective history is the building blocks for our future, and the justification of why our struggle for equality deserves to become a reality.


About two months ago, my nephew and I visited the new National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. The museum opened a little over a year ago with much fanfare. It was a spectacular debut with the likes of Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Steven Spielberg and Jerry Seinfeld. The museum not only covered the plight of the Jews in coming to the States, it showcased their religious and political views. It also highlights 12 people from the Jewish community who represent who Jews are and their contributions to American society.


It’s a shock and a failure on the part of the museum that we gay Jews do not exist. A total failure, and they should bow their heads in shame. That’s a tough statement, but as I went through the museum and saw how Jews dealt with the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the fight for civil rights and women’s rights, it was obvious that something was missing. LGBT. In fact, I didn’t find those four letters anywhere in the museum.

Here’s the rub. Many of the most prominent pioneers of the LGBT community were Jewish; perhaps the most well known, Harvey Milk, does not even get a mention. In fact, in what might look like a backhanded insult to the LGBT community, there are two gay men in the museum’s Hall of Fame gallery — Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein — who are both closeted thanks to the museum, as neither of their displayed bios mentions it.

Not only is this discrimination by censorship, it reminds me of a time when, in the Jewish tradition, if you discovered something about a member of the family that was shameful, you didn’t talk about it. Does the museum find LGBT shameful? This becomes somewhat personal for me since, in my family, one of my cousins was one of “those individuals.” At the tender age of 16, my cousin Norman was asked to leave his home. As a child on the streets in the 1950s, he was homeless and had a life of drugs and alcohol. And growing up, we children occasionally heard his name and asked about him. We were told we don’t talk about cousin Norman. Imagine growing up, knowing you’re gay, and discovering the real story of cousin Norman. How do you tell your parents? Do you worry about what the rest of the family will think? Does it sound like the 1950s? That is what the NMAJH has done. On behalf of my cousin Norman, shame on you!

Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at mark@epgn.com.

Op-Ed: Two major benchmarks in LGBT history

by Mark Segal

Mark Segal

Mitt Romney

If you sneezed last week, you might have missed them. Two major changes in the fight for LGBT equality took place — and they literally will change the playing field forever.

During the Republican presidential debate last Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” before the New Hampshire primary, a new benchmark in LGBT equality — at least for Republicans — was christened. And the surprise was who set it and who shrugged it off. The frontrunner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, did the honors.

Here’s the thumbnail version. One of the moderators quoted a pro-gay equality statement from Romney that was published in Boston’s LGBT newspaper Bay Windows, then asks Romney what he will do for nondiscrimination. (A well-phrased question, journalists should note.) Romney, who, it seems during this nomination process has cast aside his previous limited LGBT equality record, states very clearly that he supports nondiscrimination and that, as governor, he appointed LGBT people to his administration and as judges. He then said clearly that he does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. So he answered the question and you’d think that was it, but the journalist — this guy was good — then asked: But what will you do to further the rights of LGBT people?” (Again, journalists please note the phrasing of the question.) Romney clearly says, “I just did that.” Applause. He adds that the only difference he has with the gay community is that he believes “marriage” is solely between a man and a woman. Applause from the audience again.

Here’s the surprise, and why this is a moment that will be marked as the beginning of the long road to reality for Republicans: They then went to Santorum with the question. He attempted to make a joke but it was obvious that the audience was not amused, so he sidestepped the question that has been a hallmark of his campaign. It was his chance to stand out and he knew that disparaging gays would no longer work. And so did every candidate standing up there, since no one took Romney on.
How serious of a change is this? The Obama campaign was quick to send out a press release Monday morning suggesting that Romney was stepping away from comments made at the debate, but that was based on a 2002 flyer that Romney’s team had disavowed. Point is, the handwriting is on the wall and Republicans see the inevitable. Americans are tired of them trashing the gay community. So the frontrunner has drawn a new line in the sand: We believe in nondiscrimination up to the issue of marriage.
 
So enjoy the next few months and watch the dying gasps of the anti-equality Republican rhetoric, since this is the last presidential race you’ll hear it. They won’t go quietly, but Romney’s statements, if he’s nominated, make that change inevitable.

There was another change last week that needs noting, since my previous column really hit hard on that issue: Chicago’s Cardinal George comparing our community to the KKK. We congratulated the Chicago community on planning to demonstrate against the cardinal, and this column went further, suggesting that if no apology or meeting with the community happened, a look at the Church’s finances would be in order.


Guess what happened? The church blinked, as it did in D.C. when challenged. George apologized. The community in Chicago is mixed on whether the apology was strong enough, but this is their turf, and it is imperative that the national community take note that the Church now twice has blinked when challenged. This is a major change. While we should respect the Church and its religious views, it is also time for the Church to treat our community with that same respect. If not, we must use our tools to create a climate of respect.

Change is in the wind. It is imperative to recognize it and know how to move on to the next battle for equality. The two greatest foes of equality both shifted in one week — important benchmarks on our path to equality.

Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached atmark@epgn.com.