After significant controversy about Target’s relations with the LGBT community, Lady Gaga has dissolved her exclusive distribution deal with the retailer for her latest album, Born This Way.
Updates soon
BREAKING: Lady Gaga Dissolves Target Deal
March 8th, 2011FAIL: Fox News – Obama Refusal to Enforce DOMA is Grounds for Impeachment
February 23rd, 2011Moments after the Department of Justice announced it would not be defending the Defense of Marriage Act in the Second Circuit, a Fox News pundit deemed it the end of democracy, comparing President Obama to deposed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. She went on to suggest that the President is guilty of an impeachable offense, saying that had President Bush decided not to enforce laws protecting gay people, he would have been impeached.
Newsflash Fox: When President Bush was in office, there were no federal laws protecting gay people from discrimination. More to the point, President Bush stopped enforcing some major civil and human rights laws that protected all people, gay and straight, including the Geneva Convention and the Fourth Amendment. And there were calls for his impeachment. But Bush didn’t decide those laws were unconstitutional. He decided he was more powerful than the Constitution. There’s a difference.
Obama Shows Signs of Being Fierce Advocate – Announces DOMA is Unconstitutional
February 23rd, 2011President Obama, deciding that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional has decided not to defend federal court cases challenging it.
Read the full Justice Department letter announcing it’s decision here:
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/February/11-ag-222.html
Gay Teacher Goes To Work Wearing “Out” T-Shirt
November 17th, 2010Defying recent efforts to demonize and penalize openly gay teachers, Matt Tratner, a beloved teacher and guidance counselor at New York’s prestigious John Bowne High School, went to work today wearing a shirt that boldly states “OUT And I’m not alone.” He then posted a photo of himself wearing the shirt on Facebook with the caption
“Yes- I am OUT at my job… Yes the students like my shirt
.”
The posting immediately attracted massive support, including mine. By the end of the day he changed his Facebook status to say
A little after 3pm today, after classes were over a few teacher came over to me to tell me what they thought of my OUT SHIRT I had worn to school today… They said that they had heard all about Tratner wearing it. They asked where they could get one so they too could wear them at school- gay and straight teachers asked to have one. I was never so proud to be OUT.
Recently, gay teachers have come under attack in ways reminiscent of how John Briggs and Anita Bryant framed the Save Our Children campaign in the 1970′s. Last month, when the nation’s attention was fixated on anti-LGBT bullying and teen suicides, Senator Jim Demint proclaimed that sexually active gays and lesbians shouldn’t be allowed to teach. In Oregon, a teacher was fired because he responded to a student’s question about why he was single by saying the law didn’t allow him to marry a man.
Gay teachers are not an issue. They are a fact, just like straight teachers are. Tratner’s shirt is inspiring because it confronts those who would like to turn back the clock to a time when the very existence of homosexuality was being challenged on a daily basis and when gay professionals, especially teachers, hid in the closet, which we’ve come to recognize as a deadly place.
Tratner’s shirt is also inspiring because it speaks truth to power when others, who should be speaking have been silent. The President has been confronted on his silence about this and a number of other LGBT issues and has refused to use his bully pulpit speak out about it. The teacher in Oregon got fired and Jim Demint got away with his comments because in the year 2010 this country still tolerates the lie that gay teachers lack integrity and that they corrupt the morals of young people. The President has a bully pulpit that he can use to change attitudes and to speak out about injustice. He should be speaking out for the integrity of LGBT professionals, and the need to enact the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. ENDA was supposed to be voted on in 2009. Now it looks like it might not be introduced before 2013 at the earliest. But even if it can’t pass now, the President has to speak out against discrimination against LGBT people and set the tone so that it can pass when it does come up. He can’t just let hate sit out there and fester.
Tratner doesn’t have to worry about professional retribution for being out at work or wearing a t-shirt. In New York, unlike the United States, it is illegal to discriminate against someone in employment because of his or her sexual orientation. But the fact that he can do this while in other parts of this country he would be fired instantly only highlights the fact that the President has a lot of leading to do. Mr. President, are you listening?
Support inclusion of LGBT people in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sign the petition at ThePowerOnline.org.
Dan Choi won’t vote for Obama again; Valerie Jarrett won’t say DADT is unconstitutional
October 21st, 2010Responding to the Ninth Circuit’s reinstatement of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell yesterday, Lt. Dan Choi announced that he will not vote for President Obama’s re-election. When asked by Wolf Blitzer whether the President would follow the advice of former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger to appeal the district court’s ruling while stating clearly that he believes the law to be unconstitutional, Valerie Jarrett said only that he wants the law repealed by Congress. Translation? The President won’t say that he thinks the law is unconstitutional. No wonder Lt. Dan Choi doesn’t trust the White House.
Hillary Clinton: America is About INSISTING on Equality
October 19th, 2010Ft. Worth City Councilman Joel Burns Tells Gay Teens It Gets Better
October 13th, 2010Sen. Gillibrand Pledges to Ask President to Give National Address on LGBT Rights
October 12th, 2010Today The Power’s Jeffrey Campagna posts on The Huffington Post about Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s pledge to ask the President to give a national address on LGBT issues.
As National Coming Out Day drew to a close yesterday, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand pledged that she would ask President Obama to give a national address on the inferior legal status of LGBT people and its connection to violence against LGBT people. She made the pledge in response to a request I made in front of an audience of approximately 60 attenees of a “Broadway for Kirsten” campaign fundraiser at the home of Scott Sanders and Brad Lamm.
Read the full post here.
Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters – It Gets Better
October 8th, 2010Scissor Sisters Join Call To Expand Civil Rights Act
October 6th, 2010
The Scissor Sisters want you to take a stand and join The Power in calling for expansion of the Civil Rights Act and all civil rights laws to prohibit discrimination against LGBT people. They’ve put their ass on the line, donating an autographed 2′x3′ poster of their latest album, Night Work, which features the famous Robert Maplethorpe photo shown below.
Enter to win by 1) signing the petition at www.ThePowerOnline.org and 2) then sharing this blog post on your Facebook wall. The winner will be chosen from entries submitted by midnight west coast time on National Coming Out Day, Monday, October 11th. Courtesy of Flylife.
This endorsement comes in the shadow of recent LGBT suicides provoked by bullying. As a result of these tragedies, the mainstream media is starting to explore the idea articulated by Wanda Sykes on a recent Larry King episode that because our county’s laws don’t treat LGBT people as equal, society gives permission to disrespect and cause harm to LGBT people. As Kathy Griffin said on Larry King, what we are seeing in this country is “trickle down homophobia.”
It has to stop. This is why, we have always said that 1) hate is a life or death issue, 2) the measure of our success as a movement is the impact it has on LGBT youth, and 3) it is time for Congress and the President to pass laws that make it the clear public policy of the United States that discrimination based on LGBT status is prohibited.
So join the Scissor Sisters and all our endorsers, in spreading the word about creating a society where we are all treated as equally as we are created. Sign the petition and join the conversation at www.ThePowerOnline.org.