"As long as you need me, there will be no gay marriage."This is a perfect example of why the Democratic party needs to check itself -- just because someone has a (D) behind their name does not mean they hold Dem principles, or even engage in rational thought -- a lack of understanding of the separation of church and state should at least be a baseline for god's sake.
-- NY State Senator Rubén DÃaz, a Democrat who knows his party won't challenge him on his bigoted views.
I mean come on, State Senator Rubén DÃaz Sr. has called for Governor David Paterson's removal over the marriage equality issue.
"We will bring out thousands and thousands of Hispanic evangelical Christians in the city of New York to ask Governor Paterson to step aside."What kind of Democrat is this? And worse, no person of color has any business discriminating, yet the Democratic party lets people like Diaz get away with this bigotry. Why? They need his vote. (NYT):
Mr. DÃaz, a conservative Democrat and a Pentecostal minister, is one of the staunchest opponents of same-sex marriages in New York. Democrats took control of the State Senate in November, but they hold a slim majority, 32 to 30, and their leaders are fearful of alienating Mr. DÃaz and others by holding a vote on same-sex marriage.The fear is something I've been talking about for ages here on the Blend. White pols are afraid to hold POC bigots accountable for fear of losing the socially conservative (read religion-based homobigot) votes of those who otherwise are staunchly loyal Dem votes. They don't want the race card to be played (and those POC Dems know it), and thus the white pols -- and advocacy leaders of quite pale organizations -- feel rendered helpless -- and feel its left to minority LGBTs to do the dirty work of calling these homophobes of color out.
The bottom line and the reality is that too many LGBTs of color who feel unwilling or unable to decloset to do so, and t hose who are aren't in positions of power in the LGBT establishment and thus the continued illusion people see is gay=white. And so the Rubén DÃazs of the world continue to rule the roost unchecked by Dem peers:
He said he felt the timing of Mr. Paterson's announcement Thursday was particularly disrespectful to Christians, coming four days after Easter and a day after the installation of Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan as the new leader of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New York.What the hell does Easter week have anything to do with civil marriage? And Lopez throws down a another scare card -- announcing that he knows the view of the entire Hispanic community on the issue. Watch that go unchallenged. You see, this kind of B.S. is no problem for DÃaz and like-minded Dems who share the view of Republican bible beaters that the U.S. needs to be a theocracy."We evangelical Christians just ended our holy week, and the Catholics are receiving their leaders this week," Mr. DÃaz said. "He doesn't even give him a chance to come to the city, and boom that's the first thing that Archbishop Dolan is confronted with."
Mr. DÃaz said he had sent a letter to Archbishop Dolan asking for a meeting. (The text of that letter, which Mr. DÃaz's office released to reporters, did not directly mention same-sex marriage,iage, although it praised Archbishop Dolan for "your message of love and respect for the dignity of all stages of human life, and respect for marriage and families.)
The Rev. Michael Lopez, of the Love, Power and Grace Church in the Bronx, who attended the meeting, said that same-sex marriage "is contrary not only to our beliefs, but to the Hispanic community. People have to understand that in the countries we come from this is not only a no no, it is something anti-Biblical and anti-religion."
When are you going to see any NY Dem in that legislature go on the record calling out DÃaz specifically for the ridiculous church-state conflation? Don't hold your breath. I would be pleasantly surprised to be wrong on this one.
And as it's quite obvious, this isn't a New York problem. This is a Democratic party problem. It manifests itself in the whole "go slow" attitude on legislation that during the election year promises sounded like change was around the corner; it's the whole "uh, oh, we need to be re-elected in 2010" nonsense; it's the sudden "we can't multitask on civil rights while the economy is in the crapper" whining. All of this was so predictable, given the past spineless of Dems we've seen over the years. They had the cover of being in the minority, but now in the majority, nothing much has changed.
You see, if you're going to effect change, as Gov. Paterson is trying to do with this legislation, you have to be prepared as a party to address the larger schism of race, religion and homophobia head-on. In a vacuum of a counter-message, the evangelical anti-gays plant seeds and watch them grow in these religious communities of color. Any success is not due to the brilliance of the Religious Right, but its ability and willingness to capitalize on the Democratic party's self-imposed weakness and impotence regarding discipline on basic civil rights issues because of the race card.
We can win these issues in the courts (and legislatures where a socially conservative minority population is small), but we will not have a serious impact on changing minds country-wide if our side remains silent on this matter. As you can see, even in a Blue state, characters like State Senator DÃaz have no fear that the party is going to come down on him.
Richard "Bank Run" Burr, who has been getting a serious and justified posterior whipping for his ludicrous, loony, and self-serving behavior pointed out quite nicely by Rachel Maddow Keith Olbermann and others, is in bed with Big Pharmaharma, Big Energy, Big Telco, the military industrial complex and a list of special interests that's almost laughably stereotypical of a winger trying to buy his way into re-election. Political action committees representing a variety of business interests contributed nearly half of North Carolina U.S. Sen. Richard Burr's $700,000 campaign take in the first three months of this year.The funny thing is that Burr's going to need a bigger take than this to offset the effects of the political self-immolation that's currently taking place.Burr's Senate campaign received money from drug companies, health care companies, tobacco companies and energy companies. Telecommunications firms, financial services groups and defense manufacturers also sent money his way.
That leaves Burr, a Winston-Salem, N.C., Republican, with about $1.6 million in the bank toward his re-election bid next year, according to the federal campaign finance report he filed this week. Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook Political Report in Washington, said Burr's fund-raising was "perfectly acceptable." They might not fend off Democratic opposition, though.
He's a PR disaster for his own campaign.
Freshman Republican backbencher Richard "Bank Run" Burr has been a mostly silent Senator since he first won his seat back in 2004. However, in the last several weeks, he's gained notoriety for two big political blunders. First, he inexplicably blocked the appointment of Iraq veteran, double-amputee, veterans' advocate Tammy Duckworth to a position in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Then, he relayed the story of how, with the fiscal crisis about to hit hard last Fall, his weak-kneed response was to have his wife take out as much cash from their neighborhood bank as ATMs would allow. Not exactly the steady hand North Carolinians (or anyone) want managing our nation's fiscal affairs.The person being talked up asd up as the Dem challenger to Burr is state AG Roy Cooper.
While "Bank Run" Burr was doing all he could to keep his low approval ratings low, polls were coming out showing Democratic state Attorney General Roy Cooper leading Burr in hypothetical match-ups (Public Policy Polling in December, Civitas in March, Public Policy Polling in April). Attorney General Cooper indicated that he was interested in a 2010 Senate bid; and, WaPo's Chris Cillizza even reported that he had heard that AG Cooper would decide on a Senate bid "by the end of the month." The end of the month is now less than two weeks away.
Senate Guru also reports that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (which engineered then-state senator Kay Hagan into the race after openly gay Jim Neal announced his bid to unseat Dole and Hagan had shown no interest in running), is already making it clear Cooper is its favored candidate. The above-mentioned polls -- the Public Policy Polling has Cooper leading Burr 41% to 37% (an incumbent under 50% is in trouble), and Civitas Institute showed Cooper ahead 41-38.
What did it take to unseat Dole, who blew away $19.6 million in her losing effort? Sen. Hagan raised $8.5 million, but the DSCC kicked in $13 million more.
The big question Blenders out there are probably asking right now is if Nash County-native and Sunday school teacher Cooper is the anointed one by the DSCC apparatus, is he a Blue Dog, and where does he stand on LGBT issues?
Cooper's an incredibly popular figure in the state and has grabbed headlines -- among other things, he's backed taxpayers against Wal-Mart's corporate write-off shenanigans, went after predatory lenders fleecing disadvantaged borrowers, helped get the state's Do Not Call law on the books, fight anti-consumer scams, and after first declaring NC's community colleges off-limits to the children of undocumented immigrants, he reversed himself. He's also well-regarded for addressing internet predators, recently issuing a subpoena on MySpace and finding more than 2,000 registered North Carolina sex offenders on the social networking site. When Cooper ran for re-election he won with 61% of the vote, receiving a record 2.5 million votes, topping any candidate in the state's history. So name rec isn't a problem.
But on LGBT issues, honestly, I have no clue where he stands on current and prospective equale equality legislation. I'm going to have to dig around for answers. You might recall the serious spineless dodge Kay Hagan gave when I asked her about this during the campaign; it was embarrassingly meek and her office never followed up. She ended up speaking at the HRC Carolinas dinner this year, so the operating assumption is that you have to go mum on our issues to get elected. I don't think that's necessarily true.
The bottom line is that Burr can be picked off, and the GOP is worried as we speak.
Carter Wrenn, a veteran strategist for such Republican Senate candidates as Jesse Helms, said Burr's low polling numbers are worrisome. Part of the problem is that North Carolina has had a string of senators who were national figures, such as Republicans Helms and Dole and Democrats Terry Sanford and John Edwards. Wrenn said Burr, like former GOP senators John East and Lauch Faircloth and Democrat Robert Morgan, has had difficulty getting out from beneath larger shadows.I personally think that as long as Burr continues destroying his own credibility, this is the major factor that will be his undoing, but he's not an easy one to knock off for this reason -- any Dem will have an uphill battle because the conventional wisdom (and precedent) is that voter turnout is lower in a non-presidential election year. Even more problematic is that record voter turnout in 2008 -- critical in Barack Obama turning the state Blue is unlikely to materialize in those numbers, particularly regarding the black vote."Nobody dislikes Richard Burr," Wrenn said. "But no one likes him much either. I think it's a bad sign. I think he is much more vulnerable than Elizabeth Dole was."
Voter turnout in 2008 was 70 percent, the state's highest in at least four decades. Dropoff in turnout from a presidential election year is a certainty; the only question is by how much. Consider the most recent example-in 2004, North Carolina turnout was 64 percent. In 2006, it was 37 percent.Everyone knows Hagan coasted on that Obama turnout wave (along with Dole running a sh*t campaign). Cooper or any other Dem has to hope and pray that Burr completely implodes. Mr. Bank Run is well on his way, but Dems shouldn't be complacent. This is going to be a big tussle that will cost a boatload of cash to get to the finish line.The high level of African-American turnout, in particular, will be tough to replicate in 2010. With Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, for example, black-majority Warren County reported 81 percent turnout in 2008. It's hard to imagine that the Democratic nominee will have that kind of wind at their back in 2010.
Here are BlueNC posts on Cooper. Here are more ads on Cooper from his AG run.
Sharon Dunn of the Greeley Tribune began her Saturday piece piece Angie Zapata's friends, family take the stand this way:
The first few times, it almost seemed like the public defenders were misspeaking.
But then, those watching the murder trial of Allen Andrade started muttering under their breaths. Witnesses on the stand continued to correct the attorneys questioning them.
Family members and friends echoed repeatedly, "my sister," "Angie," one by one on the stand Friday as public defenders Annette Kundelius and Brad Martin questioned them about "Justin."
Summarizing the two things that will effect me for quite awhile that I saw in the courtroom Friday are 1.) seeing the crime scene photos and video of Angie, lying dead on the floor, a pool of dried blood around her head, and 2.) watching and hearing a classic trans panic strategy being used by the defense during the prosecution presentation portion of the trial.
Frankly, I'm in reporter mode, so I'm a bit detached from the trial right now. But, in the back of my mind I can "feel" the images of the crime scene photos and video burned in my mind -- forever burned into my memory. I will never forget those images. I know I'll have my reaction to these "burned in" images later, when I'm back home in San Diego.
What had me irritated in the courtroom Friday, and still finds me irritated about now, is the trans panic (or gay panic) strategy -- a "crime of passion," "blame the victim" strategy -- being used in the court. It's apparent to me that the defense attorneys have schooled themselves on the "proper" way to run a trans panic strategy, as they used the word "duped" in the pretrial hearing, and now in the trial are using the more classic trans panic strategy term "deception." The defense attorney's are also following the trans panic strategy of never conceding that Angie was known as Angie, and never conceding that she was a young, teenage female. The defense attorneys instead always refer to her by her male name, and always refer to her by male pronouns.
I noticed something too that a trans woman like me would notice, but reporters like Sharon Dunn and Beth Karas hadn't noticed, but I pointed out to them why something from Angie's autopsy was highlighted. During cross examination of the Crime Scene Investigator (CSI) who attended the autopsy, the defense attorney questioning the CSI highlighted clothing that had been removed from Angie's body. These included a camisole, a bra, and "breast gels." The "breast gels" would be silicone breast forms. The reason the defense attorney's highlighted these are to use this information later to "prove" Angie "_____" (male name) wasn't a real woman -- they will no doubt argue "he" had to wear breast forms to create the "deception" that "he" had breasts.
This intentional trans panic/blame-the-victim strategy of always referring to Angie by her male name and by male pronouns was never more clear when Stephanitephanie Zapata, Angie's sister, took the stand. Every time the defense attorney referred to Angie by male pronouns or by Angie's male name, Stephanie corrected her by saying "You mean my sister,..." or "You mean my sister Angie,..." -- Stephanie never gave an inch. I don't know how many times she forcefully corrected the defense attorney, but it was definitely significantly over a dozen times. And when Monica Zapata (also known as Monica Murguia) took the stand, she wasn't as forceful, but she consistently referred to Angie as Angie, and always referred to her as her sister, and by female pronouns.
All in all, five of Angie's relatives took the stand and only using the name Angie, and always referring to her by female pronouns. And, every time the defense attorney's questioned these five family members, they always referred to her by her male name, and always used male pronouns. Everyone was in the gallery that I talked to after the trial was done for the day Friday noticed it, and one even commented that the defense strategy of consistently referring to Angie by her male name and male pronouns when every family member, many visibly hurting at the loss of their sister/sister-in-law/offspring, were referring to Angie as Angie, and calling her by female pronouns. On person told me that it seemed "rude," and wondered if the strategy of antagonizing at least Stephanie Zapata, would backfire because it looked like such rude behavior. Gawds, I hope so.
Frankly though, I'm a lot like Angie. While I have changed my male name legally to Autumn back in 2003, I, like Angie, am a pre-operative transsexual. And, as Angie's sister Monica said she saw Angie always do to people to strangers she met who she realized she may see again -- especially men who appeared attracted to her and engaged her -- I out myself often and frequently to strangers I meet. And much like Angie, I have "passing privilege," and just as Angie had many young men interested in her, and flirting with her, since I lost that 135 pounds I have many 35-and-older men interested in me, and flirting with me. And, just as Angie was rarely read as trans, so too am I rarely read as trans. And just like Angie, I'm the number 4 child of 5 children.
If I were to be killed in Colorado -- or most other states in the United States, for that matter -- would my killer use a trans panic defense against me, saying, like Allen Ray Andrade's defense attorney's are saying about Angie, that I'm "deceptive"? When am I not "deceptive" in my life -- when I use women's restrooms? When my driver's license has an F as my gender marker? When I don't out myself to the grocery clerk or the coffee house barista? When I breathe?
The stunning reality is that my life, and the lives of my transgender peers, are worth less than the lives of those who fit into the gender binary. And, that's because if someone killed one of my peers or me, they can use a trans or gay panic, blame-the-victim strategy to say my peers or I have been "deceptive," and were killed because my peers or I were born with genitalia that didn't match our gender identity and/or gender expression.
It's a sobering thought.
And, what's so bizarre about this is that transgender status is a protected class under Colorado's Bias Motivated Crimes statute under the term sexual orientation. Specifically, sexual orientation is defined as follows:
"Sexual orientation" means a person's actual or perceived orientation toward heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, or transgender status.
The defense in the Angie Zapata Hate Crime Murder Trial is in effect using Angie's membership in a protected class to justify her killing. Think of it this way: If a white supremacist in Colorado dated a Jewish woman who hadn't disclosed this before the two had kissed intimately, and the white supremacupremacist, in an alleged heat of passion moment, killed the Jewish woman because of her faith or her ethnicity. If the white supremacist's defense attorney argued before the jury that the Jewish woman was "deceptive" for not disclosing she was Jewish before the two kissed, do you believe that this defense would persuade a jury? Of course not -- being Jewish by faith or ethnicity would be protected classes under the Colorado. You can't successfully on one hand say that that faith and ethnicity are protected classes against bias motivated crimes, and then use the Jewish woman membership in a protected class as a defense.
And yet, with the gay panic and trans panic strategies of blaming the victim for being "deceptive," that's exactly what the defense is doing in the Angie Zapata Hate Crime Murder Trial; the defense is using Angie's transgender status to say she was being "deceptive" -- they are using Angie's membership in a protected class to blame her -- the victim -- for her own death.
What is the point of having a hate crime statute that includes transgender status in it's language if defendants and defense attorneys can use that membership in the transgender community as a reason to blame a victim for his or her own death? The same arguments that public defenders Annette Kundelius and Brad Martin are arguing before the jury to blame Angie for her own death apply to me too.
If someone were to kill me in Colorado (or most other states in the United States) this week, how much less would the sentence of my killer be if he or she said they killed me because I was being "deceptive" when I drank coffee at Café Woody's this morning? Or "deceptive" bought cheese sticks at the King Scoopers grocery store this afternoon? Or "deceptive" when I used the sink in an Olive Garden restaurant's women's restroom to clean my prescription rose colored glasses this evening?
Are trans people like Angie and me always to be considered "deceptive" wherever we go, and whatever we do?
I know the answers to all these questions. I'm not being deceptive. I am who I present myself to people I meet, even when I don't make it a point to out myself.
Angie wasn't deceptive either. Angie lived who she was. Justice for Angie should include the recognition she was a human being -- a human being who was loved, and is sorely missed by her family and friends. I just can't imagine that giving any credence to the idea that Angie's transgender status is in any way a justification for her killing would be justice for Angie.
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The lawsuit was brought forward by the Transgender Law Center on behalf of Gigi Marie Somers, a 67-year-old Kansas resident seeking to change her documentation. Read the full story at the Advocate’s web site, or read the court’s decision.
Birth certificates are often relied upon as a primary documentation resource, used by employers, creditors and the government to verify individuals’ identities. Without the ability to change their birth certificate, many transpeople are left in legal limbo, and are frequently outed by their documentation, which may not maion, which may not match their gender presentation.
Birth certificate change procedures vary from state to state, and some states don't allow any alteration to the sex listed on this critical document. This increased ease in changing birth certificate will benefit California-born transpeople across the country. Congratulations to the Transgender Law Center on this fantastic victory!
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