More Queer People Murdered. Lesbian and Gay Organizations Seem to Care Less.

If Bash Back were serious, they'd be calling for and organizing a direct action caravan to NOLA to demand justice in the streets for the victims -- ala Jena. Instead, we get shots fired at the anti-Prop 8 movement. Talk, indeed, is cheap.

good points, good questions....offerring you some humble suggestions...for what be the nature of your goal..are you willing to go deep into the rabbit's hole???Dr Felix Polk(aka Dr Josef Mengele) designed the retro-virus AIDS at UC Berkeley (Project Paperclip/US Military Intel collaboration)..distributed worldwide via our military vaccine programs....complete public mind-control subserviance demonstrated publicly twice(WACO....no-one showed up,no vets, no students, no church people...no-one...under the premise of apprehending David Koresh who went to town 2-3 weekly....a nationally publicized military murder/burn of a group of basically nice people(1st hand verified)....then 9-11...w/o question a military/professional demolition...and the public remains catatonic....google this author Peter Tscherneff-take a peek....one thing we all can do..ALL of US is to boldly walk as did Gandhi, Einstein, Cesar Chavez, Jesus and so many other radically motivated personas....they were all vegetarians...remember vampires can't see the light...THE TRUTH....look around you see the proof......big opportunity to meet w/ others re; great concerns in DC at inaugeration

Beau Vyne wrote;

"Needless to say that in this latest “struggle” for gay marriage, white people have consistently demonized communities of color for their role in passing Prop 8. To many in the marriage movement, Queer People of Color and Trans people do not even exist."

Part of the problem with the truth is that many communties of "color" are indeed often times more homophobic than their "white" counterparts, excluding the far right Mormons, Catholics and Evangelicals who contributed much cash to the Prop H8 campaign. People of any skin color can be misled by religious authorities, and communities where homophobia and isolation of "out" gays is part of the norm are more susceptible to this sort of propaganda that allowed Prop 8 to pass..

Even though the mainstream queer community still excludes many of the fringe groups (bisexual, trans, etc...) and queer people of color, that doesn't mean that their effort to repeal Prop 8 (illegal and in violation of U.S. Constitution) is a waste of time. Maybe if the mainstream queers were not so exclusive towards others, they would have an even stronger base of support and Prop H8 would never have passed!!

Coming from a libertarian perspective, it is disappointing to see people so oblivious to the fact that separation of church and state is part of the protected ideals of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, yet this is what has been revoked by Prop 8 that seeks to impose government restriction on people's personal lives, regardless of their religion. Government does NOT belong in our bedrooms!!

Government protections and benefits that are based on religious marriage are questionable and forms of discrimination in and of themselves (why not benefit unmarried and/or non-religious hetero/homo couples also?? why not benefit people for remaining single and childless, regardless of their sexual orientation??), especially when a certain segment of the population is denied access to these marriage benefits. Maybe ALL government benefits for marriage of ANY sexual orientation should be revoked, at least that would be fair for everyone else. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, and if two ganders want to live together in a marriage union, who is the government to object??

Similar to abortions, the logical and legal mantra for government involvement and personal choice is "Don't want one, don't have one." Same goes for gay marriage. Don't want one, then don't have one.

Nobody from CA is coming to Utah to force heterosexual Mormons to marry somebody of the same sex, so they still have their freedom of choice. However, to use U.S. government laws to deny others who wish to marry somebody else of the same sex violates human rights..

The propaganda and lies around Prop 8 have really turned me off to religion, especially the Christian faith. For the Mormon's part in funding Prop 8, Salt Lake City is going to get shut down by a big ol' blizzard this X-mas, maybe Jesus way of telling the Mormons how disappointed he is that they didn't get his message of unconditional love for ALL (just kidding, the storm's really from climate change!)..

Til this Prop 8 nonsense is repealed for being unconstitutional, people can rest assurred that homosexuality cannot be "taught" or "learned" in public schools and is most likely in all seriousness a natural side effect of overpopulation of humans, that the shut off of heterosexual breeding urges in people considered homosexual is an evolutionary safety mechanism so that people don't breed themselves into a food shortage..

The Mormons, Catholics, Evangelicals and the other homophobic "breeder" religions that funded Prop 8 haven't gotten this message yet either, maybe because the state apparatus that the religious authorities work for views human overpopulation as a benefit to capitalism, providing the corporate bosses with a never ending supply of disposable workers..

We the people of the U.S. will NOT allow this Prop 8 discrimination to stand for long, it will be repealed and scrapped before 2010, that is just my prediction..

The religious authorities of the above mentioned faiths who called for and funded Prop 8 will be exposed and denounced for the hypocrites that they are by people who are true to the message of Jesus, practicing unconditional love for ALL without discrimination..

Hi, I feel the way you do. I just finished writing a comment in response to Billerico Project's post about The Creating Change Conference in Denver. I feel like too many people are losing touch... here's the post, I believe it's relevant.

The following is my comment in response to the Billerico article here:

http://www.bilerico.com/2009/01/creating_change_day_2_issues_issues_issu.php

------------------

This is a very positive toned article, so I don't want to be a stick in the porridge, but: (I guess I'm going to.) You said:

...talk about the economic disparity in our families, the lack of resources, poverty, and other issues dealing with race and class that effect LGBTQ families.

The struggling frontline agencies that actually help these people in hundreds of towns across this continent are underfunded and overworked. Enthusiasm surrounding more rhetoric is not going to cheer up anyone's day.

I volunteer at an NGO that serves those living with and at the greatest risk of acquiring HIV / AIDS and/or HVC. People who have difficulty obtaining services elsewhere, especially due to substance use, mental illness, sexual orientation, gender identity, race and ethnicity, and/or other social barriers.

I'm finding articles and blogs everywhere that describe trips to 'The Inauguration', great workshops such as those you describe - there is no shortage of people urging, teaching, lobbying etc.

I know I certainly can't afford a quick jaunt over to the Prez Inauguration or to attend workshops to heighten my knowlege, awareness and capability. I'm scraping together money for my next round of electrolysis sessions in between grocery shopping for two boys. It seems that everyone I look to for transpolitical interpretations are so out of my league, in every way.

I'm only scraping the surface, I'm not talking about HRC or any higher level organization. I mean all the popular, well known 'activists' who are blogging, writing and publishing books, flying everywhere to give lectures to more people who are writing blogs and flying in to hear them talk. Sure, I know - they all 'paid their dues', worked their asses off etc., and now they are in the position to be 'the interpreters'. Yet to me, the lgbtq movement is controlled by an elite - complete with a standard pyramid structure, within which exists an minority which blithely avoids interactions with lower classes, like a new world order lgbtq caste.

I'm sorry, because I know I could easily get chewed out for this (or simply ignored), but I believe we should be thinking, listening, writing, reacting and dreaming more wholistically.

We need workshops that are accessible to everyone, with no exclusion for any reason - bringing everyone together, forming unity amongst transgender people around the continent (or world - dream, dream, dream) should be forefront. What we have is a divisionary tone of language, exclusions, elitism, a continuous proliferation of groups that function in hierarchical patriarchal settings. There's really only a handful of transactivist women who seem to be compassionate and live at ground level. I know that the vast majority of trangendered people are not even interacting online, because the way things are set up - the lower end of the pyramid fades into the background - and that's where all the numbers are - AND those are the people I want to somehow connect with. Those people don't have degrees, they don't have access, and the ones who are driven to desperation and tragedy, are the ones that all the bloggers use to 'make their points'. This isn't humane journalism - it's just an intellectual form of ambulance chasing.

I hope I can encourage people in the journalistic / political arena of the lgbtq sector to consider similarities, detente, compassion, perhaps even liking and loving people rather than asessing their viewpoints and moving on. We are involved in a bloodless, spiritless pool of data - and we are turning against each other as our compassion weakens and our perceptions narrow.

I want to research this idea and try to write something about it in a post form, because what I believe in is: a level, wholistic playing field for all of us. I dream that people who are outside the circle of lgbtq could one day look in and see us all truly caring and loving each other, instead of trying to prove that we are the 'one'.

..did anybody read this far? :)

It seems you are more interested in scoring a few political points against the gay marriage movement. Essentially you are moralizing, you don't have a plan or suggestion on what to do next. "

It is patently false that "white people have consistently demonized communities of color for their role in passing Prop 8."

This is a wild overstatement and one that is aimed to divide and confuse, not educate and mobilize.