Monthly Newsletter of the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club
August 2007

Table of Contents

• Dates With Alice


• Co-Chairs' Report: "A New Beginning for ENDA"


• Reese's World: Perspectives from the Editor: "Three Weddings"


• Tobacco Money in California Politics: What about the LGBT Community?


• Alice Membership Form

Dates With Alice

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August Co-Chairs' Report
A New Beginning for ENDA

Is it possible to be optimistic and at the same time cynical? I’m always hopeful that government will do the right thing by its people, but I am the first to look at discrimination and say, “Typical.” I was filled with a sense of competing emotions when I heard Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that the House of Representatives would shortly take up a vote on the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (“ENDA”): “We may just win this one!” and “Some things just never change.”

The upcoming ENDA vote is not the bill’s first time down the congressional aisle. In 1974, Congress considered a bill on the subject of prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, which never reached a floor vote. Then, in 1994, Representative Gerry Studds introduced the bill, which was at that time first entitled ENDA. But the 1994 bill had limited protections and was viewed as only supported by the very liberal wing of the Democratic Party. In 1996, Senator Ted Kennedy forced the U.S. Senate, as part of its vote on the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), to also vote on ENDA. DOMA was passed and went on to be ratified by the House and signed into law by President Clinton. As for ENDA, it failed by one – in a 50/49 vote.

Eleven years later, a new version of the federal law that would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation has resurfaced. But the version of the bill introduced in April, 2007 differs from its 1996 predecessor. Some of the differences are good and others just inexplicably bad. The bill continues to incorporate protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees similar to the protections from discrimination afforded to Americans based on gender, race and color, etc., under Title VII. However, ENDA specifically exempts religious organizations from its prohibitions against discrimination. This seems ridiculous because, as any reformed Baptist can tell you (count me amongst them—I’m a Methodist now), religious organizations are some of the key villains whose conducts needs regulating.

ENDA v.2007 also does not prohibit employers from imposing specific provisions about dress codes. This seems insane given the fact that the current version of ENDA protects against discrimination based on gender identity. What’s the message here? By all means, don’t discriminate against persons who may appear to be of one sex but identify as another, but feel free to make rules to regulate how they may dress to express the person they are beneath the surface.

ENDA is not perfect, but it’s better than what we’ve got now – which is no protection on the federal level at all. It comes at a time when thirteen states have policies prohibiting discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Fifteen other states have laws that have been interpreted as protecting transgender persons, even though there is no express language prohibiting such discrimination. I’m elated that we have come this far, and we are about to take this incremental step.

ENDA, however, also comes at a time when it is predicted to pass both House and Senate, but it will land on the desk of W to sign into law. Who can predict what W will do? Even if we did venture a guess, it doesn’t look good. At a time when he scoffs at growing public opinion against the war in Iraq and thumbs his nose at the judicial process that convicted “Scooter” Libby, it is not likely that he will have much concern for a segment of the population in which he has never shown the slightest bit of interest (not even the Log Cabin Republicans).

Despite my conflicted feelings about ENDA and its provisions, and its chances for final passage into law, I guess I remain an optimistic cynic.

Rebecca Prozan and Julius Turman
Alice B. Toklas Co-Chairs

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Reese's World: Perspectives from the Editor
Three Weddings
by Reese Aaron Isbell, M.P.P.

October 1999:
Upon moving to San Francisco in the summer of 1999 and finding my place here in the City that I love, I fell into the midst of the beginnings of the fight against Proposition 22 on the upcoming March 2000 ballot. California was going through the motions, like many a state around the country, of recognizing that Gay people were for real and so these states' tyrannical, puritanical, and fanatical majority populations were going to move hell, high water, and constitutional liberty to stop us Gays from living our lives.

Then, in the middle of my move to California, and this inaugural battle over marriage equality, my sister was preparing to get married to her fiance that fall. In Las Vegas. At the Excalibur Hotel and Casino. In full costume as a 'Maid Marion.' While her fiance was in full costume as a knight of some sort. And they were married by a man dressed as a wizard with some sort of purple colored cone on his head with lightning bolts along the cone and throughout his long purple gown.

As I watched my family enjoy this marital spectacle, for the quick 20 minutes that the hotel gave us before the next couple were ushered into the 'chapel,' the fight over Prop. 22 and the nation’s DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) were well within my thoughts. And I could not help but ponder the logic of denying this family member the right to marry his own choice of a partner-in-life.


February 2007:
I flew home to witness my brother's wedding in our family church this past February. It was technically not the formal wedding, but an impromptu version for the Kansas City folks in the family. You see, my brother was marrying a Guatemalan woman after the two of them had met while living in Los Angeles. She and he had officially married in late 2006 in Los Angeles to begin the 'paperwork' in order for her to become a U.S. citizen through the marriage. And apparently there is a ton of paperwork to do in order to make her citizenship permanent. It takes quite a while, but it happens all the time with heterosexual relationships and it's legal.

My brother and my now sister-in-law are very much in love and have now had three weddings to showcase this fact. One: in late 2006 to begin the paperwork; two: in Kansas City for all my relatives to witness and hold a reception for his side of the family; and then three: in Guatemala in May for her side of the family and to have it officially done in full regalia.

I was there for the second one in Kansas City and I could see the power and strength of love through marital ceremony. I have never seen my brother so happy. And his wife is so excited as well. And I was overjoyed for them both.


April 2007:
I flew again in April, this time across the country, back to my old life in Washington, DC, where I lived before I moved to San Francisco in 1999. One of my best friends was getting married, again, for his family’s participation, to his husband. Of course, it wasn't an officially, legally sanctioned event. They had done that in Canada once before, even though it’s not binding here in the U.S. And of course, being that the ceremony was in that great state of lovers, Virginia, there would be no legal paperwork attached to this event.

But the love was no less real here. In fact, it almost felt stronger in some ways. The fact that these two men had found each other in this hardened world of heterosexual-oppression, and that their families were there to witness and participate in their ceremony, showed that the love was stronger than the supposed rules of society.

My friend's mother stood up and spoke before them as they held hands and warmly smiled. She said how proud and happy she was for her son to have found his mate, and to have brought such a wonderful new son into her life. His grandmother spoke of how she remembered bathing him as an infant and now she is witnessing him marry.

The wonderfully ironic thing for me at this wedding ceremony was that, other than the two grooms, I was the only LGBT person at the event. Everyone witnessing and participating were straight members of their families and friends, in the southern state of Virginia. And everyone loved and respected and joined in the grooms' happiness and love.


These three weddings in which I had the honor and pleasure of being a participant illustrate quite clearly that our fight for marriage equality is fundamental to our everyday lives, and that we are moving closer and closer to the day when our ceremonies will have official marriage certificates attached to them too. Because those same majorities of straight people are starting to realize that the love between two people, regardless of gender, is just as strong and meaningful. And this is because we LGBT people have shown them that we’re every bit as human as they are, by simply being open with our lives and living our lives in full.

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Tobacco Money in California Politics:
What about the LGBT Community?

Bob Gordon from the California LGBT Tobacco Education Partnership thanks Mark Leno for taking a stand against the tobacco industry

Only one of six LGBT officials accepted money vs. more than half of all state elected officials. CLASH praise for 5 members of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus who have steadfastly refused tobacco industry contributions

Only one of six LGBT officials accepted money vs. more than half of all state elected officials. CLASH praise for 5 members of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus who have steadfastly refused tobacco industry contributions

With the release of a new American Lung Association report "Tobacco Money in California Politics" (full report: www.californialung.org/thecenter), the Coalition of Lavender Americans on Smoking & Health (CLASH) today offered praise for 5 members of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus who have steadfastly refused tobacco industry contributions.

"A strong majority of our elected officials are taking a firm leadership stand, united with us against this industry that continues to addict and kill so many of our friends and family, said CLASH President Steven Rickards. "We salute Assemblyman Mark Leno, Senator Sheila Kuehl, Assemblyman John Laird, Senator Christine Kehoe and former Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, all of whom refused money from the tobacco industry. We are also pleased that although Senator Carole Migden has taken tobacco industry money quite consistently in the past, she has very recently joined the others by signing a pledge not to do so in the future."

The California LGBT Tobacco Education Partnership (LGBT Partnership), a state-funded non-profit based in San Francisco (www.lgbtpartnership.org), is working to educate LGBT elected officials about high smoking rates. For example, in California, lesbians smoke at a rate triple that of all women; queer 18-24-year-olds smoke at a rate twice that of their non-gay contemporaries. The LGBT Partnership reports that nearly all members of the LGBT Caucus have signed pledges not to accept tobacco industry donations. Bob Gordon, LGBT Partnership Project Director, said "Soon we will be approaching local LGBT officials across the state—mayors, supervisors, school board members—to ask them to sign the pledge as well. According to the CDC, tobacco causes more deaths in the US than HIV, illegal drugs, alcohol, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined."

Gordon noted "The LGBT community supports these measures to distance itself from the tobacco industry. In 2005, our organization polled nearly 1,000 attendees at Pride events across the state, and we were pleased to learn that 85% of those surveyed thought that elected officials should sign a no-tobacco-donation pledge"

CLASH member Naphtali Offen said, "When queer leaders acknowledge that tobacco donations are blood money, they make it harder for the industry to operate, in part, by refusing to be bought. Our elected officials also serve as role models, especially for impressionable gay youth, helping to shatter the myth that smoking is an essential part of gay identity.

The LGBT Partnership continues to run a media campaign asking the question: "When did smoking become part of us?" For LGBT individuals in San Francisco interested in quitting smoking, free classes are available. Go to www.lastdrag.org or call 415-339-STOP.

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Alice Membership Form

Alice B Toklas LGBT Democratic Club
1800 Market Street PMB#18
San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel: 415-707-2010
www.alicebtoklas.org
Alice Reports Editor: Reese Aaron Isbell, M.P.P.

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