awakenings

From Joe My God

Go to Join The Impact for information about the protests near you. Protest times are staggered by time zone, making this the very first time in the history of our nation that LGBT people will be standing up for ourselves in every major city in every state at the SAME TIME.

Prop. 102 Candlelight Vigil
Date: Monday, November 10, 2008
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: Camelback Rd. and Central Ave., Phoenix, AZ
Assemble on the Southwest Corner of Camelback & Central.

Meg Sneed and Luis Garcia [Echo Magazine] state:
“The community needs an outlet, somewhere to come together and feel as though they are being heard. A venue where the tears can flow, for the ground we lost on Tuesday. But after those tears it will be a place that will be filled with hope, a place that will allow us to come together and speak of where we will go from here. The upcoming road may be harder, longer, and steeper, but we shall overcome. I feel at least we need to have a community gathering to recognize the people and families that our state constitution now does not, along with infusing some hope about the future into the mix. Something to make the community feel embraced and heard, to give them hope and the strength to continue the battle for equality.”

I promise you not a moment will be lost as long as I have heart & voice to speak & we will walk again together with a thousand others & a thousand more & on & on until there is no one among us who does not know the truth: there is no future without love.
~storypeople

This week we simultaneously celebrate victory and mourn defeat. Around the country queer and queer-allied communities cheered as votes were tallied and the US elected a man who once gave this quote:

“Too often, the issue of GLBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. I look forward to working with HRC to end discrimination against GLBT Americans and to ensure that all of our citizens are treated with dignity and respect.”

But while we were lifted by our inclusion in Obama’s acceptance speech and by the potential for change created by a LGBTQ friendly White House, here in Arizona (and in California, Arkansas and Florida) we watched as propositions that sought to limit or remove our rights, status, and equality were ahead from the beginning and remained that way through the night.

How do you process so much joy and so much disappointment at the same time?

I can tell you how I’m going to do it. I’m working today, working hard, on transforming all those emotions – conflicting, heightened, and very real – into hope. A powerful, mind-blowing, consciousness-changing kind of HOPE. We’ve got to move now, before apathy and defeat set into the community. Now, while people are still buoyed by the tides of change that are set to sweep this country. Now, while the emotions are still fresh in our hearts.

Harvey Milk said:

“…know that there’s hope for a better world, there’s hope for a better tomorrow. Without hope not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s…without hope the us’s give up. I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living….you, and you, and you; you’ve gotta give them hope.”

For the past few days I have talked and listened and read and watched as the LGBTQ community across the country express – sometimes utterly unexpected – feelings of sorrow and grief and rage and betrayal at the losses we experienced on Tuesday. There is no doubt; we are feeling this at our very core. There were four states where our equality was on the line, and we lost in every single one. There is no way to avoid the repercussions of those losses. I know that personally I feel very different now than I did prior to election day, the knowledge that the majority of the citizens of this state consider me less than, not worthy of equal rights is a bitter pill to swallow. But it’s dangerous to wallow in those feelings, because they can so quickly turn to hopelessness – and that is the one thing we cannot afford.

Civil rights battles are not won quickly, or easily – they are won over time and with great effort and sacrifice. They are won with a million tiny, infinitesimal shifts far more often than they are won with great seismic changes. The ultimate success of this movement does not hinge on one election, or one act of discrimination, or a single protest. Just as the battle for racial equality did not begin or end with Rosa Parks, the Gay Rights movement that began with Stonewall does not end with Tuesday’s election results. We don’t slink off in defeat now, with our tails between our legs, letting the Christian-right dance with glee on the 18,000+ marriage certificates of same-sex couples in California.

Not a chance.

As Matt Coles, ACLU Director of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project says:

If you run up an unbroken string of victories in any battle for civil rights, that simply means you waited too long to get to work. Change that matters is never smooth or easy.

The writing IS on the wall. This IS going to happen. Our community IS going to succeed. But it’s not going to happen overnight, and it’s not going to happen if we don’t lay ourselves on the line and work with everything we have to achieve it. True, we don’t have a Harvey Milk figurehead to rally around, there’s no one person to pin our dreams to – the way the nation did with Obama during this campaign. But this only means we have to take it that much further. We have to rally around each other, we have to create that movement, that wave, that sea change that we so desperately need.

As President Elect Obama himself said – in his masterful speech on race last March:

“What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part–through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk–to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.”

Make no mistake, the gap that Obama spoke of – between the promise of our ideals and the reality of our time – widened this week. There is not point in glossing over the truth – we took a huge step backward in the path to equality, and our hearts and spirits took a beating along the way. But because we were pushed backwards, it is more important than ever to be sure that we are not knocked off the track, that we keep pushing forward, that queer and queer-allied people across the nation stand up, dust off, link arms and keep on walking, and writing, and talking and demanding change.

As Milk famously said “Hope is Never Silent”.

So let’s get loud folks. Let’s get real hopeful and real loud. Everything depends on it.

I’m not going to add anything – just a link. Please. Please. Please Read.

NoFo – Proposition Hate

Prop 102 would amend the Arizona Constitution to say "only a union between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state". This issue is on the ballot for November 4th, even though Arizona residents voted on, and rejected, this issue just two short years ago.

This time around, the “Yes On 102” campaign has a huge budget to spread their message. Their billboards, signs, and radio/television ads are everywhere right now. It’s easy to let that make us feel invisible, marginalized, hopeless….but now, more than ever; we cannot afford to let that happen.

Consider this a call to action! We want to counter those images and messages of divisiveness, exclusion and prejudice with images of inclusion, equality and acceptance.

If you live in Arizona take a picture of you in front of your “No on 102’ lawn sign, print a sign for your car window and take a picture of that, or stand in front of one of the “Yes” signs holding your own handmade sign that shows your support of equality and your desire to defeat this proposition. Kiss, hug, hold hands, flash a big peace sign…whatever you’re inspired to do.*

If you live elsewhere in the country, but want to show your support, make a sign of your own celebrating acceptance, equality, love.  Involve your children, neighbors – heck, get your pets in the mix too – just make sure to write “No On 102” somewhere on the sign!

Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

To that we add, never underestimate the power of a simple photograph. Our pictures, taken from the heart, often speak louder than our voices ever could. Collectively we believe these images will carry our message of equality forward and outward – spreading a wave of positive energy that will help us defeat this proposition once and for all.

*Just keep it legal folks – nothing obscene or vulgar, and definitely nothing against the law – no graffiti or defacement, keep it positive!

Please blog about us, link to us, send our information to your friends and family.  Consider making a sign or taking a pic and uploading it to our flickr group or email it to noon102@gmail.com.  Add us as your friend on Myspace (and make us your top friend until the election) or join our group on facebook. Check out our ‘Get Involved’ page for more ways to help, and make a donation to help us fight against this proposition.  Every little bit helps.

Our Blog

Our Myspace

Our Facebook

Our Flickr

Can we adopt this commercial in Arizona to counter the “Yes on 102′ folks? Brilliant.

I gotta talk to you for a minute about Andrea Gibson. I’ve got talk about her, because I don’t know if I have ever, ever been so moved by the work of a single individual.

Andrea Gibson is a master of spoken word, an award winning slam poet.

“Gibson is also among the nation’s most admired and emulated poets. Her verse is at once personal and political, concrete and abstract, feminist and universal, filled with incinerating verbs and metaphor and delivered with gut-punching urgency. You can hear the ache in her soul every time she utters God’s name, and even her inhales sound desperate. It’s not uncommon for audiences to gasp at some of her turns of phrase or rise to their feet when she finishes a poem.” MATT PEIKEN

She is a woman of uncommon passion, her performances lit by an internal fire that powers her through her poems with the force of a freight train, slicing through lines with the sharpness and precision of sword. She spits her words out like bullets – hitting me right in the gut, and in the next second changes course and breaths out her message with a gentle caress that makes her words drift to my ears like leaves falling softly to the ground. Every word carefully chosen, unflinchingly delivered, cutting through bullshit and convention with the energy of someone determined to create change but also with the tenderness of someone whose heart is so big she has to hurt more than most of us. She performs with ferocity and with compassion and with so much feeling that I am left raw and exposed by the power of her honesty.

I want you to watch these videos. I want you to close your eyes and absorb her words, her passion, her activism, her fire. I want you to feel her work with every fiber of your being. I want your toes to tingle and your heart to pound and for you to feel changed by what you hear. I don’t know exactly why I’m telling you this, why I think you need instructions or set expectations. I can’t quite imagine that you could listen to these words and not do all these things. I don’t know that it is possible to be fully present and aware and NOT be wholly moved by the spirit and soul of what this woman creates in the performance of her art.

Blue Blanket
I am moved by every single piece I have heard her read, but this one – this one more than any other – brings me to my knees. It slams into me and makes my breath feel tight in my lungs and my heart thud in my chest. If you have ever been violated, if you have ever sat and held a woman who has been violated while she cried or sat in horrified numbness, then you will feel this poem with every last cell in your body and the final line will remain a part of you long after you have finished listening.

I do.
Love poem and political statement all at once, this is just one the millions of reasons why it matters that love just be love, without restrictions, or inequality or limits on who and how and why.

“i never needed more
than the stars on your grin to lead me home
for fifty years you were my favorite poem
and i’d read you every night
knowing i might never understand every word
but that was okay cause the lines of you
were the closest thing to holy i’d ever heard
you’d say this kind of love has to be a verb”

Dive
Life dosesn’t rhyme. Paradox, irony, mirrored reflections – it’s all the beautiful grey between stark black and white, it’s the ambiguous spaces between absolutes where the brilliance of life resides.

“”it’s your worst sin saving your fucking life
it’s the devil’s knife carving holes into you soul
so angels will have a place to make their way inside
life doesn’t rhyme
still life is poetry — not math
all the world’s a stage
but the stage is a meditation mat
you tilt your head back
you breathe
when your heart is broken you plant seeds in the cracks
and you pray for rain
and you teach your sons and daughters
there are sharks in the water
but the only way to survive
is to breathe deep
and dive”

Say Yes
The world needs us right now more than it ever has before…this poem is hope – empowering, uplifting hope. This poem is the life I want to live.

For Eli
This is how I feel about war – not just the one we’re in now – but every last one of them.

““one third of the homeless men in this country are veterans
and we have the nerve to Support Our Troops
with pretty yellow ribbons
while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands
tell me what land of the free
sets free its eighteen-year-old kids into greedy war zones
hones them like missiles
then returns their bones in the middle of the night
so no one can see”

Check out this link for a few more artists

Once again, thanks to the divine MLC for pointing me directly to brilliance and inspiration.

No words needed, these videos speak for themselves.

..

Like so many others, I was so deeply disappointed last week to learn that the Matthew Shepard Act had been dropped from the final version of the Defense Authorization Bill. 

I clearly remember learning about the brutal hate crime that resulted in Matthew’s death.  I was a year out of college, planning my wedding, and was feeling as if I had the world at my feet.  I was still deeply in denial about my own sexuality, but can recall following the news reports with a sense of horror and grief.  Reading the details of what this kind-eyed boy, just a year younger than me, had gone through…it was, and is, beyond my ability to comprehend.

If it had passed, “The Matthew Shepard Act would have expand the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.”*   Seems pretty straightforward right?

It has been nine years since Matthew’s death.  Nine years, and despite the efforts of Matthew’s family and other committed activists, we still do not have federal protection for crimes perpetrated against individuals or groups based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.  Why?

There are many reasons, some of which I can even wrap my brain around politically, that the Act was dropped from the defense bill.  But even if we can accept the reasons, it does not minimize the fact that this represents a loss (or at the very least a failure to achieve necessary and long deserved progress) for the entire LGBTQ community.

The news that this act was dropped from the bill, especially coming so close on the heels of the dropping of transgender protection from ENDA, is hard to accept.  So many people fought so hard for both of those pieces of legislation.  So many people needed the protection they would have and should have provided.  So many people are left vulnerable and legally and politically defenseless by the failure of our political system to move themselves beyond a process so entrenched in personal prejudice and theocratic ideology.

Locally, there have been some small, but not insignificant, steps forward lately.  It is hard to wholeheartedly celebrate these victories when they are followed closely in the news by the story of the third anti-gay attack this year in the city of Scottsdale, but celebrate we must.  We have to celebrate, to push forward, to sing the victories from our rooftops and to fight loudly and determinedly against the setbacks.

When we talk about activism, about working to create real and necessary change, it is easy to get fired up and energized by the cause.  It is also all too easy to get beaten down and to feel as if all the efforts are pointless and that real progress will always continue to elude us.   By their very nature, activism and burnout go hand in hand, but when a fight is worth fighting there will always be people to dust off the disappointment, pick up the pieces and keep moving forward. 

I cannot imagine how Matthew’s parents must have felt upon hearing the news that the legislation they had worked so long and hard for – the act that bore their son’s name – had been dropped from the bill.  But still, they refuse to give up.

“Make no mistake; this is a small triumph of process over principle.  We are dedicated to redoubling our efforts next year to achieve our vision of a hate-free America that truly includes everyone.  This has never simply been about Matthew Shepard and our family, this legislation is a gift delayed but never forgotten for all America’s families.” ~ Judy and Dennis Shepard.

Their efforts exemplify the belief that the only way to counter hatred, prejudice and ignorance is with passion and determination and by holding onto the belief that it is possible to create change. With their work, Judy and Denis Shepard are saying that the legacy of hatred must never be resignation, or disillusionment or cynicism.

Indeed, if there is to be hope of creating real change, the legacy of hatred must always be love.

* HR 1592, the House bill