Posted 10 months, 3 weeks ago at 8:52 am. 0 comments
With Moscow’s homophobic mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, standing by in a beret, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov unveiled a statue of gay US poet Walt Whitman at Moscow State University today. The homosexual content of Whitman’s life and work was confined to the closet for the occcasion.
Luzhkov is notorious for his verbal attacks and actions against gays and lesbians during his tenure as mayor of Moscow. He’s used his authority to ban gay pride parades and events. In 2007 he made the news worldwide with his statement, “Last year, Moscow came under unprecedented pressure to sanction the gay parade, which cannot be called anything other than satanic. [...] We did not let the parade take place then, and we are not going to allow it in the future.” He blames Western advocacy groups for promoting homosexuality in Mother Russia: “We think that destructive sects and propaganda of same-sex love are inadmissible.”
With his presence at today’s unveiling, Luzhkov has unwittingly made a major contribution to those “propaganda” efforts.
Walt Whitman is regarded as one of the greatest poets, and a particularly American one. Some of his work is overtly homoerotic. When Whitman published the first edition of his book of poems, Leaves of Grass, it was widely condemned as obscene. Secretary of the Interior James Harlan, calling the collection “very offensive,” had Whitman terminated from his government job. The Boston D.A. issued his opinion that the work was “obscene litertature,” and a number of bookstores refused to carry it. Early critic Rufus Griswold used a Latin phrase to accuse Whitman of being homosexual.
Since the second half of the nineteenth century, gay men around the world have found special inspiration in Whitman’s work. Many identify strongly with the passions Whitman expressed about his admiration of the male form and personality. They also could relate to the feelings of alienation from society he sometimes expressed.
In 1884 Whitman met 12-year-old Bill Duckett, and they lived together from 1885-1886.
Whitman long claimed to have a black female paramour in New Orleans, and six illegitimate children. This story about the mistress in New Orleans has led historians on many a wild goose chase. Whitman’s Louisiana lover was in fact a man named Jean Granouille, the son of a Huguenot preacher and a slave, 26 years old when he met Whitman.
When he died, the author of Leaves of Grass left his prized silver watch “with my love” to his former lover, trolley-car conductor Peter Doyle. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said, “We were familiar at once—I put my hand on his knee—we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip—in fact he went all the way back with me.
At today’s unveiling, no mention was made of the fact that Whitman is a gay icon.
Openly gay newsman Charles Perez, 46, was pursuing a successful career until recently, working at some of the biggest TV news outlets in the US, including WABC in New York and KCAL in Los Angeles. Some people remember Perez from MTV’s 1992 The Real World, where he was seen as one of painter Norman Korpi’s boyfriends. From 1994-1996 he hosted the nationally syndicated Charles Perez Show. More recently he worked for WPLG, the ABC affiliate in Miami, rising to the position of weekday anchor. Things started to go wrong for him as attention was focused on his personal life.
Perez acknowledges that station management hired him knowing he was gay, but says they expected him to keep a low profile. His coplaint refers to a prior female anchor, Ann Bishop, who was “believed to be gay, though that was never confirmed.” Perez claims he was invited to station events without his partner, as management was concerned they might be seen dancing together. He says they discouraged him from thinking about getting married and having children due to the publicity it would attract.
In July, station management removed Perez from the weekday anchor slot, leaving co-anchor Laurie Jennings on her own at the desk. Perez filed a complaint alleging discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Although Florida state law provides no such protection, Miami-Dade county has an ordinance forbidding it. Four days later WPLG fired him.
Earlier this year, Perez had filed for a restraining order against paralegal Dennis Ricardo Peña, claiming Peña “stalked, harassed and threatened” him, and vowed to wreck his TV career. Perez also accused Peña of mass e-mailing a personal message from Perez to a family therapist, the contents of which, according to Perez, referred to “gender identity issues” that could cause ‘’substantial harm” to his “professional and personal reputation.” Peña and Perez had been lovers since 2006. After they broke up, Perez started dating accountant Keith Rinehard.
Meanwhile, things were getting rocky for Perez at WPLG. He claims he was called in to a meeting with News Director Bill Pohovey (also gay) and told he was “too anchor-like,” “too strong” and needed to lighten up, smile more, and interact with his co-anchor. When the “sexual identity” email dropped, Perez was called in again. On March 16, according to Perez, Pohovey told him he was “too soft,” “not anchor-like” and that he and Jennings were coming across like “two girlfriends” instead of professional co-anchors. Perez was demoted to weekend anchor, and filed his discrimination complaint. Four days later, WPLG took him off the air.
In a blog at The Daily Beast, Perez tells his side of the story. WPLG has issued the standard rebuttals.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 9:07 am. 0 comments
25-year veteran US Army Special Forces commander Diane Schroer will receive a nearly-$500,000 payment after being refused employment at the US Library of Congress. The Obama administration decided not to appeal the findings of a federal judge who awarded back pay and damages.
Col. David Schroer directed a 120-person classified group that tracked and targeted terrorists before retiring in 2004 at age 47. Retirement gave him the opportunity to research gender issues. “I knew I was different before I was old enough to remember things,” said Diane of her childhood in Chicago. “My earliest memories are of just feeling I should be a girl and wondering why I wasn’t.”
He began the transition from man to woman, and sought employment in the private sector. Schroer interviewed for a job as a terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress. After receiving an offer and negotiating a salary, Schroer accepted the position. At the time Schroer was still presenting herself in public as a man, but on her doctor’s advice she was about to begin the initial stages of sex-reassignment, including presenting herself publicly as a woman.
Realizing that her future supervisor would have assumed she was a man, Schroer informed her about her process of gender transition. The next day, the job offer was rescinded on the grounds that Schroer was not a “good fit.” Stunned, Schroer at first thought about just walking away. “But then I felt really hurt and insulted. After 25 years of work in places that would make a Red Cross refugee camp look like Club Med, I was being told that I was no longer good enough to work for the federal government.”
The ACLU took on Schroer’s case and won a ruling in US District Court of DC “because discrimination against a transsexual may nevertheless violate Title VII’s proscription of discrimination”
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 8:55 am. 0 comments
It only took 52 years, but on Monday John Berry of the US Office of Personnel Management issued an official letter of apology to Frank Kameny. In 1957 Kameny was working as an astronomer in the Army Map service in Washington, DC, when he was fired for being gay. He received notice from the Civil Service Commission that the Government “does not hire homosexuals and will not permit their employment.” It was further noted that “the homosexual is automatically a security risk” and“frequently becomes a disruptive personnel factor within any organization.”
Kameny vigorously fought his termination, petitioning the Supreme Court with the first claim for civil rights on the basis of sexual orientation. The Court denied his petition. Shut out by the system, Kameny went on to become one of the leading activists for gay rights in the US, co-founding (with Jack Nichols) the Mattachine Society of Washington in 1957. In 1965 they launched the first public protests for gay rights, marching in front of the White House. Their picket signs are now preserved by the Smithsonian Institution. Kameny’s home in D.C., where much of the organizing occurred, is now an Historic Landmark.
Along with the Office of Personnel Management’s apology, on Monday Berry presented Kameny with its highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Award.
Here’s the full text of the letter.
Dear Dr. Kameny:
In what we know today was a shameful action, the United States Civil Service Commission in 1957 upheld your dismissal from your job solely on the basis of your sexual orientation. In one letter to you, an agency official wrote that the Government “does not hire homosexuals and will not permit their employment…” He went on to say that “the homosexual is automatically a security risk” and that he “frequently becomes a disruptive personnel factor within any organization.”
With the fervent passion of a true patriot, you did not resign yourself to your fate or quietly endure this wrong. With courage and strength, you fought back. And so today, I am writing to advise you that this policy, which was at odds with the bedrock principles underlying the merit-based civil service, has been repudiated by the United States Government, due in large part to your determination and life’s work, and to the thousands of Americans whose advocacy your words have inspired.
Thus, the civil service laws, rules and regulations now provide that it is illegal to discriminate against federal employees or applicants based on matters not related to their ability to perform their jobs, including their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I am happy to inform you that the Memorandum signed by President Obama on June 17, 2009 directs the Office of Personnel Management—the successor to the CSC–to issue guidance to all executive departments and agencies regarding their obligations to comply with these laws, rules, and regulations.
And by virtue of the authority vested in me as Director of the Office Of Personnel Management, it is my duty and great pleasure to inform you that I am adding my support, along with that of many other past Directors, for the repudiation of the reasoning of the 1957 finding by the United States Civil Service Commission to dismiss you from your job solely on the basis of your sexual orientation. Please accept our apology for the consequences of the previous policy of the United States government, and please accept the gratitude and appreciation of the United States Office of Personnel Management for the work you have done to fight discrimination and protect the merit-based civil service system.
Sincerely yours,
John Berry, Director
Frank Kameny and Protest Signs
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