Passing the Mic to Shea Diamond, Speaking For "Americans For the Equality Act"

Sometimes, the best thing you can do as an ally is to give your microphone to those who aren't being heard enough.

Listen to Shea Diamond, singer/songwriter and Trans activist, speak up about the Americans for Equality Act:




You can find out more about the Americans for Equality Act here.

And while we're listening, here's one of Shea's songs that's been called an anthem for the Trans community, I am Her:





The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,

Lee

Javier speaks to the fear of Undocumented LGBTQ Immigrants

Wow - this under four-minute video from HRC is so powerful.



Very proud of Javier for speaking up, and sharing his and his families story.

"...there are a lot of people, like myself, who are now legal, and who are conscious of the fact that our undocumented brothers and sisters are still suffering and are willing to stand up for them... I think more valuable that anything, is just letting people know that you care about them.

And that you're willing to use the privilege that you have as an American citizen to fight for them."

So well said!

Stand with me, and Javier, and let's fight for undocumented people's rights together.

As the video says,

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

So powerful. So important. 49 dead is not just a number, or a horrible statistic. These were people, with lives, and loves...

Watch this. It's so important.



Find out more here.

And like the celebrities say in the video, "Let's show the world that love conquers hate."

Inspiration - Remember That Red and Pink Equality Logo Showing Support For Gay Marriage Being ALL Over Facebook Last Year?

I liked this piece at advocate.com by Anastasia Khoo on how she came up with what Facebook has called "the most successful viral campaign in the history of the social media platform."

And I love the story of how it brought one family back together.

Anastasia Khoo is the marketing director for the LGBTQ-equality organization, the Human Rights Campaign

It's inspiring for each of us to think: What can I do to make our world a better place?

Namaste,
Lee


ps - Thanks to my husband for the heads-up on this story!

Smoking Gun... NOM (National Organization for Marriage) Documents Expose their Anti-LGBTQ Movement Strategy

Wow.  These documents are remarkable.

As reported by Kevin Nix at the Human Rights Campaign site, on Monday of this week HRC got a hold of these unsealed documents from an ongoing investigation by the State of Maine into NOM's campaign finance activities.

With each page marked "CONFIDENTIAL," there were three strategies highlighted in the reporting so far, to drive a wedge between Gays and Blacks, a similar wedge between Gays and Latinos, and to side-swipe Obama as a "social radical."

Here are some details and some screen shots of the pdfs of the documents:

1,
The "Not A Civil Right" Project, with a million dollar budget in 2010:

"We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African-American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right.  No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party."

and

2,
The Latino Project, also with a budget of a million dollars:

"We can interrupt this process of [Latino] assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity."

and 3,
the section titled "Sideswiping Obama"

"Expose Obama as a social radial. Develop side issues to weaken pro-gay marriage political leaders and parties and develop an activist base of socially conservative voters. Raise such issues as pornography, protection of children, and the need to oppose all efforts to weaken religious liberty at the federal level. This is the mission of the American Principles Project."

"...the APP project wil develop young Hispanic spokesmen for traditional values."

And that project, too, had a $1,000,000 budget.


4,

There was also a section that was cut off in the documents, but that started as

5. Raising the Negatives on Homosexuality / Interrupting the Race Analogy

Ultimately we aim to raise the costs of identifying with gay marriage, and also raise the attractiveness of identifying with traditional marriage. But we also need to accomplish a sophisticated cultural objective: interrupt the attempt to equate gay with black, and sexual -"

That's where it cut off.

Page by page, these documents are stunning to read - it's a playbook for the opposition to not just prevent and roll back any existing Gay marriage, but to oppose and set back GLBTQ equality across all realms. The similarity to issues on the current GOP campaign trail (like Santorum's recent attack on pornography) are beyond just telling... these documents are the smoking gun.

These NOM documents are hard to read, but it's important to know the strategy being used against us.

Namaste,
Lee


The above quotes and screen captures were from:

1 NOM Deposition Exhibit 12: "National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle,"dated December 15, 2009 pdf. pg 25-26

2  NOM Deposition Exhibit 12: "National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle,"dated December 15, 2009 pdf. pg. 23-24

3   NOM Deposition Exhibit 28: "Marriage: $20 Million Strategy for Victory", pdf pg. 11

4    NOM Deposition Exhibit 28: "Marriage: $20 Million Strategy for Victory", pdf pg. 12

Money Talks... Spend it Wisely. Or, put another way, Let's Reward Gay-Friendly Companies!

The Human Rights Campaign has put out their annual BUYING FOR EQUALITY 2010 guide.

It's like a report card for companies, letting us consumers know who's a "friend" to the Gay (GLBTQ) community, and who is not.

Businesses are rated on a scale from 0 to
100, based on whether or not they have
policies that support LGBT people. These
include anti-discrimination protections,
domestic partner benefits, diversity train-
ing, transgender-inclusive benefits and
external practices.

It's a guide to let us know which companies we want to encourage to continue to stand by us, and which don't really deserve our money.

Like when you get gas for your car, it's good to know that BP (Arco, Castrol), Chevron (Caltex, Texaco) and Shell Oil all scored 100%.

And that Exxon Mobil scored 0. Yup, Zero. Why would you fill up there? Why would you let your family members or friends fill up there?

Costco scored 100%.

Walmart 40%. Where are you going to get that stuff for the party?

Mattel 95%.

Hasbro 50%. (Hey! Barbie turns out to be more politically correct than G.I. Joe!)

This is not about boycotting companies - it's about supporting companies that are Gay-friendly.

And when the Gay-friendly companies start to do better than their Gay-unfriendly competitors because so many of us are choosing to spend our money with the Gay-friendly companies, the tide toward justice will become seismic. Because then, in addition to the issue of fairness for Gays (which doesn't hold that much sway in many low scoring bottom-line obsessed boardrooms) there will be a financial incentive for companies to do the right thing by the Gay community. And that's a goal to work towards!

So get the guide. And spend your money wisely.

It's a way each of us can make a difference!

Namaste,
Lee