James Crump came to Alaska to find himself, and stayed in Alaska to share himself with us. His death on June 25 at Anchorage’s Pride parade was a blow not only to his family & friends, but also to our whole community. But just what is our community — and where do we go from here?

A week ago Wednesday, June 29, I went to the Service of Remembrance held for James Crump at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. St. Mary’s has always been one of the really welcoming and inclusive churches in Anchorage. As its senior priest Father Michael Burke put that night, “All are welcome here — and all means ALL” — which seems to be a common saying at St. Mary’s. I’d first heard the phrase at St. Mary’s the previous Sunday (June 26) at the Pride ecumenical service, which, because of James’ death the day before at the start of Anchorage’s Pride parade, was in part a memorial to him. The ecumenical service was led by four local LGBT clergy from four different faith groups. One of them — Susan Halvor, a chaplain at Providence Hospital — led the June 29 Service of Remembrance.

There were a lot of people there: three members of James’ family up from the Lower 48; Elvi Gray-Jackson, who is my representative on the Anchorage Assembly and is one of our strongest allies in local government; James’ boss from the Municipality of Anchorage’s Department of Health & Human Services, where he was a nurse; some of James’ coworkers; fellow students and a faculty member from the University of Alaska Anchorage School of Nursing, where he’d gotten his nursing education; one of his patients, whom he had helped nurse to health; and lots of us from the LGBTQA community — most of whom were James’ friends, but some, like me, who had never known him.

I looked around, and I thought: I am so proud of my community.

It was a feeling like the one I had two years ago, after the introduction in the Anchorage Assembly of proposed ordinance AO-64. Under AO-64, sexual orientation and gender identity would have been added to the list of personal characteristics in Title 5, Anchorage’s equal rights code, that it’s prohibited to use as a basis for discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, and municipal practices.

The summer of 2009 in Anchorage featured a protracted period of public testimony at the Anchorage Assembly, with accompanying sign-waving and letter-writing both by ordinance supporters and those who opposed equal rights — led in particular by antigay pastor Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple (ABT) who as usual made frequent use of hate-terms like perverted to describe LGBT people, and Jim Minnery, whose Alaska Family Council supplied red-shirted ordinance opponents with scores of red and white preprinted signs reading Truth is Not Hate and other begs-the-question slogans.

… (Of course truth is not hate. But the implicit claim: that these sign-wavers had the truth or that they were free of hate: not so self-evident. Three of them surrounded a friend of mine and told her she was going to hell. Is that love?)…

Kids on youth mission from Mississippi Avenue Baptist Church (MABC) of Aurora, Colorado were bused over by Anchorage Baptist Temple to wave signs printed by Alaska Family Council. June 17, 2009.

Lots of the the anti-ordinance sign-wavers weren’t even Anchorage residents, but had been bused and carpooled in from the Mat-Su (yet were permitted by Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander to testify). Some of them weren’t even Alaskans: a group of teenage missionaries from Mississippi Avenue Baptist Church (MABT) of Aurora, Colorado, who were being hosted by ABT, spent several hours of their youth mission on two different days to wave signs on behalf of Prevo et al. urging the denial of equal protection under the law for citizens of a city and state not even their parents had right to vote in. Some of them were young kids, who just like Westboro Baptist Church kids, were used as billboards to carry their elders’ antigay messages.

One of the children bused in to wave signs for ordinance opponents on June 9, 2009. Courtesy Phil Munger of Progressive Alaska.

Hence the name given the summer by one commentator: the Summer of Hate — a name Anchorage’s LGBT community has used about that time ever since.

The ordinance passed the Anchorage Assembly by a vote of 7 to 4 on August 11, 2009, but was vetoed six days later by Mayor Dan Sullivan. It was the third time in Anchorage history that equal protection under the law for at least some LGBTQ people in Anchorage was granted, only to be stripped away again. In fact, it was Mayor Dan’s dad, George Sullivan, who vetoed our first equal rights ordinance way back in 1975 — also backed by Jerry Prevo and his ABT followers.

My nephew Miles and his two friends outside the June 17, 2009 public hearing at Anchorage Assembly

But back to my point: pride in my community. Part of the Summer of Hate took place during Pride week that year. And outside the Loussac Library where the Assembly chambers are housed, the Loussac’s big green lawn facing the major thoroughfare of 36th Avenue had become part of our Pride celebration.

Yes, the redshirts were there — the Christianists with their red and white Truth is Not Hate signs. But so were we, wearing not only blue shirts, but ALL the colors of the rainbow. We were having a big damn happy Pride festival right out there: people with signs most of them handmade, people with rainbow flags, people with hula hoops, my nephew Miles who showed up with a couple of his friends, unasked, just because my fight was also their fight. Gay, straight, trans, nontrans — it wasn’t just us, embattled: it was our nongay friends, too — our families, our allies.

I remember walking across that lawn toward 36th seeing a woman in a long skirt blowing bubbles, adding to the color and joy of the moment even in the face of the Truth is Not hate that was having a barbecue on another part of the lawn. That’s when I felt it: I thought to myself, I’m so proud of my people; and I realized in that moment that who I thought of as my people no longer just consisted of LGBT people, but of my non-LGBT friends and family and allies too. Our friends, our families, our allies. I saw a glimpse, then, of what life is in a place where difference is not just tolerated or accepted, but is celebrated. Every. Damn. Day.

I caught that same glimpse at the Service of Remembrance. I saw my community — LGBT and non-LGBT alike, all means all, gathered together to mourn but also to celebrate the life of a remarkable well-loved man in the presence of his family. And his family — his father, one of his two sisters, one of his three brothers, others of his family who have checked in on the first post we wrote about James’ death: it’s clear how much they all love him, how important it was and is for all of them to know how James was known and loved here, in this, the place he chose —as his sister put it — to share himself with.

I am so proud of these my people, this my community, this my extended family, and how my family and James’ family met and became family to one another.

This is what we have become. What a beautiful what it is.

* * *

Not that it’s all lovely and hula-hooped and bubble-blowing acceptance here. Not that everyone in Anchorage or in Alaska has had something comforting or caring to say to James’ family and friends after his death. A lot of the same Truth is Not Haters who were here in 2009 are still here in 2011, after all. And so, on the first stories published on local media websites after James’ death, some comments went in a mode exactly opposite to the love, care, and compassion that anyone who has lost a son, brother, and friend is in need to hear.

Two of the comments posted June 25 at KTVA Channel 11′s story about James’ death —

Well that is what happen when you are at a dirty little Faggit event

Just another example that gay life style can be deadly

— just two of the ugly slurs and hateful comments compiled by Christopher Constant and brought to the attention of the Anchorage Assembly and Mayor Dan Sullivan when Christopher testified before the Assembly on June 28.

Majik Imaje, site owner of A blog of ICE — a blog normally devoted to Inupiat art — wrote a post titled “ALASKA GAY pride (CANCELED)” comprising mainly a quote of a June 25 Fox News story about James’ death. But Majik Imaje (an invented name made up from the names of his four sons) first prefaced the news story with a cheery graphic reading “Let the PARADE * begin * !” and went on to claim,

PROOF: GOD does indeed work in mysterious ways. Let this be a message to all !!

— the death of a loved son, brother, coworker, caregiver, and friend reduced to an object lesson from a murderous God, by a man who didn’t even know James’ name — only his own unexamined prejudice.

Note, 11 July 2011: I have corrected details about Majik Imaje’s name based on comments made by David Eves, his apparent real name, at both Henkimaa and Bent Alaska. See comments for details.

Comments got so vile at the Anchorage Daily News that ADN shut commenting down on virtually every story about James’ death or the investigation into how it happened. KTVA Channel 11, for its part, ran a story on June 28 called “How Tolerant is Anchorage of Homosexuality?” —

Some of the things that have happened since a Pridefest parade walker was accidentally killed have brought up the question of just how tolerant Anchorage is of homosexuality.

After several media organizations, including KTVA, posted the story over the weekend, many negative comments soon followed, and some of the anonymous postings were just plain hateful.

Some people said the man who was killed deserved to die because they believed he was gay. We spoke with one of the Pridefest organizers who told us she does not think the comments represent how most people in Anchorage feel.

“I have never experienced the kind of hatred you are seeing on the website or in response to the news stories,” says Anne Marie Moylan, co-chair of Identity Inc.

When published on the web, the story soon accrued its own collection of frequently ugly comments, leading one commenter to lament on her Facebook page,

Are we returning to another Summer of Hate in Anchorage, Alaska for who we are as a community?

It’s not exactly what I hoped for on June 25, as I walked down H Street to the Park Strip praying, in part,

I pray that those who hate us open their hearts so far as not to use this death, this loss, as another avenue of hate. I know that’s asking a lot, but I pray for it anyway.

* * *

But wait.

Think about how parts of the larger Anchorage community have stepped up to help James’ friends, family, and community in the wake of his death.

Identity, Inc. Identity is, of course, the organization that organizes our Pride week. In one part its board, staff, and volunteers have been reeling from the impact James’ death has had on them both as an organization and individually as people; but in another part they’ve also worked hard and tirelessly to ensure that everyone who’s been most seriously affected — witnesses of the accident and of James’ death, especially — are being helped and cared for. Thank you, Identity, for all the work you do, and for the hard work you’re doing now, in the face of your own grief. Please let us know how we can help.

University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). Three different UAA entities (the Psychological Services Center, the student health center, & the Dean of Students office) have offered free counseling both short term and long-term for those affected. As a UAA staff member myself, I can’t say how proud I am of how the University has stepped up to help us in our time of need. Thank you, UAA, and all the psychologists who are giving of your time to help us in our grief.

The faith community. Rev. Susan Halvor is acting as the central contact person for people in need of spiritual counseling, working with other local clergy both LGBT and non-LGBT. Thank you, Susan, and all the other clergy who are helping us to grapple with our loss.

Harriet Drummond (in pink) and Elvi Gray-Jackson (black dress and white sweater) shortly before the Pride parade began, June 25, 2011

Our local government. The Anchorage Assembly had its regular meeting on Tuesday night, June 28, just three nights after James’ death, and honored him there in the presence of his family. My Assembly representative Elvi Gray-Jackson and another of our Assembly friends, Harriet Drummond, had been banner-carriers in the Pride parade not far behind where James was walking when he was accidentally killed on June 25 — I’m not sure, but I believe they may have been witnesses. They introduced a resolution to honor and remember James Crump, who of course was an Anchorage municipal employee. According to the paperwork, the resolution was submitted by ALL the Assembly members — including the normally antigay ones — along with Mayor Sullivan, who two years ago vetoed AO-64. Harriet Drummond read the resolution, and it passed unanimously. Thank you, Elvi and Harriet, and all the members of the Assembly, and Mayor Sullivan, for giving honor to the memory of a man who so richly deserved it.

Resolution AR NO. 2011-183 honors James’ work as a nurse working with tuberculosis patients for the Municipality of Anchorage’s Department of Health and Social Services and as a loved member of the Anchorage LGBT community.

James Crump (left) and Michael Smith, ca. 2003. Courtesy Michael Smith.

Loved indeed. Though I never knew James, I’ve learned of him by way of the Pride ecumenical service on June 26; the Anchorage Assembly meeting on June 28 where he was honored; the Service of Remembrance at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on June 29; the Circle of Support organized by Amber DoAll LaChores Sawyer at UAA. And last Friday a comment on the YouTube video I made of his honoring at the Assembly put me in touch with Michael Smith, who had been James’ partner for four years in the early 2000s. Michael had just learned that morning of James’ death, and he was desperate to talk with people who knew James, or at least knew what had happened. I talked with him for an hour. (People who would like to be put in touch with Michael can contact me at bentalaska2@gmail.com.)

I leaned that James Crump was a person –

James Crump receiving an ICOAA scholarship. Courtesy ICOAA College of Emperors and Empresses Scholarship Committee.

• who as a boy preferred National Geographic Magazine to the erector sets and slot cars enjoyed by his brothers because he liked reading about animals;
• who was such a good cook;
• who was a long-time member of Metropolitan Community Church of Anchorage;
• who wanted to be a nurse all his life, and finally realized that dream in 2009 at UAA with the help of four scholarships from a scholarship program of the Imperial Court of All Alaska;
• who had a cat he regarded as his son, named Fraidy, who died of cancer just a day before the Pride parade;
• who was very, very, very proud of his “man purse” and showed it off to his coworkers at HHS;
• who, even back when he worked at Fedex, made kick-ass cupcakes;
• who was hit hard by his mother’s death from cancer in 2000;
• who knew how to make friends, and did;
• who really really knew how to cook (there’s a theme here);
• who was there for his TB patients when they woke up, and helped them to get better;
• who could explain things to fellow students in ways that Nursing faculty never could;
• who loved to swim, and not only because of the lifeguards;
• who was always accepted and loved by his family, without regard to issues about sexual orientation;
• who one day told a Nursing professor that it was his birthday, and he wanted to see a baby born, and circumstances intervened to grant him his wish just 3 months ago (the baby’s name is Max);
• who brought joy to everyone he came in contact with;
• who used to speak with his family members about the community here he was part of, and his eyes would light up as he did so;
• who, by word of his sister, came to Alaska to find himself, and stayed in Alaska to share himself with us, because he loved us so much.

But why did he love us so much?

Here’s what I think. I think he saw the same thing that I saw as I sat in St. Mary’s at the Service of Remembrance. The same thing I saw when I walked across the Loussac Library lawn and saw a Pride celebration just elbows over from Truth is Not Hate, and saw a woman blowing bubbles, and thought, I’m so proud of my people. And knew that my people is not just an equation of “LGBT people + A for Allies”: but all my people, the people who not only love, but also fight for what they love, which includes justice and fairness and equality — which includes each other, everyone, all means all.

* * *

On June 25, I walked all over Delaney Park Strip, where Pridefest was held, taking photos as I had already been taking photos that morning before the parade began, before James died. At Pridefest: people who had known James, people who had not: people going on with their lives, celebrating what James would have been there to celebrate if he could. I wasn’t anywhere near the stage a lot of the time. At some point, I am told, someone on stage got on the mic and asked, Who here is not LGBT? And about half the crowd raised their hands.

Think about that. It’s not just “us” that is “our community.” Straight people like hanging out with us too. Straight people — more and more of them every passing year, every passing day — have an investment in equal rights for all (means ALL). My nephew Miles, my other nephew Jesse. Your niece. Our fathers and mothers and children and sisters and brothers. Our coworkers. Our bosses. People who love us and respect us just as much as James Crump’s family and friends and coworkers loved and respected him.

Think about that. Think about the fact that, of the 9 people nearest to James Crump when he died, all of them celebrants in the Pride parade —

— at least four are partners in marriages recognized by the State of Alaska — i.e., heterosexual marriages, “between one man and one woman,” as dictated by a 1998 amendment to the Alaska Constitution — and a fifth has also been identified as a “straight ally.” Think about the fact that all of these 9 human beings whether LGBT or non-LGBT wanted to be there, in that parade, and believed in its message of Pride, of “Step Up and Step Out”; that all of them, whether non-LGBT or LGBT, were shaken and shattered. Loss has nothing to do with sexual orientation or gender identity.

Nor does compassion. Think about the fact that Steve, the man who held James as he died is married, is “straight,” is a… well, please. Tell me. Is he an “A = Ally”? Or is he, simply, a human being who sees in you and me human beings with inherent worth and dignity? A human being who, at great cost to his own emotional equilibrium (there are no words for this) saw James, a human being, and gave him the gift of his love and presence and touch, so that James should not be alone in the moment of his death.

Yes. This is community. This is “my people.” This is what Truth is Not Hate fails to see, but which we all need to see, and to act upon, and fight for. John Aronno wrote it the other day:

Anchorage is a beautiful place to live, filled with the most amazing people I have been privileged to call as friends. But there remain rigid divisions that we need to man up and address. It’s easy to sit at home and make fun of the brazen idiocy of how politics works. But policy is different than politics, and politicians are different than statesmen. It’s time we demanded one over the other, in every category.

What happens if we stand up together? The future is ours. We just have to start showing up and claiming it.

Chris Constant wrote it too:

If you are wondering, I think this is what it is all about: Everything we do should pave the way for a better world beyond the reach of our lives. As they say, your reach exceeds your grasp. Any confusion or obfuscation of our mission as a community just evaporated.

Watch. We will recommit ourselves as individuals and as a community. We will fight harder, organize better, and love more. We will have more fun. We will reach more people who don’t understand the nature of our community. We will shine our light to dispel fear and darkness and to illuminate understanding.

Gay/lesbian, bi, straight, trans, nontrans, all means all: we are already the community that can do this, if we choose to. We’re the community James chose to share himself with. And we’re worthy of what he shared.

This one for you, James Crump.

If you or someone you know has been affected by the tragedy at the Pride parade in Anchorage, please be reminded that generous support has been offered by our allies in the community. You can get more information by calling the Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Anchorage at (907) 929-GLBT, (907) 929-4528. Or you can call the Psychological Services Center at UAA (907) 786-1795.

Except when otherwise credited, all photos by Melissa S. (Mel) Green, yksin on Flickr.

Related posts:

1. The Daily Tweets 2011-06-29: Anchorage Assembly honors memory of James L. Crump
2. Happy wedding! (for John & Heather)
3. A word about our friends

Click through to help John go to Netroots Nation!

Netroots Nation is an annual conference dedicated to providing progressive activists and candidates for office a forum to strengthen the online community and grow the progressive movement. This year’s conferences will be held June 16–19 in Minneapolis.

John Aronno of Alaska Commons wants to go; and to that end he’s applied for one of the scholarships offered by Democracy for America and America’s Voice to help him get there.  To get it, he needs your help! — just follow the link the the Democracy for America website, sign up (if you don’t already have an account), & vote!

I was asked on my Facebook wall why there were no LGBT candidates from Alaska for the Netroots scholarship.  Here’s why: because none of us applied for it.  In fact, I ran into Shannyn Moore at the Bear Tooth a few weeks ago and she suggested that I apply, but since I’m trying to steer myself toward my writing — which feeds my spirit in a way that political blogging does not — I didn’t actually want to go to Netroots Nation.  But even if I had applied, why, it’s always possible to send two people, not just one.  If I’m not mistaken, Netroots scholarships were awarded last year to both Shannyn Moore & to Jeanne Devon of The Mudflats.  (Here’s Jeanne’s report on Netroots 2010.)

Three bloggers all in a row: John, Heather, and me at the Anchorage Assembly on tha night the Anchorage equal rights ordinance (AO-64) passed, 11 Aug 2009. (AO-64 was vetoed a few days later by Mayor Dan Sullivan.)

In any case, I was delighted to learn that John had applied for the scholarship; & I’m even more delighted to support his candidacy for a scholarship — both as a progressive blogger per se, and as a tremendous ally to LGBT Alaskans.  I first met John in the trenches of the fight for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance, AO 64, in 2009, along with his then fiancee, now wife Heather.  We all three of us sat side-by-side at most of those horrendous public testimony sessions in the Anchorage Assembly, all three of us blogging about it. It’s safe to say that John and Heather kept kept me sane throughout that Summer of Hate.

John and Heather, with Diane Benson, join in dancing with the Masignka Yup'ik dance group at the True Diversity Dinner in Anchorage, 25 Sep 2009.

It was also John and Heather who did more than anyone to put together the True Diversity dinner in September 2009 as an alternative to Mayor Dan Sullivan’s hypocrisy-in-action “Unity Dinner” in the aftermath of Sullivan’s veto of the ordinance.  The event was a tremendous success, drawing a large cross-section of the Alaska progressive community in support of diversity and LGBT equality — including several Assembly members, candidates for statewide offices, and Senator Mark Begich.

Since then John has gone on to take a vigorous role in progressive politics in Anchorage as both an activist and a commentator on radio and other local media and blogs.  He was recipient of the 2010 Alaska Press Association’s Suzan Nightengale Award for Best Columnist in a small paper for his work with University of Alaska Anchorage’s The Northern Light, is a former radio talk show host of Studio 1080 on Alaska’s Voice: KUDO 1080 AM (before it got bought out by Fox); a guest host on the Shannyn Moore Show on KOAN 1020 AM; and is a contributor to the Anchorage Press, the Alaska Dispatch (be sure to read his commentary on anti-LGBT bigotry there), and Alaska’s LGBT blog Bent Alaska.  On Alaska Commons, he and Heather are currently keeping Anchorage voters informed on the candidates and issues facing us when we go to the polls in the Municipality of Anchorage elections next month.  They testified before the University of Alaska Board of Regents to add sexual orientation to the university’s nondiscrimination policy, and continue to write about issues important to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans Alaskans, including the Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey, California’s Prop 8, the Alaska Hate Crimes bill (SB 11), and the homophobic rantings of Anchorage Baptist Temple preacher Jerry Prevo.

I am so pleased to have John as my friend and ally, & I feel privileged to support John for this scholarship. I hope you will too.

(I’m also really complimented that John’s Netroots scholarship application lists my blog Henkimaa as one of the two blogs — the other being The Mudflats — that he uses the most.)

John at the Anchorage PrideFest 2010 picnic, 26 Jun 2010.

Related posts:

1. I’m going to Netroots Nation
2. The Daily Tweets 2011-06-03: The Netroots Nation 11 mobile phone app is just as cool as bow ties
3. Happy wedding! (for John & Heather)

Idenity Reports (1989) and One in Ten (1986). Click through to read the reports.

Originally published as an op-ed in the Anchorage Press on Thursday, January 27, 2011. Crossposted on Bent Alaska.

In the 1980s, I was part of two major research efforts conducted by Identity, Inc. to document sexual orientation bias in Alaska. One in 10: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community, published in 1986, reported on the results of a statewide survey of 734 lesbian, gay, and bisexual Alaskans. Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska, published in 1989, included three papers, including “Closed Doors,” a survey of Anchorage employers and landlords; and “Prima Facie,” which documented 84 actual cases of of violence, harassment, and discrimination due to sexual orientation bias. (Copies of both reports are available on the Internet at http://www.henkimaa.com/identity/.) Some of our findings:

Of the 734 respondents to One in 10:

• 61% reported being victimized by violence and harassment while in Alaska because of their sexual orientation (ranging from verbal abuse/harassment, reported by 58%, to physical violence, 11%, and sexual assault, 5%);
• 39% reported discrimination in employment, housing, and loans/credit; and
• 33% reported discrimination from services and institutions.

From the “Closed Doors” component of Identity Reports:

• 31% of the 191 Anchorage employers in the survey said they would not hire or promote or would fire someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.
• 20% of the 178 Anchorage landlords in the survey said they would not rent to or would evict someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.

From the “Prima Facie” component of Identity Reports:

• 84 case histories of antigay bias, discrimination, harassment, or violence (including three murders) were documented involving 30 men and 21 women. 64 of these cases took place in Anchorage.
• A former intake investigator with the Alaska Human Rights Commission found that 32 of 42 discrimination cases based on personal testimony would “definitely” be jurisdictional under state human rights law if it included protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. (That is, the commission would investigate them if complaints were made.)
• Victims were predominately gay men or lesbians, but also included heterosexuals who were erroneously assumed to be gay or lesbian.

On June 16, 2009, I testified about these findings before the Anchorage Assembly during public hearings on Anchorage Ordinance 64, which would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the Municipality of Anchorage’s equal rights code. I also provided every member of the Anchorage Assembly with CDs containing the full reports, as well as photocopies of the “Prima Facie” report.

In spite of this evidence, one of the chief arguments used in 2009 by opponents of equal rights was that there was no evidence of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people. Mayor Dan Sullivan echoed those arguments when, less than a week after the Anchorage Assembly passed AO-64 by a vote of 7 to 4, he vetoed the measure, claiming that “there is clearly a lack of quantifiable evidence necessitating this ordinance.” And so for the third time in 35 years, the Anchorage Assembly in 2009 passed an ordinance that provided at least some equal rights under the law for LGBT residents, only for those rights to be almost immediately stripped away again. (The other instances were in 1975–76 and 1992–93.)

But of course, the evidence of One in Ten and Identity Reports was two decades old, so Mayor Sullivan and ordinance opponents found it easy to ignore. But they found it just as easy to close their ears to the public testimony of a number of Anchorage LGBT residents who stepped forward during the summer of 2009 to testify to very recent experiences of discrimination and bias — even after one opponent openly testified to the Assembly that he’d once beaten a gay man so badly that he put him in the hospital. Public testimony about discrimination, no matter how recent, was downplayed as “just anecdotal.”

Alaska LGBT Community Survey. Click through to take the Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey.

And so we come to 2011 and the Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey, now in progress: the first effort since the late 1980s to compile rigorous data about the incidence of sexual orientation bias and discrimination in Anchorage — and the first effort ever to document Anchorage or Alaska-specific data about discrimination and bias on the basis of gender identity.

The Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey is a collaborative project of the Alaska LGBT community and a coalition of Alaska organizations which serve the LGBT community, including Identity, Inc., the Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association (4-As), Alaskans Together for Equality, Equality Works, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Alaska. Our survey questionnaire and overall research project were designed with the expert assistance of Dr. Brad Myrstol and Khristy Parker of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage. In the future, we plan to conduct a second and far more expansive statewide survey, which will survey LGBT Alaskans statewide not only about their experience of discrimination and bias, but also a full range of other questions of concerns to LGBT Alaskans and their friends and allies.

In the meantime, online surveys are at our project website, http://alaskacommunity.org/, and on the ACLU of Alaska website at http://www.akclu.org/ by clicking the button marked “LGBT Survey.” To obtain a PIN number to access the online survey, or to receive a printed version of the survey, contact Shelby Carpenter of the ACLU of Alaska at (907) 263-2006 or at scarpenter@akclu.org. Survey data collection will continue until February 28, 2011.

We invite the participation of all members of the LGBT community in this important and confidential survey, and we welcome the assistance of our non-LGBT friends and allies in getting the word out.

Melissa S. (Mel) Green was principal writer of One in Ten: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community (1986) and coauthor with Jay K. Brause of Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska (1989). She is a founding member of the Alaska LGBT Community Survey Task Force.

Related posts:

1. Announcing the Alaska LGBT Community Survey
2. Identity Reports & One in Ten — now online!
3. Alaska LGBT Community Survey: Who we are & where we’re at

And so I begin the new year by coming out of a period of silence.

A silence, to be sure, less profound than the one I inhabited this time last year.  And for different reasons.  In the last month or so, mainly I’ve just needed a break.

1. The cave

But on New Year’s Day 2009, I was living in a kind of emotional cave, with no desire or wherewithal to communicate with anyone outside my day-to-day life except immediate family.  Especially my dad, who I’d learned just a couple of weeks before had been diagnosed with a terminal lymphoma. That news came on top of stuff I’d already been struggling with for some months, after my then-partner, Rozz who is now Ptery, made the decision while in school in Seattle to transition as a female-to-male (FTM) transsexual, & made accompanying decisions that have essentially ended our partnership as-it-was.

Thus, the cave, about which I wrote on April 2, a few days after coming out of it,

I seem to be have come out of the cave now. Not just feeling better — I’ve felt better a number of times (only to then go back into the grey again) — but actually able & willing to communicate. Maybe it was that I’m finally accepting the inevitable with my partner. Maybe it was finally getting the plane tickets bought to fly down in late April to see my dad. Maybe it was taking enough 5-HTP to keep the serotonin cooking in my brain. Maybe it’s the light coming into the days after a looooooong winter. Maybe it’s all just been perimenopause. Anyway… seems I’m back in the world again.

Now, before I go on, let me explain: this post isn’t just about the history of what I did or experienced in 2009: it’s also about what it meant.  Or, better yet, the meanings I’ve made of it — because that’s what it’s all about, for me — the story, the stories each of us make of our lives.  And this is my blog, of course, so this is my damn story.

And the story of coming out of the cave also has these meanings attached to it:

(1) The cave itself became a new term, describing a new form, of that rather large aspect of my life popularly known as depression (or, sometimes, despair): along with the grey, along with the pit, along with limbo — all of which are described in my late 2006 post The grey — the newly-discovered environment of the cave can include any one of the first three, or exclude all of them; it is chiefly characterized by that deep inability & lack of motivation to communicate.  Big whooptie, a new term — but I do find the language useful in understanding myself around this stuff.  Since, hey, halfway through my life give-or-take, I don’t see the depression/despair gunk suddenly evaporating from my life.  It’s a part of who I am.  I’m just lots better at handling it than before, & part of that is in refining my understanding of how it works in me.

(2) If I were to mark the exact date the cave walls dissolved around me, it would probably be March 30, 2009, which coincided with some important phone calls with Ptery, & also with my brother Mark & I buying our tickets to Spokane to see our dad for what we both understood would probably be the last time this side of our own deaths.  And also on that day, I wrote a lengthy post in memorial to Nicholas Hughes, a fisheries biologist formerly at University of Alaska Fairbanks who had taken his own life the previous week.  I hadn’t known him, but he was the son of the poets Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes, & Plath especially had been an significant figure in my life.  Not for the right reasons, initially — but the post explains that: it was my effort to honor Mr. Hughes not as mere adjunct to his famous parents’ biographies — as many of the news accounts of his death seemed to view him — but for who he himself was & for what he brought to all the people in his life, who were mourning him that day.

(3) My dad knew I’d been having a hard time. He was at peace with his own approaching death, & wanted us to be too.  But beyond that, he wanted our happiness.  He was so glad when he heard I’d come out of the cave.  That was one of the very best things about it.

2. Lima beans against WAR

Wow, after the Summer of Hate experienced by the Anchorage LGBT & allied community over Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64, one almost forgets its political prelude, when then-Gov. Sarah Palin named Wayne Anthony Ross — widely known by his license-plate acronym as WAR — to succeed the disgraced Talis Colberg as Alaska’s Attorney General.  Alaska’s top LGBT blog Bent Alaska informs us that its post about WAR, “Palin’s AG Pick Called Gays “Degenerates” (3/29/09), was one of its two 2009 posts to go viral — & that was even before he compared gays to lima beans, a vegetable that he “hates” but still claimed he could represent if he were, say, the lawyer for “United Vegetable Growers.”  We lima beans were, needless to say, not favorably impressed.

Ross also had a history of biased & even misogynistic attitudes in relation to domestic violence, sexual assault, & violence against women; hostility to Alaska Native sovereignty & subsistence rights; a mediocre reputation as a practitioner of law amongst his fellow members of the Alaska Bar Association; & a pretty shaky attitude about executive branch ethics.  Bad news all around: it motivated me to spend a considerable amount of time & energy researching him, listening to legislative confirmation hearings, & writing a very long letter to legislators, which I posted on my blog — thus embarking upon a part-time career as an occasional political blogger.  I wrote a few other posts about WAR, & commented on other sites’ coverage of him (especially Bent Alaska), & celebrated with most of the rest of Alaska when the Alaska Legislature rejected him by a vote of 23 yeas to 35 nays — an unprecedented rejection of a governor’s cabinet pick.

It took a day or two for the Alaska Department of Law to remove WAR from its website. This screenshot was taken on April 16. The red X is mine.

3. Dad

I flew to Spokane with my brother Mark in late April to visit Dad.  We also saw my sister Mer & brother-in-law Julius, with whom my Dad lived, and my brother Dave drove over from Montana.  Ptery hitchhiked up, at my request, so I got to see him too.

Dad was so happy to have all of us there. He had a lot of energy too, considering how ill he was; but near the end, as we began to return to our homes, he took a turn for the worse, as if he’d been holding to life so that he could see us all before he left us to be with Mom.  She had died in November 2005.

I took this picture during that trip: Dad telling one of his wonderful stories about growing up in the lumber camps of eastern Oregon in the 1920s where Grandpa Claude ran locomotives on the Sumpter Valley Railroad for the Oregon Lumber Company; or about the bootleg operation he & his pals in the Army Air Corps had in England during WWII; or about how he met my mom when he was looking for a job, & guy at Ellingson Lumber Company suggested he head to Izee because the camp cook there had two beautiful daughters. It was the younger of the two daughters, my Auntie Pat, who actually introduced my parents after Dad gave her a ride into John Day, where Mom was then working.

That photo on the wall behind Dad was his favorite picture of Mom, taken by a professional photographer shortly before they met. When I look at this photo, I feel his yearning to be with her again.

I last saw him on April 29.  He died not quite a month later, on May 27.  My sister was with him.

I’ve been at peace about Dad’s death almost from the beginning, partly because the peace he himself had about it put me at peace, & partly because of what for lack of better words I will call the messages that came, three of them — two of them to other family members, & the last one to me. My message was from my mother, in the form of sunflowers.  It told me that Dad was with her, & they are both okay.

On July 12, as many family members as could make it, including me & my sister & brothers, all gathered together in Spokane to remember Mom & Dad & to celebrate all that they gave us.

I love you, Mom & Dad.

4. Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64

The Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64 was introduced in the Anchorage Assembly on May 12, & thus was my career as an occasional political blogger made much less occasional.

AO 64 would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of personal characteristics in Title 5, Anchorage’s equal rights code, which prohibits discrimination based on those characteristics in employment, housing, financial practices, education, and practices of the Municipality of Anchorage. The summer of 2009 in Anchorage featured a protracted period of public testimony at the Anchorage Assembly, with accompanying sign-waving and letter-writing both by ordinance supporters and those who opposed equal rights — led in particular by Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple, who used “perverted” and other hate-terms to describe LGBT people, hence the name given the summer by commentator at the Anchorage Press: the Summer of Hate.

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

From May to September, I wrote in the area of 60 posts about the ordinance, including a number that delved into the background & prevarications of its most vociferous opponent, Jerry Prevo.  I also testified in support of the ordinance on June 16 ( the second of five nights of public testimony). My testimony was based on two major research efforts in the 1980s for Identity, Inc. in which we documented the rampant discrimination in Anchorage & in Alaska based on sexual orientation. (Our research unfortunately did not cover discrimination on the basis of gender identity, which we knew little about at the time.)

The ordinance passed the Anchorage Assembly on August 11, 2009, but was vetoed the following week by Mayor Dan Sullivan — the third time in Anchorage history that equal protection for at least some LGBTQ people in Anchorage was first granted, & then stripped away again.

We weren’t real happy.

5. Friends & allies

The Summer of Hate wasn’t all hate & horror.  There was also some really cool stuff.

Cool stuff was people like Vic Fischer, Jane Angvik, & Arliss Sturgulewski testifying for the ordinance — people with just a teensy bit more credibility than, say, self-declared homophobic Bible-thumping Nazi “rascist” Eddie Burke.

Cool stuff was the huge number of people who turned out on the lawn of the Loussac Library to dance, blow bubbles, & hold signs upholding equal rights for all. The second week of public testimony, on which testimony was heard on two successive nights (June 16-17), was also the run-up to PrideFest, & every time I stepped out of the Assembly chambers for a breather, I felt like PrideFest was already in progress (once, that is, I got past the ABT redshirts & their hot dog tables).

I remember going out there one day & seeing how everyone — members of the LGBT community, & lots of non-LGBT folks including my nephew Miles & some of his friends — was celebrating equality & love for their fellow human beings, as sour-faced, red-shirted opponents stood nearby with their preprinted “Truth is Not Hate” signs agitating against equality.  I thought to myself, I’m so proud of my people — & I found myself for the first time consciously including in my people not just other LGBT people, but all the numerous non-LGBT allies who took it for granted that equality meant all of us.  And were as dumbfounded as we were at the “Truth is Not Hate” hate speech dropping out of the mouths of red-shirts both inside & outside the Assembly chambers.

On a personal level, I was lucky to make some new friendships.  John & Heather Aronno, both now of Alaska Commons, who I met a few days before the first public hearing, became my favorite folks to sit next to at Assembly public hearings: three bloggers, all in a row.

One of my other favorite new people was (& is) Janson Jones, whose fantastic photography at Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 (including of the ordinance battle) first drew my attention. He’s also an all-around cool guy who also became a new dad over the summer — & his photos of his precious daughter Aurelia are pretty wonderful too.

Thanks to the ordinance battle, I also got reaquainted with a friend from way back, Linda Kellen Biegel of Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, who I hadn’t seen in years. I’d known Phil Munger of Progressive Alaska through email, but not until this summer did I meet him in person. I’ve known M.E. Rider of Grrlzlist, E. Ross of Bent Alaska, & longtime activist (& maker of Equality Works buttons) Stef Gingrich for years, though it was only through the summer that we saw much of each other, since normally — yes, true story — I’m pretty much a hermit.

It was the ordinance that brought me out, for ill & for good. Despite the ordinance’s eventual fate — for me personally, thanks to people like these, it was mostly for good.

6. Palinesque

Somewhere in the middle of this was Sarah Palin’s announcement on July 3 that she would be resigning her position as Governor of Alaska.  I don’t blog that much about Palin — there are other Alaska bloggers who cover her quite thoroughly (thank goodness!) — but within a few days after her announcement, I got fed up with how the national mainstream media was uncritically passing along what I dubbed the 2 million dollar meme: Palin’s claim that $2,000,000 taxpayer (or rather, oil revenue dollars — this is Alaska, after all) had been spent on responding to ethical complaints against her. So I started taking it apart, & continued to do so over at total of six blog posts.

Wow did that raise traffic on my blog. I got nearly 1,800 hits on the first post of the series the first day after it was published; to date it’s gotten 5,530 hits, making it the most read post on my blog.  The pie chart I created for that post also proved to be pretty popular.

My stuff didn’t stop Palin from repeating her lie; but then, who expected that it would?  I’m no fool.  I just hoped the damn mainstream media would wake up & do the job they’re paid to do — so that bloggers like me wouldn’t have to do it for free. I am proud to say that my efforts, which Anchorage Daily News reporter Sean Cockerham picked up on, contributed to Linda Perez of the Governor’s Office being forced to admit there were errors in the hokey spreadsheet the Governor’s Office had cooked up in an incompetent attempt to back up Gov. Palinocchio’s claim.  Cockerham’s story (posted, as far as I know, only on the ADN’s Politics blog, but not as a full-fledged ADN story) said that Perez was going to follow up on further questions he’d brought up — I’ve seen no sign that she ever did, or that ADN itself cared.  I didn’t follow up further myself because by time Perez ‘fessed up as much as she did, I was in Spokane with my family remembering my mom & dad.  I have a feeling everyone who had actual responsibility (because, of course, they were more than mere “community organizers”) decided to drop it.  Gee. I wonder why.

7. I got a new couch

More properly, it’s a futon loveseat. Whatever.  I got it in August, & I’ve been vegging more happily (when I vege) ever since.  My cat loves it too.

8. An effort to up-end the Alaska Judicial Council

Other things were going on in my life too, of course.  But the political stuff stands out, because political blogging is not my great purpose in life — writing my own stuff is. And yet, I kept doing it.

And so it happens that in late August I learned of a lawsuit by which certain Alaska conservatives, most if not all of whom have ties to the so-called right-to-life movement, had filed suit nearly two months before — a fact not covered at all by Alaska’s mainstream media in spite of all of them having received the press release when the suit was filed — which would, if successful, overturn major provisions of the Alaska Constitution with regard to the selection & retention of state court judges. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, James Bopp, Jr., is a big name: he has litigated similar issues elsewhere.  My own feeling is that this guy is more likely to have shopped around for the Alaskans who could be named as plaintiffs in this case, than that the plaintiffs shopped around for him.  His agenda appears to be a nationwide effort to politicize judicial selection, so that candidates can be selected through popular vote based on litmus test questions on hot-button issues (“What is your opinion on abortion?” — “What is your opinion on same-sex marriage?”), instead of being selected for their judicial integrity & knowledge of the law.

Through my job on staff of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage, which I’ve held since 1990, I’d become very familiar with Alaska’s judicial merit selection process, & have a lot of respect for it too, & for the quality of judges we have in this state.  Not perfect — but a helluva lot better than in states that have the politicized & often politically corrupt types of selection processes that Bopp seems to prefer.

So, I read about Miller v. Carpeneti, & I wrote about it, & I even took a day off work to attend the hearing before Judge John W. Sedwick in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on September 11.   I’m not a lawyer, but I read through most of the briefings, & it didn’t seem to me that Bopp’s arguments held much water.  Judge Sedwick apparently agreed: he heard arguments from both sides & then dismissed the case. His opinion was published on September 15.

But we haven’t heard the last from Mr. Bopp: he’s appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and, last I heard, the last briefs in the case must be filed no later than February 10, 2010. Oral arguments might then follow.  If Bopp fails at the Ninth Circuit, there’s every possibility he might appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court — he’s argued before them before, & won.

Meanwhile, I continue to wonder what in hell is wrong with the Alaska mainstream media, including our supposed paper-of-record, the Anchorage Daily News. First they all failed to follow up any further on Palin’s spreadsheet-of-hooey in support of her 2 million dollar meme-of-hooey; now it turns out they sat for nearly two months on a press release issued in early July about a lawsuit that could theoretically undermine our state constitution with regard to judicial selection.  Phil Munger at Progressive Alaska has drawn attention to numerous other instances in which the press has sat on its duff instead of investigating & reporting stuff that in some cases is right in front of their faces — for instance, the numerous lies propounded throughout Palin’s putative “memoir,” which the ADN has yet to write any review on.  What else are they sitting on?  How are we to have democracy that way, if the MSM isn’t doing its job?

Oh yeah, I remember now.  Bloggers like me are supposed to do that job nowadays.  In our spare time.  For free.

(All due respect to those reporters who as far as I can tell are doing their best to do their job — but are being shut down by management. I know you guys are out there.)

9. True Diversity Dinner

In the aftermath of Sullivan’s veto of AO 64, several of us bloggers who had been heavily involved in writing about it started talking about what we might do keep the flame alive.  Several of us met at lunchtime one day, & out of someone’s suggestion — I don’t remember whose — next thing you know, the True Diversity Dinner was born.  Its immediate impetus was that the upcoming Mayor’s Diversity Dinner, an event originally created during the administration of Mayor, now Senator, Mark Begich, had been renamed Mayor’s Unity Dinner by Mayor Dan Sullivan — the same guy who had just vetoed equal rights for Anchorage’s lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transfolk.

Instead of protesting, we decided to celebrate the rich diversity that the Mayor’s renaming of the dinner seemed designed to whitewash away. The True Diversity Dinner was our alternative, with the motto, “Because we all deserve a seat at the table.”  It was organized by the bloggers of Alaska Commons, Anchorage Won’t Discriminate, Bent Alaska, Floridana Alaskiana v2.5, Grrlzlist Alaska, Henkimaa, and SOSanchorage.net — but especially by John & Heather Aronno (Alaska Commons & SOSAnchorage.net), who I fear fell far behind in their studies thanks to the dinner.

But it was well worth it, right guys?  It was a tremendous event, with great speakers including my Assembly person Elvi Gray-Jackson, former Congressional candidate & longtime activist for Alaska Native rights Diane Benson, Rev. Marquita Pierre of the Center for Spiritual Healing, & radio host & blogger Shannyn Moore.

On top of that, I was honored to be the recipient of a True Diversity Award for Excellence in Online Media for coverage on my blog of the battle for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance.  Booyah!

10. Hilton workers

And more occasional politics.

When the True Diversity Dinner was first thought up, I hadn’t known that Mayor Sullivan’s Unity Dinner was booked for the Hilton Anchorage Hotel — which was (& still is) under boycott by its workers due to the bad faith practices of its management on orders of the Hilton’s owners, Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex Corporation.  A blog post by Shannyn Moore brought my attention to the fact that the Mayor’s Unity Dinner was also a union-busting dinner. I spent some time researching & writing about the labor dispute, & also attended the Hotel Workers Rising March from the Sheraton (which is now also under boycott due to similar management abuses of workers) to the Hilton two days after the True Diversity Dinner was held.

11. But I’m really about writing my own stuff, & that’s what I need to do now

I’d like to follow up on the hotel workers struggle, both at the Hilton & now the Sheraton.  I hope someone will.  But I can’t.  Here’s the deal.  There are people on this planet, there are people in this state, who thrive on political blogging, & what’s more excel at it.  I think I’m pretty damn good at it when I’m doing it — but I don’t thrive on it.  I start with enthusiasm, but over time… I wear down, my spirit flags, & pretty soon it winds right back into what I started this post with: depression & despair.

Midyear, in the post in which I claimed to be an occasional political blogger, I wrote,

The main reason I set up this site & blog was to help me get back into the flow of writing, of living my life as a writer.  And while writing about politics is writing — well, it’s not my writing, the stuff close to my heart.  Besides, I also work a full-time job.

Besides, sometimes the political stuff can really whack me out….

Another factor about how I handle political posts is that my style isn’t really amenable to fast-response writing, which is a feature of a lot of the best political bloggers I read.  But me, I like to think a lot about what I’m writing.  I like to go deep.  I like to be thorough & as comprehensive as I can.  I like to source all my references thoroughly.  I like — apparently — to write term papers.  (I sure never thought so when I was in college).  And that takes a long time.  Especially since, as previously mentioned, I work a full-time job.  And I also need a certain amount of down time or I am liable to put myself into a depression.

Sometimes, writing my own stuff actually feels like down time.  Reason: I said it above, it’s stuff that close to my heart.

So October saw me returning to writing — at that time, mostly background stuff or responses to stuff that I was reading in preparation for National Novel Writing Month 2009 (NaNoWriMo).  In looking back, I remember that True Diversity Dinner month — that is, September — also saw a bit of focus on writing: a couple of politically-oriented pieces about homophobia in science fiction, including one involving a publication I was writing a story for.  As it happened, I wasn’t far enough along on that story to meet the submission deadline of September 30 — so I picked up & polished an older thing instead.

And whaddaya know! in early October, I was told they wanted to publish it!  Which did much to make me feel like a writer again.

“Cold” was published on October 31, 2009 in Crossed Genres Issue #12, the LGBT issue, & you can still read it online there.  (When it’s no longer live there, & my contract with Crossed Genres permits, I will republish it right here at Henkimaa.com.)  “Cold” was also selected for inclusion in Crossed Genres‘ first-year anthology, which will include one story from each of the magazines first 12 issues.  I think it’s still on schedule for publication in February.

My username on NaNoWriMo: yksin.

November for me was the headlong hurry of NaNoWriMo.  As a result, as anyone who knows this blog saw, I didn’t do much blogging at all.  Such blog posts as got posted were mostly automatically generated “Daily Tweets” posts from my Twitter feed.  And I haven’t done much blogging since NaNoWriMo ended, either.

But whoa! I did a lot of writing — 51,607 words worth of it in November, making me a NaNoWriMo winner this year…. er… I mean, last year.  I was writing in the same story universe as “Cold,” which is about two young women on an extrasolar planet (that is, in another solar system) in the late stages of terraformation, which I’ve finally named Oikos — but my NaNovember 2009 writing was mostly about three centuries earlier in the timeline, before & around the time the ships that will eventually arrive at Oikos leave our solar system.  I called it Long Dark.

And a lot of it was background writing, rather than the story itself.  Because there is so damn much science that I need to have at least some kind of grasp on before I can do the story for real.

Though I came up with at least four stories over the course of the month that I know I can shape into good damn stuff.  And I also discovered that a character of mine from a supposedly completely unrelated project is, whaddaya know, an important historical figure for the society in Long Dark and Cold.  And since that character is very closely based on me… whoa, it’s an awful lot like, well, writing myself into history.  How cool is that?

(Or how egotistical?)

12. Since then…

… that is, during December — what have I been doing?  Not blogging, clearly. Except for one extensive rant about the leakage in various portions of my ceiling.  (Now cured, but the holes in the ceiling still need patching.)  Other than that, lots of vegging out, some writing, lots of reading — my latest topics have included atmospheric pressure, altitude sickness, & spacesuit design (background research for a story in the Cold universe) & how people with strabismus or amblyopia (the latter being the case for me), most of whom grow up stereoblind, might be able to develop stereo (binocular) vision.  Even at 50 years old. Which is what I am now.

50 years old, soon to be 51. And now I reflect on where I was at when I turned 50, early in 2009.  I was still in the cave.  But there were inklings of possibility.  I was still in the cave, for instance, when a confluence of ideas led me to decide how to go about my writing life, which included blogging & other forms of social media to get my stuff out there, instead of just through the old “send out craploads of query letters & get a shitload of rejection letters back before someone finally decides your stuff is good enough to publish” method that has been standard for a very bloody long time.  I knew I’d feel a lot more at ease finding my own audience through social media than going through the query letter drudgery.  It was still pretty remarkable that I made such a decision at such a time, though: social media? for someone who, at that point, was incapable & unmotivated to communicate at all?  But then, I knew the cave walls would dissolve sooner or later.  And they did.

I was also deciding, back in February of 2009 that age 50 was a good time to reach the milestone that I had apparently reached in the sorrows of that time.  The boy that I & Rozz-now-Ptery raised from age 9 was now 21 (& now, some months later, is actually 22), & is setting out on his own course in the world.  He’s in a residential job training program; I seem him some weekends when he comes into town.  Ptery is embarked on another course, living a nomadic life mostly off-the-grid in the Lower 48; we are no longer partners, however much we still love each other. So, I am single &, except for my cat & the boy’s dog, essentially alone.

When I was in college & took a class on Hinduism, I learned that the traditional life path for very pious Brahmin males was supposed to consist of several stages — four of them, I think — with the third stage being that of husband, father, & householder.  When the householding stage was over, these guys were apparently supposed to just up & lickety-split out to the forest to become religious ascetics.  Or something like that.

And when I turned 50, I thought: that’s it, I’m no longer a householder.  Well, I still have my apartment.  And I don’t plan to go live in the woods as an ascetic.  (Ptery’s path is a little closer to that, really.)  But I no longer have the responsibilities of a spouse/partner or of a parent to a minor child.  I can do what I want.  And what I need.

Which is to write.  But dang, it sure takes me a long time to get the politics out of my way to do it.

But I got to that point, & now I plan to continue.

That’s my story.

I’m such a cathead.

Related posts:

1. True Diversity Dinner 1 & 2: Video by Janson Jones
2. True Diversity Dinner video, part 3: Hotel workers, & Elvi's speech
3. True Diversity Dinner: September 25, 2009

I met Janson as a result of becoming a fan of the fantastic photography (including of the ordinance battle) at his blog, Floridana Alaskiana v2.5.

Janson Jones of the blog Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 — one of the sponsors of the True Diversity Dinner — has completed part 1 of his video presentation of the event.

Part 1 gives background on the battle over the summer for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance, AO 2009-64, which was passed by the Anchorage Assembly by a vote of 7 to 4 on August 11, but was vetoed on August 17 by Mayor Dan Sullivan; then goes into the decision by several of us bloggers to hold a True Diversity Dinner on September 11 as an alternative for the Mayor’s Unity Dinner, with footage from KTVA Channel 11 and KTUU Channel 2 coverage of the event. Janson also discusses the labor problems at the Anchorage Hilton, where the Mayor’s event was held — the Hilton’s owner, Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex, is refusing to settle a fair contract with its workers, who picketed the hotel the night of the event — which Mayor’s Unity Event participants crossed picket lines to attend.

Janson tells me that Parts 2 & 3 of his presentation are nearly complete, with Part 2 due online within the hour. I’ll update this post with the other two parts when they’re complete.

Thanks, Janson, for your hard work on such a fine presentation.

Janson also has a fine collection of photos from the dinner: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4.

Update: Part 2 now up: a montage of photos from the event. Janson says Part 3 will probably go up tomorrow. Later update: There’s lots more than 3 parts — I’m adding them in separate posts as they get completed.

Here’s a photo of Lifetime Achievement Award winners Vic Fischer, one of the framers of the Alaska Constitution, & Jane Angvik, who helped frame Anchorage’s municipal charter, from the first night of testimony on the Anchorage equal rights ordinance on June 9.

Vic Fischer and Jane Angvik (right) with Arliss Sturgulewski (left) at the June 9, 2009 Anchorage Assembly hearing. All three testified that night in support of the ordinance (as did Chuck O'Connell, in the foreground).

Related posts:

1. True Diversity Dinner video, part 3: Hotel workers, & Elvi's speech
2. The Daily Tweets, 2009-09-29: True Diversity Dinner videos by Janson Jones
3. True Diversity Dinner video, part 5: Diane Benson

True Diversity Dinner Announced on KTVA

You can also read the text version of the story on KTVA’s website. [Ref #1]

Shortly after I learned Heather was being interviewed, a query popped up in my email from Alaska Dispatch‘s Maia Nolan.  She asked me if I’d be willing to respond to two comments she’d received from the Mayor’s office about the dinners, as follows:

Sullivan spokesperson Sarah Erkmann:

No comment beyond that planning for the Unity Dinner continues with the mayor’s full support. It should be noted that funds raised at the dinner support the municipality’s diversity programming throughout the year. So withholding support for the event may have an adverse impact on the city’s ability to fund programs next year. The mayor has continually said that he thinks the values that bind us together are just as important as what separates us. The phrase I’ve heard him use is ‘respect diversity, celebrate unity.’

(The full text of Sarah Erkmann’s copy is in the story Maia Nolan filed.  The above is just the portion I got in the email.)

Mayor Dan Sullivan (from press release):

Our community is made up of many unique groups, but we all share some common values: the importance of family, quality education for our children, and safe, vibrant neighborhoods. This year’s event is meant to celebrate these values while respecting the diversity that makes Anchorage such a great place to live.

I replied as follows:

I’m speaking only as myself, but I think the others involved with the alternative True Diversity Dinner would agree with me that we have no argument with the Municipality’s diversity programming.  Nor are we asking for anyone to withhold support if they choose to attend the Unity Dinner.  But a lot of us find there to be a pretty big discrepancy between Mayor Sullivan’s veto of an ordinance which would have accorded equal protection from discrimination for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans citizens and visitors to Anchorage, and his supposed valuation of diversity.  I’m not sure who chose the Unity Dinner’s keynote speaker, Lynn Swann, but to me that choice underscores that that reference to “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in the muni’s diversity statement is, at least this year, lip service — Swann during his 2006 run for governor of Pennsylvania endorsed an amendment to PA’s constitution that would have prevented same-sex couples from  having the same rights — medical, marriage, estate — as heterosexual couples.

The result of this is, many of us who fought for equal rights for LGBT people in Anchorage — and that includes non-LGBT as well as LGBT people — don’t see much place for LGBTs or their allies as either individuals or as families in the Mayor’s vision of diversity. Several of us bloggers who had written a lot over the summer about the Assembly hearings started talking about how to respond to our feelings after the mayor’s veto of ordinance 64.  We decided that holding some kind of protest wouldn’t actually make us feel any better.  So we decided instead to celebrate the values we’d been fighting for.

Me with my family at the 1997 Alaska State Fair

I very much share the values Sullivan named: “the importance of family, quality education for our children, and safe, vibrant neighborhoods.” My partner and I raised her nephew from age 9 to the present (age 21) — a kid, I might add, whose entire life before he came to live with us was one of physical and emotional abuse and neglect at the hands of his (heterosexual) family.  I was the main economic support for my family; if my employer had decided to fire me simply for being a lesbian, not only would I suffer, but so would that boy.  Lucky for me that my employer didn’t.  But that’s a prospect that many families headed by LGBT people still face.  Sullivan’s veto makes it clear that he only deems some families important — and mine’s not one of them.  So much for “unity.”

I’m really glad that I’ll be in company on the night of the 25th with people who do think my family’s important. [Ref #2; emphases added]

I will add here that I once was, in fact, fired for being a lesbian. Part of my story was aired when I took my own turn being interviewed by KTVA last May, after the Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64 was introduced in the Anchorage Assembly; I gave a more complete account in a followup blog post. At the time I was fired in 1984, I had no family to support — just myself. But discrimination still happens — as Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander herself admitted when she voted against the ordinance on August 11 — and some of the people who are discriminated against do have families that they support, along with themselves. Not to mention that all of us, LGBT or not, are the children of mothers and fathers, the siblings of brothers and sisters. Don’t kid yourself that anti-LGBT discrimination is about “family values”: it’s about the devaluation and ostracization of members of people’s families and, in some cases, of entire families.

So much for “unity.” So much for the “Unity Dinner.”

The True Diversity Dinner will be held on September 25, 2009 at 7:30 PM at the Snow Goose Restaurant in downtown Anchorage. Tickets for the dinner are $10.00 and can be purchased at Borders Books & Music. We hope to have a midtown venue selling tickets soon; see the True Diversity Dinner blog for updates.

References

1. 9/15/09. “Controversy Brews between ‘Diversity’ & ‘Unity’” by Christina Grande (KTVA Channel 11 News) (misdated on KTVA’s website as 9/4/09).
2. 9/15/09. “More on the dueling diversity dinners” by Maia Nolan (Alaska Dispatch).
3. 5/13/09. “Channel 11 interview, part 1 (the video)” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
4. 5/13/09. “Channel 11 interview, part 2 (the full story)” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).

Related posts:

1. True Diversity Dinner video, part 3: Hotel workers, & Elvi's speech
2. True Diversity Dinner 1 & 2: Video by Janson Jones
3. True Diversity v. fake unity

Apparently not to some.

Over the past couple of days on the “vote” page at the True Diversity Dinner blog, where people are being encouraged to nominate and vote for awards on “excellence in the representation, advancement, and advocacy of diversity” in Anchorage, at least a couple of people have nominated the ACLU of Alaska for the Excellence in Non-Profit Award. The ACLU is one of the organizations, along with Equality Works, that took a major leadership role in the effort to pass the Anchorage equal rights ordinance, AO 2009-64, which — had Mayor Sullivan not vetoed it a week after its passage — would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of personal characteristics on the basis of which it would be illegal to discriminate in employment, housing, public accommodations, financial practices, education, and municipal practices.

Here’s where disputation began.  I’ll just give you the entire conversation.  Note that John Aronno, an administrator at the True Diversity Dinner blog, removed a portion of the conversation from the comments because they distracted from what the page was for: nominating & voting on the awards.  But I’d subscribed to comments so had the full conversation in email, & can restore them here.

Kevin Smith (9/13/09 2:28 pm): The ACLU in Alaska is led by a white male, Jeffry [sic] Mittman, so I don’t think they would qualify for a diversity award. If Mittman is gay or transgender, I withdraw my objection.

john aronno (9/13/09 4:43 pm): Mr. Smith, no offense intended, but that would also respectively mean that I should bow out, as should my wife, two of our speakers, probably most of the dance group performing, and a good portion of the sponsors and guests attending the event. This is a diversity dinner, not an exclusivity dinner.

Kevin Smith (9/13/09 8:54 pm): Mr. Aronno,

No offense taken and I hope you will not be offended when I say that if all of the people you listed are white then perhaps a percentage of you should not attend. Certainly the sponsors of True Diversity will understand if their sponsored tickets are taken up by more diverse elements of our society.

Diversity cannot be truly celebrated if all you have are white people (even gay ones) with the rest of our diverse society there as mere window dressing.

John Aronno (9/13/09 11:27 pm): I’m not sure that I, or anyone else, should apologize for celebrating, supporting, and encouraging diversity. That doesn’t even make sense. I can’t help that I’m a white, heterosexual male, and I feel that it’s fairly irresponsible for you to suggest that I, or anyone else, should stay home because of it. Are you really saying that I shouldn’t have a say, because of who I am? Doesn’t that spit in the face of absolutely everything we’re trying to accomplish here?

john aronno: Mr. Smith, I’m removing our conversation, because it does no common good for the purpose of this event. However, if you’d like to continue it, please feel free to email your comments to AlaskaCommons@gmail.com
Thanks,
john

Kevin Smith (9/14/09 12:21 pm): Mr. Aronno, Enjoy your meal. Your willingness (or lack thereof) to discuss true diversity in a public forum leads me to believe you will be dining with a lot of people that look just like yourself. Bon appetit.

Mel Green (posting as yksinainen, 9/14/09 12:46 pm): Oh good grief. I sat next to John at most of the Assembly meetings listening to countless redshirts spew repetitive homophobia — in fact, he sat there when I couldn’t because it was too painful to listen to the ignorance & hatred — & all through it he acted as one of the best advocates I know of for diversity & equality. And now you Kevin Smith are going to sit there as the litmus test judger of whether or not he’s diverse enough to be at this event? Which would not even be occurring in the first place, were it not for his efforts?

Fine way to throw aside your allies. Well, maybe not your ally — but one I’ve all summer long been pleased to have as mine.

Mel Green, Henkimaa.com
Diversity “credentials” : lesbian from working class (white) background

An observation:  in John’s first response, was he referring to the sexual orientation and gender identity of the people he referred to, or to their race? — because it is all three that Mr. Smith referred to in disqualifying Jeffrey Mittman as representing diversity.  John did not actually say, as Mr. Smith assumed, that “all of the people [he] listed are white.” And nor are they.

But here’s the crux of the matter:

Diversity isn’t an individual characteristic. Does the fact that I’m a lesbian make me diverse? No, it only makes me a lesbian.  Does the fact that John is a white heterosexual male make him not diverse? No, it just makes him a white heterosexual male.  Neither of us can be diverse or not diverse all on our own: diversity or its lack is a quality of groups and systems, not of individuals.  It’s the differences between the members of the system, that makes the system as a whole richer, stronger, and more viable.   (Not to mention less boring.)

Me with some of the cool white heterosexuals in my life: my dad, brothers, and sister, April 2009. No wonder I'm not a lesbian separatist!

It should be obvious that being unwelcoming to a particular group within a diverse population doesn’t strengthen diversity or the community.  It weakens it. That understanding has been fundamental to our fight this past summer for the Anchorage equal rights argument: LGBTQ people shouldn’t be excluded from equal protection under the law any more than other Anchorage citizens.  But if LGBTQ people should be included, what’s the possible logic in excluding white heterosexuals, or even just white heterosexual males? Should we, the several bloggers organizing this dinner, print on the $10 tickets being sold for the event: “Don’t buy this ticket if you’re white and straight”? Hardly.  Should we qualify nominations for the diversity awards that will be given out at the dinner to state that no one should be nominated who is straight and white?  Hardly.

Especially when some of those straight white people have done just so much for the effort in the battle for equality and diversity in Anchorage as they have done — more, in some cases, than many LGBTQ or nonwhite people have done.  They have done so because they value the same thing that I do: a community in which we are valued for our differences as much as for what we share: in which the rich heritage of human diversity is honored, respected, and cherished.

I’m glad to have people like this on my side.  I’m on their side, too. My appreciation to John Aronno of Alaska Commons, Heather Aronno of SOSAnchorage.net, Janson Jones of the blog Floridana Alaskiana v2.5, Linda Kellen Biegel of Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, AK Muckraker of the Mudflats, Shannyn Moore of Just a Girl from Homer, Phil Munger of Progressive Alaska, Gryphen of Immoral Minority, Jeffrey Mittman of the Alaska ACLU, my friend and coworker Pam Kelley of the UAA Justice Center, my nephew Miles Green, and all the other white heterosexuals (or presumed to be so) who blogged, organized, testified, wrote letters and emails, and/or showed up at the Loussac Library in support of equality in Anchorage over the past summer — because you love diversity too. And a special thank you to the white heterosexuals (or presumed to be so) on the Anchorage Assembly who joined Elvi Gray-Jackson (who I also thank) in voting on August 11 for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance: Patrick Flynn, Sheila Selkregg, Jennifer Johnston, Mike Gutierrez, Matt Claman, and Harriet Drummond.

I look forward to seeing you, along with all of us who are not white and/or heterosexual, at the True Diversity Dinner on September 25.

Note of addendum 3:35 PM: I’ve just been informed privately that one of the people in the above list of “presumed to be” heterosexuals is, in fact, not heterosexual.  Which just goes to show: just as many people are wrongly assumed to be gay, other people are wrongly assumed to be heterosexual.  In either case, discrimination on the basis of actual or assumed sexual orientation is wrong, wrong, wrong.  Let’s also remember that diversity includes ethnic and religious diversity — so just reducing people to the description “white” doesn’t cut it either.

Three bloggers all in a row. John Aronno of Alaska Commons, Heather Aronno of SOSAnchorage.net, and Mel Green (that is, me) of Henkimaa.com in the Anchorage Assembly chambers on August 11, 2009, when the Assembly passed the Anchorage equal rights ordinance by a vote of 7 to 4. Mayor Dan Sullivan, host of the upcoming "Unity" Dinner, vetoed the ordinance on August 17.

Related posts:

1. True Diversity Dinner: September 25, 2009
2. True Diversity Dinner: Slideshow
3. True Diversity Dinner 1 & 2: Video by Janson Jones

Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander

Anchorage Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander made extensive  comments on August 11 explaining why she would not support passage of the Anchorage equal rights ordinance, AO 2009-64. [Ref #1] Included in her comments was her opinion about Title VII f the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub. L. 88-352), as follows (tip o’ the nib to John Aronno of Alaska Commons for transcription):

I also discovered that, though what we are proposing as protection at the municipal level, through the Equal Rights Commission, there are some federal regulations and laws that could pertain here. I particularly looked at Title VII, what was covered in Title VII, I read some court cases, I read some court cases about Title VII, it’s basically the civil rights law of the United States, and it basically covers, in my mind, employee discrimination, including same sex employee discrimination, for businesses with over fifteen employees.

Pamela Kelley (right) talking with Jean Craciun during a break at the July 21 Anchorage Assembly meeting

This was in spite of testimony before the Assembly on July 21 by Anchorage attorney and UAA Justice professor Pamela Kelley to the effect that, no, in fact existing law does not protect LGBT people from discrimination [Ref #2] and a followup letter Prof. Kelly sent the following day to Ossiander and to Assembly Member Jennifer Johnston about a U.S. Supreme Court case arising out of Title VII, Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U.S. 75 (1998). [Ref #3] As discussed in my post about Prof. Kelley’s letter, Oncale is one case which demonstrates  how narrowly the Supreme Court interprets Title VII’s provisions regarding sex discrimination — which does not extend to sexual orientation. [Ref #4]

Now comes a case decided last Friday in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Prowel v. Wise Business Forms. This case involved a self-described effeminate gay man who claimed his employer discriminated against him because he failed to conform in his mannerisms, style of dress, and interests to masculine gender role stereotypes, in violation of Title VII’s prohibition of sex discrimination. [Ref #5] The 3rd Circuit based its decision in Prowel on another Title VII case, the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, which ruled in favor of a woman who had been discriminated against because she did not conform to traditional norms of femininity. [Ref #6] As summarized by Marquette law professor Paul Secunda,

That’s called sex-stereotype discrimination… when an employer says to someone “you’re not acting ‘female enough’ or ‘male enough,’ therefore we’re firing you.” [Ref #7]

In other words, Price-Waterhouse v. Hopkins clarified that by making sex discrimination in employment illegal, Title VII also made  sex-stereotype discrimination illegal.  But it did not make sexual orientation discrimination illegal, as demonstrated by numerous references in Prowel. For example:

• “a claim for sexual orientation discrimination — which is not cognizable under Title VII” [Ref #5, p. 10]
• quoting from a prior 3rd Circuit decision in Bibby v. Philadelphia Coca Cola Bottling Co. [Ref #8], “Title VII does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Congress has repeatedly rejected legislation that would have extended Title VII to cover sexual orientation” [Ref #5, p. 10]
• again, in reference to the Bibby decision, “Despite acknowledging that harassment based on sexual orientation has no place in a just society, we explained that Congress chose not to include sexual orientation harassment in Title VII” [Ref #5, p. 12]

Emmett Honeycutt (portrayed by Peter Paige) in Showtime's "Queer As Folk" — like Brian D. Prowel, a Pennsylvanian with "pizzazz". (Showtime promotional image)

The question in Prowel was whether Brian D. Prowel, the plaintiff, had been discriminated against for being homosexual — in which case he had no recourse for a complaint under Title VII — or for not conforming to gender stereotypes — in which case he did.  The court was clear in any case that,

There is no basis in the statutory or case law to support the notion that an effeminate heterosexual man can bring a gender stereotyping claim while an effeminate homosexual man may not. [Ref #5, p. 17; emphasis in original]

and hence concluded,

As long as the employee — regardless of his or her sexual orientation — marshals sufficient evidence such that a reasonable jury could conclude that harassment or discrimination occurred “because of sex,” the case is not appropriate for summary judgment. For the reasons we have articulated, Prowel has adduced sufficient evidence [of sex-stereotyping discrimination] to submit this claim to a jury. [Ref #5, p. 17]

What this means in essence is that within the 3rd Circuit’s jurisdiction at least — which includes Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the Virgin Islands [Ref #9]:

• An effeminate gay man fired from his job might have recourse under Title VII, but only if he can prove he was discriminated against based on gender stereotypes, rather than sexual orientation.  A gay man who’s butch?  SOL.
• Likewise, a lesbian with a mannish or butch presentation (like me!) might have recourse — but again, only if she can prove she was canned for being butch, not for being a lesbian.  But a femme lesbian?  Too bad so sad.

The 3rd Circuit’s decision is not precedential for Alaska, which is covered by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.  But there is no reason to suspect that the judges of the 9th Circuit have any different understanding than the judges of the 3rd Circuit when it comes to the relevance of Title VII to sexual orientation discrimination.  Let me repeat: SOL.  Let me repeat: Too bad, so sad.

So display your gender stereotype noncomformity freely. But keep your sexual orientation firmly in the closet. At least, that’s what the case law on Title VII has to say about it. And that will remain the case until, if and when, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Title VII’s sex discrimination provision includes sexual orientation discrimination, or until Congress amends Title VII to add sexual orienation through an Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), as has been proposed in both houses of Congress recently. [Ref #7] Until then, as Paul Secunda explained to the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog,

…while certain states and cities have laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the Supreme Court has never ruled that sexual orientation is covered by Title VII. [Ref #7]

It may all the same be true what Debbie Ossiander said of Title VII, that “it basically covers, in my mind,. employee discrimination, including same sex employee discrimination.”

But what counts with Title VII isn’t what’s in Debbie Ossiander’s mind — but in what the courts have ruled. So while she may have partially salved her own conscience with her mistaken notions about Title VII, reality is that thanks to her “no” vote on AO 2009-64, and what seems likely to be her refusal to override Mayor Sullivan’s veto of it, LGBT people in Anchorage have no more protection from the unfair job discrimination than they they do in housing, public accommodations, financial practices, and municipal practices.

In the meantime, Brian D. Prowel: I wish you the very best. What your coworkers and employer subjected you to was inexcusable.  Readers of this blog can read the full court decision to see just how nasty they were.  And rest assured that some Anchorage employers and coworkers are every bit as nasty.  Too bad. So sad. No recourse here.

References

1. 8/13/09. “Third time in 35 years: Anchorage’s equal rights ordinance” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
2. 7/23/09. “Kelley testimony 1: Contrary to prior Assembly testimony, existing law does not protect LGBT people from discrimination” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
3. 7/23/09. “Kelley testimony 2: Oncale Supreme Court decision on workplace sexual harassment does not protect LGBTs from discrimination” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
4. Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U.S. 75 (1998).
5. 8/28/09. Prowel v. Wise Business Forms. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Opinion written by Judge Thomas M. Hardiman.
6. Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989).
7. 9/1/09. “On Sexual-Orientation and Title VII: Are Changes Afoot?” by Ashby Jones (WSJ.com Law Blog).
8. Bibby v. Philadelphia Coca Cola Bottling Co., 260 F.3d 257 (3d Cir. 2001); cited in Prowel v. Wise Business Forms.
9. 8/29/09. “Appeals court allows gender stereotype case” by Paula Reed Ward (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

[Crossposted at Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis]

Related posts:

1. Kelley testimony 2: Oncale Supreme Court decision on workplace sexual harassment does not protect LGBTs from discrimination
2. Against discrimination in Anchorage
3. "There's no sign of discrimination" — uh, yes there is

According to Mason, he plans on returning to talk to Lewis and bringing him a statement much like the one Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI) signed in support of the ordinance, to see if he can convince McGinley’s to join the businesses who support the equal rights ordinance…

– a result that Brendan considers a long shot.  Yep, me too.

But is boycotting McGinley’s a useful tactic?  For me, McGinley’s association with Mayor George Sullivan — whose mere 10 percent interest in the business earned him $24, 813 last year, according to his filings with APOC — is enough to keep me from adding regular visits to McGinley’s to my Saturday writing routine, as I had one time considered.  I’d rather patronize an LGBT-friendly business like Side Street Espresso (my normal Saturday writing venue) or Kaladi Brothers.  Both places have pretty good soup, too.

(And both have (gasp!) unisex bathrooms!  Better warn Debbie Ossiander!)

But there’s another way to respond to McGinley’s too, as Brendan explains:

Others have taken a different tack with McGinley’s Pub though, staging “gay-ins” during peak business hours where they gather and spend as little money as possible. Someone’s even printed up “McGinley’s Gay Pub” stickers that look like the bar’s logo.

“The strategy of picketing is too angry,” one of the “gay-in” participants wrote to Flashlight, on condition of anonymity. “It doesn’t show the best side of what the LGBT and their supporters bring to the community. Boycotting does exactly what the scumbag Jerry Prevo wants. It creates a place where there is no visible LGBT presence. Demanding an equal place at the table is by far the most effective way to achieve equality, and in a small way, this action is a step in that direction.”

… Mason disagrees with the tactics of those staging the gay-ins at McGinley’s, and he’s holding out hope that McGinley’s will sign on as an ally of those who support the gay rights ordinance. Flashlight thinks that’s a long shot, but considering the unlikelihood of a veto override, we’re not surprised that proponents of the equal rights ordinance are getting creative.

Creative indeed. That’s the gay way!  Maybe some of our creative nongay allies are taking part too.

P.S. The unisex bathrooms at Side Street & Kaladi’s are single user bathrooms.  But still — pretty scary, don’tcha think?  Just like one of those horrible unisex bathrooms in almost everyone’s home!

Reference

1. 8/26/09. “The battle for McGinley’s” by Brendan Joel Kelley (Anchorage Press).

Related posts:

1. At McGinley's Pub
2. Protest inequality: Tonight at McGinley's
3. McGinley's protests protests

The planned protest at McGinley’s Pub over the veto of the Anchorage equal rights ordinance by Mayor Dan Sullivan — who has a 10% interest in the pub — turned out to be not so much of a protest after all.

Discussing how to proceed, given at least three different ideas of the best way to deal with what we knew now.

I arrived shortly after 6:30 PM to find a small group of people across the street from McGinley’s in front of the Dena’ina Convention Center, having a discussion. Other people arrived shortly after I did, but our numbers were small — no more than 20 to 25 people — and it became clear that calling a protest in the morning on the day of, on a Friday when many people already had their plans set, was perhaps not the best way to organize one. It also quickly became clear that there was some disagreement and uncertainty about what to do: some advocated for protest; others to enter the establishment and take up tables, but only buying inexpensive drinks like coffee or soda pop instead of alcohol or food that other patrons would probably buy if they had our table; others yet to take up the offer of McGinley’s managing partner Jack Lewis to hold a conversation over a Guinness.

Ultimately that’s what happened — at least for one or two of the people who showed up; while the rest of us, skeptical after the Summer of Hate and unwilling at this point to give McGinley’s our trade, waited outside and continued to talk. While we waited, one of our number sat amongst the rocks just outside the pub and arranged stones on the sidewalk into the word that probably most of all represents what we’ve been up against all summer: bigotry.

And then, three of our number destroyed it.

(Would that bigotry itself was so easily gotten rid of.)

Michael Mason

At length, Michael Mason came back out and told us about his conversation with Mr. Lewis, who he found pleasant, personable, and friendly, and who explained to him his own view of matters: that, as indicated in his press release earlier in the day, Mayor Sullivan is simply an investment partner with only 10% interest in the business, and that McGinley’s is welcoming to patrons from all walks of life and has had no role whatsoever in the ordinance debate. There was a lot of skepticism, including on my part — Sullivan still derives some income from the bar, does he not? — but I’m also capable of being skeptical of my own skepticism: to give the other side some elbow room to show its good will, and to find it’s in earnest. The conversation Michael embarked upon may or may not result in some new understanding between McGinley’s & the LGBT community — it’ll take a few days to know which.

I really liked McGinley’s the two times I’d been in there before. I discovered it last November one day after writing at Side Street Espresso, and had a great lunch there before heading to Kaladi’s for more writing. At the time I thought I could make that into my normal Saturday routine: but learning of Sullivan’s connection to McGinley’s changed all that: I don’t want to support, with my money, people who are unsupportive of me. I’d like to think I could feel comfortable going there again, and that a peaceful dialogue of the likes Michael had with Mr. Lewis earlier today could bring that about. So I’m willing to let the attempt happen. I’m okay that we didn’t, in the end result, have a protest.

Especially because it meant that nice lady I met on the bus, who had planned to start her relaxing weekend with a glass of Riesling at McGinley’s, was able to enjoy it in perfect peace, without our chants distracting her from a well-earned chance to kick back.

Let’s hope something works out. And if it doesn’t… well. If we ever do need to protest McGinley’s, we’ll plan it better.

Thanks to everyone who turned out. And here’s the slideshow.

Related posts:

1. McGinley's protests protests
2. Gay-ins at McGinley’s
3. Protest inequality: Tonight at McGinley's