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)

My review shows that there is clearly a lack of quantifiable evidence necessitating this ordinance.

That’s what Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan stated on August 17, 2009 when he vetoed Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64, the Anchorage equal rights ordinance, which had been passed the previous week by a vote of 7 to 4 by the Anchorage Assembly.

AO 64 briefly 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. Its passage on August 11, 2009, followed 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.

We know there is discrimination in the Municipality of Anchorage against LGBT people. Indeed, we presented quantifiable evidence from two previous studies on sexual orientation and sexual orientation bias in Alaska and Anchorage. But those studies were conducted in the 1980s, and Mayor Sullivan chose to ignore both them and the firsthand testimony of more recent incidents of antigay/antitrans discrimination that Anchorage residents testified to before the Assembly.

Many of us know a friend or a loved one who has experienced discrimination. In the absence of legal protections, LGBT people — especially transgender individuals — are vulnerable to unfair treatment. We know those stories are out there. We just need to document them.

That’s why we need your help.

If you are an LGBT person who lives, works, or spends time in Anchorage — or if you’ve lived/worked/spent time in Anchorage in the past — please complete the Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey.

It takes about 10 minutes to complete the survey. All survey responses are completely confidential, and survey administration has been designed to ensure the privacy of all respondents.

We need your help whether or not you have personally experienced discrimination.

To make sure that there is only one person per survey, and to ensure that only members of the LGBT community participate, a valid PIN number is required for your survey to be counted. But it’s simple. Just:

1. Contact the Project Manager, Shelby Carpenter, at scarpenter@akclu.org or at 907.263.2006 to get a PIN.
2. Go to http://alaskacommunity.org/ to complete the survey.
3. Paper surveys are also available upon request.

The Community Survey Task Force has extended survey data collection to March 31, 2011 in order to give more people time to respond. Please pass the word along to other LGBT folks who live, work, or spend time in Anchorage, Eagle River, Chugiak, Peters Creek, Eklutna, Girdwood.

Thank you for your help with this important study!

Related posts:

1. My letter to Mayor Sullivan: Please let AO 64 stand
2. Anchorage’s LGBT Discrimination Survey
3. Delay by "task force": My testimony to the Anchorage Assembly

Today the Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony on Senate Bill 11, the the Alaska Hate Crimes Act, “An Act relating to the commission of a crime when the defendant directed the conduct constituting the crime at the victim based on the victim’s race, sex, color, creed, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, or national origin” [click for full text].

Jim Minnery of Alaska Family Council at a public hearing on the Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO-64, 7 July 2009

In spite of the fact that the bill addresses hate crimes based on a number of personal characteristics, the factually incorrect “action alert” sent by Jim Minnery of Alaska Family Council to his supporters yesterday focused exclusively on sexual orientation and gender identity.  As John Aronno of the Alaska Commons noted this morning in his debunking of Minnery’s alert, “nothing seems to get [Minnery's] soul patch flaring like ‘the gay.’”  (John’s piece has also been crossposted it at Bent Alaska.)  Indeed, the only opposition I’ve heard about regarding this bill is based on antigay/antitrans sentiments.

But the Alaska Hate Crimes Act isn’t only about LGBT Alaskans.  It’s about all Alaskans.  So while my letter in support of SB11 brought up a bunch of stats about the violence  lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transfolk have experience just for being who we are, let’s not forget the paintball attacks on Alaska Natives in Anchorage just a few short years ago, or the two Anchorage youth who thought it was cool  to post on YouTube their assault on an Alaska Native man in summer 2009 — a “summer of hate” not only because of the hate directed at LGBT folks in Anchorage during the public hearings on AO-64.  Let’s not forget the other ways in which violent crime is directed at some people based simply on the color of their skin, what religion they practice, their sex, their national origin, their physical or mental disabilities.  Hate: just for being who you are.

Given the inaccuracies being propounded by Minnery and his followers & allies, I thought I’d present some of the facts about what the bill actually says and what it will actually do if passed, before presenting the email I sent today in support of the bill.

What the Act says:

SENATE BILL NO. 11
“An Act relating to the commission of a crime when the defendant directed the conduct constituting the crime at the victim based on the victim’s race, sex, color, creed, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, or national origin.”

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:

* Section 1. AS 11.76 is amended by adding a new section to read:
Sec. 11.76.150. Motivation by prejudice, bias, or hatred. (a) A person commits the crime of motivation by prejudice, bias, or hatred if the person commits a crime in this title and the person knowingly directed the conduct constituting the crime at the victim of the crime because of the victim’s race, sex, color, creed, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, or national origin.(b) In this section, “gender identity” means actual or perceived gender-related
characteristics.
(c) Motivation by prejudice, bias, or hatred is a
(1) class A misdemeanor if the crime committed is a class B misdemeanor;
(2) class C felony if the crime committed is a class A misdemeanor;
(3) class B felony if the crime committed is a class C felony;
(4) class A felony if the crime committed is a class B felony;
(5) unclassified felony and the defendant shall be sentenced to a definite term of imprisonment of at least five years but not more than 99 years if the crime committed is a class A felony.

* Sec. 2. AS 12.55.155(c)(22) is amended to read:
(22) the defendant knowingly directed the conduct constituting the offense at a victim because of that person’s race, sex, color, creed, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, or national origin; in this paragraph, “gender identity” means actual or perceived gender-related characteristics;

What the Act will do

From the sponsor statement of Senator Bettye Davis (the bill’s co-sponsors are Senators Hollis French and Johnny Ellis):

This bill increases the sentencing for crimes motivated prejudice, bias, or hatred based on the victim’s race, sex, color, creed, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, or national origin. This new crime can only be committed when a person commits some underlying crime and the person directed the conduct constituting the crime at the victim due to one of the listed characteristics of the victim. The new crime increases the classification of the underlying crime one level.

Without creating a new list of “hate crimes” under AS 11.76, new Sec. 11.76.150 simply reclassifies the level of any crime up one notch if motivated by prejudice, bias, or hatred based on the victim’s race, sex, color, creed, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, or national origin. For example, a class B misdemeanor becomes a class A misdemeanor; a class A misdemeanor becomes a C felony; a class C felony becomes a B felony, etc. Such reclassification, of course, increases the penalties appropriate to the classification in sentencing under AS 12.55. The bill also amends AS 55.155(c)(22), an aggravating factor as sentencing for felonies, by adding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of protected characteristics.

The need for this bill is demonstrated by increasing reports of violence against homeless persons, minorities, religious groups, and others motivated by prejudice, bias, and hatred in Alaska and across the country in our highly diverse and multicultural society. When crimes are committed because of people’s differences, the effects reverberate beyond a single victim or group into an entire community, city, state, and society as a whole. While this bill alone cannot eliminate prejudice, bias, or hatred, it will send a message that Alaskans will not tolerate hate crimes in any form, and sentencing for them will be substantially increased.

From the sectional summary by Legislative Counsel Gerald P. Luckhaupt, Division of Legal and Research Services, Alaska Legislative Affairs Agency:

Section 1. This new crime can only be committed when a person commits some underlying crime and the person directed the conduct constituting the crime at the victim due to one of the listed characteristics of the victim. The new crime increases the classification of the underlying crime one level.

Section 2. Amends AS 55.155(c)(22), an aggravating factor at sentencing for felonies, by adding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of protected characteristics.

My letter today to the Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee

Senator Hollis French
Senator Bill Wielechowski
Senator Joe Paskvan
Senator Lesil McGuire
Senator John Coghill
Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee

Dear Senators:

I’m writing in support of Senate Bill 11, “An Act relating to the commission of a crime when the defendant directed the conduct constituting the crime at the victim based on the victim’s race, sex, color, creed, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, or national origin.”

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 on a wide range of issues, including experience of discrimination, harassment, and violence. Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska, published in 1989, comprised three papers including “Prima Facie,” which documented 84 actual cases (from personal interviews and documentary evidence) 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/.)

Of the 734 respondents to One in 10, 61% reported being victimized by violence and harassment while in Alaska because of their sexual orientation. This ranged from verbal abuse/harassment, reported by 58%, to physical violence, 11%, and sexual assault, 5%. In the “Prima Facie” component of Identity Reports, we documented 25 cases of verbal abuse, harassment, or threats; 10 cases involving actual physical violence (including 4 assaults, 3 murders, 2 sexual assaults involving multiple assailants, and one attempted sexual assault); 3 cases involving property damage; one smoke-bombing; and one tear-gassing.

We are working now to update the research of One in Ten and Identity Reports through the Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey, currently in progress, and a projected statewide Alaska LGBT Statewide Community Survey, which will cover a wide range of questions beside those on discrimination/bias. Unlike the studies in the 1980s, the current research includes gender identity as well as sexual orientation — an important distinction, as transgender persons are arguably victimized by violent crime at even higher rates than lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. For example, 7 percent of the 6,436 respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (which included Alaskans) reported being physically assaulted at work because of being transgender or gender non-conforming, 6 percent reported being sexually assaulted at work for that reason. In schools, 31 percent were harassed and bullied, 5 percent were physically assaulted, and 3 percent were sexually assaulted by teachers and staff because of their gender identity or presentation.

For these reasons, I’m pleased that the bill’s language includes both sexual orientation and gender identity. But I’m also in support of the bill for its inclusion of race, sex, color, creed, physical or mental disability, ancestry, and national origin. Along with other Alaskans, I was appalled and upset by the paintball attacks on Alaska Natives that took place in Anchorage a few years ago, or the more recent You-Tubed bias-motivated attack on an Alaska Native man in Anchorage in summer 2009. I’ve also read minutes of the Senate Judiciary’s February 16 meeting, and especially remember the testimony of Kate Burkhart, Executive Director of the Alaska Mental Health Board, that the Department of Justice has found people with a disability to 2 to 3 times more likely to be victimized by violent crime than other people.

Virtually all the opposition I’ve heard to this bill so far has come from those who opposition rests solely on its inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity. Yesterday, Jim Minnery of the Alaska Family Council sent out an action alert that claimed, among other things, that “A person who assaults a homosexual will be given a harsher penalty than if that same assault was perpetrated on, for example, an elderly person.” I considered whether Mr. Minnery would claim to his members that, “A person who assaults a mentally disabled person will be given a harsher penalty than if that same assault was perpetrated on, for example, an elderly person” — or substitute any other word that covers people whose personal characteristics would be covered by this act: Christian, Muslim, Alaska Native, Caucasian. Mr. Minnery also falsely claimed that passage of this bill would result in antigay speech itself being treated as a hate crime (in notable contrast to SB11 supporter Jeffrey Mittman of the Alaska ACLU’s efforts to ensure that the bill’s language steer clear of language that might subject it to constitutional “free speech” challenges). Other logical inconsistencies of Mr. Minnery’s action alert were persuasively debunked by John Aronno on the blog the Alaska Commons last night.

I hope that testimony and emails from Mr. Minnery’s supporters based on poor and even dishonest reasoning will not dissuade members of the Senate Judiciary Committee from acting positively on this important legislation.

Thank you for your consideration.
Melissa S. Green
Anchorage, Alaska

Related posts:

1. Against discrimination in Anchorage
2. My letter to the Anchorage Assembly
3. My letter to Mayor Sullivan: Please let AO 64 stand

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

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

In the 1980s, the nonprofit organization Identity, Inc. conducted two major research efforts to profile Alaska’s lesbian/gay/bisexual community and to document sexual orientation bias in Alaska.

One in Ten: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community (1986) provided the first statewide portrait of Alaska’s lesbian and gay (and to some extent bisexual) population, describing our experiences of coming out, of discrimination, our physical and emotional health, religious and political affiliations, demographic characteristics, and a general needs assessment.  Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska (1989) focused on discrimination and bias, documenting 84 actual instances of antigay bias, discrimination, harassment, or violence (including three murders) around the state, as well as the positive willingness of 20% of landlords and 31% of employers in the Anchorage area to discriminate against persons who were — or were perceived to be — gay or lesbian.

A lot has changed in the two-and-a-half decades since.  There’s a lot more live-and-let-live, a lot more acceptance of lesbians and gays.  Yet the continuing legacy of antigay prejudice and discrimination persists. Arguably, prejudice against transfolk is even more virulent — often even within our own community.

One of the chief arguments used by opponents of last year’s Anchorage Ordinance 64 — which would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the Municipality of Anchorage’s equal rights code — was that there was no evidence of discrimination against LGBT people.  This claim was made in spite of the weight of evidence provided in One in Ten and Identity Reports.  But of course, that evidence was two decades old, so ordinance opponents found it easy to ignore; and they found it just as easy to close their ears to the public testimony of Anchorage LGBT residents who stepped forward to testify to very recent experiences of discrimination and bias — even as one opponent openly told the Assembly that he’d once beaten a gay man so badly that he put him in the hospital.

And so — we’ve decided to bring One in Ten up-to-date by conducting a new statewide survey — the Alaska LGBT Community Survey.  Like its predecessor, the Alaska LGBT Community Survey aims to create a profile of our community in all its diversity and with all its diverse concerns; and as we did in 1985-86, we’ll use the survey as vehicle to solicit case histories to document our community’s continuing experiences with discrimination, harassment, and violence.  Unlike One in Ten, the Alaska LGBT Community Survey will include transfolk as well as gay, lesbian, and bisexual folk, in the design of the survey questionnaire as well as in filling it out.

We’re in a very early stage right now.  We just made the firm commitment to do this last week! But we wanted to tell you about it right away.

We aim to have at least initial results of our survey by April 2011. For more and continuing information as we go along:

• subscribe to our blog at alaskacommunity.org;
• “like” our Facebook page;
• follow @alaskacommunity on Twitter; or
• do all three!

We’ll also doing our best to keep you updated through our regular LGBT news channels such as Bent Alaska, TransAlaska Pipeline, Grrlzlist, the Alaska GLBT News maillist, and — well, yeah, my own blog, Henkimaa.

Stay tuned!

— Melissa S. (Mel) Green

Learn more about Identity Reports and One in Ten.

Related posts:

1. Alaska LGBT Community Survey: Who we are & where we’re at
2. Anchorage’s LGBT Discrimination Survey
3. Alaska LGBT Community Survey: It’s not only about discrimination

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 came out when I was a sophomore in college at age 19. Actually, I came out somewhere in North Dakota on a Greyhound bus on my way back to college for my sophomore year, after first having agonized for several months as a freshman, & then the full summer at home in Montana, & not having anyone to talk with about the feelings I had or what they meant.  It was a decision I made alone, & it was very very scary. That was 1978.

My high school graduation photo, 1977, about a year before I came out

This year, 31 years later, after Mayor Sullivan vetoed the ordinance that would otherwise have granted equal protection under the law for LGBTQ residents of & visitors to Anchorage, Julia O’Malley wrote in the Anchorage Daily News about a friend of hers, a lesbian 15 years her senior, who took the veto as a message that the city did not welcome her.  Julia wrote,

To me, Sullivan’s decision isn’t evidence Anchorage has any particular point of view. Instead, it says one thing: a lot of old people run this city. [Ref #1]

Julia went on to discuss her “political mullet theory”: that like someone who continues to wear the same hairstyle long after it’s gone out of fashion, the current political leadership of Anchorage continues to hang on to attitudes & prejudices that are out-of-date.  But the times they are a’changing:

Statistics show we’re poised for a change. A group of young professionals will soon fill jobs vacated by boomers. They don’t have the hang-ups of the previous generation. [Ref #1]

Julia took a fair bit of flack for her opinion — not least from baby boomers who took issue with being identified with  older, less tolerant attitudes that Mayor Sullivan affirmed with his veto.  For example, one person wrote to her,

Please don’t forget how many “old people” were fighting for civil rights long before you were born. [Ref #2]

Julia responded the next day with a followup entitled “Boomers: this is not personal, it’s about statistics”:

Actually, there have actually been several polls and they all show the same thing: young people are more comfortable with gays than older people. Dogging all old people is really not my message. (I love old people, just ask my boomer parents!) And, experience is important in government. This column is about trend data that looks at attitudes. And baby boomers have different attitudes than those younger than them when it comes to gays. [Ref #2]

I had no issue with what Julia said in the initial article.  I agreed.  I was born in 1959, considered by some demographers as the tail end of the baby boom: baby boomers were (& still are) my older friends & my age peers. What Julia wrote about the attitudes of my generation holds true to what surrounded me when I came  out in 1978.  It was scary, it was painful, & it was a slow long job to learn who I could or could not trust with this important aspect of who I am.  And as hateful as the “Truth is Not Hate” hate speech that we heard constantly spewed from the mouths of red-shirted ordinance opponents over the course of the summer, the sentiments they expressed were not so different from the conventional wisdom of the majority of my peers in the East Coast women’s liberal arts college I attended from 1977 to 1981. Yes: the same college that Hillary Rodham Clinton attended, a supposed bastion of liberalism.

Recently I was contacted on Facebook by someone who attended my college about four or five years after I graduated.  To my surprise, she told me that in her day, I was “a legend.”  A legend? I asked.  What did I do? She told me it was because I was out.  Just the simple fact that I, by the time I was a senior, was out (& well-enough known in the college community that it counted).

Here’s the thing: as frightening as it was for me to acknowledge & accept who & what I am in the face of the incredible prejudice & hatred I might encounter (& occasionally did), it was one heckuva lot easier than winding my guts in knots by pretending to be something & someone I am not.  In fact, accepting myself as a lesbian was the foundational step in me ultimately being able, a few years later, to give up self-hatred altogether.

Here’s the other thing: as scary as it was to come out at age 19 in college, it was one heckuva lot easier for me than it was for those who came before me.  I’m thinking not only of the gay men & women who stood up against police harassment at Stonewall, but of the butch & femme subculture of Greenwich Village & other places where women lived the best they could as who they were in spite of publicly sanctioned persecution. Their courage in living as themselves instead of kowtowing to the incredible pressure to live by arbitrary rules that would have doomed them to unhappy lives — that made it just that much easier for me to find that courage, & live as myself.  I considered it my debt to them to make it that much easier for those who followed me.

So if the alum of my college was helped in coming out because I had been out in my time: I did my job.  If Julia O’Malley in 2009 can write, as she did in June,

I’ve been openly gay since I was 17 and I can say that I’ve never worried about getting fired or renting an apartment. I have a huge supportive family and a wide network of friends, so maybe I’ve been insulated. But every stranger I’ve come out to, from my high school principal to the cable guy, has been totally respectful. [Ref #3]

— that’s because I & others of my generation have done our jobs. By coming out, by living openly as who we were & are, by taking the licks that the bigoted were still gonna whack us with when they could, & getting up (if we could) & dusting ourselves off & keeping on going — we became known.  We are siblings, children, parents, friends, coworkers — people who are people, not just scary bugaboos hiding in the closets where Jerry Prevo & his ilk would prefer us to be kept, so that they can continue unchallenged in making up lies about us.

I have a fancy degree in the study of social movements but everything I know about real social change comes from living here. It boils down to this: Laws don’t change people’s minds, personal relationships do. [Ref #3]

I’ve made other modest contributions to the struggle for equal rights under the law for LGBTQ people.  I was a founding member in college of Wellesley Lesbians & Friend; in the early 1980s I was a board member of the Alaska Gay & Lesbian Resource Center (now known as Identity, Inc.); in the late 1980s I was principal writer or coauthor of the two most comprehensive studies done to date on lesbian & gay Alaskans & on sexual orientation bias in Alaska; & this year I wrote extensively on this blog about the Anchorage equal rights ordinance passed by the Assembly but vetoed by the Mayor, for which I received recognition at the True Diversity Dinner with an award for Excellence in Online Media.

But the most important work I’ve done is to simply live my life, openly, as who I am.  Which is no more & no less than what everyone should do, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity or any of the other things that make us various & gloriously different from one another.

If that’s legendary, then let’s all live legendary lives.

Harming none, do as you will.

Note: Julia O’Malley was the recipient on September 30 of the True Diversity Award for Excellence in Print Media. Congratulations, Julia!

References

1. 8/18/09. “What decade is it again, Mayor Sullivan?” by Julia O’Malley (Anchorage Daily News).
2. 8/19/09. “Boomers: this is not personal, it’s about statistics” by Julia O’Malley (Anchorage Daily News).
3. 6/5/09. “Looking for common ground at the Baptist Temple” by Julia O’Malley (Anchorage Daily News).

Related posts:

1. Anchorage & LGBT: if those words apply to you, we need your help
2. Protest inequality: Tonight at McGinley's
3. It Gets Better, the book: A “message in a bottle” to LGBT youth

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