Into my email inbox about an hour ago came the following Anchorage Daily News breaking news item:

Breaking News

Gay-rights ordinance appears doomed

The prospect of a gay rights ordinance passing look dim as Anchorage Assembly Chairwoman Debbie Ossiander says she will continue to allow testimony from anyone who wants to speak on the issue, effectively preventing passage of the ordinance under the watch of a supportive city administration.

If you click through to the story now, you’ll find that it’s been retitled “Prospects dimming for gay-rights ordinance” — a renaming which occurred about 11:54 AM between me posting my first comment on the article (at 11:53:39 AM)  & my second (at 11:55:03 AM).

The story is by ADN reported Megan Holland — the same person whose earlier story, entitled “Residents demand to air views on gay-rights amendment”, prompted me earlier today to cancel my electronic subscription to the ADN.  Why? Because the story failed to make any mention whatsoever of the long-brewing issue of nonresidents from Mat-Su being permitted to testify — just more evidence that the ADN is falling down on the job when it comes to actually investigating news stories instead of acting as mere stenographers for whatever they’re being told by the people they talk with.

You might recall that I wrote a post about the Outside influence issue last week.  Fascinatingly, finally now in this doomsaying article, Megan Holland finally mentions the problem — the first time I’ve seen it mentioned in the ADN (unless I missed something — & I am willing to be corrected).  Holland writes:

Opponents of the measure have been organized, showing up by the hundreds, bringing in Christian youth groups, and busing in churchgoers from Mat-Su, some of whom work in Anchorage.

Wow, finally some acknowledgment from the city’s newspaper-of-record!

A few days ago a friend of mine wrote to the Assembly objecting to permitting the testimony of non-Anchorage residents.  He received a reply back from Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander, which he shared with me.  The pertinent parts (emphasis added):

The decisions on how best to conduct the hearings are made by the chair. I have taken into consideration the requests to limit testimony to residents of the municipality and have decided against that for several reasons. Many, many of the people who work and play in our town live in the Valley. Anchorage is a true regional city in the sense that its impact extends beyond its physical boundaries in many ways.

And so therefore those people who work & play in Anchorage but do not pay Anchorage taxes or vote in Anchorage elections should have the right to influence our elected representatives to permit discrimination against Anchorage citizens?

Try it this way:

Many, many of the people who work and play in our country live in Canada or Mexico, or hold green cards from other nations. The United States is a true regional power — in fact a world power — in the sense that its impact extends beyond its physical boundaries in many ways.

So let’s let Canadian, Mexican, & other foreign citizens come testify before Congress to influence U.S. lawmakers’ decisions about how to govern U.S. citizens!

I think not.

Then there’s the other issue the article mentions:

Some backers of the proposed law have accused opponents of filibustering — packing the hearing with opposition voices to stall the proposal until it falls in Sullivan’s term. Ossiander said she has suspected that at times but she has also heard very impassioned testimony that convinces her the issue is deeply important to people.

Jerry Prevo at Wednesday evening's Anchorage Baptist Temple picnic on the Loussac Library lawn. Prevo canceled ABT services that night in order that ABT members could attend the Assembly hearing.

Sure: the same impassioned testimony heard over & over from the same small subset of the Anchorage (& let’s not forget the Mat-Su) population, repeating the same talking points over & over again ad nauseum from the filibustering Christianists.  As John Aronno of Alaska Commons wrote in his account of Wednesday night’s testimony before the Assembly — the same night, you might recall, that Anchorage Baptist Temple pastor Jerry Prevo canceled evening services so that his congregation could head over to the Loussac to overwhelm the Assembly —

I was there from the beginning of the meeting at 4pm, and left shortly after nine-thirty. The “voices of the people” are not sending any new messages that need to be put on record. The “voices of the people” are now a loop.

And later,

I don’t know where we go from here. If there is an upside, it is in the clarity that the Assembly has offered us. They have made up their minds. They’re not telling us how they’ve made up their minds, but it is clear that the time for changing their minds has solidly run out. The first attempts to filibuster the discussion and subsequent vote on this ordinance continue. But, even more prevalent is the new tactic to literally strong arm the law. The anger. The bully mentality.

One should add that most of the people who testified Wednesday night were the last of the people who originally signed up to testify on the night of Tuesday, June 9 — & thus probably included at least some of those persons originally bused in or carpooled over from the Mat-Su.  Noncitizens that Debbie Ossiander persists in giving ear to.  Because the repetitive testimony, principally from congregants brought to the Assembly en masse from Anchorage Baptist Temple & other fundamentalist or evangelical churches, and some of whom are noncitizens of Anchorage, is — y’know — impassioned.  Well, filibusters usually do have something with group’s passion — including a passionate desire to run out the clock.

Debbie Ossiander is only cooperating in that, whether knowingly or unknowingly.  One rather suspects the former.  As a Facebook contact of mine wrote after the ADN doomsayer story came out,

I hate to say it, but I call it like I see it. It seems to me Ossiander is prolonging it so we can’t get it passed.

Yep, looks like it to me, too.  Assembly  Chair Ossiander has been uncertain in her own support or nonsupport of the ordinance, and by doing this “everybody should get heard even if they don’t live in Anchorage and even if they’re all repeating the same talking points over & over again,” she’s effectively also making it so that she perhaps won’t have to vote, and can escape unscathed from making a choice that will get her in trouble with either her conscience, or the conservative portions of her constituency.  It’s questionable, to say the least, if this is a responsibly neutral way to handle the chair’s responsibilities.

As Celtic Diva (Linda Kellen Biegel) wrote, the first of the reader comments on the Megan Holland’s doomsayer story:

If this doesn’t pass, I hope Alaskans will remember that Debbie Ossiander is the reason why:

1) She allowed all of the bussed in Valley people to sign up and testify. Gee, I wonder what would happen if I wanted to testify on and Ordinance in Wasilla or Palmer?

2) She continued to allow people to sign up for testimony every day they’ve had it. Since I was one of the last people to sign up on the first day and I testified Thursday, they’d be done by now and voting on Tuesday.

Darn betcha I’ll remember — and I’ll be doing my best to ensure other people remember as well.

(P.S. You must’ve been in a hurry, Linda: I think you mean Wednesday.  Though it was probably so late on Wednesday that it felt like Thursday!)

Related posts:

1. Outside influence
2. Assembly report 1
3. No, Debbie, Title VII does NOT prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in employment. Hello?

As tomorrow approaches, there are some things I wonder, & some things I don’t.

• I don’t wonder if the fundamentalist anti-ordinance forces will bus in a lot of red-shirted adults from the Mat-Su — outside the boundaries of where the ordinance, if passed, will have effect — to advocate for the denial of equal rights protections from people who will be affected by whether the ordinance passes or not.  After all, they’ve already signed up to testify, & have already been told that their testimony will be heard.
• I do wonder if the fundamentalist anti-ordinance forces will also bus in scores of kids in red shirts, as they did last week, to act, again, as walking billboards for the Alaska Family Council and other views that the kids themselves don’t necessarily understand.
• I don’t wonder if I’ll be there.  In blue.
• I do wonder if the the latest beauty queen candidate to join Carrie Prejean in the hearts & minds of conservative antigdaydom will make another appearance in tiara, sash, & bright red shirt.

But I shouldn’t wonder.  Maybe I should just look up the official events on the schedule of the recently crowned Mrs. Alaska United States®, Renee’ Scott.  Nope, nothing for Tuesday the 16th on the calendar.  We’ve learned the Anchorage Assembly will continue taking testimony at a special meeting on Wednesday the 17th, too — but nope, nothing on Mrs. Scott’s calendar for that day, either.

But if you look back a week, at June 9 — last Tuesday — you’ll see this item:

June 9, 2009
Anchorage City Assembly Meeting
Mrs. Alaska and Mrs. Anchorage attended the Anchorage
Assembly Meeting discussing city ordinance measures.  CLICK
HERE to watch the Channel 2 KTUU video footage.

I first heard of Mrs. Alaska United States® last week shortly before I headed over to the Loussac Library for last Tuesday’s Assembly event, when I checked Facebook & found someone had posted a brief item by Julia O’Malley.  Julia, you may remember, had the week before posted a story about meeting Rev. Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple. In this item, titled  “Mrs. Alaska and gay rights,” Julia wrote:

Just when I thought I’d heard everything when it comes to the city’s equal rights ordinance, I got a press release about Renee’ Scott, aka Mrs. Alaska, the state’s newly-crowned representative in the competitive world of married beauty queens.

As her first act of business, she will be showing up at the Assembly meeting tonight to stand against the mayor’s “effort at instating special rights for homosexuals.” She’ll be wearing red, the color of the ordinance’s opponents, along with her crown and sash.

Really? We have record numbers of homeless people dying in the woods in Anchorage, villages decimated by flooding on the Yukon, sky-high rates of domestic violence and alcoholism, and the Mrs. is getting wound-up about protecting gay people from discrimination? This is priority number one?

Julia went on to quote Mrs. Scott’s press release, which was apparently issued on June 8, the day after the Mrs. Alaska United States® pageant was held at the Anchorage Marriott Downtown:

Newly crowned Mrs. Alaska to stand against proposed Sexual Orientation special rights proposal at Anchorage Assembly meeting.

Just last night, Renee’ Scott of Anchorage was crowned Mrs. Alaska United States 2009 and tomorrow night, June 9th, she will be at the Anchorage Assembly meeting at 6:30 pm at the Loussac Library to stand against Acting Mayor, Matt Claman’s, last second effort at instating special rights for homosexuals.

On Sunday night, June 7th, Renee’ Scott won the title of Mrs. Alaska 2009, and just 2 days later, June 9th at 6:30 pm at the Loussac Library, she will be wearing her newly acquired Mrs. Alaska sash and crown at the Anchorage Assembly meeting standing against Acting Mayor, Matt Claman’s, move to instate special rights for gays, lesbians and transgenders.

A member of Anchorage Baptist Temple, Renee’ Scott plans to wear the color “red” with other opponents of the proposed measure, along with her new Mrs. Alaska sash and crown.

Renee’ Scott plans to use her title as Mrs. Alaska United States to represent traditional marriage and family-focused issues.

I read that & just kind of shook my head.  I’d never heard of the Mrs. Alaska United States® pageant before — I’m not a pageant follower — though like pretty much everyone else I knew that Gov. Sarah Palin was a past runner up in a statewide contest.  And who hasn’t heard about former Miss California USA 2009 Carrie Prejean, who having initially retained her crown in the wake of her anti-same sex marriage comments at the national Miss USA contest, lost it last week (the day after Mrs. Scott donned her red shirt at the Loussac)  on the grounds of “continued breach of contract issues.”  I haven’t cared about the Carrie Prejean controversy any more than I have about beauty pageants in general — sorry, the world of beauty pageantry is not that significant to me.  Besides,  maybe I’m just used to beauty queens making themselves into representatives of the forces opposing equal rights for LGBT people.  Remember Anita Bryant?

So here’s what I learned from the story:

1. there’s a pageant called Mrs. Alaska United States®;
2. a new Mrs. Alaska U.S. had just been crowned;
3. the newly-crowned Mrs. Alaska U.S. was a member of the Anchorage Baptist Temple; &,
4. guess what, she’d be using her official Mrs. Alaska U.S. tiara and sash to stand forth against “special rights” [sic] for LGBT people.  (Translation: she would be standing up for special rights for Anchorage Baptist Temple members & other conservative Christians to discriminate against LGBT people in employment, housing, credit/finance, and public accommodations, & to demand that all other people including those who didn’t want it have that special right too.) — Oh yes, & I also learned from the story that
5. anti-ordinance forces would be wearing red.  I hadn’t known that before.

Mrs. Alaska United States® and Mrs. Anchorage United States outside the Wilda Marston Theatre near the Assembly chambers

Other than passing that info on to another couple of people, I forgot all about it until later in the evening, when I  took advantage of a break from the proceedings inside the Assembly chambers to visit the restroom, & caught a glimpse (duly recorded with my Nikon Coolpix S10 digital camera) of not one but two women in tiaras & sashes standing just outside the Wilda Marson Theatre.  The other woman, I learned later, was Mrs. Anchorage United States ®, Anna Foerster, who had also received her title on June 7, apparently a title which came to her as runner-up in the pageant.  No idea if she’s also an ABT member.

Mrs. Carol Prevo (Rev. Prevo's wife) beside Mrs. Alaska United States®, Renee' Scott. Photo courtesy AK Muckracker

Then back inside the Assembly chambers and, as I described in my account of Tuesday night’s events, I knew little else of what was going on outside until I got home that night and read Phil Munger’s Progressive Alaska post about outside events, & the following day AK Muckraker’s Mudflats account.   AKMuckraker reported:

Miss Alaska and Mrs. Alaska were both there in tiny dresses and tiaras to support those who were opposing the ordinance. I don’t get that excited about beauty pageants, but aren’t these women supposed to be representing the whole state? Why, I thought, were they here in full regalia on such a divisive issue?

(Slight correction: based on other info, I think it was the newly-crowned Mrs. Anchorage U.S., not Miss Alaska, who was accompanying Mrs. Scott.)

Mrs. Alaska United States® prepares to parade children through the protest. Photo courtesy Phil Munger

Phil Munger’s post was principally about on the red-shirted kids that had been bused in by Anchorage and Mat-Su fundamentalist churches; his mention of Mrs. Alaska U.S. was in that context:

The kids, some less than ten, were mostly without parents. They were sort of clumped together, perhaps by congregation, or by home schooling support group. Dozens of adults were taking pictures of the kids, some encouraged by the Christianist adults around the youngsters. I took about 70 photos. Here are a few. The first six are of some of the kids. The last two are of Mrs. Alaska, as she prepared to parade some of the kids through the demonstrators, and then as she paraded them.

(Christianist is a term I first heard from Atlantic Monthly blogger Andrew Sullivan — a useful term that to me conveys not Christiantity as religion, but rather Christianity as political ideology.  Sullivan, who is gay, Catholic, & conservative — but not a “war of values” social conservative — does not feel any more represented by the religious right than my friend Dianne O’Connell of Immanuel Presbyterian Church does; in an essay written for Time magazine, Sullivan writes, “let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism.” That’s the sense in which Phil used the term.  I use it sometimes too.)

Mrs. Alaska United States parades kids outside the Loussac Library, June 9, 2009. Photo courtesy Phil Munger

But all in all, the exploits of the new Mrs. Alaska United States® were pretty low on my radar, & on the radar of most people I was talking with too. But it did come up in discussion last Thursday on the Facebook wall of a friend of mine.  A few of us started exchanging information.  Being something of a research geek about things that inspire my curiosity — given the right hook, apparently even about beauty pageants — I started doing some extra digging.  Here’s some of what I & other people learned:

• First of all, don’t confuse Mrs. Alaska United States® with Mrs. Alaska America.  They are two different pageants with two different sets of sponsors. This year’s Mrs. Alaska America will be held on July 18 at Bartlett High School; the pageant is affiliated with the national level Mrs. America pageant.  I can’t find any official statement to confirm, but private information has it that the Mrs. Alaska America pageant organizers are less than happy with the confusion created by use in the media & blogs of plain old “Mrs. Alaska” as Mrs. Scott’s pageant title, since the Mrs. Alaska America pageant doesn’t wish to be mistakenly associated with Mrs. Scott’s anti-ordinance, anti-gay political agenda, which they do not apparently share.  Notice how carefully I’ve been using the title Mrs. Alaska United States® or Mrs. Alaska U.S. throughout this post?  This is why.  Don’t forget the little registered trademark mark! ®
• The Mrs. Alaska United States® pageant is affiliated with the national Mrs. United States pageant. Eligibility requirements for competitors: “The Mrs. Alaska pageant requires its competitors to be at least 21 years old, a property owner or resident of Alaska, and married (no specific length of marriage is necessary).   Contestants are judged on 1/4 personal interview, 1/4 swim wear, 1/4 evening gown and 1/4 on-stage question.  Besides the overall title, contestants may compete in various optional competitions.”
• For those who wonder, as I did, if title-holders are supposed to wear official tiaras and sashes while representing political views which may not be the official views of the pageant, I could find only this  statement: “The Pageant Sponsors, Directors, Judges and Pageant Officials Do Not Represent the Personal Opinions, Expressions or Platforms of the Contestants, Reigning Mrs. Anchorage, or Reigning Mrs. Alaska.” My thought: all those capital letters make that Really Hard To Read.  My other thought: don’t you have that backwards?  Don’t you really mean to say that the personal opinions etc. of the contestants & title-winners don’t represent the views of the pageant sponsors & official?  Think about it: would Donald Trump really need to tell us that he doesn’t represent the views of Carrie Prejean?  Just saying.
• Speaking of sponsors, here’s their sponsor page. Apparently the list is not quite complete, since it omits a sponsor mentioned on the events page, to wit: “Escorted by an official pageant sponsor, Harley Davidson of Alaska, Mrs. Alaska United States® 2009, Renee’ Scott and Mrs. Anchorage, Alaska 2009 will be participating in the downtown Anchorage 4th of July parade.”
• The pageant’s director is Laura Dagon, who is founder and director of pageant sponsor Laura’s Modeling & Talent Agency.
  

Now, I don’t plan myself to write to the pageant or any of its sponsors to protest Mrs. Scott’s use of official tiara & sash in her Tuesday anti-ordinance action. I’ve got better things to spend my times writing — like this blog post!  Besides, I don’t personally use the services or products of any of the pageant’s sponsors, not did I even have Clue #1 that this pageant even existed before last Tuesday, so for me to tell them I was going to boycott their services would be something of an empty threat, no?  Besides which, I believe in free speech.  Of course, free speech also means you have the free speech right to write to the pageant & it’s sponsors if you want to, which is part of why I put this info together: so you’ll write to the correct people.  Again, don’t confuse the Mrs. Alaska United States® pageant with the Mrs. Alaska America people.

Besides which — well, read that press release again.  Here, let me post it again:

Newly crowned Mrs. Alaska to stand against proposed Sexual Orientation special rights proposal at Anchorage Assembly meeting.

Just last night, Renee’ Scott of Anchorage was crowned Mrs. Alaska United States 2009 and tomorrow night, June 9th, she will be at the Anchorage Assembly meeting at 6:30 pm at the Loussac Library to stand against Acting Mayor, Matt Claman’s, last second effort at instating special rights for homosexuals.

On Sunday night, June 7th, Renee’ Scott won the title of Mrs. Alaska 2009, and just 2 days later, June 9th at 6:30 pm at the Loussac Library, she will be wearing her newly acquired Mrs. Alaska sash and crown at the Anchorage Assembly meeting standing against Acting Mayor, Matt Claman’s, move to instate special rights for gays, lesbians and transgenders.

A member of Anchorage Baptist Temple, Renee’ Scott plans to wear the color “red” with other opponents of the proposed measure, along with her new Mrs. Alaska sash and crown.

Renee’ Scott plans to use her title as Mrs. Alaska United States to represent traditional marriage and family-focused issues.

Now think of some of the other things we saw last Tuesday night that originated wholly or in part from the Christianist political mind of the Rev. Jerry Prevo.  Anti-ordinance people in red shirts bused in from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to ask a government other than their own to continue to permit discrimination against its own citizens.  Check.  A hundred or so freshly scrubbed children in red shirts bused in to carry signs mass produced by Alaska Family Council which made the ridiculous assertion that ordinance AO 2009-64 would “outlaw dissent.”  Check.  Do you begin to see a pattern here?

With this very specific press release, with all its repetitions of details — “wearing her newly acquired Mrs. Alaska sash and crown and along with her new Mrs. Alaska sash and crown — well, isn’t it pretty obvious that this was all a cynical ploy by Prevo & company, with Mrs. Scott’s willing participation, to bait us? They wanted us to react.  They were hoping we’d make a big old stink, & then they could complain about what intolerant meanies we were, just like that meanie Perez Hilton & all those other meanie California homosexuals who were just so mean to poor Miss (former) California Carrie Prejean.  Perhaps they hoped to make Mrs. Scott into the next Carrie Prejean, a martyr to the cause of Christianist special rights.

How disappointing for them, then, that mostly we ignored her.  While there’s been some comments here & there, mostly of the “do you believe this?” sort, we have better things to do than worry about a pageant that frankly most of us had never heard of before. Let the pageant owners & sponsors themselves police whatever contractual obligations Ms. Scott has as a representative of the pageant; let the pageant owners and sponsors worry about the cynical use Prevo & company have made of their organization. Frankly, I reckon this was just what Rev. Prevo did instead of putting some beardo-in-a-devil-mask in the Loussac women’s bathroom that night.

Pretty comical, really.  Rev. Prevo, you’re losing your knack.

Or maybe it’s just that more people in Anchorage are on to you now. Enough, even, that you had to bus people from outside the Municipality to shore up your support.

That leaves me just a couple more points to make. First, when we were discussing this on Facebook last week, I initially believed that Mrs. Scott had possibly colluded with Rev. Prevo in manipulating the pageant without the pageant’s knowledge.  It seemed to me that she had possibly mispresented her platform as a contestant.  A couple of weeks before the pageant, answering Kellie Davis of examiner.com, she gave her platform as follows:

My platform is age oppression in young girls. As a mother of a seven year old daughter I have found that the media in every facet is trying to shrink the window of innocence in our young girls. Influencing them to dress provocatively which has even been linked to the decrease of self esteem and increase in suicide rates in teen girls. Promoting birth control instead of abstinence, and marketing “toys” like tattoo Barbie. Parenting isn’t about raising a daughter that has low self esteem that feels like she needs to be 16 when she’s 7. I want to raise a confident, strong, beautiful on the inside and out young woman. I believe if we raise awareness in other mothers about this issue we could change our next generation mothers and create stronger healthier women.

But according to her press release:

Renee’ Scott plans to use her title as Mrs. Alaska United States to represent traditional marriage and family-focused issues.

I have no idea know what she told pageant judges during the pageant itself, but if she told them the same thing about age oppression in young girls as she told Kellie Davis, that too gives the impression that she misrepresented her intentions about how she would wield her crown to the pageant.  But then again, in her June 8 radio interview on KASH Country 107.5, when asked about her agenda as Mrs. Alaska United States, she talked very personably about the age oppression issue, and said nothing about the ordinance or plans to represent “traditional” marriage.  So maybe this was just a one-time deal?

At any rate, turns out that at least some pageant officials approved of her ordinance plan.  I emailed Julia O’Malley to ask if the press release she’d quoted in the ADN came from Mrs. Scott personally, or from pageant.  Her message back was brief and to the point:

The press release came from the Mrs. Alaska USA Pageant, and gave the head of the pageant as the contact person.

Given that her activities last Tuesday night at the Loussac are also included on her official Mrs. Alaska United States® events page, this indicates that opposition to the ordinance, and opposition to equal protections under the law for LGBT Anchorage residents, is an officially sanctioned position of the Mrs. Alaska United States® pageant. (I have no idea if it is also sanctioned by the national Mrs. United States pageant.)

And you know what?  That’s fine. That’s Mrs. Scott’s right, & that’s the pageant’s right.  The pageant is, after all, a private enterprise.   Registered trademark and all.  So as far as I’m concerned, I’ll leave ‘em to it, & let ‘em alone — other than to point out, as I have now, at length, their participation in a fairly obvious tactic by Mrs. Scott’s pastor to bait us.

Point the last. Who does Mrs. Alaska United States ®egistered Trademark represent?  Here’s what she claimed to KTUU Channel 2 News:

As Mrs. Alaska I represent married women and Alaskans and I find it shocking that the Assembly is trying to pass this ordinance without giving Alaskans the right to vote.

Hey, I’m an Alaskan, she doesn’t represent me.  But how about married women?  Why, I know a married woman who also happens to be an Alaskan.  I decided to ask her.  So earlier this evening, I called up my sister-in-law.

“I’ve got a couple of questions for you, Linda,” I said.  “First, did you vote for Mrs. Alaska United States®?”

Turns out Linda, too, had never heard of this pageant, but after a brief moment of confusion, she laughed and said, “No, of course not!”

“Do you feel that Mrs. Alaska United States® represents you?” I asked.

“No,” she repeated, “What are  you talking about?”  After a brief explanation of the pageant and Mrs. Scott’s claim of representation, Linda told me that she figured the only people who had voted for Mrs. Scott were the pageant judges, opined that privately trademarked beauty pageants were not, in point of face, representative democracies, and furthermore said she doubted Mrs. Scott represented any of the married women who are Linda’s friends.

No more representative of them, in fact, than the Christianists are of the rest of the Christians.

Related posts:

1. Debbie Ossiander & the Christianist filibuster
2. The noise begins
3. Assembly report 1

Children of Westboro Baptist Church

I said something nice about Jerry Prevo once. Honest.  I really did. I even published my positive comments online.  They were contained in one of the earliest posts in on the very first blog I ever had, in 2003, at the unlikely address of henkimaa.blogga.nu.  You can still find them there if you look.  — But let me save you the trouble: I’ve gone to that old blog & copied the relevant posts to this site. All of them refer to some degree to Anchorage’s 2003 PrideFest celebration, & to the visit being made to it by members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas.

Westboro Baptist Church kids

If that name is unfamiliar to you, try this name: Fred Phelps.  No?  Okay, try this one: godhatesfags.com.  Yeah, that’s right, those folks: the one’s who first achieved national notoriety protesting the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the gay University of Wyoming student who was kidnapped, tortured, tied to a fence, & left to die in a remote area near Laramie, Wyoming, in October 1998. Phelps & his church members picketed Matthew Shepard’s funeral carrying signs bearing such comforting slogans as “Matt Shepard rots in Hell”, “AIDS Kills Fags Dead” and “God Hates Fags.”  Since then, WBC has continued to show up all over the place protesting one thing or another that they hate — or rather, according to them, that “God hates” — which proves to cover quite a wide territory.  Their version of God hates “fags,” it’s been established; their version of God also hates America, Sweden, Italy, Catholics, Boy Scouts, soldiers, most other religions, most other Christian denominations, even most other Baptist churches. They especially like to protest funerals — of gays, soldiers, the Boy Scouts who were killed in a tornado in Iowa in June 2008. They carry provocative signs that loudly advertise their — er, I mean “God’s” — hatred of these things.

Westboro Baptist Church kid. Photo by andyofne; see photo credits.

In 2003, they decided to come to Anchorage to protest during the LGBT community’s annual Pride week.  They intended to picket the “fag/dyke Parade and Festival, the fag-infested Univ. of Alaska, Anchorage, and the sodomite whorehouses masquerading as churches in Anchorage” in “religious protest & warning.” Sadly, it seemed: God hated Anchorage.

And so finally my old posts, where you can read my account of events as they took place:

• 6/20/2003. Fred Phelps coming to Anchorage
• 6/27/2003. Anchorage Pride 2003: Look how far we’ve come
• 7/8/2003. Those Phelpists aren’t too clever, are they?
• 7/8/2003. Publicity, publicity, publicity

Little girl between Westboro Baptist Church adults

It’s in the third of those posts, the one that called into question the Phelpists cleverness, that I said something positive about Jerry Prevo. It seems that for some reason (& you can read that entire post to learn the theories as to why), the Phelpists decided that one of the “sodomite whorehouses masquerading as churches in Anchorage” they should picket was none other than the Anchorage Baptist Temple.

This part’s worth quoting at length, because it’s where I say something nice.

According to [the Anchorage Daily News], several hundred people took part in the Pride festivities — which makes me very happy, given how sparse participation used to be back in my early ’80s activist days; and then the next day, Sunday, about 20 Phelpists total picketed at the gate of Elmendorf Air Force Base, where a big airshow with estimated public attendance of 70,000 was taking place, and various churches, including Anchorage Baptist Temple.

Say what? [Double, triple take.] Did you say Anchorage Baptist Temple?

Indeed. Shirley Phelps-Roper told the ADN that they picketed Anchorage Baptist Temple — which is viewed by Anchorage’s lesbian/gay community as a sort of Homophobia Central — because it was the largest church in town, & its pastor, Jerry Prevo, didn’t condemn homosexuality “loudly” enough.

I suppose maybe because no matter how loud Prevo has gotten about it (& as a longtime Anchorageite, I can tell you he’s been very loud), Prevo has never called for homosexuals to be executed just because they’re homosexual?

Prevo himself seemed a bit bemused by Phelpist attentions, though he made clear to the ADN that his church is in no way affiliated with the Phelpists’ Westboro Baptist Church, and disagrees with Phelpist tactics and philosophy.

Good for you, Jerry.

[Double, triple take number two.] Did I say that?

By gods, I did. Good for you. Truth is, I don’t much like Prevo, or his tactics and philosophy (the ABT website doesn’t mention the slimy things he’s occasionally done in the past), but hey, on this one thing I can say I respect him. He does not so misread Christian scripture as to call for murder, or proclaim a gospel entirely based on hatred. And religious/spiritual differences aside, his church does seem to do real good for a lot of people (if harm, in my opinion, to a significant number of others).

Do you think these kids understand the signs they're carrying? Or do they just love the adults who asked them to carry them?

Of course, you must take into account that I wrote that before I knew that in October 1994 he had preached at the Anchorage Baptist Temple about shooting liberals, telling his congregation that, “The only reason I would not take a gun and do it is because of God. That’s the only reason… In fact, it would be better to shoot a liberal, then, and then be put in jail. Maybe they’d at least feed you.” [Ref. 1] He later said that he wasn’t serious about shooting liberals, but had only been engaging in hyperbole. [Ref. 2] But then I guess you could say the Phelpists mostly engage in hyperbole too: in spite of all their hate-filled signs, they have never, to my knowledge, engaged in violence at their pickets or otherwise.

But I still wouldn’t say that Rev. Prevo or his church engages in the same aimed-in-every-direction hatred that the Phelpists practice.  Rev. Prevo is very specific in his hatred: Love the sinner, hate the sin.

Though in the current battle over the equal rights ordinance, as in the two that preceded it, I think he might more truthfully state his belief as being: Love the sinner, hate the sinner’s ability to keep a job or home without being fired or evicted at the drop of a hat. And one can’t help but notice that it’s only one set of “sinners” that Rev. Prevo feels should be left open to such discrimination.  Can you guess which ones?

Just a couple of days ago in a post entitled “Is Jerry Prevo mishandling the Anchorage Gay Ordinance issue?” Alaska Standard publisher & conservative talk show host Dan Fagan wrote,

On Monday Dr. Jerry Prevo was a guest on my show to talk about the proposed Anchorage Gay Ordinance. I will have to admit I experienced some discomfort with the interview. My fear is those of us opposing the ordinance are so obsessed with winning the debate we are sending the gay community the wrong message.

In the accompanying audio clip, with the filename it’s not just about winning the debate.mp3, Mr. Fagan observes that (according to Christian theology) we are all sinners, but the message Rev. Prevo seems to be putting out is that homosexuals are the worst of the worst, are lesser & lower than other sinners such as those who make up the body of the conservative church.  Mr. Fagan suggests that some ordinance opponents — he actually uses the word “we” — have become so intent upon winning at any cost that they’ve lost sight of what Christians are supposed to be about.  I don’t agree with everything Mr. Fagan says here, far from it, but I respect it a lot.  It’s a clip well-worth listening to — what has every appearance of being an earnest self-examination about how conservative Christians might better fulfill their calling in the face of their beliefs about homosexuality & gender identity.

But in the meantime, yes, it’s been obvious to me for much longer than just this battle that Rev. Prevo is far more interested in winning the debate, whatever debate he happens to be in at any given moment, than in following the message of love that the Christian church is supposedly here to proclaim. There are not too many LGBT people that I know, myself no exception, who feels much love at all in the message Rev. Prevo directs at us.  Not to many nongay people that I know either — just read the letters in the Anchorage Daily News, or the reader comments, & you’ll see that the majority of commenters whether straight or gay are sick of Rev. Prevo, consider his “Love the sinner hate the sin” as so much empty rhetoric, & wish he’s just shut up.  To me, Rev. Prevo’s chief distinguishing feature is an arrogant, smug will to win.

And it shows in his tactics.

Which is what brings me, finally, to what about last Tuesday’s events reminded me so extraordinarily of the Westboro Baptist Church.

The kids.

One of the kids bused to the ordinance hearing Tuesday night.

Because the Westboro Baptist Church is well-known for bringing their children to their protests as billboards of their hatreds.  And while Rev. Prevo’s hatred — masked as it is in the language of “hate the sin, not the sinner” — is less crude, more sophisticated than that of Fred Phelps & his children, he is no less guilty of using his children, or the children of his congregants, as propagandist billboards on issues that most of them are as innocent of as are the Westboro kids.  They are not comprehending: they are merely repeating what their elders tell them in order to please them — in order to please the people they depend upon & whom they love.  And to make such use of their brightness, their innocence — well, I’ve gotta say.  That’s a cold & cynical move indeed.

Kids bused in to the hearing

There were two separate worlds at play at the Loussac Library last Tuesday night: inside the Assembly chambers, & outside them, in the lobby & outside the building altogether.  And I was inside.  I had learned, of course, that adults from the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, which is outside the boundaries of the Municipality of Anchorage, had been bused or carpooled into Anchorage to testify, despite their non-resident status.  But other than some chanting heard briefly through the walls from equal rights supporters, I was minimally aware of what was going on outside the building until I got home that night & read Phil Munger’s blog post about it at Progressive Alaska. As he reported,

Little girl bused in to Tuesday night's ordinance hearing

Anchorage and Mat-Su Valley fundamentalist churches bussed in well over a hundred kids to the Anchorage Assembly meeting this evening…

The kids, some less than ten [years old], were mostly without parents. They were sort of clumped together, perhaps by congregation, or by home schooling support group. Dozens of adults were taking pictures of the kids, some encouraged by the Christianist adults around the youngsters. I took about 70 photos. Here are a few.

Phil has graciously permitted me to reproduce a few of his photos here, as has AKMuckraker of Mudflats, whose post the following morning also mentioned the kids.  As she wrote,

Kids bused in

I was stunned at the number of children that were there waving red signs.

I stood for a while looking at them, and I wondered how many of them were gay. One in ten. I picked out one little boy, and imagined it was him. He will grow up among people who think like this. As he becomes aware, he will think that he is wrong, and bad, and unlovable. He will remember this day when he and his family stood holding signs. He may try to hide who he is. His parents, standing next to him right now, may not accept him. He may be afraid to tell them, and live his life as a lie. Or he may deny who he is and try to fit in, and trying hard to prove that he isn’t what he is. He may even bring his wife and kids to rallies like this.

Many of the witnesses last Tuesday night could tell stories of  childhoods much like that.  On both sides of the debate.

References

1. Jones, Stan. (1994).  “Prevo’s sermon draws fire: Some fear preacher may incite the fringe.” Anchorage Daily News. Oct. 22, p. A1.
2. Phillips, Natalie. (1994). “Prevo plays to packed house: Preacher, guest evangelist keep up attack on liberals.” Anchorage Daily News. Oct. 31, p. A1.

Related:

• 6/20/2003. Fred Phelps coming to Anchorage. The “godhatesfags.com” followers of Westboro Baptist Church pastor Fred Phelps announce plans to picket in Anchorage during PrideFest 2003.
• 6/27/2003. Anchorage Pride 2003: Look how far we’ve come. A brief history history of the annual Pride parade in Anchorage from 1983, in which there were 19 marchers, to 2001, in which there were two to three thousand. Can the followers of Fred Phelps wreck that? Don’t think so.
• 7/8/2003. Those Phelpists aren’t too clever, are they? Why did Westboro Baptist Church, famous for their website “godhatesfags.com,” picket Anchorage Baptist Temple — famous in Anchorage as the very center of antigay attitudes in Alaska?
• 7/8/2003. Publicity, publicity, publicity.  Which Anchorage churches during PrideFest 2003 did the Phelpists picket, & which not, & why?
• 6/12/2009. Billboards. While in 2003 Jerry Prevo decried Westboro Baptist Church tactics, in 2009 he & his allies didn’t hesitate to use children — even some younger then 10 —  in a very like way, as billboards for their parents’ prejudices.

Do you think the kids in this photo understand the signs they're carrying? Or do they just love the adults who asked them to carry them?

Photo credits:

• Photo 3, “Westboro Baptist Church kid.” Photo by andyofne; used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license. Taken in Chalco, Nebraska at WBC protests of Boy Scout funerals on June 17, 2008. For related photos, see andyofne’s set Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist Church Picket Boyscout Funeral. Flickr.com.

Related posts:

1. Those Phelpists aren't too clever, are they?
2. Publicity, publicity, publicity
3. Anchorage Pride 2003: Look how far we’ve come

I was going to use my lunch hour today to write my account of the Assembly meeting last night.  But that’s going to have to wait: there’s something more important to say at the moment.

We learned midway through the Assembly hearing that numerous red-shirted ordinance opponents had been bused in from the Mat-Su Valley — and some of these non-residents were coming forward to testify. Assembly Vice-Chair Harriet Drummond objected during the meeting to permitting their testimony but Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander decided to permit it, on the grounds that many Valley residents work or shop in town.

But Mat-Su residents are citizens of Mat-Su Borough, and the governments there. The Anchorage Assembly is supposed to be the government for Anchorage citizens, Anchorage voters. Why are people from outside being permitted to testify in an attempt to influence our government’s decisions about us?

John Aronno of the relatively new blog Alaska Commons, sitting just a couple of people away from me, was recording the entire proceedings, and intends to post transcripts as the week progresses. He was also paying close attention to the “testimony from non-residents” issue. In the wee hours of the morning, he had this to say:

[S]hould we be concerned that anyone was allowed to give testimony, regardless of resident status? Going into today, the vast consensus was that we would not reach a vote. The confirmation of this was not a surprise. However, only getting through eighty out of 300 plus three minute testimonies? There was, unquestioningly, some legitimate points made on each side that should be paid attention to, from people that reside outside of Anchorage. But, should they not be bringing their points, beliefs, and testimonies to their own assemblies? If everyone on the “waiting list” shows up again on June 16th to speak, we’re looking at easily another ten hours of testimony. And, as you’ll see when I am able to upload the transcripts from tonight, easily one third (a conservative estimate) was from out of town.

I will grant you that both sides had out of town representation regarding a bill restricted to Anchorage city limits, but for anyone who was there, and as I believe the transcripts will show, it would be very difficult to argue that it was even in displacement. While one out of state doctor argued the merits of the original wording of the ordinance and the importance of protection for transgenders, and four or five parents spoke on behalf of children who had left the state claiming discrimination on account of being gay, there was a heavy contingent from the Mat-Su Valley, who reportedly arrived in buses, that helped bolster the ranks of the Jerry Prevo, Ron Hammon persuasion. In effect, it looked more like a fillibuster than a string of testimonies.

Besides which, the four or five parents who spoke about their children who left the state were all themselves, from what I heard last night, Anchorage residents.  The only person identified as a non-Anchorage resident who testified in support of the ordinance was the doctor to whom John refers.

Celtic Diva asks Assembly chair Debbie Ossiander why she permitted testimony from nonresidents of Anchorage

There were a few Mat-Su supporters of the ordinance present last night, to be sure — Phil Munger of Progressive Alaska, for example, and Linda Kellen Biegel of Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis [see correction below].  I saw Linda after the Assembly adjourned for the evening, when she came into chambers to ask Assembly Chair Ossiander why she’d permitted the non-resident testimony. (She received the same explanation we’d been given earlier, including Ms. Ossiander’s frank statement that other Assembly members had objected but that as chair, it was her prerogative.) Phil posted last night with photos of the Anchorage and Mat-Su children, some as young as ten, that had been bused in by Anchorage and Mat-Su fundamentalist churches to help front the outside-the-chambers propaganda battle; today, he points out how the Don Hunter, in his Anchorage Daily News story about the hearing, is “totally incurious as to where all those kids in red came from.” But — neither Phil nor Linda attempted But Phil made no attempt to testify. I doubt it even occurred to them him to try.

Correction! Linda informs me (in comment below) that I am in brain-fart-land — well, actually she didn’t use that term, I do. In any case, I was wrong in my belief that she now lived in the Valley. She’s an Anchorage resident, has been nonstop since 1984, & is on the list to testify. Way down on the list. #313. I wonder just how many bused-in Mat-Su residents are on the testimony list ahead of her?

Might there be legitimate reasons for a non-resident to testify? The testimony of the pro-ordinance doctor from out-of-state suggests one reason: expert information.  She testified specifically about the medical standards of care for transgender people undergoing transition, relevant in particular to the problematic “bathroom language” in the current draft of the proposed ordinance.  It would also seem a no-brainer that visitors to Anchorage might be victimized by the types of discrimination and bias that are at question in the ordinance, in public accomodations at least; and former residents might have stories to tell too — as indeed Linda Kellen might have: she received harassing phone calls and all four tires of her car were slashed simply because of her support for a similar ordinance in 1992. (I believe she later wrote that the tire-slashing was investigated as the Municipality’s first case under a hate crimes law put in place around that time.) Another reason I can think of for why a nonresident might legitimately testify would be if they ran a business in Anchorage, and would therefore be subject to the ordinance’s nondiscrimination provisions in how they treat their employees.

Did any of the Mat-Su residents who testified last night have reasons of that nature? It’ll be interesting to analyze, once John Aronno gets those transcripts posted, what exactly the Mat-Su residents imported into this Anchorage question testified to. Are they among those who claimed that there religious freedom was somehow being violated if Anchorage passes this ordinance — in spite of the fact that their churches are based in the Valley?

But the bottom line remains: the Anchorage Assembly is, in the final analysis, answerable to us, not to Mat-Su residents.

And one must wonder: why did Jerry Prevo & company feel the need to ship in resources from out of town?

In 1998, proponents of Ballot Measure 2, which resulted in the amendment to the Alaska constitution which defined marriage as being between “one man and one woman,” were able to win the battle for advertising in no small part because of huge influxes of money from Outside. As explained at the time by Dan Carter, treasurer of Alaskans for Civil Rights/No on 2,  in a letter to Alaska newspapers dated October 30, 1998:

While Alaskans for Civil Rights has received $35 from Outside gay/lesbian organizations ($25 from the Philadelphia Task Force and $10 from Pride, Inc. from Macon, GA), the proponents of this unnecessary measure were receiving almost $560,000 from Outside groups trying to rewrite Alaska’s constitution. When you look at how much money each side has raised from INDIVIDUAL ALASKANS, the financial reports are even more revealing. For every dollar raised by the NO on 2 campaign, 89 cents has come from individual Alaskans. On the other hand, for each dollar raised by the so-called Alaska Family Coalition, less than 9 cents has come from individuals living in Alaska. That’s the real issue in this campaign. Why should Outsiders determine if Alaska’s constitution should be amended? What is their agenda?

One can phrase a similar question now: Why should Mat-Su residents determine the fate of Anchorage’s equal rights ordinance?  What is their agenda?

In this battle, the opposition is not just borrowing outside expertise or outside money — they are using actual outside bodies. All those bright young kids in red t-shirts bused in by Mat-Su fundamentalist churches who stood outside the Loussac Library last night waving signs.  All those Mat-Su adults who spend time in Anchorage part-time at best, recruited by Prevo & company in order to try to affect the laws governing the citizens of Anchorage who live here full time.

But there’s another question we can ask too.  If this ordinance is as bad for Anchorage as Jerry and company claims — why do they have to bring in people from outside the Municipality to fight it?  Can it be that ordinance opponents simply don’t have as much support as they claim to in Anchorage?  And if they don’t — why are they trying to sabotage the democratic process of Anchorage government?

(Silly question, I know.  Since when did Prevo & company care about democratic process?)

Related posts:

1. Debbie Ossiander & the Christianist filibuster
2. Assembly report 1
3. Equality Works fundraiser