by Mel Green | originally posted at Bent Alaska
In a Senate committee hearing on a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Senators Al Franken and Patrick Leahy demolished testimony by Tom Minnery of the antigay organization Focus on the Family.
Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family. Photo by Jamie McGonnigal of EqualityPhotography.com
Yesterday the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee had a widely-reported hearing on the Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA), a proposed bill which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). RFMA will not compel states to recognize same-sex marriages, but will grant to legally married same-sex couples the same federal benefits that are already enjoyed by the opposite-sex married couples. (See full text of H.R. 1116.)
One of the witnesses called by Senate Republicans to testify against the bill was Tom Minnery. Minnery, a cousin of Alaska Family Council’s Jim Minnery, is senior vice president of Government and Public Policy for the Colorado Springs-based national antigay group Focus on the Family (FOTF).
Mr. Minnery didn’t do too well. In fact, when answering questions by two senators in particular — Al Franken of Minnesota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont — Minnery showed just how weak FOTF’s arguments are against equality for same-sex married couples.
As described at ThinkProgress,
During this morning’s Senate DOMA hearings, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) destroyed Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery’s argument that children are better off with opposite-sex parents by demonstrating how Minnery misrepresented an HHS study. The study — which Minnery cited to oppose marriage equality — actually found that children do best in two-parent households, regardless of the parents’ gender.
Watch ThinkProgress’s video of the exchange:
The report whose results Minnery mischaracterized, Family Structure and Children’s Health in the United States: Findings From the National Health Interview Survey, 2001–2007, published by the Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in December 2010, is available online. Minnery tried to claim that the study defined nuclear families as only those families headed by heterosexually married parents. But in fact, the CDC report defines nuclear families as “families consisting of two married adults who are the biological or adoptive parents of all children in the family” without reference to the sex/gender of the parents.
Here’s the passage from page 27 of the study with the finding that Minnery mischaracterized:
The findings presented in this report indicate that children living in nuclear families—that is, in families consisting of two married adults who are the biological or adoptive parents of all children in the family—were generally healthier, more likely to have access to health care, and less likely to have definite or severe emotional or behavioral difficulties than children living in nonnuclear families.
Debra L. Blackwell, lead author of the CDC study, later told Politico.com that “Sen. Franken is right” — the study neither excluded same-sex couples, nor excluded them from the category of nuclear family so long as the couples otherwise fit the study’s definition of nuclear family: i.e., that the adults heading the family are married, and that all children in the family are either biological or adopted members of the family. Thus, Minnery’s claim that the study proves children of married opposite-sex couples do better than children of same-sex couples is absolutely false. Or, as Franken said,
I frankly don’t really know how we can trust the rest of your testimony if you are reading studies these ways.
In another exchange, Minnery admitted to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) that DOMA is harmful to children of same-sex parents who are legally married but who — because of DOMA — are denied the federal benefits that families headed by opposite-sex married couples enjoy.
Minnery was not, of course, the only person who testified at yesterday’s hearing. E.J. Graff, author of What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution, has a good summary at The Atlantic:
Witnesses at today’s hearing included men and women whose same-sex marriages — valid in their home states of California, Connecticut, or Vermont — are not recognized for federal purposes, because of DOMA. As a result, they face the insults and injuries of nearly losing a house because they can’t receive a dead husband’s pension, or having their financial security eroded by being taxed thousands of dollars if they are listed on a wife’s health insurance policy. Witnesses also included advocates who gave their stump speeches: the “preserve marriage” advocates, who predicted that this bill would lead to polygamy, incest, the deterioration of marriage as an institution, and disastrous consequences for children; and the “end marriage discrimination” advocates, who talked about equality and justice under the law and about equal protections for children who grow up in families headed by either different-sex or same-sex pairs. Except for the fact that some of the witnesses were talking about lawfully recognized same-sex spouses, no one said anything very different from what was being said 15 years ago, when DOMA was passed.
But, the article notes,
the hearing was completely different from anything imaginable in 1996. It’s hard, now, to remember that foreign country, which was almost unrecognizably hostile to lesbians and gay men.
Along the same lines, ThinkProgress’s Igor Volsky writes,
Yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act highlighted the nation’s evolution towards LGBT equality, but also demonstrated a decreased desire on the part of Republicans to use same-sex marriage as a political wedge. For while DOMA passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in 1996, just two Republican senators — Chuck Grassley (IA) and Orrin Hatch (UT) — appeared at yesterday’s hearing, and only one (Grassley) spoke-up in its defense. The rest of the debate was dominated by Democrats, some of whom expressed regret for voting for the law, “talked warmly about how DOMA wrongly harms same-sex couples and their children,” and explored how federal discrimination contributed to the high suicide rates within the LGBT community.
ThinkProgress has put together a compilation video of how the original DOMA fight went down in 1996. Watch:
h/t to Alaska blogs Progressive Alaska and Immoral Minority, which briefly covered Sen. Franken’s exchange with Tom Minnery. Immoral Minority’s post includes video from Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNBC coverage of yesterday’s hearing.
It has sometimes been erroneously reported that Focus on the Family has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). In fact, SPLC has made no such designation.
FOTF is is included on a Spring 2005 list by SPLC of 12 prominent antigay groups, but only 3 of the groups on that list — not including FOTF — were designated by SPLC as hate groups. A Winter 2010 article at SPLC’s website describing 18 antigay groups designates 13 of them as hate group, but again FOTF is not among them. The article explains,
Generally, the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups.
In accordance with SPLC usage, Bent Alaska will refer to Focus on the Family as an antigay group, but not as a hate group.
FOTF does, however, continue to affiliate itself with SPLC-designated hate groups such as the Family Research Council and the American Family Association, as pointed out last November by Jeremy Hooper at Good As You:
In light of the recent additions to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-gay hate groups, we asked Focus on Family’s Communications Director, Gary Schneeberger, if the Colorado Springs mega-gelicals still plan to reach out to groups like the American Family Association and the Family Research Council (two of the five groups added to SPLC’s dishonor roll). Here is Schneeberger’s on record reply:
“We have some substantive differences with the way the SLPC defines ‘hate,’ so we’ll continue to base our partnerships on biblical criteria such as adherence to God’s truth and extension of His grace.”
FOTF apparently sees no contradiction between God’s truth and the biblical prohibition in the Ninth Commandment against bearing false witness (Exodus 20:16) — such as the propagation of known falsehoods (also known as lies) that American Family Council’s Bryan Fischer and Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins routinely engage in. (See SPLC’s discussion of both groups for details.) But given Tom Minnery’s misrepresentations yesterday before a Congressional committee, that’s not surprising.
SPLC has a page on antigay hate groups with links to related stories.
by Mel Green | originally posted on Bent Alaska
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.
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.
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.
Harriet Drummond & Elvi Gray-Jackson talking with Pride parade Grand Marshal Doug Frank on Saturday, June 25, shortly before the accidental death of James L. Crump.
James L. Crump is the man who was accidentally killed in the first minutes of the Anchorage Pride parade last Saturday morning. I didn’t know him, but I’m writing quite a lot about him: his death has been shaking the Anchorage lesbian/gay/bisexual/trans/allied community ever since.
Last night my Assembly member Elvi Gray-Jackson and another of my favorite folks on the Assembly Harriet Drummond led the Anchorage Assembly in honoring James’ memory. It was a unanimous resolution — supposedly submitted by all 11 Assembly members as well as Mayor Dan Sullivan. But it was only Elvi & Harriet who were there at the Pride parade last Saturday — carrying a banner only a little behind where James was helping to carry his… until the accident that resulted in his death. I personally think that several of the Assembly members only signed on (and the Mayor) because James was a well-like municipal employee — a nurse with the Muni’s Department of Health & Human Services. But for Elvi & Harriet — it was heartfelt.
Harriet read the resolution in the Assembly last night. By the end, she had tears in her voice. Elvi was back behind the public testimony podium with members of James’ family — his parents, a brother, and a sister. His family members were joined by numerous friends, present and former coworkers, and members of the LGBTQA community. I was up all night putting together a video of the event for my post on Bent Alaska about the resolution. The post also has the resolution’s full text.
A Service of Remembrance for James will be held tonight at 7 PM at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church at Lake Otis and Tudor. People are encouraged to bring something for a light potluck after the service.
by Mel Green | crossposted on Bent Alaska
A slideshow of photos from Alaska Pride Fest 2011, held in Anchorage, AK on June 25, 2011.
Just a few minutes after it began, Anchorage’s annual Pride parade on Saturday, June 25, 2011 ended in tragedy with the accidental death of James L. Crump, a registered nurse with the Anchorage Department of Health and Human Services and a loved member of the Anchorage LGBT community. The parade was canceled, but the Pride Festival at Delaney Park Strip still took place.
On D Street before the parade. James is on the right.
The slide show below — the “Pride Slide” — includes photos from D Street, which served as staging ground before the parade set out on 6th Avenue; the abbreviated parade itself; and the Pride Festival. James appears in some of the “staging ground” photos.
I hope that his family, friends, and coworkers may take comfort in seeing the pleasure and fun he was having. And may all of us continue to remember that spirit of love with which he lived his life, through all the remaining photos — even as we mourn his absence.
My account of this day may be read on Bent Alaska in the post “A mournful Pride.”
This is a lengthy slide show. Photos can be viewed individually in the set this slide show is based on in my Flickr photostream.
Does Palin really have jury duty? Damned if I know. But if she’s telling the truth about jury duty, she’s also telling the truth about how long her schedule is affected by it: 30 days at minimum.
Palin claims she has jury duty. As she wrote on her Facebook page about postponing the remainder of her Lower 48 bus tour,
The coming weeks are tight because civic duty calls (like most everyone else, even former governors get called up for jury duty) and I look forward to doing my part just like every other Alaskan.
Does she really have jury duty? Damned if I know. As anyone paying attention is aware, she’s been known to lie before.
But if she does….
Damn. As sick & tired as I am of Palin — as much as I have always thought it was a bad idea to ever let her anywhere near having any kind of power (or publicity, fergodssake) — I’m just as sick of how legitimate criticism of her gets drowned out by the kneejerk whines & complaints of anti-Palinites who are at times just as fact-challenged as she is.
Example: a reader called skippyflipjack commenting at Talking Points Memo:
It’s amazing that this prevaricator calls out the media for making things up. Jury duty for most people takes a couple hours. You go in (or call a phone number, in some states) and most of the time they say thanks, we don’t need you. If they do need you you’re still more likely to be rejected by the attorney on one side or the other. The idea that a jury summons will affect “the coming weeks” is sheer nonsense. Absolute malarkey. What a dishonest person.
Do some fact-checking first, skippyflipjack. Whatever the jury procedures might be in your state or locality, jury service in Alaska is governed by the rules set by the Alaska Court System.
And so here we have it from the Trial Jury Handbook of the Alaska Court System, available online for the convenience of anyone who chooses to find out the facts before waxing ill-informed in the nearest political blog’s comment section:
How long must I serve?
The time period during which you must be available to serve (called your “term of service”) depends on the size of the court location where you serve. During your term of service you may have to call in or report to court periodically. You may not have to call in every day, but you must call on the days you are directed to do so.
In Anchorage, where the population is large and many trials are held each day, the term of service is either 5 consecutive days or, if you are selected to serve on a jury, the length of the trial.
In other courts, your term of service is either 30 days, 90 days or 1 year depending on the population of the area. In these courts, you may have to call in several days each month, and you may be selected to serve on more than one trial. The most days you might actually have to be present in court is 30 per year. However, you must complete any trial for which you are selected to serve as a juror regardless of how long the trial lasts.
I’ve only ever served in Anchorage, so my term of service has never been for longer than five days. (I’ve never been selected to actually sit on a jury, or it would have been longer.) Palin would be more likely to serve in Palmer — about 15 miles from her home in Wasilla — where the Alaska Court System has both Superior and District courts.
So if she’s telling the truth about having jury duty, she’s also telling the truth about about how long her schedule is affected by it: 30 days at minimum.
Here’s how it works:
So, no, it’s not just a matter of flying in, saying your piece, and flying out again — as at least one commenter on Talking Points Memo has insisted Palin could do. There are 30 days at least that she needs to be close enough to get to Palmer the following morning to report in person at the courthouse, whether or not her number is ever called.
But couldn’t she get out of jury duty? As Gryphen wrote yesterday at Immoral Minority,
She quit postponed the bus tour because she had JURY DUTY?
Seriously? THAT is her excuse?
Which begs the question, does anybody really want a potential leader of this country who can’t even manage to get out of jury duty?
I have a hard time with that one, Gryphen: are you really suggesting that Palin should evade her civic duty? As she already did, of course, by taking the oath of office as Alaska’s governor & then quitting with her job half undone — for which you have deservedly raked her over the coals. But I’m pretty sure you’d rake her over the coals for using her influence or whatever to avoid jury service, too.
But she could have postponed her service. Here’s what the Trial Court Handbook says about that:
Can I postpone my jury service?
If jury service at the time for which you are summoned will cause hardship, you may request deferral of service to another time within the next ten months. If you need to seek a deferral, you should do so as soon as possible. Do not wait until the time you are to appear. To reschedule your jury service, follow the instructions for question #12 on the Jury Questionnaire. If you have already sent in your questionnaire, call the jury clerk as soon as possible for instructions.
Based on that, I think it’s possible the jury clerk might grant a postponement for her “family vacation” bus tour; & almost certainly for the trip (now canceled “for scheduling reasons”) with Franklin Graham to the Sudan — had she really wanted to go. I guess she didn’t wanna.
Then there’s the question of whether it’d be a good idea to have her on a jury. Commenter bluestatedon at Talking Points Memo:
I cannot believe that any prosecuting attorney would agree to her being on a jury, seeing as how much of a circus that would create. It would be a complete distraction from the business at hand.
Agreed. I can’t believe any attorney at all would want her on their jury, when it comes down to it: not for ideological reasons, necessarily, but just because of the distraction factor.
But if she was called for jury duty, she’s still required to to her service, or risk contempt of court and its possible consequences.
Jury duty doesn’t mean she’ll actually end up on a jury. I’ve have jury service at least 5 times in Alaska, and have never been actually seated on a jury. (I came damn close last time, but attorneys always seem to dislike seating jurors who work in justice-related fields, like staff at the UAA Justice Center.)
It comes down to this: the Alaska Court System expects people called for duty to do their duty, no matter who they are. The jury clerk doesn’t let someone out of it just because she’s famous, or because the jury clerk presumes to know how attorneys in a case might feel about a given potential juror.
So get a little more nuanced in your criticism, folks. Don’t just jump on the bashing bandwagon because you want to bash. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize Palin and to want her far far far away from the seats of government without coming off sounding just as reality challenged as she is.
But can we at least know for sure if she has jury duty? At Talking Points Memo, several_ asks,
Have any “journalists” or bloggers bothered contacting the courts in Wasilla to ask them to confirm or deny whether she’s been called for jury duty or is everyone just taking her word for because of her solid relationship with the truth in the past? (<– sarcasm) Lists of those called for jury duty is public information isn’t it? Isn’t that how employers verify whether employees are telling the truth or just taking an unpaid vacation?
Well, first of all, there are no “courts in Wasilla.” Alaska has no “county courts”: we have a unified court system called the Alaska Court System. The nearest courts to Palin’s Wasilla home are the Palmer District Court and Palmer Superior Court in Palmer.
Second, best I can tell, the Alaska Court System does not publish lists of people called for jury duty. It does have a procedure for verifying a juror’s service for employers:
What if my employer wants proof of my jury service?
Ask the jury clerk for a Certificate of Jury Attendance either at the end of each day of trial or at the completion of the trial. The certificate will indicate the dates and times you served.
But unless some investigative reporters or other can get Palin to wave her jury summons or questionnaire in front of their faces, we might never know for certain if she really has jury duty.
I checked out, had breakfast with some never-before-met-face-to-face online friends at the Hilton, caught my shuttle to the Minneapolis airport, and hung out reading at my gate until John Aronno of Alaska Commons turned up & we shared experiences until it came time to board. We briefly saw each other — along with another Netroots Alaskan who, I’m sorry, I’m so tired I already forgot your name — at SeaTac, but had different flights out of there. So mostly I had a meal, drank merlot, read (finished Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin), messed around on Twitter, & got through my four-hour layover. And then my three-hour flight home….
Good to be back.
At SeaTac
Anchorage
Closing keynote at Netroots Nation, and some of the over 2,500 progressives who attended it.
My more narrative account of this day — such as it is — can be found on Bent Alaska under the title “Bringing Netroots home to Alaska.”
I slept in a bit. The day began with a look out my hotel window at the Hilton — to see attendees of the Right Online conference, a sort of pale rightwing imitation of Netroots Nation — arriving for their day’s sessions.
10:30-11:45 AM. Queer Media and the Alternative Revolution
1:30-2:45 PM. The Plan to Advance Marriage Equality, Inside and Outside of the 112th Congress
I was distracted and too tired to pay very close attention to this session, I’m afraid. But it was livestreamed, so I’m hoping to catch up with it in archived footage (and a check back through the timeline of other people’s tweets. Some of my retweets here referred back to the earlier session on queer alternative media.
Part of my distraction at the marriage equality session was discovering comments awaiting moderation at Bent Alaska.
I discovered that Sarah Posner of one of my important news sources, Religion Dispatches, was at the conference, and decided I wanted to meet her.
3:oo-4:15 PM. How to Make Blogging Sustainable
4:15-5:00 PM. Bourbon and Bacon Tasting Happy Hour
5:00-6:30 PM. Closing Keynote — Freedom from Fear: First Person Voices from the Movement
My more formal write-up of this day at Netroots Nation 11 in Minneapolis can be found on Bent Alaska, titled “A Big Wild Lesbian at Netroots Nation.”
8:15-8:50 AM. Morning News Dump with Lizz Winstead and Friends
Didn’t pay much attention, actually: too distracted by connectivity problems to listen, & even when I did, I discovered I was so far gone in exhaustion that I didn’t have the resources to respond to the humor as Lizz Winstead & others responded to the day’s news.
9:00-10:15 AM. A Conversation with White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer
10:30-11:45 AM. LGBT Strategy Session
No connectivity in the room we were in, but that proved out okay since we were talking a lot instead. I need to draw up some notes on this, though.
Lunchtime
I took the opportunity to eat. Stopped by the bookstore area in the Exhibit Hall, where Jeanne Devon of The Mudflats was doing a book signing of Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin, and met an Alaskan I hadn’t previously known — John Creed, who’s a professor of journalism at UAF’s Chukchi College in Kotzebue. Later, I went to hide out in some quiet before the next session.
3:00-4:15 PM. Bullies and the Blogosphere: Creating Safe Spaces in Our Schools and Online
After that session, I went to the Exhibit Hall to staff the LGBT Netroots Connect table, during which I had a long conversation with Phil Attey, Executive Director of Catholics for Equality — an important new contact.
