How do you measure outrage? Or even mild disgust? I'm reading Exist-gate tweets, blog posts, hits to the blog posts and started a Facebook Group http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=114139050228&ref=ts You could also go to Twitter and search for Eichelberger. I don't know how to post a Twitter update. Bob Mayo tried to teach me, but I'm still refining the skills.
(If you don't recognize the name Eichelberger, go read this post.)
But no official response. Granted the Senate and the City Council are in the midst of serious budget issues that I definitely want to be addressed. Still, “allowing them to exist?”
Am I overreacting as one person has asked me to consider? Was it merely a verbal flub intended to convey that Pennsylvania is not attempting to criminalize homosexuality, but merely associate us with pedophiles and incest perps to protect marriage?
If it was a verbal flub, Eichelberger could simply clear that up with a brief written statement and get focused back on “not encouraging” our behavior/lifestyle/whatever. So I'm open to the possibility that he flubbed, but not the silence that followed.
Wouldn't it be cool if an Oklahoma State Senator sent a letter a la Doug Shields and Sally Kern? Or Ellen called Eichelberger?
There's a lot on the gay agenda. NY may vote on marriage today. The White House is throwing a fancy party to commemorate Stonewall. DNC fundraisers are being boycotted. Anti-bullying legislation in North Carolina. First ever federal honor for a gay civil rights pioneer. That's just what I've seen with a quick visit to the major blogs.
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I'm not sure if Exist-gate will catch on. I inserted the hyphen because people kept reading/hearing it incorrectly. Will it prove a rallying cry for the local LGBTQ community? Will we stop allowing other people to control the debate about our lives and take ownership of all these crazy things that are literally not-happening in Pennsylvania? I'm trying to persuade a few folks to meet with State Rep Harry Readshaw about HB 300 — half of his constituents have these protections because they live in the City and half don't because they live in the suburbs. He needs to hear from the unprotected half and make sure everyone in his district has equal civil rights. That's an important discussion.
If we can't get an apology or a public show of support from any leader in our state, it is inevitable that every single LGBTQ resource will be sucked into defeating the marriage amendment. Again. Our attempts to obtain civil rights will be derailed by this other issue and, frankly, by the lack of resources we as a community are investing in a Western Pennsylvania LGBTQ advocacy infrastructure.
It still boils back to what can we do?
Well, if you join the Facebook group, we have a little data, especially if you post comments or join the discussion.
If you continue calling all of your elected officials, we have ongoing pressure.
Beyond those steps, I'd say investing in the infrastructure is the best positive step. Join the dialogue at the next Steel City Stonewall meeting on Thursday, July 16 from 7- 9 PM at the Lawrenceville Crazy Mocha. Bring your agenda and your dues $$.
Let's see what happens.
Be Outraged at Eichelberger – But Support Senator Leach's pro-marriage equality amendment (4.00 / 1)
Senator Daylin Leach spoke at Pennsylvania Diversity Network's annual award celebration last night about his bill SB 935 that he recently introduced in Harrisburg. The bill would provide for marriage equality in PA by allowing same-sex couples to legally marry and providing for recognition of out of state marriages. Eichelberger said his bigoted statement about “allowing us to exist” on an NPR debate in which Senator Leach (D Montgomery) was eloquently speaking in favor of our rights (first time I have ever heard a legislator in PA debate on this issue so brilliantly). While you are calling your legislators don't just ask for a statement, ask them to sign on to SB 935. PA Diversity Network is a GLBT advocacy organization in Allentown, PA. See: http://www.padiversity.org.
PS: I'm seeing far-right anti-gay candidate Pat Toomey (known as “Little Santorum” in parts of PA) advertised on the side of your site. Arlen Specter is paragon of pro-gay policies compared to Pat Toomey. Why is Toomey on your site?
Thanks for pointing that out, Liz. I'm shaking my head in disbelief. Google Ads is a mystery to me so I took the whole damn thing down.
No you are not overreacting at all, nor do I believe it was a flub, maybe a Freudian flub but they mean this stuff. People, we need to wake up that these things are what some people really believe, not just the far right Anti-Gays.
Look at Orson Scott Card, the Sci Fi writer and what he has said, now he sits on NOM's board: “Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.
The goal of the polity is not to put homosexuals in jail. The goal is to discourage people from engaging in homosexual practices in the first place, and, when they nevertheless proceed in their homosexual behavior, to encourage them to do so discreetly, so as not to shake the confidence of the community in the polity's ability to provide rules for safe, stable, dependable marriage and family relationships.”
Their agenda is to use the anti marriage and anti hate crimes platforms to get their words of hate out hoping if enough believe it, they can re-criminalize it.
As to Google Ads, it is too hard to edit them, I took mine down too!