An LGBT activist’s view of entertainment and world news.
As an LGBT activist, the promotion of queer rights is #1 on my homosexual agenda. This weekly column serves as a forum for me to comment on issues and causes currently affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. My “rundown” of these topics is from the perspective of an LGBT activist; it is my goal that by keeping our community informed, we can all help contribute to the battle for equality.
DADT is Unconstitutional
The Log Cabin Republicans filed a legal challenge on the constitutionality of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips ruled America’s policy banning homosexual conduct didn’t help with military readiness and that the law actually had a “direct and deleterious effect’’ on the military. The court also found the policy violates the First and Fifth Amendment rights of gay and lesbian military members and issued an injunction halting enforcement of the law. Normally, I’m not a cheerleader for the Log Cabin Republicans, but this was a huge victory for the LGBT community. Hopefully, this will be the first of many LCR victories and hopefully one of the first of many successful future actions.
Google Censors Lesbians
Google – known as an innovative industry leader that receives excellent employee satisfaction ratings – has once again found a way to unintentionally offend the LGBT community. Google recently introduced an advancement called; “Google Instant,” which doesn’t wait for the user to click the search button before displaying the query results. A homophobic glitch was recently discovered by LGBT activists in the autocomplete scripting which for some strange reason excludes certain terms by relating them to “pornography, violence and hate speech” according Google’s company policy. The new instant feature excludes words like “bisexual” and “lesbian” while allowing “homosexual,” “gay,” “queer,” “dyke,” “transvestite,” and “transgender” to be searchable. Well, if you think that’s crazy then join the hundreds of others in urging Google to remove sexual depravity undertone by signing the petition below.
Link to petition: http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/are_lesbians_only_for_porn_google_instant_thinks_so?share_source=blog-bottom_em
The Montana Tea Party’s Prez is Fired
Tim Ravndal, the former Montana Tea Party leader fired over a homophobic conversation on Facebook, wants his job back. Ravndal stated marriage is between a man and a woman period and agreed with a commenter who stated that, “all fruits are decorative” and should be “hang up” ….to “Call Wyoming for display instructions.”
Ravndal states he was unaware that his comments in reference to the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard were offensive and didn’t intend to advocate violence. The Big Sky Tea Party is holding a board meeting next week to decide on Ravndal’s membership but doubts he will ever return to the group in a leadership role. I’ve enclosed a screenshot of the July 23rd facebook discussion so you can decide.
ATL Speed Networking
The Atlanta Executive Network (AEN) is Atlanta’s oldest and largest network of LGBT professionals. On 9/9/10, AEN and Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (AGLCC) partnered again to bring a professional speed networking event. The event was an inventive twist on speed dating to assist LGBT professionals connect with employers. The group’s March event attracted by over 225 professionals in nearly every industry and is constantly looking for new ways to help professionals overcome the slow job market. The group offers training on how to promote yourself or your organization in two minutes from experts in business, social and online networking. They also post job opportunities and encourage you to obtain new contacts in several rounds of friendly speed networking. This is a great idea and I hope it catches on in other states where the unemployment rates are over 10%. For more information, please visit http://www.aen.org or http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2441153086. (continued on next page)
