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Night Fliers a-flyin’

By on July 22, 2010 in APB, Moving pictures

Night Fliers, the debut feature film by Bay Area screenwriter, producer, and director Sara St. Martin Lynne, is out and about making waves on the festival circuit.  It’s a “poignant film about a gender nonconforming teen and her friends finding their way in a small CA rural town,” and I can’t wait to see it.

Tonight at 7pm it’s being screened at Berkeley’s Elmwood Theater in a fund-raiser for Our Family Coalition, the Bay Area’s can-do, kick-arse LGBT family organization.  Event info here at its Facebook page and via Our Family Coalition.

I am trying to find a way to be there, but may not be able to manage it (haaaaaarrrrrrgh!). Locals, get childcare (if you need to) and get thee hither! You get to meet and talk with the director and actors afterwards, and support OFC in the process. When it’s all abuzz at Sundance and optioned for major nationwide distribution, you can say, “I saw it first!”

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Yer daily dose of Kate: From the Courthouse

By on June 17, 2010 in APB, On marriage and commitment

As you know, from time to time I can’t resist passing along to you, whole cloth, the emails I get in my inbox from folks like Kate Kendell.  So, here’s her missive summing up yesterday’s historic closing arguments in the Prop 8 trial, and NCLR’s coverage of it. You can find this whole thing also on her blog at NCLR, Out for Justice. I wasn’t able to be outside the courtroom or at the press conference afterward, and was only able to piece together events of the day toward the close of it, via her (and a raft of other smart people’s) live Tweets. Very compelling stuff.  (Some gems of hers here, here, and here. “SO” being short for “sexual orientation.” And Cooper’s the pro-Prop 8 attorney, by the way. Not his finest day in court, by all accounts. Nic Nolte baked out of his brains and his hair straggling in 360 directions — picture the mug shot! — would probably have done a better job. Not like I’m complaining.)

My favorite, probably, among so much news of that day: both Boies and Olson said, in the press conference afterward, that this has been “the most important case of their lives.”  Yes, that Boies and Olson. The they fought over who got to be the 43rd President of the United States Boies and Olson.

Many have said — history has shown — that the brilliance of the reasoning on behalf of justice is not what determines whether and when it is administered. True enough. But damn, it’s nice to hear how hammer-loud and how clarion-clear its bell was rung yesterday.

Dear LD,

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Prom v.2.0

By on April 7, 2010 in APB, School work

One of my favorite recurring editorial practices here at LD, whether content flow is thick or thin, is to copy and paste the emails of lesbian and LGBT family civil rights leaders I admire and respect.  Kate Kendall, Executive Director of National Center for Lesbian Rights, is certainly my most copied-and-pasted.  Below is what she just sent to her peoples’ inboxes just now (as always, cross-posted on Kate’s Blog).

It’s good news following a really, incredibly, phehomenally appalling ongoing civil rights debacle in Mississippi.  Appalling, essentially, since it entails adults perpetuating cruelty against young people.  You’ve likely heard about Constance McMillen — unlikely, unintentional youth LGBT civil rights symbol (a round-up of Google News search results here).  When you read below, if the latest chapter in the saga is news to you, you’ll be first sickened.  Then (I hope) heartened.

(Aside:  “private,” segregated proms are nothing new in the south.  But I suspect that “fake” proms, hosted to trick the half-dozen attendees, might be.)

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We’re here, we’re queer, etc.

By on March 23, 2010 in APB, Baba familias

IMG_9822Anyone who reads stuff online, particularly LGBT thinky stuff, will surely have seen treatment of the census topic and we invisible/ blurry/ quizzical/ perpetually misread LGBT people.

Still, I thought I’d aid and abet.  I got my notice from our daughter’s public school some time ago, saying the census would be coming, and that as a family we should be sure to be counted.

Har! Not our family!  At least not without the cunning strategy most folks are directing toward their tax returns this time of year. I prepared to be irritated.

I also sent away for my handy-dandy “Queer the Census” sticker which I will happily affix to the envelope, with no particular certainty as to its impact on anything more than the schlepp who opens the envelopes.  But at least the schlepp will see that we’re organized, and that many of us are peeved enough to plaster the exterior of our census forms with a gi-normous pink sticker. (I’ve been running a link for it down in the little LGBT civil rights aisle of the sidebar there for months, but if you read this in a Google reader or something, you’ve been missing out. Git yers here!)

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Haiti

By on January 14, 2010 in APB

Certainly you know of the calamity in Haiti. [Constantly updated Wikipedia page here.]

Here’s the whole of Bitch,Ph.D.’s post Help Haiti:

If you are among the many who wish there was something you could do to help Haitians right now, here is some advice in choosing organizations to support. Short version: send $, not stuff, and send it to organizations that were there before the earthquake.

The two easiest ways to donate:

Text YELE to 501501 to donate $5, which will be added to your next cell phone bill. Yele “is a grassroots movement that builds global awareness for Haiti while helping to transform the country through programs in education, sports, the arts and environment. Yéle’s community service programs include food distribution and mobilizing emergency relief. Grammy-Award winning musician, humanitarian and Goodwill Ambassador to Haiti Wyclef Jean founded Yéle Haiti in 2005.”

Text Haiti to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross, same deal with the $ charged to your bill next month.

In both cases my understanding is that the entire amount goes to the dedicated organization.

Other suggestions:

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Last minute push to defend ME marriage equality

By on November 2, 2009 in APB, On marriage and commitment

From No on 1/Protect Maine Equality campaign manager in my inbox this morning:

I wasn’t going to come to you to ask for money again. We’ve asked so much, and you’ve dug deep and really come through.

Honestly, I wouldn’t take my time away from managing our Get Out The Vote operation to send this email if it wasn’treally important.

But we just heard that Yes on 1 is increasing their TV ad buy by $25,000 today.

$25,000 buys a lot of TV ads in Maine.

With the money we have now, we simply can’t counter their arguments on TV.

You and I have both invested a lot in this campaign. I won’t– I can’t– let them win this because we couldn’t come up with the last $25,000 in the final 36 hours.

We can’t let Yes on 1 win the airtime war with their misleading, and factually inaccurate ads.

We can’t let Yes on 1 lie to Maine voters about schools and teachers and children and same-sex couples in Maine.

We need to stand up and match every one of their lies with an ad of our own, that explains that marriage equality won’t do anything to families but protect all of them.

And I need you to help. Can you come through one last time and give $50 to help us finish this campaign with a win?

https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/noon1redalert

Jesse Connolly

Jesse Connolly
Campaign Manager
NO on 1/Protect Maine Equality

For folks in Washington State and Kalamazoo, MI (the other LGBT civil rights hotspots this election), The Task Force has links to the organizations coordinating Get Out The Vote efforts there and in Maine: “Still time to secure victory on Election Day!”

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Action punchlist for this fall’s statewide elections

By on October 29, 2009 in APB

Direct from the Courage Campaign website (thanks to a reminder from hekebolos at DailyKos in “Action: Help the nationwide fight for LGBT equality” ):

Progressives are closer than ever to a victory on health care reform. As 2009 comes to a close, we’ve moved forward on other issues. But what’s looming up ahead could be a disappointment.

On Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009- less than a week away- there will be critical votes on on LGBT equality in three states: Washington State, Maine, and Michigan. With so much attention devoted to other issues in the political realm, bloggers have banded together to ensure we don’t forget the ones with a firm deadline next week.

For that reason, we’ve joined with these three campaigns to put together a summary of who, what, and how. If you haven’t heard of these campaigns, and/or haven’t done anything yet to support them, please consider helping out. If you are a blogger please feel free to grab this content whole cloth and use it for your blog posts. Scroll down to the bottom to grab the formatted HTML to drop into a post.

Last year, as Obama and Democrats were winning across the country, we lost marriage equality in California. It was a bittersweet victory. Pitch in to make sure 2009 isn’t a bittersweet year. Take action to support LGBT equality TODAY.

Herewith, content grabbed whole cloth:

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Please help find Mitrice Richardson

By on October 6, 2009 in APB

[Updates in comments.]

Hello all.

I’m breaking with ordinary LD subject matter, such as it is, to run a public service announcement on behalf of someone dear to an LD reader. And we are nothing if not a community of compassionate people.  I’m going to post the note she wrote me yesterday in its entirety, along with the most recent (if otherwise uncharacteristic) image of the missing woman (at right):

I wanted to let you know about a young woman who has been missing here in the Los Angeles area for over 2 weeks now and there has been little to no media coverage. According to her family she is bi-polar. Yet she graduated Cal State Fullerton with a 4.0.

She started acting odd and ended up being arrested in Malibu for not being able to pay her bill at an upscale restaurant (her mother said she had $2,000 in the bank and that the grandmother offered to pay it over the phone, the restaurant refused and had her arrested) the police searched her car found less than an ounce of Marijuana and arrested her for defrauding an innkeeper and the marijuana. Impounded her car. She had no purse no money and no cell phone.

They took her about 20 miles away to the Lost Hills sheriffs office and then released her at 1:15am, pitch black out, about a mile from a shopping center, down dark windy roads with no money no car no cell phone.

Her mother had called and been assured that she would call when she was ready to be released. She didn’t and she hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

I came across her Myspace and she had written a blog entitled “Why I’m a lesbian”. This story is killing me. My partner has bipolar, is just 2 years older than this beautiful young woman is, and but for the grace of god goes she? And the media isn’t interested.

I don’t know what to do to help get this story out except to email you and see if maybe you would feature her story on your blog. Thanks for listening and peace to you and yours.

For further information or to connect to someone with a tip, please visit www.FindMitrice.info. That site includes this synopsis:

Mitrice Richardson, age 24, went missing after she was released from the Malibu police station at about 1 a.m. Thursday September 17th.

She suffers from mental health issues and was released into the remote Malibu canyon area without a car, I.D,  phone, money or assistance.

Mitrice is an upstanding citizen and student and deserves better treatment than what the Malibu sheriff’s gave. This did not have to happen.

Mitrice is a CAL STATE FULLERTON graduate with a 4.0 GPA and is set to begin a doctoral program.

Below is some more coverage on her case. If you live in Southern California or know someone who does, please please pass this on.

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