National
Push for LGBT bills continues during recess
Activities planned in local districts while Congress takes break
Advocacy groups are planning to take advantage of this month’s congressional recess by stepping up efforts with district offices to build support for pro-LGBT initiatives while lawmakers are at home.
One joint effort between the Human Rights Campaign and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, for example, is geared toward influencing senators to support repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” when the issue comes before the Senate, possibly in September.
As part of this same effort, HRC is also working on building support for bringing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to a House vote.
Meanwhile, grassroots LGBT group GetEqual is considering ways to expand its direct action work outside the Capital Beltway to reach lawmakers in their home districts.
HRC and SLDN last week announced their effort, called Countdown 2010, which aims to mobilize new grassroots efforts to build support in part toward ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the Senate.
Marty Rouse, HRC’s national field director, said the effort consists of engagement from the organization’s field team as well as encouraging HRC members to reach out to key lawmakers.
“We can’t just talk to our legislators and members of Congress inside the Beltway,” Rouse said. “We have to talk to them in the district so that they see that there’s interest and concern back home.”
Aubrey Sarvis, SLDN’s executive director, said the effort will last until lawmakers return from their August recess and vote on the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill, the legislative vehicle to which the Senate Armed Services Committee in May attached a provision that would lead to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
“We’ll be down in the targeted states with veterans, former clients of SLDN, friends and family of veterans — hopefully to visit with senators and their key staffers to urge senators to support, one, the [Defense Department] bill and, secondly, to support the provisions in the bill as it came out of the Senate Armed Services Committee,” Sarvis said.
The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” portion of the Countdown 2010 effort is focused on influencing senators in 10 states — Arkansas, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Virginia — where HRC and SLDN feel they don’t have a firm commitment from senators on the issue.
Rouse said the senators in the states on which HRC is focusing its efforts are Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), John Ensign (R-Nev.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), George Voinovich (R-Ohio), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.).
Although Rouse said HRC’s field team is engaged in nearly all of these states throughout the country as part of this effort, he added efforts aren’t yet underway in Montana because of priority and efficiency reasons.
“Montana is a big state, and it’s hard to cover and hard to get to,” Rouse said. “There’s no one in Montana right now, but there will be.”
One of the senators on the list has already publicly indicated his position on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the defense authorization bill. Last month, Lugar told the Blade he wouldn’t support removing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” language from legislation and is unlikely to support a filibuster of the main bill.
Sarvis said SLDN feels Indiana should nonetheless be among the states on which efforts are focused.
“With Sen. Lugar, the commitment is not as firm and unequivocal as we would like, so we hope to engage him back home,” Sarvis said. “But, yes, we are somewhat encouraged by what Sen. Lugar has said to date. But, again, it’s not done until all the votes are cast.”
Also as part of Countdown 2010, HRC is working to influence senators in the targeted states on ENDA while engaging House members in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas to build support for the bill. Rouse said urging senators to support ENDA in these three additional states is less of a priority.
“We really focused on the House and we need to do significant [work] in House districts throughout the country before we even can think of the Senate,” Rouse said. “Our focus right now in the field is making sure that we target these House members. That’s most important.”
Paul Guequierre, an HRC spokesperson, said the efforts in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas are geared toward influencing House Democratic members in these states that aren’t ENDA co-sponsors.
Five of eight House Democrats from North Carolina, five of 12 House Democrats from Pennsylvania and five of 12 House Democrats from Texas aren’t co-sponsors, Guequierre said.
Sarvis said the shared work between HRC and SLDN in this effort would complement the strength of each organization. He noted that HRC has more field organizers and thus would provide more field workers to the effort while SLDN would bring more service members and veterans.
“Whether it’s working with field organizers in place or SLDN veterans, clients, it’ll be a matter of sharing resources and bringing that [all] together over the next six to eight weeks in the most efficient way possible,” Sarvis said.
Rouse said HRC would look at local media to determine whether efforts in these states are making progress and noted that efforts in many states have already produced results.
“We’ve already seen letters to the editor printed, op-eds printed and meetings with the Senate staff have already taken place,” he said. “None of this would have happened were it not for HRC’s staff being on the ground, mobilizing and reaching out to people.”
But for SLDN, evaluating the progress of Countdown 2010 would depend on the results of the meetings with senators and their staffers in these states.
“But the bottom line is you won’t know until the votes have been cast,” Sarvis said. “In some cases, we may get affirmative answers over the next several weeks, but I suspect that in many cases, we won’t get a definitive answer until the senators’ votes.”
GetEqual plans district actions
Meanwhile, GetEqual is planning efforts to draw more attention to ENDA as lawmakers return from break. The efforts are intended to build off previous protests last month in Las Vegas and at the U.S. Capitol.
Robin McGehee, co-founder of GetEqual, said her group has been talking with local organizers about working collaboratively on direct action throughout the country on ENDA and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“We’re trying to work to set up some in-district actions,” she said. “At this moment, we don’t have any targets that we’ll release only because we’re trying to figure out where is the weakest link and what we feel like is going to be strategically the best one to plan most of our attention.”
McGehee said GetEqual will be sending out instructions on ways people can engage in the political process as lawmakers work in their home district.
“It may be some people planning actions; it may be just giving them avenues of engagement that can just get them to engage their legislator around ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ or ENDA,” she said.
McGehee said GetEqual is looking at lawmakers’ speaking engagements, town halls, fundraisers and office times as possible opportunities for action.
Wherever the actions take place, McGehee said GetEqual is in part learning from the tactics that conservative protesters used in interrupting town hall meetings last year over health care reform.
“Obviously, you don’t want to be compared to someone who has a conservative platform,” she said. “But, in my opinion, one of the things that we did learn from watching that was the squeaky wheel was getting the grease.”
In the past month, GetEqual asked supporters which of four lawmakers should be targeted for direct action over ENDA: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) or Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.).
According to GetEqual, Pelosi won 46.5 percent of the vote, Reid won 18.5 percent, Miller took 17.6 percent and Frank took 17.4 percent. The organization declined to make public the total number of votes.
McGehee said the first and second place rankings of Pelosi and Reid were behind a protest last month in Las Vegas, which was directed against Reid, and another protest in the U.S. Capitol, which targeted Pelosi.
But whether GetEqual continues to target Pelosi and Reid during their August break remains to be seen.
“I don’t know for sure that we’ll go back to those targets,” McGehee said. “Honestly, for us, it’s just looking at where you have local organizers that also want to be involved, and finding out from the advocacy groups that really have the inside strategy where do they feel like the hold up is actually happening.”
National
Blade reporters reflect on covering Pulse massacre 10 years ago
Orlando stepped up to comfort and support its LGBTQ community
Friday marks 10 years since a gunman killed 49 people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
The massacre, which, at the time was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, left the LGBTQ community in this country and around the world reeling. It also prompted renewed calls for gun control.
The OnePulse Foundation, which Pulse owner Barbara Poma founded after the massacre, raised upwards of $20 million for a memorial that never materialized.
The city of Orlando in 2023 purchased the Pulse property for $2 million. Crews earlier this year demolished the former nightclub. The city of Orlando has pledged $12 million for a permanent memorial that is scheduled to open in 2027.
Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff and International News Editor Michael K. Lavers reported from Orlando in the days after the massacre. Here are their reflections a decade later.
Describe the scene when you arrived in Orlando. Where did you go first?
NAFF: Most mainstream reporters headed for the Pulse nightclub, but it was already roped off with police keeping bystanders at least a full city block away. Instead, I hurried to The Center, Orlando’s LGBTQ community center, downtown. I expected to find it locked down with tight security but instead the doors were flung open and everyone inside was busy at work. No tears, just dedicated staff and volunteers working the phones to secure visas and free plane tickets for relatives of the victims. The director gave me a tour and in the back storage room were pallets and pallets of bottled water stacked to the ceiling. When I asked what all the water was for, he said the city had issued a call for blood donations and the lines to donate were 1,500 deep in 100-degree heat. So The Center drove around to all the sites to deliver water to all those standing in line.
That scene was so inspiring and a testament to the strength and resiliency of the LGBTQ community. We’d seen tragedy before and knew how to respond.
LAVERS: I arrived in Orlando about 14 hours after the massacre took place. The city was shellshocked.
Equality Florida, the state’s LGBTQ advocacy group, and other organizations held a press conference at The Center shortly after my flight from D.C. landed. I drove there from the airport. Terry DeCarlo, who was The Center’s executive director at the time, along with then-Equality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith and others spoke on behalf of a community that was reeling. The Center at the press conference handed out business cards that read, “You matter.” I had it in my wallet when I drove to a makeshift memorial that was a block from Pulse — the police had cordoned off the area immediately around the nightclub. A local resident who I interviewed told me that she did not know if her friends who were at Pulse when the gunman opened fire survived. Another person with whom I spoke shared a similar story.
A torrential downpour began shortly after I arrived. The storm was an apt metaphor for the raw emotion of that horrific day.
What’s your most prominent memory of covering the Pulse massacre?
NAFF: I was covering a vigil in downtown Orlando when then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s motorcade arrived unannounced. To that point, he had not addressed the LGBTQ angle and seemed to be downplaying the fact that this was an attack on our community. I hurried to the front row as he held an impromptu news conference. To my dismay, he took only three short questions from TV reporters then rushed away. I grabbed his communications director and insisted that Scott take a question from the LGBTQ media. She agreed and told me to wait next to the SUV. When Scott approached, I asked him, “What is your message to LGBTQ Floridians?”
To my surprise, he sputtered, stammered, and broke into tears before telling me, “This was an attack, what else can you say? This was an attack against the gays, an attack against Hispanics, an attack against our country, our nation and it’s disgusting. The biggest thing we do now is ask how to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
It was his first public acknowledgment that the LGBTQ community was the target of the attack.
LAVERS: Two moments stand out for me.
The first moment is when then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Orlando on June 16, four days after the massacre. I was one of the reporters who the White House asked to be part of the local press pool. I was about 50 feet away from Obama and Biden when they placed bouquets with 49 flowers — one for each of the victims — at a makeshift memorial between City Hall and the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Orlando. Obama in remarks he made to the press pool mentioned one of the gay victims who had once said, “We cannot be afraid.” The emotions of the last four days simply became too much, and I broke down. Another reporter who was part of the press pool who was standing next to me realized I had broken down. She put her hand on my back to console me.
The second moment came a few weeks later when I was in Puerto Rico to cover the community’s response to the massacre and to interview victims’ relatives. Orlando has a very large Puerto Rican community, and nearly half of those who died at Pulse were of Puerto Rican descent.
I drove to Caguas, a city that is roughly 20 miles south of San Juan, the island’s capital, on July 7, and interviewed Aida Velázquez in her small apartment. Her son, Frankie “Jimmy” de Jesús, died at Pulse. Aida talked about her son, and she showed me pictures of him. Jimmy also danced Jíbaro, a Puerto Rican folk dance. The interview took place less than a month after the massacre — Jimmy’s funeral took place in Caguas less than two weeks earlier.
I sat in my car after the interview and sobbed uncontrollably for nearly five minutes. Nothing can possibly prepare you for interviewing a mother who had just lost her child in the most horrific way possible.
How did the local community respond and what about their response gave you hope or inspiration?
NAFF: In addition to the staff at The Center working to assist victims and their families, everyday Orlando residents stepped up to help however they could. At the downtown vigils, straight mothers and fathers carried signs offering hugs to anyone who needed them. I encountered a group of young teenage males who approached a group of law enforcement officers and appeared to perform for them. When they finished, I asked what they were doing and they told me that they were straight friends who lived in Orlando and wanted to do something to help so they composed an uplifting rap song and walked around performing it for anyone who needed cheering up.
LAVERS: The way that Orlando rallied around the LGBTQ community was simply inspiring.
Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, at a memorial service that took place at the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center on June 13 said his organization was “united as Americans when it comes to standing with the LGBT community and their rights to live freely and to practice their lives here.” This comment underscored the outpouring of support that Orlando showed its LGBTQ community after Pulse. It was also a call for the better angels among us to reject hate in all of its forms.
What surprised you most about the experience?
NAFF: I was most surprised — and moved — after talking to Rev. Debreita Taylor of Oasis Fellowship Ministries, an LGBTQ-affirming ministry.
“My message is love. Period. Love. Period. There’s nothing in the word of God that faith leaders can go to that teaches hate,” she told me. “Have faith and believe that evil and hate can be eradicated one person at a time. How do you treat someone? How do you embrace someone who treats you wrong? We all bleed, laugh, hope and have great victories and major defeats. And so, you know me, even if you don’t know my name — I’m you.”
LAVERS: It admittedly took me quite a while to fully process what I experienced in Orlando — I was focused on doing my job as a reporter, which was to cover the story, and, most importantly, show the human impact of what had happened. I suppose one surprising aspect of the time I spent in Orlando was that I found myself feeling more defiant against those who seek to destroy our community. They want us to live in fear, and I refuse to give them that satisfaction.
What, if anything, changed as a result of Pulse?
NAFF: In the immediate aftermath of the attack, queer spaces began rethinking their approach to security, which has served us well in the years since. Sadly, just a year later, Pulse was bumped to the No. 2 deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history when a gunman opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, killing 60 people. Americans and their politicians never learn from these largely preventable tragedies. The carnage continues.
LAVERS: Gun violence remains a shameful scourge in this country. Our community remains vulnerable to violence and discrimination. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other politicians here in Washington, around the country, and overseas continue to use our community to advance an anti-equality agenda. The carnage continues, as my colleague correctly notes, but our community remains strong and defiant. That gives me hope.
National
Queen Jean is Tony’s first transgender winner
Designer/activist wins for work on ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’
It was a historic night at the 79th annual Tony Awards on Sunday as Queen Jean won the award for Best Costume Design of a Musical, making her the first out transgender person to win a Tony.
“This experience has been monumental. We are here for the legacy of queer people, trans people,” she said. “We are taking up space in ways we have to take up space. We have to shift the paradigm. So I just want to say, thank you all so much for this incredible honor. The world right now is deeply, deeply combating so many ailments, and we know as a society that when we come together, we can make real, permanent change.”
She won the award for her work on “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” and was also nominated for best costume design of a play for “Liberation.”
In addition to her stage work, Queen Jean is the founder of Black Trans Liberation, an organization that supports trans and gender-nonconforming people in New York City.
National
Madonna turns Times Square into massive dance floor
Pop icon celebrates Pride month with surprise performance
Pop icon Madonna celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York City’s Times Square on Thursday to the delight of 50,000 fans.
She performed for about 15 minutes high above street level, including several songs from her new album “Confessions II” due on July 3, along with a trio of songs from the first “Confessions on a Dance Floor.”
In addition to the brand new “Love Sensation,” she performed “I Feel So Free” and “Bring Your Love,” plus “Hung Up,” “Get Together” and “I Love New York.” She wished the crowd a happy Pride season; the event was shared with audiences through Grindr’s first-ever livestream.
German group slams White House’s LGBTQ rights record ahead of World Cup
Gay 1920s-era Hollywood star to be honored in Staunton, Va.
Why I’m supporting Gary Goodweather for D.C. mayor
Don’t just vote for change — vote for Hope Solomon for mayor
Vote Kenyan McDuffie for D.C. mayor
PHOTOS: ‘Soul Divas’
‘Mighty Real’ explores history of LGBTQ music
D.C.’s housing reality: Cautious optimism meets landlord strain
Hundreds of thousands expected to attend D.C. Pride events
