National
Out-of-state activists headed to N.C. to fight amendment
Volunteers ready to staff phone banks, boost turnout for Tuesday vote
K. Travis Ballie (Blade photo by Michael Key)
For K. Travis Ballie, helping with the campaign against Amendment One in North Carolina represents a chance to reverse the losses on state ballot initiatives in the more than 30 states that have seen votes on marriage equality.
“I’m going down because 2012 is a very unique year, even since 2004, when we saw the greatest number of marriage amendments on the ballot, we didn’t defeat any of them,” Ballie said. “Now in 2012, we have an anti-marriage amendment on the ballot in a southern state, in North Carolina, which also happens to be one of the most important swing states in this election cycle.”
Ballie, a gay 23-year-old Silver Spring, Md., resident, said he’s personally invested in the fight against the anti-gay measure — which will come before state voters Tuesday and would make a ban on same-sex marriage part of the state constitution — because he has gay friends in North Carolina, including one who had a marriage ceremony in the state a few weeks ago.
“This is really her marriage on the ballot,” Ballie said. “When there are people like Hillary that are in North Carolina that are just pleading for help from activists across the country, the only moral response is to go down to North Carolina and really help defeat this amendment.”
Ballie said challenging anti-gay amendments wherever they emerge across the country is important.
“I think we’re at a point where our community understands that we need to put up a fight wherever an amendment happens, be it a Southern state, be it the Northeast, anywhere in the country,” Ballie said. “These amendments are politically feasible to be defeated and even if we lose, which we won’t, we are really orchestrating one of the largest LGBT-focused statewide campaigns in North Carolina, one of the fastest growing states in our country.”
Ballie is one of several LGBT rights supporters — coming from places like D.C., Sacramento and Chicago — who are expected to travel to North Carolina to help in the campaign against Amendment One.
Another D.C.-area resident, Bryan Oklin, a gay 28-year-old attorney, said he also intends to travel to North Carolina to participate in efforts against Amendment One, calling it a “misguided, divisive measure,” because of the negative effect it would have on LGBT families.
“It seeks to enshrine in the North Carolina state Constitution that one group of the state’s citizens deserves less civil rights than all others,” Oklin said. “It is a backwards, bigoted initiative reminiscent of a past, less tolerant period of time.”
Same-sex marriage is already barred by statute in North Carolina. Opponents say the measure would not only make that ban part of the state constitution, but also prohibit civil unions and interfere with domestic partner benefits offered by municipalities as well as threaten contractual arrangements between same-sex partners.
Adam Bink, director of online programs for the Courage Campaign and an organizer for grassroots efforts against Amendment One, said the Coalition to Protect All NC Families, the campaign against Amendment One, will have more than 100 volunteers coming from out of state either through their signup form or through the Human Rights Campaign. On top of that, Courage Campaign will bring in 15 additional supporters.
“We’ll be putting volunteers to work at phone banks, events like OutRaleigh 2012 this weekend, and going to doors to talk to voters and leave reminders to vote across college campuses and in neighborhoods,” Bink said. “They’ll be focused on one core mission: ensuring we get our supporters to the polls.”
Bink said the out-of-state efforts that helped lead to the passage of California’s Proposition 8 are a stark reminder of why outside support can be important.
“Courage Campaign members from across the country wrote in to tell us they’re going because don’t want to leave any state behind, and because they understand that Amendment 1 goes too far in hurting families across North Carolina,” Bink said. “Our members will never forget the busloads of volunteers from outside California that helped pass Prop 8. We’ve learned from that experience.”
It’s this memory of Prop 8 that is motivating Amanda Wallner, a 24-year-old lesbian from Sacramento, Calif., to travel to North Carolina. For her, the memory of the passage of Prop 8 in 2008 as a college student and the rescinding of the marriage law in Maine in 2009 — which she helped fight — both weigh heavily on her.
“The loss of the ‘No on 8’ campaign hit me really hard,” Wallner said. “When we lost, I could barely get out of bed the next day. I still get emotional sometimes when I read about it. Any opportunity that I have to apply some of the lessons that I learned during that campaign to help out other LGBT people — I’m really excited to have the opportunity.”
Wallner added that going door-to-door explaining the harm of anti-gay amendments brings the biggest gains for the LGBT movement.
“That’s one of the reasons that I love electoral campaigns so much,” Wallner said. “It gives me that opportunity to talk to people face to face, and for them to be able to put a face to the issue.”
These activists could face an uphill battle; polls have shown majority support for the amendment, though there has been a shift in momentum in recent weeks.
Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said he thinks the amendment is likely to pass as similar marriage amendments have in the past.
“I couldn’t guess the margin at the moment, but it is hard to see how it fails to garner a majority ‘yes’ vote,” Sabato said. “The usual patterns are emerging: Seniors are strongly in favor and young people are the least likely to back it, Democrats are opposed while Republicans support.”
Even so, the pro-LGBT side in the race has a funding advantage over proponents of the anti-gay amendment. According to media reports, the Coalition to Protect All NC Families has raised $2.3 million to date and has $294,000 in cash on hand, while Vote for Marriage NC has raised a total of $1.2 million and has $112,000 in cash on hand. The pro-LGBT side is touting that individual small donations make up the bulk of its funds, while large contributions from the Christian Action League and the National Organization for Marriage made up the other side.
Moreover, recent polling shows support for the marriage amendment is declining. Data published last week by Public Policy Polling found only 54 percent of voters in the state plan to vote for it, while 40 percent are opposed to the measure. That’s the lowest level of support for the measure that PPP has found in polling since last October.
Bink said the decline in support for the North Carolina amendment shows the pro-LGBT side is within “striking distance” of victory.
“What’s more, the same poll shows that the more North Carolinians learn what Amendment One does, the less they support it, which is why an original 27-point lead has been cut in half,” Bink said. “A supermajority of North Carolinians oppose a constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage as well as civil unions and domestic partnerships for unmarried couples of any gender, endangers domestic violence laws, and takes benefits like health insurance away from children of unmarried couples.”
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.
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