Equality Riders Inspire Idaho Crowd with Message of NonViolent Action

April 25, 2012 by Leave a comment

About 25 people gathered to meet and learn from a group that is making its way across the country in the name of equality, on Tuesday night.

The SoulForce Equality riders, chosen each year from hundreds of applicants, travel throughout the country for two months visiting communities and college campuses.

Their mission?

To end political and spiritual oppression felt by those in the LGBTQ community.

Over a potluck meal, held at the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the group of 17 riders, ages 18-31, shared their personal stories of why they got involved. They also took the time to make some personal connections with those who came to welcome them.

Earlier in the day, at a press conference on the Capital steps, rider Zachary Pullin said one of the biggest things the group does is work to reconcile faith identity with those who identify as lesbian, gay, transgender and queer,”We try to visit campuses that have discriminatory polices against the LGBTQ community, whether they be explicit policies that say you can’t be LGBTQ or an ally, to some schools where you can be kicked out for being LGBTQ identified.”

While the riders didn’t visit any Idaho schools during their tour this year, eight previous riders were arrested at BYU-Idaho in 2007.

Pullin also said the group is extremely troubled by the actions of Idaho lawmakers during this year’s legislative session, “I know that there were a couple of setbacks in Idaho this year by not including sexual orientation or gender identity in the Human Rights act  and by not passing the bullying act. We really understand that a lot of lawmakers are influenced by their religion. We are here to say that you can be LGBTQ and Christian! To use your faith as an excuse to not include sexual orientation or gender identity in the human rights act, there’s no excuse for that,” he said.

Following the dinner, the crowd watched, “Live free of Die,” a new documentary exploring the faith, struggles and confirmation of openly gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson. The film fit well with the ride’s mission.

After the screening, the riders opened themselves up for questions and answers.

Interfaith Alliance of Idaho’s Executive Director, Pam Baldwin, asked the group about their much publicized meeting with LDS church officials in Salt Lake the day before.

While some riders expressed disappointment that they weren’t able to meet with any high-ranking leaders, Jason Conner, co-director of the Equality Ride and director of programs for SoulForce, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the meeting.

“We are one of the first LGBTQ groups to meet with church officials and not be tied an agreement of secrecy.” Conner said. “We were also able to find some common ground. Those we met with agreed that no kid who identifies him or herself as LGBTQ should ever be shunned by their families or kicked out of their homes. Hopefully there’s a 13-year old out there who is sleeping in their own bed tonight because of that meeting.”

Several riders identified their experiences in Colorado as being their most meaningful. There, four of the riders were arrested at Colorado Christian University for attempting to hold an on-campus Bible study. The group was also able to meet with leaders of the notoriously anti-gay Evangelical organization, “Focus on the Family”, headquartered in Colorado Springs.

“We found some common ground with them as well,” Conner said.

“I’m pretty confident hearts are being changed across the country. I’m seeing it with my own eyes. It’s amazing!” one rider enthusiastically told the crowd.

Following the stop in Boise, the group headed to Portland.

They will wrap up their tour in San Fransisco.

The Equality Ride’s visit to Boise was sponsored by the Interfaith Alliance of Idaho and the Pride Foundation.

Click HERE to learn more about the SoulForce Equality Ride.

Click HERE to visit the ride’s Facebook page. 

Filed under LGBT, Pride, Religion, The Agenda Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

ACT-UP joins #Occupy in call for Wall Street Healthcare Tax

April 25, 2012 by 1 Comment

Members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, (ACT-UP), joined forces with members of Occupy Wall Street on Wednesday to draw attention to a plan that would provide better health care for the uninsured.

About nine activists were arrested during the protest, held in the heart of New York’s financial district.

According to the Washington Post,”New York Stock Exchange workers jeered from the sidewalk as handcuffed protesters wearing Robin Hood costumes were loaded into police vans after chaining themselves together and blocking traffic in the area around Wall Street. Police used chain cutters to remove them.”

“The protestors are asking for the government to tax market trades by investment banks, hedge funds and other financial outfits to fund universal health care,” explains an ACT-UP blog post. “The AIDS activists met up with Occupy Wall Street supporters at City Hall to rally for what they call a “Financial Speculative Tax.” They contend the funds generated by such a tax would help treat HIV-positive people and those who are uninsured — and that it would register as barely a blip on the bottom line of most Wall Street firms.”

Eric Sawyer, who is one of the group’s founding members tells the Washington Post,”When it comes to AIDS and housing services…big business is not funding anything, but they got the bailout.”

Act-Up was founded in 1987 amid the AIDS crises, the group has since gone international with chapters around the world.

According to the group,”Today, out of the 34 million people living with HIV worldwide, about 6.6 million people in low- and –middle income countries have access to HIV treatment with nearly 8 million additional people still in need.”

Filed under Call To Action, Health, LGBT, The Agenda Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Registration for Portland’s Pride Festival now open

April 25, 2012 by Leave a comment

It’s one of the largest Pride parades in the region, if not the country.

Last year Portland’s Pride parade drew over 25,000 spectators and over 114 different groups from around the Northwest.

The parade occurs on the final day of Portland’s Pride Festival, a three-day celebration put together by  Pride Northwest, Inc.

According to the organization’s website,”The mission of Pride Northwest, Inc. is to encourage and celebrate the positive diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer communities, and to assist in the education of all people through the development of activities that showcase the history, accomplishments, and talents of these communities.”

This year, Portland’s festival will take place June 15th through the 17th at Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

Registration to participate in the parade will cost you anywhere from 50.00 dollars for non-profit groups from Oregon, Washington and Idaho on up to 1000 dollars for national businesses.

There are also still booth spaces available for vendors and organizations who wish to participate.

Click HERE to learn more.

Registration is also now open for those who wish to be a  sponsor of  Boise’s Pride celebration, which will take place during the same time frame on Saturday, June 16th, at Ann Morrison park. (Click HERE for more info.)

Here is a schedule of some of the bigger pride celebrations happening around the Northwest:

Salt Lake Pride June 1 through June 3

Bend Pride  June 9

Boise Pride June 16

Portland Pride June 16 and 17

Vancouver July 14

Eugene August 11

Salem (usually early August-not on website yet)

Lincoln City September 6-9

Ashland October 11-14

Filed under LGBT, Pride Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Daily Kos features May-Chang/VanderSloot Saga

April 25, 2012 by 1 Comment

Daily Kos blogger laserhaas has written a great post summarizing the ongoing story involving Romney finance co-chair and Idaho businessman Frank VanderSloot.

You might recall that independent journalist Jody May-Chang, this blog and others were recipients of takedown notices earlier this year by attorneys working for VanderSloot’s Melaleuca company.

laserhaas does an excellent job bringing readers up to speed on the saga that includes the article by Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, an eight-minute piece by MSNBC”s Rachel Maddow as well as articles posted by Forbes and Mother Earth Jones News.

Now that Romney is clearly the GOP presidential candidate nominee, it will be interesting to see just how his campaign handles the publicity.

For his part, VanderSloot has created a website dedicated to responding to his critics. www.frankvanderslootresponse.com includes his original response to the Greenwald article, a letter from the Idaho State Attorney General’s office as well as an excerpt from blog comments made by Post-Register publisher Roger Plothow.

In March, the Human Rights Campaign started a petition calling on the GOP frontrunner to remove VanderSloot from his campaign. In a letter to its supporters, the HRC called VanderSloot, “one of the most ruthlessly anti-LGBT bullies in our nation. He’s funneled money to causes that demonize LGBT people and damage our families. His lack of a moral compass includes outing an Idaho man and leading a relentless character assault against him.”

So far, there has been no response from the Romney campaign.

Click HERE to read the full post over at Daily Kos.

Filed under LGBT, The Agenda Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

LDS Leaders refuse to meet with Soulforce Equality Riders

April 24, 2012 by 1 Comment

Despite numerous requests for a meeting with high ranking church officials this week, a group of gay activists were instead forced to discuss their concerns with members of the church’s public relations and public policy teams.

According to Q Salt Lake,”Members of the Soulforce 2012 Equality Ride reached out to Church leaders to ask them to cut ties with to Evergreen International, a group that promotes so-called reparative therapy, to stop funding and promoting groups that are fighting marriage equality, to encourage LDS Business College to bring its policies on gays current with Mormon teachings and to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the faith’s policies for church employees.”

The Salt Lake City Tribune reports,”Equality Ride had sought a meeting with Mormon higher-ups, including apostles or members of the church’s governing First Presidency. Instead, the advocates huddled with LDS legislative lobbyist Bill Evans, public-affairs representative John Taylor, former TV reporter Ruth Todd and LDS attorney Alexander Dushku, who helped write briefs defending the church’s position on California’s Proposition 8.”

Equality Rider Robert Moore, tells Q Salt Lake, “I am a member of this church, and because I am gay my leaders apparently find me so revolting they refuse to be in the same room as me. It just makes me realize how important it is to have this dialogue.”

Jason Conner, Equality Ride’s co-director, described the meeting to the Tribune as “overall positive,” noting that Evans in particular was “very gracious and hospitable.”

The Equality Ride, launched in 2006, targets its tour at college campuses and those communities in which religious oppression and prejudice have major strongholds, most often at the expense of those who are part of sexual orientation or gender identity minorities.

The riders will pull into Boise this afternoon for a 4:00 pm press conference on the State House steps. The stop in Boise will include a potluck dinner, screening of the award-winning documentary film”Love Free or Die” and an informal discussion with the riders themselves.

“An Evening with the Soulforce Equality Riders” will be held tonight from 5:30-9:30 p.m. at The Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship located at 6200 North Garrett Street in Boise. The event is free and open to the public.

You are encouraged to bring a dish to share during the dinner.

Filed under Call To Action, LGBT, Pride, Religion, The Agenda, Transgender Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

EEOC: Transgender Workers Protected By Federal Human Rights Act!

April 24, 2012 by 1 Comment

A five member, bipartisan, federal commission has ruled that employer discrimination based on a person’s gender identity is a violation of the 1964 civil rights act.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says that such action violates Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner reports,”The opinion came in a decision delivered on Monday, April 23, to lawyers for Mia Macy, a transgender woman who claims she was denied employment with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after the agency learned of her transition. It also comes on the heels of a growing number of federal appellate and trial courts deciding that gender-identity discrimination constitutes sex discrimination, whether based on Title VII or the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws.”

According to a press release from the Transgender Law Center, the decision will have broad implications for transgender individuals across the country,”Because the EEOC is the agency charged with interpreting and enforcing federal discrimination laws throughout the nation. The EEOC’s decision will impact every employer, public and private, throughout the nation. The decision is entitled to significant deference by the courts, and will be binding on all federal agencies.”

Masen Davis, Transgender Law Center’s Executive Director, tells Metro Weekly, ”Given that transgender people do not have employment protections in the vast majority of states, this creates a whole new fabric of legal support for our community.”

”When an employer discriminates against someone because the person is transgender, the employer has engaged in disparate treatment related to the sex of the victim,” the decision states. ”This is true regardless of whether an employer discriminates against an employee because the individual has expressed his or her gender in a non-stereotypical fashion, because the employer is uncomfortable with the fact that the person has transitioned or is in the process of transitioning from one gender to another, or because the employer simply does not like that the person is identifying as a transgender person,” reports Geidner.

“The decision today follows a clear trend by federal courts in recent years holding that transgender people are protected by Title VII’s prohibition against sex discrimination,” says the Center’s  press release.

Filed under LGBT, The Agenda, Transgender Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Be a part of the Agenda!

April 23, 2012 by Leave a comment

Don’t forget, the Idaho Agenda is always looking for your submissions, events and press releases.

Over the past 7 months or so, we have created a nationwide network to help serve the LGBT community in Idaho. Our readership has grown from reaching a dozen or so people a month to almost 15,000 plus!

Now headquartered in Boise, it’s our intent to better serve the community with even more articles, pictures and happenings.

If you would like to get the word out about your group, event or if you have an opinion on something related to the LGBT community email it to idahoagenda@gmail.com.

Be sure you don’t miss a thing by following us at @idahoageda on Twitter and by “liking” us on Facebook!

Filed under The Agenda Tagged with , , , , , ,

Watch: Straight LDS Family Members say,”It Gets Better.”

April 23, 2012 by 1 Comment

The same openly gay BYU professor who recently produced a video telling BYU students that ”It Gets Better’ has produced another video. This one features LDS family members that have come to terms with their faith and acceptance for their gay loved ones.

Emmy-winning filmmaker, Kendall Wilcox, is a lifelong member of the LDS church and founder of the website empathyfirstinitiative.org. He told The Salt Lake City Tribune, last year, that he doesn’t consider being gay,”a handicap or an impediment God imposed on some unlucky mortals, but yet another attribute for engaging with the gospel of Jesus Christ, he says. “I am happy to be engaged in this way.”

Since reconciling his faith with his sexuality, Wilcox has been working on a documentary film exploring the experience of being homosexual and Mormon.

His newest ‘It Gets Better’ clip made its premiere over the weekend at the national Circling the Wagons conference in Washington, D.C., which featured several high profile speakers like Mitch Mayne, who was called to serve in a LDS leadership position last year.

While the church has made amazing strides regarding its attitudes and beliefs toward the LGBT community, critics point out that it still has a long way to go.  Members, for example, may identity themselves as homosexual but any sexual relations as well as the struggle for marriage equality are still considered by many to be taboo, if not downright sinful.

Still, films like Wilcox’s will go along way in not only creating dialog but in fostering a understanding between LGBT members and their straight counterparts as well.

According to the filmmaker, Wilcox hopes his films, “create safety and peace for all who choose to engage in… important conversations and in-turn heal hearts, homes, and communities.”

Filed under Call To Action, LGBT, Religion, The Agenda Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Cancer Network Targets Needs of LGBT Community in Idaho and Beyond

April 23, 2012 by Leave a comment

A nationwide program founded in 2007 by members of the LGBT community to help address specific health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) cancer survivors and those at risk has added some 300 facilities to its ever-growing network.

Three of those facilities are located right here in Idaho.

According to a recent press release, The National LGBT Cancer Network’s expanded directory now includes,”a starred designation for facilities that have shown an exceptional commitment to transgender health.”

“Many other cancer screening facilities are, if not outright hostile, unaware of how to treat transgender patients. This means, for instance, that a transgender man seeking a mammogram may be asked to don a pink robe or sit in the women’s waiting room – a humiliating experience. At both the starred facilities and any of the other facilities in the directory, transgender patients can join lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in resting assured that they will not be discriminated against,” says the Network.

Cancer is the leading cause of death in Idaho and is also the number one cause of death among the 45-54, 55-64, and 65-74 year old age groups.

While specific data regarding the LGBT community and cancer is hard to come by, the network reports that,”there is reason to believe that LGBT people are carrying a disproportionate cancer burden.”

According to Liz Margolies, the group’s Executive Director,”LGBT people are at increased risk of cancer, not due to any physiological differences, but behaviors, many of which result from the stress of living as sexual and gender minorities in this country. As a group, for example, lesbians drink more, smoke more, are less likely to have a biological child before age 30, and more likely to be overweight and eat a high-fat diet. All these increase their cancer risks considerably.”

“Gay men have very high rates of HPV, the virus that can lead to anal cancer. In fact, anal cancer rates in this population are 40 times higher than in the general population. A simple screening procedure, an anal pap smear, can test for precancerous changes, but too few men are aware of the need for or existence of the test, or out to their provider who could then recommend it. Long-term HIV survivors are now also known to be at much greater risk for several types of cancer, including lung and renal cancer as well as anal cancer,” Margolies says.

Besides the national registry of clinics and facilities, the organization’s website also offers a web-based risk assessment test, educational resources about cancer and the LGBT community as well as a cultural competence training course for facilities seeking to join the network.

Click HERE to see the list of screening facilities in Idaho.

Click HERE to learn more about The National LGBT Cancer Network.

 

 

Filed under Health, LGBT, The Agenda, Transgender Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Now Playing: ‘Bully’ opens in Boise

April 23, 2012 by Leave a comment

Filmgoers and educators that signed up for tickets were treated to free screenings of Lee Hirsch’s controversial film ‘Bully’ over the weekend.

The film, which follows five teens over the course of a school year, has created controversy for its hard-hitting look at school bullying and its effects on the students, their families and their communities.

‘Bully’ was released nationwide on Friday.  It made its Idaho premiere at the Flicks Theater in Boise with two free screenings sponsored by the Boise Exchange Club and the Idaho Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Following the screening on Saturday, Boise counselor Kelli Sullivan led a discussion about the effects of bullying on teens in Idaho.

Sunday’s showing was targeted at area teachers.

The film’s message is an important one for Idaho.

According to the Suicide Prevention Action Network of Idaho, Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death for Idahoans age 15-34 and for males age 10-14. Idaho also has the fourth highest suicide rate in the nation.

Studies have shown that those who have been bullied and or harassed at school can be affected by the actions well into their adult years.

According to the 2012 Idaho Youth Risk Behavior Survey, out of 1,702  students in 48 public high schools, 22.8 percent report being bullied or harassed on school property within the last year.

A legislative measure that would have required school districts to develop action plans to deal with the problem failed to advance in the last session after the bill was held up by the chairman of the House Education Committee.

Republican Rep. Bob Nonini refused to give the bill a hearing because he didn’t feel the additional law was necessary.

You can catch the documentary, which was given a PG-13 rating earlier this month, at the Flicks located at 646 Fulton Street in Boise.

Click HERE for show times and other information.

 

 

Filed under Call To Action, Health, LGBT, The Agenda, Transgender Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 391 other followers