Archive for the ‘Gay Rights’ Category

Contributed by PunkJohnnyCash, GonzoTimes.com

Current talks and legislation of the Don’t ask Don’t tell policy has limited impact on state power and bias in issues of gender and sexuality. This may be a step in the right direction, but a very small step to where we need to go. Within military structure there are issues and questions that must be addressed as well as in culture and state power over culture. It is time the state was eliminated from all gender issues and power structures that revolve around gender. Oppression based on the individuals gender must be eliminated. Even relationships between people of opposite genders are regulated by the state. This regulation came from an attempt eliminate interracial relationships with Anti-miscegenation laws. The same laws are now used to oppress people of diverse sexual orientations. Often the loudest voice then was the church with concepts such as ‘The Curse Of Ham‘ and still to this day is the loudest oppressor in gender issues while teaching the virtues of the polygamist patriarchy of the Tanakh. 

In the case as something as simple as transvestitism, we begin to see how a power structure of the state begins to make issues. The U.S.M.C.’s strict dress standards are based on gender. That will quickly become an issue for someone like a transvestite. These dress code standards reach to the personal time of the Marine, not only when they are in uniform. A transvestite is not someone with Gender dysphoria necessarily, they are simply one who dresses the opposite gender. This is not always the same as one with gender identity issues that may go beyond the case of an occasional dressing in ladies panties.

There are many issues of sexuality that can be addressed by the elimination of the state power in the don’t ask don’t tell policy. It is not limited to the military. The majority of people fill out state documentation without considering the questions that are being asked. You may look at the question Male or Female and have no difficulty answering it. You may joke about how easy it is to answer the question.This is not the case with all people. Intersex individuals or people with Gender dysphoria and other issues of gender ambiguity are people who are often one gender externally and another gender internally either biologically, mentally or in their chromosomes. These individuals are most often by the state forced to check the Male or Female box and find their role in society based on this rigid concept of gender that they may not biologically fit.  Imagine the humiliation of knowing the state does not even acknowledge how you were born.

We must not take a perspective that is ‘gender blind’ but one that does not restrict or decide upon gender in it’s many forms. Often to equalize gender we look at bringing the female gender into the patriarchial system. The girls get to join the ‘boy’s club’ and the women who can ‘make it in the boy’s club’ are the ones who are successful. In a political system founded on the rules of a rich white male slave owning patriarchy is it shocking it evolved to their favor? This is liberty to follow the existing state and power structures, it is not liberty structured for each individual regardless of gender or gender association. When this structure does not recognize the other issues of gender ambiguity how can we begin to say this minority will ever have liberty or equal acceptance or power within the structure?

The structure of the state is not set up to handle the ambiguity that truly exists in gender or gender roles. The state goes further to perpetuate traditional gender biases in roles. The state honors a time of male ownership over the woman by perpetuation of the concept of a father giving away the woman to her husband. Here a form of symbolic ownership is marked the legal changing from the name she inherited from her father to the name of the husband. The system of power the state claims in the structure of families and divorce is another example of perpetuating sexist roles. The state often clings to a barbaric concept of the hunter gatherer model when dividing and enforcing responsibilities in cases of divorce and custody of children and child support. The male is often expected to be a financial provider and little more while the female is often expected to take the motherly child raising role. There was a time when it was common for a man to take the children because he held all the power in the law. Now we see the ‘power’ and opportunities given to women in these cases is to ‘raise children’ while the male takes on the ‘hunter’ role and is often forced to pay for this model financially.

From everyday common practices and accepted cultural norms such as marriage and relationship control to the minority intersex individuals the state must relinquish it’s power. It’s power and assumptions of sexual and gender norms alone have restrictive abilities on an individuals liberty. If this restriction is not direct it can be seen indirectly by perpetuating the superiority of the ‘normal’ of the majority. All power structures must be questioned and abolished. The abolition of state power is essential in this. We can never consider yourself a free country if we are only truly free to be born a certain gender or orientation.

16 May 2010

by Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, Care2

Whenever I read about asylum law, either in the U.S. or elsewhere, I am consistently horrified by the number of times that asylum is denied to people who are clearly being persecuted.  This story is no exception.  Kiana Firouz, an Iranian filmmaker who created a video documentary about the treatment of LGBT citizens by the Iranian government, left for London, where her future is now uncertain.  She filed for asylum in the U.K., but her application was rejected.  This was despite the fact that the British government recognizes the fact that homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran, and acknowledges that Firouz is thus being persecuted on the basis of her sexual orientation. 

I haven’t seen any of Firouz’s films, but a little exploration on Google revealed that they may be well worth finding – the Iranian government continues to insist that homosexuality does not exist, although it does have 3,000 “patients with sexual orientation complications.”  Firouz, in addition to making films, was also one of the creators of an online magazine in Farsi called “My Sex, Iranian lesbian.”  The magazine features poems and literature about lesbianism, information about AIDS prevention (a bold move in a country where sex education is only provided to a couple just before they marry), and even articles about to how to have a better orgasm with a partner.

In Britain, Firouz was involved with a film called “Cul de sac,” essentially a dramatized version of her life.  Firouz plays herself; in an interview with Radio Free Europe, she said, “It was important to me as an Iranian lesbian to play a role like this. I believe the best way to enlighten people is to raise public awareness through free media, and film is the most powerful medium that can share the difficulties that all Iranian lesbians are experiencing. I strongly believe this film will touch everyone.”

If deported to Iran, Firouz could face death.  The punishment for being openly lesbian in Iran is 100 lashes; if the “act” is repeated three times and punished each time, the death sentence is applied.  The British government’s refusal to grant Firouz asylum has thus literally endangered her life, as well as set a dangerous precedent for future asylum denials.  An online campaign is organizing around Firouz, and there are a variety of steps that you can take:

Email the British Home Office at public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk or send letters to the British Home Office at these addresses:

Minister of State (Borders and Immigration) –
Home Office, 2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
Fax: +44 870 336 9034

Secretary of State for the Home Department –
Home Office, 2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
Fax: +44 20 7035 0900

We can only hope that the British will reconsider Firouz’s application, and that she will be able to continue her important activist work without fearing for her life.

09 May 2010

by Ann Bibby, Care2

Iowa State Senator Merlin Bartz took his crusade to undermine the right Iowans have to marry, regardless of sexual orientation, to the state’s campgrounds by calling into question the Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) decision to allow gay couples to pitch an extra tent when camping at state parks.

The DNR, in light of the fact that same sex marriage is legal in Iowa, wants to change the current language of its family policy from “husband and wife” to “spouse” which would allow same sex couples the same “extra tent” privilege that male/female married couples are allowed under the state park’s rules. Though the fee for renting a campsite is the same for a family as it is for a non-family, a family is allowed to pitch more than one tent without incurring an extra fee.

Bartz believes the DNR is over-stepping its bounds.

“They’re changing their language even though the state legislature has not had a debate on this particular issue,” Bartz said.

Bartz sits on the Legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee, and he wants the DNR to explain these proposed changes. He believes that, in the wake of the state supreme court ruling that legalized same sex marriage in Iowa, state agencies shouldn’t take it upon themselves to make any policy changes that extend rights to gay couples, or their families, unless the legislature authorizes it specifically.

He believes that gay marriage advocates have lulled Iowans with their mantra of “it won’t change anything” when, in his opinon, it is changing things.

And that’s a scary prospect for Bartz, who tried to subvert the court’s ruling in favor of same sex marriage back in 2009 by urging the state’s county recorders to violate the court ruling by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. He even went so far as to post instructions on how to obstruct the ruling on a Republican blog site.

Those opposed to same sex marriage tried, and failed, to get the legislature or the state’s governor, Chet Culver, to take up the issue in the current session. A poll of Iowans showed that same sex marriage was an issue of only slight importance to the majority of the state’s citizens who preferred their elected officials work on mitigating the effects of an ailing economy and job losses, rather than worrying about who is marrying whom.

While Bartz is correct in his assertion that state agencies don’t have the authority to create policy that violates Iowa law, same sex marriage is legal in Iowa, and it follows that same sex couples might start families. Male/female marital legal unions are presumed to be families without any formal nod from the statehouse, however, so why should male/male or female/female legal unions be any different?

Back door attempts to force the same sex marriage issue onto the state’s plate are a waste of taxpayer money in addition to being questionable in intent. If the citizens of Iowa were concerned about the families of same sex spouses being afforded the same extra tent rights at state run campgrounds as those of opposite sex couples, wouldn’t they have said so?

But the fact is that 92 percent of Iowans say that same sex marriage in the state has not affected their lives at all.

Nitpicking is how the legitimacy of people’s rights are called into question and cause them to lose their footing over time. Iowans would be wise to pay attention to the tactics of Sen. Bartz, who clearly has an agenda.