Bittersweet Veterans Day - Dolphin Dems Back On Target

While this Veterans Day was emotionally turbulent for most of America due to the recent attack at Fort Hood, there was a glimmer of hope offered to gay supporters of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
At the Dolphin Democrats meeting in Wilton Manors, Vice Mayor Justin Flippin announced that Wilton Manors was the first city in Florida to unanimously pass a resolution to support the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (HR 1283) which would effectively repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Since then, 4 other cities and one county commission in Florida have followed suit.

When asked why city councils should pass such resolutions, Flippen said that this gives politicians in Florida the ammunition they need to support the legislation in the House, knowing that their communities are behind them. He expects other cities and counties to fall in line with this sort of resolution and he's not the only one.

According to Waymon Hudson on his blog; St Louis, Portland, San Francisco, Atlanta, Tuscon, Los Angeles and New York have also passed this resolution.

Also in attendance at the Veteran's Day meeting were police Chief Rick Perez, Michael Albetta(who gave an on-target speech about the upcoming Senate Healthcare debate), Julie Carson (who warmly presented Perez with recognition in light of his contributions), Colonel Robert Guida (who gave a fun retrospective on being in the Services prior to DADT) Stephen Gaskill (of the Stonewall Democrats), Mark LaFontaine and Scott Hall (the founder/coordinator of Gay American Heroes who was recently featured in Instinct Magazine along with Lieutenant Dan Choi in their Leading Men of 2009 article).

The meeting went without a hitch and there was a lot of buzz about how we can get a repeal of the gay adoption ban in Florida too... but more on that later.

I want to take this space to thank and congratulate the veterans in my life (my Dad, cousins, friends and the VFW Post 2857 in my hometown of Kankakee, IL) for their dedicated service to our country.

*Salute*

Note: This post was updated on December 08, 2009 to reflect a name change. I apologize to Mr. Albetta for previously attributing his speech to another Dolphin Dems member.

Queer As Broke

I feel the need to explain why I’ve been such a bitch lately: cigarettes are too expensive and I don’t wanna quit.

Ok, let me explain.

I’m broke – not broke as in “OMG, I really shouldn’t have bought those $100 jeans” but more like broke as in “wow, am I really digging between the couch cushions for change to fill my gas tank?”. And if you only know one thing about gay people, it should be that we get really ugly when we don’t have any money. My financial demise started a long time ago but it recently came to a head when I was fired from a gay retail outlet, in part, because I took the weekend off to go to the National Equality March and fight for my civil rights. I’ll just let the irony of that sink in for a moment… yeah.

Now, add to that that I’m a college student and something of a local political activist and you have a recipe for disaster. I’m not completely unlike those teabaggers on the right – the ones with mullets and high-top basketball shoes that beg the question “what Aerosmith concert in Indiana did you just escape from and how did you afford to get to Washington DC?”

While I have no moral objection to prostitution, something tells me that the high earners in this arena spend a little more time at the gym than I do. So that leaves me with getting a real job – which I will probably boast on my facebook feed when it finally happens.

I suppose that I can take some comfort in the fact that I’m not alone. State funded services are tapped out and you can always spot some other “fabulous” folks in line at the unemployment offices. My friend Gordon rides his bike 7 miles a day to work as something just above apprenticeship at a local tattoo parlor. He found that there are cigarettes which market themselves as “cigars” that only cost $2.50 per pack!

But the biggest problem with being out of money is that it marks the end of your political voice. My Live Feed on Facebook is littered with invitations to pricey dinner parties where our pandering political candidates are expected to solicit our votes in upcoming elections and I can’t go to any of them. So, for the most part, I have to hope that the South Florida Blade will ask the tough questions at these events and not become as easily waxed & wooed as they have in the past.

Let’s take for example, the upcoming gala for Equality Florida where Alex Sink is expected to speak. This was announced on my Facebook Live Feed as “a chance to meet Florida’s Next Governor” (for $175). There was supposedly an opportunity to attend the gala for free by volunteering for the event, but those links all lead to a dead end. Now, I really like the people at Equality Florida and they do some very important work but I have a real problem with this because not only does it blur the lines between an endorsement and a speaking engagement, but Ms. Sink has not really said anything about gay rights or why gay people should vote for her. (Update: Equality Florida has recently removed the “Florida’s Next Governor” tagline from their invitations.) Are we expected to wait for second-hand information to trickle down to us from those who frequently pay extravagant amounts of money to listen to bullshit? The worst part of this situation is that there is an incredibly nice guy who is running for Governor against her who clearly states on his website that he is all for gay rights. But the Gay Democratic Establishment has decided that Michael E. Arth is a “fringe liberal” and therefore we must accept a career politician (as usual) who has “republican appeal” according to Equality Florida.

Then there was the Dolphin Democrats Awards reception ($75) at which I could have interviewed Sheriff Lamberti about why Craig Cohen’s murder was not charged as a hate crime if I had the money. That way, I could have avoided 5 interviews with less connected persons and 2,000 words of blather on my blog. We should not have to pay for information from our political leaders. It’s so sanctimonious and pompous the way these organizations assist politicians in collecting funds and to avoid stating their positions on important matters.

Pam Spaulding, on her blog, recently came under fire for suggesting that gay people stop playing this game of giving up their political dollars and then waiting to see what the results might be. She advocates only donating to candidates and organizations that you truly believe in and who have given you definitive results and specific promises. Spaulding brilliantly subtitled this new approach as “GayTM out of order for Democrats”. But it seems that some people are really addicted to the kool-aid that the Democrats have been selling lately.

In Florida, this has become extremely problematic because we have created an environment where it’s “too dangerous” for a Democrat to discuss Amendment 2 in their campaign. Amendment 2 is far worse than Proposition 8 because it has far-reaching effects like the absolute ban of civil unions and the enhancement of the gay adoption ban – things that California will probably never have to deal with. Yet the gays with means in Florida are so easily hornswaggled that they practically piss their pants if you give them a rainbow button and tell them to have a nice day. And I should know – because that is exactly how we got Barack Obama elected in Florida. I worked on the campaign for change and it was my task to go around convincing Hillary’s voters that Obama was gay-friendly too by handing them “Obama Pride” propaganda and talking about repealing DADT and DOMA. We’ve now seen the President (and other Democrats) do a 90 degree turn on those issues and I’ve learned my lesson: No more Mr. Nice Gay.