Fun week, no?

On the one hand we’ve got Carrie Prejean, whose 15 minutes of fame feel longer than “The English Patient,” throwing a temper tantrum on “Larry King Live” for King’s audacity to ask a legitimate question about her choices in the wake of a sex tape scandal.

And on the other, we’ve got Will Phillips, the 10-year old boy who refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance because he believes this country doesn’t treat gays and lesbians with “justice for all.”

Sometimes, I think God is a playwright at heart.

Prejean’s story has played out like a 60’s Bedroom farce with operatic dimensions — a dramatic moment of confrontation on national television (yeah it was a beauty pageant, and yeah Perez Hilton was her adversary, but still), a firestorm of media coverage in the wake, Prejean painting herself in the role of virtuous God-fearing woman trampled by the Big Bad Gays, half-naked pictures of her looking sort of slutty on rocks, a memoir (of course!) about the ordeal marketed to Christian conservatives, then the bombshell revelation that there are sexually explicit videos of her floating around.

Fabulous.

(And does anyone else enjoy that Carrie Prejean, who’s essentially spun celebrity out of her own narcissism, is the only celeb whose sex tape scandal doesn’t involve another person on camera with her? Always hogging the spotlight.)

Then, unexpectedly, along comes Will. Lovely, wise, understated, young Will, who in a simple gesture spoke more eloquently and powerfully than Prejean did in her entire book (called “Still Standing,” incidentally. Is she serious?). You can’t really accuse a 10-year old boy of having a political agenda or plans for a book tour, so our Will was simply doing something he believed was right. And I’m with him on this one: I want our flag to represent a country that really does what it promises.

The Will Phillips story isn’t a game-changer. It’s a lovely reminder of what standing up for your principles looks like (and it doesn’t hurt that it came from a 10-year old boy — way to make us adults look like spineless jellyfish, huh?). It would be wrong of us to make Phillips into anything more than a morale booster for the movement: he’s not a sign that sweeping generational changes have taken place, but if he becomes a lawyer, we have to recruit this kid to be a vocal leader for us!

The playwright in me would love to see this as the next scene in the play: Carrie Prejean and Will Phillips get a chance to meet. The face of a hypocritical, judgmental and narcissistic movement hell-bent on fostering inequality looks into the eyes of a ten-year old boy who stood up for equality without the promise of gain for himself.

“So, what are you famous for?” he’ll ask Prejean.

She’ll sputter and regurgitate some standard line about being persecuted for speaking her beliefs and her faith. But Phillips will see past the B.S and hear the voice in her most secret soul tell the truth.

“I’m famous being a hypocrite, which essentially means I’m famous for nothing.”

Phillips won’t judge her. If she’s even half-serious about her faith in God, she’ll get judged in time.

In the scene I’d write for them, they’re at an event where the Pledge will get spoken. And Prejean will throw her hand up to her heart and ramble the words off, putting up a good show for the cameras, not really listening to what she’s saying. And maybe she’ll glance over at Phillips, who’ll just be standing there, listening intently to the words and saying some little personal prayer-wish that the promise of the words will one day be fulfilled, and maybe she’ll get it. In a flash of understanding, she’ll get it, get what conviction and truth and integrity looks like, and the hand over her heart will feel it beat a little faster. It’s what happens when you’re surging with regret.

Probably not. But one can hope.

NBJC is a civil rights organization dedicated to empowering black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people to end racism and homophobia.

Lettman previously served as vice president for leadership programs and external affairs at People for the American Way.

At NBJC, she will succeed Alexander Robinson and Dr. Sylvia Rhue who served as interim director throughout the summer.

According to the release Lettman said:

“We must bring our families together.

“Gay and transgender people are our children, our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, parents, co-workers and friends. They are a vital part of the black community, and it is time for everyone to recognize the real issues we all face when our brothers and sisters are denied full participation in the life of our community.

“In my new role at NBJC, that means lifting the voices of our community, building bridges so that all who experience discrimination can understand the common ground we share, and walking across those bridges together in greater and greater numbers toward equal rights for all.”

The National Black Justice Coalition is headquartered in Washington, DC and it is the only black gay civil rights organization.

So all porn is essentially gay (yeah, not only are we responsible for Titan men [further digression, not that it's such a bad thing, you know], but we’re also apparently responsible for midget porn and “Girls Gone Wild” and unattractive heterosexual couples making mediocre amateur porn on XTube).

I know that’s a bit much for a Wednesday. Sorry. At least I waited until after lunch.

And Carrie Prejean won’t go away. God keeps telling her to give press conferences. (Seriously, shouldn’t He be more invested in other things, like poverty and war and famine? Not Carrie Prejean. How did she get his direct line? Or is someone just messing with her, faking a booming voice over their cell phone and having major laughs with a bitchy friend at a Starbucks in Orange County?) She and Maggie Gallagher still keep popping up unexpectedly during my daily blog reads, Gallagher in that purple suit, looking up at an apparently very tall cameraman, standing in front of a bush that needs pruning, do you think she grew that herself or is that the handiwork of a gardener or a neighbor?

And there never seems to be an end to the rambling discursive rant of opposition to everything Gay (not little-g gay but big-G Gay, they’re different), because Gay things are powerful things, hulking agents of destruction, Gay things and Gay people and Gay marriages are apparently the weapons of mass destruction Bush failed to find in Iraq, because the Gay can not only steal children from heterosexual lives but it can bring down the whole of Western civilization, toppling Wal-Marts across the Midwest with a withering glance and ending “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns forever.

A quote, if I may.

“The only politics than can survive an encounter with this world, and still speak convincingly of freedom and justice and democracy, is a politics that encompass both the harmonies and the dissonance.”
 
That’s Tony Kushner, from an essay called “American Things,” from his book of essays, Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness.
 
We’re quite used to the dissonance, aren’t we?
 
We spend a lot of our time thinking about the longstanding problems of that dissonance; we feel the repercussions of it every day. The public discourse (not discourse, really. Argument. The public argument, because it’s not talking dispassionately about ideas, it’s yelling, shrieking, tantrums and torrents, emotion, not reason, theatrics, not ethics) about our rights has become about how different we are – our relationships, our families, our beliefs, our belief systems, our proclivities, our perversions (we have them, fess up!, everyone does, no need to pretend we don’t), our identities, our lives.

They argue that our difference justifies our inequity. We argue that our difference shouldn’t matter.
 
(Or we argue that our differences make us who we are and we should celebrate them, glorify them, writhe in them naked in the middle of the street, and while I respect diversity of opinion, that option makes me little uncomfortable, I am a small town boy, after all, and I was taught not let your difference go wagging out in everyone’s faces).
 
This moment we’re living in is an interesting moment. It feels like a moment of great change, a moment where a skin is shed and a new one takes its place, where an old order falls and a new one forms, where old ideas make way for new ones, and if there was ever a time for our community to embrace change within itself, it seems like now is as good a moment as any.
 
We’ve spent the first forty years of our public struggle working to carve a space in the world for our difference to exist. Now, it seems we need to carve a space in the world for that difference to become irrelevant.
 
All the things we’re fighting for – marriage equality, employment non-discrimination, the end of DADT, hate crimes legislation, and the rest – all hinges upon a single, elegant notion: our difference does not outrank our role as citizen of this country, and our laws should reflect that commonality, not the difference.
 
American-ness trumps gayness.
 
Just as American-ness trumped blackness, woman-ness, Christian-ness, and whatever -ness you can think of that we’ve labeled a protected class. What links us is more important than what divides us.
 
The harmonies are more important than the dissonances.
 
As a community, we’ve done a pretty good job of finding a way for the harmonies and dissonances to coexist, and in the mingling (the sometimes painful, bruising mingling) many of us have built lives that are essentially different, yet oddly the same as everyone else. We’re living the politics we need to shout in the streets.
 
The question of gay rights isn’t a minority question. It’s an American question.

Again in 1987, 1993 and 2000 we marched on Washington to demand equal rights.

The themes changed. The routes changed. The organizers changed. The speaker lists changed. The celebrity lineup changed. The priorities changed. The vocabulary changed. The heroes and the enemies changed — for the most part. And even the symbols changed.

But with four marches and hundreds of thousands of citizen activists there was one constant demand — a demand for equal rights.

Now, on Oct. 11, our community again will march on Washington to demand equal rights. Participants in National Equality March will celebrate the strides over three decades, the leaps in 30 years. We certainly are not marching from the same place we were in 1979.

But marchers also will make known that their governments treat them as second-class citizens and that they are challenging unconstitutional laws and questioning unacceptable policies for our military, our workplaces, our schools and our families.

You might hear arguments that the march being planned will divert resources from the fights in the states.

I remember hearing similar arguments nine years ago and perhaps even repeated them before I arrived to the National Mall April 30, 2000, to be wowed by the crowd for the fourth march.

The argument of limited resources is deeply flawed.

We, as a movement and community, have not begun to tap our full potential. How can anyone seriously claim that if a person goes to Washington for a weekend in October that he or she is spent out and has nothing left to give a state gay rights organization or a local GLBT center?

I would argue the opposite.

Marches energize some, radicalize others and connect many to people and organizations and campaigns and causes. I would guess that few returned home from D.C. in 2000, 1993, 1987 or 1979 drained and tapped out.

For all the feuding, fussing and misdirected focus on celebrity and flash, the 2000 march helped drive a community through eight long, hard years of painful losses and tremendous victories.

In 1993, marchers left for home committed to meet the challenge issued by Urvashi Vaid, former director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “We have got to match the power of the Christian supremacists, member for member, vote for vote, dollar for dollar,” Vaid had said. “I challenge each of you to not just buy a T-shirt, but to get involved in your movement. Get involved. Volunteer. Volunteer. Every local organization in this country needs you. Every clinic. Every hotline. Every youth program needs you, needs your time and your love.”

The 1987 march, which introduced America to the AIDS Memorial Quilt and included the first mass marriage protest at the Internal Revenue Service, helped build a national coalition for civil rights. The Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr., told marchers, “Let’s find a common ground of humanity.… We share the desire for life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, equal protection under the law. Let’s not dwell on distinctions.”

And the 1979 march — inspired by Harvey Milk who famously said “Rights are not won on paper. They are won only by those who make their voices heard” — moved so many to carry on through a decade of so much personal and community loss and hardship.

And, on Oct. 12, marchers will return to their hometowns, their home states, the districts and territories, powered to campaign for the demand made on Oct. 11.

The march will be the forum for issuing the demand for equal rights. The demand will not be won that day, but in the days that follow, with our community nourished for the fight.

After the 2008 election, a lot of political prognosticators ran around saying that politics would never be the same. After the year of the internet, a lot of them argued, no one would ever be elected to office again without a robust online campaign. And they are probably correct about that. If John McCain can master the interwebs and continue to bother me via Twitter, it seems unlikely there will be a serious campaign from either party for any office in the future that won’t incorporate elements of an online campaign.

But what’s not correct is thinking the internet can be an entire campaign. That’s not true for political candidates, and it’s certainly not for a movement.

Personal connections win elections, and connections win movements. People are influenced when their friends and families reach out to them and want to talk about a candidate that inspires them, or a change they want to see enacted. Building those connections, those webs of people, is what traditional organizing is all about.

That’s also at the root of what makes the Internet a powerful force—connecting people in new and different ways—that we all observed over the past year.

Of course we all know that organizing is essential to influencing people.  What’s the most powerful and politically effective thing lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people can do? They can come out. And that is, after all, just using your personal network to change minds.

We need to come out on a grand scale. We need to tell people we’re here, explain what we want and why we need it, and then each tell ten more people.

Traditional organizing needs to be the heart of our movement as we go forward, so we can change hearts and minds along with laws.

[James and Jenna also have strong opinions about this topic. Check them out and enjoy this week's debate!]

The legislative back and forth on gay rights is mind boggling. One day Maine introduces a gay marriage bill, the next day Arkansas rushes to ban gay adoption. Illinois starts towards civil unions, and then the bill loses momentum in the House.

In our coverage of these events, there are always a few readers who comment on direct action: avoid paying your taxes until you have full rights, boycott corporations that don’t support spousal benefits for same-sex employees, protest, stop traffic etc.

As a lawyer, it’s important to warn about the consequences of breaking the law. It puts you at risk in all sorts of ways beyond simple arrest for the one thing you actually did wrong. Convictions for any kind of offence can make getting a job, crossing borders, getting into school almost impossible.

As an activist, I appreciate the value of direct action. Even violent direct action has played an enormously important role in American and world history. I wonder if some of the progress we have achieved as a society could have happened without a little nudge from a few people and groups who were willing to risk everything to get the rights they deserve.

Direct action encompasses all sorts of practices. Some of them, like protesting with a permit, are pretty mild and most of us would agree are useful if not for the publicity than for the movement’s own morale. Others, like withholding taxes, are pretty extreme, result in incarceration and are sure to get people’s attention.

And that’s the point. If people are aware, and then maybe a bit scared and definitely talking about an issue, they are more likely to believe that government resources should be directed towards dealing with it.

If Malcolm X wasn’t using extreme language to scare white people in the civil rights movement, do you really believe everyone would have been thinking Martin Luther King was so reasonable? If MK wasn’t murdering people in the streets of South Africa, would there have been an incentive to negotiate with Nelson Mandela? The same is true for Sinn Féin and the IRA in Northern Ireland and the FLQ and the Parti Québécois in Canada.

Now. we are not living under Apartheid and so the level of violence in these historical examples is clearly inappropriate and would be ineffective.

That said, the radical movement within the LGBT struggle makes people pay attention and is part of the reason why the government is interested in hearing from more moderate organizations like the HRC. It is also the reason why judges bother to take organizations like Lambda Legal seriously.

Very few people choose to direct their own resources towards equality for other people. Most downright resent calls for inclusion and benefits for “sexual deviants.” Even in countries where gay marriage is legal, acceptance is still elusive for many.

That’s why you have to make your government pay attention.

Sometimes this will be through persistent knocking at his front door. But it would be more effective if he were inviting you in, desperate for a way to resolve the division and discord all the gay anger is causing in the country.

James is right, there needs to be lots of tough ground work done to win a movement (although litigating is a particularly inefficient example). But a successful movement takes all types and we would be remiss in not recognizing that much of the direct action I, for one, would not condone, does help.

The Alliance Defense Fund calls the proposal “unconstitutional.”

The proposed revision to the oath states: “I will not permit considerations of gender, race, religion, age, nationality, sexual orientation, disability, or social standing to influence my duty of care.”

It must still be approved by the bar association.

The ADF, which is based in Arizona and regularly opposes LGBT rights in courts across the country, said it is particularly concerned about the inclusion of “sexual orientation” in the revised oath.

In a letter to bar association president Edward Novak, the ADF and other conservative lawyers said that “the proposed provision is unnecessary, exceedingly ambiguous, and unconstitutional.”

“We are concerned most particularly that the proposed provision’s vagueness violates due-process and free-speech guarantees and that its application infringes First Amendment rights by compelling conduct and expression in conflict with an attorney’s philosophical or religious beliefs as well as his other professional responsibilities.”

The letter, signed by more than 30 conservative attorneys in the state, said that lawyers who refuse to take the oath or violate it could have their licenses revoked.

“[T]he proposed provision, unlike any other part of the Arizona Bar Oath or Ethics Rules, may be interpreted to force an attorney to undertake particular representation.”

The letter calls on Novak to abandon the revision and warns that if it passes it would be challenged in court.

The Equality riders are attempting to enter Christian colleges in the deep South to engage students in a discussion on gay inclusion. This is the third year of the “ride” and the young members of the group are visiting 15 campuses.

Upon arriving at SAGU, the 16 Equality riders were met by a campus spokesperson who warned them they would be arrested if they came onto the campus.

Three of the riders crossed into the campus and attempted to join a worship service at the chapel. They were arrested and charged with trespassing.

The three were identified as Manny Lampon, 22, of New York, NY; Zak Rittenhouse, 21, of Frankfurt, OH; and Nicholas Rocco DeFinis, 22, of Philadelphia, PA.

Other members of the group were herded to a parking lot and began their own prayer vigil. They were met by dean of students Scott Camp and several students who shared a prayer with the group but told the riders SAGU was not about to change its policy.

“Our hope was that for one day we could erase that line and come together for a genuine and transformational exchange,” said Jarrett Lucas, co-director of the Equality Ride.

Last week, two Equality Riders were arrested for trespassing when they walked onto the Mississippi College campus to deliver a letter from an anonymous gay male student who is currently enrolled at the school in Clinton, Miss.

The letter described his experiences as a gay man on the MC campus where he said he has been the target of anti-gay speech.

Part of the letter read, “I honestly fear that when I do decide to let the public know who I really am, many of the organizations and activities with which I am involved will turn me away.”

Earlier in the month three riders were arrested at Heritage Christian University in Florence, Ala. And six members of the group were arrested when they attempted to enter the chapel at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida.

More than 200 U.S. colleges and universities have explicit policies that discriminate against LGBT students.

Since 2006, the Equality Ride has visited 50 schools – hosting public forums, participating in panel discussions, and taking part in worship services and Bible studies. The goal is to inspire further conversation and to empower students, faculty, and administrators to make their school welcoming to all students.

But the bus tour often has been met with opposition from schools and resulted in the arrests of some Soulforce members.

Two members of the group were arrested last year at the headquarters of Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs.

About 20 demonstrators held a vigil outside the headquarters, quoting from some of the FOF statements that homosexuality is “choice” and can be “cured,” that homosexuality is harmful, that gays live shorter lives, and that same-sex relationships threaten opposite-sex marriage.

Following the vigil two protestors entered the headquarters building. Chris Hubble and Leigh Lyon, armed with two dozen yellow roses for Dobson and copies of the Soulforce booklet “A False Focus on My Family” and a DVD letter titled “Dear Dr. Dobson,” asked to see the conservative Christian leader.

When they refused to leave, they were arrested.

Ten other riders were arrested on trespassing charges after they entered the Bethany Lutheran College campus in Mankato, Minn.

In 2006, 24 Soulforce demonstrators were arrested at a gay “die-in” at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Three others were arrested at Bob Jones University in South Carolina. Others were arrested at Covenant College in Georgia, University of Cumberlands and at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky.

Soulforce members also were arrested at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg; West Point; the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs; Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla.; and Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va., which is affiliated with Christian Broadcaster Pat Robertson.

The organizers of the Equality Ride said they use a collaborative approach, writing to college administrators months in advance and inviting them to work together to design programming that examines diverse points of view – including points of view that affirm gay and transgender students.

The study in The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, an academic journal published by The Berkeley Electronic Press, found that while the average earnings for biological females who transitioned to male slightly increased after the transition, it fell by nearly a third for workers who went from male to female.

The research was based on interviews with 64 individuals employed before and after a gender transition with hormone therapy or surgery.

“I think the gap that we’ve found has to do with ideas about gender and how masculinity is valued in the workplace,” said Kristen Schilt, a sociology professor at University of Chicago who conducted the study with New York University professor Matthew Wiswall.

Schilt, who is currently expanding the research into a book slated for release in 2010, also did an analysis of U.S. legal cases involving transgender discrimination. Nine out of 10 cases involved biological males who transitioned to female, she said.

The study, by the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles, found there are approximately 55,000 lesbian, gay, and bisexual black adults living in California and the state is home to 7,400 black men and women in same-sex relationships.

At 9 percent, it makes California home to the second-largest percentage of the nation’s coupled black men and women.

The study also shows that nearly 55 percent of black women and 11 percent of back men in same-sex couples in California are raising children.

But when compared to opposite-sex black families, gay families have far lower incomes.

“These analyses break stereotypes about gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, like the idea that they are all wealthy.  We find that gay and bisexual black men in California have household incomes that are 44 percent lower than their heterosexual counterparts,” said study co-author Christopher Ramos.

Black gay and bisexual men have median household incomes averaging $25,000 compared to $45,000 for their straight counterparts.

Black women in same-sex couples earn, on average, less than black men in different-sex marriages as well as black males in same-sex couples in California.

The median household income of black individuals in same-sex couples with children is $60,900, less than the $76,000 median household income of black parents in different-sex marriages, the study found.

“African-American men and women raising children in same-sex couples experience economic disadvantage compared to their different-sex married counterparts with lower household incomes and home ownership rates,” said Williams Institute Senior Research Fellow Gary Gates.

The homeownership rate of black individuals in same-sex couples raising children is 29 percent compared to 63 percent of those in different-sex marriages raising children.

Opponents of same-sex marriage who are pressing for passage of the constitutional ban on gay unions are targeting black voters who traditionally support traditional marriage.  In an election year where Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is expected to bring out a massive black vote, there are concerns those voters will support the ballot measure.

A recent poll found growing support for the amendment in California.

The SurveyUSA poll, taken for four TV stations across the state, found that 47 percent of likely voters would support the measure, known as Prop. 8, with 42 percent opposing it.