I don’t have swine flue, but Virginia Foxx is a big fat liar.  Donate now to make sure this hateful woman (who has no problem using the expression “tar baby” – video here) gets thrown out of office ASAP.  Donate HERE. 

 On April 29, 2009 the United States House of Representatives passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, no thanks to Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC).  Foxx had the temerity to stand on the House floor and proclaim that the story surrounding Matthew Shepard’s death is a hoax while Matthew Shepard’s mother looked from the gallery!

Join The Power in demonstrating that there are consequences for being a biggot and for spreading lies about LGBT people and the hate they endure. Throw her out now! Show your position by making a donation in ANY amount and by telling all your friends to do the same. When you donate through this page you send a message to Democrats, Republicans and Virginia Foxx that opposing gay rights and tolerating hate is unacceptable.

Donate to the Stop Virginia Fox fund by clicking here. 

And then call Virginia Foxx through the Capitol Switchboard (so the entire Capitol will know what you’re doing) at (202) 224-3121. Tell her that decency demands she apologize to Matthew Shepard’s mother and that her hatred inspired you to make a donation to defeat her.

For Matthew. Stop the hate. Now is our time!

Donate to the Stop Virginia Fox fund.

Sign the petition to amend the Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people.

Click here to join us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter @ThePowerOnline

We made the first of many visits to Onorato’s district office in Long Island City Queens where we were encountered by an office manager who refused to provide an answer for the Senator’s position.

Starting today, if you live in Astoria, Woodside, or Long Island City and have a friend with a camera that shoots video,

1. Please visit Senator Onorato’s district office and urge his staff to tell him to vote for same sex marriage. 
2. And when they say he won’t, document their reasons, and do press for a reason. 
3. As a constituent demand to know why your elected representative is opposing civil rights. 
4. And then post it in the comments here so we can share it with the entire country.

Visit Sen Onorato’s district office at:
28-11 Astoria Blvd.
Long Island City, NY 11102
(between 28th and 29th St)

Call Sen George Onorato today and EVERY DAY and demand he support same sex marriage in New York now.
district office: 718-545-9706

Now is our time.

Join us on Facebook: 

The Log Cabin Republicans announced on Tuesday in The Advocate that New York State Republicans have been given permission to cast what is being called a “conscience vote” in favor of Gov. David Paterson’s marriage-equality bill.  The Republican State Legislative leadership is telling its caucus in the State Assembly and State Senate that the Republican Party will take no official position and are taking a neutral stand on the issue of marriage equality.  In essence the Republican Party is now more progressive on gay marriage than the Obama White House, which has stated it’s opposition to gay marriage.

Jeff Cook, who is the legislative adviser for the Log Cabin Republicans explained why this is such a significant decision.  Quoting from The Advocate article,

“…the decision stood in stark contrast to the tack taken in 2007, when assembly minority leader Jim Tedisco and the GOP leadership pressured assembly Republicans to vote against marriage equality.

“We were successful in that environment in getting four Republicans to vote yes, making it the first bipartisan vote on marriage in a legislative chamber,” Cook said. “But we would have probably done better if there was a ‘vote of conscience.’”

Cook called it “significant” that “the center of gravity in both parties has shifted on this issue to where Republicans now feel like their conference needs to be neutral and Democrats feel their conference needs to be emphatic in support.”

The article goes on to point out that a Siena poll released on Monday found 53% of the state’s voters want Governor Paterson’s marriage-equality bill passed, while only 39% are opposed to it.

In order to become law, the bill must pass both the State Assembly and the State Senate.  The New York State Assembly is expected to pass the equality bill; but the battle ground remains in the Senate.  While Senate Democrats, lead by Majority Leader Malcom A. Smith, have control of the Senate by a slim margin of 32 – 30, four Democrats are already vowing to vote against equality.  The four Democrats include Senator George Onorato (D-Queens) and Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. (D – Bronx).

Please Update your Facebook Status to: Log Cabin: GOP Says NY Sens. Can Vote For Gay Marriage http://snurl.com/gh91r

Please Tweet:  Republican Party Says New York Senators Can Vote For Gay Marriage: http://snurl.com/gh91r

Click here to join us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter @ThePowerOnline

Sign the petition to amend the Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people.

According to newspaper reports:

“Jaheem’s body was discovered by his 10-year-old sister, Yerralis, also a fifth-grader.

“His sister was screaming, ‘Get him down, get him down,’ ” Keene said.

When Keene got to the room, he saw Yerralis holding her brother, trying to remove the pressure of the noose her brother had fashioned with a fabric belt.

Jaheem was bullied relentlessly, his family said. Keene said the family knew the boy was a target, but until his death they didn’t understand the scope.

“We’d ask him, ‘Jaheem, what’s wrong with you?’ ” Keene recalled. “He’d never tell us.”

He didn’t want his sister to tell, either. She witnessed much of the bullying, and many times rose to her brother’s defense, Keene said.

“They called him gay and a snitch,” his stepfather said. “All the time they’d call him this.”

We do not fight merely for political gain or to make a quixotic philosophical point.  We fight because this is more than a matter of equality under the law, it is literally a matter of life and death for kids  like Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Herrera.

If there could possibly be a positive outcome of these deaths, The Power has recieved a report from one public school in Delaware that will be using the news of these senseless deaths to open a dialog between teachers and students on the topic of bullying.

In the mean time, you can take action. If you live in New York, call your state senator (click here to find out who they are) to tell them the importance of supporting the Dignity for All Students Act.  It has passed the Assembly every year for the last seven years.  Let’s make sure it becomes law.  For children like Carl and Jaheem.

Sign the petition to amend the Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people.

Click here to join us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter @ThePowerOnline

Last week we told you about the new NOMbie Facebook Page.  It was reported to us that some of the comments from advocates of equality were being censored.  We called you to action and asked you to join the group and let the NOMbies hear our voice.

Today we have new reports that they have either changed their tactics or simply gave up on their censorship campaign.  Because of your actions, The National Organization of Bigoted Homophobes for Marriage Facebook Page has now become a portal for the true pro marriage and equality community to connect, trade links and share resources in the fight against those who seek to deny us of equal civil rights.  The comments section of each hate filled article has been taken over by YOU; and you have demonstrated that actions like this do have an effect on the conversation.

The Executive Director of The National Organization Against Gays for Marriage, Brian Brown, acknowledged your efforts in his most recent email to the NOMbie membership.  He refers to us as, “…a network of powerful people capable of punishing anyone who disagrees, backed by angry netroot mobs”.

Brian S. Brown Executive Director National Organization for Marriage 20 Nassau Street, Suite 242 Princeton, NJ 08542 bbrown@nationformarriage.org

This acknowledgment, from the smiling hate filled face of the NOMbie bigots leadership, shows that YOU DO HAVE THE POWER to shape the debate.  Thanks to all of you who have made a difference.  More actions are coming, stay tuned to The Power.

Join us on Facebook here

Follow us on Twitter @ThePowerOnline

Sign the petition to amend the Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people.

by Jon Winkleman

April 17, 2009 is the National Day of Silence to bring attention to anti LGBT bullying in our schools. Today would also have been the 12th birthday of Carl Walker Hoover. Carl was bullied and called “gay” in school. Even though his mother pleaded with Carl’s teachers and the school administrators to take action, they allowed the bulling to continue. Last week at age 11, a week from his birthday, Carl Walker-Hoover tied a noose out of an extension cord and hung himself. The bullying finally stopped. Carl may not have been gay but he was bullied and called the same names I was at his age. This makes him my brother.

During my sophomore year at Pilgrim High School in 1983 girl had invited me to the Junior Prom. This was one year before I came out to myself. At the time I was too afraid to even consider naming the feelings I had buried deep inside. I was terrified that if I ever did identify as gay there was no going back and I would forever be an outcast. I wasn’t the most popular kid in school. I was occasionally taunted and bullied. I was called “gay” and “fag.” I was always picked last for teams during gym class. The worst was when someone snuck behind me between classes to spill the books, notes and paper in my hands all over the floor. I still remember the humiliation of getting down on my knees to pick up a 15-foot swath of paper and books. Humiliated, as every other student paraded to his or her next class and knowing that I was the weak one. I was a lamb to be sacrificed at the altar of adolescent anxieties. Telling my mom would have been even more humiliating. How do you tell the one person who thought I was the smartest most special person in the world that she was wrong? I was lucky to have been invited by a girl who was sweet and pretty but too tall and also not one of the popular kids in her class. It should have been the most special day of my sophomore year.

The principle let everyone with prom tickets out early to pick up tuxes, dresses and flowers. When I got home I didn’t feel excited about the magic night ahead. I sat alone feeling especially alienated and cut off from all of my classmates. The thought running through my head wasn’t a defined thought of “I want to kill myself.” Instead it was a strong and vivid image of me fastening a noose out of the white cotton clothesline bundled up in the kitchen hardware draw. Then I would tie the noose to a rafter and put my head in it. This very graphic image scared the crap out of me and I dialed a local suicide prevention hotline. I don’t know how long I talked to the volunteer at the other end. It seemed like more than an hour. My thoughts were racing around erratically. Everything felt “out of time.”

More than anything else, what got me to pick up the phone and talk to someone was the thought of my mom calling up my date to say “Jon killed himself an hour before the date.” I cared more about ruining her life than saving my own. After that weekend, the whole experience shook me up enough that I then began a yearlong process of trying to look at my buried feelings and deal with them.

I never mentioned the buried gay feeling to the hotline volunteer. If I had hung myself there would have been no note mentioning that I was gay or bullied. What angers me the most is I know that my classmates would have been clueless as to why I killed myself. None would have made a connection to spilling my books or calling me “fag” in the hall and me hanging myself. Both students and teachers would have told the press that this was a terrible tragedy and said they didn’t know why such a nice kid would take their own life. None would acknowledge the daily humiliation and torture that bullied children go through every day. Even today when the rare victim become a shooter instead of a simple suicide, how many pundits talk about video games and rock music and dismiss any reports of bullying? Many of the teachers I had tolerated bullying. Some teachers participate.

Sticks and stones may break kid’s bones but words wound much more deeply.

Act Now

If you live in New York, call your state senator (click here to find out who they are) to tell them the importance of supporting the Dignity for All Students Act. It has passed the Assembly every year for the last seven years. Let’s make sure it becomes law. For children like Carl.

Sign the petition to amend the Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people.

Join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/pages/The-Power/73711392696?ref=ts

Learn about the Gay and Lesbian Student Education Network.

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the first woman and first openly gay person to hold that office, emotionally spoke at a press conference today at which Governor David Patterson re-introduced gay marriage legislation.

Highlights

If I thought back in my life beyond my wildest dreams that I would stand a press conference next to the governor of my state next to the mayor of my city, and have both of those individuals pledge their full support for me and my family, to pledge publically in front of the state, this has to happen, that the laws have to  change to make LGBT families fully recognized, something that not long ago was less than a dream.  It seemed so impossible.  We now have the governor of our state not saying “I’m for this,” which would be great, but saying, “I am going to make this happen and I am going to make it happen soon.”

New York is a state that was built and blazed on the idea that people should have equality and be treated the same.  So that minority of people who have become too vocal and too listenened too, their’s a simple question:  Look me in the eye and tell me that Kim and I aren’t a family.  That we don’t struggle every day.  That we don’t pay taxes.  That we don’t work every day for this city.  No one can look me or her in the eye and tell us that because that is not true.  And today begins the step forward to make the lie of the law in New York State go away and make the lie of the marriage law in our city evaporate and to make our laws ones that are truthful that recognize every family as equal and affirm the love and commitment and struggle that unites all of our families.

Act Now

Call your New York State Senators and urge them to pass the bill. Click here to find out who your senator is.

Take the Daily News poll.

Sign the petition to amend the Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people.

Join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/pages/The-Power/73711392696?ref=ts

Highlights

I am here to speak against those who I think are antagonistic and antithetical, and always have been, not only to to marriage equality but equality for all LGBT citizens, who have stoked the flames of what is an honest difference of opinion or even trepidation in favor of making sure no legislation is passed at all and I will not permit it on my watch.  It’s time to take a stand!

This is an issue of civil rights.  Now, This for me is an issue of families, not just for walking down the aisle in ceremonious celebration, but for the rights of intestacy, for 1300 to 1400 rights that don’t exist unless a couple has civil rights.  You can have civil unions but you won’t have rights.  For me this is a time to fulfill the promise of our founding Constitution which implored us to expand the rights of the Union, and our our founding Constitution has been expanded to include African Americans, the right of women to vote, the right of Americans to get citizenship here in this country.  And we want to extend these rights in those rights to all people.  For too long the gay and lesbian communities have been told their rights and liberties have to wait. 

The time has come to act.  The time has come for leadership.  The time has come to bring marriage equality to New York.

Act Now

Call your New York State Senators and urge them to pass the bill. Click here to find out who your senator is.

Take the Daily News poll.

Sign the petition to amend the Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people.

Join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/pages/The-Power/73711392696?ref=ts

We live in exciting times and the march toward equality is moving forward. Four states currently grant gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. New York should be the fifth state – marriage equality passed the State Assembly and Governor Paterson has promised to sign the legislation into law. If the State Senate votes for marriage equality, New Yorkers of all sexual orientation will enjoy the right to marry.

Today, two Astorians and I met with Senator George Onorato, the State Senator who represents us. Senator Onorato made it clear that he opposes marriage equality and that he plans to vote against it in the State Senate. He says that Astoria is a “conservative district” and that most Astorians agree with him that marriage is between a man and a woman. The Senator is standing on the wrong side of history, and he is doing it in our names.  I think the Senator is wrong about our community. If you live in Astoria and you think marriage is a right that should be available to all, please call Senator Onorato’s office at 518-455-3486 and let his staff know how you feel.

If you have more time, write him a letter.  Download sample letters here.

Sign the petition to amend the Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people.

Join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/pages/The-Power/73711392696?ref=ts