Guest post: An interview with Roland Palencia, pt. 2

 

PHOTO [L to R]: Roland Palencia next to recently elected Equality California Board Members Dolores Huerta and Rabbi Steven Jacobs.

This is the second part of a two part interview my friend Gloria Nieto conducted a few days ago with incoming Equality California Executive Director Roland Palencia.  In Part 1 (click here), Palencia discussed his Guatemalan background and the violence that marked his youth, his coming out experience as a college student, and his extraordinary history of activism in the Latino LGBT and HIV prevention community of California.

In this segment of the interview, Palencia discusses the role of Equality California in other progressive social justice issues.  He also touches on President Barack Obama's "evolving" views on marriage equality and the pros and cons of challenging Proposition 8 in the immediate future.

We pick up where we last left off. Palencia is discussing Equality California's failed efforts to defeat Proposition 8 at the ballot and some of the "No on Prop. 8" campaign shortcomings...

GLORIA NIETO: Well this brings me to my next question. What can you do to heal what has happened between the campaign and Equality California? What are you going to do to heal this gigantic rift which I believe needs to be recognized? And how can you change the perception of others in the state who feel the same? Because you have a board where you have to pay to play. It is not representative. As much as I love Dolores Huerta, she is not my representative. To me there are problems in terms of communication and representation [Huerta, pictured above, is the co-founder of United Farm Workers of America and was recently nominated to the Equality California board of directors].

ROLAND PALENCIA: No, those are real issues. I think the fact that I have been involved in the community for so long [means] I understand some of the issues. I want to meet with people. I want to hear what people have to say. I want to have a conversation. How do we integrate activists more in to the organization and figure out a way so that is a part of what we do? The reality is that we don’t have a common conversation. We don’t have a language we can in some ways that we can converse around. You know what I am saying?

GN: Yes.

RP: So we are going to have create that, little by little or however it takes. There’s a question of access. Who has access. What kind of resources? What kind of decision making? I think that is going to be an issue that we really have to think about. The other thing is I really want to create a different framework in terms of how we approach our community engagement. By that I mean we need to take up issues that matter to all of our communities.

For instance, health care. I have been involved in health care. We have to expand our notion of what community issues are. I think marriage is definitely an important issue. It is a critical one. In addition to it being a civil rights issue, it is an economic issue. We know that families that are legally protected also have a better chance of being economically stable, especially those families with children. So we have to frame this as a civil rights issue but also as an economic justice issue.

We need to take up other issues that hugely impact our communities and I mean all our communities. Health care is definitely one. Access to affordable health care is a big issue in our community. We have an opportunity with health care reform to create alliances and to create coalitions that have one goal. That one goal is to create access to affordable health care. Right now the state of California got $10 billion to do a program over the next three years called Bridge to Reform.

GN: I am on the board of the Santa Cruz Women’s Health Center so I am really aware of that program.

RP: So you know that one of the goals is to enroll 500,000 people before 2014. I think we need to be part of those efforts. We need to demonstrate our competence in other areas that impact. That’s one approach that I think is going to help to definitely start creating coalitions. Health care will impact women, people of color, single gay men, married LGBT couples. I mean you name it. There are close to 7 million Californians who do not have health care. I mean that’s a huge number of people affected. This is rich with opportunities for coalition work and to provide palpable benefits to our communities.

Another one is education. There are issues I need to vet with the board. We know that education is the big equalizer or at least has the potential to be. We also know that having access to higher education is a seminal experience for LGBT people. Most of us came out in college where we were able to get away from our families a little bit, from our traditional settings, rural, urban, what have you. We started to find people like us, people we could relate to in a number of ways. So for many of us, we came out in college. Obviously, kids are coming out a lot earlier. Aside from the fact that it is an economic justice issue to have access to an affordable, quality education, it is also part of our movement. It is where we shape our identities as activists many times. So this whole thing that is going on with the community colleges, 400,000 fewer students are going to be able access community colleges in the fall of 2011. I think that is like a stake through the heart of our movement. That means 400,000 fewer students are not going to have access to an education. This will have an economic impact and I think this is an economic justice issue.  But also in terms of activism, it really will deplete our troops. We have to start linking these things. We have to start looking at the fact that all these things are connected. All these things impact us in terms of civil rights and economic justice.

The other thing is I think, that and the reason why I am saying civil rights and economic justice we have to create a movement that is not only about civil rights. It is definitely about civil rights. But it is about economic justice. If we don’t take care of the economic justice part of it, we will have an incomplete civil rights movement. I think that one of the reasons why we still have a Latino underclass and an African American underclass and poor, white underclass is because we haven’t really dealt with the issues of economic justice. I think we need to go beyond the civil rights issues.

GN: You are making me cry. This is where so many of us live, having a commitment to full social justice. When the Arizona law first got passed,(SB 1070, anti-immigrant bill) I wrote something for Karen Ocamb’s blog (LGBT POV). I just got attacked with people saying immigration is not an LGBT issue. I am just wondering, what are you going to do? I don’t know that the organization is prepared.

RP: By the way, I don’t start the job until July 5th so I am just starting to figure these things out. But I know for a fact that they have a Beyond Borders outreach program. Part of that is to start educating the community on immigration issues, to start getting activists sharing with each other and to do coalition work. Equality California got a lot of flak for opposing the Arizona law. They got a lot of hate mail. I think that is a good sign. Immigration is a civil rights and economic justice issue. We have to frame in that way. It is a civil rights issue because the rights of people are being trampled upon. No human being is illegal. That is such a demeaning and dehumanizing term. But also it is an economic justice issue. Our economy depends a lot on that labor. We have a consumer society that loves cheap things, inexpensive things.

We, in some ways, are conspirators to having undocumented labor. The only way the system can produce what consumers want is if we lower the wages of those people who produce those things whether it is here in the US or outside. And we are saying “Fine.” If all of us benefit from having less expensive food and clothing, from less expensive housing then you can go down the line and document what undocumented labor contributes to the economy. Then we need to take care of those individuals who create those benefits for us. It is a hard conversation to have but I think we need to have that conversation. I mean the same people who are putting the anti-gay propositions on the ballot are the same people who are anti-immigrant.
So if the gay movement becomes anti-immigrant we are basically strengthening our enemies. We need to be really watchful about that. We have what I would call a hypocrisy economy where we want the benefits of the hands of the labor, the undocumented labor where we want the hands but not the whole body.

GN: I have a question about the education bill that was moving in Sacramento [The FAIR Education Act]. I was wondering why there wasn’t more of an effort to educate us about what was going on in Sacramento? I think the effort was being done just through social networks. I hope you will address that because that is not an inclusive way of communicating. About the wins and the losses. I would like to see more of an effort to educate us and for us to go show and lobby. I would like to have diverse people show up.

RP: We have to figure that out and somehow work on creating a mechanism to have people more involved, more informed with the tool so we can create that movement that we are talking about. I think that will be a real challenge. How do we create that loop with communities and with individuals who want to be involved and make a difference. We have to look at the legislation. You were asking me about how to get more connected to the community. Of course there is a process. It will not happen overnight. I was giving you a framework and an approach.

Equality California has passed about 71 bills. We need to do an analysis in terms of what does this mean about localities. We need to see if these bills create partnerships with local activists to start implementing those at a local level so that it really has an impact on the quality of life in those communities. It is not going to be in every community but we have the ability to not take over but can be the nervous system, connecting the synergy with best practices. To share what does work, what doesn’t work. To find out what is unique about one place, to know what is not unique about one place. I really want to create that network, that nervous system, that backbone to connecting our California movement a little bit more.

GN: I don’t know that this is Equality California’s job but there seems to be a lot of functioning Latino LGBT organizations in southern California but there is nothing up in northern California. A friend of mine in San Francisco and I tried last year to start a Latino LGBT organization up here. We couldn’t get a fiscal sponsor. We couldn’t get anybody to do that. It just seems like in part of the conversations it seems like it would be a natural fit for you and the rest of the staff could be hooking up people from different parts of the state so we can be having conversations about how do we work, how are we more effective and how to work together to be more united. And if, oh gawd, we have to go back to the ballot in 2012, what are we going to do? For me, 2012 is too soon anyway.

RP: I have some thoughts. We are in a quandary. On one hand we have a Presidential election that gives us an opportunity to get a lot of progressive people out there to vote. Also, we had a bit of a generational shift because we had younger people, we had a number of Latinos become voters. We had a sizeable Latino generational shift. Then we have Obama saying that he is evolving on the issue of marriage equality. That’s an indication that he might actually come out for marriage equality. We don’t know that but it is putting everyone on notice. They are not challenging DOMA. They were really strong on DADT. This is the holy trinity of issues: marriage, military and DOMA. So this is the only missing piece in that triad of issues. So that’s the opportunity.

The challenge is that this election is 18 months from now. We are supposed to have a game plan. We are supposed to have a fund raising plan. We supposed to have our community united, including our allies. Ninety percent of our pro-equality votes are going to come from our allies. The unions are supportive. The faith based communities, the civil rights organizations. The elected officials, you name it, right? We want to know that those allies are going to be there with us. The unions have their own struggles going on. They are fighting for their lives. Not as much in California but certainly they are starting to feel the pressure.

Then we have to add this other piece – the lawsuit. Lots of resources have been shifted to that. They have raised millions and millions. Lots of the pro-equality money has already been invested in this lawsuit. They might not be as comfortable funding a ballot initiative in 2012. This is a very complicated situation where you have tremendous opportunities and tremendous challenges. I think that part of the town hall meetings is to get some of that information but also to have to go outside of our community as well. Like I said, we depend on the 90% or so that are not just coming from our community.

GN: Here, Santa Clara county went for Prop 22 way back when. We flipped this county by like 32 points. I will say because I was outside the campaign that I could run the campaign in a way that I knew was more effective.  

RP: So you had your ear to the ground.

GN: Exactly. A lot of people don’t know this about Silicon Valley. But 64% of the population is either immigrant or children of immigrants. We have the largest population of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam. Obviously it was critical that we get things out in Vietnamese. We had people out there talking about it. That is one of the reasons we were able to change the vote here because of our relationships with the API [Asian Pacific Islander] community. Right now I am working with a group called Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI) to talk about immigration issues here in Silicon Valley. So I am the only non-Asian in the group. But I am doing outreach into the LGBT community, working collaboratively with the biggest Asian group here. So for me that is what it needs to look like – Latinos and Asians working collaboratively in the state of California.

RP: I have just a little more time left. I am just so glad that we connected. We shall continue our conversations.

GN: The last question I have for you, are you going to be moving up here?

RP: I am going to be based in Los Angeles. But I will be travelling throughout the state.

GN: So then the center of the gay universe will be in WeHo now?

RP: You could say that [laughing]. That is one of the things I am looking forward to. I am LA based. I looking forward to working with people around the state. I went to the Courage Campaign’s training in Fresno. We take so much for granted in LA. I was so moved by the courage and passion of people in the Central Valley. It was like going back to the 1950’s. I was just so impressed with the passion and commitment. That inspired me for months. Well even today. It was very touching. I was very touched.

GN: I am glad to hear that. I have really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for your time.

RP: Thank you. I am sure we will talk again.

Previously:

• Guest post: An interview with Roland Palencia, pt. 1

Guest post: An interview with Roland Palencia, pt. 1

 

PHOTO: Roland Palencia (Copyright: Debra Evans)

Last month the board of directors of Equality California announced they had selected Roland Palencia as their new Executive Director. The announcement surprised many who had not heard his name before, despite an impressive track record in LGBT organizing, philanthropy and business management.  Blogger and journalist Karen Ocamb covered all of this in an interview she posted on her blog last month ("First interview with Ronald Palencia") and Prop 8 Trial Tracker just featured an OpEd by Palencia a couple of days ago ("Marriage equality is an anchor for full social equality").

Today I bring you something a little different.  My good friend Gloria Nieto interviewed Palencia a few days ago and focused on issues that are particularly relevant to the topics I cover on this blog.  This is why I was thrilled when she asked me if she could post the interview on Blabbeando as a guest post.

I have chosen to split the interview into two parts. In this post Palencia discusses his Guatemalan background, the violence that marked his younger years in his country of birth and his extraordinary history of activism in the Latino LGBT and HIV prevention community of California.  He also addresses possible mistakes that Equality California might have committed in their failed battle against Proposition 8 and the prospect of going back to the ballot boxes in 2012 to try to defeat the measure.

In the second part of the interview, Palencia goes into the role of Equality California on other progressive social justice issues such as the economy, education, health care and immigration.  He also touches on President Barack Obama's "evolving" views on marriage equality.  But all that will have to wait.  For now, enjoy the first part of this extraordinary interview.

GLORIA NIETO: Tell me what your history is? I understand you are Guatemalan.

ROLAND PALENCIA: Yes, I was born and raised in Guatemala. My family was very politically involved. My father was one of those people, he was a small businessman and also a revolutionary. And he wanted to basically get rid of the military dictatorship that Guatemalans had been living with for many decades. So he was killed. I also had another cousin who was 18 when she was killed. My father remained disappeared for quite a while until we found his remains. You know? Many of my family members went into exile. Some went to Mexico City, Australia, Spain and Vancouver, Canada. Most of them are still there now. My mom was concerned about our safety. She came to the US and she eventually brought us here. The US was providing military aid to Guatemala at that time. So Central Americans were not really eligible for political asylum so when I came here I was almost 18, I was already an adult. I eventually went to UCLA. That is when I started to come out as a gay man. You know colleges and universities are the environment where many of us find ourselves. Also I got a sense of what being a Latino in the US was. Obviously I felt this sharp contrast with my family who were small businesses. We were not rich but we were somewhat prosperous. Basically here there is the sharp discrimination that many immigrants feel that kind of shaped my consciousness and that along that with the fact that I was coming out as gay Latino man really got me to really think about what I wanted to do. About the conversations that people have about both immigrants and LGBT people. So in 1982, I was one of the co-founders of Gay and Lesbian Latinos Unidos (GLLU). Which eventually created the leadership that helped to found Bienestar. I don’t know if you know Oscar De La O but he was the founder of Bienestar.

GN: Right

RP:A lot of that leadership came out of GLLU and of course, many of them are dead now. Many of them died of HIV and AIDS. I lost, I don’t know, seven out of 10 friends. It was a huge epidemic and it hit the activist community really hard. So it was unfortunate about that, aside from the human suffering, just the pain that the pain the community had. I can think of Jose Ramirez. He was Newyorican. He was one of those individuals who really involved in the civil rights movement. Many involved with the United Farm Workers. They really had a connection to the civil rights movement. I think that we lost that whole generation. And we lost the consciousness and the solidarity thinking that came along with that.

GN: You know I have also been of the opinion that men of that age - and I wouldn’t say my numbers were as high as what you are talking about - but definitely, I talk about men who I should be growing old with who are not here anymore. I also think because we all grew up with the feminist movement that there was a lot more solidarity with women.

RP: Absolutely

GN: and being able to operate from basic feminist principles of inclusion and equality, that losing so many of that generation, there was a loss of transferring that information, those principles and experience to younger men.

RP: So the hand off in terms of certain values, the basic tenets of the solidarity movement, that whole notion of interconnection and intersecting movements was lost, we lost a lot of that. I don’t think we have analyzed the huge impact that the loss of that generation has had on the movement and where we are now. I can think of Frank Mendiola who was a farm worker child. He was raised in the farms and he became a union activists. He was the one who organized the Gay and Lesbian Center. He was like 24 and he was organizing the biggest LGBT institution. So that is part of my history. In the late 80’s I founded VIVA along with other friends. That was basically and LGBT artists organization.

GN: And then you are a founder of HONOR PAC too?

RP: No, I am not a founder of HONOR PAC. I am on the advisory board.

GN: Oh OK.

RP: The main thing about VIVA is that so many of our gay brothers were dying that we created that organization to make sure that we kept their art and memories alive. One of the impetus for that is that so many gay Latino men were dying we got Latinas and Latinos involved and to really promote our art and the expanded consciousness that comes along with that. So that went on for like four or five years. Then I went to work at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. I was the vice president and chief of operations. Between being a consultant and a full time employee, I was there about eight years. And then I went to La Clinica Monseñor Oscar Romero. I was the Executive Director there. I was the E.D. for four and a half years. After that I started my philanthropic work with the foundations. I became the senior program officer at the California Endowment. Now I have been appointed as the next Executive Director of Equality California.

GN: Well that is quite the story.

RP: It’s a lot.

GN: The Prop 8 campaign did not turn out the way we wanted it to. I am curious what you were able to do at that time. How were you able to help?

RP: I think I am one of those people who wish we had done more. I also know that there were a lot of blind spots. Things that campaign could have done a lot better. We all have learned a lot of lessons from that. I think that one of the lessons we learned was that we have to talk to the people. You know we can’t do these things in a vacuum. WE have to have these one to one conversations in all kinds of community and all kinds of languages. We also have to understand that our opponents are very organized and very powerful and they have a lot of money. They have basically built in infrastructure of churches that are not on our side that they can turn on and turn off. So I was one of those people who was not as involved.

I think it is important to acknowledge that. I gave some money and made some phone calls. I remember on election day I was educating voters. It was outside the voting booths within the legal limits. I was out there for about 10 hours. At the end of the day, they wanted to arrest me. I was definitely involved.

I was involved in the Obama campaign. I went to Nevada to knock on doors. I was involved in the Obama campaign a lot more than the Prop 8 campaign.

GN: Just in terms of my own experience, I have to say that this campaign definitely scarred me. I have to say this was because of the really bad treatment I got from Equality California - and I mean really bad treatment. Here I was running a hunk of the campaign here in San Jose, got talked to like I was a dog. Talked to incredibly disrespectfully, couldn’t get any resources. I would get resources from people in other counties. I would drive to Santa Cruz to get yard signs. You know that is now way to run a campaign. There was an evening when some of the labor folks had brought hotel maids to help with phone banking. We did not have a Spanish script. So they were reduced to emptying the garbage cans and cleaning up. I was crying and crying and crying that night. I still apologize to the union people for that. Then campaign staff person says that they have to check on any scripts to make sure they are culturally competent. Of course! My response in my head though was 'fuck you, fuck you for treating my folks like this'. I worked with Luis Lopez [currently a candidate for state Assembly] to get window signs in Spanish. We generated these signs and offered to folks in San Francisco. We also got them done in Vietnamese, too. We got them out all through San Jose. I offered them to San Francisco and never heard a word. Nothing.

RP: That should have never happened.

GN: No!!!

RP: Those are stories of things that should have never happened. By the way, my activism was with HONOR PAC, not necessarily with the bigger campaign.

GN: But why did HONOR PAC have an office in LA, the were the only ones with an office in LA?

RP: They got some space from Supervisor Gloria Molina.

GN: I know but I am just saying that the campaign never opened up anything in LA.

RP: Correct. There was a relationship. If we go back in 2012, which is going to be a daunting task, these things need to be in place.

* Gloria Nieto is a Latina lesbian blogger. She writes for the San Francisco Gate, in the Chronicle's blogger section, City Brights. Gloria lives in Northern California with her esposa, three dogs and three cats. She is looking forward to having a job before she is eligible for social security

Elvis Crespo, Granda Entertainment and the Latino LGBT community

 Last month Granda Entertainment announced a series of performances by merengue music singer Elvis Crespo at different LGBT-related venues throughout the United States.

The singer hit it big in 1999 with his first two singles as a solo artist - "Suavemente" and "Tu Sonrisa" - which spent weeks at the top of Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks chart.

"Suavemente", the album, earned the Billboard 'Best Male/Tropical Salsa Album of the Year' honor and was nominated for 'Best Tropical Latin Performance' at the Grammy Awards.

The two songs also became huge dance-floor staples at Latino gay bars in New York and Miami and still can be heard blasting from the speakers from time to time twelve years after they were released.

In December Elvis Crespo released "Indestructible" - his 8th solo album - and launched a video for the single "Hey, Dude".  It's safe to say, though, that he's never managed to match the early success of those first two hits.  Instead, in the last few years, he's been busier confronting allegations of marital infidelity as well as a headline-grabbing 2009 allegation of public masturbation on a civil passenger flight.

And now comes his new LGBT venue tour.

In some ways, it makes a lot of sense for Elvis Crespo to engage his Latino LGBT fans in the United States.  It is a devoted fan-base and the costs of performing at gay venues far outstrip putting together a full touring schedule.

Granda Entertainment is also arguably the place to go. Over the years they have mastered the art of pulling together these kind of tours for former Latino pop stars hoping to revive their careers.  They include Mexican singer Gloria Trevi, who saw her music career reborn after she toured gay bars in the major urban markets in the United States, and - less successfully - Karyme Lozano who wanted to promote a salsa music album after years of performing as an actress in Mexican telenovelas. In 2008, as part of her Granda Entertainment-sponsored LGBT venue tour, Lozano was named as the Queen of the 2008 San Francisco Pride Parade. Two years later she was prominently featured as an anti-marriage equality ally by homophobic institutions such as the National Organization for Marriage.

I do get that this is a business venture and I do believe that - beyond the obvious commercial interests - Crespo does have a sincere interest in reaching out and supporting his LGBT fans.

But I was also incredibly bothered by the way the tour was promoted: The original press release was titled "Elvis Crespo to tour in support of the LGBT community" (italics mine) and media followed blindly. "Elvis Crespo sings in support of the LGBT community" said Puerto Rico's Primera Hora; "Elvis Crespo announces a tour in support of the LGBT community in the United States" said Yahoo News Mexico.

Excuse me? In "support" of the Latino LGBT community? In what way? Are proceeds going to any Latino LGBT charities? Is Elvis Crespo standing up for marriage equality in the same way that Gloria Trevi uploaded a video against passage of Prop. 8 in California? And isn't this actually the other way around? Aren't you asking the Latino LGBT community to spend their hard-earned money to support Elvis Crespo's singing career?

And yet, I realized my anger turned on the way that the press release had been phased rather than on what anyone else in this world might have picked up from it - so I let it go... until it actually became an issue.

On April 6th, on the eve of the first performance, Crespo was scheduled to appear at the top rated Spanish-language radio station in Chicago - La Kalle 106.7 FM - to promote his tour.  By all accounts, the singer showed up at the Univision-owned radio station but left before he had said a single word. As Primera Hora reported, Crespo alleged he simply chose to stand up an leave the studio when he was not allowed to express his support for the LGBT community.

The next day, on his Twitter account he wrote "Disappointed that there is homophobia in communication media in the 21st Century: Indestructible LGBT Tour" and linked up to several media accounts reporting he had walked out of the radio studio.

Granda Entertainment sent out a press release titled "Elvis Crespo cancels Chicago radio interview for not being allowed to support LGBT community". And Spanish-language media gladly "reported" on the incident without asking for any additional details.

Sources tell me that the whole thing stemmed from a misunderstanding between Crespo and the radio station that had to do with not observing exclusive promotional rights instead of homophobia and a source also told The Windy City Times that "it was more of an advertising decision" than anything else.

I reached out to La Kalle 106.7 but they told me they had been told not to discuss the incident with media by Univision and to provide a Univision public relations contact number instead. I called Univision but they said there would be no on-the-record statements on the incident for now.

Still, it's pretty obvious that La Kalle106.7 has felt the sting of the media reports claiming they are homophobic.  This week they have prominently Ricky Martin on their home page as the out gay singer takes his new tour to Chicago (see screen capture above).

In the meantime, last weekend Elvis Crespo continued his LGBT venue tour and performed at Miami Beach Gay Pride.  At the stop, he was interviewed by a reporter for Azteca America and asked to comment on the Chicago radio station incident. Surprisingly, Crespo evaded the question several times and told the reporter it was time to leave the incident behind.

Then I found out that Crespo had been invited to sit in as a guest host on the 2-hour afternoon gossip show "Escándalo TV" that aired yesterday on the Univision-owned Telefutura network... So I set up my DVR to tape it.  Sigh.

I have to say that Crespo was charming, funny and seemingly thrilled at getting the exposure. He also was was a better man than most for enduring jokes at his expense from the other hosts based on past controversies, including the alleged masturbation incident on a commercial flight.

BUT - I also have to say he spent all of five minutes talking about his LGBT-related tour and actually giggled as one of the regular hosts showed a Photo-Shopped image of Madonna kissing Britney Spears at the 2003 VMA awards with Juliet Cabrera superimposed in the middle as a gag example of the "racy" pictures that had surfaced lately about the recently booted Univision beauty show contestant (Google if you must).

And then the actual moment when my jaw dropped.

Half way through the show, "Escandalo TV" linked up to a live video feed from the studios of La Kalle 106.7 FM in Chicago providing a perfect chance for Crespo to confront the radio station for the homophobic treatment he alleged he had experienced.

Not so fast.

• "Mau" Mauricio Mejia (La Kalle 106.7): "Elvis, we love you here at La Kalle, very much so, and we hope you visit soon."
• Elvis Crespo: "I know, I know, believe me, I know."
• Me thinking silently: WTF?

So there are a couple of scenarios here:

• As [separate?] sources for this blog and The Windy City Times have said, this was all a misunderstanding in which the radio station felt Crespo had broken an exclusivity deal and the singer thought he was being silenced for his support of 'teh geyz', in which case things seem to have been resolved behind the scenes. Or;
• Crespo was right all along and left the radio station as a principled supporter of the LGBT cause (italics still all mine) who couldn't stand being banned from defending 'teh geyz' on the radio, in which case he seems to have caved in to the pressure of getting exposure of Univision-related venues.

Personally, I have a feeling that the truth lies closer to the first scenario than the second one.

I would have no issue whatsoever if the tour had been sold just as a way for a former pop music idol to connect with his LGBT fans, never mind that said idol waited all these years to speak up about LGBT issues.  But Granda Entertainment made it a point to sell the tour as a way to "support" the Latino LGBT community and I'm not sure this quite rises to that level.

In true Granda Entertainment fashion, Elvis Crespo has disclosed that he will be accepting the King of the San Francisco Pride Parade honor on June 26th - just like Gloria Trevi and Karyme Lozano accepted the Queen of the San Francisco Pride Parades in years past.

I know it's a business. But sometimes I wish the Latino LGBT community would stand up and demand that we are not sold out quite as cheaply as that.

NYS Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr.: Supreme Court will allow same-sex marriages as a sign of the end of days

The last time homophobic New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. visited the studios of local news channel NY1's "Pura Politica" in June of 2009 anchor Juan Manuel Benitez meticulously and calmly asked questions that reduced the ordained Pentecostal  reverend to this:

"I am the church, and I am the state", he kept repeating. "I am the church, I am the state".

With those words, the Reverend stood naked in in his religious-based bigotry and basically admitted what everyone knows: The Senator couldn't give a damn about separation of church and state as well as the secular laws he was elected to protect.

The Reverend's vitriolic homophobia is legion and has left a trail of destruction behind him.  From opposing the 1994 Gay Games in New York City because he claimed visiting gay tourists would spread AIDS through the city's population to opposing the opening of a school planned to serve LGBT youth (the Harvey Milk School would later open after it made concessions to Diaz and made it explicit that it would not only serve LGBT youth but also heterosexual youth).

But he's become best known, perhaps, for his unrelenting opposition to marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples.  As a New York City councilmember and now as a Senator he has been the most visible face and voice of opposition to bringing New York State closer to passing a marriage equality bill.

So it was back to "Pura Politica" on Friday to discuss a federal court's decision to strike down Proposition 8 which had banned such marriages in California.  And Diaz, true to himself, did not disappoint.

It's a long clip which consists of two segments.  In the first, Benitez masterfully confronts Diaz on his opposition to marriage equality and, in the second, my friend Pedro Julio Serrano speaks to Benitez about the reach and effects of the Proposition 8 ruling last week in California.

Highlights:  As in last year's "Pura Politica" appearance the Reverend made some jaw-dropping statements. Most surprisingly, the Reverend believes that the Supreme Court will take up the issue of marriage equality and decide in favor of the gay community [please keep in mind these is a word-by-word translation which means there might be "uhms" and "ah"'s as well as breaks in in the line of thought as each person speaks]:

[At the 2:11 minute mark]
Juan Manuel Benitez: Do you think this will reach the Supreme Court and if that happens what will be it's decision...
Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr.: Of course! Of course! The Supreme Court will say that what the court did is reasonable, if one assumes that they are full of liberal justices, and they'll say "It's like that.

And the reason why Diaz believes the Supreme Court will rule in favor of granting marriage rights to same-sex couples? Well, it's not only what Diaz calls "liberal" and "activist" judges on the bench, picking up right-wing memes. He actually says the Bible told him so:

[At the 3:23 mark]
Juan Manuel Benitez: During the last year, since you were last here for the entire show to talk about this issue, there has been another country, in this case in Latin America... two more countries in Europe, in Portugal, and Argentina which are legalizing unions between same-sex couples.  It seems this movement is unstoppable in many countries of the world. Are you not fearful of being left on the wrong side of history on this issue?
Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr.: If you read the Bible, and it's where I base myself upon, the Bible says that all these things will happen at the end and that this needs to happen, but because I don't do it... I do it based on biblical reasons - what does the Bible tell us? That the biblical prophecies indicate that all this will happen and that this is the way...
Juan Manuel Benitez: In other words, the Bible says that homosexual marriage will...
Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr.: What the Bible says is that at the end of the road, what's evil and everything that is against the will of God, and everything that is against the moral principles will come to pass, they will win.

Yes, you read it here first.  NYS Senator believes that the Supreme Court of America will allow same-sex couples to marry as a sign of the end of times.

Earlier, there is an incredibly disturbing exchange in which Diaz scoffs at the fact that gays are asking for their civil rights. Benitez is questioning Diaz as to whether people's civil rights should be put to a popular vote and asks Diaz whether he would have sponsored a referendum on the 1960's groundbreaking civil right law just because the majority of the citizens of the United States opposed it at the time.

[At the :56 second mark]
Juan Manuel Benitez: But in the 1960's, when the civil rights bill was passed, would you have granted the people of the United States a referendum, the power to decide?
Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr.: What civil rights are you talking about? These are people who have rights. What civil rights! What are the civil rights? You know... these are civil rights... What civil rights? I don't understand. I don't understand the "chicken and rice" [arguments] you guys employ: "Civil rights". What civil rights?
Juan Manuel Benitez: Well, according to the judges...
Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr.: What has anything to do... what does the abuse of blacks have to do, in those times of the 1960's - and I also experienced abuse down south - and those things that stemmed from black slavery, what does it have to do with a person... if I want to be - eh- homosexual, I want to be a lesbian, and I'm not allowed, "I want to be", "I want to have" - that union of those two... I don't understand that, honestly, I don't understand it.
Juan Manuel Benitez: Well, it's not that these people say I "want" to be homosexual.  These people ARE homosexual...
Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr.: Well, whatever they might be...
Juan Manuel Benitez: A person doesn't elect if he wants to be black or if he wants to be white...
Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr.: Whatever they might be whatever they might be, whatever they might be...

Why do I get the sense that when anyone says anything different than what the Reverend believes he just stops listening and keeps repeating the same thing over and over? Anyway, look at the utter arrogance and contempt that crosses his eyes as he discusses whether gays and lesbians are worthy of being granted civil rights.

These exchanges lead to what I thought was the most stunning part of the clips.  No, it's not Diaz stating that we will achieve marriage equality because we are nearing the end of days.  It actually doesn't come from Diaz himself.  It's Juan Manuel Benitez taking a moment in the next segment to address his viewers as he welcomes Pedro Julio...

[At the 4:30 minute mark]

Juan Manuel Benitez: Here at "Pura Politica", we've spent years debating this topic and, as we've done it, little by little, throughout the world, different countries, states and cities decided that - yes - these unions should be recognized in the same way as heterosexual ones.  And, at the same time, the predictions of the destruction of the family, of danger to children, and even the end of the world, as our previous guest warned, have not become reality. Hence, a few weeks ago, we already said here that legally and historically the opposition to these marriages is being left without arguments. Religious-wise, that's for each one to believe what they want. Thank God, this country is ruled by the text of law and not texts of religion, mythology or superstition; and I say 'Thank God' because it would be impossible to satisfy every creed and, when it comes to it, what's being asked is not to be allowed into a Synagogue or Mosque to get married, but simply City Hall or the town council. 

Just stunning. Benitez has a periodical OpEd piece in El Diario La Prensa and often prepares an OpEd segment for "Pura Politica" as well but, as the host of the show, I've always seen him maintain an objective voice when it comes to the topics addressed by the guests who are invited, as it should be.  A great political interviewer uses arguments to elicit comments from his guests and Benitez is amazing at it.  But something about the interview with Diaz - which was taped on Thursday and aired on Friday - must have set Benitez off enough to feel it was important to establish an editorial voice in the face of Diaz's hurtful statements.  I personally thought it was a great thing to do and I thank Benitez as well as the producers of "Pura Politica" for standing on principle.

He also opens his questions for Pedro Julio with the following question...

Juan Manuel Benitez: President Obama says he is against Proposition 8, which momentarily banned many marriages that took place in California, but that he still believes that marriage is between "a man and a woman". Explain this to me because I don't get it.

Pedro Julio does a great job, as he always does, of responding to that question and, like Diaz, he prognosticates that ultimately marriage equality is a movement that is unstoppable and will emerge victorious throughout the word. Unlike the Reverend, Pedro Julio doesn't argue that the end is near.  He argues that simply and plainly we all deserve the same rights as others.

Full Double Rainbow All The Way Day! CA's Prop. 8 struck down!

In a 136-page ruling, a federal judge has determined that California's ban on marriage rights for same-sex couples is unconstitutional.  In what New York University Law Professor Arthur S. Leonard calls a ruling "with sweeping clarity", Judge Vaughn R. Walker, one of two openly gay judges on the federal court circuit, said:

Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples.

And tonight The New York Times editorialized, in part, thusly:

One of Judge Walker’s strongest points was that traditional notions of marriage can no longer be used to justify discrimination, just as gender roles in opposite-sex marriage have changed dramatically over the decades. All marriages are now unions of equals, he wrote, and there is no reason to restrict that equality to straight couples. The exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage “exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage,” he wrote. “That time has passed.” 

With that, the gays were sent dancing into the streets knowing fully well that the ruling will most certainly be appealed by those wishing to deny us equal rights, perhaps all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Celebratory rallies are taking place all over the United States this evening. This afternoon I headed to the New York City Supreme Court building at 60 Centre Street in Manhattan for our version of the national celebration.

I missed the political speeches and got there just as people made their way across Centre Street to place white carnations on the steps of the Supreme Court. I counted, perhaps 100+ people, but by then a few had left. I heard others say that they had estimated 200 to 300 people during the earlier speeches.  A paltry showing considering the thousands that took to the streets after Prop. 8 was passed in November of 2008 which might have been the result of a hot and humid day, a rather haphazard alert network (I was surprised I didn't see info about the rally pop up more frequently on my Facebook or Twitter timeslines) or, simply, the fact that rejection of our rights angers and motivates way more people than the affirmation that, yes, we are equal to others (BTW: Mike Lavers has coverage of the rally and the speeches over at EDGE).

As you can see, I took a few photos. Additional pics can be seen here. You can probably spot a few movers and shakers, including the lovely Ann Northrop, Mr. "Equal Rights for Fairies" Joe Jervis (a/k/a Joe.My.God.) and Ruben Diaz, Sr. opponent Charlie Ramos.

What's really sweet about seeing Charlie there, as well as all the joyful marriage equality proponents, was that two years ago almost to the date, it was Ruben Diaz, Sr. himself heading to the same plaza.

Finally, one of the people I know who was not at the rally was Pedro Julio Serrano.  That's because he was otherwise occupied talking on behalf of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force on CNN en Español.  I've got the goods. Here you go...

Related:

• NYC Celebrates Prop. 8 Overturn (Joe.My.God.)

Meanwhile, in San Francisco...


And San Diego (via Rex Wockner )...

There better be a full double rainbow all the way coming our way tomorrow...

'cause this better turn out right.

Guest post: The link between Prop. 8 and Arizona's anti-immigrant law

The link between Prop. 8 and Arizona's anti-immigrant law
by Dan Torres

The Arizona legislature recently passed and revised SB 1070, the so-called “papers please” anti-immigrant bill many believe will result in racial profiling. As a gay Latino man who comes from an immigrant family, I see a clear link between this measure and anti-gay marriage laws such as Proposition 8. Both laws make their victims feel marginalized and send a message that they do not deserve to be treated equally under the law. Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender (LGBT) people know what it’s like to be on the wrong side of laws like SB 1070 or Proposition 8.

Many of us, who fit into one or more minority communities, know all too well how it feels to be stripped of our legal protections and fundamental rights. Last year, Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer, the same one who signed into law SB 1070, repealed benefits for LGBT domestic partners, further undermining the economic and emotional security of LGBT families. The LGBT community understands the threat when our leaders tell us that our families do not count. We know the pain caused by the government refusing to treat us equally. Accordingly, we should stand against SB 1070.

Arizona’s SB 1070 and California’s Proposition 8 are personal attacks because they deny our common humanity. SB 1070, which was passed ostensibly to allow the state police to more easily enforce federal immigration law, in reality it is a law that encourages racial profiling of Latinos. Even though the state made revisions to the law late last week restricting the use of race or ethnicity as a basis to question people, it nonetheless added provisions that allow the police to ask people about immigration status for violations of local ordinances. The original language of SB 1070 and subsequent revisions make clear that the law gives local police pretext or “cover” to engage in racial profiling. This is further made clear by the fact that the revision occurred only a week after Arizona lawmakers were publicly criticized for passing such a blatantly racist law. No one should be fooled by the recent cosmetic attempt to hide the clear intent of SB 1070, which is to target immigrants, many of whom are Latino and many of whom are LGBT.

The common denominator in SB 1070 and Proposition 8 is bigotry. These laws strip human beings of dignity. The indignity my husband and I feel when our marriage is not recognized by the federal government is no less painful than when my family gets harassed or pulled over for “driving while brown.” These are not minor inconveniences but rather a systematic erosion of our human rights and liberties. More and more lately we see government’s successful attempts to chip away at our fundamental right to be treated equally. With other states now wanting to follow Arizona’s lead, we cannot afford to ignore what is happening.

Immigration is an LGBT issue in that our broken immigration system affects hundreds of thousands of LGBT newcomers who have no path to citizenship and must live in the indignity and shame of the shadows. As gay people, we understand the harm of forced invisibility on our community. SB 1070 and Proposition 8 are attempts to push already marginalized people back into the closet and slam the door shut! Arizona’s law was passed in the absence of sane, effective and fair comprehensive immigration reform. Washington must act now to fix this country’s immigration system and stop the divisiveness that is driving a wedge between communities. America needs immigration reform that moves our country forward together and upholds our nation’s values of opportunity, fairness and justice, values every LGBT person holds dear. It is time to stand up, support the legal and political challenges to SB 1070 and condemn efforts to emulate it.

In a similar vein, we must remain vigilant and unified in our responses to the various and heinous attacks on our human rights. For an attack on the Latino immigrant community is no different from an attack on the LGBT community, or people of color, or people of faith, or who ever is next on the “hit list.” It is time we recognize our common struggles and work together to defend everyone from laws or policies rooted in bigotry.

---
Dan Torres is a staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and works at the intersection of LGBT and immigration advocacy to facilitate dialogue and mutual support between the traditional LGBT movement and immigrant communities.  This work has synergistic impact of furthering the rights of both LGBT and immigrant communities and, particularly, LGBT immigrants.   ILRC provides technical support to advocates working with LGBT clients who have fled persecution abroad, have been victims of crimes or are LGBT immigrant youth placed in foster care in the United States.  Through the ILRC’s civic engagement efforts, Dan worked with LGBT immigrants to be counted in Census 2010, coordinated dialogues with local and state public officials on education discrimination issues impacting LGBT students, and continues to organize around marriage equality.

Before joining the ILRC, Dan represented clients as a staff attorney at the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation in Sacramento, and served as a staff attorney for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  He worked as a clinical instructor at the UC Davis School of Law Immigration Law Clinic, and was a member of both the La Raza and Lambda Law Student Associations. He is the son of Mexican immigrants, a fluent Spanish speaker, and a resident of Alameda with his husband.

NY's largest Spanish-language newspaper calls for marriage equality once again

On November 17th, 2008, in the wake of passage of Prop. 8 in California, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in New York finally stepped off the fence and unequivocally stood for marriage equality ("A stand for same-sex marriage").

At the time, I noted the surprisingly strong stance that they took against homophobic Democratic Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr., and his prolonged efforts to deny rights to same-sex couples living in New York State.

Three weeks later, on December 5th, the paper once again took a dig at the Senator's stance on marriage rights while saluting the possibility of increased Latino representation in the state legislature ("Representation that counts").

Now, five months later - and two days before last Monday's Prop. 8 ruling in California - the paper took a third stand for marriage equality in New York State which also alludes to Diaz, Sr., without calling him by name ("A Shameful Denial of Rights"). I am taking the liberty of publishing it here in full.

When a husband or wife is hospitalized, a spouse deserves the right to be informed of their health status and be consulted for any life or death decisions. Spouses also have the legal right to have a say about shared property, the well being of their children and a host of other issues critical to their lives together.

These are only a few of the legal rights that heterosexual, married couples benefit from and take for granted, But gay and lesbian couples –who also share their lives and raise families together – are denied these fundamental legal protections.

A legal marriage is not merely symbolic. There are 1,138 rights and responsibilities that are given to married couples by the federal government, according to the Empire State Pride Agenda. Another 1,324 rights and responsibilities come from New York State government—but these rights come only with a legally-sanctioned marriage license.

To deny same sex couples the right to get married, is to deny them basic legal rights.

A legal marriage is not the same thing as a religious union. The right to a legal marriage by same sex couples does not infringe on any religious freedoms. No religion or congregation need recognize or consecrate a union that runs against their beliefs. No customs or religious practices need change. None.

Yet, conservative religious and political groups continue to stoke irrational fears. Legislation that would allow same-sex marriage is caught up in politics in Albany, where some legislators are worried about political blowback for supporting this measure.

We call on these legislators to muster the courage to do the right thing. New York needs a fair law to protect same sex couples and families that have been shamefully marginalized for far too long.

I want to publicly thank El Diario La Prensa for their invigorated leadership on standing for what is right and on challenging the wrongful view that Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. speaks for the Latino community.

Marga Gomez at the anti-Prop 8 rally in San Francisco

Yes, there was a rally against the California Court decision yesterday in San Francisco as well. And - guess what! - Marga Gomez was there.


"Unfortunately the Supreme Court has upheld the ban on gay marriage: I think these are the same judges that voted Adam out of American Idol..." and "...she's just trying to get an NEA grant." HA!

I love Marga! By the way, Marga blogs here for those of you who want to keep up with her.

I'll also leave a recent clip from one of her shows titled "I was a No on Prop 8 Volunteer" (warning: some salty language).