RA-news

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Newsletter of the Rainbow Alliance at the University of Florida September 2003, Vol. 1, No. 12 Next Rainbow Alliance Dinner Meeting, Wednesday, September 10, 2003, 6:30 pm, at Rafferty's (in Butler Plaza behind, just east of Lowe's). The Rainbow Alliance is the staff and faculty organization at the University of Florida concerned with matters related to sexual orientation and gender identity. RA welcomes all members of the University community who share its goals to join.

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Contents First Words I. Conspiracy of Silence II. Why Sexual Harrassment is Funny Features UF Welcome Back Event for LGBT Students, Staff, and Faculty New UF Antidiscrimination Policy Expected to Take Effect November 2003 Human Rights Campaign Gives Top Rating to 21 Corporations Senate Bill Offers Hate Crime Protections for LGBT Persons Same-Sex Civil Marriage Rights Senate Subcommittee Reviews Defense of Marriage Act Federal Marriage Amendment Departments Update on RA Projects Contributing to the Rainbow Alliance Fund Resources How To Join Rainbow Alliance Contributors to This Issue of RA-News

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First Words Conspiracy of Silence During the past few months, LGBT people have witnessed some important advances toward attaining equal treatment under the law. This means that what was once an enforceable secret is now "coming out" into the open. It isn't just a question of political progress, either. Polls indicate that LGBT people continue to gain acceptance among the general population. LGBT-themed media is more prevalent and popular than ever. These changes are gradually creeping into the board room and the locker room (and maybe someday, the barracks?). In these venues, some might prefer to greet revolutionary changes with silent assent, as if to say, "Be equal if you must, but keep quiet about it." The unspoken question: "Do we have to talk about this?" The Athletic Association has been confronted with a law suit by a softball player who believes she was hounded off the team because of her sexual orientation. The issue for administrators in this situation is how to make the whole thing go away with a minimum of publicity. They can't settle immediately because that would be construed as an admission, but when the time is right, something will be done to avoid a court trial. End of story? Problem solved? Sorry. The culture that created the situation in the first place has to be addressed with policies and with training. Anything else perpetuates the conspiracy of silence made famous as "Don't ask, don't tell." That might be the official policy in the military, but it is not acceptable in civil culture. LGBT people should be as free as anyone else is to live as they choose and talk as they choose and to talk about whatever they choose -- even in public. "Don't ask, don't tell." Is that a courageous policy? Is it the policy of champions? The first openly gay UF athletes will take a lot of heat... Those athletes will be in an difficult position. Equality is the right thing to do, but it is often made possible by some other advantage those granting the right. Like the law suit above, suddenly doing the right thing implies a change of heart; it implies that one has been doing the wrong thing. But if a player is very talented, and an important asset to the team... well, such a player must be retained, defended. It makes it easier to do the right thing. Domestic partner benefits. The right thing to do. But what will get us there is that it won't cost that much. Antidiscrimination. It's the right thing to do. But it helps that there probably won't be many complaints filed. It makes it easier to do the right thing. Yes, we have to talk about this. There must be discussion, publication, and training. Some people need to come out. Some people need to confront their homophobia. The point is this: What good is it to have a freedom you can't enjoy, a protection you can't use to protect you, or a reporting system you are afraid to use. Winning rights is just the first step in making them real. The second step is using them. Why Sexual Harrassment is Funny Offensive title? Let me explain. Every University employee is required to participate in a sexual harrassment workshop. I've been three times over the years. I was recently in a meeting where the workshops came up briefly. I was struck by a comment, followed by general agreement, that most people who take these workshops don't take them seriously. Even more striking was the comment that the people who administer the workshops don't really take them seriously either. I refuse to believe it, but deep down I suspect that it's largely true. In simple terms, it makes me rather sad, and it seems to me to be part of some serious backsliding that has been going on for many years. There's a entire industry and culture based on the "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" philosophy. Maybe there are differences, but whatever the differences are, they do not justify the perpetuation of not only unequal treatment, but more destructively, of unequal expectation. During that meeting I wondered if coaches still scream at their male athletes, "You looked like a bunch of silly girls out there today." Or if female coaches shout at their teams, "You looked like a bunch of spoiled boys out there today." There's a difference between parity and equality. It seems we've shifted the burden of our unease from outward prejudice to a radical belief in some kind of absolute and unbridgeable difference. Wait a second... That's exactly what we believed before. Why is it we don't take a sexual harrassment workshop seriously? Is it because we don't want anyone (including ourselves) to think that we have anything to learn in this area. It's like some kind of silent, communal agreement we've made. No one says, "These workshops are a big joke," but if someone treats them as a joke, we all feel free to join in. No one want to be the one not laughing. It's important to remember how hard some people -- mostly women -- had to fight, and for how many years... How many minds and laws had to be changed... so that we could have sexual harrassment workshops. The workshops are a symbol of battles won, and more left to win. Perhaps someday, they won't even be needed. But until then, they deserve to be taken seriously. [top]

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Features

UF Welcomes Back Event for LGBT Students, Staff, and Faculty Monday night, September 8 at 7 pm in the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom, the University of Florida will be holding an assembly for its LGBT students, faculty, staff, and allies. The Dean of Students office, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Student Affairs Cabinet of Student Government, the Gator Gay-Straight Allaince, and the Pride Student Union are cooperating to organize the event. This year's assembly will welcome back those that have been gone for the summer and kick off the new school year by introducing various forms of involvement and services available on campus and in the Gainesville community. Many local organizations will have booths or tables presenting their groups and demonstrating the wide range of activities, businesses, and organizations to be found in our community. [top]

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New UF Antidiscrimination Policy Expected to Take Effect November 2003 At their June 2003 meeting in Gainesville, the University of Florida Board of Trustees voted unanimously to add the words "sexual orientation" to the University's antidiscrimination policy. The actual policy must still be approved by the Board, and this is expected to take place at the Board's upcoming meeting in Coral Gables. The policy must then be approved by a rules committee of the state legislature, but that step is regarded as largely automatic. If all that proceeds as expected, the new policy would be implemented in November 2003. At that point, efforts will be made to inform university students and employees of the new policy. Work is being done to provide an anonymous reporting system and to identify the appropriate contacts in university administration for undergraduates, graduate students, staff, and faculty. [top]

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Human Rights Campaign Gives Top Rating to 21 Corporations In 2003, the Human Rights Campaign has given 21 major U.S. corporations its highest rating for fair treatment of homosexual, bisexual and transgender employees. Last year, the first year the HRC gave out ratings, only 11 corporations earned this rating. Some of the companies cited were Bank One Corp., Capital One Financial Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Levi Strauss & Co., MetLife Inc., PG&E Corp., Prudential Financial Inc., and S.C. Johnson & Son Co. What earned this accolade? These businesses put in place such things as written nondiscrimination policies, domestic partner benefits, and offering diversity training Other companies were cited for their dificits in this area. HRC said the five lowest-scoring companies were Aramark Corp., Domino's Inc., ExxonMobil Corp., Meijer Inc. and National Gypsum Co. Domino's stated that sexual orientation had been added to the company's antidiscrimination policy, but the profit margins were holding back consideration of domestic partner benefits. ExxonMobil stated that company harassment and antidiscrimination policies are all-inclusive, and that no form of harrassment or discrimination would be tolerated for any reason. On domestic partner benefits, the company said that the laws of the country in which employees live governs the available benefits. In Canada, same-sex couples can get domestic partner benefits; in the U.S., they can not. Read the original CNN story: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/25/benefits.gays/index.html [top]

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Senate Bill Offers Hate Crime Protections for LGBT Persons The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (S. 966), a measure pending in the Senate, would add real or perceived sexual orientation and gender to the categories currently covered in federal hate crimes law. Currently seven states — California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Vermont — and the District of Columbia have hate crimes laws that include both sexual orientation and gender identity. The urgency of this bill has been underscored by a series of attacks in the Washington,D.C. area against transgendered persons. An unnamed male-to-female transsexual was found beaten and shot early in a field in Southeast Washington On August 21, 2003. In Northwest Washington, police found another transgender woman shot and in serious condition on Wednesday evening. Police are also investigating the Aug. 16 murder of Elvys "Bella Evangelista" Perez, a popular drag performer, as a hate/bias-motivated crime. The attacks come one year after the unsolved murders of Stephanie Thomas and Ukea Davis, transgender teens who were brutally gunned down Aug. 12, 2002, in Southeast Washington. A 22-year-old male has been arrested in one of the killings. For information on hate crimes: www.hrc.org/issues/hate_crimes For information on the Washington attacks and the investigation, visit the GLLU website at: www.gaydc.net/gllu/. [top]

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Same-Sex Civil Marriage Rights Senate Subcommittee Reviews Defense of Marriage Act On September 4, 2003, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) presided over a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution Civil Rights and Property Rights. The title of the meeting was "What is Needed to Defend the Bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act of 1996?" Cornyn's goal was to determine whether the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, and by the extension, the Federal Marriage Amendment could withstand court challenges. Six witnesses were called. Four favor the permanent banning of same-sex marriage rights. Two spoke against the ban, including Keith Bradkowski, who lost his partner of 11 years, Jeff Collman, in the September 11th attacks. Bradkowski shared with the committee: "Jeff died without a will, which meant that while I dealt with losing him, I also had huge anxiety about maintaining the home we shared together. Without a marriage license to prove I was Jeff's next of kin, even inheriting basic household possessions became a legal nightmare. ... The terrorists who attacked this country killed people not because they were gay or straight - but because they were Americans. It is heart wrenching that our own government does not protect its citizens equally, gay and straight, simply because they are Americans." Dale Carpenter of the University of Minnesota Law School also spoke before the committee against the FMA. Carpenter's main point was that the FMA goes against the principle of federalism, usually a primary concern of conservatives. "The FMA would impose a single, nationwide definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. It would prohibit state courts or even state legislatures from authorizing same-sex marriages," said Carpenter. "Purporting to protect the states from gay marriage, the FMA tramples federalism." Read more at the HRC Web site: http://www.hrc.org/newsreleases/2003/030904hearing.asp Well worth reading: The written testimony of Elizabeth Birch, Executive Director of the Human Rights Campaign: http://www.hrc.org/newsreleases/2003/030904eb_testimony.asp Federal Marriage Amendment The proposed text of the amendment reads: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups." The amendment was drafted by an organization called the Alliance for Marriage. Not all conservative groups like the wording. The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act was useful inthat it made it possible for states to ignore marriages in other states and defined marriage for federal purposes as between a man and a woman. The FMA would protect state legislatures from being forced by courts to recognize same-unions, however some groups point out that the FMA as currently worded might allow state legislatures to enact same-sex marriages in thier state. These groups are pushing for a full-fledged prohibition of any union in the U.S being a legal marriage unless it is between a man and a woman. There is some feeling among conservative groups that the FMA will pass in the House and that a majority of states will eventually ratify it, however they see problems in the Senate. Many commentators see it as unlikely that even if this amendment made it through the Senate that enough states would ratify it to make it law. [top]

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Departments

September 2003 Update on Rainbow Alliance Plans If you haven't had a chance to attend a dinner, it might be difficult to keep up with the progress of 2003 projects. We'll try to keep you current with a monthly update. 1) Rainbow Alliance Fund. The Fund is now established. The Fund needs continuing support if we are to realize our goals. As always, details about contributing to the Rainbow Alliance Fund can be found at the end of the newsletter. 2) The Rainbow Alliance Web site will be created. Coming soon! 3) LGBT Colloquium -- Still planning. Look for this event in Fall 2003, possibly in conjunction with a Pride Student Union event. The idea behind this is to bring together all the faculty that are working on LGBT issues to provide a showcase for the full range of LGBT studies at the University of Florida. 4) Work will continue to identify LGBTA alumni. Still in the planning stages, though we have collected a few names for the newsletter list. The Web site will be the focus of this effort, and we're looking into advertising in the national gay press. 5) Of course, we'll continue our monthly dinners. We hope to see you there! 7) Rainbow Alliance depends on the efforts of dedicated volunteers. A little of your time could go a long way. Get involved. Make a difference. [top]