The Political Whore

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

On Saturday, June 27, thousands of people gathered in the streets of St. Petersburg, FL for the city’s annual Gay Pride parade and festival. While we were celebrating and honoring the legacy of the LGBT civil rights movement, our local NBC affiliate (WFLA-Ch. 8) was airing Speechless: Silencing the Christians, an hour long special paid for by the conservative American Family Association (AFA) that makes a series of specious and demeaning claims about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Watch a clip from the program after the jump.

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By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

In a recent blog posting, Nadine Smith, Equality Florida’s executive director, issued a formidable challenge to GLBT people everywhere: If you want equality, sacrifice for it. With the bus boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins of the black civil rights movement as her inspiration, Smith asks “What can we (GLBT people) do that demonstrates not only the rhetoric of equality but the personal sacrifice that will awaken the conscience of a nation?”

Smith answers this question with a simple suggestion:

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By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

In a presidential proclamation issued on Monday, President Barack Obama officially recognized the month of June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.

LGBT Americans have made, and continue to make, great and lasting contributions that continue to strengthen the fabric of American society. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The president’s call for equality and his acknowledgment of the many contributions LGBT people have made to America’s culture, society and politics despite being culturally, socially and politically marginalized are truly moving. However, I can’t help feeling slightly ambivalent about the whole thing. Here’s why:

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Life has some powerful photographs from its unpublished archives today of the aftermath in 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. One shows his supporters gathering in his motel room in grief after the shooting; another more controversial shot shows the brother of the Lorraine’s owner cleaning up MLK’s blood from the second-floor landing where the civil rights leader was targeted by assassin James Earl Ray.

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Activists challenging Florida’s ban on gay adoptions hope for a positive ruling today from a judge in Miami:

A decision was due Tuesday on the request by 47-year-old Martin Gill to adopt two young boys he has been raising as foster children. The state of Florida has fought in court against Gill’s petition to adopt the boys.

Florida has one of the strictest bans on gay adoptions in the country. A judge in Key West ruled in September that the ban was unconstitutional, but that ruling has had limited legal impact.

The American Civil Liberties Union has sided with Gill in the case. The ACLU says there is a shortage of parents for adoptions in Florida, where at a given time there are about 1,000 children waiting to be adopted.

More on the case here.