Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 15, 2009, at 8:53 pm
Gays and straights alike carried red flags (a comment on a Media General exec who said the station viewed Speechless: Silencing Christians and “it didn’t raise any red flags”) and signs relabeling the NBC affiliate in Tampa Bay as News Channel H8 on Wednesday afternoon. More than 100 protesters gathered along Kennedy Boulevard in front of the station’s News Center to draw attention to the hate program that was aired for what they believe was $35,000 paid by a Christian group.
In a sign of political courage, Tampa City Councilman John Dingfelder attended the rally and said of News Channel 8’s decision,”This is not who Tampa is. This type of hate is just not acceptable in our community.” Dingfelder is running for a County Commission seat, a demographic that is much more to the right than the city of Tampa where he has served two terms.
Watch CL video coverage of the rally after the jump.
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.
Enough already with the military’s ridiculous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
And it’s about time we legalize gay marriage.
Yet after the stunning parades this weekend and the first official recognition of the movement by a sitting working US President, I’m filled with more hope than ever before.
Which is why I didn’t allow my blood pressure to rise when WFLA/News Channel 8 aired an “it would be disturbing if it weren’t so silly” documentary infomercial Saturday night about wicked gays trying to silence Christians. I urged my fellow libs to take deep breaths and see this program for what it was — a spoiled brat stomping his feet and holding his breath in the hopes of getting attention and that last piece of cake.
“Their world is ending, Mary,” I said with a giggle. “It’s falling down around them and they can’t do a thing to stop it. Let’s not be so reactionary. Pass the Sangria and shut the fuck up. I want to hear what these freakshows have to say so I can make fun of them later.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 14, 2009, at 8:17 am
The Gainesville Sun has an article detailing how right-wing Attorney General Bill McCollum has dropped code words friendly to social conservatives in a bid to appeal to moderate voters in his bid for Florida Governor.
The Gainesville Sun reports that Republican Bill McCollum is moderating his political views and appealing to the Charlie Crist voters in his run for Florida Governor. The article points out that McCollum’s support for includng sexual orientation in Hate Crimes laws and the fact that his finance chairman’s lead oppositon to Amendment 2 has drawn the ire of arch conservatives including form Christian Coalition leader Dennis Baxley.
His finance team chairman is Jonathan Kislak, who last year led a group that unsuccessfully opposed a constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage in the state. McCollum says he disagrees with his friend on that issue.
Just because some of the winger groups are “upset” at McCollum not breathing fire on stem-cell research or hate crimes or God knows what else doesn’t mean that McCollum has fundamentally changed his stripes.
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:
Posted by David Warner on May. 27, 2009, at 5:01 pm
A small but vocal group of protestors, both gay and straight, stood at the busy corner of 66th St. and 49th Ave. N. in Pinellas Tuesday night, armed with handmade signs and the passionate conviction that the California Supreme Court decision upholding the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage was a slap in the face to gays and lesbians everywhere. With storm clouds gathering above, they stood their ground and talked to CL.
Beth Fountain, a writer and former lawyer, questioned the dense language of the decision, in which the court essentially contradicted its position from a year before.
Like Fountain, musician Lisa Noe of the band Karmic Tattoo wondered why gay marriage could be “OK one minute, then it’s not OK the next.” And Rick Boylan, president of the Pinellas chapter of Stonewall Democrats and the secretary of the state Democratic party, pointed out that, even with the setback in California, the state is still years ahead of Florida in its recognition of gay rights: “We’re still dealing with issues that are left over from Anita Bryant days.”
