BADGERDAVEO'S BLOG
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What Changes in 30 Years?
- Posted on 11.09.08
Related causes: Human Rights, Leaders
Last Tuesday was bittersweet for me as a gay man living in California. On the one hand, we'd elected our nation's first black President, who, in his victory speech mentioned gay people by name in his vision for America. On the other hand, Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage in California, passed with a solid majority, becoming the first time in American history when a law adding discrimination and REMOVING rights from a minority group has ever been written into a constitutional document. So yeah, it kind of sucked for us.
But then a crazy thing happened. People started taking to the streets. Like, every night. Thousands of us in major cities up and down the state took to the streets to protest. What specifically we were protesting was, at times a little unclear (although court cases are already in motion to overturn it), but what it HAS accomplished are two things. One, it let the people of California (and thanks to the media coverage it's attracted, the entire natio...Read More -
A Man Named Milk
- Posted on 10.20.08
Related causes: Community, Human Rights
When I was in college in Wisconsin, I had the opportunity to work on Tammy Baldwin's first campaign for the US House of Representatives. When she ultimately won, she became the first woman from Wisconsin and the first out lesbian nationwide to be elected to congress. After the election, I walked in the Madison LGBT pride parade with Tammy, and it was this moment I knew that my own life needed to be about helping in some small way to change the way the world worked...on the issue of LGBT rights and many others.
It wasn't until a year or two later when I learned about Harvey Milk, who had been the first openly gay man elected to public office...around 20 years earlier. In 1977, Harvey was elected city supervisor in San Francisco and became known informally as "Mayor of Castro Street." He was assassinated less than a year later by Dan White, another city supervisor, but in the interim he lead a strong gay rights movement in San Francisco, striking down several anti-gay initiativ...Read More
