GLN News--Update

Call for a Pro-LGBT Picket of the White House
6 PM, Saturday, Oct. 10th
Lafayette Park (on H Street just north of the White House)

Many of us watched in disgust this past January as the homophobic Reverend Rick Warren was given an honored place at the inaugural festivities. It was as if a leader of the White Citizens Council had been invited to the White House.

After indignant complaints to the incoming administration about this homophobic slap in the face, what was our consolation prize? Openly gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson was invited to speak at a lesser inaugural event, as if "balancing" a bigot with a non-bigot was good enough. Then, for good measure – at the behest of the White House – Robinson wasn't televised (see http://www.gayliberation.net/opinion/2009/0122chicagod.html).

This homophobic behavior by the Obama White House has been repeated several times before and since:

** During the South Carolina primary, when his campaign featured rabidly anti-gay Gospel performer Donnie McClurkin at a major rally;

** With the quiet dropping of most pro-gay promises from the Obama website earlier this year – until a firestorm of protest forced them to return much of it;

** With the failure to rescind President Clinton's ban on HIV+ people traveling to the United States, and his ban on granting green cards and citizenship to HIV+ immigrants;

** With the unnecessary administration brief in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), with language worthy of the most vicious anti-gay bigot, making a mockery of his promise to repeal DOMA;

** With the statements by Obama that his "Christian beliefs" make him oppose equal marriage rights, as if the former Constitutional law scholar from the University of Chicago doesn't know anything about separation of church and state. Obama's homophobic statements were of course gleefully quoted to great effect by pro-Prop 8 forces in California;

** With the failure to blunt "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT) by issuing a stop-loss order. Instead, he authorized surrogates to endlessly delay the junking of DADT, thereby breaking his promise to repeal it;

** While an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act has been reintroduced into Congress, President Obama has expended virtually no political capital in getting it or any other pro-gay measure passed.

The organizers of the Sunday, October 11th March on Washington have placed almost their entire focus on Congress (which will be out of town) and almost none on the President. Indeed, rather than making demands of the President, the official march website goes out of its way to praise "Obama's Mobile Messaging Team (for) Donating Services To The National Equality March"!

By targeting congressional districts and lobbying Congress in an effort to win legal equality, the organizers' strategy looks suspiciously like a drive to elect and re-elect Democrats in the 2010 bi-elections, rather than make uncompromising demands on this President and his Congress.

Their current focus on cajoling Congress and the President to do the right thing ignores a very basic fact – this approach has never won civil rights gains. While LGBT activists fawned over the last Democratic President, Bill Clinton repaid our love by giving us much of the crap bullet-pointed above. Like today, many of those anti-gay measures came while the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress plus the Presidency.

By contrast, uncompromising street protests led by ACT-UP and others gave us the Ryan White AIDS Care and the Americans With Disabilities Acts – despite a very reactionary political climate during the first Bush administration. An era of such protests – the 1960s – caused the radical change in consciousness among LGBT people which thereby gave birth to our modern LGBT movement.

The last thing we need today is to parrot "yes we can" chants, like we are cheerleading this president and his party. Instead, we must take as our maxim the quote from the great anti-slavery organizer Frederick Douglass: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. Never has, never will."

Therefore on October 10th we will be picketing the White House to demand that the most powerful politician in the world implement the many reforms that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans community needs. Please join us.

6 PM -- Saturday, October 10th
Lafayette Park (on H Street on the north side of the White House)

We also will be marching in the Sunday, October 11th march. We invite you to join us – just look for the big yellow banner that reads "President Obama – Keep Your #$^! Promises! Repeal DOMA, DADT"

For more information or to endorse this statement, please email the Gay Liberation Network in Chicago (LGBTliberation@aol.com) or Queer Liberaction in Dallas (LGBTliberaction@gmail.com).

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Low cost van transportation from Chicago to DC and back (with lodging Saturday night) is being organized by the Gay Liberation Network. Cost of transportation and lodging is expected to be a bit over $100. FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED. If you are interested in this, please email LGBTliberation@aol.com as soon as possible to get details.

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11th Annual Matthew Shepard March is now Saturday, October 17th

This year's Matthew Shepard March for LGBT Freedom was originally moved to downtown Chicago and slated as a protest against the Chicago concert of "Kill Gays" performer Buju Banton on October 1st. Since we have been successful in canceling this concert, we have moved the march back to its traditional location in Boystown and Wrigleyville, with a new date of October 17th. Here are the details:

7 PM
Saturday, October 17
Halsted & Roscoe 7 - 11
3407 N Halsted

The annual Shepard March memorializes the 1998 lynching of the gay Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, who came to symbolize the vicious hatred and violence that many Americans still harbor against LGBT people.

Each year since our founding that same year, the Gay Liberation Network has sought to use the march to highlight not only anti-LGBT violence, but the hatred and violations of civil rights which fuel it. Each year we choose a contemporary theme which illustrates this. Our theme this year is demanding that the justice system in Chicago adequately deal with police officers who violate the civil rights of LGBT people.

In particular, we are demanding that the City take action against Officer Richard Fiorito -- the subject of 20 federal lawsuits charging him with framing, and sometimes beating LGBT motorists in the heart of the Boystwon entertainment district. We demand that the police department put him on desk duty until the internal and external charges against him are adjudicated. Furthermore, given the extensive evidence showing probable cause of criminal wrongdoing, we demand that the Cook County States Attorneys Office press criminal charges such as Obstruction of Justice and Aggravated Battery

More details about this year's Matthew Shepard March will be forthcoming soon. Until then, please hold the date -- Saturday, October 17th.

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Since the Cancellation of Chicago Concert
of "Kill Gays" Singer Buju Banton,

Several More Victories!

Thanks to the work of LGBT activists around the nation, several more concerts of "kill gays" performer Buju Banton have been canceled since the cancellation of the concerts in Chicago and other major cities reported in the last GLN News.

Below we reprint two recent GLN press releases updating the progress made against this violent and dishonest homophobe, and give more reasons why gay and non-gay people should hope for the success of the campaign against him.

More Progress Against "Kill Gays" Performer Buju Banton

Viciously anti-gay performer Buju Banton has had his concerts in Columbus, OH, Cincinnati, OH and Minneapolis, MN canceled over the past few days, according to http://cancelbujubanton.wetpaint.com/, a website started by Gay Liberation Network webmaster Syd Stevens.

The cancellations come on the heels of shows nixed by AEG Live and Live Nation in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Las Vegas, LA, San Francisco and Philadelphia (the Philadelphia concert went ahead under different auspices).

Buju Banton grusomely calls for the killing of gay people in the lyrics of his most well-known song, "Boom Bye Bye." When Jamaica's leading gay rights activist, Brian Williamson, was murdered in an apparent hate crime murdered in 2004, a Human Rights Watch researcher who went to the murder scene reported that a mob had gathered and was celebrating the murder by chanting the chorus to "Boom Bye Bye."

CancelBujuBanton.com is urging LGBT people and our allies to contact the concert promoters in Cincinnati, Columbus and Minneapolis to thank them for not helping promote Buju Banton's violent hate:

Cincinnati – Annie's – events@anniesentertainment.com
Columbus – PromoWest Productions – feedback@promowestlive.com
Minneapolis – First Avenue – nate@first-avenue.com

In an article entitled "Concert canceled after gays' protest," The Columbus Dispatch reported Saturday that "Taking issue with some content in the singer's music, several groups -- including Equality Ohio and Stonewall Democrats of Ohio -- circulated an e-mail yesterday urging people to voice their disapproval and shut down the show." That and postings on the Columbusunderground.com local news site led to a flurry of communications that apparently prompted the cancellations.

A full listing of the cities still hosting Buju Banton concerts, along with contact information for the venues, can be found at http://cancelbujubanton.wetpaint.com/

The national campaign to cancel Buju Banton's 2009 tour was initiated by Chicago's Gay Liberation Network (www.GayLiberation.net) in early August and energetically taken up by the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center and other activists around the nation. The international campaign against so-called "murder music" was initiated in the early 1990s by British gay activist Peter Tatchell and Jamaica's leading LGBT group, Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG).

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More Victories Against Buju Banton Tour

LGBT organizers joyfully announced yesterday the cancellation of yet another Buju Banton concert in Salt Lake City, Utah and the forced venue change of a concert in Raleigh, NC.

This is in addition to show cancellations in Columbus, OH, Cincinnati and Minneapolis reported earlier this week (local news stories on the Salt Lake and Raleigh victories can be found at http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13344476 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekimS0NqULc). The Salt Lake City cancellation is particularly sweet given the conservative reputation of Utah and the city's role as headquarters for the anti-gay Mormon Church, which played a huge role in passing California's Proposition 8.

The Salt Lake cancellation was notable also for the fact that its owners -- unlike most other canceled venues -- issued a strong pro-gay message in tandem with the cancellation.

"When initially scheduling the Buju Banton event, we were unaware of his hateful anti-gay message," the venue's owner told the Salt Lake Tribune. "Upon further review, Urban Lounge has decided to cancel the event. We strive for peace and understanding in our community. We support the rights of all. We have made this decision on moral grounds."

Huge holes have now been punched in Buju Banton's U.S. tour. And even for those venues and promoters who persist in plowing forward with the concerts, there is a price they are paying in all the bad publicity and distraction of trying to do PR damage control.

Concert and organizing information is being coordinated through the http://cancelbujubanton.wetpaint.com/ website initiated by Gay Liberation Network webmaster Syd Stevens.

For those Buju Banton supporters who try to minimize or deflect the viciousness of his violent hatred of LGBT people, Florida pro-LGBT organizers have come up with a ready reply. They have re-posted on their part of the wetpaint site one of several YouTube videos of Buju Banton recently performing the "Boom Bye Bye" song in which he calls for using an uzi or pouring acid to kill gays. In this particular video he also boasts to the crowd, "There is no end to the war between me and faggots!" (To see the clip, go to http://cancelbujubanton.wetpaint.com/?mail=1129 and look below the list of Florida concert dates for a link to a video of him performing his song "Boom Bye Bye." It's difficult to understand him, except when he clearly says "There is no end to the war between me and faggots!" Included is the standard English translation and explanation of the lyrics).

For more information on the http://cancelbujubanton.wetpaint.com/ site, email sydstevens@gayliberation.net

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GLN Calendar

Sunday, September 20 -- Volunteer! to help publicize the 11th Annual Matthew Shepard March (Oct 17th) and the October 3rd anti-war march. We will be meeting at 3 PM at Nookies Restaurant, 3334 N. Halsted, today and then fan out through much of the city to distribute posters and flyers. No experience necessary! Call 773.209.1187 for more information.

Saturday, October 3 – March to Bring ALL the Troops Home NOW on the 8th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. March in President Obama's neighborhood to protest his escalation of the war. Assemble 1 PM at Harold Washington Park, northeast corner of 53rd Street and S. Hyde Park Drive, followed by a march near Obama's Hyde Park residence. For more info email CCAWR@aol.com

Tuesday, October 6 -- PROTEST against Illinois Family Institute banquet with anti-gay hater Mike Huckabee. Details forthcoming. For information, email LGBTliberation@aol.com

Wednesday, October 7 – Regular monthly organizing meeting of the Gay Liberation Network. 7 – 9 PM at a NEW LOCATION -- Berger Park Fieldhouse -- 6205 N. Sheridan Road (corner of Granville Street & Sheridan Road). For more information call 773.209.1187

Friday, October 9 – Gay Liberation Network live call-in show on CAN TV, 6:30-6:55 PM on Cable Channel 21 in Chicago. You can watch past shows on GLN's new YouTube Channel. Just go to: www.youtube.com/gayliberation

Saturday, October 10 -- Pro-LGBT picket of the White House -- 6 PM, Lafayette Park. Picket is co-sponsored by the Gay Liberation Network and Dallas's Queer Liberaction. See above notice for details on the themes of the protest. For information on low-cost transportation being organized by GLN to attend both the picket and the next day's Equality March, email us at LGBTliberation@aol.com with your name and telephone number.

Sunday, October 11 – Equality March on Washington. For more information, email LGBTliberation@aol.com

Saturday, October 17 -- New date for the 11th Annual Matthew Shepard March for LGBT Freedom. Our theme will be stopping Chicago Police violence and discrimination against our community. Rally in the 7-11 parking lot located at the corner of Halsted and Roscoe Streets (3407 N Halsted), followed by a march past Alderman Tunney's office and the 23rd District Chicago Police Station. For details, see notice above.

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