Now, Sam was a bright young man who wanted to work and save money so he could go to school and become an electrician. But the only job open in his small community was at the gas station. So, for two years, Sam pumped gas, washed windshields, checked dipsticks and tire pressure, smiled and chatted with all the customers, gave them free drinking glasses when they ordered a fill-up, and was soon known as the best service station attendant in town.

But then the Grand Caliphs of Oil said that Megamania Oil Empire, of which they all had partial ownership, caused them to raise the price of gas.

“We’re paying 39 cents a gallon now,” they cried, “how can you justify tripling our costs?” they demanded.

“That’s business,” said the Chief Grand Caliph flippantly. But, to calm the customer fury, he had a plan. “We will allow you the privilege of pumping your own gas, washing your own windows, checking your car’s dipsticks and tire pressure, and chatting amiably with yourselves,” said the Caliph. “If you do that, we will hold the price to only a buck or two a gallon.”

And the people were happy. All except Sam, of course, who was unemployed.

But, times were good, and Sam went to the local supermarket, which was advertising for a minimum wage checkout clerk. For three years, he worked hard, scanning all groceries and chatting amiably with the customers. And then one day his manager called him into the office.

“Sam,” said the boss, “we’re very pleased with your work. You’re fired.” From corporate headquarters had come a decision by the chain’s chief bean counter that there weren’t enough beans for their executives to go to Europe to search for more beans.

“But,” asked Sam, “Who will scan the groceries?”

“The customers will,” said the boss. “We’ll even have a no-hassle machine that will take their money and maybe even give change.”

“But won’t they object to buying the groceries, scanning them, bagging them, and shoving their money into a faceless machine?”

“Not if we tell them that by doing all the work, the cost will be less,” said the manager.

“But it won’t,” said Sam.

The manager thought a moment, and then brightly pointed out, “We’ll just say that the cost of groceries won’t go up significantly if labor costs were less. Besides, we even programmed Canmella the Circuit-enhanced Clerk to tell customers to have a nice day.”

Now, others may have sworn, cried, or punched out their supervisor, but this is a G-rated fairy tale, and it wouldn’t be right to leave Sam to flounder among the food. By cutting back on luxuries, like food and clothes, Sam saved a few dollars from his unemployment checks, and finally had enough to go to a community college to learn to become an electrician. After graduating at the top of his class, an emaciated and homeless Sam got a job at Acme Industries.

For nine years, he was a great electrician, often making suggestions that led to his company becoming one of the largest electrical supplies manufacturers in the country. And then one day one of the company’s 18 assistant vice-presidents called Sam into a small dingy office, which the company used for such a day. “You’re the best worker we have,” the AVP joyfully told Sam, “but all that repetitive stress has cut your efficiency and increased our medical costs. In the interest of maximizing profits, we have to replace you.”

“But who can do my job?” asked Sam.

“Not who,” said the manager, “but what. We’re bringing in robots. They’re faster and don’t need breaks, vacations, or sick days. Better yet, they don’t have union contracts.”

“So you are firing me,” said Sam.

“Not at all. We had to let a few dozen other workers go so there would be room for the robots, and we won’t be hiring any new workers, but because of your hard work, we’re reassigning you to oil the robots. At least until we design robots that can oil the other robots.”

For three years, Sam oiled, polished, and cleaned up after the robots. Sometimes, he even had to rewire them. And then the deputy assistant senior director of Human Resources called him into her office.

“No one can oil and polish as well as you can,” she said, but the robots are getting very expensive and we still have several hundred workers who are taking lobster and truffles from the mouths of our corporate executives, “so we’re sending all of our work to somewhere in Asia. Or maybe it’s Mexico. Whatever. The workers there will gladly design and assemble our products for less than a tenth what we have to pay our citizens.”

“You mean I’m fired?!” said a rather incredulous Sam.

“Not fired. That’s so pre-NAFTA. You’ve been downsized.”

“Downsized?!”

“If you want, we can also say you’ve been outsourced. How about right-sized. That’s a nicer word. Would you prefer to be right-sized?”

By now, Sam was no longer meek. He no longer was willing to accept whatever he was told.

“The work will be shoddier,” said Sam. “There will be problems.”

“Of course there will be,” said the lady from HR. “That’s why we hired three Pakistani goat herders to solve customer complaints.”

“Our citizens won’t stand for this,” said a defiant Sam.

“As long as the product is cheaper, our people will gladly go to large non-union stores and buy whatever it is that we tell them to buy.”

And she was right.

Walter Brasch
Wanderings

Walter Brasch is an award-winning journalist and former university professor. His latest book is the social issues mystery novel, Before the First Snow, available at amazon and other book dealers.

Justice Stephen Reinhardt’s highly readable 80-page decision was clearly written with the U.S. Supreme Court in mind – and its heavy reliance on Romer v. Evans (1996) should be enough to get Anthony Kennedy’s vote. Many states passed anti-gay marriage initiatives, but Prop 8 was particularly offensive because it affirmatively took away a right that gay couples already had – just like Colorado did in the 1990’s with Amendment 2.

While it would have been great to have the Court rule sexual orientation a “suspect class” and put Prop 8 under a strict scrutiny test, that would have made the decision far more likely to be reversed. Instead, Justice Reinhardt explains how Prop 8 had no rational basis to be constitutional – leaving the dissent to lamely argue the novel legal theory of “rational speculation.”

While the media interpreted yesterday’s Court decision as “narrow in scope” and “only applies to California,” right-wing opponents seized on this narrative to send out their spin. “The ruling is like kissing your sister,” said Matthew Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel. “On the one hand, it is not the broad ruling sought by same-sex marriage advocates, but it also does not allow the people of California to limit the name ‘marriage’ to opposite-sex couples.”

Some supporters of marriage equality even hoped that an “only-in-California” application could mean the U.S. Supreme Court will deny certiorari and just let the Ninth Circuit decision stand – a hope that I view as just naïve wishful thinking.

It was a “narrow” decision in some ways, but consider the Ninth Circuit has a reputation for being “liberal” and the “most reversed circuit.” Justice Reinhardt wrote the majority decision in such a way that will make it harder to reverse on appeal, and marriage equality advocates should be grateful for that move.

It would have been great for the Court to find sexual orientation a “suspect class” –following the lead of state supreme courts in Iowa, Connecticut and California – thus requiring Prop 8 to pass “strict scrutiny,” and setting a groundbreaking federal precedent for gay rights. But federal courts have not made such a ruling, so Justice Reinhardt kept the decision along how Prop 8 lacks a “rational basis.”

Most interesting was how the decision devoted 13 pages to the parallels between Prop 8 and Colorado’s Amendment 2, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down with Romer v. Evans (1996). Like Colorado’s amendment that repealed local non-discrimination ordinances, Prop 8 took the right to marry (which gay couples had just been granted six months earlier on constitutional grounds) and repealed it. “What the Supreme Court forbade,” said Reinhardt, “was the targeted exclusion of a group of citizens from a right or benefit that they had enjoyed on equal terms.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy – the “swing” vote on the U.S. Supreme Court with four liberals and four conservatives – wrote the decision in Romer, along with Lawrence v. Texas (2003) that decriminalized sodomy. Not only did the Ninth Circuit overrule Prop 8 on safe grounds that will make it harder to overturn, but Reinhardt had an eye for who would determine the outcome in a 5-4 decision.

The Prop 8 trial, presided by District Judge Vaughn Walker, was extremely valuable – not because of Walker’s legal conclusions, but instead because of its 80 findings of facts which cannot be overturned by higher courts. The Ninth Circuit cited several of them (e.g., “Prop 8 stigmatizes same-sex couples as having inferior relationships,” “the campaign in favor of Prop 8 relied upon stereotypes and unfounded fears about gays and lesbians”) that clearly affected the outcome.

But it was Reinhardt’s repeated point that Prop 8 did not just deny gay couples the right to marry – but affirmatively took it away from them which made this decision so compelling. “The context matters,” he wrote. “Withdrawing from a disfavored group the right to obtain a designation with significant societal consequences is different from declining to extent that designation in the first place, regardless of whether the right was withdrawn after a week, a year or a decade.”

Many commentators have taken this to mean the Prop 8 decision could only apply to California. But while only one state overturned a court ruling that granted marriage equality, Maine voters in November 2009 also took away the right to marry. In that case, the state legislature passed and the Governor signed into law a bill – which the voters overturned it with a “People’s Veto.” Although the law never went into effect, Question 1 was also a vote to take rights away from gay couples based on animus.

But my favorite part of the decision was where Justice Reinhardt goes through the “rational” reasons for passing Prop 8. For example, one “basis” is that the state has an interest in preventing children from being born out of wedlock – and because only straight couples can accidentally have kids, straight marriage is more favored.

If that were true, he wrote, “[Prop 8] supporters would have to argue that opposite-sex couples were more likely to procreate accidentally or irresponsibly when same-sex couples had access to the designation of ‘marriage.’” In other words, would gay marriage induce straight teenage couples to be more likely to have sex?

The Ninth Circuit also tackled the argument that voters passed Prop 8 because they feared gay marriage would be taught in schools: “schools teach about the world as it is; when the world changes, lessons change. A shift in the state’s marriage law may therefore affect the content of classroom instruction just as would the election of a new Governor, the discovery of a chemical element, or the adoption of a new law permitting no-fault divorce: students learn about these as empirical facts of the world around them. But to protest the teaching of these facts is little different from protesting their very existence.” In other words, it was a not a rational basis.

Prop 8 advocates are likely to appeal the Ninth Circuit panel’s decision to an en banc hearing – and afterwards, to the U.S. Supreme Court. So while marriage equality advocates heralded yesterday’s ruling, it is not the final say. But while it would have been great to see the Ninth Circuit issue a more sweeping denunciation of Prop 8, it was written to help us guarantee a future victory when it really matters.

Paul Hogarth
Beyond Chron 

The connection between not joining a union and more jobs in Indiana is not spelled out, but is understood by most people. The “Right to Work” law will discourage unionization and thus companies looking for cheap labor, few or no benefits, and few worker-rights associated with non-unionized workers will flood into the state-providing lots of low-wage, low-benefits jobs.

There is more to this story. I know people who objected to the War in Iraq by refusing to pay their income tax that went towards the war. I did not join this protest because I believe that even if a war was wrong, in a democracy, one has a responsibility to contribute taxes to policies supported by the majority.

One certainly has a right to protest those policies and to vote and protest against them, but I do not think one gets to pick and choose which policies the majority support that you actually fund. “Right to Work” Laws support a world where one gets to avoid paying for what the majority voted.

But the Right to Work Laws are even more problematic. Imagine that the Republicans in Indiana voted to build a bridge between Indiana and Kentucky, and to pay for the bridge they added a toll on the bridge. Imagine you opposed the bridge and were pleased that the bridge would be paid for by a toll rather than state taxes you had to pay. If it were a simple toll bridge, you could avoid paying the toll by refusing to use the bridge. Something you did not support to begin with. You took the ferry across instead.

Now, following the logic of the Right to Work Law, Indiana legislators decided that only those who wanted to pay the toll had to pay. After watching others simply cross the bridge while you were taking the ferry across, you began to use the bridge. But because the toll was not mandatory, you continued to refuse to pay the toll despite the fact you used the bridge. Fair enough! Except as you cross the bridge without paying, others also figure why pay if you do not have to since one can still have the advantage of the bridge. As Mitt Romney has shown us all, in general, one does not pay what one does not have to pay even if it would have been fairer if one did.

Soon no one would pay the toll and the bridge would become unsafe until it finally fell into the water. Many people, including you, would lose the use of the bridge. But the ferry companies would be very happy. And it turns out that the plan to make paying the toll voluntary was supported all along by the ferry companies. For some, it might become apparent that that was behind idea of the voluntary tolls — was a plan to make the bridge fail.

That is the story of “Right to Work” laws. They make maintaining a union extremely difficult. They came into being specifically to inhibit union growth, particularly in the South. The Republican “Right to Work” plan for Indiana is a plan to cripple unions so that companies looking for a non-union, cheap labor source will come to Indiana. And existing unionized companies could more readily break the union.

The Indiana Republican plan is not about the right to work it is about the right to shirk. In a world of angels, all would pay their union dues whether they had to or not or whether they supported the union or not because the majority voted for it and because everyone gains the benefits of the union. Hoosiers may be nice, but I do not think they are all angels.

John T. Cumbler

John T. Cumbler is a history professor at the University of Louisville and the author of a half dozen books on American history, three of them about labor and economic history. He has been involved in the labor movement and Jobs With Justice for many years.

‘Right-to-work’ sounds good on paper when we have 8.6 percent unemployment nationally and 9 percent unemployment in the Hoosier state, but “right-to-work” laws don’t give anybody the right to a job. “Right-to-work” really is the right-to-work-for-less.

Under the Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947 by a scab Congress over the veto of President Truman, a state may pass a “right-to-work” law exempting workers from having to pay union dues if they work in a union shop, effectively outlawing the notion of a union shop in the first place.

If you live in one of the 23 states that have right to work for less statutes, you can thus work side by side with union members without being a member of that union or paying union dues while still benefiting from the wages and benefits that union negotiates with your employer. To add insult to injury, these laws also require unions to represent all workers in the plant beyond the bargaining table when it comes to disciplinary and other issues, allowing non-union workers and your employer alike to have their cake and eat it too.

Mitch Daniels and his scab colleagues are perfectly fine with these freeloaders because they help them undermine collective bargaining and drive a wedge among co-workers. I think the use of the word “scab” to describe these folks is entirely appropriate in this context because it we’re talking about clowns who will literally do anything to make a dollar, either in the form of increased profits (on the business side) or increased campaign contributions (on the political side). Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul (despite his supposed love of “state’s rights’”) all favor a national right-to-work-for-less law and prominently display their support on their respective websites.

Daniels and Christie, however, are a much more dangerous kind of scab than your garden variety Republican. Media darlings both and probable 2016 contenders (should Mitt Romney not add yet another house to his collection), Daniels and Christie both have the ability to mask a radical right-wing agenda with an air of ‘respectability’ or ‘straight-talking’ than the boorish Romney, the serial adulterer Gingrich, or the bigots Rick Santorum and Ron Paul do not.

Daniels’ term expires at the end of the year and he’ll probably spend the next four years running for President; Christie is up for re-election next year, with the rest of the scab administrations that took office in 2010 facing recall or re-election in the next two years. Defeating these scab administrations and their allies in the scab-laden U.S. House of Representatives – and, of course, stopping a scab politician from taking the White House — should be the number one priority of the labor movement and the Democratic Party going forward.

Devin Griggs

Devin Griggs is a junior at Murray State University, where he is secretary of the College Democrats. The recipient of the 2011 Kentucky State AFL-CIO Youth Award, he is the son of Cliff Griggs, a member of USW local 9447-5.

Champion was an unusual student to be at one of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). He was openly gay, and a drum major slated to be the head drum major next school year. At HBCU, drum majors are usually heterosexual macho brothers equivalent to captains of football teams.

On November 19, 2011, Champion, a music major from Atlanta, was one of six drum majors of the famous Florida A&M University (FAMU) Marching “100″ band who traveled to Orlando for the annual Florida Classic football game between FAMU and Bethune-Cookman University.

At the end of the game that evening, Champion was found dead aboard a band bus resulting from blunt trauma suffered from flogging. Thirteen band members, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, each independently stated to police that Champion was forced onto a band bus with a reputation for hazing.

Law enforcement and the medical examiner ruled that Champion’s death a homicide. But rumors that he was singled out because of his sexual orientation forces HBCU’s to once again examine its institutional heterosexism along with its students’ individual and group activities of anti-gay violence.

Morehouse’s highly publicized 2002 gay-bashing incident has no doubt taught HBCU’s very little in terms of developing safe, nurturing and culturally competent schools with support services for its LGBTQ administration, faculty and student body.

On November 4, 2002, a Morehouse College student sustained a fractured skull from his classmate, sophomore Aaron Price, not surprisingly, the son of an ultra-conservative minister. Price uncontrollably beat his victim on the head with a baseball bat for allegedly looking at him in the shower.

In the 1980s and 1990s it was more dangerous to be openly GBTQ on Morehouse’s campus than it was on the streets in gang-ridden black neighborhoods. And throughout the 1990s Morehouse was listed on the Princeton Review’s top 20 homophobic campuses.

In 2012 HBCU’s as a whole are still slow to take on the public challenge on LGBTQ issues for a few reasons: Some schools were founded with conservative religious affiliation, and Black colleges are no different from African American communities in general, which is why some in the FAMU community argue, suggesting that Champion’s death was about his being gay is creating a mountain out of a molehill.

The Orlando Sentinel reported this observation:

“Um, who cares? Unless his sexual orientation was the reason why he was beaten to death, then it’s quite irrelevant. We had previously heard about him being gay, but we declined on reporting about it because if the police were told this when they characterized his death a result of hazing and didn’t connect the two to say this was a hate crime, then why throw it out there? I’m sure Robert Champion wasn’t the first homosexual to pledge a fraternity.”

No one in the FAMU community wants to broach the topic of Champion’s sexual orientation as a possible motivating factor for the incident. And the push back from students and administration is fierce.

Whereas an institutional shift at FAMU needs to take place, embracing an inclusive acceptance of its students’ various sexual orientations and gender identities, FAMU will work indefatigably to ward off lawsuits. (The Champions cannot sue FAMU for six months because of the state institution is protected under a sovereign immunity.)

In an anemic attempt to exonerate FAMU band director, Dr. Julian White, of any culpability concerning Champion’s death, Chuck Hobbs, his attorney, released a statement that reveals both ignorance about anti-gay violence as well as no desire to change the culture that brought about Champion’s murder.

“Assuming that the assertions of the Champion family and their attorney Chris Chestnut are true, then it is entirely possible that Champion’s tragic death was less about any ritualistic hazing and more tantamount to a hateful and fully conscious attempt to batter a young man because of his sexual orientation. As such, the efforts Dr. White expended to root out and report hazing could not have predicted or prevented such deliberate barbarity.”

We may never know if Champion’s beat down from “hazing” was an accidental homicide or an intended hate crime.

But these are the facts we know presently:

Champion was forced onto a band bus with a reputation for hazing; he was a vocal opponent against hazing, a band disciplinarian, slated to be head drum major, and he had an “alternative lifestyle.” Everyone in the FAMU community is willing to talk about all these issues except about him being gay.

Rev. Irene Monroe

Martin Luther King Jr. at Riverside Church in New York City, 4 April 1967

This week is our annual “King Dance.” I call it the King dance because it’s the time of year when American society dances around the meaning of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his contributions to the evolution of American society.

It is really difficult to grapple with the compromise of King. King was more than a day off work. King marched for social justice and economic equality — he didn’t march in parades. I never got the parade concept. What are we celebrating. The life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Really??? A principled life full of conflict and contradictions that ended in a most brutal way.

Nearly 45 years later, America hasn’t gotten of King’s death. Not just why he was killed, but how he was killed. Black people won’t talk about it, and white people won’t talk about it. It’s still ugly and senseless. It invokes too intense emotions either way…so we just honor the memory of King. The memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. Really???

What do we remember? We certainly don’t honor what he stood for. We have restructured the substance of King’s advocacy. The struggle brought progress. The memory has brought regress. Hated in life, loved in death. How does that happen. Martyrs can’t have it both ways. King didn’t and neither have we.

King is just a symbol now. A mere relic of the possibilities he preached about.

When does this society have a conversation about social justice and economic inequity in the context that King posed it? You know, we really never had that conversation. We went from national mourning to national backlash. From Johnson’s desire to help society overcome to Reagan’s “new day” of conservative optimism.

Society ignored what King wanted, social and economic equality. The tradeoff for going a bit too far was a national holiday in his honor. Assassination doesn’t seem like a fair reward. Eternal sympathy for ethereal empathy. More a concession than a confession. More gout than guilt. After all this, just a day off from work…really?

What do you think King would say about that? Moreover, which do you think he’d prefer, a holiday (that many people don’t honor anyway) or the justice for all that he gave his life for. That’s no brainer…for him, I mean. Not for us. American society still hasn’t figured it out.

One thing that we have concluded over the past forty years… America is not going to indict itself for social and economic inequality, both of which are greater now than when King was alive. What we do know is that the conservative spin machine will use King to rationalize inequality.

Conservatives now quote King more than black people do. So we say we now live in a society that one is judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. We know it’s not true, but it sounds good.

Today, we try to be everything to everybody. We want to be colorblind because we’ve been told colorblind is the thing to be. We want to be progressive because the progressives are calling out the injustices in society…but we want to be invited to the elite cocktail parties and social events too. We are now a society of pseudo-activists and engage in faux protest. Like fake furs, we wear cheap but symbolize a political correctness on some minute level. We posture King and prostitute his memory wearing t-shirts in parades and attending chicken dinners. We run from the very things he stood for. We run from economic subjugation. We run from the poverty discussion. We run from police abuse and desperate imprisonment. We run to the moneychangers and from equity.

We just run…from ourselves and our social reality.

We run from race, and race discussion, like we used to run from the Klan. Now we play golf with them on Fridays and beg them for economic reciprocity (contracts). We were less than one percent of government contracts when King was living, and we’re less than one percent of government contracts now — in some areas (like mass transit contracting, oil/petroleum pipelining and transport).

Black people are nearly invisible in the labor force. Just like King would’ve wanted it, right? Somewhere along the way, society got it twisted. We, the black community, got it twisted. Now, we’re just twisted. Twisted about King, his memory, what he stood for.

anthony samad

Social justice has been reconstructed. And we get a day off without really dealing with what King really lived for, or more importantly—what he died for.

Justice can’t be everything to everybody, but now it’s very little to anybody.

It certainly isn’t what King stood for. But we have parades to remember him.

Woo-Hoo…

Anthony Asadullah Samad

Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D., is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum (www.urbanissuesforum.com) and author of the upcoming book, REAL EYEZ: Race, Reality and Politics in 21st Century Popular Culture. He can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com or on Twitter at @dranthonysamad.

However, I want to remind you of January 1, 1990, 22 years ago, when “Only 10 minutes after it started, the 101st Tournament of Roses Parade came to a momentary halt when 14 AIDS activists staged a sit-down protest on Colorado Boulevard in front of the Spirit of America’s ‘First Symbols of Freedom’ float. At 8:20 a.m., the protesters emerged from the crowd of spectators on the sidewalk and unfurled a banner…members of the crowd booed and jeered the protesters.” (Los Angeles Times, Hector Tobar)

The protest action was the work of SANOE, Stop AIDS Now Or Else.

Speaking out recently, Glassell Park resident Helene Schpak, one of those arrested, said, “I’m so pleased, Carl, that you appreciate the historic importance of this action. 22 years ago there was no asking permission from the Rose Parade officials to allow us to tag along at the end of their parade to make a statement about people dying of AIDS complications. The climate at the time put a cold chill on even mentioning HIV/AIDS. With so many lives already lost and more on the line, SANOE felt compelled to place the issue where people couldn’t avoid it.”

SANOE protesters at 1990 Rose Parade

As Tobar wrote, “Pasadena police and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies moved quickly on the protesters, dragging them from the parade route to a nearby side street. The demonstrators had linked themselves together with a single 30-foot chain, and the nine men and five women slid and bounced heavily along the ground as the officers pulled them from the street.”

Times have changed!

In a historic decision, the 2012 Board of Directors of the Tournament of Roses invited AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) to have an official float in the parade! It was the first float in the 123-year history of the parade to focus on HIV/AIDS. The float was named “Our Champion” in honor of two-time Academy Award-winning actress Elizabeth Taylor for her nearly three decades of advocacy for people with HIV/AIDS. Taylor, who died March 23, 2011, co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR) in 1985 and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF) in 1993.

“Our Rose Parade float is a tribute to someone who was more than a film star – Elizabeth Taylor was a real hero,” said Michael Weinstein, President of AHF, the 25-year old organization which provides medical services to more than 124,000 people in 26 countries. The float won the “Queen’s Trophy.”

(The 2012 Rose Parade was seen by approximately 50 million Americans and millions of others in more than 200 international territories and countries.)

Grants from ETAF provided AHF’s “Ithembalabantu” Clinic (Zulu for “people’s hope”) in Durban, South Africa, free lifesaving antiretroviral treatment for AIDS at a time when treatment was not widely available in poor countries. Just as she had in the earliest days, Ms. Taylor became an international leader in the fight against AIDS.

According to a 1990 SANOE press release, “Organizers of today’s emergency action expressed renewed commitment to spur federal action that would end the AIDS Epidemic. ‘We have been fighting ignorance and denial on the AIDS front line for most of ten years now,’ said Gunther Freehill, one of those arrested this morning. Today, on the threshold of a new decade, Americans can neither ignore the terrible toll AIDS has taken, nor deny the urgency of preventing more deaths. We can make 1990 the year that ends AIDS.”

Two years later, in 1992, the first “cocktails” (combination drug therapies) for fighting HIV were introduced. In 1995, new types of protease inhibitors became available and death rates due to AIDS plummeted in the developed world. Schpak said, “It’s my strong opinion that the covert actions of SANOE supported the overt actions of ACTUP and together they helped push cocktail therapies onto an accelerated path toward clinical trails.”

“AHF’s float served as a reminder that Ms. Taylor bravely stood up for people living with HIV/AIDS at an important moment in history. The AIDS epidemic is still not over,” warned Weinstein, “there remains much work to be done.”

Finishing, Weinstein said, “This year, the theme of the Rose Parade is ‘Just Imagine.’ In honor and remembrance of Elizabeth, let’s imagine and work toward a world without AIDS.”

Carl Matthes

Mollie Thomas

Lesbians have moved one step closer to becoming an even stronger presence in mainstream American culture! Two openly gay women, Jenelle Hutcherson, 26, of Long Beach and Mollie Thomas, 19, of West Hollywood were the first openly gay contestants in the 60-year history of the recent Miss USA California state pageant. (Other lesbians forging the new American culture include Ellen DeGeneres, whose daily 3 p.m. show on NBC is Middle-America’s feel-good moment. And Rachel Maddow, with her MSNBC cable news program airing each week-day at 6 p.m.)

Set apart in age, style and background, both Hutcherson and Thomas were approached by pageant recruiters to participate in the beauty contest. Entrepreneur and huckster supreme Donald Trump, who runs the Miss California USA Pageant, had his office phone Hutcherson and invite her to compete on the statewide level.

Openly gay Keith Lewis, co-executive of the state pageant, said “(the pageant) will emphasize individuality and push the envelope even further. This year’s event will be bigger and reflect the progressive attitudes of the contestants.”

In addition, Hutcherson hopes to be the first ever contestant to have the crown placed on top of a Mohawk. She wore board shorts for the Miss Long Beach pageant and a tuxedo for evening wear. “That Miss California crown would sure look nice atop the ‘hawk,’” Hutcherson said.

Thomas told Huffington Post pre-pageant that she never really had an official “coming out,” saying her family has always been aware, supportive, and progressive. “My family is so open and accepting that I knew very young who I was and who I loved.” She continued, “Initially I wondered if the organizers and other contestants would accept or ostracize me, but I’ve been fine.”

Both women cite a strong desire to work with youth and give back to the LGBT community.

Jenelle Hutcherson

How times have changed!.

Remember Carrie Prejean, California’s winning contestant in the 2009 Miss America? Openly gay pageant judge Perez Hilton popped Prejean this question, “Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit. Why or why not?”

Answered the sweetly pious Prejean, “Well, I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you very much.”

Prejean’s answer was greeted with boos followed by applause. Reactions went viral, stirring up a hornet’s nest of controversy. This afforded Trump, the 21st century’s P.T. Barnum*, the opportunity to call a news conference where he delivered his famous shtick: “You’re fired.”

The reaction to the pageant participation of Mollie and Jenelle has been positive while covering a wide spectrum of attitudes regarding women being involved “in a stupid silly thing like a beauty contest.” Also, while some don’t like that the two young women are “selling-out gay sensibilities,” others feel that pageants degrade and sexploit women, promote eating disorders and superficiality. However, no one can dispute the fact that American culture now includes the acceptance of open lesbians into beauty pageants. Congrats, Mollie and Jenelle.

As it turned out, Natalie Pack (Miss Hoag Hospital) was the winner of the state pageant in Indian Wells, on January 7 and will go on to compete in Miss USA, the national pageant. A live ABC broadcast will emanate from Theatre for the Performing Arts in Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas on January 14, 2012. All 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico will compete for the prestigious title.

*There is no proof that Phineas Taylor Barnum ever said, “there’s a sucker born every minute.” He did, however, say that “every crowd has a silver lining,” and acknowledged that “the public is wiser than many imagine.”

Carl Matthes

And, to borrow Newt Sr.’s phraseology, Santorum is swinging the whip of right-wing social engineering. He is advocating forced divorce!

The Census Bureau estimates that there are 131,729 same-sex married couples in the United States. This figure would actually be much higher if all willing gay men and lesbians (and if the stigma of homosexuality were removed) could actually marry in all of America’s jurisdiction. (Are you listening President Obama?) Still, more than a quarter of a million gay people are married to one another. In California, which allowed same-sex marriage for a only a few months, 36,000 gay men and lesbians passionately swooned to the alter!

Appearing recently with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, Santorum was trying to whip up support for a constitutional amendment codifying marriage at the federal level as a relationship between a man and a woman. Said the fast talking Rick, “I think marriage has to be one thing for everybody. We can’t have 50 different marriage laws in this country, you have to have one marriage law…” Of course he means everybody but gay men and lesbians.

That is not a new idea. However, a reasonable candidate would know that that’s a politically dead issue. In our nation, support for same-sex marriage has grown to 49% and another 25% of Americans support civil unions.

Todd quickly asked, “What would you do with same-sex couples who got married? Would you make them get divorced?” Santorum snapped back, “Well, their marriage would be invalid!” When it comes to whips, Rick likes to swing.

Imagine, if there were to be a Constitutional amendment forbidding same-sex marriage, Santorum would destroy the families of a quarter of a million openly gay men and lesbians who’ve already established stable families through same-sex marriage. Their marriages would become invalid. Licenses pulled! A government-forced divorce!

The California Supreme Court has already ruled that the marriages of 36,000 gays and lesbians are legal and binding.

Obviously, Catholic Santorum sees no line between the political podium and the church pulpit.

And, Rick, after you make gay men and lesbians divorce and stop future same-sex marriages, why not go further?

Why not invalidate and ban Muslim marriages? And for smaller religious groups like Baha’i, which preaches the rather left-wing notion that, “all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers,” why let them have marriages? And, don’t stop there, since the Catholic Church only recognizes its own marriages, why shouldn’t the Constitution recognize only Catholic marriages? And with that, you could really differ from Mormon Romney.

You’ve got a lot of work ahead, Rick!

And, what are you waiting for President Obama? As with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” your presidential leadership would make a difference.

Archaeologists run into older fossils the deeper they dig. And, so it is in the Republican candidate’s barrel. The deeper you dig, the more fossilized attitudes of prejudice and discrimination you find. Santorum is just one more failed fossilized politician.

Carl Matthes