Queers Not Cheers!

Does anyone else wonder what happened to the ACTIVISTS! I'm sure they're out there but where? All I see for queer/GLBT activism are overpriced fundraisers by (let's look as NORMAL as we can) HRC. Silent auctions, e-petitions, bourgeois lunchons and sad stories are doing something, but can't we do more?
Any one remember Queer Nation?
Any one remember ACT-UP?
Where are the in your face activists? Where are the folks who care enough to take some risks & not leave out our working class brothers & sisters? Enough with biding our time & schmoozing for equality. Let's get active!
* Like NOT attending our hetrosexual friends & famalies legal weddings.
*Asking our straight legally married friends to burn their marriage licences until ALL people are allowed to marry.
*How about long term partnered queer couples who do wish to be legally married to file their taxes as married.
*How about NOT purchasing from ANY organization whatever that has fiscally supported anti-gay legislations.

What happened to the kiss ins, the in your face visibility? What if we queers went to Salem & sat at the Capital until they removed us! And when they took us away more queers came. What if queers in every state did this to their own local governments? The world would have to listen. We can't just keep asking nicely if we could pretty please be treated equally. Mabye we're not fighting because we think were too small a minority. Or that our cause isn't as important. But this isn't just about us. This is about the queers who are jailed, beaten & killed in other countires for mere suspicion of being gay. Is that OKAY to you?

Maybe we don't care because we have assimilated the mainstream heterosexual ideal. Get rich, spend money, buy things we don't really need, complain we have too much stuff, have babies, own at least 3 cars & 2 homes & forget the rest of the world. Oh sure we can spend $100 here, even $500 there, to a homogenized queer dinner, with a key note address by some queer friendly celebrity who got paid $10,000 to speak to us. But otherwise, fuck equal rights cuz SOMEDAY we might get the voters to like us.

I'M SICK OF IT!
WHEN WILL WE START FIGHTING AGAIN! Martin went to jail. Gandhi went to jail. Rosa went to jail. Emma Goldman went to jail.
So if they put your ass in jail for doing your taxes the TRUE way...GO! If they put you in jail for not leaving the Capital until you are 100% an equal citizen...GO! And if your friends don't like you asking for them to NOT participate in a corrupt system of inequality...Go find folks who will support freedom.
FUCK operation iraqi freedom
We need Operation Freedom for Everyone! Screw this rah rah were normal & just like you only we like our own gender, way of trying to get equality.

Let's do Something.

Oh & here's a thing from BRO about how our lovely system is using our homo tainted monies to fund an anti-gay school.

The Facts on Portland Public Schools' Tax Payer Funded, Anti-Gay Church-Sponsored School


Yesterday we told you about plans to open an alternative high school proposed by the anti-GLBT Mount Olivet Baptist Church (one of the primary backers of Ballot Measure 36) on the Jefferson High School Campus in the fall of 2006 with the support of public funds.

Since then, several of you have contacted us looking for more information. Others have been left confused when told by school administrators that Mt. Olivet is not affiliated with the school. Here are the facts. Judge for yourself.

• Mt. Olivet first approached Portland Public Schools in 2004 about opening the "Academy of Character and Ethics" as a charter school, with the intent of housing the school in church facilities. At that time, the charter was unanimously denied by the Portland Public School Board because the board did not believe the school was "ready." The Superintendent of Schools directed administrators to keep working with Mt. Olivet.

• Later, the church, spearheaded by Pastor Martin, formed a 501c3 organization to act as the administrative body of the school and recruited its own board of directors for the school.

• That organization applied for, and was granted, funding from E3, an alternative school funding organization supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Meyer Memorial Trust to encourage alternative education in public schools. On staff at that organization is Paula Kinney, a member of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church and the person who has now been selected to act as principal of the new school.

• In early March, the Portland Public School Board gave final approval to the school as an alternative school, ensuring it will also receive public funds and the Portland School Board encouraged the so-called "Academy of Character and Ethics" to co-locate at Jefferson High School.

When Basic Rights Oregon met with school administrators Thursday, we hoped our fears would be allayed and that we would be reassured by the facts. Instead, the more we learned, the more alarmed we got. Here's why:

• While the school district says the school will operate independently of the church,

Mt. Olivet Baptist Church states clearly on its own website that the school is their project:

• "During the summer of 2004, our application was approved by Oregon Small Schools Initiative to establish a small public high school. We received a grant and have begun the formal planning and development of the school, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2006."

• We learned from PPS officials that the school's board of directors has been assembled by Mt. Olivet and its leadership

• We also learned from PPS officials that Paula Kinney, the appointed principal for the so-called "Academy of Character and Ethics" is a member of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church.

• Paula Kinney will report solely and directly to the school's board of directors, which is predominately Mt. Olivet members, instead of reporting to PPS or its board of directors.

• And, when PPS suggested that leaders of the proposed school ought to hear our concerns, the person in charge according to them was none other that Rev. James Martin, the Pastor of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church.

This school is going to teach courses on "character and ethics". What type of ethics will be taught at a school with leadership whose values include the core value, according to Mt. Olivet's website: "Marriage is the permanent union of one man and one woman"?

We also want PPS to explain how GLBT parents or GLBT kids can feel assured that members of a known anti-GLBT organization will uphold the school's anti-discrimination policy or foster an academic environment that is safe and supportive for GLBT administrators, parents and students.

Finally, PPS acts as though this school is a done deal. We have urged them to put this school on hold until these significant concerns, and others related to the approval process itself, are addressed and the many very important questions related to this issue can be answered.



TELL PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS WHAT YOU THINK!

Send your letter of concern to:
Maxine Kilcrease, Assistant Superintendant of Schools
mkilcrease@pps.k12.or.us