Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Piece

Speaking to a fellow Cuban Democrat today he stopped and said I can’t talk about politics, my family is Republican and its useless and they get very angry. I wondered to myself since when do Democrats have a gag-order placed upon their mouths? Since when did intelligent debate become a bad thing?

Our country was founded upon democratic principles from ancient Greece where the beauty of debate at the Agora was a revered expression of intelligence and catalyst for progress. To debate calmly and intelligently using facts, only served to progress a society. False assumptions can be dispelled, incorrect facts can be clarified as lies. When we stop debating we cage our ideas however right or wrong, inside our minds and Democracy is as a result, degraded. When we don’t speak up they win, when we don’t call them out on their lies they win in rewriting reality to fit their version of it. So the next time a Republican starts to huff and puff and spew their lies forcing you to roll your eyes into acquiescence, stand up to their rants, debate intelligently (www.factcheck.org is a good place to start) and calmly no matter how loud they scream out their fabrications. The fact of the matter is, they and their policies have never been so wrong in our country’s history. Their party irresponsibly dug us into this huge deficit, trickle-down economics don’t work and never have, deregulation of Wall Street and getting us into two expensive wars we should’ve never gotten into caused this great recession, they are NOT fiscally conservative especially when it comes to military spending, our country was founded by separation of Church and State, gay rights are human rights, banning abortion doesn’t stop abortions any more than prohibition stopped alcohol use, ignoring the need for universal health care only adds to our deficit by requiring coverage of uninsured through Medicare and bankrupts our citizens, we cannot continue to ignore the 12 million undocumented workers living in this country, nor can we deport them all.

Our president elect has been incredibly effective, more effective than any other president in my adult life. He stopped us from falling into a “depression” that by all accounts we were inevitably crashing into. Our recovery is happening and however shaky, things are better, even though the obstructionists have tried their hardest for him to fail. If you don’t believe it, look at Europe which is still reeling from and falling back into a recession.

It should never be just about Democrat or Republican, it should be about who has the best ideas and most intelligent vision of moving our country forward and right now, it happens to be a Democrat. When our country wins, we all win. If we are not united in that goal we all fail. So the next time a Republican tries to bully you into silence, stand up and say "You really don't have a leg to stand on, you voted for George Bush twice!"

It’s no longer about two different ways of dealing with our country’s issues, it’s about whether or not we move forward or go back to the same old ways that weren’t working and were definitely unsustainable.

And for the Cubans in Miami still loyal to the Republican party because of the Bay Of Pigs fracas, please move on..it was a long time ago and it was never America’s responsibility to free Cuba! The Republican led embargo has done absolutely nothing to foment change for over 50 years and it’s high time for a “change” on how we look at Cuba. The “change” we need in this country is not going to come from any one leader as much as the “change” in how active we are with the state of our affairs.

In the words of President Obama- "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

 ...silence does nothing

"GAY" is the new "BLACK"

While I am exhilarated by the election of our shiny, new president Obama, the first presidential candidate that has ever been vocal in his support for the gay community, on the flip side i've been brought down from my "high" at the realization that while we made one large step forward, some small religious extremist groups in this country have succeeded to yet again tarnish the American Dream for all in their efforts to create a faux, holy utopia without us "gays". That envisioned utopia used to be one without any blacks, latinos or anyone that wasn't purely American and white. Since these extremist groups realized long ago that goal was impossible, they have settled on an easier target for their holy war, "By golly. let's get them gays and fix this country."

These groups; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic organizations such as the Knights of Columbus (http://www.kofc.org/), the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Saint Andrews Alms fund, the National Organizaton for marriage http://www.nationformarriage.org/, and the American Family Association http://www.afa.net/, all non-profits and have all collected large sums of money from their followers to write discrimination into the books across our country.

Let's call a spade a spade, these folks are our Taliban or "Ameri-bans", governed by their fear of the modern world as the Taliban in the Middle East. It is their "Jihad" and their satisfaction will only come when they see no homosexuals in the public light by either curing them or pushing them so far into the closet that they are invisible again. The only thing is, who will be their next target for a holy war? Unwed mothers, single mothers, couples living together that don't want to marry? There will always be a target for them. Today the gays are the target who will they attack next?

Now what I find painfully ironic is the groups that have been mostly discriminated against in this country; latinos and blacks were the ones that poll numbers have shown, widely voted for these discriminatory measures which ultimately passed.

Gay is the new black! Although blacks and latinos don't like to call it discrimination, although it is wrapped up in a blanket of religion, it is still a pig in a blanket.

The late wife of Martin Luther King; Coretta Scott King said in a speech at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel in Chicago in 1998, “Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spreads all too easily to victimize the next minority group,” Mrs. King explained. We are currently in a civil rights movement in this country and it will only grow louder until we win our equality and legal protection. In the words of a gay protester in South Florida, "No more Mr. Nice Gay!".

Anti-LGBT marriage bans passed in Florida and Arizona, and in Arkansas voters voted to bar all unmarried people, LGBT or straight, from adopting children or serving as foster parents. California's proposition 8 passed as well, preventing any further marriages of same sex couples to take place, statewide.

But that's enough about "them" let's now focus on us, the positive, forward thinking, non fearful, challenge and adventure-loving Americans. What can we do to win this ideological war against hatred?

I'll take this opportunity to blog about a blogger;

It's about time that another individual rose from the ranks to lead my people (the gays) a la Harvey Milk, to a new level. This new leader is a blogger named Amy Balliett who happens to be a lesbian. She blogs to the world from Seattle and several weeks ago she wrote calling for a national day of protest against the passage of California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition 8. Her blog spread like a gay virus, soon after, more than one million people read the blog. One blog created history, on November 15th at exactly 1:30 p.m. EST, dozens of cities across this great country staged peaceful protests where thousands attended. Gays, straight allies, politicians, citizens of the US attended in solidarity. This was truly a grassroots campaign in every sense of the word. All started by the greatest invention ever created; the Internet and one person's vision. I've never been so proud to be gay and an IT Help Desk Manager at the same time.

The next big event that you can take part in is a Day Without a Gay on December 10th. http://daywithoutagay.org/ The time has come to really show the nation who we are and how much we contribute to it's growth and add to it's society. I am, we are citizens of the USA who deserve equal protections under the law!

We have a lot of work to do, DOMA (Defense of Marriage act) http://www.domawatch.org/index.php exists in 37 states in the US and it must be overturned just as the laws preventing women from voting and interracial marriages have been overturned in this country. History is on our side, you cannot continue to repress such a large group of human beings and expect them to just go away. We just need to better organize, focus on what is most important right now, maintain positivity (which has always been easy for us) and finally to speak out to everyone we know. Affect all of your circles of influence, instigate conversations on the topic and read up on the topics so you know what you are talking about. We cannot allow these small extremist and soon to be dinosaur groups of Ameri-bans in this country to take us back to the dark ages. We will overcome this! We will KEEP ON RISING! (queue music now)


Gay is the New Black video documentary

http://video.newsweek.com/#?t=4122447001&l=2269776001

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Positive highlights of our recent advances and a message from Joe Solomnese, President of the HRC (Human Rights Campaign).

We increased the ranks of pro-equality lawmakers in both the House and the Senate. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), ringleader of the campaign to write discrimination into the U.S. Constitution, was soundly defeated. Jared Polis (D-CO) became the first openly gay man ever to be elected to Congress as a non-incumbent. Democrats took the New York State Senate, giving us our best chance ever to pass a same-sex marriage law in a legislature. We won the right to marry in Conneticut and marriages there have already begun.

With Obama in office we can now pass critical LGBT equality measures like the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act and begin unraveling the damage of the last eight years.

Moving forward, HRC will:
Continue our efforts to win incremental victories for relationship recognition, so that legally married lesbian and gay couples in Massachusetts and Connecticut have full standing under federal law; the same holds true for civil unions and domestic partnerships in places like New Hampshire, Vermont and Oregon.

As Obama said last night, “That's the true genius of America – that America can change.”

Yesterday, an unfortunate majority of voters stood with the most extreme and negative elements of society to deny the rights of loving and committed gay and lesbian couples. But it’s not the first time that has happened to us, and it won’t be the last.

"It doesn’t change the fact that we are married. It doesn’t change the fact that we have families. Make no mistake. We are bowed, but not discouraged. We are sad, but not disheartened. We grieve, but not as those who are without hope. "

Joe Solmonese President http://www.hrc.org/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a couple of easy ways you can help with a click: sign the Anger into Action Declaration here: http://www.kintera.org/c.qkIWKaMZIxF/b.4746361/k.29E1/Anger_Into_Action_Declaration/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx
Over 200,000 people have already signed the pledge—and thousands more are signing every day. Even non-Californians are signing the pledge in solidarity. If you'd like to sign, click here:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51024&id=15119-6248121-aS9KyPx&t=2

After you've signed, be sure to share with your friends and family, post to your Facebook page, and get the word out.

Sign a petition to overturn ammendment 2 in Florida:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/amendment2/

Keith Olbermann's passionate plea to the religious right in this country:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVUecPhQPqY