Gay voters should blame themselves for Prop 8, not black Californians.
Smart LGBT leaders knew our campaign couldn’t make Prop 8 a “gay” issue.
Must we appear as churchgoers or nationalists to deserve our rights?
In part, Prop 8 failed because of inept LGBT leadership.
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By Allen Roskoff
Friday, August 01, 2008
Though the 2009 mayoral campaign is barely under way, two prospective candidates have already indicated that they would keep Ray Kelly as police commissioner.
The only good thing I can say about that proposal is that it’s better than Kelly getting elected as mayor.
Reliable polling shows that Kelly would be a formidable candidate, and his election would transform us into a total police state.
According to an article from The New York Sun, Republican (and former Democrat) John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of Gristede’s, wants Kelly on his team. Catsimatidis was a donor to Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a right-wing nut, on his re-election bid last year.
Bloomberg’s Deputy Mayor for the City Council, also known as City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, says the city would be lucky to have Kelly stay and calls him an “exceptional police commissioner.”
Two other major candidates were more politic and circumspect in their responses and gave no indication that they would keep Kelly on.
A spokesperson for Congressman Anthony Weiner says the lawmaker thinks Kelly has done a good job and has served the country well.
City Comptroller William Thomson has said he is open to reappointing Kelly—and had nothing more to say.
It is unfortunate that the media generally do not ask Kelly probing questions.
Ray Kelly has severely harmed the lives of countless New Yorkers, gay and otherwise. Kelly continues to defend the illegal mass arrests and surveillance that occurred in New York City four years ago during the Republican National Convention.
Those arrested included a great number of LGBT activists. Kelly’s war on drugs has made New York City the marijuana arrest capital of the world.
The problems in the police department are many: harassment of minority youth, use of excessive force including needless shootings (does the name Sean Bell sound familiar?), the disregard of determinations by the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, and the obsession with crime statistics at the expense of civil liberties—to name just a few.
I saw the musical revival of “Hair” last night at Shakespeare in the Park with my friend Will Shields. I realized then just how badly Kelly offends my progressive sensibilities. I find it sad that a once progressive city can accept his assault on our civil liberties. He stands for everything we anti-war activists found repulsive and stood up against in the ’60s.
The police department’s constant harassment of gay nightlife establishments is another matter of great importance to our community. Several large nightspots that had planned parties for Gay Pride were closed down that very weekend even though the police could have chosen any other weekend.
What do these closings say to people from all over the country who had planned their trips and paid for their tickets well in advance? Why is this homophobic behavior from Kelly’s department tolerated?
And needless to say, we haven’t heard a word from Gay Officers Action League (GOAL). My question is, What has GOAL done for our community?
Out Assemblymember Deborah Glick publicly demanded a crackdown on nightlife establishments and then thinks she is off the hook simply because she consented to write a letter complaining that the raids took place on Gay Pride weekend.
I could throw up.
She is in part responsible for the raids that took place.
This administration has systematically used the criminal justice system to interfere with the First Amendment.
Kelly should have been the target of a civil rights complaint by the U.S. Justice Department. Instead, he is treated like a hero, supposedly because the city has not had another terrorist attack.
Notwithstanding Kelly’s calls for more police hiring, the police department’s budget must be bloated since the department has resources to harass Critical Mass bicyclists each month, employ helicopters over Central Park (disrupting the quiet that should prevail), outnumber protesters at many events, and engage in undercover drug wars in our parks.
How can we justify devoting more money to sting operations in our nightlife establishments, to tricking bartenders into serving undercover cops, to using phony IDs to establish violation of drinking age laws, or to hunting down a pot smoker in some corner of a club and blaming the hapless club owner for allowing the smoking of weed?
Reform of the NYPD is absolutely necessary, and to achieve that, Kelly must leave. Our civil liberties are at stake. Unfortunately Republicans like John Catsimatidis and Christine Quinn (oops, someone just told me that she is a registered Democrat) think otherwise.
HRC and National Dem Conference
Congratulations to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for abruptly pulling out of his planned keynote speaker role at July 26’s Human Rights Campaign gala in San Francisco.
Brad Luna, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, said, “Let us never forget that we are still a community of brothers and sisters standing as one to advance equality for all GLBT people.”
I beg to differ: Those in the hierarchy of the HRC are not my brothers and sisters. They are a cult, and I want nothing to do with the likes of them. Progressives LGBT people would do well to see them close their doors and revive what used to be a progressive LGBT movement. In future columns, I will look at the tone-deaf, self-indulgent New York individuals serving on their board of directors, board of governors and their greater New York steering committee.
In our next issue we will examine which LGBT delegates going to the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this month will serve us well and which will serve themselves well. Some will represent our community, and some will fawn over opponents of marriage equality, such as Sen. Charles Schumer. Most are there for serious business, but others would attend the opening of a can of tuna.… Stay tuned.
Allen Roskoff is a longtime gay rights activist and co-author and lobbyist for the nation’s first gay civil rights bill. He is now president of the citywide Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club. He can be reached at aroskoff@aol.com.
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