The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act is coming to a vote on the Senate floor this week and your support is needed to make sure that it passes. We urge you to make two phone calls, one to each senator that should take no longer that 45 seconds each.

There are reports of 300,000 letters and calls from right-wing groups trying to stop it. Anti-LGBT leaders like Focus on the Family’s James Dobson are referring to the bill as the “Pedophile Protection Act,” and calling it “utter evil.”

If you’ve never called Congress, it’s incredibly easy:

1. Call both of your senators and tell them to vote YES on the hate crimes bill. Call the switchboard at 202-224-3121 or use the following link to find your senator’s contact information: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

2. Most likely, one of your senator’s interns will answer and ask where you’re calling from and why. Inform the intern you’re calling to urge the Senator to vote for the Matthew Shepard Act (S. 909). Most calls-end right there. But if you like, you can add:

* Hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are on the rise.
* One out of every six hate crimes is because of the victim’s sexual orientation.
* Hate crimes have more than one victim. They are intended to create an atmosphere of fear and terrorize entire communities.

3. Hang up and call your other state senator

Thank you!!!!! PLEASE DO YOUR PART!

*This week are the A’s vs. Giants games. Last night they won 5-1. So I’m hoping for a sweep baby!

* Sunburns fucking suck.

*The current protests in Iran are fucking changing my life. Wow.

On May 30, many people met in the middle of California; Fresno more specifically to discuss the future of same-sex marriages and equal rights here in California after Prop 8 was upheld by the Supreme Court. It was to be a time of solidarity, celebration, and also protest. Unfortunately, at the same time here at the meeting- a young lesbian woman fell into a seizure..Here is the article written by the Associated Press below, with a current update. (Published 6/15/09)

FRESNO, Calif. — Civil rights groups are urging a hospital in central California to change its policies after employees briefly barred a lesbian from visiting her partner, who went into seizure at a gay marriage march.

The nonprofit system that runs the hospital says Orbin received good care and the hospital followed proper procedures.
got the article here

This is why we need to have equal rights for partners. Both heterosexual and homosexual. To deny someone the right to see their partner while in the hospital is despicable. I read the statement from the Fresno hospital and think “who the FUCK cares what kind of care she got?” This isn’t about the care she received, this is about that you did not let her partner COME INTO THE ROOM WITH HER. She could not see her! This angers me to no end. To deny someone the company and comfort that they so wish, is not PROPER procedure.

When I entered the ER, I was able to bring my boyfriend in at the time with me. I was 19 at the time, he 24. We weren’t living together. We hadn’t been dating that long. But he was able to come into the hospital room with me, and when I read this story- it makes me so upset to think I had taken advantage of “heterosexual privilege,” and was fully unaware of it.

I’m not heterosexual though. I’m a proud queer woman. Or bisexual, for those who really want to get technical. And I have been privileged and comforted by the system and have not faced this sort of discrimination before. IT MAKES ME SICK TO THINK THAT THIS HAPPENS. I know that it does, and it’s not necessarily denial that I’m stricken with. It’s the idea that even with things like “domestic partnerships” *and California’s ideologies for the most part- are more progressive.

But it’s that so many people came to Fresno to meet up for equality- and ironically enough, this Fresno hospital is now faced with DISCRIMINATION charges.

*(IF you throw the words “domestic partnerships” in my face, that’s bullshit. They are NOT equal. )

OUR WORLD IS FUCKING CHANGING.

*The Governor has proposed a cut of $80 million to the State Office of AIDS (In addition to MediCal, In Home Supportive Services, and Social Security Income).
*Also has proposed removing all non-ADAP general funds from the State Office of AIDS. Although this would jeopardize funding from the federal government, like the Ryan White Fund and CDC funding.
*35,000 Californians currently rely on California’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program, and Arnold has suggested a $12.3 million cut to said program.
*This cut would hurt and destroy programs like Early Intervention Programs, where persons will find out their status at a much earlier stage and rather than in an emergency room, paid by both public and private health systems.
*This eliminates The Needle Exchange Program, Education and Prevention programs, and services where testing and condoms can be given freely.
*This cut is far more costly in the long term rather than a short term cut.
*This cut also dismantles California’s actions and response to the AIDS epidemic more than 25 years ago.

It’s estimated that over 150,000 people in California currently are living with HIV. We see an estimation of 5000-7000 new HIV diagnoses each year. It is also estimated that 20% of people are currently living with HIV but do not know their status.

It just baffles my brain how really most western cultures are so negative towards transgender identity as a valid thing. And that people are born everyday who will grow up, or as a child, will come to realize and transition at one point in their lives. We see so many cultures that have been supportive, but just in understanding that its valid, and its completely accepted…
The fa’afafine
The Mahu
The Muxe
Indian Two-Spirit