National
National news in brief: March 18
Crystal Cathedral asks choir to sign anti-gay document, Texas Dem draws ire for hateful comments and more
Megachurch asks choir to sign anti-gay statement
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. ā Several choir members at Orange County’s Crystal Cathedral say they’re upset over a document they’ve been asked to sign that takes a strong stand against homosexuality, the Associated Press and other news outlets reported this week.
The “Crystal Cathedral Worship Choir and Worship Team Covenant” recently handed out to members states that they should commit to being Christians by following the Bible in every way, the Orange County Register reported Tuesday.
Former and current choir members say they are particularly offended by a statement in the document that refers to homosexuality. Long-time church members say this is the first time they have seen the cathedral take a firm stand against homosexuality and are disturbed by it, the AP reported.
“I understand that in an era where images of family relationship and personal sexuality are often confused, Crystal Cathedral Ministries believes that it is important to teach and model the biblical view,” the covenant reads. “I understand that Crystal Cathedral Ministries teaches that sexual intimacy is intended by God to only be within the bonds of marriage, between one man and one woman.”
Sheila Schuller Coleman, daughter of the founder and senior pastor of the megachurch, issued a statement saying the document is intended to “clarify expectations placed on them as ministry leaders.” Coleman also apologized for the pain the covenant has caused some choir members.
Don Neuen, the cathedral’s longtime choir director, left the church last year because he disagreed with Gretchen Schuller Penner’s view that choir members should be “vetted” to make sure they are good Christians, the Register reported.
John Charles, a spokesman for the cathedral, said this does not mean gays are banned from the choir.
“This contract is to educate choir members about what our church believes in,” he said.
Texas Dem official draws heat for comments
SAN ANTONIO, Texas ā The chairman of the Democratic Party for Bexar County, Texas, is drawing heat around the country for comments he made to a state newspaper last week that said gays were like polio-stricken children and Stonewall Democrats, a gay group, is akin to Nazis.
In immediate response, State Democratic Party Chair Boyd Richie called on Dan Ramos to resign his post. Texas Stonewall Democrats called on him to apologize or resign. And Bexar County Young Democrats urged him to apologize and resign āfor his profane display of bigotry.ā
Among his more incendiary comments to the San Antonio Current last week, Ramos said, āI liken [Stonewall Democrats] to the Tea Party ā the Tea Party and the fucking Nazi Party ā because theyāre 90 percent white, blue-eyed, and Anglo, and I donāt give a shit who knows that. Thatās the truth. Just like the blacks, theyāre strong. And thereās nothing wrong ā theyāre Americans ā but you canāt get your way just because youāre black.ā
Richie lambasted Ramosā ābigoted attitudes.ā Not only that, Richie blamed Ramos in a prepared statement for a āconstant state of turmoilā in the Bexar County party.
San Antonio State Representative Trey Martinez Fischer filed legislation last week that would give state party leaders power to remove county chairs for āincompetency or official misconduct.ā
Four N.Y. teens charged in fatal attack
NEW YORK ā Four teenagers have been charged in connection with an alleged bias attack in Queens that claimed the life of an 18-year-old man, NY1, a New York City-based news affiliate reported this week.
Police say it began around midnight Saturday after five teenagers crashed a birthday party that had been advertised on Facebook on 90th Street in Woodhaven.
Once inside, investigators say the teens smashed windows and yelled anti-gay slurs while flashing gang signs. They then chased Anthony Collao, 18, as he was leaving the party and beat him with a pipe.
Collao was put on life support, but died Monday at Jamaica Hospital.
The host of the party, who did not want his identity released, tells NY1 that while the suspects were not invited, they are known in the neighborhood.
He also says while he himself is gay, Collao was not and doesn’t understand why he was attacked.
Court papers identify the suspects as Luis Tabales, 16, Alex Velez, 16, Christophe Lozada, 17 and Nolis Ogando, 17.
They are being held on bail and face charges of gang assault, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon. As of late Tuesday, police were still looking for a fifth suspect. The hate crime task force is involved in the investigation.
National
TransTech Social removing barriers to trans success
āTechnology was the key to my freedomā
It is common knowledge that women earn 84% of the average worker. Less common knowledge? Trans women earn 60% of the average worker. Trans men and non-binary people come in at around 70%, while 16% of all trans people make less than $10,000 annually.Ā
E.C. Pizarro was lucky, and he knew it. He had a BFA in graphic design and had taught himself how to code. As a stealth trans man in a corporate job, he had access to a stable wage and good benefits. āPeople that do not have experiences in corporate America or with equitable employment don’t realize [these things] are privileges that a lot of people don’t have access to.ā
He wanted to give back and was gearing up to bring more volunteer work into his life by participating in a fraternity for trans men. When he went to a TransTech event and learned about the educational and career resources for trans people who face barriers to entering the workforce, he knew he had found his place.
At the event he met, Angelica Ross. Yes, that Angelica Ross, of āPoseā and āAmerican Horror Story.ā
Before she was Candy, Ross was a self-taught coder. She went from posing for an adult website to doing its back-end coding to teaching her trans siblings how to succeed in tech.Ā
āTechnology was the key to my freedom,ā Ross said in an interview with The Plug. āTechnology took me from being exploited on someoneās website to building my own websites and to building websites for other people and getting paid to do so.ā
Pizarro was impressed and wanted to help. āI went up to Angelica and I was like āHey, I’m a trans man. These are my skills. I’m down to volunteer and do any type of workāthe one caveat is that I’m stealth. You can’t tell anybody that I’m trans.āā
For four years, Pizarro helped from mostly behind the scenes, sometimes getting side-eyed since people thought he was a cis man in trans spaces. āI was still stealth as the Director of Social Media and Communications for the National Trans Visibility March in 2019,ā Pizarro says, chuckling a little.
But by that point, Ross ā who headlined the 2019 march ā was overextended trying to balance being a world-famous actress, advocate, and businesswoman.
She needed someone to step in as executive director of TransTech and looked to the group of dedicated volunteers. Pizarro was elected by his peers to take the reins of the organization.
This was a turning point for Pizarro. āI’m very passionate about tech and for me a small sacrifice of being open with my trans experience to liberate other trans people,ā he said. āI felt like if that’s something I got to do, then I’m gonna do it.ā
And he did it. The infrastructure Ross put together worked: with mentorship, education, community, and networking with trans-accepting employers, trans people were gaining financial security and independence.
So, Pizarro focused on expanding TransTech as widely as possible. āWe have grown exponentially over the last three years,ā he says. āWhen I took over in 2021, we had about 800 members based in the United States. Now we support over 6,700 members across 50 countries.ā
TransTech is filling a demonstrated need within specifically the trans community. New research from LGBT Tech found that 68% of transgender adults use the internet to find LGBTQ-friendly employment (compared to 38% of cisgender LGBTQ+ adults). More than 70% of all LGBTQ adults use the Internet to access educational content.
Accessibility is central to the TransTech programming. Despite the growth, everything remains free. āThereās no membership fee. All of our programming is free. All of the certifications and educational resources are free,ā Pizarro says.
They know the financial burden the trans community faces ā 29% of trans adults live in poverty. āIf weāre asking anyone to up-skill [for a cost] and these are the things they are going through, we are asking them to invest in their future versus their meal today.āĀ
Pizarro believes that accessibility is more than just making the training free. He wants the community to understand that tech work is something they are innately capable of doing.
āTransTech was built on the foundation of nontraditional tech. It’s not always coding. It’s graphic design. It’s social media. It’s video editing. It’s anything that uses a piece of technology and nowadays almost everything uses a piece of technology,ā says Pizarro.
He emphasizes to participants: āYou’re in tech and you don’t even know it,ā pointing out how many already utilize tech skills like marketing and monetization with their social media accounts.
Some people involved in the programming are nervous about entering the ātech worldā because of headlines about tech layoffs. He makes sure to emphasize that unlike in some other jobs, tech companies often pay generous severance packages, which gives employees ābreathing room.ā Pizzaro explains that āonce you have experience with one tech company, you can go someplace else and make a substantial amount of money as well.ā
While TransTech is designed for the gender-diverse community, the programming is open to everyone Pizarro explains. āWe just ask that you don’t be transphobic.ā (Or any of the other -phobics too, he says, listing them off.) He also emphasizes that this allows trans members who are not out to comfortably participate.
Pizarro wants everyone to understand that they donāt just belong in tech, but they make tech better. āTech is most profitable when you have diverse people building the tech and using the tech,ā Pizarro says. āThere is an intentional funding as well as support to diversity tech because they understand how that impacts the product.ā
He also reminds participants that they have developed transferrable skills in every part of their lives. āI like to tell people if you can manage your life as a trans person in the United States or anywhere you can manage a project.ā
District of Columbia
Fire by arson forced temporary shutdown of Glorious Health Club
Spa and art gallery catering to gay
men expects to reopen in August
In a little noticed development, D.C.ās Glorious Health Club, which bills itself as a spa, art gallery, and community center catering to gay men, was forced to close on May 19 after one or more unidentified suspects ignited a fire inside the club that D.C. fire department officials have ruled an act of arson.
Robert Siegel, the clubās owner, told the Washington Blade that he and investigators with the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department believe one or more yet unidentified suspects broke into the kitchen of the former warehouse building where the club is located at 2120 West Virginia Ave., N.E.
According to Siegel, investigators with the fire departmentās arson squad believe a flammable liquid was used to start the fire in the kitchen and in two other locations within the building.
āThree separate fires were started,ā Siegel said. āThey started one on a staircase and one on the upstairs storage area,ā he said in addition to the one in the kitchen. He said about 40 patrons were in the club at the time the fire started, and all were able to leave without injury.
Siegel said the fire caused $500,000 worth of damage to his building, with some of the damage caused ā understandably he said ā by fire fighters who had to rip open doors and break through the roof to gain access to the flames that engulfed parts of the interior of the building. He said he arranged for repair work to begin after the fire was extinguished.
āI expect weāll be reopening in about a month from now,ā he said. āAnd weāll be a bigger and better place.ā
Fortunately, Siegel said, most of the artwork and art exhibits located in the club were not damaged.
āIt was basically the kitchen, patio, and the roof,ā he said, adding that much of the solar panels he had on the roof were destroyed by the fire or by firefighters seeking to gain access to the building.
āAnd the fire was so hot it did structural damage to the roof,ā he said. āIt actually melted steel. Weāre talking about 50-foot steel beams that have to be replaced,ā he told the Blade. āThatās $100,000 right there.āĀ
Vito Maggiolo, a spokesperson for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, said the fire was āruled incendiary/arsonā and isĀ āunder active investigation.āĀ
It could not immediately be determined if one or more people responsible for the fire targeted the Glorious Health Club because itās a gay community establishment.
National
House Republicans propose steep cuts in federal AIDS budget
Advocacy groups say move would eliminate āEnding HIV Epidemicā initiative
The Republican-controlled U.S. House Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies approved a spending bill on June 26 that calls for cutting at least $419 million from federal AIDS programs that AIDS activists say would have a devastating impact on efforts to greatly reduce the number of new HIV infections by 2030.
The subcommitteeās proposed bill, which includes billions of dollars in cuts in a wide range of other federal health, education, and human services related programs, is scheduled to be considered by the full House Appropriations Committee on July 10. Officials with AIDS advocacy groups say they are hopeful that the full committee, like last year, will refuse to approve the proposed cuts in the AIDS budget.
The proposed GOP cuts would eliminate $214 million from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventionās HIV prevention programs, $190 million from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, and $15 million from the Department of Health and Human Services Secretaryās Minority HIV/AIDS Program.
Activists say the impact of those cuts would kill the federal governmentās Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, which among other things, calls for reducing the number of new HIV infections in the U.S. by 75 percent by 2025 and by 90 percent by 2030. The activists point out that ironically the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative was launched during the administration of President Donald Trump.
āInstead of providing new investments in ending HIV by increasing funding for testing, prevention programs, such as PrEP, and life-saving care and treatment, House Republicans are again choosing to go through a worthless exercise of cutting programs that the American people depend on and will never pass,ā said Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute.
āWhile we vigorously fight these cuts, we look forward to working with the entire Congress in a bipartisan fashion on spending bills that can actually become law,ā Schmid said in a statement.
Schmid noted that the bill also includes provisions known as āpolicy ridersā that would take away rights and protections from women, such as access to birth control and abortion, and for minorities, including LGBTQ people.
According to a statement released by the office of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who is the ranking minority member of the House Appropriations Committee, one of the policy riders would āblock the Biden administrationās policies to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.ā The statement says another policy rider would āprevent policies or programs intended to promote diversity, equality, or inclusion.ā
Most political observers believe the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate would also kill the GOP proposed policy riders and cuts in the AIDS budget if the full Republican-controlled House were to approve the budget bill passed by the appropriations subcommittee.
Rep, Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who serves as chair of the full House Appropriations Committee, released a statement on June 27 defending the subcommitteeās bill and its proposed spending cuts. āThe bill provides appropriate and fiscally responsible funding to ensure these departments can continue to perform their core missions while also acknowledging the fiscal realities facing our nation,ā he said.
āImportantly, the bill pushes back on the Biden administrationās out-of-touch progressive policy agenda, preventing this White House from finalizing or implementing controversial rules or executive orders,ā Cole said in his statement. āIt also preserves long standing bipartisan policy provisions protecting the right to life.ā
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