Published: March 31st, 2012 09:58 PM
Last Modified: March 31st, 2012 09:59 PM
There is no justification for discrimination against law-abiding, contributing members of the community. It does not matter whether you personally approve of their sex, color, religion, marital status, age, physical or mental abilities or country of origin. This is a set of values that did not come quickly or easily to the United States of America, but over time, and through the diligent, conscientious and oftentimes heroic efforts of average Americans, and frequently in the face of bitter opposition over decades or even centuries, we got there.

But the job is not yet done, at least not in Anchorage. On Tuesday, you will have the chance to move us a step closer to ending unjustified discrimination against a minority of our citizens.
Proposition 5 on the municipal ballot will ask whether we should prohibit discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender identity. We hope and expect the community will answer with a resounding yes.
The individual character of people is what matters, not whom you know, what your parents did or how you look. If you can honorably carry your responsibility as a citizen, and not cause trouble for others, then what you do with the rest of your life is your own business.
If we all could live up to that ideal, prejudice would have no place and there would be no need for anti-discrimination laws. Unfortunately, something deeply embedded in human nature too often leads people to fear, and to reject, those who are different simply because of their difference.
Opponents of this measure, some with good intentions, have tried to make this seem a complicated question.

Is sexual orientation an innate human characteristic like sex or race? What if it is just a “lifestyle” choice? Why should that be protected from discrimination, they ask.
Is religious belief a choice? How about whether or not to get married? Or risking terrible injury in war? These are unquestionably lifestyle choices, so shouldn’t we feel free to discriminate against Baptists, single women or soldiers in wheelchairs?
What about freedom of religion? Shouldn’t you be able to discriminate against people if rejecting them is a tenet of your religious belief? Many of us are old enough to remember when the Bible was used as justification to discriminate against black Americans in the South. God does not want the races to mix, we heard from many a pulpit. In some religions women are not the equals of men. Should those believers, in furtherance of their heartfelt convictions, be able to discriminate against your wife, your daughter?
The opponents say: But if we aren’t free to discriminate, then we are accepting people who live in a way we personally find disagreeable or immoral.
We believe your ability to approve or disapprove of your neighbors is and should be limited, just as their right to approve or disapprove of you should be. If they are law-abiding, contributing members of the community, they have met a reasonable standard and should merit your “acceptance,” at least to the extent of treating them like anyone else and leaving them alone to pursue their own happiness.
This is not a difficult question. How can it not be obvious and easy to understand that no one should have the right to deny a man a job, a woman a promotion or a couple an apartment solely because of who they have chosen to love?
Let’s do the right thing on Tuesday. Vote yes on Proposition 5.
BOTTOM LINE: Anchorage should ban discrimination based on sexual orientation

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/03/31/2401322/our-view-equal-rights.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/03/31/2401322/our-view-equal-rights.html#storylink=cpy

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska—Alaska is one of 12 states nationwide where neither the state nor any of its municipalities bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. That may change Tuesday—after a rancorous debate—as such a law heads to a vote here in Alaska’s largest city.

For the past four months, this city of 292,000 people has been engulfed in a bitter back-and-forth over Proposition 5, which would outlaw discrimination in employment and housing against gay men and lesbians, and also extend protections to people of transgender identity.

Anchorage Daily News

Foes of an Anchorage measure to ban bias against gay and transgender people.

 

Anchorage Daily News

Backers include Drew Phoenix, who was born female.

While Anchorage’s Assembly, as the city council is called, approved such an antidiscrimination ordinance in 2009, Mayor Dan Sullivan vetoed it that same year. That prompted supporters of the measure to take the unusual step of getting Proposition 5 on Tuesday’s ballot.

Campaigns for both sides have been saturating Anchorage’s airwaves with ads either pushing the measure or slamming it. Opponents say Proposition 5 ultimately could open the door to same-sex marriage statewide. Supporters say they are focused only on the measure in Anchorage and point out the proposal says nothing about gay marriage.

“It’s a hornet’s nest, and has gotten ugly,” said Jim Minnery, chairman of Protect Your Rights, a nonprofit group that is leading the fight against Proposition 5.

Trevor Storrs, a spokesman for the One Anchorage Campaign, a nonprofit backing Proposition 5, accused Mr. Minnery’s group of “dehumanizing” gay and transgender people through a TV ad campaign.

In the ads, a cartoon figure of a man with hairy legs and stubble on his face is seen wearing a dress and lipstick and going into a women’s bathroom, eliciting screams. Another man, also in dress, is shown applying for a job as a day-care worker and walking hand in hand with a toddler.

The ad campaign “just encourages hate and violence,” Mr. Storrs said.

Mr. Minnery defended the ads. “The language in the [proposed] law is vague and this is what could happen,” he said.

Tony Wagner, regional field director for the Human Rights Campaign, a nonprofit gay-rights advocacy group in Washington D.C., said that while such antidiscrimination moves can generate controversy, the Anchorage campaign is among the more rancorous. He added that it is highly unusual for supporters to have to go through a local ballot initiative to pass such protections.

“This is one of the most unusual campaigns I’ve seen,” Mr. Wagner said.

A poll released last week by Dittman Research & Communications of Anchorage showed Proposition 5 winning by a margin of 50% to 41%, with 9% of respondents undecided. The independent poll surveyed 500 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4%.

If Proposition 5 passes, Anchorage would join more than 160 cities or counties nationwide that have local laws banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, about double the number from five years ago, according the Human Rights Campaign. Omaha, Neb., and South Bend, Ind., passed similar protections earlier this year.

A number of other municipalities protect gays and lesbians against bias but don’t include transgender people.

Proposition 5 has become an issue in the mayoral race here, which also will be decided Tuesday. Mr. Sullivan, a Republican seeking a second term, said he vetoed the antidiscrimination ordinance because there was no evidence of such discrimination.

“To this day, I still have not seen anything to document there is a problem,” said Mr. Sullivan.

But dozens of gay men, lesbians and others testified at 2009 public hearings about facing discrimination in housing and jobs. Drew Phoenix, a transgender man, said his application to rent an apartment in Anchorage in 2009 was rejected by three landlords after the landlords learned he was born a girl.

“There was nothing I could do about it, no place I could go,” said Mr. Phoenix, 53, managing director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, which supports Proposition 5.

Paul Honeman, an independent who is running against Mr. Sullivan, said he hopes his support of Proposition 5 will help overcome Mr. Sullivan’s advantage of being an incumbent.

“There are some bigoted, small-minded people, unfortunately,” said Mr. Honeman, an Anchorage assemblyman and retired city police officer. “That’s why we need laws.”

The Dittman poll found Mr. Sullivan leading Mr. Honeman 56% to 35% among registered voters.

Posted on Friday, 30 March 2012 by Bent Alaska

by RJ Haywood

RJ Haywood was raised in the Anchorage Baptist Temple, where he once underwent their attempt to exorcise “the demon of homosexuality” from him. He survived and now lives happily as a gay man in Anchorage, with a message for Anchorage voters: Yes on 5.

RJ was previously interviewed in-depth about growing up in the Anchorage Baptist Temple in the April 2010 issue of Identity’s NorthView; you can also read the interview “Breaking Free from ABT: One Man’s Journey” on Bent Alaska.

I am a 32 year old gay man who lives in Anchorage Alaska. It took many years for me to come out of the closet. I told my mother when I was 13. To this day I am so thankful that her response was a positive one. It was probably one of the only things that gave me the courage to continue on despite every obstacle that I faced growing up.

I was raised by my father and step-mother in a very religious home. We were in church every time the doors were open. I was also home schooled. I was raised in Talkeetna until I was eleven so my social peer group was very small.

My family moved to Anchorage in 1991 and joined the Anchorage Baptist Temple. As we always did, my family threw themselves into involvement with the church: Sunday school, two services on Sunday, Tuesday visitation, Wednesday night service, Thursday Bible study, Awana’s, Open gym and more. My father and step-mother taught Sunday school, drove the bus to church on Sundays, volunteered and gave service in the church whenever they could. They were leaders in basically every facet of church life that they could be. My siblings and I attended Anchorage Christian Schools which meant that, besides sleeping I was actually in the church more than I was at home most days.

From the time I can remember I always knew that I was different than my brothers. I always had more in common with my sister in the things that we enjoyed. My step-mother explained that it was only because I was left-handed. I always knew that it was more but because of the way that I was raised the possibility that I was gay had never occurred to me. This all changed due to one sermon that Dr. Prevo delivered one Sunday night.

I actually remember it quite clearly. I was sitting in the pew like every service. Dr. Prevo had decided to do a sermon that night on the evils of homosexuality and what good Christians need to do to guard themselves against the tricks and recruiting techniques of gay people. For the first time in my life what a gay person was clicked in my head. I knew that it was the reason that I was different. I knew that it was the reason the affection that I felt towards my male friends was different than they way they interacted with each other.

Over the next couple months several things started happening. The messages of hate and intolerance that were constant against gay people started weighing heavy on me. I realized that the messages against gay people were against me. I had been taught my entire life that homosexuals and sodomites were perverse and terrible people. The way that the church always spoke about gay people started to affect me negatively. I didn’t want to go to church anymore. I did not want to go to a Christian school. My entire life basically consisted of being surrounded by people who thought I was evil. Anchorage Baptist Temple began to poison my soul.

I had a hard time dealing with myself. My morals told me that pedophilia, and drugs, and promiscuity were all bad things, but I had been told my entire life that these were things that went hand in hand with being a homosexual. I didn’t want to accept the fact that to be who I truly was I would have to a bad person. I became suicidal. I left my family home and spent some time at Covenant House. I eventually returned to my father’s home.

It all came to a boiling point when I was 13 years old. I started to act out both at home and at school. My father and his wife say that they had no idea what was going on with me. I am sure they were confused. I had told them that I refused to go to church and I refused to go back to that school. This ended up with my father locking me in a room and I proceeded to kick down the door. I was arrested for Malicious Destruction of Property and was placed into state custody. I spent some time in Covenant House and Laurel Shelter.

It was around this time on a visit with my mother that I came out to her. She said she had always known and loved me anyway. I spent the next few years in foster homes and bouncing around between homes. I tried when I was 19 to regain a relationship with my father. At this time my stepmother took me back to Anchorage Baptist Temple for a session of Deliverance, which when broken down is an exorcism to try and remove the demon of homosexuality within me. It was also around this time that I started to gain a very strong gay support group that helped me free myself from my father and encouraged me to avoid dealing with his church at all costs. I learned that unlike what I was taught by Dr. Prevo, the gay community was caring and loving and gracious and supportive. In fact, the lust-filled, child-hurting monsters that I had been taught led the community did not exist. It was simply a group of people who helped each other and the community through fundraisers,and family dinners, and kindness.

Since then I have been incredibly involved within the gay community in Anchorage through politics and fundraising. I work in a gay bar and I am lucky enough to have a support system around me that cares for me and supports who I am. I have worked in situations where I have been discriminated against by heterosexual employers because of my sexual orientation. Thankfully, I am blessed enough to be in situations where it no longer happens to me, but this doesn’t mean it does not happen. It happens to those I know.

The point of my letter is this. My mother always knew that I was gay. If you ask her she will tell you that she suspected when I was three. I believe my father and step-mother also knew very early. They knew when I was young. They had odd conversations with me. They had fear written on their faces whenever I wanted to do anything that was perceived effeminate or not explicitly masculine was obvious.

So to vote yes on Prop. 5 has a completely different meaning for me. I think of the children who are growing up in this city right now; who are becoming teenagers and young adults. The dialogue in this city is very anti-gay. They hear the words of ministers and city leaders telling lies about what it is to be gay or transgendered. I think of myself and how much healthier and safer it would have been to live within a city that I knew at least considered me to be an equal citizen.

That is what Proposition 5 means to me.

Voting yes tells all of those out there who were born this way this:

-You are valid

-You are an equal citizen, and

-if you can survive what you were raised in, you too can have a voice and be safe from discrimination.

My mom knew. Moms always know. Are you a mom? Are you conflicted about this vote because your son is gay? Are you related to someone who is gay or lesbian or transgender? You know what Dr. Prevo is saying is wrong. The bible commands us to love.

Vote yes on 5 for your son.

Vote yes 5 for your daughter.

Vote yes on 5 for your cousin.

Vote yes on 5 for your aunt or uncle.

Vote yes on 5 for your neighbor.

So Vote for the children, Vote for the future, Vote for Equality. Vote YES on 5.

RJ Haywood

Author’s note: This letter may be used in whole without consent. If any part of this letter is used without the complete transcript, and without the authors permission, permission is not granted. If, like Jim Minnery of Alaska Family Council, you can’t help yourself from twisting peoples words and breaking God’s commandment not bearing false witness, I can’t stop you.

Editor’s note: RJ wrote to us, “This was not easy to share, but my hope is that someone will read this and their heart will be changed to be more compassionate or care for those around them a little more. Please feel free to publish my email address in case someone out there needs someone to talk to.” RJ’s email address is ariesbear907@gmail.com.

Campaign reports filed this week show supporters of Proposition 5, a ballot measure to extend anti-discrimination protections to gay, lesbian and transgender people in Anchorage, are raising far more campaign money than their opponents. The proposition is on the municipal election ballot to be voted on Tuesday, April 3.

Through March 30, One Anchorage, the group backing the proposition, has raised $341,000. That compares to a total of about $70,000 by Protect your Rights – Vote No on Prop 5, the group opposing the measure.

So far One Anchorage has spent about $268,000. As of Friday, it reported having roughly $74,000 remaining. Protect Your Rights has spent about $60,000, with about $12,000 left in its account.

Much of the money has been spent on radio, television and Internet advertising, as well as organizational expenses.

The biggest financial contributors to One Anchorage have been Planned Parenthood of the Greater Northwest, with $25,000; Tim Gill, a software millionaire and national gay rights activist from Colorado, $25,000; the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, $10,000; the Pride Foundation, a Seattle-based gay rights organization that gives scholarships and grants to students and nonprofits, $10,000; and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, $10,000. The group had many more contributors who gave $20 to $5,000.

Top contributors to Protect Your Rights have been the Anchorage Baptist Temple, through a ballot group called Protect Your Freedoms Vote No On Prop 5, which gave $45,000; Josh Pepperd, president of Davis Constructors and Engineers Inc. in Anchorage, $15,000; and Chapel By The Sea, a South Anchorage church, which gave $3,025. A number of individuals contributed smaller amounts.

Kim Hummer-Minnery, an organizer of Protect Your Rights, said she was preparing to file another contribution report on Friday.

Since the previous report, current up to March 24, the group had received dozens of new donations, some less than $100 and some over $1,000. She declined to say exactly how much the campaign had raised in total, but said it was “a heck of a lot less than Yes on 5.”

On Thursday, the Prop 5 opponents e-mailed supporters asking for money.

“The bad news is that we are literally out of funds right now,” it said. “We’ve spent pretty much everything that has come in and we’re now living hour to hour.”

As of Friday, Protect Your Rights had about $12,000 in cash on hand, leader Jim Minnery said, all of which it plans to spend before the election.

Protect Your Freedoms, the biggest funder of Minnery’s organization, lists its address as the Anchorage Baptist Temple and Glenn W. Clary, a pastor at the church, as its chairman. According to a report filed March 26, Protect Your Freedoms had received one contribution, for $80,000, from the Anchorage Baptist Temple. Protect Your Freedoms contributed $45,000 of that money to Minnery’s Protect Your Rights group.

As of Friday, Protect Your Freedoms still had $35,000 of the Baptist Temple’s money left.

Repeated calls to Clary and Jerry Prevo, the leader of the Baptist Temple, to ask about the church’s donation and what Protect Your Freedoms planned to do with the remaining money went unanswered.

“It’s no surprise to anybody that lived in Anchorage that Jerry Prevo and ABT is involved in this battle,” Minnery said. “And it’s no surprise that they wanted to start a ballot group to make sure at least a good fight was made.”

Minnery said he was thankful for the group’s large donation but had no idea whether Protect Your Freedoms would give the remaining funds to the anti-prop effort.

Paul Dauphinais, the executive director of the Alaska Public Offices Commission, said $80,000 would not be a record single donation for a municipal election but it is an unusually large one.

Limits on contributions to individual candidates are strict under state law, but they are much looser for campaigns seeking to influence the outcome of a ballot propositions.

Churches, as tax-exempt nonprofits, are governed by IRS rules that prohibit endorsing or opposing individual candidates for public office.

But the rules governing church contributions to influence referenda elections are much less clear cut.

“The IRS rules say churches endanger their tax exemption if a ‘substantial part’ of their work involves politics, including involvement in referenda,” said Rob Boston, a senior policy analyst with the Washington, D.C.- based Americans United, a nonprofit that advocates for church-state separation. “It’s unclear what counts as a ‘substantial part’ of churches’ work.”

Reach Michelle Theriault Boots at mtheriault@adn.com or 257-4344.

Copyright © Fri Mar 30 18:11:51 UTC-0800 20121900 The Anchorage Daily News (www.adn.com)

Collapse Expand To Joylynnkim-

You stated, “I feel the same way about people who wear their sexuality on their shirt tails for the whole world to see. What purpose does it serve.” I hold my wife’s hand in public… what purpose does that serve? It makes me feel good and I think she likes it too.

When this old guy walks around town occasionally holding my wife’s hand we get smiles or sometimes people hold doors open for us. Nothing exciting but it is acceptance and approval of our relationship. Neither one of us are “trying to wear our sexuality” on our shirt tails we are just being ourselves. I saw two women walking hand in hand the other day down the street. This whole mess with Prop 5 made me stop and think. What were they doing that is any different that what I do when I walk down the street with my wife… absolutely nothing. Yet people were giving them odd looks and pointing behind their backs.

To the Gay Community of Anchorage, All you are asking for is to not be discriminated against for housing and jobs…. You have our votes! The next time I see a gay couple walking around town, I will tip my hat to you because until the other day I was an ignorant old man.

Read more here: http://community.adn.com/adn/node/160531#storylink=cpy

To:
Jim Minnery
Dr. Jerry Prevo, Glenn Clary – Anchorage Baptist Temple
Anchorage TV & Radio Broadcast Stations

From:
Governor Tony Knowles, Co-Sponsor
Senator Arliss Sturgulewski, Co Sponsor
Trevor Storrs, Chair
Amy Coffman, Campaign Manager
Yes on Proposition 5, One Anchorage Campaign

Date: March 27, 2012

Re: False Claims and Highly Offensive Imagery

In the last two weeks, ads paid for and produced by Jim Minnery, Protect Your Rights, and Glenn Clary and Jerry Prevo’s Anchorage Baptist Temple’s Protect your Freedoms have made false claims about the legal effects of Proposition 5. Moreover, the TV versions of these ads contain highly offensive cartoon imagery which seeks to dehumanize and demean our transgender friends, family and neighbors.
We can disagree and debate issues. But, creating and broadcasting unacceptably offensive and intentionally stigmatizing and distorted cartoons of gay and transgender individuals is shameful and wrong. Such dehumanizing stereotypes do not represent the values we share as a community.

As leaders of the Yes on Prop 5, One Anchorage campaign, and as people who truly care about all residents in Anchorage, we call on the creators of these images to stop producing hateful stereotypes which contribute to the stigmatization of and violence against a minority community.

To those who seek to be moral leaders in our community, you cannot – with a clear conscience – fund material whose only purpose is to degrade and dehumanize. If you truly believe, as claimed in your ads that “Anchorage is . . . a tolerant city,” please ensure that political discourse reflects that tolerance and the values we share as Alaskans.

These ads must be removed from all broadcast and internet media immediately.

Paid for by One Anchorage. The top contributors are: Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest of Seattle, WA; Tim Gill of Denver, CO; and The Pride Foundation of Seattle, WA.

The final report on discrimination experienced by Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people in Anchorage is set to be released Thursday.

It’s called the Anchorage LGBT discrimination survey. The preliminary version of the report was released late last year. The new version includes more detailed information. Mel Green is the principal investigator and author of the report.

“There are going to be lots more detailed tables that show where those charts that were in the preliminary came from. There’s also going to be a very complete methodology – complete demographic data for our survey population, some of it’s going to be compared with census data, national survey, previous Alaska research,” Green said.

The survey was conducted between January and March of 2011 and includes information from 268 LGBT people in Anchorage. It asked questions about their experience of discrimination, violence or intimidation in the municipality during their lifetime. Roughly 70 percent said they’d experienced some form of discrimination in Anchorage. Comments from respondents will be included in the final survey.

“This is a very short one from a gay male respondent. I was dancing at a local bar with a male friend of mine and one of my previous employers spotted me, the very next morning he told my manager to fire me,” Green said.

The survey is the first research on LGB people in Anchorage since the 80′s and the first which includes transgender people. Green says information released in the final report shows her findings are comparable with national numbers.

“The levels of experienced discrimination that we’re reporting are not at all unusual, it’s national and its particularly high for transgender people,” Green said.

The Anchorage LGBT discrimination survey was funded in part by the ACLU of Alaska. The survey is available at alaskacommunity.org.

http://www.alaskapublic.org/2012/03/22/anchorage-lgbt-discrimination-survey-results-released/

and audio link on KSKA website