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God Bless America !
Click Here to Light a Candle in Memory of The Lives Lost |
Constitutional Rights Education & Legal Defense Fund -www.oocities.org/RainbowsOverTXRights There are certain rights that all United States citizens are entitled to. Yes, Entitled. Some Americans take it for granted what was said in the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." We are all, every American, entitled to equal, and just treatment under the law, and any public or private action. Citizens are also protected under the Constitution to be secure in our persons against any governmental transgression. We urge everyone to read both documents and other documents we may mention. The main problem in the United States is the decisions being made by others, while we are poorly educated in our rights, freedoms, and obligations. One might wonder if being gay, homosexual or any other minority group, are not to be treated as equals within the United States, why must they pay equal federal and state taxes to the United States? The American Revolution was all about taxation without representation. Homosexuals pay taxes to a government that refuses to say we deserve equal treatment under our laws. There are no federal and few state laws that keep gay people from perhaps being fired from their job for the life they lead outside the workplace. There are no laws that prevent an agency that gets federal funding from discriminating against homosexuals. Who people choose to love has nothing to do with work, shopping, health care, or government aid, yet all of them can deny services taxpayers and consumers are entitled to. The people of America tend to forget that when any "group" is oppressed, we all become victims. How would people feel if country music were suddenly banned from public radio or if televisions were suddenly banned from homes-- or if your religion were forbidden in your state? All citizens of the United States, male or female, can be arrested for a loosely defined "Sodomy" or "Acts Against Nature" in 14 states. Five states apply the laws only to homosexuals. Idaho can sentence men and women to life in prison for sodomy! People, straight, gay, black, white, all United States citizens-- must wake up and stand up for their rights and fight back against oppression. We are always a stone's throw away from fascism. After all, Hitler started out by simply denying equal rights to... Jews, Africans, Homosexuals, Gypsies, and many other innocents he didn't like. Do citizens of the United States of America have the right to freedom of speech or political expression if they are gay? This is the question brought up by a dispute between a resident, his landlord, and a rainbow flag! Click Here for more information.
Hatred Everyday someone is harassed due to some type of discrimination, birth given or otherwise. Someone is denied a job for an aspect of their humanness that they have no control over. The reason for this discrimination transcends race or religion. There are laws protecting victims of discrimination but they do not apply to everyone. This source of discrimination is something that cannot be seen in the workplace, home, or by the attacker. It is inside, in our minds and our hearts. It is who we are and how we were meant to be. Is our body's programming for sexual or emotional response just as easy to change as your TV channel. Not likely. Yet it is perfectly legal to be hated and harassed for just being different... for just being gay. Homosexuals are hated because they love or feel deeply for someone of the same sex. Everyday a child is bullied in school because only "faggots" do that or he/she acts "queer". Most children are taught "faggots" are loathsome, degenerates, and that it is a sin. Schools blindly condone attacks against gay students, sometimes blaming the student for acting or being "gay". A child somewhere today will be told he/she is hated and not wanted by society because of his/her feelings for members of the same sex. Everyday a heart stops beating because a child kills himself from a broken heart, because he truly believes he will never be loved. All of this hatred, this abuse is constantly overlooked by city, state, and federal agencies who classify it as "childhood bullying," or "free religious expression". If a student beats, harasses, or threatens a student for his/her religion, it is handled very carefully and diligently, possibly cause expulsion from school. There is a horrible double standard in our school and governmental system. Stop the Hate, today. Educate children, family members, or friends whom discriminate. Offer love and understanding, not ignorance and violence. Unite as one people, one goal... Diversify! Learn your rights as an United States citizen and help protect your future rights against discrimination. A review of the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and more are provided to help improve society through education and acceptance. Embracing diversity with knowledge is far better than feeding the anger with ignorance. Click Here for more information. Rainbow Flags
In 1978, Gilbert Baker of San Francisco designed and made a flag with six stripes representing the six colors of the rainbow as a symbol of gay and lesbian community pride. Slowly the flag took hold, offering a colorful and optimistic alternative to the more common pink triangle symbol. Today it is recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers, and is flown in lesbian and gay pride marches worldwide. In 1989, the rainbow flag received nationwide attention after John Stout successfully sued his landlords in West Hollywood, when they prohibited him from displaying the flag from his apartment balcony. Meanwhile, Baker is still in San Francisco, and still making more flags. The Rainbow Flag by Steven W. Anderson appeared in GAZE Magazine (Minneapolis), #191, on 28 May 1993, p. 25: Color has long played an important role in our community's expression of pride. In Victorian England, for example, the color green was associated with homosexuality. The color purple (or, more accurately, lavender) became popularized as a symbol for pride in the late 1960s - a frequent post-Stonewall catchword for the gay community was "Purple Power". And, of course, there's the pink triangle. Although it was first used in Nazi Germany to identify gay males in concentration camps, the pink triangle only received widespread use as a gay pop icon in the early 1980s. But the most colorful of our symbols is the Rainbow Flag, and its rainbow of colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple - represents the diversity of our community. The first Rainbow Flag was designed in 1978 by Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco artist, who created the flag in response to a local activist's call for the need of a community symbol. (This was before the pink triangle was popularly used as a symbol of pride.) Using the five-striped "Flag of the Race" as his inspiration, Baker designed a flag with eight stripes: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. According to Baker, those colors represented, respectively: sexuality, life, healing, sun, nature, art, harmony, and spirit. Baker dyed and sewed the material for the first flag himself - in the true spirit of Betsy Ross. Baker soon approached San Francisco's Paramount Flag Company about mass producing and selling his "gay flag". Unfortunately, Baker had hand-dyed all the colors, and since the color "hot pink" was not commercially available, mass production of his eight-striped version became impossible. The flag was thus reduced to seven stripes. In November 1978, San Francisco's gay community was stunned when the city's first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk, was assassinated, Wishing to demonstrate the gay community's strength and solidarity in the aftermath of this tragedy, the 1979 Pride Parade Committee decided to use Baker's flag. The committee eliminated the indigo stripe so they could divide the colors evenly along the parade route - three colors on one side of the street and three on the other. Soon the six colors were incorporated into a six-striped version that became popularized and that, today, is recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers. In San Francisco, the Rainbow Flag is everywhere: it can be seen hanging from apartment windows throughout the city (most notably in the Castro district), local bars frequently display the flag, and Rainbow Flag banners are hung from lampposts on Market Street (San Francisco's main avenue) throughout Pride Month. Visiting the city, one can not help but feel a tremendous sense of pride at seeing this powerful symbol displayed so prominently. Although the Rainbow Flag was initially used as a symbol of pride only in San Francisco, it has received increased visibility in recent years. Today, it is a frequent sight in a number of other cities as well - New York, West Hollywood, and Amsterdam, among them. Even in the Twin Cities, the flag seems to be gaining in popularity. Indeed, the Rainbow Flag reminds us that ours is a diverse community - composed of people with a variety of individual tastes of which we should all be proud. Sources used for this article were found at Quatrefoil Library in St. Paul, and include: "Vexed by Rainbows", by Paul Zomcheck, in "Bay Area Reporter" (June 26, 1986); "Rainbow Flag" in "The Alyson Almanac" (1989); and "The Rainbow Flag", in "Parade 90: San Francisco Gay/Lesbian Freedom Day Parade and Celebration" (June 24, 1990) |
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