I just left a message for Jim Webb asking him to oppose #PIPA and #SOPA. Won’t you call him too? 202-224-4024.
If you live outside Virginia, you can find out who to call by asking the Wikipedia for help.
While all agree that some traditions should be honored, others must be put to rest as our national values and notions of tolerance and diversity evolve. At any rate, no amount of history and tradition can cure a constitutional infraction.
Does this sound familiar? It’s from the January 11 ruling on Ahlquist v. City of Cranston, in which an explicitly sectarian prayer banner was ordered removed from the wall of a public high school. The Rhode Island school district argued that “the prayer, which dates back to the early 1960s, is an historical memento of the school’s founding days, with a predominantly secular purpose.” The plaintiff who took her school district to court is a 16 year old student, Jessica Ahlquist. Here is the full paragraph from the ruling (PDF): Continue reading
Now this is really getting interesting. The new Board of Supervisors is apparently considering a motion to kill the volunteer illegal sign removal program, and it is not going over well with LI. I happen to agree; the program seems like a perfectly sensible way of dealing with the vexing problem of road spam.
“So in keeping with the overriding theme of this Board, paybacks, one of their first acts will be to kill this program as payback to those who helped fund their campaigns – the builders and developers and David Ramadan, and Godfather Dick Black as well. Here is the link to the staff report for this item, pay special attention to the motions at the end. They’re not doing this to keep things the way they are. This program costs Loudoun very little in minimal staff oversight, and provides its citizens with a great service – keeping our roadways safe and free of trash. But does that matter to this Board? Apparently not – this program ticks off their masters, so it must be done away with.”
Crossposted at Equality Loudoun
The very first action taken by the newly elected Loudoun County School Board was this:
Regarding the Virginia Human Rights Act:
“I move to amend the Board’s previously adopted Legislative Program by removing the recommendation to expand the protected classifications contained in the Virginia Human Rights Act, Code of Virginia §2.2-3900 and §2.2-3901, to include gender orientation and gender identity and to further amend the Code of Virginia §22.1-78 to allow local school boards to similarly expand the protected classifications contained in local school board policies and regulations and that Staff be directed to make such other changes to the Legislative Program as to conform to the Program language of this motion.”
[from page 5 of the adopted Legislative Program]
Motion: Mr. Kuesters
Second: Mr. FoxVote: 6-3-0 (Mr. Reed, Mrs. Bergel, and Mrs. Sheridan opposed)
The only reason for initiating such an action is ideological, and the idea in play is that gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender and gender variant youth are not deserving of having their human rights protected. The Wisconsin School District that was the subject of the film Bullied found out the hard and expensive way that this is not a good position for school boards to take. I hate to being up money when this is a fundamental moral issue, but unfortunately that’s the only language some people seem to understand.
Following an unreasonably long hiatus, the Equality Loudoun blog is back online, streamlined and better. Works better for me, anyway. If the first act of the new school board is any indication, there will be things to report. Contact us with tips and whatnot at info@equalityloudoun.org.
See if you can follow the logical arc here:
Newly elected supervisor Janet Clarke makes an embarrassing gaffe right out of the gate, getting her board-mates to “fire” the Blue Ridge representative on the Economic Development Commission (only to find that, since his term isn’t actually up until the end of the year, the board action is null and void. Awkward.)
Why the retribution? Because of (in the words of Leesburg Today, not Clarke) “his public criticism of the Purcellville Town Council over its efforts to build the final segment of the town’s Southern Collector Road through a portion of Crooked Run Orchard.”
The truth is that EDC member Steve Mackey has the integrity to stand up for the David in this conflict, against the Goliath that is Clarke’s Purcellville Town Council. He shares what happened when he tried to reach out to then-candidate Clarke here, and Crooked Run Orchard owner Uta Brown explains what the Town is doing to them and other small businesses here. It’s pretty obvious that this is unethical political payback of exactly the sort a code of ethics is meant to address.
Crossposted at Equality Loudoun
Benefit Celebration for GLBT Rights in Uganda
with Rev. Mark Kiyimba
Music by Tom Teasley
Friday January 13th, 7:00 – 10:00 pm
Unitarian Universalists of Sterling
22135 Davis Drive, Sterling (map)
It’s illegal to be gay in Uganda, and has been since colonial times. But that wasn’t enough to satisfy the anti-gay fringe in America. Following a 2009 conference arranged by three American extremists, a bill was introduced in the Ugandan Parliament that would institute the death penalty for gay people under some circumstances, prohibit any form of advocacy or human rights work on behalf of gay people, eliminate confidentiality for health care providers and clergy, and even make it a crime to fail to turn in one’s own family members. Along with the bill a vicious pogrom has been unleashed against the gay community, leading to many Ugandans living in constant fear. The developing situation has been extensively covered by Box Turtle Bulletin.
LGBT activists in Uganda point to a virulently anti-gay March 2009 conference put on by three American Evangelical activists for inciting the latest round of violence and intimidation against the local LGBT community. Among the three were Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, Exodus International board member Don Schmierer, and International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brundidge, who is a protege of ex-gay advocate Richard Cohen. Lively, who blamed gay men for the rise of Nazism and the Rwandan genocide, proudly declared his talk as being a “nuclear bomb” against LGBT advocacy in Africa.
If there is one single message to convey to our new local government representatives it’s that the cost to refactor our land use to; 1) enable us to live within our means and 2) sustain our quality of life (gross national happiness) will be huge. Furthermore, we’re late to the starting gate and we’re running out of time.
I’d love to see the BoS task the staff to develop an online Gross Local Happiness survey and to provide a database front-end and download site for reviewing the results. I’m sure there are many local statisticians who’d love to review the data. Maybe the BoS can work with the school system to survey all high-school seniors to insure that all classes income-levels are surveyed. The survey must include the address of the respondent, the year the home was built, and one or more tags that describe the home type.
By the way, this piece was inspired by James A. Bacon’s, The Era of Foreclosed Possibilities. Bacon credits the Piedmont Environmental Council for sponsoring his work. No wonder the PEC is so hated. The PEC works in a reality-based world and they are guided by common sense.
This is absolutely dead on, and what we’ve been saying to those people trying to either dismiss or defend Mr. Delgaudio for years now. Rob Tisinai does more than just point it out, though; he walks us through it, in detail both hilarious and sad. Sad, because Mr. Delgaudio is a fraud, which means that someone is being duped. This brief analysis of his financial records demonstrates it. Thanks to Rob for posting the link in comments.
Put it together with Mr. Delgaudio’s open admission to a colleague that he really doesn’t care, personally, about the so-called “homosexual agenda,” and what do you have? Some folks I have to feel a great deal of pity for, among other things.
Delgaudio has the public’s eye right now, and he’s working it. This might be a good time for him to step back from his cries of persecution and tell his donors exactly what it is he does with their money — besides using it to ask them for more money.
But why? They’ve shown no interest in that information thus far. I think that he just may have compiled a list of the stupidest people in America. And anyone defending him here in Loudoun, whether for their own personal gain or for any other reason, is helping this sociopathic little man to prey on them.
[Promoted by Liz]
In just two days, Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) failed “to have a positive approach with the community” (the Clarke test). He must resign. He must resign from his day job or from his Supervisor position. The two are incompatible. As Clarke puts it “I don’t think that people who hold themselves contrary to that position should be allowed to serve“. We agree. Now show us that you mean it.
Politico’s Dylan Byers reports that Supervisor Delgaudio, President, Public Advocate of the U.S. used the Weekly Standard’s marketing arm to issue a fundraising email warning that:
“radical homosexuals” were “infiltrating the United States Congress.”
“Their ultimate dream is to create a new America based on sexual promiscuity in which the values you and I cherish are long forgotten,”
The publisher of the Weekly Standard, Terry Eastland explained that the Standard’s “vetting process broke down“. The Human Rights Campaign asked editor William Kristol to condemn the email and Delgaudio is using the HRC exposure to raise more money. The Public Advocate web site reads:
“Giant Homosexual Assault On Public Advocate Launches — David Vs. Goliath!”
And round and round we go, only this time Delgaudio plays the role of both the corrupt politician and his own deflector/defender.
Continue reading