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HRC gala lawsuit settled
Sneak peek for binational film
Frameline 36 opens
The
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Senate panel holds ENDA hearing O by Lisa Keen
pposition to the Employment NonDiscrimination Act was all about bathrooms in the last congressional session. This time around, it’s about religion. National Religious Broadcasters Association spokesman Craig Parshall told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Craig Parshall Tuesday, June 12 that ENDA would impose a “chilling effect” on religious organizations that would be monumental. He said ENDA poses a “substantial unconstitutional burden” on religious organizations that would “interfere with their ability to pursue their missions.” Parshall was the only one of five witnesses at the hearing to testify against ENDA. He said the language of the bill would prohibit a religious employer from firing an employee who did not share the organization’s religious tenets. The employee, said Parshall, could sue under ENDA and claim he or she was fired, instead, for being gay or transgender. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It exempts “religious organizations” and “religious educational institutions” from the mandate concerning religion, enabling such organizations to give preference to employees who share their religion. But it doesn’t allow religious organizations to discriminate against employees based on race, sex, or the other covered categories and claim that as religiously-based. Parshall claimed that ENDA Section 6, concerning “Exemption for Religious Organizations,” would create “huge problems” for courts by failing to provide a “clear” definition of who gets the exemption and in what circumstances. Section 6 is a one-sentence paragraph stating: “This act shall not apply to a corporation, association, educational institution or instiSee page 13 >>
Vol. 42 • No. 24 • June 14-20, 2012
New HRC prez visits the Castro by Chris Carson
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tarting his new job a day early and outside of Washington, D.C., Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin made a quick stop in San Francisco last weekend, where he met with friends of the late Supervisor Harvey Milk and toured Milk’s former camera store, now the site of HRC’s store and action center. While in the Castro Sunday, June 10, Griffin offered a glimpse of his agenda as he starts his tenure at the country’s largest LGBT rights organization and has made it clear that LGBT youth will be near the top of the list. Milk, for example, had known he was gay since he was 14. It wasn’t until he was nearly 40 however, that he decided to leave New York City to begin a new, open life here. He was like thousands of other gays and lesbians who flooded San Francisco at the time, all believing that in order to flourish; they would first need to escape the communities in which they grew up. Fast forward to 2012, and many LGBT youth apparently still believe the same thing. Through a recent survey of 10,000-plus teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17, titled “Growing Up LGBT in America,” HRC discovered that even though a majority of LGBT youth are optimistic about their future, they also “believe to a greater extent than their [non-LGBT See page 12 >>
Jane Philomen Cleland
Cleve Jones, third from left, joined new Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, and old Harvey Milk colleagues Frank Robinson, Anne Kronenberg, and Wayne Friday in front of HRC’s store in the Castro (Milk’s former camera shop) Sunday, June 10.
Debate shadows Israeli films at Frameline by Heather Cassell
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ro-Palestinian activists are calling foul on Frameline, which opens today (Thursday, June 14), and are attempting to increase pressure on the international LGBT film festival to ditch Israeli government funding. The festival, which runs through June 24, will present two Israeli films, one about Palestinians, but no Palestinian films were submitted this year to the festival committee, said K.C. Price, executive director of Frameline. Earlier this year, Palestinian supporters got a hold of an internal document leaked from the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco. The 20-page report that outlines how to counteract protesters at the festival was published in March 2011. It demonstrated a collaborated and organized effort between Frameline, the Israeli Consulate, and programs within the JCF, critics claim. JCF is a multi-million dollar organization, according to its 2010 IRS filing, and supports a variety of organizations and programs within and outside of the Jewish community in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Sonoma counties. Neither of the two other Bay Area Jewish organizations located in the East Bay and Silicon Valley is currently working with Frameline, said Price. JCF helps promote Israeli films and filmmakers shown at Frameline, Price said. The release of the document came two months before Frameline’s announcement
Jane Philomen Cleland
Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside the Castro Theatre during last year’s Frameline film festival.
of its 2012 season, but it hasn’t gained much traction in the media beyond a few blogs and articles, including an April article on the blog Mondoweiss. Community leaders on both sides of the issue were reluctant to speak about the leaked
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document – a compilation of media coverage, mostly in the Bay Area Reporter, of proPalestinian protests by Israeli and Jewish supporters of Frameline along with internal emails between Frameline, the Israeli Consulate, and See page 12 >>