http://www.stonewallvets.org/MayorRudy.htm
Forgot the link
Oh, please post the photos and the posters and such from these events from the Stonewall Veterans site.
STONEWALL Veterans' Association
S.V.A. Supporters
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani
2007
In New York City on Monday, the 5th of February 2007, Brooklyn-born America's Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced that he took the next step -- Federal filing of intent -- to his 2008 candidacy to be the President of the U.S.A.! On Thursday, February 15th, Mr. RWG confirmed he's a candidate!
http://www.stonewallvets.org/RudyGiuliani.htm
Apparently, the Rudy freepers are in "good" company when it comes to endorsing their man.
PING
More on Stonewall Vets and Rudy here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1687307/posts?page=4#4
Thru
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1687307/posts?page=37#37
Julianni is a MEMBER. You can only be a MEMBER if you were AT Stonewall in 1969.
More background on Stonewall...
Spirit of Stonewall
by Bob Chatelle
[From the PIC Newsletter June 1994, Volume II, issue iv]
an excerpt
I missed my opportunity to be arrested at the Stonewall riots in 1969 by less than a week. In less than a month, I may get a second chance to see the inside of a New York City jail.
On June 21, 1969, I was in Greenwich Village. I then worked for a small Boston computer consulting firm and I was in New York on business--we had a contract with New York University. I was accompanied on this trip by a fellow employee who was also a gay man. Indeed the president of that company was gay. But we all understood the absolute necessity of being firmly in the closet, both within the office and without.
That night, my friend and I were wandering about in our business uniforms when he suggested we go to a club he'd heard about called the Stonewall Inn. The doorman looked suspiciously at our attire, and we were told we could enter only if we were the guests of a "member." We went elsewhere. We weren't surprised at this treatment. It was an election year and soi disant "liberal" John Lindsay was running for reelection and was giving the gay bars a hard time. ("Liberals" were more open about their homophobia back then.)
Nine days later, back at our office in Boston, my friend slipped into my cubicle and surreptitiously showed me the New York Times account of the Stonewall riot. Neither of us new what to make of it. The event was little talked about afterwards in my circle of gay male friends. Most who had any opinion expressed disapproval about that sort of public acting up. We didn't want straight people to think that gays didn't know how to behave. Many of us, I suspect, harbored a secret admiration for those who had gotten fed up and let their anger loose. But had my friend and I been there on June 28, we would've fled when things got "out of hand." Our gay company president, after all, would've been mortified if we'd been arrested at a brawl at a gay bar.
I'd been looking forward to marching in the Stonewall 25 parade this June, and at one time I was even interested in trying to organize an NWU contingent. But, unfortunately, the organizing committee of Stonewall 25 is dominated by those intent on imposing political censorship. To march in the parade, groups must take the equivalent of a loyalty oath. They must pledge their support for age-of-consent laws. Any group that favors the abolition of these laws has been denied permission to march. The obvious intent of this ruling is to keep the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) out of the parade, presumably from a desire to avoid bad publicity. But it galls me that people are being excluded not for what they do but for what they think. The Stonewall 25 Committee is arrogant to banish people not for breaking the law but rather for advocating using the democratic process to change the law.
I don't have a firm personal position on age-of-consent laws, and this is certainly something on which the NWU should take no stand. I consider child (or for that matter, adult) abuse--sexual, physical or emotional--to be a moral evil. But I've seen no evidence that age-of-consent laws are an effective or appropriate means of preventing or punishing such abuse. In any case, this is certainly a matter about which reasonable people can differ.
Several of us who are appalled by the political censorship imposed by the Stonewall 25 Committee have formed a group called Spirit of Stonewall (SOS). We include Mattachine founder Harry Hay, Gayle Rubin, Allen Ginsburg, and NWU member Pat Califia. And playwright Jim D'Entremont, spokesperson for the Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression and my life partner, whom I met on July 18, 1970, less than a month after the first anniversary of Stonewall.
I am not a brave person and I know that when NAMBLA marches, spectators sometimes hurl more than invective in their direction. And if the organizers of Stonewall 25 are determined to exclude us, I might end up in jail. I was not willing to go to jail in defense of my beliefs in June of 1969. In June of 1994, I'm proud to say that I have changed. Hope to see you on the 26th.
LGBT Vets at National Convention
Activists aim to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as gay and lesbian troops serve in combat abroad
By JOE KENNEDY
Gigi B. Sohn
Attending a national LGBT veterans’ convention this past weekend were: standing, Lara Ballard, vice president of the Washington, D.C. chapter of American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER), and, seated, Angel Ramirez, of AVER’s New York City chapter, Denny Meyer, the New York chapter president, and Joe Kennedy, also a New York chapter member.
The weekend of May 21-23, over 100 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered veterans of the armed forces gathered for a landmark convention in Washington, D.C. to step up the campaign against the 10-year-old Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that bans LGBT troops from serving openly in the military.
The convention featured seminars, speeches and memorials as well lobbying with dozens of federal lawmakers. American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER), a national organization of LGBT veterans, co-sponsored the convention along with Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN).
Activist and author Urvashi Vaid, a former head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, addressed the group and struck a chord when she said, “It’s all about LGBT people achieving equal rights under the law instead of being officially branded as second-class citizens. Every LGBT person has a vital stake in reaching that goal of legal equality, regardless of what one may think of the military or the institution of marriage.”
Opening day of the convention included a party at the new Human Rights Campaign (HRC) headquarters building, celebrating the 79th birthday of the gay rights pioneer Dr. Frank Kameny, a World War II veteran who sued the government and picketed the White House to end job discrimination against lesbians and gays long before the 1969 Stonewall Riots.
In another highlight of the AVER convention, a panel of insiders from the Clinton administration, discussed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. David Mixner, a gay Democratic fund-raiser and former Clinton aide, said Clinton could have kept his 1992 campaign promise to end the ban on gays and lesbians in the military if only the president had had the credibility of a respected commander in chief and ordered Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, not to publicly lobby against lifting the ban.
What happened instead, Mixner related, was that after the LGBT community provided millions of dollars and votes to help get Clinton elected, none of Clinton’s key aides, like George Stephanopoulos, would lead on the issue for fear that association with gays and lesbians would hurt their careers and reputations as “serious” players in the administration.
Nathaniel Franks of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military presented compelling evidence that the policy is actually hurting unit cohesion and military effectiveness. Franks added that a recent Gallup poll shows that 79 percent of Americans, an all-time high, say that gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military.
A retired admiral and two generals who came out in The New York Times last December spoke at convention events. Brigadier General Keith Kerr’s voice cracked as he described how living a lie to keep his job meant he could not even properly mourn the death of his beloved partner of 24 years when he died 3 years ago.
Lieutenant Colonel Steve Loomis has filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that under the principles affirmed by the Supreme Court in Lawrence vs. Texas, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is clearly unconstitutional and must be overturned. The Army expelled Loomis in 1997 eight days shy of retirement after 20 years of service, with only half a lieutenant colonel’s pension.
Convention delegates also laid a wreath at the gravesite of Air Force Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, who came out in 1973 and was on the cover of Time magazine. On his tombstone in the Congressional Cemetery is inscribed his famous quote: “My country gave me a medal for killing two men, and a discharge for loving one.”
...you just can't help yourself can you...poor baby....
fear and respect of the U.S. will plunge even further--
if that is possible...
I've forwarded to a number of non-freepers.
ping
Maybe add your vanity post to this thread and we can ping it?