The Orange County board of Supervisors doesn’t care if you want to celebrate Harvey Milk Day in the privacy of your own home, just as long as you don’t flaunt it in public.
For the last month, LGBT activists have been pushing for the Supes to issue a proclamation recognizing Harvey Milk Day, which is just a week and a half away. (May 22. You do have it marked on your calendar, don’t you?)
They even went so far as to approach the Chair of the Board, Bill Campbell, with a sample proclamation. He wasn’t interested, and so far none of the Supervisors has been willing to put a proclamation on the agenda.
In fact, at the Board’s public comment session yesterday evening, Supervisor Janet Nguyen got up and walked out of the room rather than listen to voters testify about why they wanted the proclamation. Or maybe she just had to pee really badly? For twenty minutes?
How about we take this to the next level?
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Of course, there’s nothing new about anti-gay politicians opposing Harvey Milk Day. Senator Roy Ashburn voted against it three times before he was finally forced out of the closet. So maybe Janet Nguyen just slipped out to call her girlfriend.
Now, we have just one more chance to force them to vote: at the next Board meeting on May 17th. Organizers are asking OC residents to call the Supes and demand that the proclamation be placed on the agenda. And who knows, if that winds up happening, maybe the whole Board will stand up and leave. To which we say, good riddance.
erichinnw
According to a billboard near my home, the world is ending May 21st, so I’m unsure if I’ll be celebrating Harvey Milk Day this year.
Cam
So a Viet Namese politician, in a state where Japanese Americans were rounded up and put in internment camps just a few decades back won’t even listen to an oppressed group speak. It wasn’t so long ago that people with her last name wouldn’t have been allowed to even marry outside their race. How soon they forget.
TheRealAdam
@Cam: Obviously, the voting records of other minority groups do not show any solidarity with the gay movement. White (straight and gay) liberals/progressives are primarily the ones responsible for advancing gay rights, and more than likely will continue to be.
dfrw
It is OC after all.
delurker
@Cam: Erm, you need a geography and history lesson. Japan is in East Asia and Vietnam is in SE Asian. Your comment reeks of “all lookey samey to me.”
During the internment period of WWII, politicians/authorities/demagogues took great pains to discern Japanese-Americans from other Asians, Chinese, Korean-Americans. (That doesn’t excuse the crime of internment, though. Just saying she probably would not have been rounded up/oppressed on account of her heritage.)
Anti-miscengation laws were rooted in white supremacy. Lawmakers at the time didn’t really care if Asians married blacks married Hispanics. They just didn’t want any of the darkies marrying white people lest the white race be “corrpupted.”
If you’re gonna play, she’s a minority, therefore she should know better card, you should at least try to get the history right.
delurker
@TheRealAdam: and with comments like this, is it any wonder why other minorities don’t show solidarity with the gay community?
Cam
@delurker: said…”@Cam: Erm, you need a geography and history lesson. Japan is in East Asia and Vietnam is in SE Asian. Your comment reeks of “all lookey samey to me.””
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In your attempt to be PC, you’ve missed the obvious point. The point being, that in a time not very long ago, a denomination of Asians was hauled off and thrown in camps here. Although Vietnamese and Japanese are from different countries, they still fall under the catagory of “Asian” when it comes to govt. documents, demographics etc… and while at that time Vietnamese people were not shipped off, it is riduclous to assume that they are not aware of something that had an effect on the Asian community, nor that many of them did not suffer from the rampant anti-Japanese sentiment that was in the U.S. at that time.
Additionally, it was not very long ago at all, that this woman would not have been allowed to marry anybody but another Asian, something she should also be aware of and yet she just leaves rather than even listening to the speakers. If she won’t perform her job, then she needs to be impeached.
TheRealAdam
@delurker: Yes, actually, it is. But that’s not really worth discussing.
delurker
@Cam: My attempt is to be factually correct not politically correct. Japanese and Japanese Americans were interned. Other Asians–Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, East Indians, Vietnamese, Malays, Sri Lankans, Turks, Levantine Arabs etc. were not.
Also, under miscegenation laws, she would have been allowed to marry any race except whites.