KPFA News: Gay Rights, Moses Mworeko and Tommi Avicolli Mecca, on the 32nd Anniversary of the Assassination of Harvey Milk

(Audio URL: http://goo.gl/W2WnT.)


KPFA News Anchor Anthony Fest:

San Francisco LGBT rights activists met this week, with Ugandan Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, one of the most outspoken opponents of Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, also known as the Hang-the-Gays bill.   The local gay activists discussed how to support Senyonjo and his work there, as well as how to arrange immigration and legal asylum for LGBT Ugandans who feel they're unsafe if they stay in their country.   KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke with Kushaba Moses Mworeko, a gay Ugandan who's applied for asylum in the U.S., and she filed this report.  

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

Kushaba Moses Mworeko left Uganda seeking asylum and to attend an HIV/AIDS conference in Texas in October 2009. Washington D.C.'s lesbian and gay Metro Weekly Magazine then interviewed him here and put his picture on their cover with the headline, "The Promised Land," referring to his pursuit of legal asylum in the U.S.  Uganda's Red Pepper tabloid reprinted part of the interview with the headline "Gay Monster Raped Boys in School but Failed to Bonk Wife."  Moses says that his life, as a result, would be in even greater danger now, if he were to return to Uganda. 

Moses Mworeko:

Yeah, yes, my life would be in danger because of the extensive media coverage that I have had here and in Uganda, and the provocative coverage from the Red Pepper and other homophobic, witch hunting tabloids in Uganda that keep asking the government of Uganda to hang us.  

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

And are all Ugandans who are out of the closet in as much danger as you are?

Moses Mworeko:

Yes, of course they are, especially those who have been outed in the hate newspapers like the Red Pepper, Uganda's Rolling Stone, and the Onion, which published pictures and addresses of those they called Uganda's Top Homos, including even Bishop Senyonjo, even though he is a heterosexual advocate for LGBT rights.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

Why do you think Ugandan MP David Bahati and other supporters of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which seemed to have been set aside, are pushing it towards a vote in Parliament again now?

Moses Mworeko:

I think the major reason is that the elections are coming up at the beginning of next year, so people want to force the presidential candidates to take a stand one way or the other.   For instance, these past weeks, during the AIDS celebrations, the sheikhs kept on asking the presidential candidates to take a stand and show whether they are with them or not.  So I think that's why it's coming up very soon. 

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

What would you most like the international community to understand about homophobia in Uganda and what would you like them to do?

Moses Mworeko:

I would like the international community to understand that LGBT Ugandans are in danger, and especially when the tabloids publish their pictures and addresses.  Of course those who are working lose their jobs and cannot be able to find work.  They may even be targets for mob justice, since outing them essentially means social suicide, because you won't have friends, you won't go to church, you won't have any relatives, so that is a big problem.  The schoolgoing children are expelled from school and cannot go back to school, and that means they will end up on the streets, they will be homeless, and start abusing drugs, and end up having HIV and AIDS.   So people are now in fear and despair.   And I hope the international community will continue supporting Ugandans' local human right organizations like Sexual Minorities Uganda, Gay Uganda, and Integrity Uganda that defend LGBT rights.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

Moses, thank you for coming into the KPFA Studios today.   

Moses Mworeko:

You're welcome.  Thank you for having me. 

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

For Pacifica, KFPA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.  

32nd HARVEY MILK ASSASSINATION ANNIVERSARY:

KPFA News Anchor Anthony Fest:

Thirty two years ago, San Francisco Supervisor Dianne Feinstein delivered news that stunned the Bay Area and the nation.  

(Then President of the Board of Supervisors) Dianne Feinstein:

As President of the Board of Supervisors, it's my duty to make this announcement.  Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed.   

Crowd:

(Gasps . . . OH!!!  JESUS CHRIST!!!  . . . .shudders, cries. . .  Police shout QUIET! QUIET!  QUIET!!!)

(Then President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors) Dianne Feinstein:

The . . .  (more shudders and cries) . . . the suspect is Supervisor Dan White.

KPFA/Anthony Fest:

Tomorrow will be the 32nd anniversary of the deaths of Harvey Milk and George Moscone.  The two men gunned down on November 27th, 1978, had followed very different paths to City Hall.  Moscone was a native San Franciscan who'd been a City Supervisor and State Senator before winning the 1975 mayor's race.  Harvey Milk had moved to San Francisco from New Jersey in search of a more gay friendly place to live.  He opened a camera store on Castro Street, but soon began spending much of his time on political organizing, including a successful campaign to have members of the Board of Supervisors elected by district, rather than citywide.  Milk then won a Supervisor's seat himself in 1977, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials anywhere in the U.S.  He also touted coalition building as a key to success in local politics. 

Harvey Milk:

There's tremendous harmony developing.  It's not perfect, by any means.  At a citywide level, I think it's vital that the minorities, the traditional ethnic minorities, and the gays, and the feminists link together.  Possibly the rank and file union, not the union leaders, the rank and file, link together to form a very solid, strong coalition, so that we can influence the total direction of the city.   

KPFA/Anthony Fest:

As a City Supervisor, Milk worked on a variety of issues, from rent control to voting security, but he was best known as a passionate advocate of equal rights for gays and lesbians.  He played a leading role in the defeat of Proposition 6, a state ballot measure that would have forbidden openly gay people from teaching in California schools.  

Here is Milk at a debate on Prop 6:

Harvey Milk:

I was born of heterosexual parents.  I was taught by heterosexual teachers, in a fiercely heterosexual society, with television ads and newspaper ads.  Fiercely heterosexual, a society that puts down homosexuality.  

Then why am I a homosexual, If I'm affected by role models?   I should have been a heterosexual.   And no offense meant, but if teachers are gonna affect you as role models, there'd be a lotta nuns running around the streets today.  

KPFA/Anthony Fest:

Meanwhile conservative Supervisor Dan White, Milk's political opposite on the Board, was becoming disgruntled with elective office.  White abruptly announced his resignation, but soon afterward changed his mind, and asked Mayor Moscone for a reappointment to the now vacant seat.   When White learned that Moscone intended to appoint someone else, he made his way to City Hall with a pistol.  He entered the building through a window to avoid the metal detectors at the doorways, then entered Moscone's office.  Following an argument, he killed Moscone, then walked down the hall and killed Milk.  

Though Milk’s life and political career were cut short, members of the LGBT community say he was a pioneer whose influence endures decades later. Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a longtime writer on gay issues, assesses Milk’s legacy:

Tommi Aviola Mecca:

I think what he represents is a progressive queer voice, and I think that's an important distinction to make because I think we progressive queers don't get credited any more with the work we did in the 70s.  He was a maverick in every sense of the word because, y'know, he went against the Democratic establishment.  Y'know, and Harvey's whole thing was well, no, but queers should represent queer people, and that, at that time, was a radical idea.  

KPFA Anthony Fest:

On the day Milk was killed, members of the San Francisco gay community gathered for a candlelight march from Castro Street to City Hall. Those memorials have continued ever since, on the anniversary of Milk’s death. Tomorrow’s event will begin at 6:00 pm at the corner of Castro and Market Streets.

Candlelight march on San Francisco’s Market Street following November 27 1978 assassination of Supervisor Harvey Milk.

Harvey Milk Day or Milktoast Milk Day?

Graphic, Queerty

I was glad to see California celebrate the first Harvey Milk State holiday on Saturday, May 22, but, by the end of the day, I felt like I'd been through the first Milktoast Milk Day--not a day honoring the revolutionary Harvey, who as he himself said, was far more than a gay politician:

"I understand very well that my election was not alone a question of my gayness but a question of what I represent. In a very real sense, Harvey Milk represented the spirit of the neighborhoods of San Francisco. For the past few years, my fight to make the voice of the neighborhoods of this city be heard was not unlike the fight to make the voice of the cities themselves be heard." --Harvey Milk, San Diego, The Hope Speech, 1978

Pirate Cat Radio's League of Pissed Off Voters' broadcast, often my favorite radio hour of the week,  appropriately featured District #8 candidate Rafael Mandelman, who, of the candidates running for Harvey Milk's seat, would no doubt be Harvey Milk's choice over Scott Wiener, and Dan Nicoletta, one time employee of Harvey's at Castro Camera and acclaimed photographer of Harvey, with fond memories, but they didn't share any of Harvey's own words.

Then KPFA's Saturday Evening News segment featured Mark Leno, an Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club Dem, not a Harvey Milk Democratic Club Dem:  

               Click to play KPFA Radio News on the first State Harvey Milk Day Holiday

Leno has, endorsed the Alice Club's candidate, Scott Wiener, rather than the Milk Club's candidate Rafael Mandelman.

KPFA News reporter Cameron Jones isn't gay, and doesn't live in San Francisco, so he probably doesn't know the difference between Alice Democrats and Milk Democrats, or realize that Leno is an Alicecrat.   And, since the legislation making May 22nd Milk Day was Leno's legislation, Leno's account of how he got Governor Schwarzenegger to sign the bill, after the movie "Milk" became a box office hit, was indeed news.   

However, despite being an openly gay politician benefiting from the ground Harvey Milk laid, Leno is hardly a bearer of Harvey's legacy, having joined his D8 candidate, Wiener, and Senator Dianne Feinstein and State Assemblywoman Fiona Ma in opposing a D.C.C.C. resolution calling on Nancy Pelosi to co-sponsor  H.R. 2404 requiring the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress a report outlining the government’s military exit strategy of US forces participating in Operation Enduring Freedom, a.k.a., the War in Afghanistan.   Harvey Milk marched against the Vietnam War, and said, at the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade:

"What standards? The standards of the rapists? The wife beaters? The child abusers? The people who ordered the bomb to be built? The people who ordered it to be dropped?  The people who pulled the trigger?  The people who gave us Vietnam?  The people who built the gas chambers?  The people who built the concentration camps, right here in California and then herded all the Japanese-Americans into them during World War II.   The Jew baiters?  The nigger knockers?  The corporate thieves?  The Nixons?  The Hitlers?  

What standards do you want us to set?  Clean up your violence before you criticize lesbians and gay men for their sexuality.  It is madness to glorify killing and violence on one hand and condemn the sexual act . . . " 

Leno has also been a devoted advocate for the South Florida-based Lennar Corporation, an industrial homebuilder and predatory lender whose reckless building and lending has in recent years both built and destroyed communities whole all over California and thus played a major role in ravaging both City and State budgets.

Harvey Milk instead stood for neighborhoods and community:

"The American Dream starts with neighborhoods. To sit on the front stoops--whether it's a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city--is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color. . ." --Harvey Milk, City of Neighborhoods Speech, 1978

More vintage Milk:

"I don't think the American Dream necessarily includes two cars in every garage and a disposal in every kitchen. What it does need is an educational system with incentives. To spend twelve years at school---almost a fifth of your life---without a job at the other end is meaningless." --Harvey Milk, City of Neighborhoods speech, 1978

". . . I'm tired of the conspiracy of silence. I'm tired of listening to the Anita Bryants twist the language and the meaning of the Bible to fit their own distorted outlook, but I'm even more tired of the silence from the religious leaders of this nation who know that she is playing fast and loose with the true meaning of the Bible. I'm tired of their silence more than of her Biblical gymnastics." --Harvey Milk, That's What America Is Speech, Gay Freedom Day Parade, 1978

"The Blacks did not win their rights by sitting quietly in the back of the bus. They got off! Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets. . . We are coming out! We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions! We are coming out to tell the truth about gays!" --Harvey Milk, Gay Freedom Day Parade, June 25, 1978

All quotations can be found in the Appendices of Randy Schilt's biography of Harvey Milk, The Mayor of Castro Street, online in the Google Books version, and a record of Harvey in his voice ad his own words and voice, in the "Hope Speech," on the Youtube, which Milk Club President and District #8 candidate Rafael Mandelman posted to his Facebook page this weekend:

Hulu has made the full length doc, The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, available online. Great film, though still not quite equal to the best of Harvey in his own words:

Uganda's gay "death penalty" bill a distraction

The City of San Francisco, CA, is united behind the right to love whom you love, how you love, if by nothing else.  This is international gay rights hero Harvey Milk's town; Harvey's bust graces the entrance to the City's legislative chambers and the Harvey Milk Democratic Club is one of the most influential here.

So, some San Franciscans have now turned their attention to Uganda, to protest its gay nightmare legislative proposal, which includes the death penalty for a list of offenses labeled "aggravated homosexuality."  Like other human rights activists around the world, they're responding to action alerts from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, even though Central Africa is rarely on the radar screen out here on the Western edge of the Pacific, in a city now only 3.5% African American, with immigrant populations largely from Asia and Latin America.

I was glad to be able to share "Bahati's Bill, a convenient distraction for Uganda's government," a  Pambazuka News article, which gives Uganda's nightmarish legislative proposal a Ugandan and African context.    I hope that some will read it and understand that we need to protest not only the proposed law, in Uganda, but also the role of U.S. foreign policy, U.S.-based corporations, oil, and AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, in "creating the conditions keeping so many Ugandans in poverty. . .," and thus, creating a need to scapegoat same sex lovers.

Bahati’s bill: A convenient distraction for Uganda's government

  

"As Ugandan MP David Bahati spearheads a campaign around the adoption of the homophobic 'Bahati's bill', Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe and Frank Mugisha call for an unwavering rejection of a piece of legislation entirely against the interests of wider Ugandan society.  With strong suspicions of Bahati's financial backing by extreme-right Christian groups in the US, the bill seeks not only to establish draconian punishments for homosexual acts but also to actively encourage Ugandans to snoop on one another indefinitely for the supposed good of the nation. If homophobes like Bahati were really worried about 'protecting the traditional family', Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe and Mugisha argue, they'd concern themselves with tackling the conditions keeping so many Ugandans in poverty, rather than making scapegoats of homosexual people. The authors conclude that with an election approaching in 2011, the momentum behind the bill smacks of a none-too-subtle attempt to divert attention away from Uganda's true issues."

Full text at http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/452/uganda_gay_rights.jpg

See also GayUganda, an exquisitely written blog, Sexual Minorities of Uganda SMUG, and,  Resist AFRICOM: