Migration Category: news-1-5000-national

Despite his emphasis on being a “compassionate conservative” and opposing “divisive” politics, Texas Gov. George W. Bush plainly voiced an anti-abortion stance last night at the Republican National Convention. Bush vowed to promote “a culture that values life-the life of the elderly and the sick, the life of the young and the life of the unborn.” He promised to sign an abortion procedure ban, or the so-called “partial-birth” abortion law which was just declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Bush also called for faith-based social service programs, which were a focus of the Shadow Convention. His anti-abortion declaration received the largest applause from the right-wing, who comprise the majority of delegates to the convention. The Republican platform calls for defunding family planning programs in favor of funding abstinence-only programs, and also calls for a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions.

Vice President Al Gore is expected to announce his running mate early next week. According to the Washington Post, his top picks include Senator John Edwards (NC), Senator John Kerry (MA), Senator Joseph Lieberman (CT), House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (MS), and “long-shots” Senator Evan Bayh (IN) and Governor Jeanne Shaheen (NH). Experts do not expect Shaheen to stay on the list long, and she is currently the only woman listed in the running; her record on women’s issues is laudable, and NARAL awarded her an “A” on choice in its Vice Presidential Report Card on Choice. NARAL also awarded high marks to Kerry and Liberman, and gave Gephardt and Bayh “C”s with the comment that both have been moving toward a more pro-choice stance. NARAL has made no evaluation of Edwards.

On Monday August 7 at 9 pm EDT, the cable TV network Lifetime will air “The Truth About Jane,” a film about a teenaged girl who comes out to herself and to her family as a lesbian. The film, by writer-director Lee Rose, was made with the guidance of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). Centering on Jane, a high school student, the film highlights the struggles of gay youth facing intolerant parents. Rose made the film in an attempt to depict a more optimistic view of gay youth given the violence that many GLBT individuals have faced. Without discounting such horrible experiences as that of murdered college student Matthew Shepard, “The Truth About Jane” will show a “tender” relationship between two high school girls, and will outline the struggle of parents to accept their children.

Making the film was not easy, Rose said. Casting was a struggle, as few young actresses would take the risk, or were prevented from accepting the role by fearful parents. Jane is played by 18-year-old Ellen Muth; her parents are played by Stockard Channing and James Naughton. Jane’s love-interest is played by 23-year-old Alicia Lagano. Finding a school to shoot the film was also difficult, as countless Phoenix area public schools refused. Caesar Chavez High School eventually welcomed the cast and crew.

Pakistan’s military ruler stated that his government will continue to support the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, claiming that he did not want to antagonize the ethnic population living on either side of the border. The global community has condemned Pakistan’s support of the Taliban, which is known for its oppressive policy toward women and girls. Pakistan, which is suspected of offering the Taliban military and economic assistance, is the only country apart from the United Arab Emirates to officially recognize the regime. “The Taliban Administration represents the majority Pashtun population in Afghanistan and it is in our interest to support them,” General Pervez Musharraf stated. The general’s statement, which will undoubtedly alienate the multiple ethnic groups persecuted by the Taliban, marks the first time that a Pakistani leader has defended support for the Taliban on an ethnic basis. Musharraf’s statement clearly reflects that international pressure on Pakistan has had little effect.

Just endorsed by Planned Parenthood, and campaigning on her Senate opponent’s home turf, Hillary Rodham Clinton used the occasion to once again blast Representative Rick A. Lazio’s (R-NY) “multiple choice” stance on abortion. According to The New York Times, Clinton reiterated that Lazio is not pro-choice on abortion but “multiple choice.” While Lazio says he supports abortion rights, he opposes the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. “I believe in choice for all women, not just some women,” Clinton said.

Kansas voters want human evolution back on the state science standards. They want it so badly that Democrats switched parties just to vote in the Republican primary yesterday. They voted out three conservative candidates that supported last year’s decision to remove human evolution from the state’s standards and solely teach creationism. Along with their Democratic opponents, these Republican moderates hope to get human evolution back in the curriculum of Kansas schools. “I think parents want their kids to have a strong, competitive education…and that includes evolution,” said moderate Republican Sue Gamble who beat conservative incumbent Board Chair Linda Holloway. Governor Bill Graves (R-KS) endorsed Republican moderates, while Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) sided with conservatives. Not all 10 seats on the board were up for reelection this year, but just three seat changes could still tip the balance on the board, which voted 6 to 4 last year to dump evolution.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard declared that children have the right to two parents, but not two same-sex parents. Howard announced plans to amend federal sex discrimination laws in order for state governments to ban in vitro fertilization for single women. “This issue involves…the right of children in our society to have … the care of both a mother and a father,” said Howard. The conservative government’s move follows last week’s decision to strike down a similar ban in the Australian state of Victoria. The judge ruled the state law to be invalid due to inconsistencies with the federal Sex Discrimination Act. The Roman Catholic Church attacked the ruling, saying that children should have the love and care of both a father and a mother. Gay and lesbian rights activist Kathy Sant condemned the Prime Minister’s announcement. “The reality is that there’s a large number of family forms in modern Australia and it’s time Mr. Howard … was willing to see that,” said Sant.

Washington DC Mayor Anthony Williams Tuesday refused to sign a bill that would have required DC employer-provided health care to cover contraceptives. Mayor Williams sided with the Catholic Church, objecting to the bill on the grounds that it had no opt-out clause for churches or other employers who object to contraception on “religious or moral grounds.” Although the bill had previously been unanimously approved by the City Council, Williams’ failure to sign the bill effectively vetoes it for the current session. When the Council returns in September, they plan to renegotiate the bill with exceptions for certain employers.

Recent reports in the Journal of Women’s Health and Gender-Based Medicine found that studies in leading medical journals failed to address differences in men’s and women’s response to a particular treatment. The reports, discussed at the recent Department of Health and Human Services’ seminar on “Sex/Gender Analysis,” point to the failure of the scientific community to comply with a 1993 law requiring NIH funded research to include sex-based testing. A third report from Congress’s General Accounting Office supported the finding that while the number of women included in scientific testing has increased significantly in recent years, there is still a need to incorporate sex-differences into research.

Openly gay Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) was greeted with anti-gay signs and silent protest during his free-trade speech at the Republican Convention on Tuesday. Some Republicans feared that allowing Kolbe to speak would allow gay rights advocates to “claim victory” within the Republican Party. While supporters of presidential candidate George W. Bush point to Kolbe’s appearance as evidence of Bush’s “tolerance”, this claim is belied by the staunchly anti-gay Republican Platform, which opposes gay marriage, gay military service, and hate-crimes legislation to protect victims of violence against gays.

The New York Times today released an expose that revealing that more than two-thirds of the Republican Party’s soft-money has been contributed by an elite group of fewer than 800 wealthy individuals and businesses. Republican insiders told the Times that large donations are frequently split up into smaller contributions from individuals, spouses, corporations, and subsidiaries in order to make them harder to track. Contributions are also diverted to state parties, whose donations are not tracked by the Federal Elections Commission. Large donors are given the royal treatment by the Republican Party – fed from Faberge eggs and entertained by string quartets at Tiffany’s, in one particularly spectacular show of wealth.

Women led three major protest marches over the past two days, voicing their frustration with the Republican Party and its anti-woman platform. Sunday’s Unity 2000 March, which featured abortion rights, brought an estimated 12,000 people to Philadelphia, and 3,000 defied the law with yesterday’s Welfare Rights March, conducted without a permit. Over the course of the election, feminists have been pushing the Republican Party to stop covering up its extremely anti-woman and anti-abortion stance. Although George W. Bush emphasizes he is different and “compassionate conservative,” his Party has not changed its inflexible position on abortion. This year’s platform, as in years past, calls for a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions, and mandates anti-choice judicial appointments. The GOP platform is calling for replacing family planning funding with funding solely for “abstinence-only” education programs.

The “Shadow Convention,” largely organized by Arianna Huffington, also is ignoring feminist issues, despite the protests. Focusing on campaign finance reform, the detrimental effects of the “War on Drugs,” and the alarming gap between the nation’s rich and poor, the Shadow Convention is examining issues in a vacuum-without connecting them to women’s concerns. Alarmingly, on opening day the answer to both drugs and poverty was too frequently “faith-based” social services. This erasure was especially ironic given Monday’s march, dominated by women and young people and led by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, which demanded housing, health care, and living-wage jobs for the poor, who are overwhelmingly women, children, and the disabled.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 passed the Senate last week with a unanimous vote, and all signs point to its passage in the House as well. The bill, backed by Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), toughens current federal penalties against trafficking, and protects women’s and girls’ human rights by providing interim immigration relief, ending the former U.S. practice of immediately deporting trafficking victims. The bill’s supporters argue that this interim period would allow for time to bring charges against sex trade traffickers, ultimately aiding in abolishing the practice. Wellstone stated that 50,000 women are brought into the U.S. each year as sex slaves. Internationally, over 700,000 women and girls are forced into sexual slavery. The bill highlights the particular targeting of women and girls for human trafficking, and focuses on (but is not limited to) human rights violations in sex trafficking. It also recommends positive economic, social, and legal tactics to prevent the practice, including improving education for girls and women. The bill contains a definition of sex trafficking as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act,” and is supported by Equality Now and the Feminist Majority Foundation.

The ultra-conservative Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA), despite a losing record, will again present an anti-gay ballot measure to voters this November. The measure would ban public school teachers from “encouraging, promoting or sanctioning” homosexuality in their classes, with a penalty of losing state funding. The OCA’s proposed measure does not prevent teachers from condemning homosexuality, and has been criticized for the damage it could do to gay, lesbian, and bisexual students, who are already at an increased risk for suicide. Oregon’s largest GLBT rights group, Basic Rights Oregon, is planning a grassroots campaign to defeat the measure. OCA’s last attempts at passing anti-gay ballot measures, in 1992 and 1994, failed. OCA also failed in ballot-measure attempts to restrict abortion in 1978, 1986, and 1990.

Ever get tired of hearing young people referred to as apathetic? As college activists involved in Feminist Majority Leadership Alliances, we are shattering the misconception of a jaded and complacent generation. Yet, undoubtedly, many of us have encountered apathy among our peers, particularly during high school. Why do so many young people fail to get involved in activism and community outreach until college? At an age when young students are commonly perceived to be overwhelmed with their own life changes, teenagers involved in youth philanthropy are reaching out to their surrounding communities, changing lives and learning valuable skills that will aid them in future college activism and organizing. Through involvement in committees such as the Grand Rapids Foundation Youth Grant Committee and the Community Foundation Silicon Valley Youth in Philanthropy Committee, students are directly expressing their concerns by making donations as large as $10,000 to organizations that represent their interests.

These committees place critical decision-making power in the hands of high school students. Students evaluate grant-proposals based on the interests of the youth they represent and select non-profit organizations to receive grants from their foundation. Such experiences help young women and men develop important leadership, networking, public-speaking, communication, fund-raising, and grant-writing skills that will prepare them for future activism at their universities and in their careers.

The Community Foundation Silicon Valley Youth in Philanthropy Committee targets youth who lack other outlets for gaining leadership experience. As the decision-makers who conduct interviews and evaluate proposals, committee members have the opportunity to donate grants of $100-$1000 to youth-run non-profit organizations that support social justice causes like the needs of young women and girls and gay and lesbian issues.

This past spring, the committee chose to donate to five groups that specifically benefit young women and girls. One grant went to a youth group project, Entre Mujeres, to fund a women’s conference for all ages as a forum for girls and their mothers, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers to discuss women’s issues.

The Grand Rapids Foundation Youth Grant Committee evaluates as many as 43 grant proposals per year to receive a portion of their $80,000 budget. To ensure they are accurately representing their community’s interests, students distribute surveys to local schools every two years to get feed-back on issues of concern to their peers. Committee member and former co-chair Kelsey Haynes is particularly proud of one project the committee recently funded, The Travelling Grannies. This innovative program consists of a group of older women who serve as mentors and assistant “grannies” to pregnant and parenting teens identified as at-risk for abuse, neglect, or repeated pregnancy. In addition to grant-making, the Committee also works closely with the Kent County Violence Prevention Youth Coalition in working to prevent sexual assault and violence in schools. Students write letters of protest to companies with offensive and violent advertisements in an effort to curb the glorification of violence in the media.

The skills gained through youth philanthropy are essential to the fundraising and public outreach components of campus organizing. Students on these committees are well prepared to jump into activism as soon as they reach college. Encourage your high school friends to stamp out the myth of teenage apathy by joining a local youth philanthropy committee. Then help them get involved in a Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance when they reach college! For more information on youth philanthropy, check out www.siliconvalleygives.org and www.grfoundation.org.

An estimated 12,000 protestors representing a coalition of various progressive organizations and causes took to the streets in Philadelphia this weekend, protesting the Republican National Convention. Abortion rights was the march’s main focus, sending a message to GOP delegates that their anti-abortion stance is out of tune with the opinion of the public. The march down Benjamin Franklin Parkway highlighted abortion rights, women’s rights, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, and opposition to the death penalty. Feminists, union organizers, Green Party members, and anti-racist activists were all represented, and protestors called for universal health care, an end to police brutality, and more scrutiny of multi-national corporations that exploit workers. Jessica Terlikowski, an intern at the Feminist Majority, called the march “empowering and inspiring,” and described the atmosphere as “united.” The peaceful march was the first event in three days of scheduled protests in conjunction with the GOP Convention.

KARE-TV in Golden Valley, Minnesota became the site of a rally on Sunday, July 30, to protest the station’s announcement that it will air Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s upcoming television show. “Dr. Laura” has aired her views about homosexuality on her radio show, calling gays and lesbians “deviant” and a “biological error.” Her web site (www.drlaura.com) describes the purpose of her show as the dissemination of morals, and includes links to various organizations that support Dr. Laura’s show, including the Rabbinical Alliance of America, an organization that protested the US Holocaust Museum for its inclusion of gay victims of the Holocaust. According to the Associated Press, 300 protestors gathered outside Minnesota’s KARE, vowing to boycott businesses that advertise during the show. Paramount, the studio producing the show, has been the target of much protest (www.stopdrlaura.com) since earlier this year, when it announced that it would air radio personality Dr. Laura on TV. Upcoming protests of local carriers of Dr. Laura’s show include Denver (8/13), Tucson (8/20), and Austin (TBA). Visit www.stopdrlaura.com for more information.

Researchers at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York have identified a link between exposure to certain environmental contaminants and breast cancer. The experimental study found that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), environmental contaminants produced by gasoline and oil combustion and also found in cigarette smoke and broiled meat, damaged DNA and caused cancerous cells to develop. The research team found a significant correlation between PAH-DNA damage in breast tissue and breast cancer in women. The study, published in the July issue of Carcinogenesis, suggests that reducing exposure to environmental factors like PAH could help prevent breast cancer.

On a host of national television news talk shows this week, Republican Vice Presidential hopeful Dick Cheney attempted to justify his Congressional voting record, which proved him to be anti-gun control, anti-abortion rights, anti-education spending, and anti-ERA. Despite the Bush campaign’s effort to highlight Cheney’s “moderate” and Democrat-friendly image, Cheney’s Congressional and federal appointment records show him to be conservative on practically every issue, from economic measures to social policy.

Cheney confidently reiterated his anti-abortion stance, and told interviewers that he voted against the ERA because he feared it would mandate drafting women into the military, and implied that he still holds the same views. His record also shows him to be anti-education spending. For example, he voted against funding for the Head Start program in the 1980s, arguing that a national deficit justified his vote. However, the Head Start program represented a tiny proportion of national spending, and Cheney put budget-balancing concerns aside to vote instead in favor of tax subsidies for oil companies, utilities, railroads and other corporate interests. In 1986 Cheney voted against a resolution that would have pressured South Africa to release Nelson Mandela from prison. Cheney argued that his doubt as to whether economic sanctions would best solve the situation mandated his vote, but congressional records and political science experts counter that sanctions were not even part of the discussions surrounding that resolution. The military spending measures he favored brought military spending to the highest proportion of the economy since World War II.

The University of Hawaii shed its 77-year-old rainbow logo because of the rainbow’s association with the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) community. School officials claim that the decision was not an anti-GLBT statement, and argued that the rainbow symbol brought a “stigma” against the school. Representatives from a local GLBT Community Center criticized the logo change, noting that it sends a negative message to University of Hawaii students, and especially to any GLBT football players.