President Obama speaks at the Holocaust Days of Remembrance Ceremony

President Obama made history today by including homophobia in his speech at the US Capitol Rotunda.

“But we must also remember that bearing witness is not the end of our obligation -- it's just the beginning.  We know that evil has yet to run its course on Earth.  We've seen it in this century in the mass graves and the ashes of villages burned to the ground, and children used as soldiers and rape used as a weapon of war.  To this day, there are those who insist the Holocaust never happened; who perpetrate every form of intolerance -- racism and anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and more -- hatred that degrades its victim and diminishes us all.”

You can watch a video of the speech here, or read the entire transcript below.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
_________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release April 23, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT THE HOLOCAUST DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE CEREMONY

United States Capitol
Washington, D.C.

12:04 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you very much. To Sara Bloomfield, for the wonderful introduction and the outstanding work she's doing; to Fred Zeidman; Joel Geiderman; Mr. Wiesel -- thank you for your wisdom and your witness; Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Senator Dick Durbin; members of Congress; our good friend the Ambassador of Israel; members of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council; and most importantly, the survivors and rescuers and their families who are here today. It is a great honor for me to be here, and I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to address you briefly.

We gather today to mourn the loss of so many lives, and celebrate those who saved them; honor those who survived, and contemplate the obligations of the living.

It is the grimmest of ironies that one of the most savage, barbaric acts of evil in history began in one of the most modernized societies of its time, where so many markers of human progress became tools of human depravity: science that can heal used to kill; education that can enlighten used to rationalize away basic moral impulses; the bureaucracy that sustains modern life used as the machinery of mass death -- a ruthless, chillingly efficient system where many were responsible for the killing, but few got actual blood on their hands.

While the uniqueness of the Holocaust in scope and in method is truly astounding, the Holocaust was driven by many of the same forces that have fueled atrocities throughout history: the scapegoating that leads to hatred and blinds us to our common humanity; the justifications that replace conscience and allow cruelty to spread; the willingness of those who are neither perpetrators nor victims to accept the assigned role of bystander, believing the lie that good people are ever powerless or alone, the fiction that we do not have a choice.

But while we are here today to bear witness to the human capacity to destroy, we are also here to pay tribute to the human impulse to save. In the moral accounting of the Holocaust, as we reckon with numbers like 6 million, as we recall the horror of numbers etched into arms, we also factor in numbers like these: 7,200 -- the number of Danish Jews ferried to safety, many of whom later returned home to find the neighbors who rescued them had also faithfully tended their homes and businesses and belongings while they were gone.

We remember the number five -- the five righteous men and women who join us today from Poland. We are awed by your acts of courage and conscience. And your presence today compels each of us to ask ourselves whether we would have done what you did. We can only hope that the answer is yes.

We also remember the number 5,000 -- the number of Jews rescued by the villagers of Le Chambon, France -- one life saved for each of its 5,000 residents. Not a single Jew who came there was turned away, or turned in. But it was not until decades later that the villagers spoke of what they had done -- and even then, only reluctantly. The author of a book on the rescue found that those he interviewed were baffled by his interest. "How could you call us 'good'?" they said. "We were doing what had to be done."

That is the question of the righteous -- those who would do extraordinary good at extraordinary risk not for affirmation or acclaim or to advance their own interests, but because it is what must be done. They remind us that no one is born a savior or a murderer -- these are choices we each have the power to make. They teach us that no one can make us into bystanders without our consent, and that we are never truly alone -- that if we have the courage to heed that "still, small voice" within us, we can form a minyan for righteousness that can span a village, even a nation.

Their legacy is our inheritance. And the question is, how do we honor and preserve it? How do we ensure that "never again" isn't an empty slogan, or merely an aspiration, but also a call to action?

I believe we start by doing what we are doing today -- by bearing witness, by fighting the silence that is evil's greatest co-conspirator.

In the face of horrors that defy comprehension, the impulse to silence is understandable. My own great uncle returned from his service in World War II in a state of shock, saying little, alone with painful memories that would not leave his head. He went up into the attic, according to the stories that I've heard, and wouldn't come down for six months. He was one of the liberators -- someone who at a very tender age had seen the unimaginable. And so some of the liberators who are here today honor us with their presence -- all of whom we honor for their extraordinary service. My great uncle was part of the 89th Infantry Division -- the first Americans to reach a Nazi concentration camp. And they liberated Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald, where tens of thousands had perished.

The story goes that when the Americans marched in, they discovered the starving survivors and the piles of dead bodies. And General Eisenhower made a decision. He ordered Germans from the nearby town to tour the camp, so they could see what had been done in their name. And he ordered American troops to tour the camp, so they could see the evil they were fighting against. Then he invited congressmen and journalists to bear witness. And he ordered that photographs and films be made. Some of us have seen those same images, whether in the Holocaust Museum or when I visited Yad Vashem, and they never leave you. Eisenhower said that he wanted "to be in a position to give firsthand evidence of these things, if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda."

Eisenhower understood the danger of silence. He understood that if no one knew what had happened, that would be yet another atrocity -- and it would be the perpetrators' ultimate triumph.

What Eisenhower did to record these crimes for history is what we are doing here today. That's what Elie Wiesel and the survivors we honor here do by fighting to make their memories part of our collective memory. That's what the Holocaust Museum does every day on our National Mall, the place where we display for the world our triumphs and failures and the lessons we've learned from our history. It's the very opposite of silence.

But we must also remember that bearing witness is not the end of our obligation -- it's just the beginning. We know that evil has yet to run its course on Earth. We've seen it in this century in the mass graves and the ashes of villages burned to the ground, and children used as soldiers and rape used as a weapon of war. To this day, there are those who insist the Holocaust never happened; who perpetrate every form of intolerance -- racism and anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and more -- hatred that degrades its victim and diminishes us all.

Today, and every day, we have an opportunity, as well as an obligation, to confront these scourges -- to fight the impulse to turn the channel when we see images that disturb us, or wrap ourselves in the false comfort that others' sufferings are not our own. Instead we have the opportunity to make a habit of empathy; to recognize ourselves in each other; to commit ourselves to resisting injustice and intolerance and indifference in whatever forms they may take -- whether confronting those who tell lies about history, or doing everything we can to prevent and end atrocities like those that took place in Rwanda, those taking place in Darfur. That is my commitment as President. I hope that is yours, as well.

It will not be easy. At times, fulfilling these obligations require self-reflection. But in the final analysis, I believe history gives us cause for hope rather than despair -- the hope of a chosen people who have overcome oppression since the days of Exodus; of the nation of Israel rising from the destruction of the Holocaust; of the strong and enduring bonds between our nations.

It is the hope, too, of those who not only survived, but chose to live, teaching us the meaning of courage and resilience and dignity. I'm thinking today of a study conducted after the war that found that Holocaust survivors living in America actually had a higher birthrate than American Jews. What a stunning act of faith -- to bring a child in a world that has shown you so much cruelty; to believe that no matter what you have endured, or how much you have lost, in the end, you have a duty to life.

We find cause for hope as well in Protestant and Catholic children attending school together in Northern Ireland; in Hutus and Tutsis living side by side, forgiving neighbors who have done the unforgivable; in a movement to save Darfur that has thousands of high school and college chapters in 25 countries, and brought 70,000 people to the Washington Mall -- people of every age and faith and background and race united in common cause with suffering brothers and sisters halfway around the world.


Those numbers can be our future -- our fellow citizens of the world showing us how to make the journey from oppression to survival, from witness to resistance, and ultimately to reconciliation. That is what we mean when we say "never again."

So today, during this season when we celebrate liberation, resurrection, and the possibility of redemption, may each of us renew our resolve to do what must be done. And may we strive each day, both individually and as a nation, to be among the righteous.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

END 12:18 P.M. EDT

Martin Delaney

The world lost a pillar of the HIV/AIDS activistism today with the passing of Martin Delaney . Marty was the founder of Project Inform and the person responsible for creating the FDA's "parallel track" policy along with Anthony Fauci at the NIH in 1989. As reported by Poz.com's Peter Staley, that policy "allowed patients with AIDS whose condition prevents them from participating in controlled clinical trials to receive promising experimental drugs."

In my own work as an activist and educator I can't tell you how many times I recommended and referred to Project Inform's incredible wealth of information for the care and treatment of people with HIV. In the days before the internet accurate information was key to our survival and Marty worked to not only gather but also disseminate this information to everyone who needed it, in an understandable format. On Monday January 19, 2009 Marty was just honored by Dr. Tony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIAID), for his selfless work in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Marty was awarded the "Special Recognition Award for his lifesaving work to advance safe and effective HIV medications and inform people with HIV about their treatment options and health care."

Personally I had the privilege of knowing Marty and working with him over the years. I cannot imagine how we would have continued to make the gains we have in HIV that we have accomplished without his tireless work. I can only echo the words written by Project Inform,

Personally and through Project Inform, Marty has educated or counseled tens of thousands of HIV-positive individuals and their caregivers about how to treat HIV. A day does not pass in the life of this agency that we do not hear from a person living with HIV or a supporter about a life lengthened or saved as a result of Marty’s efforts.

If it were not for Marty's work, I do not know if I would be alive today either.

There was a slogan taken from a Dylan Thomas poem we used to use in ACT UP :
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Rest now old friend your work here is done.

So long Sam.

Life is like a game of Chutes and Ladders; sometimes you move forward, sometimes you get knocked back a few steps. In the afterglow of the inauguration of Barrack Obama we in Portland learned of a scandal involving our openly gay mayor, Sam Adams and a former aid named Beau Breedlove. Rumors of a relationship between the two were apparently a well known secret, keeping with a fine Stumptown tradition established by former Mayor and Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt .

The editorial boards of The Oregonian and Portland Tribune and local gay paper Just Out are all calling for Adams resignation but many people still support the Mayor. People are quickly choosing sides on the issue of his guilt or innocence, with the progressive, liberal caucus Adams built supporting the mayor and established Portlanders calling for blood. The gay community is split down the middle, proud to have an openly gay man running a large US city but disgusted to be involved in a sex scandal.

To me the question is not a debate on the ethics of when someone is old enough to engage in sexual relations, the law is crystal clear about this fact. Rather the issue is one of the trust we place in our elected officials. Sam Adams lied about his involvement with Breedlove and then asked others to lie as well.

Is Adams being held to a higher standard? If he is it because he set the standard himself. In his 2007 Open Letter to Portlanders, Adams refers to the rumors of his relationship with Breedlove saying, " I have been the target of a nasty smear by a would-be political opponent." He continues that he "will not dignify the substance of this smear by repeating it - if you read the accounts you will see there is no foundation to it. The reason is simple: it is untrue."

The letter then continues to outline some of the very real issues facing LGBT youth in our society, including suicide, homelessness and depression.

Mr. Mayor, you forgot to mention one very real pitfall, the predatory behavior of adults towards impressionable adolescents and children. I know you are aware of this issue because you are on record as using it in an attempt to draw suspicions away from your own actions. You admitted as much in an interview with The Portland Mercury, Sept. 20, 2007, "If this had come from the right wing -- and it probably will now -- that would have been one thing. But to come from another gay man is something more hurtful. It plays into the worst deep-seated fears society has about gay men: You can't trust them with your young."

We reached an incredible milestone this week in America with the election of Barrack Obama as President. We affirmed as a nation that politics of race, gender and sexual preference do not matter, only one thing does; the truth. And that Mr. Mayor is what you failed to deliver when you had the chance, and that is why I feel you should resign.

Dear David...

The Portland paper Willamette Week has named Barack Obama their Rogue of the Week for his campaign's aggressive fundraising here in Stumptown. Glad I'm not the only person who is feeling shafted by not being able to find a job, having to choose between paying for health care and other essentials to like food and shelter. Between the shake down and the shaft (Rick Warren) this is starting to feel like the Reagan years again. How ironic that in the online version of the New York Times

today was an add welcoming skilled workers to reside and live permanently in Canada. So in addition to recruiting foreign workers here in the US on H1 visas, I wonder how many red blooded Americans like myself may consider emigration to the North? Healthcare for everyone and equal rights versus a $1000 tax cut under the proposed economic stimulus act. Come on this is hardly the WPA like program we were promised and we so desperately need, and who is going to pay for this? We've already mortgaged our grandchildren's futures to China. We need jobs Mr. President-Elect, good jobs that will not be exported overseas with the blessing of Wall Street and disgraced financial gurus. We need to stop our police of importing lower paid "guest workers" to do the our jobs when American citizens are willing and able to perform them at a fair living wage. And if we don't well we're already seeing what happens, the best and the brightest will abandon the ship while the band plays at your party.

Et tu Melissa?

After being confused by the recent comments by Melissa Etheridge, calling for a truce in the Rick Warren fiasco, I read her piece in the Huffington Post. Melissa's credentials as an activist are bona fide and her writing takes the high ground, something I respect her for.

She tells the story of how she came to meet Rick Warren at a fundraiser for Muslim Americans and how they found common bonds, in both her battle with breast cancer and that of Warren's wife. Etheridge espouses the same hope which caused so many LGBT people to work so very hard to elect Barrack Obama when she says, "Maybe if they get to know us, they wont fear us." and "I know, call me a dreamer, but I feel a new era is upon us.".

I admire your faith Melissa, but I have to disagree. For you see by Warren's own admission he does know us, he has gay friends and has broken bread at our tables. This is not simply a preference red wine over white, rock over jazz, this is a painful reminder of the apologetic politics of pre civil rights America. The time when good Negroes were the ones who knew their place and didn't get uppity. Does this sound familiar, does this remind you of another revolutionary change that occurred recently?

Let's revisit history, while it was the non-violent protests of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King that we remember it was the fearless action of Rosa Parks by taking her rightful seat on that bus that created change. While we know that the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education ruled the unconstitutionally of 'separate but equal" it was the actions of 7 fearless young people; Carlotta Walls, Jefferson Thomas, Gloria Ray, Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Thelma Mothershed, Terrence Roberts, Minnijean Brown, and Melba Pattillo who bravely walked into Central High School escorted by US Army troops on September 25, 1957.

It was not just kind words and good deeds that gave us Civil Rights; it was human lives, blood, sweat and tears. It was our outrage at being illegally beaten and harassed that lead to the Stonewall Riots, the tragic murder of Harvey Milk that lead to the White Night Riots. And personally, watching my own friends and loved ones so courageously battle and ultimately succumb to AIDS while our nations religious leaders called it God’s wrath and fought our attempts for treatment, education and care at every turn has left a permanent acrid taste in my mouth for preachers who use pulpit as a forum to oppress the rights of others in the name of God. No good has, or ever will come of the insane practice.

And it is now our righteous indignation at seeing our fellow Americans have their rights rescinded which has fueled our anger at President-Elect Obama for legitimizing Rick Warren’s homophobic actions.

We are angry, we are disenfranchised and we want justice.
What I am trying to say is that real change does not just happen; it takes hard work and sacrifice. The people who created and passed Prop 8 know this and it is a lesson we all have bitterly been reminded of. What we do now is up to us.

Old Nazi in dress cries wolf.

Just when you thought thing couldn't get any stranger, Pope Benedict XVI said today that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction, according to the story on the BBC.

The Catholic News had a different take on the story,
"self-destruction," the pope said he meant "contempt for the Creator," and he said examples could be found in so-called "gender" issues today. He offered a case in point: Marriage as a permanent union between a man and a woman was something instituted by God as "the sacrament of creation."

Although the pope didn't specifically talk about same-sex marriage, the meaning was clear enough to prompt some unusual headlines about rain forests and homosexuals".

Oh and like the Rev Rick, the Catholic Church opposes gay marriage and was part of the cabal that funded and Proposition 8. Our Roman friends want to remind us that while they teach that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. Someone should have reminded the priests of that one when they were abusing children in their care. Isn't it funny after all those expensive lawsuits, settlements and bankruptcies that they still have any money left?

Hate the sin, hate the sinner more.

Rick Warren and his crew are revising their history, too bad we live in the age of Google. As reported by John Aravosis on his site, Americablog, Saddleback Church has removed the original language from the Small Group Questions About Saddleback Church section of their site.

Under question number 48,' What does the Bible say about homosexuality?' We find the usual quotes;

"Homosexuality is absolutely forbidden, for it is an enormous sin." (Lev. 18:22 TLB)

the lies,

"Isn't being homosexual something that a person is physically born with?" First of all, there are absolutely no facts to support this claim.

and the slander,
"We know that some people can develop a stronger physical addiction to alcohol than others, but that's obviously no excuse for living an alcoholic lifestyle.".

But the best line in the text is this part (italics added by me),
Because membership in a church is an outgrowth of accepting the Lordship and leadership of Jesus in one’s life, someone unwilling to repent of their homosexual lifestyle would not be accepted at a member at Saddleback Church.

Nice the see that Christian compassion at work, especially at this time of year. Rev. Rick, I have news for you, even though you've eaten in our homes, and have done your Christian duty to assist those less fortunate than you with your money, and you get to pray for us at the Inauguration doesn't negate the fact that you, your church and your fellow religious leaders have actively worked to remove the civil rights from your fellow Californians, your fellow Americans. You can spin it any way you want, but we're pissed off and are not going to sit idly by while our rights are removed. Judgement day is coming alright, but not the one you think.