Media Release: TEP urges equality advocates to wear purple Tuesday at House Education Subcommittee meeting

March 18, 2013

Contact:          Chris Sanders            

                        (615) 390-5252                                  

                        chris@tnequalityproject.com                       

Tennessee Equality Project urging equality advocates to wear purple to House Education Subcommittee March 19 for hearings on 3 discriminatory bills and 1 anti-bullying bill

Nashville, TN—The Tennessee Equality Project (TEP), a statewide organization advocating equal rights for Tennessee’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community, is urging equality advocates to attend the House Education Subcommittee meeting at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday to show opposition to three discriminatory bills and support for one anti-bullying bill.

The meeting takes place in HHR 30 in Legislative Plaza.  For more information about the event, go the Facebook event page at www.facebook.com/events/485159184867426/ .

The Legislation

SB514/HB1185—This bill would allow students in counseling, psychology, and social work programs at Tennessee’s public universities to opt out of serving certain clients if they have a religious objection.  The examples cited by advocates for the bill and even mentioned during a recent Senate Education Committee hearing focus on opting out of serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community.  The bill was approved by the full Senate on March 14.

SB234/HB1332—The new Don’t Say Gay bill, as written, includes provisions that would require school personnel to out students who come to them about issues of sexuality and gender.  If the proposed amendment is adopted, the bill would prohibit school personnel from counseling students on matters other than education and career unless they are certified in counseling or psychology.  They would have to make a referral to a certified professional, which would generate a contact with the student’s parents.  That would also have the effect of outing the student. 

SB1241/HB1150—The bill is a new version of legislation designed to punish Vanderbilt University for its inclusive all-comers non-discrimination policy for student clubs.  It threatens Vanderbilt with removal of its police force.  The harms to public safety embodied in the bill are obvious, as is the animus toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

SB1241/HB927—The Dignity for All Students Act would enhance the state’s anti-school bullying efforts by adding protections enumerating factors such as disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation since these factors are often the basis for bullying. 

For more information on the Tennessee Equality Project, go to http://www.tnequalityproject.org .

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Vanderbilt, Nashville Firefighters, and congregations support Metro NDO

Vanderbilt University, Local 140 IAFF (Nashville Firefighters), two neighborhood associations, and now six congregations have joined the broad-based list of organizations supporting the non-discrimination ordinance that protects Metro employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The updated list is now available.

The ordinance is on second reading at Metro Council tonight.

Update: I was just informed that the Belmont-Hillsboro Neighbors have voted to endorse the Metro non-discrimination ordinance.

Update 2: Vanderbilt's own release on joining the list:

Vanderbilt University has joined the list of endorsers of a non-discrimination ordinance making its way through the Metro Council, which is scheduled to take the second of three required votes tonight.

The ordinance would make it illegal to discriminate because of sexual orientation or gender identity when it comes to hiring, promotion or firing of Metro Nashville employees.

“Vanderbilt has had a similar non-discrimination policy in place for several years, and it reflects the kind of open, inclusive and tolerant environment that Vanderbilt strives to create and that our faculty, staff, students and visitors expect,” said Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos. “The proposed Metro ordinance likewise sends a positive message about the city, which Vanderbilt so proudly calls home.”

Nashville has no legal protections against employee discrimination based on sexual orientation, which 170 cities and counties along with half of the United States have already put in place. Federal rules banning such discrimination have been in place for more than a decade.

“I appreciate that Vanderbilt has had this policy in place for so many years, and it’s time for the rest of Nashville to catch up,” said Councilwoman Megan Barry, an at-large member of the council and the lead sponsor of the legislation.

Contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu

Update 3: The Tennessee Federation of College Democrats have just joined the list.

Vanderbilt over the rainbow

It's Pride time again at Vanderbilt University. There's a little controversy over the number of rainbow flags flying over the Greek houses on campus. The questions seem to center around what the flag means. For example, is it political?

Nevertheless, some members of the Greek community on campus worry that although though they agree with Lambda's agenda, it is unfair to ask houses to fly a flag supporting what some see as a political cause.

"It was expressed in our chapter that Greek organizations shouldn't have to make political statements, and it's unfair that if we choose not to fly the flag, we are seen as bigots," said senior A.J. Axelrod, a fraternity member. "I don't really buy that, but it was a concern expressed in our house."

An editorial questioned whether there was undue pressure to fly the flags:

Several members of the Greek community expressed concern over oblique social pressure, asserting that not flying the flag was equivocated to being bigoted. They felt that the flag was a political statement, and forcing a majority of their chapter to vote on that statement was inappropriate. The fact that pressure existed, however subtly, is unacceptable.

OK, one thing at a time. Let's start with the issue of pressure and then we'll come back to the Pride flag itself.

Thank goodness the poor, defenseless straight student majority on campus has the Hustler editorial page to defend them against the gays going around asking people to fly a flag. What will they ask for next? Equal dining privileges? It's entirely too much pressure. Give me a break! It doesn't even scratch the surface of what GLBT students face in terms of pressure on campus.

Now back to the flag...I'm not a fan of the Pride flag. But the most vocal, visible element of our community around the country does like it. So I deal with it. Is it political? In a very broad sense, yes, it is. It means liberation to some, acceptance to others. But it doesn't have anything to do with any specific political question, candidate, legislation, or court decision. I don't know why it is that any time something GLBT comes up, some people automatically read it as political. If flying the rainbow flag is the new threshold for political activism, then there are a hell of a lot more activists than I thought. It strikes me now as more cultural than political. So to fly a rainbow flag doesn't tell me whether you support marriage equality, civil unions, polyamory, getting rid of marriage altogether or that you just happen to like rainbows...or, gulp, GLBT folks.

Equality with "order and dignity"

One must be extremely careful in making connections between the Civil Rights Movement and the GLBT rights movement. I spoke about this topic at UT-Martin earlier this year during their week long celebration of of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I found myself trying to be clear about the connections while adding dozens of qualifying statements. It's important to try respect the difference in historical events without lazily assimilating them to the present. Despite the differences, I find that I am drawn to the Civil Rights Movement and all that preceded it for instructive clues on the way forward.

I've been reading Paul Conkin's The Southern Agrarians, a monograph on the literary and political movement that emerged from the friendships of a group of men with ties to Vanderbilt. Usually described with a dismissive blanket conservative label, the Agrarians were obviously not free market fans. And while they had an appreciation for fundamentalism, their socially conservative stance differed in its sources and details from fundamentalism as it was then and is today. They are also remembered as segregationists, but there were fissures in the group on this very point. Conkin highlights the disagreement by pointing to the debate between Allen Tate and Donald Davidson. In opposition to Davidson, who was a convinced segregationist, Tate argued that the "South should take over the process of desegregation and do it with 'order and dignity.' "

It's not clear how history might have been different if Tate's advice had been followed by state and local governments throughout the region. We get glimpses of it in Governor Frank Clement's decision not to oppose court ordered integration. His leadership is credited with Tennessee's comparatively peaceful transition to greater racial equality, though Tennessee was not spared violent detours along the way.

I think Tate's argument is relevant. Just as Tate saw integration as inevitable, I think most if not all of the legal forms of equality that our community is working for will be achieved. The questions are how long and what methods. Based on the analysis of the Williams Institute at UCLA, one is forced to conclude that either the number of same-sex couples is increasing rapidly in the South or that they are being increasingly open about their relationships. I think the path ahead is either one of gradual accommodation by state and local governments to these realities or a long build up to controversial decisions by the courts.

Tate's equality with "order and dignity" would mean that the South would have to own GLBT issues as native to the citizens, families, and institutions of the region, not as an alien force out to destroy the particularity and vitality of the region. For now, the resistance remains strong.

VUMC and Williamson Medical participate in Healthcare Equality Index

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association have put together their first Healthcare Equality Index (HEI). According to this story from the AP,

"The absence of federal protections, inadequate state laws and inconsistent hospital policies often results in discrimination and inadequate health care for GLBT patients and their families...The HEI is calling attention to discriminatory practices and, over time, establishing a 'gold standard' of policies to ensure equality of treatment."

The two participating Tennessee health care organizations are Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Williamson Medical Center. Both scored well in the HEI's five groups of criteria that cover the Patients' Bill of Rights, visitation policies, advance healthcare directives, diversity training, and employment nondiscrimination policies.

This announcement comes just days after Vanderbilt's Faculty Senate voted to include gender identity in the university's nondiscrimination policy.

These developments can only help the case for an inclusive nondiscrimination policy for all Metro employees in Nasvhille and City employees in Memphis.