globalview


May 1997  (Vol 5, No. 2)

In this issue:


back 
Reflections
Democracy. Be counted.

Can you be counted or a member of a democracy when you are being silenced or oppressed? Can you be equal when you are in the closet or afraid to participate fully in society and its institutions?

We know, as lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders that negative representations often force us to be quiet, hidden and uninvolved.

Right now, we have to stand proudly and in union with our colleagues who are also being silenced and oppressed. The aftermath of the election campaign contribution scandal-mongering is strongly impacting our Asian-American/Pacific Islander heritage colleagues. They are finding themselves under scrutiny, suspect, having their patriotism questioned and their place at the table maligned. In too many of their communities around the country, the reaction is to disinvolve themselves from the formal political process.

This is bad for us all. This is the antithesis of what this country is about and what we are all working for. When all of us are involved, all of us benefit.

All groups are under assault, subtle sometimes, more brazen at other times. The anti-immigrant fervor is being particularly fueled by our old friend ex-Congressman Dornan in his daily attacks on Congresswoman Sanchez. Rather than taking electoral defeat like a human, he is questioning Latino communities for vote fraud. Is this going to engage more people in the district to participate?

As we start our celebrations of Pride Month, let us work to celebrate the diversity within our specific communities, within the country and around the world. Pride means being counted. Being seen. Being out. Pride is a necessary prerequisite for democracy. As we enjoy our pride, let us make certain that we encourage others in theirs. The rainbow is a symbol of diversity. Let us make it a symbol of pride for all—black, yellow, red, white, brown, lavender and every beautiful mix we can make. Let us take our rainbow flags and drape them around everyone. Let everyone be counted.

return to top

Federal GLOBE Steps to A Better Workplace
  • Policy Statement Inclusion:
    Has your department, agency, or bureau emended your official Equal Employment Opportunity, Non-Discrimination, Diversity, and/or Civil Rights policy statements to include sexual orientation in the list of protected classes?
  • Inclusion Notification:
    Has your department agency or bureau disseminated the policies and sent notification to all employees informing them that discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal and cannot be tolerated?
  • Job Announcement Inclusion:
    Have applicants for positions in your department or bureau been explicitly informed that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is forbidden?
  • Negotiated Agreement Inclusion:
    Has your department, agency or bureau (a) entered into any agreements or contracts with recognized bargaining unit agents incorporating a ban on sexual orientation discrimination and if so, (b) developed regularized procedures of notifying bargaining unit employees that they have access to grievance procedures in complaints alleging such discrimination or harassment?
  • Grievance Procedures Notification:
    Have employees not covered by bargaining units been notified that they have access to normal administrative grievance procedures if they feel they have suffered illegal sexual orientation discrimination?
  • Procedures for a Zero-discrimination workplace:
    Are your EEO, Civil Rights, General Counsel, Inspectors General, and Employee Assistance offices prepared to deal with issues of sexual orientation in advisement, training, dispute resolution, and complaint processing?
  • Training:
    Is the training given to managers and staff on civil rights and EEO policies and procedures accurate and effective in dealing with the rights afforded to lesbian, gay and bisexual employees?
  • Family Friendly Benefits:
    Have department policies been changed to reflect the multiplicity of family structures such as policies on: leave; relocation; use of facilities such as fitness centers, libraries, child-care centers; relocation expenses; shift scheduling?
  • Creating and Maintaining a GLOBE organization:
    Has your department, agency or bureau supported or recognized the creation of a GLBT support group such as GLOBE? Does your GLOBE create programs open to all to educate them on the issues of sexual orientation in the workplace, GLBT history and awareness or inclusion of GLBT into agency mission-oriented work?
  • Networking with Other Groups:
    Has your GLOBE organization contacted, supported, and/or worked with other minority employee groups or recognized bargaining unit agents?

return to top
Federal GLOBE Partnership Program

Federal GLOBE has initiate a partnership program to fund Federal GLOBE affiliates for projects, programs, or activities intended to significantly advance gay, lesbian or bisexual interests in the Federal workplace.

Federal GLOBE believes that instituting such a program would strengthen relations itself and the GLOBE affiliates in Departments and agencies and allow Federal GLOBE to expand the type services it provides.

Affiliates should submit grant proposals for up to $100 describing how the funds would be utilized. The proposals will be reviewed by the Board of Directors of Federal GLOBE. Recipients would be expected to submit a report at the conclusion of the project, program or activity with details as to how the funds were spent and comments on the success of the project, program or activity.

Federal GLOBE has 501© 3 status and donations to this program should be fully tax deductible. We encourage donations.

Interested organizations should contact any of the board members for information.

return to top
Sexual Orientation in the Workplace: Hollywood Supports Facilitator Training

Federal GLOBE, with financial support from the Human Rights Campaign and Hollywood Supports, conducted an intensive train-the-trainer workshop in April. The training was conducted by Hollywood Supports, a non-profit organization that provides workplace training on issues related to sexual orientation. The class was designed to train facilitators to conduct a specialized version of that organization's highly successful 90 minute workshop on sexual orientation in the workplace. The training and workshop provides us with excellent materials and techniques for bringing these issues forward in a productive and non-threatening way. Hollywood Supports presented the training in its entirety to the participants as well as to members of the Patent and Trademark Office Civil Rights staff on Friday April 3. This enabled the trainees to see the workshop in action before they learned to give it themselves.

The training began in earnest after watching the seminar with an in-depth review of each of the segments of the workshop. The segments develop the issues of understanding how sexual orientation comes into the workplace, the negative influence of stereotyping, the need for good communication, and nuts-and-bolts legal issues in dealing with issues of harassment and discrimination in the Federal workplace.

The various training roles were broken down and assigned to individuals and from that point the presentations were made exclusively by trainees with other class members providing audience response. Through modeling sections, with tough questions and challenges that the audience had, all were required to use the information provided to build the understanding and knowledge base necessary. At the end of these sessions, responses were analyzed. It was an excellent way to practice presenting the material and to address audience questions in a controlled environment where mistakes were used productively. Peer review is a positive way to share experiences and learn from one another.

We hope to start using the trainers in the agencies and plan for future training opportunities.

Federal GLOBE thanks Hollywood Support, HRC and PTO for their support of this, and looks forward to continuing these relationships and develop this training as a tool for all of our agencies.

return to top
Commerce GLOBE Supports Coalition of Minority Employees

A coalition of Commerce Department Asian Pacific American Federal employees sponsored a luncheon on February 27th at which Lawrence Lucas, President of USDA's Coalition of Minority Employees spoke concerning the importance of minority employees finding strength in and effecting change on the basis of common interests. Rob Sadler of Commerce GLOBE attended and told the attendees that Commerce GLOBE stood ready and willing to join in a coalition of minority employees here at the Commerce Department.

Because we represent the "invisible" minority, it is important to recognize the many crossover issues our community encompasses and to speak out in support of these issues. These include affirmative action and discrimination based on race and gender—the issues common to African Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, women, the disabled, and others—because our community spans the breadth of the minority community. We hope to be able to report further progress on the formation of such a coalition at a future date.

return to top
Commerce GLOBE Advises OCR on How Best to Serve GLB Employees

Rob Sadler, President-elect of Federal GLOBE and member of the Executive Council of Commerce GLOBE, told the conference of Department of Commerce civil rights offices that they can best serve the GLB community by better knowing the issues surrounding sexual orientation in the workplace. To that end he offered services in presenting workshops on sexual orientation workplace issues for the various offices of civil rights throughout the Department. Over 20 federal employees are trained to present a workshop on issues related to sexual orientation in the Federal workplace. Rob also spoke extensively on workplace issues faced by GLB employees, including minority GLB employees.

Rob was invited to sit on a panel at the recent Office of Civil Rights-sponsored conference held here in Washington, D.C., April 7-9, 1997, to address the specific issue of how that office can better serve the gay, lesbian, bisexual employee community. In addition to training, he called on the civil rights community at Commerce to consider implementing a parallel EEO process similar to those in place at HHS, DOJ and DOT. This model, while not granting access to the Federal courts, would provide GLB employees with a substantially similar avenue of redress as is available to employees alleging discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Such a process would at least give the semblance of fair and equal treatment. Sexual orientation discrimination is currently not included in Title VII, and, thus, GLB employees have traditionally been excluded from the standard EEO process available in most agencies.

He also strongly encouraged the Office of Civil Rights to use Federal GLOBE and Commerce GLOBE as a resource and to publish a compendium of information of interest to GLB employees, including workplace policies (e.g., the non-discrimination policy), avenues of redress and the legal basis for bringing an allegation of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and employee support groups (e.g., Commerce GLOBE). Having such a resource would make it easier for GLB employees to obtain the right information quickly and would reinforce. For more information call Rob Sadler at 202/482-8045.

return to top
Commerce GLOBE Provides Introduction to Secretary Daley

On March 13, the Executive Council of Commerce GLOBE forwarded a letter to Secretary Daley introducing him to the resources and programs of Commerce GLOBE. The letter enclosed a Commerce GLOBE organization brochure and Common Ground Program materials with an invitation to the Secretary to become an honorary participant in that program. Similar materials had also been sent to Secretaries Brown and Kantor. The letter also expressed our interest in meeting with the Secretary to further explain our purpose, answer his questions, and talk with him about the progress we have made to date. —Rob Sadler

return to top
Stand Up and Be Counted
 ROB SADLER

It is important for gay, lesbian, and bisexual employees to be forthright and open—to come out in order to chankplace. If we are to truly transform this society and our workplace, we must abandon the false reality of the closet. Coming out is the one step each gay person can take to shatter virtual equality and move closer to achieving the genuine equality that we all seek.

It is acts of coming out that will one day transform the workplace in America—these individual and personal acts of courage. For they simply convince me all the more that what we are doing is right and we must continue on the same path.

However, there are many who, for whatever reason, cannot come out—they lack the proper support network, they fear loss of their job or reprisal, or, perhaps even worse, they are victims of their own internalized homophobia. Straight society has convinced them they shouldn't be themselves—and, having achieved a modicum of success leading separate lives, a gay one and a passing-for-straight one, it is hard to win them over to see that coming out would be of benefit, not only to the community, but for themselves as well.

For this latter group, I urge you to at least be "counted" if you cannot stand up and be "out." By this I mean join your GLOBE organization, as well as Federal GLOBE. Your membership is important, not because we expect you to come to a meeting or help us organize events for June, but because the organization, whether it be Federal GLOBE or your agency GLOBE can legitimately say it is representing you and many others like you. It is you as a "number" that matters if that is all that you can give to the effort. For those who are members, we urge you to work this year to get 10 of your friends and colleagues to join Federal GLOBE.

It is important, more than you may think, to be able to say that as an organization we represent 150, 200, 350 or more employees at your agency or 5,000 at Federal GLOBE. The larger the membership numbers, and the more diverse the membership, the more your GLOBE organization takes on the character of a broad-based employee organization representative of the majority of gay, lesbian, bisexual employees at your agency. The GLOBE presence at meetings is then taken more seriously, we are more likely to be consulted, more likely to be invited to take a seat at the table, and, therefore, more likely to be effective in bring about changes to improve our situation in the Federal workplace. The math is fairly simple—it just adds up.

We call on our members to reach out to their colleagues and convince them of the importance of being at least a "number." Of course, we encourage you to be more, to be an active participant—but if you can't, we understand. But please consider joining. Your numbers help us tremendously.

I personally implore you to join Federal GLOBE and your agency GLOBE organization—stand up and be counted. Join us in creating a place for our community within the workplace and society. Join us to achieve equality in the workplace.

return to top
Homosexuality, Citizenship, and the Constitution

In the following, Rob Sadler sets forth a synthesis of his own views and those of Michael Nava and Robert Dawidoff in Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America (1994). This is one of the core readings that we recommended to those taking the training for the Sexual Orientation in the Workplace seminar. We encourage everyone to read this and the other books we will be reviewing in the coming year.

Homosexuals have pointed out, often in anger, that simply being homosexual disqualifies one for the rights inherent in citizenship in this country—civil rights which the majority takes for granted. Whatever rights which may adhere in other attributes, identities, or positions cannot ensure either the free exercise of the constitutional rights of liberty or equal protection if that person is gay, lesbian, or bisexual (GLB). American society, in fact, actively sustains the prejudice which makes each and every GLB a second class citizen. As such, GLBs are routinely exposed to official persecution, violence, prejudicial treatment, and denied the means of redress, and their pursuit of happiness is relegated to the margins except in certain urban areas.

The current controversy surrounding the recognition of sexual orientation as a separate category of individual liberty makes it appear that what GLBs seek differs in some fundamental way from what others have claimed in their civil rights movements. The claim that GLBs want special rights represents the degree to which such persons are seen as so out of the ordinary that their claims to ordinary rights seem special. This is simply not the case and is a complete distortion of fact.

In fact, GLBs would like to end their special status as second-class citizens under the Constitution and change the manner in which the Constitution has been interpreted. Twenty-three states still have sodomy statutes which criminalize certain sexual practices that both homosexuals and heterosexuals engage in. In its 1986 decision Hardwick v. Bowers, the Supreme Court held that these laws may be validly applied to homosexuals but not heterosexuals. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to ask how such laws, which govern the most intimate behavior, can be so unevenly applied? It was a question the Supreme Court declined to answer. But to GLBs the Court's message was clear: although the practices may be identical, the sexual behavior of homosexuals are not worthy of constitutional protection because they are not heterosexual.

Sodomy laws are the clearest example for justifying discrimination against GLBs and maintaining their second class citizenship status. Even in states without such laws, discriminatory attitudes against GLBs persist in virtually every aspect of civil life. Seeking health care, employment, housing, access to public facilities, homosexuals encounter discrimination simply by identifying themselves as homosexuals. Additionally, homosexuals can only serve in the military by hiding their lives but many have served and given their lives. The message this conveys is that while you may give your life for your country, you may not live your life in your country. The effort to compel homosexuals to lie about their lives and deny their human experience is itself a deprivation of liberty.

The constitutional status of homosexuals is intertwined with the intense prejudice against them. The decision to regard homosexuality as an alien behavior and to punish it, makes a law of the majority's personal taste. For most, the evil of homosexuality is a matter of equating distaste with immorality. This is because prejudice against homosexuals is not so much religious as it is visceral. But neither religious beliefs nor visceral feelings justify the denial of constitutional rights. This type of discrimination represents an unjustifiable attempt to isolate certain individuals on the basis of whom they love a matter that is supremely and constitutionally their own business.

This argument applies with equal force to the discrimination confronted by transgender persons. The civil movement for gay rights raises the question of whether those rights will be subordinated to the religious and ideological views of a minority that blames GLBs for what it dislikes and fears in society. It is a classic example of scapegoating. But unquestionably, the attack on GLBs and transgender persons amounts to an attack on individual freedom itself and undermines the democratic principles on which this country was founded.

Gay rights are an issue of individual liberty. The claim may differ somewhat from that of other oppressed groups who have sought civil rights, but the basis of the claim remains the same. GLBs seek such rights on two grounds: (1) the traditional American doctrine that governments are instituted for the protection of the fundamental rights of individuals, and (2) the historical process by which such rights have been extended to the oppressed. The objections raised against granting such rights are to be expected, but remain irrelevant when considering the justice of the claim. Rights are not exclusive to a particular group in our society. The price Americans pay for the enjoyment of liberty is the recognition that other people, in particular those whom you may dislike (for whatever reason), have an equal claim to the same liberty. And that is why gay rights matter to us all.

Opposition to gay rights represents the continuing mistrust of individual freedom as the basis for society it is that simple. However, our constitutional form of government directs that mistrust against government, not the governed. Fear of excess government led to the inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution guaranteeing to the individual the freedom of belief, speech, privacy, independence of action, due process, local government, difference, and disagreement. It is the legal basis for everyone's individuality and self-realization.

Although this is the case, it is commonplace in democracy that the majority is often fearful of the individual. The gay rights movement is but the latest in a long line of libertarian movements that have frightened those who fear freedom. Of course gay rights no more undermines the constitution than it does the family unit. Families are encouraged, privileged, and protected in our society, but individual rights are not subordinate either to narrow interpretations of the Constitution or to particular definitions of family.

Indeed, the gay rights movement is firmly premised on two broad constitutional principles. The first is the right of enjoyment of privacy, the necessary precondition for the enjoyment of civil liberty. The second is the enjoyment as a class or group of equal protection of the laws, which essentially means that one's individual right to equal treatment under the law may not be violated because one belongs to a particular group, sexual orientation notwithstanding. Without these constitutionally guaranteed rights, one simply does not enjoy American citizenship.

The irony of the gay civil rights movement is that it is less a statement about group aims than it is about individuals asserting personal rights to personal freedom about personal life. This country has confused civil rights with minority group advancement, or what some call identity politics, and civil liberties has come to signify the rights of unpopular individuals. It is important to remember, however, that all the various civil rights movements represent the collective decision of individuals from groups of stigmatized Americans who refuse to accept any longer the status they have been granted by the majority that of a marginalized minority not deemed fit or ready to assume the full rights accorded to members of the majority. GLBs refuse to accept any longer the deprivation of their rights by the majority.

The Constitution grants these rights to all. One does not have to somehow earn these rights or deserve them. And remember that GLBs do not seek new or special rights under the Constitution. GLBs simply desire an extension of existing rights guaranteed to all American citizens by that document and identified in the Declaration of Independence as the purpose, not the gift, of government.

One other point bears clarification GLBs do not seek the right to be homosexual. This right is not one within the power or authority of the government to give. GLBs do seek, however, the right to secure the conditions under which they may lead ordinary lives like everyone else. For truly, in a democracy, no one has their rights until everyone has their rights.

return to top
The 1997 Franklin E. Kameny Award

Dr. Franklin E. Kameny was fired from Federal employment in 1957 because of allegations of homosexuality. He has spent the rest of his life working ceaselessly to create the conditions where this cannot happen again. Because of his diligent advocacy for individuals in cases before all agencies, and his strong articulation for positive and constructive advancement, our world today is friendlier and more educated about gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. He has been at the fore in challenging restrictions and in expanding the rights and protections of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender persons in Federal service.

In honor of his pathbreaking contributions in advancing these interests, Federal GLOBE annually presents awards to those Federal employees it feels have most emulated the spirit of Franklin E. Kameny in transforming the Federal workplace to one in which gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender employees can work in safety, realize their full potential, and avail themselves of the rights and opportunities afforded to all Federal employees no matter their sexual orientation. Last year, long time activist and leader Craig Howell of the Department of Labor was our winner (and well deserved!!). He follows the founding honorees Eric Keller (Smithsonian) and Ron Patterson (OPM).

This year the award will be presented at Federal GLOBE's Second Annual Congress which will be held in conjunction with the NGLTF Creating Change Conference which is slated for this November, in San Diego, CA. We are asking members to submit names along with a description of the individual's accomplishments for consideration by the Federal GLOBE Board. Nominations may be sent to PO Box 45237, Washington DC 20026-5237, by no later than September 30, 1997.