Allan Giberti (with apologies to Paper Lace) GOD HATES FAGS. The best part of waking up is homophobia on your phone. For me it’s old hat, unoriginal and not worth the energy of a response. Plus it’s in the job description. But for most (gay or straight) it’s a horrific thing to hear and a scarier thing to face. We’ve come so far but the road back is much shorter than anyone realizes. In 1998 Rep. Edith Ajello sponsored the repeal bill (for the seventh time) which brought an end to Rhode Island’s anti-sodomy statutes on June 2nd of that year. Since July 1, 2011 Rhode Island has legally recognized civil unions for same-sex couples and on August 1, 2013 our state officially recognized same-sex marriages. LGBT persons have the same legal protections as heterosexuals and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is outlawed in our state. We have hate crime laws. Gay conversion therapy on minors has been banned since 2017, and as of last year we finally moved forward by no longer allowing the gay and trans-panic defense to be used as a legitimate legal defense, more than 10 years after the American BAR Association’s recommendations to do so. Coming from a gay man, it’s all rubbish. Every single piece of protected class legislation is not worth the piece of paper it is printed on. Why did our elected officials feel the need to put these protections in place? Why the need to grant people like me protected status? For my safety? Of course not. Hate crime legislation and anti-discrimination laws don’t work, they never have. If they did, if they were effective, hate crimes would have not risen for the third consecutive year and 2018 would not have matched the deadliest year so far for transgender Americans. Sadly, 2019 has already seen the death of its first transgender victim, Dana Martin, a Black transgender woman was found in a roadside ditch in her vehicle with a fatal gunshot wound in Montgomery, Alabama, on January 6. No arrests have been made. If hate crime laws, anti-discrimination legislation and protected status don’t help, what purpose do they serve? They provide a false sense of security for the LGBT community. The legislators that created and passed this tripe and got a lot of people re-elected and killed. You listened to their lip service, believed you were safe and believed that they had your back but deep down you know they’re lying and always have been. It’s absolutely true that Democrat party only cares about the LGBT community when it’s election time. You lapped up how great we are, and how much they will continue to protect us during the last election, because if you’ve been paying attention, we are not capable of doing that. We always have been victims, and we always will be. Our own Governor Gina Raimondo tried to ride on the coattails of Rhode Island recognizing same-sex marriage. How Barrack of her. Speaking of Barack Hussein Obama, no he did not give us same-sex marriage. The US Supreme Court did. The deciding vote was cast by Justice Kennedy who was appointed by Ronald Reagan. That’s right a Republican. On April 28, 2018, the Rhode Island Judiciary Committee met to introduce seventeen bills all pertaining to civil rights control, or in liberal speak, gun control. Bills designed to remove our civil rights because gun rights are civil rights and anyone who tells you different is lying to you. These bills were written with the specific intention of infringing upon your Constitutionally guaranteed (both state and federally) right to defend yourself nothing more, nothing less. They were designed to achieve control, dependence and ensure their sponsors and co-sponsors re-election, not to protect you, me or our children. Much of the redundant proposed gun control legislation introduced that day would have either restricted magazine capacity, pushed for more background checks and banned firearms from schools. As we all know criminals don’t follow the law, if they did 15 year-old William Parsons would not have been shot and killed last September outside the Providence Career and Technical Academy days after Governor Gina Raimondo had decreed that guns are no longer allowed on school grounds and I personally can’t see any criminal submitting to a national background check in order to obtain a firearm. I testified that day and I ask you to view that testimony. Perhaps you, your state Representative or Senator can answer the question Rep. Jason Knight and the rest could not. Perhaps you could find out why it is now acceptable to trade one set of lives for another. Perhaps you could ask them why they are continuing this legislative session with the same flawed and deadly legislation, or why, almost 10 months later I am still waiting for an answer. The legislation proposed that day would serve only one purpose and result in potentially deadly consequences for not just the LGBT community, but ANY group that is the recipient of hate. I would like to highlight three bills and what they have in common, the sponsors and cosponsors. The champions of the people and their safety. Unless you are gay or a member of any group that frequently finds themselves on the receiving end of violent hate crime these bills are NOT for you. If your actual goal is to save lives you will not find your answers in any of the legislation proposed that day. House Bill No. 7761 by Teresa Tanzi, Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, Kathleen Fogarty, Jason Knight, Katherine Kazarian, would have raised the age to purchase or possess a rifle or shotgun from 18 years of age to 21 years of age. The result? The youngest and most vulnerable members of the LGBT community are not only left unable to defend themselves , but must rely on the state for protection. Five minutes into a home invasion is too long to wait for help from individuals determined to harm or kill someone. House Bill No. 7762 by Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, Teresa Tanzi, Aaron Regunberg, John Lombardi, Scott Slater, would have repealed the statute providing state preemption of laws pertaining to the ownership, possession, transportation, and sale of firearms and ammunitions. The result? Entire areas of our state where the only people who possess firearms are criminals. It isn’t just the youngest of our community, it is the entire community. House Bill No. 7766 by Jason Knight, Edith Ajello, Teresa Tanzi, Christopher Blazejewski, Grace Diaz, would have restricted possession and sale of new assault weapons and limit magazine capacity to 10 rounds or less. The result? An entire state dependent upon its police force to protect them as well as the targets of violent crime. Since my testimony I have continued to reach out to Reps. Tanzi, Ranglin, Ajello and Knight and not one of them has returned my calls or reached out to me. If you can admit that there is an issue with your legislation and that people will get hurt or die, not offer a solution, pretend it’s not an issue and ignore all requests for an answer, what message does that convey to you? Why won’t Congressman David Cicilline, a gay man himself and the chair of the LGBTQ Equality Caucus, ignore the issue despite multiple attempts by me to contact him and once again push for the assault weapons ban of 2019? Why would my own Congressman, Jim Langevin, who is also a member of the LGBTQ Equality Caucus, be unable to find time in his schedule to meet with me to discuss this? I have even offered to fly to Washington to meet with him in his D.C. office and still nothing. Last I checked that was part of his job, to meet with his constituents. One bill which became law without Raimondo’s signature, and was also opposed by then RI Attorney General Peter Gilmartin, was House Bill No. 7162 which directed the attorney general to report annually to the general assembly on the incidence and disposition of crimes involving guns. Translation: What and how many crimes that involved a firearm had the gun charges dropped as part of a plea deal? Why would anyone oppose this? Why would Gina not rush to sign this? I’m willing to bet the answer is similar to the why Gina sat on the RICAS test scores for so long. The information is not good for them, most likely does not support the claims they’ve been making and puts more criminals back on the streets in a quicker turnaround time than they would like you to know. I spoke briefly to Peter Neronha asking if he supported this bill, unlike his predecessor. He said yes. I will hold you to that. Why did Rep. Teresa Tanzi tweet her support for the LGBT community right before the 2018 election, yet plan on introducing legislation that would leave the youngest and most vulnerable of the LGBT community defenseless? Why did Rep. Edith Ajello, who once lead the charge for LGBT equality, sign onto a bill which would take away even the option for any LGBT person to protect themselves? How could Rep. Jason Knight look me in the eye, acknowledge the flaw in his bill which would affect the LGBT community and still plan to reintroduce such legislation this year? They don’t care. This is a call to all members of the LGBT community to take their own self-defense seriously because our politicians are not. We should be educating the LGBT community on responsible gun ownership, not actively disarming them. ARMED GAYS DO NOT GET BASHED. But who wants that? Who wants an empowered community, capable of taking care of themselves and not dependent on the government? The shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Florida in which 49 people lost their lives and 53 others were wounded was the largest and deadliest attack on the LGBT community. Passage of legislation which strips our ability to equally defend ourselves will be the next. The post that “JESUS HATES THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY” greeted me on Facebook Saturday morning. Apparently so do many of our politicians. Please, would one of Rhode Island State Representatives prove me wrong? Read Part One Here. Read More 990WBOB |
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