10/12/14

Join IQ for prisoner letter writing, monthly.

Irish Queers is meeting monthly for political prisoner letter-writing! Please contact us to be added to the announcement list for letter-writing plus eats, drinks, and/or good company.

For October we'll be joining ABC's letter-writing/vegan dinner this coming Tuesday, Oct. 14 @ 7pm. After that, we'll be Irish Queers-ing it up with our own writing/meetings, in addition to supporting other folks' events.

Here's ABC's event description. Please come!

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm (sharp), Tuesday, October 14th, 2014
WHERECAGE – 83A Hester Street (UPSTAIRS) New York, New York 10002 (directions below)
COST: Freeluke_o'donovan
Have you ever been squarely punched in the nose? If so, you know how disorienting it is. Of course there’s the pain, but with the punch comes a lot of blood and a shockwave through your skull. Your head gets rocked back and the violence is all too palpable. The language and imagery of violence is again (still?) in vogue, popularized by folks who have likely never meted out or received much of it. It’s difficult for us in NYC ABC not to feel disgusted when we see this trend followed in radical communities, knowing the kind of violence our friends and comrades regularly endure. 
It is with violence and a radical defense against it in mind that we focus our next political prisoner letter-writing dinner on Luke O’Donovan. On New Year’s Eve of 2013, Luke was seen dancing with and kissing other men at a house party. Later in the night he was insulted with homophobic slurs, and attacked by several people. Luke unsuccessfully attempted to escape, at which point several witnesses reported watching between 5 and 12 men ganging-up on Luke and stomping on his head and body, evidently with the intent to kill him. Luke was called a faggot before and during the attack. Throughout the course of the attack, Luke and five others were stabbed. Luke was subsequently imprisoned and charged with five counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon as well as one count of attempted murder while none of the other individuals involved in the altercation were charged. 
Luke’s trial concluded on August 12, 2014, when he accepted a plea deal. While initially facing over 100 years in prison, the deal Luke accepted includes two years in prison and eight years on probation. At the time of sentencing, the judge added to the negotiated plea that Luke will bebanished from the state of Georgia for the eight years of his probation.
We’re lucky to have a guest speaker who was in Atlanta for Luke’s court proceedings and will have more information on Luke’s case and ways to help.
While we expect to see you on Tuesday, if you can’t make it, please take the time to write a letter to Luke: 
Luke Patrick O’Donovan #1001372271Washington State PrisonPost Office Box 206Davisboro, Georgia 31018 
The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some briefupdates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar. 
DIRECTIONS:
Getting to CAGE is simple:
From the J/M/Z:
Essex Street Stop: Walk west on Delancey Street (toward Essex Street, away from Norfolk Street) and make a left on Essex Street. Walk three blocks and turn right onto Hester Street. We’re two and a half blocks down, on the right.
From the F:
East Broadway Stop: Walk north on Rutgers Street (toward East Broadway, away from Henry Street), that becomes Essex Street, and turn left on Hester Street. We’re two and a half blocks down, on the right.
From the B/D:
Grand Street Stop: Walk east on Grand Street (Toward Forsyth Street, away from Chrystie Street) and turn right on Orchard Street. Walk one block and turn right onto Hester Street. We’re a few storefronts down on the right.
If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch. Otherwise, we’ll see you at supper.
This event is brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Anarchist Black Cross.

NYC ABC
Post Office Box 110034
Brooklyn, New York 11211
nycabc[at]riseup[dot]net
http://nycabc.wordpress.comhttp://www.facebook.com/nycabchttp://twitter.com/nycabchttp://instagram.com/nycabchttp://www.abcf.net/nycFree all Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War!
For the Abolition of State Repression and Domination!

10/10/14

Irish/queer communities to Mayor & NYC Council Speaker: the ban is not lifted, keep the pressure on!


Mayor deBlasio & Speaker Mark-Viverito:
Keep up the boycott of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade until Irish LGBTQ groups can march under their own banner.

Oct. 9, 2014

Dear Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito,

Last year, your public boycott of the anti-gay NYC St. Patrick's Day parade finally paved the way for corporate sponsors to drop the parade. Their departure created pressure on NBC, one of the last remaining sponsors and the broadcaster of the parade, who put pressure on the parade organizers to finally end their ban on Irish LGBTQ groups.

Instead of that pressure leading to Irish LGBTQ groups taking their rightful place in the community's parade, OUT@NBCUniversal has jumped into the space it created. OUT@NBCUniversal is the gay employee/marketing group of the parade's sponsor. The Irish LGBTQ community is still excluded from the parade. The “lifting of the ban” is a sham.

Parade organizers have said that Irish LGBTQ groups may “apply” to march in future St. Patrick’s Day Parades from 2016 on, claiming that there is no room for another group in 2015. This is the same ruse they used in 1991 when they wanted to exclude the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization. When Mayor Dinkins called their bluff and offered to expand the march to allow ILGO in, the organizers came out in the open with their anti-gay reasons for excluding them. This year, when Irish LGBTQ groups applied, parade organizers quickly declared that applications were closed. In the fallout from this gay-panic response, the Catholic League also dropped out of the 2015 march, leaving the parade short of one large contingent. As before, parade organizers simply refuse to let Irish LGBTQ groups march in the newly-opened space.

State and national LGBTQ advocacy groups, as well as groups in Ireland, are supporting the demand for Irish LGBTQ groups to march openly and freely, rather than seeking to march themselves or supporting OUT@NBCUniversal's participation.

Irish LGBTQ groups have also asked OUT@NBCUniversal to withdraw from the parade until Irish LGBTQ groups are part of the parade.

We write to ask that you continue to publicly boycott the parade until Irish LGBTQ groups are accepted into the line of march, and march openly, as full and respected members of the Irish American community.

Because the parade organizers have made misleading claims like “gays are welcome to march, just not to be identified” and now “the ban is lifted, but only for NBC employees”, it's important to be clear about what constitutes inclusion. Irish LGBTQ groups must be able to march just like other contingents: with the group name on a banner identifying the contingent as Irish LGBTQ people. Last year in Boston, parade organizers tried to negotiate with an LGBTQ contingent to march under the word “equality.” But the organizers refused to allow a banner to say “LGBT” or “gay”, as if those were dirty words. So the LGBTQ group rightly declared that parade organizers were not actually willing to lift the ban, and they refused to march. New York City also cannot accept such pretenses at inclusion.

We deeply appreciate your support. Please be in touch with your response, or if we can answer any questions.

Sincerely,



Gaby Cryan, Emmaia Gelman, & J.F. Mulligan
Irish Queers

Kate Barnhart, Executive Director           
New Alternatives for LGBT Homeless Youth

Mary E. Bartholomew, Esq.

Sandy Boyer

Rev. Pat Bumgardner
Metropolitan Community Church - NY

Suzy Byrne

Leslie Cagan

Kailin Callaghan, Lead Organizer
Rockaway Wildfire

Fidelma Carolan, Regional Officer (N. Ireland)
UNISON

Kelly Cogswell, Author of Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger

Michael Czaczkes, President
Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn

Kara Davis, Queer Activist

Bill Dobbs, Gay Civil Libertarian

Erin M. Drinkwater, Executive Director
Brooklyn Community Pride Center

Ronnie Eldridge, Former New York City Councilmember

Jennifer Flynn, Executive Director
VOCAL-NY

Kathleen Gaul
Community Leader at TUSLA, Ireland
Emily Jane Goodman, New York State Supreme Court Justice, Ret.

Marie Honan

Tony Hoffmann, President, Village Independent Democrats*

Stephanie Hsu, Secretary
New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)

Andy Humm and Ann Northrop, Co-Hosts
Gay USA

Esther Kaplan

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

Marjorie Dove Kent, Executive Director
Jews for Racial and Economic Justice

SL Korn, Queer Activist

Gareth Lee,
Queer Space Collective Belfast

Bertha Lewis, Executive Director
Black Institute

Mark Libkuman, Open Flows Community Technology Cooperative

Scott Long, Human Rights Activist

Amanda Lugg, Director of Advocacy
African Services Committee

Alan Levine, Civil Rights Attorney

Father BernĂ¡rd Lynch, London, Chair of Camden LGBT Forum

Anne Maguire, ILGO

Eileen Markey, Writer

Malachy McCourt

Lucy McDiarmid

Matthew McMorrow, Manager of Government Affairs
Empire State Pride Agenda

Zenaida Mendez, President
National Organization for Women-NYS

Megan Mulholland
QUEEROCRACY

Dr Tina O'Toole, Founder member of LINC Cork
University of Limerick, Ireland

Pauline Park, Executive Director
Queens Pride House

Edward Pass

Allen Roskoff, President
Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club

Sarah Schulman, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, City University of New York-College of Staten Island

Arthur Z. Schwartz, President of Advocates for Justice and Democratic District Leader for Greenwich Village

Tom Shanahan, Civil Rights Attorney

Ailbhe Smyth, LGBT Rights Campaigner
Former Head of Women's Studies and Senior Lecturer, University College Dublin (UCD)


Brad Taylor

Zephyr Teachout, former candidate for Governor, Professor Fordham Law School, and author of Corruption in America

Jay Toole
Jay’s House

Andy Velez

John Voelcker

Urvashi Vaid, Senior Fellow, Center for Gender & Sexuality Law, Columbia Law School*

Maxine Wolfe, Professor Emerita, City University Graduate School

Joan Wile, Author, and Founder, Grandmothers Against the War

Tim Wu, Candidate for Lieutenant Governor/Professor Columbia Law School

Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel

Lesbian Herstory Archive

MIX NYC: Queer Experimental Film Festival

Queer Nation NY







*Asterisk indicates organization listed for identification purposes only.