• ELIXHER
• On August 22, 2014

Before Another Black Lesbian is Murdered in South Africa…

Another lesbian was raped and murdered in Ventersdorp, South Africa. But we cannot talk about that alone. We cannot speak about the unspeakable kinds of violence carried out on black women’s bodies without speaking about poverty. We cannot shine a light on violence when violence occurs, but remain silent about the multitude of other violations, that we experience, daily, everywhere, which culminate in the brutal, hateful actions that are carried out on black women’s bodies. Our bodies continue to be silent battlefields where misogyny, patriarchy and cultural imperialism rage their never ending wars. Our families, communities, religions and governments police black women’s bodies; making decisions about how we can appear and how we present or adorn our bodies daily-often without our consultation and certainly without our consent. Our governments control our reproduction. Our families partisan to social and religious structures that enforce the idea that there is only one way to be a woman-and strive to keep us in line, a homogenous picture of the black African woman.

Gift Makau’s body joins the bodies of hundreds more black African women, living and killed, who broke the rules and refused to conform to the oppressive heteronormative regime. Bodies which refused to accept that we cannot and we will not be told by a tunnel-visioned patriarchal majority who to be or how to be ourselves.

Continue reading here.

Repeal of DADT Allows Sergeant’s Family to Join Her Overseas

A story from the Aviano Air Force Base in Italy talks of Sgt. Mishon Montgomery who was able to bring her spouse, Maria, and their daughter on base–a right generally afforded to heterosexual couples. According to the article “Command sponsorship benefits extended to same-sex spouses in Italy”:

Staff Sgt. Mishon Montgomery, Aviano Airman Leadership School instructor, met her future wife, Maria, when she was 18 years old while living in Pensacola, Fl. Staff Sgt. Montgomery enlisted in the Air Force at 2002, when the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was still in effect. She describes the next ten years of her life as “living in the shadows.”

“We were asked to do our jobs and keep our personal life in the dark,” said Mishon. “I did the absolute best job I could and I did everything the Air Force asked of me because the Air Force was giving me a lot too.”

In 2012, DADT was revoked and in 2013, the Defense of Marriage Act was considered unconstitutional and not only could same-sex Airmen declare their orientation publically, but the Air Force could now recognize their marriages as well.

Read more at the Black Lesbian Love Lab.

U.S. High Court Blocks Same-Sex Unions in Virginia

Same-sex couples will have to forget their plans to marry in Virginia — at least for now — after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to delay an appeals court ruling striking down the state’s gay marriage ban.

The nation’s highest court granted a request from a county clerk in northern Virginia to delay a decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond that would have allowed for same-sex couples to marry beginning Thursday morning. The state would have also had to start recognizing gay marriages from out of state if the Supreme Court had denied the request. The court provided no explanation for its order.

The Supreme Court’s decision was not unexpected, as it previously issued an order in January putting same-sex unions on hold in Utah. A federal appeals court had upheld a decision striking down Utah’s ban. Most other federal court decisions in favor of same-sex marriage also have been put on hold.

By granting the delay, the Supreme Court is making clear that it “believes a dignified process is better than disorder,” said Byron Babione, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group based in Scottsdale, Arizona, that supported the challenge by the two Virginia circuit court clerks whose duties include issuing marriage licenses.

Continue reading at ABC News.

Federal Judge: Florida Gay-Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

In the first decision on same-sex marriage with statewide impact, a federal judge ruled Thursday that Florida’s gay-marriage ban is unconstitutional, ordering the state to allow the marriage of same-sex couples and to recognize marriages performed elsewhere.

“When observers look back 50 years from now, the arguments supporting Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage, though just as sincerely held, will again seem an obvious pretext for discrimination,” wrote U.S District Judge Robert L. Hinkle of Tallahassee. “Observers who are not now of age will wonder just how those views could have been held.”

More from the Miami Herald.