January 12, 2000
Holiday Party
Thanks to Jim Gasser and Gregg Ramsey for hosting the holiday party!
AIDS Day Ceremony
An article is being prepared for the next People Land and Water and descriptions and photos of the event have been placed on the GLOBE web site (http://members.aol.com/interiorglobe).
Stonewall
Stonewall was one of 19 proposed National Historic Landmarks approved by the National Park Service. It usually takes 30 to 60 days for signature by the Secretary of the Interior, but this round may be delayed because of the holidays. There may be a small ceremony in Washington, DC unless someone high up in this administration wants to make an event of it. Chris is moving from Interior to the White House, but will work on a small ceremony and will let us know if something bigger develops. A plaque will be provided for the site with standard verbiage and no detail about the history of the site. There is usually no ceremony for such sites.
Detail with the Office for Equal Opportunity
David Liboff, who was detailed from the Statue of Liberty to work on lesbian and gay issues with the EEO office has left the National Park Service for a job elsewhere. Maria will follow up with Melodee to discuss his replacement. David prepared documents with suggestions for future GLOBE activities. All are encouraged to read the documents and be prepared to discuss the ideas to be pursued at our next meeting.
Newsletter
An Interior GLOBE newsletter is planned to highlight the accomplishments of the past year. People have volunteered to write articles on the AIDS Ride, Stonewall designation, and the Pride/Tami Baldwin program, and to submit photos of GLOBE events. Writers are still needed to write up short articles on the AIDS Walk, and World AIDS Day. Volunteers who would like to write these up (or any other events / accomplishments not listed here) should contact Maria before the next meeting. Maria will serve as primary editor, and Bob will work on graphics and layout when items have been submitted.
FEDGLOBE Contact
Jay Douglas submitted an application to be a FEDGLOBE member for Interior. He has not heard back.
Non-Discrimination Clause for Federal Oil and Gas Leases
Jay has been working with John Berry, the Solicitor’s Office, and the Office of Acquisition and Property Management, to get a ruling on whether or not a non-discrimination clause for sexual orientation can be included in the standard Federal Oil & Gas Lease form. Jay has heard that the decision has been made to issue a policy requiring all DOI leases and contracts to contain such a non-discrimination clause, but the policy release has not yet been signed. It’s signature is expected very soon. Jay will be discussing other revisions being made to the O&G lease form at the National Petroleum Forum next week, but unfortunately the non-discrimination policy was not signed in time for this meeting.
Review of By-Laws
Michael Sadie provided copies of our existing by-laws and a proposal for some changes to the Treasurer section. He noted that our current practices do not conform to the by-laws and that either the by-laws need to be changed or we need to conform to them. Those interested in helping to rework the by-laws are encouraged to read both documents and meet in Room 6249 MIB at 12:15 PM on January 26 to discuss changes.
Civil Rights Study - Inclusion of Gay History Sites
Sandra Washington of the National Park Service briefed GLOBE members on a civil rights study. With support from the Northeast Region of the National Park Service, $125,000 was included in a legislative package for special resource studies related to a heritage trail in Virginia and North Carolina related to civil rights history. The purpose of these studies is to see how special resources should be dealt with by inclusion as sites administered by the National Park Service or other appropriate means.
As written into law, the language is very broad, referring to "civil rights, multi state." This leaves a lot of leeway in determining the scope of the studies and could include sites of significance to the history of the struggle for gay civil rights.
Those working to plan the studies have not come to final conclusions on whether the scope will be narrowly defined to the "civil rights movement" - which refers to the history of the black civil rights movement, or more broadly defined as the "struggle for civil rights" - which includes the struggle for civil rights for any group.
Some portion is likely to go to the Northeast Region of the National Park Service. There is support in the community outside the National Park Service, as well as from some in the NPS for including gay rights in the scope. There was also discussion about breaking the work into themes or topics, such as workers rights, voting rights, etc. rather than by minority groups.
Groups will be working to collect the basic themes and discuss the NPS role vs the roles of other organizations. Any study will result in a list of civil rights sites.
Planning for the June Pride Celebration
This may be the last celebration with John Berry as the Assistant Secretary - Policy, Management and Budget. Maria will check with Melodee on how the celebration will be handled. After last year’s event, it was determined that a rotating single bureau sponsorship may be too taxing on bureau resources and that the celebration should be supported by the Department as a whole. There was some discussion of possible guest speakers - Jim Colby, Barney Frank - to follow last year’s speaker, Tami Baldwin.
Revised: 04/09/00
Robert_J_Veltkamp@nbc.gov