July 19, 2001
Happy Hour Summer Hiatus
After a brief discussion it was agreed by the participants that we would suspend the monthly happy hours during July and August. It was felt that most members would be busy during the summer and attendance would be small. The Happy Hours will begin again on 28 September at Gabriels in the Radisson Barcelo Hotel on P Street, NW.
2001 AIDS Walk
AIDS Walk this year will be on Sunday, October 6, 2001. Daphne Berwald brought a letter from the organizers of AIDS WALK DC. Bob will post information on the website after he obtains a group number for Interior. August will be devoted to planning the Interior GLOBE event for AIDSWalk DC.
June Pride
Maria reported that the People, Land and Water article, which covered the Interior Department's celebration for Pride Month, would be printed in the next edition of People, Land, and Water. Three photos of the event were provided for the article.
News Letter on Web Site
After a discussion of how best to send the newsletter to the membership, it was decided that an email would be sent out to the members that will have a hyper-link to the website for the newsletter. It was felt that the newsletter was too large a file to have as an attachment to the email.
Ethics Office Presentaion
Arthur Bennett, a representative from the Departmental Ethics Office,
will make a presentation at the September meeting. He will cover, among other items, fund raising and recognized employee organizations.
Bob Veltkamp is coordinating Mr. Bennett's presentation.
Stonewall Plaque
A message was read from Steven Morris, who is leading this effort for Interior GLOBE:
When we last spoke, Kim Kearns had been in touch with NPS Cultural Resources about sending out the plaques and found out that there was some small amount of latitude in what the wording can say. I circulated some proposed wording (a few sentences long; see below) that Andrew Dolkart had developed to several GLOBE members (Maria, Jay, and Jim). I received from Maria suggested changes which I passed on to Kim. So far, I don't believe Kim has contacted the owner, but she did initiate the process to get permission from the local landmarks commission to attach a plaque to the building. That's about it for now.
Proposed Text by Andrew Dolkart (doesn't include changes suggested by Maria):
The modern gay and lesbian rights movement began early in the morning of June 28, 1969, when the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar at 51-53 Christopher Street, was raided by the police. The raid itself was not unusual, but the fact that bar's patrons and the crowd that assembled on the street fought back was extraordinary. Over the next few nights the uprising continued, as thousands of people rallied to demand gay rights. Today, the anniversary of Stonewall is celebrated around the world.
Fed GLOBE Meeting Report
Ike Kelley reported about the meeting. Each department GLOBE reported on their celebration. Jay Douglas reported on the very successful Interior celebration.
The Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service had an employee send a broadcast email to all employees of the Service.
After the message was sent, there were over 600 negative emails returned complaining that this type of information should not be shared with everyone in the agency.
Of the 600 negative emails, 100 were very abusive and used very negative language.
The Service Administrator, Thomas J. Billy, sent another email to all employees stating that the original message was permitted and the responses were inappropriate.
Disciplinary action is being taken on the 100 employees using abusive language.
Ike then covered other Agencies who had varying degrees of success. EPA employees were greatly disappointed in their Administrator, former New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman.
She spoke at the employee celebration but never once used the words "gay or lesbian" and addressed the celebration as a diversity issue.
EPA GLOBE members had hoped for some support from Whitman considering her record in New Jersey.
FDIC had a gay comic for their program. DOT had a proclamation from Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and did receive some negative employee comments about the proclamation.
Mineta had been a strong supporter of gay and lesbian rights while he was congressman from San Jose, CA.
As Ike reported, the members agreed that we had had a very successful program and next year's should be even better.
The Labor Department had Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) who is an openly gay member of congress.
They also had a panel discussion about domestic partner benefits. John Haugh attended this program and said there were about fifty people attending.
FED GLOBE also discussed the situation between the White House and the Salvation Army and the White House staff's attempt to provide regulations that would discriminate against gays and lesbians by faith-based organizations using federal funds.
FED GLOBE agreed that this was not an "employee issue" so they were not taking a stand on the situation at this time.
The White House has since backed away from any use of regulations in this matter.
The House of Representatives, on July 18, passed a version of the Faith-based Initiative.
There was also a discussion about which GLOBE organizations were recognized by their departments and Interior GLOBE was one of the few that has been recognized by the Department.
Also discussed was how various agencies were addressing the Boy Scout Jamboree situation.
All departments were encouraged to print an anti-discrimination statement on all literature passed out at the Jamboree.
USGS Special Emphasis Committees
Ike discussed the Special Emphasis Program that is being established at USGS.
There will be an advisory board for each of the three regions, which will function like the DOI Diversity Council.
These will be eight-member councils, which will include every diversity classification, including mixed race employees.
Each representative will have an organization to support his or her efforts.
The Survey request for participants closed July 19. Preliminary information showed all regions having at least one volunteer for the gay or lesbian representative, except for the Eastern Region.
Ike volunteered for the Headquarters post. It appears that, in one region, a parent of a gay child is likely to be the gay/lesbian representative.
The GLOBE members discussed how the organization could support this new effort by the USGS.
It was felt that there should be some way of providing assistance to these new groups, but no decision was
made. Maria and Ike will look into developing an information packet on GLOBE activities to provide the new SEP groups.
NPS Diversity Web Page
NPS and their gay and lesbian employees celebrated Pride month with a week-long web page featuring some of the gay and lesbian employees of the Service. The employees thought they would get front-page billing like every other minority, but, when the week to celebrate gay and lesbian heritage came up, they were relegated to the "Info Zone" and three pages in that section. When the employees protested, they were told that only minorities with "parks in the system" could be put on the front page. Also, without telling the employees, the ITC and EEO staff moved the photographs to a gay and lesbian page as part of a diversity presentation. The employees are currently deciding if they will ask the Service to remove the page, as they truly have not celebrated their gay and lesbian employees. They just kept them in the closet.
Salvation Army
The recent Washington Post articles about the White House staff consideration of using regulations to discriminate against gay and lesbian citizens to gain support from the Salvation Army for the Faith-Based initiative was very troubling to the Interior GLOBE members. Contrary to the inaction taken by FED GLOBE, the members saw this as a continued marginalization of gay and lesbian citizens by this Administration.
Secretarial EEO Statement
It was decided that Maria would ask Melodee Stith if the Secretary has signed the EEO statement including sexual orientation and when the Secretary will begin to meet with all recognized employee organizations. In the next several months, the members wish to have something accomplished in these areas or more direct actions will be reviewed. Maria asked if all members would forward ideas to discuss with the Secretary in the meantime.
Revised: 07/23/01
Robert_J_Veltkamp@nbc.gov