California NOW

Support Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2007

Urge your Senators to Support the Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2007 (S.1843) to correct the recent Supreme Court decision that guts the ability of workers to sue for wage discrimination.

In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., the Bush Supreme Court ruled against a woman who worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for 19 years before realizing that she was paid significantly less than her male counterparts with the same or less experience. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that wage discrimination complaints could only be filed within 180 days of the initial discriminatory salary decision, even if the victim is unaware of the discrimination until much later.

The Ledbetter decision reversed decades of precedent in wage discrimination cases decided under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Just before the August recess, the House passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007 to reinstate prior law. The Senate must move immediately to pass the companion bill, the Fair Pay Restoration Act, introduced by Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), with Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Olympia Snowe, (R-ME) and Arlen Spector (R-PA).

Tell your Senators to reverse the Supreme Court's assault on wage discrimination law by supporting the Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2007.

For Women's Lives,
Eleanor Smeal
President, Feminist Majority

Mayor Sanders gets it right!

Mayor Jerry Sanders abruptly reversed his public opposition to marriage for same-sex partners and revealed that his adult daughter is a lesbian.  Sanders on Wednesday signed a City Council resolution supporting a challenge to California's gay marriage ban. He previously promised to veto it.

The Republican mayor said he could no longer back the position he took during his election campaign two years ago, when he said he favored civil unions but not full marriage rights for homosexual couples.

He fought back tears as he said he wanted his adult daughter, Lisa, and other gay people he knows to have their relationships protected equally under state laws.

"In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships — their very lives — were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife Rana," Sanders said.

Lisa Sanders was unavailable for comment, according to the mayor's spokesman, Fred Sainz. He said she had told her parents four years ago that she is a lesbian and is currently in a committed relationship, but her orientation wasn't public until her father's speech.

The mayor, a former police chief who is up for re-election next year, acknowledged that many voters who supported his earlier stance might disagree with his shift, but said he had to do what he believed was right.  In 2000, 62 percent of San Diego voters endorsed a statewide measure to restrict marriage to a union between a man and woman.  The City Council voted Tuesday 5-3 in favor of joining other California cities to back a lawsuit pending before the California Supreme Court attempting to overturn the gay marriage ban.

Global Rights for Women

Do women deserve full "human rights"? The U.S. Senate isn't sure. That's why I'm writing to you from the World Women's Conference in Seoul, where I have been meeting and collaborating with women's rights activists around the globe. I simply have to share with you what an embarrassing experience this has been. Oh, my speech was well-received, but over and over women stop me to ask, "Why has the United States refused to ratify CEDAW? It's really hurting our efforts to work for women in our country."

CEDAW, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, is a treaty that has languished in the U.S. Senate for 27 years. The title says it all. The treaty is comprehensive, and includes everything from rape and domestic violence to child marriage to equal pay and child care.

It's really very simple: It's about believing that equal rights for women ARE human rights and about treating women as full and equal human beings.

The National Organization for Women and allied groups are renewing our efforts to force a vote on CEDAW. Please write to or call your Senators today. Join us in Washington for CEDAW lobby days on September 24-28.

The policies of the U.S. government have tremendous impact - for good or ill - on the lives of women around the world. CEDAW is a perfect example - our failure to ratify is thrown in the face of feminist activists in other countries who want to use the treaty to force reform of their own governmental policies.

We need your action and your support to educate a whole new generation of women about CEDAW's potential for positive change for women here and around the world.

CEDAW was signed by President Jimmy Carter - don't you think it's time for the Senate to step up to the plate? Join NOW's efforts to push CEDAW to the front of the Foreign Relations Committee's agenda and schedule a floor vote. Take action today.

I don't ever again want to hear that the United States is damaging the efforts of women around the world by failing to acknowledge women's basic human rights.

For equality and justice,

Kim Gandy
President, National Organization for Women

Yolanda Retter, lesbian activist and archivist, dies

Yolanda Retter, an activist, archivist and scholar who devoted the last four decades to raising the visibility of lesbians and minorities and preserving their history, died Aug. 18 at her home in Van Nuys after a brief illness. She was 59.

She was a pivotal advocate for lesbians during the early years of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, the country's first social service agency to exclusively serve gays. She helped organize lesbian history repositories at USC, UCLA and in West Hollywood. For the last four years, she was the librarian and archivist for the UCLA Chicano Studies Resource Center, where she was instrumental in expanding holdings related to Latinas as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Born in New Haven, Conn., in 1947, Retter spent most of her childhood in El Salvador, where her father, Henry, a Yale-trained architect, worked for a State Department program. Most of his clients were members of El Salvador's ruling class.  In high school in Connecticut, Retter knew she was attracted to other women and struggled to keep her identity in the closet. She moved to California to attend Pitzer College in Claremont in 1966, when it was still a women's college.

After graduating from Pitzer with a degree in sociology, Retter worked briefly as a prison guard at the California Institution for Women in Corona and managed a halfway house for displaced women in Los Angeles.  She also learned cabinet-making and became a licensed airplane mechanic before returning to school in the 1980s to earn master's degrees in library science and social work from UCLA. At the University of New Mexico, she received a doctorate in American studies with a dissertation on lesbian activism in Los Angeles from 1970 to 1990.

Retter is survived by her partner of 13 years, Leslie Golden Stampler; her father, Henry, and stepmother, Dottie, of Florida; Stampler's two children, Belinda and Martin; and six brothers and sisters.

Segments from Los Angeles Times  By Elaine Woo, Staff Writer
August 29, 2007

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Sept. 29 at Metropolitan Community Church, 8714 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. Memorial donations may be sent to the Yolanda Retter Foundation, c/o Law Office of Karen L. Mateer, 618 S. Lake Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106.

Support HB 94 and Family Planning

Every month Planned Parenthood clinics turn away more than 10,000 patients because we don’t have the money to hire the clinic staff to meet our community’s needs.   SB 94 is the first step in correcting this critical situation by ensuring that clients have access to family planning services while at the same time saving the state money. The cost of doing something – a mere $3.2 million – is significantly less than the cost of doing nothing. This sound investment in preventive health care is guaranteed to bring the state millions today and in the future. 

Email the Governor and tell him to take this first important step toward health care reform by signing SB 94!

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,

I am urging you to support cost-effective family planning services by signing SB 94.  Every month Planned Parenthood clinics turn away more than 10,000 patients because they don’t have the money to hire the clinic staff to meet our community’s needs.  SB 94 is the first step in correcting this critical situation by ensuring that clients have access to family planning services while at the same time saving the state money. The cost of doing something – a mere $3.2 million – is significantly less than the cost of doing nothing.

Please show your support for women’s health care by signing SB 94. It’s a good first step toward a comprehensive health reform program and a wise fiscal investment in preventive health care.

End the Iraq Occupation

September is a crucial month for ending the Iraq occupation, because Congress will vote on the FY08 Defense Appropriations. The starting point is Bush's demand for $10 billion per month to maintain the current "surge-level" occupation of Iraq until FY08 ends on 9/30/08, a few months shy of the next inauguration.

The White House is framing the battle as a referendum on the personal integrity of Gen. Petraeus. Unfortunately many members of Congress are falling into this frame trap, focusing their anti-war efforts on the vain hope that they will derail Petraeus' testimony with brilliant questions.

This strategy usually fails. No matter what questions they ask, witnesses allied with Team Bush will dodge and weave but stick to the alternative reality the White House wants to project -- in this case just enough progress to keep the occupation going for another 12 months.

The only way to end the war now is to offer a completely different frame. Thankfully that frame exists: a "fully funded and safe withdrawal from Iraq" -- as proposed by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and allies. The "Lee Amendment" restricts the use of any new funds to the sole purpose of bringing our troops safely home -- which is what most people in this country want.

The "Lee Amendment" was first brought forward during the disastrous Supplemental funding battle in the spring. Unfortunately it came fairly late in the game, so there wasn't enough time to build a broad and unified progressive coalition behind it.

This time, we must not only insist on a vote -- we must WIN that vote . . . or the disastrous occupation will continue indefinitely.

Progressive Democrats of America and NOW share the philosophy of inside-outside organizing -- working both inside the process with Barbara Lee and other leaders of the Congressional Progressive and Out of Iraq Caucuses, and outside the government with progressive allies who share our goal of ending the occupation of Iraq.

From the "inside" perspective, we're starting off on strong footing. On July 20, Lee and 69 other Democrats sent a letter to Bush "to inform you that we will only support appropriating additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq during Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond for the protection and safe redeployment of all our troops out of Iraq before you leave office."

Our immediate action item is to get more members of Congress to specifically to join the pledge made in that letter to George W. Bush.

Take Action -- write to your member of Congress. Our system will let you know whether she or he signed the letter to George W. Bush so you can ask her or him to make the Pledge for Peace by joining those colleagues who signed the letter or thank her or him for already signing.

You can also sign the Progressive Democrats of America Pledge for Peace yourself.

We hope you'll join us in working to bring our troops home safely and swiftly!

For peace,
Tim Carpenter, Progressive Democrats of America
Kim Gandy, National Organization for Women (NOW)

Anita Roddick ~ Left the world a much better place

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, died in a Chichester hospital on Monday after suffering a brain hemorrhage. She was 64 years old. Roddick is survived by her husband and two daughters, Samantha and Justine.

Through her successful chain of cosmetics stores, which includes more than 2,000 stores in more than 50 countries, Roddick promoted causes like banning animal testing and supporting the environment. She also helped establish the magazine The Big Issue , which is both produced and sold by the homeless, as well as Children on the Edge, a charity for children in Europe and Asia.

"Anita Roddick was dedicated to creating a more peaceful and humane society. She was a dedicated feminist who truly made a difference," said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Southwest Airlines must have Heat Stroke

Setara Qassim is the second woman, in as many weeks, to be told that her clothes are too revealing for Southwest Airlines.  She was flying home to Burbank, Calif., from Las Vegas in June when a Southwest Airlines flight attendant gave her a blanket and told her to cover up.

"The flight attendant came up to me and asked me if I had a sweater, and I said, 'No, because why would I pack a sweater in the heat?'" Qassim said. "So I asked her why, and she said I needed to cover up."   Just last Friday, a woman from San Diego told a similar story to the "Today" show. She said a Southwest Airlines flight attendant had also taken issue with the propriety of her attire.

Kyla Ebbert, 23, wore the exact same outfit on "Today" Friday morning. Ebbert said she was allowed to stay on the flight after she agreed to pull up her tank top and pull down her skirt.  NBC News was not able to reach Southwest Airlines in connection with Qassim's claims, but the airline did release a statement last week in response to the incident involving Ebbert.

"Southwest Airlines was responding to a concern about Ms. Ebbert's revealing attire on the flight that day," the statement said. "As a compromise, we asked her to adjust her clothing to be less revealing. She complied and she traveled as scheduled. When a concern is brought to our employees' attention, we address that situation directly with the customer(s) involved in a discreet and professional matter. Fortunately, as an airline that carries approximately 96 million customers a year, those situations are extremely rare."

Governor - the choice is yours

Support Bill 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act.

Call Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It is an automated answering service.    

Call: 916-445-2841 

To vote yes on Bill 43- select 1,2,4,1

Senate Votes to Repeal Global Gag Rule

In a 53-41 vote Thursday, the Senate passed an amendment to the $34 billion fiscal year 2008 foreign aid bill that would overturn the Global Gag Rule. Also called the Mexico City policy, the Global Gag Rule prohibits the US from funding overseas organizations that support abortion in any way -- including direct services, counseling, or lobbying activities -- even if the groups use their own monies for such activity. The amendment, introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), would lift the policy, which was originally adopted by President Ronald Reagan, removed by President Bill Clinton, and reinstated by President George W. Bush on his first day in office.

The foreign aid bill itself passed 82-12. The House passed the foreign aid appropriations bill in June with provisions exempting contraceptives from the global gag rule and repealing the abstinence-only funding restrictions for HIV prevention programs. According to Population Action International, this marks the first time since the Global Gag Rule has been in effect, from 1984-1993 and again since 2001, that both the House and the Senate have passed legislation to repeal or modify its restrictions.

The House and Senate versions of the bill will now move forward to a conference committee to be reconciled and sent to the White House. President Bush, however, has promised to veto any attempt to undermine the current policy, according to the AP.