Five Past Anchorage Mayors Show Support For One Anchorage — Help Mudflats Do The Same!
Friday, there was a press conference at which five former mayors of Anchorage pledged their support to the One Anchorage Voter Initiative–one that will provide the same legal protections to gay and transgender folks in employment, housing, finances and business that other folks already receive.
Per the press release:
The bipartisan group consists of:
US Senator Mark Begich;
former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles;
former Mayor Rick Mystrom;
former Mayor Jack Roderick, and
former Mayor Matt Claman.“Across the nation, you see more and more communities passing similar laws because it’s the right thing to do,” said Senator Begich. “I am proud to see Anchorage take a stand and ensure that the city’s laws protect everyone fairly and equally.”
“This initiative is about giving all Anchorage residents the same legal protections,” said Former Governor Knowles. “I believe that if someone works hard and plays by the rules, they should be given a fair shake to earn a paycheck and put a roof over their family’s head.”
“When I talk with new minority residents of Anchorage, I often hear them talk about how welcoming and tolerant our city is,” said former Mayor Rick Mystrom. “As a former Mayor of Anchorage I’m proud of that and as an owner and operator of apartment buildings in Anchorage, this amendment is consistent with my beliefs and my company’s practices.”
The issues of fair hiring practices and equal housing trancend partisan politics among most reasonable people of all political persuasions.
Unfortunately, we have a group of well-funded unreasonable folks in this city as well.
As Mudflats has previously reported, Jim Minnery and the Alaska Family Council seem to be actively fundraising based on deliberate misinformation. They are also receiving expensive help from outside Alaska in the form of Religious Right legal group the Alliance Defense Fund that is mischaracterizing the initiative as a threat to religious freedom. Non-partisan Alaska employment law experts disagree.
For the religious right in Alaska, this is only the beginning. However, we have a very exciting solution!
To commemorate the 35 years that LGBT folks in Anchorage have been trying to get equal rights, One Anchorage launched a fundraising event called the 35/35/35 project. The campaign has been asking 35 supporters to then ask 35 of their friends to give $35.00 each.
The Mudflats One Anchorage Donation Page is RIGHT HERE!
Here at Mudflats, we decided to pool our Mudflatters, our Facebook pages and our Twitter followers to take it a step further…we would like to raise the equivalent amount to 350 of you donating $35.00 each!
You can find the Mudflats/One Anchorage Donation Page HERE!
If you can’t donate $35.00, give whatever you can. Our goal is $12,250.00 and I absolutely believe that we can do it! Equal rights for all is too important!
Please donate to The Mudflats/One Anchorage Donation Page!
Thank you all for your support and encouragement and don’t forget the most important thing of all…vote for equal rights on April 3rd!
So what’s with all the tests? Am I back in school,again? Educate moi,por favor.
Never mind,I found out what it’s all about,and I’m learning,learning,learning to live. This girl is a woman now and she’s learned how to live. Sorry goes out to Gary Puckett and the Union Gap for allowing me to slaughter a decent song for selfish reasons.
test
test, also, too
Yeppers, I must have clogged up the comment tubes for the new OT with all that green cheese.
Green cheese, guacamole, and crow feathers, oh, my!
🙂
Does anyone know why rw nutjobs are so terribly frightened by the thought of equality for everyone? Is this the way they are brought up and they personally feel equality is bad. Could it be they accept litmus tests to become nutters. They all seem to have the exact same views,whether it is about traditional marriage,the rape of federal lands and resources,trying to force their beliefs in public schools and then stealing federal monies for religious schools. They hate taxes,minorities,the Constitution and Libs,not necessarily in that order. Mayhaps we can sell them Bikini Atoll in the Pacific and they can sit there and rage about Gays while radiation eats them alive. They will glow in the dark so their god can more easily find them during Rapture.
Done, thank you for linking us to the contribution website.
I find it so ironic when religious zealots use the argument that others’ actions “threaten their marriage or their religious freedom”.
As a devout Atheist (and a decent, moral, human being), I feel that my freedom FROM religion is being threatened all the time. Not only from people like these who openly discriminate against non-Christians, but by the government as well. In my view, the fact that certain legal and financial benefits are reserved for married couples (or those joined in civil union), is simply wrong when that benefit is reserved for those who “qualify” based on adherence to “moral” codes based on Christian scripture (ie no homosexuals allowed). How’s THAT for religious discrimination?
Jerry Prevo and company, I resent the crap out of the fact that you receive tax breaks (subsidized by me) based on your “religious” exemption. Your brand of “religion” is nothing but divisive hate mongering, detrimental to our society, Why is my government sanctioning and subsidizing that? Get your religion out of my politics!
P.S. Jerry, next time you ask yourself WWJD, be honest with yourself and admit that what Jesus would do, if he had the chance, is slap the $#!t out of you.
Jesus would, indeed, be horrified at the hate being spread in his name. He preached love, tolerance and forgiveness – the direct opposite of what these people are spewing.
While I no longer follow any formal religion, I do try to live by Jesus’ lessons and be tolerant of those of different religions, cultures, beliefs and lifestyles. I have no problem with these so-called Christians living by any (legally permitted) rules they want, as long as they don’t demand that everyone else must follow the same ones.
A-men to that!
Never followed or been in any formal religion. However, I still live my life by being tolerant of different religions, cultures, beliefs and lifestyles.
Never had any problem with any of it.
I don’t think I’d like to be under rules that dictated that I should follow a certain set of beliefs.
RV in NZ
Donated. I hope this spreads far and wide, and that mudpuppies are inspired to contribute to this worthy cause, as I was.
Just donated, and shared this piece on Facebook. Please do likewise. The April 3 election isn’t just a vote on policy, but a battle for the soul of this city.
Good on the five former mayors. Good for them.
That Minnery guy creates a division. A wall. A block in progress. Plus is seems obsessed with the teen uterus. Creepy.
While I don’t live in Anch, my family does use all the services Anch provides.
I know for a fact One Anch is long over due.
Dang you good folks of Anchorage, your makin the place better and better.
I’ve spent my entire life avoiding Anch. My parents did too. I was taught to avoid the place as much as possible.
Today I’m proud of Anchorage.
$35 bucks, eh? Okay I’ll bite. Totally worthy.
I will give to this worthy cause. My favorite button is “straight but not narrow” and it’s always worn with pride. I am surprised both Fink and Mystrom back the plan, maybe aging has truly changed them from the crotchety men they were. There aren’t all that many evangelicals out there but when they bus them from other towns to testify, it makes it seem like an explosion.
We all know mayor sully has made up his mind (what little he has) so he can side with the (way) right reverend prevo. They both make me ill.
I am also writing my State legislators to support the Gardner and Holmes Bill, to rid the law books of prevo’s, no real estate tax law. Let us hope it gains traction.
Fink doesn’t back it. ADN says, “In 1993, Fink vetoed a narrower ordinance protecting city employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Reached by phone at his home Friday, Fink said he wouldn’t vote for the ordinance and didn’t feel discrimination was a problem in the city.
Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/02/03/2298868/4former-mayors.html#storylink=cpy
I made the same mistake. That’s not Tom Fink, it’s Roderick.
My first thought regarding Jim Minnery is “The lady, I mean, gentleman doth protests too much, me thinks.” I have been married over twenty years and finally giving the LGBT community the same rights that my wife and I have, is no threat to my marriage. Maybe it is to his. I would like to see someone in the press pin him down when he makes these statements. How exactly is it a threat to religious freedom? And in the lead up to the election, how about someone monitors the Anchorage Baptist Temple and note how many times the Reverend Jerry violates the separation of church and state by telling people how to vote from the pulpit. I wonder how many young lives both men are affecting when they preach hate and loathing of those who they see as different. Nothing like teaching them to hate themselves.