Enough already!

By John Patrick Dawkins

Midlands Coordinator, SC Progressive Network

We get the message: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-gendered and Queer citizens of South Carolina deserve no protections in the state, no rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — or, apparently, a safe learning environment in one of the worst-performing public education systems in the country.

In 2006, the citizens of South Carolina passed Amendment 1 and changed the state constitution to codify bigotry directed towards the LGBTQ community. We cannot get married and, more pressingly, have no domestic partnership rights to protect our families. No joint health care. Hospital visitation denied in all but a few cities. Double taxation on our households, lack of spousal benefits. The list goes on.

In 2008, the LGBTQ youth were targeted. Something as simple as starting a Gay/Straight Alliance in a local high school (a space free of homophobia, where youth of any sexual orientation can be themselves in an otherwise hostile climate) was labeled an attack on “traditional family values and parents rights.” The LGBTQ community and its leaders, heterosexual supporters and other organizations fought for three months to overcome bigotry and create LGBTQ safe spaces in our public schools — a small yet significant victory.

Now they’re at it again.

H 3543 started out as a simple, common sense bill to protect all students from relationship violence. Our governing body found “…when a student is a victim of dating violence, his or her academic life suffers and his or her safety at school is jeopardized.” H 3543 has since become a platform for some of our elected officials to promote yet more religious bigotry and discrimination.

On Wednesday, Rep. Greg Delleney, (R-Chester) introduced an amendment to the bill that defined a dating partner as exclusively heterosexual, thereby limiting the protections afforded to LGBTQ youth and, furthermore, legislating the way all Queer relationships are defined. We cannot marry or join together in domestic partnerships, and now our casual relationships are no longer seen as dating.

The amendment passed with little opposition.

Bill sponsor Rep. Joan Brady (R-Richland) told one reporter, “Traditional domestic violence occurs in a man-woman, boy-girl situation.” She claims that, statistically, the majority of abuse happens in heterosexual relationships. Now, open LGBTQ folks make up roughly 10-15 percent of the population, so statistically you will see more abuse in heterosexual-defined relationships. This does not mean the percentage of abusive relationships are not the same between either group, nor that any one group of people should be denied the protections that are offered another.

Using Rep. Brady’s logic, we should rewrite the bill to exclude protections to our straight male youth who are faced with dating violence because, statistically, female-on-male violence is much less prevalent. As much as I would like to say violence does not happen in the LGBTQ community, as happy as it would make me to think that we, as a community, have overcome relationship abuse, the truth is that same-sex relationship violence is every bit as much a day-to-day reality to LGBTQ youth as it is to heterosexual youth.

If we truly want to curb violence in schools — and in society as a whole — we cannot allow elected officials to use legislation whose original intent is to protect, as a soapbox for their personal sense of morality. To do not only puts our youth at risk, it reinforces the systemic problem of homophobia in our state, granting justification to the hatred already aimed at LGBTQ citizens of South Carolina.

The third and final reading of the bill is on Tuesday, May 19.

By Brett Bursey

Director, SC Progressive Network

Bills for early voting took torturous turns in both the House and Senate in the last two weeks.

Rep. David Mack’s bill (H 3608), which was written by the Progressive Network, passed out of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Election Law but stripped of the provision that allowed citizens to register during the two-week early voting period.

What looked like a partial victory suffered further defeat when the full House Judiciary Committee amended Mack’s bill to a three-day early voting period and limited all absentee voting to mail-in ballots.

The bill that has gone to the House floor is more restrictive than the present law that allows 30 days of in-person absentee voting at the county election commission office, which caused long lines during the 2008 election. The current version, championed by Rep. Alan Clemmons, would not allow in-person voting at county offices by the elderly and infirm except during the three-day period when everyone else is trying to vote.

To add insult to injury, House rules prohibit Rep. Mack from removing his name from his  own bill that now restricts voting rather than making it easier.

In the Senate, early voting had four hearings in a subcommittee chaired by Sen. Chip Campsen that allowed much more debate. The Network’s bill (S 369 — a companion bill to Rep. Mack’s), sponsored by Sen. Phil Leventis, was supported by testimony from the director of Mecklenburg County’s Board of Elections, who told the committee that One Stop Vote Centers in the Charlotte area had bipartisan support and saved money.

The Network’s early voting bill, introduced in 2007, has been modeled after the NC practice that allows early voting at multiple locations and also allows citizens to register. Mecklenburg County is a good example for South Carolina, as it uses the exact same voting machines as we do.

In subcommittee, Campsen pushed for three days of early voting, restricted to the county office. When the vote was called, we were gratified by the vote of Sen. Ray Clearey, who voted with Sen. John Scott for 15 days of early voting at multiple locations.

This victory was tempered by the majority vote that photo IDs would be required of voters. This recommendation was passed out of the full Senate Judiciary Committee on May 14, over the objection of Democrat senators.

While debate on both the House and Senate versions of the bill are scheduled for May 19, legislation on early voting is not expected to pass this year.

As long as photo ID is tied to the early voting bill, Democrat senators are promising to kill the bill. While photo IDs would only prevent someone from impersonating another voter at the polls — a crime punishable by 10 years in prison and that has never happened in South Carolina — it has become the holy grail for Republicans.

The practical outcome of the early voting debate is going to be a trade-off for how many days of early voting we get for accepting photo IDs provision.

Democrats see voter suppression as the issue; Republicans see fraud as the issue. Sadly, partisan concerns are inhibiting reforms. The loser is, as usual, the citizens of South Carolina.

For more information on the Network’s voting reform initiatives, click here.