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Op-Ed: Gay Men Have a Stake In the Abortion Debate — The Women Who Have Always Supported Us

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Behind every gay man, there is a great woman — or, more accurately, great women. Joe Biden said of Will and Grace that the show “did more to educate the American public than almost anybody’s ever done so far.” And he was absolutely right. The sitcom was indeed groundbreaking, because it normalized gay people to American audiences.

Yet, perhaps just as important was how it portrayed the relationships between gay men and their straight female friends. Did Will and Grace slip into low-hanging fruit territory? Of course it did. But beyond tropes and cliches, at its core, it was a decisive and reverent portrayal of the bonds between gay men and straight women. For Will, Grace offered a brand of supportive love that is so familiar to gay men everywhere. The most unconditional, non-judgmental kind of love. A love rooted in compassion and commiseration.

As Pride Month begins, I am reminded of all of the ways straight female allies have supported me throughout my life, and how straight women have fought shoulder to shoulder with the LGBTQ community from the very beginning. They have no skin in the game. No horse in the race. They stood with us out of pure conviction.

So as we celebrate Pride and the legacies of the activists that have stood up for LGBTQ rights, we must remember the role that was played by our straight female allies. As we watch state after state pass legislation that blocks access to reproductive healthcare, we have a moral obligation to sound the alarm, to galvanize, and to fight. We must stand with them as they have always stood with us.

While gay men will never need an abortion, women have everything to lose if Roe is overturned. Their fight is beyond the right to choose — it is a fight for dignity and equality. And that is precisely why I am committed to protecting access to safe and legal abortions. Advocating for women’s reproductive healthcare is a moral imperative for anyone who has ever experienced inequality. The lesson my community should take away from the advocacy of straight women is that we are all in this together. As Martin Luther King Jr said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

To the women in my life, the women of my state and of my country: I stand with you. You are not in this alone. You have always been there for us, and we are here for you now.

Note: Op-Eds are contributions from guest writers and do not reflect GayRVA editorial policy.

Photo courtesy Zachary For Virginia

Op-Ed: Virginia Needs The Green New Deal

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The Commonwealth can’t afford to prioritize corporate profit over environmental protections, writes Silvia Serrano.

Nobody is happy with the Green New Deal. Both conservatives and progressives have criticized it for being unrealistic, or not specific enough. But one thing is clear: people are finally talking about climate change. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey said it is necessary to mobilize the country the same way we did during World War II. The reality is that there is no planet B. So the question is: How much are we willing to fight to save the only planet we have?  

“If there is any national emergency in the country it is not immigration, it is climate change,” Zachary Brown, state senate candidate for the 10th district of Virginia, told me in an interview. He is not the only person in Virginia who supports the Green New Deal. In fact, many politicians and economic, environmental, and social groups came together last December to introduce Green New Deal Virginia. Del. Elizabeth Guzman, who represents Virginia’s 31st House of Delegates district, and Sam Rasoul are the founders of this project.

Guzman told me that she believes the Green New Deal makes it possible to achieve 100 percent renewable energy in Virginia by 2035. She said that the technology exists, and other countries like Iceland or even Costa Rica, a third world country, have already made this transition. That goal is even more ambitious than the GND, which aims to transition to 100 percent clean, renewable and zero-emission energy by 2050.

Delegate Elizabeth Guzman (via Facebook)

Dominion Energy is the largest provider of electricity in Virginia. On their website, they advertise themselves as a clean, reliable, sustainable energy. Nevertheless, their goal is to achieve only 15% renewable energy in Virginia by 2025. Because, Guzman told me, it is not their priority. She said Dominion is making more money with fossil fuel energy than offering renewable energy. According to Guzman, Dominion Energy is overcharging customers by hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

Renewable energy requires an investment, but it is cheaper in the long term. So, is it because there is not enough money that companies are not investing in clean energy? That is difficult to believe when the President and Chief Executive Officer at Dominion Energy is making more than $14 million a year.

Money is the only reason for politicians not to support a transition to 100 percent renewable energy, according to Brown. He explained that people who have an interest in financially maintaining the current energy system, those who work for the fossil fuel industry, are giving large campaign contributions to political parties. In 2018, Dominion Energy donated more than $5 million to the Democrats and more than $6 million to the Republicans, according to the nonprofit, nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. Brown believes that every candidate who is serious about combating climate change needs to pledge not to take any campaign contributions from people like Dominion Energy.

The Green New Deal is not the first climate-change-related proposal from the Democratic Party, but so far, it is the biggest step forward in the fight against climate change. The proposal is a start. It has put climate change discussion on the table. What we need to do now is make sure that we are implementing specific policy proposals from this broad idea.

The Green New Deal is bold, because the situation requires us to be bold. Climate change is not a joke. It is going to require a lot of money, energy, and resources to save our planet — our only planet.

Note: Op-Eds are contributions from guest writers and do not reflect RVA Magazine editorial policy.

Top Photo by Shenandoah National Park — Timber Hollow Overlook. Public Domain, via Wikimedia

Zachary Brown Brings Youthful Determination to Campaign for State Senate

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If the University of Richmond law student is elected, he’ll be the second openly gay state Senator in Virginia — as well as one of the youngest.

Zachary Brown is your average 23-year old first year law student, except in one way — he’s also running for Virginia State Senate.

“Oh my gosh, it is exactly what you would imagine,” Brown laughed. “It’s very long days, but the adrenaline of being in a campaign kind of keeps you going day after day.”

The University of Richmond law student has found a network of support for his campaign in the law students around him — all of whom are just as busy as he is. “I have this amazing support system behind me of other law students who are also dedicating 80 hour weeks on the campaign,” Brown said. “We’ve all become this one big happy family that’s trudging through law school, and also we’re excited to be a part of this state Senate campaign.”

Brown is running against incumbent Senator Glen Sturtevant in the 10th state Senate District, which encompasses parts of Richmond City, Chesterfield, and Powhatan.

“I decided to run because the current incumbent Republican Senator increasingly does not reflect the values of this district, and the values of Virginia more broadly,” Brown said. “We thought we would step up and challenge his seat.”

Brown would be the second openly gay Senator in Virginia’s Senate. While his being elected would be a great step in terms of LGBTQ representation, he doesn’t think that sexual orientation matters to his campaign as much as it once would have.

“We have new generation of people, [where] that’s like… the third or fourth thing that they learn about me,” said Brown. “It’s not even really on their radar, in terms of something to be concerned about.”

Regardless of the more accepting attitudes he’s encountered as a young, politically-involved gay man, Brown recognizes that he couldn’t be where he is today without the work of advocates who came before him. “It’s important to remember that there were a lot of people who came before me that made it possible for me to run right now,” he said. “There were people who weren’t able to do this, and fought really hard to make sure that I’m able to do it. I’m really grateful for that.”

LGBTQ equality and dignity is a key part of Brown’s platform.

“There’s definitely that barrier you have to break, I think, with some people who might be skeptical,” he said. “Especially people who think that the LGBTQ community are single issue voters, that they only care about their own issues. Of course we care about equality and making sure people have the same rights as everybody else, but we also care about infrastructure and the economy.”

Sturtevant, who was elected to office in 2015, has had a mixed record on LGBTQ issues. During the 2019 General Assembly legislative session, he voted against a bill — which died in committee — that would have added gender, disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation to the list of protected groups that can be classified as victims of hate crimes.

“Virginia is moving in the direction of becoming a beacon of equality and justice, and equal protection under the law,” Brown said. “We need to make sure we’re putting people in the Senate, and also the House of Delegates, that reflect this pursuit towards a more equal and just Virginia. And that’s what I intend to do.”

Brown says his top policy goal is to provide universal, affordable access to quality healthcare.

“Right now in Virginia, there’s lot of people who are not only uninsured but are underinsured,” he said. “So they’re afraid to go to the emergency room, or to see a primary care physician, because they cannot pay either their premium or the deductible or copay.”

Brown, a California native, said he attended “excellent public schools” growing up, and hopes to provide that same opportunity to Virginia students.

“At the current stage, your ZIP code is determining quality of your public education,” he said. “[The situation is] affecting predominantly communities of color.”

His plans for education include ensuring teacher retention through pay raises, as well supporting legislation that would grant a tuition-free college education at in-state public universities for families making $85,000 a year or less.

“Neither of my parents went to college, but they worked really hard to make sure that I was able to go to college,” he said. “Now it’s my turn to make sure other people’s lives are easier, getting other people the same opportunities I was given.”

He also hopes to raise the state minimum wage from its current $7.25, and to reduce income inequality, in part through a progressive tax rate.

“Right now there’s a lot of people that have to work two to three jobs, not to have a little extra cash, to but to just make their rent payment, to make their mortgage payment, put a little gas in the car,” Brown said. “We want to make sure that the minimum wage is a living wage. We also want to make sure that we’re closing the growing wealth gap that is happening in Virginia, where those at top are becoming more wealthy while those at the bottom are getting less and less, even though they’re working just as hard.”

Brown said he’s part of a larger national movement of young people running for office.

“Whether it’s the high school students in Parkland, who created the march for our lives, or it’s Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, the bartender in Queens who decided to step up and run for Congress, there’s this inclination among young people to step up and throw their hat in the ring.”

This year in Virginia’s 10th Senate district, Zachary Brown is taking advantage of his opportunity to do the same.

Photos via Zachary for Virginia/Facebook