Petrelis Files

LA City Council to Debate
Gay Iraqi Resolution

An email is circulating today, calling attention to a hearing tomorrow at the Los Angeles City Council, all about the atrocities faced by LGBT people in Iraq. If you live in LA, please try and make it to the meeting, and also contact your rep on the council.

It's great to see visibility for Iraq's gay community gaining traction in Southern California. Let's be optimistic the council will pass the resolution, and receive decent mainstream and gay press, and blogger, coverage.

Friends-

Could you please forward this to your lists of friends, LGBT supporters, or media contacts?

On Wednesday, May 13, the Los Angeles City Council will consider a resolution, sponsored by my boss, Councilman Bill Rosendahl, putting the City of Los Angeles on record condemning this atrocity. A representative of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission will be on hand to testify.

The council meeting will be held at 10 a.m., May 13, in the John Ferraro Council Chambers, 3rd Floor, Los Angeles City Hall, 200 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles, 90012, and we are hoping for a large crowd and outspoken opposition to this brutality.

While we eagerly await a court decision on whether California will recognize our relationships, our people are being tortured and murdered in Iraq. In a story largely ignored by the media, death squads are rounding up Iraqi gay men, sealing their anuses with powerful glue, then inducing diarrhea, which leads to a painful and agonizing death.

The annihilation of our people, ordered by religious decree in a nation where our troops have sacrificed their lives to restore religious freedom, is appalling. In San Francisco and New York, activists have protested. Here in Los Angeles, we cannot remain silent while this happens.

Thanks for helping to spread the word. Check this out: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=559818805&ref=ts#/event.php?eid=81351580825.

I invite and urge you to attend and to speak out. A large crowd of members of the LGBT community and human rights supporters will help us draw media attention to these crimes.

If you plan on attending, please RSVP to Anataly DeJesus in my office at anataly.dejesus@lacity.org. We will do our best to arrange parking.

Councilman Rosendahl, the IGLHRC and I hope to see you on Wednesday.

Thanks,
Mike Bonin
Email: mike_bonin@yahoo.com
Chief of Staff, Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl