Bev Clark, an activist and human rights defender and co founder of Kubatana.net was selected for the “Reagan-Fascell Fellows for 2006/07″ from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which included support for the “fellows immediately family”. Bev clearly stated in her application that her partner is a woman and that she “would would more than likely seek an internship in Washington D.C.”
In September she received the following response from NED
On the 13th September I received a reply from them saying that “we cannot be cutting-edge on the same-sex issue” and that my partner would not receive health and travel benefits but to “offset some of these costs and expenses” they would increase my fellowship stipend. But arriving in Washington D.C. through the backdoor with a few extra bucks in my back pocket is not acceptable.
Note that this fellowship is from the National Endownment for Democracy – Democracy that discriminates and excludes same-sex partnerships – an organisation that claims the right of people to “freely determine their own destiny”. As Bev states Mugabe and Bush have much more in common than they realise!
I have striven for gay and lesbian equality in a country where our presidents says homosexuals “have no rights at all” and calls us “worse than pigs and dogs”. And in the United States I find myself and my partner being discriminated against on the grounds of sexual orientation by an organisation that claims, in its Statement of Principles and Objectives that:
Bev Clark has turned down the offer of the fellowship choosing to be “out rather than in”
