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Education Needed on Transgender Day of Remembrance
This week marked the 11th International Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day that honors victims of anti-transgender violence. In 2009 alone, at least 97 transgender people were murdered simply because of who they were. As we honor these brave people, it is imperative that we also focus on ways to create a safer existence for transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.
The Manhattan Declaration and the Right's Return to the Culture Wars
Published November 21, 2009 @ 04:24AM PT
If you take a few dozen Catholics, mix them up with a large pack of conservative evangelicals, throw in a former Nixon official who went to jail for obstructing justice, and add the woman who is the leading activist trying to keep marriage rights away from LGBT people, you get what's now better known as the Manhattan Declaration.
If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it is. It's the right-wing's new call to arms that is not only reviving the buzzword "culture wars," but is a sign that conservative religious leaders will stoop to the lowest levels imaginable to make sure that LGBT people are pushed back into the closet and that women's rights are sent back to the days of back alley abortions and "Mad Men" housewives.
What is the Manhattan Declaration? It's a statement put forward by upwards of 150 religious leaders -- from Catholic bishops including the Archbishop of New York, to conservative political legends like Dinesh D'Souza -- that says conservative religious folks are called by God to go nuclear in order to prevent abortion, same-sex marriage, stem-cell research and a host of what they call "fundamental truths."
"We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life," write the religious leaders.
Funny, but this document takes Jesus Christ and makes him the most partisan, political figure in history. Talk about deception -- they've taken a religious figure that spent just about his entire life fighting for the poor, and turned him into a gay basher.
Steve Russell Hates the Hate Crime Bill
Published November 20, 2009 @ 03:22PM PT
With the ink barely dry on the Matthew Shepard Act, State Senator Steve Russell of Oklahoma is already scrambling to preserve his right to openly hate gays. He is planning on introducing legislation that would exempt Oklahoma, and would disallow state prosecutors from entering hate crime evidence at criminal trials, or assisting in federal hate crime prosecution.
Just to be clear, it's not hate crime laws that bother Steve, it's the extension of hate crime protection to a new class of people, namely homosexuals. Steve is worried that the legislation creates a "special class of people" and "could be used to target people's belief, freedom to associate in groups, right to assemble on issues, as well as target people's right to free speech." He's fighting for his fellow Oklahomans, like Rep. Sally Kern, who just want to be able to say out loud that gays are a bigger threat to America than terrorism.
Fear not, Steve! Preach on, Sally! The government is at least one, if not many many many steps ahead of you. Let's look at the bill itself, HR 1913. You don't have to read the whole thing, it's just a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo about what constitutes a hate crime and proper prosecution. I'd like to direct your attention to the very last line. "Nothing in this Act ... shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution."
So the Bill expressly preserves the First Amendment right to believe whatever you want to about gays, and the right to use the Bible, or whatever your rhetoric of choice, to support your opinion. But as soon as you choose to make assault or murder your tool of oppression, be prepared to spend a few extra years behind bars.
How Gay Does Adam Lambert Really Need To Be?
Published November 20, 2009 @ 05:13AM PT
Adam Lambert may not have won American Idol, but you wouldn't know that from the wave of publicity this week, all in anticipation of his first album dropping. But the coverage this week had less to do with his musical abilities and more to do with his sexual orientation.
Not whether he's gay, of course. That's old news and about as shocking as finding out that school buses are yellow.
No, the question this week was whether Adam Lambert is gay enough. And it all sparks from an Out Magazine exclusive where the editor says that Lambert's handlers and his record company laid out all the stops to make sure that he didn't appear too gay, or get asked any gay questions. Turns out that record execs still worry a whole heck of a lot that being too gay will kill your profit margin at the iTunes store.
Few Bright Spots for LGBT Giving in 2010
Published November 19, 2009 @ 01:29PM PT
Times are hard all around, and LGBT nonprofits are feeling it in their bottom line.
Foundations and other grant makers have had to cut back their giving as the economic meltdown dealt their portfolios a major hit. In more cheery news, a report from The Foundation Center warns that this year’s decline in giving has not only been worse than previously thought, but also will continue into 2010.
“The majority of grant makers responding to the survey believe that the nonprofit community in general was not sufficiently prepared to weather the economic crisis, although most think that the nonprofits that do survive will emerge stronger than before,” wrote Steven Lawrence, senior director of research, at The Foundation Center.
So what does that mean for already-struggling LGBT nonprofits? Administrative cutbacks, staff layoffs, and increased competition for limited sources of funding.
There is one bright spot: the recent launch of a $10 million endowment called the Palette Fund.
Polls in New Jersey Say Bring On the Gay Marriage
Published November 19, 2009 @ 04:56AM PT
There are two states that could take a turn toward gay marriage yet this year if their state legislatures manage to get their act together. One is New York, where Gov. David Paterson is pushing strong for a vote in the State Senate to recognize marriage equality. The other is New Jersey, where the clock is seriously ticking on passing a bill that recognizes same-sex marriage.
Jersey's Gov.-Elect Chris Christie has flat out said that he will veto a gay marriage bill if it ever reaches his desk in Trenton. That's the bad news. The good news? Christie doesn't take office for another two months, and outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine has said that marriage equality is something he wants to see happen for New Jersey.
That makes for some pretty high drama, because it means that marriage equality in the Garden State will come down to a vote during a lame duck session that starts next Monday. If the state legislature passes a marriage equality bill before Corzine heads for the hills, gay marriage will have found its seventh sixth fifth state (freakin' ballot measures, lowering our numbers!).
Turns out, a new poll released today shows that residents in the state support same-sex marriage. Can this prod the legislature to act, and act fast?
Why Gay Adoption Matters in the Florida Governor's Race
Published November 18, 2009 @ 06:39PM PT
Florida is one of two states that have instituted bans on adoption for LGBT families, sharing the dubious honor with Arkansas. Thankfully, there's movement in Florida to overturn this out-dated law that not only fosters homophobia, but punishes children by keeping them away from healthy families.
First a judge last year in Miami ruled that the ban on gay adoption was illegal. Then came word this week that a candidate for governor in Florida, Alex Sink, supports overturning the ban.
That's huge news, in part because Alex Sink's opponent in the Governor's race -- current state Attorney General Bill McCollum -- proudly defends the ban on gay adoption and believes that homosexuality fosters depression and psychological illness. Those are McCollum's exact words in a lawsuit filed to keep the gay adoption ban in place. Seems like he'd rather have children languish in America's foster care system than see them placed with qualified and outstanding parents.
To be clear, nearly every single study on adoption shows that not only do children do well when they are placed with LGBT parents, but they in some cases outperform children raised by straight parents. Moreover, massive numbers of studies show that gay parents are just as gifted and qualified to raise children than straight parents.
Sink's comments underscore that very fact, and place Florida children above partisan social issue politics. McCollum's words and deeds, on the contrary, keep children from being raised in healthy homes, and hold them hostage to a right-wing agenda hell-bent on using faith instead of science and the principle of equality to best determine state adoption policy.
The End of the Road for Carrie Prejean
Published November 18, 2009 @ 10:06AM PT
Turns out that if you make at least eight sex tapes, then ask your boyfriend to lie about your age in them, then say that it's very Christian to get a boob job, and finally tell Larry King that he's being inappropriate for simply asking basic journalistic questions, you might find yourself on the defensive. And that's right where Carrie Prejean, the former Miss USA pageant contestant of "opposite marriage" fame, is finding herself these days.
Her latest setback? The National Organization for Marriage -- the conservative anti-gay organization that scooped Prejean up after her gay marriage comments at this year's Miss USA contest -- has disassociated themselves from the former beauty queen. After all, it's kind of hard to espouse traditional family values with a side order of lewd sex videos.
And the hits just keep on coming. According to Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate, Prejean has also had her invitation rescinded to speak at the GOP's Capitol Hill Club, a fancy pants conservative private club that caters to Republican lawmakers inside the Beltway. Even Meghan McCain got in on this story, saying that Prejean exudes hypocrisy.
"I find it even more disturbing that as long as you oppose gay marriage, filming yourself having sex is taken more lightly," McCain wrote for the Daily Beast. "Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in this kind of thinking? And hypocrisy is something the Republican Party can’t afford to have right now as the GOP struggles to find its identity."
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