Category: GLBT

First-Ever Federal Equality Measure Protecting LGBT Rights Signed Into Law

Posted on by TL

The following is from Joe Solmonese at the Human Rights Campaign:

Today, something extraordinary happened. Love conquered hate. After more than a decade, the inclusive hate crimes bill we’ve fought so hard for has been signed by the president and sealed in law.

I cannot overstate the importance of this moment. This is the first time ANY federal equality measure protecting LGBT rights has become law. The very first time. And it is the first federal law to explicitly protect transgender people. It is a touchstone in our movement, a triumph of what is right. And I truly feel things will never be the same.

You made this day possible, along with thousands like you who called, wrote to Congress, met with lawmakers, and never gave up. I am inspired and humbled, and I thank you for all you’ve done.

As I left the White House, my thoughts turned to two crucial tasks immediately ahead – the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." Tomorrow, we will wake up emboldened to fight those battles. So will our enemies. This victory gives us momentum, and we cannot slow down.

Will you make a donation today to help HRC make sure this isn’t the last time we see this image?

With your help, this moment will be a beginning, not a culmination.

President Obama
Help us put more pro-equality legislation under that pen!

Hate crimes legislation was the first piece of creating a safe environment for LGBT people – prohibiting workplace and military discrimination are the next. When LGBT people live in fear of violence or discrimination, we cannot be who we are. And when we must hide our true selves, we cannot change hearts and minds.

It took twelve years, over one million emails, faxes and phone calls to Congress, and 14 separate votes on the floors of the House and the Senate to turn the hate crimes bill into law. Right-wing groups opposed us ferociously until the very end; they knew having a pro-LGBT law on the books would be a game-changer, and it is.

We’ve learned invaluable lessons. Now we know the next victory will take at least that much effort. But it must not take that much time. That means we need your help now.

Today, I am more determined than ever to put more pro-equality legislation on the president’s desk – let us galvanize ourselves in the fire of this moment.

Your support right now will give our nationwide network of staff and volunteers the power to fight for equality across the country.

Thank you again for standing with us to make this historic victory possible. Your hard work has made this country a safer place for millions of LGBT people.

Warmly,

Joe Solmonese
Joe Solmonese
President

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Love Conquers Hate: President Barack Obama Signs Hate Crimes Legislation Into Law

Posted on by TL

“This law honors our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender brothers and sisters whose lives were cut short because of hate,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.

www.hrc.org/loveconquershate

Washington, D.C.– The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, praised President Barack Obama today for signing the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. The new law gives the Justice Department the power to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated violence where the perpetrator has selected the victim because of the person’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. The legislation was added as a provision to the FY 2010 National Defense Authorization Act earlier this Summer. For a comprehensive retrospective and historical overview of hate crimes advocacy visit: www.hrc.org/loveconquershate.

“This law honors our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender brothers and sisters whose lives were cut short because of hate,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “Today’s signing of the first major piece of civil rights legislation to protect LGBT Americans represents a historic milestone in the inevitable march towards equality. Although this is a major step in fighting the scourge of hate violence, it is not the end of the road. As a community, we will continue to dedicate ourselves to changing not only laws but also hearts and minds. We know that hate crimes not only harm individuals, but they terrorize entire communities. After more than a decade of advocacy, local police and sheriffs’ departments now have the full resources of the Justice Department available to them.”

“We applaud President Obama for signing this bill into law and thank the leadership and our allies in the House and Senate. We also will always remember the tireless efforts of Senator Edward Kennedy on this issue. Senator Kennedy once said that this legislation sends ‘a message about freedom and equality that will resonate around the world.’ This marks the first time that we as a nation have explicitly protected the LGBT community in the law. And this law sends a loud message that perpetrators of hate violence against anyone will be brought to justice,” said Solmonese.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act honors the memory of Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming college student brutally murdered in an act of hate violence in 1998, and James Byrd, an African-American man who was dragged to death in Jasper, Texas, in 1998.

“We are incredibly grateful to Congress and the president for taking this step forward on behalf of hate crime victims and their families, especially given the continuing attacks on people simply for living their lives openly and honestly,” said Judy Shepard, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation. “But each of us can and must do much more to ensure true equality for all Americans.”

“We appreciate everyone who worked so hard on this bill. My son was taken at such an early age and we hope this law will help prevent other families from going through what we experienced,” said Stella Byrd, mother of James Byrd. “Even though we’re different colors and different sexual orientations or gender identities, God made us all and he loves us all.”

The new law also provides the Justice Department with the ability to aid state and local jurisdictions either by lending assistance or, where local authorities are unwilling or unable, by taking the lead in investigations and prosecutions of violent crime resulting in death or serious bodily injury that were motivated by bias. It also makes grants available to state and local communities to combat violent crimes committed by juveniles, train law enforcement officers, or to assist in state and local investigations and prosecutions of bias motivated crimes.

This legislation was first introduced in the 105th Congress. There have been 14 total votes in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to bring this historic legislation to the president’s desk.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

President Obama Signs Hate Crimes Legislation

President Obama signs the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. (Photo: HRC.ORG)

Source: HRC.ORG

Schwarzenegger Signs Bill Establishing May 22 Harvey Milk Day

Posted on by TL

From Change.org:

Harvey Milk, the legendary LGBT activist and San Francisco Supervisor who was assassinated in 1978, has finally been given official recognition by the state of California with his own day. The bill to establish May 22 — Harvey’s birthday — as Harvey Milk Day was signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last night, capping off a whirlwind year in which Milk Day was originally vetoed by the Terminator, then the “Milk” movie exploded, then a Presidential Medal of Freedom was given posthumosly to Milk, and now, full circle, Schwarzenegger gets that Milk is an important figure for the state to honor.

Kudos to the state of California and to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for making this finally happen.

And thank you, Harvey Milk.

Tip of the hat to Michael Jones for this.

Video: President Obama Addresses Gay Rights at HRC Dinner

Posted on by TL

Watch President Obama’s speech at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner in Washington, D.C., on October 10.

The President vowed to end the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, but did not say when.  The President also acknowledged that policy changes he promised on the campaign trail are not happening as quickly as many had expected.

Gay Rights Activists Want More From Obama

Posted on by TL

Gay rights protesters demonstrate outside the Beverly Hills hotel, where U.S. President Barack Obama attended a Democratic Party fundraiser in May.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Many of the gay rights activists who will hear President Obama speak at the Human Rights Campaign banquet in Washington, D.C., Saturday worked to get him elected.

They had realistic expectations of what he could do for them if he won, but they have grown impatient with a president who has said nice things but done little more than extend limited rights to federal employees’ same-sex partners.

Obama determined that granting health benefits to same-sex partners was beyond his authority.

“I don’t care what he says Saturday night — I want to see what he does,” Illinois Equality Now founder Rick Garcia said.

This is the second major olive branch Obama has extended to the gay community. He had a White House reception in June at which he tried to reassure his skeptical gay supporters to give him time.

Will Obama have some gay rights legislation or an administrative order in hand when he appears at the gala Saturday night on the eve of the activists’ march on Washington?

Attendees are hoping he has more than just a good speech for the more than 3,000 expected to attend.

Tickets for the gala were quite expensive. This crowd has deep pockets. Others, not lucky or well-off-enough to get in, are expected to protest Obama’s appearance.

Is Obama chasing rainbow money, or will he remember the promises he made to those now protesting in the street?

Texans Fight for Gay Divorce

Posted on by TL

Now I’ve pretty much heard everything.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

A Texas judge has cleared the way for two Dallas men to get a divorce, ruling that Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage violates the constitutional guarantee to equal protection under the law.

District Judge Tena Callahan’s ruled Thursday that the court “has jurisdiction to hear a suit for divorce filed by persons legally married in another jurisdiction.”

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has argued that because the state doesn’t recognize gay marriage, its courts can’t dissolve one through divorce. Voters approved a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2005.

Abbott says he’ll appeal the ruling.

You gotta love the law.  Now the haters are confounded.

Only in America.

I’m really intrigued by this ruling.  If the case proceeds, Texas will have to allow that these two men were legally married in another jurisdiction.

Ha.  Ha.

As Craig Ferguson says, “It’s a great day for America, everybody!”

Cross-Dressers Must Show ID at Elk Grove Gay Bar

Posted on by TL

Now here’s something you don’t see every day – a gay bar that might be facing a discrimination complaint from the ACLU.

From the Chicago Tribune:

An Elk Grove Village gay bar popular with cross-dressers now requires them to show a valid photo ID that matches their “gender presentation.” Put another way, they now need a photo ID that shows them in drag.

Hunters Nightclub reluctantly imposed its new ID requirement because cross-dressing prostitutes were advertising on Craigslist and mentioning the establishment, said manager Peter Landorf.

“They’re implying they’re coming here,” said Landorf, whose new rule could cut down on his cross-dressing clientele. “If it is prostitution in any form, that could cost me my liquor license.”

So cross-dressers must show a government-issued photo ID that shows them in drag.  Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said this could be discriminatory.

“The fact is, if they are only requiring this of cross-dressers, that would be problematic because it would single out cross-dressers or transsexuals for a special burden,” Yohnka told the Chicago Tribune. “Under the Illinois Human Rights Act, they can’t do that.”

Yet another legal prostitution calamity brought to you by Craigslist.

Remember this?

Craigslist Prostitution Sting by Sheriff’s Police Nets 76 Arrests

Giannoulias Comes Out In Favor of Gay Marriage

Posted on by TL

Technically, I support Alexi Giannoulias for U.S. Senate.  I also supported Barack Obama for Senate.  Obama is governing as a moderate so far.  Obama has yet to find the courage to be liberal.

Alexi Giannoulias recently took a stand on an issue that Obama danced around: gay marriage.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias said Wednesday he favors legalization of same-sex marriage and, if elected, would seek to repeal a federal law that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.

In an interview, Giannoulias said individual states should be able to decide for themselves whether they allow same-sex couples to marry, but that all states should be required to afford legal recognition to same-sex marriages performed in states where they are sanctioned.

Giannoulias also would require the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages, now prohibited by the Defense of Marriage Act he wants repealed. He says this would have the effect, in part, of allowing gay and lesbian couples to file joint federal income tax returns and receive Social Security survivor benefits.

To top it off, he wants to repeal the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

I give Alexi credit for taking a stand.  I hope he remembers what he says he stands for after he’s elected.

Some are wondering where the change is.  Barack seems to be very taken with the power of the office of president, and that has me worried.  The ability to wage war must be its own aphrodesiac.

Some are wondering aloud.  From NPR:

Vermont on Tuesday joined five other states that have given same-sex couples the right to marry. That situation was almost unimaginable a decade ago, when, after rancorous debate, the state became the first in the union to enact same-sex civil unions.

But despite the historic gains made by the nation’s gay community, this year has largely been one of disappointment for many whose hopes were pinned on President Obama’s promise of change after two terms of an openly hostile Republican administration.

“People were shellshocked from the last eight years,” says Michael Joseph Gross, a New York-based writer whose recent piece about Obama and the gay community, “Hope and History,” appeared in The Advocate, a national gay and lesbian newsmagazine.

Obama supports civil unions, but he has never come out publicly in support of same-sex marriage. Nonetheless, Gross says, the gay community saw in Obama a fierce ally in the White House. And as recently as June, the president pledged to “bring the full spectrum of equal rights to LGBT Americans.”

“This was supposed to be the easy part,” Gross says.

Obama is one hell of a campaigner when running for office.  He just doesn’t seem to like campaigning for things that are really important.  It’s real important that he appear friendly with people who will never vote for or with him on any issue — like the Movement Conservative Republicans who dominate the Republican Party right now.

What have these ideologically driven conservatives who long ago lost the ability to think critically about any issue given us?

Nothing.

So, I’ll support you, Alexi.  You’ve got guts.  I hope you mean what you say.

D.C. Catholic Church Goes to War Against Gays

Posted on by TL

I’ll let Change.Org cover this one.

From Michael Jones:

Archbishop Wuerl wants D.C. to put the question of same-sex marriage on a ballot, so that voters can decide whether gays and lesbians ought to have equal rights. There’s some of that good-ole religious compassion for ya’. According to Wuerl, only straight people getting hitched can provide the type of loving relationships that keep families and children stable.

To that, here’s a big cry of bullshit. Why? Because as Massachusetts has shown in their state, gay marriage has simply no detrimental impact on marriage or the family. In fact, five years after Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, the state has some of the lowest divorce rates. And by low, we mean as low as they were 80 freakin’ years ago.

You’d think the Church would stop for a moment and recognize that. Or you’d think the Church would look up from it’s navel and see that in Washington, D.C., one out of three children live in poverty; the District has some of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the country; or that high school graduation rates in some areas of Washington stagger around the 55-60 percent mark. Surely those issues have to be more important that whether gays and lesbians have the right to marry, right?

Not if your faith runs as hollow as Archbishop Wuerl’s.

For the life of me, I don’t know why Wuerl is making this move, except to remind Rome that he’s still there, and still does not have the Red Hat.  I have a friend who knew Don Wuerl many, many years ago.  Back when Don Wuerl was Cardinal John Wright’s fair-haired boy.  He says Wuerl’s middle initial might just as well be “A” for “Ambition.”  Wuerl wants to be a Cardinal.  And maybe Pope.  That’s all he wants.

This attack against our LGBT friends is nothing more than an attempt to draw attention to himself, nudge the pope to make him a Cardinal.

This is not about Wuerl’s opposition to homosexuality.  This is about Archbishop Wuerl making a career move.  The ultimate career move Wuerl has been hoping for his entire life.

And he will succeed.

One of his predecessors in Pittsburgh did something equally inane.  In the 1980s, Bishop Bevilacqua came up with the brilliant notion that women should not have their feet washed in church on Holy Thursday.  I’ll not go into the absurd reasoning he used, but it was really silly.

Bevilacqua was eventually rewarded with the Red Hat, and he eventually became Cardinal Archbishop of Philadelphia.

The next year, Pittsburgh went back to permitting women to have their feet washed on Holy Thursday.

Look, Don Wuerl wants to be a Cardinal in the Catholic Church.  That’s all he’s ever wanted.  He’ll cry tears of joy when he finaly gets the Red Hat.

And our LGBT friends will have his shoe-prints on their faces.

Lutherans Overwhelmingly Approve Sexually Active Gays as Clergy

Posted on by TL

First, the news from WTAE in Pittsburgh:

MINNEAPOLIS — The nation’s largest Lutheran denomination took openly gay clergy more fully into its fold Friday, as leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to lift a ban that prohibited sexually active gays and lesbians from serving as ministers.

Under the new policy, individual ELCA congregations will be allowed to hire homosexuals as clergy as long as they are in a committed relationships. Until now, gays and lesbians had to remain celibate to serve as clergy.

The change passed with the support of 68 percent of about 1,000 delegates at the ELCA’s national assembly. It makes the group, with about 4.7 million members in the U.S., one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance.

“I have seen these same-gender relationships function in the same way as heterosexual relationships — bringing joy and blessings as well as trials and hardships,” the Rev. Leslie Williamson, associate pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Des Plaines, Ill., said during the hours of debate. “The same-gender couples I know live in love and faithfulness and are called to proclaim the word of God as are all of us.”

Conservative congregations will not be forced to hire gay clergy. Nevertheless, opponents of the shift decried what they saw as straying from clear Scriptural direction, and warned it could lead some congregations and individual churchgoers to split off from the ELCA.

“This will cause an ever greater loss in members and finances. I can’t believe the church I loved and served for 40 years can condone what God condemns,” said the Rev. Richard Mahan, pastor at St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Charleston, W.Va. “Nowhere in Scripture does it say homosexuality and same-sex marriage is acceptable to God. Instead, it says it is immoral and perverted.”

So, while the vote was very positive, there are still those who condemn the decision.

But it passed.

An interesting insight from a gay man:

Tim Mumm, a gay man and an assembly delegate from Whitewater, Wis., said the Scripture that guides opponents of the more liberal policy was written by mortals, at a much earlier time, and doesn’t reflect what many Christians now believe.

“I believe for me to marry a woman would be wrong — even sinful,” Mumm said.

I never thought about it that way before, that it would be considered sinful for a gay man to marry a woman.

Look, I don’t want to hear from atheists and agnostics decrying organized religion. Whether you go believe in God or not, this is a huge step forward for gays and lesbians.   And the Lutherans have decided to lead.