President Obama issued a memo directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to ensure that same-sex partners have the same visitation rights as other immediate family members. HHS should “Initiate appropriate rulemaking . . . to ensure that hospitals that participate in Medicare or Medicaid respect the rights of patients to designate visitors.” The
Politics and Law Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida announced a series of improved policies “more responsive to the needs of the LGBT community.” The move was in response to a lawsuit brought by Janice Langbehn, who in 2007 was kept from her partner Lisa Pond who lay dying in the hospital. The couple’s three children
(This ran as my newspaper column on March 16, 2010. A few of the details on the McMillen prom case are a tad out of date, but the bulk of the piece still holds.) The Lego castle was almost done. It was a complicated thing, one of the most intricate constructions my then-preschooler had ever
Former Arkansas governor and erstwhile Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee shared his opinion about same-sex parents in a speech last week at The College of New Jersey. As reported by The Perspective: He also affirmed support for a law in Arkansas that prohibits same-sex couples from becoming adoptive or foster parents. “I think this is
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement. Michael Jones at Change.org explores his LGBT-rights legacy. Back in February, Lisa Keen took at look at the LGBT-rights records of some potential nominees. The Pentagon grapples with the problem of “How do we ask gay and lesbian troops what they think if they can still
When Constance McMillen filed a lawsuit against her school district after they canceled the prom rather than let her bring a same-sex date and wear a tux, a federal judge ruled that she had a right to clothes and a date of her choice. He did not ask the school to reinstate the prom, however,
Not news per se, but the Victory Fund has put together a nice video of LGBT women in politics. In a constitutional challenge to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), the Department of Justice filed a brief supporting the current DADT law. Several experts on DADT are claiming the Obama administration misrepresented their views in the
When Army medic Sgt. Lacye Presley first met CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier, Presley helped keep the reporter alive when her CBS News team was hit by a car bomb in Iraq. She was awarded a Bronze Star for her actions that day. Later, she was discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Dozier followed Presley’s
Posting another academic study request, this time for research on teens with LGB parents. This one has a personal tone for me, not because I have teens (my son is six), but because I’ve interviewed the lead researcher, Abbie Goldberg, about her latest book on LGBT parents and on some earlier research about lesbian and
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced a plan for making enforcement of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell “more humane and fair.” Servicemembers will no longer be dismissed if they are involuntarily outed by a third party. Three—count ’em, three—U.S. representatives have introduced separate bills in the past week designed to protect LGBT people from discrimination in
