Today marks eight years since the brutal gay bashing that killed University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. His mother Judy Shepard, one of the LGBT community’s staunchest advocates, is using this day to launch the Matthew Shepard Foundation’s Get Out the Vote campaign. I had the honor of meeting Judy Shepard once, before I was […]
Kara Swisher, a veteran Wall Street Journal writer and lesbian mom, has launched an online memoir, “The Louie Chronicles,” on the Huffington Post. Swisher, who writes for the Journal about the impact of digital technologies on business and society, now turns her keyboard to the world of parenting and family. She explains: Centered on the
The big national news this week in the U. S. was the ongoing debacle of Mark Foley and the reeling but still struggling Republican leadership. The media is now highlighting the debate over whether the Foley case is a “gay issue.” My take is that it shouldn’t be a “gay issue,” but it is. The
Garden State Equality, the New Jersey LGBTI civil rights group, sent out an e-mail today to supporters stating that: The New Jersey Supreme Court will hand down its ruling on marriage equality for same-sex couples on or before Wednesday, October 25th, the last day of Chief Justice Deborah Poritz’s service on the court. That means
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger showed his middle-of-the-road orientation this week. He signed one bill making it harder to use the “gay panic” defense, another that standardizes housing laws to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and a third that adds fair treatment of LGBT people to a voluntary pledge taken by candidates
Republicans may not be able to count on the support of evangelical Christians to the extent they have done, the New York Times reports, saying “There is an undercurrent of concern that some evangelicals, unhappy that the GOP-led Congress and President Bush haven’t paid more attention to gay marriage and other ‘values’ issues, may stay
Tomorrow begins the 25th annual Banned Books Week (BBW), which “celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them.” Despite the
The Family Pride Coalition is hosting Act OUT: the National LGBT Family Conference, October 27-29, 2006, at the LGBT family-friendly Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, Texas. The conference is a three-day event focused on advocacy, education, and community building for LGBT-headed families and allies. Family Pride expects hundreds of families to attend from across the country.
An anti-LGBT group in Illinois has abandoned its efforts to place a referendum about same-sex marriage on the ballot this November. They did not collect enough signatures, and failed in a court challenge. In Shreveport, Louisiana, three of nine gay and lesbian activists were taken into custody after attempting to enlist at a U. S.
Reuters today has a feature titled “U. S. Gay Couples Struggle to Adopt.” There’s probably nothing there that would surprise most readers of this blog, but it’s notable that this is getting mainstream coverage. There are some good quotes from same-sex parents as well as a reminder that only ten states in the U. S.
