Many LGBT advocates are praising this year’s Democratic platform (not yet public) as “the most progressive major party platform with respect to LGBT issues in the nation’s history.” Some complaint that it never uses the terms “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” and “transgender,” but others argue that terms such as “same-sex couples” “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity” […]
Religion and LGBT rights often stand in opposition. A new study (PDF link) in the June 2008 Journal of Family Psychology, however, found that “religiously invested lesbians and gay men, and those with children, were the most likely to cohabit and to legalize and ritualize their couple relationships.” Study participants were residents of Illinois, so
Two people are dead and seven injured after a man entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church Sunday and fired a sawed-off 12-gauge semiautomatic shotgun during a children’s performance of the musical Annie. The shooter, Jim David Adkisson, left a letter in his car stating he hated liberals and gay people and was motivated by
Here’s a situation we wouldn’t see here in the U.S.: A couple in the U.K. was refused permission to become foster parents after they told a panel that their [Christian] belief would prevent them from addressing a child’s homosexuality in a positive light.” The panel rejected their application, citing the recent Sexual Orientation Act that
Originally published in Bay Windows, April 19, 2007. When I first read the title of Waiting for the Call: From Preacher’s Daughter to Lesbian Mom, I expected the tale of a woman rejecting her religious upbringing and denouncing her parents as she came out. Jacqueline Taylor’s memoir is thankfully not as simple as that. It
Today is the last day of the three-day Blog Against Theocracy event, for which we are asked to post about the separation of church and state. As a sometime graduate student in medieval history, I know me some theocracy. I also know that what worked in Western Europe 800 years ago might not be the
A group of seven high-ranking lesbian and gay military veterans called on Congress to repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and demanded that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace apologize for calling LGBT service members “immoral.” The New York Times follows the LGBT blogosphere in highlighting Hillary Clinton and
Abigail Garner brought my attention to a New York Times article today about a Chinese adoptee celebrating her bat mitzvah. Garner writes: Cecelia Nealon-Shapiro came to the U.S. in 1994 when she was adopted by a lesbian couple. What’s especially notable about this media coverage is that the questions of identity are centered around being
Today is the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States. It is also Blog for Choice Day, so I’m going to venture a little off my usual topics in this post and talk about reproductive freedom as I see it.
Two items of news today caught my eye: Pope Benedict XVI referred to arguments for recognition of same-sex relationships as “dismal theories.” The New York Blade recapped a UCLA study (cited in my Weekly Political Roundup last week) claiming “New Jersey florists, caterers, hotels and other businesses would bring in more than $100 million in
