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.
Yesterday, I spoke of the LGBT heroes of 9/11, and the LGBT men and women who continue to serve in our armed forces. Coincidentally (or not), today sees the DVD release of Serving in Silence, the story of Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer, the highest- ranking U. S. officer to have been dismissed for her sexual orientation.
The events of September 11 did not spare any group in the U.S., including the LGBT community. Among the openly LGBT heroes of September 11 were Mychal Judge, chaplain of the New York Fire Department and the first official casualty of the World Trade Center, and Mark Bingham, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 83,
I will always remember, as will many of us, where I was the morning of 9/11. A lucky change in job kept me away from Ground Zero at the time of the attack. For a year, I had been commuting on the PATH train to the World Trade Center, arriving around 8:45 a.m. every day.
Posting late today. “Nap” has become a four-letter word around our house, and it’s hard to blog with a three-year-old running around wanting to play forest ranger. Karl Rove’s stepdad, with whom he had a “close relationship” is gay, a new book claims. Yes, that Karl Rove, who used same-sex marriage to mobilize the conservative
