Here are a few highlights from the surfeit of political news and analysis this week: David Cicilline (D-RI) became the fourth openly gay member of Congress, joining Barney Frank (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Jared Polis (D-CO), who each also won reelection. Lisa Keen writes about the more than 100 other openly gay candidates who
If you haven’t yet voted today, get out and do it. Control of Congress hangs in the balance (along with many and sundry local issues). Bring the kid(s) and make it a lesson in citizenship. (If they’re too young for that, bring them anyway. The seniors who staff the voting booths will coo over them
First: You’re all voting next Tuesday, right? No, no candidate is perfect. Sometimes we need to choose the better of two (or more) evils. I think it’s still important to make that choice, though. President Obama met with five progressive bloggers, who grilled him on marriage equality and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Joe Sudbay, who
Ask? Tell? Oh, I don’t know. Injunctions were flying everywhere, Dan Choi tried to reenlist, and the latest seems to be that the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has stopped the enforcement of the district court order that the military stop enforcing DADT. Sorting out the double negatives: DADT is still on. The November
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced today that he would not appeal a ruling that last month struck down the state’s ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians. I’ll have more details in another piece; for the moment I’ll refer you back to the news piece I did for Keen News Service a couple
This week’s political news makes up for in quality what it lacks in quantity—a couple of major issues in play here. (As always, I’ll tackle parenting and youth issues in a separate roundup.) A federal judge issued an injunction to put an “immediate” stop to all Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell discharges and investigations. The Staff
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told the audience at the Victory Fund’s Gay & Lesbian Leadership Awards that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell “will be gone by the end of the year.” Will the Obama administration appeal the two federal court rulings that declared part of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional? Good question; and Lee
Small holiday that it is, Family Day 2010 slipped by yesterday without much notice. President Obama nevertheless issued a proclamation about it as he did last year. This year’s proclamation, however, omits last year’s mention of different family structures, including children being raised by same-sex couples. Compare (in part): 2009 [my emphasis]: Our family provides
Let’s start right in with the breaking news: U.S. Federal District Court Judge Ronald Leighton ruled that the U.S. Air Force should reinstate Major Margaret Witt, a decorated U.S. Air Force flight nurse who had been dismissed under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). Other DADT news this week was more mixed: The Senate failed to
A bit of sunshine from the Sunshine State today. The Florida Third District Court of Appeals this morning upheld a lower court ruling that said the state’s ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians is unconstitutional, and that a gay man, Frank Martin Gill, can adopt the two boys he and his partner have
