Today is a day to celebrate love. How appropriate, then, that late yesterday, Federal District Court Judge Arenda Wright Allen struck down Virginia’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples, and in her ruling, quoted Mildred Loving of Loving v. Virginia, the case that struck down that state’s and the country’s anti-miscegenation laws.
Facebook took a positive step forward today by offering users the ability to indicate a gender option other than just female or male. Now one can choose transgender, trans woman, trans man, trans person, intersex, genderqueer, gender fluid, and many other variations — about 50 in all. But the range of choices to indicate family members who are also on Facebook remains traditionally gendered.
[Updated again: Now with Alabama and Virginia!] Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, and Texas all had positive news about marriage equality yesterday. Let’s round it all up. (I know: Nevada isn’t really part of the south, but it’s south of where I am, so grant me some poetic license here.)
Le Zbor, the first lesbian and feminist choir in southeastern Europe, has created a charming video “expressing its solidarity with the LGBT citizens of Russia and worldwide.” Watch the Croatian singers here:
Great news from Idaho this morning: The state Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a person can petition to do a second-parent adoption of another’s child, even if the two adults are not married.
A baby born in Vancouver, British Columbia, is the first to have three legal parents on her birth certificate under the province’s new law.
Being in a marriage means dealing with the hard times as well as the good. Watch Stef and Lena of The Fosters (Teri Polo and Sherri Saum) prepare for Stef’s father’s funeral and discuss what to do about foster daughter Callie’s relationship with their son Brandon. Leaving aside the specifics of their problems, can you relate to their overall struggles with family and parenting?
Yelena Goltsman is founder and co-president of RUSA LGBT, the association for Russian-speaking LGBT people in the U.S., and a leading voice speaking out for LGBT Russians. She didn’t plan to be an LGBT activist, though — and in fact came to the U.S. in 1990 because of anti-Jewish, not anti-LGBT, persecution, when she was still married to a man.
Here’s a sneak peek of Chevrolet’s ad that will run tonight during the Olympic opening ceremonies, featuring two-mom and two-dad families.
Google lit up the Internet last night with its not-so-subtle rainbow-colored Olympic doodle, quoting the non-discrimination section of the Olympic Charter below it. From what I can tell, based on reports from friends of friends, the doodle is visible by Google users in Russia, too. I’ve been working in social media and social justice for a long time, and I think Google’s move was one of the best-timed, best planned examples of how to use the former for the latter. Other companies are planning to air LGBT-inclusive commercials during the Games as well. But what will the impact of this be?
