Bunches of news this week. I’m saving parenting/youth-related stuff for a separate roundup early next week. This week was busy with the extra Banned Books Week content. Stay tuned! An article written by an Air Force colonel in Joint Force Quarterly, which is published for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concludes that […]
Protect Maine Equality has responded to Stand for Marriage Maine’s Prop 8 copycat ad I posted about last week. They now have two new ads out, one that directly addresses the allegations raised by the right-wing ad. In my previous post, I cautioned the Maine equality group against responding in the same way the No
Time for another roundup. Yee hah! Youth and Schools Kevin Jennings, assistant deputy secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools in the U.S. Department of Education, and founder of GLSEN, is speaking out about the beating of a high school student in Belleville, Illinois and the inaction (or cheering encouragement) of bystanders. Meanwhile,
“Stand for Marriage Maine” has just released “Everything to Do With Schools,” the latest TV ad in their campaign to revoke marriage equality. Some of you may recognize the name from an ad used during the Prop 8 campaign. As Jeremy at Good As You has pointed out, not just the name is the same—the
“Homosexual marriage [could be] taught in schools whether parents like it or not.” Sound familiar? The ultra-right used the argument to drum up support for Prop 8. Now, Stand for Marriage Maine is busting out the same drivel in support of that state’s Referendum 1, which would overturn marriage equality there. (You can see a
Yee hah. Another huge week in LGBT political news. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court challenging the constitutionality of Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The suit claims that DOMA “unfairly excludes more than 16,000 Massachusetts married same-sex couples and their families from critically important rights
What a week to be taking time away from blogging. I’m breaking my self-imposed absence, however, to pop in and say, “Go, Maine!” Governor John E. Baldacci today signed marriage equality into law. In the governor’s news release, he said, “In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions. I
Another week of political milestones: The Hate Crimes Bill, aka the Matthew Shepard Act, aka the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed the House. It would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the categories covered by federal hate crimes laws. The bill now moves to the Senate. President Obama has expressed his
During the 1996 Illinois Senate race, Barack Obama asserted, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages,” a distinct change from his current position. The Washington Blade reports that three more openly LGBT people will serve in the Obama administration, David Medina, as deputy chief of staff for Michelle Obama,
