Dear Friend of NCLR,
From Washington D.C. to San Francisco, NCLR is working tirelessly to make sure we pass ENDA, and we won’t stop until we get these crucial employment protections for our community.
Check out video of me and NCLR staff at yesterday’s ENDA rally outside Speaker Pelosi’s San Francisco office, and make sure you stand with us in our call to pass ENDA now!
In Solidarity,
Kate Kendell
Executive Director, NCLR
Dear Daniel --
| |
Ever feel like your relationship isn't working out the way you think it should?
Well, our friends at AMERICAblog, CREDO Action and Open Left are wondering the same thing... about the Democratic Party when it comes to fighting for LGBT equality. . We all felt so strongly about it, we thought it was time to write a letter to the Democrats.
This isn't just any letter, mind you. It expresses concerns that many of us -- both straight and LGBT -- have been feeling recently. Here's the beginning of the letter:
Dear Democrats,
We need to talk.
This may be a hard letter to read, but I need to figure out if this relationship is still healthy for me...
Click here to read the rest of our open letter to the Democrats. If it says what you're feeling, sign your name to it and then forward this message to your friends. We will deliver your signatures to Democratic Party leadership:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/DearDemocrats
Rick Jacobs
Chair, Courage Campaign
Courage Campaign Equality is part of the Courage Campaign's multi-issue online organizing network that empowers more than 700,000 grassroots and netroots supporters to push for progressive change and full equality in California and across the country.
To support our campaign for full equality, please chip in what you can today:
American Evangelical Extremist Lou Engle is making waves again. Readers may remember Engle as the fringe pastor behind TheCall Rally in California supporting Proposition 8, where he called homosexuality a "spirit of lawlessness" and called for "martyrs" to become "God's Avengers of Blood" to stop the "homosexual agenda" at all cost.
Now Lou Engle is back in America and causing a major headache for Republican Senator Sam Brownback in the Kansas gubernatorial race. It seems people aren't taking to kindly to Engle and Brownback being so close, including being former roommates and "soldiers for salvation" together. Brownback even appeared at a TheCall Rally as a special guest of Engle.
Continue reading "Sam Brownback's Pastor Problem: Evangelical Extremist Lou Engle" »
Editors' Note: Peter Monn (and his partner, Alex) is a Bilerico-Indiana blogger. We've lifted this up to the main site to share with everyone.
And I thought...what a wonderful thing to be a child.
But not for everyone.
Not for me.
Continue reading "Bullies: The Wizard of Oz and Tomato Soup" »
Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey speaks at today's ENDA press conference, where
LGBT rights advocates and community members call on Congress to pass ENDA.
Right now people can be fired in 29 states for being lesbian, gay or bisexual and in 38 states for being transgender. There’s no excuse for this kind of backwards discrimination in this day and age.
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, PFLAG National, National Center for Transgender Equality, National Black Justice Coalition, National Stonewall Democrats, National Center for Lesbian Rights and Pride at Work today held a press conference at the National Press Club urging Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Community members — Donna P., Terrance L. and Gloria Nieto — came forward to share powerful stories of the discrimination they have experienced in the work place for simply being who they are.
Help us ensure that this discrimination becomes a thing of the past. Help us pass ENDA once and for all! Please make a short phone call now to your legislators to keep the pressure on. They need to hear loud and clear from people who support equality. Even if you’ve called before, and even if you think your representative is supportive of ENDA, it’s critical that they hear from you again today.
Just follow these three steps:
1) Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202.224.3121 and ask to speak to your representative. (If you’re not sure who your representative is, simply give the operator your zip code and they will connect you.)
2) Follow this script:
My name is _____ and I live at (say your street address) in (say your city and state). I am calling to ask that you please pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act now! Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people can't wait any longer for protection from job discrimination. So, please — no more delays. Pass ENDA right away. Thank you for your time.
3) Go back to step 1 and call at least one of your senators — we need to make our voice for equality as loud as possible.
Thank you for taking action with the Task Force today!
According to an unnamed person on a conference call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she vowed that she has "no intention" of losing the (hopefully) upcoming votes on DADT and ENDA. Kerry Eleveld reports for the Advocate:A second participant said the Speaker discussed the timing of taking a vote on ENDA relative to a DADT repeal vote, which is automatically built into the calendar for next week based on the fact that the House is scheduled to consider the National Defense Authorization Act that week. A DADT repeal measure is likely to be proposed on the House floor as an amendment to the NDAA. The second source said the Speaker went through the chronology of the calendar and the fact that taking a vote on ENDA and DADT in the same week is literally impossible from a scheduling standpoint. Pelosi also said she thought ENDA would have a much better likelihood of passing if DADT were successfully ushered through first. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force planned to hold a press conference in Washington, D.C. Tuesday urging a vote on ENDA. In addition, Get Equal, a new LGBT direct action organization, planned a demonstration outside of Pelosi’s San Francisco district office Tuesday afternoon.Rumors are flying that the GOP is planning new language for ENDA that would strip transgender and gender identity protections from the bill. In 2007 the House passed a trans-exclusive version of ENDA. The bill did not come to a vote in the Senate.
Labels: DADT, ENDA, LGBT rights, Nancy Pelosi, transgender issues
reposted from Joe
"Solicitor General Elena Kagan's sexual orientation is the subject of much discussion in blogs and mainstream newspapers. The White House response denied Ms. Kagan is a lesbian. Instead, shouldn't the White House have denounced the speculation and conveyed that such inquiries are improper? By denying she is lesbian instead of denouncing the inquiry, the White House is implicitly stating sexual orientation is a legitimate issue of discussion in the confirmation process.Labels: Ed Koch, HomoQuotable, Obama administration, Supreme Court, the closet
reposted from Joe
All that pressure from the Vatican was useless. Today Portugal's President Anibal Cavaco Silva announced that he WILL ratify his nation's marriage equality law, which was bound for approval whether he vetoed it or not. Interestingly, Silva's decision comes on the International Day Against Homophobia. The head of state's decision to permit the enactment of a bill passed by Parliament in January makes Portugal the sixth European country allowing same-sex couples to wed. President Anibal Cavaco Silva said in a nationally televised address he regretted that the country's political parties had failed to reach a compromise during days of heated debate in Parliament four months ago. Vetoing the bill would only send it back to Parliament where lawmakers would overturn his decision, he said, adding that the country needed to focus on overcoming an economic crisis that has increased unemployment and deepened poverty. The Socialist government's bill was backed by all of Portugal's left-of-center parties, who together have a majority in Parliament. Right-of-center parties opposed the measure and demanded a national referendum. "Given that fact, I feel I should not contribute to a pointless extension of this debate, which would only serve to deepen the divisions between the Portuguese and divert the attention of politicians away from the grave problems affecting us," Cavaco Silva said. He said that, in ratifying the law, he was setting aside "personal convictions."Parabéns, Portugal! Eight nations now allow same-sex marriage: Canada, Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, and Portugal. Who will be next?
Labels: happy dance, LGBT History, marriage equality, Portugal
If you are gay or not, you should forward this as a support of your friends and loved ones that are. Love is not defined by color, belief, or gender.
I am the mother that is not allowed to see the children she gave birth to, took care of and raised. The courts say that I do not fulfill the requirements to be a mother now that I live with another woman.
I am the boy that never finished his degree because every day I was called a Faggot.
I am the girl who was kicked out of her house because I confessed to my mother that I was a lesbian.
I am the prostitute working in the streets because no one wants to hire a transsexual.
I am the sister that tightly hugs her gay brother during long nights of fear and crying.
We are the parents that barried their daughter much sooner than they should have.
I am the man who died alone in a hospital because who was my partner for 27 years, was not allowed access to my room.
I am the orphan that wakes up at night due to nightmares, because I was taken from the only home where I was shown love, simply because I have two fathers.
How I would like to be adopted. I am not amongst those who were lucky.
I took my own life only weeks before I would graduate from college. I wouldn’t take it anymore.
We are the couple that the landlord stood up when he found out we wanted to rent a room for two men.
I am the person that never knows which bathroom to use in order not to be sent to the management office.
I am the survivor of domestic abuse that realized that the support system became cold and distant when they found out that my abusive partner was also a woman.
I am the survivor of domestic abuse that doesn’t have a support system to go to because I am a man.
I am the father that was never able to hug his own child because I grew up with fear to show any affect towards other men.
I am the economics teacher who always wanted to be a sports teacher until someone told her that only lesbians do that.
I am the woman who died when the paramedics stopped treating her when they found out I was a transsexual.
I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a better person if society didn’t despise me.
I am the man who left his beliefs aside, not because I stopped believing, but because I was rejected as a person.
I am the warrior who keeps serving its own country but without being able to reveal my own lifestyle because in the army, I am not allowed to be gay.
I am the person who has to hide and keep to myself what this world needs the most: love.
I am the young girl who is embarrassed to confess to her friends that she is a lesbian, because they are constantly making fun of them.
I am the young man tied to a pole, brutally beaten and abandoned because two “macho” men wanted to “teach me a lesson.”
On October 7, 1998, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson took Matthew Shepard to a remote area of the East side of Laramie, where they conducted unimaginable acts of hate. Matthew was tide up to a pole, where he was beaten up and abandoned to the awful weather of a cold fall night. Almost eighteen hours later he was found by a cyclist, who initially confused him for a battered doll. Matthew died October 12 at 12:53 am in a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. MURDERED FOR BEING GAY.
IF YOU BELIEVE THAT HOMOPHOBIA IS WRONG, AND IT KEEPS US AWAY FROM BEING A SOCIETY THAT IS
JUST AND UNDERSTANDING, FORWARD THIS WITH THE TITLE 'HOMOPHOBIA'
Yesterday Mariela Castro lead a parade of hundreds through the streets of Havana as part of the International Day Against Homophobia. Last year Mariela's father, Raul Castro, replaced Fidel Castro as president of Cuba.Some of the marchers played drums and others walked on stilts as they made their way down a wide avenue in the capital's hip Vedado neighborhood, where they have held a series of debates and workshops ahead of the May 17 celebration of the International Day Against Homophobia, which participants say marks the day in 1990 when the World Health Organization stopped listing homosexuality as a mental illness. "We have made progress, but we need to make more progress," said Mariela Castro, a campaigner for gay rights on the island and the leader of Cuba's National Sexual Education Center. She is also the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro.Mariela has been campaigning for marriage equality in Cuba as well, although that movement has seen little advancement.
Cuba has come a long way in accepting homosexuality. In the 1960s, shortly after the revolution, homosexuals were fired from state jobs and many were imprisoned or sent to work camps. Others fled into exile. But that began to change in the 1980s, in large part to the work of Mariela Castro's center. Recently, the government has even agreed to include sex change operations for transsexuals under its free national health system, another project championed by the center.
Labels: Cuba, LGBT rights, Mariela Castro
reposted from Joe
"Thanks to Rekers’s clownish public exposure, we now know that his professional judgments are windows into his cracked psyche, not gay people’s. But there is nothing funny about the destruction his writings and public activities have sown. His fringe views have not remained on the fringe. His excursions into public policy have had real and damaging consequences on a large swath of Americans.Labels: Family Reseach Council, Frank Rich, NARTH, prostitution, Quote Of The Day, scandal
reposted from Joe
