Queer News 2

A Salvation Army bell-ringer has been pulled from his post outside Victoria, B.C. after urging anyone who supports gay rights to hold on to their donations.
Area resident Andrea Le Good said she noticed the man standing with a kettle outside the Tillicum Centre mall on Saturday wearing a sign that read, “If you support gay rights: please do not donate.”
“I was stunned,” Le Good said. “I asked, ‘Does the Salvation Army know you’re wearing that?’ and he said yes, that he had received permission to do so this morning.”
Photos

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An message urging supporters of gay rights not to donate is carried by a Salvation Army bell ringer outside the Tillicum Centre mall in Victoria. Dec. 15, 2012. (CTV)



Some have interpreted the sign as homophobic, while others suggest the man was protesting statements the Salvation Army has made in the past about homosexuality.
The charity’s website describes marriage as heterosexual by definition, and a previously published document called on homosexuals to “embrace celibacy as a way of life.”
The same document also stated that there is no scriptural support for the mistreatment of homosexuals, and that the Salvation Army does not consider the sexual orientation “blameworthy in itself or simply a matter of the will.”
The site currently states that the organization’s position on homosexuality is "under review."
Salvation Army spokeswoman Kyla Ferns told CTV News that her organization had no part in the sign, and pulled the volunteer away immediately after learning about it.
“We just want to let the public know that we don’t discriminate against any sect of the public, and we’re a little disappointed that one of our volunteers chose to protest this way,” Ferns said.
The Christian charity will be meeting with the young man, who appears to be in his 20s, this week to discuss whether he can continue volunteering.
The Salvation Army, which operates in 126 countries, is collecting donations at 40 kettles throughout the Greater Victoria area this holiday season, and is providing for 1,600 local families.
Ferns said she’s worried the volunteer’s actions will affect the number of donations they receive leading up to Christmas.
“We’re just trying to look after the needs of the community, with the support of the community, so everybody can have a merry Christmas through toys and nutritional food.”
Correction: A previous version of this story suggested the sign was homophobic. It's unclear what the bell-ringer's intention in wearing it was.

Alan Turing is a war hero and a convicted criminal, but Stephen Hawking is joining a call for the British government to change that status.

The well known scientist joined 10 others in writing a public letter in the Daily Telegraph this week that asks Prime Minister David Cameron to "formally forgive" Turing, a gay man who was convicted of gross indecency back when homosexuality was still a crime in the country. Some have argued the conviction should stand because it reflects the reality of the time period.

Turing is the same man who cracked the "German Enigma" code being used by the Nazis, a revelation credited with helping to end World War II. A bill in the House of Lords is pending that would grant Turing a pardon. But it hasn't gained much traction.

Meanwhile, Britain passed a law allowing people to apply for having a homosexuality conviction scrubbed from their criminal record. Obviously you have to be alive to make an application.

In Australia, The Age reports that lawmakers are pressing for a similar law for issuing sweeping pardons. Gay sex was outlawed there until 1981.

Not far from where the Pope offered his weekly prayers, a small group of protestors objected to his antigay version of "peace" and generated headlines worldwide.

The group of little more than 15 activists, according to the AAP, were reacting to Pope Benedict's annual message on Friday issued for the World Day of Peace that this time included same-sex marriage among a list of threats to peace. The group held signs reading "Talk About Love" and "Homophobia = Death," among others.

Not only does the AAP report that the group was blocked from getting into St. Peter's Square, where thousands gathered for Advent celebrations and to hear the Pope speak, but also the Associated Press reports that some of the placards were confiscated by police.

"Gay unions don't harm peace. Weapons do," was among the central message of the group's signs, according to Reuters, which also reported on the protest. The AAP, AP and Reuters news agencies sent the story and photographs to numerous outlets worldwide because they are relied on by so many other news organizations.

The World Day of Peace is celebrated by Catholics on New Year's Day. The Pope included same-sex marriage among a list of barriers to peace. He called marriage between a man and a woman the "natural structure" and seemed to claim that letting gays and lesbians get married violates human nature.

He wrote, "There is also a need to acknowledge and promote the natural structure of marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the face of attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different types of union; such attempts actually harm and help to destabilize marriage, obscuring its specific nature and its indispensable role in society."

After railing against abortion and marriage equality, he said what the other side pursues is "an offence against the truth of the human person."

"These principles are not truths of faith, nor are they simply a corollary of the right to religious freedom," he wrote. "They are inscribed in human nature itself, accessible to reason and thus common to all humanity."

The Catholic Church in the United States has put money into backing its beliefs, having spent $2 million fighting marriage equality in four states this election cycle.

Meanwhile, American Catholics are moving further away from Pope Benedict on the issue. A new Quinnipiac University poll released this month found that among white Catholics, support for marriage equality is at 49%, with 43% opposed.

New Jersey could become the second state after California to ban the use of highly controversial conversion therapy for minors if lawmakers pass and Governor Chris Christie signs legislation scheduled to receive its first hearing Monday afternoon in the Senate.
Senate President Steve Sweeney, a sponsor of the measure, said the idea for the ban arose when he heard testimony about the therapy during the debate on the marriage equality bill and “almost fell off my seat.” He said the practice reminded him of “something out of the 1950s,” where he drew a comparison to “bomb shelters and shock therapy” in a telephone interview with The Advocate on Friday.
“It’s something that I can’t believe still exists,” he said. “We’re not going to let it exist in New Jersey.”
Conversion therapy, also known as “reparative” therapy, has been denounced by professional groups including the American Psychological Association, which warn it can increase the likelihood of depression and suicide. The proposed legislation in New Jersey would prohibit psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other counseling professionals from using the practice on patients under 18 years old.
Similar legislation passed in California this year and is due to take effect next month, but the constitutionality of the measure is being challenged in court. One federal judge in Sacramento issued a preliminary injunction this month barring the application of the law to three plaintiffs on free speech grounds, but Sweeney said he is undeterred by the possibility of lawsuits.
“Bring it on,” he said. “This isn’t about free speech. This is about actually trying to brainwash someone that they’re somebody that they’re not.”
New Jersey is also the site of a high-profile lawsuit filed by four gay men and two mothers against Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) last month in Superior Court of New Jersey Hudson County. That case, which claims the group defrauded the former patients and subjected them to “humiliating” treatment, is not connected to the pending legislation.
Sweeney said that while he expects “some resisting” on the conversion therapy bill, he feels confident it will “move pretty quickly” through the Democratic-controlled legislature. The key question is whether Christie, the Republican governor, will sign the bill. As of Friday afternoon, Sweeney said the two men had not discussed the measure.
“The governor likes to play that he’s a conservative, a staunch conservative,” he said. “I would hope that he wouldn’t do that. You have young people, their civil rights are being violated by trying to force them into being someone that they’re not.”
Governor Christie’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this year, Christie vetoed marriage equality legislation championed by Sweeney and insisted voters should be allowed to decide the issue in a referendum. Legislative leaders and advocacy groups oppose the idea of a public vote, even after the success of marriage equality referendums in Maine, Maryland and Washington last month.
“I’m very happy to hear that referendums passed in the three states but I really am troubled that civil rights has to be put on the ballot,” said Sweeney. “I just don’t believe in it and I think we have to just work hard to override his veto.”
The current legislative session ends in January 2014, and with no indication the governor has reversed course, Sweeney said advocates are working to secure the two-thirds majority in the legislature needed to override the veto. As state elections loom in 2013, Republican lawmakers could be threatened with primary challenges to change their votes, or Christie could fail to win reelection, a prospect that Sweeney believes in despite the governor’s record-high 72% approval rating.
“It is a Democratic state and I don’t care how high his poll numbers are now, they won’t be there when we get to November,” he said. “We can win this election and we would be able to pass it.”
In the meantime, the Senate president acknowledged that measures such as the conversion therapy ban keep the conversation alive.
“The point is, we’re not going away,” he said. “We’re going to stand up and we’re going to fight for everyone’s rights.”
The conversion therapy ban legislation is scheduled for a hearing Monday at 1 p.m. in the New Jersey State Senate’s Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee. Tune in here to listen to the proceedings.

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — A court in Cameroon has upheld a conviction against a man found guilty of homosexual conduct last year for sending a text message to another man saying: "I'm very much in love with you."
The Court of Appeal ruled early Monday that Jean-Claude Roger Mbede, 32, must serve out his three-year jail term. He was provisionally released on bail in July after spending a year and a half behind bars.
Mbede told The Associated Press he's not sure he can put up with the anti-gay attacks and harassment he faced from fellow inmates and prison authorities.
Gay rights activists say the upheld sentence marks yet another setback for gays and lesbians in Cameroon, widely viewed as the most repressive in Africa when it comes to prosecuting same-sex couples.

Yohandel and Daniel met across a room at a South Beach club, and they were married in 2012. But while Yohandel lived in the United States, Daniel was from Mexico, and the U.S. government hasn't recognized their marriage because of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, a challenge to which has reached the Supreme Court.

A video from The DOMA Project, which is collecting stories of binational same-sex couples, shares the everyday effect of the couple's relationship not being recognized by the U.S. government.

Hawaii's much-loved Daniel Inouye, the second-longest serving Senator, died on Monday at age 88.
Inouye succumbed to a respiratory illness; his last word was "Aloha." Inouye began his political career as one of Hawaii's first congressmen (the state joined the union in 1959) and would move on to a very successful Senate career, serving nine terms. He would become the nation's highest-ranking Asian-American politician. Previously, Inouye fought for the United States in World War II and lost an arm in battle.
As a politician, the Democrat was very supportive of LGBT rights. He voted against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, endorsed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and led the charge to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin released the following statement on Inouye's passing:
“LGBT Americans across this country especially honor his unequivocal support for full LGBT equality — most notably, his 1996 vote against the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act, his support for marriage equality and his co-sponsorship of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and other pro-equality legislation. Senator Inouye was a trailblazing leader and he will remain in our memories for standing with his LGBT sisters and brothers from day one. We will miss him, and every American should be grateful to have been touched by the life of this remarkable man.”
Read more here.

Several conservative Christian leaders across the nation are trying to make sense of Friday's deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., which left 26 people — 20 of them children — dead, and they're pointing the finger at a "Godless" nation that they believe is too accepting of liberal evils like abortion and marriage equality.
It all started with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Just hours after news of the massacre broke on Friday, Huckabee said the tragedy should come as no surprise to a culture that has "systematically removed God from our schools." Huckabee clarified his statements on his Fox News program Sunday, saying he didn't really think that prayer in schools would have prevented the massacre, "but we've created an atmosphere in this country where the only time you want to invoke God's name is after the tragedy," according to The Huffington Post.
The antigay American Family Association's Brian Fischer echoed Huckabee's claims, telling listeners on his AFA radio show that God could have protected the victims of the massacre, but declined to do so because "God is not going to go where he is not wanted," according to video posted on LGBT blog Towleroad.
On Monday, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson took to the airwaves to blame America's acceptance of marriage equality and abortion for the senseless violence in Connecticut. Speaking on his morning radio show, Dobson launched into a litany of sins which he believes have driven God away from America.
Right Wing Watch has the audio and transcript:
Never wanting to be outdone, the antigay haters at the Westboro Baptist Church took to Twitter on Friday to blame the gunman's actions on American acceptance of marriage equality. But when Westboro announced plans to picket Sandy Hook Elementary and the funerals of the victims, the "hacktivist" collective Anonymous hacked the group's accounts and posted key members' names and phone numbers online.
While conservative right-wing "people of faith" continue to scapegoat Friday's senseless violence, LGBT activists including the Human Rights Campaign expressed condolences and hopes for peace.
"We extend condolences, thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims as well as to the entire state of Connecticut which is still reeling from this senseless act violence," said HRC President Chad Griffin in a statement. "We note with sadness that it was less than a week since two innocent lives were lost at a mall in Oregon, and we offer our well-wishes and support to law enforcement officials investigating these truly heinous crimes.”

Leaders of 10 large LGBT organizations urged House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican colleagues to stop spending money on the legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, an exercise that so far has cost American taxpayers at least $2 million.
The leaders sent a letter Tuesday to Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy. House Republican leadership stepped in to defend DOMA from legal challenges last year after the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend the 1996 law that prevents the federal government from recognizing the marriages of same-sex couples.
“Despite the enormous economic challenges our country is facing, the House of Representatives recently decided to increase government spending to defend this discriminatory law – a law that intentionally harms thousands of Americans who are legally married,” reads the letter. “At the same time, voters in three states approved marriage equality and, in Minnesota, rejected writing a marriage ban into their state’s constitution. A strong majority of Americans support marriage for loving, committed same-sex couples – including an increasing number of conservatives. With more states allowing committed same-sex couples to obtain civil marriage licenses, DOMA imposes burdens on hard working, tax paying citizens.”
Last week, it was revealed that House Republicans in September quietly approved a $500,000 increase to the $1.5 million contract with Bancroft, the private Washington, D.C.-based law firm hired to defend the statute. The increase to $2 million marked the second raise in the contract’s cap, which was bumped last year from its original maximum of $500,000 to $1.5 million, according to Roll Call.
The cost of the contract could rise again now that the Supreme Court has decided to hear a challenge to DOMA in the case of Edith Windsor, an 83-year-old lesbian widow from New York. In addition to the constitutionality of the law, the court has asked whether the House has standing to defend the statute, a question that could require additional briefing and work from Bancroft.
The letter to House Republicans was signed by HRC President Chad Griffin; Outserve-SLDN executive director Allyson Robinson; National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund executive director Rea Carey; National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce president and co-founder Justin Nelson; Center for American Progress external affairs vice president Winnie Stachelberg; Immigration Equality executive director Rachel Tiven; CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers executive director Terry Stone; Out & Equal Workplace Advocates executive director Silesse Berry; GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality executive director Hector Vargas; and FORGE, Inc executive director Michael Munson.

In a unanimous vote Monday night, the Helena City Commission passed an ordinance to prohibit discrimination in housing, employment and many kinds of public accommodation based on sexual orientation.
Hundreds of people turning out to support or oppose the measure, with the commission opening two additional rooms in the City-County Building to provide audio and video of the meeting.
Mayor Jim Smith gave each side an hour to speak on the measure.
“I believe, and I felt the commissioners believe, that being LGBT is part of the human condition,” said Commissioner Katherine Haque-Hausrath, the sponsor of the measure, speaking of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. “It’s something that people cannot change, and we believe that people should not be discriminated against because of their sexual orientations.”
Some 30 proponents of the measure, including some transgender people, spoke in their allotted hour. Fourteen people spoke against the measure in their hour, with both sides leaving many people still in line when their hour elapsed.
Opponents cited fears of expensive litigation for the city and businesses; inadequate evidence, some said, that anti-gay discrimination is a problem worthy of such a law; and giving what some called “special privileges” to some people at the expense of others.
Eight of the 14 people speaking against the measure mentioned what some called the “bathroom” or “locker room” issue — the concern voyeurs or pedophiles would exploit the protections for transgender people to gain access to women’s restrooms or similar areas demanding privacy, or that transgender people themselves would cause alarm in such situations.
An amendment by Commissioner Dick Thweatt passed by the commission Dec. 4 addressed that concern by mandating that in any place where people “ordinarily appear in the nude,” users may be required to use the facilities designated for their anatomical sex, regardless of their gender identity.
But some said the fear of such a situation would make them wary of entering public bathrooms in Helena.
“How will we be able to monitor when a person, male or female, enters the opposing bathroom and says ‘Well, I can do this, because I’m gender-identity confused?’” said Jacqui Garcia, citing situations her children might encounter. “We all have been in bathroom stalls and public stalls, There’s gaps between the doors, and you can still see in them.”
Sharon Turner said the situation would put a huge majority of the population at risk. She said she wasn’t afraid gay or lesbian people would set out to harm the children, but rather others with malicious intent.
“How easy it would be for a teenage boy to use this ordinance as a right of passage?” she said.
She said if the measure passed, she would cease her shopping trips into Helena with her children and grandchildren.
Nick Lancette said all our values come from God and described himself as a traditional person.
“My children should have a solid expectation of privacy when they’re in a restroom or a locker room, an expectation of privacy as they define it and as society and family has defined it for generations, not as an advocacy group defines it,” he said. “It seems that we would do well to apply the time tested principle of first do no harm when we consider the situation at hand.”
Proponents of the measure said the bathroom fears were unfounded.
Sarah Rossi, public policy director of the Montana Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, said the vast majority of assaults are perpetrated by heterosexual men against people whom they know well, usually in or near a home — and not in a public place like a public restroom.
Transgender people, she said, are more at risk of being attacked then the general population.
Haque-Hausrath offered a pair of amendments to delete or change Thweatt’s amendment that could force transgender people into particular bathrooms.
She said the amendment placed transgender people in danger of having no bathroom at all to use in some situations, and a few people voiced the fear they or friends experienced using public restrooms when their appearance did not conform to common gender expectations.
Mary Ann Dunwell of Helena called for “equal access to the boardroom and the locker room.”
Both Haque-Hausrath’s amendments failed on 4-1 votes.
Bill Gallagher, a Republican member of the Montana Public Service Commission, said the city faces huge risks of expensive litigation, with even individual commissioners and the municipal judge being potentially personally liable — especially because the ordinance was provocative and antagonistic to the teachings of major religions.
Other opponents of the measure said bullying and even hate speech was going to persist regardless of the ordinance, and the government shouldn’t regulate such behavior.
“We can’t legislate morality and we can’t legislate kindness,” said Liane Taylor. “I think that what we maybe need is more dialog and not more regulations.”
Proponents of the measure cited several examples of discrimination, bullying and fear if they revealed their sexual orientation.
“I’ve been laughed, been jeered at, I’ve been called names, I’ve been sworn at, told I’m an abomination and I should be put to death,” said Roberta Zenker, a transgender attorney.
Three current Helena High School students spoke in favor of the measure.
Tyler Amundson, a pastor at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, warned against turning a blind eye to discrimination until it becomes a convenience.
“We are talking tonight about human rights, not special rights,” said attorney Ron Waterman.
The commission approved an amendment from Dick Thweatt — reversing his own amendment two weeks ago — that would allow attorney’s fees for plaintiffs winning a case in Municipal Court, or for defendants if a case was deemed frivolous. He said the maximum award by the court — $12,000 — would not be enough in light of the likely legal costs of the action.
That measure passed, 3-2, with Commissioners Matt Elsaesser and Dan Ellison opposing it.
The commission rejected a measure by Haque-Hausrath that would have allowed punitive damages. Mayor Jim Smith joined Elsaesser and Ellison in opposing it.
Under the ordinance, people claiming discrimination may bring a claim to Municipal Court but must first establish that the Montana Human Rights Bureau will not pursue the case. Differing legal opinions earlier this year left unclear whether the bureau will take such claims.
If the bureau does not pursue the claim, plaintiffs will have 90 days to take the matter to Municipal Court.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Hasbro says it will soon reveal a gender-neutral Easy-Bake Oven after meeting with a New Jersey girl who started a campaign calling on the toy maker to make one that appeals to all kids.
McKenna Pope, 13, of Garfield, N.J., got more than 40,000 signatures on her online petition at Change.org and the support of celebrity chefs including Bobby Flay, who backed her call for Hasbro to make a gender-neutral oven and to include boys in the ads.
She was prompted to start the petition after shopping for an Easy-Bake as a Christmas present for her 4-year-old brother, Gavyn Boscio, and finding them only in purple and pink.
Hasbro invited McKenna and her family to its Pawtucket, R.I., headquarters to meet with its Easy-Bake team, and on Monday, they drove to Rhode Island from New Jersey. During the meeting, Hasbro executives showed off a prototype of their newest Easy-Bake: one that's black, silver and blue.
Hasbro has been working on the new color scheme and design for about 18 months, and decided to invite McKenna to see it and offer her thoughts, said John Frascotti, Hasbro's chief marketing officer.
McKenna said the company is doing everything she asked, including putting boys in the ads.
"I think that they really met most or even all of what I wanted them to do, and they really amazed me," she said, adding that Gavyn thought the new design was "awesome."
Frascotti pointed out that the classic toy has had about a dozen different color schemes, from yellow to green to teal to silver, since first being introduced in 1963. The most recent iteration, introduced in 2011, is mostly purple with pink accents.
He said it's sold well since then, and that prompted the company to look for a way to update it and to broaden the consumer base by doing it in different colors.
"It's actually a product that's played with by both boys and girls," he said. "We will continue to offer the existing product too because it's so popular."
Hasbro plans to introduce the new color scheme at the industry's Toy Fair in New York in February. Frascotti said people are likely to see it on store shelves next summer.
As for McKenna's Christmas present for her brother, she said the TV show "Inside Edition" gave the family an Easy-Bake Oven after learning of her campaign. For Christmas, she said, she'll probably buy him some mixes to bake in it.

Rhode Island may soon cease to be the only state in New England without a marriage equality law now that Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed has committed to allowing a vote on the issue in the next year.
Paiva Weed, a Democrat, said in an interview Monday there would “certainly” be a vote on marriage equality legislation in the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to Rhode Island Public Radio. She did not predict the outcome of the vote, but said she expects amendments about a statewide referendum to receive extensive discussion following the results of similar votes in nearby states.
“In light of the outcome of referendums in Maine and in Maryland, I anticipate that the concept of initiative or referendum will probably be more thoroughly debated this year than in past years,” she said.
The Senate President said her commitment to a vote affirmed a previous statement from Senate Judiciary chairman Michael McCaffrey, who fended off an energetic primary challenge from a marriage equality supporter. The chairman said he expected a vote would come before his committee. Should the panel advance the bill, the measure would go before the full legislature for a vote.
Using a model applied in other states, advocates in Rhode Island worked through the Fight Back RI PAC this election cycle to make the composition of the legislature more favorable for marriage equality. Despite historic gains last month, Senator Paiva Weed’s opposition to a vote in her chamber remained a significant obstacle.
Marriage Equality Rhode Island reacted to the news of her changed position in a statement.
“We are both excited and grateful that the Senate President has decided to schedule a Judiciary Committee vote on marriage equality in 2013, following the House’s expected passage of this historic civil rights legislation,” said campaign director Ray Sullivan. “We will continue to actively reach out to legislators on both sides of the aisle and grow our broad coalition of supporters in the House and Senate. Today’s news is another positive step in the right direction, but we won’t stop until the work of winning equal rights and recognition under the law for all loving, committed couples is complete, with legislation signed into law by Governor Chafee.”
House Speaker Gordon Fox, who is openly gay, has already promised to hold a vote on marriage equality legislation in 2013. Two years ago, he backed a civil unions compromise that disappointed advocates and included extensive religious protections.
Rhode Island is one of a handful of small and medium-sized states where advocates are focused on winning marriage equality in the coming year. Other prospects include Delaware, New Jersey and Illinois.

It was in September 2009 that the Atlanta Police Department had a public relations nightmare on its hands with a controversial raid on a gay bar, but three years later, members of the APD are sharing coming out stories to assist LGBT youth.
Twenty-three gay and lesbian members of the force contributed clips for an It Gets Better video, including Deputy Chief Renee Propes, the highest-ranking openly gay person in the APD. The video begins with a message from Police Chief George Turner, who calls himself an LGBT ally.
"All teenagers go through an awkward phase, but it can be especially daunting if you are someone who is unsure of your sexuality and where your life may be headed," Turner says. "As a police force we will stand up for you. No one deserves to be bullied for any reason."
Watch the video below and read more here. Last week Atlanta's mayor, Kasim Reed, came out for marriage equality.

In one of his final acts in Congress, Missouri representative Todd Akin will make one last effort to add an antigay piece of legislation to this year's defense authorization bill.
Akin, who lost a controversial Senate race versus incumbent Claire McCaskill, wants to reintroduce a "conscience clause" to the National Defense Authorization Act, which would protect military personnel who do not condone homosexuality. According to the bill, which was first introduced in May, the federal government would have to “accommodate the conscience and sincerely held moral principles and religious beliefs of the members of the Armed Forces concerning the appropriate and inappropriate expression of human sexuality," the Washington Blade reports.
House Republicans are backing the effort, possibly in exchange for another proposal that would prohibit same-sex couples from using Department of Defense facilities for marriage ceremonies.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has come out against the provision. Her spokesman Drew Hammill said the provision's language "is a completely unnecessary attempt to address a phantom problem. 'Don't ask, don't tell' is in the dustbin of history where it belongs, and Republicans need to stop trying to alter he tide of progress for gay and lesbian service members."
A source close to the negotiations in Congress said Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin strongly objects to the provision and it may not end up in the final bill language.
Allyson Robinson, executive director of OutServe-SLDN, said in a statement Monday that the provisions would open the door to harassment and discrimination in the ranks.
“As a former military commander, I can tell you that allowing any service member to openly discriminate against a comrade in this way will compromise good order and discipline – the very thing supporters of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ falsely claimed was going to happen back when we repealed the law," she said. "The fact is, there are already strong protections for all service members, including chaplains, in place, and all this provision would do is create a license to discriminate. The next secretary of Defense should not be saddled with a law that makes it harder for small unit commanders in the field to lead their troops.”

Charlottesville police are getting help in their investigation into the disappearance of DaShad Smith. Smith has been missing for a month now, but authorities have announced a reward they hope will lead them to more clues.
Charlottesville Area Crime Stoppers received an anonymous donation of $10,000 to assist in their investigation. Police spoke out at a news conference Tuesday about where the search is now and how they are moving forward with the investigation.
At the news conference, police talked about the search at a landfill in Henrico County Monday. Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo says crews combed through trash and debris at the Old Dominion Landfill because that is the last spot trash from Charlottesville would have landed. They were looking for any information or evidence that will help give them some direction in this case.
Longo said, "In this juncture in the investigation, whatever records that might help us track his activity - whether that activity be financial transactions, telephone calls, text messaging, certainly those are logical avenues to pursue."
Smith has been missing since November 20. Investigators say he had plans to meet with Erik McFadden near the Charlottesville Amtrak station. McFadden told them the meeting never happened and he left town shortly after.
"That's a clue that's going to cause us to continue to track his whereabouts to the extent that we can in an effort to gather information from him," said Longo.
As police continue searching for answers, they say they are less hopeful as days pass without any leads. Longo said, "There's a myriad of factors that don't make me feel good about this case, but I can't point to something specific and say, 'This is why I know this isn't going to have a happy ending.'"
But that doesn't mean they are giving up on the search for Smith. Police emphasize they are working as hard as possible to reach a conclusion in this case. "That's a tremendous number of resources that we've invested that may yield nothing, but may yield something that may be key to the next step of this investigation. And that's the best thing we can hope for," Longo said.
Police say they are limited in what they can reveal in this investigation. "One of the things that is most frustrating is the fact that we can't be as transparent as folks may like us to be about what we're doing," Longo said. "And the reason for that is as much as we're talking about it publicly, that same information is transmitted to a potential suspect or person of interest, who now knows how close we are to getting to the truth and I don't want that to be the case."
They are continuing to speak with Smith's mother on a daily basis. "It's important to make sure that we communicate and have communicated to Ms. Grooms, DaShad's mother: 'Here's what we're doing today, here's what we've done yesterday, here's what we're going to do tomorrow,'" Longo said.
Anyone with information about Smith's disappearance should call Crime Stoppers at 434-977-4000.

3 Big Differences: Boy Scouts Versus Girl Scouts

The differences between Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts run deep on LGBT acceptance.
BY Trudy Ring and Lauren Jow

December 19 2012 5:00 AM ET

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1) NATIONAL POLICY ON GAYS AND LESBIANS

Girl Scouts: The Girl Scouts of the USA’s LGBT-inclusive policies have drawn the ire of right-wing groups. “Girl Scouts of the USA and its local councils and troops value diversity and inclusiveness and do not discriminate or recruit on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, national origin, or physical or developmental disability,” reads a statement on the organization’s blog. To an ultraconservative group called Family Watch International, this amounts to “special rights based on sexual orientation or gender identity.” On its website, the group claims, “Girl Scouts of the USA is increasingly promoting LGBT issues to girls by featuring prominent LGBT rights activists as role models at Girl Scout events, in Girl Scout materials, and by referring girls to websites that aggressively promote special LGBT rights.” Among the “role models” right-wingers find objectionable: Houston mayor Annise Parker, an out lesbian, whose city hosted the Girl Scouts’ 2011 national convention. A Houston Chronicle editorial countered the conservative “grumblings” by saying, “It’s startling to realize that an event as wholesomely routine as the mayor’s welcoming a Girl Scout convention to town could ever count as an act of bravery. But it does – and it’s the kind of brave inclusiveness that the Girl Scouts have always stood for.”

Boy Scouts: For more than 30 years, the Boy Scouts of America has in some form banned gays from the organization. A 1978 position statement signed by the BSA’s president said, “We do not believe that homosexuality and leadership in Scouting are appropriate.” The BSA reaffirmed its position in 1991 after James Dale, an adult gay scout in New Jersey, came out in a newspaper story. The BSA revoked his membership, and Dale sued, claiming the organization had violated his state’s public accommodations law. The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2000 ruled 5-4 to that the BSA, as a private organization, had right to set its own policies and membership criteria. Last June the BSA reaffirmed its ban on gay members, staff, and leaders. The current policy reads, “While the BSA does not proactively inquire about the sexual orientation of employees, volunteers, or members, we do not grant membership to individuals who are open or avowed homosexuals or who engage in behavior that would become a distraction to the mission of the BSA.”


2) POLICY UPDATES WITHIN THE LAST YEAR

Girl Scouts: In October 2011, a Colorado Girl Scouts troop decided to admit a 7-year-old transgender girl, Bobby Montoya, after initially rejecting the child. The statewide organization released a statement saying, “If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout. In this case, an associate delivering our program was not aware of our approach. She contacted her supervisor, who immediately began working with the family to get the child involved and supported in Girl Scouts. We are accelerating our support systems and training so that we’re better able to serve all girls, families and volunteers.”

Boy Scouts: The BSA’s reaffirmation of its ban on “avowed homosexual” members and leaders came after a two-year review by a committee of “volunteers and professional leaders” with “a diversity of perspectives and opinions,” according to a statement released on BSA’s website. chief scout executive Bob Mazzuca said in the press release, “While a majority of our membership agrees with our policy, we fully understand that no single policy will accommodate the many diverse views among our membership or society.”


3) SPONSORS

Girl Scouts: Corporations and foundations that support the Girl Scouts include Alcoa, AT&T, Coca-Cola, MetLife, the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, according to the organization’s website.

Boy Scouts: About 70 % of BSA units are sponsored by religious organizations, with about half of these units being Mormon-backed, according to the Scouts’ website. About 30% of units are sponsored by civic and educational groups.

Many corporate-backed foundations have donated millions to BSA despite internal policies against giving to groups that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. In 2010, the most recent year for which information was available, 23 of the top 50 corporate foundations gave at least $10,000 each to the Scouts for a combined total of $3.6 million. The Intel Foundation, the top donor that year, gave $700,000; the Verizon Foundation donated more than $300,000; and the corporate giving arms of Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, and Bank of America each chipped in more than $100,000.

Spencer Cox, a pivotal AIDS activist who helped spearhead research on lifesaving protease inhibitors, died this morning of AIDS-related causes at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. He was 44 years old.
Cox cofounded Treatment Action Group and was a spokesman for ACT UP, and his activism began early. According to an obituary posted on ACT UP's website, Cox "schooled himself in the basic science of AIDS and became something of an expert, a 'citizen scientist' whose ideas were sought by working scientists. In the end, Spencer wrote the drug trial protocol which TAG proposed for testing the promising protease inhibitor drugs in 1995. Adopted by industry, it helped develop rapid and reliable answers about the power of those drugs, and led to their quick approval by the FDA."
Cox was featured prominently in David France's recent documentary about the AIDS epidemic, How to Survive A Plague, and in memory of the activist, France released the interview below, an outtake from his powerful documentary. Watch Cox's heartfelt reflections on a pivotal moment for AIDS patients in the video below.

Now that the Supreme Court will be weighing in on the issue of same-sex marriage, the Justices’ biases on the basic principles of sexual orientation are under scrutiny — none perhaps moreso than Justice Antonin Scalia. Recently, he defended his comparison between homosexuality and murder, arguing simply that either can be morally condemned. He obtusely couldn’t understand why the gay Princeton student who asked the question wasn’t convinced by his response.
Insights into Scalia’s understanding of homosexuality (or lack thereof) can perhaps be found through his son, Rev. Paul Scalia, a Catholic priest in Arlington, Virginia. The younger Scalia has worked with the Church’s Courage ministry, which promotes “chastity” for gay Catholics using principles from ex-gay therapy. He has also spoken openly on the topic, and though he’s proven quite capable of reiterating the Church’s anti-gay teachings, a 2005 article reveals just how distorted the family’s view on homosexuality may be.
Writing about labels, Rev. Scalia compares identifying as gay to other school stereotypes like “preps,” “jocks,” and “geeks,” and argues that it’s unhelpful to young people to encourage them to embrace such labels. Challenging the notion that homosexuality even exists, he tries to distinguish between having “homosexual inclinations” or identifying as “a gay,” suggesting that some kids are “just confused.” Of course, his intention is to reduce homosexuality to “behaviors,” inferring that people with same-sex orientations are simply heterosexuals inclined to a special kind of sin. His true goal with this wordplay is to find a way to justify parents’ rejecting their gay children:
For the Scalias, moral condemnation of homosexuality is just assumed, and the consequences of that judgment are par for the course. The consequences of family rejection for LGBT youth have been thoroughly documented, but for these men, rejecting “homosexual inclination” takes priority. Rev. Scalia relies on genetic uncertainty to conclude that homosexuality is not a “fixed, inborn orientation,” even though science does not doubt that is exactly how sexual orientation presents, regardless of its causes. He seeks to reject people for something that is wholly part of who they are and how they will lead their lives, ignoring that such an approach unquestioningly deprives them of life’s most basic sources of happiness and support: a loving partner and the opportunity to raise a family.
The phenomenon of “coming out” only exists because a culture that shuns homosexuality has demanded gay invisibility. The concept of “gay pride” came about not as flamboyant flaunting, but to counter the expectation of “gay shame.” These unique aspects to gay identities reflect the consequences of condemnation, not an impetus for them. Moral condemnation is not inherent; in the court of law, it must be justified beyond tradition and religious belief. Unfortunately, it seems Justice Scalia is not interested in such intellectual justice.

Going off the success of McKenna Pope's petition to toy manufacturer Hasbro to create a gender-neutral Easy Bake Oven, a five-year-old in Maine is now asking Hasbro to start making Transformers toys aimed at girls.
"I love Transformers," writes five-year-old India Hernandez in blue crayon (pictured above). "Why are there no girl Transformers? There are no girl Transformers in the store. I love Prime and Transformers! I want a girl to play with, too."
Dana Hernandez transcribed India's letter and turned it into a petition on Change.org. The petition, directed to Hasbro president and CEO Brian Goldner, is aiming for just 200 signatures — let's push them above and beyond that modest goal, SheWired ladies!
Hasbro was responsive to Pope's request for an Easy Bake Oven that wasn't all pink and purple — the company announced a gender-neutral model would arrive in 2013 — so there's reason to hope that the toy giant might consider making a marketing change if enough supporters raise their voices. (Or, in this case, raise their finger and click to sign the petition.)

Unfortunately, when you are a member of a targeted minority, it is difficult to talk about problems affecting your community without the haters swooping to exploit the discussion.

Case in point, our friend "Porno" Pete LaBarbera is practically dancing in the streets over this video by an angry gay man over getting older:



On one hand, he sounds like a bitter man who has a personal problem with the "It Gets Better" project. On the other, he raises valid points - albeit in an unfairly extreme fashion - which I am sure many of us have raised.

Of course on the other hand, a small part of me questions if this mysteriously anonymous individual is real. I guess it's too much Columbo, but the way he likes to cite statistics is bizarrely similar to how religious right spokespeople cite statistics.

But let's operate from the stand point that he is on the up-and-up.

Every community has their problems. Things aren't exactly easy for folks in the Black community. We have inner community issues that we have to discuss and deal with. For example, I always felt that there has been never enough discussion regarding depression in the black community, nor gay issues in general.There seems to be a fear of being vocal about what troubles us about each other as African-Americans for fear that we are putting our business out in the street and "whitey" may use it against us. That's a problem that goes way back and is rooted in some form of reality.

And don't even get me started on the light-skinned vs. dark-skinned issue which has been a huge problem in the black community from day one.

My main point is not to discuss this man's issues, but to say that life is not supposed to be easy and no community is a Utopia. Every community - be it black, gay, Latino, female, etc. - has its problems.

And there are two things people should remember:

1. There is nothing wrong with discussing these issues, but in a proper way. You do not tear down good things built up in the community, such as the "It Gets Better" project, simply because your issues aren't getting enough attention. Why not create a positive way to generate a discussion.

2. Don't be so general about problems in the gay community. While it has been my experience that some segments of the gay community may be as shallow as this man as called them, a vast majority are NOT like that. We certainly wish we could all join hands and sing in fellowship, but it ain't going to happen. But that's life.

In the long run, nothing is And not everyone is going to be your friend, whether you are gay or not. But remember, it's your life and you are responsible for your own choices. Don't blame others for whatever problems you have and don't allow their ignorance to define you, whether that person be gay or heterosexual.

Opponents to gay marriage in Washington state are launching another fight; this time to tamp down on gay couples' ability to have children.
An effort to introduce paid surrogacy is being considered in the legislature for 2013. The proposed law would overturn current policy that restricts compensation for surrogates only to the direct costs of pregnancy, delivery, and for legal bills.
However, those who led the failed fight to ban marriage equality with Referendum 74, are urging lawmakers to reject changes to surrogacy compensation. Joseph Backholm, executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, which fought to pass Referendum 74, told MyNorthwest.com that broadening surrogacy would allow more gay couples to raise children.
"Introducing the profit motive into surrogacy entices women to do something for financial reasons that they would otherwise not do," he said in the report. He added, "Recognizing the dignity of the human person, we do not allow people to rent or sell their bodies or their body parts. This partially explains why prostitution and the sale of your kidney are illegal. You can donate a kidney, you just can't sell one."

The number of new HIV infections for young gay and bisexual men has increased by 22% between 2008 and 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday.
Overall, the number of new infections across the U.S. has not changed at about 47,500 infections, according to Reuters. Gay and bisexual men account for 66% of those new infections, and African American men in this group account for more new infections than any other subgroup.
Joseph Prejean, chief of the Behavioral and Clinical Surveillance Branch for the CDC said the rising number of infections for gay and bisexual youth may be the perception that HIV is a highly manageable disease.
"We do realize that many men who have sex with men do probably underestimate their personal risk and believe that treatment advances minimize the health threat," he said.
CDC Director Thomas Frieden added that the average cost of treating HIV over a person's lifetime costs an estimated $400,000.

Richard Adams, a gay rights pioneer and one half of the first couple to file a marriage equality lawsuit against the federal government, died Monday morning.
Adams and his partner, Tony Sullivan, met in 1971 in Los Angeles and were legally wed in Colorado on April 21, 1975, by a Boulder city clerk with five other same-sex couples. Later that year Adams filed a petition with the government to make Sullivan a permanent resident as a spouse of a U.S. citizen. According to reports, the couple received a letter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service on November 24, 1975 that read, "You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two faggots."
The couple soon filed a federal lawsuit, Adams v. Howerton. In addition to Adams's years of activism against apartheid, nuclear war, American intervention in Central America, and in favor of gender equity, Adams dedicated several decades of his life to marriage equality, especially for binational couples. The couple is featured in the documentary Limited Partnership, about their life as a binational couple and the fight for equality.
Adams was born in Manila, Philippines, and came to the U.S. when he was 12 years old. He grew up in Long Prairie, Minn., where he was educated in a one-room schoolhouse before attending the University of Minnesota. Adams became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1968.
The couple's attorney, noted immigration lawyer Lavi Soloway, said that when Sullivan and Adams married in 1975, they opted not to use the term "'til death do us part." Instead, they vowed to stay married to each other "for as long as there is love."

The East Aurora School District in suburban Chicago has dissolved a committee that was working on antidiscrimination policies for transgender students, “effectively ending that effort,” Windy City Times reports.
The school board Monday voted to dissolve the committee, which was formed just this fall, after the board in October approved a transgender rights policy and then within days revoked it in the face of right-wing opposition.
About 100 people attended a meeting November 29 to discuss the policy, with many expressing disapproval of the effort.
Shannon Sullivan, executive director of the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, said efforts to protect transgender students will continue. Her group released a statement saying, “The people of East Aurora deserve better than a school board that cannot facilitate difficult — but necessary — conversations, and we will stay steady in our efforts to work with school staff, parents, and community members to foster a safe and supportive district for all East Aurora youth.”

For a less obvious alternative to St. Barthélemy in the Caribbean, Jimmy Im wrote earlier this year, many guys are choosing Saba, on the other side of St. Maarten, which is just as tolerant "without the bling (and half the price)" and is accessible "via a short ferry ride or a heart-wrenching 10-minute puddle jump (the runway is built into the cliffs)." Now there's the news that Saba has legalized same-sex marriage, [FONT=Lucida Grande]becoming the first Dutch Caribbean territory allowing marriage equality. [/FONT][FONT=Lucida Grande]Part of the former Netherland Antilles, Saba registered its first same-sex marriage on December 4, and the next marriage was scheduled to take place on December 17, 2012.[/FONT]
[FONT=Lucida Grande] http://regent.blogs.com/.a/6a00d8341...c127970d-320wiThinking this might be the perfect place to celebrate (or renew) your vows? [/FONT][FONT=Lucida Grande]Well we are told that Queen’s Garden Resort, a luxury boutique hotel with 12 suites has proudly welcomed same-sex couples for honeymoons and romantic getaways for years, and they support the cause. “Saba is a beautifully rich island culturally, and we pride ourselves on being very progressive and open to everyone,” said Queen’s Gardens’ owners, Hidde and Claire Verbeke. “Saba is the perfect destination for anyone’s wedding or honeymoon with our world-famous scuba diving and sweeping mountain-top views from our resort suites. Everyone should have a chance to experience this paradise!”[/FONT]
[FONT=Lucida Grande]For more information on Queen's Garden Resort (rates begin at $250 a night per room), visit the website.[/FONT]

RICHMOND, Va. -- RICHMOND, Va. (AP) Virginia Commonwealth University says an internal investigation into the firing of women's volleyball coach James Finley was not discriminatory.
In a statement Thursday, VCU President Michael Rao said the firing was made in accordance with school policies and not as a result of any discriminatory action by its athletic director.
Finley had filed a complaint with the university, claiming he was fired because he was gay. The 52-year-old was fired in Nov. 19, one day one day after VCU lost in the semifinals of the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament. The Rams finished 25-6, their best winning percentage (.806) in Finley's eight-year tenure. The school already has begun a search for a new coach.
Finley told The Associated Press that he's reviewing the results of the investigation and weighing his options.

A married Iowa lesbian couple have won a fight with the state over inclusion of their names on their stillborn child’s death certificate.
A judge earlier this month ordered that both Jennifer and Jessica Buntemeyer of Davenport be listed on the certificate as the legal parents of their son, Brayden, who was stillborn in October 2011, TV station WQAD reports. They said both of their names were originally listed on the documentation filed with the state, but Jennifer’s name was removed (Jessica was the birth mother), so the couple sued. Officials with the Iowa Department of Public Health denied removing her name.
Judge Robert Hutchison wrote in his ruling that the department did not explain how listing only one parent on the certificate improved accuracy or efficiency, as officials had argued. The department also claimed that listing a mother’s wife confuses the issue of paternity.
In the ruling, Hutchinson responded, “Denying same-sex couples the benefits of marriage violates equal protection unless the state can justify its action under heightened scrutiny. As parents, a mother’s wife is identical to a mother’s husband in every common and ordinary sense except for biology.”
Iowa has legally recognized same-sex marriages since a state Supreme Court ruling in 2009.

A federal appeals court has upheld the University of Toledo's decision to fire a high-level human-resources administrator who wrote a newspaper opinion column challenging the idea that gay people deserve the same civil-rights protections as members of racial minority groups.
In a ruling handed down on Monday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the administrator's column "contradicted the very policies she was charged with creating, promoting, and enforcing," and cannot be excused as merely a statement of her own views as a private citizen. The panel affirmed a lower court's decision to dismiss the administrator's lawsuit accusing the public university of violating her constitutional rights by firing her.
At the center of the case was an opinion essay that Crystal Dixon, who had been the university's interim associate vice president for human resources, published in the Toledo Free Press in April 2008. In it, she wrote that she takes "great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are 'civil-rights victims.'" She argued that she "cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman" because she is biologically and genetically such "as my creator intended." But, she said, "daily, thousands of homosexuals make a life decision to leave the gay lifestyle" with the help of groups such as Exodus International, which claim to be able to help people overcome homosexual desires.
Although Ms. Dixon had not identified her university position in the op-ed, the university's president, Lloyd A. Jacobs, wrote his own Toledo Free Press column distancing his institution from her comments. She was fired after a hearing in which she stood by her views but argued that they did not affect her performance as a human-resources administrator, citing her recent decisions to hire "one, possibly two practicing homosexuals" in her own department.
Ms. Dixon responded to her termination by suing Mr. Jacobs and William Logie, who was the university's vice president for human resources and campus safety at the time. Her lawsuit accused the administrators of violating her First Amendment rights by retaliating against her for her speech. It also accused the administrators of violating her 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law by punishing her for expressing her views on homosexuality while other university employees were allowed to state views on homosexuality that the administration favored.
In upholding the dismissal of Ms. Dixon's lawsuit, the federal appeals court said she differed from other employees cited in her equal-protection claim in that her speech, and not theirs, contradicted university policies. The appeals panel said her essay "spoke on policy issues related directly to her position at the university," and the government's interests as an employer outweighed her free-speech interests in the dispute.

Morehouse College, a historically African-American school, will offer a course in black LGBT history and culture beginning in the spring semester.
Yale University professor Jafari S. Allen will teach the class via Skype, reports The Maroon Tiger, Atlanta-based Morehouse’s student newspaper. “He’s very interested in gender nonconformity among people of color, and I’m interested in that as well,” said Marcus Lee, special project and events coordinator for SafeSpace, Morehouse’s gay-straight alliance, who brought Allen into the project.
Allen told the paper, “What you call ‘human rights advocacy’ is for me just trying to be a responsible person in the world to point out and perhaps, in some cases, also to attempt to help to fix injustices. While this may be controversial in some academic settings where there is the pretension of a kind of nonpolitical educational project, this has never been the case for Morehouse or for any historically black institution. So it is essential for Morehouse students, faculty, administrators, and alumni to engage [in] this conversation.”
SafeSpace public relations director Ja’Mal Lewis said the course will bring visibility to black LGBT leaders who have been overlooked. “Many influential LGBT leaders have gone unrecorded due to their sexuality, and they made many of the movements that changed and shaped our history,” he said.

Ian Hunter has become apparently the first Australian politician to marry a same-sex partner, wedding artist Leith Semmens in Spain Wednesday.
Hunter, the social inclusion minister for the state of South Australia, said he and Semmens were sorry their home country wouldn’t recognize their union, but they couldn’t wait for it to enact a marriage equality law.
“Without a doubt it’s inevitable in Australia, but you’re looking at six or seven years, and me and my partner weren’t willing to wait that long,” Hunter told the Associated Press. Spain has allowed same-sex marriage since 2005.
The two men were married at an art gallery in the town of Jun, in southern Spain, with the city’s mayor officiating. In keeping with a local tradition, they kissed for 17 seconds at the ceremony’s close.
“Hunter, 52, is believed to be the first sitting member of an Australian legislative body to marry a gay partner,” the AP reports. “The former scientist has long been a vocal advocate for gay rights, and a lawmaker in the ruling Labor Party in the South Australian state legislature since 2006. He became a state Cabinet minister last year.”
On the national level, the Labor Party has endorsed marriage equality, but Prime Minister Julia Gillard is opposed.

The Montana Supreme Court has sent a case on domestic-partnership rights back to a lower court, telling plaintiffs their argument is too broad and must be narrowed.
The Montana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union had sued the state in 2010 on behalf of six same-sex couples, saying the denial of inheritance rights, tax benefits, medical decision-making power, and other rights violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law. The ACLU asked the Supreme Court to grant a declaratory judgment to that effect.
In a 4-3 ruling issued Monday, the court said that request was too sweeping and would create uncertainty among state legislators, and therefore ordered the plaintiffs to identify specific laws that discriminate against gay couples and take those arguments to the trial court.
“It’s a detour. It’s not a defeat,” ACLU legal director Jon Ellingson told the Missoula Independent. He said the organization has “some work to do to decide strategically which [statutes] we think best illustrate the injustice of the disparate treatment.”
Justice James Nelson wrote a dissent in the case, saying, “The notion that they must ‘specifically identify’ and ‘specifically analyze’ each of the ‘innumerable’ statutes is, in reality, nothing more than a straw-man argument that the Attorney General has invented, and this Court has adopted, to avoid a socially divisive issue.” He also said, “I have never disagreed more strongly with the Court” than in this case and that the decision “wrongly deprives an abused minority [of] their civil rights.”

History's first openly gay ambassador finally got an apology today from one of the Republicans who had called him too "aggressively gay" to serve.
LGBT rights groups were worried that the next Defense Secretary could be former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, who has now apologized for comments he made in 1997 about James Hormel, a gay nominee for an ambassadorship to Luxembourg. Hagel said today his comments were "insensitive" and unrepresentative of his views.

When Hormel, President Clinton's historic pick, went before the Senate for confirmation, Hagel joined a growing chorus of Republican criticism.

“Ambassadorial posts are sensitive,” Hagel said in a 1998 interview raised now by activists. “They are representing America. They are representing our lifestyle, our values, our standards. And I think it is an inhibiting factor to be gay — openly, aggressively gay, like Mr. Hormel — to do an effective job.”

The comments were a different tone than he'd taken months before the controversy erupted, when Hagel sat on the sidelines as Hormel sailed through the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on which he sat. It was a starkly different approach from his virulently antigay counterparts.

In Hormel's memoir, Fit to Serve, he recalls the sense of relief after the committee approved him on a 16-2 vote, with only Republican Chairman Jesse Helms and then-Sen. John Ashcroft of Missouri voting against. For his part, Hagel missed the November 4 meeting in 1997, and thus his vote was counted procedurally as a yes.

Hormel recalls that the only Republican to ask him a question during his hearing had been Gordon Smith of Oregon, and it was a "softball" that didn't raise any red flags.

But notoriously antigay Sens. James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas quickly placed holds on the nomination, stalling it indefinitely. Inhofe's antigay record continues to this day, and Hutchinson was a graduate of Bob Jones University.

Then began an assault on Hormel's credentials. Hormel recalls being grilled during a private meeting by Hutchinson about his partner's work with the Digital Queers, a nonprofit tech group, and about whether he would disavow the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Footage of Hormel laughing during a gay pride parade as the "sisters" marched by wearing their nun outfits had surfaced. Hutchinson used it to go on a public campaign that cast Hormel as an anti-Catholic being sent to a predominately Catholic country. He had already been attacked by the religious right as a potential pedophile sympathizer.

Then Hagel gave his "insensitive" answer when asked how he would vote if the holds were lifted and Hormel went up for a confirmation vote.

“My comments 14 years ago in 1998 were insensitive," Hagel said today. "They do not reflect my views or the totality of my public record, and I apologize to Ambassador Hormel and any LGBT Americans who may question my commitment to their civil rights. I am fully supportive of ‘open service’ and committed to LGBT military families.”

Hormel went on to become ambassador only because Clinton pushed him through with a recess appointment.

The Human Rights Campaign, which had been sharply critical of Hagel's possible nomination at Defense, said in a statement that it "appreciated" his "change of heart."

"Senator Hagel's apology and his statement of support for LGBT equality is appreciated and shows just how far as a country we have come when a conservative former Senator from Nebraska can have a change of heart on LGBT issues," said HRC President Chad Griffin. "Our community continues to add allies to our ranks and we're proud that Senator Hagel is one of them."

The Defense Department only recently implemented repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and activists were concerned that its leader be on their side when facing criticism from Republicans in Congress, who have objected to military chaplains marrying same-sex couples on bases. Also, equal benefits for soldiers in same-sex relationships are still not available because of the Defense of Marriage Act.

"The next Defense Secretary should get off to a fast start and ensure LGBT military families have access to every possible benefit under the law," Griffin said. "Every day these families continue to face unfair treatment and the secretary can take meaningful action to remedy this discrimination."

The latest series to join the premium cable set list is going gay, according to The Hollywood Reporter. In addition to People in New Jersey and Hello Ladies, HBO is picking up a pilot that follows three thirtysomething gay men as they live and love life in good ol’ San Francisco. The pilot is written by Michael Lannan (Remember Me) and directed by Andrew Haigh. Its producers are Brothers and Sisters’ showrunner David Marshall Grant and Bored to Death’s Sarah Condon.
Just like its Girls and Sex and the City predecessors, this untitled project features a group of friends as they try to find footing in a concrete jungle. But these boys are a bit older than their Girls counterparts, so here’s to hoping for less woe-is-me angst and more adult-driven trivialities. Grant’s resume also includes the beloved landmark series thirysomething and he has most recently worked on NBC’s Smash and ABC’s Nashville—all signs point to the project being in good hands.

A federal appeals court ordered a hold on implementation of a California law that would have banned so-called ex-gay therapy on minors on Friday, reports CNN. The law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September, was the first of its kind in the nation to prohibit licensed therapists from using the scientifically discredited practice that aims to change a person's sexual orientation from gay to straight. The law would have gone into effect January 1.
The three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals ordered an injunction Friday, stopping the law from taking effect until the case can be heard in future court hearings. A California district court ruling earlier this month exempted three therapists from adhering to the law, but allowed the law to move forward uninhibited. This ruling goes against that decision by a lower court.
The California Attorney General's office, which supports the legislation, said it will fight to uphold the law.
"California was correct to outlaw this unsound and harmful practice, and the attorney general will vigorously defend this law," Lynda Gledhill, of the California Attorney General's office, told Towleroad.
Liberty Counsel, a right-wing organization and party to the suit challenging the law, was elated with the injunction.
"This law is an astounding overreach by the government into the realm of counseling and would have caused irreparable harm," said Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver.
"Ex-gay therapy," sometimes called reparative therapy by its proponents, has been condemned by every major medical and psychological organization in the country as harmful and dangerous.
"There has been no scientifically adequate research that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation (sometimes called reparative or conversion therapy) is safe or effective," said the American Psychological Association.

Efforts to undo the Defense of Marriage Act in Congress received a major boost Friday as Rep. Richard Hanna of New York declared his support for legislation to repeal the 1996 law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing the marriages of same-sex couples. The move makes him only the second Republican lawmaker to back the measure.
Hanna, a first-term incumbent from upstate New York, announced his co-sponsorship of the Respect for Marriage Act in a statement provided to The Advocate.
“New York State allows all its citizens the freedom to marry the person they love,” he said. “Under the Tenth Amendment, the federal government has a Constitutional responsibility to respect New York’s right to set its own laws. It’s my job to see that it does.
“It is right to extend equal protection under federal law to all couples who are legally married without infringing upon religious freedom and beliefs,” Hanna continued. “This legislation does not tell states who can be married or who must be treated as married, nor does it require any religious institution to violate their own convictions.
“I respect the deeply held beliefs on both sides of this issue,” he said. “The simple fact remains that the federal government has a responsibility to ensure all legally married couples are treated equally under federal law – and this bill would achieve that proper standard.”
His announcement continues the sea change taking place around the measure that passed both houses of Congress by large majorities 16 years ago and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Hanna joins Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the first Republican lawmaker to back DOMA repeal. Fifteen months have elapsed since her trailblazing statement, but advocates hope more endorsements will come more quickly now as the GOP grapples with a rapidly changing cultural and political landscape thrown into sharp relief by the recent election.
“The message that’s being sent is, ‘This is where the party should be. This is where we should be. This is where the country is moving,’” said Jo Deutsch, federal director for Freedom to Marry. “What we’re really seeing now is strong and public support by both Democrats and Republicans to repeal DOMA,” she said.
For the past year and a half, Deutsch, a liberal Democrat, has worked in a concerted bipartisan effort with Republican lobbyist Kathryn Lehman, who helped write DOMA as chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution. The two have been joined by Log Cabin Republicans executive director R. Clarke Cooper and Torrey Shearer, a colleague of Lehman’s at the Holland & Knight firm, in meetings with more than 30 elected officials and candidates to make the conservative case for DOMA repeal.
“Marriage has always been left to the states, so it was the one time we jumped in to make marriage a federal issue, and I think it was in retrospect done unwisely,” said Lehman of DOMA’s creation.
The all-gay team of operatives first approached Hanna last year. His clear positions, including support for the Employment Non-discrimination Act and four votes against amendments to affirm DOMA, among other stances, made him an early and prime prospect. In addition, he hails from New York, where a Republican-led state legislative chamber passed marriage equality for the first time last year, and where Windsor v. United States, the DOMA challenge to be heard by the Supreme Court in the coming months, originated.
"Congressman Hanna's co-sponsorship of DOMA repeal sends a positive message to fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives that the federal government has no business disrespecting decisions by states to protect gay and lesbian families,” said Log Cabin’s Cooper in a statement. “During his freshman term, Richard Hanna was seen as a solid team player, but also an independent-minded representative of his district who was willing to stand on his own.”
Hanna was reelected last month in a new district by an overwhelming margin. He received the backing of American Unity PAC, a super PAC launched by hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer to support pro-equality Republicans in federal races. The PAC endorsed eight candidates, and the only two who won their contests, Ros-Lehtinen and Hanna, now hold the most outspoken positions on DOMA repeal.
“Hanna's public support for the Respect for Marriage Act will embolden fellow conservatives who value the Constitution's design for limited government and respect for individual liberty,” Cooper added. “Many in our party are finally recognizing that we have to deal with the reality of committed same-sex partnerships, and that the federal government has a responsibility to ensure all legally married couples are treated equally under federal law. Repealing DOMA is a crucial step in the right direction, and Richard Hanna, as a champion of true conservative principles, is helping to lead the way."
The development coincides with a vigorous conversation within the Republican Party as it reckons with the results of the November election, including the historic votes for marriage equality in four state referendums. Perhaps no issue is more emblematic of the questions facing the party as it seeks to modernize and broaden its appeal, where former House Speaker Newt Gingrich this week acknowledged the “reality” of marriage equality.
While polls show increasing majorities of Americans including independents and young conservatives support the freedom to marry, the growing number of states allowing same-sex marriage means that more lawmakers know couples negatively affected by DOMA, such as through denial of Social Security survivor benefits, immigration rights, and many more. Combined with repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, where gay and lesbian military members can now serve openly while their families still face discrimination, the compelling arguments for ending DOMA continue to mount.
“The more support there is and the more support there is on the electoral front as shown through the referenda, I think the more people realize the handwriting’s on the wall,” said Lehman. “I think in the near future, God willing, this is just not going to be an issue anymore.”
The current session of Congress ends in less than two weeks, which means the Respect for Marriage Act will need to be reintroduced next session. Currently, the bill has 159 co-sponsors plus the original sponsor, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, who first introduced the legislation in 2009. President Obama endorsed the measure last year.

"I am thrilled to have my colleague from New York, Congressman Richard Hanna, on board as the second Republican cosponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act, and the 159th cosponsor overall," said Rep. Nadler in a statement. "So far, 160 representatives of both parties have weighed in to say that the Defense of Marriage Act – DOMA – is discriminatory, counterproductive, and needs to be repealed. We continue to build a broad coalition to defeat DOMA in Congress and across the nation. Meanwhile, we are actively involved in the challenge to DOMA in the Windsor case soon to be considered by the Supreme Court, where we will continue to argue for equal protection for all Americans," he said.
The Human Rights Campaign also responded to the annoucement. HRC endorsed Hanna in his bid for re-election this year.
“We’re thrilled to have Rep. Hanna join the growing list of Republicans who oppose the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act," said legislative director Allison Herwitt. "The American people strongly support DOMA repeal, and we will continue to work with members of both parties to end this discrimination once and for all.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee controlled by Democrats advanced the legislation last year, but the Respect for Marriage Act has yet to receive a hearing in the Republican-controlled House. Republican leadership there has spent at least $2 million to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court since the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend the statute last year.
As DOMA repeal advocates look to the near future, they anticipate the process of reintroduction will create opportunities for conversations that encourage more co-sponsors of both parties to come on board in both houses. The new support from Hanna, together with the dynamic climate around LGBT equality and the Republican Party, makes a House committee hearing, the next benchmark in the effort, a reasonable goal in the next session of Congress.
“We are hopeful that we will have more co-sponsors on the bill for original introduction than we have right now,” said Deutsch. “We’re hoping that’s more Democrats and more Republicans.”

The pope used his Christmas message today to warn of an "attack" on the "true structure of the family," which he defined as a father, mother and child. Debate all over the world isn't only about marriage equality, he seemed to say, it's about what it means to be human.

In the address, Pope Benedict rails about contemporary views of gender and says anyone who defends the old way of thinking is actually defending God himself. The message grows more alarming with each sentence.

The Pope notes a saying of feminist author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir — “one is not born a woman, one becomes so” — as "the foundation for what is put forward today under the term 'gender' as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious."

Then the Pope goes on at some length to insist that God created a "duality" in gender that is "an essential aspect of what being human is all about." He said people are trying to "decide" their genders, calling transgender people a "manipulation of nature."

The Pope has been on a tear lately, using his message for the World Day of Peace to say that same-sex marriage is a threat to peace. For that, a small group of protestors attempted to enter St. Peter's Square to object, saying weapons are a threat to peace, not love.

The Pope's further comments follow below, ending with his insistence that standing up against this new line of thought is akin to standing up for God:

"People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man."

Two gay radio hosts in Los Angeles have turned a defaced billboard for their program into an inclusive piece of art, reports the Los Angeles Times.
A billboard advertising The Craig & Robbie Hour on Beverly Boulevard and La Brea was vandalized twice — first covered in purple paint, then shot with white paintball pellets. After the second vandalization, the radio hosts decided to hire local artist Jamie Ochoa to turn the defacement into "a message of hope," according to the Times.
Craig Olson and Robbie Laughlin, whose program airs Thursdays at 5 p.m. on Global Voice Broadcasting, told the Times they believe the vandalism was motivated by antigay bias.
"Somebody had to take a gun, and I was a target. This felt more violent," Olsen told the Times. "I felt like somebody had smacked me across the face and said 'Get out.' But I wasn't going to roll over."
Olson hired Ochoa to incorporate the vandalized images into a hybrid of art and advertising that shows the two DJs wrapping their arms around the globe, surrounded by black and white images referencing various faiths, and a child holding a sign simply reading "Peace."
Read more about the vandalism and how the gay radio hosts are fighting back here.

Each week between Thanksgiving and New Year, New York's Ali Forney Center is releasing a video slideshow and accompanying audio featuring the stories of homeless LGBT youths, compiled by Executive Director Carl Siciliano.
New York City has 3,800 homeless youth, almost half of whom are LGBT, according to the AFC. But the city only provides 250 shelter beds for youth, forcing most to survive alone on the streets.
"Statistics don't adequately express the horror of what these youths endure," writes Siciliano. "They don't express the suffering these kids go through; the psychological torment of being rejected, feeling unloved, alone and terrified, or the physical torment of the cold, exposure to the elements, hunger and chronic sleep deprivation."
The latest video features Derrick, a young man who fled his physically abusive family and found himself sleeping in Columbus Circle and Central Park, seeking temporary refuge in arcades, restaurants, and the Apple store.
"The worst thing about being homeless in a situation like this is knowing that you have a family, but that your family won't help you," Derrick says. Derrick is currently living at the Ali Forney Center's housing facility in Queens, New York.
See all four profiles thus far http://www.aliforneycenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=cms.page&id=1015 " target="_blank">here and hear Derrick's story below.

Fifty-two churches valued at more than $100 million are at stake in a legal battle between the Episcopal Church and its conservative Fort Worth diocese.
The Fort Worth diocese split with the Episcopal Church in 2008 for its decision to consecrate a gay bishop, Gene Robinson, as well as its ordination of women. The diocese's bishop claims it owns all the local churches, while national Episcopal leaders say the churches are their property; they sued the local diocese in 2009 for the properties. Now, the Texas supreme court will soon rule on the case, potentially setting up a legal precedent.
Read more here.

If you hear homophobic remarks from a relative, especially a conservative Christian one, during a holiday gathering, there’s a new book you can recommend to that person: This We Believe: The Christian Case for Gay Civil Rights by C.S. Pearce.
In the book Pearce discusses and deconstructs the Bible-based arguments that conservative Christians use against LGBT people, arguments that Pearce calls “myths.” She goes on to use the Bible to show that Christianity does not require followers to be antigay, and she examines the harm done to LGBT people in the name of religion.
Several aspects of Pearce’s background put her in a good position to address the topic. She is director of media relations for the Claremont School of Theology, an ecumenical Christian seminary, and Claremont Lincoln University, an umbrella institution for the seminary and its Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain equivalents. She describes her workplace, in Claremont, Calif., as “a very intellectually and spiritually stimulating environment.” She is a straight, married woman, something that she acknowledges makes her more acceptable to readers “who may still believe gay people are ‘perverts.’” Most important, though, is that she’s made the same journey she’s asking readers to make.
Pearce, now a progressive Episcopalian, grew up in Southern California in a conservative evangelical Christian family, which was one of the factors that motivated her to write the book. “Because I come from a conservative evangelical background, I am very familiar with their beliefs about LGBT issues — many years ago I used to share those beliefs,” she says in an interview with The Advocate. “Also, I have witnessed some of the very damaging and hurtful things some of my relatives and evangelical friends have done to gay people because of these beliefs.”
“The time seemed ripe for making a thoughtful case to conservative Christians to encourage them to at least reexamine and hopefully change their beliefs, and my background enabled me to do it in a way that was more likely to appeal to them,” Pearce continues. “For many years now, I’ve felt like I needed to do something to make up for some of the damage that’s been done.”
She notes in the book that for many years she considered LGBT people “creepy perverts,” believed homosexuality was a choice, and thought she didn’t know any gay people. Eventually she realizes she was wrong about all those things. Years after leaving high school, she discovered that two of her friends from that era were gay, and in the late 1980s, on National Coming Out Day, one of her favorite coworkers came out to her as a gay man. Also, in the early 1990s her husband, Daniel Pearce, a physician who came from a similar conservative evangelical background, decided to dedicate at least part of his practice to treating people with HIV. As a result of all these factors, she and her husband “came to know many wonderful LGBT people,” she writes, and to rethink their beliefs.
In the interview, she relates that her family attended a nondenominational evangelical Christian church, having left the Presbyterian Church “because Presbyterians were too liberal.” She goes on, “My dad read the Bible to us every night, and attendance was mandatory. At a certain point I found the beliefs I grew up with to be so problematic and unethical that I jettisoned Christianity altogether. I never stopped praying or admiring Jesus, however — I was just ashamed to be called a Christian. Fortunately, I found out that there were other options in Christianity. I made my way back to the church and am now a Christian in the progressive Episcopalian tradition.”
She says many Christians don’t realize the harm their homophobia causes. “In the 1990s one of my relatives ‘consoled’ a mother who had lost her closeted, sweet son to AIDS with words to the effect that it was so tragic that her son had chosen to turn his back on God and was thus reaping the consequences of his actions,” Pearce says. “Another friend and many members of her close-knit extended family completely repudiated her brother when he came out, which sent him into a spiral of depression that affected him for years.”
Therefore, she spends much of the book detailing the damage done by people who think they’re doing God’s work, and she also sets out to give conservative Christians “a strong Biblical case for gay civil rights, since the Bible is very important to them and they usually don’t realize what a strong case can be made,” she says.


What makes her book different from others? “It’s basically a summary of the issues, all in one place, that takes an hour to read and makes what I hope is a very eloquent case from an extremely evangelical-friendly perspective,” Pearce says. “There are a lot of excellent books out there that already make good cases from a variety of viewpoints, but most of them are much longer. I wanted something short and inexpensive so the intended audience would be more likely to pick it up and give it a shot. It’s counterintuitive or perhaps crazy to write a book specifically for people who are skeptical and may not want to actually read it. So I tried to make this as accessible as possible — hopefully they will read it if a friend or relative hands it to them.”
As for her being a straight woman, she thinks it’s unfortunate that that gives her extra credibility with some readers, but that’s the case. “Otherwise I wouldn’t presume to speak up for the [LGBT] community, since they have many spokespeople who are way more eloquent than I am,” she says.
Besides recommending Pearce’s book, what are some other ways to deal with holiday homophobia? She says she has encountered such situations on numerous occasions. “I ask if they would mind refraining from saying such things in front of me, because these are my friends they are talking about and I find the statements hurtful and wrong,” she says. “Since these are people who mean well, they have usually honored my request, even when they think I’m deluded. As for the few obnoxious exceptions who won’t, I just avoid them, since rational conversations don’t seem to work with them.” And she adds that it’s important for LGBT people to be out, even though she realizes it’s difficult in certain situations. Knowing that someone you know and love is gay “is the biggest thing ever” in terms of overcoming antigay feelings.
Her family, she says, have overcome some of these feelings and have been largely supportive of her book project. While there are still “sparks of anger and subjects to avoid,” she says, “there’s a basic love underneath that we all value.” She adds, “In years past, my family would have been upset with me for even trying [to write such a book], so I didn’t attempt it, although I thought about it a lot,” she says. “So much has changed now that several of my relatives actually asked me for copies of the book, and I know people at some conservative Christian seminaries who are passing it around! So I’m hoping it will make a difference.”

This We Believe: The Christian Case for Gay Civil Rights is available in paperback and also for Kindle, Nook, and iBook. For more information, click here.

TALLAHASSEE —
At the first meeting of a new state House education subcommittee this month, a dramatic moment in Florida history passed virtually unnoticed.
Rep. Joe Saunders, D-Orlando, saw that as a good sign.
When lawmakers were asked to introduce themselves and provide a little background, some mentioned careers as educators. Others talked of steering their kids through public schools.
When it was Saunders’ turn, he spoke about having lobbied for anti-bullying legislation, approved in 2008. He added, “My partner is also a high school drama teacher, so that helps in my perspective as well.”
Saunders, 29, is one of two openly gay Florida House members elected this year, the first in state history.
In a legislature where milestones passed in recent years include the election of the first Haitian-American lawmaker, and a Cuban-American House speaker, Saunders and Rep. David Richardson, D-Miami Beach, also see themselves as pioneers.
“You’ve got to be sitting at the table,” Richardson, 55, said of the importance of their election. “This is not my quote, but someone has said, ‘if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.’”
With a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population estimated at more than 600,000 people, second in size only to California, Florida had been the nation’s largest state without any openly gay legislators, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Victory Fund, a political advocacy organization.
With the election of Richardson and Saunders, only 14 states now have no openly gay legislators, said Dennis Dison, a Victory Fund spokesman. More than 100 gay lawmakers hold office, he said. “It is a very big step for Florida.”
Richardson and Saunders also take office at what could prove a pivotal time for LGBT Americans. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider two cases on same-sex marriage.
A far-reaching ruling could cast aside bans on same-sex marriage nationwide, such as that carved by voters into the Florida Constitution in 2008. A split decision might clear the way for federal benefits to go to same-sex couples married in states that allow such unions, but could permit other states to bar gay and lesbian couples from marrying.
“I don’t think many people could predict how the landscape for many LGBT issues has changed over the past five years,” Dison said.
Richardson, an accountant, was elected in August, winning a Democratic primary over three rivals and facing no Republican opposition.
Saunders defeated a primary opponent and then went on to win over Marco Pena in November, defeating a Republican endorsed by former Gov. Jeb Bush in an Orlando-area district that includes most of the University of Central Florida.
Neither man said their sexual preference was cited directly by their opponents in the campaigns. Each, though, did run with the backing of gay advocacy organizations.
When he was sworn-in during the legislature’s November organizational session, Saunders was accompanied by his partner, Donald.
Saunders said the only real dark episode in his campaign occurred when a stealthy telephone poll was conducted in his district. It asked voters, “Would you support Joe Saunders if you knew he was a notorious homosexual activist?” Saunders recalled.
Saunders had been a field director for Equality Florida, a LGBT civil rights organization, which has promoted marriage equality, partnership benefits and anti-discrimination laws in the workplace.
“I’ve done work on civil rights for a long time,” Saunders said. “But in the campaign, my focus was mostly on jobs, education and fairness and opportunity.”
Saunders said that having been to Tallahassee as a lobbyist, he knows the value of having effective representation.
“I think it’s going to rock things a little,” Saunders said of having openly gay lawmakers at the Capitol. “I don’t know what that means from a policy perspective. But at a minimum, I think it’s challenging people’s assumptions.”
John Stemberger, head of the Florida Family Policy Council, spearheaded the voter initiative that put Florida’s same-sex marriage ban in the state constitution. He said the personal lives of Saunders and Richardson are not his concern.
“But the danger would be if they try to promote the homosexual agenda in Florida,” Stemberger said.
Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, a former chairman of the Christian Coalition of Florida, who also worked on the constitutional ban, said he respects that voters sent the two men to the Capitol.
“Elections are a reflection of our state and people will bring very different perspectives,” Baxley said. “Diversity means you’ve got to put up with some right-wingers like me, too.”
Saunders and Richardson, though, said they see themselves primarily as state legislators pursuing wide-ranging policy agendas.
The fact that they’re gay is part of the experience they bring to the Capitol. But it’s not the central issue they plan to build their political careers around, both lawmakers said.
“I think this says something about the world we live in – this 2012 moment,” Saunders said. “My commitment is to ensuring that no one is discriminated against in any way and that artificial barriers to success aren’t created or institutionalized.
“What’s really great about that message is that during the campaign, it resonated in communities that weren’t gay.”
Richardson, who worked for the U.S. Defense Department as a forensic auditor and continued that work in the private sector, examining government contracts, has been appointed to two House appropriations subcommittees and the Finance and Taxation Subcommittee.
For the legislature’s minority party, Richardson is likely to emerge as a point-man in budget and spending issues. “That’s what I want to do, is work on the numbers, then talk about it,” Richardson said.
Richardson said he realizes he plays a historic role. But he also wants to be best known for what he brings to the legislature and the voters in his Miami Beach district.
“Just by being here and working with my colleagues, I’ll make my statement in that way,” Richardson said. “I don’t want special treatment or different treatment, I just want equal treatment.”
He added, ““I’m not going to be a ‘gay legislator.’ I’m here to do a lot of work for my district and Floridians.”

The petition for President Obama to class the Westboro Baptist Church, the home of the ‘God Hates Fags’ campaign as a hate group has been named the most popular ever on the White House’s ‘We The People’ website.
The church has outraged America by blaming the masacre at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut on the state’s equal marriage policies.
The church that has picketed the funerals of US servicemen and women killed overseas announced that it would picket the funerals of the children killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut to worldwide outrage. The church blames the advances in LGBT rights for everything bad that happens to Americans- saying that disasters and deaths are punishments from God for gay equality.
Twenty children and six adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday. Most of the children that were killed were aged between six and seven.
The petition to the US Government says: “This group [Westboro Baptist Church] has been recognized as a hate group by organizations, such as The Southern Poverty Law Center, and has repeatedly displayed the actions typical of hate groups.
“Their actions have been directed at many groups, including homosexuals, military, Jewish people and even other Christians. They pose a threat to the welfare and treatment of others and will not improve without some form of imposed regulation.” At the time of publication, 248,113 people had already signed the petition. Around 250 people have so far clicked on a petition link on the PinkNews website.
The weekend before last, Shirley Phelps-Roper, the attorney daughter of the church’s founder Fred Phelps Tweeted: “Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment.”
After Anonymous posted her telephone number on Twitter, she Tweeted that if you contact her or other church members : “We’ll tell you those kids died for fag marriage.”
Another church member Tweeted” “God Almighty smacked USA with #Sandy & she’s brazen in her sin still; THEN He gives you a right hook – make that #SandyHook! #RepentingYet??”
The church’s founder Fred Phelps Tweeted “That’s the message that this evil nation and world need: that God Almighty is on the march & nothing is gonna stop Him.”
His son Fred Phelps junior Tweeted: “Beautiful work of an angry God who told Wisconsin to keep their filthy hands off his people (WBC)!”
Gay couples have been able to marry in the state of Connecticut since 2008. In September 2012, the state joined New York and Vermont in launching legal challenges to the federal ban on same-sex marriage and lack of country wide recognition of gay relationships.
Last week, the church released a sick video where it lists all the different tragedies in US history that it says were caused by God as a punishment for gay rights.
In the end, the group did not successfully picket the funerals of the children in Newtown after the local community worked together to make it difficult for the church to organise its protest.
The hacking group Anonymous crashed the church’s websites and published the personal contact details of those who run its campaigns on Twitter.
Last year, the Supreme Court, with a majority of eight to one, ruled that the church should be allowed to picket funerals by relying on their First Amendment rights to free speech.
In 2009, the British Government placed a ban on members of the church entering the UK due to their attitude to homosexuality.
In 2011, the hacking group Anonymous took down the main website of the church together with their other websites, including the charmingly named PriestsRapeBoys.com as well as GodHatesAmerica.com, GodHatesTheWorld.com, JewsKilledJesus.com and AmericaIsDoomed.com.

Rep. Charles Bass of New Hampshire has become the third Republican House member and the second within the past week to support legislation that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and allow the federal government to recognize the legal marriages of same-sex couples.
Bass, who was defeated for re-election this year, did not release a statement about his decision to co-sponsor the measure known as the Respect for Marriage Act. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the original sponsor of the legislation, announced the development in a statement to The Advocate.
"I'm thrilled that Rep. Charlie Bass will be our newest GOP co-sponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act to repeal DOMA,” he said. “Rep. Bass is the second Republican in the past week to endorse equal protection for all Americans. Though he won't be continuing his service in the next Congress, his commitment to equality and ending discrimination is truly appreciated."
The move from Bass follows Rep. Richard Hanna of New York, who last week announced his support in terms of the Tenth Amendment and states’ rights. Both representatives hail from states with legislatures that have passed marriage equality.
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida became the first Republican House member to support DOMA repeal legislation last year. She and Hanna won reelection this past November.
Bass, who represents New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District, first held the seat from 1995 to 2007. He was elected again in 2010. This year, he lost to Democrat Ann McLane Kuster, who supports DOMA repeal.
In the final weeks of the campaign, Bass privately told advocates that if re-elected he would co-sponsor the DOMA repeal legislation and work to build support among his House colleagues. The Republican-controlled New Hampshire state legislature defeated an attempt to repeal the marriage equality law earlier this year.
“I think he wants to be on the right side of his history,” said Kathryn Lehman, a lesbian Republican lobbyist working on the repeal effort. “His state has marriage, and the Republicans control the House and Senate in New Hampshire. I think he wants to show solidarity with his state and I think he just thinks it’s the right thing to do.”
The Respect for Marriage Act will need to be reintroduced next year in the new session of Congress. Advocates anticipate that with each new Republican co-sponsor, momentum will continue to grow.
"Congressman Bass, a man of his word, kept his promise to support the repeal of DOMA,” said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, which endorsed Bass in his re-election bid. “Log Cabin Republicans are encouraged by another ally co-sponsoring the Respect for Marriage Act and will continue to urge allies and friends in development to do the same."
While the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the Respect for Marriage Act last year, House Republican leadership continues to defend DOMA, which passed overwhelmingly in 1996, from challenges in federal court, including a case to be heard in the coming months by the Supreme Court. The recent election results, however, have prompted a vigorous discussion within the party about its position on marriage equality.
"With Congressman Charlie Bass' announcement that he will be the 160th cosponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act in the 112th Congress, we add another Republican supporter for repealing the so-called Defense of Marriage Act,” said Jo Deutsch, federal director for Freedom to Marry. “Whether in Washington, DC and the halls of Congress or in his home state of New Hampshire, Congressman Bass is a strong voice for what is fair and right. We are thrilled to have Congressman Bass join Congressmembers Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Richard Hanna as Republicans who support the Respect for Marriage Act. We look forward to more Republicans supporting the freedom to marry in the new Congress."
Michael Cole-Schwartz, director of media relations for the Human Rights Campaign, said, "Support from Rep. Bass shows that the partisan boundaries on respecting marriage are crumbling. No doubt Rep. Bass wants to be seen on the right side if history and we applaud his opposition to DOMA."

25 Most Notable Comings Out

Thousands of LGBT folks no doubt came out this year, but we had our eyes on the handful who helped push visibility in the worlds of entertainment, politics, and athletics.
BY Diane Anderson-Minshall

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...AMPIONX400.jpgSam Champion
Gay weather anchor on Good Morning America
In a story about another gay anchorman's wedding — MSNBC's Thomas Roberts — the Champion mentioned his own engagement. He was married in December.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...SONSX400_0.jpgJim Parsons
Gay actor and star of The Big Bang Theory
The television star's career sure hasn't slowed down since coming out. He's nominated for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award, and a People's Choice Award.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...lanax400_0.jpgLana Wachowski
Transgender director of The Matrix and Cloud Atlas
Nearly a decade after announcing her transition, the director finally made an appearance on camera to promote her newest project.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...OMERX390_0.jpgMatt Bomer
Gay actor and star of White Collar
The Magic Mike star mentioned his partner and their three children while accepting an award for HIV/AIDS activism in February.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...apinoeX400.jpgMegan Rapinoe
Lesbian U.S. soccer player and Olympian
Ahead of winning gold for the U.S. team in the Olympic, the Seattle Sounders midfielder came out during an interview with Out magazine.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/..._RIGHTX400.jpgOrlando Cruz
First openly gay pro boxer
The boxer from Puerto Rico is ranked number 4 by the World Boxing Organization and told USA Today in October that being gay is just another part of his identity.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/.../kristy480.jpgKristy McNichol
Lesbian actress, former teen star on TV and in Little Darlings
The child star, who is now 49, told People magazine it was time to come out so she could help send a message of hope to bullied youth.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...a-KingX400.jpgDiana King
Lesbian Jamaican reggae star
The star posted a message in June to her Facebook page announcing she's a lesbian and inviting people to respond with "WHO CARES."

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/..._sallyx400.jpgSally Ride
Bisexual astronaut and first American woman in space
The famed space explorer came out only after her death when an official obituary posted on her organization's website included mention of her partner of 27 years.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...MILLERX400.jpgEzra Miller
Queer actor and star of The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The up-and-coming actor told Out magazine he identifies as queer during an August cover story on his latest movie.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/..._gracex400.jpgLaura Jane Grace
Transgender lead singer of Against Me!
She told Rolling Stone in May that it was important to be a role model because of the rarity of openly trans musicians.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...astax134_0.jpgJoCasta Zamarripa
Bisexual Wisconsin state representative
Before her successful reelection bid, the lawmaker told local reporters she was coming out in case it might help young people struggling with their identities.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...child_main.jpgStephen Ira
Queer trans man, writer (see The Collection), and celebrity offspring
The son of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening shared what it's like being him as part of a video series called WeHappyTrans.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/..._OCEANX400.jpgFrank Ocean
R&B crooner who was once in love with another man
In the lyrics from his album, Channel Orange, Ocean sang about his love for another man. Then he went on to multiple Grammy nominations.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...IFICX400_0.jpgAnderson Cooper
Gay CNN anchor and host of eponymous talk show
In an email conversation that was posted online in July, the newsman told blogger and friend Andrew Sullivan that he's gay.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...indseyX400.jpgLori Lindsey
Lesbian U.S. soccer player
Another who would go on to win Olympic gold, Lindsey has a mother who is a lesbian and who encouraged her to come out publicly.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...xLANDSCAPE.jpgJosh Dixon
Gay gymnast
The talented gymnast came out in an interview with Out magazine before not making the cut this time for the six spots on the U.S. men's Olympic team.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...gustusX400.jpgSeimone Augustus
Lesbian Olympian and basketball star with the WNBA’s Lynx
The Minnesota Lynx basketball star announced in an interview in May with The Advocate that she is getting married to a woman.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...N_BALLX400.jpgJason Ball
Gay Australian football player
The Australian football player came out in September and said his teammates were quick to accept him.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...NY_LEEX400.jpgStephany Lee
Lesbian wrestler
(Pictured far left) The wrestler married her wife the day after Olympic trials but was cut from the team after testing positive for marijuana use.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...allacex400.jpgJi Wallace
Gay and HIV-positive Olympic trampoline gymnast
The silver-medalist came out after seeing the impact that Anderson Cooper had with his letter and wrote one of his own.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...ultzerX400.jpgKaren Hultzer
Lesbian Olympic archer from South Africa
The archer came out publicly for the first time in a statement to OutSports just before the Olympic games.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...guilarX400.jpgJessica Aguilar
Bisexual mixed martial arts fighter
After years of fighting on American Top Team, she told Sports Illustrated in May that she'd learned to be more open about her sexuality.

http://editorial.advocate.com/sites/...playerx400.jpgWade Davis
Gay activist and former football player for the Titans, Redskins, and Seahawks
The former NFL player, who spent time with the Tennessee Titans, Washington Redskins, and Seattle Seahawks, came out during an interview with OutSports.

http://www.advocate.com/sites/advoca...hy_400x300.jpgKevin McClatchy
Gay newspaper chain chairman and former sports team owner
The former owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates told the New York Times he is gay in September. He is now chairman of the board for the McClatchy newspaper company.

The results of a year-long investigation into the 2011 hazing death of a gay drum major at Florida A&M University concluded that the school failed to adhere to state laws and regulations about hazing, reports CBS News.
Robert Champion, a gay 26-year-old member of FAMU's Marching 100 band, died in a parked bus in Orlando following a football game in 2011, after participating in a hazing ritual called "Crossing Bus C," where the drum major tried to make his way through the bus as fellow bandmates kicked and punched him.
The report, released friday by the Florida Board of Governors, found that the school lacked internal controls to prevent and detect hazing, according to CBS. CBS also notes that the findings arrived in the same month FAMU was put on probation by a regional accrediting organization, giving the university one year to meet more stringent requirements, or have its accreditation revoked.
The university has denied fault in Champion's death, claiming that because he was an adult, he was responsible for his own death. In May, 13 people were charged with felonies or misdemeanors in the death of the drum major.

A little-noticed procedural change that removes Mexico's ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men went into effect on Christmas day, according to Blabbeando. The new health norm was first approved in August, published in the nation's regulatory diary in October, and went into effect on December 25, doing away with the two-decade-old ban, reports Andrés Duque.
Duque reports the old policy explicitly banned gay and bisexual men from donating blood due to their "practices" and "increased probability of acquiring HIV or hepatitis infection." The new norm eliminates this carte-blanche ban on blood from gay and bisexual men, instead banning donations from people with HIV or hepatitis and their partners who engage in "risky sexual practices" regardless of sexual orientation, according to Blabbeando.
Duque reports that those "risky sexual practices" are defined in the new regulations as any that may include "contact or exchange of blood, sexual secretions or other bodily secretions between someone who might have a transmittable disease and areas of another person's body through which an infectious agent might be able to penetrate."
Blabbeando also notes that Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination confirmed reports of the updated policy and lauded the new regulations as a step forward in eliminating discrimination.
The United Kingdom and China have both recently lifted thier blood-donation bans for gay men and lesbians, but despite recent calls for the U.S. to follow suit, the country maintains its 29-year-old ban on blood donation by gay and bisexual men.

A 30-year-old gay man who was assaulted on Christmas eve in Baltimore says he believes the attack was an antigay hate crime.
Kenni Shaw was walking home from a liquor store in his East Baltimore neighborhood around 9 p.m. on December 24 when a stranger began punching him in the head, Shaw told The Baltimore Sun. While one man initiated the attack, four others quickly joined in, according to Shaw.
"I was pinned down by punches," Shaw told The Sun. "I was just beaten in my face. Nothing was taken. No words were exchanged before the incident."
Police are investigating the assault and told The Sun they have "some good leads in the case," but have not yet determined a motive.
Shaw is clear that he believes he was targeted because he is gay, and as a 6-foot-tall man of color with dyed blonde hair who works as a cosmetologist and hairstylist, said he has often noticed other "tough men" in the neighborhood muttering underhanded comments about not wanting "faggots living on the block," according to The Sun.
Shaw told The Sun that Baltimore police have been receptive to his claims that he was attacked out of antigay bias, but he still wants justice.
"It makes me angry and upset, but at the same time, I am here and I made it through," Shaw told The Sun. "I just want to stand and make sure I have a voice, so this doesn't happen again to a loved one or anyone."
Read more here.

A series of paintings showing Muslim clerics in scenes with gay undertones has sparked such uproar in Pakistan that the university which published the images has shut down the publication where the images appeared, according to the Associated Press.
Officials at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan, shut down the Journal of Contemporary Art, which published the paintings by artist Muhammad Ali in a summer edition. School officials also removed all issues of the journal from campus bookstores and dissolved the journal's editorial board after the images sparked threats of violence from Islamic extremists, according to the AP. A court is reportedly considering whether the artist, the journal's editorial board, and the school's headmaster can be charged with blasphemy.
"The college's decision to cave to Islamist pressure underscores how space for progressive thought is shrinking in Pakistan as hardline interpretations of Islam gain ground," reports Asif Shahzad for the AP. "It was also a marked change for an institution that has long been one of the leading defenders of liberal views in the country."
One of the offending images was titled "Call for Prayer," and reportedly depicted a Muslim cleric and a young, shirtless boy sitting beside one another on a bed. The cleric holds a rosary "as he gazes at the boy, who seductively stretches backward with his hands clasped behind his head," reports the AP.
The lawyer who asked the court to consider blasphemy charges told the AP the image implied the cleric had "fun" with the boy before conducting the traditional Muslim call to prayer.
But Asaim Akhtar, an art critic who wrote an essay accompanying the images when they appeared in the Journal, told the AP the artist intentionally mixed images that were "deliberately, violently profane," in an effort to challenge "homophobic" beliefs that run rampant in Pakistani society.
"Ali redefines the divine through a critique of authority and the hypocrisy of the cleric," wrote Akhtar, an Islamabad-based art critic who is also listed as a potential defendant in the blasphemy complaint, according to the AP.

Today couples began marrying in Maine after a long campaign to make marriage equality legal there, including a loss at the ballot box in 2009 when voters banned gays and lesbians from marrying.
As part of a wave of successes for LGBT activists in November, Maine became the first state where voters approved a referendum initiated by marriage equality advocates. The measure won 53% to 47%. And the governor certified the results 30 days ago, which set up couples to begin marrying after midnight.
USA Today reports that the first couple to wed — Steven Bridges and Michael Snell, a retail manager and a massage therapist respectively — were serenaded by crowds gathered outside the Portland city hall with the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love."
Below check out photos and comments on Twitter.

President Barack Obama expressed his support for marriage equality legislation pending in his home state of Illinois, marking the first time he has backed a legislative campaign at the state level.
White House spokesman Shin Inouye announced the President’s position Saturday to the Chicago Sun-Times.
"While the president does not weigh in on every measure being considered by state legislatures, he believes in treating everyone fairly and equally, with dignity and respect," he said.
"As he has said, his personal view is that it's wrong to prevent couples who are in loving, committed relationships, and want to marry, from doing so. Were the President still in the Illinois State Legislature, he would support this measure that would treat all Illinois couples equally," Inouye continued.
The measure known as the Religious Freedom and Fairness Act could receive a vote in the Illinois legislature as early as this week. Obama served as a state senator before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.
During his state senate campaign in 1996, Obama submitted a questionnaire to Outlines, now the Windy City Times, in which he said he supported the right of same-sex couples to marry. As President, Obama opposed marriage equality until last May, when he announced his personal support in an interview with ABC News.
While Democrats control both chambers of the Illinois legislature, the Sun-Times reports that the statement from Obama will “prod--and give political cover to--reluctant Democrats from conservative suburban and Downstate districts.” Governor Pat Quinn, a Democrat, has promised to sign the measure.
The Illinois legislature passed a civil union law that took effect last year.
President Obama supported ballot initiatives for same-sex marriage that passed in Maine, Maryland and Washington this year. However, as recently as October, he described state legislative efforts as a “conversation,” and last year, on the eve of the vote for marriage equality in the New York state legislature, he described the effort as a “debate.”
The step forward arrives as a handful of state legislatures in addition to Illinois, including Delaware, New Jersey and Rhode Island, are expected to visit the marriage equality question over the next year.
Bernard Cherkasov, CEO of Equality Illinois, called President Obama’s endorsement of legislative action “a strong and significant statement to our General Assembly that the time is now to act.”
"With the President's statement, Illinois lawmakers should fully understand that voting for the freedom to marry puts them on the right side of history," he said. "We appreciate the President's call to action in the Illinois General Assembly as lawmakers prepare to return to Springfield in the days ahead. President Obama faced no political repurcussions from his support of marriage for gays and lesbians, and neither should members of the Illinois House and Senate."

Charlie Sheen didn't mean to get on stage and call a crowd at his new club a bunch of "faggots." But he did.

TMZ reports that FX's Anger Management star has apologized. He was reportedly hosting the opening of his new bar, EPIC, in Cabo San Lucas at the El Ganzo Hotel — which he promised on Twitter would be "the party of the year!!" — and TMZ posted video of him yelling over the mic, "Lying bunch of faggot assholes, how we doing?"
To make it all better, Sheen blamed the whole thing on his lisping.
"I meant no ill will and intended to hurt no one and I apologize if I offended anyone," Sheen told TMZ. "I meant to say maggot but I have a lisp."

Sheen was apparently out partying with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa when the antigay slur was made. He tweeted an Instagram pic with his arm around the former chairman of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

Sheen's kind words for the mayor: "From Boyle Heights to Mayor of LA..! To @hotelelganza 2 party w/SHEEN at SheenZ..! Antonio Villaraigosa knows how to party!"

In a lengthy story about how unwelcome gay athletes still feel in pro sports, Detroit Tigers outfielder Torii Hunter says a player coming out would make him "uncomfortable."

Hunter, who is described in the Los Angeles Times story as "among baseball's most thoughtful and intelligent players," said a gay player would divide a Major League Baseball team.

"For me, as a Christian … I will be uncomfortable because in all my teachings and all my learning, biblically, it's not right," he told the newspaper. "It will be difficult and uncomfortable."

Read the Complete Story

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson says he chafed for several years at being branded the first openly gay bishop of the Anglican Church until he realized that he was wasting a pulpit from which he could advocate for equality.
"I'd been given this really remarkable opportunity and it would be selfish of me not to be the best steward of that opportunity," he recently told The Associated Press in an interview as he prepares to retire in January. "We went from my consecration, which set off this international controversy, to nine years later seeing gay, lesbian and transgender congregants welcome at all levels of the church, including bishop."
Robinson's election in 2003 as the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican church created an international uproar and led conservative Episcopalians to break away from the main church in the United States.
Robinson, 65, will hand the pastoral staff to his successor, A. Robert Hirschfeld, in a ceremony at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Concord on Jan. 5.
As he prepared to retire after nearly a decade as bishop, Robinson reflected on the crucibles and crusades of his tenure.
He was publicly shunned by church elders, targeted with death threats and says he struggled to strike a balance between being the "good bishop" and the "gay bishop." In the end, he says, they became one and the same.
He is a self-described "off-the-end-of-the-scale extrovert" who bounds across stages and television studios, whether promoting causes or his new book, "God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage."
Robinson said it pained him deeply to be excluded in 2008 from a gathering of Anglican bishops and clergy that occurs every 10 years in England, known as the Lambeth Conference. He said it was the first time since 1867 that a bishop had not been invited.
He traveled to England despite the snub to make his presence known and minister to anyone who wanted his counsel.
"It was probably the hardest thing I've done — to go and bear up under that quite intentional exclusion," Robinson said. "It took me a long time to get over it."
A month before the conference, he entered into a civil union with his long-time partner Mark Andrew. Robinson chuckles that columnists in religious publications speculated he did it to thumb his nose at the conference.
Robinson said it was a coincidence, one he and Andrew didn't realize until after the date was set, and said the timing of the ceremony was driven by far more somber reasons.
"The point was to put in place the protections a civil union would provide if someone made good on these death threats ... before I put myself in harm's way," Robinson said. "I wanted Mark to be as protected as he could be."
Their civil union automatically converted to a marriage when New Hampshire legalized gay marriage in 2010.
Months after the Lambeth Conference, Robinson delivered the invocation at the Lincoln Memorial that kicked off festivities leading up to the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
"That was an enormous honor," Robinson said.
Robinson said he has learned to live with the threats he's received and refuses to turn their rural home into a fortress.
For him, New Hampshire, where he has worked in the Episcopal Diocese for 27 years, has been a safe haven.
"New Hampshire was the one place where I wasn't the gay bishop," he said. "I'm just the bishop. That's been terrific and kind of lifesaving in way."


He has spent every Christmas Eve of the past decade ministering at New Hampshire's women's prison. He calls it his Christmas present to himself.
"I do church work 24-7, but I never feel more like I'm doing God's work than when I'm there," said Robinson, who is giving donations he got for his retirement from the congregation to the chaplain's program at the prison.
Robinson said he would have stayed on as bishop until the mandatory retirement age of 72 had he remained the sole gay voice in the nearly 300-member House of Bishops worldwide. Mary Glasspool, the first openly gay woman to serve as bishop, was elected to lead the diocese of Los Angeles in 2009.
"I never thought about retirement until she was elected," Robinson said. "Now I can move on to do other things."
Robinson will be a part-time senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank founded by John Podesta, former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton. Robinson intends to spend two weeks a month in Washington and focus on immigration and health care reform, poverty and LGBT issues.
After a brief vacation in Palm Springs, Calif., he said he and Andrew will head for Washington to attend Obama's second inauguration as the guest of Rep.-elect Annie Kuster.
"I leave this job loving it more than when I started," Robinson said. "I think the excitement about the future is finally outweighing the grief over the loss."

Same-sex couples in Maryland began marrying just after midnight New Year’s Day as the state’s marriage equality law went into effect.
James Scales and William Tasker were among seven couples married at Baltimore City Hall, the Associated Press reports. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake performed the ceremony for the couple; Scales has worked for the mayor’s office for 25 years.
“It’s just so hard to believe it’s happening,” Scales said. The two men have been together for 35 years.
Helene Coccagna and Sara Davis were marrying in a private ceremony at midnight. The two women, together for 12 years, had worked to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. “You might think that things aren’t possible, but you know if you work on it things can become possible,” Coccagna told Baltimore’s ABC TV affiliate before the ceremony. See video of the couple below.
Gay couples in Maryland were able to begin getting marriage licenses December 6, but marriages could not take place until the new year. The state was one of three that affirmed marriage equality at the ballot box in November. The legislature approved the same-sex marriage law in February and Gov. Martin O’Malley signed it in March, but opponents gathered enough petition signatures to put it to a referendum, in which it passed with 52% in favor.

Barney Frank has taken a parting shot at Chuck Hagel, a possible nominee for secretary of Defense, saying he strongly opposes Hagel’s appointment because of his antigay record and statements.
Hagel, a former U.S. senator from Nebraska, in 1998 criticized James Hormel, a gay philanthropist nominated by President Clinton as ambassador to Luxembourg, as “openly, aggressively gay” and said that Hormel’s homosexuality could interfere with his ability to do the job. Hagel recently apologized for the comments, but Hormel and others questioned his sincerity, and Hagel also had a record of voting against LGBT causes while in the Senate.
Frank, who is retiring as a U.S. representative from Massachusetts, released a statement Monday opposing Hagel’s potential nomination, The Huffington Post reports. “Then-Senator Hagel’s aggressively bigoted opposition to President Clinton’s naming the first openly gay Ambassador in U.S. history was not, as Sen. Hagel now claims, an aberration,” the gay congressman said. “He voted consistently against fairness for LGBT people and there does not seem to be any evidence prior to his effort to become Secretary of Defense of any apology or retraction of his attack on James Hormel. And to those of us who admire and respect Mr. Hormel, Sen. Hagel’s description of him as aggressive can only mean that the Senator strongly objected to Hormel’s reasoned, civil advocacy for LGBT people.
“I cannot think of any other minority group in the U.S. today where such a negative statement and action made in 1998 would not be an obstacle to a major Presidential appointment.”
President Obama has not yet formally nominated a replacement for outgoing Defense secretary Leon Panetta, but Hagel, a Republican who broke with his party to oppose the war in Iraq, is said to be his top choice. Obama has said Hagel has shown “positive change” in his attitude toward LGBT people.
Frank would not be able to vote on Hagel even if he were staying in Congress, as only members of the Senate vote on cabinet nominations.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A company whose old-fashioned trolleys are iconic in the city's wedding scene has abandoned the nuptial industry rather than serve same-sex couples.

The owner of Discover Annapolis Tours said he decided to walk away from $50,000 in annual revenue instead of compromising his Christian convictions when same-sex marriage becomes legal in Maryland on Tuesday.

While most wedding businesses across the country have embraced the chance to serve same-sex couples, a small minority has struggled to balance religious beliefs against business interests.

Wedding vendors elsewhere who refused to accommodate same-sex couples have faced discrimination lawsuits — and lost. Legal experts said Discover Annapolis Tours sidesteps legal trouble by avoiding all weddings.

"If they're providing services to the public, they can't discriminate who they provide their services to," said Glendora Hughes, general counsel for the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights.

The trolley company's decision, publicized by a straight groom offended by what he called "repressive bigotry," offers a snapshot of a local business navigating a new landscape in Maryland's wedding industry, and leaving customers behind for a competitor to swoop in.

The head of the Maryland Wedding Professionals Assn. said the trolley company was the second vendor to refuse business over the same-sex marriage law, which voters upheld in November. The clergyman who led the opposition to same-sex marriage in the state called the company's choice to abandon profits on principle "gutsy" and predicted that more businesses would follow suit.

"That's a bold and noble statement," said Pastor Derek McCoy, executive director of the Maryland Marriage Alliance.

Frank Schubert, the political strategist who ran campaigns against same-sex marriage in Maryland and three other states this year, said opponents predicted collateral damage from legalizing same-sex unions. In November, voters also approved gay marriage in Washington and in Maine, where the first same-sex marriage licenses were issued Saturday.

"This is exactly what happens," Schubert said, adding that religious liberty is "right in the cross hairs of this debate.... The law doesn't protect people of faith. It simply doesn't."

Schubert pointed to a handful of news reports across the country of wedding vendors sued for refusing to accommodate a same-sex ceremony, such as a pair of Vermont innkeepers and a New Mexico photographer.

In Maryland, the gay rights group Equality Maryland said the trolley company's decision appears to be an isolated case. "As long as he doesn't discriminate against other people, he's free to do whatever he wants to do, including withdrawing his business from the industry," executive director Carrie Evans said.

Discover Annapolis Tours owner Matt Grubbs declined repeated requests to discuss the move, beyond acknowledging its economic impact to his business. Grubbs' trolleys, with their interior lighting and quaint feel, had nearly become a staple in Annapolis' wedding scene.

Grubbs confirmed that he had sent an email to prospective client Chris Belkot last month explaining: "We are not able to lend support to gay marriages" as a Christian-owned business. "And as a public accommodation, we cannot discriminate between gay or straight couples, so we had to stop doing all wedding transportation."

Grubbs' message went on to suggest Maryland residents contact their lawmakers to "request they amend the new marriage law to allow an exemption for religious conviction for the layperson in the pew. The law exempts my minister from doing same-sex weddings, and the Knights of Columbus don't have to rent out their hall for a gay wedding reception, but somehow my religious convictions don't count for anything."

Belkot, 31, forwarded Grubbs' email to Annapolis news websites and fired off a response to Grubbs that read, in part: "It is your right to run your business any way you see fit, but let's be honest here, you drive a trolley up and down a street. Not exactly God's work."

A video in the Disney Channel’s “Make Your Mark” public service campaign has drawn the wrath of a conservative media watchdog group because it features a teenager with lesbian parents.
In the spot, a 14-year-old named Ben introduces viewers to his world, which includes “my moms,” with a brief clip of two women, then goes on to tell how he made a film denouncing bullying.
The offhand mention of his two mothers was too much the right-wing Media Research Center, which touts its mission as “exposing and combating liberal media bias.” In a post on the center’s NewsBusters blog, director of media analysis Tim Graham notes a gay blogger’s praise for the spot and asserts that “activists want Disney to lead the way toward ‘LGBT’ acceptance among the grade-school set.”
Mediaite blogger Andrew Kirell takes Graham to task for being so upset about this “teeny tiny snippet of information at 12 seconds into the video.”
“In the mind of the likes of Graham and his boss Brent Bozell (who has his own record with ‘the gays’),” Kirell writes, “by not hiding the cold hard fact that little Ben was raised by a lesbian couple, Disney Channel is now complicit in ‘normalizing’ ‘the gays’ and indoctrinating school-aged kids into believing that Ben’s ‘two moms’ (Graham’s scare-quotes) is an acceptable thing not worthy of endless scorn and shame.”

A marriage equality bill will be introduced in the Rhode Island legislature Thursday, the Providence Journal reports.
State representative Arthur Handy, the bill’s sponsor, said he will need Wednesday to recruit cosponsors, who will include openly gay House speaker Gordon Fox.
Rhode Island legislators have previously abandoned efforts to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples because of insufficient support. The state has had civil unions since 2011, and it recognizes out-of-state same-sex marriages. But it remains the only New England state without marriage equality.
Handy said the bill will address religious groups’ concerns, making clear that no church would have to perform marriages that go against its beliefs.
The 2012 election results increased the number of marriage equality supporters in the legislature, helping the bill’s chance of passage. Gov. Lincoln Chafee is also a supporter.

In what Outsports calls a possible first, TV network ESPN showed an out gay athlete kissing his husband after winning the 2012 PBA Chameleon Bowling Championship in Las Vegas. The winner, Scott Norton, held his head in his hands and cried after winning, then kissed and hugged his husband, Craig Woodward. According to JW, a gay bowler, and Norton's friend, iabowling.tv's Jaime Perez, ESPN’s announcers referred to Woodward as Norton’s husband or spouse throughout the telecast.
According to JW, ESPN also said Norton "came out after his win in 2011 during the telecast. They also mentioned that his first title win in 2011 helped him come out the shadow of his mother, Hall of Fame bowler Virginia Norton, but that this second win defined him as a true threat on tour."
The win, says Outsports, makes Norton a rising (gay) star on the professional bowling circuit. A full rundown of the event is at Outsports.com.

Forget the fiscal cliff; televangelist Billy Graham's son Franklin Graham says marriage equality sends us teetering on the edge of the "spiritual cliff." In his Dec. 27 blog post, Graham wrote that our country’s financial problems "are nothing compared to the spiritual and moral cliff that is far more destructive to our nation than any economic concerns. Since the recent election, we’ve seen same-sex couples lining up at courthouses in several states to receive their marriage licenses, and hundreds of people gathering in public places to light up marijuana cigarettes in the states where it has just been decriminalized."
He says that these marriages are only the "tip of the iceberg," as "media-friendly gay and lesbian behavior" on TV is just a reflection of "the moral corruption that has infected our entire nation."
What does the prodigal son want you to do to fight these "dark days"? Pray, read the Old Testament, and send him money, apparently.
"Just as the Lord used an 18-year-old king to begin revival in a corrupt nation more than 1,500 years ago," Graham writes, "He can use us as we earnestly seek Him, stand for His truths, and pray for America. This is the only cure for a sin-sickened country that is about to slip into a moral abyss, and it is why we must proclaim the Good News. My hope and prayer is that the Lord will once again move in our land. It can happen, and we are trusting that a fire of revival will ignite as tens of thousands of homes are opened up this year to share the Gospel through My Hope with Billy Graham. It will be a tremendous outreach across our country, the most extensive we have conducted in the history of this ministry, and we need your prayers and financial support as we put this massive evangelistic effort together."

The Illinois marriage equality bill may be considered as early as tomorrow, Windy City Times reports.
The state Senate will be in session Wednesday, and Sen. Heather Stearns is expected to introduce the bill in that chamber this week. “LGBT leaders say that a vote on a bill seeking gay marriage is likely to come sooner rather than later,” the Times reports. Stearns hopes to get the bill voted on quickly so it can then go to the state House, although a report in the Chicago Tribune says she and Rep. Greg Harris, the lead House sponsor, will go for a vote only if they feel assured of passage. Activists from around the state plan to gather tomorrow in Springfield, the capital.
Both chambers have until January 9 to pass the bill in the current legislative session. After that, a new legislature will be seated, meaning advocates will have to restart their lobbying efforts.
Illinois currently offers civil unions to same-sex couples. Gov. Pat Quinn supports marriage equality and would sign the bill. Several other high-profile politicians have thrown their support behind it, including President Obama, who served as an Illinois state and U.S. senator, marking the first time during his presidency that he has become involved in a state-level legislative campaign.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Francis George, head of Chicago's Roman Catholic archdiocese, today sent a letter to priests in which church members are urged to contact their legislators and ask them to vote against the bill. “Civil laws that establish 'same sex marriage' create a legal fiction,” George wrote, according to the Tribune. “The State has no power to create something that nature itself tells us is impossible.” Priests can choose to share the letter with parishioners.
The Civil Rights Agenda, an Illinois LGBT rights group, immediately denounced George's letter. “It is unfortunate for Cardinal George that he has chosen not to join the growing number of religious leaders and faithful laypeople across Illinois — including many devout Catholics,” said Rick Garcia, the group's senior policy adviser, director of the Equal Marriage Illinois Project, and a practicing Catholic. “People of all backgrounds and beliefs are standing up for equality under the law, the protection of families, and the advancement of religious and individual freedom here in the Land of Lincoln.”
He noted that the church has a right to its own views on marriage, but under the law no church would be forced to perform any marriage that goes against its beliefs. “How the Church — or any faith — views marriage within its own institution is one thing, but secular society treats marriage as a civil right.”