New exhibit ‘Out in Chicago’ chronicles city’s gay story

Co-curators Jill Austin (left) and Jennifer Brier discuss
the Chicago History Museum’s new exhibit “Out in Chicago”
a look at the gay and lesbian history of Chicago, and the
prominent piece “Caricature of George Ade and Orson Collin
Wells,” 1912, a painting coded with early gay clues.

BY KARA SPAK -

In 1958, Chuck Renslow, his friends and their group’s affinity for leather was too much for a Chicago gay bar called Omar’s.

Tossed out, Renslow decided to open his own nightspot, the Gold Coast Bar, a haven for people of all persuasions that was the country’s first leather bar.

“I was just trying to bring the leather community together,” said Renslow, 82. “It was a place where leather men could meet and know each other.”

A mural of Renslow and friends from the Gold Coast Bar is now a piece of Chicago history, part of a new exhibit “Out in Chicago” opening Saturday at the Chicago History Museum.

“We’re telling Chicago history through the lens of LGBT history,” said Jill Austin, a Chicago History Museum curator who co-curated the exhibit with Jennifer Brier, an associate dean and professor at University of Illinois at Chicago.

With brightly colored words “fairy” and “bleacher dyke” decorating the museum’s spaces, the history lesson starts in 1851 when the Chicago city council passed an ordinance with steep fines for dressing in the clothes of another gender. Joseph Piatkiewicz, a Polish carpenter, was nabbed. He was a married father of two who liked wearing women’s dresses.

There’s a replica of a living room with videos of current same-sex couples raising children in Chicago, a look at local “drugstore libraries” of the 1930s that sold books about same-sex relationships and a fake bar complete with disco ball, describing Chicago’s gay nightlife.

Gay political activism, music and publishing are also touched on through stories of notable gay Chicagoans, like James Darby, a gay veteran who organized an annual celebration in Chicago of gay and lesbian veterans. An audio booth lets people record personal stories for inclusion in the history museum’s archives.

“We’re trying to acknowledge the breadth of things and show the range of things,” Brier said. “We have really tried to show that (LGBT people) have been in Chicago a long time. This is not only a white story, this is not only a Boystown story.”

The exhibit is the culmination of an 8-year-old lecture series at the history museum.

“The goal over the course of many years was for the Chicago History Museum to become much more inclusive in telling stories,” Austin said. “This is the history of Chicago. I’m really thrilled to tell these stories.”

Renslow, whose bar closed in 1979, said it was “about time” such an exhibit opened.

Mother’s Day story about lesbian couple spurs controversy at Annapolis paper

(Screengrab from the Capital)

By Elizabeth Flock -

The “Mama and Mommy” story that ran in the Capital on Mother’s Day, the Annapolis-based Capital ran a “different” kind of story, according to the editor, about a lesbian couple and their two kids.

Criticism of the story, “Mama and Mommy,” came fast and furious in the comments section, such as this one:

“Why does The Capital feel it necessary to show an aberrant "family" situation as a salute to Mother's Day?”

Capital editor and publisher Tom Marquardt quickly wrote a column to address the controversy, but it was never published because of objections from his staff.
For good reason.
Thanks to Jim Romanesko over at Poynter, who obtained a copy of the Marquardt’s unpublished column that went around the newsroom, we can read several passages from it:

There is an old saying in journalism that, adjusted for modern times, goes something like this: Architects cover up their mistakes with vines, attorneys send theirs to jail, businesses write them off, and doctors put them 6 feet under. But a newspaper publishes its mistakes for all to see. And that we did on May 8 with a Mother’s Day story on a lesbian couple raising two baby boys born to them through artificial insemination. The reaction among our readers was swift and damning.

In previous years we have written about single moms, poor moms, foster moms and handicapped moms — as well as the traditional moms with big families and heavy workloads. This year was different but difference is not what our readers wanted on a day when dad and kids shower love on the family matriarch.

Unfortunately for us, we lost sight of what the readers want to read: feel good stories about people who reflect their values. Newspapers need to mirror its readers — all of them perhaps, but inclusion not at the exception of the majority.

Only one reader complimented me for our non-traditional Mother’s Day story. The majority who reacted saw this story as the final liberal straw in their local newspaper or wanted to make a statement with their cancellation.

Marquardt says only one reader complimented the story, but he ignored the comments section of “Mama and Mommy,” which soon filled up with comments in defense of the paper’s decision to run the story. One commenter wrote:

The two women in this article more than deserve to be recognized on Mother's Day just like all mothers do- without such harsh criticism because you don't agree with or understand their lifestyle. Props to The Capital for a great article!

Doesn’t sound like the newspaper lost sight of what that reader wanted to read. Marquardt may have also stirred up more controversy if he had published the column. Commenters on the Poynter story were quick to criticize his apology:

My note to the editor: Don't hide behind the publicity of your profession as an excuse for having vertebrae made of spaghetti. Maybe another old saying is more apt for you, “If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

Another comment:

Journalism should be about raising consciousness not pandering to ignorance... They are moms.  It was a story on Mother's Day.  It is very disappointing that the editor is so spineless.

Marquardt defended himself to Poynter, saying “my objection is not the story, but the story running on Mother’s Day.”

The Capital is published by Capital Gazette Communications.

In China, Meds, Treatment Denied AIDS Patients

Gao Yaojie

By Kilian Melloy -

Chinese HIV/AIDS patients are suffering from inadequate health care because doctors and other health care providers may be unwilling to treat them, a May 17 Reuters article said.

There is also a disparity in health care depending on how patients became infected, a May 19 Reuters article reported.

The International Labor Organization (ILO), which is affiliated with the United Nations, said in a study that healthcare workers seemed not to understand how the virus is spread. In one case, a surgeon refused to operate on a patient for fear of the disease, the Reuters reported.

China has over one and one third billion people. Less than one million are thought to be infected with the virus. The nation saw a spike in infections in the 1990s, when poor farmers sold their blood for money and were exposed to the virus, the article noted.

People who contracted the virus through the blood-selling scheme are getting better care than those who became infected through sexual activity or drug use, the May 19 article said.

"Treatment coverage for blood donor HIV patients is up to 80 percent and their mortality is 6.7 percent," said Fujie Zhang, of the National Centre for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention. "But for injecting drug users, treatment there is only 43 percent and mortality is much higher at 16 percent."

The disparity was reported in a paper published in the medical journal the Lancet, Reuters reported.

Zhang argued for broader and more comprehensive treatment efforts as a means to control the spread of the virus, for the sake of public health.

"Treating one person perfectly is meaningless, but treating many will bring transmission down," Shank noted. "So we must increase coverage and then treat early."

But the results of the ILO study, undertaken together with the National Center for STD and AIDS Prevention and Control, indicated that HIV+ patients were often not receiving quality health care--or, in some cases, any care at all.

"The doctor said at our hospital, many patients need surgery, and if other patients get infected, it will be a very bad thing," one HIV+ Chinese citizen told the media. "At the second hospital... the doctor told me: ’I sympathize with your suffering but because of your status, I dare not operate on you,’ " added the unidentified man.

"I’ve visited many other hospitals and encountered similar denials and excuses such as a lack of equipment," he went on to say.

The disparity is not only the result of health care providers’ unwillingness to treat HIV+ people. Those living with the disease are often reluctant to seek treatment because of social taboos and stigma, Reuters reported. A policy that relegates HIV+ patients to certain hospitals intensifies the stigma.

"We should eliminate these designated hospitals," opined Beijing You An Hospital’s Zhang Ke, of the hospital’s infectious disease department.

The stigma can mean that hospitals where HIV+ patients receive treatment might be shunned in rural communities, Reuters reported. One man relayed that hospital administrators "are worried about the impact on economic gains" that treating HIV+ patients might have.

Change is only made more difficult by policies that do not respond to attempts at creating social pressure. China’s authoritarian government is hostile toward activists, Reuters noted.

"Hu Jia, an advocate of rural AIDS sufferers, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison by a Chinese court in April 2008, for ’inciting subversion of state power,’" the May 17 article said. "Another AIDS activist, former health ministry official Wan Yanhai, has fled to the United States with his family, citing pressure from authorities, according to rights group Human Rights Watch."

AIDS activist Gao Yaojie claims that the impact of the blood selling scheme that infected many poor farmers has been underreported by the Chinese government, FairWarning reported on May 19. Yaojie figures for the epidemic in China put the number at fatalities and infections at 10 million.

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS by decimating the immune system, cannot be spread through casual contact. The most common ways for HIV to be transmitted is through unprotected sexual intercourse or the sharing of needles, activities that enable the virus to pass from one individual to another with little or no exposure to the external environment. The virus dies quickly once exposed to the elements outside the body.

The news for HIV/AIDS patients in China is not all grim, however. A May 19 New York Times article said that according to a report by scientists with the Chinese government, more people with the virus are now surviving longer.

"About 63 percent of all those needing AIDS drugs are getting them, up from virtually zero in 2002," the Times article said. "That has caused a 64 percent drop in mortality in ’person-years,’ as China measures it, an estimate of how long someone would have lived without the disease."

The results stand as "a testimony to the young midlevel scientists who convinced the leadership that this was the right thing to do," according to the University of North Carolina’s Dr. Myron Cohen, who himself has aided the Chinese deal with the AIDS crisis there.

Kilian Melloy is EDGE Media Network’s Web Producer and Assistant Arts Editor. He also reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes aggregate news stories and commentary for EDGE.

Ross Levi: ESPA's Report On Marriage Equality In New York

By David Mixner -

For those of us struggling to make marriage a reality for all loving, committed same sex couples, this is a fascinating period in New York State politics. The Empire State Pride Agenda has been working on marriage since the early 2000’s, and it is very satisfying to see those years of hard work coming together to forcefully maximize the moment. Backed by the very vocal leadership of a historically popular governor, we’re working assiduously to make this the year that marriage equality will become a reality for LGBT New Yorkers. We’re not there yet, but the environment is quite strong.
The Assembly has passed a marriage equality bill a number of times, and always by a wide margin, but the only time it was brought to the Senate floor, it went down to defeat. It is our role as New York’s oldest and largest statewide LGBT advocacy organization to show the mile-wide, mile-deep support that exists for marriage equality.
The best news is that the people are so solidly on our side. A recent Siena poll showed 58% of New Yorkers firmly in favor of marriage equality. A majority of voters both upstate and downstate are with us, and support is the highest – 61% -- in downstate suburbs, areas that have been important to Senate Republicans, who currently hold a slim one seat majority. They need to be concerned about being seen as out of touch with their constituents in an area like Long Island, which is currently without even a single senator in public support of the legislation.
Not that all the work is on one side of the aisle. There remain a smaller but significant number of Democrats who voted against the legislation the last time it was brought up, and need to be moved.
The Pride Agenda is hard at work doing what we do best: taking the voices of everyday New Yorkers and amplifying them to be heard by our government.

· We hosted Equality & Justice Day last week where more than 1,200 LGBT New Yorkers and our allies went to Albany to rally and directly lobby our legislators; 

· More than 720 clergy from across the state have added their voices to the chorus in support of marriage through a Pride Agenda program, Pride in My Pulpit; 

· The business community is supportive through another initiative, New York Business for Marriage, that recognizes that marriage equality is a win-win-win for business, the economy and New York State; 

· We are galvanizing support from organized labor, so New York unions representing literally millions of New Yorkers can publicly show their solidarity by standing up for marriage equality; and 

· We’re actively phone banking, setting up local legislative meetings and sending out direct mail in State Senate districts where there are legislators who are undecided. Perhaps you even saw the television ads put out by the New Yorkers United for Marriage coalition of which we are a founding member. 

As I’ve seen so many times, the political winds of Albany can blow in many ways and there is a lot of work that still needs to be done. We can’t promise a particular outcome, but we can promise to leave no stone unturned and not be swayed from our singular focus on winning equality and justice for ourselves and our families. Those interested in joining the fight should go to http://www.prideagenda.org/ to see how they can get involved.

for more from David visit Live from Hell's Kitchen.

Majority of Americans support gay marriage in poll

By Alex Dobuzinskis -

Fifty-three percent of Americans support making gay marriage legal, a Gallup poll showed on Friday, a marked reversal from just a year ago when an equal majority opposed same-sex matrimony.
The latest Gallup findings are in line with two earlier national polls this spring that show support for legally recognized gay marriage has, in recent months, gained a newfound majority among Americans.
Gallup said Democrats and political independents accounted for the entire shift in its survey compared to last year, when only 44 percent of all respondents favored gay marriage, while 53 percent were opposed. The percentage of Republicans favoring same-sex matrimony held steady at 28 percent.
Same-sex marriage remains a highly contested issue in U.S. politics, but homosexual couples have won the right to legally wed in five states -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Iowa -- and the District of Columbia. Gay couples have faced setbacks elsewhere, and no statewide initiative to legalize gay marriage has ever won a majority vote.
The growing support for gay marriage comes after President Barack Obama signed into law legislation in December to repeal the ban on openly gay men and women serving in the military under a 17-year-old law known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Gallup noted the policy change, but said it was unclear if that influenced Americans' attitudes about same-sex unions.
"The trend toward marriage equality is undeniable -- and irreversible," Joe Solmonese, president of the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement.
Maggie Gallagher, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, said the poll shows her fellow opponents of gay matrimony have been "shamed" into silence.
"Polls are becoming very sensitive to wording, and the wording being used in the media are not predicting accurately what happens at the actual polls when people vote," she said.
In a sign of a generation gap, Gallup found 70 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 support gay marriage, compared to only 39 percent among those 55 and older.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll in March showed 53 percent of Americans said same-sex marriage should be legal, and 51 percent said the same thing in a CNN Poll released in April.
By comparison, a 1996 Gallup found that 68 percent of Americans were opposed to same-sex marriage, a figure that has trended downward ever since.
Twenty-nine states have adopted constitutional amendments restricting marriage as between a man and a woman, and 12 other states have passed laws to that effect, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
In Minnesota, a proposal to put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage before voters in 2012 gained momentum this month when it passed the state Senate.
In a setback for gays and lesbians seeking marriage rights, 52 percent of California voters approved a constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage in 2008, months after the state's Supreme Court had legalized it. Passage of the ban, known as Proposition 8, was seen as particularly significant because of Californians' history of supporting liberal causes.
In 2010, a federal judge found Prop 8 unconstitutional, but his decision was blocked by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while the case remains under judicial review.

Why Republicans Should Support Gay Marriage

The GOP needs to "look in the mirror" and justify its conflicting ideologies, says Ken Mehlman, former Chairman of the GOP.

STEVE HAYES: Tired Old Queen at the Movies - #75

THE CREATURE TRILOGY

Horror emerges from the muck and the mire of the Amazon in Universal Studio's classic trilogy "The Creature From the Black Lagoon" (1954), "Revenge Of the Creature" (1955) and "The Creature Walks Among Us." (1956). Following the classic "beauty and the beast" motif, Universal created the last of its classic monsters. A half man/half fish throwback from the prehistoric age, which menaces a group of scientists, who want to "bring it back alive!" Veteran Horror film director Jack Arnold, sets the pace and mood and cast such monster film veterans as Richard Carlson, John Agar, John Bromfield and Rex Reason along with damsels in distress, Julie Adams, Lori Nelson and Leigh Snowden to catch the creature's eye. Terrific production values, beautiful cinematography and fast paced action make this trilogy, one to hold your breath and curl up on the couch with.

MSNBC - Majority Of Americans Support Marriage Equality

Michael Smerconish discusses new Gallup Poll with Clarke Cooper (Log Cabin Republicans) & David Smith (Human Rights Campaign).

Kevin Jennings Leaving Education Department to Head "Be The Change"

Education Chief Kevin Jennings

By Chris Geidner -

The Be the Change nonprofit announced today that Kevin Jennings, currently serving in the Obama administration's Education Department as the assistant deputy secretary and the head of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, will be leaving that role this summer to become the new president and CEO of Be the Change.
Jennings -- who is a prominent out gay member of the Obama administration -- was the subject of significant right-wing outrage when named to the administration position, a topic he discussed in a lunch event with D.C. interns this past summer.
In a news release from Be the Change, Jennings said of his new role, "It has been an honor to serve in the Obama Administration and specifically on Secretary [Arne] Duncan's leadership team at the Department of Education. I am incredibly excited to return to the nonprofit sector by joining the Be the Change team and working on issues like promoting public service and increasing economic opportunity, the kinds of critical challenges we must solve if America is to continue to thrive in the 21st century."
Be the Change was founded in 2007 by current president and CEO Alan Khazei, the co-founder of City Year. Jennings will be the second leader for the organization, a move praised by Be the Change board chair Josh Bekenstein of Bain Capital.
"We are delighted to draw a leader of Kevin’s caliber to succeed Alan," Bekenstein said in the release. "His experience both leading a national nonprofit  as well as working in the federal government makes him the ideal leader to take the reigns as Alan takes on new challenges."
According to Be the Change, Jennings -- best known as the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network prior to working for the Obama administration -- will begin his new role at Be the Change on July 25.
According to the organization, Be the Change is "a nonprofit that creates national issue based campaigns by organizing coalitions of non-profits, social entrepreneurs, policymakers, private sector and civic leaders, academics, and citizens." The organization points to ServiceNation as "the first campaign launched from Be the Change, Inc.'s platform," citing that the effort had "over 270 organizations in its coalition [and] helped to achieve the strongly bi-partisan Kennedy Serve America Act -- the greatest expansion of national service in our country in 60 years."
A request for additional comment from Jennings made through the Education Department was not immediately returned.

Read the release: jenningsannouncement.pdf

Jury Awards $1.16 Million to LAPD Gay Cop in Job Discrimination Case

Sgt. Crump for LGBT recruitment

By Karen Ocamb -

(Update to reflect $1.16 million) A jury awarded openly gay LAPD Sgt. Ronald Crump $1.16 million Thursday in his civil case against the city of Los Angeles. Crump claimed job discrimination and retaliation by his LAPD management superiors.

In an email after the verdict was read, Crump said that the jurors thanked him for “leading cops.” He wrote:

It was a great dilemma to sue the organization I admire. But my management’s gross decisions adversely effected me and it needed to be challenged – not only for me but all the employees that have been affected similarly. Despite this incident, I still find it a great honor to be LAPD and a contribution to society. I had to trust the justice system and my faith in my actions and failure to waiver in my decisions proved well for equal employment opportunities.

Frontiers In LA and LGBT POV reported on Crump’s story, noting that the case could seriously jeopardize the trust the LGBT community has been slowly developing toward the long antigay LAPD. Crump, who had been rising through the ranks as a high-regarded officer, at one time was the poster boy for the LAPD’s LGBT recruitment efforts. Crump alleged that when he was an LAPD spokesperson with Media Relations, his superior, Lt. John Romero, harassed and humiliated him and when he complained – he was transferred in retaliation to an undesirable position while Romero was promoted.
Ironically, the City Attorney’s office spent several costly days putting on witness after witness to besmirch Crump’s reputation and credibility – at the same time the LAPD Inspector General Nicole Bershon issued a report finding systemic problems with how the LAPD handles claims of retaliation. Read the document: LAPD retaliation report.
On Tuesday, May 17, LAPD senior officials acknowledged the problems to the LA Police Commission, the LA Times reported.

Responding to a critical report by the department’s independent watchdog, senior LAPD officials offered up an unusually candid mea culpa to the police commission, the civilian body that oversees the department.
“We have a lot of work to do in this area,” Cmdr. Rick Webb, who oversees day-to-day operations of the LAPD’s Internal Affairs Group, conceded to the commission.
LAPD policy forbids officers from retaliating against other officers who report misconduct, take advantage of allotted time off or exercise other rights. Cases of retaliation often involve allegations that officers were unfairly passed over for coveted assignments, given poor work evaluations or harassed with crude behavior.
The report from LAPD Inspector General Nicole Bershon found systemic problems with the way internal affairs investigators look into retaliation claims. Often, the report said, investigators determine that the actions of accused officers do not amount to misconduct.
As a result, the accused officers frequently are not interviewed and sometimes are removed from the investigation altogether, which makes it all but impossible for the department to identify a pattern of misbehavior as a problem employee moves from assignment to assignment, Bershon warned.

Sgt. Crump in Media Relations

The LAPD senior officers told the commission that the problem could in part be attributed to internal affairs handling a high volume of cases, as well as supervisors lacking the training to address and mitigate workplace disputes.

From The Times:

Small arguments or miscommunications between officers often are not addressed quickly or effectively, allowing them to “fester and create huge, huge problems,” Webb said.
“The culture change has to be with the commanding officers, to give them the skills to deal with these situations quickly,” Webb said…..
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck acknowledged the need for the department to be better at mitigating problems before they get out of control, saying he is planning to overhaul the way the department handles its “risk management” issues, including lawsuits and other potential liabilities.”

The Times reported that openly gay Police Commissioner Rob Saltzman wasn’t buying it: “This is not a new set of issues,” he said during the meeting. “We have been more patient than we should have been.”

Indeed, “Jack Dunphy” (the pseudonym used by a long-serving LAPD officer) opined in a blog post that part of the problem is with supervisors who are more interested in career advancement than in doing their job professionally and properly:

A mentor of mine, now long retired and living happily far, far away from Los Angeles, once explained for me the difference between police officers who do police work and those who devote themselves to advancing up the chain of command. The “climbers,” he said, are mystified at how police work is actually performed on the streets. They sit in roll call and watch as other officers are handed subpoenas to appear in court day after day after making good arrests.  As their own inferiority becomes more and more apparent, both to themselves and to their coworkers, they become envious and even contemptuous of those whose police skills have outpaced their own. And while their more skilled colleagues are developing expertise at making cases, the climbers busy themselves with studying for promotion so as to advance into positions that allow them to second-guess and belittle those who do the work they themselves were incapable of doing.
Worse, the culture of the department’s command officers is such that timidity and even cowardice is often rewarded. The best boss one can have in the LAPD is one who is content to remain at his current rank. But people looking ahead to their next promotion tend to avoid making decisions that might in any way lead to controversy and impede their acquiring that next bar or star on their collars. This has been shown to be true even in hypothetical exercises during training sessions.

Sgt Ronald Crump at Vice

Dunphy suggests that this could have frightening consequences:

Officers throughout the LAPD are now undergoing training on how to respond to a terrorist attack such as occurred in Mumbai, India, in 2008. Classes are broken up into small groups and then presented a scenario depicting an attack against a target somewhere in Los Angeles. The goal of the training is to ensure that officers at any rank and any assignment are prepared to take immediate action when faced with such an attack, yet some supervisors have said they wouldn’t come anywhere near it if one were to occur. Having such an attitude is pathetic enough, but boldly admitting to it without the expectation of consequences shows how poorly the LAPD sometimes chooses its leaders.

So this has serious public safety implications – as well as discouraging hard working cops like Crump and raising questions in the LGBT community about whether this is really  a new day at the LAPD.
There is a famous 1969 book called “The Peter Principle” that Chief Beck might want to peruse. Its premise is that “in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”  And then the incompetent employee is often promoted.  If management doesn’t know how to resolve a simple conflict between employees – what is that person doing in management – especially if it’s impacting the taxpayer and public safety?
And the LA City Attorney might consider what cases he choses to defend, as well. I mean, if President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder can decide not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court, surely the City Attorney can stand down on or intervene in employee conflict cases before going to court.

Out4Immigration Couples Share Their Stories with The DeVote Campaign

Out4Immigration is an organization of volunteers fighting for immigration equality for LGBT families in the U.S.A. Here, binational couples at the heart of this movement reveal to the DeVote Campaign how their lives have been affected by the inability for the American partner to sponsor his/her foreign-born partner for a green card so they can remain together legally in this country.

Equality is personal.  www.devotecampaign.com

ACLU: Web filter provider to drop LGBT category

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH -

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—A California-based company that received scrutiny because of an ACLU campaign is believed to be the first major web filter provider to drop a category that allowed schools in Missouri and elsewhere to block students' access to educational websites about gay, lesbian and transgender issues. Lightspeed Systems is working to reclassify the sites classified as "education.lifestyles." Although the category was accessible under a default setting, it could be activated to block sites focused on what the company described as "alternate lifestyles," particularly those discussing LGBT issues but also those about being vegan or vegetarian.
Questions about the category arose after the American Civil Liberties Union sent letters this spring to about 15 districts as part of a campaign aimed at stopping the filtering of LGBT content. Four customers of Lightspeed Systems—North Kansas City School District in Missouri, Downingtown Area School District in Pennsylvania, Northfield Public Schools in Minnesota and Avoca School District 37 in suburban Chicago—were among those contacted by the ACLU in response to student complaints.
The target is to update customers' software Monday, said Amy Bennett, a spokeswoman for Bakersfield, Calif.-based Lightspeed Systems. She said the company contacted customers about the change and the response was "overwhelming positive."
"Once we had looked into it and realized that the districts were comingunder criticism we wanted to do what we could to make sure our customers were protected and things were categorized fairly," Bennett said.
Joshua Block, the staff attorney for the ACLU's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project, said five other web filter companies have categories that allow schools to block LGBT content. He praised Lightspeed and said he hoped the other companies would make similar changes.
"Many of these school districts had either activated the filter without realizing what it does or had activated it by accident," Block said. "I think that the vast majority of school districts are trying in good faith to protect their students and didn't have any desire to discriminate against gay content. I think this really shows that these filters don't really serve the needs of the clients and if anything they work against the needs of the client."
The North Kansas City School District has blamed technical problems for the blocking of LGBT sites. After learning of the issue it unblocked the entire category and said in a statement the changes to Lightspeed would have made it easier to manage the system. Northfield Public Schools Superintendent Chris Richardson said a technician turned on the filter because he thought it blocked sexually explicit material. After a staff member pointed out that educational LGBT sites were being blocked, the district tried to fix the problem but wound up only giving access to staff.
"I appreciate that it's not even going to be there for someone to accidently activate," Richardson said. "Because I think the reality for us is I think we've been a district that has tried to be very open and supportive of all of our students. It has been frustrating to us that Lightspeed would even have put this piece in without being very clear that it was kind of above and beyond."
Messages left with the other two districts weren't immediately returned.
The ACLU first addressed the issue in 2009 when it filed a lawsuit over access to LGBT websites in the Knoxville and Nashville school districts in Tennessee. The districts ultimately agreed to stop using filtering software to block those sites.
Since then, Block said the organization has received numerous complaints that schools are continuing to block LGBT sites, prompting the national campaign.
The ACLU identified the schools it is contacting by working with the Yale Law School on the "Don't Filter Me" campaign, which asked students to check to see if their schools are blocking content by having them look up LGBT sites.
The ACLU had no problems blocking out sexually explicit content, but said the problem was many schools were using filtering software to block sites that were purely educational. Block said public schools aren't allowed to limit access just because they disagree with a group's viewpoint, he said.
"I think it's very clear that a public school cannot constitutionally use an LGBT filter, that it's unconstitutional," Block said. "And so why put your clients in this precarious position of putting a booby trap in their software that will cause them to violate the constitution?"

The Amazing Race of Couples for Equality’s Chip Arndt

By Tony Adams -

To say that Chip Arndt is excited about his new project, CouplesforEquality.org (C4E), is an understatement. Just get him started. Passionate about it, he will not stop talking about C4E until there is no oxygen left with which to build his next breath. C4E, a digital library of radiant photos and stories of couples-- gay and straight -- celebrating their love and championing equality, is his baby.

In short, it would not be inaccurate to describe this baby as a reflection of the wonderful love and life to be had after a person learns the "itgetsbetter.org" message of Dan Savage.

Arndt has been a Miami resident for six years and an accomplished LGBT activist locally and nationally since his 2003 win on television’s "The Amazing Race 4" made him famous and gave him a strong platform for living. While other men might have used that platform and the blessing of exceptionally good looks to model underwear, Arndt, a product of both Yale and Harvard, aimed higher.

Even an abbreviated list of past and present involvements is lengthy and includes The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Care Resource, Dining Out For Life, Gay American Heroes Foundation, AIDS Walk Miami, GLAAD, Lambda Legal, Human Rights Campaign, 2008 Electoral College and The Hetrick-Martin Institute.

Arndt is a business consultant by profession, and in describing the newly launched C4E, he emphasized its careful positioning.

"I’m an entrepreneur who likes to start a business on the back of a napkin. All the same, I do support existing LGBT programs. For me, C4E is like building a different mousetrap, not necessarily a better mousetrap. We took a long time to set this up before launching it on April 16th. Our site will work in partnership with all other LGBT advocacy groups. C4E is additive, not competitive. We’ve come up with a wonderfully simplistic tag line ’Love Above All’ and the goal is to create water cooler chat among people who might not be part of the LGBT conversation. If a straight person says to a friend ’You should check out the photo I posted on C4E’, we get one step closer to equality because, as everyone knows, a picture is worth a thousand words."

Arndt is pleasantly surprised by C4E’s instantaneous growth. He had thought that he would have to "seed" interest in the site by asking coupled friends to post photos. Instead, he reports the opposite.

"I have no clue who 75 percent of the couples who have posted photos are! Also, 50 percent of the couples are straight, and of the LGBT couples, there is an even split between men and women. Because diversity and inclusion are our major goals, these results are great. Maybe the fact that two of the four co-founders are straight had something to do with that."

In constructing C4E, Arndt took hard questions from LGBT activist-friends who asked him to define the site’s "call to action." He explains it in terms of a recent visit with a friend to an art museum where they inspected a Picasso.

"That painting did not come with instructions. Later over coffee, most of what I got from the painting was entirely different from what my friend got. It is the same with a photo of two people in love. C4E is not going to tell you what it should mean. I am heartened by the number of people who say ’Chip, I get it.’ I felt gratified when a young lesbian couple came up to me at Pride and thanked me for C4E. They had been pressured to live according to rules that were bad for them, and C4E gave them a chance to proclaim their own unique love. That is exactly what I hoped for. When you look at the array of photos on C4E, you are reminded that for many thousands of years, loving couples have come together to build lives that are original, and beautiful because of it."

Arndt’s ability to move hearts and minds goes beyond his business expertise. His gay life has not been lived from the sidelines. He worked with Larry Kramer when ACT-UP was fresh. He lived through the Reagan years of AIDS ignorance and held hands of five friends who died because of it. His stories of coming out publically, privately and professionally seem always to have been inadvertently lived on the grand scale.

While working on Wall Street as an investment banker, his employer, Morgan Stanley, transferred him to Hong Kong for two years. Closet be damned, he swapped the first class ticket the company gave him for two coach tickets and brought his boyfriend with him. When his life story is made into a movie, only the eye candy du jour should audition for the roles of his gorgeous and famous ex-lovers and boyfriends.

Like all good business consultants, Arndt has a long range plan made clear on the C4E website: "Going forward, Couples for Equality will syndicate its materials and gallery, partnering with organizations and not-for-profits which advocate similar values in an effort to educate people on the importance of supporting diverse relationships without judgment or legal obstacles." He emphasizes the fact that changing hearts and minds is not only about legislation. Just as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has not yet eliminated discrimination, the eventual repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and other oppressions will not end our need to see the many faces of love.

I thoroughly enjoyed shuffling through the C4E photos and am proud my husband and I are among the first few hundred couples featured. So far, 9 countries and 22 states are represented. Also, if you are single and therefore not about to post a couples shot, the yenta in me would like you to know that the handsome Chip Arndt is also single. I’m just saying.

Lady Gaga beats Oprah to become world’s most powerful celebrity

Lady Gaga is ranked the world's most powerful celebrity

By Jessica Geen -


Lady Gaga has knocked Oprah Winfrey off the top spot on Forbes’ annual list of the 100 most powerful celebrities.
The singer and gay rights campaigner won the top spot for her social media power.
Forbes editor Dorothy Pomerantz told Reuters: “She can use Twitter and Facebook to work the ‘little monsters’ into a frenzy that leads to record sales and media attention.
“She’s the best example of how celebrities will need to manage their careers in the coming years.”
Gaga has 32 million Facebook fans and was the first celebrity to reach ten million followers on Twitter.
The star frequently uses social networking to spread awareness of gay rights, such as her support for ending the US military ban on openly gay solders.
Winfrey, whose show is to end soon after 25 years, came in at number two on the list. Justin Bieber is at three and is also the youngest person on the list. U2 are in fourth position and Sir Elton John was ranked fifth.

Researchers Find New Avenue to HIV Hope--Via Monkeys

By Kilian Melloy -

Researchers have found promising new leads in the fight against AIDS, both involving monkeys.

British scientists have hit on a new angle in the quest for a vaccine against HIV by modifying a simian virus and creating a new inoculation that boosts monkeys’ ability to fend off SIV, the simian version of the virus that causes AIDS, reported the BBC News on May 12.

HIV is thought to be an adaptation of SIV that jumped from monkeys to humans. Such viral jumps from one species to another are not uncommon. The new inoculation creates antigens that target SIV and destroy the virus, even months--possibly years--later.

The new vaccine provided protection against SIV to half of the trial’s two dozen monkeys, the article said. Study author Louis J Picker, who is with the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute in Oregon, told the media that the 13 monkeys that benefited from the treatment seemed to have the virus eliminated from their systems.

Though modern drug regimens can reduce the viral load in human patients to undetectable levels, the virus is still present and would rapidly replicate in the absence of daily doses of anti-retrovirals. In only one case has a human patient seemingly been "cured" of HIV, a bone marrow transplant patient who received marrow from a donor with a mutation that naturally gave him resistance to the virus.

Health experts are cautious, however, about declaring the patient cured, because HIV can shelter in the body’s tissues for years and reemerge later on.

Still, in the case of the monkey vaccine trials, scientists were optimistic, the BBC article reported.

"I’m excited by the science because it really does demonstrate that it may be possible to eradicate the HIV virus by a strong immune response," Oxford University’s Sir Andrew McMichael said. "But at the same time I’m scratching my head how to take this approach into humans."

The problem lies with the vaccine’s synthesis from a simian disease, rhesus cytomegalovirus, which could pose a health threat of its own to human subjects.

"The breakthrough here is in using a viral-delivered vaccine that persists--essentially using an engineered virus to thwart a pathogenic virus," explained Imperial College’s Robin Shattock. "The tricky part will be showing it is safe and effective in humans."

However, the risks may be small to begin with.

"On one level 99% of people in sub-Saharan Africa are CMV-positive and half the people in the developed world are, so we know at lot about it and it’s mostly non-pathogenic, except in vulnerable populations like pregnant women," said Picker. "We’re fully aware to make it available to humans, then the next step is to make a virus which retains or has an enhanced ability to make effector memory cells, but no longer has the capacity to infect vulnerable parts of the population."

Researchers also noted that monkeys benefitting from the vaccine seemed to have a genetic basis for their response, AFP reported on May 5.

"It tells us--probably much to our surprise--that there will likely be in humans certain genes expressed by some people but not in others that may well be contributing to protection," said Harvard Medical School’s Norman Letvin. "So that we not only have to look at vaccine-induced antibody responses but we also have to look at the genetic makeup of the individuals who are being vaccinated because these data in monkeys suggest that both of these can be contributing."

The new study relates to a 2009 study in which a vaccine was tested on monkeys and showed promising results--but then the protective effect faded in a few years.

"We have demonstrated in the [earlier] vaccine trial that with existing technologies we see modest protection against HIV infections," noted Letvin. "If we couple that optimistic data in humans with the kind of data we generated in this study with monkeys, as well as other studies in monkeys, it suggests that if we can induce an even better antibody response through vaccination.

"Maybe with our next generation vaccine we can get that up to 50 percent or 60 percent or even higher levels of protection, and that protection can be even more durable," Letvin added.

Kilian Melloy is EDGE Media Network’s Web Producer and Assistant Arts Editor. He also reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes aggregate news stories and commentary for EDGE.

Mitchell Gold Still Calling Out "Religious-Based Bigotry"

Mitchell Gold protests the National 
Prayer Breakfast in Washington, 
D.C., in February.

By Joseph Erbentraut -

Furniture entrepreneur-extraordinaire and gay activist Mitchell Gold is certainly one busy man.

Gold, who lives in Taylorsville, N.C., with his business partner Bob Williams, runs the multi-million dollar furniture company he co-founded in 1989. It started with a staff of 23, but the company has expanded to dozens of stores throughout the country and 700 employees.

But Gold is also an author, philanthropist and activist. Well before "It Gets Better" took LGBT youth advocacy viral, Gold founded the organization Faith in America in 2005 with the hope of "counter-messag[ing] the bigotry, prejudice and hostility toward the LGBT community being sold to the public for several decades under the guise of religious belief and religious teaching."

The organization’s advocacy also led to the publishing of a book, titled "Crisis", which will be re-titled "Youth in Crisis" and released in paperback this year. The work tells the stories of LGBT Americans’ struggles of growing up within an environment laden with inequality.

His organization most recently unveiled a new billboard campaign in his home state that asks a simple question: "Is the Republican Party the party of religion-based bigotry?" Faith in America has also taken out advertisements with similar messaging in local newspapers in response to Republican-authored bills currently before North Carolina lawmakers that would ban marriage for same-sex couples. The measures could also bar domestic partnerships and civil unions between queer couples.

This activism all part of the company’s two-pronged mission to "make the world a more comfortable place" for all-a mission that has thus far proven quite successful on both fronts.

Gold and Williams were recently in Chicago to check in on the progress of their latest store at 1555 N. Halsted St. that is set to open in August.

Gold told EDGE the store has been a long time coming. The recession delayed his and Williams’ plans, and it took time to find an ideal location. Gold said the company is back on track after a "very good" year in 2010.

The store will showcase Gold and Williams’ signature hybrid style that combines an authentic, comfortable, American vibe with a fresh and contemporary twist-their forthcoming fall collection will reflect this trend. And Gold added the store will also host parties and other events with the city’s LGBT advocacy groups.

This writer wondered aloud whether their unrepentant advocacy ever hindered the company’s bottom line? Gold admitted there were probably some people out there who are unhappy with his marriage of activism and business, particularly near his home base-the "buckle of the Bible Belt" as he described it.

"But for the most part people have been really receptive," added Gold. "One of the things I want to do is educate people about the harm that has been caused to young LGBT kids when they’re bullied at their school, by their parents or in their churches. We believe that when people understand the harm that has caused to young people, they don’t want to be a part of that. We’re educating them that that is exactly what is happening right now."

The struggles of LGBT youth are on the national radar in a way previously unparalleled, thanks in large part to the exposure of Dan Savage’s "It Gets Better" project. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and countless Hollywood types, corporations and thousands of others-famous and non-famous alike-have contributed videos.

"I think it’s fantastic," said Gold, discussing Savage’s project. "I wish when I was 15 years old I could have seen something like what [Savage] or so many other contributors are saying that it gets better to talk me through a difficult period."

Gold described Obama’s video was "remarkable" as he imagined in retrospect what an impact a similar message from Nixon or Eisenhower could have made.

But Gold said there is still incredible pain being experienced by LGBT youth out there today, particularly in places where they may not have access to welcoming messages on the Internet that reduce isolation. Looking toward the 2012 presidential election, he said the leading Republican contenders outside long shot gay candidate Fred Karger have all steered sharply towards the right on queer issues.

"With the exception of [Karger], they are all taking anti-gay positions, including Donald Trump who for years has been, to my understanding, a decent employer open to gay people working in his company," added Gold. "For him to feel he has to take up the position of being anti-gay is, I think, hypocritical and disgraceful."

While he shares many LGBT activists’ frustration with Obama’s heel-dragging over marriage equality and the Defense of Marriage Act, the slow implementation of the repeal of "don’t ask, don’t tell" and federal employment protections for LGBT Americans, Gold said this angst would most effectively be channeled toward continued dedication to education and advocacy.

"I’m disappointed [in Obama] also, but I’m also disappointed that we haven’t done a better job [as a community] of educating him and the rest of the country about why LGBT equality should be happening," he added. "I would like to see members of the community take the position that religion-based bigotry has to come to an end in this country and we can’t be afraid to use those words. That’s how we educate people, because you can’t talk about the disease if you don’t know what it’s called."

Joseph covers news, arts and entertainment and lives in Chicago. Log on to www.joe-erbentraut.com to read more.

White House Objects to DADT Amendment

Duncan Hunter 

By Chris Geidner -

The White House is expressing ’’serious objections’’ this evening to an amendment approved by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) on May 11 that would add another step to the process laid out in the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act for ending the military’s ban on openly gay, lesbian and bisexual service.

The amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), proposed by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and approved on a 33-27 vote, expands the required certification process for repeal to include the sign-off of the service branch chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.

White House spokesman Shin Inouye, responding to a request from Metro Weekly about President Barack Obama’s position on Hunter’s amendment, wrote, ’’The President is working with the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to certify, pursuant to the repeal bill, that implementation of the new policies and regulations written by the Department is consistent with the standards of military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention of the Armed Forces.’’

He added, ’’We have serious objections to any amendment that would unnecessarily delay this process.’’

Although two Republicans on the committee voted against the amendment - Reps. Todd Russell Platts (R-Pa.) and Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.) - one Democrat - Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.) - voted for the change. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) did not vote on the amendment.

On a 60-1 vote taken early in the morning of May 12, the House Armed Services Committee ended the marathon session that had begun a little past 10 a.m. the previous day by sending the NDAA - with Hunter’s amendment and two others that were opposed by LGBT equality organizations - to the full House for consideration.

Although the Republican-controlled House would appear likely to pass the NDAA with the amendments included when it considers the bill as soon as the week of May 23, it is unlikely that the Democratic-controlled Senate would include Hunter’s amendment in its version of the NDAA - particularly in light of the fact that, when asked in December 2010, none of the service chiefs said such an amendment was necessary.

Moreover, the timing of when the NDAA would be passed by both chambers, have differences worked out in the conference committee and be sent to the president for his signature or veto make it highly likely - even if Hunter’s amendment was included and the president signed it - that the provision would be moot by time it became law given the timeline for certification that has been expressed by military officials.

On April 1, testifying before the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Clifford Stanley had laid out a plan that he suggested could end DADT by September - although he would not give a specific date.

Stanley said at the time that he ’’anticipate[s] the training will be completed by this summer.’’ At that time, Pentagon officials detailed that about 9 percent - or 200,000 - of servicemembers had been trained. The director of the Joint Staff, Vice Adm. William Gortney, later clarified, ’’We anticipate about mid-summer ... to get the recommendations from the service chiefs to the chairman.’’

Assuming that certification happens at that time, the 60-day congressional review period required under the law would start and, at the conclusion of that period, the DADT law - 10 U.S.C. 654 - would be repealed.

Although Hunter’s amendment - especially in light of today’s criticism from the White House - appears unlikely to be a part of the final bill or, at least, likely to be made irrelevant by final DADT repeal happening before the amendment could become law, the fate of two other amendments is less clear at this early point in the NDAA congressional process.

An amendment proposed by Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) and approved on a 39-22 vote ’’reaffirms the policy of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act.’’ The amendment - made applicable to the NDAA by referencing Department of Defense rules and regulations, as well as DOD employees - also repeats section 3’s policy of defining ’’marriage’’ and ’’spouse’’ as relating only to opposite-sex marriages.

Much of the discussion of the amendment focused on opposition to the Feb. 23 decision by the Department of Justice to stop its legal defense of section 3 of DOMA in pending court challenges.

McIntyre again voted ’’yes’’ on the amendment, along with three other Democrats - Reps. Silvestre Reyes (Texas) and Larry Kissell (N.C.) and Del. Madeleine Bordallo (Guam). All Republicans supported the measure.

Another amendment, offered by Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) and approved on a 38-23 vote, goes a step farther than Hartzler’s amendment by expanding upon the current restrictions of DOMA. Akin’s amendment prohibits weddings from taking place on military installations - such as bases - or other Department of Defense property if they don’t comply with DOMA. It also prohibits chaplains or other DOD employees from performing non-DOMA-complaint marriages while ’’acting in an official capacity.’’

The amendment, which effectively bans same-sex marriages from being performed at military bases or by military employees, was a response to a Navy memorandum released earlier in the week, which detailed legal guidance that such weddings, where legal under state law, could be performed on military property.

With the vote on Akin’s amendment, McIntyre made it a trifecta, supporting the amendment along with fellow Democrats Kissell and Rep. Mark Critz (Pa.). As with the Hartzler amendment, all Republicans on the committee voted ’’yes.’’

Although asked to comment on all three amendments, the White House’s response referenced only its objection to amendments that would delay the DADT repeal process - something that neither Hartzler nor Akin’s amendments would appear to do.

Copyright MetroWeekly. For more articles from MetroWeekly visit www.metroweekly.com

Ken Mosesian: It Takes A Village To Have A Child - And Then Some!

By David Mixner -

So you want to have children? Great! LGBT persons have more options than ever before, such as third-party reproduction, including surrogacy and egg donation, Intra Uterine Insemination (IUI), In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) coupled with sperm donation, and various forms of adoption, including domestic, international and foster care adoption.
We also have more roadblocks, especially inconsistent laws governing all of the above, and the lack of marriage equality, which impacts virtually every aspect of family life that our straight counterparts don’t have to be as concerned about.
Bottom line: before you begin building your family, you need to do some soul-searching about key issues, and you need to build a support team that includes not only family and friends but also seasoned professionals to help you navigate the process.

Here’s the Top 10 List:

1.  What’s important to you? For some, it’s genetics. You want your child to have your DNA, or a biological link to either yourself or your partner. For others, it’s giving a child a stable and loving home. How does your current family figure into this decision? How will you discuss your decision to have children? How will you deal with your child’s origins as he or she grows, and begins asking questions? 

2.  If you’re going to be using a sperm donor or an egg donor, do you want to know them or not? How would you feel about your child seeking out his or her egg or sperm donor at some point? What if the donor wanted to establish a relationship with your child? 

3.  If surrogacy is your choice, which kind of surrogacy? Traditional surrogacy or a gestational carrier? 

4.  Are you considering a family member as a surrogate? This is not uncommon among gay men, where one partner’s close relative, such as a sister, offers to carry the child. Note that in order to protect both your surrogate and your baby, if the woman you are considering has never successfully carried a child to term before, you are advised to not consider this option. 

5.  What are the laws governing all forms of third-party reproduction, adoption, and foster care adoption in your state – and in your country and the country from which you are considering adopting? Is marriage or domestic partnership an option? If so, what rights are conferred as they pertain to family? Remember, you need to know the laws as they pertain to LGBT persons specifically. A word of caution if you are considering adoption: legally, all people pursuing adoption are required to have a home study. If you lie about anything at all during this process, including your sexual orientation, any adoption you attempt can be legally invalidated. In order to protect yourself and your future family, you must answer all questions asked of you truthfully during your home study. You do not, however, need to volunteer information that is not asked of you. Your best bet is to work with a gay friendly adoption agency, and accept their recommendation for the social worker that will clear you during this process. 

6.  Find the professionals who can best serve you and who are skilled in dealing with issues specific to LGBT persons. These will most likely include a physician – probably a reproductive endocrinologist, attorney, donor and/or surrogacy agency or adoption agency, and a mental health professional. 

7.  If you are using a surrogate and multiples result from the transferred embryo(s), what are your feelings about “selective reduction”, which is in essence aborting one or more embryo? Has this been discussed with your surrogate? 

8.  If you are a person of faith, what does your faith teach about these issues? Is it important that your faith community and your clergy support you in this process? Will they? 

9.  What will happen to your child(ren) if you divorce or separate? What will happen if you and/or your partner or spouse dies or faces catastrophic long-term illness? 

10.  What benefits, if any, does your employer provide for new parents, and for children of same sex couples? 

It’s a lot of information to consider, but well worth the time.

Ken Mosesian is the Executive Director of The American Fertility Association (The AFA). The AFA www.theafa.org/library has a library filled with articles, fact sheets, and HD videos on LGBT Family Building, Third Party Reproduction, and Adoption. You can also click “Find a Professional” on the homepage www.theafa.org to search for LGBT-friendly providers in your area.


for more from David visit Live from Hell's Kitchen.

Delaware governor signs civil unions bill into law for gay, lesbian couples beginning in 2012

WILMINGTON, Del. — Delaware Gov. Jack Markell has signed a bill into law that gives same-sex couples legal protections and recognition beginning in 2012.

It makes Delaware the eighth state to allow civil unions or domestic partnerships for same-sex couples.

The Democratic governor signed the civil unions bill Wednesday night before a cheering crowd of more than 600 at The Queen theater Wilmington.

The law takes effect Jan. 1, 2012.

At an event organized by Equality Delaware, Markell said the legislation is a historic moment for the state. He says it serves the greater good to speak out and oppose bias, prejudice or outdated laws that “lessen any one of us.”

Markell says that for the children of gay and lesbian parents, the law will recognize their families with equality.

Rachel Maddow - It's Ok To Be Takei!

George Takei has a solution for Tennessee's 'Don't Say Gay' Bill.

Where next for Brazil's gay rights?

Gay pride in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2010.

Same-sex unions have been legalised in Brazil, but work still needs to be done to improve tolerance of sexual diversity

By Toni Reis -

The 5 May 2011 was an historic day for the rights of lesbians and gay men in Brazil. The country's supreme court ruled unanimously that partnerships between same-sex couples must be recognised as being equal in every legal aspect to partnerships between unmarried heterosexual couples. Prior to the ruling some, but not all, public notaries would register a document stating that the couple lived together. Such documents did not, however, have guaranteed legal value, were subject to interpretation and could be disregarded. Same-sex couples could also take their claim to court, requiring legal recognition of their partnerships. For the most part, such cases were judged by the civil courts and not the family courts, and were regarded as a business partnership – only protecting assets, rather than a relationship of love and affection, with its ensuing rights and obligations.

All notaries are now obliged to register, when requested, same-sex partnerships as a legally recognised "family entity", just as they do with heterosexual couples. This opens the way for a series of rights previously denied to same-sex couples in Brazil, such as joint adoption of children, inheritance, the consideration of both partners' income when applying for loans or mortgages or the right for one partner to take decisions regarding the other's medical treatment in cases of incapacity. The ruling also brings obligations that did not previously exist for same-sex couples in the event of separation.

The matter was taken to the supreme court by the government of the state of Rio de Janeiro in 2008, after its recognition of the same-sex partners of state government civil servants as dependants was challenged at the local level. The federal government's attorney general's office added weight to the battle in 2009, by filing a claim that the failure to recognise same-sex partnerships in Brazil was unconstitutional. Last Thursday's ruling found in favour of both cases.

The executive branch of the federal government has also made considerable progress in implanting affirmative policies for the LGBT population, starting with the Brazil Without Homophobia programme in 2004. In 2008, the president convened the first national LGBT conference, preceded by LGBT conferences in all 27 of the country's states. The conference's recommendations were systematised into the national plan to promote LGBT citizenship and human rights, launched in 2009. Also in 2009, the federal government created an LGBT department within the structure of its human rights secretariat. More recently, in March this year, the national LGBT council was created, having 15 governmental and 15 non-governmental members. The council's role is to guide and assist in the formulation of public policies for the LGBT population and to act as a "watchdog" over their implementation.

Different to its counterparts, however, the legislative branch at federal level leaves a lot to be desired. Since the country adopted its new constitution in 1988, the national congress has not approved a single bill on LGBT matters. A bill proposing the legal recognition of same-sex partnerships has been waiting to be voted on since 1995.

Nonetheless, the progress that has been made has coincided with the growth and strengthening of the LGBT movement in Brazil. In the early 1990s, there were fewer than 20 LGBT organisations nationwide. Today, there are over 300. Before 1995, there were no LGBT pride marches. Today there are over 270. In recent years the São Paulo LGBT pride march has attracted more than 3 million participants. Increased visibility, political organisation and influence have been essential for the advances achieved.

But much still needs to be done to improve tolerance of sexual diversity. A large national Unesco survey in secondary schools in 2004 found that 40% of male students would not like to study in the same classroom as an LGBT student, and 35% of parents shared the same restriction. More recent surveys have confirmed this data. There are no official national statistics on homophobic violence, but NGO monitoring of media crime pages shows that on average one LGBT person is murdered every two days in Brazil because of their sexuality. Although this figure must be considered proportionately to the overall high number of murders nationwide, it is nevertheless alarming and unacceptable.

Other priorities on the agenda of the LGBT movement in Brazil, yet to be conquered, include a law to prohibit and punish homophobic discrimination and a law allowing transgender persons to change their forenames in keeping with their gender identity. We hope that the example given by the supreme court last week will spur the national congress into taking action.

DADT Debrief: Harmful amendments passed

Early this morning, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) concluded an exhaustive 16-hour session debating the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Despite the volume of pressing current issues facing our nation’s military and indeed, our national security, opponents of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) repeal simply would not let this settled issue lie. As we feared and warned supporters of repeal over the last few weeks, the HASC passed harmful amendments aimed at delaying and derailing repeal implementation and attacking LGBT dignity. These amendments jab at various aspects of repeal: Rep. Todd Akin's (R-MO) amendment would ban members of the armed forces, DoD employees, and chaplains from assisting in or performing same-sex marriages and restrict base facility usage for those marriages; Rep. Vicky Hartzler's (R-MO) amendment would restate DOMA language to explicitly include our armed forces, improperly attempting to legislate on the issue of marriage through a bill to provide for the national defense; and Rep. Duncan Hunter's (R-CA) amendment would expand certification to the service chiefs, who have already testified that they do not need this authority. These scare tactics and anti-equality amendments have several things in common: they are based in unfounded fears and shameless personal politics. They aim to slow down repeal no matter the cost, even if it means ignoring the testimony and advice of our nation’s most senior military leaders and undermining our rank-and-file troops who are just trying to do their jobs. Hopefully, with certification in hand and the 60 days expired, the Hunter amendment may well be moot this fall. However, the passage of these amendments that would expand the DOMA law already on the books – essentially “DOMA-plus” – means we must continue to fight back when the defense bill goes to the full House for a vote later this month. Make no mistake – it will be hard to win there, but this is an important fight we must wage. This does matter. Some of the DOMA-plus language adopted by HASC could pass the Senate and end up in conference committee this fall. As a result, our troops could be stuck with DOMA-plus. You have proven through your countless phone calls to the HASC this week that you will not stand down in the face of these threats. Our repeal allies, like former Rep. Patrick Murphy and the 85 organizations that signed on to our coalition letter to the HASC, have penned their opinions to the same effect. Together, we will stand strong and fight back.  Your contribution today will help us keep up the fight. Our troops, their families, and our country deserve better. Thank you for standing up for service members with us.  Aubrey Sarvis Army veteran and SLDN Executive Director

Larry King for HRC's NYers for Marriage Equality

CNN's Larry King supports marriage equality. Do you? http://www.hrc.org/NY4marriage