Via Queerty.com (Original Story)

After filing suit against Minnesota’s Champlin Park High School for sexual orientation discrimination, Desiree “Dez” Shelton (pictured) and Sarah Lindstrom have dropped their case — after the school district said they would let the lesbian couple walk together at a pep rally, where their classmates had voted them into the “Snow Days Pep Fest Royalty Court.” Would it shock you to hear the school district that originally planned to bar the pair from walking together is none other than Anoka-Hennepin School District, the same place where a student accused two teachers of bullying him and where 15-year-old Justin Aaberg was bullied to death?

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Via Queerty.com (Original Story)

When your mortality is on the line, how do you convince a government official you’re “gay enough” to be persecuted? In Britain it takes a fellow gay citizen being murdered because of their sexuality to convince immigration officials to let you stay in their country. In the U.S., claims the New York Times in a whopping piece of anecdotal theorizing, it takes convincing immigration officials you’re a big giant queen who will invite gay bashings back in your homeland just by walking out the door.
If you’re not overtly gay, how can you be persecuted? There’s not exactly a litmus test. Which is a catch-22 for some foreign nationals filing asylum claims in the United States, who feel that unless they show up for their in-person interviews in costume (heels and make-up for men; cropped hair and, uh, bulges for women) they are going to be kicked out of the country. Of course more overt expressions of sexuality and gender identity exist with some refugees. But certainly not at all.

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- www.freedomtomarry.org 1/31/2011

Press Contact:
Jackie Yodashkin
Communications Manager, Freedom to Marry
jac...@freedomtomarry.org
646-430-3925

(New York, NY, January 31, 2011) – Below is a statement from Evan Wolfson, Executive Director of Freedom to Marry, on today’s signing of the Illinois Religious Freedom Protections and Civil Unions Act by Governor Quinn:

“Freedom to Marry applauds Governor Quinn and the Illinois legislature for passing and signing this important recognition of gay and lesbian couples and taking a step toward fairness for Illinois families. Civil union is a way of providing loving and committed couples with significant responsibilities and protections – of particular importance in these difficult economic times.

“Now the legislature and governor should finish the job. Time and again states that have created civil union as a means of both giving and withholding – providing select legal protections while withholding the freedom to marry and all its meaning – have found that civil union falls far short of marriage with all its tangible and intangible significance in our lives. Many of those states – Connecticut, New Hampshire, and even Vermont, which first created civil union – have since pushed past civil union to marriage, recognizing the inadequacy and unfairness of a separate and unequal status. There is no reason to have two lines at the clerk’s office when we can all share in the same responsibilities, same respect, and same rules of civil marriage.”

***

Freedom to Marry is the campaign to win marriage nationwide. We are pursuing our Roadmap to Victory by working to win the freedom to marry in more states, grow the national majority for marriage, and end federal marriage discrimination. We partner with individuals and organizations across the country to end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage and the protections, responsibilities, and commitment that marriage brings.

- By Denis Dison www.gaypolitics.com January 31, 2011

Recent polling shows 72 percent of Coloradans support civil unions for same-sex couples, and if openly gay Colorado State Sen. Pat Steadman (D) has his way, gay and lesbian couples soon gain many of the same benefits, obligations and responsibilities of the state’s married couples. Steadman is set to introduce a detailed civil unions bill that spells out exactly what it would provide for couples who can’t legally marry.

“I think it’s important to show what’s at stake, what rights and responsibilities most people take for granted. So my bill will detail each of those, and I’ll ask opponents to be specific about which rights they think same-sex couples don’t deserve,” said Steadman in an interview with Gay Politics. ”These aren’t special rights. These are all things most people take for granted, because they’re things families deal with at the kitchen table all the time.”

Steadman said he fully expects his bill will pass in the Colorado Senate, which is controlled by Democrats. In the House, where the bill will be championed by openly gay State Rep. Mark Ferrandino, its prospects are less clear. That chamber flipped to Republican control in the 2010 elections.

“I know there is majority support for this bill in the House. There are enough Republicans willing to support it, so that’s not a question. The question is whether the Speaker and his committee chairs will allow it to come to the House floor, and only they can give us that answer,” said Steadman.

One Colorado, a statewide LGBT organization, has built a coalition of some 66 groups representing more than a half million Coloradans who support passage of a civil unions law, and many of the state’s newspaper editorial boards have urged the legislature to act on the issue. ”This is an issue who’s time has come. The public is ready, my colleagues are ready, and I’m going to keep proposing it until it’s done,” Steadman said.

He’ll be joined by supportive colleagues, including Ferrandino and two more openly gay and lesbian state legislators. ”I’ve watched the tenor of the debate change because of the presence of out legislators on the floor,” Steadman said. ”You hear them talking with their colleagues, saying, ‘Remember, you’re talking about me. Someone you know. Someone you work with.’ Out, visible and active participating LGBT legislators have made a difference in our state legislature.”

Here’s hoping they can also change the minds of the state’s House leadership.

By Josh Bell Jan 31, 2011 www.freedomtomarry.org

Via Joe.My.God (Original Story)

Exodus International invites you to pray away the gay at their upcoming Phoenix conference where the “ex-lesbian” wife of “ex-gay” former rentboy/drag queen John Paulk will speak. You may remember Paulk from the hilarious incident in which Wayne Besen busted him partying and chatting up menz in a DC gay bar, prompting Paulk to flee in the room screaming as he shielded his face from Besen’s camera. Whoopsie! Paulk was then forced to confess to Focus On The Family head James Dobson that he’d been in the bar for the purpose of “flirting.” That got Paulk booted as chairman of the board of Exodus International. I guess they trust his wife to stay out of Phoenix gay bars.

- www.theadvocate.com January 31, 2011

Advocates want an apology for a Saturday Night Live skit that mocks the transition of transgender women.

The piece, which aired over the weekend, represented a fake ad for “Estro-Maxx,” a hormone replacement therapy. It featured men with facial hair wearing dresses.

The skit has drawn denunciations from the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, Media Advocates Giving National Equality to Transsexual and Transgender People (MAGNET) and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which called for an apology from Comcast and NBC and the piece’s removal.

“The attempted comedy of the skit hinges solely on degrading the lives and experiences of transgender women,” said GLAAD. “Dehumanizing holding people up for ridicule simply on the basis of their identity fuels a dangerous and hurtful climate and puts people in danger, especially given how infrequently the media shines a fair and accurate light on the lives of transgender people.”

- Xan Rice in Nairobi www.guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 January 2011

Angry scenes marred the funeral of murdered Ugandan gay activist David Kato today when the presiding pastor called on homosexuals to repent or “be punished by God”.

Towards the end of an emotional ceremony to mourn Kato, who was bludgeoned to death on Wednesday, Anglican pastor Thomas Musoke launched into a homophobic tirade, shocking the dozens of gay men and women as well as foreign diplomats in attendance.

“The world has gone crazy,” Musoke said. “People are turning away from the scriptures. They should turn back, they should abandon what they are doing. You cannot start admiring a fellow man.”

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- www.queerty.com January 29th, 2011

John Skaggs, a 52-year-old regular at Sandbar club in downtown Shreveport, is now in the hospital with horrific facial injuries — including a broken jaw and eye socket — after a reported gay bashing, KSLA reports. William Payne has been charged with attempted second-degree murder after allegedly breaking a pool cue over the face of Skaggs, completely unprovoked. Video surveillance caught the attack and witnesses say Payne made threatening comments toward Skaggs; the two men had no interaction otherwise. Security at Sandbar held Payne down until authorities arrived. Payne faces an additional charge of committing a hate crime.

Read more: http://www.queerty.com/brutal-gay-bashing-leaves-john-skaggs-hospitalized-after-man-breaks-pool-cue-over-his-face-20110128/#ixzz1CMyfPnEY

- Jillian Rayfield www.tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com January 28, 2011

The Heritage Foundation has shifted its explanation for backing out of this year’s CPAC conference, with James Weidman, a foundation spokesman, telling the New York Times: “GOProud was one element in the decision.”

A number of conservative groups and politicians aren’t participating in the annual conservative conference — some citing GOProud’s involvement as the reason.

Heritage has previously been quick to deny that its decision had anything to do with GOProud’s participation, and the Wall Street Journal reported them saying earlier this month:

We hope that CPAC will better define what they are about,” say Heritage’s vice president for communications, Mike Gonzalez, who said the decision was not directly linked to GOProud’s participation.Ben Smith wrote yesterday that Gonzalez has suggested “that it was just a matter of cutting down the number of events they participate in.” And Dave Weigel reported that Heritage told him it was a financial decision.

Though Gonzalez also told World Net Daily at the time: “We believe in the traditional definition of the family. We believe in defending the family against any threats that come against it. We’re not for gay marriage. We don’t think institutions that have existed for millennia can be done away with at the drop of a hat.”

h/t Ben Smith of Politico.