Civil Rights

A new poll finds that the majority of Americans believe that marriage equality is a civil rights issue, and that it will inevitably become legal – whether they support it or not. [ Read more → ]

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- LGBT advocates and civil rights groups have joined with the American Civil Liberities Union (ACLU) in calling on Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear to veto a religious freedom bill approved in the state Senate last week. [ Read more → ]

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that marriage equality for gays and lesbians is the next big civil rights issue. [ Read more → ]

A Wyoming lawmaker on Monday testified that she is tired of hearing gays and lesbians equate their struggle for civil rights to the efforts of mixed-race couples to secure the legal right to marry in the late 1960s. [ Read more → ]

Presidential inauguration days are often filled with pomp, circumstance, cheering crowds, and moments to remember, but rarely do they so perfectly illustrate a dramatic shift in our country’s understanding and acceptance of cultural changes. The second inauguration of President Barack Obama did just that. ... To be sure, having our President call for full equality for gay Americans in what is one of the biggest and most viewed speeches of his Presidency is monumental. [ Read more → ]

Vice President Joseph Biden apparently called LGBT discrimination the “civil rights issue of our time” before an Obama campaign office in Florida, according to a pool report. [ Read more → ]

Democracy is about participation — it’s about caring about an issue so much that you’ll go door-to-door in your neighborhood talking to voters about marriage equality. Heck, you might not even be in your neighborhood. We’re so quick to judge when we lose an amendment or a referendum, but how quick are we to be out knocking on doors and making calls for equality? [ Read more → ]

Since the national ascendancy of Barack Obama, many commentators have tried to make hay out of an alleged rift between gay and black communities in the United States – from conservative groups or commentators hoping to drive a wedge between two typically-Democratic voting blocs, to well-intentioned activists across the spectrum citing racism in gay culture or homophobia in black communities. [ Read more → ]

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Sunday said that he supports “dignity and respect” for all Americans, including gays and lesbians, but doesn't agree that applies to same-sex marriage. [ Read more → ]

Perhaps you’ve already heard about the “2012 Worldwide LGBT Civil Rights March,” slated for Saturday, April 21, and are eagerly making plans to attend. Odds are, though, that you haven’t. [ Read more → ]

Maine, Washington, and Maryland are all closer than ever to marriage equality, but the Governor of New Jersey thinks that civil rights should be put to a popular vote -- whether it's marriage today, or school desegregation in the 1950s. This week's Marriage News Watch report is here... [ Read more → ]

I have always believed that once you recognize a wrong you become an accessory to injustice if you continue to live in a way that accommodates that wrong ... Yet, many of us -- gay, transgender and allies -- are choosing silence when our voices and actions could be a part of a movement forward. [ Read more → ]

Not only has Rick Snatorum used the lackluster comparison of napkins and paper towels as a justification to denying gay couples marriage rights, he is now comparing the 10th amendments guarantee that a state can enact marriage equality if it wants too, to states having the authority to legalize slavery. [ Read more → ]

The former Secretary of State of Ohio, Ken Blackwell, (now a research fellow at the certified hate group the Family Research Council) wrote at Townhall.com on Monday regarding marriage equality and the diverse nature of those who are supposedly protecting traditional marriage. [ Read more → ]

Lou Engle, a prominent preacher at the Kansas City-based International House of Prayer, recently said that homosexuals “might” have civil rights in America, but that “it is not their right given by God.” [ Read more → ]

I’ve been struggling to find a meaningful way to discuss the Oslo tragedy -- and I’m at the point of simply admitting the sheer frustration I have with my abilities as a writer, as a therapist, as a commentator -- and as a human being. Maybe you’re there, too. [ Read more → ]