The legislation, which was introduced by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) in the House and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in the Senate, is known as the Housing Opportunities Made Equal Act, or HOME Act.

The measures would amend the Fair Housing Act to prohibit housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as marital status and source of income. Additionally, the bills would amend the Equal Opportunity Credit Act to prohibit LGBT discrimination in credit decisions.

The legislation would outlaw housing discrimination both before and after a housing unit is acquired; bolster non-discrimination protections for the disabled and LGBT parents with children; and provide the U.S. attorney general with pre-litigation investigative power to enforce the law.

In a statement, Nadler said the bill is necessary to ensure LGBT people aren’t ”subjected to housing discrimination at the hands of the unscrupulous or bigoted.”

“This legislation will ensure that the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act are actually protecting all Americans and guaranteeing people of any sexual orientation, gender identity, marital and familial status, and source of income the right to the housing they choose,” Nadler said.

Scott Brown

Brown's critics have accused him of taking part in a concerted pattern of failure to support LGBT rights, while "It Gets Better" founder Dan Savage noted that "not a single GOP elected official can bring himself or herself to make a video, or participate in the creation of one."

All 10 U.S.House representatives from Massachusetts participated in the video released Wednesday, as did U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Brown’s office said he declined an invitation to take part.

"Sen. Brown's absence in our congressional delegation's video sends a message that he supports kids being bullied or harassed," said state Rep. Carl Sciortino (D-Medford), in a press call on Thursday.

"Now, I don't think that's the message that Sen. Brown wants to send. I'm asking him, as a Senator for the Commonwealth, to stand up and show some leadership on behalf of his LGBT constituents, our young people that are facing violence in our schools, our young people that are being bullied in our schools."

Sciortino noted that in 2006, when Brown was still a Massachusetts state senator, he was the only member of that body voting to uphold then-Governor Mitt Romney's veto of a Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.

Brown's office on Wednesday argued that the Senator has a "strong record" on bullying and said his "main focus right now is on creating jobs and getting our economy back on track."

The National Republican Senatorial Committee on Thursday fired back at Brown's critics. In an e-mail to Politico's senior political analyst and columnist Ben Smith, NRSC communications director Brian Walsh wrote:

If, as the old saying goes, you’re known by the company you keep, than the voters of Massachusetts deserve to know who Democrat Party operatives are teaming up with to spread outrageous attacks on Scott Brown’s character.

It’s truly reached a new level of desperation in their efforts to tear down Scott Brown, but we look forward to hearing whether state and national Democrat leaders agree with Dan Savage’s long history of lewd, violent and anti-Christian rhetoric. Given their press conference call today, one has to presume at this point that they do.

Walsh wasn't the only person to defend Brown -- Eric Fehrnstrom, a political adviser to Brown offered a sharper response, telling reporters:

"Senator Brown believes all people regardless of sexual orientation should be treated with dignity and respect. He has been a leader in fighting for anti-bullying legislation at the state and federal level.

His main focus is creating jobs and getting the economy moving again. In this case, the individual behind the video has made vile and sexually crude comments about Senator Brown. It's reprehensible for Senator Brown's opponents to associate with this person in order to score cheap political points."

Late Thursday afternoon, Savage released the following response:

"I am not the IGB project. The project has had the reach and impact that it's had thanks to tens of thousands of people from all over the world who've participated. [A]nd no one who participates is required to crawl into bed with me.

"It is interesting, though, that not a single GOP elected official can bring himself or herself to make a video, or participate in the creation of one. No GOP elected official can risk being seen letting bullied LGBT kids know that life isn't high school and that it will get better for them."

Savage, who edits the Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger, is best known as an often-raunchy syndicated sex columnist and vocal LGBTQ activist who has taken aim at Republican politicians that he sees as anti-gay hate mongers -- most notably former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, whose last name as been redefined throughn Google searches as the by-product of anal sex.

All 10 U.S.House representatives from Massachusetts participated in the project, as did U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass). Republican Sen. Scott Brown's office said he declined an invitation to take part.

Watch:

The video promotes the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transgender Youth, with Rep. Barney Frank, one of the few openly gay members of Congress, who says, "It will get better because you're helping it to become better, and this is going to be in the end the kind of world we all want to live in."

Brown was invited to participate in the video, which was organized by Kerry’s office, but declined to take part, said two congressional officials, reported the Boston Globe.

“Scott Brown has a strong record at the state and federal level against bullying and believes that all people regardless of sexual orientation should be treated with dignity and respect," said Colin Reed, a spokesman for Se. Brown. "His main focus right now is on creating jobs and getting our economy back on track."

The “It Gets Better Project,” which has since compiled more than 10,000 online videos, was launched by Seattle-based activist and author Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller, in response to the increasing number of teen suicides of kids who were bullied for their perceived sexual orientation.

John Kerry

Even during that election campaign, Kerry never supported a federal Constitutional Amendment to limit marriage to heterosexual couples, but he did express that he believed marriage should be between only one man and one woman.

After his home state, Massachusetts, became the first to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples, he said that he would support a law that banned such marriages providing that it allowed for civil unions.

But now, Kerry supports full marriage equality for all citizens of the United States, regardless of sexual orientation.

And in an op-ed, he describes that change as an "evolution," not a flip-flop. Kerry writes that politicians like himself and President Obama should have the right to evolve. He quotes Muhammad Ali, who once said: “The man who views the world at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

“These seven years of marriage equality in Massachusetts might as well have been 30 years: they erased decades of myths. It’s hard for a lot of young people to even understand the controversy. For them, including my daughters, the right of gay Americans to marry has never been a question.”

For those like him who once considered civil unions to be a sufficient replacement for real marriage equality, Kerry says seeing is believing, noting that no church in Massachusetts has been forced to contradict its teachings since marriage equality became law in Massachusetts in 2003.

Kerry voiced support for the repeal of the archaic and so-called "Defense of Marriage Act." But he admitted that America has a long way to go until GLBT Americans are afforded full equality under the law:

We still have miles to travel. People have to make up their own minds in their own time. But when we grant a right to some citizens but deny it to others, we create a second, unequal class. The America we aspire to doesn’t have any second class citizens.

The full op-ed from Kerry is here.

Kerry

Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts called today for the Food and Drug Administration to lift a “discriminatory” ban on gay men donating blood.

Kerry led a group of 18 senators -- 17 Democrats and one independent -- who sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, urging her to lift the lifetime ban on men who have engaged in homosexual relationships since 1977.

“Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban,” the Democratic senator said in a statement.

“A law that was once considered medically justified is today simply outdated and needs to end, just as last year we ended the travel ban against those with HIV.”

The American Red Cross and other health organizations support ending the ban, saying the law is "medically and scientifically unwarranted."

"All donated blood is mandated to be tested for HIV with two different, highly accurate tests. Between these two tests, the risk of tainted blood entering the blood supply undetected is virtually zero," said Kerry's office.

The FDA, in a statement, defended the ban and said that "while FDA appreciates concerns about perceived discrimination, our decision to maintain the deferral policy is based on current science and data and does not give weight to a donor's sexual orientation."

The ban, enacted at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, bars men who have ever had sex with other men after 1977 from donating blood.

Read Sen. Kerry's thoughtful essay at Bay Windows.