Page 219
-
President Obama’s executive action must include transgender immigrants
Today is a day full of promise, mourning, and reflection. On this Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), President Barack Obama is announcing major executive action on immigration. And on TDoR, we remember the hundreds of senseless murders that our community faces worldwide each year, which disproportionately target trans women of color…
-
An open letter to Rose McGowan on turning misogyny into feminism
Rose McGowan’s opinions have been all over social media the past few weeks. She started in an interview with a now infamous diss that gay men are “more misogynistic than hetero men.” … From my perspective with grass roots advocates, I submit that if she truly believes there have not been huge outcries over women’s concerns, of which equal pay is just one, then she simply has not been listening.
-
The Christian Right’s version of religious liberty is equality you can’t access
The Christian Right’s fight against LGBTQ rights is different from their fight against abortion in many ways — but there are also striking similarities. The Christian Right is already seeking to redefine religious liberty as a way of allowing LGBTQ rights to remain intact, but to obstruct — and sometimes eliminate — people’s ability to exercise them. Indeed, many of the same Christian Right leaders and organizations that have been seeking to reduce access to abortion are now seeking to limit the scope of LGBTQ rights and marriage equality.
-
The paths to same-sex marriage review by the U.S. Supreme Court
Depending upon how fast lawyers choose to move, the issue of same-sex marriage could be back before the Supreme Court in a matter of days. So far, only one option has been closed off. The remaining options have some, perhaps considerable, chances of success. The decision Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, upholding bans on same-sex marriage in four states, has clearly increased the prospect that the Justices will now take on one or more appeals — perhaps even in time for decision in the current term…
-
The amazing story of two dads who save their son’s life, over and over, each and every day
A little boy named Grayson is one of the most special children in the world. It all started with a haircut. Chad, a 22 year old young man, not out about his sexuality, got into Wayne’s chair at a salon. After discovering a sincere enjoyment of each other, they went on a date a week later. Over the course of a year, they realized their slow moving relationship had built into something very solid between them. At the time, they had no idea how solid it was going to have to be.
-
How Fox News is trying to kill Houston’s LGBT equal rights ordinance
Fox News helped turn a bogus story about subpoenas sent to a handful of Houston pastors into a national rallying cry for religious liberty. Now the network is helping promote an event that will pit some of the country’s most extreme anti-LGBT voices against the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance. In May, the city of Houston made history by enacting the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), a measure that prohibits discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and several other categories…
-
A survival guide for Christians who have been fighting against marriage equality
Many of us have been in the Marriage Equality war for a long, long time. I remember a drag queen host taking the microphone at San Jose Pride about a dozen years ago. She saw a group with “Freedom to Marry” t-shirts, and with a twinge of sadness remarked, “Oh honeys, they are NEVER going to let us get married, ever. You may as well give that one up right now.” She was wrong. As in all wars, there is a foe. In the United States, the foes tend to call themselves “Christians” …
-
Christian right undermines marriage equality with religious supremacism
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That vision of history’s progression has been well illustrated by the past year’s landslide of advances for marriage equality. And as we move closer to a more just society, the nature of the opposition is revealed in the nature of the backlash. The Christian Right has been operating on multiple fronts to stop — or at least limit — the scope of the advance of marriage equality…
-
Intersex Awareness Day calls attention to an often ignored, misunderstood community
Today is Intersex Awareness Day, an internationally observed civil awareness day designed to highlight the challenges faced by intersex people. It is often the case that the intersex community gets ignored, mis-categorized, or simply misunderstood. Worse still, intersex people are often denied even the basic right to self-definition, information, and knowledge and are sometimes forced to undergo medical and psychological procedures that damage and traumatize them for life.
-
Almost everything you’ve been told about the Idaho wedding chapel story is a lie
The religious right is spewing hate and lies, claiming that two ministers are being forced to marry same-sex couples — even claiming the ministers have been arrested. How is this possible? Two ministers, Donald and Evelyn Knapp, own a for-profit wedding chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, but say they cannot marry same-sex couples because of their faith…