Four federal agencies with roles in ensuring fairness in the federal workplace released a guide on the rights and processes available to applicants and employees who allege sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination, a press release stated. The agencies collaborating on the guide are the U.S. Office of Personnel Management ( OPM ), the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ( EEOC ), the U.S. Office of Special Counsel ( OSC ) and the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board ( MSPB ). The guide is entitled "Addressing Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination in Federal Civilian Employment: A Guide to Employment Rights, Protections, and Responsibilities." Visit http://www.opm.gov/LGBTGuide.
Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence wrote a letter welcoming Indy Pride, an LGBT-rights group, to the state capital for its festival recently, bragging that Indianapolis had been voted the country's "Best Convention City"—but the letter omitted a bit as well, Politico noted. At no point did Pence mention Indiana's LGBT community or the stated purpose of Indy Pride's rally: to celebrate LGBT pride and promote tolerance among the population. Instead, Pence welcomed the group, suggested a few landmarks and mentioned the state's "famous Hoosier Hospitality."
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously to formally consider Stonewall Inn for landmark designation, The New York Observer noted. Located at 51-53 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, Stonewall has been considered the birthplace of the modern LGBT-rights movement. Other sites that activists want designated landmarks include Julius' Bar on 159 W. 10th St.; the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center on 208 W. 13th St.; and the former Gay Activists Alliance Firehouse on 99 Wooster St.
President Obama has named people to key administrative posts, including Shannon Price Minter as a member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships, a press release stated. Minter is legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights ( NCLR ), a position he has held since 2000. Among other things, he is also a member of the boards of directors of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute as well as Gender Spectrum.
The American Medical Association has said there is no "medically valid reason" to exclude transgender individuals from the U.S. military, according to Forbes. The new stand by the nation's largest doctor group, unanimously approved today by the AMA's policy-making House of Delegates, comes amid changing policy by U.S. military branches toward transgender individuals and growing public support for allowing them to serve openly. The AMA said its new policy is intended to help the military modify its regulations barring transgender individuals from serving.
In New Jersey, four men and two of their mothers are suing the nonprofit group Jews Offering New Alternatives for Homosexuality ( JONAH ) on the grounds that it fraudulently claimed that it could change patients' sexual orientation and for characterizing homosexuality as a mental disorder, IBTimes.com reported. The plaintiffs have accused the group of engaging in "unconscionable practices," including making patients strip naked during therapy sessions and subjecting them to slurs regarding their homosexuality. Lawyers for the group have countered that scientists are still debating the nature of sexual orientation, including whether it is fixed or changeable, as well as whether conversion therapies are actually harmful.
William Kizer has described the loss of son Adam Kizer as "the worst pain you can ever imagine," according to Advocate.com . Adam, who came out as bisexual six months ago, killed himself May 26—10 days after sheriff's deputies released him from a mental-health evaluation. "I don't think the boy went a whole week without somebody messing with him," his father told the Press Democrat, recounting how fellow students told Adam he should take his own life. However, school officials told the local media they were oblivious to the bullying.
The Air Force announced policy changes that will make it more difficult to discharge transgender troops, USA Today reported. Troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria or who identify as transgender are generally discharged from serving, based on medical grounds. The new Air Force policy requires those decisions to be reviewed by high-level officials at Air Force headquarters ( instead of doctors and unit commanders ).
Guam's chief federal judge has struck down the local law that restricts marriage to opposite-sex couples, Pacific Daily News reported. In her ruling, Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood said the laws denying marriage rights to same-sex couples were unconstitutional, citing a previous decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Guam. Following her ruling, the courtroom erupted into applause for Loretta M. Pangelinan and Kathleen M. Aguero, the couple who filed the case.
LGBTQ advocates, civil-rights organizations, business leaders and immigrant communities across the nation are celebrating Immigrant Heritage Month. In observance the first-ever month-long celebration, the National LGBTQ Task Force, in a press release, called on President Obama to release all undocumented LGBTQ immigrants from detention centers. At these profit-driven detention facilities, LGBTQ people are fifteen times more likely than others to experience physical assault and rape. It is crystal clear that the most vulnerable cannot be kept safe in these detention centers that is why we are urging the Administration to release all undocumented LGBTQ immigrants once and for all," said Rea Carey, National LGBTQ Task Force's executive director.
Four years after his first presidential campaign was crushed by the weight of his debate gaffe and stump speech mishaps, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry has launched his second bid for the Republican nomination. Perry notoriously said "oops" in a debate when he wasn't able to recall the name of one of three federal agencies he planned to eliminate if elected president, TheWrap noted. He has also been indicted by a grand jury in Austin on two felony charges of abuse of office while he was governor. Ten Republicans have formally announced they'll be seeking their party's nomination, and another five are likely to join.
U.S. Congressman Alan Lowenthal, U.S. Sen. Edward Markey ( Mass. ) and nearly 60 other members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama calling for further executive action to ensure that federal funds are not used to subsidize LGBT discrimination either in the United States or abroad, according to a press release. The letter—signed by 13 U.S. senators and 48 members of Congress—also thanks the president for previous actions and leadership to promote the human rights of LGBT individuals, singling out the administration's recent step of appointing Randy Berry as the U.S. State Department's first-ever special envoy for the human rights of LGBT persons.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts went to a family wedding in Chicago for his lesbian sister, Laura, before leaving on a trade mission, Omaha.com reported. Laura married Brooke Skinner, a brand strategist for Twitter. Laura, among other things, is the leader of LPAC, a lesbian-backed political action committee. Pete, a Republican, has said he loves his sister but opposes same-sex marriage.
Lincoln Chafee—a former Republican, independent, senator and governor of Rhode Island—joined the race for the Democratic presidential nomination with a plea to change to the metric system, believing the switch will help the economy, Time reported. Chafee reiterated that while he and Hillary Clinton agree on most domestic issues, they differ internationally, Politico added. His website shows that Chafee's has four priorities: the middle class, environmental stewardship, protection of personal liberties and aversion to foreign entanglements.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has revealed that he wouldn't win the Republican Party's nomination for president because of his stance on social issues, Towleroad noted. On Fox News, Giuliani said he's not running "[b]ecause I believe I can't get nominated because of my views on gay marriage, I'm in favor gay rights, I'm in favor of gay marriage. I see it as an issue of equality. I'm pro-choice. I'm anti-abortion personally but I'm pro choice. I'm pro-immigrant and I haven't backed down from it."
Talking with CNN, presidential candidate Lindsey Graham spoke kindly and supportively of Caitlyn Jenner ( formerly Bruce Jenner ), who publicly identifies as a Republican, US weekly noted. "If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be a Republican, she is welcome in my party," said Graham, who, along with many other candidates, is seeking the GOP nomination for president in the 2016 election. "I'm a pro-life, traditional marriage kind of guy, but I'm running to be president of the United States." Jenner made her political leanings clear in a talked-about 20/20 interview with Diane Sawyer this past April.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a probable 2016 GOP presidential candidate, has said he supports a constitutional amendment that would allow states to ban same-sex marriage, LGBTQ Nation noted. Appearing on ABC's This Week, Walker said, "I personally believe that marriage is between one man and one woman," in response to a question about the upcoming Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage.
Drag queens descended onto Facebook's headquarters to protest the social network's real-names policy, CNN Money reported. Facebook requires members use "authentic" names on their profiles. If a profile is flagged for having a fake name, that person has to provide Facebook with proof that it is a legitimate name or the person's account will be deactivated. The protesters said the policy discriminates against people who use alternative names.
In an interview with ABC News, Steve Reinboldt's sister said that former U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert sexually abused him when Hastert was a wrestling coach in Yorkville, Illinois, according to Yahoo! News. It is the first time an alleged Hastert victim has been identified by name since his indictment for lying to the FBI and violating federal banking laws to cover-up past misconduct. Reinboldt's sister, Jolene, said she first learned of her late brother's alleged abuse back in 1979, when her brother revealed to her that he was gay and had been out of high school for eight years. In the two decades after Steve's death of AIDS in 1995, Jolene said that she tried to expose Hastert.
In Iowa, a husband and wife are standing by their religious beliefs in spite of damage to their Iowa business for opposing same-sex marriage," OneNewsNow reported. In 2013, Betty and Richard Odgaard refused to host a same-sex wedding at the gallery. The Odgaards were ordered to pay $5,000 to the couple—and also stopped hosting weddings. But the couple is undeterred and now has a ministry called God's Original Design, meant to promote opposite-sex marriage.
In Tennessee, a Chattanooga television station won't run an advertisement in support of same-sex marriage, the Associated Press noted. Marc Solomon—the national campaign director at Freedom to Marry, which produced the 30-second advertisement—said that WRCB-TV deemed the ad too controversial. ( Solomon said other television stations in Chattanooga, Nashville and Memphis are running it. ) Tennessee is one of four states whose ban on same-sex marriage is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Colorado school that barred gay valedictorian Evan Young from coming out during his commencement speech denies it discriminated against the teen, and says no discussion of sexual orientation is appropriate for a graduation ceremony, the Associated Press reported. The Twin Peaks Charter Academy in Longmont announced it was conducting an internal review of what happened after openly gay Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado requested a probe. School board president Kathy DeMatteo, writing to Polis, said officials do not "believe that a discussion of a student's sexual orientation—no matter what that sexual orientation happens to be—is a proper matter for a commencement address. It beggars belief that you do."
However, in a separate incident in Colorado, a high school valedictorian received a standing ovation when she came out as lesbian during her graduation speech in the mountain town of Carbondale, LGBTQ Nation reported. During her weekend speech in Carbondale, Roaring Fork High School graduate Emily Bruell used signs as props and got the standing ovation as soon as she revealed the word "gay." Principal Drew Adams, who had read the speech in advance, called Bruell's speech courageous.
Two students at a Texas middle school were sent home, and several others were told to cover up their "Gay O.K." message they wore on their T-shirts because school officials said the message was a "distraction," according to LGBTQ Nation. The shirts were worn as silent support for a Faubion Middle School seventh-grader who recently came out as gay and, as a result, was bullied by other schoolmates. Administrators focused on a portion of the dress code that states, "Any disruptive or distractive mode of clothing or appearance that adversely impacts the educational process is not permitted."
In North Carolina, a North Carolina pastor told graduating seniors at Kings Mountain High School's annual baccalaureate service that they're going to hell if they are gay, LGBTQ Nation noted. Parents say the message by Pastor Scott Carpenter of the Temple Baptist Church in Kings Mountain, N.C., is bullying from the pulpit, but Carpenter said he has no regrets.
Bail was again denied for a gay-porn actor accused in a shakedown scheme in which a man allegedly paid $500,000 in hush money and turned over a sports car worth nearly $180,000, MyNewsLA.com reported. Teofil Brank—who performs under the name Jarec Wentworth in adult films and on gay-porn sites—received the payments to stop him from exposing details of the alleged victim's paid sexual liaisons with the defendant and other X-rated performers. If convicted of the charges that include extortion, Brank faces more than 10 years in federal prison. The trial date is July 7.
David Olio, an award-winning English teacher in Connecticut, was forced to resign by South Windsor School District officials after reading "Please Master," a 1968 graphic account of same-sex affection by celebrated author Allen Ginsberg, Raw Story noted. School officials stated in Oilo's disciplinary letter that "reading the poem in class showed egregiously poor professional judgment." The controversy actually began when one student in the class begged off a test in a different class the next day, claiming he ( or she ) couldn't concentrate because of the reading of the poem.
In West Virginia, a former Marshall University football player has been accused of two felony civil-rights violations stemming from his alleged April assault on a same-sex couple, according to a SunHerald item. The accusations against 23-year-old Steward Butler were contained in indictments that a Cabell County grand jury unsealed. The criminal complaint states Butler, who was passing by in a vehicle, saw the two kissing. He shouted slurs at them and then punched both in the face. If convicted of violating the state's civil-rights law, Butler faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000 on each charge.
Just one day after an updated nomination for the National Register of Historic places was received in Sacramento, California, the historic Bernie Michels-Thom Carey house was abruptly demolished by developer H.G. Fenton, SDGLN.com reported. The house, located at 2004 El Cajon Boulevard, was important to the San Diego gay and lesbian community because of its place in LGBT history. It is where many honored LGBT leaders went in the early 1970s to organize and plan the Center for Social Services and The San Diego LGBT Community Center.
A man pushed a transgender woman onto a subway track in New York City —an incident the New York Police Department is investigating as a hate crime, Time reported. The man reportedly was behaving erratically at the subway station at Lafayette and Bleecker streets in Manhattan, where the woman was waiting for a southbound train. Other commuters helped the woman back onto the platform. The police are hoping surveillance footage of the man will help them track him down.
After 15 years of living—technically—as "father" and "son," a same-sex Pennsylvania couple were finally able to marry, The Huffington Post reported. Norman MacArthur and Bill Novak, both in their 70s, said "I do" in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The two have been together since their 20s and registered as a domestic partnership in New York in 1994. When they moved to Pennsylvania the only way they could have a formal legal relationship, with all the rights that it entailed, was if one of them legally adopted the other.
The American Bar Association has released the second edition of Transgender Persons and the Law, according to a press release. The book provides a comprehensive update and overview of the laws as well as landmark court cases involving transgender individuals. This edition also discusses the legal documents transgender persons need to understand before completing paperwork in order to change their names, birth certificates and gender identification.
A trend of anti-gay hate crimes in Seattle may be due to the city's gentrification, Out.com noted. Second only to Silicon Valley's tech industry, Seattle's gentrification has spread to Capitol Hill, a popular gay neighborhood. In an article for Bloomberg Business Week, Peter Robinson takes a look at this urban phenomenon as a cause for the neighborhood's rise in homophobia. With a gay mayor, Seattle has become a notably liberal city. However, police records show that crimes targeted at the LGBT community in the first half of 2014 had already surpassed those reported in 2013.
Police in Hartford, Connecticut, now say a local pastor might have been shot because his church has been accepting of the LGBT community, Gay Star News reported. The victim, 54-year-old Rev. Dr. Augustus Sealy of First Church of the Nazarene, was shot three times while he was placing flags outside his church to commemorate Memorial Day. Two of the bullets hit Sealy's leg, while the third one hit his shoulder.
GLAAD will highlight the stories of LGBT Southerners during its Southern Stories Summer Tour, June 12-19, according to a press release. Kicking off in Nashville at the first-ever "Concert for Love and Acceptance," GLAAD will travel to nine additional cities across six states to spotlight stories from the LGBT community that are accelerating acceptance. The tour is presented in partnership with more than a dozen local LGBT organizations. Learn more at http://glaad.org/summertour.
A report released from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law states that closing the gender wage gap would have a significant impact on poverty rates among same- and different-sex couples, and would reduce the poverty wage gap between the two, according to a press release. The report, "The Impact of Wage Equality on Sexual Orientation Poverty Gaps," examines which sources of wage differences—gender, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation—make the biggest impact on poverty among same-sex couples. The report is at williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/workplace/the-impact-of-wage-equality-on-sexual-orientation-poverty-gaps/ .
Philadelphia's first openly gay ordained Presbyterian pastor planned to give an empowering speech at the upcoming TEDxPhiladelphia event, Philadelphia Gay News reported. David Norse, 29, made headlines in 2013 when Broad Street Ministry announced it would ordain the Princeton Theological Seminary grad. Norse is among the featured speakers at TEDxPhiladelphia 2015: And Justice for All, a June 11 conference exploring issues of access of equity.
The unlikely duet of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Lady Gaga added their voices to the campaign against campus sexual assaults, writing a joint editorial in the pages of Billboard magazine, according to Page Six. The duo called on state lawmakers to pass Cuomo's proposed bill to make it easier for victims to report their sexual assault. Cuomo was a supporter of the award-winning 2015 documentary The Hunting Ground, which chronicles challenges faced by campus sexual assault victims.
A Chick-fil-A restaurant is donating food to a gay-pride picnic in Iowa, Business Insider noted. A Coralville outpost of the popular fast food chain is donating 200 sandwiches and side dishes to the Iowa City Pride Fest's picnic on June 19. Some were surprised by the move, given some Chick-fil-A executives' bumpy history with the LGBT community. Equality Rights revealed in 2011 that the chain had donated more than $2 million to anti-gay rights organizations two years earlier.
On June 6, Kansas equality group Planting Peace was slated to host "Wizards Wed at the WBC"—a wedding ceremony between fictional wizards Gandalf ( Lord of the Rings ) and Dumbledore ( Harry Potter ) at the Equality House located across the street from the anti-gay group Westboro Baptist Church, according to a press release. In lieu of wedding gifts, Planting Peace hopes to raise funds for its mission via www.crowdrise.com/WizardsWed/fundraiser/Planting-Peace. Planting Peace has previosly held creative fundraisers on CrowdRise.com like Virtual Pizza, which raised nearly $80,000 in response to the Religious Freedom Reformation Act.
Adidas is celebrating Pride month by updating its signature sneakers with rainbow paint splatters, according to NewNowNext.com . The "Pride Pack" includes the company's flagship shoes, the Stan Smith, which first hit stores in 1965—the same year gays and lesbians held the first organized demonstration for LGBT rights, outside Philadelphia's Independence Hall. Adidas announced the redesigned shoes on Twitter, stating "When walking together, each step forward matters. A portion of proceeds will go to New Avenues for Youth. #Superstar."
Sabra Hummus has included a real-life gay couple in its latest advertising campaign, The Huffington Post reported. Larry Sullivan and Dave Monahan are a married gay couple who both work as actors. Sullivan has appeared in Modern Family, CSI and Will & Grace, while Monahan appeared in Crossing Jordan and Dawson's Creek. In the past, companies like Target, Tiffany, Wells Fargo and Hallmark have all featured ads with same-sex couples, just to name a few businesses.
