Today, the Pennsylvania legislature’s LGBT Equality Caucus announced its membership for the new session. The Caucus stands at 58 members, doubling in membership from last year
I found this really intriguing, given that Outrageous Bingo is the primary fundraiser for two other Pittsburgh organizations- the Gay and Lesbian Community Center (GLCC) and Shephard Wellness Center. There is a long, long history of tension and strained feelings between Delta and the GLCC, that I think each group blames the other for starting.
Harrisburg – Equality Pennsylvania will release a new poll of Pennsylvania voters about equal civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens on Wednesday. Poll results will be released at a press conference where the General Assembly’s LGBT Equality Caucus will announce its new membership. Caucus membership has more than doubled since last session. The news conference will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday in the Capitol Media Center. Media coverage is invited. Members[Read More…]
“Today, the Pentagon took a historic step forward toward righting the wrong of inequality in our armed forces, but there is still more work to be done. Gay and lesbian service members and their families make sacrifices every day, and this country owes them every measure of support we can provide. Since the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the Obama administration has shown true leadership on this issue. But even today, the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act makes inequality for gay and lesbian military families a legal requirement.
On the one hand, gays and the Scouts can seem like an unimportant issue, but in reality this is possibly the single most important story about gay rights so far in 2013. So expect to see enormous pushback by the far right homo-haters like the Family Research Council.
This doesn’t mean the battle is over, and I’d bet it will intensify as we get closer and closer to real Equality. The homo-haters will ramp up efforts and do whatever they can to stifle progress. So if it seems to be getting worse, that means to keep fighting because we are probably close to winning.
It is part of why Court rulings have most often found in favor of same-sex marriage, while popular votes have not. In the context of the court, the exact legal arguments are the basis for the decisions. In the arena of public voting, the fear mongering machines have at it, and people are sways to vote against fairness by the provocation of fears- all of which are unwarranted. But fear mongering, even fallacious fears is hard to counteract.
I like Hannah’s statement which I emphasized: It is time to prioritize LGBT youth. This requires a broader dialogue about how we understand the LGBTQ community, and what it means to work to support all the various elements of that rainbow mix of people. For Hannah, that means getting LGBTQ organizations to see Social Justice as including queer youth issues. It also means beginning to form questions and actions surrounding our queer youth. It is one thing to say that we care about queer youth, but what does that look like? How do we act upon it, and how do we measure our efforts and our success or lack of it?
During the last five years as a City Councilman in Harrisburg, I have come to realize that Harrisburg’s issues are not just Harrisburg’s. They are many of the same concerns that every city, town and borough in Pennsylvania are going through. Crumbling infrastructure, increasing costs for services and less revenue. But most troubling is the lack of help from the Commonwealth. Our municipalities do not have the freedom they need to take care of their people.[Read More…]
This isn’t really so unexpected. The straight homo-haters have been trying to play the victim forever. But what is so amazing is how this douche totally misses the point about this dog, who once rescued was named “Elton.” The dog’s sexual orientation never had anything to do with anything. The animal shelter was uncomfortable killing the dog, not because the dog was gay, but because the previous owner was a total asshole, and the dog should not be punished for a person’s idiocy.