LGBT News Clips Wednesday (January 25, 2012)

Wednesday (January 25, 2012) News
Headline		Date	Outlet	Links
.HRC In the News (1)
	Gay Couple Denied Commitment Announcement in Arkansas Paper	01/24/2012	Towleroad	Text	View Clip
Activism/Protest (1)
	Aisha Tyler Poses For NOH8 Campaign After Recording Gay Marriage Video	01/24/2012	On Top Magazine	Text	View Clip
Business/Workplace (1)
	Starbucks Endorses Marriage Equality in Washington State	01/25/2012	Towleroad	Text	View Clip
Courts/Legal (2)
	Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of Minnesota Gay Marriage Plaintiffs	01/24/2012	On Top Magazine	Text	View Clip
	Will Court Ruling Guarantee Passage of Minn. Antigay Amendment?	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
Discrimination (2)
	No Gay T-Shirts! Printer Refuses GSA Club Order	01/24/2012	On Top Magazine	Text	View Clip
	Protesters Want Hershey To Disavow School That Kicked Out HIV+ Boy	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
Education/Youth (2)
	School Sexual Orientation Policy Draws Praise, Criticism	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
	Pepperdine University Blocks LGBT Club Because Homosexuality is Not 'God's Will'	01/24/2012	Towleroad	Text	View Clip
Elections (1)
	Gay Mayor to Run for New York Congressional Seat	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
Entertainment/TV/Movies (3)
	Gay Director's "The Help" Gets Best Picture Oscar Nod	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
	Lizzy the Lezzy Auditions for The L Project - Video	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
	Cynthia Nixon Attempts to Clarify that Whole 'Being Gay is a Choice' Thing	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
Family/Home life/Children (1)
	Utah Bill Would Extend Adoption Rights to Gay Couples	01/25/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
International (1)
	Colombian Capital Appoints First Trans Public Official	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
Marriage (8)
	Gay Marriage and Transgender rights Bills Head back to Legislature	01/25/2012	Baltimore City Paper	Text	View Clip
	Maryland Governor Introduces Marriage Equality Bill	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
	Gov. Christie: Put Marriage on the Ballot	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
	NOM Mouthpiece Jennifer Roback-Morse Spews Grotesque Bigotry at Washington State Marriage Equality Hearing: VIDEO	01/24/2012	Towleroad	Text	View Clip
	ACLU Says Christie Has Done Well on LGBT Rights -- So Far	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
	N.J. Marriage Bill Advances, Christie Wants Referendum	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
	Hearings on Marriage Equality Bill Begin in New Jersey Senate	01/24/2012	Towleroad	Text	View Clip
	NJ Governor Christie Announces He Wants Voters to Decide If Gay People Deserve Equal Rights: VIDEO	01/24/2012	Towleroad	Text	View Clip
National Politics (1)
	Two Lesbians Join First Lady for SOTU	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
Politicians/Leaders (1)
	Rick Santorum Tells Piers Morgan That He Would Outlaw Gay Marriage	01/24/2012	On Top Magazine	Text	View Clip
State/Local Politics (1)
	N.H. Bill Would Allow Discrimination Against Gay Couples	01/24/2012	Advocate, The	Text	View Clip
Other (1)
	NJ Governor Chris Christie Calls for Voter Referendum on Same-Sex Marriage, Says He Would Veto Bill	01/24/2012	Towleroad	Text	View Clip
Gay Couple Denied Commitment Announcement in Arkansas Paper | View Clip 01/24/2012 Towleroad Cody Renegar and his fiance Thomas Staed plan to hold a commitment ceremony at their Elkins, Arkansas home this summer and hoped to publish an announcement in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. But the paper won't let them, KNWA reports: The... Return to Top
Aisha Tyler Poses For NOH8 Campaign After Recording Gay Marriage Video | View Clip 01/24/2012 On Top Magazine Aisha Tyler has doubled down on her support for gay marriage, posing for the NOH8 Campaign and recording a video for HRC Return to Top
Starbucks Endorses Marriage Equality in Washington State | View Clip 01/25/2012 Towleroad Starbucks has joined a list of company's publicly supporting Washington state's marriage equality bill. The company released a statement yesterday: To: U.S. partners Date: January 24, 2012 Re: A Message from Kalen Holmes: Starbucks Supports Marriage Equality Dear partners, Starbucks... Return to Top
Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of Minnesota Gay Marriage Plaintiffs | View Clip 01/24/2012 On Top Magazine A Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday overturned a lower court's ruling dismissing a lawsuit challenging the state's ban on gay marriage Return to Top
Will Court Ruling Guarantee Passage of Minn. Antigay Amendment? | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The An appeals court ruled on Monday that three same-sex couples suing for the right to marry in Minnesota have the right to a trial—a decision that complicates a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in the state. Return to Top
No Gay T-Shirts! Printer Refuses GSA Club Order | View Clip 01/24/2012 On Top Magazine A Kansas City printer has refused to fill an order for t-shirts for a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club Return to Top
Protesters Want Hershey To Disavow School That Kicked Out HIV+ Boy | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The Activists from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation descended on the Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Return to Top
School Sexual Orientation Policy Draws Praise, Criticism | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The In Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin School District, a revision of a revision of guidelines for classroom discussion of sexual orientation received mixed reviews at a Monday hearing. Return to Top
Pepperdine University Blocks LGBT Club Because Homosexuality is Not 'God's Will' | View Clip 01/24/2012 Towleroad Pepperdine University in Malibu has blocked the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance called 'Reach Out' because Dean of Students Mark Davis says homosexuality is against "God's Will", the L.A. Weekly reports. From the Pepperdine Graphic newspaper: From the administration's perspective,... Return to Top
Gay Mayor to Run for New York Congressional Seat | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The The mayor of Wappingers Falls, Matt Alexander, is running against an incumbent Republican in New York's 19th congressional district. Return to Top
Gay Director's "The Help" Gets Best Picture Oscar Nod | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The Tate Taylor's depiction of racial divisions in the 1960s Deep South is among nine films nominated for this year's Academy Award for Best Picture. Return to Top
Lizzy the Lezzy Auditions for The L Project - Video | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The For anyone who is not yet familiar with Lizzy the Lezzy – get with it! That said, Lizzy has teamed up with The L-Project to help raise awareness about bullying of LGBT youth. Return to Top
Cynthia Nixon Attempts to Clarify that Whole 'Being Gay is a Choice' Thing | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The Star of the upcoming Broadway revival of Wit Cynthia Nixon has clarified that whole being gay is a choice statement she made in a recent interview with the New York Times, but the clarification she made about the word bisexual to The Daily Beast will not like assuage her detractors in the LGBT community. Return to Top
Utah Bill Would Extend Adoption Rights to Gay Couples | View Clip 01/25/2012 Advocate, The Legislation proposed by state senator Ross Romero would allow gay couples, as well unmarried couples living together, equal adoption rights. Return to Top
Colombian Capital Appoints First Trans Public Official | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The Gustavo Petro, the mayor of Bogota, Colombia, has appointed the capital city's first transgender public official. Return to Top
Gay Marriage and Transgender rights Bills Head back to Legislature | View Clip 01/25/2012 Baltimore City Paper In 2008, City Councilmember Bill Henry (D-4th District) introduced a resolution urging the Baltimore City delegation to the Maryland General Assembly to show support for statewide marriage-equality legislation. The bill passed with a handful of sponsors, but only after a contentious Council meeting in which city residents spoke out strongly against marriage equality and letters were read aloud from bill opponents who requested their opinions be entered into the record. Much has changed in the past four years. On Jan. 23, the City Council passed resolution 11-0002R, Request for State Action—Equal Access to Marriage, which was sponsored by 10 of 15 councilmembers, again requesting that the city's delegation stand with the statewide marriage-equality bill that is expected to drop in the capital this week. At a Jan. 18 hearing, no letters were read into the record; nobody showed up to oppose it. The seeming change in attitude toward the passing of marriage-equality legislation is what proponents of the bill are hoping will be the case statewide. Last year, House Bill 175, otherwise known as the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, passed the Maryland Senate but, surprisingly to many, fell short in the House. Advocates are hoping that increased visibility from supporters this year—including big names such as Gov. Martin O'Malley and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake—will ensure the bill becomes law. It is fortuitous timing, then, that Baltimore will for the first time this week play host to the 24th annual National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change (creatingchange.org), the largest LGBT conference in the nation. The conference is estimated to bring 3,000 attendees who will participate in workshops, panels, and receptions in order to develop skills they can bring back to their own communities; Rawlings-Blake is expected to attend the welcome reception and NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous will be giving the keynote speech. "Baltimore was a happy alignment of a community that wanted us to be here, a great hotel space, and proximity to headquarters in Washington, D.C.," conference director Sue Hyde says. "When we are looking at sites for Creating Change, we usually look at a few different cities, we reach out to folks in the LGBT community to ask the question, would you like us to come to your city? Folks here were very enthusiastic about it coming." There are a lot of folks who are enthusiastic about the likelihood of the marriage-equality bill passing as well. Last year's bill contained language to establish "that a marriage between two individuals who are not otherwise prohibited from marrying is valid in the State." It also contained a religious exemption ensuring that no religious organization or entity could be forced to perform marriages with which the entity disagrees "in violation of the constitutional right to free exercise of religion." This year's bill is expected to contain similar language, says state Del. Maggie McIntosh (D-43rd District), one of seven openly gay members of the House, and "it will come in this year with an even stronger religious exemption," in hopes of finding common ground with the religious contingency that forms the primary opposition to the bill. McIntosh says much of the advocacy for last year's bill happened quietly, "from colleague to colleague and constituent to elected official." The opposition, on the other hand, began to take out ads on TV, target constituents with mailings, and generally make a lot more noise. "I think there was a miscalculation that if it got out of the Senate it would easily pass the House," McIntosh says. "So boom, out of the Senate it comes, and everybody just thought, OK, line up the votes, get it out on the floor, and get it passed. Don't make a big deal of it—let's just get it done." Supporters of the bill seem to be taking a noisier approach themselves this year. The recently formed Marylanders for Marriage Equality merges the NAACP's Baltimore Chapter, the health care workers' union 1199 SEIU, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, Progressive Maryland, Equality Maryland, the Human Rights Campaign, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (which runs Creating Change) as a united front to advocate for marriage equality in the state. The Creating Change conference will, for the first time ever, include a lobbying day in Washington, doable because of Baltimore's proximity to the capital. And at a union rally on Jan. 16, U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-4th District) spoke out strongly in favor of marriage equality, emphasizing the difference between religious sacrament and a state marriage license. "I never dreamed that I would be in the legislature at a time when marriage was being considered," McIntosh says. "I thought it was a long way away, but it's not. I think it's a matter of either this year or a few years away. And yeah, we have conservative parts of the state, but Maryland has tended to be progressive, Maryland has tended to offer rights rather than take them away." Getting less attention so far is the Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Bill, a bill designed to provide equal treatment for the transgender community, a version of which was also introduced last year and passed the House but failed in the Senate. The bill created hot debate within the LGBT community, largely concerning protections in public accommodations—i.e., restrooms ("Transgender Gap," Feature, June 15, 2011). Some feel that the public-accommodations allowance is the thing that most makes such a bill difficult to pass, and the community should strive to pass a less complete bill, rather than nothing at all. This year's bill, expected to drop in the next few weeks, will include protection in public accommodations. Last year the main proponent of the bill was Equality Maryland; this year, a new organization, Gender Rights Maryland, has formed, the sole purpose of which is to see the trans-rights bill become law. "We formed largely out of the fact that we nearly passed some legislation last year, and we saw that there was a need for a voice of trans people speaking for themselves," GRM Board Chair Sharon Brackett says. "We felt it was important for us to really make sure that people understand that this is a basic civil rights bill. This is not a gay rights bill. We really represent the complete populace, meaning we have straight people, we have gay people, we have lesbians, we have asexual people. . . . The notion that we're part of the gay community is really a bit of a misnomer. We're a different animal. As I often tell people, being gay is about who you love, being trans is about who you are." Brackett feels hopeful that attitudes toward the trans community are changing in a way that will make the legislation pass. She points to the December 2011 decision in the case of Glenn v. Brumby, in which a transwoman sued her employer after he fired her when she announced that she would be transitioning from male to female. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over federal cases originating in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, ruled that trans discrimination is sex discrimination, which is illegal under the 14th Amendment. "So in many ways the bill that we're trying to put forward is an opportunity for Maryland to simply codify that it's progressive," Brackett says. "Maryland really doesn't want to be behind Alabama on civil rights legislation. Essentially, we are, and we need to catch up. I don't think any Maryland legislator would be comfortable with that." She also points to the case of Chrissy Polis, a transwoman who was beaten outside a public bathroom in a McDonald's in April 2011, which prompted O'Malley to release a statement announcing his commitment to passing legislation to end discrimination against the trans community. O'Malley will be introducing both the marriage-equality bill and the trans-rights bill in his legislative package, but the City Council has yet to acknowledge the bill. Neither Henry nor Kraft had heard of it, though Henry added that "there are many of us on the Council who believe in freedom and equality" and that should the bill be brought to the Council's attention in the future it would likely see support. Within the gay and trans communities, support for the two bills seems to be mutual. McIntosh says she supports the gender identity bill; Brackett echoes the sentiment for marriage equality. "The reality is that marriage equality is an important trans right that we support," Brackett says. "We're not leading the effort on that bill but we're supportive of it. When a trans person gets married, there's going to be somebody who has a question about that marriage." Creating Change's Sue Hyde, who has been the director of the conference since 1994, has noticed, among other trends, an increasing presence from the trans community at the conference. "We've seen the emergence of a very strong youth and campus contingent attending," Hyde says. "A very strong representation by transgender people, relating to the transgender community and issues. . . . We're looking forward to a very exciting event. It is always our goal that our community leaders and organizers go home better equipped to do their work." McIntosh is optimistic about the marriage-equality bill's chances in Maryland this year, noting that as a younger generation grows into voting age, opposition to marriage equality becomes less intense. She cites a recent meeting with a Catholic leader (whom McIntosh declines to name) who acknowledged that the law will change, it's only a matter of when. "People, actually even people who oppose it right now, have a sense that it will happen," she says. "And it will come back year after year." Return to Top
Maryland Governor Introduces Marriage Equality Bill | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The Maryland governor Martin O'Malley introduced marriage equality legislation Monday with clarification on protections for religious institutions and leaders. Return to Top
Gov. Christie: Put Marriage on the Ballot | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The "I believe in the institution of marriage. I realize this is my personal opinion," Christie said Tuesday as lawmakers took up marriage equality legisation. "Rather than have stalemate and deadlock on this issue, let's put it on the ballot....It shouldn't be decided by 121 people in Trenton." Return to Top
NOM Mouthpiece Jennifer Roback-Morse Spews Grotesque Bigotry at Washington State Marriage Equality Hearing: VIDEO | View Clip 01/24/2012 Towleroad Yesterday, we learned the fantastic news that following Washington state's marriage equality hearing, a state Senator had changed her mind and provided the 25th vote needed to pass the measure. Perhaps it was the disgusting bigotry of Jennifer Roback Morse... Return to Top
ACLU Says Christie Has Done Well on LGBT Rights -- So Far | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The As all eyes turn to Gov. Chris Christie and what he will do if a marriage equality bill arrives on his desk, the ACLU of New Jersey gives the governor a grade of B-minus on his LGBT rights record so far. Return to Top
N.J. Marriage Bill Advances, Christie Wants Referendum | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The The marriage equality bill cleared a key senate committee Tuesday, setting the stage for a floor vote next month, while Governor Chris Christie called for a referendum on the issue. Return to Top
Hearings on Marriage Equality Bill Begin in New Jersey Senate | View Clip 01/24/2012 Towleroad Hearings on a marriage equality bill before NJ's Senate Judiciary Committee are set to begin at 11 am. According to Twitter user Brian Thompson, who shot the photo above, there's an overflow crowd. You can listen in HERE once the... Return to Top
NJ Governor Christie Announces He Wants Voters to Decide If Gay People Deserve Equal Rights: VIDEO | View Clip 01/24/2012 Towleroad As I reported earlier, today New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called for a voter referendum on same-sex marriage and said he'll veto any marriage equality bill that comes to his desk. Christie's announcement comes even as a Quinnipiac poll this... Return to Top
Two Lesbians Join First Lady for SOTU | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The Ginger Wallace (right), an Air Force colonel, and Lorelei Kilker (far left), who fought gender bias in her workplace, will be among Michelle Obama's guests at tonight's State of the Union address. Return to Top
Rick Santorum Tells Piers Morgan That He Would Outlaw Gay Marriage | View Clip 01/24/2012 On Top Magazine Rick Santorum has reiterated his opposition to gay marriage, telling CNN's Piers Morgan that he would as president outlaw the institution Return to Top
N.H. Bill Would Allow Discrimination Against Gay Couples | View Clip 01/24/2012 Advocate, The A bill is being considered to allow business owners to discriminate against gay couples getting married in New Hampshire. Return to Top
NJ Governor Chris Christie Calls for Voter Referendum on Same-Sex Marriage, Says He Would Veto Bill | View Clip 01/24/2012 Towleroad As the first hearings on a marriage equality bill were held in the New Jersey Senate today, Governor Chris Christie spoke out about the issue at a town hall, the Star Ledger reports: Gov Chris Christie called today for a... Return to Top