Our guest bloggers are Kellan Baker and Mark Hines.

In an unprecedented announcement on Tuesday, Blue Shield of California announced that it will cap profits moving forward at 2 percent of total annual revenue. To kick off this initiative, Blue Shield is giving back $180 million of its 2010 profits to the people it insures and their communities.

LGBT Californians should welcome this move by Blue Shield. Some of those who will be receiving rebates on their premiums are members of the LGBT community. But more importantly, Blue Shield is taking a step toward the kind of social responsibility that businesses everywhere should be pursuing. Corporate social responsibility is particularly important in the health insurance industry, where the initiative that insurance carriers take to help extend affordable, accessible coverage to underserved communities – such as the LGBT community – can literally mean the difference between life and death.

California is home to an estimated 1.8 million LGBT people. Discrimination in employment, relationship recognition, and insurance industry policies mean that many LGBT Californians are uninsured. Being uninsured, particularly when combined with the social exclusion that many LGBT people experience, contributes to significant health disparities for the LGBT community. These disparities include higher rates of exposure to violence, HIV/AIDS, and mental health concerns such as depression.

The health disparities and widespread unavailability of insurance that affect the LGBT community make accessible health care facilities such as community health centers especially important for LGBT people and their families. The Blue Shield of California Foundation, which will receive $3 million from the profit cap announced on Tuesday, helps fund the LA Gay and Lesbian Community Center and other health centers that provide vital services to the LGBT community.

Blue Shield is also helping to fund the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in California, both through the Blue Shield Foundation and through donations such as the $10 million from the profit cap that will go toward developing effective models for accountable care organizations (ACOs), a major focus of health care reform.

This support for the Affordable Care Act is of vital importance for the LGBT community. LGBT people, like members of other underserved communities, must fight constantly to try to keep themselves and their families healthy. Their experiences expose our current health system’s failure to serve the many Americans who cannot secure access to insurance coverage and affordable health care. The Affordable Care Act is a crucial step in making our nation’s health system responsive to the needs of everyone in America, including LGBT people.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, many LGBT people who have never been able to afford health insurance or health care will be able to apply for Medicaid or affordable private coverage in every state. LGBT people will not be subject to denials of insurance coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions or to loss of vital coverage when they become ill. The Affordable Care Act is also key to efforts such as expanding LGBT cultural competency in the health care workforce, making preventive care available to everyone who needs it, improving data collection to better identify and address LGBT health disparities, and recognizing the increasing diversity of America’s families.

The Affordable Care Act is a crucial part of making our health system better serve LGBT Americans and their friends, families, and neighbors. But new laws can’t get us there alone. Businesses, particularly those that work for profit in the health sector, need to pitch in and help make sure that everyone can get the support and care they need to live healthy lives. Blue Shield of California has taken an important first step, and others should follow its lead.

This weekend is Rome’s EuroPride festival, and the European Forum of LGBT Christian Groups have reached out to the Pope to condemn homophobic violence (PDF):

We appeal to Your Holiness to condemn acts of violence against Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people, and for Your Holiness‟ cooperationin lifting the penalisation of homosexual acts worldwide.

Silence from Your Holiness is interpreted by people engaged in violence,torture and murder as consent to their actions.

Pope Benedict has previously said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was as important as saving the rainforest from destruction, adding that behavior beyond traditional heterosexual relations is “a destruction of God’s work.”

Despite the Catholic Church leadership’s condemnation of the LGBT community, American Catholics strongly support LGBT equality. A march poll found that 74 percent of them support recognizing same-sex relationships, whether through marriage (43 percent) or civil unions (31 percent). Additionally, 73 percent support workplace discrimination laws and 60 percent support adoption by same-sex couples.

The full letter is below:

Christian LGBT Letter to Pope

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has partnered with the American Family Association (AFA) for a large prayer event this August called “The Response.” The AFA is an SPLC-designated hate group whose spokesman, Bryan Fischer, recently called gays “Nazis” who commit hate crimes and “virtual genocide” against Christians.

When asked by the Texas Independent if he agrees with Fischer’s remarks, Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger described AFA as “an organization that promotes safe and strong families” and claimed that “other controversial statements made have nothing to do with what the Governor is trying to promote”:

“Governor Perry is looking forward to the event. AFA is an organization that promotes safe and strong families. These controversies aren’t relevant to the event, Governor Perry is focused on what he is trying to accomplish, which is bringing America together in prayer for the nation.”

Asked again if Perry agrees with Fischer, she said, “This event is about prayer focused on bringing America together for challenges faced, these comments don’t have anything to do with this event.”

She added, “[Perry] is very clear with his faith. His priority with this event is bringing people together.”

She also said, “Those statements and other controversial statements made have nothing to do with what the Governor is trying to promote.”

Almost every Republican presidential candidate has described the AFA as a legitimate Christian group, appearing on Fischer’s radio show and endorsing some of his extreme policy prescriptions. Newt Gingrich has provided $125,000 to the group and also refused to condemn Fischer when confronted with his statements by ThinkProgress.

Perry has invited all 49 governors to the rally, even though the Interfaith Alliance and Secular Coalition for America are urging them to reject the invitation due to the extremist nature of the group. Contrary to Perry’s dismissal, AFA’s President, Tim Wildmon, told the Houston Chronicle that one of the purposes for The Response — ”to pray for an end to the ‘debasement of our culture’ — refers to the increasing acceptance of homosexuality by American society.”A protest of the event is also being coordinated on Facebook. [HT: Right Wing Watch]

Though the military does not allow people who are transgender to serve, many veterans come out as transgender and transition after they have completed their terms of duty. A new directive today from the Veterans Health Administration stipulates that all transgender and intersex veterans are entitled to the same level of care “without discrimination” as other veterans, consistent across all VA healthcare facilities (PDF):

Transgender patients and intersex individuals are provided all care included in VA’s medical benefits package, including, but not limited to: hormonal therapy, mental health care, preoperative evaluation, and medically necessary post-operative and long-term care following sex reassignment surgery to the extent that the appropriate health care professional determines that the care is needed to promote, preserve, or restore the health of the individual and is in accord with generally-accepted standards of medical practice.

The directive does not create any new benefits for transgender veterans; it simply guarantees that veterans can rely on the VA for the benefits they’ve earned without fear of discrimination or concern that other VA locations will not provide the same level of care. It also ensures that they are treated with respect and that all their personal information is kept confidential and consistent with their identity.

Consistent with policy, the VA will not provide or fund sex reassignment surgery. Still, transgender vets can now better depend on the VA for their physical and mental health needs just as all veterans should be able to.

Former Giants defensive end Michael Strahan has recorded a video in support of legalizing same-sex marriage in New York. He joins a host of other celebrities and sports figures — including hockey player Sean Avery and basketball player Steve Nash — in urging the state legislature to enact equality before the end of the session on June 20:

“As a defensive end for the New York Giants, I always played the game tough but fair and I feel it’s unfair to stop committed couples form being married.”

Watch it:

Strahan’s video represents a growing trend of acceptance for LGBT people in the sports community. Last month, Atlanta Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell was suspended for two week after heharrassed fans with homophobic statements. Kobe Bryant paid a $100,000 fine for using an anti-gay slur at a game, and North Carolina State basketball player CJ Leslie got himself in trouble for tweeting, “I’m not sayin I hate gays but that’s sumthing that I would not wnt in my locker room…..”

On June 3, comedian Tracy Morgan took the stage at Ryman Auditorium in Nashvile, TN and “delivered a few lines about his feelings on homosexuality.” What followed, as reported by one attendee, was a unbridled homophobic rant. Calling homosexuality inherently “bullshit,” Morgan declared that “if my son were gay,” Morgan would “pull out a knife and stab” him if he failed to “talk to [him] like a man”:

“God don’t make no mistakes; all this gay stuff is bullshit,” Morgan said, adding the following about lesbians: “There is no way a woman could love and have sexual desire for another woman, that’s just a woman pretending because she hates a fucking man.”

And then it got personal: “If my son were gay he better come home and talk to me like a man and not [like a homosexual--Morgan mimicked a feminine voice] or I’d pull out a knife and stab that little N***** to death.”

Morgan released a statement today apologizing to the LGBT community and his fans for going “too far” with a joke that “was not funny in any context.” The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) agrees and slammed the “hateful remarks that mock youth suicides and the very real emotional and sometimes physical bullyiing LGBT kids face on a daily basis.” The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) called on Morgan to “remove these violently anti-gay remarks from his show and send a strong message that anti-gay violence is not something to joke about.” Even GOP Rep. Allen West (FL) accidentally condemned the remarks.

However, as Alyssa Rosenberg notes, Morgan’s anti-gay tirade is hardly new: “In 2009, he said sexual orientation is a choice in a performance that got him applauded by Spike Lee and Jane Krakowski.” But this latest rant, she explains, is “a very inconvenient form of crazy” since Tina Fey accepted an award from GLAAD this spring for her work on 30 Rock. Indeed, HRC has called on NBC Universal to “come forward and condemn these atrocious comments.”

(Photo Credit: Max Whittaker/Getty Images)

Among the many inequities elderly LGBT couples face under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Medicaid’s can be the most disastrous (PDF). When a spouse from an opposite-sex couple applies for institutional care, Medicaid pools the couple’s assets and allows the healthy spouse to retain most of them (up to about $110,000). However, individuals in same-sex couples must apply as “single,” and the healthy spouse is not entitled to any assets or property in their partners’ names. As a result, the healthy partner can be left homeless and impoverished. (Such a situation took place last April when Sonoma County, California separated an elderly gay couple and sold off their possessions.)

Today, though, the Obama administration issued new policy guidelines informing states that they can offer their own protections to prevent this happening. While the protections are not required, the guidelines open the door for states — particularly those who recognize same-sex unions — to shield couples from losing their homes when one of the partners needs to utilize Medicaid services:

The Federal beneficiary protections listed above represent the minimum level of protection, in other words, the “floor” for protection from imposition of liens, that must be implemented by the State.  States have considerable flexibility to determine the “ceiling” for such protection and to develop their own rules regarding when they will impose/pursue liens, as long as the Federal beneficiary protections noted above are fully implemented.  A State can have a policy or rule not to pursue liens when the same-sex spouse or domestic partner of the Medicaid beneficiary continues to lawfully reside in the home.

LGBT older adults are disproportionately vulnerable to financial insecurity, due to job discrimination, stigma, and inequity in services like Social Security and Medicaid. According to a report last year from the Movement Advancement Project, 42 percent of LGBT elders said financial problems are a big concern in their lives, with 47 percent reporting having less than $10,000 in savings and other assets. Lesbian couples face particular hardship because of the income gender gap, with twice as many senior lesbian couples (9.1 percent) living in poverty as senior straight couples (4.6 percent).

Couples will not truly be protected until Congress repeals DOMA. Still, if states utilize this opportunity to institute some protections around Medicaid, it could spare couples from being separated and losing their homes in the meantime.

Confirming that the ex-gay agenda is the underpinning of anti-LGBT rhetoric, yesterday Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain offered his belief that homosexuality is both a sin and a choice.

Watch it:

Cain can believe what he wants about sin, but sexual orientation is not a choice and cannot be changed, so he is flat-out wrong to say otherwise.

This comment comes on the tails of his remarks earlier this week that he would have no problem appointing openly gay cabinet members because he wouldn’t have to worry about them imposing Sharia Law. He has also indicated that he supports “traditional marriage,” would reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and would veto the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.