Keen News Service’s Dana Rudolph reports that “the United Church of Christ (UCC), the denomination to which President Barack Obama belonged for two decades, resoundingly approved two resolutions on July 5 in support of civil rights for LGBT people, including the first-ever resolution by a major Christian denomination affirming the right of LGBT parents to adopt and raise children.” The parenting measure passed in a unanimous vote and said that rearing children is ”a moral responsibility for families, the church and the community”:

It calls on the church ”to defend the rights of all children to have loving parents without regard to sexual orientation or gender expression, and to recognize a family to be any loving, nurturing, ethical relationship between a child and one or more parents.”

In addition, it calls on all states ”to evaluate prospective adoptive parents solely on the basis of their individual character and ability to parent, not on their sexual orientation or gender identity, and to grant second-parent or joint adoptions when it is in the child’s best interests.”

Only three states — Virginia, Mississippi, and Utah — still prohibit cohabiting same-sex couples from adopting children by excluding unmarried couples from the service. Last year, Florida stopped enforcing its explicit ban on adoptions by gay people “following a decision by a state appeals court that the three-decade-old law is unconstitutional,” and the Arkansas Supreme Court recently “upheld a lower court ruling that struck down the state’s ban on adoption and foster parenting by any person cohabiting with a sexual partner outside of marriage.”

The legal liberalization parallels the growing acceptance of LGBT civil rights, including same-sex marriage, or at least unions, in organized religious denominations and the United Church of Christ now joins Evangelical Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians in recognizing LGBT people. A March ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 63 percent of white Catholics and 57 percent of non-evangelical white Protestants now support marriage equality — huge increases among both groups over the past decade. Overall, a majority of Americans now support same-sex marriage.

Though polling for marriage equality may be higher than ever, violence against the LGBTQ community and people who are HIV-affected shows no sign of slowing down. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), reports of violent crimes increased by 13 percent against these communities in 2010, including 27 murders, the second highest yearly total ever recorded. According to the data, transgender women and people of color are disproportionately impacted by violence. The increase in violence likely reflects increases in reporting, but possibly also animus provoked by media visibility of LGBTQ people and issues, such as California’s Proposition 8 campaign in 2008:

The report recommends the following changes:

- Fund critically needed research and data collection on hate violence against LGBTQ and HIV-affected communities, their access to services, and violence prevention initiatives.

- Gather data about sexual orientation and gender identitiy in all federal, state and local government forms.

- Create new public and private funding streams and target the use of existing funds to increase access to anti-violence services for LGBTQ and HIV-affected individuals, particularly for those disproportionately affected by hate violence — i.e. transgender people and people of color.

- Create programs and campaigns to reduce anti-LGBTQ hate violence. Prioritize the leadership of those most impacted by severe hate violence within these programs.

- Stop the culture of hate through policymakers and public figures denouncing anti-LGBTQ violence.

Read the full report, which includes 17 state breakdowns.

The media attention on the harmful ex-gay therapy performed in Dr. Marcus Bachmann’s Christian counseling clinic shines new light on a law his wife tried to pass when she was in the Minnesota state Senate in 2006. The “Minnesota Expanded Health Care Practices Act for Licensed Health Care Professionals” (SF 2984) sought to create a legal right to “expanded health care,” defined as any treatment or approach “not generally considered to be within the prevailing minimum standards of care of a profession or that are not standard practices of a profession in a particular community.” It also would have established legal protections for any practitioners who offered such expanded health care:

Subd. 7. Complaints; investigations. A practitioner’s license or registration shall not be revoked, suspended, or conditioned, or have any other form of reprimand imposed or be denied a license or registration if the practitioner is practicing in compliance with this chapter and the practitioner has: (1) recommended or utilized expanded health care practices; (2) referred a patient to, or comanaged a patient or client with, a practitioner of expanded health care practices or a practitioner who is practicing in compliance with chapter 146A.

Bachmann proposed the bill in 2006, a year before the American Psychological Association began investigating ex-gay therapy, which they ultimately concluded was ineffective and harmful. She had previously endorsed “Love Won Out” in 2004, one of the many ministries under the Exodus International umbrella. Had the bill gotten more than just a reading, it would have used Minnesota law to protect Marcus Bachmann’s clinics and the credentials of his counselors from ever being challenged by patients who had negative results. The counselor in the Truth Wins Out undercover videos who was offering reparative therapy, Timothy Wiertzema, is one of many licensed professionals working for Bachmann.

(HT: Dump Bachmann)

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) refused to comment on her husband’s Christian counseling clinics, dodging a question from a local ABC News reporter in Iowa about new video evidence showing one counselor telling a gay patient that he could change his sexual orientation through therapy and prayer. The revelations are the result of an undercover report conducted by John Becker of Truth Wins Out, an organization dedicated to combating discredited ex-gay therapy proponents, and a separate report in the Nation detailing the story of one patient who underwent reparative therapy at Bachmann’s clinics.

During the segment, Bachmann repeatedly refused to address the reports, saying only that she is “very proud of our business” and “proud of all job creators in the United States”:

HOST: What is your opinion on reparative therapy and is it something that’s conducted in that center?

BACHMANN: Well, I’m running for the Presidency of the United States and I’m here to talk about job creation and that we do have a business that deals with job creation. I’m very proud of the business that we created and I’m here today in Indianola, Iowa. [...]

HOST: But of course the issue today is about this reparative therapy and about what this hidden camera caught and their opinions are going to be aired on tonight’s news. And you don’t want to comment on that and give your side?

BACHMANN: Well, I’m here to talk about the Presidency of the United States. As I said again, we’re very proud of our business and we’re proud of all job creators in the United States. That’s what people really care about.

Watch it:

Dr. Marcus Bachmann has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks, after a ThinkProgress report documenting his past comments referring to gays as ”barbarians” and an NBC News report that revealed Bachmann and Associates had taken $137,000 in federal Medicaid funds over the past five years despite Michele Bachmann’s strident anti-government stance. In 2004, Michele Bachmann also spoke before an ex-gay group in Minnesota, claiming that they will “present the truth about homosexuality.”

ABC and NBC News both covered the ex-gay controversy tonight and this morning: