Our guest blogger is Jerome Hunt, a Research Associate for LGBT Progress at American Progress.

Today, the Fighting Injustice to Reach Equality, or FIRE initiative, at the Center for American Progress released a comprehensive report about the policy priorities of black LGBT Americans outside of marriage equality. “Jumping Beyond the Broom: Why Black Gay and Transgender Americans Need More Than Marriage Equality,” specifically examines the issues of economic insecurity, educational attainment and outcomes, and health and wellness disparities this population faces, and offers a host of policy solutions to bridge the gaps.

The key finding of the report is that black LGBT Americans continue to experience stark social, economic, and health disparities despite significant gains in securing basic right for LGBT people over the past decade.

For example, black gay Americans earn $10,000 less than their black heterosexual counterparts and face higher rates of poverty and unemployment as well. Black lesbians are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases (i.e. heart disease and diabetes) than others, and black LGBT youth are more likely to end up homeless and living on the streets compared to other youth. These social, economic, and health disparities are often ignored as broader gay and transgender policy priorities—including marriage equality—receive the time and attention of advocates and the mainstream and LGBT press. They’re also neglected by racial and economic justice agendas that fail to include the needs and priorities of gay and transgender populations. In short black gay and transgender Americans fall through the cracks of silo’d policy and advocacy efforts – so we must make progress in bridging these gaps.

“Jumping Beyond the Broom,” shows how progress can be made by applying an intersectional lens that accounts for race, class, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity in federal policy analysis and advocacy.

The report also makes recommendations that Congress and federal agencies could adopt that would help eliminate the disparities between black gay and transgender people and others. Recommendations include ensuring full LGBT inclusion in social safety net programs; developing a comprehensive federal response to LGBT homelessness; adopting safe schools polices; implementing the Affordable Care Act in a fully LGBT-inclusive way at the state and federal level; and collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity across key federal surveys of the public. The FIRE Initiative will explore many of these policy issues in-depth in the months to come, including through additional publications and public events.

The Washington State Catholic Conference unsurprisingly voiced its objection to same-sex marriage today, but did so by insinuating that civilization might very well die out if it becomes law:

Legislation has been introduced in Washington State to change the current law defining marriage. The present law states: “marriage is a civil contract between a male and a female…” This same law also prohibits marriage to close-blood relations, a clear indication that the definition of marriage is related to bringing children into the world and the continuation of the human race. The legislation to redefine marriage, therefore, is not in the public interest. [...]

Upholding the present definition of marriage does not depend on anyone’s religious beliefs. Washington State’s present law defining marriage as “a civil contract between a male and a female” is grounded not in faith, but in reason and the experience of society. It recognizes the value of marriage as a bond of personal relationships, but also in terms of the unique and irreplaceable potential of a man and woman to conceive and nurture new life, thus contributing to the continuation of the human race. A change in legislation would mean that the state would no longer recognize the unique sacrifices and contributions made by these couples, thereby adding to the forces already undermining family life today.

It seems that these bishops truly believe that if gay couples can marry, straight couples will just call it quits, stop marrying, and stop having children. The very opposite has been the reality: Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa have some of the lowest divorce rates in the country, while the states with the highest divorce rates all have constitutional prohibitions on same-sex marriage. Besides, Washington already has over 23,000 same-sex couples, 18 percent of whom are already raising children.

Why is it that Catholic leaders seem to be so intimidated by same-sex couples that they lose complete faith in their own heterosexual followers to prolong the human race?

Nebraska Sen. Beau McCoy

Nebraska state Sen. Beau McCoy (NP) has introduced a bill (LB 912) that would prevent municipalities across the state from creating any nondiscrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity:

MCCOY: It just merely says that if we’re going to change the protected classes … we need to come to the Capitol to do it so that it’s consistent across the state. If it’s the right thing to do, it ought to be the right thing to do border-to-border, not just in one city or municipality. Nebraskans want uniformity. If it’s discrimination in Omaha, why wouldn’t it be the same in Scottsbluff, Gering, Kearney, Grand Island, you name it?

McCoy’s duplicitous interest in “uniformity” ignores that his bill mirrors a Tennessee law passed last year that specifically targeted the LGBT community for discrimination. In fact, the anti-LGBT Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT) scripted the debate on that bill by cloaking its biased impact with economic rhetoric. The law’s passage invalidated LGBT protections that had recently been passed in Nashville.

If McCoy truly wanted consistent nondiscrimination policies across the state of Nebraska, he would propose a bill that protected sexual orientation and gender identity for the entire state. That he’s seeking to prevent such protections demonstrates his commitment to making sure LGBT people’s identities are enough to disqualify them from employment. (HT: Aksarbent.)

Last year, in a written affidavit to the conservative FAMiLY Leader, thrice married Newt Gingrich pledged to “defend” traditional marriage between one man and one woman, writing, “As President, I will vigorously enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, which was enacted under my leadership as Speaker of the House, and ensure compliance with its provisions.” “I will support sending a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the states for ratification. I will also oppose any judicial, bureaucratic, or legislative effort to define marriage in any manner other than as between one man and one woman.”

But as the former House speaker gains steam as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney in the lead up to Saturday’s South Carolina primary, his second wife, Marianne Gingrich is claiming that he did not live up to his public proclamations. In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Brian Ross, Gingrich claims her ex-husband wanted an open marriage. “He came to her and said, ‘I want to stay married to you and still have an affair with Calista, his current wife,” said Ross. “According to Marianne, he said ‘You need to share me,’ and she said ‘I don’t want to share,’ and the marriage ended.” Listen:

The full interview will air on ABC after tonight’s GOP Presidential debate in South Carolina. Watch an excerpt:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has backed away from past comments he’s made about vetoing a same-sex marriage bill, promising he’ll make a “deliberate” and “thoughtful” decision if it passes in the legislature:

I’ve been very clear on my view on this since I ran for office that I’m not a supporter of same-sex marriage. But on the other hand, the fact is that this is a huge societal change that they’re talking about here and I think that we need to do this in a very deliberate and thoughtful way and get the most input from the public we can before we overturn hundreds of years of societal legal and religious tradition.

Listen to it:

This “we’ll see what happens” approach is quite a change from his 2009 comments that he would return a same-sex marriage bill to the legislature “with a big red veto across it.” The National Organization for Marriage has been writing feverishly that Christie should honor that years-old promise.

But Christie is right to heed more input from the public, given a new Quinnipiac poll shows a majority of New Jersey voters — 52 percent — support marriage equality while only 42 percent oppose it. Likewise, 65 percent believe same-sex marriage is not a threat to traditional marriage, 53 percent agree that denying same-sex marriage is a form of discrimination, and 66 percent adoption rights for same-sex couples. Perhaps Christie senses that a veto of marriage equality would be not only offensive and discriminatory, but politically unpopular as well.