The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed suit on behalf of Iraq War Veteran Tracey Harris, who is fighting to obtain veterans’ disability benefits for her wife Maggie. Tracey continues to receive treatment for PTSD and multiple sclerosis, both of which the VA has determined are service-related, but Title 38 of the United States Code (veterans’ benefits) and the Defense of Marriage Act reject Maggie as a “spouse,” thus depriving them of the same spousal benefits as families with opposite-sex partners.

The inequities Tracey and Maggie face amount to thousands of dollars:

• As a single veteran rated as 80% disabled, Tracey receives compensation of $1,478 per month. As a married veteran, she should be entitled to $1,602 per month. This deprives her and Maggie of $1,488 every year — a full month’s worth of support.
• In the event of Tracey’s death, Maggie should be entitled to a minimum survivor’s benefits of $1,195. Because she is a same-sex spouse, she is entitled to no such benefit at all.
• Maggie would also not be eligible for burial benefits with Tracey, including a government headstone or marker, a burial flag, inscription of their names, burial together, and perpetual care of the burial site.

Tracey explains the importance of this suit:

I dedicated 12 years of my life to serving the country I love. I’m asking only for the same benefits the brave men and women who served beside me enjoy. By refusing to recognize our marriage, the federal government has deprived Maggie and me of the peace of mind that such benefits are meant to provide to veterans and their families.

An interesting twist in the suit involves Title 38, the code that limits benefits to spouses “of the opposite sex.” That language had little to do with the discriminating intent behind 1996′s Defense of Marriage Act, but was in fact the result of SPLC’s 1973 victory in the case, Frontiero v. Richardson. Before then, only wives of veterans could receive benefits — not husbands.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Dan Baer hosted an international web chat with embassies around the world yesterday to discuss and expand upon Hillary Clinton’s landmark commitment to advancing LGBT equality as part of America’s foreign policy objectives.

Baer reiterated the American government’s objection to Russia’s pending anti-gay propaganda bills — arguing that such measures violate international standards of freedom of expression and undermine the freedoms of society as a whole — and pledged to partner with different countries in expanding opportunities for gay and lesbian people. The State Department is also “in conversations right now about how best to engage the private sector” in other nations to take a bold stand for LGBT equality, he revealed.

“We will support and work with partners, those who are interested in having technical conversations about how you develop laws so that they are inclusive and nondiscriminatory,” Baer said and acknowledged that the United States must “lead by example” in recognizing the human rights of all people. Watch the conversation:

Mitt Romney was “glitter bombed” by an advocate protesting the former governor’s flimsy record on equality for gay and lesbian Americans as he took the stage at a campaign event in Eagan, Minnesota this afternoon. “There is the guy! Waive your had over here, through the glitter, there he goes,” Romney called out cheerfully and explained that the glitter is actually “confetti” to celebrate his victory in the Florida primary last night:

ROMNEY: Hi there, how are you? Hi there! How are you? Good to see you! There you go….Hey listen guys, I’m delighted to be here with you, this is an exciting time. I’m happy for a little celebration. This is confetti! We just won Florida! We’re just going to win the White House next! Let me tell you, President Obama is not going to be seeing a lot of confetti.

Watch it:

Romney was glitter bombed a second time as he signed autographs after his brief remarks:

JoeMyGod notices that the American Family Association’s “One Million Moms” is now targeting JC Penney for partnering with the openly-gay comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, claiming that the store is undermining “traditional families”:

Recently JC Penney announced that comedian Ellen Degeneres will be the company’s new spokesperson. Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly. Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful.

Their marketing strategy is to help families shop and receive a good value for their money. Degeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there. The small percentage of customers they are attempting to satisfy will not offset their loss in sales. [...]

By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years.

OneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com are designed to “help parents do something about the trash on TV” and organize weekly on-line boycotts of “offensive” advertising or television shows. The groups have previously called for a boycott of Ben & Jerry’s Schweddy Balls ice cream and are currently objecting to a Macy’s catalogue cover that shows a three-tier wedding cake with two groom figurines on top.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has apologized for comments he made that the civil rights movement could have advanced with referenda instead of deadly protests, admitting, “I wasn’t clear enough. I absolutely wasn’t”:

CHRISTIE: I also recognize that my job, one of my jobs as Governor, is to clearly communicate to people what I’m thinking, every time I open my mouth. And I try to be very good about being very direct about what I say so that there’s no ambiguity but obviously when I was talking last week at the town hall meeting about the civil rights movement in the South, I wasn’t clear enough. I just wasn’t.

And what I did was, by saying those things, I left them open to misinterpretation and obviously there are some folks out there whose feelings I hurt or sensibilities I offended. And I apologize for that, because that’s my job. My job is to clearly communicate all the time. And so to those folks out there who were somehow offended or concerned about the ambiguity in my statement, I apologize for that because very clearly what I was trying to say, I said yesterday at the press conference about five or six times.

He did, however, defend calling those who compared him to segregationists as “numbnuts,” explaining that his mother used to use the term for him. “Maybe I should have said ‘stupid, out-of-line,’” he suggested, after asking, “What’s wrong with “numbnuts’?” In fact, Christie didn’t actually take back any of his comments, but merely tried to assuage those who were offended. Listen to it:

Christie’s remarks have triggered a strong backlash from African-American leaders, such as Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who suggested Christie “has not read his recent history books” and pointed out that “most of the governors…were outright segregationists.” Newark Mayor Cory Booker responded simply: “Frankly, I wouldn’t be where I am today” if states had voted on civil rights.

Meanwhile, five former New Jersey govenors, including Democrats Brendan Byrne and James Florio, have broken with Christie by endorsing marriage equality. “I think the climate is right on a basis of civil rights,” said Byrne, the oldest of the former Garden State governors. “I would ask that the Legislature pass it.” Former Govs. Jon Corzine and Jim McGreevey, both democrats, are on record as supporting marriage equality, as well as two Republicans, Tom Kean and Christie Todd.

(Fatima Najiy contributed to this post)

When Illinois legalized civil unions in June, the state insisted that government-funded programs “must allow same-sex couples into their foster and adoptive programs, or lose their state contracts” and any additional state funding. Catholic Charities, decided not to recognize gays and lesbians as parents and refused to comply with the expanded non-discrimination law. As a result, they forfeited more than $30.6 million in contracts, after unsuccessfully suing the state to restore the money.

Now, state lawmakers are “again trying to carve out exceptions to Illinois’ new civil unions statute, saying they shouldn’t be forced to choose between their values and the law.” Rep. Dwight Kay (R) has filed legislation “that would allow religion based or affiliated adoption agencies with state contracts to decline an adoption or foster family home application, as well as licensure and placement, to anyone in a civil union.” Discriminating against gay couples is, “common sense,” he says:

Kay said his legislation is “just another common sense bill.” “Religious based childcare done by Catholic and Lutheran organizations has been an integral part of the state of Illinois,” Kay said. “It has done a better job of handling child care services and it’s done much cheaper.”

Kay’s bill failed last year and his latest measure marks the fifth time legislation “has been filed in the state general assembly in an attempt to water down the state’s civil union law over the past year.” (HT: Care2)