Jennifer Roback Morse of the National Organization for Marriage’s Ruth Institute is the latest conservative to object to GLAAD’s Commentator Accountability Project for raising media awareness that her views are anti-gay. Jeremy Hooper has already documented everything she gets wrong about the actual campaign, but at the core of her argument is the claim that opposing gay rights and being “anti-gay” are not the same thing:

Evidently GLAAD believes that raising legitimate questions about the group’s preferred policies automatically makes a person “anti-gay.” But surely one can disagree with policies advocated by the National Education Association without hating every teacher in America, just as one can surely oppose policies advocated by the NAACP without being a racist.

Redefining marriage raises questions that deserve to be fully aired. Trying to discredit skeptics changes the subject. Equating all disagreement with evidence of bias lowers the intellectual level of the discussion. These rhetorical tactics do not do the gay lobby any credit. In fact, responsible people of all parties should shun these strategies and make room for honest debate on this momentous question of changing the fundamental structure of our most important social institution.

Morse’s attempt to establish a nuanced distinction fails. The LGBT movement works toward a day when sexual and gender minorities are free from fear, distrust, discrimination, and moral condemnation. By spreading falsehoods about the nature of same-sex families and suggesting they are a threat to society, Morse very much stands in the way of that end-goal. Discrediting her bias and constant distortion of research is not simply a “rhetorical tactic,” but an imperative for protecting LGBT people from her “skepticism” — a codeword for her intent to stigmatize.

Morse also scoffed that GLAAD only provided four examples of her animus. Despite the project’s interest in concision, her page now features twelve examples.

Our guest bloggers are Josh Garcia, intern for LGBT Progress, and Jeff Krehely, Vice President of LGBT Progress.

Cartoon via slpupsidethehead.com.

The Movement Advancement Project, the Family Equality Council, and the Center for American Progress, the co-authors of “All Children Matter: How Legal and Social Inequalities Hurt LGBT Families,” released a supplementary brief today summarizing the harmful impact that both laws and negative social attitudes have on the lives of children being raised in LGBT families.

Currently, about 2 million children are being raised by LGBT parents in the United States. These children should have access to the basic resources they need to develop a happy, healthy, and well-functioning life, regardless of their parents’ sexual orientation or gender identity. However, a number of obstacles prevent LGBT people and families from having the same access to good and affordable healthcare, compared to those who are straight or not transgender. As a result, gay and transgender Americans experience a number of worse health outcomes and disparities, including higher rates of diabetes, obesity, and HIV/AIDS.

The issue brief, entitled “Obstacles and Opportunities: Ensuring Health and Wellness for LGBT Families,” identifies four ways in which current laws and social stigma have harmful effects on the health and well-being of children living with LGBT parents:

1. Reduced access to health insurance. Discriminatory laws reduce LGBT families’ ability to secure health insurance. These laws include the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as well as state laws that restrict adoption rights for same-sex couples. The result: approximately 82 percent of heterosexual adults have health insurance, compared to 78 percent of LGB adults. Transgender Americans have an even more difficult time accessing health care, with only 57 percent of transgender Americans having sufficient health insurance coverage. Moreover, even if a person who is transgender has health insurance, the plan may fail to cover medically necessary services, as well as routine office visits and other preventive care.
2. Restrictions on caregiving and medical decision-making. When LGBT parents are not recognized under the law, gay and transgender mothers and fathers may be denied hospital visitation rights to see their sick child.  Only 19 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws that extend full medical caregiving rights to LGBT couples.  These laws have positive effects on LGBT families by allowing both parents in an LGBT family to make informed decisions regarding their child’s health, in the case of medical emergencies. Alternatively, 18 states treat LGBT couples as if they were complete strangers, not allowing them to make decisions for their loved ones in health-related emergencies, such as trips to the emergency room and signing health insurance documentation. Often times, these can be matters of life or death.
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The National Organization for Marriage’s decision to boycott Starbucks for the company’s support of the freedom to marry has turned out to be a dismal failure. In the five days since NOM launched its “Dump Starbucks” petition, it has only gotten 19,000 signatures, compared to the nearly 250,000 individuals who have signed SumOfUs’s retaliatory “Thank You, Starbucks” card. In fact, SumOfUs has gotten over 8,000 new signers since 8:30 this morning.

Not only is NOM’s petition failing when it comes to numbers, it’s also failing when it comes to authenticity. As Jeremy Hooper has tracked, Dump Starbucks counts any information that is submitted, but that hasn’t stopped NOM from boasting about its campaign repeatedly all weekend. Worse yet, it seems that the site can’t even provide an accurate count of who is signing — either that or the organization is intentionally manipulating the numbers to make the petition look more successful that it is, which of course it isn’t anyway.

As NOM commits more resources to its Starbucks protest, it becomes all the more apparent how out-of-touch its anti-equality mission is with most Americans. Add your voice to those thanking Starbucks for supporting marriage equality, and enjoy the “Pump Starbucks” campaign’s new theme song:

PAL recommends various books condemning comprehensive sex education.

The Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota is in the process of overhauling its bullying policies after a Department of Justice investigation found that it had allowed anti-LGBT harassment to persist. Despite the model plan the district has agreed to implement, it still faces the demands made by the newly anointed conservative hate group the Parents Action League (PAL), which has been largely responsible for influencing the school’s history of anti-LGBT policies. School Board Chairman Tom Heidemann responded to PAL this weekend, and though he did reject most of the group’s demands, he did not condemn them for their factual inaccuracy or offensive intent:

• SPECIAL RECOGNITION FOR BULLIES: PAL wanted a special set of resources and outreach created for “students of faith, moral conviction, ex-homosexuals, and ex-transgenders.” Heidemann responded that advocating religious points of view “would be a violation of state and federal laws,” but that the superintendent is “open to any invitations from classes or students groups that want to meet with him.”
• ACCESS FOR ANTI-GAY GROUPS: PAL wanted “pro-family” and ex-gay groups access to train the district’s counselors and other service personnel. While these groups often use religious-based pseudoscience to promote harmful “therapy” that does not effect change, Heidemann simply said the school board accepts “all students as they come to us” and listed the mental health specialists that counselors refer.
• QUESTION GLBT ADVOCACY: The conservatives at PAL want students to learn that being gay could be bad, and Heidemann pointed out that the staff development program included the resource Homosexuality (Opposing Viewpoints), a book that “provides many alternative points of view.”
• TEACH HOMOSEXUALITY AS A ‘DISORDER’: Perhaps Heidemann’s strongest response to PAL: “We accept all students and we do not consider them to have a disorder if they identify as gay or support their gay friends.”
• TEACH AIDS AS “GAY-RELATED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY (GRID)”: This was undoubtedly PAL’s most despicable request, and unfortunately Heidemann does not sufficiently manage the offense. He explained that because the district’s sex education curriculum is abstinence-based, “it does not focus on specific sex acts” in discussions about sexually transmitted diseases, adding that “Anoka-Hennepin health classes address homosexuality.” PAL’s obvious anti-gay animus remains unaddressed.

The Star Tribune has provided a full copy of Heidemann’s response. While it is promising that the school is finally showing its capacity to withstand PAL’s influence, Heidemann’s reluctance to defend gay students and object to PAL’s smears suggests the process of creating an LGBT-welcoming environment in the district will be a slow one.

During an interview with ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Senior Obama adviser David Plouffe wouldn’t say if the president supports including marriage equality in the Democratic Party’s 2012 platform. “We’re going to work through the platform process,” Plouffe offered, before contrasting Obama’s achievements for the LGBT community with the GOP’s efforts to malign it:

PLOUFFE: Here’s what I think is important. What is going to be in the Republican platform, if they’re consistent with what their presidential candidates have said, is to re-institute “don’t ask/don’t tell,” to defend aggressively the Defense of Marriage Act. On the other side, you have the president, who’s had groundbreaking progress for gays and lesbians in this country.

So I think there’s going to be a big difference on these issues of fairness and equality. And obviously, the platform process will play out in the coming months….So I think he’s spoken not — not just spoken to, but he’s delivered some really important victories in terms of fairness for gays and lesbians in this country.

Watch it:

Obama continues to insist that he is “evolving” on marriage equality, while at least 22 senators and seven co-chairs of Obama’s re-election bid have indicated their support for Freedom to Marry’s campaign to the equality language in the platform.