The National Organization for Marriage continues to face fall-out over the confidential strategic memos released last week that reveal its intent to “fan hostilities” between marriage equality activists and African-American and Latino communities. Adding to a chorus of groups condemning NOM, the National Council of La Raza’a Vice President Eric Rodriguez said on Friday that the group’s tactics are “stunningly cynical” and rival those of the anti-immigration movement:

The cravenness on display from NOM is reminiscent of another bastion of intolerance, the anti-immigrant movement. They too have enough political savvy to realize that first, Latinos are an important demographic and voting block and second, that movements built on bigotry and intolerance are most successful when their shameful agenda stays hidden from the public. [...]

If NOM had stopped its indefatigable scheming for just a moment to learn something about our community, this diabolical plan would never have been hatched. First, not all Latinos are immigrants. Second, Latino immigrants welcome integration into American society. Third, Latinos are not foolish enough to believe that NOM has our best interests at heart. And, fourth, despite what NOM may think, the Latino community overwhelmingly supports LGBT equality. The Movement Advancement Project released research recently that showed that 74 percent of Latinos “support marriage or marriage-like legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples.”

Following up on rebukes by the Julian Bond and Ben Jealous, leaders of the California conference of the NAACP defended the association’s support of marriage equality:

Some have been incensed that the NAACP support for same-sex marriage is equating the gay movement to our struggle for civil rights and racial equality. We disagree. The African-American struggle will forever stand as one of the greatest civil rights movements in modern history. After 400 hundred years of slavery, the achievements of some basic civil rights, 100 years of marching, protesting, court battles and violence that led to our freedoms and many gains in society is a wonderful legacy. As we continue the struggle for total equality in America, we must also fight for the total equality for others, whether it is another race or another group. Thus, the NAACP is the best organization to join the fight for equal protection for LGBT couples to help them overcome the same irrational arguments that were once used to justify slavery and the law of “separate but equal.”

While the memos were rife with evidence of NOM’s insidious agenda, its blatant manipulation of racial politics continues to stand out as the pinnacle of an agenda built not around “protecting marriage” but promoting anti-gay intolerance.

The Chicago Department of Public Health has released a new action plan to address various disparities in the healthcare services available to the city’s LGBT community. The plan outlines 22 strategies, including these highlights:

• Promote the collection of sexual orientation data in electronic medical records and encourage researchers focused on LGBT health to share findings and develop new LGBT health research.
• Improve the tracking of hate crimes against transgender persons, publicize resources for reporting violence, and conduct outreach on strategies to avoid violence.
• Develop cultural competency training to help educate health care providers, employers and educators on the health needs of the LGBT community.
• Increase tobacco cessation efforts in the LGBT community to address the high prevalence of smoking, which is at 30 percent, 12 percentage points higher than the 18 percent of the overall population.
• Promote inclusion of same sex couples in programs aimed at healthy pregnancies, childbirth and early childhood health.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who recently committed to supporting marriage equality, lauded the new plan, saying, “Chicago’s strength is in the diversity of its communities and I am committed to ensuring that all Chicagoans have access to the care and information they need to live healthy lives and contribute fully to the vibrancy of our city.” Indeed, the plan was developed in consultation with the city’s LGBT constituents to ensure it best meets the community’s needs. The complete action plan can be found on the city of Chicago’s website.

The Reason Foundation, a self-described “libertarian” think-tank funded by the Koch Family Foundations and tied strongly to the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, is now trying to downplay the severity of bullying young people experience. In a column and interview with the Wall Street Journal, Reason Vice President Nick Gillespie suggests that kids “are safer and better-behaved” than in decades past and that parents are just “overprotective and thin-skinned”:

But is America really in the midst of a “bullying crisis,” as so many now claim? I don’t see it. I also suspect that our fears about the ubiquity of bullying are just the latest in a long line of well-intentioned yet hyperbolic alarms about how awful it is to be a kid today.[...]

Now that schools are peanut-free, latex-free and soda-free, parents, administrators and teachers have got to worry about something. Since most kids now have access to cable TV, the Internet, unlimited talk and texting, college and a world of opportunities that was unimaginable even 20 years ago, it seems that adults have responded by becoming ever more overprotective and thin-skinned.

Gillespie relies on data that suggests that bullying has not increased, but he only refers to reports about what is documented in schools. Despite acknowledging the technology young people have access to, he completely ignores the significant impact that cyberbullying now has on young people. Last year, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that nine out of ten have witnessed the cyberbullying of their peers. A similar Associated Press-MTV poll found that about half of young people regularly encounter discriminatory slang in their online communications, and 54 percent of them think it’s okay to use such language in their circle of friends because “I know we don’t mean it.”

In addition, even if in-school bullying is no more severe than when Gillespie grew up, plenty of new studies demonstrate severe long-term consequences from that bullying that implore a better response than just telling young people to tolerate “lower-level harassment.” For example, LGBT youth who are targeted for their identities are 5.6 times more likely to experience mental health challenges as they age, such as depression, suicide attempts, and substance abuse. In fact, one study has shown that anti-gay stigma can lead to suicidal thoughts that last a lifetime.

It’s unsurprising that Gillespie shied away from discussing anti-LGBT bullying, which is where the “supposed crisis” is most exacerbated. According to GLSEN’s climate survey from 2009 (more recent than the data Gillespie cites), nine out of ten LGBT students experience anti-gay harassment at school. A new study released in January found that nearly half of students and teachers in elementary schools even hear language like “that’s so gay” on a regular basis. Instead, Gillespie invoked the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a group that defends the religious free speech of students, often when it is anti-gay in nature. In other words, he’d rather highlight the work of those defending the bullies than those defending their victims.

Regardless of whether bullying is better or worse than in years past, it’s a significant problem. To trivialize its impact is to discount the real consequences its victims face.

Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA) and Whip Steny Hoyer (MD) are urging House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to abandon his efforts to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in a case involving a disabled Iraq war veteran. That veteran, Tracey Cooper-Harris — is on disability and receiving treatment for PTSD and multiple sclerosis — alleges that by failing to provide spousal benefits to her wife, the Veterans Affairs administration is infringing on her constitutional right to equal protection under the law. DOMA prevents federal agencies from recognizing same-sex relationships and Title 38 of the United States Code defines spouses as a person of the opposite sex.

House Republicans convened the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) to defend the constitutionality of DOMA since the Obama administration announced that it is unconstitutional in February of 2010, but this is the first case in which Beohner is also defending Title 38.

“[W]e strongly object to spending taxpayer money to intervene in this case against a decorated veteran, Tracey Cooper-Harris, and her spouse, Maggie Cooper-Harris,” Pelosi and Hoyer write in their letter. “This decision clearly exceeds the scope of the original BLAG authorization, with which we initially disagreed”:

This intervention once again puts the House of Representatives on the wrong side of the future – supporting discrimination, unfairness, and the denial of basic equality to all Americans. We have objected to prior decisions by the House Republican BLAG members to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to defend discrimination. This latest decision not only ignores the civil rights of LGBT Americans but opens a new, direct assault on veterans. The men and women of our Armed Forces serve with courage and dignity on behalf of our safety and security. They risk their lives for the country they love – and they should not face prejudice at home because of whom they love. These brave soldiers deserve nothing less than our gratitude, our respect, and the benefits they have earned in battle.

Pelosi and Hoyer are calling for “a formal vote of the BLAG on extending your defense of discrimination to veterans and their families” and a full examination by the Committee on House Administration and the House Ethics Committee of any “extension of the existing legal contract, any new contract, and any additional expenditure of public funds on behalf of outside counsel.” Democratic lawmakers have long raised questions about the GOP’s efforts to spend taxpayer dollars on DOMA and have asked Boehner to divert the resources to investigate the Trayvon Martin shooting.