If Taylor Schumaker had known the University Club in downtown Moline, Illinois blatantly discriminated against same-sex couples, she wouldn’t have bothered inquiring about holding her wedding reception there. When Bar Manager Kristen Stewart offered to give Schumaker and her fiancé (“he”) a tour of the facility and learned that “he” was in fact “she,” she abruptly rescinded the offer because “we don’t rent to homosexual couples.” When WQAD caught up with Stewart —whose husband is President of the University Club — she defended her decision with her religious beliefs:

STEWART: I am a biblical Christian and I do not believe in homosexual marriage, that’s correct. And because marriage is a covenant that God created for man and woman, as a biblical Christian, I cannot help them into or celebrate that sin. My husband’s family does not hold the same view. If there is a homosexual couple I will pass them onto them. I have told him if they want to do homosexual receptions I would not have any part of that. He and his family have decided they will.

Though same-sex marriage is not legal in Illinois, the state does ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, suggesting Stewart’s decision is unlawful. Though Schumaker was hurt by the experience, she and her fiancé (she) are looking elsewhere.

Just today, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council sent an email asking conservatives to oppose the “discrimination” imposed by the “homosexual rights movement,” citing three similar examples of Christians refusing to abide by nondiscrimination protections:

CLAIM: “Catholic Charities of Boston–forced out of the adoption business after more than 100 years and surrendered their license because they would not obey the state’s mandate to place orphans with same-sex couples.”

REALITY: Catholic Charities had two choices to continue its work: stop relying on government subsidy or stop discriminating against same-sex couples. They gave up entirely. When Catholic Charities faced the same dilemma in Illinois, a judge upheld the state’s right to pull funding because of the agency’s discriminatory practices.

CLAIM: “Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, a historic New Jersey Christian camp, ordered by a judge to allow same-sex ‘commitment’ ceremonies on their property, even though it violated their religious views.”

REALITY: The pavilion’s tax-exempt status was part of a recreational real estate agreement with the state to ensure its availability to the public. It was not tied the church’s religious designation.

CLAIM: “Marcia Walden, a counselor with the Centers for Disease Control, fired when she politely declined to help a lesbian continue a same-sex relationship. Marcia, a Christian, felt she wasn’t the best counselor.”

REALITY: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Walden’s firing — not because of the anti-gay religious beliefs she held, but because of her insistence upon imposing them on clients.

The question at stake isn’t even same-sex marriage, but whether or not religious beliefs qualify as legal criteria for discrimination. Conservatives will likely come to Stewart’s defense, claiming that she is the victim. But the real victims are the LGBT people who are routinely treated as second-class citizens in society.

Ethics and Integrity Minister Fr. Simon Lokodo

On Wednesday, Uganda Ethics Minister Simon Lokodo announced plans to dissolve 38 organizations because they “empower, enhance, and recruit” people into homosexuality. Now, Lokodo is backing away from such claims, having put out a statement saying that the Ugandan government does not discriminate against people “of a different sexual orientation”:

LOKODO: No government official is (supposed) to harass any section of the community and everybody in Uganda enjoys the freedom to lawfully assemble and associate freely with others.

Lokodo’s statement is odd, as his history of anti-gay hostility is well-documented. Though the “Kill the Gays” bill is still pending in the legislature, homosexuality continues to be illegal in Uganda. To say that the government does not discriminate against people based upon their sexual orientation falls far short of the truth.

In May of 2011, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed the Colorado Bullying Prevention Act, one of the nation’s most comprehensive anti-bullying law. The law, which includes LGBT students in the “protected classes,” requires all state school districts to adopt anti-bullying policies.

Colorado LGBT advocacy organization One Colorado, which pushed heavily for the state-wide mandate, asked school districts to present their anti-bullying policies to check how many follow the law. Only 147 of the state’s 178 school districts responded. Of those 147, One Colorado discovered that more than a year after the state bullying mandate was signed, only 37 percent of school districts include sexual orientation in their anti-bullying policies. The group also found that only 62 percent include sexual orientation in their anti-harassment policy, and only 61 percent include the classification in their nondiscrimination policy. “It’s disheartening,” said Brad Clark, executive director of One Colorado.

The study highlights the double-pronged approach required to address school bullying. States must enforce their policies so that they reach their intended aim of preventing the tangible harms of bullying. In a Human Rights Campaign survey released in June, 54 percent of LGBT youth said they had personally been attacked with slurs, and almost half said they did not feel accepted by their community. The survey also found that 21 percent said school bullying was the most important problem in their lives right now.

– Ben Sherman

When anti-gay conservatives were defending California’s Proposition 8 in court two years ago, they were counting on David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values to be their star witness opposing same-sex marriage. This greatly backfired, and not just because Blankenhorn admitted that the children of same-sex couples would be better off if their parents could marry. In his ruling, Judge Vaughan Walker dismissed Blankenhorn’s “expertise” as “inadmissible opinion testimony” that is “unreliable and entitled to essentially no weight.”

While it’s true that Blankenhorn lacked the proper academic credentials to qualify as an expert, his ineffective testimony may also have reflected his own lack of commitment to opposing same-sex marriage. In April, he spoke out against Amendment One, North Carolina’s constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships, and now, in a New York Times op-ed, he has come out wholly in favor of marriage equality:

For me, the most important is the equal dignity of homosexual love. I don’t believe that opposite-sex and same-sex relationships are the same, but I do believe, with growing numbers of Americans, that the time for denigrating or stigmatizing same-sex relationships is over. Whatever one’s definition of marriage, legally recognizing gay and lesbian couples and their children is a victory for basic fairness. [...]

So my intention is to try something new. Instead of fighting gay marriage, I’d like to help build new coalitions bringing together gays who want to strengthen marriage with straight people who want to do the same. For example, once we accept gay marriage, might we also agree that getting married before having children is a vital cultural value that all of us should do more to embrace? Can we agree that, for all lovers who want their love to last, marriage is preferable to cohabitation? Can we discuss whether both gays and straight people should think twice before denying children born through artificial reproductive technology the right to know and be known by their biological parents?

Will this strategy work? I don’t know. But I hope to find out.

It’s unfortunate that Blankenhorn still clings to some of his unfounded beliefs about parenting and that he does not yet fully appreciate how marriage equality supports the children of same-sex couples. Nevertheless, his courageous admission of a changed heart and mind should be commended. Like so many before him, Blankenhorn met same-sex couples, learned about their experiences, and realized that his point of view was visibly hurting people. He allowed new information to change his mind. Hopefully his new strategy will convince other social conservatives to do the same.

The Australian state of Queensland decided last night to take some rights away from same-sex couples. The Legislative Assembly downgraded civil partnerships to the class of “registered relationships,” revoking the option for couples to have an official ceremony. Worse yet, Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie announced that single people and gay couples will no longer be allowed to have children through a surrogate, increasing the difficulty for them to start families.

A former campaigner for the conservative Liberal National Party, which is responsible for the downgrade, explained the thinking behind the change. According to Graham Young, surrogacy treats children like property:

YOUNG: I don’t think you treat children as chattels, as possessions you have some sort of a right to have, I think they rise out of your situation and if you’re a heterosexual couple it arises naturally out of it. If you’re not a heterosexual couple then it can’t arise naturally out of it and I think that is just a consequence of not being in a heterosexual couple, or being barren. It troubles me, this idea that people have a right to have a child and that the child then becomes something which is sort of organised between people.

Apparently conservatives like Young believe that children are better off when parents are not prepared to raise them and do not have the proper resources. This obvious deficit of logic can only be explained by a bias against same-sex couples or some bizarre subscription to a “natural law” with no foundation in reality.

In an interesting aside, Queensland’s highest court ruled this week that people who are bisexual can claim compensation if they are vilified with homophobia. Perhaps the state’s LGBT community should file a complaint against the entire Legislative Assembly.

Cartoon via SlapUpsideTheHead.com.

The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), the professional organization for ex-gay therapists, sang the praises yesterday of Mark Regenrus’ completely flawed study that claimed to evaluate same-sex parenting. Rather than acknowledge that the paper provided a negligible amount of data about committed same-sex couples with planned families, NARTH suggested it was the most accurate study on same-sex parenting ever:

In a historic study of children raised by homosexual parents, sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin has overturned the conventional academic wisdom that such children suffer no disadvantages when compared to children raised by their married mother and father. Just published in the journal Social Science Research, the most careful, rigorous, and methodologically sound study ever conducted on this issue found numerous and significant differences between these groups–with the outcomes for children of homosexuals rated “suboptimal” (Regnerus’ word) in almost every category.

If that weren’t enough, NARTH then linked to analyses from the following four sources:

• The Family Research Council, an anti-gay hate group.
• Dr. Mark Yarhouse of Regent University, whose own pro-ex-gay research found that ex-gay therapy and behavior does nothing to change sexual orientation.
• Townhall columnist Jeff Jacoby, who regularly attacks the LGBT community and who has said that same-sex marriage “interferes with the core elements of wedlock.”
• The Alliance Defense Fund, an anti-gay hate group.

There’s never been any doubt about NARTH’s motives, but this clearly shows that ex-gay therapists align with hate groups to distort science for the sake of demonizing gays. It’s because of the antipathy these groups inject into society that anybody’s same-sex attractions are “unwanted” to begin with, demonstrating the artificial cycle of internalized homophobia they all depend upon.