Republican legislators in Tennessee are circulating a resolution that would condemn their own party’s governor, Bill Haslam (R), for choosing not to fire a gay person on his staff. The resolution, which has been signed by nine country Republican chapters so far, would also denounce the Governor for keeping a Muslim woman in his employ, and for not supporting two highly conservative pieces of legislation.

Haslam did not hire the Muslim or gay employees. Rather, he simply kept them on the payroll after a change of leadership.

The Tennessean obtained copies of the counties’ nearly-identical resolutions, which say Haslam has “forced this GOP organization to lose the confidence in our Governor during an election year.” One of the reasons listed for why Republicans have lost confidence, it continues, is that Haslam allowed “openly homosexuals to make policy decisions”:

According to the Tennessean on January 15, 2012, Governor Haslam admitted to retaining 85% of the Democrat Governor Phil Bredesen’s Executive Service Employees.

One of the latest Executive Service Employees has included Samar Ali, an expert in Shariah Compliant Finance which is one of the many ways Islamic terrorism is funded. She is also a one-time Obama appointee and her family has a long history of supporting the Democrat Party.[...]

Allowed and retained openly homosexuals to make policy decisions in the Department of Children’s Services.

Some of the county party leaders have since equivocated a bit on the language used in the resolutions. Talking Points Memo, which spoke with one of the county GOP chairs, reports that the man refused to comment on the line about “openly homosexuals.” According to TPM, he said “I don’t know how to respond appropriately to that one.”

Haslam has been minimally supportive of the LGBT community in his state; he opposed the state’s controversial ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill (but supported an abstinence-only bill that had the same effect), and protected LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination policies on college campuses in Tennessee. But the Governor is far from a gay rights’ activist — he opposes marriage equality and thinks a non-discrimination requirement for employers is a regulatory burden.

In a new video from Freedom to Marry, Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan — a lesbian member of the National Guard facing Stage IV breast cancer — explains how her wife Karen and five-year-old daughter Casey Elena would not be entitled to survivor’s benefits because of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Charlie came out live on MSNBC in the wake of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal, and has since met with John Boehner’s office to discuss how legally married gay and lesbian couples are denied thousands of federal protections under DOMA. In 2008, Morgan was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy and chemotherapy. Declared cancer free, she was deployed to Kuwait for one year, but the cancer returned last September. It is incurable, and Charlie and Karen say why DOMA is only making their tough times worse:

CHARLIE: The concern is, if something was to happen to me and I was to die within the next couple of years, my concern is that Karen would not be provided the same survivor benefits. [...] When you talk about the casualty notification, all those things that happen as far as being recognized — military funerals — all those things that Karen wouldn’t be able to coordinate because she wouldn’t be recognized as my spouse because of the Defense of Marriage Act. She would just be recognized as a friend.

Watch it:

Title 38 of the United States Code (veterans’ benefits) and DOMA reject Karen as Charlie’s “spouse.” If Charlie died, Karen would not receive the benefits enjoyed by the spouses of heterosexual service members, including a burial flag and the option to be buried together. In addition, thousands of dollars of survivor’s compensation that would help Karen take care of their five-year-old would also be denied. For 16 years, Charlie has served the United States with honor and dedication. Now, stricken with Stage IV cancer, she is being denied peace of mind by DOMA’s double standard.

– Steven Perlberg

There are well over 300,000 people who believe Jennifer Tyrrell deserves to be reinstated as a Cub Scout leader for her son’s den, but today, Boy Scouts of America officials are not among them. Tyrrell delivered petition signatures today at BSA’s headquarters and met with officials behind closed doors, where they confirmed she will not be reinstated. The BSA cited the report of an 11-member anonymous “secret committee” that was surreptitiously released yesterday (with the foreknowledge of Tyrrell’s impending visit).  It found that discrimination against gay scouts and gay and lesbian scout leaders is “absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts,” but Tyrrell thinks otherwise:

TYRRELL: This movement doesn’t stop because 11 anonymous men behind closed doors made a decision to keep discrimination in place. This petition may have started out for me and my son, but it’s grown into something much bigger. Something much more important. Today, when you read through the comments on my petition, you can read the stories of literally thousands of scouts, scout leaders and former scouts who are hoping the Boy Scouts of America will take this moment and end this policy of discrimination against gay Americans.

Tyrrell’s efforts have been supported by Eagle Scout and son-of-two-moms Zach Wahls, who has started a new petition calling on the BSA to “stop the secrecy” and allow the board to vote to end the anti-gay policy. Wahls, founder of Scouts for Equality, has been making numerous media appearances since BSA’s announcement yesterday, calling the “secret committee” a bluff that “hasn’t changed anything“:

Indeed, questions abound about this “secret committee,” its membership, its authority, its process, and its rationale, but Boy Scout officials are mum. BSA officials refused to share the study or the names of any of the committee members with ThinkProgress. And as bloggers Bil Browning and David Badash have further pointed out, the organization has released no information to defend its decision. BSA claims that a majority of families involved in scouting support the anti-gay policy, but where is the survey that proves it? What criteria did it supposedly study in determining what would be “absolutely best” for scouts and their families? What social science research or experts, if any, did it consult? And why didn’t this two-year-old committee exist a month ago when officials agreed to reconsider the policy over the next year — an offer no longer on the table?

It might be unfair to hypothesize which stigmatizing falsehoods the BSA “committee” utilized to legitimize ongoing anti-gay discrimination, but if they had done the least bit of research about what’s best for young people, here is what they would have learned:

• LGBT teens who are bullied and ostracized attempt suicide and contract sexually transmitted infections at higher rates.
• LGBT young people who are rejected by their family are more likely to attempt suicide and use illegal drugs.
• Conservative anti-gay attitudes in a community increase the suicide risk for all young people, including straight teens.
• Anti-gay stigma can influence suicidal thoughts over an entire lifetime.
• Supporting people when they come out improves their mental health.
• Inclusive organizations like gay-straight alliances mitigate depression and improve college success rates.
• Opportunities to learn about LGBT people help make young people feel safer and their peers more accepting (Remember, “character counts.”)

The only insight that has come to light about the decision is that the BSA contacted hate group spokesman Bryan Fischer, assuming he can be taken at his word. In addition to this claim yesterday, Fischer reiterated his harmful lie that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, and also suggested that gay people shouldn’t be allowed custody of children because they’re likely pedophiles like former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. If this is the kind of wisdom informing how the BSA makes its decisions, the organization’s conspicuous desire to hide this committee and its members makes sense. No secretive committee can undo the harm to families like Tyrrell’s that BSA is perpetuating through its ongoing anti-gay stigma.

Yesterday’s announcement by the Boy Scouts of America that it has already rejected a proposal to end its longstanding policy of discrimination against LGBT scouts and leaders claimed that “BSA leadership agrees this is the best policy for the organization and supports it for the BSA.” But rather than using its in-house communications team to distribute the anti-equality announcement, the BSA relied on its outside public affairs firm, Fleishman-Hillard.

Unlike BSA, which continues to cling to an exclusionary policy that that drives its membership down and flies in the face of its own core tenets, Fleishman-Hillard recognizes that anti-LGBT discrimination is bad social policy and bad business.

Fleishman-Hillard, on the LGBT section of its website notes:

Gays and lesbians rank among the most powerful, loyal — and largely untapped — consumer markets across the globe. We understand how to reach this community because we’re a part of it.

In highlighting the positive “social — and financial — impact of LGBT-friendly policies,” the firm notes that LGBT-inclusion is an “invaluable recruitment tool” for great talent. And on its Out Front blog, Fleischman-Hillard emphasizes “the agency’s tradition as a communications pioneer within the gay and lesbian community.”

A Fleischman-Hillard spokeswoman told ThinkProgress:

Fleishman-Hillard is an inclusive company that values and encourages diversity and treats all of our employees equally without regard to sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

We work with a wide variety of organizations that have differing views on societal issues. We provide each of them with our best communications counsel. We do not agree with every client on every issue, and we do not expect them to agree with us on every issue.

While our policies and perspectives differ on this subject, we support the Boy Scouts of America’s vision of preparing American youth to become responsible citizens and leaders, and we work with them on communications programs to support this vision.

Unfortunately, BSA’s vision is only to prepare some youth to become responsible citizens and leaders. Worse still, the group is teaching those youth that discrimination is acceptable — a message that even its own public relations team knows is both morally wrong and a waste of top talent.

Jackie Gill was a full-time temporary professor at Tarrant County College who was told that she would be hired permanently if she successfully completed her one-year contract. Despite receiving high praise from colleagues, superiors, parents, and teachers, she was subjected to a lecture about how “Texas and Tarrant County College do not like homosexuals.” Gill had also been accused of “flirting” with female students by a high school student in one of her classes who cheated by stealing an exam, but there was always another professor in the room who could easily debunk the claim. Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit on her behalf for workplace discrimination, which she has now settled with TCC.

Though TCC assumes no liability in the settlement, they will pay Gill more than $160,000 and provide her with a positive letter of recommendation. In March of last year — when her suit was already underway — the university also passed an anti-discrimination policy that included sexual orientation, though it claimed the change was unrelated to the legal proceedings.

Gill is relieved the case is over:

GILL: It was important for me to bring this challenge, but I’m also happy it’s settled. I’m also pleased to know that there is now a written policy in place at TCC that hopefully will not allow what happened to me to happen to anyone else. [...] It’s been extremely difficult. There’s certainly been more than one occasion when I’ve cried. I think they fully expected me to just walk away. You can’t do that because then nothing ever changes.

Since leaving TCC, she has sought work at middle and high schools, and has also applied for numerous positions back at TCC. Despite the suit, she said she would like to be hired back.