ThinkProgress Logo

LGBT

All Living Democratic Presidential Nominees Support Marriage Equality

Conservatives Object To AARP's Support For The 'Homosexual Agenda'

Anti-Gay Legal Group Works Against Its Own Cause

NEWS FLASH

‘Here Comes Honey Boo Boo’ Beats the RNC | The RNC already has its slogan in “we built that,” but after last night’s TV ratings, they might want to make the subtext of that statement obvious and switch to “a dollar makes me holler.” That’s one of the catchphrases of Alana Thompson, the child beauty queen and titular star of TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, which beat the Republican convention in the ratings in the 18-49 demographic on every cable network and on CBS, ABC and NBC last night. Maybe Americans are more excited by go-go juice and couponing than Objectivism and mischaracterizations of Barack Obama’s record as president. And this is the only time where that could possibly count as a victory for American discourse.

Politics

The Ultimate Viewer’s Guide To Mitt Romney’s Convention Speech

By Igor Volsky posted from ThinkProgress Politics on Aug 30, 2012 at 5:10 pm

Politicians from both parties twist facts or spin policy, but Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has had a particularly strained relationship with the truth, repeating false claims with impunity — even after fact checkers, mainstream media organizations, and blogs have all debunked their assertions.

From saying that “Obama gutted the welfare work requirement” to insisting that his own policies won’t deregulate Wall Street, Romney has led a post-truth campaign. A top adviser even admitted earlier this week, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

As Romney prepares to deliver his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, ThinkProgress has compiled a Viewer’s Guide comparing what Romney says with the facts.

Below is just a small sampling of our full report:

“What the president is proposing is therefore a massive tax increase on job creators and on small business. Small businesses are overwhelmingly being taxed not at a corporate rate but at the individual tax rate. So successful small businesses will see their taxes go up dramatically, and that will kill jobs.” [Los Angeles Times, 7/9/2012]

REALITY: President Obama’s plan to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on income in excess of $250,000 would affect exceedingly few small businesses. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the expiration would affect only three percent of individuals with any business income, from a business large or small. [Joint Committee on Taxation, 7/12/2010]

Read the full report HERE.

NEWS FLASH

POLL: Marriage Equality Support Improves In Nevada | A new Public Policy Polling poll shows that support for marriage equality has improved in Nevada to 47 percent, with 42 percent opposed, up from 45-44 a year ago. More dramatically, 80 percent of voters support at least civil unions for same-sex couples — up from 77 percent — with only 17 percent opposed to any form of relationship recognition. On Top Magazine noticed that there was a sharp increase in marriage equality support among African-Americans, increasing from 21 percent to 47 percent, likely reflecting President Obama’s endorsement this past May.

Alyssa

GLAAD’s Network Responsibility Index and the State of LGBT Television

By Alyssa Rosenberg posted from ThinkProgress Alyssa on Aug 30, 2012 at 3:20 pm

GLAAD’s Network Responsibility Index is one of the most fascinating and comprehensive looks at the on-screen diversity of American television, examining not just gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters, but racial and gender diversity as well. And the version of its report released today says a lot not just about which networks are doing well at integrating LGBT characters into their programming, but about generation gaps between viewers and which kind of gay people are most integrated into the American imagination.

On broadcast television, there’s a striking gap between the network aimed at the youngest viewers and the one that targets the oldest. The CW consistently leads its rivals in programming that includes gay characters—in the 2011-2012 television season, 29 percent of its program hours included gay characters or gay people, bolstered substantially by its reality programming. 62 percent of those impressions were of LGBT people of color. During the same period, CBS only had gay people or characters in 8 percent of its original programming. The CW, of course, is so dangerously at the bottom of the ratings that it’s at risk of actual extinction, while CBS leads the ratings by a significant margin. The attitudes of young viewers should drive LGBT-inclusive programming, but their actual consumption behaviors mean they’re creating a less strong market than their rising consumption power would indicate.

It’s also important to note that, while more LGBT characters and people are appearing on television, their numbers are still small enough that a single character or program can significantly shift a network’s performance. Reality programming is the major driver of LGBT representation on NBC and ABC. CBS has so few LGBT characters that Kalinda Sharma, the bisexual investigator on The Good Wife, ends up accounting for almost one third of the hours of representation of non-straight people on the network, and that show provided 48 percent of those hours overall. Diana Berrigan, the FBI agent on White Collar, made the USA Network the leader in representations of black LGBT people and lesbians all on her own. White gay men remain the most popular kind of LGBT people on television.

These small numbers mean both that the cancellation of a single program can significantly decrease a network’s representation of LGBT characters. But it also means that a few chances can make a network get better quickly. FX, a network that’s been defined by its explorations of heterosexual masculinity, for example, went from 19 percent of its programming hours including LGBT characters to 34 percent on the strength of Archer and American Horror Story. That’s a blessing and a curse. Progress is fragile. But it’s also relatively easy to accomplish.

And this year’s NRI has an interesting finding about the impact of popular culture on public opinion from its Pulse of Equality survey, which is conducted by Harris Internactive. “Among the 19% who reported that their feelings toward gay and lesbian people have become more favorable over the past 5 years, 34% cited ‘seeing gay or lesbian characters on television’ as a contributing factor,” the report says. That doesn’t mean television works for everyone, of course: Ann Romney’s love for Modern Family hasn’t exactly made her any more amenable to marriage equality. But if popular culture makes 6.5 percent of Americans think more favorably about LGBT people over a five-year period, that’s a significant contribution, and one that’s worth fighting for.

NEWS FLASH

Romney Campaign Chair: Same-Sex Marriage Too ‘Complicated’ To Discuss | Romney campaign chair John Sununu sat down for a radio interview with Michelangelo Signorile yesterday, but was apparently unprepared to discuss the Republican Party’s platform. When he was informed that it called for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage — which Mitt Romney supports — Sununu was at a loss for words, explaining the issue is “much more complicated” than a “two-sentence” answer could encompass. Instead, he offered to share two cases of beer and talk about it in a different setting, presumably not while being recorded. Listen to the interview:

Sununu Interview with Michelangelo Signorile by thinkprogress

Anti-Gay Groups Offer Model Policy To Protect Religious Bullying

By Zack Ford on Aug 30, 2012 at 1:30 pm

Cartoon via SlapUpsideTheHead.com

Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defending Freedom have released a new resource they call the Anti-Bullying Policy Yardstick. Under the guise of “helping parents protect their children” the guide actually features an elaborate scheme to ensure religious bullying is protected in schools while students most likely to be targeted for harassment are made more vulnerable. Here are these anti-gay groups’ bullying policy ideals:

  • Bullying policies should use “precise” definitions. The goal of this is to prioritize “free speech” over a safe learning environment. ADF even suggests that some forms of harassment might be “objectively reasonable,” implying that the bully should always be given the benefit of the doubt while the impact on the victim is disregarded.
  • Bullying policies should not apply to “religious, political, philosophical, or other protected student speech.” Like states that have tried to pass similar laws, this amounts to a “license to bully.” Given that anti-gay bullying is often justified by religious beliefs, such an exemption would invite bullying to persist, defeating the point of a comprehensive policy.
  • Bullying policies should not examine intent or include “re-education.” According to this ideal, a student who believes it’s okay to violently harass a gay student should never be taught to understand the nature of sexual orientation. Education about LGBT issues has been repeatedlyproven to make schools safer, but ADF remains adamantly opposed.
  • Bullying policies should never highlight certain characteristics (i.e. race, sexual orientation). Obviously, any sensible bullying policy covers all students, but it’s important to recognize certain types of bullying that often go unaddressed. Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District provides a prime example of how teachers and administrators neglected to interrupt anti-gay bullying or properly protect LGBT students.
  • Bullying policies should have no reporting requirements. The only way to actually address a bullying problem is to identify it. A policy with no reporting requirements for teachers is a policy with no accountability. ADF worries teachers and staff might “over-report bullying,” again, seeking to protect the bullies and not the victims.
  • Bullying policies should ignore cyberbullying and off-campus speech. Studies have shown that 90 percent of teens have experienced cyberbullying, but ADF believes it’s possible to distinguish between cyberbullying that happens on-campus or off-campus. Again, this reflects a commitment to protecting bullies’ speech instead of victims’ learning environment.
  • Bullying policies should not include any trainings or materials from “homosexual activist groups.” ADF doesn’t believe students should actually learn about why not to bully, only how not to bully, suggesting schools “limit the instruction to a description of bullying behavior.” Learning about LGBT people is important for all young people, even if they may not identify, and it’s completely outlandish for ADF to claim such materials “promote homosexual behavior.”
  • Bullying policies should always inform parents if their child is bullied or accused of bullying. This policy would be incredibly problematic for LGBT students who experience bullying, who would very likely be outed to their parents through this process. The leading reason 40 percent of homeless youth are LGBT is family rejection, so schools should consider each case independently and act in ways that best protect each child. ADF’s priority is a notion of “parents’ rights” that can further harm LGBT students or protect bullies from remediation.
  • Bullying policies should ignore anonymous complaints. Bullying creates a culture of fear, even for bystanders. Any student with the courage to report bullying, even anonymously, should be taken seriously. Again, ADF’s policy blatantly ensures more bullying goes unaddressed.
  • Bullying laws should exempt private schools. The state guarantees an educational experience for all young people, and just as private schools should be held accountable to academic standards, so too should they be held accountable for safe learning environments.

Point for point, the Alliance Defense Fund’s model policies, promoted by Focus on the Family’s True Tolerance page, intentionally protect bullies while making LGBT students more vulnerable to victimization and harassment. This “yardstick” measures only one thing: intolerance.

 

NEWS FLASH

Room & Board Comes Out Against Minnesota Inequality Amendment | Furniture retailer Room & Board is the latest Minnesota-based company to come out against the state’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, joining Capella University, Thomson-Reuters, General Mills, and St. Jude Medical. The furniture store released the following statement:

Room & Board is dedicated to helping customers create homes they love. We recognize that the joy found in one’s home extends far beyond our surroundings to the people with whom we spend our lives. To that end, we have long supported efforts dedicated to strengthening home and family. We oppose the amendment to the Minnesota Constitution banning marriage for same-sex couples.

Each and every day we celebrate diversity. We take pride in providing a progressive, balanced and positive work environment that is based on trust, fairness and respect. This core philosophy shapes the relationships we have with our customers, vendor partners and employees.

Our holistic wellness approach supports the well-being of our employees and their loved ones. We have offered domestic partnership benefits for nearly 20 years. Please join us in recognizing the strength of inclusion by voting ‘No’ this November.”

REPORT: Majority Of LGBT Public Sector Workers Lack Employment Protections

By Guest Blogger on Aug 30, 2012 at 11:40 am

Our guest blogger is Hilary Brandenburg, intern at the Center for American Progress.

This weekend, Americans will take a day off from work to celebrate Labor Day, a day dedicated to the progress Americans have achieved in the workplace over the years. The U.S. Department of Labor website notes that Labor Day is a “yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” However, not all workers are equal under the law. LGBT workers continue to face high rates of workplace discrimination and often receive unequal benefits for equal work for them and their families.

Knowing this, the Center for American Progress and AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the nation’s largest and fastest growing public services employees union, released a report entitled “Gay and Transgender Discrimination in the Public Sector: Why It’s a Problem for State and Local Governments, Employees, and Taxpayers.”

According to this report, a majority of state government employees are currently working in states that fail to offer legal protections to LGBT public sector workers. With approximately one million LGBT individuals in America working in state, local, or municipal government, only 21 states and the District of Columbia have any laws specifically protecting gay workers, and only 16 of those do so for transgender workers. Looking at coverage:

  • 57 percent of state employees work in a state where no legal protections are afforded to gay individuals.
  • 69 percent live in state where no legal protections are afforded to transgender individuals.
  • Only a minority of state employees (just over four in ten, or 42.6 percent) work in a state with a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.
  • Only three in ten (31.8 percent) work in a state with a law also prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity.

Similarly, CAP and AFSCME find that a majority (53 percent) of state government employees do not have equal access to health insurance for them and their partners.

Discrimination and unequal treatment are unfortunate realities for far too many of our nation’s LGBT public sector workers. This is harmful to LGBT workers who all too often find themselves without a job or a way to make ends meet due to employment discrimination. This is harmful to running an efficient public sector, since discrimination imposes costs and inefficiencies for governments. And it is harmful to taxpayers, who are left with the bill to cover these costs.

Among many policy recommendations, this report calls on Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, EDNA, making discrimination against a worker based on their sexual orientation or gender identity a crime in all 50 states. States should similarly pass laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT workers and laws the extend the full range of workplace benefits to employees with same-sex partners.

LGBT public servants go to work every day as firefighters, teachers, policemen and women, nurses, library workers, child care providers, and sanitation workers to provide for our communities, to help care for our children and families, and to keep America functioning. This Labor Day, we must continue to fight for progress and demand better for LGBT employees, taxpayers, and our public sector.


NEWS FLASH

Michigan Man Pleads Guilty To Anti-Gay Hate Crime | A Michigan man has pleaded guilty to federal charges of a hate crime for assaulting a man because he believed he was gay. This marks the second time federal authorities have applied hate crime charges based on the victim’s sexual orientation; the first case is still pending in Kentucky. Everett Dwayne Avery will be sentenced in November and faces up to 10 years in prison for striking a man in the face, including fracturing his eye socket. According to the Williams Institute, gay men face significantly higher rates of hate-motivated violence than other targeted groups.

Health

Meet Dixie: The Stripper Who Entertains GOP Convention Delegates But Fears What They Will Do To Her Health Care

By Scott Keyes posted from ThinkProgress Health on Aug 30, 2012 at 9:50 am

TAMPA, Florida — No employer-sponsored health insurance. High-risk profession. Young adults with unsteady wages.

If there are people in one industry that will benefit from most of the protections in Obamacare, it’s strippers.

Countless columns have been written in the past month about how strip clubs in Tampa have been gearing up for the Republican National Convention, even importing additional dancers to meet expected demand. As Republican convention-goers enjoy Tampa’s nightlife, however, the untold story is how the policies they want to implement tomorrow will hurt the very strippers they patronize tonight.

“I can’t wait for 2014,” Dixie, a petite blonde with a subtle Southern accent told ThinkProgress, “because then I won’t have the pre-existing condition issue.” Dixie (who declined to give her last name) is quite allergic to nickel. It’s a pre-existing condition that, as for many Americans, has made finding affordable health insurance difficult. “Seriously? Even allergies?” she asked rhetorically, disgusted at insurance companies classifying her as having a pre-existing condition.

Like most strippers, Dixie isn’t offered health insurance by her employer. Though she’s worked at the same club for three years, she has no choice but to purchase expensive health insurance as an individual, made all the more complicated by her pre-existing condition. Despite conservative views on most issues, Dixie is a fan of Obamacare’s protections. “I think that’s really going to help a lot of Americans,” she said. “There’s no reason you should be denied health care for a pre-existing condition.”

There are a number of other factors preventing many strippers from getting affordable, quality care. Pre-existing conditions are a widespread issue, and the nature of the work can be fairly risky from a health perspective. They often struggle to make ends meet, like Taylor, a Tampa dancer who told ThinkProgress that she doesn’t have health insurance because she just can’t afford it as an individual.

Obamacare addresses all these factors, not just for strippers, but for millions around the country who struggle to get affordable insurance. It gives tax credits to small businesses that offers their employees health insurance, and creates new marketplaces for individuals who want to purchase comprehensive coverage, with subsidies for lower-income individuals. The new law also allows young adults to stay on their parents’ plan until they turn 26. Finally, it has a host of consumer protections, including preventing insurers from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions, banning them from charging women more just because of their gender, and offering women preventive services like contraception at no additional cost.

Yet it’s these exact protections that would vanish if Republicans in Tampa get their wish. The newly-approved party platform calls for repealing Obamacare in its entirety, and numerous GOP politicians have argued that businesses should be allowed to deny health insurance to people with pre-existing conditions.

Stacey Swimme, co-founder of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, which helps prevent violence against sex workers and advocate for their rights, praised the impact that Obamacare will have on strippers. “The Affordable Care Act may be the best opportunity we have to access an individual, affordable healthcare plan for ourselves and our children,” she told ThinkProgress.

Unfortunately for strippers like Dixie, their Republican clientele in Tampa this week may prevent them from ever enjoying that opportunity to get affordable health insurance.

Anti-Gay Republican Platform Was Retaliation For Log Cabin Republicans’ Presence

By Zack Ford on Aug 30, 2012 at 9:00 am

Casey Pick, Log Cabin Republicans

Gay Republicans have had their own dim spotlight at the Republican National Convention as they peddle apologetics for their party while trying to advance LGBT equality from within. Log Cabin Republicans were proud to have been part of the platform drafting committee, but the GOP ended up approving one of the most anti-gay platforms ever. One member of LCR, Casey Pick, admitted to NPR that the platform might very well have been a “hostile” retaliation to their presence:

PICK: When you back someone into a corner, they fight back twice as hard. The platform is ugly and harmful. We lost, and you could say the social conservatives in our party dropped the hammer harder because we were there.

Former Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), who is openly gay, believes 2012 will be the last year for such vitriol, but Pick’s comments suggest otherwise. The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins had a prominent leadership role on the drafting committee and personally drafted much of its social policy. Though LCR has achieved visibility at this year’s convention, their contributions seem particularly unwelcome in contrast. Though the group admitted the platform was “bad with a capital ‘B,’” it continues to defend the Romney/Ryan ticket, compromising its supposed commitment to LGBT equality in favor of party politics.

GOProud has also taken advantage of the convention’s publicity, but unlike LCR and despite being a gay Republican group, they never purport to support any aspect of LGBT rights.

  • Comment Icon

The Morning Pride: August 30, 2012

By Zack Ford on Aug 30, 2012 at 8:30 am

Welcome to The Morning Pride, ThinkProgress LGBT’s daily round-up of the latest in LGBT policy, politics, and some culture too! Here’s what we’re reading this morning, but please let us know what stories you’re following as well. Follow us all day on Twitter at @TPEquality.

- The University of Texas at Austin has found no evidence of scientific misconduct by Mark Regnerus, but that doesn’t mean his gay parenting study wasn’t “seriously flawed.”

- Washington state’s Public Disclosure Commission has warned that it would be a violation of state law for Catholic parishes to collect donations against marriage equality as an intermediary for the campaign. What else is Preserve Marriage Washington hiding?

- The gay artist who vandalized a Chick-fil-A with “Tastes Like Hate” won’t be charged after agreeing to pay restitution.

- Columbus, Ohio’s domestic partner registry took effect this week.

- Colorado Rep. B.J. Nikkel (R) is speaking out about the bigoted backlash she experienced from fellow Republicans when she voted in support of civil unions.

- The Australian state of Tasmania has advanced marriage equality in its Legislative Assembly, the lower house of its parliament.

- A play about homosexuality has been cancelled in Uganda after the country’s Media Council told producers a day before opening that the script needed to be cleared by authorities.

  • Comment Icon

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up