This morning came news that the Association of Bragg Officers Spouses (ABOS) at Ft. Bragg had extended a “guest membership” to Ashley Broadway, the lesbian spouse of Lt. Col. Heather Mack. This concession was to serve as a temporary solution until the group reconsidered its membership policies, which it arbitrarily changed to exclude her. This afternoon, the L.A. Times is reporting that Broadway has rejected the offer, calling it ”not only offensive, but just plain hurtful”:

BROADWAY: My wife wears the same uniform as the spouses of [the club] and she’s just as prepared to give her life for our country. I wake up each and every day to the reality that I’m not equal, that my 15 years of love and faithfulness to my wife and country does not mean I’ll receive support as a military spouse.

Broadway and Mack married in November, but have been together for 15 years. The Pentagon has been supposedly reviewing military benefits for same-sex couples since the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” took effect in September 2011, but has yet to take action.

Last July, a 22-year-old Eagle Scout named Tim Griffin was fired from his position on the staff at Camp Winton, where he’d worked for eight years, because he was gay. Officials from the Boy Scouts of America claimed it was because of his appearance and mannerisms, but other staff at the camp confirmed it was because of his sexual orientation. That, along with numerous other manifestations of the BSA’s anti-gay policy this year, prompted Derek Nance to come out as well.

Nance is also an Eagle Scout who has worked as a program director at Mataguay Scout Ranch in Southern California for 10 years. In a video posted on YouTube on Thursday, he explains that he couldn’t bear to keep his secret from his camp family any longer:

NANCE: I am gay… I live with camp friends, I attend school with camp friends, and I go out drinking at night with camp friends, and yet I’ve had to keep part of my life secret from them. The little things are the most frustrating. For instance, I can’t giggle when a boy texts me while I’m at camp. I can’t comment on how cute an actor looked in a movie we went and saw that weekend. And I can’t share with them the emotional roller coaster everyone feels while they fall in and out of love. I’m open to all my friends and family in “real life,” but to the people I truly feel closest to, I’ve had to remain distant.

Which is why I’ve chosen this moment to open up to them, and to every other staff member of the Boy Scouts of America who is in the same position I am in. The only way we will change the Boy Scouts’ discriminatory policies is if those of us who are on the front lines representing them to thousands of scouts every single summer start engaging in some open dialogue on this issue. Lawsuits from the ACLU or “confidential reviews” by the Boy Scouts are not going to change policies. The first step to coming to an agreement on this issue is to drop the old pretenses and stereotypes and to start actually talking.

Watch Nance’s courageous video:

Nance joins a growing coalition standing up against the antiquated policy. Every instance in which the Boy Scouts maintains that it is better off without gay scouts and leaders further demonstrates how pointless the discrimination truly is.

In what is an important victory for the transgender community, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration has announced it will remove all body scanners that show nearly nude images from airports. The TSA had already removed 76 of the machines and will now remove the remaining 174, though they may still be used in other government offices where privacy is not a concern like it is in airports. Congress had set a deadline for OSI Systems to develop software for the scanners to produce generic passenger images instead of the the nearly nude images, but the company was unable to meet the timeline. Scanners produced by other companies that have managed to adjust the software will continue to be used.

The invasion of privacy caused by the machine was particularly invasive for transgender people, who were considered suspicious if their genitalia did not match their presentation. Even the software change utilized by the remaining body scanners, which are manufactured by L-3, use “blue” and “pink” indicators for gender that can still cause confusion (and thus concern) for trans passengers. As a result, they can be disproportionately selected for invasive pat downs.

The TSA is planning to expand its PreCheck program, in which passengers share more personal data before arriving at the airport but can then go through metal detectors instead of body scanners.

With a Democratic majority now in both chambers of Colorado’s legislature, civil unions legislation is expected to pass quite easily this year. That won’t stop Catholic Charities from attempting to thwart the effort with its perennial threat to abandon all adoption services if not granted specific protections to continue discriminating against same-sex couples. Mark Rohlena, President and CEO of Catholic Charities of Central Colorado, explains that a complete shutdown is “very well what could happen”:

ROHLENA: We feel it would be a very sad commentary if Colorado forced religious institutions or those who believe in a different framework to do something against their conscience… We probably would cease the operation of our adoption programs. That risk is always there. I think that we would try to explore every avenue available to us to provide this vital service to the community.

Catholic Charities can easily avoid the conflict by functioning privately without dependency on state funding. Catholic Charities in Illinois, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC preferred to honor their ultimatums and voluntarily shut down when the respective governments refused to continue the organization’s funding if it discriminated. Rohlena claimed that his agency does not receive state funds to “any significant degree,” so this shouldn’t be a concern.

But Catholic Charities demonstrated quite brashly during the debate last year in Colorado that it cares more about opposing recognition of same-sex couples than it does the service it provides. Last year’s version of the civil unions bill included a specific provision that the law could “not be interpreted to require a child placement agency to place a child for adoption with parties to a civil union.” Despite this exemption, Catholic Charities nonetheless testified it would shut down anyway.

If any lawmaker might be swayed by Catholic Charities, that testimony should be sufficient evidence that the threat is a bluff. Just as an Illinois bishop recently admitted that religious exemptions will not assuage the Catholic Church’s opposition to marriage equality, Catholic Charities of Colorado is going to protest civil unions even if lawmakers meet all of their demands.

Jazz (center) with her supportive family.

Barbara Walters’ follow-up interview with Jazz is finally going to air Saturday night. Jazz, age 12, is transgender and has been raised as a girl since she was three. Walters previously interviewed Jazz and her family in 2007 when she was six. Now, as she reaches the age of puberty, she faces not only the challenge of blocking the effects of testosterone, but navigating the tricky world of teenage dating. Walters shared this preview of tomorrow night’s 20/20 featuring Jazz texting with a boy she met about her identity:

In November, after marriage equality passed in Washington state, the Boeing Company said it would not extend survivor benefits to the same-sex spouses of its employees. The company argued that the benefits were governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and as a federal law it was governed by the Defense of Marriage Act — in other words, Boeing wasn’t providing the benefits because it didn’t have to. Now, according to the union currently negotiating a new contract for the technical workers, the company has agreed to voluntarily provide the pension benefits.

Ray Goforth, executive director of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), IFPTE Local 2001, provided the new language to The Stranger:

Recognizing Boeing’s commitment to equality without regard to sexual orientation, Boeing will extend pension survivor benefits to all spouses, as defined under either State or Federal law whichever defines the same sex person as a spouse.

Goforth further explained that if the Defense of Marriage Act is overturned by the Supreme Court this year, the language will protect same-sex couples in any state, even if that state does not itself recognize marriage equality:

“This language also protects members if same-sex marriage is recognized at the federal level but made illegal at the state level,” Goforth says. For example, benefits could still apply if the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is struck down and marriage equality is legal, “but then a state adopts its own discriminatory statute,” he says.

A Change.org petition challenging Boeing’s obstinance had garnered over 79,000 signatures.

Studies have shown that providing inclusive benefits improves recruitment, retention, innovation, customer service, productivity, employee relations, and morale for businesses both large and small.

Ashley Broadway, Lt. Col. Heather Mack, and Carson

The Association of Bragg Officers’ Spouses, the military spouses group at Ft. Bragg, has offered a “guest membership” to Ashley Broadway, the same-sex spouse of Lt. Col. Heather Mack who they blocked last month from joining. In fact, the group arbitrarily changed its rules to require an active ID card — a benefit same-sex spouses are not currently afforded — specifically to keep her from being eligible. In the letter offering the guest membership, the Association of Bragg Officers Spouses (ABOS) claimed it has been reviewing its by-laws since July 2012, but the timing is definitely suspect.

Though the “guest membership” may provide temporary relief for Broadway, it is not a workable solution to the discrimination at hand. Stephen Peters, executive director of the American Military Partner Association, offered this reaction to BuzzFeed:

PETERS: Ashley is not a ‘guest’ military spouse. She is a military spouse, plain and simple. So the idea that the organization, in order to end the negative attention they are getting because of their outright discrimination, wants to give her a ‘guest membership’ is not only offensive, but ridiculous. The ABOS openly admits a military ID card is not listed as a requirement, yet they continue to deny her full membership.

Both the Ft. Bragg leadership and Pentagon have refused to take accountability for allowing the spouses’ group’s discrimination to persist and the Army has remained silent. The organization is private and is not obligated to abide by the Defense of Marriage Act, so the anti-gay discrimination is totally of its own accord. Meanwhile, the Marines responded by prohibiting such discrimination on their bases.