After over five hours of testimony, the Colorado House Judiciary Committee voted 8-3 to advance SB 11, the civil unions bill. Last year, the legislation was killed by Republicans in the House, but Democrats won sweeping victories and even elected Rep. Mark Ferrandino (D), who is openly gay and previously sponsored civil unions, to be Speaker. The bill must advance to the Finance Committee yet, but it is expected to pass the House easily and Gov.  John Hickenlooper (D) has committed to signing it. A November poll showed that 70 percent of Coloradans support the legal recognition of same-sex couples either through civil unions or marriage, which is currently prohibited under the state constitution.

Today, Congress finally voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, a traditionally bipartisan bill which provides assistance to victims of domestic violence.  For the first time since the bill was first introduced in 1994, Congress allowed the Violence Against Women Act to expire at the end of 2012 because House Republicans opposed new provisions which would improve care and access to services for LGBT people and Native American women.

Their resistance is especially ironic, given that the whole purpose of the Violence Against Women Act is to ensure that no victim of sexual assault or domestic violence be denied access to the support, assistance, and protection that they need, especially among underserved communities. It has also become increasingly clear that LGBT people fall into the category of “underserved.”

LGBT Americans face the roughly the same rate of domestic violence as their straight counterparts — one out of four to one out of three same-sex relationships has experienced domestic violence compared to one in every four heterosexual woman who will experience sexual violence  in her lifetime. Moreover,  nearly 62 percent of LGBT and HIV-positive victims were denied access to shelters in 2011, due in part to the unwillingness to accept gay men in these facilities. Additionally, authorities often lack the knowledge of how to handle domestic violence cases involving two people of the same gender. The current system fails to adequately address domestic violence in the LGBT community.

Here is how the progressive, newly improved Violence Against Women Act better protects LGBT people:

• VAWA now contains a nondiscrimination clause that prohibits LGBT victims from being turned away from services like traditional shelters on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
• VAWA now explicitly names LGBT people as an underserved population, which allows organizations serving LGBT victims of domestic violence to receive funding from a grant program that focuses specifically on underserved populations.
• VAWA now allows states, at their discretion, to use certain grant funds to improve responses to incidents of domestic violence among LGBT people. This bolsters law enforcement, prosecution, and victim service efforts within states.

Our guest bloggers are Christopher Frost, Intern, and Katie Miller, Special Assistant, with the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress.

As promised, a broad coalition of 131 Republican leaders, including many former governors and members of Congress, have submitted an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to rule in favor of marriage equality in the Proposition 8 case. In their brief, they recognize that hundreds of thousands of children are already being raised by same-sex couples, and their families would benefit from marriage:

Hundreds of thousands of children being raised by same-sex couples — some married, some precluded from marrying — would benefit from the security and stability that civil marriage confers. The denial of civil marriage to same-sex couples does not mean that their children will be raised by married opposite-sex couples. Rather, the choice here is between allowing same-sex couples to marry, thereby conferring on their children the benefits of marriage, and depriving those children of married parents altogether. [...]

It is precisely because marriage is so important in producing and protecting strong and stable family structures that amici do not agree that the government can rationally promote the goal of strengthening families by denying civil marriage to same-sex couples. As British Prime Minister and Conservative Party Leader David Cameron explained, “Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. So I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative.”

In contrast, the many conservative groups that filed briefs against equality, such as the Mormon Church, the Catholic Bishops, and the Family Research Council, imagined a universe where same-sex couples never raise children and are prevented from doing so when same-sex marriage is not legal. These conservatives recognize that any argument based on protecting children is an argument for marriage equality.

Here is a list of some of the notable members of the Republican party who signed onto this brief:

Read more

Several fringe conservative groups have filed amicus briefs in the case challenging California’s ban on ex-gay therapy for minors. These groups rely solely on their own subjective research to defend individual’s right to try to change their sexual orientation if they wish to, conveniently disregarding that the anti-gay stigma they promote is the only reason anybody has negative feelings about their sexual orientation in the first place. Among the amici is the so-called American College of Pediatricians (ACP), an impostor organization of social conservatives that won’t even admit how few members it has. Unlike the LGBT-supporting 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatricians they hope to be mistaken for, the College peddles junk science to defend ex-gay therapy, including that homosexuality is caused directly by trauma. Here’s how they explain it in their brief:

These children need therapy for the trauma, not affirmation of a “gay identity.” Trauma (as an objective, measurable external event) lends itself to quantitative research and has been studied relative to homosexuality. One example of this is the disproportionate extent of sexual abuse during the childhoods of adult homosexuals. Another example is the increased association of homosexuality and gender identity disorder with parental separation at critical developmental stages.

There are also two forms of psychological trauma commonly associated with homosexuality. The first is the trauma caused by the child’s subjective experience of the same-sex parent’s lack of availability, rejection, or even harsh verbal, physical, or sexual attack. This may lead to an intense longing for love from the same-sex parent that is eventually sexualized by the child. Similarly, psychological trauma may also be caused by the child’s subjective experience of the opposite-sex parent’s lack of availability, rejection, or even harsh verbal, physical, or sexual attack. This may lead to an intense fear of and aversion toward opposite-sex relationships. In both situations, by objective standards, the parent may or may not be described in these terms.

While these traumas are unusually common in the childhoods of same-sex attracted persons, they are not universal, and in many cases, other, less typical traumas may be present. This reflects the inherent complexity of the interaction between one’s biologically influenced temperament, various environmental factors and the free-will choices individuals make.

The primary citation for most of these bogus claims is not even a scientific research paper, but a book called Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, which was written by Orthodox Jewish psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover and published by evangelical Christian publisher Baker Books. Satinover compares homosexuality to alcoholism and pedophilia, describing it as a compulsion instead of an identity.

Another impostor group, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays And Gays (PFOX), also filed a brief that primarily highlighted four testimonials from people who claimed to be ex-gay. One of them isn’t even alive anymore, but unsurprisingly, all four of them started organizations that profit off of promoting and offering ex-gay therapy. This includes the infamous ex-gay therapist Richard Cohen, who was expelled from the American Counseling Association for six violations of its ethics code.

Though these groups represent a fringe mentality on sexuality, many still believe their ideas have merit. Not only do they not, but these ideas are harmful, which is specifically what the law banning ex-gay therapy was meant to address. Their objection to it does not change this reality. (HT: Kathleen Perrin.)

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is a party to the Defense of Marriage Act case before the Supreme Court, but not in the case challenging California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. LGBT groups have pressured the Obama administration to nonetheless file a brief defending marriage equality in that case as well, and NBC News is reporting that it has. According to early reports, the brief argues that California should allow same-sex marriages to resume in California, but its full text has not yet been released. Unlike in the DOMA case, which deals only with federal recognition of same-sex marriage, Prop 8 deals with whether states have the right to ban same-sex marriage. Though the DOJ brief may only speak to California, it could also argue for the importance of marriage equality across all 50 states.

If Americans thought the “fiscal showdown” was over, they should think again. Tomorrow, a series of automatic across-the-board spending cuts—a process known as “sequestration”—is set to begin. This series of cuts calls for a devastating $85 billion reduction in spending on federal programs by the end of the year.

These broad spending cuts were originally intended to force both parties to agree on an alternative deficit-reduction plan out of a mutual desire to avoid swallowing such a painful pill. Now at the eleventh hour, it seems increasing unlikely that Congress will reach a deficit reduction compromise.

Millions of hardworking Americans, however, once again find themselves at the precipice of a fiscal showdown that, if left unresolved, will impose real and significant financial harm on them and their families. Among those Americans who will be hit hardest by sequestration are LGBT Americans.

As the Center for American Progress and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force outlined last November in the midst of the last fiscal showdown, sequestration would cut federal programs that are vital to the health, wellness, and livelihood of LGBT Americans and their families.

The sequester was a bad idea then. And it’s a bad idea now. Here are six ways sequestration would impose real and significant harm on LGBT Americans:

• Sequestration will hurt LGBT workers. LGBT Americans face extraordinarily high rates of discrimination in the workplace and it is still perfectly legal in a majority of states and under federal law to be fired for being LGBT. Sequestration would exacerbate this situation by, for example, reducing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s ability to investigate claims of discrimination against LGBT workers.
• Sequestration will compromise LGBT health and safety. Sequestration will cut funding to a number of federal programs—like programs suicide and bullying prevention—that are in place to support the physical and mental health of LGBT Americans, a population that disproportionately lack access to health insurance and culturally competent health care services, and suffers from a host of health disparities.
• Sequestration will exacerbate homelessness among LGBT youth. Already facing higher rates of homelessness compared to the general population—LGBT youth comprise 5 percent to 7 percent of all youth and 40 percent of all homeless youth—sequestration will exacerbate LGBT youth homelessness by reducing grant funds to community organizations working to addressing the issue and homelessness shelters that house the LGBT homeless.
• Sequestration will make higher education less accessible for LGBT students. Furthering inequality gaps in accessing higher education, sequestration will result in significant cuts to federal work-study programs for LGBT students and a reduction in supplemental educational opportunity grants for low-income LGBT students.
• Sequestration will limit the ability to prevent violence against LGBT people. Sequestration will reduce the funding that supports the government’s ability to tackle the disproportionate levels of abuse, harassment, and violent crime suffered by LGBT Americans. It will also limit resources available to investigate, prosecute, and prevent hate crimes.
• Sequestration will limit U.S. capacity to protect the human rights of LGBT people worldwide. The Department of State has become the world leader in promoting a comprehensive human-rights agenda aimed at protecting all human rights of LGBT people. Sequestration will deal a blow to worldwide LGBT equality by cutting funds to federal agencies and thereby limiting public diplomacy efforts conducted by U.S. embassies

Our guest bloggers are Chris Frost, intern, and Crosby Burns, Research Associate, with the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress.

A new poll from Brown University shows that 60 percent of Rhode Island voters support marriage equality, while only 26 percent oppose it. This is up from the already strong 57 percent found in a poll last month. The Rhode Island House has already passed a bill to allow same-sex marriage, but a contentious vote still awaits in the Senate.

It’s unclear what reason the Senate has to oppose the bill. Not only does a majority support equality, but they’ve also shown their willingness to elect an openly House Speaker (Rep. Gordon Fox (D)) and an openly gay mayor of the capital, who they then promoted to Congress (Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI)). Further, the state already recognizes the same-sex marriages performed in all the surrounding states. It’s time for the law to catch up with reality.

The Massachusetts Department of Education recently issued a comprehensive set of guidelines for respecting transgender youth in schools, including using the names and pronouns they’ve chosen for themselves and allowing them to use the appropriate restrooms. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly is not happy about it, and in an epic rant captured by Equality Matters, complained to Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes that the policy violates parents’ rights. His bloviating was rife with ignorant stereotypes about what it even means to be trans — including jokes about name changes — and he offered no compassion whatsoever for the actual experience of trans youth:

COLMES: There has to be some confidentiality. Some students don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents about issues like this. This isn’t as if you wake up some day and Jane says, “Call me John,” or vice versa. [...]

O’REILLY: The parents should be shut out of this whole process? They shouldn’t know anything that’s going on?… Here’s how insane you are and this whole thing is, and this is truly madness, ladies and gentlemen. You’re telling me that a kid can go to a public school in Massachusetts, immediately upon entering the school take off the kid’s shirt and put on a dress, alright, go to the girls’ room when he’s a boy, and then change his name from John to Tiffany, and then after school, put the shirt back on, go home, and he’s still John. [...]

COLMES: Sometimes a child needs the ability to have a confidential conversation with someone not in the family.

O’REILLY: There’s a difference between a conversation and a lifestyle. That’s such a violation of parental rights by the state of Massachusetts. It’s off the chart violation.

Watch it:

It’s unfortunate O’Reilly wasn’t interested in Colmes’ voice of reason about “protecting the dignity” of trans young people, because his goal seems to be quite the opposite. As Carlos Maza thoughtfully explains, gender identity is largely inflexible, and students aren’t allowed to casually change their gender or claim to be transgender for inappropriate reasons. What is important is making sure that trans students feel safe and included, because it’ll have a profound impact on their ability to excel in the learning environment. Similarly, if they don’t feel safe identifying to their parents, outing them only risks opening them to rejection, one of the primary reasons LGBT youth are disproportionately homeless.

The basic goal of these guidelines is to protect trans students, but O’Reilly makes it clear he doesn’t know the first thing about them.

After a bipartisan group in Minnesota’s state legislature introduced marriage equality legislation Wednesday, Republican State Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen is already on the warpath to prevent equality. He told reporters that being gay or lesbian is nothing more than “an unhealthy, sexual addiction.” And State Sen. Dan Hall (R), fear-mongering that some future legislation might require clergy to officiate same-sex weddings, said he would rather go to jail than do so.

At a press conference held by Republican opponents of marriage equality, Gruenhagen explained his view:

GRUENHAGEN: When we’re talking about gay marriage, we’re not talking about an immutable characteristic like the color of your skin. Okay? The human genome map was completed in 2003. There is no gay gene. Okay? So the concept that you’re born that way and it’s an immutable characteristic is an unscientific lie.

Watch the video:

When pressed by a reporter, Gruenhagen added. “It doesn’t matter what my opinion is. It matters what the scientific facts are… it is a sexual choice.”

Gruenhagen’s opposition to LGBT equality and science is nothing new. In 2011, he dismissed the work of biologist Alfred Kinsey, calling the late sexuality expert a “filthy, perverted unscientific liar” and calling for all of his research to be destroyed. Last year, he told a Tea Party rally that “the concept of sexual orientation was started by Sigmund Freud… he’s a pervert, he’s a moron in my opinion, and I don’t believe in anything that he came up with.”

Studies have shown biological causes for homosexuality and the American Psychological Association recognizes sexual orientation as an inherent trait that should be affirmed.

Sen. Hall, a minister, noted in the same press conference that while this bill specifically protects religious leaders’ right not to officiate at same-sex weddings, a future bill might take that protection away. “I personally will go to jail,” he promised, “before I ever perform a marriage to a homosexual.”

Last November, voters in Minnesota both rejected a proposed marriage inequality constitutional amendment proposed by the then-Republican-controlled state legislature and elected new Democratic Farm Labor (Minnesota’s Democratic Party) majorities in both the state House and Senate. Both Hall and Gruenhagen were among those voting to put the amendment on the ballot. Governor Mark Dayton (D) has pledged to sign a marriage equality bill if it reaches his desk.

Today is the deadline for submitting amicus (friend of the court) briefs in the Supreme Court case challenging California’s Proposition 8, and a new poll suggests California is more ready than ever to embrace marriage equality. According to Field Poll, 61 percent of California voters support marriage equality, while only 32 percent oppose. Women, young people, and Catholics continue to be the most supportive, while Republicans are still largely opposed. Nevertheless, just since 2010, favor among Republicans has grown from 26 percent to 39 percent. The chart below from the Sacramento Bee shows the full results: