Our guest bloggers are Jerome Hunt and Aisha C. Moodie-Mills.

Today, a coalition of public policy and family advocacy organizations released “LGBT Families of Color: Facts at a Glance,” which sheds light on the disparate impact of outdated laws and family policies on LGBT families of color and their children. The publication explores the challenges that LGBT Families of color face on a daily basis and dispels the myth often perpetuated in the media that LGBT families are largely white and middle class.

According to “LGBT Families of Color,” there are roughly 2 million children in the United States being raised in LGBT families and 41 percent of these families are people of color. Both black and Latino same-sex couples are more likely to raise children than white same- sex couples. Black lesbians for example are twice as likely to be raising children as their white lesbian counterparts. The report also notes that:

Children of color, in particular, are more likely to be raised in diverse family configurations that include de facto parents and are more likely to be raised by LGBT parents. Therefore, antiquated laws have a disproportionately negative impact on children of color.

An alarming number of LGBT families of color are living in poverty. For example, 32 percent of children being raised by black same-sex couples are living in poverty compared to 7 percent of children raised by married heterosexual white parents. Yet many of these families, simply because they are LGBT, are denied access to safety net programs and federal and state tax benefits that would improve their economic situations.

LGBT families of color also experience higher rates of unemployment, or underemployment, which disrupts their access to quality healthcare since the majority of Americans rely on employer-sponsored health plans. Nonetheless, access to coverage does not always bridge the gap for these families, since most of these plans do not cover same-sex partners or their non-biological children. LGBT families of color, who are already economically insecure, may have to face the steep cost of purchasing private insurance to cover their families (or simply go without).

Stigma and discrimination further erodes these families’ overall wellbeing. The fact sheet touches on the dual burden of social stigma and discrimination LGBT families of color and their children face. These families are not only subject to racial/ethnic stereotypes and discrimination – they also face invisibility within the boarder communities to which they belong. Moreover, their children may be bullied or harassed based on their own race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity—or that of their parents.

Fortunately, some common-sense solutions can be employed that would help to eliminate or reduce the legal inequalities and social stigma that hurt LGBT families of color, especially their children. They include:

– Legally recognizing LGBT families of color via parental recognition laws at the state level; allowing same-sex couples to marry; and providing pathways to immigration and U.S. citizenship for binational and immigrant LGBT families.

– Providing equal access to government-based economic protections such as safety net programs by adopting a consistent and broad definition of family within these programs (i.e. domestic partners).

– Providing equal access to health care and health insurance, as well as medical decision-making authority for all families.

– Protecting LGBT families of color and their children with non-discrimination employment and public accommodation laws and anti-bullying policies.

Rick Santorum backed away from his claim that President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech about the separation of church and state makes him want to “throw up” during an appearance on the Laura Ingraham radio show this morning. “I wish I had that particular line back,” Santorum told Ingraham, while insisting that the nation’s religious freedoms are being threatened by the Obama administration:

SANTORUM: [A]nd if you read President Kennedy’s text, while there were certainly some very important things and good things he said in that, there were some things that triggered in my opinion the privatization of faith and I think that’s a bad thing. I think we need to have a free exercise of religion in this country and it’s important for those First Amendment freedoms to be alive and well in America and I think they are threatened here in America as we’ve seen by President Obama, not by Rick Santorum.

Listen:

Santorum has taken a lot of heat for mischaracterizing Kennedy’s statements and claiming, “I don’t believe in an America where the separation between church and state is absolute.”

Asked about Santorum’s remarks during his press conference this morning, Mitt Romney said, “I respect President Kennedy and his expression of his own views. And I felt that his speech was an indication of those views. My speech was an indication of views that were somewhat different. Religion certainly has a place in the public square.”

Indeed, rather trying to stomp religion out of public life, Kennedy sought to encourage Americans to abandon divisive religious rhetoric. “I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end — where all men and all churches are treated equally — where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice — where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind — where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the law and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their work in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood,” he said. “I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me,” Kennedy added.

A recent poll found that 67 percent of Americans believe that there is a clear separation of church and state, while only 28 percent disagree with the sentiment.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) — a co-chair of President Obama’s re-election campaign — has announced her support for including marriage equality in the Democratic Party’s 2012 platform, creating some awkwardness for the Obama’s re-election campaign. “I’m proud to join Freedom to Marry’s ‘Democrats: Say, I Do’ campaign,” Shaheen said in a statement:

Along with the more than 20,000 Americans who have already signed the online petition, I call on the Democratic Platform Committee to affirm the freedom to marry in our party’s national convention platform this September. Any Democratic statement of core beliefs about the importance of families must include all our families, gay and straight. Our party has a long tradition of leading the charge on important questions of justice. Now is the time for the Democratic Party to stand up for the rights of same-sex couples and their families.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) — have also publicly thrown their support behind the effort. Meanwhile, President Obama insists that he is still evolving on the issue.

The pastor of a 15,000 member mega church in Houston, Texas is calling on Mayor Annise Parker (D) to resign over her promotion of same-sex marriage, the Houston Chronicle reports. In an email to the openly gay lawmaker, Pastor Steve Riggle of Grace Community Church writes, “Respectfully, if you cannot uphold the Texas constitution, then you should do the honorable thing and step down” and notes that the Constitution includes a a “voter-approved amendment banning same-sex marriage.”

Parker — who is one of the 90 mayors to support Freedom To Marry’s equality initiative — has responded to the pastor by saying, ”I do my duty to uphold the state Constitution and the U.S. Constitution. I swore an oath to that. I take that oath very seriously, but I have my First Amendment rights to free speech.” “We all have the right to do that and I’m sorry that they [Riggle and his supporters] don’t understand the Constitution.” Watch a local news segment on the story:

During a recent interview with SiriusXM’s Michelangelo Signorile, Parker also called on President Obama to evolve “faster” on marriage equality and argued that “the Democratic platform should promote same-sex marriage.”

Meanwhile, the website for Grace Community Church states, “Marriage is between one man and one woman. Any other definition of marriage is contrary to the clear teachings of the Holy Bible and hence against the expressed will of God,” and Riggle himself has long opposed Parker’s inclusive policies. In 2010, he condemned the mayor’s executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, warning that women could be assaulted by cross-dressing men. “Forcing women in particular using city facilities to be subjected to cross-dressing men invading their privacy is beyond the pale and offensive to every standard of decency,” he said.

The Supreme Court has decided not to hear the National Organization for Marriage’s challenge to Maine’s campaign finance laws:

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a constitutional challenge to a Maine law that requires those seeking to raise and spend money in state election campaigns to organize as a political action committee for that activity, and make significant disclosures about their financial operations.   That was challenged in a petition, National Organization for Marriage v. McKee (11-599), after the state law was upheld by the First Circuit Court.

Though this may be perceived as a non-event, it represents a huge defeat for the anti-gay organization’s secrecy and as well as its self-victimizing claims that supporters of “traditional marriage” are persecuted for their beliefs. NOM was one of the top fundraisers supporting Maine’s Question 1 in 2009, a people’s veto of marriage equality legislation that ended up passing. For three years, NOM has used this lawsuit to keep the sources of its funding hidden, but now the organization has no other avenues to appeal, having lost every step of the way.

Though their identities remain unknown, NOM has a select group of donors that fund most of its operations. In the meantime, it purports to have a broad base of “members,” even though it doesn’t collect any money from membership dues. It is particularly fortuitous that NOM faces this loss in addition to its similar setback in Washington state, as both states are planning for referenda to approve marriage equality this year. Unfortunately for Brian Brown, John Eastman, Maggie Gallagher, and the rest of the NOM crew, free speech does not come without the cost of accountability, and the world might soon see just how NOM has paid for its.

Via Aksarbent, a coalition of anti-gay churches took out a full-page ad in the Omaha Word Herald on Sunday titled, Heritage Coalition Proclamation on Sexual Preference, in an effort to defeat a local ordinance extending anti-discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity within the city of Omaha, Nebraska. The ad states, “We do not have the right to change God’s moral law to fit our sexual preferences” and claims that Jesus will forgive gay people and “begins to change us from the inside out to become more like him”:

Councilman Ben Gray reintroduced the bill this week, which failed in 2010 on a 3-3 council vote. Meanwhile, an effort to “nullify any LGBT ordinance in Omaha by banning municipal protected classes not enumerated by the state appears to have stalled in the Unicameral’s Judiciary Committee after a hearing last Wednesday.”

Meanwhile, the paper notes today that “Among the 50 largest cities in the nation, Omaha is one of 15 whose gay residents have no specific legal protection from discrimination.” “In the past two years, at least 35 cities and counties in the United States of all sizes have passed anti-discrimination ordinances based on both sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Speaking at a gay rights fundraiser in Charlotte, North Carolina this weekend, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warned the crowd that a Republican president could undo many of President Obama’s advances for LGBT equality. Stopping short of outright condemning the state’s proposed amendment banning all legal recognition of same-sex couples on behalf of the administration, she suggested that organizing for the May 8 vote on Amendment 1 could serve as a practice run for supporting the President’s reelection:

SEBELIUS: I know there’s an important election in early May in North Carolina. And I think it’s a great template for what needs to be done to organize people and turn out people for November. North Carolina is hugely important in this next [presidential] election.

The Obama administration has struggled to address state-level action on same-sex marriage, owing at least in part to the President’s still-”evolving” position on the issue. In his speech to the Human Rights Campaign last October, he said that “we’ve got to work hard to oppose“ enshrining discrimination into state laws and constitutions, but he didn’t mention Minnesota or North Carolina by name. In 2009, Organizing for America (Obama’s campaign arm) encouraged Maine residents to vote, but stayed mum regarding the ban on same-sex marriage that was on the ballot. At an LGBT fundraiser in New York last June, just days before a contentious Senate vote on marriage equality, Obama mentioned the legislation but took no position on it, calling the deliberation “exactly what democracies are supposed to do.” And in January, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he didn’t know if Obama opposed Republicans’ effort to repeal same-sex marriage in New Hampshire.

The Democratic National Committee has said it will “certainly consider” helping to fight anti-gay measures in states like North Carolina and Minnesota, but so far has taken no action on that front. The DNC will host its convention in Charlotte in September, but by then it will be far too late to prevent discrimination from being written into the state’s constitution.