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.
– A bipartisan group of lawmakers is calling on House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to allow a vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act recently passed by the Senate.
– Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) has once again introduced a House resolution denouncing ex-gay therapy for minors, though last year her resolution was never brought to a vote.
– National Security Adviser Susan Rice stressed on Wednesday the importance of protecting LGBT freedom worldwide.
– New documents show that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was particularly anti-LGBT in the past, believing as of 1985 that “the homosexual makes the conscious choice to pursue members of his own sex” and that “the homosexual world is pedophilia, the fetish for young children,” because since gay people cannot reproduce, “they must recruit the young.”
– New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is heading to Oklahoma to campaign for Gov. Mary Fallin (R), who recently punished all National Guard couples by refusing to allow same-sex couples to be recognized at state facilities.
– Hawaii Rep. Bob McDermott is continuing to challenge the state’s marriage equality law, but he says he’s not homophobic because he’s had an “openly male homosexual” work on his staff.
– Morgan State University, an HBCU near Baltimore, Maryland, has suspended its chapter of fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi for discriminating against a gay student.
– Two workers are suing BNSF Railway for refusing to provide benefits to their same-sex spouses, even though their marriages are recognized in Washington state.
– New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, New York City Comptroller John Liu, and 19 private investment firms are pressuring major Olympic sponsors like Coca-Cola and Dow Chemical to speak out against Russia’s anti-gay laws.
– A new bill has been introduced in Israel to provide tax breaks to unmarried same-sex partners.
– Why do The Daily Show and The Colbert Report repeatedly make transgender people the brunt of jokes?
– In an interview to air this weekend, Olympic diver Tom Daley said that when he met the man he’s now dating — rumored to be Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black — it was “love at first sight,” but he doesn’t want to put a label on his sexuality.