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 Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which endorses LGBT candidates, announced “12 Races to Watch.”
– 85 business leaders in Washington took out a full page ad in the Sunday Seattle Times endorsing Referendum 74 to uphold marriage equality.
– Tony Perkins doesn’t want to encourage “folks who are going to be voting the wrong way,” and Bryan Fischer believes “God’s basic plan” is to limit political leadership to men.
– Over 1,000 counter-protested the Westboro Baptist Church’s picket of lesbian Sgt. Donna Johnson’s funeral.
– The East Aurora, Illinois school board has unanimously approved a policy affirming the identity of transgender students, including what name they go by and what bathroom they use.
– The nation’s youngest openly gay mayor, Evan Low of Campbell, California, was verbally assaulted with anti-gay and anti-Asian epithets while attending the annual Oktoberfest festivities.
– Do television stations have to run anti-gay political ads?
– Ontario has now made it easier for transgender citizens to change their identity documents.
– Conservative mayors in France want a special “right of withdrawal” exception so they won’t have to conduct same-sex marriages.
– Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has claimed that his secret concoction of boiled herbs has cured dozens of HIV/AIDS patients.
– WNBA star Seimone Augustus of the Minnesota Lynx is speaking out for marriage equality.
– Openly LGBT celebrities Jane Lynch, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Billie Jean King, George Takei, Wanda Sykes, Zachary Quinto, and Chaz Bono explain why they support President Obama and fear a Romney administration.
– The Four has released new video highlighting the experiences of LGBT people in Washington: