Welcome to The Morning Pride, ThinkProgress LGBT’s 8:45 AM round-up of the latest in LGBT policy, politics, and some culture too! Here’s what we’re reading this morning, but let us know what you’re checking out too. Follow us all day on Twitter at @TPEquality.
– Don’t forget: Today is the Rapture (again).
– Though even the White House recognized Spirit Day yesterday, the day ended without the Senate including any anti-bullying provisions in the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act of 2011.
– Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) has signed on as a cosponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
– Lesbian activist Janice Langbehn accepted the Presidential Citizens Medal yesterday.
– The number of same-sex couples adopting has tripled over the last decade.
– A new study finds that half of women are attracted to other women.
– The increase in gay men’s media visibility has led straight men to be more body conscious.
– The Nevada LGBT community could benefit from the proposed redistricting plan.
– The Tennessee school where a principal accosted a student for supporting the proposed Gay Straight Alliance will allow students to wear shirts supporting the GSA, but will not allow the GSA to form.
– Students at Keller High School in Fort Worth, TX are bashing their Gay Straight Alliance on Facebook, but it turns out the GSA has gotten itself a better meeting venue.
– The North Carolina State University Student Senate has condemned the vandalism of the campus’s GLBT Center.
– A pastor in Holland, MI has been arrested for “occupying” City Hall to protest the City Council’s refusal to pass non-discrimination protections that include sexual orientation and gender identity.
– More than 900 Methodist ministers in New York and Connecticut have pledged to support same-sex marriage in defiance of the denomination’s ban.
– American Express has joined the Bank of America in offering “grossed up” wages to compensate the tax inequity that gay employees have to pay when their same-sex partners receive health benefits.
– For a clear example of homophobia, read this LifeSiteNews overreaction to a same-sex kiss in a high school play.
– Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard will allow a parliamentary conscience vote on same-sex marriage.
– In both England and Jamaica, black children with African-Caribbean backgrounds are performing poorly in school because “academic success is seen as gay.”
– God sayeth, “It Getteth Better.”
– This week’s editorial cartoon in the Dallas Voice pays tribute to activist Frank Kameny:
