gay-lesbian rights

Oh dear. Get ready to freak out. Somebody has gone and created a mash-up of Google Maps and Prop 8 Donors. Which you can see right here.

Proposition 8, if you recall, changed the California state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. That is to say, Prop 8 allowed discrimination into the state constitution. Eight Maps allows you to see who the people are who donated in order to pass it.

Los Angeles, CA (1-12-09) - In a shocking new tactic attempting to ban peaceful protesters from picketing the Scientology compound known as "Gold Base" near Hemet, CA, Scientology lawyers have obtained medical information regarding two protesters, and are using their HIV positive status in an attempt to prevent them from picketing at the location.

Worldwide pickets against Scientology have surged in the last year, and Scientology has been fighting to stop them, especially near the Hemet compound. Scientology has used tactics ranging from physical attacks, false reports to police, and the emission of an estimated 110db organ note from loudspeakers in an attempt to drown out the protesters' chants.

The latest tactics, however, are downright sickening, illegal, and an insult to members of the LGBT community and HIV patients worldwide.

Attorney Graham Berry and activists "Angry Gay Pope" (AGP) and "Happy Smurf" (a former Scientologist) are openly homosexual. Scientology, which policy states that homosexuals are "low on the tone scale" and should be "disposed of quietly and without sorrow", has obtained AGP and Happy Smurf's private records and discovered that they are HIV positive.

But the book doesn't directly address gay marriage. When pressed for an example of the harm that same-sex marriages would cause Mormons, Thomas Olson, president of the Mormon's Seattle North Stake, couldn't name one. He also wouldn't quote the Book of Mormon. Instead, he cited the church's so-called "Proclamation on the Family." It declares that "marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan...." Church president Gordon B. Hinckley announced the proclamation on September 23, 1995.

In other words, Mormons updated their religion in 1995, and now that's what they all believe and you better believe it, too.

"We certainly don't condone bigotry or targeting gays or lesbians," says Olson. "I guess people would say... that we have done that, but that is not our intent."

Proponents of a ballot measure that banned same sex marriage filed a lawsuit in federal court this week seeking to overturn state campaign finance laws that require that names and personal information of donors to state political campaigns be made public.

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"This harassment is made possible because of California's unconstitutional campaign finance disclosure rules as applied to ballot measure committees where even donors of as little as $100 must have their names, home addresses and employers listed on public documents," Ron Prentice, head of the Protect Marriage Coalition, said in a statement.

Since 1974, state law has required that donors who give more than $100 must have their names disclosed.

You can have your freedom of speech, but there's nothing that says you get to remain anonymous.

An Oregon church dedicated to equal civil protections for the GLBT community has announced that its clergy will not sign off on marriages for straight couples until gay and lesbian families have the same access to marriage as do straights.

A Jan. 5 article in the Ashland Daily Tidings reported that the First Congregational United Church of Christ's Rev. Pam Shepherd, seeing the act of signing marriage licenses for heterosexual couples as a form of discrimination against gays and lesbians, decided that in the name of fairness no licenses should be dignified with the signature of the church's clergy until all families receive equal treatment under the law.

The Human Rights Campaign today hailed the passage of a law that protects partners who inherit retirement savings. The Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 (WRERA), signed by President Bush today, contains technical corrections to the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA). PPA made it possible for employers to allow any nonspouse beneficiary of an employee's retirement plan--including an employee's same-sex partner--to roll inherited retirement benefits directly to an individual retirement account (IRA) and avoid immediate taxation. WRERA requires that all employers provide this rollover opportunity to nonspouse beneficiaries.

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Before 2007, partners who inherited retirement plan savings typically faced immediate taxation on inherited benefits, unlike different-sex spouses, who could roll savings over to an individual retirement account (IRA) with no tax penalty. Under the PPA, as of January 1, 2007, qualifying plans could permit any nonspouse beneficiary--including a domestic partner, parent or sibling--to roll over inherited retirement benefits paid as a lump sum directly to an IRA. Qualifying plans include defined benefit plans (pensions), 401(k) plans, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), profit-sharing plans, money purchase plans, 403(b) plans and governmental 457(b) plans.

A tiny step in the right direction.

Almost four years after the alleged civilization-destroying event, MA is second in the US with the lowest rate of divorce, second to Pennsylvania (the MA rate is 2.27 per 1,000, the PA rate is 2.2 per 1,000) and MA rates of teen pregnancy, already close to the lowest in the US, continue to drop, down over 2% in 2006. By contrast, gay marriage-unfriendly, abstinence-only sex-ed reliant Texas now leads the nation in both teen pregnancy and repeat teen pregnancy, and Gonorrhea, Syphilis, Chlamydia in Texas have continued a multi-year rise according to official TX 2007 statistics.

Vito Fossella built a career as a staunch "family values" pol, polishing his image in his predominantly Catholic district with a string of anti-gay votes.

He even shuns his gay sister, Victoria Fossella, refusing to go to family events if she and her partner attend, a source close to the family said.

His double life is now exposed with the news he has a 3-year-old love child with a divorced Air Force colonel, and critics are calling him a hypocrite.

The California Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples should be permitted to marry, rejecting state marriage laws as discriminatory.

The state high court's 4-3 ruling was unlikely to end the debate over gay matrimony in California. A group has circulated petitions for a November ballot initiative that would amend the state Constitution to block same-sex marriage, while the Legislature has twice passed bills to authorize gay marriage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both.

The long-awaited court opinion, written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, stemmed from San Francisco's highly publicized same-sex weddings, which in 2004 helped spur a conservative backlash in a presidential election year and a national dialogue over gay rights.

Local mirror of CA Supreme Court's Decision Overturning Gay Marriage Ban As Unconstitutional

Rhode Island's General Assembly has overridden the veto of legislation providing the domestic partners of public employees with the same pension and retirement benefits as spouses.

It was one of nearly three-dozen vetoes lawmakers overturned in a one-day special session.

When he rejected the domestic partner bill Gov. Don Carcieri said the public did not want "unwarranted and unnecessary expansions of state employee benefits."

The legislation includes all employees with pensions managed through the Employee Retirement System of RI – teachers, judges, and other state and municipal employees.

To qualify, partners must have lived together for one year and be financially interdependent.