In a new poll, only 22 percent of respondents said they’d be angry at a hypothetical headline that read: “More Than 100,000 Couples Have Wed Since Supreme Court Ruling.”
As we inch closer to the 2016 election, a new survey by Esquire and NBC News called American Rage polls 3,000 Americans to get a sense of what makes Americans angry.
The findings are surprisingly pro-LGBTQ.
Only 22 percent of respondents said they’d be angry at a hypothetical headline that read: “More Than 100,000 Couples Have Wed Since Supreme Court Ruling.”
Apparently, 45 percent of those surveyed are angry at the way LGBTQ people are treated, and 41 percent think LGBTQ people have a right to be angry about their mistreatment.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a properly gay-focused poll without at least one question about Kim Davis, but rest easy: only 24 percent of people support her.
Due to these results, the Washington Postsaid that LGBTQ rights ware “the social justice issue that garnered the most agreement” among those polled.
However, the news isn’t quite so cheery for one particularly famous transgender woman.
A headline reading “Caitlyn Jenner’s Wedding of the Century!” would make about 41 percent of respondents angry — though respondents may simply be tired of seeing Jenner in the news so often.
A few other interesting tidbits from the poll: 77 percent of Republicans get angry once a day (compared to 67 percent of Democrats), whites and Republicans are the angriest groups in America, and 63 percent of people claim the “American Dream” is no longer true, or was never was true.
Today, House Republicans defeated a motion in the U.S. House of Representatives to safeguard President Obama’s executive order protecting LGBT employees of federal contractors from discrimination.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI)
During consideration of a bill to require federal agencies to cut costs by eliminating existing regulations, Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) offered a procedural motion to exempt regulations implementing the federal contractor executive order, guaranteeing these important protections would be shielded from any potential cuts. As is often the case with these procedural motions, the amendment failed along party lines on a vote of 178 to 239.
“We’re disappointed that the House of Representatives refused to protect the landmark LGBT federal contractor executive order. This was a missed opportunity for a bipartisan majority to reaffirm the essential nature of these protections,” said HRC Government Affairs Director David Stacy. “We appreciate the leadership of Rep. David Cicilline and House Democrats in highlighting this critical protection.”
The underlying legislation to impose regulatory cuts is unlikely to pass the Senate, and the White House issued a veto threat.
In June of last year, a similar amendment upholding the executive order was offered by Representative Scott Peters (D-CA) to an appropriations bill funding the Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development. A resounding 60 Republicans voted in favor of the amendment, which passed 241-184.
In what could be considered an encouragement for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, President David Granger has said that he is prepared to respect the rights of any adult to indulge in any practice which is not harmful to others.This revelation was made on Thursday last when the President engaged reporters following his weekly televised show “The Public Interest” which is aired on the state-owned National Communications Network (NCN). It comes against the backdrop of countless calls for the reexamination of laws which discriminate against persons comprising the LGBT community.
According to the Head of State, the issue has been one which has existed throughout human history and given the fact that this period is considered a “modern age,” he is of the conviction that human rights should prevail. “I am prepared to respect the rights of any adult to indulge in any practice which is not harmful to others” he said.
He continued that, “I would like to feel that there should be some element, first, of respecting the human rights of individuals, and second, at the Governmental level, free choice; that persons should be able to express their views freely without necessarily sticking to a party line.”
However, noting that this is not an issue which has been ventilated at the level of Cabinet, President Granger maintained that human rights are paramount, over party opinions. Presently, Guyana is the only country in South America where homosexual acts are still illegal. Under the laws of Guyana, homosexual acts carry a possible punishment of life imprisonment.
According to the Criminal Law (Offences) Act of Guyana: Section 352: Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission, or procures or attempts to procure the commission, by any male person, of any act of gross indecency with any other male person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and liable to imprisonment for two years.
Section 353 states: Everyone who (a) attempts to commit buggery; or (b) assaults any person with intent to commit buggery; or (c) being a male, indecently assaults any other male person, shall be guilty of felony and liable to imprisonment for 10 years. Section 354 and 355 further states that: Everyone who commits buggery… shall be guilty of felony and liable to imprisonment for life.
Everyone who (a) does any indecent act in any place to which the public have or are permitted to have access; or (b) does any indecent act in any place, intending thereby to insult or offend any person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and liable to imprisonment for two years. But the law does not specifically define “buggery”, “gross indecency”, or “indecent”.
However, while the Head of State did not divulge on when the review of these laws can be expected, LGBT rights activist, Vidyaratha Kissoon has commended the President’s efforts which seems to encourage acceptance of Guyana’s LGBT citizens. He further highlighted the fact that Guyana is a signatory to human rights obligations which aims to repeal the sodomy laws, cross dressing laws and to amend the Prevention of Discrimination Act to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.
“The lives of LGBT citizens cannot be determined by any citizen whose religious views encourage discrimination. The President seems cautious in his leadership in trying to be cohesive. However, human rights are not the gifts of religious groups to any other group of the society” Kissoon said. And referencing the fact that all political parties had committed to, in their manifestoes, addressing discrimination against the LGBT community, the activist charged the National Assembly to address its human rights obligations towards LGBTI Guyanese. The process, he said, must be steered by the President. A Parliamentary Special Select Committee (PSSC) set up to hold consultations on the recommendations to decriminalise adult same sex relations here was divided when it was convened. Joel Simpson, Managing Director of SASOD, has said in the past that the APNU+AFC coalition Government had campaigned on platforms of national unity, social cohesion, equal rights and gender equality. He also noted that their manifesto states “We commit to putting in place measures which will ensure that all vulnerable groups in our society, including women, children, persons with disabilities, rural and Indigenous women, youth, the elderly and the sick and pregnant, and those marginalised because of sexual orientation are protected and not discriminated against.” On that note, Simpson stated that they expect the new Government to bring action to their rhetoric and take legal and policy measures to prohibit discrimination by including sexual orientation and gender identity as prohibited categories in the Prevention of Discrimination Act 1997 and the Guyana Constitution, repeal laws criminalising same-sex intimacy and cross-dressing and end the discriminatory policy against gays and lesbians donating blood at the National Blood Transfusion Service.
A bill by California State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) to protect disabled workers from on the job discrimination was approved on a unanimous, bipartisan vote by the Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment Wednesday.
AB 488 would eliminate an exemption for employees of sheltered workshops and rehabilitation centers with special minimum wage licenses under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), extending the law’s protections against discrimination and harassment to workers in those environments. Currently those employees do not have the same basic protections as everyone else from discrimination based on characteristics like race, religion, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, or age. Similarly, these workers lack the protection provided by FEHA against sexual harassment.
“This bill guarantees these employees the same civil rights that all other workers, including interns, already receive,” Gonzalez said. “There’s no reason these workers should receive less protection from discrimination or harassment on the job.”
Sheltered workshops and rehabilitation centers provide specialized employment and job training for individuals with disabilities, often for less than minimum wage.
In the past, sheltered workshops and rehabilitation centers have been considered by some to be temporary training environments rather than true employment, but real-world experience has demonstrated that these are employees who often stay in their positions for many years. In 2014, AB 1443 extended FEHA’s protections to cover unpaid interns and volunteers, establishing that these workplace protections are appropriate even for those making less than minimum wage or in a program for a limited time to gain experience.
AB 488 was approved by the committee on a 5-0 vote, with Assemblymembers Roger Hernández (D-West Covina), Evan Low (D-Campbell), Kevin McCarty (D-San Diego), Tony Thurmond (D-Richmond) and Matthew Harper (R-Orange County) voting in support. It is supported by Disability Rights California, the State Council on Developmental Disabilities and the California Labor Federation. The bill will next be considered by the full Assembly.
A San Diego police officer who fatally shot a gay man on Friday has killed three people in less than three years.
The victim, 30-year-old Joshua Adam Sisson (pictured), was allegedly holding a large kitchen knife to his boyfriend’s neck before fleeing the scene of the domestic dispute.
Officer Richard Butera caught up with the man on Sixth Avenue in San Diego‘s Hillcrest neighborhood.
Despite the officer’s request, Sisson didn’t stop running, instead pointing the knife at Butera “in an aggressive stance.”
The office claims he feared for his safety and shot Sisson once in the chest.
He died at a hospital on Saturday.
Sisson, who was wanted for a parole violation, was employed at Camp Pendleton and studied computer science at California College San Diego.
“He was only 30,” his mother writes. “Contrary to the media reports he was a wonderful young man and overcame many obstacles…I need help bringing him home to Pennsylvania and giving him the burial he deserves.”
Gay rights activist Tim Campbell died December 26, 2015, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 76, from esophageal cancer.
Campbell was perhaps best known as the publisher of the GLC Voice newspaper in Minneapolis, which came out from 1979 through 1992. During that period he was the go to person in Minneapolis for the media whenever they needed a quick quote on some gay related event.
Because Campbell was also known for a number of street theater type gay rights protests scattered over the years, it chagrined a few more polite gays and lesbians when he became their “voice”. Campbell often remarked that he made a terrible mistake when he named his paper the GLC Voice.
Campbell was pushed into an openly gay lifestyle by the US Army in 1962 when he was called to register for the draft. He checked the box for people who had “homosexual tendencies” even though he had never yet acted on them. For years thereafter, Campbell had to list “1Y” as his draft status on every application for employment he filled out. This had a chilling effect on his pursuit of highly respectable employment, so he worked in department stores and waited tables.
Campbell was asked by FREE, a University of Minnesota gay and lesbian group, to be their spokesperson with the press at a rally for equal employment for gays and lesbians. That march passed from the university campus downtown to the offices of Northwestern Bell Telephone Company in the spring of 1974. From then forward, the local press kept his phone number handy.
Campbell himself often said his most important contribution to the national drive for gay rights was some energy he put, during 1974 and 1975, into convincing the Advocate (a national gay publication), the Minneapolis and St. Paul newspapers, including the university’s Minnesota Daily, the Washington Post, Dear Abby (Van Buren), and the New York Times to direct their style sheets to use “gay” or “gay and lesbian” or “lesbian and gay” instead of “homosexual”. Ever since the mid 1960s, gays themselves throughout the gay bar system and other fledgling organizations had started using “gay” for ourselves.
Campbell was also very involved in helping gays, lesbians and others to recover from alcoholism and drug addiction. He sobered up August 25, 1973, in Minneapolis. He was the founding Chair of the Lambda Sobriety Center in Minneapolis in 1981.
Campbell received his Masters in French Literature from the University of Texas in 1969. He studied in Tours, France, and was theoretically working on his doctoral dissertation while teaching at the University of Minnesota, Morris Campus, from 1970 through 1972. Just last year, Campbell finally wrote up a lot of his studies about Proust and posted them on a blog called ProustByCampbell.blogspot.com.
From 1973-74, Campbell joined with Jack Baker and Mike McConnell in conducting accredited seminars in sensitivity training on gay issues for students in the Education Department. He conducted similar seminars for police officers and other professionals, including chemical dependency counselors, over the next few years. Campbell, Baker and McConnell encouraged each other in the belief that they could “change the way people see gays” by working to do so. That was the purpose of Jack and Mike’s gay marriage, the first of its kind in the USA, in May, 1980.
Campbell was born December 18, 1939, in Leavenworth, Kansas. He is preceded in death by both parents, William Patrick Campbell and Betty Jane Dusenbery Campbell, and by his sister Patricia Campbell. He is survived by brothers Bill Campbell of Roswell, GA, Ed Campbell of Beaumont, TX, Mike Campbell of Beaumont, TX, and Charlie Campbell, of Seattle, WA, and by sisters Clarice Campbell Hebinck of Mary Esther, FL, and Dee Ann Campbell Soileau of Beaumont, TX.
Campbell is also preceded in death by Jerome L. Smith, who partnered with him to found the Lambda Sobriety Center in Minneapolis, and by Bruce Brockway, who partnered with him to start the Positively Gay newspaper, which became the GLC Voice newspaper.
Besides his living brothers and sisters, honorable pallbearers include Lad Sledz of Minneapolis, Vickie Judkins of Eau Claire, WI, Brian Stacey of Arizona, Ed Bloomquist of Minneapolis, and Luke Coulson, Don Kelly and Philip Bowman, all of Houston.
In lieu of flowers or other memorials, persons so moved are encouraged to engage in random acts of kindness, generosity or courage.
Since InterPride started its Pride Radar initiative in 2012, almost 800 Pride celebrations have been identified around the world. InterPride’s Vice-President and author of the 2014 and 2015 Pride Radar report Frank van Dalen and his team are discovering new Prides on a weekly basis. “With the global Pride movement growing, we see new Prides coming up in hostile environments, but also in smaller cities in the Western world” van Dalen says.
At the same time the distribution of Prides does reflect the social and legal climate for LGBTI-people around the world. Many Prides are expectedly held in relatively friendly areas,of the Western world, such as in Canada and the United States. A high density of Prides are similarly held in the Northern and Western parts of Europe. Until recently, Prides organized in Eastern Europe would meet resistance from both authorities and the public.Regrettably, Prides are rate in Africa and the Middle East, where the death penalty is often still in place against homosexuals.
In India, Prides are very often molded in the form of a typical movie festival. In China, InterPride has only identified three Prides so far. Although homosexuality itself is not criminalized there anymore, a significant social taboo still exists. At the same time, the Chinese government is extremely reluctant to allow big public demonstrations taking to the streets. With India and China each registering over one billion inhabitants, including tens of millions of LGBTI people, we anticipate that changes in the legal system and in the social climate will allow the Pride movement in both countries to grow in the years to come.
In Australia, most Prides can obviously be found in the cities along the coastline. Smaller Prides in countries located in the pacific ocean, and in New Zealand in particular, are organized on an annual base. In Latin America, many Prides are celebrated in Brazil. Just recently, the Pride Radar team was able to identify over 30 Prides in Mexico, a huge bump from the previous estimate of five celebrations!.
Language barriers, varying naming traditions for Pride events and the absence of many smaller Prides on the internet are all reasons that make it hard to identify all Prides without local stakeholders. As an example, Pride events exist in Cuba, but they are held over the five-day period of IDAHO week, in a different city every day! This kind of format is difficult to track.
In the years to come, the Pride Radar team will continue working to identify new Prides around the world and collect data characterizing these Prides. It will help InterPride to support the growth of the global Pride movement, and it will provide the crucial data and information needed by those who keep working for a more LGBTI-friendly world.
If you want to see if your Pride is already part of the Pride Radar, or if you want to add additional information to the Pride Radar database, please go to www.interpride.org where you will be redirected to the Pride Radar. For more information you can also contact frank.van.dalen@interpride.org.
A coalition of California civil rights and LGBT organizations said today that supporters of a proposed anti-transgender ballot initiative announced that they have failed to submit the signatures necessary to qualify it for the November, 2016 ballot.“Privacy for All”, the group behind the failed measure, needed to submit 365,880 valid signatures to the California Secretary of State’s office to qualify for the ballot. “Privacy for All” is backed by the right-wing, Sacramento-based Pacific Justice Institute and other supporters of Proposition 8.
“All Californians – no matter their race, age, gender, or sexual orientation – should have the same freedom to support their families and go about their lives without fear of discrimination,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of Transgender Law Center. “This initiative was a poorly veiled attack on transgender people that sought to undermine that freedom and single out for harassment anyone who doesn’t meet stereotypes of what it looks like to be male or female. Today Californians have made clear these types of discriminatory attacks on transgender people and our families, communities, and neighborhoods have no place in our state.”
The so-called “Personal Privacy Protection Act” would have prohibited transgender people from using facilities in government buildings and requiring the government to monitor bathroom use. Supporters of similar efforts elsewhere fought ugly, divisive and deceitful campaigns that preyed on voters’ ignorance of what it means to be transgender.
“Opponents of LGBT equality use ignorance and fear as a weapon against the transgender community,” said Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California. “We know from our research that many people don’t really even know what ‘transgender’ means. While our opponents failed to gather enough support this time, we know they will be back. Through our public education campaign, we will educate the public about transgender people, the challenges they face and the contributions they make.”
“Having lost the battle for marriage equality and having failed to qualify a similar ballot initiative several years ago, anti-LGBT extremists have failed once again in their attempt to legislate discrimination,” said Dave Garcia, Director of Public Policy and Community Building at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. “I’m relieved they couldn’t get the relatively low number of signatures they needed, but even if they had, I’m confident we would have defeated this measure. No one should fear harassment, interrogation or a lawsuit simply for using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.”
“The people of California saw our opponents’ campaign for what it was — a blatant effort to undermine the rights and freedoms of transgender people. By categorically rejecting such discrimination, Californians have affirmed their support for the equal rights and dignity of all people. We, like the people of California, are committed to continue working to ensure that cruel and senseless efforts against our fellow community members are always stopped in their tracks,” said Chad Griffin, President of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
To educate California voters about their transgender neighbors and to forestall similar, future efforts to target them at the ballot box, Equality California and the Transgender Law Center are leading a separate statewide public education campaign to combat widespread public misunderstanding about transgender and gender nonconforming people and the issues they face. The separate campaign includes other LGBT and civil rights organizations as well as groups serving communities of color and the faith community. The effort is independent of work on any political or legislative campaign and is aimed at creating understanding and acceptance of transgender Californians through research and education.
“Discriminatory ballot measures, and the campaigns they engender, serve the interests of no one except those who would demonize and exclude, to the detriment of California,” stated Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF President and General Counsel. “MALDEF hopes that this failure will discourage any others seeking to sow division within our state.”
The coalition against the ballot initiative consists of the American Civil Liberties Union of California, Equality California, the Human Rights Campaign, Los Angeles LGBT Center, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and Transgender Law Center, as well as a steering committee of organizations representing diverse communities throughout California.
Two New Mexico lawmakers have pre-filed a bill that would give state business owners the right to refuse business to gay, lesbian and transgender people and their families on the basis of religious freedom.
Republican Reps. David Gallegos and Nora Espinoza are the sponsors of the bill, HB55.
“The intent of the bill would be to ensure people would not be forced to operate their business that was in a way inconsistent with their religious beliefs,” said Rep. Gallegos in a Friday interview.
Such a law would have allowed businesses like Elaine Photography to get away with refusing to photograph a lesbian couple’s wedding. In that case, the couple took the refusal to court, claiming the photography company discriminated against them, and won.
“We are hoping that it would reduce the lawsuits, like you are saying with the photographer, because it would keep everyone on an even playing field,” Rep. Gallegos said.
But state Sen. Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque, says the bill would create anything but an even playing field. He says it’s blatant discrimination.
“This bill goes a lot further than just wedding photography. This bill would allow any profession, any person to deny services to people because they are lesbian or gay,” Sen. Candelaria said. “That includes doctors and pediatricians treating children whose parents are gay or lesbian.”
Sen. Candelaria claims the bill would also allow people to refuse services to someone based on their sexual orientation.
“In New Mexico, I would like to think that we value treating people with respect and we value treating people equally and fairly,” he said. “That’s why I find this bill to be so troubling.”
The legislative session starts in January. The 2008 ruling in the photography case ruled the company’s actions were a violation of the state’s Human Rights Act, which the bill could be in violation of.
A gay man in the central Chinese province of Hunan has filed a lawsuit against the government for refusing his application to marry his male partner, in a move that has been hailed as a major test case for LGBT rights in the country, his lawyer told RFA on Monday.
Sun Wenlin, 26, filed the complaint against the Furong district civil affairs bureau in Hunan’s provincial capital Changsha earlier this month, challenging the bureau’s refusal to allow the couple to register their marriage.
Sun is arguing that current Chinese marriage law refers to the union of “husband and wife,” but without specifying the gender of either party to the marriage.
The argument rests on the idea that a person can identify as a husband or a wife without reference to their gender.
The complaint was filed at the Furong District People’s Court, which has until Dec. 23 to decide if it will accept the case.
Sun told the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time blog: “We just hope that we can legally become each other’s family in our own country someday in our lifetime.”
“Our most basic desires and rights have been denied, and this is very difficult to vindicate. I feel very angry,” he said.
Young people hold rainbow flags as they march on the street during an anti-discrimination parade in Changsha, central China’s Hunan province, May 17, 2013.
A ‘sensitive’ case
Meanwhile, Sun’s lawyer Shi Fulong told RFA that the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people have yet to fully enter public awareness in China.
“We have filed this administrative complaint because the civil affairs bureau failed to carry out its duty to register marriages,” Shi said. “We are appealing to the court to order it to proceed.”
He said the gradual liberalization of gay marriage in Western countries and some U.S. states has paved the way for changing attitudes in China.
“Gay marriage is now legal in a lot of countries, which affects a lot of individual rights including property rights and inheritance, as well as matters relating to children,” Shi said.
“All of these things are inherently tied up with marriage, and homosexuality is also subject to social conventions and questions of cultural tradition,” he said.
Shi said he hopes the case won’t be regarded as “sensitive” by the authorities.
“In my view, there’s no such thing as a sensitive case, because from a lawyer’s point of view, all clients are equal,” he said.
“We won’t treat our clients differently because of their ethnicity, their sexual orientation, or other differences.”
Long way to go
A Guangzhou resident who runs a support group for the friends and relatives of LGBT people said there is still a long way to go for LGBT rights in China, but welcomed Sun’s lawsuit.
“This is the first case to do with gay marriage in this country … and really it’s quite epoch-making,” the man, who gave only a nickname A Qiang, said.
“For gay marriage to become legal, it will have to win broad public support, and at the moment only about 22 percent support it, or thereabouts,” he said.
“There is still a long way to go for gay marriage in China, but the good thing is that there has been huge change [globally] in the past decade or so, and the overall trend is towards legalizing gay marriage,” he said.
Sun’s case comes after Guangzhou-based lesbian Qiu Bai filed a lawsuit against the government after it approved and disseminated university textbooks describing homosexuality as a “psychological disorder.”
Qiu took legal action against the ministry of education in Beijing after reading discriminatory language in a nationwide student psychological handbook published by the prestigious Renmin University.
Changing attitudes
However, there are signs of shifting attitudes among the younger generation, and among some companies.
How many Chinese would identify themselves as gay is unknown, as social stigma associated with homosexuality remains widespread, with many choosing to marry despite their orientation.
More and more educated urban Chinese have begun coming out in recent years, while the gay dating app Blued has estimated that China is home to 13 million gay men, and says it currently has three million users.
Last February, Internet giant Alibaba paid for 10 same-sex couples to get married in California, as part of a contest it said would help to promote LGBT rights.
