“Focus on the Family has chosen to attack the Safe Schools Improvement Act. What we find is that when school level policies actually mention sexual orientation and gender identity, rates of bullying and harassment go down. This is for all students. In 2005, students – of all sexual orientations, races, religions – told us that when their school had this kind of policy in place, those students were less likely to say that bullying was a serious problem in their school.” ~Elizah Byard, Executive Director of @GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network
“[When you focus only on the bully] the onus is on the victim to be able to prove without a shadow of a doubt that what has happened to him or what has happened to her is so difficult that it’s impossible for them to be able to go to school. That’s what we’re talking about. Well if you take out that language of naming the behavior, that it becomes so amorphous that there’s nothing to talk about, there’s no place to talk, there’s no place for that kid to define what is happening to them. And they also feel like they’re so ashamed that they can’t talk about it. These words are not allowed to be talked about. And so then they lose the whole process and the whole ability to have the conversation. They become silent.” ~@RosalindWiseman, Author of Queen Bees & Wannabees
“Repeal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA): Stalled in the House. Pass Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act: Awaiting Congressional vote. Pass Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA): Pending in Committee. Pass The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act: Signed into law on October 28, 2009. Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT): Awaiting Senate vote.” ~The status of equality legislation supported by President @BarackObama in his speech at the LGBT Pride Reception at the @WhiteHouse on June 29, 2009.
“We’re willing to take action and it may be non-traditional action. We’re tired of the lobbying and the phone banking and the letter writing that doesn’t seem to be getting the progress and the rights that we are deserving of. Many of our members have tried that method. What I think that’s going on with the national organizations is the understanding that they are serving in the suites of power but the streets of activism are tired and fed up. The people that try to offer that ‘change is coming’ and ‘we’re seeing progress’ are happy with minimal change and crumbs in my opinion. Even at the national dinner for the Human Rights Campaign [President Obama] made the statement that ‘We’re friends aren’t we?’ I’m not asking him to do something that he didn’t let come out of his own lips. I’m wanting him to be held accountable on the things that he’s already promised us. That same accountability goes to the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and anyone who walks into a meeting with him. When they accept the minimal change and the crumbs what they’re actually doing is simply barely feeding a person who’s already starving from injustice.” ~Robin McGehee, Co-Founder of @GetEQUAL
“I think they kind of think that they sort of met their gay quota because they did Hate Crimes. Come November, it’s over. There’s talk of losing the House in the November Congressional elections. And look at how hard it is to get this passed now. We don’t even have a repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell passed. Imagine what’s going to happen if we lose twenty or thirty or forty more Democrats. And we’re supposed to sit back and just wait. Well I’ve got news for you, our community’s got about two or three months left, before the Obama era becomes, I think, a bust. We’re going to lose the Congress, we’re going to lose enough seats that it’s just not going to matter.” ~John @Aravosis, Editor of @AMERICAblog
“The Congress of the United States, the Presidency of the Unites States – they’ve been passively denying us our rights for centuries and actively denying us our rights for decades. It’s time for that to stop but we need to put our foot down.” ~@MaraKeisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality
“Dr. Tam was Asian-American. One of the things I asked him is I reminded him of the really shameful history that California has in terms of discrimination against Asian-Americans. There were actually laws less than a hundred years ago that prohibited Asian-Americans and Caucasians from marrying, and if they did marry they lost various property rights. I asked him how he would feel today if the state of California was telling him how he could get married and to whom he could get married. He said he wouldn’t like it but he also said it didn’t change his mind. I think that in some senses that too was one of my favorite moments because it showed the extent to which certain views are beyond reason. It says why you need to have constitutional protection for minority rights,” said David Boies.
“Make no mistake: every major, reputable professional psychological and medical association has stated that not only is there no evidence supporting the possibility of changing somebody’s sexual orientation, but that such programs harm those involved; depression and suicide are all-too-common in the ex-gay world.
Below are some of the strangest and most disturbing techniques ex-gay leaders use in their failed attempts to turn their victims — who are tragically struggling to reconcile their faith with their sexuality — straight,” writes Ted Cox
“The bottom line in looking at the census data, which has massive sample size and therefore tremendous statistical power, is that there’s no deficit in these same-sex couples for their children, that their children do just fine. This is a fundamental finding because this is something that people have been wondering about and haven’t been able to find data for. So, actually, if you look at the data which is the best data that we have and maybe the best data we’re ever going to have on same-sex couples and their children, the data show pretty clearly that their children do just fine. Instead of worrying about the problems of same-sex couples raising children, what we really need to worry about is getting the state out of the business of raising children and letting families do the job that they already know how to do. The group that isn’t doing a good job raising children is the state. The orphanages, foster care, the shelters – they’re no substitute for family. The children who are in those environments are dramatically worse in school than the children who are in families. What we really need to focus on is moving children out of the orphanages and into families. The real problem that we have is not that gay and lesbian couples want to adopt kids. The real problem we have is that there aren’t enough of them to adopt the kids who are in the orphanages and the shelters that we have,” says Michael Rosenfeld, Associate Professor of Sociology at Stanford
Ken Mehlman said that he plans to be an advocate for gay rights within the GOP, that he remains proud to be a Republican, and that his political identity is not defined by any one issue.
“What I will try to do is to persuade people, when I have conversations with them, that it is consistent with our party’s philosophy, whether it’s the principle of individual freedom, or limited government, or encouraging adults who love each other and who want to make a lifelong committment to each other to get married.”
“I hope that we, as a party, would welcome gay and lesbian supporters. I also think there needs to be, in the gay community, robust and bipartisan support [for] marriage rights.”
If I had to say what one thing really moved me to create this site it would be the 2004 reelection campaign of George W. Bush, the most homophobic national campaign in history. That campaign was run by one of the nation’s worst closeted individuals, Ken Mehlman.
Even fending off advances from male cadets can create problems. “You can’t say, ‘Sorry guys, I’m gay,’ ” the senior [female cadet] said. “And if I say, ‘I have a boyfriend,’ I’m breaking the honor code.” Breaching the Cadet Honor Code — “a cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do” — can result in serious discipline.
“The general trajectory has them transitioning from minstrel acts and punch lines to relatable everyday characters,” says David Hauslaib, founder of @Queerty.
“Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people have stories that are capturing the imaginations of Americans because fundamentally, we’re as American as everyone else,” says Jarrett Barrios, president of @GLAAD.
“But if the Right does sacrifice California, either by choice or because the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals finds they lack standing to pursue the case, the groundwork has been laid. Americans of all political stripes believe that their gay friends and family members have the right to equal protection under the law, and there is now a solid legal and factual precedent to back it up, shaped in large part by a conservative lawyer, filed by a conservative judge, and echoed by the traditions of a nation devoted to fairness and respect,” says Michael B. Keegan.
