Heart of gay marriage law unconstitutional, appeals court rules

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. (Darren McCollester / Getty Images)

An appeals court ruled Thursday that the heart of a law that denies a host of federal benefits to gay married couples is unconstitutional.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, discriminates against married same-sex couples by denying them federal benefits.

The law was passed in 1996 at a time when it appeared Hawaii would legalize gay marriage. Since then, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved it, led by Massachusetts in 2004.

The appeals court agreed with a lower court judge who ruled in 2010 that the law is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define marriage and denies married gay couples federal benefits given to heterosexual married couples, including the ability to file joint tax returns.

The court didn’t rule on the law’s other provision, which said states without same-sex marriage cannot be forced to recognize gay unions performed in other states.

During arguments before the court last month, a lawyer for gay married couples said the law amounts to “across-the-board disrespect.” The couples argued that the power to define and regulate marriage had been left to the states for more than 200 years before Congress passed DOMA.

An attorney defending the law argued that Congress had a rational basis for passing it in 1996, when opponents worried that states would be forced to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere. The group said Congress wanted to preserve a traditional and uniform definition of marriage and has the power to define terms used to federal statutes to distribute federal benefits.

Since DOMA was passed in 1996, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved it, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland, Washington state and the District of Columbia. Maryland and Washington’s laws are not yet in effect and may be subject to referendums.

Last year, President Barack Obama announced the U.S. Department of Justice would no longer defend the constitutionality of the law. After that, House Speaker John Boehner convened the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to defend it.

Read original story at LA Times

Also see the video at MSNBC

ExxonMobil stockholders reject LGBT protections

Tico Almeida

ExxonMobil shareholders on Wednesday voted 80 percent to 20 percent against a resolution asking the company to explicitly protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees from discrimination.

“It is shameful that ExxonMobil forces its shareholders to push it to be an equitable employer,” said New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who lobbied for the resolution. New York State’s pension fund holds approximately 16.2 million shares of ExxonMobil stock with an estimated market value of $1.3 billion, according to a comptroller’s office news release.

“ExxonMobil is clearly acting in a discriminatory way when it offers different benefits to its employees based only on the company’s interpretation of legal marriage. It should do the right thing and implement a clear policy prohibiting discrimination. From the shareholders’ standpoint, there’s risk to the value of our investment until it does,” DiNapoli said. “I remain firmly committed to advocating for this resolution until ExxonMobil provides equality for all of its employees.”

Texas-based ExxonMobil has fought an explicit nondiscrimination policy for at least 10 years, according to Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, a national group working to ban workplace discrimination against LGBT Americans.

“It’s a digging in of the heels by very stubborn people who want to latch on to the past,” Almeida told The Miami Herald on Wednesday.

The oil company posts on its website that “any form of discrimination by or toward employees, contractors, suppliers, and customers in any ExxonMobil workplace is strictly prohibited.

“Our global, zero-tolerance policy applies to all forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” reads the policy.

ExxonMobil does not give domestic partner insurance benefits. Mobil employees lost the benefits after Exxon merged with the company in 1999.

Human Rights Campaign (HRC) gave ExxonMobil a negative score on its 2012 annual Corporate Equality Index.

“On HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, ExxonMobil received a score of -25. In contrast, oil and gas companies such as Chevron, BP, Shell, and Spectra received scores of 85 or higher,” according to an HRC news release. More information on the HRC Corporate Equality Index is available atwww.hrc.org/cei.

Rex W. Tillerson

Also Wednesday, ExxonMobil stockholders boosted Chairman and CEO Rex W. Tillerson’s compensation by 17 percent, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. In 2011, he earned $25.2 million. The combination of salary, stock awards and other compensation made Tillerson the 16th-highest paid executive among publicly traded U.S. companies last year.

Tillerson is also national president of Boy Scouts of America — which prohibits gays from being members or masters.

A scouts spokesman told The Herald it was unlikely the organization would change its policy, even as gay activists on Wednesday delivered 275,000 petitions demanding gays be admitted as members and masters.

Read the original story at Miami Herald

Dr. Robert Spitzer Retracts ‘Ex-Gay’ Study and Apologizes to the LGBT Community

Thanks to Wayne Besen and Truth Wins Out for this video.

In 1973, Dr. Robert Spitzer led the charge to successfully have homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which is its list of mental disorders. This was a major victory and remains one the gay movement’s signature achievements.

Given his stature and key role in declassifying gay people as sick, it was quite a surprise when Dr. Spitzer published a non-peer reviewed 2001 study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that claimed some “highly motivated” gay people could reach their “heterosexual potential” through prayer and therapy. When he announced his work at the 2001 APA meeting in New Orleans, it created a media sensation. An Associated Press story called his findings “explosive.”

In 2012, Dr. Spitzer recanted in the American Prospect magazine and in a letter to the Archives of Sexual Behavior, obtained by Truth Wins Out, Dr. Spitzer asked that his study be withdrawn. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Showand the New York Times covered his apology.

Last week, TWO’s Wayne Besen and filmmaker Lisa Darden interviewed Dr. Spitzer at his Princeton, NJ home. This exclusive interview is the first time Spitzer has been videotaped speaking in-depth about his change of heart.

“This is an historic moment and it was crucial that we recorded it for posterity,” said Truth Wins Out’s Wayne Besen. “It was also critical that we had Dr. Spitzer directly confront anti-gay organizations by name to make it difficult for them to distort his study without undermining their credibility.”

Here are excerpts from Wayne Besen and Lisa Darden’s interview with Dr. Robert Spitzer:

What do you have to say about the conclusions of your 2001 study?

“I was quite wrong in the conclusions that I made from this study. The study does not provide evidence, really, that gays can change. And that’s quite an admission on my part.”

What made you go public with your change of heart?

“If I really have all these doubts about the study, I had to face up to whether I had a responsibility to acknowledge that.”

Is there a message you would like to impart to the LGBT community?

“I’ve been thinking about the study for many years. I felt that I needed to say that, the study is not valid, but I thought I should also say to the gay community, I apologize for any harm I have done to them because of the study and my initial interpretation. And I certainly apologize to any gay person who because of this study entered into reparative therapy and wasted their time and energy doing that.”

It took you two years to find a mere 200 study subjects, even though NARTH’s Dr. Joseph Nicolosi was trying to influence the study by begging clients to participate. Why do you think it was so difficult for NARTH to provide you with “ex-gays”?

“He [Nicolosi] just didn’t have many patients who could really claim that they had changed.”

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) is still misusing your study and a video featuring you remains prominently placed on the group’s website. Would you like to address PFOX?

“I ask that PFOX stop showing this video. This is quite misleading. I had no way, really, of knowing when I examined any particular subject whether they really had changed or whether they were deceiving themselves or even outright lying when they claimed that they had changed. So, please don’t show this to anyone.”

The retraction of your study must be very upsetting to anti-gay organizations.

“I’m curious as to whether they have said anything or how they live with the fact that the one study that they have always been citing has now been taken away from them. I would think that’s a pretty rough place to be in.”

Is the “Ex-Gay” Industry capable of unbiased research on homosexuality?

“The people who are pushing the ‘ex-gay’ idea are so full of hatred for homosexuality, really, that I don’t think they can respond in an ethical way.”

What are your thoughts on sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE)?

“If people can recognize that being a homosexual is something that cannot be changed and that efforts to change are going to be disappointing and can be harmful, if that can be more widely known that would be very good. If somebody is troubled that they are homosexual, what they ought to do is face up to that and so something so they are more comfortable living with the way they are, because any attempt to change is misguided.”

Background:

Truth Wins Out (Analysis of Spitzer apology)

Dan Gonzales (Dissecting the Spitzer study)

View original post at Truth Wins Out

The Book of Daniel Radcliffe

The versatile young actor tells The Advocate about his return to the supernatural genre, what drew him to play Allen Ginsberg, and why he’s tirelessly committed to the Trevor Project.

The intense gaze of Daniel Radcliffe’s wide blue eyes is as haunting as the moody English landscape that provides the setting for the actor’s most recent film,The Woman in Black. The 22-year-old actor chuckles when this is mentioned. “I’ve been told several times I have a thousand-yard stare,” he offers. “When I’m not in a bright and cheerful mood I tend to look like I’ve just run across no-man’s-land.”

Based on the famed 1982 novel and stunningly directed by James Watkins, the gothic ghost story (now available on DVD and Blu-ray) marks both Radcliffe’s first film since leaving Hogwarts and an unexpected return to the supernatural genre of the Harry Potter films, which made him a marquee name. Having already proven his versatility in hit stage revivals of the psychological drama Equus and the classic musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Radcliffe will soon portray his first gay character.

The 22-year-old actor will star in Kill Your Darlings, a true-crime drama from out director John Krokidas, in which he’ll depict legendary Beat poet Allen Ginsberg years before Howl made him a literary icon. Radcliffe belongs to a committed generation of young entertainers intent on using their fame as a platform to speak out for equality. For his efforts on behalf of the Trevor Project, which works to prevent LGBT teen suicides, Radcliffe received the organization’s Hero Award. “Young people deserve to live in a world that accepts them for who they are, regardless of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” Radcliffe said upon learning of the honor. Radcliffe tells The Advocate about his return to the supernatural with The Woman in Black, what drew him to play Ginsberg, and why he’s tirelessly committed to speaking out for equality.

The Advocate: The Woman in Blackis the first film you made since the Potter franchise ended. Did you have any hesitation about making another movie within the horror-fantasy genre? 
Daniel Radcliffe: I said to myself, if I rule out any script that had remotely any fantasy element, I’d be cutting myself off from a huge amount of amazing work. If you’re talking about films made years ago, it would exclude me from films like The Shining or A Matter of Life and Death or who knows what else. There are so many films that could be deemed as having heightened paranormal elements to them, which could just be magical realism or a ghost story, which isn’t really the same feeling as Potter. I decided not to let that impinge on my decision-making.

What specifically appealed to you about the film?
For me it was a chance to do something that’s genuinely different and that I thought people wouldn’t be expecting and that I wasn’t expecting. If you’d said to me that the first film I’d do after finishing the last Potter would be a horror film, I wouldn’t have believed you. It’s never been something I’ve particularly gravitated towards. But one of the only horror films that made an impression on me while I was growing up was The Others. I saw it when I was about 13 and absolutely loved it.

The Woman in Black certainly shares qualities with that film.
When I read the script I thought of that film immediately and James Watkins felt the same. He also had a Spanish film called The Orphanage in his mind when he was conceiving this film. Having the chance to make one of those unusual, suspenseful, atmospheric, scary … There’s a difference between a nasty film and a scary film. Of course films likeHostel and Saw are going to be horrifying because they’re unpleasant and there’s gruesome imagery involved. You’d be inhuman not to have some reaction to that. But with a film like this, it taps into things we have evolved to fear: darkness, noises we can’t identify the source of, those things that really scare us in real life. It all adds up to make a really effective, very scary film, I think. It also touches on family, loss, grief, and things you might not normally associate with a horror film.

You mentioned the 1946 fantasy A Matter of Life and Death. I’m impressed that you’re so film-literate.
That’s my favorite film. There are gaps in my film knowledge. I’ve never seen Star Wars and stuff like that. But A Matter of Life and Death I think is one of the greatest showings of what imagination in cinema can do, with no visual effects, really. It was a brilliant story and brilliantly acted. David Niven is the most impossibly charming man in the world in that film and always. It’s just a brilliant film.

You portray Allen Ginsberg in your next film, Kill Your Darlings.
I feel I am incredibly lucky to be playing him. Despite the damage from his upbringing and his mother and what he went through, he really emerged into the most fully formed open, compassionate human being out of all of the Beats. He’s certainly the one you’d be most comfortable spending time around, I think. When you watch footage of him and William Burroughs together and see how much they care about each other and how close they were and the love between all those guys and the incredible sadness that brought them all together that they were all carrying in some degree. It’s great.

This is director John Krokidas’s first feature film. What convinced you to take this leap of faith with a novice filmmaker?
You obviously haven’t met John. [Laughs] John is one of the most passionate people you could ever meet. For me this is an exceptional script. The scenes were almost completely devoid of exposition, yet the story was always being moved along and any information being given out in those scenes is given as information about the characters and not just handed out for the audience to understand. It’s a brilliantly written script. You meet John and he has such unwavering belief in this project and he’s enthusiastic and fun and I thought, Yes, I want to dive in with you and make this happen. I think that’s why so many people were drawn to this film. It’s myself, Lizzy Olson, Ben Foster, Jack Huston, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kyra Sedgwick … an amazing group of people. That’s due to the script and John’s passion for the project.

Last year you received the Trevor Project’s Hero Award. The founder of Trevor Project said that you actually reached out to them to become involved with the organization. Why was this important to you?
I think it started when I was doing an interview a few years ago and I was being asked about gay rights and I realized I was speaking much more passionately about gay rights than anything else I’d been asked about. It’s because while growing up a lot of my mum and dad’s best friends were gay, so there were always a lot of gay men in my life. When I went to school, suddenly there was something weird about that for a lot of kids. That’s still very odd to me. I’m still like, What’s new about it? It’s been going on for ages. I couldn’t understand why people are freaked out about it. I find it incredibly frustrating that people are still being brought up in ways that encourage homophobia and allow it to affect the lives of millions of people across the country and the world. Finding out about Trevor Project through friends at that time just seemed perfect. I wanted to be of service and help, and I’m just incredibly proud that I’m able to. I do get people coming up to me and saying – I’d say at least five or six times each week someone will come up to me and say, “Thank you for what you do for the Trevor Project.” It’s amazing that you’re able to effect a positive change just by being you and talking about things that you feel strongly about. I’m just very proud to be a part of it.

Marriage equality is a hot button issue in the States. Earlier this year British prime minister David Cameron stated his support. Is it safe to presume you support it as well? 
Yes, absolutely. Obviously. [Laughs] It shouldn’t even be a thing. It shouldn’t even be a discussion. That doesn’t sound right. Everything should be discussed. Anyone should be able to get married. One of the most amazing things I’ve seen was during the Republican thing earlier when Michele Bachmann was still around and some young girl asked her why gay men can’t get married. Michele Bachmann said they can but not to each other. I thought, That’s the problem. They don’t even understand the question. It’s so frustrating to me and bizarre. Hopefully progress will come.

Read the original story/interview at The Advocate

Pro-LGBT Minn. Pastor Trying to Save Church

Supporters are trying to help a St. Paul church that lost many members over its pastor’s endorsement of marriage equality

Reverend Oliver White

Minnesota minister Oliver White, who has lost much of his congregation over his support for marriage equality, is getting help in raising funds to try to keep his church open.

In February, White’s Grace Community United Church in St. Paul received a $15,000 gift from the predominantly LGBT Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, which like Grace is affiliated with the United Church of Christ. Now the pro-LGBT interfaith group Believe Out Loud, a San Francisco entrepreneur, and others are raising funds for Grace Church, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports.

The predominantly African-American church needs to raise $200,000 by June 30 to pay off a high-interest loan. About 20% of that has come in to date, White told the Pioneer Press last week.

Joseph Ward, director of Believe Out Loud, has raised several thousand dollars for the church through his group’s website, and San Franciscan Nick Warshaw has set up a fund-raising website atRally.org/gcucc. John Ong, a gay graphic designer and podcaster in Kansas City, Mo., recently devoted a show to White. And White is asking supporters to give as little as $1 each to help keep the church afloat.

In 2005, White voted to support a marriage equality resolution at the United Church of Christ’s national meeting. Within a few weeks, two thirds of his congregation left. Some Sundays the attendance is 20 or fewer.

On the podcast with Ong, White emphasized that his church welcomes all, and he was philosophical about its struggle. “If we are not successful, I am not going to feel that we are defeated,” he said. “I’ve often said if one person has been turned around, if their thinking has been turned around, and they are no longer homophobic, and they can reach out and love their brothers and their sisters as they love themselves, unconditionally, without labeling them in any way, then losing the church will not be in vain.”

Read the original story at The Advocate

Mormons Prepare to March in LGBT Pride Parades Nationwide

This year, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—including active and observant Mormons—will march in at least seven LGBT Pride parades across the country.

From Seattle, Washington, to Washington D.C., New York, Portland, Boise, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City, members of three different Mormon contingents—Mormons Building Bridges, Mormons for Marriage Equality, and Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons—will walk during the month of June.

(Find complete details on LDS pride parade contingents here.)

First up is June 3, Salt Lake City. I spoke with Erika Munson, organizer of Salt Lake City’s Mormons Building Bridges group, a contingent of at least 100 self-described “active, faithful” Mormons that has been invited to walk at the head of the Salt Lake City pride parade.

How did you come to organize Mormons Building Bridges?

I’ve been active in the LDS Church all my life. I was a teenager in Boston during the leadup to the revelation [that ended the LDS ban on black ordination in 1978]; as a teenager for me that was incredibly painful, but looking back it was an amazing experience in that I felt the pain, I saw my parents feeling the pain, but working within the Church for change, and then I saw change before my eyes in all the things that we were praying for. It gave me a sense of optimism that has carried me throughout my whole life.

For many years, I felt like there was no other option for gay Mormon people than to discontinue activity in the LDS church. I completely understood why they couldn’t be a part of LDS Church life, and I felt bad about it, but I felt that’s what had to happen.

Then as my children started growing up—my kids are ages 13 to 27—and getting to a point where they decide whether or not to continue LDS Church activity into their own lives, I saw they faced this disconnect: “Gay people can’t be in this Church? What about all the love I’ve been taught my whole life?”

For example, my eighteen-year-old son received a phone call from the bishop for an interview to set him on the road to preparing for his missionary service. So we are in the hall, and I’m telling him, “You need to call the bishop.” My son looks at me and says, “Mom, I can’t do this.” We talked over many things he was concerned about. One of them was that he has an openly gay teacher who, he told me, “is one of the most spiritual people” he knows. “What is this Church if there is no place for him?” my son asked me.

Another story: I took my daughter to college at UCLA in September 2008. We were living in Connecticut then, so I had no idea what Proposition 8 was, but we saw all these Proposition 8 signs. I took her to the LDS student ward [congregation] on Sunday, and find out what Proposition 8 is, and the entire Relief Society [women’s auxiliary] meeting was a Proposition 8 organizing meeting—with phone trees and the bishop coming in and saying you’ve got to do this. We just left shaking, and she hasn’t gone back. She never set foot in that building again.

Through my kids’ eyes, I see things in a fresh way. So I was thinking about the Utah Pride Parade, which is now almost bigger than the Days of ’47 [Pioneer Day parade commemorating Mormon pioneers]. This is a parade about love and diversity and human rights. I felt very strongly that LDS people should have a presence, even as a civic institution. I thought, let me put it out there and see if we can get active Mormons to march—people who are going to church—and let’s look Mormon.

If we stand up in this parade, the folks in the pews might say, “Hmm… I can do this too. Gosh, I didn’t know anyone felt the same way I do. I thought I was alone.” But also I wanted to reach out to LGBT community in general and just extend a hand and say, “We love you for who you are, not in spite of who you are but because God made you who you are.” And to young gay people especially. There is almost one LDS gay suicide a week in Utah. It’s got to stop. If just one young man who is gritting his teeth and going to church with his family sees us, perhaps he will know that there is someone in his ward, someone in his family he can talk to.

Tell me more about “looking like Mormons” when you walk in Salt Lake City on June 3.

I want everyone to wear what they wear to Church. I want us to look like the people streaming in and out of the LDS Conference Center, because that is who we are. We are active members of the LDS Church. I want the media to see those people who they thought were so conservative and narrow-minded and see that we are reaching out to the gay community.

And you are very specific about your simple message.

The only message is one of love. We are focusing on a message of love. We are faithful Mormons. We believe. We attend our wards. But there has been heartbreak and strife and we want to end that. We are not supported by any political group, and we are asking people to have no signage for political causes. In this Pride Parade contingent, we are not taking a stand either way on marriage equality. Our signs are quotes from LDS Church General Authorities, the Bible, and LDS hymns about loving your neighbor.

You once had some concern about how the LGBT community would respond. What preparations have you been making?

We initially entered the parade as the LDS Tolerance Brigade, but we quickly learned—I am learning so much—that tolerance is not the most welcoming word. So we changed our name to “Mormons Building Bridges.” When I went to the first organizing meeting, I also put my little hand up and asked if we needed to worry about antagonism from the crowd, and the organizers said, “The crowd is going to love you. We are so happy you’re here.” I was overwhelmed with a feeling of welcome from that community.

Organizers within the LGBT community have been very supportive of our simple message of love and not going political and not dealing with the issue of marriage equality. And a group called OutReach—an organization that serves gay teenagers in northern Utah, including gay Mormon teenagers—those teenagers offered to march as volunteers to interact with the crowd as a buffer in case it was needed.

Dustin Lance Black is the Salt Lake City pride parade marshall. He was really excited and supportive of our very simple message and he asked that we be moved to the head of the parade.

But I also want to be very careful. We are guests at this parade, and I don’t want to steal other peoples’ thunder. For so many years, the Salt Lake City Pride folks have built this into an institution in the fabric of Utah. I just want to be very thankful for everything that they’re doing.

You’ve also had a supportive response from the LDS side.

I receive so many comments from fellow Mormons that “we have to show love.” This includes old Facebook friends from old wards I’ve lived in—people who I thought would not be receptive at all. For the purposes of this march, if we can stick to the simple message of love, we are going to reach a lot of people.

Mormons Building Bridges has an open Facebook group so that we can monitor the number of people to anticipate. Right now, we anticipate 100 Mormons participating. I hope it will grow.

This is an invitation for people to be proactive. I know Pride is on a Sunday, and it’s a big deal for people to miss church. I understand that. This is an invitation to worship by walking, to worship by using our bodies—Mormon theology has a very specific place for bodies; our spirits came to earth to get bodies—and we are physically putting ourselves in a place to create a sacred space in this march. We will do that by keeping focused on our very simple message of love.

Read original story at Religion Dispatches

Why gay marriage is healthy

Kudos to CNN host Brooke Baldwin, who last week asked Tony Perkins, notorious homophobe and head of the hate-group the Family Research Council, “why do homosexuals bother you so much?”

Perkins and his anti-gay and anti-gay marriage bigotry regularly appear on the news networks, and it was nice to see his message undermined and his motives challenged by Baldwin. Media Matters reports that from late 2010 to late 2011 Perkins and others from his group made approximately 52 television appearances on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News to promote their brand of hate. This, no less, in the year following the Southern Poverty Law Center’s 2010 classification of the Family Research Council as a hate group for its anti-gay propaganda.

The council’s anti-gay bias is clear, according to law center: it “often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws and anti-bullying programs.” Never mind that last week Perkins and his group presented its highest honor to the North Carolina pastor who has been in the news recently for comparing gays to maggots and calling for the prosecution of gays and lesbians for their “lifestyle.” Perkins claims that “research is overwhelming that homosexuality poses a risk to children,” that “kids do best with a mom and a dad,” and that “redefining marriage remains outside the mainstream of American politics.”

In fact, Perkins and the other bigots who make these claims do so driven by their ideologies, not by the science they so insistently and mistakenly claim supports them.

For example, the American Psychological Association, the “the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States” whose mission is “to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives,” has debunked anti-gay propaganda related to same-sex parent households. The association makes clear that “there is no scientific basis for concluding that lesbian mothers or gay fathers are unfit parents on the basis of their sexual orientation.” Finally, the psychologists’ group tells us “that the development, adjustment, and well-being of children with lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from that of children with heterosexual parents.”

So what does all of this have to do with public health? And, in the case of gay marriage, what can the state sanctioning of the union between two men or two women do to advance public health?

The most obvious public health issue is that homophobia is more than just harmful words; its social, economic, and political impact can be devastating to the physical and mental health of gay men and women.

Gay and lesbian youth are particularly vulnerable, in terms of bullying and harassment, depression, and suicide. Surveys have shown, for example, a significantly higher risk of attempted suicide among gay and bisexual men than heterosexual men (28 percent compared to 4 percent). Among women, 20 percent of bisexuals and lesbians have attempted suicide compared to 14 percent of heterosexuals.

Statistics on actual suicides of gay and lesbian teens are impossible to come by because sexuality is not recorded on death certificates, and may not even be known by surviving family members. We do know, however, that suicide attempts by gay and lesbian teenagers are more likely in socially conservative areas where homophobia is not condemned (but perhaps encouraged) and where social support for gay youth is limited or non-existent.

We also know from recent evidence that the state sanctioning of gay marriage can benefit the health of gays and lesbians.

First, it may reduce stress. Studies have shown, for example, that homophobia and anti-gay discrimination can lead to poor health outcomes. Acceptance of gay marriage may lead to a perception of social acceptance that decreases such stress and the resultant poor health outcomes. USA Today reported in December on a study that showed that “during the 12 months after the 2003 legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, there was a significant decrease in medical care visits, mental health visits and mental health-care costs among gay and bisexual men, compared to the 12 months before the law changed.” The study’s lead author, Mark Hatzenbuehler, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said these “findings suggest that marriage equality may produce broad public health benefits by reducing the occurrence of stress-related health conditions in gay and bisexual men.”

Second, with state sanctioned gay marriage also comes the social and financial benefits of marriage. No longer do gay men and women need to be concerned with hospital visitation rights, rights to their husband’s or wife’s health insurance, and the legal rights afforded to spouses. These changes not only help reduce stress, help individuals gain access to health insurance and health care, but they also foster familial bonds and help those outside of gay communities recognize the basic needs and dignity of homosexual men and women.

President Obama’s recent embrace of gay marriage will likely continue to move the country in the right direction on this issue, and may even help the public’s health. This will be an ongoing battle. The recent repudiation of gay marriage in North Carolina is indicative of a still powerful anti-gay marriage sentiment among some segments of the population. But this will change too. The Tony Perkins of the world will always be around, but even in the face of anti-gay rhetoric, we seem to be moving in the right direction.

Read the original story at Philly

LGBT Veterans Honored in Memorial Day Ceremony

Danny Ingram of American Veterans for Equal Rights in salute at a Memorial Day ceremony in Piedmont Park

For many in the Atlanta community, this year’s Memorial Day was even more meaningful because it was the first to take place following the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

The day was warm and sunny. A small group gathered near the western entrance of Piedmont Park in midtown Atlanta. They stood before a monument with photos of fallen soldiers, a red, white, and blue wreath, and an American flag.

“This is the first Memorial Day when gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members are protecting our freedom openly around the world,” said Danny Ingram of American Veterans for Equal Rights, the largest LGBT veteran’s organization in the country.

Among those honored included Major Allan Rogers, a gay pastor who was killed in Iraq in 2008, and Corporal Andrew Wilfahrt, who was killed last year in Afghanistan and is the first openly gay casualty of any American war.

The ceremony made Charles Stevens proud. The Decatur resident is a veteran of World War II and Korea. It means a lot to him that soldiers are now able to serve openly.

“It’s a very special day. I have friends that are in the service even today. They were proud before they were even accepted.”

Despite recent steps forward, Danny Ingram said LGBT soldiers still have a way to go before they get equal compensation for their service, including spousal benefits.

“They’re simply getting paid a whole lot less. Their stress in combat of having to worry about their families back home is much higher.”

To get those marriage benefits, Ingram said the federal Defense of Marriage Act would eventually need to be repealed.

However on Memorial Day, Ingram said it was simply enough to pay respects to those who have served and made the ultimate sacrifice for the country.

Read and listen at PBA

Mel White exposes ‘lies the Christian Right tell us to deny gay equality’

How and why do otherwise kind and Jesus-esque people become machines motivated by fear and unleashed in ignorance when the topic switches to the gay community?

And how, on this one topic, do some Christians neglect the clear Biblical mandates to care for the poor and the outcast and turn all their negative energy onto the LGBT community? Who can we “thank” for this diversion and inoculation of deception and ignorance?

“Holy Terror: Lies the Christian Right Tells to Deny Gay Equality,” by Mel White, is a treasure map to the answer.

For thirty years, the Rev. Dr. Mel White served the evangelical Christian community as a pastor, seminary professor and ghostwriter to powerful and famous leaders, including Billy Graham, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

In this book, White points us to several well known Christian leaders who have guided us to a place of blindness and passivity where fundamentalist faith is married to politics.

Fundamentalism of any sort is extremism. Christian fundamentalism is rooted in literal Bible interpretation. “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.”

Of course, they are selectively literal, about women often, and about gays very often. With over 31 thousand verses in the Bible, how did the six on same-sex behavior trump the rest? White lays out the forefathers of this modern fundamentalist movement. Francis Schaeffer began the call to reclaim America as a “once great Christian nation” from secular forces in the 40’s and 50’s. Using hyperbole, half truths and lies, Schaeffer rallied Christians to fight “judicial tyranny.” Schaeffer set the stage for Christians to blend politics and faith.

W.A. Criswell, the senior pastor for 58 years of the 28 thousand member Dallas First Baptist, “fired the first shots in the fundamentalists’ war to purge ‘moderates’ and ‘progressives’ from their churches” using the litmus test of “the Bible is inerrant and anyone who disagrees cannot be trusted theologically.”

With the charismatic assistance of Criswell beginning in the 1990’s, fundamentalists won control of the national boards and committees of the Southern Baptist Convention. Literal understanding of the Bible became the measuring stick as ordained women were now denied the right to preach, and gay pastors, teachers and leaders with moderate views were purged from the denomination.

Beginning in 1979, Jerry Falwell took the organized troops and recruited and trained them within the Moral Majority . He created the platform of pro-life (anti-woman’s choice to reproductive rights and anti-Equal Rights Amendment), pro-family (opposed to the civil rights for gays and lesbians), pro-moral (anti- drug, -porn, -child abuse) and pro-American (“making the U.S. a Christian nation once again”). This movement was the pivotal turning point for the “threat” of the gay community and the rise of political power for the Evangelicals and Baptists.

Jerry Falwell began to use the term “gay agenda” and threatened his followers that “God and Christianity” would be eliminated from American society by the gay community.

Pat Robertson formed the Christian Coalition and “recruited, trained and equipped the army for political action.” He perfected the demonization of the gay community and reduced their existence to “disease, despair and decadence.” Anything that went wrong was attributed to the gays.

James Dobson, President of Focus on the Family, had almost 26 million weekly listeners to his radio show. Egotistical, controlling, power-hungry and influential, Dobson continued to use the fear and loathing of the gay community to raise millions and recruit support to “take back America.”

D. James Kennedy, Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian, grew a mega- church in Florida and lead 459 Christian fundamentalists, pastors and leaders to sign “A Manifesto for the Christian Church” in 1986. Among the twelve social evils listed in the Manifesto, in order of importance are: 1. abortion, 2. homosexuality, 5. unjust treatment of the poor and 8. racial discrimination. White does an excellent job laying out the details surrounding the Manifesto with players, dates and intentions. The direct link between gays and the destruction of America is centered in this document.

(Perhaps we have located the “Radical Fundamentalist Agenda.”)

The “logic” follows that the Bible is inerrant, and because the words we read say God condemns gays, then, if we do not fight against them, God will condemn America. So, if Christian fundamentalists do allow for the extension of civil rights, God gets mad and the nation suffers. Ergo, allow gays to survive and thrive, and God destroys America.

The next two chapters are the gems of the entire book: “The Secret Meeting at Glen Eyrie: Declaring War on Homosexuals” (1994) and “The Glen Eyrie Protocol.” These two chapters read like a secret spy novel; reading the account from audio tapes discussing the goals of these conservatives to intentionally manipulate Christians and the American public into hatred of the LGBT community is maddening.

Christians have been lead around like sheep, by the wrong shepherds. “Holy Terror” by Mel White is an excellent tool for understanding the past while giving insight to the anger and lies coming from fundamentalist and conservative family groups.

Read original story at LGBTQ Nation

Tyler Clementi’s suicide: Best to look not only at Ravi, but at society at large

Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers student who notoriously used a webcam to spy on roommate Tyler Clementi’s same-sex sexual encounters in September 2010, was sentenced to 30 days in jail on Monday, May 21 for invasion of privacy and bias intimidation.

Clementi, as is well known, committed suicide shortly after the webcam incidents. What Ravi did was clearly inappropriate, and I am glad that he is being held responsible. However, while Ravi played a role in Clementi’s lack of well-being, our society as a whole also had a role. Ravi had his day in court, but we need to put our society on trial, as well.

Dharun Ravi

As a researcher on LGBT mental health, I have read study after study that has found an association between anti-LGB stigma and suicidality (see Bontempo and D’Augelli, 2002; Meyer, 1995; Rivers, 2004; and Warner et al., 2004, if you’re interested).

Likewise, the leading model of LGB mental health, Meyer’s minority stress theory, suggests that experiencing higher levels of stigma (e.g., homophobic attitudes and physical violence) generally leads to poorer mental health outcomes.

I don’t want to paint an overly simplistic picture, as various other factors ranging from internalized homophobia to availability of social support are also associated with mental health outcomes. But suffice to say, the existing body of mental health research suggests that experiencing anti-gay stigma helps to explain the high rates of suicide and other mental health problems in the LGBT population.

Ravi’s Twitter posts, webcam spying, and homophobic attitude were stigmatizing, and it is possible, as the news media have suggested, that these pushed Clementi to a tipping point.

But Clementi’s suicide did not happen in a bubble with only him and Ravi; it took place in a society in which homophobia is still rampant. It occurred in a society in which 85 percent of LGBT youth are verbally harassed and 41 percent are physically harassed each year, according to GLSEN’s 2009 National School Climate Survey. It occurred in a society in which many religious leaders and parents tell teenagers — both those who are out and those who are struggling in the closet — that being gay is a sin.

It occurred in a society in which there are few role models for LGBT youth; while there has been limited progress through such shows as Modern Family (though this only shows a white, upper-middle-class version of gayness), childrens’ and teens’ television shows and books feature references to nuclear families but steer clear of same-sex couples.

We need to put society on trial for its role in suicides such as Clementi’s.

We are better at holding influential figures responsible than we used to be — for instance, when Tracy Morgan went on a homophobic rant last year, he was widely criticized. But we haven’t really had a conversation about the role the whole village played in Clementi’s suicide and the countless others that have received less media attention.

Every time a parent expresses disapproval of homosexuality, every time a kid calls someone a “fag” at school, and every time people in conversations say gay is just a (negative) lifestyle choice, they are contributing to the stigma of being lesbian, gay, or bisexual, regardless of who they meant to direct their comments at.

The lack of public figures or role models for teenagers, and the hesitancy of schools to include same-sex sexualities in sex-ed curricula, despite these being a normal part of human sexuality, give these negative attitudes more influence by not contrasting them with the more positive reality. Given the body of mental health research that has consistently connected stigma and suicidality, and despite the progress we’ve made, the present state of society leaves me concerned.

We can’t know exactly what led Clementi to commit suicide, but while Ravi may have contributed to matters and certainly didn’t help them, it’s safe to assume that his actions were not the only contributing factor.

After all, had Ravi’s behavior occurred in a societal context that was otherwise 100-percent supportive of LGBT people, Clementi committing suicide in response to Ravi’s behavior seems unlikely. (It’s also worth pointing out that factors unrelated to one’s sexual orientation can contribute to depression and suicidality in LGBT people in the same way they do for the rest of the population.)

With society’s influence in mind, we should be evaluating how little, daily stigmatic events — ranging from name-calling at school to homophobia from the pulpit — accumulate, harming LGBT individuals (including those who are not out). And we should actively work to address these problems both head-on and by affirming the validity of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

We’re making progress. But every time a kid commits suicide at least in part because of anti-gay stigma, I remember that our society isn’t making progress nearly fast enough.

Read original story at LGBTQ Nation