The marriage equality drumbeat has rumbled on with news that several states will be attempting to re-examine their state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and/or civil unions. Surprisingly, this hasn't received as much attention as I assumed it would in the LGBT blogosphere.

Ohio state representative Tyrone K. Yates (D-Cincinnati), Kentucky state representative Mary Lou Marzian (D-Jefferson), and Michigan House Speaker Pro Tem Pam Byrnes (D-Washtenaw County) have all introduced legislation to repeal their state's respective marriage amendments.

Texas Attorney General candidate Barbara Radnofsky, however, has discovered that the state's amendment also inadvertently "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages. A Texas judge ruled the state's amendment was unconstitutional last month.

None of the four states are known for their LGBT-friendly laws which raises an interesting conundrum. Will the four states re-examination of their marriage equality amendments actually help the LGBT community or will it hurt us instead?

Continue reading "Good news or bad ideas? KY, MI, OH, TX re-examine marriage amendments" »

Last week, Jerame and I traveled to NYC where I was honored to receive the NYC Anti-Violence Project's Courage Award alongside fellow LGBT bloggers, Joe Jervis (Joe.My.God.), Pam Spaulding (Pam's House Blend), and Andy Towle (Towleroad). The honor is two-fold: the AVP is a very esteemed part of the foundation of our community and the group of blogging peers is impressive. (As an extra bonus, it was also the first award I've won that had my name spelled correctly on it!)

If you'd asked me in late 2004 what I saw in my future, I would never have guessed all the opportunities the new Bilerico blog would afford me. I'm constantly amazed that I've been able to shape my notorious e-mails to a local list-serve about politics and LGBT issues into a career in blogging, activism and writing.

The AVP Courage Award though, means something special. Being honored fresh off the passage of the federal hate crimes law, it really resonated in this Hoosier. Until the law went into effect, I had none of the protections a hate crimes statute can offer. Blogging about "anti-violence" hasn't just been altruistic, that hate crimes law added some security to my family's life. It was also one of the reasons why I picked up the keyboard to begin pounding out political opinion op-eds.

Continue reading "Perspective: Career Blogging, LGBT Priorities, & a Courage Award" »

The House Committee on Education and Labor, which was due to mark up the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) on Wednesday of this week, has announced that it is postponing its markup. A terse statement on the Committee's website states simply that "This markup has been postponed."

I had posted on Wednesday about rumors of a possible slow-down on ENDA. DC insiders said there was no slow-down, and that the bill is "on track." However, it appeared, after comparing statements made when the bill was introduced with later statements, that the House vote, initially thought to be in October or November, was now being discussed in a "December or February" timeframe. That would put the bill up before the Senate during midterm election campaigns, which could make it more difficult to gain support among conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans.

Since the House is not in session next week, the earliest date for markup would be in December. That would make it difficult to obtain a House vote on ENDA before year's end.

Continue reading "BREAKING: ENDA Postponed" »

According to One News Now the American Medical Association (AMA) is ignoring health facts in homosexual advocacy with it's passage of a resolution that opposes "don't ask, don't tell" and declaration that gay marriage bans contribute to health disparities:

Elaine Donnelly, the never served in the military but president of the alleged "Center for Military Readiness" (a.k.a. Center for Military Insaneness) says

the American Medical Association apparently doesn't know the facts about the 1993 law passed by Congress that prohibits homosexuals from serving in the military.

First of all the 1993 law doesn't "prohibit" homosexuals from serving in the military; it "prohibits" them from serving "openly". Secondly, there apparently are some "facts" Ms. Donnelly is unaware of.

Continue reading "Should Heterosexuals be allowed to serve openly in the military?" »

While I took a few vacation days this week to travel to NYC, the Editorial Team kept things plugging right along and the great contributor content didn't stop for an instant. These posts really stood out this week:

Sunday

Fellatio in fruit bats Filed by: Gloria Brame Ph.D.
Are you normal? Filed by: Michele O'Mara

Monday

Is Violence Inevitable In Our Fight For Equality? Filed by: Father Tony
Vegas still casts desert mirage of equality Filed by: Cassandra Keenan

Tuesday

About that LGBT boycott of the Obama Campaign, the DNC, and Organizing for America.... Filed by: Alex Blaze
Zenyatta: Why Should We Care About a Horse? Filed by: Patricia Nell Warren

Wednesday

Why I'm So Damn Frightened of You Filed by: Diane Silver
Counterpoint: trans-inclusion is distracting to LGB legislation Filed by: Austen Crowder

Thursday

For marriage victories, we must face and use religion Filed by: Matt Comer
I've signed on to Don't Ask, Don't Give (and you should too) Filed by: Bil Browning

Friday

When Its Not Your Fight Filed by: Antonia D'orsay
Video WH 'held for review': Obama official Melody Barnes' support for marriage equality Filed by: Pam Spaulding

Over the past few years working here at Bilerico, I've become something of a free speech fundamentalist. A few years ago I was all in favor of "safe spaces," etc., but now it all seems quaint and counterproductive. I guess helping several dozen people who disagree with you express themselves every day will do that to you.

And, as a blogger with a day job, I'm particularly sensitive to cases like this one, where a group of Purdue University students (where my brother as well as plenty of people I know went) who got a petition together to try to get rid of a professor who wrote a virulently homophobic (and patently stupid) screed on townhall.com.

"The most concrete way to protect the university's reputation against academic dishonesty and mediocrity is for him to resign," said Purdue senior Kevin Casimer, who is organizing a petition campaign against the professor.

"However, if Purdue administrators and faculty make a unified statement that (Chapman's writings) are unprofessional and detrimental to Purdue's reputation and not reflective of the university, the same effect might be made."

What we're discussing here isn't exactly free speech. It's more about the right to stupid speech in a job where intelligence is prized, because Chapman's blog post is really, really stupid.

But, then again, it's not a sign of him being stupid on the job.

Continue reading "The greatest librarian ever" »

No rhyme or reason, just some stuff I felt like sharing...

• Boy George twittered a link to Phil Reese's post about the Top 10 Out Gay Male Pop Stars. He protested Phil's description of him.
• While I was mad that AirTran canceled me and Jerame's flight to NYC for the Courage Awards, the airline went out of their way to get us to the event on time. They ended up writing Delta a check for two one-way tickets. We flew back on AirTran and the plane was the nicest flight I've ever had - tons of room, free Sirius radio and wifi, and the plane didn't look like it started life in the mid-70s. I do a lot of complaining online, so I wanted to throw out a kudo.
• We came in second place in the Top Indiana Blog contest. We lost by 17 votes.
• Taking a pit bull, boxer, rat terrier and fox terrier to the vet's office at the same time is not an experience I really want to repeat. Ever.
• Good advice [pdf]: Never invite a person you don't like to your party just to accommodate someone else. It'll ruin your celebration.
• The RNC's health insurance plan covers "elective abortions." Someone tell Stupak so he'll leave the health care reform bill alone.
• Even on a cold and gray day, the Statue of Liberty is exceptionally beautiful when the sun hits the shiny gold of the torch.
• I'm not so sure that it is a coincidence that both Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean are attempting media comebacks at the same time. I smell a swarm of stupid a comin'.

It's that time again.

This year's Transgender Day of Rememberance activities include a presentation of "TransActions," a play exploring the emotions and realities of being transgender in this day and age. It's a wonderful play, and a wonderful way to pay respects to those who lost their lives for simply being who they are.

Date: Saturday, November 14th
Time: 6:00PM to 8:00PM
Place: Unitarian Universalist Church of Indianapolis
615 W. 43rd Street
Indianapolis, 46208

I've included the press release below the cut as well.

Continue reading "Indianapolis Transgender Day of Rememberance" »

This post will stay at the top of the page until midnight. New posts are underneath this one.

Projectors,

I know I was lucky enough to win the NYC Anti-Violence Project's Courage Award last night along with fellow contributor Pam Spaulding (for her own fantastic site, Pam's House Blend), Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God. and Andy Towle from Towleroad. But can you help us to win another award today?

We're only 200 votes shy from winning 1st place as Indiana's Best Blog. Think about that for a second. Indiana blog. When you think of Indiana, do you think LGBT issues? My home state didn't even have a hate crimes law until the federal government signed it into law!!

We're in 7th place currently and voting ends at midnight. Over 12.5k visitors came to Bilerico Project yesterday alone. Imagine how much we could cream the competition if everyone who visited today voted! What a landslide that would be for an LGBT blog in a Midwestern non-gay friendly state.

You can only vote once and voting ends tonight at midnight Eastern. Help us pull out the win! Please!

I should be hopping on a flight to New York around the time this goes live on the site. Flying has never scared me; snakes, spiders and rodents don't really bother me either. Instead, there's one thing that will send shivers of fear down my spine faster than anything.

I get frightened every time I close an important document in Word and it asks me if I want to save my changes when I could swear I didn't make any changes.

What's your worst fear?

When the House of Representatives passed their version of health care reform last night, sexual orientation and gender identity were defined [pdf] as groups likely to "experience significant gaps in disease, health outcomes, or access to health care." Hat tip to Jill for pointing it out.

''Subtitle G--General Provisions
16 ''SEC. 3171. DEFINITIONS.
17 ''In this title:
18 ''(1) The term 'core public health infrastruc
19ture' includes workforce capacity and competency;
20 laboratory systems; health information, health infor
21 mation systems, and health information analysis;
22 communications; financing; other relevant compo
23 nents of organizational capacity; and other related
24 activities.

1 ''(2) The terms 'Department' and 'depart
2 mental' refer to the Department of Health and
3 Human Services.
4 ''(3) The term 'health disparities' includes
5 health and health care disparities and means popu
6 lation-specific differences in the presence of disease,
7 health outcomes, or access to health care. For pur
8 poses of the preceding sentence, a population may be
9 delineated by race, ethnicity, primary language, sex,
10 sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, socio
11 economic status, or rural, urban, or other geographic
12 setting, and any other population or subpopulation
13 determined by the Secretary to experience significant
14 gaps in disease, health outcomes, or access to health
15 care.

HRC has a list of areas where LGBT people will be helped by the reform bill.

Thanks to this week's election night open thread and our liveblog of the Senate ENDA hearing, this was the highest traffic week ever on Bilerico Project. While those two posts were two of our highlights, out of the many posts published this week, here are some of the best:

Sunday

Guess Who Just Played the Gay Card? Filed by: Adam Bink
Apples and Androids [Gay Geeks] Filed by: Nathan Strang

Monday

Why gay marriage IS the End of the World (or the queer world, at least) Filed by: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Lessons for the marginalized Filed by: Amy Hunter

Tuesday

Equality March Co-Directors Resign; Group Reorganizes Amid Controversy Filed by: Bil Browning
How Do You Just Watch a Rape? Filed by: Terrance Heath

Wednesday

The Day After a Hard Night Filed by: Kate Kendell
Update: Statement on Gender Identity Disorder and Transvestic Fetishism in the DSM-V Filed by: Kelley Winters

Thursday

Speaker Pelosi (and all your Democratic friends): I'm not waiting anymore. Filed by: Kip Williams
Marriage after Maine Filed by: Nan Hunter

Friday

The Top 10 Best Ballot Questions Ever Filed by: Alex Blaze
WWJD? Incite Hate Crimes Against LGBT People, according to this "Pastor" Filed by: Waymon Hudson