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New York City Could Ease Requirements for Changing Birth Certificate Gender
New York City Council member Corey Johnson has introduced legislation that would allow transgender people to update the gender on their birth certificate with fewer restrictions.
Jorge Rodriguez-Jimenez
Watch Marriage Equality Go From Minority Issue To Majority Right In Just A Few Years
On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to conduct same-sex nuptials, following a decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court the year before. The state issued hundreds of marriage licenses, couples tied the knot and the rest of the nation waited. And waited.
In the summer of 2008, gay couples in California were briefly granted the right to get married, only to have it taken away in a voter referendum later that year. The California referendum passed just days before Connecticut became the next state to legalize same-sex marriage. More than four years passed between the first and second states embracing marriage equality, but the movement would move much faster from that point on. In the previous two years alone, gay marriage has advanced from a minority issue in a few, mostly blue states to a full-blown majority right in 30 states across the nation, as well as Washington, D.C.
More than 60 percent of Americans now live in states that allow same-sex nuptials, HuffPost’s Sam Stein and Amanda Terkel reported Monday in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision not to hear appeals from states challenging lower court rulings that had recently legalized gay marriage. With 11 more states now beginning or set to begin allowing same-sex marriages, check out how the equality movement has grown below.
GIF created by Jan Diehm
New York Times Features HRC’s Project One America in Alabama
The New York Times featured a piece profiling HRC’s Project One America effort in Alabama.
HRC.org
Reince Priebus Reiterates RNC's Opposition To Same-Sex Marriage After SCOTUS Decision: VIDEO
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus today reiterated the GOP’s opposition to marriage equality and blasted the Supreme Court for its decision yesterday to let stand lower court rulings that found bans on same-sex marriage in Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana and Wisconsin to be unconstitutional. Think Progress reports:
Appearing on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown on Tuesday, Reince Priebus reiterated the GOP’s support for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, before arguing that social conservatives like David Lane and Tony Perkins are “right to be concerned about what’s happened here in this country over the last couple of years.” Preibus also seemed to support Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) push to introduce a constitutional amendment prohibiting the federal government from changing state marriage laws.
“I don’t think [marriage equality] is a top here issue for the midterms,” he said. “I think long term it’s an issue in regard to what we need to do in the country to have a strong economy, a strong defense and a strong society.”
Suggesting that the nation is hurt by same-sex families and quoting men who claim that if gays are permitted to marry “America will ultimately collapse,” is at odds with the GOP’s promise to be more tolerant toward gay people.
Though many top Republicans were notably silent yesterday following SCOTUS’ decision, Republican Senator Ted Cruz commented,
The Supreme Court’s decision to let rulings by lower court judges stand that redefine marriage is both tragic and indefensible. By refusing to rule if the States can define marriage, the Supreme Court is abdicating its duty to uphold the Constitution. The fact that the Supreme Court Justices, without providing any explanation whatsoever, have permitted lower courts to strike down so many state marriage laws is astonishing. This is judicial activism at its worst.
Watch Priebus’ interview, AFTER THE JUMP…
Sean Mandell
Facebook se disculpa con LGBT y acepta cuentas registradas con Alias
La red social Facebook se disculpó con la comunidad LGBT pues había tenido algunas conductas que fueron denunciadas como homofóbicas, toda vez que no permitía el registro de cuentas si…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI99UdOXojs&feature=youtube_gdata
Drag Musical 'Pageant' to Close Early Off-Broadway
The campy comedy, which stars men as female beauty contestants, has thrown in the tiara.
Brandon Voss
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/theater/2014/10/07/drag-musical-pageant-close-early-broadway
Married Catholics Tell Pope Francis: The Church Should Welcome Gay Couples
A devout married couple urged Pope Francis and members of the Synod of Bishops to freely welcome gay couples into the church.
Ron and Mavis Pirola, former members of the Pontifical Council for the Family, delivered the comments during a testimony at Vatican City on Monday.
The Pirolas, Australians who have been married for 57 years, said welcoming gay couples into the fold would serve as a “model of evangelization.”
As an example, they spoke about family friends’ experience with a gay son.
“Friends of ours were planning their Christmas family gathering when their gay son said he wanted to bring his partner home too,” the Pirolas during a statement inside Vatican’s Paul VI Hall. “They fully believed in the Church’s teachings and they knew their grandchildren would see them welcome the son and his partner into the family. Their response could be summed up in three words, ‘He’s our son’.”
The couple continued: “What a model of evangelization for parishes as they respond to similar situations in their neighborhood! It is a practical example of what the Instrumentum Laboris [the Synod’s working document] says concerning the Church’s teaching role and its main mission to let the world know of God’s love.”
Catholic doctrine encourages adherents to “love the sinner and hate the sin.” The Church holds that gay Catholics should not be discriminated against, but that homosexual acts are immoral and that marriage is reserved for heterosexual couples.
Pope Francis made a splash in 2013 by answering a reporter’s question about gays priests in the church with the phrase, “Who am I to judge?”
Although Francis been relatively open about starting conversations on topics that have long been considered taboo, there’s been little indication that the Holy See is willing to upend church doctrine on homosexuality.
The hot topic at this year’s Synod, scheduled between Oct. 5 and Oct. 19, seems to be how the church treats divorced Catholics, the National Catholic Reporter suggests.
On Tuesday, a married pair from the Philippines told the bishops that they were involved in “Couples For Christ,” a lay organization that is recognized by the Vatican. Cynthia and George Campos talked about an outreach program they attempted to start for couples in “irregular situations” – like people who weren’t married in the Church, who are cohabiting without getting married, or who were divorced and remarried without an annulment.
The Campos’ dreams fell flat, according to Crux, partly because Church officials said that “Couples For Christ” was meant just for couples married in the Church.
The Filipino couple told the Synod that they hoped for more “enlightened pastoral charity” that will help spur “inclusive participation in church life.”
A total of 12 married couples from around the world are scheduled to speak before the Synod, Crux reports. Although these couples don’t have voting rights, they are asked to give the Synod’s 190 bishops and cardinals an inside look at the trials of married life.
After one week of meetings, the bishops will spend another week working on a proposal that will be delivered to the pope.
“Married people need to be heard,” Vatican analyst Robert Mickens
told NPR. “Gay people and their struggles need to be heard. Single mothers need to be heard. It won’t do for a bunch of celibate men, so-called, to be parsimonious with God’s mercy.”
19 Members of Congress Inducted into HRC’s Hall of Shame
14 Representatives & 5 Senators designated as most anti-LGBT members of Congress
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/hall-of-shame?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Parker Molloy Returns To The Advocate Covering Violence Against LGBTs Following Her Violent Outburst Against A Fellow Trans Activist
Parker Molloy, a writer for Advocate.com, has returned to work to report on violence against the transgender community after a one-month suspension over an incident that landed her in a database of violent offenders against trans* people.
The Trans Violence Tracking Portal is an online watchdog that seeks to protect the trans* community, and last month the group added a “violence advisory” against a member of their own community, Parker Molloy.
Molloy received a one month’s suspension from Advocate.com for telling trans* Huffington Post writer Kelsie Jones to “cut yourself…stupid cunt…drink bleach.” Jones wrote an essay for Queerty about the incident, condemning Molloy’s actions as dangerous, which you can find here.
After Jones told her, “Way to go Parker, piss off another person who likes and supports you,” Molloy responded with “HAHAHA.”
As of last week, Molloy is back at Advocate.com, and her first headline was Transgender College Student Attacked In Possible Hate Crime. She shared this message on Facebook to mark her return:
The same day she blasted Ru Paul as “transphobic” and started the word-police conversation that seemed to never end, she Tweeted this:
As for Molloy’s return to her public platform at The Advocate, Jones doesn’t hold a grudge, but does have genuine concern about whether Molly is the proper writer to cover the “crime beat.”
“It is my sincere hope that Ms. Molloy has taken this time to deal with her mental health issues, and that her return will signal a kinder, gentler approach to advocacy writing,” Jones told Queerty. “I do have some concerns however, particularly as she will apparently be writing the section on LGBT violence at The Advocate as I’m not sure given the circumstances of her departure that this is really the appropriate forum for her, but time will tell. This being said, I wish her well in her future endeavors and hope that she can contribute positively to the community going forwards.”
Scouring Facebook, it isn’t difficult to find lively debate over Parker’s behavior. This is part of one reaction to Molloy’s one-month suspension by Here Media for what is a documented pattern of destructive and hateful rhetoric:
The Advocate is the most respected LGBT news source, and is known internationally. What Molloy has done has serious consequences to The Advocate’s brand, and now parts of its readership take nothing Molloy says seriously, and with good reason. A fanatical and small (yet aggressively loud and compulsive) fan club (many just Internet trolls who do no actual work for the community) of Molloy’s have even bragged that Molloy only got a one month suspension from The Advocate, which is essentially a tiny slap on the wrist. This is problematic on many levels.
In the comments section to the post, some share their own experiences with Molloy’s bullying tactics, while editors at The Advocate go so far as to distance themselves from her entirely.
Matthew Breen, editor of The Advocate’s print edition, said:
“I’ve never hired or assigned Parker (or spoken with her or emailed her). We have tweeted, however. If she called me her editor on Twitter, she was mistaken.”
Diane Anderson-Minshall, a writer for the publication and editor-in-chief of its sibling mag HIV Plus and who is married to a transgender man, commented:
I have made my concerns known over the misogyny and trans/homophobia in all this and the attack language overall many times.
Another commenter relayed a story about Parker’s reaction to not being selected for the Trans 100 list of trans people positively affecting the community.
This, she claimed, was Parker’s response:
So, looks like I didn’t end up making that stupid list. It just occurred to me that it’s this weekend, and no one had even contacted me. I should be on that God damn list, but looks like I’m not even a fucking alternate. So fuck Jen fucking cock sucking Richards. I’m sick of fucking pieces of shit like her. I deserve a soot on that fucking list… Some dipshit who hosts a little support group for 15 people doesn’t have anything on half a million readers a month. So get the fuck out of here with that nonsense like I don’t have as much of an impact, I impact more people total. I deserve it. If I’m not on it, it’s a joke, and I’ll be sure to keep that in mind as I continue to do my work down the road. Because clearly if I don’t make their little list, I’m not influential so they won’t mind me freezing them out of anything I ever write, and I will.
If The Advocate’s own staff can’t defend the actions of its now-high-profile writer, some wondered why she is still there.
Activist/filmmaker Andrea James, who previously took issue with the way Molloy blasted RuPaul as “transphobic,” understands that the controversy created by Molloy translates into web traffic. James offered the following statement to Queerty:
“I’ve seen a hundred self-righteous hypocrites like Molloy come and go in my 20 years of activism. They’re very good at finding enablers like Advocate.com’s Lucas Grindley who will keep taking them back, because it benefits Grindley in the short term. Advocate.com has become a clickbait site re-reporting work from actual journalists, and Molloy specializes in turning the journalistic efforts of pros into clickbait. Pretty much every op-ed and every ‘report’ is a summary of whatever LGBT story generates the most outrage, so of course Grindley and team put their biggest outrage merchant on turning crime reporting into clickbait. She won’t go anywhere as long as her clickbait is paying the light bills over there. Profits over principle.”
Molloy’s assignment to “the crime beat” marks merely the latest in a string of similar decisions at The Advocate. Last December the publication courted controversy by naming Pope Francis its “person of the year,” while this past June the website published an op-ed that attempted to rebuild the reputation of former President Ronald Reagan as pro-gay despite evidence to the contrary.
Queerty reached out to Advocate.com’s editorial director Lucas Grindley for a comment twice through the company’s publicist, but at the time of this posting hadn’t received a response.
Dan Tracer
Gay Couple Denied Marriage License in Kansas
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports two Kansas men have been denied a marriage license in their home state.
Dan Barnes, 41, and Wade Honey, 44, took an hour long drive from their town, Ogden, to the Shawnee County District Court, which is located in a more liberal area of their state.
Barnes and Honey filed for a marriage license, and it took less than five minutes for them to be turned away.
Said Nancy Escalante, supervisor for marriage licenses at the court:
You can’t do that in the state of Kansas…Our application says ‘man and woman.’ The Legislature has not changed it.
This opens the door for a lawsuit from the two men, along with the numerous couples like them who attempted to apply for marriages.
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback release a statement that recalled the words of South Carolina’s Attorney General:
I swore an oath to support the Constitution of the State of Kansas…An overwhelming majority of Kansas voters amended the Constitution to include a definition of marriage as one man and one woman. Activist judges should not overrule the people of Kansas.
Kansas falls under the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, but it is not one of the five states who are directly implicated in the recent Supreme Court decision. Governors and AGs of these states have the chance to spin their wheels and delay gay marriages. It seems likely in states like Kansas and South Carolina, we will see some legal go-arounds of this nature in the coming weeks.
Jake Folsom
www.towleroad.com/2014/10/gay-couple-denied-marriage-in-kansas.html
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