Why being ‘born gay’ is a dangerous idea – Shamus Khan. Last month, the US Supreme Court affirmed the rights of same-sex couples to marry. The decision was a major achievement for a liberation movement that began nearly half a century ago. Throughout the struggle for marriage equality, supporters drew parallels with the oppression of African Americans, be that anti-miscegenation laws or legalised segregation. Yet one stark difference between these civil rights movements has escaped notice. African-American activists aggressively called out arguments about genetic and biological differences as legacies of racist, Nazi science.
Discussing Marriage. Supreme Court strikes down Defense of Marriage Act, paves way for gay marriage to resume in California. In a 5-4 ruling, the United States Supreme Court justices strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, saying it is unconstitutional.
NBC's Pete Williams reports. By Pete Williams and Erin McClam, NBC News In a pair of landmark decisions, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down the 1996 law blocking federal recognition of gay marriage, and it allowed gay marriage to resume in California by declining to decide a separate case. The court invalidated the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied federal benefits to gay couples who are legally married in their states, including Social Security survivor benefits, immigration rights and family leave. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 5-4 decision, said that the act wrote inequality into federal law and violated the Fifth Amendment’s protection of equal liberty.
Smith College Students Continue Fight Over “Discriminatory” Policy On Transgender Applicants. The Transgender Tipping Point. In the beaux-arts lobby of the nourse theater in San Francisco, men in deep V-necks and necklaces walk by women with crew cuts and plaid shirts buttoned to the top.
Boys carrying pink backpacks kiss on the lips, while long-haired ladies whose sequined tank tops expose broad shoulders snap selfies. About 1,100 people, many gleefully defying gender stereotypes, eventually pack the auditorium to hear the story of an unlikely icon. “I stand before you this evening,” Laverne Cox, who stars in the Netflix drama Orange Is the New Black, tells the crowd, “a proud, African-American transgender woman.” The cheers are loud and long. Almost one year after the Supreme Court ruled that Americans were free to marry the person they loved, no matter their sex, another civil rights movement is poised to challenge long-held cultural norms and beliefs. 'Homosexual Jim Crow Laws'? Get Real. “Christians backing this bill are essentially arguing for homosexual Jim Crow laws.”
So asserts Kirsten Powers in today’s USA Today. What could justify such an assertion? Nothing. Powers is wrong about the law. The bill in question is a religious-liberty protection being debated in the Kansas legislature. Powers isn’t alone. The NFL Will Never Be 'Ready' for an Openly Gay Player - Ta-Nehisi Coates. It doesn't matter whether the NFL wants to accept an openly gay player like Missouri defensive end Michael Sam.
He's arrived, and the league will have to adjust accordingly. NFL prospect Michael Sam announced on Sunday that he was gay. For reasons that should be obvious, most pro athletes have come out either after they've retired or, as with Jason Collins, toward the tail end of their career when their prospects were in doubt. This is different: Mr. Sam, unlike his predecessors, has his professional career in front of him and a great deal of money on the line. Www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2453_01_0000.pdf. Anti-Gay Jim Crow Comes to Kansas. Www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2453_01_0000.pdf.
What The Hell Just Happened In Kansas? Concord students choose transgender student as homecoming king. City To Boost Police Presence In Response To Wave Of Anti-Gay Attacks. NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — Concern and fear have been on the rise amid a spike in anti-gay violence in Manhattan, including a cold-blooded killing in Greenwich Village over the weekend.
As CBS 2’s Dick Brennan reported Monday, the latest victim, 32-year-old Mark Carson, was shot and killed early Saturday morning by a man who first called him and his partner “f***ots” and asked if they were “gay wrestlers.” Now, the community is rallying against hate, and police are increasing patrols in some neighborhoods – in the wake of five anti-gay attacks in the past two weeks. “We’re angry, and we want our leaders to lead and change the situation,” said Jordan Friedman of the West Village. An Angry Community Rallies In Response To String Of Anti-Gay Attacks WCBS 880's Alex Silverman Reports Hundreds of people gathered Monday evening for a rally against hate at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, at 208 W. 13th St.
Threats And Lies, And 'Who I'm Supposed To Be' Serving In Silence, Before 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Hide captionDenny Meyer spoke about serving in the Navy as a gay man at StoryCorps in New York City.
StoryCorps Denny Meyer spoke about serving in the Navy as a gay man at StoryCorps in New York City. Column: Same-sex marriage is an equality issue. “[T]he freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. at 12 (1967) Generally speaking states get to decide who can marry. For example, New Hampshire, along with eight other states and Washington, D.C., have passed laws that recognize same-sex marriage. Rights Clash as Town Clerk Rejects Her Role in Gay Marriages. Battle doesn’t belong at national level. The U.S.
Supreme Court recently heard arguments in cases involving the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, and California’s Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment adopted by referendum to ban marriage between homosexual couples. The major question that all of us should be concerned about is not how California or the Congress wants to define marriage, but where such decisions should be made. The nub of the issue is federalism, the concept that we are a nation of states that met in Philadelphia and created a federal government. We sometimes forget that it is not the national government that created the states but the other way around. The states differ from the federal government because only states have what is called “general police power,” which includes most of the activities citizens are involved in at a state or local level.
The first major intrusion in this area by the U.S. The U.S. Marriage as Purposeful Institution. The Conservative Case For Gay Marriage - Newsweek and The Daily Beast.