Lovebirds Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson were spotted last week soaking up the sun in Los Cabos, Mexico.
Lindsay recently admitted her romantic relationship with Ronson on "Dr. Drew" Pinsky's syndicated radio show Loveline, saying that the couple had been together "a very long time."Donald & Susan Sutherland who started the ice cream chain Coldstone Creamery have donated $10,000 to prop 102 to ban marriage in Arizona.
Please contact government officials and tell them you will be boycotting Jamaican tourism and goods, and demand that they enact laws safeguarding their LGBT citizens.
It has been 10 years since the nation was shocked by the brutal murder of Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard. And a decade later, too little has been to prevent future attacks on LGBT people.PFLAG has joined with the Progressive Media Project to call attention to the unacceptable lack of progress on hate crimes legislation since Shepard's death. In a new op-ed, appearing in small and large papers - including the Raleigh News & Observer, The Virginian Pilot, Alaska Daily News and Fresno Bee - we point out that, in the years since lawmakers vowed 'never again,' attacks on the LGBT community, unfortunately, happen again and again.
Here's an excerpt from PFLAG's Progressive op-ed, now appearing in papers across the country:
In the days and weeks immediately after Shepard's death, numerous elected leaders promised swift action to pass federal hate crimes legislation that would protect LGBT Americans.
Ten years later, the bill, which bears Shepard's name, has never become law. The need for the law is as urgent now as it was in 1998. Hate crimes against the LGBT community increased 24 percent nationwide last year, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. Especially startling increases occurred in Michigan (up 207 percent), Minnesota (up 135 percent) and even in Los Angeles, which saw a 100 percent increase in anti-gay violence in 2007.
Anti-gay murders doubled, the coalition reported.
In California, student Lawrence King was gunned down in his school by a classmate who believed King was gay.
In Colorado, Angie Zapata, a young transgender woman, was attacked and killed while on a date.
In South Carolina, Sean Kennedy was viciously beaten outside a local gay bar, and later died of his injuries.
And right now, in the nation's capital, the gay community is on heightened alert after at least three anti-gay attacks in neighborhoods generally considered safe for LGBT Washingtonians.
Those numbers, and those stories, should shock Americans and spur them to take action.
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays recently partnered with Sean Kennedy's mother to launch a petition calling on lawmakers to pass, and President Bush to sign, the Matthew Shepard Act.
To read the full op-ed, click here.
The topic was California's upcoming Proposition 8, which would strip away the rights that gay people have in the Golden State to marry. Father Geoffrey Farrow spoke out against the proposition and in favor of marriage equality, contrary to many clergy. Then he had another announcement for his congregation. He came out as a gay man himself."In directing the faithful to vote yes on proposition 8, the California Bishops are not only entering the political arena, they are ignoring the advances and insights of neurology, psychology and the very statements by the church itself that homosexual is innate," said Fr. Geoff. "I know that these words of truth will cost me dearly. But to withhold them would be far more costly and I would become an accomplice to a moral evil that strips gay and lesbian couples, not only of their civil rights but of their human dignity as well."
While it in unclear what the consequences may be for Father Farrow in his church, one can hope the ears and minds of his congregation were opened when their faith leader took the brave step to speak out against equality and tell the most personal story of all - his own.
Read the complete story here, at KFSN in Fresno.
In September of 2000, I opened the phone book for Washington, D.C. and looked up the phone number for the District of Columbia Public Schools. Under the numerous listings in the directory, I found a department called "Peaceable Schools."I called the number and set up an appointment to meet with the department's director. And that first meeting led to a strong partnership which includes, among other things, 2 full days of training every year for teachers by the Metro DC PFLAG chapter.
That first meeting, though, also resulted in a different project: I asked for and was given permission to donate books about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people that were positive, as well as informative, to every DC public high school in the district. Three short months later, 10 books (both fiction and non fiction) had been donated, delivered and placed in 17 high schools' libraries. It seemed so easy. And as a result, fellow PFLAG members set about donating books to nearby Arlington and Fairfax County (in Virginia), too.
On Friday, it wasn't the phone book I opened up to find out what was happening in D.C. schools 8 years later . . . it was The Washington Post, which published an article (Banned Books, Chapter 2) about Fairfax County students who are protesting their inability to donate books to their school libraries. But the true root of their protest is, in fact, far removed from the ideas and ideals behind that early PFLAG book drive.
The students in Friday's Post had tried to place books in school libraries that contain unapologetic religious content and inaccurate information about the nature of sexuality.
In fact, there is a concerted effort by national anti-LGBT groups - such as Focus on the Family and Parents and Friends of ExGays and Gays (PFOX) - to donate books challenging the rights and dignity of LGBT people. In the case of Fairfax, the libraries rightfully declined to accept the books because they did not meet the qualifications necessary, including two positive reviews from professionally recognized journals. (I remember that policy because we needed to meet that standard too.) It is a fair policy and, though different school districts have different guidelines, the standards applied in Fairfax are common-sense ones that other district should take into account, too.
As far-right advocates attempt to push materials that do not meet those standards, however, this issue will undoubtedly come up again and again. That's why it's so important that concerned parents and community members - and especially PFLAGers - help school systems adopt and enforce policies that will benefit all of their students.
Despite what our opponents want us to believe, this isn't about freedom of speech. And I certainly do not believe in banning books. This is about what's in the fine print of last week's protest: Pushing a harmful, anti-gay message in schools that harms our children.
We must insist that books placed in school libraries meet standards, and at a minimum those standards should include denying literature that demeans and degrades some members of the school community who happen to be LGB or T.
According to Susan Thornily, coordinator for library information services for Fairfax schools, one reason the school system rejected the books offered by anti-gay activists was because administrators felt they would make gay students “feel inferior."
As PFLAGers, we know that none of our children are "less than," and we will not allow those with such damaging agendas to send a message through hallways, classrooms and libraries that some students are more deserving of respect than others. In many ways, you "wrote the book" on how to stand up for LGBT kids . . . and that's one lesson that must never be banned.
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