 Daily Mail | Colbert Rips Anti-Gay Activist, Throws 'Rentboy' Dance Party (VIDEO) Huffington Post (blog) Last night Colbert took on George Rekers, "applauding" the anti-gay activist for "publicly condemning man-love, while privately being man's best friend. ... The Family Research Council co-founder and the gay 'travel assistant' George Rekers, Christian Right Leader, Denies Gay Prostitution Allegation Anti-Gay Scholar Hired Gay Male Escort for Overseas Trip |
 Houston Chronicle (blog) | Chely Wright Comes Out, Feels 'Whole As A Person' MTV.com It was then, with absolutely nothing left to lose, that she decided to finally reveal her true self to her closest friends: She was gay. ... Chely Wright Felt She Was in 'Cultural Jeopardy' if She Said She Was Gay Chely Wright on GDLA Gay Country Star Chely Wright: I Had A Gun In My Mouth (VIDEO) |
 Opposing Views | Tanzania Lutherans Reject Aid From 'Pro-Gay Marriage' Churches Huffington Post (blog) Last summer, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America lifted restrictions on non-celibate gay clergy, and approved a broad local option for congregations ... Gay Pastor Reinstated Gay Pastors, Partners Reinstated To Clergy Gay Pastors Reinstated in Lutheran Church |
 Reuters | Keep May Day Going: LGBT People Must Stand Ip for Immigrants' Rights Huffington Post (blog) Thousands of LGBT people marched across the US for May Day, including a number of contingents that EQCA's field organizers either organized or joined in. ... Call for immigration reform 2 Arizona cities vote to sue state over new anti-immigration law; others begin ... |
 Earthtimes (press release) | Baltic governments must stand against exclusion and intolerance Amnesty International USA The governments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia must move to tackle widespread intolerance and exclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) ... Lithuania must allow Baltic Pride march to go ahead Lithuanian Central Bank Sees Slower Economic Growth Next Year Court Ban of Baltic Gay Pride March Is “Beyond Understanding†|
National Grid Earns Perfect Rating in Human Rights Campaign's Annual Corporate ... MarketWatch (press release) The "Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality" distinction is awarded to businesses that scored 100 percent on the HRC Foundation's 2010 Corporate Equality ... |
Bad Blood: Politics Trumps Science in the Gay Blood Donation Debate Huffington Post (blog) Instead, it's a debate as to the otherness of GLBT citizens. The skin of the GLBT community has thickened as our personhood is relentlessly debated, ... |
DC Council agenda Washington Post ... 2-3 pm, Office of Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs; 3 pm, Office of Community Affairs, to include Office of African Affairs, Office of GLBT Affairs, ... |
 Out & About | GLBT Chamber to hold food drive May 6 Out & About by O&AN Staff Reports The Nashville GLBT Chamber of Commerce, along with Tribe Nashville and Play Dance Bar, will host a food drive on Thursday, May 6, ... |
From Passport Magazine:
On Sunday night hundreds of well heeled, diverse members of the GLBT and community and their allies gathered at the Marriot Marquis in New York City for the Second Annual PFLAG Straight for Equality Gala. This year, Liza Minnelli was honored with the Straight for Equality in Entertainment Award, recognizing her decades of activism on behalf of the GLBT community.
The event, celebrating leaders in promoting GLBT equality, and especially recognizing the work of the community’s straight Allies, is one that PFLAG Executive Director Jody Huckaby says is critically important.
People and companies want to do the right thing,†Huckaby said. “With this event we’re helping to promote the tools and provide a place to recognize that work. People want to welcome GLBT community members, and that’s how all of this came to be.â€
The gala recognized companies like American Airlines, AOL, Campbell’s, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg’s, and the New York Stock Exchange, among others, as outstanding supporters of PFLAG and the GLBT community.
This year’s Straight for Equality in Business Award went to food provider Sodexo, which earned the number one rating for diversity and inclusion in a national survey, and which the Straight for Equality Gala recognized for creating a space for the voice of straight allies within the company and fostering a culture of inclusion for all employees.
“Supporting GLBT equality is everybody’s issueâ€"a human issue,†said Dr. Rohini Anand, accepting the honor on behalf of Sodexo, nothing that it took eight years of hard to work to get Sodexo where it is today in GLBT inclusion, saying that in the end every year was worth it.
Caroline Rhea and “Amazing Race†winner Reichen Lehmkuhl hosted a spirited auction benefiting PFLAG, in which Rhea kicked off her shoes and ran around the room with a microphone, cajoling and teasing guests until more than $10,000 was raised for the PFLAG coffers.
This year the Straight for Equality in Sports Award was given out for the first time, bestowed upon New Orleans Saints NFL player Scott Fujita, an ally of the GLBT community. Fujita strongly supports same-sex marriage and, as an adopted child himself, also strongly supports adoption by same-sex couples.
“Love is love,†Fujita said plaintively, shrugging his shoulders. “It doesn’t get any simpler than that for me. An me. And when it comes to this fight, I think, ‘Should I shut my mouth and just play football, or stand up and fight for something?’ I’d rather fight for something.â€
The crown jewel of the evening’s entertainment was the presentation of the Straight for Equality in Entertainment Award, presented to Liza Minnelli, clad in a white sequin pant suit, and aided on stage by two gentlemen after a recent knee replacement.
“Be a call to action,†Minnelli urged the audience. “Find the everyday things people can do to help make this big, important change for equality. Be loud, like I am. Think to yourself, What Would Liza Do?†Once the laughter died down, Minnelli continued, “Use your place in life and talk to everyone about how discrimination is never okay. Equality means equality for everyone.â€
In a seemingly ad libbed gesture, Minnelli sang a song A Capella, said to be track from her upcoming album “Confessions,†in a two-minute performance that left the audience silent, still, and seemingly a bit star-struck.
On Sunday night hundreds of well heeled, diverse members of the GLBT and community and their allies gathered at the Marriot Marquis in New York City for the Second Annual PFLAG Straight for Equality Gala. This year, Liza Minnelli was honored with the Straight for Equality in Entertainment Award, recognizing her decades of activism on behalf of the GLBT community.
The event, celebrating leaders in promoting GLBT equality, and especially recognizing the work of the community’s straight Allies, is one that PFLAG Executive Director Jody Huckaby says is critically important.
People and companies want to do the right thing,†Huckaby said. “With this event we’re helping to promote the tools and provide a place to recognize that work. People want to welcome GLBT community members, and that’s how all of this came to be.â€
The gala recognized companies like American Airlines, AOL, Campbell’s, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg’s, and the New York Stock Exchange, among others, as outstanding supporters of PFLAG and the GLBT community.
This year’s Straight for Equality in Business Award went to food provider Sodexo, which earned the number one rating for diversity and inclusion in a national survey, and which the Straight for Equality Gala recognized for creating a space for the voice of straight allies within the company and fostering a culture of inclusion for all employees.
“Supporting GLBT equality is everybody’s issueâ€"a human issue,†said Dr. Rohini Anand, accepting the honor on behalf of Sodexo, nothing that it took eight years of hard to work to get Sodexo where it is today in GLBT inclusion, saying that in the end every year was worth it.
Caroline Rhea and “Amazing Race†winner Reichen Lehmkuhl hosted a spirited auction benefiting PFLAG, in which Rhea kicked off her shoes and ran around the room with a microphone, cajoling and teasing guests until more than $10,000 was raised for the PFLAG coffers.
This year the Straight for Equality in Sports Award was given out for the first time, bestowed upon New Orleans Saints NFL player Scott Fujita, an ally of the GLBT community. Fujita strongly supports same-sex marriage and, as an adopted child himself, also strongly supports adoption by same-sex couples.
“Love is love,†Fujita said plaintively, shrugging his shoulders. “It doesn’t get any simpler than that for me. An me. And when it comes to this fight, I think, ‘Should I shut my mouth and just play football, or stand up and fight for something?’ I’d rather fight for something.â€
The crown jewel of the evening’s entertainment was the presentation of the Straight for Equality in Entertainment Award, presented to Liza Minnelli, clad in a white sequin pant suit, and aided on stage by two gentlemen after a recent knee replacement.
“Be a call to action,†Minnelli urged the audience. “Find the everyday things people can do to help make this big, important change for equality. Be loud, like I am. Think to yourself, What Would Liza Do?†Once the laughter died down, Minnelli continued, “Use your place in life and talk to everyone about how discrimination is never okay. Equality means equality for everyone.â€
In a seemingly ad libbed gesture, Minnelli sang a song A Capella, said to be track from her upcoming album “Confessions,†in a two-minute performance that left the audience silent, still, and seemingly a bit star-struck.
Many of you have probably heard the news that country music star Chely Wright has recently come out. Heather Hogan at AfterEllen.com has written a fantastic piece on why this matters. In part, she says:"The response to Chely Wright from much of the LGBT community bemuses me because it falls somewhere between apathetic and angry. Tweets and comments all over the Gay Internet are loaded with disappointment and agitation, mostly because people wanted the Big Gay Blind Item of Cinco de Mayo to be 'someone who mattered.'
So, from my Southern heart to your empathetic ears, here are five reasons why Chely Wright's coming out matters:
1) It always matters when anyone comes out.
People who have already come out and are surrounded by supportive communities often forget the dark fog of fear and shame and confusion that lives inside the closet. Some people say that coming out is an ethical obligation, and that if all the closeted gay people in all the world climbed up oed up on chairs and jumped off at the same time, the whole earth would be thrown off-course. Or at the very least, gay people would start to see some civil liberty equality.
And there's real truth to that, but we do a terrible disservice to our queer brothers and sisters when we forget that coming out is a personal decision that often requires monumental courage.
The exhaustive research of LGBT rights groups proves that the game-changer for straight people is knowing someone who's gay. So, no: Chely Wright isn't an A-list movie star or an American Idol winner or a CNN anchor â€" but she once was closeted and now she's not. And that changes things.
2) In our society, familiarity with a celebrity counts as knowing someone.
Our culture is just absolutely soaked in celebrity lust. We want to know what's happening behind-the-scenes on movies, what's going on in the studio while artists are recording albums. We want to know what celebs' kids look like, what celebs had for lunch, what kind of pajamas celebs wear on Tuesdays. And through some evolutionary fluke/hole in the legal system, all of that information is readily available to us. So we feel like we really do know them.
If knowing a person who comes out changes the way straight people think about gay people, and familiarity with a celebrity counts as knowing someone, then: congratulations, everyone who has ever sung along to Chely Wright; you now know a lesbian!
(GLAAD's research backs up this claim: Knowing a gay celeb or TV character has the same affect as knowing a gay neighbor.)
3) Red states are country music states.
I'm not saying that all Republicans are gay-bashers. In fact, I know some lovely Republicans who marched in the Equality March in D.C. last year. But it's no secret that the Republican party has climbed into bed with the evangelical Christian community, and that â€" both socially and monetarily â€" conservative Christian churches are the biggest threat to equal rights in America.
I'm also not saying that every Republican listens to country music. I'm just saying that if you look at a map, red states have the highest concentration of country music radio stations. Georgia and Michigan, for example, both have populations of about 10 million people, but Georgia has twice as many country music radio stations. And if you combined every country music station in every blue state in the northeast, you still wouldn't have as much country music as Tennessee puts out in a single work day.
Chely Wright is all up in every red state's business with her music. It's visibility where visibility matters most.
To continue reading this article, click here.
Michelle WallowingBull, photo by Dave Getszchman, LA TimesFrom the Los Angeles Times:
Michelle WallowingBull was born a boy. But growing up on Wyoming's Wind River Indian Reservation, she knew from age 5 that she was a girl inside.
As a teen she bounced from the reservation to a South Dakota town to foster homes and back. In these remote communities, with a family steeped in addiction, she said, it was difficult to openly express the gender she deeply felt. Substance abuse and economic uncertainty followed â€" travails all too common for transgender people.
But last week, WallowingBull worked the room at a job fair organized by San Francisco's Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative, a pioneering program that has received an outpouring of public support in recent weeks as it faces possible elimination of city funding.
"I think I've hit everyone now," WallowingBull, 20, said of the more than two dozen employers at the job fair. Her most promising contacts: Macy's, Safeway and Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group.
The program â€" the first of its kind in the country and a model for one run by the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center â€" relies heavily on city money that has come under threat as the city tries to close an unprecedented budget hole of $483 million. About half of its roughly $450,000 budget comes from the city.
Dozens of backers, including a San Francisco County supervisor, the chair of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and other community organizers, pleaded for a reprieve at a recent hearing. They prevailed when officials removed it from a list of recommended cuts sent to Mayor Gavin Newsom.
But a mayoral spokesman said "there will be some very tough and unpleasant choices that the mayor is going to have to make" before he presents his balanced budget to supervisors on June 1, and no program is guaranteed survival.
"We have won Round 1 in a fight that will probably take a few rounds," said Masen Davis, executive director of San Francisco's Transgender Law Center, one of three organizations that run the initiative.
The program helped WallowingBull with resume-writing classes and mock interview sessions. In its third year, it combines legal help, mentoring and vocational services to assist a population unprotected by federal workplace discrimination law.
It also provides training to a growing list of employers who are reaching out to ensure that transgendered people are welcomed in the workforce.
Many in the transgender community say they face unique employment barriers: Resume gaps from the time of gender "transition" can make job hunting difficult, as can complexities over paperwork that does not match one's current gender, or references who are unaware of name and gender changes.
"If you work in the corporate world you need to address underserved communities," said Mark Pressler, a senior manager of diversity and inclusion at Charat Charles Schwab who sits on the group's Leadership Council. "The transgender community, people don't know about it, they are scared of it. We give employers a way to talk about it."
The initiative was created on the heels of a 2006 survey that showed a high percentage of transgender San Franciscans living in poverty with employment difficulties.
An assessment of the economic health of transgendered people across California further cemented the need: Respondents of the 2008 survey were twice as likely as the general population to hold a bachelor's degree, yet twice as likely to be unemployed. One in five had at some point landed in the street economy, selling sex or drugs. And nearly 70% reported discrimination or harassment on the job, the study found, despite protections in California law that date back to 2004.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is expected to pass Congress in the coming year and would provide federal protections based on gender identity. It remains legal in 38 states to fire someone because they are transgender.
"I've been fired for being trans, not hired for being trans, harassed on the job for being trans," Ramsey Campbell, who recently moved from Seattle, told commissioners at the recent hearing, stressing that the San Francisco initiative "made all the difference" in his current employment.
An independent review of the program found that it had raised skill levels and confidence among participants while educating employers and placing 125 people in jobs. In a city of more than 800,000, the direct impact is small. But the program carries significant weight in a place that has long served as a magnet for transgender people like WallowingBull.
In addition to guiding Los Angeles with its Transgender Economic Empowerment Partnership, the San Francisco initiative has provided "Job Fair in a Box" instructions to a number of cities, said Clair Farley, who oversees the mentoring program and job fair. She recently fielded calls from interested parties in Sacramento, Texas, Louisiana and Illinois. A volunteer from a Denver community center shadowed Farley at last week's job fair in order to create a similar effort at home.
"Without the information I've received here, I'd be three years behind," said Courtney Gray, who was a welder and mechanic before her transition. "It's definitely laid the groundwork for a great many organizations to succeed."
Michelle WallowingBull was born a boy. But growing up on Wyoming's Wind River Indian Reservation, she knew from age 5 that she was a girl inside.
As a teen she bounced from the reservation to a South Dakota town to foster homes and back. In these remote communities, with a family steeped in addiction, she said, it was difficult to openly express the gender she deeply felt. Substance abuse and economic uncertainty followed â€" travails all too common for transgender people.
But last week, WallowingBull worked the room at a job fair organized by San Francisco's Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative, a pioneering program that has received an outpouring of public support in recent weeks as it faces possible elimination of city funding.
"I think I've hit everyone now," WallowingBull, 20, said of the more than two dozen employers at the job fair. Her most promising contacts: Macy's, Safeway and Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group.
The program â€" the first of its kind in the country and a model for one run by the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center â€" relies heavily on city money that has come under threat as the city tries to close an unprecedented budget hole of $483 million. About half of its roughly $450,000 budget comes from the city.
Dozens of backers, including a San Francisco County supervisor, the chair of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and other community organizers, pleaded for a reprieve at a recent hearing. They prevailed when officials removed it from a list of recommended cuts sent to Mayor Gavin Newsom.
But a mayoral spokesman said "there will be some very tough and unpleasant choices that the mayor is going to have to make" before he presents his balanced budget to supervisors on June 1, and no program is guaranteed survival.
"We have won Round 1 in a fight that will probably take a few rounds," said Masen Davis, executive director of San Francisco's Transgender Law Center, one of three organizations that run the initiative.
The program helped WallowingBull with resume-writing classes and mock interview sessions. In its third year, it combines legal help, mentoring and vocational services to assist a population unprotected by federal workplace discrimination law.
It also provides training to a growing list of employers who are reaching out to ensure that transgendered people are welcomed in the workforce.
Many in the transgender community say they face unique employment barriers: Resume gaps from the time of gender "transition" can make job hunting difficult, as can complexities over paperwork that does not match one's current gender, or references who are unaware of name and gender changes.
"If you work in the corporate world you need to address underserved communities," said Mark Pressler, a senior manager of diversity and inclusion at Charat Charles Schwab who sits on the group's Leadership Council. "The transgender community, people don't know about it, they are scared of it. We give employers a way to talk about it."
The initiative was created on the heels of a 2006 survey that showed a high percentage of transgender San Franciscans living in poverty with employment difficulties.
An assessment of the economic health of transgendered people across California further cemented the need: Respondents of the 2008 survey were twice as likely as the general population to hold a bachelor's degree, yet twice as likely to be unemployed. One in five had at some point landed in the street economy, selling sex or drugs. And nearly 70% reported discrimination or harassment on the job, the study found, despite protections in California law that date back to 2004.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is expected to pass Congress in the coming year and would provide federal protections based on gender identity. It remains legal in 38 states to fire someone because they are transgender.
"I've been fired for being trans, not hired for being trans, harassed on the job for being trans," Ramsey Campbell, who recently moved from Seattle, told commissioners at the recent hearing, stressing that the San Francisco initiative "made all the difference" in his current employment.
An independent review of the program found that it had raised skill levels and confidence among participants while educating employers and placing 125 people in jobs. In a city of more than 800,000, the direct impact is small. But the program carries significant weight in a place that has long served as a magnet for transgender people like WallowingBull.
In addition to guiding Los Angeles with its Transgender Economic Empowerment Partnership, the San Francisco initiative has provided "Job Fair in a Box" instructions to a number of cities, said Clair Farley, who oversees the mentoring program and job fair. She recently fielded calls from interested parties in Sacramento, Texas, Louisiana and Illinois. A volunteer from a Denver community center shadowed Farley at last week's job fair in order to create a similar effort at home.
"Without the information I've received here, I'd be three years behind," said Courtney Gray, who was a welder and mechanic before her transition. "It's definitely laid the groundwork for a great many organizations to succeed."
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