2010
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By Lisa Keen on December 31, 2010
If past is prologue, 2011 should turn out to be a fairly decent one for the LGBT community. It’s not that everything turned out so rosy for the community in 2010, but the gains registered more powerfully than the losses.
Posted in Politics
By Dana Rudolph on December 31, 2010
The federally supported National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention (NAASP) on December 30 officially announced a task force dedicated to suicide prevention among LGBT youth.
Posted in Health, Issues, News
By Dana Rudolph on December 28, 2010
The North Carolina Supreme Court on December 20 voided the adoption by a lesbian mother of the child who she and her former partner, the biological mother, were raising together. The ruling jeopardizes the legality of all other such “second-parent adoptions” in the state.
Posted in Adoption, Issues, Law, Lawsuits, News, State Courts, State Supreme Courts
By Lisa Keen on December 23, 2010
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday gave final approval to lesbian law professor Chai Feldblum as President Obama’s nominee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Posted in Appointees, National Politics, News, Politics
By Lisa Keen on December 22, 2010
Following a dramatic and eloquent speech, President Obama Wednesday morning signed the legislation that will launch the repeal of a 17-year-old law that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military.
Posted in Don't Ask Don't Tell, Issues, National Politics, News, Politics, White House
By Lisa Keen on December 21, 2010
The suspense is over: The U.S. Senate finally took a vote on a bill to repeal the ban on openly gay people in the military and passed it, 65 to 31. Having Congress pass that bill, to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT), and having that bill signed by the president is an important legislative and political milestone.
It is not the first time the LGBT community has ever succeeded at dismantling a form of institutionalized discrimination. That honor goes to the eradication of laws prohibiting consensual sex between same-sex partners. That was done state by state and, eventually, in the U.S. Supreme Court. The community has, in several states, won the right to obtain marriage licenses the same as straight couples. And, in 2010, it made enormous progress towards marriage equality nationwide through several lawsuits.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on December 18, 2010
The U.S. Senate approved a bill Saturday, December 18, to repeal the 17-year-old law banning openly gay people from serving in the military. The roll call vote on the measure, which came to the Senate Wednesday from the House, was 65 to 31.
Posted in Congress, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Issues, National Politics, News, Politics
By Lisa Keen on December 17, 2010
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Thursday night that he was filing a motion to seek a vote Saturday to send the House’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” repeal bill to the floor.
Meanwhile, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) announced Thursday night that they will have service members sitting in the public gallery in the Senate chamber until the repeal bill is voted on.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 15, 2010
The U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday afternoon to approve a measure to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the second time this year the House approved such a measure.
Posted in Congress, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Issues, News, Politics
By Lisa Keen on December 14, 2010
The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Wednesday on a standalone bill, introduced Tuesday, seeking repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy introduced the bill Tuesday as a way of encouraging and speeding up the passage of a similar standalone bill in the Senate.
Posted in News Briefs
By Dana Rudolph on December 14, 2010
Three weeks before the end of a session of Congress may seem an odd time to introduce any new bills, much less one dealing with always-contentious LGBT civil rights. But three representatives introduced a bill 12/8 that would better protect LGBT people from discrimination in housing.
Posted in Congress, Issues, Misc, National Politics, News, Politics
By Lisa Keen on December 13, 2010
Activists pushing for repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell delivered on a threat Monday and filed a third lawsuit aimed at having the courts strike the military’s ban on openly gay people.
Posted in Don't Ask Don't Tell, Federal Courts, Issues, Law, Lawsuits, News
By Lisa Keen on December 9, 2010
Thu. Dec. 9 – 4:10 p.m.—The Senate has just rejected an attempt to bring the defense authorization bill to the floor, effectively killing the prospects for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell this year, and likely for years to come. The vote was 57 to 40.
Posted in Congress, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Issues, National Politics, News, Politics
By Lisa Keen on December 8, 2010
All the focus was on Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins Wednesday, with the question being whether she could be persuaded to vote to end the Republican-led filibuster against the defense authorization bill.
Posted in Congress, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Issues, National Politics, News, Politics
By Lisa Keen on December 6, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO — Famed attorney Ted Olson told a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel Monday that the reason proponents of Proposition 8 have proffered to justify their ban on same-sex marriage is “nonsense.”
Posted in Cases, Federal Courts, Issues, Law, Lawsuits, Marriage/Relationships, News, U.S. Circuit Courts
By Lisa Keen on December 6, 2010
The second and final day of the Senate hearing on repealing “Don’t ask, don’t tell” has adjourned and the battle lines are still very much where they were at the beginning, with one exception.
Posted in Congress, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Issues, National Politics, News, Politics
By Lisa Keen on December 3, 2010
David Boies will be arguing the issue of standing during oral argument in the Proposition 8 case Monday in a federal appeals court. Boies is co-lead counsel of the legal team challenging California’s same-sex marriage ban, along with another prominent attorney, Ted Olson. Olson will be arguing the merits of the lower court decision that found the ban unconstitutional.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 2, 2010
Federal appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt on Thursday rejected a motion from attorneys defending Proposition 8 to recuse himself from participating in the case.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 2, 2010
The Pentagon’s top four leaders stood their ground Thursday during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Defense Department’s report concerning Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal. But there was considerable pushback from Republicans on the committee—and not just John McCain.
Posted in Congress, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Issues, National Politics, News, Politics
By Lisa Keen on December 1, 2010
Republicans say they’re trying to create “an environment for private-sector job growth;” Rep. Barney Frank says they’re just trying to stop repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
The evidence for both is the same: A letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid December 1 signed by all 42 Republican senators saying they would not vote to proceed on consideration of “any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase….”
Posted in News Briefs
Minnesota: Where the push for a marriage license began
Immigration bill advances without provisions for same-sex couples
Leahy submits language to help bi-national same-sex couples
Delaware votes for marriage equality; becomes 11th state to make it the law
Rhode Island marriage law signed; Two more states could vote next week