Lisa Keen
By Lisa Keen on February 7, 2013
President Obama’s new nominee to serve as Secretary of Interior was a staunch supporter of marriage equality in Washington State last year.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on February 6, 2013
The LGBT community’s position on Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary remains quietly split as Hagel approaches his first key Senate vote, perhaps as early as Thursday, February 6.
No LGBT organization, not even the Human Rights Campaign or OutServe-SLDN, has met with or affirmatively endorsed President Obama’s nominee, and only a few have actively opposed him.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on January 30, 2013
The Senate Committee on Armed Services will hold its first day of Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearing Friday, January 31. Many expect his positions on benefits for the families of gay service members and his willingness to update military regulations to reflect the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell may get some scrutiny from both sides of the partisan aisle.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on January 23, 2013
President Obama, in his second inaugural address, emphasized the nation’s principle of equality for all and, in doing so, specifically included the struggles of LGBT Americans to achieve equality.
Posted in National Politics, Presidential 2012, White House
By Lisa Keen on January 19, 2013
The Presidential Inaugural Committee has invited a moderate Methodist minister to deliver the sermon and the inaugural’s National Prayer Service Tuesday, January 22.
The Committee announced Friday (January 18) that it has invited Rev. Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, to deliver the sermon, which will be attended by President Obama and many of the nation’s leaders at Washington’s National Cathedral.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on January 17, 2013
The Presidential Inauguration Committee announced Thursday (January 17) that an openly gay veteran of the Air Force will be among the eight “Citizen Co-Chairs” for President Obama’s second inaugural ceremony.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on January 17, 2013
It was almost déjà vu all over again.
To deliver the benediction at his second inauguration January 21, President Obama chose a pastor who had called homosexuality “probably the greatest addiction” and said marriage between same-sex partners is “absolutely undermining the whole order of our society.”
But this time around –unlike in 2009, when President-elect Obama chose California evangelist Rick Warren to deliver the benediction—the pastor with such hostile views of LGBT people withdrew his participation in the high-profile national event.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on January 12, 2013
The depth of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s discomfort for things gay became apparent in 1996, ten years after he joined the court.
He had voted against the interests of gays before—allowing the U.S. Olympic Committee to bar Gay Games from calling itself Gay Olympics and allowing the organizers of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Boston to exclude an openly gay contingent.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on January 9, 2013
U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin said that she wants to see whether Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel’s apology for anti-gay remarks 14 years ago is “sincere and sufficient.” But former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank said his opinion of Hagel has gone from opposition to reconsideration.
Posted in National Politics
By Lisa Keen on January 8, 2013
The race to become the tenth state to provide marriage equality for same-sex couples is underway, with Rhode Island and Illinois running neck-and-neck. Marriage equality bills were launched in both states’ legislatures last week.
Posted in Marriage/Relationships, State Politics
By Lisa Keen on January 8, 2013
The U.S. Supreme Court today (January 7) scheduled the dates for oral arguments in the two high-profile marriage equality cases before it this session. The Proposition 8 case will be heard on March 26; the Defense of Marriage Act case will be heard March 27.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on January 6, 2013
There was a tiny outcry in December for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to recuse himself from deliberating on the two marriage-related cases before the high court this session. It erupted mostly from liberal political bloggers after Associated Press and some other media reported that Scalia, in a December 10 book tour appearance at Princeton University, discussed past dissents in which he compared homosexuality with such harmful acts as murder, incest, adultery, and cruelty to animals.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on January 4, 2013
The Republican leaders in the U.S. House started off the 2013-14 session giving unusual prominence to their legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
As part of a routine package of “rules” by which the House is to govern itself during the 113th Congress, Republican leaders included language authorizing the continued legal defense of DOMA.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on January 4, 2013
LGBT service groups and others who depend on federal funding for a portion of their work can breathe a sigh of relief –for about two months. Congress sent President Obama a bill January 1 to satisfy part of its mandate to address the nation’s growing debt.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 21, 2012
It’s just a rumor at this point, but it’s one that makes a lot of sense and one that could require a careful adjustment to the LGBT history books.
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is reportedly considering U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to step into a U.S. Senate vacancy that is expected to be created when the Senate confirms current U.S. Senator John Kerry as Secretary of State.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 21, 2012
In a development illustrating one measure of the LGBT political lobby’s influence on the Obama administration, a Republican figure said to be a top-runner to become the next Secretary of Defense apologized for his remarks 14 years ago, casting aspersions on an openly gay nominee to be ambassador.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 13, 2012
Chances are, if you are even remotely plugged into the news, you’ve grown weary of hearing about the “fiscal cliff.” That’s the metaphor du jour for the sudden and dramatic cuts in federal spending and tax breaks set to occur at midnight on December 31.
Posted in National Politics
By Lisa Keen on December 12, 2012
Court watchers and the mainstream media are having a field day with what the U.S. Supreme Court did and did not say about same-sex marriage cases during the past week–both raising and lowering expectations for a blockbuster LGBT legal victory or defeat this year.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on December 7, 2012
In a surprise development, the U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it will review both the Proposition 8 case concerning a statewide ban on same-sex marriage and a DOMA case concerning a ban on federal recognition of same-sex marriages.
Posted in Marriage/Relationships, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on December 2, 2012
President Obama nominated Judge Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro November 27 to a federal district court seat in Philadelphia, bringing to eight the number of openly gay people he has nominated for the federal bench.
While Judge Quiñones declined to make any comment to a reporter concerning her nomination, the Human Rights Campaign posted on its website that, if confirmed, Quiñones “would be the first out gay Hispanic woman to serve on the federal bench.”
Posted in A closer look
Ginsburg on Roe: Is it a signal she’d curb a decision on marriage?
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
President praises pro athlete Jason Collins for courage to come out
Rhode Island marriage bill clears final hurdle with all Republicans