By Lisa Keen on January 8, 2012
The audience in New Hampshire listening to Saturday night’s debate grew noisily restless with reporters’ questions about the right to privacy as it regards contraception. But when the topic became same-sex marriage, they seemed to be listening more quietly –at least until Newt Gingrich claimed that questions about gay marriage belie the news media’s bias against religions.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on January 7, 2012
Republican Rick Santorum is not the most anti-gay candidate running in the presidential primary in the New Hampshire Tuesday. A candidate on the Democratic side is.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on January 6, 2012
Significant events are crowding the calendar for 2012, and each promises considerable drama and suspense for the LGBT community. Here are the ten most important to keep an eye on:
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on January 6, 2012
Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum is being challenged more frequently now about his anti-gay positions, including by conservative media.
In a live interview Wednesday, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly warned Santorum that he would be “demonized” nationally because “some of your positions are extreme, according to the polls.” And, in front of a college-age audience Thursday, he appeared frustrated by the resistance to his ideas on same-sex marriage.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on January 4, 2012
The Republican presidential field’s most anti-gay candidate scored big Tuesday night when he landed in a virtual tie for first place in the Iowa caucuses with the candidate who has been seen by the media as the party’s most viable candidate against President Obama.
Posted in Election 2012, Presidential 2012
By Lisa Keen on January 3, 2012
The Iowa caucuses begin tonight, and the startling news for LGBT voters is the dramatic increase in support for the field’s most anti-gay candidate, Rick Santorum.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 28, 2011
Few in the GOP field could rival President Obama with their records on LGBT issues, and yet, the outcome of the Republican presidential race riveted the attention of LGBT people in 2012. Many of the contenders were notoriously anti-gay. They were often asked about, or were inclined to share, their positions on gay-related issues. And, historically, no matter how much better the Democratic candidate has been than the Republican one, about 25 to 30 percent of LGBT voters vote for the Republican presidential candidate.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on December 20, 2011
The television ad of Republican presidential long-shot Rick Perry, that pits gays in the military as the ideological foil to children celebrating Christmas, earned the candidate some tense moments on the campaign trail last week, from both gays and straights alike.
The ad, entitled “Strong,” began airing on Iowa television stations in early December and showed a casually dressed Perry walking along a rural setting, saying, “I’m not ashamed that a I’m a Christian.”
Posted in Track notes
By Lisa Keen on December 19, 2011
A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled this month that a university could require a student seeking a degree in counseling, as part of her curriculum, to take courses on how to work with LGBT populations. The student had objected, saying such courses violated her religious beliefs.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 16, 2011
The Department of Justice sent its top civil rights attorney, Tony West, to argue against the Defense of Marriage Act in a federal district court in San Francisco Friday.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 8, 2011
There was some drama in the courtroom as attorneys litigating Proposition 8 in a San Francisco federal appeals court Thursday took their last swings.
The normally staid somewhat flustered Charles Cooper, lead attorney for the Yes on 8 team, delivered an unusually passionate plea in his final minutes before the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel.
Cooper was trying to convince the panel to vacate the landmark ruling by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker –a ruling in which Walker declared California’s ban on same-sex marriage to be in violation of the federal constitution. According to Cooper, Walker should have revealed to attorneys and the public that he had been in a relationship with a man for ten years and given attorneys a chance to challenge his fitness to preside over the case.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on December 7, 2011
Republican presidential long-shot Rick Perry was one of the first to criticize the Obama administration’s newly announced initiative to push for the human rights of LGBT people around the world. But there were some cautionary notes from the LGBT international community, too.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 6, 2011
Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Obama, met Tuesday, December 6, with pop icon Lady Gaga to discuss Gaga’s new Born This Way Foundation.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 6, 2011
How well the LGBT groups are doing financially may well depend on whether one sees a glass as “half empty” or “half full,” but a new report, released Tuesday (December 6) by an independent think tank, certainly provides some facts to ponder.
Posted in Politics
By Lisa Keen on December 6, 2011
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today (Tuesday, December 6) called on the governments of all nations to ensure that their LGBT citizens are treated with respect and dignity. In doing so, she also announced that President Obama was issuing a memorandum directing the State Department to lead an interagency group to provide a “swift and meaningful response” by the U.S. government to “serious incidents that threaten the human rights of LGBT persons abroad.”
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on December 4, 2011
It was one week after Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain told The Hill newspaper, “I think marriage should be protected at the federal level,” that allegations began emerging to suggest Cain himself had not been protecting marriage at the personal level.
Cain “suspended” his presidential campaign Saturday (December 4), following the latest allegation of sexual improprieties with women other than his wife. His support had dropped precipitously in the polls–from frontrunner with 25 percent or more to back-of-the-pack with only 8 percent in the latest Iowa polling.
Posted in Track notes
By Lisa Keen on December 2, 2011
The U.S. Senate passed a defense spending bill on Thursday (December 1) with only a much watered-down amendment seeking to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act against same-sex marriages.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on November 30, 2011
Something changed for U.S. Rep. Barney Frank between February and November of this year. In February, he announced he would seek re-election in 2012, to a 17th term in office. And on Monday, November 28, he announced this current term would be his last.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on November 19, 2011
Newt Gingrich, the current Republican presidential frontrunner, used a right-wing Christian forum Saturday afternoon to claim “the left” is trying to “drive out the existence of traditional religions…and use the government to repress the American people against their own values.”
Posted in Campaigns, Election 2012, Presidential 2012
By Lisa Keen on November 17, 2011
In what amounts to a bump in the road for opponents of Proposition 8, a unanimous California Supreme Court told a federal appeals court November 17 that California law “authorizes” the proponents of the initiative to defend it in federal court even though state elected officials decided not to.
Posted in Issues, Marriage/Relationships, News, State Supreme Courts
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