By Lisa Keen on March 4, 2011
Educated people who know someone gay are often the most likely to stand up for gay people and support their right to be treated the same as everyone else.
Not so Newt Gingrich. The former Speaker of the House, who has a Ph.D in history and a half-sister who is gay, has taken a leading role in opposing equal rights for gays.
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By Lisa Keen on March 1, 2011
The White House last Friday (February 25) announced the naming of an openly gay man to assume the position as President Obama’s Social Secretary.
Jeremy Bernard, a senior adviser to the U.S. ambassador to France at the embassy in Paris, will become the first man and the first openly gay person to hold the position of Social Secretary.
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By Lisa Keen on February 14, 2011
A Congressman from Virginia introduced a bill last week that seeks to require all government documents describing parents to identify the parents as either “mother” or “father.”
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By Lisa Keen on February 8, 2011
Unannounced Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty underscored his right-wing credentials with Iowa Republicans Monday, February 7, assuring them that he opposes repeal of the ban on gays in the military and thinks it would be “reasonable” to rescind funding to implement repeal. He also said he believes marriage is “between a man and a woman.”
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By Lisa Keen on February 3, 2011
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) announced Thursday that he will be a candidate for re-election in 2012.
The announcement is unusual for its timing. It is more routine for even the most veteran elected officials to wait until just before time to announce their re-election campaign to signal their intentions to run for office again.
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By Lisa Keen on January 28, 2011
The Pentagon on Friday, January 28, said training to prepare for implementation of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell could begin as early as next month.
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By Lisa Keen on January 28, 2011
The head of a caucus of conservative Republicans in the House told The Hill newspaper that he will very likely introduce a bill seeking to overturn Washington, D.C.’s marriage equality law.
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By Lisa Keen on January 13, 2011
Daniel Hernandez Jr., the openly gay intern who ran to the rescue of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords during last Saturday’s shooting in Tucson, was seated next to President Obama Wednesday during a memorial for the victims of that shooting.
President Obama and others repeated referred to Hernandez as a “hero,” but Hernandez himself urged that the title belongs, not to him but, to Giffords and other public servants.
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By Lisa Keen on January 11, 2011
The young Congressional intern who provided critical first aid to U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords after she was shot in the head Saturday is a gay man, Daniel Hernandez Jr.
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By Lisa Keen on January 5, 2011
The Navy on Tuesday, January 4, relieved from command permanently its new commanding officer of the USS Enterprise, the Navy’s best-known aircraft carrier, after widespread media attention for training videos he created that used an anti-gay slur and depicted both same-sex and heterosexual couples having intimate moments in the shower together. Except for use of the term “fag,” the videos depict a rather blasé acceptance of gays in the military, not one suggesting hostility. But they show women crew members being used as objects of entertainment.
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By Lisa Keen on January 4, 2011
A 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel surprised many Proposition 8 observers Tuesday when it suddenly issued five documents relating to the case.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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….”
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By Lisa Keen on November 25, 2010
The Senate Armed Services Committee announced Wednesday, November 24, that it will hold two days of hearings next week on the Pentagon study concerning Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal.
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By Lisa Keen on November 23, 2010
The U.S. Department of Justice sent notice to a federal district court in Tacoma, Washington, that it will appeal the court’s ruling that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell violates the federal constitution.
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By Lisa Keen on November 22, 2010
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters Sunday that he will release the Pentagon’s study on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” one day early, adding that, “if this law is going to change, it’s better that it be changed by legislation than it simply be struck down …by the courts with the potential for us having to implement it immediately.”
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By Lisa Keen on November 19, 2010
Supporters of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell are talking a big game now. They say they have more than the 60 votes they need to break a Republican-led filibuster that has prevented consideration of the repeal and its underlying defense spending measure.
But no Republican senator has yet come forward and said, “I’m the 60th vote.”
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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
President praises pro athlete Jason Collins for courage to come out