Demand ALL Proms Are Fair: Support the Student Non-Discrimination Act

Stonewall Dems has a petition up about the Mississippi prom matter, and the larger issue of gay students facing discrimination:

By now many have heard about the drama surrounding Prom at the Itawamba Agricultural High School in Mississippi. After a lesbian student named Constance McMillen was told she wouldn't be able to bring her girlfriend as her date to Prom, the ACLU intervened on her behalf and the school eventually cancelled the Prom altogether. School officials are currently encouraging a private prom be organized that can continue to deny Constance and her girlfriend entrance.

What's happening in Mississippi unfortunately happens all too often around the country, and not just during Prom season. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students -- and those students who are perceived to be LGBT or who associate with LGBT students -- are subjected to discrimination, including harassment, bullying, violence; and are deprived of equal access to educational opportunities.

Congressman Jared Polis took a stand earlier this year to fight for LGBT students when he introduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act. "Like Title VI for minorities in the 60s and Title IX for women in the 70s," Congressman Polis said at the time of the bill's introduction, "my legislation puts LGBT students on an equal footing with their peers, so they can attend school and get a quality education, free from fear.”

Tell your Representative in Congress to co-sponsor the Student Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 4530), so Constance McMillen -- and every student -- can have equal access to public education.

Read More...

Desmond Tutu speaks out on gay rights

Wow. Op ed in the Washington Post.

Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.

And they are living in hiding -- away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God.

"But they are sinners," I can hear the preachers and politicians say. "They are choosing a life of sin for which they must be punished." My scientist and medical friends have shared with me a reality that so many gay people have confirmed, I now know it in my heart to be true. No one chooses to be gay. Sexual orientation, like skin color, is another feature of our diversity as a human family. Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?

The wave of hate must stop. Politicians who profit from exploiting this hate, from fanning it, must not be tempted by this easy way to profit from fear and misunderstanding. And my fellow clerics, of all faiths, must stand up for the principles of universal dignity and fellowship. Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.

Read More...

NOLA hotel offers free prom to students after local school board canceled when girl asked girl to the dance

Now that's sweet. Read More...

Constance McMillen on CBS This Morning. Girl whose school canceled prom when she invited another girl.

Background here.
Contact the local school board here.
Join the Faceboook group - 66,000 fans of noon Eastern today.

Read More...

Yesterday was wedding day in Mexico City

The capitol city of the United States had its first weddings on Tuesday. The capitol city of Mexico had its first weddings yesterday:

The mayor was there. So were the protesters. Judith Vazquez wore an ivory wedding dress. So did her bride.

Vazquez and Lol Kin Castaneda on Thursday became the first gay couple to marry in Mexico under a new law that allows same-sex couples to wed and to adopt children.

The law was passed by the Mexico City legislature in December and applies only to the capital. It is the most far-reaching gay-rights law in Latin America and one of several measures that have put the city and its leaders at odds with the more conservative country.

"This is a historic day," presiding judge Hegel Cortes said shortly after pronouncing Vazquez and Castaneda "legitimately united in matrimony." Three other same-sex couples also tied the knot.

Read More...