News

/

Equality CA Endorses Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis for Re-election

Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, announced its endorsement of Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, who is running for re-election in 2022, on Monday. Kounalakis made history in 2018, when she became the first woman to be elected to the position. She has been an outspoken champion for LGBTQ+ civil rights and social justice during her time in office and created the nation’s first statewide transgender advisory council in September 2021. “LGBTQ+ Californians are fortunate to have such a strong champion and ally in Lieutenant Governor Kounalakis,” said Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang. “She understands the unique challenges […]

/ /

Activist Jim Obergefell Launches Run For Ohio House

The Huffington Post reports: Jim Obergefell, who was at the center of the 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized marriage equality in the United States, announced Tuesday that he is running for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives. “We should all be able to participate fully in society and the economy, living in strong communities with great public schools, access to quality healthcare, and with well-paying jobs that allow us to stay in the community we love, with the family we care about,” Obergefell said in a statement. Obergefell, 55, was not involved in politics before the Supreme Court case. […]

/ /

Martin Luther King Jr’s dream undoubtedly included LGBT+ people, say those who knew and loved him

On Martin Luther King Jr Day, we revisit the legendary civil rights leader’s relationship with LGBT+ rights. Dr King’s legacy is towering and complex. He devoted his life to – and was ultimately murdered for – advancing the rights of Black Americans, rallying against the “three major evils” – racism, poverty and war. But when looking back at his life and work, it is of course natural to wonder about the things that largely went unsaid.  For many, queer Black folk in particular, his stance on LGBT+ rights is a topic of much conversation. During his lifetime, Martin Luther King Jr was […]

/

LGBTQ+ Communities to Benefit Through Redistricting

California’s new congressional and state legislative maps include big wins for the LGBTQ+ community, after the state’s independent nonpartisan Citizens Redistricting Commission worked to unite and empower dense LGBTQ+ populations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Long Beach, the East Bay, Sacramento and the Coachella Valley. The achievement follows a months-long campaign led by Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, to advocate for fair and equitable maps that empower LGBTQ+ Californians to elect “candidates of choice” — members of the community and allies responsive to their unique challenges and priorities. [Click here to watch Equality California’s October 22 presentation to […]

/ /

Australian man convicted in decades-old gay hate murder of American

An Australian man has pleaded guilty to murdering an American mathematician who fell from a Sydney cliff in 1988 in a gay hate crime that was dismissed by police at the time as suicide. Scott White was charged in 2020 with murdering 27-year-old Los Angeles-born Scott Johnson, whose naked body was found at the base of North Head cliff on Dec. 8, 1988. White yelled repeatedly in court during a pre-trial hearing in Sydney on Monday that he was guilty, having previously denied the crime. A New South Wales state Supreme Court judge on Thursday accepted the guilty plea, dismissing […]

/ /

Kenya bill seeks to ban gays from having children via surrogate

A bill that is currently before Kenyan lawmakers would prohibit gays and lesbians from using surrogate mothers to have children. The proposed law — dubbed the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill, 2019, passed last November by the National Assembly — seeks to assist individuals, including intersex people or couples unable to bear children due to infertility to procure surrogate mothers. To lock out gays and lesbians, the MPs amended the bill by replacing “husband and wife” to “couple” under Kenyan law, which refers to a male and a female who are in an association that may be recognized as a marriage. “Of […]

/

Brewing a Boycott: How LGBTQ and Labor Activism Intersect

Author TalkFriday, January 216:00–7:30 p.m. PTOnline program$5 | Free for members Historians Miriam Frank and Allyson Brantley will discuss the long and interwoven history of LGBTQ and labor activism through the lens of Brantley’s new book, Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors and Remade American Consumer Activism (University of North Carolina Press, 2021). Drawing on oral histories and archival collections, including those held by the GLBT Historical Society, Brantley details how activists across the nation, from gay liberationists to Chicano activists and union members, built supportive, vibrant coalitions. Over decades of organizing and coalition-building from the 1950s to the 1990s, they molded […]

/ /

American Idol star Clay Aiken running for Congress after hateful Republican’s homophobic rant

,

American Idol star Clay Aiken has launched a second congressional bid after being inspired to fight hate perpetuated by North Carolina’s top lawmakers. Aiken was the runner-up on the second season of American Idol in 2003. Afterwards, he launched a music and acting career – even appearing as acontestant on Celebrity Apprentice hosted by former president Donald Trump. In 2014 he turned his attention to politics, winning the Democratic primary in North Carolina’s second congressional district, but he was defeated in the general election by Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers. Now he’s running for Congress again. But this time, Aiken, who has referred to himself as a “loud and proud Democrat”, […]

/ /

As high court signals Roe v. Wade reversal, states eye same-sex marriage protections

Nearly seven years after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage the law of the land, New Jersey enacted a law Monday to protect this relatively new right throughout the Garden State.  Prior to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges — which legalized sex-marriage nationwide in 2015 — New Jersey’s state courts had already struck down a same-sex marriage ban in 2013. But as a majority of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices appeared open to overturning Roe v. Wade last month, new fears that the court could also make an about-face on the Obergefell ruling have prompted some lawmakers to […]

«‹ 268 269 270 271›»