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  LPAC, the national grassroots lesbian political action committee supporting pro-LGBTQ, pro-women’s rights and progressive candidates, announced a first-of-its-kind benefit performance featuring top lesbian and queer comics and women’s rights champions, including Kate Clinton, Rosie O’Donnell, Billie Jean King, Lea DeLaria, Karen Williams, Cameron Esposito, Judy Gold, Marga Gomez, Jes Tom, Marsha Warfield, Rhea Butcher, and others. Former Late Show with David Letterman Executive Producer and Showrunner Barbara Gaines will produce the show. Award-winning cartoonist and author Alison Bechdel will be designing an original poster for the event. Levity & Justice for All will take place at the historic Town […]

  Three times in the last two days, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio campaigned for president on his opposition to nationwide marriage equality and overturning the Supreme Court’s historic decision last June, reports the HRC. During the Republican debate in Greenville, South Carolina  on Saturday, Rubio twice invoked his opposition to marriage equality. Near the beginning  of the debate, Rubio called Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in Obergefell “brilliant.” And then, in his closing statement, Rubio said, “We are going to be a country that says that, ‘life begins at conception and life is worthy of the protection of our laws.’ We’re […]

Marriage Equality USA (MEUSA) and Freedom for All Americans (FFAA) have announced that FFAA will serve as the new coalition chair of NEAT, the National Equality Action Team. MEUSA, the previous chair of the coalition, will be closing as an organization this Spring and has transferred its network and resources to FFAA. NEAT is a grassroots field program that mobilizes supporters of LGBTQ equality and allows anyone, no matter where they live, to play a role in historic campaigns by providing opportunities to engage in direct action, including phone banks, canvassing, and knocking on doors. NEAT was originally formed in 2012 to […]

  Andrew Cuomo New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will use the authority of his office to take historic action protecting LGBTQ youth in the Empire State from the dangerous and discredited practice of so-called “conversion therapy.”  As the first governor to use his executive authority to protect LGBTQ youth from the widely denounced practice, under his direction, three state agencies will take separate actions. Under Gov. Cuomo’s leadership, the New York State Department of Financial Services will issue regulations prohibiting insurance providers from covering conversion therapy on patients under the age of 18. The New York State Office of Mental […]

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in partnership with the Equality Federation, today released its second annual national report assessing the status of state legislation affecting LGBT equality across America, including in California. The State Equality Index (SEI) reveals that, even with historic progress on marriage equality, there are extraordinary state-to-state disparities in LGBT non-discrimination protections, including in the workplace, and efforts continue by equality opponents to pass state-level legislation that would sanction discrimination and undermine even minimal existing protections. “Even with marriage equality the law of the land, the battle for LGBT rights at the state level continues to be […]

The Leadership Conference Education Fund will release its report, Striking a Balance: Advancing Civil and Human Rights While Preserving Religious Liberty, documenting how the religious arguments commonly used today against LGBT equality have been used to oppose the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage and equality, racial integration, inter-racial marriage, immigration, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the right to collectively bargain. Striking a Balance also examines the current legal and political landscape in which religious exemptions are being used to deny civil and human rights, including LGBT equality. “For as long as people have demanded freedom, dignity, and equality under […]

United We Dream, the national network of immigrant youth, has just released its “No More Closets” report, the largest national survey of the LGBTQ immigrant community ever conducted. The report tells the collective and individual stories of some 461 individuals who self identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer and who are either born outside of the United States or are U.S.-born citizens with foreign-born parents. The survey was conducted in late 2015 both online and through individual interviews. The report uncovers high levels of discrimination and harassment in employment, healthcare, housing and education and a distrust of law […]