Jun 19
This year Baltimore celebrated LGBTQ Pride against the backdrop of legal same gender marriage in Maryland. Same gender marriages started on January 1, 2013 following a referendum passed in November 2012. Marylanders voted FOR Question 6 by a 52-48 percent margin. Question 6, “Establishes that Maryland’s civil marriage laws allow gay and lesbian couples to obtain a civil marriage license…” Read more
Campaign for Southern Equality and Freedom to Marry have joined together to share this touching love story about two dads and their four boys. As a couple, they have struggled to have their family protected by North Carolina law and elevated from second-class citizenship. “What we are saying is that we are a family. We want society to say, ‘We will protect this family.’” Read more
“If I wanted to be able to talk about my work, as one usually does on first dates, I did need to come out as intersex.” Hida Vilora serves as chairperson of Organization Intersex International (OII), the world’s largest intersex advocacy organization. In an op-ed in The Advocate, she discussed educating her lesbian date about intersex people and the joy she felt in getting a second date. Read more
The new ecumenical English translation of the Heidelberg Catechism was adopted by more than two-thirds of the PCUSA presbyteries and has one more hurdle to jump: a majority vote at the 221st General Assembly. Given the momentum, it’s getting easy to see that this will happen in Detroit next year.
The change to the Heidelberg Catechism is long in coming. The journey began when Professor Johanna Bos came to teach at Louisville Seminary. Having grown up in the Netherlands where the Heidelberg Catechism is central to Reformed faith the way the Westminster Confession is for the PCUSA, she noticed the flaw in our translation of the Heidelberg Catechism in the answer to Question 87. Read more
Monday passed without a ruling by the Supreme Court on Hollingsworth v. Perry (Proposition 8) and U.S. v. Windsor (Defense of Marriage Act). The Supreme Court could issue decisions on Thursday, June 13 at 10 p.m. ET. or later in the month.
U.S. v. Windsor challenges the federal government’s refusal to recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Hollingsworth v. Perry challenges California’s Proposition 8 ban on same gender marriage. Read more
Transgender people are made in God’s image and should not be subject to discrimination for being authentic about their gender identity and expression. More Light Presbyterians calls on the Delaware House to follow the lead of the Senate and add gender identity and expression to Delaware’s nondiscrimination law and hate crime law. Read more
The Williams Institute released a detailed study about the economic status of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people on Monday. “As poverty rates for nearly all populations increased during the recession, lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) Americans remained more likely to be poor than heterosexual people. Gender, race, education and geography all influence poverty rates among LGB populations, and children of same-sex couples are particularly vulnerable to poverty.” The Williams Institute at UCLA Law School researches sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy. Read more
The White House released a proclamation on Friday for LGBTQ Pride Month 2013. In the proclamation, President Obama states that LGBTQ people are “at a moment of great hope and progress.” He remembers Stonewall and quotes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We live in a generation which understands these words. Read more
This question can create tremendous fear for transgender people looking for employment.
“The indignities experienced by transgender individuals – whose numbers are difficult to track but are estimated into the several thousands – are many, evidenced by the elevated rates of suicide, poverty, homelessness and sexual and physical violence.”
Transgender activists are working to make discrimination based on gender identity and expression illegal in New York State, often a beacon for civil rights. The Senate has yet to take up the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) even thought it passed in the Assembly for the sixth time last month. Read more
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite is Professor of Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and just published an essay on marriage at Sojourners, a national organization committed to faith in action for social justice. She writes, “This period of intense media focus on marriage—while more and more states legally affirm marriage equality and the Supreme Court ponders two related cases—offers the opportunity to examine the institution of marriage itself.” Read more
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