DADT Update: DOD Report Out In 7 Days; Discharges Ceased; TV Ad Out

There have been multiple developments in the fight to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" recently.

The Defense Department has (barely) bowed to political pressure by agreeing to release its now-famous study of the impacts of open military service by LGBT soldiers on "unit cohesion, military readiness and effectiveness, recruiting and retention and family readiness" one day early, next Tuesday, November 30.

The Pentagon also announced that ever since Secretary of Defense Robert Gates issued new procedures that require a DADT discharge to be approved by one of a handful of top military officers on October 21, no LGBT people have been "separated" from the military in the last month.

Recent polls have begun to show declines from the massive support for repealing the military's discriminatory DADT policy. In the last few days, a Gallup poll has been released indicating only 56% of Americans think passing DADT repeal in the Senate's lame-duck session is important or very important (compared to 60% who feel that way about passing the DREAM Act).

Today, the Palm Center had the above television ad touting the lack of consequences to open military service experienced by our NATO allies currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan rejected by Fox News.

I believe that the Obama Administration will deliver on its promise to have DADT repeal accomplished by the end of 2010.

Do you?

Cross-posted from The Mad Professah Lectures

Oxy Student From CSP19 (2009) In The New York Times!

My goodness! One of my students from last year's CSP19: Gay Rights in the Obama Era, Josh Erdman (pictured above, right), is quoted in today's New York Times in an article entitled "For Gays, New Songs Of Survival":

THERE is no better place to witness the growing pains of pop music than on the video-sharing site YouTube, where for the past year Josh Erdman, 20, and Bill Klute, 19, both sophomores at Occidental College in Los Angeles [emphasis added], have been posting clips of themselves singing covers of pop songs by Miley Cyrus, B.o.B, Kelly Clarkson and other Top 40 regulars. Shot mostly in Mr. Erdman’s dormitory room, where the walls are adorned with posters of Lady Gaga and from the television series “True Blood,” the videos have the simplicity and sincerity of a campfire singalong. After several of the clips received over 100,000 views, the two men began to add a small stamp to the videos that reads “Legalize Gay,” a line that Mr. Klute cribbed from a T-shirt he bought at American Apparel.

“We weren’t sure if we were going to express our orientation with these videos,” said Mr. Erdman, a member of Occidental’s Queer Straight Alliance. “But we wanted people like us to know we’re out there.”

After finding “We R Who We R” on a music-sharing Web site a couple of weeks ago, they updated the stamp to read, “Legalize Gay ’Cause We Are Who We Are.”

“The lyrics obviously spoke to us,” Mr. Klute said. “What these artists are doing means the world to the gay community.”

The article even links to their YouTube channel, KoverBoys. I am amazed! Will some of you be in the New York Times next year? You can read the whole thing by clicking on the picture.

Maryland and California Share Record For Most Openly LGBT Electeds

Congressman-elect David Cicilline (RI-01)

Last night was a big night for openly LGBT candidates, with the most ever being elected nationwide, including a fourth openly gay member of Congress in David Cicilline, the openly gay mayor of Providence, Rhode Island who was elected to represent the 1st Congressional District. The other openly LGBT members of Congress are Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jared Polis (D-CO) and Barney Frank (D-MA).

There are now five African Amererican LGBT state representatives around the country: Simone Bell (GA), Mary Washington (MD), Marcus Brandon (NC), Jason Bartlett (CT) and Gordon Fox (RI). Two states have the largest LGBT legislative contingents ever: seven in both Maryland and California.

Maryland: Senator Rich Madaleno (D-18) and Delegates Maggie McIntosh (D-43), Heather Mizeur (D-20), and Anne Kaiser (D-14), Bonnie Cullison (D-19), Mary Washington (D-43), and Luke Clippinger (D-46)

California: Senators Mark Leno (SD-3) and Christine Kehoe (SD-39), Assemblymembers John Perez (AD-46), Ricardo Lara (AD-50), Tom Ammiano (AD-13), Toni Atkins (AD-76) and Rich Gordon (AD-21)

LGBT history gets made every day..

Hat/tip to Denis Dison of the Victory Fund. 

Obama Breaks Clinton's Record of 140 Openly Gay Presidential Appointees

Amanda Simpson, first openly transgender
Presidential appointee in history

Less than two years into his first Presidential term, Barack Obama has broken Bill Clinton's record of the number of appointees to the federal government with over 150 openly LGBT people in his administration so far.

Back in the 1990s when Clinton was president he made history by appointing the first openly gay person to a position requiring United States Senate approval, Roberta Achtenberg, to be assistant to the secretary for Housing and Urban Development. Noted homphobic Senator, Jesse Helms (R-NC), opposed the nomination and called Achtenberg a "damned lesbian" and "militant extremist" while he tried to stall and kill the appointment.

Now Obama has reached a historic level of 150 openly LGBT appointees in less than 2 years when it took Clinton 8 years to reach 140 openly gay and lesbian appointees.

From the Los Angeles Times report:

Gay activists, among Obama's strongest supporters, had hoped he would be the first to appoint an openly gay Cabinet secretary. While that hasn't happened — yet — Obama did appoint the highest-ranking gay official ever when he named John Berry as director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the nation's 1.9 million federal workers.

Other prominent names include Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Fred Hochberg, chairman of the Export-Import Bank. Obama also named Amanda Simpson, the first openly transgender appointee, as a senior technical adviser in the Commerce Department. And David Huebner, ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, is the third openly gay ambassador in U.S. history.

White House spokesman Shin Inouye confirmed the record number, saying Obama has hired more gay officials than the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations combined. He said Obama "is proud that his appointments reflect the diversity of the American public."

"He is committed to appointing highly qualified individuals for each post," Inouye said. "We have made a record number of openly LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) appointments and we are confident that this number will only continue to grow."

Progress takes time, and occurs in different areas (administrative instead of legislative) at different rates.

Cross-posted from The Mad Professah Lectures.

Google Staffers: It Gets Better

Here's a(nother) connection between Google and LGBT Rights. Staffers at Google have posted their own video contribution to the It Gets Better project. A nice thing to view on Spirit Day 2010!

New Report Estimates LGB Population In U.S. At 9%

The Williams Institute at UCLA Law School, a think tank devoted to sexual orientation law and public policy, has released a report (pdf) which analyzes national demographic surveys to tease out interesting information about the national lesbian, gay and bisexual population.

From the Executive Summary:

Data from the 2008 General Social Survey (GSS) indicate that nearly 9% of adults either identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual or report having had same‐sex sexual experiences as an adult. Although 90% of LGB people are out about their identity to other people, only 25% report being out to all of their coworkers in the workplace. The data show that bisexuals differ in several ways from those who identify as gay or lesbian, including being much less likely to be out or have a high school diploma and being much more likely to be women and/or racial or ethnic minorities.

Surveys that ask questions about sexual orientation and behavior are rare. Among the few surveys that ask these questions, few are representative of the US population. Even rarer is information about the coming out process from such surveys. As a result, little is known about how and if thinking of oneself as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, or experiencing same‐sex sexual behaviors and telling others about one’s sexual orientation or behavior varies by sex, age, race/ethnicity, and educational attainment.

The General Social Survey (GSS), conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, has monitored social and demographic changes in the United States since 1972. The 2008 GSS marks the first time that survey participants were asked about their sexual orientation (prior surveys had only asked about same‐sex sexual behavior). The 2008 survey also includes a module of questions (added with the financial support of the Williams Institute) directed at sexual minorities that ask about the experience of coming out, relationship status and family structure, workplace and housing discrimination, and health insurance coverage.

Other significant results that are included in the report are:

·        1.7% of adults self-identified as gay or lesbian and 1.1% self-identified as bisexual

·        More than 3 in 4 lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) adults say that they were first attracted to someone of the same-sex before they were 18 years old.

·        Women are more likely than men to be LGB (4.6% vs. 2.9%).    They are twice as likely to be bisexual than men (1.9% v. 0.7%, respectively).

·        Younger people are more likely to  be LGB.  7.2% of those aged 18-30 are LGB compared with 3.8% of those aged 30-54 and 1.4% of those aged 55 and older. (emphasis added)

·         Gay men and lesbians are more likely than bisexuals to be out to at least some people (96% vs. 75%, respectively).

·         Older people are much more likely to be in the closet .   Adults over the age of 55 are 83 times more likely than those under 30 to have never come out to another person.

·         Bisexuals are more likely to be a racial/ethnic minority than heterosexuals, gay men, or lesbians.   More than half of bisexuals are non-white compared to approximately 30% of heterosexuals, gay men and lesbian.  The racial and ethnic characteristics of gay men, lesbians, and heterosexuals are similar to each other.

The author of the report is Williams Distinguished Scholar Dr. Gary Gates who says:

"These provocative findings demonstrate the challenge in understanding the

complex relationship between sexual orientation identity and behavior.

Given that nearly half of Americans still believe that homosexual

relationships are morally wrong, it is not surprising to find ambiguity

between how people behave sexually and how they identify their sexual

orientation."

Cross-posted from The Mad Professah Lectures

New Report Estimates LGB Population In U.S. At 9%

The Williams Institute at UCLA Law School, a think tank devoted to sexual orientation law and public policy, has released a report (pdf) which analyzes national demographic surveys to tease out interesting information about the national lesbian, gay and bisexual population.

From the Executive Summary:

Data from the 2008 General Social Survey (GSS) indicate that nearly 9% of adults either identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual or report having had same‐sex sexual experiences as an adult. Although 90% of LGB people are out about their identity to other people, only 25% report being out to all of their coworkers in the workplace. The data show that bisexuals differ in several ways from those who identify as gay or lesbian, including being much less likely to be out or have a high school diploma and being much more likely to be women and/or racial or ethnic minorities.

Surveys that ask questions about sexual orientation and behavior are rare. Among the few surveys that ask these questions, few are representative of the US population. Even rarer is information about the coming out process from such surveys. As a result, little is known about how and if thinking of oneself as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, or experiencing same‐sex sexual behaviors and telling others about one’s sexual orientation or behavior varies by sex, age, race/ethnicity, and educational attainment.

The General Social Survey (GSS), conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, has monitored social and demographic changes in the United States since 1972. The 2008 GSS marks the first time that survey participants were asked about their sexual orientation (prior surveys had only asked about same‐sex sexual behavior). The 2008 survey also includes a module of questions (added with the financial support of the Williams Institute) directed at sexual minorities that ask about the experience of coming out, relationship status and family structure, workplace and housing discrimination, and health insurance coverage.

Other significant results that are included in the report are:

·        1.7% of adults self-identified as gay or lesbian and 1.1% self-identified as bisexual

·        More than 3 in 4 lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) adults say that they were first attracted to someone of the same-sex before they were 18 years old.

·        Women are more likely than men to be LGB (4.6% vs. 2.9%).    They are twice as likely to be bisexual than men (1.9% v. 0.7%, respectively).

·        Younger people are more likely to  be LGB.  7.2% of those aged 18-30 are LGB compared with 3.8% of those aged 30-54 and 1.4% of those aged 55 and older. (emphasis added)

·         Gay men and lesbians are more likely than bisexuals to be out to at least some people (96% vs. 75%, respectively).

·         Older people are much more likely to be in the closet .   Adults over the age of 55 are 83 times more likely than those under 30 to have never come out to another person.

·         Bisexuals are more likely to be a racial/ethnic minority than heterosexuals, gay men, or lesbians.   More than half of bisexuals are non-white compared to approximately 30% of heterosexuals, gay men and lesbian.  The racial and ethnic characteristics of gay men, lesbians, and heterosexuals are similar to each other.

The author of the report is Williams Distinguished Scholar Dr. Gary Gates who says:

"These provocative findings demonstrate the challenge in understanding the

complex relationship between sexual orientation identity and behavior.

Given that nearly half of Americans still believe that homosexual

relationships are morally wrong, it is not surprising to find ambiguity

between how people behave sexually and how they identify their sexual

orientation."

Cross-posted from The Mad Professah Lectures.

Dan Savage's It Gets Better Video Project To End Gay Suicide

Openly gay activist and sex-advice columnist Dan Savage has been encouraging LGBT people who have had bad experiences in high school to post videos to YouTube.com called the "It Gets Better" project. The first one, made by Dan and his husband Terry is below.

The idea is stop gay teen suicides by letting them know if they can just make it through high school, life gets better.

WATCH: MI Public Official Cyber-Bullies Openly Gay UM Student

This is one of the most bizarre stories you will ever see. A public official, Michigan Assistant Attorney General Tom Shirvell, has been electronically harassing the 21-year-old, openly gay, elected student body president of University of Michigan, Chris Armstrong. CNN's Anderson Cooper interviewed Shirvell. Watch what happens.




Cross-posted from The Mad Professah Lectures

Latina Lesbian Named To Colorado Supreme Court

Cross posted from The Mad Professah Lectures

Monica Marquez, 41, has been  named by Democratic governor Bill Ritter to become the first out lesbian and first Latina to be on the Colorado Supreme Court.

"It is not because Monica is a Latina or because she is gay," Ritter said, according to The Denver Post. "I chose her because of her analytical ability and her keen intellect."

Interestingly, Oregon CURRENTLY has two openly gay State Supreme Court Justices, Virgina Linder and   Rives Kustler.

Hat/tip to Nan Hunter