Our client is a courageous teenager who is choosing not to accept the current plea offer by the State of Florida.

This is a situation of two teenagers who happen to be of the same sex involved in a relationship. If this case involved a boy and girl, there would be no media attention to this case. [...]

If this incident occurred 108 days earlier when she was 17, we wouldn’t even be here. [...]

Along with Kaitlyn and her family, we are going to fight to have the law changed so no other teenager finds themselves in this same position created by the State of Florida and prosecuted unfairly.

Kaitlyn’s father, Steven Hunt Jr.,  explained this week that the charges seem to stem entirely from the parents of her girlfriend, who knew of the relationship, but waited until Kaitlyn turned 18 to object. According to Hunt, “Kate has offered to permanently cease contact and leave the state if charges are dropped, but that offer has been rejected by the prosecutor and the girlfriend’s parents.”

Over 270,000 people have signed a Change.org petition started by Hunt calling on Assistant State Attorney Brian Workman to stop Kaitlyn’s prosecution. The ACLU of Florida has condemned the prosecution, pointing out that it’s “a life sentence for behavior by teenagers that is all too common” and that “one cannot seriously maintain that Kaitlyn’s behavior was predatory.”

BROWN: Today is a sad day for the Boy Scouts of America. They have succumbed to political pressure and abandoned their historic roots in what will prove to be a failed attempt to appease gay activists and corporate donors. Unfortunately, what they have done is said to the world that their oath no longer means much. Their decision to admit openly gay scouts will end up sexualizing the organization.

I am certain that having changed their policy on homosexuality, it’s only a matter of time before courts order them to admit homosexual scout leaders. Meanwhile, countless thousands of churches will very likely pull their sponsorship rather than endorse homosexuality, and the entire organization will begin to collapse. All of this is happening not because of a true grassroots demand of gay youth to be part of the organization but by an orchestrated political effort by gay activists who want to punish any group or organization that does not embrace homosexuality. It’s the beginning of the end for what once was one of America’s noblest organizations.

The Boy Scouts’ former policy, which remains in place for adult leaders, was such that Scouts were kicked out not for engaging in sexual activity with the same sex, but for even admitting that they are gay. NOM’s claim that ending this discrimination will “end up sexualizing the organization” reinforces the narrow views that being gay is only defined by sexual behavior and that gay men are, in fact, obsessed with sex.

Furthermore, the implication that “thousands of churches” will pull their sponsorship of Boy Scout troops suggests that those churches only supported the organization because it was anti-gay. It reduces Christianity to a one-belief religion, and that beliefs, “No gays allowed.” Such preposterous predictions are an insult to all churches who work with the Scouts, whether they supported the discriminatory policy or not, and ignores the other noncontroversial values the Scouts espouse.

NOM’s decision to engage in an issue outside their mission merely because involved the inclusion of the gay community further reflects how the group works against LGBT people, not for marriage.

Gallagher campaigning for Rick Santorum in 2012. (Credit: Lathan Goumas, MLive.com)

Earlier this week, Maggie Gallagher tried to assert that championing heterosexuality does not denigrate gay people, even though her specific goal in doing so is to deny them the same legal protections of marriage. In a follow-up post at the National Review also excerpted by the National Organization for Marriage, Gallagher doubled down on this claim, even unflinchingly quoting ThinkProgress’s response. The guise of her post was an explanation of why infertile straight couples should still be allowed to marry — they are “part of the natural lifecycle of marriage” — but she then directly responded to ThinkProgress’s argument:

Marriage equality is going to be used primarily to enforce the new moral norm: no differences between straight and gay can matter.  Or as Think Progress put it recently “At a basic level, it’s logically impossible to say that heterosexuality is better — or should be the norm — compared to homosexuality without simultaneously stating that homosexuality is worse — or abnormal. Either all people are equal in society or they are not; she cannot have her straights-only wedding cake and eat it stigma-free.”

It is possible to affirm an ideal without stigmatizing the alternatives — to affirm in the positive without pushing the negative.  But gay marriage advocates insist that any affirmation of the ideal represents a denigration of them, no matter how expressed.

The problem with Gallagher’s argument is that she does push the negative. There would be no need to highlight her attempts to justify heterosexism if she were not also justifying the idea that the gay community should be denied access to the securities and benefits of marriage.

Conservatives have exerted an incredible amount of effort to find talking points that oppose same-sex marriage without sounding anti-gay. In fact, they have found ways to talk about their position on marriage without even mentioning gay people. As a consequence, they’ve painted themselves into some amusing rhetorical corners, arguing that even straight adoption is inferior (though they don’t oppose it) and marriage somehow keeps older men from cheating on their post-menopausal wives. But despite their best claims to not be bigots, their motives continue to focus on relegating the gay community to second-class status.

Gallagher, NOM, and other conservatives regularly mention other values they have regarding marriage besides not allowing gay people access, such as opposition to divorce. But they don’t campaign against divorce — only marriage equality. If Gallagher truly does not want to perpetuate stigma against gay people, then she should discourage any attempt to codify her “ideal” into exclusive laws that discriminate.

Illinois’ current law requires sex ed classes to emphasize abstinence as “the expected norm,” and stipulates that “course material and instruction shall stress that pupils should abstain from sexual intercourse until they are ready for marriage.” Public schools can choose between teaching abstinence-only education, using a mix of stressing abstinence while providing comprehensive information about birth control and condoms, or simply declining to provide any sex ed instruction. Under HB 2675, schools won’t be able to choose the abstinence-only option anymore — they’ll need to either offer comprehensive information about prevention methods, or decide not to offer any sex ed courses whatsoever.

State Sen. Linda Holmes (D) spearheaded the measure because she doesn’t believe that abstinence-only curricula adequately equips teens with the resources they need to safeguard their sexual health. “In fantasy land, we teach our kids abstinence — and they listen. But we know they don’t necessarily follow that advice,” Holmes explained. “They are going to be confronted with the issue of sex before they’re 21 years old, or 25, or whenever they decide to get married.”

Holmes is right. By their 19th birthday, seven in ten American teens will have had sex. And even the Americans who grow up in socially conservative communities aren’t delaying sex until marriage — by some estimates, 80 percent of unmarried evangelical Christians have had sex at least once. But when those young people become sexually active, they often don’t understand how to effectively protect themselves. Since abstinence-only classes often mislead students about the facts about contraception, 60 percent of young adults underestimate birth control’s effectiveness and are more likely to skip it because they don’t believe it will make a difference.

Abstinence education can also have lasting consequences for adolescents’ sense of self-worth. Because messages emphasizing abstinence and sexual purity often teach students that sexual activity is something be ashamed of, the youth who receive those messages may internalize those feelings of guilt and shame.

While banning abstinence-only education is a step in the right direction, HB 2675 still allows Illinois schools to opt out of providing any type of sexual health education. Luckily, some school districts in the state have already taken matters into their own hands to ensure their students will receive the information they need. Chicago’s public school system recently instituted a standardized policy for requiring age-appropriate comprehensive sexual health information in every grade.

Politicians

Anti-LGBT Activists

The Scout law embraces the values of being “helpful, friendly, courteous, and kind.” It is a shame that those who claim Scouting has abandoned its moral code so blatantly violate its most important provisions.

- The Employment Non-Discrimination Act won’t advance until July.

- Does Google translate “gayest” to mean “worst”?

- The word “undetectable” is used a lot to discuss a person’s HIV status, but its meaning is not used consistently.

- The suspect in the hate crime murder of New York City gay man Mark Carson is planning to plead “not guilty” because “he was sexually abused as a child by a male authority figure,” according to his lawyer.

- This week, the White House recognized ten Harvey Milk Champions of Change.

- Watch: New York University awarded Defense of Marriage Act challenger Edie Windsor (Class of 1957) with its Presidential Medal (starts at 34:51).

Former Den Leader Jen Tyrrell and former Boy Scout George Takei protest the BSA's anti-gay ban, at the 2012 New York City Pride parade

The roughly 1,400 voting members of the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) National Council voted 61-38 percent Thursday to end the ban on gay youth participating in the program, but reaffirmed their policy of mandatory discrimination against LGBT leaders and volunteers.

The move — suggested by the national leadership as an attempted compromise — represents a modest step forward, but still comes as a disappointment to the thousands of Eagle Scouts,1.8 million Change.org petition signers, and the 56 percent of Americans who want the BSA to end its anti-LGBT discrimination.

While the policy change will permit openly gay Scouts like Ryan Andresen to receive their Eagle Scout awards, it will still prevent openly lesbian parents like former Cub Scout Den Leader Jen Tyrrell from volunteering with their parent’s Scout units.

BSA President Wayne Perry wrote, in a USA Today op-ed Wednesday, that allowing LGBT leaders “would have conflicted with the majority of our partners, 70% of which are religious organizations, and would have disrupted our ability to deliver Scouting.” But in the same statement, he noted, the organization was “unaware of any major religious chartered organization that believes a youth member simply stating he or she is attracted to the same sex, but not engaging in sexual activity, should make him or her unwelcome in their congregation.”

This admission and the rule change seem to contradict the BSA’s long-standing rationale that “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirements in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed, and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts.” By finally admitting that being LGBT is not, itself, incompatible with being “morally straight” or “clean,” the justification for excluding adults purely on the basis of their sexual orientation seems to now be reduced to “some religious organizations prefer discrimination.”

The BSA’s Honorary President Barack Obama and former BSA national board member Mitt Romney agreed in their 2012 presidential campaign that the organization should stop discriminating based on sexual orientation — a view shared by corporate CEOs and more than 7,000 Eagle Scouts.

Today the Nevada Assembly voted 27-14 to approve a constitutional amendment that would repeal the 2002 amendment banning same-sex marriage. Combined with the Senate approval from April, this completes the amendment’s first phase of approval. Both chambers must approve the measure a second time during 2015 legislative session, following which it will be advanced to the ballot in November, 2016.

Unless a constitutional amendment is repealed in the interim in another state, Nevada would be the first state to repeal its own constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

ROBS PARENTS of their authority to address issues of sexuality:

Parents properly have the exclusive right to raise issues of sex and sexuality with their children when they think it best for their child and family, and to not have it brought up by older openly gay boys around a campfire.

This argument essentially uses the closet as a weapon against gay youth. The intention is to prevent young people from learning that gay people exist, using “parents’ rights” as a straw man to justify. The argument also relies on other anti-gay stereotypes often included in arguments against gay Scouts, such as the idea that a same-sex orientation is only defined by sexual behavior.

Children of any age can learn about sexual diversity without learning about sex. Many will grow up with parents of the same sex, or with classmates who have same-sex parents. FRC is reinforcing that it is not “best” for children to learn that gay people exist — essentially forcing a closet of invisibility upon the entire gay community.

Polls have consistently shown that knowing gay people helps individuals become more comfortable with LGBT issues and thus more favorable. FRC has to oppose that visibility at every turn, because their scare tactics depend on the fear they can perpetuate when people know less about homosexuality.

GOP nominee for Virginia Lieutenant Governor E.W. Jackson (Credit: AP)

If you were to put the dregs of conservative Internet comment sections into a pot, boil them down to their essence, then run the resulting product through a sieve to get it to its rawest, most pure form of vitriol, it would probably look something like E.W. Jackson’s Twitter feed.

Through much of President Obama’s first term, Jackson, who was nominated this past weekend as the Republican nominee for Virginia Lieutenant Governor, used his Twitter feed to attack gays, Muslims, Obama, and even Michael Jackson.

After reading through each of his 662 tweets, here are Jackson’s 20 most vitriolic tweets (in no particular order):

Homophobia

Islamophobia

Vitriolic attacks on Obama and Democrats

Climate denial

Finally, on the death of Michael Jackson:

But this week’s given us a different kind of story about homophobia in sports, that of Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt. Raised in a conservative environment, playing professional baseball sent Affeldt to cities where he met actual gay people, and gave him experiences that broadened his horizons. In Cincinnati, a gay Starbucks employee welcomed Affeldt’s son. And as he came to know San Francisco, Affeldt also came to learn more about people who had previously frightened him so much that he literally hid from the public. As the AP reports:

The ex-military brat said Monday he was so uncomfortable in San Francisco that he would seclude himself. ”I didn’t leave my hotel room when we came to play the Giants or A’s. I didn’t want to go out or see anyone,” he said. ”There was a profession of being wrong. I’ve come to that from a deep angle. I’ll probably get a lot of flak from the church for it, but I believe I’m right.”…

”There’s a chapter in there of me coming to San Francisco and being hesitant because I had homophobia, and now I don’t,” he said. ”I see more San Francisco as a city of love and a city of passion and compassion. It’s unbelievable this city. To see that and to have my heart change as a city I didn’t ever want to come to, to a city that I’m so thankful I’m going to be part of for a long time, it talks about that. For me, it was an awesome deal.”

We normally think about sports in terms of their ability to give different kinds of people the opportunity to excel, and through that athletic success, to disprove stereotypes about, say, the masculinity of gay men, or the temperament of African-Americans. But sports also put us in the stands with people who are different from us, and take young men and women to places that they might never have been able to afford to go, or brave enough to go, on their own, and expose them to ideas and people they might otherwise have never encountered. Someone like Chris Kluwe might have come into the NFL a straight ally, but if Major League Baseball turned Affeldt into one, and specifically into someone who is publicly reconciling his Christian faith and his renunciation of homophobia, that speaks to the power of professional sports to change minds in a very different ways.

Tony Perkins echoed this ominous sentiment in the Family Research Council’s Washington Update Wednesday:

When the Justice Department is done violating journalists’ First Amendment rights, it looks like they’ll move on to employees’. In a chilling memo to DOJ staff, the Obama administration is warning managers that they’d better start embracing homosexuality–or else. The email, which a Justice employee leaked to Liberty Counsel, is a scary reminder of how far this administration will go to crush free speech and expression in America.

The full brochure can be read online. Here are some of the tips — suggestions, not rules — that Barber and Perkins object to and the context they leave out to make them sound more chilling:

• DON’T judge or remain silent. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval. What neither Barber or Perkins mention is that this is advice given under the heading, “Know how to respond if an employee comes out to you.” The converse suggestion is, “DO respond with interest and curiosity. Asking respectful questions will set a positive, supportive tone.”
• DO use a transgender person’s chosen name and the pronoun that is consistent with the person’s self-identified gender. Barber admits he believes this basic respect for a person’s identity constitutes lying. Objecting to this suggestion is blatant transphobia, more of which is apparent throughout the rest of his post.
• DO assume that LGBT employees and their allies are listening to what you’re saying (whether in a meeting or around the proverbial water cooler) and will read what you’re writing (whether in a casual email or in a formal document), and make sure the language you use is inclusive and respectful. This has nothing to do with spying. It’s simply encouraging individuals to avoid making a joke or snide comment about LGBT people and assuming it’ll never get back to them.
• DO communicate a zero-tolerance policy for inappropriate jokes and comments, including those pertaining to a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. Apparently encouraging people not to be rude and offensive constitutes chilling their free speech.

Though it is a bottom-up document with no enforcement whatsoever, the mere thought of creating an LGBT-inclusive workplace is apparently quiet disconcerting to these conservatives. Perkins even jabs, “Imagine the level of workplace harassment Christians would face if viewpoint coercion were official U.S. policy” — i.e. if the Employment Non-Discrimination Act were passed into law. Of course, if a guide were put out with suggestions for not harassing Christians, that would conceivably be just as chilling to free speech, at least by their standards.

Perkins takes exception that LGBT equality is about “forced acceptance,” but as blogger Alvin McEwen points out, it’s actually about “respect for a fellow human being.” Groups like Liberty Counsel and FRC specifically do not want LGBT employees to enjoy basic respect in the workplace, and that’s one of many reasons they are designated as hate groups.

BRIDENSTINE: I rise today as an Eagle Scout and one who has a stake in the future of our Scouting programs. Some of us in America still believe in the concept of sexual morality, that sex is intended for one man and one woman within the institution of marriage. Organizations that hold this philosophy and promote it among our youth should be commended, or at least you would think, tolerated. Unfortunately, the intolerant Left bullies and browbeats private organizations like the Boy Scouts into accepting their philosophy. Notice they didn’t start their own organization. They went after the Boy Scouts of America.

The Left’s agenda is not about tolerance, and it’s not about diversity of thought. It’s about presenting a worldview of relativism, where there is no right and wrong. Then using the full force of the government to silence opposition and reshape organizations like the Boy Scouts into instruments for social change.

To my friends on the Left, this is not tolerance. but here’s the good news about true tolerance. The most tolerant one of all has the ability to redeem us all.

Watch it (HT: Towleroad):

Bridenstine’s insinuation is that homosexuality is wrong, and gay people should not be able to participate equally in their communities. It’s unclear how such a philosophy constitutes “tolerance” or an embrace of “diversity.”

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee had the opportunity to consider changes to the immigration reform bill that would have provided much needed relief to same-sex binational couples.  Those changes would have improved the bill by staying true to the core principles of the bill by ensuring family unity is at the heart of the nation’s immigration laws and policies.

At the end of the mark-up, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) offered an amendment to recognize same-sex spouses for family based immigration sponsorship, a provision that has also been proposed before in a separate bill as the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA). Committee Republicans drew a line in the sand, however, and declared that the amendment’s inclusion would destroy Republican support for the entire bill. Rather than jeopardize the bill’s passage, the Chairman withdrew the amendment from consideration.

Although Republican opposition to including this provision — which would end discrimination in immigration against LGBT families — was  extremely disappointing, the bill heads to the Senate floor with a number of  important provisions that will benefit all LGBT immigrants. These provisions include:

• Most importantly, creating a path to citizenship for the estimated 267,000 undocumented immigrants who identify as LGBT. Recent research has shown that at least 267,000 of the 11 million undocumented people living in the United States identify as LGBT.  The Senate bill’s path to citizenship means better wages, greater employment security, and access to critical social services for undocumented LGBT immigrants.
• Ending the one-year ban on asylum. The right to seek asylum in the United States is important in order to protect LGBT people around the world from persecution.  Without the bill, many credible asylum claims are rejected since LGBT asylum seekers often miss the one-year filing deadline, either because they do not know that sexual orientation and gender-based persecution are grounds for seeking asylum or they do not feel safe disclosing their LGBT status to government officials so soon after arriving in the United States.  This key provision withstood numerous attacks from Committee Republicans yesterday.
• Prohibiting the use of solitary confinement based on an immigration detainee’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Prolonged solitary confinement has been used on LGBT detainees under the guise of protecting them.  The bill would explicitly end the harmful practice of placing immigrants in solitary confinement because of their sexual orientation and gender identity and ensure that solitary confinement is only used in extreme circumstances.
• Limiting the use of detention and increasing the use of less restrictive alternatives. LGBT detainees are often subjected to increased rates of discrimination, mistreatment, and abuse in immigration detention, both at the hands of fellow detainees and by guards.  Limiting the use of detention to when it is absolutely necessary and promoting the use of less restrictive alternatives for immigrants who are not a flight risk protects LGBT immigrants from the dangers they face in detention.

Although protections for families headed by same-sex couples were not included in the committee’s bill, the fight is not over. UAFA could be introduced again as an amendment to the bill on the Senate floor in the coming weeks. But beyond Congress, there are opportunities in the two other branches of the federal government to provide relief to same-sex binational couples.

The Supreme Court will soon hand down its decision on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). If the court finds DOMA unconstitutional, the federal government will then be able to recognize same-sex spouses as they do different-sex spouses for all federal benefits and protections, including for family-based immigration sponsorship.

Even if DOMA remains on the books, however, President Obama has the authority to use the prosecutorial discretion outlined by his administration in June 2011, which stated Immigration and Customs Enforcement would focus its resources on deporting criminals and persons who are a threat to public safety, and not on tearing apart law-abiding family members. The administration later clarified that its definition of family included long-term same-sex binational couples. As Congress continues to debate commonsense immigration reform, the Obama Administration should keep true to this principle and focus on keeping families together, including LGBT families.

- Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) has signed into law hate crimes protections for transgender people.

- The Puerto Rico Senate has approved a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

- Gay men can now donate blood in Canada, but only if they haven’t had sex in five years.

- Some British ministers believe that Christian employment and marriage equality are incompatible.

- Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) and NYPD Chief Ray Kelly held a joint conference earlier this week to address the spate of anti-gay hate crimes sweeping New York City:

(Credit: Queerty)

The County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health wants to help promote safer sex practices by passing out one million and one condoms by the end of this year. In order to accomplish that goal, city officials are hitting the road — in a 40-foot “condom mobile” featuring the images of professional athletes reminding people to “suit up.”

Last year, the county’s health department sponsored its first-ever condom contest to give residents the opportunity to design an official Los Angeles branded condom wrapper. And now, the new bus will be handing out free condoms packaged in the winning design. The county has also partnered with local LGBT intramural sports leagues that will help them distribute additional free condoms.

This isn’t the first creative initiative to address California’s rising STD rates by expanding access and exposure to prevention methods. A new state-sponsored initiative called the “Condom Access Project” makes it easier for California teens tp obtain sexual health resources by allowing them to order free condoms online. And Los Angeles voters recently endorsed a measure requiring adult film stars to wear condoms on screen.

Education campaigns about safer sex may be especially necessary since not all of California’s students are receiving that type of instruction in school. Last year, the ACLU sued a Fresno County school for failing to provide accurate sexual health education to students. Students there were taught that sexually transmitted infections can be prevented by going out in groups with friends and getting plenty of rest.

I personally still cherish the hope that we can as a society eliminate cruel homophobia without jettisoning heteronormativity — which is the need for social norms and institutions to be oriented strongly around the problem and the blessing that sex between men and women makes babies.

But so far, the disconnect between sex, marriage, and babies proceeds rapidly apace.

There are two problems with Gallagher’s argument. At a basic level, it’s logically impossible to say that heterosexuality is better — or should be the norm — compared to homosexuality without simultaneously stating that homosexuality is worse — or abnormal. Either all people are equal in society or they are not; she cannot have her straights-only wedding cake and eat it stigma-free.

More importantly, the two examples she cites are people with particularly anti-gay attitudes. Broussard said live on ESPN that gay people are “walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ,” then proceeded to not apologize for it. Ben Carson, speaking live on Fox News, compared homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality, then doubled down on it, then only later apologized for his “poorly chosen words.” If Gallagher truly wants to “eliminate cruel homophobia,” perhaps she could start by not defending it.

There are still 29 states where a person can be fired for being gay, but Illinois is not one of them. Nevertheless, it seems that Exxon Mobil attempted to discriminate against a prospective employee in that state merely because the individual identified as gay, instead proactively pursuing a less qualified straight candidate for the same position. This was no mere circumstance, but an intentional experiment run by the organization Freedom to Work, which is now suing Exxon Mobil for violating the Illinois Human Rights Act.

According to the complaint, Freedom to Work began its testing after Exxon Mobil refused to adopt a nondiscrimination policy that included protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. Despite the unfair treatment, a spokesman for the oil giant, Charles Engelmann, doubled down on the claim that the company doesn’t discriminate:

ENGELMANN: Exxon Mobil’s global policies and processes prohibit all forms of discrimination, including those based on sexual orientation and gender identity, in any company workplace, anywhere in the world. In fact, our policies go well beyond the law and prohibit any form of discrimination.

Exxon Mobil’s actions tell a different story. It has the distinction of being the first company to ever earn a negative score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. Not only do none of its policies protect LGBT employees, but the company also engages in activities that undermine LGBT equality. It claims to have a “Corporate Citizenship Report” with a “zero-tolerance” policy for anti-LGBT discrimination, but that document does not have the same legal force as an actual Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) statement. Mobil had such a statement, but when the two companies merged in 1999, Exxon stripped it away. When shareholders attempted to introduce an LGBT-inclusive EEO statement last year, Exxon Mobil actually tried to block it from coming up for a vote. Though they were unsuccessful at blocking the vote, it was overwhelmingly defeated by 80 percent of shareholders.

If Exxon Mobil believes that its “zero-tolerance” policy truly protects its LGBT employees, this lawsuit might just be the perfect test to find out.

As Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld supported the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” recognizing that the time for open service in the military “had arrived.” In an interview with Larry King, however, Rumsfeld explained that he doesn’t support marriage equality, because he’s concerned it will lead to polygamy. He also doesn’t believe marriage is a civil right:

KING: Do you support same-sex marriage?

RUMSFELD: You know, I’m, I guess, of a generation that I don’t — I wonder — I listened to some of the Supreme Court justices and one of them said, ‘Well what’s next after that? Is it two people, three people?‘

KING: But you were a strong supporter of civil rights in Congress — I remember that.

RUMSFELD: You bet I was, throughout the 60s. I was proud of the work that the Congress did in the 1964 legislation and 1965 legislation. I guess I just don’t equate the two, and it’s not a subject I’m knowledgeable about. I guess the Rumsfeld here is: I don’t know.

Watch it:

(Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Over five days of intensive and sometimes emotional debate, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the first hurdle of advancing the immigration legislation by reaching a 13-5 vote on Tuesday night, with Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) siding with the Democrats who voted unanimously. The measure will move to floor debate in June.

Of the 161 amendments offered during markup, the panel accepted numerous provisions to strengthen the bill, while keeping out any poison pills that could endanger the legislation. Below is a list of how the Senate Judiciary Committee improved immigration reform:

1. Racial profiling serves as a disincentive to prosecute an individual. Blumenthal 10 would prohibit federal government from reimbursing local detentions and prosecutions that were found to have come through racial profiling.

2. Children would be treated humanely. The Committee unanimously approved Franken 7, which provides a range of protections for children separated from their parents or guardians who are being deported. Hirono 22, as amended, would protect children trafficking victims by making sure that all unaccompanied children are provided care by the Office of Refugee Resettlement within three days of their apprehension while Feinstein 6 would allow children to receive both emergency and adequate medical and mental health care and basic necessities like food and bedding. Coons 2 will also limit dangerous deportation practices like dropping people off in the middle of the night.

4. Back taxes and penalties can be paid in an installment plan. Undocumented immigrants have to pay fines and back taxes before achieving legal status. Hirono 12 allows those fines to be paid in installments.

5. An expedited path to citizenship offered through military service.
Blumenthal 12 will allow an expedited path to citizenship for DREAMers who want to join the military. This amendment will allow individuals in temporary legal status to apply for naturalization after they have honorably served in the military.

6. Federal aid for DREAMers. Hirono 21 would allow DREAMers to access some student loans and federal work study programs. They would not be eligible for Pell grants, however.

7. Streamlining E-Verify so that employers and employees can have assurance of its accuracy. The Senate bill requires employers to use E-Verify and three key amendments help address privacy concerns associated with the system’s accuracy. Blumenthal 18 prohibits employers from withholding employment-relevant records from employees. Coons 1 requires the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to put in place a system that would allow employees to know whether they have been confirmed or denied by the E-Verify system. Franken 2 also requires a study of accuracy rates.

8. Humane treatment for detained immigrants. Blumenthal 2 limits ICE’s policy of using solitary confinement and explicitly prohibits the use of solitary confinement to “protect” a detainee based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

9. More visas for sub-Saharan Africa and Caribbean countries. Responding to concerns from the African American community, who feared that the loss of the diversity visa program would impact immigration from African and Caribbean countries, Schumer 3 adds 10,000 nonimmigrant E Visas for certain nations in sub-Saharan Africa and Caribbean countries.

A number of anti-gay bills related to education died in the Tennessee legislature this year, but lawmakers did designate August 31 as “ido4life Traditional Marriage Day,” a day committed to condemning same-sex marriage.

Only after its viral distribution did conservative groups begin to issue statements. Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage was first, though he tried to distance the homophobia that prompted the crime from the homophobia NOM promotes daily. He also suggested that opponents of marriage equality are equally persecuted:

We condemn in the strongest possible way the murder of a gay man in New York by a killer who apparently hurled anti-gay insults at him moments before the killing. This senseless act cannot be condoned in America or anywhere, and we urge that the perpetrator be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Our heart goes out to the family of the victim, and we hold them in our prayers. While this killing appears to have no connection to the current debate about redefining marriage, there is no room for violence toward any American — whether they support traditional marriage or not. No person should be subjected to violence because they are gay or lesbian or because they believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. There is no place for violence, period.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council followed suit, issuing a statement that was narrowly distributed via email and has since been published:

We denounce any and all acts of unprovoked violence. No American should be the target of violence – period. We hope and trust that justice will be served in that the perpetrator of this senseless act of violence will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Other conservatives were more cruel in their response. Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel chose to chide LGBT activists for politicizing the shooting, tweeting Monday, “That didn’t take long. Let no tragedy go to waste, eh?”He did condemn the murder, describing the murderer not as homophobic, but as psychotic. Of course, he has done plenty to politicize the FRC shooting, using it to target the Southern Poverty Law Center’s labeling of hate groups — a label he once wore as a “badge of honor.”

The American Family Association has yet to say anything about Carson’s murder or the rash of anti-gay hate crimes in New York. Instead, its OneNewsNow service ran a story Tuesday about Christians being persecuted in China. OneNewsNow regularly includes content fed from the Associated Press and outside sources, so it’s likely an editorial decision was made to feature one and not the other.  Violent persecution anywhere is wrong, but it seems AFA, which also attacked the SPLC over the FRC shooting, prioritizes some stories over others.

Homophobia and transphobia stem from notions that LGBT people are weak, less than, deviant, harmful to society, and deserve to be ostracized because of their identities. These are the very messages promoted by these conservative groups, which is why many of them have been labeled as hate groups. That they had to be prodded over several days to condemn a murderous hate crime — and many still haven’t — could indicate a lack of concern about anti-LGBT violence, but it could also suggest a subtle acknowledgment that the rhetoric they promote bears some responsibility in the first place.

- The Peace Corps will now accept applications from same-sex couples who wish to serve overseas together.

- Both President Clinton and President Obama have encouraged Illinois to pass marriage equality.

- Bob Vander Plaats of Iowa’s The FAMiLY Leader explains his opposition to same-sex marriage: “It’s awful.”

- Meet the closeted gay employee serving the Boy Scouts of America full time in silence.

- The British House of Commons voted 366-161 to give final approval to the marriage equality bill after amendments. (It passed the initial bill in February 400-175.) It will proceed to the House of Lords in the coming weeks.

- A new study finds widespread homophobia through the European Union — in school, work, and throughout daily life.

- A new study of Italy’s schools finds that 40 percent of straight students refuse to have gay friends.

- Graduating high school senior Ted Chalfen of Boulder, Colorado, spoke about how rewarding his school experience was because his classmates accepted him when he came out:

(Credit: Navajo AIDS Network)

A Navajo reservation on the Arizona-New Mexico border has seen its HIV diagnoses go up by 20 percent since 2011. Despite a concerted push by the federal Indian Health Service (IHS) and public health advocates to expand tribal HIV education programs, doctors have found treatment and prevention efforts to be stymied by cultural stigma surrounding the disease and homosexuality.

Since the Navajo tribe is a comparatively isolated population, the topline numbers of HIV infections among tribe members are relatively low, and at least part of the rise is attributable to enhanced screening efforts. However, that same seclusion allows stigma and the fear of community repercussion to prevent infected Navajo men from seeking care once they are diagnosed. “Our communities are very small, and that can lead to people avoiding stigma, rather than getting the care they need,” IHS chief medical officer Dr. Susan V. Karol told the New York Times.

In turn, that stigma can prevent tribe members from even discussing the disease and their various treatment and prevention options:

Melvin Harrison, the executive director of the Navajo AIDS Network, which provides services for tribal members with H.I.V., said that of the 65 people his group treats, a majority have not told family or friends.

“That’s how big the stigma is here,” he said. “They are afraid of rejection.” [...]

One Navajo man, who contracted H.I.V. from his partner in 2001, recalled how his mother refused to hug him and served him food on plastic plates when she found out he was infected. [...]

[The] man has not told his three brothers that he has H.I.V. because he fears they will shun him. “I don’t think I’ll ever tell them,” he said. “I don’t want to be pushed out of their lives.”

This dynamic devolves further due to the added stigma regarding homosexuality in the tribe. The IHS estimates that men who have sex with men (MSM) accounted for accounted for nearly half of the new cases since 2011, and 75 percent of the Navajo AIDS Network’s clients are closeted homosexual men.

But this tendency to sweep HIV infection under the rug presents a major barrier to an effective treatment regimen. Family and community awareness of the disease is an important tool for making sure that HIV-positive men are following through on their medications and checkups. Conversely, the desire to keep a diagnosis secret can create tensions in tribal doctor-patient relationships and contribute to treatment noncompliance. Teen mothers and mentally ill Americans have faced similar stigma, and have either forgone care or been denied access to adequate medical and social resources as a consequence.

For the Navajo community in particular, overcoming these archaic cultural mores is literally a matter of life and death. Although the medical reason for it remains ambiguous, researchers note that Native Indians diagnosed with HIV and AIDS have a lower chance of survival compared to other racial groups.

A significant point of contention in the immigration reform legislation currently undergoing mark-up in the Senate Judiciary Committee is whether individuals in binational same-sex couples should have the same right to sponsor their partners for citizenship as opposite-sex couples already enjoy. Because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriages and thus extends those couples no immigration benefits. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has been adamant about adding these protections to the bill through amendment versions of his Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), but Republicans like Sens. Marco Rubio (FL) and Lindsey Graham (SC) have made it clear the protections are a deal-breaker for reform.

Committee mark-up is nearing its end this week and Leahy’s amendments have still not been introduced. Sources suggest that President Obama encouraged Leahy not to introduce these amendments in committee, but save them for introduction on the floor of the full Senate. Obama has said publicly he believes that including protections for same-sex couples is the right thing to do, but UAFA would likely face an even bigger hurdle on the Senate floor than it would if included with the bill in committee.

Despite Republicans’ threats to let the inclusion of same-sex families derail the entire bill, several of the major conservative groups that support the bill also back UAFA’s protections. Some, like The DOMA Project’s Lavi Soloway, have called out Senate Democrats on the committee for caving to these threats rather than defend the gay community’s inclusion on principle. United Methodist Church Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño has suggested that any Senator willing to walk away from the bill over the inclusion of LGBT families “should be ashamed of themselves.”  In contrast, blogger Bil Browning argues that immigration reform is too important for all LGBT immigrants to worry about specific protections for couples. The legislation does contain some provisions that will especially help LGBT people, including a protection that people cannot be targeted for solitary confinement because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Nevertheless, the absence of UAFA would limit gay, lesbian, and bisexual immigrants to one less path on the roadmap to citizenship. Should the Supreme Court overturn Section 3 of DOMA next month, however, the federal government may be able to recognize same-sex couples for immigration purposes.

There are estimated to be at least twenty-four thousand binational same-sex couples in the United States and many will undoubtedly be helped by the bill’s legalization provisions. Countless stories of these families being separated by deportation have permeated the media over the past few years. Republicans are insisting that this should remain the status quo, and it seems they might just have the political leverage to keep it that way.