Time to review policy on gays in US military: Powell

American attitudes have changed and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gays serving in the U.S. military should be reviewed, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Colin Powell said on Sunday.

President Barack Obama favors overturning the policy, which bars gay troops from serving openly in the military. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked military lawyers to look at ways to make the law more flexible, hailed by gay rights groups as a “seismic political shift”.

“The policy and the law that came about in 1993, I think, was correct for the time,” Powell said on CNN’s State of the Union.

“Sixteen years have now gone by, and I think a lot has changed with respect to attitudes within our country, and therefore I think this is a policy and a law that should be reviewed.” he added.

See Time to review policy on gays in US military: Powell Reuters

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Thousands rally in California’s heartland in support of gay marriage

Reporting from Fresno — Aiming to reach out to conservative voters, about 3,000 gay-rights supporters gathered Saturday in California’s Central Valley in a renewed campaign to win support for same-sex marriage.

Just days after the California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages, activists launched a 14 1/2 -mile march from the town of Selma to Fresno, where they rallied in front of City Hall as a peaceful campaign-styled event to win back marriage rights.

See Thousands rally in California’s heartland in support of gay marriage Los Angeles Times

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Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey Attends White House Forum on Health Reform

WASHINGTON - March 6 - National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey was among those participating in yesterday’s White House health-care reform summit convened by President Barack Obama.

Statement by Rea Carey, Executive Director
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

“The White House Forum on Health Reform was a powerful start to reforming health care and how our country views health generally. With Sen. Ted Kennedy in the room, people couldn’t help but be inspired to focus on solutions. In the coming months, the macro themes and issues raised at the summit will work their way through to concrete policy and funding decisions that will affect the day-to-day lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The Task Force will be working to make sure our needs, lives and families are not left behind. For example, how families are defined will be critical to ensuring full coverage of LGBT people, our partners/spouses and our children. The days when we must pay taxes on domestic partner health benefits must end.

“Other issues of great concern to LGBT people are the need for inclusive services; quality health care for those who are not employed; funding for community-based health centers with culturally sensitive services; addressing the ‘preexisting conditions’ barriers that far too many in our community face by having to move from job to job due to lack of employment protections or barriers faced by transgender people; and the racial and economic disparities that have plagued the existing system.

“Our community has a great deal at stake in the outcomes of this process but we also have a lot to offer in terms of solutions, creativity and engagement - after all, our community created an entire infrastructure of HIV/AIDS care when the government was unwilling to take action in ways that addressed the scale of the problem.”

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The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force builds the political power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community from the ground up. We do this by training activists, organizing broad-based campaigns to defeat anti-LGBT referenda and advance pro-LGBT legislation, building the organizational capacity of our movement and generating groundbreaking research through our Policy Institute.