HRC statement on Mormon church and gay rights

From HRC:

Today the LDS church announced its support for an inclusive anti-discrimination law in Salt Lake City.

STATEMENT FROM HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN RELIGION AND FAITH PROGRAM DIRECTOR HARRY KNOX:

“This has happened in the LDS Church because people are telling their clergy leaders they believe the church should be about lifting people …

Gay parents along with kids celebrate in annual parade

SAN FRANCISCO — Hundreds of thousands of people turned out for the city’s annual Gay Pride Parade, some in provocative costumes and outfits, but an increasing number of them pushing strollers.

“I feel like I’ve seen twice as many children as I saw last year,” said Joseph Bowik, who is a father to two children with his husband, David Bowik.

The Pride Family Garden, a small park cordoned off near City Hall to give parents a respite and an area for their children to play, saw more than 600 families last year, a record that appeared set to be broken during this year’s parade, organizer Meredith Fenton said.

“Probably the biggest thing we’re hearing about this year from kids is the word ‘backlash,’”‰” said Fenton, who is the program director for Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE), which joined the park effort.

“With Prop. 8 passing and the Defense of Marriage Act, there’s so much talk about gay rights, but what people keep asking is, ‘How will the kids of gay parents turn out?’ Those people are all asking about us.” San Francisco and Alameda counties are home to the second- and third-most same-sex couples who are parents in California, after Los Angeles, Fenton said.

Diana Castillo, 18, moved to Oakland this summer for an internship at Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere. Raised by her birth mother and her mother’s partner, she said growing up with two moms made her grateful.

See:

Gay parents along with kids celebrate in annual parade San Jose Mercury News – Sean Maher – ‎
Video: Gay pride on the streets
Remembering Stonewall: 40 Years Later Gay Wired Gay Pride Parade Marks 40 Years After NYC Uprising WDIV

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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All in God’s Family: Creating Allies for Our LGBT Families Launched

WASHINGTON, May 11 – Leading organizations today released a curriculum designed to help faith communities support and embrace lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their families. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Institute for Welcoming Resources, COLAGE and Family Equality Council announced that this multimedia curriculum will go a long way in providing the necessary tools to make faith communities affirming of LGBT people and their families.

“While many churches have done very well welcoming individual lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members into their midst, many have not done so well with LGBT families,” says the Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, Institute for Welcoming Resources and faith work director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “But LGBT families deserve the same love and honor as all of God’s beloved families. This curriculum helps congregations extend God’s extravagant welcome to all of God’s families – especially LGBT families.”

All in God’s Family includes concrete tools to educate faith leaders, including a step-by-step guide to supporting LGBT families of faith and tools for facilitating group learning, community dialogue, Bible study and community action planning to highlight LGBT families in our communities. Additionally, the curriculum includes Families Like Mine, a book about adults with LGBT parents written by Abigail Garner, whose father is gay; the youth-produced documentary In My Shoes: Stories of Youth with LGBT Parents; and a CD containing the phototext exhibit “That’s So Gay: Portraits of Youth with LGBT Parents.”

“I know many LGBT parents who struggle with faith,” says Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council. “It can be difficult to find a congregation that feels welcoming and supportive. Though they want raise their children in a community that shares their values and beliefs, LGBT parents also want their children to be embraced. That’s why we partnered to put together All in God’s Family: Creating Allies for our LGBT Families. We know there are thousands of congregations out there that want to embrace our families. We want to give them the tools to do so more fully.”

“For youth and adults with LGBTQ parents, finding a faith community where your family is respected and reflected can be a challenge,” says Meredith Fenton, COLAGE program director. “COLAGE is pleased to be a partner on All in God’s Family: Creating Allies for our LGBT Families and invites your faith community to use these tools to move beyond acceptance to full inclusion and celebration of LGBTQ families.”

All in God’s Family: Creating Allies for Our LGBT Families can be acquired for a suggested donation of $50.00. As a special promotion, the first 50 congregations to request the curriculum will receive it for free. All in God’s Family: Creating Allies for Our LGBT Families can be acquired at www.WelcomingResources.org.

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Training on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youths

Riverside’s Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network will host its first lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Youth in Foster Care Training from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday for foster care workers.

Renowned trainer Robert Woronoff, who will be featured at the free event hosted at the Main Library, brings more than 20 years’ experience working with and for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in foster care, according to a news release. He is a former program director of the Child Welfare League of America and director of LGBTQ services and peer programs at The Home for Little Wanderers in Boston.

“We had housing programs for HIV-positive youth, and a lot of young people I was working with were not HIV positive, but they didn’t have housing,” Woronoff said in the release. “So I called up the largest child welfare organization and made them realize that young people needed housing before getting positive.”

See Training on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youths

Florida Times-Union

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In Wake of Prop 8, Attack on gay woman in Richmond reflects continuing trend

RICHMOND — News this week of arrests in the Dec. 13 gang rape of a lesbian brought relief to many in the community, some of whom were so outraged that they led police to breaks in the case.

But even as the resolution is lauded, gay-rights advocates and local and national crime statistics portray a gloomy truth about hate crimes against people based on their sexual orientation.

Until the root causes of bias toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are addressed, “we’ll continue to have hate perpetrated against us,” said Shawna Virago, a program director for the San Francisco-based advocacy group Community United Against Violence.

The group reported 304 crimes against Bay Area gays in 2007, the latest year for which complete statistics were available. That amounted to an approximate 6 percent increase from 2006.

Nationally, the FBI recorded 1,265 crimes deemed to have been motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation in 2007, a slight increase from the 1,195 tallied a year earlier but a 24 percent jump from 2005 figures.

Data compiled by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs — which counts the San Francisco group among its members — show national numbers to be considerably higher, from 1,486 incidents in 2006 to 1,833 the following year.

See Attack on gay woman in Richmond reflects continuing trend
San Jose Mercury News,