Film documents Mormon role in gay marriage debate

(Salt Lake City) Reed Cowan’s reasons for making a film about the Mormon church’s activism against gay marriage in California are personal.

Himself gay and Mormon, Cowan clashed with his family over his sexual orientation and the beliefs of their faith, but it was a conversation between him and a sibling …

House committee to hold vote on ENDA

From HRC:

The Human Rights Campaign can now confirm the House Education and Labor Committee will vote on Wednesday, November 18, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. on legislation to end the widespread practice of employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The vote was noticed moments ago.

The Employment Non-Discrimination …

Dept. of Justice testimony on ENDA: Pass it now

Thomas E. Perez, head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, testified before a Senate committee that the Obama Administration supports ENDA.

He said, “The Administration strongly supports fully-inclusive legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Perez thanked Congress for passing the Matthew …

New study offers first demographic picture of gay spouses

(Los Angeles) The Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA Law issued a report today analyzing newly released data from the US Census Bureau. The study examines data from the 2008 American Community Survey (ACS).

For the first time, the Census Bureau has released data in which …

Pro-LGBT adoption bill introduced

Pete Stark introduced legislation to ban states from looking at sexual orientation in adoption.

Full story: Congress acts to extend hate crimes to cover gays

(Washington) The House voted Thursday to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation, significantly expanding the hate crimes law enacted in the days after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968.

With expected passage by the Senate, federal prosecutors will for the first time be …

Anchorage passes gay ordinance

The Anchorage city council voted to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Minn. school district settles gay harassment suit

A school district in Minnesota agreed to pay a $25,000 settlement to a high school junior who was subjected to harassment by two teachers around his perceived sexual orientation, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.

Teacher Diane Cleveland commented that the boy’s “fence swings both ways”; when he wrote a paper on Ben …

Anchorage passes gay rights ordinance - veto possible

(Anchorage) The Anchorage Assembly approved an ordinance Tuesday banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity by a 7-4 vote.

The vote falls one short of the eight-vote supermajority needed to override a mayoral veto. Mayor Dan Sullivan has seven days to decide. He has said he has …

Too Gay in Amsterdam?

It’s no secret that Amsterdam is gay-friendly, but in case that slipped under anyone’s radar, Dutch tourism officials have launched a micro Web site this month proclaiming that “Everyone’s Gay in Amsterdam.”

The Web site, which is geared for American travelers, offers a “gay list” that features places like Pric, described as a “relaxed and funky gay-friendly bar” that “serves up unusual cocktails concocted by its highly-trained staff of bartenders.”

But a closer look reveals that not everyone in Amsterdam is, in fact, gay. A photograph of a seemingly happy straight couple biking along a canal? The Van Gogh Museum? A “gay locator” that doesn’t turns the entire city into an orange dot?

Turns out, “gay” doesn’t just reefer to sexual orientation, but “the attitude of the people in this grand European city,” according to the VisualMerc, a New York-based interactive agency that created the micro-site.

See Too Gay in Amsterdam?

New York Times

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