President Obama Already Working On Change

It's only been 4 days since newly elected President Obama has taken office yet, he and his administration has already updated the official site of the President to reflect the changeover from President George Bush to President Barack Obama within a few minutes of Obama's inauguration.

Below is directly from the site under civil rights:


Support for the LGBT Community

"While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It's about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect."

-- Barack Obama, June 1, 2007

* Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. President Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, President Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.
* Fight Workplace Discrimination: President Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees' domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. The President also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
* Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.
* Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.
* Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell: President Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.
* Expand Adoption Rights: President Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.
* Promote AIDS Prevention: In the first year of his presidency, President Obama will develop and begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities. The President will support common sense approaches including age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception, combating infection within our prison population through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives through our public health system. The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. President Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma -- too often tied to homophobia -- that continues to surround HIV/AIDS.
* Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS: In the United States, the percentage of women diagnosed with AIDS has quadrupled over the last 20 years. Today, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. President Obama introduced the Microbicide Development Act, which will accelerate the development of products that empower women in the battle against AIDS. Microbicides are a class of products currently under development that women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other infections.

For more information

Gay Bishop Gene Robinson Left Out Of HBO Concert Coverage

Jason Linkins
Huffington Post

Sunday's big Lincoln Memorial show was billed as the "We Are One" concert, intended to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama with a spirit of unity. But for those of us watching at home, one participant was excluded -- Gene Robinson, the "first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop in a major Christian denomination." Robinson was on hand to deliver an opening prayer to the event, but this prayer went unseen by anyone watching on HBO, who provided and sponsored the coverage.

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for HBO stated that decisions regarding the timing and presentation of Robinson's remarks were made by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, and that Robinson was "not a part of our show from the start." Indeed, Robinson appeared minutes before the 2:30pm start time of the concert coverage. HBO's response to the matter has been uniform. A spokeperson offered AfterElton.com much the same response: "The producer of the concert has said that the Presidential Inaugural Committee made the decision to keep the invocation as part of the pre-show."

HBO comes to this controversy without any sort of significant reputation for being a network or a workplace hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. In fact, the network is responsible for airing the drama Six Feet Under, which depicted gays in complex relationships unflinchingly. The Obama camp, on the other hand, has courted controversy already with the decision to include in the inauguration Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren, a supporter of Proposition 8 in California. The appearance of a snub in the case of Bishop Robinson has successfully raised the temperature among Democratic activists and in the liberal blogosphere, where outrage is being pointed mostly at the incoming administration and the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Calls for comment from the PIC have not been returned. Bishop Robinson is slated to be a guest on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" today at 2pm.

Watch the prayer here:

Prop. 8 Backers Take On AG's Gay Marriage Argument

The Associated Press
Published: Monday, Jan. 05, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO -- The sponsors of California's voter-approved gay marriage ban say Attorney General Jerry Brown is advancing a far-fetched legal theory to justify overturning Proposition 8.

Lawyers for the Protect Marriage coalition on Monday answered the about-face Brown took last month in urging the state Supreme Court to strike down the new marriage law. In a filing with the California Supreme Court, they called his claim that voters lacked the authority to deprive a minority group of a basic civil right "a hoary message" that invites "judicial triumphalism."

The brief comes as part of a series of legal challenges to Proposition 8 brought by same-sex marriage supporters after the ballot measure passed with 52 percent of the vote. Brown initially said he would defend it in his role as attorney general.

Hilary Rosen on CNN's Anderson Cooper Discussing Obama's Inaugural Pastor

Prop 8 Victory Activates Young Queers Of Color

News Report, Jazmyne Young
YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia



SAN FRANCISCO—In an election year that has already seen a big surge in youth involvement around the president-elect Barack Obama's campaign – the victory of California Proposition 8, which defines gay marriage as between a man and a woman, has been a catalyst for a new wave of youth activism in the LGBTQ community and beyond.

Since the November decision, LGBTQ community members and their allies haven't wasted time fighting the marriage ban. From street protests to legal actions urging the Supreme Court, which previously ruled in favor of same-sex marriage back in May of 2008, the issue has been kept in motion.

Young queers of color have found themselves in a special position after the media instigated tensions by blaming the loss of Prop. 8 on the black vote – with exit polls suggesting that black voters tipped the scales with an alleged 7 out of 10 blacks voting to support the measure. This news led to name-calling and slurs at protests.

"As one of many black people who opposed Prop 8, it's kinda scary that there's this group of people who were so willing to turn against black people," says 20-year-old Terry Taplin, an African American poet nationally recognized for his advocacy of LGBTQ causes. "At the same time, there are a lot of homophobic sentiments in the black community that now are hard to deny."


But other polls and research show that even combined with Latinos, these two groups -- African-Americans and Latinos -- still represent less than one third of the total electorate, and therefore should not the scapegoat for why Prop 8 passed. Perhaps the real culprit was Republicans and the Religious Right.

"I think that in the wake of Prop 8, now more than ever, it's important for the LGBT community to be as visible as possible. The protests and the rallies have to continue. Human rights has never been a matter of diplomacy, it's always been a matter of fighting for it," says Taplin.

The excitement surrounding this year's election among young voters, created a perfect platform for young organizers and activists like Allan Acevedo, a 19-year-old San Diego State University student. Acevedo wanted to be involved at a local level this year so he volunteered for State Assembly candidate Marty Block – an educator with a long history of community activism – in order to really learn about political organizing.

Acevedo is also a member of the board of directors for San Francisco's Gay Straight Alliance Network, so he had been politically activated around gay rights for some time – but Prop 8 gave him a platform to really organize.

"We went to Wal-Mart and Target to counteract paid signature gatherers in support of Prop 8," Avecedo says, "A lot of them lied and got people to sign the petition in support of Prop 8 by telling them that they were signing a measure to oppose it."

In his on-campus student efforts, Acevedo noticed that a lot of young people were complacent and unenthusiastic during the campaign believing that Prop 8 would never pass.

But it did – with a 53 percent majority in San Diego.

One pre-election organizing mistake that Acevedo acknowledges, was about race. "I think the campaign should have done more to outreach to people of color, even though I think people are distorting the statistics," he says.

Post-election, Acevedo began volunteering for the People of Color committee, organizing effective ways to outreach for different communities.

"We said that when we went to the black community we would not talk about segregation or compare their struggle for civil rights to ours – although there are several correlations – it wasn't about using logic, it was about touching people's hearts."

He also thinks that young people didn't quite understand the value of the outreach work they were doing before the election.

"Our whole campaign was phone banking," he says. "People weren't inspired until they saw people going out into the community. They began to send Facebook invites and text messages to come to protests and rallies. It suddenly became so much bigger than they thought it would be. We had students in the hallway, on the floor, and outside on benches. It was amazing to see so many young people take action when it mattered."

Now, Acevedo is president of the Stonewall Young Democrats, and he spends time passing out fliers for rallies, and recently organized a forum where 50 young people came to discuss further action.

He says that even though Prop 8 won, he is proud that so many college students are educating themselves and speaking out in support of gay marriage now.

"Young people have turned this from an issue into a movement," Acevedo says.