My Gay Online

Adam Levine has long been a supporter of the LGBT community and once again he’s putting his money where his mouth is — this time in regards to gay marriage.
The Maroon 5 singer and “The Voice” star recently revealed that the band, which is up for the Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance on February 12, has changed the location of their upcoming post-awards show party due to an unnamed Los Angeles restaurant’s backing of Proposition 8, which made gay marriage illegal in California.
Levine told People magazine, “We used to go to this Mexican restaurant to celebrate after the Grammys but the place supported the movement to make gay marriage illegal [in California] so we bailed on that.”
Levine, whose brother is gay, has lent his voice and face to other pro-LGBT causes like the “It Gets Better” campaign in support of gay teens and earlier this year he appeared on the cover of Out magazine.
The singer’s outspokenness isn’t limited to LGBT activism. In October he lashed out at FOX news on Twitter for using Maroon 5′s music on the air saying, “Dear Fox News, don’t play our music on your evil f***ing channel ever again. Thank you.”

The eyes of those committed to the progression of LGBT rights will be on the state of Tennessee this legislative session. Due to a Republican majority in the Tennessee General Assembly, we have seen a major regression when it comes to reaching equality in this state. Last session the Assembly passed a bill (HB 600) that prevents Tennessee cities from enacting their own nondiscrimination policies. Even though this is the law of the land for now, a court challenge is in the works.
Also last session we saw a bill that, many years after being introduced, finally found some traction in the Assembly, a bill known as the”Don’t Say Gay” bill. This piece of legislation would prevent public elementary and middle schools from teaching or distributing material on human sexuality that deals with homosexuality. Only heterosexuality may be taught. This bill brings into question how one “teaches” homosexuality:
Is it teaching homosexuality if a teacher has a picture of them with their partner on their desk and an inquisitive student asks who the other individual in the picture is?
Is it teaching homosexuality if a student with two moms or two dads is allowed to bring their unconventional family to school on Parents Day and a student inquires about the same-sex partnership?
Is it teaching homosexuality if an aspiring teacher who works with kids during an after-school program performs in drag in his free time?
The “Don’t Say Gay” bill, as currently written, could jeopardize the jobs of teachers in the situations proposed above, and indeed teachers everywhere, straight or gay. (Additionally, what about the Bible and other religious works or books that reference homosexuality? Is that teaching it?)
This bill will be up for debate once again this session.
Another piece of legislation that has been introduced this session is the so-called “License to Bully” bill. What this bill would do, if passed, would give students the ability to justify bullying their peers that are gay or perceived to be gay by pointing to a political or religious conviction. It’s one thing to have an academic debate in the classroom about gay issues, but it is another thing to let those debates turn into harassment and bullying in the hallways. This bill would do that.
In Tennessee we have seen the heartbreaking story of Jacob Rogers, a young man who took his own life due to being bullied for being gay. Do the sponsors of these bills understand the ramifications that this toxic legislation will have on our youth? I seriously doubt they do or even care, as long as they can put another legislative victory under their belt.
And lastly, it seems that the realm of education isn’t enough for this current legislature. There is now a bill that has been introduced that would harm gender-variant people. HB 2279, or the “Gender Check, Please” bill, as I like to call it, would “restricts access to public restrooms and public dressing rooms designated by sex to members of that particular sex.” Not only would this bill hurt transgender people, but it may also prevent parents from accompanying their child into the restroom.
These bills are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to gay politics and issues in the state of Tennessee. Not only is it going to take every Tennessean who believes in equality to help fight this horrible legislation, but it is also going to take people across the nation to shut down the sorts of unrepentant, negative, and regressive mindsets that have called my legislature home. I believe that together we can fight these anti-human bills and work toward a Tennessee, and a nation, that believes in true equality for everyone.

As Maryland lawmakers prepare to tackle the issue of marriage equality in new legislative session, the District of Columbia is thinking about same-sex divorce. Officials in the nation’s capital, who OK’d same-sex marriage in 2009, want to clarify D.C. law to deal with same-sex divorce.
As the Washington Blade reported last month, D.C. Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) quietly introduced his bill on the matter last fall:
Supporters say the bill, the Civil Marriage Dissolution Equality Amendment Act of 2011, is needed because states that don’t recognize same-sex marriage have no legal mechanism to issue a divorce to gay or lesbian couples who wish to dissolve their D.C. marriage through a divorce.
Under the city’s existing marriage law, which allows same-sex couples to marry, one or both parties to a same-sex marriage performed in D.C. would have to become a city resident for six months before the city would grant the couple a divorce.

A legal loophole that could have undermined thousands of same-sex marriages will be remedied to ensure gay couples from abroad who marry in Canada will have their unions recognized here, the federal justice minister said Friday.
Rob Nicholson acknowledged the confusion surrounding the issue has upset many couples and stressed it’s the government’s view that these marriages “should be valid.”
“We will change the Civil Marriage Act so that any marriages performed in Canada that aren’t recognized in the couple’s home jurisdiction will be recognized in Canada,” Nicholson said Friday during a speech to the Canadian Club of Toronto.
Doubts were raised about the validity of thousands of marriages conducted in Canada for same-sex couples from the United States and elsewhere following a federal twist in a Charter of Rights case launched in Ontario by two foreign women seeking a divorce.
A legal brief filed by federal lawyers denies the women are even legally married. It argues neither woman was legally able to marry a person of the same sex under the laws of Florida or the United Kingdom. “As a result, their marriage is not legally valid under Canadian law.”
Critics accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government of seeking to rewrite the rules on gay marriage to suit its right-wing agenda.
In announcing the government would change the law, Nicholson said Friday that “the confusion and pain resulting from this gap … is completely unfair to those affected.”
Liberal Leader Bob Rae, speaking to reporters at the party’s policy convention in Ottawa, responded to Nicholson by lamenting, “Oh please, give me a break.”
“These guys specialize in trying to turn the tables,” Rae said of the Harper Conservatives.
“The only gap is the gap between the heads of Conservative cabinet ministers who have failed to live up the best and finest traditions of Canada with respect to our positions of tolerance,” Rae added.
Randall Garrison, the NDP’s critic for gay and lesbian issues, said Ottawa has repeatedly tried to use a loophole in the legislation to erode those rights “through the back door.”
“They got caught and I think they were frankly quite surprised by the reaction, and so they’ve rolled back their position today,” he said.
Robert Leckey, a family law professor at McGill University in Montreal and president of Egale Canada, called the minister’s announcement “a positive step.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing him act on the things he said,” he said.
At the same time, “a little work will need to be done to make sure that what is done this time is done right,” he added.
The couple seeking a divorce, identified in court records only by initials to protect their privacy, were married in Toronto in December 2005 and separated two years ago. One lives in Clearwater, Fla., the other in London, England.
Their marriage is not recognized either in Florida or the United Kingdom. As a result, they are unable to obtain a divorce in their home cities.
The couple also faced a barrier to divorce in Ontario — a requirement that at least one of them live in the province for a year or more. They have launched a constitutional challenge of that provision in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
In 2005, the Liberal government passed legislation recognizing same-sex marriage after several courts across the country had declared the practice legal. An estimated 5,000 of the 15,000 or so gay marriages performed in Canada have involved foreigners, mostly American couples.

By Rick Santorum’s own admission, the Concord, New Hampshire, crowd he was addressing probably wasn’t going to be receptive to his conservative view on social issues.
“I’m surprised I got a gay marriage question at a college crowd; really that’s a shock to me,” he joked.
For the most part, his audience was booing, not laughing.
The issue sparked what was, at several points over the course of an almost hour-long question and answer session, a contentious back and forth between Santorum and New Hampshire college students on social issues.
“Well what about three men?,” Santorum responded to a female student who asked him about his position on gay marriage. “If reason says that if you think it’s OK for two, then you have to differentiate with me as to why it’s not okay for three.”
Santorum initially welcomed the exchanges with several students. Then he tried to move on to other subjects as the audience interrupted and cheered the questioners rather than the candidate. The former Pennsylvania senator said he welcomed the state’s legalization of same-sex marriage because it was decided by the legislature.
Defending Marriage
Still, he defended his position to keep marriage a union between a man and a woman: “Because I believe we are made the way God made man and woman and man and woman come together to have a union to produce children which keeps civilization going and provide the best environment for children to be raised,” Santorum said. “I think that is something society should value and should give privileged status over a group of people who want to have a relationship together.”
The reception was an anomaly of sorts for Santorum, who arrived in New Hampshire last night to large and receptive crowds fresh off his second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.
At his other events today, Santorum connected with his audiences, focusing on his economic prescriptions and his personal narrative of coming from a Catholic, working-class family with immigrant grandparents. So, it seemed an odd choice to address a crowd of students speaking about American exceptionalism and focusing on conservative social values.
Medical Marijuana
About 40 minutes into the questions, the audience clapped when another student asked Santorum whether, as president, he would allow state gay marriage and medical marijuana laws to operate without federal government interference.
“I don’t believe that we can have 50 definitions of marriage,” Santorum said. “Just to say that we should have 50 definitions of what life is. I don’t think that works either. I think there are certain things that are essential elements of society upon which society rests that we have to have a consensus.”
Pressed on his stance on medical marijuana, Santorum mistakenly identified the drug as a narcotic before being corrected by the audience.
“I don’t know my medical marijuana laws very well,” he joked. Still, he called the drug a hazard to society, and when someone shouted a question asking him how he formed that opinion, Santorum said: “I form that opinion from my own life experiences and having experiences, I went to college, too.”
The reference to what he may or may not have done during his days at Pennsylvania State University didn’t quell the majority of those in the audience, whose boos trumped any applause Santorum received at the end.

George Michael has launched a tirade of criticism on Twitter against a Christian group who prayed for his death whilst he battled life-threatening pneumonia last month.
The openly gay singer, who was taken ill at AKH hospital in Vienna, Austria last November, has been criticised by religious group Christians For A Moral America, who suggested the former Wham! star was suffering from AIDS and that he deserved to die because of his sexuality.
Taking to Twitter after ‘a few glasses of vino’ last night, George called the group “c**ksucking b***ards”.
He wrote: “Did you know that while I was fighting for my life in Austria there were a bunch of those lovely American ‘Christian’ organisations, who call themselves ‘Christians for a Moral America’, who were actually taking the time to pray for me to die?”

The new law allows same-sex and opposite-sex couples to enter into a civil union with the same state rights and responsibilities as traditional marriages.
The online process for applying for the unions was activated at midnight, allowing couples to submit applications, pay fees and receive civil union certificates online.
It makes Hawaii the seventh state in the nation to allow same-sex couples to enter civil unions.
The joint ceremony, arranged by the CU in Hawaii 2012 Committee, a coalition of representatives from more than a half-dozen lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy groups, was held at a private home in Aina Haina, the Star Advertiser said.
Limatoc-DuPonte, 57, said the evening was the culmination of a lifetime of hope.
“I’ve waited all my life to be able to get married,” she said. “I just knew that one day it was going to happen. Accepting people for what they are is a way of life in Hawaii. It’s who we are, so I knew this would be possible one day. I’m ecstatic that other couples will see us and know that they can have the same thing — and they won’t have to wait as long.”

Experts say many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender seniors fear discrimination, disrespect or worse by health care workers and residents of elder housing facilities — ultimately leading many back into the closet after years of being open.
That anxiety takes on new significance as the first of the 77 million baby boomers turns 65 this year. At least 1.5 million seniors are gay, a number expected to double by 2030, according to SAGE, the New York-based group Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders.
Recognizing the need, developers in Philadelphia have secured a site and initial funding for what would be one of the nation’s few GLBT-friendly affordable housing facilities. They hope to break ground on a 52-unit, $17 million building in 2013.
Anti-discrimination laws prohibit gay-only housing, but projects can be made GLBT-friendly through marketing and location. And while private retirement facilities targeted at the gay community exist, such residences are often out of reach for all but the wealthiest seniors.

Gays are also less likely to have biological family to help out with informal caregiving, either through estrangement or being childless, making them more dependent on outside services. And that makes them more vulnerable, SAGE executive director Michael Adams said.
“They cannot at all assume that they will be treated well or given the welcome mat,” he said.
Cities including San Francisco and Chicago also have projects on the drawing board. But the first and, so far, only affordable housing complex for gay elders to be built in the United States is Triangle Square-Hollywood in Los Angeles

Open since 2007, the $22 million facility has 104 units available to any low-income senior 62 and over, gay or straight, according to executive director Mark Supper. Residents pay monthly rent on a sliding scale, from about $200 to $800, depending on their income. About 35 units are set aside for seniors with HIV/AIDS and for those at risk of becoming homeless, Supper said.
The Triangle’s population is about 90 percent GLBT and it has a waiting list of about 200 people. The project’s developer, Gay & Lesbian Elder Housing, plans to build a second facility in Southern California in the next 18 months, Supper said.
But what took so long for the need to recognized? Chris Bartlett, executive director of the GLBT William Way Center in Philadelphia, noted that advocates spent the better part of two decades devoting their energy to programs for those affected by HIV or AIDS, which were decimating the gay community.
While AIDS remains a priority, Bartlett said, the crisis mentality has passed and allowed the community to focus on other things. He said he looks forward to the Way Center providing social services at the planned Philadelphia senior housing facility, in a sense repaying those who led the gay liberation movement.
“Don’t we owe it to them … to ensure that they have an experience as elders that’s worthy of what they gave to our community?” Bartlett said.
The Philadelphia group has been trying to get its project off the ground for about eight years but has been stymied by location problems, a tough economy and stiff competition for federal housing tax credits.
Rejected once for the credits, developers recently reapplied and hope for a different answer this spring, said Mark Segal, director of the Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld Fund, which is spearheading the project. It’s planned for a thriving section of the city affectionately known as the Gayborhood.
“I’m extremely optimistic,” said Segal, also publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News.

However, Adams said the real solution lies not only in building more facilities, but in cultural competency training for staffers at existing elder programs. The Philadelphia Corporation on Aging, the private nonprofit that serves the city’s seniors, began offering such seminars to health care workers a couple of years ago, said Tom Shea, the agency’s director of training.
“They’re going to be seeing a diverse slice of the aging population in Philadelphia … and we need to be sensitive to all their needs,” Shea said.
Adams suggested that discrimination faced by today’s GLBT elders could diminish in the decades ahead, since he said opinion research shows that younger generations are less likely to harbor anti-gay biases than older generations.
“So we hope that the passage of time will provide part of the solution,” he said. “But of course, today’s LGBT elders can’t wait for that.”
Jackie Adams, 54, of Philadelphia, said being diagnosed with AIDS many years ago meant she never thought she’d live long enough to need elder housing. But now Adams, who was born male and lives as a female, is part of a local initiative focused on GLBT senior issues.
On a limited income after losing her job as an outreach worker for those with HIV, Adams said affordable, GLBT-friendly senior housing is badly needed. She is not related to Michael Adams.
“I would be incomplete if I had to go from wearing stockings and dresses to (work boots) and jeans,” Adams said. “I would like to be able to live in a community where I could fully be me.”

The North Carolina Family Policy Council’s use of a violent image to promote the state’s proposed amendment banning same-sex marriage has ignited controversy among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates.
The photograph, which can be found on page 13 of the winter 2012 issue of the organization’s Family North Carolina publication, shows a traditionally-dressed bride and groom being targeted by an unseen sniper. It illustrates an article titled “Marriage In Society’s Moral Crosshairs,” by Jacqueline Schaffer, J.D.
“Protecting traditional marriage by enshrining it in the State Constitution is not only socially beneficial, but it is also necessary to protect religious liberty,” Schaffer writes. “When the state sanctions a morally controversial lifestyle such as homosexuality, it will inevitably draw itself into conflict with the religious and moral beliefs of its citizens. Such conflict, however, is not hypothetical, and its outcomes are already well-documented.”
The image has sparked the ire of several bloggers. Writes Unicorn Booty’s Kevin Farrell: “Did the North Carolina Family Policy Council somehow sleep through that time Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head after Sarah Palin put her in a rifle’s crosshairs? Didn’t we come to the societal conclusion that crosshairs and gun imagery?”



A lawsuit by a Jewish U.C. Berkeley student claiming university officials did little to prevent the harassment of Jewish students during a protest event organized by Muslim student groups has been dismissed by a judge who noted that, while schools are allowed to crack down on offensive student speech, they have no legal obligation to do so.
Plaintiff Jesica Felber’s suit stems from the annual “Apartheid Week,” which is sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Students Association. During the week, protesters dress up in military garb, man mock checkpoints and ask students to state their religion before allowing them to pass.
Felber alleged that when she participated in a nearby counter-protest (“Israel Wants Peace Week”) holding a sign reading “Israel wants peace,” an Apartheid Week organizer hit her with a shopping cart.
The campus checkpoints were meant to echo those set up by the Israeli Defense Force throughout the West Bank, where Palestinians who want to pass though are required to undergo searches. Supporters of the checkpoints attest they’re a crucial method in deterring terrorists; however, critics claim they limit Palestinians’ freedom of movement and are a violation of their fundamental human rights
The suit also alleged this attack was part of a pattern of behavior during Apartheid Week, during which Jewish students were spit on and Israel’s government was equated to that of Nazi Germany.
While the university has previously disciplined the some of the event’s participants and even had Husam Zakharia, the student who hit Felber with the shopping cart, arrested in connection with the incident, Felber (who graduated last year) has accused university President Mark Yudof, who is Jewish, of allowing an anti-Semitic environment to flourish on campus.
“SJP and Zakharia have been involved in other incidents on campus to incite violence against and intimidate Jewish and other students,” stated the lawsuit. “Defendants knew of this history of incitement and intimidation yet took no reasonable step to adequately control Zakharia or other student members of the SPJ.”

However, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg didn’t see it that way. In his ruling, Seeborg noted Apartheid Week was an example of the type of “political speech” protected by the First Amendment.Seeborg said some courts have allowed public colleges to outlaw harassing speech and conduct that interferes with students’ rights, but schools have no legal duty to do so. The Muslim organizations receive campus funding on the same basis as other groups, the judge said, and any attempt to withdraw it would raise “serious First Amendment issues.”

Seeborg also rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that U.C. officials were deliberately indifferent to the threats they faced. He said campus police have arrested disruptive protesters, and the Berkeley administration “has engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the opposing parties in an attempt to ensure that the rights of all persons are respected, and to minimize the potential for violence.”
The suit sought damages along with a five-year ban of both of the groups that sponsored the protest and permanent revocation of their university funding.
“This is an abuse of the judicial process and an assault on free speech. The lawsuit is an attempt to try and intimidate the university into silencing a campus group with whom some may disagree politically,” said Students for Justice in Palestine in a statement.

The checkpoints are just one of the most visible elements in a decade-long, tit-for-tat struggle between supporters of Israel and Palestine on campus. It is waged through Palestinian movie nights and Zionist picnics; tables in Sproul stacked with literature quoting Edward Said and Theodor Herzl; and Palestinian “die-ins” and pro-Israel hip-hop shows. Ron Hendel, a professor of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies sums it up: “It’s a PR war.”
Felber is now a director at Jerusalem Online University, an online program designed to strengthen the bonds between American Jewish college students and Israel.
Earlier this year, U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into claims that U.C. Santa Cruz was fostering an atmosphere conducive to anti-Semitism.
While an anti-Affirmative Action bake sale held by a Berkeley Republican group elicited similar outrage, no legal action was taken in that case.