Connecticut Seeks To End Trans-Discrimination

Transgender activists in Connecticut are hopeful they will gain equal protection under the state’s anti-discrimination laws in 2009.

Jerimarie Liesegang, who leads the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition said:

“We feel good. We’ve done the groundwork, we’ve done the education and we know we have the votes.”

A proposal, will be introduced in the legislative session that begins Wednesday, that would prevent people, who in any way blur gender lines, from being discriminated against in the workplace or while seeking housing or obtaining credit. Similar laws have been enacted in over a dozen states, including California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Rhode Island.

Bills barring discrimination based on gender identity or expression have been introduced several times over the past few years, but have yet to pass. In 2007, both the judiciary committee and the Senate approved a similar bill, but it did not pass in the House of Representatives.

Connecticut was one of the first states to prohibit discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation (gay and lesbian) for many years.

Those in favor of the bill say the new law would extend protections to those whose appearance aren’t in line with gender stereotypes, meaning women who favor traditionally “masculine” clothing or hairstyles, or men who appear effeminate. Such individuals would be protected under the new law even if they don’t view themselves as transgendered.

The law would also protect a wide variety of people, including: transsexuals, who physically alter their gender through surgery, cross-dressers, and intersex individuals who are born with ambiguous genitalia.

Bigots Seek to Repeal LGBT Protection Ordinance

As reported earlier on GayAgenda.com, the city of Kalamazoo, Michigan recently took a huge step towards providing equality to LGBT citizens.

The Kalamazoo City Commission voted 7-0 to adopt an expanded anti-discrimination ordinance that makes it a municipal civil infraction to discriminate against gays, lesbians and transgender citizens. The ordinance makes it illegal to use sexual orientation to discriminate in housing, public accommodations and employment.

However, now a group of bigots have been busy circulating petitions which seek the repeal of the ordinance.

City Clerk, Scott Borling said former city commissioner and current Kalamazoo County Treasurer Mary Balkema officially turned over 189 pages of petitions that contain about 1,600 signatures.

Borling expects the process of verifying the signatures will extend into next week before it is officially determined that the petitions contain at least 1,273 signatures, the minimum Borling said are necessary to trigger reconsideration of the anti-discrimination ordinance.

More Ignorance and Rhetoric from the Right

I ran across a post on the Napa Valley Register entitled “Separate and Not Equal”.  There are some typical, yet great points brought up about how a ban on gay marriage goes against the moral fabric of this nation.  The first three points the author mentions are;

1)  In a country founded on the separation of church and state, objections fueled by religious beliefs were allowed to alter the state constitution. Marriage is a civil right, transcending religious differences and definitions; it is not church property.

2) The California Supreme Court, created to impartially legislate ethical issues,  granted me the right to marry, then permitted this right to be taken away by a popular vote.

3)  Churches that sanction polygamy and harbor pedophiles are passing judgment on gay marriage.

It is not so much a religious issue as it is a moral issue. Fortunately, most traditional religions around the world still regard morality (sodomy is not moral) as an important facet to living a godly life. Again, it’s not necessarily a religious issue.

In a 4-3 vote a few humans on the state supreme court that fortunately millions of us were able to correct in yet another vote by a majority in ensuring a tradition that has been around for hundreds of thousands of years remained intact.

The only churches that might “sanction polygamy and harbor pedophiles” are the same churches allowing gays to marry.

You can move to a state that permits gay marriage. There are a few states that have lost their moral compass. You whine about demanding we, the majority, accept immoral behavior but it’s not fair that we, the majority prefer a to keep your sexual preferences and the bedroom out of our lives.

Children of same sex parents have nobody but their parents to blame for how they may be treated. The hate, intolerance and ignorance is coming from you and the NO crowd who don’t understand that this world lives to a higher standard, and that morality forms the base for how we should live. I know that’s a foreign concept to you.

Then there are those who claim not to be against it, but simply are obviously too busy to worry about other peoples rights;

Didn’t gay marriage get voted down, then made legal by the state overturning the vote, then voted down again for a second time.I could really care less but am tired of hearing about it.The voters have spoken…Twice!

When Barack Obama was elected, Whoopi Goldberg said “I have always felt like an American, but I finally feel like I can set my suitcase down.”  Unfortunately, because of so many Americans who let thier ignorance, bigotry and hate rule their safe and for granted lives, I’m still waiting to set my suitcase down.

The Pope Takes a Swing at LGBT’s Again

That’s right, the Pope is at it yet again, with his third strike against gays in just weeks.  This time it was at a

pro-family rally in Madrid, Spain this past Sunday.  Spain is one of the few countries which has legalized same-sex marriage.

The pope spoke in front of hundreds of thousands of people who were attending a Mass aimed at reversing the country’s three-year-old gay marriage law. He insisted that Christian families need to “remain strong”.

He stated in his address:

“Dear families, do not let love, openness to life and the incomparable links that join your homes weaken. The pope is by your side.”

Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, the archbishop of Madrid, added:

“The future of humanity depends on the family, the Christian family.”

Recently the Pope had announced that he did not support decriminalization of homosexuality and he later compared saving the world from homosexuality was as important as saving the rain forest.  At the risk of upsetting someone, I’d like to question who is going to save the young catholic boys from being sexually assaulted by Catholic priest?

Family Response Linked to GLBT Life Patterns

According to a new study conducted by researchers at San Francisco State University, gay youth, who have parents or guardians that respond negatively when the youth reveal their sexual orientation were more likely to attempt suicide, experience severe depression and turn to drug use than those who have families that accept their sexuality. The findings appeared in Monday’s journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The research concludes that the way in which parents or guardians respond to a youth’s sexual orientation greatly influences the child’s mental health on into adulthood.

Caitlin Ryan, the lead researcher and a social worker who directs the university’s Family Acceptance Project stated;

“Parents love their children and want the best for them. Now that we have measured all these behaviors, we can see that some of them put youth at extremely high risk and others are wellness-promoting.”

The study clearly demonstrated that teens who experienced negative reactions from family when coming out were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use.

According to Ryan, one of the most startling findings of the research was that being forbidden to associate with gay peers was as damaging as being physically beaten or verbally abused by their parents.

53 families with gay teenagers were studied in the first part of the two-part endeavor, to identify 106 specific behaviors that could be considered “accepting” or “rejecting.” Examples include blaming a youth for being bullied at school, shielding him from other relatives or belittling her appearance for not conforming to social expectations fell into the rejecting category.

In the second part of the study, the researchers surveyed 224 white and Latino gay people between ages 21 and 25 to see which of the behaviors they had experienced growing up. The responses then were matched against the participants’ recent histories of severe depression, suicide attempts, substance abuse and unsafe sexual behavior.

While the results might seem intuitive, Ryan said the study, funded by the California Endowment, was the first to establish a link between health problems in gay youths and their home environments.

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