Retired Brigadier Gen. Keith Kerr surprised candidates at the Republican CNN/YouTube debate by revealing he is gay and asking “I want to know why you think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians.” He later said he felt he did not get an answer from the candidates. Kerr is a member of the LGBT steering committee for the Clinton campaign, although the campaign says he acted on his own. CNN omitted this segment in their rebroadcast of the event, and said they would not have included his question if they had known he had ties to Clinton. In a separate move to mark the 14th anniversary of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, 28 retired generals and admirals released a letter urging Congress to repeal the law.- Two transgender members of the Human Rights Campaign Business Council quit, saying HRC’s support of a version of ENDA without protections for gender identity and expression put them “in an untenable position.”
- HRC claims House and Senate leaders may detach the Matthew Shepard Act, which includes hate-crimes protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, from the Department of Defense bill to which it is attached. This could jeopardize the Act’s passage.
- A new poll found Hillary Clinton has 63 percent of the votes among LGB likely voters. (No trans voters were counted; no reason was given.) The Bilerico Project, however, has a series of posts with contributors explaining why they support other candidates, as well as Clinton.
- Presidential candidate Mitt Romney sent out a direct mail piece claiming he is the only candidate to support a federal ban on same-sex marriage. (He’s not; Mike Huckabee does, too.) Yup. Even those of us married in Massachusetts would be downgraded to some other form of recognition if one of these candidates gets elected.
- A study by UCLA’s Williams Institute shows that 20% of the more than 594,391 same-sex couples in the U.S. (PDF link) are raising approximately 270,313 children. An estimated 65,500 of the U.S.’s adopted children live with a lesbian or gay parent. The median household income of same-sex couples with children is $46,200, versus $59,600 for married parents. The average household income of same-sex couples with children is $59,270, versus $74,777 for married parents. While 51% of same-sex couples with children own their home, versus 77% of married ones.
- A gay Iranian business owner who has been living in Rockville, Maryland for 17 years has been jailed and faces deportation back to his native country, where he was earlier beaten by government agents wanting to know about his relationship with a member of the Revolutionary Guard. The U.S. government tried to deport him in 2001, after he had been duped by a fake lawyer claiming to help him gain asylum. He was instead placed on probation when the Iranian government refused him travel documents. His lawyer claims he as always complied with the terms of his probation. Read the rest of this post »
4:40 pm
