Today the Florida House voted by 75-38 to advance a measure that would enshrine discrimination rights into Florida law by allowing any private adoption agency — both secular and religious, including agencies that receive taxpayer dollars — to discriminate against qualified prospective parents based on the agency’s religious or political beliefs, including those regarding sexual…
White House Social Secretary Jeremy Bernard announced that he will step down following a scheduled Japan State Dinner next month. Bernard made headlines in the LGBT community and beyond as the first male, and openly gay, social secretary in White House history. Bernard was featured in a profile in Vogue in February where he talked…
City Councilman Todd Gloria announced today that he will run for the State Assembly 78th District seat in 2016. The seat is held by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, who will be termed out. In an email to his supporters Gloria wrote, “I was truly humbled to serve as interim mayor of San Diego and to…
Reflecting an ever-increasing wave of support for LGBT equality, more than 100 technology industry leaders and counting have joined in an unprecedented statement to legislators calling for the addition of non-discrimination protections for LGBT people to civil rights laws. Launched last week in response to a host of anti-LGBT bills pending or signed into law…
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) today signed a revised version of the “religious freedom” law. “Over the past week this law has become a subject of great misunderstanding and controversy across our state and nation,” said Pence in a statement Thursday evening. “However we got here, we are where we are, and it is important…
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) signed a revised version of the state’s Religious Freedom Reformation Act today, one day after refusing to sign an earlier version of the bill over concerns about discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, reports The Huffington Post. According to the report, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a new…
Today, the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts of America confirmed that it has hired an openly gay man to serve as a Boy Scout summer camp leader, marking the first time in the history of the national organization that one of its local councils has acknowledged hiring an out gay person. The…
Indiana lawmakers Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, and House Speaker Brian Bosma R-Indianapolis, held a press conference to announce the “fix” to the conflict between the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) and LGBT civil rights. The leaders repeated several times that they wanted to correct the “misinterpretation” and “misperception” of the…
In a surprising announcement Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said that he will not sign a religious freedom act into law requesting that the state legislature make changes to the bill in the wake of criticism that the legislation could be used to facilitate discrimination against LGBT citizens and other groups, reports The Huffington Post. Hutchinson…
In response to the Arkansas House sending Gov. Asa Hutchinson H.B. 1228 to sign into law, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest company by revenue, released a statement from its CEO, Doug McMillan, asking the governor to veto the bill. H.B. 1228 would permit discrimination against LGBT people, people of color, religious minorities, women and other minority groups…
