Two members of the LGBT community have posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom at this year’s ceremony at the White House. Civil rights leader Bayard Rustin and pioneering astronaut Sally Ride were honored at the White House ceremony Nov. 20. Their surviving partners – Walter Naegle and Tam O’Shaughnessy, respectively – accepted the awards….
Today the Hawaii state Senate passed marriage equality legislation, putting the Aloha State on track to become the next state where gay and lesbian couples can legally marry. The legislation now heads to the desk of Gov. Neil Abercrombie for signature. Sponsored by state Sen. Brickwood Galuteria in the state Senate and under the leadership of…
WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Senate voted 64 to 32 to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) for the first time in the legislation’s two-decade history. All Senate Democrats joined 10 Senate Republicans to approve the bill. Following passage of the act President Barack Obama issued the following statement: “For more than two centuries, the…
Today the U.S. Senate voted 61 to 30 to consider the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) with strong bipartisan support including the entire Democratic caucus and Republican Sens. Kirk, Collins, Hatch, Heller, Ayotte, Toomey and Portman. The procedural move sets up a historic vote later this week, where the Senate will likely pass ENDA for first…
Despite the current respite from the government shutdown and near default, we aren’t really much closer to a real budget deal. House Republicans want to keep discretionary spending at the slashed levels of the sequester and decrease the deficit through cuts to entitlements like Medicare and Social Security. President Obama wants to ease the sequester…
Military judge Col. Denise Lind today sentenced Bradley Manning to 35 years in military prison – out of a possible 90 – for leaking reams of classified information to Wikileaks. He has already served more than three years in pre-trial detention, including 11 months in conditions described by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture as…
WASHINGTON – In an interview Tuesday with Jay Leno on NBC’s The Tonight Show, President Obama condemned a new Russian law that criminalizes even the most modest gestures of support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. The president stated that such laws violate “the basic morality that I think should transcend every country, and…
WASHINGTON — Janet Napolitano announced Friday that she was stepping down as secretary of Homeland Security. Napolitano, a former Arizona governor has been in the role for more than four years will leave in September to become president of the University of California system. According to a report in the New York Times Napolitano had…
When President Obama delayed the implementation of the employer mandate for one year, Tea Party conservatives heard what they thought was the death knell of the Affordable Care Act. Had they listened more closely, they might have realized it was their own 2014 funeral march that had begun. House Speaker John Boehner and his caucus…
With the Supreme Court having made its decisions on DOMA and marriage equality, the spotlight is again on what President Obama can still do for the LGBT community. Dead center in the beam is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would prevent employers from firing workers for their sexual orientation or gender identity. While there…
