Markus Klaer: Die Öffnung der Ehe ist längst überfällig – das muss die Union verstehen

Markus Klaer: Die Öffnung der Ehe ist längst überfällig – das muss die Union verstehen
Menschen, die unabhängig vom Geschlecht eine Ehe führen wollen, leben zu tiefst konservative Werte. Die Öffnung der Ehe und diese unabhängig vom Geschlecht zu gestalten, ist für manche meiner Parteifreunde leider bis heute dennoch ein sehr grundsätzliches Problem.

Weiterlesen: Blogs, Homosexualität, Gleichgeschlechtliche Ehe, Cdu, Politik, Homo-Ehe, Germany News

www.huffingtonpost.de/markus-klaer/homo-ehe-deutschland-union_b_15686560.html

Civil Rights Organizations Slam Unconstitutional “Deal” on HB2 Repeal

Civil Rights Organizations Slam Unconstitutional “Deal” on HB2 Repeal

The NAACP, HRC, Equality North Carolina, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and other equality groups are intensifying their call for North Carolina lawmakers to reject an unconstitutional backroom “deal” on HB2 that would no doubt subject the state to years of costly litigation in a shameful effort to continue to enshrine anti-LGBTQ discrimination into state law.

The so-called “deal’ that North Carolina lawmakers are attempting to ram through today would effectively ban LGBTQ non-discrimination protections statewide through 2020 and permanently bar cities from passing laws that ensure transgender people can access facilities in accordance with their identity. Tellingly, last night former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, who signed the discriminatory HB2 into law and lost his seat because of it last fall, endorsed the proposal, as has the designated anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council.

The new legislation’s attempt to further prohibit municipalities from passing other employment provisions, including LGBTQ non-discrimination protections, as well as the provision restricting protections for transgender people in restrooms and other facilities is motivated by the same animus that resulted in a Colorado law being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in Romer v. Evans (1996). That decision barred states from forbidding the adoption of non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people under the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause.

Joining the NAACPHRCEquality North Carolina, the National Center for Transgender Equality in opposing this egregious proposal are major national groups including the ACLU, the American Federation of Teachers, and The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; corporations including SalesforceDow and Levi’s; and celebrities like Ellen PageTegan and SaraMontel WilliamsMartina Navratilova and Raymond Braun.

For more than a year, Senate President Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore have blocked an up-or-down vote on clean repeal of HB2, despite the overwhelming outcry from voters, businesses, and others seeking to do business in the state.

“HB2 must be repealed in full,” said Dr. William Barber, North Carolina NAACP President. “This bill is anti-worker, anti-access to the courts, and anti-LGBTQ. It is shameful for Tim Moore and Phil Berger to demand a discriminatory compromise on a bill that should have never been passed in the first place. Above all, any moratorium on civil rights is not a compromise, it is a contradiction with the principle of equal protection under the law and our moral values.”

“Any lawmaker who supports this bill cannot call themselves an ally of the LGBTQ community. They will be abandoning the LGBTQ community,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “The so-called “deal” proposed by Senate President Berger, Speaker Moore and Governor Cooper last night is no deal at all — and, in fact, is very likely unconstitutional. It does not repeal HB2. It is simply a new version of HB2 that abandons LGBTQ people, targets the transgender community, and leaves thousands of North Carolinians vulnerable to discrimination at work, at home, and in their communities.”

“The worst thing about this replacement bill, beyond the tepid attempt to repeal HB 2, is that it seeks to enshrine into law a supposed threat presented by trans people,” said Mara Keisling, Executive Director, National Center for Transgender Equality. “Gov. Cooper’s support of this fake repeal is an outrageous betrayal, since he ran on fully repealing HB 2 and protecting transgender North Carolinians.”

“This backroom deal would continue to actively discriminate against the transgender community – by keeping North Carolina the only state in the nation that makes it their business to interfere with where good, hard working trans people use the restroom,” said Chris Sgro, Equality NC Executive Director. “It wouldn’t actually repeal HB2. It kicks HB2 down the road through 2020 – keeping most of the awful law on the books for someone else to deal with. If Governor Cooper and legislators agree to this – they would be prohibiting protections in key areas for LGBT people for four years. That’s not a solution – it’s more of how we got here in the first place”

This backroom proposal was pushed in desperation as lawmakers faced today’s deadline to repeal HB2 or risk losing out on bids for NCAA championship games through 2022 — a decision that will further compound the economic harm HB2 continues to inflict on the state. Just this week, the Associated Press published an exclusive analysis showing the deeply discriminatory HB2 will cost the state more than $3.76 BILLION in lost business over a dozen years — and even that likely underestimates the damage.

www.hrc.org/blog/civil-rights-organizations-slam-unconstitutional-deal-on-hb2-repeal?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

New GLAAD Study Reveals Twenty Percent of Millennials Identify as LGBTQ

New GLAAD Study Reveals Twenty Percent of Millennials Identify as LGBTQ

GLAAD

GLAAD today unveiled its third annual Accelerating Acceptance report, a survey conducted on GLAAD’s behalf by Harris Poll, which shows that young people are significantly more likely to openly identify as LGBTQ than generations before them. The survey – fielded online November 2-4, 2016 among 2,037 U.S. adults ages 18 and older – also shows growing levels of young people who are more likely to identify outside of traditional binaries such as “gay/straight” and “man/woman.”

The full report is available here.

“As the administration begins to fulfill its pledges to move the country backwards, many are concerned about progress made in recent years for the LGBTQ community,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD President & CEO. “However, this report shows a remarkable new era of understanding and acceptance among young people – an inspiring indication of the future. Though laws can be unwritten, hearts and minds in America have been changed for the better – and that is a reality less easily unraveled.”

Among Harris Poll’s key findings:

  • Accelerating Acceptance 2017 survey shows that Millennials (people ages 18-34) are significantly more likely to openly identify as LGBTQ than generations before them. Specifically, Millennials are more than twice as likely (20% vs. 7%) to identify as LGBTQ than the Boomer generation (people ages 52-71) and two-thirds (20% vs. 12%) more likely than Generation X (people ages 35-51).
  • The survey also found that 12% of Millennials identify as transgender or gender non-conforming, meaning they do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth or their gender expression is different from conventional expectations of masculinity and femininity — doubling the number of transgender and gender non-conforming people reported by Generation X (6%).
  • While older generations (people ages 35+) of LGBTQ people largely use the words “gay” and “lesbian” and/or “man” and “woman” to describe their sexual orientation and gender identity respectively, Millennials appear more likely to identify in terminology that falls outside those previously traditional binaries.
  • Interestingly, non-LGBTQ Millennials are also significantly less likely to know someone who identifies as “gay” or “lesbian” than generations before them, indicating that their LGBTQ peers largely describe themselves in words outside more traditional binaries.
  • The survey shows that while acceptance of LGBTQ people remains high, progress has slowed since the landmark Supreme Court ruling, with rates of discomfort declining on average by 3% from 2014-2015 but going unchanged from 2015-2016.

This new data builds on GLAAD’s first two Accelerating Acceptance reports, which revealed significant levels of discomfort among non-LGBTQ people with their LGBTQ coworkers and neighbors. That report is available here: www.glaad.org/publications/accelerating-acceptance-2016

March 30, 2017
Issues: 

www.glaad.org/blog/new-glaad-study-reveals-twenty-percent-millennials-identify-lgbtq

Paul Ryan: ‘Whistleblower-Type Person’ was Devin Nunes’s Source for Intel on Trump

Paul Ryan: ‘Whistleblower-Type Person’ was Devin Nunes’s Source for Intel on Trump

Paul Ryan whistleblower

House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes said he’ll never reveal the source of the intel he received that Donald Trump had been captured on incidental surveillance, and has still not shared the intel with the others on his panel investigating Trump’s links to Russia.

House Speaker Paul Ryan told CBS This Morning that the intel came from a “whistle-blower type person.”

Said Ryan: “He had told me that a whistleblower-type person had given him some information that was new, that spoke to the last administration and part of this investigation…He briefs me about it, didn’t know the content of it, only knew the nature of it and that he was going to brief others. He was going to brief everybody….What Chairman Nunes said was he came into possession of new information he thought was valuable to this investigation and he was going to go and inform people about it.”

But Ryan later in the interview says that he’s seen the documents.

Writes Daily Kos: “At this point, Ryan is saying that he has seen the documents, but isn’t sure that Nunes has seen them. And that’s far from the limit of the craziness.”

Multiple Democratic lawmakers have called for Nunes to step away from the investigation and recuse himself.

Watch:

The post Paul Ryan: ‘Whistleblower-Type Person’ was Devin Nunes’s Source for Intel on Trump appeared first on Towleroad.


Paul Ryan: ‘Whistleblower-Type Person’ was Devin Nunes’s Source for Intel on Trump

#AM_Equality Tipsheet: March 30, 2017

#AM_Equality Tipsheet: March 30, 2017

DON’T SELL US OUT — LGBTQ ADVOCATES CALL ON ALLIES TO REJECT UNCONSTITUTIONAL MEASURE COOKED UP IN BACKROOM DEAL ON HB2: HRC, Equality NC and the National Center for Transgender Equality are urging North Carolina lawmakers to reject an unconstitutional backroom “deal” on HB2 that would no doubt subject the state to years of costly litigation in a shameful effort to enshrine anti-LGBTQ discrimination into state law. The “compromise” would continue the harms of the discriminatory HB2 law and push the possibility of full repeal further out of reach. It would specifically prohibit cities from passing protections ensuring that transgender people are able to access facilities in accordance with their gender identity indefinitely, and further prohibit municipalities from passing laws or regulations related to employment — including LGBTQ non-discrimination protections — through 2020. “The rumored HB2 ‘deal’ does nothing more than double-down on discrimination and would ensure North Carolina remains the worst state in the nation for LGBTQ people,” said HRC President Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin). “The consequences of this hateful law will only continue without full repeal of HB2. Sellouts cave under pressure. Leaders fight for what’s right.” This means that North Carolina would continue to be the only state in the nation to have shamefully funneled anti-transgender animus into a law regulating restroom access. The proposal would also prevent cities in North Carolina from establishing non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people for at least three years, undermining efforts by cities like Charlotte to attract top talent, major businesses, and other economic opportunities. More from HRC, The Charlotte Observer and The New York Times.

WARNING: The rumored #HB2 “deal” doubles down on discrimination and would ensure NC remains the worst state in the nation for LGBTQ people.

— Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin) March 29, 2017

The consequences #HB2 will only continue without repeal. Sellouts cave under pressure. Leaders fight for what’s right. #RepealHB2

— Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin) March 29, 2017

#CantEraseUs — HRC SEEKS INFORMATION ON TRUMP ADMIN EXCLUSION OF LGBTQ DATA FROM CENSUS COLLECTION: Yesterday, HRC filed a Freedom Of Information Act request with the Department of Commerce for communications related to the Trump Administration’s exclusion of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” recommendations regarding data collection in the American Community Survey. Materials produced from this request will help determine how this shameful decision was made. HRC President Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin) said, “The Trump Administration has launched a deliberate campaign to erase LGBTQ people from federal data used to inform budgets and policies across the government. Their intent is clear: by denying we exist, the Trump Administration hopes to deny us equality. It won’t work. Today, we’re resolved to be louder and fight even harder, because Donald Trump and Mike Pence #CantEraseUs.” The Census Bureau issued a statement correcting an earlier version of a report to Congress in which they stated, “inadvertently listed sexual orientation and gender identity as a proposed topic in the appendix.” The correction suggests that the draft report included LGBTQ data collection recommendations or plans. Many federal agencies, including the Census Bureau, have been collecting or planning to collect similar data. More from HRC and The Associated Press.

THROWBACK THURSDAY — SECOND LADY PENCE RAILS AGAINST NEWSPAPER FOR ARTICLE THAT “ENCOURAGES CHILDREN TO THINK THEY’RE GAY OR LESBIAN”: In a 1991 letter to the editor uncovered by The Washington Post, Second Lady Karen Pence railed against the Indianapolis Star after the paper published a piece about sexual orientation. She wrote, “[y]our story unfortunately encourages children to think they’re gay or lesbian… no wonder our youth are confused.” HRC has found more than a quarter of LGBTQ youth who participated in a post-election survey earlier this year said they have been personally bullied or harassed since Election Day — compared to 14 percent of non-LGBTQ youth — with transgender young people most frequently targeted. Almost half of LGBTQ youth surveyed said they have taken steps to hide who they are by delaying coming out, dressing differently or questioning their plans for the future. Read the Karen Pence’s shameful letter to the editor at The Washington Post.

TRUMP PROPOSES $300M SLASH IN HIV AND AIDS FUNDING — PUTS PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD AT RISK: The Trump Administration has proposed slashing $1.23 billion from the National Institute of Health, including a $300 million cut to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) — the federal government’s chief initiative to help save the lives of those living with and affected by HIV and AIDS around the world. In 2016, PEPFAR reported that they supported life-saving treatment for 11.5 million people, prevented nearly 2 million children from being born with HIV and increased the number of children on antiretroviral treatment by 97 percent since 2014. More from Bloomberg.

$300 million in cuts by Trump admin would set us back in the fight to achieve an AIDS-free generation. t.co/ac23a2QCMy

— Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin) March 29, 2017

TX LT. GOV DAN PATRICK ENLISTS ANTI-LGBTQ GROUPS IN HIS ANTI-TRANS CRUSADE: Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick — who alongside State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst introduced SB 6, a discriminatory anti-trans bill — has enlisted prominent anti-LGBTQ voices to help prop up the bill, all while claiming that the bill has nothing to do with discrimination. Patrick has created a “campaign” with the help Rick Scarborough’s Vision America and Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council, organizations whose aforementioned leaders have, as the Dallas Morning News notes, called transgender people “confused” and “sinful.” As Patrick and Kolkhorst continue to claim SB 6 is not discriminatory and doesn’t target trans Texans — despite declining every amendment in the Senate that would have removed the parts that discriminate — it is clear that by enlisting these anti-LGBTQ groups, their real intention is to discriminate against transgender people. More from the Dallas Morning News.

TX & NC HOSPITALS STAND UP FOR LGBTQ EQUALITY IN FACE OF LEGISLATIVE ATTACKS: The 10th edition of HRC’s Healthcare Equality Index highlights the groundbreaking work taking place at two transgender youth clinics — GENECIS at Children’s Health in Dallas, and the Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care at Duke Children’s Hospital in Durham, North Carolina. Legislative attacks on the transgender communities in both of those states underscore the importance of the care and affirmation these clinics are providing transgender youth. In Texas, SB6, a bill targeting transgender people’s access to public facilities, passed out of committee and is up for a vote by the full state senate. And in North Carolina, the negative effects of HB2, which, like SB6, targets the state’s transgender community for discrimination, continues to significantly damage North Carolina’s reputation and economy. More on GENECIS here and the Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care here.

TOMORROW — TRANSGENDER DAY OF VISIBILITY: Tomorrow marks Transgender Day of Visibility, a day to celebrate the transgender community and raise awareness of the struggles they face. HRC is using this week to highlight trans youth making a difference, to praise workplaces supporting transgender employees and to mourn the loss of the transgender people — mostly transgender women of color — murdered in an epidemic of violence we must end.

LGBTQ YOUTH HOMELESSNESS AND THE JOURNEY PARENTS TAKE TO ACCEPT THEIR LGBTQ CHILDREN: In a piece for the Washington Post, Jaimie Seaton (@JaimieSeaton) interviews parents of LGBTQ children about their journey to accept their children and the harrowing statistics about LGBTQ youth homelessness. In 2012, The Williams Institute released study findings that 40 percent of all homeless youth are LGBTQ. More from The Washington Post.

READING RAINBOW

NewNowNext takes a look at Snickers limited edition pro-equality packaging and their new collaboration to highlight stories of the LGBTQ community; YouthRadio interviews Bobby Brooks, Texas A&M’s first openly gay student body president

Have news? Send us your news and tips at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to #AM_Equality and follow @HRC for all the latest news. Thanks for reading!

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