All Things LGBTQ+ (3 Viewers)

[Farb]

Didn't really see a place for this so I thought I would start a thread about all things LGBTQ since this is a pretty hot topic in our culture right now

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/sup...y-that-refuses-to-work-with-lgbt-couples.html

• The Supreme Court on Thursday delivered a unanimous defeat to LGBT couples in a high-profile case over whether Philadelphia could refuse to contract with a Roman Catholic adoption agency that says its religious beliefs prevent it from working with same-sex foster parents.
• Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in an opinion for a majority of the court that Philadelphia violated the First Amendment by refusing to contract with Catholic Social Services once it learned that the organization would not certify same-sex couples for adoption.

I will admit, I was hopeful for this decision by the SCOTUS but I was surprised by the unanimous decision.

While I don't think there is anything wrong, per se, with same sex couples adopting and raising children (I actually think it is a good thing as it not an abortion) but I also did not want to see the state force a religious institution to bend to a societal norm.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The federal government could soon apologize for actions that discriminated against LGBTQ government workers as far back as 1949 under a resolution filed Tuesday by Senate Democrats.

Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) are leading the resolution, which has 18 Democratic co-sponsors. The duo sponsored an identical resolution in 2021.

In a statement Tuesday, Kaine said the resolution reaffirms a commitment “to righting our past wrongs” and advancing LGBTQ equality nationwide.

“LGBT civil servants, foreign service officers and service members have made countless sacrifices and contributions to our country and national security. Despite this, our government has subjected them to decades of harassment, invasive investigations and wrongful termination because of who they are or who they love,” he said.

The resolution points to legislation, congressional hearings, reports and public statements made by members of the federal government against LGBTQ military service members, foreign service members and civilian employees, most notably during the “Lavender Scare” of the late 1950s and ’60s, when then-Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) linked homosexuality to communism. In 2017, former Secretary of State John Kerry issued a formal apology to LGBTQ State Department employees for past discrimination based on sexual orientation, including during the “Lavendar Scare.” .............

MSN

 

[RobF]

I just wandered over there and looked at the last page in that thread. Holy schlitz, what a yutz.

It was a bit of a giveaway when he liked the post locking the thread.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Marissa Lasoff-Santos and the person she would marry quickly fell head over heels in love. Lasoff-Santos was a gay woman. Her girlfriend was a bisexual woman — or so they thought. Now her partner has become her husband, and they both identify as queer. And things are better than ever.

“We’ve always just had this deep connection, so that’s why, like, I never stopped loving him throughout any of this,”says Lasoff-Santos, a 33-year-old librarian in Michigan. “I’ve become more attracted to him. I guess part of it is just, like, that confidence in him and, like, he just seems so happy.”

Lasoff-Santos’ relationship and others like it show that a partner’s gender transition does not necessarily mean a death sentence for a marriage. Data is scant, but couples and therapists say that in many cases, a relationship grows and flourishes under the light of new honesty.

Such marriages, when they do prevail, can underscore the resilience of love, the flexibility of sexual identity and the diversity in LGBTQ+ relationships 20 years after the first same-sex marriages in the U.S. and with Pride Month in its sixth decade.



“Even though he was the one transitioning, I felt like I was going through my own transition,” Lasoff-Santos says. “It was definitely hard to not, I guess, come across as kind of selfish, because I was going through all these emotions, and he was going through his own journey.”

Kristie Overstreet, a sexologist and psychotherapist who says she has worked with trans people for 18 years, says about 2 in 5 relationships survive a transition. And Kelly Wise, a sex therapist in Pennsylvania, estimates that about half of relationships in his practice that experience a gender transition end — for many reasons.

“Gender identity milestones often arise around times that many things are evolving within people and their relationships,” Wise says in an email.

A recent U.S. Census Bureau report on same-sex households doesn’t reflect marriages in transition because the bureau doesn’t ask questions about gender identity.


Avril Clark operates Distinction Support, an online network that helps supportive partners of trans and nonbinary people. Her spouse, a soccer referee at the time, came out as transgender in 2018, changed her name to Lucy and brought the couple much attention. Before then, Avril says, they had kept their arrangement private and “lived a double life” for 15 years.


“I needed somebody to talk to that knew how I was feeling,” Avril says. “And I looked around, and there weren’t any groups that were for me. They were full of people that were very angry and bitter and didn’t want anybody else’s relationship to work because their relationship hadn’t worked.”…….

Can a marriage survive a gender transition? Yes, and even thrive. How these couples make it work

Lasoff-Santos’ relationship and others show that a partner’s gender transition does not necessarily mean a death sentence for a marriage.

apnews.com

 

[MT15]

This is relevant considering the new revelations that seem to come daily now:

 

[SFIDC3]

This is relevant considering the new revelations that seem to come daily now:

It’s awesome because it’s the absolute truth, but it’s at the same time sad and pathetic…..

 

[Optimus Prime]

A majority of Republicans don’t support same-sex marriage, according to a new Gallup poll.

Forty-six percent of GOP respondents said they think same-sex marriage should be legal, down from 49 percent the previous year.

Even fewer Republicans, 40 percent, said they find same-sex relationships morally acceptable.


The new findings mark a sudden decline from 2021 and 2022, the first and only two years in which GOP respondents told Gallup they were in favor of same-sex marriage since 1996.….

Majority of Republicans once again disapprove of gay marriage, poll finds

These views put the party at odds with a majority of their fellow Americans, according to the data

www.independent.co.uk

 

[LA - L.A.]

A majority of Republicans don’t support same-sex marriage, according to a new Gallup poll.

Forty-six percent of GOP respondents said they think same-sex marriage should be legal, down from 49 percent the previous year.

Even fewer Republicans, 40 percent, said they find same-sex relationships morally acceptable.


The new findings mark a sudden decline from 2021 and 2022, the first and only two years in which GOP respondents told Gallup they were in favor of same-sex marriage since 1996.….

Majority of Republicans once again disapprove of gay marriage, poll finds

These views put the party at odds with a majority of their fellow Americans, according to the data

www.independent.co.uk

Some of that statistical shift is because people have been leaving the Republican party at a steady pace for a few decades. The people that have been leaving the party are probably the ones who think same sex marriage should be legal, which statistically increases the percentage of remaining Republicans that don't think same sex marriage should be legal.

 

[Optimus Prime]

NAMPA, Idaho — In the beginning, Tom Wheeler didn’t expect he would need a fence. He wanted to give Canyon County, Idaho, its first Pride celebration, and when he imagined that day, he pictured a park without barriers, an open space where everyone was welcome.

But then the mayor said the event conflicted with her beliefs, and angry residents called for a protest. Wheeler was a real estate agent from Boise, an out-of-towner, and worse, gay.

Far-right extremists had already targeted another small-town Idaho Pride, and now, Wheeler’s event seemed to be at risk, too. His mother begged him to stay home. An uncle urged him to wear a bulletproof vest. At the very least, local officers said, he might want a barricade…..

He’d come of age in the golden era of gay rights, but now all the promise he’d grown up with seemed to be at risk. Nationwide, states had introduced nearly 1,800 anti-LGBTQ+ bills over the past four years, and Idaho had led the way.

In 2020, it passed the country’s first trans sports ban, and this year, its legislature introduced 13 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, more than nearly any other state. In April, it became the first to win the right from the Supreme Court to enforce a ban on gender transition care for minors.

All the while, Pride events had become increasingly dangerous. Shoppers had destroyed rainbow-colored merchandise at Targets. Armed militias had shown up at libraries where drag queens held story hours, and someone even firebombed a doughnut shop after two queens dressed as ’50s housewives sold treats there.


Wheeler exhaled, grabbed a giant Pride flag, then marched it toward the fence…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/06/25/idaho-pride-lgbtq-threats/