#full equality

I see a lot of posts about the only real love is unconditional love. Well, I believe otherwise. Everything in life has conditions, has a price, and usually requires compromise. And that’s a good thing. Most of our life is lived between the extremes. And if you don’t have an investment, a price you pay, you value it less. I see mature love as sharing foundation values of respect, honesty,…

Circa 1990. The day I came very close to being arrested. Anita Bryant was in town and several of us AIDS activists protested her visit because of her hateful, self-serving, ignorant, and dangerous rhetoric about AIDS. It was peaceful but as we walked and chanted alongside the narrow, busy highway, the Williamson County deputy was walking backward in front of me, telling us to disburse and that…

Dear MAGA: When I was a young child and heard in Sunday School that God hates queers and that Jesus said they were the worst people on earth, a book explaining that every person, no matter who they love, has dignity and worth and is loved by God would have been a good foundation for me. When I was in third grade and had a best friend who was a girl who I wanted to marry and felt I was, uh…

I’m honestly confused by MAGA who swear on their AR15s they will leave the US if trump is convicted. So many questions. First, I assume that most MAGA are not filthy rich. Yet they can afford to leave their jobs, uproot their family, and move to a new country? How? Become nomads? Wouldn’t moving to a new country make them immigrants? That’s some stone cold irony there. And which new countries…

MassEquality Applauds AG’s Office and MCAD for Guidelines on Implementing Transgender Rights Law

BOSTON, Mass.—In response to the release of official guidance by Attorney General Maura Healey’s office and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) on implementing Massachusetts’ new transgender rights law, MassEquality’s Executive Director, Deborah Shields, JD, MPH, released the following statement: “MassEquality congratulates the Attorney General’s office and MCAD on…

Kim Crow Laws – Be Afraid

Kim Crow Laws – Be Afraid

When African Americans gained their freedom by President Lincoln, they still didn’t gain full equality. Equality for all races took until 1964 when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. He needed to expressly grant African Americans and other races their full equality in this act because of the discriminatory and bigoted local and state laws and ordinances…

I am surely naive in that I just assumed that marriage equality was just a piece of the overall equality puzzle. It would never occur to me that the marriage issue would be the ultimate step in LGBTQ inclusion and equality. My thought has been if the country acknowledges marriage equality as the law of the land, it couldn't be long at all before there would be full inclusion in anti-discrimination laws everywhere. If the major push for equality ends with marriage, then we do have a big problem. 

...Scrutinizing marriage as an institution and acknowledging broader community issues while supporting marriage as an option for all couples are not mutually exclusive ideas or actions.

If anything, it's a plea for recognition that the marriage issue is one part of a larger strategy for equality and not the ultimate end goal.

It's a plea for people to understand why the HRC deserves more scrutiny rather than childlike faith that they're out there representing a broad base of people in LGBT communities. As with other leading organizations and political figures, they don't deserve a free pass.

It's a plea that people who still require and desire more than marriage equality won't be forgotten about.

Here's hoping that won't happen on this issue and many others to come. But, for now, we await two court rulings...

Read the full article here.

and

Here is another take on the topic:

t's time to resolve this problem, and this is a very opportune time to do so. The trans community has scored many great victories recently, the most recent being the reconsideration by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of coverage for genital reconstruction surgeries. The gay community has also scored impressive victories, both last November, with the marriage referenda, and this week, with the oral arguments in the Supreme Court. We can come together in strength and equal standing.