Camille is a twentysomething working in the LGBT nonprofit industry. She runs an LGBT news blog at gaywrites.org.
Likely presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson (below) is frustrated. In an appearance in New York and an interview following, the conservative doctor affirmed his traditional-as-ever views on homosexuality, but he just doesn’t understood why LGBT people can’t accept them. BuzzFeed compiled some sound bites from his appearance at New York’s National Action Network, the nonprofit led by Rev. Al Sharpton: Read more
This week, Colorado State Representative (and notorious babbling conservative) Gordon Klingenschmitt predicted a future some of us can only dream of. He says that in a hundred years, 20% of the population will be gay. Before we go any further, this actually isn’t impossible, whether in a century or today. Depending on what survey you consult, the portion of the population that identifies as gay or lesbian might be 1%, 3%, 5%, or any other single-digit figure, really. But because stigma against LGBT people is still alive and well, we have no way of knowing how many people refrain from accurately reporting their sexual orientation, whether because of safety, family acceptance, internal denial, or any of the other reasons a person might not want to come out. What is misguided, though, is Klingenschmitt’s idea of how we’re going to reach this figure. Here’s the video: Read more
When the Boy Scouts of America lifted its ban on gay scouts in 2013, nobody busted out the rainbow flags and declared a cultural victory. That’s because in the same breath, the organization upheld its ban on LGBT adult scout leaders, essentially saying that a gay Boy Scout was “trustworthy, loyal and helpful” only until his 18th birthday. The Greater New York Councils, the BSA’s New York affiliate, have officially called BS. This week, they loudly and proudly announced the hiring… Read more
Yesterday, Indiana Governor Mike Pence (below) codified discrimination against LGBT people, atheists, women, unmarried couples, pregnant people, and virtually anybody else who could pose a “threat” to a person’s religious expression. The freshly-signed Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects people from governmental consequences for discriminatory acts they commit, as long as they were acting on their deeply-held religious beliefs. The exact text says that the law: Read more
Officials from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), that church’s largest denomination in the country, have changed their constitution to be more inclusive of same-sex marriages. A majority of the church’s regional bodies approved a change recommended by the General Assembly last year: the church’s constitution now defines marriage as “between two people” rather than between a man and a woman. Read more
