Clinton Urged to Protect LGBT Persons Under Threat Abroad

With reports of hundreds of LGBT individuals being beaten, persecuted and even killed in Iraq, Iran and other countries, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been urged to work with U.S. Ambassadors, the United Nations and NGOs across the globe to enforce human rights laws that protect LGBT individuals in the countries where they are under threat.

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), were joined by 11 of their Senate colleagues and 31 of their House colleagues, in asking The Secretary to take action in a letter delivered on Thursday, February 4.

According to Human Rights Watch, there is no official number of deaths since the killing of LGBT individuals began in Iraq, but the U.N. has provided rough estimates that range in the hundreds in 2009 alone. Not one murder of an LGBT individual in Iraq has led to an arrest, according to Human Rights Watch.

Read more: Clinton Urged to Protect LGBT

State of the 2010 Sacramento City Council Races

State of the 2010 Sacramento City Council Races

By Dan Roth,  Founding President of the Sacramento Stonewall Democratic Club and District Director, Office of Councilmember Raymond L. Tretheway

American campaigns, whether it is for city council or President of the United States, are the product of four ingredients: candidate, message, money, and organization.

Since the election of Kevin Johnson as Mayor of Sacramento, there has been a lot of attention focused on the upcoming city council races and the outcomes of these elections.

Read more: State of the 2010 Sacramento City Council Races

Congressmembers call on BSA to end discrimination against gays and lesbians

Twenty-six Members of Congress have urged the Boy Scouts of America to end its discriminatory policy of not accepting gays and lesbians in a letter sent to the Chief Scout Executive of the organization.

The correspondence, initiated by U.S. Representatives Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), was sent in response to the Boy Scouts’ rejection of Cate and Elizabeth Wirth, a couple in Vermont who were told they could not volunteer for their 10 year old son’s Cub Scout pack after it was revealed that the women are lesbians.

Read more: BSA Urged to End G&L Discrimination

Hawai'i Legislators Kill Civil Unions Bill

(Honolulu, February 1, 2010) —

The Hawai'i Legislature has failed to enact a law providing broad legal rights and duties to the state's lesbian and gay couples, tabling a Bill through an anonymous voice vote that had previously been approved by both houses of the Legislature.

The Hawai'i Senate had approved H.B. 444 — a bill to create "civil unions"— by a veto-proof 18 to 7 majority the week before, sending the bill back to the House for a conforming vote. Although the House had passed H.B. 444 by an emphatic 33 to 17 margin last year, House members used an anonymous voice vote to kill the bill on Friday, January, 29, a tactic that elicited calls of “cowards” from backers of the bill.

Read more: Hawai'i Legislators Kill Civil Unions Bill