Katherine Stewart Exposes the "Good News Clubs" (tags)
They bill themselves as "nondenominational Bible study" groups for grade-schoolers, but according to investigative reporter Katherine Stewart, the Good News Clubs are just part of a broad-based campaign by the radical religious Right to turn public schools into arenas of religious conversion. They've already won virtually complete permission from the U.S. Supreme Court to run roughshod over the separation of church and state, and religious organizations — especially anti-woman, anti-Queer Fundamentalist ones — have become a 900-pound gorilla able to push themselves into any public school they want to crash.
Imperial County Enters Court Case Against Marriage Equality (tags)
The Board of Supervisors of Imperial County voted 3-2 last December to intervene in the federal court case challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8, which defines marriage in California as between one man and one woman. According to marriage equality activist Fernando Lopez, Jr., the board's attempt to intervene in support of Prop. 8 — which the court neither accepted nor denied before the case began — was significant because, by involving a government body in the case on the side of Prop. 8, it would allow the Prop. 8 supporters to appeal a ruling against them even if the state of California chose not to.
Today's OTHER Gay Rights Defeat (tags)
The Murrieta school board voted, 3-2, to reject a proposed policy banning bullying and harassment of students "respect to ethnic group, religion, gender, sexual orientation, color, race, national origin and physical or mental disability or the perception of one or more of such characteristics." Ironically, the real danger here will not actually be borne primarily by the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered teenagers who are so despised by these Christian [sic] zealots. There are far, far more black, Latino, Asian, Native, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Buddhist, Mormon, immigrant, and disabled kids in the Murrieta school district than there are LGBT children, and ALL of those kids are at risk from a school board which is willing to condone harassment as long as some of that harassment is directed at gays.
Same-sex marriage: Its time has come (tags)
The struggle for marriage equality saw its first major victory last month as Massachusetts began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.