Official News Outlet for the Rainbow Round Table of the American Library Association
By John Mack Freeman (Thanks to Glenn Patton for the tip!) The Ohio Supreme Court issued an advisory opinion this week that found it illegal for judges to recuse themselves from performing same-sex marriages. From the decision: A judge who takes the position that he or she will discontinue performing all marriages, in order to avoid marrying […]
By John Mack Freeman (Thanks to Chris Boire for the tip!) At ALA Annual in San Francisco, 3M crowdsourced a list of titles for their 2015 Partner for Pride Reading List. Conference attendees were encouraged to write their favorite diverse titles on a Post-It. Through this campaign, 3M donated $2,250 to the GLBTRT that will […]
By John Mack Freeman Two professional sports leagues have seen their first out players this week. In baseball, David Denson, a first baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers’ rookie affiliate in Helena, Montana, came out via an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. From that interview: Since coming out to his Helena teammates, Denson said he has felt like a different person […]
By John Mack Freeman Two anti-LGBT proposals from the Republic National Committee failed at their summer meeting last week. Via The Washington Blade: The first resolution, proposed by Dave Agema, urged schools with gay-inclusive sex education curricula to “also include the harmful physical aspects of the lifestyle.” Another measure, sponsored by Ross Little of Louisiana, […]
By John Mack Freeman The trailer for Roland Emmerich’s film Stonewall about the eponymous riots was released this week: However, the film almost immediately came under fire for apparently whitewashing the event. There have been calls from numerous people in the LGBT community to boycott the film. A petition for those calling for a boycott of the […]
By John Mack Freeman Nepal issued its first third-gender passport this week. With this move, Nepal joins the very few countries on the planet to offer non-binary gender options on passports. Individuals can choose “male,” “female,” or “other” as their preferred gender option. The only other countries where this option is available are New Zealand […]
By John Mack Freeman The Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco is adding a college preparatory course about LGBT history to its curriculum. Via The Washington Post: The class, LGBT Studies, will look at the legalization of same-sex marriage, the US military’s ‘‘don’t ask, don’t tell’’ policy, and major gay-rights events such as […]
By John Mack Freeman Governor Alejandro García Padilla of Puerto Rico issued two executive orders this week that extend protections to trans people in the US commonwealth. One order allows for Puerto Ricans to change the gender on their driver’s license to match that of their gender identity. The second bans hospitals from discriminating against patients in […]
By John Mack Freeman In another advance for same-sex rights in Mexico, the country’s Supreme Court has ruled that a ban on adoption by same-sex couples is unconstitutional. Via The Washington Blade: The Mexican Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled a law in the state of Campeche that bans same-sex couples from adopting children is unconstitutional. […]
By John Mack Freeman For all of the progress being made in same-sex marriage throughout the world, it still seems to come in slow and stilted leaps forward. However, the growing support for same-sex marriage in Australia and the attempts by that country’s left-wing legislators to bring marriage to a vote suffered a major setback […]