Official News Outlet for the Rainbow Round Table of the American Library Association
By John Mack Freeman Vox published a time lapse video of the march towards full marriage equality in the United States earlier this week. The brief two-minute video highlights the steady increase in the number of Americans living in states where same sex marriage is legal. Watch the video below:
By John Mack Freeman In Montana, Governor Bullock signed an anti-bullying law into effect. The measure had taken over ten years to become a law, making Montana the last state in the union to have a statewide anti-bullying law on the books. Via the Billings Gazette: The new law defines bullying as any repeated harassment, hazing or […]
By John Mack Freeman Two new polls released this week have shown increased support for both same-sex marriage and acceptance of trans people. First, an ABC News poll showed 61 percent of respondents approving of same-sex marriage. This is the highest level of support ever recorded by this poll. This is almost a doubling of […]
By John Mack Freeman In a move that surprised many, Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona (R) revoked that state’s ban on adoption by same-sex couples. According to a spokesman, the voiding of a Department of Child Safety mandate came this week because the governor just learned of the policy. Although Ducey has strong ties to […]
By John Mack Freeman An administrative judge has proposed a $135,000 fine for the suburban Portland, Oregon bakery who were refused service over two years ago. Via the Seattle Times: The judge, Alan McCullough, ruled in January that Sweet Cakes by Melissa discriminated against Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer by refusing to bake them a wedding […]
By John Mack Freeman A new study shows that LGBT people of color are statistically much more likely to experience lifetime poverty than their non-LGBT or non-person of color counterparts. Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for LGBT People of Color by the Movement Advancement Project shows that LGBT people of color are more likely […]
By John Mack Freeman Guam Attorney General Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson ordered clerks in that territory to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. This is the first United States territory to recognize and issue same sex marriage licenses. The order followed the territory being sued by a lesbian couple after their marriage license application was denied. […]
By John Mack Freeman In El Salvador this week, a constitutional referendum that would ban same sex marriage got preliminary approval from the legislature with 47 of 84 members backing the proposal. According to El Salvadoran law, the bill must receive 2/3 approval, or 56 of the current members. In Malawi, the Marriage, Divorce, and Family Relations Law went into […]
By John Mack Freeman GLAAD released their 2015 Studio Responsibility Index this week. The index tracks LGBT representation in major studio films in wide release from year to year. Some of their findings included: 17.5% of analyzed films had LGBT representation of some kind, slightly up from 2014. Female-identified LGBT people made up 32% of […]
By John Mack Freeman A judge ruled this past Friday that opponents to Houston’s equal rights ordinance (referred to as HERO) did not have a sufficient number of signatures to place the issue on the ballot this November. The focus of the trial was on whether the city had properly invalidated pages of petitions that […]