Gay Rights

While 53 percent of Americans support legalizing same-sex marriage, less than half of Americans support the idea of openly gay adults serving as Boy Scout leaders. Given the lack of a trend on this question, it is not clear whether support is higher than in the past, or the degree to which the lack of support may reflect respondents' reluctance to say how a private organization should decide who holds its positions of leadership.

Under Iowa law, vital records including death certificates reflect legal parentage, and both spouses are parents to any child born during a marriage regardless of whether they have a biological relationship to the child. In March 2012, the Iowa Attorney General’s office filed court documents saying that the state will continue to refuse an accurate death certificate to Jenny and Jessica Buntemeyer, asserting that it was correct in erasing Jenny’s name.

November 30, 2012 looms large for the American Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community in it’s fight for equality. The nine justices of the Supreme Court will hold a closed-door conference to select which, if any, of the major LGBT cases they will hear.
The Supreme Court is not required to accept any certain number of the thousands of cases it is asked to review. In fact, during one term, there’s only enough time for the Court to hear 100 or so cases. If they do not accept a case, the decision of the lower court stands and it becomes the final ruling in the case. For instance, if the Supreme Court refuses to hear the lower court’s ruling against Prop 8, then legal same-sex marriage will return to California. The justices also have the option to postpone deciding whether to take a case holding it for consideration at a later conference.

I’d like to believe that Malawi’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) citizens and tourists had a few days to breathe easier.On November 5, the government issued a moratorium suspending all laws decriminalizing homosexuality. Three days later, on November 8, homosexuality was illegal again.

The kerfuffle concerning undocumented immigrants and legalizing same-sex marriage are usually competing and unresolved hot-button issues for voters heading toward the ballot box. Immigration advocates and LGBTQ rights groups have long tried to get their constituencies working together.