« Gay press back in the White House | Main | Greek court annuls gay weddings »
May 01, 2009
After 100 days, still 0% LGBT Equality
Posted by: Andoni
eQualityGiving, an organization of major LGBT donors and activists, is keeping track of President Obama's progress on LGBT rights. To date, the meter is still at 0%, although the Hate Crimes bill is making its way through Congress and may be on the president's desk soon.
I don't think eQualityGiving believes Obama should ignore the other major problems facing the country in favor of LGBT rights. They just believe that the president should not forget about LGBT rights. And to make sure, they will keep score with the above Waiting for LGBT Equality Index. To the best of my knowledge, no other LGBT organization is looking at the entire spectrum of LGBT rights and publicizing the progress the way eQualityGiving is.
eQualityGiving has proposed an Omnibus Gay Rights Bill called the Equality and Religious Freedom Act that would achieve all of the above rights in one bill. Whether this is possible or not is debatable, but the Omnibus bill certainly is the gold standard against which all other legislation can be measured. And the above chart represents all the components of the Omnibus Bill. Thus our progress toward equality can be measured.
Right now, folks, we are 0% equal.
These are exciting times. We have a conducive Congress and a willing president. But in order to get things done, it is we who have to get into action. There is a lot of work to do.
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834527dd469e201156f6d44be970c
Comments
-
Or as the punchline to the old Microsoft joke goes, "Well, then you were a prospect. Now you're a client."
-
What's with this blog? Did Andoni and Chris forget about it? Not even an explanation as to why no new posts. Well fuck me running.
-
Greek islands with Italian names? I'd hazard a guess that it probably has something to do with the Roman Empire.
The comments to this entry are closed.
Brian on May 1, 2009 3:57:45 PM:
Very interesting related observation from over at Towleroad:
"White House Explains Changes to LGBT Commitments on Website-
Yesterday, our reader Sean Chapin alerted me to the fact that a long list of commitments to LGBT issues on the White House site had shrunk to a fraction of its size. Joe.My.God reported on it as well. He received a letter from the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force's Director of Communications Inga Sarda-Sorensen who contacted the White House regarding the changes.
She wrote: "I wanted to let you know that Rea Carey contacted the White House directly about the issue today after you alerted us to your post. Rea was told that they are changing the White House Web site to turn it into a more governance-focused site to reflect progress, as opposed to a campaign and transition site. They said they have taken out many such points throughout the site (not just on LGBT policy issues) as part of this changeover, and are apparently modifying the site over the next few weeks. We will be keeping an eye on it, but if you see changes before we do (or a lack thereof), please let us know. And thank you for calling this to our attention."
John Aravosis notes change in language regarding military gay ban from repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' to change 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'...
The language revision is troubling. We certainly hope the LGBT issues "progress achieved" section gets filled out more in the months to come."
quoted from:
http://www.towleroad.com/2009/05/white-house-explains-changes-to-lgbt-commitments-on-website.html