| In our ongoing coverage of equality news, here's the latest from Texas and the Nation.
Google announced a worlwide campaign to promote safer working conditions for its LGBT employees called "Legalise Love" last week. Google's campaign kicked off in Singapore, and Google has plans to eventually expand the initiative to every country where it has an office. Google has a new webpage dedicate to the campaign. The Homophobic American Family Association is considering a boycott of Google in response.
The Episcopal Church backed churchwide blessings of Gay Couples at their General Convention on Tuesday. Under the new policy, each Episcopal bishop will decide whether to allow the ceremonies in his or her local diocese.
Noting that the Episcopal Church's approval of marriage equality signifies changing social attitudes about gays in the United States, the Baltimore Sun Newspaper endorsed gay marriage yesterday. From the Maryland paper's editorial:
"...it's important for Maryland to be a welcoming place for families of all kinds. The only reason the state is involved in marriage at all is that strong marriages make strong families, and strong families make strong communities. That's true whether the couples involved are gay or straight."
A new study suggests a strong connection between family rejection and abuse and homelessness for LGBT youth. 68% of LGBT homeless youth surveyed reported having experienced family rejection, and 54% reported having experienced family abuse.
ABC News reports that a New Jersey couple is threatening to sue the antigay group Public Advocate of the United States over its use of the couple's engagement photo (below left) in a homophobic political advertisement (below right). The antigay group stole the couple's engagement photo from a personal blog.
A Phillipene immigrant filed a lawsuit on Thursday challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and seeking the legal right to stay in the United States baed on her same-sex marriage to an American Citizen.
The Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP), an organization of black clergy members, protested the NAACP's support of marriage equality at the NAACP's annual convention in Houston. |
