discrimination challenges

Eight LGBT groups including GetEqual, the Transgender Law Center, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have written an open letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanding a floor vote on ENDA immediately. The groups include SF Pride at Work, One Struggle, One Fight, GetEqual, Harvey Milk Democratic Club, Transgender Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, El / La and National Pride at Work.

Ohio is instituting a pilot project to deter tobacco use in the Cleavland area’s the state’s lebian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths. According to state health officials, the CDC smoking and tabacco use is 60 percent more prevalent in LGBT youth populations than that of the general contingency.

The wildly irreverent and damned funny Sarah Silverman returns to television with The Sarah Silverman Program, which Logo helped to save from extinction when it opted into a financial partnership with Comedy Central. Now Advocate.com has an exclusive interview with Silverman in which she chats up gay marriage, queer content on her show, her status as a "cunt tease" (according to some lesbians), Lady Gaga and more.

Challengers of California's ban on same-sex marriage tried to show that religion has promoted discrimination against gays and lesbians. On the seventh day of the trial, lawyers trying to overturn Prop 8 presented testimony of a gay man, Ryan Kendall, whose parents forced him to undergo "conversion therapy" in his teens. 

A gay married couple is challenging the wedding announcement policy of the Dallas Morning News, which refuses to feature same-sex couples in their "Weddings" section. Dallas couple Mark Reed-Walkup and Dante Walkup were recently married, thanks to Skype and an officiant in Washington, D.C., where same-sex marriage is legal. TheDallas Morning News won't publish their announcement in the "Weddings" section, but has agreed to feature them in their "Commitments" section. The couple is challenging the paper's decision by filing a complaint with the city, which bars discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she doesn't see herself serving a second term should Barack Obama be reelected. In an interview with PBS's Travis Smiley Thursday night, the former first lady responded, "No, I really can't," she said. "The whole eight (years), I mean that would be very challenging. But I... don't want to make any predictions sitting here."

Actress Charlize Theron speaks up in support of gay marriage in disapproval of the California Supreme Court upholding of Prop 8, the ban of same-sex marriage. 

As expected, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson allowed a law banning local ordinances protecting LGBT people from discrimination to become law without his signature.

The suit from a Milwaukee couple says the issue is of such importance that the state Supreme Court should have original jurisdiction.

A long-awaited transgender civil rights bill passed quickly through the Massachusetts legislature today, with the state Senate voting for it overwhelmingly. Gov. Deval Patrick renewed his pledge to sign it, according to The Boston Globe.

The state of Massachusetts is suing the federal government over the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The DOMA interferes with the state's right to extend the definition of marriage to include lesbian and gay couples.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the U.S. military can no longer enforce the "dont ask, don't tell" policy. The panel ruled that DADT must be lifted immediately and cited the recent Department of Justice brief in Golinski v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in which the government said, “gay and lesbian individuals have suffered a long and significant history of purposeful discrimination.”