prohibited activities

California governor Jerry Brown signed landmark legislation Thursday that mandates the contributions of LGBT people be included in school lesson plans. Aside from ensuring that the contributions of gays and gay rights are included in textbooks, the legislation adds sexual orientation to the state's existing antidiscrimination protections that prohibit bias in school activities, instruction, and instructional materials.

When two men briefly kissed at the popular Chico's Taco chain in El Paso, TX, they were quickly forced by security guards and a local police officer to leave the establishment citing a state law against homosexual activity.

Before returning to New England for the second time, I served two African American Presbyterian Churches. And during that time I never thought, two decades ago, that the entire church body would change its position on LGBTQ worshippers. After decades of open struggle with the church's recalcitrant attitude and discrimination against its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) worshippers who wanted to serve as pastors, elders or deacons, the Presbyterian Church (USA), known as the more liberal and tolerant branch of the denomination, finally conducted its first openly gay ordination.

Russia and India battle it out for most homophobic country, while the good old U.S. of A has some serious contenders for the award recognizing the most awful humans in existence.

A Pentecostal school in Oklahoma expelled Christian Minard one semester before she would have received her degree.

Blue is the Warmest Color in hot water in Ireland

U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. Granade has once again ruled in favor of equality — ordering probate judges throughout Alabama to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The leaders of the Fort Bragg Officers' Spouses Club have announced that they will review their rules, which prohibit same-sex spouses of officers, at their next board meeting next month.

Senior officials at the Pentagon today announced that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta will remove the almost 20-year-old ban on women in the military serving in combat positions.

GLAAD reports that it has worked successfully with Facebook to remove antigay hate speech from a page that commemorates recent gay youth suicides and calls for a day of remembrance this month. According to GLAAD, which contacted Facebook last week after receiving more than 1,800 complaints, the social networking giant agreed to monitor the page closely for violations in terms of service. As of Wednesday, new measures have been adopted to respond more quickly to hate speech and to monitor activity.

A biopic of antigay and lesbian activist Anita Bryant is in the works and being developed by HBO. The untitled film will be directed by gay Sex and the City creator Darren Star. Bryant's most famous celebrity endorsement was for the Florida Citrus Commission, closing each ad with the tag line, "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine."

The Pentagon said on Tuesday it is moving ahead with plans to end the U.S. military's ban on allowing women to serve in submarines.

Julia Graves, the lead attorney for 18-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt, the former high school cheerleader facing felony child abuse charges for a consensual sexual relationship with her then-14-year-old girlfriend and basketball teammate, has filed a motion to remove the judge assigned to the case.