LGBTQ+ Rights and America

Gays can marry in some states and still get fired for being gay too.

We have some loopholes of discrimination to close.

Arkansas, Mississippi strikes down the ban.

edited 26th Nov '14 9:59:01 PM by EarlOfSandvich

Do I really need to say it at this point?

Before you break out the streamers for Mississippi, they're fighting it for all their worth. According to the local paper, they're trying to appeal the judge's motion.

They are literally calling it tyranny of judges now. Not to mention the gov won't let a thing happen until the appeal has gone through, so even if they don't stop it completely it'll probably be months before a thing happens.

First openly gay MLB Umpire!

Let's hope this helps make his job easier and the harassment go down, as well as open the door for more professionals to feel safe being open.

Your Santa might be gay - Not That There's Anything Wrong with That, of course.

Another 'public figure X is gay for reasons' article? I thought they w'd of run their course by now. :/

Edit: Reading the article more carefully seems to be about the lives of gay Santa impersonators. Which I suppose is worth talking about.

edited 4th Dec '14 4:59:43 AM by joeyjojo

It seemed to be focusing on nobody giving a crap than the orientation of any particular Santa.

Considering the number of people and policy that still equate homosexuals with pedophiles and are a danger to the family unit, yes. It is worth talking about.

The faster people realize that gays are just like everyone else and they are also more in your life than you think, the faster we normalize respect and stop treating them like dirt and denying them rights.

The American architect of the Ugandan "kill the gays" bill will face trial for crimes against humanity.

This is a good development - that fucker needs to burn.

This is good news. The next Scott Lively wannabe is going to think twice before he opens his mouth. (Or hers. Bigotry is an equal opportunity profession these days.)

Not really. Uganda's bill is beyond the pale compared to anything this side of Turing's chemical castration. Most bigots simply don't go that far.

This is so frustrating.

Even if I never get married to anyone and even if I'm not living here anymore, I'll still want same-sex marriage in this state. As I believe with all things, it's not the using, it's the having. If not for me then for all the other people who want it.

Why are people still holding this back when it's inevitably going to come flooding through the whole country. It's already over half established in the U.S. in at least 35 other states...either declare it legal everywhere or declare it illegal everywhere so I everyone can finally get some relief from waiting.

Patience, grasshopper. It's already going way, way faster than racial integration did.

Eh, not really? For racial integration, the watershed moment was 1955 and "Brown v Board of Education," and things did not come to fulfillment, at least in legal terms, until 1965, merely ten years.

The watershed year in LGBT rights was 2003, both due to Lawrence v Texas and the Massachusetts decision to legalize. The backlash followed, but 11 years later and we're still not there legally, though getting quite close.

Of course, de jure segregation was only the tip of the iceberg problem, i'd argue homophobia today is weaker than de facto segregation, so in terms of cultural norms, gay rights have certainly fallen into the fast lane, but legally they're a little behind the pace set by segregation.

If you want to count striking down a sodomy law and one state legalizing gay marriage as sufficient for a defining watershed moment, then the appropriate comparison isn't Brown v Board (1954). It's the Congress of Industrial Organizations (1930s) if not even earlier.

I mean, the entire 1940's were basically the NAACP making huge strides throughout the North, and I'd argue that's the rough equivalent of what gay rights has been doing for the last 5-6 years to today.

As for popular homophobia going out quicker than de facto segregation, yes, considerably.

edited 13th Dec '14 11:06:37 PM by Pykrete

Well i'm not counting the behind-the-scenes stuff on gay rights, either, otherwise you'd go back to Stonewall or something. I'd say 1955 and 2003 were the years that both struggles became a part of the national political agenda.

The 1940's NAACP wasn't behind the scenes. It was a long series of lawsuits that dismantled segregation in large swaths of the North — much of which was illegal in the first place because many of those states already outlawed it.

That's why I'm saying gay rights has gone much faster. If you want "first state to codify the good thing" to be the "watershed moment" for gay rights, the equivalent in desegregation wasn't Brown v Board — it was Roberts v Boston, which outlawed segregation in Massachusetts in 1855. And if you want Brown v Board to be the watershed moment for desegregation, that's a Supreme Court decision over 100 years in the making that gay rights hasn't even reached yet. The rough equivalent of where we are now legally is about the 1940's.

Also, Massachusetts has a pretty good record for this sort of thing.

edited 14th Dec '14 11:50:28 AM by Pykrete

Definitely a blind spot in my knowledge of US history. I was aware of the emergence of the civil rights movement in the North in the early 20th century, but never really tracked its achievements. Thanks, it's really not something i attributed a lot of significance to before.

Plessy v Ferguson actually cited Roberts v Boston — specifically, they cited the original decision to uphold the segregated school, and not the Commonwealth decision that outlawed it a few years later. But then, I guess that's to be expected when one of your justices is a member of a fucking white supremacist paramilitary group.

Say what you like about Justices Scalia or Roberts, but I don't think any of our current crop are literally in Westboro Baptist or anything.

edited 14th Dec '14 1:18:41 PM by Pykrete

Batgirl creative team forced to apologise about transphobic and transmysognitic issue

Can someone tell me what the difference is between transphobic and transmysognitic.

edited 16th Dec '14 2:31:40 AM by SebastianGray

The latter's specific for transwomen, I think.

Thanks, so it's basically the same but more specific.

I think misotransgynistic would actually be a more grammatically-sound term.