August 16, 2015

Longtime civil rights activist Julian Bond dead at 75

Julian Bond, a civil rights activist and longtime board chairman of the NAACP, died Saturday night, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

He was 75.

Bond died in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness, the SPLC said in a statement released Sunday morning.
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The Nashville, Tenn. native was considered a symbol and icon of the 1960s civil rights movement. As a Morehouse College student, Bond helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and as its communications director, he was on the front lines of protests that led to the nation's landmark civil rights laws.

Bond later served as board chairman of the 500,000-member NAACP for 10 years but declined to run again for another one-year term in 2010.

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-julian-bond-20150815-story.html

In addition to Julian Bond's achievements as a founder of SNCC and the Southern Poverty Law Center, his time as leader of the NAACP led to a focus on LGBTQ rights.

August 16, 2015

Does Lincoln Chafee have supporters?

He seems to be polling in the low single-digits in every poll I see, with most of them being at 0% or 1%. I have seen polls where his favorability was nearly -30 with Democratic primary voters, with less than 10% approving, nearly 40% disapproving, and the rest not knowing who he is. In most polls, his approval ratings are negative with the tiny sliver of people who say they're going to vote for him. I have never met somebody who proclaimed themselves to be a Lincoln Chafee supporter, have never seen a post on DU saying they want or expect Chafee to win the nomination, nor have I seen him really go out of his way to campaign. He was a liberal Republican Senator (the last that existed) and a seemingly progressive independent (and later Democratic) Governor, so did all the party switching end up just leaving him alienated with everybody?

So I'm throwing this question out there to see if anybody on DU, the largest haven for Democratic voters on the internet, wants Lincoln Chafee to be our nominee for President. If you do, will you make a case for him?

August 10, 2015

Bernie is going all in on social justice

This speech in Portland, the addition of Symone Sanders to his campaign, and his racial justice plan are huge steps forward. A lot of Black Lives Matter activists are praising him for listening and adjusting his message.

He is listening and learning. We should stand behind him as we reach out to the black community and Bernie makes his case. He's not bashing BLM or telling protestors to leave him alone or anything else. He's just going to listen, learn, and take action. He's a man of the people.

That's who he is, and that's why I'm supporting him for President.

July 23, 2015

Equality Act Endorsed By Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley. Cosponsored by 195 Democrats in House & Senate.

Yet no Republican members of Congress or Presidential candidate have come out in support of the Equality Act so far. Any question as to which party that LGBTQ people should be voting for? The next time you run into a Log Cabin Republican, make them remember who had our backs when it counted!

July 21, 2015

Democrats Plan To Introduce Sweeping LGBT Rights Bill In Congress This Week

http://www.buzzfeed.com/dominicholden/democrats-plan-to-introduce-sweeping-lgbt-rights-bill-in-con#.ggbpnaRvR

Democrats in Congress plan to introduce broad legislation this week to protect LGBT people from discrimination — including in housing, workplaces, schools, and public accommodations. In effect, the Equality Act would extend the same raft of rights to LGBT Americans that are currently afforded to other protected groups, including people of color, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The bill marks the first major attempt by Democrats to advance LGBT rights in both chambers of Republican-led Congress since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality in June.

The measure has been long in the works and attempts to get traction where a more narrowly tailored LGBT workplace nondiscrimination bill — known as ENDA — had faltered for years.

Let's get this done! It's well past time for equality for all, regardless of bigot's cries of "religious liberty" as they try to keep us in the past.

July 4, 2015

LGBT Activists Slam Martin O’Malley for Backing Limited LGBT Protections

LGBT Activists Slam Martin O’Malley for Backing Limited LGBT Protections
LGBT Americans Must be Equal Under the Law, Activists Say

New York, NY (June 30, 2015) – Responding to comments by former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley in The Hill saying he supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), Queer Nation demanded that O’Malley endorse comprehensive federal legislation that extends the rights and anti-discrimination protections given to all other Americans to members of the LGBT community.

“Martin O’Malley wants our votes, but he doesn’t know what LGBT people want and what we need,” said Duncan Osborne, a member of Queer Nation. “The LGBT community has rejected ENDA. We are pursuing comprehensive federal legislation that makes us fully equal under the law.”

First introduced in Congress in 1994, ENDA had a 2007 passing vote in the House after protections for transgender people were stripped out and a 2013 passing vote in the Senate after a sweeping religious exemption was added to the bill.

Read more at: http://queernationny.org/post/122873197471/media-release-for-immediate-release-june-30-2015