Indiana Equality Declares Bankruptcy

Indiana's only statewide LGBT advocacy organization, Indiana Equality, has filed for bankruptcy. The organization has been plagued for years with a poor reputation for financial mismanagement and inefficiency. Last year it was also discovered that longtime treasurer Dan Funk had stolen funds from the organization. ...

Bilerico Project • May 14, 2012

Indiana Senate to Study Civil Marriage Structure?

Indiana State Senate Minority Leader State Vi Simpson (D - Ellettsville), has introduced legislation to form a study committee to investigate "alternatives to civil marriage". The committee would begin work this summer and make recommendations to the General Assembly after it concludes....

Bilerico Project • Jan 25, 2012

Update: EQCA Hiring, Doing Better

Equality California Communications Director Rebekah Orr says the statewide lobbying group is doing better going into the new year. EQCA has posted job offerings for a Director of Special Events and Major Gifts Officer and is expected to have an official Interim Executive Director in a few weeks with a projected budget for 2012 of around $500,000. ...

Bilerico Project • Jan 10, 2012

Former EqCa Staffer: From Grasstops to Grassroots

The language for the initiative submitted to the Attorney General's office is the same lawyer-vetted language as that submitted for a failed initiative in 2010. The proposed initiative opens with protections for "religious freedom" - exempting religious officials or institutions from having to perform same-sex marriages. It then strikes the current definition of marriage as between a man and a wom...

Bilerico Project • Nov 29, 2011

Majority of Montana Voters Favor Same-Sex Partnerships

A newly released poll shows that a majority of voters in Montana support domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. The poll, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for the American Civil Liberties Union, found that 53% of Montana voters favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to enter into domestic partnerships....

Bilerico Project • Jul 31, 2011

Same-Sex Couple Seeks Recognition By Israel

According to a report in the Jewish Daily Forward, an American Jewish man, Joshua Goldberg, who emigrated to Israel on June 10 of this year with his partner, whom he married in Canada two years ago, is petitioning the Israeli Interior Ministry to give his husband citizenship. His petition, filed four months ago, has yet to receive a response. Under Israeli Law, Jews have an unrestricted right to ...

Bilerico Project • Jul 18, 2011

IL: Troubling Tax Loophole with Civil Unions

So despite the broad and obvious language of the civil union act saying that couples should get all the same benefits of married spouses, the Dept. of Revenue disagrees and is going with DOMA as the excuse. This exclusion of state tax benefits are a troubling interpretation of the civil unions act, to be sure, and one that highlights the inequities and confusions that civil unions and other "non-m...

Bilerico Project • Jun 23, 2011

White House Backs Off Forgery Response to 1996 Obama Marriage Support

Shin Inouye, White House Specialty Media Director provided me with the following statement: "Dan was not familiar with the history of the questionnaire that was brought up today, but the President's views are clear. He has long supported equal rights and benefits for gay and lesbian couples and since taking office he has signed into law the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, signed into law the Hate ...

Bilerico Project • Jun 18, 2011

King & Spalding Breaks Non-Discrimination Pledge with DOMA Case

On my persoanal blog on Tuesday morning I stated that it seemed to me that HRC needs to immediately change King & Spalding's rating to a zero. It turns out that HRC is going a step better....

Bilerico Project • Apr 21, 2011

Victory: Illinois Kills Anti-Adoption Bill

Thanks to hundreds of calls being made by people all over Illinois and all over the nation, the Senate panel in charge of overseeing SB 1123 rejected the discriminatory amendment to the bill, and sent the anti-gay set packing out of Springfield. The vote was very close: seven to six with one abstention....

Bilerico Project • Apr 14, 2011

Wait: The Anti-gay Illinois Legislation Is a Democrat Bill?

The anti-gay bill being hammered through Illinois in record time - the bill that will allow adoption agencies to deny loving, capable families the ability do deny based on "sincerely held religious belief" - is (wait for it) an almost totally Democrat-sponsored bill. "We are expecting this bill to pass the committee and will most likely pass the Senate as well," said TCRA Executive Director, Anth...

Bilerico Project • Apr 13, 2011

Illinois Right Wing Is Forcing through an Anti-LGBT Bill

The bill would amend the recently passed civil unions bill in Illinois to not only allow adoption agencies to discriminate against lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the adoption process - something currently illegal in Illinois currently, and has been Illegal for years with no negative consequences - the bill would also dismantle the Human Rights Act in the most dastardly way. Religious institu...

Bilerico Project • Apr 13, 2011

Indiana House Passes Marriage Discrimination Amendment

The Indiana House of Representatives passed a marriage discrimination amendment yesterday afternoon after only a half an hour of debate. The bipartisan vote of 70-26 took marriage equality supporters by surprise - especially with the defection of Minority Leader Pat Bauer. In previous sessions Bauer, as Speaker of the House, killed the amendment in committee. The rumor mill says that Bauer and se...

Bilerico Project • Feb 17, 2011

Marriage Bill Introduced in Washington on Valentine's Day

While Washington state still holds the title for being the only state to win an expansion of gay and lesbian rights at the ballot box, the marriage campaign will be more difficult. Polling is on our side. An overwhelming majority of Washington voters support relationship recognition....

Bilerico Project • Feb 15, 2011

Fred Karger: Quixotic Hero, Game Changer or Both?

Even if Karger is completely serious about the White House -- and he seems to be -- Karger's still an openly gay man. Even though 50% of Americans claim they would vote for a gay candidate, he doesn't stand much of a chance when pitted against heavy weights like Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee. And Karger knows it will be a rough road. "When I started, I gave myself a 25% chance," he admitted. "I wa...

Bilerico Project • Jul 7, 2010

Prop 8 Fighters Olson and Boies Make the 2010 TIME 100 List

The 2010 TIME 100 just posted their annual TIME 100 list of "people who most affect our world" and included in the "Thinkers" category is the federal Prop 8 trial odd couple of Ted Olson and David Boies (pictured here in a photo by Diana Walker)....

Bilerico Project • May 4, 2010

Maine: An easy way to double your money

For the next 48 hours, a generous Projector has made an offer to the Bilerico community that can't be ignored! Our reader will match up to $1000 total raised on Bilerico if at least 12 people donate in the next 48 hours....

Bilerico Project • Sep 8, 2009

Will the Repeal Prop 8 Campaign Look Like No on 8 After All?

Hildebrand was both inspirational and offered what he described as "tough love." Noting upfront that he is "an outsider" from South Dakota, not California, he said his 22 years of experience is largely with federal candidates. And he, like Jacobs, stressed the importance of winning the ballot initiative fight in Maine. (Jacobs called for an "October vacation in Maine" - though it is unclear if tha...

Bilerico Project • Aug 11, 2009

Steve Hildebrand's Mission to Sell 2010

I don't think the campaign should ever shy away from the fact that we're asking voters in this state to allow two men to get married, two women to get married or whatever combination thereof. I can't sit here and suggest what should be in television ads and what shouldn't be. But I would be disturbed, I guess, if the campaign shied away from the fact that this is about same sex marriage. My point...

Bilerico Project • Aug 11, 2009

The Unnoticed Power Player at the Repeal Prop 8 Leadership Summit

It goes without saying that marriage equality is the life force of the LGBT movement today. We clearly have two different tracks going on in our community. We have the track that's typically guided by the professionals that looks at the polling data and sees 2012 or 2014 as far better opportunities for us. And then we also have this grassroots groundswell, which is angry and emotional that wants u...

Bilerico Project • Jul 30, 2009

Repeal Prop 8 Leadership Summit: The Expert Point of View

The real problem, from my perspective, is that right now - and for the past seven months - the acrimony among institutional leaders and grassroots activists is only deepening. It's as if all the 8hate has been turned inward - we are the enemy, anyone who is not immediately, completely, absolutely with us now and forever more. The rivers could part and a charismatic general who meets everyone's le...

Bilerico Project • Jul 30, 2009

What Really Happened at the Repeal Prop 8 Leadership Summit

A blog for the San Francisco Chronicle came out fairly quickly after Saturday's statewide LGBT "Leadership Summit" in San Bernardino, California with the results of a non-binding straw poll about when the LGBT community wants to return to the ballot to repeal Prop 8: "93 people voted to go in 2010, 49 in 2012 and 20 undecided." I was there. The count's accurate but it's far from the whole story....

Bilerico Project • Jul 29, 2009

Cleve Jones Responds: 10 Reasons Why a March Isn't a Bad Idea

On June 8, 2009, Bil Browning of Bilerico Project attacked the planned march on Washington scheduled for October 11 in a post entitled: "10 reasons why a march on Washington is a bad idea." Bil, and other critics of the march are wrong on all ten counts and here's why....

Bilerico Project • Jun 16, 2009

Andrea Shorter on her new EQCA marriage job

Marc Solomon - the highly regarded executive director of MassEquality - will be EQCA's new "marriage director." EQCA also hired Andrea Shorter, who recently lead the post-Prop 8 Equality Summit. Shorter is co-founder and director of And Marriage For All, a public-education campaign that engages communities of color in dialogue about the freedom to marry for same-sex couples, and the co-founder an...

Bilerico Project • Mar 10, 2009

Prop 8: Our Children's Perspective

If you're like me, you've read an awful lot about Prop 8. While you still want to spread the word to those who need education about it, you're probably getting a bit tired yourself of reading yet another article pro or con. Read this one, though. It's by Amanda Young of Verde, a magazine produced by and for students at Palo Alto High School, and features the perspectives of several teen children ...

Bilerico Project • Feb 23, 2009

Join the Impact? What impact?

These days, Join the Impact's website is little more than a collection of ads for online gay dating services and links to dancing penguins....

Bilerico Project • Feb 17, 2009

Justin Cole: The future of LGBT organizing

For all of the complaining I've done about LGBT state and national organizations who don't understand how to work with new media, Justin lays it on the table swiftly and succinctly. It's a whole new world out there in LGBT activism. Those groups will either have to a) catch up quickly to continue being viable or b) fold....

Bilerico Project • Feb 17, 2009

Hundreds Rally in Detroit for National Day of Protest

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Bilerico Project • Nov 15, 2008