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Happy New Year!!

We're in for quite a ride this year.  After eight long years under President Bush, we are literally in the last days of an administration that aggresively opposed legislation and stood in the way of policies that would advance LGBT equality.  And now, with the January 20 inauguration day soon approaching, we're looking forward to working with the Obama administration to make sure they carry out their promises of LGBT inclusion they made during the campaign.  Of course, we know that real change and progress does not come overnight - or without a fight.  We've got a lot of work ahead of us and we'll need to call upon our members more than ever to ensure that the new administration takes concrete action on our issues. 

If you're not a member of the Human Rights Campaign, now is the time to join us in our fight!

HRC has launched a new membership drive that we're calling "The New Way Forward." Our goal is to add 2,009 new members before Barack Obama takes his oath of office on January 20.

In a recent email message to our supporters, HRC President Joe Solmonese outlined a few key reasons why becoming a member of the Human Rights Campaign is so important at this crucial moment in our movement:

• First and foremost, we will continue laying the groundwork for full marriage equality, including a repeal of Proposition 8. HRC is taking aggressive action against the lies and fabrications that have held back the tide of equality. We can, and we will, show America that honoring love and commitment is the moral thing to do.

• We will fight so that Judy Shepard doesn't have to spend one more year without her son Matthew's life being honored with a hate crimes law that protects ALL of us.

• We will continue building public support for a fully-inclusive workplace protection, so that LGBT people will no longer suffer discrimination or lose their jobs because of who they are.

• We will fight for the freedom to serve openly in the military; for adoption and foster parenting rights; and for transgender equality as a critical piece of our national civil rights vision.

• In weeks to come, you will hear more about HRC's grassroots, online and other campaigns to channel the anger caused by Prop. 8 and pursue our vision of justice – in the states, workplaces, faith communities, college campuses and beyond.

Not all these things will happen in 2009, but this is a moment we must not let slip by. This is the time to join our movement.

We can't do this without you. HRC is only as strong as the members who support and sustain us. JOIN TODAY.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich weighs in on Obama using his political capital to put Rick Warren front and center at his inauguration - and he's not happy with Obama's "tone-deaf invitation": 

Unlike such family-values ayatollahs as James Dobson and Tony Perkins, Warren is not obsessed with homosexuality and abortion. He was vociferously attacked by the Phyllis Schlafly gang when he invited Obama to speak about AIDS at his Saddleback Church two years ago.

There’s no reason why Obama shouldn’t return the favor by inviting him to Washington. But there’s a difference between including Warren among the cacophony of voices weighing in on policy and anointing him as the inaugural’s de facto pope. You can’t blame V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop and an early Obama booster, for feeling as if he’d been slapped in the face. “I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table,” he told The Times, but “we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.”

Warren, whose ego is no less than Obama’s, likes to advertise his “commitment to model civility in America.” But as Rachel Maddow of MSNBC reminded her audience, “comparing gay relationships to child abuse” is a “strange model of civility.” Less strange but equally hard to take is Warren’s defensive insistence that some of his best friends are the gays: His boasts of having “eaten dinner in gay homes” and loving Melissa Etheridge records will not protect any gay families’ civil rights.

Equally lame is the argument mounted by an Obama spokeswoman, Linda Douglass, who talks of how Warren has fought for “people who have H.I.V./AIDS.” Shouldn’t that be the default position of any religious leader? Fighting AIDS is not a get-out-of-homophobia-free card. 

...When Obama defends Warren’s words by calling them an example of the “wide range of viewpoints” in a “diverse and noisy and opinionated” America, he is being too cute by half. He knows full well that a “viewpoint” defaming any minority group by linking it to sexual crimes like pedophilia is unacceptable.

...By the historical standards of presidential hubris, Obama’s disingenuous defense of his tone-deaf invitation to Warren is nonetheless a relatively tiny infraction. It’s no Bay of Pigs. But it does add an asterisk to the joyous inaugural of our first black president. It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history.

Obama now has even more pressure to live up to his campaign promises to include LGBT people in his vision of change and hope that propelled him to our nation's highest office.  He can start by taking quick and decisive action on the priorities outlined in HRC's Blueprint for Positive Change.

The LGBT community has worked and waited a long time to have a president who truly takes our concerns seriously - and acts on them. His poor choice of Rick Warren certainly stung - but hopefully the loud backlash will press upon Obama the need for him to expend some of that political capital we helped him accrue on our behalf as well. We need real policies put in place that will make LGBT lives better. It's been a long eight years.  And that's real change that can't come soon enough. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

HRC Back Story will be taking a break from daily posting starting Christmas Eve through the first week of January.  During this period, we'll keep our eyes open for any breaking news - and will be sure to keep you updated here on the blog on any developments affecting the LGBT community. 

In the meantime, your Back Story bloggers (Rachel Balick and Yours Truly) wish you a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year! 

And here's a tip: Send an HRC eCard to all your friends and family!

Dear Friends,

As 2008 draws to a close, America is preparing for the change of our lifetime. Like many LGBT Americans, I have dreamed of and worked for this day to come. In 2009, an ally will occupy the White House. Divisive, anti-gay politics are leaving our executive branch. Our Congress will have more allies than ever. And our next Supreme Court justices will respect our fundamental rights. Through our work, our belief, our unyielding commitment to a better future for ourselves and our families, LGBT people helped to make this happen. All of you who attended Camp Equality training, who volunteered in phone banks, who donated your hard-earned money to a pro-equality candidate, and, most importantly, told your friends and family why our rights matter and how their votes can harm or protect them, to all of you I say thank you. 2008 was OUR year to win.

On the same day that America elected a fair-minded president who is a longstanding ally of civil rights and a professor of constitutional law, voters in California, Arizona, and Florida wrote discrimination into their constitutions. In California, Proposition 8 stripped citizens of the rights that the state's highest court had finally recognized last May. On November 5, as our nation celebrated a historic election, our community's grief turned into anger, and anger turned to action.

LGBT people and allies took to the streets and to the airwaves... we were everywhere. Showing the neighbors who had slighted us who we really are—not just families and friends and coworkers worthy of equal rights, but strong, resilient people who will fight for those rights.

My question to you is, will we?

It's the end of 2008, and the opportunities before us are vast. We can finally pass hate crimes legislation covering our entire community and a fully-inclusive ENDA; we can roll back eight years of bad Bush Administration policy on HIV, workplace protections for federal employees, and benefits for families.

In winning the elections, we did not pass these bills or secure these policies. Rather, we earned a fighting chance to pass them. The election opened a door that had long been locked. But what lies beyond the door is not a room full of treasures; no, what's beyond that door, what we're seeing now, is a steep, spiral staircase. What we won in this election is the chance to climb it. It's more than we've had in my memory, but it's not going to be easy.

And my experience tells me that a "fighting chance" is a good way to describe it, because we're going to have to fight for it.

This is a lesson of Prop 8 and of all of the discriminatory campaigns against us. It's the lesson of eight years of roadblocks to our legislation. The lesson is that when our community is getting ready to win, the other side fights hard. And they fight with lies. When we passed hate crimes in the last Congress, the haters rolled out every lie that they would later use to take away our rights in California. We harm religion. We harm children. We take over the schools. We put preachers in jail. The same lies.

In a way, it's comforting. I mean, if it were palatable to be an out-and-out bigot these days, our opponents could simply take out ads that say "hate the gays? Vote yes on 8!" But we are past that today. Today, people will turn against us if they're given a reason to fear us. And the same few lies serve that purpose every time—whether it's hate crimes or marriage at stake.

Our job is to beat back those same lies. Every time. When hate crimes comes up for a vote in 2009, will those of us who are standing up against the Prop 8 haters come out against those who would kill this bill? We must. We must stand up. We must never forget that even as we focus on the right to marry and the economic and spiritual benefits that it brings, we have a duty to protect our entire community's right to live without fear of being attacked for who we are. And we have a duty to stand up in this fight, and win it, because passing hate crimes legislation ten years after Matthew Shepard's death is a step toward marriage and every other community goal.

And like a spiral staircase, each step upward is a step in full circle: back to facing our enemies, back to the same set of falsehoods that every campaign against us uses, back to the same slanders, the same tired old bigoted players. But I do believe that we are climbing upward, even though we have not yet achieved so many of our goals. More Americans support marriage than ever before, and even in California, Prop 8 succeeded by far less than another anti-marriage initiative just eight years ago. Young people, LGBT or not, overwhelmingly believe in our rights, and are increasingly fighting for them. Employers are treating our families equally; faith communities are embracing us. Although we find ourselves facing the same people again and again, I truly believe that with each year that passes, we do so from higher ground.

But we cannot reach the top if we do not keep the heat on the other side, calling them to task. We cannot reach the top if we do not invest the same energy, time, and even anger into federal laws and policies that we have invested in fighting Proposition 8.

I know that especially after losing California, it is difficult to imagine how working on hate crimes, or an inclusive ENDA, or family benefits, or fair federal workplace policies, is going to move the ball forward for marriage. But it's clear to me that this is our path—upward and around, steadily and surely. It's clear to the right wing, which is why they try to block every measure that would help our community at all.

Martin Luther King once said that faith is taking the first step when you don't see the whole staircase. Many of you took that first step in speaking out against Proposition 8, or volunteering for Barack Obama, or coming out. Our equality—in our families, in our workplaces, and in our communities—is that staircase. It is linked together, and one measure follows from the next.

In this holiday season, we too, the LGBT community, are linked together with one future, one path, and one monumental task: to fight hate with truth. That is the next step that we will take together.

Happy holidays, and a happy new year.

Warmly,

In the last 24 hours, there have been new developments in the continuing debate over Pastor Rick Warren: his church has removed anti-gay language from its website and singer/activist Melissa Etheridge publicly vouched for Warren in an attempt to diffuse some of the anger directed his way. Harry Knox (pictured below), director of HRC Foundation's Religion and Faith Program, takes it a step further in this guest post that calls for real repentance and reconciliation:

When I was in seminary, a wise old professor constantly warned us against "a thin diet of cheap grace".  By that he meant our proclivity to hear the good news of salvation full and free without hearing its twin call to work on behalf of the poor, the widowed, the outcast, the marginalized.

As a result of the full-throated advocacy of the Human Rights Campaign and many others, there seems to have been some moderation of the anti-LGBT rhetoric at Rev. Rick Warren's Saddleback Church.  Web pages at the church's site that used to say gay and lesbian people were not welcome to join the congregation have been removed. And in a quick green room conversation with Melissa Etheridge, it appears Warren said he regrets his choice of words when he compared our committed loving relationships to pedophilia and polygamy.

America is eager, yea anxious, for an unclouded celebration on Inauguration Day; we LGBT people are chief among them. Lots of progressives are asking what it would take to piece the coalition that elected Mr. Obama President back together after his ill-fated choice of Warren as inaugural invocation leader.

Here's what would help: real repentance. For LGBT people and the millions of Americans who stand with us for equality to be able to bow with proper reverence, not distracted by the irrational and hateful words of the preacher on his way to the podium, we need to hear him say he has changed and plans to do better. That's the definition of repentance.

Disagreeing without being disagreeable can sometimes be a thin diet of cheap grace. Rick Warren calling for passage of a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act and offering Saddleback Church's resources to help would be real reconciliation.

Because our voices have been united in a call for justice over the last several days, the Vice-President-elect has reiterated the new administration's commitment to our legislative agenda and there has been movement on the part of our opponents. I rejoice that Saddleback's well-read website bashes LGBT folk a little less. And awareness of who Rick Warren really is has risen dramatically. We have exposed him as the divisive homophobe he has proven himself to be.

I pray that now that the truth is out, it will set Warren free to continue to change and to begin to truly work for us whom he claims to love. The proof will be not in his prayers, but in his (and the new President's) actions.

In the meantime I will celebrate both the Holidays and the Inauguration for all the good they hold, rejuvenating my spirit for the hard work of living for justice day-by-day. And I will hope that the President and his erstwhile friend Rick Warren will keep moving, even as we keep pushing them.

I'm in the redemption business.

Harry Knox, Director
Religion and Faith Program
Human Rights Campaign Foundation

From Equality Advocates PA:

Last night the Harrisburg City Council voted unanimously to adopt an ordinance to create a Life Partnership Registry, allowing unmarried, committed couples to affirm and recognize their relationships with the city. By a vote of 7 to 0, the Harrisburg City Council has taken an important step to streamline the process for domestic partners to obtain healthcare and other benefits afforded to married couples.

"This vote shows that people all across Pennsylvania are committed to treating same-sex couples with the same respect and dignity as other married couples," said Jake Kaskey, policy and outreach coordinator with Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, the state's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocacy organization. "This type of legislation has strong support across Pennsylvania, and will concretely help countless unmarried couples obtain benefits afforded to married couples." 

Kaskey noted that polling conducted by Susquehanna Polling and Research in November 2007 found that 91% of people polled supported hospital visitation rights for same-sex couples. 

Equality Advocates Pennsylvania worked with Councilman Miller and Harrisburg Attorney Benjamin C. Dunlap, Jr. to draft the ordinance. 

Councilman Dan Miller, who introduced this legislation, remarked, "I am proud that the Harrisburg City Council unanimously passed the Life Partner Registry Bill last night. It is a positive step toward equality for all residents. I hope this new law expanding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights in the state capital will inspire state legislators to take similar action." 

Lesbian and gay, as well as unmarried heterosexual couples, can register with the city. Harrisburg would become the third municipality in Pennsylvania to approve this type of registry, joining Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. 

The ordinance now awaits the approval of Mayor Stephen Reed. 

Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson takes Obama to task today for his "terrible judgment" in selecting Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration, now less than one month away. He draws a contrast between Obama's deposing of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright when his controversial statements threatened to derail his campaign and the way that he has shrugged off the loud outgry from his gay and progressive supporters over Warren:

Yet here is Obama exercising terrible judgment on someone who just got done injecting anti-gay ideology into politics in the biggest state in the nation. It is nice that Warren and many evangelicals are increasingly involved in the environment and global poverty. But it seems that Obama is having a little PJSD here, as in Post Jeremiah Stress Disorder. Having nearly had his campaign destroyed by the tapes of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright blasting America as a hopelessly racist nation, Obama seems compelled to close his eyes to one of the most powerful forms of conservative-driven bigotry left in this country.

Obama earned an outpouring of support from gay and lesbian voters, even though his personal stand on gay marriage was standard political fare, stopping at civil unions. Gay advocacy groups praised how he included them rhetorically in speech after speech. Now, a month before that great day that could bring all Americans together unlike any in the nation's history, Obama has gone out of his way to pick someone for the invocation who is not even close to being a pastor for all Americans.

When Obama saw how flammable Wright was, he took him off the stage for the announcement of his candidacy in Springfield, Ill. Warren's calling a ban on gay marriage a "humanitarian" issue should result in the same. If Warren is allowed to give the invocation, the bright American rainbow that got Obama into office will dim in a way that spells danger for what else Obama will not stand up for.

So far, all we've heard from Obama is how his choice of Warren somehow signals his desire to reach across and offer a hand to bring new constituencies into his tent.  It's sad and infuriating that while he was reaching out his hand to conservative-leaning people who most likely voted against him - and who may never, ever support him no matter what he does -  he apparently feels no regret over that swift hind kick he gave to the gays in the process. 

Derrick is absolutely right in that Obama had a variety of excellent religious leaders to select from that would have better represented the desire for Americans to leave behind the divisive politics of the past eight years and begin anew. Yet, while a significant population of Obama's progressive base is still hurting over having their rights stripped away in one of its toughest political battles ever, he chose a James-Dobson-in-a-goatee pastor who proudly played a role in that catastrophe. This entire situation could have been avoided if Obama was more in tune with the intensity of the pain still felt over Prop 8. And for your Back Story blogger, an outspoken early Obama supporter, that decision is the most disappointing of all.

The Boston Globe's Dan Wasserman perfectly captured that sentiment in his political cartoon today:

You've got to hand to it Melissa Etheridge. Not only has the singer/activist been a high-profile voice of authenticity on LGBT issues, but her starpower seemingly manages to tame even Pastor Rick Warren. She spoke with Warren - a fan who, by his own admission, has all her albums - after she found out that he would be giving the keynote address at the Muslim Public Affairs Council where she was scheduled to peform.  Apparently, Warren expressed regret over some of his previous statements about the gays. She makes news this afternoon in a must-read piece at Huffington Post: 

I told my manager to reach out to Pastor Warren and say "In the spirit of unity I would like to talk to him." They gave him my phone number. On the day of the conference I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn't want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife's struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine.

When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future.

Brothers and sisters the choice is ours now. We have the world's attention. We have the capability to create change, awesome change in this world, but before we change minds we must change hearts. Sure, there are plenty of hateful people who will always hold on to their bigotry like a child to a blanket. But there are also good people out there, Christian and otherwise that are beginning to listen. They don't hate us, they fear change. Maybe in our anger, as we consider marches and boycotts, perhaps we can consider stretching out our hands. Maybe instead of marching on his church, we can show up en mass and volunteer for one of the many organizations affiliated with his church that work for HIV/AIDS causes all around the world.

Maybe if they get to know us, they wont fear us.

I know, call me a dreamer, but I feel a new era is upon us.

Any chance we'll be getting a public retraction from Pastor Warren anytime soon...? 

[Photo: Melissa Etheridge, flanked by singers Thelma Houston and Cyndi Lauper, talks to the media at HRC's Rock to Win Concert at the 2008 Democratic Convention.]

NOTE FROM CHRIS: I'm bumping this post back up to the front page. I used to see and chat with Durval at Jack's, one of his haunts on 17th Street, and his death is a grim reminder of quickly -- and unexpectedly -- tragedy can strike. Join the Impact remembered Durval when they held a candelight vigil on Saturday to call for LGBT equality.

On Wednesday (Dec. 17), Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), a program of The DC Center, sent a letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty to request an urgent meeting in response to rising incidents of violence against LGBT people in the area, including the heartbreaking murder of Durval Martins this week. Here is the text of the letter in its entirety:

Mr. Mayor:

Over the past several months, members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) community have become increasingly concerned with violent crime that seems to be targeting our community. Just yesterday, a man named Duval Martins was shot to death on his way home from visiting gay bars on the popular 17th Street strip.

GLOV (Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence) has requested on numerous occasions through your office to meet with you, but we have been repeatedly informed that you are not interested in a meeting at this time. We write to ask that you reconsider. The community is nervous and on edge, as violence around us continues to increase. We have met with the Police, the United States Attorney's Office, community organizations, and members of the City Council (the City Council even had a Hearing on Hate Crimes last Friday), but we have not heard from our Mayor. This is not acceptable. We need to meet with you to present our concerns personally, to hear that you understand the issues, to learn what your plans are to address them, and to see how we can all - city agencies, the police, the prosecutors, community organizations, and business leaders - can work together to end the hate-filled violence that is plaguing our community.

We would like to ask again that you convene an urgent meeting to address these issues, and that you include the Chief of Police, someone from the US Attorney's Office, representatives of the City Council, and other city and community leaders who are focused on this issue. We need your leadership at this time, and we need to know that you are listening.

Sincerely,

Chris Farris
Todd Metrokin

Co-Chairs
GLOV

**URGENT**: HRC is encouraging all members and supporters of the local LGBT to send a similar message to Mayor Fenty telling him that hate violence is unacceptable and urging him to immediately communicate a strategy for making our community safe for everyone. 

You can send the mayor an email at adrian.fenty@dc.gov. There have been far too many incidents of violent crimes directed at members of the LGBT community in recent months - including several which have resulted in victims' death. 

Mayor Fenty spent a good deal of time campaigning in LGBT households and neighborhoods during his election - but has yet to come forward to aggressively deal with these tragic violent incidents head on that continue to affect LGBT residents.

How many more people have to be injured or killed before he finally speaks up? TAKE ACTION TODAY!

Special thanks to Dana Beyer (pictured), a transgender equality activist, for this analysis of an important recent decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals: 

On Friday, the Maryland Court of Appeals, our state’s highest court, published its decision in the case of Jane Doe et al v. the Montgomery County Board of Elections. This was the culmination of the first attempt by national fundamentalist forces to roll-back a transgender anti-discrimination bill. While we understandably have been focusing on referendum losses across the country in California, Arizona, Arkansas and Florida, this is one that we won -and won big.

The Court ruled in our favor, 4-3, on a number of issues. I will append a brief analysis by my colleague, Terry O’Neill, former president of Maryland NOW, but let me summarize the Court’s findings, which have very serious implications for the future in Maryland:

• Any statue of limitations clock begins to run with a formal certification by a Board of Elections to the standing authority – in our case, the Montgomery County Council and County Executive. Emails and voicemails to potentially interested parties do not count. The significance of this ruling is that it prevents interested parties within an elections board from interfering with the process and steering a decision in a biased direction.
• Registered voters means all registered voters. Any administrative segregation of voters, in this case active vs. inactive, is irrelevant for the counting of signatures and the consideration of the relevant pool of voters.
• An additional 10,800+ signatures were invalidated. This means that Maryland will, in the future, be adhering to a strict compliance model for petition gatherers, protecting the laws passed by our representative legislatures from the will of a majority acting out its baser instincts. For us in Montgomery County, it means that the daily grind of dozens of volunteers – from the Task Force, HRC, local law schools, teachthefacts, the ACLU, and other aggrieved citizens – who scoured over 30,000 signatures, will not be in vain. Instead, it has created the standard by which future ballot initiative drives will be judged.

So what began in the spring of 2007 as just the latest in a routine string of local and state ordinances adding gender identity and expression to anti-discrimination codes, has now ended as a victory for the American LGBT community and the people of the state of Maryland. Make no mistake – this was a community victory, with major and minor LGBT organizations pulling together in the wake of ENDA to supply the brainpower, personpower and finances to send a signal that we are determined to defend our rights – the rights of us all. And the people of Maryland are better protected from future voters undermining the will of the people as expressed by their elected legislators.

Here's the analysis from Terry O’Neill:

Jane Doe, et al., v. Montgomery County Board of Elections, No. 61, September Term 2008.

ELECTION LAW – PETITIONS TO AMEND MUNICIPAL CHARTERS

After the Montgomery County Council passed Bill No. 23-07 on November 21, 2007, that added gender identity as a protected characteristic under the County’s anti-discrimination laws, a Citizens Group initiated the referendum process under Section 6-201 et seq., of the Election Law Article, Maryland Code (2003, 2007 Supp.), to overturn the Bill. 

On March 6, 2008, the County Board of Elections certified the petition for referendum after validating what it determined to be sufficient signatures, albeit after having omitted inactive voters from the list of registered voters. On March 14, 2008, twelve citizens, Jane Doe, et al., filed a complaint in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, pursuant to Section 6-209 of the Election Law Article, seeking judicial review and declaratory relief and alleging that the Petition was certified by the County Board of Elections despite an insufficient number of valid signatures. The County Board of Elections moved for summary judgment, arguing that Jane Doe’s complaint was time-barred, because it was not filed within the 10-day period prescribed by Section 6-210. Doe filed a cross-motion for summary judgment contending that the petition should have been decertified because thousands of purported signatures were invalid and because the petition itself was defective. 

Thereafter, Jane Doe filed an amended Complaint that specifically included the County’s failure to include “inactive” voters as a basis for injunctive relief against the Petition’s certification. The trial judge ruled that the Complaint was not filed within the 10-day limitations period of Section 6-210. He also determined that “inactive” voters should have been included as registered voters, but that the petition had a sufficient number of valid signatures, because Section 6-203 of the Election Law Article, dealing with signatures, was intended to be suggestive rather mandatory.

The Court of Appeals granted certiorari and after hearing from Jane Doe and the County Board of Elections, issued a Per Curiam Order, reversing the judgment of the Circuit Court and reanding the case to that Court with directions to enter summary judgment in favor of Jane Doe.

In the opinion filed thereafter, the Court determined that the applicable triggering date for the statutory period set forth in Section 6-210 was March 6, 2008, when the Petition was certified, because that was the only “final determination” by which Jane Doe was “aggrieved.” The Court also held that Jane Doe’s amended complaint “related back” to the filing of the original complaint. With respect to the challenged signatures, the Court held that they were not valid nor sufficient, because the percentage of registered voters included the combined total of “active” plus “inactive” voters, and also because they did not comply with the mandatory provisions of Section 6-203. 

Today HRC will hand deliver over 27,000 email letters to the Mormon church in Salt Lake City that call on the church to support a number of pro-equality bills that are likely to be considered by the state legislature in January. Jerry Rapier and Luana Chilelli, two Salt Lake City residents and members of HRC's Board of Governors, will deliver the letters to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints headquarters this afternoon. 

Here is the text of the letter:

I write you now in the spirit of respectful engagement to compel you to give credibility and force to the words of Elder L. Whitney Clayton, who said the LDS Church is not opposed to civil unions and other non-marriage legal recognitions for same-sex relationships.

As you know, California's Proposition 8 stripped loving, committed couples of their legal right to marry. While we will always be in opposing camps regarding marriage equality under the law, I ask that you now support legislative change in Utah that offers real protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens and families.

Equality Utah, a state group supporting LGBT rights, has created the Common Ground Initiative, seeking to find acceptable solutions to solve the many problems LGBT people in Utah face every day. The initiative includes legislative bills that will:

 * Allow domestic partners of public employees to receive insurance and retirement benefits;
 * Add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state's anti-discrimination laws;
 * Allow domestic partners and children of domestic partners to be designated as heirs in wrongful death settlements;
 * Create a domestic partner registry and provide definitions of domestic partnership rights and responsibilities; and
 * Repeal the second clause of Utah's Anti-Marriage Amendment which is used to prevent gay and lesbian couples from receiving any kind of relationship recognition in the state.

If the LDS Church is committed to a view that there are other ways to offer protections and support to the LGBT people who are in your pews and in your home state, then you will publicly join Equality Utah's Common Ground Initiative.

And if you do, then perhaps the respectful dialogue we all seek is one that we can finally have moving forward.  There is a way out of this anger, but it is not the burden of our community to stop its rightful protests. It is the burden of the LDS Church to support legislation that impacts LGBT lives in Utah positively for a change.

On December 12, HRC President Joe Solmonese sent a letter to Thomas Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints urging the church to support pro-equality legislation. View the letter here (PDF). 

This latest action is a direct response to statements from the Mormon Church contesting claims that the church is anti-gay. From Equality Utah:

During and following California’s Proposition 8 campaign, the LDS Church declared it is not “anti-gay” and “does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights.” On November 5th, Elder L. Whitney Clayton stated the LDS Church does not oppose “civil unions or domestic partnerships.”

In the aftermath of the Mormon church's highly-publicized support of Prop 8, Equality Utah has launched its Common Ground initiative in support of legislation that will further the push for LGBT equality. The group is encouraging the Mormon church to support the following priorities:

• Expanding Health Care- most gay Utahns can not insure their family. This bill will mandate that public employer insurance plans which extend benefits to an employee’s spouse, also cover an employees partner. When insurance plans cover families, they should cover every family member.   
• Fair Employment- Currently, it is legal to fire a person from her job just for being gay or transgender. This bill will add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of characteristics that employers may not consider when making decisions about employment. This was introduced in the 2008 session as HB 89. 
• Fair Housing- Similarly, a people can be evicted from their homes if they are gay or transgender. This bill will add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of characteristics that landlords may not consider when making decisions about eviction.
• Wrongful Deaths- The sudden death of a loved one is painful. When someone dies because of the negligence or malpractice of another, we can help families stay in their homes by removing existing barriers to inheritance and insurance. This bill was introduced in the 2007 session as SB 58 and in the 2008 session as SB 73 
• Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act- Apart from marriage, we can do much more to help committed couples in Utah care for each other. This bill creates a domestic partner registry and will attach rights of inheritance, insurance, and fair housing.
• Clarifying Amendment 3- A government registry involving inheritance, housing, and insurance is nowhere near the legal equivalent of marriage. But the second part of Amendment 3 has been misinterpreted to prevent any recognition of gay and transgender couples in Utah. This bill would repeal the portion of Amendment 3 which states “no other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as marriage or be given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect.” It will not change Utah’s current definition of marriage, which is one man and one woman.

Vice president-elect Joe Biden appeared on This Week on Sunday where he and host George Stephanopoulos discussed Rick Warren. Watch the full interview here.

Here's an excerpt from the show's transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Looking forward, switching subjects here to the inaugural, quite a bit of controversy the last couple of days over the choice of Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inaugural.  And I'm sure you've seen the reaction in the gay community. We've gotten e-mails, phone calls. 

And many in the gay and lesbian community simply can't understand how you can give this place of honor to a man who's equated gay marriage with incest and pedophilia. What do you say to that? 

BIDEN: Well, look, Barack Obama, candidate Obama, Senator Obama, President-elect Obama has a -- a stellar and outspoken record in support of equality for all Americans, including gay and lesbian Americans. 

But he also has made a judgment -- I think correctly -- that in order to heal the wounds of this country and move this country forward so we get out of this -- this -- this mindset overstated of red and blue and the like -- that he was going to reach out, he was going to reach out. 

He made it clear there are parts of the positions taken by the reverend that he strongly disagrees with, but there's also some very positive things about what he did. 

So he believes -- and I think he's right -- that this is a time to reach out, reach out to constituencies and people who you don't share the same view with in the hope that the end result of all this will be ultimate reconciliation. 

And so -- and, look, he's giving an invocation. He's not making policy.
He's not part of the administration. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: So on matters of policy, what do you say to the gay and lesbian community? They're calling out for an action plan, saying have an action plan on revoking "don't ask, don't tell" within the first 100 days. Will that be done? 

BIDEN: I'm not making a commitment for the administration based on any timetable. 

But the commitments we made during the campaign to deal with these issues of equity and fairness we will deliver on in our administration. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: But no timetable? 

BIDEN: But there's no -- look, we are faced with the first, most critical urgent problem. And the immediate, the day we're sworn in, the thing that we have to worry about is the further collapse of this economy. 

We -- we have not -- no president raising his right hand will ever have been in the position by the time he says, "I so swear," and drops his hand, will he have such an immediate, urgent obligation of consequence since Franklin Roosevelt. And I would argue this is equally as consequential.

It's encouraging to hear Biden say that their administration will deliver on its campaign promises of instituting real change that will include the LGBT community. We will certainly hold their feet to the fire. Last week HRC sent a letter and issued an action alert for our members calling for the Obama administration to quickly act on a list of priorities that take concrete steps towards LGBT equality:

• Issue an Executive Order within the first 100 days that reaffirms protections for federal workers based on sexual orientation and expands them to also include gender identity; 
• Work with Congress to sign Hate Crimes legislation into law within 6 months;
• Support only a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA);
• In the first 100 days develop a plan to begin the process of eliminating the failed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy; and 
• Work with Congress to end unequal tax treatment of domestic partnerships benefits. 

The lead sponsors of Prop 8 filed a legal brief to the California Supreme Court on Friday arguing that the state should annul the marriages of gay and lesbian couples who married in the state when marriage equality was legal. After the California Supreme Court determined in May that gay and lesbian couples could not be denied marriage rights, the state started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on June 17. From June until the passage of Proposition 8 on November 4, more than 18,000 gay and lesbian couples married in California.

The California Supreme Court could begin hearing arguments in the cases of three lawsuits contesting Prop 8 as early as March 2009.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown shocked people on both sides of the issue when he announced on Friday that he would urge the state Supreme Court to overturn Prop 8 - a reversal of his previoius position:

In a dramatic reversal, Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a legal brief saying the measure that amended the California Constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman is itself unconstitutional because it deprives a minority group of a fundamental right. Earlier, Brown had said he would defend the ballot measure against legal challenges from gay marriage supporters.

But Brown said he reached a different conclusion "upon further reflection and a deeper probing into all the aspects of our Constitution.

"It became evident that the Article 1 provision guaranteeing basic liberty, which includes the right to marry, took precedence over the initiative," he said in an interview Friday night. "Based on my duty to defend the law and the entire Constitution, I concluded the court should protect the right to marry even in the face of the 52 percent vote."

Harry Knox, director of HRC's Religion and Faith program, was a guest on PBS's News Hour where he talked with host Ray Suarez about the immediate fury over Obama's announcement that he had chosen anti-gay megachurch past Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. Harry appeared on the show with Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington-based think-tank. 

Harry is quick to correctly dispute the notion that Rick Warren is somehow "America's pastor":

And God help us if he's America's pastor. He has, in fact -- Michael, I disagree -- been a general in the culture wars in that state and around the country, around a woman's right to choose and also around lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

This is a person who has fundamentally disrespected people like me on every occasion that he had opportunity. He has, in fact, leveraged homophobia to get ahead in his career. And this is like putting an anti-Semite at the first part of the program and then saying, "Well, we're going to add a rabbi at the end. Won't all the Jews be happy?"

This is the worst possible choice the president-elect could have made. This is a divisive choice, not one that brings America together.

Watch the video of the discussion here: 

Read the transcript of the discussion here.

Here's his statement:

I commend President-elect Obama for his courage to willingly take enormous heat from his base by inviting someone like me, with whom he doesn't agree on every issue, to offer the Invocation at his historic Inaugural ceremony.

Hopefully individuals passionately expressing opinions from the left and the right will recognize that both of us have shown a commitment to model civility in America.

The Bible admonishes us to pray for our leaders. I am honored by this opportunity to pray God's blessing on the office of the President and its current and future inhabitant, asking the Lord to provide wisdom to America's leaders during this critical time in our nation's history.

You know what.... 

Special thanks to Joshua King, HRC's new public policy advocate, for sending us this guest post:

Yesterday, the United Nations General Assembly was presented with a non-binding resolution, introduced by France and the Netherlands on behalf of the European Union and supported by 66 countries, encouraging all nations to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights around the world.  Despite repeatedly calls from human rights and LGBT organizations, Members of Congress, and thousands of American citizens, the Bush Administration refused to add the United States as supporter of this resolution, standing instead with Russia, China, the Vatican and numerous Islamic nations.  Silence on this human rights resolution is saddening in a time when we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  According to the New York Times, State Department officials refused to support the resolution on “highly technical legal grounds,” arguing that the federal government could not make such a commitment on behalf of all 50 state governments. 

Last week, Harry Knox, Director of the HRC Foundation’s Religion and Faith Program, joined leaders of faith programs at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Black Justice Coalition and Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in a letter countering the Vatican’s statement of opposition to the resolution.  In addition, HRC members and supporters placed over 2,500 calls to the State Department urging the Administration to support of the resolution. A letter was also sent to Secretary Rice in support of the resolution by Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Howard Berman (D-CA) and Gary Ackerman (D-NY).

The Human Rights Campaign is a member of the Council for Global Equality (CGE) which works to promote American foreign policy inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity. CGE released the following statement after the vote: 

The UN statement called on all governments around the world to ensure that sexual orientation and gender identity are not subjected to criminal penalty, and that individuals are not executed, arrested or otherwise detained because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  It also calls on governments to ensure that human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity are properly investigated and prosecuted, and that human rights advocates who expose those abuses are adequately protected.    

“In refusing to join this human rights effort, the State Department chose to hide behind flimsy legal arguments that focus on the inconsistent application of human rights protections for LGBT Americans, rather than standing up to pledge future leadership on these basic human rights concerns,” noted Mark Bromley, a human rights lawyer who is the Chair of the Council for Global Equality.  “US law and practice are consistent with the legal norms expressed in the UN statement,” continued Bromley, “and since the State Department actually requires all US Embassies to report annually on discrimination impacting LGBT communities in other countries, it is altogether inconsistent and mean-spirited for the current State Department leadership to question the legal status of non-discrimination protections for LGBT individuals.”      

The full press release from the CGE can be found at http://www.globalequality.org. 

In case you missed The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC last night, the host did an in-depth, 13-minute report on Obama's blowback over Rick Warren. Rachel was direct and shrewd in her analysis of why Warren's role in the inauguration is so troubling and offensive for the LGBT community and many progressives.

She said:

The implication of Senator Obama's defense is that he is returning the favor - he is returning the invitation that Pastor Warren so generously offered to him when he invited Obama to Saddleback.  But Obama is not inviting Rick Warren to his church - or into his campaign or something.  He's inviting him to the nation's capital, to convene the swearing in of the next president of the United States.  

The president-elect did not invite Warren to his home; he invited him, proverbially, to ours: the nation's. Which has raised hackles in the gay community and among those who support gay rights across the country because it begs the question as to whether Obama thinks the right spiritual clarion for the nation to start his presidency is from a man who has been so immoderate in taking up his position in the culture war. 

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

HRC President Joe Solmonese takes the Obama camp to task for picking LGBT rights opponent Pastor Rick Warren to open the inauguration in the Washington Post today. 

It is likely that one of two scenarios played out during behind-the-scenes inaugural planning, both of them equally troubling. The first possibility is that it was suggested that Warren is the correct voice to lead the inauguration because his selection would send a message of inclusion to evangelicals. And when someone at the table said, "Gay America will be offended by that choice," the quick answer was, "That's fine, we'll deal with it. We invited the gay marching band."

The second possibility is that no one at the table had a clue about Warren's anti-gay views and that the Obama team has been stunned by the broad and loud objections to the choice. That's not encouraging, either.

What the Obama team needs to understand is that for many LGBT Americans, this November was bittersweet. We were thrilled with Obama's victory and, in fact, many of us worked the phones, pounded the pavement and wrote checks to make that happen. But the next day, we learned that Proposition 8 passed in California, and our hearts sank. It was the biggest loss our community has faced in decades.

...So, are we angry about Rick Warren? You bet we are. And including a gay marching band in the inaugural festivities doesn't heal this wound. It only serves to make us question the promises that Barack Obama made in his historic quest to be president. We pray we weren't misled.

Read Joe Solmonese's entire op-ed in the Washington Post here.