Last week, Massachusetts repealed a 1913 law that prohibited non-resident couples from getting married in that state. Unenforced for decades, the law recently surfaced again and was used to deny out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying there.

The law has now been repealed, making Massachusetts a fully LGBT friendly state (at least legally.)

Our own Gabriel Blau, founder of this site, was featured in the New York Times this past weekend as one of the New York couples that would benefit from this new law.

Do you have any plans or know of anyone with plans to head out to MA?

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GLAAD is calling on the community to condemn FX Networks for refusing to correct statements on its show made by anti-gay activist and bigot Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council.

“Homosexuality is associated with higher rates of sexual promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence, and child sexual abuse, and those are all reasons for us to be concerned about placing children into that kind of setting.”
-Sprigg in the show

GLAAD is asking you to take action:

GLAAD, the Family Equality Council and Children Of Lesbians And Gays Everywhere (COLAGE) are urging their members and the community to contact FX Networks, and 20th Century Fox, to express their concerns over providing a platform for such an inaccurate, misleading claim by the Family Research Council. Community members should let FX Networks know that it is irresponsible and unacceptable to put forth such a damaging, defamatory assertion about lesbian and gay parents, and worse, refuse to include the voices of credible experts to dispute it. GLAAD, the Family Equality Council and COLAGE honor the gay and lesbian parents and their children who are featured in this episode for sharing the real stories of their lives, and especially Dennis and Thomas and their family for opening up their home and the hearts and minds of millions through their participation on 30 Days.

FX Networks:
Nick Grad
Executive Vice President of Original Programming
(310) 369-0949
ngrad@fxnetworks.com

Eric Shrier
Executive
eric.shrier@fxnetwork.com

Scott Seomin
Vice President of Public Relations
(310) 369-0938
scott.seomin@fxnetwork.com

Click Here for GLAAD’s Release

The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) was voted on, and passed, by the New York State Assembly yesterday. Yay!

Here’s the press release from the Empire State Pride Agenda:

New York State Assembly Passes Bill Banning Transgender Discrimination

Albany, New York, June 3, 2008 – Today the New York State Assembly voted 102-33 to amend the state’s human rights law to include anti-discrimination protections based upon gender identity and expression. The bill (A.6584a), known as the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) bans discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, credit, public accommodations, and other areas of everyday life.

“The Assembly has solidly demonstrated once again that it is the leader on civil rights and providing equality for our community where it didn’t exist before in New York,” said Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle. “We thank Assemblymember Richard Gottfried for his sponsorship and steadfast support of this bill. We also thank Speaker Silver and the Assembly Majority, the 74 cosponsors and the 102 Assemblymembers who passed this bill and understand the importance of providing an umbrella of anti-discrimination protection for all New Yorkers.”

First introduced in 2003, GENDA has a record 74 co-sponsors this year in the Assembly, up from 69 last year. The Pride Agenda, the over 200 organizational members of the GENDA Coalition and the LGBT community have been working closely with Assemblymember Gottfried and other Assembly supporters to build the momentum for passage that resulted in today’s vote.

“Transgender New Yorkers are in constant fear that they will lose their jobs, get kicked out of their home, or simply be denied service when they go into a restaurant. It goes without saying that these members of our community should be able to go about the business of living their lives openly and without fear,” said Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle.

Transgender activist Melissa Sklarz of New York City said about today’s vote, “Thank you New York State Assembly for standing up to say ‘no’ to discrimination against transgender New Yorkers. I can think of years of personal struggle in the job market and workplace without any legal protection and am now hopeful that there is a real chance that the next generation of transgender New Yorkers will not face these same difficulties.”

In terms of the Senate, the Pride Agenda’s Van Capelle said, “We now look to the New York State Senate to close this gaping hole in the New York State Human Rights Law. Governor Paterson has already said that he will sign this bill into law once the Senate acts.”

“My message to the Senate Majority is this: It’s now time to do what 78 percent of New York voters believe is the right thing to do and end this discrimination once and for all this year. Thirteen other states already have laws providing protections based upon gender identity and expression, along with 96 cities and counties. We also know that the private sector is far ahead of government with 153 Fortune 500 companies, including 26 based here in New York having policies in place that protect their transgender employees. Clearly, our state is lagging behind.”

In the Senate, GENDA (S.3753a) is sponsored by Senator Tom Duane and has 17 cosponsors, up from 14 last year. While none of the cosponsors are members of the Republican Majority, the Pride Agenda’s legislative scorecard shows GENDA to have the support of 27 Senators, including three Republicans.

Just a couple of hours ago it was announced that the California Supreme Court rejected the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The court’s ruling, saying the ban was unconstitutional, makes California the second state to offer marriage equality. The first is, of course, Massachusetts.

The ruling cannot be overturned by a federal court because there are no federal laws at issue here. Also, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said “I respect the court’s decision, and as governor I will uphold its ruling.”

The ruling comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by several Gay rights groups, the city of San Francisco, and a group of Gay and Lesbian couples.

See more at CNN.com

Now don’t go getting too excited, but apparently we Jews are being given the honor of leading one of today’s civil rights movements: LGBTQ rights. OK, so the authors of this post don’t quite see it that way, but that’s their problem. I could also think of a bunch of Jews that have been influential and important in LGBTQ Rights that aren’t on here. Let us know who you think should be honored with a placement on this list.

From the Romanian National Vanguard News Agency:

Jewish origins of the homosexual movement in America

News from the West provides the evidence that a disproportionate number of the most radical elements in the militant homosexual rights lobby are of Jewish origin. . .
Here is an exhaustive list proving, once and for all, that the radical homosexual movement in the United States is a Jewish movement. Jews created it and run it from top to bottom. They are pushing the perversion and degeneracy that is spreading disease, sin and sickness through America like a wildfire.
-The West

(more…)

Unique program features Rabbi Dawn Rose, Professor David Brodsky; takes place May 30-June 1, 2008

New York, NY, May 6, 2008. Nehirim, a national organization that provides spiritual and cultural community for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) Jews, partners, and allies, will host over 120 GLBT Jews for a unique spiritual weekend retreat, to be held May 30-June 1, 2008.

Nehirim’s executive director, Jay Michaelson, an outspoken advocate for inclusion of GLBT people within the Jewish community, says the weekend, now in its fifth year, is “less about politics than about creating a distinctive spiritual community for Jews who are members of sexual or gender minorities.”

Added Michaelson, “we’re not waiting for straight people to decide whether we can have a personal relationship with God. What Nehirim is about is building that relationship for ourselves, in our own distinctive ways.”

This year, the keynote speaker at the Nehirim retreat will be Rabbi Dawn Rose, who holds a Ph.D. in Jewish philosophy and was one of the first in the Conservative movement to teach feminist theology. Other featured educators include Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Professor David Brodsky, founder of Storahtelling Amichai Lau-Lavie, and Rabbi Jill Hammer, director of the Tel Shemesh institute.

Founded in 2003, Nehirim is a nondenominational, independent organization under the fiscal sponsorship of the Jewish Funds for Justice, and supported by the Charles & Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund.

Said Michaelson, “many of us have been told that because of who we are, God hates us. The Nehirim retreat is about experiencing God’s love instead.”

Students from a variety of religious and political backgrounds, sexual orientations and gender identities gathered Thursday evening at the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life for a progressive celebration of Passover. Columbia/Barnard Hillel’s Queer Feminist Seder, a modern take on the traditional Passover meal at which the story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt is remembered and retold, gave students the opportunity to examine the issues of oppression and liberation from a new perspective. While the standard Haggadah, the book which contains the order of the Passover seder and tells the story of slavery and liberation stresses a patriarchal world-view, the Queer Feminist Seder reconstructed this tradition and used the themes of the holiday to question societal gender roles and heteronormativity.

Traditional liturgy was challenged while remaining true to the meaning and spirit of the holiday. Students introduced themselves at the beginning of the event by telling their matriarchal lineage. Instead of reading the traditional “four questions” of the Passover seder, participants asked questions particularly relevant to the LGBTQ community. The “four sons” mentioned in the Haggadah were replaced with the “four adults,” reversing the traditional structure of children having only questions and adults only answers.

The traditional seder plate in the center of the room included a symbol that is quickly becoming the norm at progressive seders: an orange, signifying diversity and equality. The Jewish feminist scholar Susannah Heschel introduced this element in the 1980s as a more acceptable alternative to the suggestion of including a crust of bread on the seder plate in solidarity with lesbians who felt excluded from Judaism. Several legends circulate about this tradition, such as the often-quoted urban legend that a rabbi once declared that a woman belongs on the bimah as much as an orange belongs on the seder plate. As students at Thursday’s seder ate orange segments, the seeds that they spit out symbolized their repudiation of homophobia and sexism.

“To free ourselves from constraints and definitions that are enforced on us by social and political institutions is the essence of feminism,” noted Chanel Dubofsky, coordinator of social justice programming at Columbia/Barnard Hillel and an organizer of the event. “Freedom is scary; the Jewish people understood that perhaps even before they began wandering into the desert.” Dubofsky worked with D’ror Chankin-Gould, Senior Junior Campus Service Corps fellow and editor-in-chief of the Hillel LGBTQ Resource Guide, in putting together the seder.

“Passover is about liberation from oppression,” said Chankin-Gould. “It’s about believing, against all odds, that the powerless can find power and that the hopeless can find hope. So today we have a Queer seder, because reclaiming the word with power and pride is our verbalized belief in liberation. And that, above all else, is what Passover asks us to do: believe in freedom.”

Students saw the seder as an opportunity to celebrate and acknowledge all of their identities, including Judaism. “Having a place for people to fully celebrate themselves, their political ideals, sexual orientations, and full lineage, and simultaneously engage with ritual and tradition, is vital to creating a welcoming and inclusive Jewish community,” said Alana Krivo-Kaufman, Communications Director of Gayava, Hillel’s group for LGBTQ students and allies. “I hope that Gayava can work off of this event to build more accesible spaces like this in the future.”

Nehirim, the LGBTQ Jewish Spiritual Initiative, has announced a new youth mentoring program.  Connecting older LGBTQ Jews with younger ones is apparently a first of its kind.

Below is the press release sent out about the new program.  Interestingly, I often find myself (still on the youth side of this equation I suspect) mentoring older folks who grew up and came out (or didn’t) in a time when being out in High School or Shul just wasn’t an option.  While I certainly had my struggles, I was able to have them because the world was ready for it (because of those that came before me.)

So, once again, kudos to Nehirim for another promising program.  I look forward to seeing how it all works out.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Gay/Lesbian Group Launches Dramatic New Mentoring Program
First of its kind program, directed by Rabbi Jacob Staub, will
“give GLBT  youth the gay Jewish families they never had”

New York, NY, April 14, 2008.  Nehirim, a national organization that creates spiritual and cultural
community for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) Jews, partners, and allies, announced
today that is has launched a first-of-its-kind mentoring program for GLBT Jews in their late teens and
twenties.  Called Shalshelet (which means “chain”), the program is designed, in the words of Nehirim
Executive Director Jay Michaelson, “to give GLBT youth the gay Jewish families they never had.”

“Jews are very good about providing role models and guides to leading a Jewish life,” said Michaelson.
“But gay and lesbian youth often have to find their own way.”  Michaelson added that while many GLBT
youth may seek elders, they are often justifiably fearful of sexual predation.

Shalshelet will be directed by Rabbi Jacob J. Staub, a professor at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College in Philadelphia, where he served as academic vice president for seventeen years,  At RRC, Rabbi
Staub founded and directs the first program in Jewish Spiritual Direction ever established at a rabbinical
seminary.

Said Rabbi Staub, “Both elders and youth benefit from this relationship.  Just as many GLBT youth are
looking for guides, so many older GLBT people, especially those without children, are eager to share their
wisdom with a younger generation.”

All participants are thoroughly screened by Rabbi Staub and Zvi Bellin, Nehirim’s Director of Outreach,
to ensure safety and compliance with the program’s rules.  Mentors commit to a monthly conference call
with Rabbi Staub, and at least one monthly phone call plus email contact with their mentees.

Founded in 2003, Nehirim is a nondenominational, independent organization under the fiscal sponsorship
of the Jewish Funds for Justice, and supported by the Charles & Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation
and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund.  For more information, visit www.nehirim.org/shalshelet.

MORE INFORMATION:  Sasha T. Goldberg, Assistant Director
stg@nehirim.org, 415-871-7113
www.nehirim.org

Nehirim: GLBT Jewish Culture and Spirituality (www.nehirim.org) creates
authentic spiritual and cultural community for GLBT Jews, partners, and allies.  .
Nehirim is supported by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family
Foundation, and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, and is under the fiscal
sponsorship of the Jewish Funds for Justice.

This great video was sent to us by one of our readers. It’s The Village People do Passover. Just see for yourself…

http://www.jewishinstlouis.org/page.html?ArticleID=137163