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Election: National results dim prospects for LGBT legislation

The Georgia Voice Editors
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President Barack Obama

For two years, Democrats held the White House and the majority in both chambers of Congress. The window of opportunity for eliminating federal laws that treated LGBT Americans as second-class citizens was open. The window of opportunity for passing federal legislation to provide equal benefits of citizenship was open.

Some hoped the windows might be open for as long as eight years. But last week’s midterm elections are shutting those windows now — in fewer than eight weeks.

Republicans won back a majority of the U.S. House and it is an even more conservative Republican majority than LGBT citizens experienced in 1993 when Congress passed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on gays in the military. Democrat Tom Foley was Speaker of the House then, Richard Gephardt was Majority Leader. It is even more conservative than the 1996 Congress that passed the Defense of Marriage Act. Republican Newt Gingrich was Speaker then, aided by Dick Armey.

DOMA faces new legal challenges

The Georgia Voice Editors
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Two separate legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act were filed today. The first, brought forward by the Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), was filed today in Connecticut representing plaintiffs from Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire.

The lawsuit is challenging the constitutionality of DOMA’s Section 3, which prohibits federal acknowledgment of same-sex marriages performed where such marriages are legal. The lawsuit specifically addresses couples married in Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire, according to GLAD.

Same-sex marriages are legal in those states.

LGBT youth suicides spark calls for change

The Georgia Voice Editors
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Gabriel Haggray was the victim of high school bullying

When Gabriel Haggray was a ninth grader at Salem High School in Conyers, Ga., he said he was bullied incessantly and would often go home after school and sit in his bedroom sobbing alone, feeling worthless.

“It was horrible. In gym class they would take my gym shorts or when I was in my gym clothes they would steal my street clothes,” he remembered. “One guy would always take my lunch, call me a fag and ask why I was still around.”

At first, Haggray said he “just took it” — he just put up with the bullying. Eventually he got tired of it and sought someone to listen to him as he dealt with the insecurity of being gay as well as finding a way to stop being bullied.

Fortunately, Haggray was able to find an empathetic counselor who presided over peer mediation with two of the boys who were bullying him, he said.

Chambliss’ office responsible for anti-gay slur

The Georgia Voice Editors
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U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss admitted an anti-gay blog comment originated from his Atlanta office

Georgia LGBT groups were up in arms this week after an anti-gay death threat in an online forum was tracked back to the office of Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.). Georgia Equality, the state’s largest LGBT political group, organized supporters to call Chambliss’ local offices around the state, while the upstart Queer Justice League demanded that Chambliss apologize.

“We want an official, contrite apology for Senator Chambliss, to the LGBT community and to all Georgians,” QJL’s Art Izzard said in a press release. “We also want Sen. Chambliss to commit to engaging his employees in sensitivity training, to equip them to better handle the concerns of his constituents.”

‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal stalls in U.S. Senate

The Georgia Voice Editors
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U.S. Senator John McCain (AZ-R) voted against the cloture measure effectively blocking a Congressional repeal of DADT

Efforts to allow gays to serve openly in the U.S. military received a serious setback Sept. 21, when the U.S. Senate rejected a motion to break a Republican-led filibuster against an annual defense spending bill that includes language aimed at ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The vote was 56 to 43 — four votes short of ending the filibuster. Georgia’s two U.S. senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, both Republicans, voted in the majority to stymie the repeal.

Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, called the vote a “frustrating blow.”

By the numbers: HIV in America

The Georgia Voice Editors
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19

Percent of gay men who have HIV in 21 major American cities

44

Percent of those gay men with HIV who do not know it

28

Percent of black gay and bi men who are HIV positive, compared to 18 percent of Hispanic and 16 percent of white men

63

Percent of HIV-positive men under 30 in the study who did not know their status