Georgia Equality and the Human Rights Campaign will hold a press conference near the King & Spalding law firm Tuesday...
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Georgia Equality will honor State Rep. Karla Drenner among others at its 7th Annual Evening for Equality on June 23.
Drenner, a Democrat from Avondale Estates, will be awarded the Champions for Equality Award for her leadership in the General Assembly as the first openly gay person elected to the legislature. Drenner is serving her sixth term and this year introduced the State Fair Employment Practices Act that would ban job bias against state employees based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Georgia Equality will also honor Bill Nigut, the Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League, with the Phillip Rush Community Builder Award.
Conflicting reports on whether or not Gov. Nathan Deal will sign into law the controversial immigration bill passed the General Assembly late into the last day of the session on Thursday are now being reported.
Maria Saporta in a story posted this morning stated Deal was undecided and quoted the governor saying “that the bill was so jumbled at the end as to what was added and what was taken out. We are going to look at it very carefully.”
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, however, is reporting that Deal said he is ready to sign HB 87 into law.
He also told the AJC he wanted to review the bill, adding, "but at least the broad parameters of what we know are there appear to be consistent with what we would be agreeable to."
"I have no reason to think I would find something there that would cause me to change my mind," he said. "It is the kind of legislation I promised on the campaign, and the General Assembly has delivered it and I intend to sign it," Deal told the AJC.
Atlanta Pride today announced the schedule for the annual Stonewall Celebration that kicks off with the wildly popular East Point Possums Show on June 18 and wraps up with a movie viewing of “March On!” on June 26.
The Stonewall Celebration also includes a Pride Seder on June 24 titled, “A Spiritual Celebration of the LGBTQ Movement,” presented by Congregation Bet Haverim. When Atlanta Pride announced its dates for the fest on Oct. 8-9, the committee did not realize the dates coincided with the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
After learning of the oversight, the Atlanta Pride Committee reached out to Rabbi Josh Lesser of Bet Haverim and other LGBT Jewish leaders to discuss options for recognizing the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jewish community.
Other highlights of the Stonewall Celebration include StoryCorps “Out & OutLoud” event on June 22 celebrating LGBT stories and hosted by WABE’s John Lemly as well as the 7th Annual Evening for Equality presented by Georgia Equality on June 23.
A Red Dog officer involved in the raid on the Atlanta Eagle attended the LGBT meet and greet at Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse on Wednesday and said he saw nothing happen the night of the raid.
Brian Walters, now a member of the Community Oriented Policing Services unit in Zone 6 was with other members of COPS at the meet and greet. Zone 6 includes Edgewood, Kirkwood and Grant Park. Walters is listed as Williams Walters in the federal lawsuit filed by bar patrons against the city and individual officers. The suit was settled by the city in December for more than $1 million.
An informal meet and greet with Atlanta Police LGBT liaisons Officers Pat Powell and Brian Sharp is set for April 13 at Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse.
“The idea for the meet and greet was inaugurated in 2005 when Sgt. Connie Locke, the first-ever LGBT liaison officer, began an effort to foster communication and understanding between police and the community,” states a press release from Outwrite.
Atlanta police LGBT liaisons plan meet and greet with public tonight
More data is needed to understand the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and one way to gather that necessary information is to have federally funded surveys ask this information on forms, such as they do for race and gender, and collected in electronic health records, according to a new report from the Institute of Medicine.
The groundbreaking report, considered "historic" by some, is another step in the federal recognition of LGBT people as a population who has its own specific health needs.
"It's easy to assume that because we are all humans, gender, race, or other characteristics of study participants shouldn't matter in health research, but they certainly do," said IOM committee chair Robert Graham in a statement released today. Graham is professor of family medicine and public health sciences and Robert and Myfanwy Smith Chair, department of family medicine, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati.
"It was only when researchers made deliberate efforts to engage women and racial and ethnic minorities in studies that we discovered differences in how some diseases occur in and affect specific populations,” Graham added. “Routine collection of information on race and ethnicity has expanded our understanding of conditions that are more prevalent among various groups or that affect them differently. We should strive for the same attention to and engagement of sexual and gender minorities in health research."
A bill to protect LGBT employees of the state of Georgia from job discrimination will be introduced in the Georgia House on Wednesday.
The measure is sponsored by state Rep. Karla Drenner (D-Avondale Estates), who is Georgia's first openly gay state lawmaker and one of two lesbians currently serving in the state House.
Atlanta’s own Indigo Girls will perform and speak at the “Rally for Truth” this Thursday, March 24, beginning at 10 a.m. at the state Capitol. The rally is being held in opposition to immigration bills being considered by the Georgia legislature.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists are also becoming involved in the fight against the immigration laws, stating LGBT people could be caught in the "crosshairs" of the proposed laws.
Jerry Gonzalez, the openly gay executive director for the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, said the immigration laws, which some are calling Arizona “copycat” laws, are harmful to people as well as to the state’s economy and he is asking “fellow Georgians [to] take a stand against the fiscally irresponsible and economically unsound legislative initiatives which mirror the Arizona legislative initiative that cause serious division and economic peril in Arizona.