Gay rights by state and region in the U.S. - a very divided nation.

[yardwork]

It's been wonderful to see the celebration of equal marriage rights here on DU. A lot of DUers really get it, and they love the fact that human rights have taken a step forward in several states.

Unfortunately, there are many more states in the U.S. where human rights have taken steps backward. For instance, every state in the southeast bans equal marriage and has little or no other protection for gay people. We can still be fired or thrown out of our apartments just for being gay.

Things are just as bad in many parts of the midwest and in several other regions of the country as well.

Click the link for an interactive chart and other information. It's sad that we see this in a British publication. Where is the U.S. media?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2012/may/08/gay-rights-united-states?fb=native

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[yardwork]

1. shameless self kick

[rosesaylavee]

2. K&R

[FreeState]

3. K&R

and yes its sad our own media isn't presenting these facts as nicely or at all in most cases.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

[closeupready]

5. Predictably, Utah and Mississippi are worst.

Michigan is just as bad, though for whatever reason, I didn't think it was. But if the diagram is accurate, it IS just as bad as Utah. Then again, Romney WAS from that state originally.

[yardwork]

6. I don't understand what happened to Michigan but maybe Romney is the missing link.

I get that the collapse of the auto industry hit Michigan very hard but to me that is not enough to explain how it fell off the Tea Bag cliff.

Watch North Carolina. We went over the Tea Bag cliff. Does Romney have a connection with North Carolina? The Koch Brothers do, big time.

[closeupready]

8. Considering how a small group of upper-tier Mormons successfully

helped lobby voters in California to pass Prop 8, I wouldn't be too surprised to find that Romney has had some sort of back-room political deal-making in Michigan, and perhaps other states, as well. His father was, after all, governor of Michigan.

[yardwork]

10. There are Michigan connections to the Prop 8 victory.

The campaign to pass Prop 8 in California was bankrolled in large part by some very wealthy donors in Michigan. Elsa Prince in Holland, Michigan, for one. She's the mother of Eric Prince, who founded Blackwater, and also the mother of Betsy DeVos, whose husband Dick DeVos is a former CEO of Amway and former gubernatorial candidate in Michigan.

So there you have it - anti-gay extremist right-wing defense contractors who wanted to run Michigan, just like Mitt Romney's dad did.

[Starry Messenger]

7. k&r

[smirkymonkey]

9. K&R Interesting, but not surprising.

I'm not gay, but I am so glad that I live in the Northeast where so many rights and liberal attitudes can just be assumed by so many of us. I couldn't imagine having to live in the South or Midwest - I feel as though I would constantly be having to censor myself.

[yardwork]

11. The northeast is definitely more enlightened on the whole, but the rest of the country is mixed.

The southeast looks bad, but take a look at Utah and Michigan. As a poster upthread noted, their anti-gay laws are among the worst in the country, just as bad as Mississippi's and worse than every other state in the southeast.

[yardwork]

12. kicking for the night crew.

[DevonRex]

13. There's still a lot of work to be done.

I'm really hoping things will get better here in Colorado now that we have a majority in both houses and the governorship. But like a lot of states, the cities are liberal and the Democrats in rural areas tend to be more conservative. Except for the resort towns. They can be our Ace sometimes.

Another thing is that everyone has gotten so damned sick of the fundamentalists that traditionally conservative Democrats have swung to the left out of sheer horror at them. They want to be clearly the opposite of them. Nice to see that their message of hate has backfired.

The last part is that Coloradans in general simply have an independent streak. They're fine deciding on their own what they want. But if they get a whiff of some huge church organization from another state coming in and dictating to them, they'll balk every single time. Whether it's Focus (Dobson wasnt from here) or LDS or the RCC.

[AZ Progressive]

14. K&R

The south as predicted is the most backward, but much of the midwest and the interior west is not far behind.

[yardwork]

15. kick for Thursday night