http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027824707

The replies in this thread range from the misinformed to the absolutely offensive. I could not imagine being a trans person thinking about reading DU and seeing the posters on this site repeat the myth that most trans people "change back" and make jokes about the struggles of a prominent trans person.

Not really sure what point I have in posting this, just that I was a bit mad after reading that and wanted to say something on a part of DU where LGBTQ people are reading.

Julian Bond, a civil rights activist and longtime board chairman of the NAACP, died Saturday night, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

He was 75.

Bond died in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness, the SPLC said in a statement released Sunday morning.
See the most-read stories this hour >>

The Nashville, Tenn. native was considered a symbol and icon of the 1960s civil rights movement. As a Morehouse College student, Bond helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and as its communications director, he was on the front lines of protests that led to the nation's landmark civil rights laws.

Bond later served as board chairman of the 500,000-member NAACP for 10 years but declined to run again for another one-year term in 2010.

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-julian-bond-20150815-story.html

In addition to Julian Bond's achievements as a founder of SNCC and the Southern Poverty Law Center, his time as leader of the NAACP led to a focus on LGBTQ rights.

He seems to be polling in the low single-digits in every poll I see, with most of them being at 0% or 1%. I have seen polls where his favorability was nearly -30 with Democratic primary voters, with less than 10% approving, nearly 40% disapproving, and the rest not knowing who he is. In most polls, his approval ratings are negative with the tiny sliver of people who say they're going to vote for him. I have never met somebody who proclaimed themselves to be a Lincoln Chafee supporter, have never seen a post on DU saying they want or expect Chafee to win the nomination, nor have I seen him really go out of his way to campaign. He was a liberal Republican Senator (the last that existed) and a seemingly progressive independent (and later Democratic) Governor, so did all the party switching end up just leaving him alienated with everybody?

So I'm throwing this question out there to see if anybody on DU, the largest haven for Democratic voters on the internet, wants Lincoln Chafee to be our nominee for President. If you do, will you make a case for him?

This speech in Portland, the addition of Symone Sanders to his campaign, and his racial justice plan are huge steps forward. A lot of Black Lives Matter activists are praising him for listening and adjusting his message.

He is listening and learning. We should stand behind him as we reach out to the black community and Bernie makes his case. He's not bashing BLM or telling protestors to leave him alone or anything else. He's just going to listen, learn, and take action. He's a man of the people.

That's who he is, and that's why I'm supporting him for President.

Yet no Republican members of Congress or Presidential candidate have come out in support of the Equality Act so far. Any question as to which party that LGBTQ people should be voting for? The next time you run into a Log Cabin Republican, make them remember who had our backs when it counted!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/dominicholden/democrats-plan-to-introduce-sweeping-lgbt-rights-bill-in-con#.ggbpnaRvR

Democrats in Congress plan to introduce broad legislation this week to protect LGBT people from discrimination — including in housing, workplaces, schools, and public accommodations. In effect, the Equality Act would extend the same raft of rights to LGBT Americans that are currently afforded to other protected groups, including people of color, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The bill marks the first major attempt by Democrats to advance LGBT rights in both chambers of Republican-led Congress since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality in June.

The measure has been long in the works and attempts to get traction where a more narrowly tailored LGBT workplace nondiscrimination bill — known as ENDA — had faltered for years.

Let's get this done! It's well past time for equality for all, regardless of bigot's cries of "religious liberty" as they try to keep us in the past.

LGBT Activists Slam Martin O’Malley for Backing Limited LGBT Protections
LGBT Americans Must be Equal Under the Law, Activists Say

New York, NY (June 30, 2015) – Responding to comments by former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley in The Hill saying he supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), Queer Nation demanded that O’Malley endorse comprehensive federal legislation that extends the rights and anti-discrimination protections given to all other Americans to members of the LGBT community.

“Martin O’Malley wants our votes, but he doesn’t know what LGBT people want and what we need,” said Duncan Osborne, a member of Queer Nation. “The LGBT community has rejected ENDA. We are pursuing comprehensive federal legislation that makes us fully equal under the law.”

First introduced in Congress in 1994, ENDA had a 2007 passing vote in the House after protections for transgender people were stripped out and a 2013 passing vote in the Senate after a sweeping religious exemption was added to the bill.

Read more at: http://queernationny.org/post/122873197471/media-release-for-immediate-release-june-30-2015

The announcement video is kind of rough though. 14 minutes long!

&feature=youtu.be

I don't think I want the primaries to start yet...we just got done with 2014.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2014/images/01/06/cnn.orc.poll.marijuana.pdf

This poll mostly has to with marijuana use, but it does ask respondents about whether or not they feel a list of things (including alcohol consumption, marijuana consumption, abortion, homosexual behavior, and cheating on your spouse) is morally wrong.

The poll found that 50% of respondents still felt that "homosexual behavior" (perhaps not the best wording of the question) was morally wrong, although at least that's better than the 82% who thought it was wrong in 1987.

So yeah, the world has com a long way in the last two decades, but it's important to remember that we still have a long way to go. Most straight people still, deep down, think it's wrong to be gay. They may say they love us, and they may even struggle for our legal equality alongside us, but we have to keep changing their minds before we ever get full acceptance.

I'm not terribly surprised by these findings, although a little upset I guess. Just a bit of sobering news after what has been a string of good news for our civil rights struggle in the last few years.

You don't see this every day: