National Media Analyze Presidential Memo on Benefit Package for Same-Sex Partners of Federal Employees

President Obama signed a memorandum on Wednesday that extends limited benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees.

Among those benefits is the right for a same-sex partner to use American medical facilities abroad as well as the right for a federal employee to take a leave of absence to nurse a sick partner or non-biological child to health.

Healthcare and retirement benefits, however, are precluded from the President’s package leaving some LGBT advocates dissatisfied with both yesterday’s memorandum and the President’s hesitance to fulfill his LGBT campaign promises.

Rachel Maddow covered the breaking news on her MSNBC program this past Tuesday:

An editorial in The New York Times, published on Wednesday, candidly exposed the discrimination rooted in excluding same-sex partners from federal healthcare and retirement packages:

Since benefits are an important part of employment compensation, gay people   are effectively being paid less than their heterosexual peers for doing the same work.

The Times went on to clarify that while the new benefits are certainly a mark of progress, it is still “impossible to ignore how much of the glass is not full” and urged President Obama to fulfill his campaign pledges and “work to allow gay people to serve openly in the military and to persuade Congress to bar discrimination against gay people in employment.”

Similarly, in a June 18 article, “Gay Couples Express Hope over Benefits Extension,” The Washington Post profiled three gay and lesbian federal employees, all of whom are hoping for further action on the parts of the President and U.S. congress:

Jamie Price, a lawyer with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said she hopes Obama’s action will “perhaps spur Congress” into approving the bipartisan legislation that would provide domestic partners of federal workers the same benefits as the spouses of federal employees.

President Obama has expressed his full support for such legislation.

Although the President did not directly address transgender people in his speech yesterday, the National Center for Transgender Equality reported on Wednesday that:

Officials [NCTE] spoke with today reconfirmed that the decision is firm that the new guidelines to agencies and departments will make clear that discrimination based on gender identity and expression is forbidden under civil service policies and that the policy will be enforced by this Administration.

The Associated Press reported that John Berry, head of the Office of Personnel Management and the highest ranking gay person in the Obama administration declared yesterday’s memorandum to be “a first step - not a final step” in President Obama’s pursuit of LGBT equality.

The blogosphere is also full of praise and criticism of President Obama’s federal employee memorandum.

Leonard Hirsch penned a thankful note to the Administration on Thursday via Bilerico.com:

Thank you, President Obama and your team (you know who you are). Thank you, Secretary Clinton and GLIFAA (Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies) for taking an important lead on these issues during this Administration.

Though Hirsch goes on to say “We still have much to do for LGBT equality and to eliminate hate, discrimination and harassment in our society and our laws” - a point of clarification that Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, took up in her Huffington Post piece, “Our Moral Imperative.”

In the piece, Carey admonished last week’s Department of Justice brief that defended the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) saying it was “not merely disappointing, it was a public abrogation of the promise of equality the president himself embraced as a candidate.” She goes on to list dozens of policies on which the President can take immediate action in a move toward LGBT equality. Carey does give credit where it is due, echoing White House officials in calling the President’s memorandum ‘a first step’.

Bilerico.com went on to publish the transcripts of yesterday’s White House press briefing with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, during which Press Secretary Gibbs was pressed for answers on several LGBT issues. Among the most noteworthy of responses was one in which a timeline for the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was disclosed:

Q: Okay. And on-just one more time on DOMA, “don’t ask, don’t tell” timeline, does the President want to see that overturned in this Congress? I mean, is there a plan to do that in this Congress?

MR. GIBBS: I think, as Senator Reid said, it’s something we can do in this Congress and it’s something that the President is working with members of    Congress, working with-on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” working with the Pentagon to ensure that that happens. Yes, ma’am.

GLAAD will continue to monitor media reports of the Obama Administration’s stance and actions on LGBT issues.

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Summer Heats Up with Churches Debating LGBT Issues

In the past few weeks the Los Angeles Times, Charisma Magazine and the Toledo Blade published overviews on the various summer conventions where Protestant denominations will be engaged in debating LGBT inclusion. We here at GLAAD thought we’d share these and other highlights of the summer:

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH USA

Presbyterians worked diligently and strategically to garner prayerful support for a constitutional amendmenton equal ordination.  Passed by the General Assembly in 2007, and voted by each Presbytery over the last six months, LGBT supportive groups pulled GLAAD in around communications support as they shaped a message of inclusion for all God’s baptized and called people. With a 49% to 51% popular vote and unprecedented numbers of regional presbyteries supporting equality, messages like “historic levels of support” showed up in both mainstream and opposition media.  Even though the proposed constitutional amendment for equality did not pass, articles with positive messages were carried nationwide in both the Religion News Service and The Associated Press wire services.

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

July 8-17, in Anaheim, Calif., bishops and elected deputies gathered for the Episcopal Church’s triennial General Convention will consider dozens of resolutions to move their denomination beyond its de facto moratorium on additional LGBT bishops and forward on civil and ecclesiastical marriage equality.  Furthermore, among these resolutions are four in support of transgender equality, marking a first in the convention’s history. The convention’s process will be impacted by a recent controversy in which a committee chair refused to publish the names of a panel of theologians who were appointed to prepare a paper on same-sex relationships in the life of the church. In addition, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and primary leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion will visit General Convention and is expected to pressure the Episcopal Church to halt its progress on LGBT inclusion.

EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA

After eight year process of drafts, hearings and revisions, the Social Statement on Human Sexuality, itsImplementing Resolutions and separate recommendations for ministry policies will go before the biennial Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Minneapolis on August 17-23.  Lutherans will be taking several votes which could allow congregations to appoint ministers who are in committed same-gender relationships. Social statements require a 2/3 majority vote and are the basis for policy-other resolutions and recommendations only need a simple majority.  Even if the Social Statement fails, other recommendations could still open the door, so opponents are strategizing to change the rules to require  a 2/3 vote on all sexuality-related items, even though two previous such attempts having failed. Lutherans Concerned/North America is part of the Goodsoil coalition that is preparing for advocacy on the votes on these documents and is working with GLAAD to amplify their message in mainstream media.

REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA

Reformed Church in America (RCA) pastors and elders continued the conversation around gay equality at the 2009 General Synod on June 3-9. Members of pro-LGBT group, Room for All, were telling their stories as the discussion, which has been ongoing for thirty years, continued.  A mid-point document for the most recent conversation is online. Significantly, the RCA voted to make the Belhar Confession a fourth doctrinal confession. Written in 1982 in response to Apartheid, it concludes, “Therefore, we reject any ideology which would legitimate forms of injustice and any doctrine which is unwilling to resist such an ideology in the name of the gospel.” The General Synod delegates will look at how the Belhar’s relates to gay and lesbian justice. To revisit the Synod you can visit the blog.

MENNONITE CHURCH

To reopen dialogue about welcoming LGBT people, a group of young Mennonites are making their presence known at the Mennonite Church USA Assembly, June 30 - July 5 in Columbus, Ohio, by asking supporters to wear pink to highlight the discrimination in the denomination against gay and lesbian Mennonites.  Also, several pastors issued a Lenten open letter to the Mennonite Church calling for confession and healing in the church’s relationship with LGBT people. Many of the 1,300 signers will offer hospitality and seminars at the Assembly this summer,

UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

The UCC Coalition’s June 22-25 2009 gathering kicks off the UCC weeklong General Synod in Grand Rapids, MI.  The UCC is the leading mainline denomination that supports full equality for LGBT people, and the UCC General Synod will consider many resolutions. One such resolution will work for “Affirming Diversity/Multi-cultural education in Public Schools” and hopes to lay the groundwork for an ecumenical partnership to support this crucial work.

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST

Unitarian Universalists will be meeting June 24-28, in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Leaders from their United Nations office, which now has a staff person designated for LGBT work, will bring a resolution to protest the targeting of gay men in Iraq for murder in the streets. The former mayor of Salt Lake City will be honored for his human rights work and the president of the board for the UU United Nations office is a former Mormon and will reflect on her journey from there to being a Unitarian.

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Ten Years After Matthew Shepard, Coverage of Hate Crimes is Lacking

It’s been ten years since news of the violent murder of Matthew Shepard first made headlines.  For many weeks following those initial reports, coverage of the Laramie, Wyoming tragedy flooded major television stations and news outlets from coast to coast.

It was undoubtedly the most visible anti-LGBT hate crime in this country’s history.

To this day, Matthew’s story continues to be told and his death memorialized - the most widely recognized tribute being Moisés Kaufman’s internationally acclaimed play, “The Laramie Project,” which was later adapted into a GLAAD Media Award winning film for HBO.  To mark the 10th year of remembrance, Kaufman has updated the play with an epilogue.  The new version will be published and used in future performances.

One would think that in light of the widespread coverage of Matthew Shepard’s story and the conversations it caused on a national level and in our local communities, subsequent coverage of hate crimes against LGBT people would have increased.

Sadly, this is not the case.

Many times when LGBT people are attacked for being who they are,  the media coverage - if there’s any at all - is limited.  So far this week, GLAAD has highlighted just a few cases (Anthony Hergesheimer, Nakhia Williams and Sean Kennedy) that demonstrate how hard getting coverage of anti-LGBT hate crimes can be and the impact the media can have when they actually do provide coverage.

In the few cases where an anti-LGBT hate crime has risen to the national level of awareness, we often see problematic language and assumptions in the media’s coverage.

Take for example the coverage of Lawrence King’s murder.  Earlier this year, the brutal and senseless premeditated murder of 15-year-old King became the most widely covered hate crime of the year.

On a Friday in February, Lawrence, an openly gay student from Oxnard, California, was shot and murdered by a fellow classmate.  The attacker brought a gun into school and killed Lawrence because of King’s  orientation.

When the news of the murder first broke, GLAAD urged the media to report on the intersection of anti-gay bullying and violence.  When the Associated Press published a story which unfairly assigned blame to King for “flirting,” we called upon the Associated Press to reexamine the way it had covered the story.

Then, one of the most visible stories about the murder, a Newsweek feature article titled “Young, Gay and Murdered,” was published.  The article received harsh criticism from many who viewed it as, similar to the AP story, blaming the victim.  From the Newsweek article (emphasis added):

Larry King was, admittedly, a problematical test case: he was a troubled child who flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon—it was often his first line of defense. But his story sheds light on the difficulty of defining the limits of tolerance.

After collecting concerns from the community, GLAAD met with Newsweek to discuss them and provide feedback.  The meeting was productive and Newsweek later published a follow up article that included many of the responses people had left for the newsmagazine after the article’s publication:

The article drew a massive response online–more than 4,000 comments were posted through the week. Many responded to reporter Ramin Setoodeh’s assertion that Larry “was a troubled child who flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon.”

Yes, he was a flamboyant kid who wore high heels and makeup. But many commenters felt this characterization suggested that Larry deserved to die.

Los Angeles based writer and attorney Peter DelVecchio also delved into the Newsweek criticisms in a blog post at The Bilerico Project.

The Newsweek LGBT sources interviewed were uniformly dismayed by the piece, believing it represented King as being responsible for his own murder. Ryan referred to a “tone of blaming the victim,” (a charge she leveled against media handling of violence against LGBT youth generally).

The Newsweek article “was framed in a way . . . that justifies violent action by people that is in line with the gay panic defense argument,” said Cathy Renna, managing partner of Renna Communications, a public interest communications firm focusing on LGBT issues.

“It was very close to blaming the victim . . .,” said Kevin Jennings, founder and executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a national education organization focused on safe schools.

And recently, GLAAD secured an op-ed in the Ventura County Star highlighting the common threads linking the Shepard and King tragedies.

As candlelight vigils and benefits take place across the country this week in remembrance of the ten years passed since Matthew Shepard’s murder, we also remember countless others like Lawrence King and urge the media to increase responsible coverage of hate crimes against LGBT people.

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