It’s June! Pride Month! Let’s take a look at news that broke I assembled this week’s Friday Five (or that I didn’t see in time, or is an update to something previous linked).

First! The state in which I was born had joined the club! Colorado becomes the 18th state to ban the ‘tortuous practice’ of conversion therapy for minors. That’s right, another state has banned so-called gay conversion therapy for children. They law also classifies advertisements for conversion therapy a deceptive trade practice.

Polis, the first openly gay man to be elected governor of a U.S. state, recognized the historic significance of the moment, saying Colorado has come a long way since being nicknamed the “hate state” in 1992, when voters amended the Constitution to prohibit protections for people on the basis of sexual orientation.
— Anna Staver, The Denver Post

Yeah, the constitutional amendment back in ’92 was pretty bad. It didn’t just ban counties and cities from enacting gay rights ordinances, it forbade counties, cities, all government agencies and school districts from enacting “any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination” to anyone who was “homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation.” The amendment never went into law, because a state court issues an injunction against it, and the state supreme court ruled that the amendment violated equal protection, which the U.S. Supreme Court eventually agreed as well (by a 6-3 ruling, many years before the court would decriminalize gay sex).

I remember an awkward conversation with a relative who still lived in Colorado where they admitted they had voted for it, but also that they hadn’t realized what the amendment meant that it excluded gay people from all anti-discrimination laws, not just that no one could pass new laws.

Anyway, I’m happy for Colorado. Also: the other bill the governer signed yesterday allows transgender people to change their gender designation birth certificates and so forth without having to convince a judge that they have undergone specific medical procedures. That’s a big win for trans people!

Meanwhile: Gillibrand Unveils Sweeping LGBTQ Rights Agenda. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is one of the 20-some people vying for the Democratic nomination for President, and according to this article she’s the first of those candidates to announce a specific agenda for securing gay rights. I take issue with that, because if you go to the web sites of most of the Dem wannabes you’ll find a list of very similar bullet points regarding LGBT rights.

I do like a lot of the specifics in this plan: specific things that can be done by the President by Executive Order, as well as trying to get congress to pass specific bills. And it is true that none of the others have dedicated an event to such an announcement. Oh, and she’s also the only candidate (so far) to hold one of her campaign events at a Drag Show, so, there’s that!

Anyway, speaking of the other Democratic hopefuls: A Few Thoughts On Pete Buttigieg’s Dick Brother-In-Law Who Doesn’t ‘Agree’ With Chasten’s ‘Gay Lifestyle’. So, Mayor Pete is running for President. He’s an openly gay man who happens to be married to another gay man. Some of the news organizations have interviewed Pete’s husband, Chasten, and during those interviews Chasten has spoken plainly about his family’s initial reject of him when he came out, how he wound up being homeless for a while because of it, and so on.

One of his brothers took umbrage at this, and managed to get a newspaper in his state to write a long, dramatic piece of BS article about how he loves his brother, he just disagrees with his “lifestyle” and thinks gay people should not have the right to marry and a bunch of other rights, et cetera. Several times that article (not the one I linked to) talks about the great pain the brother feels seeing his gay brother describe the family as unaccepting. So often the writers at the Wonkette say exactly the snarky thing I’m thinking:

“This is where we must cut in to point out that love is an action, not a feeling. Parents who tell their children they “unconditionally” love them, but that they don’t support their “lifestyles,” or who make their gay children feel unwelcome in their homes, are neither parenting nor are they loving their children. We, the gay kids of the world, honestly do not give a fuck if our families “unconditionally” love us, because all too many of us have learned that those statements are too often meaningless. And that counts for older brothers too.

Let’s be clear about another thing: Saying you disagree with somebody’s gay “lifestyle” is saying you don’t agree with their “life.” The scientific, medical and mental health communities have told us for decades now that being gay is not a choice or a lifestyle…”

Listen, you can’t get any further from loving your teen-aged child then kicking them out of the house when they tell you they’re gay. Similarly, saying that “a queer is no brother of mine” when your younger brother comes out to you is rejection of them as a person. It isn’t love. It sure as heck isn’t Jesus’ definition of love, either!

Let’s end on happier note: Taylor Swift Petitions US Senate On LGBTQ Equality Act: “Show Our Pride By Treating All Of Our Citizens Equally”. The headline is a little misleading. Most of her post is about how her fans can call their Senators and urge passage of the Equality Act: “Politicians need votes to stay in office. Votes come from the people. Pressure from massive amounts of people is a major way to push politicians towards positive change.”

It’s worth a try!

Taylor Swift & Brendon Urie – ME! (Live on The Voice / 2019):

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)