Tag Archives: housing

Apple Corp, Dow Chemical, and Levi Strauss Come Out In Support of The Equality Act

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Gay USA

Earlier this week we posted about Democrats Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Cory Booker of New Jersey who will be introducing legislation in Congress today to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other federal laws to protect LGBT Americans from discrimination.

The Equality Act would amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include employment protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. Religious beliefs, race, sex, color, and national origin are already protected classes. The bill would not change existing religious exemptions for religious corporations, schools, and associations to make hiring decisions based on religious beliefs if the employee will be performing work connected with their religious activities.

Today three of America’s largest businesses came out in support for the upcoming legislation:

STATEMENT BY APPLE – “At Apple we believe in equal treatment for everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love. We fully support the expansion of legal protections as a matter of basic human dignity.”

STATEMENT BY THE DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY – “Dow applauds the introduction of the Equality Act and continues to support a comprehensive federal framework that ensures fairness and opportunity for everyone. Full inclusion of our LGBT colleagues and citizens is quite simply the right thing to do – for business and for society.”

STATEMENT BY LEVI STRAUSS & CO. – “Levi Strauss & Co. is proud to support the Equality Act. We have a long history of supporting LGBT equality, and the time has come in this country for full, federal equality for the LGBT community. Ensuring fairness in our workplaces and communities is both the right thing to do and simply good business.”

Like ENDA, (The Employment Non-Discrimination Act) the Equality Act will see little traction in either GOP-dominated chamber and is on track for passage in 6 – 10 years.

 

Jeb-thro Bush Backs LGBT Workplace & Housing Protections (But Only On A State-By-State Basis)

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End jeb

Speaking to employees at San Francisco tech startup Thumbtack,  Jeb Bush declared that workplace and housing discrimination protections for LGBT Americans should be enacted, but only on a state-by-state basis.

An employee who identified himself to Bush as being gay asked about Bush’s position on legislation to ban discrimination of LGBT Americans. “I don’t think you should be discriminated because of your sexual orientation. Period. Over and out,” he replied.

Bush continued: “The fact that there wasn’t a law doesn’t necessarily mean you would have been discriminated against.” He added that in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, the country must work to carefully balance the rights of those seeking to marry and the religious beliefs of those who oppose those unions.

Citing the frequently-used example by religious freedom advocates, Bush said that in the case of a florist approached by a gay couple, “you should be obligated to sell them flowers, doing otherwise would be discriminatory.” But he said that the objecting florist should not be required to participate in the wedding, a fine line that he hopes will appeal to all sides of the debate.

When the employee followed up to ask specifically whether he would support anti-discrimination laws for LGBT Americans for their housing and employment—the next target for gay rights marriage advocates—Bush said he would at the state level. “I think this should be done state-by-state, I totally agree with that,” he said.

As of this writing on 31 of the 50 states DO NOT offer LGBT protections. 

States Rights, nullification. How very confederate of him.

Lincoln weeps

New Study Shows Over 1/2 of the LGBT Community Live Where There Are No Housing or Job Protections

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lgbt demo

 

A brand new analysis of more than 100 studies and academic journals, combined with feedback from thousands of people across the country has celled into question the way many LGBT Americans think and feel about whats going on within the community at the moment and brings new housing and employment information to light.

The project called Our Tomorrow, and will provide 125 nonprofit foundations and other partner groups with new data to better engage lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community and hopefully show a better path to whats needed to be done as far as the issues that effect us and need to be worked on most.

So far, the researchers has revealed that more than half of the American LGBT community lives in the South and Midwest, where they have no legal protections from discrimination in housing, employment, or accommodation. Which runs contrary to the notion that many LGBT’s already have protections because of  the higher concentrations of the community in big cities and in the more progressive states.

Another part of the project focuses on The “hopes, fears, and ideas” of our community and shockingly shows that only 18 percent of the LGBT community describe themselves as “very happy” compared to 30 percent of the general public.

By canvassing at Pride and other events in 40 cities this summer, survey organizer Hattaway Communications has already culled 6,000 submissions, and welcomes more. You can share your thoughts, ideas and opinions  through its website — shareourtomorrow.org — through August 17.

*Funding for this project is provided by the Arcus Foundation, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the Ford Foundation, the Johnson Family Foundation, and the Palette Fund

Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, and 100 Other Tech Companies Call For Full Federal LGBT Rights and Equality – Full List

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Tech Companies

 

Fed up with the the ongoing RFRA battles a coalition of over 100 major tech industry corporations including: Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin, Yahoo, Netflix, Intuit, Uber, Salesforce, Cisco Systems, and PayPal has issued a joint statement calling for full federal LGBT anti-discrimination protections.

Joint Statement from Tech Industry Leaders

The values of diversity, fairness and equality are central to our industry. These values fuel creativity and inspiration, and those in turn make the U.S. technology sector the most admired in the world today.

We believe it is critically important to speak out about proposed bills and existing laws that would put the rights of minorities at risk. The transparent and open economy of the future depends on it, and the values of this great nation are at stake.

Religious freedom, inclusion, and diversity can co-exist and everyone including LGBT people and people of faith should be protected under their states’ civil rights laws. No person should have to fear losing their job or be denied service or housing because of who they are or whom they love.

However, right now those values are being called into question in states across the country. In more than twenty states, legislatures are considering legislation that could empower individuals or businesses to discriminate against LGBT people by denying them service if it they felt it violated their religious beliefs.

To ensure no one faces discrimination and ensure everyone preserves their right to live out their faith, we call on all legislatures to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes to their civil rights laws and to explicitly forbid discrimination or denial of services to anyone.

Anything less will only serve to place barriers between people, create hurdles to creativity and inclusion, and smother the kind of open and transparent society that is necessary to create the jobs of the future. Discrimination is bad for business and that’s why we’ve taken the time to join this joint statement.

Sincerely,

Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce
Max Levchin, CEO, Affirm
Mark Pincus, Chairman, Zynga
Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO, Yelp
Jack Dorsey, CEO, Square
Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter
Logan Green, CEO, Lyft
Brian Chesky, CEO, Airbnb
Joe Gebbia, CPO, Airbnb
Nathan Blecharczyk, CTO, Airbnb
Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel
John Donahoe, CEO, Ebay
Paul Graham, CoFounder, YCombinator
Rich Barton, Chairman, Zillow Group
Chad Hurley, CEO, Mixbit
Adora Cheung, CEO, Homejoy
Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote
Trevor Traina, CEO, IfOnly
Nirav Tolia, CEO, Nextdoor
Dion Lim, CEO, NextLesson
Bret Taylor, CEO, Quip
Joe Lonsdale, Managing Partner, Formation 8
Thomas Layton, Chairman, Elance-odesk
Fabio Rosati, CEO, Elance-odesk
Dave Morin, CEO, Path
Mark Goldstein, Chairman, BackOps
Kevin Rose, CEO, North Technologies
Yves Behar, CCO, Jawbone
Padmasree Warrior, CTSO, Cisco Systems
Tony Conrad, CEO, about.me
Sunil Paul, CEO, Sidecar
Michael Moritz, Chairman, Sequoia Capital
Dan Schulman, President, PayPal
Devin Wenig, President, eBay Marketplaces
Robert Hohman, CEO, Glassdoor
Laurene Powell Jobs, Founder and Chair, Emerson Collective
Mohan Warrior, CEO, Alphalight
David Spector, CEO, ThirdLove
Shervin Pishevar, CoFounder, Sherpa Ventures
David Karp, CEO, Tumblr
Reid Hoffman, Chairman, Linkedin
Kevin Ryan, Chairman, Gilt
Michael Birch, CoFounder, Bebo
Hosain Rahman, CEO, Jawbone
John Zimmer, President, Lyft
Bill Ready, CEO, Braintree
Jon Oringer, CEO, Shutterstock Images
Drew Houston, CEO, Dropbox
Bijan Sabet,  General Partner, Spark Capital
Douglas Merrill, CEO, ZestFinance
Tom Sheahan, CEO, RedOxygen
Brian Samelson, CEO, eMaint.com
Daniel Lurie, CEO, Tipping Point Community
Aaron Levie, CEO, Box
Jeff Weiner, CEO, Linkedin
Gary Moore, President & COO, Cisco
Travis Katz, CEO, Gogobot
Joe Davis, CEO, Webtrends
Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft
Brad Smith, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft
Josh Kopelman, Partner, First Round Capital
Rob Glaser, CEO, Realnetworks
Jason Goldberg, CEO, hem
Evan Reece, CEO, Liftopia
Dave Gilboa, CoFounder, Warby Parker
Neil Blumenthal, CoFounder, Warby Parker
Sean Parker, Chairman, Airtime
Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix     
Charles Phillips, CEO, Infor
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, CEO, Joyus.com
Michael Brown, President & CEO, Symantec
Sarah Leary, CoFounder, Nextdoor
Katie Stanton, VP, Twitter
Karen Appleton, Founder, Box.org
Brit Morin, CEO, Brit + Co
Susan Wojcicki, CEO, Youtube
Melody McCloskey, Founder, StyleSeat
Brandee Barker, Co-Founder & Partner, The Pramana Collective
Greg Tseng, CEO, if(we)
David Tisch, Chairman, Boxgroup
Kristen Koh Goldstein, CEO, BackOps
Jessica Herrin, CEO, Stella & Dot
Brian O’Kelley, CEO, AppNexus
Jeff Lawson, CEO, Twilio
Steven R. Boal, CEO, Coupons.com
Gary Shapiro, CEO, Consumer Electronics Association
Kim Jabal, CFO, Path
Ryan Holmes, CEO, Hootsuite
Alison Pincus. Co-Founder, One Kings Lane
Jeremy Liew, Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners
Larry Page, President, Google
Eric Schmidt, Chairman, Google
Travis Kalanick, CEO, Uber Technologies
Brad Smith, CEO, Intuit
Mike Huang, CEO, Glow
Aileen Lee, Founder, Cowboy Ventures
Kristen Koh Goldstein, CEO, Scalus
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
Chris Nicholas, President, Asymmetrica Labs
Ken Brownfield, CTO, Asymmetrica Labs
Stacy Brown-Philpot, COO, TaskRabbit
Nick Woodman, CEO of GoPro
Tony Bates, President of GoPro
Jack Lazar, CFO of GoPro
Tracy DiNunzio, CEO, Tradesy
John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco
Lorna Borenstein, CEO, Grokker.com
Michelle Peluso, CEO, Gilt
Ben Silbermann, CEO Pinterest
Lloyd Carney, CEO, Brocade
Irakly George Arison, CEO, Shift Technologies Inc.
Evan Goldberg, CTO,  Netsuite
Zach Nelson, CEO, Netsuite
David Hassell, CEO, 15Five
Brian McAndrews, CEO, Pandora Media
Jared Fliesler, General Partner, Matrix Partners
Joshua Kushner, Founder, Thrive Capital
Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo!
Bracken P. Darrell, CEO, Logitech

BUSTED: Security Exchange Commission Charges The Mormon Church of Hiding Billions of Dollars

The Mormon Church Will Back SOME LGBT Rights If Religious Folk Get Exclusions Because We Are Mean To Them

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Mormon Church Kills LGBT bill

 

Via Salt Lake City’s Fox affiliate:

In at least one big and bruising culture-war battle, the Mormon church wants to call a partial truce. Convening a rare press conference on Tuesday at church headquarters in Salt Lake City, Mormon leaders pledged to support anti-discrimination laws for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, as long the laws also protect the rights of religious groups. In exchange, the Mormon church wants gay rights advocates — and the government — to back off. “When religious people are publicly intimidated, retaliated against, forced from employment or made to suffer personal loss because they have raised their voice in the public square, donated to a cause or participated in an election, our democracy is the loser,” said Elder Dallin Oaks, a member of the church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles. “Such tactics are every bit as wrong as denying access to employment, housing or public services because of race or gender.”

Let me be fucking crystal clear here. The Mor(m)on Church is in no position to negotiate, let alone to negotiate from any position of strength.

After spending MILLIONS of dollars to fight LGBT rights. After ruining countless lives by sending gay and lesbian Mormons to “re-education camps”, using shock therapy, and in some cases even lobatomizing gay men. They have the nerve to try to strike a deal now that their “righteous” facade is crumbling and people are truly seeing how hateful and evil they are by saying: We still want to oppress you, but we’ll try to be nicer about it and give you some limited recognition as human beings.

If you ever needed the definition of a “STRAWMAN” this unadulterated  BULLSHIT from the LDS church is it.

Openly gay Utah State  Sen. and founder of Equality Utah,  Jim Dabakis who sent out a statement saying:

“I am proud that the LDS Church has seen fit to lead the way in non-discrimination. As a religious institution, Mormons have had a long history of being the victims of discrimination and persecution. They understand more than most the value and strength of creating a civil society that judges people by the content of their character and their ability to do a job. Since serving as a Senator, and as the only LGBT member of the Utah legislature, I can say one of the joys of the job has been to meet and enjoy the company of LDS officials. I know that together, we can build a community that strongly protects religious organizations constitutional liberties and, in addition, creates a civil, respectful, nurturing culture where differences are honored and everyone feels welcome. Now, lets roll up our sleeves, get to work and pass a statewide Non-Discrimination Bill.”

Just goes to show you that even gay democrats can be disgusting self-loathing quislings too.

 

Sen. Jeff Merkley To Introduce Sweeping Federal LGBT Rights Bill That Has No Chance In Hell of Passing

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Merkley and HRC

 

Justin Snow over at MetroWeekly reports that Sen. Jeff Merkley has formally announced that he will  introduce a comprehensive LGBT civil rights bill in the next Congress.

Merkley said that while the Senate’s passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in November of last year by a 64-32 vote after the bill failed by one vote in 1996 was a “tremendous victory,” if discrimination is wrong in employment, it also must be wrong in areas such as housing, public accommodations and financial transactions.

“Such an act would be a major advance for opportunity and equality for the LGBT community and would be a major stride toward a more just society,” said Merkley, who has been the lead sponsor of ENDA in the Senate since assuming that role from Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2009.

Merkly who previously supported and introduced the last version of  ENDA as written with the gaping religious exemption states that he will introduce an omnibus bill in the next Congress with comprehensive LGBT nondiscrimination protections.  Also that the religious exemption in the expected omnibus bill should track identically to federal nondiscrimination provisions in the 1964 Civil Rights Act addressing race. “Obviously there’s going to be an intense conversation between stakeholders and we hope to bring in a bipartisan coalition,” Merkley said. But narrowing the religious exemption could prove detrimental to Republican support.

NOTE:  The “religious exemption” in Title VII of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act grants churches, synagogues, and mosques, as well as some religiously affiliated organizations an exemption from the law’s prohibition on religious hiring discrimination–meaning they can prefer members of their own faith in hiring. The purpose of this exemption is to permit a religious organization to require those who carry out its work to share its faith (and it has subsequently been interpreted to apply even when an employee’s work is not itself religious). But, it is not a blank check for these organizations to discriminate for any reason. It does not, for example, permit discrimination on the basis of race or sex.   AND WE SHOULD SETTLE FOR NOTHING LESS.

Meanwhile Human Rights Campaign  President Chad Griffin said securing comprehensive LGBT federal protections could take decades.  Which is especially true now after the past 20 years of HRC’s total mishandeling of ENDA and the current GOP controlled House and Senate.

“I have great faith in those on Capitol Hill in the House and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, who have led on ENDA who will lead us on how we get there,” Griffin said. “This is going to take a long time and this is going to be perhaps the biggest battle we’ve ever had when it comes to federal legislation.”

It’s amazing what Democrats can do when they are not in power.

Well now the HRC has another “moneybeg” for the next two decades that they can constantly fuck-up to stay in business and try to justify their bloated salaries.

 

 

 

43 Arrested at Idaho State House for Demanding LGBT’s Be Added To The Idaho Human Rights Act‏

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Idaho

Police have arrested 43 gay rights activists, after saying their protest blocked entrances to the Idaho Senate chambers for more than two hours demanding protections for LGBT individuals. .

Former state Sen. Nicole LeFavour, the Idaho Legislature’s first openly gay lawmaker and an organizer of the protest, had said the group would block the entrances until lawmakers agreed to take up a bill adding protections for gay and transgender people to the Idaho Human Rights Act.

If lawmakers “get a bill through committee, we would let them in to do their work,” said LeFavour, before she and the others were arrested.

The arrests began after Senate President Pro Tem Republican Brent Hill attempted to enter the chamber about 11 a.m. but was blocked

“We respect your right to protest, but we also have the right to do the job people elected us to do,” Hill told the protestors, adding it was “irresponsible” of demonstrators to block the hearing room. “Those are the chambers, and they belong to all the people, not just this group.”

The demonstrators wore “Add the Words Idaho” T-shirts and covered their mouths with their hands, a symbolic gesture intended to call attention to a bill adding workplace and housing protections for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender individuals to state law.

Hill, Rand other Idaho Republicans have blocked passage of such a proposal for eight years.

Hill said he sought to avoid a confrontation by telling his members to remain outside the chambers until the protesters had vacated the entrances.

Protesters, who ranged from high school age to their 60s, said they wanted to make a point.

 

HUD Study Shows LGBT Discrimination In U.S. Housing Market – DUH!

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No Gays

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has released a study on housing discrimination based on sexual orientation.  Because they REALLY needed a study to know that LGBT ppl are discriminated against.

“This is the first large-scale, paired-testing study to assess housing discrimination against same-sex couples in metropolitan rental markets via advertisements on the Internet. The research is based on 6,833 e-mail correspondence tests conducted in 50 metropolitan markets across the United States from June through October 2011. For each correspondence test, two e-mails were sent to the housing provider, each inquiring about the availability of the unit advertised on the Internet. The only difference between the two e-mails was the sexual orientation of the couple making the inquiry. Two sets of correspondence tests were conducted, one assessing the treatment of gay male couples relative to heterosexual couples and one assessing the treatment of lesbian couples relative to heterosexual couples. This methodology provides the first direct evidence of discriminatory treatment of same-sex couples compared with the treatment of heterosexual couples when searching for rental housing advertised on the Internet in the United States.

The study finds that same-sex couples experience less favorable treatment than heterosexual couples in the online rental housing market. The primary form of adverse treatment is that same-sex couples receive significantly fewer responses to e-mail inquiries about advertised units than heterosexual couples. Study results in jurisdictions with state-level protections against housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation unexpectedly show slightly more adverse treatment of same-sex couples than results in jurisdictions without such protections. This study provides an important initial observation of discrimination based on sexual orientation at the threshold stage of the rental transaction and is a point of departure for future research on housing discrimination against same-sex couples.”

We not only need ENDA – WITHOUT THE RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS,  And quite simply we need LGBT’s amended to the Civil Rights Act which includes housing protections and stop this time piecemeal legislation strategy that is dragging out  the fight LGBT equality for decades past and most probably decades to come.

Springfield, Ohio Rejects LGBT Housing and Job Equality Protections

Gay News From Around The Globe, , ,

The city council of Springfield, Missouri rejected a measure extending anti-discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, employment and public accommodations, this week.   

Watch below as the CBS local affiliate news anchor uses anti-gay code and calls the ordinance “special protections” instead of “being included in current protections that cover people of color and religious affiliation” which it should rightfully be described as.

Homo Say What? – Canadian Landlord Will Goertzen Tears Up Lease And Kicks Out Gay Couple Because "Homosexuality isn’t natural and it’s a crime against nature. I can definitely not have a part in it,"

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Who needs a little thing like Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms to keep landlord Will Goertzen in line.  It gets trumped by the fact that Goertzen fears that that God will “strike him down” wrath upon him if he rents to a gay couple!  And that’s why he tore up the lease he signed with Scott Robertson and Richard Anthony, denying them the flat after learning they were a couple, because homosexuality “isn’t natural and it’s a crime against nature. I can definitely not have a part in it,” he told the Human Rights Commission. And what did Goertzen’s Christian act allegedly do? Made Robertson and Anthony homeless for 10 days as they searched for a new home, as they had just sold their house. The men want $23,500, each, in punitive damages.

Goertzen told the commission he recognizes the supremacy of God over the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. “There’s a reason I’m fearful: God is bigger than me and any person on Earth,” he said.

“It was a terrible feeling of helplessness to see everything unfold and not do anything about it. It was like being in a dream and not being able to scream,” Scott Robertson said and added the experience has made him more cautious when meeting new people and he holds back from telling them about his personal life.

“There’s a whole part of my life I’ve been hiding from people.”

Goertzen said the case has been tough on him too. “Do you think this has been easy for me? I love you, Mr. Robertson, but I hate the sin you’re in.”

The Human Rights Commission adjudicator said he will release his decision later this summer and hopefully Robertson and Anthony are going to OWN that building by the time this all shakes out