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[LeftWriteFemme]

NOM's Real Values

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/noms-real-values



Did NOM Hire Someone to Unsuccessfully Find ‘Victims’ of Gay Parents?


http://www.rightwingwatch.org/conten...ms-gay-parents

[Tommi]

News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 26, 2012 Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343

Statement by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on LGBT Health Awareness Week 2012

LGBT Health Awareness Week is an important time to highlight the progress our country is making to address the unique health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans, especially through implementation of the health care law, the Affordable Care Act.
Studies have shown that health disparities related to sexual orientation and gender identity are due in part to lower rates of health coverage and a lack of cultural competency in the health care system. The Affordable Care Act is already helping millions of Americans gain access to care by creating coverage options for people with pre-existing conditions, and under the law, beginning in 2014, every American will have access to health care through Affordable Insurance Exchanges, new competitive marketplaces where Americans will be able to purchase affordable coverage and have the same choices of insurance that members of Congress will have. These same benefits are or will be available to LGBT Americans across the country.
The Affordable Care Act also strengthens training for health care providers, devotes new resources to improving our primary care workforce, and increases funding for community health centers, where patients are served regardless of how much they can afford to pay. We know that members of the LGBT community may be more likely to be underinsured or uninsured, making the Affordable Care Act all the more important.

In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services continues to address the specific health concerns of LGBT Americans, including by working to incorporate data collection on LGBT populations into national health surveys, releasing rules requiring hospitals to allow same-sex partners the ability to visit each other in the hospital, and setting up an internal working group that ensures we are effectively coordinating policies to best address LGBT health needs across every agency in the Department.
Our Department is committed to improving the health of all Americans, including LGBT Americans, and we look forward to continuing this work during LGBT Health Awareness Week and beyond.
For more information on how the Department is working to improve LGBT Health and Well-being, visit http://www.hhs.gov/secretary/about/l...date_2011.html.

Read the Departments recommendations for future LGBT Health improvements at http://www.hhs.gov/secretary/about/lgbthealth.html
Learn how health reform is giving LGBT Americans more control over their health care at http://www.healthcare.gov/news/facts...americans.html

[Soon]

Esteemed lesbian feminist poet Adrienne Rich has died at age 82.

http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Ent...ch_Dead_at_82/

[Andrea]

Police video of Zimmerman 'arrest'. No sign of the blood and grass stains purported to prove the shooting of Trayvon Martin was self defense.

http://www.news10.net/news/national/186868/5/Trayvons-father-Video-tells-different-story

[UofMfan]

New Customs Rule Would Treat Same-Sex Couples As Families

[LeftWriteFemme]

US Supreme Court denies 'Boys Don't Cry' appeal



http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/2...#storylink=cpy

[LeftWriteFemme]

The Doctor Is Way Out

This column is not about Newt Gingrich. Nor is it about Chaz Bono. It’s not even about how the thought of them dancing together would make Rick Santorum’s head explode. No, this column is about a psychiatrist named Keith Ablow, who in recent months has taken the time to write about Gingrich and Bono from his unique perspective as a mental health professional.

According to his Web site, Ablow “serves as the FOX NEWS expert on psychiatry.”



http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...tor-is-way-out

[Nat]

Honoring the Legacy of Cesar Chavez

On March 23, President Obama announced that Americans would celebrate March 31, 2012, in recognition of Cesar Chavez. Cesar Chavez, who made it his mission to "ensure respect, dignity, and fair treatment for farm workers," was a strong advocate for human rights and social justice -- for migrants, for workers, and for communities. His philosophy of nonviolence and his commitment to fighting discrimination and improving working conditions for migrant workers are key parts of the history of the civil rights and labor movements in the United States. They also serve as inspiration to activists and community leaders, here in the United States and around the world, who continue his work.

[AtLast]

http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/03/29/31835/police-defend-officer-who-shot-unarmed-black-man-p/

Police defend officer who shot unarmed black teen in Pasadena after 911 call saying he had a gun

Pasadena Police arrested a 911 caller Wednesday, saying that the caller's false report that he was a victim of armed robbery is partly to blame for an officer shooting and killing an unarmed teenager. The caller could be charged with manslaughter.

"If you have time to verify [that a suspect has a gun], then verify," says Phlunte Riddle, a spokesperson for the Pasadena Police. But Riddle says when police are in hot pursuit, with information that the suspect is armed, it’s a different story. And the 911 caller said he’d been robbed by two armed men.

From inside his patrol car, a Pasadena police officer shot 19-year-old Kendrec McDade as the vehicle cut McDade off. Police say McDade made a motion to his waistband and approached the cruiser.

“The officers have to make a split-second decision, shoot or don’t shoot," says Riddle. "And the officers felt their lives were in imminent danger. ... There was no time.”

Riddle says shooting from a patrol vehicle is not a procedure taught in officer training. but she also says it’s happened before.

Meanwhile, the attorney for McDade's family, Caree Harper, says the man who made the report should face some type of felony charge even if he didn’t physically pull the trigger.

"That does not alleviate those officers from their duty to know when to shoot and know when not to shoot," Harper was quick to add. "They must independently justify their shooting. They can’t just say, ‘Oh, someone called us and said hey, there was two guys, two black guys with a gun. Come shoot them,' and then have the police cleared. I don’t think so!"

Harper says she’ll wait until the Pasadena Police Department finishes its investigation before she decides whether to file a federal lawsuit against the city.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by AtLast

http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/03/29/31835/police-defend-officer-who-shot-unarmed-black-man-p/

Police defend officer who shot unarmed black teen in Pasadena after 911 call saying he had a gun

Pasadena Police arrested a 911 caller Wednesday, saying that the caller's false report that he was a victim of armed robbery is partly to blame for an officer shooting and killing an unarmed teenager. The caller could be charged with manslaughter.

"If you have time to verify [that a suspect has a gun], then verify," says Phlunte Riddle, a spokesperson for the Pasadena Police. But Riddle says when police are in hot pursuit, with information that the suspect is armed, it’s a different story. And the 911 caller said he’d been robbed by two armed men.

From inside his patrol car, a Pasadena police officer shot 19-year-old Kendrec McDade as the vehicle cut McDade off. Police say McDade made a motion to his waistband and approached the cruiser.

“The officers have to make a split-second decision, shoot or don’t shoot," says Riddle. "And the officers felt their lives were in imminent danger. ... There was no time.”

Riddle says shooting from a patrol vehicle is not a procedure taught in officer training. but she also says it’s happened before.

Meanwhile, the attorney for McDade's family, Caree Harper, says the man who made the report should face some type of felony charge even if he didn’t physically pull the trigger.

"That does not alleviate those officers from their duty to know when to shoot and know when not to shoot," Harper was quick to add. "They must independently justify their shooting. They can’t just say, ‘Oh, someone called us and said hey, there was two guys, two black guys with a gun. Come shoot them,' and then have the police cleared. I don’t think so!"

Harper says she’ll wait until the Pasadena Police Department finishes its investigation before she decides whether to file a federal lawsuit against the city.

Hopefully there are some law enforcement types on this site who can explain why shootings like this are shoot to kill versus shoot to disable. Never understood that.

[AtLast]

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-31/news/os-trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-911-20120331_1_voice-identification-expert-reasonable-scientific-certainty

Trayvon Martin shooting: It's not George Zimmerman crying for help on 911 recording, 2 experts say

One quote from article-

Tom Owen, forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, used voice identification software to rule out Zimmerman. Another expert contacted by the Sentinel, utilizing different techniques, came to the same conclusion.

Zimmerman claims self-defense in the shooting and told police he was the one screaming for help. But these experts say the evidence tells a different story.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Hopefully there are some law enforcement types on this site who can explain why shootings like this are shoot to kill versus shoot to disable. Never understood that.

Officers are taught to shoot center mass, it has no race attached to it. Some are not great shooters some are excellent.
This is an explanation of the question.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Coming Out at 7 Years Old: How Should Parents Respond?

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/coming-o...#ixzz1qnFU1ed2



http://www.care2.com/causes/coming-o...mber_104773514

[Andrea]

Drones to be used for law enforcement: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/01/4382548/drones-coming-to-a-sky-near-you.html

This feels really creepy and Orwellian. Am I going to look up through the kitchen window, while doing dishes, one day and find myself being watched?

[SoNotHer]

http://www.care2.com/causes/gay-ohio...ory-video.html

Gay Ohio Teen Beaten in the Classroom Tells His Story (VIDEO)

by Steve Williams
February 3, 2012
9:00 am



Readers may remember the shocking story of Zach Huston, a gay teenager who during class at Unioto High School in Chillicothe last year was beaten as the culmination of anti-gay bullying. A video of the attack went viral on YouTube. School authorities, however, seemed to blame Zach and not his attackers, reportedly asking “What can we do to change you?”

Now, Zach and his mother Rebecca Collins have together with the ACLU released a video discussing the escalating bullying Zach suffered and how the alleged inaction of the administration shocked and upset them.

Statements via the ACLU press release:

“Every child deserves a safe learning environment, free from violence and cruelty,” said ACLU of Ohio Legal Director James L. Hardiman. “The school had a responsibility to protect Zach, but looked the other way for over a year while he was verbally and physically bullied. Schools must proactively address bullying by engaging with students and teachers on the effects of harmful words and actions, or else risk even greater incidents of violence. This education must start at a young age in order to change the school’s culture, so this behavior is no longer acceptable.”

“This has been an ongoing nightmare for our family. No parent wants to see their child in danger, and it has been a constant fear that Zach or one of our loved ones would be harmed,” said Zach’s mother, Rebecca Collins. “Through Zach’s ordeal, I hope schools recognize they must take reports of bullying seriously and educate others on how it affects families.”

The ACLU of Ohio is now representing Zach’s family and is considering a wide range of legal options to ensure that the school and wider district never again allows this kind of thing to happen to a student. The ACLU, at the time the case first came to light, also sent a letter to school officials in an effort to establish a dialogue before formal legal action is filed.

To find out more about Zach’s story, click here.

As the video above highlights, there currently sits in Congress the Student Non Discrimination Act. The Act, introduced in the House by Rep. Jared Polis (D-Col.) and in the Senate by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), would add to existing federal statutes and grant explicit protections against bullying on the grounds of perceived or actual sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.



If schools that receive federal funds fail to adequately combat and track incidents of anti-LGBT bullying, or if school administrators are found to have discriminated against LGBT children, then under the Student Non Discrimination Act their federal funding could be cut. The GLSEN’s 2009 National School Climate survey of more than 7,000 LGBT middle and high school students from across the U.S. found that nine out of ten students experienced harassment at school because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and that two-thirds said they felt unsafe in schools. LGBT youth are also at an increased rick of suicide-linked mental health issues, many of which are in turn linked to bullying and harassment in their daily lives.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/gay-ohio...#ixzz1qz1Vzt8k

[Toughy]

The threat of losing federal money was a very big stick once upon a time. It is fairly meaningless today. Just look at what Gov Rick Perry did in TX. He lost all his medicaid money for women's health over Planned Parenthood and did not care at all.

The Violence Against Women Act was also not re-authorized in 2012. Originally passed during the Clinton Administration in 1994, it was re-authorized in 2000 and 2005 with no problems.

[Quintease]

Oh no, the Gay Agenda has infiltrated Afghanistan!

[Hollylane]

BPA in Your Food? The FDA's Still Okay With That.

—By Tom Philpott
| Wed Apr. 4, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

Bisphenol A, a controversial chemical used in the lining of nearly all cans used by the food and beverage industry, got a reprieve from the government last week. Responding to a court order to decide on the Natural Resources Defense Council's petition to ban the stuff on the grounds that it causes harm even in tiny doses, the Food and Drug Administration rejected the petition and upheld its approval of BPA.

That's good news for some of the globe's biggest chemical companies. According to Bloomberg News, the global BPA market is worth about $8 billion, with about a quarter of total production going into cans. (The rest goes into polycarbonate plastics, which end up in everything from water bottles to DVDs.) Bloomberg adds that the three biggest suppliers of BPA to the American market are the chemical/steel giant Saudi Basic Industries Corp.—which is 70 percent owned by the Saudi government—the German chemical giant Bayer, and Dow, its US rival. Globally, reports the US Department of Agriculture, Bayer and Dow produce "the bulk" of BPA.



While their executives had reason to cheer the FDA's decision, consumers have reason to groan. The FDA's own research shows that BPA leaches from can linings into food, and a 2011 Harvard study found BPA at heightened levels in people who regularly consume canned soup.

BPA is what is known as an endocrine disrupter, meaning that it has a range of effects on human development at minute doses. And Friday's decision comes less than a month after the release of a major study of endocrine disruptors by a range of scientists, including some from the US Department of Health and Human Services, who found "strong evidence" that BPA negatively affects the prostate at low doses and "undisputed evidence" that it does so for mammary glands.

And that's not all. A 2008 study published in the Journal of American Medicine looked at urinary BPA levels in 1,455 US adults and examined health outcomes controlling for "age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, income, smoking, body mass index, [and] waist circumference." The result: the higher the BPA concentration in people's urine, the higher their incidence of cardiovascular trouble and diabetes. Of course, correlation is not causation—something besides BPA could have caused the increase in health troubles. But given that the scientists controlled for a range of obvious factors, and that that BPA has proven hazardous in the laboratory, those results give plenty of reason for alarm.

Now, it's true that there remains a good amount of uncertainty in the science of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which is relatively new. The FDA seized upon that uncertainty to justify its decision. "While evidence from some studies have raised questions as to whether BPA may be associated with a variety of health effects, there remain serious questions about these studies, particularly as they relate to humans," the agency wrote in a statement following the decision. But as Time's Bryan Walsh put it, "For most public-health advocates, chemicals like BPA should be guilty until proved innocent—and they feel there's more than enough data out there to cast doubt on BPA's innocence."

It's worth noting that alternatives to BPA are already out there and working, as my colleague Kiera Butler showed back in 2010:

In 1999, Eden Foods, which sells organic goods, began lining most of its cans with a plant-based oleoresin. CEO Michael Potter calls the switch a "no-brainer," even though the new cans cost 14 percent more. "I eat this stuff," he says. "And so do my kids." Canning trade rep [John] Rost dismisses oleoresins as impractical due to shelf-life concerns, but Potter says Eden hasn't had a single case of contamination. For high-acid foods like tomatoes, which can eat away at oleoresins, companies have turned to those paper-and-aluminum cartons already used to package certain soups. But Potter says he's not surprised that major food companies and canners are resisting the new options. "They have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in BPA," he says. "They do not want to change anything."

The FDA's scientists may truly believe that it's prudent public health policy to preserve a status quo in which Americans, including children and pregnant women, continue consuming BPA in everyday foods. Then again, it's an election year, and as this blockbuster New York Times story demonstrates, the Obama White House has not been shy about pushing the agency around for political purposes. And the companies that make BPA, as well as the major food and can-making companies that have come to rely on it, are no political lightweights.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Hopefully there are some law enforcement types on this site who can explain why shootings like this are shoot to kill versus shoot to disable. Never understood that.

I was always told to shoot to stop - which means generally aiming for the torso since it's the biggest target - that attempting to disable rather than stop a person was too big a risk - of lost time, of missing the person. And never to point a gun unless willing to shoot a person.

But those are just my local gun-nut cohorts, not cops.

Happily I don't own a gun.

However, I have shot handguns, rifles and shotguns. I had terrific aim with a rifle, but shitty aim with the handguns. Even with regular target practice, I don't think I could confidently/successfully shoot to disable on-the-spot, without time to brace myself or take perfect aim and with a moving target.

One thing that sucks is that tasers and pepper spray were supposed to reduce the need for lethal force, but instead they have been used in cases where lethal force would never have been used. I'm not sure if they have reduced the number of times lethal force was used.

BTW I didn't read the news story - just responding to the shooting-to-disable vs shooting-to-kill thing from the land-o-guns.

[UofMfan]

Denying Same-Sex Insurance Benefits Discriminates, Federal Judge Rules