GODLESS WEDNESDAY: FFRF Full Page NYT Ad On First Amendment

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has a full page ad in tomorrow's New York Times (in honor of Bill of Rights day) with the provocative(?) headline "Don't Let The Religious Right Trump The First Amendment" with a picture of Indiana Governor (and Vice-President Elect) Mike Pence and a portrait of Founding Father (former President) James Madison. The advertisement also includes the statement "The framers of our secular constitution knew the only wall we need is between church and state." MadProfessah is a proud member of FFRF so I am happy to publicize this effort of promoting "free-thinking."

hat/tip to Friendly Atheist

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Lydia Polgreen, New Openly Lesbian Editor-in-Chief of Huffington Post

It's not every week our Celebrity Friday subject can be an out lesbian of color. However, that is the case this week since The Huffington Post has named an open lesbian of color to be their new Editor-in-Chief! Lydia Polgreen, 41, the editorial dirctor of NYT Global at the New York Times is replacing former editor-in-chief (and founder) Arianna Huffington as the head of one of the most significant digital publications in the world.

This is how the Huffington Post reported the news of Polgreen's appointment:

In an interview, Polgreen said it was difficult leaving the Times, where she spent nearly 15 years, but that the role at HuffPost was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“I feel like we’re living in a moment right now where media has to fundamentally rethink its position vis-a-vis power,” she said. “I think that the election of Donald Trump and the basic difficulty that the media had in anticipating it tells us something really profound about the echo chamber in which we live, the ways in which journalism has failed to reach beyond its own inner limits.”
Polgreen described HuffPost as a “truly great global, progressive news platform,” though not in a purely political sense. She said the site has the “potential and the possibility of really meeting this populist moment that we’re living in and meeting people where they actually are.”
“The DNA of The Huffington Post is fundamentally progressive, but I think that has a really capacious meaning and comes to include so many of the things that motivated not just the people who were rah rah Bernie or who voted for Hillary Clinton, but also many, many people in the United States who voted for Trump, who have fundamental concerns about the way the country is moving and the future,” she said.
Originally launched in 2005 as a progressive alternative to the Drudge Report, HuffPost has grown into a Pulitzer Prize-winning news and opinion site boasting 17 international editions, including its most recent launch in South Africa.
Polgreen has extensive international experience, including serving as the Times’ West Africa bureau chief, South Asia bureau chief and Johannesburg bureau chief, where she covered major events such as the death of Nelson Mandela. She has also served as deputy international editor and helped oversee the launch of The New York Times en Español. In April, Polgreen became editorial director for NYT Global, part of a $50 million investment to grow the paper’s reach into multiple international markets.

Hat/tip G-Listed

MAP: New Data Show Same-Sex Marriage Geographic Distribution In The USA

The New York Times Upshot blog has a post today on a Working Paper (pdf) by researchers at  the U.S. Treasury department about same-sex joint married tax filers in 2013 and 2014, after the United States v. Windsor decision ended discrimination by the federal government against legally married same-sex couples (like yours truly).

By linking the tax returns of same-sex couples who filed jointly in 2014 with their Social Security records, researchers are able to give us the most accurate picture of same-sex marriages to date. And their estimate is this: In 2014 there were 183,280. same-sex marriages in America, roughly a third of 1 percent of all marriages.

Of course, implicit in this estimate is the assumption that all married couples file their returns jointly. But as a proxy for that, it’s pretty good. The Treasury Department estimates that 97.5 percent of married couples file joint returns.

One highlight of the study: Pretax household income of same-sex married couples is higher than that of heterosexual married couples. Most of that is driven by the average earnings of male same-sex couples: $176,000. On average, they make $52,000 more than married lesbian couples and $63,000 more than married straight couples.

A key factor in the reason why same-sex male couples make more than their married counterparts is where they tend to live, which is urban centers. Here's the list of locations for the top 10 places same-sex couples reside:

No surprise that San Francisco is #1 on the list (for gay couples and #3 for lesbians), but it is also interesting to note that Washington is #2 and #6 respectively. Los Angeles and Long Beach are represented well.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Mario Bello Reveals Her Bisexuality In the NYT

Mario Bello is making headlines this week for writing an editorial in the New York Times where she reveals that the person she feels the strongest emotional connection with in the world is a woman, i.e. that she is bisexual. Bello is most well-known for her appearance on the television show E.R. and most recently appeared in the brilliant film Prisoners as the mother of a kidnaped girl.

Bello discusses her views about modern family arrangements inher op-ed:

My feelings for Clare aren’t the same as the butterflies-in-the-stomach, angst-ridden love I have felt before; they are much deeper than that. As we grew closer, my desire for her grew stronger until, after a few months, I decided to share the truth of our relationship with my large, Italian-Polish, “traditional” Philadelphia family. 

My father’s response came between puffs of his cigar while we sat on the roof of a casino in Atlantic City. “She’s a good girl, good for you,” he said. My mother and family echoed his sentiments. Maybe they weren’t so traditional after all. 

My feelings about attachment and partnership have always been that they are fluid and evolving. Jack’s father, Dan, will always be my partner because we share Jack. Dan is the best father and the most wonderful man I’ve known. Just because our relationship is nonsexual doesn’t make him any less of a partner. We share the same core values, including putting our son first. My more recent ex, Bryn, remains my partner because we share our activism. And Clare will always be my partner because she is also my best friend.

Congratulations to Maria Bello! Hopefully this revelation will not have a negative impact on her film and television career.

NYT Spotlights HIV Crisis Among Young Black and Latino Men Under 25

Well, this is a surprise! Today the New York Times has a front page, above the fold (most prominent placement), story entitled "Poor Black and Hispanic Men Are the Face of H.I.V." by Donald G. McNeil Jr. The key point is that 25 percent of new infections are in men who are either Black or Latino.

Here's an excerpt:

Nationally, 25 percent of new infections are in black and Hispanic men, and in New York City it is 45 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the city’s health department. 

Nationally, when only men under 25 infected through gay sex are counted, 80 percent are black or Hispanic — even though they engage in less high-risk behavior than their white peers. 

The prospects for change look grim. Critics say little is being done to save this group, and none of it with any great urgency. 

“There wasn’t even an ad campaign aimed at young black men until last year — what’s that about?” said Krishna Stone, a spokeswoman for GMHC, which was founded in the 1980s as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. 

Phill Wilson, president of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, said there were “no models out there right now for reaching these men.” 

[...] 

According to a major C.D.C.-led study, a male-male sex act for a young black American is eight times as likely to end in H.I.V. infection as it is for his white peers. 

That is true even though, on average, black youths in the study took fewer risks than their white peers: they had fewer partners, engaged in fewer acts of sex while drunk or high, and used condoms more often. 

They had other risk factors. Lacking health insurance, they were less likely to have seen doctors regularly and more likely to have syphilis, which creates a path for H.I.V. 

But the crucial factor was that more of their partners were older black men, who are much more likely to have untreated H.I.V. than older white men.

The fact that the HIV epidemic is becoming browner and younger has been known by HIV activists for quite awhile but it is useful that the mainstream media is starting to pay attention and send the message to the wider population.

I'm somewhat surprised that my friend Phill Wilson is quoted saying there are "no models" for reaching young Black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM), when he runs the Black AIDS Institute which is a national organization focused on creating, studying and promulgating such models.

In Los Angeles, In The Meantime Men is an organization which focuses on HIV prevention in young Black men and Bienestar focuses on HIV prevention and treatment in the Latino community.

I think what Phill meant to say was that there are no widely adopted or generally accepted models for reaching the communities the article is focused on.

Saturday Politics: Major Newspapers Endorse Marriage Equality

The American Foundation for Equal Rights has noticed that 13 of the nation's top 15 newspapers have recently editorialized in favor of marriage equality:

USA TodayThe New York TimesLos Angeles TimesSan Jose Mercury NewsThe Washington PostDaily NewsChicago TribuneChicago Sun-TimesThe Dallas Morning NewsHouston ChronicleThe Philadelphia InquirerThe Arizona RepublicThe Denver Post

Homomentum in favor of LGBT equality!

NYT Urges U.S. Intervention In Prop 8 Case

The New York Times published an editorial on Sunday titled "Beyond Selma-to-Stonewall" which strongly urges the Obama administration to intervene in the Proposition 8 case Hollingsworth v. Perry:

The outcome of the Proposition 8 case is likely to affect the lives of gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans for years to come, even if the final disposition is not sweeping enough to wipe out all state laws currently banning same-sex marriage. A strong filing by the Justice Department, forthrightly declaring that denying the freedom to marry violates the Constitution, would put the full weight of the federal government on the side of justice and could influence the shape of the ruling.

For the administration to be missing in action in this showdown risks conveying a message to the justices that it lacks confidence in the constitutional claims for ending gay people’s exclusion from marriage or that it believes Americans are not ready for a high court ruling making marriage equality the law of the land — impressions strikingly contradicted by legal precedent, the lessons of history and by the president’s own very powerful words.

Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Address appeared to reflect a deepened understanding that the right to marry the person of one’s choice is a fundamental right “under the law.” He needs to make sure his solicitor general conveys that sound legal view loud and clear in the Proposition 8 case.

The question of whether the federal government (as represented by the Department of Justice headed by Attorney-General Eric Holder) should take a position in the Perry case even though it is only about a particular state's marriage laws has been a slow boiling controversy in LGBT legal circles.

However, now it is clear that the heterosexual supremacist forces represented by Charles Cooper are explicitly hoping that the Obama administration does not intervene in the case while the pro-marriage equality forces represented by Ted Olson and David Boies are explicitly asking for the support of the Department of Justice on behalf of the appellee-defendants:

Olson and Boies, former opponents from the landmark Supreme Court case that decided the 2000 presidential election for George W. Bush, urged the government to enter the case and assert that gay and lesbian couples have the same right to marry as a man and a woman. According to lawyers in the room, Olson stressed that the administration's voice should be heard at this historic moment. Olson, who as solicitor general under Bush from 2001-04 once ran such meetings, was especially fervent. He compared the contention that states need more time to resolve the gay-marriage dilemma to arguments half a century ago that states needed more time before blacks and whites could share the same public accommodations such as drinking fountains. 

A former Reagan administration lawyer, Cooper argued in his session that marriage is the business of the states, so no federal constitutional interest can be asserted. Cooper referred to Obama's own comments suggesting that states should decide the matter and echoed much of what he had written in his recently submitted brief to the Supreme Court. In that, Cooper included Obama's remarks from a May 2012 interview with ABC News referring to the "healthy process and ... healthy debate" occurring in the states.

The text is referring to arguments made by the pro-LGBT and anti-LGBT sides to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli (who actually represents the interests of the United States before the United States Supreme Court) at meetings that occurred on January 18th. The Obama administration and other parties considered "friends of the court" have until close of business on Tuesday to file their amicus curiae briefs.