Legislators Who Voted To Kill North Dakota LGBT Equality Bill Shamed

The same week that Indiana and Arkansas enacted new "religious freedom" bills with explicit provisions that they could not be used as defenses or sources of discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender identity, despite the fact that neither state has statewide civil rights laws that include LGBT citizens, the North Dakota State Senate overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would have done just that.

What happened next was great. The largest newspaper in the largest city in the state printed the pictures of every single person who had voted to deny civil rights protections to LGBT people in the state, which lead the Republican Governor Jack Dalrymple to say:

"I’m concerned that we have missed an opportunity to affirm what North Dakotans already believe, which is that discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation is not acceptable.”

Gee, ya think?

There Are Only 5 States Whose Marriage Equality Bans Are Not (Currently) Being Challenged In Court

This is an interesting factoid. There are currently only 5 states where bans on same-sex marriage are NOT currently being challenged in court (North dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Georgia, and Montana). There are 17 states that have marriage equality right now. There are 30 states with more than 65 lawsuits (44 of which are federal cases) pending against their bans on same-sex marriage, according to Lambda Legal, reports the Washington Post:

Heterosexual-only marriage is safe in just five states, for now at least.   

Gay marriage is now legal in 17 states and bans are being challenged in 30, according to the latest count from Lambda Legal, a pro-gay marriage organization. (Hawaii and Illinois allow gay marriage, but legal technicalities  to aspects of their laws are still being ironed out in the courts.) The five states with bans on gay marriage that stand unchallenged are: Alaska, Georgia, Montana, North Dakota  and South Dakota.  

The five unchallenged state gay marriage bans may not stand for long. Already, a South Dakota couple has plans to challenge their state ban. And  the Supreme Court could soon weigh in.

It's unlikely the Supreme Court will really weigh in on the marriage equality question before the end of the 2014-15 term, and that's only if one of the appellate cases (the first of which was heard on Thursday in Denver before the 10th U.S. Circuit) rockets to their docket before the end of this year, which certainly is possible.

I think the 5 states that currently do not have marriage equality lawsuits says more about the lack of
organized LGBT infrastructure in those states than whether there are people who would benefit if those bans were also removed.

REPORT: LGBT Population Measured in Every State

The William Institute's Gary Gates is the author of a new report that analyzes Gallup data to produce a geographical distribution of the LGBT population throughout the United States. Previously, he had co-authored a report that estimated that the LGBT population of the United States is 3.4% of adult Americans (above 18 years old).

This new report illustrates that the distribution of the LGBT population is not uniform (as one would expect), with a minimum of 1.7% in  North Dakota and maximum of 10% in District of Columbia.

The Top 10 states with the highest percentages of respondents to the question "Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender?" are depicted below.

The report attempts to posit a reason for the relatively small variation in the LGBT percentage among the states:

In general, states where residents express more liberal views are more accepting of LGBT individuals, while socially conservative areas are less accepting. Of the 10 states and D.C. where at least 4% of respondents identified as LGBT, seven are among the most liberal states in the country. Conversely, six of 10 states with the lowest percentage of LGBT-identified adults are among the top 10 conservative states in the country.

The states with proportionally larger LGBT populations generally have supportive LGBT legal climates. With the exception of South Dakota, all of the states that have LGBT populations of at least 4% have laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and allow same-sex couples to marry, enter into a civil union, or register as domestic partners. Of the 10 states with the lowest percentage of LGBT adults, only Iowa has such laws.

Higher proportions of LGBT individuals in a state could also suggest that LGBT individuals move there in higher proportions than the general population does. While highly concentrated (and mostly male) LGBT neighborhoods exist in many cities and are certainly in part a result of this type of migration, little is known about the broader migration patterns of the LGBT community. Given prior Gallup findings showing that the LGBT population is disproportionately young, female, and nonwhite -- all of which are groups with economic disadvantages that could limit their abilities to move -- it seems unlikely that migration is the primary reason for variation in LGBT identification across states.

[...]

From a broad perspective, the variation in the percentage of adults across U.S. states who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is relatively small. At the same time, the variation does provide interesting information about LGBT identification and its possible relationship to the ideological and legal climate in different states. All states are within a couple of percentage points of the overall LGBT national average of 3.5%. The LGBT adult population estimate is above 5% only in the District of Columbia and Hawaii, and below 2% only in North Dakota. 

States with high LGBT percentages tend to be more liberal and have more supportive LGBT legal climates, while those at the lower end of the LGBT spectrum are generally the most conservative. This suggests that one explanation for the variation across states is the relationship between the willingness to disclose LGBT identity and the environment of one's state of residence. It is also possible that LGBT adults make conscious choices to reside in certain states rather than others, but this possibility is difficult to assess and seems less likely.

I think it is very important to get good information about size and diversity of the LGBT population. As people who believe in LGBT equality, we can fight discrimination and rank homophobia with factual data and appeals to fairness and reason.

AZ & ND Block State Benefits for Undocumented Youth

The big news this week is that the Obama's administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides benefits to young undocumented immigrants that are similar to those of the DREAM Act, has gone into effect.

According to Huffington Post here are the details of the program:

The administration plan is to stop deporting many undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. To be eligible, immigrants must prove they arrived in the United States before they turned 16, are 30 or younger, have been living here at least five years and are in school or graduated or served in the military. They also cannot have been convicted of certain crimes or otherwise pose a safety threat. 

Under guidelines that the administration announced Tuesday, proof of identity and eligibility could include a passport or birth certificate, school transcripts, medical and financial records and military service records. The DHS said that in some instances, multiple sworn affidavits, signed by a third party under penalty of perjury, also could be used. Anyone found to have committed fraud will be referred to federal immigration agents, the department said. 

Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said being approved to avoid deportation "does not provide lawful status or a path to citizenship." 

The paperwork for the program can be downloaded from the Immigration Services website. Applicants must pay a $465 fee and provide proof of identity and eligibility.A decision on each application could take several months, and immigrants have been warned not to leave the country while their application is pending. If they are allowed to stay in the United States and want to travel internationally, they will need to apply for permission to come back into the country, a request that would cost $360 more.

Of course Republicans view this program very differently. The infamously brainless governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, responded by announcing that in Arizona they will seek to deny any person who applies for deferred action to be ineligible for a driver's licence or any other state-issued benefits.

In her executive order, Brewer essentially said that undocumented immigrants granted deferred action will not be recategorized as lawful residents. The order is intended to cut through some confusion created by the president's program, Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson said. 

"As the (DHS) has said repeatedly ... these individuals do not have lawful status," Benson told The Republic. "They are able to remain in the country and not be deported and not be prosecuted, but they do not have lawful status." 

Regina Jefferies, a Phoenix immigration lawyer who chairs the Arizona chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said Brewer's order contradicts state law. 

She said that deferred action existed before the program started on Wednesday and that there are "many, many" instances in Arizona of immigrants granted deferred action for other reasons who have received licenses. 

She said Brewer will likely face a lawsuit. 

Brewer's order bars undocumented immigrants who receive deferred action from public benefits that include state-subsidized child care; KidsCare, a children's health-insurance program; unemployment benefits; business and professional licenses and government contracts, Benson said. 

This is Brewer just being an asshole. Of course states get to determine whom they issue state issued benefits to, and they can decide to not issue any benefits to undocumented immigrants. The fact that the federal government is providing employment benefits and reprieve from deportation to these same individuals is irrelevant to state actions. But the timing of Brewer's action was really just to make sure her xenophobic (some would say nativist) perspective is included in any media coverage about the Obama administration's new program.

Of course, it is only a matter of time before other Republican governors join Brewer in demonstrating their disapproval of immigrants. Governor Dave Heineman of North Dakota became the first to jump in the hateful pool after Brewer:

“President Obama’s deferred action program to issue employment authorization documents to illegal immigrants does not make them legal citizens. The State of Nebraska will continue its practice of not issuing driver’s licenses, welfare benefits or other public benefits to illegal immigrants unless specifically authorized by Nebraska statute.”

Well, duh.