HRC Blog

On Tuesday of this week, Texas House of Representatives Criminal Jurisprudence Committee heard testimony on four pro-equality bills. These bills would add gender identity and gender expression to Texas’ hate crimes law, repeal the state’s unconstitutional 'homosexual conduct' law, and remove discriminatory provisions from the state’s age of consent (Romeo and Juliet) laws.

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation has just released Equality from State to State 2010, a comprehensive report detailing LGBT-related legislation in 2010 and what is expected for 2011. New interactive maps of current state laws accompany the release of the report. Both can be found at http://www.hrc.org/statetostate2010

In the wake of the murder of Ugandan LGBT civil rights leader, David Kato, we are calling on U.S. fundamentalist pastors Carl Ellis Jenkins, Lou Engle and Scott Lively, to quickly abandon their hateful and dangerous anti-LGBT rhetoric and actions. David Kato, the gay Ugandan human rights defender, was brutally murdered in his home on Wednesday. David was the Advocacy Officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a coalition of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex human rights organizations in Uganda.

Late yesterday, the President signed into law a continuing resolution (CR) funding the federal government through March 4, 2011 largely at the same levels as appropriated for FY 2010, which ended on October 1. Republican political maneuvering in this jam-packed lame duck session prevented the Senate from even considering the House-passed omnibus appropriations bill, which contained important increases for HIV/AIDS programs and dedicated dollars for implementation the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.

The following is from HRC’s Associate Director of Diversity Allyson Robinson: Over the next few days, transgender people and their allies all over the world will be gathering to observe the twelfth annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. I was asked recently why violence against transgender people continues when our society seems to have made so much progress toward diversity and inclusion.