Category Archives: Gay

Last week Paying an unfair price: The financial penalty for being LGBT in America caught my attention. The report – the first ever I recall on this topic – paints a bleak picture of the added financial burdens LGBT Americans face because of legalized discrimination in the form of anti-LGBT laws at the national, state and local levels.

The report documents how inequitable laws harm the economic well-being of LGBT people in three key ways:

• Enabling legal discrimination in jobs, housing, credit, and other areas
• Failing to recognize LGBT families, both in general and across a range of programs and laws designed to help American families
• Creating barriers to safe and affordable education for LGBT students and the children of LGBT parents

“Paying an Unfair Price” offers broad recommendations to help strengthen economic security for LGBT Americans including:

• Instituting basic nondiscrimination protections at the federal and state level
• Allowing same-sex couples to marry in all states
• Allowing LGBT parents to form legal ties with the children they are raising
• Protecting students from discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity

You can read more about this report here.

I know I just posted my Temptation Tuesday post, but I’m wicked busy and man candy posts like this are both quick-n-easy. I hope you are having a good Tuesday and thank you for your patience.  In the meantime enjoy the post while I focus on my day job.

It is easy to forget that we live in some pretty historic times.  Decades from now, young gay men and women will read about the struggle for marriage equality and the legal battles won by Mary Bonauto. In my opinion her accomplishments put her on equal footing to names like Harvey Milk, Larry Kramer and Barney Frank.

Michelle Golden’s letter to The Boston Globe last week was spot on when she wrote, “Bonauto has long been revered in my household, for the successes for human rights that she and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders have achieved, as well as for her vision and perseverance. Our family literally would not legally exist were it not for her.“ Bonauto’s legal triumphs have come from a combination of keen intellect and understanding of the law as well as a ferocious tenacity.

I remember when some national LGBT groups were critical of the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders taking up the cause of marriage equality. Some said the fight was doomed from the start and would cause a backlash, setting the LGBT community back decades.  Mary and the organization she led knew better and pushed forward, citing legal precedents; many of which her organization won in the 1990s that helped make the case for marriage equality.

Congratulations to Mary Bonauto for being named as one of this year’s MacArthur Fellowship; often referred to as the “Genius Grant”. You deserve the recognition; our community is in your debt.

Summer has returned to Boston this weekend with a vengeance and for a few minutes today I experienced some serious de ja vu, thinking it was July.