lgbt rights

• Rock the Vote has a young voter score card for states
• Iowa is one of the top states in the country for access to voting and ease of voting for youth. Other states include North Carolina and Montana
• Why millennials can’t start their careers and baby boomers can’t end theirs.
  

  "It’s hard to say this spring whether it’s more difficult for the class of 2011 to enter the labor force or for the class of 1967 to leave it.

  Students now finishing their schooling—the class of 2011—are confronting a youth unemployment rate above 17 percent. The problem is compounding itself as those collecting high school or college degrees jostle for jobs with recent graduates still lacking steady work. “The biggest problem they face is, they are still competing with the class of 2010, 2009, and 2008,” says Matthew Segal, cofounder of Our Time, an advocacy group for young people.

  At the other end, millions of graying baby boomers—the class of 1967—are working longer than they intended because the financial meltdown vaporized the value of their homes and 401(k) plans. For every member of the millennial generation frustrated that she can’t start a career, there may be a baby boomer frustrated that he can’t end one."

• Care2 picks up our debunking of the "empowerment" of debt among youth with their story: Debt may not be so empowering after all
• After yesterday's story about the Iowa State Senator who told students lobbying for fair tuition to "go home" Campus Progress has launched a petition asking people to demand Republican Iowa State Sen. Shawn Hamerlinck apologize to Iowa's youth.
• WH reaches out to young voter roundtables

  

• This is so depressing - Are anti-depresents over prescribed to youth?
• Youth who watch MTV's Pregnancy Programs are more likely to support abortion according to a new survey (PDF) of viewers. Full disclosure ... after watching this show I believed very strongly in sterilization...
  

  "71 percent of "millennials" (ages 18 to 29) have seen a show about pregnancy.

  And 29 percent of millennials had seen, specifically, either "Teen Mom" or "16 and Pregnant." Among Americans overall, that number drops to 17 percent.

  But regardless of age, the study found that 65 percent of those shows' viewers support abortion -- among the general public, 56 percent support it."

• By that same token here is One Millennial's take on New Research around LGBT Rights and Abortion - The story on the research itself shows that youth tend to support choice and believe in its legality but believe its morally wrong. This will surly be critical messaging for choice groups in upcoming elections as they make their case to young voters.
  

  "Just under half of 18- to 29-year-olds say that abortion is morally acceptable, but six out of 10 say it should be legal in most or all cases, and nearly seven out of 10 say it should be available locally."

• NC House OKs blocking low-interest college loans
  

  "North Carolina's House of Representatives is sidestepping Gov. Beverly Perdue's veto by trying to allow more than two dozen community colleges to refuse to offer low-interest student loans. . . .

  College presidents say they worry they'll be cut off from federal financial aid programs if student loan defaults go too high. Community Colleges vice president Linda Weiner said each campus is responsible for student financial aid issues and presidents have the leeway to act on their concerns."

• By that same token - Wells Fargo has launched a fixed interest rate student loan program - I assume to compete with federal student loans? If you consolidate your federal student loan and lock in a rate that rate never changes. In 2007 Congress passed a bill that helped bring more sunshine to student loan companies. That Congress continued with a huge student loan overhaul and the fight continues today....
• More on the Student Loan bubble
• Personal story of a Tennessee youth who is young, gay and homeless
• The AFL-CIO hosts its second annual Young Workers Summit in Minneapolis
• Commentary: Is college worth it?
• The Roosevelt Institute is having a reception in DC this evening if you want to go here are the details
• The Senate HELP Committee released a staff discussion draft of Title I of the proposed Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization bill. SparkAction.org will feature Millennial stories on it as this moves forward.
• From the League of Young Voters 99Problems.org blog they pose the question - is our generation post racial? Given that we're the most diverse generation in American history this is a great question to ask.

There seems to be a grand solution to the Don't Ask Don't Tell problem that has plagued the US Military has now been uncovered.

According to a release from the Human Rights Campaign

"The ban on open military service by lesbian and gay Americans is on a path to repeal this week with the White House, Pentagon leaders and Congress outlining a process that includes votes in the House and Senate as early as Thursday. Legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will be considered as amendments to the National Defense Authorization bill – the same vehicle by which the law was enacted 17 years ago. The Obama administration endorsed the approach today in a letter to Congressional leaders from Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag.

"We are on the brink of historic action to both strengthen our military and respect the service of lesbian and gay troops,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “Today’s announcement paves the path to fulfill the President’s call to end ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ this year and puts us one step closer to removing this stain from the laws of our nation."

February of 2009 there were 1,454,515 soldiers on active duty.

According to a 2008 piece in the NYTimes women are more likely to be discharged under Don't Ask Don't Tell

"While women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women."

The piece goes on to say that the number of gay men and lesbians discharged from the military in 2007 rose to 627 from 612 in 2006. Total LGBT groups say that there are over 65,000 gay men and lesbians serving in the American armed forces with over a million LGBT veterans.

West Point graduate and Iraq war Veteran, Lt. Dan Choi was quoted in a GetEQUAL release after the news about DADT surfaced:

"My question still remains, and I’ve yet to find anyone signing off on yesterday’s compromise able to give me a direct answer to, "when exactly will the discharges stop?" ...

"Until the President signs the papers that fully and immediately end the firing of patriotic, gay and lesbian service members, then there is no cause for celebration and no reason to trumpet mission accomplished for a job not yet done.

"My concern here is for my fellow soldiers serving in uniform and how this law will affect them. We've heard a lot of talk about how this compromise can work politically, but on the day this passes Congress, no one has been able to explain how this will have any impact at all on those of us serving in uniform. Unfortunately, we have been handed an imperfect, eleventh hour compromise with no viable alternative,” continued Choi.

In a NY Times report last week on troops in Afghanistan:

From 2002 to 2008, the average age of service members killed in action in Afghanistan was about 28; last year, it dropped to 26. This year, the more than 125 troops killed in combat were on average 25 years old.

In a 2003 National Youth Survey from CIRCLE (PDF) of 15-25 year olds 85% of those polled said they believe LGBT's should have equal protection when it comes to employment.

No word yet from conservatives who believe we should support the troops if they in fact meant all of the troops or just the straight ones.

Watching election returns last night proved to be a very interesting evening. What became consistent was the impact of the lack of outreach on the youth segment of the electorate and the diminished rate of enthusiasm.

In Virginia

“Only 1,973,868 of a total 4,955,755 voters participated in the gubernatorial race — “a miniscule number when you consider there were 3.7 million voters in the 2008 election,” said Isaac Wood, assistant communications director at the University Center for Politics… He added that generally one-third of Virginia voters in presidential elections choose not to participate in gubernatorial elections, and that, as such, yesterday’s voter turnout was even lower than usual.”

One difference this year than in 2008 was young voters had a candidate at the top of the ticket who actively sought their vote. This isn’t generally the standard in other elections, despite our efforts to teach candidates otherwise. Outreach is so important, asking young people for their vote is key, and peer to peer outreach is a must. All of these things happened nation wide in 2008, in large part because the Obama campaign placed a high importance on getting out the vote for young people.

Let’s also not forget the huge outreach done by non-party groups like HeadCount, Rock the Vote, and state youth groups around the country. I did receive a “Go Vote” email from HeadCount yesterday but didn’t receive a text messages from Rock the Vote, and no facebook reminders from any groups. There just wasn’t the kind of work done this year that was done last year from national youth groups. (I did receive an email from Rock the Vote saying they did send texts out to target areas, no word on if those target areas were NJ and VA but not Maine or who they “targeted”).

This was echoed in a brilliantly articulated piece in the Washington Post

“It doesn’t seem to have been enough, and one immediate lesson from these off-off-year elections is already clear: Democrats have a lot of work to do to bring Obama loyalists to the polls, particularly the young. Early exit polls suggest that the share of the electorate represented by voters under 30 will be cut roughly in half compared to 2008. No one expects that young voters will be as excited by this year’s election (or by next year’s midterms) as they were by Obama’s own candidacy. But Democrats are more dependent on young voters than ever before – something I wrote about earlier this fall. Virginia should bring home to them the imperative of mobilizing the millennials with more than just a nice ad toward the end of a campaign.”

Another major problem I’ll echo comes from the Atlantic Wire

Uninspired by Democrats Elrod at The Moderate Voice isn’t so sure. “Young voters and African Americans did not feel inspired to support the Dems in those states,” Elrod writes. “If they feel that way in November 2010 then the consequences will be grave for the Democrats.”

Never underestimate the inspiration factor. In large part it comes from a candidate that speaks to young voters. A candidate doesn’t have to look like Obama, or speak as well as Obama does - the simple outreach and ability to speak to youth issues can be enough. Communicate to young voters 1. the differences between the candidates, 2. why their vote is important, and 3. ask them for their vote. Get them to vote early or by mail, and then actively GOTV on election day.

The Atlantic Continues by placing some blame

“Jon Stewart Failed, and White House Didn’t Step In: Maegan Carberry at the Huffington Post isn’t the first to argue, provocatively, that “it’s been up to Jon Stewart and FunnyOrDie.com to keep the kids engaged.” The problem with the Obama team, she says, is that “despite its hipster Flickr feed and weekly YouTube address, [the White House] has presented a television-driven strategy, ceding a great deal of its street cred with the president’s digital Millennial generation base.”

I both agree and disagree. Young people watch more than Jon Stewart and FunnyOrDie and saying that the youth vote depends on these two factors is an oversimplification. There wasn’t a youth campaign, whether from national sources or from the state campaigns. If there isn’t going to be national outreach done by The Daily Show or online then the only option is peer to peer outreach on the ground done by the campaign. Neither in this case happened.

This is also the first election with OFA at the helm of the DNC, and I think its an indictment of the style of organizing. Its troubling that OFA wasn’t involved in the Maine vote considering the extent to which the White House has attempted to make-up to the LGBT community.

When democrats weren’t in the White House the DNC organizing model was focused on elections, now that we hold the White House the purpose of the DNC has shifted to pushing the President’s agenda, which is why the DNC isn’t in the business of winning elections anymore (locally or otherwise), but instead organizing around issues like the President’s health care reform battle. This isn’t a criticism, its just the way things are. If democratic donors want to see electoral results they should invest in the DCCC, the DSCC, the DGA or local state parties, not to OFA or the DNC.

Finally, the Atlantic says

“Young People Fickle, Bored, and Hate Health Care “Would Obama have had more legislative success,” wonders Steve Sailer at the iSteve blog…”

I both agree and disagree here as well. I wouldn’t say fickle, I think its pretty simple to outline a winning strategy for young voters and it starts with outreach and we’ve determined that wasn’t done here. I would agree that youth were bored with their choices - there was no inspiration and again no outreach. But I disagree this has anything to do with health care nor do I agree that young people hate health care. In the past on FM we’ve even argued that the HCR battle would have been a lot easier and more effective if OFA and the White House incorporated youth into the discussion, but instead they were ignored there as well.

The moral of this story is that the DCCC and the DSCC should go beyond “showing candidates the data” on young voters, and show campaigns how they can win with the youth vote and how to do the proper outreach. With a professionally run campaign to connect with young voters, their candidates can win the way Obama did with youth, but the outcome will be similar to NJ and VA if they don’t.

FM friend @EricaAmerica interviews young people marching for equality in Washington, DC, this past Sunday.

In an open letter to the New York Republican Party, Meghan McCain once again invited her chosen party to reconsider its position on gay marriage.

McCain has long been an advocate and ally to the LGBT community, speaking in April at the Log Cabin Republicans Convention.

"Gays and lesbians are a vital part of our communities. They are doctors, teachers, firefighters, emergency personnel and neighbors. In this way, marriage equality is also about supporting good citizens and strengthening our communities. When a committed gay couple seeks to declare their love for one another and get married, the whole community benefits from the added stability and strength of that family. On top of that, we don't give up anything by sharing responsibilities and protections with those whom we love.

That's why I believe in marriage equality."

McCain recalled the 5 Republicans in the NY Assembly that voted for the equality bill and asked that as the vote comes to a full vote before the Senate officials to recall the "Republican values and fairness by passing the marriage bill."

Despite being more aligned with the moderate wing of the GOP, McCain continues to be her party's best hope of going mainstream and connecting with a generation that abhors the "culture wars" and embraces values like equality, choice, and inclusion.

I posted the video of Meghan McCain's Maddow interview earlier this week and while she's probably an expert on the ways in which the GOP is hemoraging young people because the religious right is scaring people off... here is further evidence that the extremist points of view in a much more modern time are becoming more moderate and mainstream.

A good friend who is a very faithful man sent me a piece he saw on Alternet that talks about Equality Ride a project of Soulforce Q. They have young LGBTQ folks riding around the country on a bus visiting evangelical colleges in the south to bring a public face to issues often opposed by that community and "to cut off homophobia at its source -- religious bigotry."

"Soulforce recognized that encouraging young people to engage in conversation with their peers who hold conservative views about homosexuality could be transformative for both sides."

"The Equality Ride targeted students whose identities as Christian are central to their lives. Such students' choice of attending a Christian school probably helps them resist some of the social pressures of modern life. A loving confrontation by fellow young people with contrasting views on homosexuality was designed to challenge orthodoxy and certainty."

Its a little like an intervention - we're doing this because we love you and we don't want you to live like this anymore... The light at the end of the tunnel is that young evangelicals still might be conservative but

"At the same time they are more inclined than their parents to support social justice efforts such as environmental stewardship, anti-poverty programs, or HIV/AIDS treatment. While they mostly believe that homosexuality is a sin, at least some of them support employment and housing rights for LGBTQ people."

Its a good start.

The piece goes on to say that out of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the US about 400 are Christian schools that identify as evangelical Protestant.

"Students attending these colleges enter environments where conservative Christian values are celebrated, and often codified. Most of these schools
explicitly prohibit drinking, smoking, sexual activity, and homosexuality, and some require students and staff to sign faith statements."

My friend told me that Barry Goldwater once said about campaigning "you go hunting where the ducks are." He said he thinks young evangelicals in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas are areas prime with game if we want to reach folks. He believes some of the younger believers would be very open to the progressive, environmental stewardship for example not to mention a social justice message.

He's right. The article says that for evangelicals that know at least one LGBT person

"this issue [a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage] became greatly troubling. The vast majority of conservative Christians strongly believe that marriage should be restricted to between a man and a woman, but they also value human rights and don't think that the government should treat anyone unfairly."

Hope and change.... hope and change...

Remember that one time when people voted for George Bush?? Ahh seems like so long ago when we were all ill-informed and scared of dangerous terrorists like this. Look at them. I'm afraid for my life as we speak. From what I understand there is even a possibility of a covert mission in West Hollywood.

I am curious the extent to which this recent decision is reflective of the wonderfully evolving world of civil rights. An op-ed in The Nation yesterday quotes beautiful trends

"The California gay marriage debate illustrates important national trends for Democrats. Growing numbers of Americans favor gay rights, including some form of partnership recognition for same-sex couples, especially when framed as economic and legal rights. This is particularly true of young voters; in California 55 percent of voters under 30 support gay marriage, and nationwide 63 percent of voters under 40 support civil unions or domestic partnerships. But this trend also holds true for voters of all ages; a 2007 Field poll reported that Californians young and old were four times more likely to say they are becoming more accepting of gay relationships than less accepting. Moreover, when the symbolic weight of marriage is removed from the equation, support for gay rights becomes overwhelming. Nationwide, a whopping 89 percent of voters favor protecting gays and lesbians from employment discrimination."

I think its safe to say that regardless of who wins the White House, even if its John McCain, there will be a huge amount of progress for gay marriage and civil unions.

and

Sad when this is progress... but, I think it is. At the very least LGBT's will have the right to be carried under their partner's insurance (helps with the health care crisis a little), and adoptions will be easier. Its getting a tiny bit easier and considering that many states passed overwhelmingly these insane amendments just a few years ago this is great progress. Perhaps not as quickly, or as sweeping as many would like, but its a step in the right direction that will only get easier and better the more people fall in love with Ellen DeGeneres.

According to CIRCLE numbers that are from a couple of years ago (so those are likely low compared to today)



And my favorite and most encouraging (look at those super youngsters!!)

According to Gallup, for the first time EVER it is evenly split between 48/48 of those who find gay relations morally acceptable. That same survey had 36% of people who said that it was not morally acceptable to have sex without being married..... so there ya go...

It isn't going to happen tomorrow, or even next week, but its soon... and its hard to wait.