Florida Agenda

By RORY BARBAROSSA

NEW YORK, NY – The growing support for LGBT rights among American corporate leaders is turning into tangible results for the nation’s LGBT workers, with a growing number of blue chips and other companies offering non-fiduciary benefits and other forms of compensation to their LGBT workforces, and their partners: married, domestic, or what have you.

For example, Ernst & Young, one of the nation’s largest accounting firms, is one of about three-dozen companies that now compensate their LGBT employees because of a provision in the tax code that requires them to pay income taxes on their partners’ health benefits—an amount that straight married couples are not required to pay. Approximately three-dozen companies now offer the so-called “gross-up benefit,” which, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) reports, is close to three times as many that offered the benefit just twelve months ago.

HRC reports that other companies that began offering the benefit as of Jan. 1 include American Express, Bank of America, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Both HRC and legal experts say that the tax requirement is a federal issue, and therefore trumps even laws in states that recognize gay marriage. “Four letters,” says Chris J. Mancini, a Broward County attorney who has represented many LGBT clients on domestic partnership issues. “D-OM- A.” Mancini, a former federal prosecutor, notes that the federal Defense of Marriage Act does not recognize same-sex couples as being married, even in the eight states that have legalized marriage equality.

“Under DOMA and its federal spousal definitions, a man on his wife’s health plan doesn’t pay federal taxes on his share of benefits, but a man on his husband’s plan does,” Mancini explains.

“Big Five” accounting firm Ernst & Young has offered benefits to same-sex domestic partners since 2002. The matter of the tax inequity came up during a town hall meeting held in November by the company’s diversity department. According to HRC estimates, the gross-up benefit provides an extra $1,200 on average to an employee’s family. Competitors KPMG and Pricewaterhouse Coopers have likewise added the gross-up benefit gay employees and their partners.

Bank of America offered domestic partner health benefits beginning in 1998: the company added the tax benefit this year for both domestic partners of employees and eligible children.

BOSTON, MA – Last week, U.S. Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) told CNN’s Piers Morgan that the gay marriage debate has been “settled” in Massachusetts, and said that opponents of marriage equality should “move on” and focus on economic matters.

“It’s settled law in Massachusetts. Quite frankly, everybody’s moved on,” said Brown on the March 19 broadcast of “Piers Morgan Tonight.”

In the past, Brown has said that he opposes marriage equality, but he has never made it a campaign theme. The Republican split with his party in supporting President Obama’s repeal of the Pentagon’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy.

“We’ve moved on. I encourage everyone else to move on,” Brown told the CNN host. “It should be decided state by state basis. I’m focusing on those other things.”

Democrats say that Brown’s record on LGBT rights leaves much to be desired. They point to his opposition of non-discrimination legislation for LGBT persons, and his refusal to take part in an anti-bullying video.

“If Scott Brown thinks marriage equality is settled law in Massachusetts, he should talk to the thousands of gay couples whose marriages aren’t recognized by the federal government,” said Kevin Franck, spokesman for the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

Brown is in a re-election race for his U.S. Senate seat, the one formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy.

His presumed Democratic opponent, Harvard law professor and former U.S. Treasury Department official Elizabeth Warren, has been endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign.

CHICAGO, IL – A kiss by two gay men briefly interrupted a rally in support of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Friday night held at a Christian school in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights.

While Santorum addressed the crowd at Christian Liberty Academy, two men in the back of the auditorium stood up and started yelling, “Mic check, Mr. Santorum!” in the fashion of the Occupy movement. Once they had the assembly’s attention, the couple castigated the former Pennsylvania senator for his stance on LGBT rights.

“This will never be an equal country for families –” they began, but feeling the crowd of 2,000 people’s attention slipping away, the two men—identified in the Palatine Patch, a local newspaper, as Timothy Tross and Ben Clifford- -embraced in a prolonged kiss that lasted for at least five seconds.

Thus provoked, the crowd began to chant “USA! USA!” as security escorted the men out of the facility.

Tross said their kiss was neither a symbolic gesture nor a pure display of affection. “I don’t think the message should be about what my sexuality is.

It’s the message that [Santorum] is saying about sexuality that matters.”

Photo:UN High Commissioner Navi Pillay­

Uganda’s president is unapologetic about his nation’s record of LGBT, warning developed nations of the consequences of requiring improvements in gay civil rights as a requirement for receiving foreign aid.

Attending a meeting of African heads of state on December 16 in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, President Yoweri Museveni told delegates “Before anyone gives me a lecture about homosexuals and their rights, first talk about railways.” Adding that, “homosexuals also need electricity, homosexuals also need roads, homosexuals also need railways.”

On December 6, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told delegates of the United Nations in Geneva that gay rights are fundamental human rights.

British Prime Minister David Cameron this fall likewise called for the slashing of foreign aid to British Commonwealth nations that continue to criminalize homosexual conduct. Among these are Grenada, where homosexuality is illegal and carries a ten-year prison sentence, and Jamaica, which punishes homosexuality with ten years hard labor.

U.S. officials have taken great pains to emphasize that the LGBT foreign policy directives outlined by the Obama administration last week are “affirmative, not punitive.” They cite Clinton’s outlining of a $3 million international fund to build support for LGBT rights in places where homosexual conduct is criminalized and where gays face discrimination and violence.

In spite of the provocative nature of Museveni’s remarks, some Uganda-watchers say the comments actually represent a relaxing of attitudes, in that the African president until recently rarely if ever acknowledged the existence of gay Ugandans.

Photo: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Gifford (D-Ariz.) Courtesy, AP

Arizona congresswomen a supporter of gay rights

In the wake of the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Gifford (D-Ariz.) on Jan. 8 at a supermarket in Tucson, Ariz., comes word that the person that is credited with saving her life is a gay college student.

Daniel Hernandez, 20, said he ran toward the gunfire once he realized that 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner was unloading shots from a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine. Loughner shot Giffords in the head and killed six people and wounded 14 others during a spree that officials are still investigating.

The tragic event took place at a Safeway grocery store while Giffords was having an open forum for constituents of Arizona’s 8th district.

“My main goal was to try to make sure the congresswoman and everyone was OK,” said Hernandez, a University of Arizona junior. “When I saw injured people I tried to tend to them as good as I could, until emergency personnel arrived.”

Hernandez had only been an intern for Giffords for five days prior to the shooting. “I don’t think I’m a hero,” Hernandez said. “I think doing something one off is not something heroic.”

Hernandez said that Giffords responded to him while she lay on the ground waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

“She was able to hold my hand when I asked her if she could hear me,” recalled Hernandez. “I wasn’t able to get any words from her. She may have been trying, but because of the way that I was having to hold her it was a lot easier to just ‘if you can hear me Gabby just grab my hand to let me know that you’re okay.’”

Doctors at the University Medical Center in Tucson said during a media briefing Monday that Rep. Giffords’ condition has “stabililzed.”

Salon writer Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote in a piece on Monday that it does matter that Hernandez is gay, because it proves to people like Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain that being gay should never have mattered for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” debate.

“It matters, because guys like Arizona Sen. John McCain, who described the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t tell” as “a very sad day,” still think that orientation has an effect on whether or not a person can ably serve in the military,” Williams wrote.

Giffords was a strong supporter of LGBT rights before the shooting. When elected in 2006, she immediately came out in support of the gay rights movement.

“I have stood up for equality in Arizona, and I am grateful that HRC and the GLBT community stood with our campaign during the primary and the general elections,” Gifford told the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in 2006. “We can accomplish so much for our families when we work together. Fairness is an essential American value, and when we champion fairness, we can win decisive victories in even the most competitive congressional districts.”

National LGBT rights organizations are shocked and saddened by the shooting, which left six people dead and dozens others injured.

“We are shocked and saddened by the events involving Congresswoman Giffords, and our hearts go out to her and the other victims of this awful tragedy,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “Gabby Giffords is a champion for LGBT equality and a principled leader for Arizona. We wish her a speedy recovery as our thoughts and prayers are with her family as well as with the families of all of those touched by today’ s horrific violence.

Has done more in two years than Bush administration did in eight

By DMITRY RASHNITSOV

It’s no secret that LGBT rights advocates had been pushing President Barack Obama to move forward on equality legislation during the first two years of his presidency. Before the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” last month, many felt the president was dragging his feet on helping the LGBT cause, but according to Equality Giving, Obama’s administration has accomplished more in 24 months than his predecessors, President George W. Bush, had done in eight years. Here is their list of President Obama’s accomplishments:

FEDERAL LEGISLATION SIGNED INTO LAW

• Signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded existing United States federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability – the first positive federal LGBT legislation in the nation’s history.

• Signed repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

• Signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act.

POLICIES CHANGED

• Reversed an inexcusable U.S. position by signing the United Nations Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

• Extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees in 2009 and, further, in 2010. • Lifted the HIV Entry Ban effective January 2010.

• Issued diplomatic passports, and provided other benefits, to the partners of same-sex foreign-service employees. • Committed to ensuring that HUD’s core housing programs are open to all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

• Conceived a National Resource Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Elders – the nation’s first ever – funded by a three-year HHS grant to SAG.

• Banned job discrimination based on gender identity throughout the Federal government (the nation’s largest employer).

• Eliminated the discriminatory Census Bureau policy that kept our relationships from being counted, encouraging couples who consider themselves married to file that way, even if their state of residence does not yet permit legal marriage.

•Instructed HHS to require any hospital receiving Medicare or Medicaid funds (virtually all hospitals) to allow LGBT visitation rights.

• Required all grant applicants seeking HUD funding to comply with state and local anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT individuals.

• Adopted transgender recommendations on the issuance of gender-appropriate passports that will ease barriers to safe travel and that will provide governmentissued ID that avoids involuntary “outing” in situations requiring ID, like hiring, where a gender-appropriate driver’s license or birth certificate is not available.

• Extended domestic violence protections to LGBT victims.

• Extended the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover employees taking unpaid leave to care for the children of same-sex partners.

• Issued guidance specifically to assist LGBT tenants denied housing on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

• Issued a National HIV/AIDS Strategy praised as “long-overdue” by the Task Force, Lambda and others.

• Issued guidance to 15,000 local departments of education and 5,000 colleges to support educators in combating bullying.

• Cut back authority to discharge under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” from hundreds of generals to just six civilian appointees, effectively ending discharges while working toward a permanent end to the policy.

• Led the fight that reversed a 2010 United Nations vote removing sexual orientation from the list of things people should not be killed for.

RESPECT & INCLUSION

• Endorsed the Baldwin-Lieberman bill, The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009, to provide full partnership benefits to federal employees.

• Released the first Presidential PRIDE proclamations since 2000.

• Hosted the first LGBT Pride Month Celebration in White House history.

• Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Harvey Milk and Billie Jean King, joining past recipients such as Rosa Parks.

• Appointed the first-ever transgender DNC member.

• Testified in favor of ENDA, the first time any official of any administration has testified in the Senate on ENDA.

• Hired more openly LGBT officials in its first two years – more than 150, including more than 20 “Senate-confirmables” – than any previous administration hired in four years or eight.

• Swore in Ambassador David Huebner.

• Changed the culture of government everywhere from – among others – HUD and HHS to the Export-Import Bank, the State Department and the Department of Education.

• Appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, instead of conservatives who would have tilted the Supreme Court even further to the right and virtually doomed our rights for a generation.

• Named open transgender appointees (the first president ever to do so).

• Emphasized LGBT inclusion in everything from the president’s historic NAACP address to the first paragraph of his Family Day proclamation; created the chance for an adorable 10-year-old at the White House Easter Egg roll to tell ABC World News how cool it is to have two mommies; included the chair of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce along with the secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department and the president of Goldman Sachs in the small audience for the President’s economic address at the New York Stock Exchange; and welcomed four gay couples to its first State Dinner.

• Recommitted, in a televised address, to passing ENDA . . . repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” . . . repealing the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.

• Spoke out against discrimination at the National Prayer Breakfast.

• Dispatched the secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to call on the Senate to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

• Launched a website to gather public comment on first-ever federal LGBT housing discrimination study.

• Appointed long-time equality champion Chai Feldblum one of the four commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

• Produced U.S. Census Bureau PSAs featuring gay, lesbian, and transgender spokespersons

• Appointed Retired Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, an early public champion of open service in the military, to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.

• Publicly invited the shunned Mississippi high school prom student to the White House.

• Successfully fought for U.N. accreditation of IGLHRC (the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission) – against Republican attempts to block it.

• Convened the first-ever anti-bullying summit to craft a national strategy to reduce bullying in schools.

• Launched a new website, www.bullyinginfo. org, to bring all the federal resources on bullying together in one place for the first time.

• Awarded $13.3 million to the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center to create a model program for LGBTQ youth in the foster care system.

• Tweeted to 5.7 million BarackObama followers and nearly 2 million White House followers the president’s “It Gets Better” video.

• Embraced that campaign with heartfelt messages from, as well, the vice president, the secretary of state, secretary of agriculture (aimed particularly at rural youth), secretaries of education and health & human services, secretary of labor (in English and Spanish), director of OPM and LGBT members of the White House staff.

• Issued a Department of Justice video urging kids to call a Justice Department toll-free number if their school is aware of bullying but taking no action.