Fighting For Our Next Generation at the Massachusetts State House

By: Allison Wright 

Tuesday was a momentous day for unaccompanied homeless LGBTQ and HIV positive youth in Massachusetts. As I finagled my way to a corner of an over-crowded and sweltering room located in the basement of the State House, where over 50 people waited to offer testimony for one of the 15 bills listed, I was pleased to see many familiar faces.

Youth workers from Youth on Fire and Boston GLASS waited patiently in the back of the hearing room fanning themselves in an attempt to deal with the almost unbearable heat. Current and formerly homeless LGBTQ youth I’ve worked with at BAGLY or spoken with during my many trips to Boston GLASS slowly began to creep their way through the masses.

We were all there for the same reason – to show our support for “An Act Providing Housing and Supportive Services for Unaccompanied Homeless Youth.”

“An Act Providing Housing and Supportive Services for Unaccompanied Homeless Youth” is a key step to improving housing and residential stability, reducing the risk of harm and improving educational, physical and mental health outcomes for unaccompanied homeless youth.

With recent reports suggesting that up to 40% of unaccompanied homeless youth in the United States identify as LGBT, this bill will particularly benefit unaccompanied homeless LGBTQ youth in Massachusetts.
The lack of youth-specific resources in Massachusetts is alarming. As one youth testified, “there is only 1 shower for 16 guests” at Bridge Over Troubled Waters – one of the few youth specific shelters in Massachusetts.

Youth, particularly LGBTQ youth, avoid adult shelters due to fear of violence, harassment, and lack competency on LGBTQ issues. As a result, youth opt to sleep on the street and resort to survival crimes, exposing them to increased violence, incarceration, and HIV transmission.

Homelessness has also been linked to school drop-out rates. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education estimates that nearly 6,000 high school students are experiencing homelessness and are out on their own.

The need for greater resources for LGBTQ youth in the out-of-home care setting as well as stronger anti-bullying laws for LGBTQ students are two of the many priorities for GLAD’s Youth Initiative Project.
On May 30, Senior Staff Attorney and leader of GLAD’s Youth Initiative, Vickie Henry, testified in support of “An Act Relative to Bullying in Schools.” The proposed legislation would make much needed improvements to the state’s anti-bullying law by adding important provisions for enumerating protected classes - including LGBTQ students; for tracking and reporting bullying behavior; and for conducting a student school climate survey.

Bullying harms academic performance and, sometimes, leads to the ending of a young life. Through GLAD’s extensive outreach in the LGBTQ and HIV positive youth community, we have heard the stories of numerous students who report being bullied because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression.

GLAD joins in supporting the passage of “An Act Providing Housing and Support Services for Unaccompanied Homeless Youth” and “An Act Relative to Bullying in Schools.”  Both bills will greatly improve the everyday lives our next generation.

If it ain’t broke…

Yesterday, GLAD attorney Ben Klein testified at the State House in favor of “An Act relative to abusive practices to change sexual orientation and gender identity in minors,” legislation to outlaw so-called “reparative therapy” – the dangerous and discredited practice which purports to change people from gay to straight and transgender to non-transgender – for people under the age of 18.

“So-called conversion therapy is a disgraceful chapter in our society’s mistreatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people,” Ben told members of the Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities. “It’s been proven ineffective, it defies modern medicine, and it inflicts serious psychological harm on young people.”

Sponsored by state Rep. Carl Sciortino, an openly gay legislator, the bill prevents healthcare professionals licensed in Massachusetts from using “reparative therapy” techniques on young people. GLAD is among a coalition of LGBT, mental health and child welfare organizations supporting the legislation.

Happy Anniversary! 9 Years of Marriage Equality Today

Post by Laura Kiritsy, Manager of Public Education

It’s been fascinating and fun to watch as legislators in Rhode Island, Delaware and Minnesota passed marriage equality bills that their respective governors enthusiastically signed into law in the past few weeks.

Things have changed dramatically from 10 years ago, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling in our Goodridge marriage lawsuit pitched Beacon Hill -- along with our usual opponents in the Catholic Church hierarchy and the religious right -- into a state of hysteria.

“Opposition set in in about one nano-second,” Mary Bonauto recalled in the documentary film Saving Marriage. That sounds about right.

Back to Beacon Hill for (Full) Transgender Equality

 Constituents waiting to talk to their legislators about co-sponsoring
"An Act Relative to Equal Access in Hospitals, Public Transportation, Nursing Homes, Supermarkets, Retail Establishments, and all other places open to the public"

Post by Laura Kiritsy, GLAD Manager of Public Education

I was at the State House today for the first time since the big, celebratory, ceremonial signing of the Transgender Equal Rights Bill almost exactly one year ago (my colleague Jennifer Levi wrote a nice reflection on that event for our blog). Given that, you may be surprised to hear that my trip to Beacon Hill today was for a Legislative Day of Action in support of a bill called “An Act Relative to Equal Access in Hospitals, Public Transportation, Nursing Homes, Supermarkets, Retail Establishments, and all other places open to the public.” The Equal Access Bill, as we call it, would add protections for transgender people in public accommodations to our state’s non-discrimination laws.

Arguing For Respect of Parallel Spousal Statuses

As other states across the country continue to enact civil unions and registered domestic partnerships -- legal statuses for same-sex couples that fall short of full marriage equality -- the question is: what happens when a couple with a civil union or RDP moves to a marriage state like Massachusetts?

GLAD believes Massachusetts should recognize those legal relationships, a position that senior staff attorney Karen Loewy argued persuasively before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on May 8, in the case A.E.H. v. M.R.

“The point of this case,” Karen explains, “is the respect due to parallel spousal statuses, like registered domestic partnerships or civil unions, which provide all of the state-based protections for spouses. Recognizing the status advances Massachusetts’ commitment to equality and honors the intentions of the parties who entered into the status. Most critically, recognition secures the legal status of children and the protections that come from having two legal parents.”

GLAD is representing A.E.H., who entered into a registered domestic partnership in California with M.R. in 2003. The couple agreed to conceive and co-parent children together, and they later moved from California to the east coast when M.R. was pregnant with their eldest child, J. J was born while the couple lived in Massachusetts, and M.R. and A.E.H. were equal co-parents, acting as a family in every way. A.E.H. conceived their second child, M, and during the pregnancy, M.R. took J to Oregon under false pretenses and severed all contact between J and our client. But the Massachusetts Probate and Family court appropriately recognized both women as legal parents to the children and granted primary physical custody of both children to A.E.H.

M.R. appealed the ruling, and continues to argue that Massachusetts should not recognize their California domestic partnership, and as such she should retain sole custody of the older child she birthed and have no parental responsibility for the younger child that A.E.H. birthed.

The case is another unfortunate illustration of the way in which estranged same-sex partners sometimes attempt to exploit the lack of uniform legal protections – or the lack of any legal protections at all – to gain the upper hand in relationship dissolution and/or custody proceedings. In an effort to stem this tide, GLAD and other LGBT organizations collaborated on Protecting Families: Standards for LGBT Families, a set of guidelines urging parents to play fair and to honor the agreements they make with partners for the good of their children.

Read the standards and pledge to uphold them at www.glad.org/protecting-families.

We expect the SJC to issue its decision in late summer.

Ask the InfoLine: LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS Resources for You

Thanks to the work of two of our interns, Richard Luedeman and Allister Chang, GLAD now has a Resource List for each of the six New England states. You can either access the list online (see individual links below) or we can mail you your state’s Resource List in printed form- just contact GLAD’s Legal InfoLine.

Wherever possible we have included “umbrella” organizations that maintain lists of other local organizations that provide services in the area. For example, in some states there is a statewide HIV/AIDS organization that has a list of other local HIV/AIDS service providers. These “umbrella” organizations should have more up-to-date lists as changes occur.

We hope that you find these useful. We welcome suggestions of other agencies to include and would appreciate receiving any corrections or updates that need to be made. Changes, suggestions and comments can be sent to us here.

In addition to these Resource Lists, GLAD has a large number of publications on the various legal issues that affect the LGBT and HIV+ communities in the six New England states. Just contact the Legal InfoLine, and an experienced volunteer can guide you to the publication(s) that provide the information you need.

New England LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS Resources by State

Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont

Important News for Massachusetts Public Retirees

On November 18, 2011 Governor Deval Patrick signed Chapter 176 of the Acts of 2011, “An Act Providing for Pension Reform and Benefit Modernization.”

One section of this law allows retirees who retired under Chapter 32 of the Massachusetts General Laws on or before May 17, 2004 choosing Option A or B, and then married a person of the same sex on or before May 17, 2005 to change to Option C retroactive to their retirement date. Option C allows for a spouse to continue receiving a monthly retirement income after the retiree dies. This option is also available for the surviving spouse of a retiree provided the conditions above are met. Chapter 32 of the General Laws covers most Massachusetts state, county and municipal employees, including public school teachers.

Although the exact amounts are based on a number of factors including the ages of the retiree and spouse, in general changing from Option A or B to Option C results in about a 9-11% decrease in income for the retiree and if the retiree dies the surviving spouse gets two-thirds of that amount for his/her lifetime. If the spouse predeceases the retiree, then the retiree’s income reverts back to Option A effective the date that the spouse died.

If a retiree or surviving spouse chooses to take advantage of this, there will need to be adjustments to recover the excess income already received (the difference between the Option A or B income and the Option C income, which is approximately 9-11% each year). The law leaves how this will be done to the retirement boards. Also, it is not clear exactly what the IRS tax implications of this change are (since the retiree has already paid the federal tax on the Option A or B amount). We will provide further details as they become available.

The deadline for applying for this change is July 1, 2012. Retirement boards are still developing application forms for this purpose. You may wish to contact your particular retirement board to determine when applications will be available as well as when information will be available about how the adjustments will be made to recover the excess income.

To see the exact language in the law go to:

http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2011/Chapter176 Section 55.

If you have questions, contact GLAD’s Legal Infoline—800-455-GLAD (4523) or www.glad.org/rights/infoline-contact.

Justice, Justice, We Shall Pursue

Some of the many who fought hard for passage of the MA Transgender Rights Bill:
Arline Isaacson, Jennifer Levi, Carly Burton, Gavi Wolfe, Rep. Carl Sciortino, Gunner Scott and Kara Suffredini. Photo by Chris Riley.

Jennifer L. Levi, GLAD's Transgender Rights Project Director,
on passage of the Transgender Equal Rights Bill in Massachusetts:

I am new to tweeting as anyone can tell. Technological neophyte that I am, I committed to learning it, though, because of several recent chances I’ve had to be on the front lines of civil rights advances. I want to be sure that members of our community who can’t leave their obligations to rush to our state capitals get the minute-to-minute updates and details of how the hard work of social justice is unfolding.

So when I got the call on Monday afternoon at my office in Easthampton that the bill our coalition had worked on for nearly a decade (if you count the early work on the Boston ordinance as the foundation), I knew I’d have to tweet the progress and developments around the bill. After a long day of legislative developments, I sent out a tweet last night at close to 6 p.m. about the mackerel that sits atop the huge chandelier above the Senate Gallery. I knew my colleague Laura Kiritsy was right when she texted me, “it’s time for you to go home.”

Still, it had been a wild ride of a day. I defied her suggestion, staying just a few minutes more for final enactment by the Senate. I was sitting with Gavi Wolfe, legal counsel for the ACLU and just behind Ken and Marcia Gerber as well as Liz Monnin-Browder’s mom, when it happened. It was all over - the Transgender Equal Rights Bill had passed. It was headed to the governor’s desk where we know he will enthusiastically sign it.

We all left the Senate gallery and walked downstairs to welcome and thank our champions. Senator Chang-Diaz walked out first. She hugged Ken and Marcia Garber and invited all of the supporters to come onto the floor of the Senate to hear some final remarks. Senator Chang Diaz poignantly talked about Ken and Marcia’s son CJ who was transgender and whose life succumbed to the bigotry and hatred of a society that does not yet fully and completely respect the dignity and sanctity of transgender people’s lives. Everyone in the chamber – senators, aides, staff, and clerks – then rose to applaud Ken and Marcia and all the activists and advocates who had put in thousands of hours at the statehouse and beyond to educate legislators and the community, necessary work to get to where we did in final passage of the bill. It was an amazing day. I knew it and could feel it in my heart and exhausted body.

Still the victory was bittersweet. The bill we got passed includes essential protections for the community. It includes the hate crimes protections we need to combat violence. It rewrites the laws in the Commonwealth to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, credit, lending, and in our k-12 public schools to protect our youth. It admits of no exceptions in these areas. Employees are fully protected; students are fully protected; tenants and credit applicants are fully protected. We’d not allowed our opponents to cut out protections for anyone in our community. The bill does NOT require that you meet any particular definition of what it means to be transgender to be protected nor does it exclude any particular spaces within those areas of protection. I feel proud of that.

And yet, and yet, the bill is not complete. It is not perfect. It passed without important protections for transgender people in the public sphere. Because too many legislators were not yet ready to deal with the full reality of our lives, the bill came out of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary without public accommodations protections.

Contrary to popular belief, public accommodations protections are not solely about bathrooms and locker rooms (which are important, to be sure). Public accommodations refers to any facility – stores, restaurants, movie theatres, malls, for example – that opens itself up to the public for the purpose of providing goods or services. And, like the employment, education, housing, credit, lending, and anti-violence provisions of the bill that passed, the public accommodations provisions are also essential to the community. We fought like hell to keep them in, then hoped against hope that our legislative champions could get them put back in as the bill progressed from House to Senate. They could not.

As I made the 2 hour trip west to my home last night in the pouring rain, I kept hearing the refrain from Deuteronomy in my mind over and over and over again. Justice, justice, you must pursue. Justice, justice, you must pursue. Yesterday was a huge victory at the statehouse. It came after years of hard work by many, many, many people and many, many, many organizations. Those of us working together on this issue have become like a family. Sometimes we get along, sometimes we don’t. We agree on a lot of things, and disagree on some. We banded together and forged a strong community to get more rights for the transgender community than we had before yesterday’s historic votes. There is more work to do. I know we are all committed not to rest until that work is complete.

Justice, justice, we shall pursue.

Reality Check: The Big Lie About Catholic Charities, Adoption and Marriage Equality

Last month’s marriage equality hearing in Rhode Island left me feeling a little like Congressman Joe “You Lie!” Wilson. Wilson, you’ll recall, shouted his infamous exclamation at President Obama after the president stated in a speech to Congress that his health care legislation would not provide free health coverage for illegal immigrants, despite what vocal opponents of the healthcare bill were saying. As I watched Austin Nimocks of the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund testify without blinking that marriage equality in Massachusetts “forced” Catholic Charities of Boston out of the adoption business, it was all I could do not to let loose a “You Lie!” right there in the marbled halls of the Rhode Island State House. Okay, I might have said something to that effect in a rather loud stage whisper, right before tweeting Nimocks’ comment with a terse analysis (“LIE!”) to our roughly 3500 Twitter followers. But the big difference between me and Joe Wilson is that my “You Lie!” moment was justified. Nimocks, unlike President Obama, was indeed lying. And no amount of truthiness on his part can change that fact.

It’s true that professional right-wingers have been spreading lies about gay people since Anita Bryant in the 1970s accused gay people of recruiting America’s children “to freshen their ranks” because they couldn’t have kids of their own. And if the LGBT community spent all of its time debunking their whoppers, we wouldn’t have much time to work on more important things, like passing marriage equality legislation.

So why is exposing this particular lie important? First of all because Rhode Island is one of the most Catholic states in the country, and the Catholic Church is lobbying hard against marriage equality legislation there. Their efforts seem to be having an impact, as the Providence Phoenix recently reported.

Secondly, since the Rhode Island Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hear testimony on marriage equality legislation today, senators are likely to hear the Catholic Charities lie over and over again, among other specious arguments about how allowing same-sex couples in the Ocean State access to civil marriage will destroy religious freedom.

Lastly, this is an issue I followed closely not for just professional reasons – I was on staff at the LGBT newspaper Bay Windows when the saga unfolded – but deeply personal ones. I and my four siblings were all adopted through Catholic Charities, so I know firsthand the immeasurable value of their good work. In 2006 I wrote an essay about my own experience and the impact of the agency’s decision to quit the adoption business.

So here’s a little reality check. Catholic Charities of Boston was not forced out of the adoption business because of marriage equality in Massachusetts. The organization voluntarily ceased doing adoptions after the state’s four Catholic Bishops got wind that gay parents had been adopting kids through Catholic Charities from an October 2005 Boston Globe story. Not surprisingly, all of this happened as the Massachusetts Legislature was wrestling with whether to put an anti-gay marriage amendment on the statewide ballot, which the local Catholic hierarchy supported wholeheartedly.

The Globe reported that over the course of about two decades, Catholic Charities placed 13 children with gay parents, out of about 720 adoptions they facilitated during those years. For the record, those 13 children were considered hard to place with adoptive parents because they were older or had physical or emotional difficulties, meaning had they not found loving parents who happened to be gay, they’d likely not have parents. Catholic Charities was accepting state funds to provide adoption services and was thus bound by the state’s gay-inclusive anti-discrimination law not to reject qualified adoptive parents based on sexual orientation. Oh, and by the way, the non-discrimination law has been on the books since 1989 -- long before marriage equality was but a doodle on Mary Bonauto’s legal pad.

The Globe also reported that though Catholic Charities President Bryan Hehir didn’t love the idea of placing children with same-sex couples, he saw it as “a legal accommodation in the name of a greater social good.” The story later states that, “Hehir said that to his knowledge, his agency has never sought an exemption from the nondiscrimination language.”

At least not until the four bishops, led by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, decided that Catholic Charities should be exempt from the state’s non-discrimination law, a move that was detailed in a March 11, 2006 Globe article about Catholic Charities decision to stop doing adoptions. When that proved to be a non-starter on Beacon Hill, the bishops simply elected to shut down Catholic Charities of Boston’s adoption services – despite a unanimous vote by the agency’s 42-member board to continue facilitating adoptions by gay people. As the Globe reported on March 11, Hehir and Catholic Charities board president Jeffrey Kaneb said the decision stemmed from their inability “to reconcile church teaching that placement of children in gay homes is “immoral” with Massachusetts law prohibiting discrimination against gays.” No mention of marriage equality as the reason for the policy change. In fact, nowhere in the entirety of the joint statement they released at the time do Hehir and Kaneb say same-sex marriage played a role in the decision to terminate adoption services. Because it didn’t.

In reality, it was just garden variety anti-gay bigotry on the part of four Catholic bishops that killed Catholic Charities of Boston adoption services. Who knew?

School's Right to Teach About Family Diversity Upheld

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit yesterday unanimously affirmed District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf's dismissal of a lawsuit brought by two sets of parents against the Lexington school system. In the suit, parents David and Tonia Parker and Robert and Robin Wirthlin claimed that a Lexington elementary school violated their constitutional rights by exposing their children to books portraying many different kinds of families, including non-judgmental depictions of families headed by same-sex couples.

Judge Sandra Lynch wrote for a unanimous court that the parents who brought the suit have no constitutional "right to be free from any reference in public elementary schools to the existence of families in which parents are of different gender combinations." Her decision further stated, "Given that Massachusetts has recognized gay marriage under its state constitution, it is entirely rational for its schools to educate their students regarding that recognition."

We're delighted that school systems remain free to include age-appropriate material featuring a wide variety of families, including those with two moms and two dads. As a result, gay and lesbian parents and their children can feel safe and supported in their schools, and all children can learn about the true diversity of the society we live in.

It's that time of year again

It's Pride week in Boston. Many activities are taking place across the city, and it's exciting to see some real diversity in the events. The nature of Pride - particularly in large American cities - has changed over the years. What were once political marches demanding equal rights are now parades, celebrating our community. But we must remember that the fight for full equality is not over, and the visibility that Pride affords is still crucial.

GLAD congratulates this year's Parade Marshals: Representative Liz Malia, SpeakOut, and Jacob Smith Yang (who once worked at GLAD!) - all have done great things in, and for, our community.

This year's theme - Ask. Tell. Proud to Serve. - has generated some controversy. While there is no doubt that LGBT people serve our communities in many capacities and in every part of society (including the military, when allowed) - and that we should be proud to speak out about who we are and what we do - the military reference is complicated in the midst of an ongoing war that continues to take the lives of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians alike.

Because we believe that visibility is important, and because part of our mission is to ensure that LGBT citizens know the legal rights they have - and those we are still fighting for - GLAD will be marching in the parade tomorrow. Look for us behind the big purple banner, and visit our table at the Festival on City Hall Plaza, where you can pick up important information about your legal rights in Massachusetts and across New England. Or just say hi - we'd love to hear from you.

Massachusetts Backs Marriages of New York Couples

New Yorkers Tanya Wexler and Amy Zimmerman married in Massachusetts in May, 2004

New York gay and lesbian couples who married in Massachusetts before July 6, 2006 - the date a New York court explicitly prohibited marriage between same-sex couples in that state - have a fully valid marriage. That was the final judgment made by a Massachusetts court on May 10.

GLAD attorney Michele Granda, who argued the case, calls the ruling "a cloud that’s been removed from these marriages. There shouldn’t be any question that those marriage licenses are worth the paper they’re printed on, and that Massachusetts fully backs the currency.”

Today's New York Times ran an article about the decision and what it means for New York couples.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is the third anniversary of equal marriage in Massachusetts. After GLAD's landmark court victory in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, loving, committed same-sex couples in Massachusetts began legally marrying on May 17, 2004.

We don't love each other more because we can legally marry. No law or court decision can do that. But marriage does mean we have respect and recognition, and we can better protect our relationships and our families. Legal marriage means more people being treated as full and equal citizens.

Today is a day for celebration in Massachusetts. And it's also a day to remember that work must continue to gain full equality for lesbian and gay citizens throughout New England, and throughout the country.