4 out of 5 LGBT students report verbal, sexual or physical harassment at school, according to a GLSEN survey.

Today, April 25th, 2008, marks the 12th Annual Day of Silence, a day where students vow to take a pledge of silence to commemorate anti-LGBT violence and bullying and work to make campuses safe for people of all gender and sexual identities.

I'm already nervous about the scary comments this post will generate...

Transgender male, Thomas Beatie, writes a first person narrative at The Advocate detailing the personal, legal, and social hurdles he faces now that he's decided to carry the child of his wife, Nancy.

San Jose State University's President put all campus blood drives on hold because of the policy that gay men can't donate blood.  He says this violates the school's nondiscrimination policy.

Via Ezra: Matt Zeitlan hopes the public can be convinced to support LGBT rights under the rationale that as decent people, we should support equality even for those whose lifestyles we find discomfiting. It's a nice thought, but alas, I fear that chronology is exactly reversed. Surveys show that the number one indicator of increased tolerance of LGBT individuals is knowing an LGBT person. As Pew reports:

Personal contact with homosexuality is also a key factor in shaping people's views on this policy issue. Americans who have a friend, colleague or family member who is gay are roughly twice as likely to favor gay marriage as those who do not (39% to 21%).

The good news is that Americans are trending in a direction of growing tolerance for LGBT people and lifestyles. People in their teens and twenties are evenly divided on the question of marriage equality, while older generations overwhelmingly reject the idea. But it's important to understand the contours of the organized opposition to equality for LGBT Americans. Forty-five percent of Americans who oppose marriage equality say homosexuality is immoral, a sin, in contradiction to the Bible, or against their religious beliefs. Another twelve percent cite "[homosexuality] is just wrong." And then there are the nine percent who call homsexuality "not natural or normal."

It's clear that opposition to marriage equality and LGBT rights generally is based on unadulterated intolerance. So asking people to tolerate that which they find immoral, unnatural, sinful, and wrong is not a winning strategy.

Before the state of Michigan set back civil rights with the passage of Proposal 2, the affirmative action ban, in November 2006, it set back civil rights with the other Proposal 2, which banned gay marriage, in 2004. Almost 3 years later, we are dealing with the aftermath.  Last week, the Michigan Court of Appeals declared that under the marriage ban, same-sex domestic partners are ineligible for benefits from public employers.  This reversed an earlier decision by a lower court, which affirmed the right of same-sex couples to continue to receive benefits post-Prop 2.  Countless government, public college and university employees now have their futures hanging in limbo.

Things are getting rough out in my home state...I wish I could say I didn't run away from it all, but I did.