Conversion therapy ban, trans rights, health care top 2019 pro-LGBT priority legislation in Massachusetts
MassEquality has announced its "Champions Agenda" for Massachusetts' 2019–2020 legislative session—bills that the Bay State LGBTQ grassroots advocacy organization is backing and wants everyone in the community to get behind along with them.
In addition...
Actor Kevin Spacey enters not-guilty plea in Nantucket sexual assault case
Actor Kevin Spacey appeared at a Nantucket District Courthouse today to enter a not-guilty plea for an alleged 2016 sexual assault on an 18-year-old busboy at an island bar.
The case made national news because...
New Hampshire teen arrested for threatening calls to Boston gay bars
A New Hampshire teenager was arrested late on Friday for making two threatening phone calls to popular area gay bars—dbar in Dorchester and The Alley Bar downtown—over the weekend of Nov. 10–11.
Reports Boston public radio...
India ends colonial-era ban on gay sex and extends civil-rights protections to LGBT people
India's high court this week came down on the side of civil rights ending a colonial-era ban on gay sex—one of the world's oldest such laws and one that included the possibility of life...
Maine Gov. LePage seeks to legalize anti-LGBT workplace discrimination
Outgoing Maine Governor Paul LePage fired another parting shot at the LGBT community by asking the US Supreme Court to rule that companies can fire workers based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Earlier this...
University of Maine law school gifted 50K in name of LGBT ‘justice warrior’
Portland-based law first Bernstein Shur has gifted the University of Maine School of Law $50,000 in honor of its retiring shareholder and LGBT activist Pat Peard. The money is to be used in Peard's...
Maine voters can still ban conversion therapy by replacing LePage
Maine Governor Paul LePage's veto of the conversion therapy bill—which had passed both houses of the state's legislature with strong support but was nixed by LePage—could yet be overturned, says Equality Maine Executive Director...
Business leaders support campaign to uphold trans rights on Nov. 6 ballot
Business leaders of more than 50 major organizations gathered at a July 31 event in Boston to stand together against the ballot referendum that would repeal nondiscrimination protections for transgender people in Massachusetts in...
Bay State passes LGBT awareness training for aging services into law
This just in from Fenway Health:
Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law late last week “An Act Relative to LGBT Awareness Training for Aging Services Providers.” The first-in-the-nation law will require that all state funded...
Mass. congressmen introduce national bill to ban gay, trans panic defense
US Senator Ed Markey and Congressman Joe Kennedy III have introduced national legislation that would ban “gay or trans panic” as a legal defense for committing a violent act. Many states have passed similar...
