Future Timeline

Students and teachers will be able to speak freely about sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida classrooms, provided it's not part of instruction, under a settlement reached Monday between Florida education officials and civil rights attorneys who had challenged a state law which critics dubbed "Don't Say Gay."

The settlement clarifies what is allowed in Florida classrooms following passage two years ago of the law prohibiting instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. Opponents said the law had created confusion about whether teachers could identity themselves as LGBTQ+ or if they even could have rainbow stickers in classrooms. Other states used the Florida law as a template to pass prohibitions on classroom instruction on gender identity or sexual orientation. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and North Carolina are among the states with versions of the law.

Under the terms of the settlement, the Florida Board of Education will send instructions to every school district saying the Florida law doesn't prohibit discussing LGBTQ+ people, nor prevent anti-bullying rules on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or disallow Gay-Straight Alliance groups. The settlement also spells out that the law is neutral — meaning what applies to LGBTQ+ people also applies to heterosexual people — and that it doesn't apply to library books not being used in the classroom.

"What this settlement does, is, it re-establishes the fundamental principal, that I hope all Americans agree with, which is every kid in this country is entitled to an education at a public school where they feel safe, their dignity is respected and where their families and parents are welcomed," Roberta Kaplan, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an interview. "This shouldn't be a controversial thing."

21 minutes ago

Two more rulings in Japanese district courts have added weight to the push for same-sex marriage to be legalised.

This week, courts in Tokyo and Sapporo ruled the nation's current ban was "unconstitutional", in line with previous landmark verdicts.

The rulings in separate cases found that the ban breached citizens' rights.

Even as they welcomed the verdicts, activists warned that the historic step of legalising same-sex unions would still need to come from lawmakers.

Currently, Japan remains the only G7 country not to fully recognise same-sex couples or offer them clear legal protection. But it is not an outlier in Asia, where Taiwan is the only place to allow same-sex unions.

weatheriscool wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 6:05 pm

firestar464 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2024 1:46 am

weatheriscool wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 6:05 pm

Over half of LGBTQ+ individuals were bi, per the poll. I wonder if it's because of the bi gene?

2 hours ago

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) risks its relationship with the LGBT community "slipping backwards", a Stormont minister has said.

Andrew Muir, who is gay, was speaking as part of a BBC Spotlight programme into the murder of a police officer.

He said not allowing officers to take part in the 2023 Belfast Pride parade in uniform was "concerning".

The PSNI said the decision was taken to comply with its obligations on impartiality.

"There had been a lot of goodwill built up as a result of the decision previously to take part, and that has had a real significant impact," the minister for agriculture, environment and rural affairs said.

The confirmation of Nicole Berner and Melissa DuBose to the federal judiciary in recent weeks marks a watershed moment for both LGBTQ representation and the Biden administration.

Eleven federal judges who identify as LGBTQ, including Berner and DuBose, have been appointed and confirmed to lifetime positions since the beginning of the Biden administration, according to data analyzed by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a lobbying group.

That number ties the record set during the eight years of the Obama administration.

Civil rights advocates have continuously called for increased diversity on the federal bench to better reflect the country’s demographics, but the gap in representation for LGBTQ judges has been addressed only in the past 30 years.