Another federal judge rules against DOMA; Southern Poverty Law Center reports on NOM’s antigay lies; suicide risks for black gay youth; transgender rights in Manitoba; British TV series features transgender main character; an antigay attack in Minnesota ; and other news of the week from @bentalaska.

Marriage equality

A fifth federal judge rules DOMA unconstitutional

• 25 May 2012: Breaking: DOMA Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Judge, Yet Again | The New Civil Rights Movement http://t.co/rPNqQZQy  #

U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken, a federal judge in Oakland, California, late Thursday struck down as unconstitutional a provision of DOMA, the federal Defense of Marriage Act. This is the second federal judge to rule the same segment of DOMA unconstitutional and at least the fifth federal case to find the 1996 law unconstitutional.

Southern Poverty Law Center intelligence report on NOM (Summer 2012)

• SPLC: “National Organization for Marriage continues to spread lies about gays.” Will NOM make SPLC’s hate groups list? http://t.co/qldtNef7 #

 Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown have repeatedly claimed that they are simply trying to protect marriage, that they bear no animus toward LGBT people or their sexual orientations. But again and again, signs of such animus have crept into the material issued by NOM: scary warnings about pedophilia, “addictive behavior,” “jihads” against Christians and so on. Now, as pressure ratchets up on opponents of same-sex marriage — Maryland this year became the eighth state to approve such unions, even as a federal judge found the anti-same-sex-marriage Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional — it remains to be seen whether NOM can avoid following other religious-right groups into a world of untrammeled hate.

Shift in black Marylanders’ support for marriage equality

• 24 May 2012: Majority of African-Americans in Maryland will now will vote for same-sex marriage, per @gaycivilrights http://t.co/nWnCnXxh  #

In a huge switch, a new Public Policy Polling survey finds that the majority of African-Americans in Maryland will vote in favor of marriage equality. The poll, taken between May 14 and 21 — after President’s Obama’s announced support for marriage equality — finds 55% of African-Americans in favor of voting for the law and only 36% opposed.

Black LGBTQ youth

• 24 May 2012: Black Youth Project reports: 43% of black gay youth have contemplated or attempted suicide http://t.co/fpW20aEf #

Preliminary results from a blockbuster survey of black gay youth, conducted by the National Strategy for Black Gay Youth in America, reveals that 43 percent of black gay youth have thought about or attempted suicide as a result of issues related to their sexual orientation…. According to the results, over half of those surveyed fear or have experienced family disownment as a result of coming out of the closet. [emphases in original]

Read more in the Windy City Times. Black gay youth under the age of 25 can take the survey at www.surveymonkey.com/s/GL5DQN2.

“Ex-gay” therapy: “Welcome end of a pseudotheory”

• 23 May 2012: New York Times editorial on the “pseudotheory” of “reparative [ex-gay] therapy” following Robert Spitzer’s repudiation of it. http://t.co/QWhVfv35  #

Critics have noted that the people interviewed were nominated by centers that were performing the therapy and that there was no control group and no clear definition of what counted as therapy. There is also some evidence that reparative therapy can lead to depression or suicidal thoughts and behavior. It is absurd, potentially harmful, pseudopsychiatry. It should have been rejected long ago.

Transgender

Manitoba

• 24 May 2012: O Canada! (Go Canada!) > RT: @TransNewsGirl: In Canada, Manitoba’s rights code beefed up to include #transgender (per Winnipeg Free Press) http://t.co/oaqqRgDP  #

THE province’s human rights code will be changed so transgender Manitobans and those with a “disadvantaged social status” will be protected from discrimination, Justice Minister Andrew Swan said Wednesday.

The changes bring the code up to speed with what exists in other provinces and were requested by the province’s Human Rights Commission, the body that hears complaints of discrimination.

British TV series “Hit & Miss”

• 23 May 2012: British series Hit & Miss w/ Chloë Sevigny: should non-transgender actors play transgender characters? | The Guardian http://t.co/L3OHc7EP #

Chloë Sevigny had to wear a prosthetic penis for her role as Mia, the transgender assassin in Sky Atlantic’s new drama Hit & Miss. Apparently this wasn’t much fun.”I hated it. It was an awful experience,” Sevigny said at its UK premiere, revealing her worries about how frequently it would be shown – it did pop up three times in the first episode. Sounds as if she had a spot of gender dysphoria, the physical incongruence many trans people feel before transition…. That said, Sevigny does a fantastic job, and it’s a beautifully shot and nuanced drama.

The story in UK’s The Guardian is by Paris Lees, editor of META, a new publication devoted to gender and transgender issues.  Chloë Sevigny is known to U.S. audiences for her roles as Nicolette Grant in HBO’s Big Love (2006-2011) about a polygamist (non-mainstream) Mormon family and as Lana Tisdel, girlfriend of Brandon Teena, in Boys Don’t Cry (1999), a role for which she received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.

• Hit & Miss: British series featuring a “transgender assassin”, can be viewed online. http://t.co/if4HZM9n #

To view, you must have a “Sky ID” — we’ll check into it. Meanwhile, here’s an interview with Chloë Sevigny from Sky TV’s YouTube channel.

Antigay

A Minnesota gaybashing

• 29 May 2012: Gaybashing in MN. RT: @gaycivilrights: “He asked me: Are you gay? And I said Yes. Is that OK?” Then they beat him http://t.co/tvicoC7v  #

Over the weekend a 21-year old man went to offer his congratulations to friends at a high school graduation party. According to reports, Max Pelofske, of Duluth, Minnesota, was approached by at least two men. When all was said and done, two men were later arrested and held at the St. Louis County Jail, the victim — who says the attack by up to nine men was a hate crime — was sent to hospital and kept overnight.

Anti-gay laws East European nations

• 29 May 2012: European Parliament condemns consideration of antigay laws in East European nations. (Pink News) http://bit.ly/JrTWp4#

The European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning anti-gay laws in Europe last week, specifically calling on Russia, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania as well as Ukraine to address existing and draft legislation and ‘demonstrate, and ensure respect for, the principle of non-discrimination’.

And, in Russia, antigay bashers and police again perpetrate violence at Moscow Pride, per Towleroad:

Videos of the detention of 40 people at Moscow Gay Pride rallies on Sunday show Orthodox activists getting violent, and police stepping in roughly to arrest people. The Pride assembly was banned by authorities for the seventh straight year, but activists and opponents showed up anyway.