Stupid Bigot Tricks. An
AP story reports that a California father doesn't want his
daughter sharing high school restrooms with lesbian students. To
protect his daughter's modesty, he filed a discrimination complaint
against the local school district, alleging
""discrimination and intolerance [by] not addressing a very clear right of privacy violation that requires my child to share restrooms, dressing rooms and showering facilities with those who by their own, and societies (sic) definition, are attracted to the same gender (homosexual students and staff)."
After receiving this complaint, the school district conducted an investigation (yes, money was spent!) but, shockingly, found no discrimination. Moreover, there was no evidence that any lesbian student or staff member had ever made sexual advances toward students in the restrooms.
End of story, though I can't really blame both the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) for trying to make some hay out of it. It's not like this crazy suit was going to actually lead to segregating gay/lesbian students from their straight peers in school restrooms and locker rooms (would all gay students mind?), but it's such a lunatic demand that the urge to draw attention to it is too much to resist (hence this item).
Surprise! Black Gay Republicans Exist! NGLTF has released a national study of black gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people. Titled "Say It Loud: I'm Black and I'm Proud," the report found half of the respondents say racism is a problem in "the White GLBT community" while two-thirds report that homophobia is a problem within the black community. That's not unexpected, but this is: the respondents' political affiliations were "slightly less Democratic, and more Republican, than the Black population as a whole."
To get specific, on p.45 of the Black Pride Sample (of black GLBT respondents), it states that 65% are Democrats, 10% Republicans, 8% independent, and 7% other (although, we're told, "only 6% of transgender respondents were Republican"). The report compares these figures with the findings of the 1996 National Black Election Study, which found that 72% of overall black respondents were Democrats and only 5% were Republicans (half as many, percentage-wise, as in the GLBT survey). Talk about shattering a stereotype!
Now, to be fair, the Black Pride sample did find that 85% of GLBT blacks identified as "liberal or moderate" and 15% as "conservative," as compared with overall black respondents in the 1996 National Black Election Study who were 59% "liberal or moderate." But given the party affiliation finding, it's not unlikely that the reason they're more "liberal" is that they're pro-gay and anti-homophobia.
In any event, don't expect NGTLF to shift to the right to better represent this under-represented black GOP demographic. After all, a previous NGLTF report, titled "Leaving Our Children Behind: Welfare Reform and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community," examined the effects of welfare reform on GLBT families and concluded that the push away from dependency and toward self-sufficiency was a bad, bad thing.