Montana Poised to Repeal Law Criminalizing Homosexuality: VIDEO

Yesterday I posted gay Montana Rep. Bryce Bennett's powerful floor speech in support of repealing the state's statutes which criminalize gay sex. The Montana House took a vote on it yesterday, and it was decisive, the Billings Gazette reports:

After a half-hour of emotional debate for and against the measure, the House voted 64-36 to endorse Senate Bill 107, one day after House members narrowly voted to remove it from the House Judiciary Committee, where it had been tabled on a party-line vote with Republicans in favor.

“It’s not about encouraging a lifestyle,” said Rep. Bryce Bennett, D-Missoula, one of the Legislature’s only openly gay members. “It’s simply about respecting privacy between two adults. … It’s just as simple as saying that all Montanans deserve dignity and respect.”

Twenty-five Republicans joined all 39 House Democrats to support the bill, which removes gay sex from the definition of the crime of “deviate sexual relations,” a felony that carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $50,000.

38 Republicans voted to keep the unconstitutional language on Montana's books:

Kerns' stance, and the fact that 38 Republicans effectively voted to keep gay sex a felony, incensed Rep. Amanda Curtis (D-Butte).

"It was so hard to sit through that and not walk across the floor and punch him," Curtis said of Kerns in a video uploaded on YouTube. "That's so offensive. Talk about starting a fight."

"...To say that our friends and our neighbors and our brothers and sisters and our cousins, aunts and uncles should be felons, and we support this because the Bible says so?... It's wrong," Curtis railed, accusing two of the Republican lawmakers who oppose the bill of "promoting hate."

A final vote in the House is set to happen as earlly as today.

Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner spoke with Bennett following the second reading of the bill:

"It feels like we're entering a new day in the state ... and people are ready to move on from this discussion of whether homosexuality should be legal or not," Bennett told BuzzFeed Tuesday shortly after the second reading of a bill to formally repeal the state's sodomy law....

..."While it's exciting that we got this point ... we've got a number of steps to take forward before we can tackle other issues to make sure everyone in our state is truly equal," he said.

Watch a report from KRTV on the debate and vote, AFTER THE JUMP...

A Touching Video Tribute to Australia's Fight for LGBT Equality: WATCH

A compilation of Aussie pop culture, news items and politics on the topic of equality.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

(via dna magazine)

NY1 Caller Says Gays Should Be Beheaded: VIDEO

A discussion about the Supreme Court and marriage equality on NY1's The Call took a turn for the ugly when Chris from Willowbrook, who wants Sharia Law instituted in the United States, called in to say gays should be put to death.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Jeremy Hooper writes: "Note to self: Never book a haircut appointment with a man named Chris who complains about the Staten Island Ferry's long commute."

(via goodasyou)

Rapper A$AP Rocky Speaks Out for Gay Equality

Rapper A$AP Rocky sits down with Interview magazine and touches on his support for gay equality:

For me, growing up in Harlem and then migrating down to SoHo and the Lower East Side and chillin' down there and making that my stomping ground . . . That was a big thing, because I'm from Harlem, and downtown is more artsy and also more open-minded. So I got the best of both worlds. It was like being on the streets and then being in school at the same time, and I tried to keep my hands in everything just so I wasn't missing out on any fun. I just always wanted to be knowledgeable of my whereabouts, my surroundings, and what was going on with our generation.

So now that I'm here and I've got a microphone in my hand and about 6,000 people watching me, I need to tell them how I feel. For instance, one big issue in hip-hop is the gay thing. It's 2013, and it's a shame that, to this day, that topic still gets people all excited. It's crazy. And it makes me upset that this topic even matters when it comes to hip-hop, because it makes it seem like everybody in hip-hop is small-minded or stupid—and that's not the case. We've got people like Jay-Z. We've got people like Kanye. We've got people like me. We're all prime examples of people who don't think like that. I treat everybody equal, and so I want to be sure that my listeners and my followers do the same if they're gonna represent me. And if I'm gonna represent them, then I also want to do it in a good way.

The rapper was interviewed by Mr. Porter in February. He told them:

"People say I'm gay sometimes, but I have a lot of bitches so why would I care? It doesn't bother me at all. You know why they say that? Because they can't say that I suck, they can't say that I'm not handsome, and they can't say that my lyrics are wack, so they say that I'm gay because they don't have anything on me."

Brendon Ayanbadejo Talks About Getting Involved in the Prop 8 Case, Says LGBT Equality is 'Hardest Fight'

Baltimore Raven Brendon Ayanbadejo sat down with USA Today after a panel at EA's LGBT Full Spectrum event in New York City on Tuesday and talked about his participation in the fight for LGBT equality.

Said Ayanbadejo:

"[LGBT equality] is the hardest fight I've ever had to face in my life and I've seen my fair share of adversity growing up in the projects, growing up on welfare, a lot of gang violence. Basically having nothing then coming full circle to where I am today. I've seen a lot of adversity but this is definitely the hardest fight because a lot of people don't want to change."

He was also asked about the amicus brief he is submitting in the Prop 8 case:

Along with several professors, you and Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe recently filed a brief with the Supreme Court urging them to reject California's ban on same-sex marriage. Why did you take that step?

Our thinking in this amicus brief is that I'm known to support LGBT rights and Chris Kluwe just as well, so we teamed up with a couple professors and we had an attorney write the brief. We presented it to the SCOTUS. I think it went pretty well. I had no idea how big of an impact it was going to be.

Now we're trying to get more high-profile people to sign on to our brief, which has to be submitted by March 24. We have Dominique Foxworth, the NFLPA president, UFC fighter Rashad Evans and Patrick Nero, the athletic director at George Washington University, where I'm currently getting my MBA.

Read the full interview here.

Montana Lawmakers Receive '21st-Century Sodomites' Handbook as Legislature Considers Bill Decriminalizing Homosexuality

Montana Rep. Ellie Boldman Hill (D-Missoula) posted the above photo to her Facebook page, saying:

"Here's what all Montana legislators received in their Capitol mailboxes today. There are no words for what is going on up here."

Hill's post comes as the Montana legislature considers yet again a bil to remove an unconstitutional statue criminalizing homosexuality from its books.

As Mother Jones notes:

Montana is one of four states, along with Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, that still have laws on the books specifically outlawing gay sex. Ten more states—Idaho, Utah, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and (obviously) Florida—maintain a blanket prohibition on sodomy for persons of all sexual orientations.

The state Senate voted on Wednesday by a 38-11 vote to decriminalize it, but the bill, and another anti-discrimination bill, stand little chance of making it through the House Judiciary Committee:

Another bill before the legislature would extend the state's anti-discrimination protections to gays and lesbians for the first time—a more substantive reform that advocates hope would serve as a bulwark against bullying.

But neither proposal stands much chance of becoming law in 2013. As the Billings Gazette notes, a bill to eliminate the sodomy statute passed the Senate in 2011 only to fail in the house. "We are expecting this bill to go to House judiciary, which is a very ideologically driven committee, and we expect it to die in that committee," says Jamee Greer, a lobbyist for the Montana Human Rights Network, an LGBT equality group. "They're not showing a lot of respect to the LGBT community and I don't expect them to pass 107."