March 31st is Transgender Day of Visibility (TDoV), a day to show your support for the trans community. It aims to bring attention to the accomplishments of trans people around the globe while fighting cissexism and transphobia by spreading knowledge of the trans community.

Unlike Transgender Day of Remembrance, this is not a day for mourning: this is a day to get the empowerment and recognition that trans people deserve!

Rachel Crandall, the head of Transgender Michigan, created in TDoV in 2010 to celebrate the trans community in a positive light.

There are many ways you can celebrate this day. Some places hold live events, such as readings or appearances by trans speakers, others host parties celebrating trans people.

You can use this day to write to your congressperson, asking them to support non-discrimination ordinances.

All trans people face discrimination and oppression in so many areas of society, so make sure to let the trans people in your life that you love and support them.

Just two days after the American branch of World Vision announced that they would be okay with hiring christian Gay and Lesbian married couples, they reversed their decision due to pressure from conservative evangelicals.

World Vision president, Richard Stearns issued an apology to conservative donors after getting blasted with threatening phone calls and emails. In a letter, he begged them to stay their financial support and to “forgive our poor judgment in the original decision.”

Stearns said that many had canceled donations to the group’s child-sponsorship program in protest.

Federal law protects the employment rights of religious-based employers by allowing them to hire and fire based on their own religious values. U.S. employees of World Vision must sign a statement of faith, swearing that they believe in the deity of Jesus Christ.

15% of World Vision’s 40,000 employees in 100 countries worldwide are not christian, but all of it’s U.S. employees are required to be. There are approximately 1,200 employees in the U.S.

“We have created a division we didn’t want to create and in the end the board concluded we must stand by our belief and view of traditional marriage,” Stearns said on Wednesday.

Four headlines from today’s news are a stark reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same:

Headline #1: “Creationist ‘Noah’ film warns God may end the world again to wipe out gays and atheists.”

Synopsis: Just days before the premiere of the Hollywood biblical epic “Noah,” creationist Ray Comfort released his own “Noah” movie to warn that God’s judgement is near at hand. Comfort’s film, titled “Noah — And the Last Days,” is a 30-minute documentary that seeks to prove that the end times are upon us and that growing acceptance of LGBTQ rights – as well as atheism – are proof that Judgement Day is upon us.

Headline #2: “Duck Dynasty star: Gays are going to hell is what the Bible says”

Synopsis: Willie Robinson concurs with his daddy, Phil, that gays are going to hell in a hand-basket.

Headline #3: “Pat Robertson: Jesus more likely to stone gays to death than bake them a wedding cake”

Synopsis: Among other stupid things, televangelist Pat Robertson on Wednesday argued that Jesus would have never baked a wedding cake for LGBTQ couples because it was more common to stone homosexuals during biblical times.

Headline #4: “Franklin Graham: When I say gays can’t adopt, but they can recruit, I’m just loving the sinner”

Billy Graham’s son, Franklin compared his stance against LGBTQ rights to his father’s efforts to extend equal rights to Black Americans and he also said he admires Vladimir Putin because, unlike President Barack Obama, Putin is “interested in protecting children from abuse and exploitation” by enacting laws that prevent gay men and lesbians from adopting children in a veiled attempt to recruit children into their cause.

Scott Lively, the despicable anti-LGBTQ activist who exported his virilant brand of hate to Uganda, exposed himself to be a weird conspiracy theorist (in addition to his other afflictions).

In an interview last week on a Denver Christian radio show, Lively accused LGBTQ equality activists of being in cahoots with Marxists and Freemasons in an effort to create a New World Order.

Yes, it’s true. Militant homosexuals such as me (and most likely you) are in league with the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, Satan and the Easter Bunny and our real goal is to enslave all of humankind and to turn the entire state of California into a giant, gay amusement park.

And there’s nothing Scott Lively can do to stop us! Nya–ah–ah–ha!

Vice President, Joe Biden, long time supporter of same-sex marriage, said anti-gay laws are “close to barbaric” at a gala on Saturday. Adding that the absence of workplace protections for gays and lesbians was downright cruel.

“My grandkids, my children, and their kids and going to be shocked – it shocks the conscience – that an employer can fire you just because of who you are or who you love. It’s close to barbaric,” he said.

“Imagine 20 years from now as America looked back and say ‘How in the hell can that ever been allowed?’ The country’s moved on, the American people have moved on.”

He also said that it was time for Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — known as ENDA — which would bar employers with 15 or more workers from using a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity as the basis for making employment decisions, including hiring, firing, compensation or promotion. Religious institutions and the military would be exempted.

As predicted, wedding bells in the state of Michigan came to a stop today when a federal appeals court put on hold a lower court ruling that declared the state’s ban on gay marriages unconstitutional.

But not before 322 marriage licenses were issued after the four counties with the highest populations opened on a weekend to allow residents to apply.

The stay came after Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette filed an emergency petition after Friday’s ruling. The appeals court said the stay would remain in place at least through Wednesday “to allow a more reasoned consideration of the motion” to keep the ban in place. The attorney general’s office expects the stay will be made permanent at that time.

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Give Rainbow Law’s legal document preparation service a risk-free try by ordering state-specific advance directives (living wills, medical & financial powers of attorney with hospital visitation & more). Payment can be made via a small donation or you can get them for free in exchange for a Tweet or Facebook post! Just double click on the rainbow banner:

Dozens of Michigan same-sex couples rushed to get married today, one day after the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was lifted by U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman. State Attorney General Bill Schuette immediately filed an emergency stay, but it has not been ruled on. Until it is, couples are taking advantage of this window, where for now at least, marriage is legal.

Couples were lined up shoulder to shoulder at county clerks offices when they opened this morning.

The marriages were allowed to take place because unlike other recent decisions striking down gay-marriage bans, Judge Friedman did not stay his decision pending an appeal.

First in line in Ann Arbor were Jonnie Terry, 50, and Elizabeth Patten, 52, who have been together for 28 years. They held up their marriage license for cameras with their daughter and son and with Lawrence Kestenbaum, the clerk of Washtenaw County. They then made their way through the crowd to have their wedding officiated by Judge Judith Ellen in the basement of the building.

“It’s not how I envisioned my wedding, but we’re grateful,” Ms. Terry said.

If the Appeals Court for the Sixth Circuit issues a stay, the couples, like those in other states, will be thrust into a state of legal limbo until it decides on the case. In Utah, some 1,300 same-sex couples were married in December during a brief legal window. The state does not recognize those marriages, but the U.S. Department of Justice later declared that the Federal government would view them as valid.

In the opinion, Judge Friedman expressed the hope that the plaintiffs and other families with same-sex parents could enjoy the security and benefits of marriage. “In attempting to define this case as a challenge to ‘the will of the people,’ ” he wrote, “state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people.”

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Give Rainbow Law’s legal document preparation service a risk-free try by ordering state-specific advance directives (living wills, medical & financial powers of attorney with hospital visitation & more). Payment can be made via a small donation or you can get them for free in exchange for a Tweet or Facebook post! Just double click on the rainbow banner:

Michigan mini-DOMA blows up

Once again, a US federal judge strikes down a gay marriage ban – this time in Michigan.  US District Judge Bernard Friedman said there is no “credible” evidence that heterosexual couples make better parents and dismissed as “unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration” the testimony anti-marriage “experts” gave in their attempt to prove that children raised by same-sex couples “fare worse” than those raised by heterosexual couples.

This is just the latest in a number of court rulings to find gay marriage bans unconstitutional.

The judge issued a 31-page opinion stating the state of Michigan did not overcome legitimate expert testimony offered by marriage supporters that “every major professional organization in the United States whose focus is the health and well-being of children and families” has concluded that children raised by gay and lesbian parents “are not disadvantaged.”

Friedman also ruled that the gay marriage ban not only violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law, the Michigan law “fosters the potential for childhood destabilization.”

Of course Michigan’s Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette immediately filed an appeal.

So far – since June of 2013 – when the U.S. Supreme Court determined that couples in same-sex marriages were entitled to the same federal benefits and protections as their heterosexual counterparts, federal judges in Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Virginia have ruled in favor of marriage for LGBTQ couples. The New Mexico Supreme Court also made a similar decision regarding that state’s marriage ban.

This is just one more notch on our belt toward full equality in every state in the U.S.