NEWSBYMINDY TOWNSEND

In Michigan, you can fund your colleges or support your gay people, but you can’t do both. Or so says the Michigan House, which Thursday approved an amendment to the state education budget that would eliminate 5% of state funding to those schools that provide domestic partner benefits to the same-sex partner of university employees.

I know, I know. First Texas tries to weasel money away from campus LGBT support centers, now this. Because if there’s one thing conservatives hate more than education, it’s gay people!

That’s probably an unfair statement. But give me a break. It takes a major league ego to think that punishing schools that, you know, treat employees fairly, is a good idea.

It is always worth remembering that no amount of progress is irreversible, especially in a time where the culture war seems to be as prevalent and potent as ever.

Back in February I wrote about a significant victory for LGBT people in Kansas. Manhattan, KS (home of all things purple and Wildcatty) passed an ordinance that prohibits discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. I had also written about attempts to stop it and undo it. But ultimately, the ordinance passed, and I couldn’t have been more proud.

But after April’s city commission election, it looks like all of that hard work may be undone. Two of the original supporters of the ordinance have been ousted, and replaced with people who would love to see the ordinance repealed.

Unlike President Obama, my birth certificate has very little to do with my life. I’m not 100 percent sure I even know where it is. (Note to self: FIND IT.) It’s easy to forget that, for some, the information found on a birth certificate has incredible consequences, like whether you can be legally discriminated against in marriage, housing, and a host of other areas that most people take for granted.

For most people, gender and biological sex match up. But it doesn’t work that way for everybody. When this happens, a person may live as their gender, and not their biological sex. The ability to change one’s birth certificate to reflect one’s true gender is important, especially for purposes of marriage.

Not every state allows trans people do this. In my home state of Kansas, for example, your biological sex at birth is always your sex. (Which, incidentally, leads to some absurd results. For example, two women can marry if one of the partners was originally male. But other than that, no gay marriage for you!) Texas, perhaps counter intuitively, is a state that allows a trans person to change his or her birth certificate through a court order.

But, maybe, not for long.

Just when things start going pretty well, something pops up and throws a wrench in the whole endeavor. That’s how it is for me, anyway, and that’s how it is for LGBT people living in Illinois this week.

It only took a couple of months after Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed the civil union bill into law for the haters to strike again. State Senator David Koehler has slipped an amendment that would make it legal for religious institutions to discriminate against LGBT people in adoption and foster care.

Oh, and did I mention that the bill this is attached to is designed to help the blind? That’s low, man.

So, I guess it’s more important to allow religious adoption agencies to be allowed to turn away perfectly good parents for no good reason, than to allow kids who need parents to live with gay people. All in the name of God, I guess. This is just another instance where people try to hide behind religion in order to justify personal biases, and the legislature totally has their backs.

I always thought that heterosexuality needed to be promoted more in higher education. Wait. Did I say “always?” I meant “never.”

So clearly, I am not a member of the Texas state legislature. Because that’s exactly what they want to do.  Over the weekend, the Texas house passed a budget that would require public universities that have LGBT resource centers to funnel an equal amount of state money toward the promotion of “family and traditional values.”

Okaaaaaaaay.

This amendment to the budget was introduced by Rep. Wayne Christian. But hold on there, partner! He’s no bigot! He’s not taking away the ability of public universities to teach about “alternative sexual behavior.” He just wants to force funds away from such programs, in the name of “balance.”

“If they’re going to pay for one, they need to balance it with the other,” he said.

I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Rhode Island. After being banished from Massachusetts back in ye olden times, Roger Williams founded Providence, a place for religious freedom. I wish some modern Rhode Islanders would be as progressive in their thinking about marriage.

About a month ago, Brandon Miller here at Change.org reported that the Rhode Island legislature was gearing up to seriously talk about bringing marriage equality to the state.

Color me a little unimpressed, because the state house is considering, among other alternatives, a “reciprocal beneficiary” bill.

What is that, you may ask? Nobody knows! Go on. Go ask your mom or your grandfather or even your best friend what a reciprocal beneficiary is. I’ll wait.

Some homophobes make me sad. Not angry or resentful. Just sad.

At least that’s how I felt as I was watching this video of a member of the Crystal Cathedral calling into Michelangelo Signorile’s show in Sirius Satellite Radio.

The gist of the encounter is that the caller is a Christian who thinks homosexuality is a choice but, don’t worry, he still loves everyone anyway. Signorile appropriately dismisses such silliness. After all, he asks, why should serial adulterers get a forgiveness pass, but gay people not? (Evidently, gay people can get a pass if they try to stop being gay. Um…) How can someone believe homosexuality is a choice, condemn a person for making that choice, and still love that person?

The second question illustrates a concept that is not altogether foreign to me. I was interested in that very paradox in my Sunday school classes growing up. “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” I was told.

I guess that makes sense if you’re in grade five. But that isn’t how it works in the real world. In the real world, if someone is engaged in a “sin,” there is no need to protect that person from the consequences of that sin. If one is participating in the “sin” of homosexuality, there is no need to protect a loving gay relationship. Because it’s a sin. One should be shown the error of his or her ways, not be given support for their relationship.

It was only a few weeks ago that I wrote about the push in Michigan to eliminate domestic partner benefits in the state. But thanks to hundreds of Change.org readers, the Michigan state house could not muster enough votes to make this happen.

According to Interlochen Public Radio, in order to overturn the decision made by the state Civil Service Commission -- that domestic partners of state employees must be eligible for benefits -– the state house needed a 2/3 majority. All of the Republicans voted in favor, but could not get enough Democrats.

But in defeat, the haters are still arguing that a state employee’s domestic partners do not deserve employee benefits. There is the fiscal argument: that Michigan cannot afford to pay benefits to domestic partners. Michigan is not “Peter Pan Neverneverland,” according to state Representative Marty Knollenberg, and Michigan citizens “are all in this together.” Unless you’re married, ergo, in Michigan, heterosexual. But whatevs.

We're pretty accustomed to hearing middle-aged, married, conservative white guys spout off about how gay people are a perverse abomination and deserve to be shunned from society.

Boring! I mean, it’s easy to ridicule a disenfranchised and oppressed group when you have never been a part of something similar. And that’s to be expected, really. I mean, who can with a straight face mock a group simply fighting to be recognized as full human beings, if one has had a similar experience?

Nobody, that’s who. Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr., president of the Iowa-Nebraska chapter of the NAACP, that’s who.

Specifically, Rev. Ratliff said that gay people are hijacking the civil rights movement, and that “[d]eviant behavior is not the same as being denied the right to vote.”

Earlier today we covered the story of Crystal Cathedral trying to make its choir members sign an anti-gay covenant. Evidently, it has upset more people than myself, many Change.org members, and a few Crystal Cathedral choir members.

Robert Schuller, founder of the megachurch, contacted The Orange County Register to say that he, too, does not support the covenant.

Huh. I did not see that coming.

In fact, he said he did not even know of the document and did not approve it. He further said that, while he personally believes the document’s statements on homosexuality, it goes against the foundational principles of his ministry.