Ian Thompson

On Saturday the Board of Directors of the NAACP, the nation's oldest, largest, and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization, passed a historic resolution in support of the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. The NAACP said the resolution represents a continuation of its historic commitment to...

What an amazing and historic week it has been for the cause of gay rights. On Wednesday, for the first time in our country's history, a sitting president of the United States said that he supports the freedom to marry for gay and lesbian couples. President Obama's remarks carry...

It was recently revealed in internal strategy memos from the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage that the organization hoped to pit racial and ethnic minorities against the LGBT community as a way to defeat and roll back gay rights advances, specifically marriage for same-sex couples. The memos included...

Earlier this afternoon, following a screening of the documentary Bully at the White House, the Obama administration officially endorsed the Student Non-Discrimination Act.

The Student Non-Discrimination Act would provide students with explicit federal protections by establishing a comprehensive prohibition against discrimination and harassment in all public elementary and...

Late Wednesday afternoon, it was reported that the Obama administration had the made the decision to delay issuing an executive order to ensure that federal contractors receiving tax dollars do not discriminate against applicants and employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The decision to delay issuing...

On Tuesday, April 3, over 70 members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama urging him to sign an executive order to ensure that federal contractors receiving tax dollars do not discriminate against applicants and employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The ACLU views...

On Tuesday, March 20, at the White House Conference on Safe Schools and Communities held at the University of Texas at Arlington, Attorney General Eric Holder and White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett both walked up to the line of an endorsement for the Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA). Holder,...

In a Metro Weekly exclusive published Thursday, March 8, Chris Geidner writes that President Obama, as a candidate for the office in 2008, specifically endorsed an executive order to ensure that federal contractors do not discriminate against applicants and employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Tuesday's Washington Post editorializes in support of a proposed executive order that President Obama could sign to ensure that federal contractors receiving federal tax dollars do not discriminate against applicants and employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The impact that such an executive order would have...

Last fall the brutal, unprovoked beating of Zach, an openly gay student at Unioto High School in Chillicothe, Ohio, made national headlines when a video of the incident went viral online.

The ACLU has released a new video that features Zach and his mom, Becky Collins. Zach and Becky...

Tuesday marked a historic commitment by the United States to the cause of LGBT international human rights. First, President Obama issued a memorandum directing all federal agencies engaged abroad to ensure that U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons. The memorandum represents...

On Friday, Sept. 30 the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) published a final rule in the Federal Register to provide eligible federal employees up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave for "qualifying exigency purposes." Just what are qualifying exigencies, you ask? Well, under the rule, qualifying exigencies arise when...

Spit as a deadly weapon? As crazy as it sounds, in some states that is the reality that people living with HIV face.

On Friday afternoon, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) introduced legislation in Congress that will bring some much-needed attention to the issue of criminalization of HIV. Rep. Lee's...

Today marks the official end of the discriminatory policy known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." For nearly 18 years, DADT forced lesbian, gay and bisexual service members to painstakingly hide their true selves, as well as their partners and spouses, or else face the possibility of having their military...

The anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has been asking presidential hopefuls to sign a pledge stating, among other things, that they would:

• support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution barring recognition of marriages involving same-sex couples;
• defend the discriminatory and unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)...

There is an intriguing story behind the recent Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) headlines, one that mirrors trends in public opinion surveys, but involves a group you might not expect -- members of Congress who voted for the law in 1996, but now favor its repeal.

Back in July,...