Courts consistently allow flagrant discrimination against LGBT jurors

“I believe that people who are either transsexuals or transvestites — I don’t know what the proper term is — traditionally are more liberal-minded thinking people, tend to associate more with the defendants because, obviously, they have been either ridiculed before or are feeling in a position of being in a microscope all the time and are outcasts which lends themselves to associating more with the defendant.”

BYU students release ‘It Gets Better’ video

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints holds that homosexuality is wrong, which makes life hard for Mormon Brigham Young University’s roughly 1,800 LGBT students. According to a recent report, 74 percent say they have contemplated suicide and 24 percent have tried to kill themselves.

Colorado LGBT healthcare marked by fear of discrimination, lack of confidence in providers

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trangender Coloradans face greater challenges than heterosexual Coloradans do in accessing health care, according to a study (pdf) brought out this week by gay rights advocacy group One Colorado.

Out Colorado Rep Ferrandino to head House Dems

Colorado House Democrats unanimously elected Denver Rep Mark Ferrandino minority leader today. In just over two terms as a lawmaker, Ferrandino has made a name for himself as an open and dynamic figure committed to the legislative process and talented at steering substantive bills through partisan minefields toward passage. He is the second out gay member of the Colorado legislature to head the Democrats in the chamber in the last decade.

Report: Despite legal protections, gay students in Colorado overwhelmingly bullied

In Colorado, nearly all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students polled this year by national anti-bullying organization GSLEN said they regularly heard homophobic remarks and slurs at their schools. Half of them reported being pushed and shoved around for being queer. And nearly a third of them said they were kicked or punched or hit. That news comes despite the fact that legislators have accepted school bullying as a serious problem to address since the tragic Columbine school shootings of 1999.

Quiet Republicans quash Colorado civil unions bill

During an emotional eight-hour hearing on same-sex civil unions at the capitol in Denver Thursday, a long list of witnesses on both sides of the issue told emotional stories of life as gay and transgender Americans. More than a few wept as they talked about shame, discrimination and systemic bias. Others quoting scripture warned of the end times the bill would surely hasten unto the Centennial State should it pass. The five committee Democrats took turns agreeing and disagreeing with witnesses, debating theology, Constitutional history and the horrors of the Jim Crow South and the Holocaust. The six members of the majority bloc Republicans on the committee, however, had little to say. They watched and listened and, without really elaborating their positions, voted as a bloc against sending the legislation to the full House for debate and a vote. They stone-cold killed the bill.

Buck campaign: He’ll discuss retracting Meet the Press statements if he wins election

Gay rights group One Colorado hand delivered a petition to GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck’s Denver office Tuesday bearing 1,500 signatures requesting he retract his statement that homosexuality is mostly a lifestyle choice. On Meet the Press two…

Colbert dices Buck on the gays: ‘He can’t help it; he was born that way’

The U.S. media has largely embraced homosexuality as a naturally occurring healthy variation of human sexuality, which makes Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck fodder for television comedy. Buck’s now infamous Meet the Press comments– in which he said…

Amid Meet the Press backlash, Buck embraces Inhofe anti-science politics

“On behalf of the medical community, I denounce Ken Buck’s comments. We feel he should retract his statements. Science does not support his view…. I feel strongly that we should not be giving fodder for extremist ideology with statements contrary…

Gay rights group One Colorado endorses Hickenlooper in guv race

In its first election season campaign endorsement, One Colorado has come out solidly for Democrat John Hickenlooper in the three-way governor’s race.

“As mayor of Denver, Hickenlooper has created an environment that emphasizes equality and fairness,” said One…