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Hawaii House gives final approval to same-sex marriage bill

Gov. Neil Abercrombie expected to sign once state Senate approves amendments

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Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii, Democratic Party, gay news, Washington Blade
Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii, Democratic Party, gay news, Washington Blade

Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The Hawaii House of Representatives on Friday gave its final approval to a bill that would extend marriage rights to same-sex couples in the Aloha State.

The 30-19 vote took place 12 hours after lawmakers began debating the measure.

“This is about a move towards acceptance, tolerance and compassion,” state Rep. Sylvia Luke said.

State Rep. Mark Takai, who in 2011 voted against a bill that extended civil unions to same-sex couples in Hawaii, described Senate Bill 1 as the “right thing to do.”

“My yes vote for this bill is a vote for love, equality and fairness,” Takai said.

Lesbian state Rep. Jo Jordan is among those who voted against SB1.

“I had come to the decision that SB1 needed to [be] amended,” the lawmaker told Honolulu Magazine. “It wasn’t protective enough for everybody. And I truly know, my GLBT community is not going to go somewhere where they are not welcome.”

SB1 opponents also introduced 16 amendments to the bill that would have, among other things, created a task force to study the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples in Hawaii and further strengthen religious protections that already exist in the measure. Lawmakers rejected all of them in voice votes.

The Hawaii House approved the bill two days after the chamber passed it on its second reading following five days of testimony from SB1 supporters and opponents. The state Senate on Oct. 30 overwhelmingly approved the measure.

Gays and lesbians can legally marry in 14 states and D.C.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Nov. 20 is scheduled to sign a bill into law that will allow same-sex marriage in his state.

The Hawaii Supreme Court in 1993 ruled the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples is unconstitutional. The ruling prompted the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act three years later that prohibited the federal government from legally recognizing gay nuptials.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June found a portion of DOMA unconstitutional.

Hawaiian voters in 1998 approved a state constitutional amendment that allowed the Legislature to ban same-sex marriage.

“The state has a responsibility to those voters,” state Rep. Bob McDermott said as he testified against SB1.

Hawaii’s civil unions law took effect in 2012, but a federal judge in August of that year dismissed a lawsuit filed on behalf of two same-sex couples who sought marriage rights in Hawaii. The plaintiffs appealed, and their case is pending in the U.S. Ninth Circuit alongside a second lawsuit that seeks to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples in Nevada.

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie and 14 state attorneys general last month filed briefs with the court that urge it to rule in favor of nuptials for gays and lesbians in his state and Nevada.

The state Senate on Tuesday is scheduled to consider amendments to SB1 that the House approved.

Abercrombie is expected to sign the measure into law later next week.

“I commend the House of Representatives for taking this historic vote to move justice and equality forward,” the governor said. “After more than 50 hours of public testimony from thousands of testifiers on both sides of the issue, evaluating dozens of amendments and deliberating procedures through hours of floor debates, the House passed this significant bill, which directly creates a balance between marriage equality for same-sex couples and protect our First Amendment freedoms for religious organizations.”

Same-sex couples will be able to legally marry in Hawaii on Dec. 2 once Abercrombie signs SB1 into law.

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The White House

Karine Jean-Pierre becomes Biden’s fourth openly LGBTQ senior adviser

Press secretary’s promotion was reported on Monday

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White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (Washington Blade photo by Christopher Kane)

Following White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s promotion to a top role on Monday, four of the 10 officials serving as senior advisers to President Joe Biden are openly LGBTQ.

The other LGBTQ members of the president’s innermost circle are White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt, senior adviser to first lady Jill Biden Anthony Bernal, and White House Director of Political Strategy and Outreach Emmy Ruiz.

Jean-Pierre became the first Black and the first LGBTQ White House press secretary in May 2022. She spoke with the Washington Blade for an exclusive interview last spring, shortly before the two-year anniversary of her appointment to that position.

“Jill and I have known and respected Karine a long time and she will be a strong voice speaking for me and this Administration,” Biden said in 2022 when announcing her as press secretary.

Breaking the news of Jean-Pierre’s promotion on Monday, ABC noted the power and influence of the White House communications and press office, given that LaBolt was appointed in August to succeed Anita Dunn when she left her role as senior adviser to the president.

As press secretary, Jean-Pierre has consistently advocated for the LGBTQ community ā€” pushing back forcefully on anti-LGBTQ legislation and reaffirming the president and vice president’s commitments to expanding rights and protections.

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U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court begins fall term with major gender affirming care case on the docket

Justices rule against Biden admin over emergency abortion question

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The Supreme Court as composed June 30, 2022 to present. Front row, left to right: Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Back row, left to right: Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Photo Credit: Fred Schilling, The Supreme Court of the U.S.)

The U.S. Supreme Court’s fall term began on Monday with major cases on the docket including U.S. v Skrmetti, which could decide the fate of 24 state laws banning the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors.

First, however, the justices dealt another blow to the Biden-Harris administration and reproductive rights advocates by leaving in place a lower court order that blocked efforts by the federal government to allow hospitals to terminate pregnancies in medical emergencies.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had issued a guidance instructing healthcare providers to offer abortions in such circumstances, per the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which kicked off litigation over whether the law overrides state abortion restrictions.

The U.S. Court of appeals for the 5th Circuit had upheld a decision blocking the federal government from enforcing the law via the HHS guidance, and the U.S. Department of Justice subsequently asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

The justices also declined to hear a free speech case in which parents challenged a DOJ memo instructing officials to look into threats against public school officials, which sparked false claims that parents were being labeled “domestic terrorists” for raising objections at school board meetings over, especially, COVID policies and curricula and educational materials addressing matters of race, sexuality, and gender.

Looking to the cases ahead, U.S. v. Skrmetti is “obviously the blockbuster case of the term,” a Supreme Court practitioner and lecturer at the Harvard law school litigation clinic told NPR.

The attorney, Deepak Gupta, said the litigation “presents fundamental questions about the scope of state power to regulate medical care for minors, and the rights of parents to make medical decisions for your children.”

The ACLU, which represents parties in the case, argues that Tennessee’s gender affirming care ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by allowing puberty blockers and hormone treatments for cisgender patients younger than 18 while prohibiting these interventions for their transgender counterparts.

The organization notes that “leading medical experts and organizations ā€” such as the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics ā€” oppose these restrictions, which have already forced thousands of families across the country to travel to maintain access to medical care or watch their child suffer without it.”

When passing their bans on gender affirming care, conservative states have cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), which overturned constitutional protections for abortion that were in place since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

The ACLU notes “U.S. v. Skrmetti will be a major test of how far the court is willing to stretch Dobbs to allow states to ban other health care” including other types of reproductive care like IVF and birth control.

Also on the docket in the months ahead are cases that will decide core questions about the government’s ability to regulate “ghost guns,” firearms that are made with build-it-yourself kits available online, and the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring age verification to access pornography.

The latter case drew opposition from liberal and conservative groups that argue it will have a chilling effect on adults who, as NPR wrote, “would realistically fear extortion, identity theft and even tracking of their habits by the government and others.”

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National

Lesbian software developer seeks to preserve lost LGBTQ history

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ā€˜There's so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,ā€™ says Kristen Gwinn-Becker.

Up until the early 2010s, if you searched ā€œBabe Ruthā€ in the Baseball Hall of Fame, nothing would pop up. To find information on the greatest baseball player of all time, you would have to search ā€œRuth, George Herman.ā€ 

That is the way online archival systems were set up and there was a clear problem with it. Kristen Gwinn-Becker was uniquely able to solve it. ā€œI’m a super tech geek, history geek,ā€ she says, ā€œI love any opportunity to create this aha moment with people through history.ā€ 

Gwinn-Becker is the founder and CEO of HistoryIT, a company that helps organizations create digital archives that are genuinely accessible. ā€œI believe history is incredibly important, but I also think it’s in danger,ā€ she says. ā€œLess than 2% of our historical materials are digital and even less of that is truly accessible.ā€

Gwinn-Beckerā€™s love for history is personal. As a lesbian, growing up, she sought out evidence of herself across time. ā€œI was interested in stories, interested in people whose lives mirrored mine to help me understand who I was.ā€ 

ā€œ[My identity] influences my love of history and my strong belief in history is important,ā€ she says.

Despite always loving history, Gwinn-Becker found herself living and working in San Francisco during the early dot com boom and bust in the ā€˜90s. ā€œIt was an exciting time,ā€ she recounts, ā€œif you were intellectually curious, you could just jump right in.ā€

Being there was almost happenstance, Gwinn-Becker explained: ā€œI was 20 years old and wanted to live in San Francisco.ā€ Quickly, she fell in love with ā€œall of the incredible new tools.ā€ She was working with non-profits that encouraged her to take classes and apply the new skills. ā€œI was really into software, web, and database development.ā€ 

But history eventually pulled her back. ā€œTech was fun, but I didn’t want to be a developer,ā€ she says. Something was missing. When the opportunity to get a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University presented itself, ā€œI got to work on the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, who I was and remain quite passionate about.ā€ 

Gwinn-Beckerā€™s research on Eleanor Roosevelt planted the seeds of digital preservation. ā€œEleanor Roosevelt doesn’t have a single archive. FDR has lots but the first ladies donā€™t,ā€ she says. Gwinn-Becker wondered what else was missing from the archive ā€” and what would be missing from the archive if we didnā€™t start preserving it now.

Those questions eventually led Gwinn-Becker to found HistoryIT in 2011. Since then, the company has created digital archives for organizations ranging from museums and universities to sororities, fraternities, and community organizations.

This process is not easy. ā€œDigital preservation is more than scanning,ā€ says Gwinn-Becker. ā€œMost commercial scannersā€™ intent is to create a digital copy, not an exact replica.ā€ 

To digitally preserve something, Gwinn-Beckerā€™s team must take a photo with overhead cameras. ā€œThere is an international standard,ā€ she says, ā€œyou create an archival TIFF.ā€ 

ā€œItā€™s the biggest possible file we can create now. Thatā€™s how you future-proof.ā€

Despite the common belief that the internet is forever, JPEGs saved to social media or websites are a poor archive. ā€œItā€™s more expensive for us to do projects in the 2000 to 2016 period than to do 19th-century projects,ā€ explains Gwinn-Becker, since finding adequate files for preservation can be tricky. ā€œThe images themselves are deteriorated because they’re compressed so much,ā€ she says.

Her clients are finding that having a strong digital archive is useful outside of the noble goal of protecting history. ā€œIt’s a unique trove of content,ā€ says Gwinn-Becker. One client saw a 790% increase in donations after incorporating the digital archive into fundraising efforts. ā€œItā€™s important to have content quickly and easily,ā€ says Gwinn-Becker, whose team also works with clients on digital strategy for their archive.

One of Gwinn-Beckerā€™s favorite parts of her job is finding what she calls ā€œhidden histories.ā€

ā€œWe [LGBTQ people] are represented everywhere. We’re represented in sports, in religious history, in every kind of movement, not only our movement. I’m passionate about bringing those stories out.ā€ 

Sometimes queer stories are found in unexpected places, says Gwinn-Becker. ā€œWe work with sororities and fraternities. There are a hell of a lot of our stories there.ā€

Part of digital preservation is also making sure that history being created in the moment is not lost to future generations. HistoryIT works with NFL teams, for example. One of their clients is the Panthers, who hired Justine Lindsay, the first transgender cheerleader in the NFL. Gwinn-Becker was excited to be able to preserve information about Lindsay in the digital record. ā€œItā€™s making history in the process of preserving it,ā€ says Gwinn-Becker.

Preserving queer history, either through ā€œhidden historiesā€ or LGBTQ-specific archives, is vital says Gwinn-Becker. ā€œThink about whose history gets marginalized, whose history gets moved to the sidelines, whose history gets just erased,ā€ she prompts. ā€œIn a time of fake news, we need to point to evidence in the past. Queer people have existed since there were humans, but their stories are hidden,ā€ Gwinn-Becker says.

Meanwhile, Gwinn-Becker accidentally finds herself as part of queer history too. Listed as one of Inc. Magazineā€™s Top 250 Female Founders of 2024, she is surrounded by names like Christina Aguilera, Selena Gomez, and Natalie Portman. 

One name stuck out. ā€œNever in my life did I think I’d be on the same list ā€“ other than the obvious one ā€“ with Billie Jean King. That’s pretty exciting,ā€ she said. 

But she canā€™t focus on the win for too long. ā€œWhen I go to sleep at night, I think ā€˜there’s so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,ā€™ā€ she says, ā€œWe have a very small period in which to do that in a meaningful way.ā€

(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)

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