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New report shows nearly 20 percent of LGBTQ youths have attempted suicide

A new report conducted by The Trevor Project found sobering rates of mental health issues among LGBTQ youth across the United States. According to The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization that focuses on suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBTQ youth, their survey is the “largest survey of LGBTQ youth mental health ever conducted,” with … Continued
June 12, 2019

Bill updating sex education curriculum fails on the last day of session

The Alabama House of Representatives ended the 2019 Legislative Session Friday without addressing legislation to remove language from the Alabama public schools sex education curriculum that the LGBTQ+ community finds objectionable. Sponsors said the bill would have also made the curriculum more scientifically and medically accurate. Senate Bill 140 was sponsored by State Sen. Tom … Continued
June 3, 2019

The privilege of privilege

Lots of people are up in arms, and rightly so, about those wealthy, privileged parents who illegally rigged the college admissions system to accept their little over-privileged children when their brats wouldn’t have otherwise qualified. When we observe those privileged parents’ progeny in their natural habitat, we just turn away in disgust. Aunt Becky’s (actress … Continued
March 28, 2019

Alabama receives low rating in Human Rights Campaign’s State Equality Index

Alabama was placed in the lowest-rated category for the fifth year in a row in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and Equality Federation Institute’s fifth annual State Equality Index. The SEI is a comprehensive report that details statewide laws and policies that affect LGBTQ people and their families and assesses how well states are protecting … Continued
February 1, 2019

A real “enemy of the people”

I’m pretty fortunate, in that I’ve got two great careers. I write for this great news organization each week, continuing the mostly political columns about Alabama I wrote for a more than a quarter of a century for The Birmingham News, back when The News was a newspaper. I also write the monthly back-page column … Continued
December 20, 2018

Activists seek to expand LGBTQ protections in Birmingham as other Alabama cities lag behind

Most Alabama cities have few, if any, protections for LGBTQ individuals. Birmingham, the only city in the state with any rigorous protections for LGBTQ people, recently scored a 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index. But even there, LGBTQ children and teens are not protected from so-called “conversion therapy,” a debunked practice that … Continued
October 11, 2018

Group holds rally to urge Sen. Jones to vote no on Kavanaugh confirmation

A rally was held Sunday at Birmingham’s Railroad Park to urge U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D) to vote “No” on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court Confirmation. An estimated 125 people gathered in Birmingham to show just how many Alabamians oppose Kavanaugh’s confirmation. The group claims that Brett Kavanaugh is a threat to health care access, … Continued
September 3, 2018

House Appropriations Committee passes Aderholt amendment protecting the religious freedoms of adoption agencies

Wednesday the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment sponsored by Congressman Robert Aderholt, R-Haleyville, protecting religiously affiliated adoption agencies from being forced to place children in same-sex households when that sort of illicit behavior violates the tenets of their religious beliefs.‏ Robert Aderholt said on Twitter, “Today my colleagues and I of the @HouseAppropsGOP … Continued
July 13, 2018

We’re perfecting the “art” of being mean

My mother, Patricia Ann Harper Kennedy, has been dead more than 21 years now. She died young, in 1997. She had cancer. She did not have health insurance. Mom couldn’t get health insurance because she had a “pre-existing,” non-malignant tumor a decade before her fatal cancer. She wanted insurance. She could have paid for insurance. … Continued
June 14, 2018