Senator Kristin Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) (Photo by Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times)

NEW YORK — A New York senator plans to introduce a bill limiting the budget the military can spend on its controversial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy Saturday night, according to The Caucus Blog.

Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) plans to unveil the bill at the Human Rights Campaign‘s gala dinner tonight in New York.

The bill, proposed as a federal budget amendment, would deny monies for pursuing the military’s expulsion of gays, according to The Caucus Blog.

Last year, approximately $200 million was spent on replacing those discharged under the DADT policy, according to the Government Accountability Office.

For more information, see the original article here.

Human Rights Campaign Logo - Courtesy of hrc.org

WASHINGTON D.C. — The U.S. House introduced legislation making it illegal to discriminate against students in regards to actual or perceived sexual orientation today.

The Student Non-discrimination Act of 2010, introduced by Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO), is meant to protect students who may face bullying from fellow students or lack of concern from administrators regarding their sexual orientation or gender identity, the Human Rights Campaign Web site stated. Currently, federal protection from this type of discrimination in schools is nonexistent.

“No student should have to be fearful when walking through the doors of their school,” Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said on his organization’s Web site. “[T]his legislation would require immediate and appropriate action to stop the discrimination that our youth have endured for far too long.”

To read more on this developing legislation, visit the HRC Web site.

Human Rights Campaign Logo Courtesy of hrc.org

Each year the Human Rights Campaign releases an equality buying guide for its members. The guide, Buying For Equality 2010, reviews a number of businesses and organizations nationwide, judging them on their equality towards the LGBT community.

Below is a PDF copy of the recently released guide. To download a copy of the file click download. If you would like to simply view the file click preview.

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-Christopher Clevenger

-Christopher Clevenger

Human Rights Campaign logo. Photo courtesy of hrc.org.

National groups advocating for the approval of this bill commented on their success today.

“The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, praised the U.S. Senate today for passing the conference report for the FY 2010 Defense Authorization bill by a vote of 68 to 29, sending critical hate crimes legislation to the President’s desk,” HRC posted on its site earlier today.

The bill, now labeled The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, will give the Justice Department the power to “investigate and prosecute bias-motivated violence where the perpetrator has selected the victim because of the person’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.”

Today was the 14th time the act was brought to a vote on the senate floor. After being signed by the president, the bill will allow the Justice Department to offer aid to local and state organizations in investigating and prosecuting “bias-motivated crimes.”

For more information on the bill, visit the Human Rights Campaign.

-Christopher Clevenger

Significant numbers of LGBT employees continue to ex- perience a negative workplace climate that appears to be unaffected by organizational policies and which varies by location, manager and work team, the HRC reports.

Foundation,only 5 percent of employees ages 18-24 say they are open about their sexual orientation or gender identity at work, while 20 percent of older workers say they are.

Fourty-two percent say they’ve lied about their personal relationships in the past year.

“We’ve found that inclusive nondiscrimination policies and equal benefits are the essential first step toward cultivating a productive and engaged LGBT employee, but they are not the last step,” Daryl Herrschaft, director of the Workplace Project, told the Advocate. “By understanding how LGBT identity surfaces and unfolds in the workplace, we will be better able to turn policy into practice and address opportunities to improve productivity and retention of LGBT employees.”

Other points of interest include:

• 58 percent of LGBT workers say someone at work makes a joke or derogatory comment about LGBT people at least once in a while.
• 62 percent of LGBT employees say negative comments about minority groups are made at least once in a while at work.
• 67 percent say they ignore it when they hear an anti-LGBT remark at work, 9 percent raise the issue with a supervisor and only 5 percent go to human resources.
• 72 percent LGBT employees say they would self-disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity along with other demographic information in an anonymous human resources survey.

For a PDF of the full study click here.

— Theresa Bruskin