CA Prop 8 Trial

We're in Day 3 of the CA Prop 8 Trials in San Francisco in federal court. Lots of news press around this activity.

These 1-2 weeks will be an interesting series of discussions and debates to test the constitutionality of CA's Prop 8 last year banning same-sex marriage. Not only will a decision impact California, but it will also be influential to the rest of U.S. and the world.

It would be interesting to see how the courts interpret and apply the laws of our state and country, and how much it stands up for due process and helping protect people's rights, vs. popular opinion.

However, there is growing talk about a trend toward taking religious beliefs to courts too, that religious beliefs are being discriminated against when equality laws are passed. That's another related area worth debating too.

Gender Virtualization at the 2009 Out & Equal Summit

This morning I presented my workshop - Gender Virtualization - A Discussion on Values, Principles, and Policies for the Transgender Community - at the 2009 Out & Equal Workplace Summit in Orlando. We had a great discussion among the HR/Diversity professionals of Fortune 500 companies, ERG leaders, and members of the transgender community about improving policies for transgender support.

One main issue about gender transitions at the workplace is always about restroom usage. It was great to see more companies now adopting the policy of usage according to gender identity and expression, vs. segregation by biological gender which is difficult to enforce without discrimination, breach of privacy, or disrespecting the individual.

One statistic reported that only 3% of marriages survive when one spouse goes through a gender transition. It's very rough on the spouse and family. Key to surviving is having a deep common understanding and communication between the spouses, and respecting each other for the person inside, not just the physical partner.

My workshop presentation will be posted at the Summit website shortly.

GLAD CHALLENGES DOMA § 3

Yesterday GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders) filed this lawsuit against the Federal Government for discrimination against same-sex married couples.

I think this is great that legal disparaties are brought out into the open even more, and action is started in the areas where the problem was created - in the Federal Courts.

It seems shameful, that our country's leaders have stated that "All men are created equal" in so many instances, like our Declaration of Independence, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream speech, and several others, yet our Federal Government still (but maybe not much longer) upholds laws which identifies certain categories of people to be second class.

Some states, and more states over time, have revised laws to eliminate discrimination against people due to any type of identifiable characteristic.   That seems to be the better way for this world to embrace diversity, as we are now all living in a global culture, mixing together with people from other countries, other cultures, other religions and beliefs, and all shapes, sizes, ages, colors, lifestyles, appearances, family situations, etc.

Luckily, our history has shown our people to revise laws to improve our treatment toward each other - eliminating discrimination against race and sex, granting women the right to vote, granting interracial couples the right to marry, and others.   There are still a few more things to fix going forward, but we seem to be heading there.