November, 12 2014, 01:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
CONTACT: Steve Roth, Equality California
PHONE:Â 323.936.1831 EMAIL: steve@outthinkpartners.com
CONTACT: Liz Halloran, HRC
PHONE:Â 202.423.2888 EMAIL: liz.halloran@hrc.org
State of LGBT Equality in 55 California Cities Detailed in HRC's New Municipal Equality Index
Los Angeles
The Human Rights Campaign's Municipal Equality Index, an annual report assessing LGBT equality in 353 cities across the nation, including 55 in California, found that while California cities are some of the best in the country, there are wide disparities in how California's cities guarantee civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents.
The 2014 MEI, the third annual nationwide rating of LGBT inclusion in municipal law and policy, shows that cities across the country, including in California, continue to take the lead in supporting LGBT people and workers, even when states and the federal government have not, but that those gains are not evenly distributed.
"The Municipal Equality Index reveals a 'tale of two Californias.' Most of our larger cities and more progressive municipalities like Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Francisco have perfect or near-perfect scores, while many other cities -- particularly in the Central Valley, Orange County and more rural areas -- fall far short of the mark," said Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California. "Even in California there's still much work to be done, and Equality California will continue to lead the way with important education campaigns in the Central Valley and other rural parts of the state."
The average score for cities in California is 73 out of 100 points, which falls above the national average of 59. Anaheim: 67, Bakersfield: 54, Berkeley: 95, Brisbane: 51, Cathedral City: 90, Chula Vista: 61, Concord: 62, Corona: 63, Elk Grove: 76, Escondido: 60, Fontana: 59, Fremont: 84, Fresno: 67, Fullerton: 58, Garden Grove: 59, Glendale: 61, Guerneville: 74, Hayward: 58, Huntington Beach: 72, Irvine: 68, Lancaster: 88, Long Beach: 100, Los Angeles: 100, Modesto: 57, Moreno Valley: 64, Oakland: 93, Oceanside: 57, Ontario: 65, Orange: 68, Oxnard: 61, Palm Springs: 100, Palmdale: 66, Pasadena: 76, Pomona: 76, Rancho Cucamonga: 59, Rancho Mirage: 93, Richmond: 80, Riverside: 75, Sacramento: 87, Salinas: 59, San Bernardino: 67, San Diego: 100, San Francisco: 100, San Jose: 88, Santa Ana: 59, Santa Clarita: 69, Santa Rosa: 81, Signal Hill: 93, Stockton: 79, Sunnyvale: 69, Thousand Oaks: 64, Torrance: 63, Vallejo: 74, Visalia: 48, West Hollywood: 100.
"From Mississippi to Idaho, mid-size cities and small towns have become the single greatest engine of progress for LGBT equality -- changing countless lives for the better," said HRC President Chad Griffin. "In just three years, the number of municipalities earning top marks for their treatment of LGBT citizens has more than tripled. Simply put, in this country there is an ongoing race to the top to treat all people, including LGBT people, fairly under the law, and it's time our state and federal laws caught up."
"In many municipalities, local leaders are taking important steps to provide LGBT people with the protections and security not available at the state or federal level. And because of this leadership, many cities and counties are emerging as welcoming communities where LGBT people are treated with the dignity and respect they've always deserved," said Rebecca Issacs, Executive Director of Equality Federation. "Municipal victories are fueling the movement for equality in states across this nation. The Municipal Equality Index is a terrific tool to help spur those victories along and celebrate the cities who have worked so hard to get us to this point."
Key findings contained in the MEI, issued in partnership with the Equality Federation, provide a revealing snapshot of LGBT equality in 353 municipalities of varying sizes, and from every state in the nation. The cities researched for the 2014 MEI include the 50 state capitals, the 200 most populous cities in the country, the four largest cities in every state, the city home to each state's largest public university, and an equal mix of 75 of the nation's large, mid-size and small municipalities with the highest proportion of same-sex couples.
Thirty-eight cities earned perfect 100-point scores, up from 25 in 2013 and 11 in 2012, the first year of the MEI. Long Beach, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Diego, San Francisco and West Hollywood earned a 100-point score, helping to set a standard of LGBT inclusiveness with exemplary policies ranging from non-discrimination laws and equal employee benefits, to cutting edge city services.
Other findings contained in the 2014 MEI:
- Cities in all regions of the country earned excellent scores, demonstrating that commitment to LGBT equality is not confined to parts of the country many people assume are most LGBT friendly;
- 38 cities received perfect scores, even with this year's more demanding criteria; that's up from 11 in 2012, and 25 in 2013;
- Cities continue to excel even without depending on state law: of cities that scored a perfect 100, 15 are in states that don't have comprehensive relationship recognition or a statewide non-discrimination law; that's up from eight cities last year, and just two in 2012
- 32 million people now live in cities that have more comprehensive, transgender inclusive non-discrimination laws than their state or the federal government;
- The average city score was 59 points, with half of the cities researched scoring over 61 points. Eleven percent scored 100 points; 25 percent scored over 80 points; 25 percent scored under 44 points; and four percent scored fewer than 10 points.
- Cities with a higher proportion of same-sex couples tended, not surprisingly, to score better, and the presence of openly-LGBT city officials and LGBT police liaisons also were correlated with higher scores.
The MEI rates cities based on 47 criteria falling under six broad categories:
- Non-discrimination laws
- Relationship recognition
- Municipality's employment policies, including transgender-inclusive insurance coverage, contracting non-discrimination requirements, and other policies relating to equal treatment of LGBT city employees
- Inclusiveness of city services
- Law enforcement
- Municipal leadership on matters of equality
The full report, including detailed scorecards for every city, as well as a searchable database, is available online at www.hrc.org/mei.
Equality California is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots-based, statewide advocacy organization whose mission is to achieve equality and civil rights for all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Californians.
LATEST NEWS
Amid Spying Fight, House Passes Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," said one advocate.
Apr 17, 2024
While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
"The privacy violations that flow from law enforcement entities circumventing the Fourth Amendment undermine civil liberties, free expression, and our ability to control what happens to our data," said Free Press Action policy counsel Jenna Ruddock. "These impacts affect everyone who uses digital platforms that extract our personal information any time we open a browser or visit social media and other websites—even when we go to events like demonstrations and other places with our phones revealing our locations."
"We're grateful that the House passed these vital and popular protections," she added. "The bill would prevent flagrant abuses of our privacy by government authorities in league with unscrupulous third-party data brokers. Making this legislation into law with Senate passage too would be a decisive and long-overdue action against government misuse of this clandestine business sector that traffics in our personal data for profit."
Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," she argued. "That means passing FANFSA and reforming Section 702 authority—and prioritizing everyone's First and Fourth Amendment rights."
Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
"The passage of the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale underscores the extent to which reining in abusive warrantless surveillance is a bipartisan issue," Scott said. "We urge the Senate to take up this measure and close the data broker loophole."
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a critic of the pending 702 bill and FANFSA's lead sponsor in the upper chamber, called the the House's Wednesday vote "a huge win for privacy" and said that "now it's time for the Senate to follow suit."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Leaked Cables Show Biden Pressuring Nations to Oppose Palestine's UN Membership
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," said one former Lebanese diplomat.
Apr 17, 2024
As the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on Palestine's bid to become a full U.N. member, the Biden administration—which claims to support Palestinian statehood—is lobbying UNSC nations in an effort to wrangle enough "no" votes so that the United States can avoid resorting to a veto.
Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs "Palestinian aspirations for statehood," one of the cables asserts that "it remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors."
"We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of 'Palestine' as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks," the document advises.
The U.S. argument essentially is that the U.N. should not create an independent Palestinian state by fiat—even though that's precisely how the world body voted in 1947 to establish the modern state of Israel.
The renewed push for Palestine's U.N. membership comes as Israel wages a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority, which hasn't controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, rejected the Biden administration's requests to hold off on seeking full membership.
"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Ahead of Thursday's planned vote, Spain has been doing its own lobbying in Europe to build greater support for Palestinian statehood. At a joint Tuesday press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Belgium—which is seeking economic sanctions against Israel in response to its genocidal war on Gaza—is expected to join Spain's push for Palestinian statehood after the country's European Union presidency expires in June.
Currently, 139 of the U.N.'s 193 member states recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Critics pointed to the leaked cables as more proof of U.S. duplicity and double standards on the Israel-Palestine issue.
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," Massoud Maalouf, a former Lebanese ambassador to Canada, Chile, and Poland, said on social media.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Database Exposes 'Illicit Network Undermining Democracy Around the World'
Yanis Varoufakis hailed the effort as "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
Apr 17, 2024
"Coups. Assassinations. Riots. Detentions. Disinformation. We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?"
Progressive International (PI) asks and answers this and other questions with an extensive new database published Wednesday that connects the dots in what the leftist group calls the "Reactionary International"—a loose global network of right-wing leaders and organizations working to subvert democratic institutions.
PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
"Today is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it," PI said.
"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
"The twin insurrections at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and BrasÃlia's Three Powers Plaza in 2023 left no doubt about the international coordination of reactionary forces," PI argued. "Yet far too little is known about the entities of this network, their sources of financing, and their institutional allies operating inside our political systems."
Ultimately, PI aims to "support democratic systems to become more resilient to their insidious tactics."
From leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and former U.S. President Donald Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee—to evangelical Christian groups influencing laws in African countries criminalizing LGBTQ+ people and tech companies empowering ubiquitous state surveillance, Reactionary International is a who's-who of the world's right-wing forces.
A cursory search of the database's contents shows users can:
- Learn about Israel's NSO, Rayzone, and Team Jorge, and how a team of Tel Aviv tech entrepreneurs fuel unrest in Latin America;
- Meet the Grey Wolves, Turkey's roving death squad with links to President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and the ethno-nationalists in his governing coalition; and
- Explore the global network of the Falun Gong, its Trump-connected media outlet The Epoch Times, and its traveling dance troupe known as Shen Yun.
Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
PI invites the public to contribute to the database.
"Together, we will not only name, shame, and expose the forces of the far right—but also dismantle their network of complicity," the group said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular