In a closely watched historic vote, 1,400 leaders from the nation’s local Boy Scouts of America Councils ended the long ban on equal participation for gay youth. But the BSA will continue excluding adult Eagle Scouts, scout leaders and parents. The resolution passed today reads in part, “no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone,” according to the Human Rights Campaign.  

“Today is a historic day for Boy Scouts across the country who want to be a part of this great American institution,” said HRC President Chad Griffin.  “But the new policy doesn’t go far enough.  Parents and adults of good moral character, regardless of sexual orientation, should be able to volunteer their time to mentor the next generation of Americans.”

“The Boy Scouts of America can do better,” said Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout and Executive Director of Scouts for Equality.  “We welcome the news that the ban on gay Scouts is history, but our work isn’t over until we honor the Scout Law by making this American institution open and affirming to all.”

“While they took an important first step today, the failure of the Boy Scouts of America to move fully into the 21st Century proves the necessity of the Youth Equality Act, showing organizations like the BSA that any form of discrimination has a real cost,” said Equality California Executive Director John O’Connor.

Anne Heche thinks she's communicating with god after having an accident in this evening's premiere of the new NBC series Save Me. The series comes from The Big C executive producer Vivian Cannon and costars Burlesque's Michael Landes as Heche's husband. 

In the market for a different direction in the business reality show market, Fox debuts Does Someone Have to Go? this evening. The premise surrounds a group of people who have to decide the employment destiny of a coworker.  Did I say "have to?" I can't tell you how many jobs I've had where I wish I had that power.

Modern Family's Jesse Tyler Ferguson joins Julianne Moore on tonight's Jimmy Fallon and will be appearing on a Big Apple stage beginning next week. If you are in New York City during the Month of June, you can catch Ferguson doing Shakespeare in the Park. He'll be joined by The New Adventures of Old Christine's Hamish Linklater in A Comedy of Errors starting May 28 at The Delacorte Theatre.
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On Wednesday, May 22, the day the slain gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk would have celebrated his 83^rd birthday, President Obama honored 10 openly gay elected or appointed officials as Harvey Milk Champions of Change for their commitment to equality and public service.

 “When President Obama posthumously awarded Harvey Milk the Medal of Freedom in 2009, he praised his leadership and courage in running for office.  Today, we honor Harvey Milk’s legacy in these ten outstanding public servants, who will surely inspire the next generation of public servants,” Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett said in a press release.  

Of the 10 honorees, three are from California: State Sen. Ricardo Lara of Long Beach, Redondo Beach Mayor Mike Gin, and John Laird, California Secretary of Natural Resources from Santa Cruz.  Additionally, Gin and Lara, along with Hawaii State Civil Rights Commissioner Kim Coco Iwamoto from Honolulu and Colorado State Senator Pat Steadman from Denver are David Bohnett Leadership Fellows, a very important program through the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund that develops LGBT political leaders. (The program is not limited to gays and lesbians. Masen Davis, Executive Director of the Transgender Law Center, for instance, was a Bohnett Fellow in 2012.) 

Recently I weighed in on Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, Mr. Perry’s parable about a young woman who has the temerity to want more from life than an unfulfilling sex life with her milquetoast husband and for her trouble get raped by an internet mogul/Satan and ends up a drug addicted, HIV infected, broken shell of a human being who—by the end of the film—is forced to hobble into her ex-husband’s pharmacy to get her medication (because apparently in Tyler Perry’s world there is only one pharmacy and HIV also causes scoliosis).

Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t the only HIV advocate who found Perry’s ignorant, sexist, stigmatizing, steaming pile of a feature to be problematic. The outrage from the HIV-positive community was both universal and impassioned. The best response by far came from the Positive Women's Network of the United States of America (PWN-USA) whose carefully worded and compassionate open letter to Mr. Perry is light years beyond anything I was capable of composing, both in its eloquence and its patience. Read More

After a long, hard,  fight of almost two year, voters have chosen Los Angeles City Councilmember Eric Garcetti to be the next mayor of the nation’s second largest city. And while many expected the contest between Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel to be close, by 3:16 Wednesday morning the results showed Garcetti with a whopping 181,995 votes (54 percent) to 155,497 votes (46 percent) for Greuel. Even with outstanding mail-in ballots to be counted or contested, a new age of youthful, green liberalism has begun in the City of Angels.

Openly gay attorney and Democratic stalwart Ron Galperin’s overwhelming defeat of City Councilmember Dennis Zine for City Controller—56 percent to 44 percent—also signaled a changing of the guard. Zine has been a fixture for years in  L.A. law enforcement and city politics as a moderate Republican before becoming an independent. Galperin’s quick broad smile and rabbi husband lend a kind of kitchen-table understanding to his commitment to deal with the city’s fiscal issues.