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The White House Press Office sent this section of the fiscal year 2011 budget to me to pass on for your perusal –Expanding Opportunities for the LGBT Community. The details. I look forward to your comments…
Expanding Opportunities for the LGBT CommunityHaving steered the economy back from the brink of a depression, the Administration is committed to moving the Nation from recession to recovery by sparking job creation to get millions of Americans back to work and building a new foundation for the long-term prosperity for all American families. To do this, the 2011 Budget makes critical investments in the key areas that will help to reverse the decline in economic security that American families have experienced over the past decade with investments in education, clean energy, infrastructure, and innovation.
But even as we meet the challenge of the recession and work to build an economy that works for all American families, we must also change the way Washington does business – ending programs that don’t work, streamlining those that do, cracking down on special interest access, and bringing a new responsibility to how tax dollars are spent. The President’s Budget takes the steps to help jumpstart job creation, works to strengthen the economic security of American families, and makes the tough choices to put our Nation back on the path to fiscal responsibility.
To support the needs of the LGBT community, the Budget will:
Strengthen Anti-Discrimination Efforts. To strengthen civil rights protections for all citizens, the Budget includes a 11 percent increase in funding to Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. This investment will help the Division handle implementation of a historic new hate crimes law, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Support Federal Employee Domestic Partner Benefits. The Administration supports the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009, which provides the same benefits to same-sex domestic partners of Federal employees as those provided to married heterosexual partners of Federal employees. These benefits include health insurance, survivor annuities, compensation for work-related injuries, travel and relocation benefits, life insurance, and vision and dental benefits.
Expand and Focus HIV/AIDS Treatment, Care, and Prevention Activities. The Budget expands access to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment activities consistent with the President’s pledge to develop a National HIV/AIDS Strategy that will focus on reducing HIV incidence, increasing access to care and optimizing health outcomes, and reducing HIV-related health disparities. It focuses HIV testing among high-risk groups, including gay and bisexual men, African Americans, and Hispanics. The Budget also includes specific appropriations for new HIV prevention programs. The Budget increases resources for the Ryan White program to support the care and treatment needs for an estimated 10,000 additional persons living with HIV/AIDS who are unable to afford health care and related support services, and directs resources to reduce HIV-related health disparities by expanding HIV/AIDS medical services within populations disproportionately impacted by the epidemic. Finally, the Budget enhances funding for collaboration and integration activities to improve overall health outcomes for those with HIV/AIDS and co-infections with tuberculosis, hepatitis, and sexually transmitted diseases.
Execute a National AIDS Awareness Campaign. The President’s budget continues a 5-year, $45 million dollar, multi-faceted “Act Against AIDS” campaign launched April 2009. The campaign will be driven by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) with the goal of reducing HIV incidence in the United States. The first phase of the campaign seeks to counter complacency about HIV/AIDS through online, transit, and radio ads. In an effort to more effectively reach and educate African-Americans about HIV/AIDS, CDC has developed partnerships with 14 African-American civic organizations that will integrate HIV prevention into each of their existing outreach programs. CDC will also partner with the Kaiser Family Foundation to establish a coalition of entertainment, print, online, and other media organizations that will place campaign ads in support of the “Act Against AIDS” campaign.
Support a Fair and Accurate 2010 Census. For the first time, the Census Bureau will be releasing counts of same-sex marriages reported on the relationship question from the decennial census short-form. In previous decennial censuses, the Census Bureau re-coded any individual who reported being in a marriage with someone of the same sex. Under this new policy, in 2011 the Census Bureau will make available to researchers and the public the unedited (that is, not recoded) data on same-sex marriages. Following that, the Census Bureau will release a special report on what the unedited data reveals about measuring same-sex marriages. Concurrently, the Census Bureau, working with the Office of Management and Budget, will be engaged in an inter-agency process to develop recommendations for how all Federal statistical agencies can better measure marriages and other family relationships. The Budget provides $1.3 billion to the Census Bureau to process, tabulate, and release 2010 Census data, conduct extensive evaluations of the census, improve the data collection methods of the American Community Survey, and begin a continuous update process of the Census Bureau’s geospatial and address data, which is expected to produce long-run cost savings.
16 Comments
What’s missing is END THE WARSEnding DADT and DOMA are important but this President is dead in the water until we get our troops home and end this Bush Imperial Presidency with a Global Expansion of Military Bases (191 countries & territories now) and illegal wars draining 54% of our National Budget.
END THE WARS.
I’m disappointed, discouraged and ready to just retire in a third world country where I can ignore all this.
http://activecitizen54.wordpre…
The most effective way to “strengthen anti-discrimination efforts” would beEffectively end DADT by invoking stop-loss, and stop defending DOMA in federal courts.
Second, screw the domestic partnership benefits. Mr. President, you should know better than most Americans that marriage discrimination serves no purpose and that Jim Crow serves only promote bigotry.
Third, HIV/AIDS in the United States is not a matter of gay rights: it is a matter of health rights which affects a great many people who neither identify as gay nor are men who have sex with men. While your efforts are appreciated and desperately needed, they are sops to the GLBT community and not really applicable to the goals you claim.
Fourth, federal law prohibits counting married same-sex couples from being counted as married same-sex couples. Your adamant refusal to challenge DADT has helped to entrench this. If you really want a fair and accurate 2010 census, forget the weasle wording of “support” and actually GET a fair and accurate 2010 census by DEMANDING that Congress repeal DOMA.
In short: the same, honey-coated shit on a different day. Please do not pretend to be surprised when we do not fall for it yet again.
“ENDA” should be the first thing coming out of his mouth when talking “jobs”How can we delight in the plentiful jobs to come with the economic recovery if we’re still lawfully being fired/not hired just because we’re LGBT? Talk about ignoring the obvious, Mr. President.
I’m also amused by them daring to list this an item: “Support Federal Employee Domestic Partner Benefits”
AS IF it were a fait accompli. Reminds me of Gov. Bill Richardson during the ’08 primaries telling gay audiences that he had delivered (past tense) on domestic partnerships for s-s couple in his state. Except that he hadn’t. In fact, Equality New Mexico is staging yet another round of lobbying this week in support of the latest version of the DP bill that Bill Richardson and the NM legislature failed to deliver on 2 years ago.
I definitely have some thoughts on the matter.I’m just also certain their expression would violate the terms of service of my brain.
Great words…now let’s see if leads anywhereOn the one hand everything does take time. On the other, I believe gays have waited long enough and had enough empty promises thrown their way.
All of the above is fine, and IF it leads to serious efforts for full LEGAL equality, then great. But when you have a President (and one from a culture that spent a few hundred years to gain THEIR civil rights) flip flop about marriage equality, or skirt around it, or choose not to challenge it when he claims to believe in equality for all people, then how can he expect people to take him at his word?
The fact that it took the loss in MASS to encourage him to speak out about ending DADT says a lot. Did he mean it? Did he say it just to get back some of his lost support (the polls indicate he achieved that goal for the time being)? The truth is we really don’t know. All we can do is wait and see, and in the meantime hold a fire to his b**ls so that he and others are always aware that THIS big “brother” is also watching.
And if our “allies” let us down or do not at least show they have mad a great effort to keep their words, we harness our support and if nothing else, we take them down with us. THAT is the message we need to send now – not a few weeks before the next elections.
Uhhh……moderators? Yoo hoo?
Definitely republican….always worried about “teh seks wit geyz.”
What the hellThis is a bigotry-free zone. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out “straight” man.
disease free heterosexualsI had no idea that sexually transmitted infections were not spread during penis/vagina contact.
The things you learn!
I guess straightmen only have to be responsible for concocting the lies required to get out of the responsibility for the children bred out of wedlock and/or extra-marital (see John Edwards – raging heterosexual).
Thanks for spreading illegitimate children and adulterous affairs in addition to disease.
Good job, straightman! You can’t possibly defend your convenient lies with a straight face.
Worldwide, HIV/AIDS is overwhelmingly a heterosexual phenomenonAs of the end of 2008, it is estimated that 22.4 million people — two thirds of the world’s total — lived in southern and south eastern Africa. It is also estimated that more than 14 million children in Africa have lost one or both of their parents due to HIV. Worldwide, there is an estimated 33.4 million people living with HIV; 15.7 million are women and 2.1 are children 17 or younger. In 2008, an estimated 430,000 children contracted HIV, either from an infected mother or as a result of the myth that an infected man can be cured by having unprotected sex with a virgin girl.
http://www.avert.org/worldstat…
Do you mean to say that all of these people have HIV / AIDS due to their “unnaturan and deviant lifestyle”?
It looks like we’re making SOME progress, at least.The trolls aren’t bothering to pretend they’re “homosexual” any more.
Oh dear.Dr. Tam, I know the ass-reaming you got in court last week really must’ve stung, but seriously… quit trotting out that sad chestnut. Nobody’s buying it but you and your cronies.
I am grateful for expanding Ryan White coverage to more PWA’sI’d like to see what guidelines they have in HIV/AIDS outreach to specific at risk populations, and whether messages meant to reach gay and bi men, are allowed to speak bluntly about same sex sex. All that was gutted under Bush, and dumb a$$ Christian Reich abstinence sh*t got pushed.
All low-hanging fruitnow, if he can get all of that passed, then fine…
If he’s talking about economic recovery, though, the Administration really needed to prioritize ENDA. But I guess that ENDA isn’t as “sexy” as DADT.
OK, why is this screen saying that there’s “14 comments” and I only see 7 comments?
DOJ Civil RightsI applaud the Matthew Sheppard Act, but no more legal briefs from the DOJ that compares same-sex marriage with incest. Also they need to include LGBT as a class of citizens into their language as well as the Civil Rights Commission. The majority of LGBT’s are not infected with HIV/AIDS even though it is a problem area among young gay men and serves to intimidate us all by the government.
All Nice, But. . .None of these things will impact the vast (yes vast) majority of LGBT Americans. Ending DOMA and enacting ENDA are the only two things which will have real impact on our day to day lives.
If these “expanding opportunities” were an apple pie, they would be the pie shell – but without any filling.
My gut reaction is “why bother?”