This Thursday (3/14/13), Nebraska Unicameral holds hearings on 3 bills affecting rights of LGBT residents

Location of hearing room 1113, inside
Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln.

Update: Barring anything unforseen, we shall carry the 3 hearings live on Thursday. Surf to AKSARBENT at 1:30 CST.

For more details on the bills, go here and click on the bills. You can count on the usual suspects (like the Nebraska Family Council and Family First) to be at Thursday's hearing pitching the same lies and bathroom fables against LGBT civil rights legislation that they did before the Lincoln City Council.  
     These are some of the arguments that the Nebraska Family Council and others will be making. Google the issues (split up the work) and find the appropriate responses! Be in Lincoln, do your homework, and be prepared with effective oral testimony and written documents to submit to the committee.
     Especially be prepared to refute the Regnerus Study, the scholarly merit of which has been questioned by 200 PhDs and MDs, and which was concocted to influence the gay marriage debate before the Supreme Court and which was called "bullshit" by an editor of the very journal that published it, Darren E. Sherkat, who was assigned to audit the study after the uproar it caused.
     The Regnerus Study, contrary to virtually every other authoritative, peer-reviewed study, calls into question the parental fitness of same sex couples.  The prestigious American Sociological Association ripped apart the junk science of the Regnerus "research" in a Supreme Court brief on pages 15-22, here.

Contact the Nebraska Judiciary Committee members below (Ernie Chambers doesn't do email) and ask them to vote for LB380, LB485, and LB385. Colby Coash, (BFF of fundraiser Ted Nugent) seems disinclined to vote for LB380, so calls to him are especially needed, particularly if you live in his Lincoln area district.
     A note about LB380 (from ProgressiveOasis):

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LB380... will allow qualified unmarried couples to adopt. The bill will also allow second parent adoptions.  Contrary to some discussions online, this bill does not mention sexual orientation and gender identity, so don’t even use it as a talking point.  It is strictly an adoption bill allowing unmarried couples and second parents to adopt.  Nebraska has no statute covering these issues and courts have rejected adoptions challenged in court because of the lack of statute. Forward Equality has a sample email and letter you can use to send to members of the Judiciary committee to urge them to pass this bill.  Mika Covington of Forward Equality has done a stand up job of research and petitioning for this bill.

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Pick up the phone and call!

Brad Ashford (Chair)
Steve Lathrop (Vice Chair)
Ernie Chambers
Mark Christensen
Colby Coash
Al Davis
Amanda McGill
Les Seiler

bashford@leg.ne.gov
slathrop@leg.ne.gov
(no email address)
mchristensen@leg.ne.gov
ccoash@leg.ne.gov
adavis@leg.ne.gov
amcgill@leg.ne.gov
lseiler@leg.ne.gov

402-471-2622
402-471-2623
402-471-2612
402-471-2805
402-471-2632
402-471-2628
402-471-2610
402-471-2712