Gay USA: March 29-April 4, 2011

We started this week’s show off excited about the news that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service was suspending deportations of non-citizen same-sex spouses of American citizens pending the resolution of the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act which is being challenged—so far successfully—in the federal courts. NEVER MIND!  Even though the Obama Justice Department itself is not defending DOMA any more because they believe it is unconstitutional, they decided on Tuesday evening that they must still enforce the law. So the hold on these deportation proceedings is off. A story updating the situation from Metro Weekly is at the end of this e-mail. For more information, go to www.immigrationequality.org. In other news: Transgender rights protections pass in the Maryland House of Delegates, but things are iffier in the State Senate. The ACLU wants the help of public school students in making sure that your schools aren’t filtering gay content from getting to you via school computers. For more information, go to http://www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/dont-filter-me. The LGBT community mourns the losses of some giants: Elizabeth Taylor, playwright Lanford Wilson, actor Farley Granger. UN takes stand against violence against LGBT people. An update on the “kill-the-gays” bill in Uganda.