As Americans, it is our birthright that all people are created equal and deserve the same rights, privileges, and opportunities. Since our earliest days of independence, our Nation has striven to fulfill that promise. An important chapter in our great, unfinished story is the movement for fairness and equality on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. This month, as we recognize the immeasurable contributions of LGBT Americans, we renew our commitment to the struggle for equal rights for LGBT Americans and to ending prejudice and injustice wherever it exists.

LGBT Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life. From business leaders and professors to athletes and first responders, LGBT individuals have achieved success and prominence in every discipline. They are our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, and our friends and neighbors. Across my Administration, openly LGBT employees are serving at every level. Thanks to those who came before us, the brave men and women who marched, stood up to injustice, and brought change through acts of compassion or defiance we have made enormous progress and continue to strive for a more perfect union.

My Administration has advanced our journey by signing into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which strengthens Federal protections against crimes based on gender identity or sexual orientation. We renewed the Ryan White CARE Act, which provides life saving medical services and support to Americans living with HIV/AIDS, and finally eliminated the HIV entry ban. I also signed a Presidential Memorandum directing hospitals receiving Medicare and Medicaid funds to give LGBT patients the compassion and security they deserve in their time of need, including the ability to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions.

In other areas, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a series of proposals to ensure core housing programs are open to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. HUD also announced the first ever national study of discrimination against members of the LGBT community in the rental and sale of housing. Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services has created a National Resource Center for LGBT Elders.

Much work remains to fulfill our Nation’s promise of equal justice under law for LGBT Americans. That is why we must give committed gay couples the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple, and repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. We must protect the rights of LGBT families by securing their adoption rights, ending employment discrimination against LGBT Americans, and ensuring Federal employees receive equal benefits. We must create safer schools so all our children may learn in a supportive environment. I am also committed to ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” so patriotic LGBT Americans can serve openly in our military, and I am working with the Congress and our military leadership to accomplish that goal.

As we honor the LGBT Americans who have given so much to our Nation, let us remember that if one of us is unable to realize full equality, we all fall short of our founding principles. Our Nation draws its strength from our diversity, with each of us contributing to the greater whole. By affirming these rights and values, each American benefits from the further advancement of liberty and justice for all.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2010 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month by fighting prejudice and discrimination in their own lives and everywhere it exists.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-eighth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA

The provision would allow military commanders to repeal the ban. The repeal would permit gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.

It was adopted as an amendment to the annual Pentagon policy bill, which the House is expected to vote on Friday. The repeal would be allowed 60 days after a Pentagon report is completed on the ramifications of allowing openly gay service members, and military leaders certify that it would not be disruptive. The report is due by Dec. 1.

The House vote was 234 to 194, with 229 Democrats and 5 Republicans in favor, after an emotionally charged debate. Opposed were 168 Republicans and 26 Democrats.

Read the full story at NYTimes.com.

If you have legally married your same-sex spouse in any state, you may choose the “husband or wife” option, and the Census will record and report on these figures in its official Census tables on married couples in the U.S.

While many people in our community are uncomfortable with these terms, we have to remember that the Census is slow to respond to changing language and social realities. For example, for many years, the Census provided no way for people of multiracial origins to accurately record their race. Now is not the time to refuse to check the “husband or wife” box because it doesn’t fit our political or linguistic views of ourselves. Having a count of LGBT married couples will be an historic, important first step in changing the way the entire country understands LGBT partnership. If you are legally married, don’t miss out on being counted!

Many, many more of us will check the “unmarried partner” box in this year’s Census and this is equally important. Last year, the annual Census survey, the American Community Survey (ACS), reported a significant decline in same sex couples. This is partly because the ACS had been improperly recording some opposite-couples as same sex, due to poor survey design. Regardless, any drop in our numbers is not good for our community.

The reality is, few federal surveys record any information whatsoever about LGBT people. The Census recording of same sex unmarried partners and married couples gives a rare glimpse at our community: where we live, how we create family, and whether we own or rent our homes.

Researchers report that people who live in states without any recognition for same-sex couples are 248.2% more likely to experience general anxiety than gays who live in states with marriage recognition.

Full story at Advocate.com.

Now, Baxter, who played the devoted hippie mom constantly butting heads with her conservative kids on “Family Ties,” is making a public admission.

“I am a lesbian and it was a later-in-life recognition,” she told Matt Lauer on TODAY. “Some people would say, well, you’re living a lie and, you know, the truth is – not at all. This has only been for the past seven years.”

Read the whole story or watch the video at Today.

The expanded federal hate crimes law now goes to President Obama’s desk. Obama has pledged to sign the measure, which was added to a $680 billion defense authorization bill.

President George W. Bush had threatened to veto a similar measure.

Read the full story from CNN.com.

Experts estimate that as many as 1.5 to 4 million LGBT individuals are age 60 and older. Agencies that provide services to older individuals may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the needs of this group of individuals. The new Resource Center for LGBT Elders will provide information, assistance and resources for both LGBT organizations and mainstream aging services providers at the state and community level to assist them in the development and provision of culturally sensitive supports and services. The LGBT Center will also be available to educate the LGBT community about the importance of planning ahead for future long term care needs.

The LGBT Resource Center will help community-based organizations understand the unique needs and concerns of older LGBT individuals and assist them in implementing programs for local service providers, including providing help to LGBT caregivers who are providing care for an older partner with health or other challenges.

The Administration on Aging will award a single Resource Center grant at approximately $250,000 per year, pending availability of funds. Eligible entities will include public-private nonprofit organizations with experience working on LGBT issues on a national level. The funding announcement for the Resource Center will be made available on the following website very soon. http://www.aoa.gov/AoARoot/Grants/Funding/index.aspx

The Copiah County School District is standing behind a decision not to publish Ceara Sturgis’ senior picture in Wesson Attendance Center’s yearbook because she chose to be photographed in a tuxedo instead of the drape reserved for girls.

Read the whole story at the Clarion Ledger.

WLBT reports: Ceara Sturgis, a lesbian teen at Wesson Attendance Center’s high school, chose to have her senior class picture taken wearing a tuxedo. The school has informed her that the photo will not be included in the yearbook.

“It makes me feel like I’m not important enough,” Sturgis told WLBT reporter Katina Rankin. “It’s like I never even went there.”

The Mississippi ACLU is now involved with Ceara and her mother.

Stay tuned for updates.

“People tend to believe that racism, on all sides of the color lines, is something that stops at the gates of the LGBT community… It just doesn’t happen that way,” writes actor Doug Spearman in an essay for the Human Rights Campaign’s Equality Forward series.

Spearman, best known for his role as Chance on the Logo series Noah’s Arc, observes that when he came out in 1980, he was welcomed as “the kids of the 1960s and early ’70s — those that had created the gay movement — were still on the dance floors of America elbow to elbow with the people who’d marched in Vietnam protests and Black Power parades, and had been active participants in the original civil rights movement.”

Spearman laments that this feeling of acceptance has evaporated with the existence of separate black gay pride and Latin gay pride festivals, which he claims “exist because a great many men and women feel unwelcome in mainstream gay communities.”

In the essay, Spearman also takes issue with gay activists who blamed black voters for not supporting Prop. 8 in last November’s election. They “assumed that since theirs was an issue of equality and civil rights, that they’d have natural allies among a people who’d spent centuries being discriminated against,” he writes.

Spearman was honored this past June by Christopher Street West, Los Angeles’s LGBT Pride organization, for community involvement, including his work for the Human Rights Campaign, the Black AIDS Institute, and LifeWorks Mentoring.

Read Spearman’s entire essay at HRCBackstory.org and come back to share your thoughts.