40 Years After Stonewall: LGBT people are still being harassed by police

The real question about the most recent police attacks on LGBT people is what exactly did these gay folk do wrong?

In California, police busted a fundraiser at the home of prosperous lesbian couple, doused guests with pepper spray and arrested the host. The cops apparently needed a multitude of police cars and one helicopter to "subdue" the 50ish and 60ish lesbians and others who were raising money for a Democratic candidate for Congress.

The raid was prompted by a noise complaint from someone in the wealthy neighborhood. Meanwhile, the people living closest to the supposedly rowdy party of middle aged folk weren't bothered by the noise at all.

If this San Diego newspaper report is true, then what was the real "crime?" Was it participating in democracy while being lesbian?

In Texas, Fort Worth police continue to deny that they raided a gay bar to harass its LGBT patrons. That raid sent one man to the hospital with a serious head injury. Could the the problem in Fort Worth have been the serious "crime" of drinking while gay?

Shirley Tan and her family get a reprieve

Good news! Lesbian Shirley Tan can stay in the United States, at least for now. The help of Sen. Dianne Feinstein has kept the mother of two from being deported. But should it really take the intercession of a U.S. Senator to get basic justice for a lesbian family?

PHOTO: Left to right, Jay Mercado, Shirley Tan's partner; the couple's twin sons; Sen. Barbara Boxer; and Shirley Tan.

"Correcting" lesbians by raping them into straightness, & if that doesn't work...

This is chilling. I wish I could say that this kind of violence only happens in South Africa, but it also happens far too frequently in the United States. The Guardian newspaper reports on how South African authorities are ignoring an epidemic of "corrective" rapes of lesbians. For one soccer star and prominent campaigner for lesbian rights, the sentence imposed by her neighbors was gang rape and murder. (Stabbed 25 times.) This story is worth reading, and the video is a painful must, particularly the comments from the men who emphatically inform the reporter that raping is truly the best way to turn a lesbian into a "normal" girl.

Obama's lesbian and gay scorecard

Now we're cooking. Barack Obama has named, or is reported to be naming, what may well be the largest number of openly lesbian and gay officials in presidential history. My count is now at nine.

In the order of when their appointment was unveiled, with the most recent at the top, these people include:

• Karine Jean-Pierre as White House liaison to the Department of Labor
• Dave Noble as White House’s liaison to NASA
• David Medina as deputy chief of staff for Michelle Obama.
• John Berry as director of the Office of Personnel Management.
• Mark Dybul, a Bush appointee who will stay on as the global AIDS ambassador
• Fred Hochberg as head of the Export-Import Bank of the United States
• Brian Bond as the deputy director of the White House Office of the Public Liaison
• Brad Kiley as the director of the Office of Management and Administration
• Nancy Sutley as chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.