Gallup: “LGBTQ+ identification in the U.S. continues to grow, with 7.6% of U.S. adults now identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or some other sexual orientation besides heterosexual.”

“The current figure is up from 5.6% four years ago and 3.5% in 2012, Gallup’s first year of measuring sexual orientation and transgender identity.”

Wall Street Journal: “Two decades later, what was once the white-hot center of political debate has receded to the background. Polls show nearly three-quarters of Americans, including 49% of Republicans and a majority of regular churchgoers, support it. The Supreme Court made same-sex marriage a nationwide right in 2015, and Congress gave federal recognition to the practice on a broad bipartisan vote in 2022…”

“The widespread public approval suggests most people don’t believe the horrors once forecast have resulted from same-sex marriage’s legalization, and now there is evidence to prove it. A comprehensive new research report by the Rand organization finds that the consequences of two decades of legal same-sex marriage have been broadly positive for gay and straight Americans alike.”

“The White House on Sunday slammed Congressional Republicans for including a provision in the government funding bill that essentially stops LGBTQ+ Pride flags from being flown over U.S. embassies and vowed to repeal it,” ABC News reports.

“A new bill introduced in the Missouri House would force teachers to register as sex offenders if they use the names and pronouns of transgender children or otherwise support them and their identity,” the Riverfront Times reports.

Oklahoma state Sen. Tom Woods (R) said during a public forum that LGBTQ+ people are “filth,” and that he and his constituents don’t want them in “our state,” the Tahlequah Daily Press reports.

The comments came after the death of 16-year-old Nex Benedict, who used the pronouns “they/them” and who recently died a day after being beaten in a school bathroom.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach (R) “is telling public schools they’re required to tell parents their children are transgender or nonbinary even if they’re not out at home, though Kansas is not among the states with a law that explicitly says to do that,” the AP reports.

“Kobach’s action was his latest move to restrict transgender rights… It’s also part of a trend of GOP attorneys general asserting their authority in culture war issues without a specific state law.”

Jonathan Rauch: “You may be aware that for decades the U.S. government fired homosexuals, the military discharged them, and police arrested them. Some of these actions are well within the living memory of most adults. Yet if you are like most people—including me, when I began researching this article—you have not fully appreciated that these policies were not discrimination of any ordinary sort. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing for more than six decades, the United States waged a campaign of legal, social, and psychological obliteration against its homosexual population.”

“The campaign was initiated by the federal government but recruited all of society. The pressure could be felt everywhere. It found you not only at work, where you could be fired, or in bars and clubs, where you could be arrested, but also on the street and in public spaces, where you could be harassed or assaulted; in a doctor’s care, where you might be deemed mentally ill; at home, where you saw gay people ridiculed and pathologized on TV.”

“The goal, as the historian and legal scholar William N. Eskridge Jr. writes in his 1999 book Gaylaw, was not merely to disadvantage homosexual people; it was to erase homosexuality from every corner of public life.”

“Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) struck down a bill that would have banned gender-affirming care for minors, preserving such care for residents beyond his state because families of transgender youths who live in states with bans have been traveling to Ohio for treatment,” the Washington Post reports.

“Republicans, who have a supermajority in the legislature, could override DeWine’s veto and are expected to push back.”

“Pope Francis has taken one of the most concrete steps in his efforts to make the Roman Catholic Church more welcoming to LGBTQ Catholics by allowing priests to bless couples in same-sex relationships,” the New York Times reports.

“Priests have long blessed a wide variety of people, offering a prayer asking for God’s help and presence. The Vatican had long said it could not bless same-sex couples because it would undermine church doctrine that marriage is only between a man and a woman.”