In a strongly worded op-ed in the Washington Post published today, Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu condemned the anti-gay legislation under consideration in Uganda and Rwanda.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God’s family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.

Uganda’s parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.

These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.

Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.

And they are living in hiding — away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said “Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones.” Gay people, too, are made in my God’s image. I would never worship a homophobic God.

Archbishop Tutu has a long standing record supporting LGBT human rights. In 2008 he was honored in San Francisco by the International Gay and Lesbian Rights Commission for that support. Watch:

Last week Rep. Pete Stark of California introduced the Every Child Deserves a Family Act which denies federal funding to states with adoption programs that discriminate on the basis of marital status, sexual orientation or gender identity. From the Washington Blade:

Stark said in an interview that he introduced the legislation, H.R. 3827, in part because thousands of children each year “age out” of the child welfare system without finding homes.

“We got 25,000 kids a year maturing out of the welfare system without permanent foster care or adoptive care, and the prospects of those children having a successful adult life are diminished greatly,” he said. “These are kids who end up in the criminal justice system, or end up homeless.”

States with explicit restrictions on adoption that the pending legislation would affect are Utah, Florida, Arkansas, Nebraska and Mississippi. Florida, for example, has a statute specifically prohibiting gays from adopting, and in Arkansas, voters last year approved Act 1, which prevents unmarried co-habitating couples, including same-sex partners, from adopting children.

The legislation, Stark said, also would restrict funds for states where restrictions are put in place by agencies, individual social workers or judges, or where restrictions are part of the common law of the state.

For states that don’t comply with the law, federal officials could withhold from the states funds provided to them for child welfare services. The bill also calls.

This is very good news, and it’s likely to create quite a curfuffle among the religious right, and Catholics in particular. Take Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for example, who appeared on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club last week to pimp his new book and said this about gays and adoption: “We’re not going to allow gay people to adopt children. That’s against nature. It’s against nature’s God! But they won’t stop!”

If H.R. 3827 passes, perhaps it will be the event that finally makes Bill’s head explode. We can dream can’t we?

Republican Mayor Dan Sullivan has chosen to veto a city ordinance which would have banned discrimination against the LGBT community in Anchorage.

“My review shows that there is clearly a lack of quantifiable evidence necessitating this ordinance,” the mayor said. “My review also shows that the vast majority of those who communicated their position on the ordinance are in opposition.”

Sullivan said he had received almost 2,500 comments as he was considering whether to let the measure stand.

The ordinance was the subject of intense public interest and debate all summer. The Assembly approved a compromise measure last week by a 7-4 vote.

The Assembly can override the mayor’s veto, but it needs eight votes to do so. The panel has 21 days to take up the issue again. The next opportunity will be at its next meeting, Aug. 25.

We had been thinking about taking a cruise up to Alaska now that Palin has thankfully resigned. Perhaps we need to rethink that idea.

Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, talked about the need for schools free of bigotry and fear at the GLSEN Respect Awards in New York. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), is a national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students. Said Biden:

“Change is not easy, especially when it comes to ending bigotry and fear. But I am confident that together, we will succeed. That is why I am proud to tell you that the Obama-Biden administration shares your commitment to making sure every student has a safe school. Each child, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, deserves an education.”