Remember a few months back when it was announced that gay couples, even married ones, were going to be listed as “unmarried partners” in the 2010 Census? Well you can put away the harangue you had all prepared for the census taker. Hitched gay couples will have their relationships counted. Read More: Withers: 2010 Census will count gay couples

This weekend’s attack at the gay and lesbian center in Tel Aviv left me with a familiar feeling: helplessness. That awful moment of wanting to do something but knowing you’re half a world away.

I spent much of Saturday scouring the Internet for news and shaking my head. Fortunately there are a lot of people out there who had better ideas than me.

In Israel, LGBT leaders met with representatives from the Social Affairs Ministry to highlight the awful statistics on hate crimes and abuse against young people. Minister Isaac Herzog agreed that this weekend’s attack was a form of “social terror” and has ordered his ministry to set up a special program to help LGBT youth.

Community workers in Israel have already noticed that the immediate and moving response from the LGBT community and its supporters has helped to break the silence around hate crimes – phone centers have added staffers as more people than ever before have gained the courage to report attacks.

If you’re feeling the urge to fight this weekend’s attack with positive action, it has never been easier to make a difference in the worldwide LGBT community.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has an impressive record on working for LGBT rights around the world, including pressuring Amnesty International to include persecution based on orientation in its list of human rights abuses, helping to set up asylum programs for gays and lesbians fleeing hostile countries, and training and assisting human rights workers and HIV/AIDS workers.

Their resources page lists a huge array of national and international LGBT groups, so you can pick the area where you’d like to lend a hand.

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association is a collection of national and local groups that work together for equal rights across the map.

And of course there is plenty to be done right here at home. Only nineteen states and the District of Columbia have laws that protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation, and only twelve of those (and D. C.) have laws that forbid discrimination based on gender identity.

Hitting the streets to flyer or canvass, phone banking, envelope stuffing, or just getting on the horn and bugging your state representatives are all ways to make sure things get better for all of us down the road.

And we can’t underestimate the importance of staying out and proud to make sure don’t lose the gains we’ve made. It can be as simple as taking a moment to kindly but firmly correct the neighborhood kid who’s trying to get up a game of “smear the queer,” or keeping in touch with that younger cousin you met at the family reunion – the one you’re pretty sure is going to turn out to be gay and may have a tough adolescence ahead of him in that small town.

We can’t, unfortunately, magically make the world a safe and accepting place for people in the LGBT community. But we get closer every time we tackle a little corner of it.

Thanks to Kate Walsham for her help in sourcing.

The Reverend Bonnie Perry is among three nominees to become the next Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, and the Reverend Canon Mary D. Glasspool and the Reverend John L. Kirkley have been nominated as assistant bishops in the Los Angeles Episcopalian Dioscese.

The promotion of LGBT priests has been a huge source of controversy within the Episcopalian Church recently, but liberal branches are showing a heartening determination to press forward with equal treatment for promotion.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

City councilmember Bill de Blasio has introduced a bill to help the city’s homeless LGBT youths. Young people who identify as LGBT make up a third of the city’s homeless youth population, but according to de Blasio, they are underserved by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The bill would create a special division in DOHMH that would be involved in research and LGBT youth outreach programs.

Read Scott Stiffler’s full story at edgeboston.com.

1. Slogging through The Brothers Karamazov. Hopefully will be done in three more weeks. Right now all I can say is Grushenka was not worth the effort.

2. Still no one in custody for the murder of three at a Tel Aviv gay and lesbian center. There might have been a personal, not political, motive.

3. Glad the media stopped talking about the “beer summit.” Wish the story was handled  better, but when the (perceived) topic is race there are only so many narratives we like to hear.

4. If you call a  black person a “jungle monkey”  you are not allowed to announce how utterly free of racist animus your soul is.

5. Any summer  movie suggestions?

6. The suspect in the murder of sailor  August Provost, III killed himself. Not sure there will ever be a satisfactory answer to why Provost was murdered.

7. Blueberries are expensive this summer.

8. The leader of the “birther movement” is nutty and needs a cosmetic adviser. And birther crazies? Please leave no comments. Just go fix your tin foil hats.

9. What will I do now that the Olberman and O’Reilly feud is kaput? These two knot heads having a beef is why I don’t miss TV.

10. I’ve said this before, but it needs repeating . Spent the weekend watching season one of  The Wire. Anyone who didn’t nominate the show for an Emmy is a moron.

One of the community’s staunchest advocates in Congress, U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, is sponsoring legislation to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

Nadler has long been on record in defense of equal marriage rights. Who can forget his attack on the vile, anti-gay Marriage Protection Act in 2004? “One would think that the possibility that somewhere a lesbian or gay couple might live out their years peacefully and happily were a greater threat to the future of the United States than al Qaeda.”

In his latest charge to take down DOMA, the representative – chair of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties – is focusing on marriage, not civil unions and not domestic partnerships.

Nadler recently told the Bay Area Reporter, “Historically domestic partnerships and other relationships have been an interregnum until we get to marriage, which we need to push for as soon as possible.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Civil unions and domestic partnerships have served important purposes, but we, in the push for equality, have identified marriage as the prize. To include civil unions and domestic partnerships would probably derail Nadler’s legislation.

Certainly to include civil unions and domestic partnerships would muddle the issue for Congress and for state lawmakers trying to decide whether to introduce their own bills to legalize gay marriage or to offer same-sex couples a parallel to marriage.

To include civil unions and domestic partnerships would confuse citizens as well, some of whom by now must think gay people want three times the legal forms of partnership recognition as straights.

So, what would Nadler’s bill accomplish?

The bill would repeal Section 2 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states that ban same-sex marriage to refuse to recognize legal same-sex marriages from other states. Gay couples can legally marry in Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, and will be able to marry in New Hampshire beginning in January 2010.

But today, a heterosexual couple married in Massachusetts will be recognized as such in Florida, yet not a gay couple.

Today, a heterosexual couple married in Iowa can move across the border and still be considered married in Illinois, yet not so a lesbian couple.

Today, a heterosexual couple wed in Vermont will be recognized as married in Texas, yet not a same-sex couple.

How is this so?

Well, heterosexual couples are protected under the Full Faith and Credit Clause in the U.S. Constitution that says, “Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other state.” Congress, and with his signature Bill Clinton, stripped gays and lesbians who would eventually legally marry of that constitutional protection in 1996.

Repealing DOMA and enacting a “certainty provision” requiring one state to recognize the marriages of another could provide stability for married same-sex couples and their family members.

No doubt there will be fights among states and states and fights among states and the feds with a repeal, but eliminating DOMA and enacting the “certainty provision” is critical.

And the bill would repeal Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing legal same-sex marriages.

Today, the federal government is denying same-sex couples in Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts the marriage rights it affords opposite-sex couples across the country. Those rights and responsibilities number more than 1,000 and include Social Security survivor payments, the opportunity to jointly file taxes and guaranteed leave from work to care for an ailing spouse.

Look for the bill when Congress returns from its August recess, and urge the members of your congressional delegation to support passage.

A gunman wearing black began shooting at a Tel Aviv gay and lesbian center called Café Noir Saturday night, killing three people and wounding at least eight more – other reports put the number of wounded as high as 15.

The shooter walked into the center during a meeting for LGBT teens. Most of the victims were very young, and many were not yet out to their families.

Police are searching for the gunman, and believe the incident was a homophobic attack rather than a part of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflicts.

Tel Aviv has an active LGBT scene, but several conservative groups in Israel frown on homosexuality.

The Jerusalem Post reports that police have ordered the closing of gay clubs all over the city as a safety precaution, and that one of the people killed was a youth counselor.

There is a short version of the story up at Reuters.

A story on Ynet News indicates that the attack took place during a regular meeting for LGBT teenagers. At least one witness says the gunman was masked.

When I read the White House announcement about the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom I laughed out loud. Wasn’t too boisterous because the day job is getting funkier by the minute (if my boss is reading this I only mean that as a compliment). Only President Barack Obama would think to honor both Jack Kemp and Harvey Milk. Read More: Withers: Obama likes to play both sides

The recent reports of bombings during the Danish Gay Games have shocked many. It would be like someone launching a gay bashing in the middle of gay pride, in San Francisco. Copenhagen is a gay friendly city. The deputy mayor is gay, it shares much of Europe’s tolerant atmosphere for gay culture and the highly educated, well off population certainly lives harmoniously with gay residents.

But the men arrested for the bombings on the track directly before a relay race are Danish. And they are not the only perpetrators of violence during this gay games.

One has to wonder, when so many gay men are encouraged to act more masculine, to stop being so swishy or effeminate, why do gay athletes inflame the opposition so effectively?

In fact, much of the research shows that out athleteis are a particular threat to their teammates and coaches. While masculine gay men are good, gay masculine athletes are sexual predators and threats to team cohesion. So an out gay games? Super charge that threat.

Still, those participating in the games are all gay – there are no straight teammates who feel they have to hide in the locker room. And there are no straight opponents who might be offended by the gay players with whom they are forced to interact.

There are just a slew of out athletes hoping that a gay games will lead to more inclusion of gay athletes in mainstream sport. The violence we’ve seen in Copenhagen may just mean the awareness-raising is working. And it has some scared and angry.

photo by Kimberly Bednarski, KB Image Photography

In the marriage debate, the focus is always on rights, those granted federally and by each state: immigration, taxation, hospital visitation. It’s a way to talk about inequality concretely so that those around us can understand what all the fuss is about.

I used to think that was sufficient. Then I got married.

Last weekend, a slew of family and friends descended upon Chicago to celebrate my relationship with my partner of five years. My mother, a judge in Canada, performed the ceremony and we exchanged rings and vows. But, the wedding wasn’t legal. It didn’t change the fact that, in the eyes of the state, my partner and I were roommates.

I never grew up thinking that marriage was something essential or important. My parents have been together over 35 years, happily, without ever being married. It seemed like nothing more than an invented occasion.

What I couldn’t have understood until I was standing in front of an audience about to say my vows is that ceremony can be incredibly important. Participating in the rites of passage society expects and supports holds meaning on its own. The simple fact that the marriage pronouncement was not part of our script, couldn’t be part of our script, created a deep sense of hurt and exclusion. It was an injustice, separate and apart from the rights we do not enjoy and legal discrimination we suffer. Our status as outsiders was reinforced, even as we were surrounded by so many close friends.

In many ways, LGBT people in the United States are luckier than most. Our relationships, themselves are not illegal. Many of us have supportive families and friends. And some of us live in states that recognize same-sex relationships.

Still, we cannot underestimate the damage marriage inequality causes. LGBT people are excluded from social institutions that hold real significance in our lives. We look at pictures of our family members on their wedding day. We watch television shows about weddings, see our favorite sitcom actors and movie actors go through the ceremony, wait for the moment where the couple are pronounced legally wed and embrace and kiss.

I didn’t get to do that in front of the people I love. And, although my wedding was the best day of my life, it was incomplete.

That is a loss no civil union and no domestic partnership can undo.