I hopped off the plane at LAX last Thursday not really knowing what to expect. I was going to California to attend the Gay & Lesbian Victory Institute’s LGBT Leaders Conference not feeling very optimistic about the state of LGBT rights in my state. I was elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council exactly a year ago today. Since them, I have seen a referendum pass that defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman, as well as a new Governor and General Assembly elected who are unlikely to be sympathetic to the concerns of LGBT North Carolinians. I’ve been to many conferences over the years, and don’t always plan on the experience as being a particularly constructive one. This time was different.

LGBT Leaders was an eye-opening experience to the collective power that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered citizens have in our county and world. The conference brought together advocates, elected officials, and other leaders from the LGBT community to discuss local policy efforts around homeless youth and healthcare reform, how to tackle anti-discrimination campaigns in the 50 states, and next steps for policy efforts in DC.

Chapel Hill is fortunate to be a leader when it comes to gay rights. When Joe Herzenberg was elected to our town council in the 1980’s, he was the first openly gay elected official in our state. Mark Kleinschmidt has served as mayor since 2009, and our simultaneous service makes Chapel Hill one of the smallest municipalities in the country to have two openly gay elected officials on their governing body.

Being surrounded by a group of people with a shared sexual orientation impacted me in a way I did not expect. Even though I live in North Carolina, I’m fortunate to have lived in communities where I never felt threatened or in danger because of my sexual orientation. That was not true for some of the leaders I spoke with at this conference. I left feeling a sense of responsibility and obligation to our broader movement. LGBT Representation matters—and not just in elected office. It’s important that we have leaders in business, religious institutions, and popular culture that reflect the full identity of our state. Over and over again, I heard from participants (particularly those who experienced the AIDS crisis) that seeing openly LGBT leaders in public discourse impacted them emotionally and improved their own individual self-worth.

I came back from LGBT Leaders personally renewed and excited about the work to be done in North Carolina. After conversations at the conference, I’m sure more than ever that we are capable of creating equality in our state. We need to support elected officials who stand for equality and vote against those who do not. We need to encourage community groups that are working to support queer youth and adults.

Finally, we need more openly gay LGBT elected-officials in our state. We are fortunate to have a small number, but we need more. Call it the “Will & Grace effect”—Seeing likeable gay characters on TV, knowing a friend or colleague who identifies as LGBT, or living in a city run by a lesbian mayor all change public opinion. It took a trip to California to re-energize me for the work we need to do here in North Carolina, and I can not wait for what comes next.

WWJD w/a TEC-9? The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer goes for the American Masculine Gun-Toting Jesus interpretation of the Bible this time. This twisted view of Christ’s teachings really brings it home that you can read just about anything in the Good Book, even though it clearly must require heavy mind-altering meds or lack of sanity to come to this particular interpretation. Raw Story:

“This whole concept of using a weapon for self-defense is rooted in the teaching of Christ. There was a time, the night he was betrayed, he told his disciples, ‘look, I’m going to be numbered with the transgressors, you’re identified with me so you’re going to numbered with the transgressors, you are going to be thought of as a criminal, there may be a time when you have to defend yourself with lethal force,” he said, referring to Luke 22.

“Jesus Christ said this to his own disciples, ‘my recommendation to you is if you don’t have a weapon of lethal force that you can use in self-defense, sell your cloak and go buy one,’” Fischer added. “Now, it wasn’t an offensive weapon. Jesus wasn’t telling them to get this weapon so you can go rip off the Nazareth 7-11 or so you can go to war in my name. This is for self-protection. So our Second Amendment is rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Fischer fails to note that later in The Gospel According to Luke, Jesus rebukes his disciple for using a sword during his arrest. In the version of the same story recounted by The Gospel According to Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”

Even having a Senate colleague, former Senator Bob Dole, war veteran, rolled into the chamber in a wheelchair, did nothing to stop this shameful vote against the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities treaty. (MaddowBlog):

The Senate killed the treaty this afternoon, with a final vote of 61 to 38, which seems like a lopsided majority, but which fell short of the two-thirds necessary for ratification. Eight Republicans broke ranks and joins Democrats in support of the treaty, but the clear majority of the Senate GOP voted to block it.

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, for those who’ve forgotten, is a human rights treaty negotiated by the George H.W. Bush administration, which has beenratified by 126 nations, including China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

But most Senate Republicans saw it as a threat to American “sovereignty,” even though the treaty wouldn’t have required the United States to change its laws.

This was supported not only by Dole, but John McCain and Dick Lugar. Instead the GOP sheeple fell in line with the bombastic claims of Rick Santorum, who went on the media warpath on paranoid Glenn Beck’s show where this bullsh*ttery was unleashed:

Rick Santorum, who has been leading the fight against ratification, appeared on Glenn Beck’s radio program when Beck ominously cited language from the convention proclaiming that “children with disabilities shall be registered immediately after birth” to suggest that something “really Orwellian or, quite honestly, fascistic from the Nazi days” was going on; an assessment with which Santorum heartily agreed.

The most amazing thing about this, and the subsequent discussion in which Beck and his co-hosts wildly speculated about what this and other provisions within the convention “really” mean, is the extent to which their complete ignorance about the actual meaning and intent of such provisions in no way hinders their willingness to boldly make declarations about them.

Article 18, Section 2 of the Convention the Rights of Persons with Disabilities says that “children with disabilities shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by their parents.”

While Beck and his cronies were busy laughing about the aburd assertion that children have a right to a name and to acquire a nationality, a bit of research would have taught them that such language is rooted in Article 24 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which entered into force in 1976…

As someone with disabilities, it’s hard to believe a fellow human being can think this way, but I guess nothing is surprising anymore.

UPDATE: The 38 Senators who helped shoot this down are also in bed with the likes of Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, who said, without any evidence or small details called “facts” to back his sh*t up, said the treaty could lead to the deaths of disabled children. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch:

Fischer: Disabled newborn babies in the UK are being put, oftentimes overriding the wishes of parents, on this death pathway where no matter what the parents want the doctors say this kid cannot live, severely disabled, too many congenital deformities, we think the best thing for this kid is just to be starved and dehydrated to death. It seems to me that although that’s not specifically contemplated in this treaty that could be an outcome.

Or how about homeschooling activist Michael Farris who, in an interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, said the treaty will prompt the UN to take control of kids with glasses or ADHD and remove them from their families.

Farris: They’re called living documents, just like the disgraced living Constitution theory, which means the treaty doesn’t mean today what it’s going to mean tomorrow what it’s going to mean ten years from now. So you never know what you’re signing up for, that by itself is a good enough reason to leave it alone and to never enter into one of these things. But in particular, you hit the nail on the head Tony, the definition of disability is not defined in the treaty. My kid wears glasses, now they’re disabled, now the UN gets control over them; my child’s got a mild case of ADHD, now you’re under control of the UN treaty. There’s no definitional standard, it can change over time, and the UN, not American policymakers, are the ones who get it decided.

The roll call: NAYs, 38: Alexander (R-TN), Blunt (R-MO), Boozman (R-AR), Burr (R-NC), Chambliss (R-GA), Coats (R-IN), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID), DeMint (R-SC), Enzi (R-WY), Graham (R-SC), Grassley (R-IA), Hatch (R-UT), Heller (R-NV), Hoeven (R-ND), Hutchison (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Johnson (R-WI), Kyl (R-AZ), Lee (R-UT), McConnell (R-KY), Moran (R-KS), Paul (R-KY), Portman (R-OH), Risch (R-ID), Roberts (R-KS), Rubio (R-FL), Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL), Thune (R-SD), Toomey (R-PA), Vitter (R-LA), Wicker (R-MS), Not Voting – 1
Kirk (R-IL).