The news today was celebratory, but the battle over Proposition 8 is far from over. From The New York Times:

Saying that it discriminates against gay men and women, a federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing supporters of such unions at least a temporary victory in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court.

Wednesday’s decision is just the latest chapter in what is expected to be a long battle over the ban — Proposition 8, which was passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote. Indeed, while striking down Proposition 8, the decision will not immediately lead to any new same-sex marriages being performed in California. Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, immediately stayed his own decision, pending appeals by proponents of Proposition 8, who seem confident that higher courts would be less accommodating than Judge Walker.

But on Wednesday the winds seemed to be at the back of those who feel that marriage is not, as the voters of California and many other states have said, solely the province of a man and a woman.

“Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause,” wrote Judge Walker. “Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.”

Continue reading …

Related:

* Judge Vaughn Walker’s 136-page ruling against Prop. 8. One of my favorite sections:

The evidence shows that the movement of marriage away from a gendered institution and toward an institution free from state-mandated gender roles reflects an evolution in the understanding of gender rather than a change in marriage. The evidence did not show any historical purpose for excluding same-sex couples from marriage, as states have never required spouses to have an ability or willingness to procreate in order to marry.

Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed.

* More on the judge’s “findings of fact” at ColorLines.

* Lots of links and good info at Pam’s House Blend (start with this open discussion).

* NYT editorial: “The decision [...] is a stirring and eloquently reasoned denunciation of all forms of irrational discrimination, the latest link in a chain of pathbreaking decisions that permitted interracial marriages and decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults.

“As the case heads toward appeals at the circuit level and probably the Supreme Court, Judge Walker’s opinion will provide a firm legal foundation that will be difficult for appellate judges to assail.”

* San Francisco Chronicle’s archive of the November 2008 California ballot measure and the state Supreme Court challenge to Prop. 8.

* Timeline of the 10-year battle over same-sex marriage in California.

* Finally, for your viewing pleasure, a look back at “Prop 8: The Musical” …

What are you reading on Prop 8?

We recently wrote about a proposed rule change that would protect patients’ rights to choose and designate their own visitors during a hospital stay. The change would make hospital visitation much easier for LGBTQ patients and their partners. At the time, we indicated that while public comment would be open for 60 days before the rule could be made official, the proposal hadn’t been posted yet for comment.

The proposed rule is now posted for public comment at Regulations.gov. Comments are being accepted until 11:59 pm Eastern time on August 27, 2010. Click on “Submit Comment” at the top of the page to weigh in on the proposed rule.

Once comments are submitted and uploaded, you’ll be able to view them here. (You won’t see any just yet, as none have been uploaded as of this writing.) You can also sign up for email alerts on this item and use the “Share” options to post to Twitter, Facebook, and other services.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this week announced a proposed rule change intended to make hospital visitation much easier for LGBTQ patients and their partners. The rule “would protect patients’ rights to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay, including visitors who are same-sex domestic partners.”

The proposed rule change follows up on an April 15 presidential memorandum requesting, in part, that critical access hospitals and hospitals participating in Medicaid or Medicare allow patients to designate visitors who would receive the same access as “immediate family members.” These participating hospitals “may not deny visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.”

As the memorandum explains:

[E]very day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides — whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay. Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend. Members of religious orders are sometimes unable to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions on their behalf. Also uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.

Marilyn Tavenner, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), called the rule “an important step forward in the rights of all Americans to expect equal rights and privileges from the health care system, regardless of their personal and familial situations.”

The proposed rule will be available for public comment for 60 days, after which CMS will review the comments before finalizing the rule. It does not seem to be posted for comment yet at Regulations.gov, but we’ll update this post with the link when it is.

According to this release [PDF] on May 28 from the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, the proposed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2011 includes provisions both to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and the prohibition on performing legal abortions in Department of Defense medical facilities.

The ACLU and Planned Parenthood have further commentary.

Make yourself comfortable. You’re not going to want to move for the next 15 minutes.

Rachel Maddow invited Richard Cohen, who claims he can “cure” homosexuals, on her show Tuesday night. Passages of his book “Coming Out Straight” — unscientific, debunked, ridiculously accusatory passages — are being used to justify proposed legislation in Uganda  that calls for executing gay men and women either living with HIV or who are “serial offenders” (whatever that means).

Anyone convicted of a homosexual act faces life in prison under the Uganda bill, and anyone who ”aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage of acts of homosexuality” faces seven years in prison.

Cohen insists that he is not a proponent of the legislation, but Maddow doesn’t let him off the hook:

“I realize I was taking the risk of helping promote you and the way that you think about these things by putting you on the air,” says Maddow, “but I do think that you’ve actually got blood on your hands.”

For more background on what’s going on in Uganda and the connection to influential right-wing members of Congress, read the transcript of this “Fresh Air” (NPR) interview with Jeff Sharlet,  author of “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

NOW’s Future: The 2009 National NOW Conference kicks off June 19 in Indianapolis. At issue is who will replace current NOW President Kim Gandy, who is stepping down after eight years: Latifa Lyles, a 33-year-old black woman who has been one of Gandy’s three vice presidents, or Terry O’Neill, 56, a white activist who was NOW’s vice president for membership from 2001 to 2005.

Feministing’s Jessica Valenti is quoted in this Associated Press story on the election and NOW’s generational divide.

Plus: I don’t think I’ve linked yet to Katha Pollitt’s excellent piece in The Nation on feminism’s false waves. It begins:

Can we please stop talking about feminism as if it is mothers and daughters fighting about clothes? Second wave: you’re going out in that? Third wave: just drink your herbal tea and leave me alone! Media commentators love to reduce everything about women to catfights about sex, so it’s not surprising that this belittling and historically inaccurate way of looking at the women’s movement — angry prudes versus drunken sluts — has recently taken on new life, including among feminists.

Losing Celebrity Weight Battles: When famous dieters like Kirstie Alley or Oprah Winfrey talk about being “disgusted” with their bodies, the comments have an effect beyond selling magazines.

“Kirstie looks the same as me, to the inch, height and weight,” Emily Schaibly Greene, 29, recently told The New York Times. “It took me a long time to get there, but I’m feeling good with how I look. But it’s difficult to keep liking the way I look when I’m reading that it’s gross.”

Lesley Kinzel, who writes for the blog Fatshionista, said, “When you have famous people turning their weight tribulations into mass-media extravaganzas, they’re contributing to a culture where passing comments on strangers’ bodies is considered O.K.”

Plus: Nia Vardalos, who rose to fame after starring in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” says her recent weight loss is all people want to talk about these days, pushing aside her personal and professional achievements. Her column is awesome.

And if you haven’t yet bought “Lessons From the Fat-O-Sphere,” go. Author Kate Harding – founder of Shapely Prose and contributor to Broadsheet — is still on the book tour this month and is looking forward to speaking at colleges in the fall. 

Summer Reading List: From Women’s eNews: From sensational memoirs to serious sociology, check out what women are writing about and the prizes they’ve been snapping up so far in 2009. Sarah Seltzer has the goods.

Women’s Health Clinic to Close: The University of Chicago Medical Center is closing its women’s health clinic, an essential community health resource, at the end of the month. Ironically, this is being done under the Medical Center’s Urban Health Initiative; U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush has called for a congressional investigation into whether the Medical Center has engaged in “patient dumping” by steering the poor to other health facilities.

“Medical center executives have said the steep downturn in the economy has forced them to trim $100 million from the hospital’s budget to maintain running a prestigious hospital, research center and medical school. They also have said the Women’s Health Center, which cares for thousands of Medicaid patients, is a money loser,” reported the Chicago Tribune last month, in a story on protests against the closing.

Plus: While looking up information about the closing, I came across a 2008 New York Times story on Michelle Obama, who at that time was on leave from her job as vice president of community affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Stories like this made me wonder what she could/would have done about the closing:

When the human papillomavirus vaccine, which can prevent cervical cancer, became available, researchers proposed approaching local school principals about enlisting black teenage girls as research subjects.

Obama stopped that. The prospect of white doctors performing a trial with black teenage girls summoned the specter of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment of the mid-20th century, when white doctors let hundreds of black men go untreated to study the disease.

Too Poor to Make the News: Over on The New York Times op-ed page, Barbara Ehrenreich has written the first in a series on how the recession affects people who don’t neatly fit the downwardly mobile narrative: the already poor.

“This demographic, the working poor, have already been living in an economic depression of their own,” writes Ehrenreich. “From their point of view ‘the economy,’ as a shared condition, is a fiction.” She continues:

The deprivations of the formerly affluent Nouveau Poor are real enough, but the situation of the already poor suggests that they do not necessarily presage a greener, more harmonious future with a flatter distribution of wealth. There are no data yet on the effects of the recession on measures of inequality, but historically the effect of downturns is to increase, not decrease, class polarization.

The recession of the ’80s transformed the working class into the working poor, as manufacturing jobs fled to the third world, forcing American workers into the low-paying service and retail sector. The current recession is knocking the working poor down another notch — from low-wage employment and inadequate housing toward erratic employment and no housing at all. Comfortable people have long imagined that American poverty is far more luxurious than the third world variety, but the difference is rapidly narrowing.

Health Care & the Arts: NPR interviews Anna Deveare Smith about her show “Let Me Down Easy,” which is based on interviews with doctors and patients (previously discussed here). Her newest role: artist in residence at the Center for American Progress, which Smith will use as a perch for studying changes in Washington. Smith also plays a doctor in the new Showtime series “Nurse Jackie.”

Speaking of “Nurse Jackie,” David Bauder of the Associated Press notes that the ethically challenged nurse at the head of the show (wonderfully played by Edie Falco) has appalled some nurses — but is that a bad thing for Showtime? Well, no.

Apologies from California: I meant to post this next one when it first came out, but I still think it’s amusing — San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford would like you to know California is really, really sorry about the whole Prop 8 thing.

Meanwhile, tony Greenwich, Conn., has become wedding central for same-sex New York couples who no longer have to drive as far as Massachussetts. California sure could have used money spent on wedding bliss.

Six states where same-sex couples can legally marry, that is.

Gov. John Lynch is expected to sign the legislation this evening. Assuming he does so, the law will take effect Jan. 1, 2010.

Lynch had threatened to veto any bill that did not include specific language stating churches and religious groups could not be forced to officiate at gay marriages. (Protections are in place already, but some folks like to see it spelled out.)

The Senate passed the measure this morning by a vote of 14-10. The House followed this afternoon, 198-176. The religious protections bill was an add-on to the same-sex marriage bill. Read more from the Union Leader and Boston Globe.

New Hampshire will join Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont and Iowa  as states that permit same-sex marriage.

For a look at where the rest of the states stand, check out NPR’s map showing how legal battles are playing out across the country.

California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage, by a vote of  6-1. Lawyers on both sides expected this decision. San Francisco Chronicle staffers are tweeting from outside the California Supreme Court building, where advocates on both sides of the issue have gathered.

As to the question of the legitimacy of the roughly 18,000 same-sex marriages performed before the passage of Proposition 8, those marriages will remain valid under state law.

In May 2008, the same court legalized same-sex marriage. The law took effect in June and remained valid up through Election Day, when voters approved Proposition 8 by a margin of 52-48.

“The author of last year’s 4-3 decision, Chief Justice Ronald George, said today that the voters were within their rights to approve a constitutional amendment redefining marriage to include only male-female couples,” writes Bob Egelko at the San Francisco Chronicle. “Justice Carlos Moreno, in a lone dissent, said a majority should not be allowed to deprive a minority of fundamental rights by passing an initiative.”

Meanwhile, the momentum to legalize same-sex marriage has taken root in other parts of the country, namely in the northeast. A court decision in Connecticut legalized same-sex marriage shortly before Election Day; Iowa, Maine and Vermont legalized same-sex marriage this year.

Prop 8 Decision Due Tuesday: The California Supreme Court will announce its decision on Proposition 8 on Tuesday, May 26. The court’s decision will be posted online at 10 a.m.: www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme

Check www.marriageequalityusa.org or www.equalityactionnow.org for info about where and how to organize a response.

“If we must reverse Prop. 8 at the ballot, we will do so,” Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and a lawyer for couples in the case. “We will win – if not on Tuesday, then one day soon.”

A post-decision event is scheduled for Saturday, May 30. Marriage equality supporters from across California will “Meet in the Middle for Equality” at Fresno City Hall to celebrate or protest the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Standing Up For Her Own: Vogue’s Anna Wintour does her best to fulfill every dreaded stereotype of how fashion magazine editors regard the rest the word.

Ruling Against Tobacco Companies: A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a 2006 court ruling that found cigarette companies deceived consumers for decades about the dangers of smoking (view the decision [pdf]). From the Washington Post:

In a 93-page opinion, a three-judge panel cleared the way for new restrictions on how cigarette companies market and sell their products. Under the decision, the manufacturers will no longer be allowed to label brands “light” or “low tar” and will have to purchase ads on television and in major newspapers that explain the health dangers and addictiveness of their products.

Tobacco companies indicated that they will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, a process that would probably put compliance with the ruling on hold for at least several months.

Vermont Shines Light on Payments to Doctors: The Vermont Legislature has passed the nation’s strictest law (pdf) concerning the relationship between the medical industry and doctors. Under the law, which will take effect July 1 (assuming the governor signs it, as expected), pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers would be required to disclose all money given to physicians and other health care providers. Natasha Singer of The New York Times writes:

The Vermont law promises to provide a window into the considerable efforts and spending by device and drug makers to woo doctors even in a small state.

Makers of medical products spent about $2.9 million in fiscal year 2008 on marketing to health care professionals in Vermont, according to a report last month from the state’s attorney general. Of Vermont’s 4,573 licensed health practitioners, almost half received remuneration, including payments for lectures, meals or lodging from pharmaceutical companies in the 2008 fiscal year, the report said.

“If the drug industry gives $3 million on average for three years now to physicians in a small state like Vermont, what is happening in California and New York?” said Ken Libertoff, director of the Vermont Association for Mental Health, an advocacy group that supported the law.

Plus: Richard A. Friedman, MD, a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, writes about the popularity of “sexy blockbuster drugs” that are newer, but not necessarily better, and the effect that drug company marketing has on both patients and physicians.

Midwife Shortage in Mexico: IPS reports on the shortage of professional midwives in Mexico and the training at the only officially accredited Mexican school of midwifery, run by the non-profit Centre for Adolescents of San Miguel de Allende (CASA). Since the school was founded in 1997, 38 professional midwives have graduated; currently, 32 women are being trained.

Violence Against Women – Yawn: “We are so used to violence against women we don’t even notice how used to it we are,” writes Katha Pollitt, in a column on the shooting death of Johanna Justin-Jinich, a Wesleyan University student.

“When we’re not persuading ourselves that women are just as violent toward men as vice versa if you forget about who ends up seriously injured or dead, or pointing out that most murders are of men by men, we persuade ourselves that violence against women just comes up out of nowhere. Murder is serious, especially if the victim is young, white, middle-class, pretty; harassment, abuse, domestic violence, even rape, not so much.” Do go and read the rest.

Student Activists: In her first column as The Plain Dealer’s philanthropy writer, Margaret Bernstein writes about a group of high school girls who are taking on relationship violence. “These girls may not sound like philanthropists, but I think they are. They’re grass-roots philanthropists, using their actions instead of money to spark change.”

Rape Escalates in Eastern Congo: Dominique Soguel reports for Women’s eNews on the worsening sexual violence in the Eastern Congo. “Last week,” she writes, “the Congolese army came under scrutiny from the United Nations and human rights groups for its role in raping, killing and looting sprees during military operations in the two eastern provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu.

“Human Rights Watch called on the army to hold accountable soldiers involved in the rape of 143 women and girls, more than half of the 250 rape cases the organization documented in North Kivu.”

Plus: Eve Ensler, writing about the war on women in the Congo, asks: “I was in Bosnia during the war in 1994 when it was discovered there were rape camps where white women were being raped. Within two years there was adequate intervention. Yet, in Congo, femicide has continued for 12 years. Why? [...]

“What is happening in Congo is the most brutal and rampant violence toward women in the world. If it continues to go unchecked, if there continues to be complete impunity, it sets a precedent, it expands the boundaries of what is permissible to do to women’s bodies in the name of exploitation and greed everywhere. It’s cheap warfare.”

You may have heard this weekend that books on Amazon.com had been labeled “adult” and de-ranked — and, not coincidentally, the books affected happened to deal with LGBTQ themes and feminist health and sexuality topics. Twitter hasn’t stopped buzzing.

Books without rankings as of Sunday night included Gore  Vidal’s “The City and the Pillar” and Jeanette Winterson’s “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,” as well as titles by our colleagues and friends: Jessica Valenti’s “Full Frontal Feminism”; “Yes Means Yes,” which Valenti co-edited with Jaclyn Friedman; and “S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College” by Heather Corrina, who writes about the Amazon debacle here.

Deanna Zandt wrote a piece for Women’s Media Center today explaining that this was probably not a homophobic, misogynist campaign dreamed up by Amazon. Rather:

It’s far more likely that a group of tech “enthusiasts,” let’s call them, organized some sort of campaign over a holiday weekend (when Amazon was likely operating with a shoestring staff) to delist books they found objectionable. When I say enthusiasts, I’m referring to loosely associated hacker-types who enjoy wreaking havoc purely for the sake of the havoc. Rarely do they have a formal political agenda. Often women, particularly feminists, and queer folk are the targets (though recently, one notorious group called 4chan targeted and found a teenager who had posted a video of himself torturing a cat).

Not that we should feel much better about it:

It would be easy to dismiss this, and other cases, as Internet-gone-wild making the world unsafe for women and LGBT folk. Somewhat harder to discern, and admit to ourselves, is that the anonymity and freedom that the Internet provides pulls back the curtain on our culture: at work are the illusive mores of misogyny and homophobia that continue to shape our culture and lives.

Wired has more.

Update: Jessica is hearing this was no glitch.

Update #2: Deanna posted a follow-up. And another.

Nine years after becoming the first state to offer civil unions, Vermont is now the fourth state to allow same-sex marriage.

Lawmakers voted this morning to override Gov. James Douglas’ veto of a bill allowing gays and lesbians to marry.

In doing so, Vermont became the first state to allow same-sex marriage through a legislative ruling instead of a court order. The law takes effect Sept. 1.

The vote was 23-5 to override in the state Senate and 100-49 to override in the House. The vote went down to the wire in the House: Two-thirds was needed for an override, and the outcome wasn’t clear until the final moments of the roll call.

“We are not done yet until every lawmaker who voted yes gets 1,000 thank you cards,” Beth Robinson (pictured above in the center), an attorney with the group Vermont Freedom to Marry, said at a rally after the vote. “We’re not done yet until every person who voted for this is reelected in 2010.”

Other states permitting same-sex marriage are Massachusetts, Connecticut and, as of last week, Iowa.

This New York Times story includes a look at the Northeast as the main battleground over gay marriage:

Massachusetts became the first state in the country to make same-sex marriage a reality in 2004 when its supreme court ruled that it was required under the state’s Constitution, which contains an equal-protection clause. Connecticut followed in April 2009.

Two other states in the region recognize civil unions — New Jersey and New Hampshire — and gay rights advocates have waged a campaign in hopes of making same-sex marriage legal in every state in New England by 2012. Before Tuesday, Vermont, like New Jersey and New Hampshire, had also allowed civil unions, a step that gay rights advocates say helps ease the transition to laws allowing same-sex marriage. Just last month, the House of Representatives in New Hampshire voted narrowly to approve a bill to legalize such marriages, which moves to the state Senate and could be considered there as early as this week.

But organizers in Maine and Rhode Island have opposed the civil-union approach, which they say makes same-sex couples appear unequal. Instead, they have sought to change the laws directly. In Rhode Island, for example, gay rights advocates plan to wait until 2011, when the Republican governor, Donald L. Carcieri, who opposes gay marriage, leaves office.

I was away last week, so no Political Diagnosis, but it’ll be back to business on Monday …

Court Strikes Down Iowa Law Banning Same-Sex Marriage: The unanimous state Supreme Court decision means same-sex couples will be allowed to marry in Iowa by the end of the month — and the doors will be open to couples from other states. The decision seems pretty solid for now. Unlike California, voters in Iowa cannot directly initiate constitutional amendments. Instead, an amendment would have to be taken up by the state Legislature, and Democrats, who control both chambers, show no interest in making it a priority.

Here’s the Supreme Court summary and the full decision (both pdf).

Mammogram Benefits Under Debate: “The conventional wisdom about breast cancer screening is coming under sharp attack in Britain, and health officials there are taking notice,” writes Roni Caryn Rabin in The New York Times. “They have promised to rewrite informational fliers about mammography after advocates and experts complained in a letter to The Times of London that none of the handouts ‘comes close to telling the truth’ — overstating the benefits of screening and leaving out critical information about the harms.”

Do People Who Support “Traditional Values” Value Pregnant Women?: Lynn Paltrow writes at Huffington Post –  “I have to thank Andrea Lafferty, of the Traditional Values Coalition for her response to a piece I wrote opposing Personhood USA’s efforts to give full constitutional rights to the unborn from the moment of fertilization. In her commentary she hopes to discredit my organization, National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) by exposing our commitment to all pregnant women, including those who love their children but are unable to overcome a drug problem in the short term of pregnancy …”

The Search for a Donor: Frances Kissling, the former president of Catholics for a Free Choice and a visiting scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, will soon need a kidney. This is her story about learning how to ask.

Birth Centers Advocacy Update: As we previously mentioned, American Association of Birth Centers was looking for 100 physicians to sign a letter in support of legislation to mandate the facility fee in Medicaid. There are 102 signatures so far and counting …

Women Pay Higher Price For Health Insurance: NPR reporter Sarah Varney writes about a past experience seeking health insurance (a completely frustrating process) and the higher insurance rates women pay in some states. The piece concludes with some important news for workers laid off after Sept. 1, 2008:

If you had employer-sponsored health insurance and qualified for COBRA coverage, under the new stimulus bill, the federal government will pay 65 percent of your premium for up to nine months.

And that even includes laid-off workers who initially turned down COBRA coverage because they thought it was too expensive. They now have a second chance to sign up.

Plus: Also from NPR — the hidden costs of cancer treatment, even with insurance. And The New York Times offers tips for people with pre-existing conditions, whether you’re currently covered or shopping for insurance.

Congress Approves Budget: The House and Senate approved budget blueprints on Thursday that include funding for expansion of health care coverage; now the hard work begins in conference committee.

America Going Quiet on HIV/AIDS: A new Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that the percentage of people in the United States who say that they have seen, heard or read a lot about HIV/AIDS in the United States has fallen from 34 percent five years ago to just 14 percent today. The percentage of African Americans reporting this has fallen from 62 percent to 33 percent.

Global Women & Health Salon: President Obama this year has signed executive orders eliminating the “Global Gag Rule” and restoring U.S. funding for the United Nations Population Fund. “Now that [these two goals] have been met what else should the Obama administration do to promote the health and welfare of women worldwide?” asks Mark Goldberg, in the kick-off post for the After the Gag Rule Salon sponsored by RH Reality Check and UN Dispatch.

Afghan Law Criticized: UN and Western aid agencies are urging Afghan President to repeal a law he signed last month that reverses freedoms won by Afghan women, reports BBC News. Human rights activists say the law legalizes rape within marriage, and women will need permission from their husbands to leave their homes.

Just in time for the third season of “Friday Night Lights,” BuzzSugar looks at the five most essential episodes, including the one where Landry tries to impress with a copy of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

*Swoon.*

I’ve already watched the third season on DirecTV, and it’s a triumphant return to the themes of season one (season two was overly melodramatic; it was a bad call, to use the appropriate sports metaphor).

The cast of “FNL” includes a number of young women with agency and the best working mother — school principal Tami Taylor (Connie Britton) — on TV.

I recommend adding it to your viewing schedule this year (NBC, Fridays at 9 p.m. EST; the first episode aired last night, Jan. 16). You can also view episodes online.

Plus: “The L Word,” a true guilty pleasure, begins its sixth and final season Sunday on Showtime. Ginia Bellafante has more.

Job Bias Bills Pass the House: The House on Friday passed two bills related to sex discrimination and workers’ pay. From The New York Times:

One, approved 247 to 171, would give workers more time to file lawsuits claiming job discrimination.

The bill would overturn a 2007 decision by the Supreme Court that enforced a strict 180-day deadline, thwarting a lawsuit by Lilly M. Ledbetter, a longtime supervisor at the Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Ala. Three Republicans voted for the bill.

The other bill — passed 256 to 163, with support from 10 Republicans — would make it easier for women to prove violations of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which generally requires equal pay for equal work.

President Bush threatened to veto both bills, saying they would “invite a surge of litigation” and “impose a tremendous burden on employers.”

The sentence that follows the Bush quote is the best: “Congress will not give him the opportunity.”

That’s because in less than two weeks there will be a new president in town who is enthusiastic about signing both bills.

Plus: Jill Miller Zimon has a good wrap-up and points to this NWLC page, from which you can contact your senator and urge support for these bills.

Health Issues at the Top of the List: Women’s eNews looks at the to-do list of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. In addition to reintroducing a bill to address heart disease in women, the Caucus intends to focus on human trafficking, sexual and domestic violence against women, women in the military and the backlog of DNA evidence in rape cases.

Lesbian Health Day & Summit: Jan. 5 was Blog for Lesbian Health Day. In response, Jane, a community health nurse and nurse practitioner student who blogs at Fallacy Findings, wrote an excellent post that includes discussion of “lesbian neglect” — which “refers to the fact that many lesbians fail to get Pap smears, do not get them regularly, and/or do not think they need to get them” — and lesbian health as a much-needed topic in nursing and medical schools.

The blogging event was organized as a lead-up to the National Lesbian Health Summit 2009 taking place March 6-8. Organized by the Lesbian Health & Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco, among other groups, the summit “approaches health issues from the perspective of those who face disparities and discrimination and who also generate health and resilience everyday. We will engage in deep thinking and extended discussion to create new responses and innovative programming that reflect our lives.”

Should a TV Doctor be Surgeon General?: Well looks at what health and science blog are saying in response to the news that Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN’s chief medical correspondent, is Obama’s pic for U.S. surgeon general. Rachel weighs in with some concerns. Here are more links from Shakesville.

The Easy-Bake Oven in My Vagina: Over at Womanist Musings, a reflection on motherhood, race and class includes this gem:

How many of you have run across the vagina equals Betty Crocker syndrome? If you have not, then you probably soon will.  The education system seems to think that this is still 1950 and that mothers are at home with tons of time on their hands to participate in bake sales.  This request is never gender neutral, even though Daddy has two perfectly good hands himself.  Why is this still the norm when most women work a double day?  Even if a woman is a stay at home mother how does a vagina translate into the ability to bake? Do I have an easy bake oven stashed somewhere in my vaginal opening that I was not aware of?

Pull Up a Chair: On my to-do list was to write about the blog The Kitchen Table, a dialog between Princeton University professors Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Yolanda Pierce. Miriam beat me to it and sums up why it’s an essential read.

In this post, Harris-Lacewell discusses violence against gays and lesbians, in the context of the movie “Milk” and the brutal gang rape of a woman who may have been targeted because she is openly lesbian. She writes:

As much as I appreciated Milk, the story has the unfortunate effect of reinscribing an image of gay identity as primarily white, male, urban, and childless. The American imagination of “gay people” as childless, white, men living in cities can render invisible lesbian mothers of color like the woman attacked in Richmond. [...]

Harvey Milk understood that “straight folks” needed to feel our interconnections with gay men and lesbians. We have to know that our destinies our intertwined. We cannot be a great and free country while we sanction violence against and degradation of our neighbors. I consider it a sacred and politically necessary task to speak out for the rights and equalities of others, because they are not truly other. We are all one.

Information on sending contributions or cards of sympathy and solidarity is also provided. Four suspects in the case were arrested last week.

Eye-Rolling Quote of the Week: Ann Coulter refers to single motherhood as “a recipe to create criminals, strippers, rapists, murderers.” Remind me again why she is considered a suitable interviewee?

The Deeper Truth: A new study that looked at the five most popular women’s magazines in Canada found that articles commonly portray cosmetic surgery as an empowering option that improves women’s emotional health, even though there’s no scientific consensus that it does anything of the sort. Here’s Reuters’ take, and the abstract:

Content analyses show the articles tend to present readers with detailed physical health risk information. However, 48% of articles discuss the impact that cosmetic surgery has on emotional health, most often linking cosmetic surgery with enhanced emotional well-being regardless of the patient’s pre-existing state of emotional health. The articles also tend to use accounts given by males to provide defining standards of female attractiveness.

Inside the Medicine Cabinet: Chicago Tribune health writer Julie Deardorff lists essential items to keep in your medicine cabinet (courtesy of the American College of Emergency Physicians) and chemicals found in personal care products that you might want to consider keeping out.

Look Your Best in the New Year: Writing in The New Yorker, Amy Ozol reveals her secrets to “a trim and attractive physique” in just nine easy steps. She spent years perfecting this system, as you can tell. A sampling:

Step 5: Surround yourself with thin people. This will naturally encourage you to emulate their healthy habits. Weigh your friends on a regular basis, then weigh yourself. Do you have a friend who weighs less than you? If so, consider gastric bypass surgery.

Well, it Wasn’t All Bad: “Although the number of uninsured and the cost of coverage have ballooned under his watch, President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics in medically underserved areas,” reports The New York Times. Kevin Sack writes:

For those in poor urban neighborhoods and isolated rural areas, including Indian reservations, the clinics are often the only dependable providers of basic services like prenatal care, childhood immunizations, asthma treatments, cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.

As a crucial component of the health safety net, they are lauded as a cost-effective alternative to hospital emergency rooms, where the uninsured and underinsured often seek care.

Despite the clinics’ unprecedented growth, wide swaths of the country remain without access to affordable primary care. The recession has only magnified the need as hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their employer-sponsored health insurance along with their jobs.

In response, Democrats on Capitol Hill are proposing even more significant increases, making the centers a likely feature of any health care deal struck by Congress and the Obama administration.

(Another) Survey Says: Abstinence Pledges Ineffective: “The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a ‘virginity pledge,’ but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers,” reports the Washington Post.

“Taking a pledge doesn’t seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior,” Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics, told WaPo. “But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking.”

Abortion Battle Brewing in South Carolina: “Abortion foes in the Legislature have sown the seeds of what could develop into another battle over regulating abortion in South Carolina,” reports The State. “Seven S.C. House lawmakers have prefiled a bill that would require women seeking abortions to be given a list of clinics and other facilities that provide free ultrasounds. That list could include pregnancy crisis centers — many run by antiabortion groups — that actively discourage abortion and encourage women to choose other alternatives.”

Genetic Testing and Ambiguity: “‘Information is power,’ has become a common mantra. But for many people seeking answers through genetic testing, all the DNA probing ends in this twist: Less certainty, not more,” begins this NPR report. The story focuses on Nashville novelist Susan Gregg Gilmore, who sought testing for mutations in the genes BRCA 1 and BRCA 2, which are associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers.

Cut Costs, Not Care: The L.A. Times has published the first installment of an ongoing feature on reducing health care costs. Part one covers drugs, doctor visits, surgery, flexible spending accounts, preventive care and insurance. Scroll down for links to online resources.

The Year in Medicine A-Z: Time magazine offers its annual alphabetical roundup of health stories and breakthroughs that made the news. (Ed. note – reading through it all requires clicking through 37 pages. “Single page” feature, anyone?)

Don’t Blink: Via Feminist Peace Network: “As we come to the final stretch of 2008, plagued as we are with the usual collection of horrors–Gaza burning, Tennessee buried in toxic ash, women and children being raped and killed in the Congo, and on and on, I’m sure y’all were just as relieved as I was to know that the FDA is considering approval of a glaucoma drug for eyelash enhancement, an idiocy I would have previously thought would be confined to the cable shopping networks.”

Missing on TV: GLBTQ Women: “Though 2008 comes to a close with word of possible new queer female characters on the horizon in the coming year, the prospects for lesbians and bisexual women on television over the last twelve months have been somewhat grim,” writes Karman Kregloe at AfterEllen.com. “This has been particularly true for lesbians, whose numbers on scripted network television have now dwindled to zero.”

Deep Thoughts for the New Year: “As the country plunges into recession, will financial hardship demote the pursuit of physical perfection?” asks The New York Times. A classic response:

“There comes a point when you are putting too much time and money into your vanity,” said Peri Basel, a practice consultant in Chappaqua, N.Y., who advises cosmetic doctors on marketing strategies. “For me, the vanity issue is: Where does it stop? If you are going for buttock implants, do you really need that?”