Research Report: National LGBT Equality and Support 2012

M. V. Lee Badgett is research director of the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA. She is also the director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as well as a professor of economics. She studies family policy issues and labor market discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, and gender. Her latest book, When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage (NYU Press, 2009), focuses on the U.S. and European experiences with marriage equality for gay couples. She co-edited of the recent book, Sexual Orientation Discrimination: An International Perspective (Routledge, 2007). Her first book, Money, Myths, and Change: The Economic Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men (University of Chicago Press, 2001), presented her groundbreaking work debunking the myth of gay affluence. She is also the author or co-author of numerous journal articles and policy reports. Prof. Badgett’s policy-related work includes testifying as an expert witness in legislative matters and litigation, analyzing public policies, consulting with regulatory bodies, briefing policymakers, writing op-ed pieces, speaking with journalists, and advising businesses. In 2010 she was an expert witness in the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial on the constitutionality of Proposition 8. She is quoted regularly in newspapers across the country, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post. She has appeared on television in the United States and England and on many radio shows in the United States and Europe, including NPR’s “On Point,” “Talk of the Nation,” and “Odyssey: A Daily Talk Show of Ideas,” along with CNN American Morning. In 2008, Curve Magazine named Badgett one of the twenty most powerful lesbians in academia. The Advocate magazine named her one of “Our Best and Brightest Activists” in 1999 for her research and for her efforts to found the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies (now merged with the Williams Institute). She was named one of the “Out 100” by Out Magazine in 2001 for her first book. Badgett received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California-Berkeley in 1990, and has a BA in economics from the University of Chicago (1982). She has also taught at Yale University and the University of Maryland.

Hilary is from Seattle, Washington, but has lived and studied throughout the United States, Central America, the Middle East and Europe. In the Middle East, she studied the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and worked with the Women’s Center for Legal Aide and Counseling in Ramallah, Palestine. She also lived in Spain where she attended the European Peace University to study International Peace and Conflict Studies. In the United States, Hilary has organized against white nationalism in the Northwest; and for women’s reproductive rights. In 2007, Hilary graduated with an MA in Liberal Studies. Her graduate research relied on queer theory, feminist theory and critical race studies. In her current position as Research Project Manager, Hilary is working with students, parents, teachers, and administrators to learn more about LGBTQ curriculum inclusion in California high schools. Hilary currently lives in San Francisco with her rescued pit-bull, Betty-Lou.

Naomi leads MAP’s LGBT movement research analyses. Naomi also conducts research in support of MAP’s public policy work. Prior to joining MAP, Naomi was the 2008-2010 Peter J. Cooper Public Policy Fellow at the Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, where her research focused on adoption and foster care, domestic partner benefits, and the issues affecting older LGBT Americans. Naomi received a Master of Public Policy from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and graduated magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College. Her work has been published in the Journal of Health Psychology, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Journal of Family Theory & Review, PolicyMatters, Michigan Journal of Public Affairs, and TaxNotes.

Robert-Jay Green, PhD is the Founder and Executive Director of the Rockway Institute. He also is Distinguished Professor in the Clinical Psychology PhD Program, California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University—the nation's largest nonprofit training institution for doctoral-level clinical psychologists. <p>Among his over 70 publications are two co-edited books: R.-J. Green & J. L. Framo (Eds.), Family Therapy: Major Contributions (New York: International Universities Press, 1981); and J. Laird & R.-J. Green (Eds.), Lesbians and Gays in Couples and Families (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 1996). His main areas of research over the last 30 years have included gay and lesbian couples and families; male gender role socialization; the measurement of couple and family relationship processes; multicultural issues in family functioning; the impact of family relations on children's academic achievement; and couple and family therapy. <p>Dr. Green previously served as Executive Director and President of the board of the nonprofit Alternative Family Institute in San Francisco (the nation's first counseling center exclusively devoted to LGBT couple and family issues) and as Founder and Co-Director of Redwood Center Psychology Associates in Berkeley (one of the San Francisco Bay Area's leading couple and family therapy training centers). <p>In 1998, Dr. Green received the award for Significant Contributions to the Study of Family Diversity from the Division of Family Psychology, American Psychological Association. He also received the 2001 award for Distinguished Contributions to Family Systems Research from the American Family Therapy Academy. Most recently, in 2007, he received the award for "Distinguished Professional Contribution" from the Society for the Psychological Study of LGBT Issues -- Division 44 of the American Psychological Association. <p>Dr. Green has served on the editorial advisory boards of Journal of Family Psychology, Journal of Marital & Family Therapy, Family Process, Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, Cultural Diversity and Mental Health, Journal of GLBT Family Studies, and American Journal of Family Therapy. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. He previously served four elected terms on the Board of Directors of the American Family Therapy Academy and served a term as Vice-President of the American Psychological Association's Division of Family Psychology

Juana María Rodríguez is Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Pedagogy in the Gender and Women's Studies Department at UC Berkeley, where she also directs the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality (DEWGS), and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies Minor. She is the author of Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces (NYU 2003) and has published numerous articles related to her research interests in sexuality studies, queer activism in a transnational context, critical race theory, technology and media arts, and Latin@ and Caribbean studies. Her second book, currently under contract with New York University Press, is entitled Queer Gestures, Sexual Futures and Other Latina Longings and considers contemporary racialized sexual politics through the interlocking lenses of performance studies and law.

Timothy Patrick McCarthy, is Lecturer on History and Literature and on Public Policy at Harvard University, where he directs the Sexuality, Gender, and Human Rights Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also Vice President of College Alumni Affairs for the Harvard Alumni Association. A historian of politics and social movements, McCarthy graduated with honors in History and Literature from Harvard College, and earned his MA, MPhil, and PhD in History from Columbia University, where he completed his dissertation under the direction of Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Eric Foner and the late Manning Marable. From 1994-1998, he was a research fellow at Columbia’s Institute for Research in African-American Studies, where he was founding managing editor of the journal Race & Reason (now Souls). McCarthy has published four books—The Radical Reader: A Documentary History of the American Radical Tradition (New Press, 2003); Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism (New Press, 2006); Protest Nation: Words That Inspired a Century of American Radicalism (New Press, 2010); The Indispensable Zinn: The Essential Writings of the People’s Historian (New Press, 2012)—and his fifth book, Stonewall’s Children: A Modern Story of Liberation, Loss, and Love, will be published next spring by the New Press. He is also lead editor for the forthcoming three-volume series, Resistance in Words: The Global Literature of Protest (Gale, 2014). A frequent media commentator, McCarthy has appeared on NPR, BBC, Air America, Bloomberg Radio, Radio Free Europe, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now!, and Big Think, and has written for The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Boston Globe, History News Network, Gay and Lesbian Review, In These Times, and The Nation. The only son and grandson of public school teachers and factory workers, McCarthy is an award-winning teacher and advisor whose courses—“American Protest Literature from Tom Paine to Tupac,” “Stories of Slavery and Freedom,” and “Arts of Communication”—are consistently among the most popular and highly rated at Harvard. He is the recipient of Harvard’s Stephen Botein Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2000), John R. Marquand Award for Exceptional Advising and Counseling (2003), Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize for Outstanding Thesis Advising (2002, 2009), Derek Bok Certificate for Teaching Excellence (2006-2012), and the Dean’s Award for Distinction in Teaching at the Harvard Kennedy School (2009-2012). In addition to his writing and teaching, McCarthy has devoted his life to public service and social justice, particularly around issues of racial, sexual, and socioeconomic justice, educational equity, peace, and human rights. Since 1990, he has been a Big Brother to Malcolm Green, now 26, whom he met while volunteering in the Cambridge public schools as an undergraduate. As founding director of Harvard’s Alternative Spring Break Church Rebuilding Program, he has spent the last fifteen years organizing groups of undergraduates to help rebuild African-American churches that have been destroyed in arson attacks. In honor of this work, McCarthy received the 2007 Humble Servant Award from the National Coalition for Burned Churches, and the 2010 Advocate Award from the Phillips Brooks House Association. Since 2001, McCarthy has also directed and taught in the Boston Clemente Course, a multi-disciplinary college humanities course offered free of charge to low-income adults through the Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester, Massachusetts. A respected leader in the LGBTQ community, McCarthy was a founding member of Barack Obama’s National LGBT Leadership Council, has given expert testimony to the Pentagon Comprehensive Working Group on the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” serves on the boards of the Harvey Milk Foundation and the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus, and is lead research investigator and founding board member for Face Value, a new organization dedicated to eradicating social and cultural stigma against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. Since 2010, he and his Face Value colleagues have received $1.1 million from the Ford Foundation to support their research and advocacy. In January 2012, McCarthy was part of the first-ever LGBTQ delegation from the United States to Israel and Palestine. He is also the Acting Board Chair for Free the Slaves, a leading international anti-slavery NGO based in Washington, DC. McCarthy lives in Cambridge, MA, with his husband C.J. Crowder, a noted education reformer who directs leadership and diversity initiatives for Achievement First. They are Resident Affiliates of Quincy House.