Maine Anti-Equality Leader Gets Death Threat, Health Care Bill Helps Gays

Hey Autostraddlers! As you may know, Riese and Alex and Brooke and Jess are on a boat this week. Unfortunately, there is a giant storm in the Gulf of Mexico. That means a couple things, 1) there are a lot of seasick lesbians on the cruise and 2) the internet keeps cutting out, so all the jokes about abandoning the site to the Interns have actually come true! We’re totally taking over.

Sorry the Daily Fix is a bit late today, obvs we’re working out some technical issues. Hopefully there will be a more normal schedule tomorrow. For now, this is a combo fix, with both news and entertainment stories. It’s two for the price of one! Enjoy, we love you all!MAINE THREATS: A gay man has threatened Michael Heath, the former leader of the Christian Civic League of Maine and the Maine Family Policy Council, two groups that have fought against gay rights in Maine. Police are investigating the identity of the man who left a voicemail saying: “I can tell him this. I’m a gay guy who owns guns, and he’s my next target.” (@bostonherald)

Wow. Ok, I think we’re all upset about what happened in Maine. But it should be obvious to everyone that this is the wrong way to express those feelings, right? We’re on the side of LOVE, people. Threatening physical harm is not going to change a single thing. In fact, it’s just going to make it harder for the rest of us to make progress. The right tactic is to embrace other people, no matter what their political beliefs. That’s what we’re fighting for, in the end. Acceptance. And we can’t get that if we spout hate back at our opponents.

GAY BENEFITS: Hey look! Good news! The health care bill passed by the House this weekend has some victories for the LGBT community. The bill will give the same tax breaks for employer-provided domestic partner benefits that married couples currently receive. That could save some gay couples an average of $1,100 per year. The bill has a bunch of other good provisions for the gays, including defining the community as a “health disparities population.” That basically recognizes that gay people as a group have some unique medical concerns as well as some specific challenges in accessing health care. Under this bill, it should be easier to get programs and funding to address gay-specific health issues. (@change.org)

ELLEN: Ellen is the second woman other than Oprah to make it on the cover of O magazine. (Michelle Obama was the first.) Ellen launched a big campaign to get on the cover, and she even dressed up as O magazine for Halloween. (@oprah)

NEW JERSEY: The gay marriage fight is moving to New Jersey, folks. Gay rights advocates are pushing the legislature to pass a law recognizing gay marriage before Governor Jon Corzine’s term expires in January. (@wsj)

BISHOP: Eva Brunne became the world’s first lesbian bishop yesterday in Sweden. The country’s Lutheran Church recently approved same-sex marriage. We can now add equality to the list of things Sweden does well. Previous items include meatballs, ABBA, IKEA, and all-caps.(@metro)

GLAMBERT: The LA Times profiled Adam Lambert this weekend and used terms like peacock, street tough, space oddity, and freaky adventurer in the boudoir of the damned to describe some shots of him from a recent photo shoot. Ah yes, that sounds like the Adam we know and love. Clearly, he is not shying away from the terrible/AWESOME theme of his album cover! Too bad we didn’t get to see any of those photos yet, though. (@latimes)