The good news is that the legislature passed, and the governor signed into law every major piece of legislation GLBT advocates sponsored during the legislative session (save one, of course, the bill to allow same-sex marriage).

Despite pressure from the right wing, the governor signed SB 777, known as the “Student Civil Rights Act.” The law clarifies existing law saying that schools may not discriminate against students based upon sexual orientation or gender identity. It also includes a proviso that schools cannot “promote a discriminatory bias” based upon those grounds. As we do for race, gender and religion, this law simply prohibits school staff from making derogatory comments about individuals because of their sexual orientation.

As reported here, right-wing groups have misrepresented the law in order to mislead their flocks into donating money. They are also trying to collect signatures to put the law on the ballot. They have also filed suit in federal court, arguing that the law interferes with parents’ rights.

The governor also signed into law the “Safe Place to Learn Act,” AB394, which requires the state education department to implement and monitor training programs for school personnel on how to spot and deal with hate-related conduct on school grounds.

In addition to these measures, he also signed the “Juvenile Justice Safety and Protection Act,” which helps to protect GLBT juveniles in the criminal justice system; the Civil Rights Act of 2007; the Fair and Equal Taxation for Surviving Partners Act; the “Name Equality Act,” and the “Domestic Partners Joint Income Tax Filing Implementation Act.” (To learn more about these measures, visit Equality California’s Web site at www.eqca.org.)

In terms of court decisions this past year, a clear majority of the Supreme Court indicated that school districts may not suppress student speech and student groups that promote GLBT tolerance. Religious groups wanted the Court to find that schools can prohibit speech that deviates from the school district’s “educational mission,” which, according to them, is to promote abstinence and heterosexual marriage to the exclusion of all else.

More germane to GLBT issues, the Court rejected a number of appeals by religious groups who had lost in lower courts. The cases typically involved challenges to civil rights laws designed to protect GLBT employees from harassment. The religious right wanted these cases heard by the Supreme Court and reversed so that GLBT employees could be harassed in the workplace under the guise of accommodating fellow employees’ right to engage in religious intolerance of homosexuality.

The bad news is that, on the federal level, the Democratically-controlled Congress is getting blamed for not being able to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (to add sexual orientation) to the list of prohibited employment practices contained in employment non-discrimination laws. Not only has Congress not been able to muster the votes in the House and Senate for the law, Democrats removed from the bill protection for “gender identity.”

Even more bizarre, Congress couldn’t even get “sexual orientation” added to the federal hate crimes statute, even though there have been so many high profile anti-gay hate crimes.

What’s happening is that Democrats in unsafe congressional districts (and Democratic Senators in red states) aren’t going to support a bill they know the president is going to veto if there’s not enough support to override the veto. The presumption is that a Democrat will occupy the White House soon, and both these laws will pass and get signed into law without much fanfare.

Our concern is that we don’t want to hear the same story in January of 2009, as Democrats worry they could lose control of the House or Senate in the 2010 elections if they seem too pro-gay.

By far the ugliest event this year was word from the White House that the president would veto any bill that contained language extending federal hate crime laws to cover “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” The president’s spokespeople said there’s no evidence that the law is “needed.”

It’s obvious that the president made a pact years ago with Pat Robertson and other right-wing leaders not to do anything to advance GLBT equality. But this law hardly advances GLBT equality. It’s a simple act of humanity. It’s shocking that there could be any opposition to a law prohibiting people from beating, maiming and killing people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.