Change has come to America indeed -- and to the U.S. president's official website, WhiteHouse.gov.
At the moment Barack Obama took to the podium and became the 44th president, presumably the White House's IT department flipped the switch on their new website -- a new, fresh look for a new, fresh president.
Obama's page features a microsite on civil rights where gay and transgender issues are prominent. The microsite kicks off with a quote from a speech Obama gave at Howard University in September 2007:
"The teenagers and college students who left their homes to march in the streets of Birmingham and Montgomery; the mothers who walked instead of taking the bus after a long day of doing somebody else's laundry and cleaning somebody else's kitchen -- they didn't brave fire hoses and Billy clubs so that their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren would still wonder at the beginning of the 21st century whether their vote would be counted; whether their civil rights would be protected by their government; whether justice would be equal and opportunity would be theirs. ... We have more work to do."
Regarding LGBT rights, Obama -- along with Vice President Joseph Biden -- promises to expand hate-crimes statutes, fight workplace discrimination, support full civil unions and federal rights for gay couples, oppose a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, repeal "don't ask, don't tell," expand adoption rights for gay people, and promote AIDS prevention. Check out the microsite here.
