Weekly Political Roundup

• The Gay and Lesbian Leadership Institute has partnered with the National Conference of Black Political Scientists to increase the numbers of gay black political leaders. The groups have created the Bayard Rustin Award, named for the openly gay, African American civil rights leader who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, to honor “outstanding contributions to the field of research on the topic of LGBT African Americans in electoral politics.” NCOBPS will present the first award at its annual conference in 2009.
• Ellen speaks up about the murder of California student Lawrence King. That’s the most political I’ve ever seen her be on her show. Bravo, Ellen.
• For the second time in a week, an LGBT resident of Fort Lauderdale, Florida has been the victim of an apparent hate crime.
• Illinois State Senator David Koehler introduced legislation that would allow same- and opposite-sex couples to form civil unions in Illinois, with the same legal rights as married couples. The law would also recognize civil unions from other states.
• More than a dozen Maryland state lawmakers testified in favor of legalizing marriage for same-sex couples in Maryland. Covering all bases, the House Judiciary Committee also heard bills that would establish civil unions or domestic partnerships and one to put a constitutional amendment banning marriage of same-sex couples on the November ballot.
• The two couples in Lexington, Massachusetts, who have been claiming that the reading of gay-themed children’s book King & King at their children’s elementary school was a violation of their civil rights, are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case, after a U.S. Circuit Court rejected their appeal.
• The Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary will hear a transgender-rights bill on March 4. The bill would add “gender identity and expression” to the state hate crimes and non-discrimination laws, and expand trans inclusion in other state committees. Supporters expect opponents to muster the tired old arguments about who gets to use which bathroom.
• Officials in Monroe County, New York are appealing a recent decision by an appellate court that the state must recognize marriages of same-sex couples from other jurisdictions.
• On the flip side of marriage, a New York judge has allowed a lesbian couple who married in Canada to sue for divorce, in the first case of its kind in the state. Rhode Island, in a similar case, has refused to grant a divorce to a lesbian couple married in Massachusetts.
• For the third time in as many weeks, a gender-variant teen was shot to death. Adolphus Simmons was found shot outside his apartment in North Charleston, South Carolina. The police say there is as yet no evidence this was a hate crime.
• A Utah bill to allow same-sex couples to adopt is stuck in the House Rules Committee, and may not be sent to a standing committee for a hearing during this session.
• A bill to block Salt Lake City’s new Domestic Partner ordinance looks dead in committee, but Senator Greg Bell (R) says he will introduce legislation to prevent municipalities from using the term “domestic partnerships,” although they could recognize unmarried couples as financial co-dependents.
• The Washington Times joins modern journalism with a note to its writers stating “Gay is approved for copy and preferred over homosexual, except in clinical references or references to sexual activity. . . . The quotation marks will come off gay marriage (preferred over homosexual marriage).”

Around the world:

• Statistics Canada says gays, lesbians and bisexuals are more likely to be the victims of violent crime than heterosexual members of the general population.
• The scheduled extradition of Mehdi Kazemi, a 19-year-old gay Iranian student, from the Netherlands to the U.K., has been put off pending a Dutch court hearing on March 3. Kazemi fled the U.K. after fears that he would be deported to Iran, where he could face death for being gay.
• In the first case of a teacher taking his school to tribunal under the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, a gay teacher in the U.K. received an apology from the school’s governing body after numerous homophobic remarks from the school Headteacher and others.