Weekly Political Roundup

• Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) blocked the nomination of President Bush’s nominee Janet Neff to the federal courts. Brownback, who chaired her hearing, said he would only permit a vote if Neff agreed not to hear cases involving same-sex marriage, claiming that her attendance at the commitment ceremony of a neighbor and friend of 26 years would bias her.
• VoteOnMarriage.org, a group opposing gay marriage, filed a $5 million federal lawsuit against 109 Massachusetts legislators, claiming they violated the U. S. Constitution by postponing a decision on whether to put a same-sex marriage ban on the 2008 ballot.
• Both houses of the New Jersey Assembly approved civil unions for same-sex couples, with all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Governor Jon Corzine has said he will sign it. Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, which has been pushing to use the term “marriage,” said “So help me God, we’re going to win marriage equality in New Jersey in one to two years.” At the same time, he advises couples to go ahead and have civil unions, saying “It is not legally wise not to avail yourself of all protection under the law.”
• If New Jersey legalized marriage, not just civil unions, “sales by New Jersey’s wedding and tourism-related businesses would rise by $102.5 million in each of the first three years when marriage for same-sex couples is legal. As a result, the State’s gross receipt tax revenues would rise by $7.2 million per year,” according to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA (PDF link).
• The New Jersey Assembly also approved a bill outlawing discrimination based on gender identity or expression, making New Jersey the eighth state to do so.
• President Bush thinks Mary Cheney “is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I’m happy for her.” Maybe I’m oversensitive here, but doesn’t one typically acknowledge both parents, e.g., “A and B will be loving souls to their child,” upon hearing the news that a couple is expecting?

Around the world:

• The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) granted consultative status to three LGBT NGOs: ILGA-Europe, the European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association, the Danish and German national lesbian and gay association, LBL and LSVD. Consultative status allows NGOs to enter and participate in the U. N. and speak in their own names. Only two other LGBT organizations had this right before: the Coalition of Activist Lesbians (Australia) and International Wages Due Lesbian (U. S.)
• The British government has announced fertility law reforms making both partners legal parents when lesbian couples conceive with donated sperm, or gay men use surrogacy. (Compare these recent custody cases involving non-bio moms in the U. S.) The reforms also remove older references to “the need for a father,” thus guaranteeing that lesbians and single women can get IVF and donor insemination services. Public Health Minister Caroline Flint notes, however, “Access to NHS fertility services is based on clinical need. If there is a clinical need for fertility treatment, then the provision of NHS treatment should be considered regardless of the patient’s sexual orientation.” The question remains open, then, as to whether being in a lesbian relationship counts as a “clinical need” for fertility treatment if the woman is otherwise healthy and fertile. (My answer is yes, of course, but I can imagine some will quibble.)
• Ireland’s High Court has denied a lesbian couple’s appeal to recognize their Canadian marriage in Ireland.