Weekly Political Roundup

• A new poll shows that nearly two-thirds of American adults believe it is unfair that federal law allows an employer to fire someone because they are gay or lesbian. Sixty percent of non-LGBT adults were not aware that federal law allows this. Nearly 80 percent of non-LGBT people also feel an employee should be judged by job performance, not sexual orientation, and two thirds felt the same about gender identity.
• The Bishops and Elders Council, a network of LGBT-affirming churches and organizations reaching 98 million Americans, has called on Congress and the president to enact the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).
• In Fresno, California, a three-judge panel overturned the conviction of a man accused of soliciting sex from a sheriff’s deputy in a public restroom. The judges did not address the defense’s claim of discrimination, however, but rather said prosecutors did not prove someone was likely to be present who would have been offended by the act, thus making it a crime.
• LGBT politicians are thriving in Georgia: Two openly gay local officials won additional terms in office after running unopposed; the state’s first transgender elected official is preparing for her first re-election challenge in November; and the vice president of the state Log Cabin Republicans announced he will make a second bid for the Doraville City Council, after losing in 2005.
• A nonprofit group in Iowa is calling for the impeachment of the judge whose ruling briefly allowed same-sex couples to marry in the state. The Associated Press notes, however, that “Impeaching a judge takes an act of the Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats.”
• A Boston, Massachusetts man has dropped the lawsuit in which he claimed that he failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer a question related to marriage of same-sex couples.
• A Minnesota court granted Idaho Senator Larry Craig a hearing on whether he can take back the guilty plea he made after the infamous bathroom sex sting.
• The New York Supreme Court has upheld a 2004 decision by the state comptroller to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples wed in Canada, at least for the purpose of benefits from the New York State Retirement System. The state will also recognize marriages of same-sex couples from others jurisdictions where they are legal.
• Joan Procito, who left her job in Pennsylvania to move to Florida with her partner, is seeking unemployment compensation from her former state, a benefit given to opposite-sex spouses. The couple moved to Florida because the partner’s partially disabled son, with whom Procito has a step-parent relationship, was about to begin college there.

Around the world:

• A High Court in Britain has allowed one exception to the country’s new laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Providers of goods, services and education can no longer be prosecuted for stating their opposition to giving them to a same-sex couple. They can still be fined up to £15,000 for actually refusing to do so.
• The Iceland Review published a fascinating article on the changing shape of families in that country, where both same- and opposite-sex couples are moving towards state-recognized “consensual unions” rather than marriage, and the isolated nation is trying to come to grips with the idea of international adoptions.
• An Iranian lesbian detained in Britain has been freed and will be allowed to remain in the U.K., rather than being deported to her native country, where she could have faced death for her sexual orientation.
• The High Court in Dublin, Ireland has delayed judgment in a case involving a transgender person’s right to a new birth certificate. The new ruling is expected in late October.
• The Lithuanian parliament will begin debate this fall on a measure that could ban the “promotion” of gay, lesbian or bisexual relationships to children.
• The High Court of Uganda overruled the country’s Attorney General and allowed two lesbian activists to have their claim of police torture heard.
• A lesbian couple in Nepal celebrated the country’s first public lesbian wedding.