Senators Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) introduced legislation in the Senate to provide federal health benefits, including the Family and Medical Leave program, long term care, insurance, and retirement benefits, to the domestic partners of federal employees. The workers and their partners would then be subject to the same obligations as married employees and spouses, such as anti-nepotism rules and financial disclosures.- A federal budget bill cuts the HIV prevention budget of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and includes only a small increase in money for Ryan White programs, a major funder of AIDS services. Michael Crawford at Bilerico has more.
- Not LGBT-exclusive news, but a “wave of states” is refusing federal money for “abstinence-only” sex education programs as evidence increases that such programs are ineffective. (Thanks, PageOneQ.)
- Both supporters and opponents of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Florida are gearing up for a big fight.
- A transgendered student in Massachusetts says his college is discriminating against him for refusing to let him use the men’s locker room. The college says it fears he will be sexually assaulted there because he still has female sex organs.
- In a second claim of trans discrimination by a school this week, Kourt Osborn claims his Utah college is discriminating against him because he is transgender. Kourt claims it denied him a room when he applied to live in the male dorms. The assistant to the school’s president says Kourt was not denied, but will not be considered until he provides proof of his gender, as required for transgender students seeking housing. He says the school has accepted a transgender person into student housing in the past. 365gay.com reports that a school spokesperson said the university requires sex-reassignment surgery before placing trans students in housing.
- The Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection held its final public hearing on expanding same-sex relationship rights to full marriage. No dissenters chose to speak, only supporters of marriage equality.
- A school district in New York agreed to support students’ right to wear T-shirts with controversial messages. In September, a principal in the district had sent home a student for wearing a t-shirt that said “gay? fine by me” out of fear it would be disruptive.
(Thanks, PageOneQ.)
Around the world:
- Although the Australian government last week said that lesbians and single women will now be able to use in vitro fertilization (IVF) to conceive, and women who act as surrogates will no longer have to be infertile, it now adds that it will not provide Medicare funding for surrogacy, or to provide IVF to single women or lesbians who are not clinically infertile.
- Hungary’s parliament passed a law to allow same- and opposite-sex couples to register a civil partnership, with the same rights as married couples in inheritance, taxation and other financial matters, but without the right to adopt children.
- The New York Times did an article on the plight of gay men in Iraq. One of the interviewees says “I want to get out, but not just out of Iraq, out of the Middle East, to a country that has respect for human rights. And for us.” To America, bringer of tolerance and freedom? In this case, unfortunately not.
- In Israel, the Shas Party wants to stop a proposal by the Welfare Minister to allow same-sex couples to adopt unrelated children. (Currently, they can only adopt the biological children of a partner.) They fear it will “blur the Jewish core of the Jewish people.” (Any more than opposite-sex couples adopting kids? Not to mention that there are Jewish same-sex couples.)
- Rome’s city council rejected a proposal for a domestic partner registry for same- and opposite-sex couples.
- Nepal’s Supreme Court has ordered its government to guarantee gay and lesbian citizens the same rights as others, and to get rid of discriminatory laws.
- Uruguay’s congress approved a bill instituting civil unions for same- and opposite-sex couples. If the president approves it, as expected, it would become the first nationwide relationship-recognition measure for same-sex couples in Latin America. Couples must have lived together for five years before they can register their relationships, however. How many straight marriages last that long?
