- The ACLU launched Get Busy, Get Equal, a toolkit building and protecting the rights of LGBT people.
- ExxonMobil shareholders voted down a resolution to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the company’s non-discrimination statement. Before Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999, Mobil had provided these protections to gay employees and benefits to their same-sex partners. After the merger, the company dropped them.
- Same-sex couples in California will be able to marry starting June 17. . .
- . . . assuming the attorneys general of Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah fail in their attempt to get the California Supreme Court to stay its ruling until after the November election. They seem peeved they would have to determine whether their states should recognize the marriages.
- A new Field Poll said a majority of California voters now support legal marriage between same-sex couples and oppose a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
- Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in housing, public accommodations, credit transactions, juror service, and other areas.
- The First District Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that same-sex partners could not sue for loss of consortium because under Florida law, it would be based on a legal status achieved only by marriage.
- New York Gov. David A. Paterson has told all state agencies that marriages of same-sex couples from other jurisdictions “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”
- The Philadelphia chapter of the Boy Scouts has sued the city to try and avoid paying $200,000 a year in rent to stay in the city-owned space it now pays $1 for. The city says the Scouts have until Saturday to open their membership to gay scouts or pay fair-market rent.
- The University of Wisconsin-Madison will become the biggest university to have an openly lesbian or gay leader, with the nomination of Cornell University Provost Biddy Martin to be the next chancellor.
Around the world:
- The Australian government introduced legislation to remove discrimination against same-sex couples in laws governing pension schemes.
- A gay and a lesbian couple are planning to marry on the Greek island of Tilos, testing the limits of Greek civil law that does not clarify the gender of people wishing to marry.
- Two Norwegian opposition parties said they would support a proposal allowing same-sex couples to marry in church, adopt and have assisted pregnancies. This virtually ensures the passage of a new equality law next month.
- A lesbian in Murcia, Spain, won the right to adopt the child born to her partner.
- A Turkish court has ordered the only gay rights association in Istanbul to close, after a prosecutor claimed it broke public morality laws.
