Weekly Political Roundup

Here’s a roundup of general LGBT news. I’ll do another parenting-specific roundup early next week. Happy weekend, all!

• LGBT-rights leaders gathered in Denver this week for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Creating Change conference. Bil and others at Bilerico have a bunch of posts up about it, including an interview with the Director of Creating Change (and lesbian mom), Sue Hyde.
• Two gay men in Arizona have begun a voter initiative to legalize civil partnerships in the state. If successful, the measure would appear on the ballot in 2010.
• The Arkansas Attorney General has told the conservative Arkansas Family Policy Council to stay out of the case brought to challenge the ban on gay men and lesbians adopting.
• A federal judge denied a request to keep secret the names of donors to California’s Prop 8.
• Jared Polis, the openly gay U.S. Representative from Colorado, is writing a series of blog posts for CNN about his first year in office. Also doing so is Jason Chaffetz, a conservative Republican from Utah. Nice contrasting pair. Should be fun to follow.
• A majority in the Hawaiian House have signed a bill that would legalize civil unions for same-sex couples, and many think the bill has a chance of becoming law. (As a Massachusetts resident, I say “Darn! There goes our edge in attracting wedding tourism.”)
• The Kansas Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee approved a bill to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s anti-discrimination law.
• The sponsor of a New Hampshire bill to add civil union partners to all state insurance laws, has asked that the bill be killed until lawmakers resolve other pending civil union bills.
• New Mexico’s Senate Public Affairs Committee voted in favor of a domestic partner bill, but the bill could be in trouble as it heads to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it died last year.
• Portland, Oregon mayor Sam Adams says he won’t resign after lying about his earlier relationship with a (legal) teen.
• A Utah bill that would have created a statewide domestic-partner registry, protected someone from being fired or evicted because of their sexual orientation, and allowed financial dependents other than spouses to sue for wrongful death, died in the Senate judiciary committee.
• The Virginia House Privileges & Elections subcommittee voted to pass indefinitely on an initiative to repeal the constitutional ban on marriage and civil unions for same-sex couples. That kills the measure for this session.
• Several legislators in Washington, with bipartisan support, introduced legislation adding add some 300 rights and responsibilities for state-registered domestic partners.

Around the world:

• The Australian Standing Committee of Attorneys-General has called for “a nationally consistent approach to surrogacy laws,” which could mean that same-sex parents of children born by surrogates could apply for legal recognition on birth certificates.
• Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled that same-sex couples must be granted the same rights as opposite-sex couples in common-law marriages.
• Members of the European Parliament have signed a Parliamentary Question to the European Commission and the European Council demanding that the EU raise the issue of violence against transgender people with the Honduras government.
• The Irish parliament will consider a civil partnership bill for same-sex couples in its spring session.
• The Nigerian National Assembly is considering a bill that would punish “the coming together of persons of the same sex with the purpose of leaving together as husband and wife or for other purposes of same sexual relationship” with up to three years’ imprisonment. Amnesty International calls it “an assault on human rights.” Yep.
• A court in Spain ruled that parents who do not want their children to attend civics classes that include lessons on gay rights do not have the right to conscientiously object.