- Army National Guard Lt. Dan Choi, who faces dismissal under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, is back training with his unit.
- The U.S. Health and Human Services Department and the Administration on Aging have awarded Services & Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Elders (SAGE) a three-year, $900,000 grant to create the nation’s only national resource center on LGBT aging.
- Rumors broke this week that Judge Vaughn Walker, who is ruling on California’s Prop 8 case, is gay. At the moment, they are more speculation than substance.
My thoughts? Ever watch a kids’ soccer game, in which one of the refs is also a parent of one of the players? They’re often harder on their own kid than on anyone else, for fear of being seen as biased. If Walker is gay, might he be more inclined to rule strictly? Maybe not in favor of upholding Prop 8, but in a narrow way so as to make it harder to use the ruling to strike down marriage bans in other states? I think the right-wing’s fears that a gay judge would be biased in favor of the plaintiffs are unfounded.
- Illinois State Sen. Bill Brady, the Republican front-runner for governor, said he wants to make marriages and civil unions of same-sex couples unconstitutional.
- Iowa Republicans failed to force a vote on a measure to make marriages of same-sex couples unconstitutional, killing the bill for this session.
- New Jersey’s LGBT advocacy group, Garden State Equality, approved a new policy preventing the organization from giving financial contributions to political parties and affiliated committees. Garden State Equality will make financial contributions “only to individual candidates and to non-party organizations that further equality for the LGBT community.”
- Rep. Gordon Fox was elected Speaker of the Rhode Island House, becoming the first openly gay Speaker of the House of a U.S. state. (John A. Perez, speaker-elect of California, has not been sworn in yet.)
Around the world:
- The European Parliament confirmed that countries wishing to join the European Union have to provide genuine protection to LGBT people.
- The Church of England General Synod approved giving same-sex civil partners of deceased clergy the same pension rights as opposite-sex widows or widowers. The Synod also cautiously recognized the desire of dissident U.S. conservative Anglicans to remain Anglicans, but declined to endorse the anti-LGBT group.
- Portugal’s Parliament approved a bill to legalize marriage for same-sex couples. It does not include the right to adopt children. President Anibal Cavaco Silva, a practicing Roman Catholic, whose party opposes the bill, could veto it, although Parliament could still override the veto.
