The best news this week is international. South Africa has become the first country in Africa and the fifth in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. Acting President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka signed the Civil Union Act, and it went into effect yesterday. The Act allows for unions to be recognized by either a marriage or a […]
Speaking at the International Gay & Lesbian Leadership Conference, Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean said his party needs to work harder to get more LGBT candidates on the ballot. Lambda Legal submitted papers to a California Court of Appeal, urging them to uphold a jury decision that found former Poway High School students were severely
PlanetOut speculates that the LGBT community and their supporters were a determining factor in the recent Democratic recapture of the Senate, as they rallied to defeat Virginia’s proposed constitutional same-sex marriage ban. Opponents of the ban also tended to support Democrat James Webb, who won his seat by a slim margin. LGBT-rights advocates in California
Many of us are suffering from a surfeit of politics right now, so I’ll keep this week’s update short. One more victory in the U. S., and a few international items: In a case of death by procedural maneuver, a measure to put a same-sex marriage ban on the 2008 ballot looks unlikely to succeed.
Lots of new in advance of the U. S. elections this coming Tuesday. Here are some of the highlights: An Alaska Superior Court will order the state to change its proposed requirements for benefits given to same-sex partners of state employees. Among other things, it ordered that partners who are jointly responsible for a child
The New Jersey marriage decision dominated the political news this week. Time didn’t stand still elsewhere, however: The Human Rights Campaign has fired a “junior” staff member after that person admitted to the first—and unauthorized—Web publication of sexual e-mails sent by then-Congressman Mark Foley to former House pages. Polls in Arizona and Virginia show opposition
The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling and said the partner of a man who died in 2004 may inherit his estate, even though the man’s relatives contested the validity of his will. Lambda Legal argued that the U. S. Court of Appeals should affirm a lower court ruling that Oklahoma’s anti-gay
In the U. S.: The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of a gay couple in California who sought to challenge the state’s refusal to issue them a marriage license. As the Independent Gay Forum points out, though, this might not be a bad thing. Had the Supremes ruled against the plaintiffs, it
The big national news this week in the U. S. was the ongoing debacle of Mark Foley and the reeling but still struggling Republican leadership. The media is now highlighting the debate over whether the Foley case is a “gay issue.” My take is that it shouldn’t be a “gay issue,” but it is. The
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger showed his middle-of-the-road orientation this week. He signed one bill making it harder to use the “gay panic” defense, another that standardizes housing laws to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and a third that adds fair treatment of LGBT people to a voluntary pledge taken by candidates
