- www.rightwingwatch.org June 14th, 2010

We noted last month that flyers sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage had been appearing on front doors around the District of Columbia. The flyers urged people to vote against every elected official who supported marriage equality in DC and is up for reelection this year.

NOM, which has been pouring money into campaigns around the country to punish pro-equality elected officials, was particularly stung by marriage equality’s victory in the nation’s capital. It has been working to overturn that victory in the courts, and it’s now clear just how much NOM is invested in trying to take down at least one pro-equality elected official. Read the rest of this article »

June 13, 2010|By Kristen Mack, Tribune reporter

With six months left in his four-year term, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias signed an executive order on Sunday extending family-leave benefits to gay and lesbian employees in domestic partnerships.

The new policy will allow gay and lesbian employees of his office to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a sick partner or relative, the same benefit given to their married co-workers. It also would allow gay and lesbian employees to take time off for the birth or adoption of a child.

“These aren’t added bonuses or employee perks,” Giannoulias said. “These are the same basic rights other employees have long come to expect.”

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 14, 2010

Cocktails had been served on the terrace, the ubiquitous Washington buffet of tenderloin and salmon consumed, and the gay law students settled in to hear from the famed legal mind who is leading the battle to make sure they have the right to marry whomever they want, wherever in the United States of America they live.

But first, an introduction: The assembled were reminded of Theodore B. Olson’s sterling conservative credentials; about his loyal service in President Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department; that he was President George W. Bush’s solicitor general; that perhaps the crowning achievement in his gaudy career as a Supreme Court advocate was persuading five justices to stop the vote counting in Florida in the 2000 election and acknowledge that Bush had won. Read the rest of this article »

- www.desmoinesregister.com June 6th, 2010

A large majority of Iowa Republican primary voters say Iowans should have a chance to vote on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, according to the latest Des Moines Register Iowa Poll.

More than three-quarters of Iowans planning to vote in Tuesday’s Republican primary say Iowans should have a chance to vote on changing the constitution specifically to ban gay marriage.

But the same consensus does not exist for ousting Iowa Supreme Court judges who voted last year to invalidate Iowa’s statutory ban on same-sex marriage. Read the rest of this article »

By CASEY MCNERTHNEY
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF June 3rd, 2010

A man who was previously convicted of a hate crime was arrested after he yelled a derogatory slur at a transgender person and assaulted her, police said.
The incident happened about 3:50 p.m. Sunday at Northwest Market Street and 15th Avenue Northwest. The transgender person, who police say identifies as a woman, told an officer the suspect approached at a bus stop, yelled slurs at her and punched her several times with closed fists.
The suspect, a 51-year-old man, was arrested and booked into King County Jail. Court records show he was previously convicted for assault and a separate drug charge in 2004, and at least two other drug cases. In one 2007 case, police caught him smoking crack under the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Read the rest of this article »

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH http://blog.buzzflash.com June 1st, 2010

Better Courts Now’s candidates are on a ‘mission from God’ to transform San Diego’s court system.

If you’ve had your fill of athletes thanking God for their good fortune on the basketball court or gridiron, and/or politicians claiming that God directed them to run for public office –- think George W. Bush –- then do not read any further. If, however, you’re interested in and/or intrigued by the “Mission from God” conceit, and wondering if folks adopting that charge from on high just might be coming to your humble township, then check out what’s been happening in San Diego, California.

What may have started out as a small, almost stealth-like campaign –- similar to those that took over school boards across the country — has evolved into a rock-em, sock-em, full-throated effort to remove four Democratic-appointed judges from Superior Court, and replace them with four bona-fide “Mission from God” Christian conservative attorneys. Read the rest of this article »

- www.buenosairesherald.com June 1st, 2010

It’s now the turn of the Upper House, for the debate over same-sex marriage is about to continue in the General Legislation Committee. After a controversial demonstration against the initiative took place in the streets of Buenos Aires yesterday, some groups aim at approving the bill that seeks to amend the Civil Code to allow gay couples to get married.

Liliana Negre de Alonso leads the Committee. According to several sources, the debate is scheduled to start at 4:00pm.
Several leaders are pledged to be present, such as Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transexual Argentine Federation President María Rachid, and the head of La Fulana community centre Claudia Castrosin Verdú.

The bill aiming at allowing same-sex couples to get married posts the support of the biggest caucuses’ heads in the Upper House, Victory Front’s Miguel Angel Pichetto and Radical Gerardo Morales.

by O. KAY HENDERSON on JUNE 1, 2010
www.radioiowa.com

The Iowa Family Policy Center and a pastor-led group called “Purpose Ministries” have collected petition signatures from over eight-hundred Iowa pastors, urging Iowa’s elected officials to let Iowans vote on a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.

Iowa Family Policy Center president Chuck Hurley says the petitions will be presented to every statewide candidate in Iowa as well as all of the people who’re running for seats in the legislature.

“Whether they see the light, we believe and we hope that they will feel the heat,” Hurley says. “And that they will recognize that ‘we, the people’ as 31 other states peoples have done deserve…a chance to vote on the Iowa Marriage Amendment.” Read the rest of this article »