Court allows release of domestic partner petitions
(Seattle) Washington’s secretary of state can release the names and addresses of people who signed petitions calling for a public vote on the state’s expanded benefits for domestic partners, a federal appeals court said Thursday.
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a previous decision by U.S. …
Tags: Circuit Court Of Appeals, Court Of Appeals, Domestic Partner, Domestic Partners, Federal Appeals Court, Names Addresses, Names And Addresses, People, Petitions, Public Vote, Seattle Washington, Secretary Of State, State Names, Washington StateGay partnership foes, backers in WA await ruling
(Seattle) Supporters and foes of gay domestic partnerships await a federal ruling from a three-judge panel on whether petitions for Washington states’s Referendum 71 should be made public.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Wednesday in Pasadena, Calif., on whether signatures collected to repeal a domestic partnership law …
Tags: Backers, Circuit Court Of Appeals, Court Of Appeals, Domestic Partnership, Domestic Partnerships, Foes, Gay Partnership, Judge Panel, Partnership Law, Petitions, Referendum, Seattle Gay, Signatures, Washington StatesCourt nixes $5M verdict against Phelps
(Richmond, Va.) A federal appeals court on Thursday tossed out a $5 million verdict against protesters who carried signs with inflammatory messages like “Thank God for dead soldiers” outside the Maryland funeral of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said …
Tags: 5 Million, Circuit Court Of Appeals, Court Of Appeals, Dead Soldiers, Federal Appeals Court, God, Inflammatory Messages, Judge Panel, Marine Killed In Iraq, Phelps, Protesters, Richmond, Richmond Va, SignsGay incident reopens Salt Lake City’s Main Street plaza wounds
It’s the wound that won’t heal. The rift that won’t close. And earlier this month, two gay lovers’ purportedly innocuous late-night kiss — though LDS Church officials insist it was far more amorous than that — ripped it wide open. Utah’s simmering religious divide boiled over — once again — at the geographical and philosophical intersection of church and state: the Main Street Plaza in downtown Salt Lake City. “It is a scab that will continue to be peeled away — and may never heal,” says Dani Eyer, the former ACLU director who fought to preserve First Amendment rights on the plaza. Matt Aune and Derek Jones say they held hands, kissed and then squabbled with security guards on the LDS Church-owned square. Salt Lake City police issued a ticket for trespassing. In protest, supporters of the couple staged a “kiss-in” last Sunday outside the plaza and plan another such demonstration today. The LDS Church — a faith to which 60 percent of Utahns belong — defended its right to regulate “inappropriate behavior” on the plaza. “What we’re seeing now is a manifestation of what should have been obvious from the very beginning,” says former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. “This block of Main Street never should have been conveyed to the LDS Church. It was a recipe for ongoing resentments between the LDS Church and those who are not members.” The church bought the strip of Main — from North Temple to South Temple — in 1999 after then-Mayor Deedee Corradini and the City Council, with the only two non-LDS members dissenting, signed off on the $8.1 million deal. But the controversy burned for five more years as federal courts were asked to settle the prickly issue of whether the church could govern expression on the plaza and whether the city could retain a public right of way (as outlined in the original deal). “It was meant to be for everybody,” Eyer says. “Where people come and go their constitutional rights go with them.” After a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 2002, First Amendment activities returned to the plaza. But demonstrations by anti-Mormon protesters — including cries of “whore” and “harlot” hurled at newlywed brides — “sustained divisions” that “reached to the point of hatred” between Mormons and non-Mormons, Anderson says. In the end, he agreed to trade the public easement for cash and LDS land to build a west-side community center.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/gay-incident-…
Obama won’t oppose ruling weakening ‘don’t ask’
The Obama administration, criticized by gay rights advocates for not following through on a campaign promise to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on military service, has taken a quiet step to allow a federal court in San Francisco to limit enforcement of the policy.
Without fanfare, the Justice Department told congressional leaders last month that it would not seek Supreme Court review of a May 2008 ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling cast doubt on the constitutionality of discharging gay and lesbian soldiers from the military for revealing their sexual orientation and required military officials to justify each dismissal.
See Obama won’t oppose ruling weakening ‘don’t ask’ San Francisco Chronicle
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/obama-wont-op…
Justice Department not taking stand on appeal of gay officer’s firing
Calling it a “procedural decision,” the U.S. Justice Department is staying out of a federal lawsuit challenging the dismissal of an Air Force officer under the military gay ban being reviewed by a federal court. Former Air Force Maj. Margaret Witt’s case was dismissed by a federal judge, but is now being reconsidered by order of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Washington Blade * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/justice-depar…
Obama appoints two to fed. appeals courts
(Washington) President Barack Obama plans to nominate a federal judge from Maryland and another from New York to serve on U.S. appeals courts, changing the political balance of both courts, officials said Thursday.
The Maryland judge, Andre Davis, would serve on the Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals if confirmed …
Tags: barack obama, Circuit Court Of Appeals, Court Of Appeals, Federal Judge, Maryland Judge, Political Balance, Washington PresidentFederal court delays birth certificate for gay dads
(New Orleans, Louisiana) The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered a hold on a lower court ruling that gave the state of Louisiana 15 days to put both names of a gay couple on the birth certificate of their adopted son.
The state appealed the ruling and the 5th …
Tags: Birth Certificate, Circuit Court Of Appeals, Court Delays, Court Of Appeals, Gay Couple, Gay Dads, Names, New Orleans Louisiana, State Of LouisianaDOMA threatened by judge’s ruling?
Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government’s denial of benefits to the same-sex spouse of a public defender lacks “rational basis” and is therefore unconstitutional. The ruling isn’t applicable as precedent because it resolved an internal dispute within the federal judiciary and not an actual lawsuit. Still, the decision was seen by some observers as challenging the Defense of Marriage Act. Los Angeles Times/L.A. Now blog (free registration
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/doma-threaten…
