Company keeps DP bens for gays only

AL senator wants end to DP bens

A senator in Alabama wants a state university to stop giving health benefits to domestic partners.

Poll: WA supports marriage rights

Registered voters in WA support either marriage or DP’s equal to marriage in rights 66-33.

Metro is playing catch-up, say supporters of gay protections

The argument that protecting Metro government’s gay employees would force the private sector to follow suit is all backward, supporters of a new anti-discrimination measure say.

Around the country, 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies’ anti-discrimination policies include sexual orientation or gender identity. In Nashville, some of the city’s largest private employers — http://www.vanderbilt.edu/“>Vanderbilt University and http://www.hcahealthcare.com/“>Hospital Corporation of America — put similar policies into place.

Against that landscape, the new measure’s supporters say, it should have a better chance of passage than a similar one proposed in 2003. But opponents say following the private-sector pack isn’t the way to go.

“Just because someone else does something doesn’t mean it’s right, and we learned that when we all took off from kindergarten,” said David Fowler, a former state senator and president of the http://www.factn.org/“>Family Action Council of Tennessee. “So unless we are going to act like lemmings and just blindly do what everybody else is doing, we need to stop and think before we make this a law.”

The city already has protections based on race, sex, religious affiliation and national origin in place, Fowler said, and protection based on sexuality is incongruous. He also said such a law could expose the city to lawsuits by people who feel it was broken.

See Metro is playing catch-up, say supporters of gay protections

The Tennessean

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Angelina Jolie Voted #1 Lesbian Hero?

Bisexual actress Angelina Jolie is apparently the world’s ultimate lesbian heroine. At least, that’s what 2,600 lesbians voting at OnePoll.com seem to believe. Sure, Angelina is a humanitarian and fond of rescuing orphaned children around the globe and turning them into paparazzi targets – but the ultimate lesbian heroine? See Angelina Jolie Voted #1 Lesbian Hero?

SheWired -

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Gay spouses to get AAA discounts Florida Times-Union -

AAA Auto Club South will now allow same-sex married couples to receive spousal discounts under AAA’s Associate Membership program, a rights group that advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people announced Thursday.

The company met with members of Equality Florida on Wednesday after the group received calls from gay couples who had been denied family memberships.

“Our policy does include gay and lesbian spouses, wherever they were married. Whether in other states or countries, they qualify,” said Tom O’Brien, president and chief executive officer of AAA Auto Club South, in a statement.

Gay marriage is not legal in Florida but has been approved in other states.

See Gay spouses to get AAA discounts

Florida Times-Union -

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Gay Olympic Medal Winning Boxer Dies Outcome Buffalo

Toronto— Mark Leduc a gay Canadien who had won a Olympic silver medal in boxing has died.

Leduc, 47 was a former light welterweight boxer who was the unlikely silver medalist at the 1992 Barcelona. Leduc gained further notoriety when he came out as a gay man in 1994 in the TV documentary For the Love of the Game. Leduc remains one of the few boxers ever to do so. In 1999 Leduc served as a grand marshal of Toronto’s glbt pride parade.

The Toronto Star reports that Leduc died at St. Michael’s Hospital Wednesday night after he was found unconscious in a local hotel sauna early Sunday morning. Doctors believe Leduc suffered a heat stroke that damaged his internal organs.

The Toronto native turned pro shortly after the 1992 Olympics and retired after winning the Canadian super lightweight championship in1993.

See Gay Olympic Medal Winning Boxer Dies Outcome Buffalo

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Gay activists and union leaders commit to year two of Hyatt Boycott

At a press conference last Friday, GLBT activists and union leaders marked the one-year anniversary of the Manchester Hyatt Boycott, launched last year in response to hotel owner Doug Manchester’s $125,000 contribution to qualify Proposition 8 for the ballot.

“For over a year we have urged San Diegans, Californians and Americans to boycott the Manchester Hyatt because of Manchester’s contribution to Proposition 8 and onerous workloads for the hotel’s housekeepers,” said Cleve Jones, a national gay leader and former aid to slain San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk. “The hotel’s own people have admitted to losing over $7 million in business due to the boycott. This boycott has truly shown the power of our reenergized community and the alliance between the gay community and labor.”

Proposition 8 eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry in California. Boycott organizers also committed to continue the boycott and expand its scope.

“One of our goals for the next year will be to take the boycott to the next level – global,” said Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate. “We will ask travel planners and tour operators throughout the world not to book meetings and room nights at the Manchester properties. We will put up a virtual bright yellow caution tape around Manchester’s hotels, and ask people not to cross it.”

The boycott has drawn increasing media attention and picked up steam since it began. Early on, several groups announced that they would move or cancel events at the hotel. Recently, the American Association of Justice, a trial lawyers group moved its entire convention out of the Manchester Hyatt to San Francisco to honor the boycott. At a recent gay and lesbian travel exposition, a hotel spokesperson confirmed that the boycott has cost the hotel more than $7 million.

At the July 17 press conference, organizers unveiled more than just a new approach. They came with a new logo and visual aid – bright yellow caution tape reading “Do not cross. Do not support bigotry and discrimination.” Organizers say the caution tape is intended as a reminder for individuals throughout the country not to patronize the hotel.

“We want to send a very simple message to all those planning to travel to San Diego that the Manchester Hyatt Boycott is on and stronger than ever,” said Human Relations Commissioner, Nicole Murray-Ramirez. “The unions, hotel workers and gay community started this fight together and we intend to finish it together.”

See Gay activists and union leaders commit to year two of Hyatt Boycott

Gay and Lesbian Times

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Nominee confirmed for Civil Rights job

The New Jersey Commission on Civil Rights yesterday approved the nomination of a new state civil rights chief who is not admitted to practice law in New Jersey despite two lawmakers’ questions about his residency and commitment to gay and lesbian issues.

Chinh Le, Attorney General Anne Milgram’s nominee, was approved as head of the state Division on Civil Rights by a 6-0 vote of the commission at its monthly meeting in Newark. One commissioner abstained after her proposal for a private executive session between commissioners and the nominee was rejected.

See Nominee confirmed for Civil Rights job

The Star-Ledger

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SF City Attorney ready to lend a hand in federal gay marriage case

Dennis Herrera, San Francisco’s City Attorney petitioned a U.S. District Court Judge Thursday to allow San Francisco to intervene as a party plaintiff in a constitutional challenge to Proposition 8, the voter-approved amendment that bans gay marriage in California. The federal lawsuit was filed in May on behalf of two California couples. San Francisco lead the legal battle that resulted in the May 2008 ruling in favor of gay marriage that was later overruled by Prop 8. “We are long overdue to put anti-gay discrimination on trial based on the facts,” said Herrera in a statement. “The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office has the experience and expertise to aggressively assist in doing precisely that.”See City Attorney ready to lend a hand in federal gay marriage case The San Francisco Examiner

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