Ex-Miss California Prejean, pageant settle lawsuit
(Los Angeles) The legal war between former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean and pageant organizers is over.
A joint statement released Tuesday says Prejean and the organizers of the pageant reached a confidential settlement on dueling lawsuits.
Prejean sued Miss California USA organizers in August for libel, slander and religious discrimination. She …
Tags: California Usa, Carrie, Confidential Settlement, Lawsuits, Legal War, Libel Slander, Miss California, Organizers, Prejean, Religious DiscriminationSupreme Court OK’s release of priest sex abuse docs
(Washington) The Supreme Court refused on Monday to block the release of documents generated by lawsuits against priests in Connecticut for alleged sexual abuse.
The justices turned down a request by the Roman Catholic diocese in Bridgeport, Conn.
Several newspapers are seeking the release of more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits …
Tags: Bridgeport, Conn, Connecticut, Lawsuits, Newspapers, Priest Sex Abuse, Priests, Roman Catholic Diocese, Sexual Abuse, Supreme CourtMetro 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
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
 |
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/metro-is-play…
In RI, some wary as tide of gay marriage rises
PROVIDENCE - From a cramped office in the middle of the smallest state in the nation, Christopher Plante is determined to prove that Rhode Island has not been cornered by the advance of same-sex marriage across the rest of New England.
“When I look at a real map of the United States, we’re actually not alone here,” said Plante, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex unions. “This is not the United States of New England.”
But supporters and even some opponents expect that Rhode Island will legalize same-sex marriage, although they say that legalization is two or three years away.
Massachusetts and Connecticut legalized same-sex marriage as a result of judicial decisions in 2003 and 2008, while Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire followed this spring by legislative action.
The slower pace in Rhode Island, where the state Senate voted last week to allow same-sex partners to make funeral arrangements, has frustrated some local activists, many of whom rallied outside the State House in Providence last weekend to call for immediate equality.
But others say that legalization by 2012, a goal advocates set last year for securing same-sex marriage in all New England states, would put Rhode Island at the front of the pack nationally. In the rest of the country, only Iowa allows same-sex couples to marry.
“They still have a chance to be part of the vanguard,” said attorney Karen L. Loewy, the Rhode Island point person for GLAD, which won the lawsuits in Massachusetts and Connecticut that legalized same-sex marriage in those states. “Rhode Island is well on its way.”
See In RI, some wary as tide of gay marriage rises
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-ri-some-wa…
Gay rights advocates rip suit to undo Prop. 8
Gay rights advocates Wednesday blasted two veteran attorneys for filing a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved same-sex marriage ban, saying the move is premature and could be disastrous for the marriage movement.
While they knew of the objections, attorneys Theodore B. Olson and David Boies - who opposed each other during the 2000 Bush v. Gore presidential election case - filed the suit Friday in San Francisco on behalf of two same-sex couples who wanted to be married but were denied because of Prop. 8.
The suit claims the voter-approved measure, which the California Supreme Court affirmed Tuesday, denies same-sex couples the basic liberties and equal protection under the law guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. It asks for a preliminary injunction against Prop. 8 until the case is decided.
Olson said he filed the case not only on behalf of his clients, who include Berkeley residents Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, but on behalf of gay couples elsewhere who want to get married but can’t.
“We can’t tell them to wait, what, five years” for their state to approve same-sex marriage, he said, but acknowledged that it could take two years for his case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
While Olson shares the same end goal as same-sex marriage advocates, he doesn’t share their political strategy - to win states individually, with ballot initiatives or laws approved by state legislatures. Several same-sex marriage advocates intend to put the issue to voters in November 2010.
Olson thinks both strategies can work simultaneously. But many gay legal advocates are urging same-sex couples to avoid filing federal lawsuits because federal courts have not been as friendly to gay rights issues See * Gay rights advocates rip suit to undo Prop. 8 San Francisco Chronicle Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/gay-rights-ad…
LGBT Organizations Point Out that Lawsuits Could Set Back Progress on Marriage for Same-Sex Couples
NEW YORK – In response to the California Supreme Court decision allowing Prop 8 to stand, four LGBT legal organizations and five other leading national LGBT groups are reminding the LGBT community that ill-timed lawsuits could set the fight for marriage back. The groups released a new publication, “Why the ballot box and not the courts should be the next step on marriage in California.” This publication discourages people from bringing premature lawsuits based on the federal Constitution because, without more groundwork, the U.S. Supreme Court likely is not yet ready to rule that same-sex couples cannot be barred from marriage. The groups also revised “Make Change, Not Lawsuits,” which was released after the California Supreme Court decision ending the ban on marriage for same-sex couples in California. This publication encourages couples who have legally married to ask friends, neighbors and institutions to honor their marriages, but discourages people from bringing lawsuits.
“Why the ballot box and not the courts should be the next step on marriage in California” is available at http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/relationships/39672res20090527.html “Make Change, Not Lawsuits” is available at http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/relationships/35584res20090527.html.
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/lgbt-organiza…
NH Senate Works to Add Amendment to Gay Marriage Bill
The New Hampshire Senate will hold another hearing today to try and tackle a crucial amendment to the same-sex marriage bill. It’s one Governor John Lynch says must be adopted in order for him to sign it.
Currently the bill allows churches to decide whether they will conduct religious marriages for gay couples.
Last week, Gov. Lynch said he won’t sign the bill without clearer language to better protect churches and their employees against lawsuits if their beliefs prevent them from marrying gay couples.
That new language will be added to an unrelated bill which will come to a vote in the Senate and House on Wednesday.
See
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/nh-senate-wor…
ACLU demands schools allow access to gay Websites In Tennessee
Students and parents are demanding Metro Nashville’s public schools stop blocking access to Web sites about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. They complained to the American Civil Liberties Union, which on Wednesday gave Metro and Knox County schools an April 29 deadline to announce plans to open access to the non-sexual sites. A letter to the districts threatened lawsuits if they don’t comply.
Metro parents previously complained to the school district about the lack of support for gay and lesbian students, the teasing and the fatal results.
Clare Sullivan, a parent of a lesbian daughter who attended Metro schools, cited recent news reports of students who committed suicide after constant harassment for being gay.
“You have students struggling with these issues,” she said. “If you cut off avenues for discussion, and it’s taboo in schools, where else can they go?”
Sullivan is a member of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, one of the groups whose Web site Metro blocks. Others include the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
Metro uses an outside company that filters Internet access, district spokeswoman Noelle Mashburn said. See ACLU demands schools allow access to gay Websites The Tennessean * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/aclu-demands-…
NYC lawsuits allege discrimination against gay workers
(New York City) In separate lawsuits, the NYC Department of Environmental Protection and a prestigious global branding company are being sued for alleged discrimination of gay workers.
In the first case, Lillian Padilla and Magda Rodriguez claim they were handed the dirtiest jobs at the DEP, were denied showers or changing …
Tags: Department Of Environmental Protection, Dirtiest Jobs, Discrimination, Gay Workers, Lawsuits, Magda, New York City, Nyc Department Of Environmental Protection, Padilla, ShowersRuling could mean civil unions for all in Calif.
he California Supreme Court could decide that there are two kinds of same-sex couples: those who can’t get married, and those who already did.
A ruling that upholds both voters’ November decision to ban gay marriage and the 18,000 same-sex marriages conducted earlier in California could come off as a safe compromise. But it also promises to keep alive an issue that has split the state as few others have.
Such a decision would give same-sex marriage advocates an avenue to pursue a federal appeal, and an argument for compelling the state to, as Associate Justice Ming Chin put it, “get out of the marriage business.”
Justices on the high court appear hesitant to overturn Proposition 8, while also reluctant to invalidate same-sex marriages performed before it passed, legal observers agreed Friday.
During Thursday’s oral arguments on a trio of lawsuits seeking to overturn the ban, Chin and Chief Justice Ronald George seemed to anticipate the difficulty in reconciling the state constitution’s promise of equality with its commitment to giving voters wide discretion to pass laws.
See Ruling could mean civil unions for all in Calif.
The Associated Press
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/ruling-could-…
