Gay marriage fight, `kiss-ins’ smack Mormon image

(Salt Lake City) The Mormon church’s vigorous, well-heeled support for Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California last year, has turned the Utah-based faith into a lightning rod for gay rights activism, including a nationwide “kiss-in” Saturday.

The event comes after gay couples here and in San Antonio and El …

Castro-ville: a 21st century, gay-friendly city

Mayor Julián Castro knew roughly what to expect when he agreed this week to serve as the Grand Marshal of San Antonio’s July 4 Gay Pride parade — the first San Antonio mayor to do so — and in less than 24 hours, conservative talk-radio host Adam McManus had marshalled his self-styled “Adam’s Army,” urging them via web and airwaves to bombard the new mayor with pleas to withdraw. McManus applied the same pressure to SA Police Chief William (no relation) McManus when he served in the role in 2007.

[Adam McManus is also urging his listeners to protest the public library’s Pride month programming, which includes a screening of Milk. His website, somewhat hysterically, insists on adding “homosexual” in front of any GLBT-related items, as in “San Antonio Homosexual Pride Parade,” and “Stonewall Homosexual Democrats” – in honor of which we’re changing this week’s cover tag, “San Antonio’s Gayest Newspaper,” to “San Antonio’s Homosexual Newspaper.”]“I knew that it would be controversial,” Castro told the Current via phone this morning. He estimates that he has received 80-90 emails opposing his participation, many of them echoing the radio host’s recommended talking points. “But to [Adam McManus’s] credit … they have been very polite, very respectful.”

See Castro-ville: a 21st century, gay-friendly city
San Antonio Current

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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/castro-ville-…

Equality Texas fears anti-gay backlash with new speaker

The Texas Legislature opened its 81st session this week with a moderate Republican at the helm as speaker of the House, but with the Senate in an uproar as Republicans there try to circumvent filibuster rules.

Randall Terrell, political director for the LGBT advocacy organization Equality Texas, said Wednesday, Jan. 14, that new leadership in the House could be advantageous for LGBT people in the Lone Star State. But it could also bring up new challenges, as well.

“I am a little more hopeful now that [San Antonio Republican Rep. Joe] Straus is speaker of the House, but that cuts both ways,” Terrell said.

The speaker of the House controls the agenda there, determining which bills can come to the floor for a vote. Straus is not expected to push the kind of socially conservative agenda that former Speaker Tom Craddick backed. But Craddick still has supporters in the House, and they are likely to test the new speaker on those issues with anti-gay amendments to other bills, Terrell said. See Equality Texas fears anti-gay backlash with new speaker
Dallas Voice, TX -