Poll shows support for gay marriage

For the first time in a nationwide survey, more Americans say they support gay marriage (49%) than oppose it (46%), according to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll.

That 49% supporting gay marriage, in fact, is a significant jump from 2004, when the Post/ABC poll found just 32% in favor.

This surge within the past month suggests that any backlash against the recent moves across the country to legalize gay marriage has yet to emerge. See Poll shows support for gay marriage

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Court lets private schools expel lesbians

The state Supreme Court left intact Wednesday a lower-court ruling that said a private religious high school wasn’t covered by California civil rights law and could expel students it believed were lesbians.

Over Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar’s dissent, the court denied review of an appeal by parents of two girls who were expelled from a high school in Riverside County. A lawyer for the parents said the ruling, which is binding on trial courts statewide, would allow private schools to discriminate against students on any basis they chose, including sex and religion.

The girls were juniors at California Lutheran High School in the town of Wildomar when the principal, Gregory Bork, called them to his office in September 2005 and questioned them separately about their sexual orientation, after another student reported postings on their MySpace pages.

Bork suspended the girls based on their answers, and the school’s directors expelled them a month later. The girls, who later graduated from another high school, have not been identified and have not discussed their sexual orientation, said their parents’ attorney, Kirk Hanson.

The parents sued under the Unruh Act, a 1959 state law that forbids discrimination by businesses. It was amended in 2005 to include bias based on sexual orientation and someone else’s perception of sexual orientation. State education law also prohibits anti-gay bias, but that applies only to public schools.

In January, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino said the school is not a business but instead a social organization entitled to follow its principles.

Although California courts have defined such organizations as a Boys Club and the Rotary Club as businesses covered by the Unruh Act, the appeals court cited a 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Boy Scouts to exclude gays and atheists. Like the Boy Scouts, the appellate panel said, a private religious school exists mainly to instill its values in young people.

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‘Saint Johanna’, Iceland’s gay feminist PM

Reykjavik – Social Democrat Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, who swept to victory in Iceland’s snap election this weekend, is a gay feminist seen as one of the country’s most skillful politicians.

“Our time has come,” the 66-year-old Sigurdardottir told cheering supporters in her victory speech after Saturday’s general election, called just seven months after Iceland’s economic meltdown.

Nicknamed “Saint Johanna” for her relentless defence of social causes, she was appointed prime minister on February 1 after the previous government led by the conservative Independence Party resigned amid massive protests over the financial sector crash that pushed Iceland to the brink of bankruptcy. See ‘Saint Johanna’, Iceland’s gay feminist PM

Independent Online

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Lawsuit over gay-marriage speech at LA City College spurs reactions

Protesters back the student who claims his professor reacted badly to his religion-related stance against same-sex unions; a gay unity club forms; a New York man gets misdirected death threats.

By Gale Holland
March 3, 2009

Ruben Rivera was dropping off papers to charter a new gay unity club at Los Angeles City College one recent day when he spotted half a dozen middle-aged people milling around the campus quad.

“God Hates Gays,” their signs read. Memories came flooding back of fleeing New Jersey after his mother discovered his sexual orientation and threw him out of the family.

“I was almost transported to my adolescence in Vineland, N.J., feeling less than, feeling unworthy, feeling ashamed,” said Rivera, 36, of Los Feliz.

The protesters appeared in support of Jonathan Lopez, a Christian student who has sued the Los Angeles Community College District, alleging that an instructor kept him from finishing a classroom speech about his religious beliefs and opposition to same-sex unions. Lopez has said he was discriminated against because of his religious views.
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Lawsuit over gay-marriage speech at LA City College spurs reactions

Los Angeles Times

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HBO Ste to SHow Bishop Gene’s Obama Prayer

Word is that HBO is editing their broadcast so that all of their Encore Performances include the prayer of openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

You can catch it on HBO tomorrow, (Tuesday, inauguration day) at 1 PM and 9:30 PM. As of tomorrow, it will also be on their webcast http://www.hbo.com which you can watch any time.

The marvelous thing is that Bishop Gene’s prayer will probably be better known now than the one Rick Warren will say tomorrow!

And if you watch all of the concert, you’ll see Pete Seeger, an icon of the American folk and progressive movement, leading a sing-a-long of Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land that includes the president elect of the United States.

Not to mention U2 singing In The Name of Love on the spot where Dr> Martin Luther King delivered his I HAve Dream speech so many years ago.

It is enough to leave me speechless. Almost.