QueensSpeech - gay news

Transgender protections added to Tampa laws after heated hearing

Supporters applaud a Tampa city council vote adding transgender protections to the city’s human rights ordinance Tampa Tribune photo by Eric Hausmann

On a 5-1 vote, the Tampa city council on Thursday approved an ordinance that will add protections for transgender individuals to the city’s human rights ordinance.

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Item: Federal benefits measure passes in key House committee

   ::: The Domestic Partnerships Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009 passed out of committee Wednesday, Victory Fund’s GayPolitics blog reports.

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Right-wing faction decides to form its own Lutheran denomination

Source: Washington Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Bismarck Tribune

In August, leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) emphasized the role “bound conscience” and choice, when the the group—which is the largest US Lutheran denomination—voted at a church-wide meeting to allow some local congregations to ordain partnered gay or lesbian pastors, and to study ways to bless the partnerships of gay or lesbian Lutherans.

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NY high court upholds benefits, but shies away from considering marriage equality

New York’s highest court on Thursday rejected two challenges filed by a Christian legal advocacy group that sought to deny legal recognition of marriages granted to same-sex couples by other other states or countries.

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Washington Blade ex-staff launches DC Agenda

“What was once @WashingtonBlade is now @DCAgenda. Confused? Come to Hard Rock Cafe at 6 p.m.

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Hundreds mourn ‘funny’, ‘boisterous’ gay Baltimore teen who was brutally murdered

Jayson Mattison, Jr (Photos supplied by friends to Baltimore Sun)

At a of a West Baltimore church Wednesday morning, an overflow crowd spilled out of the sanctuary and into the vestibule for the funeral of Jason Mattison Jr.

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Must read: Gay Catholics find the way to acceptance in San Jose diocese

Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, San Jose, CA via

MetroActive, a Silicon Valley weekly, features a story this week on gay Catholics in the San Jose diocese, which a headline writer calls “the most gay-friendly diocese in the US”.

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Item: Austria to allow ceremony-less same-sex civil unions

   ::: Austria's government agreed Tuesday to a new law that allows civil partnerships for gay and lesbian couples, but bars them from holding ceremonies to celebrate their unions at a registry office.

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Is civil marriage in Texas unconstitutional? Maybe, says AG hopeful

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, Democratic candidate for Texas attorney general

Are all civil marriages in Texas invalid? A candidate for state attorney general thinks they could be judged to be unconstitutional as an (apparently) unintended consequence of an anti-gay amendment to the constitution approved by Texas voters in 2005, Dallas Voice reports.

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Report: LGBT Africans are ‘collateral damage’ of US culture war exported by Right

Graphic by BlackGayExpo.com

In Uganda, the country’s legislature is now considering a law—one that might pass this week—that would lead to life imprisonment for gay sex, and death for those having same-sex relations if they are HIV positive or have sex with someone under 18.

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Item: Argentine gay couple to be married on Dec 1

     ::: Alejandro Freyre, 39, and Jose Maria Di Bello, 41, will get married December 1 in the same Buenos Aires registry office where the couple was refused a marriage license in April, AFP reports.

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Public vote on DC same-sex marriage would violate rights law, says board

A proposed ballot initiative for the District of Columbia that would have restricted civil marriage to a union of a man and a woman cannot cannot appear on the ballot, the DC Board of Elections and Ethics ruled Tuesday.

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Item: KC HS students spend night on street to raise money for homeless teens

   ::: About 700 high school students from throughout the Kansas City metro area teamed up over the weekend to gain awareness about youth homelessness and to raise funds for Synergy Services which offers emergency shelter and other services to homeless and at-risk youth.

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Must hear: Blade’s ex-editor talks with NPR’s ATC

Kevin Naff, who was the last in a long and distinguished list of Washington Blade editors, discussed the paper’s demise Tuesday with NPR's Melissa Block, an All Things Considered host.

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Reports – Accused killer says he decapitated young man ‘in fit of rage’

The man accused of killing Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado has confessed to police, claiming that he killed and decapitated the young man in a “fit of rage”, Primera Hora reports (translations at Pam’s House Blend).

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As a gay media era ends, former staffers work to rebuild from the ashes

Source: Gay City News, Washington City Paper, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution, New York Times, Miami Herald 

Media professionals and LGBT activists were shocked Monday morning by news that the major gay publications in four cities, including the nation’s oldest gay newspaper, had shut down after the companies that published the papers, Window Media and Unite Media, were forced to close by the Small Business Administration—the federal agency that oversaw the companies in bankruptcy proceedings.

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Item: Homophobic slurs painted on Orlando LGBT Center building

   ::: Vandals who spray-painted the building with homophobic slurs and Nazi symbols caused over $1000 in damage to Orlando’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Community Center of Central Florida and a nearby gay business, WKMG TV reports.

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Police arrest suspect in brutal killing of gay teen; FBI monitoring case

Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado

Puerto Rican police say they have arrested a 27-year-old man as a suspect in the brutal murder of gay teenager Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado.

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Video: 10-year-old explains his vow of no-pledge without LGBT equality

10-year-old Will Phillips explains to CNN's John Roberts why he is refusing to pledge to the flag until gays and lesbians have equal rights.

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Item: Pastors preach hate as ‘protest’ of hate crimes law

   ::: Even though nothing about the new hate crimes law makes such an action illegal, an ad hoc group of so-called “concerned” clergy planned to rally earlier today in front of the Justice Department in Washington, D.

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