The bitter divorce battle between former New Jersey governor James McGreevey and his ex-wife, Dina Matos, has finally come to an end. The court decided that Matos would get one lump-sum payment of just over $100,000. About four years ago, McGreevey came out of the closet and revealed he had an affair with a male staffer. Shortly afterwards, he resigned. Now that the divorce case is over, Matos will focus on her fraud claim against McGreevey. She claims that the ex-governor knew he was gay, and married her to advance his political career.
A measure that seeks to repeal a county ordinance that protects transgender people will head to Maryland's high court. On Sept. 8, the Maryland Court of Appeals will hear arguments in regards to an effort to repeal an ordinance banning transgender discrimination passed by the Montgomery County Council last year. An anti-LGBT group, Citizens for Responsible Government, collected signatures in hopes of placing the issue on the November ballot for voters to decide. A lower court recently ruled that the issue should appear on the ballot. Gay rights groups such as Lambda Legal and Equality Illinois are battling these efforts.
Openly gay millionaire Jared Polis is one step closer to becoming the third openly gay member of Congress. Polis, who is running for Colorado's 2nd Congressional District, recently defeated Joan Fitz-Gerald in the Colorado Democratic Primary. He will face a Republican challenger, Scott Starin, in November. So far, Polis' sexuality has created very little controversy.
Two University of Nebraska wrestlers were dropped from their team after it was discovered that nude pictures of them appeared on a gay porn Web site. The athletes were let go only three days after a blog featuring nude pictures of them was posted on Fratmentv.com . The team's coach, Mark Manning, said that the college athletes caused the school's athletic department 'embarrassment,' and their behavior didn't reflect the school's standard of excellence.
A Wisconsin organization, Cream City Foundation, is plastering photographs of real Wisconsin gay families on billboards and bus shelters all over the Southeastern part of the state to help raise understanding and awareness. Cream City Foundation's 'Gay Neighbor' billboard media campaign aims to drive people to the Web site Gayneighbor.org to answer questions about lesbian and gay families and challenge stereotypes. These photographs of local LGBT people appear on 30 billboards and bus shelters.
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force announced supports current efforts to honor two civil rights heroes by creating federal and state holidays for Cesar Chavez and Harvey Milk. Chavez was a Mexican-American labor leader who supported LGBT issues. There is an effort to honor Chavez with a federal holiday. Milk became the first openly gay elected official of a large city. He was assassinated in 1978, along with then San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. A California legislator introduced a measure to create a state holiday in order to honor Milk.
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