In front of roughly three dozen LGBT leaders, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said that she would not oppose efforts by gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer to enact a same-sex marriage law in New York, Gay City News reported. She also commented that her advocacy on LGBT issues 'has certainly evolved.'
The Washington State Supreme Court has reaffirmed its endorsement of the state's gay marriage ban, the Associated Press noted. Same-sex couples had asked the justices to reconsider the 5-4 ruling upholding the Defense of Marriage Act.
Members of the National Assn. for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality's scientific advisory committee have its allies concerned because of their views, according to the L.A. Times. One psychiatrist called for allowing schoolchildren to shame and ridicule classmates who do not act according to stereotypical gender roles while a therapist stated that slaves may have been better off in chains than in 'savage' Africa.
In Malden, Mass., police are looking into the gay bashing of a cheerleader at a high-school football game, according to 365Gay.com . After Malden High School defeated rival Melrose High, a female teen allegedly began harassing a 17-year old male Malden cheerleader with anti-gay slurs. A boy who was with the girl then supposedly punched the youth repeatedly.
The Human Rights Campaign has fired an employee who admitted to the first online publication of Florida Representative Mark Foley's e-mails to a former male page, according to The Washington Blade. The organization is refusing to identify the employee by name, but says he was a junior staff member who worked as a coordinator in Michigan.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., Democratic and Republican members of the House and Senate will introduce a transgender-inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act ( ENDA ) early next year, according to The Washington Blade. Gay and transgender activists have said that their chances for passing ENDA would improve if Democrats win control of Congress in the midterm elections.
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities will host the first statewide Minnesota Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally ( GLBTA ) Campus Alliance conference on Nov. 3 and 4, according to UMN News. The main purpose of the alliance is to create a safe and accepting environment throughout all Minnesota college campuses.
In Colorado, Randall Rex won another chance to argue that a typed letter in a birthday card given to him by Ronald Wiltfong, his late partner, can be considered a will, 365Gay.com reported. The ruling ended two years of litigation but if Propsition I, a measure going before voters next month, is passed it would prevent similar situations for other same-sex couples in the state.
Lambda Legal has helped raise funds to give Tyron Garner—who challenged Texas' sodomy law in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and won a landmark decision—a proper burial, according to a release from the organization. KeithBoykin.com had reported that Garner still had not been buried or cremated more than a month after he died on Sept. 11.
Missouri University Chancellor Brady Deaton has halted plans to distribute free condoms in the school's residence halls, according to the Columbia Missourian. As recently as a week before the decision, campus officials were looking into types of containers to put in dormitory bathrooms to hold condoms for distribution, and arrangements were supposedly being made for the Columbia/Boone County Health Department to provide 50,000 condoms.
Leaders in the Fight to Eradicate AIDS ( LIFE AIDS ) held its third annual Black Student Teach-In and Town Meeting at Tuskegee University in Alabama, according to BlackAIDS.org . The event included a town-hall meeting, an HIV/AIDS movie night and a talk about sexuality.
U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is investigating whether the federal government acted wisely by spending 'millions of dollars' to subsidize six separate AIDS conferences this year that hundreds of federal employees attended at the government's expense, according to an item in The Washington Blade.
CFS.com, owners of the gay Web site Cruising for Sex, plans to shut down all its sites for a full day on Election Day in a campaign called 'Don't Stroke! Vote!' on Nov. 7, according to a company press release.
Pop star Madonna, speaking publicly for the first time about her adoption of a boy from Malawi, said she was disappointed by the controversy it caused and worried it would discourage others from adopting children in Africa, Reuters reported. In an interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Madonna said she was drawn to 1-year-old David Banda when she first saw him in the arms of an 8-year-old girl who was living with HIV/AIDS.
MTV's The Real World—which will take place in Denver in its 18th season—will feature a gay cast member in James Davis Mallory, IV ( who goes by his middle name ) . Mallory is a 23-year-old, blonde-haired, blue-eyed frat boy from Marietta, Ga., who was raised in a conservative Christian family. The first of 28 episodes airs Nov. 22 on MTV.
