A new study reveals that same-sex marriage would have a significant positive impact on California's state budget, with a potential gain of up to $30 million each year, according to 365Gay.com . The results were released on the eve of a vote by the California State Assembly Appropriations Committee on the fiscal impact of AB 19, a bill that extends marriage to same-sex couples in California. The study was prepared by the Williams Project, a think tank at UCLA School of Law, and the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies ( IGLSS ) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
In Texas, the State Senate sent voters a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages and civil unions in Texas, with balloting set for Nov. 5, according to the Houston Chronicle. In an emotional three-hour debate, opponents compared the amendment to historical bias against Blacks, Hispanics, women, and Jews, and said it would affect about 43,000 same-sex couples in Texas. Supporters said the state has a right to set a high standard for marriage and has for years banned polygamy.
Congress may grant 'special immigrant status' to 50 foreign translators who were hired the U.S. military to replace Americans fired by the Pentagon after they came out, according to 365Gay.com . Despite previously saying that under ''don't ask, don't tell'' it had discharged seven translators who specialized in Arabic, records obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request show that between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi speakers. However, now the Pentagon acknowledges the true number was 54.
Representatives of the nation's top psychiatric group approved a statement urging legal recognition of same-sex marriage, according to The New York Times. If approved by the association's directors in July, the measure would make the group, the American Psychiatric Association, the first major medical organization to take such a position. The statement supports same-sex marriage 'in the interest of maintaining and promoting mental health.'
In Ohio, delegates to a regional conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America passed a resolution recommending the denomination continue its ban on the ordination of non-celibate gay clergy and forbidding the blessing of same-sex unions, the Toledo Blade reported. The voting members of the ELCA's Northwest Ohio Synod debated the resolution for about 45 minutes before approving it 315-143 with 23 abstentions.
In Maryland, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., vetoed a measure allowing same-sex couples to make medical decisions for each other, overturning legislation passed earlier this year. The Baltimore Sun reported that the governor also vetoed a $1-an-hour increase in the minimum wage, attempts to reform the state's troubled juvenile justice system, and bills supporters said would make voting more convenient.
In California, five students and their parents filed an emergency lawsuit in Superior Court in Kern County seeking publication in the next two weeks of a series of articles about sexual orientation that was censored by school officials.