Transsexual Unions Volatile Testing Ground For Gay Marriage
Michael Christopher Bryan

As the issue of gay marriage continues to divide heterosexual Americans, a new twist is appearing on the horizon: transsexual couples who remain married or wish to become married after changing genders.

"If the Orwellian religious right has their way, they could pull the plug on all of us,'' said Fran Bennett, a once-popular Bay Area disc jockey known as "Weird Old Uncle Frank." Bennett made national headlines in 2002 when she announced her transition from male to female, reported the Mercury Newspaper in a special report Tuesday.

Bennett, and her partner, Erika Taylor, say they are feeling a general sense of unease as President Bush continues to push for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

"Middle America is having a hard enough time with just plain old vanilla gay marriage,'' said Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, noting the difficulty many have in discussing transsexual marriage along side same-sex marriage. But transsexual unions are not likely to go away.

In the state of California alone, recent polls show between 35,000 to 60,000 recognized transsexuals have applied for gender reassignment via state identification and renewed birth certificates.

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First French Gay Wedding Set for June

PARIS (Reuters) - A leading Green politician said on Thursday he would conduct the first same-sex wedding in France this June, a move likely to be opposed by religious leaders in the traditionally Catholic country.

Noel Mamere said he would unite two gay men living in a district of Begles, a suburb of the southwestern city of Bordeaux, of which he is mayor.

In France, couples must undergo a civil wedding conducted by their local mayor for their union to be legal.

"There's nothing extraordinary about marrying two people of the same sex in the European Union, because Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands have done it already and the new Spanish prime minister...has put it in his political program," Mamere said.

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Nothing much worse then being in the land o-bigots…. And being queer…..I still think all queer flokz need to leave those hate fill communities and more to more humane communities… fuck kansas….

Gast case to get non-jury trial
By CONNIE PARISH, Times Staff Writer
Sandy Clarissa Gast will have a trial in Leavenworth County District Court, but a jury won't decide whether she was guilty of false swearing when she applied in February for a license to marry Georgi Somers.

Instead, the trial -- expected in late July or August -- will be to the court, Judge Frederick Stewart ruled Wednesday.

Gast's lawyer, Topeka attorney Pedro Irigonegaray, filed a motion for a jury trial on March 31, when he first appeared in court with his client. He is acting on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union in representing the Leavenworth transsexual, who was accused of lying about gender on the marriage application.