Battle Line Drawn In Oklahoma's 'marriage Amendment' Vote

Oklahoma's battle over gay rights moves into the national spotlight. An Anti-Oklahoma advertisement campaign started Monday in a national newspaper. The first ad popped up in the Money section of USA Today.

A state wide gay and lesbian rights group put the ad in the paper as part of a campaign to raise awareness and money. The group wants to encourage people to help stop the proposed state Constitutional marriage amendment from becoming a reality.

Terry Gatewood with Cimarron Equality Oklahoma: “if we do not create environment of tolerance and diversity we can build all the baseball stadium we want and those businesses are not going to come.”

Voters will decide in November if the state constitution should define Marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. Supports of the marriage amendment consider the advertisement economic blackmail and call it offensive.


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Minnis pressures Democrats on special session
By CHARLES E. BEGGS  / Associated Press

Many Democrats don't want it, but House Speaker Karen Minnis and other Republicans are turning up the heat to hold a special legislative session to discuss tax reform and gay marriage in June.

The Republican House leader created a new House committee Monday to take up where a deadlocked House-Senate panel left off last week. The GOP-run House committee meets Tuesday.

The House-Senate panel got bogged down in a stalemate over a ballot measure — proposed by House Republicans — to limit state spending and create a rainy day reserve fund.

Democrats are balking at the plan, and they don't like talk by Minnis that Republicans might also try to push through a ballot measure banning gay marriage.


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Broader rights for same-sex couples sought
Jones wants the city to extend the benefits of marriage.
By Christina Jewett -- Bee Staff Writer

Calling for policy changes that proved contentious in Seattle and San Jose, Sacramento City Councilman Dave Jones is asking that the city extend the benefits of marriage to employees who present a same-sex marriage license.

The rights Jones is seeking for gays will be granted Jan. 1, when a state law goes into effect giving the rights and duties of marriage to partners registered with the state. But Jones wants to see Sacramento's city policy change.

No city employees are pushing for the benefits, but Jones said the civil rights-era guarantee of equality calls for a change in city policy. "I just think this is the right thing to do."

Currently, domestic partners of Sacramento city employees are eligible for benefits, but not the partner's children.


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Miami suit to challenge federal gay marriage ban
By CATHERINE WILSON
Associated Press Writer

MIAMI -- Four Florida gay and lesbian couples say they will be the first to contest an 8-year-old federal law banning same-sex marriage.

Although gay-rights groups have limited their legal challenges to state courts, attorney Ellis Rubin says he plans to file a federal lawsuit Wednesday challenging the constitutionality of the 1995 federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Rubin was denied marriage licenses for the four couples at the Miami-Dade County clerk's office.

"I've talked to several gay organization lawyers, and they claim that they don't want to go into federal court because they're picking their states very carefully," Rubin said Monday. "I don't believe in sitting back and letting a steamroller roll over me."


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Schools to commemorate death of gay student
By STEVE STRUNSKY
Associated Press Writer

NEWARK, N.J. -- A year after Sakia Gunn was slain, leading to an outpouring of gay pride and mourning for the 15-year-old lesbian, her former classmates plan to remember her Tuesday.

Gunn was stabbed to death last year waiting for a bus after she told her attacker that she and the friends he was propositioning were lesbians.

As her attacker awaits trial, Gunn's death continues to reverberate in the city, and a controversy is brewing over facilities for other gay and lesbian youth.

"People think about her, they start crying," said Marsh Padmore, a 19-year-old lesbian, who went to visit Gunn's grave Monday.


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Gay 'Divorce' Moves To Iowa Supreme Court
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

(Des Moines, Iowa) The Iowa Supreme Court is being urged to throw out an appeal to a "divorce" granted a lesbian couple who had a civil union in Vermont.

Following their civil union Kimberly Jean Brown and Jennifer Sue Perez returned to their homes state of Iowa but their relationship broke down and they sought to have a judge grant them a divorce.

The petition for divorce was approved by District Judge Jeffrey A. Neary without a hearing. Both parties had a stipulated agreement, and Neary signed the dissolution decree before realizing the relationship he was ending involved two women.

Judge Neary said he believed that under the legal concept of full faith and credit, he would be able to grant the divorce of a union that is legal in another state. The divorce also could be granted by applying equity and partnership laws that govern the business world, he said.


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KANSAS REJECTS ANTI-GAY BIGOTRY IN STATE CONSTITUTION    
By Steven Fisher  

WASHINGTON – The Kansas Legislature adjourned May 8, effectively killing a proposed anti-gay amendment to the state Constitution that would have denied marriage to same-sex couples in the state. The measure, which failed in Senate and House votes, would have also denied the legal protections of marriage to same-sex couples in civil unions or domestic partnerships.

“Legislators recognized that resurrecting an anti-gay amendment to the Kansas Constitution was a bad idea and waste of time,” said HRC President Cheryl Jacques. “This amendment was twice rejected – first by the Senate and then by the House. But some lawmakers just couldn’t take no for an answer. It’s heartening to see fairness won out.”
 
Following a successful House vote, the Senate, lead in part by Republican state Sen. David Adkins, rejected the measure on March 26. Lawmakers then brought the measure up for another vote. The Senate passed it; however, on May 4, the House rejected it the second time around.