Cities continue to defy out-of-state gay marriage law
By: Capital News 9 web staff

A Massachusetts town is making an important decision on same-sex marriage today.

Provincetown officials have been issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples from out of state. But the state attorney general ordered Provincetown to stop -- along with three other communities.

Today, officials will announce whether they'll comply with that order like the other communities have.

Meanwhile, two clerks from two other cities are also defying the ban for out-of-state couples. But neither of them has heard from the attorney general.



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Gay partners to get super rights
By Misha Schubert


GAY couples will win the right to nominate their partner as a superannuation beneficiary for the first time but will be barred from adopting overseas children, under new laws proposed by the Howard Government.

The Australian understands the cabinet signed off yesterday on the changes, which will define marriage as an exclusively heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman and will outlaw recognition of foreign gay unions.

One government source said last night that critics would find it harder to attack the changes as homophobic because the bans on adoption and marriage were counter-balanced by the superannuation reforms.


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Gay Marriage Foes Move To Oust SJC Judge
State Rep. Targets Justice Margaret Marshall


BOSTON -- Legislative opponents of gay marriage have filed a bill seeking to remove Supreme Judicial Court Justice Margaret Marshall from the bench, blaming her for the decision that paved the way for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.


The sponsor of the bill, state Rep. Philip Travis, D-Rehoboth, said he believes Marshall had already made up her mind before hearing the case and pressured other justices to go along with her decision.

"I think we should go after the person who was the source of the problem," Travis said Tuesday. He said he filed the bill on the Friday before the ruling took affect on May 17.


The bill is similar to another proposal that targets all four justices who voted to legalize gay marriage.

Travis said he disagreed with that tactic and wanted to keep the focus exclusively on Marshall.



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Cardinal warns against gay-rights protest at mass
By Gina Kim
Tribune staff reporter


Protesters wearing rainbow-colored sashes should not receive communion this weekend, Cardinal Francis George said Tuesday, responding to reports of a possible gay-rights demonstration in Catholic churches.

George, at the Vatican for a meeting with the Pope John Paul II, has instructed priests in the archdiocese of Chicago to deny Communion to anyone wearing such a sash, after the grass-roots Rainbow Sash Movement announced that demonstrators would don sashes during Pentecost Sunday services.

The cardinal said it was not a question of withholding Communion from gays. The point, he said, is that the Eucharist should not become a political forum.

"No matter what the issue, you don't use Communion to say anything except, `Here is Jesus Christ,'" he said during a telephone interview from Rome. "To say something else is to misuse the sacrament."


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Church's involvement with city draws protests
By Lynn Thompson
Times Snohomish County bureau


MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — A local pastor's participation in a rally promoting traditional marriage has angered some members of the city's gay and lesbian community, and led to calls for the city to sever ties with the pastor's church.

John Small, the pastor of New Beginnings Church, attended the Mayday for Marriage rally at Safeco Field in Seattle this month. The event, organized by churches in the region, was held to show support for marriage between a man and a woman at a time when some state and local governments have moved to recognize gay marriages.

Small was one of an estimated 20,000 people attending the Seattle rally, but he holds a special place in Mountlake Terrace.

He's the chaplain to the city police and fire departments. He frequently attends City Council meetings, sometimes to urge members to treat each other with respect.


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Catholic church weighs into polls
The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales is urging voters to judge candidates for the local and European elections on their moral stances.

The call comes in the church's new pamphlet, Cherishing Life, which warns of a slide towards a culture of death.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the church's leader in England and Wales, said voters should draw on religious teaching when they come to vote.


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Group preaches homophobia in schools, gay rights groups claim
Ben Townley, Gay.com UK

A group claiming to teach sex education in Northern Ireland's schools is being accused of using its position to preach homophobia to children.

The Love for Life group, which has so far worked with more than 100 schools in the region and is based on Christian teachings, advocates abstinence programmes to young people in a bid to reduce the risks of sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies.

However, on its website, it also claims that changing ones sexuality is possible. In a question and answer section, it says that although "psychologists and psychiatrists are often banned by their professional associations from helping those who want to try and change their sexual orientation" such changes "are possible".

"Exclusively homosexual sexual activity however, is extremely uncommon," it also claims.


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Advocates plan lawsuit to stop marriage ban vote
By Judy Gibbs Robinson


Gay rights advocates are raising funds and exploring strategy for a possible lawsuit to keep a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage off the November ballot.

The Progressive Alliance Foundation announced a fund-raising drive Friday in an open letter posted to a gay Web site. In the letter, alliance executive director Andrew Rice said the American Civil Liberties Union had agreed to sue the state over the marriage amendment, but ACLU Executive Director Joann Bell said Tuesday that was not the case.

"We've just had lots of meetings with lots of attorneys," Bell said. "Nothing is definite yet. We're in the beginning stages of investigation."

Bell said the only thing that is definite is that gay rights advocates, both homosexual and heterosexual, realize some kind of legal challenge will be needed either before or after the November ballot.


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BVSD health curriculum changes OK'd
Sexual orientation, eating disorders, addiction and more will be addressed
By Amy Bounds, Camera Staff Writer

Boulder Valley students will learn more about sexual orientation next year.


The school board voted unanimously to approve the new K-12 health curriculum, despite passionate testimony from parents who don't want sexual orientation discussed in the classroom.


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Virginia anti-gay law among the nation's most restrictive
By Justin Bergman
The Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. — Gay activists in Virginia are toying with a new motto for the state: "Virginia is for lovers. Some restrictions apply."

Gays and lesbians are angry and even threatening to leave the state over a new law that will prohibit civil unions and could interfere with contracts between same-sex couples.

Some legal experts call it the most restrictive anti-gay law in the nation.

"I won't buy a home in Virginia. I'm done," said Bo Shuff, a 30-year-old gay-rights activist who has rented in the Washington suburb of Arlington the past two years.