German politician calls for more gay rights
 
BERLIN (Reuters) - Gay rights could become an election issue in Germany after an opposition leader acknowledged his homosexuality for the first time and urged greater equality for same sex couples. In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, liberal Free Democrats leader Guido Westerwelle said on Saturday that gay couples should have the right to adopt any child and not, as in a law proposed by the government, only the legal child of one partner. They should also be entitled to the same tax breaks as married couples, he said. Westerwelle has attended a number of public engagements in recent weeks with his partner and clearly implied he was gay in the interview.


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Gay couple: General Mills discriminated
By Cheryl Miller
Record Staff Writer


LODI -- A former General Mills supervisor will join her partner next week in suing the Lodi cereal maker for discrimination based on their same-sex relationship, the worker's attorney said Friday.

Galt resident Lorie Wiler left her job Wednesday as team leader at the Turner Road plan. San Francisco attorney Pamela Pitt said plant employees hassled Wiler after her partner, Debra Feigh, accused General Mills in federal court of denying her a job because she is gay.

Efforts to reach a spokeswoman at the company's office in Minnesota and a Lodi plant supervisor were unsuccessful Friday.

Wiler and Feigh moved from Ohio to Galt in 2002 after General Mills transferred Wiler to the Lodi facility. Feigh found work at the plant on a temporary basis, and after a three-month stint the personnel department asked her to apply for a full-time job, according to Feigh's lawsuit.