Republican platform committee rejects gay-inclusive plank


A day after Vice President Dick Cheney made it clear that he does not favor the constitutional marriage ban supported by his boss, the platform committee for the Republican Party on Wednesday rejected a proposed plank put forth by the gay political group Log Cabin Republicans and two other groups that sought to add moderate language to the platform. "Today's decision--refusing to unite our party and refusing to recognize that people of good faith can disagree over contentious social issues--sends the wrong message to fair-minded voters," said Log Cabin executive director Patrick Guerriero. "What is the message that today's platform language sends to Republicans like Vice President Cheney, Governor Schwarzenegger, Mayor Giuliani, and Senator McCain? How can you have a platform that fails to recognize that people of good faith, like Vice President Cheney, can disagree over complex social issues. The far right's agenda is dividing our families, our party, our nation, and even our president and vice president."


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Massachusetts high court says no to lesbian child support


A woman who agreed to have a child with her lesbian partner but split up with the mother before the baby's birth cannot be forced to pay child support, Massachusetts's highest court ruled Wednesday. The split ruling by the supreme judicial court--the same court that legalized gay marriage in a landmark ruling last year--comes in the case of a Hampshire County lesbian couple, identified in court documents as "T.F." and "B.L.," who lived together from 1996 to 2000. B.L. at first resisted T.F.'s wishes to have a child but later changed her mind. The couple broke up after T.F. got pregnant by artificial insemination. After the baby was born, T.F. sued her former partner for child support. A probate and family court judge turned to the state appeals court, which in turn passed the case up to the supreme judicial court



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Gay couples denied marriage licenses blocks away from Cheney speech


Four gay and lesbian couples were denied marriage licenses Tuesday at the Scott County, Iowa, courthouse, while Vice President Dick Cheney was just blocks away commenting on the issue of same-sex marriage. At a Republican campaign rally in Davenport, in response to a question posed by a woman concerning the vice president's thoughts on same-sex marriage, Cheney said it is an issue for his family because of his daughter Mary, who is gay. "With the respect to the question of relationships, my general view is, freedom means freedom for everyone," he said. "People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to." Cheney added that, historically, states have determined how marriage is defined.