Now Laura says whoa
on gay-wedding ban


While President Bush clearly opposes gay marriage, Laura Bush said yesterday she has not made up her mind.

"I haven't really made an absolute personal opinion," the First Lady said on "Good Morning America."

"I definitely agree that there should be the debate," she said. "The people of the United States don't want the mayor of San Francisco or the Supreme Court of Massachusetts making that decision for the country.


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Europe Controlled By 'Faggots' Italian Cabinet Member Asserts  
by Malcolm Thornberry
365Gay.com Newscenter
European Bureau Chief


(Rome) An Italian cabinet minister Wednesday launched into a homophobic tirade in response to this weeks rebuke of the country's nominee for the European Union's Commissioner for Justice.

Mirko Tremaglia, the minister with responsibility for Italians overseas called the rejection of Rocco Buttiglione by the EU civil liberties committee "outrageous". Buttiglione was called unsuitable for calling homosexuality "a sin".


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Taft rejects gay marriage ballot issue
Proposed ban unnecessary, governor says
By JAMES DREW
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU CHIEF


COLUMBUS - Sixteen days after Ohio's Republican attorney general said he would vote no on Issue 1 and six days after Ohio's two GOP U.S. senators took the same stance, Gov. Bob Taft has jumped on the bandwagon.

In a written statement yesterday, Mr. Taft said the Nov. 2 ballot issue to add a ban on same-sex marriage to Ohio's Constitution is "unnecessary and overbroad."

Mr. Taft noted that in February, he signed an anti-same-sex-marriage bill into law. Although Ohio law previously defined marriage as between one man and one woman, the U.S. Constitution says courts are obligated to give "full faith and credit'' to decrees and acts of other states unless they violate a "strong public policy.''

Backers of the bill that Mr. Taft signed into law said without Ohio joining other states in that declaration, gay couples could go to Canada, Vermont, or Massachusetts and then return to Ohio and claim the benefits of marriage.


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Same-sex partners married in Canada qualify for New York pension


Same-sex marriages performed in Canada are as valid to New York State's largest public employee pension fund as the U.S. weddings of heterosexuals, state comptroller Alan Hevesi said. In an advisory decision released Wednesday, Hevesi said New York State court rulings and a March opinion by state attorney general Eliot Spitzer dictate that full benefits be extended to the partner of a public employee if the couple has been married in Canada.

Court rulings starting in June 2003 have validated same-sex marriages in six Canadian jurisdictions, including Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia. Judges have ruled Hevesi was asked by an Albany-area state worker, Mark Daigneault, whether Daigneault's partner of 10 years would qualify for his pension benefits if the two are married in Canada. Hevesi said he would. "This was absolutely clear," Hevesi said. "The law was clear."


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Gephardt's daughter speaking out on gay issues
By SCOTT MacKAY


Since Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in May, the state hasn't "broken off from the United States and floated off into the Atlantic," the daughter of Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri says.

Chrissy Gephardt, a gay-rights activist, asserted in a speech this week at Brown University that all of the doomsday predictions about gay marriage in Massachusetts have turned out not to have come to fruition.

"Where's their evidence?" said Gephardt. Traditional relationships, Gephardt said, appear as strong as ever in Massachusetts. And there has been no cataclysm in Vermont, which has permitted civil unions since 2000, she said.

What happened since gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts on May 17, Gephardt said, is that gay couples "are in these loving, committed, boring marriages."