Florida

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A political advertisement in the current issue of the Florida Agenda, an LGBT weekly newspaper distributed throughout central and south Florida, and paid for by the Broward (County) Log Cabin Republican Club of Florida, attacked Democrats and President Barack Obama -- using an image of the lifeless body of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in the aftermath of last month's attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya. [ Read more → ]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Broward County School Board members on Wednesday unanimously passed a formal resolution to recognize LGBT History Month, which takes place every October. [ Read more → ]

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. -- When 35-year-old Tara Tuttle found out that her partner of seven years, Cary Tullos, did not have breast cancer after anxiously awaiting the test results, she was happy and relieved. [ Read more → ]

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The Jacksonville City Council on Wednesday voted down a bill that would have expanded that city's human rights ordinance to include protections for LGBT citizens in the areas of employment, housing, and hotel and restaurants. [ Read more → ]

David Richardson has become the first openly LGBT candidate elected to the Florida legislature. He won a Democratic primary tonight to represent the Miami-area District 113 in the Florida House of Representatives, and faces no GOP opponent this fall. [ Read more → ]

PALM COAST, Fla. -- A Florida school district has settled a complaint filed against it with the U.S. Office of Civil Rights which alleged that the staff at Flagler Palm Coast High School allowed a gay former student to be bullied. [ Read more → ]

ORLANDO, Fla. -- More than 150,000 gays and lesbians and their families descended on Walt Disney World and surrounding theme parks this weekend for the 22nd annual "Gay Days" events, an annual pilgrimage that contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the Orlando-area economy. [ Read more → ]

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A coalition of business organizations and elected officials are backing legislation to ban anti-gay discrimination which is set to be introduced at next week's Jacksonville, Fla., city council meeting. [ Read more → ]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Gay Republicans joined many of their straight counterparts in Florida Tuesday night in congratulating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for his decisive victory in the Florida Republican primary. [ Read more → ]

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Gay rights advocates expect a strong turnout of same-sex couples at Orlando's City Hall when the city's new domestic-partnership registry opens next month. The registry, which takes effect Jan. 12, will extend vital legal protections to gay and lesbian families. [ Read more → ]

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The Orlanda City Council on Monday voted unanimously to enact a domestic partnership registry, as the city became the first in Central Florida to recognize relationships of same-sex couples. [ Read more → ]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The Broward County Commission on Tuesday voted unanimously to approve Florida's first countywide Equal Benefits Ordinance (EBO), a measure that requires the county's vendors to provide domestic partners with benefits equal to those offered to spouses of married employees. [ Read more → ]

TAMPA, Fla. -- The Pinellas County School Board this week voted to reject a $54,838 grant for a program run by a subsidiary of the Boy Scouts of America because the organization discriminates against gay youth. [ Read more → ]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A year ago this month, Florida's Third District Court of Appeals in Miami-Dade, ruled a 33 year-old law that barred gays and lesbians from adopting children unenforceable and the state's attorney general declined to challenge it. [ Read more → ]

Two Florida state lawmakers have introduced a measure in both chambers of the legislature that would provide domestic partnership protections to committed same-sex couples throughout Florida. [ Read more → ]

The ACLU of Florida on Monday reached a settlement in a lawsuit against the City of Miami Beach and two police officers on behalf of Harold Strickland, a gay former Miami Beach resident wrongfully arrested in March 2009 in retaliation for calling 911 to report that police officers were beating and kicking a man who lay handcuffed on the ground. [ Read more → ]

The Miami-Dade school district -- the fourth largest in the nation -- on Thursday joined other districts across the state of Florida in protecting students from bullying based upon gender identity or sexual orientation. [ Read more → ]

A conservative family values group took to the skies over Central Florida with a warning of the annual "Gay Day" occurring at Walt Disney World today. The Florida Family Association spent $7,000 to fly banners over Orlando for 10 hours each day on Friday and... [ Read more → ]

Commissioners in Orange County, Fla., voted unanimously on Tuesday to extend health and other workplace benefits to the partners and children of gay county employees. [ Read more → ]

A candidate for city council in Miami Shores, Fla., this weekend discovered several campaign yard signs had been defaced with anti-gay epithets. [ Read more → ]