Chris Dyer

OMAHA, Neb. — A petition effort by led by local churches and family values organizations in Omaha has failed to gather enough signatures to launch a referendum to repeal an Omaha city ordinance that protects its LGBT citizens.

LINCOLN, Neb. — As the 2013 legislative session in Nebraska commenced last week with two LGBT-friendly bills introduced for debate, the University of Nebraska announced it plans to offer health care benefits for the university’s partnered same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

SALEM, Ore. — The Oregon state Health Plan and its Healthy Kids Program will soon begin covering medically-necessary care for young people experiencing gender dysphoria on Oct. 1, 2014, making Oregon the first state to ensure coverage of transgender kids under Medicaid.

LINCOLN, Neb. — In a Lancaster County courtroom Monday, Judge Gale Pokorny, found Charlie Rogers guilty of staging a fake anti-gay hate crime that shocked both the citizens of Lincoln, Neb., and the nation — first for the brutality of the alleged crime, and then for lying about the crime.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — The Grand Island, Neb., city council on Tuesday voted to add “sexual orientation” to the city’s non-discrimination policy by overruling a mayoral veto.

LINCOLN, Neb. — The woman accused of staging a “hate crime” and filing a false police report in a highly publicized incident earlier this year, continues to maintain that she is a victim and denies fabricating the incident.

OMAHA, Neb. — An outspoken opponent of LGBT rights in Omaha has launched a petition drive to overturn the city’s legal protections for LGBT residents.

LINCOLN, Neb. — The Association of Students of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has voted to override two vetoes by the student senate’s president, one which expressed support for extending benefits to spouses of LGBT NU staff and faculty, and another bill that supported Lincoln’s LGBT-inclusive “fairness ordinance.”

LINCOLN, Neb. — Lancaster County, Neb., District Court Judge Gale Pokorny on Thursday continued until Nov. 19 the case against a Nebraska woman charged with providing false information to police in connection to an alleged anti-gay hate crime that investigators now say was an elaborate hoax.

LINCOLN, Neb. — A Nebraska woman who claimed she was the victim of an anti-gay hate crime in which three masked attackers invaded her home, painted homophobic slurs on the walls, and carved them into her skin, before attempting to set her house on fire, has been charged with filing a false police report and lying to investigators.