News

RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina state House is unanimously backing efforts to increase criminal penalties for people who disrupt a funeral or memorial service in response to an anti-gay Kansas church picketing military funerals nationwide.

WASHINGTON — By a robust bipartisan majority, the Senate voted Tuesday to renew the Violence Against Women Act with new assurances that gays and lesbians, immigrants and Native American women will have equal access to the act’s anti-domestic violence programs.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on Tuesday said that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) “will move this year” in the Senate.

RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia House measure that would allow student clubs at Virginia’s public colleges and universities to discriminate in their policies and membership was passed the state Senate Monday on a 21-18 vote.

HONOLULU — The state House Judiciary Committee has decided not to schedule a hearing for a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in Hawaii, likely leaving the measure tabled tabled for this legislative session.

PARIS (AP) — France’s lower house of parliament has approved a sweeping bill to legalize gay marriage and allow same-sex couples to adopt children.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and activist Dan Savage, founder of the “It Gets Better” project, joined a chorus of LGBT advocates from across the country in condemning a group of students and parents in Sullivan, Ind., who met Sunday to discuss plans for a high school prom that would exclude gay and lesbian students.

NEW YORK — DC Comics has come under fire from LGBT fans and advocates for hiring anti-gay activist and novelist Orson Scott Card to write for their new digital “Adventures of Superman.”

A lesbian couple who were denied a wedding cake by a Gresham, Ore., bakery because they are gay, have accepted an offer by Baltimore pastry chef Duff Goldman, star of Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes,” to bake and deliver a free wedding cake.

SALEM, Ore. — Supporters of same-sex marriage said Monday they’re aiming at a vote next year to reverse Oregon’s ban on gay marriage, which was approved in 2004.