News

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.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Monday blocked efforts to confirm Mari Carmen Aponte, a Washington D.C.-based attorney, as the permanent ambassador to El Salvador, because, according to one source, Aponte is an LGBT advocate who has previously called for the “elimination of prejudices” against LGBT people.

COON RAPIDS, Minn. — During its meeting before a packed room with a standing room only crowd Monday, the Anoka-Hennepin Minnesota School District’s board proposed a new “Controversial Topics Curriculum Policy” to replace the current “neutral policy” that prohibits the district’s teachers from talking about homosexuality in the classroom.

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers on Capitol Hill unveiled on Monday an agreement on major defense budget legislation that omits anti-gay provisions found in the House version of the legislation — including language that would have prohibited military chaplains and facilities from being involved in same-sex marriage ceremonies.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is to be quizzed directly tomorrow over anti-gay laws. The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, told activists on Tuesday that she would raise the discriminatory laws at the EU-Russia summit.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — During a campaign meet and greet at a local diner Monday morning, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney found himself in an awkward position defending his stance on same-sex marriage.

In 2010, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a tax-exempt nonprofit trying to thwart the legalization of same-sex marriage throughout the U.S., reported the highest individual donations it has received since its inception in 2007, according to NOM’s most recent income disclosures to the Internal Revenue Service, recently obtained by The American Independent.

A gay Iraqi has been refused Norwegian asylum and told to “go home and be discreet.” The High Court accepted that Azad Hassan Rasol was gay and that gay men in Iraq are at risk, including at risk of being killed, but it ruled that Rasol ‘must comply with Iraq’s socio-cultural norms’.

A lesbian couple is suing the state of Hawaii in federal court over the state’s denial of same-sex marriage, claiming that the state’s refusal to issue them a marriage license violates their due process and equal protection rights guaranteed them by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A former Rutgers University student accused of bullying his gay roommate, allegedly leading his victim to kill himself, rejected a plea deal on Friday that would have allowed him to avoid a jail sentence.