SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The advance of gay rights across the United States is spreading into Puerto Rico, making the island a relatively gay-friendly outpost in a Caribbean region where sodomy laws and harassment of gays are still common.

RICHMOND, Va. — Tracy Thorne-Begland, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and Deputy Commonwealth’s attorney for the city of Richmond, was sworn in Friday as Virginia’s first openly gay judge.

CENTREVILLE, Va. — A California transgender woman alleges that, while on a business trip last year, she was asked to leave a suburban Washington D.C. because the manager told her “she looked different.”

DENVER — Former Major League pitcher Mark Knudson says that gay professional athletes would serve their teams best by staying in the closet.

MESQUITE, Texas — A Texas woman claims she is the victim of a hate crime after she was attacked in an elementary school playground for protecting a bullied four-year-old boy.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A southeastern Kentucky town that attracted national attention when it adopted a gay rights ordinance is getting offers for a reality-based television show.

Given the overwhelming evidence in the past few years showing that bisexual persons exist in greater numbers than the combined gay male, lesbian and transgender populations, we must ask whether some of the national queer organizations that send out donation requests demanding that we “demand equality for everyone” are themselves paying attention to the particular needs of bisexual folks, not merely as lip service, not just as an afterthought, but in any sort of tangible way. Noting that none of the following 10 national organizations includes the word “bisexual” or even the letter “B” in its name, I called and emailed media representatives of these groups about their bisexual policies and leadership for this report…

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Minnesota House committee has given its initial backing to a bill meant to crack down on bullying in schools.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Friday there was no way he could avoid urging the Supreme Court to overturn the state of California’s ban on gay marriage.

SAN FRANCISCO — The results of a poll commissioned by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce last month and published Friday showed that a majority of the city’s residents oppose renaming San Francisco International Airport after slain gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk.

Fox’s Bill O’Reilly condemned a new Massachusetts school policy protecting transgender students, suggesting that teachers should be allowed to out their transgender students to their families and fear mongering that “wise guys” might use the policy to infiltrate girls’ restrooms.

WASHINGTON — More than 200 congressional Democrats are urging the Supreme Court to overturn a key provision of the federal law against gay marriage.

The state of California on Thursday filed its own amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court challenge to Proposition 8, the state’s voter approved ban on same-sex marriage.

DENVER — Civil unions for gay couples advanced a Colorado House committee with one Republican joining Democrats in support of a bill that’s expected to become law this year.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A transgender woman has filed a lawsuit after she was expelled from a Christian university after she revealed in an episode of MTV’s “True Life” that she is biologically male.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage and take a skeptical view of similar bans elsewhere, making a historic argument for gay rights.

JACKSON, Miss. — A 22-year-old man was charged with murder Thursday in the death of an openly gay mayoral candidate, whose body was found near a river levee in the Mississippi Delta this week.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — Despite hearing testimony that LGBT youth were three times more likely to take their own lives as opposed to their straight peers, Chambersburg Pennsylvania School Board Member on Wednesday voted against allowing a gay-straight alliance to be established at a local high school.

The American Sociological Association (ASA) has weighed in on the same-sex marriage cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, filing an amicus brief Thursday outlining social science research that shows “children fare just as well” when raised by same-sex or heterosexual parents.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that marriage equality for gays and lesbians is the next big civil rights issue.