News (USA)

COON RAPIDS, Minn. — The parent of a gay teen who committed suicide as a result of bullying is speaking out over the decision by the Anoka-Hennepin School District to appoint a leading gay rights opponent to its newly created anti-bullying task force.

WASHINGTON — The man accused of opening fire and shooting a security guard inside the offices of the Family Research Council in August, will face seven new charges when he appears in federal court on Friday, including committing an act of terrorism while armed.

Lou Rispoli, a well-respected and beloved community leader in the Queens, N.Y., gay neighborhood of Sunnyside, has been removed from life support and remains in hospice care, the result of an early morning attack last week. He is not expected to survive.

A transgender Army veteran has been named to head the newly combined organization advocating for the interests of LGBT service members.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Thursday reaffirmed his support for marriage equality, and called on Americans to support the freedom to marry when they vote on ballot measures in Maine, Maryland and Washington.

BOSTON — In 2003, while Governor of Massachusetts, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who publicly said he opposed child-rearing by gay and lesbian couples, insisted that his top legal staff individually review the circumstances of every birth to same-sex parents.

LONDON, KY — After five hours of deliberations, a jury in Kentucky late Wednesday acquitted two men of hate crime charges, while finding them guilty of kidnapping and conspiracy in connection with the attack on a gay man.

Chris Kluwe, the Minnesota Vikings punter and outspoken marriage equality advocate, argues against a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Minnesota in a satirical new radio ad for the group for Minnesotans for Equality.

A recent town hall meeting sponsored by the Maryland Family Alliance, a coalition working to defeat Maryland’s marriage equality law, has inflamed the gay marriage debate on news that a local pastor declared that LGBT people and their supporters are “worthy of death.”

Jurors began deliberations Wednesday in the case of two men charged in a federal hate crimes case Wednesday, the first in the nation under a section of the federal hate crimes law that makes it illegal to attack someone based on the victim’s real or perceived sexual orientation.