Juliet & Juliette

A day after several openly gay military veterans on HRC’s Legacy of Service tour held a press conference and panel discussion in Phoenix this week, Arizona governor Janet Napolitano came out against the military’s ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. She said the military is better prepared if they focus on people doing their jobs rather than someone’s sexual orientation.

A gay former U.S. border officer is suing the government for what he says is anti-gay discrimination. Robert Rhodes was under investigation for violating a tourist’s civil rights during a 2005 incident and even though he was cleared of wrongdoing he was still fired. Rhodes says the Border Protection Agency did not want to allow him to return because he had filed a previous complaint against the agency for anti-gay discrimination.

Turning to Kentucky, yesterday the ACLU told a federal court that it can protect both gay students and free speech. The case is involving an anti-harassment training at Boyd County High School that the anti-gay legal group The Alliance Defense Fund says threatens student’s free speech and religious liberty. The ACLU is arguing that there is a huge difference between telling students that they shouldn’t harass or attack others and censorship.

A Lutheran Bishop-elect in Chicago is calling on his church to remove the requirement of celibacy for gay and lesbian clergy. Bishop-elect Wayne Miller says he wants the church to reevaluate the rules as soon as next month at the church’s annual meeting. Heterosexual clergy in the church are allowed to marry.

Now to some international news, Reuters published an article this week looking at the changing attitudes in Eastern Europe on the subject of homosexuality. The Hungarian secretary of state for human resources recently came-out making him one of the highest ranking openly gay officials in the region. They say it’s a sign of progress, albeit slow.

Finally in Ireland, the country’s prime minister says his government will pursue legislation as soon as possible to grant same-sex couples rights equal to those of married couples. Britain’s civil partnership law will be the basis for the legislation.

~Source: www.hrc.org