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Today’s Top Five Headlines

Senator Opposes HIV Testing for Pregnant Women
Obama Names Openly Gay AIDS Czar
Montana Church Can Shield Anti-Gay Marriage Contributions
Committee Deadlocks on Hawaii Same-Sex Unions Bill
Murder Suspect Caught Smiling Following Brutal Killing

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The Senate backed a bill promoting HIV testing for pregnant women Wednesday over the objection of a lone senator who said the state shouldn’t protect people from the consequences of their “unacceptable behavior.” Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, said HIV stemmed mainly from sexual promiscuity. He likened testing for HIV to opening day car centers in high schools to serve teenage mothers. “We do things constantly to try to remove the negative consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly,” Schultheis told the Senate. …

Read the full story from The Denver Post.

President Barack Obama named a Georgetown University health policy expert to head the White House AIDS policy office and coordinate efforts to reduce new HIV infections in the United States, officials said on Thursday. Jeffrey Crowley, who previously worked for the National Association of People with AIDS activist group, was appointed to head the Office of National AIDS Policy, the White House said. …

Read the full story from Reuters.

Far from the gay-rights battlefields of Los Angeles and San Francisco, where supporters of a ban on gay marriage risk business boycotts and landing on the social D-list, a Baptist church in Montana has scored a quiet victory in its campaign to keep its books and defense-of-marriage backers out of the limelight. The Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church of East Helena isn’t obliged to make campaign finance disclosures, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, because its support for the Montana Marriage Protection Amendment — use of some printer ink and a foyer table — was “extremely minimal.” The 2004 state ballot initiative passed by a 2-to-1 margin. …

Read the full story from The Los Angeles Times.

A state Senate committee voted 3-3 early Wednesday on a bill that would allow same-sex civil unions, a split that normally would stall the legislation but in this case was not expected to prevent it from advancing. More than 1,400 people signed up to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which took more than 15 hours of testimony before voting at 3 a.m. It was the largest turnout for a Capitol hearing in years. …

Read the full story from The Associated Press.

From his laughing face caught on video, no one would guess Keith Phoenix had just beaten a man to death with a baseball bat in what police call a bias attack. The 28-year-old murder suspect was all smiles as he pulled into an RFK bridge cash lane Dec. 7 – just 19 minutes after he beat Ecuadorian immigrant Jose Sucuzhanay to death on a Brooklyn street, cops said. Police released the chilling surveillance video Thursday as cops hunt for Phoenix, who lives in the Bronx. …

Read the full story from the The New York Daily News.

 

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Today’s Top Five Headlines

Lutheran Church Leader Criticizes Gay Clergy Proposal
Gay Asians Offended by Oscar Speech Censorship
Catholic Bishop Scolds School Over Gay Speaker
Utah Dems Call for Sanctions Over Hate Speech
Testimony Underway in Gay Porn Murder Trial

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The president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod expressed “great disappointment and deep sadness” over a proposal that would allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy in the larger and more liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Gerald B. Kieschnick, in a letter to his 2.5 million-member denomination, said the change “would constitute a radical departure from the 2,000-year-long teaching of the Christian tradition that homosexual activity, whether inside or outside of a committed relationship, is contrary to Holy Scripture.” …

Read the full story from The Associated Press.

Slumped into the wooden bench 15 feet behind her son, Harlow Cuadra’s mother cupped her face in her hands and wept as the woman explained why she couldn’t be the 12th juror in the capital homicide trial. “I just can’t believe he did it,” the 99th potential juror said Monday morning before Judge Peter Paul Olzsewski Jr. “He looks like a kid.” Luzerne County prosecutors will begin their case today, trying to prove that despite his small stature and appearance, 27-year-old Cuadra killed Bryan Charles Kocis at his Dallas Township home in 2007, stabbing Kocis 28 times in the torso before setting fire to his Midland Drive home. …

Read the full story from Citizen’s Voice.

A Roman Catholic bishop in northeastern Pennsylvania wants a Catholic university to close a multicultural center because it hosted a visit by a gay-rights advocate. Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino says Misericordia (miz-ur-ih-KOR’-dee-uh) University shouldn’t have sanctioned a Feb. 17 visit by author Keith Boykin. He says viewpoints that contradict Catholic teaching should not be presented “under the guise of ‘diversity.’” …

Read the full story from The Associated Press.

Utah Senate Democrats on Tuesday called for the ouster of a GOP lawmaker from two additional key committee posts because of his anti-gay comments. In recent comments to a documentary filmmaker, state Sen. Chris Buttars compared gay activists to radical Muslims and said they are “probably the greatest threat to America going down.” He also said gay people lack morals. …

Read the full story from The Associated Press.

Gay Asians voiced indignation Wednesday after television broadcasts of the Academy Awards in their region censored the words “gay” and “lesbian” in speeches that called for equal rights for homosexuals. The speeches by actor Sean Penn and writer Dustin Lance Black — who won Oscars for their work in “Milk” — were shown in full during live broadcasts of the Oscars that were screened across Asia on Monday morning. …

Read the full story from The Associated Press.

 

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Today’s Top Five Headlines

Transgender Employee Sues for Sexual Harassment
Republican Chairman Strongly Opposes Civil Unions
Idaho Equality Bill Dies in Committee
Republican Lawmaker Equates Being Gay to Murder
Utah Senate Stops Work to Discuss Anti-Gay Remarks

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In 2001, after working at Burlington Coat Factory’s San Francisco store for five years, Steven Wicks-Perez made the brave decision to undergo sex reassignment surgery and begin to transition from male to female. At the time, Ms. Perez, who has since changed her name to “Maya,” believed her employer would be supportive of her decision. “One of my supervisors kept encouraging me to transition,” says Perez, “but then when I talked to senior Burlington management about it, I was told that it was wrong.” Throughout the next seven years, Burlington’s management fostered an environment that was openly hostile to Ms. Perez. Her supervisors subjected her to graphic sexualized conversations; one supervisor presented her with pornography; co-workers grabbed and touched her breasts, buttocks, and genitals; and customers were allowed to physically and verbally assault her. …

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Last night, actor Sean Penn and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black both won Oscars for their work on “Milk,” which told the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official. Today, the right wing expressed its disgust that the movie received such acclamation. On his radio show, Mike Gallagher slammed Penn for ignoring “the majority of Americans” by supporting gay marriage rights, saying it went against America’s “fundamental values.” Gallagher asked guest Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican Party, if he thought the party “ought to consider” something like civil unions. …

Read the full story from Think Progress.