Compiled by Dawn Wolfe
Politics
Cincinnati voters repeal ban on gay rights laws
CINCINNATI – Eleven years after Cincinnati became the nation's only city to have a ban on gay-rights laws, voters repealed it. Gay-rights activists and business leaders worked together to persuade voters to rescind a charter amendment that forbid the city to enact or enforce laws based on sexual orientation.
Unofficial returns from the voting Tuesday showed the repeal winning 54 percent to 46 percent, or 65,082 votes in favor and 55,934 against.
Texas textbooks to reflect anti-gay, anti-safe sex attitudes
DALLAS – The Texas Board of Education has approved new health textbooks that specifically define marriage as between one man and one woman and focus on abstinence-only sex education. The decision comes after the board pressured publishers Glencoe/McGraw-Hill and Holt Rinehart & Winston to change the phrases "married partners" to "husband and wife." Holt Rinehart & Winston also included the definition of marriage as a "lifelong union between a husband and a wife," while Glencoe/McGraw-Hill changed "when two people marry" to "when a man and a woman marry" and "partners" to "husbands and wives."
The Board also chose textbooks that all but leave out contraception as an option for preventing pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. Three out of four approved texts fail to mention contraception at all, while one only mentions condoms in passing.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston does not plan to add its definition of marriage in books that will be sold outside Texas.
Neither publisher added all the changes the board initially pushed for. For instance, one proposed passage in the teacher's editions read: "Opinions vary on why homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals as a group are more prone to self-destructive behaviors like depression, illegal drug use, and suicide."
Openly gay Hispanic woman wins election as Dallas sheriff
DALLAS – One-time migrant farm worker Lupe Valdez made history this week when she became the first woman and the first Hispanic elected Dallas County sheriff, not to mention the first Democrat to win the post since the mid-1970s.
She also is openly gay.
The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a political action committee that endorsed Valdez's candidacy and trained her on answering questions related to her sexual orientation, hailed her as the "first ever Latina lesbian sheriff."
White House strategist says Bush is serious about FMA
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senior political adviser Karl Rove said on "Fox News Sunday" Nov. 7. that a national ban on same-sex marriage is the only way to make sure "activist judges" don't redefine marriage. But Rove also says states should decide other issues for gay couples, including insurance benefits, inheritance and visitation rights in hospitals.
Law
WASHINGTON – The killer of a transgender resident was sentenced to ten years in prison on Thursday.
Derrick Lewis, 23, had earlier pleaded guilty to manslaughter while armed for the Aug. 2003 killing of Aaryn Marshall, 26. Authorities say the pair were in a car in Southeast Washington when Lewis shot Marshall twice in the chest, then dumped the body in a grassy area.
In Other News
Women set world kissing record
PROVINCETOWN, MA – A group of 2,617 women made history Oct. 16 when they established the Guinness World Record for the largest number of women kissing simultaneously. At noon, couples kissed outside the Town Hall to celebrate "justice, love, and fun."
They also linked the event to recent events in Massachusetts, and to the 20th Annual Women's Week in Provincetown.
Girl Power Events and The Women Innkeepers of Provincetown invited women from across the country to kiss simultaneously for 12 seconds as the Provincetown Town Hall clock chimed high noon. Lesbian residents of Provincetown who recently married led the Kiss-In.
