Equally Speaking
First up on HRC’s daily webcast, reactions continue to Thursday’s landmark marriage ruling in Iowa. As soon as the news came out that a judge had called the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples unconstitutional, GLBT couples in the Hawkeye State began applying for marriage licenses. One couple, Iowa State University students Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan, were legally married by a Unitarian minister on Friday morning. But soon after their ceremony, the judge in the case stayed the ruling until after its appeal, meaning other same-sex couples in Iowa will have to wait to ring those wedding bells.
Meanwhile, some Republican presidential contenders campaigning in this key state have rushed to restate their opposition to marriage equality, including Mitt Romney, John McCain and Sam Brownback. Said Romney, “This once again highlights the need for a Federal Marriage Amendment to protect the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.”
Idaho Senator Larry Craig announced his resignation on Saturday, following calls from many Republican leaders that he step down due to his guilty plea in an arrest in an airport bathroom. Craig apologized for the controversy he had caused and said, “I have little control over what people choose to believe.”
In more news from the states, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius signed an executive order on Friday that bans discrimination against GLBT state employees. The new law protects workers at state agencies under the governor’s control. However, Kansas remains one of the 31 states without a law protecting gay, lesbian and bisexual private-sector employees from discrimination, and one of 39 that still allows discrimination against transgender workers.
Turning to North Carolina, a music teacher at a private school has come out as transgender. Leslie Webster has taught at the Duke School for Children for 12 years, and at the start of the new school year, he announced that he had transitioned from female to male. The school administration sent out a notice saying that it supports Webster, although at least one parent has called for his resignation.
And in international news, Israeli newspapers are reporting that same-sex couples have been excluded from a new inheritance law. The law, which had already been approved by the cabinet, would have given inheritance rights to unmarried couples, both straight and GLBT. But now, reports say that under pressure from conservatives, the law has been changed to explicitly grant the benefits only to couples consisting of one man and one woman.