Speed Read: Voluntary appeal

TENNESSEE SEEKS STAY: Tennessee’s attorney general on Tuesday asked a federal judge in Nashville to stay enforcement of her injunction to require the state to recognize the marriages of three same-sex couples. He also filed notice with the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the state will appeal the order of Judge Aleta Trauger (a Clinton appointee) that the state recognize the marriage licenses obtained out-of-state by three same-sex couples in Tennessee. The case, Tanco v. Tennessee, was filed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

COLLEGE COACH WINS LAWSUIT: A judge in Minnesota Tuesday ordered the University of Minnesota to pay a women’s golf coach $359,589 in back pay plus interest for discrimination she suffered because of her sexual orientation. Judge Thomas Sipkins of the Minnesota district court for Hennepin County ruled that newly hired women’s golf coach Kathryn Brenny was “intentionally subjected to disparate treatment based on her sexual orientation,” including demotion, removal of coaching duties, and creating a “working environment plainly intolerable.”

ILLINOIS CANDIDATES DIFFER: Venture capitalist Bruce Rauner won the Republican primary for governor Tuesday in Illinois, setting a clear contrast between candidates this November. Incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn was a strong advocate for equal rights to marriage for same-sex couples. Rauner said he would have vetoed the marriage equality bill passed by the legislature.

DIALOGUING WITH UGANDA: Secretary of State John Kerry told a press briefing Tuesday that Uganda President Yoweri Museveni agreed to meet with “some of our experts” on homosexuality to understand why his signature on the Anti-Homosexuality Act “could not be based on any kind of science.”

PASTOR GETS TO APPEAL: A Committee on Appeals for the northeastern jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church has agreed to review a lower panel decision that stripped a minister of his pastor credentials because he performed a wedding ceremony for his son and his son’s same-sex spouse. Frank Schaefer, who had been pastor of a small church in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, will get a review of this case in June.

FRED PHELPS OUT OF ACTION: The leader of the tiny Kansas Westboro Baptist Church, which has made a name for itself by traveling around the country to hold up signs saying “God Hates Fags,” is in a “care facility” receiving treatment for unspecified health problems, according to an Associated Press report.

BIBLE BALLOT MEASURE FAILS: An effort to put a “Free Exercise of Religion” initiative before California voters failed to turn in enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. The Yes Jesus Is Lord.Org measure sought to declare that “it is not discrimination, a crime, hate crime or unlawful” to “engage in street witnessing” and other public expressions against wide range of topics, many of which were specific to LGBT people. To qualify for the ballot, the measure needed 504,760 valid signatures by March 14. Last month, a ballot measure failed to qualify a referendum to repeal a newly enacted law that allows students to use facilities and participate in programs “consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

 

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