Lisa Keen
By Lisa Keen on October 13, 2011
The U.S. Senate voted Thursday (October 13) to confirm the nomination of lesbian attorney Alison Nathan to serve as a federal district court judge.
The roll call vote was 48 to 44, thus securing Nathan’s appointment to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in Manhattan.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on October 11, 2011
Tuesday night’s Republican debate was devoted exclusively to economic issues, so LGBT issues did not arise. But Rick Santorum did manage to put in a plug for heterosexual marriage and families (as his best bet for fixing the economy).
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on October 11, 2011
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday (October 11) refused to hear a case that challenged a sort of “back door discrimination” against a gay couple by a Louisiana state official.
Posted in Adoption, Federal Courts, Issues, Law, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on October 10, 2011
It’s a big threat –shut down the budget for the entire Defense Department because a few same-sex couples might want to rent military base facilities to host their weddings.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on October 5, 2011
A fourth openly gay nominee–one who has been fairly heavily involved in both gay and non-gay legal and political issues and who spent “hundreds of hours” doing pro bono work that led to the elimination of a gay ban on FBI agents–has gone before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Posted in Federal Courts, News, Nominees, U.S. District Courts
By Lisa Keen on October 3, 2011
President Obama dropped by the Human Rights Campaign’s annual national dinner to vow that he will “keep up the fight” to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and to stop bullying against LGBT youth.
Posted in News, Politics, White House
By Lisa Keen on September 28, 2011
The Census Bureau on Tuesday released a new estimate for the number of same-sex couple households in the United States in 2010, and it is almost 40 percent fewer than it actually counted. But it’s 80 percent higher than the number counted in the 2000 Census.
Posted in Census, Demographics
By Lisa Keen on September 27, 2011
The full U.S. Senate is expected to take up the nomination of lesbian attorney Allison Nathan sometime on or before October 11, says a staffer for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on September 27, 2011
The White House has not made any announcement of the appointment, but two gay newspapers in Washington, D.C., reported September 23 that there is a new White House liaison to the LGBT community.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on September 22, 2011
The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was driven home before a national television audience Thursday, September 22. That’s when an active duty soldier in Iraq identified himself as being gay and asked Republican presidential hopefuls whether they would, as president, try to reinstate the ban on openly gay servicemembers.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on September 22, 2011
Attorneys for the proponents of California’s same-sex marriage ban filed notice Thursday, September 22, that they intend to ask a federal appeals court to overturn a recent decision to make public videotapes of the landmark trial.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on September 22, 2011
The current fiscal year’s budget was cut to the bone; next year’s will be cut to the marrow, said Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the U.S. Senate subcommittee on appropriations for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on September 22, 2011
President Obama has agreed to deliver the keynote address to this year’s annual Human Rights Campaign dinner October 1 in Washington, D.C.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on September 20, 2011
U.S. Justice Antonin Scalia has already conceded that laws banning same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, according to one constitutional scholar. And the U.S. Supreme Court is “very likely” to invalidate the federal Defense of Marriage Act once it reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, says another, generally conservative, expert.
These are just two of the conclusions from more than a dozen constitutional law jurists who participated in a recent two-week long discussion of what most consider an inevitable case before the nation’s highest court.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on September 19, 2011
U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin has had to address the “L word” in recent interviews, now that she’s running for the U.S. Senate. Not just because she’s a lesbian, but because she’s a liberal.
Posted in Campaigns, Election 2012, National Politics, Senate
By Lisa Keen on September 19, 2011
On the same day a Broadway play is to premiere to highlight the transcripts from the landmark Proposition 8 trial, a federal judge has ordered release of videotapes of the trial.
Posted in Federal Courts, Law, Marriage/Relationships, News, U.S. District Courts
By Lisa Keen on September 15, 2011
In a request that seems more like political theatre than political combat, the House Armed Services Committee sent a plea to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asking that repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell be delayed.
Posted in A closer look
By Lisa Keen on September 14, 2011
A new national poll demonstrates once again that a majority of Americans now favor giving legal recognition to marriages between same-sex partners.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on September 14, 2011
A subcommittee in the New Hampshire House passed a bill September 14 that will seek to repeal the marriage equality law enacted there in January 2010. While the bill does not seek to amend the state constitution and would not invalidate existing marriage licenses for same-sex couples, it would ban future such licenses and leave same-sex couples with the option of civil unions only.
Posted in News Briefs
By Lisa Keen on September 14, 2011
Remember last year’s Pledge to America from the Republican Party? It promised three times to make government “more transparent.”
Well, apparently, that pledge had a hidden expiration date.
Posted in Federal Courts, Marriage/Relationships, U.S. District Courts
Ginsburg on Roe: Is it a signal she’d curb a decision on marriage?
Immigration bill advances without provisions for same-sex couples
Leahy submits language to help bi-national same-sex couples
Delaware votes for marriage equality; becomes 11th state to make it the law
Rhode Island marriage law signed; Two more states could vote next week