In California, the sponsors of a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage and take away same-sex couples’ domestic partnership rights sued the state’s attorney general over the signature-gathering petitions, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. The lawsuit claims that Attorney General Bill Lockyer inaccurately described the measure by emphasizing its effects on registered domestic partners instead of explaining that its chief purpose was to preserve marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
The Oregon legislature adjourned without a final vote on the joint civil union and non-discrimination bill, killing the measure for this legislative session, according to a release from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
In California, Guadalupe Benitez, a lesbian who has been with her registered domestic partner, Joanne Clark, for 15 years, sued physicians Christine Brody and Douglas Fenton as well as their practice, North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group, for discrimination, according to the San Diego Union Tribune. Benitez claimed the doctors refused to inseminate her because of their religious convictions.
A group of federal lawmakers, led by gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., wrote to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to voice strong concern over the recent case of a Nigerian man sentenced to death by stoning for sodomy. According to a press release from Frank’s office, the 50-year-old man was accused of having sex with another man, arrested and brought before an Islamic court, where he admitted having sex with men. On that basis, he was convicted and is now awaiting execution by stoning.
A tribal court has dismissed a lawsuit that held up a lesbian couple’s effort to have their marriage recognized by the Cherokee Nation, according to the Associated Press. In a ruling, the tribe’s Judicial Appeals Tribunal said that Todd Hembree, whose lawsuit blocked the filing of a tribal-issued marriage certificate issued to Dawn McKinley and Kathy Reynolds, had no grounds to sue and could not show that he suffered any harm by the couple’s attempt to be recognized as married.