TOP6NEWS - Date 6.20.05

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1-NEWS: WV high court gives lesbian partner custody
2-NEWS: AZ gay group may put CUs on ballot
3-NEWS: SSM bill draws huge protests in Madrid
4-NEWS: Reformed minister suspended for daughter's ss ceremony
5-OP-ED: The problem w/ gay marriage is gay
6-FEATURE: The line between gay and straight is thinner
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1-NEWS: WV high court gives lesbian partner custody

Lesbian gets custody
By Tom Searls
West Virginia Gazette Staff writer
The West Virginia Supreme Court on Friday gave the lesbian partner of a deceased woman the parental rights over a 5-year-old child the two had been raising together.
The court recognized 39-year-old Tina Burch of Clay County, the lesbian partner of the late Christina Smarr, as the “psychological parent” of the boy, then ruled it would be in the best interest of the child to stay with Burch.
Smarr’s parents had been fighting Burch’s attempt to gain permanent custody of the child. The slim 3-2 decision is the first time the state’s high court has recognized the standing of a gay or lesbian parent to be a “psychological parent” and to grant them legal custody on that basis.
The court took into account that Burch and Smarr had planned for the birth of a child more than a year before he was born, finding a man to impregnate Smarr and then jointly raising the child.

Decision
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2-NEWS: AZ gay group may put CUs on ballot

Phoenix, Arizona)  In a bold move a gay rights group has organized to consider a drive to collect enough signatures to place a measure on the ballot to ban same-sex marriage but allow civil unions.
The aim is to provide an alternative to a proposed amendment already heading to voters to ban both marriage and any form of recognition of gay and lesbian couples.
The project is the being organized by a coalition formed by Steve May the former co-chairman of the Arizona Human Rights Fund.
May said that he hopes enough votes are siphoned off the amendment proposed by Protect Marriage Arizona that both measures fail.
His worst case scenario is that his group's counter amendment passes and at least gives same-sex couples some level of comfort in the state.

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3-NEWS: SSM bill draws huge protests in Madrid

By RENWICK McLEAN NY Times
Published: June 19, 2005
MADRID, June 18 - Hundreds of thousands of people marched through downtown Madrid on Saturday evening to protest the recent approval by Parliament of a bill to legalize gay marriage, a measure that critics and supporters say would make Spanish laws on same-sex unions the most liberal in Europe.
The march, which was organized by the Spanish Forum for the Family, a conservative group allied with the Catholic Church, called on Parliament to rescind the bill, which was passed in April and would give homosexual couples the same rights as heterosexual ones, including the right to marry and to adopt children.

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4-NEWS: Reformed minister suspended for daughter's ss ceremony

Albany Times Union, NY, June 18, 2005
A minister, a marriage, a conviction
Protestant theologian found guilty of violating rules after he performs rite for gay daughter 
By DANIELLE T. FURFARO, Albany Times Union Staff writer
SCHENECTADY -- Delegates to the annual meeting of the Reformed Church in America convicted a prominent theologian Friday for having officiated at his daughter's wedding to another woman last year in Massachusetts.
After a trial conducted at the meeting -- called the General Synod and held this year at Union College -- the Rev. Norman Kansfield was found guilty of the three charges against him: violating the policies of the church; disrupting its peace and unity; and not consulting and being amenable to the General Synod.
Gay marriage has long been officially frowned upon by the Protestant denomination, but it wasn't until last year, at the General Synod, that it was made against the rules for a minister to conduct a same-sex wedding.

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5-NEWS: The problem w/ gay marriage is gay

What's Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage? (It's the Gay Part)
By RUSSELL SHORTO NY Times Magazine
The small but grandiose building at the corner of Eighth and G Streets NW in Washington, tucked directly behind the National Portrait Gallery, holds its own in a city packed with monumental architecture. You step into the lobby and automatically look around for a plaque, figuring that with its dark wood paneling and marble columns, this must be the onetime home of Rutherford B. Hayes or some other historical personage heavy with Victorian-era dignity. As it turns out, the structure, with its architectural signals of tradition and power, was built in 1996 for its tenant: the Family Research Council, the conservative public policy center.

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6-NEWS: The line between gay and straight is thinner

By DAVID COLMAN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Are you confused that the newly styled Backstreet Boys, hoping for a comeback, look an awful lot like the stars of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"? Are you curious why Brad Pitt, to promote his new film, dyed his crew cut so blond that even his hairdresser is scratching his head?
Well, how about that guy you see in the locker room, changing out of his Prada lace-ups, Hugo Boss flat-front pants and Paul Smith dress shirt and cuff links into a muscle T-shirt and Adidas soccer shorts. Does he wear that wedding ring because he was married in New York -- or in Massachusetts?
Or those two fortysomething guys walking in the park in pastel oxford-cloth shirts and khakis, collars turned up and cuffs rolled, one of them pushing a stroller? Is that baby his -- or theirs?

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