TOP6NEWS - Date 6.21.05

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1-NEWS: Kids in gray area when ss couples split
2-NEWS: CA ssm bill coming back this session
3-NEWS: SS immigration law introduced in Congress
4-NEWS: Canadian govt. may delay break to pass ssm bill
5-NEWS: Anglican bishops from US, Canada meet to discuss homosexuality
6-NEWS: K. Yoshino: The irresistible banality of ssm
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1-NEWS: Kids in gray area when ss couples split

Two women in El Dorado County, Calif., Elisa Maria B. and her domestic partner Emily B., decided they wanted a family.
So when Emily became pregnant by means of a sperm donor and gave birth to twins in 1998, the lesbian couple faced a lifestyle choice. Emily, the couple decided, would stay home with the kids, one of whom had Down syndrome and required constant care. Elisa would be the breadwinner.
Court papers omit the women's last names as standard procedure to protect minors in cases about parenthood.
The couple split up 18 months later. Elisa cut off financial support, prompting Emily and her children to go on welfare. El Dorado County sued Elisa for child support, and she refused to pay. Her argument: I'm not the children's father.

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2-NEWS:CA ssm bill coming back this session

By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Monday, June 20, 2005
San Francisco (AP) Less than three weeks after a bill to legalize same-sex marriage died in the California Assembly, a Democratic lawmaker said Monday that he plans to revive the measure this session by attaching it to legislation already pending in the state Senate.
Assemblyman Mark Leno, one of six openly gay members of the Legislature, said he has decided to employ a legislative maneuver known as "gut and amend" to resurrect the bill that on June 2 fell four votes shy of gaining the simple majority it needed to pass the 80-member house.
"My hope is that we will have a bill amended by the end of this week or the beginning of next," said Leno, declining to offer specifics on which legislation he plans to rewrite. "We intend to do this."

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3-NEWS: SS immigration law introduced in Congress

Couples Equal Treatment FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 21, 2005 Stephen Fisher
"Our laws should bring families together, not tear them apart," said HRC President Joe Solmonese.
WASHINGTON - The Human Rights Campaign today lauded the introduction of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) in the House of Representatives and Senate - a bill that would treat same-sex couples the same as opposite sex-couples for the purposes of immigration. The bill was previously named the Permanent Partners Immigration Act (PPIA).
"Our nation should bring families together, not tear them apart," said HRC President Joe Solmonese. "Same-sex bi-national couples are often forced to separate because the government views them as strangers under the law."

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4-NEWS: Canadian govt. may delay break to pass ssm bill

By BRIAN LAGHI AND BILL CURRY

Tuesday, June 21, 2005 Globe and Mail
Ottawa — The Paul Martin government took extraordinary steps yesterday to push through legislation making same-sex marriage legal, vowing to keep MPs in their seats into the summer to pass the controversial bill.
The Liberal government made the rare move of giving notice that it plans to extend the sitting of the House of Commons for the first time since the 1988 free-trade debate, giving MPs longer to pass both the same-sex bill and budget legislation that the Tories are now holding up.
"Certainly, extending the number of days in which we sit is an option that I think we have to look at very seriously," Mr. Martin said yesterday morning on a Vancouver radio program. House Leader Tony Valeri later gave formal notice that he will present a motion to extend the sitting, which is currently set to wrap up Thursday.

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5-NEWS: Anglican bishops from US, Canada meet to discuss homosexuality

By JILL LAWLESS ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LONDON -- Anglican bishops from the United States and Canada gathered in England on Tuesday to brief a top church body on their stance on homosexuality - an issue that threatens to split the 77 million-strong global communion.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams acknowledged Monday that the U.S. church's appointment of an openly gay bishop and the Canadian wing's support for the blessing of same-sex unions had caused "outrage and hurt" among many Anglicans.
Meeting in Northern Ireland in February, leaders of the 38 national Anglican churches asked the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to sit out this week's meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, an international body of bishops, priests and lay people that meets every three years.
But Anglican leaders also asked the North American churches to send representatives to the meeting in the central city of

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6-OP-ED: K. Yoshino: The irresistible banality of ssm

by Kenji Yoshino

"All tragedies are finished by a death,/All comedies are ended by a marriage." I was glad to come across Lord Byron's lines in Jonathan Rauch's Gay Marriage, because they helped me understand why same-sex marriage has vaulted to the top of the gay-rights agenda. I had wondered for years why we have pursued the right to marry so much more ardently than other, seemingly more attainable rights. For instance, we still lack a federal statute prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. And in a Gallup poll conducted last month, 87 percent of the public thought gays should have equal job opportunities, while only 39 percent thought gay marriages should be recognized. So why not start in the hiring hall rather than the banquet hall?
The answer: We want to lift the gay life story into a happier genre. For too long, gay biography has been the tragedy "finished by a death." That death has at times been metaphorical, as in the suffocation of the closet, or the social death some experience in their communities after coming out. But it has also been all too literal. The Centers for Disease Control estimated in 2004 that over a quarter million people had died of AIDS after acquiring the syndrome through male-to-male sexual contact. And two recent studies suggest that the lifetime risk of suicide attempts for homosexuals is approximately six times that of our heterosexual peers.

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