Thursday, September 15, 2005

News Items

Yesterday seems to be rather historic in the history of gay rights. The Massachusetts State Legislature voted down a proposed constitutional ammendment that would have banned gay marriages there. This is the same ammendment that passed last year. This means the ammendment is pretty much dead. There is still a chance that an innitiative could make it on the ballot but a poll cited by the Washington Post says that 56% of people in that state support keeping gay marriage as is.

The other big news item, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an ammendment that would expand federal hate crimes laws to included sexual orientation. This is something that gay rights organizations have been pursuing for years, and which as repeatedly been passed by the Senate but failed in the House. The ammendment passed on a 223-199 vote and was attached to the Children's Safety Act. Joe Solomonese, President of the Human Rigthts Campaign called the vote "incredibly historic."

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