Free Republic

The Texas Constitution bans the city of Austin, Travis County and area school districts from offering domestic partner benefits to employees in same-sex relationships, according to a legal opinion released Monday by Attorney General Greg Abbott. Domestic partnerships, as recognized by the local governments, are close enough to the definition of marriage to violate a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions that 76 percent of Texas voters approved in 2005, the opinion stated.

Media Matters chief David Brock paid a former domestic partner $850,000 after being threatened with damaging information involving the organization’s donors and the IRS – a deal that Brock later characterized as a blackmail payment, according to legal documents obtained by FoxNews.com. In an acrimonious lawsuit settled at the end of last year, Brock accused William Grey of making repeated threats to expose him to the "scorn or ridicule of his employees, donors and the press in demanding money and property." Brock claimed in legal papers that he sold a Rehoboth Beach, Del., home he once shared with Grey in...

Madison - Gov. Scott Walker believes a new law that gives gay couples hospital visitation rights violates the state constitution and has asked a judge to allow the state to stop defending it. Democrats who controlled the Legislature in 2009 changed the law so that same-sex couples could sign up for domestic partnership registries with county clerks to secure some - but not all - of the rights afforded married couples. Wisconsin Family Action sued last year in Dane County circuit court, arguing that the registries violated a 2006 amendment to the state constitution that bans gay marriage and any...

...in a memorandum dated June 2, 2010, President Obama directed agencies to extend a host of benefits to their employees’ same-sex domestic partners as permitted by law. He also directed me to issue guidance to ensure consistent and appropriate implementation of his memorandum. This memorandum constitutes OPM’s guidance.I. DEFINITION OF “DOMESTIC PARTNER” For purposes of ensuring consistent implementation of the President’s memorandum, a “domestic partner” is a person in a domestic partnership with an employee or annuitant of the same sex.[1] The term “domestic partnership” is defined as a committed relationship between two adults, of the same sex, in which...

(08-24) 11:55 PDT Carson City, Nev. (AP) -- Monday marked the first day Nevada couples could begin registering as domestic partners in advance of a new law that takes effect in October. Same- and opposite-sex couples who apply soon could receive their certificates of domestic partnership as early as Oct. 1. That's the day a new state law goes into effect extending rights similar to those held by married couples to cohabitating couples, whether gay or straight, who register. Applications will be accepted at the secretary of state's office. There is a $50 fee, and the applications must be notarized....

SANTA FE — "Technically alive" was the best supporters could say about the future of a domestic partnerships bill Monday after a possibly fatal 5-5 vote in a Senate committee. The tie vote left Senate Bill 12 stalled — perhaps permanently — in the Senate Judiciary Committee as one Democrat sided with Republican opponents and another Democrat left the committee room before the vote was taken. Though supporters of the measure described Monday's vote as a setback, Gov. Bill Richardson, who supports the idea of domestic partnerships, might seek to exert his influence in an attempt to move the bill...

California Senate Votes to Impose Same-Sex "Marriage" on State Bill was project of homosexual activist state Assemblyman By Hilary White SACRAMENTO, September 10, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Democrat-controlled Senate of California has approved a bill imposing homosexual "marriage" on the state. The Senate voted 22-15 to substitute the term "two persons" for "man and wife" in state references to marriage. Bill AB43 was the project of state Assemblyman Mark Leno of San Francisco, a homosexual activist. It was opposed by every Republican member of the Senate and supported by all but three Democrats. WorldNet Daily quoted California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger...

(Updated story) Police say the Spotsylvania woman chased down her domestic partner with a gun this morning. The suspect is a Pentagon Police officer. __ A Pentagon police officer was arrested today on three charges, including attempted murder. Natalie Howard, 39, was charged with attempted murder, assault and battery, and brandishing a firearm, said Spotsylvania Sheriff Howard Smith. She will be held in Rappahannock Regional Jail without bond. The arrest was made by Anne Arundel County, Md., police, who were able to arrest Howard after Spotsylvania police traced a phone call with her. She spent about four hours talking to...

Sacramento -- Responding to the growing trend of couples raising children out of wedlock, a San Francisco lawmaker plans to introduce a bill today that would give young and middle-age heterosexual couples who are not married the right to register as domestic partners. The new bill and the expected reintroduction of legislation that would grant same-sex partners the right to marry are already drawing the ire of social conservatives and may once again put Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the difficult position of taking sides on the politically divisive issue of defining marriage. State Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, said she...

The new California law that requires registered domestic partners to file their state taxes like married people is a symbolic victory for gay couples. But the financial impact won't always be positive, and most will face new tax-filing and planning headaches when the law takes effect next year. Under SB1827, signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last weekend, registered domestic partners can no longer file their state tax returns as single or head of household. For tax year 2007 and beyond, they can choose married filing jointly or married filing separately, the same options married couples generally have. However, domestic partners must...

SUMMARY: Northwest Airlines took heat from the ACLU on Thursday for refusing to honor award tickets that a gay couple in Los Angeles tried to use for a trip to Florida. Northwest Airlines took heat from the ACLU on Thursday for refusing to honor award tickets that a gay couple in Los Angeles tried to use for a trip to Florida. In a letter to Northwest, the legal advocacy group said the airline's action violated California's nondiscrimination laws. Rob Anders, a longtime airline industry employee, won the tickets at a holiday party in December. When he tried to redeem the...

Austinites may get to decide whether to extend health benefits to city employees' gay or straight domestic partners, 12 years after city voters rejected a similar policy. Council Member Brewster McCracken, with the support of other council members, wants to add a proposition to the May 13 ballot that would repeal a city policy prohibiting Austin from offering such benefits. It would extend coverage to either a domestic partner or a family member living with the employee. "This is about a principle, about correcting something that has been unfair," he said. The issue caused an uproar in September 1993, when...

Two days before a King County deputy sheriff's live-in lover allegedly shot and killed a convenience-store clerk, he used the deputy's handcuffs and gun to rape a man in their Kenmore home while the cop slept upstairs, according to police reports. The incident in August is one of many revelations regarding King County Sheriff's Deputy Ferenc Zana's disastrous affair with a mentally ill felon. They were contained in more than 900 pages of documents the Sheriff's Office was forced to produce Monday under a court order obtained by the Seattle P-I.

Three environmental activists were cooking up plastic explosives and had planned to test a device the day they were arrested, federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday as they indicted them. The three face five to 20 years in federal prison if they are convicted of conspiring to use fire or explosives to damage property. The suspects planned assaults this spring in the name of the Earth Liberation Front, a 'loosey-goosey, sort of mist-of-the-fog kind of an organization' of environmental activists, U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said. Eric McDavid, 28, Zachary Jensen, 20, and Lauren Weiner, 20, remain in jail. They could enter a...

After a delay of nearly a month, a Flagstaff woman accused of being connected with the 1998 firebombing of a logging company in Oregon has been released from jail. Kendall Tankersley, 28, also known as Sarah Harvey, was released from an Oregon jail Jan. 10 on $150,000 bond. She is back in Flagstaff, ready to begin taking two classes at Northern Arizona University. Tankersley, a former employee at the university, was indicted in November by a federal grand jury in Oregon. She is accused of attempted arson and arson, acting as a lookout, in connection with a fire at U.S....

SACRAMENTO – California's domestic partner law, which gives registered partners many of the same rights and protections of marriage, does not conflict with a voter-approved initiative that defined marriage as between a man and a woman, a state appeals court held Monday. The law, which was signed in 2003 by former Gov. Gray Davis and went into effect Jan. 1, represents the nation's most sweeping recognition of domestic partner rights after Vermont's recognition of civil unions for gay couples. It grants registered couples virtually every spousal right available under state law except the ability to file joint income taxes. The...

CLEVELAND -- Some attorneys are attempting to use Ohio's new gay marriage amendment to defend unmarried clients against domestic violence charges. The constitutional amendment, which took effect on Dec. 1, denies legal status to unmarried couples. In at least two cases last week, the Cuyahoga County public defender's office has asked a judge to dismiss domestic-violence charges against unmarried defendants, arguing that the charges violate the amendment by affording marriage-like legal status to unmarried victims who live with the people accused of attacking them. Advocates for victims of domestic violence have worried about the effect of the amendment since it...

(Talon News) -- Homosexual advocates in California are hailing a new law that went into effect on January 1 that established "gay marriage" in the state. Assembly Bill 205 grants "all rights, protections, and benefits" of married couples to registered domestic partners. The new law was authored by lesbian Assembly member Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) and passed in 2003. It was supported by 66 out of 73 Democratic legislators, opposed by every Republican legislator, and signed by former Gov. Gray Davis shortly before he was recalled. A Sacramento Superior Court judge, Loren McMaster, ruled that the law should take effect...

Doyle defends benefits offer State-paid insurance for domestic partners touted By STEVEN WALTERS and AMY RINARD Madison - Gov. Jim Doyle defended his offer to negotiate state-paid health insurance for domestic partners Tuesday, calling it worthy of consideration and insisting there would be no extra cost to taxpayers if it is part of new union contracts. But Republicans who control the Legislature immediately asked Doyle to drop the idea, which would apply to unmarried couples of the same and opposite sex. "I would encourage the governor to make sure this does not come to the Legislature," said Senate Majority Leader...

Companies that want to do business in the state would have to offer the same benefits to domestic partners as they do to married couples, under legislation approved early Saturday by the Assembly.