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Marriage is behind the measure, which also aims
to bar the state from recognizing same-sex mar
riages performed in other states.
Supporters have 30 days from the secretary of
states action to develop the actual wording of
the initiative. If the verbiage is approved, the
next step would he to gather 64,000 signatures
within six months. If successful, backers would
see their measure on the November ballot.
Previous efforts to limit marriage in Col
orado have been unsuccessful. In 1999, an anti
same-sex-marriage bill was killed in the state
Legislature.
The year before, a similar bill was introduced
but withdrawn, and Gov. Roy Romer vetoed
1997’s version.
M ASSACHUSETTS
he state Department of Education voted
Dec. 21 to make sexual orientation a cate
gory protected under statewide policies against
harassment in schools.
It did so after receiving testimony from gay
teens and the head of the Governor’s Commis
sion on Gay and Lesbian Youth, who, reports
PlanetOut, convinced the board to comply with
the state’s 1994 Gay and Lesbian Student Rights
Law.
Many of the state’s school districts reported-
■
ly responded promptly to
I
J r
that 5-year-old legislation,
adopting policies against
anti-gay harassment and
If discrimination to match
4 l older provisions against
discrimination based on
gender, race and religion.
Rut up to thi> point the
to
its own regulations to
include sexual orientation
as a protected category.
The Gay and Lesbian
Student Rights Law has
provided assistance for
students in organizing
Gay-Straight Alliance clubs at their schools; as
a result, about 15,000 Massachusetts students
now participate in about 180 clubs—nearly one-
third of such clubs in the nation.
T
TEXAS
he state attorney general issued a ruling
Dec. 17 saying county clerks are not autho
rized to record same-sex domestic partnership
agreements.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Attor
ney General John Comyn said that a “declara
tion of domestic partnership” form is not
“required or permitted by law to be recorded.”
The Advocate says the ruling, which applies
T
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to all 254 counties in Texas, came after officials
in San Antonio asked the attorney general
whether they are obliged to accept the domestic
partnership statements.
The gay magazine reports that “apparently
the only county to accept the forms has been
Travis County, which includes Austin. Austin
city workers filed the forms to certify their rela
tionships in order to get health benefits for their
partners.”
VIRGINIA
nother opportunity to chip away at the
nation’s remaining state sodomy laws is
taking shape, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation reported Dec. 20.
According to GLAAD, the Virginia Court
of Appeals has agreed to look at the constitu
tionality of the state’s law that forbids oral sex
between consent
ing adults.
The statute,
which carries a
penalty of up to
20 years imprison
ment, applies to
both opposite-sex
and
same-sex
partners.
The
case
before the court
concerns
nine
men convicted for soliciting sodomy while talk
ing to undercover police officers in Roanoke’s
Wasena Park.
Although all 50 states had some form of
sodomy law as recently as the 1960s, today only
16 do. Besides Virginia, 11 other states—Alaba
ma, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Massa
chusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Caroli
na, South Carolina and Utah—have various
laws on the books that cover both heterosexual
and homosexual sodomy. Four states—Arkan
sas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas—have laws
that pertain only to same-sex sodomy.
Currently, Lambda Legal Defense and Edu
cation Fund is pursuing challenges against these
laws in Arkansas and Texas.
Suzanne Goldberg, a Lambda staff attorney,
told GLAAD: “The government should not be
in the business of policing the private behavior
of consenting adults."
She added that while some states do not
often enforce their sodomy laws, the existence
of such statutes has been used to deny custody of
children to lesbian and gay parents, to put peo
ple at risk of losing professional licenses and to
deny employment.
A
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