Celebrating the first baby born in the New Year is a media tradition. In 2003 there was a new twist to the old tale in the Washington, D.C. area — the beaming parents were lesbians. The news was splashed across the front page of the Washington Post on Jan. 2. Helen Rubin, 33, gave birth to a baby girl at one minute after midnight in the New Year, after fifteen long hours of labor. Her partner of 12 years, Joanna Bare, 35, was at her side.

In a case argued by the ACLU, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously struck down the state’s fornication law Jan. 13, saying that the government may not “reach into the bedroom of a private residence and criminalize the private, noncommercial, consensual acts of two persons legally capable of consenting” to sexual activity.

Having declared three decades ago, “I’m sure we are going to get our freedom, I see it everywhere,” gay rights pioneer Morris Kight died peacefully in his sleep Sunday morning, Jan. 19 — just one day prior to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. His death marked the end of a prolific career that achieved many of the civil rights he sought.

In 1969, Kight and a handful launched the Gay Liberation Front — one of the first such efforts advocating for gay rights. In 1971, he co-founded the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center, the first and largest such center in the world.

A Florida judge on Feb. 21 granted custody of two children to a female-to-male transsexual engaged in a bitter divorce and ruled that the person is a man under Florida law. Lawyers for the former wife of Michael Kantaras had argued Kantaras was not legally a man when they married in 1989 so the marriage was invalid. But the 809-page ruling confirms Michael Kantaras is the legal parent of the couple’s two children — his former wife’s son, whom he had already adopted, and a daughter Linda Kantaras conceived during their marriage with donated sperm.

The state of Texas may not recognize gay marriages, but that didn’t stop a judge in Southeast Texas from granting a same-sex divorce.

Judge Tom Mulvaney of the 279th District Court signed a divorce decree March 3 for Beaumont residents Russell Smith, 26, and John Anthony, 34. Smith and Anthony were granted a license of civil union in Vermont in February 2002.

Mulvaney said the case was a first for him, and others in the legal profession said they thought it was the only such divorce in the state.

The Human Rights Campaign praised the U.S. Census Bureau for providing data on families headed by same-sex partners for the first time. The report gives information on the number of same-sex partner households in the nation that are raising children, the average age of same-sex couples, and the racial makeup of same-sex couples.

The Utah Supreme Court said it would not decide if a lesbian teacher at a high school in Spanish Fork, Utah, is morally fit to teach. Instead, that decision should be left to local and state education officials.

Parents and students tried to remove Wendy Weaver from her teaching position by complaining to the local school board, but the Nebo School District did not fire Weaver — an award-winning, 20-year psychology teacher.

Weaver disclosed her sexuality when asked by curious students in 1997. Shortly thereafter, the high school barred her from talking about her sexuality in or out of the classroom. Weaver later won a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Nebo School District for that requirement.

The artist who created the rainbow flag is sewing a 1.25-mile long, 16-foot-wide version of the internationally recognized GLBT pride symbol to be unfurled in Key West on June 15, the final day of the city’s upcoming PrideFest festival.

Baker created the original rainbow flag in San Francisco 25 years ago as a symbol of community pride in response to anti-gay activities.

The first national radio station aimed at gays and lesbians began broadcasting on April 14. OUTQ is part of a satellite broadcast operation available to those with a special receiver who pay a monthly fee and is also available as streaming audio over the Internet — one of 100 “streams” or channels provided by the company Sirius.

The format is primarily that of talk radio, with live programming about 15 hours daily, beginning at 6:00 a.m. eastern time Monday through Friday, and rebroadcasts at night and on weekends.

Gay-rights groups, fuming over Sen. Rick Santorum’s comparison of homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery, urged Republican leaders on April 21 to consider removing the Pennsylvania lawmaker from the GOP Senate leadership.

“If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything,” said Santorum (R-Pa.).

Rep. Dick Gephardt said his lesbian daughter would seek backing for him from the nation’s gay community as the politician from Missouri campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Gephardt told the Boston Globe he does not support gay marriage but does back civil unions, saying, “it’s basic decency.”

A Minneapolis congregation installed a lesbian as its pastor despite a requirement by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that unmarried clergy be celibate, whether gay or straight.

The Lutheran Church of Christ the Redeemer embraced the Rev. Mary Albing as its pastor on May 18, in a service presided over by three former bishops of the country’s largest Lutheran denomination.

While sanctions are not expected from the ELCA’s national headquarters, the current bishop will not “sign the call,” meaning the synod will not officially recognize Albing’s installation.

The Bravo cable network went where no television dating show had gone before: matchmaking gay men.

“Boy Meets Boy,” a six-episode series that premiered in July, also twists reality show conventions by secretly including straight men among the pool of dating prospects.

The Traditional Values Coalition alerted its 43,000 member churches to protest the series, said Andrea Lafferty, the Washington-based group’s executive director.

The California Assembly approved sweeping legislation June 4 that would grant same-sex partners most of the same spousal rights — and responsibilities — as married couples.

The bill does not authorize gay men and lesbians to marry, but it guaranteed people who register as domestic partners legal and financial benefits ranging from the ability to file joint income taxes to the standing to petition courts for child support and alimony. The bill extends to registered same-sex couples, who now number over 19,000, every other marriage-based entitlement that could be amended under state law without a two-thirds vote.

Randy Thomasson, executive director of Campaign for California Families, said that if the new domestic partner law makes it through the Legislature and past Davis’ desk, his group would sue to prevent it from becoming law on the grounds that it violates the spirit of the voter-approved Prop. 22.

New Hampshire Episcopalians made world history June 7 by electing the first openly gay person to serve as bishop of an Episcopal diocese.

The Rev. V. Gene Robinson, 56, received a majority of ballot votes from the 77 clergy participating in the election and from 165 lay representatives around the state. He was one of four candidates under consideration to lead the New Hampshire diocese.

When Robinson emerged as the victor on the second ballot, more than 300 voters and spectators at St. Paul’s Church erupted in cheers and jumped to their feet to applaud.

Robinson won despite opposition from many in the Anglican community world- wide.

The weddings began hours after the province of Ontario’s highest court, the Court of Appeal, ruled that the federal government’s definition of marriage was unconstitutional and ordered the Toronto city clerk to issue marriage licenses immediately to several gay couples who had sued for the right to marry.

Toronto City Hall responded that the city would issue a marriage license to any same-sex couple that otherwise met the license criteria, and the first full same-sex marriages in North America began.

In a 6-3 decision on Lawrence vs. Texas, issued on June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court took the highly unusual step of admitting that it made a mistake when it said in the 1986 Bowers vs. Hardwick ruling that states could regulate sodomy.

Gay groups were unanimous in hailing the ruling as “historic,” clear and broad in its embrace of GLBT citizens. Many believe the ruling will have significant implications for laws affecting virtually every other aspect of life for GLBT Americans.

The court, in striking down the Texas law, overturned an earlier ruling that had upheld sodomy laws on moral grounds. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, strongly took the earlier Court to task for their ruling in Bowers on both matters of fact and of law. In criticizing their reading of history, he wrote, “Far from possessing ‘ancient roots,’ American laws targeting same-sex couples did not develop until the last third of the 20th Century.”

Registered domestic partners will get the same tax benefits as married couples who transfer property under tax rule changes adopted July 9 by the California Board of Equalization.

Previously, transferring real estate from one domestic partner to the other brought an automatic reassessment of the property’s value.

The new rule lets registered domestic partners use wills, trusts and other estate planning tools to become original transferors under the state’s joint tenancy law.

Stephen Loomis enlisted in the Army nearly four decades ago, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel and becoming a decorated Vietnam combat veteran who received the Purple Heart and two Bronze Star medals for valor. But his career ended in bitterness on July 14, 1997 when the military discharged him “under other than honorable conditions” because he is gay.

Loomis has been given new hope by the Supreme Court decision that struck down a Texas sodomy law, saying that what gay men and women do in the privacy of their bedrooms is their business and not that of the government. Loomis and his lawyer believe those rights also should apply to military personnel.

Loomis’ suit was the first to test the reach of the historic civil rights ruling.

Hours before Othniel Askew, an aspiring politician eying a New York City Council seat, gunned down the incumbent, Councilmember James Davis, he made at least four phone calls to another candidate in an apparent attempt to keep him out of the primary election.

After the July 26 shooting, Mayor Michael Bloomberg terminated a City Hall policy that allowed elected officials, including the mayor, to bypass the building’s metal detectors.

Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly also ordered officers assigned to City Hall to turn away anyone with firearms except on-duty law enforcement officers.

Gov. Gray Davis has signed a bill banning housing and job discrimination against trans-gender people, making California the fourth state to extend such protections.

The measure, signed Aug. 2, will take effect Jan. 1, 2004.

The new California law will prohibit discrimination against people whose “perceived gender characteristics are different from those traditionally associated with the individual’s sex at birth.”

Gay advocates in the Episcopal Church will leave their national meeting with two victories — approval of the first openly gay bishop and an affirmation that same-sex blessing ceremonies are “an acceptable practice in the church.”

The measure on same-sex unions was not what advocates had hoped. Bishops rejected creating an official liturgy for the ceremonies.

The suspect in the prison cell slaying of defrocked priest John Geoghan hated gays and planned the killing weeks in advance, a prosecutor said. Joseph L. Druce, a fellow inmate in the maximum security Souza-Baranowski, killed Geoghan, 68, in his cell, where he was serving a nine- to 10-year sentence for assault and battery on a 10-year-old boy. He had been in protective custody since being transferred to Souza-Baranowski in April, officials said.

The former priest was accused of molesting nearly 150 boys over three decades and became a catalyst for the clergy sex abuse scandal that shook the foundations of the Roman Catholic church.

A nationwide group of law schools, law professors and law students has sued the Department of Defense, alleging its requirement that law schools allow military recruiters on campus violates the First Amendment.

Many universities barred recruiters because they said the military’s ban on gays serving openly violated nondiscrimi-nation rules. But last year, the Defense Department threatened to pull federal funding from law schools that deny military recruiters open access to students. Faced with the loss of millions of dollars in federal funding, schools including Harvard, Boston University and Boston College backed off their bans.

Kent Greenfield, a Boston College law professor leading the suit, said the government is forcing schools to agree with its policies to get benefits, and that’s “not the American way.”

California became the first U.S. state to require businesses with large state contracts to offer domestic partners the same benefits that spouses enjoy, although the law will not take effect until 2007.

Outgoing Gov. Gray Davis signed the bill enacting the measure, which had been a key goal of gay rights groups.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed a major victory to the nine states that allow the medical use of marijuana, refusing to let the federal government punish doctors for recommending pot to their ill patients.

The justices declined without comment to review a lower-court ruling that said doctors should be able to speak frankly with their patients.

The ruling was a setback for the Bush administration, which had sought to punish doctors who recommend marijuana — or who simply discuss the drug’s benefits — by revoking the all-important federal licenses they need to write prescriptions.

Opponents of same-sex marriage declared Marriage Protection Week, but a major gay-rights group put a different spin on the occasion — recruiting long-term gay couples to offer online relationship advice to married heterosexuals.

Marriage Protection Week, endorsed by a proclamation from President Bush, was organized by two-dozen conservative groups. Worried that some state courts might legalize gay marriage, the coalition sought to build support for a proposed constitutional amendment that would specify that marriage is a union of a man and a woman.

A measure sponsored by U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) could make things easier for binational couples. Called the Permanent Partners Immigration Act, the bill would treat same-sex domestic partners the same as heterosexual spouses for purposes of immigration rights and benefits.

Leahy, the ranking member of the committee that oversees immigration law, considers it a matter of fairness, said his spokesman, David Carle. Many other countries, especially in Europe, have already passed similar laws, Carle said.

Massachusetts’ highest court ruled, 4-3, that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and gave lawmakers 180 days to come up with a solution that would allow gay couples to wed.

“Whether and whom to marry, how to express sexual intimacy, and whether and how to establish a family — these are among the most basic of every individual’s liberty and due process rights,” the majority opinion said. “And central to personal freedom and security is the assurance that the laws will apply equally to persons in similar situations.”

“Barred access to the protections, benefits and obligations of civil marriage, a person who enters into an intimate, exclusive union with another of the same sex is arbitrarily deprived of membership in one of our community’s most rewarding and cherished institutions,” the opinion said.

Legal observers said the case took a significant step beyond the 1999 Vermont Supreme Court decision that led to civil unions in that state.

This decision, lawyers said, rules that gay couples are entitled to all the rights of marriage, and that creating a separate class of marriage — such as civil unions — would not be acceptable.

The other shoe dropped on the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) when five Republican Senators introduced the amendment in that body on Nov. 25. The anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment was first intro-duced in the House some eighteen months ago and now has 108 cosponsors.

Many legal scholars agree that the FMA would prohibit civil unions and other recognition of same-sex unions that did not carry the title of marriage. Mitch Daniels, head of the Alliance for Marriage and the chief proponent of the FMA, says that it would not. But other social conservatives want to make sure that it does. They are toying with language that would effectively ban all such recognition. It is a source of some turmoil among those groups on the far right.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — President George W. Bush said that he could support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage after the Massachusetts Supreme Court struck down that state’s ban on same-sex marriage in November.

Bush had condemned the ruling before, citing his support for a federal definition of marriage as a solely man-woman union. He criticized it as “a very activist court in making the decision it made.”

“If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman, codify that,” he said. “The position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they’re allowed to make, so long as it’s embraced by the state or at the state level.”

Bush said he believes his view on the topic does not make him intolerant.