California State Assemblymember Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego) brought Assembly Concurrent Resolution (ACR) 108 before the California State Assembly to recognize June as LGBT Pride Month on June 16. The Assembly passed ACR 108 by a majority vote.

“Recognition of the community and the celebration of Pride shows tremendous progress in our effort to achieve equality,” said Kehoe. “Let’s send a message to our children that every citizen is equal.” Last year, the California Assembly declared June 2002 as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. This marked the first time in history that the California Legislature had recognized Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.

This year’s resolution states: “While our great state and nation have come a long way in our journey toward dignity, understanding, and mutual respect for all, we still have a long way to go in eradicating the prejudice and discrimination that [GLBT] Americans face every day.”

The week prior, in a ceremony held on June 10, the California Legislative LGBT Caucus joined by the Speaker of the Assembly, Herb J. Wesson, Jr., and other members of the California Legislature, officially opened the LGBT Pride Exhibit in the rotunda of the State Capitol. The exhibit will be on display for the entire month of June.

Weeks after making good on a campaign promise to end city insurance benefits for same-sex partners, Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera praised the annual gay PrideFest celebration.

Rivera signed a proclamation declaring June 23-29 “PrideFest Week,” an event that provides educational opportunities and recognizes diversity within the community. That has angered some religious conservatives who were instrumental in bringing Rivera and other council members to power.

“Colorado Springs welcomes anybody to our community — anybody who wants to contribute and participate in civic functions and enjoy the lifestyle they want,” Rivera said.

Former Mayor Mary Lou Makepeace recognized the event with a proclamation each year from 1997 until she left office this year.

Tom Minnery, vice president of the archconservative religious organization Focus on the Family, said he was “extremely disappointed” by the action.

“If it’s going to politicize sexual activities, the council ought to politicize healthy sexual activities,” said Minnery.

Six months after Orlando passed an ordinance barring discrimination against gays and lesbians, a man has filed the first complaint under the law alleging he was kicked out of a sports bar because of his sexual orientation.

Roger Welch said a bartender at Players Sports Pub told him to leave Feb. 13 after Welch mentioned to another patron that he was gay. Welch said he refused to leave but the bartender called police and he was cited for trespassing.

The city’s human relations department was investigating the complaint, but wouldn’t release any details. It was unclear when the complaint was filed.

A manager at Players Sports Pub declined to comment on the complaint.

The Orlando city council voted in December to add gays, lesbians and bisexuals to the city’s anti-discrimination protection law. The measure added “sexual orientation” to the list of classes already protected by the city.

A 62-year-old bank teller has received two prison sentences of 25 years and one of 20 years, all to be served concurrently, for shooting her estranged partner and another woman who tried to prevent the attack outside a Metropolitan Community Church.

Andrea Cobb was sentenced for attempted first- and second-degree murder and aggravated battery for the shootings on April 28, 2002.

Circuit Judge Michael Jones told her he realized the punishment amounted to a life sentence given her age, but it is the minimum set by state law. Frail and meek, Cobb showed little response.

Assistant Public Defender Michael Van Cavage had argued for a lesser sentence on grounds Cobb has no prior criminal record and was overmedicated on prescription drugs when she shot her ex-lover, Joyce Anderson, and Nancy Browning, another church member.

The shootings occurred after Cobb and Anderson came out of Holy Cross Metropolitan Community Church after a Sunday service. Anderson was shot in the hand and Browning is permanently disabled by a bullet lodged in her spine.

Gilbert Baker, the creator of the original gay pride rainbow flag, was teary-eyed June 15 when 2,000 volunteers unfurled his one and a quarter-mile version of the internationally recognized GLBT symbol down the length of Key West’s Duval Street.

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of his original rainbow creation, Baker’s massive banner was stretched along the street linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico during the culminating event of Key West’s PrideFest.

“My dream is a reality today,” said Baker, a San Francisco artist who created the flag in 1978. “We’ve made a great moment in gay history and I know everyone has a smile on their faces as big as the rainbow.” To create the Key West flag, Baker spent three months in the island city sewing approximately 17,600 linear yards of fabric that weighed more than three tons. Because of the weight of the fabric, three people had to work together to form each of the 25 miles of seams.

As well as honoring the rainbow flag’s birth, the Key West flag recreates Baker’s original eight-color design. Pink and turquoise, which couldn’t be reproduced commercially in 1978, are represented in the sea-to-sea banner along with the now-traditional red, orange, yellow, green, indigo and violet.

It’s unclear what impact an Ontario court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriages in the province will have on gay couples from Michigan who travel across the border for a marriage license.

The license may never be recognized in Michigan because state law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but the historical ruling by an Ontario provincial court drew reactions from state residents on both sides of the issue.

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, which seeks to limit marriage to a man and woman, said the Canadian court is devaluing heterosexual marriage, and opened the door to possible challenges in Michigan.

Leslie Thompson, executive director for the Affirmations Lesbian and Gay Community Center in Ferndale, said she wouldn’t be surprised if many gay couples from southeastern Michigan seek a marriage license in Windsor, a Canadian city located just on the other side of the Detroit River.

Diane Sibley, executive director of Licensing and Enforcement Services for Windsor, said gay couples will just have to meet Ontario’s requirements for a marriage license: supplying birth certificates, the $150 Canadian processing fee and details about where and when the ceremony will take place.

Hinda Kibort, a Holocaust survivor who testified against a Republican lawmaker who questioned whether gays were persecuted by the Nazis, has died.

Kibort, a well-known member of the Twin Cities Jewish community, died June 12 at an Edina hospital after suffering a heart attack a day earlier. She was 83.

Born in Lithuania, Kibort was in German-run labor and concentration camps from 1941 to 1945.

She spoke about the Holocaust for more than 30 years. One of her last noted appearances was in April, before the state House Ethics Committee, which was deciding whether to censure Rep. Arlon Lindner (R-Corcoran) for comments suggesting that Nazi persecution of gays and lesbians has been exaggerated.

Kibort testified about seeing gay men wearing pink triangles in a concentration camp where her mother was killed. When asked about Lindner’s comments, she said, “If he denies a part of what happened, he denies the Holocaust.” The committee deadlocked.

The Montana Council for the Boy Scouts of America won’t change its nondiscrimination policy to include sexual orientation, a spokesperson says.

Montana Scouts will stand by the position taken by the national council, said Ray Chase, a council executive.

The nation’s third-largest council, with 87,000 members in Pennsylvania, recently voted to change its nondiscrimination policy to cover gays, though it has since backpedaled to a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ stance.

The Montana council disagrees and won’t follow suit, Chase told the Helena Independent Record.

Membership in the Boy Scouts is open to “morally straight” members only, he said, and that doesn’t allow for gays.

A transsexual imprisoned for raping a child is getting free female-hormone therapy from the state as a result of a settlement with Pennsylvania prison officials, a newspaper reported.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is paying for hormones for James Elliot Wolfe, who legally changed her name to Jessica Elaine Wolfe in 1996.

Wolfe, 39, a Pittsburgh native, is serving a 5- to 15-year sentence at a state prison at Graterford, near Philadelphia, for raping an eight-year-old girl in 1995.

Prison spokesperson Susan McNaughton said the inmate is taking Premarin, an estrogen replacement drug, which costs about $240 a year. In an interview with the newspaper, Wolfe said she is also receiving shots of Lupron Depot, which decreases testosterone levels and can cost as much as $7,000 a year.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled more than 20 years ago that transgender inmates must receive some form of medical care but left it up to prison officials to determine treatment on a case-by-case basis.

“It’s basically humanitarian medical considerations,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “They should be punished, and the punishment is incarceration, but the punishment is not withholding medically necessary treatment.”

Wolfe was taking female hormones to prepare for sex-change surgery when she was arrested. Prison officials later stopped the hormone treatment and Wolfe sued, claiming stopping the treatment “cruel and unusual punishment.”

LOGAN, Utah (AP) — Two high school students from Logan, Utah, are challenging the principal’s ruling that forming a chapter of the Gay-Straight Alliance would violate district policy.

Mark Sailor and Jessica Liddell, who will both be seniors next year, said they would be willing to go to court if the school district upholds principal Charles Nelson’s decision. “We would prefer not to. Our goal is to get this started,” Liddell said. “But we feel very committed to having this club and if that’s what we have to do, that’s what we have to do.”

Nelson said that regardless of the club’s intentions, it would violate school policy. After considering a proposal from Sailor and Liddell, he gave the students a list of suggestions for changes to the club name and mission statement that would bring them into line with district policy.

“The name itself involves human sexuality,” Nelson said. “That is the portion of the policy we are concerned with.”

According to a district policy approved in January, “a school shall deny access to any student organization or club whose program or activities would materially and substantially involve human sexuality.”

Even if Nelson approved the club, the school constitution would require the student senate and faculty first to vote on it.