2005 was a turbulent year for the GLBT community. National headlines rocked our community with highs, such as the passage of California’s landmark marriage legislation, and lows – in this case, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s expected veto.

With same-sex marriage the hot-button issue in politics today, our community has grabbed a record number of headlines in both the gay and straight press. From Spokane, Wash., to New York City, here’s a recap of this year’s biggest national news stories for the GLBT community.

Despite referendum proposals and lawsuits from opponents since its approval in 2003, the Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act, which gives same-sex and senior couples over 300 state rights awarded previously only to married couples, went into effect New Year’s Day 2005.

On Sept. 8, 2004, a trial court rejected claims that the expanded domestic partnership laws were in violation of Proposition 22, the state law prohibiting recognition of same-sex marriages. On Dec. 21, 2004, a California Court of Appeal denied the request to prevent AB 205 from going into effect Jan. 1.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The Louisiana Supreme Court unanimously reinstated an amendment banning same-sex marriage to the state constitution that was overwhelmingly approved by the voters in September.

The high court reversed a ruling by a state district judge, who struck down the “defense of marriage” amendment in October on the grounds that the measure dealt with more than one subject, in violation of the Louisiana Constitution.

But the Supreme Court said: “Each provision of the amendment is germane to the single object of defense of marriage.”

The amendment was put on the ballot by the Legislature and approved by 78 percent of the voters. Eleven other states adopted similar amendments in the fall elections.

An analysis of the impact marriage-related votes had on state legislative races found that only 1.7 percent of incumbents lost their bid for re-election because they voted against constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. The Jan. 19 report, run by the Human Rights Campaign and the Equality Federation, investigated whether voting against measures to prohibit same-sex marriage cost legislators to lose their seats.

Legislators in 28 states had to vote on bills, resolutions and amendment proposals in the 2004 legislative session pertaining to the issue of marriage equality, the report said, and legislators in 22 of those states sought re-election in November 2004. Of the 881 legislators who voted against legislation to limit rights for same-sex couples in these 22 states, 640 were up for re-election and 604 won.

None of the nation’s openly gay and lesbian state legislators lost their bid for re-election.

NEW YORK (AP) – City health officials worked to track down sex partners of a man diagnosed with a rare strain of highly drug-resistant HIV that progressed rapidly to AIDS.

The virus was found in a man in his mid-40s who had unprotected sex with other men, often while using crystal methamphetamine, an addictive stimulant, health officials said.

“We are not aware of another case like this in the United States, or elsewhere,” said Dr. Ron Valdiserri, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention.

Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said the rare HIV strain is “difficult or impossible to treat.”

The New York Times, citing a person familiar with the case whom it did not identify, reported that the man was believed to have had unprotected sex with hundreds of people.

The man – who had not previously undergone antiviral drug treatment – was diagnosed with the rare strain in December 2004. He apparently had been infected recently after years of having unprotected anal intercourse.

The onset of AIDS appears to have occurred within two to three months, and at most 20 months, after infection. Frieden said HIV can take 10 years to develop into AIDS.

The man’s HIV did not respond to three of four types of antiviral drugs most commonly prescribed; he is now receiving a fourth regimen, health officials said.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Pat Mitchell, the Public Broadcasting Service chief under fire for spending public money on a cartoon show that also featured a real-life lesbian couple, will step down when her contract expires in June 2006.

Mitchell, the nonprofit network’s fifth president and chief executive officer, also faced significant fund-raising challenges.

She drew criticism from both liberals and conservatives for “Postcards From Buster,” in which the title character, an animated bunny named Buster, traveled to Vermont – a state known for recognizing same-sex civil unions. Though the focus was on farm life and maple sugaring, the episode, entitled “Sugartime,” featured an actual lesbian couple.

Newly appointed Education Secretary Margaret Spellings contended that the episode did not fulfill the intent Congress had in mind for programming and said many parents would not want children exposed to such lifestyles. Spellings recommended that PBS return the money it spent on the episode.

GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) – County school officials backed a principal’s decision to bar a picture of a lesbian student dressed in a tuxedo from the high school yearbook.

Sam Ward, principal of Fleming Island High School, said he pulled the senior class picture because Kelli Davis was wearing boy’s clothes. His decision was debated at a Clay County school board meeting that drew 200 people, but the board took no action, and Superintendent David Owens said the decision will stand.

The student editor of the yearbook, Keri Sewell, was fired after refusing her adviser’s order to take the picture out.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer set a legal milestone in the state when he ruled March 14 that withholding marriage licenses from same-sex couples violates state constitutional rights to equal protection and that, by itself, the state’s definition of marriage does not justify that violation.

“It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners,” Kramer wrote. “…The state’s protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional.”

The case, Woo v. Lockyer, is the consolidation of two lawsuits filed in March 2004 by the city of San Francisco and 12 same-sex couples, represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union, seeking to overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The lawsuits were filed after the state halted San Francisco’s issuance of gender-neutral marriage licenses March 11.

The state Supreme Court is expected to hear the case in 2006.

The mayor’s liaison to the GLBT community in Washington, D.C., was stabbed to death inside her home on the afternoon of March 16. Wanda R. Alston, 45, played a prominent role in both local and national affairs as a black lesbian activist who was able to communicate across many communities.

The next day police arrested and charged William Parrot Jr., 38, with the murder. Parrot was an unemployed neighbor who has claimed he was high on crack at the time and had sought money to support his habit. Alston resisted and her body carried numerous knife wounds as evidence of that fact.

The venerable NAACP California chapter publicly lent its support to an upcoming same-sex civil partnership bill, marking a first for the civil rights group for whom this is a hotly contentious issue.

Members of the California State Conference of the NAACP voted by a slim majority to lend their significant political weight to the pending Religious Freedom and California Civil Marriage Protection Act (AB 19).

The conference took place in October but the decision to support AB 19 was made public following its recent ratification by the NAACP’s executive board.

AB 19, spearheaded by Assemblymember Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, would effectively amend the California Family Code to read that the state of California recognizes marriage as being between two persons, rather than specifically a man and a woman.

SACRAMENTO (AP) – 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.

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 same-sex couples. It grants registered couples virtually every spousal right available under state law except the ability to file joint income taxes.

The Campaign for California Families, along with the late Sen. Pete Knight, challenged the law, saying it undermines Proposition 22, the 2000 initiative that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – State representatives voted 85-63 to allow same-sex civil unions on April 13, after the state Senate passed a similar measure the week prior.

The House action came after more than six hours of debate, much of it centered on adding a definition of marriage – the union of a man and a woman.

Connecticut became the first state to voluntarily establish civil unions. Court rulings – handed down in lawsuits brought by gay and lesbian couples – mandated civil unions in Vermont and same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

The College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church quickly selected German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as pope on April 19. He chose the name of Benedict XVI, and was installed in the office on April 24.

Some have referred to him as “God’s Rottweiler” for the fierce, tenacious manner in which he enforced doctrinal discipline for the papacy over the last 24 years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the successor organization to the Inquisition.

Conservatives within the Roman Catholic Church were pleased by the selection, but they were nearly alone in that rejoicing. Most members of the GLBT community were dismayed.

NEW YORK (AP) – Three new TV networks catering to gay and lesbian viewers were trying to establish themselves: Q Television Network, Logo and Here.

“I think there’s room for all three of us,” said said Frank Olsen, president of Q Television Network. “We’re different types of channels, just like you have ABC, NBC and CBS.”

MTV Networks’ Logo started as a basic cable network on June 30. Q and Here were both operating already as pay services available to a limited number of viewers.

SEATTLE (AP) – In an e-mail to employees Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer said the software company will publicly support gay rights legislation in the future. The e-mail, posted on a Microsoft employee’s Web log, came two weeks after gay rights activists accused the company of withdrawing its support for an anti-discrimination bill in its home state after an evangelical pastor’s threat to launch a national boycott.

Ballmer said he would not get into what prompted Microsoft to take a neutral stance on a bill it had supported in the past. Ballmer said in April that the company had decided to focus on a shorter list of legislative priorities that had a more direct impact on the company’s software business well before executives met with the Rev. Ken Hutcherson, pastor of a Redmond church who has organized rallies against same-sex marriage in Seattle and Washington, D.C. Hutcherson said he pressured Microsoft after hearing two employees testify in favor of a bill in the Washington Legislature that would have banned discrimination against gays and lesbians in housing, employment and insurance.

House Bill 1515 died by a single vote in the state Senate in late April.

In early May, the Food and Drug Administration implemented new rules recommending that any man who has engaged in gay sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor. The FDA insisted gay men collectively pose a higher-than-average risk of carrying the AIDS virus, rejecting calls to scrap the provision. Critics argued the FDA is stigmatizing all gay men rather than implementing a screening process that would focus on high-risk sexual behavior by any potential gay or straight donor.

“Under these rules, a heterosexual man who had unprotected sex with HIV-positive prostitutes would be OK as a donor one year later, but a gay man in a monogamous, safe-sex relationship is not OK unless he’s been celibate for five years,” Leland Traiman, director of Rainbow Flag sperm bank in Alameda, Calif., told The Associated Press.

The FDA rules do not prohibit gay men from serving as “directed” sperm donors. If a woman wishing to become pregnant knows a gay man and asks that he provide sperm for artificial insemination, a clinic could provide that service even if the man had engaged in sex with other men within five years.

SACRAMENTO (AP) – Same-sex marriage opponents filed a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would ban same-sex marriage in the state and strip domestic partners of most spousal benefits.

Randy Thomasson, organizer of a group called voteyesmarriage.com, said May 19 that the far-reaching measure he hoped to qualify for an upcoming election is designed to prevent judges and lawmakers from eroding laws that limit marriage to one man and one woman.

Gay rights supporters described the measure as among the most extreme attempts nationwide to block the gains same-sex couples have made since Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage a year ago.

SAN FRANCISCO – Less than a month after a bill to legalize same-sex marriage died in the California Assembly, Assemblymember Mark Leno revived the measure by attaching it to legislation already pending in the state Senate.

Leno employed a legislative maneuver known as “gut and amend” to resurrect the bill that on June 2 fell four votes shy of gaining the simple majority it needed to pass the 80-member house.

Leno’s bill sought to change the California family code to define marriage as between “two persons” instead of as between a man and a woman. To bring it back to life, he substituted his measure’s language into a bill that successfully passed from the Assembly to the Senate, AB 849.

Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families, predicted that Leno’s gambit would give momentum to proposed constitutional amendments seeking to ban same-sex marriage. “Mark Leno, be careful what you wish for,” Thomasson said. “The Democrat politicians’ obsession with destroying the essence of marriage will keep this issue front and center for California voters.”

The San Francisco Chronicle obtained a 15-minute video sent to them anonymously which was meant to prepare San Francisco 49ers players on how to deal with the media, but instead featured racist jokes, lesbian soft-porn, topless blondes and 49ers public relations director Kirk Reynolds impersonating San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Fox-affiliate KTVU reported June 1.

Reynolds said he never intended the public to see the in-house video and made it for the sole purpose of handling media questions in a diverse city like San Francisco.

After viewing a scene featuring a topless lesbian wedding, which was filmed at the Mitchell Brothers’ O’Farrell Theater and officiated by Reynolds posing as the mayor, Newsom shook his head and said, “What an idiot.”

The team found the video “completely inappropriate,” 49ers team lawyer Ed Goines told the Chronicle. Reynolds is “pursuing other interests” outside the team, he added.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Undeterred by recent setbacks in the push to legalize same-sex marriage, tens of thousands of festively dressed people marched in parades around the country to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Pride.

People celebrated in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta and other cities, though the event came during a tough period for gay rights advocates. A bill to legalize same-sex marriage had died recently in the California Assembly, and many states had passed or were pursuing constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage.

Activists elsewhere said they were energized by the political climate.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court and a swing vote on abortion as well as other contentious issues, announced her retirement on July 1. A bruising Senate confirmation struggle loomed as President Bush pledged to name a successor quickly.

Bush said he would recommend a replacement who will “faithfully interpret the Constitution and laws of our country.”

O’Connor’s decision marked the first retirement in 11 years on an aging court.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Criminal charges against the mayor of New Paltz for marrying same-sex couples were dropped July 12 by the prosecutor, who said a trial would be unnecessary and divisive. Village Mayor Jason West had potentially faced fines and up to a year in jail related to 24 misdemeanor counts filed after he married about two dozen same-sex couples in February 2004. West was charged with violating the state’s domestic relations law.

Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams told the court he would decline further criminal action against West. Williams told the presiding judge that West is already enjoined from marrying more gay and lesbian couples because of a separate civil case and that courts and state officials have disagreed with West’s interpretation of the law. “While a trial in this case would be filled with rhetoric and hyperbole, it would be lacking in a viable public purpose,” Williams wrote.

The communications director for perhaps the most vocally homophobic member of the U.S. Senate, Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum, was outed by Michael Rogers, a leading practitioner of “outing,” who broke the story on his blog on July 14. The news quickly spread across the Internet. Robert Traynham II has worked for Santorum for eight years, and apparently the senator knows that he is gay. Rogers said Traynham acknowledged that he is gay in a phone conversation placed to his office.

Santorum’s office released a statement from the Senator calling Traynham “widely respected and admired on Capitol Hill … Not only is Mr. Traynham an exemplary staffer, but he is also a trusted confidante to me and my family … It is entirely unacceptable that my staff’s personal lives are considered fair game by partisans … [He] continues to have my full support and confidence.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Officials broke ground on what they called the nation’s first non-profit senior housing facility designed for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender adults as activists and supporters applauded the project’s “environment of tolerance.”

Work on the $20 million Encore House in Hollywood will accommodate low-income seniors in 104 rental units and feature a swimming pool and 3,000 square feet of public space. It is expected to open in 2006.

Brian Neimark, founder and executive director of the non-profit Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing, which is building the apartment complex, said the residence will not discriminate against heterosexuals.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – In a 5-0 decision, the California Supreme Court said Aug. 10 it would not immediately decide whether a state ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, keeping same-sex marriage off-limits while leaving the issue in legal limbo.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer and others wanted to bypass an appeals court hearing to expedite a definitive ruling from the state’s highest court. They asked the justices to directly review the trial judge’s ruling.

The high court normally does not resolve cases until they have worked their way through the lower courts. One of the last times it did, however, involved same-sex marriage.

In August, 2004, the court ruled unanimously that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom overstepped his authority when he issued same-sex marriage licenses during a month-long wedding march that began in February that year. The court took the case at the time because gay and lesbian newlyweds were seeking spousal benefits not authorized by the state at the time.

An evangelical Christian group that regularly demonstrates at GLBT events blamed gays for hurricane Katrina’s path of destruction, 365Gay.com reported. Repent America said that God “destroyed” New Orleans because of Southern Decadence, the gay festival that was to have taken place in the city over the Labor Day weekend.

“Southern Decadence has a history of filling the French Quarters section of the city with drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets and bars,” Repent America director Michael Marcavage said in a statement on Aug. 31.

Organizers for Southern Decadence cancelled the event and promised full ticket refunds.

Weeks after the California Legislature became the first legislative body in the nation to approve same-sex marriage legislation, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger kept his promise and vetoed Assembly Bill 849, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, on Sept. 29.

Although the governor said same-sex couples are “entitled to full protection under the law and should not be discriminated against based upon their relationships,” he cited Proposition 22 as his primary reason for vetoing AB 849.

Approved by California voters in 2000, Prop. 22 created a statute stating “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

“This bill [AB 849] simply adds confusion to a constitutional issue,” Schwarzenegger said. “If the ban of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, this bill is not necessary. If the ban is constitutional, this bill is ineffective.”

As part of his statement vetoing AB 849, Schwarzenegger said he supports California’s domestic partnership laws and would “vigorously defend and enforce these rights,” adding that he “will not support any rollback” of those rights.

Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist succumbed to thyroid cancer on Sept. 3 at the age of 80. He had served on the court for 33 years, first as a justice and then as chief justice. It was one of the longest tenures in the court’s history.

President George W. Bush wasted no time in announcing Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts as the successor to Rehnquist, on the morning of Sept. 5. Twenty-five years ago Roberts served as a law clerk to the elder jurist.

The GLBT community had little reason to mourn his passing as Rehnquist’s vote consistently fell in opposition to equal treatment of gays and lesbians under the law.

HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) – Two men who had sex with a transgender teen and then discovered she was biologically male were convicted Sept. 12 of her murder, but cleared of hate crime charges. Michael Magidson and Jose Merel, both 25, face mandatory sentences of 15 years-to-life in prison for second-degree murder in the killing of Gwen Araujo, who was beaten, tied up and strangled. The jury was deadlocked in the case of a third man, Jason Cazares, 25, marking the second time a mistrial was declared in his case. Although many people outraged by the slaying had hoped all three men would be convicted of first-degree murder, the victim’s mother, Sylvia Guerrero, said she was satisfied with the two guilty verdicts. Defense attorneys had argued the killing was no more than manslaughter committed in the heat of passion, a claim that infuriated Araujo’s family and transgender advocates, who had been watching the case closely.

Halloween got an early, scary start for progressives, soon after dawn rather than dusk, when President George W. Bush introduced Samuel A. Alito, 55, as his nominee to the Supreme Court, replacing his previous nominee, Harriet Miers, who withdrew her nomination.

Some called the nominee “Scalito” because his judicial views so closely mirror those of Justice Antonin Scalia, though his written opinions tend to be dry, and lacking in Scalia’s gratuitous personal attacks.

The nomination pleased social conservatives, who had Alito on their short list of preferred nominees to the court because of his rulings on abortion and church-state relations.

However, those same factors that pleased conservatives made liberals see red. “The giddy salivation of anti-gay activists over their preferred nominee should disturb fair-minded Americans,” said Eric Stern, executive director of National Stonewall Democrats. He urged a “fair and thorough investigation” into Alito’s judicial record.

Leaders of the black GLBT community were shocked and dismayed at the rollercoaster of reconciliation and inclusion, then the last minute rejection of their participation in the Millions More Movement event on the Mall in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 15.

In February, the Rev. Louis Farrakhan publicly welcomed the participation of gays and lesbians in activities but a series of communications between Millions More Movement and GLBT leaders resulted in little progress toward that end. There was a further setback in July when the Rev. Willie Wilson, executive director of the event, made what many considered to be inflammatory remarks about the community while preaching at his church in Washington, D.C.

At a news conference on Oct. 11, the National Black Justice Coalition took Farrakhan to task for continuing to exclude them from the event. That resulted in an Oct. 12 meeting with Farrakhan and Wilson.

“Rev. Wilson was a huge obstacle. He refused to shake our hands when we walked in; he yelled and screamed the whole time,” said NBJC president Keith Boykin. “Minister Farrakhan was very understanding, polite and respectful.”

According to Boykin, “Wilson said the gay community attacked him and he feels the same way about the gay community as he feels about white people – a few of them are alright but the rest of them, I don’t want to have anything to do with them.”

The NBJC and D.C. Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays had organized a rally as part of the We Are Family Unity Weekend. They gathered on the morning of the Millions More Movement event, a few blocks away at Freedom Plaza, prior to marching to the Mall.

The highest court within the United Methodist Church defrocked a lesbian minister Oct. 31 for violating the denomination’s ban on “self-avowed, practicing homosexual” clergy, The Associated Press reported.

The nine-member Judicial Council – seven of whom heard the case in Houston – issued a ruling from its offices in Nashville.

A church panel ruled in December that the Rev. Irene “Beth” Stroud, 35, engaged in practices that the United Methodist Church has declared incompatible with Christian teachings. That decision was overturned by an appeals panel in April, but the Judicial Council on Oct. 31 backed the original ruling.

The Judicial Council ruled that the appeals committee “erred in reversing and setting aside the verdict and penalty from Rev. Stroud’s trial.”

November

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Two lawmakers, Republican state Sen. Charlie Shields and Democratic state Rep. Martin Rucker, proposed a bill that would make it a crime to protest at a funeral, in response to an anti-gay group that has protested at military funerals in Missouri and around the country.

Legislators in Oklahoma and Indiana proposed similar measures and a county commission in Tennessee adopted a policy barring protests within 5,000 feet of funeral services.

In August, members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., protested and waved anti-military signs at the funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. The Rev. Fred Phelps, the church’s leader, contends American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays. The church is not affiliated with a larger denomination and is made up mostly of Phelps’ children, grandchildren and in-laws.

Shields said the proposal, filed Dec. 1 for consideration during next year’s legislative session, is modeled after a Kansas law.

But Ronald K.L. Collins, a scholar with the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., said such a law likely would infringe on free-speech rights.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) – The FDA wants condom packages to warn that condoms are less effective at stopping some sexually transmitted diseases, such as herpes and human papilloma virus, than others. The agency also wants packaging to advise that condoms that use a common spermicidal lubricant should not be used by people at risk of catching HIV.

In proposed rules posted on its Web site, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the changes to male condom labels would provide people with more precise information on how well condoms work. They would apply to latex condoms, which make up about 98 percent of the market; rules for other condoms are forthcoming. The FDA would not insist condom manufacturers use FDA-provided language, but they would have to include the information in some form on their packages.

The FDA considered, and discarded, suggestions to include social or public health-related advice on condom packages, the agency said. Some activists had worried the FDA would propose far greater changes to current guidelines and exaggerate the failure rate of condoms in accordance with the wishes of some social conservatives. But that didn’t happen.

Julie Davids, executive director of the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project, commended the FDA “for sticking to sound public health rather than scare tactics.”

December

A Vatican letter obtained by the Washington Post showed that the Roman Catholic Church is imposing deeper restrictions on gay priests than what was made public In November in a new directive for Catholic seminaries, 365Gay.com reported.

The letter instructs seminary leaders to remove any gay priests from teaching positions, while the directive says only that men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” cannot be admitted to seminaries, and those already enrolled cannot be ordained.

The Nov. 4 letter affecting current priests was sent to bishops around the world but not immediately made public. Details were first published by the Catholic News Service, and later obtained by the Post.

The letter says of gay priests already ordained “are to continue to exercise their ministry, taking care to live with integrity [but] because of the particular responsibility of those charged with the formation of future priests, they are not to be appointed as rectors or educators in seminaries.”

The letter was signed by Polish Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski and Canadian Archbishop J. Michael Miller, the top officials of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) – Mayor James E. West was recalled by Spokane voters Dec. 6 over abuse of office allegations that he offered City Hall jobs and perks to young men he met in a gay Internet chat room.

The special recall election results were certified Dec. 16. Sixty-five percent voted to recall West, while 35 percent voted to retain him. West is the first Spokane elected chief executive to be ousted before his term expired.

West, a Republican former state legislator who voted against gay-friendly bills, served 27 years in public office.

The Spokane City Council voted unanimously to appoint former Councilmember Dennis Hession to serve the remaining two years of West’s term.

WASHINGTON (AP) – On Dec. 6, the Supreme Court appeared ready to rule against colleges that want to limit military recruiting on campus to protest “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Pentagon’s policy on gays, lesbians and bisexuals serving openly in the military.

New Chief Justice John Roberts and other court members signaled support for a federal law known as the Solomon Amendment that says schools that accept federal money also have to accommodate military recruiters. The justices seemed concerned about hindering a Defense Department need to fill its ranks when the nation is at war.

A group of law schools and professors had sued the Pentagon, claiming their free-speech rights are being violated because they are forced to associate with military recruiters or promote their campus appearances. Many law schools forbid the participation of recruiters from public agencies and private companies that have discriminatory policies.

Federal financial support of colleges tops $35 billion a year, and many college leaders say they could not forgo that money.

The court’s ruling is expected to take several months.

NEW YORK (AP) – A state appeals court Dec. 8 threw out a ruling that would have allowed gay and lesbian couples to marry in New York City, saying it is not the role of judges to redefine the terms “husband” and “wife.”

The state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division ruled 4-1 that Justice Doris Ling-Cohan erred in February when she held that the state’s domestic relations law is unconstitutional since it does not permit marriage between people of the same sex. Ling-Cohan had ruled in favor of five same-sex couples who sued New York City because the city clerk had denied their marriage license applications. The couples complained that their equal protection and due process rights under the New York Constitution were violated.

Ling-Cohan barred the city clerk from denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Her decision was the first of its kind in New York City.

But the appeals court said this “was an act that exceeded the court’s constitutional mandate and usurped that of the Legislature.” The court said it is not up to judges to redefine terms that are given clear meaning in a statute. Also, the appeals court said state laws regarding marriage do not violate the state constitution.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Advertisements featuring Ford Motor Co.’s eight vehicle brands will run in gay publications, the automaker said Dec. 14, acting after gay rights groups complained when Jaguar and Land Rover pulled their spots.

Ford is not ordering those luxury brands to resume their specific ads. Rather, the company’s ads in the publications will promote all of its lines, which also include Ford, Lincoln, Mazda, Mercury, Volvo and Aston Martin.

Earlier this month, Ford cited a need to reduce its marketing costs in explaining why it no longer would advertise Jaguar and Land Rover in several gay publications.

The gay groups had suggested a connection between the withdrawn Jaguar and Land Rover ads and pressure from conservative groups. Ford denied a connection.

In May, the American Family Association announced a boycott of Ford vehicles and criticized Ford for making contributions to gay rights groups, offering benefits to same-sex partners and recruiting gay and lesbian employees. The organization called off the boycott late last month, but is considering reinstating it after Ford’s Dec. 14 decision.

Supporters of two separate initiatives to amend the California Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage were unable to gather enough signatures to qualify their measures for the June ballot.

The conservative group ProtectMarriage.com, which sponsored the “Protect Marriage” initiative, failed to gather the 598,105 signatures they needed by the Dec. 27 deadline, said Andrew Pugno, a lawyer for the campaign.

“There will not be a measure on the ballot this coming year,” Pugno told the San Francisco Chronicle. The group said they will aim for the April 13 deadline to make the November ballot.

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, which endorsed “The Voters’ Right to Protect Marriage” initiative sponsored VoteYesMarriage.com, told 365Gay.com he is not giving up and the organization will continue to fight in the courts.

“Whether it be November 2006 or sometime in 2008, it doesn’t matter,” he said.