3/4/2012 This Way Out

Program 1,248

Hosted this week by Greg Gordon and produced with Lucia Chappelle

"NewsWrap": Washington becomes the 8th U.S. state to open civil marriage to lesbian and gay couples; on the heels of a veto of similar legislation by Governor Chris Christie, a New Jersey judge expands a lawsuit challenging the state's ban on marriage for same-gender couples and its less-than-equal civil unions to include both state and federal equal protection claims; Maine LGBT advocates turn in far more than enough petition signatures to qualify a measure for the November ballot to restore marriage equality in their state; in a lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act filed by legally-married lesbian federal employee Karen Golinski, who was denied spousal health benefits for her wife under DOMA, a U.S. District Court judge rules that the 1996 statute violates constitutional equal protection provisions [with a brief excerpt from analysis by Lambda Legal's JON DAVIDSON on "Free Speech Radio News"]; the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals weighs a request by ProtectMarriage.com, the coalition behind California's Proposition 8, for an en banc review of the ruling earlier this month by a 3-judge panel of the Court that the marriage-equality banning measure violates the U.S. Constitution; hundreds of same-gender couples in Queensland begin to register their relationships under the Australian state's new civil partnerships law, while three same-gender couples dine with marriage equality-opposing Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard; and India's government, which declined to appeal a decision decriminalizing private consensual adult same-gender sex, scrambles to contradict statements by one of its top lawyers at a Supreme Court review of that ruling that gay sex "is highly immoral and against the social order" (written by GREG GORDON with thanks to REX WOCKNER, produced by STEVE PRIDE, and reported this week by VASH BODDIE and SARAH SWEENEY)

The LGBT community has made so many significant contributions to society, most of which sadly go unknown. But if gay people are to be seen as equal, those contributions have to be shared and celebrated – and, like recently enacted but controversial legislation in California, that includes teaching LBGT history in schools. "This Way Out" correspondent VASH BODDIE's spotlight on venerable openly gay playwright, poet, and singer/songwriter ROBERT PATRICK ("Kennedy's Children", "Camera Obscura", "The Haunted Host", "T-Shirts", "Michelangelo's Models", and dozens more) is a good example of why that's so important.