Author Archives: Lisa Keen

Speed Read: Idaho poised for Friday

A federal judge in Oregon is expected to rule any day now on that state's ban on same-sex marriage. And a federal judge In Idaho refused to grant a stay of her decision striking that state's ban on same-sex marriage.

Fourth Circuit clash over Virginia ban: Whose children must the state protect with marriage laws?

The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals hearing Tuesday was, as Judge Paul Niemeyer characterized it, just one step along the way to an eventual U.S. Supreme Court ruling on whether states, like Virginia, can ban same-sex couples from marrying.

Speed Read: Slugfest in Fourth Circuit

The Fourth Circuit vote on Virginia's ban of same-sex marriage will almost certainly be 2 to 1, given Tuesday's combative oral argument. A federal judge in Idaho struck down that state's ban on Tuesday and ordered the state to start

Speed Read: ‘THE big moment’?

A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will this morning take up a challenge to Virginia's ban on same-sex couples marrying. Clay Aiken's chief rival for the Democratic nomination in the race for the U.S. House

Two edges of the same sword: Lessons from the Becker Book, Part 2

New York Times reporter Jo Becker's book paints an angry confrontation in May 2009 between the board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights and and four key LGBT civil rights legal activists when AFER unveiled its plans for a

Speed Read: A beacon from Arkansas

ARKANSAS GOES DOWN: A county circuit court judge in Arkansas on Friday ruled that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution and does not “advance any conceivable legitimate state interest necessary to

Speed Read: ‘Tangible and intangible’

The Senate Judiciary Committee quietly advanced the nomination of openly gay African American judge Darrin Gayes Thursday. A federal judge in Indiana gave some relief from the ban on same-sex marriage to a lesbian couple in Indiana. Openly gay Congressional

Speed Read: 53% in work closet

A Human Rights Campaign study found that 53 percent of LGBT people hide their sexual orientation from almost everybody at work. Lesbian gubernatorial candidate Heather Mizeur held her own Wednesday night in the first Democratic primary debate for Maryland.

Speed Read: Aiken wins in N.C.

Openly gay American Idol star Clay Aiken appeared to have won the Democratic primary last night for a U.S. House seat from North Carolina. Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky says in Vanity Fair that Rutgers student Tyler Clementi's suicide

Driving Rosa Parks: Lessons from the Becker Book, Part 1

Now that the great public gnashing of teeth has subsided over New York Times reporter Jo Becker’s history of the Proposition 8 litigation, Forcing the Spring, it appears the idea of dubbing Chad Griffin as the Rosa Parks of the