NewsWrap for the week ending Feb. 19, 2011

SUMMARY

Waiting at the Altar - The federal Prop 8 case is delayed by at least several months as California's Supreme Court agrees to answer the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' question as to whether or not the measure's sponsors, ProtectMarriage, have legal standing to appeal last year's federal District Court ruling declaring the marriage equality-banning measure a violation of the U.S. Constitution ...

Show of Hands - vote-counters in Maryland predict imminent passage of a marriage equality bill in the state Senate, passage in the House, and the governor's signature, while a marriage equality bill is introduced in the Washington state legislature ...

Full Faith Falls Short - Indiana's House of Representatives approves a state constitutional amendment to define marriage as exclusively heterosexual, and Wyoming's Senate advances a bill to ban state recognition of same-gender marriages or civil unions legally contracted elsewhere ...

Aloha! - civil unions bill heads to the governor's desk in Hawai'i for his expected signature, and Sabrina McKenna is confirmed as the state's first openly lesbian or gay Supreme Court justice ...

Turnabout Should Be Fair Play - four same-gender couples denied marriage licenses and four heterosexual couples denied civil partnerships in the U.K. file a dual discrimination complaint with the European Court of Human Rights ...

Gender Victories - Canada's House of Commons passes a bill to add gender identity and expression anti-bias protections to the Canadian Human Rights Act, while Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick issues an Executive Order banning workplace bias against transgender state employees ...

Work Outs - Virginia House of Delegates subcommittee rejects a bill to protect state LGBT employees from workplace bias, but the University of Alaska Board of Regents adds sexual orientation to existing anti-discrimination policies ...

Fun in the Sun - Auckland celebrates "New Zealand's biggest celebration of diverse sexualities and gender" at the annual Big Gay Out ...

Intractable - Budapest police withdraw permits for this year's Pride march citing concerns over traffic disruption, while Moscow's new Mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, says he doubts that there'll be a Pride march this year in his city ...

One Party That Never Gets Old - rainbow banners fly high over Sydney's Town Hall to launch the Australian city's world-famous Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras ...

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