NewsWrap for the week ending October 15, 2011

SUMMARY

Swimming to the Other Side - In an interesting confluence of Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a disabled lesbian U.S. Navy veteran who legally married her partner in Connecticut is suing for the same disability payment increases automatically given to newly-married heterosexuals …

Leahy the DOMA-Slayer - legislation to repeal DOMA is scheduled for a Senate Judiciary Committee vote in November …

A Force To Be Reckoned With - some 200 lesbian and gay active duty troops, veterans and civilian supporters gather in Las Vegas for an OutServe-organized first-ever military leadership summit for "out" personnel …

Single Parent Family - the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear the appeal of a gay couple who were denied having both names on their adopted son's revised birth certificate …

Left Back in 1st Grade- the rightwing coalition group opposed to California's FAIR Education Act, which mandates age-appropriate LGBT-inclusive history lessons in the state's public schools, fails to gather the number of petition signatures required to put a referendum on the ballot …

Honeymoon Ends - the Los Angeles-based Love Honor Cherish initiates the process to put a measure to repeal California's marriage equality-banning Proposition 8 on the November 2012 ballot after the state's biggest LGBT advocacy group, Equality California, decides not to …

Georgina the Second - Poland elects Anna Grodzka as its first transgender lawmaker …

21st Century Reformation - the Presbyterian Church (USA) ordains Rev. Scott Anderson as its first openly-gay pastor …

Corrective Justice - four of the nine South African men originally charged with the brutal rape and killing of 19-year-old Cape Town lesbian Zoliswa Nkonyana are convicted of murder after more than five years of court delays …

Keeping It Rio - hundreds of thousands mix celebration and politics in Rio de Janeiro's 16th annual Pride parade …

Livin' La Vida Reprimida - under-15-year-olds are barred from attending gay entertainer Ricky Martin’s concert in Tegucigalpa "to protect the mental health of Honduran youth" ….

Read the complete NewsWrap text ... or listen to this week's podcast.