NewsWrap for the week ending November 12, 2011

SUMMARY

First Dates - Poland swears in its first gay and first transgender MPs …

One Makes a Difference - a Democrat's win in an Iowa Senate race virtually guarantees the safety of marriage equality in the Hawkeye state …

Majority Approves Equality - Traverse City, Michigan voters overwhelmingly uphold a local ordinance banning sexual orientation-based bias …

All Politics Is Local - an impressive number of "out" candidates win reelection and score several "firsts" in local off-year election victories across the U.S. …

Told You So - voters rebuff extremist right-wing Republican legislation in Mississippi, Maine, Arizona, and Ohio …

Case Closed - a U.S. appeals court formally shuts the door on the Log Cabin Republicans lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the now-repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell …

Can't Get No Respect - the Senate Judiciary Committee advances the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, the mid-1990s law that bans federal recognition of legally married same-gender couples – though there's little chance that the bill will even be considered by the GOP-controlled House, which is using taxpayer dollars to defend DOMA in federal lawsuits challenging its constitutionality …

Lesbians Held Captive - a coalition of women's and human rights groups in Ecuador demands the closure of some 200 so-called "ex-gay" facilities that some who've escaped have called "torture clinics" …

Too Bad He'll Only Be 52 - the man who confessed to brutally murdering Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato is sentenced to 30 years in prison …

Penguins Need Progeny - the "heart-breaking" forced separation by the Toronto Zoo of Buddy and Pedro, two "pair bonded" male African penguins, causes an international uproar ….

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