NewsWrap for the week ending January 4, 2014

SUMMARY

Nightmares in Waiting - A so-called "Jail The Gays" bill in Nigeria and an apparently less lethal version of the infamous "Kill The Gays" bill in Uganda each win legislative approval and await the signatures of their respective presidents, Goodluck Jonathan and Yoweri Musevini …

Enigmatic Reprieve - British code-breaking World War II hero and father of the modern computer Alan Turing gets a posthumous royal pardon of his "gross indecency" conviction in 1952 that forced his chemical castration and probably drove him to suicide two years later …

Cuba Mas Libre - a Labor Code change in Cuba banning sexual orientation-based workplace bias is the first law in the island nation to protect gays and lesbians …

Busy as a Beehive - a U.S. federal judge declares the ban on civil marriage equality in mostly Mormon Utah unconstitutional, sending hundreds of same-gender couples to county clerk's offices across the state to get licenses, while both the ruling-issuing judge and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals deny Utah's request for an emergency stay to stop them, which state officials then ask Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the high court judge for that part of the country who handles emergency requests, to do …

Enchanted Judiciary - the New Mexico Supreme Court orders marriage equality across the state, validating the licenses already issued to same-gender couples since August by 8 of the state's 33 counties …

Of Their Own Free Will - the Los Angeles Times notes that, contrary to popular right-wing howls against so-called "activist judges" imposing their personal beliefs on an unwilling public, only seven of the 18 U.S. states with marriage equality as 2014 began got there by court order …

Crucified and Risen Again - Lebanon, Pennsylvania United Methodist Church Reverend Frank Schaefer is defrocked for not repenting officiating his gay son's wedding in 2007, but may have a new job in California …

Anticlimax - keen observers noticed that the sky didn't fall on January 1st, the first day of the new semi-inclusive policy welcoming openly gay young men into the ranks of the Boy Scouts of America ….

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