Gay Rights

NEW YORK -- Tens of thousands of gay men and lesbians surged through Manhattan yesterday, celebrating a civil-rights movement that took its first steps during a police raid on a gay bar 25 years ago and seemed in the last week to have come of age.Crowd estimates varied. Organizers said 1.1 million people, including spectators, attended the march and rally. City Hall estimated 150,000, while police said the total was closer to 110,000.The participants in the commemoration of what is now known as the Stonewall rebellion had their own reasons for being there.

BOSTON -- Ever since the election, I've been carrying around a small newspaper clipping with an Alabama dateline. It tells how the voters rejected a referendum to cleanse their constitution of language that once required segregated schools. Some embarrassed citizens insist that the vote was not really about race. They say that ballot question was framed by its opponents as a backdoor way to raise taxes. They remind me that the Alabama Constitution has as many amendments as my city has parking meters.

Brendon Ayanbadejo doesn't need Super Bowl XLVII to assist the cause for gay rights and gay marriage. But the Ravens inside linebacker won't turn down the opportunity during the week in New Orleans to champion the push for equality. Ayanbadejo, who contributed to Maryland passing an initiative to legalize gay marriage in November, was peppered about using the lead up to the Super Bowl as a platform, but he pointed out that he doesn't really need to seek the cameras or recorders. “Organically, it was going to happen anyway,” he said after Friday's practice.

In an effort to shore up support for a controversial gay rights bill, three Baltimore City Council members have revised a plan to set up a municipal registry and provide hospital visitation rights for domestic partners.The new version of the measure narrows the definition of domestic partnership to exclude heterosexual couples. Under the original proposal, any two people of any sex who lived together would have been able to register as domestic partners.Proponents believe the changes will allay some concerns raised by black ministers and could generate enough council votes for approval.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- This is the story of a car dealer, a policewoman and the chasm that divides them in the struggle over homosexuality in the United States.The car dealer is Wilfred G. Perkins of Colorado Springs, a quintessential family man who is worried about the gay rights movement. He is chairman of Colorado for Family Values, which successfully pushed for an amendment to the Colorado state constitution so that anti-discrimination laws could not protect homosexuals.The police officer is Angela Romero, a 19-year veteran of the Denver Police Department, a lesbian in an occupation dominated by macho men.She says she has suffered from discrimination and needs legal protection.

CHICAGO -- After the Senate's rejection of the Marriage Protection Amendment, supporters tried to portray it as nothing more than a temporary setback. "We are making progress," announced Kansas Republican Sam Brownback, noting that since the last vote two years ago, 14 states have approved bans on same-sex marriage. If this is progress, it's on the order of a shipwreck survivor swimming toward the nearest island, 500 miles away: going in the right direction, but with no chance of getting there.

WASHINGTON -- Six percent. One tends to be a bit skeptical about the number, considering that it came from Florida election officials, otherwise known as The Gang That Couldn't Count Straight. But, assuming that digit survives the inevitable recount and court challenge, it will go down as the margin by which Miami-Dade County voters just defeated a proposal to repeal a section of the county's human-rights ordinance banning discrimination against gays. Respect for human dignity ekes out a disturbingly narrow victory.

WASHINGTON -- Colorado's highest state court, in a wide-ranging victory for gay people, ruled 6-1 yesterday that the U.S. Constitution gives homosexual men and women a clear right to seek new laws to protect them from bias.In a decision that very likely will mean the end of an amendment put into the Colorado constitution last year to forbid all legal protection for gays, the state Supreme Court defined a new right the U.S. Supreme Court has never recognized.That is a right for lesbians and gay men to take part in all of the processes of government "on an even footing with others," without being discriminated against because of their sexual lives.

Mike Morrill, a spokesman for Gov. Parris Glendening, suggested I read the law. He's talking about Maryland's gay rights law, Senate Bill 205, recently passed but delayed as a result of a referendum effort by TakeBackMaryland.org. Morrill was responding to a question I had posed for the governor in light of Glendening's speech of a week ago. You may recall the speech. It's the one in which Glendening called those opposed to the law "mean-spirited" folks "attempt[ing] to force the state to condone discrimination, prejudice and bigotry."

Supporters and opponents of gay rights came to Annapolis yesterday for what has become an annual debate in the General Assembly, one that offers supporters little hope of success. The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on bills calling for recognition of gay marriage, tolerance for homosexual students, and an end to discrimination based on sexual orientation. Even before the first speaker came to the witness table, Del. Joseph F. Vallario Jr., committee chairman, told the crowd that legislators had heard the arguments before and were not interested in hearing people read from prepared notes.