NY Court: Not Disclosing HIV Before Sex Is Misdemeanor

ALBANY (AP) – New York’s highest court says an HIV-positive man who told a partner that they could safely have unprotected sex should face a misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge, not a felony.

The Court of Appeals says Terrance Williams didn’t expose his partner “out of any malevolent desire” to give him the virus that causes AIDS, though his partner got sick.

The court majority called Williams’ 2010 conduct “reckless, selfish and reprehensible.” But it also says the Syracuse man didn’t show “depraved indifference” necessary to support the felony.

The four judges declined to decide whether HIV infection no longer “creates a grave and unjustifiable risk of death” because of advances in medical treatment.

In a dissent, Judge Eugene Pigott says he’d reinstate the felony charge, because Williams’ lies showed “utter indifference” for the victim’s fate.

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Massachusetts AG Seeks Testimonials From Same-Sex couples

BOSTON (AP) – The attorney general of Massachusetts is collecting testimonials from same-sex married couples that she may include in a friend of the court brief to be sent to the U.S. Supreme Court as it weighs the constitutionality of same-sex marriage.

Maura Healey is asking for either written or video testimonials to be sent to her office’s Facebook page. She’s asking couples how marriage equality has positively changed their lives and what it would mean to have nationwide marriage equality.

Massachusetts in 2004 became the first state to allow same-sex marriage.

Some testimonials may be included in Healey’s brief for the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to be filed March 6.

The nation’s highest court in April will consider cases that ask them to overturn gay marriage bans in four states.

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Some Alabama Counties Refuse To Issue Gay Marriage Licenses

MONTGOMERY (AP) – Gays and lesbians can marry in a majority of Alabama counties, but at least one-fourth of probate judges are refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, or have shut down marriage license operations altogether out of uncertainty over what to do.

At least 12 Alabama counties are not issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. At least another six are not giving licenses to anyone, gay or straight, to avoid the appearance of discrimination.

Nine days after U.S. District Judge Callie Granade’s ruling went into effect declaring Alabama’s gay-marriage ban unconstitutional, the marriage landscape remained uneven terrain. Advocates said that gay couples in those counties were being denied their constitutional rights. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore said he was troubled that so many probate judges were giving into the court ruling.

“I am not disappointed. I am bewildered that so many fail to see that the only law by which they are governed presently is the Alabama Constitution Sanctity of Marriage Amendment,” Moore said of the probate judges.

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Lesbians Disappointed Doctor Won’t Care For Their Child

OAK PARK, MI (AP) – Two Detroit-area women say they believe a pediatrician refused to care for their infant daughter because they are lesbians and are disappointed that there is no state or federal law to prohibit such a decision.

Jami and Krista Contreras of Oak Park met with the doctor before the birth of their daughter, Bay Windsor, in October. But it wasn’t until the girl was 6 days old and they were waiting at the practice for her first checkup that they learned of the pediatrician’s decision.

Another doctor at the same practice told them their chosen pediatrician “prayed on it” before deciding not to see the child, Jami Contreras told WJBK-TV.

“I was completely dumbfounded,” Krista Contreras told the Detroit Free Press. “We just looked at each other and said, ‘Did we hear that correctly?'”

The couple said the doctor later wrote them a handwritten letter saying she felt she could not “develop the personal patient-doctor relationships” that she usually builds with patients. The doctor did not specify that sexual orientation was the reason for her refusal to see their child.

The doctor told the newspaper she couldn’t comment on the case, citing federal privacy law. She defended her commitment to pediatric medicine and helping children, saying her life is taking care of babies and she loves her patients and their families.

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Illinois County Says More Than 6,500 Same-Sex Couples Married

CHICAGO (AP) – The Cook County clerk’s office is reporting more than 6,500 same-sex couples married in Illinois’ most populous county over the first year it issued licenses.

Cook County Clerk David Orr released a report with that and other statistics on the one-year anniversary since his office began issuing licenses to gay couples.

By comparison, around 32,000 marriage licenses are issued by the county to opposite-sex couples each year.

In a Wednesday statement, Orr called the legalization of gay marriage historic and says the ‘basic right” was “denied to so many for too long.”

On Feb. 21, 2014, a federal judge cleared the way for Orr to issue licenses three months before gay marriage took effect throughout Illinois.

The report says spouses in gay marriages have ranged from age 17 to 93.

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Same-Sex Couple Marries In Texas Under One-Time Order

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Defying Texas’ longstanding ban on gay marriage, a lesbian couple wed in Austin immediately after being granted a marriage license on Thursday under a one-time court order because one of the women has cancer.

Texas’ attorney general immediately appealed to the state Supreme Court, which later agreed to block other gay couples from obtaining marriage licenses but didn’t address the Austin marriage of Suzanne Bryant and Sarah Goodfriend.

Attorney General Ken Paxton said he considers their marriage void, but a court hasn’t ruled on that issue. Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir, whose office issued the license, said she still considers the marriage valid.

The women were granted a license in the liberal-leaning county after basing their request on a ruling issued earlier this week by a local judge who deemed the ban unconstitutional in an unrelated estate case.

Bryant said Thursday that being legally married to Goodfriend, who has ovarian cancer, would ensure inheritance and allow them to make medical decisions for each other should one of them become critically ill.

“Financially, now we’re intertwined, and we will have community property that we will share,” Bryant said shortly after the marriage ceremony outside the county clerk’s office, where the couple was flanked by a rabbi, friends and their two teenage daughters, whom they both legally adopted years ago.

State District Judge David Wahlberg sided with the couple Thursday morning, directing DeBeauvoir to stop relying on “the unconstitutional Texas prohibitions against same-sex marriage as a basis for not issuing a marriage license.”

Courts in Indiana made a similar exception for a lesbian couple in April because one of the women was dying of cancer and wanted her partner’s name on her death certificate. A federal appeals court overturned Indiana’s ban in September.

Paxton, a Republican who took office in January, argued that the emergency stay was needed to “to make clear to all county clerks that Texas marriage law remains enforceable until there has been final appellate resolution.” A federal judge last year overturned the ban, which was overwhelmingly approved by voters in the fiercely conservative state in 2005, but the judge put the ruling on hold while the state appeals to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“We are all waiting for a final decision on marriage equality,” Debeauvoir said. “However, this couple may not get the chance to hear the outcome of this issue because one person’s health.”

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California Congressman Confirms Transgender Grandchild

SAN JOSE, CA (AP) – Democratic congressman Mike Honda says on his Twitter account he has a transgender grandchild, an announcement that comes amid a national conversation about people who struggle with gender identity.

Honda posted the tweet Wednesday along with a photo of himself with his arm around a smiling child with shoulder-length hair. He published he is “the proud grandpa of a transgender grandchild” and added he hopes the child can feel safe at school without fear of being bullied.

The San Jose Mercury News reports the announcement was welcomed by the LGBT community in San Jose, the city at the heart of his district.

Honda represents California’s Silicon Valley and is the founder and chairman of the Congressional Anti-Bullying Caucus and is a member of the LGBT Equality Caucus.

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