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grrrly news 12/29

December 29, 2003 07:12 PM posted by lisa : track it (0)

Bush Says He Could Back Gay Marriage Ban
President Bush said Tuesday that he could support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court last month struck down that state's ban on same-sex marriage, saying it is unconstitutional and giving state lawmakers six months to craft a way for gay couples to wed.
Bush has condemned the ruling before, citing his support for a federal definition of marriage as a solely man-woman union. On Tuesday, he criticized it as "a very activist court in making the decision it made."

Sex abuse case judge accused - of sex abuse
A judge who has tried child sex abuse cases has been accused of child sex charges himself.

An American federal grand jury in Camden, New Jersey, charged Superior Court Judge Stephen Thompson with travelling abroad to Russia to produce child pornography.

Suit to target city police race policies
The lawyer who successfully challenged the Boston Fire Department's 29-year-old affirmative action plan will file suit today against the Boston police, arguing that the department has achieved racial balance and should no longer use hiring quotas.

Saudi Arabia Bans Dolls, Stuffed Animals
Saudi Arabia has banned the importation of female dolls and stuffed animals, giving merchants three months to dispose of such stock, a state-guided newspaper reported Wednesday.

Wisconsin Woman May be Charged for Lying About Teen's Abortion
-- A Wisconsin woman may be charged for her role in signing her name on a parental consent form so her son's 15 year-old girlfriend could obtain an abortion without her parents' knowledge

Sex Offenders Get Federal Money for College
Some of the worst sexual predators in Florida are taking college courses and U.S. taxpayers are picking up the tab

Court Rules In Favor Of Abortion Ban
The state of Ohio has been given the go-ahead to enforce a ban on a controversial abortion procedure.

A federal appeals court in Cincinnati has ruled 2-1 that the law is constitutionally acceptable.

Porn-spammer hit with $179,000 judgment
A $179,000 summary judgment has been imposed on a pornographer because a citizen of Washington state was annoyed enough at receiving unsolicited, sexually explicit e-mails to sue the sender

Father charges self with incest
"Terje", a 31-year-old father of three from Trondheim, is so desperate to rid himself of accusations of incest from his daughter that he will ask that charges be pressed against him in order to clear his name in court, newspaper bureau ANB reports.

Police to trap online paedophiles
An international police sting operation has been launched to catch paedophiles who go online for images of children

Single Women Gaining Political Clout
Forget about soccer moms. The prized voter of next year's presidential election could be single women, according to a new study.
But they need to get to the polls.
Using census and other voting data analyzed by two Democratic polling firms, the study released Tuesday found there would have been 6 million more ballots to count in 2000 if single women had voted at the same rate as their married counterparts.

Court in favour of same-sex benefits
In what the gay community is describing as a monumental decision, an Ontario court ruled Friday that the federal government has discriminated against same-sex couples by denying pension benefits to survivors whose partners died before 1998.

Women to judge Delhi's rape cases
India's capital, Delhi, is to set up special courts to deal with cases of rape that will be prosecuted and judged by women.

Bryant prosecutor says he was given anti-Kobe shirt
In an embarrassing admission, the man prosecuting Kobe Bryant said Friday that someone in his office ordered T-shirts that mock the NBA star, including one carrying the words: "I'm not a rapist; I'm just a cheater."

Sex workers demand action
San Francisco's prostitutes and strippers are calling on the city's newly elected young mayor to help decriminalise the world's oldest profession and crack down on abuses of exotic dancers.
Dancers charge that the city's outgoing mayor, Willie Brown, the former lawyer of a prominent strip club owner, ignored years of labour law and safety violations in San Francisco's strip clubs.

Policing escort services can be tricky
When detectives investigating Exxxtreme Escorts made a date with the business owner's safe deposit box, they were stood up.
"Hello how are you!! Fooled ya!!" said the note they found in the otherwise empty suburban Boca Raton bank vault. Gone, if they were ever there, were the john lists of a prostitution ring listed in the detectives' warrant

Wives hire other women to test 'cheating' men
Suspicious wives are increasingly hiring so-called "honey-trap girls" to purposely come on to their husbands to test their commitments to their marriages.
According to a report in the Melbourne Herald Sun, women are paying licensed investigators to flirt with their husbands to see how they will react.

Appellate court will weigh parental rights of lesbians
A brewing Bay Area court battle is delving into the largely uncharted area of lesbian partners' parental rights, a case legal observers say could be precedent-setting and help clarify the rights of sperm and egg donors when they involve domestic partners

Winning on abortion
Pro-lifers are winning the battle against abortion. Thirty years after the Supreme Court forced abortion-on-demand on the states, substantial progress has been made in educating the public on the moral unacceptability of that position. Changing a culture has taken time, but the partial-birth abortion ban signed last month by President Bush is the latest proof that years of dedication are paying off.

Still not having it all
'You can bake your cake and eat it, too.' That's what Julia Roberts's character in the film "Mona Lisa Smile" tells a brilliant, soon-to-wed student at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. It's 1953, and Julia plays Katherine Watson, a free-thinking Californian teaching art history at the prestigious women's college. Typical of the era, most of her students value marriage and family over a career. But their hip new professor nudges them to rethink those priorities.

Tackling the baby shortage
A declining birthrate means Europe is in danger of extinction. However, the Germans seem to have found the key to preserving the species

New Front Opens in Fight Against Breast Cancer
Breast cancer researchers have raised questions about the role of environmental toxins in causing the disease. A new initiative at the National Institutes of Health may finally provide some answers

Group Aims Gun Laws at Domestic Violence
Gun-safety laws--often ignored by law-enforcers and elusive for potential victims--are the focus of a national campaign to stem domestic-violence bloodshed.

A Moment of Generosity Saved a Future
This holiday season, Women's eNews Editor in Chief Rita Henley Jensen celebrates someone from her past--a compassionate doctor--who shielded her from the stringent rules of the welfare system and permitted her to pursue journalism

Female Mutilations Slow, But Only Gradually
Even though female genital mutilation is still rampant in Africa and other countries, the traditional practice is slowing under pressures from abroad and some successful local programs to educate people about the dangers of the practice

Afghan Women Fight for Citizenship
As conservative mujahideen dominate the drafting of the new Afghanistan constitution, many fear that women--still under the burqa--will not be treated as citizens and won't be protected from Taliban-era mistreatment and discrimination

Thurmond Story Tells Harsh Truths
The revelation that segregationist Strom Thurmond had a daughter by a black housemaid leaves our commentator mulling over the manipulation of teen-age girls and the harsh realities of the mother in the story, Carrie Butler.

Pop Star Gives to Shelter; Abortion Rule Upheld
Pop music star Christina Aguilera donated $200,000 to the Women's Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh.
Aguilera, 23, is from the Pittsburgh suburb of Wexford and visited the shelter Sunday, spending two hours signing autographs and talking to the 18 women and 23 children at the shelter. She also helped wrap Christmas presents for the children.
Fulton Superior Court Judge Gino Brogdon ruled Monday that the state of Georgia need not pay for a Medicaid patient's abortion when a doctor has decided that the pregnancy could be harmful to the woman's health, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday.

Women Find a New Arena for Equality: Prison
Becky Pemberton, a nurse, is serving a 35-year sentence at the Mabel Bassett women's prison here for grabbing money out of cash registers in stores in Oklahoma City while she was addicted to heroin.

The Myth of Women's Inferiority
Towards the end of the Second World War, George Orwell had written Animal Farm, a satirical allegory on Joseph Stalin's stupidities, which aggravated the problem of inequality in Russia contrary to popular expectations

Canadian group using airwaves to empower Afghani women
A Canadian organization is reaching out to women in Afghanistan, teaching them to work as journalists and opening radio stations, hoping to change the view of women in a society that has traditionally held them in low esteem. The Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society, or IMPACS, financed by Canada's International Development Agency, has opened two radio stations in the war-ravaged country and is working on a third.

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