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News 03-08-04 Seattle Honors Same-Sex Marriages from Other States (CNN News) "Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels on Monday ordered the city government to recognize gay marriages performed in other states, even though Washington state law clearly prohibits same-sex marriage." " 'Spouses of city employees in same-sex marriages will enjoy all of the health and insurance benefits that all opposite sex partners enjoy,' Nickels said at a news conference." 3-04 03-21-04 Methodist Church Acquits Lesbian Pastor (CBS News) "A lesbian Methodist minister said she was relieved by her acquittal in a church trial over her sexual orientation — but so was the pastor who prosecuted her, and even the bishop who filed the complaint." A jury of 13 pastors said it decided in favor of the Rev. Karen Dammann “after many hours of painful and prayerful deliberations, and listening for and to the word of God.” 3-04 05-16-04 Seattle Honors Same-Sex Marriages from Other States (CBS News) "For better or for worse, depending on which side of the ideological aisle one chooses, a divided America crosses a historic threshold Monday as state-approved marriages of same-sex couples take place for the first time. " "On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block the state's municipal clerks from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, clearing the way for the nation's first state-sanctioned same-sex weddings to begin Monday." 5-04 05-19-04 Mass. Senate Votes to Repeal Marriage Law (ABC News) "The Democrat-controlled state Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to repeal the 1913 law that Republican Gov. Mitt Romney is using to bar out-of-state gay couples from marrying in Massachusetts." 5-04 07-14-04 Senate Defeats Same-Sex Marriage Ban (Bloomberg.com) "The U.S. Senate blocked an attempt at amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, dealing a defeat to President George W. Bush, who made his support for the measure part of his re-election campaign." 7-04 Papers Boy Scouts Lose Appeal Over Their Ban (CNN News) "The Boy Scouts of America lost a U.S. Supreme Court appeal over its exclusion from sharing in the proceeds of a state-run charity campaign because it bans homosexuals." "Connecticut says it excluded 29 other organizations from the charitable campaign because they didn't meet the non- discrimination requirement." 3-04 Same-Sex Marriages - Positions on a Constitutional Ban (CNN News) "Bush said such an amendment [to the U.S. Constitution] would 'prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever.' " "The four-term senator [John Kerry] has said he supports civil unions and equal protection for gays and lesbians but that he opposes marriage for them. He also said he believes the matter should be decided on the state level." "Civil unions grant couples most of the rights of state civil marriages, except the name, but provide none of the federal benefits of marriage, such as Social Security benefits." "The Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in each house of Congress to pass an amendment. Then it must be ratified by three-fourths, or 38, of the 50 states." 2-04