California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban

The New York Times – Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS1 minute ago

The ruling paves the way for California to become the second state where gay men and lesbians can marry.
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Paperchase Reports: US immigration agents face problems transiting drugged deportees overseas

Andrew Gilmore at 12:03 PM ET

[JURIST] US immigration agents transiting involuntarily sedated immigration deportees through foreign countries have been challenged by local authorities, the Washington Postreported Wednesday. The paper said French and Belgian law enforcement officials had raised objections to the sedation of individuals by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] agents at stopovers during two recent deportation flights from the US to Guinea. In one case, Belgian authorities informed US immigration guards accompanying the deportee that the medication of a person against his will was illegal in Belgium, but allowed the deportation to proceed. In a second incident, French officials informed US immigration guards that involuntary injections were illegal in France, and refused to allow the detainee to be sedated during a stopover. The detainee forcefully refused to board the flight from France to Guinea after the sedatives wore off, the captain of the plane refused to allow the detainee to board, and the deportee was returned to the US. Reuters has more.

The report highlights the tension between US deportation practices and international laws [PDF text] regarding involuntary medication and sedation, an issue of increasing importance in recent months. In February, ICE reached a settlement [JURIST report] in a federal class action suit brought by theAmerican Civil Liberties Union of Southern California(ACLU/SC) [advocacy website] on behalf of two immigrants who were forcibly sedated [JURIST report] during deportation flights. In January, the agency released a memo requiring its officers to obtain a judge’s approval [JURIST report] before a deportee can be sedated in order to facilitate his or her removal from the US.

NYS Court of Appeals Leaves 4th Dept Decision Recognizing Canadian Gay Marriage In Place

NY Sun (Joseph Goldstein): Court Decision Is Victory For Gay Marriage Backers

Gay marriage advocates have won a partial victory in New York, as the state’s highest court has left in place a lower court ruling that recognized a lesbian couple as being married. The Court of Appeals declined yesterday to review the mid-level appellate court’s decision to recognize the couple’s Canadian marriage, the first such ruling by an appellate court in New York State. For now, that lower court decision remains binding across the state. In 2006, the state’s Court of Appeals found that there was no right to same-sex marriages under the state constitution, leaving unanswered the question of whether the state would recognize same-sex marriages and civil unions performed in other states and abroad.

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Democrat and Chronicle (Gallagher and Craig): County at crossroads over same-sex benefits lawsuit

The state’s highest court Tuesday sent back to a lower court a case involving whether Monroe County has to recognize a marriage between two women, leaving the county to determine whether to continue its appeal challenging same-sex marriage. The Court of Appeals refused to hear the case of Patricia Martinez, an employee of Monroe Community College, who sued the county after it refused to grant benefits to Martinez’s female partner, Lisa Ann Golden, whom she married in Canada in 2004. The state Supreme Court ruled initially that they were not entitled to benefits, but that was overturned 5-0 by the mid-level Appellate Division, Fourth Department, of the state Supreme Court

Mildred Loving (Loving v. Virginia) Dies

By DIONNE WALKER, Associated Press WriterMon May 5, 4:17 PM ET

RICHMOND, Va. – Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.

Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural Milford. She did not disclose the cause of death.

“I want (people) to remember her as being strong and brave yet humble — and believed in love,” Fortune told The Associated Press.

Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.

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