National Gaze

The same-sex partner of an adoptive mother can’t seek child custody but may request visitation, the New Mexico Court of Appeals has ruled in a precedent-setting case.

State laws provide no legal right for a Santa Fe-area woman to bring a lawsuit asking for custody of a child who was adopted by her partner during their 15-year relationship, the court concluded in a 2-1 ruling issued earlier this month.

Members of a New York City street gang who attacked a gay man and a recruit because they believed the two had a sexual encounter also turned on two of their own during the rampage, according to newly released court documents that say a pair of teens initially charged in the case were actually victims.

Bryan Almonte and Brian Cepeda, both 17, had been arrested along with nine others after the Oct. 3 attacks. Charges were later dropped against them and two others, whittling the number of defendants to seven.

The city of Atlanta has agreed to pay $1 million to an Atlanta gay bar to settle a lawsuit over a botched police raid in 2009.

The Atlanta City Council voted 14-0 on Dec. 6 to pay the money to the Atlanta Eagle Bar. A private attorney filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of 19 people who say they were illegally searched and detained during the Sept. 10, 2009, raid.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department is instituting new rules prohibiting hospitals from interfering with their patients’ choice of who can visit them at bedside.

The rules follow a request from President Barack Obama and a promise from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to stop medical staff and hospital administrators from denying gays and lesbians visits with their ailing partners.

The gay partner of a Missouri trooper killed in a Christmas Day accident sued for the survivor’s benefit denied him because the men’s 15-year relationship was not legally recognized by the state.

Cpl. Dennis Engelhard, a 49-year-old Missouri State Highway patrolman, was investigating an accident when he was hit and killed by a vehicle last year.

An Arkansas school board member told CNN that he’ll resign following a national outcry over an anti-gay posting he made on Facebook.

Midland School Board member Clint McCance used the terms “queer” and “fag” repeatedly in the posting, in which he promised to disown his own children if they’re gay and stated that he enjoys “the fact that (gay people) give each other AIDS and die.”

Less than halfway through his first term, President Barack Obama has appointed more openly gay officials than any other president in history.

Gay activists say the estimate of more than 150 appointments so far – from agency heads and commission members to policy officials and senior staffers – surpasses the previous high of about 140 reached during two full terms under President Bill Clinton.

Texas legislators will consider proposals to better define bullying in schools as students face being targeted on campus and online.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported earlier this month that at least seven bills related to bullying have been filed for the legislative session that starts in January.

A long-awaited Pentagon study shows that seven out of 10 troops foresee no problem with repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a policy that detractors have called discriminatory, harmful and un-American.

The study, released Nov. 30, was to be vetted by the Senate Armed Services Committee as early as Dec. 3 as top Democrats take another step toward a repeal during the lame-duck session.

Gays are far more likely to be targets of a violent hate crime than any other minority group in the United States, according to a new analysis of federal hate crime statistics.

The Southern Poverty Law Center examined FBI data from 1995 to 2008 in preparing the report released Nov. 22. The analysis found that people perceived to be gay are more than twice as likely to be attacked in a violent hate crime as Jews or blacks. Gays are more than four times as likely to be attacked as Muslims and 14 times as likely as Latinos.