More News Stories of Interest

This first article has been really upsetting to Matthew Shepard's family and to many lesbian, gay, bixsexual and transgender civil rights groups. It basically talks about how Matthew's murderers, in their first interview since his death, are claiming that his murder was not fueled by homophobia and hatred, but by drugs. Pretty peculiar since the lawyers tried to get away with using "gay panic" tactics during the trial.

Here's a great political essay, written by Michelle Cottle, about this year's presidential election and "moral values."

This next article is of particular interest to me because it deals with the Solomon Amendment. A federal appeals court has decided that the government cannot with hold funds from institutions of higher learning if the institutions decide to not allow military recruiters on their campuses. The court basically decided that it violated the institutions First Amendment Rights to withhold funding. An important point is that institutions often have non-discriminatory policies with include discrimination based on sexual orientation and that the military still has the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban.