Morning Sweep

A Buffalo police office is shot in the spinal cord with little chance of full recovery. Her same-sex partner, who is now her full-time care giver, talks about the hardship of Buffalo not providing domestic partner benefits to city employees. Read here about this tragic situation and how Assemblymember Sam Hoyt is advocating for them with the City of Buffalo.

More stories on Rudy Giuliani and his step back from his previous positions on gay issues. The Washington Post interviews NYC activists and visits NYC resident Ryan Davis in his Hell's Kitchen apartment to talk about his satirical YouTube piece called “Gays for Giuliani” that's been getting so much attention.

Outcome Buffalo has uncovered the fact that a website focusing on politics in western New York is being run by a homophobe who doesn’t mind letting his bigotry influence the way he expresses his views on local issues and talks about local elected officials. No big deal normally since anyone does have the right to say what they think. Only problem here is that a huge number of local elected officials advertise on the website and many of these ads are the very first thing you see when you go to the website’s homepage, a not so subtle message to readers that the views expressed on the website must be okay with these politicians. Go here to follow how the many WNY elected officials advertising on his site are – or are not – reacting when Outcome Buffalo presents them with the facts. Go here to see the website in question and all the politicians who buy ads.

Another prominent Republican in Westchester County jumps parties to become a Democrat, leading The Journal News in the Lower Hudson Valley to editorialize about what this might mean. The paper cites a number of issues, including gay marriage, as issues where Republicans have failed to grasp that Americans want our political system to reflect more concern and less animosity for each other.