Morning Sweep

A New York Times blog recalls a somewhat comical exchange between New York’s new U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and former mayor Ed Koch on the morning before Paterson announced his pick. Koch reportedly questioned how Gillibrand could be for both “guns and gays” – but the conversation ended in both agreeing that they support same-sex marriage.

An appellate court in California has decided that a Lutheran high school that expelled two 16-year-old students for being lesbians acted lawfully, as it is not a business and therefore doesn't have to comply with the state law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation. The girls’ lawyer plans to take the case to the state’s Supreme Court.

California Attorney General Ed Brown doesn’t think the people who donated money to the Prop. 8 campaign should be able to hide from the public eye, and he’s filed a brief in response to Yes on 8’s ridiculous lawsuit to conceal the names of these donors.

The first in a series of bills affecting the gay community being introduced in Utah this session has been rejected by the state’s Senate judiciary committee. The bill would have allowed financial dependents - besides spouses, parents and children - to sue if a breadwinner suffers a wrongful death, and would have affected both gay and straight residents.

A bill to give same-sex couples all the protections of marriage – without calling it marriage – has been introduced in Washington’s state legislature.

Iceland may be on the brink of naming one of the world’s first gay prime ministers.