Third Appellate Court Rejects Request For California Governor And Attorney General To Appeal Proposition 8 Ruling, Republicans Run Log Cabin President Against Democratic Gay Ally In Critical Utah Election, Springfield Catholic Church Forces Lesbian Dean Of Students To Resign, Jarrett Barrios On Gay Divorce, Chris Colfer Walks Into A Bear Leather Bar, Kellan Lutz Walks Barefoot And Shirtless

Wednesday, the Third District Appellate court in Sacramento, California rejected a request by the conservative legal defence organization Pacific Justice Institute asking Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal a ruling that struck down the state’s same sex marriage ban, Proposition 8. The court did not offer a reason why.

Melvin Nimer, the openly gay president of the Utah Log Cabin Republicans has been chosen by GOP to run against Democrat Senator Ben McAdams of Utah in the Senate District 2 election. McAdams, appointed to the Senate in early 2010 to replace Senator Scott McCoy, Utah’s first openly gay state senator, is regarded as straight ally of the LBGT community – he advised Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker achieve the capital’s historic anti-discrimination protections for gay and transgendered residents, will battle Nimer, a gay advocate with great support from Utah’s powerful Republicans.

In Springfield, Massachusetts, where gay marriage has been legal since 2004, Christine Judd, the athletic director and dean of students of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese Cathedral High School is no longer employed from her positions, pressured she says to leave after marrying her female partner in August. The diocese contends she resigned; Judd says she is pursuing her legal options, saying of meeting held with the school system Wednesday “I was given a choice of termination or resignation. I’m hurt, but I wish nothing but the best for Cathedral, its students, the parents, the athletic teams, administration and faculty. I bleed purple (the school’s color).” Judd has been employed for the Catholic school for twelve years, becoming the dean of students six years ago and the athletic director three years ago. “I married my partner this summer,” she said, “I was hoping that my loyalty, my professionalism the last 12 years would supersede the current hypocrisy that has already been shown with the Diocese of Springfield.”

Jarrett Barrios, the president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (and former Massachusetts state senator) authors an eloquent and emotional article on his divorce from his husband of over five years, Jarrett writing that “Just as gay and lesbian couples shares the joys of marriage, we will share the pain of divorce, something for which we have no template. Divorce plumbs impossible depths of sadness. It involves separating the dishes and the books and all the other things you acquired back when you both still felt the lightness of love, asserting to a judge at a public trial that, yes, your marriage has broken down irretrievably, and telling your parents whose marriage of 47 years hangs heavy over your anemic explanations to them.”

Chris Colfer – preppy pretty – visits a bear leather bar. Priceless!

Kellan Lutz – barefoot and shirtless – spotted outside his Studio City home Wednesday.