West Virginia Legislator Introduces Bill To Extend Legal Protections Of Marriage To Gay And Lesbian Couples, Federal District Court Rules Missouri School District Must Stop Censoring Web Content Geared Towards LGBT Communities, After Publication Of Homophobic Racist Book MSNBC Fires Pat Buchannan, Michael Urie Signs To Star In Comedy Pilot From Will & Grace Creators, Joe Jonas Does Fashion Week

A West Virginia lawmaker introduced a bill Thursday that would give gay and lesbian couples the same legal protections as straight married couples. Delegate John Doyle (D-Jefferson), said he wants to start a conversation about family equality. Gay and lesbian couples should have the same safety net to deal with the death of a parent or the loss of a job as married couples. According to The Associated Press, the bill faces an uphill battle in a state that passed a defense of marriage law in 2000. Fairness WV, which advocates on behalf of the gay, lesbian and transgender community, said this is the first time a civil union bill has been introduced in the West Virginia Legislature. Doyle also sponsored a bill that would prohibit workplace and housing discrimination based on sexual orientation. That bill has not advanced since it was introduced. Kevin McCoy, president of the West Virginia Family Foundation, said allowing civil unions would undermine the tradition of marriage, which he said most West Virginians believe should be between one man and one woman. He said adoption of a civil union law would make it easier for the courts to overturn the defense of marriage law. The foundation wants to amends the state Constitution to protect the definition of traditional marriage. Three resolutions to add defense of marriage to the Constitution have been filed this year but none have advanced since they were introduced more than a month ago. "It is absolutely critical that we have a constitutional amendment that would keep an activist Supreme Court from being able to redefine marriage from the bench," McCoy said.

A federal district court ruled today that the Camdenton R-III School District in Missouri must stop censoring web content geared toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities through discriminatory filtering software. The ruling orders the district to not block content based on the viewpoints expressed by the website. The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Western Missouri filed a lawsuit against the district in August 2011 after repeated warnings that its custom-built filtering software discriminates against LGBT content. The filter has a category that blocks LGBT-supportive information, including hundreds of websites that are not sexually explicit in any way. The filter does, however, allow students to view anti-LGBT sites that condemn homosexuality or opposed legal protections for LGBT people. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Camdenton High School student and LGBT organizations whose websites are blocked by the filter: PFLAG National, the Matthew Shepard Foundation, Campus Pride and DignityUSA, a Catholic LGBT organization. The plaintiffs were also represented by Thompson Coburn LLP. “The court correctly recognized the constitutional rights of all students to viewpoint-neutral access to information,” said Joshua Block, staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT Project. “It is absolutely possible to protect children from sexually explicit content while also protecting their First Amendment rights. Like thousands of other school districts across the country, Camdenton R-III will now begin using a filtering system that blocks pornography without discriminating against LGBT-related content.” The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri said that the district’s filtering system “systematically allows access to websites expressing a negative viewpoint toward LGBT individuals by categorizing them as ‘religion,’ but filters out positive viewpoints toward LGBT issues by categorizing them as ‘sexuality.’” Although the district argued that it would unblock individual websites upon request the court held that “students may be deterred from accessing websites expressing a positive view toward LGBT individuals either by the inconvenience of having to wait twenty-four hours for access or by the stigma of knowing that viewpoint has been singled out as less worthy by the school district and the community.” The court also concluded that other filtering systems are available that “are much more effective” at filtering out pornography “and do so without burdening websites that express a positive viewpoint toward LGBT individuals.” Anthony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri, said, “The filtering system that had been installed at Camdenton R-III was arbitrary, ineffective and discriminatory. Today’s ruling affirms that students will be free to search for resources for their gay-straight alliance, seek support against bullying and research history as it pertains to LGBT people, just as they would for any other subject.”

MSNBC dropped conservative commentator Pat Buchanan on Thursday, four months after suspending him following the publication of his latest book. The book Suicide of a Superpower contained chapters titled The End of White America and The Death of Christian America. Critics called the book racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic, charges Buchanan denied. MSNBC President Phil Griffin said last month that he didn't think Buchanan's book "should be part of the national dialogue, much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC." The network said on Thursday that "after 10 years, we have decided to part ways with Pat Buchanan. We wish him well." Buchanan, in a column posted on Thursday, called the decision "an undeniable victory for the blacklisters." The former GOP candidate had seemed increasingly out of place on MSNBC as it emphasized liberal commentary in recent years. But he kept a regular presence, even forging an unlikely chemistry with talk show host Rachel Maddow despite disagreeing on most issues. Buchanan wrote that advocacy groups like Color of Change and the Anti-Defamation League brand people as racists or anti-Semites if they dare "to venture outside the narrow corral in which they seek to confine debate." They seek to silence and censor dissent while proclaiming devotion to the First Amendment, he said. "I know these blacklisters," he wrote. "They operate behind closed doors, with phone calls, mailed threats and off-the-record meetings. They work in the dark because, as Al Smith said, nothing un-American can live in the sunlight." The liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America said that MSNBC made the right decision in letting Buchanan go. The book "was not his first, nor his worst offense," said Ari Rabin-Havt, executive vice president of Media Matters. "He's been making the same racially insensitive, anti-Semitic and homophobic statements for the past 50 years."

The terribly talented Michael Urie has signed on to co-star as one of the male leads in Partners, a CBS comedy pilot from Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick. Partners follows two architects — Charlie is straight, Louis (Urie) gay — whose friendship has lasted longer than either of their romantic relationships and almost seems like an odd marriage. When Charlie decides to propose to his girlfriend (One Tree Hill‘s Sophia Bush), Louis’ neurotic attempts to be supportive nearly result in the breakup of his own relationship.

Joe Jonas -and an indentified cute male companion – spotted attending a fashion show at Milk Studios as a part of New York Fashion Week.