Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday called abortion and same-sex marriage some of the most “insidious and dangerous” threats facing the world today, asserting key church teachings as he tried to move beyond the clerical abuse scandal. Benedict made the comments to Catholic social workers, health providers and others after celebrating Mass before an estimated 400,000 people in Fatima. The central Portuguese farming town is one of the most important shrines in Christianity, where three shepherd children reported having visions of the Virgin Mary in 1917.

Dee Johnson, the mother of Cheyenne Williams says the Kentucky State Police Investigator assigned to investigate the assault of her daughter perjured himself during the preliminary hearing in Jackson County on April 29, 2010. The judge reduced the charges against the three females charged with the attempted murder and kidnapping of Williams to misdemeanors. Johnson told Kentucky Equality Federation, the advocate for the victim, that the police officer testified he spoke to Sheila Clemons at Daniel Boone about the overall mental state and personal appearance of Cheyenne Williams when she arrived for her job interview after the assault. According to Johnson, who contacted Clemons, the police never contacted her about the investigation.

House District 28 representing a portion of Louisville in the Kentucky House of Representatives is a hotly contested race, with no pro-LGBTI candidates. In this election, when the Kentucky General Assembly failed to pass a budget, which will cause a lot of Kentucky’s Government to shut down on June 01, 2010, no pro-gay candidate is running for office in House District 28.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week will hear a case from the State of Washington that could decide whether signing a petition for a ballot measure is a private, political act or whether the names of those signers can be made public. Gay rights activists and conservatives are switching sides on the issue of privacy in a case stemming from efforts to release the names of those who signed petitions for Referendum 71, in which traditional-marriage supporters sought to overturn an expanded state domestic-partnership law that grants “everything but marriage” benefits to gay and lesbian couples. The referendum passed at the ballot last fall.

A group of LGBTI protesters disrupted and temporarily halted a speech U.S. President Barack Obama was delivering Monday night at a Los Angeles fundraiser for U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer. Several minutes after Obama took the stage, several activists from the group GetEQUAL began shouting and expressing anger about the slow pace of progress on repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

After a Florida hospital denied a lesbian access to see her partner, U.S. President Obama signed a memorandum directing the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to “ensure” that hospitals which participate in Medicare and Medicaid “respect the rights of patients to designate visitors” and allow those visitors the same privileges as immediate family members. The memorandum does not carry to weight of law. Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, or the governor of any other state could have issued a similar memorandum or executive order for hospitals receiving state funds, or that participate in Medicare and Medicaid.

Facing a deadline of midnight tonight to adjourn, legislative leaders have yet to agree on a budget. Governor Beshear told Kentucky lawmakers to “get their egos under control” and produce a budget by midnight as Kentuckians expect. Currently, the new budget has no funding for the Kentucky AIDS Drug Assistance Program, but an effort led by Kentucky Equality Federation effectively killed House Bill 350, a bill that would have dismantled the education and prevention efforts performed by the Kentucky HIV/AIDS Branch, a unit of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

A gay group challenging California’s gay marriage ban failed yesterday to qualify for the 2010 ballot, leaving gay activists mulling a 2012 push and hoping a federal court will overturn the measure before then. Restore Equality 2010 says it fell short of the 695,000 signatures needed by today’s deadline to put the measure on the ballot.

Jackson Memorial Hospital may be ranked among “America’s Best Hospitals,” but it has a spotty track record in dealing with LGBT issues. While a lesbian was dying in the hospital, hospital officials denied her partner visitation rights. This is the same sort of problem Kentucky Equality Federation and Louisville’s Fairness Campaign have been trying to prevent in Kentucky.

Budget negotiations in Frankfort collapsed Wednesday amid enormous differences over a sliver of the spending plan that would create a spate of state-backed construction projects while adding to the Commonwealth’s debt. Organizations across the Commonwealth have expressed alarm and dismay that the budget will be passed that does not include funding for the Kentucky AIDS Drug Assistance Program (KADAP).