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Kansas

ACTION: Kansas Equality Coalition is asking for calls to state senators supporting Senate substitute for HB 2079 before 2 p.m. Monday. State senators’ phone numbers are published here. The bill, previously SB 563, would close a loophole in judicial election campaign finance rules, helping keep Kansas’s courts nonpartisan and reducing anti-LGBT attack ads like the one we saw last week.
STICKY: KEC meeting to organize a northwest Kansas chapter has been rescheduled for Apr. 10.
STICKY: After the loss of local activist Steve Brown, KEC’s northeast Kansas chapter will reorganize at a meeting on Mar. 27.
The University Daily Kansan profiles Lawrence’s LGBT bar scene.
Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, Cal., is still preparing for a Westboro Baptist Church picket.

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Senators Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and, surprisingly, Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) are among cosponsors of S. Res. 409, which asks Uganda’s parliament to reject the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The House equivalent, H. Res. 1064, is consponsored only by gay Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) among the region’s congressmembers. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold hearings on each this week.
Seven Republican candidates for Missouri’s 7th congressional district discussed their platforms. Mike Moon and Gary Nodler opposed same-sex marriage. One Democrat, Tim Davis of Branson, has filed to run.
Oklahoma state senator Steve Russell promises to rewrite a bill many fear would effectively exempt Oklahoma from the Matthew Shepard Act federal hate crimes bill.
Public News Service reports on PROMO‘s annual state legislature lobby day this week.

Kansas

ACTION: Kansas Equality Coalition is asking for calls to state senators supporting Senate substitute for HB 2079 before 2 p.m. Monday. State senators’ phone numbers are published here. The bill, previously SB 563, would close a loophole in judicial election campaign finance rules, helping keep Kansas’s courts nonpartisan and reducing anti-LGBT attack ads like the one we saw earlier this week.
STICKY: KEC meeting to organize a northwest Kansas chapter has been rescheduled for Apr. 10.
STICKY: After the loss of local activist Steve Brown, KEC’s northeast Kansas chapter will reorganize at a meeting on Mar. 27.
Tea Partiers protesting health care reform at the U.S. Capitol yesterday turned nasty with racist and homophobic slurs and spitting at members of congress. One of the victims was Kansas City’s Emanuel Cleaver, who released a statement about the incident that acknowledges gay representative Barney Frank‘s fight for “equality.” One of the first members of congress to address the protesters was anti-gay Kansas representative Todd Tiahrt.
Iowa attorney and author Nathan Tucker writes an op-ed on Snyder v. Phelps in the Baltimore Sun.

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Missouri’s PROMO will hold its annual state legislature lobby day this week.
The Associated Press covers Missouri Southern State University‘s decision Friday to examine adding sexual orientation to the school’s nondiscrimination policy.
Boulder PFLAG‘s president writes an op-ed about the local Catholic school’s decision to bar children of LGBT parents.
Oklahoma’s Sand Springs Leader condemns zealous state politicians, noting anti-gay representative Sally Kern‘s hypocrisy on marriage policy.

Gay Kansas