Washington, D.C.

Gay groups applaud return of discrimination ban

Gay rights groups and labor leaders Friday hailed as long overdue a federal agency chief’s decision to reinstate a ban on discrimination against federal employees on the basis of sexual orientation.

Scott Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel, announced Thursday that his agency would continue a long-standing policy of enforcing employee claims of such discrimination under civil service law.

The decision appeared to end a controversy that began in January when Bloch pulled references to sexual orientation from documents concerning discrimination on the agency’s Web site, pending a legal review. The move drew criticism from Democrats in Congress and gay rights groups, who noted the federal government had long prohibited such discrimination against its employees.

Nebraska

Lawyers reject judge’s offer to consult medical expert

Lawyers for both sides rejected as unnecessary a judge’s offer Friday to have a medical expert help him decide a challenge to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf made the offer earlier in the day, saying he wanted to dispel any perception that he was partial to the anti-ban plaintiffs.

The federal law, which has not been enforced because of legal challenges around the country, bars a procedure that opponents call “partial-birth abortion” but that doctors call “intact dilation and extraction.”

Lawyers from the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York challenged the law on behalf of Bellevue abortion provider Dr. LeRoy Carhart and three other physicians.

Carhart and his lawyers said the law was vague and could be interpreted as covering more common procedures, including “dilatation and evacuation,” which is the most common method of second-trimester abortion.

Mississippi

U.S. marshal defends erasure of Scalia speech recordings

A U.S. marshal on Friday defended the erasure of two journalists’ recordings of a speech by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia but suggested Scalia’s request that his remarks not be recorded should have been publicly announced.

During Scalia’s speech Wednesday in Hattiesburg about the Constitution, a woman who identified herself as Deputy Marshal Melanie Rube demanded that a reporter for The Associated Press erase a digital recording of the justice’s comments.

The reporter, Denise Grones, initially resisted but later showed the deputy how to erase the recording after the officer took the device.

Rube’s boss, Nehemiah Flowers, the U.S. marshal for the Southern District of Mississippi, defended the deputy’s actions, saying Friday that one of the service’s responsibilities is to provide a traveling Supreme Court justice with security.