NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A former Tennessee state lawmaker turned anti-gay activist has helped draft a bill in the state legislature that would allow graduate student counselors to reject clients based on religious beliefs.

The proposed measure would bar schools from disciplining students if they decline to treat clients with “goals, outcomes or behaviors that conflict with a sincerely held religious belief of the student,” such as opposition to homosexuality.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Savanna DeLong lost three jobs after she began coming out as a transgender woman in late 2010.

But only in Columbus, where a 2008 ordinance added gender identity to local anti-discrimination laws, was she able to take a former employer to court.

Franklin County Municipal Court Judge H. William Pollitt Jr., levied a $1,000 fine yesterday against Columbus Hospitality Management for retaliating against DeLong and denying her work at the Capital Club, a private Downtown club.

RICHMOND, Va. -- A long-standing “Crimes against Nature” law, which criminalized anal and oral sex in the Commonwealth, has been found unconstitutional by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Though the US Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws nationally in 2003, the VA ACLU said Virginia had been using broad sodomy laws to prosecute people for constitutionally protected conduct. “You have to have statutes that are narrowly targeted to the criminal conduct and that don’t encompass a great deal of constitutionally protected conduct,” said VA ACLU Lawyer Rebecca Glenburg.

DENVER – The Colorado House voted 39-26 today to approve civil unions in a second and final reading of the bill, and will now go to the Governor’s Office to be signed into law.

The bill’s approval was all but assured because the Colorado Legislature and the Governor’s Office are now under the control of Democrats.

On Feb. 11, the Senate voted 21-14 in favor of civil unions.