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Law experts are taking issue with a Virginia legislator’s comment that “sodomy is not a civil right” in explaining why he opposed a gay prosecutor’s bid to become a judge.

Virginia GOP delegate Bob Marshall spearheaded the effort to block Tracy Thorne-Begland, an openly gay prosecutor in Richmond, from becoming a judge, saying the attorney’s past activism and outspokenness on gay rights could bias his decisions on the bench.

The Virginia House of Delegates this week voted to reject Thorne-Begland’s bid to  become a general district court judge in Richmond.
Speaking Thursday on CNN’s “Starting Point,” Marshall expounded on his reasoning. Read more »

WASHINGTON - For the first time in U.S. history, most of the nation's babies are members of minority groups, according to new census figures that signal the dawn of an era in which Whites no longer will be in the majority.

Population estimates show that 50.4 percent of children younger than 1 last year were Hispanic, Black, Asian or other minorities. That's almost a full percentage point higher than the 49.5 percent of minority babies counted when the decennial census was taken in April 2010. Census demographers said the tipping point came three months later, in July. Read more »

A former manager of several Burger King restaurants in Virginia has accused the fast-food company of firing him because he's HIV-positive, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.

Christopher Peña, a 7-year Burger King veteran, says the company let him go last September, three months after he disclosed his HIV status to a supervisor. Peña and his lawyers claim the dismissal violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, the civil-rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability and covers people who are HIV positive. Read more »

If you have sex, you should be getting test for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, on the regular. In reality, not enough of us do—or at least not as frequently as we should. That all might change, now, thanks to an over-the-counter take-home HIV test that was approved by the 17 members of the FDA in an unanimous vote today.

The OraQuick HIV test is really nothing more than a simple mouth swab—just like the one taken by bone marrow donors—with results returned in as little as 20 minutes. While it is not as reliable as professionally-administered diagnostics, the FDA is hopeful that OraQuick will set a new trend in expanding HIV testing and prevention.