On Oct. 30, the Ricketts family became the new owners of MLB team, the Chicago Cubs.

The family bought the team and Wrigley Field for $845 million.

Laura Ricketts, one of the purchasers, is an open lesbian who serves on the board for Lambda Legal, the nationwide advocacy organization for gay and lesbian rights.

The Times reported that Ricketts is now the first out individual to own a professional sports team.

In an interview with MarketToMarketLLC.com, she said:

“I came out to my family I would say early to mid 30’s. I think for a long time I wasn’t really out to myself growing up in Omaha, Neb., to a Catholic conservative family. It took me a while to come out to myself and not long after that I came out to them. I think that it really couldn’t have been a better experience. They were all immediately supportive. … I have been really, really fortunate in that regard.”

Now Laura, 42, lives with her partner in Chicago, Ill. and is one of four members serving on the Board of Directors for the Cubs.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas by Lambda Legal on behalf of 75–year–old Rev. Dr. Robert Franke, a retired university provost and Unitarian-Universalist minister, and his daughter, Sara Franke Bowling. 

Lambda said that Franke, who relocated to Little Rock to be closer to his daughter, moved in to Fox Ridge of North Little Rock, an assisted living facility, after fulfilling all of its residency requirements — including submission of medical evaluation forms from a local physician.  

The next day, however, after realizing Dr. Franke is HIV-positive, Fox Ridge officials abruptly ejected Franke from the facility, according to the lawsuit.

A Fox Ridge staffer allegedly told Bowling her father’s personal belongings could remain, but that the “body” had to be out by the end of the day. 

“I was stunned that my dad was thrown out of his new home,” said Bowling in a statement. 

“The people at Fox Ridge were supposed to make sure that he was comfortable and cared for, and instead they shunned and rejected him, making him feel like a complete outcast.”

Dr. Franke requires no special medical attention beyond daily medication and regular check–ups with a physician, and Fox Ridge is licensed by the state to provide Dr. Franke with the kind of care he and his daughter were seeking for him, Lambda said. 

“Federal and state laws exist to protect people from just this sort of unjust treatment,” said Scott Schoettes, HIV Project staff attorney for Lambda Legal.

“Unfortunately, this is something we are seeing far too frequently, all across the country. Those tasked with caring for our elderly loved ones need to know that it is illegal to discriminate against someone with HIV based on outdated and misguided beliefs about its transmission.”

Franke and Bowling are seeking damages under the Fair Housing Act, the Arkansas Civil Rights Act and the Arkansas Fair Housing Act, as well as an injunction, under those laws and the Americans with Disabilities Act, preventing Fox Ridge from continuing to engage in this kind of conduct.

“This is about doing the right thing,” said Franke.  “I want to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else — because no one should ever be made to feel the way I did.”

In her book, “Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death,” Cosby claimed Stern, Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer and boyfriend, had a sexual encounter with Larry Birkhead, Smith’s former boyfriend.

Cosby quoted two former nannies as confirmation, but both women later said they made no such claims.

In 2007, after the book was published, Stern filed suit claiming that Cosby, in calling him gay, was being defamatory and as a result he was entitled to collect damages.

This week Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York arguing that Stern’s claims of defamation rest on the flawed premise that being called gay would expose someone to public hatred and shame.

Lambda argued that the premise is disproved daily throughout New York, including through the service of New York’s many openly gay and lesbian public officials.  

Validation of this type of defamation claim, and its underlying premise, would have a demeaning effect toward gay men and lesbians, similar to the effect caused by state sodomy laws before they were struck down by the US Supreme Court in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas the amicus brief stated.

“Saying that someone is gay is not an insult. Being identified as gay is neither bad nor shameful — in life and under the law,” said Thomas W. Ude, Jr., Senior Staff Attorney at Lambda Legal.  

“At its core, defamation is about disgrace.  Recognition of this defamation claim would demean gay men and lesbians by giving credence to antigay biases that New York has repeatedly rejected.”

In Lawrence v. Texas Lambda Legal scored a major LGBT rights victory leading to a number of other successful LGBT cases at the state level.