The WPLG anchor will no longer be working the evening news shift and has been moved to weekend anchoring and reporting.

Perez is also currently battling his ex-partner Dennis Ricardo Peña in court. The two were together for two and a half years after meeting in New York City in 2006.

Perez has in the past worked as a reporter for KCAL-TV in Los Angeles, served as a producer for The Montel Williams Show and The Ricki Lake Show, and anchored American Journal, a national news magazine show.

Ray Janssen, the boys biological father, and his partner Craig sued for custody of the boy after Alicea and Sobrino decided to move to California last fall.

“Responsibility for the child should be awarded to the mother and father equally,” Ray demanded in the suit. “[I am] the natural father.”

Janssen had donated his sperm to Alicea after she had trouble getting pregnant from anonymous sperm donors. Janssen’s name was put on the birth certificate and the boy remained a part of his father’s life as well.

“[Ray] made it clear he wanted to be involved in the child’s life,” counselor Sherrie Lewis-Thomas later wrote.

Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Leon Firtel ruled that Janssen was nothing more than a sperm donor and had “no rights” to the child since no contract was made before birth.

A motion for reconsideration is scheduled in circuit court this week.

Judge Cindy Lederman has been removed from her 15-year post as top administrative judge over Miami-Dade’s juvenile courts. The new chief justice over Miami courts says he wanted new perspectives and leadership.

Lederman ruled in November 2008 that Florida’s gay adoption ban was unconstitutional, a case now on appeal. She also oversaw numerous juvenile justice programs in Miami and publicly scolded state officials in 2002 following the disappearance of 5-year-old foster child Rilya Wilson.

The new top judge in Miami’s juvenile courts is Orlando Prescott. Lederman will remain a juvenile court judge and says she respects the decision.

“Providing employment benefits, including healthcare, to the domestic partners of our City of Miami employees is a common sense idea that has been far too long in coming. This is nothing more than treating people equally,” said Commissioner Marc Sarnoff. “I am proud to say our City is doing the right thing.”

Miami is now the third municipality in Miami-Dade County to pass this Ordinance, which was previously adopted by the City of Miami Beach and the City of North Miami. County employees in Miami-Dade County also receive similar benefits thanks to the work of Safeguarding American Values for Everyone (SAVE) Dade, who pushed for the most recent City of Miami Ordinance.

Burns, the city’s first openly gay mayor, will be forced out by term limits in May. Mel Martinez has said he will not seek re-election.

Two other Democrats have already announced their candidacy for the party’s nomination – U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek and State Sen. Dan Gelber.  U.S. Rep. Ron Klein also may run.

On the GOP side, Gov. Charlie Crist, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan and former House Speaker Marco Rubio are reportedly considering a run for their party’s nomination.

Burns is a North Miami native.  He lives with with his partner of  24 years and their five-year-old daughter. Before entering politics, he was a real estate broker.

He became mayor in 2005, focusing on education.

Martinez was elected to the Senate in 2004 after winning the GOP nomination in a race marked by one of the nastiest anti-gay campaigns in the history of the Sunshine State.

During the primary, Martinez launched a massive attack on fellow Republican Bill McCollum. A Martinez campaign mailer  called McCollum “the new darling of the homosexual extremists” because he supported a hate crime bill that included protection of gays.

Martinez, a former U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary, was forced to pull a television ad criticizing McCollum’s views on the hate crime bill just two days before the primary.

The Martinez attacks became so aggressive that the influential St. Petersburg Times rescinded its endorsement of Martinez the day before voters went to the polls.  The paper in a editorial accused Martinez of “hateful and dishonest attacks” on McCollum.

“The Times is not willing to be associated with bigotry,” the editorial said.

Martinez was encouraged to run by President George W. Bush’s political advisers.

In the Senate, Martinez said he would oppose the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes bill and ENDA.  He supported amending the US Constitution to ban same-sex marriage and said he supported “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

I was in Miami last week and had the opportunity to attend the Miami chapter of Join the Impact’s march against the Defense Of Marriage Act. Many city halls around the country were lit up blue in support of California’s own struggle for gay rights and people gathered to march in support of the repeal of the Federal bar to equal rights for same-sex couples.

It was a small collection of people, fewer than the crowd spilling out of the gay bar across the street and some of the stragglers, we later found out, were tourists and onlookers wondering what the signs were about.

Now I have been to a lot of protests in my life, many of them in other countries – Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina – and not all of them are big or inspiring. But I had the euphoric images from the recent Chicago Prop 8 march in my head and the Miami scene got me a bit down.

Still, it IS Florida, not exactly a gay friendly environment as I found out, and any noise is good noise, right?

My father went to the protest with me and when we drove back to the apartment he told me how the 60s civil rights struggle always felt like a few people you had seen too many times making noise when no one was listening. Even when you stumbled upon an organizing success, it felt like a flash in the pan. Now, forty years later, it seems clear to everyone else that he was part of a movement.

Well, today Obama released the name of a gay bishop who will be leading a prayer at the inaugural kick-off event at the Lincoln Memorial. His office says that it’s not a move made in reaction to the Warren dissent, but I choose to believe that sometimes the office of the President-Elect doesn’t tell the whole truth and sometimes all those organizing tactics actually create change.

It’s not the invocation, but we should celebrate the symbolic victories while consistently supporting the organizing efforts of movements like Join the Impact.