Sharon Lubinski is an assistant chief in the Minneapolis Police Department, where she has worked for 20 years.

Obama has had a rocky relationship with gay activists, who want him to end the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays. He publicly pledged last weekend to do so.

He has picked openly gay people to serve in other positions in his administration, including the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

Teacher Diane Cleveland commented that the boy’s “fence swings both ways”; when he wrote a paper on Ben Franlin, Cleveland said he had a “thing for older men.” Another teacher, Walter Fison, said the boy “enjoys wearing women’s clothes.”

The settlement comes after an investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights; the school district denies it violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act. Both teachers hae received “outstanding performance” awards from the district in recent years.

The high court rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.

Justices said Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office. With Franken and the usual backing of two independents, Democrats will have a big enough majority to overcome Republican filibusters.

Coleman hasn’t ruled out seeking federal court intervention.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said the earliest Franken would be seated is next week because the Senate is out of session for the July 4 holiday.

Franken, a former Saturday Night Live star making the leap from life as a left-wing author and radio talker to the Senate, planned a news conference later Tuesday and didn’t immediately comment.

Coleman’s campaign didn’t immediately return a call for comment. Nor did Gov. Tim Pawlenty, whose signature is required on the election certificate Franken needs to be seated.

Pawlenty, a Republican, has said he would sign the certificate if ordered to do so by the court. The court’s ruling stopped short of explicitly ordering the governor to sign the document, saying only that Franken was “entitled” to it.

Coleman’s appeal hinged largely on whether thousands of absentee votes had been unfairly rejected by local election officials around the state.

The unanimous court wrote that “because the legislature established absentee voting as an optional method of voting, voters choosing to use that method are required to comply with the statutory provisions.”

They went on to say that “because strict compliance with the statutory requirements for absentee voting is, and always has been required, there is no basis on which voters could have reasonably believed that anything less than strict compliance would suffice.”

“I still have a lot of ideas and energies left, but being governor should not be a permanent position for anyone,” Pawlenty said, flanked at a Capitol news conference by his wife and two daughters.

He said he was focused on finishing the rest of his term strong, but added, “I don’t have any plans beyond that. I don’t know what the future holds for me.”

A conservative with blue-collar roots, Pawlenty, 48, has been considered a likely White House candidate for months.

His announcement comes as he’s in the middle of a prolonged dispute over one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats months after the election. The governor hasn’t issued an election certificate because Republican Norm Coleman, whose term expired in January, is still contesting the results that tipped the race to Democrat Al Franken by a few hundred votes.

Pawlenty’s success as a right-leaning Republican elected twice in left-leaning Minnesota marked him in national GOP circles as a young politician to watch. He gave his political profile a boost in 2008 when he endorsed John McCain early, then campaigned for the nominee around the country and in many national media interviews.

That work made him a top prospect to be McCain’s running mate and he was seen as one of two or three finalists right until the moment McCain upended the campaign by choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

If he seeks the presidency, Pawlenty could face a GOP field crowded with former and current governors. Among the potential candidates are Palin, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

If running for president is his goal, there are numerous advantages to vacating the governor’s mansion. A 2010 campaign would be costly and potentially difficult. He also will be free to travel to political events and, more important, to key nominating states such as Iowa and New Hampshire.

“The Republicans are looking for leaders and his experience as governor gives him an entree,” said Merle Black, a professor of politics at Emory University in Atlanta. “One of the things that he would be trying to do is increase his name recogition and visibility throughout the country because outside of Minnesota he isn’t known at all.”

Pawlenty has taken a conservative’s stance on taxes, most recently holding firm against attempts by legislative Democrats to increase some taxes to fill in a massive state budget deficit. Failing to reach a compromise with Democrats, Pawlenty instead invoked executive powers that allow him to trim state spending without legislative consent.

Pawlenty strayed from his tax orthodoxy just once, when in 2005 he proposed and helped pass a 75-cent-a-pack “health impact fee” on cigarettes that critics said was just a creatively named tax.

The governor has followed traditionally conservative stances on most social issues, favoring freer access to guns and opposing abortion and legal partnership rights for gay couples. But he’s broken from party orthodoxy on a few issues, speaking out in favor of importing prescription drugs from Canada and promoting pro-environmental business initiatives.

The lawyer and native of South St. Paul served on the Eagan City Council before his election to the state House where he became majority leader. Pawlenty first ran for governor in 2002, and managed to win against a veteran Democratic legislator and a prominent former congressman running for a third party.

He was re-elected in 2006 in another three-way race; despite his two victories, Pawlenty has never exceeded 46 percent of the vote.

Kushner, who hadn’t yet decided what to write about, responded with a mouthful of a title that had been knocking around in his head for more than a decade: “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures.”

“Joe Dowling needed a title, and I figured well, I can make this play about absolutely anything and somehow or another, that title will carry it,” Kushner said sipping a late afternoon cappuccino during a break from a hectic rehearsal schedule for the new play.

The new play is about “sexuality, and the housing market, and religion, and Marxism, and stuff like that,” Kushner said. “It’s a very complicated text, so I don’t know how to explain it beyond that.”

A new work from the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning dramatist behind “Angels in America” is an event in American theater and a coup for the Guthrie. Long a leader in America’s regional theater scene, the Guthrie moved to expensive, sprawling new digs along the Mississippi River in 2006, and its leaders were looking for the right moment to turn over its three stages and ample public spaces to celebrating the work of a single dramatist.

Dowling said Kushner was his first choice as “the pre-eminent dramatist of our time.” Kushner signed on, he said, out of allegiance to the regional theater movement that helped spark his own career – “Angels” debuted in San Francisco before moving to Broadway.

Thus was born the Guthrie’s “Kushner Celebration.” Besides the new play, it includes a two-month production of his musical “Caroline, or Change,” the staging of a series of his short plays dubbed “Tiny Kushner,” and panel discussions, speeches and seminars on his work. You can even buy T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Intelligent Homosexual” in the Guthrie gift shop.

It’s quite a salute to a playwright whom Dowling called “not really a household name. Hopefully, we can help change that.”

Kushner hasn’t debuted a finished new play since the Tony-nominated “Caroline, or Change” in 2002, though he’s been plenty busy.

He won an Emmy Award for adapting “Angels” into a six-hour miniseries for HBO in 2003, co-wrote the Steven Spielberg film “Munich” and has been working on another script for an upcoming Spielberg film about Abraham Lincoln. He worked on adaptations and translations of other playwrights’ works, and always a vocal leftist, took up passionate criticism of the Bush administration.

But once Kushner signed on with the Guthrie, he actually had to sit down and write a new play.

Kushner copped the wordy title from a book he found among his late grandmother’s things after she died in the early 1990s: “The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism,” written in 1928 by the playwright and socialist George Bernard Shaw. It served as a nice jumping-off point for a new play that’s about people losing faith in the beliefs and personal relationships that once anchored their lives – themes Kushner said resonate more personally as he’s gotten older.

“This is a play about how you proceed when all the old theories have failed,” said Kathleen Chalfant, one of the stars of “The Intelligent Homosexual” and an “Angels in America” veteran.

Set in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens neighborhood over one long weekend in 2007, “The Intelligent Homosexual” is about three Italian-American siblings – two of them gay – who gather to deal with their suicidal 75-year-old father, a longtime widower and retired union longshoreman who’s watched his leftist belief system rendered irrelevant over the years.

Chalfant plays the old man’s sister, a former Carmelite nun who got swept up in revolutionary South American politics in the 1980s, and now lives and works among the poor in a New Jersey housing project. Two other Kushner vets, Stephen Spinella (”Angels in America”) and Linda Emond (”Homebody/Kabul”) play two of the three children.

“On one hand it’s a very psychological family drama that’s about how siblings relate, how they vie for the attention of parents,” said the play’s director, Michael Greif, another longtime Kushner associate. “And then on the other hand it’s about people who have lost their way in the world, who’ve come unmoored from the things they relied upon in a radically changing world.”

It’s also Kushner’s first real “gay play” since the landmark “Angels in America,” a sweeping epic about AIDS, the closet, religion, politics and yes, angels, that debuted on Broadway in 1993. The gay rights movement has seen setbacks but also big advances since “Angels” first debuted, some just in the last few weeks as several states in quick succession legalized gay marriage either through the courts or the legislature.

Kushner, now 52, has also seen his life change a lot in that time. He started writing “Angels” around the time he came out of the closet, and today has been with his partner for more than a decade. They exchanged wedding vows in 2004, but as New York residents have not yet been able to legally marry.

“We’ve seen unbelievable gains in an unbelievably short time, and against the terrible odds of AIDS, which was a catastrophe on so many levels that might easily have dismantled an embattled social movement,” Kushner said.

Kushner, whose outspoken liberalism has prompted him to call conservatism a “thought disorder,” said he’d prefer that gay marriage be implemented nationwide by a Supreme Court ruling rather than “having to fight this thing state by state for the next 10 years.”

As for links between “The Intelligent Homosexual” and “Angels in America,” Kushner said they share some themes but that the new play is more intimate and less filled with “liberational energy.” It’s shorter, too, running just a little more than three hours.

“This is a much more middle-aged play,” said Kushner. “I think because of things that are happening in my own life – an aging father, aging friends and my own aging body – it seemed like it was the right moment for this.”

So about that title. “There is something kind of ridiculous about it,” he said. But in the term “Intelligent Homosexual” he sensed an interesting contradiction between the mind and the body.

“Everybody has trouble thinking their way through sex and thinking about sex and the way the body expresses itself and gets and gives pleasure,” Kushner said. “The relationship of intelligence to pleasure and life, which is not an easy relationship, is something I was interested in exploring.”

Jeff Anderson told The Duluth News Tribune that he will introduce the ordinance in three weeks. He acknowledged that it will have little legal bearing, but argued that it would still be of great symbolic significance to gay and lesbian couples.

The registry would also be open to opposite-sex couples who chose not to marry.

Couples would have to show they are “jointly responsible to each other for the necessities of life” and “are as committed to one another as married persons are traditionally committed.”

They would register at city hall after paying a $25 fee and receive a certificate.

Anderson said that it would help couples gain domestic partner benefits at companies that offer them to the partners of employees.

“How are companies supposed to know you’re a domestic partner?” Anderson told the News Tribune.

“This is a municipal entity recognizing it as such, which then makes it easier for those benefits to be administered by their employer, if offered.”

Same-sex couples still, however, would not be entitled to spousal benefits from the city.  Minnesota law prevents non-married public sector workers from receiving domestic partner benefits.

Anderson, the city’s first openly gay council member, said the ordinance is based on a similar one in Minneapolis, enacted in 1991.

But the Minneapolis Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America officially lists Calvary’s ministry as vacant. That’s because, sitting with Froslee’s family at his installation ceremony in February, was his male partner of 5 1/2 years – living proof that Froslee has flouted the ELCA’s prohibition on non-celibate gay pastors.

“What I heard from the members of the church’s call committee was that from the first meeting, they knew I was the one meant to be their pastor,” said Froslee, 35. “I’ve always felt called to this process, and that in a sense God has a guiding hand in this. So I always had a sense it would work out.”

But to make it work, Froslee and the church and synod leaders are operating on what church council member Brian Aust called “the margins of the ELCA.” It’s an arrangement that could be formalized this August, when leaders of the ELCA – the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination with 4.7 million members – meet for their biannual convention in Minneapolis.

An ELCA task force has recommended a policy that would let congregations decide whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as their clergy. The resolution has been criticized from both directions, with liberals saying it doesn’t go far enough and conservatives saying it conflicts with Scripture.

“This isn’t about sex,” said the Rev. Mark Chavez of Landisville, Pa., the director of Lutheran CORE, a coalition of conservative groups in the ELCA. “It’s finally about the authority of God’s word.”

But the approach envisioned by the task force is already in practice at Calvary Lutheran, a modest 70-year-old brown brick church in a racially diverse neighborhood four miles south of downtown Minneapolis. The 120-member congregation is a mix of young families and single people, middle-aged couples and older established members, and is mostly white despite the surrounding neighborhood.

“In the City for Good,” reads a banner on the front of the church, a symbol of Calvary’s mission of social justice and outreach to distressed communities. When it came time last year to replace the married couple who served as co-pastors the last 13 years, Calvary’s lay leaders wanted someone who would help realize that mission.

“We’re a church that’s serious about being real about issues of crime and poverty and racial and social injustice,” said Josh Moberg, a stay-at-home dad who’s president of the church council. “And Brad had experience working with diverse and poor communities. The identities seemed like a good fit.”

Froslee grew up in the tiny western Minnesota town of Vining, a region still heavily populated by descendants of the German and Scandinavian settlers who helped establish a Lutheran presence in the United States. His family had a long tradition of involvement in their church, and Froslee grew up on a steady diet of Sunday school and church camp.

A high school overachiever, Froslee kept his love of the church into college. But he planned for law school after realizing from a pretty early age “that I was different and didn’t really fit the mold when it came to sexuality,” he said.

In college at St. Olaf in Northfield, a theology professor told Froslee his work had uncommon insight and asked why he wasn’t considering the ministry.

“I hemmed and hawed for quite a while, and then finally I said I don’t think there’s a place for me in the church because I’m gay,” Froslee said. “And he looked at me and said, ‘Brad, that’s a cop-out.’ And that I think really became kind of a turning point for me in terms of my journey.”

Froslee came out to his family while in college, and sharpened his scriptural understanding at Harvard Divinity School. He says he never concealed his sexuality while going through the ordination process, and also made it known his desire to someday find a lifelong partner.

Before joining Calvary, Froslee served as pastor at a Presbyterian church in Minnetonka through a pact between the two denominations. He’s also been an activist on issues of homosexuality and Christianity, co-founding a summer camp for gay, Christian youth. And even after meeting his partner, he stayed on the ELCA’s roster of pastors eligible to serve in Lutheran congregations – which got his name in front of the Calvary committee looking for the new pastor.

Aust, an attorney who chaired that committee, said Calvary wasn’t looking for trouble. “Our simple motivation was find the best person, gay or straight. It wasn’t about labels,” he said.

The Minneapolis Synod of the ELCA signed off on the arrangement, but lists Calvary’s ministry as vacant. “We viewed it as a decision for the congregation to make,” said Minneapolis Synod Bishop Craig Johnson.

Froslee and church council members said there are few real ramifications to the vacant designation, save that Froslee can’t vote at synod assemblies. But from a symbolic standpoint, they said, it’s not ideal.

“It’s sort of don’t ask, don’t tell,” said Moberg, the church council president. “It’s not necessarily the way we’d like it to be.”

Not every gay pastor has been as fortunate as Froslee. In Atlanta in 2007, the Rev. Bradley Schmeling was kicked off the ELCA roster entirely after acknowledging he had a partner – a decision that helped precipitate the ELCA’s attempt to find a middle ground. Just a few miles away from Calvary at Salem Lutheran Church, the Rev. Jen Nagel, also partnered, has been kept off the ELCA roster – putting her congregation even further on the ELCA margin than Calvary.

Rev. Peter Strommen, a pastor from Prior Lake, Minn., who led the task force that proposed the policy change, said it’s an attempt to officially recognize the lack of consensus across the ELCA.

With rapid social change on gay rights even in recent weeks, including the sudden legalization of gay marriage in Vermont and Iowa, he said the Lutheran church must find a way to proceed amid strongly divergent viewpoints.

“We’ve tried to stress here that this is not a core issue of our faith,” Strommen said. “It’s important. But it doesn’t get to the level of the risen Christ and salvation.”

The proposal brings the law into parity with Minnesota’s human rights law by adding sexual orientation and physical appearance to the sorts of bullying barred in schools.

Currently, sexual orientation is covered under the human rights law but not in the law affecting bullying.

Statistics show that 90 percent of LGBT students face harassment, yet 93 percent of schools don’t include sexual orientation or gender identity and expression in their anti-harassment policies.

The bill also would protect the children of gay and lesbian couples from being harassed in schools.

Minnesota’s Senate Education Committee approved the legislation following two days of testimony from students, parents and school administrators.

“This policy would give schools an important tool to establish the most conducive atmosphere for learning. The bill addresses the very real prevalence of bullying and harassment in our schools, especially against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students,” said Monica Meyer of OutFront Minnesota in a statement following the vote.

The Family Equality Council also praised the committee.

“For the last several years, our Minnesota staff has investigated the effectiveness of safe schools policies in the state, rightly concluding that Minnesota’s current policies do not keep students safe,” said spokesperson Kara Suffredini.

“Today’s vote recognizes the need to clarify state law and support students, parents and educators in keeping all students safe. We thank the committee for their thoughtful consideration, and look forward to working with other senators and representatives to pass this bill this session.”

Some Republicans are expressing concern, however, about the detailed list of categories in the bill.

“The concern that I have by going down this path is we are potentially creating a legal minefield for our schools,” Sen. David Hann said.

No date has been set for a vote on the Senate floor.  A House version of the bill has yet to have a hearing.

Republicans have failed three times in recent years to strengthen a state law barring gay and lesbian couples from marrying with an amendment to the constitution.

In 2004 and 2006 it never made it out of committee. 

But at a Capitol news conference, GOP leaders said the legislation to void the so-called Defense of Marriage law and make marriage gender neutral is the final straw.

“Not only is this an assault on the traditional definition of marriage, this is an assault on all religious beliefs in the state of Minnesota,” said Sen. Warren Limmer (R).

Limmer also said an amendment was needed because DOMA could be overturned by the courts. A same-sex couple denied a marry license in Hennepin County are expected to file a legal challenge to the law.

The gender neutral marriage bill was filed earlier this month.

The legislation has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but no hearings have been scheduled.

Democrats control both houses of the legislature, but Republicans say Gov. Tim Pawlenty would likely veto the bill should it pass.

In a bid to make the legislation more palatable to Pawlenty, the crafters of the bill included wording that it in no way condones homosexuality ” or any equivalent lifestyle.”  The bill also states the measure cannot be used to promote homosexuality in public schools.

Currently the law defines marriage as a contract between “a man and a woman.  The bill proposed by five Democrats would change the definition to “two persons” opening up marriage to same-sex couples.

The bill also would remove a ban to gay marriage and the section preventing the state from recognizing same-sex marriages from another state or country.

The legislation has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but no hearings have been scheduled.

Democrats control both houses of the legislature, but Republicans say Gov. Tim Pawlenty would likely veto the bill should it pass.

In a bid to make the legislation more palatable to Pawlenty, the crafters of the bill included wording that it in no way condones homosexuality ” or any equivalent lifestyle.” The bill also states the measure cannot be used to promote homosexuality in public schools.

Still, Republicans say they will vote against the bill. GOP leaders also said they are looking at a new attempt to advance a proposed amendment to the state constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage.

The proposed amendment was filed in the legislature in 2004 and 2006. It never made it out of committee.

Last year, an attempt to pass same-sex marriage legislation failed but LGBT rights groups say they now believe they have the votes.