Ga. Legislature approves ban on gay marriages

Ga. Legislature approvesban on gay marriages
ATLANTA -- Georgia voters will decide this fall whether to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage, even if the unions are performed in other states.
The Georgia House approved the ban 122-52 on Wednesday.
Gay marriage already is illegal in Georgia, but the matter is not addressed in its constitution. Amendment supporters said the law would not prevent a judge from allowing same-sex couples to marry.
"We cannot let judges in Boston, or officials in San Francisco, define marriage for the people of Georgia," said GOP Rep. Bill Hembree, the amendment's sponsor, referring to other hotspots in the national debate over gay marriage.
The amendment was narrowly defeated by the Democratic House last month after breezing through the Republican-controlled Senate earlier this year.
Mobster's girlfriend dead
EAST GARDEN CITY, N.Y. -- The girlfriend of mobster Peter Gotti, brother of the late mob boss John Gotti, was found dead of a possible suicide in a Long Island motel room, police said.
Marjorie Alexander, 43, had been reported missing on Tuesday and was discovered Wednesday afternoon at a Red Roof Inn, Nassau County police said. A preliminary investigation indicated that Alexander may have committed suicide, police said in a news release.
In the past week, the Daily News and the New York Post have reported that Alexander wrote numerous letters to a judge asking for leniency for Peter Gotti, who is awaiting sentencing for a racketeering conviction. He faces up to 15 years in prison.
"I did not fall in love with the wrong guy. I am proud of loving him," Alexander told the News. "I took a chance. Life is about taking chances. Now I'm destroyed."
Gotti and six co-defendants were convicted last year of trying to extort up to $3 million from action-film star Steven Seagal.
Arnold takes class
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose campaign was dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct, voluntarily took a training course about preventing sexual harassment after his election.
The two-hour course was conducted by a deputy attorney general who is an expert in employment and discrimination law, Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson said Wednesday.
Schwarzenegger took the course earlier this year along with his senior staff, who were required to take the class as part of his administration's policy, according to Thompson.
The training is optional for statewide elected officials.
Suspect eludes capture
PALE, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Gunfire resounded early today as NATO troops surrounded a building in Pale, the city where top war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic has taken refuge. But their quarry eluded them.
"We did not locate the person we were looking for," said Capt. Dave Sullivan of Canada, a spokesman for Bosnia's NATO-led peacekeepers.
While he did not name the suspect, it appeared clear that the sweep had been a renewed attempt to capture Karadzic, indicted by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, on suspicion of war crimes. Pale was the headquarters of Karadzic during the Bosnian war -- Europe's worst bloodshed since World War II.
Sullivan refused to go into details beyond saying that American, British and other international troops were involved in an "operation regarding persons indicted for war-crimes."
Associated Press