OUTlet Conference for Young Women on Saturday, April 13, at Pride Center in Wilton Manors

From Aventura Commissioner Enbar Cohen:

Question: "How do you plug over 90 lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LBTQ) identified young women, nine workshops, a social mixer, and a live performance into one incredibly fun day of networking and educational development?" If you live in South Florida, you'd attend the OUTlet Conference for Young Women!

From empowering workshops to providing a way to network and have fun, the OUTlet Conference for Young Women fills the need for cultural and educational events while allowing LBTQ youth from across the tri-county area to meet, network, and plug in!

You’ll have a chance to join in on workshops like Drum Circle, Spoken Word, Resume Building, Creating a Movement, and an interactive workshop and performance by DragItOut!

Come join us and have a chance to win 2 tickets to any Orlando Theme Park!

Breakfast and Lunch will be provided.

To register, click here.

We look forward to seeing you on April 13th!

Video | New Microsoft Outlook ad features wedding of lesbian couple

Microsoft this week released an ad for Outlook.com that features a lesbian couple getting married.

New Pope Francis called adoption by gays and lesbians a form of discrimination against children

From a March 3 profile of now-Pope Francis in the National Catholic Reporter:

Bergoglio is seen an unwaveringly orthodox on matters of sexual morality, staunchly opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception. In 2010 he asserted that gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children, earning a public rebuke from Argentina's President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Click here to read more.

New Pope Francis led failing 2010 campaign by Catholic Church against gay marriage in Argentina

Argentina in 2010 became the first Latin American nation to legalize gay marriage, granting same-sex couples all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexuals, according to the Associated Press.

From the AP:

The approval came despite a concerted campaign by the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical groups, which drew 60,000 people to march on Congress and urged parents in churches and schools to work against passage. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio led the campaign, saying "children need to have the right to be raised and educated by a father and a mother."

Opponents of gay marriage proposed a civil-union law instead that would have barred gays from adopting or undergoing in-vitro fertilization to have children, and enabled any civil servant to "conscientiously object" to register gay couples. In the end, parliamentary maneuvers kept the Senate from voting on civil unions as the government bet all or nothing on the more politically difficult option of marriage.

On Wednesday, Cardinal Bergoglio became Pope Francis.

Former Miami-Dade Commissioner, LGBT ally Jimmy Morales new Miami Beach city manager

BY CHRISTINA VEIGA, CVEIGA@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Eight months, 60 candidates and dozens of interviews later, Miami Beach finally has a new city manager.

Miami Beach native Jimmy Morales was voted into the position Wednesday with a unanimous vote by city commissioners.

“I’m not here as a politician. I hope to be a very solid administrator,” Morales told commissioners.

He cried as he recalled growing up on Miami Beach, and lamented that his dad isn’t around to see him become the city’s top administrator.

The city’s next step: negotiating a contract with Morales.

A graduate of Miami Beach High and Harvard, Morales is a former Miami-Dade County commissioner and current city attorney for Doral. He has no previous experience leading a city.

Morales earned a reputation as a reformer during his time in county government, leading the way for the creation of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, and to afford discrimination protection for gays.

Click here to read more.

LGBT Dolphin Democrats members Trantalis, Lonergan elected to city commissions in Broward

Two prominent members of the LGBT Dolphin Democrats club in Broward have been elected to city commissions:

Attorney Dean Trantalis has regained an open seat on the Fort Lauderdale Commission, narrowly defeating (18 votes) former Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom.

In Oakland Park, Tim Lonergan defeated former Mayor Layne Dallet Walls. He succeeds Commissioner Suzanne Boisvenue, who couldn't run because of term limits.

Posted to Facebook by Tim Ross, president of Dolphin Democrats:

The Dolphin Democrats would like to congratulate all the Democrats who won today, including our own members Dean Trantalis and Tim Lonergan. Dean now represents the LGBT community on the Fort Lauderdale Commission. It is good to have one of our own at the table. Now if we can just get an equal benefits ordinance and LGBT protections in the workplace in Fort Lauderdale. Tim beat a former mayor of Oakland Park.

Video | Beau Biden, son of vice president: Why I support marriage equality for gay, lesbian couples

Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, son of Vice President Joe Biden, has recorded a video message why he supports marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples.

From the Equality Delaware video:

Watch Delaware's Attorney General Beau Biden explain why he supports marriage equality. In the video, Biden says, "All Delawareans should be able to marry the person they love, the person who they want to spend their life with. The freedom to marry is the fundamental, defining civil rights issue of our time."

Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll resigns

Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll -- who last year apologized after saying that "black women that look like me" aren't lesbians -- has resigned amid, Gov. Rick Scott's office says.

From The Miami Herald's Tallahassee bureau:

Tuesday she was interviewed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is assisting in a national probe of Allied Veterans of the World, a Florida-based nonprofit that operates a chain of internet cafes.

Carroll once owned a public relations firm that represented Allied Veterans, and she did work for the company at the same time she served in the Florida House.

Click here to read more.