The Pantagraph reports that the ACLU has gone to court in Colorado against a wedding vendor who refused to do business with a gay couple planning their post nuptial party. Colorado allows Civil Unions, yet, David Mullins and Charlie Craig were turned away when they tried to place an order for a wedding cake at the Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver with the owner claiming a conflict with his own religious beliefs. The ACLU of Illinois is representing a couple from Mattoon, Illinois before the Illinois Human Rights Commission. The couple was turned away by two bed & breakfast facilities because they were gay.

"(His) faith, whatever it may have to say about marriage for same-sex couples or the expressive power of a wedding cake, does not give the respondents a license to discriminate," Amanda Goad, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told an administrative judge in Colorado's Civil Rights Commission.

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The Chicago Tribune wrote about a Woodstock police officer who used a law enforcement database to obtain private information about his girlfriend, and allegedly sent sexually inappropriate text messages to her 12 year old daughter. The Tribune spoke with ACLU of Illinois' Communications and Public Policy Director Ed Yohnka about this serious invasion of privacy.

Law enforcement databases contain sensitive information, and departments need to maintain strong oversight and levy discipline when they find misuse, said Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.
"A use that is for a personal reason violates not only the guidelines of the database but really threatens the privacy of individuals whose records are being searched," he said.

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