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This section provides an update on the GLBT communities in several U.S. states, as of February 2005. Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco California, who launched a high-profile crusade to issue over 4,000 marriage licenses to gay couples in 2004, announced on January 5, 2005 that he was filing for divorce from his wife, TV legal analyst Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom. Four years after becoming one of the first small towns in the nation to extend health benefits to city employees' gay partners, the town board of Eastchester, New York on January 4, 2005 rescinded the benefits in making a new labor contract. Meanwhile, the state house of Illinois on January 11, 2005 passed a bill to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people from discrimination in employment and housing. The bill was expected to be signed by Governor Rod Blagojevich and would make Illinois the 14th state with such a law. Mary Rowles and her partner, Alice Jenkins, of Akron, Ohio, lost their appeal on January 5, 2005 to retract their guilty pleas to charges of abusing their six children. The women were each sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2003 to kidnapping, child endangerment, and felonious assault.

The San Francisco public schools have won a $43.1 million settlement from a North Carolina-based company that had a contract with the district to help it save energy. The district sued Strategic Resource Solutions in November 2001 for breach of contract and false claims. The next year, the company pleaded guilty to two counts of grand theft for stealing money from the 60,000-student district. Criminal charges against individuals are pending in that case. The district will spend $25 million of the settlement on facilities-related projects, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said on June 30 in announcing the deal.